vq5 
 
 .
 
 THE SOCIAL SIDE 
 
 OF THE REFORMATION 
 
 IN GERMANY 
 
 BY 
 E. BELFORT BAX 
 
 AUTHOR OF l< THE STORV OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION," " THE RELIGION OF 
 
 SOCIALISM," "THE ETHICS OF SOCIALISM," "HANDBOOK OF THE 
 
 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY," ETC., ETC. 
 
 PART I: GERMAN SOCIETY AT THE CLOSE OF THE MIDDLE AGES 
 
 PART II: THE PEASANTS WAR IN GERMANY: 1525-15*6 
 
 PART III: RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS 
 
 LONDON 
 
 SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & Co., LIM 
 
 NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO 
 
 1903
 
 RISE AND FALL OF THE 
 ANABAPTISTS 
 
 BY 
 E. BELFORT BAX 
 
 AUTHOR OF " THE STORV OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION," " THE RELIGION OF 
 
 SOCIALISM," "THE ETHICS OF SOCIALISM," " HANDBOOK OF THE 
 
 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY," ETC., ETC. 
 
 LONDON 
 
 SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & Co., LIM 
 
 NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN CO 
 
 1903
 
 PREFACE 
 
 THE present volume, the third of the series, concludes our 
 studies of the social side of the Reformation in Germany. 
 Anabaptism was essentially a German product and did not 
 take root in the Latin countries. But the importance of this 
 great movement in all lands possessing a strong Teutonic 
 element, not even excluding England, has been little realised 
 by the average historian. The latter has been inclined for 
 the most part to dismiss this tremendous upheaval of the 
 disinherited classes at the close of the Middle Ages with a 
 few paragraphs of abuse and often misrepresentation. We 
 may regard Anabaptism as the culminating effort of mediaeval 
 Christian Communism, which saw in the communisation of 
 worldly goods (understanding by this the economic products 
 designed for consumption) the farthest goal of man's social 
 existence. The modern notion of the socialisation of the 
 means of production was not as yet thought of, as it was not 
 even conceivably possible at the then stage of economic 
 evolution. 
 
 Among the various authorities on the subject of the Ana- 
 baptist movement which have been consulted in the prepara- 
 tion of the present volume may be especially mentioned: 
 
 (i) Of first-hand sources the " Gcschichtsbiicher der Wieder- 
 taiifcr in Oestreich-Ungarn" edited by Dr. J. Beck; the 
 ' ^cite /.eitung von den Wiedcrtaiifcnschcn Sect" 1528; various 
 original documents published as an appendix in Cornelius's 
 work, in Ludwig Keller's history, inBouterwek's " ZitrLitteratiu- 
 und Geschichtc der Wicdcrtaiijer" etc.,- the " Geschichtsquellcn 
 des Bisthums Minister" issued by the " Verein Jiir Vater- 
 landischc Gesclnchte nnd Altertitmskiuidc" especially the volume 
 containing Gresbeck's account of the Miinster Kingdom of 
 God and the confessions of the Miinster Anabaptists obtained 
 under torture, etc., also the volumes of Kerssenbroick's
 
 VI PREFACE. 
 
 " Anabaptistici Furoris Monasterium Inclitam Westphalia Mctro- 
 polim Evertentts Historica Narratio" published in the same 
 series; in addition, of course, to such publications of the 
 Anabaptists themselves as are still obtainable. 
 
 (2) Among modern works first and foremost come the two 
 volumes (all that was completed at the time of his death) of 
 Cornelius's " Geschtchte dcs Miinstcrischcn Aitfruhrs" a mine 
 of accurate scholarship and careful historical criticism. Keller's 
 " Gesehichte der Wiedertaiifcr" is also a valuable compendium 
 of original research, and his " Ein Apostel dcr Wiederta&fer" 
 (a life of Hans Denk) is noteworthy as a sketch of Anabaptist 
 life and manners. Loserth's works on the subject, especially 
 his " Wicdertailfer in Mahren" and his " Balthazar Hubmayer" 
 are of considerable value to the historian. Katitsky's account 
 of the Anabaptists contained in the first volume of the 
 " Gesehichte dcs Socialismus" may be mentioned as a striking 
 historical appreciation. As regards older works dealing at 
 second-hand with the history of the Anabaptists, one of the 
 most widely read in the seventeenth and early eighteenth 
 centuries, when it passed through several editions, was F. 
 Catrou's " Histoirc des Anabaptistes" published in Paris. A 
 contemporary German medley on the subject was compiled 
 by various hands and published at Co'then, in Anhalt. The 
 English '' Fanatick History" by Blome, issued in the reign of 
 Charles II., is a polemical essay directed against contem- 
 porary Quakers and dissenters generally, and holding up the 
 Minister Kingdom of God as a terrifying example, a policy 
 more than once adopted by theological disputants at that time. 
 
 The recent English literature on the Anabaptists is scanty, 
 the most important contributions being perhaps the articles 
 from the pen of Mr. Richard Heath, scattered through 
 the numbers of the "Contemporary Review" between 1890 
 and 1900. 
 
 In the following chapters the writer believes that the subject 
 will be found to be presented in a fairly complete outline.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 I. BEGINNINGS OF ANABAPTISM I 
 
 II. THE ANABAPTIST DOCTRINES AND PRACTICE 28 
 
 III. PERSECUTION OF THE ANABAPTISTS AND 
 
 DEATH OF THE EARLIER LEADERS . . 66 
 
 IV. MELCHIOR HOFFMANN AND THE REVOLU- 
 
 TIONARY MOVEMENT 95 
 
 V. THE REFORMATION MOVEMENT IN THE 
 
 EPISCOPAL TERRITORIES OF MUNSTER . 1 1/ 
 
 VI. THE REIGN OF THE SAINTS 1/2 
 
 VII. THE NEW ISRAEL . . . . '195 
 
 VIII. THE PROPAGANDA OUTSIDE MUNSTER . . 257 
 
 ix. MUNSTER'S FALL AND THE FATE OF THE 
 
 MOVEMENT 282 
 
 X. THE ANABAPTIST MOVEMENT IN ENGLAND 332 
 
 XI. CONCLUSION 384 
 
 INDEX 393
 
 RISE AND FALL OF THE 
 ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 BEGINNINGS OF ANABAPTISM. 
 
 THE religio-political mysticism, sporadic among 
 the smaller handicraftsmen of the towns and 
 the peasantry throughout the whole of the Middle 
 Ages, acquired an extraordinary impulse at 
 their close, that is, during the period known 
 as the Reformation. Political movements with 
 a religious coloring, or religious movements with 
 a political coloring, according to circumstances, 
 may be said to have become chronic, through 
 central and western Europe, from the end of 
 the 1 5th century onwards. 
 
 In two former volumes I have traced the 
 history of these movements in Germany, which 
 culminated in the great Peasants War of 1525. 
 This insurrection, extinguished though it was as 
 such for the time being, continued to live on 
 in the minds of the people, and, in a manner,
 
 2 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 rose again from its ashes in the great Anabap- 
 tist revolt of a few years later. 
 
 Some of the leaders of the peasant rising of 
 1525 have been incorrectly described as Anabap- 
 tists, on account of the similarity of their views 
 and aims with those of the later movement. 
 Notably is this the case with Thomas Miinzer, 
 the leading spirit of the revolt in Thuringia ; 
 the latter, however, was by no means at one 
 with the initiators of the Anabaptist movement 
 then just beginning in Switzerland. To its special 
 sign, re-baptism, Miinzer attached no importance 
 whatever. The so-called Zwickau prophets, Ni- 
 cholas Storch and his colleagues, seem, in their 
 general attitude, to have approached very closely 
 to the principles of the Anabaptist sectaries. 
 But, even here, it is incorrect to regard them, 
 as has often been done, as directly connected 
 with the latter; still more, as themselves the 
 germ of the Anabaptist party of the following 
 years. 
 
 As to the actual origins of Anabaptism, pro- 
 perly so called, our information is somewhat 
 scant, and is vitiated by the fact that much of 
 it comes from bitterly hostile sources. u Anno 
 1524 and 1525 A.C. is God's word and the
 
 BEGINNINGS OF ANABAPTISM. 
 
 Gospel of Jesus Christ come into all Germany, 
 after the Peasants War." 1 Such is the exordium 
 of an Anabaptist account of the origin of the 
 sect. " As may be found in the old chronicles and 
 histories, Germany or Deutschland was so wild, 
 rude and untilled, and its people so unlearned, 
 with so rude ways and customs as scarce another 
 place or province in the world. Moreover, no 
 man hath anywhere read that any apostle or 
 disciple of Christ did ever come to this country, 
 notwithstanding that elsewhere they journeyed 
 over sea and land to far-off countries, to the 
 end that they might preach God's word. Perhaps 
 hath even this German land been chosen by 
 God to discover and to set forth His word in 
 this the last age of this passing world." The 
 writer then proceeds, in a few words, to sketch 
 the history of the Reformation, observing that 
 Luther had known how to pull down an old 
 house, but not to build up a new one. With 
 the Reformers, he says, it is as though they 
 were mending an old pot in which the hole 
 only grows larger : u They have smitten the 
 vessel out of the hand of the Pope, but left 
 
 1 Geschichtsbucher der Wiedertaufer in Ocstreich Ungarn. 
 Herausgegeben von J. von Beck, II, pp. n, 12.
 
 4 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 the fragments therein ; for a new birth of Life 
 hath one never seen with them." After a pass- 
 ing allusion to Miinzer and others, he proceeds : 
 " God hath called to this wonderful work men 
 in Switzerland; amongst them have been Bal- 
 thazar Hubmeyer, Konrad Grebel, Felix Manz 
 and Georg von Chur." "These men," he says, 
 u have recognized that one must first of all 
 learn the Divine message, the love of an active 
 faith, and only after having done so, should he 
 receive Christian baptism. But since, at that 
 time, there was no servant ordained to such 
 work, Georg of the house of Jacob called Blaurock 
 rose up and prayed this Konrad Grebel in the 
 name of God, that he should baptise him. After 
 that was done, the others there present did 
 demand the same from Georg, and began to 
 hold and to teach the faith. Therewith hath 
 the separation from the world originated and 
 hath grown up." 
 
 This, it should be said, happened in an obscure 
 gathering of enthusiasts at Zurich in the year 
 1525, and from this occasion amidst this small 
 circle we may fairly place the origin of the 
 Anabaptist sect or party proper. Anabaptism 
 was emphatically in the air; in other words,
 
 BEGINNINGS OF ANABAPTISM. 5 
 
 the spirit and general tendencies of what sub- 
 sequently consolidated itself as the Anabaptist 
 movement were dominant amongst certain orders 
 of the population in widely distant centres. But 
 the sect actually took its rise from the above 
 indicated small beginnings. 
 
 Zwingli had, through the manner in which he 
 had conducted the Swiss reformation, given an 
 impulse to radical tendencies, especially in 
 Zurich, the centre of his activity ; tendencies 
 which he found it difficult later on to stem, 
 when he saw he was beginning to lose control 
 of them. Appeals to the command of God, 
 as taking precedence of human authority, pas- 
 sionate invocations of the inner light, were the 
 order of the day. Numbers came from other 
 parts of Switzerland, as well as from the neigh- 
 bouring German territories, to join in the 
 controversial life of what might now be regarded 
 as the metropolis of the Reformation in this 
 part of the world. From Basel especially came 
 several of those who were later the apostles 
 of the Anabaptist movement. Wilhelm Reublin 
 from Wiirtemberg, who as chief preacher at St. 
 Albans, in Basel, had ostentatiously broken 
 rules as to fasting, and who was exiled from
 
 6 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 the city as soon as the Reformation began 
 to stir there, came to Zurich, where he soon 
 obtained a living in the neighbourhood of the 
 town, and not long after, amid the applause 
 of the inhabitants, celebrated the first priestly 
 wedding within the Swiss borders. Simon Stumpf, 
 another Basel priest, finding Basel too hot for 
 him, fled to Zurich, where, like his colleague, 
 he obtained a living in a village near. Here 
 he thundered against authority in Church and 
 State and was eloquent on the ungodliness of 
 rent-dues and tithes. Ludwig Hatzer or Hetzer, 
 a learned young priest, hailing from Thurgau, 
 was also drawn to the great centre of agitation, 
 where he made a name through a tract he 
 issued against images in churches. Appointed 
 as secretary to the great debate on current 
 theological questions held by the City Council 
 in October 1523, he was the official editor of 
 the minutes afterwards published. Hans Brodli, 
 yet another preacher, came from Graubiinden 
 and settled at Zollikon, near Zurich, where he 
 also instructed the peasantry in the principles 
 of the new gospel, not forgetting also to denounce 
 tithes and dues as contrary to the Pauline 
 precept that all men should earn their bread
 
 JBEG1NNINGS OF ANABAPTISM. ^ 
 
 by the work of their hands. In close connection 
 with these men by means of correspondence 
 were others holding; similar views in the north 
 
 o 
 
 of Switzerland and across the German border. 
 Amongst them may be noted Balthazar Hub- 
 meyer, the reforming pastor of Waldshut, an 
 account of whose activity there will be found 
 in our former volume. (See "Peasants War" 
 pp. 91 94.) There was also the Reader of 
 the bare-footed friars at Schaffhausen, Dr. Sebas- 
 tian Hochmeister. They were both enthusiastic 
 adherents of the new order of things ecclesiastical 
 that was being inaugurated at Zurich. 
 
