Rather than the crude revolutionary and antithesis of Martin Luther beloved of many people who write about the period, Scott very much argues that Müntzer was an individual who evolved his ideas in the context of changing circumstances and the tactical needs of the moment. Pushing radical reformation ideas forward, going beyond those of Luther and those grouped around him in Wittenberg was very much Müntzer's ambition, but how he did this definitely evolved. This require Müntzer to evolve his own ideas, as this quote from Scott shows:
Müntzer's definition of the godless changed over the years. From the Prage Manifesto onwards, where he had identified the damned with the Catholic church and clergy, Müntzer gradually widened the category of those he called, from the German Church Service onwards, the godless, to include secular rulers who oppressed the Gospel, and, once the Saxon princes had ignored his exhjortations, latterly all rulers by virtue of their daily oppression of the common people, whose misery prevented them from achieving true faith. It was at that point that Müntzer's theology finally spilled over into secullar rebellion.
Thus Scott's Müntzer is not the fully formed revolutionary who set out on a life dedicated to overthrowing society and introducing a christian utopia. Rather he is a man whose ideas developed in counter-position to the ruling ideas - both Luther's Reformation and the social hierarchy dominant in Germany at the time. When these two forces came together to block his own radicalism, his closeness to the oppressed and exploited masses allowed him to develop far more revolutionary conclusions. But Scott also argues that Müntzer was never the spokesperson for the whole of the masses. Far from it.
the links between Müntzer's theological revolution and the mass of the peasants' aspirations and deamds were fitful, fragile and foruitoous. In the end the rebels saw well enough that Müntzer's religious ideology was inadequate to their cause: it suplied the framework for organised rebellion threough the Christian leagues, but it could not offer any detailed programme for those leagues to adopt. Only the lesser townsfolk, those whose grievances least reflectged entrenched social and economic relations of production, can be said to have embraced Müntzer's essentially amorphous vision in full measure. The peasantry, bu contrast, remained an uneasy ally in both its mentality and aspirations .The mass support with which Müntzer rekoned never materialised.
It is, perhaps, a fair conclusion of where Müntzer was in relation to the masses. Does it invalidate the position of those, like Friedrich Engels, who saw Müntzer as a revolutionary ahead of his time, unable to deliver the vision of the future because of the limited development of society? I don't think so. It perhaps is more realistic an appraisal of Müntzer's actual base which is often overestimated by those on the left. Nontheless Müntzer's programme was revolutionary, and also impossible at the time. Scott's work helps us understand why.
Related Reviews
Ming - Thomas Müntzer: Sermon to the Princes
Engels - The Peasant War in Germany
Stayer - The German Peasants' War and the Anabaptist Community of Goods
Blickle - The Revolution of 1525: The German Peasants' War from a new perspective
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