On the same day, news arrived in the camp of the " United Contingent" that the brothers, the Counts of Hohenlohe, had refused to supply the force with the pieces of artillery for which it had applied to them and which it so urgently needed. This, coming immediately after the report of Jakob Wehe's execution at Leipheim, excited the indignation of the insurgents against the nobles to fever pitch. The counts had solemnly sworn to maintain and further the peasant cause, and this refusal of theirs to supply the ordnance required was seen in the light of an act of treachery. Jacklein Rohrbach

moved that a sufficient force be sent to storm and enter " that nest of nobles/' Weinsberg. The proposition was carried, as against that of going back to punish the Counts Hohenlohe, as some would have wished. Accordingly, a large body proceeded in the direction of Weinsberg by way of Neckarsal, which surrendered to them. After having pitched its camp, the " United Contingent" sent an ultimatum to the former town demanding unconditional surrender. Helfenstein returned a contemptuous answer. Shortly after, the wife of a citizen came out to the peasants, urging them to the attack, and stating that half the inhabitants were with them and would open the gates. Another citizen offered to show them the weak points in the town-walls and in the castle. \ On the 16th of April, the count and all the nobles at that time in Weinsberg were placed by the peasants under a ban. Helfenstein does not seem to have believed in a serious attack. He could not think that mere peasants would be so daring. He was awaiting the arrival of reinforcements from Stuttgart and from the Palatinate. Meanwhile, he employed his men in strengthening the weak parts of the forti-

fications. At break of day, the peasants moved forward from their encampment and established themselves on an eminence overlooking the town. For the last time, heralds were sent. They carried a hat upon a pole. " Open the gates," they cried, " open the town to the 1 United Christian Band M If not, remove wife and child, for all that remains in the town must be put to the sword ! " The only answer received was a shot from the walls, which wounded one of the heralds. He had just sufficient strength to crawl back into camp, and, fainting from loss of blood, to cry for vengeance. Within the walls of the township, the knights saddled their horses, and the free-lances made themselves ready. Only five men could be afforded for the defence of the castle, which contained Helfenstein's wife, child and valuables. The rest, not more than seventy or eighty all told, were necessary to defend the walls and gates. The count, with his knights and men-at-arms, appeared in the market-place and exhorted the assembled citizens to remain loyal to him, assuring them that help would come in the course of the day. Knights, citizens and men-at-arms thereupon repaired to the church

-• —it being Easter Sunday—to hear mass and take the sacrament.

At nine o'clock, before the service was ended, the cry arose that the peasants were advancing >n the town. The first to attack was the great Vanconian hero of the Peasants War, the :night Florian Geyer — of whom we shall hear more presently—with his " black troop," who had come down from the north and effected a juncture with Metzler and the " United Contingent". The point of attack was the castle. Before the defenders had time to set themselves in readiness, a shout was heard from above, and two of Florian Geyer's banners waved from the battlements of the castle, which had been taken by storm. At the same moment, two of the town gates fell before the attack of Jacklein Rohrbach and his comrades. Many of the inhabitants assisted the storming party from within. In a moment, seeing the situation hopeless, Helfenstein sent a monk on to the wall who cried : " Peace, peace ! " The only answer returned was : " Death and vengeance !" On hearing these cries, the count bethought himself of flight, but was surrounded by a body of citizens, cursing and threatening

him for attempting to leave them in the lurch.

At this moment Jacklein's storming party, mad with fury, dashed up the main street toward the market-place, shouting to the citizens to keep to their houses for that all nobles and men-at-arms were about to be put to death. The knights and men-at-arms had by this time fled into the church for protection, the count with eighteen nobles of his following escaping by a secret staircase into the church-tower. Jacklein's comrades now burst into the churchyard, striking down lords and fighting men right and left. In a few minutes as many as forty had fallen. Finally, they discovered the secret staircase.

" Here we have them altogether," cried Jacklein ; " strike them all dead ! " The knight Dietrich von Weiler stepped forward on the gallery of the church tower, as the peasants burst in upon the fugitives, offering 30,000 gold gulden as ransom.

" An' ye would offer us a tun-full of gold, yet should ye all die!" shouted the peasants with one consent. " Vengeance for the blood of our fallen brethren ! "

At the next instant a musket shot laid him on the ground. A peasant then beat his brains out with a club. Others were compelled to spring from the top of the church tower, whence they were received on the spears of the peasants below. At last the main body of the " United Contingent" appeared upon the scene, under the command of George Metzler himself, who forthwith gave strict orders that the killing should discontinue, and that only prisoners should be taken. Helfenstein, with his wife and son, were seized, the child receiving a wound from a peasant as he was crossing the churchyard with his captors.

Jacklein begged his leader to allow him and his troop the custody of his prisoners. This was accorded him. The order was now given that all who concealed a nobleman or a freelance should be put to death. The result was that all were surrendered, with the exception of three, one of whom escaped in woman's clothes, whilst another concealed himself in a stove, and the third, a handsome young fellow, was hidden in a hayloft by a girl. Curiously enough, Jacklein and some of his friends passed the night in this very hayloft, discussing the way

in which they would bring about the slaughter of the prisoners taken.

The rank and file now demanded the right to plunder the town, but this was not conceded by Metzler and Hipler, who insisted upon only permitting the plunder of churches and monasteries and castles. In most cases, even where plundering was the order of the day, it was easy to hoodwink these naive children of the soil. Having, for instance, found a trunk full of gold in the Biirgermeister's house, the innocent countrymen were induced not to lay hands on it by a story that it was a chest the contents of which were destined for almsgiving purposes.

But to booty, drink and women the former boon companion, roisterer and spendthrift, Jacklein Rohrbach, for the moment appeared indifferent. His whole soul seemed possessed by one idea—hatred and vengeance—vengeance on the privileged classes of the existing socletyr With this object always in view, he imprisoned his captives in a mill near the town wall, resolved to evade Metzler's orders and slay them, if possible, at break of day. Having ascertained that Metzler and the main body of the " United

Contingent" were still sleeping after their heavy drinking bout of the previous evening, Jacklein led his prisoners from the mill to a meadow outside the walls, hard by. They were eighteen in all, mostly knights, with a few free-lances and pages, foremost among them being of course the Count and Countess von Helfenstein and their two-year-old son. The men were all placed shoulder to shoulder in a semi-circle, and sentence of death was passed upon them by Jacklein. It was decided that they should be compelled to "run the gauntlet". This was regarded as a degrading punishment, which was only applied to common soldiers of fortune guilty of some grave criminal offence against military honour. Accordingly, on a signal given by Jacklein, a double row of spears was formed. Jacklein then cried out: u Count Helfenstein, it is your turn to open the dance! " " Mercy ! " exclaimed the countess, as with child in her arms she threw herself at Jacklein's feet. " Thou pray'st for mercy for thy husband," cried he; " it may not be! " Thereupon, he seized the countess by the arm, and throwing her back on the ground, knelt on her bosom, exclaiming: " Behold, brethren, Jacklein Rohrbach kneels

on the emperor's daughter!" ''Vengeance!" shouted the assembled peasants.

" Countess Helfenstein," cried one of their number, " thy horsemen, thy dogs and thy huntsmen have trodden down my fields. My boys opposed you. They were gagged and carried forth, as though they had been dogs themselves," and, uttering a cry of " Vengeance," he flung a knife at the countess. It struck the child in the arm, the blood spurting into its mother's face. "Mercy, mercy!" the woman continued to cry, as she rolled on the ground.

"Count Helfenstein," shouted another peasant, "thou hast thrust my brother into thy dungeon because, forsooth, he did not bare his head as thou passedst by ! Thou shalt perish ! " "Thou hast harnessed us like oxen to the yoke ! Thou hast caused the hands of my father to be smitten off, for that he killed a hare on his own field," shouted another. " Thou hast wrung the last heller out of us," exclaimed several.

These and other accusations of a like kind, even if they may not all have been deserved strictly by Helfenstein himself, certainly were

so by the feudal lords in general whose representative he on this occasion was. At last, the count himself was driven to beg for mercy at the hands of the peasant leader. He offered him his whole fortune and 60,000 gulden in addition, for which he was prepared to pledge the emperor's credit. He swore it on the head of his wife and son. It was now about half an hour before sunrise. " Not for 60,000 tuns of pearls," replied Jacklein. " Kneel down and confess, for thou shalt never again behold the sun!"

" Only wait," cried Melchior Nonnenmacher, a discharged piper of the count's, whose function it had been to play for him at his ancestral castle in Swabia during meals, but who now formed one of Jacklein's bodyguard. " Long enough have I made table music for thee. I know thy favourite tune and have kept it for this thy last dance!" The piper thereupon proceeded to tune his instrument, whilst his former master confessed to a priest. As soon as he had finished the piper seized the count's hat and donned it himself, and, dancing before him, whilst playing his favourite air, led the way to the double file of spears, through which he was condemned to

pass. The countess was held upright by two men that she might see her husband fall.

Standing by and taking an active part in the

scene was a woman known as the " black Hoff-

~- —'——

mann," a jreputed witch, and one of the most striking dramatic figures of the Peasants War. She was, in respect of deep-seated, savage hatred of prince, noble and prelate, the female counterpart of Jacklein, though her lust of vengeance was, if anything, of a deeper hue, and she seems to have lacked Jacklein's original light-hearted generosity of disposition. Her dark skin and jet-black hair probably gave her her name. She was the cast-off child of a wandering gi£sy jwoman. Her mother had deserted her in Bockingen, in the native village, that is, of Jacklein himself. Here she gained her living by tending cattle, a calling she subsequently abandoned for fortune-telling and kindred arts. She is described as the Egeria of Jacklein, whose purpose she was continuously sharpening. She was usually clad in a black cloak and hood, with a red girdle or sash, the ends of which fluttered in the wind. As soon as Jacklein had formed his band, she joined them as a kind of prophetess who presaged

9

them victory, blessed their weapons, and urged them on to the fight. During the storming of Weinsberg, she had stood upon a neighbouring hill and with outstretched arms had ceaselessly shouted : " Down with the dogs; strike them all dead ! Fear nothing ! I bless your weapons ! I, the black Hoffmann ! Only strike! God wills it! "

The hour of vengeance had now come. As the Count von Helfenstein fell beneath the peasants' spears, seizing a knife from her girdle this strange unsexed fury plunged it into his body, and proceeded to smear the shoes and lances of the peasants with the "fat". In half an hour the last of the knights and men-at-arms had fallen. As the sun rose, the countess and her young son alone remained.

After Jacklein and his partisans had distributed the clothes of the dead nobles amongst themselves, Jacklein, who had himself assumed the garments of the count, addressed the countess and said : " In a golden chariot earnest thou hither; in a dungcart shalt thou depart hence! Tell thine emperor this, and greet him from me !" To this she replied : " I have sinned much and deserved my lot. Christ, our Saviour,

also entered Jerusalem amid the shouts of the people, yet soon He went forth bearing His cross, mocked and derided by that very people. That is my consolation. I am a poor sinner and forgive you gladly." She was then stripped and dressed in the rags of a beggar woman, and in this condition, clutching her wounded child to her breast, was thrown on to a dungcart and conveyed to Heilbronn. We may here mention that her son was brought up to the Church, and she herself ended her days in a convent.

The sun having now risen, the peasants' camp within the walls of Weinsberg suddenly awoke to a knowledge of what had happened. A general outcry arose against the execution. A council of war was held, but of what actually passed therein little is known. It would seem, however, that at this time a division arose between the leaders. A " moderate " party, to which Metzler and Hipler belonged, definitely formed itself and appears to have got the upper hand. This party wished to give the knight Gotz von Berlichingen " with the iron hand" the command of all the insurgent bands. Florian Geyer, on the other hand, seems to

132 THE PEASANTS WAR.

have been strongly opposed to this step, though whether he was prepared to pursue the policy of Jacklein Rohrbach or approved of his recent action it is not easy to say. Certain is it that, from this moment, he and his " black troop '" severed themselves from Metzler, Hipler and the " United Contingent," and returned into the Franconian country. The action of Rohrbach may well have had more behind it than the mere thirst for vengeance, however great the part this motive may have played therein. —> Rohrbach was an extremist who wished to carry the revolution through to its uttermost end. Respecting this end, his ideas may have /been somewhat vague, but there is no doubt ' that he conceived it as involving the total destruction of the feudal orders, as against any mere partial concessions on their part. He may well, therefore, have wished to force the hand of the peasant council by making them feel that they had "burnt their boats". And, certainly, nothing was more calculated to-incense the nobles and cut off the possibility of any compromise being arrived at than his " blood-vengeance" on their order at Weins-berg. As a matter of fact, the immediate effect

on the authorities was that of a demoralising terror. The Counts Hohenlohe did not hesitate any longer, but immediately sent the two pieces of ordnance and the ammunition which the " United Contingent" had demanded.

Leaving a detachment in Weinsberg, the latter proceeded to Heilbronn, which city they regarded as already as good as won. They were accompanied by two prisoners, the Counts of Lowenstein, clad in peasant's costume, and bearing white staves in their hands, looking, a contemporary notice states, " as frightened as if they were dead ". The events at Weinsberg had naturally not been without their effect at Heilbronn. The power of the aristocratic burgher party was completely broken, and the peasants' army entered the gates, after a short parley, almost without resistance. The city council took the oath of allegiance to the " Evangelical Brotherhood," or the " Christian Peasants League" as it was variously termed, and expressed their willingness to negotiate measures with the insurgents and to act as intermediaries towards an understanding with the feudaL-ppwers.

