Life of Luther

by Julius Köstlin

Meanwhile, in Southern Germany peasant insurrections had broken out in various places since the summer of this year. In itself, there was nothing novel in this. Repeatedly during the latter part of the previous century, the poor peasantry had risen and erected their banner, the 'Shoe of the League' (Bundschuh), so called from the rustic shoes which the insurgents wore. Their grievances were the intolerable and ever-growing burdens, laid upon them by the lay and clerical magnates, the taxes of all kinds squeezed from them by every ingenious device, and the feudal service which they were forced to perform. The nobles had, in fact, towards the close of the middle ages, usurped a much larger exercise of their ancient privileges against them, by means partly of a dexterous manipulation of the old Roman law, and partly of the ignorance of that law which prevailed among their vassals. On the other side, complaints were heard at that time of the insolence shown by the wealthier peasants; of the luxury, in which they tried to rival their masters; and of the arrogance and defiant demeanour of the peasantry in general. The oppression endured by any particular class of the civil community does not usually lead to violent disturbances and outbreaks, unless and until that class is awakened to a higher sense of its own importance and has acquired an increase of power. The peasants found, moreover, discontented spirits like themselves among the lower orders in the towns, who were avowed enemies of the upper classes, and who complained bitterly of the hardships and oppressions suffered by small people at the hands of the great merchants and commercial companies,—in a word, from the power of capital. Furthermore, when once the peasants rose in rebellion against their masters, the latter also, including the nobility, showed an inclination here and there to favour a general revolution, if only to remedy the defects of their own position. And, in truth, throughout the German Empire at that time there was a general movement pressing for a readjustment of the relations of the various classes to each other and to the Imperial power. Ideas of a total reconstruction of society and the State had penetrated the mass of the people, to an extent never known before.

Thus the way was paved, and incentives already supplied for a powerful popular movement, apart altogether from the question of Church Reform. And indeed this question Luther was anxious, as we have seen, to restrict to the domain of spiritual, as distinguished from secular, that is to say, political and civil action. It was impossible, however, but that the accusations of lying, tyranny, and hostility to evangelical truth, now freely levelled against the dominant priesthood and the secular lords who were persecuting the gospel, should serve to intensify to the utmost the prevailing bitterness against external oppression. With the same firmness and decision with which Luther condemned all disorderly and violent proceedings in support of the gospel, he had also long been warning its persecutors of the inevitable storm which they would bring upon themselves. Other evangelical preachers, however, as for instance, Eberlin and Strauss, mingled with their popular preaching all sorts of suggestions of social reform. At last men went about among the people, with open or disguised activity, whose principles were directly opposed to those of Luther, but who proclaimed themselves, nevertheless, enthusiasts for the gospel which he had brought again to light, or which, as they pretended, they had been the first to reveal, together with true evangelical liberty. They appealed to God's Word in support of the claims and grievances of the oppressed classes; they grasped their weapons by virtue of the Divine law. Hence the peculiar ardour and energy that marked the insurrection, although the enthusiasm, thus kindled, was united with the utmost barbarity and licentiousness. Never has Germany been threatened with a revolution so vast and violent, or so immeasurable in its possible results. On no single man's word did so much depend as on that of Luther, the genuine man of the people.

The movement began late in the summer of 1524 in the Black Forest and Hegau. After the beginning of the next year it continued rapidly to spread, and the different groups of insurgents who were fighting here and there, combined in a common plan of action. Like a flood the movement forced its way eastwards into Austria, westwards into Alsatia, northwards into Franconia, and even as far as Thuringia. At Rothenburg on the Tauber, Carlstadt had prepared the way for it by inciting the people to destroy the images. The demands in which the peasants were unanimous, were now drawn up in twelve articles. These still preserved a very moderate aspect. They claimed above all the right of each parish to choose its own minister. Tithes were only to be abolished in part. The peasants were determined to be regarded no longer as the 'property of others,' for Christ had redeemed all alike with his blood. They demanded for everyone the right to hunt and fish, because God had given to all men alike power over the animal creation. They based their demands upon the Word of God; trusting to His promises they would venture the battle. 'If we are wrong,' they said, 'let Luther set us right by the Scriptures.' God, who had freed the children of Israel from the hand of Pharaoh, would now shortly deliver His people. In these articles, and in other proclamations of the peasantry, there were none of the wild imaginations of Münzer and his prophets, nor their ideas of a kingdom and schemes of murder. They burned down, it is true, both convents and cities, and had done so from the outset. Still in some places a more peaceable understanding was arrived at with the upper classes, although neither party placed any real confidence in the other.

When now the articles arrived at Wittenberg, and Luther heard how the insurgents appealed to him, he prepared early in April to make a public declaration, in which he arraigned their proceedings, but at the same time exhorted the princes to moderation. He was just then called away by Count Albert of Mansfeld to Eisleben, to assist, as we have seen, in the establishment of a new school in that town. He set off thither on Easter Sunday, April 16, after preaching in the morning. There he wrote his 'Exhortation to peace: On the Twelve Articles of the Peasantry in Swabia.

