Reform and revolution: Jakob Hutter and Michael Gaismair
Reform and rebellion: Jakob Hutter and Michael Gaismair
The first years of Emperor Ferdinand I's reign (1503 - 1564) as sovereign of Tyrol were characterised by theological and social unrest. Theological and social tensions increased during this crisis-ridden period. Siegmund's lavish court management and Maximilian's wars, including the pledging of a large part of the state's assets to foreign entrepreneurs and financiers, had put Tyrol's financial situation in dire straits. The new law, which had been introduced by Maximilian's administration, stood in contrast to the old customary law. Hunting in the forest and searching for firewood had thus become illegal for the majority of the population. The loss of these Universal rights and the ever-increasing burden of taxes had a negative impact on small farmers, day labourers, farmhands and other labourers. Pofel massive impact. In Tyrol at this time, Jakob Hutter (1500 - 1536) and Michael Gaismair (1490 - 1532) were two men who demanded more social justice, threatened the existing order and paid for it with their lives.
Jakob Hutter was the figurehead of the Anabaptists, who were mainly active in the Inn Valley and the Puster Valley in South Tyrol. The first signs of the Little Ice Age caused an increase in crop failures. Many people saw this as a punishment from God for people's sinful lives. Sects such as the Anabaptists preached the pure doctrine of religion in order to free themselves from this guilt and restore order. The Roman Church and Ferdinand I were particularly displeased by their attitude towards worldly possessions and baptism and their openly displayed aversion to secular and ecclesiastical authorities. People should freely express their will to join Christianity as adult and responsible citizens and not be baptised as children. The Anabaptists posed a threat to public order for the strictly religious Prince Ferdinand, who was loyal to the Pope. A large proportion of the population, groaning under the financial difficulties following Maximilian's expensive reign, welcomed them as scapegoats who brought disaster upon the country with their godless behaviour. As early as 1524, three Anabaptists were burned at the stake for heresy in front of the Golden Roof in Innsbruck. Five years later, thousands of Anabaptists were expelled from the country and emigrated to Moravia, today's Czech Republic.
One of them was Hutter. Having grown up in South Tyrol, his apprenticeship and journeyman years as a hatter took him to Prague and Carinthia, where he probably first came into contact with the Anabaptists and their teachings. When the religious community was also expelled from Moravia in 1535, Jakob Hutter returned to Tyrol. He was captured, taken to Innsbruck and imprisoned in the Kräuterturm tortured. As the leader of the heretics for his activities in 1536, he was tried before the Goldenen Dachl burnt at the stake.
The community of Hutterischen Brüder kam nach ihrer endgültigen Vertreibung aus den deutschen Ländern und langen Irrfahrten und Fluchten quer durch Europa im 19. Jahrhundert in Nordamerika an. Noch heute gibt es einige hundert Hutterer Kolonien in Kanada und den USA, die noch immer nach dem Gebot der Jerusalemer Gütergemeinschaft in einer Art kommunistischem Urchristentum leben. Wie die Mennoniten und die Amisch leben die Hutterer meist isoliert von der Außenwelt und haben sich eine eigene Form der an das Deutsche angelehnten Sprache erhalten. In Innsbruck erinnern eine kleine Tafel am Goldenen Dachl sowie eine Straße im Westen der Stadt an Jakob Hutter. 2008 hatten die Bischöfe von Brixen und Innsbruck gemeinsam mit den Landeshauptleuten Nord- und Südtirols in einem Brief an den Ältestenrat der Hutterischen Brüder das knapp 500 Jahre vergangene Unrecht an der Täufergemeinschaft eingestanden. 2015 wurde im Saggen eein paar Schritte südwestlich des Panoramagebäudes der Huttererpark eröffnet, in dem das Denkmal „Übrige Brocken“ an das Schicksal und Leid der Verfolgten erinnert.
Der größte Aufruhr im Zuge der Reformation in Tirol war der Bauernaufstand ab 1525, der eng mit dem Namen Michael Gaismairs verbunden ist. Anders als Hutter, der vor allem eine spirituelle Erneuerung forderte, wollte Gaismair auch soziale Veränderungen vorantreiben. Der Tiroler Aufstand war ein Teil dessen, was als Deutscher Bauernkrieg große Teile des Heiligen Römischen Reiches was shaken. It was partly reformist, theological fervour, partly dissatisfaction with the social situation and distribution of goods that drove the rebels. Gaismair was not a theologian. He was the son of a mining entrepreneur, one could say educated middle class. He probably studied law at an Italian university before becoming a mine clerk at the Schwaz mine. In 1518 he entered the service of the Tyrolean governor Leonhard von Völs, where he gained military and administrative experience. In 1524, presumably after some kind of corruption scandal, he moved into the service of the Bishop of Brixen. The bishop was both the ecclesiastical and secular prince of his diocese. He was very unpopular with his subjects, as he was considered a strict ruler and demanded more robbery and indentured labour than the Tyrolean ruler. Here, Gaismair saw first-hand how the clergy's sovereign administration and strict jurisdiction enslaved the subjects.
