those who were unwilling-so that the free themselves to ecclesiastical rule, to escape owner of a small portion of land, who had that of the nobles, seems sufficient, without hitherto lived undisturbed, owning allegiance any further evidence, to show that it was solely to the emperor, now found himself generally preferable: we need not allow the compelled, to escape innumerable harass- vices and corruptious of the church in a ings and vexations, to claim the protection later age to blind us to the benefits it conof some more powerful neighbor. Some ferred upon society at this early period, and sought shelter in that of the church, and without the general conviction of which it professed themselves the vassals of a bishop, could never have risen to the position it or of some religious establishment and occupied. The lowest class of people, who the widely-spread proverbial saying, that it had no possessions of their own, frequently, is good to live under the crosier, seems to we are told, received a portion of the prove, that, on the whole, this was consider- church lands to cultivate and maintain ed as the best resource. Dr. Zimmermann, themselves on; in return for which, they however, who, in truth, carries his abhor- stipulated to perform certain services. The rence of priestly rule almost to fanaticism, church might withdraw such lands again at enters his protest against this common pleasure, but it lay in the interest of the opinion. church not only to leave the cultivators in "The priest yielded nothing to the noble in peaceable possession during their life-time, but cruelty and hardness of heart towards the peaeven to continue it to their heirs." sants. Here is one instance which may stand for Here, then, at least, the interest of the many-In the year 1252, the peasants of the vil- church ran parallel to that of the people. lage of Chatenay, near Paris, which belonged to During the struggle between the tempothe cathedral, had fallen into arrears with their ral and spiritual powers, in the time of the rents and tithes, and the Chapter sent out their fourth and fifth Henries, the peasantry of men-at-arms, and had the unfortunate people drag- Germany appear to have lost the last remged to Paris and shut up in a dungeon near Notre Dame. The dungeon, and the treatment of the nants of their ancient freedom. There was prisoners, were such, that in a few days many of no longer any law but that of open force: them were dead. The noble Blanche, the Queen The great noble seized, without hesitation, Regent, offered to be bail for the amount due from the possessions of the lesser, who was no the peasants, if the Chapter would set them at lib- match for him; and the vassal went and erty. But the priests answered, that if the Chap- did likewise by his weaker neighbor. It ter thought fit to starve its serfs, that was nobody's was during this and the two following cenbusiness but their own. And to show their defi ance of the queen, they forthwith commanded that turies, that castles shot up in all parts of the wives and children of the peasants should be Germany in almost countless numbers; and seized and shut up with them. The dungeon was their fierce, predatory owners became the confined and noisome enough before; and many terror alike of the peasant and the monk. of these new victims were suffocated before they In the words of an abbot of that time— had time to experience the slower death of hun-what one left another took ;-what the ger. Blanche now went in person, with a party caterpillar could not eat was devoured by of knights and men-at-arms, to effect their release; the grasshopper." but the priests threatened the maledictions of the church on any one who should lay hands upon her property. This terrified the knights, and they of Europe, the Crusades produced very drew back; but the queen then advanced alone, important changes in the state of the peaand with her own hand, struck the first stroke santry, and in most instances an ameliorawith a staff on the dungeon door. This put an tion. Sometimes more favorable conditions end to the hesitation of her followers: the door were granted, in order that estates might was broken open; and wretched, emaciated, forms be well cultivated in the absence of the of men, and women, and children, tottered forth: and, in order that her act might not be avenged upon them, the queen subsequently bought them,

and set them free."

In Germany, as in most other countries

lord; sometimes the serfs were emancipated that they might not be tempted to escape, and sometimes they were set free for the good of the master's soul, should he die in the holy war.

We give this story for its own sake; but we cannot say we agree with Dr. Zimmer- The church, in most instances, favored mann, that one instance may stand for and even urged this measure-Dr. Zimmermany," or that one instance proves any-mann considers from motives of temporal thing at all beyond the one case; and the interest, as much as of Christian piety-but admitted fact, that both individuals and it is not easy to see how its temporal intercommunities did often voluntarily subject ests could have been served by this pre

tence. The labor of the serfs would have very heart of Germany. At Ulm, it was decided been peculiarly valuable at a time when at a great meeting, that no one could be excom lands were bestowed upon it in such quanmunicated without being first heard before a civil tity as made it difficult to find means to tribunal, that the order of the state might not be cultivate them, and which compelled it to declared that those whom the Church excommunidisturbed by the intrigues of priests; and it was tempt cultivators by new and more favor-cated might nevertheless be good citizens, good able conditions of tenancy. Unfortunately, Christians, and good men.

