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Summer of Fire and Blood: The German Peasants' War
The German Peasants' War was the greatest popular uprising in Western Europe before the French
Revolution. Like a vast contagion it spread from southwest Germany through Württemberg, Swabia, the
Allgäu, Franconia, Thuringia, Saxony to Alsace in what is now France, Austria, and Switzerland. It moved along
the valleys from one region to another, and it broke out unexpectedly in areas far away. Everywhere, the
peasants were 'up', massing in armed bands. Authority and rulership collapsed, the familiar structures of the
Holy Roman Empire were overturned, and the fragility of the existing social and religious hierarchies was
exposed. People even began to dream of a new order.
It did not last. In spring 1525, the 'Aufruhr' or the 'turbulence' as contemporaries called it, had reached its
height, rolling all before it. But by May the tide had turned. Somewhere between seventy and a hundred
thousand peasants were slain by the forces of the lords as they put down the revolt. That summer of blood,
maybe one per cent of the population of the region of the war were killed, an enormous loss of life in just
over two months.
Summer of Fire and Blood follows a cataclysmic event that involved vast numbers of people moving in
turbulent flows as they sought to change their world. The vision that drove them was about peoples'
relationship to creation, and that is why it still matters now. Going back to the moment before the structures
of our own world were set up can help us to see new answers to the questions that confront us today. The
peasants' story matters too because discloses a radical Reformation, with a theological, social and political
vision that could have gone in a different direction. This is the Reformation we have lost sight of, and this is
why we need to understand what drove the peasants. For what mattered to them also matters to us.
Revolution. Like a vast contagion it spread from southwest Germany through Württemberg, Swabia, the
Allgäu, Franconia, Thuringia, Saxony to Alsace in what is now France, Austria, and Switzerland. It moved along
the valleys from one region to another, and it broke out unexpectedly in areas far away. Everywhere, the
peasants were 'up', massing in armed bands. Authority and rulership collapsed, the familiar structures of the
Holy Roman Empire were overturned, and the fragility of the existing social and religious hierarchies was
exposed. People even began to dream of a new order.
It did not last. In spring 1525, the 'Aufruhr' or the 'turbulence' as contemporaries called it, had reached its
height, rolling all before it. But by May the tide had turned. Somewhere between seventy and a hundred
thousand peasants were slain by the forces of the lords as they put down the revolt. That summer of blood,
maybe one per cent of the population of the region of the war were killed, an enormous loss of life in just
over two months.
Summer of Fire and Blood follows a cataclysmic event that involved vast numbers of people moving in
turbulent flows as they sought to change their world. The vision that drove them was about peoples'
relationship to creation, and that is why it still matters now. Going back to the moment before the structures
of our own world were set up can help us to see new answers to the questions that confront us today. The
peasants' story matters too because discloses a radical Reformation, with a theological, social and political
vision that could have gone in a different direction. This is the Reformation we have lost sight of, and this is
why we need to understand what drove the peasants. For what mattered to them also matters to us.
544 pages, Hardcover
First published October 9, 2024
117 people are currently reading
2168 people want to read
About the author
Lyndal Roper
25 books60 followersLyndal Roper, FRHistS, FBA, is an Australian historian and academic. She was appointed Regius Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford in 2011. She is a fellow of Oriel College, an honorary fellow of Merton College, Oxford, and the author of a variety of groundbreaking works on witchcraft.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 69 reviews
November 4, 2025
Early Revolutionaries
Written by Lyndal Roper, the esteemed Regius Professor of History at Oxford, Summer of Fire and Blood revisits the German Peasants’ War (1524–25), an uprising and challenge to the status quo, which central but often overlooked when studying the Reformation era or Germany as a whole.
Roper’s approach is to move away from the traditional narratives which focus on Martin Luther and Thomas Müntzer. Instead she brings to life the peasants themselves, their dreams, beliefs and collective aspirations. She reinserts them into the historical record with empathy and depth which really works. Furthermore, by placing religion at the heart of the uprising, Roper reframes it not as a chaotic outburst, but as a coherent struggle grounded in the radical potential of Reformation ideas. She emphasises the importance of the Twelve Articles a manifesto of reformist demands such as abolishing tithes, choosing one’s pastor, and access to forests and shows how these resonated across peasant communities.
Where Roper excels in Summer of Fire and Blood is her clear prose which translates what I imagine to be some very antiquated German text into flowing and accessible language. As a result book is great for the English reader as it provides access to a previously hard to reach piece of German history, on top of this Roper’s analysis and insight enrich the read. Having said that there are some difficulties such as regional shifts which can be difficult to understand and follow. But the payoff is well worth it if you can stay with it.
Roper finishes Summer of Fire and Blood with the uprisings legacy. For example, while the uprising was brutally suppressed, she shows how its aftermath led to one of the largest transfers of ecclesiastical property in German history, much of which fortified state institutions rather than aristocratic or church power. Alongside this, it is important to recognise that the revolt has long been a battleground for ideological interpretations; from Marxist narratives that saw proto-revolutionary impulses, to liberal views, yet Roper resists simplistic framing. She underscores how the promises of the Reformation might have gone further, had the uprising not been crushed.
As a result, Summer of Fire and Blood stands as a landmark work in Reformation history. It’s both a deeply human story and a powerful reframing of social revolt, showing how ordinary people sought and failed to reshape their world. I recommend it for history enthusiasts, scholars of Germany, or anyone curious about how religion, justice, and insurgency converge.
Written by Lyndal Roper, the esteemed Regius Professor of History at Oxford, Summer of Fire and Blood revisits the German Peasants’ War (1524–25), an uprising and challenge to the status quo, which central but often overlooked when studying the Reformation era or Germany as a whole.
Roper’s approach is to move away from the traditional narratives which focus on Martin Luther and Thomas Müntzer. Instead she brings to life the peasants themselves, their dreams, beliefs and collective aspirations. She reinserts them into the historical record with empathy and depth which really works. Furthermore, by placing religion at the heart of the uprising, Roper reframes it not as a chaotic outburst, but as a coherent struggle grounded in the radical potential of Reformation ideas. She emphasises the importance of the Twelve Articles a manifesto of reformist demands such as abolishing tithes, choosing one’s pastor, and access to forests and shows how these resonated across peasant communities.
Where Roper excels in Summer of Fire and Blood is her clear prose which translates what I imagine to be some very antiquated German text into flowing and accessible language. As a result book is great for the English reader as it provides access to a previously hard to reach piece of German history, on top of this Roper’s analysis and insight enrich the read. Having said that there are some difficulties such as regional shifts which can be difficult to understand and follow. But the payoff is well worth it if you can stay with it.
Roper finishes Summer of Fire and Blood with the uprisings legacy. For example, while the uprising was brutally suppressed, she shows how its aftermath led to one of the largest transfers of ecclesiastical property in German history, much of which fortified state institutions rather than aristocratic or church power. Alongside this, it is important to recognise that the revolt has long been a battleground for ideological interpretations; from Marxist narratives that saw proto-revolutionary impulses, to liberal views, yet Roper resists simplistic framing. She underscores how the promises of the Reformation might have gone further, had the uprising not been crushed.
As a result, Summer of Fire and Blood stands as a landmark work in Reformation history. It’s both a deeply human story and a powerful reframing of social revolt, showing how ordinary people sought and failed to reshape their world. I recommend it for history enthusiasts, scholars of Germany, or anyone curious about how religion, justice, and insurgency converge.
February 24, 2025
When I saw Summer of Fire and Blood: The German Peasant’s War on NetGalley I wanted to read it immediately. I primarily enjoy historical fiction but throw in some nonfiction history here and there, especially if I want to learn more about the era.
This book is very robust! It is full of information gleaned from years of study. Lyndal Roper has searched out the reasons for all sides of this terrible event and fully explains them. I learned a lot and feel I have a better grip on the subject now.
It shouldn’t be, but it was surprising to learn how the clergy used religious fever to incite the peasants to desire change. And afterward the same clergy threw the blame back on those same peasants when it made the clergy look bad.
I now understand the unequal relationship between the peasants and the lords and their belief that they had the ability to break away and govern themselves. The more I learned about the plight of the peasants, the more I understood their reasons for revolt. Every part of their life was scrutinized, ruled and taxed.
I like that Roper includes the everyday items and routines the peasants led. How their belongings were made, animals kept, crops produced and how the Lords were involved in even these simple items. The book is very thorough and interesting.
I listened to the audiobook and the narrator Rose Akroyd did an amazing job. She has a very smooth, pleasant voice and it added to my enjoyment.
If you are interested in this era of history, Summer of Fire and Blood, you need to read this book!
Many thanks to Lyndal Roper and Hachette Audio for the ARC via NetGalley!
This book is very robust! It is full of information gleaned from years of study. Lyndal Roper has searched out the reasons for all sides of this terrible event and fully explains them. I learned a lot and feel I have a better grip on the subject now.
It shouldn’t be, but it was surprising to learn how the clergy used religious fever to incite the peasants to desire change. And afterward the same clergy threw the blame back on those same peasants when it made the clergy look bad.
I now understand the unequal relationship between the peasants and the lords and their belief that they had the ability to break away and govern themselves. The more I learned about the plight of the peasants, the more I understood their reasons for revolt. Every part of their life was scrutinized, ruled and taxed.
I like that Roper includes the everyday items and routines the peasants led. How their belongings were made, animals kept, crops produced and how the Lords were involved in even these simple items. The book is very thorough and interesting.
I listened to the audiobook and the narrator Rose Akroyd did an amazing job. She has a very smooth, pleasant voice and it added to my enjoyment.
If you are interested in this era of history, Summer of Fire and Blood, you need to read this book!
Many thanks to Lyndal Roper and Hachette Audio for the ARC via NetGalley!
June 11, 2025
Summer of Fire and Blood begins with a shepherd who claims the Virgin Mary told him to cancel rent, taxes, and tolls — and to burn his drum for good measure. Thousands believed him, marched to demand his release from the bishop’s fortress, and were promptly massacred for their trouble. The shepherd went up in flames, and the peasants went home bleeding. But the resentment stuck.
By 1524, it took only one aristocrat’s demand for snail shells — yes, actual snail shells — to trigger a revolt. That shell of a spark spiraled into a summer where peasants stopped paying dues, picked up pikes, and gave their lords a very biblical headache.
One ringleader, Hans Müller, a farmer with military training and a flair for hanging spies from trees, turned grievances into marching orders. His troops demanded the Gospel, wine, land, and someone else’s monastery. “We will not recognise you as a master,” they told their new pastor, “but only as a servant,” in a letter that reads like Martin Luther ghostwrote a union manifesto.
The rebels soon realized that theology, like sausage-making, loses charm when you see how it’s produced. Inspired by preachers who hated monasteries more than sin, they looted altars, boiled vestments down into trouser accessories, and melted sacred objects into belt buckles.
The Twelve Articles, their catchily righteous wish list, promised equality, Christian freedom, and collective management of woods, water, and grievances. Meanwhile, Martin Luther — poster monk of resistance — sided with the princes. His fans, now armed and furious, kept quoting his sermons back at him like disappointed groupies.
Towns like Waldshut flirted with revolution, and the radical preacher Balthasar Hubmaier attracted both armed women and ecclesiastical threats. The peasants marched on castles and monasteries with the zeal of ex-customers visiting a shuttered bank. They hoped Christ’s blood had paid their debts. Instead, they paid in their own.
The authorities responded with diplomacy, then executions, then torchlight justice. As one noble threatened, “We will beat your wives to death… box your ears with the gospel,” which is as close to policy as some got.
Roper exhumes a catastrophe powered by faith, fury, and mushroom taxes, where peasants died trying to argue scripture with swords — and history quietly moved on with the body count.
By 1524, it took only one aristocrat’s demand for snail shells — yes, actual snail shells — to trigger a revolt. That shell of a spark spiraled into a summer where peasants stopped paying dues, picked up pikes, and gave their lords a very biblical headache.
One ringleader, Hans Müller, a farmer with military training and a flair for hanging spies from trees, turned grievances into marching orders. His troops demanded the Gospel, wine, land, and someone else’s monastery. “We will not recognise you as a master,” they told their new pastor, “but only as a servant,” in a letter that reads like Martin Luther ghostwrote a union manifesto.
The rebels soon realized that theology, like sausage-making, loses charm when you see how it’s produced. Inspired by preachers who hated monasteries more than sin, they looted altars, boiled vestments down into trouser accessories, and melted sacred objects into belt buckles.
