Suchergebnisse

The above article, a chapter from a larger work on the socio-historical foundation of Prussia, deals with the only peasants' revolt of importance that ever took place in Germany east of the Elbe. In September 1525, when in western Germany the after-effects of the great revolt were ebbing down, the peasants in the recently secularized dukedom of Prussia revolted against the rising nobility. The course of the peasants' action and the insufficient assistance they received from the town of Konigsberg and its citizens are sketched separately from material gathered from a contemporary chronicle. Already five days after the outbreak of the revolt and before serious acts of violence had occurred, the aristocratic town-council of Königsberg effected peace between the peasants and the nobility. After the return of the duke from Germany, severe punishments were inflicted, followed in the next year by the statutory regulation of all the new peasants' obligations.Special attention deserve: the close connection between the peasant movement and contemporary unrests in Konigsberg; the influence that radiated from there; the lack of support from the towns as the cause of the speedy break-down of the revolt; its pronouncedly political character, hardly influenced by religious ideas and aiming at rooting out the aristocratic "weeds". The leading elements of the revolt were the well-to-do, self-confident, free peasants—of German as well as of Polish descent—and not the mostly impoverished serfs, which proves that no peasants' revolts occurred east of the Elbe not because of the favourable condition of the peasants there, and that also in this one particular case socially higher situated elements were sooner inclined to revolt against suppression.