Читать книгу History of the Reformation - Thomas M. Lindsay - Страница 37

Table of Contents

During the last years of this memorable Burgundian war a strange movement arose in the very centre of Germany, within the district which may be roughly defined as the triangle whose points were the towns of Aschaffenburg, Würzburg, and Crailsheim, in the secluded valleys of the Spessart and the Taubergrund. A young man, Hans Böhm (Böheim, Böhaim), belonging to the very lowest class of society, below the peasant, who wandered from one country festival or church ale to another, and played on the small drum or on the dudelsack (rude bagpipes), or sang songs for the dancers, was suddenly awakened to a sense of spiritual things by the discourse of a wandering Franciscan. He was utterly uneducated. He did not even know the Creed. He had visions of the Blessed Virgin, who appeared to him in the guise of a lady dressed in white, called him to be a preacher, and promised him further revelations, which he received from time to time. His home was the village of Helmstadt in the Tauber valley; and the most sacred spot he knew was a chapel dedicated to the Virgin at the small village of Niklashausen on the Tauber. The chapel had been granted an indulgence, and was the scene of small pilgrimages. Hans Böhm appeared suddenly on the Sunday in Mid-Lent (March 24th, 1476), solemnly burnt his rude drum and bagpipes before the crowd of people, and declared that he had hitherto ministered to the sins and vanities of the villagers, but that henceforth he was going to be a preacher of grace. He had been a lad of blameless life, and his character gave force to his words. He related his visions, and the people believed him. It was a period when an epidemic of pilgrimage was sweeping over Europe, and the pilgrims spread the news of the prophet far and wide. Crowds came to hear him from the neighbouring valleys. His fame spread to more distant parts, and chroniclers declare that on some days he preached to audiences of from twenty to thirty thousand persons. His pulpit was a barrel set on end, or the window of a farmhouse, or the branch of a tree. He assured his hearers that the holiest spot on earth, holier by far than Rome, was the chapel of Our Lady at Niklashausen, and that true religion consisted in doing honour to the Blessed Virgin. He denounced all priests in unmeasured terms: they were worse than Jews; they might be converted for a while, but as soon as they went back among their fellows they were sure to become backsliders. He railed against the Emperor: he was a miscreant, who supported the whole vile crew of princes, over-lords, tax-gatherers, and other oppressors of the poor. He scoffed at the Pope. He denied the existence of Purgatory: good men went directly to heaven and bad men went to hell. The day was coming, he declared, when every prince, even the Emperor himself, must work for his day's wages like all poor people. He asserted that taxes of all kinds were evil, and should not be paid; that fish, game, and meadow lands were common property; that all men were brethren, and should share alike. When his sermon was finished the crowd of devotees knelt round the “holy youth,” and he, blessing them, pardoned their sins in God's name. Then the crowd surged round him, tearing at his clothes to get some scrap of cloth to take home and worship as a relic; and the Niklashausen chapel became rich with the offerings of the thousands of pilgrims.

The authorities, lay and clerical, paid little attention to him at first. Some princes and some cities (Nürnberg, for example) prohibited their subjects from going to Niklashausen; but the prophet was left untouched. He came to believe that his words ought to be translated into actions. One Sunday he asked his followers to meet him on the next Sunday, bringing their swords and leaving their wives and children at home. The Bishop of Würzburg, hearing this, sent a troop of thirty-four horsemen, who seized the prophet, flung him on a horse, and carried him away to the bishop's fortress of Frauenberg near Würzburg. His followers had permitted his capture, and seemed dazed by it. In a day or two they recovered their courage, and, exhorted by an old peasant who had received a vision, and headed by four Franconian knights, they marched against Frauenberg and surrounded it. They expected its walls to fall like those of Jericho; and when they were disappointed they lingered for some days, and then gradually dispersed. Hans himself, after examination, was condemned to be burnt as a heretic. He died singing a folk-hymn in praise of the Blessed Virgin.

His death did not end the faith of his followers. In spite of severe prohibitions, the pilgrimages went on and the gifts accumulated. A neighbouring knight sacked the chapel and carried away the treasure, which he was forced to share with his neighbours. Still the pilgrimages continued, until at last the ecclesiastical authorities removed the priest and tore down the building, hoping thereby to destroy the movement.

The memory of Hans Böhm lived among the common people, peasants and artisans; for the lower classes of Würzburg and the neighbouring towns had been followers of the movement. A religious social movement, purely German, had come into being, and was not destined to die soon. The effects of Hans Böhm's teaching appear in almost all subsequent peasant and artisan revolts.60 Even Sebastian Brand takes the Niklashausen pilgrims as his type of those enthusiasts who are not contented with the revelations of the Old and New Testaments, but must seek a special prophet of their own:

“Man weis doch aus der Schrift so viel,

Aus altem und aus neuem Bunde,

Es braucht nicht wieder neuer Kunde.

Dennoch wallfahrten sie zur Klausen

Des Sackpfeifers von Nicklashausen.”61

And the Niklashausen pilgrimage was preserved in the memories of the people by a lengthy folk-song which Liliencron has printed in his collection.62

From this time onwards there was always some tinge of religious enthusiasm in the social revolts, where peasant and poor burghers stood shoulder to shoulder against the ruling powers in country and in town.

The peasants within the lands of the Abbot of Kempten, north-east of the Lake of Constance, had for two generations protested against the way in which the authorities were treating them (1420–1490). They rose in open revolt in 1491–1492. It was a purely agrarian rising to begin with, caused by demands made on them by their over-lord not sanctioned by the old customs expressed in the Weisthümer; but the lower classes of the town of Kempten made common cause with the insurgents. Yet there are distinct traces of impregnation with religious enthusiasm not unlike that which inspired the Hans Böhm movement. The rising was crushed, and the leaders who escaped took refuge in Switzerland.