The peasant war, which contemporaries would figuratively call the "flood", began in the southern Black Forest and Upper Swabia. Here, in the summer and autumn of 1524, the peasants presented to their masters several "article by article" complaints, which contained demands for the limitation of the masters' oppression.

At the end of 1524, the first program of the Peasants' War appeared in Upper Swabia - "Letter of Articles". The program proposed to create a “Christian union” without resorting to bloodshed in order to “liberate” the “simple poor man” from the burdens of spiritual and secular masters.

For those who refused to join the "unification", "secular excommunication" was applied - a kind of boycott, when all people were charged with the obligation "not to have or maintain any communication with the excommunicated." The authors of the "Letter of Articles" sought to bring to life the ideal communal model (peasant) based on the fulfillment of Christ's commandments of brotherly love.

In March 1525 in Upper Swabia, near the cities of Ulm, Kempten, Memmingen, large detachments of peasants were formed. The leaders of these detachments for the most part adhered to peaceful tactics, seeking only to mitigate feudal oppression and the abolition of personal dependence.

Peasant landstands also intensified their activities. Officials ("captains", "ensigns", "sergeants") were elected on the landstands near Freiburg, to whom all peasants capable of carrying weapons were subordinate.

At the beginning of March 1525, the three main detachments of Upper Swabia created the "Christian Association" in the city of Memmingen and concluded an armistice with the Swabian League. It was then that the leaders of these detachments drew up the most famous program of the Peasant War - "12 Articles".

The introductory part and the text of the program itself emphasize the purely peaceful intentions of the peasants, their desire to “live in accordance with the Gospel,” which provided examples of a truly Christian life. In the first article, the peasants speak out in favor of the community's choice of a priest who must preach "only the true faith."

Demanding the abolition of the "small tithe", the authors recognized the validity of the "large tithe" provided that it was used for the needs of the community and the maintenance of an elective priest, insisted on the abolition of personal dependence and "posthumous extortion", on the return of communal lands to peasants, and a reduction in numerous extortions and corvee (with preservation of these obligations in principle). At the same time, they emphasized the readiness to submit to "any authority assigned from God."

The "12 Articles" were widely disseminated among the peasants (they were printed 25 times during the Peasant War) and became a truly popular program. Despite the constant appeal to the authority of the Gospel, the "12 Articles" recorded a largely material interpretation of the Reformation by the peasantry.

In this regard, apparently, we can talk about a special type of popular Reformation, which was understood as the desire for material and social well-being. From the point of view of the peasant consciousness of the XVI century. this program cannot be called moderate.

Within the peasant system of values, a significant change in the social regime was assumed: instead of personal dependence on the masters, personal freedom, reduction and regulation of rent, a fair trial, strengthening of the autonomy of the community, etc.

The rebellious peasants considered the church's possession of land property as contrary to "God's right", so at the end of March 1525 in Upper Swabia they seized a number of monasteries and began to demand the division of the monastic property.

In response, the troops of the Swabian Union, led by Truchses (stolnik) Georg von Waldburg, violated the truce with the rebellious peasants and attacked them. Georg von Waldburg, who met fierce resistance in some areas (primarily in the mountains), was forced to go over to trench warfare.

He was saved, however, by the inconsistency in the actions of the peasant detachments: some of them again agreed to negotiate and conclude an armistice ("Weingarten Treaty" by Georg von Waldburg with the largest detachment of peasants of 12 thousand people).

As a result, by the end of April 1525, the main forces of the Upper Neshwabian peasants were defeated, after which Truchses was able to send his troops to Franconia and Thuringia.

Here the events of the Peasant War were distinguished by closer contact between peasants and townspeople. In the absence of large cities, a more prominent role in the movement was played by the middle burghers (entrepreneurial elements, who suffered from the oppression of the feudal lords, and impoverished craftsmen and merchants, who sided with the peasants more decisively).

In Franconia, there was a large chivalry, from among which came the leaders of the peasant detachments, for example, F. Geyer - the leader of the so-called "Black Detachment" and Getz von Berlichingen - known as the "Iron Hand".

The radical townspeople of Heilbronn established contacts with the peasant detachment, which operated under the leadership of the peasant Jacob Rohrbach, who decisively suppressed the resistance of the Franconian masters. After the unification of Rohrbach's "Light detachment" with Geyer's "Black detachment", there was a predominance of representatives of the burghers in the leadership of the movement (Geyer and Rohrbach were removed from management).

The head of the Chancellery of the United Peasant Detachment, Wendel Gipler, a prominent figure in the burgher opposition, developed a project known as the Heilbronn Program.

The "Heilbronne program" reflected the concept of the bourgeois-bourgeois and partly knightly Reformation, covering not only the spiritual, but also the political and economic spheres. The concept of the new church developed the ideas of the communal Reformation.

It was supposed to liquidate all structures of the Catholic Church (hierarchy, monasteries, orders, etc.). Clergymen were excluded from all political bodies. The community could elect and remove a priest who, like Christ, had to set an example of a righteous life. The community also supported him, controlled the expenditure of funds for the poor.

Among the political demands, the idea of ​​state unity and guarantees of its preservation prevails (the creation of an imperial government and a judicial chamber with a predominant representation from the townspeople, the transformation of princes, counts and chivalry into officials of the empire dependent on the emperor).

In the economic sphere, it was proposed to ensure freedom of trade, the elimination of internal customs and duties, the introduction of a single tax on the maintenance of trade infrastructure, the unification of the monetary system, the liquidation of large merchant companies and the limitation of their capital to 10 thousand guilders, etc.

Less attention was paid to peasant aspirations: the abolition of personal dependence and small tithes, freedom of hunting and fishing, the possibility of redemption of peasant obligations by a one-time payment of an annual contribution of 20 times the amount were allowed. The last point could satisfy only the richest peasants.

On the whole, this program, which provided for a number of major bourgeois transformations and state centralization, was a progressive document for its time, but in fact unrealizable document.

The defeat of the peasant troops at Böblingen on May 12, 1525 was decisive for the fate of the Peasant War in Franconia.

The center of the peasant movement moved to Thuringia. Here, along with the peasants, a significant part of the urban plebeian community took part in the movement.

At the head of the Thuringian rebels was Münzer, who managed to seize power in the imperial city of Mühlhausen. However, in the battle of Frankenhausen, on May 15, 1525, the peasant army, led by Münzer, was completely defeated.

As a result, by the summer of 1525, the main areas of the Peasant War in western Germany were pacified. The peasant detachments held out for the longest time in the domain of the Archbishop of Salzburg. Their leader Michael Geismeier inflicted a series of defeats on the archbishop's landsknechts and the armies of the princes who came to the archbishop's rescue. Surrounded by the superior forces of the princely troops, Gaismeier was forced to retreat to the territory of the Venetian Republic, where he was killed.

ARTICLE LETTER

letter (Artikelbrief), a revolutionary policy document of the Peasant War of 1524-26 in Germany.

Great Soviet Encyclopedia, TSB. 2012

See also the interpretation, synonyms, meanings of the word and what is ARTICLE LETTER in Russian in dictionaries, encyclopedias and reference books:

• LETTER in Miller's dream book, dream book and interpretation of dreams:
  In a dream, receiving a certified letter means that the monetary problem that has arisen will destroy old ties. If a young woman dreams that she received ...
• LETTER in the Dictionary of Postmodernism:
  - one of the possible versions of the translation of fr. words écriture, which can denote P., writing, Holy Scripture. In a broad sense, P. captures ...
• LETTER in the Lexicon of nonclassics, artistic and aesthetic culture of the XX century, Bychkov:
  (French ecriture) One of the central concepts of modern theory of literature and art, which became such thanks to the research of R. Barthes, where it takes three ...
• LETTER in the One-Volume Large Law Dictionary:
  - in the Russian Federation, the form of administrative acts issued by some executive authorities, as well as the Central Bank of the Russian Federation. form item cannot ...
• LETTER in the Big Legal Dictionary:
  - in the Russian Federation, the form of administrative acts issued by some executive authorities, as well as the Central Bank of the Russian Federation. P. can not have ...
• LETTER
  RECOMMENDATION - see RECOMMENDATION LETTER ...
• LETTER in the Dictionary of Economic Terms:
  LOAN - see LOAN LETTER ...
• LETTER in the Dictionary of Economic Terms:
  INSTRUCTIVE - see INSTRUCTIVE ...
• LETTER in the Dictionary of Economic Terms:
  WARRANTY see WARRANTY LETTER; WARRANTY ...
• LETTER in the Pedagogical Encyclopedic Dictionary:
  , sign speech system with graphic elements. Knowledge of written speech in accordance with the norms of the native language is an integral part of ...
• LETTER in the Big Encyclopedic Dictionary:
  1) a sign system for fixing speech, which allows, with the help of descriptive (graphic) elements, to fix speech in time and transmit it over a distance. ...
• LETTER in the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, TSB:
  a sign system for fixing speech, which allows using descriptive (graphic) elements to transmit speech information at a distance and fix it in time. ...
• LETTER in the Modern Encyclopedic Dictionary:
  
• LETTER in the Encyclopedic Dictionary:
  iconic speech recording system using graphic elements. Writing allows you to fix speech in time and transmit it in space. Exists …
• LETTER in the Encyclopedic Dictionary:
  , -a, pl. letters, -sem, -smam, cf. 1. Written text sent to message something. someone Write the item to your relatives. Customized item ...
• LETTER in the Big Russian Encyclopedic Dictionary:
  LETTER, a sign system for fixing speech, which allows, with the help of descriptive (graphic) elements, to fix speech in time and transmit it at a distance. ...
• LETTER in the Complete Accentuated Paradigm by Zaliznyak:
  letter ", pi" sem, letters ", pi" sem, letter ", pi" sem, letter ", pi" sema, letter "m, pi" sem, letter ", ...
• LETTER in the Dictionary of Epithets:
  Written text sent to someone; official document. About the size of the letter, the consistency of presentation; about an interesting, boring, etc. letter. Absurd, disorderly, ...
• LETTER in the Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary:
  —Sign system of speech fixation, which allows using descriptive (graphic) elements to transmit speech information at a distance and to fix it. in time. ...
• LETTER in the Dictionary of Linguistic Terms:
  A means of communication, complementary to sound speech, using a system of graphic signs. Sound letter (alphabetic letter, alphabetic letter, alphanumeric sound letter). Letter, …
• LETTER in the Popular Explanatory and Encyclopedic Dictionary of the Russian Language:
  -a, p. 1) only units. Ability, writing skills; the scripture itself. The art of writing. 2) Written text transmitted, sent to smb. for ...
• LETTER
  The news for which ...
• LETTER in the Dictionary for solving and compiling scanwords:
  Gorodoshnaya ...
• LETTER in the Thesaurus of Russian Business Vocabulary:
  Syn: message (uplifting, ironic), ...
• LETTER in the Thesaurus of the Russian language:
  Syn: message (uplifting, ironic), ...
• LETTER in Abramov's Dictionary of Synonyms:
  note, message, notice, tsedulka, (simple) letter; billet doux. Cm. …
• LETTER in the dictionary of Synonyms of the Russian language:
  air letter, advice note, anonymous letter, bodmer, brachygraphy, bustrofedon, news, ligature, glagolitic, letter, letter, devanagari, dispatch, note, ideography, news, notice, cambio, cartel, katakana, ...
• LETTER in the New Explanatory Dictionary of the Russian Language by Efremova:
  Wed 1) The process of action by value. ver .: to write (1). 2) a) A paper with text written on it, sent to smb. With …

"ARTICLE LETTER". The propaganda of Müntzer and the Anabaptists connected with him became an organizing factor in the atmosphere of peasant unrest that had spontaneously begun here. The complaints made by the peasants and the urban lower classes against the local gentlemen were united by the Münzer propagandists into a general program expressing the discontent of the oppressed people. The general demand for the introduction of “divine law,” which was popular in the era of the Reformation, was interpreted by them as a demand for a new social order. Thus, at the end of 1524 (or in January 1525), the first program of the revolutionary peasantry, known as the Artikelbrief, was drawn up here, in the circle of Münzer, intended to serve as an introduction to all the various local demands and complaints of peasants. communities.

The “article letter” begins with an energetic statement that the status quo cannot and should not continue further. “Since until now,” it says, “great burdens have been imposed on the poor and ordinary people of cities and villages ... burdens can neither be endured nor tolerated, unless a simple poor person wants to let himself go all over the world with a beggarly staff, his offspring and the offspring of his offspring. " The task of the united people is to "free themselves completely." A peaceful solution to this problem is possible only if the whole people rebuild their lives on the basis of serving the “common good”. If the existing hardships are not eliminated, then the matter will not do without bloodshed. Much attention is paid in the "Letter of Articles" to the inner unity of the people's union, created to serve the "common good". The document declares that those who refuse to join the “fraternal association” and care about the “common good” cannot count on the services of other members of society. They must be subjected to "secular excommunication" like atrophied members of the body. All castles of the nobility and all monasteries, which are centers of treachery and popular oppression, must be declared "from this very moment" in a state of secular excommunication. Only those noblemen, monks and priests who abandon their present position, go to ordinary houses and want to join a fraternal association, will be friendly received along with their property and receive everything that is due to them by "divine right".

The "letter of articles" was the first general program of the insurgent peasantry, which formulated the antifeudal goals of its struggle and indicated the main enemy centers against which the forces of the entire people should be directed. In addition, the program was drawn up in a fighting spirit that did not allow for compromise. The demand of the revolutionary program that the united popular masses of villages and cities, acting by force and not stopping before bloodshed, liquidate the foci of the enemy and establish a just order based on the "common benefit", was essentially a demand for the transfer of power to the common people, on which Müntzer insisted. In spite of the fact that the ideas of the “common good” and the people's power, which were the basis of the "Article Letter", could then be understood by only a few, its appearance and distribution had an important organizing role at this first stage of the Peasant War.

True, not all those gathered in the peasant detachments followed the tactics of the "Letter of Articles". Many leaders trustingly went to negotiations with the gentlemen, weakening the peasant detachments. However, there were many revolutionary elements among the insurgent masses who rejected the path of negotiations. For these elements, organizationally unrelated to each other, the "Letter of Articles" became a program of revolutionary tactics, although they understood and pursued them in different ways.

One of the revolutionary peasant detachments operated in the Breg Valley, near Donaueschingen. The core of this detachment consisted of poor peasants who were serfs and dependent of the city of Willingen. In November 1524, the leaders of this detachment submitted their demands (consisting of 16 articles) to the magistrate of Willingen to free the peasants from all extortions and duties and to grant them complete freedom in the use of communal lands. The leaders of the peasants of the Breg Valley appealed to the neighboring peasants of other feudal lords with an appeal to join them for joint actions against all the masters of this region. At the same time, the Willingen magistrate informed the peasant detachments of his proposals for a compromise solution to all controversial issues. The appeal of the Willingen magistrate had its effect on many moderate leaders, including Hans Müller of Bulgenbach, the leader of the largest detachment in the area, the core of which consisted of Stüllingen peasants. Thus, the Willingen magistrate managed to split the peasant detachments of Klettgau, Gegau and Baar, in which serious discords began between the supporters of an agreement with the gentlemen and supporters of the continuation of the revolutionary struggle. Taking advantage of internal disagreements among the peasants, the magistrate of Willingen on December 13, 1524 sent an army, which suddenly attacked the revolutionary detachment of the Breg Valley and defeated it. This was the first bloody clash between the rebellious peasants and their masters.

The hopes of the Willingen magistrate and other masters of this region of the Upper Rhine for a quick suppression of the uprising did not materialize. The detachment of Breg peasants was revived again. Such rapidly forming detachments operated throughout the area, uniting with each other and with the peasants of neighboring areas.

The organizing importance of Münzer's propaganda and the "Letter of the Letter" increased with the further expansion of the area engulfed in the uprising and the formation of large peasant camps in Upper Swabia.

Quoted from: World History. VolumeIV. M., 1958, p. 173-174.

1. "12 Articles" program on land, duties of personal dependence.

2. the attitude of peasants to property.

3. Requirements for the transformation of the church. Reflection of Luther's ideas in "12 Articles".

4. "article letter".

5. the essence of secular excommunication.

At the beginning of the Peasant War, Luther called on peasants and masters for mutual concessions. He specially traveled to Thuringia to force the rebels to abandon armed struggle by the power of his authority. However, he did not succeed - Münzer's radical ideas evoked a great response in Thuringia. Convinced of the futility of his efforts, Luther finally chose the side of those who were ready to suppress the peasant movement by any means. He writes the notorious pamphlet "Against the bandit and robber bands of peasants", where the rebels are dedicated, for example, the following words: "Everyone who can chop them, strangle and stab them, secretly and openly, just like killing a mad dog." From that moment on, Luther finally linked his fate with the most conservative - princely-burgher - line in the Reformation.

The defeat of the radical wing of the Reformation led by Münzer contributed to the further spread of Luther's teaching. In many cities of Germany, monasteries are closed, and a reformed divine service is introduced. Some German princes, interested in the secularization of church holdings, went over to the side of the Reformation. The first of these was the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order, Albrecht. In the spring of 1525 he dissolved the Order, secularized his principality and assumed the title of Duke of Prussia.

The princes who supported the Reformation began to vigorously pursue secularization. Their example could have become too attractive for those who still supported the Catholic Church. Therefore, the Catholic majority in the Reichstag of 1529 demanded an end to secularization and confirmed the Edict of Worms. Luther's supporters protested, which is why they were called Protestants . The following year, at the Reichstag in Augsburg, Luther's closest associate, the famous humanist, scientist and theologian Philip Melanchthon_ (1497-1560), presented the emperor with a systematic exposition of the foundations of reformed Christianity, known as the Augsburg Confession. In this document, along with the provision that the prince, and not the pope, is the head of the church, was established "the ritual and outer side of the Lutheran cult.

The ritualism was created in the spirit of the bourgeois demand for a "cheap church". The outward splendor of the Catholic cult, the veneration of icons and relics was abolished; instead of a solemn Catholic Mass, a simple liturgy was introduced, in which preaching occupied a large place, and of the seven sacraments, only two were left - the sacrament of baptism and communion. The very fact of the creation of the church and the church organization of believers testified to Luther's departure from the original principle of "justification by faith alone."

The "Augsburg Confession" was drafted in such a way that there were still opportunities to look for ways to compromise with the Catholic Church. However, the Reichstag strongly rejected the teachings of the Protestants and demanded to bring them to the imperial court. An armed conflict was brewing.

Reformation in Switzerland

Preconditions for the Reformation in Switzerland. By the beginning of the XVI century. the cities noticeably increased pressure on their rural districts, on allied lands and fortresses, curtailing their administrative and judicial rights and freedoms. In some cases, the peasants achieved their goals. Bern at the end of the 15th century. abolished servage in rural areas, unified the status of different groups of peasants. In general, socio-economic development gave rise to complications and conflicts, the situation in the country was heating up. The last decades of the 15th and early 16th centuries. marked by a chain of unrest and uprisings due to mercenary pensions, abuse of power in cities and rural districts. In 1513-1515. a series of uprisings took place against the corruption of the authorities of the cantons of Zurich, Lucerne, Solothurn and others, their abuse of pensions paid by recruiters to the families of the killed mercenaries.

The cantonal authorities continued to exert pressure on the church. At the end of the 15th century. they appropriated to themselves the functions of appointing priests, establishing their payment, and disposing of some church-monastery lands. However, the solution to the religious question as a whole in different cantons turned out to be different.

In the forest cantons, patriarchal traditionalism, especially the widespread military mercenarism in them, the influence of the main Catholic recruiters - France, the Habsburgs, the Pope - stabilized socio-economic stagnation and Catholicism. The forest cantons remained aloof from the Reformation.

A different situation developed in most urban cantons and the union lands close to them in terms of development. The shoots of early bourgeois relations broke through in them, the opposition of the bourgeois layers of the bourgeoisie to the ruling patri-Cyan-guild oligarchy grew stronger. Military mercenarism was regarded by progressive social strata as a distraction of workers, an obstacle to the development of production, a source of corruption in the authorities and the enrichment of the remnants of the nobility hostile to the cities. The successes of humanism and secular education undermined the already shaken authority of Catholicism. The interests of these strata organically fit into the progressive trends of the socio-economic development of Europe. Among them were the ideas of going beyond the narrow framework of individual cantons, transforming Switzerland into a territorially wider federation under the auspices of Zurich and Bern, the University of Basel became the stronghold of humanism and secular culture. In the first third of the XVI century. he was associated with the names of Erasmus of Rotterdam, Sebastian Brant, Beatus Renanus. The publishers Froben and Amerbach, close to them, published the works of humanists, and then reformers.

Ulrich Zwingli and his teachings. Ulrich Zwingli, son of a wealthy village headman, was born in 1484. He graduated from the Latin school in Bern. Completed a course at the University of Vienna and Basel. Established strong ties with Erasmus of Rotterdam and other humanists. In 1506 he became a priest in Glarus, in 1515, as a regimental priest, he witnessed the Battle of Marignano. The painful impressions of her strengthened Zwingli's aversion to military mercenarism. Already in 1516, he began to express certain reformation ideas. Finally, he was prompted to accept the reformation by the speech of Luther in 1517, acquaintance with the works of the great German reformer. In 1519 Zwingli was invited as a priest to the Cathedral of Zurich. Here he began his reformation-preaching activity. Zwingli's theological doctrine absorbed a number of general reform principles: the recognition of Scripture as the main source of divine truth, the denial of the church hierarchy, monasticism, celibacy, etc.

