Talk:Robber baron (feudalism)

Talkback
This is the Talkback page for Robber Baron — Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.208.201.22 (talk) 02:54, January 11, 2005 (UTC)

Industrial Age Robber Barons
What if the list of historical figures also included the industries which they controlled. e.g.:

John D. Rockefeller - Steel Manufacturing — Preceding unsigned comment added by 150.208.201.22 (talk) 02:56, January 11, 2005 (UTC)‎

What if they were correct? :) It's done. Gazpacho 08:21, 11 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Robber barons in the 15 century in the Holy Roman Empire
The article states:
 * While robber barony never entirely ceased, especially during the Hundred Years' War, the excesses of their heyday during the Interregnum never recurred.

This is not exactly right. In fact, the abundance of feuds, kidnappings, and plunderings of travelling merchants in the 15th century led Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor to the proclamation of the Reichstag of 1495 in Worms, which was to restitute law and order. Robber barons at that time were a widespread problem in the Holy Roman Empire that even caused significant troubles for large cities like Nuremberg. See also Götz von Berlichingen (or de:Götz von Berlichingen, since we don't seem to have an article on him), who was immortalized by a play of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Also worth mentioning: the robber barons in the Hegau region (between Lake Constance and Schaffhausen); also in the 15th century. Lupo 08:22, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Robber Barons
The use of the term "Raubritter" is not without controversy. The latest research (especially that of Hillay Zmora in "State and Nobility in Early Modern Germany: The Knightly Feud in Franconia, 1440-1567") questions the older view of these figures and places their behaviour in the wider political context of state-building by the greater nobility. The somewhat romanctic view of these knights which held sway from the time of Goethe until the middle of the 20th century is no longer considered accurate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Infinitebadger (talk • contribs) 11:29, October 3, 2006 (UTC)

Robber Barons
Common understanding of the term "Raubritter" is a noble who would plunder villages without respecting the rules of engagement:
 * write a formal feud letter that must have been received at least three days prior to the raid
 * after 1235, a feud letter was only legal if a settlement before a trial had failed
 * no killing of defenseless or innocent people (women, peasants), or jews
 * every person was unconditionally under peace and had to be kept unharmed
 * on the way to and from church, and while in church
 * on the way to and from court, and while in court
 * on the way to and from the king, and while at the king's court ("Königsfrieden")
 * in certain well-defined areas ("Burgfrieden") unless explicitely cancelled by a separate feud letter

Following these rules made raiding villages legal whereas not following them was regarded breach of public peace and heavily sanctioned. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.202.50.164 (talk) 14:58, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

The "queen of Holland"
I removed the following questionable sentence: "In 1255, the League captured Rietberg Castle and rescued the Queen of Holland, an operation funded in large part by the city of Worms, Germany". Holland was a county. Fnorp 10:16, 4 October 2006 (UTC)
 * At that date the king of the Germans (HRE) was count of Holland (to be exact this is William II of Holland). Assuming this was his wife this could indeed have been correct. As a note, William was of course not undisputed king, though he was recognized by the pope, a number of dukes and arch-bishops of the HRE.
 * For the rest, the term robber baron or Raubritter is problematic in history. For instance some source call the losers of the battle of Worringen (1288) Raubritter. In fact these people belonged to the factions of the arch-bishop of Cologne and the counts of Luxembourg and Geldern, none of whom or even their vassals should be deemed robber barons. In this case the term seems to have been coined by later glorification of the participation of the citizens of Cologne and the peasants of Berg in this struggle against their overlord, the arch-bishop (who of course was levying taxes on Rhine traffic and with the revolt of Cologne and Berg trying to block all trade with those territories (Berg at least was also under church interdict)). So the term is often abusive when it comes to medieval history.--Caranorn 14:42, 17 December 2006 (UTC)

Some formatting done.
I went through and wikified the list of names at the end of the article. Thought I would log this here in case there was some specific reason this was not done in the first place. The link for Deservi goes nowhere, but this might be because of a spelling error, a couple of which needed to be corrected before the links went to the proper places (Hokins->Hopkins, Standford->Stanford). Ştefan 03:39, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
 * I deleted that list. It has no place in this article and should be in its own article Robber baron (industrialist), if there is any difference to the list already in that article.--Caranorn (talk) 22:11, 17 May 2008 (UTC)

Word up. Wasn't aware of that article. Ştefan 00:26, 26 June 2008 (UTC)
 * No problem.--Caranorn (talk) 10:48, 26 June 2008 (UTC)

German view
This page represents a German view...i.e of the German medieval description of the term. The phrase can be used to describe (fro example) barons during The Anarchy and also during the early Capetian struggles in the Ile-de-France against the powerful castellans. There are numerous other examples that are not German origin. CJ DUB (talk) 18:07, 19 July 2008 (UTC)

Merge
Should Robber baron (industrialist) be merged with this article?Blaylockjam10 (talk) 09:35, 1 August 2008 (UTC)
 * No, if I recall correctly these were originally one article and were split as the topics are quite distinct. Though of course the industrialist article should probably have a sentence or two (I don't really know that article) about the origins of the term. And obviously the articles should have links to one another.--Caranorn (talk) 11:01, 1 August 2008 (UTC)

Copyright violation?
I noticed while trying to learn about the subject I came across this link http://www.economicexpert.com/a/Robber:baron.htm and notice the same language - some word-for-word. I added it as a reference, but did not change the text in the article.DHCpepper (talk) 21:40, 21 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Not a reference. This site uses material from the Wikipedia article "Robber baron" under the GNU Free Documentation License. 214.4.238.180 (talk) 13:29, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

Hundred Years' War?
There is mention, in the section on Germany, of robber barons being active during the Hundred Years' War. The linked article is about the war between England and France. Is this saying that the war in France destabilized Germany, resulting in an increase of robber-baronism there? Or is it talking about the situation in France (i.e. it should be moved to a different part of the article)? Or is this actually referring to a different "Hundred Years' War"? Iapetus (talk) 10:12, 17 May 2018 (UTC)

"Rhine league" listed at Redirects for discussion
A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Rhine league. The discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 July 5 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. &thinsp;&mdash; Mr. Guye (talk) (contribs)&thinsp; 05:20, 5 July 2020 (UTC)