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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,[522] 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.”[523]

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.[524] 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.[525]

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.[526]

“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.”[527] 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, p. 200 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.”[528]

Luther and his preachers had so frequently brought forward such disparaging and degrading charges against the secular, and still more against the spiritual authorities,[529] that clear-sighted contemporaries, such as Bartholomew von Usingen, foretold a revolution[530] 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.”[531] In the circular he proposed, that the people themselves should go in search of capable preachers if the ecclesiastical authorities did not send such.[532]

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, which 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.[533] 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.[534] 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.[535] 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.”[536]

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.[537] 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.”[538] 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.[539]

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.[540] 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.[541]

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 your 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.”[542]

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.”[543] 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.”[544]

Such words as these were scarcely in place on the very eve of the terrible struggle. Luther, in his excitement and his anxiety concerning his teaching, was not a fit judge of the condition of things. It is true that he fully realised that many of the burdens on account of which the peasants had risen in revolt were far too oppressive,[545] and the thoughts which he expresses on this matter are such as might well be taken to heart for all time. But he places the interests of his interpretation of the Bible so much in the foreground that he declares, at the very outset, that what pleased him best in the Peasants’ “Articles,” was their “readiness to be guided by clear, plain, undeniable passages of Scripture; since it is right and fair that no man’s conscience should be instructed and guided otherwise than by Holy Writ.”[546]

Never has the liberty of Bible interpretation been proclaimed under circumstances more momentous. Luther could not have been ignorant of the fact, that the armed multitude and their preachers, particularly the fanatical Anabaptists, had also, like him, set up a new interpretation of their own of the Bible, one, however, which agreed so well with their leanings that they would never relinquish it for any other.

Owing to the divergence of their teaching, and to the fact that they were led by fanatics of Münzer’s persuasion, Luther came to see in the warlike disturbances a mere work of the devil; hence he himself, the chief foe of hell, feels it his duty to enter the lists against Satan; the latter is seeking “to destroy and devour” both him and his evangel, using the bloodthirsty spirit of revolt as his instrument, but let the devil devour him and the result will be a belly-cramp.[547] In his excitement he fancies he sees signs and wonders. “I and my friends will pray to God that He may either reconcile you or else graciously prevent events from taking the course you wish, though the terrible signs and wonders of this time make me sad of heart.”[548] Like the end of the world, which was supposed to be approaching, the “signs in the heavens and the wonders on the earth” play their part in his mind. “They forebode no good to you,” he prophesies to the authorities, “and no good will come to you,” for “the many gruesome signs which have taken place till now in the heavens and on the earth point to some great misfortune and a striking change in the German land.”[549]

Shortly after the publication of the so-called “Exhortation to Peace,” the news reached Wittenberg of the sanguinary encounters which had already taken place. Everything was upside down. What dire confusion would ensue should the peasants prove victorious? Luther now asked himself what the new evangel could win supposing the populace gained the upper hand, and also how the rulers who had hitherto protected his cause would fare in the event of the rebels being successful in the Saxon Electorate and at Wittenberg. Says the most recent Protestant biographer of Luther: “Now that the rebellion was directed against the Princes whose kindness and pure intention were so well known to him, passionate rage with the rabble took the place of discriminating justice.”[550] The fanatical mob that accompanied Thomas Münzer whetted his tongue. We can understand how Luther, now thoroughly alarmed by what he saw on his journeys and preaching-tours throughout the insurgent districts, and by the daily accounts of unheard-of atrocities committed by the rebels, was anxious to take a vigorous part in the attempt to quench the flame. To his mind, with its constitutional disability to perceive more than one thing at a time, nothing is visible but the horrors of the armed rebellion. In “furious wrath” he now mercilessly assails the rebels, allying himself entirely with the Princes. The tract “Against the murderous Peasants,” comprising only four pages, was composed about May 4.[551]

“Pure devilry,” he says in this passionate and hurriedly composed pamphlet, is urging on the peasants; they “rob and rage and behave like mad dogs.” “Therefore let all who are able, hew them down, slaughter and stab them, openly or in secret, and remember that there is nothing more poisonous, noxious and utterly devilish than a rebel. You must kill him as you would a mad dog; if you do not fall upon him, he will fall upon you and the whole land.”[552]