The Twelve Articles, their catchily righteous wish list, promised equality, Christian freedom, and collective management of woods, water, and grievances. Meanwhile, Martin Luther — poster monk of resistance — sided with the princes. His fans, now armed and furious, kept quoting his sermons back at him like disappointed groupies.
Towns like Waldshut flirted with revolution, and the radical preacher Balthasar Hubmaier attracted both armed women and ecclesiastical threats. The peasants marched on castles and monasteries with the zeal of ex-customers visiting a shuttered bank. They hoped Christ’s blood had paid their debts. Instead, they paid in their own.
The authorities responded with diplomacy, then executions, then torchlight justice. As one noble threatened, “We will beat your wives to death… box your ears with the gospel,” which is as close to policy as some got.
Roper exhumes a catastrophe powered by faith, fury, and mushroom taxes, where peasants died trying to argue scripture with swords — and history quietly moved on with the body count.
April 8, 2025
Summer of Fire and Blood: The German Peasant’s War is a meticulous dive into the German Peasant uprising during the early reformation period of the 16th century. Throughout this book, the author informs the reader how the largest European revolution prior to the French Revolution started with the peasants’ new understanding of the recently translated Bible by Martin Luther and challenging the existing social order of nobility and clergy.
As the title suggests, this is a bloody book and blood ran from both sides. Roper shows us how the rioters coerced villages to join the rebellion but also failed to hold substantial territory due to a lack of logistics. That they were mostly a roaming hoard without the ability to halt the nobility’s cavalry, thus often losing on the battlefield.
More importantly Roper details how different German governments in the 20th century used their interpretations of the peasants war as tools of their legitimacy and why there hasn’t been any substantive writing on this war in the English language after World War II.
Overall it was an informative book as the author provides lots of interesting insight. For example the transition of marching music from a musician playing a flute with one hand and a drum with a single stick, to transitioning in the 16th century to playing just a drum with two sticks allowing rhythm to be more complex and compelling thus allowing the peasants to summon recruits to a target. While I did enjoy this and other interesting facts, I do feel that the author lost me at some parts towards the end.
As the title suggests, this is a bloody book and blood ran from both sides. Roper shows us how the rioters coerced villages to join the rebellion but also failed to hold substantial territory due to a lack of logistics. That they were mostly a roaming hoard without the ability to halt the nobility’s cavalry, thus often losing on the battlefield.
More importantly Roper details how different German governments in the 20th century used their interpretations of the peasants war as tools of their legitimacy and why there hasn’t been any substantive writing on this war in the English language after World War II.
Overall it was an informative book as the author provides lots of interesting insight. For example the transition of marching music from a musician playing a flute with one hand and a drum with a single stick, to transitioning in the 16th century to playing just a drum with two sticks allowing rhythm to be more complex and compelling thus allowing the peasants to summon recruits to a target. While I did enjoy this and other interesting facts, I do feel that the author lost me at some parts towards the end.
September 21, 2025
The uprising of peasants covered by this book was a widespread popular revolt in a number of German-speaking areas in Central Europe from 1524 to 1525. It was Europe’s largest and most widespread uprising before the French Revolution of 1789. The outbreaks popped up at scattered and separate locations throughout southwest Germany and portions of France, Austria, and Switzerland. Areas that experienced violence included Württemberg, Swabia, the Allgäu, Franconia, Thuringia, Saxony, and Alsace.
Actions of the peasants generally consisted of gatherings of large numbers (5,000 to over 10,000, 18,000 in one Alsatian battle) that formed into roving bands that moved from town to town like a snowball gathering more as it traveled and using their overwhelming numbers to plunder castles, abbeys, and monasteries (towns, villages, and merchants were generally spared). After consuming the plundered food and wine in one area they would move on to the next town. The large groups needed to keep moving in order to keep themselves supplied. (Link to list of various Bands)
Until late Spring there was minimal resistance to the movement of these large bands of peasants, but by late Spring Philip of Hesse and the Swabian League had organized an army of experienced professional and mercenary soldiers which subsequently ended the revolt with merciless severity. Armed forces formed by other Lords conquered peasant groups in other surrounding areas. Almost all the deaths caused by the uprising were caused by the revenge issued by the combined response of various Lords.
This book provides a carefully crafted understanding of the world that the peasants inhabited by uncovering rich detail of their daily lives and uncovering their beliefs, not only from what people said but through what they did. This emphasis on the perspective of the peasants is a challenge for writers of history because peasant illiteracy prevented them from leaving their own writings.
The author has tried to represent the peasants' perspective by going beyond deducing an explanation from their economic position or social class alone and going on to reconstruct what the rebels experienced, felt and believed. She argues the following:
What were the lasting consequences of the Peasants’ War? The most obvious was the destruction and closure of numerous monasteries and convents, which “accomplished one of the greatest transfers of land and property ever seen in the German region.” Whereas the English Reformation put monastic wealth in the hands of the nobility and gentry, the German beneficiaries were secular rulers.
In this review I haven't said much about the Reformation and its leaders, nor have I made mention of the sociological and political makeup of civil society at that time—but those topics are also covered by this book. This book doesn't cover the various battles with much detail, but instead it concentrates on actions and conditions before and after the battles. At numerous points in the book the author speculates on the role of peasant women, (most other historians ignore them). One comment I remember in particular was that when the men joined the roving bands they left their women behind to do the tilling and Spring time planting of crops.
This book's narrative is sufficiently readable such that the popular reading audience can manage it. The book is supplied with Notes, Bibliography, and Index which more serious academic readers can utilize. I found some of the explanatory notes to be of particular interest even though I don't consider myself to be an academic reader.
The following spoiler contains a personal observation on my part not directly related to the book's contents:
Actions of the peasants generally consisted of gatherings of large numbers (5,000 to over 10,000, 18,000 in one Alsatian battle) that formed into roving bands that moved from town to town like a snowball gathering more as it traveled and using their overwhelming numbers to plunder castles, abbeys, and monasteries (towns, villages, and merchants were generally spared). After consuming the plundered food and wine in one area they would move on to the next town. The large groups needed to keep moving in order to keep themselves supplied. (Link to list of various Bands)
Until late Spring there was minimal resistance to the movement of these large bands of peasants, but by late Spring Philip of Hesse and the Swabian League had organized an army of experienced professional and mercenary soldiers which subsequently ended the revolt with merciless severity. Armed forces formed by other Lords conquered peasant groups in other surrounding areas. Almost all the deaths caused by the uprising were caused by the revenge issued by the combined response of various Lords.
The forces of the lords put down the revolt by slaying somewhere between seventy thousand and a hundred thousand peasants. That summer of blood, maybe 1 per cent of the population of the area of the war was killed, an enormous loss of life in just over two months.One of the biggest single battles (a.k.a. massacre) of the Peasants' War was the Battle of Frankenhausen. Casualty figures are unreliable but peasant losses are estimated at more than 7,000 while the Lords' coalition army casualties are reported to be six. The cleric Thomas Müntzer, who is generally credited with being the inspirational leader of this particular group of peasants, was captured after this battle, tortured, and finally executed at Mühlhausen on May 27, 1525.
This book provides a carefully crafted understanding of the world that the peasants inhabited by uncovering rich detail of their daily lives and uncovering their beliefs, not only from what people said but through what they did. This emphasis on the perspective of the peasants is a challenge for writers of history because peasant illiteracy prevented them from leaving their own writings.
The author has tried to represent the peasants' perspective by going beyond deducing an explanation from their economic position or social class alone and going on to reconstruct what the rebels experienced, felt and believed. She argues the following:
... that the revolt was motivated by religious conviction, a revolutionary religious commitment that our denominational histories have led us to forget, and with it, the social radicalism of the early Reformation. … Indeed, revolutions must be explained in terms of beliefs, experience, and emotions as well as social conditions. Class and injustice are learnt through experience, through daily humiliations and privations, and beliefs are not just rational sets of propositions. The Twelve Articles were important not only because they articulated a theology but because they were a printed object that one could point to, a concrete crystallization of a set of attitudes and convictions.The Twelve Articles referenced in the above excerpt was a document developed and used by some of the peasant groups to explain their complaints. It denounced lords’ ownership of peasants as serfs, insisted on a community’s right to choose its own pastor, demanded fair access to forests, and called for the abolition of death taxes and tithes on animals.
What were the lasting consequences of the Peasants’ War? The most obvious was the destruction and closure of numerous monasteries and convents, which “accomplished one of the greatest transfers of land and property ever seen in the German region.” Whereas the English Reformation put monastic wealth in the hands of the nobility and gentry, the German beneficiaries were secular rulers.
In this review I haven't said much about the Reformation and its leaders, nor have I made mention of the sociological and political makeup of civil society at that time—but those topics are also covered by this book. This book doesn't cover the various battles with much detail, but instead it concentrates on actions and conditions before and after the battles. At numerous points in the book the author speculates on the role of peasant women, (most other historians ignore them). One comment I remember in particular was that when the men joined the roving bands they left their women behind to do the tilling and Spring time planting of crops.
This book's narrative is sufficiently readable such that the popular reading audience can manage it. The book is supplied with Notes, Bibliography, and Index which more serious academic readers can utilize. I found some of the explanatory notes to be of particular interest even though I don't consider myself to be an academic reader.
The following spoiler contains a personal observation on my part not directly related to the book's contents:
October 14, 2024
Prior to reading this book, I encountered the German Peasants’ War as little more than a sordid footnote to the life of Martin Luther and history of the Protestant Reformation. Lyndal Roper’s painstakingly researched book provided me with a much more thorough understanding of the tragic events.
I appreciate that the author explores a variety of causes and leaders in the widespread, varied revolt rather than simplistically assigning blame to a conveniently unpleasant scapegoat or two. The peasants’ demands are discussed at some length, and they were not entirely unreasonable or unchristian…though some of their behavior certainly was as things spiraled into violence.
Of course, once the nobles finally decided to take violent action (largely at the bombastic, unrestrained urging of Martin Luther in one of the more shameful episodes of his career) things become bloody and depressing. This isn’t cheery reading, but it reveals human nature in its idealism, its greed, and its ability to twist beautiful truth to its own ends.
As with any history book, parts can be a bit dry and the author may import some of her own pet causes to a small degree. However, the level of research makes this a must read for anyone interested in this time period, in terms of Medieval German history or the Protestant Reformation.
I appreciate that the author explores a variety of causes and leaders in the widespread, varied revolt rather than simplistically assigning blame to a conveniently unpleasant scapegoat or two. The peasants’ demands are discussed at some length, and they were not entirely unreasonable or unchristian…though some of their behavior certainly was as things spiraled into violence.
Of course, once the nobles finally decided to take violent action (largely at the bombastic, unrestrained urging of Martin Luther in one of the more shameful episodes of his career) things become bloody and depressing. This isn’t cheery reading, but it reveals human nature in its idealism, its greed, and its ability to twist beautiful truth to its own ends.
As with any history book, parts can be a bit dry and the author may import some of her own pet causes to a small degree. However, the level of research makes this a must read for anyone interested in this time period, in terms of Medieval German history or the Protestant Reformation.
March 23, 2025
Did you ever buy a book on history and find the title to be completely misleading? Did you ever buy a book, and have it ruined by the author's trying to imprint modern views on something that happened almost 500 years ago?
If you like this kind of book, Summer of Fire and Blood may be just the thing for you. About 1/3 of the book concerns the Peasent's War. The greater portion of the book describes the leading German leaders of the Reformation. The style is scholarly. The conclusion was unnecessary. I have no interest in the application of the Reformation to modern politics.
I would give this book a pass.
If you like this kind of book, Summer of Fire and Blood may be just the thing for you. About 1/3 of the book concerns the Peasent's War. The greater portion of the book describes the leading German leaders of the Reformation. The style is scholarly. The conclusion was unnecessary. I have no interest in the application of the Reformation to modern politics.
I would give this book a pass.
February 11, 2025
I loved Lyndal Roper’s biography of Luther, and, given my interest in all things Reformation, I requested an ARC as soon as I saw it. Once again, Roper does not disappoint: this is a masterful, scholarly, and intelligent account of a critical event in European history. Roper organizes her account by alternative to a chronological account with a thematic one; it is an interesting and clever choice; it forces one to read more carefully and, for better or worse, more slowly. Yet what one occasionally expends in patience is ultimately won back through a richer understanding of (what strikes me as) an underappreciated, yet all too-resonant topic.
