Customer Reviews

Peasant Fires: The Drummer of Niklashausen

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The peasants in medieval society remain silent in history, neither speaking themselves through writings they were not able to produce or being ignored by the literate classes of the aristocracy or clergy, until those occasional moments when the peasants turn their despair into anger and their enemies cannot write enought about them. Richard Wunderli captures simply and perfectly one of these moments in Peasant Fires (The Drummer of Niklashausen) when the peasants in Southern Germany are led on a very brief pilgrimage by the enigmatic peasant/shephard Hans Behem and his visions of Mary that threaten to turn the society upside down. The author is great at capturing this period of time for the reader and setting the stage for the main event. It is unfortunate that the main event itself could not be meatier but that is not the point. A smaller eruption in society such as this is appropriate for this little volume. It allows the general reader into medieval history a chance to get a clear look at an interesting time. A well-written and presented book.

Peasanta fires is an interesting, imaginative account of the pilgrimage of Niklashausen. Richard Wunderli has done a good job of recreating the story of Hans Behem and the pilgrimage of Niklashausen in 1476. The ever-present and extremley important themes that run throughout the book are that of pilgrimage, indulgences, and social classes. Although some of the story is the imagination of Wunderli himself, he clearly explains the story of Hans Behem. This novel is a useful tool when studying the history of Germany in the 15th and 16th centuries. It is not the usual reading material that one would find when learning about history. Nonetheless, it gives a different perspective than that of a usual textbook.

This book created a new insight into the way we look at peasants. It is quite difficult to assemble together a story this well, and the parts that Wunderli creates seem believable considering the context of the novel. In addition, it shows how peasant life revolved around the festivals and that the time inbetween was rather dead time. It helped me look at the life and struggles of peasants (even the oppression) in a whole new light.

First, the book has some ideas that are certainly out there. I don't particularily like the use of imagination in history, but I think when Wunderli uses it he does it correctly. He does nto base his whole book on it, and quickly he admitts that it was imagined only to give the reader an idea of what could have happened based on what we know of sermons, etc.

Second, his examination of peasants in 15th century Germany is quite good. He tries to show how carnivals were a period when social status did not matter and people could escape the horros of their everyday life. Also, in context of a series of bad Bishops, Wunderli places Hans Behem. His movement does show how peasants were outraged at clerical corruption, which could and does in part explain the violence of the wars of religion in the 16th century.

Last, Wunderli makes a great point at the end of the book when he states that historians will understand us better than we do. There is a lot of merit to this. How many people supported or opposed Bush, yet how many of those people actually had a REAl clue to what really happened. I would say almost none. Nobody really knows the truth behind the Bush admin, and most of us never will. In 60+ years some historian will be able to look at a plethora of sources in order to reconstruct his administration. The picture will be clearer, and a better understanding will emerge.

The books is very entertaining, at some points its out there, but it is very good. If you are into histories that try to look at the people without a voice, I would suggests The Cheese and the Worms as well.

I almost always find it problematic when a historian claims to be able to speak for, and interpret, the mindset of people or groups of people who've left little trace in the sources. Wunderli's reconstruction of the worldview of late medieval German peasants is imaginative, but one wonders how much is accurate. He claims, for instance, that late-medieval people lived not in linear calendar time like today's people do, but in "enchanted time," a series of intersections between the workaday world and the "other world." I'm not sure this is the case -- even today a modern person might remember something as having occurred between Christmas and Easter, but that doesn't tell us much at all about that person's overall cosmology and mental framework. Likewise, his view of the social tensions that "must have" existed; the motives that "must" explain actions, etc. are all rooted in his own interpretative framework. His last chapter is particularly problematic; he implies that our own actions on the stage of history will only be finally interpreted coorectly by later historians with a presumably broader viewpoint. This whole approach privileges the interpretations of the historian over that of the subjects of history and turns us all into objects of mysterious historical forces; it also presumes a "correct" interpretation that can only be known to the historian.

I enjoyed this read very much. I am very much a student of German history and especially around the time of the reformation. This book was a good source of the days before Luther and the impact on later happenings.

I bought this for a history course for this summer. It was an interesting read and provided a new way of looking at society during the boon of the witch hunts - the way the church wielded most of the power. Those who the church viewed as going against them, who dared suggest there could be a better way, were persecuted. This was an interesting way of presenting the information.