He now will have it that they are not fighting for the Lutheran teaching, nor serving the evangel. “They serve the devil under the appearance of the evangel … I believe that the devil feels the approach of the Last Day and therefore has recourse to such unheard-of trickery. … Behold what a powerful prince the devil is, how he holds the world in his hands and can knead it as he pleases.” “I believe that there are no devils left in hell, but all of them have entered into the peasants.”[553]

He therefore invites the authorities to intervene with all their strength. “Whatever peasants are killed in the fray, are lost body and soul and are the devil’s own for all eternity.” The authorities must resolve to “chastise and slay” so long as they can raise a finger: “Thou, O God, must judge and act. It may be that whoever is killed on the side of the authorities is really a martyr in God’s cause.”[554] A happier death no man could die. So strange are the times that a Prince may merit heaven more certainly by shedding blood than by saying prayers.

Luther does not forget to exhort the evangelically-minded rulers to remember to offer the “mad peasants,” even at the last, “terms, but where this is of no avail to have recourse at once to the sword.” Before this, however, he says: “I will not forbid such rulers as are able, to chastise and slay the peasants without previously offering them terms, even though the gospel does not permit it.”[555]

He is not opposed to indulgence being shown those who have been led astray. He recommends, that the many “pious folk” who, against their will, were compelled to join the diabolical league, should be spared. At the same time, however, he declares, that they like the others, are “going to the devil. … For a pious Christian ought to be willing to endure a hundred deaths rather than yield one hair’s breadth to the cause of the peasants.”[556]

It has been said it was for the purpose of liberating those who had been compelled to join the insurgents, that he admonished the Princes in such strong terms, even promising them heaven as the reward for their shedding of blood, and that the overthrow of the revolt by every possible means was, though in this sense only, “for Luther a real work of charity.” This, however, is incorrect, for he does not speak of saving and sparing those who had been led astray until after the passage where he says that the Princes might gain heaven by the shedding of blood; nor is there any inner connection between the passages; he simply says: “There is still one matter to which the authorities might well give attention.” “Even had they no other cause for whetting their sword against the peasants, this [the saving of those who had been led astray] would be a more than sufficient reason.” After the appeal for mercy towards those who had been forced to fight, there follows the cry: “Let whoever is able help in the slaughter; should you die in the struggle, you could not have a more blessed death.” He concludes with Romans xiii. 4; concerning the authorities: “who bear not the sword in vain, avengers to execute wrath upon him that doth evil.”[557]

While his indignant pen stormed over the paper, he had been thinking with terror of the consequences of the bloody contest, and of the likelihood of the peasants coming off victorious. He writes, “We know not whether God may not intend to prelude the Last Day, which cannot be far distant, by allowing the devil to destroy all order and government, and to reduce the world to a scene of desolation, so that Satan may obtain the ‘Kingdom of this world.’ ”[558]

The rebels, who had burnt the monasteries and demolished the strongholds and castles in Thuringia and in Luther’s own country, were soon to suffer a succession of great reverses. Münzer, the prophet, was defeated in the battle of Frankenhausen on May 15, 1525, and after being put to the torture, made his confession and was executed. Before his end he with great composure implored the Princes to have mercy on the poor, oppressed people. Luther said of his death, that his confession was “mere devilish stupidity” and that his torture should have been made much more severe; Melanchthon, in his history of Münzer, also regretted that he had not been forced to confess that he received his “Revelations” from the devil; he, too, did not think it enough that he should have been tortured only once. Luther, however, was not sorry to see the last of him. “Münzer, with some thousands of others, has unexpectedly been made to bite the dust.”[559]

The open supporters of the rising, on account of his second tract, called Luther a hypocrite and flatterer of the Princes.[560] Even some of his best friends could not understand his ferocity in inciting the lords against the peasants, more especially as it seemed to encourage the victors in their savage treatment of the prisoners, which in some places resembled a massacre.

