2. The Peasant-War. Polemics
That the preaching of the new Evangel had a great part in the origin of the frightful peasant rising of 1525 is a fact, which has been admitted even by many non-Catholic historians in modern days.
“We are of opinion,” P. Schreckenbach writes in 1895, “that Luther had a large share in the revolution,” and he endorses his opinion by his observations on “Luther’s warfare against the greatest conservative power of the day,” and the “ways and means he chose with which to carry on his war.” Fr. v. Bezold, in 1890, in his “History of the German Reformation,” remarked concerning Luther’s answer to the hostile treatment he received from the Diet at Nuremberg (1524), and his allusions to “the mad, tipsy Princes”: “Luther should never have written in such a way had he not already made up his mind to act as leader of a Revolution. That he should have expected the German nation of those days to listen to such passionate language from the mouth of its ‘Evangelist’ and ‘Elias’ without being carried beyond the bounds of law and order, was a naïveté only to be explained by his ignorance of the world and his exclusive attention to religious interests. Herein lies his greatness and his weakness.” Concerning the effects of such language upon the people, the same historian wrote, as late as 1908: “How else but in a material sense was the plain man to interpret Luther’s proclamation of Christian freedom and his extravagant strictures on the parsons and nobles?”
Luther’s Catholic contemporaries condemned in the strongest manner his share in the unchaining of the revolt; they failed entirely to appreciate the “greatness” referred to above.
One who was well acquainted with his writings and published a polemical work in Latin against him at that time, referring to certain passages, some of which we have already met, makes the following representations to him on his responsibility in the Peasant War. It was he who first raised the call to arms, and it was impossible for him to wash his hands of all share in the revolt, even though he had told the people that they were not to make use of force without the consent of the authorities and had subsequently condemned the rising with violence. “The common people pay no attention to that,” he tells him, “but merely obey what pleases them in Luther’s writings and sermons.” “You declared in your public writings, that they were to assail the Pope and the Cardinals with every weapon available, and wash their hands in their blood. You called all the bishops who would not follow your teaching, idolatrous priests and ministers of the devil; you said that the bishops deserved to be wiped off the face of the earth in a great rising.” “You called those, ‘dear children of God and true Christians,’ who make every effort for the destruction of the bishoprics and the extermination of episcopal rule. You said also that whoever obeyed the bishops was the devil’s own servant. You called the monasteries dens of murderers, and incited the people to pull them down.”
A strong wave of anticlerical and of politico-social commotion due to unjust oppression prevailed among the peasantry in many parts of Germany even before Luther came forward. But it was the gospel of freedom, the mistaken approbation found in biblical passages for the desire for equality among the classes and a juster distribution of property, as well as the example of the great spiritual upheaval then going on, which rendered the crisis acute, and incited the peasants to make their extravagant and violent demands.
An attempt was made to conceal the revolutionary character of the movement by explaining it as mainly religious.
The “Twelve Articles of the Peasants of Swabia,” was headed, for instance, by a demand for liberty to preach the Gospel and for congregations to have the right of choosing their own pastors. It was believed by those who drew up these Articles that all the claims, even those relating to the tithes, to hunting, fishing, forest rights, etc., could be proved from Holy Scripture; only then, they said, were they ready to abandon them when they were refuted by Holy Writ; at the same time, however, they reserved to themselves the right to make in the future such additional demands as they might come to recognise as being in accordance with Scripture. Luther’s ideas were also embodied in the thirty Articles of “Squire Helferich and the Knights Heinz und Karsthanns,” indeed, they were for the most part couched in the very words of Luther’s writings and the 28th Article swore deadly hostility to all his foes.
The peasants in the Rhine province and about Mayence in their rising in May, 1525, demanded not merely the liberty to choose their own pastors and to preach the Gospel, but also that the preachers of the new faith imprisoned in Mayence should be set free. Their claim to choose their pastors, which was likewise made elsewhere, for instance, in the “Twelve Articles of the Peasants of Swabia,” signified nothing less than the intention to fill the posts with preachers of the new faith.
“The rebels everywhere either supported or opposed the Evangelical demands, those of Evangelical views joining the rebels with the idea that they would be able to enforce their wishes by this means.” This explains why, after the rising had been put down, the Catholic lords were disposed “to look on Lutheranism as no better than rebellion.” These words, written by a Protestant historian, refer to the Rhine Province, but they are equally applicable elsewhere. So, too, what he says of this district may also be said generally, viz. that the enthusiastic expectation, which was widespread in Lutheran circles, of a great change before the approaching end of the world, helped to make of the followers of the new faith supporters of the peasants. Luther encouraged such fanatical ideas among his readers till the very outbreak of the revolt. (See below, f.)
“What wonder,” the same historian says, “that when the social revolution broke out in the spring, Luther’s persecuted followers thought they recognised the beginning of the change, and in many instances made common cause with the peasants and the lower classes of the towns. Luther himself had no wish to carry through his religious enterprise with the help either of the knights or of the peasants, but his followers were not equal to making the necessary distinction between the spiritual and the temporal.”
