Heart of Europe: A History of the Roman Empire (105 page)

32. The Kyffhäuser myth. Emperor Barbarossa awakes from his slumbers, in a late nineteenth-century mural in the rebuilt Imperial palace at Goslar.

33. Heinrich Himmler laying a wreath at the tomb of Henry the Fowler in Quedlinburg Abbey, 1 July 1936. This first
Heinrichsfeier
was an attempt to fit Henry into the Nazi version of history.

34. Sergeant Ivan Babcock photographed on 13 June 1945 wearing the Aachen copy of the imperial crown (made for Wilhelm II in 1912), which had been hidden in a mine near Siegen during the Second World War.

35. A modern statue in Konstanz harbour by Peter Lenk, of Imperia holding aloft the diminutive forms of Emperor Sigismund and Pope Martin V.

The German Peasants War

Otherwise, Alpine communal self-government was similar to that found in many rural areas across the Empire. The crown lands not only included towns and abbeys, but at least 120 autonomous villages immediately under the emperor’s jurisdiction.
⁷⁷
These ‘imperial villages’ (
Reichsdörfer
) were sold off fairly quickly once the dissipation of crown lands began in the late fourteenth century, because they were considered less valuable assets than the towns. The Free People of the Leutkirch Heath near Ravensburg were repeatedly pawned, but survived thanks to their having been attached to the imperial bailiwick of Swabia since the 1270s and in 1541 were eventually redeemed by the Habsburgs, who saw the jurisdiction as useful in managing their scattered south-west German possessions. Leutkirch retained its autonomy until 1802, when the Habsburgs were obliged to cede it to Bavaria. Another four villages survived through similar quirks.
⁷⁸

The bulk of the German rural population still enjoyed communal self-government, having bargained improved rights following the Black Death (see
pp. 494–8
). Alliances between communes already served as a platform for large-scale revolts in the Rhineland and Swabia during the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Foremost amongst these was the
Bundschuh
movement, so-called after its symbol of an unlaced boot. The Poor Conrad rising of 1514 proved fundamental in consolidating the Württemberg Estates as a check on ducal authority.
⁷⁹
The revolts were a response to the intensification of lordship, as lords used the economic and demographic recovery after 1470 to try to regain the influence they had lost a century earlier. Peasants objected to new restrictions on their access to woods and streams, as well as tax demands that grew with the Common Penny and other imperial taxes.

Existing lordly structures were poorly placed to handle large-scale protest, which soon overwhelmed the system of lesser jurisdiction with its village and district courts. The highly fragmented jurisdiction in south-west Germany left peasants without clear opportunities to appeal against unfavourable verdicts. A new rising began in May 1524 as a protest against taxation, but became radicalized within six months under the rapid diffusion of Reformation evangelism and the media revolution: 25,000 copies of the Upper Swabian peasants’ Twelve Articles were printed within two months of their appearance in Memmingen. The Articles were the most famous of several sets of demands. Only 13 per cent of the programmes included the demand that communities should elect their own pastors, meaning the freedom to adopt the Reformation, whereas 90 per cent attacked serfdom and lordly exactions. References to religion were part of a broader call for a fairer society. The third of the Twelve Articles claimed ‘it is demonstrated by Scripture that we are free and wish to be free’, but qualified this by saying: ‘not that we wish to be completely free and to have no authority, for God does not teach us that’. What the peasants really wanted is not always clear, because their programmes were usually drawn up with the assistance of burgher lawyers. Many clearly thought their villages were, or should be, directly subordinate to the emperor. All expressed loyalty to the emperor, who was a conveniently distant authority. Their main concern was securing real improvements in their daily lives. The murder of lords and princes was very rare and most hoped the authorities would become their Christian brothers in an idealized harmony. Rebels in larger territories like Bamberg and the Tirol envisaged forming assemblies exclusively composed of commoners (
Landschaften
) to govern alongside their prince, while those in Württemberg, Baden and Salzburg planned to use similar institutions as the sole form of territorial government. Rebels in more fragmented areas attempted something closer to the organization of the Swiss and Dithmarschen peasants by forming sworn associations of autonomous communities. Few of these plans were realized, owing to the violence and to rapidly changing events.
⁸⁰

