Quiz: The Peasant War in Germany

All 33 questions. A perfect score earns the gold medal; 80% earns silver.

1. 1. Who commanded the Swabian League’s troops, called “the Alba of the Peasant War”?

   Georg Truchsess of Waldburg Charles V Landgrave Philipp of Hesse Duke Anthony of Lorraine
2. 2. Which knight did the Odenwald peasants consider making their commander?

   Florian Geyer Götz von Berlichingen Franz von Sickingen Ulrich von Hutten, the humanist
3. 3. In the 1870 preface, who does Engels say profited from the revolution of 1525, and from that of 1848?

   The peasants both times The princes in 1525; the big princes, Austria and Prussia, in 1848 The burghers both times The church and the knights in 1525, the workers and petty bourgeois in 1848
4. 4. What do the peasants promise in the conclusion of the Twelve Articles?

   To accept the princes’ rule if only serfdom and the tithes were abolished To drop any article shown by Scripture to be against God’s word To leave Germany and found a new community in Bohemia To fight on until every one of the articles is granted
5. 5. What did Thomas Muenzer preach as the believers’ task?

   To restore the papacy To await patiently their salvation in the next life To obey the princes To establish the kingdom of God here on earth
6. 6. Where was Muenzer’s army defeated in 1525?

   Frankenhausen Weinsberg Mühlhausen Böblingen
7. 7. Whose conception of the Peasant War, which overestimated the knights, does Riazanov contrast with Marx and Engels’s?

   Kautsky’s Bebel’s Lassalle’s Bakunin’s
8. 8. Which tithe do the Twelve Articles refuse to pay?

   The great tithe on grain All taxes and tolls owed to the emperor and the princes Rent to the lord The small (“unseemly”) tithe, as of man’s invention
9. 9. On which three sides does Engels praise the German workers for conducting their struggle (1874)?

   Theoretical, political and practical economic Military, religious and cultural Local, national and international Legal, illegal and parliamentary
10. 10. What does Engels call both the chief result of the war and the cause of its failure?

    The growth of the free imperial towns The Reformation of Luther and Zwingli The decentralisation of Germany The power of the church and the monasteries
11. 11. What does Engels call “the worst thing that can befall a leader of an extreme party”?

    To be defeated in battle and see his followers scattered and executed To be betrayed by his followers to the princes at the decisive moment To take power before the movement is ripe for the rule of the class he represents To be imprisoned and silenced before the movement he leads has reached its height
12. 12. In which imperial city did Muenzer publish an inciting paper and later take power?

    Nuremberg Augsburg Wittenberg Mühlhausen
13. 13. From whose history did Engels take all his material on the peasant revolts and Muenzer?

    Janssen’s Mommsen’s Ranke’s Zimmermann’s
14. 14. How large were the armies that defeated the insurgents, compared with the insurgent masses?

    About equal in numbers, though far better armed Twice as large, and much better armed and led Ten times as large as all the peasant bands Usually hardly one-tenth of their number
15. 15. What does Engels call “the misfortune of the German bourgeoisie”?

    To have been too revolutionary in 1848, frightening the princes into reaction To have come too late, when bourgeoisies elsewhere were already declining To have no industry worth the name, so that it remained dependent on the state To have come too early, before the proletariat was strong enough to support it
16. 16. Which prince, much praised by Protestant historians for his piety, assembled a corps against the Thuringian peasants?

    The Elector Palatine Ulrich of Württemberg Landgrave Philipp of Hesse Frederick the Wise
17. 17. Who led the Knights’ Revolt of 1522–23?

    Truchsess and the Landgrave of Hesse Götz von Berlichingen and Florian Geyer of Giebelstadt Franz von Sickingen and Ulrich von Hutten Luther and Melanchthon
18. 18. Whose chiliastic writings were a main subject of Muenzer’s studies, according to Engels?

    John Calvin Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam Bernard of Clairvaux (Saint Bernard) Joachim of Calabria (Joachim of Floris)
19. 19. What does the First of the Twelve Articles demand?

    The abolition of the death duty taken from widows and orphans The right to hunt game and to fish in the running waters The abolition of serfdom, since Christ redeemed all men That each community choose its own pastor and be able to depose him
20. 20. Which Franconian knight joined the peasants with his troop?

    Florian Geyer Ulrich von Hutten Georg Truchsess Franz von Sickingen
21. 21. What were the Twelve Articles?

    Luther’s theses against indulgences of 1517 The imperial constitution of the Diet of Worms The peasants’ programme of March 1525 The Swabian League’s terms of surrender
22. 22. What does Engels say the German ideologists of his day saw in medieval struggles?

    Nothing but violent theological bickerings Class struggles National wars Economic crises and quarrels over trade routes
23. 23. Which class suffered most from the Peasant War, according to Engels?

    The burghers The knights The clergy The princes
24. 24. Which two secret conspiracies prepared the Peasant War?

    The Union Shoe (Bundschuh) and the Poor Konrad The Anabaptists and the Bohemian Hussites The Swabian League and the Protestant Schmalkaldic League The Hanseatic League and the Teutonic Order
25. 25. What did the burgher heresy demand first of all?

    The abolition of all private property Equality of all men A new pope A “cheap church” (église à bon marché)
26. 26. Who commanded the great Hungarian peasant rising of 1514?

    Jan Hus John Hunyadi Matthias Corvinus György Dózsa, a Szekler
27. 27. Who was “the only noted military talent among all the peasant chiefs”, leading the Tyrolean insurgents?

    Geismaier Muenzer Rohrbach Metzler
28. 28. What happened to Luther as the movement grew, according to Engels?

    He left Germany for Switzerland and withdrew from all political questions He dropped the popular elements for the burghers, nobles and princes He became more radical, joined Muenzer and preached revolt against the princes He was arrested and executed by the Emperor for his heresies and his defence of the peasants
29. 29. Which anniversary does Riazanov’s 1925 introduction mark?

    One hundred years since Engels’s birth Fifty years since the Paris Commune of 1871 The centenary of the French Revolution Four hundred years since the great Peasant War
30. 30. What were the so-called religious wars of the sixteenth century, according to Engels?

    Wars between nations, fought for territory and trade under religious banners Wars of personal ambition among princes, using faith as a pretext Purely theological disputes over doctrine, with no material basis at all Class wars, with material interests hidden behind a religious screen
31. 31. Who was the shepherd and musician of Niklashausen who led a movement in 1476?

    Joss Fritz, the leader of the Union Shoe Jäcklein Rohrbach Hans Boeheim, “the Drum-Beater” or “the Piper” Thomas Muenzer
32. 32. How does Engels distinguish the revolution of 1848 from the Peasant War, despite the analogies?

    1848 was a pure victory, while the Peasant War ended in defeat 1848 was a religious war fought out between the Catholic and the Protestant states 1848 belonged to Europe’s progress as a whole, and its defeat was not final 1848 involved no princes at all, being purely a struggle of workers and bourgeois
33. 33. How does Engels characterise the lumpenproletariat in the 1870 preface?

    The scum of the decaying elements of all classes, the worst of allies Honest but poor workers, temporarily driven out of employment The vanguard of the revolution, the most daring of all the oppressed Peasants who moved to the towns and have not yet found factory work