Kenneth G. Appold, "Luther and the Peasants: Religion, Ritual, and the Revolt Of 1525" (Oxford UP, 2025)

Summary

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Podcast Summary:

Podcast: New Books Network
Episode: Kenneth G. Appold, "Luther and the Peasants: Religion, Ritual, and the Revolt of 1525" (Oxford UP, 2025)
Host: Yana Byers
Guest: Kenneth G. Appold (James Hastings Nichols Professor of Reformation History, Princeton Theological Seminary)
Date: October 27, 2025

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Overview

This episode features a conversation between host Yana Byers and historian Kenneth G. Appold about his book, Luther and the Peasants: Religion, Ritual, and the Revolt of 1525. The discussion offers a nuanced re-examination of the so-called “Peasants’ War,” focusing on the motives, religious worldview, and agency of the peasants themselves, the role of ritual and theology in their resistance, and Martin Luther's infamous reaction. Appold shares insights into overlooked archival materials and reframes the revolt as a primarily religious rather than merely socio-economic event, challenging conventional narratives around both Luther and the peasants.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Genesis and Historical Importance of the 1525 Revolt

• Why This Book?

  • Appold became interested through a decade of research and curiosity over the lack of detailed historical study of this pivotal moment, regarded as a “turning point” in the Reformation (04:49).
  • He notes that the failure of the revolt and Luther's siding with the princes, rather than the peasants, "made the Reformation project more kosher" for elites, catalyzing its institutional adoption by authorities.

• Neglect of Peasant Voices

  • Few historians have investigated what the peasants themselves wanted or how they understood the movement.

“What do the peasants actually want? Because nobody ever talks about them. Nobody seems to understand what they're after.”
— Kenneth G. Appold (04:35)

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2. The 12 Articles: Peasant Demands in Context

• Kempton and Upper Swabia: A Launchpad

  • The region was crucial as the birthplace of the "12 Articles," a manifesto uniting grievances and hopes of rural populations from the Alps to the Baltic (05:35–06:55).
  • The Kempton case is especially well-documented due to generations of oppression by a particularly notorious Prince Abbot.

• Nature and Structure of the 12 Articles

  • Comprised succinct, broadly applicable demands: electing their own pastors, liberation from serfdom, land rights, and relief from excessive tithes/taxes.
  • Notably, the Articles hinge their demands on a theological rationale, referencing scripture and “divine law” (08:50–10:48).
  • Unlike previous, wordier documents, the 12 Articles used concise, general points that were widely adoptable.

“There’s one other thing that sets them apart. They have a theological rationale... They have scripture references, a kind of theological superstructure... invoking what they call divine law.”
— Kenneth G. Appold (10:08)

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3. Violence and Its Imbalance

• Reconsidering the "Peasants’ War"
  • The term “war” is misleading; the violence was overwhelmingly one-sided, with peasants suffering massive losses (under exceptional circumstances, peasants killed fewer than 100, while over 100,000 peasants were slaughtered) (11:28–12:58).
  • Most peasant "battles" involved surrender, retreat, or massacre during pursuit.

“It’s far too one-sided really to be called a war. What they’re doing there, in fact, in most battles, the peasants either offered to surrender or they actually retreated and ran away...it’s a term... used by the victors.”
— Kenneth G. Appold (12:40)

• Why Such Extreme Violence?
  • Economic explanations fall short; the scale of violence suggests deeper anxieties, including heresy and fears of diabolical revolt (13:15–16:11).
  • Historical precedents: crusades against heretics and peasants fostered a cultural context of extermination.

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4. Religion and Ritual as Peasant Worldview

• Religious, Not Just Economic, Motivations
  • Peasant demands, rhetoric, and rituals point to a movement seeking the restoration of Christian brotherly love, divine justice, and fair community (20:08–22:57).
  • The very clergy supporting peasants were often reformatory, straddling confessional lines and sometimes becoming martyrs.

“I view this really in religious terms. I think it's a religious movement through and through, a kind of invocation of brotherly love that's very Christian...”
— Kenneth G. Appold (20:11)

• Epistemological Divide: Books vs. Ritual
  • Luther and elites derived faith from books and introspection, while peasants’ faith was shaped by communal ritual, sensory experience, and oral transmission (24:01–27:24).
  • This created an “epistemological chasm” and made true communication almost impossible.

“The divide between Luther and his cohort of elite theologians is profound because they're forming their knowledge in very different ways that simply aren't compatible on the surface.”
— Kenneth G. Appold (26:47)

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5. Theological Miscommunication and Expectations

• What Did Peasants Hope from Luther?
  • Peasants saw Luther as a potential divine-law judge and mediator, explicitly nominating him for a new biblical court (28:17–29:40).
  • They misconstrued Luther’s interior, book-centered faith as compatible with their experiential and community-oriented Christianity.

“They really thought that he was...a knowledgeable person about religion and faith and that he would be able to help them.”
— Kenneth G. Appold (29:08)

• Luther’s Actual Response: From Mediation to Denunciation
  • His first writings (Admonition to Peace) gave limited sympathy but largely dismissed the core peasant concerns, treating practical matters as beneath him.
  • Rapidly escalated to calls for bloodshed, labeling the peasants diabolical, using animal tropes, and urging their extermination, even after vast massacres (31:16–34:18).

“He goes so far...if someone sees a rebellious peasant, they're entitled to take action as a citizen...cut them down like mad dogs.”
— Kenneth G. Appold (33:21)

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6. Faith, Theology, and the Limits of Reason

• Gottesgericht — Divine Ordeal
  • Luther saw the uprising as a “trial by ordeal,” expecting God to reveal the righteous side through the outcome (34:21–36:05).
  • He misconstrued the peasant movement as fundamentally opposed, interpreting defeat as divine justice.

