User talk:Lmick1123

Thomas Muntzer - birth-date

I noticed your contribution to the facts about TM's birthdate. Can I explain why I have taken out your words again? Engels (1850) was working solely from material provided by the historian Wilhelm Zimmermann, whose history of the German Peasants War came out in 1842/43. Neither Zimmermann nor Engels had any corroborating evidence for the supposed date of birth, quite simply because other evidence did not become available for another 80 years or so. If TM had really been born in 1490, then he would have matriculated at Leipzig University (which is now a verifiable fact) when he was merely 7 or 8 years old! In all the 'recent' editions of Engels' book on the Peasants' War (I have a German one from 1971, and an English one from 1969), the modern editors have noted that the 1490 date is wrong. And virtually all researchers from at least 1945 onwards agree that either 1489 or 1490 is the likely date. So ... including Engels' wrong assertion is fairly pointless in an article that strives simply to present facts, as per the basic aim of Wikipedia. Don't you agree? I'd be happy to hear your views on that. MurdoMondane (talk) 21:54, 23 March 2024 (UTC)