History of the Reformation in the Sixteenth Century Volume III Part 28

Luther's opinion of the revolt was the same as Melancthon's; but he had a heart that beat for the miseries of the people. On this occasion he manifested a dignified impartiality, and spoke the truth frankly to both parties. He first addressed the princes, and more especially the bishops:--

[Sidenote: LUTHER'S OPINION.]

"It is you," said he, "who are the cause of this revolt; it is your clamours against the Gospel, your guilty oppressions of the poor, that have driven the people to despair. It is not the peasants, my dear Lords, that rise up against you,--it is G.o.d himself who opposes your madness.[397] The peasants are but the instruments he employs to humble you. Do not imagine you can escape the punishment he is preparing for you. Even should you have succeeded in destroying all these peasants, G.o.d is able from the very stones to raise up others to chastise your pride. If I desired revenge, I might laugh in my sleeve, and look on while the peasants were carrying on their work, or even increase their fury; but may G.o.d preserve me from such thoughts!......

My dear Lords, put away your indignation, treat these poor peasants as a man of sense treats people who are drunk or insane. Quiet these commotions by mildness, lest a conflagration should arise and burn all Germany. Among these twelve articles there are certain demands which are just and equitable."

[397] Gott ist's selber der setzt sich wider euch. L. Opp. xix. 254.

This prologue was calculated to conciliate the peasants' confidence in Luther, and to make them listen patiently to the truths he had to tell them. He represented to them that the greater number of their demands were well founded; but that to revolt was to act like heathens; that the duty of a Christian is to be patient, not to fight; that if they persisted in revolting against the Gospel in the name of the Gospel, he should look upon them as more dangerous enemies than the pope. "The pope and the emperor," continued he, "combined against me; but the more they bl.u.s.tered the more did the Gospel gain ground......And why was this? Because I have never drawn the sword or called for vengeance; because I never had recourse to tumult or insurrection: I relied wholly upon G.o.d, and placed everything in His almighty hands.

Christians fight not with swords or arquebuses, but with sufferings and with the cross. Christ, their Captain, handled not the sword......he was hung upon a tree."

[Sidenote: HELFENSTEIN--LUTHER'S INDIGNATION.]

But to no purpose did Luther employ this christian language. The people were too much excited by the fanatical speeches of the leaders of the insurrection, to listen, as of old, to the words of the reformer. "He is playing the hypocrite," said they; "he flatters the n.o.bles. He has declared war against the pope, and yet wishes us to submit to our oppressors."

The revolt, instead of dying away, became more formidable. At Weinsberg, Count Louis of Helfenstein and the seventy men under his orders were condemned to death by the rebels. A body of peasants drew up with their pikes lowered, whilst others drove the count and his soldiers against this wall of steel.[398] The wife of the wretched Helfenstein, a natural daughter of the Emperor Maximilian, holding an infant two years old in her arms, knelt before them, and with loud cries begged for her husband's life, and vainly endeavoured to arrest this march of murder; a boy who had been in the count's service, and had joined the rebels, capered gaily before him, and played the dead march upon his fife, as if he had been leading his victims in a dance.

All perished; the child was wounded in its mother's arms; and she herself thrown upon a dung-cart, and thus conveyed to Heilbrunn.

[398] Und jagten den Grafen durch die Spiesse. Mathesius, p. 46

At the news of these cruelties, a cry of horror was heard from the friends of the Reformation, and Luther's feeling heart underwent a terrible conflict. On the one hand the peasants, ridiculing his advice, pretended to receive revelations from heaven, made an impious use of the threatenings of the Old Testament, proclaimed an equality of ranks and a community of goods, defended their cause with fire and sword, and indulged in barbarous atrocities. On the other hand, the enemies of the Reformation asked the reformer, with a malicious sneer, if he did not know that it was easier to kindle a fire than to extinguish it. Shocked at these excesses, alarmed at the thought that they might check the progress of the Gospel, Luther hesitated no longer, no longer temporized; he inveighed against the insurgents with all the energy of his character, and perhaps overstepped the just bounds within which he should have contained himself.

[Sidenote: LUTHER'S INDIGNATION--MARCH OF THE PEASANTS.]

