ourth decade of the sixteenth century,
though it may be regarded partly as a continuation or recrudescence,
showed some differences from the peasant revolt of some years
previously. The peasant rebellion, which reached its zenith in 1525,
was predominantly an agrarian movement, notwithstanding that it had
had its echo among the poorer classes of the towns. The Anabaptist
movement proper, which culminated in the Muenster "reign of the saints"
in 1534-5, was predominantly a townsman's movement, notwithstanding
that it had a considerable support from among the peasantry. The
Anabaptists' leaders were not, as in the case of the Peasants' War,
in the main drawn from the class of the "man that wields the hoe" (to
paraphrase the phraseology of the time); they were tailors, smiths,
bakers, shoemakers, or carpenters. They belonged, in short, to the
class of the organized handicraftsmen and journeymen who worked within
city walls. A prominent figure in both movements was, however, the
ex-priest or teacher. The ideal, or, if you will, the Utopian, element
in the movement of Melchior Hoffmann, Jan Matthys, and Jan
Bockelson--the element which expressed the social discontent of the
time in the guise of its prevalent theological conceptions--now
occupied the first place, while in the earlier movement it was merely
sporadic.

After the close of the sixteenth century Anabaptism lost all political
importance on the continent of Europe. It had, however, a certain
afterglow in this country during the following century, which lasted
over the times of the Civil War and the Commonwealth, and may be
traced in the movements of the "Levellers," the "Fifth Monarchy men,"
and even among the earlier Quakers.

FOOTNOTES:

[23] Those interested will find the events briefly sketched in the
present chapter exhaustively treated, with full elaboration of detail,
in the two previous volumes of mine, _The Peasant's War in Germany_ and
_The Rise and Fall of the Anabaptists_ (Messrs. George Allen & Unwin).

[24] Amongst the curiosities of literature may be included the
translation of the title of this manifesto by Prof. T.M. Lindsay, D.D.,
in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, 9th edition (Article, "Luther"). The
German title is "Wider die morderischen und rauberischen Rotten der
Bauern." Prof. Lindsay's translation is "_Against the murdering, robbing
Rats [sic] of Peasants_"!

CHAPTER IX

POST-MEDIAEVAL GERMANY

We have in the preceding chap