!ans Flux,'\a wealthy baker, a brother-in-law

of George Metzler, was the chief go-between in the negotiations. He belonged distinctly to the moderate party, and he found it not difficult to persuade the " United Contingent" to adopt a conciliatory attitude, if only to show their innocence of the Weinsberg affair. It was thus that the understanding was arrived at, the city council promising to pay a subsidy and to furnish 500 men to the peasant army. The ''Twelve Articles" were, as a matter of course, to be sworn to. Furthermore, it was agreed that the town should be given into the hands of the peasants on the condition that no house should be plundered, save that of the Teutonic knights. The patricians of the town council, who had no intention of keeping their oath where it was possible to break it, no sooner concluded the bargain than they refused to furnish the force promised. Hans Flux, however, who had been the medium of the negotiations, armed the men at his own expense. The situation generally displeased a number of the peasant army. Cries of treachery against Flux began to be heard, especially when it leaked out that he was negotiating with Hipler and Metzler for a modification of the " Twelve Articles ". The

" black Hoffmann " made an attempt one night to assassinate Flux, as he rode from the peasant camp back into the city, but his horse saved him.

An uncertain tradition relates that the last deed of this extraordinary female was the murder of the crier who proclaimed the annulling of the " Twelve Articles " at Bockingen, a month later, after the reaction had gained the day there. Respecting her death nothing definite is known.

According to the terms of the agreement entered into, the Carmelite monastery was to pay a ransom of 3000 gulden and the Clara convent 5000 gulden. Other smaller religious houses were to furnish sums in proportion. The great establishment of the " Knights of the Teutonic Order " was reserved for plunder. The heads of the order and most of the inmates made good their escape. In Heilbronn, as in other towns, the wealthy Teutonic knights were a special object of the hatred of the " common man". The ferment among the poor citizens, town proletarians and impoverished guildsmen, was immense, as may be imagined. They had long held secret converse

with the peasants and now openly fraternised with them. 1

/ The sacking of the wealthy establishment of the knights took place under the aegis of the city council, who sent to see that the place was not set on fire and that the plundering did not extend beyond its precincts. A motley crew of peasants, consisting largely of tenants of the lands belonging to the order, entered the house, armed with weapons of destruction. All documents were torn up and thrown into the moat. Wine, silver and furniture of all sorts were dragged out into the courtyard and sold at an extemporised auction, over which Jacklein Rohrbach presided. Women carried away acolytes' garments and priests' vestments, and cut them up for clothes for themselves and their children. As soon as the business of plunder and the sale of the booty was duly

1 On the poverty of some of the proletarians of Heil-bronn, an inventory subsequently taken throws some light. The possessions of one were found to be limited to a bed, an old wooden bedstead and two pillows, on which six children were lying. Another with four children had only a table and a small bed. A third, also with four children, could only boast an old bedstead, a can, and a piece of armour.

ended, a feast was spread in the refectory of the house, at which those few of the knights of the order who had remained were compelled to stand by and serve with their hats in their hands.

One peasant, who was sitting at table, remarked to a knight standing behind him : "How now, noble sir? To-day, we are the masters of the Teutonic Order," at the same time giving him a back-handed blow on the paunch, which caused him to stagger back against the wall with a cry. In addition to the furniture, a considerable sum of money was found in the house, of which the tenants of the order claimed the larger share, as having contributed most to the funds. As a matter of fact, a rich booty, sufficient for all, was obtained.

One citizen alone who had been active in the undertaking carried off a chest containing 1400 gulden to his house.

Meanwhile, the negotiations of the moderate party, which centred in the handing over of the command of the "United Contingent" to Gotz von Rerlichmffen-^went on apace. Gotz, the hero of Goethe's well-known drama, who was noted for his artificial iron hand (he having lost

his own hand in battle), had been a zealous

^_ partisan of the knights' revolt under Sickingen.

His deeds as a warrior generally were famous,

and he was animated by a special hostility to

—-the clerical order. But, unlike Florian Geyer,

- he had no real sympathy with the peasants, for whom at heart he entertained much the same feelings as any other noble. Gotz had recently appealed to the Franconian knighthood to form

I a league against the priesthood, and he may I have seen in the peasant revolt a possible

* shoeing-horn to his plans. His immediate

Treasons, however, for connecting himself with the movement were~<mdoubtedly partly compulsion and partly fear. Nearly all his knightly colleagues had, from dread of the " common man," entered the service of the Swabian League. Gotz also offered his services to the league before suffering himself to be nominated JQL_ the commandership on the other side. According to his own account, which he gives in his autobiography, it was only through a misunderstanding that this came to pass at all. It is true that his statements require to be taken with some reserve, since the desire, for obvious reasons, to dissociate himself from any

sympathy with the peasants and their lost cause is only too apparent throughout the aforesaid work, which, so far as this episode is concerned, is couched in an apologetic tone. It is probable notwithstanding, from all we know of the man, that the account he gives is substantially true. On finding his appeal to the Franconian knighthood unsuccessful, he had, it appears, offered his services to the Count Palatine, his feudal superior. Immediately after the capture of Weinsberg, Gotz alleges that he took steps to save his property and family archives, by having them deposited in a town for safety. As, however, no town would accept the responsibility in the event of its being sacked, he abandoned his plan. At the same time he sent a messenger to the " United Contingent" to know what he was to expect. The chief men, as we have seen, were already discussing among themselves the question of offering him the leadership. Finding his messenger's return delayed, he communicated with the marshal of the Count Palatine, Wilhelm von Habern, asking him to protect his castle. Gotz's wife, however, and her sister seem to have mistrusted the strength of the authorities to cope with the

insurrection. Everywhere around them they saw castles and monasteries falling into the hands of the peasants, so when a letter arrived from the Count Palatine himself, gladly accepting Gotz's offer of service and promising the desired protection, the two women concealed the letter and carefully kept the fact of its arrival from the knight's knowledge. In fact, according to Gotz's own account, his wife categorically denied having received any reply from the count. " Thereupon," he writes, " I feared me much in that I knew not how I should hold myself, the more so in that the story went that the count would make a compact with the peasants."

The upshot was, according to Gotz, that,

thinking the proposals he had made to the

marshal were rejected by the count and fearing for the safety of himself and his castle, he had, " like so many other nobles, consented to join the " Evangelical Brotherhood," and was ..subsequently compelled to take over its command. This was effected almost entirely by the leaders Hipler, Metzler, Berlin (a member of the Heil-bronn Council), Flux, and one or two others, amid strong protests from the bulk of the rank

and file. With Gotz himself, it was a case of aut Ccesar, aut nullus. Non-acceptance, he felt, meant his ruin. The pact between Gotz and the peasant leaders was signed and sealed in an inn at the village of Gundelsheim, whither the contingent had retired after leaving Heil-bronn. Gotz narrates in his autobiography how he rode from one company of the peasant army to another, offering to negotiate peace with the authorities, until he came to that consisting of the tenants of the Counts Hohenlohe. "Here I beheld myself," he says, " suddenly encompassed with muskets, spears and halberds, pointed at me. They cried that I should be their captain, an whether I would or no. They compelled me to be their fool and leader, and to the end that I might save my body and my life I must forsooth do as they willed."

Had Gotz been sincere in taking up the cause \ of the rebellion, there is no doubt that, experienced warrior as he was, he would have been a valuable acquisition. Even as it was, some of his suggestions respecting the maintenance of discipline were in the right direction, but the fact remained that he was acting under compulsion in a cause with which he had no

THE PEASANTS WAR.

sympathy, and that his one concern was to get rid of his responsibility at the first possible moment, if not actually to betray his trust.

The appointment of Gotz von Berlichingen was a victory for the moderate party, which had suddenly acquired prominence owing to the action of Rohrbach and his followers at Weins-berg. In addition to this, George Metzler, the trusted leader of the " United Contingent," had been influenced in the direction of moderation by the machinations of his wife, as it would seem, and by the persuasions of her brother, the wealthy master-baker of Heilbronn. There is, however, no reason to think that Metzler was actually a traitor or consciously moved to the course he took by unworthy motives.

The result soon showed itself in a modification

pf the "Twelve Articles". On this Gotz insisted. With Hans Berlin and Wendel Hipler, and possibly others, the matter was discussed in a sort of committee. Certain of the "Articles" were declared suspended until the imperial reform which Weigand, Hipler and the Heilbronn permanent committee were sketching out for the consideration of a general congress should be decided upon. Most of the old

feudal rights and dues were to be provisionally^ 1 ~ upheld. There was to be no more plundering. • -Obedience was provisionally to be paid to constituted authorities, and no new insurrectionary bands were to be formed—in short, with y few exceptions, everything was to remain in '^ statu quo until the adoption or introduction of the aforesaid imperial reform.

These modifications were carried by a narrow majority in the council of the " United Contingent," but naturally not without fresh murmuring among the rank and file. Jacklein Rohrbach and his company had separated at once from the main body on the first symptoms of the new turn that things were taking. Other sections followed later, and the " United Contingent" of the Evangelical Peasant Brotherhood began to acquire an unenviable reputation throughout the movement for "trimming". Certain practical proposals respecting military reorganisation which Hipler at this time put forward, notably the very sensible one to enrol free-lances in the service of the contingent, were incontinently rejected by the peasants, partly from mistrust and partly from an unwillingness to divide the spoil with these experienced booty-hunters.

For it must not be supposed that the " United Contingent" observed the rules laid down by Gotz and his moderate colleagues anent plundering. They burnt and plundered as much as ever. In fact, in one case on Gotz remonstrating with his supposed followers (over whom his actual authority was the very smallest) for destroying a castle which he had given express orders should be spared, he narrowly escaped with his life. He was only saved, indeed, by the prompt appearance of his henchmen, Berlin and Hipler.

On the other hand, however anxious he might be to protect the property of his own immediate order, when the possessions of the Church, which he hated perhaps more than the peasants themselves, were in question, he was perfectly willing to let the contingent have its way to the full. Thus, on the 3Oth of April, the various bodies comprising the contingent, with Gotz and Metzler at their head, appeared before the Benedictine Abbey of Amorbach, in order, as they declared, " as Christian brethren to make a reformation". The inmates were summoned to surrender all their money and treasures on pain of death. But while the

negotiations were going on, a body of peasants burst into the house, and the same scene took place as had been enacted in scores of other ecclesiastical buildings for more than a month past. Vestments, chalices, books richly bound, with silver, gold and precious stones, furniture, the contents of the cellars and the granaries, the cattle, in short, all things that were of any value at all, were dragged out and divided amongst the assailants, or destroyed. Gotz himself took his share, including the costly vestments of the abbot, who had to go away in a smock which one of the peasants had given him out of compassion. The immediate plan of operations was to proceed to the assistance of the insurgents in / the Archbishopric of Mainz and the Bishopric %/ of Wurzburg, and then by way of Frankfurt to invade the Archbishoprics of Trier and of\ Cologne. It was a favourite scheme of GotK to divide up ecclesiastical property amongst the \ knightly order. Hipler and Metzler may well / have been persuaded that leniency towards the lower nobility and its possessions, combined with the prospect of obtaining a share of those of the Church, would induce the former, if not to actively support the peasants cause, at

10

least to waver in their fidelity to the imperial authorities.

In Mainz, the cardinal-archbishop was seriously considering the question of secularising his territories, and had been, in fact, in correspondence with Luther on the subject, a plan which he abandoned, owing, it is said, to the influence of his mistress. On the approach of the peasants, the envoys, not of the archbishop, who had fled, but of the Bishop of Strasburg, whom he had left in charge of his affairs, hastened to sign the modified " Twelve Articles," and to pay a ransom of 15,000 gulden. In the whole territory of the archbishopric, including the towns of Mainz and Aschaffenburg, the insurrection was now in full swing.

It had even reached the neighbouring free ^X imperial city of Frankfurt-on-the-Main, where the leaders of the city-proletariat had extorted from the council a charter of rights and privileges containing forty-five " articles". An insurrectionary committee, mainly composed of small craftsmen, under the leadership of a shoemaker, had been formed in the town and was in perpetual session, having relations

with the peasants of the surrounding territories and with the small towns of the neighbourhood.

The " United Contingent," under Gotz and Metzler, after reducing Aschaffenburg to submission, now decided to make straight for Wiirzburg, where the main body of the Fran-conian insurgents was encamped, their efforts being directed towards the capture of the important fortress on the Frauenberg which commanded the city.

Amongst the free imperial towns now threatened by the insurrection, none were more hardly pressed than Schwabisch Halljlying on the borderland between Swabia and Franconia. Like other imperial cities, Hall had an extensive territory outside its walls, cultivated by a numerous peasantry, to which it and its council stood in the feudal relation of overlord. The peasants of this countryside and of those adjoining it had risen in the usual way. They formed themselves into companies with leaders, and arranged a plan of campaign for capturing the city, but it seems that these particular peasants were exceptionally well-to-do and accustomed to good living, and their fighting capacity

seems to have been in inverse proportion to their boon companionship. They possessed, indeed, muskets and ordnance, but as a general rule they contented themselves with the ordinary dagger as their weapon. Instead of making straight for their objective, this contingent, which was over 3000 strong " turned in" at every village on the way, making free with the wine-cellars of the priests, the Blirgermeisters and the monks, whom they compelled to carouse with them. When, finally, they came within striking distance of the city, all they could do was to encamp and fall asleep. The town of Hall was, of course, in trepidation, having, like the rest, within its walls its own discontented population, which was well disposed to the cause of the peasants, and the authorities were not in a position to withstand the force of the movement from within and from without. Some of the country people had made so sure of coming into possession of the town that they had actually fixed upon the houses they were going to appropriate. The well-beliquored peasants were, however, awakened at break of day by a shot from the neighbouring height. This was followed by a second and a third. The peasant

camp was in confusion. Many in their still nebulous condition believed themselves struck and fell down accordingly. The rest scattered precipitately. The fact was that a small party — had started from the town to reconnoitre, bringing with them a few hand-guns, but, as it happened, without shot. Seeing the state of affairs in the camp below them, they had fired more in jest than for any other reason. The upshot was that the peasants of the imperial city of Hall were glad to be allowed to return to their homesteads on renewing their oath of fidelity to the city, and thus the rebellion of the Hall peasants ignominiously collapsed.

