Soon after the emperor had taken leave of Francis, and permitted him to begin his journey towards his own dominions, he set out for Seville, in order to solemnize his marriage with Isabella, the daughter of Emanuel, the late king of Portugal, and the sister of John III, who had succeeded him in the throne of that kingdom. Isabella was a princess of uncommon beauty and accomplishments; and as the Cortes, both in Castile and Aragon, had warmly solicited their sovereign to marry, the choice of a wife, so nearly allied to the royal blood of both kingdoms, was extremely acceptable to his subjects. The Portuguese, fond of this new connection with the first monarch in Christendom, granted him an extraordinary dowry with Isabella, amounting to nine hundred thousand crowns, a sum which, from the situation of his affairs at this juncture, was of no small consequence to the emperor. The marriage was celebrated [March 12] with that splendor and gayety which became a great and youthful prince. Charles lived with Isabella in perfect harmony, and treated her on all occasions with much distinction and regard.

During these transactions, Charles could hardly give any attention to the affairs of Germany, though it was torn in pieces by commotions, which threatened the most dangerous consequences. By the feudal institutions, which still subsisted almost unimpaired in the empire, the property of lands was vested in the princes and free barons. Their vassals held of them by the strictest and most limited tenures; while the great body of the people was kept in a state but little removed from absolute servitude.

In some places of Germany, people of the lowest class were so entirely in the power of their masters, as to be subject to personal and domestic slavery, the most rigorous form of that wretched state. In other provinces, particularly in Bohemia and Lusatia, the peasants were bound to remain on the lands to which they belonged, and making part of the state, were transferred like any other property from one hand to another. Even in Swabia, and the countries on the banks of the Rhine, where their condition was most tolerable, the peasants not only paid the full rent of their farms to the landlord, but if they chose either to change the place of their abode, or to follow a new profession, before they could accomplish what they desired, they were obliged to purchase this privilege at a certain price. Besides this, all grants of lands to peasants expired at their death, without descending to their posterity. Upon that event, the landlord had a right to the best of their cattle, as well as of their furniture; and their heirs, in order to obtain a renewal of the grant, were obliged to pay large sums by way of fine. These exactions, though grievous, were borne withn patience, because they were customary and ancient: but when the progress of elegance and luxury, as well as the changes introduced into the art of war, came to increase the expense of government, and made it necessary for princes to levy occasional or stated taxes on their subjects, such impositions being new, appeared intolerable; and in Germany, these duties being laid chiefly upon beer, wine, and other necessaries of life, affected the common people in the most sensible manner. The addition of such a load to their former burdens, drove them to despair. It was to the valor inspired by resentment against impositions of this kind that the Swiss owed the acquisition of their liberty in the fourteenth century. The same cause had excited the peasants in several other provinces of Germany to rebel against their superiors towards the end of the fifteenth and beginning of the sixteenth centuries; and though these insurrections were not attended with like success, they could not, however, be quelled without much difficulty and bloodshed.

By these checks, the spirit of the peasants was overawed rather than subdued; and their grievances multiplying continually, they ran to arms, in the year one thousand five hundred and twenty-six, with the most frantic rage. Their first appearance was near Ulm in Swabia. The peasants in the adjacent country flocked to their standard with the ardor and impatience natural to men, who having groaned long under oppression, beheld at last some prospect of deliverance; and the contagion spreading from province to province, reached almost every part of Germany. Wherever they came, they plundered the monasteries; wasted the lands of their superiors; razed their castles, and massacred without mercy all persons of noble birth, who were so unhappy as to fall into their hands. Having intimidated their oppressors, as they imagined, by the violence of these proceedings, they began to consider what would be the most proper and effectual method of securing themselves for the future from their tyrannical exactions. With this view, they drew up and published a memorial, containing all their demands, and declared, that while arms were in their hands, they would either persuade or oblige the nobles to give them full satisfaction with regard to these. The chief articles were, that they might have liberty to choose their own pastors; that they might be freed from the payment of all tithes except those of corn; that they might no longer be considered as the slaves or bondmen of their superiors; that the liberty of hunting and fishing might be common; that the great forests might not be regarded as private property, but be open for the use of all; that they might be delivered from the unusual burden of taxes under which they labored; that the administration of justice might be rendered less rigorous and more impartial; that time encroachments of the nobles upon meadows and commons might be restrained.

Many of these demands were extremely reasonable; and being urged by such formidable numbers, should have met with some redress. But those unwieldy bodies, assembled in different places, had neither union, nor conduct, nor vigor. Being led by persons of the lowest rank, without skill in war, or knowledge of what was necessary for accomplishing their designs; all their exploits were distinguished only by a brutal and unmeaning fury. To oppose this, the princes and nobles of Swabia and the Lower Rhine raised such of their vassals as still continued faithful, and attacking some of the mutineers with open force, and others by surprise, cut to pieces or dispersed all who infested those provinces; so that the peasants, after ruining the open country, and losing upwards of twenty thousand of their associates in the field, were obliged to return to their habitations with less hope than ever of relief from their grievances.

These commotion happened at first in provinces of Germany where Luther’s opinions had made little progress; and being excited wholly by political causes, had no connection with the disputed points in religion. But the phrenzy reaching at last those countries in which the reformation was established, derived new strength from circumstances peculiar to them, and rose to a still greater pitch of extravagance. The reformation, wherever it was received, increased that bold and innovating spirit to which it owed its birth. Men who had the courage to overturn a system supported by everything which can command respect or reverence, were not to be overawed by any authority, how great or venerable soever. After having been accustomed to consider themselves as judges of the most important doctrines in religion, to examine these freely, and to reject, without scruple, what appeared to them erroneous, it was natural for them to turn the same daring and inquisitive eye towards government, and to think of reciting whatever disorders or imperfections were discovered there. As religious abuses had been reformed in several places without the permission of the magistrate, it was an easy transition to attempt the redress of political grievances in the same manner.

