CHAPTER VIII.
THE GREAT RISING OF THE PEASANTS AND THE ANABAPTIST MOVEMENT[23] The year following the collapse of Franz Sickingen's rebellion saw the first mutterings of the great movement known as the Peasants' War, the most extensive and important of all the popular insurrections of the Middle Ages, which, as we have seen in a previous chapter, had been led up to during the previous half-century by numerous sporadic movements throughout Central Europe having like aims.
The first actual outbreak of the Peasants' War took place in August 1524, in the Black Forest, in the village of Stuehlingen, from an apparently trivial cause.

It spread rapidly throughout the surrounding districts, having found a leader in a former soldier of fortune, Hans Mueller by name.

The so-called Evangelical Brotherhood sprang into existence.

On the new movement becoming threatening it was opposed by the Swabian League, a body in the interests of the Germanic Federation, its princes, and cities, whose function it was to preserve public tranquillity and enforce the Imperial decrees.

The peasant army was armed with the rudest weapons, including pitchforks, scythes, and axes; but nothing decisive of a military character took place this year.