The doc

the tide of wealth and power that thus trines of the brotherly equality of all men, of the poured in on the Church proved most inju- inconsistency of slavery with Christianity, of the rious to her spiritual purity; she soon necessity of a moral life, of a more simple form ceased to make common cause with the of worship, and of a diminution of the worldly poor, or to stand between them and the France, and along the Rhine; but this reforming power of the popes, found acceptance also in nobles; but, clothed in purple and fine movement, as well as the reformer himself, sunk linen, she took her place among princes, under the persecutions of the Church.” and came to regard the people not so much as objects of care and solicitude, as material to be exploité for her own aggrandize

ment.

In the fire that consumed the body of Arnold of Brescia, the spirit that should have freed the people from their fetters was But light still shone in the darkness, thought to have perished also; and the though the darkness comprehended it voice of all religious and moral interests not.' In many a hidden spot the spirit of was lost for a time amid the clash of arms a purer religion still maintained itself in that accompanied the conflict of the Hosmall associations, in which, under various henstaufens with the Papacy. names, it was propagated from age to age, and kept alive the knowledge of, and the opposition to, the corruptions of the Romish priesthood.

་

But the spirit had disappeared only, and had not perished; and while the whole attention of the Church was fixed upon her contest with the emperors, the doctrine preached by Arnold made "It had become known among men that the its way unseen through mountains and valleys, Christianity taught by the priests was a very differ- through castles and towns, and appeared, under ent thing from that of the Gospel; and men now various names and forms, in various places an ong arose who reached the same results by the method the Alps and Pyrenees, in Swabia and Flanders, of scientific investigation. From the second half on the Rhine and the North Sea, in Bohemia, Moof the eleventh century, a disposition manifested ravia, and Poland, and even in England. Among itself to examine by the light of reason the mys- the working-classes in town and country, the teries which had been represented as proceeding poorer citizens, and occasionally those of higher from God himself. If we have attained to faith, rank, brotherhoods were formed, and the doctrines said Anselm, it is mere carelessness if we do not of Christ were sought for in the New Testament endeavor by thought to acquaint ourselves with itself." what that faith contains.' Abelard went further. We can believe nothing,' he taught, but what Those who had taken this step, would not we have reasonably apprehended; and it is absurd be far off the discovery that the state of to preach to others what neither he who preaches bondage in which the common people were nor he who is preached to can possibly under- held, and by which they were degraded into stand. His great pupil, Arnold of Brescia, a mere chattels, was irreconcileable with disciple also of the doctrine of the Waldenses, at these doctrines; and the rulers, spiritual tempted a formal religious and political reforma- and temporal, by whom it was maintained, The worldly riches of the clergy,' he preach- could not but appear in a criminal light. ed, are a hindrance to the service of God; and The rise of civil freedom in the cities came thence proceeds their luxury, their pride, their also in aid of these efforts at mental emancienormous corruption. If the pope be a follower pation. of Christ, who walked on earth in the lowliest form, he must not sit on a throne.' A great com"To these the serf fled for refuge from the tymotion was excited by the preaching of Arnold on ranny of his lord and the outrages of fist-law.' the opposite side of the Alps, and a vague feeling Every one who would work at a trade became a arose in thousands of hearts that it was the right burgher; and even the slave, if not claimed within word that had been spoken, and this the right man a year and a day by his master, obtained his who had spoken it; and when, condemned by the freedom." Church as a heretic, he had to fly through the mountains, he taught as he went along the lake, The trades, increasing in numbers from and in the city of Constance, and at Zurich; and year to year, associated themselves in guilds the winged seeds of his word were scattered and companies, and at length demanded throughout Italy and Switzerland, and into the from the noble families who had taken up

tion.

