The Age of Reform, 1250-1550: An Intellectual and Religious History of Late Medieval and Reformation Europe 0300203551, 9780300203554

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THE AGE OF REFORM

1250-1550

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TheAge of Reform 1250-1550 AN INTELLECTUAL AND RELIGIOUS HISTORY OF LATE MEDIEVAL AND REFORMATION EUROPE

STEVEN OZMENT With a New Foreword by CARLOS EIRE and RONALD K. RITTGERS

NEW HA VEN AND LONDON YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS

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A New Saying: The Complaint of the Clergy and Certain Professions against Luther. Illustrated by Sebald Be ham. In a flood of pamphlets and illustrations, the peasant was depicted as the chief defender of the new Protestant teaching. The reformers sympathized with the plight of common people in both city and countryside and directly sought their support. In this broadsheet Luther, Bible in hand , confronts a Catholic spokesman, each backed by their supporters. In the crowd of ordinary people behind Luther a defiant peasant with a flail stands out most prominently. The Catholic spokesman is supported by the high clergy and t-he protessions with an obvious self-interest in the continuation of traditional religious beliefs and practices: bellmakers, goldsmiths, candlemakers, woodcarvers, and fishermen. Heroic portrayals of peasants by Protestant artists quickly ceased after the Peasants' Revolt.

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Society and Politics in the German Reformation

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authors of the Twelve Articles and, as we have seen, the ex-Lutheran Thomas M iintzer became a theologian of peasant revolt. 73 Despite the prominence of the "spiritual", however, the peasant grievances of 1524/25 remained predominantly material in nature and quite traditional. 74 The appeal to divine law against the legal sanctions of landholders reflected a desperate need for a higher legitimation. Where the peasants could defend themselves by ancient law and custom, they did so; but where positive law and custom supported the landholders, who readily invoked tradition, peasant spokesmen turned to higher divine law and the court of ethics and equity. 75 While such appeals gave their cause an ideological justification beyond the purely material, it also created completely unrealistic expectations of the degree to which society could be socially and politically transformed. The utopian strains in the peasant revolt of 1525 do not, however, distract from the common man's legitimate grievances. Changes in the exercise of lordship, not peasant greed and folly, gave birth to the Twelve Articles of Memmingen and other protests in city and countryside. 76 Prior to the fif73. On the theology of Lotzer and Schappeler, see Martin Brecht, "Der theologische Hintergrund der Zwolf Artikel der Bauernschaft in Schwaben van 1525: Christoph Schappelers and Sebastian Lotzers Beitrag zum Bauernkrieg," in Heiko A. Oberman, ed., Deutscher Bauernkrieg r525, ZKG 85 (1974): 30-64; and Barbara Bettina Gerber, "Sebastian Lotzer. Ein gelehrter Laie im Streit um das Gottliche Recht," in Radikale Reformatoren, ed. by Hans-Jurgen Goertz (Munich, 1978), pp. 60-64. On Miintzer, see S. Ozment, Mysticism and Dissent (New Haven, 1973), pp. 79-97; and Abraham Friesen and H.J. Goertz, eds., Thomas Muntzer (Darmstadt, 1978). 74. On the material and spiritual sides of peasant grievances, see H. J. Hillerbrand, "The German Reformation and the Peasants' War," in The Social History of the Reformation, ed. L. P. Buck and J. W. Zophy (Columbus, 1972), pp. 106-36; H. Boockmann, "Zu den geistigen und religiosen Voraussetzungen des Bauernkrieges," in Moeller, BauernkriegsStudien, pp. 9-27; Francis Rapp, "Die soziale und wirtschaftliche Vorgeschichte des Bauernkrieges in Unterelsass," in ibid., pp. 29-45; Hubert Kirchner, "Der deutsche Bauernkrieg im Crteil der friihen reformatorischen Geschichtsschreibung," in Oberman, DeutscherBauernkrieg r525, pp. 95-125; and H. A. Oberman, 'Tumultusrusticorum: Varn 'Klosterkrieg' zum Fiirstensieg," in ibid., pp. 157-172. Hillerbrand and Oberman represent extremes in interpretation; Hillerbrand reduces peasant grievances to economic motives, while Oberman argues for recognition of the Peasants' War as a true "Glaubensrevolte" that evolved into economic and political revolt. 75. Blickle comments: "Der Legitimationszwang bestand fiir beide Seiten: die Herren kampften mit dem 'gemeinen kaiserlichen und geistlichen Recht,' der Bauer verteidigte sich mit der stumpfgewordenen Waffe des Alten Herkommens. Die Kategorie der Rationalitat stand gegen die Kategorie der Ethik. Gefesselt an sein eigenes Rechtsverstandnis van Herkommen und Billigkeit konnte der Bauer nur fordern, was er rechtlich begrunden konnte. Er benotigte ein Aequivalent zum 'gemeinen kaiserlichen und geistlichen Recht'; er sollte es 1525 finden-im 'gottlichen Recht"' (Die Revolution van r525 , p. 134). 76. Ibid., p. 71.