- thanks to Basic Books for an ARC via NetGalley
- thanks to Basic Books for an ARC via NetGalley
December 28, 2025
Fantastic book.
luther--you are free and all children of god
serfs--yea! we want our freedom.
luther--uh no not like that!
Took me longer to read than I expected mostly because I found it depressing. Which isn't fair. It is not an unrelenting slog but taking a break in the middle did help me focus on what was happening and not how difficult it is to change systems...I like how the book sets up all the people involved and describes their world. It wasn't cut and dry and I am glad to have some way into the morass.
It is exciting to have new scholarship readily available for an event that is used as a prop by all sorts of factions.
She leaves us with some interesting questions regarding the lasting effects of the rebellion.
luther--you are free and all children of god
serfs--yea! we want our freedom.
luther--uh no not like that!
Took me longer to read than I expected mostly because I found it depressing. Which isn't fair. It is not an unrelenting slog but taking a break in the middle did help me focus on what was happening and not how difficult it is to change systems...I like how the book sets up all the people involved and describes their world. It wasn't cut and dry and I am glad to have some way into the morass.
It is exciting to have new scholarship readily available for an event that is used as a prop by all sorts of factions.
She leaves us with some interesting questions regarding the lasting effects of the rebellion.
June 2, 2025
Just finished:
New York: Basic Books, 2025.
Martin Luther's 95 Theses went on to change the world as he knew it, and in more realms than just the religious. While this wasn't the first time that peasants revolted against their lords, this rebellion was on a scale never seen before due to the resources peasants had when they raided monasteries and if had a religious element that previous uprising lacked.
RIGHTS: the peasants wanted the right to cut down trees in the forest and to hunt, both things the lords prohibited when they privatized lands. Peasants weren't allowed to fish and forced to feed hunting dogs. In addition, they didn't want to pay a tithe of grain to the monasteries. The peasants claimed that they wanted to go back to the past where relations between serfs and gentry were balance (this past didn't exist).
RELIGION. At first the peasants protested for their rights but brought religion into it after hearing the words of Martin Luther. Andreas Karlstadt said that believers in Christ were their own priests and didn't need an educated class to interpret scripture for them. Thomas Müntzer went even further in an attempt to bring about utopia. He believed God communicated through dreams and he was told to usher in a new era.
REBELLION: the bulk of the rebellion took place in the spring and summer of 1525. The peasants initial success came through seizing the resources of the monasteries that Charles V's armies were fighting in Italy. The peasants generally weren't away from home for long but met people they normally wouldn't have.
Roper argues that the peasants ultimately failed because they didn't have military training, the miners - a class similar to them - didn't join the peasants, and that Martin Luther ultimately sided with the German leaders.
At times it was dry, but at other moments, fast-paced read.
New York: Basic Books, 2025.
Martin Luther's 95 Theses went on to change the world as he knew it, and in more realms than just the religious. While this wasn't the first time that peasants revolted against their lords, this rebellion was on a scale never seen before due to the resources peasants had when they raided monasteries and if had a religious element that previous uprising lacked.
RIGHTS: the peasants wanted the right to cut down trees in the forest and to hunt, both things the lords prohibited when they privatized lands. Peasants weren't allowed to fish and forced to feed hunting dogs. In addition, they didn't want to pay a tithe of grain to the monasteries. The peasants claimed that they wanted to go back to the past where relations between serfs and gentry were balance (this past didn't exist).
RELIGION. At first the peasants protested for their rights but brought religion into it after hearing the words of Martin Luther. Andreas Karlstadt said that believers in Christ were their own priests and didn't need an educated class to interpret scripture for them. Thomas Müntzer went even further in an attempt to bring about utopia. He believed God communicated through dreams and he was told to usher in a new era.
REBELLION: the bulk of the rebellion took place in the spring and summer of 1525. The peasants initial success came through seizing the resources of the monasteries that Charles V's armies were fighting in Italy. The peasants generally weren't away from home for long but met people they normally wouldn't have.
Roper argues that the peasants ultimately failed because they didn't have military training, the miners - a class similar to them - didn't join the peasants, and that Martin Luther ultimately sided with the German leaders.
At times it was dry, but at other moments, fast-paced read.
June 17, 2025
More like 3.5 but rounding up to 4. An extremely thorough and succinct history of the German Peasant’s War and its underlying political, economic, social, and theological causes/ ramifications. I found that some of the meat of the book could become pedantic and inaccessible when it came to the names of various towns, actors, geographical descriptions, etc. and this is coming from a person who has been to the region and speaks a bit of a German. Nonetheless, my biggest critique is one that my college history professors would have immediately indicated: namely, that Roper doesn’t come to a clear and comprehensive thesis until the last ten pages of the book. While it tied the book nicely together, I would have appreciated it informing and guiding my thinking from the outset.
Even so, Roper’s examination of the Peasant’s War is excellent in its complexity and worldview. She draws on written sources, visual art, brand new statistical analysis, etymology, theories of anthropology, and much more to paint a wholistic picture of the peasants, lords, and their desires. This comes in handy as she interrogates the rebellion via feminist and class lenses, never neglecting the religious fervor and radicalism that informed and created the revolutionary zeal of the peasants. Indeed, the politics of our time is frequently informed by emotion, experience, and a groveling for simplicity, understanding, and (in a theological and secular sense) salvation. The Gemeinde and “bands” of the German Peasants War are fascinating collective organizations, their radical inclusion as significant as their definition-by-exclusion. As pertinent to our times as those of German peasants living out the Aufruhr that was 1520s Central Europe, Roper concludes by stating, “Revolutions must be explained in terms of beliefs, experience, and emotions as well as social conditions. Class and injustice are learnt through experience, through daily humiliations and privations, and beliefs are not just rational sets of propositions.” Perhaps this summarizes the liberal, conservative, authoritarian, and anarchic “revolutions” of our own times better than many.
Even so, Roper’s examination of the Peasant’s War is excellent in its complexity and worldview. She draws on written sources, visual art, brand new statistical analysis, etymology, theories of anthropology, and much more to paint a wholistic picture of the peasants, lords, and their desires. This comes in handy as she interrogates the rebellion via feminist and class lenses, never neglecting the religious fervor and radicalism that informed and created the revolutionary zeal of the peasants. Indeed, the politics of our time is frequently informed by emotion, experience, and a groveling for simplicity, understanding, and (in a theological and secular sense) salvation. The Gemeinde and “bands” of the German Peasants War are fascinating collective organizations, their radical inclusion as significant as their definition-by-exclusion. As pertinent to our times as those of German peasants living out the Aufruhr that was 1520s Central Europe, Roper concludes by stating, “Revolutions must be explained in terms of beliefs, experience, and emotions as well as social conditions. Class and injustice are learnt through experience, through daily humiliations and privations, and beliefs are not just rational sets of propositions.” Perhaps this summarizes the liberal, conservative, authoritarian, and anarchic “revolutions” of our own times better than many.
October 14, 2025
Una lectura molt repetitiva. Hi han dades que es repeteixen quasi a cada capítol. La narració acaba sent confusa perquè a vegades no saps si t'explica coses noves o si t'està tornant a explicar per quarta vegada el mateix.
March 29, 2025
A thoughtful account of the 16th century peasants war in Germany - something I had no previous knowledge of. I will definitely be exploring Roper's other works.
September 27, 2025
Could have been far more interesting than what it turned out to be.
The writing was repetitive (sometimes the same anecdote is mentioned multiple times) and often not well thought out (especially when it came to the subject of women in this era), which seemed to be the result of weak/insufficient editing. This book could have been half the size honestly.
Also, you get barraged by names and places, and I get that has to be done in a book like this, but they could have been introduced more seamlessly. I find what is most effective in these kinds of books is centering the events on a few key characters, and the writer tried to do this with people like Thomas Muntzer and Martin Luther, but it didn't quite work because I didn't get a good sense of what made them tick.
The writing was repetitive (sometimes the same anecdote is mentioned multiple times) and often not well thought out (especially when it came to the subject of women in this era), which seemed to be the result of weak/insufficient editing. This book could have been half the size honestly.
Also, you get barraged by names and places, and I get that has to be done in a book like this, but they could have been introduced more seamlessly. I find what is most effective in these kinds of books is centering the events on a few key characters, and the writer tried to do this with people like Thomas Muntzer and Martin Luther, but it didn't quite work because I didn't get a good sense of what made them tick.
January 25, 2025
Dem Buch hätte ich mehr Struktur gewünscht. Erst zum Schluss erfährt man etwas mehr über die die Wissenschaftlerin verfolgten Erklärungsansätze. Vorher verlor sie sich unterschiedlichen Erzählsträngen.
July 28, 2025
As a German, I always find it intriguing to see how non-Germans interpret the history of my country. That said, I couldn’t bring myself to finish this book.
It’s the little things.
I understand why the author emphasizes Martin Luther’s lack of support for the Peasants’ War — it adds a certain antagonistic tone to the narrative. But in my opinion, this side point is given far too much weight.
Which brings me to the next issue: The narrative suggests a kind of anachronistic access to information, as if news were spreading much faster and more uniformly than would have been possible in the early 16th century. That really threw me off.
Another point: The author notes that many peasants who joined the various rebel groups had never left their villages before. I found this surprising — and it contradicts the work of Peter Blickle (Der Bauernjörg), who shows that many of the fighters had prior experience as mercenaries or hired soldiers.
Finally, the author discusses the role of women in southwest Germany in the 1520s, noting that they often went to markets to sell goods — so far, so good. But then comes a strange and slightly racist comment: “as in today’s African societies.” That comparison felt unnecessary and out of place.
It’s the little things.
I understand why the author emphasizes Martin Luther’s lack of support for the Peasants’ War — it adds a certain antagonistic tone to the narrative. But in my opinion, this side point is given far too much weight.
Which brings me to the next issue: The narrative suggests a kind of anachronistic access to information, as if news were spreading much faster and more uniformly than would have been possible in the early 16th century. That really threw me off.
Another point: The author notes that many peasants who joined the various rebel groups had never left their villages before. I found this surprising — and it contradicts the work of Peter Blickle (Der Bauernjörg), who shows that many of the fighters had prior experience as mercenaries or hired soldiers.
Finally, the author discusses the role of women in southwest Germany in the 1520s, noting that they often went to markets to sell goods — so far, so good. But then comes a strange and slightly racist comment: “as in today’s African societies.” That comparison felt unnecessary and out of place.
May 8, 2025
I didn't know anything about the Peasants' War before reading this book but this was a great explanation of the war including its causes and the relationship with the Protestant Reformation which was really interesting - Luther was advocating religious but not economic or social freedom.
It's a detailed book which could have been difficult to follow for someone with no knowledge of the subject but the structure of discussing certain themes and also following the main protagonists helped make it accessible.
It's a very interesting thought of how society might have evolved differently had the peasants succeeded in obtaining a fairer society (but I guess that's why this important movement isn't better known as it challenged the social order which the upper echelons didn't want to risk repeating).
It's a detailed book which could have been difficult to follow for someone with no knowledge of the subject but the structure of discussing certain themes and also following the main protagonists helped make it accessible.
It's a very interesting thought of how society might have evolved differently had the peasants succeeded in obtaining a fairer society (but I guess that's why this important movement isn't better known as it challenged the social order which the upper echelons didn't want to risk repeating).
June 5, 2025
This was actually a super digestible easy read. The author did a great job that it read almost like a novel and was easy to follow. The only thing was that there are a ton of characters and it is helpful to know a bit about the wider historical landscape in that time period. However, it was really interesting and some of the lessons can be applied to current events.
July 1, 2025
Exceptionally well researched. Fascinating subject but sometimes a fight to get through all the theology and walls of German village names.
July 20, 2025
Summer of Fire and Blood: The German Peasants' War by Lyndal Roper
This year (2025) marks the 500th anniversary of the Peasants’ War. Actually, by the time I write this review (late July 2025), the anniversary has effectively passed. By May 1525, the peasants had been all too easily crushed by the nobles. All that was left was the mopping-up operation: capturing, torturing, and executing peasant leaders and making the peasants pay for their revolt. A synopsis of the Peasants’ War could be succinctly stated: the whole affair started in mid-1524, the peasants in some parts of the Holy Roman Empire had a solid six months of organizing, capturing, and burning monasteries and castles, and then quickly lost when the nobles put armies into the field in the spring of 1525. By the summer of 1525, approximately 100,000 peasants had been killed, and nearly half of the monasteries and convents in vast areas of the Holy Roman Empire (“HRE”) had been destroyed.
