Penelope+Gladney

= ﻿ Thomas Muntzer and the Peasants' Revolt﻿﻿  = ﻿﻿ by = Penelope Gladney﻿﻿ =

Thomas Muntzer was one of the reformers of the Roman Catholic Church during what is known as the European Reformations. Martin Luther is the most well known reformer of the time, but Muntzer had a valuable contribution to the reformation of the church. He has been associated with and oftentimes called the leader of the German Peasants' revolt and the violence that occured in the summer of 1525. Was the peasant violence associated with Muntzer, a religious rebellion that he led or was he unfairly characterized as violent because of his association with the peasants? I would argue that Thomas Muntzer used the peasants as a means to gain his political and religious aims and that he was not a proponent of the violence as is often thought. He was very much a reformer as Luther, against many of the same doctrines as Luther. He would influence the forming of the Augsburg Confession (1530) because it's writers were aware of the violence of the Peasans' revolt and they wanted to avoid the dangers of more religious wars. The Augsburg Confession is important because it is the foundational document of Lutheran churches of today. I would also argue that his stand and his association with the violence of the peasant's had a greater influence on the eventual Peace of Augsburg, which essentially propelled the Reformation to it's full realization, than did Luther's method of reforming the church.

__** THOMAS MUNTZER (1488-1525) **__
Thomas Muntzer was born in Stolberg in Germany in 1488. He was educated at the University in Frankfurt in 1512. (Baylor, 452) A couple of years later he became a priest. It was during his time as a priest that he began to question some of the Catholic church doctrines. His influences in developing his theology were the mystic Suso Tauler and Martin Luther. (Bainton, 6) He believed that Luther was correct in opposing doctrines of the church such as the “abominations of the papacy, magical rites, the idolatry of images, the worldliness of the clergy, and the aridity of the theologians.” (Bainton, 6). His first published work was entitled “Open Letter to the Brothers of Stolberg” in 1523. In it, he “urged his friends and associates….to avoid rebellion…” (Baylor, 451) He also spoke of a reformation demanding a “sweeping transformation of political and social as well as personal life.” (Baylor, 453) It was later while in Zwickau that Muntzer became a “radical reformer”. He preached with “tumultuous fervor” (Bainton, 7) against many of the doctrines of the church and even a Lutheran minister. He looked for “support among the urban lower classes.” (Drummond, 66) His fiery sermons spoke to these lower class peasants, causing those who had heard him to riot. (Bainton, 7) He was then called to pastor in Allstedt and he had relative quiet there because his aim was not to be “disruptive” (Bainton, 7) nor to “cause a rift”. (Bainton, 7) However, Luther became upset with Muntzer after he caused riots in Allstedt and married a runaway nun and his rift with Luther grew. (Bainton, 9) Luther called on the Saxon princes to quiet Muntzer. During this time Muntzer declared that “the godless have no right to live save as the elect grant it to them.” (Bainton, 11) In 1525, he left Allstedt for Mulhausen. It was here that he became involved in the violence of the peasants. (Bainton, 12)

__THE PEASANTS' REVOLT (1524-1525) __
The German Peasants’ Revolt of 1525 represented an unprecedented challenge to the princes and other petty political rulers of the areas involved.“ (Sea, 219) There had been discontent amongst the peasants for more than “half-century or more before 1525...”(Scott, 694) The peasants’ had many concerns. Their “struggle was -subjectively- directed against the oppression of feudal lordship…” (Scott, 695) They also had to “accept new measures and taxes, to pay in money what they had previously paid in kind…” (Drummond, 63) The strains on the resources of the peasants made the “reformers preaching of the Gospels…” (Scott, 695) appear to “challenge the legitimacy of corrupt or tyrannous worldly magistrates…” (Scott, 695) The Peasants’ Revolt was not a religious war. But religion supplied the peasants with a “revolutionary ideology.” (Scott, 1979, 712) The religious ideas gave fuel to the war but the war was political﻿.

**__THOMAS MUNTZER ENTERS THE PEASANTS' REVOLT __**
Muntzer’s move to Mulhausen gave him occasion to take up the cause of the peasants. His movement for the common man was “in response to his eschatological vision of the world…” (Soctt, 719) Muntzer “called on his supporters and the insurgents generally not to be afraid of the might of the princes.”(Drummond, 70) He believed that ”the fear of God absolutely counted out the opponents of God.” (Drummond, 70) This was the rallying cry that the peasant’s continued their revolt under. Martin Luther, who became Muntzer’s enemy, inadvertently, through his works //Admonition to Peace and Also Against the Robbing and Murdering Hordes of// the //Other Peasants,// where in printing the tracts, the word “other” was dropped and the two writings were split, made it appear that he had turned against the common man and the peasants. Muntzer believed that the peasants were the elect and those oppressing them were the godless. He created a large white banner with a rainbow on it under which the peasants (elect) rallied. The banner is significant because while Muntzer deliberated with the peasant army, “a rainbow appeared, the token to them that God endorsed their banner.” (Bainton, 13) Unfortunately, Muntzer and the peasants were suppressed in a bloody massacre and perhaps 100,000 died. (Lindberg, 157,158) __**Below is a Statue of Thomas Muntzer holding his rainbow banner that stands in Stolberg, Germany**__

