Christoph Schappeler (1472 – August 25, 1551) was a German religious figure, reformer, and a preacher at St. Martin's in

Memmingen Memmingen (; Swabian German, Swabian: ''Memmenge'') is a town in Swabia (Bavaria), Swabia, Bavaria, Germany. It is the economic, educational and administrative centre of the Danube-Iller region. To the west the town is flanked by the Iller, the ...

during the early 16th century and during the

Protestant Reformation The Reformation, also known as the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation, was a time of major theological movement in Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the papacy and ...

and the German Peasants' War. He tended to side with the poor, causing the senate to regulate his sermons in 1516. However, by 1521 the climate had changed such that the senate was giving him support. When he was excommunicated in 1524, the Senate refused to follow the bishop's order to have him banished. It is believed that Schappeler and Sebastian Lotzer wrote ''The Twelve Articles: The Just and Fundamental Articles of All the Peasantry and Tenants of Spiritual and Temporal Powers by Whom They Think Themselves Oppressed'' in early 1525.Pettegree, Andrew, ed. (2004)
''The Reformation: Critical Concepts in Historical Studies''
Vol. 1, pp. 344–45. Routledge. Within two months of its initial publication in Memmingen, twenty-five thousand copies of the ''Twelve Articles'' had spread throughout

Europe Europe is a continent located entirely in the Northern Hemisphere and mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere. It is bordered by the Arctic Ocean to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the west, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, and Asia to the east ...

. The ''Twelve Articles'' was a religious petition that utilized Luther's ideas to appeal for peasants' rights.

References

1472 births 1551 deaths People of the Protestant Reformation People excommunicated by the Catholic Church {{Germany-reli-bio-stub