If Luther put the thesis of justification by faith in the first place, was inclined to divide the spheres of a person's life into the world of external and internal religiosity, was distinguished by rigidity and directness in his definitions, then Zwingli was characterized by great tolerance, humanity, and a certain dialecticism. His philosophical principle was not characterized by a mechanical separation of categories, but their synthesis. Nature and society, natural law and divine law, knowledge and faith for him were not opposites, but different sides of a global phenomenon. Hence his thesis: "I believe in order to know."

Acquaintance with the theory of the Eucharist (the sacrament of the sacrament) of the Dutch theologians Wessel Hansforth and Cornelis Hun, his own reflections prompted Zwingli to see in the Eucharist only an action of reminiscent meaning of the sacrifice of Christ.

Central to the Zwingli doctrine was the idea of ​​divine providence; divine predestination was seen as an integral part of it. It is not personified and can be extended to all genuine members of the true church. Such and similar interpretations, the republican spirit of Zwinglianism, predetermined the differences between Zwingli and Luther.

The initial thesis of the socio-economic and ethical teachings of Zwingli said: everything that people own, including wealth, is the grace of God, and one must be able to piously dispose of it. The excess must be given away free of charge, forever or for a period. But in human society, the authorities have legalized private property, interest-bearing loans. These norms must be followed. The peasant should not be burdened with personal lack of freedom, but he is obliged to meekly bear the established duties, the hired worker - to work conscientiously, and the debtor - to pay interest.

Only Sundays are non-working days, and they are intended not for drunken revelry, idleness, but for prayer, raising children in a spirit of true faith and good behavior. Such norms met the aspirations of the progressive bourgeoisie, the emerging bourgeoisie, and ensured the submissiveness of the working people.

Zwingli deduced the necessity of the state and laws from the recognition of the biblical tradition of original sin and the sinfulness of society. Secular authorities and laws were created by the will of God to suppress vices and crimes. But they are righteous only insofar as they express and implement the prescriptions of divine laws. Otherwise, they become lawless, and the authorities are subject to removal and replacement. Following the political views of Aristotle, the reformer considered the aristocratic state to be the best form of state. Zwingli also took into account the Swiss political realities. Under the conditions of the formal annual "re-election of the authorities by the people", it was not tyranny-fighting that came to the fore, but the creation, relying on popular support and with the participation of the Zwinglian Church, of such an apparatus of secular power and forms of its functioning that would correspond to divine laws. On this thorny path, Zwingli, like all reformers, had to repeatedly enter into sharp conflicts with the authorities and suffer bitter failures.

Zwinglian Reformation in Zurich. Zwingli's doctrine found a lively response among the burghers, urban plebs, and the peasantry of the canton of Zurich and its guardians. In 1522, the magistrate abolished the posts, the celibacy of the clergy, and severed ties with the Bishop of Constance. In his January “67 theses” of 1523, Zwingli declared his readiness to transfer the reform process into the hands of the magistrate, denied any claim to secular power, and expressed his consent to make concessions on issues of feudal duties of the peasants. He agreed to negotiate the baptism of children, forms of communion with the Anabaptists revived in Zurich. The magistrate was more careful. In 1523, the secularization of church and monastic property in the canton was carried out, monasteries were gradually closed. The duties of the former monastery peasants remained unchanged, but were used for the needs of the city charity. This drove a wedge of discontent between the peasants and the urban plebs.

Zwingli emerged victorious from two religious disputes in 1524. The Reformation in Zurich developed successfully in the spirit of his teachings. The service of Mass ceased, icons and religious objects were removed from churches, secular persons received communion under both forms. Some socio-political reforms were carried out in the spirit of Zwinglianism, for example, the prohibition of military mercenaries and the receipt of pensions from foreign rulers. Most of the places in the magistrate went to representatives of the progressive layers of the burghers and guilds. Zwinglianism was declared compulsory for all inhabitants of the canton. The magistrate carried out these measures and supervised their implementation, but not without disputes and conflicts with the church. Opponents of Zwingli attributed to him the desire to usurp secular power. Rejecting these reproaches, Zwingli declared that his aim was only "the spiritual legitimization of the state" through close contact of the Zurich authorities with him as "an authorized preacher."

By 1526 the Reformation was completed in Zurich, but continued to spread throughout the country and by 1528 had won in Bern and Basel. Bern made certain concessions to the peasants of his district, its magistrate became more democratic in composition. The political system and order in Basel remained unchanged. Zwinglianism also triumphed in Schaffhausen, St. Gallen, Glarus, here cities began to plant it in their rural districts and towns. The confessional and political split in Switzerland has reached its limit. A Protestant alliance (Zurich, Bern, Schaffhausen, Konstanz) and a Catholic (Schwyz, Uri, Unterwalden, Lucerne and Wallis) formed an agreement with Austria.

Inspired by his successes, Zwingli dreamed of creating in the center of Europe a strong federation of Protestant cantons and imperial principalities. In 1529 a stakeholder meeting was organized in Marburg to resolve this issue, but it ended in failure. Luther stubbornly defended his religious and political views and refused to compromise with Zwingli. Not wanting to hesitate, Zwingli in the same year moved a well-organized army to Kappel in order to break the Catholic union of the cantons and achieved success. In 1529, according to the "White World", the union of the Catholic cantons with Austria was dissolved, and the Reformation began to be carried out in the jointly governed fortresses. Nevertheless, the enmity persisted. Complicated position Zwingli in Zurich itself, where the enemies accused him of usurpation of power. The Second Kappel War of 1531 set the task of destroying the alliance of Catholic cantons, but the decisive battle ended with the defeat of Zwingli's troops and his death.

According to the second Kappel peace in 1531, the union of the Protestant cantons was dissolved. For other lands, a rule was established - "whose power, that is the faith", which in practice meant the return of a number of regions to Catholicism. The center of the reformation movement shifted to the southwest of Switzerland.

Calvinistic Creed and the Church. V his doctrine, Calvin not only used general reform principles. In many ways, he supplemented them, and also completed the development of a number of questions raised by his predecessors, or in a new way set the accents. Luther and Zwingli formed the basic theory of divine predestination. Calvin emphasized its absoluteness and immutability. Some are a priori condemned by God to destruction, others are pre-elected to eternal salvation, while the Lord can pass his judgment not only in relation to individuals, but even entire nations. It is useless to guess such decisions; they cannot be changed by ostentatious piety, good deeds and other means. Only persistent adherence to the canons of Calvinism inspired by the holy spirit, a virtuous and active life "for the glory of God" can be perceived as a sign of being chosen for eternal bliss.

This formulation of the question eliminated fatality, passivity, inspired hope and even conviction in the Calvinist that he was God's chosen one, prompted him to apply all his strength and energy to fulfill his duty. This was the manifestation of divinity, independent of the will of man himself, inherent in him. Describing the material underpinnings of Calvin's doctrine of divine predestination, Engels emphasized: "His doctrine of predestination was a religious expression of the fact that in the world of trade and competition, success or bankruptcy does not depend on the activities or art of individuals, but on circumstances beyond their control." ".

The entire theological system of the socio-economic and ethical norms of Calvinism was in organic connection with the doctrine of predestination. Property (possession), like everything on earth, is a gift from God. What people own should be assessed as the grace of God, used for the common good. It is the owner's responsibility to be frugal, to increase ownership "for the good of the community." Whoever does not do this out of carelessness or inability, he is violating the divine commandments. Spiritual wealth is higher than earthly wealth. God can give it and take it back. If the owner loses it due to sinful motives and goes bankrupt, both worldly and spiritual punishment must befall him. At the same time, the rich man, seized by self-interest and seeing an idol in the wealth of the earth, loses the protection of God. However, God tests people not only with wealth, but also with poverty. The poor man must bear his burden with dignity. Poverty, however, is not the same as holiness, and the poor, who have become vagabonds, beggars and thieves, lose the protection of the Lord, are criminals. Earthly labor is a gift from God, and its main goal is to maintain the life of society, to protect and increase the gifts of the earth. Therefore, the most worthy work is peasant labor. Laziness is the greatest vice. Rest days are only Sundays and five major holidays a year. In the spirit of the times, Calvin even helped to establish a Calvinist colony in Brazil "to spread the true faith."

Military mercenarism, as godless, was banned.

Calvin paid much attention to the problems of the state. Man and society are sinful and vicious. In order to rationally, according to the divine will, govern them, there is a state, secular authorities. They have been given the sword and the right emanating from divine laws, which provides true authority to the secular authorities, to which people are obliged to obey. The power of the sovereign is limited by divine providence and the need to ensure the welfare of his subjects. The wicked sovereigns, tyrants are comprehended by the punishment of God, which can manifest itself in the uprisings of the people. But this was only a general postulate, borrowed by Calvin from the Bible, designed to serve as an abstract threat to godless and tyrannical rulers. In practice, Calvin was very careful about the right to resist tyranny. It, according to Calvin, belonged only to the subordinate authorities, estate-representative institutions. First, it was necessary to exhaust all measures of legal and passive resistance, and use violence only as an exceptional measure. The request of the Huguenots in 1560 to support their plan of conspiracy against the King of France, Calvin rejected on this basis. Calvin's concept of the state was based on French realities. Concessions made in Geneva were local specific. The best form of government, Calvin considered the oligarchy, the worst - democracy.

Calvin set himself the goal of preserving the spiritual independence of the church from state power at all costs. She should help the church and protect her doctrine, while the ministers of the church should pray for her, not interfere in her affairs. The authorities must also heed the advice of the ministers of the church, who plant the word and laws of God. In practice, such harmony has not been achieved.

The Calvinist Church was built on republican foundations. The congregation was headed by foremen, elected from among wealthy socialites, and experienced ministerial preachers, who received a modest, fixed salary. This council (consistory) was in charge of the entire religious life of the community, considered cases related to offenses against religion and morality. Questions about the tenets of Calvinism were resolved at special meetings of ministers - congregations, which later turned into local, and then "national" synods. Their main task was to combat deviations from orthodox doctrine and heresies. Deacons were in charge of collecting and spending funds for the needs of the church and charity.

The historical significance and fate of the Swiss Reformation. Swiss Union, continuing in the XVI century. formed into an independent state, organically fit into the emerging system of European powers with its inherent processes of interconnections and mutual influences. Therefore, the Reformation in Switzerland was part of a wide and multifaceted reformation movement that spread, albeit to a different extent, in most European countries.

Zwinglianism, expressing Swiss needs proper, was very energetic at the initial stage, but was ultimately defeated. His attempt to go beyond Switzerland and give the ideological banner of a new federation of reformed Swiss cantons and imperial principalities failed. The internal situation was also unfavorable. The well-known successes of industry and crafts, rural crafts and credit, the emergence of early bourgeois commercial and industrial companies and banks had a weak common base, the economic situation was unstable, there was a lack of capital, entrepreneurship was mainly carried out by immigrants from France and Northern Italy. The rise was replaced by a recession, and then by a crisis. The successes of the more dynamic Calvinism narrowed the area of ​​spread of Zwinglianism. The reality required adaptation to new conditions. Zwingli's successor, Bullinger, took this path, making concessions to Calvin. This found its expression in the texts of the general creed (1549).

The fate of Calvinism was different. Geneva was for him only a springboard for a number of reasons. Objectively, the religion of the most daring part of the then bourgeoisie, Calvinism in all its socio-ideological priorities, behavioral norms, moral code expressed the needs not of the Swiss cantonal provinciality, but of the pan-European historical process. Therefore, in contrast to Zwinglianism, he entered the European arena. In the conditions of an acute confrontation between the forces of progress and feudal reaction, republicanism and the organizational principles of Calvinism were used by the French noble Huguenots to fight against absolutism, by the Polish masters to attack the royal power. Together with its adherents, Calvinism also moved to the colonial possessions of European countries.

Reformation movement in the Netherlands

Strengthening of the feudal - Catholic reaction. In XV v. a significant part of the Netherlands lands was part of the Duchy of Burgundy. His long struggle with France for hegemony in the region ended with the defeat of the Burgundian army at the Battle of Nancy in 1477 (see vol. 1, ch. 9). Mass uprisings in Burgundy forced the heiress to the throne, Mary of Burgundy, to issue the Great Privilege, which restored the privileges of the country trampled by Charles the Bold, and to strengthen his position to marry Maximilian of Habsburg, who later became the German emperor. The Dutch lands found themselves in dynastic dependence on the Habsburgs. In the XVI century. Emperor Charles V of Habsburg extended his rule to the new regions of Friesland, Utrecht, Overijssel, Chroningen, Drenta and Geldern. According to the Peace of Augsburg in 1548 and the Pragmatic Sanction of 1549, 17 regions of the Netherlands: Artois, Hainaut (Gennegau), Luxembourg, Namur, Flanders, Limburg, Tournai, Mecheln, French Flanders (Lille, Douai, Orsha), Holland, Zealand, Utrecht , Friesland, Geldern, Overijssel (with Drenta) - as an indivisible hereditary district, were included in the empire on the condition that they paid a symbolic quota of the imperial tax. The Bishopric of Liege enjoyed a special independent legal status. After the division of the empire in 1555, the Netherlands fell under the rule of the King of Spain

Philip II.

In the first half of the XVI century. In the Netherlands, the disintegration of feudal relations proceeded rapidly, the process of initial accumulation developed, and capitalist forms of economy emerged. On their small territory by this time there were about 300 cities and over 6500 villages with a population of about 3 million people. The Netherlands has often been called the "land of cities". These disasters were aggravated by the predatory policy of foreign monarchs. They ruled the country and crushed it with taxes, ruined it with dynastic wars, supported the internal reaction - the feudal aristocracy, the Catholic Church, and in the cities - the ruling factions of the patri-Cyan-guild oligarchies loyal to them and to Catholicism. This caused a split. Less submissive patrician groups became isolated, secretly inclined towards heresy. The emerging new classes — the bourgeoisie and the manufacturing proletariat — were painfully experiencing the consequences of the reactionary policy of foreign absolutism. Sharp social conflicts became inevitable. They resulted in a series of uprisings. The largest were the popular movement of 1534-1535. in the northern provinces under the leadership of the revolutionary Anabaptists and the Ghent uprising of 1539-1540. Both of them were distinguished by the great acuteness and complexity of social contradictions, which also manifested themselves during the years of the revolution.

Charles V's policy was characterized by growing reactionaryness. Since 1521, special laws - "posters" - against heretics began to be issued, and a tribunal of the Inquisition was established. After massive popular uprisings in 1534-1535. the persecution of heretics is becoming especially cruel. Continuous dynastic wars with France undermined the finances of the Netherlands. If for Charles V Spain was an important part of his possessions, then for Philip II it became the most important. The entire policy of Philip II was determined by the interests of the Spanish nobility, who sought to mercilessly plunder the subject countries.

To achieve his goals, Philip II outlined the following measures: to leave in the Netherlands the Spanish troops introduced there during the war with France; to concentrate the actual power in the country in the hands of a narrow group of members of the Council of State (consulates), slavishly devoted to the monarch; increase the number of bishops from 4 to 18, giving them the authority of inquisitors to eradicate heresies. The monarch did not stop there: in order to get rid of debts, he declared state bankruptcy in 1557, from which the Dutch financiers suffered huge losses.

Philip II's innovations affected the interests of various segments of the Dutch population. The 1559 law on the establishment of new bishoprics meant that from now on "posters" against heretics would be used with all cruelty. The clause about the appointment of bishops only theologians with a university education took away the profitable episcopal sinecura from the nobles, and the intention is contained! bishops at the expense of monasteries threatened the prebends of abbots, also from the nobility. In 1560, the export duty on wool was increased in Spain, as a result of which its import to the Netherlands was almost halved. Then the Dutch merchants were denied access to the Spanish colonies. The Anglo-Spanish conflict paralyzed Dutch-English trade, leaving thousands of people unemployed.

Since all these acts came from foreign rulers, they acquired the character of national oppression, and their guides in the Netherlands - the governor Margaret of Parma and Cardinal Goanvella deserved universal hatred in the country.

Calvinism in the Netherlands

Under the influence of the above reasons, as well as in connection with the rise in cost and famine in 1565-1566. In the Netherlands, a strong ferment began among the urban poor, factory workers, and peasants. Food riots took place in places. Calvinism openly entered the arena. From the beginning of the 60s, Calvinist consistories in large commercial and industrial centers (Tournai, Valenciennes, Antwerp, Hondschot and other places), which were led in most cases by the rich bourgeoisie, moved to the organization of mass demonstrations. Thousands of poor people flocked to the Calvinist sermons, which usually took place in the vicinity of cities at night, attracted not only by religious zeal, but also by the generous alms distributed there by the consistory. An increasing number of people came to the sermons with weapons, and these sermons then poured into genuine armed demonstrations. Among the leaders and ideologists of the masses, there were also those who demanded the introduction of universal Christian equality and freedom. Things were heading for an uprising.

A significant part of the Dutch nobility also stood in opposition to the government. The core of the opposition first grouped around the nobles, members of the Council of State - the Prince of Orange, the Counts of Egmont and Horn. The nobles were unhappy with the violation of their privileges by the king and hoped to improve their finances by secularizing the monastic lands, reforming the church in the spirit they liked. In this regard, Lutheranism and Calvinism began to spread among them. Seeing the rise of the popular movement, the nobles, on the one hand, were not averse to using it in their own interests, but on the other, they were afraid of it. Therefore, they decided to take on the role of "mediators" between the worried people and the government and thus achieve their goals.

Iconoclastic uprising of 1566 The first act of the outbreak of the Dutch bourgeois revolution and war of liberation was the iconoclastic uprising. In August 1566, armed popular detachments spontaneously, and in places incited by the consistories, began pogroms of churches, the destruction of icons, statues of saints and other items of Catholic worship in the vicinity of Honda - hot, Armantier, Kassel. Church jewels were sometimes destroyed, but more often they were collected and used for the needs of the uprising and charity.

The reformation was carried out through the most brutal terror. The British were required to submit to the new organization of the church. For the denial of its basic principles, the death penalty was imposed. Fearing the growth of popular opposition to the new church, Henry VIII forbade artisans, day laborers, farmers and servants to independently read and interpret the Bible, because they could interpret it in the spirit of radical sectarian teachings. The most active leaders of the Reformation were Thomas Cromwell, the chancellor of the kingdom, and Thomas Cranmer, who after the Reformation took the post of Archbishop of Canterbury.

Under Mary Tudor (1553-1558), daughter of Henry VIII by his first marriage, an ardent Catholic who married the heir to Charles V of Habsburg and future King of Spain Philip II, Catholic reaction triumphed in England. Using the support of noblemen who were not satisfied with the absolutist policy, mainly from the economically backward regions of England, Mary restored Catholicism and began to persecute the leaders of the Reformation, for which she received the nickname "Bloody". However, Mary did not dare to return to the church the monastery lands and property taken by the crown under her father and passed into the hands of secular owners. Already the news of the impending marriage of Mary and Philip II in 1554 triggered a major uprising that began in Kent and was led by Thomas Wyatt, a native of the new nobility. Gathering a detachment of up to 10 thousand people, mainly from Kent peasants, he moved to London with two goals: to protect England from the threat of her enslavement by the Spaniards and to free the Queen from her pro-Hispanic advisers. But the fear of the popular uprising of the nobles and wealthy townspeople led this uprising to defeat, although Wyatt's detachment approached London. Wyatt was executed. However, dissatisfaction in England with an alliance with Spain grew more and more. Maria helped her husband with money and weapons and started a war with France. But in 1558, French troops captured the city of Calais, the last possession of England on the continent.

After Mary's death, the English crown passed to Elizabeth I (1558-1603), daughter of Henry VIII from a second marriage that was not recognized by the pope. Under Elizabeth, absolutism was further strengthened. She restored the reformed church, in this she was supported by the majority of the nobles and the bourgeoisie. Under her, the final edition of the Anglican Creed (the so-called "39 Articles") was drawn up, which was adopted by parliament in 1571. Anglicanism is a moderate trend in Protestantism. His creed recognized the dogma of saving people from sins through faith in the atoning sacrifice of Christ and in the Holy Scriptures as the source of this faith, but at the same time they did not reject the “good deeds” that believers should do for the benefit of the church, as a manifestation of this faith. Two sacraments were recognized - baptism and communion. The church became national, divine services were conducted in English, the power of the pope over it, indulgences, the veneration of icons and relics were rejected, the number of holidays decreased. At the same time, the hierarchy of the clergy remained in the reformed church, headed by the bishops who owned their lands. The clergy obeyed only the king as part of his state apparatus and was obliged to propagate among the laity the idea of ​​their complete and unquestioning obedience to the king and his officials and the inadmissibility of rebellions. The tithe was still levied, which began to flow in the king's favor and became an important source of his income.

Reformation in France.

In the 20s of the 16th century, reformation ideas began to spread in France. The humanist movement played an important role in the ideological preparation of the Reformation. Since 1530, the Collegium of Royal Lecturers in Paris became the center for the dissemination of humanistic knowledge. Under the influence of humanism in France, long before the Reformation, ideas of church reform were spread. Master of Liberal Arts Lefebvre d'Etaples, a supporter of the purification of the church, as early as 1512 (five years before Luther's speech) formulated two fundamental principles of the future Reformation - justification by faith and understanding of Scripture as the only source of religious truth.

The French reformation movement is divided into three periods. The first period (20s - early 30s of the 16th century) was associated with the moderate spread of Lutheranism (mainly in cities). By the 20s of the XVI century. refers to the first statement of the theological faculty of the University of Paris - the Sorbonne - against heresy. Lefebvre d'Etaples and his associates were condemned in 1521. Reformation ideas were a form of social protest for the majority of artisans exploited by guild masters.

