It is easy to take religious ideas out of context. It happens all the time – Luther, Augustine, and the Apostles have all been victims. the post below tries to look at the use of religious propaganda by the Evangelicals before and after the Peasant’s War of 1525. It’s easy to dismiss propaganda as inaccurate smear campaigns. What I wanted to do in the below post is examine two Evangelical (Lutheran) woodcut propaganda pieces from before and after the Peasant’s War in 1525 and ferret out their intended and unintended meanings.

Concurrent Metaphors : The Unsound Argument

The woodcuts were tremendously effective pieces of propaganda. The Evangelicals were able to wrap their message in concurrent layers, first in visual metaphor, and secondly in expository prose. The visual metaphors allowed for a wide-spread influence. However, with this powerful medium, there was danger of the onlooker misreading the image. However, most of the metaphors would work towards the propagandist’s favor. To help rectify this, the accompanying text acted to both clarify and deepen the meanings in the image. As it was designed to be read aloud, the text would affect the listener much easier than if it was written in standard prose. Both the text and the image worked in tandem to first identify with the onlooker/listener and associate his grievances with the Catholic Church. Launching off of this, the woodcut would then present the Evangelical counter-message. This tactic proved to be wildly successful, perhaps too successful, as evidenced by the Peasants War of 1525 CE. Like modern day political cartoons, each woodcut played on what was happening at the time of its creation. For the modern reader, the Evangelists woodcuts provide an excellent opportunity for study of the German society through the course of the Reformation.