Memmingen
Imperial city in Swabia. Modern editors place the drafting of the peasants’ Twelve Articles here in 1525; its envoys joined the protest at Speyer in 1529.
Memmingen is a town in Swabia, in the south-west of modern Bavaria. The Twelve Articles of 1525 do not say where they were written; the editors of the text cited here attribute them to Sebastian Lotzer, a furrier of Memmingen, with a preface by the town’s preacher Christoph Schappeler (Twelve Articles editors’ abstract). Memmingen is named among the fourteen imperial cities whose envoys adhered to the protest at Speyer in 1529 (Protestation of Speyer instrument of appeal, close (Ney, p. 94)). See the German Peasants’ War and the Protestation at Speyer.
What happened here
- 1524 to 1525, firm dateThe German Peasants’ War
In 1525 peasants in Swabia, Franconia and Thuringia rise, arguing their demands from the gospel in twelve printed articles. Luther first blames lords and peasants alike, then urges the rulers to strike the rebels down. Thomas Müntzer is taken at Frankenhausen in May.