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The Dreadful History and Judgement of God on Thomas Müntzer: The Life and Times of an Early German Revolutionary
On the 500th Anniversary of the German Peasant Wars, a brilliant portrait of Thomas Munzter – radical millenarian preacher, revolutionary and iconoclast
'The princes are nothing but tyrants who flay the people; they fritter away our blood and sweat on their pomp and whoring and knavery.’ These were the words of Thomas Müntzer at the head of the massed ranks of a peasant army in the year 1525. Ranged against him were the might of the princes of the German Nation. How did Müntzer, the son of a coin maker from central Germany, rise in just a few short years to become one of the most feared revolutionaries in early modern Europe?
In this brilliant work of historical excavation, Andrew Drummond charts the life and times of the man Martin Luther denounced as a ‘Ravening Wolf’ and ‘False Prophet’. Drummond shows us Müntzer as a human being. Far from the bloodthirsty devil of legend, he was a man of considerable learning and principle, deeply sympathetic to the misery of the peasantry and the poor. In his short life – he was beheaded at thirty-five – Müntzer promised to fundamentally upend German society.
Seeking to save Müntzer from the condescension of history, Drummond guides us through the religious and political disputes of the Reformation, placing his life and thought in the context of those turbulent years. The result is a portrait of an often contradictory but always radical figure, one who continues to inspire movements of the poor across the globe.
'The princes are nothing but tyrants who flay the people; they fritter away our blood and sweat on their pomp and whoring and knavery.’ These were the words of Thomas Müntzer at the head of the massed ranks of a peasant army in the year 1525. Ranged against him were the might of the princes of the German Nation. How did Müntzer, the son of a coin maker from central Germany, rise in just a few short years to become one of the most feared revolutionaries in early modern Europe?
In this brilliant work of historical excavation, Andrew Drummond charts the life and times of the man Martin Luther denounced as a ‘Ravening Wolf’ and ‘False Prophet’. Drummond shows us Müntzer as a human being. Far from the bloodthirsty devil of legend, he was a man of considerable learning and principle, deeply sympathetic to the misery of the peasantry and the poor. In his short life – he was beheaded at thirty-five – Müntzer promised to fundamentally upend German society.
Seeking to save Müntzer from the condescension of history, Drummond guides us through the religious and political disputes of the Reformation, placing his life and thought in the context of those turbulent years. The result is a portrait of an often contradictory but always radical figure, one who continues to inspire movements of the poor across the globe.
384 pages, Paperback
First published February 20, 2024
11 people are currently reading
378 people want to read
About the author
Andrew Drummond
35 books3 followersAndrew Drummond is a Scottish writer, translator and novelist. He was educated at the University of Aberdeen and King's College, London and worked as a software engineer and database designer in local government. His first novel, An Abridged History of the Construction of the Railway Line between Garve, Ullapool and Lochinver was published by Polygon and shortlisted for the Saltire First Book of the Year Award in 2004. His later novels are A Handbook of Volapük, Elephantina and Novgorod the Great. He is also the author of The Intriguing Life and Ignominious Death of Maurice Benyovszky.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
January 15, 2024
Müntzer haunted the powerful and wealthy. Andrew Drummond's fantastic account of his life, ideas and fate is a brilliant reaffirmation of the importance of Müntzer for contemporary times. Told with a firm grasp of the archival material, fresh new translations of Müntzer's ideas and a wry sense of humour, this is a book for the 500th anniversary that everyone should read.
Full review: https://resolutereader.blogspot.com/2...
Full review: https://resolutereader.blogspot.com/2...
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July 25, 2025Fun read. Saddened to hear that ‘omnia sunt communia’ was likely a slogan invented by Müntzer’s enemies and gravediggers. Nobody tell Wu Ming. I suppose that’s revealing in itself - the red thread running through history inspires the ruling classes as much as it does would-be revolutionaries.
