The Twelve Articles of the Peasants
The list of demands printed in the name of the peasants of Upper Swabia early in 1525. Each demand is argued from Scripture, and the last article offers to withdraw any that Scripture disproves.
The articles were printed as a pamphlet, and Martin Luther answered them within weeks as the articles of the peasants in Swabia. They ask for the right of each community to choose and dismiss its pastor, a tithe used for the pastor and the poor, an end to serfdom, free access to game, fish and wood, lighter services and rents, justice by the old written law, the return of common land, and the abolition of the death duty. A preface denies that the gospel is the cause of revolt.
The text does not name its authors or the place where it was drawn up. The editors of the site linked here attribute it to Sebastian Lotzer, a furrier of Memmingen, with a preface by the preacher Christoph Schappeler, and date it to the last days of February 1525. The pamphlet is the peasants’ case in their own printed words.
Cited in
- 1524 to 1525, firm date