In this manifesto he sharply rebukes those princes and nobles, bishops and priests, who cease not to rage against the gospel, and in their temporal government 'tax and fleece their subjects, for the advancement of their own pomp and pride, until the common people can endure it no longer.' If God for their punishment allowed the devil to stir up tumult against them, He and his gospel were not to blame; but he counselled them to try by gentle means to soften, if possible, God's wrath against them. As for the peasants, he had never from the first concealed from them his suspicions, that many of them only pretended to appeal to Scripture, and offered for mere appearance' sake to be further instructed therein. But he wished to speak to them affectionately, like a friend and a brother, and he admitted also that godless lords often laid intolerable burdens upon the people. But however much in their articles might be just and reasonable, the gospel, he said, had nothing to do with their demands, and by their conduct they showed that they had forgotten the law of Christ. For by the Divine law it was forbidden to extort anything from the authorities by force: the badness of the latter was no excuse for violence and rebellion. Respecting the substance of their demands, their first article, claiming to elect their own pastor, if the civil authority refused to provide one, was right enough and Christian; but in that case they must maintain him at their own expense, and on no account protect him by force against the civil power. As for the remaining articles, they had nothing whatever to do with the gospel. He tells the peasants plainly, that if they persist in their rebellion, they are worse enemies to the gospel than the Pope and Emperor, for they act against the gospel in the gospel's own name. He is bound to speak thus to them, although some among them, poisoned by fanatics, hate him and call him a hypocrite, and the devil, who was not able to kill him through the Pope, would now like to destroy and devour him. He is content if only he can save some at least of the good-hearted among them from the danger of God's indignation. In conclusion, he gives to both sides, the nobles and the peasants, his 'faithful counsel and advice, that a few counts and lords should be chosen from the nobility, and a few councillors from the towns, and that matters should be adjusted and composed in an amicable manner—that so the affair, if it cannot be arranged in a Christian spirit, may at least be settled according to human laws and agreements.'

Thus spoke Luther, with all his accustomed frankness, fervency, power, and bluntness, equally indifferent to the favour of the people or of their rulers. But what fruit, indeed, could be looked for from his words, uttered evidently with violent inward emotion, when popular passion was so excited? Was it not rather to be feared that the peasants would greedily fasten on the first portion of his pamphlet, which was directed against the nobles, and then shut their ears all the more closely against the second, which concerned their own misconduct? The pamphlet could hardly have been written, and much less published, before new rumours and forebodings crowded upon Luther, such as made him think its contents and language no longer applicable to the emergency, but that now it was his duty to sound aloud the call to battle against the enemies of peace and order. 'In my former tract,' he said, 'I did not venture to condemn the peasants, because they offered themselves to reason and better instruction. But before I could look about me, forth they rush, and fight and plunder and rage like mad dogs…. The worst is at Mühlhausen, where the arch-devil himself presides.'

In South Germany, on that very Easter Sunday when Luther set out for Eisleben, the scene of horror was enacted at Weinsberg, where the peasants, amid the sound of pipes and merriment, drove the unhappy Count of Helfenstein upon their spears, before the eyes of his wife and child. Luther's ignorance of this and similar atrocities, at the time when he was writing his pamphlet at Eisleben, is easily intelligible from the slow means of communication then existing. Soon the news came, however, of bands of rioters in Thuringia, busy with the work of pillage, incendiarism, and massacre, and of a rising of the peasantry in the immediate neighbourhood. Towards the end of April they achieved a crowning triumph by their victorious entry into Erfurt, where the preacher, Eberlin of Günzburg, with true loyalty and courage, but all in vain, had striven, with words of exhortation and warning, to pacify the armed multitude encamped outside the town, and their sympathisers and associates inside.

On April 26 Münzer advanced to Mühlhausen, the 'arch-devil, 'as Luther called him, but as he described himself, the 'champion of the Lord.' He came with four hundred followers, and was joined by large masses of the peasants. His 'only fear,' as he said in his summons to the miners of Mansfeld, 'was that the foolish men would fall into the snare of a delusive peace.' He promised them a better result. 'Wherever there are only three among you who trust in God and seek nothing but His honour and glory, you need not fear a hundred thousand…. Forward now!' he cried; 'to work! to work! It is time that the villains were chased away like dogs…. To work! relent not if Esau gives you fair words. Give no heed to the wailings of the ungodly; they will beg, weep, and entreat you for pity, like children. Show them no mercy, as God commanded Moses (Deut. vii.) and has declared the same to us…. To work! while the fire is hot; let not the blood cool upon your swords…. To work! while it is day. God is with you; follow Him!' Of Luther he spoke in terms of peculiar hatred and contempt. In a letter which he addressed to 'Brother Albert of Mansfeld,' with the object of converting the Count, he alluded to him in expressions of the coarsest possible abuse.

In Thuringia, in the Harz, and elsewhere, numbers of convents, and even castles, were reduced to ashes. The princes were everywhere unprepared with the necessary troops, while the insurgents in Thuringia and Saxony counted more than 30,000 men. The former, therefore, endeavoured to strengthen themselves by coalition. Duke John, at Weimar, prepared himself for the worst: his brother, the Elector Frederick, was lying seriously ill at his Castle at Lochau (now Annaburg) in the district of Torgau.

At this crisis Luther, having left Eisleben, appeared in person among the excited population. He preached at Stolberg, Nordhausen, and Wallhausen. In his subsequent writings he could bear witness of himself, how he had been himself among the peasants, and how, more than once, he had imperilled life and limb. On May 3 we find him at Weimar; and a few days afterwards in the county of Mansfeld. Here he wrote to his friend, the councillor Rühel of Mansfeld, advising him not to persuade Count Albert to be 'lenient in this affair'—that is, against the insurgents; for the civil power must assert its rights and duties, however God might rule the issue. 'Be firm,' he entreats Rühel, 'that his Grace may go boldly on his way. Leave the matter to God, and fulfil His commands to wield the sword as long as strength endures. Our consciences are clear, even if we are doomed to be defeated…. It is but a short time, and the righteous Judge will come.'