Claire Wightman
How was Martin Luther’s Message Misinterpreted, and what was the Significance of the Peasants War?
Luther’s ideas and publications had always been based on the church and its religious practices. Most importantly to Luther was his central belief in solafide, this meant ‘by faith alone’ all that mattered was the soul and this could be made eternal by just having faith. However in 1525 peasants in Germany used Luther’s theology as a reason for their rebellions occurring. This was potentially fatally damaging to the Lutheran movement. Luther’s ideas were to be so badly misinterpreted because the peasants were already discontent with their social situation, and had been for a century. Luther’s pamphlets such as, ‘the freedom of the Christian man’ were therefore used as justification in the violence that followed. A culmination of the peasant’s war was a publication of their demands, ‘the Twelve Articles of Memmingen’. The peasant’s war was a turning point in the reformation because it forced Luther to convince the princes that he was not inciting peasant unrest and prove that he was a reformist, consequently he wrote a pamphlet entitled, ‘against the thieving, murdering hordes of peasants.’
Throughout the 15th century peasants had been angry at their social situation. They felt that the feudal system was outdated and disliked the way it inhibited their lives and freedom. Peasants felt that their liberties were slowly being withdrawn. For example a lot of resentment was concentrated on the church because of its landowners and the tithe. This meant that the peasants felt that a large proportion of their hard labour was going to the church. Many rebellions had already broken out in Germany before the peasant’s war. For example, the years 1476, 1492, 1493, 1502, 1513, 1514. From this we can see that Luther’s pamphlet and his message did not necessarily inspire the peasants nor start a different type of rebellion. Although the rebellions were collectively called the peasant war it was by no means an organised revolt, however once it began it encouraged other peasants to join in. The common symbol of the war was the ‘Bundshcuh’ or peasants shoe. Consequently we can infer that this symbol is completely unrelated to religion and that their real agenda was more to do with their social situation.
