It was the greatest popular uprising in western Europe prior to the French Revolution. By spring 1525, across regions of what are now Austria, Germany, Switzerland, and France, armed bands of peasants marched to defeat their lords and to overturn the social and religious hierarchy that had existed for centuries. At least 100,000 people were involved, and likely many more. When it collapsed in the summer of 1525, perhaps 1% of the regions population were killed in just two months, making it a summer of fire and blood.

Which, as it happens, is the title of my guest’s new book. Lyndal Roper is the Regius Professor of History at University of Oxford. Her most recent book Summer of Fire and Blood: The German Peasant’s War.