The Dreadful History and Judgement of God on Thomas Müntzer: The Life and Times of an Early German Revolutionary

by Andrew Drummond

On the 500th Anniversary of the German Peasant Wars, a brilliant portrait of Thomas Munzter – radical millenarian preacher, revolutionary and iconoclast

'The princes are nothing but tyrants who flay the people; they fritter away our blood and sweat on their pomp and whoring and knavery.’ These were the words of Thomas Müntzer at the head of the massed ranks of a peasant army in the year 1525. Ranged against him were the might of the princes of the German Nation. How did Müntzer, the son of a coin maker from central Germany, rise in just a few short years to become one of the most feared revolutionaries in early modern Europe?

In this brilliant work of historical excavation, Andrew Drummond charts the life and times of the man Martin Luther denounced as a ‘Ravening Wolf’ and ‘False Prophet’. Drummond shows us Müntzer as a human being. Far from the bloodthirsty devil of legend, he was a man of considerable learning and principle, deeply sympathetic to the misery of the peasantry and the poor. In his short life – he was beheaded at thirty-five – Müntzer promised to fundamentally upend German society.

Seeking to save Müntzer from the condescension of history, Drummond guides us through the religious and political disputes of the Reformation, placing his life and thought in the context of those turbulent years. The result is a portrait of an often contradictory but always radical figure, one who continues to inspire movements of the poor across the globe.

Genres: History, Germany, Religion, Biography, Christianity, Nonfiction, Politics

384 pages, Hardcover

First published February 20, 2024

About the author

Andrew Drummond is a Scottish writer, translator and novelist. He was educated at the University of Aberdeen and King's College, London and worked as a software engineer and database designer in local government. His first novel, An Abridged History of the Construction of the Railway Line between Garve, Ullapool and Lochinver was published by Polygon and shortlisted for the Saltire First Book of the Year Award in 2004. His later novels are A Handbook of Volapük, Elephantina and Novgorod the Great. He is also the author of The Intriguing Life and Ignominious Death of Maurice Benyovszky.

Reviews

[Martin Empson]

Müntzer haunted the powerful and wealthy. Andrew Drummond's fantastic account of his life, ideas and fate is a brilliant reaffirmation of the importance of Müntzer for contemporary times. Told with a firm grasp of the archival material, fresh new translations of Müntzer's ideas and a wry sense of humour, this is a book for the 500th anniversary that everyone should read.

Full review: https://resolutereader.blogspot.com/2...

[Ruairí]

Fun read. Saddened to hear that ‘omnia sunt communia’ was likely a slogan invented by Müntzer’s enemies and gravediggers. Nobody tell Wu Ming. I suppose that’s revealing in itself - the red thread running through history inspires the ruling classes as much as it does would-be revolutionaries.

“The articles which they proposed and were putting into effect were: “omni sunt communia [all things are to be held in common], and goods should be shared out amongst everyone according to their need as occasion demanded. Any prince, count or nobleman who did not want to do that, having been once reminded of it, should have his head chopped off or be hanged.”

Careful Count Ernst you’ll be giving people ideas!

[Alex McDouall]

"Look: the origin of usury, theft and robbery lies with our lords and princes, who treat all creatures as their own: the fish in the water, the birds in the air, the plants on the earth - everything must be
theirs. And on top of that, they then proclaim God's commandments to the poor and say: God has commanded that you shall not steal. But of course that does not apply to themselves. For they
oppress everyone, flaying and fleecing them all, the poor peasant, the workman and all who live. But if any poor person commits the smallest crime then he must hang. And to this Doctor Liar [Luther] says: Amen. It is the lords themselves who make the poor man their enemy. They refuse to remove the causes of rebellion, so how can it turn out well in the long run? And if these words make me rabble-rouser - then so be it!"

A beautiful, moving, and quite funny biography of the man at the most radical edge of the german peasant war, Munzter. Unlike other radicals, who just believed they needed to hide until the apocalypse or let God do the work, Munzter preached that it was the "Elect" themselves who needed to take up the sword and do Gods word and defeat the "Godless" authorities who oppress them; the princes, academics, priests, and any and all secular and religious authority. He was one of the earliest to try to provide a leadership to the burgeoning lower layers of society in Germany, in particular his audience in the growing and very radical weavers and miners across Germany.
Unlike Luther, who clinged on for life to the princes and ruling class, Munzter remained until the end a radical of the oppressed.

