Luther, vol. 2 of 6

by Hartmann Grisar

At the first coming of the peasants, that quarters might be found for them, “all the convents of monks and nuns were confiscated and their inhabitants driven out into the street.” “Alas, how wretched did the poor nuns look passing up and down the alleys of the town,”[1048] says an eye-witness in an Erfurt chronicle. All those connected with the Collegiate churches of St. Mary and St. Severus had peasants billeted on them in numbers out of all proportion to their means. On the morning of April 28, the service in the church of St. Mary’s was violently interrupted. On the following Sunday, Eberlin, the apostate Franciscan, commenced a course of sermons, which he continued for several days with his customary vehemence and abuse. Exactly a week after the coming of the peasants they passed a resolution in the Mainzer Hof that the number of parishes should be reduced to ten, including the Collegiate church of St. Mary’s, and that in all these parish churches “the pure Word of God should be preached without any additions, man-made laws, decrees or doctrines.” As for the pastors, they were to be appointed and removed by the congregation. This was equivalent to sentencing the old worship to death. On the same day an order was issued to all the parish churches and monasteries to abstain in future from reciting or singing Matins, Vespers or Mass. The only man who was successful in evading the prohibition was Dr. Conrad Klinge, the courageous guardian of the Franciscans, who at the hospital continued to preach in the old way to crowded audiences.

Most of the beneficed clergy now quitted the town, as the council refused to undertake any responsibility on their behalf; and as they were forbidden to resume Divine Worship or even to celebrate Mass in private, at the gate of the town they were subjected to a thorough search lest they should have any priestly property concealed about them. The magistrates sought to extort from the clergy who remained, admissions which might serve as some justification for their conduct. The post of preacher at the Dom, after it had been refused by Eberlin, who had at length taken fright at the demagogic spirit now abroad, was bestowed upon one of Luther’s immediate followers; the new preacher was Dr. Johann Lang, an “apostate, renegade, uxorious monk,” as a contemporary chronicler calls him.

All tokens of any authority of the Archbishop of Mayence in the town were obliterated, and the archiepiscopal jurisdiction was declared to be at an end. Eobanus Hessus wrote gleefully of the ruin of the “popish” foe. “We have driven away the Bishop of Mayence, for ever. All the monks have been expelled, the nuns turned out, the canons sent away, all the temples and even the money-boxes in the churches plundered; the commonwealth is now established and taxes and customs houses have been done away with. Again we are now free.”[1049] Here the statement that the clergy of Mayence had been expelled “for ever” proved incorrect, for the rights of the over-lord were soon to be re-established.

The magistrates were the first to fall; they were deposed, and the lower-class burghers and the peasants replaced them by two committees, one to represent the town, the other the country. In the latter committee the excited ringleaders of the peasantry gave vent to threatening speeches against the former municipal government, and such wild words as “Kill these spectres, blow out their brains” were heard.[1050]

The actual wording of the resolutions passed by both the committees was principally the work of preachers of the new faith. Eberlin, too, was consulted as to how best to draw up “the articles in accordance with the Bible,” but he cautiously declined to have anything to do with this, and declared that their demands seemed to him to be exorbitant and that, “the Evangel would not help them.” The Lutheran preachers also exerted themselves to bring about the reinstatement of the magistrates. It is said that on April 30, in every quarter of the town, a minister of the new doctrine preached to the citizens and country people to the following effect: “You have now by your good and Christian acts and deeds emancipated yourselves altogether from the Court at Mayence and its jurisdiction, which, according to Divine justice and Holy Scripture, should have no temporal authority whatever. But in order that this freedom may not lead you astray, there must be some authorities over you, and therefore you must for the future recognise the worthy magistrates of Erfurt as your rulers,” etc.[1051]

The words of the preachers prevailed, and the newly elected councillors became the head of a sort of republic. The burdens of the town increased to an oppressive extent, however, and the peasants who had returned to their villages groaned more than ever under the weight of the taxes. Financial difficulties continued to increase.

