The rejection of religious imagery was not exclusive to the Protestant Reformation in Germany — a theological struggle had raged in Byzantium where between 726 and 843 over the religious devotion to images. Religious icons were seen in some eyes as ‘craven images’ to be removed from places of worship and was particularly pronounced in the region of Alsace during the Reformation with the Anabaptist strand practising the widespread destruction of religious images. In Central Germany two important reformist theologians who had been drawn to Martin Luther’s Protestant teachings were Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt (aka Andreas Karlstadt) and Thomas Müntzer. However, their interpretation of Protestantism was more radical. Karlstadt, for example, worked towards reforming the church service during Luther’s forced absence by wearing secular clothing, removing all references to sacrifice, and successfully requesting the re-moval of all imagery from churches (aka iconoclasm) in the diocese of Wittenberg. The radical cleric Thomas Müntzer made his base in of Mühlhausen in Thuringia an Imperial city in a state of some political and religious turmoil. Before Müntzer ‘s arrival there had been numerous iconoclastic acts in and around the city and as groups of citizens and peasantry began to mobilise and articulate their demands against the nobility and the clergy there was vandalism in a number of monasteries in the city. This manifested itself in the sequestration of food and wine and beer and the removal of the monastic treasures. One ecclesiastical institution to be singled out for attack was the great Church of St. Mary which towers over the city.
The church was Teutonic order but had received a new pastor from Weimar —a certain Johannes Laue - who showed contempt for any kind of religious imagery. On the 6th January 1525, the Church fell prey to acts of iconoclasm led apparently by the new pastor who threw the tabernacle containing the host from the altar and removed religious paintings which he set fire to in front of his house. Sculptures adorning the main portals were destroyed as were numerous religious artefacts within the building. itself. It is claimed that by May — the height of the peasant insurrection in Thuringia — the Church of St Mary had been virtually cleared. The Modell will be issued in the museum of "Schloß Lindenbühl in Muehlhausen.