A History of the Reformation (Vol. 1 of 2)

by Thomas M. Lindsay

From one point of view this insurrection was simply the last, the most extensive, and the most disastrous of [pg 327] those revolts which, we have already seen, had been almost chronic in Germany during the later decades of the fifteenth and in the beginning of the sixteenth century. All the social and economic causes which produced them[320] were increasingly active in 1524-1525. It is easy to show, as many Lutheran Church historians have done with elaborate care, that the Reformation under Luther had nothing in common with the sudden and unexpected revolt,—as easy as to prove that there was little in common between the “Spiritual Poverty” of Francis of Assisi and the vulgar communism of the Brethren and Sisters of the Free Spirit, between the doctrines of Wiclif and the gigantic labour strike headed by Wat Tyler and Priest Ball, between the teaching of Huss and the extreme Taborite fanatics. But the fact remains that the voice of Luther awoke echoes whereof he never dreamt, and that its effects cannot be measured by some changes in doctrine, or by a reformation in ecclesiastical organisation. The times of the Reformation were ripe for revolution, and the words of the bold preacher, coming when all men were restless and most men were oppressed, appealing especially to those who felt the burden heavy and the yoke galling, were followed by far-resounding reverberations. Besides, Luther's message was democratic. It destroyed the aristocracy of the saints, it levelled the barriers between the layman and the priest, it taught the equality of all men before God, and the right of every man of faith to stand in God's presence whatever be his rank and condition of life. He had not confined himself to preaching a new theology. His message was eminently practical. In his Appeal to [pg 328]the Nobility of the German Nation, Luther had voiced all the grievances of Germany, had touched upon almost all the open sores of the time, and had foretold disasters not very far off.

Nor must it be forgotten that no great leader ever flung about wild words in such a reckless way. Luther had the gift of strong smiting phrases, of words which seemed to cleave to the very heart of things, of images which lit up a subject with the vividness of a flash of lightning. He launched tracts and pamphlets from the press about almost everything,—written for the most part on the spur of the moment, and when the fire burned. His words fell into souls full of the fermenting passions of the times. They drank in with eagerness the thoughts that all men were equal before God, and that there are divine commands about the brotherhood of mankind of more importance than all human legislation. They refused to believe that such golden ideas belonged to the realm of spiritual life alone, or that the only prescriptions which denied the rights of the common man were the decrees of the Roman Curia. The successful revolts of the Swiss peasants, the wonderful victories of Zisca, the people's leader, in the near Bohemian lands, were illustrations, they thought, of how Luther's sledge-hammer words could be translated into corresponding deeds.

Other teachings besides Luther's were listened to. Many of the Humanists, professed disciples of Plato, expounded to friends or in their class-rooms the communistic dreams of the Republic, and published Utopias like the brilliant sketch of the ideal commonwealth which came from the pen of Thomas More. These speculations “of the Chair” were listened to by the “wandering students,” and were retailed, with forcible illustrations, in a way undreamt of by their scholarly authors, to audiences of artisans and peasants who were more than ready to give them unexpected applications.[321]

The influence of popular astrology must not be forgotten; for the astrologists were powerful among all classes of society, in the palaces of the princes, in the houses of the burghers, and at the peasant market gatherings and church ales. In these days they were busy pointing out heavenly portents, and foretelling calamities and popular risings.[322]

The missionaries of the movement belonged to all sorts and conditions of men—poor priests sympathising with the grievances of their parishioners; wandering monks who had deserted their convents, especially those belonging to the Franciscan Order; poor students on their way from University to University; artisans, travelling in German fashion from one centre of their trade to another. They found their audiences on the village greens under the lime trees, or in the public-houses in the lower parts of the towns. They talked the rude language of the people, and garnished their discourse with many a scriptural quotation. They read to excited audiences small pamphlets and broadsides, printed in thick letters on coarse paper, which discussed the burning questions of the day.

The revolt began unexpectedly, and without any pre-concerted preparation or formulation of demands, in June 1524, when a thousand peasants belonging to the estate of Count Sigismund of Lupfen rose in rebellion against their lord at Stühlingen, a few miles to the north-west of Schaffhausen, and put themselves under the leadership of Hans Müller, an old landsknecht. Müller led his peasants, one of them carrying a flag blazoned with the imperial colours of red, black, and yellow, to the little town of Waldshut, about half-way between Schaffhausen and Basel. The people of the town fraternised with the peasants, and the formidable “Evangelical Brotherhood” was either formed then or the roots of it were planted. The news spread fast, east and west. The peasants of the districts round about the Lake of Constance—in the Allgau, the [pg 330] Klettgau, the Hegau, and Villingen—rose in rebellion. The revolt spread northwards into Lower Swabia, and the peasants of Leiphen, led by Jacob Wehe, were joined by some of the troops of Truchsess, the general of the Swabian League. The peasants of Salzburg, Styria, and the Tyrol rose. These three eastern risings had most staying power in them. The Salzburg peasants besieged the Cardinal Archbishop in his castle; they were not reduced till the spring of 1526, and only after having extorted concessions from their over-lords. The Tyrolese peasants, under their wise leader, Michael Gaismeyer, shut up Archduke Ferdinand in Innsbruck, and in the end gained substantial concessions. The rising in Styria was a very strong one; it lasted till 1526, and was eventually put down by bringing Bohemian troops into the country. From Swabia the flames of insurrection spread into Franconia, where a portion of the insurgents were led by an escaped criminal, the notorious Jäklein Rohrbach. It was this band which perpetrated the wanton massacre of Weinsberg, the one outstanding atrocity of the insurrection. The band and the deed were repudiated by the rest of the insurgents. Thomas Münzer, who, banished from Zwickau and then from Alstedt, had settled in Mühlhausen, his heart aflame with the wrongs of the commonalty, preached insurrection to the peasants in Thüringen. He issued fiery proclamations:

“Arise! Fight the battle of the Lord! On! On! On! The wicked tremble when they hear of you. On! On! On! Be pitiless although Esau gives you fair words (Gen. xxxiii.). Heed not the groans of the godless; they will beg, weep, and entreat you for pity like children. Show them no mercy, as God commanded to Moses (Deut. vii.), and as He has revealed the same to us. Rouse up the towns and the villages; above all, rouse the miners.... On! On! On! while the fire is burning let not the blood cool on your swords! Smite pinke-pank on the anvil of Nimrod! Overturn their towers to the foundation: while one of them lives you will not be free from the fear of man. While they reign over you it is of no use to speak of the fear of God. On! while it is day! God is with you.”

The words were meant to rouse the miners of Mansfeld. They failed in their original intention, but they sent bands of armed insurgents through Thüringen and the Harz, and within fourteen days about forty convents and monasteries were destroyed, and the inmates (many of them poor women with no homes to return to) were sent adrift.

The revolt spread like a conflagration, one province catching fire from another, until in the early spring months of 1525 almost all Germany was in uproar. The only districts which escaped were Bavaria in the south, Hesse, and the north and north-east provinces. The insurgents were not peasants only. The poorer population of many of the towns fraternised with the insurgents, and compelled the civic authorities to admit them within their walls.