 For at first the Anabaptist movement at Zurich 
 was an extreme wing of the reforming movement 
 of Zwingli. But, as is usual in such cases, no sooner 
 had the latter movement succeeded in establishing 
 itself than a rupture took place, and Zwingli 
 found himself strong enough to cut off his 
 inconvenient radical tail. Early in the year 
 1522 we hear of the formation of a school of 
 heretics in the town, under the leadership of 
 the bookseller Andreas auf der Stilze, who 
 also hailed from Basel, where, it is probable, 
 he had already been associated in friendly 
 intercourse with Grebel, Stumpf, Reublin, Hetzer
 
 8 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 and others. But at first this association, advanced 
 as were its views, continued in the most friendly 
 relation with Zwingli himself, and with the 
 reformed party in Zurich generally. 
 
 It was in the late autumn of this year, 1522, 
 that the other reforming spirits from Basel came 
 to Zurich. From this time forward, the little 
 society embodying the new tendencies acquired 
 fresh life and importance. Proselytes joined 
 it every day. The tendencies, embodied in 
 the circle, began to acquire consistency and 
 gradually took on the character of a distinct 
 sect. From among the newcomers two men 
 now obtained a special influence . among the 
 u Brethren," or the u Spirituals " as they were 
 termed. These were the above mentioned 
 Konrad Grebel, himself a young man sprung 
 from a well-to-do family of Zurich burghers, 
 who had studied in Paris and Vienna, and 
 Felix Manz, also a Zurich burgher, and a friend 
 of Grebel. In the house of Manz's mother 
 meetings of the sectaries were held. Like 
 Grebel, Manz was a scholar and full of youthful 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 Zwingli had, by this time, carried out the 
 new principles of the Reformation much more
 
 BEGINNINGS OF ANABAPT1SM. 
 
 logically than Luther and embodied them in a 
 distinct confession of faith. Not standing on 
 the same theological ground as Luther, he had 
 less hesitation and was prepared to carry on 
 the work of destruction beyond the point at 
 which Luther held his hand. The result was 
 that in Zurich every semblance of Catholic 
 ceremony was entirely swept away. Meanwhile 
 the effect of the continuous theological wrangling 
 of the Reformers amongst themselves, who 
 
 o 
 
 showed themselves only thoroughly united in 
 their attack on Catholicism and on certain 
 catholic usages, was to detach large numbers 
 of the non-learned classes from the positive 
 dogmatic system that the learned were endeav- 
 ouring to set up in the place of the old Catholic 
 theology. The biblical text itself, now every- 
 where read and re-read in the German language, 
 was pondered and discussed in the house of 
 the handicraftsman and in the hut of the peasant 
 with as much confidence of interpretation as in 
 the study of the professional theologian. But 
 there were also not a few of the latter order, 
 as we have seen, who were becoming disgusted 
 with the trend of the official Reformation and 
 its leading representatives. The Bible thus
 
 io RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 afforded a point d'appui for the mystical tenden- 
 cies now becoming universally prominent, a 
 point cCappui lacking to the earlier movements 
 of the same kind that were so constantly arising 
 during the Middle Ages proper. Seen in the 
 dim religious light of a continuous reading of 
 the Bible and of very little else, the world 
 began to appear in a new aspect to the simple 
 soul who practised it. All things seemed filled 
 with the immediate presence of Deity. He 
 who felt a call pictured himself as playing the 
 part of the Hebrew prophet. He gathered 
 together a small congregation of followers who 
 felt themselves as the children of God in the 
 midst of a heathen world. Did not the fall of 
 the old Church mean that the day was at hand 
 when the elect should govern the world? It 
 
 O 
 
 was not so much positive doctrines as an atti- 
 tude of mind that was the ruling spirit in Ana- 
 baptism and like movements. Similarly, it was 
 undoubtedly such a sensitive impressionism 
 rather than any positive dogma that dominated 
 the first generation of the Christian Church 
 itself. How this acted in the case of the earlier 
 Anabaptists we shall presently see. 
 
 The new sect that took its rise in Zurich
 
 BEGINNINGS OF ANABAPTISM. 11 
 
 in 1522 was one of a number of similar sects 
 springing up at various points throughout central 
 Europe about the same time. This Zurich 
 sect, however, historical fate had ordained should 
 be the germ of the great Anabaptist movement, 
 absorbing all other like sects and tendencies 
 into itself. It must not be forgotten that it 
 was, in its earlier stages, emphatically a religi- 
 ous and non-political organization. This was 
 the point which sharply distinguished Konrad 
 Grebel and his friends from others whose tenden- 
 cies were similar, notably from Thomas Miinzer. 
 The little Zurich society would have nothing to 
 do with carnal weapons. They would fight 
 only with the sword of the spirit. In a letter 
 under date September 5th, 1524, written by 
 Konrad Grebel and his friends to Munzer, they 
 say : u The Gospel and its followers shall not 
 be guarded by the sword, neither shall they 
 so guard themselves, as, by what we hear from 
 the Brethren, ye assume and pretend to be 
 right. Truly believing Christians are sheep in 
 the midst of wolves, sheep ready for the slaughter ; 
 they must be baptized in fear and in need, in 
 tribulation and death, that they may be tried 
 to the last, and enter the fatherland of eternal
 
 12 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 peace not with carnal, but with spiritual, weapons. 
 They use neither the sword of the world nor 
 war, for to kill is forbidden," etc. 
 
 During the year 1523 the new sect grew 
 rapidly in Switzerland. The idea also made 
 great headway that the aim of the Church 
 reformation was the re-establishment of primitive 
 Christian condition, not merely in matters of 
 theology, but of social practice. But for many 
 months there was no open schism between the 
 Brethren and the reforming party of Zwingli. 
 They made it their task to endeavour to urge 
 Zwingli forward in the direction of religious 
 revolution and of such social changes as seemed 
 to them demanded by Holy Writ. Zwingli on 
 his side confined himself to endeavouring to 
 check the more extreme tendencies by gentle 
 remonstrances. Yet the differences between the 
 official reformation of Zwingli and that of the 
 Brethren became more and more apparent 
 every day, accompanied by an increasing bitter- 
 ness on both sides. The definite split did not 
 occur before the end of June. The Brethren 
 became increasingly insistent on the immediate 
 abolition of tithes and other ecclesiastical dues. 
 Zwingli himself had previously spoken in favour
 
 BEGINNINGS OF ANABAPTISM. 13 
 
 of this reform, which was, however, strongly 
 opposed by an influential section of the burghers, 
 who also carried with them a majority of the 
 City Council. Accordingly, on June 22nd, the 
 Council passed a resolution condemning emphatic- 
 ally the idea of attacking the existing sources 
 of Church revenue. This was for Zwingli a 
 parting of the ways. He had to make up his 
 mind either to throw in his lot completely with 
 the Brethren, whose revolutionary tendencies he 
 now dreaded a course that would have damned 
 his influence with the wealthy Zurich burghers 
 or to throw over the Brethren with their sub- 
 versive doctrines and attach himself definitely to 
 the moderate party that found its expression 
 in the majority of the Town Council. He did 
 not long hesitate. On June 25th, he delivered 
 a sermon in favour of the Council, and thus 
 definitely ranged himself on the side of the 
 moderates. Henceforward he became the ac- 
 knowledged head of the official reformation in 
 
 o 
 
 Switzerland. 
 
 The u Spirituals," on their side, grew more 
 decided in their tendencies. It was now that 
 the question of infant baptism first came forward 
 as a prominent feature in the agitation of the
 
 i 4 KISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 Brethren. But the rejection of infant baptism, 
 strongly as it was insisted upon, was after all 
 only a sign of vast divergencies otherwise from 
 the Zwinglian Reformation. The Brethren, as 
 representing the men of low estate, felt that 
 they had not overthrown the Roman Church 
 organization to hand themselves over, body and 
 soul, to the secular authorities of the city, the 
 u Ehrbarkeit " and wealthy guildmasters of Zurich. 
 The theory that the Bible, interpreted by the 
 inward light, was the only rule of faith, before 
 which all human authority and institutions must 
 bend, was now proclaimed with greater emphasis 
 then ever. The result was as might have been 
 expected. The truth of the saying that " you 
 may prove anything out of the Bible" is sig- 
 nally illustrated by the subsequent history of 
 the movement. The most absolute non-resistance 
 doctrine, the most fiery invocations of the sword 
 to destroy the unbelieving occupant of place 
 and power, the mortification of the flesh of the 
 anchorite, and the unbridled lasciviousness of 
 the libertine, alike found their place in the ranks 
 of the Anabaptists and of the later sects of the 
 1 6th and lyth centuries that sprang from the 
 Anabaptist root.
 
 BEGINNINGS OF ANABAPTISM. 15 
 
 After Zvvingli's sermon the hostility between 
 the two parties was declared. The decisive crisis, 
 however, was brought about by the debate in 
 the City Council on October 26th, 1523. There 
 had already been a similar debate on the ques- 
 tion of the Church reformation in the previous 
 January. On this occasion the reformed Evan- 
 gelical party had presented a solid front in their 
 demands. Now it was otherwise, the only point 
 upon which unanimity prevailed being the abo- 
 lition of the Romish cultus, of the Mass, images 
 etc; the question as to what should take the 
 place of these things led to violent altercations. 
 Grebel denounced various matters connected 
 with the Sacrament the mixing of the wine 
 with water, the use of unleavened bread, its 
 being received by the laity from the hands of 
 the priests, etc. Zwingli would have none of 
 these criticisms. The malcontents were inveighed 
 against as a source of discord. They on 
 their side declared Zwingli to have betrayed 
 the cause in agreeing to accept the decision of 
 the Council on spiritual matters. u You have 
 no power," said Simon Stumpf, u to give the 
 judgment into the hands of the City Fathers ; 
 judgment is already given; the Spirit of God
 
 1 6 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 judges." The Council, however, accepted Zwin- 
 gli's propositions and passed laws accordingly. 
 
 This meant, of course, that the breach between 
 the two parties could not be bridged over. The 
 ''Spirituals" formally repudiated the now offi- 
 cially established Zwinglianism and all its ways. 
 But the new sect grew. The meetings of the 
 small handicraftsmen and journeymen that were 
 assembled under the leadership of Grebel, Manz, 
 and their friends, were continually increased by 
 the accession of new members. In addition, the 
 original strain of ecclesiastical radicalism, or 
 anarchism if one likes, received an accession of 
 strength from the sentiment of an oppressed 
 class in which political and economic consider- 
 ations mixed themselves up with religious en- 
 thusiasm. By the end of the year Zwingli had 
 already begun to call in the aid of the secular 
 arm to repress the sect which was now a serious 
 obstacle to him in his work of organizing the 
 new Church polity. Two months after the great 
 debate in the City Council, Simon Stumpf was 
 banished. Meanwhile progress was made by the 
 Brethren in the adjacent country districts, a large 
 number of peasants joining. 
 
 With the extension of the Brethren in numbers,
 
 BEGINNINGS OF ANABAPTISM. 17 
 
 the rejection of infant baptism as a test-sign 
 of adhesion became ever more prominent. Parents 
 began to refuse to allow their children to be 
 christened. At last an edict was issued forbidding 
 the meetings of the body. Reublin, who had 
 made himself particularly conspicuous in his at- 
 tacks on the orthodox baptismal theory, was 
 arrested, and it was made compulsory for parents 
 to bring their children to the font. At the same 
 time attempts were made, both in private inter- 
 views and public disputations, to convert the 
 " Spirituals." This went on throughout the year 
 1524, till the whole city rang with the questions 
 at issue, eagerly debated as they were, in every 
 church and at every street corner. 
 
