am masters. In
this district or in that, lists of very specific grievances were
presented and redress demanded. In some cases merely to gain time, in
others sincerely, the lords consented to reply to these petitions.
They denied this or that charge, and they promised to end this or that
form of oppression. Neither side was prepared for civil war. In all
it was more like a modern strike than anything else.

In the early months of 1525 several programs were drawn up of a more
general nature than those previously composed, and yet by no means
radical. The most famous of these was called _The Twelve Articles_,
printed and widely circulated in February. [Sidenote: _The Twelve
Articles_] The exact place at which they originated is unknown. The
authorship has been much disputed, and necessarily so, for they were
the work of no one brain, but were as composite a production as is the
Constitution of the United States. The material in them is drawn from
the mouths of a whole people. Far more than in other popular writings
one feels that they are the genuine expression of the public opinion of
a great class. Probably their draftsman was Sebastian Lotzer, the
tanner who for years past had preached apostolic communism. It is not
impossible that the Anabaptist Balthasar Huebmaier had a hand in them.
Their demands are moderate and would be considered matters of
self-evident justice to-day. The first article is for the right of
each community to choose its own pastor. The second protests against
the minor tithes on vegetables paid to the clergy, though expressly
admitting the legality of the tithes on grain. The third article
demands freedom for the serfs, the fourth and fifth, ask for the right
to hunt and to cut wood in the forests. The sixth, seventh and eighth
articles {93} protest against excessive forced labor, illegal payments
and exorbitant rents. The ninth article denounces the new (Roman) law,
and requests the reestablishment of the old (German) law. The tenth
article voices the indignation of the poor at the enclosure by the rich
of commons and other free land. The eleventh demands the abolition of
the heriot, or inheritance-tax, by which the widow of a rustic was
obliged to yield to her lord the best head of cattle or other valuable
possession. The final article expresses the willingness of the
insurgents to have all their demands submitted to the Word of God.
Both here and in the preamble the entire ass