Editing Reformation (section)

==Alternatives==

=== Saxon radicals and rebellious knights ===

{{Further|Radical Reformation|Knights' War}}

Andreas Karlstadt accelerated the implementation of Reformation in Wittenberg. On Christmas Day 1521, he administered the Eucharist in common garment; the next day he announced his engagement to a fifteen-year-old noble girl Anna von Mochau.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Zorzin |first=Alejandro |date=2020-09-01 |title=A Portrait of Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt by Lucas Cranach the Elder |url=https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14622459.2020.1807762 |journal=Reformation & Renaissance Review |volume=22 |issue=3 |pages=238–252 |doi=10.1080/14622459.2020.1807762 |issn=1462-2459}}</ref> He proclaimed that images were examples of "devilish deceit" which led to the mass destruction of religious art. Enthusiasts began swarming to Wittenberg. The [[Zwickau prophets]], who had been incited by the radical preacher [[Thomas Müntzer]] (d. 1525), claimed that they had received revelations from God.{{sfn|MacCulloch|2003|pp=136–138}}{{sfn|Kaufmann|2023|pp=93–95}} They rejected transubstantiation and attacked infant baptism. Luther defended art as a proof of the beauty of the [[Genesis creation narrative|Creation]], maintained that Christ's Body and Blood were [[Sacramental union|physically present]] in the Eucharist,{{refn|group=note|Luther compared the physical presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist to the heating of a piece of iron that changes its physical features.{{sfn|MacCulloch|2003|pp=139–140}}}} and regarded infant baptism as a sign of membership in the Christian community.{{refn|group=note|Luther likened infant baptism to the [[Brit milah|circumcision of]] Jewish male infants [[Covenant of the pieces|prescribed]] in the [[Book of Genesis]]. His radical opponents would emphasize that the command of circumcision could not justify the baptism of infant girls.{{sfn|MacCulloch|2003|p=145}}}} To put an end to the anarchy, Frederick the Wise released Luther in March 1522. Luther achieved the Zwickau prophets' removal from Wittenberg, calling them fanatics.{{sfn|MacCulloch|2003|pp=138–140}} Karlstadt voluntarily left Wittenberg for [[Orlamünde]] where the local congregation elected him its minister. Luther visited most parishes in the region to prevent radical reforms, but he was often received by verbal or physical abuses. When he wanted to dismiss Karlstadt, the parishioners referred to his own words about the congregations' right to freely elect their ministers, and Karlstadt called him a "perverter of the Scriptures". Karlstadt was expelled from Electoral Saxony without a trial on Luther's initiative.{{sfn|Lindberg|2021|pp=131–134}}

Luther condemned violence but some of his followers took up arms. [[Franz von Sickingen]] (d. 1523), an [[imperial knight]] from the Rhineland, formed an alliance with his peers against [[Richard von Greiffenklau zu Vollrads|Richard von Greiffenklau]], [[Electorate of Trier|Archbishop-elector of Trier]] ({{reign|1511|1531}}), allegedly to lead the Archbishop's subjects "to evangelical, light laws and Christian freedom".{{sfn|Kaufmann|2023|p=93}} Sickingen had demanded the restitution of monastic property to the grantors' descendants, stating that the [[secularisation (church property)|secularisation of church property]] would also improve the poor peasants' situation.{{sfn|Stayer|2006|p=128}} Sickingen and his associates [[Knights' War|attacked the archbishopric]] but failed at the siege of Trier. Sickingen was mortally wounded while defending his [[Nanstein Castle]] against the Archbishop's troops.{{sfn|Kaufmann|2023|p=93}} Luther denounced Sickingen's violent acts.{{sfn|Stayer|2006|p=129}} According to his "[[Two kingdoms doctrine|theory of two kingdoms]]", true Christians had to submit themselves to princely authority.{{sfn|MacCulloch|2003|p=152}}

=== Zwingli ===
{{Main|Theology of Huldrych Zwingli}}

[[File:Ulrich Zwingli by Asper.jpg|thumb|upright=.8|alt=A middle-aged man|[[Huldrych Zwingli]]'s 16th-century portrait by [[Hans Asper]]]]