In May 1525, he took part in one of the many uprisings that were also fuelled by news of the peasant uprisings in southern Germany. Many of the Tyrolean subjects had served as soldiers in Maximilian's Italian wars and had military experience. Although they had no cavalry at their disposal and lacked strategic leadership, some of the groups were organised in a military sense. They were joined by discontented townspeople, handers and other Pofel. One of these bands of peasants invaded the Neustift monastery. Not only were the bishop's property and wine stocks plundered, but the Urbare, the records relating to jurisdiction, property, debts and obligations of the peasants to the lord of the manor, were also destroyed. The day after the monastery was taken, the rebels elected Gaismair as their captain.
The uprising gained momentum in an uncoordinated manner and spread throughout the country. Everywhere there were attacks on church institutions and hated foreign trading organisations such as the Fuggers. While some of the detachments and groups made serious demands and posed a real threat to the authorities, others were out for the fun of rebellion and looting. In Innsbruck, Wilten Abbey was besieged as a manorial seat, but the peasants quickly abandoned their plan after receiving wine and meat from the abbot's storehouses.
To gain time, the government under Ferdinand convened a provincial parliament in Innsbruck. The concerns of the subjects were set out in a catalogue of complaints, the 62 Merano articles collected later on 96 Innsbruck articles were extended. During the negotiations between the sovereigns, nobility, clergy, burghers and peasants, Gaismair continued to reside in Brixen and tried to establish his regiment in the area along the Eisack.
It was only during the summer that he travelled to Innsbruck to negotiate with Ferdinand. Although he was promised free passage, the man who represented the greatest danger in the eyes of the authorities was imprisoned. After his rather unspectacular escape in October 1525, it seems unlikely that he was actually imprisoned in the Kräuterturm. After some time in his home town of Sterzing, the prince's troops seem to have been unable to gain access to the Most Wanted having had a chance, he travelled to the Swiss West. In Zurich, he met Huldyrich Zwingli. Probably inspired by him, Gaismair wrote a draft for a Tyrolean constitution. The clergy were to concern themselves with the salvation of their subjects rather than politics. Land and goods such as mining yields were to be distributed in a socially just manner and interest was to be abolished. The restrictions on hunting and fishing imposed on the Tyroleans by Ferdinand's predecessor Maximilian I were to be lifted. One of the articles read:
„As far as the tithe is concerned, everyone should give it according to the commandment of God, and it should be used as follows: Let every parish have a priest according to the teaching of the Apostle Paul, whom the word of God proclaims to the people... what is left over is to be given to the poor."
The rebellions in the county of Tyrol and the prince-bishoprics of Brixen and Trento had collapsed in the meantime. Prince Ferdinand had regained control through skilful negotiations and concessions to the complaint catalogues. The ringleaders, including Gaismair's brother Hans, had fled or been cruelly and demonstratively executed. Michael Gaismair and some of his men travelled from Graubünden to the southern part of Salzburg and took part in the Salzburg Peasants' Revolt of 1526.
The reputation of his military successes reached the Republic of Venice, which had been in constant conflict with the Habsburgs since the war with Siegmund the Rich in Coin in 1477. Gaismair was recognised as Condottiereas an army commander. However, he soon fell out of favour here too. Not only did the Doge of Venice make peace with the Habsburgs, but his anti-Catholic stance and unconventional lifestyle also aroused envy and envy. In 1532, he was murdered at his country residence near Venice with more than 40 stab wounds. It is not clear which of the many powers he had antagonised was behind this, but the contract killers were probably commissioned by the royal court in Innsbruck.
No less interesting than his life is his post-mortem career. Gaismair never made it to the general fame of Andreas Hofer in Tyrol. To this day, he is hardly ever talked about in schools. Unlike Hofer, who rose up as a good Catholic against a foreign power, Gaismair was an insurgent, an unpleasant and lateral thinker. A play about the peasant leader by Franz Kranewitter was published in 1899. In the 20th century, Gaismair was interpreted as a fighter against the monarchy and clergy, by the National Socialists as a German hero and liberator of the peasants or by the left as an early communist. The generation of 1968 celebrated the actually pious and God-fearing revolutionary for his ideas on the communisation of property. The Tyrolean journalist and historian Claus Gatterer wrote about the constant reinterpretation of the figure of Gaismair:
„How much truth is a people allowed to know about its past, about the growth and development of its present? .... According to the respective ideology, long-deserved heroes and saints are toppled from their pedestals and replaced by others who have been disregarded until then; or an established saint is given a new biography without further ado, which fits in with current requirements in terms of the motivation for action.“
Unlike Andreas Hofer, there are hardly any memorials in Innsbruck to Michael Gaismair and the peasants' revolt of 1525. In Wilten, a street and a secondary school named after him commemorate him.