The movement in Wurter^berg r meanwhile, went on apace ; but it was moderated by the influence of Mja^ejTi^F^ejJiexba^hex^ the well-to-do innkeeper of Bottwar, who was anxious to remain on good terms with all sides, and, as we have seen, only placed himself at the head of the peasant force under compulsion and to a certain extent with the consent of some of his noble patrons. By their advice, he made it a special stipulation that he would have nothing to do with the " Weinsbergers," understanding

thereby the party of Jacklein Rohrbach, who had been the agents in the slaughter of the knights. In Stuttgart^the excitement was so great that the members of the regency, representing the Austrian Government, had fled, together with some of the patrician members of the city council. The chief pastor of the city, Qr. Johannes Mantel, was a zealous patron of the new doctrines, for which he had suffered imprisonment, being liberated by the peasants. After some negotiations, the peasants were admitted into the town, but they only remained within the walls for two days. The ransom money exacted for religious establishments and from the town itself was comparatively moderate. After two days, the contingent left the city for the valley of the Rems, in order to drive back an extraneous body of peasants, who were now accused of plundering ; for Matern Feuer-bacher and the other leaders of the Wiirtem-berg movement had pledged themselves not to allow foreign elements to intrude into the duchy. Here, as elsewhere, the Weinsberg affairs had strongly influenced the trend of sentiment, both within and without the movement, within by strengthening moderate counsels,

and without by first of all terrorising and afterwards exacerbating the princes and nobles against the peasants and their demands. It is only one instance of the policy pursued by all governing classes in exploiting the conscience of mankind. Of the causes of the insurrection itself, of the infamous oppression of the feudal orders, no notice, of course, is taken. Of the slaughter by knights, well-armed and equipped, and experienced in the fighting art, of unarmed or badly-armed peasants, sometimes even of countryfolk who were not in rebellion, of the atrocities of this nature committed by that very Helfenstein, whose death was only the just penalty of his crimes, similarly nothing is said. Hundreds of peasants foully massacred count for nothing ; the important event, the " great crime," calculated to produce in all men a u thrill of horror," is that eighteen knights, the authors and abettors of these things, are slain by an act of justice, or, if you will, vengeance.

It was the same in the contest between the workmen of Paris and the reactionaries of Versailles, in the spring of 1871. The governing classes and all those who took their cue

from them (either through interested motives, want of knowledge of the facts, or indifference), were, or pretended to be, dissolved in horror at the execution of seventy-two persons belonging to these classes. They had not one word to say in condemnation of the systematic butchery for two months previously in cold blood of insurgent prisoners of war, culminating perhaps in the vastest massacre on record, by the authorities representing those governing classes. Yet it was this that led up to the act of vengeance against which they pretend such an overflowing indignation.

Once more, the torturing and doing to death of nine working men, after a mock trial, by order of the late Spanish Minister, Canovas, is a trifle ; but no sooner is their death avenged on Canovas himself by a self-sacrificing fanatic than the governing classes and their organs talk with duly impressive fervour of the " sanctity of human life " and of the exceeding infamy of violating it. The power of position and wealth to create a public conscience agreeable to its interests, and to suit its purposes, is indeed convenient and wonderful.

The German peasants of 1525, as did the

Commune of Paris, and as is the wont of successful insurgents generally, signalised their success as a rule by their studied moderation and good-nature, as contrasted with the ferocious cruelty of their enemies, the constituted authorities.

CHAPTER V.

THE PEASANTS WAR IN FRANCONIA.

THE starting point and centre of the insurrectionary movement in the Franconian districts of middle Germany was the free imperial city t __ -of Rpthenburg-on-the-Tauber, a town situated on a plateau of table-land in the valley watered by the little river Tauber (cf. German Society, pp. 208, 209). As we have before seen, the rival of Martin Luther, Andreas Bodenstein, better known as Dr. Karlstadt, betook himself-here, after having been compelled to leave Wittenberg. Another preacher, Joahann Deuschlin, had already discoursed on the new doctrines in the town for a year or two previously. Deusch-lin's career, like his doctrines, bore a striking resemblance to that of Hubmeyer. He also had undertaken an anti- Jewish campaign and had been instrumental in the destruction of Jewish quarters and synagogues before his conversion

to the new revolutionary principles, political

(i54)

and religious. One of his most zealous disciples and co-operators was Hans Schmidt, a blind monk. The Teutonic Order in Rothenburg, as in other towns, possessed an establishment, but in this case the preacher Deuschlin succeeded in gaining over certain of their number to the Reformation, and indeed Melchior, one of the heads of the order, had even ventured to marry publicly with the usual festivities, and as fate had it, to marry the sister of Hans Schmidt, the blind monk. The two preachers had severely attacked the Commenthur, or supreme head of the order, and had so far carried their point as to get him deposed and another Commenthur, Christen, established in his place. These things, of course, did not go on without friction with the Episcopal authorities at Wiirzburg. but for the moment the y revolutionary party remained victorious.

By the end of March, the peasant population -in the territory belonging to Rothenburg had begun to assemble with a view to revolutionary action, whilst inside the town the Btirgermeister, Ehrenfried Kumpf, the Church reformer, had inaugurated an iconoclastic campaign, in the course of which priests and

choristers were driven from the cathedral, the mass-book was hurled from the altar, images and pictures were mutilated and destroyed, and the chapel of the immaculate virgin was levelled with the ground. Karlstadt followed in the same strain. A richly ornamented and endowed church, just outside the walls, was plundered by the members of the miller's guild, and costly pictures, images and plate were thrown into the Tauber. But while Kumpf remained a mere anti-popish fanatic, Karlstadt went forward on the lines of the political movement. The party of the people within the walls had now become strong and, as usual, sympathised with the peasants without. The latter, on the 26th of March, presented their grievances to the city council in the form of " articles," which in this, as in so many other cases, had been drawn up by ex-priests. The part that the recalcitrant clergy played in the political and social, no less than the religious movement of the time, we have more than once had occasion to remark. These "articles" were of the usual character, alleging the weight of feudal dues—many of them of recent imposition. jThe appeal to the religious senti-

ment in them is also strong. The negotiations, however, which ensued did not result in any definite agreement.

Karlstadt, who had fled from Orlamunde to Rothenburg, was received on his arrival with acclamation by the town populace. The Markgraf Casimir set a price upon his head, but Karlstadt, notwithstanding that, once within the walls of Rothenburg, felt himself comparatively secure and did not hesitate to preach openly even in the streets. The inner council^ manned as usual by the patrician class, eventually forbade him the right of preaching and at the same time withdrew from him permission to reside in the town. The council in this matter, there is no doubt, acted partly in obedience to strong pressure from outside. In consequence, the learned agitator found it necessary to disappear for a time. It was given out by his friends that he had repaired to Strassburg. The truth was that he was in hiding within the city in the houses of the preacher Deuschlin, the new Commenthur of the Teutonic Order, Christen, the ex-Biirger-meister and iconoclast Kumpf, and especially in that of the master-tailor Phillip. During

his concealment and supposed absence, tracts and brochures from the pen of Karlstadt found a mysterious circulation in the town, his friends having seen to the printing of them, whilst there were plenty of willing hands to attend to their sale or distribution.

One of the most active leaders in the revolt was Stephan Menzingen, a Swabian knight of an old family and a partisan of Duke Ulrich, who had married the daughter of one of the city councillors and had been admitted to the citizenship. From this, in consequence of a quarrel with the council on a question of taxation, he had subsequently withdrawn, and had taken up his abode in northern Switzerland, whence he suddenly returned .to Rothenburg early in the year 1525, in time to take part in the new religious and political movement. He was instrumental in procuring the formation of a citizen's committee, to which all prominent members of the people's party belonged and which served as a sort of counterpoise to the aristocratic council. It was this committee that brought the peasants' demands before the council. By the end of March, Menzingen had carried the matter so far that the great

council of the town dissolved itself, many of i members joining the new citizens' committee, which now formally constituted itself the governing power of the town, while the small or executive council was allowed to continue on its good behaviour, after having sworn to carry out the will of the citizens or to abdicate. The victory was now practically won for the new gospel of "evangelical brotherly love," according to which all things should be in common, and the authority of status should cease. As reported by a contemporary writer, " the common people did will that one should have as much as another and no more, that it should be the duty of one to lend to another, but that none should require of another that he should give back and repay" (Thomas Zweifel ap. Baumann, Quellen aus Rothen-burg). The aJHpnrp with the_peasants, the tenants of the city lands without the gates, was now concluded.

Karlstadt now came out of his hiding-place, Kumpf openly admitting that he had given him shelter. On being remonstrated with by his old colleagues of the council, Kumpf replied that he had acted in the service of God and

THE PEASANTS WAR.

for the good of the town, always believing Karlstadt to be the man to negotiate between the town and the peasants. No little; wonder, as may be imagined, was excited by the sudden reappearance of a man believed to be at the time in another part of Germany. The Roth-- enburg peasants now began to adopt the same tactics as those of other parts. Whoever refused to join their " brotherhood" had his house sacked, if not also burnt down. A ' 4 high time" moreover was had with clerical wine-cellars, whilst in the town itself the clergy were compelled to supply gratuitously the poorer citizens, who quartered themselves upon them. The peasant-army already numbered from four to five thousand men, and the leaders, amongst whom were some impoverished knights, better understood the art of war and military organisation than those of some of the other contingents.

A part of their force remained encamped near the town, while the rest swept along the valley of the Tauber. Chief among the military heads of the Franconian peasant forces was the knight FlorianGeyer, to whom we had occasion to refer in the last chapter.

Little is known of his antecedents, save that he was the lord of the old castle of Giebelstadt, near Wiirzburg. He suddenly appeared on the scene in the Tauber valley at the end of March, 1525, with a small company of free-lances that he had engaged, and shortly after he took over the command of the Rothenburg Landwehr, a body whose members were enrolled for the defence of the Rothenburg territory, on the initiation of the revolution. Out of these two elements he formed his famous "Black Troop," a company distinguished among the peasant forces for its bravery, cohesion and organisation. Florian Geyer, though himself a noblej threw himself heart and soul into the peasantl cause, championing the most radical demands of the popular party, notably advising the \ / f^ destruction of all castles, and the reduction of / their lords to the status of simple citizens or tillers of the soil. The fame of his " Black Troop" soon spread far and wide, and its cooperation was eagerly sought by other bands.

The Franconian insurrection had now spread -to the immediate territory of the Bishop of Wiirzburg. Early in April, the whole diocese~~~was in motion, in the towns no less

THE PEASANTS WAR.

than on the country-side. On the 5th of the month, Fritz Lobel. anotherJFranconian_ knight. led a body of peasants to the sack of the wealthy Carthusian monastery of Zackelhausen. The chapter at Wlirzburg became alarmed, and sent three canons to secure the allegiance, amid the general collapse of authority, of the town of Ochsenfurt, but they were received with closed gates and had to remain outside all night. Eventually, the town consented to a pact with the Episcopal authorities on the basis of certain substantial concessions, which the latter were compelled with a heavy heart to grant by charter.

In the Wtirzburg territories the insurrection was carried on largely through an association founded here again by two preachers, and bearing the name of the " infinites" or "eternals" (" Die Unendlichen "). One township after anotHer was won! Everywhere the alarm-bell clanged forth, calling to arms all within the walls. In the north of the diocese, the drum of insurrection first made itself heard on the 9th of April. The matter followed its usual course. In a few days the original small band had increased to formidable dimensions and had

been joined by other bands. Monasteries of various orders were entered and plundered. Within the walls of the townships, as usual, the Teutonic Order fared worst of all.

The Bishop of Wiirzburg and Duke of Franconia, Konrad von Thungen, became now seriously alarmed, especially on hearing that the peasants of the Rothenburg Landwehr, led by Florian Geyer, meditated making a descent upon Wiirzburg. Jn vain he sought help from the surrounding districts. In vain he applied to the Bishop of Bamberg, whose hands were full with his own rebellious subjects; in vain to the Swabian League, which offered to pay for three hundred horsemen for a month, if they could be obtained, but sent neither man nor horse. The duke-bishop assembled his vassals, his "noble counsellors," to consult what measures should be adopted. Opinions were divided. Some thought that active steps should be taken against the recalcitrant country people, and that the wives and children of those who had banded themselves together should be driven from their homesteads and villages, and the latter set on fire. Others feared to take immediate repressive measures,

THE PEASANTS WAR.

more especially as the neighbouring princes had hitherto held their hands, arguing the meagreness of the bishop's resources and contending for a policy of delay until an arrangement could be come to with the adjacent potentates. This view was finally adopted. The peasants, as a result, pursued their course unopposed. " Where they came, or where they lay," writes Lorenz Fries, the Prince-Bishop's private secretary, " they fell upon the monasteries, the priests' houses, the chests and the cellars of the authority, consuming in gluttony and in drunkenness that which they found. And it did exceedingly please this new brotherhood that they might consume by devouring and drinking their fill, and had not to pay withal. More drunken, more full-bellied, more helpless folk, one had hardly seen together than during the time of this rebellion. So that I know not whether the peasants 7 device and conduct, had they but abstained from fire and bloodshed, should rather be called a carnival's jest or a war . . . and whether a peasants-war, and not rather a wine-war."

