the nobles who resisted, and burned the
convents. Opposition had inflamed the passions of these rude men;
equality no longer satisfied them; they thirsted for blood, and swore to
put to death every man who wore a spur.

At the approach of the peasants, the cities that were unable to resist
them opened their gates and joined them. In whatever place they entered,
they pulled down the images and broke the crucifixes; armed women
paraded the streets and threatened the monks. If they were defeated in
one quarter, they assembled in another, and braved the most formidable
forces. A committee of peasants was established at Heilbrunn. The counts
of Lowenstein were taken prisoners, dressed in a smock-frock, and then,
a white staff having been placed in their hands, they were compelled to
swear to the twelve articles. "Brother George, and thou, brother
Albert," said a tinker of Ohringen to the counts of Hohenlohe who had
gone to their camp, "swear to conduct yourselves as our brethren, for
you also are now peasants; you are no longer lords." Equality of rank,
the dream of many democrats, was established in aristocratic Germany.

Many nobles, some through fear, others from ambition, then joined the
insurgents. The famous Goetz von Berlichingen, finding his vassals
refuse to obey him, desired to flee to the Elector of Saxony; but his
wife, who was lying-in, wishing to keep him near her, concealed the
Elector's answer. Goetz, being closely pursued, was compelled to put
himself at the head of the rebel army. On the 7th of May the peasants
entered Wuerzburg, where the citizens received them with acclamations.
The forces of the princes and knights of Swabia and Franconia, which had
assembled in this city, evacuated it, and retired in confusion to the
citadel, the last bulwark of the nobility.

But the movement had already extended to other parts of Germany. Spires,
the Palatinate, Alsace, and Hesse accepted the twelve articles, and the
peasants threatened Bavaria, Westphalia, the Tyrol, Saxony, and
Lorraine. The Margrave of Baden, having rejected the articles, was
compelled to flee. The coadjutor of Fulda acceded to them with a smile.
The smaller towns said they had no lances with which to oppose the
insurgents. Mentz, Treves, and Frankfort obtained the liberties they had
claimed.

An immense revolution was preparing in all the empire. The
ecclesiastical and secular privileges, that bore so heavily on the
peasants, were to be suppre