The Renaissance

spiring widespread support of Medici rule
in Florence.

SEEALSO: Medici, Lorenzo de’

Peasants War ....................................

A rebellion that lasted from 1524 to 1525
in German-speaking domains of the Holy
Roman Empire. The revolt originated in
opposition to the heavy burdens of taxes
and duties on the German serfs, who had
no legal rights and no opportunity to im-
prove their lot. These conditions had
sparked conflict in the fifteenth century,
but these uprisings remained local and
contained. A more widespread rebellion
was finally sparked in the 1520s by the
movement for reform in the Catholic
Church, and the social and political up-
heavals that the Protestant Reformation
caused. With the authority of church prel-
ates challenged by Martin Luther and oth-
ers, the peasants saw their cause supported
by the Protestant emphasis on individual
faith. Empowered in their religious views,
and pressed by crop failures that threat-
ened starvation, they saw an opportunity
to overthrow the feudal system, in which
they were bound to the estates of the
nobles and forced to give up the produce
of the fields in which they worked.

The revolt began in the summer of
1524 in the county of Stühlingen, in the
region of Upper Swabia near the border of
Germany and Switzerland. It spread
quickly in southern and western Germany,
and as far as Switzerland and Austria. In
the spring of 1525, there were five large
bands of peasants roaming the country-
side, burning homes of nobles and princes,
and bringing townspeople over to their
side. The peasants sought relief from heavy
taxes, an end to serfdom, fair trials, and an
end to the taxes they owed on the death of
a member of their families. They set down

these demands in a document known as

the Twelve Articles. The rebels seized the

town of Heilbronn, where they formed a

parliament, as well as Würtzburg, the seat

of a Catholic bishop. In Thuringia, the

rebels were led by Thomas Muntzer, a fi-

ery Protestant leader.

Poor townspeople and urban artisans

joined the rebellion, which also won the

support of Huldrych Zwingli, a prominent

Protestant leader, but was opposed by Mar-

tin Luther. In the meantime, an army of

the Swabian League gathered and marched

north into Franconia, in central Germany,

defeating the peasants in battle at Fran-

kenhausen and Königshofen. About one

hundred thousand combatants and civil-

ians were killed before the fighting died

down in late 1525, while the armies of the

opposition carried out deadly reprisals for

the next two years. Small local rebellions

continued into the next year in Austria,

but the defeat of the peasants in Germany

brought a complete repudiation of their

demands for a more just economic system.

The discontent of the peasants would con-

tinue through the sixteenth and early sev-

enteenth century, adding to the bitter con-

flicts between Protestant and Catholic

territories that would finally erupt into the

Thirty Years’ War in the early 1600s.

SEEALSO: Reformation, Protestant; Thirty

Years’ War

perspective .......................................

Although the classical Greek and Roman

world was widely admired and imitated in

the Renaissance, the art of antiquity was

surpassed in several technical aspects by

later artists. One of the most important

advances was made in the science of per-

spective. The artists of the classical world

attempted in vain to accurately portray

three-dimensional space on their wall

Peasants War