So much from a hostile source. It must, however, be admitted by the best friends of the

-^1

peasants and their cause that gluttony and

wine-bibbing contributed as potently as any other influence to the politically unproductive character of the peasant successes and to that lack of cohesion and discipline which led the way to the final catastrophe and soaked the German soil with the blood of its tillers.

All authority throughout the bishopric of Wiirzburg was now paralysed. Even the Count__Henneberg-, whose territory lay on its northern frontier, the most powerful feudatory of the bishop, showed no signs of furnishing his overlord with men or money, but, on the contrary, as it soon appeared, was entering into negotiations with a view to adoption into the "Christian Brotherhood"-—an event which^ shortly afteT* happened. The count was required, at the same time, to furnish his tenants with a charter of emancipation and to swear to act in accordance with the Word of God and with the precepts of the Gospel.

Wiirzburg itself, the seat of government and residence of the bishop and his chapter, soon showed signs of disaffection. The town been captured a century before by the then duke-bishop by force of arms, and deprived of

its ancient municipal rights. This had never been forgotten. So, one fine day, a body of the poorer citizens were to be seen gathered together in earnest discussion near the gate of St. Stephen. A prebendary of the cathedral, who was passing by at the time, and who fancied he heard himself unfavourably criticised by some of the crowd, began to call them names, and to threaten to have their heads struck off on the market-place. The news of the abuse and the threat flew through the poorer townsfolk like lightning. An uproar was the result, the populace marching with arms and in extemporised battle array to the sound of pipe and drum before the residences of the cathedral authorities. The disturbance was only partially and for the moment quelled by the gift of a tun of wine to the people by >ne of, the canons. In a day or two, affairs had come to such a pass that the bishop betook himself to the overhanging fortress on the Frauenberghill, the Marienburg, as it was called, after having provided the stronghold with victuals to sustain a siege, and having given orders that all available men-at-arms and loyal subjects capable of such service, from the

town and country round, should be brought in to garrison the place.

Those among the patrician councillors of the city, who had fled to the stronghold of authority, escaped with their bishop, and, after having conferred with the latter, sent Sebastian von Rotenhan and two others of their number down into the town to discuss with the citizens, and to seek by threats or cajolery to bring them to obedience. They were to secure the punishment of the ringleaders and if possible the expulsion of unruly and dangerous elements from within the walls, and further to see that the town was placed in a proper state of defence against peasant bands from outside.

Rotenhan and his companions rode pompously through the streets, and, calling together the heads of the different wards, handed over to them his instructions. Thinking to frighten the Wiirzburgers, he at the same time announced that a body of horsemen was on its way and had orders to quarter itself in the town. This threat, which Rotenhan had no instructions to make, had as its only result to precipitate matters. The leaders of the movement were at once aroused, urging the citizens to close the gates

against any force the bishop might send. The citizens, they said, or at least the " common man" of the town—in the language familiar now everywhere to the dwellers within walls, when the man from the open country knocked at their gates—had no cause of quarrel with the peasant, who was his brother. So, far from fighting against him or refusing him admittance, they should both join hands in a common brotherhood against the oppressor, be he prince or prelate, noble or city-magnate. The peasants were only fighting for the Gospel, said they. A dissolute priesthood had already seduced enough burghers' wives and daughters. Would they march out to fight the peasants ^j leaving their women a prey to such ? Already it was alleged that ordnance was being placed ^ V t * n P os ^i on by the bishop's orders to attack the ' ^ town, should it refuse him obedience.

Excitement manifested itself on all hands. In response to the exhortations of the agitators, towers and gates were soon garrisoned by sturdy burghers. The warden of the fishers' guild saw that the approaches to the river—the Main—were duly secured by heavy chains ; he also took in charge defensive operations as

regards the paths leading up the Frauenberg. Up these paths Rotenhan and his two colleagues now wended their sorrowful way back to the castle with the tidings that their mission had proved a failure. Further intercourse between the castle and town was now rendered well-nigh impossible by the defensive obstructions alone, apart from the fact that the vintners' guild had organised itself into a company of sharp-shooters, to "pot," from behind the vines which covered the slopes of the Frauenberg, any knight, patrician or prelate, who might be seeking his way to the town from the heights above. The cooks' and the carpenters' guilds alike refused to obey the mandate calling upon them to furnish certain of their number for service in the Marienburg. It fared now badly with the ecclesiastical foundations and residences within the town. Wine-cellars and larders, as may be imagined, were not spared more in Wlirzburg than elsewhere.

But negotiations were not yet entirely broken off between the bishop and the city. On the 13th of April, a delegation went up to the castletX to negotiate, with the result that the bishop was compelled to call a Landtag for the 3Oth of

the month, consisting of representatives of the knighthood and the towns, at which all grievances were to be discussed and considered.

At the same time that these things were passing in Wiirzburg, the five different bodies of insurgents, which had formed in the northern part of the Duchy of Franconia, united themselves into a single contingent with a commander and military organisation. On the 15th of April, amidst the flames of castles and monasteries fallen an easy prey to the peasant bands, a great council of war was held at which it was decided to at once advance on Wiirzburg. The negotiations with Count Henneberg, however, which were not concluded till some days later, delayed matters for a time.

On the 2nd of May the bishop with certain of his councillors descended, under a promise of safe conduct, into the town to open the Landtag agreed on. This was against the advice of many of his following, who thought the proceeding dangerous and would have liked the Landtag to have been called on the Frauenberg, or, indeed, anywhere else rather than in the now openly-rebellious town of Wiirzburg. However, as a large number of

representatives had already assembled, no other course seemed possible. Before the proceedings had fairly begun, loud complaints reached the bishop's ears of the oppression of the " common man " by his prelates, contrary to the Word of God, and of how the Word of God, which had only a few years ago been again brought to light, was being smothered and its preachers persecuted. Many of the town representatives demanded that the peasants should be called upon to send their own delegates to confer in the deliberations. With this demand the bishop was, much against his will, compelled to comply. The response, however, was not satisfactory. The peasantry of the Tauber valley answered the bishop's messengers that at the moment it was not the time for deliberating at diets, but that they would reserve anything they had to say till they arrived in force at Wiirzburg, which would be before long. The same with other districts. All saw now that things had gone too far to be settled in the way proposed. The result was the collapse of the Landtag, which was hastily closed, every man riding away to his own town or castle.

There was now a formal understanding between the town of Wiirzburg and the insurgents in the open country. The bishop on his side took his measures, collecting the garrisons, such as they were, from neighbouring castles to reinforce the Frauenberg. The united insurgent contingent from the north was now encamped before the gates, where it was joined in a day or two by Florian Geyer and his black troop from the Tauber valley, and almost immediately after, as before related, by the famous " United Contingent " of George Metzler and Wendel Hipler. In this extremity, the bishop was advised as a last resort, to apply personally to the Elector Palatine for assistance. On the 5th of May, accordingly, with a heavy heart, he rode down, accompanied by a few followers, from the Frauenberg, his last remaining stronghold, into the plain, and struck out westward towards Heidelberg, where he arrived two days later.

The castle of the Marienburg on the Frauenberg was now garrisoned by 244 men-at-arms, besides ecclesiastics, nobles and servants. The Markgraf Friedrich of Brandenburg was left as commander, while Rotenhan undertook

the victualling. Florian Geyer and his black troop were soon followed by the whole of the Tauber-valley contingent, which recruited itself, during a victorious march, with hundreds of new followers. The course of the " Franconian Army," as the Tauber-valley contingent now called itself, was characterised, needless to say, by the usual plunder and destruction, an especially rich booty being furnished by the wealthy Cistercian foundation at Ebrich. Flocks and herds were slaughtered or driven away, larders and cellars emptied of their contents, precious stones and gold torn out of the settings ; vestments, chalices and ornaments appropriated, and the building finally giverj over to the flames.

With the advent of the Tauber-valley peasantry on Wiirzburg there was united, in and around the town, the greatest force of the peasant army at that moment to be found at | any one point throughout Germany. Most of the ablest leaders from a military point of view were also present—Metzler, Hipler, not to mention Gb'tz von Berlichingen, and, above all, Florian Geyer. But, as the event turned out, this almost solitary instance of co-operation on

V

a great scale between different sections of the insurgents proved not only a failure in itself, but a source of weakness to the whole movement. The peasants of middle Germany placed too heavy stakes on this one event, the capture of the Frauenberg. Now the Frauen-berg itself was a strong natural strategic position, and the Marienburg, the object of attack, was an exceptionally well-built and well-appointed mediaeval fortress. It had been thoroughly victualled, so that it would take some time to reduce by famine, and it was well-garrisoned with experienced fighting-men, with no lack of weapons, ordnance and ammunition. The result was as might have been expected; valuable as the acquisition of the Frauenberg would have been to the peasant cause, yet the chance of capturing it was not worth the price paid. For what was the price ? Nothing less than the locking up at one point of a force constituting the main strength of the insurrection—a force comprising the only reliable military nucleus in the whole movement. Had a plan of campaign been worked out, according to which by means of rapid marches this force or portions of it should have under-

taken the task of supporting the movement generally at places where it needed support, in conjunction with the local insurgent bands, the contest would undoubtedly have been prolonged, and though complete success may not have been possible.. owing to the political and economical trend of the time, the completeness of the catastrophe, which nearly everywhere overtook the movement, would almost certainly have been averted.

The peasants, in accordance with the pact made with the town, had free ingress and egress. The sympathetic citizens, of course, fraternised with them, though possibly they may have winced somewhat at the free and easy behaviour of their guests at times and at the outspokenness of the communistic sentiments expressed.

According to a contemporary, the peasants <4 were always full (drunken) ; showed much ill-behaviour in word and deed, and neither in the afternoon nor the morning would they be ruled by any". The language was openly heard that, since they were brethren, it was only fair that all things should be equal, and that the rich should divide with the poor,

especially they who had acquired their wealth through trade or otherwise gained it from the poor man. The improved discipline sought to be introduced by the leaders of the " United Contingent" proved as impossible to carry out in the camp and in the city as it had been on the march. The orders issued in this sense remained for the most part unobeyed. Even the gallows erected on the market-place proved no adequate deterrent. In fact, in most of the companies, a tendency to insubordination was, as might be expected, increased by the life of idleness and dissipation, which the camp and Wiirzburg afforded them. In vain the leaders endeavoured to drive home to their following the fable of the " head and the members". In vain they descanted on the impossibility of a " civil brotherly constitution" without the maintenance of an organised administration. The reply was that they were brothers, and would be equal.

Even after the departure of the bishop, negotiations with the Marienburg were not finally broken off. On the 9th of May, the dean of the cathedral with some canons and knights descended into the town, and met the leaders,

Gotz, Metzler, Geyer, and others, in the inn, whose sign was the " Green Tree". They pleaded their willingness and that of the bishop to make concessions as regarded the " Twelve Articles ". Gotz and Metzler seem to have been anxious to accept the terms offered, which included a truce until some of their number could go to and from Heidelberg to obtain the bishop's consent; but Florian Geyer was strongly opposed to any compromise, believing in the possibility of compelling the castle to an unconditional surrender within a few days. When the matter was brought before a general council of the peasants, Florian, with his accustomed fire, observed : "The time is come ; the axe is laid to the root of the tree ; the dance has now begun, and before the door of every prince shall it be piped. Will we hold back the axe? Will we, of ourselves, turn aside ?" Others followed in the same strain, with the result that the terms proposed by the dean and his colleagues were rejected/ and the siege continued.

A few days later, another attempt at negotia tion was made. Gotz and Metzler were now more emphatic than ever in their advice to

12

come to terms. Gotz reasonably urged the imprudence of lying idle with their immense force for weeks, awaiting the surrender of the impregnable Frauenberg, and pointed out very justly that there was more important work to do, even going so far as to propose as an alternative an attempt to capture the imperial city of Niirnberg. In this advice, Gotz undoubtedly bore himself and his order more in mind than the peasants. In his capacity of /Toiight, he despised and hated the burgher as

Uiuch as he did the priest. But it was all of o avail. Either from a false view of the situation or, as is more probable, from an unwillingness to exchange the ease and good living afforded them by the bishop's capital for the dangers and hardships of a serious campaign, none of the contingents would consent to abandon the Frauenberg.

On May 14-15, the castle was stormed. With much shouting and beating of drums, several companies, foremost among them the " Black Troop," swarmed up the Frauenberg. The light stockade was swept away, the moat was crossed, the assailants reached to the very walls. But it was only to be received by a

rain of bullets, missiles of burning pitch, huge stones from windows and battlements, followed by the thunder of all the ordnance with which the castle was provided. Twice the attacking party was driven back with enormous loss. Hundreds of peasants lay dead and dying in the moats. Seen from the town, the whole castle appeared brilliantly illuminated. It was clear that so long as provisions and powder and shot remained in the castle, the Frauenberg was not to be captured. The idea of taking the fortress by storm before a breach had been made in the walls was in itself chimerical. As ill-luck would have it, moreover, the peasantry's greatest military genius, Florian Geyer, was absent when the storming was decided upon, having gone to Rothenburg to demand ordnance of a larger calibre than any in the peasant camp, and to negotiate for the formal adoption of that town into the " Evangelical Brotherhood ". Even Wendel Hipler was not there, having left for Heilbronn to attend the permanent official committee there sitting, to elaborate, in conjunction with Friedrich Weigand and the rest, the scheme of imperial reform already spoken of. Discouraged at the result

of their unsuccessful attempts at taking the fortress by storm, the peasants continued the siege in the hope of starving it into surrender. But this took longer than they imagined.

