Black Company The Black Company or the Black Troops was a unit of Franconian mercenaries during the Peasant ' s Revolt in the 1520s , during the Protestant Reformation in Germany . Name . The original German name of the Black Company was " Schwarzer Haufen " . The term " Schwarz " ( black ) pointed out the ideological distance of the company from the large peasant army at that time , which called itself the " Heller Haufen " ( " Hell " meaning " light - colored " ) . The German word " Haufen " was how peasants called their armies . It was never used again for an army , possibly because the word " Haufen " means " heap " in German . Formation . The Black Company was formed in 1525 in Rothenburg , out of local , home guard farmers - maybe 600 men - and a company of mercenary knights . The leader of the Black Company , at least nominally , was nobleman Florian Geyer . Geyer managed to shape the Black Company into something like a company of real soldiers , instead of just an armed mob . Some of the knights were probably his vassals . History . After the Company took over the area around Rothenburg , it proceeded to Swabia to destroy fortified monasteries and castles and prevent their becoming strongholds of the Swabian League . Those who didn ' t attack the Black Company were left unharmed during these actions . But in Sweinsburg , Swabia , another company , led by peasant leader , executed about 50 local knights after they had opened fire on two negotiators . Geyer disapproved of this slaughtering and moved his troops back to Franconia to continue the fight . But Rohrbach ' s action had sealed the fate of captured peasants and of Geyer ' s men . From that time on , the " Truchsess " ( " Steward " ) of Waldburg , commander of the Swabian League , showed little mercy to the Black Company and hunted them down ruthlessly throughout Swabia . Rohrbach himself was burned alive when he was captured in 1525 . In the Battle of Ingolstadt , in May , 1525 , the Black Company found itself alone against the forces of the Swabian League after its allies had been destroyed . The Black Company fought its way back to Ingolstadt and occupied the ruins of the castle , the main buildings of which the members of the Company had themselves burned down some months before . The troops of the League encircled the castle and started their attack . The castle ' s occupants fought off two assaults but during the third attack , and after the League ' s heavy artillery breached the massive walls , they were killed off . Geyer himself wasn ' t there during the last battle . He waited for an escort in Rothenburg , but was banned from the city before it arrived . Geyer traveled North and was robbed and killed by two servants of his brother - in - law Wilhelm von Grumbach in the night of June 9 – 10 in the forest near Rimpar . Legacy . The Black Company remained very popular to the present day , although Swabian rulers did everything to nullify its fame in the years after the uprising , through publishing a number of " facts " about the crimes the peasants supposedly had committed . The song " Wir sind des Geyers schwarzer Haufen " ( " We are Geyer ' s Black Company " ) is still found in many German songbooks today .