10
So much was this the case that even the movement of the Peasants' War which broke out in Germany in 1524, and spread all over Swabia, Franconia, Alsace, Westphalia, and other parts of Germany, and was in appearance thoroughly revolutionary, nevertheless was essentially dependent on this same principle, was in fact therefore a reactionary movement, in spite of its revolutionary mode of action. You are aware, gentlemen, that the peasants at that time burnt down the castles of the nobles, put the nobles themselves to death, made them run the gauntlet through their spears, which was the cruel practice in vogue at that time. And notwithstanding, in spite of this external revolutionary varnish, the movement was essentially and throughout reactionary.
For the new birth of the relations of the State, the German freedom, which the peasants wished to establish, was to consist according to them in this, that the peculiar and privileged intermediate position which the princes had assumed between the Emperor and the States should be done away with, and that nothing should be represented in the German Diet, excepting the free and independent possession of the land, especially of the land held by the peasant class and by the knights—neither of which had been hitherto represented—as well as that of the nobles of every degree, namely of the Knights, Counts and then existing Princes, without regard to the difference that had formerly been made between them. The representation therefore was to be confined to the landed possessions of the nobles on the one side and those of the peasants on the other.