The Swiss Humanist priest Huldrych Zwingli would claim that he "began to preach the Gospel of Christ in 1516 long before anyone in our region had ever heard of Luther". He came to prominence when [[Affair of the Sausages|attended a meal of sausages]] in [[Zürich]] during [[Lent]] 1522, breaching the rules of [[Fasting and abstinence in the Catholic Church|fasting]].{{sfn|Marshall|2009|p=18}} He held disputations with the urban magistrates' authorization to discuss changes in church life, and always introduced them with the magistrates' support. In 1524, all images were removed from the churches, and fasting and clerical celibacy were abolished. Two years later, a German communion service replaced the Latin liturgy of the [[Mass in the Catholic Church|Mass]], and the Eucharist (or Lord's Supper) was administered on a plain wooden table instead of an embellished [[Altar (Catholic Church)|altar]].{{sfn|Marshall|2009|p=18}}{{sfn|Collinson|2005|p=64}} Two new institutions were organised in Zürich: the {{lang|de|[[Prophezei]]}} (a public school for Biblical studies), and the Marriage and Morals Court (a legal court and moral police consisting of two laymen and two clerics). Both would be copied in other towns.{{sfn|Kaufmann|2023|p=105}} Zwingli's interpretation of the Eucharist differed from both Catholic theology and Luther's teaching. He denied Christ's presence in the sacramental bread and wine, and regarded the Eucharist as a [[Memorialism|commemorative ceremony]] in honor of the [[Crucifixion of Jesus|crucified]] Jesus.{{sfn|MacCulloch|2003|p=142}} The disagreement caused a bitter pamphlet war between Luther and Zwingli.{{sfn|Collinson|2005|pp=65–66}} They both rejected intermediary Eucharistic formulas coined by Bucer.{{sfn|MacCulloch|2003|p=176}}

=== Swiss Brethren ===

{{Main|Swiss Brethren}}

Zwingli's cautious "Magisterial Reformation" outraged the more radical reformers, among them [[Conrad Grebel]] (d. 1526), a Zürich patrician's son who had fallen out with his family for marrying a low born girl. The radicals summarized their theology in a letter to Müntzer in 1524. They identified the Church as an exclusive community of the righteous, and demanded its liberation from the state. They deplored all religious practices that had no Biblical foundations, and endorsed [[believer's baptism|believers' (or adult) baptism]]. 

In January 1525, a former Catholic priest [[George Blaurock]] (d. 1529) asked Grebel to [[Rebaptism|rebaptize]] him, and after his request was granted they rebaptized fifteen other people.{{sfn|Lindberg|2021|pp=198–201}} For this practice, they were called [[Anabaptism|Anabaptists]] ('rebaptizers').{{sfn|MacCulloch|2003|pp=145–146}} As a featuring element of [[Donatism]] and other heretic movements, rebaptism had been a [[capital offence]] since the Late Roman period. After the magistrates had some radicals imprisoned, Blaurock called Zwingli the Antichrist.{{sfn|Lindberg|2021|pp=198–203}} The town council enacted a law that threatened rebaptizers with capital punishment, and the Anabaptist [[Felix Manz]] (d. 1527) was condemned to death and drowned in the [[Limmat River]].{{sfn|MacCulloch|2003|p=146}} He was the first victim of religious persecution by reformist authorities. The purge convinced many Anabaptists that they were the true heirs to early Christians who had [[Persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire|suffered martyrdom]] for their faith. The most radicals took inspiration from the [[Book of Daniel]] and the [[Book of Revelation]] for apocalyptic prophesies. Some of them burnt the Bible reciting St Paul's words, "[[2 Corinthians 3|the letter kills]]".{{sfn|Lindberg|2021|pp=203–204}} In [[St. Gallen]], Anabaptist women cut their hair short to avoid arousing sexual passion, while a housemaid Frena Bumenin proclaimed herself the New Messiah before announcing that she would give birth to the Antichrist.{{sfn|MacCulloch|2003|pp=164–165}}