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teenth century servitude had been far more flexible and the common man the beneficiary of greater factual if not legal freedom. He could, for example, choose his own patron(s) and marry beyond his immediate community, if he desired. After 1400, lords imposed new restrictions and controls that reflected the larger drift of the century toward political and economic centralization. What had been a comparatively informal and flexible structure of government before 1400-perhaps in large part because of the rulers' inability to make it otherwise after the social upheavals of the fourteenth century-became for the common man a petty, bureaucratized, rule-laden state during the fifteenth century. 77 The peasants listed Luther as chief among the theologians who could attest the conformity of their articles to Holy Scripture. Zwingli, Melanchthon, Andreas Osiander, Theobald Billican, and Matthew Zell were also cited. Luther formally replied to the Twelve Articles in a tract entitled An Admonition to Peace, which was written in the apparently sincere belief that full-scale rebellion could be averted if both sides-but especially the princes and lords-would only cooperate. At the outset he expressed a fear that persisted on his part throughout the entire affair and clearly influenced his actions during it. This matter is great and perilous, concerning both the kingdom of God and the kingdom of the world; if this rebellion ... gets the upper hand, both kingdoms will be destroyed and there will be neither worldly government nor Word of God; there will rather result the permanent destruction of all Germany; therefore, it is necessary ... to speak boldly. 78 Boldly Luther did speak-as it turned out, all too boldly. He acknowledged the justice of the peasants' complaints and laid the blame for the incipient revolt squarely at the feet of the princes and lords. We have no one on earth to thank for this mischievous rebellion, except you lords and princes, especially you blind bishops and mad priests and monks .... In your government you do nothing but flay and rob your subjects in order that you may lead a life of splendor and pride, until the poor common folk can bear it no longer. 79 77. Ibid., pp. 40-43, 71-75. 78. In Works of Martin Luther, 4: 220 ( = WA 18, pp. 291-334). There were nineteen editions of this work, including one Dutch. Claus, Die deutsche Bauernkrieg irn Druckschaffen, pp. 44-59. 79. An Admonition to Peace, p. 220.

