Podcast: Subject to Change (LS 39 · TOP 2% what is this?)
Episode: Martin Luther, serfdom and the German Peasants’ War
Pub date: 2026-01-26

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Lyndal Roper, Regius Professor of History at Oxford University is on excellent form to talk me through the German Peasant's War of 1524-25. Things I learned:

- take Martin Luther seriously (but not literally)

- monasteries feed the poor and needy (particularly when they are armed and extremely determined)

- the scale of the revolt was off the charts, nothing like it until the French Revolution

- the East German State celebrated its revolutionary past with a mural of the war which needs to be on everyone's 'must see' list (only to collapse a few months later!

All in all this is a terrific and thought provoking episode. The role of Luther in all this surprised me greatly.

Lyndal's book Summer of Fire and Blood is here.

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