“He really thinks this is going to be a kind of revelation moment, that God is going to come down.”
— Kenneth G. Appold (34:56)

• Unknowability of Faith
  • Appold reflects that much of religion/fervor defies articulation, and even a “word-centered” Luther ran out of words to explain his reaction.

“The things that are really animating him in this are not things that he himself can fully articulate...it comes out in the cracks between the lines.”
— Kenneth G. Appold (41:28)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Unbalanced Nature of the Conflict:

  • "I started reading the source documents...more secondary literature has come to this consensus that the peasants really didn't do much in terms of violence...probably less than 100 total, whereas more than 100,000 peasants were slaughtered." (12:07)

• On Ritual, Not Scholarship, as the Peasants' Theology:

  • "They're getting their Christian values from...centuries of rituals...do thanksgiving rituals...the fundamental message of the Mass was peace, Peace and reconciliation." (22:32)

• On Luther’s Rhetoric:

  • "He goes so far...you can't have me for this. No. But they looked up to him." (29:32)
  • "He himself describes it as his harsh book on the peasants and he views them now as diabolical. They're possessed by the devil and they need to be killed." (32:06)

• On Communication Breakdown:

  • "It's just an epistemological chasm...it's not that different from some of the things we experience today...rural urban divides, or so-called educated elites and the common people." (27:24–27:46)

• On the Limits of Historical Analysis:

  • “There's an immense amount of thinking and overthinking and analyzation that you can do about something like the Reformation...But like, there's...this incalculable thing, that, like, defies reason...when they think God's on the line.” (39:09)

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Timestamps for Noteworthy Segments

• [04:35] — Appold explains why he was drawn to the revolt and the neglect of peasant voices in the historical record.
• [08:50–10:48] — The nature and significance of the 12 Articles.
• [11:28–12:58] — Reevaluating the level and one-sidedness of violent repression.
• [20:08–22:57] — The centrality of religion and ritual for the peasants.
• [24:01–27:24] — Discussion of the epistemological and communicative divide between Luther/the elites and the peasants.
• [28:17–29:40] — Peasant expectations of Luther as a judge of divine law.
• [31:16–34:18] — The evolution and extremity of Luther’s response to the revolt.
• [34:21–36:05] — Luther’s belief in the Peasants’ War as a divine ordeal and struggle for cosmic justice.
• [41:28] — Discussion about the limits of language in faith.
• [43:42–48:16] — Preview of Appold’s next book, on church bells and religion beyond words.

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Tone & Language

The discussion is thoughtful, engaged, and occasionally wry—Yana Byers brings humor and perspective, while Appold offers careful, deeply-researched responses that avoid both sensationalism and oversimplification. Memorable moments balance scholarly rigor with human curiosity.

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Takeaways

• The 1525 Peasants’ Revolt was fundamentally shaped by religious belief and ritual, not merely economic distress—a nuance often absent from traditional histories.
• Martin Luther’s infamous response to the revolt was not cold calculation, but a fearful, eschatological reaction to what he saw as a cosmic test of faith and order.
• There was a deep epistemological divide: peasants’ worldviews were anchored in communal ritual, while elites like Luther thought and communicated through books and introspection, making understanding almost impossible.
• Documents like the 12 Articles reveal that peasants had cogent, theologically grounded demands—calling for justice, charity, and autonomy—contradicting stereotypes of them as merely self-interested or ignorant.
• Appold’s work urges scholars and listeners to attend to the unspoken, inarticulate depths of religious and historical experience.

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Closing

Appold teases his next project—a history of religious meaning and communication through church bells—underscoring his interest in how faith and culture often transcend the written word. The episode ends on a hopeful, reflective note about ambiguity and the limits of knowing.

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Transcript

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[Kenneth G. Appold]

Welcome to the New Books Network.

[Yana Byers]

Hello, everyone, and welcome back to New Books in Early Modern History, a channel on the New Books Network. I'm Yana Byers, your host, and I'm here today with Kenneth G. Appold, the James Hastings Nichols professor of Reformation History at Princeton Theological Seminary, to talk about his new book, Luther and the Peasants, Religion, Ritual and the revolt of 1525, out this year. 2025 with Oxford University Press. Hi, Ken, and welcome to the program.

[Kenneth G. Appold]

Thank you so much, Yana. It's a pleasure to be here.

[Yana Byers]

And how are you this fine fall day?

[Kenneth G. Appold]

I'm wonderful, thanks. It's morning over here. A nice, crisp fall morning.

[Yana Byers]

Oh, it's the best time of year. Such a good time to talk about, you know, peasant revolt.

[Kenneth G. Appold]

It is, actually. It's harvest time in a lot of parts of our world, and so that was a very important time for them, too.

[Yana Byers]

Yeah, absolutely. Because it's really hard to revolt when you're super busy.

[Kenneth G. Appold]

That's right, it is.

[Yana Byers]

Let's get drunk on some cider and revolt. So you're a Reformation specialist. This is right near within your wheelhouse. But I'm curious how you came to this particular topic specifically.