The second period (1534-1559) was characterized by a decisive performance by supporters of the new faith, an increase in the number of heretics and a gradual expansion of the social base of the Reformation at the expense of the lower clergy. In 1534, posters drawn by adherents of the Reformation were even posted in the royal palace. This speech, assessed by Francis I as unheard of audacity, prompted the king to abandon the policy of religious tolerance and take serious measures. In 1535 35 heretics were burned and about 300 imprisoned. In 1536, the first edition of Calvin's Instruction in the Christian Faith was published, and Calvinism began to supplant Lutheranism. The successes of the new Reformation doctrine and its militant character forced Henry II in 1547 to establish the "Chamber of Fire" for the trial of heretics. The bulk of the convicts were black clergy and artisans. The persecution only increased the urge of Calvinists to organize. In 1559, the first synod of Calvinist churches in France met in Paris, at which twelve Calvinist communities were represented, including Paris, Orleans and Rouen. Since 1560, the Reformation entered a new stage, which was characterized by a significant expansion of the movement at the expense of the nobility who joined it. This brought about a significant change in the character of the Reformation. The monarch again took a position of religious tolerance and, moreover, inclined the pope to a moderate, in the spirit of Hussism, reform of the church: he wanted to give the laity the right to receive communion under both forms, to abolish the celibacy for the clergy and to introduce a national language in worship. Such a reform would not infringe on the material interests of the monarchy, but it could diminish the authority of the pope, and the Roman Church did not agree to the transformation. Civil, or religious (Huguenot) wars began in 1560, constituting the third and longest period of the Reformation.

The reformation movement was socially heterogeneous. It can be divided into two main directions - bourgeois and noble.

The bourgeois trend in the Reformation. In comparison with the nobility, the bourgeois trend in the Reformation had earlier and more solid roots. Already in the first decades of the XVI century. Reformation ideas, close to Lutheranism, became a form of expression of social protest for a part of the urban population, who suffered from exploitation and unbearable taxes. Reformation ideas were assimilated mainly by apprentices and wage laborers. The guild masters who separated themselves into a closed privileged group basically adhered to the royal faith - Catholicism.

In the 40s of the XVI century. in the commercial and industrial layers of the city, Calvinism found a breeding ground. Calvinist ideas were in the interests of the emerging bourgeoisie and were used by the successful representatives of the commercial and industrial part of the city. At the same time, the political side of the use of Calvinism should be emphasized. The young bourgeoisie was burdened by the absolute power of the monarch: guild politics, taxation, subordination to the state system of government instead of the city one. In the XVI century. she also defended her local interests. In an effort to remove obstacles to its activities, the bourgeoisie, under the banner of Calvinism, opposed absolutism for the preservation of municipal privileges. This position pushed the bourgeoisie to unite with the separatist-minded part of the feudal aristocracy and nobility. In most cases, this alliance was not very strong, the initiative in it was in the hands of the nobility, which greatly influenced the outcome of the Reformation.

Features of the socio-political development of France led to the spread of Calvinism mainly in the southern and southwestern cities of the country, although supporters of the new Reformation doctrine were in the cities of other regions of France. In the southwestern cities of the provinces of Oni, Perigord, Quercy and in Languedoc, about 2/3 of all Protestants in France were concentrated. In addition, the cities of Larochelle, Bordeaux, Montauban, Toulouse, Montpellier and Nimes were large commercial and industrial centers, the socio-economic development of which contributed to the aggravation of the struggle between the urban elite and the commercial and business part of the cities. The inner-city struggle justified the intervention of the royal power and the elimination of the communal government regime. Thus, in La Rochelle, the rule of the commercial and industrial oligarchy (merchants, fitters, homeowners, landowners), which caused an intra-city struggle already in 1535, led to the intervention of Francis I and the abolition of communal administration, which was replaced by a permanent city hall.

In the northern, western and central provinces of France, one of the reasons for the spread of Calvinism was the tax policy of the absolute monarchy. A special place in the urban reformation movement was occupied by the plebs. The activity of the urban lower classes was most clearly manifested in the iconoclastic movement, in the defeat and plunder of churches and monasteries in the regions of Larochelle, in Poitou, Brittany and Western Normandy. The urban lower classes were indispensable, sometimes the main participants in the unrest in the cities of Southwestern France. Their speeches complicated the struggle, exposing the socio-economic background of the Reformation. But this most destructive movement did not put forward either its own leaders or programs. It was not independent. As for the peasantry, they basically remained faithful to Catholicism. In the French countryside, Reformation ideas were not widespread, and mainly in Southwestern France.

Noble direction. The core of the anti-absolutist opposition as a whole became part of the feudal aristocracy at court and in the provinces. It was supported by representatives of the ordinary nobility, who still retained their dependence on the aristocracy. The new centralized system of vassal relations, which absolutism asserted, violated the previous nature of vassalage, weakening the power of the nobility in relations between the king and the provincial nobility, setting the aristocracy to seek means of strengthening their changed position. The titled nobility saw a means for strengthening their ties with the provincial nobility in Calvinism. In 1560, at the Assembly of the States General, part of the nobility spoke out in favor of the seigneur's right to choose a religion for themselves and their subjects.

A feature of this anti-absolutist opposition was the scattered performances of the nobility, divided into two rivals in the struggle for power in the camp. The Calvinist camp was localized mainly in the southwestern and southern regions of France. The aristocracy and nobility of the south saw the Calvinist Reformation as a means to improve their economic position through the secularization of church holdings. The adherents of this feudal-aristocratic camp were called Huguenots. Their leaders were representatives of the lateral line of the reigning dynasty - King of Navarre Antoine Bourbon (after 1562 - his son Henry of Navarre, future King Henry IV) and Prince of Condé. The Huguenot nobility was opposed by the nobility of the Catholic camp, based in the ancient domain of the king - the northeastern and central provinces. As a member of the Royal Council and taking advantage of appointments to Church offices

and therefore, not being interested in the secularization of ecclesiastical lands, this nobility considered itself the protector of the throne and the Catholic faith. But it was burdened by the tutelage of the monarch, was jealous of the successes of the new nobility at court and sought to prevent the centralizing policy of the crown. The leaders of this camp were the Duke François Guise, commander-in-chief of the royal army, and his brother the cardinal. However, there was no insurmountable line between the two camps. In the course of the movement, many nobles changed their religion more than once, which testified to the fact that their confessional affiliation was not a conviction, but a question of the tactics of political struggle.

The interests of the Huguenot nobles were reflected in the pamphlets of the so-called monarchs (tyrannical fighters), which proclaimed the right of subjects to overthrow and even kill monarchs who had forgotten their duty and turned into tyrants. The definition of tyranny was taken from the Calvinist doctrine, which allowed the monarchs to justify the right to overthrow a tyrant who despised the will of God and violated the ancient privileges and freedoms of the people. At the same time, under the "people" the monarchs understood the feudal aristocracy. The limited monarchy was the political ideal of the monarchs. The author of the famous treatise "Franco-Gaul", a representative of the "nobility of the mantle" Francois Hutman (1524-1590), tried to historically substantiate the claims of the Huguenot feudal aristocracy to political power, appealing to the distant past, when the nobility took part in the elections of the monarch. At the same time, as representatives of the privileged class, the monarchs defended their class interests in the face of popular uprisings, in solidarity with the Catholic nobles. "Beware of the rule of the mob or the extremes of democracy, which seeks to destroy the nobles," - emphasized in one of the pamphlets. However, in the noble direction in the Reformation, another line was also traced, represented, in particular, by convinced Calvinists - Admiral Gaspard de Coligny and a prominent military leader, the closest associate of Coligny, François de Lana. Concerned about the fate of the country, Coligny and de Lana connected the future of France not only with the activity of foreign policy: with the war against Spain, with the support of the liberation movement in the Netherlands, with the colonization of America, but also with the creative activities of the nobility in the civil service and in the economic field.

A special place in the noble direction was occupied by the clergy, who showed themselves quite actively already in the second period of the reformation movement. The court records of the "Chamber of Fire" of Henry II testified to the spread of Protestant ideas mainly among the lower clergy of different origins. The peculiar position of the Gallican Church under the patronage of the monarchy, which weakened the influence of the papacy, by no means eliminated the contradictions among the French clergy. On the contrary, the interference of the monarchy in the affairs of the Gallican church and the subordination of the latter to the state introduced many complications in the position of the clergy, deepening the contradictions between the princes of the church - the largest feudal lords - and small rural and urban priests close to the masses. The ecclesiastical policy of the monarchy divided the clergy into supporters and opponents of the royal policy. Ecclesiastical opposition to the monarchy moved closer to the papacy. Among those who supported the monarch, there was no unity in assessing the degree of dependence of the Gallican church on the state. As a result, the estate program of the clergy in the Reformation could not be united, and therefore the clergy did not represent an independent direction in the reformation movement. The papal orientation of a part of the bishopric was close to the separatist opposition of the feudal aristocracy, while the reformation ideas of a part of the lower clergy united it with the antifeudal movements of the urban lower classes, as well as with a part of the Calvinist-minded bourgeoisie.

Civil wars. The contradictions between the two factions of the feudal-aristocratic opposition, confessionally divided, were embodied in the Amboise conspiracy (1560), which became the prelude to civil wars.

The first armed clashes between Huguenots and Catholics were caused by the action of the Duke of Guise against the Huguenots who gathered in Champagne in the town of Vassi in 1562.The murder of several Huguenots and the wounding of about 100 participants in the meeting shook the whole of France, marking the beginning of an open armed struggle.

In 1570, peace was concluded at Saint-Germain, according to which Calvinist worship was allowed everywhere, Calvinists were allowed to hold public office. As a guarantee of the fulfillment of the terms of peace, they were given full possession of the four fortress cities of Montauban, Cognac, Larochelle and Lascharite. However, the Huguenots did not celebrate the victory for long: on August 24, 1572, on the day of St. Bartholomew, a new attack on the Calvinists began. For this, the wedding of Henry of Navarre with the sister of Charles IX, Margaret of Valois, was used. For the wedding in Paris, the Huguenot aristocracy and representatives of the ordinary nobility from the southern provinces gathered. With the approval of Charles IX of Giza, they began to carry out the planned action: on the same August night, the beating of the Huguenots caught by surprise began. Coligny was one of the first to be killed. Henry of Navarre and the Prince of Condé were saved by converting to Catholicism. In Paris, only by noon on August 24, 2 thousand Huguenots were killed: nobles, merchants, artisans and even foreigners - Germans and Flemings. The massacre continued for several days and spread to the provinces.

Events in Paris sparked an uprising of the Huguenot nobility in the south of France. In 1575, the Huguenot confederation was created, which was the embodiment of the noble political ideal - limited to the states and the nobility of the monarchy. In addition to the royal sanction for the formation of a Huguenot confederation, Protestants were granted freedom of religion (except for Paris and the territory of the royal court), were given the right to judge in their chambers, established in some royal courts, eight fortresses were granted, in addition to those received earlier, and the right to have their own army.

The interests of the Huguenots were satisfied to a certain extent. However, the wars did not end.

After 1575, the political interests of another camp of the feudal-aristocratic opposition, represented by the Catholic nobility of the northern and central provinces, whose inspiration was Giza, became more acutely exposed. The provocateurs of the Huguenots' massacres, Giza, encroached on the seizure of state power, openly switching to the path of anti-dynastic struggle. For this struggle, the Guesam needed an organization similar to the Huguenot Confederation. This organization was the Catholic League, which arose in 1576. Membership in the League was declared compulsory for all Catholics. Its members had to obey the head of the League - Duke Heinrich of Guise, a pretender to the throne of France.

The Catholic League united in its ranks the feudal aristocracy, the nobility and the emerging bourgeoisie of the northern and central provinces of France. The discrepancy between the political and economic interests of the rank and file nobility, the bourgeoisie and the feudal aristocracy weakened the League, made it possible for King Henry III (1574-1589) to use this union in the interests of strengthening the monarchy: he declared himself the head of the League and revoked the edict on freedom of religion.

The position of Henry III provoked a protest from the Huguenots, who hastened to create a Calvinist union in Larochelle, led by Henry of Navarre. The Calvinist union was supported by the Swedish and Danish kings, the English queen and German princes. The emergence of the union provoked a new war between Catholics and Huguenots, which culminated in the restoration of the edict on freedom of religion.

In 1593 Henry of Navarre converted to Catholicism and in 1594 Paris opened the gates for him. Henry of Navarre became king of France under the name of Henry IV (1589-1610), initiating the reign of the Bourbon dynasty and predetermining the fate of the French Reformation. The civil wars revealed all the features of this movement: the anti-reformation position of the monarchy, the anti-absolutist character of the actions of the feudal-aristocratic camp, which used Calvinism in separatist interests; the weakness of the emerging bourgeoisie, expressed in the fact that representatives of the rising class defended medieval municipal privileges and allowed themselves to be carried away by the nobility; the strength of the masses, whose performances had the greatest impact on the course of events at the most decisive moment of civil wars.

Edict of Nantes 1598 An intelligent and cautious politician, Henry IV began by reconciling the warring parties. His policy of compromise was dictated by a sober assessment of the socio-political situation in the country. In 1598, peace was concluded with Spain and the Edict of Nantes was issued, which henceforth declared Catholicism the official state religion and at the same time retained the right of religion for the Huguenots (except for Paris). The Catholic clergy received the former rights and property. Calvinists were allowed to hold public office on an equal basis with Catholics. In addition, the Huguenots received the right to convene political meetings, organized on the model of the States-General, and to have their representatives at the royal court for intercourse with the king; as a guarantee of the execution of the edict, they were given about 200 fortresses, the main of which were La Rochelle, Saumur and Montauban. These rights were "royal favors" - they complained about a certain period, after which they were subject to renewal or cancellation.

Conclusion

The Reformation simplified, cheapened and democratized the church, placed internal personal faith above external manifestations of religiosity, and gave divine sanction to the norms of bourgeois morality.

The reform movement culminated in the 16th century. In a number of European countries, although in different ways, the transition to a new, Protestant church was carried out. In some places the philistinism was content with the reformation of the Catholic Church. The 17th century no longer knows the Reformation. In the subsequent development, conditions for the era of bourgeois revolutions are gradually formed.

Consequently, the exceptional role of the Reformation era in the formation of world civilization and culture is obvious. Without proclaiming any socio-political ideal; without requiring the alteration of society in one direction or another; without making any scientific discoveries and achievements in artistic creation, the Reformation changed the consciousness of man, opened up new spiritual horizons for him. Man received the freedom to think independently, freed himself from the authoritarian tutelage of the papacy and the church, received the highest sanction for him - religious - that only his own reason and conscience can tell him how to live.

The Reformation contributed to the emergence of a man of bourgeois society - an independent individual with freedom of moral choice, independent and responsible in his judgments and actions. The carriers of Protestant ideas expressed a new type of personality with a new culture and attitude to the world.

Literature

1. Philosophical Dictionary. - M., 1986

2. World history: (textbook). - M: Thought, Tg.

3. History of philosophy in summary. / Per. From Czech ed. - M: Thought. 1995 year

4. Training course in cultural studies. - Rostov-on-Don: Phoenix. 1996 year

5. Luther. Selected Works. - SP-B. 1994 year

6. Soloviev. The past flows with us: (essays on the history of philosophy and culture). - M: Politizdat. 1991 year

7. Nekrasov and the peasant war. Vologda, 1984

8. Smirin's reformation of Thomas Munzer and the Great Peasant War. 1955

9. Smirin of Rotterdam and the reformation movements in Germany. M., 1978

10. Chistzvonov as a factor of the German XVI // Middle Ages. M., 1985 issue 48

11. Porozovskaya Calvin, his life and work. SPb., 1891

12. Porozovskaya Zwingli, his life and work. SPb., 1892

ANABAPTISTS (from the Greek anabaptizo - I immerse again, that is, I baptize again) (rebaptized), participants in the radical sectarian movement of the Reformation era of the 16th century, mainly in Germany, Switzerland, the Netherlands. They demanded a second baptism (at a conscious age), denied the church hierarchy, condemned wealth, and called for the introduction of a community of property. Participated in the Peasant War 1524-26, formed the Münster Commune 1534-35; defeated. Certain elements of the Anabaptist teachings passed into the dogma of some Protestant sects. * * * The article "Anabaptists" "from" The New Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron "(1911–16): ANABAPTISTS, or re-baptized, sectarians of the Reformation era. Like the followers of Luther, A. protested against the ecclesiastical authority embodied in Catholicism, but their protest was brought to extreme limits. They got their name because, denying the baptism of infants, they demanded the baptism of adults, that is, a conscious perception by a person of the duties of the apostolate; many of them were consequently baptized. This sect acquired a mystical character: accepting one New Testament, and the Old only insofar as it does not contradict the New and serves only as an addition to it, they at the same time drew a sharp line between the external revelation contained in Holy Scripture and the internal revelation. perpetrated in the soul from above of illumined persons. According to A., the revelation of Holy Scripture and the fruits of contemporary religious thought are different phases of the same epiphany. Wide religious individualism, based on a mystical belief in a prophetic gift and making everyone the only judge over himself, forced A. to deny the importance of external church communication and the need for sacraments as external symbols; he prevented them from creating a certain religious system and forming into any organization. The beginning of A. was a movement that arose in the city of Zwickau (in Saxony), where the cloth maker Nikolai Shtorkh, one of the first so-called. Zwickau prophets, who knew the Holy Scriptures well and, in the opinion of the audience, illuminated by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, together with Stübner began to preach a new teaching, which had significant success. In 1520, the preachers were persecuted: some were imprisoned, then expelled from Zwickau. Arriving in Wittenberg, the preachers began their sermon again, giving it a certain social connotation. Soon the movement took on a fanatical character: a persecution was erected against science, social pleasures, wealth, the division of which among the poor was required in the name of the Gospel. The authorities did not know what to do with the preachers, Melanchthon hesitated in his attitude towards them, Karlstadt joined the movement; two hundred students, convinced of the uselessness of secular science, left the university. With Luther's arrival at Wittenberg, the embarrassment disappeared and the movement was suppressed. A., who until then had counted on Luther and on the governments, severed all ties with them and turned with their sermon to the peasants, who had long been dissatisfied with the prevailing order. The individualistic elements of the new sect were especially evident here. Some of the A. strove for a deeper and more spiritualized doctrine, while others "looked only at the letter of Holy Scripture." Some wore special clothing and tried to return to the severity of early Christianity; others fell writhing, claiming that at the same time they had communication with the sky. Some passed their lives in silence, others in prayer, and still others in screaming and crying. Many believed that a marriage between a believing man and an unbelieving woman was invalid in itself and that both parties were free to remarry. At the same time, Anabaptism already contained the seeds of future rationalist sects, for example. antitrinitarians, or unitarians. The social system created by Anabaptism was as essential a part of it as its religious teachings. The demand for unlimited freedom for a person went hand in hand with the recognition of absolute equality in society and the denial of private property. Consistent sectarians strove to reorganize all life on a new basis and to implement on earth such social orders that would not contradict the commandments of God; they did not put up with any forms of social inequality and man's dependence on man as contrary to divine Revelation. Religious sanction here not only justified, but also strengthened such aspirations. Spreading rapidly throughout Germany, Switzerland, and Holland, Anabaptism took the form of small religious communities linked to each other by fraternal ties, but not organized for mutual assistance and protection; both the creed and the way of life in each city were different; there were not even attempts to unite all these communities in one confession, although all aristocrats, split up already in the 16th century. in forty sects, they recognized, in addition to the baptism of adults, the need to return to the church of apostolic times, faith in the mercy of God, good deeds and taught that the will of man is free. In the social sphere, there were the same signs common to all A. - denial of oath, trial, military service, obedience to the government, which they did not consider Christian; but at the same time some of the sectarians limited themselves to passive resistance to what they considered illegal and contrary to God's commandments, others went further and demanded the violent overthrow of the existing order, based on the fact that "faith without works is dead." Gradually, A. came to preaching a bloody revolution, the extermination of the wicked by fire and sword, and thus preparing the final triumph of the "saints" on earth. This sermon was of great importance already in the Peasants' War, during which Thomas Münzer was especially prominent. The persecution of A. that intensified after it not only did not stop sectarianism, but, on the contrary, contributed to its spread: expelled from some cities, A. went to others and everywhere acquired new followers, mainly among the lower classes of the population, although several supporters of Anabaptism can be called educated and even learned people (Denk, Gettser, etc.). During the persecution of Albania, neither Catholic nor Protestant princes had any pity for them. In Austria and Tyrol, they were killed by the hundreds. Wilhelm of Bavaria declared: "" whoever renounces will be beheaded; whoever does not renounce will be burned. " Dozens of A. climbed the scaffolds and bonfires, always displaying unshakable resilience that amazed their contemporaries; Luther even tended to attribute this endurance to satanic obsession. Persecutions and executions led A. to the expectation of the imminent onset of the millennial kingdom of Christ on earth. These chiliastic aspirations became especially intense around 1530, when several prophets predicted the imminent end of the world. Hoffmann, for example, as early as 1526 foreshadowed the Last Judgment in 1533; in Strasbourg, under his influence, there was a strong fermentation, which spread among the Dutch sectarians. Among the latter, the most prominent was the Harlem baker Jan Mathisen, who called himself Enoch and sent the twelve apostles to preach. As in the mid-twenties among the peasants, so now in the cities the social revolution broke out with a character no less bloody. It ended with the Münster uprising, in which the most prominent role was played first by Mathisen, then by John of Leiden. Their attempt to arrange a "heavenly Jerusalem" in Münster was a cruel parody of the kingdom of God. The bloody massacre of Catholicism against Munster A. (1535), then the suppression of the rather formidable uprising that took place around the same time in Amsterdam finally weakened Anabaptism; although after that there were believers in the imminent onset of the millennial kingdom, but the aggressive period of re-baptism ended, and the Apostles fled from their fatherland to other countries and from the continent to England. The communities they founded gradually lost their political character and condemned war and the carrying of weapons. It was on the denial of any kind of political program that Mennon's doctrine was built, which in essence reproduced the religious dogma of A. In the same spirit, the Gunther brothers founded the religious communities of the Moravian brothers. The combination of the religious-moral system with the socio-political program is met once again in England in the 17th century. among the Independents, whose teachings undoubtedly originated among the German A. The same chiliastic aspirations are characteristic of the "people of the fifth monarchy", who denied all power on earth except Christ, and who organized a conspiracy against Cromwell, in which the Dutch A. also took part. (1657), his leaders were imprisoned.

