444 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 To 15380.
8. Reduction of rents. 9. Cessation of arbitrary punish: ments. 10. Restoration of the pastures and fields which have been taken from the communes. 11. Abolition of the right of heriot, by which widows and orphans are deprived of their inheritance. 12. All these demands shall be tested by Scripture; and if not found to agree with it, they are to be withdrawn.
These demands are moderate and reasonable, especially freedom from feudal oppression, and the primitive right to elect a pastor. Most of them have since been satisfied. Had they been granted in 1524, Germany might have been spared the calamity of bloodshed, and entered upon a career of prosperity. But the rulers and the peasants were alike blind to their best interests, and consulted their passion instead of reason. The peasants did not stick to their own program, split up in parties, and resorted to brutal violence against their masters. Another program appeared, which aimed at a democratic reconstruction of church and state in Germany. Had Charles V. not been taken up with foreign schemes, he might have utilized the commotion for the unification and consolidation of Germany in the interest of an imperial despotism and Romanism. But this would have been a still greater calamity than the division of Germany.
Progress of the Insurrection.
The insurrection broke out in summer, 1524, in Swabia, on the Upper Danube, and the Upper Rhine along the Swiss frontier, but not on the Swiss side, where the peasantry were free. In 1525 it extended gradually all over South-Western and Central Germany. The rebels destroyed the palaces of the bishops, the castles of the nobility, burned convents and libraries, and committed other outrages. Erasmus wrote to Polydore Virgil, from Basel, in the autumn of 1525: “ Every day there are bloody conflicts between the nobles and the
§ 75. THE PEASANTS’ WAR. | 445
peasants, so near us that we can hear the firing, and almost the groans of the wounded.” In another letter he says: ‘‘ Every day priests are imprisoned, tortured, hanged, decapi- — tated, or burnt.”
At first the revolution was successful. Princes, nobles, and cities were forced to submit to the peasants. If the middle classes, which were the chief supporters of Protestant doctrines, had taken sides with the peasants, they would have become irresistible.
But the leader of the Reformation threw the whole weight of his name against the revolution.
Luther advises a wholesale Suppression of the Rebellion.
The fate of the peasantry depended upon Luther. Himself the son of a peasant, he had, at first, considerable sympathy with their cause, and advocated the removal of their grievances; but he was always opposed to the use of force, except by the civil magistrate, to whom the sword was given by God for the punishment of evil-doers. He thought that revolution was wrong in itself, and contrary to Divine order; that it was the worst enemy of reformation, and increased the evil complained of. He trusted in the almighty power of preaching, teaching, and moral suasion. In the battle of words he allowed himself every license; but there he stopped. With the heroic courage of a warrior in the spiritual army “of God, he combined the humble obedience of a monk to the civil authority.
He replied to the Twelve Articles of the Swabian peasants with an exhortation to peace (May, 1525). He admitted that most of them were just. He rebuked the princes and nobles, especially the bishops, for their oppression of the poor people and their hostility to the gospel, and urged them to grant some of the petitions, lest a fire should be kindled all over Germany which no one could extinguish. But he also warned the peasants against revolution, and reminded
446 THE GERMAN REFORMATION. A.D. 1517 τὸ 15380.
them of the duty of obedience to the ruling powers (Rom. 13: 1), and of the passage, that “They that take the sword shall perish with the sword” (Matt. 26: 52). He advised both parties to submit the quarrel to a committee of arbitration. But it was too late; he preached to deaf ears.
When the dark cloud of war rose up all over Germany, and obscured the pure light of the Reformation, Luther dipped his pen in blood, and burst out in a most violent manifesto “against the rapacious and murderous peasants.” He charged them with doing the Devil’s work under pretence of the gospel.! He called upon the magistrates to “stab, kill, and strangle” them like mad dogs. He who dies in defence of the government dies a blessed death, and is a true martyr before God. A pious Christian should rather suffer a hundred deaths than yield a hair of the demands of the peasants.?
So fierce were Luther’s words, that he had to defend himself in a public letter to the chancellor of Mansfeld (June or July, 1525). He did not, however, retract his position. “My little book,” he said, “shall stand, though the whole world should stumble at it.” He repeated the most offensive passages, even in stronger language, and declared that it was
1 ἐς Kurzum, eitel Teufelswerk treiben sie, und insonderheit ists der Erzteufel, der zu Miihlhausen regiert [Miinzer], und nichts denn Raub, Mord, Blutvergiessen anricht, wie denn Christus von thm sagt, Joh. 8:44, dass er sei ein Morder von Anbeginn.”’ Erl. ed., XXIV. 288.
2 «ὁ Darum, lieben Herren, loset hie, rettet hie, erbarmet euch der armen Leute [i.e., not the peasants, but the poor people deluded by them]; steche, schlage, wiirge hie wer da kann. Bleibst du dariiber todt: wohl dir, seliglicheren Tod kannst du nimmermehr tiberkommen. Denn du stirbst im Gehorsam gottlichs Worts und Befehls, Rom. 13: 1.’ ... **So bitte ich nun, fliche von den Bauern wer da kann, als vom Teufel seibst.”’ - Ibid., xxiv. 294, In his explanatory tract, Ὁ. 307, this passage is repeated more strongly. “Der halsstarrigen, verstockten, verblendeten Bauern erbarme sich nur niemand, sondern haue, steche, wiirge, schlage drein, als unter die tollen Hunde, wer da kann und wie er kann. Und das alles, auf dass man sich derjenigen
erbarme, die durch solche Bauern verderbt, verjagt und verfiihrt werden, dass man Fried und Sicherheit erhalte.’’