{"id":99,"date":"2017-11-06T09:21:07","date_gmt":"2017-11-06T14:21:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/hist233\/?p=99"},"modified":"2017-11-06T09:59:36","modified_gmt":"2017-11-06T14:59:36","slug":"peasants-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/hist233\/2017\/11\/06\/peasants-justice\/","title":{"rendered":"Peasant Justice"},"content":{"rendered":"

The term \u201cPeasant Justice\u201d refers to a moral code that peasants, primarily
\nagricultural farmers living in the Middle Ages, wanted to achieve. Peasants sought
\njustice in terms of equality before God. They were critical of the luxury and vanity of
\nother nobles and priests who expected them to pay taxes, tolls, and duties and demand
\nother \u201cpeasant obligations.\u201d In the Middle Ages, European peasants composed of the
\nlowest class, but these agricultural workers sought to fix the
\nworld and religion in their own way, what historians call
\n\u201cpeasant justice.\u201d<\/p>\n

Peasants lived close to poverty and often faced periods of
\nfamine. If they did not obey God, they would be punished with cold, hunger and death.
\nIn this part, peasants justice was to obey God to avoid punishment.
\nBoth festivals and folk humor displayed aspects of equality that peasants
\ndreamed of. Carnival is one example where peasants made fool of nobles and kings
\nwith abandon. Peasants also had a strange \u201cfolk humor\u201d that included \u201cReal cuckolds
\nand scolding wives and wife-beating husband were forced to ride an ass with their faces
\nturned to the tail, their neighbors beating pots and pans\u201d (Peasant Fires, page 24).
\nThese are examples of how peasants saw a more justice society.
\nBecause most peasants were illiterate and the Bible was written in Latin,
\npeasants could only listen to the priests\u2019 words about religion. At that time, the church\u2019s<\/p>\n

\"\"opinion was if a person wished to be solved and live in the ideal world after death, he
\nmust stay in poverty and pay for his sins. However, at
\nthe same time many local priests lost their morals and
\nbegan to take money from peasants. This is very
\nunfair to peasants because they just followed the church\u2019s word and pray to God blindly
\nunder the fear of punishment. \u201cThen when they bray like donkeys in church, repeating
\nby rote the psalms they haven\u2019t understood\u201d ( Desiderius Erasmus: Praise of Folly,
\n1509). When peasants just listened to the priests without the truth, their justice was to
\nreform the religion back to pure.<\/p>\n

Hans Behem, a peasant shepherder, was the leader of a peasant uprising. Hans
\ndiscovered the \u201cunfair sense\u201d of social inequality and supported Peasants Justice. He
\nbelieved that peasants had to know the truth about the real religion. As the spokesman
\nfor the God, Hans had to speak with other authorities, such as emperor and pope, who
\nalso claimed power that mandated from heaven to rule. The peasants rallied behind
\nHans while he spoke against the Pope.As an example, there is a folktale about a boy named Hansel who is also finding
\njustice like Hans. Hansel has magical flutes which can make people sing and dance. His
\nstepmother wanted to punish him because he was a \u201cdevil\u201d. On that day, Hansel found
\nhis \u201cjustice;\u201d he played the flute day and night. God promised nobody can hurt him
\nanymore. In this story, Hansel has the same justice as peasants. They hoped to live
\nwithout hostility which is their justice. However, Hans failed at that time and was caught
\nand fired.<\/p>\n

Reference<\/p>\n

The European Reformations Sourcebook. Edited by Carter Lindberg.(Oxford,2014)
\nPeasant Fires: The Drummer of Niklashausrn, by Richard Wunderli.(Indiana University
\nPress 1992)<\/p>\n

Extra Links<\/p>\n

Peasants\u2019 war: https:\/\/www.britannica.com\/event\/Peasants-War
\nWar of Peasants: http:\/\/www.newadvent.org\/cathen\/11597a.htm<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The term \u201cPeasant Justice\u201d refers to a moral code that peasants, primarily agricultural farmers living in the Middle Ages, wanted<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3671,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_layout":"default_layout","footnotes":""},"categories":[69547],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-critical-dictionary"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/hist233\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/hist233\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/hist233\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/hist233\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3671"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/hist233\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/hist233\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/hist233\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/hist233\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.richmond.edu\/hist233\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}