Early Life
After the death of his father Dietrich in 1492 and of his two older brothers, he inherited a fortune and possessions. In 1512-13 he was a guest in the court of King Henry VIII of England, and may have been exposed to the reformist ideas of John Wycliffe and the Lollards. In 1517, after refusing to pay 350 year old interest claims from Kollegiatstift Neumünster, he was excommunicated.
In 1519 he served a vassal of Markgraf Casimir of Brandenburg-Kulmbach-Ansbach in the army of the Swabian League as Landsknecht commander against Duke Ulrich of Württemberg and against Götz von Berlichingen in Möckmühl.
Later in 1519, Casimir of Brandenburg-Ansbach-Bayreuth sent him to his brother, the Hochmeister of the Teutonic Order, Albert of Brandenburg-Prussia, to support him against Poland. Geyer negotiated a truce that ended the Polish-Teutonic War (1519–1521). Until 1523, he served the Hochmeister, travelling around European courts on diplomatic missions.
The same year, he accompanied his prince to visit the dissident Protestant priest, Martin Luther in Wittenberg. If not already sympathetic, he was probably won over to Luther's ideals at this meeting.
Read more about this topic: Florian Geyer
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“A two-year-old can be taught to curb his aggressions completely if the parents employ strong enough methods, but the achievement of such control at an early age may be bought at a price which few parents today would be willing to pay. The slow education for control demands much more parental time and patience at the beginning, but the child who learns control in this way will be the child who acquires healthy self-discipline later.”
—Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)
“It is not in the world of ideas that life is lived. Life is lived for better or worse in life, and to a man in life, his life can be no more absurd than it can be the opposite of absurd, whatever that opposite may be.”
—Archibald MacLeish (1892–1982)