[Kenneth G. Appold]

You know, it's complicated because I've been working on this in one way or another for about a decade, just out of various kinds of interests that came together But I think in terms of history writing, what makes it really important is that most scholars think this is kind of a turning point of the Reformation. So it's the point where the Reformation, at least in the German speaking countries, shifts from being a popular movement to something that gets endorsed by the establishment, the princes and the city government, governments and so forth. And in large part that's because the peasants revolt failed and also because Luther, the leading reformer in that part of Europe, was pretty emphatically on the side of the princes and lords and against the peasants. And so people say, you know, this is the turning point where the princes realized Luther isn't trying to cause a revolution or something and in fact supports them. And that made the, the Reformation project more kosher for them. And they signed on to not all of them, but an important number of them did. And that's when it starts to take its course in a more fixed way. The problem with that is that no one has ever, despite its importance, very few people have really focused on these events and what actually happened. And so I was curious about that also. The things that Luther does write about the peasants are some of the most infamous things that he ever wrote put to pen. It was there, you know, Paul's feeling be slaughtered at will and indiscriminately in some cases. And there's a kind of emotional level to this that's really pretty shocking when you read those texts. And so that made me curious too. What sets him off here? You know, what's, what's going on? And then the more I got into it, the more I was curious, well, what do the peasants actually want? Because nobody ever talks about them. Nobody seems to understand what they're after.

[Yana Byers]

No, Well, I think we, think we know, right? Like, what do peasants want? They want food. And in your. This book is kind of goes away nuances, this idea.

[Kenneth G. Appold]

Right, Right.

[Yana Byers]

It is shocking. I mean, Luther's not a nice guy, right. Like, he could be.

[Kenneth G. Appold]

He could be. Writes for children, right. So he could be very warm and fuzzy. But he wasn't here.

[Yana Byers]

No. Sure. And I just, just read a book about how much like what a devoted father he was. The Luther, you know, insult generator that exists in the modern world for a reason. The guy's special. This is a whole nother level. So I. Yeah. What sets him off? So you open with a discussion of Kempton and Upper Swabia. And I was curious about, like, why you start there.

[Kenneth G. Appold]

It's, it's an important region. It's one of the, the kind of launching pads for what becomes, I would say, nationwide uprising. I mean, Germany as a nation doesn't exist at this time, so you have to put these caveats in. But basically we end up with a revolt that goes all the way from the Alps up to the Baltic Sea. You know, it covers most of modern day Germany and Austria and even parts of Switzerland and northern Italy. And there was actually, well before this, there was one in Hungary too, but that's not directly related to this phenomenon. One of the things that sets us off is this really important document called the 12 Articles. And that becomes a kind of manifesto for people who had nothing to do with Upper Swabia or that particular locale, but they adopt that document as a kind of manifesto for them. And so I was interested in, well, how did that. What was the context for which, you know, within which that document came to be, what kinds of concerns framed it? And, and in fact, it was the Kempton area. Memmingan is a city. It was an imperial free city nearby. And some of the Kempton peasants and other peasants from the area got together in Memmingan where they were relatively safe, and they, you know, they put together this. This document. Apart from that, Kempton was also notorious because it's one of the more interesting stories because they've got this. This awful Prince Abbott, who's extremely oppressive to the, to the peasants and had been for generations. I mean, there were successive. Prince Abbo left a long legacy of extortion and fraudulent documents and so on and so forth to, to basically put down the peasants. And. And it's almost like mafia tactics, the way they treated them. And so that makes that, that, that's not unique, but it's particularly well documented in Kempton. So it makes it, well, a good.

[Yana Byers]

Place to start, you know, which gets at part of the deal, right, the economics here. We. But part of also why we don't ask what the peasants think is they don't tell us much.

[Kenneth G. Appold]

Exactly.

[Yana Byers]

You know, but you've got something special here with the 12 articles.

[Kenneth G. Appold]

Yeah, the 12 articles are one of several documents that, that they did produce. The question there too is, you know, since most of these people were illiterate, who's doing the writing? And so that makes the documents a little bit more complicated. I go into that in the book as well. I. Well, we know that there were scribes. We don't always know who they were. Sometimes they were pastors, in some cases there were teachers who were sympathetic and put these things into language, but I don't think it's fair to say that they put words in the peasants mouths. I mean, I think there's too much here that we can tell where there are concerns that the peasants articulate in other ways, like in court grievances and legal documents that are coming through. And so it's. I think by and large these are genuine. They genuinely reflect what the peasants wanted.

[Yana Byers]

Just tell us, tell me, tell our listeners a little bit more about the document, like what we're talking about with like the document, the 12 articles.

[Kenneth G. Appold]

Yeah, so the 12 articles are part of a genre of document that are just articles of grievances. And sometimes these had, you know, 150, they had many, and they were never as famous as this one, partly because 150 articles are a lot harder to communicate. But the 12, they basically state, what do we want? They're kind of like demands. They say in the first place here they wanted to be able to elect their own pastors, they wanted to be able to pay their own pastors, they wanted to be liberated from serfdom. And then we get into more detailed things about land rights and usage, access to common lands, the magnitude of the tithes and taxes they had to pay. Those kinds of more detailed issues are in there. But those were universal enough that they weren't only pertinent to the people in Upper Swabia, I think, and that's why it became so successful. What you see in the longer documents is just a lot more detail and they'll get into more specifics because it's a local village saying, well, we don't want the Lord to come on the 5th of November and take the goats or whatever. But that's missing here. These are more general. And then there's one other thing that sets them apart. They have a theological rationale. So unlike previous documents, this one has scripture references. It has a kind of theological superstructure to it. An introduction that talks about wanting to follow the gospel. It talks about wanting to exercise Christian brotherly love and those kinds of ideals in there and invoking what they call divine law. I can say more about that. That's an important move that they're making, but that distinguishes this particular document from previous ones because it's more overtly theological in supporting its demands.

[Yana Byers]

And I want to talk about that in a minute more. I want to kind of get back to how things turn violent. But it's so interesting, you know, when I just. It is such a special document that's kind of. It was a very enjoyed thinking about the peasants revolt in this new way with the understanding like I don't know, I think I've undersold the peasants, you know.

