The 500th anniversary of the German peasant uprising has brought renewed attention to the tens of thousands of farmers and townsfolk who came together in 1524–25 with demands for religious, political, and social change influenced by the new religious concepts of the Reformation. Kenneth G. Appold's book looks to theology and religious practice to understand the gulf between the peasants’ actions and the authorities’ excessive responses championed by Martin Luther. Appold examines each side's understanding of concepts like godly law and spiritual liberation to see how groups using similar religious language could diverge so starkly. Appold finds that Luther's inward-focused, text-based, intellectual vision of “his gospel” (173) contrasted with the peasants’ sacralization of everyday life and embodied ritual experience of religion, leading to a mutual incomprehensibility that had tragic results for some 100,000 German peasants.

Since past histories of the peasant uprising have relied heavily on the writings of the victors, it seems appropriate that Appold dedicates most of this book to understanding peasant motivations and behavior. Appold finds that the actions of the peasants reveal restorationist rather than revolutionary goals: they defended ancient traditions of mutuality under feudalism and, whenever possible, attempted to use legal avenues to re-establish the former balance of obligations between peasants and nobility that had become skewed by excessive demands by the lords. In the March 1525 peasant raids on the abbey of Kempten and Schemmerberg Castle, Appold argues that the peasants “reclaimed what they felt was rightfully theirs” and “aimed at restorative justice” (62) when they redistributed the lords’ stores of grain and other possessions to villagers but carefully avoided any violence against persons.

Appold draws particular attention to the ritual aspect of the conflict. At Weinsberg, peasants inverted authorities’ traditional practices of ritual honor by holding their own trial for the Count and sending sixteen noblemen through the gauntlet. But Weinsberg was a unique situation: in almost all cases, even where they appeared to have the upper hand, the peasants avoided bloodshed and retreated rather than engaging in battle. Appold argues that this puzzling inaction by the peasants may be tied to embodied cognition in the ritual of the mass. As the priest concentrated the power of God into the elements of the Eucharist, the people turned to one another and shared the kiss of peace before moving toward the altar to consume the host. This not only sacralized communal peace, but it also created an inherent logic associating peace with sacrifice. As Appold puts it, “[t]his was a lesson they absorbed every week” and, during the revolt of 1525, “[m]any peasants made such a sacrifice” (117). Violence was a desecration that could further upset a divine social order already strained by the excessive demands of noble landlords; the peasants had to act in a way that promoted equilibrium, just as they performed rituals and deployed powerful words and objects to ensure good weather and successful harvests.

Appold contends that Luther's emotional, vitriolic, and “unhinged” (8) response to the peasant uprising stems from the reformer's crisis of personal authority as well as his inability to understand the peasants’ concerns and the practical ritual theology that energized their movement. For Luther, peasants were “a construct, assembled from stock tropes and medieval prejudices” (154) rather than real people with legitimate claims; this led Luther to dehumanize the rebels and call for their destruction and eternal damnation. Luther saw the conflict in theological terms as an existential conflict against Satan, who possessed the rebellious peasants with his demons. Luther's call for the immediate suppression of the peasant movement and execution of all those involved was not so much about maintaining order or gaining political favor as preventing cosmic chaos. As for the peasants’ invocation of divine law and spiritual freedom, Appold argues that these concepts meant entirely different things to Luther, who saw them in spiritual rather than material terms and conceived of liberation as an intellectual, inward process. Appold contends that even Thomas Müntzer, a reforming pastor who participated in the revolt, failed to grasp the peasants’ theological vision.

Appold assumes that his readers are fluent in German and familiar with Luther's writings against the peasants. The book would be more accessible to a wider audience of scholars with the addition of key texts from Luther, the Twelve Articles of the Peasants, and more careful attention to translation of quotations in the text. And this is a book that deserves broad academic readership. It is a fascinating and thought-provoking addition to the literature on the peasant uprising of 1525 that takes seriously the peasants’ invocation of religious concepts. It is a good model for how a close examination of ritual actions can bring voice to illiterate peoples of the past and offer explanations for otherwise inexplicable behavior. And it offers an analysis of Luther's writings against the peasants that take seriously their theological content in the context of Luther's mental world in early 1525. Scholars of any field who are interested in ritual, peasant behavior, the relationship of religion to power, or Lutheran theology will find much to consider after reading this book.