SICKINGEN, FRANZ VON ) German knight, was born at Ebernburg near Worms on March 2, 1481. He fought for the emperor Maximilian I. against Venice in 1508, inherited large estates on the Rhine, and increased his wealth and reputa tion by numerous feuds. In 1513 he took up the quarrel of Baltha sar Schlor, a citizen who had been driven out of Worms, and attacked this city with 7,000 men. He made war upon Antony, duke of Lorraine, and compelled Philip, landgrave of Hesse, to pay him 35,000 gulden. In 1518 he interfered in a civil con flict in Metz, ostensibly siding with the citizens against the govern ing oligarchy. He led an army of 20,000 men against the city, compelled the magistrates to give him 20,000 gold gulden and a month's pay for his troops. In 1518 Maximilian released him from the ban, and he took part in the war carried on by the Swabian League against Ulrich I., duke of Wiirttemberg. In the contest for the imperial throne upon the death of Maximilian in 1519, Sickingen accepted bribes from Francis I., king of France, but when the election took place he led his troops to Frankfort, where their presence assisted to secure the election of Charles V. For this service he was made imperial chamberlain and councillor, and in 1521 he led an expedition into France, which ravaged Picardy, but was beaten back from Mezieres and forced to retreat. About 1517 Sickingen became intimate with Ulrich von Hutten, and gave his support to Hutten's schemes. In 1519 a threat from him freed John Reuchlin from his enemies, the Dominicans, and his castles became in Hutten's words a refuge for righteousness.
Here many of the reformers found shelter, and a retreat was offered to Martin Luther. After the failure of the French expedi tion, Sickingen, aided by Hutten, formed, or revived, a scheme to overthrow the spiritual princes and to elevate the order of knighthood. He declared war against his old enemy, Rich ard of Greiffenklau, archbishop of Trier, and marched against that city. Trier was loyal to the archbishop, and the landgrave of Hesse and Louis V., count palatine of the Rhine, hastened to his assistance. Sickingen fell back on his castle of Landstuhl, near Kaiserslautern, collecting much booty on the way. On Oct. 22, 1522 the council of regency placed him under the ban, to which he replied, in the spring of 1523, by plundering Kaiserslautern. The rulers of Trier, Hesse and the Palatinate decided to press the campaign against him, and having obtained help from the Swabian League, marched on Landstuhl. On May 6, 1523 he was forced to capitulate, and died the next day. He was buried at Landstuhl, and in 1889 a splendid monument was raised at Ebernburg to his memory and to that of Hutten.
See H. Ulmann, Franz von Sickingen (Leipzig, 1872) ; F. P. Bremer, Sickingens Fehde gegen Trier (Strassburg, 1885) ; H. Prutz, "Franz von Sickingen" in Der neue Plutarch (Leipzig, 1880), and the "Flersheimer Chronik" in Hutten's Deutsche Schriften, edited by 0. Waltz and Szamatolati (Strassburg, 1891).