GENERAL SIGNS OF RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL REVOLT
Peasant revolts of a sporadic character are to be met with throughout
the Middle Ages even in their halcyon days. Some of these, like the
Jacquerie in France and the revolt associated with the name of Wat
Tyler in England, were of a serious and more or less extended
character. But most of them were purely local and of no significance,
apart from temporary and passing circumstances. By the last quarter of
the fifteenth century, however, peasant risings had become
increasingly numerous and their avowed aims much more definite and
far-reaching than, as a rule, were those of an earlier date. In saying
this we are referring to those revolts which were directly initiated
by the peasantry, the serfs, and the villeins of the time, and which
had as their main object the direct amelioration of the peasant's lot.
Movements of a primarily religious character were, of course, of a
somewhat different nature, but the tendency was increasingly, as we
approach the period of the Reformation, for the two currents to merge
one in the other. The echoes of the Hussite movement in Bavaria at the
beginning of the century spread far and wide throughout Central
Europe, and had by no means spent their force as the century drew
towards its close.
From this time forward recurrent indications of social revolt with a
strong religious colouring, or a religious revolt with a strong social
colouring, became chronic in the Germanic lands and those adjacent
thereto. As an example may be taken the movement of Hans Boheim, of
Niklashausen, in the diocese of Würzburg, in Franconia, in 1476, and
which is regarded by some historians as the first of the movements
leading directly up to those of the Lutheran Reformation. Hans claimed
a divine mission for preaching the gospel to the common man. Hans
preached asceticism and claimed Niklashausen as a place of pilgrimage
for a new worship of the Virgin. There was little in this to alarm the
authorities till Hans announced that the Queen of Heaven had revealed
to him that there was to be no lay or spiritual authority, but that
all men should be brothers, earning their bread by the sweat of their
brows, paying no more imposts or dues, holding land in common, and
sharing alike in all things. The movement went on for some months,
spreading rapidly in the neighbouring territories. At last Hans was
seized by armed men while asleep and hurried to Würzburg. The affair
caused immense commotion, and by the Sunday following, it is stated,
34,000 armed peasants assembled at Niklashausen. Led by a decayed
knight and his son, 16,000 of them marched to Würzburg, demanding
their prophet at the gate of the bishop's castle. By promises and
cajolery, they were induced to disperse by the prince-bishop, who, as
soon as he saw they were returning home in straggling parties,
treacherously sent a body of his knights after them, killing some and
taking others prisoners. Two of the ringleaders were beheaded outside
the castle, and at the same time the prophet Hans Boheim was burnt to
ashes. Thus ended a typical religio-social peasant revolt of the
half-century preceding the great Reformation movement.
In 1491 the oppressed and plundered villeins of Kempten revolted, but
the movement was quelled by the Emperor himself after a compromise. A
great rising took place in Elsass (Alsace) in 1493 among the
feudatories of the Bishop of Strassburg, with the usual object of
freedom for the "common man," abolition of feudal exactions, Church
reformation, etc. This movement is interesting, as having first
received the name of the _Bundschuh_. It was decided that as the
knight was distinguished by his spurs, so the peasant should have as
his device the common shoe of his class, laced from the ankle through
to the knee by leathern thongs, and the banner whereon this emblem was
depicted was accordingly made. The movement was, however, betrayed and
mercilessly crushed by the neighbouring knighthood. A few years later
a similar movement, also having the _Bundschuh_ for its device, took
place in the regions of the Upper and Middle Rhine. This movement
created a panic among all the privileged classes, from the Emperor
down to the knight. The situation was discussed in no less than three
separate assemblies of the States. It was, however, eventually
suppressed for the time being. A few years later, in 1512, it again
burst forth under the leadership of an active adherent of the former
movement, one Joss Fritz, in Baden, at the village of Lehen, near the
town of Freiburg. The organization in this case, besides being
widespread, was exceedingly good, and the movement was nearly
successful when at the last moment it was betrayed. Even in
Switzerland there were peasant risings in the early years of the
sixteenth century. About the same time the duchy of Würtemberg was
convulsed by a movement which took the name of the "Poor Conrad." Its
object was the freeing of the "common man" from feudal services and
dues and the abolition of seignorial rights over the land, etc. But
here again the movement was suppressed by Duke Ulrich and his knights.
