To the Assembly of the Common Peasantry
Thomas Müntzer (spring 1525) On False And Unlimited Power, Which One Is Not Obliged To Obey. All the popes, emperors, kings, etc. who puff themselves up in their own estimation above other pious poor Christians, claiming to be a better kind of human – as if their lord-ship and authority to rule others were innate – do not want to recognize that they are God’s stewards and officials. And they do not govern according to his commandment to maintain the common good and brotherly unity among us. God has established and ordained authority for this reason alone and no other. But rulers who want to be lords for their own sake are all false rulers and not worthy of the lowest office among Christians. For God alone wants to be lord and he says in Deuteronomy 12 [:11], “You shall keep my commandment in your hand like a measuring rod according to which you shall judge – straight ahead, not deviating either to the left or to the right.” The same point is made in Job 5 [:8]. Therefore whichever prince or lord invents and sets up his own self-serving burdens and commands, rules falsely, and he dares impudently to deceive God, his own lord. Where are you, you werewolves, you band of Behemoths, with your financial tricks which impose one burden after another on the poor people? This year a labour service is voluntary; next year it becomes compulsory. In most cases this is how your old customary law has grown. In what”dementia” or “camouflage” did God, your lord, give you such power that we poor people have to cultivate your lands with labour services? But only in good weather, for on rainy days we poor people see the fruits of our sweat rot in the fields. May God, in his justice, not tolerate the terrible Babylonian captivity in which we poor people are driven to mow the lords’ meadows, to make hay, to cultivate the fields, to sow flax in them, to cut it, comb it, heat it, wash it, pound it, and spin it – yes, even to sew their underpants on their arses. We also have to pick peas and harvest carrots and asparagus. Help us, God! Where has such misery ever been heard of! They tax and tear out the marrow of the poor people’s bones, and we have to pay interest on that! Where are they, with their hired murderers and horsemen, the gamblers and whoremasters, who are stuffed fuller than puking dogs? In addition, we poor people have to give them taxes, payments, and interest. And at home [they assume that] the poor should have neither bread, salt, nor lard for their wives and small children. Where are they, with their entry fines and heriot dues? Yes, damn their disgraceful fines and robber’s dues! Where are the tyrants and raging ones, who appropriate taxes, customs, and user fees and waste them so shamefully and wantonly and lose what should go into the common chest or purse to serve the needs of the territory. And nevertheless no one can turn up his nose at them, or he is immediately treated like a treacherous rogue – put in the stocks, beheaded, quartered! He is shown less pity than a mad dog. Did God give them such power? On the peak of what monk’s cowl is it written? Indeed, their authority is from God. But so remotely that they have become the devil’s soldiers and Satan is their captain. Yes, they have been truly rejected, being enemies in their own territory. And what about their serfdom? Damn their unchristian, heathen nature. How they torture us poor people! We are the spiritual serfs of the clergy and the bodily serfs of the secular powers. Help us, eternal God! What great unchristian misery and murder is being done to your property, which your only-begotten son, lord of heaven and earth – and lord of this band of Behemoths – purchased at such a high price with his bitter death! Put these Moabites and this band of Behemoths as far behind you and as far away [as you can]. This is God’s greatest pleasure. And how little there will be prayed for! If one of their village officials wanted to impose anything on the poor in his own self-interest, they would depose him with a harsh punishment. The princes and lords themselves deserve nothing less for making self-serving commandments, which are outside the common good and unserviceable for brotherly unity. Do not let yourselves be led astray and blinded to any degree because every day the authorities endlessly repeat what the apostle Peter says in I Peter 2 [:18]: “You should be submissive to your lords, even if they are rogues,” etc. In truth, the sword [of Scripture] cuts sharply on both sides, and until now they have fought masterfully with it. But we want to see how Tileman [a foolish man], confuses divine Scripture again, and the wolf so cleverly puts on sheep’s clothing. Truly, truly, St. Peter’s view means something very different; for according to their interpretation, we would have to deliver our pious wives and children to them, so that they could satisfy their lust with them. The basic cause and source of the whole confederation of the Swiss was the unlimited, tyrannical power of the nobility and of other authorities. For daily, with their unchristian, tyrannical rape, they did not spare the common man, but forced and compelled him contrary to all equity. And this grew out of their pride, blasphemous power, and enterprise. Their rule had to be abolished and rooted out through great war, bloodshed, and use of the sword, as is indicated in the Swiss chronicles and in many other reliable histories and writings. The conclusion of this pamphlet talks a bit about this. The lords were also allowed to murder pious and upright people for hunting a hare, and