[Jess]

Drummond is THE scholar for this mighty task. Deft, clear, drôle, and talented in equal measure, Drummond is able to tease something of a recognisable biography from archival scraps. That he keeps the story enlivening despite the constant lacunae is a testament to his skill as a writer.

It is also a testament to how fascinating this period is.

Drummond doesn’t spend too long setting up the ‘contenders’ with which Müntzer first collaborated, and then turned against. He expects you to come into this book knowing the Reformation and Luther like the back of your hand. This frees him up to use them as bogeymen of the narrative – Luther comes out, from the perspective of Müntzer, as a Mönzter! Drummond peppers the text with references to Luther only when relevant to our protagonist, so instead of the usual narrative of the Herculean former monk facing down the Emperor, reinventing the publishing industry, making deft political alliances, and finishing off his evening by banging out a 16-page pamphlet, instead Luther ghosts around, showing up in radicalised towns only to be run out by a recalcitrant congregation, sending snippy letters, and generally being a stick in the mud.

This is an excellent choice, because Müntzer’s story can stand on its own two feet. He’s not a Lutheran who broke bad. He’s a real reformer, betrayed by the pussy-footing, political, conservative nature of his erstwhile colleagues.

Where Drummond really excels is his joy over the small things. Anyone can make wars sound fun; Drummond makes archival research sound fun:

‘Among Müntzer’s collection of letters, there is one from a supplier of bedlinen, making pretty lame excuses for the poor quality of the sheets delivered for Müntzer’s lodgers. Every so often, real mundane life pokes its quivering noise out of the archives.’

These delightful asides keep the ball rolling in a book that is, by and large, a survey of extant writings with some historical context mixed in.

‘Thomas Müntzer was born – as far as can be determined – in 1489. And having brought him into the world, let us immediately abandon him there for the duration of his childhood, for we must make a brief attempt to comprehend the world into which he was born.’

This light tone mixes in with genuine scholarship and insights so seamlessly that, despite the denseness of both the topic and the textual-based approach, the narrative flies by:

‘…[by criticising the Franciscans] he said nothing that was not music to the congregation’s ears: the rich were only too eager to remove their religious rivals in richness, and the less rich were quite content to hear lively criticism of the discredited clergy. The only people he angered were the Franciscan monks. (Müntzer’s second sermon, a few days later, was briefly enlivened by the collapse of a roof-rafter. Fortunately it was prevented from falling on the heads of those below by becoming jammed in a window niche. Franciscans and their critics alike might have seen in this event an act of God.)’

Drummond’s ultimate thesis is powerful in its simplicity and well supported at every step:

- Radical anti-establishment ideas were not new, and had a long history in Germany/Bohemia especially
-Class divisions were accelerating and the Church was deeply extractive, priming the conditions for social conflict from the ground up
- A divided ruling class, coupled with the desire to break up the rich Church holdings, were willing to use the disorder as a feature of the endless jockeying amongst themselves for position
- Thomas Müntzer, an educated preacher, was animated by a concern for the ‘poor people’ – defined by Drummond as those poor in spirit ‘…even though, in practical terms, this was precisely the poor and the lower classes…’
- Müntzer was one of many reformers who found themselves disgusted by the Wittenberg approach – conservative, allied with the Princes of the lands, obsessed with book learning, and under the sway of Luther
- Müntzer’s ideas found fertile ground amongst the lower class dissidents across Saxony, a historically contingent – rather than inevitable – event
- He ended up with a leading role – though not sole leadership – of part of the Peasants’ War, during which he showed a desire to unify the rebellious peasants into a confraternity – much like a league, as he had suggested before
- Divided, self-interested, and untrained, the peasants didn’t stand a chance, and after his execution Müntzer was painted as a bloodthirsty madman by Lutherans
- In more modern times, Müntzer has been held up as an early champion of the proletariat and celebrated as a revolutionary martyr

It seems that Drummond comes down quite clearly on the side that Müntzer was genuinely concerned by the state of the common people and wished for them something better. That definitely shapes some of his thoughts, but he is non-partisan in the evidence he has prepared, and I think his point is successfully made time and again.