Luther’s friend, Johann Rühel, the Mansfeld councillor, wrote to him, at the time when the pamphlet against the peasants was making the greatest sensation, expressing his misgivings. He reminded him of the words he made use of in the passage last quoted concerning the “scene of desolation” into which the world seemed about to be transformed. This prophecy might prove only too true. “I am sore afraid,” he says, “and really it seems as though you were playing the prophet to the gentry, for, indeed, they will leave nothing but a desolate land to their heirs; the people are being chastised so severely that I fear the land of Thuringia and the County [of Mansfeld] will recover from it but slowly. … Here they [the victorious party] give themselves up to nothing but robbery and murder.”[561] Five days later Rühel again wrote to Luther in tones of warning, saying that he meant well by him, but must nevertheless point out the effect his pamphlet “Against the Peasants” had had on the minds of some: “Be it as it may, it still appears strange to many who are favourably disposed towards you that you should allow the tyrants to slaughter without mercy and tell them that they may thus become martyrs; it is openly said at Leipzig that because the Elector has just died [May 5, 1525] you fear for your own skin and flatter Duke George by approving his undertaking [i.e. his energetic steps against the rising] out of fear for your own skin. I will not presume to judge, but commit it to your own spirit, for I know the saying: ‘qui accipit gladium gladio peribit,’ and, again, that the secular power ‘beareth not the sword in vain … an avenger to execute wrath’ [Rom. xiii. 4]. … I mean well, and beg you to remember me in your prayers.”[562] The writer tells Luther that “the result may well be that the victors in thus slaughtering without mercy will appeal to Luther, and that thus even the innocent will be condemned in Luther’s name.”[563] Rühel was a good Lutheran, and his words bear witness to a deep-seated devotion to Luther’s spirit and guidance. In his strange zeal for the evangel he urges Luther in this same letter to invite the Archbishop of Mayence and Magdeburg to secularise himself and take a wife.[564]

Luther’s intimate friend, Nicholas Hausmann, was also “rather horrified and amazed” at the writing.[565] Complaints came from Zwickau that not only the common people but also many of the learned were falling away from him; it was thought that his manner of writing was very unbecoming, and that he had been unmindful of the poor. The burgomaster of Zwickau maintained that the tract against the peasants was “not theological,” i.e. not worthy of a theologian.[566] “A storm of displeasure broke out against Luther … his ‘stab, slay, hew down’ sounded like mockery in the ears of the people when the aristocratic bands were bathing in the blood of the vanquished. … The fact is that Luther was not in his heart so indifferent as he made himself out to be in the circular-letter he wrote in defence of his ‘severe booklet.’ ”[567]

Before composing the circular-letter Luther sent a lively letter to Rühel protesting that he was ready to stand by all he had written, and that his conscience was “right in the sight of God.” “If there are some innocent people among them, God will surely take care to save and preserve them. But there is cockle among the peasantry. They do not listen to the Word [but to Münzer], and are mad, so that they must be made to listen to the virga and the muskets, and … serve them right!” “Whoever has seen Münzer may well say that he has seen the devil incarnate, in his utmost fury. O Lord God, where such a spirit prevails among the peasants it is high time for them to be slaughtered like mad dogs. Perhaps the devil feels the approach of the Last Day, therefore he stirs up all this strife. … But God is mightier and wiser.”[568]

Elsewhere Luther declares that owing to this booklet everything God had wrought for the world by his means was now forgotten; all were against him and threatened him with death. He had even lived to see the phrase, that “the lords might merit heaven by shedding their blood,” regarded—though perhaps only ironically—as a denial of his doctrine that there was no possibility of deserving heaven by works. “God help us,” they cried, “how has Luther so far forgotten himself! He who formerly taught that a man could arrive at grace and be saved only by faith alone!”[569]

The effect of the reproaches of excessive severity showed itself, nevertheless, to a certain extent in the pamphlet which Luther composed between the 17th and 22nd May on the defeat of Thomas Münzer. The title runs: “A terrible account of the judgment of God on Thomas Münzer, wherein God plainly gives the lie to his spirit and condemns it.”[570] This writing, it is true, does not deal so directly with the peasant rising as the two previous ones, and the “circular-letter” to be treated of below; its chief object is to cite the unfortunate termination of Münzer’s enterprise as a practical refutation of the prophetical office he had assumed. But, after the warning which the author addresses to “all dear Germans,” not excluding the rebellious peasants, against Münzer’s co-religionists, as the “noxious, false prophets,” he concludes with this timely exhortation: “Of the lords and authorities I would make two requests, first that if they prove victorious they be not over-elated, but fear God, in whose sight they are very culpable, and secondly, that they be merciful to the prisoners and to those who surrender, as God is merciful to everyone who resigns himself into His hands and humbles himself.”

