Its strategic position on the bend of the navigable river and on the important trade route Nuremberg-Frankfurt made Miltenberg a politically influential member of the nine town league ("Neun-Städte-Bund") of Mainz. This state of affairs lasted until the German Peasants' War in 1525, when the local representative, Friedrich Weygand, sided with the peasants and was executed. He had also favoured the Reformation and after 1522, when Miltenberg finally became independent of the Bürgstadt parish, had helped , a supporter of Martin Luther, to head the new parish.