The Peasant’s War was not the first of such peasant revolts. In England, Wat Tyler’s Rebellion occurred in 1381. France had experienced the “Jacquerie” in 1358. However, the Peasant’s War has been the greatest in terms of territorial extent and the number of persons involved. So, although the author, Lyndal Roper, describes the Peasants’ War as a footnote or largely forgotten, there are reasons to remember it as a historical event.[1]
Adding to the reasons for remembering the Peasant War is the fact that it occurred at the beginning of the Reformation. The peasants employed talking points from Luther’s “The Freedom of a Christian” to define their movement. The disorder and chaos of the Peasants’ War took the shine off the apple of the early Reformation. After the Peasant’s War, Catholic concerns about disorder were proven, and the Lutheran “Summer of Love” was over.
Roper organizes her book around the seasons of 202/2025, feeding in the backstory while keeping the reader abreast of development as the year progressed. Roper provides the reader with insights about the situation of peasants under feudalism in the early 15th century. It was not slavery, but it was not far off from slavery. Peasants were bound to the land. Lords wanted to keep their peasants on their lands, working, growing food, and paying their feudal dues of labor and food to their superiors. Many peasants were required to get their lord’s permission to marry, which was refused if the prospective spouse was owned by a different lord, and to leave their village overnight. Roper emphasizes the dissatisfaction that peasants felt about their lord’s monopolistic appropriation of timber, ponds, and other natural resources, which denied them the necessities for survival.
The Swabian peasants presented their demands in the “Twelve Articles.” Since Swabia was one of the first regions to revolt, their Twelve Articles served as a model for other regions.[2]
Interestingly, the first point of the Twelve Articles was quintessentially Lutheran/Evangelical.[3] It stated:
The First Article. First, it is our humble petition and desire, as also our will and desire, that in the future we should have power and authority so that each community should choose and appoint a pastor, and that we should have the right to depose him should he conduct himself improperly. The pastor thus chosen should teach us the gospel pure and simple, without any addition, doctrine, or ordinance of man.
This is a mere seven years after Luther posted his 95 Theses. It seems odd that the practice of calling preachers was already integrated into peasant life in such a short time. Roper doesn’t explain how this happens; she treats it as if it doesn't need an explanation. There is a hint that Luther’s rupture with the Catholic Church caused monasticism to implode in a quick period. Roper alludes to a vast number of preachers making their way through Germany, seeking places to preach where they could earn a living. Presumably, the implosion of monasteries left many unemployed monks and priests with precisely the skill set to become evangelical preachers. Also, there may have been a tradition of itinerant preaching from Dominican and Franciscan monks that served as a template for evangelical preachers.
Roper doesn’t offer any explanation for any of this. She seems to assume that it was obvious that traditions over a thousand years old would be overthrown in a few years. It’s an assumption that I often see in Protestants who have grown up in an atmosphere that instills the idea that Protestantism is the obvious next step in the social development of Christianity.[4]
Roper emphasizes another Protestant distinctive, which is oddly irrelevant to the Peasants’ War. She repeatedly mentions the point that the Catholic Church withheld the wine – the blood of Christ – from the laity. This point was an essential talking point of the Lutheran Reformation. Roper ably explains that this principle tied into the aims of the peasants. The peasants’ statements emphasized their desire for “Freiheit” (freedom.) They wanted to be free of feudal dues, but more importantly, they wanted the freedom of the earth; they wanted the freedom to use the woods and water resources which God had given to all men as their common inheritance. The tie-in of this idea to the blood of Christ was the proposition that Christ had given his blood to give mankind freedom.
Of course, this was freedom from sin and/or the bondage of the devil. Luther may have given the concept of Christian freedom a more temporal scope in his “Freedom of a Christian,” which caught the attention of the peasants and lent legitimacy to their movement.
However, although Roper constantly treats the withholding of wine as an irritant to the peasants and an impetus to their movement, it does not feature in their demands. It appears that in areas where the Reformation was established, communion was administered in both kinds, and, significantly, this had no impact on whether peasants marched against their lords or looted convents and monasteries.
So, why does Roper treat the issue as if it were basic to the Peasants’ War? I suspect that this is another bit of modern Protestant mythology. As a Catholic, the issue has never been a big deal for me. Since Vatican II in the mid-1960s, communion in both kinds has been offered to Catholics; however, I would estimate that only a minority of Catholics – 20 to 30%- avail themselves of the wine option. The bread is more than sufficient and I don’t need to be spilling the cup….which are the reasons that the Catholic Church discouraged offering communion in the species of wine to the public rather than some arcane effort to create class privilege.
In my experience, the only people who find significance in this issue are Protestant apologists. Within a few months of writing this review, I had an educated Protestant using the “species in one kind” argument against me in a discussion about Catholic practices as if the discipline of 1525 applied in 2025. He didn’t have any notion that for virtually my entire life, the practice had been changed and that it was less significant than he imagined. He seemed to think that I was seething about the denial of communion in wine as if it was still occurring.
What gives?
Obviously, this is an example of “schismogenesis.” It is a marker of tribal boundaries, or, at least, modern Protestants still think it is. It has taken on far more significance now than it actually has. Whether this was true in 1517, I do not know, but I am suspicious of Roper’s perspective on the issue because she has been shaped by modernity. Let us agree that this was a live issue in 1517, but perhaps modern Protestants are reading far more of a connection between the issue and the Peasants’ War than actually exists.[5]
Another odd and unexplained thing was that this was the period when Protestantism was fracturing, and some Protestants were defining the elements as purely symbolic. Luther had a realist understanding of the elements, but Zwingli’s view was less definite. A number of the preacher/leaders of the peasants were proto-Anabaptist who defined the elements as merely symbolic. Luther required Andreas Karlstadt to recant his symbolic view of the Eucharist as the price for sanctuary. (p. 345)[6] Zwingli offered a similar deal to Balthasar Hubmaier, but when Hubmaier pleaded his conscience and his reading of scripture in support of symbolism, he was carried off to prison, later to found an Anabaptist church, and then to be martyred as an Anabaptist in the Danube River. (p. 351.)
This leads to another disconnect I found in the book, namely, the excessive focus on the anti-clerical motivation of the peasants. It is clear that hundreds of monasteries and convents were looted and destroyed by the peasants. It is also clear that the peasants in this revolt did not identify themselves with the Virgin Mary as had occurred in prior revolts. On the other hand, peasants also took, plundered, and destroyed castles where they could. More religious institutions were destroyed, but presumably this had something to do with how well-defended establishments operated by women religious and monks were.
Was there an anti-clerical animus? Or was the animus against anyone who was a lord and collected tithes and had rights to the benefits of nature? Religious institutions fell within that latter category. Also, as Roper constantly points out, convents and monasteries were to peasants what banks were to Willie Sutton: that was where the money was. Convents and monasteries were poorly defended locations which held food reserves and plunder. Peasants did not need an anti-clerical animus to loot them to supply their movement any more than Vikings needed an anti-clerical animus to raid Irish monasteries.
But where monasteries are plundered, Roper emphasizes the peasants’ dislike for the clerical class. We don’t hear about proto-proletariat resentment when peasants loot castles, which seems anomalous.
One thing we can certainly say is that peasants did not fear divine retribution for looting convents and monasteries. Whatever hedge of protection that the supernatural offered was not in effect in 1525. This could be due to Luther’s efforts to demystify the Catholic Church by propagandizing that the Catholic Church had committed fraud on the peasantry and that relics were fraudulent. Again, I would like to know how this kind of revolution in thinking occurred in less than a decade.[7]
What is also strange is that Roper is a feminist historian. She spends a lot of time pondering anachronistic issues, such as what women might have felt about the Peasants’ War. She suggests that if women were involved in the Peasants’ War, the values of the war would have been substantially different. This struck me as weird. How does she know that? Isn’t it the case that women of the period identified their interests with those of their family, which meant their husband? I don’t know, but again, there are many buried assumptions that carry a lot of the weight. She constantly refers to “masculine” and “male” values as if the demand for freedom or the right to use timber from common forests is a psychological quirk of the Y chromosome.
However, when it comes to the treatment of nuns, Roper shows no interest in the male-female divide. Roper goes out of her way to explain in one section that there were no rapes of nuns, but in a later section, she describes how “outrages” were carried out by peasants, and then by the soldiers of the lords against peasants. It is odd that this feminist historian would so broadly exonerate such a large group of men, where the female victims are Catholic religious women.[8]
Roper does acknowledge that peasants under Jacob Rohrback gruesomely killed 70 captured nobles in the Weinsberg Massacre. This was a signal act that turned opinion against the peasants and opened the door to reprisals by the nobles.
Roper follows many figures in this narrative. The details can be overwhelming as the story often backtracks to catch up with various individuals. One leader was Thomas Munzer, who became radicalized over the course of the war. Munzer has been recognized as an archetype by various ideologies. For Communist East Germany, Munzer was a leader of the proletariat before the concept of a proletariat existed. For Fascists, the Peasants’ War was a war of national liberation that needed a leader. The Lutherans wanted to present Munzer as the architect of the war, thereby taking the blame off Luther. (p. 322) Munzer was not the mastermind or cause of the Peasants’ War, but as a preacher, he was constantly pushing the boundaries of the Reformation in the direction of the radical Reformation. Munzer was executed by the lords on May 27, 1525.
Although Roper seems to dispute that Martin Luther was the eminence grise behind the Peasants’ War, it was Luther’s tropes and themes that the peasants embraced. It was Luther who opened up the “revolution of rising expectations” by preaching about Christian freedom. Luther initially was ambivalent to the war. He counseled against the revolt. When news of the Weinsberg Massacre broke, Luther swung his support unequivocally behind the nobility. He abandoned temperance in advocating that the nobles smite and slay the peasants. It was one of Luther’s least edifying writings and set the stage for subsequent Lutheran theology about the duty of citizens to obey the state.
One would think that Luther’s intemperate statements would have generated considerable peasant animosity against the Reformation. According to Roper, the locations that had the highest commitment to the revolt were those that later defected to the Anabaptists. This correlation likely requires more detail to establish a causal nexus.
I don’t want my comments to seem overly critical. There is a lot of good value in this. I think I got a good survey of the circumstances of the Peasants’ War, and it filled in some of the blank spots I didn’t really know about.
Footnotes
[1] My high school European History class covered these revolts. Also, they were on the European History AP test back in the 1970s.
[2] Swabia is a region of southwestern German, east of Bavaria. The Peasant’s War never involved Bavaria.
[3] In Germany, and during this period of history, “evangelical” and “Lutheran” were essentially synonyms.
[4] I once had a law partner tell me on a ride to a mediation that Catholicism was “transitional paganism.” He didn’t think that he was giving any offense. For him, this was simply the obvious implication of everything he had grown up learning from his Protestant community.
[5] To be clear, I am not saying that the two forms of communion issue was not an issue for the Reformation or for German peasants. I am saying I don’t think Roper showed that it was an issue for the peasants who marched to war. She may be right; it may have been a motivation, but I think the connection is more obvious to someone who has been brought up with stories about how the dastardly Catholic Church denied wine to Catholics.
[6] Roper states that Hubmaier’s position denied that Christ was literally in the eucharistic elements. This position was called “Sacramentalism.” (p. 71-72.) Karlstadt proclaimed his freedom as a Christian to disagree with Luther on the issue of Sacramentalism. (p. 72)
[7] Roper describes acts of iconoclasm in some cases. (p. 185-186) It does not seem that the “iconoclastic fury” was anything like that which would sweep other parts of Europe later.
[8] Roper seems to find an incident where women were threatened with sexual humiliation to be endearing. This involved a situation where the rough mistress of a peasant leader threatened to cut the backsides off the dresses of noblewomen so that they would go around bare-bottomed. It seems weird that a feminist historian could find such a threat from a woman to be endearing because it allows her to define a strong female character when the same threat from a man would have been vile misogyny.
This year (2025) marks the 500th anniversary of the Peasants’ War. Actually, by the time I write this review (late July 2025), the anniversary has effectively passed. By May 1525, the peasants had been all too easily crushed by the nobles. All that was left was the mopping-up operation: capturing, torturing, and executing peasant leaders and making the peasants pay for their revolt. A synopsis of the Peasants’ War could be succinctly stated: the whole affair started in mid-1524, the peasants in some parts of the Holy Roman Empire had a solid six months of organizing, capturing, and burning monasteries and castles, and then quickly lost when the nobles put armies into the field in the spring of 1525. By the summer of 1525, approximately 100,000 peasants had been killed, and nearly half of the monasteries and convents in vast areas of the Holy Roman Empire (“HRE”) had been destroyed.