At the beginning of the XVI century. The “Holy Roman Empire of the German nation” continued to be a politically fragmented country with unsettled and, in some places, disputed borders. The princely cliques dominating in Germany did not at all strive for the state unification of the country. The goal of the so-called imperial reform, undertaken by them at the end of the previous century, was to somewhat strengthen the empire while preserving the sovereignty of the princes. It seemed to them necessary in connection with the formation of centralized states in Europe. By the beginning of the XVI century. it turned out that the "imperial reform" had failed. Consisting of isolated territorial principalities and numerous imperial counties, prelates and cities, the empire was more and more inferior to the consolidated forces of neighboring peoples. The Swabian Union and the German Emperor were defeated in their attempts to subjugate the Swiss, and after the defeat of the troops of the emperor and the princes in 1499, they were forced to recognize the independence of the Swiss Union by the treaty of 1511. In the Italian wars that took place at this time, the German emperor Maximilian I suffered defeats not only from France, but also in the struggle with Venice. In international relations at the beginning of the XVI century. the role of the German emperor was pitiful. However, from the end of the 15th century. the universalist political claims of the Habsburgs enjoyed the active support of the feudal-Catholic reactionary forces in Europe, primarily the papacy. Relying on the military strength and wealth of their vast hereditary lands, entering into financial transactions with the largest trading and usurious firms of that time, pursuing a policy of dynastic marriages, Emperor Maximilian I and the Austrian archdukes sought to subjugate the German princes and prepared for the spread of the Habsburg power to a number of European states. The Habsburg state reached its widest size later, under the grandson of Maximilian I, Charles V (1519-1556). On his mother's side, Karl was the grandson of the Spanish Catholic kings - Ferdinand and Isabella. In 1516. Charles inherited the Spanish throne with all Spanish possessions in Europe and overseas. Thanks to the efforts of Maximilian, Charles was elected by the electors as his successor in the "Holy Roman Empire". Thus, in 1519, after the death of Maximilian, Charles united the vast possessions of the Spanish crown with all the lands that were part of the empire. Under Charles V, claims to the world "Christian" character of the Habsburg state were reinforced by the enormous size of the territories subordinated to him in the Old and New Worlds.

The economic and social processes that took place in Germany at the beginning of the 16th century contained the prerequisites for a further exacerbation of the class and political struggle. The feudal mode of production continued to dominate in the country; the overwhelming majority of the population was a feudal dependent peasantry; guild craft was preserved in the cities. However, the elements of capitalist production became in the first decades of the 16th century. very common. In the field of construction and printing, there were already enterprises in which 10-20 or more hired workers worked. Such enterprises then belonged to the category of large ones. In the textile industry, and partly in the production of metal products, the so-called advance payment system (Verlagsustem) took more and more place. The essence of this system was that a merchant who sold handicraft products in more or less large batches in distant markets advanced artisans with money, and often also raw materials delivered from afar, thus ensuring an uninterrupted supply of finished goods in the right quantity and on favorable terms. ... Under this system, the direct producers, while continuing to work at home and retaining apparent independence, were in fact subordinated to the capitalist who advanced them, and to whom they became economically dependent.

In a number of cases, a wealthy master who became a merchant and entrepreneur acted as an advancing person. Thus, in the textile production of a number of Württemberg cities, the main role among those who gave advance payment was played by dyers, who subjugated the ruined artisans employed in the production of fabrics. The same phenomenon took place in silk weaving in Cologne, in the production of cloth in Rothenburg an der Tauber and in a number of other cities in Central and Southwestern Germany.

In Frankfurt am Main, Ulm, Strasbourg, Heilbronn, Memmingen, Constance and many other cities, entrepreneurs, advancing producers with money and raw materials, involved in production and exploited, along with urban artisans, the population of the rural area adjacent to the cities, where there was no shop regulation. The guildmakers of Ulm, Strasbourg, Constance and other cities complained to the magistrate about the competition of rural weavers working for merchants, and pointed out that this competition was ruining them.

These phenomena, which were often encountered in the 16th century. not only in the textile, but also in the leather, paper and some other industries, they already belong to the early form of capitalist production, to dispersed manufacture. Direct producers, wholly dependent on distributor entrepreneurs, were increasingly turning into hired workers, subjected to intensified exploitation. Entrepreneurs looked for various methods to reduce the wages of the manufacturers who worked for them. One of these methods was the reckoning with the products of this production. Moreover, the goods were valued above the price for which the worker could sell them on the market. At the end of the 15th century, people complained about the payment of goods made in order to reduce wages. Cologne silk weavers and other workers.

The penetration of capitalism into the mining industry in Germany took on very pronounced forms. In the Middle Ages, Germany occupied a prominent place among European countries with a developed mining industry, especially in terms of the extraction of precious metals. In terms of silver mining, Germany significantly surpassed all other European countries. It retained its superiority in the field of silver mining until the massive influx of precious metals from the New World to Europe, but even after that, German entrepreneurs continued to dominate this industry thanks to their close trade ties with Spain, which was the main supplier of precious metals from America. In addition, large trading firms - Fuggers, Welsers, Gochstätters, Imgofs, Paumgartens and others - owned mining operations in other European countries, including the Czech Republic, Hungary and the Austrian lands rich in ore.

The emergence of capitalist relations in various branches of the mining industry was favored at the same time by the high demand for their products, favorable conditions for the sale in large batches for the production of weapons, and the complication of mining technology. With the deepening of the mines, ore mining became impossible without large expenditures on air and drainage pipes and other structures. The complicated process of ore mining, transportation, crushing and washing required the simultaneous participation of many persons and an organized division of labor.The forms and nature of the penetration of capital into the mining industry in Germany were largely determined by the following circumstance: the princes and emperors of the Habsburg house, constantly in need of money, entered into loans from large trading and usurious firms and pledged them the mining wealth of their territories with the right to receive all the production. In the XVI century. The Fuggers and other firms in southern Germany handed over mining operations to entrepreneurs, and often they themselves participated in the direct operation of the mines, in supplying them with new equipment and organizing production on the basis of hired labor.

These German firms, who made huge fortunes on international trade and credit operations, invested their capital in the mining industry not only in Germany, but also in Austria, the Czech Republic, Hungary and other European countries. The Welser firm also owned the development of copper and silver in America. The Fuggers invested not only in mining, but also in other industries. Thus, the Fuggers and other large companies in southern Germany combined the activities of usurers, traders-monopolists and industrialists, and all these functions were intertwined. They derived capitalist profits by exploiting wage labor. However, he received his main income from the mining industry through privileges and monopoly rights. Using these rights, the South German firms entered into agreements on prices among themselves, will keep them at a high level. They relied on the strength of their trading privileges and monopolies to fight competitors. Therefore, if the Ulm entrepreneurs-distributors, who organized the production of paper fabrics in the village district, undermined the guild craft of the paper workers in the city with their competition, they themselves turned out to be powerless in the fight against the competition of other cities, where the production of paper fabrics was advanced by the Fuggers. Relying on their financial ties and trade privileges, the Fuggers possessed special means of pressure and could create serious obstacles for their competitors in obtaining raw materials and marketing finished products. Hence the great indignation that aroused in the circles of the German burghers in the XV-XVI centuries. activities of large trading and usurious companies.

During this period of industrial development and the general prosperity of German cities, Germany continued to occupy a central position on the routes of world trade, “... the great trade route from India to the north,” Engels wrote, “despite the discoveries of Vasco da Gama, still passes through Germany, and Augsburg was still a major staging area for Italian silk products, Indian spices and all the products of the Levant. The High German cities, especially Augsburg and Nuremberg, were the focus of wealth and luxury, which was very significant for the yoke of the time. " F. Engels, The Peasant War in Germany, K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch., Vol. 7, pp. 346-347.)

Experienced in the conduct of large trade operations, South German merchant companies sought to derive all possible benefits from the newly discovered sea routes and developed at first vigorous activities in this direction in Portugal and Spain, as well as in India and America.

The advantage of the South German firms was the enormous size of their capital. Only in the second half of the 16th century. South German trade begins to lose its primacy. In the first half of the century, the decline took place only in the Hanseatic trade of the North German cities, which turned out to be unadapted to the new conditions.

During this period, the emerging elements of the future bourgeois society became increasingly important in the cities. In the urban burghers, which consisted mostly of guild craftsmen and merchants associated with guild production, another part of it became more and more noticeable, which was already associated with the rudiments of capitalist production that were emerging in the country. At the same time, the lowest stratum of the urban plebs grew, consisting of peasants thrown out of their homes, of people who did not have any guild or other privileges either in the past or in the present and deprived of any prospects for the future.

In the countryside, processes that had begun already in the 15th century manifested themselves with renewed vigor. In the conditions of the rapid development of cities and the further growth of elements of capitalist relations, the princes and nobles strove to further strengthen the feudal ownership of land and use commodity production in their own interests. The abolition of the heredity of peasant land holdings and the reduction of the holdings for a time, practiced even earlier, were adopted at the beginning of the 16th century. the nature of the general offensive of the feudal lords on the peasants. At the same time, the goal of the feudal lords was to change the conditions of holdings - to increase the number and volume of peasant obligations, prevent the independent development of peasant farms and maximize the appropriation of their surplus product.

Among the peasant obligations, a significant place was occupied by those that were not collected regularly, but on certain "occasions." The most burdensome of this category of obligations was "posthumous extortion", that is, extortion from the inheritance of a deceased peasant. In addition to this levy, which was levied in kind and in its value often amounted to a third of the property left, the feudal lord took from the heir a monetary levy for "admission" to the inheritance. The levies were collected by the feudal lords when a peasant sold his property and when the farm was transferred to another person. There were levies that were levied on other events in the life of the peasant. "He could not," writes Engels of the position of the German peasant before the Peasant War, "neither marry, nor die, without the master receiving money for it." F. Engels, The Peasant War in Germany, K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, vol. 7, p. 356.) The dependence of the peasant was threefold: he depended on the owner of the land (Grundherr), on the “court lord” (Gerichtsherr), who exercised the right of court in the given territory, and on the “personal master” (Leibherr), that is, the feudal lord whose serf this peasant was considered. The peasant paid the duties associated with certain "cases" to all the feudal lords, on whom he depended in one way or another. In the southwestern lands of Germany, landowners tried to concentrate in their hands all forms of domination over their peasants, acquiring from other feudal lords the rights of "judicial" and "personal lords". The landowner thus received complete freedom of action in relation to his peasant, robbing him for any reason due to his various "rights".

The size of the "regular" duties, in kind, cash and labor, that is those that the peasants carried annually in the form of payment of chinsh (quitrent) and the performance of compulsory work were not strictly fixed in the southwestern lands of Germany. From the end of the 15th century. and especially in the 16th century. they increased more and more as the economic activity of the masters expanded. The increased demand for wine, as well as for wool, flax and other agricultural products needed for industry, prompted landowners to expand the production of these products on their own farms. For keeping herds, caring for crops, processing flax and hemp and performing other household work, as well as for numerous transportations from fields to barns, from barns to often distant city markets, the gentlemen resorted to free labor of peasants, to corvee. During the riots and especially during the Peasant War of 1524-1525. the peasants complained that they were forced to do everything, according to the terminology of the documents, "necessary" for the masters of the work - plowing and preparation of land for sowing, all types of processing and packaging of agricultural products and their delivery to markets - "where the master will indicate." The wives of peasants and their children were also involved in gratuitous work. Where feudal oppression intensified most of all, i.e. in the southwestern lands, the feudal lords brought the main regular duty of the peasants - the land chinsh to a very significant size and strove for its further maximum increase. In addition to chinsh, corvee and irregular extortions, the peasant paid taxes to the prince and the church tithe - "a large tithe" from the grain harvest and "small tithe" from all other agricultural crops and livestock. All this constituted an extremely complex system of duties. The peasant economy was viewed by the gentlemen as the main means of satisfying all their needs. The master's land itself was cultivated with peasant implements. These circumstances greatly hindered the independent development of the peasant economy and the emergence of bourgeois relations in it. The intensified feudal exploitation left no room for the penetration of capitalist elements into the countryside from outside. Appeared in the German countryside at the end of the 15th and the beginning of the 16th centuries. moneylenders charged peasants with an "extra chinsh" (Uberzins), which was a usurious interest on a loan ever given. In many places, peasants complained that their owners were burdened with all kinds of chinsh and extortions of various origins, consuming the entire harvest and dooming themselves, their wives and children to hunger.

Along with the increase in all kinds of feudal extortions and taxes, the peasants suffered from the seizure of communal lands and the infringement of their rights to use communal lands, where numerous herds belonging to the feudal lords grazed. The feudal lords sold the communal forest and prohibited the peasants from hunting and fishing. In order to ensure lordly hunting, the peasants were forbidden to destroy the game that harmed their fields.

The serf state of the peasants helped the lords to strengthen the feudal pressure, giving the feudal lords the opportunity to dispose of the property and labor of the serfs. Therefore, the restoration of the serfdom, significantly weakened in the previous period, took place from the beginning of the 16th century. massive, especially in the southwestern lands of Germany. This caused strong discontent among the peasants. During the Peasant War, the demand for liberation from serfdom became the most general demand of the insurgents.

The desire of the feudal lords to expand their own farms and their attack on the rights of the peasants were manifested in all parts of Germany. However, in the east and north, these aspirations of the masters could not be realized until the suppression of the Great Peasant War. In the east, in the lands captured from the Slavs, German peasants, who have long been in a privileged position there in comparison not only with the local population, but also with the peasantry of other regions of Germany, lived in better conditions than their counterparts in the southwest. In the northwest, the struggle within the ruling class - between the princes and the nobility - eased the resistance of the peasants. But in the southwestern lands of Germany, the intensification of feudal oppression manifested itself with the greatest force. They existed here already at the end of the 15th century. special organizations (the main of them was the Swabian Union), which served the purpose of suppressing peasant resistance and subordinating the forces and means of chivalry and cities to the big princes. In these lands, the rapid economic growth of the Rhine cities and the growth of commodity production gave rise to the feudal lords a desire to expand their own farms and increase peasant duties.

2. Growing opposition to the feudal system and the Catholic Church

Exacerbation of the class struggle of the masses in the activities of the "Shoe" union

With the onset of feudal reaction, the struggle of the peasants intensified. For the class struggle of the XVI century. characterized by a much closer rapprochement of the peasant masses with the urban lower classes than in the preceding period. The strengthening of the peasant-plebeian camp could not but have an influence on the radical elements in the burghers and on the well-known upsurge of the burgher opposition in general. These new moments in the class struggle in Germany appeared at the beginning of the 16th century. in the activities of secret societies "Bashmak".

Such a peasant society was discovered in 1502 in the Bishopric of Speyer. Its participants intended, raising the banner of the "Shoe", to subordinate the bishopric, the Margrave of Baden and other neighboring territories to their power in order to implement the entire broad antifeudal program - the program of dividing the clergy's property between the peasants, reducing the number of clergy, abolishing all feudal payments and any feudal dependence, the return to the free use of all the usurped communal lands by the peasants. The members of the secret society were counting not only on recruited conspirators, but mainly on the force of a spontaneous uprising of the masses. They saw the task of the secret society in preparing the fighting groups that would take the first step by capturing the city of Bruchsal (in the Speyer bishopric) as a strong point. From here they will lead the popular masses of villages and cities on a military campaign, which, in their conviction, will immediately rise and join them. Contemporaries believed that there was every reason for such confidence. One of them wrote: “If the conspiracy remained unsolved for another month, then there was a threat of joining such a mass of people, the suppression of which would require a lot of bloodshed, and, according to some, it would be completely impossible to suppress it, because everyone is striving for freedom and burdened with the burdens of the clergy and nobility ... "

Counting on a spontaneous uprising of the popular masses, the members of secret society I were not capable of leading the movement and preparing and organizing the uprising. It did not even come to an open speech by the members of the secret society themselves, whose plans were betrayed by the traitor. With the exception of the escaped Jos Fritz, the most outstanding and talented leader, and some others, all other leaders and many members of the secret society were arrested and executed. Many, by a court decision, were cut off the fingers on their right hand, which were raised by the members of the union as a sign of the oath, and their property was seized by the gentlemen. The nature of the society's activities testified to the widespread discontent not only in the countryside, but also in the city. Of particular concern in the ruling class was the propaganda in the peasant-plebeian environment of "divine justice", which was essentially an undermining of the Catholic church ideology. The horror that gripped the circles of the ruling class at that time can be inferred from the words of the secretary of the Speyer bishop, who wrote after the disclosure of the conspiracy: “The Almighty God, from whom all the rule and power of masters emanates, should be praised and grateful for the fact that he saved us from the threatening evil and the peasant power, that from time immemorial he wanted the highest gentlemen, priests and nobles to rule, and the peasants to work. "

Discovered in 1513 and 1517. the new plans of the widespread secret societies of the "Shoe" in their general nature did not differ much from the conspiracy of 1502, but at the same time they testified to the rise of the popular movement. Among the demands of the secret society in 1513 were political clauses of the utmost importance. The most common of these was the clause on the abolition of all powers except the emperor. At the same time, the power of the emperor was recognized only under certain conditions. According to one contemporary, the members of the society intended, in the event of the emperor's refusal to support their demands, to overthrow him and turn to the Swiss for help. The meaning of the clause on the abolition of all powers, except for the emperor, consisted in the requirement to establish state unity by eliminating all territorial princes. One of the members of the secret society turned away during the interrogation "Permanent peace must be established in all Christianity." This slogan of state unity, put forward by the leaders of the lower classes, most of all alarmed the princes.

In an atmosphere of widespread discontent in the country, the anti-feudal peasant movement should have attracted everyone's attention. In the first decades of the XVI century. in many cities of Germany there were very significant disturbances of the burghers directed against the city authorities, in which the plebeian masses took an active part. This circumstance contributed to the rapprochement of the urban movement with the antifeudal movement of the peasantry. The demand for the abolition of those princes and the establishment of a single power in the empire objectively met the interests of the advanced elements of the burghers and could unite different layers of the opposition. Therefore, in princely circles, it was believed that the propaganda and activities of the "Bashmak" union create a situation in the cities that is extremely dangerous for the existing system.

The plan for the uprising of the "Shoe" alliance in 1517, which, like the previous ones, took shape in an atmosphere of mass discontent, shows that by the beginning of the Reformation, peasants and plebeians were already acting together. At the head of the secret society in 1517, along with Jos Fritz, was Stoffel, who belonged to the plebs of the city of Freiburg. The two leaders were assisted by many impoverished artisans to spread propaganda throughout Southwest Germany. Great importance was attached to participation in a secret society of beggars who communicated throughout the area and had to go at the right time to light the signal lights, each at a certain point. It was supposed to start an uprising by capturing the cities of Hagenau (Agno) and Weissenburg and then to work out measures to attract “the common poor people in cities and in the countryside” to their side. It was decided to kill everyone who belonged to the city elite. The attitude of the leaders from the peasants and the plebs to the wavering middle strata of the burghers is very characteristic. They believed that those burghers who did not join them themselves should be forced to do so under the threat of being declared enemies.

The significance of secret revolutionary organizations lay in the fact that they reflected the growth of the antifeudal struggle of the masses and the formation of the peasant-plebeian camp at a time when a broad movement of discontent was developing in the German burghers as well.

The nature of the burgher opposition before the Reformation

The rise of the opposition movement of the burghers in the first decades of the 16th century. was determined by the above-mentioned economic and social shifts of this time, the discontent of the population of the grown and rich cities with fiscal policy and the uncontrolled power of both secular and spiritual princes.

The opposition of most of the burghers, which consisted of guild craftsmen and merchants associated with guild production, was moderate. It concerned primarily intra-city affairs and was directed against the patriciate and his uncontrolled management of city affairs and finances. Much more radical and broader were the demands of those elements of the burghers, whose entrepreneurial activity was already associated with the capitalist relations that were nascent in the country. The demands of this part of the burghers were directed not only against the dominance of the patriciate within the cities, but also against the political fragmentation of Germany, torn apart by the struggle of princely cliques and suffering from taxes levied by spiritual and secular princes. The spirit of this radical opposition was imbued with burgher pamphlets as early as the 15th century, especially the so-called Reformation of Emperor Sigismund, which received in the first decades of the 16th century. widespread and containing the requirements of fundamental political transformations aimed at establishing state unity.