Michael Gaismaire's Land Ordinance of 1526
During his escape in Klosters, Michael Gaismair wrote a draft for a Tyrolean provincial constitution with 28 articles:
In this way we will vow and swear to put body and soul together, not to depart from one another, but to lift and lay one upon the other, but at all times to act according to counsel, to be faithful and obedient to your appointed authority, and in all things not to take possession, but first of all to seek the favour of God and then the common good, so that the Almighty God may give us grace and assistance (as he has given to all those who obey his commandments). In this we are to trust completely, then he is completely true and deceives no one.
That all ungodly men who reject the eternal word of God, who burden the common poor man and prevent the common good, may ride out and depart.
So that we will be on it and want to establish a completely Christian statute, which is based solely on the Holy Word of God in all things, and want to live by it completely.
All freedoms are to be abolished if they are contrary to the word of God and violate the law, in which no one is to be favoured over another.
All the rinkmasters at the towns, as well as all the castles and fortifications in the country, shall be cancelled and shall therefore not be in a town, but in a village, so that there shall be no disparity between the people, so that one shall not be higher or higher than the other, and so that there shall be no disorder, arrogance or rebellion in the whole country, but that there shall be a whole justice in the country.
All the pilgrims, the pilasters, the chapels that are not parish churches, and the masses in the whole country are to be abolished, because it is an abomination before God and is completely unchristian.
Let the word of God be preached faithfully and truly in the land of Gaismair everywhere, and let all sophistry and jurisprudence be ridden out and the same pigeons be burned.
The courts everywhere in the country are to be organised in the most convenient way, as are the parishes, so that they may be used at the least possible cost.
Every year, a judge and eight jurors shall be appointed for each court, who shall serve as judges for the same year.
If justice is to be administered every Monday and all matters are not to be raised above the other law, but are to be brought to an end on the following day, the judges, jurors, clerks, orators and court clerks and pots are not to be paid by anyone in the courts, but are to be paid by the state and are therefore to appear at the court every Monday at their expense and are to be subject to the court.
A regiment shall be appointed in the country, to which shall be added the most occasional place, as well as many priests' houses and other notturft in the centre of the country; and the regents shall be chosen from all four corners of the country, also some from the Pergwerch.
the appeal should be filed with the government from the outset and never to Merano, as there is no cost and no benefit in it, and it should be settled from the outset and finally submitted to the court for further consideration.
A high school shall be established in the place where the government of the land is, where the word of God shall be learned in all things, and three learned men from the high school, who know the word of God and are well versed in the divine scriptures (from which the righteousness of God may be learned in all things), shall sit in the government and judge and adjudicate all things according to the will of God, as belonging to his people.
For the sake of the interest, the entire province shall decide together, after consultation, whether it should be abolished from the outset or whether it should be kept for a free year according to the law of God and the interest collected in the meantime for the benefit of the province, then it is to be borne in mind that the whole province will have to pay for a war for some time.
For the sake of the customs duties, I am the main man's benefit, they are paid everywhere in the country, but they are levied on confines and thus what goes in the country is not paid for, but what goes out of the country is paid for.
The half of the token shall be given by every man according to the commandment of God and shall be administered in this way: in every parish there shall be a priest according to the emptiness of Paul, who shall proclaim the word of God, who shall be kept from the token with the first need, and the remaining token shall be given to poor people; but such an order shall be kept with the poor, no one shall go pettling from house to house, so that lottery, many useless people who like to work, shall be abolished.
The monasteries and German homes are to be turned into hospitals. In some of them the sick shall be together, who shall be well cared for with all care and medicine, in the others the elderly, who cannot work because of their parents, and the poor, uneducated children, who shall be taught and brought to school. And where there are poor people, they are to be paid according to the advice of each judge in his administration, as they are recognised by their past, according to the circumstances of their need, by the carpenter or almsman. If, however, the tax collector does not wish to pay for the maintenance of the parish priests and the poor, he shall only give his alms according to his own judgement. And if there is a shortage, full reimbursement should be made from the income. And in every hospital there shall be a hospital master, and for this purpose a public bailiff or ambassador shall be appointed over all hospitals and the poor, who shall do no other than prepare and take care of the poor for and on behalf of all hospitals and provide them with assistance; in addition, in all judges, one each in his administration, with a hearing of the poor and almsmen, and who shall also be of assistance to the poor. The poor are also not to be provided with food and drink in general, but with clothing and all necessities.
