The rising began at Stuehlingen, not far from the Swiss frontier, in June 1524, and spread with considerable rapidity northward, until the greater part of Germany was in the throes of revolution. The rebels were able to make headway because most of the regular troops had been withdrawn to the Turkish front or to Italy to fight the emperor's battle against France. In South Germany, during the first six months, the gatherings of peasants and townsmen were eminently peaceable. They wished only to negotiate with their masters and to secure some practical reforms. But when the revolt spread to Franconia and Saxony, a much more radically socialistic program was developed and the rebels showed themselves readier to enforce their demands by arms. For the year 1524 there {92} was no general manifesto put forward, but there were negotiations between the insurgents and their quondam masters. In this district or in that, lists of very specific grievances were presented and redress demanded. In some cases merely to gain time, in others sincerely, the lords consented to reply to these petitions. They denied this or that charge, and they promised to end this or that form of oppression. Neither side was prepared for civil war. In all it was more like a modern strike than anything else. In the early months of 1525 several programs were drawn up of a more general nature than those previously composed, and yet by no means radical. The most famous of these was called _The Twelve Articles_, printed and widely circulated in February. [Sidenote: _The Twelve Articles_] The exact place at which they originated is unknown. The authorship has been much disputed, and necessarily so, for they were the work of no one brain, but were as composite a production as is the Constitution of the United States. The material in them is drawn from the mouths of a whole people. Far more than in other popular writings one feels that they are the genuine expression of the public opinion of a great class. Probably their draftsman was Sebastian Lotzer, the tanner who for years past had preached apostolic communism. It is not impossible that the Anabaptist Balthasar Huebmaier had a hand in them. Their demands are moderate and would be considered matters of self-evident justice to-day. The first article is for the right of each community to choose its own pastor. The second protests against the minor tithes on vegetables paid to the clergy, though expressly admitting the legality of the tithes on grain. The third article demands freedom for the serfs, the fourth and fifth, ask for the right to hunt and to cut wood in the forests. The sixth, seventh and eighth articles {93} protest against excessive forced labor, illegal payments and exorbitant rents. The ninth article denounces the new (Roman) law, and requests the reestablishment of the old (German) law. The tenth article voices the indignation of the poor at the enclosure by the rich of commons and other free land.