The writing referred to on Münzer’s defeat gives examples of some of the fanatical letters written by the leader of the Anabaptists. It was an easy task for Luther to expose their fanaticism and danger. The fellow’s end “made it plain that God had condemned the spirit of revolt, and also the rebels themselves.” With bitter mockery he puts these words into Münzer’s mouth: “I, a befouled prophet, am borne along on a hurdle to the tower of Heldrungen.” (Luther knew nothing as yet of Münzer’s death, but only of his imprisonment in Heldrungen.) Therefore they ought to slay these “dangerous false prophets whom the judgment of God had unmasked, and return to peace and obedience.” The fanatics “who teach wrongly and falsely” are not to be regarded as leaders of the people; “in future the people must beware of them, and strive to preserve body and soul through the true Word of God.”

In order, however, to give an answer to all the “wiseacres, who wished to teach him how he should write,”[571] he at once composed the third work on the subject of the rising, which was now practically at an end. This is the “Circular-letter on the severe booklet against the Peasants,” dedicated to the Mansfeld Chancellor, Caspar Müller, one of those who had informed him of the numerous complaints made against him.

The concluding words, in which we hear the real Luther speaking, mark its purpose: “What I teach and write, remains true, though the whole world should fall to pieces over it. If people choose to take up a strange attitude towards it, then I will do the same, and we shall see who is right in the end.”[572] Such words are sufficient of themselves to give an idea of the tone which he adopts in this work, in which he goes beyond anything he had already said.

At the commencement he bravely grapples with the opposition he has encountered. “ ‘There, there,’ they boast, ‘we see Luther’s spirit, and that he teaches the shedding of blood without mercy; it must be the devil who speaks through him!’ ” Thus everybody is ready to fall on him, such is the ingratitude displayed towards the “great, and bright light of the evangel.” “Who is able to gag a fool?” His accusers were “doubtless also rebels.” But “a rebel does not deserve a reasonable answer, for he will not accept it; the only way to answer such foul-mouthed rascals is with the fist, till their noses dribble. The peasants would not listen to him or let him speak, therefore their ears must be opened by musket bullets so that their heads fly into the air. … I will not listen to any talk of mercy, but will give heed to what God’s Word demands.”

“Therefore my booklet is right and true though all the world should be scandalised at it.”[573]

He attacks those who “advocate mercy so beautifully, now that the peasants have been defeated.” “It is easy to detect you, you ugly black devil”; every robber might as well come, and, after having been “sentenced by the judge to be beheaded, cry: ‘But Christ teaches that you are to be merciful.’ ” “This is just what the defenders of the peasants are doing” when they “sing their song of mercy”; they themselves are the “veriest bloodhounds, for they wish vice to go unpunished.”[574]

“Here, as in many other places, where Luther has to defend his standpoint against attack,” Köstlin says of this writing, “he draws the reins tighter instead of easing them.” “Here he no longer sees fit to say even one word on behalf of the peasants, notwithstanding the real grievances which had caused the rising.”[575]

At a time, when, after their victory, many of the lords, both Catholic and Lutheran, were raging with the utmost cruelty against all the vanquished, even against those who had been drawn into the rising through no fault of their own, at a time when the loudest exhortations to mercy would have been far more in place, he unthinkingly pours forth such passionate words as these: “If wrath prevails in the Empire then we must be resigned and endure the punishment, or humbly sue for pardon.” It is true that those “who are of God’s Kingdom [viz. true Christians] must show mercy towards all and pray for them,” but they must not “interfere with the secular power and its work, but rather assist and further it”; “this wrath of the secular power [this at the moment entirely engrosses his thoughts] is not the least part of the Divine mercy.” “What a fine sort of mercy would that be, to show pity to thieves and murderers and to allow myself to be murdered, dishonoured and robbed?” “What more naughty was ever heard of than a mad rabble and a peasant gorged with food and drink and grown powerful?”[576]

