Military Zollingers
Jörg (Georg) Zollinger, Männedorf, Switzerland, 1490 - 1574
He was a mercenary commander, and fought at the battle of Pavia in Italy in 1512, and then again at the battle of Marignano, Italy in 1515, where the Swiss troops were defeated. In 1530 he became a commander of the Zürich City forces, and in 1531 he took over command of all the Zürich troops. He was their commander in the second battle of Kappel against the Central Swiss Cantons. This was mainly a religious war between Protestant Zürich and the Catholic Central Cantons. Commander of the first battle of Kappel was Huldrich Zwingli, the reformation leader of Zürich, who was killed in that battle. When reinforcements did not arrive as promised by the Zürich government, commander Jörg Zollinger was forced to conduct a controlled retreat, and then decided to negotiate for peace with the Central Swiss commanders.
Because he was betrayed by the City of Zürich government and its religious
leaders, he was able to demand concessions from them in exchange for a negotiated
peace. One concession was a separation of church and state in Zürich, so
that church leaders could no longer dictate policy, especially war. The other
was a concession to the subjected rural peoples under Zürich ownership,
who provided the majority of soldiers for the Zürich army, but had no voice.
The concession received was a degree of participation by the rural population
in the Zürich political system. Both demands became ground braking changes
in the political development of the city state of Zürich.
Site designed by