“The articles which they proposed and were putting into effect were: “omni sunt communia [all things are to be held in common], and goods should be shared out amongst everyone according to their need as occasion demanded. Any prince, count or nobleman who did not want to do that, having been once reminded of it, should have his head chopped off or be hanged.”
Careful Count Ernst you’ll be giving people ideas!
“The articles which they proposed and were putting into effect were: “omni sunt communia [all things are to be held in common], and goods should be shared out amongst everyone according to their need as occasion demanded. Any prince, count or nobleman who did not want to do that, having been once reminded of it, should have his head chopped off or be hanged.”
Careful Count Ernst you’ll be giving people ideas!
April 1, 2024
Fascinating insightful marvelous read. My dude LOVES talking about social conditions be it Munzter, Luther, Zeiss, the peasants, knights, weavers, miners, lords, princes, peasants, etc. He opens with putting you in the time and place of the 1500s and the mining and the squeeze on the peasants at the time and the role of the church in society the material forces, the lack of class analysis, the religious theology, all of it is so well explained . Considering I knew absolutely nothing about this coming in I never felt like I was lost he really explains things in the broader context.
So we have the start of the reformation led by dumb bitch Martin Luther. Luther comes across in a specific moment in time, the moment of the printing press. Given this relatively new technology, access to the Bible for religious academics expands greatly. Luther reads the Bible and gets pissed it’s not in line with how people are living (stuff like indulgences are not in the Bible, usury is no bueno, there is no German Bible it’s all in Latin, etc.) so he writes his theses and does his thing. Ultimately, however Luther is a reformer and not a revolutionary. He throws his stock in with the German nobility and has little to no faith in the peasants. P215 Luther says “The peasants themselves… are so disloyal, false, disobedient and wanton, and plunder, rob and remove what they can, like barefaced highwaymen and murderers… And worst of all, they carry on such wild raging and horrible sins in the name of Christianity and under the cover of the gospel”. Despite being in rhetorical war with the church he’s pretty cool with the secular authorities (who are looking to further cement their power by getting the church out of the paint in Germany what a nice confluence of interest). In general not a big peasant guy prefers to have issues between academics and elites sorted out in private behind closed doors whereas a man of the people like Munzter preferred to have debates in public for the common person to hear and arrive at his or her own conclusions.
However, what he starts has been going on elsewhere in the past (namely with the Hussites). Luther kinda quickly loses control of the movement after his unsuccessful plea at the Diet of Worms and has to go into hiding (that his prince buddies hook him up with). Karlstadt and some more progressive preachers start to try to gain control of the peasant movement and then Luther to get them out of the paint.
Along comes ole Tommy Boy Munzter the bad boy of Christianity with an incredibly saucy writing style. Like dudes writing is incredible some of his takedowns of the church and princes and Luther are so funny I just know if he were alive today he’d write a mean diss track. Originally him and Luther are pretty cool as reformists and there’s even some evidence Luther helps get Munzter one of his first jobs. Munzter kinda bounces around between a few different posts but he takes something of a more radical line than Luther. Munzter believes all types of heretical things, like the mass should be in the native German tongue instead of Latin so the peasants can understand it, that everyone should receive the Eucharist, that mass should be told towards the people not the tabernacle, all kinds of cooky stuff Catholics obviously believe people should be put to death over. He believes faith does not come from reading but from suffering and turns against the academics in the favor of commoners. He also thinks that people should all be of the same rank, rails against the oppression of the peasantry, and by his critics is accused of wanting to communalize all goods (although that’s not articulated in his own writings, seems like a pretty logical endpoint).
He has a tremendous belief in the peasantry and thinks that they should all be educated active members in the church and believes that one of the things getting in the way of this are princes and counts and nunneries and the papists, he doesn’t really think any of these people are truly following the word of god but are rather corrupted by their power and authority. He also believes that their taxes and tithes and indulgences, etc. are all kinda stopping the peasants from leading a richer life of faith. He also believes some of the more standard reformist stuff that Luther does like railing against indulgences or usury.
