The Peasants’ War – The Role of Southern German Imperial Cities in the Crisis of the Years 1524 25 (Der Bauernkrieg – Zur Rolle Süddeutscher Reichsstädte in der Krise von 1524 25)
Author : Wolfgang Wüst
Abstract :
The correspondence of the imperial cities, the council chronicles and the registers of the magistrates (“Briefbücher, Missivbücher”), which were often kept serially as early as the 16th century, show us another, often underestimated side of the early modern news, feud and war system at the time of the peasant unrest. Wars and regional uprisings certainly had disastrous consequences for the affected regions close to the city. Poverty and human suffering, financial risk for the many, profits for the few and the end of free trade routes, robbery, murder and manslaughter, feuding, discord and pillaging, war campaigns and crop destruction were some of the dark sides of the two war years 1524/25. Nevertheless, there were areas of society in which war - in temporal parallel to the process of early modern state formation on the one hand or communalization on the other - provided forward-looking impulses. They were not only intended to give impetus to rational chancellery management; they also promoted the exchange of texts relevant to civil and criminal law via pamphlets, reprints or copies. On closer inspection, the intellectual impetus of rebellious peasant leaders, often underestimated in former research, contributed to the dissemination of the Twelve Articles from Memmingen or traditional older land laws. Peasants' War articles that had previously gone largely unnoticed, such as those from Rothenburg o.d. Tauber, also circulated as “Zeitungen” (news, reports) among insurgents. These contemporary testimonies could be a prelude to future reforms and tax justice.
Keywords :
Peasants‘ War, Revolts, the Twelve Articles of Memmingen, Struggle for Freedom, Imperial Cities, Chancery Reforms, Monasteries, Castles, Southern Germany.
