German Peasants ' War The German Peasants ' War or Great Peasants ' Revolt ( ) was a widespread popular revolt in the German - speaking areas of Central Europe , 1524 – 1525 . It failed because of the intense opposition of the aristocracy , who slaughtered up to 100 , 000 of the 300 , 000 poorly armed peasants and farmers . The survivors were fined and achieved few if any of their goals . The war consisted , like the preceding Bundschuh movement and the Hussite Wars , of a series of both economic and religious revolts in which peasants and farmers , often supported by Protestant clergy , took the lead . The German Peasants ' War was Europe ' s largest and most widespread popular uprising prior to the French Revolution of 1789 . The fighting was at its height in the spring and summer of 1525 . The war began with separate insurrections , beginning in the southwestern part of what is now Germany and neighboring Alsace , and spread in subsequent insurrections to the central and eastern areas of Germany and present - day Austria . After the uprising in Germany was suppressed , it flared briefly in several Swiss Cantons . In mounting their insurrection , peasants faced insurmountable hurdles . The democratic nature of their movement left them without a command structure and they lacked artillery and cavalry . Most of them had little , if any , military experience . In combat they often turned and fled , and were massacred by their pursuers . The opposition had experienced military leaders , well - equipped and disciplined armies , and ample funding . The revolt incorporated some principles and rhetoric from the emerging Protestant Reformation , through which the peasants sought freedom and influence . Historians have interpreted the economic aspects of the German Peasants ' War differently and social and cultural historians continue to disagree on its causes and nature . Background . In the sixteenth century , parts of Europe had common political links within the Holy Roman Empire , a decentralized entity in which the Holy Roman Emperor himself had little authority outside of his own dynastic lands , which covered only a small fraction of the whole . At the time of the Peasant War , Charles V , King of Spain , held the position of Holy Roman Emperor ( elected in 1519 ) . Noble dynasties ruled hundreds of largely independent secular and ecclesiastical territories within the framework of the empire , and several dozen others operated as semi - independent city - states . A German church under the control of the princes would not be able to tax them as the Roman church did . The princes could only gain , economically , by breaking away . Most German princes broke with Rome using the nationalistic slogan of " German money for a German church " . Roman civil law . Princes often attempted to force their freer peasants into serfdom by increasing taxes and introducing Roman civil law . Roman civil law advantaged princes who sought to consolidate their power , because it brought all land into their personal ownership and eliminated the feudal concept of the land as a trust between lord and peasant that conferred rights as well as obligations on the latter . By maintaining the remnants of the ancient law which legitimized their own rule , they not only elevated their wealth and position in the empire through the confiscation of all property and revenues , but increased their dominion over their peasant subjects . During the Knights ' Revolt the " knights " , the lesser land holders of Rhineland in western Germany , rose up in rebellion in 1522 – 1523 . Their rhetoric was religious , and several leaders expressed Luther ' s ideas on the split with Rome and the new German church . However , the Knights ' Revolt was not fundamentally religious . It was reactionary in nature and sought to preserve the feudal order . The knights revolted against the new money order , which was squeezing them out of existence . Luther and Müntzer . Martin Luther , the dominant leader of the Reformation in Germany , took a middle course in the Peasants ' War . He criticized the injustices imposed on the peasants , and the rashness of the peasants in fighting back . He also tended to support the centralization and urbanization of the economy . This position alienated the lesser nobles , but shored up his position with the burghers . Luther argued that work was the chief duty on earth ; the duty of the peasants was farm labor and the duty of the ruling classes was upholding the peace . He could not support the Peasant War because it broke the peace , an evil he thought greater than the evils the peasants were rebelling against ; he also criticized the ruling classes for their merciless suppression of the insurrection . Luther has often been sharply criticized for his position . Thomas Müntzer was the most prominent Protestant minister who supported the demands of the peasantry , including political and legal rights . Although Müntzer was a religious leader , politically he showed less interest in religious questions than in the social position of the people . Münzer ' s theology contained powerful mystical and apocalyptic elements that form the basis of his support for the peasants . As the war developed he focused more and more on non - religious themes . During the war Müntzer traveled from province to province offering leadership and encouragement . He became the main leader of the peasantry in Saxony . Diarmaid MacCulloch argues that the role