So
long as the peasants directed their efforts against the Catholic
ecclesiastics, Luther expressed sympathy with them, but when the
revolt, which broke out in 1524, became general all over central and
southern Germany and was directed not only against the Catholic clergy
but also against the lay lords,--many of whom were now Lutheran,--the
religious leader foresaw a grave danger to his new religion in a split
between peasants and nobles. Luther ended by taking strong sides with
the nobles--he had most to expect from them. He was shocked by the
excesses of the revolt, he said. Insisting upon toleration for his own
revolt, he condemned the peasants to most horrible fates in this world
and in the world hereafter. [Footnote: Although Luther was particularly
bitter against the "Anabaptist" exhorters, upon whom he fastened
responsibility for the Peasants' Revolt, and although many of them met
death thereby, the "Anabaptists" were by no means exterminated.
Largely through the activity of a certain Melchior Hofmann, a widely
traveled furrier, "Anabaptist" doctrines were disseminated in northern
Germany and the Netherlands.
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