Meanwhile, the popular cause scored another success by the formal entry of the city of Rothenburg into the " Evangelical Brotherhood ". On the appeal of the peasant-contingents being handed in to the council by Florian Geyer and his colleagues, the whole body of the poorer citizens threatened to march .out with all the ordnance and join the peasants against the town if a favourable response were not given. Even the free-lances in the service of the city threatened to desert to the enemy as soon as it should appear before the gates. The fortunes of Rothenburg were now completely in the hands of the populace. A resolution had been carried for the communisa-tion of ecclesiastical goods. The stores of corn and wine were also to be divided in equal shares between the citizens. Jewels and chalices were to be sold, and with the proceeds of the sale the citizens were to be armed and maintained. A fine frolic went on within the walls. According to contemporary accounts,

" old and young did drink and became drunken. Many lay in the streets who could go no further, especially young children who had made themselves overful with wine."

Rothenburg formally entered the " Evangelical Brotherhood" on the i4th of May, under the following pledges : Firstly, shall the general assembly of burghers set up the Evangelical doctrine, the Holy Word of God, and shall see that the same be preached in pure simplicity without superaddition of human teaching. And what the Holy Gospel doth set up, shall be set up ; what it layeth low, shall be laid low, and shall so remain. And, in the meanwhile, no interest due or aught such thing shall be given to any lord until by those most learned in the Holy, Divine, and true Scripture shall a Reformation have been appointed. Injurious castles, water-houses and fortresses, whence hitherto a dreadful oppression have been practised upon the " common man," shall be broken up or consumed by fire. Yet what is therein of goods that can be borne shall go to them who would be brethren, and who have committed naught against the general assembly. Such ordnance as may be found in these houses shall

T82 THE PEASANTS WAR.

belong to the general assembly. Clergy and lay-men, nobles and commons, shall henceforth hold to the right of the plain citizen and the peasant, and shall be no more than the "common man", The nobles shall surrender to the assembly all goods of clergy or others, especially of them of their own class, who have done aught against the brotherhood, on pain of loss of life and goods. And, in fine, every man, be he church-man or lay-man, shall henceforth hold in all obedience that which is ordained in the reformation and order concluded by them who are learned in the Holy Scripture. - The city thus entered the " Evangelical Brotherhood " for the formal term of lox^ea*^ The best and heaviest pieces of ordnance in its possession were, with the requisite powder and balls, handed over to the peasants. The late Burgermeister, Ehrenfried Kumpf, the zealous church-reformer and iconoclast, clad in full armour, rode back with the peasant delegates to the camp of Wiirzburg. Six hundred Rothenburg peasants, fully armed and equipped, followed with the two guns and the powder-waggon. By the aid of the new artillery, the assailants succeeded in making some impression

on the walls of the Marienburg, but, even now, no serious damage appears to have been done. News now came of the successful advance of Truchsess and the army of the Swabian League in the south. The leaders all saw the urgent necessity of making an end of this Wiirzburg business at the earliest possible date. On the 2Oth of May, they, through a public crier, offered the entire booty to be found in the castle, including gold, silver, jewels and furniture, together with the assurance of a high rate of continuous pay to any company that should first carry the castle by storm. They, indeed, endeavoured to form a special company for the purpose, keeping a list of volunteers before them in the " Green Tree," where they sat as an executive council; but it all came to nothing.

In the neighbouring Bishopric--0f-^amberg, the insurrection had also broken out about the same time as in the Wurzburg territories. The chief preacher of the new doctrines here was one Joh^HI!— .^rhwanhaiiser. Like his colleagues elsewhere, he attacked in the first i instance the clergy and then proceeded to descant on general social inequalities. The

clergy were hypocrites and godless men, " they do thrust Christ out of the vineyard," said Schwanhauser, " and do set up themselves in His stead. They call themselves the vicegerents of Christ, and the true ambassadors are persecuted by them. They let the poor sit without houses, perish with cold and starve, yet to dead saints do they build great stone houses and bear to them gold, silver and precious stones. Were we true Christians," he added, " we should sell monstrances, chalices, church and mass vestments, and live as the twelve apostles, giving all our surplusage to the poor."

The sermons of Schwanhauser worked in Bamberg, as similar discourses had worked elsewhere, like a spark, firing the inflammable material furnished in such quantity both within and without walls at this epoch. On the nth of April, the tocsin rang out from the belfry of the town, and Bamberg proclaimed itself in insurrection. The town populace formed itself into companies, chose leaders, closed the gates, and compelled members of the town patriciate and the clergy to assist. They sent messengers throughout all the country round, urging the

villages to join them. On the bishop's refusal to surrender the church property, his castle above the town, which was practically undefended, was taken by assault, pillaged and burnt. For three days the usual scenes of plunder took place in and around Bamberg.

On the 15th of April, however, a compromise was arrived at with the bishop, by which he was recognised as the sole responsible authority in the land, the chapter losing all its separate rights. The bishop on his side promised to call a Landtag for the discussion and removal of all grievances. This treaty, although publicly proclaimed in the streets, does not seem to have been of much effect. The destruction of castles and monasteries throughout the episcopal territories went on apace. As many as seventy castles, besides religious houses, fell a prey to rapine and flames. Crowds from the country-side flocked into the capital. An old chronicle informs us that " no one was certain of his life and goods, after the multitude had bedrunk themselves in the wine-cellars of the churchmen, as continually came to pass. So evil and so unruly did it become in Bamberg, that not alone the old

pious burghers were grieved thereat, but also the others, even they who had, at first, had right good pleasure in the tumult."

By the rniddle^o^-Aprtrme 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.

CHAPTER VI.

THE MOVEMENT IN THE EAST AND WEST.

WE have now to follow the rise and progress of the movement in the eastern Austrian territories of Tyrol and Salzburg. We shall then briefly trace its fortunes in the western dependencies of Austria, in the Breisgau and Upper Elsass, and along the Rhine.

In the first rank of the prince-ecclesiastics of the extensive hereditary domains of the house of Austria stood the Archbishop of^SalzburgT 0\ Amongst the numerous well-hated prince-prelates of the age, Archbishop Matthaus Lang by no means took a back place. The town of Salzburg had long been at cross purposes with the arch-episcopal castle overhanging it. History tells how the predecessor of Lang, Leonhard by name, had invited the burger-meister and some distinguished members of the city-council to a banquet. As soon as they sat down to table, he caused the castle ban-

queting-hall to fill with armed men, to whom

(187)

he gave orders for his guests to be seized, fettered and carried off to a distant portion of his territories to be executed. The reason of this act of treachery was a report that had

J reached his ears of the intention of the council to apply to the emperor for a charter constituting Salzburg a free city. This act, however, seems to have excited less indignation amongst the body of the burghers, owing to the class hatred entertained for the wealthy town patricians whom it immediately concerned. r As for the peasants in the Salzburg lands, / they, like other peasantries on ecclesiastical / domains, had a standing quarrel with their lord, and had more than once risen against what they deemed unjust exactions during the latter half of the preceding century. It was natural, therefore, that the great popular wave of 1525 should not have passed over the town and country of Salzburg without leaving its impression.

The then Archbishop Matthaus Lang came to his see in 1519. He had sprung from a patrician family of the town of Augsburg, and by cunning and diplomacy had attained to one of the wealthiest and most powerful sees in the

:

empire. His character may be judged from the statement of one of his own privy councillors that u it were well known with what roguery and knavery he had come into the benefice, how his whole life long he had naught that was good in his thought, was full of malice, a knave, and his disposition never good towards his countryfolk". That the foregoing estimate is in nowise too severe his public acts amply testify.

On the opening of the Lutheran Reformation,\ it is not surprising that the Salzburgers showed^ themselves eminently favourable to the new doctrines. Here, as elsewhere, were to be found enthusiastic reformers amongst the ' clergy. With these must be included the confessor of the archbishop himself. No sooner did the latter become aware of the fact than he threw the priest, whose name was Kasten-bauer, into prison, and gave orders for all those acknowledging the Lutheran heresy, were they clerical or lay, to be pursued with heavy pains and penalties. But the cunning prelate had a plan in view for making the spread of the Lutheran movement a shoeing-horn to an ambitious scheme of his own for doing away

j

190 THE PEASANTS WAR.

with all ancient rights and privileges in the town and the country alike, and for reducing the whole territory beneath his absolute sway. Under pretence of repressing heresy, and protecting the see against disaffection, it was his aim, namely, to collect a body of mercenaries from outside, to fall upon his own subjects, and by a display of severity to reduce them to an abject submission. " The burghers," he is reported to have said, "must be the first that I shall undo ; then those of the country must follow."

In Tyrol, accordingly, whither he journeyed to do homage to his feudal superior, the Archduke Ferdinand, who was at Innsbruck, he engaged six companies of free-lances, alleging to the archduke as his excuse the necessity of being prepared against a possible Lutheran rising in his dominions. The citizens of Salzburg were horrified at the return of

o

their liege lord with a small army at his back. Their alarm was increased on observing signs at the castle of the planting of ordnance in a position to threaten the town. So great was the panic that, on the peremptory demand of the cardinal-archbishop, the city surrendered

at once unconditionally, and the prince-prelate rode in in triumph, followed by his retinue, to the guildhall on the bread market.

This entry lacked none of the pomp and magnificence characteristic of the age. The archbishop, clad in full armour, was mounted on a white charger, surrounded by his pages and courtiers, and followed by two companies of free-lances. A humble address delivered to the archbishop by the biirger-meister was answered by his chancellor in haughty and almost insulting language. All imperial charters, granting privileges to the town, were ordered to be surrendered, as well as those given by himself or by his predecessors. A formal document was then required to be drawn up and signed by the burgermeister and principal councillors, pledging the town to submit in all things to the will of its feudal ^ superior. Salzburg thus, unlike most of the other important towns of Germany, which had long ago settled accounts with their feudal overlords, was still in the throes of a struggle which, in not a few other cases, had been left two centuries behind. As a natural consequence, the class-antagonism within the walls, although \7

THE PEASANTS WAR.

unmistakably existing, was somewhat overshadowed. There was at least a solidarity of all classes against the feudal oppressor. A similar despotic policy was pursued throughout ,the whole territory of the archbishopric.

Severe persecutions of the preachers of the new gospel now followed. The recalcitrant priest, Matthaus, who had been amongst the most active of its propagandists., was sentenced to perpetual imprisonment. He was bound on a horse with an iron chain and was to 'be conveyed to a distant castle. On the way thither, however, his conductors turned into a friendly inn to refresh, leaving their prisoner alone outside. Finding a few peasants around him, attracted by curiosity, the preacher appealed to them to release him. In a short time a considerable crowd had gathered, and, a young peasant constituting himself leader, the preacher was released and went his way. The leader and another peasant engaged in this affair were afterwards secretly executed at Salzburg within the castle. As soon as this 'was known, however, it acted as a powerful stimulus to the prevailing disaffection. The friends of the victims and of the new doctrines went about

from valley to valley, secretly urging the country-folk to defend the gospel and avenge innocent blood.

The measureless exactions of the Cardinal-Archbishop all helped in the same direction. Not only was the peasantry taxed up to the hilt, but heavy subsidies were demanded from the wealthy burghers of the town of Salzburg. I nsults,oppressions,exactions,continued throughout the winter of 1524-1525. But, at the same time, here as elsewhere, the opposition, which was to break out in the spring in the form of open rebellion, was organising itself. This first took definite shape in the valley of Gas-tein. Fourteen "articles" were formulated by this peasant popuTation, whom the celebrated " Twelve Articles " of Upper Swabia appear not yet to have reached. First and foremost, the free preaching of the gospel without human additions was demanded. The free election of preachers was also insisted upon. Furthermore, various imposts were to be done away-with, notably the merchet (or due payable on the marriage of a son or daughter), the death due, the so-called small tithe, and many other things of a like nature. A righteous

THE PEASANTS WAR,

J»

I administration of justice—and especially that j the judges should be independent of the lord | and his bailiffs—was also amongst the demands. f A further curious item was that the cost of the ^execution of criminals should not fall upon the / rural community. Finally, the maintenance of public roads for the facility of trade and intercourse was required.

On the basis of these articles, a " Christian Brotherhood " was formed here also. Messengers were sent into all the neighbouring valleys to secure adhesion. Soon the whole of the Alpine archbishopric was in motion, and by the end of April the insurrection had reached Styria, Carinthia and Upper Austria. The " Christian Brotherhood" was now well-established in all the Austrian lands.

The Archduke Ferdinand, who held court at Innsbruck, at this time called together the assembly of the Estates of the five Austrian Duchies to consider what action should be taken. The local assemblies of the territories also met. It was generally admitted on all sides that the revolt was brought about by highhanded and oppressive action on the part of the territorial magnates. Here, indeed, even

the lower nobility, when offering the archduke their aid in quelling the insurrection, made the redress of certain specified wrongs, under which the "common man" was suffering, a necessary condition. The archduke himself had to agree. His real views and inclinations as regards the situation were probably better expressed by a rescript previously issued by himself and the court-council at Vienna to the effect that " the crime must be chastised with a rod of iron, to the end that the evil and wanton device of the peasants should be punished, so that others may take warning thereby, also that those who are elsewhere already rebellious may be stilled and brought into submission. It is therefore our counsel and good opinion that ye all do proceed against all chiefs and leaders, wheresoever they may ^ arise, or show themselves, with spearing, flaying, quartering, and every cruel punishment."