 Finally Zwingli issued a manifesto and announ- 
 ced a public disputation for January i8th, 1525. 
 On this occasion, after having conclusively, as 
 he deemed it, refuted the errors of the Brethren, 
 he read out from the pulpit a new order of the 
 Council visiting the refusal of infant baptism 
 with expulsion from the city and its territory. 
 Three days later several of the principal leaders 
 received notice to quit within a week. Just at 
 this time, an ex-priest, Georg Blaurock, (so- 
 called from the blue costume he habitually wore)
 
 i8 KISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 who had recently come from the town of Chur 
 and who had just become prominent, proposed 
 to Grebel and Manz, who, as Ziirich burghers, 
 had not been exiled, to formally proclaim re- 
 baptism a solemn duty for all Brethren. This 
 was done on the historical occasion referred to in 
 the passage from the " Geschichtsbiicher " quoted 
 earlier in this chapter. At this meeting, as we 
 have already seen, Blaurock rose and called 
 upon Grebel to baptize him in the true Christian 
 Faith, which ceremony having been accomplished, 
 all present received baptism at the hands of 
 Blaurock. It appears to have been done with 
 the object of showing their abhorrence of the 
 idea of a hierarchy or of leaders at all. All 
 who had been awakened to the true faith by 
 the inward light, were entitled to receive baptism, 
 and all who had received it were entitled to 
 confer it on others. This event, which marks 
 the beginning of the Anabaptist movement pro- 
 perly so-called, occurred on January 2ist, 1525. 
 By the decision to constitute re-baptism a sign 
 and seal of membership of their community, the 
 " Brethren " definitely cut themselves loose from 
 the rest of Christendom, Protestant no less than 
 Catholic. It was the gauntlet thrown down to
 
 BEGINNINGS OF ANABAPTISM. 19 
 
 the current Christianity in all its forms to the 
 new reformed doctrines represented by Luther 
 and Zwingli no less than to the older Catholicism, 
 against which their polemic had been directed. 
 The notion of a community of the elect, surroun- 
 ded by a wicked world with which it was at 
 war, was naturally fostered by the new devel- 
 opment things had taken. The change, slight 
 as it seems to us, had an electrical effect. 
 " Brethren with girdles of cords round their 
 .waists were to be seen in the streets and open 
 places of Zurich, as well as in the country hard 
 by, crying : ' Woe ! woe ! ' foretelling for Zurich 
 the fate of Niniveh, which would not listen to 
 Jonah, exhorting to repentance, righteousness 
 and brotherly love, and denouncing the dragon, 
 as they called Zwingli, with all his abettors." ' 
 
 1 It should here be pointed out, in order to give a proper 
 understanding of the effect produced, that in the adoption 
 of the theory of re-baptism, the Zurich Brethren were quite 
 original. Many of the reforming party opposed infant bap- 
 tism. Indeed, Zwingli himself had originally favored this 
 view ; and, although the Brethren gave it special prominence 
 from the beginning, it cannot be regarded as, in any way, 
 a tenet distinctive in the sense of exclusive. With re-baptism 
 it was otherwise. This had never been suggested before by 
 any of the reforming parties.
 
 20 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 A sharp persecution now began. The Ratk 
 ordered a number of arrests, amongst them 
 those of Manz and Blaurock. Even severer 
 punishments were tried in order to suppress the 
 new teachings, but without avail. Suffering drew 
 the Brethren closely together. Communistic 
 doctrines now became part of the principles of 
 the League of Zurich Brethren, and a practical 
 attempt at a kind of family communism seems 
 to have been started. A common fund was 
 inaugurated from the wealthy members, out of 
 which indigent Brethren might obtain what they 
 liked. But the persecution succeeded in its imme- 
 diate object. The Brethren, or the Anabaptists, 
 as we may now term them, were well-nigh all 
 driven from Zurich, and the little community in 
 its original form was broken up and dispersed. 
 The result was only to carry the seed of the 
 new doctrines over the whole of northern Switz- 
 erland and southern Germany. Grebel repaired 
 to Schaffhausen and Reublin to Waldshut. In 
 the latter place Balthazar Hubmeyer definitely 
 joined the new sect. This meant, of course, 
 his separation from Zwingli and the orthodox 
 Reformation. With Hubmeyer the reformed 
 community of Waldshut was won over.
 
 BEGINNINGS OF ANABAPTISM. 21 
 
 In Graubiinden Anabaptist doctrines were 
 preached by Manz and gained many adherents. 
 Basel and Bern also became infected, while in 
 St. Gallen and Appenzell the new teachings 
 made a profound impression on the whole 
 population. 
 
 The excitement leading to the great outburst 
 of the Peasants War was favorable to the pro- 
 paganda, but the war itself, especially the suc- 
 cesses of the insurgents in its earlier stages, 
 successes which led many really to hope that 
 the day of the peasant and the common man 
 had at last come, and that he was in very deed 
 about to crush the ecclesiastical and noble op- 
 pressor, was not favorable to a doctrine that, 
 at this period, proclaimed non-resistance as one 
 of its cardinal tenets. During the course of the 
 Peasant insurrection, to the great bulk of the 
 population, the new Anabaptist preachers were 
 confounded with the numberless theological 
 agitators with which Germany then abounded. 
 Zwingli and the Zurich Council, keenly alive 
 to the danger of the new departure in theolo 
 gical discipline, did not meanwhile rest satisfied 
 with the mere expulsion of the sectaries from 
 the town and territory. Zwingli published a
 
 22 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 manifesto, designed to prove that infant baptism 
 was an essential part of the Evangelical doctrine. 
 Hubmeyer replied in a trenchant manner from 
 the Anabaptist standpoint. Zwingli rejoined with 
 an abusive attack on Hubmeyer. But in the 
 end the clever theological disputant succeeded 
 in establishing infant baptism and the heretical 
 character of re-baptism on a dogmatic basis, 
 which, if it did not convert the Anabaptists, at 
 least proved satisfactory to his own followers. 
 The question, said Zwingli, was not merely one 
 of baptism, but of the introduction of schism 
 and heresy generally into the Church. No one 
 had any right, he continued, to leave the Church, 
 but all were bound to submit to the decision 
 of the majority in ecclesiastical matters, as in- 
 dicated by the supreme authority of the State. 
 About midsummer, 1525, at a time that nearly 
 coincided with the first serious defeats of the 
 peasants, a persecution again broke out against 
 the Anabaptists in the new localities, where, 
 for the last few months, they had been planting 
 their seed in comparative peace. In St. Gallen, 
 notably, the Council began to take steps. First 
 of all, it invited the new sectaries to a debate 
 in the church of St. Laurenz. Meanwhile they
 
 BEGINNINGS OF ANABAPTISM. 23 
 
 were enjoined to cease proselytising. As might 
 be imagined these measures led to nothing. 
 Finally the Biirgermeister of the town, Joachim 
 von Watt, who, according to the practice of 
 the time was also known as Vadianus, took a 
 determined stand in opposition to the new pro- 
 paganda. His standpoint was not so much that 
 of theological opposition to the new tenets, for he 
 had notably himself been opposed to infant bap- 
 tism, but rather that of a statesman, or " man of 
 order," who feared the methods of the new pro- 
 paganda. All ecclesiastical changes, he main- 
 tained, must take place gradually so as not to 
 endanger political stability. The practice of re- 
 baptism, erected into an institution, he denounced 
 as contrary to the preachings of the Apostles, 
 and to the precepts of Holy Writ. Both Zwingli 
 and Grebel left no stone unturned to influence 
 the decision of the St. Gallen Council in favour 
 of their respective sides. At last, on the 5th of 
 June, a manifesto of the Burgermeister against 
 the Anabaptists, together with a reply of the 
 latter, was publicly read before the Council. 
 The result was a decree stringently forbidding 
 re-baptism and also the "breaking of bread," the 
 form of the sacrament adopted by the new Sect.
 
 24 KISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 The punishment for the re-baptiser was impri- 
 sonment and banishment, for the re-baptized a 
 heavy pecuniary fine. 
 
 The Ratk then called together two hundred 
 well-known citizens in order that they might 
 be sworn in as a kind of special constables, to 
 see to the carrying out of its decisions. One 
 only refused the oath, and he was at once, with 
 his family, expelled from the town. Thereupon 
 followed the suppression of the Anabaptist com- 
 munity in St. Gallen. The persecution spread 
 rapidly. In July Manz was arrested in Chur and 
 handed over to the Zurich Rath. In August 
 Hochmeister was banished from Schaffhausen. 
 He went, however, to Zurich and u ratted" to 
 the Zwinglian party, receiving his reward in 
 consequence from Zwingli, who gave him an 
 appointment. At the same time Bern also exiled 
 the new teachers. In December, the town of 
 Waldshut fell into the hands of the Austrian 
 authorities, and there also the new doctrines 
 and practices were suppressed. Hubmeyer, 
 hotly pursued by the soldiers of the Archduke 
 Ferdinand, fled in desperation to Zurich, where 
 he was at once arrested and compelled to hold 
 a public disputation with Zwingli. Hubmeyer
 
 BEGINNINGS OF ANABAPTISM. 25 
 
 anticipated this by recantation, but on being 
 forced to ascend the pulpit in order to advocate 
 infant baptism, he startled his hearers by preach- 
 ing a sermon against it. He was re-arrested, 
 put to the torture, compelled to a triple recan- 
 tation in public of the views he had expressed, 
 and after having sworn an oath at once to 
 
 o 
 
 leave and never re-enter Zurich territory, was 
 dismissed. 
 
 The persecution throughout the Swiss cantons 
 continued during 1526 and 1527. It did not, how- 
 ever, succeed by any means in entirely stamping 
 out the movement even in Switzerland, while 
 it had the effect of the dispersal of the leading 
 spirits far and wide throughout southern Germany. 
 During 1525, with the exception of Waldshut 
 and a few places on the immediate confines of 
 the Swiss territories, the movement had remained 
 essentially local and Swiss. But in the spring 
 of 1526, we already see signs of considerable 
 Anabaptist activity in the southern provinces 
 of the empire. Hubmeyer, leaving Zurich in 
 April, repaired to Augsburg and later on to 
 Nicolsburg in Moravia; where he settled down 
 and once more took up the cause of Anabap- 
 tism. Tracts from his pen appeared in sue-
 
 26 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 cession, but this did not hinder his preaching 
 and teaching with his wonted energy. 
 
 The last of the leaders to forsake Switzerland 
 was Blaurock, who, in the beginning of 1527, 
 was flogged through the streets of Zurich, and 
 thrown out at the city gate. He went to sow 
 the seed of the new doctrines in Tyrol. Not 
 alone the leaders, but numbers of the rank and 
 file, whose names are unknown, felt a call to go 
 a-preaching. 
 
 Hatzer, after a period of wavering, settled 
 down in Strasburg, and in the summer of 1526 
 started an industrious propaganda in that city 
 and in the Upper Rhenish districts generally. 
 The Niirnberg schoolmaster, Hans Denck, also 
 joined Hatzer in Strasburg. A former admirer 
 of Thomas Miinzer, Hans Hut from Hain in 
 Franconia, was now won over to the new sect 
 and to the doctrine of non-resistance. Hut, 
 possessed alike of eloquence and untiring energy, 
 proved a priceless acquisition to the movement. 
 In proportion as, after the great defeat of 1525, 
 despair of attaining their aims by insurrectionary 
 methods gradually settled down on the peasantry 
 and poor handicraftsmen, the Anabaptist doctrine 
 spread like wild-fire ; attracting to itself all the
 
 BEGINNINGS OF ANABAPTISM. 27 
 
 elements from the earlier peasant and proletarian 
 movements that had a similar religious coloring. 
 At the same time the new elements that came 
 in did not fail in the course of events, as we 
 shall see, to change the character of the propa- 
 ganda. 
 
 The movement, in its inception purely religious, 
 took on an increasingly political colour. The 
 purely voluntary communism in imitation of the 
 supposed institutions of the early Christians, which 
 the Zurich Brethren had instituted among them- 
 selves, became more and more raised to the 
 position of a cardinal principle, whilst the non- 
 resistance doctrine, in certain quarters began to 
 fall into the background. 
 
 By the end of 1527 the new propaganda had 
 done its work. The process of absorption was 
 complete, and the great Anabaptist movement 
 had entered upon its changeful and chequered 
 career.
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE ANABAPTIST DOCTRINES AND PRACTICE. 
 
 SEBASTIAN FRANCK in his Chronik (III, fol. 188) 
 observes, respecting the spread of the new move- 
 ment, u the course of the Anabaptists was so 
 swift, that their doctrines soon overspread the 
 whole land and they obtained much following, 
 baptized thousands and drew many good hearts 
 to them ; for they taught, as it seemed, naught 
 but love, faith and endurance, showing them- 
 selves in much tribulation patient and humble. 
 They brake bread with one another as a sign 
 of oneness and love, helped one another truly 
 with precept, lending, borrowing, giving: taught 
 that all things should be in common and called 
 each other l Brother.' They increased so sud- 
 denly that the world did fear a tumult for reason 
 of them. Though of this, as I hear, they have in all 
 places been found innocent. They are persecuted 
 in many parts with great tyranny, cast into 
 bonds and tormented, with burning, with sword, 
 with fire, with water, and with much imprison-
 
 DOCTRINES AND PRACTICE. 29 
 
 ment, so that in few years in many places a 
 multitude of them have been undone, as is re- 
 ported to the number of two thousand, who in 
 divers places have been killed." "And," he 
 adds, " they suffer as martyrs with patience and 
 steadfastness." This judgment of a contempo- 
 rary, as to the general impression made by the 
 new party, for by the end of the second decade 
 of the century it had attained dimensions which 
 entitled it to be called so, is amply confirmed 
 from other sources. 
 
