Many of
the cities were in league with them, several of the princes entered in
negotiation concerning their demands; in Thuringia the Anabaptists,
under the lead of a fanatical preacher named Thomas Muenzer, were in full
revolt; in Saxony, Hesse, and lower Germany the peasantry were in arms;
there was much reason to fear that the insurgents and fanatics would
join their forces and pour like a rushing torrent through the whole
empire, destroying all before them. Of the many peasant revolts which
the history of mediaevalism records this was the most threatening and
dangerous, and called for the most strenuous exertions to save the
institutions of Germany from a complete overthrow.
At the head of the main body of insurgents was a knight of notorious
character, the famed Goetz von Berlichingen,--Goetz with the Iron Hand,
as he is named,--a robber baron whose history had been one of feud and
contest, and of the plunder alike of armed foes and unarmed travellers.
Goethe has honored him by making him the hero of a drama, and the
peasantry sought to honor him by making him the leader of their march of
destruction.
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