[Kenneth G. Appold]

Yeah, we all do.

[Yana Byers]

Yeah. And so this is, this made it a very, this is a very interesting document and it really can change the way we think about this. But let's just talk about the peasants revolt. Okay. So things turn violent. So we, we have an early start and then things turn violent.

[Kenneth G. Appold]

Well, for me, that was one of the big discoveries of this project because I, like most people, sort of grew up with this assumption that it's called a peasants war. Right. And so the peasants are forming armies and they're going after the lords and of course they're coming with their pitchforks. That's kind of the image that people always talk about peasants and the pitchforks. And then once I got into it, I started reading the source documents from the time. And also actually in recent years, more secondary literature has come to this consensus that the peasants really didn't do much in terms of violence. The numbers of people that they killed were really under exceptional circumstances and probably less than 100 total, whereas more than 100,000 peasants were slaughtered in this. And so it's far too one sided really to be called a war. I mean, what they're doing there, in fact, in most battles, the peasants either offered to surrender or they actually retreated and ran away. And a lot of the deaths happened because they were being pursued and just cut down on open fields. In one case, there were like 1500 peasants were driven into a river and drowned. And you know, we're talking about staggering numbers here of massacres. And so that's why I call it a revolt or an uprising rather than a war. I think that's just, it's not an appropriate term for this. In fact, it's the term, it's a polemical term used by the victors.

[Yana Byers]

Yeah. So we have this incredibly one sided violence. But why? What is happening? Like, it seems like there's just a fundamental miscommunication. But I mean, why are, why, why do we see this level of violence and why, why is it playing out this way?

[Kenneth G. Appold]

Yeah, that's a good question. It's kind of a mystery. I think most of the rational explanations that we have for why do the lords come down so hard on the, on the peasants and why are they repressing them in such a violent f. And some people have argued, you know, they needed to make a statement, they needed to restore law and order. I'm not convinced by any of that because it's just, it's too excessive for this and it was, in fact, it was so excessive that good numbers of the soldiers actually deserted because they couldn't do it anymore. It just. It made no sense to them. And so something else is going on here. I think there are anxieties they might be related to notions of heresy. And because the religious dimension is very important in this conflict. There had been crusades actually launched against peasants in previous centuries. And so that's not new. You know, the idea that the peasants are somehow diabolical and they need to be exterminated is in the air. And I think some of that is present as peasant here is present here as well, because it's just not. It's not explainable on a rational level. There's more going on that a lot of it's irrational. In fact, some of the lords and princes acknowledge this and talk about a bloodlust that their soldiers that was just that took over the soldiers and animated them. They think this is a good thing. You know, they welcome this, but sort of in the heat of the battle, but, you know, the battle that they're referring to in this particular case was in Frankenhausen, and I think there were four soldiers who died in that battle, and they killed 8,000 peasants. So that just gives you an idea, you know, of what we're talking about.

[Yana Byers]

I can't even wrap my brain around this. I mean, how do you massacre 80,000.

[Kenneth G. Appold]

People at a time, particularly without firearms? You know, I mean, they did have cannons, but most of them were just hacked with hatchets. And I mean, they had to do this manually. This was hard work.

[Yana Byers]

Yeah, just. I think I would have gotten tired. I mean, if I read that in. In a novel, obviously I would understand. But if I read that in one of these, like, conquistadors tales or they're like. And then I fought off all of the Indians, I would not believe them. I would assume this was a lie.

[Kenneth G. Appold]

Yeah, no, but I mean, the records are there and I mean, you know, it's the lords themselves who. Who give us some of the numbers, but it. It maps with. With other statistics and sources that we have. So I think they're. They're in the ballpark, certainly. You know, it's always hard to know what the exact body count is, but it's in the ballpark. And. No, I. That was actually a thought that occurred to me too. What's going through these soldiers minds, because it has to be exhausting just to do that much killing with. With the kinds of tools that they had, the weapons that they had at their disposal.

[Yana Byers]

Yeah, absolutely. And, and it, and it really, it just doesn't make any sense if it's just economic, if this is just about these peasants. Oh, the peasants are revolting again because they do it all the time. Right. There's peasant uprisings through, I mean through history, but through the second half of the 15th and the first half of the 16th century. This isn't an out of nowhere thing.

[Kenneth G. Appold]

No, no. And there have been antecedents. What makes this in Germany too, what makes this different is just the scale of it. They had never before managed to organize beyond their estates or in a significant kind of way on this scale. And the fact that again, the 12 articles that that's being circulated as a kind of manifesto looks like this is going to become a sort of national movement. And Luther in his writings too about it talks about the nation of Germany is at stake. Germany as a land is in jeopardy with this. So it's using terms that aren't clear, you know, clearly defined, but you can see the scope.

[Yana Byers]

Yeah, I mean, so let's talk about this, the theological discussion, because this is the period when we are having when there is an, a huge overarching, omnipresent theological conversation happening. And so there's a position that there's some positions from the clergy that are fairly easy to see and then the peasant position. And I'd like to talk about some, the clergy's responses, not quite, not necessarily Luther, but some non, some non Luther positions like Thomas Munser. Let's talk about Thomas.