No sooner, then, did the spirit of revolt break out in Thuringia, a province subject to the elector of Saxony, the inhabitants of which were mostly converts to Lutheranism, than it assumed a new and more dangerous form. Thomas Muntzer, one of Luther’s disciples, having established himself in that country, had acquired a wonderful ascendant over the minds of the people. He propagated among them the wildest and most enthusiastic notions, but such as tended manifestly to inspire them with boldness, and lead them to sedition. “Luther”, he told them, “had done more hurt than service to religion. He had, indeed, rescued the church from the yoke of popery, but his doctrines encouraged, and his life set an example of, the utmost licentiousness of manners. In order to avoid vice, (says he) men must practice perpetual mortification. They must put on a grave countenance, speak little, wear a plain garb, and be serious in their whole deportment. Such as prepare their hearts in this manner, may expect that the Supreme Being will direct all their steps, and by some visible sign discover his will to them; if that illumination be at any time withheld, we may expostulate with the Almighty, who deals with us so harshly, and remind him of his promises. This expostulation and anger will be highly acceptable to God, and will at last prevail on him to guide us with the same unerring hand which conducted the patriarchs of old. Let us beware, however, of offending him by our arrogance; but as all men are equal in his eye, let them return to that condition of equality in which he formed them, and having all things in common, let them live together like brethren, without any marks of subordination or preeminence”.

Extravagant as these tenets were, they flattered so many passions in the human heart, as to make a deep impression. To aim at nothing more than abridging the power of the nobility, was now considered as a trifling and partial reformation, not worth the contending for; it was proposed to level every distinction among mankind, and by abolishing property to reduce them to their natural state of equality, in which all should receive their subsistence from one common stock. Muntzer assured them, that the design was approved of by Heaven, and that the Almighty had in a dream ascertained him of its success. The peasants set about the execution of it, not only with the rage which animated those of their order in other parts of Germany, but with the ardor which enthusiasm inspires. They deposed the magistrates in all the cities of which they were masters; seized the lands of the nobles, and obliged such of them as they got into their hands to put on the dress commonly worn by peasants, and instead of their former titles, to be satisfied with the appellation given to people in the lowest class of life. Great numbers engaged in this wild undertaking; but Muntzer, their leader and their prophet, was destitute of the abilities necessary for conducting it. He had all the extravagance, but not the courage, which enthusiasts usually possess. It was with difficulty he could be persuaded to take the field; and though he soon drew together eight thousand men, he suffered himself to be surrounded by a body of cavalry, under the command of the elector of Saxony, the landgrave of Hesse, and duke of Brunswick. These princes, unwilling to shed the blood of their deluded subjects, sent a young nobleman to their camp, with the offer of a general pardon, if they would immediately lay down their arms, and deliver up the authors of the sedition. Muntzer, alarmed at this, began to harangue his followers with his usual vehemence, exhorting them not to trust these deceitful promises of their oppressors, nor to desert the cause of God, and of Christian liberty.

But the sense of present danger making a deeper impression on the peasants than his eloquence, confusion and terror were visible in every face, when a rainbow, which was the emblem that the mutineers had painted on their colors, happening to appear in the clouds, Muntzer, with admirable presence of mind, laid hold of that incident, and suddenly raising. his eyes and hands towards Heaven, “Behold”, cries he, with an elevated voice, “the sign which God has given. There is the pledge of your safety, and a token that the wicked shall be destroyed”. The fanatical multitude set up instantly a great shout, as if victory had been certain; and passing in a moment from one extreme to another, massacred the unfortunate noble­man who had come with the offer of pardon, and demanded to be led towards the enemy. The princes, enraged at this shocking violation of the laws of war, advanced with no less impetuosity, and began the attack [May 15]; but the behavior of the peasants in the combat was not such as might have been expected either from their ferocity or confidence of success; an undisciplined rabble was no equal match for well-trained troops; above five thousand were slain in the field, almost without making resistance; the rest fled, and among the foremost Muntzer their general. He was taken next day, and being condemned to such punishments as his crimes had deserved, he suffered them with a poor and dastardly spirit. His death put an end to the insurrections of the peasants, which had filled Germany with such terror; but the enthusiastic notions which he had scattered were not extirpated, and produced, not long after, effects more memorable, as well as more extravagant.

During these commotions, Luther acted with exemplary prudence and moderation; like a common parent, solicitous about the welfare of both parties, without sparing the faults or errors of either. On the one hand, he addressed a monitory discourse to the nobles, exhorting them to treat their dependents with greater humanity and indulgence. On the other, he severely censured the seditious spirit of the peasants, advising them not to murmur at hardships inseparable from their condition, nor to seek for redress by any but legal means.

Luther’s famous marriage with Catharine a Boria, a nun of a noble family, who, having thrown off the veil, had fled from the cloister, happened this year, and was far from meeting with the same approbation. Even his most devoted followers thought this step indecent, at a time when his country was involved in so many calamities; while his enemies never mentioned it with any softer appellation than that of incestuous or profane. Luther himself was sensible of the impression which it had made to his disadvantage; but being satisfied with his own conduct, he bore the censure of his friends, and the reproaches of his adversaries, with his usual fortitude.

This year the reformation lost its first protector, Frederic, elector of Saxony; but the blow was the less sensibly felt, as he was succeeded by his brother John [May 5], a more avowed and zealous, though less able patron of Luther and his doctrines.

 

THE TEUTONIC ROOTS OF PRUSSIA