"The peasants," said he, "commit three horrible sins against G.o.d and man, and thus deserve the death of body and soul. First, they revolt against their magistrates to whom they have sworn fidelity; next, they rob and plunder convents and castles; and lastly, they veil their crimes with the cloak of the Gospel. If you do not put a mad dog to death, you will perish, and all the country with you. Whoever is killed fighting for the magistrates will be a true martyr, if he has fought with, a good conscience." Luther then gives a powerful description of the guilty violence of the peasants who force simple and peaceable men to join their alliance, and thus drag them to the same condemnation. He then adds: "For this reason, my dear Lords, help, save, deliver, have pity on these poor people. Let every one strike, pierce, and kill, who is able......If thou diest, thou canst not meet a happier death; for thou diest in the service of G.o.d, and to save thy neighbour from h.e.l.l."[399]

[399] Deinen Nachsten zu retten aus der Holle. L. Opp. xix. 266.

Neither gentleness nor violence could arrest the popular torrent. The church-bells were no longer rung for divine service; whenever their deep and prolonged sounds were heard in the fields, it was the tocsin, and all ran to arms. The people of the Black Forest had rallied round John Muller of Bulgenbach. With an imposing aspect, covered with a red cloak, and wearing a red cap, this leader boldly advanced from village to village followed by the peasantry. Behind him, on a waggon decorated with ribands and branches of trees, was raised the tricolor flag, black, red, and white,--the signal of revolt. A herald, dressed in the same colours, read the twelve articles, and invited the people to join in the rebellion. Whoever refused was banished from the community.

Erelong this march, which at first was peaceable, became more disquieting. "We must compel the lords to submit to our alliance,"

exclaimed they. And to induce them to do so, they plundered the granaries, emptied the cellars, drew the seigneurial fish-ponds, demolished the castles of the n.o.bles who resisted, and burnt the convents. Opposition had inflamed the pa.s.sions of those rude men; equality no longer satisfied them; they thirsted for blood, and swore to put to death every man who wore a spur.

[Sidenote: VIOLENCE--THE n.o.bLES--THE REVOLT SPREADS.]

At the approach of the peasants, the cities that were unable to resist them opened their gates and joined them. In whatever place they entered, they pulled down the images and broke the crucifixes; armed women paraded the streets and threatened the monks. If they were defeated in one quarter, they a.s.sembled again in another, and braved the most formidable forces. A committee of peasants was established at Heilbrunn. The Counts of Lowenstein were taken prisoners, dressed in a smock-frock, and then, a white staff having been placed in their hands, they were compelled to swear to the twelve articles. "Brother George, and thou, brother Albert," said a tinker of Ohringen to the Counts of Hohenlohe, who had gone to their camp, "swear to conduct yourselves as our brethren; for you also are now peasants; you are no longer lords." Equality of rank, the dream of many democrats, was established in aristocratic Germany.

Many n.o.bles, some through fear, others from ambition, then joined the insurgents. The famous Goetz von Berlichingen, finding his va.s.sals refuse to obey him, desired to flee to the Elector of Saxony; but his wife, who was lying-in, wishing to keep him near her, concealed the elector's answer. Goetz, being closely pursued, was compelled to put himself at the head of the rebel army. On the 7th of May the peasants entered Wurtzburg, where the citizens received them with acclamations.

The forces of the princes and knights of Swabia and Franconia, which had a.s.sembled in this city, evacuated it, and retired in confusion to the citadel, the last bulwark of the n.o.bility.

But the movement had already extended to other parts of Germany.

Spires, the Palatinate, Alsace, and Hesse accepted the twelve articles, and the peasants threatened Bavaria, Westphalia, the Tyrol, Saxony, and Lorraine. The Margrave of Baden, having rejected the articles, was compelled to flee. The coadjutor of Fulda acceded to them with a smile. The smaller towns said, they had no lances with which to oppose the insurgents. Mentz, Treves, and Frankfort obtained the liberties which they had claimed.

[Sidenote: MARCH OF THE IMPERIAL ARMY.]

An immense revolution was preparing in all the empire. The ecclesiastical and secular privileges, that bore so heavily on the peasants, were to be suppressed; the possessions of the clergy were to be secularized, to indemnify the princes and provide for the wants of the empire; taxes were to be abolished, with the exception of a tribute payable every ten years; the imperial power was to subsist alone, as being recognised by the New Testament; all the other princes were to cease to reign; sixty-four free tribunals were to be established, in which men of all cla.s.ses should have a seat; all ranks were to return to their primitive condition; the clergy were to be henceforward merely the pastors of the churches; princes and knights were to be simply the defenders of the weak; uniformity in weights and measures was to be introduced, and only one kind of money was to be coined throughout the empire.