Yielding to the pressure of circumstances, the councillors gave their sanction on May 9, 1525, “under the new seal,” to the amended articles, twenty-eight in number, which had been drafted by the town and peasant committees during the days of storm and stress. The very first article made obligatory the preaching of “the pure Word of God,” and gave to each congregation the right to choose its own pastors. “The gist of the remaining articles was the appointment of a permanent administrative council to give a yearly account, and to impose no new taxes without the knowledge and sanction of both burghers and country subjects.”

In accepting the articles it was agreed that Luther’s opinion on them should be ascertained, a decision which seems to show that the peasants and burghers, though probably not the councillors themselves, reckoned upon the weighty sanction of Wittenberg. Yet about May 4 Luther had finished his booklet “Against the murderous Peasants” (above p. 201), which was far from favourable to seditious movements such as that of Erfurt. The council invited him by letter, on May 10, to come to Erfurt with Melanchthon “and establish the government of the town,” as Melanchthon puts it (“ad constituendum urbis statum”).[1052] Luther, however, did not accept the invitation, and a month later the council sent him a copy of the articles, requesting a written opinion. It is difficult to believe that the Erfurt magistrates were not aware of Luther’s growing bitterness against the peasants, which is attested by the pamphlets he wrote at the time, or that they were incapable of drawing the obvious conclusion as to his reply.[1053] “If the council in taking this step,” says Eitner, “was relying on Luther’s known attitude towards all revolutionary movements, and hoped to make an end of the inconvenient demands of the people by means of the Reformer’s powerful words, then their expectation was fully realised. Both Luther’s letter (i.e. his answer to the council) and his written notes on the copy of the articles sent him, are full of irony expressing the displeasure of one whose advice was so much in request, but whose interference in the peasant movement, in spite of his good intentions, had thus far met with so little success.... The very articles which the authors had most at heart were submitted by Luther to a relentless and somewhat pointless criticism.... Thus we see in a comparatively trivial case what has long been acknowledged of his action generally, viz. that Luther’s interference in the Peasant-War cannot be altogether justified.... His conduct shattered his reputation, both in the empire and in his second native town [Erfurt], and paved the way for the inevitable reaction.”[1054]

Luther, in his reply to the “Honourable, prudent and beloved” members of the Erfurt council,[1055] declares in the very first sentences that the Twenty-eight Articles were so “ill-advised” that “little good could come of them” even were he present himself at Erfurt; he is of opinion that certain people, who “are better off than they deserve,” are putting on airs at the expense of the council, constitute a danger to the common weal, and, with “unheard-of audacity and wickedness,” wish to “turn things upside down.” Things must never be permitted to come to such a pass that the councillors fear the common people and become their servants; the common people must be quiet and entrust all to the honourable magistrates to be set right, “lest the Princes have occasion to take up arms against Erfurt on account of such unwarrantable conduct.” Luther’s new sovereign, the Elector Johann, had just been assisting in the suppression of the peasant rising. He was in entire sympathy with the Wittenberg Professor, whom he so openly protected and favoured, and doubtless they had discussed together the state of affairs at Erfurt. In his written reply Luther asks whether it is not “seditious” to refuse to pay the Elector the sum due to him for acting as protector of the city. “Did they, then, esteem so lightly the Prince and the security of the town, which, as a matter of fact, was something not to be paid for in money?” Their demand really signified either that “no one was to protect the town of Erfurt, or that the Princes were to relinquish their claim to payment and yet continue to protect the town.”

The demand that the congregations of the parishes should appoint their own pastors Luther considered particularly inadmissible; it was “seditious that the parishes should wish to appoint and dismiss their own pastors without reference to the councillors, as though the councillors, in whom authority was vested, were not concerned in what the town might do.” He insists that “the councillors have the right to know what sort of persons are holding office in the town.”