[Kenneth G. Appold]

Munser and Luther. And I treat them this way in the book too, in a way are outliers. Because although Muntzer in the, you know, in Marx's historiography and the GDR and so forth, they always played him up as a kind of. He was the one who got it right, he was the hero of the people and so forth. But you know, when you look more carefully, he really had his own agenda and he was much more an urban reformer than a rural one. And there's very little in his writings that shows any familiarity with what the peasants in the fields are doing, what they're after. And it's more of a convergence I think of. It's partly opportunistic that he ends up leading this big group in Frankenhausen. And so I don't treat him as much as other people have, or at least I don't accord as much importance to him as other historians have in the past. Instead though, I think what's really remarkable, and I didn't know this, until I started working on the project, is that there are more than 200 clergy in Southwest Germany alone who are supporting the peasants. And these are local village priests. They're on the verge of becoming Protestant. Some of them had married by this time. But the denominational, confessional lines aren't clearly defined. So you don't really know. Do you call them Catholic or do you call them Lutheran? The Catholics call them Lutheran. Some of the Lutherans call them Catholics. They're caught in between. But it's very clear that what we know of their preaching, the little of it that has come back to us, is they do show sympathy for Luther's theology here, also for the sacramental theology and so forth. The fact that some of them are marrying also shows a kind of allegiance and sympathy there. They're also being influenced by Zwingli and Switzerland, by the way. So there's their two sources of influence. Nonetheless, they take a very different line here. I mean, they're openly supportive and some of them die because of it. They're executed. So they lay down their lives, really, for these parishioners and for their cause.

[Yana Byers]

And what is it that resonates with them?

[Kenneth G. Appold]

I think so one of the key points in this book, and what makes it different from most other, I think, virtually all other treatments of the topic, is that I view this really in religious terms. I think it's a religious movement. So through and through we see a kind of invocation of brotherly love that's very Christian in the way it's weighted and coded. Also the gospel. It's not clear what they mean by that, but they're signaling a kind of interest and sympathy for what Luther is doing for that bigger project. They talk about divine law, which to them means this idea that God has a righteousness or a justice. That is not always evident in the justice systems of the here and now, the legal systems. There's a higher law than the law that they're losing to in the courts. So most of the time, the peasants take their grievances to a court, the judges are likely going to be of the nobility or by default, more sympathetic to the nobility. Not always, but generally, that's the trend. And so the peasants almost always lose in these court cases. And so they're starting to say, well, you know, actually, what we're talking about is it's just so profoundly right that even when the courts don't agree with us here, there's got to be more to this. And it's just, I think respect for the environment is one of the values that they come up with, a kind of charity among neighbors that you support each other through difficult times. And. And the lords were very definitely not doing that. You know, anytime there's a famine or a drought or something else, they actually turned the screws and. And squeezed even more out of the peasants rather than, you know, showing some charity to them. So they're seeing a breakdown of really what it means to be a Christian in these crises, and they're trying to restore that in their own way. Now, they're coming from a very different place than Luther. They're not getting their Christian values from books. They're getting them from, you know, centuries of rituals that do thanksgiving rituals. I talk a little bit about those. And what other kinds of ritual acts about the Mass itself? I mean, they go in there every. Every week, and they love the Mass. From what we can tell. They wanted more churches, they wanted more chapels. They were, you know, very keen to have priests show up, do their jobs, and the ones who do get their respect. And so. And if you look at the, you know, the fundamental message of the Mass was peace, Peace and reconciliation, you know, and they're not seeing that lived out, and they have a problem with that.

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[Yana Byers]

Yeah. And this is a theology that resonates with the peasants and resonates with clergy that are devoted to reform who can.

[Kenneth G. Appold]

Actually see what's happening. Yeah.

[Yana Byers]

Yeah. Which makes monsieur interesting and. Yeah. Who can see what's. Because this is a. This is a very difficult time. Right. For the peasants. So, you know, as you say, there's a fairly coherent series of beliefs. And can we call it like a theological schema? Is that a legitimate thing to call this?

[Kenneth G. Appold]

I think so. I mean, the difficulty with terms like that, with ascribing a theology to it, is that. Because they didn't write any of this down. And so when we think of theology, and that's one of the fault lines that runs through this conflict, is that theology, as we understand it is usually done by educated scholars, people like Martin Luther, they write books, they read books. Right. And then they write books about what they've read. And so it's a very verbal oriented kind of communication. And I go into more detail on this, what we call epistemologically. In other words, how do people come to know what they know? And so when you look at religious knowledge, how is it formed for Luther and other scholars like him? They're deriving a lot of their knowledge from reading and from meditation on what they've read. So it's a very conceptual kind of discourse. Whereas the peasants, they can't read. Right. So they don't have access to any of that. And then we have to ask, well, where does their knowledge come from? Well, it comes from, again, from sitting in church. It comes from rituals. It comes from the whole repertoire of rituals that they participated in. Sanctifying the fields, blessing the homes, marriages, baptisms, thanksgiving, et cetera, et cetera. And so that helps them piece together certain ideas of who is this God that's out there and actually around and helping us? And one of the things they learn is that it comes through the blessings. The priests proclaim blessings on crops, on at table, over weddings, they bless the homes. And so that reaffirms and underscores this view that the God is benevolent. God is someone who takes an interest in their lives and what they're doing and wants them to fare well and protects them from evil and from calamity and other kinds of things. So on the surface, a fairly simple kind of theological proposition. Right. But it's doctrinally, if we look at it, but it's profoundly anchored in their lives. And they live this every day. And you can see from comparing these two things, we're talking about very different kinds of theological knowledge formation. And you can't just tell the peasants, well, you should have read more Luther. Right. Because they don't read at all.

[Yana Byers]

No, they haven't seen Luther. They haven't seen a book, Correct?

[Kenneth G. Appold]

No, no. Well, some of them probably had, but.

[Yana Byers]

They'D heard distance, you know, or they've heard someone read aloud but can't read. They can't afford to have books in their homes. Yeah. And I mean, we're just still at a period where nobody, like very few people have books in their homes.