In Styria, Sigmund von Dietrichstein, who ten years before had mercilessly suppressed a peasant insurrection in the duchy (cf. German Society, pp. 82-86) held still the chief authority in the land. He was, however, without men. Even the mercenaries sent him from Vienna

refused to march against the peasantry, a section of them actually deserting to the latter. He would have been absolutely powerless, had not a contingent of three hundred Bohemian men-at-arms arrived upon the scene. An attempt, nevertheless, to attack a peasant encampment at Goysen resulted in the repulse and flight of his whole force. In his retreat through a narrow defile, the sides of which were occupied by parties of insurgents, Diet-richstein suffered almost more than in the open field. He himself was wounded, and confessed to a loss of over a hundred men killed, though this was undoubtedly far below the true number. To make matters worse, his remaining men now mutinied, and it was only with difficulty, and with the expenditure of a large sum of money, that he could induce them to remain with him. Two companies of free-lances and some three hundred horsemen were, however, on their way from Carinthia to his assistance. With the aid of these he was able to maintain his position, though he did not dare to attack the main body of rebels, consisting of some six thousand peasants, under the leadership of one Reustl. His attempts at negotiations, though they first

of all failed owing to the opposition of Reustl, were eventually successful, the majority of the contingent deserting: their leader and accepting the terms offered. Reustl, with a band of faithful followers, mostly workers in the salt mines, made good his retreat, and succeeded in reaching the main Salzburg contingent, which he joined.

By this time, things were getting hotter than — ever in the archbishopric. The main body of the insurgent peasants were encamped in a village a few miles from Salzburg. They were armed with the most motley weapons, clubs, pitchforks and sickles, with only here and there a rusty sword or spear or a worn-out piece of armour. In this way they streamed forth from their valleys and mountain pastures. The episcopal functionaries were taken by surprise. They had omitted to occupy the leading pass. In vain the archbishop altered his tone; in vain he became mild, persuasive and even fatherly. The peasants were not so boorish as not to know the worth of his assurances. The townspeople of Salzburg were in full sympathy with them. So threatening did matters become that Matthaus Lang felt

himself no longer safe in his palace on the market-place, and made good his retreat to his castle immediately above. A steep and narrow path led from the city to this impregnable fortress, which boasted a double wall, in part hewn out of the natural rock. The south side rested on a sheer precipice of 440 feet. Here the archbishop was safe enough as regards his person, but the position was not favourable for conducting negotiations with the town, in which his whole force consisted of one of the companies afore-mentioned, under the command of two knights named Schenk and Thurn. As in the case of the Frauenberg, members of his council were active in riding to and fro between the castle and the town, with the object of establishing a pact with the citizens.

The peasants kept in close touch with the Salzburgers. The chief intermediary of the latter with their overlord was a municipal functionary of the name of Gold. He was, however, suspected of treachery. One day, as the archbishop's military commanders, Hans Schenk and Sigmund von Thurn, were endeavouring to appease a tumultuous general assembly of the citizens on the market-place, Hans Gold

was seen on horseback in the neighbourhood. Believing him to be acting the spy, or swayed by motives of personal vengeance, a butcher, against whom Gold had given an unfair decision in his judicial capacity, dragged him off his horse by the hook of his halberd. He was only prevented from running him through by the intervention of a brewer named Pickler. The incident was, nevertheless, a signal for the assembly to become openly insurrectionary ; so much so that Schenk and Thurn themselves, fearing that their force was insufficient for the emergency, made a dash for the castle. Gold himself was not so fortunate, being seized and thrown into one of the towers, where he was put to the torture and had to confess matters concerning the archbishop's policy not calculated to conciliate the popular feeling. Finding that their official leaders had abandoned them, the company of free-lances were nothing loth to allow themselves to be enrolled in the service of the citizens.

The peasants now drew nearer the town, and on Whit Monday the brother of one of the peasants whom Lang had had secretly executed in his castle, entered the gates and rushed

through the streets, affixing notices on the houses of the canons and councillors of the archbishop with the words: " This house is mine until the innocent blood of my brother be avenged ". The same evening the main body of the peasants entered the city, the gates of which were thrown open to them. The usual scenes ensued on the following day ; the palace of the prince-prelate on the market-place was entered; charters, documents and registers were destroyed, so that, as it was stated, one might wade knee-deep in the fragments; kitchens, cellars and dwelling-rooms were sacked, the retainers being turned out. By evening the building was empty, and became a place from the windows of which women hung their washing. In a few days, reinforcements arrived from the mining districts, well-armed and disciplined. Finding this to be the case, a large number of the original ill-armed contingent withdrew to their fields and villages, undertaking to maintain their newly-arrived comrades.

The insurgent city now set about laying siege in earnest to the archbishop and his nobles in the castle, the Hohen-Salzburg, as it

was called. Every possible means of egress was occupied by them. They were, however, too late to prevent one of the prelatical councillors from riding off to solicit aid from the courts of Bavaria and Austria. The Archduke was himself already too much pressed to afford any assistance, for in addition to his troubles previously spoken of in the so-called " five duchies," the movement had now reached Tyrol. As for the Duke of Bavaria, so far from being anxious to assist his brother potentate, he was disposed to treat secretly with the insurgents, with the view of obtaining possession of the Salzburg territories, and was only with difficulty prevented from carrying out this policy by the advice of his chancellor, Leonhard von Eck.

The Tyrolese movement is remarkable as being the only one of which it can be sai that it obtained ultimate success of a rnodifi kind. With the rest, rapid and complete seemed their success at first, as rapidly an completely were they crushed in a few weeks. The Tyrolese, on the other hand, not only succeeded in prolonging the struggle far into summer of 1526, but, although the far-reaching

"*S

aspirations of those engaged in the conflict were

doomed to disappointment, the peasantry as a whole did not go out altogether empty-handed. They obtained certain distinct concessions of a permanent nature. This was partly due, no doubt, to the intrepid character of the inhabit-v ants, accustomed as they were from the earliest ages to a life of comparative freedom and independence ; partly also to the formation of the country, in many parts inaccessible to any but natives, and everywhere easily capable of defence by small bands, and, last but not least, to the remarkable man who was not only the intellectual head of the movement, but who was as eminent as an organiser and diplomatist as he was bold and logical as a thinker—I refer to Michael Gaismayj^

On the Tyrolese insurrection, it may be worth while to quote here a report of a hostile contemporary witness, George Kirchmair (ap^ld Jansen, vol. ii., pp. 492-494): "There arose," writes Kirchmair, "a cruel, fearful, inhuman insurrection of the common peasant-folk in this land, at which I was at hand and beheld many wonders. Certain noisy, base people did adventure with violence to free from the judge

a condemned rebel who had done mischief and who justly had been ordained to the penalty. After that they had done this thing on a Wednesday, did the peasants run together out of all mountains and valleys on Whit Sunday, young and old, albeit they knew not what they would do. As then a great concourse was come together in the Muklander Au within the Eisack valley, their conclusion was to free themselves from their oppression. A noble gentleman, Sigmund Brandisser, bailiff at Rodenegg, went straightway to the assembled peasants and showed to them all the danger, vanity, mischief, trouble and care. Notwithstanding that they promised him not to go forward to deeds, but to bring their complaint before their rightful prince, who was then in Innsbruck, yet did they not keep their promise, but on Whit Sunday at night made assault to Brixen, plundering and robbing in defiance of God and right, all priests, canons and chaplains. Thereafter did they assemble before the bishop's court and drave thence his councillors and his servants, with much violence, and in such inhuman manner that one may not write thereof. They of Brixen had

as soon forgotten their duty toward Bishop Sebastian as the peasants of the new foundation toward their lord, the Prior Augustin. In fine, was there no duty, faith, vow, or other ^ thing whatsoever bethought. The Brixeners and the peasants were ot one mind. Every part had its chief men. These chiefs did without any cause or any renunciation (of allegiance) move with five thousand men against the monastery of the new foundation, and overran the priory on Friday, the i2th of May, 1525. Of the wantonness which they there wrought, a man might write a whole book. Prior Augustin, a pious man, was driven out and pursued, and the priests in such wise despised, mocked and tormented, that they must forsooth be made ashamed of the priestly sign and name. More than twenty-five thousand florins of loss in houses, silver, treasure, furnishings and eating vessels, charters and books, did the peasants bring about. No man may say with how much pride, drunkenness, blaspheming and sacrilege the priory was at this time offended. It had also been burned, had not God willed it otherwise. On Saturday, the 13th of May, they chose a captain, a fair-spoken

yet cunning man, named Michael Gaismayr, ( son of a squire of Sterzing, an evil, a rebellious, but a cunning man. So soon as he was chosen their captain, the plundering of priests went on in the whole land. There was no priest so poor in the land but that he must lose all that was his own. Thereafter fell they upon divers nobles and did destroy so many that no man could or would arm himself to resist them ; nay, even the Archduke Ferdinand and his most excellent wife held themselves nowhere saved. For in this whole land, in the valley of the Inn and of the Etsch, there was in the towns and amongst the peasants such a concourse, cry, and tumult, that hardly might a good man walk in the streets. Robbing, plundering and stealing did become so common that even not a few pious men were tempted thereto, who afterwards bitterly repented. And I speak the truth when I say that through this robbing, plundering and stealing, did no man wax rich."

A spy of the Archbishop of Trier reports to his master that emissaries from the Tyrolese insurgents were to be found in southern Germany and in Elsass, seeking to establish

communications and an understanding between the two movements. He cautions his master at the same time, probably with the fear of Michael Gaismayr's constitutional reforms before his eyes, not to be deceived by the comparatively harmless "articles" of the peasants, for that something quite different lay behind these.

The Tyrolese peasantry had been stirring already, a few years before the great outbreak. They complained of much having been promised, but little carried out, by their lords and rulers. One of their great grievances was the prohibition of the killing of game. This prohibition, at last, they openly disregarded, and so impossible did it become to rehabilitate it that the Austrian Government at Innsbruck formally conceded the right of every peasant to hunt and shoot game on his own land. But, here as elsewhere, the embitterment of the

x people against nobles and clergy had gone too far to be appeased by partial concessions. In the mining districts, especially those belonging

x to the Fugger family at Schwatz, where the capitalistic wage-system was apparently first introduced, wages are said to have been in

THE MO VEMENT IN EAST AND WEST.

207

arrear at this time to the extent of forty thousand gulden. Add to this that the imperial council had recently put on an additional tax. -

The new religious doctrines had soon ob- -tained adherents in the Tyrol, especially amongst the miners. Foremost of the preachers were Jcjhajmje^_Sjtrauss and Urbanus Regius.^ The evil life of princes and great ones was, of course, denounced. The rights proclaimed by the new jurists were likewise attacked as heathenish, and as not binding on Christian men. The year of jubilee was declared to be an institution still in force. Many other doctrines of a like nature were promulgated. A friar left his cell and engaged himself as a workman in the Fugger mines, in order to follow out the scriptural injunction to earn bread by the sweat of his brow. Here he had a taste of the newly-introduced wages-system for profit.

Followers of Thomas Munzer, or at least -persons holding similar views, appeared also about this time in the valleys in question. Finally, these mining and peasant communities assembled together in the usual manner and drew up nineteen " articles"? of reform. Most

r\

Oo j. j.j.j^/ j. j^t^-L^^LJ. r j. o rr^Li\»

**

of these " articles " deal with the right of

(/preaching the Gospel and other rights identical with those demanded elsewhere. The

j^novel points were protests against the constant passage of armed men through the country and the quartering of alien troops in the frontier villages. One of the complaints was directed against the free exportation of the wines of Trient; another against the reckless riding of lords over cultivated fields; another against

^the new lawyer class ; yet another against the keeping of wine-rooms by the judges and clerks of tribunals. Most noteworthy of all was a. remonstrance against the Fugger family and against other privileged companies of merchants, which through their agents produced such a great increase in the cost of provisions that many articles had risen in price from eighteen kreutzers to a gulden. The assembled country people gave also, as one of the immediate causes of their action in coming together, the attempted removal by the authorities of certain ordnance and ammunition, which removal, however, it would appear, they had been successful in preventing. Zimmermann conjectures that they feared that the war-material in question

was to be used against their brethren who had risen in the neighbouring provinces.

The concessions of the archduke had their effect for the moment. Most of the rural communities consented to await the Landtag which was to consider their grievances. This applies to the Tyrol itself, but not to the Vor-arlberg. In and around Bregenz the insurrection gathered, until it soon numbered forty thousand men, who insultingly replied to the emissaries from the archducal court at Innsbruck that they would come in a few days and bring the answer themselves to the proposals made.

In the south also, the movement showed no signs of abating. As we have seen, the source and centre of the Tyrolese rising was the neighbourhood of the town of Brixen, many public functionaries there joining the cause. Michael Gaismayr himself had been the bishop's secretary and the keeper of the customs at Klausen. From the proceeds of the sacking of the wealthy house of the Teutonic Order at Bozen, Gaismayr, now elected captain of the local contingent, formed^ the nucleus of a war-chest. It was augmented

14

by numerous other spoliations of ecclesiastical possessions. Gaismayr, further, at once opened up a correspondence with the view of gathering into his hand the threads of agitation in the surrounding territories. In his manifestoes he knew how to combine in the cleverest way the immediate aspirations and the popular demands of those with whom he was dealing, whilst hinting at the more far-reaching projects of the Christian commonwealth that formed his ultimate goal. For example, he knew how to exploit patriotic sentiment by pointing out the evils resulting from' the occupation of important posts by aliens, notably by Spaniards, whose promotion Charles V. and his brother had naturally favoured.

