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MÜNSTER.

HE Peasants' War of A. D. 1525-26 shook Southern and Central Germany. The The age was in a fever of political excitement, and this war was not an affair of religious doctrine but of political liberty and the natural rights of man. first German conqueror took possession and then gave lands in fee to his officers or lords, and in turn these bound their dependants to servile occupancy. The citizens took rank as nobles and villains,' and all others were serfs, the serfs going with the soil on which they were born. They could not leave their master's domain nor appeal from his authority, nor could he sell them. He took to himself the common pastures, the fish and game, exacting high rents or tithes, and they must submit or revolt. He also forced his religion upon them and made them act through the religious idea, their knowledge being narrowed down to a few notions on that subject. For ages Germany had boasted that liberty was the birthright of her people, boor and prince. Her primitive Teutonic population were farmers and graziers, who wandered without landmark or fixed habitation. Then, they formed themselves into little States under a kind of land ownership but with few conventional restrictions or claims to the perpetual right of property. In time, however, estates shaped themselves after the map of restricted society and revenue became hereditary. Thus feudal tenures sprang up, defense became necessary and authority grew. wealth increased, military power and imperial rule followed, with all the exactions of blind obedience. Under this yoke the peasant was uneasy for ages, periodically

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waking up to his lost liberties, with new attempts to break the bond of 'villanage' and shake off his burdens.

As far back as A. D. 1073 the peasants of Thuringia and Saxony rebelled and Henry IV. shed torrents of their blood. In 1476 there was a rebellion at Würzburg; in 1491 another in Swabia; and in 1503 the peasants of Spire formed a confederacy, called the 'League-shoe,' from the device painted on their standard. The King of France stirred up a peasant outbreak in Belgium, and a rustic army 30,000 strong, with a loaf and a cheese on its banners, went forth to reduce the nobility to decency, but were themselves slain by Albert of Saxony. In 1514 'Poor Kuntze,' a farmer of Würtemberg, led a seditionary force which took several cities, threatening destruction to the clergy and nobility because of their avarice and tyranny; but the emperor and princes were alarmed and made concessions to avoid worse calamities. In Poland, Hungary and Transylvania there was another peasant revolt in 1515 against the oppressions of their rulers. Laurence, a Catholic presbyter, and Michael, a monk, were amongst their captains; 400 nobles perished, 13 bishops were impaled, only one escaping, and 70,000 people were slaughtered. In fact, the fiery waves of revolution seethed under the whole German Empire, discontent was universal and every peasant was ready to grasp the sword in revolt. But at this time, the people afterward called 'Anabaptists' were not known in Germany.

When rebellion burst forth in 1525-26, it was neither at Zwickau nor at Münster, but in the Black Forest. Church and State united to grind the faces of the poor peasants under the pretense of fighting the Turks, and they resolved to wear the iron collar no longer. John Müller, their chief, wore a red cap and cloak and carried the standard of revolt, a flag of black, white and red, through the forest region. Village after village was aroused, enthusiasm spread like wild-fire, new towns and cities threw open their gates and the people swelled the ranks from all quarters. They marched triumphantly everywhere. Nor was this uprising a mere blot upon the face of history, as is commonly represented. If it is right to rise in arms at all against tyrannical princes, this war was as holy as any that ever was waged. The peasants tell their story well in their immortal manifesto submitted to the reason and justice of mankind. They held public meetings everywhere, to express their grievances and petition for redress. They prayed for the Gospel of freedom, but no relief came, and at last they stated their case in Twelve Articles, of which instrument Voltaire said that 'Lycurgus would have signed it.' Luther declared to the princes that its several articles were 'So just and right, that all feelings of consideration toward you, before God and the world, are removed.' There has been much doubt as to the authorship of this noble State paper, but Prof. Pfleiderer attributes it to Hubmeyer. 1

So honorable and patriotic was this document in its demands and so temperately worded that it is simply a picture of their exhausted long-suffering. They asked

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THEY SEEK THEIR RIGHTS.