He also has some wild beliefs that God is returning to the earth soon. This kinda leads him to say that god is going to return to earth and that “the elect” have to remove the evil Catholic Church (and later Luther and his set too) and prepare the earth for gods return by living in a way that truly follows the teaching of the Bible. He’s also a pretty beast writer some of the passages in here are incredible takedowns be it of Luther or the Papists or the princes or whomever. He also thinks the Bible is a living text as opposed to a lot of the academics at the time who just appear to be content translating it and analyzing it. Munzter very much thinks there are continued prophets and that dreams and visions that any normal person has could be from god and deserve to be heard and interpreted.
Across his first couple of posts, he’s seen as something as a rabble rouser as typically iconoclastic acts tend to follow him wherever he goes. He’s typically brought in by other reformist minded people to help bolster the reform and is disliked more by town councils of burghers and dukes people like that. He falls on hard times between posts and eventually ends up in Allstedt where he has kinda his most sustainable run. He eventually gets run out of town there and ends up after a bit of time organizing the peasants revolt in Muhlhausen around 1525. The peasants have some initial success but then eventually get smoked and Munzter gets captured, interrogated, tortured and put to death.
There’s very close attention paid to exactly what was going on. For example when the peasant rebellions started, Lutherans like Duke Johann and Freidrich the Wise were very wary of allowing Catholic Duke Georg to put down the peasants rebellions due to distrust of what he might do.
Some really cool stuff about Munzters immediate legacy too. After watching Munzter and his crew get absolutely smoked by the princes, Hans Hut is like “actually the Turks are gonna roll through and kill most of the blasphemers or gods going to send a dragon or something and then we’ll be victorious”. It’s clear that Pfeiffer and Munzter’s failing to raise a peasant army capable of taking down the mercenaries of the dukes kinda changed the approach to the revolutionary reformers. They were simply to wait for the apocalypse event that would take out the nobility once they realized they would certainly die attempting to do it themselves.
Very interesting to know that a lot of peasant rebellions at the time come from or at least start from a bad harvest. Pretty interesting to know Luther wasn’t super popular outside of Wittenberg and with some of his prince and duke boys. Seems like he had a much more tenuous grip on the movement and wasn’t always welcome everywhere due to the different strains of the reform. But he did have his prince boys and that was all that mattered. Absolutely wild when Luther calls for the princes and dukes to murder thousands of peasants due to the peasant uprisings. Luther is trying to walk a tight rope where on the one hand he wants his reforms but on the other he doesn’t want to be seen as someone trying to foment an uprising because that would alienate him from his buddies in power so it’s a pretty tough balancing act for him.
Broadest strokes what you need to know is that in the 1500s “virtually all forms of intellectual expression were circumscribed by the framework of the Christian religion…To change the ways of thinking you had no option but to take the guise and adopt the language of the icons…You had to bend the only tools available, those of the Bible to new uses. And you had to do it for ‘God’…But what was important, as much with Luther as with Munzter, was the practical result and outcome of religious doctrine: put simply, which social and economic structures did a religious doctrine benefit or challenge?” (P. 332). While it’s clear Luther’s paved the way for secular authorities who he threw his lot in with Munzter went the other way and threw his lot in with the common folks.
So we have the start of the reformation led by dumb bitch Martin Luther. Luther comes across in a specific moment in time, the moment of the printing press. Given this relatively new technology, access to the Bible for religious academics expands greatly. Luther reads the Bible and gets pissed it’s not in line with how people are living (stuff like indulgences are not in the Bible, usury is no bueno, there is no German Bible it’s all in Latin, etc.) so he writes his theses and does his thing. Ultimately, however Luther is a reformer and not a revolutionary. He throws his stock in with the German nobility and has little to no faith in the peasants. P215 Luther says “The peasants themselves… are so disloyal, false, disobedient and wanton, and plunder, rob and remove what they can, like barefaced highwaymen and murderers… And worst of all, they carry on such wild raging and horrible sins in the name of Christianity and under the cover of the gospel”. Despite being in rhetorical war with the church he’s pretty cool with the secular authorities (who are looking to further cement their power by getting the church out of the paint in Germany what a nice confluence of interest). In general not a big peasant guy prefers to have issues between academics and elites sorted out in private behind closed doors whereas a man of the people like Munzter preferred to have debates in public for the common person to hear and arrive at his or her own conclusions.
