ABSTRACT
The Protestant Reformation has been interpreted by devout Protestants and Catholics as a largely religious controversy, having as a central issue the assertion that every man is his own priest. It is easy to fall into the notion that the Protestant Reformation in Germany was only a moral issue, religious and political. To escape this simplism, this chapter looks at modern economic developments that were modifying without radically changing the feudal relationships between various segments of German society. Just as German princes gathered under the Lutheran standard in the name of independence from Rome, so German peasants gathered under the same standard in the name of independence from preying German nobles. In 1525 there was a vigorous revolt of peasants in Germany. Luther, the grandson of lifelong peasants and the son of a peasant turned miner, turned savagely against the peasants, and he blessed with his righteousness their eradication during the 1525 war.
