Rarely do the British get to learn about international history that does not directly involve the British kings and queens or their governments. Nevertheless in the recent Sussex University protest against privatisation of higher education a banner with the above slogan was unfurled.
The Peasants War in Germany from 1525 t0 1526 is an example of this unknown and hidden past of ordinary people. It was the largest popular uprising in Europe besides the 1789 French Revolution. A commentator from the time describes four orders of robbers in Germany — the knights, the lawyers, the priests, and the merchants.
In history there is no movement which starts up full grown from the brain of any one man, or even from the mind of any one generation of men. The ideals of the mass of men were still in the main the ideals that had been prevalent throughout the whole of the later Middle Ages. Men still looked at the world and at social progress through mediaeval spectacles. The chief difference was that now ideas which had previously been confined to special localities, or had only had a sporadic existence among the people at large, had become general throughout large portions of the population. The invention of printing was instrumental in effecting this change. The popularisation of doctrines previously confined to special circles was the distinguishing feature of the intellectual life of the first half of the sixteenth century. The most definite expression of new principles asserted itself in the religious sphere. The new religious tendencies in revolt against the mediaeval corporate Christianity of the Catholic Church were seized upon. Biblical phrases and the notion of Divine justice now took the place in the popular mind formerly occupied by Church and Emperor. All the then oppressed classes of society — the small peasant, half villein, half free-man; the landless journeyman and town-proletarian; the beggar by the wayside; the small master, crushed by usury or tyrannised over by his wealthier colleague in the guild, or by the town-burger; even the impoverished knight, or the soldier of fortune defrauded of his pay; in short, all with whom times were bad, found consolation for their wants and troubles, and at the same time an incentive to action, in the notion of a Divine Justice which should restore all things, and the advent of which was approaching. All had Biblical verses supporting their aspirations. Itinerant preachers openly aimed at nothing less than the establishment of a new Christian Commonwealth, or, as they termed it, “the Kingdom of God on Earth”, their harangueing sermons as much political as religious, and the tone of them all was the urgency of immediate action to bring about a change to the social or economic misery of the time.
Industrially, there was the decline of the old system of production in the countryside in which each district, was for the most part self-sufficing and self-supporting, where production was almost entirely for immediate use, and only the surplus was exchanged, arid where such exchange as existed took place exclusively under the form of barter. In place of this, we find the beginnings of a national-market and even the distinct traces of a world-market. In the towns the change was marked. The guild system, originally designed for associations of craftsmen, for which the chief object was the man and the work, and not the mere requirement of profit, was changing its character. The guilds were becoming close corporations of privileged capitalists, while a commercial capitalism was raising its head in all the larger centres. A consequence was the creation of a landless proletariat , a permanent class of only casually-employed persons, whom towns absorbed but gave only the bare citizenship right of residence within the walls.
The political and military functions of that for the mediaeval nobility, had become practically obsolete, mainly owing to the changed conditions of warfare. But yet the class itself was numerous, and still possessed of most of its old privileges and authority.
In the Peasants War there was no general preconcerted plan of campaign, and this was the main cause of the comparatively speedy and collapse of the movement. The outbreaks occurred for the most part simultaneously or within a few days of each other, but the immediate cause was often some local circumstance. There was undoubtedly a sub-conscious communistic element underlying the whole uprising, but for the most part it was little more than a sentiment which took no definite shape. The ideas of Thomas Münzer, whose name most associated with he social revolution of 1525, was confined to one town, and it is doubtful whether it was really accepted by all the insurrectionary elements, even in Mühlhausen, not to speak of the rest of Thuringia.
The first serious outbreak occurred in August, 1524, in the Black Forest. The Countess of Lupfen, was the immediate cause. She required her tenants on some church holiday to gather strawberries and to collect snail shells on which to wind her skeins after spinning. Hans Müller, a former soldier of fortune, at the head of 1,200 peasants marched to Waldshut and fraternised with the inhabitants of the little town. The first “Evangelical Brotherhood” sprang into existence with the demand that no lord should there be but the emperor, to whom proper tribute should be rendered, on the guarantee of their ancient rights, but all castles and monasteries should be destroyed together with their charters and their jurisdictions. By the middle of October 5,000 men were mustered behind Hans Muller. Further demands put forward by the peasants of the Black Forest districts. The object of the feudal lords was not peace on the basis of a fair understanding, but simply to hoodwink their tenants with the pretence of negotiations, until such time as they should have got together sufficient men to crush the rising and compel them to unconditional submission.
Armed bodies of peasants were now forming themselves into camps throughout Southern Germany amalgamated into the so-called “Christian Brotherhood”. The leaders of the movement assembled at the small town of Memmingen, where the “Peasants Parliament” was held at the beginning of March 1525. The Christian Brotherhood was to form the bond of organisation for the whole country. A president and four councillors were to be chosen from every camp or organised body of peasants. These should have plenary powers to enter into agreements with other similar camps or bodies, as well as in certain cases to negotiate with constituted authorities. No one was to enter into an agreement with his feudal lord without the consent of the whole countryside, and even where such consent was granted the tenants in question should nevertheless continue to belong to the Christian Brotherhood and to be subject to its decisions. Any who from any cause had to leave their native place should first swear before the headman of the district to do nothing to the hurt of the Christian Brotherhood, but to assist it by word and deed wherever necessary.
The original immediate demands put forward by the peasants of the Black Forest made no mention of religion challenging only the feudal duties and obligations of the peasantry to their local lords. But there arose the celebrated “Twelve Articles” based upon scripture. In biblical language it demanded that the common lands which the lords have taken to themselves shall again become common lands. All waters shall be free. All woods and forests shall be free. All game shall be free. None shall any longer be in a state of villeinage. No tithes shall be given — neither great nor small. The interest rate on loans would be limited no more than five per cent. There being no lord but the emperor, at the time very popular amongst constitutional reformers, here finds direct expression. Princes and lords are to be reformed in the sense that the poor man should be no longer oppressed by them. Priests are to be chosen by the community. They are to receive a seemly stipend, but are to be excluded from all political or juridical functions. Church property is to be confiscated to the benefit of all needy men and of the common good. . By April 1525 it is estimated that no fewer than 300,000 peasants, besides townsfolk, were armed and in open rebellion. Small towns were everywhere opening their gates without resistance to the peasants, between whom and the poorer inhabitants an understanding usually existed. By the middle of April the movement was everywhere reaching its height, and was not to be quelled by promises or even by written concessions any more than by threats. The insurrection was going from one success to another.
Thomas Munzer up to the spring of 1523 was almost entirely a radical Church reformer rather than a political or social revolutionist. But when Münzer took control of the town of Mühlhausen in Thuringia he proceeded to put his communistic principles into practice on a small scale. In the kingdom of God, private wealth should cease to be, and all things should be in common.The new state of things attracted thousands of the country-folk into the town. The agitation, under Münzer’s auspices, soon spread from Mühlhausen to the neighbouring territories, as far as Erfurt, Coburg, and even into the Hesse Duchy and the neighbourhood of Brunswick. To the Mansfeld territories he issued an address to the miners, exhorting them to hold together in the common cause, which was now everywhere in the ascendant.
It was all fated never to last. Eventual defeat arrived and with it, the usual ruthless and cold-blooded butchery which usually follows failed revolutions. Martin Luther contributed not a little to the justification of the bloodthirsty vengeance of the princes and nobles after the insurrection. But the memory of those who desired a new better world lived on even to this day on the campus of a English university.
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