German Peasants: Did you mean...?

A rapier made by German swordmaker Meves Berns c. 1610-1620 CE. Steel blade, hilt decorated with silver and copper wire. Solingen, Germany. 120.2 cm (47 5/16 in). (Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art)

Medieval serfs (aka villeins) were unfree labourers who worked the land of a landowner (or tenant) in return for physical and legal protection and the right to work a separate piece of land for their own basic needs. Serfs made up 75% of...

The Shimabara Rebellion was a peasant uprising that occurred from 17 December 1637 to 15 April 1638 in Japan's southern island of Kyushu. Economic desperation, famine, and religious persecution led the peasants of the Shimabara peninsular...

The Protestant Reformation (1517-1648) was one of the most significant cultural, political, and religious events in the history of Europe and helped shape the modern world. It was a complex event spanning over 100 years, which radically changed...

So, we haven't talked much about Italy and Germany so far in Crash Course Euro, and that's because prior to the mid-19th Century CE, those two nation-states weren't really a thing. Today we'll look at how Italy and Germany pulled it together...

Medieval European Manorialism (Manorial System) was the system where rural society was arranged around a manor house or castle on an estate. The smallest units of these estates were called manors. Free and unfree labourers here worked the...

Martin Luther (l. 1483-1546) was a German priest, monk, and theologian who became the central figure of the religious and cultural movement known as the Protestant Reformation. Even though earlier reformers had expressed Luther's views, his...

The Anschluss ('fusion') of 12 March 1938 was the annexation and formal union of Austria with Germany. Adolf Hitler (1889-1945), the Nazi leader of Germany, dreamed of an empire which enclosed all German speakers, his 'Greater Germany'. Hitler's...

Andreas Karlstadt (also given as Carlstadt, l. 1486-1541) was a reformer, theologian, and early supporter of Martin Luther (l. 1483-1546) in the movement that became known as the Protestant Reformation. Karlstadt was one of Luther's most...

The Black Death was a plague pandemic that devastated medieval Europe from 1347 to 1352. The Black Death killed an estimated 25-30 million people. The disease originated in central Asia and was taken to the Crimea by Mongol warriors and traders...