Electors of Saxony Holy Roman Emperors Building Literature Theater Liturgies Hymnals Monuments Calendrical commemoration Thomas Müntzer[b] (c. 1489 – 27 May 1525) was a German preacher and theologian of the early Reformation whose opposition to both Martin Luther and the Catholic Church led to his open defiance of late-feudal authority in central Germany.

[1] A complex and unusual character, he is now regarded as a significant personality in the early years of the German Reformation and the history of European revolutionaries.

[3] Thomas Müntzer was born in late 1489 (or possibly early 1490), in the small town of Stolberg in the Harz Mountains of central Germany.

[5] Shortly after 1490, the family moved to the neighbouring and slightly larger town of Quedlinburg, and it was as "Thomas Munczer de Quedlinburgk" that he enrolled at the University of Leipzig in 1506.

He continued to be paid for his position at Braunschweig until early 1519, when he turned up in the town of Jüterbog, north-east of Wittenberg, where he had been asked to stand in for the preacher Franz Günther.

Günther had already been preaching the reformed gospel, but had found himself attacked by the local Franciscans; requesting leave of absence, he left the scene and Müntzer was sent in.

By this time, Müntzer was not simply following Luther's teachings; he had already begun to study the works of the mystics Henry Suso and Johannes Tauler, was seriously wondering about the possibility of enlightenment through dreams and visions, had thoroughly explored the early history of the Christian church, and was in correspondence with other radical reformers such as Karlstadt.

In June 1519, Müntzer attended the disputation in Leipzig between the reformers of Wittenberg (Luther, Karlstadt, and Philip Melanchthon) and the Catholic Church hierarchy (represented by Johann Eck).

[10] In May 1520, Müntzer was able to capitalize on the recommendation made by Luther a year earlier, and stood in as temporary replacement for a reformist/humanist preacher named Johann Sylvanus Egranus at St Mary's Church in the busy town of Zwickau (population at that time ca.

The town council became nervous at what was going on at St Katharine's, and in April 1521 at last decided that enough was enough: Müntzer was dismissed from his post and was forced to leave Zwickau.

It was in Prague that the Hussite Church was already firmly established and Müntzer thought to find a safe home where he could develop his increasingly un-Lutheran ideas.

Here he found little opportunity to continue with his desire for change, despite the existence of a strong and militant local reform movement; his one attempt to break the rules, by delivering the communion "in both kinds" (Utraquism) to a noblewoman named Felicitas von Selmenitz probably led directly to his dismissal.

The Catholic Count Ernst von Mansfeld spent the summer of 1523 trying to prevent his own subjects from attending the reformed services in Allstedt.

Müntzer felt secure enough to pen a letter to the count in September, ordering him to leave off his tyranny: "I am as much a Servant of God as you, so tread gently, for the whole world has to be exercised in patience.

However, the princes simply summoned all the relevant persons of Allstedt, Müntzer included, to a hearing at Weimar where, after being interrogated separately, they were warned about their future conduct.

In the night of 7 August 1524, Müntzer slipped out of Allstedt (by necessity abandoning wife and son, who were only later able to join him), and headed for the self-ruling Imperial Free City of Mühlhausen, around 65 kilometres (40 mi) to the southwest.

[19] He travelled first to Nuremberg in the south, where he arranged for the publication of his anti-Lutheran pamphlet A Highly Provoked Vindication and Refutation of the unspiritual soft-living flesh in Wittenberg,[20] as well as one entitled A Manifest Exposé of False Faith.

Luther pitched in very firmly on the side of the princes; he made a tour of southern Saxony – Stolberg, Nordhausen, and the Mansfeld district – in an attempt to dissuade the rebels from action, although in some of these places he was roundly heckled.

[28]It was essential, in Müntzer's view, for a person to experience real suffering and pain – either spiritual or physical – in order to come to a true Christian belief.

Even if you have already devoured all the books of the Bible, you must still suffer the sharp edge of the plough-share[29]On the very eve of Battle at Frankenhausen, he had this to say to the people of Allstedt: May the pure fear of God be with you, dear brothers.

This was the thrust of his Sermon Before the Princes and it was the rallying call in his final letter to Mühlhausen in May 1525: "May the pure, upright fear of God be with you my dear brothers.

"[33] In a letter to the people of Erfurt, in May 1525, he wrote: Help us in any way you can, with men and with cannon, so that we can carry out the commands of God himself in Ezekiel 34, where he says: "I will rescue you from those who lord it over you in a tyrannous way" [and] In Chapter 39 [...] "Come, you birds of heaven and devour the flesh of the princes; and you wild beasts drink up the blood of all the bigwigs".

[34]In his final confession under torture of May 1525, Müntzer stated that one of the primary aims of himself and his comrades was "omnia sunt communia" – "all things are to be held in common and distribution should be to each according to his need".

[40] The doctrines of essential suffering, of spiritual revelation, of denial of the fear of Man - all combined with the expectation of the Apocalypse to place the "Elect" person in total opposition to feudal authority, and to both Catholic and Lutheran teaching.

The importance which Müntzer laid on communal activities – the reformed liturgies and the leagues he founded or supported in Zwickau, Allstedt, and Mühlhausen – are central to his ministry.

This was the time not only of Luther, but also of Erasmus of Rotterdam and fellow-Humanists, of the alchemists Paracelsus and Cornelius Agrippa, of localized urban and rural acts of defiance.

[43] However, it is clear that Luther considered that Müntzer was moving ahead too fast, and correspondence (now missing) from Wittenberg seems to have contained explicit criticisms of his activities.

By March 1522, Müntzer was writing to Melanchthon in Wittenberg, warning that "our most beloved Martin acts ignorantly because he does not want to offend the little ones... Dear brothers, leave your dallying, the time has come!

They based their analysis on the pioneering work of the German liberal historian Wilhelm Zimmermann, whose important three-volume history of the Peasants War appeared in 1843.

In 1989, shortly before the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Peasants' War Panorama at Bad Frankenhausen was opened, containing the largest oil painting in the world, with Müntzer in central position.