The Swabian League was established in 1488 at the behest of Emperor
Frederick III and supported as well by
Bertold, Elector of Mainz, whose conciliar rather than monarchic view of the
Reich often put him at odds with Frederick's successor
Maximilian. The Swabian League cooperated towards the keeping of the imperial peace and at least in the beginning curbing the expansionist
Bavarian dukes from the
House of Wittelsbach and the revolutionary threat from the south in the form of the
Swiss. The League held regular meetings, supported tribunals and maintained a unified force of 12,000 infantrymen and 1200 cavalry. On 14 February 1488, a new Swabian League was formed, at the
Reichstag of
Esslingen, not only of 22 Imperial cities but also of the Swabian knights' League of St. George's Shield, bishops, and princes (
Ansbach,
Baden,
Bavaria,
Bayreuth,
Hesse,
Mainz, the
Electorate of the Palatinate,
Trier,
Tyrol, and
Württemberg). The league was governed by a federal council of
three colleges of princes, cities, and knights calling upon an army of 13,000 men. It aided in the rescue of the future emperor
Maximilian I, son of Emperor
Frederick III, held prisoner in the
Low Countries, and later was his main support in southern Germany. After the death of
Eberhard of Württemberg in 1496 the League produced no single outstanding generally accepted leader, and with the
peace of 1499 with the Swiss and the definitive defeat of the aggressive Wittelsbachs in 1504, the League's original purpose, maintenance of the
status quo in the southwest, was accomplished. Its last major action was the occupation and annexation of the Free City of Reutlingen by duke
Ulrich of Württemberg in 1519 during the interregnum that followed the death of Maximilian I. The duke was overthrown, and his territory was sold to
Charles V, offsetting the costs of the campaign. The League defeated an alliance of
robber barons in the
Franconian War in 1523. Next it helped to suppress the
Peasants' Revolt in 1524–26, including its defeat and execution of Little Jack (Jaecklein) Rohrbach, and crushing the
Black Company in its
last stand at the Battle of
Ingolstadt in May 1525. The development of imperial institutions, such as the creation of the
Reichskammergericht imperial court in 1495 and the development of the
Reichstag, led to the league becoming increasingly unnecessary. Imperial institutions were viewed as a better system of maintaining order due to their stronger constitutional backing and sanction by the emperor, and were more popular amongst the princes for being ordered more hierarchically than the Swabian league. The Habsburgs also favoured imperial institutions over the league as imperial institutions could cover the entire empire, and did not have to be continually renewed. Additionally, the religious revolution of the
Protestant Reformation divided its members, finally leading to the Swabian League being disbanded in 1534. == Members ==