Peasants' War

The Peasants' War was an uprising in southern and central Germany in the 1520s. A wide range of common people, including tillers of the soil, village artisans*, and poor townspeople, supported the uprising. The rebels did not want to overthrow the government or the Holy Roman Empire*. Rather, they hoped to end certain practices of nobles and the Roman Catholic Church. The war lasted from May 1524 to July 1526, involved up to 300,000 people, and claimed as many as 100,000 lives.

The revolt began as protests against lords to force them to treat common people justly. The rebels managed to seize supplies from monasteries and to dismantle several castles. They also forcibly occupied a number of German towns. More commonly, however, they captured cannons and supplies from towns that they did not enter. Violence against individuals by the rebels was rare. Battles did not begin until after April 1525, when armies of mercenaries* serving German princes* assembled to crush the uprising. In the one-sided battles that followed, thousands of peasants died.

The Peasants' War occurred in the most urbanized region of the Holy Roman Empire. Since about 1450, western Europe had experienced sizable population growth and an economic upswing. These changes led to greater differences of wealth and status among rural residents. Peasants who owned land controlled village governments and had a better life than landless peasants, laborers, and servants. However, they still owed rents and other payments to landlords, the government, and the church.

Peasants presented their complaints to the nobles in 1525. They resented the efforts of landlords and rulers to take away their time-honored privileges, such as attempts to exclude them from using the products of forests, waterways, and meadows. These products, especially game and fish, were sources of much-needed extra income. Other objects of protest included labor owed to landlords and rulers, excessive rents, and penalties that varied from customary laws.

The Peasants' War did not resolve the peasants' complaints, and smaller uprisings lasted into the 1600s. Because the revolt began with attacks on monasteries, German princes connected it to the religious upheaval sweeping the region. They feared the effects of the lawlessness on their authority and took firm control of the practice of religion. As a result, the Protestant Reformation in Germany lost some of its early energy.

(See alsoArtisans; Mercenaries; Peasantry; Revolts. )

* artisan

skilled worker or craftsperson

* Holy Roman Empire

political body in central Europe composed of several states; existed until 1806

* mercenary

hired soldier

* prince

Renaissance term for the ruler of an independent state