political nation was regarded as the property of the king, who no longer owned any 101 responsibility to any one, as a king, not even to his God.
All this change, ecclesiastical and civil, was not accomplished without a certain amount of protest in the form of direct revolt, the most noteworthy event of which was the Peasant War in Germany (1525-1526). At this time, throughout Europe, the increase in luxury drove the lords of the land to harsher exactions than ever for the procuring of money for dealing with the merchants, and the usurer grew in importance at the same time. Against this oppression there rose, and spread with extraordinary rapidity (at the above-mentioned date), an insurrection more widespread than any previous revolts of the Middle Ages, one of the leading figures in which was Thomas Münzer. He put forward a sort of mystical commission, which proclaimed the brotherhood of Christians, and the economical and social equality of all men. His doctrines were widely accepted, but he was, after some weeks of power, defeated, and executed near Mülhausen (in Turingia) 102 in 1525. It must be said, however, that there was more than one strain in the Peasant War. The great princes of the Empire, under cover of suppression of the rebels, sought to consolidate their power, and to complete the subjugation of the smaller feudal nobility, “the knighthood.” These had had their last champion in the celebrated Ulric von Hutten, who, amidst a life of romantic adventure and studious occupation, attacked the higher nobles with the full power of his literary genius, and worked hard on the side of the knights under the leadership of Franz von Sickingen in 1522-1523. The princes triumphed, and therewith the political side of medieval Germany came to an end.
As for Münzer, he may be considered as the precursor of the later Anabaptist revolt; for the movement in which he worked, after this collapse, sprang up again, and, continuing in an underground manner, culminated at last in the Anabaptist rising under John of Leyden, the last act of which was the siege and capture of Münster, and the massacre of the rebels in that city.