[Kenneth G. Appold]

Even the wealthy, well, even the educated people could barely afford them, you know, but you can see the divide here. And I think that's the thing that again, my book is, is making this claim in a way that it hasn't been made before. Four is that the divide between Luther and his cohort of elite theologians is profound because they're forming their knowledge in very different ways that simply aren't compatible on the surface. And there's no way without massive mediation that they would be able to understand each other.

[Yana Byers]

Yeah, it's just an epistemological chasm that's.

[Kenneth G. Appold]

Not, I mean, it's not that different from some of the things we experience today too. You know, it's just rural urban divides or so called educated elites and the, and the, and the common people. They're getting their information from very different sources and they're also processing it in very different ways. And that makes it hard to understand each other.

[Yana Byers]

Yeah. I mean, clearly we have a breakdown of communication.

[Kenneth G. Appold]

Absolutely. And they did too.

[Yana Byers]

Yeah. I hope it ends better for us. Me too. Right, yeah. Okay. So as much as we can tell by, I mean, as much as we can tell by actions, theology and you know, with. And our archival record limited as it is, what are the peasants thinking they're going to get from Martin Luther? What do they think Martin Luther is going to have to say to them?

[Kenneth G. Appold]

Well, it's funny you should ask it in that way because they had very precise ideas of what they wanted from him. They actually. So one of the demands is to set up a new court system. They said we need to have a court system that isn't based on traditional law the way it hasn't been working for us. Right. Which is biased for the lords and the elite. So we want a law that's godly and based on the Bible, a kind of biblical law. And what they mean by that, I think, is a law that's based in charity and love of neighbor. And then they take another step and they issue a document that probably was part of the 12 articles, but got transmitted separately, where they're actually naming judges that they want in that court system. So kind of a supreme court of divine law, if you will. And Luther was the first person they mentioned. Luther, Melanchthon, Zwingli, and then one of the local priests in their near Kempton was also on the list. And Luther was not happy when he saw that. He sort of recoils, no, no, no, you can't have me for this. No. But they looked up to him. They really thought that he was going to be. He was a knowledgeable person about religion and faith and that he would, he would be able to help them.

[Yana Byers]

Yeah. So they have this idea of Lutheran theology, of his ideas. Is it, is it just so different than what he thinks he's saying. Yeah, that's it. That's the miscommunication.

[Kenneth G. Appold]

Yeah, I think it's different in one respect. I think there's, they get some of the gist of it. But I think the, the difference is that for Luther, if you think about their faith lives, for Luther and people who came out of kind of Renaissance humanism or school sort of in that, in that era, it's, it's very introspective. You know, faith is, is my relationship to God and, and how do I experience that in prayer, in meditation, in reading, Excuse me. And so it's all very interior in that, in that way. Whereas for the peasants, faith and justification and the gospel are things that play out in their interpersonal relationship. It's what gives them peace in a village. It's what restores balance after you've had some infractions or when honor has been damaged in some way, it's the grace of God that helps people heal those kinds of relationships. And so they're very exterior in their focus. They're interested in peace and village peace in their homes. And Luther, it's just not on his radar at this point. It is in some of his other writings. To be fair, he could have had the tools to respond differently, but doesn't do it.

[Yana Byers]

So let's get, how does he respond?

[Kenneth G. Appold]

Wait. Really goes off the deep end. I mean, I think the first thing, to put it kind of bluntly, the first thing he does, there's a sequence of writings that comes out. The first one is called the Admonition to Peace and it's actually a commentary on the 12 articles. He starts off, people have always said this is his most balanced response to the peasants. It is in fact, when you look at it more carefully, extremely one sided. He doesn't think the peasants are really on the right track. He does say some of their grievances are legitimate and he chides the lords for exploiting them and so forth. But there's no interest here in a more fundamental kind of reform of the kind that the peasants are looking at. Also noteworthy is that Luther really only deals with the first three of the 12 articles. So all the others that start to talk about land usage and the actual issues that they are most concerned about, he just brushes off and says that's something for lawyers to work out. You know, I'm not in a position to talk about these things. And so he misses really the core of what they're, of what they're trying to do at the end. He calls for mediation between the two. But in the context of everything else he says in that document seems pretty half hearted. Then not long after, and we don't really know what happened. There's some speculation that he had a run in with some peasants in Turingi on a trip, but he really becomes a lot more harsh. In fact, he himself describes it as his harsh book on the peasants and he views them now as diabolical. They're possessed by the devil and they need to be killed. And he goes so far, you know, it calls them mad dogs. All these animal tropes that we also, we see in medieval polemical literature against peasants, you know, they surface in Luther again. And you know, you can go so far as to say at one point, if you know, if someone sees a rebellious peasant, they're entitled to take action as a citizen. They don't have to turn them over to the authorities. And that's, you know, cut them down like mad dogs. And so not the kind of rhetoric you'd expect from him. I mean, next to Luther's writings on the Jews, which are, which have gotten more attention and are at least as bad, if not worse, and they come more towards the end of his life, the extreme ones do. This is early in the Reformation and you can't excuse it by saying he was losing his mind or there was dementia. I mean, he was in full possession of his faculties. And it wasn't just a one off because he doubles down over the next few months. Even after tens of thousands of peasants have been slaughtered, he's still calling for further bloodshed. And so I had a hard time trying to figure how do we explain this or cope with this? Right, yeah.

[Yana Byers]

I mean, that's what is going on now.

