Political and Religious Dynamics of the Holy Roman Empire

Welcome back to the third season of The Verso Podcast! To kick off this run of shiny new episodes we’re taking a bit of a detour into the past, to have a closer look at the protestant reformation. This was a turbulent time in history - of tyrants, merchants, popes, peasants and roving priests - when early capitalist forms of power were just beginning to unsettle the old order. Together with our host, Eleanor Penny, Andrew Drummond and Eleanor Janega paint a detailed picture of the social and political terrain from which the seeds of the German peasants’ war sprang. In particular, they’ll be considering the role played by a socially radical preacher named Thomas Müntzer - a rival to the more well known Martin Luther - and why exactly the historical record has cast him in such an unfavourable light. Grab a copy of Andrew's book, The Dreadful History and Judgement of God on Thomas Müntzer: The Life and Times of an Early German Revolutionary, here: tinyurl.com/3373pvkh