“A Christian is a perfectly free lord of all, subject to one.” These words, written in 1520 by the theologian Martin Luther, would later reverberate in the ears of the desperate German peasants. What happens when people start to break away from the entity that bound civilizations for thousands of years? How does one go from unparalleled devotion to God to the exploration of what man could do? Like all revolutions proceeding it, the Protestant Reformation did not happen overnight. Catholics had begun to lose faith in the once infallible church ever since the Great Schism. When Luther began to become eager to learn what was beyond his religious capacity, he developed a following. The peasants found new justification for revolt in the promising words of Martin Luther. Luther proclaimed a new kind of freedom for the Christian soul and the peasants applied his idea to their own circumstances. Seeking to emerge from the deepening waters of feudalism within five years under the influence of Luther, their frustration boiled over into revolt.
The main cause of this rise in rebellion was poverty and the impact of Luther’s word on the peasants and the response was harsh from Luther the very man that motivated them, and demanding from the peasants that wanted social justice. From a peasants viewpoint we can argue that the peasants actions can best be described through economics. The economic struggles of the peasants drove them to extreme measures, causing them to take arms against their oppressors. Document 3 conveys this because it reveals the peasants thoughts on how they were being treated. From the Peasant Parliament of Swabia, “…we have been held as your poor serfs.” This statement shows the emotion behind their actions and how they were dealing with their poverty stricken sensitivities. All while this was happening the peasants were also sorting out the social constraints of feudalism. With political corruption and abuse in the sixteenth century, germany placed great amounts of stress and pressure on the powerless people, pushing them even further towards the savage pathway to revolt.
In document 1 we are introduced to a nobles point of view on why the peasants revolt happened, some believed it was God’s Will for them to rebel but The Chancellor of Bavaria believed the cause of the rebellion were the teachings of Luther, which is definitely one of the main causes. Luther taught that salvation was reached through faith and not deeds. Protestants latched onto this idea and never released it. They used his words as a leading factor to revolt. They reiterated his voice in their heads and it then became the driving force that lead them straight to the German Peasants’ Revolts. The reactions of the peasants revolt fluctuated. While some responses completely crushed the peasants others were met with a level of sympathy and toleration. Despite his role in it’s cause, Martin Luther was also pivotal in it’s disastrous ending. Luther turned his back on the peasants with his “Against the Robbing and Murderous Hordes of Peasants.”
In his writing, he voices that the peasants have gone too far and their violence is the equivalent to that of a “mad dogs”. Ulike the total condemnation of the peasants from Luther, Caspar Nutzel clearly rebukes the peasants behavior, but he also offers a measure of empathy claiming that “the authorities have torn out the hair of their subjects, whom they should aid, defend, and rule rather than fleece.” making his response both empathetic and non-approving.Document 7 shows the upper class response to the revolt, which was much like Luther, expressing a condemning attitude. Both economics and Luther’s wise words contributed to the peasants revolt. Though responses were varied, they ranged from completely harsh to reasonable negotiation. The overall outcome of the peasants revolt was The Peace of Augsburg, a temporary compromise to put the rising conflict to rest. It allowed each prince to determine whether Lutheranism or Roman Catholicism was to prevail in his lands.