‘Müntzer spoke in works which seem strange – even uncomfortable – to us today; but his commitment to total societal change still resounds, crying out for a new era of social justice.’

While Drummond does well to spin a narrative from the spotty sources – often honestly addressing the reader to note months and years that slip by with too little evidence to comment on – the timeline is necessarily a bit confused. Especially early on, when Müntzer was an itinerant preacher still yet to develop much infamy, the story jumps a little, mixed in with tidbits from Wittenberg to add context.

For example, there’s a number of ‘more later’, or ‘we’ll return to this’, to try and bend people/events around a timeline that makes sense, which of course just feels like a whirl of half finished thoughts taken up a chapter later. In such a dense book, a chapter later might be several days later, and so it can be a little frustrating to try and keep everything straight.

Truthfully, there’s not much that could have been done to straighten this out. It’s kind of part and parcel for a ‘Life’ of such a poorly recorded figure. But it is something that definitely adds a bit of labour on the reader’s behalf and may turn someone off the book, so it bears forewarning.

This leads into the other mild frustration for me – for a ‘Life of’, there’s precious little engagement with Müntzer as a personality.

Now, Drummond does address this with some very clear boundaries. The archives are slim. Much of what Müntzer wrote that still remains is theological in nature, and Drummond sets out his stall early on that he is NOT interested in interrogating theology or assessing the rightness or wrongness of any of Müntzer’s statements. That’s why this is just a mild frustration.

It’s just that Drummond does recognise that many of Müntzer’s claims are… how you say… fucked up? They comes across very delusionally to a modern audience. By linking Müntzer to the traditions of the mystics, Taborites, and Hussites, Drummond does partly explain this. But I wanted more!

For example, Müntzer preached that God’s chosen – the Elect – were those who had suffered for their faith and as a result could communicate directly with God. However, on the evidence available – certainly, per the evidence in this book – the only ‘Elect’ that Müntzer knew of were himself and the dead prophets from the bible, including Jesus. In further research beyond this book, I’ve found that he addressed some of his letters to his congregations ‘to the Elect’, but scholars have noted the vagueness of this address. Clearly it is a rhetorical technique rather than seriously referring to his followers as members of the select chosen of God – especially as he often goes on to criticise their behaviour in these letters.

‘The Elect were men and women of all backgrounds, in all historical periods and in all countries, who communicated directly with God and performed God’s work on earth. Müntzer cited many examples: Moses, Elijah, Daniel, Jesus, the Apostles – and himself.’

This includes preaching to the princes of Saxony and, as Drummond puts it, ending his sermon ‘with a rather startling demand to be appointed as their sole religious adviser’, where Müntzer compared himself to the prophet Daniel.

This means that, rhetorically at least, Müntzer comes across more like a Charles Manson or Jim Jones than a Trotsky, as Drummond compares him to in the final chapter.

Now, of course doing a deep psychological dive into a 16th century figure that we know of through a few dozen letters and his haters writing books about how evil he was would be crazy. There’s only so much that you can say. And I’m not saying Drummond should have guessed at or theorised about whether Müntzer was loved enough as a child or whatever – that would be absurd. But I feel that Drummond could have done more to explore the cultural context of the high-boundary community (us vs them) at the time, all exacerbated by war, famine, plague, Ottoman expansion, even astronomical phenomena that created the conditions for apocalyptic terror and mindsets conducive to: ‘I am the chosen one.’

Drummond does do well, mind you, to show how the contemporary political upheavals allowed the Reformation not just to take root, but to become a tool in the hands of the elite. He’s an excellent social historian, with a crystal clear view on the nascent class tensions underlying both the Reformation (Wittenberg’s version) and the Reformation (Radicalist remix):

‘The efforts of the feudal powers, both secular and religious, to accumulate land – and with the land, serfs and tenants – resulted in an increasingly severe and arbitrary imposition of financial, legal and social demands on the labouring classes… As returns from land investment diminished, landowners attempted to impose the more rigorous types of serfdom on their tenants – a tactic adopted by the Church in particular. The peasantry, despite gallant efforts to argue their rights through all the courts available, and despite isolated and abortive attempts to make their point by force, gradually found their condition worsening. The few who could escape to the towns found that trade and manufacture had developed to the point where pre-learned skills were essential, so most of the migrants ended up among the disenfranchised and impoverished urban poor… For those who remained in the village or on the farm, in a period when the rural population was growing apace, the divide between rich and poor simply increased.’

