once more, for the third time, that I wrote merely for the benefit of those authorities who were disposed to act rightly and in a Christian manner.”[583] Even in this letter he again incites against the peasants, everyone who can and by whatever means: he allows, as stated above, anyone to kill the rebels, openly or by stealth, nor does he retract the sentence, that “every man” who would and was able ought to act towards them as both “judge and executioner”; finally he declares that he is unable to blame the severity of such authorities as do not act in a Christian manner, i.e. “without first offering terms.” In a word, he absolutely refuses to remedy the mistakes into which his passion had hurried him, but takes pleasure in still further exaggerating them in spite of the scandal caused.
“The Catholic bishops at once laid the blame of the peasant rising at the door of the ‘great murderer’ of Wittenberg,” so writes Luther’s most recent biographer, “as having been his work.[584] The peasants themselves in many instances believed this, while Luther himself admitted a certain complicity. ‘They went out from us; but they are not of us,’ he says in the words of the First Epistle of St. John (ii. 19). The natural connection of ideas necessarily implied that the spirit of reform which had been let loose was not to work on the Church alone. If all that was rotten in the Church was to fall, why should so much that was rotten in the Empire remain? If all the demands of the Papacy were to be rejected, why should those of squiredom be held sacred? If Luther might treat Duke George of Saxony and King Henry VIII of England as fools and scoundrels, why should more regard be shown to the smaller fry, the petty counts and lords? If the peasant, by virtue of the common priesthood of all Christians, was capable of reforming the Church, why should he not have his say in the question of hunting-rights and the right of pasture? The kernel of the Wittenberg preaching was that all man-made ordinances were worthless, and that one thing only was to be considered, viz. the Word of God. The Pope was Antichrist, the Emperor a scarecrow, the Princes and Bishops simple dummies. How could such words of Luther fail to be seized on with avidity by the oppressed, down-trodden, and shamelessly victimised peasantry? The forces which, owing to the religious disturbances, now broke loose, would, however, have done their work even without Luther’s teaching.”
It was not only the “Catholic bishops,” however, who accused Luther of being the instigator of the rising, but also intelligent laymen who were observing the times with a watchful eye. The jurist Ulrich Zasius, who at one time had been inclined to favour Luther, wrote in the year of the revolt to his friend Amerbach: “Luther, the destroyer of peace, the most pernicious of men, has plunged the whole of Germany into such madness, that we now consider ourselves lucky if we are not slain on the spot.” He regrets the treaty made on May 24, 1525, at Freiburg im Breisgau, where he lived, on its capitulation to the rebels, in which provision was made for the “Disclosure of the Holy Evangel of godly truth and the defence of godly righteousness.” That the “holy evangel” and “godly truth” should only now be disclosed at Freiburg, called forth his sarcasm. In the treaty, he says, “There is much that is in bad taste and ridiculous, as we might expect from peasants, for instance, their demand that the gospel be esteemed, or, as they say, ‘upheld’; as though this had not been done long before by every Christian.”[585]
In 1525 Cochlæus published a criticism on Luther’s work “Against the murderous Peasants,” where he says, “Now that the poor, unhappy peasants have lost the wager, you go over to the princes. But in the previous booklet, when there was still a good chance of their success, you wrote very differently.”[586]
Erasmus, who was closely observing Luther, says to him, in view of the fighting which still continued spasmodically: “We are now reaping the fruit of your spirit. You do not acknowledge the rebels, but they acknowledge you, and it is well known that many who boast of the name of the evangel have been instigators of the horrible revolt. It is true you have attempted in your grim booklet against the peasants to allay this suspicion, but nevertheless you cannot dispel the general conviction that this mischief was caused by the books you sent forth against the monks and bishops, in favour of evangelical freedom, and against the tyrants, more especially by those written in German.”[587]
It would appear that Luther himself had no difficulty whatever in forming his conscience and accepting the responsibility. On one occasion in later years, looking back upon the events of the unhappy rising, he declared, that he was completely at ease concerning the advice he had given to the authorities against the peasants, in spite of the sanguinary results. “Preachers,” he says, in his usual drastic mode of expression, “are the biggest murderers about, for they admonish the authorities to fulfil their duty and to punish the wicked. I, Martin Luther, slew all the peasants in the rebellion, for I said they should be slain; all their blood is upon my head. But I cast it on our Lord God, Who commanded me to speak in this way.” His usual persuasion, viz. that he was God’s instrument, here again helps him. He gives us, however, a further reason: The devil and the ungodly also slew not a few, but it is a very different matter when the authorities punish the wicked, for they are fulfilling a duty.[588]
Luther, after the appearance of these pamphlets, in various other publications asked that leniency should be shown towards the peasants who had been handled all too severely. In a private letter on behalf of the son of a citizen of Eisleben, who had been taken prisoner, we also meet with some fine recommendations in this sense.[589]
He was not, however, successful in calming the general ill-feeling aroused by his violent invective against the “murderous peasants.” His former popularity and his power over the masses were gone. After 1525 he lost his close touch with the people, and was obliged more and more to seek the assistance necessary for his cause in the camp of the Princes. For this change of front he was branded as a “hypocrite,” and “slave of Princes,” by many of the discontented.[590] “The springtime of the reformation was over,” says Hausrath. “Luther no longer passed from one triumph to another as he had during the first seven years of his career. He himself says: ‘Had not the revolted peasants fouled the water for my fishing, things would look very different for the Papacy!’ The hope to overthrow completely the Roman rule in Germany by means of a united, overwhelmingly powerful, popular movement had become a mere dream.”[591]
The Catholic princes of North Germany chose that very time to bind themselves more closely together for self-defence against the social revolution, and to repel Lutheranism. By the league of Dessau on July 19, 1525, they followed the example set by the bishops and dukes of South Germany, who had likewise, at Ratisbon, taken common measures for self-protection. The soul of the league was Duke George of Saxony; Joachim of Brandenburg, Albert of Mayence and Magdeburg, and Henry and Erich of Brunswick also joined him. An account given by Duke George, at the period when the league was established, throws a clearer light upon the motives which inspired it. Written under the influence of the horrors of the previous weeks, it breathes the indignation of its author at the part which Lutheranism had played in the misfortune, and looks around for some means by which the “root of the rebellion, the damned Lutheran sect, may be extirpated; the revolt inspired by the Lutheran evangel had led to the diminution of the honour and service of God, and had been undertaken with a view to damaging the clergy, prelates and the lower orders of the aristocracy, nor could it well be completely quelled except by the rooting out of these same Lutherans.”[592] Duke George at that time entertained hopes—not justified by events—of being able, by appealing to the experiences of the Peasant-War, to alienate from Luther, Philip, Landgrave of Hesse, and Johann, Elector of Saxony, who had just commenced his reign.
The above-mentioned Princes, who were Catholic in their views, met together in Leipzig at Christmas, 1525, in order—as representatives of the Catholic faith, the principles of which were being endangered in Germany—to induce the Emperor to provide some remedy in accordance with the provisions of the Diet of Worms.
The prolonged absence of the Emperor Charles from Germany, due to his concern in European politics, was one of the principal causes of the growing disturbances. To recall him to Germany and invite him to interfere was the object of a measure taken by certain ecclesiastics at a meeting held at Mayence on November 14, 1525. Delegates from the twelve provinces of Mayence assembled at the instance of the Chapter of Spires. It was a remarkable fact that the bishops themselves, who by the indifference they displayed had, as a body, roused the dissatisfaction of zealous Churchmen, did not attend, but only members