Luther and his preachers had so frequently brought forward such disparaging and degrading charges against the secular, and still more against the spiritual authorities, that clear-sighted contemporaries, such as Bartholomew von Usingen, foretold a revolution as the result of such discourses and writings. The destruction of the episcopal power, which, under the conditions then prevailing, was so closely bound up with the secular, meant a radical revolution in the law of property obtaining in the German Empire.
The “Christian freedom” of all, the equality of high and low in the common priesthood, was proclaimed in the most incautious and seductive terms. The peasants were taught by itinerant and often fanatical preachers, concerning their real or alleged rights as vouched for by Holy Scripture. Thus the esteemed Strasburg preacher, Caspar Hedio, of the Rhinegau, in a sermon which he delivered on the Wachholder Heide, near Erbach, explained to the people his views on the customary payment of tithes; his words acting like a charm: He thought the peasants should pay tithes only under protest, though they were nevertheless not to attempt to abrogate the payment by force. Once roused, however, who was to keep the crowd within these limits? In 1524 Hedio had two sermons, preached on this subject in Strasburg, printed together with a circular letter addressed to the inhabitants of the Rhinegau, “which, there can be no doubt, exercised a certain influence upon the rising there.” In the circular he proposed, that the people themselves should go in search of capable preachers if the ecclesiastical authorities did not send such.
A far-reaching social movement had been at work among the peasants, more particularly in many districts of the south-west of Germany, even previous to the rise of Lutheranism. They raised protests, which in many instances were justifiable, against the oppression under which they laboured. A crisis seemed imminent there as early as 1513 and 1514, and the feeling was general that a settlement of the difficulties could only be brought about by violence. The ferment in many places assumed an anticlerical character, whic
h was all the more natural seeing that the landowners and gentry who were the chief cause of the dissatisfaction were either clergymen, like the Prince-Bishops, or closely allied with the Church and her multifarious secular institutions. The ill-feeling against the clergy was even then being stirred up by exaggerated descriptions of their idle life, their luxury and their unworthy conduct.
To seek to represent the movement, as has been done, as an exclusively social one, is, even for the period before Luther, not quite correct, although it certainly was mainly social. Yet it was, as a matter of fact, the new ideas scattered among the people by Luther and Zwingli, and the preaching of the apostasy, which brought the unrest so quickly to a head. The anticlerical ideas of the religious innovators, combined with social class antagonism, lent an irresistible force to the rising. Hence the Peasant War has recently been described on the Protestant side as a “religious movement,” called forth by the discussion of first principles to which the Reformation gave rise, and which owed its violent character to the religious contrast which it brought out. The expert on this period who writes thus, proves and justifies his opinion, showing that Zwingli and Luther “were the primary cause” of the War, not indeed directly, but because once the peasants had become familiar with the new “biblical” ideas, which were so favourable to their cause, they refused to stand by and see such doctrines suppressed by violence, and preferred to take up arms against the Catholic rulers and their energetic anti-Reformation measures. According to the same writer it is necessary to distinguish carefully between what the peasants themselves represented in the course of the revolt as the moving cause, i.e. the social disabilities of which they complained (for instance in the Twelve Articles), and that which actually produced the rising.
Nor must it be overlooked that, at the moment when passions were already stirred up to their highest pitch, many attempts were made on the Lutheran side to pacify the people. The catastrophe foreseen affrighted those who were on the spot, and who feared lest the responsibility might fall upon their shoulders. Quite recently a forgotten pamphlet, written by an anonymous Lutheran preacher and dating from the commencement of the movement, has been republished, in which, after some pious exhortations, the author expresses his firm hope that the fear of God would succeed in triumphing over the excited passions; even biblical quotations against misuse of the new evangelical freedom are to be found in this well-intentioned booklet. Then as now attention was drawn to Luther’s doctrine concerning obedience to the powers that be, which required of “the true Christian” that he should even “allow himself to be flayed,” and out of love of the cross renounce all desire for revenge (xiv. 4).
Notwithstanding all this, the great responsibility which Lutheranism shares in the matter remains. “It is no purely historical and objective view,” says another Protestant historian, “but rather an apologetic and false assumption, which attempts to deny the fact, that Luther’s evangelical preaching most strongly encouraged and brought to a crisis the social excitement which had been simmering among the lowest classes since the fifteenth century. The agitation stirred up by the preachers who followed in Luther’s footsteps contributed in a still greater degree towards this result.”
Special research in the different parts of the wide area covered by the rising has to-day confirmed even more completely the opinion that the accusations urged against Lutheranism by the olden supporters of the Church were, after all, not so unjust in this particular. The much-abused Johann Cochlæus, who made such charges, is rightly spoken of by the last-mentioned historian as being “more suited” to depict that revolutionary period than the diplomatic and cautious Sleidanus, or the Protestant theological admirers and worshippers of Luther. The learned Hieronymus Emser wrote, in the stormy year 1525, a work “Against Luther’s abominations,” a large part of which is devoted to proving what is already explained in the sub-title of the book, “How, and why, and in what words, Luther, in his books, urges and exhorts to rebellion.” Emser also gave indignant expression to his conviction in some verses intended for general circulation.
