The Lutheran movement brought into the open certain radical tendencies, both religious and social. The rural peasants had more than once broken into rebellion locally against the hard conditions of their lot. They hoped that the revolt against the Church might go farther and emancipate them from their feudal obligations to ecclesiastical and lay lords. An uprising resulted in the Peasants’ War in 1524. There was much lawlessness and some loss of life, but the reprisals were more severe than the rebels deserved. They demanded little more than the right to the old medieval communal claims, but they were feared as socialists, promptly punished for their temerity by ruthless slaughter, and forced back into submission.
Impact: The most serious consequence of the uprising was the effect upon Luther. It drove him back upon his natural conservatism, made him fear the effects of radicalism upon his own movement, and turned him away from the principle of individual rights. From that time Luther was more disposed to give to the State the direction of religion.