However, what he starts has been going on elsewhere in the past (namely with the Hussites). Luther kinda quickly loses control of the movement after his unsuccessful plea at the Diet of Worms and has to go into hiding (that his prince buddies hook him up with). Karlstadt and some more progressive preachers start to try to gain control of the peasant movement and then Luther to get them out of the paint.
Along comes ole Tommy Boy Munzter the bad boy of Christianity with an incredibly saucy writing style. Like dudes writing is incredible some of his takedowns of the church and princes and Luther are so funny I just know if he were alive today he’d write a mean diss track. Originally him and Luther are pretty cool as reformists and there’s even some evidence Luther helps get Munzter one of his first jobs. Munzter kinda bounces around between a few different posts but he takes something of a more radical line than Luther. Munzter believes all types of heretical things, like the mass should be in the native German tongue instead of Latin so the peasants can understand it, that everyone should receive the Eucharist, that mass should be told towards the people not the tabernacle, all kinds of cooky stuff Catholics obviously believe people should be put to death over. He believes faith does not come from reading but from suffering and turns against the academics in the favor of commoners. He also thinks that people should all be of the same rank, rails against the oppression of the peasantry, and by his critics is accused of wanting to communalize all goods (although that’s not articulated in his own writings, seems like a pretty logical endpoint).
He has a tremendous belief in the peasantry and thinks that they should all be educated active members in the church and believes that one of the things getting in the way of this are princes and counts and nunneries and the papists, he doesn’t really think any of these people are truly following the word of god but are rather corrupted by their power and authority. He also believes that their taxes and tithes and indulgences, etc. are all kinda stopping the peasants from leading a richer life of faith. He also believes some of the more standard reformist stuff that Luther does like railing against indulgences or usury.
He also has some wild beliefs that God is returning to the earth soon. This kinda leads him to say that god is going to return to earth and that “the elect” have to remove the evil Catholic Church (and later Luther and his set too) and prepare the earth for gods return by living in a way that truly follows the teaching of the Bible. He’s also a pretty beast writer some of the passages in here are incredible takedowns be it of Luther or the Papists or the princes or whomever. He also thinks the Bible is a living text as opposed to a lot of the academics at the time who just appear to be content translating it and analyzing it. Munzter very much thinks there are continued prophets and that dreams and visions that any normal person has could be from god and deserve to be heard and interpreted.
Across his first couple of posts, he’s seen as something as a rabble rouser as typically iconoclastic acts tend to follow him wherever he goes. He’s typically brought in by other reformist minded people to help bolster the reform and is disliked more by town councils of burghers and dukes people like that. He falls on hard times between posts and eventually ends up in Allstedt where he has kinda his most sustainable run. He eventually gets run out of town there and ends up after a bit of time organizing the peasants revolt in Muhlhausen around 1525. The peasants have some initial success but then eventually get smoked and Munzter gets captured, interrogated, tortured and put to death.
There’s very close attention paid to exactly what was going on. For example when the peasant rebellions started, Lutherans like Duke Johann and Freidrich the Wise were very wary of allowing Catholic Duke Georg to put down the peasants rebellions due to distrust of what he might do.
Some really cool stuff about Munzters immediate legacy too. After watching Munzter and his crew get absolutely smoked by the princes, Hans Hut is like “actually the Turks are gonna roll through and kill most of the blasphemers or gods going to send a dragon or something and then we’ll be victorious”. It’s clear that Pfeiffer and Munzter’s failing to raise a peasant army capable of taking down the mercenaries of the dukes kinda changed the approach to the revolutionary reformers. They were simply to wait for the apocalypse event that would take out the nobility once they realized they would certainly die attempting to do it themselves.
