German Peasants' War
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
Illustration: The image breakers, c.1566 –1568 by Marcus Gheeraerts the Elder
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The Peasants' War (in German, der Deutsche Bauernkrieg) was a popular revolt in the Holy Roman Empire in the years 1524/1525. It consisted, like the preceding Bundschuh movement and the Hussite Wars, of a series of economic as well as religious revolts by peasants, townsfolk and nobles. The movement possessed no common program.
The conflict, which took place mostly in southern, western and central areas of modern Germany but also affected areas in neighboring modern Switzerland and Austria, involved at its height in the spring and summer of 1525 an estimated 300,000 peasant insurgents: contemporary estimates put the dead at 100,000. It was Europe's most massive and widespread popular uprising before the 1789 French Revolution.
