Title: Where Luther Got It Wrong: The Peasants' Revolt - Way To LEAD
Headings: Where Luther Got It Wrong: The Peasants’ Revolt
Where Luther Got It Wrong: The Peasants’ Revolt
Content: In Luther’s day, the vast majority of Europeans did not live in cities. According to Princeton Reformation scholar Kenneth Appold, most Europeans were rural peasants living in some form of feudal servitude. Since 95% of them did not know how to read or write, their names are not known, and their story is often not told in books chronicling the events of the Reformation. Long before Luther was born, in the mid-14th century, the Black Plague began to devastate Europe. The Black Plague, also known as the Black Death or the Bubonic Plague killed over 100 million people, around half of Europe. The Plague had a curious consequence. As the populations of Europe were decimated, there was a considerable surplus of grain. With 100 million less mouths to feed, there was more grain than needed. The laws of supply and demand being what they are, this superabundance of food led to steep drop in the price of grain. The result, of course, meant that the lords of a predominately agrarian economy got a considerable haircut.