3 - Rich and poor

Summary

Some events alter a society, dramatically setting it on a new path for decades or generations to come. But many do not. They pass away quickly, their effects merging almost imperceptibly into the stream of other events altering day–today social relationships at a slower but steadier pace. This latter pattern was often the case in the wake of the great peasant uprisings of early modern Europe. For in the countryside the pace of social change was often slow, the structures of everyday life resilient and difficult to change at one blow.

The Peasants' War was one such event in the sixteenth century. The revolt, despite the hopes it aroused among the peasantry and the fears it spread among the nobility, marked less of a turning point than is commonly understood. In most lands of South and Central Germany one can detect few sharp breaks with the past in the decades immediately after 1525. For the revolt came and went quickly and left few lasting structural changes in the day–to–day practice of domination and in the social relationships at the heart of the village community. The hurried deliberations in 1526 at the Diet at Speyer on the rebellion and the peasants' grievances, the small treaties concluded in some territories in the late 1520s, the criminalization of resistance to authority clearly spelled out in the imperial law code in 1532, the slow funneling of disputes into the courts, and the heated discussions concerning authority and obedience: All showed the heightened concern among elites about order and domestic security in the years following the revolt.