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Group: Hanover, Kingdom of
People: James Moore
Topic: German Peasants' War

German Peasants' War

Years: 1524 - 1525

The Peasants' War, a popular revolt in the Holy Roman Empire in the years 1524/1525, consists, like the preceding Bundschuh movement and the Hussite Wars, of a series of economic as well as religious revolts by peasants, townsfolk and nobles.

The conflict, which takes place mostly in southern, western, and central areas of modern Germany but also affects areas in neighboring modern Switzerland and Austria, involves at its height in the spring and summer of 1525 an estimated 300,000 peasant insurgents: contemporary estimates put the dead at 100,000.

It is to be Europe's largest and most widespread popular uprising before the 1789 French Revolution.

"Not to know what happened before you were born is to be a child forever. For what is the time of a man except it be interwoven with that memory of ancient things of a superior age?"

― Marcus Tullius Cicero, Orator (46 BCE)