Michael Gaismair (1490–1532)
Visionary, social reformer, and leader of the peasants
Michael Gaismair was born in 1490 in South Tyrol as the son of a wealthy farming and mining family. After attending a Latin school in Sterzing and the cathedral school in Brixen, where he came into contact with ideas critical of the Church, he took up a position as a mining clerk. As spokesman for the Schwaz miners, he drafted a petition to the emperor against large mining entrepreneurs. Serving as a clerk under the Tyrolean governor Leonhard Völs, he rose to become a captain and later secretary to the Prince-Bishop of Brixen, Sebastian Sprenz. In May 1525, he assumed leadership of the rebellious Tyrolean peasants. After the uprising failed in September 1525, he fled to Graubünden. In late autumn 1525, he stayed in Zurich with Zwingli, to whom he remained closely connected.
At the beginning of 1526, Gaismair wrote his groundbreaking Tyrolean State Ordinance, in which he outlined a new political and social order with far-reaching reforms (including equality before the law, the abolition of noble and ecclesiastical privileges, state control of mines, and comprehensive welfare for the poor), and envisioned the transformation of Tyrol into a republic.
The orientation toward Holy Scripture and divine justice is particularly evident in the first four articles. Throughout the document, a strong commitment to the oppressed is apparent; the demand for equality runs as a central principle through all provisions. Serfdom was to be completely abolished—an achievement that, in Tyrol (unlike in other Austrian lands), had largely been preserved. In Article 7, Gaismair confidently states that in “Gaismair’s land,” the word of God should be preached sincerely everywhere, while all sophistry and (Latin) jurisprudence should be abolished, and the corresponding books even burned.
The Tyrolean State Ordinance reveals essential principles of modern constitutions, including respect for fundamental and human rights. Alongside democratic and rule-of-law principles, it contains strong elements of a welfare state. Even though the implementation of his ideas largely failed, Michael Gaismair can be regarded as a socio-revolutionary visionary whose demands were, in part, far ahead of his time.
According to the Austrian jurist and political scientist Erwin Schranz, Michael Gaismair deserved to be recognized “as a highly distinctive Tyrolean figure in European intellectual and social history, who […] introduced a transnational European dimension in many respects and devised democratic principles that were still premature at the time, but later gained prominence with the democratic American Constitution of 1776 and the French Revolution of 1789 under the slogan ‘liberty, equality, fraternity,’ and which today are partly taken for granted, yet still await implementation in many parts of the world.”
On February 16, 1526, a bounty was placed on Gaismair by the Innsbruck court council on behalf of Archduke Ferdinand I, and plans for his capture were devised. From then on, Gaismair maintained a personal guard and worked to assemble a mercenary army. At the end of May 1526, he and his troops joined a peasant army of about 4,000 men besieging Radstadt. After the violent death of the previous peasant leader and Gaismair’s brother-in-law, Christoph Ganner (known in Salzburg as Setzenwein), Gaismair assumed overall command of the insurgents. When a large mercenary force of the Swabian League approached on July 2, 1526, he lifted the siege of Radstadt and retreated via the Seidlwinkel Valley and the Hochtor to Lienz and further into the Puster Valley. There, he decided to flee to the territory of the Republic of Venice, where he and his followers were granted political asylum.
Gaismair entered Venetian service, where he once again rose to the rank of captain. In April 1532, he fell victim to assassins. However, the bounty placed on him by the Austrian government was withheld from them on dubious grounds.
Text: Waltraud Moser-Schmidl / Rainer Hochhold
Literatur:
Parschal, Norbert und Gasser, Johann: Michael Gaismair. Eine illustrierte Geschichte. Brixen 2012.
Rebitsch, Robert: Rebellion 1525. Michael Gaismair und der Aufstand der Tiroler Bauern”. Innsbruck 2024.
Schranz, Erwin: (2012): Michael Gaismair und die Tiroler Landesordnung von 1526 – ein frühes Beispiel für einen demokratischen Verfassungsentwurf. In: Jahresberichte für deutsche Geschichte, 2012 [Digitalisat].
Vasella, Oskar (1964): “Gaismair, Michael” in: Neue Deutsche Biographie 6, 1964 [Digitalisat].