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Although he doubted their ability to be advised in the matter, Luther urged the princes and lords to "act rationally" in the face of peasant rage and "try kindness" as a small price for peace. 80 While he also recognized the baser motives of the peasants, he never reversed this initial judgment: the princes and lords inspired the revolt of the common man. To the peasants, Luther insisted that the rightness of their cause did not justify the use of armed force: "The fact that rulers are wicked and unjust does not excuse tumult and rebellion; to punish wickedness does not belong to everybody, but to the worldly rulers who bear the sword," as Romans 13 :4 and 1 Peter 2 :7 were seen by Luther clearly to teach. Luther here rejected out of hand the subsequent argument of the famous peasant pamphlet An die Versammlung gemeiner Bauernschaft (1525) that Christians had a duty to disobey and oppose godless tyrants. 81 Rebellion, he wrote, is "contrary not only to Christian law and the gospel, but also to natural law and all equity"-condemned by both the Bible and conscience. 82 As for the proclaimed "Christian right" of the peasants' demands, Luther emphatically disassociated the gospel as he understood it from all worldly justice and material gain. In doing so he used language that has ever since branded him a social reactionary. Suffering, suffering, cross, cross! This and nothing else is the Christian law! God will help you ... and his gospel will rise with power among you, if you first suffer to the end, leave the case to him, and await his vengeance [on those who persecute you] .... For no matter how right you are, it is not for a Christian to appeal to law, or to fight, but rather to suffer wrong and endure evil; there is no other way .... Christians fight for themselves not with sword and gun, but with the cross and suffering, just as Christ, our leader, does not bear a sword, but hangs upon the cross. 83 Luther here subjected the peasants to the kind of Sermon on the Mount idealism he himself later disavowed in writings against Anabaptists, for example, in his 1526 sermon, "Whether Soldiers, Too, Can be Saved." One 80. Ibid., p. 223. 81. The tract defended the rebelling peasants against those who had condemned them. Among the latter was not only Luther, but such other Protestant reformers as Urbanus Rhegius, Johannes Brenz, Johann Lachmann, and Johannes Zwick. An die Versammlung gemeiner Bauernschaft. Eine revolutioniire Flugschrift aus dem deutschen Bauernkrieg (1525), ed. S. Hoyer and B. Rudiger (Leipzig, 1975), ch. 4, pp. 94-95; ch. 9, pp. 112-13. 82. An Admonition to Peace, p. 227 . 83. Ibid., pp. 231-34.

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cannot, however, accuse him of manifest contradiction. Rebellion against legitimate government because some find it tyrannical, which was what the peasants did, and the use of arms to defend such a government against foreign aggression, which Luther glorified in 1526, are quite different matters. There could have been no doubt about Luther's reaction to the specter of rebellion for those familiar with his previous pronouncements on the subject. In 1522, for example, he had admonished Saxon Christians to guard against insurrection, bluntly declaring: I am and always will be on the side of those against whom insurrection is directed, no matter how unjust their cause; I am opposed to those who rise in insurrection, no matter how just their cause. 84 It is to be borne in mind that Luther opposed rebellion, not human rights and social justice. He condoned the peasants' cause, if not their revolutionary tactics, so long as they marched under a banner other than that of "Christian." Your name and title must be those of a people who fight because they will not, and ought not, endure wrong or evil, according to the teaching of nature [wie das die natur gibt]. You should have that name [the name of those who demand human and natural rights], and let the name of Christ alone, for that is the kind of works you are doing .... [As for] the ... articles about freedom of game, birds, fish, wood, forests, services , tithe, imposts, excises, and the death tax-these I leave to the lawyers [for they are] things [that] do not concern a Christian [who] is a martyr on earth. Therefore, the peasants ought rightly let the name of Christian alone and act in some other name, as men who want human and natural rights [als die gerne menschlich und naturlich recht wollten haben], not as those who seek Christian rights.85 A parallel may be drawn between this argument and that Luther made earlier about the relationship between good works and salvation. In his 1520 treatise On the Freedom of a Christian he categorically denied that good works had any significance for salvation, yet he required the faithful to be daily active in good works. When he now criticizes the peasants' characterization of their demands as "Christian," he also denies that human rights have anything to do with Christian rights, yet he admonishes the princes and lords to be humanly just and fair. Luther permitted religion to be identified with neither ethics nor social justice. Religion, he believed, transcended both 84. A Sincere Admonition, p. 63. 85. An Admonition to Peace, pp. 234, 241.

