The first years of Emperor Ferdinand I's reign (1503 - 1564) as sovereign of Tyrol were characterised by theological and social unrest. Theological and social tensions increased during this crisis-ridden period. Siegmund's lavish court management and Maximilian's wars, including the pledging of a large part of the provincial assets, had put Tyrol's financial situation in dire straits. The new law, which had been introduced by Maximilian's administration, stood in contrast to the old customary law. Hunting in the forest and searching for firewood had thus become illegal for the majority of the population. The loss of these common rights and the ever-increasing tax burden had a massive impact on small farmers, day labourers, farmhands and other "Pofel". In Tyrol at this time, Jakob Hutter (1500 - 1536) and Michael Gaismair (1490 - 1532) were two men who threatened the existing order and paid for it with their lives.

Jakob Hutter war die Galionsfigur der vor allem im Inntal und im Südtiroler Pustertal aktiven Wiedertäufer. Die ersten Anzeichen der Kleinen Eiszeit verursachten vermehrt Missernten. Viele Menschen sahen darin eine Strafe Gottes für das sündige Leben der Menschen. Sekten wie die Wiedertäufer predigten die reine Lehre der Religion, um sich von dieser Schuld zu befreien und die Ordnung so wiederherzustellen. Besonderen Unmut bei der Römischen Kirche und Ferdinand I. erregte ihre Einstellung zu weltlichem Besitz und zur Taufe und die offen zur Schau gestellte Abneigung gegen weltliche und kirchliche Obrigkeiten. Menschen sollten frei als erwachsene und mündige Bürger ihren Willen, dem Christentum beizutreten, kundtun und nicht als Kinder getauft werden. Für den streng gläubigen und papsttreuen Landesfürsten Ferdinand stellten die Wiedertäufer eine Bedrohung der öffentlichen Ordnung dar. Einem guten Teil der unter den finanziellen Schwierigkeiten nach der teuren Regentschaft Maximilians stöhnenden Bevölkerung waren sie als Sündenböcke willkommen, die mit ihrem gottlosen Gebaren Unheil über das Land brachten. Bereits 1524 wurden drei Wiedertäufer in Innsbruck vor dem Goldenen Dachl wegen Ketzerei am Scheiterhaufen verbrannt. Fünf Jahre später wurden Tausende Wiedertäufer des Landes verwiesen und wanderten nach Mähren, die heutige Tschechei, aus.

One of them was Hutter. Having grown up in South Tyrol, his apprenticeship and journeyman years as a hatter took him to Prague and Carinthia, where he probably first came into contact with the Anabaptists and their teachings. When the religious community was also expelled from Moravia in 1535, Jakob Hutter returned to Tyrol. He was captured, taken to Innsbruck and imprisoned in the Kräuterturm gefoltert. Er fand als Anführer der Häretiker für sein Wirken 1536 vor dem Goldenen Dachl his end at the stake.

The community of Hutterischen Brüder kam nach ihrer endgültigen Vertreibung aus den deutschen Ländern und langen Irrfahrten und Fluchten quer durch Europa im 19. Jahrhundert in Nordamerika an. Noch heute gibt es einige hundert Hutterer Kolonien in Kanada und den USA, die noch immer nach dem Gebot der Jerusalemer Gütergemeinschaft in einer Art kommunistischem Urchristentum leben. Wie die Mennoniten und die Amisch leben die Hutterer meist isoliert von der Außenwelt und haben sich eine eigene Form der an das Deutsche angelehnten Sprache erhalten. In Innsbruck erinnern eine kleine Tafel am Goldenen Dachl sowie eine Straße im Westen der Stadt an Jakob Hutter. 2008 hatten die Bischöfe von Brixen und Innsbruck gemeinsam mit den Landeshauptleuten Nord- und Südtirols in einem Brief an den Ältestenrat der Hutterischen Brüder das knapp 500 Jahre vergangene Unrecht an der Täufergemeinschaft eingestanden. 2015 wurde im Saggen eein paar Schritte südwestlich des Panoramagebäudes der Huttererpark eröffnet, in dem das Denkmal „Übrige Brocken“ an das Schicksal und Leid der Verfolgten erinnert.

