or.

"I seriously reproved my good Hans for his untoward jest," was the easy
comment of Truchsess upon this circumstance.

Throughout Germany similar slaughter of the peasantry and wholesale
executions took place. In many places the reprisal took the dimensions
of a massacre, and it is said that by the end of the frightful struggle
more than a hundred thousand of the peasants had been slain. As for its
political results, the survivors were reduced to a deeper state of
servitude than before. Thus ended a great struggle which had only needed
an able leader to make it a success and to free the people from feudal
bonds. It ended like all the peasant outbreaks, in defeat and renewed
oppression. As for the robber chief Goetz, while he is said by several
historians to have received a sentence of life imprisonment, Menzel
states that he was retained in prison for two years only.

In Thuringia, as we have said, the revolt was a religious one, it being
controlled by Thomas Muenzer, a fanatical Anabaptist. He pretended that
he had the gift of receiving divine revelations, and claimed to be
better able to reveal Christian truth than Luther. God had created the
earth, he said, for believers, all government should be regulated by the
Bible and revelation, and there was no need of princes, priests, or
nobles. The distinction between rich and poor was unchristian, since in
God's kingdom all should be alike. Nicholas Storch, one of Muenzer's
preachers, surrounded himself with twelve apostles and seventy-two
disciples, and claimed that an angel brought him divine messages.

Driven from Saxony by the influence of Luther, Muenzer went to Thuringia,
and gained such control by his preaching and his doctrines over the
people of the town of Muelhausen that all the wealthy people were driven
away, their property confiscated, and the sole control of the place fell
into his hands.

So great was the disturbance caused by his fanatical teachings and the
exertions of his disciples that Luther again bestirred himself, and
called on the princes for the suppression of Muenzer and his fanatical
horde. A division of the army was sent into Thuringia, and came up with
a large body of the Anabaptists near Frankenhausen, on May 15, 1525.
Muenzer was in command of the peasants. The army officers, hoping to
bring them to terms by lenient measures, offered to pardon them if they
would give up their leaders and peacefully retire to their homes. This
offer m