of Müntzer has been exaggerated for political reasons . He writes : Luther took every opportunity to attack Müntzer ' s ideas . He declared against the moderate demands of the peasantry embodied in the twelve articles . His article " Against the Murderous , Thieving Hordes of Peasants " , which appeared in May 1525 , alienated the lower classes . Social classes in the 16th - century Holy Roman Empire . In this era of rapid change , modernizing princes tended to align with clergy burghers against the lesser nobility and peasants . Princes . Many rulers of Germany ' s various principalities functioned as autocratic rulers who recognized no other authority within their territories . Princes had the right to levy taxes and borrow money as they saw fit . The growing costs of administration and military upkeep impelled them to keep raising demands on their subjects . The princes also worked to centralize power in the towns and estates . Accordingly , princes tended to gain economically from the ruination of the lesser nobility , by acquiring their estates . This ignited the Knights ' Revolt that occurred from 1522 through 1523 in the Rhineland . The revolt was " suppressed by both Catholic and Lutheran princes who were satisfied to cooperate against a common danger " . To the degree that other classes , such as the bourgeois , might gain from the centralization of the economy and the elimination of the lesser nobles ' territorial controls on manufacture and trade , the princes might unite with the burghers on the issue . Lesser nobility . The evolving military technology of the Late Medieval period began to render the lesser nobility ( the knight s ) militarily obsolete . The introduction of military science and the growing importance of gunpowder and infantry lessened the importance of heavy cavalry and of castle s . Their luxurious lifestyle drained what little income they had as prices kept rising . They exercised their ancient rights in order to wring income from their territories . In the north of Germany many of the lesser nobles had already been subordinated to secular and ecclesiastical lords . Thus , their dominance over serfs was more restricted . However , in the south of Germany their powers were more intact . Accordingly , the harshness of the lesser nobles ' treatment of the peasantry provided the immediate cause of the uprising . The fact that this treatment was worse in the south than in the north was the reason that the war began in the south . The knights became embittered as their status and income fell and they came increasingly under the jurisdiction of the princes , putting the two groups in constant conflict . The knights also regarded the clergy as arrogant and superfluous , while envying their privileges and wealth . In addition , the knights ' relationships with the patricians in the towns was strained by the debts owed by the knights . At odds with all other social classes in Germany , the lesser nobility was the least disposed to change . The lesser nobility and the clergy paid no taxes and often supported their local prince . Clergy . The clergy in 1525 were the intellectuals of their time . Not only were they literate , but in the Middle Ages they had produced most books . Some clergy were supported by the nobility and the rich , while others appealed to the masses . However , the clergy was beginning to lose its overwhelming intellectual authority . The progress of printing ( especially of the Bible ) and the expansion of commerce , as well as the spread of renaissance humanism , raised literacy rates . The Catholic monopoly on higher education was accordingly reduced . Over time , some Catholic institutions had slipped into corruption . Clerical ignorance and the abuses of simony and pluralism ( holding several offices at once ) were rampant . Some bishop s , archbishops , abbot s and priors were as ruthless in exploiting their subjects as the regional princes . In addition to the sale of indulgences , they set up prayer house s and directly taxed the people . Increased indignation over church corruption had led the monk Martin Luther to post his 95 Theses on the doors of the Castle Church in Wittenberg , Germany in 1517 , as well as impelling other reformers to radically re - think church doctrine and organization . The clergy that did not follow Luther tended to be the aristocratic clergy , who opposed all change , including any break with the Roman Church . The poorer clergy , rural and urban itinerant preachers who were not well positioned in the church , were more likely to join the Reformation . Some of the poorer clergy sought to extend Luther ' s equalizing ideas to society at large . Patricians . Many towns had privileges that exempted them from taxes , so that the bulk of taxation fell on the peasants . As the guild s grew and urban populations rose , the town patricians faced increasing opposition . The patricians consisted of wealthy families who sat alone in the town councils and held all the administrative offices . Like the princes , they sought to secure revenues from their peasants by any possible means . Arbitrary road , bridge , and gate tolls were instituted at will . They gradually revoked the common lands and made it illegal for peasants to fish or to log wood from these lands . Guild tax es were exacted . No revenues collected were subject to formal administration , and civic accounts were neglected . Thus embezzlement and fraud became common and the