German Peasants' War
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
Related e |
Featured: |
The Peasants' War (Deutscher Bauernkrieg in German, literally the German Peasants' War) was a popular revolt that took place in Europe during 1524–1525. It consisted, like the preceding Bundschuh movement and the Hussite Wars, of a series of both economic and religious revolts in which peasants, townsfolk and nobles all participated.
At its height in the spring and summer of 1525, the conflict, which occurred mostly in the southern, western and central areas of what is now modern Germany plus areas in neighboring Alsace and modern Switzerland and Austria, involved an estimated 300,000 peasant rebels: contemporary estimates put the dead at 100,000. It was Europe's largest and most widespread popular uprising prior to the French Revolution of 1789.
See also
- List of peasant revolts
- Popular revolt in late-medieval Europe
- Melchior Rink, who was accused by Lutherans of being an instigator of the war