Religion, Politics and Social Protest

Three Studies on Early Modern Germany

Peter Blickle, Hans-Christoph Rublack, Winfried Schulze, Kaspar von Greyerz

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781000424508
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book, first published in 1984, brings together three essays written by specialists in German history of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries whose important work is little known to English-speaking historians. Peter Blickle argues for a strong connection between the theology of the Reformation and the ideologies of the social protest movements of the period. Hans-Christoph Rublack takes a wider theme of the political and social norms in urban communities in the Holy Roman Empire and emphasises the ideas of justice, peace and unity held within the community despite the upheavals of revolution and protest. Winfried Schulze provides a comparative assessment of early modern peasant resistance within the Holy Roman Empire.

1
Social Protest and Reformation Theology

Peter Blickle

In a lecture he delivered in Washington in 1945 Thomas Mann tried to explain the roots of the demonic in the National Socialist regime to his American audience.¹ His views on the subject were subjective and intuitive, tied into a loose framework of causality, and he took frequent recourse to Luther. To Mann, Luther was both the personification of ‘the Germanic’ par excellence and in turn someone whose own social ethic and theology had effected a change in it. ‘I would not like to have been Luther’s dinner guest’, Mann admitted, ‘and am convinced I would have got on better with Leo X, the friendly humanist Luther called “the devil’s pig – the Pope”.’ He added: ‘The Germanic in its purest form – the separatist, anti-Roman, anti-European – alienates and frightens me even when it is presented as evangelical freedom and spiritual emancipation.’² Despite these critical lines, Mann obviously also admired Luther – the breaker of orthodox restraints, the creator of the national language, the musician. At the same time, however, Mann distances himself from Luther: ‘He (Luther) was a heroic liberator... but in the German mode, for he understood nothing of freedom. I am not talking about Christian liberty but about political freedom — the freedom of the citizens of a state. This concept did not just leave him cold, he despised the basic tenor and goals of such a notion from the bottom of his heart.’ At the point at which theology and social protest intersect – Mann refers specifically to the Peasants’ War – Luther stood in the way of progress. ‘For the sad outcome of this first attempt at a German revolution’, Mann continued, which ‘could have given the entire course of German history a more fortunate turn towards Liberty, ... Luther, the man of the people, bears a good share of the responsibility.’³

Thomas Mann was certainly familiar with that interpretation of German history which holds the Reformation responsible for both social protest and its failure – indeed, charges Protestantism with having an abhorrence of revolution which renders it unfit for democracy.⁴ It would, therefore, seem to be more of a necessity than just an interesting endeavour for the historian to undertake the task of evaluating the importance of the Reformation to German history by analysing the mutual dependence of Reformation theology and social protest. More precisely, the questions are these: (1) where and how is social protest articulated; (2) how does it stand in relationship to Reformation theology, and (3) what consequences arise from the possible combination of these two movements?⁵ The inception of social protest during the Reformation period and the significance of Reformation theology for this protest become clear even from the most cursory perusal of the available source material. Below, three examples are offered which shed light on the suggested interrelationships.

In a petition of grievances addressed to the council of the imperial city of Frankfurt, the community makes numerous economic and social demands including: the removal of ground rents, abolition of excise taxes, a simplification of and reduction in administrative costs, communal use of the wooded areas, the abolition of certain other duties, and so on. These demands are tied to the following line of argument: ‘Because we do owe more allegiance to God than to any mortal (Acts 5; 29) it is necessary that we abandon godless ways and begin to reform ourselves towards a godly, brotherly conduct, in praise of God the Almighty and the honour of His holy word, Christ our Lord, and for the promotion of brotherly unity.’⁶ Having energetically demanded the abolition of serfdom, the removal of manorial dues and improvement in the administration of justice, a peasant petition from Upper Swabia ends

It is our conclusion and opinion that if one or more of the here formulated articles should go against the Word of God, which we do not believe, that we reject that article if such can be proven to be the case in the Scriptures. If we are granted a particular article now which should later be proven to be unjust, we will abolish that article. Likewise, we reserve the right to make further demands should they be found to be justified in the Scriptures.⁷

In a joint mandate issued by the cities of Zürich, Bern and St Gallen regarding the Anabaptists, the following actions and beliefs are threatened with the punishment of death by drowning.⁸

Although the Anabaptists are not the only ones who use the external water mark of re-baptism, they are nonetheless distinguishable by certain characteristics and features, namely that none of them carry a sword or sue for outstanding debts. They also say that no Christian, if he truly is one, should give or receive interest on capital, that all goods are free and should belong to the general community and that every person has property rights in them. They teach that no Christian should rule over another and are unabashed in doing so, having the audacity to base this claim on the Scriptures. And although government cannot be maintained without the bond and obligation of oath-swearing, all of them teach that a Christian should not swear an oath to the authorities or to anyone else – all of these things to the disgrace and oppression of Christian orderly government, brotherly love and general peace.