 As we have seen in the last chapter, after the 
 suppression of the Peasants Revolt, the sect 
 inaugurated by the Spiritual Brethren of Zurich 
 rapidly absorbed all similar sects and tendencies. 
 The process of conversion and absorption, as 
 we shall see later on, at first confined to South 
 Germany, began from the year 1527 onward 
 to spread northward along the Valley of the 
 Rhine. Our task in the present chapter is to 
 indicate the main lines of the tendencies charac- 
 terising the movement tendencies which main- 
 tained themselves with more or less constancy, 
 but with varying fortune, throughout the course 
 of its career. 
 
 Heinrich Bullinger in his book against the
 
 30 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 Anabaptists, ( u Der Wiedert'aufferen Ursprung, 
 Furgang, Secten, Wesen" etc., pp. 17 55), the first 
 edition of which was published in 1531, and 
 the second in 1560, enumerates thirteen distinct 
 sects, as he terms them, within the Anabaptist 
 body. The general tenets of the organization 
 he gives in the form of twenty-five propositions, 
 which may be summarized as follows : - - They 
 regard themselves as the true Church of Christ 
 well pleasing to God; they believe that by re- 
 baptism a man is received into the Church ; they 
 refuse to hold intercourse with other Churches 
 or to recognize their ministers; they say that 
 the preachings of these are different from their 
 works, that no man is the better for their 
 preaching, that their ministers follow not the 
 teaching of Paul, that they take payment from 
 their benifices, but do not work by their hands ; 
 that the Sacraments are improperly served, and 
 that every man, who feels the call, has the right to 
 preach ; they maintain that the literal text of 
 the Scriptures shall be accepted without comment 
 or the additions of theologians ; they protest 
 against the Lutheran doctrine of justification by 
 faith alone; they maintain that true Christian 
 love makes it inconsistent for any Christian to
 
 DOCTRINES AND PRACTICE. 31 
 
 be rich, but that among the Brethren all things 
 should be in common, or at least all available 
 for the assistance of needy Brethren and for 
 the common Cause ; the preachers of the official 
 Reformation, they maintain, mix up the Old 
 Testament with the New, unmindful of the fact 
 that for the Christian the New Testament has 
 superseded and abolished the Old ; l they de- 
 clare it untrue, as the Lutheran and Zwinglian 
 preachers allege, that the soul flies from the 
 body straight to heaven, for it sleeps until the 
 Last Day; they maintain that the preachers 
 rely too much on the secular arm ; that the 
 attitude of the Christian towards authority should 
 be that of submission and endurance only; that 
 no Christian ought to take office of any kind ; 
 that secular authority has no concern with reli- 
 gious belief; that the Christian resists no evil, 
 and therefore needs no law-courts nor should 
 ever make use of the tribunals ; that Christians 
 do not kill or punish with imprisonment or the 
 sword, but only with exclusion from the body 
 of believers ; that no man should be compelled 
 
 1 This doctrine was certainly not universal. The Miin- 
 sterites, for example, seem to have rated the Old Testament 
 hisrher than the New.
 
 32 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 by force to believe, nor should any be slain on 
 account of his faith ; that Christians do not resist, 
 and hence, do not go to war ; that Christians may 
 not swear ; that all oaths are sinful ; that infant 
 baptism is of the Pope and the Devil ; that re- 
 baptism, or, better, adult-baptism, is the only true 
 Christian baptism ; that the Lutheran and Zwin- 
 glian preachers make no distinction of persons, 
 allowing sinners, as well as others, to receive 
 the Sacrament, which should be reserved for the 
 elect, that is, for such as by being re-baptized 
 are received into the community of the saints. 
 We may fairly take the above doctrines given 
 by Bullinger as representing, on the whole, 
 what we may term the common ground of 
 Anabaptism. There were, however, numerous 
 variations within the body. Bullinger cites in 
 the first place the u Apostolic Baptists." These, 
 he says, " wander through the land without staff, 
 shoe, satchel or money, glorifying their heavenly 
 call to the office of preacher." u They wash each 
 other's feet," Franck tells us, u saying that 
 they would become as the true children." They 
 literally followed the precept that he who would 
 be a disciple must leave house and home, wife 
 and child. Here we have plainly, as Bullinger
 
 DOCTRINES AND PRACTICE. 33 
 
 himself remarks, an after-glow of the tendencies 
 which three centuries earlier called the friars 
 into being, and notably the Franciscans. 
 
 Some of the offshoots of that order, it may 
 be remarked in passing, like other of the earlier 
 mediaeval communist sects, the " Paterines," u The 
 Brothers and Sisters of the Spirit," u the Bohemian 
 Brethren," and many others, anticipate many of 
 the doctrines and tendencies which manifested 
 themselves for the last time in religious form 
 on a great scale in history in the Anabaptists 
 of the 1 6th century. Their repudiation of all 
 personal property was emphatic ; they preached 
 barefooted and in coarse garments, wherever 
 they went. With a greeting of peace, they 
 would enter a cottage and begin to expound 
 the Bible to the inmates. The effect on their 
 hearers, caused by their words glowing with 
 enthusiasm, was oftentimes startling. It commonly 
 required but a few hours to found a congrega- 
 tion. Having baptized a sufficient number of 
 persons to constitute a nucleus, the Anabaptist 
 apostle would take his staff in hand and journey 
 farther to the next village or homestead. 
 
 o 
 
 Out of many we quote one instance of how 
 the sudden sense of a call to preach would 
 
 3
 
 34 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 sometimes affect these new converts. A peasant, 
 Hans Ber of Alten-Erlangen, rose from his bed 
 one night and began to put on his clothes. 
 u Whither goest thou? ' asked his wife. U I 
 know not, God knoweth," was his answer. She 
 entreated him to stay, with the words: u What 
 evil have I done thee? Stay here and help me 
 nourish my little children." " Dear wife," he 
 replied," harry me not with the things of time. 
 God bless thee. I will from hence, that I may 
 learn the will of the Lord." l 
 
 Bullinger is clearly wrong in reckoning the 
 "Apostolic Baptists," as he terms them, as 
 representing any special section of the body. 
 They were obviously no more than the most 
 enthusiastic and energetic members. A similar 
 remark applies to more than one of the subse- 
 quent divisions into which Bullinger would par- 
 tition the Anabaptist party. 
 
 The next of Bullinger's so-called Anabaptist 
 sects he terms the "Separate Spiritual Baptists." 
 
 1 Cornelius, " Geschichte des Miinsterischen aufru/irs," II, 
 pp. 48, 49. For a similar instance of the effect of religious 
 exaltation on the mediaeval peasant mind, see " German 
 Society',' Appendix B, p. 270. Its immediate occasion was 
 an anti-Jewish campaign of Hubmeyer in his Catholic days.
 
 DOCTRINES AND PRACTICE. 35 
 
 These, he says, carry their aloofness from the 
 world to the extent that, like a new order of 
 monks, they regulate their clothes alike as to 
 their form and size, they reject all costly clothing, 
 they make also rules as to eating, drinking, 
 sleeping, resting, standing and walking. If they 
 saw anyone merry, they would admonish him 
 in the name of the Gospel. After his usual 
 refutation of the particular "errors" in question, 
 Bullinger passes on to his next u sect," which 
 he terms the u Holy and Sinless Baptists." Their 
 special distinction consisted in the dogma that 
 the elect could not sin. They carried this point 
 so far as to strike out of the Paternoster the 
 words " forgive us our trespasses." They appear 
 to have held a kind of antinomian doctrine, 
 which has often appeared in the history 
 of theologico-ethical speculation, to the effect 
 that the baptized believer might do what 
 he liked, since, if he sinned, it effected the 
 body alone, with which his soul had no more 
 to do than with any of the other things of this 
 world. 
 
 The next of Bullinger's sects, " the Silent 
 Brothers," held that preaching was no longer 
 necessary and should be abolished. " This is
 
 36 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 the time," said they, " of which the apostle Paul 
 speaketh when he saith : l there is a time to be 
 silent." "Accordingly," says Bullinger, u if any 
 man should ask them aught of religion, they 
 would be silent and give him no answer." 
 
 The next "sect" designated by Bullinger is 
 the " Praying Baptists," who, he says, do nothing 
 else but pray. Through prayer, they maintain, 
 all evil is to be averted. 
 
 What Bullinger calls the seventh u sect" 
 (really the sixth according to his enumeration) are 
 the " Ecstatic Brothers," also called " enthusiasti" 
 and " ecstatici" who, he says, were very numerous 
 in the early stages of the movement. They 
 claimed to see visions and to dream dreams, 
 and generally to be the direct recipients of 
 divine revelations. When under the influence 
 of the Spirit, their countenances were contorted, 
 they made deprecatory gestures, fell on the 
 ground as in a fit, and finally lay stretched 
 out, as though they were dead. When they 
 awoke from their trance, they related wonderful 
 stories of what they had seen in the other 
 world. Amongst other admonitions was, of 
 course, always the assurance that re-baptism 
 alone was pleasing to God, but infant baptism
 
 DOCTRINES AND PRACTICE. 37 
 
 a service of the devil, and that none that were 
 not re-baptized could enter the kingdom of 
 God. Some of them alleged having seen Zwingli 
 in hell. They prefaced their utterances with 
 the words: u The Father hath said it: it is 
 the Father's will ! " They all agreed in declaring 
 that the Day of the Lord was at hand, some 
 of them venturing even to orive the date and 
 
 o O 
 
 the hour of the Last Judgment. They would 
 rush through the streets, crying : u We proclaim 
 the day of the Lord! " 
 
 We next come to the " Free Brothers," called 
 by Bullinger the eighth "sect." They took the 
 idea of Christian freedom in its literal sense, 
 holding it as unchristian to pay tithes or interest 
 or even the principal of debts. They declared 
 all serfdom and villeinage to be abolished, though 
 there were some among them, adds Bullinger. 
 u who, to be more modest, thought that, although 
 not justifiable or obligatory in itself, yet that 
 one should observe these things toward the 
 heathen, to the end that they might have no 
 ground or cause for blaspheming the Word." All 
 were agreed, however, that amongst Christians 
 villeinage had ceased to exist. Among these 
 Free Brethren, according to Bullinger, there
 
 38 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 were those who persuaded credulous women that 
 it was impossible for them to be saved without 
 sacrificing their virtue, for, said they, the Lord 
 hath said, that only he who was willing to lose 
 all he held dear might enter the kingdom of 
 Heaven. Shame and disgrace must be borne 
 for the sake of Christ, for had not Christ said 
 that the publicans and the harlots should enter 
 first into the kingdom of Heaven, before the 
 righteous, by which was plainly meant that 
 women should become harlots, as, by so doing 
 they would rank in Heaven before those who 
 were deemed by the world to be pious women. 
 The antinomian doctrine of course came in here, 
 according to which, for the re-baptized, sin was 
 impossible, as no bodily act could affect the 
 soul of the believer. " For the women did sin 
 in having intercourse with their husbands, who 
 were still heathens, but they did not sin when 
 having intercourse with ' brethren ', because in 
 that case there was a spiritual bond between 
 them." Those who held these views, however, 
 were called by many of their co-religionists 
 "wild brothers." 
 
 Bullinger's ninth order of the Anabaptists 
 consists of another sort of Free Brothers, who
 
 DOCTRINES AND PRACTICE 39 
 
 preached that all outward forms were to the 
 believer indifferent; public worship, preaching, 
 sacraments were all of no effect, and for those 
 who were saved, so much useless lumber. They 
 regarded it also as indifferent, whether faith 
 were confessed or not. If danger threatened, it 
 was admissible to conceal one's faith, for, said 
 they, if one have the truth in one's heart, it 
 suffices before God, and what is proclaimed 
 before men is indifferent. As a consequence it 
 was, they said, useless for men to deliver them- 
 selves over to torture and death for the sake 
 of their belief, for God is not made greater by 
 our suffering, neither does he desire our death; 
 nay, nor even that we forsake wife and child. The 
 corollary was obvious, to wit, that those who 
 were at Rome, should do as Rome does, that 
 the outward forms and observances enjoined by 
 the authority under whose jurisdiction the be- 
 liever found himself, should be observed. The 
 chief apostle of this doctrine was one David 
 Georg, of whom we shall hear more later. 
 
