The Gospel of Social Unrest: 450 years after the So-Called “German Peasant's War” of 1525

Abstract

In spite of intensive research, it has proven difficult to set aside terms and concepts that have been current since the time of the Reformation. Thus, we continue to speak without further reflection of the “German Peasants' War” although this limitation has long since proven untenable. For a period of almost two centuries, the so-called tumultus rusticorum, best translated as social unrest or countryside agitation, was a phenomenon extending across all of Europe, from Italy to the Low Countries and from Southern France to Bohemia.