Banca de DEFESA: José Willem Carneiro Paiva

violence; mysticism; Thomas Müntzer; Reformation; Holy Roman Empire

This thesis discusses the construction of the idea of violence in the writings and letters of the German theologian Thomas Müntzer (1489?-1525). It is commonplace, in the historiography concerning the religious, to describe him as the violent priest of the Reformation. Labeled as “the Satan of Allstedt” by Martin Luther (1483-1546), it is his participation in the Peasants' War leading rebels in Thuringia at the beginning of 1525 which is privileged in reinforcing his image as a “revolutionary” reformer. However, we will try to demonstrate that Müntzer proposed, between 1519 and 1525, through the constitution of a moral grammar, an inflection in the meaning of violence: killing priests and princes on the battlefield would not be violence because, in fact, it would be practiced against the “elect” through the “theft” and “impediment” of the “true faith”.