He also carefully shows that reforming zeal was, by this point, a generations-long fight for change that was being fought by people as far from Luther as you could get and still find people speaking German:

‘…among the weavers in Zwickau were many followers of German and Bohemian spiritualism who drew their inspiration from the Taborite wing of the Hussite Reformation. These traditions had been suffused with new life after Luther issued his call for reform, and it was Storch [weaver and radical lay preacher] who led the radical movement in the town. Despite the generally lower status of weavers in sixteenth-century Germany, Storch himself was by all accounts in quite a stable economic position; in addition, he was remarkably well read in the Bible, having been taught by the rather ominously named Balthasar Teufel (‘Devil’), erstwhile schoolmaster of Zwickau.’

So it’s not like Drummond is blaming all this social disorder on like, idk just flash in the pan ideas. He’s a very good historian and the analysis is solid and grounded on the times of Thomas Müntzer. There’s just, I think, a deeper psychological/socio-religious strand that could have been teased out, and would have created a deeper portrait of the life of this strange little man.

I know I say it a lot and it’s petty at this point. Drummond is a fantastic scholar and many of the writings on Thomas Müntzer are only accessible in English at all because of his years of research and publication. His translations are lauded and, being an excellent writer himself anyway, he captures the rolling radical energy of the many speeches and letters he excerpts from in this book.

But come on, dude. Please, please, take this one example:

‘On, on, onwards, for the fire is hot! Do not let your sword grow cold, do not let it hang loose in your hands! *Smite cling clang on the anvil of Nimrod* and cast down their towers! As long as they live, it is not possible to be emptied of the fear of man. You can be told nothing about God as long as they rule over you. On, onwards, while you have daylight. God marches before you, so follow, follow!’

Let me first say, great translation Mr Drummond. So great, he uses it (or excerpts) three times in the book – as is his right. It’s great, he’s captured the martial and ‘admittedly provocative’ tone of a call to miners to rise against their Lords.

But check out that bolded part. That is evocative as hell! If you’ve heard of Müntzer before, it might even be new to you. Philip Schaff renders this same line as ‘strike hard upon the anvil of Nimrod’, while Karl Kautsky has ‘forge the hammer on the anvil of Nimrod.’

So where does Drummond get the fiercely onomatopoeic ‘Smite cling clang’?

From the original, delightful 16th century German!

‘Schmiedet pinke-panke auf den Anbossen Nimrods…’

Why would you hide this from the reader? Jesus wept, @ scholars of the world include this stuff, please, I beg of you.

Here’s the full lovely weird quote:

'Dran, dran, dieweil das Feuer heiß ist. Lasset euer Schwert nit kalt werden, lasset nit verlähmen! Schmiedet pinke-panke auf den Anbossen Nimrods, werfet ihnen den Turm zu Boden ! Es ist nit möglich, weil sie leben, daß ihr der menschlichen Furcht solltet leer werden. Man kann euch von Gotte nit sagen, dieweil sie über euch regieren. Dran, dran, weil ihr Tag habt. Gott gehet euch vor, folget, folget!'

That’s delicious!

Many, many times Müntzer’s works were peppered with such delightful turns of phrase that it opened up a bit of a suspicion in me – so closely did Müntzer’s (and others’) dry humour chime with Drummond’s. That’s the way of the translator, I guess, but imagine how delightful it would have been to compare the following to the original:

‘I have had a look at these new prophets and found that, in his wisdom, Satan has shat himself.’

‘…far worse than that oaf the Pope and his butter-boys.’