 The tenth "sect" in Bullinger's enumeration is 
 the Hutian Brothers, that is the followers of Johan- 
 nes Hut. Johannes Hut soon abandoned the ori- 
 ginal non-resistance doctrine of the Anabaptists,
 
 40 KISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS 
 
 in favor of the theory, that they, as the living 
 representatives of the Chosen People, were 
 commissioned like the Israelites of old to root 
 out the heathen that then ruled the world, as 
 the Israelites had once destroyed the godless 
 Canaanites. The Lord, said he, will show them 
 a proper time, when this work of his shall be 
 accomplished. He and his followers were un- 
 tiring in proclaiming the approaching day of 
 the Lord's Vengeance on the powers of this 
 world. In accordance with this view, they 
 took no thought for their property or liveli- 
 hood. The Communistic tendency, it need 
 hardly be said, was strongly represented among 
 them. 
 
 Bullinger's "eleventh sect" is the "Augustan 
 Baptists," taking their name from a preacher 
 named Augustin Heling from Bohemia. Like 
 the Hutians, says Bullinger, " they prefer dreams 
 to the written word of God." They hold that 
 Heaven remains closed till the Day of Judgment. 
 There is, say they, neither saint in Heaven nor 
 godless in Hell, but each will be preserved, till 
 that time, in a certain place, they knew not 
 where. At the last day of judgment, however, 
 they will be severally relegated to their own
 
 DOCTRINES AND PRACTICE. 41 
 
 place. This terminates the series of the various 
 doctrines and tendencies of the Anabaptist 
 party, and of the sections embodying them. 
 
 The u twelfth sect" of Bullinger, consisting 
 simply in the great Anabaptist movement at 
 Miinster, must be taken as expressing the various 
 tendencies already enumerated, the greater num- 
 ber of which may be traced prominently in the 
 course of the history of the Miinster insurrection. 
 Bullingers thirteenth and concluding sect has 
 nothing specially to do with the Anabaptists, 
 but consists of Michael Servet and those 
 who followed him in his denial of the dogma 
 of the Trinity and the divinity of Christ ; among 
 whom, Bullinger alleges, there were many 
 Anabaptists. This was undoubtedly the case, 
 since the tendency of Anabaptism generally 
 was in the direction of breaking through 
 trammels of all kinds, dogmatic, ceremonial, 
 and ecclesiastical ; but we can hardly regard 
 it as specially distinctive of the Anabaptist 
 movement, since it was common to other 
 reforming- sects and does not seem to have 
 
 o 
 
 been, as in their case, embodied in any definite 
 formula or confession of faith. 
 
 It will be. observed that many of these divi-
 
 42 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 sions, as given by Bullinger, overlap each other 
 in more ways than one. We find certain tenden- 
 cies running through them all, and it would not 
 
 O O 
 
 be difficult to deduce the divergencies, even 
 when they seem to contradict one another, from 
 the fundamental positions of the Inner Light as 
 the last court of appeal, from the right of 
 private interpretation of Scripture, from the 
 contempt for all human authority secular or 
 ecclesiastical, and from the claim of the Brethren 
 to be the chosen people separate from the 
 world and under the immediate guidance of 
 
 O 
 
 God alone. 
 
 The second chief contemporary authority on 
 the doctrines and practices of the Anabaptists 
 is Sebastian Franck. He agrees in the main 
 with the account of Bullinger, always taking 
 into consideration the fact that Bullinger was a 
 bitter opponent of the new sect in all its forms 
 and manifestations. Franck, on the other hand, 
 was less bitter in his hostility, at least to the 
 milder aspects of Anabaptist theory and practice. 
 This, as the reader will have already seen, was in 
 the last resort simply a recrudescence over a 
 wider area, and on an extended scale, of tenden- 
 cies and even actual doctrines, that we meet
 
 DOCTRINES AND PRACTICE. 43 
 
 with springing up in different places and at 
 different times throughout the Middle Ages, and 
 which were increasing in intensity and in fre- 
 quency from the beginning of the last half of 
 the 1 5th century onwards till the great upheaval 
 known as the Reformation. 
 
 Sebastian Franck's account is contained in the 
 chapter of his " Chronik " entitled : u Articles and 
 doctrines of the Anabaptists condemned as 
 heresies by the Pope as well as by diverse 
 other sects." Franck does not adopt Bullinger's 
 classification of the various Anabaptist sects ; 
 but his account, in substance, tallies almost down 
 to the minutest detail with that of Bullinger. 
 Some, he says, recognizing re-baptism as essen- 
 tial, will not acknowledge anyone as brother 
 who has not been re-baptized. Others again, 
 regarding themselves as saints and elect, form 
 a special community, holding all property in 
 common ; others again, confine themselves to a 
 recognition of the duty of assisting Brethren in 
 want. The Brother in want, however, is sup- 
 posed to be unwilling to receive this charity. u But 
 there is in this matter," says Franck, " much 
 hypocrisy, faithlessness and lying, as they them- 
 selves are well aware." In some places as in
 
 44 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 Austerlitz, in Moravia, they have a common 
 store from which the steward distributes to each 
 that which he needs; but whether the distribu- 
 tion be just, Franck says, he has not investigated. 
 They denounce other Brethren, he says, whom 
 they deem not to be walking in the right path, 
 and this is common with them, since every 
 community among them outlaws other Brethren, 
 who do not subscribe to its views. Other Bap- 
 tists u hold the Brotherhood and common holding 
 of goods we have just cited, as of no moment, 
 deeming it needless and presumptuous on the 
 part of those Brethren who give themselves out 
 for perfect Christians and despise others. In 
 this sect every man worketh for himself, and 
 the members do help and question each other, 
 and give their hand in a manner, as seemeth 
 to me, to savour of hypocrisy, albeit I hold no 
 man to blame who doeth such things with sin- 
 cerity." God hath stopped the ears of him, 
 they say, who doth not answer u yea" to all 
 their doctrines. At the first they pray for him, 
 but if he be not speedily converted they cast 
 him out. Some, says Franck, will not make 
 merry on the Sunday because they hold it a 
 feast-day and ordination of Antichrist, while
 
 DOCTRINES AND PRACTICE. 45 
 
 others again do not object to the customary 
 spending of Sunday, but keep it for the love 
 of man, and deny that the Scripture says that 
 they should separate themselves in this way 
 from the rest of the world. Many of them explain 
 the Scriptures in such wise that to the pure all 
 things are pure. Some will have nothing to do 
 with the heathen ; they have rules for fasting, 
 feasting, living, eating, drinking and walking ; 
 also as to clothes, as to how many folds are 
 lawful in an apron. They quote Romans XII : 
 u Ye shall not conform to this world, for friendship 
 with the world is enmity with God." 
 
 Franck goes on to notice other sects (treated 
 of by Bullinger), as his so-called Apostolic Baptists, 
 who aim at practising Scripture literally, washing 
 each other's feet, and journeying about from 
 place to place preaching, etc. ; and the Free 
 Baptists, who maintain that, being saved, they 
 can commit no evil, etc. The greater part, he 
 says, hold that the way to salvation is only 
 through suffering and an ascetic life. He also 
 refers to the Silent Brothers, who do not be- 
 lieve in preaching; the forerunners apparently 
 of the English Quakers of more than a century 
 later. He also speaks of those who go into
 
 46 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 ecstacies and trances, and who, on recovering, 
 prophesy and profess to have been translated 
 into another world. This faculty they claim to 
 have in common with the apostle Paul, who 
 says he was carried into the third heaven. 
 
 It will be seen that Sebastian Franck confirms 
 in every respect Bullinger's statements with 
 regard to the Anabaptist party. From both 
 writers it is clear that, as in the case of earlier 
 sects having similar tendencies, such as the 
 Taborites and Bohemian Brethren, there was a 
 thorough-going or extreme, and a moderate or 
 opportunist party. A domestic communism was 
 one of the leading; characteristics of the former, 
 
 o 
 
 as the recognition of the rights of private pro- 
 perty up to a certain point, subject to the duty 
 of almsgiving to needy Brethren, was that of 
 the latter. 
 
 There was a certain body of the Brethren 
 who, according to Franck, wished to carry their 
 communism into the matter of wives, but, he 
 says, they were soon suppressed by the other 
 Brethren. Hans Hut and Ludwig Hatzer are 
 stated to have held and propagated this view. 
 We have already seen what Bullinger has to say 
 as to the views on sexual matters of certain of
 
 DOCTRINES AND PRACTICE. 47 
 
 the Brethren. Whether Franck refers to these same 
 followers of Hut and Hatzer it is difficult to say. 
 Similar doctrines and practices had also obtained 
 among the " Adamites " in Bohemia the century 
 before, as also among the " Brothers and Sisters, 
 of the free Spirit" in the earlier Middle Ages. 
 The general arrangements of the Anabaptist 
 communities were very simple ; re-baptism was 
 a sign of reception into the Brotherhood of 
 believers. Every community had its superin- 
 tendent, who was called Teacher or Shepherd. 
 He was sometimes designated by the original 
 founder of the brotherhood in question, and was 
 sometimes chosen by the body of the members. 
 Special persons were also appointed for looking 
 after the poor, and those Brethren having the 
 gift of oratory were often sent forth to spread the 
 Word as apostles. The function of the Shepherd 
 was teaching, exhortation and prayer. He also 
 had to perform the ceremony of bread-breaking 
 and to pronounce the sentence of expulsion on 
 recalcitrant members in the name of the com- 
 munity. These simple forms were, however, the 
 outward indications. Behind the meetings of 
 the community for Bible reading and mutual 
 exhortation, behind the breaking of bread, the
 
 48 JRISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 Anabaptist " Sacrament," were duties and obli- 
 gations and a general regulation of life on the 
 basis of the common principles, a regulation en- 
 forced by the moral influence of the community 
 upon each member. The rules relating to property, 
 which always involved at least the duty of 
 assisting the community alike individually and 
 collectively, were obligatory upon every member. 
 These rules ranged, as we have seen, from a 
 kind of compulsory almsgiving to complete 
 communism. Then there was prohibition of 
 swearing, of the bearing of the sword, of the exer- 
 cise of any governmental function, of going to 
 law. To crown all, in a vast majority of Ana- 
 baptist communities, there was the express in- 
 junction upon all members to keep separate from 
 the world, to have no part nor lot with the 
 heathen, that is, with non-baptists. All who 
 were without the fold were declared to be an 
 abomination to God. This was carried so far 
 that even the wine-shops and the guild-rooms 
 were for the most part " taboo" to the Brother. 
 The Anabaptists dressed simply in plain home- 
 spun, without ornament or trimming of any de- 
 scription. They called each other "brother" and 
 "sister," and employed as their greeting the
 
 DOCTRINES AND PRACTICE. 49 
 
 words u Peace be with thee," accompanied by 
 the holy kiss. 
 
 Their sacrament of bread-breaking, which, 
 with the exception of baptism, was their only 
 ceremony, was regarded as symbolical of the 
 renewal of the covenant with God, and the 
 confirmation of brotherly love amongst them- 
 selves. This was usually preceded by a public 
 confession of sins and by an exhortation on the 
 part of the Shepherd, who, in extreme cases, 
 would of his own initiative exclude a sinning 
 member from the ceremony. After the bread- 
 breaking followed the sermon with its exhor- 
 tation to mutual forbearance and to the regard- 
 
 o 
 
 ing of all things temporal or spiritual as a 
 common possession of the Brethren; to prayer 
 for enemies, and to the returning of good for 
 evil. The ceremony of bread-breaking was 
 frequently performed in times of persecution, 
 and almost invariably when any great danger 
 threatened. 
 
 From the foregoing it will be seen that the 
 Anabaptists recognized no relation to the State 
 as such. The State, in their opinion, belonged 
 to the realm of darkness with which the Brethren 
 had nothing in common. It was only designed by 
 
 4
 
 50 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 God as a scourge for true Christians. The 
 Brethren should obey it rather too much than 
 too little, should quietly bear tribulation and 
 persecution, awaiting the day of the Lord, which 
 was fast approaching. Its signs were everywhere 
 apparent, the Gospel everywhere preached and 
 persecution suffered for the name of Christ. 
 The fig tree was blooming, they said, the sum- 
 mer was nigh and the Kingdom of God at 
 hand (Cornelius, u Gcsckickte des MiinsteriscJicn 
 Aufruhrs" II, pp. 851). 
 
