Franz Synders, Wild Boar Hunt

Franz Synders, Wild Boar Hunt "A wild boar from the forest" Martin Luther as a Model of Rebellion, fifteen twenty to fifteen twenty-five

In fifteen twenty-five, peasants, serfs, artisans, and townsmen throughout Germany revolted as they had many times before. The stripping of rights and communal autonomy, imposition of new duties and taxes, and restrictions on mobility and marriage had for three-quarters of a century slowly degraded quality of life for commoners. In this revolt, the Peasants' War of fifteen twenty-five, the rebels mistakenly believed they had an ally in Martin Luther. Rather, he would prove an enemy, whose call to crush the revolt would lead to the deaths of one hundred thousand peasants. Luther asserted that rebellion was a sin against God because it rejected the temporal authorities God had placed in power. Insurrection was robbery not solely through plunder but through the serfs' removal of themselves from their lords. A serf was the property of his lord, and so to leave was to steal the lord's property. Despite Luther's stance that revolt against temporal authority was a sin, he unwittingly encouraged resistance through his preaching, writing, and personal example. As a virile, rebellious German, Luther was a model for the rebellion he rejected. In spite of his views, the peasants believed he would support them for three reasons. First, they received comparatively little of Luther's writing against rebellion because much of his clearest writing on this topic was in Latin and therefore not widely read outside the university trained classes. Second, in the five years leading up to the Peasants' Revolt of fifteen twenty-five, Luther had said a great deal in support of peasant causes, and spoke with vehemence in their defense against temporal and clerical nobility. Third, through his actions and language, Luther had, himself, acquired a rebel image. For the most part, his was a positive image, that of a robust, heroic, and manly success against great odds. Such a picture offered peasants a hopeful means of recovering lost rights and status.

HISTORIOGRAPHICAL SURVEY

In the historiography of the Peasants' War, with the caveat that it was not Luther's intention to serve as an example for the fifteen twenty-five revolt, and that his theology was only incompletely both available to and understood by those who believed it justified revolt, it is not without precedent to say that Martin Luther's own rebellion encouraged the very defiance he rejected in others. Viewing Luther as an example of rebellion are Keith Moxey and Julius Ruff. Ruff observes, "While Luther certainly condemned the revolution of fifteen twenty-five, the example of his defiance of Rome could only have enhanced peasant willingness to challenge authority of every sort." While Neelak Tjernagel does not comment directly on Luther in the Peasants' War, he studies Luther's insolence to Henry the eighth, which, while not directed at Luther's emperor Charles the fifth, was directed against a temporal authority who was sufficiently offended to appeal to Luther's prince to reprimand the theologian. Luther's impudence toward the English monarch was printed and widely enjoyed in the German-speaking world and can be seen as having fed the image of Luther as rebellious.

Some historians see Luther as a model for non-violent resistance. Martin Brecht sees the Reformer as an example and as paving the way for the initial non-violent stages of the fifteen twenty-five insurrection marked by a refusal to pay the tithe. James Stayer goes so far as to argue that the peasants, following Luther's non-physical example, never intended for violence to break out. For Stayer, "The bloody war that began in April fifteen twenty-five came not from the commoners but from the mercenary armies of the princes." While it is accurate that the peasants began peacefully, such a stance perhaps gives too little weight to the tradition of revolt in late medieval Germany. Stayer does go further, however, and explores a fascinating idea. Viewing Luther as a model of specifically linguistic rebellion through his German Bible and many publications in German, he characterizes the Peasants' War as being in part a war of language and culture merged with class conflict, "Now the revolt of German against Latin merged with a revolt of the commoners against the clergy and aristocracy." Indeed, a form of aristocratic proto-nationalism ran high in this period, and Luther was misunderstood by imperial German nobles as well as by commoners.

Amid the plethora of approaches to Luther's impact on the revolt of fifteen twenty-five is the pursuit of the extent to which Luther was personally responsible for the revolt. Seeing Luther as bearing great responsibility for the rebellion through his example, theology, and language is Erik Erikson. He quotes Luther before the revolution expressing disgust with bishops and priests, "What do they better deserve than a strong uprising which will sweep them from the earth? And we would smile did it happen." Also blaming Luther for the revolution is Hartmann Grisar, "Amongst the circumstances which influenced Luther, one was his tardy recognition of the fact that the course he had first started on, with the noisy proclamation of freedom of thought and action in the sphere of religion, could lead to no other goal than that of universal anarchy and the destruction of both religion and morality." Crediting rather than blaming Luther is Friedrich Engels who finds Luther's "preaching of Christian freedom," to have sparked the revolution, "The lightning thrust by Luther caused a conflagration." Taking a more objective stance than crediting or blaming, Heiko Oberman holds Luther aloof from those who drew on his theology, for while they logically saw Luther's views as supporting their own, they were wrong.

Not all historians view Luther as a cause of unrest. Some assert, as does Peter Blickle, that Luther was an extension of his culture's tradition of rebellion, an extension who created neither the movement nor its religious justification:

The popular movement reached far back into the fifteenth century and Luther created neither the demand for change nor even its religious expression. He did offer the movement two things. First, his own biblicism strengthened the popular doctrine of 'godly law' as the norm for a Christian social order. Second, much more influential than his theology was his personal example as a rebel against the two great authorities of Christendom, the pope and the Holy Roman emperor.

Sharing Blickle's view that Luther only added to that which was already an extant tradition of rebellion is Hans-Christoph Rublack. Rublack argues that the presentation of lists of grievances and the use of unrest if a formal presentation did not achieve the desired results, were nothing new. What Luther added was biblicism that strengthened the common man's argument and created a great tinderbox of plurality in scriptural interpretation. Rublack views the Peasants' Revolt as part of the process of controlling religious discourse and bringing it to heel.

Commenting too on Luther as neither a cause nor a model but as part of the whole is Robert Scribner who explores the imagery of the pre-revolt period wherein Luther was portrayed as a saint, a national hero, a heroic monk with a club, and as a champion of the peasants. The Reformer was not always consulted before being placarded in one camp or another, and Kurt Stadtwald notes that both peasants and nationalists "attempted to coopt Luther's theology and ... viewed in his rebellion an example or a proof that now was the time. Joining these historians in viewing Luther as part of the whole is Lyndal Roper. One of few scholars to examine the Reformer from a gendered perspective, Roper views both the Peasants' War and the Reformation as expressions of virility but does not comment on Luther's role as an example. As a result, yet to be explored is the impact of gender on the question of Luther's example of rebellion, which is the focus of this paper. The free peasants who had lost communal autonomy and subsistence rights, many of whom had been impressed into serfdom, had lost power. For the men among them, this meant emasculation. Luther's model of rebellion taken within a tradition of rebellion emboldened the discontented with an example to follow in asserting themselves.

There are a great many loci of focus in the matter of Luther and the Peasants' Revolt of fifteen twenty-five. Among them are Luther as a model for rebellion and as a model for specifically non-violent and linguistic revolt. As well, historians have focused on Luther's personal culpability and on the Reformer within an extant tradition of insurrection already rooted in religion. There too have been those whose foci have been Luther in imagery, the impact of these images on unrest, and the role of gender in both the Reformation and the Peasants' War. This paper examines Luther as the unwilling model of rebellion as a virile and successful means of finding remedy for grievances.