[Kenneth G. Appold]

I think ultimately, again, I think it's a religious phenomenon. I think he thought or believed deeply that this was a kind of a divine reckoning that was taking place and that in fact his own fate was at stake here as well, that God would reveal in this conflict who was on the right side. And so the term in German for this is Gottesgericht, and that's the English. You know, you can talk about a trial by ordeal. You know, like when they used to dunk witches and see, she drowns and she was innocent, she pops back up, she's a witch and you can kill her. Right, so that's the catch 22 in this, the famous kind of stories is, well, that's a trial by ordeal, or if you have two people and two knights dueling the Same kind of thing. God reveals who's right by choosing a victor in this. And so that kind of cosmic justice is something Lutheran refers to repeatedly in particularly the, the later. His writings against the one called against the murdering and robbing hordes, or robbing and murdering hordes of the peasants. He refers to that. So I think he really thinks this is going to be a kind of revelation moment, that God is going to come down. And so Luther is understandably, extremely anxious about what's going to be revealed. And he's constantly looking for signs here. You know, when Thomas Munzer is killed, that's a sign, you know, that, that Munzer was on the wrong side. And I, I think that's. No, I, I think he's genuinely terrified of what's going to happen.

[Yana Byers]

Yeah, that it's, that's hard to wrap your brain around.

[Kenneth G. Appold]

Oh, it is, yeah. We don't think like that.

[Yana Byers]

No, we just don't think like that. And I, man, I don't think a lot of. I, I wouldn't. I'm not necessarily expecting my theologians to think my early modern, my Reformation and refor era theologians to think like this is, this is. God's going to show himself with the, the outcome of this battle. But it is a battle for souls. Right. It is an ongoing battle. This Reformation, like that's theology isn't just an argument. It's not theoretical.

[Kenneth G. Appold]

Right, exactly. It's not only theoretical, it's action. And even the ideas are acts, you know, when they get expressed, they have consequen. And all this is playing out on a, on a grand field in a way. And Luther is, you know, in 1525, he's uncertain what the outcome is going to be. I mean, he's been excommunicated. You know, there's only one church at this point and he's no longer part of it, at least according to them. And, you know, the questions of his own authority always comes back to that term, you know, I have the authority based on this and this and that. What he can't say is I have the authority, you know, because I'm a priest. And so there's a destabilization really. You know, he's, he's still, he's not sure what his own legitimate role is in this. And he talks about how God has preserved him from harm, you know, repeatedly, which is true. Right. There has been. He could have been turned over to the authorities and executed. That didn't happen. He was protected by his prince. And so he cites all those Instances of how he has prevailed in here, not so much to gloat over it, but to indicate, okay, these are all signs that God is favoring our cause and what we're doing. The mistake he makes, in my view, looking back at this, is assuming the peasants are on the other side of this. Right. There might have been a different way to approach that, but that's the conclusion that he draws. And so he's very worked up about this and not just on a strategic level. You know, people have said, well, he makes a bargain here because he sides with princes to save the Reformation. And his colleague Philip Melanchthon actually says this, says, you know, if Munzer and his people win, then our cause is lost. So he's very calculating about this. Luther was never very calculating. He was actually pretty reckless in many things he did. So I don't think he's worked that out fully. He certainly doesn't say it. I. I think it's on a much higher level. He thinks, you know, the cosmic order and, and God's justice are. Are at stake here. And that's going to be. Yeah, that's going to be what, what, what carries the day.

[Yana Byers]

Yeah, that's. I think. I feel like this is such a cautionary tale for historians, as much as this is an interesting. It's the story of history, like this reminder that there's an immense amount of thinking and overthinking and analyzation that you can do about something like the Reformation or anything, you know, any of these religious debates or any heretical discussion. But, like, there's. There's just this incalculable. There's faith involved. There's this incalculable thing that, like, defies reason. And I don't mean it in some Kantian terms, though, that. But like, people behave in a different way when they think God's on the line.

[Kenneth G. Appold]

You know, I think that's the. Ultimately the subtext for my argument here. And the thing that I've been interested in in a bigger way is how much of religion can't be articulated, how much of our faith really resists even being put into language. And, you know, we have profound poets who have, you know, done this in part by talking around the phenomenon, you know, and I think sometimes that's more effective. I'm just looking at my desk here. I've got a volume by the American poet Maria Howe, and she has this wonderful poem called Calvary, which I'm not going to cite for right now, but it's the most stunning meditation on or at least rendering in poetic language what happens on the cross. And it does so by not focusing on the cross, but by looking at something else that's happening next to it. And a lot of times faith works that way too. The actual phenomenon is very hard for us to get a grip on conceptually and even in more simple words. And so that leaves a lot of it under the surface that is hard to articulate, hard to put into, verbalize. And that's where Luther is here. So the things that are really animating him in this are not things that he himself can fully articulate. And so you get it in the cracks between the lines comes out when he uses terms that you don't expect, like a goddess or something like that. And that's an indication here that there's a lot more happening. And for the Reformation, for a reformer like Luther, this is especially problematic because he's so word centered. Everything's about the word and about words and about articulating things. And suddenly here he's in a conflict where he's at a loss for words.

[Yana Byers]

Yeah, that's. That's an adept. That's irony.

[Kenneth G. Appold]

Yeah. No, it is, because.

[Yana Byers]

Yeah, it's not just words, but the word. Right.

[Kenneth G. Appold]

No, it is. It's a he. It's hard for him to cope with that kind of breakdown in communication. He doesn't know what to do with it. And you know why? His reaction is so much stronger than. I mean, there were colleagues of his who agreed, you know, the peasants needed to be suppressed. But. But even they were appalled at what they were reading. And to say, no, you can't write this. You know, then he writes again, says, no, I can't.