The Peasant’s War was not the first of such peasant revolts. In England, Wat Tyler’s Rebellion occurred in 1381. France had experienced the “Jacquerie” in 1358. However, the Peasant’s War has been the greatest in terms of territorial extent and the number of persons involved. So, although the author, Lyndal Roper, describes the Peasants’ War as a footnote or largely forgotten, there are reasons to remember it as a historical event.[1]
Adding to the reasons for remembering the Peasant War is the fact that it occurred at the beginning of the Reformation. The peasants employed talking points from Luther’s “The Freedom of a Christian” to define their movement. The disorder and chaos of the Peasants’ War took the shine off the apple of the early Reformation. After the Peasant’s War, Catholic concerns about disorder were proven, and the Lutheran “Summer of Love” was over.
Roper organizes her book around the seasons of 202/2025, feeding in the backstory while keeping the reader abreast of development as the year progressed. Roper provides the reader with insights about the situation of peasants under feudalism in the early 15th century. It was not slavery, but it was not far off from slavery. Peasants were bound to the land. Lords wanted to keep their peasants on their lands, working, growing food, and paying their feudal dues of labor and food to their superiors. Many peasants were required to get their lord’s permission to marry, which was refused if the prospective spouse was owned by a different lord, and to leave their village overnight. Roper emphasizes the dissatisfaction that peasants felt about their lord’s monopolistic appropriation of timber, ponds, and other natural resources, which denied them the necessities for survival.
The Swabian peasants presented their demands in the “Twelve Articles.” Since Swabia was one of the first regions to revolt, their Twelve Articles served as a model for other regions.[2]
Interestingly, the first point of the Twelve Articles was quintessentially Lutheran/Evangelical.[3] It stated:
The First Article. First, it is our humble petition and desire, as also our will and desire, that in the future we should have power and authority so that each community should choose and appoint a pastor, and that we should have the right to depose him should he conduct himself improperly. The pastor thus chosen should teach us the gospel pure and simple, without any addition, doctrine, or ordinance of man.
This is a mere seven years after Luther posted his 95 Theses. It seems odd that the practice of calling preachers was already integrated into peasant life in such a short time. Roper doesn’t explain how this happens; she treats it as if it doesn't need an explanation. There is a hint that Luther’s rupture with the Catholic Church caused monasticism to implode in a quick period. Roper alludes to a vast number of preachers making their way through Germany, seeking places to preach where they could earn a living. Presumably, the implosion of monasteries left many unemployed monks and priests with precisely the skill set to become evangelical preachers. Also, there may have been a tradition of itinerant preaching from Dominican and Franciscan monks that served as a template for evangelical preachers.
Roper doesn’t offer any explanation for any of this. She seems to assume that it was obvious that traditions over a thousand years old would be overthrown in a few years. It’s an assumption that I often see in Protestants who have grown up in an atmosphere that instills the idea that Protestantism is the obvious next step in the social development of Christianity.[4]
Roper emphasizes another Protestant distinctive, which is oddly irrelevant to the Peasants’ War. She repeatedly mentions the point that the Catholic Church withheld the wine – the blood of Christ – from the laity. This point was an essential talking point of the Lutheran Reformation. Roper ably explains that this principle tied into the aims of the peasants. The peasants’ statements emphasized their desire for “Freiheit” (freedom.) They wanted to be free of feudal dues, but more importantly, they wanted the freedom of the earth; they wanted the freedom to use the woods and water resources which God had given to all men as their common inheritance. The tie-in of this idea to the blood of Christ was the proposition that Christ had given his blood to give mankind freedom.
Of course, this was freedom from sin and/or the bondage of the devil. Luther may have given the concept of Christian freedom a more temporal scope in his “Freedom of a Christian,” which caught the attention of the peasants and lent legitimacy to their movement.
However, although Roper constantly treats the withholding of wine as an irritant to the peasants and an impetus to their movement, it does not feature in their demands. It appears that in areas where the Reformation was established, communion was administered in both kinds, and, significantly, this had no impact on whether peasants marched against their lords or looted convents and monasteries.
So, why does Roper treat the issue as if it were basic to the Peasants’ War? I suspect that this is another bit of modern Protestant mythology. As a Catholic, the issue has never been a big deal for me. Since Vatican II in the mid-1960s, communion in both kinds has been offered to Catholics; however, I would estimate that only a minority of Catholics – 20 to 30%- avail themselves of the wine option. The bread is more than sufficient and I don’t need to be spilling the cup….which are the reasons that the Catholic Church discouraged offering communion in the species of wine to the public rather than some arcane effort to create class privilege.
In my experience, the only people who find significance in this issue are Protestant apologists. Within a few months of writing this review, I had an educated Protestant using the “species in one kind” argument against me in a discussion about Catholic practices as if the discipline of 1525 applied in 2025. He didn’t have any notion that for virtually my entire life, the practice had been changed and that it was less significant than he imagined. He seemed to think that I was seething about the denial of communion in wine as if it was still occurring.
What gives?
Obviously, this is an example of “schismogenesis.” It is a marker of tribal boundaries, or, at least, modern Protestants still think it is. It has taken on far more significance now than it actually has. Whether this was true in 1517, I do not know, but I am suspicious of Roper’s perspective on the issue because she has been shaped by modernity. Let us agree that this was a live issue in 1517, but perhaps modern Protestants are reading far more of a connection between the issue and the Peasants’ War than actually exists.[5]
Another odd and unexplained thing was that this was the period when Protestantism was fracturing, and some Protestants were defining the elements as purely symbolic. Luther had a realist understanding of the elements, but Zwingli’s view was less definite. A number of the preacher/leaders of the peasants were proto-Anabaptist who defined the elements as merely symbolic. Luther required Andreas Karlstadt to recant his symbolic view of the Eucharist as the price for sanctuary. (p. 345)[6] Zwingli offered a similar deal to Balthasar Hubmaier, but when Hubmaier pleaded his conscience and his reading of scripture in support of symbolism, he was carried off to prison, later to found an Anabaptist church, and then to be martyred as an Anabaptist in the Danube River. (p. 351.)
This leads to another disconnect I found in the book, namely, the excessive focus on the anti-clerical motivation of the peasants. It is clear that hundreds of monasteries and convents were looted and destroyed by the peasants. It is also clear that the peasants in this revolt did not identify themselves with the Virgin Mary as had occurred in prior revolts. On the other hand, peasants also took, plundered, and destroyed castles where they could. More religious institutions were destroyed, but presumably this had something to do with how well-defended establishments operated by women religious and monks were.
Was there an anti-clerical animus? Or was the animus against anyone who was a lord and collected tithes and had rights to the benefits of nature? Religious institutions fell within that latter category. Also, as Roper constantly points out, convents and monasteries were to peasants what banks were to Willie Sutton: that was where the money was. Convents and monasteries were poorly defended locations which held food reserves and plunder. Peasants did not need an anti-clerical animus to loot them to supply their movement any more than Vikings needed an anti-clerical animus to raid Irish monasteries.
But where monasteries are plundered, Roper emphasizes the peasants’ dislike for the clerical class. We don’t hear about proto-proletariat resentment when peasants loot castles, which seems anomalous.
One thing we can certainly say is that peasants did not fear divine retribution for looting convents and monasteries. Whatever hedge of protection that the supernatural offered was not in effect in 1525. This could be due to Luther’s efforts to demystify the Catholic Church by propagandizing that the Catholic Church had committed fraud on the peasantry and that relics were fraudulent. Again, I would like to know how this kind of revolution in thinking occurred in less than a decade.[7]
What is also strange is that Roper is a feminist historian. She spends a lot of time pondering anachronistic issues, such as what women might have felt about the Peasants’ War. She suggests that if women were involved in the Peasants’ War, the values of the war would have been substantially different. This struck me as weird. How does she know that? Isn’t it the case that women of the period identified their interests with those of their family, which meant their husband? I don’t know, but again, there are many buried assumptions that carry a lot of the weight. She constantly refers to “masculine” and “male” values as if the demand for freedom or the right to use timber from common forests is a psychological quirk of the Y chromosome.
However, when it comes to the treatment of nuns, Roper shows no interest in the male-female divide. Roper goes out of her way to explain in one section that there were no rapes of nuns, but in a later section, she describes how “outrages” were carried out by peasants, and then by the soldiers of the lords against peasants. It is odd that this feminist historian would so broadly exonerate such a large group of men, where the female victims are Catholic religious women.[8]
Roper does acknowledge that peasants under Jacob Rohrback gruesomely killed 70 captured nobles in the Weinsberg Massacre. This was a signal act that turned opinion against the peasants and opened the door to reprisals by the nobles.
Roper follows many figures in this narrative. The details can be overwhelming as the story often backtracks to catch up with various individuals. One leader was Thomas Munzer, who became radicalized over the course of the war. Munzer has been recognized as an archetype by various ideologies. For Communist East Germany, Munzer was a leader of the proletariat before the concept of a proletariat existed. For Fascists, the Peasants’ War was a war of national liberation that needed a leader. The Lutherans wanted to present Munzer as the architect of the war, thereby taking the blame off Luther. (p. 322) Munzer was not the mastermind or cause of the Peasants’ War, but as a preacher, he was constantly pushing the boundaries of the Reformation in the direction of the radical Reformation. Munzer was executed by the lords on May 27, 1525.
Although Roper seems to dispute that Martin Luther was the eminence grise behind the Peasants’ War, it was Luther’s tropes and themes that the peasants embraced. It was Luther who opened up the “revolution of rising expectations” by preaching about Christian freedom. Luther initially was ambivalent to the war. He counseled against the revolt. When news of the Weinsberg Massacre broke, Luther swung his support unequivocally behind the nobility. He abandoned temperance in advocating that the nobles smite and slay the peasants. It was one of Luther’s least edifying writings and set the stage for subsequent Lutheran theology about the duty of citizens to obey the state.
One would think that Luther’s intemperate statements would have generated considerable peasant animosity against the Reformation. According to Roper, the locations that had the highest commitment to the revolt were those that later defected to the Anabaptists. This correlation likely requires more detail to establish a causal nexus.
I don’t want my comments to seem overly critical. There is a lot of good value in this. I think I got a good survey of the circumstances of the Peasants’ War, and it filled in some of the blank spots I didn’t really know about.
Footnotes
[1] My high school European History class covered these revolts. Also, they were on the European History AP test back in the 1970s.
[2] Swabia is a region of southwestern German, east of Bavaria. The Peasant’s War never involved Bavaria.
[3] In Germany, and during this period of history, “evangelical” and “Lutheran” were essentially synonyms.
[4] I once had a law partner tell me on a ride to a mediation that Catholicism was “transitional paganism.” He didn’t think that he was giving any offense. For him, this was simply the obvious implication of everything he had grown up learning from his Protestant community.
[5] To be clear, I am not saying that the two forms of communion issue was not an issue for the Reformation or for German peasants. I am saying I don’t think Roper showed that it was an issue for the peasants who marched to war. She may be right; it may have been a motivation, but I think the connection is more obvious to someone who has been brought up with stories about how the dastardly Catholic Church denied wine to Catholics.
[6] Roper states that Hubmaier’s position denied that Christ was literally in the eucharistic elements. This position was called “Sacramentalism.” (p. 71-72.) Karlstadt proclaimed his freedom as a Christian to disagree with Luther on the issue of Sacramentalism. (p. 72)
[7] Roper describes acts of iconoclasm in some cases. (p. 185-186) It does not seem that the “iconoclastic fury” was anything like that which would sweep other parts of Europe later.
[8] Roper seems to find an incident where women were threatened with sexual humiliation to be endearing. This involved a situation where the rough mistress of a peasant leader threatened to cut the backsides off the dresses of noblewomen so that they would go around bare-bottomed. It seems weird that a feminist historian could find such a threat from a woman to be endearing because it allows her to define a strong female character when the same threat from a man would have been vile misogyny.
May 29, 2025
Seeing Werner Tübke's monumental panorama painting (404 feet long!) 'Frühbürgerliche Revolution in Deutschland', the GDR's memorial to the Battle of Frankenhausen during the German Peasant's War was one of the coolest things ever. This book is a great history of the War and the use of its historical memory by later German states.
