Tens of thousands of peasants throughout Germany die.

When the peasants from a neighboring town are suddenly hired to fight for the town council, rather than for reform, the revolts in Thuringia fail, and villages are leveled, people are put to the sword, and many of the leaders of the revolt are arrested, tortured, and then beheaded. Explaining the ideas of the Reformation and how they spread, the speaker, known as Gustav Metzger at the outset of the book, follows Muntzer during the trauma of the Peasant's Revolt (1524 – 26), which Luther opposes. Q tells the story of a mysterious German known by many names in the course of the novel, an Anabaptist follower of Thomas Muntzer, who believes that Luther has lost his connection with the people by becoming too close to the princes, from whom he accepts protection.

The German prince bishops soon found it to their advantage to ally themselves with the rapidly growing Protestant movement, thereby protecting their own positions and power from the peasants, at the expense of Charles and the Roman church. The Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, who supported the Pope's Inquisitions against these 'heretical' ideas, was also engaged in a power struggle of his own on two political fronts-in the west with France and in the east with the Ottoman Empire. The recently invented printing press made the Bible available to laymen, so they could read it on their own, and was printing pamphlets containing new ideas of religious reform. Martin Luther had set the Reformation in motion when he nailed his 95 theses to the door of the prince bishop's church in 1517, questioning the sale of indulgences and the venality of the Holy See. The early years of the Reformation were among the most turbulent years in the history of western thought, and author Luther Blissett* has chosen to focus this novel of ideas on that vibrant period. Disciples keen to move to action are preparing, with intrepid logic, to take his ideas to their conclusion… Luther's protectors have already achieved their objective of transforming the monk into a battering ram against the Holy See, organizing a large popular following around him.'

The seeds that Luther has sown, wrested from the impetus of conviction, are about to bear fruit. 'A great religious war is about to be unleashed.

Q by Luther Blissett