Thomas Müntzer was an early associate of Martin Luther who broke away in
favor of a new, more radical reform movement called Anabaptism. His
increasingly violent following of a few hundred peasants led a nervous
Duke of Saxony to summon Müntzer for an interview. Müntzer declared
himself to the Duke as a new Daniel, in possession of direct revelations from God, and
urged profound but unspecified changes in German
society. Müntzer narrowly escaped over the town walls that night.
By
the following year, 1525, Müntzer found himself at the head of an
8,000-man irregular army of disaffected, apocalypticially-minded
peasants. On May 15 they were met outside the city of Frankenhausen by
2000 cavalrymen with cannon support. Rousing his troops for battle,
Müntzer declared not just that God would assure their victory, but also
that he would personally be able to catch enemy cannonballs in his
cloak.
The 2000 cavalrymen killed 5000 of the peasants while
sustaining only six casualties of their own. Müntzer caught no cannonballs in
his cloak, and was instead found after the rout hiding in an attic
nearby. During nearly two weeks of torture, he recanted his entire
ministry, begged forgiveness, and accepted Catholic communion before
being beheaded on May 27.
The apocalyptic Anabaptist movement, however, would continue bloodily on into the 1530s without Müntzer (see Jan. 22).
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