The peculiarity of early capitalist relations in Germany was that they originated in a fragmented country in which there were no elementary conditions for their further development, and in an atmosphere of growing feudal reaction in the countryside. The discrepancy between the socio-political conditions existing in feudal Germany and the character of the new productive forces manifested itself already at the very inception of capitalist manufacture. In centralized countries, the first capitalist manufactories at an early stage of their development got along with the feudal system, in the depths of which they arose, using, within certain limits, the patronage of the feudal state. In Germany, the situation was determined by the fact that, as its entire previous history showed, there were no prerequisites for the formation of a centralized feudal monarchy. Therefore, the advanced elements of the German burghers, expressing their aspirations for state unity, were objectively interested in supporting the antifeudal struggle of the peasant-plebeian masses. |

However, the advanced elements associated with the nascent capitalist relations were a minority in the German burghers, the bulk of which continued to cling to their own privileges in feudal society and did not go beyond moderate opposition in the field of political demands. Under these conditions, the most important was the movement that united all layers of the burgher opposition in a common struggle against the Catholic clergy, against its jurisdiction and privileges, and especially against the extortion of papal Rome. This struggle, in which even the moderate burgher opposition acted very decisively at first, was directed against the most reactionary carriers of German fragmentation, against the spiritual princes associated with papal Rome. It expressed the common aspirations of the German people, primarily peasants and plebeians, to eliminate the weakness of fragmented Germany in the face of foreign forces. Consequently, the struggle against the Catholic clergy and the influence of the papacy was in Germany the starting point of the political struggle, the objective significance of which was to create conditions for state unity and progressive economic development.

Political opposition to German knighthood

The determined political weakness of the fragmented Germany caused discontent among the chivalry. Imperial chivalry was particularly active in politics. that part of the lower nobility, which was the military estate of the empire and was directly subordinate to the imperial authorities. The fate of this chivalry was closely linked with the fate of the empire. In the wretched state of the empire, it saw the beginning of its own doom. Those representatives of the lower nobility who served with the princes and were in fief dependence on them, also had grounds for dissatisfaction. The use of firearms and the growth of the importance of the infantry overshadowed the cavalry army. At the same time, despite the increasing feudal pressure on the peasantry, the ruined nobility could not satisfy their increased needs. The entire German knighthood saw its salvation in the restoration of its political role as an imperial military estate and, consequently, in the restoration of the power of the imperial power itself. However, the German nobility did not strive to strengthen internal economic and political ties in the state, but to create a strong empire relying solely on the military force of chivalry, in which serfdom would reign supreme, and the cities would be deprived of political significance. It is quite obvious that the chivalrous ideal could not meet with sympathy either from the burghers, much less from the lower classes. Nevertheless, the ideologues of chivalry, passionately calling for the elimination of princes and priests and for the liberation of Germany from the dominance of papal Rome, played a certain role in the growing from the beginning of the 16th century. general rise of political opposition.

The Catholic Church in her position in Germany

The Catholic Church, which itself was the largest feudal landowner, served in the Middle Ages as the ideological support of the entire feudal system. In order to instill in ordinary people the consciousness of the complete insignificance of their personality and to reconcile them with their position, the church launched the doctrine of the primordial "sinfulness" of man's earthly existence. The Church declared every single person incapable of "saving his soul." According to Catholic teachings, only the papal church, endowed with the special right to distribute “divine grace” through the sacraments performed by it (baptism, repentance, communion, etc.), knows “salvation” and “justification” of the entire earthly world, according to Catholic teaching.

The highest Catholic clergy, headed by the pope, thus claimed to establish their political hegemony, to subjugate all secular life, all secular institutions and the state. The Catholic Church not only announced its claims, but also tried to realize them, using its political influence, its military and financial power, and also using the periods of weakness of the central government. Papal diplomats, tax collectors, and indulgence sellers filled the countries of Europe.

These claims of the Catholic Church caused discontent even among the large secular feudal lords. Even more discontent was felt with the political claims of the church and its propaganda of contempt for secular life among the inhabitants of developing and wealthy cities, in which a new, bourgeois ideology was emerging. In the XV and XVI centuries. the claims of the church were met with more and more decisive opposition from the royal authorities in countries that embarked on the path of state centralization. In such countries, the Catholic Church was forced to make concessions and agree to a strong restriction on the activities of papal agents, collectors of extortions and sellers of indulgences. However, in fragmented Germany, unable to resist the claims of papal Rome, the popes did not agree to any concessions. Huge sums of money went from Germany to the papal treasury through spiritual princes and indulgence sellers, who operated here without hindrance. This circumstance was the reason that the reformation movement, the ground for which was prepared in other European countries in connection with the socio-economic shifts taking place there, began earlier and united the broadest strata of the population in Germany.

Humanism in Germany

The oppositional sentiments of the German burghers found their ideological expression in the humanist movement. Humanism penetrated into Germany from Italy, but at the same time German humanism had its own roots in the new economic and social phenomena of the late 15th and early 16th centuries. "... The entire era of renaissance, starting from the middle of the 15th century, and the philosophy that has reawakened since then, was in essence the fruit of the development of cities, that is, burghers." F. Engels, Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy, 1952, p. 48.) The emerging bourgeois relations in German cities created a favorable environment for the development of a new ideology. In contrast to the scholastic trend characteristic of feudal ideology, which rejected the importance of human knowledge and experience and subordinated science to theological dogmas, the new trend of thought defended the independent character of the experimental sciences. At this time, when the shoots of bourgeois culture had just appeared, its leaders were unable to break with the Christian tradition; they demanded, however, a critical attitude towards all the old authorities and strove to give Christianity itself and "Holy Scripture" a new interpretation in the spirit of a secular worldview. To achieve this goal, German humanists, following the Italian ones, turned to ancient culture, which they interpreted in their own way and in which they saw the roots of Christianity itself.

The peculiarities of the humanist movement in Germany were determined by the already indicated development of opposition sentiments in the German burghers, a wide movement of discontent in different strata of society, and the dominance of the Catholic Church in a fragmented country. Unlike the Italian humanists, who were close to the aristocratic circles of the small ducal courts, the German humanists developed their activities mainly at universities and were a more complex grouping, which included young university masters, writers, itinerant poets, preachers, etc. immigrants from both the urban patriciate and from other, most diverse segments of the population. The humanist movement in Germany was distinguished by its interest not so much in mathematics, medicine, and law, as in issues of religion, philosophy and morality, that is, in issues that most worried the heterogeneous political and church opposition. At the same time, the hesitation and fear of a practical approach to the "painful" issues of German reality and their radical solution were reflected in the German humanist movement. German humanists, although they dealt with many problems of social and political life, tried not to go beyond purely theoretical, abstract reasoning and did not want their critical ideas to become the property of the masses.

In the circles of German humanists at the beginning of the 16th century. Erasmus of Rotterdam (1466-1536), who was one of the most educated people of that time, enjoyed great prestige, widely known in all countries of Western Europe. Erasmus was born in Holland. He studied with great enthusiasm the ancient languages, which he mastered to perfection, and the works of the Italian humanists. Living in the Netherlands, France, England, Italy and most of all in Germany, Erasmus enthusiastically pursued science and literature. From 1513 Basel became his permanent residence. In his literary activity, Erasmus was closely associated with the German humanists.

Erasmus translated the Bible and the works of the "church fathers" from Greek into Latin. In translation and especially in the comments, he strove to give the texts his own humanistic interpretation. The satirical works of Erasmus ("Commendable word of stupidity", "Home Conversations", etc.), in which the most important religious, philosophical, political and social problems of that time were touched upon, were very popular. With a subtle and sharp satire, Erasmus revealed the shortcomings of society. In all areas of political, cultural and church life, he saw vulgarity, empty formalism, meaningless dogma and, above all, stupidity (that is, the absence of a rational principle), which, according to Erasmus, took possession of all aspects of the life of every individual and different classes of society. He refers nobles and nobles to the "class of insanity" for idle pursuits like hunting, for a life deprived of a reasonable goal. The satyr of Erasmus castigates those who "boast of the nobility of their origin", although they "do not differ in any way from the last scoundrel" who boast of sculptural and pictorial images of their ancestors and "are ready to equate these noble cattle with the gods."

The satire of Erasmus is consonant with the criticism of the idle life of the feudal class; this criticism was characteristic of the emerging class of the urban bourgeoisie at that time. True, in the "Commendable word of stupidity" it is said that "the stupidest and nastiest of all is the merchant breed." But here the author has in mind certain features of the merchant's life, “for the merchants,” they say, “set themselves the most vile goal in life and achieve it by the most vile means: they always lie, swear, steal, cheat, cheat, for all that, they think they are the first people in the world only because their fingers are adorned with golden rings ”. The very entrepreneurial spirit of the new class is not criticized by Erasmus, and the pursuit of positive knowledge associated with entrepreneurship was considered reasonable. Especially in the satirical works of Erasmus, the Catholic clergy, scholastic "science" and theologians. Making fun of the outer ritual side of the Catholic Church, feudal ideology and the entire system of medieval beliefs, Erasmus essentially defended the new principles of the emerging bourgeois relations. At the same time, Erasmus reflected the immaturity of bourgeois thought characteristic of his time. For all the radicalism of his satire, he tried to preserve the foundations of the religious worldview and demanded that a rationalistic basis be placed under the Christian religion. Erasmus ridicules those "righteous" who declare man and all earthly life sinful, preach asceticism and the killing of the flesh and strive only to contemplate the other world. A person should be considered normal, says the "Commendable word of stupidity", the shock of his soul uses the bodily organs at its discretion. " But he also considers "madness" the behavior of "most people who are busy with some bodily things and tend to think that nothing else exists." True, through the mouth of "Foolishness" Erasmus asserts that "the name of a madman is more fitting for the righteous than for the crowd." The desire to reconcile religion and reason was the basis of the conflicting philosophical views of Erasmus.

Erasmus also personified the political helplessness of the burghers of the time. In an abstract form, he very sharply criticized kings, princes, officials and all political orders of feudal society, but did not consider it possible to draw any practical conclusions from his criticism and demanded a patient attitude towards any, even reactionary, power. Erasmus despised the people and called them "the many-headed beast". Erasmus considered any transformation of society by a revolutionary force not only impossible, but also harmful. He considered possible and necessary only the peaceful propaganda of humanistic ideas, which would have a constant influence on real life, eliminating the most harmful aspects of tyranny. Erasmus was opposed to theocracy. In his opinion, political power should be in the hands of secular people, and the role of the clergy should not go beyond the framework of "oral propaganda." In life, Erasmus pleased high-ranking officials and treated those in power with such frank flattery, which did not do honor to this "ruler of thoughts" of the 16th century.

The combination of abstract verbal radicalism with adaptation to any reactionary reality has been characteristic, as Marx noted, for the German bourgeoisie for several centuries. This was due to its historical past and, above all, its emergence and development in an economically and politically fragmented country. Another prominent humanist and major philologist, Johann Reuchlin (1455-1522), was also distinguished by his caution and fear of practical matters. Johann Reuchlin together with Erasmus of Rotterdam humanists called "the two eyes of Germany." While serving almost all the time as a lawyer for the Dukes of Württemberg and in the court of the Swabian Union, Reuchlin felt independent in his scientific pursuits. The circle of his scientific interests was mainly philology and philosophy. Philological scholarship, vast knowledge in the field of classical literature created fame for Reuchlin throughout the educated world of Western Europe and especially among university humanistic youth, despite the fact that in essence he was even more than Erasmus, was an armchair scholar and to the same extent as the latter, tried to avoid conflicts with the official Catholic Church.

Reuchlin, like Erasmus, tried in his studies of religious and philosophical problems to prove the broad universal significance of Christian morality. He saw the mission of the Christian religion in the fact that it establishes a connection between the divine and the human and thereby emphasizes the positive significance of man's earthly life and finds the divine in man himself. Understood in this way, Christianity was already manifested, according to Reuchlin, long before the Christian era in ancient, mainly Greek, culture, and later found its manifestation not only in the bosom of the official Christian church. Influenced by the Italian humanist philosopher Pico della Mirandola, Reuchlin drew attention to some aspects of the medieval Jewish mystical teaching - "Kabbalah" "In natural and human. Reuchlin held the same idea in relation to Catholic rites, claiming that they have a symbolic meaning and indicate the connection of the deity with human actions. In this way, Reuchlin strove to show the positive role of man and the earthly world from the point of view of the Christian religion and to reconcile the ideas of humanism with Catholic dogma.

However, Reuchlin influenced wide circles of university humanists not by this conservative side of his worldview, but primarily by his broad understanding of Christianity as the ethical content of human culture among different peoples and at different times. Popularity among humanists was also gained by Reuchlin's idea that the study of the essence of Christianity should be carried out along the line of critical and linguistic research of primary sources, and not along the line of the church, dogmatic tradition. Contrary to the will of Reuchlin himself, his views became a weapon in the struggle against the official church. However, Reichlin earned the greatest fame for himself among humanists not only in Germany with his famous speech on the so-called case of Jewish books, which turned into the “Reuchlin case”.

The beginning of this "affair" dates back to 1509, when the most reactionary circles of the Catholic Church in Germany, in particular the Cologne theologians, began to seek the destruction of Jewish religious books, which, according to them, were hostile to Christianity. Asked for this case, along with other experts, Johang Reuchlin spoke out against the indiscriminate destruction of all Jewish books, some of which are important for the study of Christianity. The sharp literary controversy that began and continued until the Reformation involved in the struggle all educated circles in Germany, who were divided into two camps - the Reichlinists, which were joined by humanist circles and progressive minds, and the "dark people" (obscurantists) - supporters of Cologne theologians. The essence of the dispute boiled down to whether in the study of Christianity one should adhere to the methods of scientific criticism and research of primary sources, or strictly remain on the basis of the inviolability of the authority of Catholic dogma and papal decrees. The Reuchlinist party, which arose in the struggle against the united forces of reactionary theologians, was very variegated in its composition, but its main core was a close-knit group of humanists, whose views and demands went much further than the views and demands of Reuchlin himself.

The most prominent place among the Reichlinists was occupied by the Erfurt circle of young humanists. The leader of the circle was the prominent poet and philosopher Muzian Ruf, and its active members were the young poets Eoban Hess, Mole Rubian, Hermann Busch, the famous Ulrich von Hutten and many others. They eagerly picked up the ideas of senior humanists (Erasmus, Reuchlin) and interpreted them in a much more radical spirit than the authors themselves wanted. Equally radical was their struggle against the university pillars of scholasticism in Erfurt. In this struggle, the Mucian circle grew stronger and became very influential.

The religious and ethical views of the Erfurt circle differed from those of the teachers in that for young humanists the ethical ideal was not of such an abstract nature as for Erasmus and Reuchlin. Mole Rubian, Hutten and their other comrades saw its realization in the idea of ​​German state unity, which they understood in a peculiar way, in the unification of the forces of the Germans against papal Rome.

These features are especially striking in Gutten, the most outstanding member of the Erfurt circle and one of the most interesting representatives of German humanism in general. His early writings reflect a deep dedication to humanistic ideals and a willingness to selflessly fight for them. Gutten disdained titles, titles and academic degrees, which hid arrogance and ignorance. Gutten rejected his father's offer to get a diploma and pursue a lucrative career. He preferred the life of an itinerant poet full of hardships.

In the poem "Nemo" ("Nobody") Gutten emphasizes that the real owner of high education and humanistic morality is "nobody", that is, a person without an official position.

In 1513, after visiting Italy, Gutten began a literary struggle against Rome with his epigrams to Pope Julius II, in which he sharply exposes the Pope's immoral lifestyle and evilly ridicules indulgences: he calls Julius II a petty trader who sells the sky at retail. “Isn't it shamelessness, Julius,” he asks, “to sell what you yourself most need?” From Italy, Gutten brought with him the composition of Lorenzo Balla "On the Gift of Constantine" and published it in Germany, ironically dedicating the edition to the new Pope Leo X, who at first tried to flirt with humanism. The Turkish Speech, published by Gutten in 1513, emphasizes that without first overcoming the danger posed by the papacy, it will be impossible to cope with the Turkish danger.

Unlike most humanists, who expressed the sentiments of certain layers of the urban opposition, Hutten was associated all his life with the lower, ruined nobility. In his last letter to Erasmus, Gutten wrote that from childhood he tried to act like a knight. This is the layer of the nobility, which, according to Engels, was moving with rapid steps to its destruction and which saw its salvation in the restoration of the old empire. Gutten appealed to the strength of the German emperor and demanded that all of Germany give him support. He called on Emperor Maximilian I, and then Charles V, to organize the people and, relying mainly on chivalry, to oppose papal Rome.

Disappointed in his hopes for the emperor, Gutten joined the Reformation and turned to Luther with a proposal to wage a joint struggle against papal Rome. Despite the limitations of Gutten's chivalrous ideals and the objective reactionary nature of his political program, K. Marx and F. Engels ranked him in the Reformation camp as a “noble representative of the revolution” and called this camp by the general name of “Lutheran-knightly opposition”.

In the last years of the struggle between humanists and obscurantists around the "Reuchlin case" Ulrich von Hutten and Hermann Busch wrote a wonderful poem "The Triumph of Kapnion" (Kapnion is the Greek name for Reuchlin), imbued with the thought that Reuchlin's victory is a victory for Germany, which finally realized its spiritual strength. These are the forces of science, which has triumphed over ignorance and superstition. The same spirit was imbued with the famous satire “Letters of Dark Men” (“Epistolae obsurorum virorum”), which appeared by that time (1515-1517), in which the ignorance, hypocrisy and complete moral decay of monks, theologians and scholastics are exposed without mercy and in an exceptionally bright and witty form.

The authors of this satire are not known exactly, but at the present time it can be considered firmly established that it was compiled in the circle of Erfurt humanists and that its main authors were Gutten and Mole Rubian. "Dark people", or obscurantists, are ignorant and immoral masters and bachelors, theologians, and monks who appear in satire as correspondents of the Cologne theologian Ortuin Grazia, who was Reuchlin's worst enemy. They indulge in gluttony and debauchery, carry on endless scholastic disputes about trifles and express ridiculous judgments about the Reuchlin case, or by judgments about poetry or about classical literature in general they betray their complete ignorance.

From the first letter it is clear that gentlemen "our masters" are well versed in food and various types of beer, but they do not understand anything in Latin grammar. In another letter, some "physician, almost a doctor," asserts that "Caesar, who was always at war and was constantly busy with all kinds of great deeds, could not be a scientist and could not learn Latin" and that, therefore, Caesar cannot be considered the author of the "Notes on the Gallic War".

The very language in which the Letters of Dark Men was written is an exaggerated form of the Latin language of medieval scholasticism, corrupted by numerous barbarisms. The "dirty swamp" of theologians is opposed by humanists who, with the help of the teachings of Erasmus, Reuchlin and Mucian Rufus, will transform Christianity and make it human. Eastern Christians and Hussites will join the "ancient and true theology" restored in this way. In one of the letters, the fictional Dr. Reitz, who sympathizes with the Reichlinists, strongly opposes indulgences and argues that buying indulgences will not help someone who leads a bad life, and that, on the contrary, a sincerely repentant and reformed sinner does not need anything else.

True, the propaganda of the humanists did not go beyond the relatively narrow milieu of educated circles. They did not oppose Catholicism with a system of religious views in a form that would find a response and, by me, a figurative interpretation in different classes of society. There is no doubt, however, that the activities of the humanists were of considerable importance in the preparation of the Reformation.

Reformation literature and art

If the chivalrous ideals of Gutten could not find a response in wide public circles, then the sharp accusatory works that Gutten wrote, first in Latin and then in German, had a noisy and well-deserved success.

The deep political unrest that gripped the country before the Reformation created conditions very favorable for the development of satirical literature. It is no coincidence that almost all prominent German writers of the 16th century. were predominantly satirists. Along with Ulrich von Hutten and Erasmus of Rotterdam, there were satirists, Sebastian Brunt and Thomas Murner, who attacked the "folly" of their contemporaries. The enemies of humanism were ridiculed by Willibald Pirkheimer. The arbitrariness of knights and princes, the greed of the higher clergy and monks were denounced by the poem "Reinecke foxes" (1498), which later became the basis of the poem of the same name by Goethe. Satirical facets (1509-1512) were written by the humanist Heinrich Bebel. German writers of the 16th century - humanists, as well as those numerous authors who were not directly associated with humanistic circles, such as the monk Thomas Murner or the shoemaker Hans Sachs, touched upon the most diverse aspects of social life.

They were deeply worried about the fate of the country, they called everything that exists to the judgment of reason. Many wrote about the plight of the people (G. Bebel, E. Kord, T. Murner and others) and not only directly addressed the democratic reader, but also reflected his views and aspirations. The growth of a broad social upsurge stimulated the rise of folk literature, which at the beginning of the 16th century. has achieved notable success. The folk book about Thiel Eilenspiegel (1519), which glorifies the never-ending energy of an intelligent commoner, dates back to this time. At this time, folk songs reached a remarkable flourishing, sometimes tender, sincere, sometimes angry and formidable, especially during the years of the Great Peasant War. Even scientists-humanists sometimes listened to the voice of the people, using images and motives gleaned from everyday life. All this testifies to the fact that in the era of the Reformation, the democratic masses in Germany played a very important role not only in the social sphere, but also in the sphere of art. This can explain the stability in the 16th century. literary genres, which at one time arose on democratic soil (schwank, fastnakhtspiel - Maslenitsa performance), the writers' addiction to areal buffoonery, carnival masks and folk wit. But the knightly poetry of the Middle Ages has become a thing of the past. The legendary kingdom of King Arthur and the knights of the round table gave way to the kingdom of cunning plebeians, cheerful schoolboys, and perky buffoons. They became the favorite heroes of Schwanks and Maslenitsa performances. They stood firmly on the sinful earth, not rushing to find the fabulous Grail, not caring about serving beautiful ladies. In an effort to look into the very thick of life, German writers of the 16th century. laid the foundations of German realistic literature. This brought them closer to the writers of the Renaissance of other European countries, although it must be admitted that German literature of the 16th century. often took on rough popular prints, gravitating towards anecdotal episodes, without rising to powerful artistic generalizations. However, if we consider the German literature of the beginning of the century, then it can withstand comparison with any European literature of that time. This literature was fueled by a great social enthusiasm, which gave birth to a generation of remarkable artists of the word.

