you will have learned from his last book against Carlstadt/ which greatly displeases almost everyone in Zurich, Basle and here. . . . Shall we, having given up faith and love, come to the same place as the papists are with their quarrels? . . . Almost all defend Carlstadt and esteem Zwingli. ... I am almost ashamed of this century; learning is oppressed and most places, bookstores, barber-shops, market-places, and, I had almost said, brothels, are full of disputations and strife.
67a CHARLES CONTARINI TO .
��Brown, 1520-6, no. 976. Innsbruck, May 3, 1525.
The movement of the Lutheran peasants continues raging, and although some of their houses have been burnt and some of the insurgents killed, yet they do not yield. They have sent six of their comrades to Augsburg to know if the in- habitants will join them, requiring an answer within two days, and are encamped under a town ' belonging to the Bishop of Ulm, which it is said they will obtain ; and woe to the bishop I
These gatherings of the peasants increase greatly. They say they will free themselves, that they are worse than slaves, that the whole country is disorganized. In all the churches / of Germany they now preach the Lutheran doctrine. Lent is ' no longer observed. The peasants say that they merely re- quire freedom for their property and persons, such as is en- joyed by the subjects of the Venetian Signory; and this they notified to the Archduke Ferdinand. Apparently they are in the right, for should a peasant choose to emigrate, or to give his daughter in marriage abroad, he has to pay a fine like a bondsman, and when the head of a family dies, the masters take half of the best of the property. Their shout is "Liberty," and for the rest they would be content. . . .
671. LUTHER TO SPALATIN. Enders, v, 153. (WrrrENBERc), April 10, 1525.
Grace and peace. I am returning the letter,* after making
^Against tht Hfovenly Prophets of Images and tht Saeramtni, Wdmar, xTiii, 62 ff.
'A band of 18,000 peasants gathered in the meadows before Baltringen, near Ulm. Jansscn-Pastor,* U, 569^
BTo Reissenbusch, supra, no. 667.
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