Posted on 07/18/2021 9:24:12 PM PDT by CheshireTheCat
On this date in 1476, a peasant preacher who nearly stirred a revolution was consigned to the flames in Wurzburg.
Hans Behem (or similar variations on that surname, e.g. Bohm or Boheim) is known to posterity as the Drummer of Niklashausen, for when he descended into that Tauber River town for Carnival he performed with this instrument.
His vocation — his peasant’s lot in life — was sheep-herding.
One frigid Lent night in 1476, a year when the protracted winter freeze promised gaunt months ahead for the peasantry, Hans was wrapped in his heavy cloak watching his flock when he had an unexpected visitor:
The Virgin Mary appeared to him.
Richard Wunderli’s very appealing Peasant Fires: The Drummer of Niklashausen situates this queer episode in the foreign world of the early modern peasantry, when the supernatural suffused everyday life and the seasons of the year elapsed in “ritualized joy, laughter, deprivation, and seriousness.
Carnival, just ended, was “liminal time”: time for inversion of natural orders, time for foolishness, time for liberation. If the rite confined and discharged potential social pressures, “liminal time” also held a latent threat to the ordered world of lords and bishops. What happened if sublime religious revelation burst the calendar’s boundaries and flooded ordinary time with the liminal?
[The Virgin] told him that both God and her Son were angry with mankind and were chastising all peoples with the dreadful cold and snow. People were consumed by their vanities, she said, and did not worship the Heavenly Family as was their due … Hans was ordered to go to the portal of the village church of Niklashausen, the Frauen kirche, the church dedicated to the Virgin, and there publicly he was to burn his drum and his shepherd’s pipe....
(Excerpt) Read more at executedtoday.com ...
One frigid Lent night in 1476, a year when the protracted winter freeze promised gaunt months ahead for the peasantry,
_______________
Another victim of climate change!
It is real, folks!
> Another victim of climate change! It is real, folks! <
Darn near every bad thing is due to climate change. That’s what Al Gore told me, anyways.
A very interesting story. I usually avoid your entries here, as being far too morbid for the mood I’m in, but I was somehow drawn into this one. Something about the beginning of Han’s fame reminds me of young Greta, the sad faced Swedish girl now being used by many to preach propoganda.
Yope,
They were burning too much cow dung then.
Too bad Al Gore was not born yet! He would instruct them.
This was one of the many peasant’s revolts. Interesting that this preached a form of communism.
Hans Behem, Drummer of Niklashausen
Niklashausen ROCKED, man!! Proto-proto-proto-metal band. Of course, it’s always the drummer who suffers an early death.
You mean BMW, Volkswagen and Audi were around and polluting the air and cause climate change... 🤓
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.