Among them was the largest German poet and playwright of the Reformation era, Hans Sachs (1494-1576). He was born in Nuremberg to a tailor family. Having received the rights of a shoemaker, he lived the life of a hardworking burgher in his hometown. Even in his youth, Sachs began to engage in the "noble art" of meistersang. Over time, he founded a school of meistersingers (singing masters) in Nuremberg and himself became one of the most famous representatives of this poetic workshop. In 1523 Sachs published the allegorical poem The Nightingale of Wittenberg, in which he warmly greeted Martin Luther. The poet calls on his contemporaries to leave the sinful Babylon (Catholic Church) and again return to the covenants of the Gospel. The poem was a great success. The young poet immediately became widely known.

Later he created many edifying fables, songs, schwanks and dramatic works. Sachs wrote for the people, for the broad democratic circles of the German city. He wrote simply, without any special undertakings, knowing well the tastes of humble workers. His best works captivate the reader with their spontaneity, gentle humor, bright cheerfulness and that captivating naivety that makes them related to many works of folk literature. Hans Sachs saw the dark sides of life. He was worried about the incipient decline of the guild craft, the increased power of money. For the sake of self-interest the big gentlemen “rip the skin off the poor,” “pluck and devour them alive,” for the sake of self-interest they trample on truth and humanity (“Selfishness is a terrible beast”, 1527). Sachs was also saddened by the discord that reigned in fragmented feudal Germany. He dreamed of peace and unity. In them he saw the salvation of the long-suffering fatherland ("Praiseworthy conversation of the gods concerning the discord that reigns in the Roman Empire", 1544). But Sachs especially eagerly wrote about ordinary people, about everything that directly surrounded him in everyday life. He loved his hometown, its beautiful buildings, its active burghers ("Praise to the City of Nuremberg", 1530). With a sly grin, he told about the fabulous country of lazy people, where rivers of milk flow, where fried ducks fall right into the mouth of a sloth, and the biggest parasite is elected king ("Schlaraffenland", 1530). Carnival excitement reigns in Hans Sachs' merry schwanks and fastnacht games: clever rogues lead fools and simpletons by the nose ("Schoolboy in Paradise", 1550), landsknechts fill the heavenly abode with noise and din ("Peter and the Landsknechts", 1577), a wide carnival with songs, dances, amusements and tomfoolery of all kinds walks the earth ("German carnival"). The poet ridicules the hypocrisy and debauchery of the priests (The Old Prostitute and the Priest, 1551), etc. From the life around him, from folk fables, Hans Sachs drew material for his numerous works. He knew both ancient authors and the creations of Italian humanists (for example, Boccaccio).

German literature reached a new noticeable upsurge at the end of the 16th century. It was at this time that folk books about Doctor Faust (1587) and Ahaspher the Eternal Jew (1602) were published, based on legends belonging to "the deepest creations of folk poetry of all peoples." F. Engels, German folk books, K. Marx and F, Engels, From early works, M. 1956, p. 347.) More than once subsequently, many outstanding writers turned to these legends. Especially great success fell to the lot of the legend of Faust (Marlowe, Lessing, Goethe, Lenau, Pushkin, etc.), which captured the daring, rebellious spirit of the Renaissance.

End of the 16th century marked also by the flowering of satire, directed mainly against the camp of feudal-Catholic reaction. A particularly harsh, merciless denouncer of the Catholic Church was Johann Fischart (1546-1590), the last prominent German writer of this era. Fishart had a passionate hatred for the papists. Papal Rome was pictured to him by the monstrous head of the Gorgon, which mortifies everything that her terrible gaze is directed at ("The Head of the Gorgon Medusa", 1577). He mocked monks, Catholic saints, the entire past and present of the Catholic Church ("The Hive of the Holy Roman Swarm of Bees," 1579). Fishart attacked the Jesuits with particular zeal. He portrayed them as a stinking fiend of hell, servants of Satan, the embodiment of all possible vices ("The Legend of the Origin of the Four-Horned Jesuit Cap", 1580). Fishart scoffed at astrology and other superstitions, glorified labor (The Happy Ship of Zurich, 1576) and advocated a reasonable humane education of children (Philosophical Book on Marriage and Education, 1578). A wide picture of modern life was painted by Fishart in his "An extraordinary story of life, deeds and libations from idleness with a full bowl of the famous knights and gentlemen Grangusier, Gargantua and Pantagruel" (1575). This bizarre book was a free adaptation of the first part of the novel Gargantua and Pantagruel by F. Rabelais. Wherever possible, Fishart intensified Rabelais' anti-Catholic satire, sharpened and multiplied his attacks against church obscurantism and mainly against monks. But the pagan freethinking of the French humanist was largely alien to him. At the same time, Fishart vigorously opposed the coarsening of morals, religious fanaticism, the arbitrariness of the monarchs, the moral decline of the nobility, the fraud of merchants and other vices of our time. Unlike Hans Sachs, Fishart did not seek clear and simple poetic forms. He liked to exaggerate colors, to pile up details, to bring down a cascade of bizarre images and episodes on the reader. Fishart called his Unusual Story "A tangled shapeless piece of a now confused and formless world." Fishart was the last major representative of the German Renaissance.

Deep shifts were observed in the 16th century. in the most varied areas of German culture. Cities such as Augsburg, Nuremberg or Strasbourg were centers of printing and book trade, arts and crafts, architecture, sculpture and painting achieved outstanding success here.

Painters and sculptors, like humanist writers, created new art that gravitated towards real life. Life, landscape and portrait occupy a prominent place in art. Even when the artists developed traditional religious subjects, they strove to overcome the conventional forms of medieval art, to bring their works closer to the truth of life. In accordance with this, the action of biblical legends is carried over to the modern setting. Sometimes artists give biblical stories a topical sound. Thus, the outstanding Nuremberg sculptor Adam Kraft (1440-1507), depicting seven episodes of the Passion of Christ, gives Christ the features of a common man suffering from the tyranny of great masters. The social characteristics are expressive in the sculptural works of Tilman Riemenschneider, who suffered severely for his participation in the Great Peasant War on the side of the insurgent people. Against the backdrop of a mountainous German landscape, the talented painter Lukae Cranach the Elder (1472-1553) portrayed the Madonna and Child. And golden hair and facial features allow us to see in Mary a typical German woman. The picture no longer contains the former icon-painting pomp. Looking thoughtfully in front of her, Mary gives the baby a juicy bunch of grapes. Before us is the apotheosis of motherhood, full of restrained lyricism, a picturesque story about the beauty of man and the earthly world around him.

Often, artists of the 16th century. completely deviate from religious biblical themes. Portrait painting is becoming widespread. Historical events and myths from classical antiquity are also beginning to attract the attention of German artists. Lucas Cranach repeatedly turned to ancient images (Venus, Apollo and Diana, Hercules at Omphale, Lucretius, etc.). However, the German artists of the XVI century. the pagan spirit of ancient art, which so attracted the Italian masters of the Renaissance, was largely alien. Even the greatest German artist of the 16th century. Albrecht Durer (1471-1528), whom F. Engels named among the titans of the Renaissance, was largely alienated from the classical ideal of the Italian Renaissance. Responding to the turbulent events of his time, he filled the biblical stories of the Nazis with disgraced folk content (for example, the cycles of woodcuts: "Apocalypse", "The Life of Mary" and "Passion"). In engravings on the themes of the Apocalypse (1498), he seemed to predict the proximity of terrible events, the proximity of an inevitable judgment that would break out over the kingdom of great untruth. Dürer did a lot for the development of landscape and still life in Germany. His remarkable portraits are striking with great realistic force (portrait of the Nuremberg merchant Jerome Holzschuer, etc.). The breath of the mighty liberation movement is fanned by his monumental painting The Four Apostles (1526), ​​which depicts the stately figures of unyielding fighters for the idea. In his theoretical works, Dürer sought to acquaint novice artists with the basics of painting and drawing. He paid great attention to issues of perspective, "human proportion", etc., firmly convinced that the artist's strength lies in the truth of life. "Art is contained in nature," he wrote, "whoever can draws art from it and owns it."

Hans Holbein the Younger (1497-1543), an outstanding graphic artist and painter, one of the most remarkable European portrait painters of the Renaissance, also aspired to the truth of life. Like Dürer, he responded to the turbulent events that shook Germany at the beginning of the 16th century. In this respect, the famous cycle of small woodcuts on wood "Dance of Death" (1524-1526), ​​delicately executed by Hans Lützelburger after the drawings of Holbein, is noteworthy. The artist also plays the role of a satirist here. He depicts how death equalizes people, how it entails both a well-fed abbot, and a cardinal who sells indulgences, and an arrogant duke who knows no pity for the poor, and an greedy judge, etc. The events of the Great Peasant War are directly hinted at in the engraving , which depicts a count in the clothes of a peasant, fleeing in fright from death, breaking his coat of arms. Holbein's subtle irony is in many ways akin to Erasmus of Rotterdam. It is no coincidence, of course, that Holbein so well illustrated The Praiseworthy Word of Stupidity. Still the most significant thing in Holbein's creative legacy is his portraits. Even when Holbein painted Madonna of the Burgomaster Mseyer (1525-1526), ​​he remained primarily a master of everyday portraiture. Did he portray enterprising merchants (Georg Giesse, 1532), jewelers, burgomasters, sailors, scientists (astronomer N. Kratzer), humanists (Erasmus of Rotterdam, Thomas More), the English king (Henry VIII), queens (Jen Seymour, Anna Klevskaya), ministers, courtiers, diplomats (C. Morette) or himself, he always found the exact means to convey the human character. He avoided court flattery, high-class impertinence. His portraits are frank and truthful. Everything in them is clear and precise, every detail is carefully worked out. Holbein's pencil portrait sketches, which form one of the peaks in the history of world drawing, should be especially noted. Thomas More had every reason to call Holbein "an amazing artist."

The landscape was a great achievement of the new painting. People finally saw the beauty of nature and fell in love with it. Dürer (for example, engraving "Adam and Eve", 1504) and Cranach ("Rest of the Holy Family on the Way to Egypt", engravings: "Judgment of Paris", 1508, " St. Jerome "," Repentance of John Chrysostom "," Landscape with a chapel ", 1509, etc.). At the same time, living German nature, so well known to Eddians, invaded foreign legends.

As feudal reaction developed in the wake of the failure of the popular uprising of 1525, German realistic art began to rapidly decline. In painting and graphics, mannerism was established. The former power of the image has disappeared. Perhaps it was only in landscape painting that the realistic tradition was preserved (Adam Elsheimer, 1578-1610). In German art of the second half of the 16th century. we will no longer find artists who, in skill and realistic expressiveness, could compare with Dürer or Holbein.

3. The beginning of the Reformation. Martin Luther and Thomas Munzer

Political situation in Germany in the early years of the reform movement

Discontent swept across various strata of German society at the beginning of the 16th century. Neither the imperial power, nor the large territorial princes could stop the growing revolutionary movement of the popular masses inside the country and the rise of oppositional moods of burghers and chivalry. A revolutionary situation was developing in Germany. Oppositional currents remained disunited for a long time. Only when, on the basis of a wide social upsurge, opposition and revolutionary ideas in religious form became widespread, did the various elements of the opposition begin to unite. But even then, the tendency to unite all revolutionary and opposition elements into one common camp opposing the reactionary Catholic camp manifested itself only for a very short time and soon gave way to an internal split and the formation of two large camps - burgher-reformist and revolutionary, opposing the third - reactionary -catholic camp.

Pointing to this, Engels emphasizes that the division into three camps was only approximate, because in the conditions of fragmented Germany, the first two camps contained partly the same elements. ( See F. Engels, The Peasant War in Germany, K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch., Vol. 7, p. 359.) Some of the secular princes interested in the secularization of church lands joined the anti-Catholic camp. On the other hand, many townspeople and knights remained in the reactionary Catholic camp.

Martin Luther's first speeches

Luther's speech on October 31, 1517 with 95 theses against indulgences is associated with the beginning of the reformation movement.

Born in 1483 in the city of Eisleben (Saxony), Martin Luther grew up in a burgher environment amid growing opposition in German cities against the Catholic clergy. As a student at the University of Erfurt, Luther became closely acquainted with members of the circle of radical humanists, under whose influence he was at one time. Imbued with the mood of the opposition burghers, Luther, contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church, tried to show that a person and his secular life should not be considered as sinful in their essence and devoid of any positive moral and religious content.

Luther proclaimed that the church and the clergy are not mediators between man and God. He declared false the claims of the papal church that it can give people through the sacraments "forgiveness of sins" and "salvation of the soul" due to the special properties with which it is allegedly endowed. The main point put forward by Luther is that a person achieves "salvation" (or "justification") not through the church and its rites, but with the help of "faith" bestowed upon him directly by God. The meaning of this provision lies not only in the non-recognition of the claims of the clergy to a dominant position in the world, but also in the fact that, having declared man's "faith" as the only means of his communication with God, Luther at the same time argued that both the worldly life of man and the entire worldly order , which provides a person with the opportunity to surrender to "faith" is an important point in the Christian religion. Thus, he expressed the common desire of the burghers to get rid of the political and ideological power of the papal church and the Catholic clergy, to give importance and power of religious authority to secular institutions and the secular state.

With the assertion that “faith” is the only means of saving the soul, Luther linked another provision on restoring the authority of “holy scripture” instead of the Catholic authority of “sacred tradition,” that is, the authority of papal decrees, epistles, decisions of church councils, etc.

Luther's thesis on "justification by faith", already contained in 95 theses and developed by him in his other early works, could have become, in the atmosphere of that time, an ideological weapon of the burghers in the struggle to establish new principles of the political system. However, Luther's Reformation doctrine also reflected the class limitations of the German burghers. Luther did not develop his teaching in the direction that would lead to the conclusion about the need to change the existing order in society. Any political structure seemed to Martin Luther as a necessary moment of the Christian religion: he considered any revolutionary action against the existing order unacceptable.

Consequently, the burgher reformer actually only gave the feudal system a new religious foundation. In practice, Luther's reformation, which rejected dogmas and rituals in their Catholic understanding, meant a decrease in the role of the clergy and the proclamation of secular relations - without changing them in essence - the basis of the inner religiosity of Christians. Marx drew attention to the fact that the internal religiosity proclaimed by Luther is as intended for the enslavement of the people as the external religiosity of the Catholic Church that he rejected. “Luther,” wrote Marx, “conquered slavery out of piety only by substituting slavery out of conviction in its place. He shattered faith in authority, restoring the authority of faith. He turned priests into laymen, turning laymen into priests. He freed man from external religiosity, making religiosity the inner world of man. He emancipated the flesh from the fetters by putting fetters on the heart of man. " Thus, the German burghers, in the person of Luther against the Catholic Church, did not dare to declare the need to change social relations themselves.

And yet, in the tense situation in Germany, Luther's theses had, in the words of Engels, "an incendiary effect like a lightning strike into a barrel of gunpowder." Engels writes that at first they found themselves in Luther's theses an all-embracing expression and, with amazing speed, united around them the "diverse", mutually intersecting aspirations of knights and burghers, peasants and plebeians who sought the sovereignty of princes and lower clergy, secret mystical sects and literary scholars and burlesque-satirical - opposition ... ". At the same time, various elements of the opposition put their own social demands into Luther's religious formulas. This is especially true of the masses, who went much further than Luther himself in understanding the theses and goals of the reformation movement he raised and who did not delve into the scholastic subtleties of Luther's restrictive interpretations contained in the theses and in his other theological writings. They saw in the theses what they wanted to see themselves, and not what their author had in mind. The Reformation was perceived by the masses as a demand not only for reforms in church affairs, but also for social liberation.

The widespread social movement that arose in Germany did not give the Pope and the higher Catholic clergy an opportunity to quickly put an end to Luther, as they wanted. In the midst of this movement, Luther at first took a firm position in relation to the papal curia. He openly admitted that in his teachings he largely followed Jan Huss, and stated publicly at a dispute in Leipzig in 1519 that the famous Czech reformer had been wrongly condemned by the Council of Constance and burned. In the heat of the struggle with papal Rome, Luther in 1520 even turned to the theses of the teachings of the Czech Taborites and demanded to rush "at the cardinals, popes and the entire pack of Roman Sodom" with arms in hand and "stain their hands with blood." In the same year, Luther publicly burned a papal bull declaring him excommunicated. Luther's decisive stance against the papacy placed him at the center of a popular movement that had an extremely important political significance and was a necessary stage in the struggle against the humiliated state of fragmented Germany.

The beginning of the split in the Reformation camp

However, this period, when the spearhead of the struggle was directed against papal Rome, when the activities and teachings of Luther attracted the approval of all strata of the heterogeneous public opposition, did not last long. Already in 1520-1521. disagreements between the social groups that joined the Reformation were determined and open uprisings were prepared.

Under the leadership of Franz von Sickingen, preparations were made for the uprising of chivalry. The literary activity of the famous poet and humanist knight Ulrich von Hutten was the ideological preparation for this uprising. Hutten and Franz von Sickingen called Luther to the camp of the preparing knightly uprising. The leaders of the chivalry wanted the Reformation to take on the character of an open struggle of the empire against papal Rome. They hoped that such a struggle would bring imperial chivalry to the fore and restore its former political significance.

In essence, the political program of the German knighthood was doomed to failure in advance. As Engels pointed out, the reactionary plan of transforming Germany with its rich and powerful cities into a feudal empire dominated by the petty nobility could not attract not only the masses, but also the rich and average townspeople. The isolation of chivalry and the political groundlessness of its program became especially obvious in 1522. The uprising of the nobility of West German lands under the leadership of Sikkingen against the Archbishop of Trier did not meet with a sympathetic response even in the city of Trier of the Reformation, peasant unrest in some places and the organization of secret unions of the "Shoe". Already in these unions, the demands for the elimination of feudal oppression were argued for the need to restructure all relations between people on the basis of "divine justice." The interpreters of the "word of God" among the peasants were representatives of popular heretical sects, for whom their own interpretation of the "Holy Scripture" has long become a means of expressing social protest. Previously, the activities of such sects consisted in preaching the departure from the "spoiled" world to their own special closed sect and the expectation that a social revolution would be accomplished by God. Now, in the tense atmosphere of the growing anti-feudal struggle of the peasant masses, the propaganda of passive expectation is giving way to calls for revolutionary action. It was in this spirit that the meaning and significance of the Reformation was interpreted among the common people, and at the very beginning it was easily suppressed by the spiritual and secular princes Sikkingen was mortally wounded during the storming of his castle by the princely army, and Gutten fled to Switzerland and soon died there.

A real threat to the entire social and political system of feudal and princely Germany was posed by the growing revolutionary movement of the masses, which not only received a special impulse in the rising reformation movement, but also sought to impart a revolutionary character to the reformation itself. The feudal extortions and the general oppression of the senior reaction, which intensified in the 15th century, caused, as noted above, peasant unrest in some places and the organization of secret unions "Baschmak" before the reformation. Already in these unions, the demands for the elimination of feudal oppression were argued by the need to rebuild all relations between people on the basis of "divine justice." The interpreters of the "word of God" among the peasants were representatives of popular heretical sects, for whom their own interpretation of the "Holy Scripture" has long become a means of expressing social protest. Previously, the activities of such sects consisted in preaching the departure from the "spoiled" world to their own special closed sect and the expectation that a social revolution would be accomplished by God. Now, in the tense atmosphere of the growing anti-feudal struggle of the peasant masses, the propaganda of passive waiting is giving way to calls for revolutionary action. It was in this spirit that the meaning and significance of the reformation was interpreted among the common people.

Thomas Munzer

The most striking exponent of the popular understanding of the reform was the greatest figure in the peasant-plebeian camp of the era of the Reformation and the Great Peasant War, Thomas Münzer.

Münzer was born in the 90s of the XV in one of the centers of the mining industry in Germany - in the Harz, in the city of Stolberg.He achieved a high level of education for that time and was familiar with ancient and humanistic literature.However, the narrow nature of the humanist movement and especially the tendency of the German Manists to abstract contemplation remained alien to the active nature of Munzer. Even more alien to Munzer was the contemptuous and indifferent attitude of the humanists to the needs of the masses. Münzer chose an active priest for himself, who, in the conditions of that time, gave him the opportunity to constantly communicate with the masses. But his religious philosophy was far from the official church theology. Freely handling the texts of the “Holy Scriptures”, he interpreted them in an anti-church spirit. Founded by Münzer in 1513 in Hapla, a secret alliance against the Magdeburg Archbishop was directed against the Roman Church in general.

Supporting in the first years of the reformation movement the struggle against the Catholic Church started by Luther, Münzer already then came out with his own special interpretation of the nature and goals of this struggle.In 1520-1521, participating in a common struggle with the followers of Luther against the monks of the Franciscan order in the Saxon city of Zwickau, Münzer spoke against a number of the provisions of Luther and at the same time put forward the basic principles of his own teaching. Münzer strongly rejected Luther's thesis about the need for passive humility in secular affairs. Bearing in mind Luther and his supporters, he sharply spoke out in Zwickau against the "scribes" who see the essence of the new teaching only in the "letter", only in the formal proclamation of the authority of the "holy scripture", and leave intact the evil existing in the world - the robbery of the people by the masters , the rich and the princes. Calling on the masses to eliminate evil — to overthrow the godless princes and destroy their oppressors, Müntzer pointed out that this was the main task of the new, reform movement. He sharply opposed the idea of ​​a "merciful" God standing above the world and demanding humility and submission to existing violence from people. According to the pantheistic views of Müntzer, there is no God outside ourselves, outside the earthly world, Münzer attached social significance to the Divine. In the concept of God, he put the idea of ​​subordination of individual interests to public ones. Müntzer's references to the authority of the "word of God" and "Holy Scripture" served him as an argument in his propaganda of a revolutionary social upheaval.