[Yana Byers]

Oh, watch me, I'll do it again. Yeah, it's. What's the old name? Hold my beer, says Luther, which I kind of like to imagine actually right now.

[Kenneth G. Appold]

No, he got married during that summer. Right. So he was. There was a lot of beer flowing. But we shouldn't. You know, Luther can be very. Folk like, you know, very. I mean, of all the reformers, he's probably the one you would most want to have a beer with. Unlike Calvin might have been interesting. But the. In terms of, you know, sitting out, having a beer, irrespective of the theologies, you know, the Luther seems to be the one you would choose. But, you know, we forget in that, that this is an extremely intelligent person and you would expect, I mean, a genius by most accounts. And I think you would expect a little bit more from him out of that.

[Yana Byers]

Yeah, A world Changing genius. Yeah, Yeah. I mean, there's a reason, right? Like, we have so much trouble even defining naming right there. Maybe there's something to this whole circumlocution situation.

[Kenneth G. Appold]

Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

[Yana Byers]

That feels like a good place to close the conversation on this book. Yeah.

[Kenneth G. Appold]

Let's hope there's some hope, huh?

[Yana Byers]

Yeah, like, but with our. But with the wonder and with a recognition that not all things are knowable. It's kind of nice, even for someone who wants. Makes their job the knowing, I guess. Yeah, there's something charming there. So let's. Let's. Speaking of hope, what are you working on now? What's next?

[Kenneth G. Appold]

Well, it's funny. It's about again, I'm. I'm looking at how religion functions without words. And so the book is on bells. Everyone always reacts the way you are right now.

[Yana Byers]

But it's like listeners. My face. I'm like, whoa. I look like I just opened up a magic box.

[Kenneth G. Appold]

Yeah, no, it's a lot of fun. There's, you know, one of the chapters in the Luther and the Peasants book is on weather rituals and what the peasants did when bad weather came. And one thing they did is they ran to the church tower and started ringing the bell. And that fascinated me. And so I've been thinking about that ever since and looking into this a lot more. I was just in Germany two weeks ago doing some archival work, in part because people talked about this. They were. Some people were. Wanted to get rid of the bills altogether. They thought it was superstitious, and the common people refused. They defended their bills. But even to this day, in many villages in Europe, I keep hearing this from people. We still do this. When a thunderstorm comes, we go out and ring the bell.

[Yana Byers]

Well, I mean, were you from a siren town? I came. I come from a town where.

[Kenneth G. Appold]

Yeah, yeah, we had sirens when bad weather came. I grew up in the Midwest. And then when a tornado was on the horizon and the sirens went off.

[Yana Byers]

Yeah. I had a friend from the west coast who had never heard of a tornado or a firefly. You know, it was like, what is this terror? I'm like, oh, you know, they're just making sure we know in case there's a tornado. And he was like, get out of here. Like, why do you live in this place where this guy can kill you?

[Kenneth G. Appold]

Yeah, we ran to the basement.

[Yana Byers]

And that's rich coming from earthquake land. But, yeah, like, anyway, sorry, digression there. But that makes perfect. That makes perfect sense. Yeah. And there's this powerful way of communicating. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I am. I can't wait to read that book.

[Kenneth G. Appold]

I can't wait to write it. No, I'm actually, you know, I'm in the middle of a sabbatical right now. I'm working very hard on this book. That's lots of material. And, you know, again, apart from these weather things and issues about superstition, it's just. It's uncanny. Every time I talk to people about this, they start unpacking stories about how bells affected them. And. And, I mean, they get under people's skin, the bells. You know, this is why it's for whom the bell Tolls. You know, the poem and then, you know, Hemingway's novel. And there's something going on there that is worth exploring more deeply. And so that's what this book is gonna take a stab at.

[Yana Byers]

You know, when you think about, like, how pre modern people tell time and, like, exactly. You know, the big. There's the cyclical things of the moon, sun, astrology, but your daily life is the cadence of the bells.

[Kenneth G. Appold]

It's the bell. It's the loudest thing they ever heard in their lives. You know, it's nothing was. There were no engines, no airplanes. It was just. The bell was the loudest thing. And it sent them out in the fields in the morning. It called them back. It was an alarm. It called them to worship.

[Yana Byers]

And in whose hands are these bells? Right, the only power, Right, that is, you know, like the word itself or books writing. These are like.

[Kenneth G. Appold]

Yeah, there's a lot of. A lot of conflict over who has the right to toll, you know, to ring the bell. You know, so that's where the power issue comes into play. But the other thing that fascinates me about the bells is, you know, unlike a musical instrument, the bell really has its own voice. You know, you don't play a bell unless you're doing a carillon or something. But the. But the traditional church bells are just, you know, they sound after you pull the rope or engage the hammer in some fashion. And so they. In a lot of early modern medals and early moderns, even today, people treat them as though they have a personality. The bells have names. They were consecrated. You know, some people thought they were being baptized. And, you know, and it's touching to read accounts of how much care villagers gave into their bells. You know, they. They would donate wedding rings and gold and whatever just to. To melt it into the bell to make it sound a little nicer. So a lot of stuff happening.

[Yana Byers]

All right, That's Great.

[Kenneth G. Appold]

Stay tuned.

[Yana Byers]

I am, listeners. You as well. I'll be back with this one in just a couple years. Ish. All right, Ken, thanks for joining me today. What a fabulous conversation.

[Kenneth G. Appold]

Thanks so much, Yano. It's been a pleasure. It's been a lot of fun.

[Yana Byers]

All right. Ciao, ciao.

[Kenneth G. Appold]

Ciao, Sam.