patrician class , bound by family ties , became wealthier and more powerful . Burghers . The town patricians were increasingly criticized by the growing burgher class , which consisted of well - to - do middle - class citizens who held administrative guild positions or worked as merchants . They demanded town assemblies made up of both patricians and burghers , or at least a restriction on simony and the allocation of council seats to burghers . The burghers also opposed the clergy , who they felt had overstepped and failed to uphold their principles . They demanded an end to the clergy ’ s special privileges , such as their exemption from taxation , as well as a reduction in their numbers . The burgher - master ( guild master , or artisan ) now owned both his workshop and its tools , which he allowed his apprentices to use , and provided the materials that his workers needed . Plebeians . The plebeians comprised the new class of urban workers , journeymen and vagabonds . Ruined burghers also joined their ranks . Although technically potential burghers , most journeymen were barred from higher positions by the wealthy families who ran the guilds . Thus their " temporary " position devoid of civic rights tended to become permanent . The plebeians did not have property like ruined burghers or peasants . Peasants . The heavily taxed peasantry continued to occupy the lowest stratum of society . In the early 16th century , no peasant could hunt , fish , or chop wood freely , as they previously had , because the lords had recently taken control of common lands . The lord had the right to use his peasants ' land as he wished ; the peasant could do nothing but watch as his crops were destroyed by wild game and by nobles galloping across his fields in the course of chivalric hunts . When a peasant wished to marry , he needed not only the lord ' s permission , but had to pay a tax . When the peasant died , the lord was entitled to his best cattle , his best garments and his best tools . The justice system , operated by the clergy or wealthy burgher and patrician jurists , gave the peasant no redress . Generations of traditional servitude and the autonomous nature of the provinces limited peasant insurrections to local areas . Military organizations . Army of the Swabian League . The Swabian League fielded an army commanded by Georg , Truchsess von Waldburg , later known as " Bauernjörg " for his role in the suppression of the revolt . He was also known as the " Scourge of the Peasants " . The league headquarters was based in Ulm , and command was exercised through a war council which decided the troop contingents to be levied from each member . Depending on their capability , members contributed a specific number of mounted knights and foot soldiers , called a contingent , to the league ' s army . The Bishop of Augsburg , for example , had to contribute 10 horse ( mounted ) and 62 foot soldiers , which would be the equivalent of a half - company . Foot soldiers were drawn from the ranks of the " landsknechte " . These were mercenaries , usually paid a monthly wage of four guilders , and organized into regiments ( " haufen " ) and companies ( " fähnlein " or little flag ) of 120 – 300 men , which distinguished it from others . Each company , in turn , was composed of smaller units of 10 to 12 men , known as " rotte " . The " landsknecht " clothed , armed and fed themselves , and were accompanied by a sizable train of sutler s , bakers , washerwomen , prostitutes and sundry individuals with occupations needed to sustain the force . Trains ( " tross " ) were sometimes larger than the fighting force , but they required organization and discipline . Each " landsknecht " maintained its own structure , called the " gemein " , or community assembly , which was symbolized by a ring . The " semein " had its own leader ( " schultheiss " ) , and a " provost " officer who policed the ranks and maintained order . The league relied on the armored cavalry of the nobility for the bulk of its strength ; the league had both a heavy cavalry and a light cavalry ( " rennfahne " ) that acted as a vanguard . Typically , the " rehnnfahne " were the second and third sons of poor knights , the lower and sometimes impoverished nobility with small land - holdings , or , in the case of second and third sons , no inheritance or social role . These men could often be found roaming the countryside looking for work or engaging in highway robbery . To be effective the cavalry needed to be mobile , and needed to oppose a force not armed with pikes . Peasant armies . The peasant armies were organized in bands ( " haufen " ) , similar to the " landsknecht " . Each " haufen " was organized into " unterhaufen " , or " fähnlein " and " rotten " . The bands varied in size , depending on the number of insurgents available in the locality . Peasant " haufen " divided along territorial lines , whereas those of the " landsknecht " drew men from a variety of territories . Some bands could number about 4 , 000 ; others , such as the peasant force at Frankenhausen , could gather 8 , 000 . The Alsatian peasants who took to the field at the Battle of Zabern ( now Saverne ) numbered 18 , 000 . " Haufen " were formed from companies , typically 500 men per company , subdivided into platoons of 10 to 15 peasants each . Like the " landsknechts " , the peasant bands used similar titles : " Oberster feldhauptmann " , or supreme commander , similar to a colonel , and lieutenants , or " leutinger " . Each company was commanded by a captain and had its own " fähnrich " , or ensign , who carried the company ' s standard ( its ensign ) . The companies also had a sergeant or " feldweibel " , and squadron leaders called " rottmeister " , or masters of the " rotte " . Officers were usually elected , particularly the supreme commander and the " leutinger " . The peasant army was governed by a so - called " ring " , in which peasants gathered in a circle to debate tactics , troop movements , alliances , and the distribution of spoils . The ring was the decision - making body . In addition to this democratic construct , each band had a hierarchy of leaders including a supreme commander and a marshal ( " schultheiss " ) , who maintained law and order . Other roles included lieutenants , captains , standard - bearers , master gunner , wagon - fort master , train master , four watch - masters , four sergeant - majors to arrange the order of battle , a " weibel " ( sergeant ) for each company , two quartermasters , farriers , quartermasters for the horses , a communications officer and a pillage master . Peasant resources . The peasants possessed an important resource , the skills to build and maintain field works . They used the wagon - fort effectively , a tactic that had been mastered in the Hussite Wars of the previous century . Wagons were chained together in a suitable defensive location , with cavalry and draft animals placed in the center . Peasants dug ditches around the outer edge of the fort and used timbers to close gaps between and underneath the wagons . In the Hussite Wars , artillery was usually placed in the center on raised mounds of earth that allowed them to fire over the wagons . Wagon forts could be erected and dismantled quickly . They were quite mobile , but they also had drawbacks : they required a fairly large area of flat terrain and they were not ideal for offense . Since the earlier use , artillery had increased in range and power . Peasants served in rotation , sometimes for one week in four , and returned to their villages after service . While the men served , others absorbed their workload . This sometimes meant producing supplies for their opponents , such as in the Archbishopric of Salzburg , where men worked to extract silver , which was used to hire fresh contingents of " landsknechts " for the Swabian League . However , the peasants lacked the Swabian League ' s cavalry , having few horses and little armour . They seem to have used their mounted men for reconnaissance . The lack of cavalry with which to protect their flanks , and with which to penetrate massed " landsknecht " squares , proved to be a long - term tactical and strategic problem . Causes . Historians disagree on the nature of the revolt and its causes , whether it grew out of the emerging religious controversy centered on Luther ; whether a wealthy tier of peasants saw their own wealth and rights slipping away , and sought to weave them into the legal , social and religious fabric of society ; or whether peasants objected to the emergence of a modernizing , centralizing nation state . Threat to prosperity . One view is that the origins of the German Peasants ' War lay partly in the unusual power dynamic caused by the agricultural and economic dynamism of the previous decades . Labor shortages in the last half of the 14th century had allowed peasants to sell their labor for a higher price ; food and goods shortages had allowed them to sell their products for a higher price as well . Consequently , some peasants , particularly those who had limited allodial requirements , were able to accrue significant economic , social , and legal advantages . Peasants were more concerned to protect the social , economic and legal gains they had made than about seeking further gains . Serfdom . Their attempt to break new ground was primarily seeking to increase their liberty by changing their status from serfs , such as infamous moment when the peasants of Mühlhausen refused to collect snail shells around which their lady could wind her thread . The renewal of the signeurial system had weakened in the previous half century , and peasants were unwilling to see it restored . Luther ' s Reformation . People in all layers of the social hierarchy — serfs or city dwellers , guildsmen or farmers , knights and aristocrats — started to question the established hierarchy . The so - called " Book of One Hundred Chapters " , for example , written between 1501 and 1513 , promoted religious and economic freedom , attacking the governing establishment and displaying pride in the virtuous peasant . The Bundschuh revolts of the first 20 years of the century offered another avenue for the expression of anti - authoritarian ideas , and for the spread of these ideas from one geographic region to another . Luther ' s revolution may have added intensity to these movements , but did not create them ; the two events , Luther ' s Protestant Reformation and the German Peasants ' War , were separate events , sharing the same years , but occurring independently . However , Luther ' s doctrine of the " priesthood of all believers " could be interpreted as proposing greater social equality than Luther intended . Luther vehemently opposed the revolts , writing the pamphlet " Against the Murderous , Thieving Hordes of Peasants " , in which he remarks " Let everyone who can , smite , slay , and stab , secretly or openly . . . nothing can