The rising developed its own momentum as the German Peasants War, with around 300,000 under arms by 1525 in a clear demonstration of the potency of communal government. Peasant organization was often quite sophisticated, with villages sending men on rotation to spread the burden and minimize social and economic disruption. However, peer
pressure was also often necessary, with participation enforced by the threat of expulsion from the community.
⁸¹
The initial spread was facilitated by the inability of the authorities to coordinate a response. Individual lords often conceded local demands, emboldening neighbouring communities to voice demands as well. Mühlhausen in Thuringia was one of the few imperial cities openly to join the peasants; solidarity elsewhere was fragile at best and peasants often resented burghers almost as much as lords. The cities’ decision to back the princes in the Swabian League proved a major factor in the peasants’ eventual defeat. Working through the League, the authorities made further tactical concessions to isolate radicals from moderates while they gathered their forces to restore order in the name of the Empire’s public peace. Around 75,000–100,000 ordinary folk were killed, amounting to 10 to 15 per cent of able-bodied males in the worst-affected regions.
⁸²

The outcome has widely been interpreted as a failure, condemning Germany to an authoritarian future.
⁸³
In fact, it stabilized the Empire’s corporate social order. Many communities secured real improvements: even the Swabian League’s commander, Georg Truchsess von Waldburg, granted most of his own peasants’ demands. Peasant representation was incorporated into the Estates in the Tirol, Salzburg, Baden and several smaller territories. Social regulation was tightened, partly to address perceived injustice, but also to win the loyalty of householders whose position relative to other community members was strengthened through new legislation. Finally, the system of imperial justice was substantially revised in 1526 to extend the right of appeal and channel future grievances towards peaceful arbitration.
⁸⁴

Turning Swiss

It took some time for these changes to ease tensions, especially as economic conditions worsened for many people during the last third of the sixteenth century. Meanwhile, the Swiss Confederation appeared to offer an alternative, encouraging a desire among peasants and burghers to ‘turn Swiss’. Although the Hegau and Sundgau communities applied to join during the Peasants War, most were too far away for this to be an immediate option, while the Confederation had no desire to become involved. South-west German peasants continued to voice this aspiration occasionally during disputes with lords into the eighteenth
century.
⁸⁵
Imperial cities had greater prospects, since they enjoyed the same immediacy as the Swiss cantons. The Confederation extended special protection to favoured allies as ‘associated places’ (
Zugewandte Orte
) after 1475.
⁸⁶

The issue became pressing during the 1530s as Zwinglianism, the Swiss brand of Protestantism, gained ground in several Swabian, Alsatian and Rhenish cities, while princes like Philipp of Hessen saw the Swiss as potential allies of the Schmalkaldic League.
⁸⁷
The Schmalkalders’ defeat in 1547 exposed the risks of confessionally based alliances, while the Swiss were increasingly reluctant to accept the liabilities that came with additional associates. Even existing associates were neglected. For example, Rottweil allowed its associate status to lapse during the later sixteenth century when, like many other imperial cities, it saw greater advantages in cooperating with more immediate neighbours in the Kreis Assembly, and with other cities in the Reichstag. It tried to reactivate the link when threatened by the duke of Württemberg during the Thirty Years War. That conflict threatened to reopen confessional tensions within the Confederation, which struggled to maintain neutrality. The Swiss only lodged an ineffectual protest when Württemberg captured Rottweil in 1632, and instead it was the imperial army that liberated the city two years later.
⁸⁸
The Swiss opt-out of imperial institutions meant their voice carried no weight within the Empire’s legal system, preventing them from aiding their associates.

ESTATES

The Dutch and Bohemian Revolts

The incorporated assemblies that emerged in virtually all territories from the late fourteenth century were another form of association. They enjoyed a stronger legal basis than peasant communes, whose rights were more local, while their involvement in territorial taxation and politics had encouraged a higher level of institutional development, with committees, archives, fiscal systems and, often, involvement in militia organization. They also combined several status groups, unlike rural and urban communes, which generally excluded clergy and nobility,
the two wealthiest social Estates. Estates offered two possible alternatives to princely led territorialization. They could develop trans-territorial federations similar to the larger Alpine leagues, but based on agreements between Estates assemblies rather than among towns and incorporated valleys. Alternatively, they might remain within territorial boundaries, but transform government along more republican lines.

Both possibilities were early modern phenomena, the first peaking between about 1560 and 1620 with the emergence of the Dutch Republic and the outbreak of the Bohemian Revolt. The Estates of the seven northern Burgundian provinces formed a union in 1579 following their rebellion against Spanish rule around a decade earlier. The union established its own common institutions in 1585, effectively becoming an independent republic by 1609, though a further 27 years of renewed fighting after 1621 were necessary to secure definitive recognition from Spain.
⁸⁹
The republic’s official name was the United Provinces, each of which was governed by its own States, or assembly, composed of representatives from towns and landowning knights. The seven States sent delegates to a common States General to coordinate defence and represent the republic to outsiders.