Der gemeine Mann im Aufstand 1525. Göttliches Recht im Kontext von Freiheit und Gewalt

Lecture by Prof. Dr. Sabine Holtz at the Württembergischer Geschichts- und Altertumsverein

Around 1500, the increasing political, legal and economic pressure exerted by the rulers placed an ever greater burden on the subjects and erupted in a whole series of regional uprisings. The situation escalated in 1525. The Reformation gave the rebels new impetus and concrete hope for change beyond the regional level. Divine law, especially as understood by Ulrich Zwingli, offered a completely new basis for argumentation. Draft constitutions show what a fundamentally different social order based on the new divine right should look like. Under the call for freedom, the common man repositioned himself politically. The lecture examines the influences of divine right on the constitutional drafts and asks about the justification of violence on the part of the common man and on the part of the authorities.