Under Gaismayr the insurrection rapidly spread, in spite of the archduke's blandishments and the temporary character of the peasants' success in certain interior districts of the Tyrol itself. From the lake of Garda and Trient in the south, the whole country soon broke out into open and organised revolt. One peasant camp was formed outside the city of Trient itself. Other contingents swept the valleys of the Brixen territories and of the Etsch, plundering

monasteries and castles, and occupying the smaller towns or laying them under contribution. Gaismayr's headquarters were at Meran. With him were the delegates of the towns and of the various jurisdictions of the Tyrol province, endeavouring with difficulty to reconcile local demands with one another and with the ge object of the movement. Loyalty to the feudal | chiefs of the province, the house of Austria, seems to have been deeply ingrained in the hearts of the countryfolk, and, in spite of his own ultimate end, Gaismayr was careful not to openly collide with, or even disregard, this_ feeling. Although the local nobility and clergy were everywhere regarded as fair game for plunder and rapine, the agrarians were particularly concerned to spare the archduke's castles. Meanwhile, the archduke himself continued to adopt a conciliatory and even friendly tone in his messages. It is said that he had really an affection for his patrimonial province, but in any case he had no force of fighting men at hand with which to quell the revolted populations. That this latter motive was chiefly responsible for his mildness is evidenced by the fact that he gave orders to the Innsbruck

council to negotiate a loan by the pledging of certain lands and jewellery for the purpose of raising the force he wanted. At the same time he sought to hurry on the promised Landtag.

Gaismayr, on his side, had called a Landtag, which, however, was forbidden by the archduke by special messengers with signed and sealed despatches. On the despatches being read, the majority of the peasant council at Meran accepted the armistice and abandoned the projected Landtag, which was to have been held at that place. But difficulties arose when it was found that the Austrian Government did not interpret the armistice as implying any duty on its part to abstain from further armaments. In a special rescript to the imperial authorities, written about this date by the archduke, the latter lets his mask of mildness fall, complaining that the machinations of the evil-minded populations were such that they would allow no foreign mercenaries to enter the country, that he himself was practically a prisoner in his own land, and that from day to day there was no certainty that the capital, Innsbruck itself, would not be attacked.

The insurrection was master throughout the duchy. On the calling of the Landtag at Innsbruck, a hundred and six "articles," formulated by the standing council at Meran, probably under Gaismayr's direction, were submitted, and the archduke was compelled to concede a number of points that must have proved very sour to him. These were finally brought together in the form of a new constitution for the province, containing strong and democratic provisions. But further demands were made in many quarters, and the insurrection, everywhere smouldering, burst out into renewed activity in several districts.

We must now, for the present, leave the fortunes of the Tyrolese, in order to turn to those of the movement in west Austrian and in the Alsatian and Rhenish districts abutting on them. It is impossible to separate, either topographically or historically, the hither Austrian dominion of Breisgau from the Mar-gravate of Baden and the adjoining districts. The Black Forest contingent, under Hans Mliller von Bulgenbach, moved westward early in May for the purpose of combining

with contingents which had formed, in the latter part of April, in the Austrian territory and in the Margravate, and of making a combined attack upon the important city of Freiburg, one of the best defended and most noteworthy towns of south-west Germany. Breisgau and Baden had been in a state of fermentation for a year_past. Local disturbances and a threatened general rising are recorded from the early summer of 1524 onwards. By the end of that year, large numbers of nobles and clerics, apprehending a new " Bunds c huh" had fled into Freiburg for security, amongst them the Markgraf Ernst, with his wife and children. Freiburg had, therefore, become a nest of the privileged classes and a repository of vast treasures.

The chief of the Margravate contingent was one Hans Hammerstein. In dread of an attack by Hammerstein upon his castle of Rotelen, the Markgraf had taken to flight. Rotelen, however, did not share the fate of so many other strongholds of Baden, and was reserved for destruction in the second half of the seventeenth century during the wars of Louis XIV. Arrived at Freiburg, the Markgraf

sent conciliatory letters, accompanied by offers of mediation on the part of the Freiburg authorities. But, unlike his brother Philip, a man of exceptional humanity for that age, and immensely popular with his subjects, Ernst was mistrusted, and could not succeed in making any impression with his overtures. After discussing the matter in conclave, the peasants returned answer that if he would unreservedly countersign the u Twelve Articles,"^ and regard himself henceforward as no more than the trustee and vicegerent of the emperor, he might retain his castle and his lands. If, on the other hand, he refused to consider himself as primus inter pares of themselves, it would go badly with him, since they were determined to have done with nobles, to have nobody in authority over them save peasants like themselves, and to acknowledge no lord but the emperor. These proposals obviously did not suit this wealthy territorial magnate, who, rinding himself in security for the time being, was content to let matters drift.

The practical refusal of the Markgraf to concede anything resulted in a rising of the whole land. All the important castles,

including Rotelen, were occupied. A camp of peasant contingents was formed at Heidersheim. The wealthy monastery of Thennenbach was stripped, suffering damage, as was alleged, to the amount of thirty thousand gulden, whilst the small town of Kenzingen was taken and garrisoned, and the arrival was awaited of Hans Miiller with his contingent before Freiburg.

Freiburg was at its wits' end, and was well-nigh denuded of fighting men, having a few weeks previously sent some bodies of free-lances in its service to the assistance of other towns more immediately threatened than itself. The Schlossberg, the great stronghold commanding the town, was manned by no more than a hundred and twenty-four men. All available persons, however, who were in the town, made ready to assist in its defence, and all flaws in the fortifications were repaired. The authorities then sent out to know the meaning of the presence of Hans Miiller and the Black Forest contingent in the Breisgau territory. The reply was an expression of regret that Freiburg should be on the side of the oppressors of the "common man," and of

hope that the city would enter the " Evangelical Brotherhood ". To this the city answered that its oath to the House of Austria prevented its undertaking such obligations as those suggested, but professed its willingness to mediate where special grievances could be shown, and concluded with hoping that the Black Forest peasants, mindful of how divine and blessed it was to live in peace, would withdraw themselves from the neighbourhood of Breisgau. Hans Mtiller, thereupon, declared that his Black Forest men were not acting without the concurrence of their brethren, the Breisgau peasants. He then moved his camp into the city's immediate proximity.

By the i7th of May, the local contingents also arrived before Freiburg, from the battlements of which the banners of twenty companies were to be counted. Accordingly, the forces being now joined, an ultimatum was sent on this day requiring the formal alliance of Freiburg with the " Evangelical Brotherhood ". No answer was returned, and the siege began by the close investment of the city. Aqueducts were constructed to draw off the water. The block-house on the Schlossberg was taken by

J_

surprise a day or two later, and, as some nobles were sitting on a fine May evening drinking their wine before a hostelry in the cathedral close, five hundred shots fell around them. The fighting power of the town was forthwith drawn up in readiness on the fish-market. The citizens were divided into twelve companies corresponding to the twelve guilds, each of which had to defend its own gate, tower and section of the wall. Even the University supplied its company, consisting of some forty students under the leadership of the rector and two professors. Help from without was nowhere forthcoming. The civic authorities thus expressed themselves in a report made later on : " No man did come to our help. From Hegau to Strasburg, and thence from Wiirtemberg to the Welsh [French] country we had no friends. All townships, hamlets and villages were against us."

On the evening of the 2ist, a further ultimatum from the peasants was sent into the town. /They only wished well to the country, but /demanded "a goodly Christian order and the I freeing of the common man from excessive and ( unjust burdens ". Meanwhile, within the town,

ominous voices made themselves heard in the guildrooms. Freiburg was not in a position to sustain a long siege, and the idea of its being taken by assault was not palatable to the wealthy citizens. Moreover, sympathy with the peasant cause, though not so widely spread as in some other towns, was not wanting, and there were many poor citizens who had friendly relations with the besiegers without the walls. The upshot was that on the 24th of May, a week after the siege had been begun, Freiburg capitulated and agreed to enter the " Evangelical Brotherhood ".

Both sides pledged themselves to do their utmost to further a general peace, and the removal of the burdens of the " common man,"' and also to cherish the true principles of the Gospel. The relations of the town to its feudal overlord were not to be compromised, nor its liberty in any way curtailed. It was to pay to the assembled contingents the sum of three thousand gulden as earnest of its good intentions. This sum was afterwards increased, and further pecuniary demands were made. Freiburg appears also to have supplied the peasants with some artillery7Tor r ~man exculpatory

report, subsequently made to the Austrian Government, we read : " We have indeed loaned the peasants four falconets, the which had no great worth, but yet for no other end than that they might hold the Rhine at Lim-burg against the Welsh [the foreigners]. For we have given the commandment to the twain to whom we delivered them that they should destroy this ordnance so soon as there were danger against any other person soever." Thus ended the peasant siege of Freiburg.

The attention of the peasant bodies was at this time drawn off from Freiburg and Breisgau generally to the disasters that were befalling their cause in the neighbouring Elsass. Even the strongly-fortified town of Breisach they were content to leave, after having threatened it for some days, on a pledge being given that no foreign troops should be permitted to cross the river at any point within the defensive capacity of the town.

The attack on the town of Villingen was repulsed, the garrison making sorties and razing the peasant homesteads near by. Rudolfzell, which, as we have seen, had received into its walls numbers of fugitive nobles, who con-

stituted its main armed force, had also compelled the Black Foresters to retire. A body of knights, in fact, in making a sortie, distinguished themselves by burning the neighbouring villages and throwing women and children into the flames. An agreement was ultimately made through the mediation of the popular and amiable Markgraf Philip of Baden, who also acted on behalf of his brother Ernst. It consisted of the following two articles : (i) that the great tithe should be rendered as of wont, but, until the judgment of the matter, should be laid by in a neutral place, while the small tithe should not be rendered until this judgment, and that corvdes should also cease meanwhile ; (2) that all the ordnance of the Markgraf and all other that might be in the hands of the peasant bodies should be brought into the town of Neuen-burg, should be there preserved until the issue of the matter, and should be by neither side used against the other.

About this time—the middle of June—further understandings as regards an armistice were entered into between the various contingents and Freiburg, Breisach, Offenburg, and other towns of Breisgau and Baden.

We now turn to the contiguous, and in many respects allied, movement in Elsass. Here the insurrection began, as elsewhere, early in April. It spread like wild-fire from town to town and from village to village. A contemporary, writing from Strasburg at the end of April, says: " The peasants have everywhere assembled themselves in companies. They hold the most towns and divers castles. The Papists are in a fear such as is not to be believed. The rich are filled with alarm for their treasure, and even we in our strong town live not wholly without dread."

Iconoclasm was the order of the day in Strasburg. Churches were ransacked ; monks and nuns were driven out of cloister and convent. The city, in fact, was at one time in imminent danger of falling into the hands of the rebels. The council, however, appears to have got wind of a conspiracy to introduce the armed peasants into the town, and sixteen worthy burghers were in consequence arrested, some of them paying for their temerity with their lives. Unfortunately, throughout Elsass many priceless works of mediaeval art were destroyed in the pillaging ; pictures, wood carvings, and the contents of

monastic libraries being often used for the lighting of fires.

On the 28th of April the " United Contingent of Elsass," as it was called, which numbered 20,000 men, commanded by one Erasmus Ger-ber, marched along a mountain ridge constituted by a spur of the Vosges, to attack the town of Zabern, the residence of the Bishop of Stras-burg. Zabern, although comparatively small, was well fortified, and was calculated to form a most valuable base and storehouse for the insurgent forces. Their first objective was the wealthy abbey of Mauersmunster, between two and three miles from Zabern. The foundation was completely sacked from cellar to roof. An establishment of the Teutonic Order was also sacked, and a valuable booty was obtained. In fact, the insurgent camp glittered with chalices, salvers, church utensils, and decorations of all sorts. Zabern was then challenged to open its gates and join the Peasant League. The canons and the patrician councillors wished to send for help to Duke Antoine of Lorraine, who on the first symptoms of danger had offered to throw a garrison into the town. The bulk of the citizens, however, declared that they would

rather open their gates to the peasants than to these Frenchmen. They refused to receive any aliens at all. Finally, after some negotiations, the gates were opened, and the peasant army entered Zabern on the I3th of May, occupying the fortifications with a strong force, and also entrenching themselves immediately outside the walls.

Far-reaching plans seem to have been talked of at this time of the invasion of France and of the humiliation of the French seigneur like the German adelige. The impression seems to have prevailed that the whole strength of the French noblesse had been exhausted at the battle of Pavia. The importance of the capture of Zabern was hardly to be exaggerated, and Duke Antoine hurried on his preparations for crushing the rebels. Weissenburg was from the very first entirely in their hands, even the biirgermeister and the majority of the council being on the insurgent side, together with the powerful vintners' guild, to which most of the councillors belonged.

The formula of the peasants was to demand,

-^ in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord," that

every town, hamlet and village should furnish

their fourth man to the contingent. As we have seen in a former chapter, the demands put forward in Elsass were considerably more drastic than the celebrated "Twelve Articles". An agent of the Archbishop of Trier reports to his master that the "common man" of the -towns was far more violent even than the peasant. "With one accord," he writes, "cry they : ' we will not alone win monasteries and castles, but will have our hands busy in the towns, and there also will we be as gentlemen'." He alleges that they had definite relations with the Breisgau and Black Forest contingents.