“As I wrote then, so I write now: Let no one take pity on the hardened, obstinate and blinded peasants, who will not listen: let whoever can and is able, hew down, stab and slay them as one would a mad dog.” “It is plain that they are traitorous, disobedient and rebellious thieves, robbers, murderers and blasphemers, so that there is not one of them who has not deserved to suffer death ten times over without mercy.” “The masters have learnt what there is behind a rebel … an ass must be beaten and the rabble be governed by force.”[577]

The inflammatory letter proceeds to deal with the objections brought against the writer; in any case, gainsayers argued, innocent persons who had been dragged into the rising by the peasants would “suffer injustice in God’s sight by being executed.” Even on this point, on which previously he had spoken with more mildness, he now refuses to surrender. “First I say that no injustice is done them,” for that no Christian man stayed in the ranks of the rebels; and even if such fellows had fought only under compulsion, “do you think they are thereby excused?” “Why did they allow themselves to be coerced?” They ought rather to have suffered death at the hands of the peasants than accompany them; owing to the general contempt for the evangel God ordains that even the innocent should be punished; besides, the innocent ever had to suffer in time of war. “We Germans, who are much worse than the olden Jews, and yet are not exiled and slaughtered, are the first to murmur, become impatient and seek to justify ourselves, refusing to allow even a portion of our nation to be slaughtered.”[578]

He then boldly confesses his more profound theological view of the sanguinary war: “The intention of the devil was to lay Germany waste, because he was unable to prevent in any other way the spread of the evangel.”[579]

Some of the excuses scattered throughout the pamphlet in reply to the objections, whether of his foes, or of critics among the adherents of the new faith, are decidedly unfortunate. Offence had been given by his inciting “everyone who could and was able” against the rebels, and setting up every man as at once “judge and executioner,”[580] instead of leaving this to the authorities. Needless to say he sticks to his guns. With rhetorical vehemence, he declares that rebels “fall upon the Lord with swords drawn.” Rebellion deserves neither judgment nor mercy, there is nothing for it but to slaughter without compunction.”[581]

He now says he had never taught, “that mercy was not to be shown to the prisoners and those who surrendered, as I am accused of having done; my booklet proves the contrary.”[582] In point of fact his “booklet,” i.e. the pamphlet “Against the murderous Peasants,” does not prove the “contrary.”

So far he had said nothing concerning mercy towards the prisoners; this he was to do only later. In his circular-letter he protests—it is to be hoped to some purpose—“I do not wish to encourage the ferocious tyrants, or to approve their raging, for I hear that some of my young squires are behaving beyond measure cruelly to the poor people.” Now, he speaks strongly, though rather late in the day, against the “ferocious, raging, senseless tyrants who even after the battle are not sated with blood,” and even threatens to write a special pamphlet against such tyrants. “But such as these,” so he excuses himself concerning his previous utterances, “I did not undertake to instruct,” but merely “the pious Christian authorities.”

His opponents, who sympathised with the lot of the vanquished, asked why he did not also admonish the authorities who were not pious. He replies that this was not part of his duty: “I say once more, for the third time, that I wrote merely for the benefit of those authorities who were disposed to act rightly and in a Christian manner.”[583] Even in this letter he again incites against the peasants, everyone who can and by whatever means: he allows, as stated above, anyone to kill the rebels, openly or by stealth, nor does he retract the sentence, that “every man” who would and was able ought to act towards them as both “judge and executioner”; finally he declares that he is unable to blame the severity of such authorities as do not act in a Christian manner, i.e. “without first offering terms.” In a word, he absolutely refuses to remedy the mistakes into which his passion had hurried him, but takes pleasure in still further exaggerating them in spite of the scandal caused.