May 6, 2025
Things I'm thinking about after reading this book:
Ch. 6 - Though they outraged the bishop, the ideas circling in Memmingen at this point looked like orthodox Evangelicalism. When the local lay pamphleteer and furrier Sebastian Lotzer published his pro-reformation 31 Points of Christian Doctrine in 1524, he spelled out standard Lutheran doctrine, stressing the importance of brotherly love and true works, condemning monks, and explaining that those who preach the Gospel are truly bishops.
Ch. 7 - In Saxony and Thuringia, several local officials noted with alarm that the peasants had shot a stag. One group had even taken a stag back to the army camp as food. ...since only nobles were allowed to hunt deer, and since they decorated their castles with the prized antlers (yes yes they did), this was tantamount to proclaiming that now peasants were lords. Some, like Thomas Munzer, deliberately withheld courtesy titles and used the informal "you".
-Time and again when peasants were interrogated, their questioners reported that they said they wished to have no authorities at all. In fact, the structures of authority the peasants created in their bands suggests the opposite. Far from wanting no authorities, they wanted leaders and office-holders and a clear system of organization. Their vision seems to have been of a new kind of authority, in which men of respect, locally known and chosen, would have power. As the 12 Articles (Articles of the Christian Union) had put it, the peasants wanted to be free. "Not that we want to be utterly free and subject to no authority at all. God does not teach us that. Rather, God's commandment is that Christians should humble themselves before everyone, not just the authorities. So that in this way we will gladly obey our elected and appointed rulers, whom God has ordained over us, in all reasonable and Christian matters."
Ch. 8 - Waldshut was among the first of the revolutionary utopian communities and one of the last to be defeated. Waldshut! My heart smiled.
Ch. 9 - "Jakob Strauss in Eisenach had run into trouble for his rousing attacks on usury. Though Luther had distanced himself from anti-semitism, publishing his most important philo-semitic tract in 1523, it continued to be an occasional strand of evangelical radicalism during the uprising."--Okay, so the preaching/speeches attacking "usury" were both against Lords and Jews?
Ch. 10 - The monastery at Bildhausen was dedicated to Mary, but the peasants turned it into a temporary headquarters, and purified the monastery buildings of Mary and the Saints. Let's discuss "purified"...
Ch. 11 - Becoming more hard line, Luther tried to push his ruler, Friedrich the Wise, into action against the peasants. In early May, he wrote the infamous "Against the Robbing, Murdering Hoarde of Peasants", a much shorter piece that was originally printed alongside the earlier, more measured admonition from April. Luther condemned the peasants as "turbulent"...no fewer than six times in the paragraph that called on the reader to smite, slay, and stab the rebels as if they were mad dogs. He even went so far as to proclaim that killing peasants was a godly work. He did not discuss the peasant complaints or admit they had any justice...Luther had insisted that the peasants be put down, and had ruled out negotiations or acceptance of the 12 Articles...With his tract, Luther was attempting to mobilize rulers he felt were not taking a sufficiently firm line and trying to carve out a policitcal role of himself.
Ch. 14 - The peasants' war was perhaps the last moment when the Gemeinde truly outweighed divisions of wealth, where all householders were equal, all brothers fought together, and all brothers decided matters outdoors under the tree...The fresco of the tree was of course a male vision of democracy, yet perhaps with time it would've included women...but then it would've been a different vision.
Ch. 15 - The peasants' bloody defeat affected peasant communities for generations, and transformed the Reformation from a movement that challenged the social order into one that supported the existing authorities. Luther insisted that revolt could never be justified, and that killing rebels was a godly work... With the defeat of the peasants, the vision of a new society was also lost. Theirs had been a theology of creation, where the natural world would be used justly, as God intended, where relations between people would be mutually fair.
- It does not seem that worsening economic conditions forced the peasants to rebel; indeed, if anything, conditions might have been improving as peasants engaged in markets and as a long period of economic upswing continued after the Black Death...Economic circumstances are only part of the explanation. Peasants were angry. But not so much about particular dues, laws, and burdens, as by the entire system of lordship itself, which they felt was against Christ. The Reformation brought a religious transformation that did far more than legitimize or justify previous attacks on the abuses of feudalism. It brought a new vision of creation, of freedom, and of relations between human beings and the environment. Christ had bought us all with His prescious blood, so we should receive the sacrament with both the bread and the wine. We are all free and wish to be free. All of us are Christ's Eigen, his own...The peasants had not misunderstood Luther and his ideas of freedom. They were using the very paradox that begins Luther's Freedom of a Christian, the Christian was lord of all and servant of all, to explain why serfdom was wrong. The wild animals and the birds of the forest and the air had been created by God, water and woods should be open for all.
-Revolutions must be explained in terms of beliefs, experience, and emotions, as well as social conditions. Class and injustice are learned through experience, through daily humiliations and privations, and beliefs are not just rational sets of propositions. The 12 Articles were important, not only because they articulated a theology, but because they were a printed object that one could point to, a concrete crystalization of a set of attitudes and convictions.
Ch. 6 - Though they outraged the bishop, the ideas circling in Memmingen at this point looked like orthodox Evangelicalism. When the local lay pamphleteer and furrier Sebastian Lotzer published his pro-reformation 31 Points of Christian Doctrine in 1524, he spelled out standard Lutheran doctrine, stressing the importance of brotherly love and true works, condemning monks, and explaining that those who preach the Gospel are truly bishops.
Ch. 7 - In Saxony and Thuringia, several local officials noted with alarm that the peasants had shot a stag. One group had even taken a stag back to the army camp as food. ...since only nobles were allowed to hunt deer, and since they decorated their castles with the prized antlers (yes yes they did), this was tantamount to proclaiming that now peasants were lords. Some, like Thomas Munzer, deliberately withheld courtesy titles and used the informal "you".
-Time and again when peasants were interrogated, their questioners reported that they said they wished to have no authorities at all. In fact, the structures of authority the peasants created in their bands suggests the opposite. Far from wanting no authorities, they wanted leaders and office-holders and a clear system of organization. Their vision seems to have been of a new kind of authority, in which men of respect, locally known and chosen, would have power. As the 12 Articles (Articles of the Christian Union) had put it, the peasants wanted to be free. "Not that we want to be utterly free and subject to no authority at all. God does not teach us that. Rather, God's commandment is that Christians should humble themselves before everyone, not just the authorities. So that in this way we will gladly obey our elected and appointed rulers, whom God has ordained over us, in all reasonable and Christian matters."
Ch. 8 - Waldshut was among the first of the revolutionary utopian communities and one of the last to be defeated. Waldshut! My heart smiled.
Ch. 9 - "Jakob Strauss in Eisenach had run into trouble for his rousing attacks on usury. Though Luther had distanced himself from anti-semitism, publishing his most important philo-semitic tract in 1523, it continued to be an occasional strand of evangelical radicalism during the uprising."--Okay, so the preaching/speeches attacking "usury" were both against Lords and Jews?
Ch. 10 - The monastery at Bildhausen was dedicated to Mary, but the peasants turned it into a temporary headquarters, and purified the monastery buildings of Mary and the Saints. Let's discuss "purified"...
Ch. 11 - Becoming more hard line, Luther tried to push his ruler, Friedrich the Wise, into action against the peasants. In early May, he wrote the infamous "Against the Robbing, Murdering Hoarde of Peasants", a much shorter piece that was originally printed alongside the earlier, more measured admonition from April. Luther condemned the peasants as "turbulent"...no fewer than six times in the paragraph that called on the reader to smite, slay, and stab the rebels as if they were mad dogs. He even went so far as to proclaim that killing peasants was a godly work. He did not discuss the peasant complaints or admit they had any justice...Luther had insisted that the peasants be put down, and had ruled out negotiations or acceptance of the 12 Articles...With his tract, Luther was attempting to mobilize rulers he felt were not taking a sufficiently firm line and trying to carve out a policitcal role of himself.
Ch. 14 - The peasants' war was perhaps the last moment when the Gemeinde truly outweighed divisions of wealth, where all householders were equal, all brothers fought together, and all brothers decided matters outdoors under the tree...The fresco of the tree was of course a male vision of democracy, yet perhaps with time it would've included women...but then it would've been a different vision.
Ch. 15 - The peasants' bloody defeat affected peasant communities for generations, and transformed the Reformation from a movement that challenged the social order into one that supported the existing authorities. Luther insisted that revolt could never be justified, and that killing rebels was a godly work... With the defeat of the peasants, the vision of a new society was also lost. Theirs had been a theology of creation, where the natural world would be used justly, as God intended, where relations between people would be mutually fair.
- It does not seem that worsening economic conditions forced the peasants to rebel; indeed, if anything, conditions might have been improving as peasants engaged in markets and as a long period of economic upswing continued after the Black Death...Economic circumstances are only part of the explanation. Peasants were angry. But not so much about particular dues, laws, and burdens, as by the entire system of lordship itself, which they felt was against Christ. The Reformation brought a religious transformation that did far more than legitimize or justify previous attacks on the abuses of feudalism. It brought a new vision of creation, of freedom, and of relations between human beings and the environment. Christ had bought us all with His prescious blood, so we should receive the sacrament with both the bread and the wine. We are all free and wish to be free. All of us are Christ's Eigen, his own...The peasants had not misunderstood Luther and his ideas of freedom. They were using the very paradox that begins Luther's Freedom of a Christian, the Christian was lord of all and servant of all, to explain why serfdom was wrong. The wild animals and the birds of the forest and the air had been created by God, water and woods should be open for all.
-Revolutions must be explained in terms of beliefs, experience, and emotions, as well as social conditions. Class and injustice are learned through experience, through daily humiliations and privations, and beliefs are not just rational sets of propositions. The 12 Articles were important, not only because they articulated a theology, but because they were a printed object that one could point to, a concrete crystalization of a set of attitudes and convictions.
July 22, 2025
Summer of Fire and Blood: The German Peasants' War provides a timely look at a war laden with social and religious contexts. Released during the 500th anniversary (1524-1525) of this conflict, historian Lyndal Roper weaves together numerous individuals and their personal agendas against a broader backdrop to produce a richly enjoyable read.
Underlying much of this rebellion were disagreements over religion. These encompassed both arguments over the outward modes of Christian worship in addition to various dogmas.
Within seven years of Martin Luther's kickoff of the Protestant Reformation, the lands of Germania were up in flames thanks, in part, to his preaching. One point Roper drove home was the degree to which Luther washed his hands of the violence many of the rebellious Germans undertook in-supposedly-the name of his own beliefs and teachings.
She makes clear that a key component of Luther's philosophy was a distaste for rebellion against established authority. Thanks to this heuristic, he disowned the sackings of Catholic monasteries and the establishments of wealthy nobles that the rebels engaged in. This left many feeling understandably betrayed and angry at Luther for the European Pandora's Box he aided in opening only to leave them in the lurch.
This more conservative approach from the Father of Protestantism stood in contrast to another anti-Catholic religious leader. Thomas Muntzer was never shy about critiquing his fellow Reformationist Luther, and in this his approach to the German Peasants' War did not vary.
Muntzer was largely supportive of the rebels' cause, offering them moral support and a contrast to the compromised Luther vis-a-vis the regions' feudal barons. He would pay the price for this, being captured and tortured before dying a martyr's death in Mulhausen in May 1525.
Roper uses this excellently written work to dispel some assumptions about the uprising.
It was not just the poor and lower middle classes rising up against their feudal barons in their monasteries and over the top castles; thanks to the religious element introduced courtesy of the 1517 Reformation, even some of the more well-off in Germania threw their lot in with what they viewed as a righteous cause against a Catholic hierarchy they felt had long since abandoned all true believers'-rich, middle class, and poor alike-interests.
Furthermore, the worst hit areas of what was then the patchwork lands of the Holy Roman Empire were not necessarily those going through the worst economic slumps.
From this Roper is able to determine that economics were by no means the primary driver of the spasms of violence breaking out in Germania. Opposition to the likes of the Swabian League played a huge part alongside disgust with an array of Catholic-backed social and eucharistic policies.
The Twelve Articles (1525), written by Sebastian Lotzer and and Christoph Schappeler, distilled many of the peasants' complaints toward the nobility. This document earned its place alongside the Magna Carta when it came to providing a statement of basic rights which must be present in order for non-nobles to live in dignity.
Andreas Karlstadt was another Reformation preacher who played a role in Summer of Fire and Blood: The German Peasants' War. His stance was not as a clear cut as Luther's (opposing the rebellion as a rebellion against God's constituted authority) or Muntzer's (supporting it as justified thanks to opposition to the Catholic Church and feudal lords' wealth hording), although he ultimately sought distance from the most extreme of the rebels.