Very interesting to know that a lot of peasant rebellions at the time come from or at least start from a bad harvest. Pretty interesting to know Luther wasn’t super popular outside of Wittenberg and with some of his prince and duke boys. Seems like he had a much more tenuous grip on the movement and wasn’t always welcome everywhere due to the different strains of the reform. But he did have his prince boys and that was all that mattered. Absolutely wild when Luther calls for the princes and dukes to murder thousands of peasants due to the peasant uprisings. Luther is trying to walk a tight rope where on the one hand he wants his reforms but on the other he doesn’t want to be seen as someone trying to foment an uprising because that would alienate him from his buddies in power so it’s a pretty tough balancing act for him.
Broadest strokes what you need to know is that in the 1500s “virtually all forms of intellectual expression were circumscribed by the framework of the Christian religion…To change the ways of thinking you had no option but to take the guise and adopt the language of the icons…You had to bend the only tools available, those of the Bible to new uses. And you had to do it for ‘God’…But what was important, as much with Luther as with Munzter, was the practical result and outcome of religious doctrine: put simply, which social and economic structures did a religious doctrine benefit or challenge?” (P. 332). While it’s clear Luther’s paved the way for secular authorities who he threw his lot in with Munzter went the other way and threw his lot in with the common folks.
January 6, 2025
500 years ago during capitalism's earliest entries into feudal Europe, ordinary Germans were extremely exploited by the Catholic church and nobility. Martin Luther famously challenged that relation but less famously hoped that change would come from the ruling elites and opposed insurgence from below.
That's where Thomas Müntzer, our vulgar, gothic, mystical, revolutionary hero comes in. This man believed so hard that ordinary Germans could overthrow the princes, dukes, earls, Catholics, and centrist Lutheran academics that he led Europe's greatest revolutionary movement before the French revolution. Spoiler alert: his righteous but inexperienced comrades got slaughtered and Müntzer was tortured and executed.
Drummond keeps what could be a very dry book fun, letting Müntzer's humor do a lot of the work. I laughed out loud more than once, but especially when he burnt Luther and his ilk, calling them donkey farting, scrotal doctors.
This reached farther back in time than most history I enjoy but I'm happy that I gave it a shot. Thanks to my dad who thought I'd enjoy another book about Müntzer (I didn't), but then inspired me to pick up this very good one.
That's where Thomas Müntzer, our vulgar, gothic, mystical, revolutionary hero comes in. This man believed so hard that ordinary Germans could overthrow the princes, dukes, earls, Catholics, and centrist Lutheran academics that he led Europe's greatest revolutionary movement before the French revolution. Spoiler alert: his righteous but inexperienced comrades got slaughtered and Müntzer was tortured and executed.
Drummond keeps what could be a very dry book fun, letting Müntzer's humor do a lot of the work. I laughed out loud more than once, but especially when he burnt Luther and his ilk, calling them donkey farting, scrotal doctors.
This reached farther back in time than most history I enjoy but I'm happy that I gave it a shot. Thanks to my dad who thought I'd enjoy another book about Müntzer (I didn't), but then inspired me to pick up this very good one.
August 29, 2024
What an incredible book. Drummond balances careful research, vibrant translations, and engaging writing to great effect.
March 11, 2025
damn this müntzer guy was pretty cool
December 5, 2025
Martin Luther suckkkks (though we already knew that). A fascinating and well-researched biography and makes an interesting companion to Engels' work on the German Bauernkrieg.
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September 6, 2024A very thorough and accessible book on Thomas Müntzer's life and his role in the German Peasant's War of 1525. Müntzer's reforms were quite different from Luther, his contemporary. While Luther was explicitly more concerned with preserving the existing social order, Müntzer were more active in preaching to the peasants and the common folk. Notably, he was one of the first to translate liturgies into german.