__(THE AUGSBURG CONFESSION (1530) AND THE PEACE OF AUGSBURG (1555) __
After the defeat of Muntzer and the peasants, the “evangelicals strove to demonstrate their true Catholicity, to play down or soften controversial issues and to distance themselves from “heretics” …..” (Lindberg,.222) In an effort to do this, the evangelicals wrote the Augsburg Confession of 1530. The Augsburg Confession was a statement of faith by Lutheran theologians. It is the “foundational document of the Lutheran church and remains so today.” (Lindberg, 225) The Emperor Charles V rejected the reforms of the Augsburg Confession. By doing so, he ensured that the civil wars would continue. (Lindberg, 226) As a result of the growing population of Protestants, however, he acquiesced after the revolt of the princes.. (Lindberg, 228, 231) The result was the Peace of Augsburg (1555). The Peace of Augsburg (1555) was crafted at the Diet of Augsburg 1555, which was held from March to September 1555. It came from the concern of both the Protestant and Catholic princes to “increase their particularist powers.” (Lindberg, 231) It was a “public peace” “constituted on political compromises that recognized, at least for the moment, the futility of forcing a religious settlement but still assumed the validity of the medieval vision of a corpus Christianum; one church and one empire.” (Lindberg, 231) It included the guarantee of one ruler, one religion, provided for emigration rights of those who did not agree with the religion of the ruler, and legally abolished heresy with regard to the Lutherans. (Lindberg, 231)

__CONCLUSION __
I contend that Thomas Muntzer, a “radical” reformer of the sixteenth-century changed the landscape of the European Reformations. Though he never had a church, nor did he have the prolific volumes of written works as did many of the other reformers of that time, his legacy lives on today. He is often called the leader of the Peasants’ Revolt. I have shown that this was not the case. The Peasant Revolt was more political in nature than religious. He was aware of the plight of the peasants and I believe that he decided to use them as the elect. The elect had a right to determine if the godless lived or died. I believe that he used the vehicle of the Peasants’ Revolt of 1525 to further his theology of the godless having no right to live. The peasants looked to Thomas Muntzer’s fiery evangelical preaching as a voice for their cause. But had the peasants’ not been in a revolt, Muntzer’s voice would not have been heard as loudly as it was. He had preached for years with only minor riotous actions of those who listened to his fiery evangelical preaching. Unfortunately for Muntzer, after he began preaching to the peasants, he caught the attention of Martin Luther who called for, albeit, slightly accidental, the defeat of those peasants involved in the revolt. The Reformation would have run it’s course differently, perhaps at a much slower rate had violence not been inserted into the picture. Muntzer’s ideology was born partially of Martin Luther’s reformist ideas, but he became a “radical” reformer. Because of this radicalism, the evangelicals of Martin Luther’s Reformation ideology wanted to distance themselves from those “radical reformers”. To do this, they wrote the Augsburg Confession of 1530. This is used today as a basis for the Lutheran church doctrine. The blood of the peasants and Thomas Muntzer had to be shed in order to progress the evangelical agenda. Thomas Muntzer, and his fiery evangelical preaching gave the peasants’ an eloquent voice for their cause.. The full realization of the reformers ideology did not come until 1555 with the Peace of Augsburg.

 <span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 125%;"> =<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">Sources: =

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 125%;">Bainton, Roland H. (1982). Thomas Muntzer Revolutionary Firebrand of the Reformation. The Sixteenth Century Journal, 13(2), pp. 3-16 Stable URL: [] =<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 120%;">[|MuntzerAnalysis2.doc] =

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 125%;">Baylor, M. G. (1986). Thomas muntzer's first publication. The Sixteenth Century Journal, 17(4), pp. 451-458. Stable URL: []

Drummond, A. W. (1979). Thomas muntzer and the fear of man. The Sixteenth Century Journal, 10(2), pp. 63-71. =<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 125%;">[|MuntzerAnalysis1.doc] =

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 125%;">Matheson, P. (1989). Thomas muntzer's vindication and refutation: A language for the common people? The Sixteenth Century Journal, 20(4), pp. 603-615. Stable URL: []

<span style="display: block; font-family: 'Times New Roman',Times,serif; font-size: 125%;">**Additional Sources:** Scott, Tom (1979) The Peasants' War: A Historiographical Review: Part I. The Historical Journal, 22(3) pp. 693-720 Stable URL: []

Sea, T. (2007). The German Princes' Responses to the Peasants' Revolt of 1525. Central European History, 40(2), 219-240.

Lindberg, Carter. The European Reformations, Wiley-Blackwell, 2010