be more poisonous , hurtful , or devilish than a rebel . It is just as one must kill a mad dog ; if you do not strike him he will strike you . " Historian Roland Bainton saw the revolt as a struggle that began as an upheaval immersed in the rhetoric of Luther ' s Protestant Reformation against the Catholic Church but which really was impelled far beyond the narrow religious confines by the underlying economic tensions of the time . Class struggle . The Communist philosopher Fredrick Engels interpreted the war as a case in which an emerging proletariat ( the urban class ) failed to assert a sense of its own autonomy in the face of princely power and left the rural classes to their fate . Outbreak in the southwest . During the 1524 harvest , in Stühlingen , south of the Black Forest , the Countess of Lupfen ordered serfs to collect snail shells for use as thread spools after a series of difficult harvests . Within days , 1 , 200 peasants had gathered , created a list of grievances , elected officers , and raised a banner . Within a few weeks most of southwestern Germany was in open revolt . The uprising stretched from the Black Forest , along the Rhine river , to Lake Constance , into the Swabian highlands , along the upper Danube river , and into Bavaria . Insurgency expands . On 16 February 1525 , 25 villages belonging to the city of Memmingen rebelled , demanding of the magistrates ( city council ) improvements in their economic condition and the general political situation . They complained of peonage , land use , easements on the woods and the commons as well as ecclesiastical requirements of service and payment . The city set up a committee of villagers to discuss their issues , expecting to see a checklist of specific and trivial demands . Unexpectedly , the peasants delivered a uniform declaration that struck at the pillars of the peasant - magisterial relationship . Twelve articles clearly and consistently outlined their grievances . The council rejected many of the demands . Historians have generally concluded that the articles of Memmingen became the basis for the Twelve Articles agreed on by the Upper Swabian Peasants Confederation of 20 March 1525 . A single Swabian contingent , close to 200 horse and 1 , 000 foot soldiers , however , could not deal with the size of the disturbance . By 1525 , the uprisings in the Black Forest , the Breisgau , Hegau , Sundgau , and Alsace alone required a substantial muster of 3 , 000 foot and 300 horse soldiers . Twelve Articles ( statement of principles ) . On 6 March 1525 , some 50 representatives of the Upper Swabian Peasants Haufen ( circles ) — the Baltringer Haufen , the Allgäuer Haufen , and the Lake Constance Haufen ( Seehaufen ) — met in Memmingen to agree a common cause against the Swabian League . One day later , after difficult negotiations , they proclaimed the establishment of the Christian Association , an Upper Swabian Peasants ' Confederation . The peasants met again on 15 and 20 March in Memmingen and , after some additional deliberation , adopted the Twelve Articles and the Federal Order ( " Bundesordnung " ) . Their banner , the " Bundschuh " , or a laced boot , served as the emblem of their agreement . The Twelve Articles were printed over 25 , 000 times in the next two months , and quickly spread throughout Germany , an example of how modernization came to the aid of the anti - modernizers . The Twelve Articles demanded the right for communities to elect and depose clergymen and demanded the utilization of the " great tithe " for public purposes after subtraction of a reasonable pastor ' s salary . ( The " great tithe " was assessed by the Catholic Church against the peasant ' s wheat crop and the peasant ' s vine crops . The great tithe often amounted to more than 10 % of the peasant ' s income . ) The Twelve Articles also demanded the abolition of the " small tithe " which was assessed against the peasant ' s other crops . Other demands of the Twelve Articles included the abolition of serfdom , death tolls , and the exclusion from fishing and hunting rights ; restoration of the forests , pastures , and privileges withdrawn from the community and individual peasants by the nobility ; and a restriction on excessive statute labor , taxes and rents . Finally , the Twelve Articles demanded an end to arbitrary justice and administration . Course of the war . Kempten Insurrection . Kempten im Allgäu was an important city in the Allgäu , a region in what became Bavaria , near the borders with Württemberg and Austria . In the early eighth century , Celtic monks established a monastery there , Kempten Abbey . In 1213 , Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II declared the abbots members of the " reichstand " , or imperial estate , and granted the abbot the title of duke . In 1289 , King Rudolf of Habsburg granted special privileges to the urban settlement in the river valley , making it a free imperial city . In 1525 the last property rights of the abbots in the Imperial City were sold in the so - called " Great Purchase " , marking the start of the co - existence of two independent cities bearing the same name next to each other . In this multi - layered authority , during the Peasants ' War , the abbey - peasants revolted , plundering the abbey and moving on the town . Battle of Leipheim . < br > On 4 April 1525 , 5 , 000 peasants , the " Leipheimer Haufen " ( literally : the Leipheim Bunch ) gathered near Leipheim to rise against