666

"It is an unheard-of thing," he says,

their abode in the cities, a share in the go- and state, was imperatively called for. In vernment of the city. In some cases these 1436, the Emperor Sigismund laid a plan claims were wisely conceded, in others they for such a reform, and among other matters were resisted, and only obtained by the he speaks with reprobation of the state of lower class after a fierce struggle. By one bondage in which the peasantry were held, means or other the German cities found as immoral and unchristian. themselves, towards the end of the fourteenth century, in possession of a high de-" that a Christian man should dare to gree of freedom and prosperity; but they stand up before God, and say to another, appear only as little spots of light in a wide thou art mine!' For he who is baptized field of darkness. The mass of the popu- and believes, let him be noble or ignoble, lation, the tillers of the ground, had sunk, rich or poor, is counted among the memduring this and the following century, to bers of Christ's church. Whoever, therethe lowest extreme of slavery and wretched- fore, calls his fellow-Christian his goods, is ness. The fruits of their industry flowed no Christian, is against Christ, and all the into the castles and convents in full stream, commandments of God are of no avail to leaving the producers scarcely enough to him." Six years after this, Frederick III. support a bare existence. Even on Sun-formed another project of this kind, but days and holidays they were scarcely al- the reform went no further; indeed, the lowed any rest from their toil; they could neither possess property, nor take to any trade, nor marry, nor move from the spot where they were born, without the permission of their lords. The claims made on a peasant's time were so numerous that at certain seasons no more than one day in a week was left to himself.

power of the emperors rested on too insecure and hollow a foundation for them to venture on such an attempt, even when they were sincere in desiring it. Not only their more powerful vassals, but the pettiest feudal baron scarcely hesitated to set them at defiance.

"Here were independent princes, who, in such "Countless were the burdens which in the a case, would not have failed to seize the opporcourse of centuries had been gradually accumulating tunity of enlarging their territories and shaking off on the people. At the death of the owner of an their allegiance; there, a throng of counts and estate, his successor demanded from every peasant barons, who, if they had not the power, had the his best beast, his best garment, or its value in haughtiness of princes; and beyond these a fierce money; and besides heavy annual taxes to the and unruly knightly order, trusting solely to the landlord, and the dues of the church, which in strength of their right arms and their rocky fastsome cases amounted to as much as a sixth or nesses, professing, indeed, in words, allegiance to even a fourth of the produce, every possible pre- the head of the empire, but never thinking of obeytence was laid hold of to wring from him as much ing them in act; and scattered about among them as might be of the remainder. Fowls especially lay the wall-encircled cradles of popular freedom, play a very prominent part on all occasions, as the cities, which by industry, or sagacity, or valor, due to the lord at various seasons of the year, un- by conquest or purchase, were every day gaining der various names; there were Fastnacht-hens, more and more on the nobles. Of deep importneck-hens, head-hens, and body-hens, as tokens ance to the popular cause were the conflicts carried of dependence; so many fowls were to be paid on by the cities against knights and princes and for permission to collect wood in the forests, or prelates, but these very conflicts increased for the drive cattle into them, and so many for every un-time the misery of the country people. married son; besides hearth-hens, district-hens, Not a year, often not a month, passed without a wood-hens, &c., too numerous to mention. Then came the great tithe, and the little tithe, and the blood tithe, of fowls, and calves, and lambs, and pigs, and geese, and even bees; and these, as well as forced labor of all kinds, originally proceeded from the compensation paid to the noble for taking on himself the duty of military service."

feud, without plunder and bloodshed and desolation. The rude soldiers in the hire of the cities, the still ruder robber knights and their men-atarms, raged across the open country like wolves, and did not think it beneath their noble birth to pursue the trade of the highwayman in the most systematic manner; and, indeed, since their numbers had increased so greatly, by what means could this class, who despised agriculture and all at the expense of the industrious citizen and peapeaceful occupations, maintain themselves, if not sant?"

Attempts were made from time to time to administer some remedies to the manifold disorders of which the German Empire had become the prey; and in the fifteenth century a general impression seems to have It is not easy to point to any precise ptgained ground, even among the higher riod or event as the commencement of the classes, that a reformation, both of church | Peasant War, for insurrections of more or VOL. XV. No. IV.