“The Catholic bishops at once laid the blame of the peasant rising at the door of the ‘great murderer’ of Wittenberg,” so writes Luther’s most recent biographer, “as having been his work.[584] The peasants themselves in many instances believed this, while Luther himself admitted a certain complicity. ‘They went out from us; but they are not of us,’ he says in the words of the First Epistle of St. John (ii. 19). The natural connection of ideas necessarily implied that the spirit of reform which had been let loose was not to work on the Church alone. If all that was rotten in the Church was to fall, why should so much that was rotten in the Empire remain? If all the demands of the Papacy were to be rejected, why should those of squiredom be held sacred? If Luther might treat Duke George of Saxony and King Henry VIII of England as fools and scoundrels, why should more regard be shown to the smaller fry, the petty counts and lords? If the peasant, by virtue of the common priesthood of all Christians, was capable of reforming the Church, why should he not have his say in the question of hunting-rights and the right of pasture? The kernel of the Wittenberg preaching was that all man-made ordinances were worthless, and that one thing only was to be considered, viz. the Word of God. The Pope was Antichrist, the Emperor a scarecrow, the Princes and Bishops simple dummies. How could such words of Luther fail to be seized on with avidity by the oppressed, down-trodden, and shamelessly victimised peasantry? The forces which, owing to the religious disturbances, now broke loose, would, however, have done their work even without Luther’s teaching.”

It was not only the “Catholic bishops,” however, who accused Luther of being the instigator of the rising, but also intelligent laymen who were observing the times with a watchful eye. The jurist Ulrich Zasius, who at one time had been inclined to favour Luther, wrote in the year of the revolt to his friend Amerbach: “Luther, the destroyer of peace, the most pernicious of men, has plunged the whole of Germany into such madness, that we now consider ourselves lucky if we are not slain on the spot.” He regrets the treaty made on May 24, 1525, at Freiburg im Breisgau, where he lived, on its capitulation to the rebels, in which provision was made for the “Disclosure of the Holy Evangel of godly truth and the defence of godly righteousness.” That the “holy evangel” and “godly truth” should only now be disclosed at Freiburg, called forth his sarcasm. In the treaty, he says, “There is much that is in bad taste and ridiculous, as we might expect from peasants, for instance, their demand that the gospel be esteemed, or, as they say, ‘upheld’; as though this had not been done long before by every Christian.”[585]

In 1525 Cochlæus published a criticism on Luther’s work “Against the murderous Peasants,” where he says, “Now that the poor, unhappy peasants have lost the wager, you go over to the princes. But in the previous booklet, when there was still a good chance of their success, you wrote very differently.”[586]

Erasmus, who was closely observing Luther, says to him, in view of the fighting which still continued spasmodically: “We are now reaping the fruit of your spirit. You do not acknowledge the rebels, but they acknowledge you, and it is well known that many who boast of the name of the evangel have been instigators of the horrible revolt. It is true you have attempted in your grim booklet against the peasants to allay this suspicion, but nevertheless you cannot dispel the general conviction that this mischief was caused by the books you sent forth against the monks and bishops, in favour of evangelical freedom, and against the tyrants, more especially by those written in German.”[587]

It would appear that Luther himself had no difficulty whatever in forming his conscience and accepting the responsibility. On one occasion in later years, looking back upon the events of the unhappy rising, he declared, that he was completely at ease concerning the advice he had given to the authorities against the peasants, in spite of the sanguinary results. “Preachers,” he says, in his usual drastic mode of expression, “are the biggest murderers about, for they admonish the authorities to fulfil their duty and to punish the wicked. I, Martin Luther, slew all the peasants in the rebellion, for I said they should be slain; all their blood is upon my head. But I cast it on our Lord God, Who commanded me to speak in this way.” His usual persuasion, viz. that he was God’s instrument, here again helps him. He gives us, however, a further reason: The devil and the ungodly also slew not a few, but it is a very different matter when the authorities punish the wicked, for they are fulfilling a duty.[588]

Luther, after the appearance of these pamphlets, in various other publications asked that leniency should be shown towards the peasants who had been handled all too severely. In a private letter on behalf of the son of a citizen of Eisleben, who had been taken prisoner, we also meet with some fine recommendations in this sense.[589]