The selection of examples I have presented are – in a sense that we shall discuss later – representative. Consequently, we can develop a sharper line of questioning for the analysis of social protest: social protest originates in the urban and rural population.⁹ Concrete economic and social demands are arranged within a vindicatory nexus with ‘the Word of God’ and ‘the Gospel’, the choice of words clearly denoting their origin in the Reformation, since both were logograms of contemporary Reformation theology. Apart from the distinction between urban and rural populations as agents of the protest where it existed, a two-fold type of protest can be discerned, which in short can be characterised as positive and negative protest. Positive protest ran via the Gospel from economic and social necessity towards a fairer and more just social and political order. Negative protest ran via the Gospel from social and political order and thus out of history. This description summarises the objective of the first section of this study which will look at the interaction between social protest and Reformation theology in a threefold approach; first, the urban movements, secondly, the peasant movements, and thirdly, the Anabaptist movement which extended over city and countryside. From there we shall attempt to draw conclusions about the significance of Reformation theology for social protest in the Reformation period.

In the case of the urban movements such an inquiry can rely on the broad basis of recent research which began with Bernd Moeller’s investigations.¹⁰ These have been expanded upon in examination of his thesis primarily in Anglo-Saxon research¹¹ – in this respect Arthur G. Dickens,¹² Steven Ozment,¹³ Thomas Brady¹⁴ and Robert Scribner¹⁵ must be noted – and has culminated in the rather pointed thesis that the Reformation was an ‘urban event’. This thesis appears to have gained support lately from the body of intensive German research on the nature of ‘city and Reformation’.¹⁶ Similarly wide in scope, but more controversial is the discussion of Anabaptism, which owes much of its impetus and findings to the efforts of Hans-Jürgen Goertz,¹⁷ Claus Peter Clasen,¹⁸ Gottfried Seebass¹⁹ and Richard van Dülmen.²⁰ In contrast, however, the problem of the relationship between the Reformation and peasant protest has remained seriously unexplored in recent research. This situation is understandable in so far as the peasant revolt of 1525 has, until the accounts of Günther Franz²¹ and Adolf Waas,²² been too one-sidedly interpreted as the climax of peasant protest behaviour. Within the context of this problematic, the theme of ‘Luther and the peasant revolt’ adds little to the clarification of the issues to be discussed in the present study because it was usually employed apologetically in Luther’s defence.²³ First steps towards exposing the interactionary relationship between Reformation and peasant revolt are evident in the works of Martin Brecht,²⁴ Justus Maurer,²⁵ and Heiko A. Oberman,²⁶ but so far the issue has been neither fully encompassed nor plausibly explained²⁷ – with the exception of the concept of the ‘early bourgeois revolution’. This does tie the two movements together, but does so by using abstract constructions which jeopardise empirical verifiability.²⁸ Despite the obvious insights gained in recent years regarding the particular aspects I have mentioned, it must still be maintained, as Heiko A. Oberman has recently suggested, that the connections between specific forms of protest have not been clarified²⁹ and their relationship to Reformation theology has not been ascertained.³⁰

I

Forms of what we are referring to here as positive protest are evident in the city (1) and in the countryside (2). The differences and similarities between them become clear if we develop a concentrated ideal-typical model of their progression.

(1) The urban protest movement of the Reformation³¹ can be divided into three phases.³² The first phase is introduced by the sermon of the preacher. This begins with a critique of the papacy, moves on to a critique of the monastic and secular clergy, then on to questioning the position of the old church on basic matters and finally on into the social sphere. Accusations of injustice on the part of the authorities and the questioning of tithes both belong to the general repertoire of the preacher. The end point of this critical sermon is rejection of the church’s dogmatic tradition in favour of the ‘pure’ Gospel. The forum is a continually growing and progressively more agitated community. Opposition comes, naturally enough, from those under attack – the urban monasteries and clergy – and they have outside support from the hierarchically structured church in the person of the bishops. So the city councils fall prey to double pressure, from within and from without. Should the council adopt this critique and translate it into political action – even compromise is still possible at this stage – social protest would be headed off and the transition towards Reformation initiated.

Should the council not do so, it is possible, though not a necessary result, that the protest will enter the second phase. This is characterised by the interference in these tensions of one section of the community, or of individual guilds. Passive resistance is articulated in the refusal to pay dues to the monasteries and the old church tithes, or active opposition leads to the formation of communal, pro-Reformation committees. Active opposition is accompanied by concrete demands. These are primarily social and political in nature, occasionally also economic, and reflect a frequently longer-standing accumulation of grievances. They call for the dissolution of the monasteries and communal incorporation of the clergy, abolition of the mass and the introduction of the ‘pure’ Gospel as the exclusive reference in preaching. The position of the council is considerably weaker in this second phase than in the first. Its authority and legitimation show clear symptoms of decline: the means of existence of the city’s charitable organisations (the hospitals) is acutely threatened by the refusal to pay tithes. Within the possible range of reactions, which can be roughly divided into co-operation, compromise or resistance, only the first offers a real opportun...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Original Title Page
• Original Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• 1 Social Protest and Reformation Theology
• 2 Political and Social Norms in Urban Communities in the Holy Roman Empire
• 3 Peasant Resistance in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Germany in a European Context
• Index