At that time, Engels writes, "all attacks on feudalism expressed in a general form and, above all, attacks on the church, all revolutionary - social and political - doctrines should have been predominantly theological heresies at the same time." F. Engels, Peasant Warrior in Germany, K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch., Vol. 7, p. 361.) In essence, Munzer had in mind in his sermons only the fate of people in earthly life. He himself explains that when he speaks of “heaven” and “heavenly,” he means only earthly life purified from evil. Opposing Luther's understanding of the "word of God", Münzer argued that it should be understood as the word "living", "revelation of God" in the human mind. In this interpretation, the human mind essentially takes the place of God. According to Engels, for Münzer "faith is nothing more than the awakening of reason in a person, and therefore pagans could also have faith." Engels therefore concludes that "the religious philosophy of Münzer approached atheism."

Luther's transition to the side of the princes

Thus, already in 1521 the general reformation movement disintegrated and its special directions were determined, expressing the socio-political interests of different classes. The new situation required Luther to define his own political position. He could no longer confine himself to the secular order of vague general formulas, which were subjected to different interpretations; he had to clearly declare his position in the unfolding political and social struggle. Luther refused to support the opposition movement of chivalry and spoke out sharply against the social demands of the masses, emphasizing that the basis of his reformation was unconditional obedience to the existing order and government. Thus, Luther entered the path of a break with the broad movement that supported him in the struggle against papal Rome.

True, Luther continued to treat the papacy with the same intransigence even when the German emperor intervened in 1521 in the struggle between the German Reformation and papal Rome. The emperor of the Habsburg dynasty Charles V, who was at the same time the king of Spain with its vast possessions in the New World, sought to include the empire in the universal power of the Habsburgs and to use the centralized Catholic Church as an instrument of his great-power policy. Charles V announced that the world monarchy of the Habsburgs, which included the "Holy Roman Empire", would at the same time form a single Catholic world power. At the Worms Reichstag in 1521, Charles V and the Catholic princes demanded that Luther renounce his teachings. Luther categorically rejected this demand and resolutely declared: "On this I stand and cannot do otherwise!" However, having taken a firm position in relation to the demands of the emperor and the Catholic princes, Luther saw his support not in the broad peoples of the movement, but in the opposition of strong secular princes who, in the same Worms Reichstag, again carried out their program of imperial reforms (organization of an imperial court, etc.) .). After the imperial edict was issued in Worms, condemning him as a heretic, Luther hid in the castle of the Saxon elector.

From that time on, Luther's reformation became increasingly and sickly with the support and instrument of the reactionary German princes. In 1523, in On Secular Power, Luther showed his commitment to their policies with the utmost clarity. As brutal as secular power may be, Luther argued, Christians are obliged to obey it implicitly and recognize it as "sacred" because it provides "order" and the opportunity for Christian "humility." Luther, thus, declared the princely omnipotence to be the mainstay of the Reformation, thus expressing the political limitations of that part of the German burghers of the 16th century, which, at the moment of the growth of the revolutionary movement against feudalism, clung to the existing order as the only basis for possible reforms.

Socio-political doctrine and revolutionary activities of Thomas Münzer

Meanwhile, the wave of the popular movement continued to grow, and the bright figure of Thomas Münzer stood out against its background. He exposed Luther as a princely sycophant and sycophant. Müntzer argued that only princes and other oppressors of the people were interested in Luther's preaching of humility and obedience in secular affairs.

Peasant giving a speech. The title page of the brochure "The Sermon of the Verda Peasant on the Free Will of Man." 1524 g.

Having finally broken at the end of 1521 with Luther, Müpzer soon turned to a teaching that was associated with the active struggle of the masses - to the revolutionary traditions of the Czech Taborites. In the summer of 1521, Munzer went to Bohemia, believing that a new, revolutionary understanding of the reformation should spread from here. An appeal to the Czechs, published by Münzer in Prague, called for the extermination of the oppressors of the people and said that the actions begun in the Czech Republic would be a signal to other countries. Having declared himself the successor of the Taborites, Münzer, in his propaganda for the Reformation, called for a peasant uprising.

Returning to Germany, Münzer settled in Thuringia. However, he was forced to often change his place of residence due to constant harassment from the local authorities. His calls for struggle, which were spread orally and in print throughout the various lands of Central and South-West Germany, attracted huge masses of peasants and urban plebs. Around Müntzer, groups of his disciples and closest supporters arose everywhere, mainly from among the then existing popular sects, especially the Anabaptist sect. ( Anabaptists ("re-baptized") - a sect that demanded that baptism be accepted in adulthood. Under this religious shell, various Anabaptist currents developed their teachings, which were essentially a social protest against the feudal system.) In an atmosphere of rapid upsurge in the popular movement, the Anabaptists, instead of their previous propaganda of "inner perfection" and passive expectation of a coup d'etat, which would be accomplished by God, launched an extensive activity to disseminate the ideas of Müntzer.

The social and political ideas of Thomas Münzer went far beyond the immediate interests and ideas of the peasants and plebs of that time. According to Engels, Münzer had in mind in the future "... a social system in which there will no longer exist neither class differences, nor private property, nor isolated, opposed to members of society and state power alien to them." F. Engels, The Peasant War in Germany, K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch., Vol. 7, p. 371.) It is quite obvious that in the XVI century. there were no prerequisites for any correct and scientific understanding of the future society. Munzer's ideas about the immediate tasks of the struggle were due to his time and remained within the framework of equalization; his dreams of an ideal structure could only be a “anticipation by fantasy,” as Engels put it, of the distant future. They were devoid of any specific outlines and, moreover, clothed in a mystical form. However, in the context of the rising wave of antifeudal revolution, it became very important that in Muenzer's propaganda the society of the future was viewed only as a result of the people's revolutionary struggle against their oppressors. Müntzer argued that the first priority was to free the people from the oppression of the exploiters and to meet their daily needs.

The ideal of the future society, vaguely imagined by Münzer, did not distract him from the issues of anti-feudal struggle. On the contrary, Müntzer constantly had in mind the struggle of the peasant masses for their daily needs. Münzer directed his sharp protests against private property against the property of wealthy owners, which was the source of oppression of the people. He included small-peasant property in the concept of "community of property" and considered the struggle for it necessary and just. Especially vigorously Münzer defended communal peasant property from the encroachments of the feudal lords. “Pay attention to the fact,” wrote Muntzer, “that the basis of all usury, theft and robbery is our masters and princes. They appropriated every creature as their property. Fish in the water, birds in the air, all vegetation on earth - everything should belong to them. Therefore, they spread God's commandment among the poor and say: God commanded: do not steal; this does not apply to them, although they strip the skin and meat from the poor plowman, artisan and all living things. "

Münzer dreamed of a society in which there would be no exploitation and no class domination. In essence, he called for the overthrow of the feudal system and the entire political system that served this system in Germany "All power," Munzer wrote and said repeatedly, "must be given to the common people." During his wanderings in German lands before the outbreak of the Peasant War and during the war itself, Münzer vyudou created popular unions, which were supposed to lead the struggle of the masses, and then establish a new order. Munzer's slogan about the need for the transfer of power to the people was closely connected with his calls for the overthrow of princes and the destruction of noble castles and monasteries.

Müntzer's desire to give the anti-feudal struggle of the masses a political direction was at the same time a desire for the revolutionary establishment of the state unity of Germany. Germany, Munzer declared, must cease to be a princely and nobleman, because, covered with princely nests, it is a "hearth of robbers."

4. Peasant war

The beginning of the Peasant War. The emergence of the first revolutionary program of the insurgents ("Article letter")

Munzer's vigorous defense of the vital needs of the broad masses of the people made him the leader of the peasant-plebeian camp, which in 1524 went over to open struggle. The Great Peasant War, which was the highest expression of the class struggle of the German peasantry, was at the same time the culmination of the entire social movement of that era. The peasant war began in the southern Black Forest and in the neighboring lands of the Upper Rhine and Upper Danube, which were in the 15th and early 16th centuries. the area of ​​the most intense peasant movement. The political struggle of various opposition groups in this area near the Swiss border was also more violent than in the rest of Germany. In the reformation movement, trends that were more radical than Lutheranism prevailed here, and were not limited to demands for changes in church affairs. In burgher circles, the political propaganda of the Swiss reformer Zwingli enjoyed considerable influence. In the popular shah of the city and village, the disciples and supporters of Münzer with great success spread the ideas of the popular understanding of the Reformation - the idea of ​​a social revolution.

The first events of the Peasant War date back to the summer of 1524. In the Landgrave of Stühlingen, northeast of the city of Waldshut on the Upper Rhine, the peasants of the villages of Bopdorf, Ewantingen, Botmaringen and others rebelled against their feudal lords Counts von Lupfen. This was followed by even more numerous groups of peasants in the lands between the Upper Rhine and the Upper Danube - Gegau, Kletgau, Baar and in the Southern Black Forest. In all these lands, the peasants filed complaints with the feudal lords, in which they outraged the facts of increased feudal oppression. The Stühlingen peasants, as well as the peasants of the Counts Fürstenberg and Schellenberg, in numerous detailed articles of their complaints pointed to the expansion of corvee and the desire of the masters to extend serfdom to all peasants. They demanded the abolition of all new services and duties introduced over the past decades.

The Lupfens, Fürstenbergs and other large feudal lords of this area tried to split the ranks of the rebels by means of threats and verbal promises. At first, they managed to persuade the peasant leaders to a compromise agreement. However, the peasant mass continued to insist on their demands and rejected the announcement. In October 1524, the entire region of the Upper Rhine and the Southern Black Forest was already engulfed in revolt. In a number of places, the peasants refused to fulfill their feudal duties and began to gather in smaller and larger detachments.

The demands made by the peasants and the rapid spread of the uprising caused surprise and fear among the feudal lords, who expressed their confidence in the presence of revolutionary propaganda and a certain organizing force here. Contemporaries drew attention to the fact that, simultaneously with the spread of the peasant uprising, the reformation movement in the cities of this region also assumed the character of open demonstrations. In Waldshut, broad masses of the townspeople achieved the return to the city of their beloved preacher Balthasar Hubmeier, who was at that time a student of Thomas Münzer, who had been expelled from there earlier. The same events took place in Kenzingen and in a number of other towns in the region. In the circles of the feudal lords and city authorities, it was considered undeniable that there was a direct connection between the protests in the cities in defense of the popular preachers of the Reformation and the rapid growth of the peasant uprising.

This confidence was well founded. At the end of the summer and autumn of 1524, Müpzer was in the area, in Klettgau, from where he and his supporters traveled to villages and towns. The propaganda of Müntzer and the Anabaptists connected with him became an organizing factor in the atmosphere of peasant unrest that had spontaneously begun here. Complaints made by peasants and town shams against local gentlemen were united by Münzer propagandists into a general program expressing the discontent of the oppressed people. The general demand for the introduction of “divine law,” which was popular in the era of the Reformation, was interpreted by them as a demand for a new social order. Thus, at the end of 1524 (or in January 1525), the first program of the revolutionary peasantry, known as the Artikelbrief, was drawn up here, in the circle of Münzer, intended to serve as an introduction to all the various local demands and complaints of peasants. communities.

The “article letter” begins with an energetic statement that the status quo cannot and should not continue further. “Since until now,” it says, “great burdens have been imposed on the poor and ordinary people of cities and villages ... burdens can neither be endured nor tolerated, unless a simple poor person wants to let himself go all over the world with a beggarly staff, his offspring and the offspring of his offspring. " The task of the united people is to "free themselves completely." A peaceful solution to this problem is possible only if the whole people rebuild their lives on the basis of serving the “common good”. If the existing hardships are not eliminated, then the matter will not do without bloodshed. Much attention is paid in the "Letter of Articles" to the inner unity of the people's union, created to serve the "common good". The document declares that those who refuse to join the “fraternal association” and care about the “common good” cannot count on the services of other members of society. They must be subjected to "secular excommunication" like atrophied members of the body. All castles of the nobility and all monasteries, which are centers of treachery and popular oppression, must be declared "from this very moment" in a state of secular excommunication. Only those noblemen, monks and priests who abandon their present position, go to ordinary houses and want to join a fraternal association, will be friendly received along with their property and receive everything that is due to them by "divine right".

The "letter of articles" was the first general program of the insurgent peasantry, which formulated the antifeudal goals of its struggle and indicated the main enemy centers against which the forces of the entire people should be directed. In addition, the program was drawn up in a fighting spirit that did not allow compromise. The demand of the revolutionary program that the united popular masses of villages and cities, acting by force and not stopping before bloodshed, liquidate the foci of the enemy and establish a just order based on the "common benefit", was essentially a demand for the transfer of power to the common people, on which Müntzer insisted. In spite of the fact that the ideas of the “common good” and the people's power, which were the basis of the "Article Letter", could then be understood by only a few, its appearance and distribution had an important organizing role at this first stage of the Peasant War.

True, not all those gathered in the peasant detachments followed the tactics of the "Letter of Articles". Many leaders trustingly went to negotiations with the gentlemen, weakening the peasant detachments. However, there were many revolutionary elements among the insurgent masses who rejected the path of negotiations. For these elements, organizationally unrelated to each other, the "Letter of Articles" became a program of revolutionary tactics, although they understood and pursued them in different ways.

One of the revolutionary peasant detachments operated in the Breg Valley, near Donaueschingen. The core of this detachment consisted of poor peasants who were serfs and dependent of the city of Willingen. In November 1524, the leaders of this detachment submitted their demands (consisting of 16 articles) to the magistrate of Willingen to free the peasants from all extortions and duties and to grant them complete freedom in the use of communal lands. The leaders of the peasants of the Bragg Valley appealed to the neighboring peasants of other feudal lords with an appeal to join them for joint action against all the masters of the area. At the same time, the Willingen magistrate informed the peasant detachments of his proposals for a compromise solution to all controversial issues. The appeal of the Willingen magistrate had an effect on many moderate leaders, including Hans Müller of Bulgenbach, the leader of the largest detachment in the area, the core of which consisted of Stüllingen peasants. Baar, in which serious disagreements began between the supporters of an agreement with the gentlemen and supporters of the continuation of the revolutionary struggle. Taking advantage of internal disagreements among the peasants, the magistrate of Willingen on December 13, 1524 sent an army, which suddenly attacked the revolutionary detachment of the Breg Valley and defeated it. This was the first bloody clash between the rebellious peasants and their masters.

The hopes of the Willingen magistrate and other masters of this region of the Upper Rhine for a quick suppression of the uprising did not materialize. The detachment of Breg peasants was revived again. Such rapidly forming detachments operated throughout the area, uniting with each other and with the peasants of neighboring areas.

The organizing importance of Münzer's propaganda and the "Letter of the Letter" increased with the further expansion of the area engulfed in the uprising and the formation of large peasant camps in Upper Swabia.

The beginning of the Peasant War in Upper Swabia

The first armed uprisings of the peasants, which marked the beginning of the Peasant War in Upper Swabia, took place in February 1525 in the region of Kempten and Kaufbeiren, in Al-Gau. The first to rise were the peasants of the Kempten Monastery, who had previously been in constant struggle with the abbots, who carried out the polygon of their forcible enslavement.

In late 1524 and early 1525, the peasants drew up a list of their complaints against the Kemptenian abbot. However, their struggle took a higher form in February 1525, when a wave of peasant unrest and the propaganda of Münzer's supporters reached the Allgäu. Kempten peasants gathered at Luibas and decided to abandon the trial of the case raised against the abbot. The point is now, they said, not about the court on the basis of the existing disposition, but about the establishment of a new order based on "divine right", according to which there should be no monasteries or noble castles. Serfs and dependent peasants of other spiritual and secular feudal lords of the Allgäu joined the Kemptenian peasants. Deciding to immediately introduce "divine right", the peasants immediately took action. Feudal lords fled in panic to the largest castles and for the monastic yen. However, the scope of the unfolding revolutionary actions of the entire peasant mass was so great that even the most fortified castles could not withstand. The peasants took possession of many castles and monasteries and destroyed them.

The same events unfolded in late February and early March throughout Upper Swabia, in the area between Lake Constance and the Upper Danube. Peasant camps and detachments arose everywhere, monasteries and noble castles were destroyed.

The Allgäus knight Werdenstein tells in the chronicle he left how his serfs, after the decision to introduce “divine right”, gathered at night in front of his castle in a large crowd and angrily spoke of their plight and existing inequality, “You are drinking wine here,” shouted from the crowd , - and we just have to drink water and scratch out an insignificant food from the ground with our nails! " The next day, the knight says, all of his peasants came to the castle and announced their refusal to pay fees and bear duties. To the knight's question: "What do you accuse me, dear brothers, and what have I done to you?" - the blacksmith, on behalf of all the peasants, answered him: "Nothing special, just what all the gentlemen are doing, but we don't want to have masters at all!" The peasants also demanded that they be given another priest who "correctly preaches the word of God."

The feudal lords of other regions of Upper Swabia also tell about the same. From these stories one can judge what a huge influence the propaganda of the reformation in a revolutionary spirit had on the rebellious peasant masses, the interpretation of "divine right" as the elimination of feudal lords and the destruction of their castles.

Struggle of trends in peasant camps in Upper Swabia and the emergence of "12 Articles"

The demand for the introduction of "divine law" became in Upper Swabia, as well as in other places engulfed in the Peasant War, the general demand of all the rebels. However, in the large peasant camps that arose in the areas of the cities of Kempten, Kaufbeiren, Memmingen, Biberach, Ulm, Leipheim and Lake Constance, there was no unity in understanding the essence of "divine right". While the revolutionaries interpreted it in the spirit of the "Letter of Articles" - as a demand for the elimination of all masters, the supporters of moderate tactics, who were under the influence of the Swiss reformer Zwingli, understood the slogan of "divine right" only to demand the mitigation of the existing feudal hardships and the abolition of the serfdom of the peasants ... The propaganda of moderate tactics was a success among well-to-do peasants and many leaders. The masses of the poor peasantry, as well as the urban plebs, eagerly listened to the revolutionary speeches of Müntzer's supporters.

Title page "12 Articles". 1525 g.

The internal struggle in the peasant camps in Upper Swabia, which had its roots in the social heterogeneity of the insurgent masses, impeded their concerted actions and weakened them in the struggle against the masters and with the Swabian Union, which began to gather military forces to suppress the uprising. And even after the three main detachments of Upper Swabia formed the "Christian Association" at the beginning of March 1525, no unity was reached on the issue of understanding the "divine right". The main leaders of the "Christian Association", adhering to moderate tactics, entered into negotiations with the Swabian Union for an armistice, which the gentlemen sought to gain time and complete their military training. But the peasant masses acted in the spirit of the "Letter of Articles", destroyed the noble castles and monasteries, established contacts with the urban lower classes and exposed the treacherous plans of the Swabian Union.

In the circles of moderate leaders, a summary of peasant demands was then compiled, generalized on the basis of "divine right" in its moderate interpretation and supported, with the help of some Zwinglian preachers, by references to "Holy Scripture." This is how the "12 Articles" program was born. The articles of this program and the introduction to it speak of the peaceful intentions of the peasants, that they only want to mitigate the feudal oppression. Demanding the abolition of the small tithe, Article 2 recognizes the validity of the large tithe, that is, the tithe from grain crops and wants only its more equitable use - for the maintenance of the priests elected by the community and for the needs of the community. Article 4 recognizes the legality of duties based on existing feudal documents. Articles 6 and 7 express a request for the relief of numerous extortions and corvee, but not for the complete abolition of these duties. Other articles demand free fishing and hunting in rivers and lakes and free use of other communal lands. Demands for the abolition of the serfdom of the peasants (Article 3) and the posthumous extortion, the origin of which is also associated with the serfdom (Article 11), were resolutely drafted.

As we can see, "12 Articles" dealt with the most pressing issues of peasant life, which were the object of centuries of struggle. This, first of all, explains their widespread distribution among the insurgent peasants and their transformation into a program common to all strata of the peasantry. However, the peaceful tone of the "12 Articles" and the reservations they contained did not produce the effect on which the authors had hoped for the rebellious mass. On the contrary, broad strata of peasants combined the specific and popular demands of the “12 Articles” with revolutionary tactics and “Article Writing”, which they still adhered to, disregarding and not recognizing the truce concluded by the leaders of the Christian Association. The calculations of the leaders of the Swabian Union and the gentlemen on the internal disintegration of the peasant camps were not justified. The "12 Articles" became, in fact, the general program of the antifeudal struggle. Open hostilities became inevitable.

In this tense situation, much depended on the situation in the cities, which inspired the feudal lords with considerable concern. The plebeian masses openly expressed their sympathy for the peasants and helped them. The information received by the Swabian Union about the moods of the urban lower classes convinced its leaders that the city authorities themselves would not cope with the situation, that the further successes of the revolutionary peasants could set in motion the middle strata of the townspeople. The leaders feared for the fate of the Swabian Union itself, which was threatened with collapse if the cities fell away.

Aware of the danger of the current situation, the leaders of the Swabian Union decided to speed up events, since they were convinced that time was working for the peasants: more and more forces were arriving in the peasant camps; the peasants' ties with the urban lower classes are becoming more and more stronger. In early April 1525, the commander of the troops of the Swabian Union, Georg Truchses, having violated the truce concluded with moderate peasant leaders, suddenly attacked a peasant camp near Leipheim, near Ulm. Having defeated the peasants here, Truchses moved his regular forces against the poorly armed and organizationally unconnected main peasant camps of Upper Swabia. The advantages of the troops of the Swabian Union in armament and military organization were obvious. And yet Trukhzes' calculations to put an end to the peasants in one blow did not materialize.