He was not, however, successful in calming the general ill-feeling aroused by his violent invective against the “murderous peasants.” His former popularity and his power over the masses were gone. After 1525 he lost his close touch with the people, and was obliged more and more to seek the assistance necessary for his cause in the camp of the Princes. For this change of front he was branded as a “hypocrite,” and “slave of Princes,” by many of the discontented.[590] “The springtime of the reformation was over,” says Hausrath. “Luther no longer passed from one triumph to another as he had during the first seven years of his career. He himself says: ‘Had not the revolted peasants fouled the water for my fishing, things would look very different for the Papacy!’ The hope to overthrow completely the Roman rule in Germany by means of a united, overwhelmingly powerful, popular movement had become a mere dream.”[591]

The Catholic princes of North Germany chose that very time to bind themselves more closely together for self-defence against the social revolution, and to repel Lutheranism. By the league of Dessau on July 19, 1525, they followed the example set by the bishops and dukes of South Germany, who had likewise, at Ratisbon, taken common measures for self-protection. The soul of the league was Duke George of Saxony; Joachim of Brandenburg, Albert of Mayence and Magdeburg, and Henry and Erich of Brunswick also joined him. An account given by Duke George, at the period when the league was established, throws a clearer light upon the motives which inspired it. Written under the influence of the horrors of the previous weeks, it breathes the indignation of its author at the part which Lutheranism had played in the misfortune, and looks around for some means by which the “root of the rebellion, the damned Lutheran sect, may be extirpated; the revolt inspired by the Lutheran evangel had led to the diminution of the honour and service of God, and had been undertaken with a view to damaging the clergy, prelates and the lower orders of the aristocracy, nor could it well be completely quelled except by the rooting out of these same Lutherans.”[592] Duke George at that time entertained hopes—not justified by events—of being able, by appealing to the experiences of the Peasant-War, to alienate from Luther, Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, and Johann, Elector of Saxony, who had just commenced his reign.

The above-mentioned Princes, who were Catholic in their views, met together in Leipzig at Christmas, 1525, in order—as representatives of the Catholic faith, the principles of which were being endangered in Germany—to induce the Emperor to provide some remedy in accordance with the provisions of the Diet of Worms.

The prolonged absence of the Emperor Charles from Germany, due to his concern in European politics, was one of the principal causes of the growing disturbances. To recall him to Germany and invite him to interfere was the object of a measure taken by certain ecclesiastics at a meeting held at Mayence on November 14, 1525. Delegates from the twelve provinces of Mayence assembled at the instance of the Chapter of Spires. It was a remarkable fact that the bishops themselves, who by the indifference they displayed had, as a body, roused the dissatisfaction of zealous Churchmen, did not attend, but only members of the Chapters. They determined to insist upon their bishops making a stand against the revolutionary Lutheran preaching, to send a deputation to the Pope and the Emperor with an account of the general mischief which had befallen Germany by reason of the apostasy, and finally to urge the Emperor to return to Germany, and meanwhile to name executors for carrying out the orders he might give for the preservation of religion according to law. George of Saxony, Archduke Ferdinand of Austria and the Bavarian Dukes were to be proposed to the Emperor as such executors. The deputation from the Chapters was, however, never sent, owing apparently to the lack of interest displayed by those Chapters which assembled, and by those which were invited but did not send the necessary funds. The zealous Dean of Mayence Cathedral, Lorenz Truchsess von Pommersfelden, found himself practically left single-handed.[593]

Upon learning what resolutions had been passed, Luther wrote, in March, 1526, a tract of frightful violence against the “Mayence Proposal”; it was, however, suppressed by the Electoral Court of Saxony, owing to the intervention of Duke George.[594] The Emperor, notwithstanding his promise to arrive speedily, did not reach Germany until 1530, after having achieved great success abroad. He came with the firm intention to oppose the religious revolution with the utmost vigour, and to place the Imperial authority on a firmer footing.

Meanwhile, the Courts of Saxony and Hesse, whose sympathies were with the Lutheran party, had, however, at Gotha entered into a defensive alliance which was finally concluded at Torgau on May 2, 1526. The Emperor’s threats, which had become known, did their part in bringing this about; and a further result of the Emperor’s letters against the “wicked Lutheran cause and errors” was, that the Dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg, Philip of Brunswick-Grubenhagen, Henry of Mecklenburg, Wolfgang of Anhalt and Albert of Mansfeld also joined the league.

