Peasant Revolt DBQ

From 1524 through 1526, peasants were revolting in the German states. The peasants felt mistreated and no longer wanted to be under the rule of landlords. There were many causes and responses to the Peasant Revolt, but ultimately, the reasons that the peasants said that they revolted because of were not valid. They believed that they should not only be in better circumstances, but also that the wealth of the people should’ve been distributed evenly, and they should’ve been solely under the authority of lords and other forms of authority that were anointed by God. While these might seem like good reasons for revolting, in reality, they were not. The peasants in the German states were not being mistreated in the ways that they claimed. People

Everyone during the time of the Peasant Revolt, prominent leaders of the time like Martin Luther, and even those who were in the middle class and not as well known had responses to the Peasant Revolt. In 1517, Martin Luther had written his 95 Thesis, this played a role in the Peasants Revolt. Martin Luther makes this statement in 1525, “It is clear that the assertions they made in their Twelve Articles were nothing but lies presented under the name of the Gospel” (Doc 7), the peasants began to believe that his 95 Thesis was telling them that they needed to revolt, because they were being mistreated. This is yet again not true. The point of the 95 Thesis was not to get the peasants to revolt against those who were in a position of authority over them. “When Luther deserved the freedom of the Christian, he meant an entirely spiritual freedom” (Hunt, 455), the peasants in Germany took what Luther had said in a way that it was not meant in. Martin Luther not only wrote this response about how the peasants were acting in an ungodly manner, but he also told the princes and other people that were in authority to crush the rebellion (Lecture 18, March 3). Martin Luther was one of the many people who responded to the