 But owing to the want of united organization, 
 to the heterogeneity of the elements which 
 soon became absorbed into the party, to the 
 nature of its fundamental dogmas and other 
 causes, a tendency to rupture early showed itself. 
 The doctrine of non-resistance and obedience 
 to authority was, as already mentioned, by no 
 means everywhere accepted in its literal sense. 
 The question of property-holding was, as may 
 be imagined, a great bone of contention. That 
 of the right or duty of cohabitation with a hus- 
 band or wife (as the case might be) who was 
 outside the fold, was also hotly debated. In 
 their theology it was the same with the Anabap- 
 tists. They were not bound together by any
 
 DOCTRINES AND PRACTICE. 51 
 
 formal theological confession of faith. Without 
 
 o 
 
 the infringement of any recognized principle of 
 the body, Johannes Denck could preach the 
 doctrine of the ultimate salvation of the damned 
 and Ludwig Hatzer his denial of the dogma of 
 the divinity of Christ. As we have seen, there 
 were even some communities or congregations 
 who declared all ceremonies, not excepting bap- 
 tism and bread-breaking, the central and the 
 only pillars of the Anabaptist cultus, as super- 
 fluous. So great, indeed, was the divergence, 
 alike in doctrine and practice, between the diffe- 
 rent Anabaptist communities that Franck, with 
 allowable exaggeration, intimates that they had 
 as many different sects as they had shepherds 
 or superintendents, and concludes with the ob- 
 servation : " There are many more sects and 
 opinions, which I do not all know and cannot 
 describe, but it seems to me that there are not 
 two to be found who agree with each other on 
 all points." 
 
 The Anabaptist Church or party was, owing 
 to the conditions of the time, kept in a continual 
 state of flux as regards its constituents. The 
 communities frequently changed alike in member- 
 ship as in shepherds. In the most favorable
 
 52 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 case it was exceedingly difficult to hold any 
 number of different communities together, even 
 imperfectly, while with the rapid spread of the 
 sect anything like cohesion of the body became 
 out of the question. 
 
 The numerous peripatetic preachers or apo- 
 stles would in many cases enter a village or 
 marketplace, a workshop or the public room of 
 a hostelry, preach to all who would hear, found 
 a congregation or community, few or many, as 
 the case might be, baptize, "break bread," 
 possibly appoint a shepherd or superintendent 
 from among the more zealous of their converts, 
 and after a few hours pass on their way to repeat 
 the same process in the next town or village. 
 The communities thus left to themselves naturally 
 developed various tendencies in accordance with 
 the character of the leading spirit among them. 
 
 The success of the itinerant missionaries of 
 course pre-supposed a soil well prepared to 
 receive the seed, often sown in a very per- 
 functory fashion. The doctrines they had to 
 offer, belonged to the atmosphere of the time. 
 (Compare the remarks made on religious and 
 political propaganda in the Middle Ages in " Ger- 
 man Society" pp. 87 91).
 
 DOCTRINES AND PRACTICE. 53 
 
 Although not so systematic in his attempt to 
 delineate the theories and practices of the Ana- 
 baptists as either Bullinger or Franck, we have 
 a third most important and interesting eye- 
 witness of events connected with the movement 
 in Johannes Kessler, a well-known theologian of 
 the time and a native of St. Gallen. Kessler 
 in his u Sabbata" a chronicle of the events 
 between 1523 and 1539, devotes considerable 
 space to interesting details concerning the pro- 
 gress of the Anabaptists, especially in his native 
 territory. l 
 
 After describing the origin of Anabaptism in 
 Zurich and its general character, in terms similar 
 to those of Bullinger and Franck, Kessler proceeds 
 to relate incidents in its career in St. Gallen and 
 Appenzell. His account may fairly be taken as 
 typically illustrative of the nature of the new 
 movement, and the effects produced by its doc- 
 trines on overwrought or unhinged temperaments 
 so common in that period of religious excitement 
 and exaltation. A certain Wolfgang Wolimann, 
 
 1 We here quote from the edition of the " Sabbata" edited 
 by Dr. Ernst Goetsinger, St. Gallen, 1870. The facts relating 
 to the Anabaptists referred to in the text will be found in 
 Book III, pp. 225305.
 
 54 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 a citizen of St. Gallen, who had previously 
 preached against infant baptism, by chance met 
 Konrad Grebel on a journey to Schaffhausen, 
 and under the latter's instructions accepted the 
 new doctrines with such enthusiasm that he was 
 not satisfied with having a bowl of water emptied 
 over his head in the usual fashion, but insisted 
 upon undressing and upon his whole body being 
 ducked in the Rhine by Grebel. This was the 
 origin of baptism by immersion. On his return 
 home he boasted of revelations received, with 
 the result of creating amongst various townspeople 
 a violent curiosity to hear him. Day and place 
 were fixed: the day, the loth of March; the 
 place, the Weavers' guild-room on the market- 
 place of St. Gallen. A large number were 
 assembled, when Wolimann,~entering, began his 
 discourse with the declaration that the heavenly 
 Father had revealed to him that he should not 
 preach His Word in the churches, for, said he, 
 "there is no truth preached, neither may the 
 truth be preached there." Thereupon a discus- 
 sion arose, in which it was pointed out that the 
 Apostles were willing to preach the word in the 
 temple and synagogues ; that hence there was 
 no reason why Wolimann should not do so ;
 
 DOCTRINES AND PRACTICE. 55 
 
 but Wolimann was obdurate and succeeded in 
 convincing a certain number of those present, 
 who, henceforward shunned the churches as the 
 portals of hell, holding their meetings in houses, 
 fields, and woods. This, says Kessler, was the 
 first split in the Evangelical Church of St. Gallen 
 and the beginning of Anabaptism in that region. 
 A few days later, Konrad Grebel, who, as we 
 know, had been banished from Zurich in January, 
 and had been for several weeks past proselytizing 
 the northern territories of Switzerland, arrived 
 himself in St. Gallen. The followers of Wolimann, 
 and indeed all those who were disaffected towards 
 the official Protestantism, streamed out at the 
 city gate on the Sunday, which happened to be 
 Palm Sunday, to meet the famous sectary, which 
 they did in a village hard by. Many were there 
 and then re-baptized. Grebel was then taken 
 to the Weavers ' guild-room. The weavers were 
 well to the fore in this movement as in other 
 previous similar movements. Grebel held forth 
 on infant baptism and the Bible. He seems, 
 however, to have been averse to anything like 
 disputation, alleging that those who wished to 
 have converse with him should come to him 
 " naked" as he expressed it, by which he meant
 
 56 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 with a humble and teachable disposition and 
 not with a desire to dispute. 
 
 The St. Gallen communist soon began actual 
 preaching in the neighbouring villages and small 
 towns. The Evangelical preachers were denounc- 
 ed, and their hearers persuaded to drive them 
 from their parishes. Here, as elsewhere, the 
 great subject of the polemic was infant baptism. 
 u Because," says Kessler, "they are themselves 
 unlearned, they despise all learning, proclaiming 
 that revelation and the inner light come only to 
 the simple and ignorant." At the same time 
 he admits that " their walk and conversation are 
 throughout pious, holy, and blameless." They 
 avoided costly apparel, despising luxurious eating 
 and drinking, clothed themselves with rough 
 cloth, covering their heads with slouch hats 
 Their way and their manner were humble. u They 
 carry no weapon, neither sword nor dagger, 
 save it be a broken bread-knife, declaring that 
 the sheep durst not wear the wolf's clothing. 
 They swear not, nay, not even take they the 
 civic oath to any authority; and should one of 
 them transgress in this, he will be banished by 
 them, for there is a daily purging of members 
 among them. In speech and disputation they
 
 DOCTRINES AND PRACTICE. 57 
 
 are grim and bitter and are withal so stubborn that 
 they are willing to die for that which they maintain. 
 They proclaim more insistently justification by 
 works than even the Papists." (" Sabbata^ III, 
 p. 232). Yet their numbers daily increased. Of 
 the exterior circumstances of the Anabaptist Church 
 of St. Gallen we have, however, spoken in the 
 last chapter. We are here only concerned with 
 the details of the inner life of the movement 
 preserved for us by Kessler, as illustrating its 
 character generally. 
 
 It is related how one of the new sect, a 
 peasant, hailing from the village of Zollikon, 
 near Zurich, appeared, demanding that all books 
 should be burned as vain and pernicious products 
 of mere human learning This he attempted to 
 carry out; many persons bringing him their 
 literary chattels to increase his bonfire. This 
 same peasant, Hans Fessler by name, once rose 
 up in the church at Zurich as Zwingli was preach- 
 ing, and shouted : u Zwingli, I adjure thee by 
 the living God that thou dost declare the truth." 
 Zwingli at first took no notice, going on with 
 his discourse ; but as Fessler continued the dis- 
 turbance Zwingli finally answered : u So then I 
 will declare the truth unto thee, that thou art
 
 58 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 a rude, ill-bred tumultuous peasant." This seemed 
 to be regarded by the congregation as a distinct 
 score of Zwingli, and, according to our author, 
 the conduct of the interrupter did harm to the 
 cause in Zurich. 
 
 One of the Zurich Brethren preached the new 
 gospel far and wide in the Appenzell territory 
 with the gloss of his own that as they would 
 follow Christ they must obey his injunction that 
 they were to become as little children, if they 
 wished to possess the Kingdom of Heaven. 
 Accordingly many persons, especially women, 
 began to conduct themselves as though they 
 were children, aping childish ways, jumping up, 
 clapping their hands, sitting down naked on the 
 ground, letting themselves be washed like child- 
 ren, throwing apples at each other, stringing 
 fir-cones on a piece of thread, and the better 
 they succeeded in acting the part of children 
 the more closely they believed themselves to be 
 following Christ's word. Women cut their hair 
 off round their ears like men, holding it for 
 vanity and foolishness to plait their tresses, 
 " but," observes Kessler, " there was more vanity 
 displayed, and more needless labor given in the 
 endeavour to hold the ends together behind the
 
 DOCTRINES AND PRACTICE. 59 
 
 ears with silk ribbons than though they had 
 worn their hair like other women." 
 
 Other prophets arose among the Brethren, 
 emphasizing various points or starting new inter- 
 pretations. The New Testament should be received 
 in the spirit and not in the letter, said they. 
 Some of them even went so far as to throw 
 their Bibles into the fire, saying that " the letter 
 killeth, but the spirit maketh alive," and that 
 u God would write his law in their hearts." 
 Thereupon they would sit still, declaring that 
 men had no free will, but that God worked 
 everything in them, and that they would wait 
 till God spoke to them. For the same reason 
 they refused to pray, saying that God would 
 give them what was right without their asking. 
 They neither greeted anyone nor answered a 
 greeting, but went about in silence. 
 
 Kessler goes on to relate cases of violent 
 religious mania as occurring amongst the Ana- 
 baptists. Margeretha Hattinger of Zollikon near 
 Zurich, declaring that she was God, began to 
 utter meaningless sounds. A native of St. Gallen, 
 Magdalena Muller by name, declared that she 
 was Christ, the Way, the Truth, and the Life. 
 Two companions of hers also became infected,
 
 60 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 falling on the ground and raving. After lying 
 for two or three hours unconscious, one of them 
 declared that she had heard God's living voice. 
 This woman, with others, subsequently entered 
 houses and workrooms, calling upon all to meet 
 outside the town at a given place. Here the 
 woman, Frena Bumenin by name, announced 
 that she was destined to give birth to the Anti- 
 christ, and thereupon proceeded to divest herself 
 of her clothing, and finally stood naked before 
 the assembled crowd. In the night she rushed 
 forth, notwithstanding that it was mid-winter, 
 with frost and snow on the ground, and plunged 
 into the neighbouring brook. At last she was 
 arrested and brought back into the town, shrieking 
 continuously the while that the day of the Lord 
 was at hand. The biirgermeister and council 
 having in vain endeavoured to persuade her to 
 go home to Appenzell, her native place, she was 
 imprisoned in a building just outside the town- 
 walls. Here her conduct was so outrageous that 
 
 O 
 
 the worthy Kessler prefers to omit any mention 
 thereof, in order " not to trouble the Spirit of 
 the Christian reader." On being liberated, she 
 roamed through the Appenzell territories, joining 
 herself to the already excited peasants who came
 
 DOCTRINES AND PRACTICE. 61 
 
 in her way. Many of these peasants destroyed 
 their own property or cast it out of the door 
 of their homesteads, saying that God would 
 care for them. 
 
 The whole territory seems to have been 
 infected with an epidemic of mania. Women 
 would rush without their clothes to the meetings 
 
 o 
 
 of the Brethren, and only after some time 
 become conscious that they were naked. The 
 suppression of the public assemblies only led 
 to meetings being held by night in the home- 
 steads. The seizures, the fallings on the ground 
 and ravings, repeated themselves again and 
 again. One of those thus afflicted told Kessler 
 that the convulsions, in most cases, occurred 
 against the will of the patient, many children 
 of tender years being also seized. A certain 
 man, Thomas Schugger by name, set up as a 
 prophet, and after many extraordinary doings 
 ended by persuading his brother Leonhardt to 
 let him bind him. The following night Leon- 
 hardt declared to Thomas that it was the Lord's 
 will that he should cut off his (Leonhardt's) head, 
 which he did the next morning. Afterwards, 
 covered only with a shirt, he rushed into the 
 houses of certain eminent citizens. He was
 
 62 XISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 arrested and executed eight days subsequently 
 outside the walls. This did not prevent certain 
 of his followers from continuing to represent the 
 crime as inspired by God. 
 
