measure, both were of higher importance to the
landed proprietor. It was natural, therefore, that the peasant should
take a proportionate view of his freedom, and here and there think of
relief from his burdens, whilst it became the interest of the landed
proprietor to maintain his servitude--nay, even to increase it. Yet,
one need not ascribe the great movement to such reasons. The pride of
victory of the Swiss who had prostrated the Knights of Burgundy, the
self-dependence of the new Landsknechts, and, above all, the religious
movement, and the social turn which it took in South Germany, made a
deep impression on the mind of the peasant. For the first time his
condition was viewed by the educated with sympathy. The countryman was
almost suddenly introduced into the literature as a judge and
associate. His grievances against the priesthood, and also against the
landed proprietors, were ever brought forward in popular language with
great skill. A few years before, he had played the standing _role_ of a
clown in the shrove-tide games of the Nuerembergers, but now even Hans
Sachs[14] wrote dialogues full of hearty sympathy with his condition,
and the portraiture of the simple, intelligent, and industrious
peasant, called Karsthans,[15] was repeatedly assumed, in order to show
the sound judgment and wit of the people against the priests.

But, dangerous as the great peasant insurrection appeared for many
weeks, and manifold as were the characters and passions which blazed
forth in it, the peasants themselves were little more than an
undulating mass; the greater part of their demagogues and leaders
belonged to another class; on the whole, it appears to us that the
intelligence and capacity of the leaders, whether peasants or others,
was but small, and equally small the warlike capacity of the masses.
Therefore here where the peasant for the first time is powerfully
influenced by the literary men of the period, more pleasure is
experienced in the contemplation of the minds that roused up his soul.
It was the case here, as it always is in popular insurrections, that
the masses were first excited by those who were more influential and
far-sighted, nobler and more refined; then they lost the mastery, which
was seized by vain, coarse demagogues, like Andreas Karlstadt and
Thomas Muenzer. But the way in which, in this case, the more rational
lost their control is specially characteristic of that time.

Next to Luther, no indivi