The author could have done a better job with how she structured the book. It can at times become hard to follow thanks to jumping around from various Reformation leaders, battles, and snippets of information present to show how the rebels themselves played their part in the war.
Hearing about peasant commanders like Jakoh Rohrbach and clashes like the one at Leipheim in April 1525 make for informative reading. So does a fairly deep dive into the nuances of how the Hussite rebellion impacted this one of the 1520s and the manner in which reformers like John Calvin and Huldreich Zwingli impacted the development of Protestantism in the Swiss cantons.
But if Roper had taken a different strategy when it came to telling the story, this book would have been a five star product. It just leaves something to be desired when it comes to the manner in which these different components are brought together into a completed whole.
It is still a strong book and deserves credit for shedding light on a conflict which is often (outside of Germany at least) not given much attention. One hundred thousand dead combatants against the backdrop of a much smaller sixteenth century European population is no small statistic, and finding out the core reasons why this took place is no trivial undertaking.
Roper admirably pulls off connecting the importance of this war exactly a half-century ago to critiques to defects in modern social and economic constructs.
Summer of Fire and Blood is worth taking the time to read and will fill gaps in knowledge which even those fairly informed about the early days of the Protestant Reformation might discover they have.
-Andrew Canfield Denver, Colorado
Underlying much of this rebellion were disagreements over religion. These encompassed both arguments over the outward modes of Christian worship in addition to various dogmas.
Within seven years of Martin Luther's kickoff of the Protestant Reformation, the lands of Germania were up in flames thanks, in part, to his preaching. One point Roper drove home was the degree to which Luther washed his hands of the violence many of the rebellious Germans undertook in-supposedly-the name of his own beliefs and teachings.
She makes clear that a key component of Luther's philosophy was a distaste for rebellion against established authority. Thanks to this heuristic, he disowned the sackings of Catholic monasteries and the establishments of wealthy nobles that the rebels engaged in. This left many feeling understandably betrayed and angry at Luther for the European Pandora's Box he aided in opening only to leave them in the lurch.
This more conservative approach from the Father of Protestantism stood in contrast to another anti-Catholic religious leader. Thomas Muntzer was never shy about critiquing his fellow Reformationist Luther, and in this his approach to the German Peasants' War did not vary.
Muntzer was largely supportive of the rebels' cause, offering them moral support and a contrast to the compromised Luther vis-a-vis the regions' feudal barons. He would pay the price for this, being captured and tortured before dying a martyr's death in Mulhausen in May 1525.
Roper uses this excellently written work to dispel some assumptions about the uprising.
It was not just the poor and lower middle classes rising up against their feudal barons in their monasteries and over the top castles; thanks to the religious element introduced courtesy of the 1517 Reformation, even some of the more well-off in Germania threw their lot in with what they viewed as a righteous cause against a Catholic hierarchy they felt had long since abandoned all true believers'-rich, middle class, and poor alike-interests.
Furthermore, the worst hit areas of what was then the patchwork lands of the Holy Roman Empire were not necessarily those going through the worst economic slumps.
From this Roper is able to determine that economics were by no means the primary driver of the spasms of violence breaking out in Germania. Opposition to the likes of the Swabian League played a huge part alongside disgust with an array of Catholic-backed social and eucharistic policies.
The Twelve Articles (1525), written by Sebastian Lotzer and and Christoph Schappeler, distilled many of the peasants' complaints toward the nobility. This document earned its place alongside the Magna Carta when it came to providing a statement of basic rights which must be present in order for non-nobles to live in dignity.
Andreas Karlstadt was another Reformation preacher who played a role in Summer of Fire and Blood: The German Peasants' War. His stance was not as a clear cut as Luther's (opposing the rebellion as a rebellion against God's constituted authority) or Muntzer's (supporting it as justified thanks to opposition to the Catholic Church and feudal lords' wealth hording), although he ultimately sought distance from the most extreme of the rebels.
The author could have done a better job with how she structured the book. It can at times become hard to follow thanks to jumping around from various Reformation leaders, battles, and snippets of information present to show how the rebels themselves played their part in the war.
Hearing about peasant commanders like Jakoh Rohrbach and clashes like the one at Leipheim in April 1525 make for informative reading. So does a fairly deep dive into the nuances of how the Hussite rebellion impacted this one of the 1520s and the manner in which reformers like John Calvin and Huldreich Zwingli impacted the development of Protestantism in the Swiss cantons.
But if Roper had taken a different strategy when it came to telling the story, this book would have been a five star product. It just leaves something to be desired when it comes to the manner in which these different components are brought together into a completed whole.
It is still a strong book and deserves credit for shedding light on a conflict which is often (outside of Germany at least) not given much attention. One hundred thousand dead combatants against the backdrop of a much smaller sixteenth century European population is no small statistic, and finding out the core reasons why this took place is no trivial undertaking.
Roper admirably pulls off connecting the importance of this war exactly a half-century ago to critiques to defects in modern social and economic constructs.
Summer of Fire and Blood is worth taking the time to read and will fill gaps in knowledge which even those fairly informed about the early days of the Protestant Reformation might discover they have.
-Andrew Canfield Denver, Colorado
March 18, 2025
This is an overview of the big German peasant revolt from exactly 500 years ago (a fact I only belatedly realized near the end fo the book. I'm good at paying attention to numbers!)
Clearly, there was an economic component to peasants rising up against their lords, but it wasn't just that. Heck, economically, this wasn't too bad for peasants around 1525 as these things go. Clearly, there was a strong religious component as well, as this happened during the very early days of the Reformation. Calls by Luther and other preachers a few years earlier had helped de-legitimize the Catholic church, which was the big moral authority of the place. And these peasants didn't need much to set them against the church. One revelation in this book for me is the widespread disgust peasants had for monastaries and convents. Also, these places also held the local population in contempt, an item the book could do more to develop, frankly. In some places, a majority, even a large majority, of monasteries were attacked. They were raided for wealth which was used to fund the rebellion. The Catholic Church apparently would keep peasants at arms length until the Counter-Reformation made them more willing to work with them to shore up their number of adherents.
There are other factors as well. The peasants spoke a lot of brotherhood, which had the potential to unify people from different backgrounds, but also pushed women to the back (or out of the scene altogether). And some of the initial complaints were about more female issues, too, so this affected the rebellion overall. There was plenty of talk of Christian unity and freedom. They were inspired by writings like Luther's Freedom of a Christian, though he was already backpedalling away from there and 1525 helped make sure his big focus was on obedience, not freedom. The main ideas of the revolt were spelled out int he Twelve Articles. Roper also says at one point that this was maybe the last moment when the Gemeinde (which means the whole peasant village community) could be a major social force in and of itself, before internal economic differences in the peasant village made it less operative. Towns didn't always support the revolt, as their economic interests and concerns were not the same.
The revolt sparked huge numbers, which made it hard to put down. As long as thousands of peasants were on the march, it was hard to grabble with. But once some lords were able to muster a few thousand men with cannon and horseback, well - after the first loss the peasant rebellion fell apart rather quickly, with a slaughter traditionally estimated at 100,000 peasants.
It's a very good overview, but a few things could be explained a bit better. I already noted the antipathy of monks for peasants. There's also the way some religious ministers are referred to as if the reader should already know who they are. This reader didn't always know that.
In general, though, it's a very fine work.
Clearly, there was an economic component to peasants rising up against their lords, but it wasn't just that. Heck, economically, this wasn't too bad for peasants around 1525 as these things go. Clearly, there was a strong religious component as well, as this happened during the very early days of the Reformation. Calls by Luther and other preachers a few years earlier had helped de-legitimize the Catholic church, which was the big moral authority of the place. And these peasants didn't need much to set them against the church. One revelation in this book for me is the widespread disgust peasants had for monastaries and convents. Also, these places also held the local population in contempt, an item the book could do more to develop, frankly. In some places, a majority, even a large majority, of monasteries were attacked. They were raided for wealth which was used to fund the rebellion. The Catholic Church apparently would keep peasants at arms length until the Counter-Reformation made them more willing to work with them to shore up their number of adherents.
There are other factors as well. The peasants spoke a lot of brotherhood, which had the potential to unify people from different backgrounds, but also pushed women to the back (or out of the scene altogether). And some of the initial complaints were about more female issues, too, so this affected the rebellion overall. There was plenty of talk of Christian unity and freedom. They were inspired by writings like Luther's Freedom of a Christian, though he was already backpedalling away from there and 1525 helped make sure his big focus was on obedience, not freedom. The main ideas of the revolt were spelled out int he Twelve Articles. Roper also says at one point that this was maybe the last moment when the Gemeinde (which means the whole peasant village community) could be a major social force in and of itself, before internal economic differences in the peasant village made it less operative. Towns didn't always support the revolt, as their economic interests and concerns were not the same.
The revolt sparked huge numbers, which made it hard to put down. As long as thousands of peasants were on the march, it was hard to grabble with. But once some lords were able to muster a few thousand men with cannon and horseback, well - after the first loss the peasant rebellion fell apart rather quickly, with a slaughter traditionally estimated at 100,000 peasants.
It's a very good overview, but a few things could be explained a bit better. I already noted the antipathy of monks for peasants. There's also the way some religious ministers are referred to as if the reader should already know who they are. This reader didn't always know that.
In general, though, it's a very fine work.
April 10, 2025
initial thoughts:
summer of fire and blood wasn't bad, but I think it lacked a general reader's overview. it was a touch scholarly and lacked a bit of assumed context which I definitely did not have
could have greatly benefited from a broader perspective on how the revolt played out - I felt like it took the major battles as a given, and they were brushed aside so quickly that I often didn't even realize they happened. same with many of the massacres
I think this was a book that was more concerned with reevaluating the place of certain men in the movement at large, in understanding peasant and town motivations and, notably, understanding the place of women
some of the analysis was very good. I greatly enjoyed learning about how the peasants endured serfdom in germany, and I feel this backdrop is extremely important to understanding the reformation in general. stuff like how they couldn't travel at night without permission from their lords. if they married a freewoman, she and her children would become subject to the lord. it was like slavery-lite. the lord demanded taxes and labor, at the expense of the peasants' own fields.
and on top of that, you could owe towards multiple lords, and be sold and traded between lords. you could owe an entire hen every year to the local monastery, which would then compete with your egg sales in nearby towns.
i had no idea how economically dominant the nunneries and monasteries were. special ponds full of fish that the peasants had to buy during lent. luxurious beds and buildings.
a massive part of the early revolt was just in burning castles and monasteries, and not in killing anyone.
I do think the author had a little bit of an imposed modern view of sexuality, often strangely characterizing the male rebels' emphasis on "brotherhood" as somehow exclusionary towards women in an intentional way. along with some unsubstantiated comments about how the common man was a brother, but the common woman was a whore. I was extremely interested to hear what part women played in the revolution, how they were able to keep the farms going, how they were absolved of guilt after the fact, who they ran out of town, what part they may have played in formulating demands, etc. but I often felt the author took an unhistorically negative view of the men as intentionally disregarding the women's desires that wasn't supported by the evidence aside from conjecture.
Interestingly, there was very little anti-jewish sentiment by the rebels, despite their positions as lenders. There were instances of taking back possessions, but no pogroms, as we often see. Similarly, there is very little evidence of rape by the peasant armies, while conversely, there is much talk of rape by the retaliatory forces.
i need to come back here and add a more considered review, especially in the context of broader themes. these are just some off the top of my head reflections.
summer of fire and blood wasn't bad, but I think it lacked a general reader's overview. it was a touch scholarly and lacked a bit of assumed context which I definitely did not have
could have greatly benefited from a broader perspective on how the revolt played out - I felt like it took the major battles as a given, and they were brushed aside so quickly that I often didn't even realize they happened. same with many of the massacres
I think this was a book that was more concerned with reevaluating the place of certain men in the movement at large, in understanding peasant and town motivations and, notably, understanding the place of women
some of the analysis was very good. I greatly enjoyed learning about how the peasants endured serfdom in germany, and I feel this backdrop is extremely important to understanding the reformation in general. stuff like how they couldn't travel at night without permission from their lords. if they married a freewoman, she and her children would become subject to the lord. it was like slavery-lite. the lord demanded taxes and labor, at the expense of the peasants' own fields.
and on top of that, you could owe towards multiple lords, and be sold and traded between lords. you could owe an entire hen every year to the local monastery, which would then compete with your egg sales in nearby towns.
i had no idea how economically dominant the nunneries and monasteries were. special ponds full of fish that the peasants had to buy during lent. luxurious beds and buildings.
a massive part of the early revolt was just in burning castles and monasteries, and not in killing anyone.