 Kessler relates that many went from the 
 extreme of simplicity in clothing to that of 
 costliness. He makes also startling statements 
 
 o 
 
 as to the sensuality practised by the sectaries 
 on the plea that their souls were dead to the 
 flesh and that all that the flesh did was by the 
 will of God. He relates that two young women 
 were arrested and confessed to having prostituted 
 themselves under the mantle of the Gospel. 
 They appear to have recanted, but were never- 
 theless condemned to carry a large stone on 
 a pole from gate to gate round the town to 
 the RatJihaus. 
 
 It must not be supposed, however, although 
 religious abberation, interspersed with cases of 
 actual insanity and even acute mania, was 
 undoubtedly common throughout the whole Ana- 
 baptist movement, that this represented the 
 teaching and practices of the great mass of 
 the Brethren. 
 
 We have given the substance of Johannes 
 Kessler's account of the Anabaptists in northern
 
 DOCTRINES AND PRACTICE. 63 
 
 Switzerland and especially in St. Gallen at some 
 length, as that of a contemporary and in many 
 cases an eye-witness. It is especially interesting 
 as such, but it must of course be remembered 
 that, though his account may in the main be 
 true, Kessler is a hostile witness. Even he him- 
 self admits that the original heads of the move- 
 
 O 
 
 ment, such as Konrad Grebel and Felix Manz, 
 repudiated entirely much of the teaching and 
 practice that had been grafted on to their doc- 
 trine. The Anabaptist theory, notwithstanding 
 that it always had the tendency from first to 
 last, like all similar movements, to run on oc- 
 casion into this class of excess, producing 
 in susceptible subjects religious mania, moved, 
 as a whole, within the limits of the general 
 religious consciousness of the age, and represent- 
 ed a genuine attempt to carry out logically, 
 principles of the Gospel-teaching and the idea 
 of a return to a supposed primitive Christianity, 
 common, more or less, (at least theologically) 
 to all the leaders of the reformation. It was a 
 movement constituted in the main of the dis- 
 inherited classes of the time, the peasants, the 
 poorer handicraftsmen and the journeymen of 
 the towns, to whose oppressed position, economi-
 
 64 &ISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 cally and politically, it powerfully appealed. It 
 was thus pre-eminently a class-movement closely 
 interwoven with the material conditions affecting 
 vast sections of the population in that period 
 of the closing Middle Ages. Like its immediate 
 precursor, the movement which gave rise to the 
 great Peasants War of 1525, it appeared in a 
 mediaeval garb ; but, as before said, the tenden- 
 cies, which in earlier periods of the Middle 
 Ages had been sporadic and transitory, now 
 became general and showed symptoms of ac- 
 quiring permanency. 
 
 The common characteristics of the network of 
 Anabaptist communities or congregations, which 
 between 1525 and 1530 spread themselves over 
 the Germanic populations of the Continent, 
 from Bern in the south to Amsterdam in the 
 north, from Strasburg in the west to Vienna 
 in the east, will be sufficiently apparent to the 
 reader from the foregoing pages. It will be 
 readily seen from them that a centralised orga- 
 nization in the true sense of the word never 
 existed. At most we find a loose federation 
 between the communities of a district. The 
 only real bond uniting these widely-spread 
 fraternities, with the possible exception of their
 
 DOCTRINES AND PRACTICE. 65 
 
 characteristic ceremonies of adult baptism and 
 bread-breaking, was rather a common sentiment 
 and intellectual tendency than any hard-and- 
 fast system of dogma or ritual. The twenty- 
 five propositions, enumerated by Bullinger, as 
 constituting the common basis of the Anabap- 
 tist doctrine, were doubtless accepted by the 
 vast majority of the religious communities of 
 the Anabaptists. But, as Bullinger himself shows, 
 there were not wanting individual leaders and 
 even entire communities of the Brethren who 
 dissented from many even of the tenets that 
 were in general regarded as fundamental. In 
 fine, though the general tendencies of Anabap- 
 tism were unmistakable, the specific doctrines 
 held by its adherents presented many marked 
 variations.
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 PERSECUTION OF THE ANABAPTISTS AND DEATH 
 OF THE EARLIER LEADERS. 
 
 AT first the attitude of the authorities towards 
 the new sect was somewhat hesitating. Like 
 Zwingli in Zurich, the spiritual and temporal 
 powers of other towns made some show of 
 giving the Anabaptists a fair hearing, and 
 instituted public disputations. It was expected, 
 of course, that they should accept the refutations 
 of the pastors and masters who were appointed 
 for the purpose of refuting them. When, as 
 might have been supposed, the disputants having 
 failed to come to an understanding, the Ana- 
 baptists would not repent and acknowledge 
 themselves as beaten, resort had to be taken 
 to other measures. St. Gallen, Basel and Bern, 
 besides Zurich, tried the persuasive method of 
 disputation without any tangible results. The 
 inevitable change to persecution followed. 
 
 The Governments, although agreed as to the
 
 PERSECUTION OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 67 
 
 principle of non-toleration of dissentients from 
 the established creed, whether Catholic or Pro- 
 testant, were by no means all of the same mind 
 as to the severity of the measures necessary to 
 stamp out the new doctrine. 
 
 The Archduke Ferdinand of Austria issued on 
 August 26th, 1527, an Imperial mandate con- 
 demning Anabaptism and threatening the fol- 
 lowers of such doctrine with the punishment of 
 death. On October i6th of the same year, he 
 had more than two thousand copies of this 
 mandate printed and distributed over the dif- 
 ferent provinces of the Empire. The Catholic 
 territories and cities were, as might have been 
 expected, the first to adopt extreme courses. 
 They were stimulated by another Imperial man- 
 date of January 4th, 1528, reminding them 
 that, according alike to the Spiritual and temporal 
 law, re-baptism was punishable with death, and 
 exhorting the authorities throughout the Empire 
 to proceed with rigour in accordance with the 
 legal provisions in the matter. For the Catholic 
 powers this was all right, but it was impossible 
 for the new Evangelical (Protestant) principalities 
 and cities to admit the validity of Imperial laws 
 and edicts in religious matters ; since they would
 
 68 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 have been at once themselves confronted with 
 the Edict of Worms (1520) and with the opening 
 up of a limitless vista of consequences other- 
 wise, which would place them in an impossible 
 position. Not that the heads of the* official 
 Reformation yielded one whit to the Catholics 
 in the ill-will they bore the new comers, but 
 the idea of starting a persecution on their own 
 account by virtue of their local authority was as 
 yet not quite familiar to them. Hence a certain 
 hesitancy and reluctance to leave the path of 
 persuasion and argument. Various lights of the 
 official protestantism were entrusted or entrusted 
 themselves with the mission of controversially 
 destroying the leading positions of the Anabap- 
 tists. In the discourses and literature that resulted, 
 the to us unimportant but at that time essential 
 question of re-baptism occupied the foremost place. 
 But with all the disputation, spoken and written on 
 the subject, little impression was made. Martin 
 Butzer of Strasburg, clever theological logic- 
 chopper as he was, was forced to admit that, 
 during four years almost exclusively devoted 
 to this class of activity, he could only boast of 
 one convert. 
 
 Elsewhere there was a disposition to treat
 
 PERSECUTION OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 69 
 
 the Anabaptists as political criminals. The re- 
 membrance of the Peasants War and the part 
 played in it by similar doctrines, doctrines now 
 embraced, moreover, by the very same classes 
 and in some cases even the very persons who 
 had taken part in the great rebellion, naturally 
 strengthened this way of looking at the matter. 
 In a pamphlet published at the time bearing 
 the title : " Neue Zeitung von den Wiedertaufferen 
 2ind ihrer sect, neulich erwachsen im Shifte zu 
 Salzburg und an andern enden" etc. (1528), 1 we 
 are told how the new Sect was spreading in 
 Salzburg as elsewhere ; how its votaries met and 
 held conventicles in out-of-the-way places; how 
 those who were baptized made over their pos- 
 sessions to the Brotherhood; how they refused 
 to go more to the il stone temples" to hear 
 mass, etc. A report being spread that the 
 brethren proposed on Christmas Eve, 1527, to 
 massacre all priests and monks, an ex-priest, 
 who was one of their chief preachers, and thirty- 
 two of his hearers were arrested not far from 
 the town by five men-at-arms. Of these the 
 
 1 ("New tractate touching the Anabaptists and their sect 
 newly arisen and grown up in the diocese of Salzburg and in 
 other parts"?)
 
 yo RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 priest himself and two others, who refused to 
 recant, were burned alive on the Frohnhof at 
 Salzburg. Five more, who confessed their errors, 
 were executed with the sword. A woman and 
 u a beautiful young girl" of sixteen would not 
 recant and were drowned by the hangman in 
 the horsepond, their bodies being afterwards 
 burned. On the Monday after All Saints' Day 
 a nobleman and a walletmaker, both of Salzburg, 
 were first beheaded and then burned. Shortly 
 afterwards a girtle-maker and a shoe-latchet 
 maker, who refused to recant, were burned in 
 the public square. "They lived long," says this 
 little chronicle, " and cried so unceasingly to God 
 that it was pitiful to hear." On the following 
 Monday, ten women and some men, who had 
 recanted, had their lives spared on condition of 
 doing penance, but were expelled the town. 
 The same week one of the town-clerks, an 
 ex-priest, and three other persons, amongst them 
 another journeyman girtle-maker, who under 
 torture steadfastly refused to recant, were shut 
 up in a house previously used for the sect's 
 meetings, which was then set on fire. "They 
 lived long, and pitifully shrieked together, till at 
 last they gave up the ghost." Two other houses
 
 PERSECUTION OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 71 
 
 used presumably for the meetings of the sect 
 were also burned to the ground as a warning. 
 The author states there were at the time of 
 writing forty-one persons imprisoned in Salzburg 
 of whom, he says, u no man knoweth what 
 shall be done unto them." 
 
 The tract concludes with an enumeration of 
 sundry tenets held by the new sectaries, which 
 had been rejected by the assembled clergy of 
 Augsburg as antichristian, amongst others, that 
 no one is to be regarded as a right preacher 
 who does not travel from place to place; that 
 Christ is only the teacher of a Christian life, 
 but not the fulfiller of the law in us; that the 
 only way to the Father is to do justly; that 
 adult baptism has been enjoined by a new 
 dispensation from God. 
 
 During the five years from 1525 to 1530, the 
 number of Anabaptists slain in the Tyrol and 
 the neighbouring territories is estimated by 
 Kirschmeyer at a thousand. Sebastian Franck 
 reckons six hundred as having perished at En- 
 sisheim, the seat of the Austrian Government 
 in its south-western dominions, though whether 
 he includes as Anabaptists those who suffered 
 for their part in the Peasant revolt is not quite
 
 72 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 clear. At Linz there were seventy-six killed in 
 six weeks. Duke Wilhelm of Bavaria gave the 
 order that all those who recanted should be 
 beheaded, whilst those who did not should be 
 burned. From 1529 onwards, the authorities 
 were in some cases somewhat more merciful, 
 basing their action on an Imperial mandate of 
 April 23rd of that year, that only the leaders 
 and preachers among the Baptists and those who 
 were specially obstinate, or who had relapsed 
 after having once recanted, should be burned, 
 but that those who confessed their errors might 
 be pardoned. Even with this limitation enough 
 victims were delivered over to the executioner, 
 one would have thought, to satisfy the most 
 blood-thirsty bigot or representative of domi- 
 nant class-interest. 
 
 The so-called Evangelical territories, Zwinglian 
 and Lutheran, though persecution in them was 
 not, as a rule, carried to the same length as 
 in the Catholic districts, had no lack of victims. 
 The hesitancy and partial tolerance that marked 
 their attitude in the earlier stages of the move- 
 ment soon gave way to imprisonment and 
 executions. Instances of toleration were rare, 
 the chief one being that of the Landgraf of
 
 PERSECUTION OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 73 
 
 Hesse, who, in replying to a Lutheran admonition 
 from Saxony, urging suppression of the Anabap- 
 tists, declared that his conscience would not 
 allow him to punish religious opinion with the 
 sword ; were it not so, he would have to suppress 
 Jews and Papists no less than the Anabaptists. 
 In most of the Protestant territories, however, 
 the wave of persecution rapidly rose higher and 
 higher. Felix Manz was judicially drowned at 
 Zurich on January 5th, 1527. On May 2ist of 
 the same year Michel Sattler, a well-known local 
 leader at Rothenburg on the Neckar, had his 
 tongue torn out, and after being flayed with red 
 hot pincers was burned, his wife being punished 
 by drowning shortly after. In Augsburg a bitter 
 persecution began in the autumn of 1527. It 
 was here that Hans Hut, imprisoned in one of 
 the towers of the town wall, was killed in at- 
 tempting to escape. His corpse was burned in 
 the public place of execution. This happened 
 in December. Among the earlier Anabaptists 
 Hans Hut (not to be confounded with Jakob 
 Huter) is such a prominent figure that it is worth 
 while to turn aside to consider his career, 
 characteristic as it in many ways was. 
 