I've been thinking a lot about history lately. Specifically, about how 'progress' comes about often in ambiguous ways or due to happenstance. For centuries after his execution, history paints him a villain, and hyperbolic twisting of his teachings, reflecting more the imagination and fears of insurrection from the perspective of the nobilities, falsely produced his more proto-communist image, and that he "taught all possessions should be in common.. and the mob did not want to work any more..". That this would at least in small part informed Marxism is so fascinating to me. Yes, Müntzer was a genuinely egalitarian political leader and preacher, and he did actual hardcore 'praxis' (i.e. conducted actual revolution and was recalcitrant and fundamentally hostile towards 'academics'). But I wonder how much those twisting in his early damnatio elevates his prestige among modern revolutionaries? While Müntzer's early failed revolutions ended up partially reinforcing Catholicism in Thuringia, this reinforcement and subsequent assassination of his character might end up propelling revolution elsewhere, beyond the centuries.
I am reminded of another quite different fidgets in the cacophonic movement towards progress. The concession of oligarchic party-rule in Taisho era Japan, specifically the rise of Hara Takashi in the Seiyūkai party. While branding himself as a champion for the middle class, Hara in actuality was a cold political pragmatist. Once he enacted reforms that enabled his rise, he subsequently squashed efforts for universal suffrage. But, it is his reforms in the Seiyūkai itself that could be said to later paving the way for actual progressives to arise. Again, the needle moved, but not quite in the way the mover intended.
I've been thinking a lot about history lately. Specifically, about how 'progress' comes about often in ambiguous ways or due to happenstance. For centuries after his execution, history paints him a villain, and hyperbolic twisting of his teachings, reflecting more the imagination and fears of insurrection from the perspective of the nobilities, falsely produced his more proto-communist image, and that he "taught all possessions should be in common.. and the mob did not want to work any more..". That this would at least in small part informed Marxism is so fascinating to me. Yes, Müntzer was a genuinely egalitarian political leader and preacher, and he did actual hardcore 'praxis' (i.e. conducted actual revolution and was recalcitrant and fundamentally hostile towards 'academics'). But I wonder how much those twisting in his early damnatio elevates his prestige among modern revolutionaries? While Müntzer's early failed revolutions ended up partially reinforcing Catholicism in Thuringia, this reinforcement and subsequent assassination of his character might end up propelling revolution elsewhere, beyond the centuries.
I am reminded of another quite different fidgets in the cacophonic movement towards progress. The concession of oligarchic party-rule in Taisho era Japan, specifically the rise of Hara Takashi in the Seiyūkai party. While branding himself as a champion for the middle class, Hara in actuality was a cold political pragmatist. Once he enacted reforms that enabled his rise, he subsequently squashed efforts for universal suffrage. But, it is his reforms in the Seiyūkai itself that could be said to later paving the way for actual progressives to arise. Again, the needle moved, but not quite in the way the mover intended.