35

his punishment, he was brought out loaded with chains and detained while it was being made red hot! On this he was forced down by his executioners, a sceptre of glowing iron was placed in his hands, and a burning crown upon his head.

Nine of his companions, who had been kept without food till they were nearly starved, were now brought out, and with swords and lances driven up to the place of torture, where it was yelled aloud to them, that they might save their lives if they would consent to eat the flesh of their leader. Three of them preferred death, the other six attempted the horrible meal before the life of Doscka was extinct.

Sixty thousand peasants perished in this revolt, either in the battles or the subsequent massacres, and the same year the magnates held a diet at Buda, in which they declared that all their burdens should be increased, and that slavery should be universally and eternally their portion.

The commencement of the series of insurrections to which collectively the name of the Peasant War has usually been attached, dated from an apparently trival occurrence that took place about ten years after, in a district of Upper Swabia.

and yellow-the colors of the empire; and on the 24th of August, St. Bartholomew's day, they marched twelve hundred strong to Waldshut, where that neighborhood joined them, and after some disthere was a church wake. There the peasants of cussion they formed an association, which they one who wished to enter it was to contribute one called The Evangelical Brotherhood.' Every batz a week, to form a common fund for the pay. ment of messengers whom they were to send with letters far and near over Germany to rouse the peasantry and gain them over to the cause. They conia, Thuringia, and Alsace, and to the peasants wrote and sent secret messages to Swabia, Frandown the Rhine and on the Moselle; declaring that they would no longer render any obedience to their lords; indeed, that they would have no lords but the Emperor, to whom they would pay tribute, but he should not further interfere with them; and that they would have all castles, convents, and so-called religious houses, destroyed."

But,

It still remains a matter of doubt who among these men was capable of forming so bold a plan as that of uniting the peasants of Germany in one common effort for one end, or who were the writers of the letters so frequently mentioned. from whatever cause, it does not appear that they were successful in forming any extensive combination. Nothing like a common plan can be traced in their operations; although the character and purpose "There, where the Black Forest extends South- of the almost countless insurrections are so eastward to the valley of the Upper Rhine, in the similar, that they are scarcely distinguishancient Alpgua, lay the Landgravate of Stuhlin-able from one another. In nearly every ingen; above it, the Austrian county of Hauenstein; below it, the Landgravate Furstenberg, with the stance the peasants drew up a written list sources of the Danube, which included all the of their grievances, with a view to their rest of the country south of the Black Forest. peaceable accommodation; but these were The Landgraf of Stublingen at that time was Si-afterwards merged in the celebrated Twelve gismund the Second, called von Lupfen,' from Articles, which were universally adopted as his hereditary castle of Hohenlupfen, on the Bar. the expression of the feelings and wishes But it was his consort, Helena of Rapoltstein, of the common people. who is said to have been the immediate occasion these articles has remained a secret; for The authorship of of the insurrection, by insisting on the peasants collecting snail-shells and wild strawberries for though they have been often attributed to her on holidays and during harvest time. It does Thomas Muntzer, their style is totally dif not seem necessary to doubt the truth of this story ferent from that of any of his writings. from the trivial character of the occurrence, for in Their tone is mild and moderate to a degreat political crises, incidents that appear equally gree that, under the circumstances, is truly unimportant have frequently led to consequences astonishing; they ask no more than the of that bitterness of feeling towards oppobarest justice, and they exhibit not a trace nents so strikingly and painfully conspicuous in the productions of most of the educated reformers of the period. These Twelve Articles were sent to Luther for his approbation, and in his answer he made some attempts to bring about a peaceful accommodation between the parties; but it soon appeared that his real sympathies were far less with the peasants than with their oppressors, amongst whom were many whom

as great and as unforeseen.

It was on the festival of St. John the Baptist that the long-tried patience of the peasants of Stuhlingen gave way, and their murmurings broke forth into action; and having induced the peasants of neighboring villages to join them, so that they amounted to about six hundred, they prepared for open resistance. They chose for their chief one Hans Muller of Bulgenbach, who had had some experience in war, having been engaged in several campaigns against King Francis the 1st of France, and who had also many personal advantages, amongst which not the least was a gift of natural eloquence. They then made themselves a standard-black, red,