The mode of transmitting intelligence, especially such as was connected with the stirring up of political and religious movements, was in those days of a nature of which we have now little conception. The sort of thing in vogue then may be compared to the methods adopted in India to prepare the Mutiny of 1857, when the mysterious cake was passed from village to village, signifying that the moment had come for the outbreak. The sense of esprit de corps and of that kind of honour most intimately associated with it, it must also be remembered, was infinitely keener in ruder states of society than under a high civilization. The growth of civilization, as implying the disruption of the groups in which the individual is merged under more primitive conditions, and his isolation as an autonomous unit having vague and very elastic moral duties to his "country" or to mankind at large, but none towards any definite and proximate social whole, necessarily destroys that communal spirit which prevails in the former case. This is one of the striking truths which the history of these peasant risings illustrates in various ways and brings vividly home to us.
CHAPTER VIII[ToC]
THE GREAT RISING OF THE PEASANTS AND THE ANABAPTIST MOVEMENT[23]
The year following the collapse of Franz Sickingen's rebellion saw the first mutterings of the great movement known as the Peasants' War, the most extensive and important of all the popular insurrections of the Middle Ages, which, as we have seen in a previous chapter, had been led up to during the previous half-century by numerous sporadic movements throughout Central Europe having like aims.
The first actual outbreak of the Peasants' War took place in August 1524, in the Black Forest, in the village of Stühlingen, from an apparently trivial cause. It spread rapidly throughout the surrounding districts, having found a leader in a former soldier of fortune, Hans Müller by name. The so-called Evangelical Brotherhood sprang into existence. On the new movement becoming threatening it was opposed by the Swabian League, a body in the interests of the Germanic Federation, its princes, and cities, whose function it was to preserve public tranquillity and enforce the Imperial decrees. The peasant army was armed with the rudest weapons, including pitchforks, scythes, and axes; but nothing decisive of a military character took place this year. Meanwhile the work of agitation was carried on far and wide throughout the South German territories. Preachers of discontent among the peasantry and the former towns were everywhere agitating and organizing with a view to a general rising in the ensuing spring. Negotiations were carried on throughout the winter with nobles and the authorities without important results. A diversion in favour of the peasants was caused by Duke Ulrich of Würtemberg favouring the peasants' cause, which he hoped to use as a shoeing-horn to his own plans for recovering his ancestral domains, from which he had been driven on the grounds of a family quarrel under the ban of the empire in 1519. He now established himself in his stronghold of Hohentwiel, in Würtemberg, on the Swiss frontier. By February or the beginning of March peasant bands were organizing throughout Southern Germany. Early in March a so-called Peasants' Parliament was held at Memmingen, a small Swabian town, at which the principal charter of the movement, the so-called "Twelve Articles," was adopted. This important document has a strong religious colouring, the political and economic demands of the peasants being led up to and justified by Biblical quotations. They all turn on the customary grievances of the time. The "Twelve Articles" remain throughout the chief Bill of Rights of the South German peasantry, though there were other versions of the latter current in certain districts. What was said before concerning the local sporadic movements which had been going en for a generation previously applies equally to the great uprising of 1525. The rapidity with which the ideas represented by the movement, and in consequence the movement itself, spread, is marvellous. By the middle of April it was computed that no less than 300,000 peasants, besides necessitous townsfolk, were armed and in open rebellion. On the side of the nobles no adequate force was ready to meet the emergency. In every direction were to be seen flaming castles and monasteries. On all sides were bodies of armed countryfolk, organized in military fashion, dictating their will to the countryside and the small towns, whilst disaffection was beginning to show itself in a threatening manner among the popular elements of not a few important cities. A slight success gained by the Swabian League at the Upper Swabian village of Leipheim in the second week of April did not improve matters. In Easter week, 1525, it looked indeed as if the "Twelve Articles" at least would become realized, if not the Christian Commonwealth dreamed of by the religious sectaries established throughout the length and breadth of Germany. Princes, lords, and ecclesiastical dignitaries were being compelled far and wide to save their lives, after their property was probably already confiscated, by swearing allegiance to the Christian League or Brotherhood of the peasants and by countersigning the "Twelve Articles" and other demands of their refractory villeins and serfs. So threatening was the situation that the Archduke Ferdinand began himself to yield, in so far as to enter into negotiations with the insurgents. In many cases the leaders and chief men of the bands were got up in brilliant costume. We read of purple mantles and scarlet birettas with ostrich plumes as the costume of the leaders, of a suite of men in scarlet dress, of a vanguard of ten heralds, gorgeously attired. As Lamprecht justly observes (Deutsche Geschichte, vol. v. p. 343): "The peasant revolts were, in general, less in the nature of campaigns, or even of an uninterrupted series of minor military operations, than of a slow process of mobilization, interrupted and accompanied by continual negotiations with lords and princes—a mobilization which was rendered possible by the standing right of assembly and of carrying arms possessed by the peasants." The smaller towns everywhere opened their gates without resistance to the peasants, between whom and the poorer inhabitants an understanding commonly existed. The bands waxed fat with plunder of castles and religious houses, and did full justice to the contents of the rich monastic wine-cellars.
Early in April occurred one of the most notable incidents. It was at the little town of Weinsberg, near the free town of Heilbronn, in Würtemberg. The town, which was occupied by a body of knights and men-at-arms, was attacked on Easter Sunday by the peasant bands, foremost among them being the "black troop" of that knightly champion of the peasant cause, Florian Geyer. It was followed by a peasant contingent, led by one Jäcklein Rohrbach, whose consuming passion was hatred of the ruling classes. The knights within the town were under the leadership of Count von Helfenstein. The entry of Rohrbach's company into Weinsberg was the signal for a massacre of the knightly host. Some were taken prisoners for the moment, including Helfenstein himself, but these were massacred next morning in the meadow outside the town by "Jäcklein," as he was called. The events at Weinsberg produced in the first instance a horror and consternation which was speedily followed by a lust for vengeance on the part of the privileged orders.
In Franconia and Middle Germany the peasant movement went on apace. In Franconia one of its chief seats was the considerable town of Rothenburg, on the Tauber. The episcopal city of Würzburg was also entered and occupied by the peasant bands in coalition with the discontented elements of the town. The sacking of churches and throwing open of religious houses characterized proceedings here as elsewhere. The locking up of a large peasant host in Würzburg was undoubtedly a source of great weakness to the movement. In the east, in the Tyrol and Salzburg, there were similar risings to those farther west. In the latter case the prince-bishop was the obnoxious oppressor.