1 To the Assembly of the Common Peasantry Christoph Schappeler May 1525 Christoph Schappeler contributed the scriptural citations to The Twelve Articles and is the most likely author of the following document that presents the most thoroughly developed justification for the Peasants War It provides the major ideological statement of the peasants position It mentions Luther only indirectly and cites points of agreement with him but the author then goes on to refute Luther s claims by arguing that subjects have a right to disobey even to depose rulers who are unjust and claim unlimited power It also developed a case for the superiority of republican over hereditary or monarchical rule called for a new political order modeled on the republicanism of the Swiss Confederation and urged the rebellious peasants to maintain solidary with one another Chapter four On false and unlimited power which one is not obliged to obey All the popes emperors kings etc who puff themselves up in their own estimation above other pious poor Christians claiming to be a better kind of human as if their lordship and authority to rule others were innate do not want to recognize that they are God s stewards and officials And they do not govern according to his commandment to maintain the common good and brotherly unity among us God has established and ordained authority for this reason alone and no other But rulers who want to be lords for their own sake are all false rulers and not worthy of the lowest office among Christians For God alone wants to be lord and he says in Deuteronomy 12 11 You shall keep my commandment in your hand like a measuring rod according to which you shall judge straight ahead not deviating either to the left or to the right The same point is made in Job 5 8 Therefore whichever prince or lord invents and sets up his own self serving burdens and commands rules falsely and he dares impudently to deceive God his own lord Where are you you werewolves you band of Behemoths with your financial tricks which impose one burden after another on the poor people This year a labor service is voluntary next year it becomes compulsory In most cases this is how your old customary law has grown In what dementia or camouflage did God your lord give you such power that we poor people have to cultivate your lands with labor services But only in good weather for on rainy days we poor people see the fruits of our sweat rot in the fields May God in his justice not tolerate the terrible Babylonian captivity in which we poor people are driven to mow the lords meadows to make hay to cultivate the fields to sow flax in them to cut it comb it heat it wash it pound it and spin it yes even to sew their underpants on their arses We also have to pick peas and harvest carrots and asparagus Help us God Where has such misery ever been heard of They tax and tear out the marrow of the poor people s bones and we have to pay interest on that Where are they with their hired murderers and horsemen the gamblers and whoremasters who are stuffed fuller than puking dogs In addition we poor people have to give them taxes payments and interest And at home 2 they assume that the poor should have neither bread salt nor lard for their wives and small children Where are they with their entry fines and heriot dues Yes damn their disgraceful fines and robber s dues Where are the tyrants and raging ones who appropriate taxes customs and user fees and waste them so shamefully and wantonly and lose what should go into the common chest or purse to serve the needs of the territory And nevertheless no one can turn up his nose at them or he is immediately treated like a treacherous rogue put in the stocks beheaded quartered He is shown less pity than a mad dog Did God give them such power On the peak of what monk s cowl is it written Indeed their authority is from God But so remotely that they have become the devil s soldiers and Satan is their captain Yes they have been truly rejected being enemies in their own territory And what about their serfdom Damn their unchristian heathen nature How they torture us poor people We are the spiritual serfs of the clergy and the bodily serfs of the secular powers Help us eternal God What great unchristian misery and murder is being done to your property which your onlybegotten son lord of heaven and earth and lord of this band of Behemoths purchased at such a high price with his bitter death Put these Moabites and this band of Behemoths as far behind you and as far away as you can This is God s greatest pleasure And how little there will be prayed for If one of their village officials wanted to impose anything on the poor in his own self interest they would depose him with a harsh punishment The princes and lords themselves deserve nothing less for making self serving commandments which are outside the common good and unserviceable for brotherly unity Do not let yourselves be led astray and blinded to any degree because every day the authorities endlessly repeat what the apostle Peter says in I Peter 2 18 You should be submissive to your lords even if they are rogues etc In truth the sword of Scripture cuts sharply on both sides and until now they have fought masterfully with it But we want to see how Tileman a foolish man so strangers confuses divine Scripture again and the wolf so cleverly puts on sheep s clothing Truly truly St Peter s view means something very different for according to their interpretation we would have to deliver our pious wives and children to them so that they could satisfy their lust with them The basic cause and source of the whole confederation of the Swiss was the unlimited tyrannical power of the nobility and of other authorities For daily with their unchristian tyrannical rape they did not spare the common man but forced and compelled him contrary to all equity And this grew out of their pride blasphemous power and enterprise Their rule had to be abolished and rooted out through great war bloodshed and use of the sword as is indicated in the Swiss chronicles and in many other reliable histories and writings The conclusion of this pamphlet talks a bit about this The lords were also allowed to murder pious and upright people for hunting a hare and they did similar things because of their perverted minds Indeed such a Babylonian captivity has tightly confined us 3 But the primary responsibility for it rests with the authority which saw itself as and boasted of being spiritual
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