Peasant Fires: The Drummer of Niklashausen

Carnival is the Christian celebration that comes before Lent. Medieval people celebrated Carnival, which grew out of earlier pagan celebrations of spring’s renewal. It is a time of folly and revelry in which the laity mocked the Church’s authority and inverted social norms. The revelry ends on the evening known as Shrove Tuesday; in German lands, peasants concluded the festival by lighting bonfires that priests blessed. They observed the smoke’s shape and direction to determine good or bad omens for the coming harvest, while young people jumped over the fires to ensure fertility. Behem participated in Carnival prior to his mystical career when he played his drum and sang bawdy songs on the streets in Niklashausen. Once he became a visionary, Behem encouraged his followers to reject such worldly extravagances and encouraged a new kind of bonfire in which they burned their “vanities” or worldly luxuries. Behem continued the role reversals that occurred during Carnival when he remained a preacher rather than returning to his role as a common herder when Carnival ended. He thus acted outside of the normal medieval sense of time and defied social norms, which elites disdained and even feared.

Carnival was important in the liturgical calendar because it preceded Lent, a time of austerity and repentance.