In the midst of these attacks upon the Church, the pope excommunicated Luther, and in the following year (1521) influenced the Diet of the Holy Roman Empire, assembled at Worms, to pronounce him an outlaw. But the rebel calmly burnt the papal bull and from the imperial ban he was protected by the elector of Saxony. He at once devoted himself to making a new German translation of the Bible, which became very popular and is still prized as a monument in the history of German literature. [Footnote: The first edition of the Bible in German had been printed as early as 1466. At least eighteen editions in German (including four Low German versions) had appeared before Luther issued his German New Testament in 1522.]
[Sidenote: Spread of Lutheranism]
Within the next few years the Lutheran teachings carried everything before them throughout the northern and central Germanies. Nor are the reasons for Luther's success in defying pope and emperor and for the rapid acceptance of his new theology hard to understand. The movement was essentially popular and national. It appealed to the pious-minded who desired a simplification of Christian dogma and a comprehensible method of salvation. It also appealed to the worldly minded who longed to seize ecclesiastical lands and revenues. Above all, it appealed to the patriots who were tired of foreign despotism and of abuses which they traced directly to the Roman Curia. Then, too, the Emperor Charles V, who remained a loyal Catholic, was too immersed in the difficulties of foreign war and in the manifold administrative problems of his huge dominions to be able to devote much time to the extirpation of heresy in the Germanies. Finally, the character of Luther contributed to effective leadership—he was tireless in flooding the country with pamphlets, letters, and inflammatory diatribes, tactful in keeping his party together, and always bold and courageous. Princes, burghers, artisans, and peasants joined hands in espousing the new cause.
[Sidenote: Luther and the German Peasants]
But the peasants espoused it in a manner altogether too logical and too violent to suit Luther or the desires of the princes. The German peasants had grievances against the old order compared with which those of the knights and towns-folk were imaginary. For at least a century several causes had contributed to make their lot worse and worse. While their taxes and other burdens were increasing, the ability of the emperor to protect them was decreasing; they were plundered by every class in the community, especially by the higher clergy. Thus, under the influence of social and economic conditions, various uprisings of the peasants had taken place during the latter part of the fifteenth century. These insurrections became almost regular in the southwestern Germanies, and were called Bundschuhe, a shoe fastened upon the end of a pole serving as a standard of revolt. When Luther urged the princes to assail the ecclesiastics, to seize church lands, and to put an end to financial abuses, the peasants naturally listened to his words with open ears and proceeded with glad hearts to apply his advice themselves.
The new Lutheran theology may have been too refined for the peasants, but they imagined they understood its purport. And spurred on by fanatics, whom the religious ferment of the times produced in large numbers, [Footnote: Many of these radical religious leaders were more consistent and thoroughgoing than Luther in maintaining the right of each Christian to interpret the Scriptures for himself. Since they generally refused to recognize infant baptism as valid and insisted that baptism should be administered only to adults, they were subsequently often referred to as "Anabaptists." Many of the "Anabaptists" condemned oaths and capital punishment; some advocated communism of worldly goods, in several instances even the community of women. Nicholas Storch (d. 1525), a weaver, and Thomas Munzer (d. 1525), a Lutheran preacher, spread these doctrines widely among the peasants. Luther vehemently denounced the "Anabaptists.">[ the peasants again took arms against feudal oppression. That the peasants' demands were essentially moderate and involved no more than is granted everywhere to-day as a matter of course, may be inferred from their declaration of principles, the Twelve Articles, among which were: abolition of serfdom, free right of fishing and hunting, payment in wages for services rendered, and abolition of arbitrary punishment. So long as the peasants directed their efforts against the Catholic ecclesiastics, Luther expressed sympathy with them, but when the revolt, which broke out in 1524, became general all over central and southern Germany and was directed not only against the Catholic clergy but also against the lay lords,—many of whom were now Lutheran,—the religious leader foresaw a grave danger to his new religion in a split between peasants and nobles. Luther ended by taking strong sides with the nobles—he had most to expect from them. He was shocked by the excesses of the revolt, he said. Insisting upon toleration for his own revolt, he condemned the peasants to most horrible fates in this world and in the world hereafter. [Footnote: Although Luther was particularly bitter against the "Anabaptist" exhorters, upon whom he fastened responsibility for the Peasants' Revolt, and although many of them met death thereby, the "Anabaptists" were by no means exterminated. Largely through the activity of a certain Melchior Hofmann, a widely traveled furrier, "Anabaptist" doctrines were disseminated in northern Germany and the Netherlands. From 1533 to 1535 they reigned supreme, attended by much bloodshed and plenty of personal license, in the important city of Munster in western Germany. Subsequently, Carlstadt (1480-1541), an early associate of Luther, though his later antagonist, set forth Anabaptist views with greater moderation; and in course of time the sect became more or less tinged with Calvinistic theology.] He furiously begged the princes to put down the insurrection. "Whoever can, should smite, strangle, or stab, secretly or publicly!"
[Sidenote: The Peasants' Revolt]
The Peasants' Revolt was crushed in 1525 with utmost cruelty. Probably fifty thousand lost their lives in the vain effort. The general result was that the power of the territorial lords became greater than ever, although in a few cases, particularly in the Tyrol and in Baden, the condition of the peasants was slightly improved. Elsewhere, however, this was not the case; and the German peasants were assigned for over two centuries to a lot worse than that of almost any people in Europe. Another result was the decline of Luther's influence among the peasantry in southern and central Germany. They turned rapidly from one who, they believed, had betrayed them. On the other hand, many Catholic princes, who had been wavering in their religious support, now had before their eyes what they thought was an object lesson of the results of Luther's appeal to revolution, and so they cast their lot decisively with the ancient Church. The Peasants' Revolt registered a distinct check to the further spread of Lutheranism.
[Sidenote: Diets of Speyer 1526, 1529]
[Sidenote: The Word "Protestant">[
The Diet of the Holy Roman Empire which assembled at Speyer in 1526 saw the German princes divided into a Lutheran and a Roman Catholic party, but left the legal status of the new faith still in doubt, contenting itself with the vague declaration that "each prince should so conduct himself as he could answer for his behavior to God and to the emperor." But at the next Diet, held at the same place in 1529, the emperor directed that the edict against heretics should be enforced and that the old ecclesiastical revenues should not be appropriated for the new worship. The Lutheran princes drafted a legal protest, in which they declared that they meant to abide by the law of 1526. From this protest came the name Protestant.