Eternal covenant of God
The Eternal Covenant of God was a paramilitary organization that arose during the time of the Reformation in Germany in late autumn 1524. It was composed of rebellious poor people as well as craftsmen and their radical Reformation leaders in the free imperial city of Mühlhausen .
Cause and origin
Around 1524, Mühlhausen was one of the largest and most important cities in Central Germany with around 7500 inhabitants . Besides Nordhausen , it was the only free imperial city here . Due to the deterioration of the European sales markets in the early modern period and changes in previously existing trade routes to the detriment of the local craftsmen class with the consistently high interest and tax burden , the social differences and tensions - also among the dispossessed population - became ever more acute .
The acting locally as leader of the urban poor apostate Cistercian Heinrich Pfeiffer already operational years before the arrival of Thomas Müntzer in Mulhouse opposition against the monasteries and the Teutonic Order and caused already in 1523 riots that led to a renewal of Mulhouse City Council.
Arrival of Müntzer in Mühlhausen
After Thomas Müntzer lost his position as pastor in Allstedt, probably against the background of Martin Luther's criticism of his ideas, and had to flee from there, he ended up in Mühlhausen in August 1524. It was here that Müntzer made contact with Pfeiffer and the rebellious class of the population, which consisted mainly of poor and dispossessed people as well as craftsmen from the fabric, leather and fur processing professions.
Formation of the eternal covenant of God
Pfeiffer now became a supporter of Müntzer and at the end of September 1524, under the leadership of Müntzer, the armed "Eternal Covenant of God" was formed, which soon reached a strength of around two hundred men. Müntzer and Pfeiffer received a large number of visitors through their sermons ; their goal was to set up a city council that should now be solely oriented towards the Word of God . To this end, he and Pfeiffer wrote the eleven articles by Mühlhausen , based only on the Bible , which appeared before the twelve Memmingen articles and the pamphlets widely used by the Black Forests , Allgäu and Franconian farmers.
After previous tumults, however, neither of them were able to prevail against the city council and were approached by farmers in the surrounding villages - also to the horror of Müntzer . They had to leave Mühlhausen in September or October 1524 and fled to Nuremberg .
At the end of February 1525, Müntzer returned to Mühlhausen. Here the situation had now changed, as Heinrich Pfeiffer, who had also returned, had been iconoclastic from December 1524 , had driven the closure of the monasteries and the confiscation of the church property. Müntzer was elected pastor of the Marienkirche there.
In mid-March 1525, the previous town councilor of Mühlhausen was deposed and the " Eternal Council " was elected and installed, which later went into the German Peasants' War with Müntzer and his supporters .
literature
- Gerhard Wehr : Thomas Müntzer. Rowohlt Verlag, 2017.
- Dietrich Lösche, eight men. Eternal covenant of God and eternal counsel. On the history of the revolutionary movement in Mühlhausen in Thuringia from 1523 to 1525 . In: Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte 1, 1960, ISSN 0075-2800, pp. 135-143.
- Dictionary of German military history, Berlin 1985, vol. 1, p. 134.