Another rising took place in Baden in 1517. Three years previously, in
1514, occurred the great Hungarian peasant rebellion under George
Daze. Under the able leadership of the latter the peasants had some
not inconsiderable initial successes, but this movement also, after
some weeks, was cruelly suppressed. About the same time, too, occurred
various insurrectionary peasant movements in the Styrian and
Carinthian alpine districts. Similar movements to those referred to
were also going on during those early years of the fifteenth century
in other parts of Europe, but these, of course, do not concern us.
The deep-reaching importance and effective spread of such movements
was infinitely greater in the Middle Ages than in modern times. The
same phenomenon presents itself to-day in backward and semi-barbaric
communities. At first sight one is inclined to think that there has
been no period in the world's history when it was so easy to stir up
a population as the present, with our newspapers, our telegraphs, our
aeroplane, our postal arrangements, and our railways. But this is just
one of those superficial notions that are not confirmed by history. We
are similarly apt to think that there was no age in which travel was
so widespread and formed so great a part of the education of mankind
as at present. There could be no greater mistake. The true age of
travelling was the close of the Middle Ages, or what is known as the
Renaissance period. The man of learning, then just differentiated from
the ecclesiastic, spent the greater part of his life in earning his
intellectual wares from Court to Court and from University to
University, just as the merchant personally carried his goods from
city to city in an age in which commercial correspondence,
bill-brokers, and the varied forms of modern business were but in
embryo. It was then that travel really meant education, the
acquirement of thorough and intimate knowledge of diverse manners and
customs. Travel was then not a pastime, but a serious element in life.
In the same way the spread of a political or social movement was at
least as rapid then as now, and far more penetrating. The methods
were, of course, vastly different from the present; but the human
material to be dealt with was far easier to mould, and kept its shape
much more readily when moulded, than is the case nowadays. The
appearance of a religious or political teacher in a village or small
town of the Middle Ages was an event which keenly excited the interest
of the inhabitants. It struck across the path of their daily life,
leaving behind it a track hardly conceivable to-day. For one of the
salient symptoms of the change which has taken place since that time
is the disappearance of local centres of activity and the transference
of the intensity of life to a few large towns. In the Middle Ages
every town, small no less than large, was a more or less
self-sufficing organism, intellectually and industrially, and was not
essentially dependent on the outside world for its social sustenance.
This was especially the case in Central Europe, where communication
was much more imperfect and dangerous than in Italy, France, or
England. In a society without newspapers, without easy communication
with the rest of the world, where the vast majority could neither read
nor write, where books were rare and costly, and accessible only to
the privileged few, a new idea bursting upon one of these communities
was eagerly welcomed, discussed in the council chamber of the town, in
the hall of the castle, in the refectory of the monastery, at the
social board of the burgess, in the workroom, and, did it but touch
his interests, in the hut of the peasant. It was canvassed, too, at
church festivals (_Kirchweihe_), the only regular occasion on which
the inhabitants of various localities came together. In the absence of
all other distraction, men thought it out in all the bearings which
their limited intellectual horizon permitted. If calculated in any way
to appeal to them it soon struck root, and became a part of their very
nature, a matter for which, if occasion were, they were prepared to
sacrifice goods, liberty, and even life itself. In the present day a
new idea is comparatively slow in taking root. Amid the myriad
distractions of modern life, perpetually chasing one another, there is
no time for any one thought, however wide-reaching in its bearings, to
take a firm hold. In order that it should do so in the _modern mind_,
it must be again and again borne in upon this not always too receptive
intellectual substance. People require to read of it day after day in
their newspapers, or to hear it preached from countless platforms,
before any serious effect is created. In the simple life of former
ages it was not so.
The mode of transmitting intelligence, especially such as was
connected with the stirring up of political and religious movements,
was in those days of a nature of which we have now little conception.
The sort of thing in vogue then may be compared to the methods
adopted in India to prepare the Mutiny of 1857, when the mysterious
cake was passed from village to village, signifying that the moment
had come for the outbreak. The sense of _esprit de corps_ and of that
kind of honour most intimately associated with it, it must also be
remembered, was infinitely keener in ruder states of society than
under a high civilization. The growth of civilization, as implying the
disruption of the groups in which the individual is merged under more
primitive conditions, and his isolation as an autonomous unit having
vague and very elastic moral duties to his "country" or to mankind at
large, but none towards any definite and proximate social whole,
necessarily destroys that communal spirit which prevails in the former
case. This is one of the striking truths which the history of these
peasant risings illustrates in various ways and brings vividly home to
us.