‘…Lutheran soup-slurpers with their greasy mercifulness…’

Despite my increasingly deranged demands that authors publish full 16th century German tracts for my own amusement, I really liked this book. Drummond has made a fragmentary life out of the scraps left in a drawer. Even more impressive, he’s sewn those scraps together into a compelling tapestry of a life and times that doesn’t just feel like a bottle episode in the story of Luther et al. The Reformation in all its glory and terror is funny and deeply political, which Drummond does not shy away from. His Müntzer is neither bloodthirsty madman nor communist superhero, but a deeply religious man both product of and contributor to the feverish, churning world of the German Peasants’ War. I would have liked more attention to the psychological and social mechanics of his form of radicalism, but that’s not a serious indictment of this book. A girl can dream.

Ultimately, Drummond is a proper historian who nevertheless writes with wit and personality; the kind of historian who tricks people into thinking archival work is constant discovery rather than 50% waiting for a locked room to be opened for 2 hours every third Sunday and 50% sniffing the old books while your stomach starts to gurgle. Drummond’s Müntzer feels half glimpsed through an old camera, and all the more compelling for that. Pinke-panke, comrades!

Read my full review here: https://jesswalsh23.substack.com/p/bo...

[Twain]

Fascinating insightful marvelous read. My dude LOVES talking about social conditions be it Munzter, Luther, Zeiss, the peasants, knights, weavers, miners, lords, princes, peasants, etc. He opens with putting you in the time and place of the 1500s and the mining and the squeeze on the peasants at the time and the role of the church in society the material forces, the lack of class analysis, the religious theology, all of it is so well explained . Considering I knew absolutely nothing about this coming in I never felt like I was lost he really explains things in the broader context.

So we have the start of the reformation led by dumb bitch Martin Luther. Luther comes across in a specific moment in time, the moment of the printing press. Given this relatively new technology, access to the Bible for religious academics expands greatly. Luther reads the Bible and gets pissed it’s not in line with how people are living (stuff like indulgences are not in the Bible, usury is no bueno, there is no German Bible it’s all in Latin, etc.) so he writes his theses and does his thing. Ultimately, however Luther is a reformer and not a revolutionary. He throws his stock in with the German nobility and has little to no faith in the peasants. P215 Luther says “The peasants themselves… are so disloyal, false, disobedient and wanton, and plunder, rob and remove what they can, like barefaced highwaymen and murderers… And worst of all, they carry on such wild raging and horrible sins in the name of Christianity and under the cover of the gospel”. Despite being in rhetorical war with the church he’s pretty cool with the secular authorities (who are looking to further cement their power by getting the church out of the paint in Germany what a nice confluence of interest). In general not a big peasant guy prefers to have issues between academics and elites sorted out in private behind closed doors whereas a man of the people like Munzter preferred to have debates in public for the common person to hear and arrive at his or her own conclusions.

However, what he starts has been going on elsewhere in the past (namely with the Hussites). Luther kinda quickly loses control of the movement after his unsuccessful plea at the Diet of Worms and has to go into hiding (that his prince buddies hook him up with). Karlstadt and some more progressive preachers start to try to gain control of the peasant movement and then Luther to get them out of the paint.

Along comes ole Tommy Boy Munzter the bad boy of Christianity with an incredibly saucy writing style. Like dudes writing is incredible some of his takedowns of the church and princes and Luther are so funny I just know if he were alive today he’d write a mean diss track. Originally him and Luther are pretty cool as reformists and there’s even some evidence Luther helps get Munzter one of his first jobs. Munzter kinda bounces around between a few different posts but he takes something of a more radical line than Luther. Munzter believes all types of heretical things, like the mass should be in the native German tongue instead of Latin so the peasants can understand it, that everyone should receive the Eucharist, that mass should be told towards the people not the tabernacle, all kinds of cooky stuff Catholics obviously believe people should be put to death over. He believes faith does not come from reading but from suffering and turns against the academics in the favor of commoners. He also thinks that people should all be of the same rank, rails against the oppression of the peasantry, and by his critics is accused of wanting to communalize all goods (although that’s not articulated in his own writings, seems like a pretty logical endpoint).