The movement did not leave the town of Colmar untouched. The discontented here formulated fourteen " articles," which they laid before the council. The matter was quieted for a time, but in the second week of April renewed disturbances took place. The insurrection, however, did not succeed in making any headway within the walls, and in spite of repeated threats the gates remained closed to the peasants. Colmar in fact at this time, like many other towns that had successfully /

resisted invasion, was full of fugitives glad to

15

save the wreck of their property. Jews were especially in evidence.

From Elsass, the movement spread along the Rhine. On the 23rd of April, in a village in the neighbourhood of Landau, on the occasion of a kirckweih (church-ale), a peasant band formed itself, which subsequently developed into the so-called Geilweiler contingent. Emissaries from the band went round all the neighbouring villages, visited the peasants in their houses, and even fetched them out of their beds, persuading or compelling them to join the ranks. The band almost immediately began the pillaging of monasteries and other \ ecclesiastical foundations. They took therefrom \ " corn, wine, cattle and victuals, and lived in \wantonness," says a contemporary chronicler. The neighbouring castles shared the same fate. Such an enormous amount of spoil was collected, that the half of it had to be left behind in a village through which the contingent passed. Day by day their numbers swelled. Feeling themselves strong enough now to proceed to greater things, they summoned, on Sunday, the 13th of April, the little, well-fortified town of Neustadt to surrender. The Rhenish Elector

in vain admonished the citizens to hold no converse with " the wanton, lawless band". The Bishop of Speyer, who counted a large number of his own villeins in the contingent, also interposed without effect.

At the beginning of May another body formed near Lauterburg, the captain being the_burger^_ nieister of that place. The bishop was forced to concede to them the entry into one or two strongholds, on their professing to have no disloyal sentiments towards himself, but only to wish to defend the territory against the foreigner. In Lauterburg, high festival was held. The overhanging castle was broken into, and, according to a contemporary account, " the women from the villages hard by did come into the castles and did drink themselves so full of wine that they might no more walk ". Meanwhile the town of Landau itself had become the prey of the Geilweiler contingent, and had to hand over all the corn and wine in its possession, most of which had been entrusted to its care by various neighbouring monasteries. Two peasant delegates from each company were sent into the town to see that there was no cheating in this transaction.

A band now formed in the neighbourhood of Worm? which swept the country round, receiving the adhesion of all the villages through which it passed. On learning of the approach of the Marshal of the Palatinate, Wilhelm von Habern, with a force of three hundred horse and five hundred foot, they established themselves in a strong position in a vine-clad hill above the little town of Westhofen. The marshal was prevented by the favourable position of the peasants from making a direct attack, but he had no sooner fired three shots into their camp than they fled into the village below—a flight that cost the lives of sixty of them at the hands of the marshal's men. During the night they retreated to Neustadt, where they united with the Geilweiler contingent.

The Elector Ludwig, besides being unable for want of men to suppress the rising by force, showed signs of his being sincerely desirous of an amicable arrangement with his subjects. Through the mediation of the town of Neustadt, an interview was arranged between the elector and the peasant leaders in a field outside the village of Forst. It was

stipulated, however, that the elector should be accompanied by no more than thirty horsemen as his retinue. As soon as the parties were met, the whole of the peasant forces appeared on the brow of an elevation a little way off.

This was evidently a device of the leaders to overawe the elector. After protracted negotiations, it was agreed that the towns, castles and villages taken should be surrendered to their lawful lords and masters, that no further hostile acts should be committed, and that the peasant bands, which here numbered some 8000 men, should disperse to their homes. On his side, the Elector Ludwig promised the peasants a complete amnesty, and, in addition, thecalling at an early date of a Landtag, at which their grievances should be considered and remedied.

Thereupon the elector retired for the night to Neustadt. The following day, on representatives of the peasants announcing themselves with a view of obtaining a definite promise as to the date of the Landtag in question, the elector not only satisfied their demands, but invited them to his table. " There," in the words of Harer, a contemporary historian of the war, "one saw villeins and their lord sit together,

THE PEASANTS WAR.

ii

I'"

Ls

and eat and drink together. He had, so it seemed, one heart to them and they to him." The Landtag was then convened for the week after Whitsuntide. Its decisions were to be binding throughout the whole country, that is to say, on both sides of the Rhine. The seemingly mild, and even generous conduct of the elector did not, however, entirely quell the insurrection. General excitement and the temptation of plunder were too great. Bands of peasants throughout the Palatinate continued the old course of pillage and destruction. It was not until the common suppression of the movement that these bands dispersed, and the Palatinate settled down to its wonted state. Similarly, in the adjacent bishopric of Speyer, in spite of agreements, it was not until the advance of Truchsess and the forces of the Swabian League that all hostilities on the side of the peasants came to an end.

CHAPTER VII.

THE THURINGIAN REVOLT AND THOMAS MUNZER.

WE come now to speak of the figure most prominently associated by tradition and the popular mind with the Peasants War. In the view of most persons, the whole movement that we are describing centres in the figure of the schoolmaster and preacher who came from Stolberg in the Hartz Mountains. For weal or for woe, history seems to have indelibly stamped the last great peasant revolt of the Middle Ages with the name of Thomas Miin-zer. Yet it may be fairly doubted whether the stupendous influence on the events of the year 1525 attributed by historical tradition to the personality in question has not been very much exaggerated.

That Miinzer, in the winter of 1524-5, made ) a tour of agitation through central and south" 7 -ern Germany,including those districts where the revolt earliest broke out, Ts undoubtedly

, but we find, if we analyse the accounts, l that the reception of his preaching was J- by no means everywhere encouraging. Thus / Melancthon, in his pamphlet Historic Thoma Miintzers, etc., expressly states that the Fran-conians, who, as we have seen, played such a zealous and important part in the movement, would have none of Miinzer or his-doctrine.^ It is, of course, perfectly true that the object of the malignant toady Melancthon in writing this political manifesto, was to curry favour with the victorious princes and to defame M (Inzer's character. But, seeing that the whole trend of the work in question is to display Miinzer in the role of a powerful and dangerous demagogue, as, in fact, a kind of arch-fiend of rebellion, Melancthon can have had no conceivable object in making the above statement. Moreover, a statement of this kind, not referring to an obscure episode in a man's life, but to his public activity of a few months before, if untrue, must have been so notoriously untrue as not to have been worth the stating. Hence, in the absence of rebutting evidence which does not seem forthcoming, we can hardly do otherwise thai) accept it. Other

accounts, which speak of Mlinzer's influence in south Germany, especially in the Klettgau and the Hegau, leave it uncertain how far they refer to Miinzer himself and how far to those preaching similar doctrines—doctrines unquestionably in the air at the time, and not exclusively ascribable to any single man.

Turning from Miinzer as agitator to Miinzer as thinker, the same tendency to exaggeration with otherwise accurate and sober-minded historians is often to be found. Mtinzer is represented as an embodiment not only of the practical movement of the time but also of its idealistic side. That he energetically championed the chiliastic notion of" a Christian

Commonwealth, tnen so generally pt'evaJerrt-amongst the thinking heads of the revqET is^ true enough. But, on the other hand, we fail fcTdiscover in his extant writings anything more than vague aspirations towards it; there is certainly nothing approaching the originality of handling, and the elaboration of the idea, exhibited by Michael Gaismayr. We find this even in the pamphlet where the social views of Miinzer are most prominent, his u Emphatic Exposure of the False Belief of the Faithless

THE PEASANTS WAR.

World " (^'Aussgetruckte emplossung des false hen

Glaubens der ungetrewen Welt"), published at

Miihlhausen late in 1524. Here also all we

have is a vague expression of belief in the

- necessity of the establishment of a communistic

) society and in its approaching advent.

f Miinzer strikes us as before everything a

y theologian. This is noticeable in his pamphlets

down to the very eve of the Peasants War.

In the one on the ordering of the German

mass at Allstatt, in another on the book of

Daniel, and in an exposition of the nineteenth

Psalm—the last published in 1525—we see

him most concerned to justify his ecclesiastical

innovations and his theories respecting infant

baptism, the Eucharist, and other edifying

theological topics. He speaks, indeed, at

times bitterly enough of the oppression of

ji>rince, noble and prelate,and of the right of

,the ''common man" to rebel, but, we repeat,

there is no evidence of any constructive theory

beyond the most casual expressions. Of course,

A in saying this, we by no means forget that his

I main strength lay in his fervid oratory, and

/ that his influence from this point of view was

/ considerable. All we contend is that, as in so \^

many historical cases, chance has played kindly with his fame, and has obtained for him credit for an influence, theoretical and practical, over the general movement of 1525 which the cold light of research hardly seems to justify.

Thomas Munzer appears to have been born in the last decade of the fifteenth century. An uncertain tradition states that his father was hanged by the Count of Stolberg. The first we hear of him with certainty is as teacher in the Latin school at Aschersleben and afterwards at Halle. Where he studied is doubtful, but by this time he had already graduated as doctor. In Halle he is alleged to have started an abortive conspiracy against the Archbishop of Madgeburg. In 1515 we find him as confessor in a nunnery and afterwards as teacher in a foundation school at Brunswick. Finally, in 1520, he became preacher at the Marienkirche at Zwickau, and here his public activity in the wider sense really began. The democratic tendencies previously displayed by him broke all bounds. He thundered against .those who devoured widows' houses and made long prayers and who at death-beds were concerned not with

THE PEASANTS WAR.

the faith of the dying but with the gratification of their measureless greed.

At this time Miinzer was still a follower of Luther, but it was not long before he found him a lukewarm church-reformer. Luther's bibliolatry, as opposed to his own belief in the - continuous inspiration of certain chosen men by the Divine spirit, excited his opposition. TTe criticised still more severely as an unpardonable inconsistency Luther's retention of certain dogmas of the old Church whilst rejecting others. He now began to study with enthusiasm the works of the old German mystics, Meister Eck and Johannes Tauler, and more than all those of Joachim Florus, the Italian enthusiast of the twelfth century. A general conviction soon became uppermost in his mind of the necessity of a thorough revolution alike of Church and State.

His mystical tendencies were strengthened by contact with a sect which had recently sprung up amongst the cloth workers of Zwickau, and of which one Nicholas Storch, a master clothworker, was corypheus. The sect in question lived in a constant belief in the approach of a millennium to be brought about by the efforts of the " elect ". Visions and ecstasies were the

f

order of the day amongst these good people. This remarkable sect influenced various prominent persons at this time. Karlstadt was completely fascinated by them. Melancthon was carried away ; and even Luther admits having had some doubts whether they had not a Divine mission. The worthy Elector Friedrich himself would take no measures against them, in spite of the dangerous nature of their teaching from the point of view of political stability. He was afraid, as he said, " lest perchance he should be found righting against God ".

It was not long before Munzer allied himself with these " enthusiasts," or " prophets of Zwickau," as they were called. When the patrician council at Zwickau forbade the cloth-workers to preach, Munzer denounced the ordinance and encouraged them to disobey it. New prohibitions followed, culminating in prosecutions and imprisonments. The result was that, by the end of 1521, the cloth-working town had become too hot to hold the new reformers. Some fled to Wittenberg, and others, including Munzer himself, into Bohemia. Arrived in Prague, Munzer posted up an announcement in Latin and German that he

would " like that excellent warrior of Christ, Johann Huss, fill the trumpets with a new song". He proceeded in his addresses to denounce the clergy and to prophesy the approaching vengeance of heaven upon their order. He^ here also preached^against the "^ead letter," as he called it, pf_the^ Bible, expounding his favourite theory of the necessity of believing^ in the^supplemental inspiration of all elect persons. But the soil of Bohemia proved not a grateful one. It had been exhausted by over a century of religious fanaticism and utopistic dreams of social regeneration.

The next we hear of Miinzer is as preacher at Alstatt in Thuringia, Allstatt was the scene of his great Church reformation, in defence of which he published a pamphlet. The whole service was conducted in the German language. All the books of the Bible were read and expounded in their order, instead of the isolated passages used in the Roman ritual. His success here was immense. Crowds streamed to hear him from the neighbouring towns and villages. He soon counted not a few theologians and other learned persons amongst his adherents.

Great was the rush from all sides to listen to the popular preacher. As Munzer himself has it, " the poor thirsty folk did so yearn for the truth that all the streets were full of jpeopje come to hear it".

He was still, up to the spring of 1523, almost^ entirely a drastic Church reformer rather than T~ a political or social revolutionist. He wrote] repeatedly to the Elector Friedrich of Saxony and to his brother, Duke Johann, exhorting them as his "dearest, most beloved rulers," and warning them not to be deceived by hypocritical priests, but to boldly take their stand on the Gospel. Finding that his admonitions to those in authority produced no immediate effect, he turned with increasing zeal to the " common man". Although the religious side oi MunzerV character probably remained the most prominent to the end, the political side now came distinctly W to the fore. He founded a secret society at / Allstatt pledged by a solemn oath to labour / unceasingly for the promotion of the nej^king-dom^^Ji^d on earth, a kingdom to be based on the model of the pnmitrve_Qiristian Church as he supposed it to have been. Treedom and equality must reign here. The princes and the

great ones of the earth refused to espouse the cause of the new Gospel. Hence, they must be overthrown, and the ''common man," who was prepared to embrace the Gospel, must be raised up in their place. He who would not become a citizen of the kingdom of God must be banished or killed. The great barrier to the awakening of the inward light was the riches of this world. Hence, in the kingdom of God, private wealth should cease to be, and all things should be in common.