the city of Ulm . A band of five companies , plus approximately 25 citizens of Leipheim , assumed positions west of the town . League reconnaissance reported to the Truchsess that the peasants were well - armed . They had cannons with powder and shot and they numbered 3 , 000 – 4 , 000 . They took an advantageous position on the east bank of the Biber . On the left stood a wood , and on their right , a stream and marshland ; behind them , they had erected a wagon fortress , and they were armed with arquebus es and some light artillery pieces . As he had done in earlier encounters with the peasants , the Truchsess negotiated while he continued to move his troops into advantageous positions . Keeping the bulk of his army facing Leipheim , he dispatched detachments of horse from Hesse and Ulm across the Danube to Elchingen . The detached troops encountered a separate group of 1 , 200 peasants engaged in local requisitions , and entered into combat , dispersing them and taking 250 prisoners . At the same time , Truchsess broke off his negotiations , and received a volley of fire from the main group of peasants . He dispatched a guard of light horse and a small group of foot soldiers against the fortified peasant position . This was followed by his main force ; when the peasants saw the size of his main force — his entire force was 1 , 500 horse , 7 , 000 foot , and 18 field guns — they began an orderly retreat . Of the 4 , 000 or so peasants who had manned the fortified position , 2 , 000 were able to reach the town of Leipheim itself , taking their wounded with them in carts . Others sought to escape across the Danube , and 400 drowned there . The Truchsess ' horse units cut down an additional 500 . This was the first important battle of the war . Weinsberg Massacre . An element of the conflict drew on resentment toward some of the nobility . The peasants of Odenwald had already taken the Cistercian Monastery at Schöntal , and were joined by peasant bands from Limpurg ( near Schwäbisch Hall ) and Hohenlohe . A large band of peasants from the Neckar valley , under the leadership of Jack Rohrbach , joined them and from Neckarsulm , this expanded band , called the " Bight Band " ( in German , " Heller Haufen " ) , marched to the town of Weinsberg , where the Count of Helfenstein , then the Austrian Governor of Württemberg , was present . Here , the peasants achieved a major victory . The peasants assaulted and captured the castle of Weinsberg ; most of his own soldiers were on duty in Italy , and he had little protection . Having taken the count as their prisoner , the peasants took their revenge a step further : They forced him , and approximately 70 other nobles who had taken refuge with him , to run the gauntlet of pikes , a popular form of execution among the " landsknechts " . Rohrbach ordered the band ' s piper to play during the running of the gauntlet . The count died horribly . This was too much for many of the peasant leaders of other bands ; they repudiated Rohrbach ' s actions . He was deposed and replaced by a knight , Götz von Berlichingen , who was subsequently elected as supreme commander of the band . At the end of April , the band marched to Amorbach , joined on the way by some radical Odenwald peasants out for Berlichingen ' s blood . Berlichingen had been involved in the suppression of the Poor Conrad uprising 10 years earlier , and these peasants sought vengeance . In the course of their march , they burned down the Wildenburg castle , a contravention of the Articles of War to which the band had agreed . The massacre at Weinsberg was also too much for Luther ; this is the deed that drew his ire in " Against the Murderous , Thieving Hordes of Peasants " in which he castigated peasants for unspeakable crimes , not only for the murder of the nobles at Weinsberg , but also for the impertinence of their revolt . Massacre at Frankenhausen . On 29 April the peasant grumbling and protests in and around Frankenhausen culminated in open revolt . Large parts of the citizenry joined the uprising . Together they occupied the town hall and stormed the castle of the Counts of Schwarzburg . In the following days , a larger number of insurgents gathered in the fields around the town . When Müntzer arrived with 300 fighters from Mühlhausen on 11 May , several thousand more peasants of the surrounding estates camped on the fields and pastures : the final strength of the peasant and town force was estimated at 8 , 000 – 10 , 000 . The Landgrave , Philip of Hesse and Duke George of Saxony were on Müntzer ' s trail and directed their " Landsknecht " troops toward Frankenhausen . On 15 May joint troops of Landgraf Philipp I of Hesse and George , Duke of Saxony defeated near Frankenhausen in the County of Schwarzburg the peasants under the Anabaptist leader . The Princes ' troops included close to 6 , 000 mercenaries , the " Landsknechten " . As such they were experienced , well - equipped , well - trained and had good morale . The peasants , on the other hand , had poor , if any , equipment , and , except for the 300 fighters who had arrived with Müntzer , many had neither experience nor training . Many of the peasants disagreed over whether to fight or negotiate . On 14 May , they warded off smaller feints of the Hesse and Brunswick troopers , but failed to reap the benefits from their success . Instead the insurgents arranged a ceasefire and withdrew into a wagon fort . The next day Philip ' s troops united