Der größte Aufruhr im Zuge der Reformation in Tirol war der Bauernaufstand ab 1525, der eng mit dem Namen Michael Gaismairs verbunden ist. Anders als Hutter, der vor allem eine spirituelle Erneuerung forderte, wollte Gaismair auch soziale Veränderungen vorantreiben. Der Tiroler Aufstand war ein Teil dessen, was als Deutscher Bauernkrieg große Teile des Heiligen Römischen Reiches was shaken. It was partly reformist, theological fervour and partly dissatisfaction with the social situation and distribution of goods that drove the rebels. Unlike Martin Luther, Gaismair was not a theologian. He was the son of a mining entrepreneur, one could say educated middle class. He probably studied law at an Italian university before becoming a mine clerk in the Schwaz mine. In 1518 he entered the service of the Tyrolean governor Leonhard von Völs, where he gained military and administrative experience. In 1524 he moved into the service of the Bishop of Brixen. As was customary at the time, the bishop was both an ecclesiastical and secular prince and was regarded as a particularly rigid ruler. Here, Gaismair saw first-hand how the clergy's sovereign administration and strict jurisdiction subjugated the subjects. In May 1525, he took part in the uprising against the clergy in Brixen. A mob invaded the Neustift monastery and the bishop's property. The enraged subjects plundered the monastery and destroyed the Urbare, the records relating to jurisdiction, property, debts and obligations of the peasants to the lord of the manor.

The revolutionary movement quickly gained momentum and spread rapidly. Throughout the country, there were attacks on church institutions and those of foreign property owners such as the Fuggers. In Innsbruck, Wilten Abbey was besieged as a manorial seat. Gaismair was appointed captain by the rebels to conduct negotiations with the Tyrolean sovereign, Ferdinand I, at the provincial parliament in Innsbruck. He drew up a kind of new provincial constitution. His intention was not to shake Prince Ferdinand himself, but to ask him to Namen Gottes to organise and administer the country more fairly. The clergy were to concern themselves with the salvation of their subjects instead of politics. Land and goods such as mining yields were to be distributed in a socially just manner and interest was to be cancelled. The restrictions on hunting and fishing imposed on the Tyroleans by Ferdinand's predecessor Maximilian I (83) were to be lifted. These concerns were emphasised in the 62 Merano articles collected later on 96 Innsbruck articles have been expanded.

When Gaismair and his delegation negotiated with Ferdinand and his officials in Innsbruck in June 1525, he was arrested and imprisoned in the Kräuterturm imprisoned. After almost two months in prison, he was able to escape and continue his fight from Sterzing. After several defeats, he went to neighbouring Switzerland, which was in revolt against the Habsburgs, where he met the reformer and revolutionary Huldyrich Zwingli. It was here that he wrote down his social-revolutionary national order, which envisaged a Christian state of peasants, craftsmen and miners in which goods were to be communitised. One of the articles read:

„As far as the tithe is concerned, everyone should give it according to the commandment of God, and it should be used as follows: Let every parish have a priest according to the teaching of the Apostle Paul, whom the word of God proclaims to the people... what is left over is to be given to the poor."

As an army commander, he was active in the anti-Habsburg resistance. The reputation of his military successes reached the Republic of Venice, which had been in constant conflict with the Habsburgs since the war with Siegmund the Rich in Coin in 1477. Gaismair was recognised as Condottiereas an army commander. However, he soon fell out of favour here too. Not only did the Doge of Venice make peace with the Habsburgs, but his anti-Catholic stance and unconventional lifestyle also aroused envy and envy. In 1532, he was murdered at his country residence near Venice with more than 40 stab wounds. It is not clear which of the many powers he had antagonised was behind this, but the contract killers were probably commissioned by the royal court in Innsbruck.

No less interesting than his life is his post-mortem career. Gaismair never made it to the general fame of Andreas Hofer in Tyrol. To this day, he is hardly ever talked about in schools. Unlike Hofer, who rose up as a good Catholic against a foreign power, Gaismair was an insurgent, an unpleasant and lateral thinker. A play about the peasant leader by Franz Kranewitter was published in 1899. In the 20th century, Gaismair was interpreted as a fighter against the monarchy and clergy, by the National Socialists as a German hero and liberator of the peasants or by the left as an early communist. The generation of 1968 celebrated the actually pious and God-fearing revolutionary for his ideas on the communisation of property. The Tyrolean journalist and historian Claus Gatterer wrote about the constant reinterpretation of the figure of Gaismair:

 „How much truth is a people allowed to know about its past, about the growth and development of its present? .... According to the respective ideology, long-deserved heroes and saints are toppled from their pedestals and replaced by others who have been disregarded until then; or an established saint is given a new biography without further ado, which fits in with current requirements in terms of the motivation for action.“

Unlike Andreas Hofer, there are hardly any memorials in Innsbruck to Michael Gaismair and the peasants' revolt of 1525. In Wilten, a street and a secondary school named after him commemorate him.