for the pure word of God and the right to choose their own pastors; for their exemption from all tithes, except that of wheat, of which they would pay a tenth for the support of their pastors and the poor; for relief from bondage and from such obedience to the magistrates as it is not lawful for Christians to render; for justice administered fairly and firmly according to plain, written laws; and for permission to fish in the rivers and hunt in the forests. They back each article with a forceful passage of Scripture, because, in some way, they had come to believe that Christ intended men to possess rights of conscience. They say: 'Christ bought and redeemed us by his precious blood, the shepherd as well as the noblest, noue being excepted; wherefore, it accords with Scripture that we are and will be free.' They close by promising that if any of these demands be unjust they shall have no force. These articles were read publicly in every place and adopted by the people. They marched triumphantly into Würtzburg; and before long, Spires, the Palatinate, Alsace, Hesse and other great centers adopted the articles. Many of the upper classes, Catholics and Reformers, put themselves at the head of the peasants. The general uprising took place by concert, January 1st, 1525; as a signal, the Convent of Kempton was captured, and from that moment the country was in a blaze from the Rhine to the frontier of Bohemia. Monasteries, castles and cities were destroyed, and every kind of excess was committed by 300,000 men in arms maddened by intolerable oppression to the desperation of despair. All this took place ten years before the madness of Münster, showing it to be but an incident in the long German uproar..

We see here how religion entered the contests of the Peasants' War and by whom it was introduced. It is simply absurd to say that these peasants were 'Anabaptists.' Did they demand the right to choose their own pastors because their masters had forced unwelcome 'Anabaptist' shepherds upon them? The peasants were Catholics and Lutherans, and their enforced ministers were the same. Many of their masters were bishops and other clergy. The entire disturbance was simply the abnormal German mind forcing its way back in a crude manner to its native freedom, and the 'Anabaptists' cannot for any purpose be made a stalking-horse, in the face of historic truth, to force a false issue to the front. The chief actors in these scenes candidly lay before us the real facts. When the princes desired the Elector to aid them against the rebellion, he said to his brother, John: 'Cause has been given for the poor people to make this uproar. . . . ... They have been dealt hardly with in many ways by us rulers, both spiritual and temporal.' The deputies from Saxony and Hesse said in the Diet at Augsburg:

"The rising of the peasants was the effect of impolitic and harsh usage.' At first, Luther, being the son of a peasant, sympathized with his own race and said to the bishops: It is your guilty oppression of the poor of the flock which has driven the people to despair.' To the princes he said: My lords, it is not the peasants who have risen against you, it is God himself who is opposing your madThink not that you can escape the punishment reserved for you. For the

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love of God, calm your irritation; grant reasonable terms to these poor people, appease these commotions by gentle methods, lest they give birth to a conflagration which shall set all Germany in a flame.' In his Secular Magistracy' he uses this strong language: God Almighty has made our princes mad, so that they imagine they can act and command their subjects as they please. God delivers the princes to their reprobate senses. They wish even to govern souls, and thus they bring upon themselves. God's and all people's hatred, and in this way they perish, with the bishops, priests and monks; one rascal with the other. The people wearied of your tyranny and iniquity can no longer bear it.' He calls them Blockheads, who wish to be called Christian Princes.'

His work on 'Christian Liberty' drew the peasants to him as a leader, and then many of them declared for the Reformation; but up to 1525 possibly nine tenths of them were not allowed to hear the Reformation preached. For some reason, which is not clear, he suddenly turned his back on them and in that year published his infamous pamphlet Against the Rapacious, Murderous Peasants.' They then charged him with being a fawning sycophant to the nobles. From that day,' says Beard, he became harder, more dogmatic, less spiritual, less universal. He is no longer a leader of thought, but the builder up of a church, on conditions prescribed by the existing political constitution of Germany.' After the war the rebels returned almost as a body to the Catholics, and Luther did more to drive them back than any other man. His bitterness and cruelty toward them were appalling. He denounces them as 'faithless, treacherous, lying, disobedient, boobies and rascals, who deserved the death of soul and body. He declared them under the ban of the God and Emperor, and 'he who strangles them first does right well.' He charged them with three horrible crimes against God and man: rebellion against rulers, robbery of castles and convents, and the pretense that they fight under the Gospel.' Yet, in 1524, when Erasmus wrote him that he feared a bloody insurrection,' he replied: A common destruction of all monasteries and convents would be the best reformation, because they are useless.' Many of the peasants destroyed these and he raved against them after this coarse fashion:

