3 - Heralds, knights and travelling

Summary

Want wi dat wille zijn ghepresen,

Ten wapinen si moeten reesen,

Daert te doene es, metten vromen.

(For those who wish to be praised must travel with the brave to the scene of battle, where it all happens. Van eenen rudder die zinen zone leerde (Of a Knight Who Taught his Son), fourteenth century)

The successful career of the Swabian nobleman Georg von Ehingen (d. 1508) began in 1446 or shortly afterwards in a modest fashion at the court of the young Duke Sigmund of Austria, in Innsbruck. As a youngster he was initially employed as a servant of the duke's wife, Eleonora, but he quickly worked his way up to be her servant at table and carver. When eventually he became aware of his burgeoning physical strength, he preferred a more dynamic court, where he would be able to become an active knight. Around 1452–3 he consequently joined the court of Duke Albert VI of Austria, who knighted him in 1453, in Prague, on the occasion of the coronation of Ladislas V Posthumus (king of Hungary) as king of Bohemia. Meanwhile Georg von Ehingen had managed to become Duke Albert's chamberlain. Shortly after his father had divided his possessions among his four sons in 1459, Georg, in keeping with family tradition, started working as an official in the service of the House of Wurtemberg, where he became a politician and a diplomat pur sang, a man of distinction.