Truchses' treacherous attack on the Leipheim camp caused a new powerful wave of revolutionary uprisings of the peasant masses, which went far beyond the borders of Upper Swabia and the Black Forest, spreading throughout Central Germany. Separate detachments of revolutionary peasants offered fierce resistance to Trukhzes. In the mountainous regions Trukhzes was forced to resort to a long trench warfare. Near the town of Weingarten, north of Lake Constance, Truchses, squeezed by peasant detachments, felt, by his own admission, the danger of a military catastrophe.

But Trukhzes sought to exploit more than the military advantages of his regular troops. He paid considerable attention to demoralizing the peasants by negotiating with the leaders of individual detachments, opposing some detachments to others and acting everywhere by deception, blackmail and betrayal. In this Trukhzes was assisted by those peasant leaders from the wealthy strata who, according to Engels, "had something to lose." They listened to the exhortations of Trukhzes and went to negotiations with him, thus introducing corruption and demoralization into the ranks of the peasants. Trukhzes was able, in addition, to use the gullibility of the peasants and their inability to act for a long time in large masses. The position of the cities was also decisive. Not only the authorities of the Upper Neshwab towns, who hypocritically assumed the role of intermediaries between the gentlemen and the peasants at first, but also part of the city burghers left the peasants in the most difficult moment for them, and in a number of cases directly helped Trukhzes. Only the plebeian masses of the cities did not participate in this betrayal.

Having defeated at the end of April 1525 the main forces of the Upper Neshwabian peasants, Truchses headed north towards Franconia and Thuringia, where new centers of movement were created.

Events of the Peasant War in Franconia. Heilbronn program

In Franconia, in the spring of 1525, large peasant detachments were also formed in camps. The adherents of revolutionary tactics enjoyed great influence among the masses of the rebels and constituted a significant force in the peasant detachments of Franconia. Jacob Rohrbach, the leader of the peasants of the Neckar Valley, who was a vivid example of a peasant revolutionary during the Great Peasant War, led decisive actions to suppress the resistance of the Fraicon knighthood. The worst enemy of the peasants is the Württemberg Vogt, Count Ludwig von Gelfenstein, who was the first to open hostilities against the rebels, and 13 of his supporters were condemned by Rohrbach to the shameful death penalty - driving through the lances. The news of Gelfenstein's execution quickly spread throughout the country and caused a real panic in the ruling class. Many feudal lords were forced to formally submit to the peasants and provide them with food and weapons. Throughout Franconia, the destruction of castles and monasteries of the nobility began in the spirit of the revolutionary "Article Letter".

However, the heterogeneous composition of the detachments, the limited peasant outlook and the tactics of the leaders of the burghers led in Franconia to the fact that the situation changed in favor of the masters. The urban opposition, extremely active in Franconia, gained here, in the context of the Peasant War, a decisive influence on the political life of a number of cities. Where the plebeian elements were able to demonstrate their strength to a sufficient extent, official contact was established between the cities and the peasants. In many cities of Franconia, active members of the burgher opposition, together with individual representatives of the broken chivalry, tried to revive the movement for the old burgher projects of imperial reform and sought to use the revolutionary movement of the peasantry for this purpose, subordinating it to their interests. However, when the plebeian elements in Heilbronn, in the midst of their struggle with the ruling elite, opened the city gates to the peasants on April 17, the burgher opposition, which joined the peasants, entered into secret contact with the princes and nobles at the same time. If in the first days of the Peasant War the leaders of the burghers still hesitated in their tactics and tried to take advantage of the trusting attitude of the peasants towards them, now, in the second half of April 1525, most of them were already frightened by the revolutionary actions of the peasant-plebeian masses and took side of their enemies. The burghers brought confusion into the actions of the peasant detachments, which led to split and defeat.

The conductor of the policy of subordinating the peasant movement to interests alien to it was the head of the field office of the peasants, a nobleman by birth and a burgher by his position, Wendel Gipler. Possessing a broad political outlook, Gipler, who foresaw, in the words of Engels, the future bourgeois society, dreamed of carrying out the bourgeois transformation of Germany by an alliance with the peasantry and the complete elimination of feudal oppression, and by bringing burghers closer to chivalry and adapting the peasant movement to the interests of this bourgeois-knightly alliance ... Having seized the actual leadership of the so-called Light Detachment, made up of an association of Odenwald, Ehringen peasants and peasants of the Neckar Valley, Hypler set out to blunt the anti-noble character of the movement and stop attacks on castles and monasteries. Hipler succeeded in obtaining an invitation to the Franconian knight Getz von Berlichingen as commander of the peasant forces of Franconia, who accepted this offer, making it a condition of refusal to destroy castles and monasteries and from other actions hostile to the nobility. Opponents of this tactic, Jacob Rohrbach, and the ruined knight Florian Geyer, who joined the peasants, were not only removed from the leading role in the "Light Detachment", but were actually placed outside of it.

Wendel Gipler and his supporters also decided to deprive the peasants of their own anti-feudal program. Initially, they attempted to “correct” the “12 Articles” by changing their wording so that the requirements themselves became less defined, and their implementation was postponed until the time when the imperial reform was carried out. Convinced that the peasant masses rejected this new version of the "12 Articles", Gipler and his supporters made an attempt to impose on the peasant leaders their burgher project of the political reorganization of Germany. Having outlined the convocation of a congress of delegates of peasant detachments in Heilbronn, Hyppler prepared the text of this draft, which has survived and is known as the "Heilbronn Program." According to this project, all authorities should be subordinate to the emperor and the princes turned into officials of the empire. The fifth point of the draft demanded that the clergy be completely deprived of secular power. Provided for general imperial legislation and an elected court on the basis of estate representation, in which most of the seats would belong to the cities. A number of points required the unity of the coin, measures and weight and the abolition of all internal customs duties. In addition, demands were made to ban large trading and usurious companies, as well as to expel doctors of Roman law. The compilers of the program tried to make it profitable for chivalry, in the interests of which the estate system was preserved and the confiscation of church estates was carried out. The Heilbronn Program allowed the peasants to redeem feudal duties by paying twenty times the lump sum. At the same time, the feudal lord did not lose anything, since, having given the ransom amount in growth, he would have received the same income even at a rate of 5%. This point, which ultimately boiled down to the transformation of part of the feudal landed property into bourgeois property, satisfied only the most prosperous elite of the peasantry.

State centralization, which is the main content of the "Heilbronn Program", is expressed in it, according to Engels, in a number of "demands that were much more in the interests of the city burghers than the peasants." F. Engels, The Peasant War in Germany, K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch., Vol. 7, p. 413.) Hypler based his project on one of the 15th century pamphlets - "The Reformation of Frederick III" - reflecting the political ideal of that part of the burghers, which focused on rapprochement with chivalry.

Radical elements of the burghers, calling for revolutionary action and for the support of the peasants, were few in large cities.

Truchses, at the head of the troops of the Swabian League, arrived in Franconia at a time when Hypler and his supporters were preparing to convene a congress of peasant representatives to discuss the draft "Heilbronn Program". It goes without saying that the presence of such "allies" and the command of Getz von Berlichingen could only lead the peasants to defeat. The ruling strata of the burghers of the Franconian cities openly embarked on the path of betrayal. The magistrates of Würzburg and other cities of Franconia opened the gates to Truchses' troops, who killed all the peasants who were there. The peasant forces in Franconia were thus defeated for the same reasons as in Upper Swabia - because of their own inability to organize to repel the enemy and because of the treacherous attitude of the leaders of the burghers.

Events of the Peasant War in the Saxon-Thuringian Region

At this time, Müntzer, while in Thuringia, made a heroic attempt to unite all the forces of the insurgent popular masses of villages and cities on the basis of revolutionary tactics. The revolutionary events in Thuringia, which were directly led by Thomas Münzer, Engels described as "the culmination point of the entire Peasant War." F. Engels, The Peasant War in Germany, K. Marx and F. Engels, Works, vol. 7, p. 35S,) The city of Mühlhausen in Thuringia, in which Münzer was from February 1525 - after his return from Upper Germany, became the center of a popular uprising in Thuringia and Saxony. The rebels acted in many points of these lands, armed detachments occupied cities, castles, manor estates and monasteries. The peasants, at the direction of Münzer, divided the land of the master and the good among themselves. The peasants had great confidence in Munzer and consulted with him on all questions of the struggle against the feudal lords and on their economic affairs.

In an effort to make the Saxon-Thuringian region of the uprising the center of the entire Peasant War, Münzer tried to explain to the peasants the meaning of the events that were taking place, which he regarded as the beginning of the struggle to establish general equality of people throughout Germany and beyond. He called for the unity of all ordinary people, addressing not only the peasants, but also the urban poor. Münzer sent special appeals to the miners of the Saxon-Thuringian region. Supporting the peasants who defended their daily needs and the "12 Articles" program in the struggle, Müntzer explained to them that the demand for "divine right" includes broader goals, that it means the complete elimination of masters, disobedience to the existing authorities and the establishment of an order in which the armed detachments of the rebels will carry out everything that they consider useful for the common cause.

Müntzer's propaganda spread not only in this region, but also in other lands affected by the Peasant War, in which the Anabaptists, Müntzer's supporters, operated. After Truchses succeeded in defeating the peasant forces of Upper Swabia, Münzer called for the unification of the powerful peasant detachments of Franconia with the forces of the Saxon-Thuringian region and for the formation of a strong revolutionary center in Central Germany, capable of giving a proper rebuff to the troops of Truchses who were heading here. In order to prepare this unification, the peasant forces of Thuringia began to concentrate near Frankenhausen. Münzer himself arrived there with an armed detachment from Mühlhausen.

Although this activity of the peasant detachments, guided by the instructions of Münzer, did not have a solid military and organizational base, it nevertheless testified to the possibility of a new upsurge in the peasant uprising, much more powerful and intense and more closely associated with the movement of the urban lower classes. The princes of Central Germany, primarily the Saxon dukes and Landgrave Philip of Hesse, who were supporters and patrons of Luther, saw a formidable danger in the actions of the revolutionary detachments of the Saxon-Thuringian region, hastily gathered their forces and set out on a campaign with the aim of suppressing a new focus of the Peasant War and seizing Münzer. whom they considered the most dangerous inspirer of the rebellious people.

In mid-May 1525, near Frankenhausen in Thuringia, an unequal battle broke out between the prince's cavalry, armed with artillery, and the peasant detachments concentrated here, practically unarmed. It was essentially the most heroic and at the same time the most hopeless act of the Great Peasant War. Münzer tried to raise the morale of the peasants and urged them not to be afraid of the superior forces of their enemies. Surrounded by a princely army armed to the teeth, Münzer in passionate speeches before the peasants of Frankenhausen painted a majestic picture of the "kingdom of God on earth", by which he understood a society without princes, masters and exploiters, and called for a decisive struggle for its establishment.

The outcome of the unequal struggle was a foregone conclusion. The peasants were defeated at Frankenhausen. Münzer fell into the hands of the princes, who executed her after painful torture. This is how Thomas Münzer, whom Engels described as the most magnificent figure in the Peasant War, perished. The ideas of Munzer, who possessed a broad revolutionary outlook that made him capable of anticipating the distant future, could then be understood by only a few of his closest supporters. However, the broad interpretation that Münzer gave to the events that took place corresponded to the mood of the masses of the people in villages and cities and had as its goal the unification of all forces striving to overthrow the feudal system. As Engels pointed out, Münzer was forced to “represent not his party, not his own class, but that class for whose rule the movement was already mature enough at the given moment.” ( F. Engels, The Peasant War in Germany, K. Marx and F. Engels, Soch, vol. 7, p. 423.) His struggle, even if successful, could only help clear the ground for bourgeois development. This was the tragedy of the peasant plebeian revolutionary Muntzer, but the same circumstance also shows the progressive nature of his struggle for that time.

Suppression of the Great Peasant War

The defeat of the Frankenhausen camp and the death of Thomas Münzer were the end of the Peasant War. The fighting of the peasants after this continued only in certain areas. After the last resisting groups of peasants were defeated in the mountainous regions of Austria, persecution and mass executions of participants in the uprising began everywhere. The death toll of peasants exceeded 100 thousand. The peasantry was devastated by huge contributions.

The bloody suppression of the uprising, the massive destruction of peasant farms undermined the fighting spirit of the German peasantry and the strength of its resistance. The intensification of feudal pressure on the peasants, which had begun even before the Peasant War, could now develop without hindrance. The serfdom of the peasants became predominant in Germany. From the areas where the Peasant War took place, it gradually began to spread east of the Elbe, where the German peasants, who were previously free, actually and legally turned into serfs, obliged by heavy corvee. Engels called this serfdom, renewed in Germany, serfdom "in the second edition."

The reason for the defeat of the great uprising of the German peasantry in the XVI century. Engels saw in the fragmentation of peasant uprisings and the inability of all strata of the opposition to rise above local and provincial interests, in the fact that even peasants and plebeians in most parts of Germany were unable to unite for joint action. Dwelling on this instruction from Engels, V.I. Lenin writes that "the organization, the political consciousness of the actions, their centralization (necessary for victory), all this is able to give the scattered millions of rural smallholders only their leadership either from the bourgeoisie or from the proletariat." V. I. Lenin, On constitutional illusions, V. I. Lenin, Soch., Vol. 25, p. 181.)

Leadership by the proletariat was, of course, out of the question in the 16th century. As for the bourgeoisie, despite the objective interest of its advanced elements, who embarked on the path of bourgeois development, in the victory over feudalism, it as a whole was unable to rise above local narrow-mindedness and free itself from the ties that entangled it with the world of feudal relations in order to act the leader of all anti-feudal forces. The local limitation of the German burghers was due to its economic and political immaturity.

5. Germany after the Great Peasant War

The history of the Great Peasant War, which, together with the entire social movement of the Reformation era, formed the first act of the bourgeois revolution in Europe, shows that the main force in the struggle against feudalism was the peasant-plebeian camp, as in other bourgeois revolutions. The defeat of the insurgent peasants had fatal consequences for the entire German people. Only the princes, the bearers of German fragmentation, gained from the defeat of the peasants. The chivalry completely abandoned its political opposition and submitted to the princes. The political role of the German burghers also fell sharply. Shocked by the powerful scale of the peasant-plebeian uprising, the conservative burghers hastened to come under the protection of the princely petty-power absolutism. In his enmity with the peasants, Luther demanded the bloody and merciless destruction of the insurgents and the complete restoration of serfdom.

Sebastian Frank

Luther reflected the sentiments of that part of the German burghers, which, out of fear of a new revolution of the lower ranks of the people, went over to the side of the advancing feudal reaction. Individual representatives of the educated circles of the burghers, who refused to join the reaction and retained radical ideas, tried to draw their own conclusions from an analysis of the situation. The most striking of them was the remarkable radical humanist, historian and philosopher Sebastian Frank (1500-1543), who at the beginning of the Peasant War opposed Luther, demanding the extension of the principle of religious freedom proclaimed by the Reformation to the area of ​​secular relations. Like other famous German humanists, Sebastian Frank was opposed to popular uprisings. He, however, sought to prove with examples from history that uprisings have always been the inevitable response of the masses to acts of violence perpetrated against them. Claiming that uprisings cannot eliminate violence, that uprisings can only lead to a new increase in oppression, Seba-iyan Frank appealed in his works to the "reasonable" elements of society, urging them to take into account the lessons of history and rebuild society on the basis of reason, eliminating it as violence ruling classes and popular uprisings against them. It goes without saying that such utopian appeals could not have any practical meaning. After the Peasant War, even the most radical elements of the German burghers abandoned real ways of combating reactionary reality.

Munster commune

In the lower ranks of the people, despite the disappointment and the undermining of the fighting spirit, elements remained that continued to believe that the offensive of the kingdom of truth on earth was impossible without a new uprising of the popular masses. These sentiments manifested themselves already in the 30s of the 16th century. in the cities of North-West Germany, which then, together with the cities of the neighboring Netherlands, entered a zone of new economic growth. At the same time, political opposition revived in these cities and the struggle for reformation began. Like the Dutch cities, the cities of Northwest Germany became the new focus and refuge of the Anabaptists. The reformation movement in this area was accompanied by an upsurge in the revolutionary struggle of the plebeian lower classes, and revolutionary propaganda in the spirit of Thomas Münzer was resumed. The high point of this new upsurge was the Munster commune of 1534-1535.

In 1533, supporters of the Reformation won the victory in Münster. Anabaptists, who flocked to Munster from other cities in Germany and from the Netherlands, took an active part in the defense of the city from the armed forces of the city's lord, the bishop, expelled from there. In February 1534, the Anabaptists, relying on the plebeian masses of Munster, won a majority in the city council and actually seized power in the city. They were headed by the baker Jan Mathis and the tailor John of Leiden, who had arrived from the Netherlands.

Munster was declared by the Anabaptists the "New Jerusalem", that is, the center of the "kingdom of God", which, according to the preaching of Jan Matisse, should now be established on earth by the sword of the "righteous." Amid the siege of the city by the forces of the feudal lords of Central and Northern Germany, which lasted during their stay in power (until June 1535), the Anabaptists carried out a number of transformations in Münster. The tools of production remained in the hands of the craftsmen, who nevertheless had to submit to the urban community in organizing production and fulfilling orders. The community was in charge of the distribution of land plots to individuals for processing. Gold, silver and precious things were subject to confiscation for the general benefit. Money was abolished. Consumption was organized on an equalizing basis.

All these measures, which did not go beyond the scope of equalization, which, moreover, was not carried out completely consistently, were mainly dictated by the military situation. On the question of the community of property, the Munster Anabaptists were not unanimous. They generally did not have a more or less definite program for the structure of the future society, except for a vague idea of ​​equality, clothed in a mystical shell.

The significance of the Münster Commune lay not in its social transformations, but in the fact that after the defeat of the Peasant War, it showed an example of being ready for a revolutionary struggle against the raging feudal reaction. Commune workers decisively dealt with the feudal lords. However, in the conditions of reaction, the Munster commune could not receive sufficient support, although some cities in Germany and the Netherlands sent armed detachments to help it. After 14 months of heroic defense, Munster fell, and John of Leiden and his other defenders were subjected to merciless torture and execution.

Increasing fragmentation in Germany

The suppression of the peasant war and the defeat of the entire social movement of this era opened the way for the strengthening of the princely power. Luther's reformation, having lost its connection with the people, degenerated into an instrument of princely separatism and secularization of church lands in favor of princes. The struggle of the Luther reformation against the Catholic Church and its dogmas was greatly weakened. Luther himself and his closest supporters now saw their main task in preserving the church as an instrument of feudal reaction. Luther departed from his first principle of "justification [by faith alone." His supporters took a number of measures to preserve the ritual side of the religion, which was a step towards rapprochement with Catholics. True, among the Lutherans, ritualism was subordinated to the bourgeois demand for a "cheap church." The splendor of the Catholic cult was abolished, just as the veneration of icons and relics. The solemn Catholic liturgy (Mass) was replaced by a sermon. Of the seven Catholic sacraments, Lutherans have preserved only two - baptism and communion. In those principalities where the reformation was carried out, the highest power in church affairs passed into the hands of the princes.

The secularization of church lands by those princes who carried out the Lutheran reform of the church in their principalities caused a desire for secularization among the Catholic princes, and the pope had to allow them to partially implement it. Emperor Charles V, who saw in the strengthening of princes and princely separatism a danger to the Habsburg great-power policy, strove for the strict application of the Edict of Worms and the suppression of Lutheranism. In the 40s of the XVI century. Charles V undertook a military campaign against the Lutheran princes, who earlier protest against the policy of enforcing the Edict of Worms (hence their name "Protestants") and formed, together with some cities, a special alliance (Schmalkalden - after the name of the city where it was concluded) for organizing a rebuff to the emperor. The victory won by the emperor and the Catholics in the Schmalkalden War in 1548 over the Protestant princes was not final. Some of the Catholic princes, for the reasons already mentioned, joined the camp hostile to the emperor. Together with the Protestants and the French king Henry II, they began a war against the emperor, which ended in victory over him. The victorious Protestant and Catholic princes concluded between themselves and with the emperor in 1555 the Augsburg religious peace, according to which the princely sovereignty, declared unshakable, extends to the area of ​​religion: each prince determines the religion of his subordinates. The principle was proclaimed, expressed in the formula "Whose country is the faith."

As a result of the religious peace in 1555, two groupings of German principalities were formed in Germany - Catholic and Protestant. All the hereditary lands of the Habsburgs, Bavaria, Franconia, spiritual principalities on the Rhine and in North-West Germany and Alsace remained in the Catholic camp. The North German principalities, the Duchy of Prussia, Brandenburg, Saxony, Hesse, Braunschweig, the Upper and Lower Palatinate and Württemberg formed a Protestant group. Both groups isolated themselves from each other not only in religious terms, but also in their political orientation: the Protestant princes remained more decisive opponents of the great-power policy of the Habsburg house.

The failure of Charles V's policy and the actual collapse of the empire forced him to abdicate. The Austrian possessions of the Habsburgs, as well as the Czech Republic and Hungary, passed to Charles's brother Ferdinand I. The crown of the "Holy Roman Empire" also passed to him. Spain, the Netherlands and Italian possessions went to the son of Charles - Philip II.

Thus, after the defeat of the Great Peasant War, the struggle of the reactionary political forces among themselves ended in the strengthening and consolidation of the fragmentation of Germany.