Michael Gaismair

Gaismair Michael
Grave of Michael Gaimair at Padua.
Born	1490 Sterzing, County of Tyrol
Died	15 April, 1532 (aged 41–42) Padua, Republic of Venice

Michael Gaismair, (1490, Sterzing, County of Tyrol – 15 April 1532, Padua, Republic of Venice) was the son of a mining entrepreneur, which became secretary of the powerful bishop of Brixen. In 1525 Gaismair came in contact with the ideas of the Anabaptists Felix Mantz and Jörg Blaurock, who worked in the Eisacktal and Graubünden (Switzerland), and shortly after, in May, he received news of the German Peasants' War in Germany, and the activities in Saxony of the radical preacher Thomas Müntzer, who shared some ideas with the Anabaptists.

Shortly, the same Tyrol (under Habsburg rule) became a powder keg of popular uprisings, especially in the Eisacktal and Puster Valley. These peasant revolts were captained by a certain Peter Passler and Gaismair: Brixen and Neustift were occupied and looted. The rebels, reinforced by local miners and survivors of the Battle of Frankenhausen, resisted the Habsburg army counterattacks.

Gaismair dreamed of founding a democratic republic in the area, he envisaged the abolition of the Catholic Church and its rituals, replaced by a faith based on a direct contact with God, through the personal interpretation of Scripture. He also envisioned a utopian elimination of titles of nobility, the nationalization of land and mines, the establishment of schools, hospitals, old people’s homes etc.

To overcome the differences the leaders of the revolt were invited to the regional diet of Innsbruck (June 1525) by Crown Prince Ferdinand of Habsburg (b. 1503, Emperor 1558–1564). Gaismair also went there, but in August he was jailed for treason. After two months, he managed to escape, travelling to Graubünden, Switzerland.