with the Saxon army of Duke George and immediately broke the truce , starting a heavy combined infantry , cavalry and artillery attack . The peasants were caught off guard and fled in panic to the town , followed and continuously attacked by the mercenaries . Most of the insurgents were slain in what turned out to be a massacre . Casualty figures are unreliable but estimates range from 3 , 000 – 10 , 000 while the " Landsknecht " casualites were as few as six ( two of whom were only wounded ) . Müntzer was captured , tortured and executed at Mühlhausen on 27 May . Battle of Böblingen . The Battle of Böblingen ( 12 May 1525 ) had the greatest losses of the war . When the peasants came to know that the Truchsess of Waldburg pitched camp at Rottenburg , they marched towards him and took the city of Herrenberg on 10 May . Avoiding advances of the Swabian League to retake Herrenberg , the Württemberg band set up three camps between Böblingen and Sindelfingen . There they formed four units , standing upon the slopes between the cities . Their 18 artillery pieces stood on a hill called Galgenberg , facing the hostile armies . The peasants were overtaken by the League ' s horses which encircled and pursued them for kilometres . While the Württemberg band lost approximately 3 , 000 peasants ( estimates range from 2000 to 9000 ) , the League lost no more than 40 soldiers . Battle of Königshofen . At Königshofen , on 2 June , peasant commanders Wendel Hipfler and Georg Metzler had set camp outside of town . Upon identifying two squadrons of League and Alliance horse approaching on each flank , now recognized as a dangerous Truchsess strategy , they redeployed the wagon - fort and guns to the hill above the town . Having learned how to protect themselves from a mounted assault , peasants assembled in four massed ranks behind their cannon , but in front of their wagon - fort , intended to protect them from a rear attack . The peasant gunnery fired a salvo at the League advanced horse , which attacked them on the left . The Truchsess ' infantry made a frontal assault , but without waiting for his foot soldiers to engage , he also ordered an attack on the peasants from the rear . As the knights hit the rear ranks , panic erupted among the peasants . Hipler and Metzler fled with the master gunners . Two thousand reached the nearby woods , where they re - assembled and mounted some resistance . In the chaos that followed , the peasants and the mounted knights and infantry conducted a pitched battle . By nightfall only 600 peasants remained . The Truchsess ordered his army to search the battlefield , and the soldiers discovered approximately 500 peasants who had feigned death . The battle is also called the Battle of the Turmberg , for a watch - tower on the field . Siege of Freiburg im Breisgau . Freiburg , which was a Habsburg territory , had considerable trouble raising enough conscripts to fight the peasants , and when the city did manage to put a column together and march out to meet them , the peasants simply melted into the forest . After the refusal by the Duke of Baden , Margrave Ernst , to accept the 12 Articles , peasants attacked abbeys in the Black Forest . The Knights Hospitallers at Heitersheim fell to them on 2 May ; Haufen to the north also sacked abbeys at Tennenbach and Ettenheimmünster . In early May , Hans Müller arrived with over 8 , 000 men at Kirzenach , near Freiburg . Several other bands arrived , bringing the total to 18 , 000 , and within a matter of days , the city was encircled and the peasants made plans to lay a siege . Second Battle of Würzburg ( 1525 ) . After the peasants took control of Freiburg in Breisgau , Hans Müller took some of the group to assist in the siege at Radolfzell . The rest of the peasants returned to their farms . On 4 June , by Würzburg , Müller and his small group of peasant - soldiers joined with the Franconian farmers of the Hellen Lichten Haufen . Despite this union , the strength of their force was relatively small . At Waldburg - Zeil they met the army of Götz von Berlichingen near Würzburg , who was also called Gotz of the Iron hand . An imperial knight and experienced soldier , although he had a relatively small force himself , he easily defeated the peasants . In approximately 2 hours , more than 8 , 000 peasants were killed . Ultimate failure of the rebellion . The peasant movement ultimately failed , with cities and nobles making a separate peace with the princely armies that restored the old order in a frequently harsher form , under the nominal control of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V , represented in German affairs by his younger brother Ferdinand . Historiography . Marx and Engels . The cofounder of Communism Friedrich Engels wrote " The Peasant War in Germany " ( 1850 ) , which opened the issue of the early of German capitalism on later bourgeois " civil society " at the level of peasant economies . Engels ' analysis was picked up in the middle 20th century by the French Annales School , East German Marxist historians , and British Marxist historians . Using Karl Marx ' s concept of historical materialism , Engels portrayed the events of 1524 – 1525 as prefiguring the 1848 Revolution . He wrote , " Three centuries have passed and many a thing has changed ; still the Peasant War is not so impossibly far removed from our present struggle , and the opponents who have to be fought are essentially the same . We shall see the classes and