Luther was directly implicated in the beginning of the rising when the “Twelve Articles of the Peasants of Swabia” was forwarded to him by the insurgents. The peasants invited him, with confidence, “to declare what was of Divine right.” Luther’s honoured name came first in the list of learned men who were to be consulted. The Wittenberg professor grasped the full importance of the moment; he felt that the direction of German affairs had been placed in his hands. Naturally he did not wish to be the one to let loose the terrible storm, nor did he, as the representative and “deliverer” of the people, wish to repulse the movement which had been so long favourable to him, and the demands of which were, in part at least, perfectly justifiable. He found himself in a position exactly similar to that which he had occupied formerly in regard to the Knights, who were anxious to take up arms, and with whom he had, up to a certain point, made common cause, but whose project afterwards appeared to him too dangerous and compromising to the cause of the evangel. In the question of the Twelve Articles it was difficult, nay, impossible, for him not to give offence either to the gentry or to the populace, or to avoid barring the way for the new evangel in one direction or the other. He determined to seek a middle course. But the tragic consequences of the position he had always assumed, the circumstances of the day and his unrestrained temper, caused him to give mortal offence to both sides, to the lords as well as to the peasants.
First, he flung his “Exhortation to Peace” on the field of battle — no mere figure of speech, as, at the time of writing, the tumult had already broken out and the horrors of Weinsberg been enacted (April 16, 1525), though of this Luther was ignorant when he composed the pamphlet. Formerly this writing was thought to have been written in May, but as a matter of fact it belongs to the period just after April 18.
In this writing, as well as in the two following which treat of the rising, certain sides of Luther’s character are displayed which must be examined from the historical and psychological standpoint. The second, which was the outcome of the impressions made by the bloody contest, consists of only one sheet and is entitled “Against the murderous, thieving hordes of Peasants,” or more shortly, “Against the insurgent Peasants”; it, too, was written before the complete defeat of the rebels in the decisive days of May. The third is the “Circular letter concerning the stern booklet against the Peasants,” of the same year, and belongs to the time when the conquerors, flushed with victory, were raging against the vanquished.
The three writings must be considered in conjunction with the circumstances which called them forth. Written in the very thick of the seething ferment, they glow with all the fire of their author, whose personal concern in the matter was so great. Whoever weighs their contents at the present day will be carried back to the storm of that period, and will marvel at the strength of the spirit which inspires them, but at the same time be surprised at the picture the three together present. He will ask, and not without cause, which of the three is most to be regretted; surely the third, for the unmistakable blunders of the author, who gives the fullest play to feeling and fancy to the detriment of calm reason, go on increasing in each pamphlet.
In the first, the “Exhortation,” the author seeks to put the truth before, and to pacify the Princes and gentry, more particularly those Catholics who, subsequent to the Diet of Nuremberg, in 1524, had entered the lists against the innovations. He also would fain instruct and calm the peasants, his “dear Masters and Brothers.” Had Luther been endowed with a clear perception of the position of affairs, and seen the utter uselessness of any attempt merely to stem the movement, he would not at this critical juncture have still further irritated the rebels by the attacks upon the gentry, into which he allowed himself to break out, and which were at once taken advantage of.
He cries, for instance, to the authorities: “Your government consists in nothing else but fleecing and oppressing the poor common people in order to support y
our own magnificence and arrogance, till they neither can nor will endure it. The sword is at your throat; you think you sit fast in the saddle and that it will be impossible to overthrow you. But you will find that your self-confidence and obstinacy will be the breaking of your necks.” “You are bringing it upon yourselves and wish to get your heads broken. There is no use in any further warning or admonishing.” “God has so ordained it that your furious raging neither can nor shall any longer be endured. You must become different and give way to the Word of God; if you refuse to do so willingly, then you will be forced to it by violence and riot. If these peasants do not accomplish it, others must.”
He admonishes the peasants to suffer in a Christian manner, and to be ready to endure even persecution and oppression willingly. Such is the spirit of the evangel which he has always preached. The gospel made the material life to consist in nothing else but suffering, injustice, crosses, patience and contempt for all temporal goods, even life itself. Hence they must not base their earthly claims on the gospel. “Murderous prophets” had, however, come amongst them who, by their false interpretation of the Bible, injured the cause of the gospel and incited men to the use of force, which was forbidden. He himself had been so successful and yet had abhorred violence, which made the spread of his doctrine so much the more marvellous. “Now you interfere,” you wish to help the cause of the evangel, but you “are damaging it” by your violent action. The effect of these words which form the central point of his train of thought he destroys by fresh attacks upon the lords and Princes: If they “forbid the preaching of the gospel and oppress the people so unbearably, then they deserve that God should cast them from their thrones.” Luther fancies he already sees the hands stretched out to execute the sentence, and concludes by addressing the Princes thus: “Tyrants seldom die in their beds, as a rule they perish by a bloody death. Since it is certain that you govern tyrannically and savagely, forbidding the preaching of the gospel and fleecing and oppressing the people, there is no comfort or hope for you but to perish as those like you have perished.”
Collected Works of Martin Luther Page 640