"Peasant Fires": A Postscript

A pair of documents that come from ecclesiastic records can act as a postscript to the 1476 story of Hans Behem, the drummer of Niklashausen. Professor Wunderli points out that we would not know at all about the 'captains of the people' who led the giant hordes to Wurzburg following the arrest of the drummer, were it not for these documents. Conrad von Thunfeld and his son Michael ended up making peace with the Bishop of Wurzburg on October 25, 1476, several months after the drummer had been burnt at the stake.

Possibly they had been hiding out, avoiding prosecution, waiting for things to die down, but we can't know for sure as there are no records of their doings in the interim. What we can say is that the two men signed a statement admitting that they had led the people to the castle at Wurzburg in order to free the drummer and that they would henceforward not make any more trouble. This admission was very expensive to father and son. The other document is another signed work where they both agreed henceforth to give up their land to the bishopric of Wurzburg in exchange for their freedom. Wunderli states,

"To ensure their loyalty and peaceful behavior, Bishop Rudolph forced them to sign ... in which the von Thunfelds turned over to the bishop their hitherto freehold land, only to receive it back as a feudal fief.... They lost their land and would forever be vassals to the Bishops of Wurzburg. They had held three houses, two forests, two vineyards, and several bits of property, all near Schweinfurt, and all of which now came under the lordship of the bishop of Wurzburg." [p.131]

They would now be peasants in allegiance to the bishop, not freemen holding property with the right to work their own land.
Pilgrims continued to come, however. Bishops and church leaders continued to make proclamations forbidding the preaching or granting of indulgences in and around Niklashausen. But the people still came, and apparently, continued to do just these forbidden things or there would be no need for continuing proclamations and edicts forbidding them. In the early months of the next year, the very church at Niklashausen was razed to the ground as the people continued to come, thinking they could take part in something miraculous there. But the greater church leaders had done their duty in eradicating the scourge of immoral, uneducated uprisings and began sending letters around congratulating each other at putting the mob down.

In the Nürnberg archives there is a letter from pope Sixtus IV, from February 7, 1478, sent to the town council in appreciation of their actions halting the pilgrimage of Niklashausen. A doctor Kilian von Bibra had informed the papacy of the happenings and the Nürnberg town council duly sent a letter to the good doctor for passing on the story to the pope in Rome. [p. 140]

Bishop Rudolph of Wurzburg continued with his reforming zeal in other areas. Like the later patriarch of Venice Antonio Contarini, Bishop Rudolph saw the greater threat to the church in the laxness of morals within women's convents and abbeys. Notice the reflection of the campanile of San Pietro de Castello in Venice, as it towers over the Rio di la Vergini. Contarini built that.
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all quotes and pagination from Peasant Fires: The Drummer of Niklashausen by Richard Wunderli, Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis, 1992.