Item, so that good order is kept in the land everywhere in all things, there shall also be four captains and, in addition, a chief captain over the whole land, who shall be responsible in warfare and all things for and on behalf of the land, with the preparation of the land, the referees, the passages, paths, bridges, waterways, country roads and everything that is necessary in the land and to serve the land faithfully in all things; but they shall report all defects to the government after inspection and enquiry and act in accordance with its advice.
They should also make the meadows and pastures and other barren places in the country fertile and not allow the common use to be interrupted for the sake of a number of useful people. The meadows from Merano to Trento should all be ploughed, and the flocks, cows and sheep should be kept there, and much more grazing should be added in many places, so that the land was provided with meat. Oil palm should also be planted in many places, saffron should also be cultivated, and the vineyards on the land should be turned into vineyards*, red lagrein should be planted and cultivated, wine should be made as in the forests, and grapes should be cultivated in between if the land lacks grapes. As a result, the bad diseases of the moors disappeared and the land became fresher. Many diseases were stopped that came from the poor soil wine, the wine and grapes became wolfail and with low cost to work. But the perg vineyards, which could not be cultivated with grain, were left alone.
Item one shall every year at the appropriate time rob a whole grove in the fields and communes in each court, clear them and make a good forest and thus plough the land for and against. No one is to do business in the land, so that no one is tainted by the sound of usury. But in order that there should be no shortage and that good order should be maintained, and that no one should be overestimated and cheated, but that all things should be found in the right purchase and good value, a place should be found in the country, to be called Trento, halfway between the wolves and in my way, to which all trades should be carried out and transferred from the country, such as silkware, pirett, furniture, samat, shoes and others. And a general administrator shall be appointed over it, who shall sell all things. And what cannot be obtained in the country as root and other things shall be ordered outside. In addition, in some places, according to the situation, shops are held in the country, in which all kinds of fairs are held; and no money is to be counted on it, but only the cost that is paid for it. In this way, all fraud and falsehood was prevented and all things were to be kept at their right value, and the value would remain in the country and would be of great benefit to the common man. This ambassador over the merchant and his servants was given a certain salary.
A good, weak munition, as in the time of Duke Sigmund, is to be re-established and the present munition is to be driven out of the country and no foreign munition, neither much nor little, is to be taken, so that the value is to be tried and valued and what is worth for land use is to be utilised.
All chalices and chandeliers are to be taken from all churches and churches of the gods, and they are to be littered and used for the common good.
Good understanding should also be made with neighbouring countries. One should not allow the Zafairen to peddle in the country. A market should be held in the Etschland and one in the Inn Valley. A large sum of money is to be made available for forfeiture if the country is at war. And the nobles or other members of the family shall be charged for the maintenance of the court.
Of the Pergwerchs: First of all, all smelting works, tailpergwerch, ore, silver, copper and what belongs to them and may be entered in the country, which belong to the nobility and foreign merchants and companies as Fuckerisch, Höchstetterisch, Paumgarterisch, Pumblisch and the like, shall be confiscated to gmain Landshanden; then they shall have cheaply used them, then they have obtained their justice with unlawful weapons: Gelt to shed human pluets, likewise gmainen man and Arbaiter with fraud and evil war in high Gelt, zwier mer, weders beswert gwesen, seins Lidlons bezalt, auch das Gwurz und andere War durch ieren Furkauf vertaurt und Ursache ringer Munz gwesen; and all the lords of the mint who buy silver from them have to pay according to their deeds, or use the mint against the poor, and they have to pay their lids to the poor, so that they are not reimbursed by the lords of the mint in their ore purchase; but all the merchants' goods, from which they have all been brought into their hands, have been increased in a higher purchase. And thus the whole world was shamed with this unchristian witchcraft, and through it their princely fortunes were judged, which were then to be justly punished and cancelled.
Accordingly, an official factor shall be appointed by the state to oversee all perkwerchsachen, who shall handle all matters and verify them annually. And no one shall be allowed to smuggle, but the country shall have all doctors smuggle through its appointed factor, the doctors' call shall be determined according to the pillar, and in return the arbiter shall be paid for all the work with a fair price and with no penalty, so that the people of the country and the people of the perk may remain in good peace with each other.
In the same way, good order should be kept in the manor house and a proper income from the perk should be made for the country, so that the government of the country can be maintained with all the necessary offices and insurance, but if there is a shortage in this for the country and a sufficient income for the provision of the country cannot be obtained, then a tax or an interest payment must be paid so that an equal purd is carried in the country. Every effort should also be made and the cost of the land should be paid so that perks may be raised and cultivated in more places in the land, so that the land may receive the most revenue from the perks.
Sights to see...
Wilten Abbey
Klostergasse 7
Goldenes Dachl
Herzog Friedrich Straße