Meanwhile the princes had shaken off their first lethargy, and George von Truchsess, commander-in-chief of the imperial army, was advancing on the side of the Lake of Constance. On the 2d of May he defeated the peasants at Beblingen, marched on the town of Weinsberg, where the unhappy Count of Helfenstein had perished, burnt and razed it to the ground, giving orders that the ruins should be left as an eternal monument of the treason of its inhabitants. At Furfeld he united with the Elector Palatine and the Elector of Treves, and all three moved towards Franconia.

[Sidenote: DEFEAT OF THE PEASANTS.]

The Frauenburg, the citadel of Wurtzburg, held out for the princes, and the main army of the peasants still lay before its walls. As soon as they heard of Truchsess' march, they resolved on an a.s.sault, and at nine o'clock at night on the 15th of May, the trumpets sounded, the tricolor flag was unfurled, and the peasants rushed to the attack with horrible shouts. Sebastian von Rotenhan, one of the warmest partisans of the Reformation, was governor of the castle. He had put the fortress in a formidable state of defence, and having exhorted the garrison to repel the a.s.sault with courage, the soldiers, holding up three fingers, had all sworn to do so. A most terrible conflict then took place. To the vigour and despair of the insurgents the fortress replied from its walls and towers by petards, showers of sulphur and boiling pitch, and the discharges of artillery. The peasants, thus struck by their unseen enemies, were staggered for a moment; but in an instant their fury grew more violent. The struggle was prolonged as the night advanced. The fortress, lit up by a thousand battle-fires, appeared in the darkness like a towering giant, who, vomiting flames, struggled alone amidst the roar of thunder for the salvation of the empire against the ferocious valour of these furious hordes. Two hours after midnight the peasants withdrew, having failed in all their efforts.

They now tried to enter into negotiations, either with the garrison or with Truchsess, who was advancing at the head of his army. But this was going out of their path; violence and victory alone could save them. After some little hesitation, they resolved to march against the imperial forces, but the cavalry and artillery made terrible havoc in their ranks. At Konigshofen, and afterwards at Engelstadt, those unfortunate creatures were totally defeated. The princes, n.o.bles, and bishops, abusing their victory, indulged in the most unprecedented cruelties. The prisoners were hung on the trees by the wayside. The Bishop of Wurtzburg, who had run away, now returned, traversed his diocese accompanied by executioners, and watered it alike with the blood of the rebels and of the peaceful friends of the Word of G.o.d.

Goetz von Berlichingen was sentenced to imprisonment for life. The Margrave Casimir of Ans.p.a.ch put out the eyes of eighty-five insurgents, who had sworn that their eyes should never look upon that prince again; and he cast this troop of blinded individuals upon the world, who wandered up and down, holding each other by the hand, groping along, tottering, and begging their bread. The wretched boy, who had played the dead-march on his fife at the murder of Helfenstein, was chained to a post; a fire was kindled around him, and the knights looked on laughing at his horrible contortions.

Public worship was everywhere restored in its ancient forms. The most flourishing and populous districts of the empire exhibited to those who travelled through them nothing but heaps of dead bodies and smoking ruins. Fifty thousand men had perished, and the people lost nearly everywhere the little liberty they had hitherto enjoyed. Such was the horrible termination of this revolt in the south of Germany.

CHAPTER XI.

Munzer at Mulhausen--Appeal to the People--March of the Princes--End of the Revolt--Influence of the Reformers--Sufferings--Changes--Two Results.

[Sidenote: MUNZER AT MULHAUSEN.]

But the evil was not confined to the south and west of Germany.

Munzer, after having traversed a part of Switzerland, Alsace, and Swabia, had again directed his steps towards Saxony. A few citizens of Mulhausen, in Thuringia, had invited him to their city, and elected him their pastor. The town-council having resisted, Munzer deposed it and nominated another, consisting of his friends, with himself at their head. Full of contempt for that Christ, "sweet as honey," whom Luther preached, and being resolved to employ the most energetic measures, he exclaimed: "Like Joshua, we must put all the Canaanites to the sword." He established a community of goods, and pillaged the convents.[400] "Munzer," wrote Luther to Amsdorff on the 11th of April 1525, "Munzer is not only pastor, but king and emperor of Mulhausen."