fractions of classes which everywhere betrayed 1848 and 1849 in the role of traitors , though on a lower level of development , already in 1525 . " Engels ascribed the failure of the revolt to its fundamental conservatism . This led both Marx and Engels to conclude that the communist revolution , when it occurred , would be led not by a peasant army but by an urban proletariat . Later historiography . Historians disagree on the nature of the revolt and its causes , whether it grew out of the emerging religious controversy centered on Martin Luther ; whether a wealthy tier of peasants saw their wealth and rights slipping away , and sought to re - inscribe them in the fabric of society ; or whether it was peasant resistance to the emergence of a modernizing , centralizing political state . Historians have tended to categorize it either as an expression of economic problems , or as a theological / political statement against the constraints of feudal society . After the 1930s , Günter Franz ’ s work on the peasant war dominated interpretations of the uprising . Franz understood the Peasants ’ War as a political struggle in which social and economic aspects played a minor role . Key to Franz ’ s interpretation is the understanding that peasants had benefited from the economic recovery of the early 16th century and that their grievances , as expressed in such documents as the Twelve Articles , had little or no economic basis . He interpreted the uprising ’ s causes as essentially political , and secondarily economic : the assertions by princely landlords of control over the peasantry through new taxes and the modification of old ones , and the creation of servitude backed up by princely law . For Franz , the defeat thrust the peasants from view for centuries . The national aspect of the Peasants ' Revolt was also utilised by the Nazis . For example , an SS cavalry division ( the 8th SS Cavalry Division Florian Geyer ) was named after Florian Geyer , a knight who lead a peasant unit known as the Black Company . A new economic interpretation arose in the 1950s and 1960s . This interpretation , informed by economic data on harvests , wages and general financial conditions . It suggested that in the late 15th and early 16th centuries , peasants saw newly achieved economic advantages slipping away , to the benefit of the landed nobility and military groups . The war was thus an effort to wrest these social , economic and political advantages back . Meanwhile historians in East Germany engaged in major research projects to support the Marxist viewpoint . Starting in the 1970s , research benefited from the interest of social and cultural historians . Using sources such as letters , journals , religious tracts , city and town records , demographic information , family and kinship developments , historians challenged long - held assumptions about German peasants and the authoritarian tradition . This view held that peasant resistance took two forms . The first , spontaneous ( or popular ) and localized revolt drew on traditional liberties and old law for its legitimacy . In this way , it could be explained as a conservative and traditional effort to recover lost ground . The second was an organized inter - regional revolt that claimed its legitimacy from divine law and found its ideological basis in the Reformation . Historians , refuted both Franz ’ s view of the origins of the war , and the Marxist view of the course of the war , and both views on the outcome and consequences . One of the most important was Peter Blickle ’ s emphasis on communalism . Although Blickle sees a crisis of feudalism in the latter Middle Ages in southern Germany , he highlighted political , social and economic features that originated in efforts by peasants and their landlords to cope with long term climate , technological , labor and crop changes , particularly the extended agrarian crisis and its drawn - out recovery . For Blickle , the rebellion required a parliamentary tradition in southwestern Germany and the coincidence of a group with significant political , social and economic interest in agricultural production and distribution . These individuals had a great deal to lose . This view , which asserted that the uprising grew out of the participation of agricultural groups in the economic recovery , was in turn challenged by Scribner , Stalmetz and Bernecke . They claimed that Blickle ’ s analysis was based on a dubious form of the Malthusian principle , and that the peasant economic recovery was significantly limited , both regionally and in its depth , allowing only a few peasants to participate . Blickle and his students later modified their ideas about peasant wealth . A variety of local studies showed that participation was not as broad based as formerly thought . The new studies of localities and social relationships through the lens of gender and class showed that peasants were able to recover , or even in some cases expand , many of their rights and traditional liberties , to negotiate these in writing , and force their lords to guarantee them . The course of the war also demonstrated the importance of a congruence of events : the new liberation ideology , the appearance within peasant ranks of charismatic and military - trained men like Müntzer and Gaisman , a set of grievances with specific economic and social origins , a challenged set of political relationships and a communal tradition of political and social discourse .