According to Dr Kenneth R. Davis, "the Anabaptists can best be understood as, apart from their own creativity, a radicalization and Protestantization not of the Magisterial Reformation but of the lay-oriented, ascetic reformation of which [[Erasmus]] is the principle mediator."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Davis |first1=Kenneth Ronald |title=Anabaptism and Asceticism: A Study in Intellectual Origins |date=1974 |publisher=Herald Press |isbn=978-0-8361-1195-8 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XIrZAAAAMAAJ |language=en}}</ref>{{rp|292}}

=== Peasants' War ===

{{Main|German Peasants' War}}

[[File:Titelblatt 12 Artikel.jpg|thumb|right|alt=A page depicting men armed with pikes, flails, maces and pitchforks|Title page of the ''[[Twelve Articles]]'', a manifesto by Swabian peasants in March 1525]]

MacCulloch says that the Reformation "injected an extra element of instability" into the relationship between the peasants and their lords, as it raised "new excitement and bitterness against established authority".{{sfn|MacCulloch|2003|p=155}} Public demonstrations in the [[Black Forest]] area indicated a general discontent among the southern German peasantry in May 1524. The Anabaptist preacher [[Balthasar Hubmaier]] (d. 1528) was one of the peasant leaders, but most participants never went beyond traditional anti-clericalism. In early 1525, the movement spread towards [[Upper Swabia]]. The radical preacher Cristopher Schappler and the pamphleteer [[Sebastian Lotzer]] summarized the Swabian peasants' demand in a manifesto known as ''[[Twelve Articles]]''. The peasants wanted to control their ministers' election and to supervise the use of church revenues, but also demanded the abolition of the tithe on meat. They reserved the right to present further demands against non-Biblical seigneurial practices but promised to abandon any of their demands that contradicted the Bible, and appointed fourteen "arbitrators" to clarify divine law on the relationship between peasants and landlords. The arbitrators approached Luther, Zwingli, Melanchthon and other leaders of the Reformation for advice but none of them answered.{{sfn|Stayer|2006|pp=130–135}} Luther wrote a treatise, equally blaming the landlords for the oppression of the peasantry and the rebels for their arbitrary acts.{{sfn|Cameron|2012|p=209}}

[[Georg, Truchsess von Waldburg|Georg Truchsess von Waldburg]] (d. 1531), commander of the army of the aristocratic [[Swabian League]], achieved the dissolution of the peasant armies either by force or through negotiations. By this time the peasant movements reached [[Franconia]] and [[Thüringia]]. The Franconian peasants formed alliances with artisans and petty nobles such as [[Florian Geyer]] (d. 1525) against the patricians and the [[Prince-Bishopric of Würzburg]] but Truchsess forced them into submission.{{sfn|Cameron|2012|pp=207–208}} In Thüringia, Müntzer convinced 300 radicals that they were invincible but they were annihilated [[Battle of Frankenhausen|at Frankenhausen]] by [[Philip I, Landgrave of Hesse|Philip the Magnanimous]], [[Landgrave of Hesse]] ({{reign|1509|1567}}) and [[George, Duke of Saxony]] ({{reign|1500|1539}}). Müntzer who had hidden in an attic before the battle was discovered and executed.{{sfn|Collinson|2005|pp=60–61}}{{sfn|Cameron|2012|p=208}} News of atrocities by peasant bands and meetings with disrespectful peasants during a preaching tour outraged Luther while he was writing his treatise ''[[Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants]]''. In it, he urged the German princes to "smite, slay, and slab" the rebels.{{sfn|Lindberg|2021|p=157}} Moderate observers felt aggrieved at his cruel words. They regarded as an especially tasteless act that Luther married [[Katharina von Bora]] (d. 1552), a former nun while the punitive actions against the peasantry were still in process.{{sfn|Cameron|2012|pp=209–210, 417}} Further peasant movements began in other regions in Central Europe but they were pacified through concessions or suppressed by force before the end of 1525.{{sfn|Cameron|2012|pp=208–209}}