According to documents, it had existed since 1503, but since the name Union Shoe became too dangerous after the dispersal of the Untergrombach conspirators, it adopted the name of Poor Konrad.Its seat was the valley of Rems underneath the mountain of Hohenstaufen.Its existence had been no mystery for a long time, at least among the people.The shameless pressure of Duke Ulrich's government, and the series of famine years which so greatly aided the outbreaks of 1513 and 1514, bad increased the number of conspirators.The newly imposed taxes on wine, meat and bread, as well as a capital tax of one penny yearly for every guilder, caused the new outbreak.The city of Schomdorf, where the heads of the complot used to meet in the house of a cutler named Kaspar Pregizer, was to be seized first.In the spring of 1514, the rebellion broke out.Three thousand, and, according to others, five thousand peasants appeared before the city, and were persuaded by the friendly promises of the Duke's officers to move on.Duke Ulrich, having promised the abolition of the new tax, came riding fast with eighty horsemen, to find that everything was quiet in consequence of the promise.He promised to convene a diet where all complaints would be examined.The chiefs of the Organisation, however, knew very well that Ulrich sought only to keep the people quiet until he had recruited and concentrated enough troops to be able to break his word and collect the taxes by force.They issued from Kaspar Pregizer's house, "the office of Poor Konrad," a call to a Union congress, this call having the support of emissaries everywhere.The success of the first uprising in the valley of Rems had everywhere strengthened the movement among the people.The papers and the emissaries found a favourable response, and so the congress held in Untertuerkhein on May 28, was attended by numerous representatives from all parts of Wuerttemberg.It was decided immediately to proceed with the propaganda and to strike a decisive blow in the valley of Rems at the first opportunity in order to spread the uprising from that point in every direction.While Bantelshans of Dettingen, a former soldier, and Singerhans of Wuertingen, a prominent peasant, were bringing the Suabian Alp into the Union, the uprising broke out on every side.Though Singerhans was suddenly attacked and seized, the cities of Backnang, Winnenden, and Markgroenningen fell into the hands of the peasants combined with the plebeians, and the entire territory from Weinsberg to Blaubeuren and from there up to the frontiers of Baden, was in open revolt.Ulrich was compelled to yield.However, while he was calling the Diet for June 25, he sent out a circular letter to the surrounding princes and free cities, asking for aid against the uprising, which, he said, threatened all princes, authorities and nobles in the empire, and which "strangely resembled the Union Shoe."In the meantime, the Diet, representing the cities, and many delegates of the peasants who also demanded seats in the Diet, convened on June 18in Stuttgart.
The prelates were not there as yet.The knights had not been invited.
The opposition of the city of Stuttgart, as well as two threatening hordes of peasants at Leonberg nearby in the valley of Rems, strengthened the demands of the peasants.Their delegates were admitted, and it was decided to depose and punish three of the hated councillors of the Duke -- Lamparter, Thumb and Lorcher, to add to the Duke a council of four knights, four burghers and four peasants, to grant him a civil list, and to confiscate the monasteries and the endowments in favour of the State treasury.
Duke Ulrich met these revolutionary decisions with a coup d'état.
On June 21, he rode with his knights and councillors to Tuebingen, where he was followed by the prelates.He ordered the middle-class to come there as well.This was obeyed, and there he continued the session of the Diet without the peasants.The burghers, confronted with military terrorism, betrayed their allies, the peasants.On July 8, the Tuebingen agreement came into being, which imposed on the country almost a million of the Duke's debt, imposed on the Duke some limitations of power which he never fulfilled, and disposed of the peasants with a few meagre general phrases and a very definite penal law against insurrection.Of course, nothing was mentioned about peasant representation in the Diet.The plain people cried "Treason!"but the Duke, having acquired new credits after his debts were taken over by the estates, soon gathered troops while his neighbours, particularly the Elector Palatine, were sending military aid.Thus, by the end of July, the Tuebingen agreement had been accepted all over the country, and a new oath taken.Only in the valley of Rems did Poor Konrad offer resistance.
The Duke, who rode there in person, was almost killed.A peasant camp was formed on the mountain of Koppel.But the affair dragged on, most of the insurgents running away for lack of food; later the remaining ones also went home after concluding an ambiguous agreement with some representatives of the Diet.Ulrich, whose army had in the meantime been strengthened by voluntarily offered troops of the cities which, having attained their demands, now fanatically turned against the peasants, attacked the valley of Rems contrary to the terms of the agreement, and plundered its cities and villages.
Sixteen hundred peasants were captured, sixteen of them decapitated, and the rest receiving heavy fines in favour of Ulrich's treasury.Many remained in prison for a long time.A number of penal laws were issued against a renewal of the Organisation, against all gatherings of peasants, and the nobility of Suabia formed a special union for the suppression of all attempts at insurrection.Meantime, the chief leaders of Poor Konrad had succeeded in escaping into Switzerland, whence most of them returned home singly, after the lapse of a few years.