I do think the author had a little bit of an imposed modern view of sexuality, often strangely characterizing the male rebels' emphasis on "brotherhood" as somehow exclusionary towards women in an intentional way. along with some unsubstantiated comments about how the common man was a brother, but the common woman was a whore. I was extremely interested to hear what part women played in the revolution, how they were able to keep the farms going, how they were absolved of guilt after the fact, who they ran out of town, what part they may have played in formulating demands, etc. but I often felt the author took an unhistorically negative view of the men as intentionally disregarding the women's desires that wasn't supported by the evidence aside from conjecture.
Interestingly, there was very little anti-jewish sentiment by the rebels, despite their positions as lenders. There were instances of taking back possessions, but no pogroms, as we often see. Similarly, there is very little evidence of rape by the peasant armies, while conversely, there is much talk of rape by the retaliatory forces.
i need to come back here and add a more considered review, especially in the context of broader themes. these are just some off the top of my head reflections.
September 11, 2025
Historian Lyndal Roper takes a deep dive into the events of 1524-25 that have come to be known as the German Peasants' Revolution. I use the phrase "came to be known" loosely and with wry humor because I, for one, had never heard of it until I came across this book. But I was intrigued because the revolt began in southwest Germany, where I just learned one branch of my family lived for at least a couple hundred years or so.
The revolt was triggered in part by Martin Luther's Reformation, which seemed to allow individuals to question the church. It also allowed them to read the Bible in their own language and went so far as making the everyday members of the church think they could select their own church pastors. Radical, indeed! But what the heck. If they can select their own pastors, what other rights should they have? Maybe fishing in the lakes and ponds, or cut needed wood from the surrounding forests - both of which were forbidden by the ruling nobles.
The revolt enjoyed early success, in part because the monasteries and castles they first targeted fell easily, which provided them with food, weapons, and treasure to purchase more of both. It didn't hurt that the Holy Roman Empire was currently involved in a war in Italy so many of the knights and armies were otherwise occupied. When they eventually returned, it did not go well for the peasants. The lords' cavalry was especially tough to contend with. There were bloody reprisals, and Roper doesn't spare us from the details.
One result from all of this was a weakening of the monasteries, due in part to their sacking by the peasants and by the lords simply taking them over as part of their return to power.
The book is an interesting look at a topic I knew nothing about. One of the things that intrigued me is that the peasants rebelled equally against the monasteries and the feudal government. The church was just another oppressor, demanding tithes just as the lords demanded taxes, and maintaining armies to enforce their will.
Who knew? Well, maybe you did, but this period of history was mostly unknown to me.
The revolt was triggered in part by Martin Luther's Reformation, which seemed to allow individuals to question the church. It also allowed them to read the Bible in their own language and went so far as making the everyday members of the church think they could select their own church pastors. Radical, indeed! But what the heck. If they can select their own pastors, what other rights should they have? Maybe fishing in the lakes and ponds, or cut needed wood from the surrounding forests - both of which were forbidden by the ruling nobles.
The revolt enjoyed early success, in part because the monasteries and castles they first targeted fell easily, which provided them with food, weapons, and treasure to purchase more of both. It didn't hurt that the Holy Roman Empire was currently involved in a war in Italy so many of the knights and armies were otherwise occupied. When they eventually returned, it did not go well for the peasants. The lords' cavalry was especially tough to contend with. There were bloody reprisals, and Roper doesn't spare us from the details.
One result from all of this was a weakening of the monasteries, due in part to their sacking by the peasants and by the lords simply taking them over as part of their return to power.
The book is an interesting look at a topic I knew nothing about. One of the things that intrigued me is that the peasants rebelled equally against the monasteries and the feudal government. The church was just another oppressor, demanding tithes just as the lords demanded taxes, and maintaining armies to enforce their will.
Who knew? Well, maybe you did, but this period of history was mostly unknown to me.
April 16, 2025
This is a history of “The German Peasants’ War” - perhaps the largest popular uprising in Western Europe prior to the French Revolution. Professor Roper is an historian at Oxford and she has written a terrific history of this brief but extremely violent uprising associated with the Protestant Reformation in the German lands in 1524-1526. The revolt had lots of causes and multiple motivations. While it was religious, it was also a revolt of peasants and the lower classes against the higher classes and against feudalism more generally. There was even a distinct populist thread in the revolt, with star leaders working to radicalize the peasant population to turn the crowd into a mob and turn the mob against the established order, especially monasteries and convents.
While it seems like the early sixteenth century was a long time ago, the issues raised in Professor Roper’s book are strikingly relevant to contemporary politics and conflicts. Along with religious conflict, there is also economic inequality, elite domination of society, norms and obligations of different classes to each other, the prevalence of violence in society, and even the gender basis of society - the revolt was about men and for men.
This was also the initial age of printing - often religious printing - and the revolt was further energized and multiplied as stories about it were spread through flyers and pamphlets. This is analogous to the incendiary role of social media and contemporary political and religious dynamics.
The upper classes and the elites were solidly established for good reasons and the revolt was steered in directions that supported rather than threatened the elites. Before long, the empires did strike back and the peasants were not much of a match for thousands of armoured knights. The revolt was bloodily crushed, with estimates of deaths ranging from 70,000 to over 100,000.
The book is well done and holds attention well, even with a sad story. I recommend the book.
While it seems like the early sixteenth century was a long time ago, the issues raised in Professor Roper’s book are strikingly relevant to contemporary politics and conflicts. Along with religious conflict, there is also economic inequality, elite domination of society, norms and obligations of different classes to each other, the prevalence of violence in society, and even the gender basis of society - the revolt was about men and for men.
This was also the initial age of printing - often religious printing - and the revolt was further energized and multiplied as stories about it were spread through flyers and pamphlets. This is analogous to the incendiary role of social media and contemporary political and religious dynamics.
The upper classes and the elites were solidly established for good reasons and the revolt was steered in directions that supported rather than threatened the elites. Before long, the empires did strike back and the peasants were not much of a match for thousands of armoured knights. The revolt was bloodily crushed, with estimates of deaths ranging from 70,000 to over 100,000.
The book is well done and holds attention well, even with a sad story. I recommend the book.
May 20, 2025
A few years ago, I read Eric Vuillard's excellent "War of the Poor," which is an expressionistic telling of the story of the German Peasants' War. This book is more of a straight up history, so it filled in a lot of the gaps in my knowledge left by Mr. Vuillard's book, though without the same emotional impact. Still, I was glad to get more facts and more details. Maybe I read the two books in the wrong order.
Several things in this book struck me. First, I hadn't really understood the connection of the Peasants' War to Luther and the Reformation. Though Luther himself repudiated the peasants' revolution, the teachings of Luther and other reformers were essential in motivating the peasants' actions. Second, I had thought that the peasants were largely a disorganized rabble, but they had real weapons and real military leaders, including, at one point, cavalry. They managed to control most of Germany at their high point. If a few things had been different, we might have had a lasting movement to rival the French Revolution 250 years sooner. Third, I had thought that the peasants were mostly without ideology, that they just wanted to get rid of the lords and end oppression, but there was a lot more to it than that. There were some serious ideas around equality, fairness and justice that were also tightly tied to an understanding of Christianity. Had they triumphed, the revolutionary ideology that would have been their legacy would have been very different from the French Revolution - more communal and socialistic, less bourgeoise and capitalistic. And in the long run perhaps less bloody.
A lot of the story of the German Peasants' War has been pushed to the margins of historical writing. Initially that was just winner's justice, but now I think that it's more out of sight out of mind. It's time for all of us to pay more attention to this interesting era.
Several things in this book struck me. First, I hadn't really understood the connection of the Peasants' War to Luther and the Reformation. Though Luther himself repudiated the peasants' revolution, the teachings of Luther and other reformers were essential in motivating the peasants' actions. Second, I had thought that the peasants were largely a disorganized rabble, but they had real weapons and real military leaders, including, at one point, cavalry. They managed to control most of Germany at their high point. If a few things had been different, we might have had a lasting movement to rival the French Revolution 250 years sooner. Third, I had thought that the peasants were mostly without ideology, that they just wanted to get rid of the lords and end oppression, but there was a lot more to it than that. There were some serious ideas around equality, fairness and justice that were also tightly tied to an understanding of Christianity. Had they triumphed, the revolutionary ideology that would have been their legacy would have been very different from the French Revolution - more communal and socialistic, less bourgeoise and capitalistic. And in the long run perhaps less bloody.
A lot of the story of the German Peasants' War has been pushed to the margins of historical writing. Initially that was just winner's justice, but now I think that it's more out of sight out of mind. It's time for all of us to pay more attention to this interesting era.
December 23, 2025
Note: This review is based on the audiobook narrated by Rose Akroyd.
I give Roper credit for providing a "definitive" history of this conflict, but her attempt at giving the reader an extensive account is the only positive thing I can really think about it. It becomes clear early on that the author is emotionally invested in this War and in portraying the peasants in the best possible light.
Besides one "atrocity," Roper does what she can to whitewash or give the most favorable explanation for the frequently barbaric actions of the peasant bands. It's hard for me to see one side as the "good guys" who frequently destroyed monasteries and churches, robbed them of their centuries-old valuables, and destroyed icons of Jesus and Mary.
If you took this book at face value, you'd be left with the impression that each peasant who participated was driven only by (1) their love of brotherhood, (2) their newfound political awareness, and/or (3) their religious fervor driven by the Reformation. I find it hard to believe this and that thousands of these peasants weren't instead just motivated by the opportunity to gain new wealth or to exercise their longstanding hatreds.
Roper does a decent job in giving the background information on where the peasants' grievances came from: the abuses of their Lords and the failure of the local religious centers to offer material support. Clearly, reform was needed for these systems to continue operating, but it also seems like the peasants delayed any possibility of reform for decades due to the retaliatory actions of their Lords following the conflict.
The structure of the book is another issue, causing it to drag and lack focus from chapter to chapter.
I give Roper credit for providing a "definitive" history of this conflict, but her attempt at giving the reader an extensive account is the only positive thing I can really think about it. It becomes clear early on that the author is emotionally invested in this War and in portraying the peasants in the best possible light.
Besides one "atrocity," Roper does what she can to whitewash or give the most favorable explanation for the frequently barbaric actions of the peasant bands. It's hard for me to see one side as the "good guys" who frequently destroyed monasteries and churches, robbed them of their centuries-old valuables, and destroyed icons of Jesus and Mary.
If you took this book at face value, you'd be left with the impression that each peasant who participated was driven only by (1) their love of brotherhood, (2) their newfound political awareness, and/or (3) their religious fervor driven by the Reformation. I find it hard to believe this and that thousands of these peasants weren't instead just motivated by the opportunity to gain new wealth or to exercise their longstanding hatreds.
Roper does a decent job in giving the background information on where the peasants' grievances came from: the abuses of their Lords and the failure of the local religious centers to offer material support. Clearly, reform was needed for these systems to continue operating, but it also seems like the peasants delayed any possibility of reform for decades due to the retaliatory actions of their Lords following the conflict.
The structure of the book is another issue, causing it to drag and lack focus from chapter to chapter.
March 7, 2025
An excellent book on the social, economic, and theological underpinnings of the German Peasants’ War of 1523-1525. The author is thorough and infinitely knowledgeable on the subject and the depth of research is impressive. Rather than focusing solely on the major personalities involved in the conflict (although they get their due), Roper clearly and forcefully delineates the view of the peasants, the “common men,” who banded together in “Christian brotherhood“ to try and bring about a kinder, gentler world. Despite their abject failure, and in spite of the harsh repercussions meted out by the victorious noble class, Roper nevertheless captures what really did change, eventually, as a result of the War: the parallel declines of monasticism and the power of the Roman Catholic Church, the delegitimization of the “divine right of kings” to rule solely by decree, and the realization of the potential power of association in the face of tyranny. Roper also makes a case that Martin Luther’s public protest against the Church of Rome and the subsequent Reformation provided a “seed corn” of revolutionary ideas that helped spark the rebellion, a rebellion that Luther ultimately condemned. Do not, however, look to this book for a chronological storyline or detailed description of the battles fought. Still, Google Maps is a handy reference for understanding the length and breadth of this almost forgotten conflict.Not a casual read, but an interesting one. I was drawn to the book because my family and I lived for some years in the Würzburg, Germany, area which featured prominently in the war.
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