He has a tremendous belief in the peasantry and thinks that they should all be educated active members in the church and believes that one of the things getting in the way of this are princes and counts and nunneries and the papists, he doesn’t really think any of these people are truly following the word of god but are rather corrupted by their power and authority. He also believes that their taxes and tithes and indulgences, etc. are all kinda stopping the peasants from leading a richer life of faith. He also believes some of the more standard reformist stuff that Luther does like railing against indulgences or usury.

He also has some wild beliefs that God is returning to the earth soon. This kinda leads him to say that god is going to return to earth and that “the elect” have to remove the evil Catholic Church (and later Luther and his set too) and prepare the earth for gods return by living in a way that truly follows the teaching of the Bible. He’s also a pretty beast writer some of the passages in here are incredible takedowns be it of Luther or the Papists or the princes or whomever. He also thinks the Bible is a living text as opposed to a lot of the academics at the time who just appear to be content translating it and analyzing it. Munzter very much thinks there are continued prophets and that dreams and visions that any normal person has could be from god and deserve to be heard and interpreted.

Across his first couple of posts, he’s seen as something as a rabble rouser as typically iconoclastic acts tend to follow him wherever he goes. He’s typically brought in by other reformist minded people to help bolster the reform and is disliked more by town councils of burghers and dukes people like that. He falls on hard times between posts and eventually ends up in Allstedt where he has kinda his most sustainable run. He eventually gets run out of town there and ends up after a bit of time organizing the peasants revolt in Muhlhausen around 1525. The peasants have some initial success but then eventually get smoked and Munzter gets captured, interrogated, tortured and put to death.

There’s very close attention paid to exactly what was going on. For example when the peasant rebellions started, Lutherans like Duke Johann and Freidrich the Wise were very wary of allowing Catholic Duke Georg to put down the peasants rebellions due to distrust of what he might do.

Some really cool stuff about Munzters immediate legacy too. After watching Munzter and his crew get absolutely smoked by the princes, Hans Hut is like “actually the Turks are gonna roll through and kill most of the blasphemers or gods going to send a dragon or something and then we’ll be victorious”. It’s clear that Pfeiffer and Munzter’s failing to raise a peasant army capable of taking down the mercenaries of the dukes kinda changed the approach to the revolutionary reformers. They were simply to wait for the apocalypse event that would take out the nobility once they realized they would certainly die attempting to do it themselves.

Very interesting to know that a lot of peasant rebellions at the time come from or at least start from a bad harvest. Pretty interesting to know Luther wasn’t super popular outside of Wittenberg and with some of his prince and duke boys. Seems like he had a much more tenuous grip on the movement and wasn’t always welcome everywhere due to the different strains of the reform. But he did have his prince boys and that was all that mattered. Absolutely wild when Luther calls for the princes and dukes to murder thousands of peasants due to the peasant uprisings. Luther is trying to walk a tight rope where on the one hand he wants his reforms but on the other he doesn’t want to be seen as someone trying to foment an uprising because that would alienate him from his buddies in power so it’s a pretty tough balancing act for him.

Broadest strokes what you need to know is that in the 1500s “virtually all forms of intellectual expression were circumscribed by the framework of the Christian religion…To change the ways of thinking you had no option but to take the guise and adopt the language of the icons…You had to bend the only tools available, those of the Bible to new uses. And you had to do it for ‘God’…But what was important, as much with Luther as with Munzter, was the practical result and outcome of religious doctrine: put simply, which social and economic structures did a religious doctrine benefit or challenge?” (P. 332). While it’s clear Luther’s paved the way for secular authorities who he threw his lot in with Munzter went the other way and threw his lot in with the common folks.

[Greg]

500 years ago during capitalism's earliest entries into feudal Europe, ordinary Germans were extremely exploited by the Catholic church and nobility. Martin Luther famously challenged that relation but less famously hoped that change would come from the ruling elites and opposed insurgence from below.

That's where Thomas Müntzer, our vulgar, gothic, mystical, revolutionary hero comes in. This man believed so hard that ordinary Germans could overthrow the princes, dukes, earls, Catholics, and centrist Lutheran academics that he led Europe's greatest revolutionary movement before the French revolution. Spoiler alert: his righteous but inexperienced comrades got slaughtered and Müntzer was tortured and executed.