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and resolved problems of conscience and life's meaning that were beyond moral good and evil. In his argument with the peasants, as also in his dispute at this time with Erasmus, 86 he firmly resisted the slightest diminution of the transcendental character of religion. While the distinction between human and Christian rights was simple and clear to Luther, the consequences of his argument proved very painful for the peasants. In an item-by-item survey of the Memmingen Articles, he concluded that none had any connection with the gospel. All rather dealt with "worldly matters," everything being directed to one purpose, "that your bodies and your properties may be free. 87 The request for release from the payment of small tithes he scorned as "theft and highway robbery"; the petition to be released "in Christ's name" from serfdom he rejected as "making Christian liberty an utterly carnal thing." He chided the dream of an egalitarian society: "A worldly kingdom cannot stand unless there is an inequality of persons, so that some are free, some bound, some lords, some subjects." 88 The Admonition to Peace ended with a warning to both sides: history, experience, and Scripture oppose the princes and lords, for they teach that all tyrants fall sooner or later; and they are against the peasants, for they also teach that revolution always brings only chaos. Casting a plague on both houses, he pied for a peace he believed to be beyond the will of each. Since there is nothing Christian on either side and nothing Christian is at issue between you [inasmuch as] both lords and peasants are dealing with worldly right and wrong and with temporal goods; and since, moreover, both parties are acting against God and are under his wrath ... let yourselves be advised and attack these matters with justice, not with force or strife, and do not start an endless bloodshed in Germany. 89 Compromise was a viable option for neither side at this late date, and both princes and peasants must have looked on Luther's advice as completely gratuitous. In April massive peasant revolts occurred in Swabia, Franconia, and Thuringia. As the princes prepared to crush them, Luther, in what may most charitably be described as an unnecessary writing, urged them on in the strongest possible terms. The treatise, which shocked his friends and allies, bore the title Against the Robbing and Murdering Peasants 86. 87. 88. 89.

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See below, p. 301. An Admonition to Peace, p. 237. Ibid., p. 240. Ibid., pp. 241-42.

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and reached no less than twenty-one editions. 90 It was in part a savage personal attack on his self-appointed rival, Thomas Miintzer, a leader of the rebellious peasants, whom Luther described in the tract as the "arch-devil of Miihlhausen." Luther's enduring animosity toward Miintzer may explain in part the extreme nature of this treatise. Also, on the eve of its composition, Luther had received news of a vicious peasant attack on the town of Weinsburg, during which peasants committed atrocities against the populace. The recent death of his protector, Frederick the Wise, may be still another factor in his merciless condemnation of the revolutionaries. Disappointed by the peasants' refusal to heed his earlier advice and enraged by their still growing threat to German social order, Luther may even have perceived the revolt to be the end of his successful religious reform. Luther accused the peasants of committing three "terrible sins against God and man": perjury, by breaking their oaths of obedience; blasphemy, by rising up in the name of Christ; and rebellion, by acting contrary to the biblical teaching of Luke 20:25, Romans 13, and 1 Peter 2:13. Given the reality of widespread revolt, Luther felt there could be but one response: Let everyone who can smite, slay, and stab [the peasants], secretly and openly, remembering that nothing can be more poisonous, hurtful, or devilish than a rebel. It is just as when one must kill a mad dog; if you do not strike him, he will strike you, and a whole land with you. 91 Luther softened this harsh judgment slightly by suggesting that "if the ruler is a Christian and tolerates the gospel," he will proceed against the peasants by first confessing the rebellion a just judgment on his injustice and pray to God for guidance; then, he will "offer the mad peasants an opportunity to come to terms, even though they are unworthy of it." Only then, when this course has failed, will he "swiftly grasp the sword." 92 "Strange times these," Luther philosophized, "when a prince can win heaven with bloodshed, better than other men with prayer." 93 The princes and lords, both Protestant and Catholic, swiftly grasped the sword and crushed the revolt. It has been estimated that between 70,000 and 100,000 peasants were killed in Germany in 1525. Philip of Hesse, fresh from a campaign against the Hessian peasantry,joined Duke George of Saxony and lesser lords in an attack on Thomas Miintzer's followers in the Saxon town of Frankenhausen. In this particular engagement 9,000 peasgo. Claus, Die deutsche Bauernkrieg im Druckschaffen, pp. 44-59. 91. Against the Robbing and Murdering Peasants, in Works of Martin Luther, 4: 248-50 ( WA 18, pp. 357-361). 92. Ibid., p. 251. 93. Ibid., p. 253.