Luther was greatly rejoiced at this proof of the favour of the Princes, but, as yet, he refused to commit himself on the question as to whether force might be used against the Emperor and the Empire. (See vol. iii., xv. 3.)

As a consequence of the Peasant-War the Princes grew in power, while the people lost many rights and liberties which they had previously enjoyed.

“The practical outcome of the great popular movement was deplorable,” writes F. G. Ward. “The condition of the common people became even worse than before, and the national feeling which had begun to arise again degenerated into particularism in the vast number of small, independent States.”[595] Just as the common people ascribed their misfortunes to Luther, who, at the critical moment, had deserted the cause of the peasants, so likewise many of the nobility were angry with him because of the discontent which his teaching fostered. The confiscation of Church property by the nobility roused the hatred of many of the powerful against Luther, whose aim it was to favour the rapacity only of such as were favourable to his cause.

When, in February, 1530, Luther’s father lay on his death-bed, the fear of his enemies prevented the son undertaking the journey through the flat country to see him. He accordingly wrote to him, explaining why he was unable to leave Wittenberg: “My good friends have dissuaded me from it, and I myself am forced to believe that I may not tempt God by venturing into this peril, for you know the kind of favour I may expect from lord or peasant.”[596]

This dislike on the part of both the peasants and the lords, which he frequently admits, has been taken as a proof that he did his duty towards both in an impartial manner. It would, however, be more correct to say, that he failed in his duty towards both parties, first to the lords and then to the peasants, and that on both occasions his mistake was closely bound up with his public position, i.e. with his preaching of the new faith. He advocated the cause of the peasants with the intention of thereby introducing the evangel amongst the people, while he supported the lords in order to counteract the pernicious results of the socio-religious movement which resulted, and to exonerate the evangel from the charge of preaching revolt. There is, as a matter of fact, no ground for the charge of “duplicity” brought against him by his opponents; the changing circumstances determined his varying action, and so little did he disguise his thoughts, that on both occasions his strong language increased the evil.[597]

The unfavourable feeling which prevailed towards the peasants at once influenced his views concerning the duty of the authorities. That the authorities should meet every transgression of the law on the part of the people by severe measures, appears to him more and more as one of their principal obligations.

In 1526, at the instance of a stranger, he caused one of his sermons to be printed, in which he says to the people: “Because God has given a law and knows that no one keeps it, He has also appointed lictors, drivers and overseers, for Scripture speaks thus of the authorities in a parable; like the donkey-drivers who have to lie on the neck of their beasts and whip them to make them go. In the same way the authorities must drive, beat and slay the people, Messrs. Omnes, hang, burn, behead and break them on the wheel, that they may be kept in awe.” “As the swine and wild beasts have to be driven and restrained by force,” so the authorities must insist upon the keeping of the laws.[598] So far does he go as to declare that the best thing that could come about would be the revival of serfdom and slavery.[599]

At a later date he frequently depicted the peasants, quite generally, as rascals, and poured forth bitter words of anger against them. “A peasant is a hog,” he says in 1532, “for when a hog is slaughtered it is dead, and in the same way the peasant does not think about the next life, for otherwise he would behave very differently.”[600] The following date also from the same period: “The peasant remains a boor, do what you will”; they have, so he says, their mouth, nose, eyes and everything else in the wrong place.[601] “I believe that the devil does not mind the peasants”; he “despises them as he does leaden pennies”; he thinks “he can easily manage to secure them for himself, as they will assuredly be claimed by no one.”[602] “A peasant who is a Christian is like a wooden poker.”[603] To a candidate for marriage he wrote: “My Katey sends you this friendly warning, to beware of marrying a country lass, for they are rude and proud, cannot get on well with their husbands and know neither how to cook nor to brew.”[604]

“The peasants as well as the nobles throughout the country,” he complains in 1533, in a letter to Spalatin, “have entered into a conspiracy against the evangel, though they make use of the liberty of the gospel in the most outrageous manner. It is not surprising that the Papists persecute us. God will be our Judge in this matter!” “Oh, the awful ingratitude of our age. We can only hope and pray for the speedy coming of our Lord and Saviour [the Last Day].”[605]