Drummond keeps what could be a very dry book fun, letting Müntzer's humor do a lot of the work. I laughed out loud more than once, but especially when he burnt Luther and his ilk, calling them donkey farting, scrotal doctors.

This reached farther back in time than most history I enjoy but I'm happy that I gave it a shot. Thanks to my dad who thought I'd enjoy another book about Müntzer (I didn't), but then inspired me to pick up this very good one.

[Andrés]

En 2025 se cumplieron 500 años de la ejecución de Thomas Müntzer tras la batalla de Frankenhausen y de la derrota del movimiento popular de la Guerra de los campesinos alemanes.

Predicador revolucionario, visionario apocalíptico, cabeza del ala radical de la Reforma, agitador de multitudes, organizador de revueltas campesinas, sermoneador de príncipes y duques.. en fin, Müntzer 💘.

He leído 4 libros sobre su figura a lo largo de los años y creo que este es el ensayo más completo sobre su vida y su teología revolucionaria. Un intento encomiable y bien fundamentado de captar su pensamiento y su mundo, aunque he echado de menos más contexto y desarrollo sobre el levantamiento y la Guerra de los Campesinos.

[Joshua]

What an incredible book. Drummond balances careful research, vibrant translations, and engaging writing to great effect.

[Patrick]

damn this müntzer guy was pretty cool

[Rocco Graziano]

Martin Luther suckkkks (though we already knew that). A fascinating and well-researched biography and makes an interesting companion to Engels' work on the German Bauernkrieg.

[Annas Jiwa Pratama]

A very thorough and accessible book on Thomas Müntzer's life and his role in the German Peasant's War of 1525. Müntzer's reforms were quite different from Luther, his contemporary. While Luther was explicitly more concerned with preserving the existing social order, Müntzer were more active in preaching to the peasants and the common folk. Notably, he was one of the first to translate liturgies into german.

I've been thinking a lot about history lately. Specifically, about how 'progress' comes about often in ambiguous ways or due to happenstance. For centuries after his execution, history paints him a villain, and hyperbolic twisting of his teachings, reflecting more the imagination and fears of insurrection from the perspective of the nobilities, falsely produced his more proto-communist image, and that he "taught all possessions should be in common.. and the mob did not want to work any more..". That this would at least in small part informed Marxism is so fascinating to me. Yes, Müntzer was a genuinely egalitarian political leader and preacher, and he did actual hardcore 'praxis' (i.e. conducted actual revolution and was recalcitrant and fundamentally hostile towards 'academics'). But I wonder how much those twisting in his early damnatio elevates his prestige among modern revolutionaries? While Müntzer's early failed revolutions ended up partially reinforcing Catholicism in Thuringia, this reinforcement and subsequent assassination of his character might end up propelling revolution elsewhere, beyond the centuries.

I am reminded of another quite different fidgets in the cacophonic movement towards progress. The concession of oligarchic party-rule in Taisho era Japan, specifically the rise of Hara Takashi in the Seiyūkai party. While branding himself as a champion for the middle class, Hara in actuality was a cold political pragmatist. Once he enacted reforms that enabled his rise, he subsequently squashed efforts for universal suffrage. But, it is his reforms in the Seiyūkai itself that could be said to later paving the way for actual progressives to arise. Again, the needle moved, but not quite in the way the mover intended.

[Bryce]

Thomas Muntzer has meant many different things to lots of different people. To contemporaries, a satanic foil to their pursuit of bourgeois spiritual realignment with the incremental onset of european capitalism. To nazis, he was a revolutionary ancestor whose desires for the german nation were perfected by the third reich. To east germans: a proto-lenin, synthesizing the collective desires of a pre-proletariat & exploited peasantry. To 21st century lutherans he's closer to osama bin laden. He saw the societal forest for the trees, and melded the spiritual with the economic and political. Engels provides the best summary: "𝘏𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘥𝘰𝘤𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘴 𝘩𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘰 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘥𝘰 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘵 𝘢 𝘨𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘮𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵, 𝘰𝘳 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘳 𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘭 𝘭𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘭 𝘰𝘧 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘳 𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘶𝘭𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘱𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘮𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵. 𝘛𝘩𝘶𝘴 𝘩𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘭𝘺 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘴 𝘩𝘪𝘮𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘥𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘮𝘮𝘢. 𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘥𝘰 𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘴 𝘩𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘰 𝘱𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘴𝘦𝘥, 𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘺; 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘰 𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘣𝘦 𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘥. 𝘐𝘯 𝘢 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥, 𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘺 𝘰𝘳 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘴, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘸𝘩𝘰𝘮 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘳𝘪𝘱𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘥𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯." Along the way, we've discovered more and more about the life and times of Thomas Muntzer, a truly inspiring yet imperfect individual who knew what the kingdom of god could look like.