'A wise man gives to his ass food, a pack-saddle and the whip; to the peasant oat straw. If they are not content, give the cudgel and the carbine, it is their due. Let us pray that they may be obedient; if not, show them no mercy. Make the musket whistle against them, or else they will be a thousand times more wicked.'" He exhorted the princes to hunt them down like mad dogs.' 'Strike! slay front and rear! Nothing is more poisonous, pernicious, devilish than a rebel. . . . So wonderous are the times now, that a prince can win heaven with blood more easily than others can by prayer. . . . Beat, strangle, hang, burn, behead and mutilate them.' 3

Certain writers never weary of attributing this bloody work to the 'Anabaptists.' But Bishop Jewel honestly lodges it where it belongs; while he would screen Luther, he says that the partners of this conspiracy had for their watch-word the name of Our Lady, and in honor of her were bound to say five Ave Marias every day.' Great concessions were made to the peasants for a time; during the

war much church property was put to secular uses, many high privileges and taxes were abolished, all princes but the Emperor were brought down to the democratic level of citizens, free courts were established, the clergy were restricted to their individual churches, and uniformity was given to weights, measures and currency. But these were not secured until the war had cost possibly 150,000 lives, and the burning of several hundred castles, convents, hamlets and towns. Sometimes Luther attempted to wash his hands as innocent of the whole affair, and then again he was willing to bear the whole responsibility, but others laid the blame at his door. Erasmus said to him: You disclaim any connection with the insurgents, while they regard you as the author and expounder of their principles. A controversial writer of 1532 says: "Luther first sounded the tocsin; he cannot clear himself from the rebellion, although he wrote that the common folks should not use force without the magistracy. The common people do not hear that, but they observe whatever part of Luther's sermons and writings they please.' Osiander writes: 'When Luther saw the peasants attacking not only the bishops and clergy, but also his teaching and the princes, he preached their slaughter like that of wild beasts;' and the enemies of the peasants were as bitter toward him as the rebels themselves. In 1525 Amerbach received a letter from Zasius, in which the latter says: "Luther this pest of peace, this most pernicious of all two-legged beings, has plunged the whole of Germany into such a fury that one must regard it as a sort of security if he be not killed at once.' Sometimes, when looking round for a scape-goat, Luther attempted to throw the responsibility on 'the prophets of murder,' as he called the Zwickau men. But at other times he arrogated prerogatives to himself, for which, as Erasmus says, 'no parallel can be found, scarcely distinguishable from madness,' and for which no apology can be made, such as this: 'I, Martin Luther, have slain all the peasants in the insurrection because I commanded them to be killed; their blood is upon my head. But I put it upon the Lord God, by whose command I spoke.''

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These and many other facts sufficiently show why Gieseler says that 'no traces of Anabaptist fanaticism were seen' in the Peasants' War. Some individual 'Anabaptists' were drawn into the contest, as at Mühlhausen, under the lead of Münzer, who, was not in any proper use of the term an 'Anabaptist' himself. On the contrary, Keller, in his late work on the 'Reformation' (p. 370), says that Cornelius has shown that in the chief points Münzer was opposed to the Baptists. It seemed an inevitable result that religious fanaticism should be thrown into a contest in which politicoreligious questions formed the chief element, and especially where such a fiery spirit was allowed to come to the front. Yet it is questionable justice, whether even he ought to be blackened from head to foot. The true story of Thomas Münzer appears to be this. He was born in Stollberg, at the foot of the Hartz Mountains, A. D. 1490, and studied, some think at Wittenberg, others at Leipsic; that he took a degree as master of arts is clear, and that he had large knowledge of the Scriptures. After teaching in several places, he became a chaplain and confessor to the nuns at