Martin Luther: A Life From Beginning to End (Biographies of Christians Book 3) by Hourly History

Author:Hourly History [History, Hourly]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hourly History
Published: 2017-12-26T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

Political Chaos, Personal Changes

“No one would have been safe from one another; any man might have killed another . . . there was no order in it. . . . The devil intended to lay all Germany to utter waste.”

—Martin Luther on the Peasants’ War

The quickly changing world of the Reformation affected not only Wittenberg but also much of northern Europe. Though reformers in Wittenberg enjoyed the protection of Elector Frederick’s rule, in other areas of the Holy Roman Empire, reformers were threatened and punished, and German Bibles were confiscated. In the midst of the religious controversy, the economic order of society was also changing; the lower classes felt intense financial pressure. It was a time of great instability that would soon become visible in revolts.

While a revolt by the Imperial Free Knights—knights who were loyal to the emperor rather than to territorial rulers—in 1522 did not have much direct relation to Luther’s reformation movements, the revolt of many groups of peasants in 1524 did. Beginning in the Black Forest, oppressed peasants rebelled with violence against the often overburdening demands of their overlords. The document that described this movement, The Twelve Articles, called for peasants to be allowed to choose pastors along with more typical economic demands like hunting and fishing rights and decreased taxes.

Martin had uniformly spoken against the use of violence in reform. In his recent treatise On Secular Authority, he also described his views on the necessity of secular rulers to fulfill their calling with justice and to remember that their authority was solely temporal, not over the soul or any person’s conscience. To Luther, though the peasants justified their cause in the name of reformation and though he admitted they had suffered real grievances, their violent revolt removed them from right Christian conduct. Because of this, he encouraged rulers to suppress the revolts with whatever force was necessary, especially for the protection of anyone endangered by the rebellions. Not surprisingly, the territorial rulers did exactly this, putting down the revolts with much more violence, as they likely would have done with or without Martin’s approbation.

Luther’s consent to the brutal response of the German princes left some who supported the revolts feeling betrayed and led to the common criticism that Martin was self-serving in this situation and no more than a toady to the ruling class. Today, many historians still criticize Martin Luther’s choice and his writing on the revolts, known as the Peasants’ War, on these same grounds. Others disagree, claiming that Martin’s writings were truly grounded in his theological thought and that his heated use of language makes this difficult to see. Many aspects of the war itself are debated by scholars, and this also complicates views of Martin’s role and actions. But despite the views of his contemporaries and the various arguments of modern historians, it is clear that Martin continued to defend his actions and to hold that violent resistance to the authority of governments was wrong.

Even as the Peasants’ War continued into 1525, a significant change was coming to Luther’s life.

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