[Daniel Silliman]

Impressive historical excavation. The Dreadful History ... offers a wild angle on the Reformation, brings some new perspectives, and recovers/reconstructs part of the story too often lost. Goes well with Summer of Fire and Blood. I especially appreciated Drummon's careful work explaining the historical sources, the difficulties with interpretation, and the gaps in the record.

I did think the book feel a bit short in explaining that the larger consequence of Müntzer. You get glimpses of how important he was to shaping/positioning, e.g., Luther and later Anabaptists. And there are echos of Müntzer-ism (so to speak) in other places, but those are mostly unexplored.

[K]

Thomas Muntzer was a religious revolutionary, seeking significant changes to the existing practice and pervasiveness of religious hierarchy in the lives of German-speaking communities in the early 16th century. For a rather dry subject, the author does quite a good job of making it lively and interesting. Were it not for the necessary discussions of religious doctrine interpretations and controversies, this book would have gotten a 5-star rating--the 4-star rating is due to the author's skill in conveying information as well as he did.

[Michael Jarvie]

A very readable account of the life of the radical preacher and iconoclast Thomas Müntzer.

Unlike Martin Luther, who always sucked up to the German princes who embodied the existing social and economic order, Müntzer went out on a limb for his beliefs, and paid the ultimate price.

Figures like Müntzer, with their intimate involvement in the German Peasants' War, remind me of radical preachers such as John Lilburne, Abiezer Coppe and Lawrence Clarkson in the English Revolution of 1640-1660.

[E. Kahn]

5* as a biographical appendix to Engels' "Peasant War in Germany," 3* as a standalone work, split the difference.

One weird thing about this book is that the author spends the body of the work trying to convince us that Muntzer was exclusively a theological radical who didn't give a damn about material conditions and then does a complete 180 in the conclusion.

Anyway, that Luther guy was a real piece of work, huh?

[Adrian Fanaca]

This book is about historical and religious background to the german reformation, Muntzer's early years, his period being a priest in Zwickau, his visit to Prague, his period in Erfurt, Nordhausen, and Halle, his fruitful year in Allstedt, the rebellion in Allstedt, Muntzer's theology, Muhlhausen and Nurnberg, the peasant uprising, the Thuringian uprising, the battle of Frankenhausen, the early Anabaptists. I give it only 3 stars as I do not remember any notable idea from it after reading it.

[Carl Roberts]

A great look at a very interesting person. Takes Münzter seriously on his own terms - that is, as a Christian reformer - while successfully (enough) contextualizing him in his own context and explaining why he’s been such a constant figure, from Luther through today. Real shame it doesn’t mention Luther Blissett’s Q anywhere, especially since their Verso book (under a different pseudonym) does get its deserved place in the bibliography.

[Ryan]

the history of apocalyptic pronouncements during the time of the reformation that ironically led to positive changes in social and political order is pretty fascinating. today ppl like muntzer would be read off as religious fanatics (for good reason). however theres a lot to learn from using theology to mobilize the poor by infusing radical (partially revolutionary) ideology into liturgy

[Lonnie Smith]

I was on the fence with Müntzer until he dropped this:
“Stir it all up, dear sirs, let the shit stink nicely. I hope you will brew a heady beer from it, since you like drinking such filth.”

rounding down 3.5 stars.

[Jason S]

Interesting account of the 1525 Peasant Revolt. Persuasively challenges traditional historiography on Thomas Muntzer and shows him as neither radical Marxist or satanic influence.

[Agustin Forero]

An excellent historiographical account with unexpected amounts of humor, despite how outrageous Thomas Müntzer's story is. I will never be 1/4th as cool as Müntzer was.