The Radical Reformation

This book is a collection of writings by early Reformation radicals which illustrates both the diversity and the areas of agreement in their political thinking. The texts are drawn from the period 1521-27 and centre on the major upheaval of those years for German society, the Peasants' War of 1524-26. The thinkers represented Müntzer, Karlstadt, Grebel, Hut, Denck, and others differed on important theological issues. Yet the radicals all rejected the Reformation of the magisterial reformers as serving the interests of society's elite. They advocated a strategy of Reformation through direct action from below, a sweeping transformation of society to the benefit of the lay commoner and the local community. With the start of the Peasants War, radicals divided over the issue of the legitimacy of force. This division shaped the ways in which they confronted the failure of the Peasants' War as well as the new strategies for survival which they developed in its aftermath. Appended to the texts are a number of political programs of the Peasants' War. These documents illustrate ways in which the radicals contributed to the revolution, and how the uprising itself led to greater clarity in the political theory of the radical Reformation.