The article is devoted to the analysis of the nobility's ideas about honor of the social group in the autobiography of Gotz von Berlichingen - a famous representative of the Franconia nobility, a famous knight-robber, a hero of the German neo-romanticism. His fame became great when he accepted the management of the rebellion group during the Peasants' War of 1524-1525. Due to the loss of a hand in one of the battles and acquisition of an iron prosthetic hand he got the nickname «The Knight with an Iron Hand». Berlichingen became the main character of the play by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. The play glorified the knight, first of all, as a literary hero, but not as a real historical character. Berlichingen's autobiography left to his descendants sheds light on a set of crucial events and important aspects of social daily routine in Germany in the XVIth century. The state of the lowest nobility, namely - knights of the Empire, was difficult and contradictory. This thesis is confirmed by fragments from the submi