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September 28, 2025Thomas Muntzer has meant many different things to lots of different people. To contemporaries, a satanic foil to their pursuit of bourgeois spiritual realignment with the incremental onset of european capitalism. To nazis, he was a revolutionary ancestor whose desires for the german nation were perfected by the third reich. To east germans: a proto-lenin, synthesizing the collective desires of a pre-proletariat & exploited peasantry. To 21st century lutherans he's closer to osama bin laden. He saw the societal forest for the trees, and melded the spiritual with the economic and political. Engels provides the best summary: "𝘏𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘥𝘰𝘤𝘵𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘥𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘴 𝘩𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘰 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘱𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘥𝘰 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘦𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘵 𝘢 𝘨𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘮𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵, 𝘰𝘳 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘳 𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘪𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘭 𝘭𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘭 𝘰𝘧 𝘳𝘦𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘮𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘶𝘯𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘳 𝘭𝘦𝘴𝘴 𝘱𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘭 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘶𝘭𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘤𝘪𝘢𝘭 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘱𝘰𝘭𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘢𝘭 𝘮𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵. 𝘛𝘩𝘶𝘴 𝘩𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘭𝘺 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘥𝘴 𝘩𝘪𝘮𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘧 𝘪𝘯 𝘢 𝘥𝘪𝘭𝘦𝘮𝘮𝘢. 𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘥𝘰 𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘴𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘴 𝘩𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘵𝘰 𝘱𝘳𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘴𝘦𝘥, 𝘵𝘰 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘳𝘪𝘯𝘤𝘪𝘱𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘺; 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘦 𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩𝘵 𝘵𝘰 𝘥𝘰 𝘤𝘢𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘣𝘦 𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘥. 𝘐𝘯 𝘢 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥, 𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘱𝘦𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘺 𝘰𝘳 𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘴, 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘴𝘴 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘸𝘩𝘰𝘮 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘳𝘪𝘱𝘦 𝘧𝘰𝘳 𝘥𝘰𝘮𝘪𝘯𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯." Along the way, we've discovered more and more about the life and times of Thomas Muntzer, a truly inspiring yet imperfect individual who knew what the kingdom of god could look like.
May 7, 2025
Thomas Muntzer was a religious revolutionary, seeking significant changes to the existing practice and pervasiveness of religious hierarchy in the lives of German-speaking communities in the early 16th century. For a rather dry subject, the author does quite a good job of making it lively and interesting. Were it not for the necessary discussions of religious doctrine interpretations and controversies, this book would have gotten a 5-star rating--the 4-star rating is due to the author's skill in conveying information as well as he did.
March 2, 2025
5* as a biographical appendix to Engels' "Peasant War in Germany," 3* as a standalone work, split the difference.
One weird thing about this book is that the author spends the body of the work trying to convince us that Muntzer was exclusively a theological radical who didn't give a damn about material conditions and then does a complete 180 in the conclusion.
Anyway, that Luther guy was a real piece of work, huh?
One weird thing about this book is that the author spends the body of the work trying to convince us that Muntzer was exclusively a theological radical who didn't give a damn about material conditions and then does a complete 180 in the conclusion.
Anyway, that Luther guy was a real piece of work, huh?
November 16, 2025
This book is about historical and religious background to the german reformation, Muntzer's early years, his period being a priest in Zwickau, his visit to Prague, his period in Erfurt, Nordhausen, and Halle, his fruitful year in Allstedt, the rebellion in Allstedt, Muntzer's theology, Muhlhausen and Nurnberg, the peasant uprising, the Thuringian uprising, the battle of Frankenhausen, the early Anabaptists. I give it only 3 stars as I do not remember any notable idea from it after reading it.
January 11, 2025
A good account of the life of Thomas Müntzer but lacks a lot of historical evidence to hang on to (not the author's fault, there just isn't much in existence). Would very much like a historical fiction treatment of Müntzer à la Wolf Hall. All of the radical preachers of the time seemed to have been incredibly bitchy and dramatic.
December 13, 2025
the history of apocalyptic pronouncements during the time of the reformation that ironically led to positive changes in social and political order is pretty fascinating. today ppl like muntzer would be read off as religious fanatics (for good reason). however theres a lot to learn from using theology to mobilize the poor by infusing radical (partially revolutionary) ideology into liturgy
December 26, 2025
I was on the fence with Müntzer until he dropped this:
“Stir it all up, dear sirs, let the shit stink nicely. I hope you will brew a heady beer from it, since you like drinking such filth.”
rounding down 3.5 stars.
“Stir it all up, dear sirs, let the shit stink nicely. I hope you will brew a heady beer from it, since you like drinking such filth.”
rounding down 3.5 stars.
January 20, 2025
Interesting account of the 1525 Peasant Revolt. Persuasively challenges traditional historiography on Thomas Muntzer and shows him as neither radical Marxist or satanic influence.
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