Popular Culture and Popular Protest in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe by Michael A. Mullett

Author:Michael A. Mullett [Mullett, Michael A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Political Science, General
ISBN: 9780709935667
Google: G5Q2EAAAQBAJ
Goodreads: 706211
Publisher: Croom Helm
Published: 1987-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The folk-hero image that attached to Luther at the time of his appearance at the Reichstag, when the danger of martyrdom that he faced prompted publicists to liken him to Christ,68 still clung to him in 1525. The peroration of the Twelve Articles reflected the power he still exercised over the German popular imagination, for popular culture needs its heroes. Only when we glimpse the role the peasants wanted to give Luther as a sort of heraldic supporter do we appreciate the grief caused by his brusque dismissal of the insurgent cause in 1525.

Through his work as history’s first writer for a mass market, Luther had a pan-German appeal, and the Peasants’ Revolt was a national phenomenon, even though it did not take in all areas of the Reich. However, villagers live in villages as well as in the German Reich, and when we turn away from the Twelve Articles to some of the less well-known manifestos of the German Peasants’ Revolt, we find the typical intense peasant localism that co-existed with the national, or even universal, vision of the Memmingen Articles. A pre-occupation with the everyday annoyances of small communities in small places, the relentless practicality that is a major feature of peasant risings — even alongside the loftiest ideology — are seen in a set of German Peasant Revolt articles, with only the most abrupt introduction and hardly any conclusion, from the Swabian villages of Opfingen and Griesingen.69

These numbered complaints seem far away from the relative universalism of the Twelve Articles. As their caption indicates, they are concerned with just two villages, and with their squire, a terrifying, violent and choleric Junker of whom his peasants were clearly petrified. He joins a cast of characters which includes a grasping abbot, harsh bailiffs and an innkeeper with a chip on his shoulder who has managed to get his convoluted complaint included in the general articles. The props are pigs, a mill, the inhabitants of a stud farm, and a most contentious manure heap — the latter being a reminder, if we needed one, of the central importance of manure in European history.70 The inclusion of the manure heap would doubtless have convinced the peasants’ enemies that they were irredeemably boorish. Indeed, the farmers of Öpfingen and Griesingen seem to have been incapable of raising their eyes above their fields and muck-heaps — certainly not to have seen avenging angels on clouds of glory. Instead of a messianic judgement awaiting the oppressor, we seem to have only timid serfs cowering before a village despot and gaining the courage to speak up only because of the stirring events going on around them. Instead of lightning flashes of the eschaton, we have only the miserable hailstorms and the heart-breaking floods and fires of the German countryside.

All in all, then, the complaints and moans of the villagers of Öpfingen and Griesingen seem far removed from any sense of justice, or from any articulation of values. Having said that, however, the action of these

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