Christoph Schappeler (1472 – August 25, 1551) was a German religious figure, reformer, and a preacher at St. Martin's in

Memmingen Memmingen (; Swabian: ''Memmenge'') is a town in Swabia, Bavaria, Germany. It is the economic, educational and administrative centre of the Danube-Iller region. To the west the town is flanked by the Iller, the river that marks the Baden-W� ...

during the early 16th century and during the

Protestant Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and i ...

and the

German Peasants' War The German Peasants' War, Great Peasants' War or Great Peasants' Revolt (german: Deutscher Bauernkrieg) was a widespread popular revolt in some German-speaking areas in Central Europe from 1524 to 1525. It failed because of intense oppositi ...

. He tended to side with the poor, causing the senate to regulate his sermons in 1516. However, by 1521 the climate had changed such that the senate was giving him support. When he was

excommunicated Excommunication is an institutional act of religious censure used to end or at least regulate the communion of a member of a congregation with other members of the religious institution who are in normal communion with each other. The purpose ...

in 1524, the Senate refused to follow the bishop's order to have him banished. It is believed that Schappeler and Sebastian Lotzer wrote ''The Twelve Articles: The Just and Fundamental Articles of All the Peasantry and Tenants of Spiritual and Temporal Powers by Whom They Think Themselves Oppressed'' in early 1525.Pettegree, Andrew, ed. (2004)
''The Reformation: Critical Concepts in Historical Studies''
Vol. 1, pp. 344–45. Routledge. Within two months of its initial publication in Memmingen, twenty-five thousand copies of the ''Twelve Articles'' had spread throughout

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

. The ''Twelve Articles'' was a religious petition that utilized Luther's ideas to appeal for peasants' rights.

References

1472 births 1551 deaths People of the Protestant Reformation People excommunicated by the Catholic Church {{Germany-reli-bio-stub