The Peasant War in Germany

namely,  Judica  Sunday  (April  2).  In  the  meantime,  he  was  able  to  proceed  against  Duke
Ulrich, to besiege Stuttgart, compelling him to leave Wuerttemberg as early as March 17.
Then  he  turned  against  the  peasants,  but  the  Lansquenets  revolted  in  his  own  army  and
refused  to  proceed  against  the  peasants.  Truchsess  succeeded  in  placating  the  disgruntled
soldiers and moved towards Ulm, where new reinforcements were being gathered. He left
an observation post at Kerchief under the supervision of Teck.
At  last  the  Suabian  Union,  with  free  hands  and  in  command  of  the  first  contingents,
threw off its mask, declaring itself “to be ready, with arms in hand and with the aid of God,
to change that which the peasants wilfully ventured.”
The peasants adhered strictly to the armistice. On Judica Sunday they submitted their
demands, the famous Twelve Articles, for consideration. They demanded the election and
removal  of  clergymen  by  the  communities;  the  abolition  of  the  small  tithe  and  the
utilisation  of  the  large  tithe,  after  subtraction  of  the  priests’  salaries,  for  public  purposes;
the abolition of serfdom, of fishing and hunting rights, and of death tolls; the limitation of
excessive  bonded  labour,  taxes  and  ground  rents;  the  restitution  of  the  forests,  meadows
and  privileges  forcibly  withdrawn  from  the  communities  and  individuals,  and  the
elimination  of  willfulness  in  the  courts  and  the  administration.  It  is  obvious  that  the
moderate  conciliatory  section  still  had  the  upper  hand  among  the  peasant  troops.  The
revolutionary party had formulated its programme earlier, in the Letter of Articles. It was
an  open  letter  to  all  the  peasantry,  admonishing  them  to  join  “the  Christian  Alliance  and
Brotherhood”  for  the  purpose  of  removing  all  burdens  either  by  goodness,  “which  will
hardly  happen,”  or  by  force,  and  threatening  all  those  who  refuse  to  join  with  the  “lay
anathema,”  that  is,  with  expulsion  from  the  society  and  from  any  intercourse  with  the
Union members. All castles, monasteries and priests’ endowments were also, according to
the Letter, to be placed under lay anathema unless the nobility, the priests and the monks
relinquished them of their own accord, moved into ordinary houses like other people, and
joined the Christian Alliance. We see that this radical manifesto which obviously had been
composed  before  the  Spring  insurrection  of  1525,  deals  in  the  first  place  with  the
revolution, with complete victory over the ruling classes, and that the “lay anathema” only
designates those oppressors and traitors that were to be killed, the castles that were to be
burned, and the monasteries and endowments that were to be confiscated, their jewels to be
turned into cash.
Before the peasants succeeded in presenting their Twelve Articles to the proper courts
of arbitration, they learned that the agreement had been broken by the Suabian Union and
that its troops were approaching. Steps were taken immediately by the peasants. A general
meeting  of  all  Allgaeu,  Baltringen  and  Lake  peasants  was  held  at  Geisbeuren.  The  four
The Peasant War in Germany
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divisions  were  combined  and  reorganised  into  four  columns.  A  decision  was  made  to
confiscate the church estates, to sell their jewels in favour of the war chest, and to burn the
castles. Thus, aside from the official Twelve Articles, the Letter of the Articles became the
rule  of  warfare,  and  Judica  Sunday,  designated  for  the  conclusion  of  peace  negotiations,
became the date of general uprising.
The  growing  agitation  everywhere,  the  continued  local  conflicts  of  the  peasants  with
the nobility, the news of a growing revolt in the Black Forest for the preceding six months
and  of  its  spread  up  to  the  Danube  and  the  Lech,  are  sufficient  to  explain  the  rapid
succession of peasant revolts in two-thirds of Germany. The fact, however, that the partial
revolts took place simultaneously, proves that there were men at the head of the movement
who had organised it through Anabaptists and other emissaries. Already in the second half
of March, disorders broke out in Wuerttemberg, in the lower regions of the Neckar and the
Odenwald,  and  in  Upper  and  Middle  Franconia.  April  2,  Judica  Sunday,  however,  had
already  been  named  everywhere  as  the  day  of  the  general  uprising,  and  everywhere  the
decisive blow, the revolt of the masses, fell in the first week of April. The Allgaeu, Hegau
and  Lake  peasants  sounded  the  alarm  bells  on  April  1,  calling  into  the  camp  a  mass
meeting  of  all  able-bodied  men,  and  together  with  the  Baltringen  peasants,  they
immediately opened hostilities against the castles and monasteries.
In  Franconia,  where  the  movement  was  grouped  around  six  centres,  the  insurrection
broke  out  everywhere  in  the  first  days  of  April.  In  Noerdlingen  two  peasant  camps  were
formed about that time, and the revolutionary party of the city under Anton Forner, aided
by  the  peasants,  gained  the  upper  hand,  appointing  Forner  the  Mayor,  and  completing  a
union  between  the  city  and  the  peasants.  In  the  region  of  Anspach,  the  peasants  revolted
everywhere between April 1 and 7, and from here the revolts spread as far as Bavaria. In
the region of Rottenburg, the peasants were already under arms on March 22. In the city of
Rottenburg  the  rule  of  the  honourables  was  overthrown  by  the  lower  middle-class  and
plebeians under Stephan of Menzingen, but since the peasant dues were the chief source of
revenue for the city, the new government was able to maintain a vacillating and equivocal
attitude  towards  the  peasants.  In  the  Grand  Chapter  of  Wurzburg  there  was  a  general
uprising, early in April, of the peasants and the small cities. In the bishopric of Bamberg, a
general  insurrection  compelled  the  bishop  to  yield  within  five  days.  In  the  North,  on  the
border of Thuringia, the strong Bildhausen Peasant Camp was organised.
In the Odenwald, where Wendel Hipler, a noble and former chancellor of the Count of
Hohenlohe,  and  Georg  Metzler,  an  innkeeper  at  Ballenberg  near  Krautheim,  were  at  the
head  of  the  revolutionary  party,  the  storm  broke  out  on  March  26.  The  peasants  marched
from  all  directions  towards  the  Tauber.  Two  thousand  men  from  the  Rottenburg  camp
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