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Thomas Miintur. Christoffel von Sichem the Elder. Miintzer, perhaps Luther's most effective critic, has become the most influential sixtee nth-century dissent.er from the Reformation, especially in Marxist historiography. After failing to win the Saxon princes to his radical program of r efo rm , he sent a call to arms to his followers in the city of Sangerhausen: "I tell you the time has come for bloodshed to fall upon this irnpcnitent. and unbelieving world . ... Why do you continue to let yourselves be led around by your noses' One knows full well and can prove it with Scripture that lords and princes as they now prese nt themselves are not Christians. Your priests and monks pray to thc devil and there are ever fewer true Christians. All your preachers have become hypocrites and worshippers of man. Why do you continue to place your hope in them?" Following his execution for his role in the Peasants' Revolt, l\1iintzer's rebellious life and teaching became the subject of a didactic tract by Luther, who pointed out the terrible lessons to be learned from "The Horrible I Ii story and Judgme nt of God upon Thomas l\fontzer" (Wittenberg, 1525).

ants, armed mainly with farming tools, confronted crack cavalry and artillery units. When the battle ended, an estimated 5,000 peasants lay dead, while the armies of the princes and lords reported only six casualties. Muhlhausen, the peasants' base, was made a ducal fief and required to pay the equivalent of $600,000 over a twenty-four-year period. The leader of the revolt, Muntzer, was tortured and beheaded. 94 After the suppression of the revolt, Luther came under sharp criticism both for his "hard book" against the peasants and for having been the inspiration of the revolt in the first place. One of the most stinging critiques 94- Eric Gritsch, Reformer Without a Church : The Life and Thought of Thomas Miintzer 1488

(?)-1525 (Philadelphia, 1967), pp. 149-52 .

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came from Johannes Findling, a Catholic apologist who had been general commissioner of indulgences when Luther posted his ninety-five theses in 1517. Findling's popular tract bore the title Luther Speaks with Forked Tongue, or, How Luther, on the One Hand, Led the Peasants Astray, While, on the Other, He Condemned Them. Findling traced the revolt to Luther's own challenge of higher authority in the Reformation tracts of 1520. 95 He compared Luther's belated condemnation of the peasants to his earlier efforts to disassociate himself from Wittenberg iconoclasm (1521-22), which also derived, in Findling's view, from Luther's own teaching. 96 In both cases Findling found Luther's actions politically motivated. Even the Admonition to Peace was seen as encouraging the peasants by its sharp criticism of the lords and princes. 97 Such criticism forced replies from Luther and his supporters. The Konigsberg pastor, Johannes Poliander (Gramann), writing to still the "swift, intolerant cry everywhere against Luther," accused the majority of Luther's critics of being disappointed supporters of the revolution. According to Poliander, Luther, like Moses, had tried to lead the peasants to a better life and called punishment down on them only after they had proven themselves unworthy. 98 Luther himself remained utterly unapologetic; he dismissed his critics, who demanded mercy for the peasants, as bleedingheart hypocrites. Suppose I were to break into a man's house, rape his wife and daughters, break open his coffers, take his money, set a sword to his breast, and say: "If you will not put up with this, I shall run you through, for you are a godless wretch." Then, if a crowd gathered and 95. An zaigung zwayerfalschen Z ungen des Lu/hers wie er mit der ainen die pa urn verfilret/mit der andern si verdammet hat ( 1525), p. A 3 a. This work has recently been edited in Laube and Seiffert, Flugschriften der Bauernkriegszeit, together with other Catholic critiques of Luther by Jerome Emser and Johannes Cochlaus. 96. "Am end des Buchleins I das man die Mess abthun sol I begerstu [Luther] I das zu Wittenberg der dienst gottes auffgehebt werd / glocken / orgeln I alter I Kirchen I gsanck I messlesen I abthan und zerbrochen werden I zu den zeytten was Carolstat ain gelen man I So er aber deine leer an die werck legt I und die altar abprochen hat I und ir zwen feind aynander worden sein / so schreibstu wider inn/ und verdamst in I unnd vergissest / das du in solches gclert hast / Also thustu hie auch / Sy haben auss deiner leer gelernt morstifften wider die oberkait" (Anzaigung zwayer falschen Zungen des Luthers, p. B 3 b). 97. "Doch so mustu in solichc mass reden das du mel blasest I und auch mcl im maul behaltest. Du underweysest die paurn gar treulich / gibst