The poor no longer worked; if any one needed corn or cloth, he went and demanded it of some rich man; if the latter refused, the poor man took it by force; if he resisted, he was hung. As Mulhausen was an independent city, Munzer was able to exercise his power for nearly a year without opposition. The revolt in the south of Germany led him to imagine that it was time to extend his new kingdom. He had a number of heavy guns cast in the Franciscan convent, and endeavoured to raise the peasantry and miners of Mansfeldt. "How long will you sleep?" said he to them in a fanatical proclamation. "Arise and fight the battle of the Lord! The time is come. France, Germany, and Italy are moving.

On, on, on!--Dran, Dran, Dran!.....Heed not the groans of the impious ones. They will implore you like children; but be pitiless.--Dran, Dran, Dran!......The fire is burning: let your sword be ever warm with blood.[401]--Dran, Dran, Dran!......Work while it is yet day." The letter was signed "MUNZER, servant of G.o.d against the wicked."

[400] Omnia simul communia. L. Opp. xix. 292.

[401] La.s.set euer Schwerdt nicht kalt werden von Blut. L. Opp. xix.

289.

[Sidenote: APPEAL TO THE PEOPLE--TERROR.]

The country people, thirsting for plunder, flocked round his standard.

Throughout all the districts of Mansfeldt, s...o...b..rg, and Schwartzburg in Hesse, and the duchy of Brunswick, the peasantry rose in insurrection. The convents of Michelstein, Ilsenburg, Walkenried, Rossleben, and many others in the neighbourhood of the Hartz, or in the plains of Thuringia, were devastated. At Reinhardsbrunn, which Luther had visited, the tombs of the ancient landgraves were profaned, and the library destroyed.

Terror spread far and wide. Even at Wittemberg some anxiety was felt.

Those doctors, who had feared neither the emperor nor the pope, trembled in the presence of a madman. They were always on the watch for news, and every step of the rebels was counted. "We are here in great danger," said Melancthon. "If Munzer succeeds, it is all over with us, unless Christ should rescue us. Munzer advances with a worse than Scythian cruelty,[402] and it is impossible to repeat his dreadful threats."

[402] Moncerus plus quam Scythicam crudelitatem prae se fert. Corp.

Ref. i. 741.

[Sidenote: THE ELECTOR--MARCH OF THE PRINCES.]

The pious elector had long hesitated what he should do. Munzer had exhorted him and all the princes to be converted, because (said he) their hour was come; and he had signed these letters: "MUNZER, armed with the sword of Gideon." Frederick would have desired to reclaim these misguided men by gentle measures. On the 14th of April, when he was dangerously ill, he had written to his brother John: "We may have given these wretched people more than one cause for insurrection.

Alas! the poor are oppressed in many ways by their spiritual and temporal lords." And when his attention was directed to the humiliation, the revolutions, the dangers to which he would expose himself, unless he promptly stifled the rebellion, he replied: "Hitherto I have been a mighty elector, having chariots and horses in abundance; if it be G.o.d's pleasure to take them from me now, I will go on foot."[403]

[403] So wolle er hinkunftig zu fuss gehen. Seck. p. 685.

The youthful Philip, landgrave of Hesse, was the first of the princes who took up arms. His knights and soldiers swore to live and die with him. After pacifying his own states, he directed his march towards Saxony. On their side, Duke John, the elector's brother, Duke George of Saxony, and Duke Henry of Brunswick, advanced and united their troops with those of Hesse. The peasants, terrified at the sight of this army, fled to a small hill, where, without any discipline, without arms, and for the most part without courage, they formed a rampart with their waggons. Munzer had not even prepared ammunition for his large guns. No succours appeared; the rebels were hemmed in by the army; they lost all confidence. The princes, taking pity on them, offered them propositions which they appeared willing to accept. Upon this Munzer had recourse to the most powerful lever that enthusiasm can put in motion. "To-day we shall behold the arm of the Lord," said he, "and all our enemies shall be destroyed." At this moment a rainbow appeared over their heads; the fanatical host, who carried a rainbow on their flags, beheld in it a sure prognostic of the Divine protection. Munzer took advantage of it: "Fear nothing," said he to the citizens and peasants; "I will catch all their b.a.l.l.s in my sleeve."[404] At the same time he cruelly put to death a young gentleman, Maternus von Geholfen, an envoy from the princes, in order to deprive the insurgents of all hope of pardon.