 In a former chapter we have stated that Hut
 
 74 1VSE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 was a native of Main in Franconia. By trade 
 he was a bookbinder, who travelled much through 
 the Franconian cities. He alleged, in a state- 
 ment made at Augsburg before his accusers, 
 that he had for some time acted as a kind of 
 agent for the Lutheran press at Wittenberg. 
 In 1524, however, he made the acquaintance 
 of Thomas Miinzer, whom he also assisted in 
 the printing and circulating of his pamphlets. 
 Munzer soon won him over to some at least of 
 his ideas. During a journey to Wittenberg, get- 
 ting into conversation with some Anabaptists, 
 he became much struck with their arguments, 
 which he followed up by a diligent study of the 
 passages in the New Testament relating to 
 baptism. The result was Hut's complete con- 
 version to the new doctrines. On the outbreak 
 of the Peasants War in Saxony he migrated 
 to Frankenhausen, with the object of selling his 
 books and pamphlets to the peasants. He was, 
 however, arrested by the authorities, but was 
 released through the agency of Munzer, then 
 at the height of his power. After the battle of 
 Frankenhausen he succeeded in escaping from 
 the pursuers and began his career as an Ana- 
 baptist preacher. Hans Hut declared that
 
 PERSECUTION OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 75 
 
 although valuing the teaching of Miinzer and 
 revering his personality, he never actually joined 
 his immediate followers at Miilhausen, who, as 
 a sect, kept themselves separate from the rising 
 Anabaptist body. Hut, however, does not ap- 
 pear himself to have been re-baptized before 
 the 2Oth of May, 1526, when the ceremony was 
 performed by Johannes Denck. Hence, during 
 the Miinzer period he had clearly not actually 
 joined the body. Hut now went about himself 
 baptizing, his chief proselyte being Wolfgang 
 Vogel, a pastor of Elterdorf, who in his turn 
 preached and baptized much. His assent, 
 however, to the non-resistance doctrines, at this 
 time held by the vast majority of the Anabap- 
 tists, seems to have been, if recognised at all, 
 considerably modified by Miinzerite teaching. 
 The gist of his preaching was that Christ would 
 shortly come into his earthly Kingdom, and 
 would give the sword of justice into the hands 
 of the elect, that is, the re-baptized ones. He 
 is also credited with a free-love doctrine. 
 
 Arrested by order of the City authorities of 
 Niirnberg, Hut was after a short time released 
 and expelled the city territory. The Rath of 
 Niarnberg meanwhile sent warning to Augsburg
 
 76 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 and Regensburg against the dangerous firebrand. 
 The latter, however, continued to preach, pro- 
 claiming himself a prophet sent by God to warn 
 the godless of the approaching end of the world, 
 when judgment would be held on the great 
 ones of the earth for the abuse of their tem- 
 poral authority in the persecution of the saints, 
 no less than on priests and pastors for their 
 false doctrines. But the saints would rejoice, 
 for they should receive a two-edged sword, to 
 the end that they might bind the Kings and 
 nobles with iron chains. The great day would 
 be presaged by the irruption of the Turks into 
 Christendom. The advent of Christ was fixed 
 by Hut for Whitsuntide 1528. On Hut's be- 
 ginning to preach these doctrines in Nikolsburg 
 in Moravia, where Hubmeyer had fixed the 
 scene of his activity, the two men naturally came 
 into collision. Hubmeyer was nothing if not a 
 partisan of the moderate views of the party, 
 and generally represented the most conservative 
 tendencies in Anabaptism. The usual disputation 
 was held between the two preachers in a village 
 church outside Nikolsburg, and a second in 
 Nikolsburg itself. But the doctrine of non-resist- 
 
 o 
 
 ance had two sides to it. If it discountenanced
 
 PERSECUTION OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 77 
 
 rebellion against constituted authorities, it also 
 discountenanced fighting on behalf of those autho- 
 rities or indeed in any way assisting them in their 
 acts of violence. Now Hubmeyer, with a weakness 
 that was characteristic of him, as is indicated not 
 merely in his recantation at Zurich, but in his 
 whole career, was inclined to temporize in this 
 matter with the laws of the land, which obliged 
 the inhabitants to pay a war-tax and provide 
 war-material against the Turks. In this way he in- 
 curred the displeasure of the more logically- 
 minded of the body, to whom Hans Hut rallied. 
 It was not long before Hut was arrested and 
 incarcerated in the castle of Nikolsburg. This 
 time, however, friendly aid was successful in 
 letting him down through the window by night 
 in a net used for entrapping hares. These 
 discussions between Hubmeyer and Hut in 
 Moravia created a widespread sensation. 
 
 In August, 1527, Hut returned for the last 
 time to Augsburg, where, in the following No- 
 vember, he was arrested, and where, as we have 
 seen, his attempt to escape had a fatal ending. 
 His disciple, Wolfgang Vogel, it should be said, 
 had been already beheaded in Ntirnberg, as a 
 ringleader of rebels, on the 26th of March, 1527.
 
 78 JRISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 Hubmeyer himself was arrested at the instance 
 of the Archduke Ferdinand at the beginning of 
 1528. He was, with eighteen other Anabaptists, 
 in February 1528 brought to Passau and thence 
 to Vienna where he was put to the torture. 
 This time, though no promise of any formal 
 recantation could be extracted from him, still 
 weak, he sent in a defence in which he endea- 
 voured to show himself in as orthodox a light 
 as possible, and by which he evidently hoped 
 to conciliate the authorities. But it was all of 
 no avail. He was condemned to be burned at 
 the stake. Early in March he was brought to 
 Vienna, after being confined for some time in 
 a castle outside the city. He was taken before 
 the Spiritual Court, and was subjected to the 
 torture, but, no further recantation being extorted, 
 sentence was passed. On March loth, he was 
 placed bound upon a cart and carried through 
 the streets of Vienna, being, as one report states, 
 gripped with hot pincers at intervals till he 
 reached the place of execution. 
 
 What followed is given in a report of the 
 matter by one Fabri a priest, published imme- 
 diately afterwards. It seems to have been a 
 kind of official document. Hubmeyer, we are
 
 PERSECUTION OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 79 
 
 told, who throughout his journey had been re- 
 peating passages from the Bible, on being bound 
 to the stake raised his voice and cried in the 
 Swiss dialect : u Oh merciful God ! give me pa- 
 tience in my great agony." Turning to the 
 crowd which had followed, he spoke : u Oh dear 
 brethren, if I have offended anyone in word or 
 deed, may he forgive me for the sake of my 
 most merciful God, as I forgive also those who 
 have injured me." On his clothes being taken 
 from him, he exclaimed: U I willingly part with 
 my garments, O my Lord ! Only preserve for 
 me my spirit and my soul which I commend to 
 thee." After having repeated in Latin the words 
 "O Lord, into thy hands I commend my spirit," 
 his hands and feet were bound and he was laid 
 upon the pile. When the executioner rubbed 
 gunpowder into his long beard, he murmured, 
 u O salt me well, salt me well," and then raising 
 his head, exclaimed : " O dear brethren, pray 
 God to give me patience in this my suffering." 
 As his hair and beard burned, he cried out: 
 U O Jesus! Jesus!" These were his last words, 
 before, overpowered by the smoke, his head fell 
 upon his breast and he died. It is said that to 
 those around it seemed as though he experienc-
 
 8o RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 ed more joy than pain. The weakness and 
 inconstancy that during his life had more than 
 once led him, in the presence of danger, to 
 recant or tone down his opinions, was exchanged 
 in his last hour for the most heroic fortitude. 
 His wife, it is said, the daughter of a citizen of 
 Waldshut, strengthened him in his convictions with 
 her encouragement up to the last. She herself was 
 three days later thrown from the Danube bridge 
 with a stone tied round her neck and drowned. 
 Hubmeyer's death created a great impression, 
 but the Archduke Ferdinand was by no means 
 disposed to stop at half measures, or at the 
 mere extermination of the leaders. He imme- 
 diately took steps of a still more drastic nature 
 in that great seat of Anabaptism, the scene of 
 the activity of Hubmeyer, Moravia. Shortly 
 after Hubmeyer's death, he got a measure sanction- 
 ed by the assembled estates of that territory for 
 the rooting out of the Anabaptist communities 
 throughout all its districts. After this they were 
 to be treated as common criminals, to shelter 
 whom was in itself a crime. Large numbers 
 fled the country into Lower Austria, Switzerland, 
 Tyrol, Bavaria and Wurtemburg. But they were 
 destined to find no rest for the soles of their
 
 PERSECUTION OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 81 
 
 feet. Orders were sent to the provincial Governor 
 of Lower Austria with strict injunctions to sup- 
 press the sectaries. The following indications 
 as to how they might be known were also for- 
 warded: When an Anabaptist meets another, 
 it was said, he seizes his hat or his beard and 
 exclaims : " God be with thee, brother in the 
 Lord," to which is replied: " God thank thee 
 in the Lord;" they profess the doctrine that no 
 authority besides God should be tolerated, and 
 that all goods should be in common ; they declare, 
 it was also alleged, that if the Turks come into 
 the land, they will join them and not help their 
 authorities, for that all who were not of their 
 faith, including the Emperor, ought to be killed. 
 It is needless to say that the Archduke and his 
 advisers in this document only show their com- 
 plete ignorance as to the tenets and dispositions 
 of the great bulk of the Anabaptists of that 
 time. The Moravian communities especially, 
 having come under the influence of Hubmeyer, 
 belonged to the most moderate section of the 
 body. Large numbers of men, women and 
 children, of course, fell victims. Speaking of 
 the orders of Ferdinand, the u Geschicktsbucher 
 der Wiedertaiiffer, " (C. 58,) says : "He, by means 
 
 6
 
 82 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 of his agents, did bring many into prison ; and 
 whom he found in the streets or in the fields, 
 them had he beheaded, and they who in the 
 villages would not betray their faith were hanged 
 to the gate-posts." 
 
 But Leonhard of Lichtenstein, the territorial 
 magnate who had yielded to pressure in the 
 surrender of Hubmeyer and his associates, and 
 in the subsequent expulsion of the Anabaptists 
 generally, seems before long to have repented 
 of his departure from the policy of toleration 
 which had previously characterized him, and, in 
 conjunction with his brother, Hans von Lichten- 
 stein, now allowed the fugitives to return. Many 
 of them had hidden themselves in the neigh- 
 bouring forests and mountains. So the lords 
 of Nikolsburg, the Lichtensteins, while threatening 
 the Austrian Provost with armed resistance, 
 should he enter their territory, sent messengers 
 to seek out these wanderers, and to invite them 
 to come back to their houses and homes on 
 the assurance that nothing further should await 
 them. Other fugitives had sought refuge in 
 Hungary. Attracted by the reputation for tole- 
 ration of the house of Lichtenstein, their Mora- 
 vian territories again became a centre to which
 
 PERSECUTION OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 83 
 
 the German Anabaptists flocked, notwithstanding 
 the efforts of the Archduke Ferdinand to keep 
 alive the persecution there. Several places 
 throughout the Moravian Margravate became 
 new centres of the Baptist communities. We read, 
 it is true, of persecution in some districts, but, 
 on the other hand, they succeeded in maintain- 
 ing themselves in Austerlitz, Anspitz, Ausspitz 
 and Kronau, in addition to Nikolsburg. 
 
 Meanwhile the attention of the Austrian autho- 
 rities was, for the time being, partially diverted 
 from the Anabaptist hunt by the imminence of 
 the Turkish invasion. Others were found to 
 take the place of the lost leaders, Hubmeyer 
 and Hut, but no sooner were the Brethren 
 vouchsafed temporary respite from persecution 
 than the old opposition between the two ten- 
 dencies broke out afresh. Should the Brethren 
 fulfil their obligations as subjects in succouring 
 their lords and masters in their resistance to 
 the Turks, or should they rigidly maintain an 
 attitude of passive non-resistance? Was it 
 lawful to pay taxes? Was community of goods 
 essential to Christian brotherhood? These were 
 questions acrimoniously debated between the 
 opportunists and the thorough-going section.
 
 84 RfSE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 At last it became evident that Nikolsburg 
 would not hold the two sides any longer. The 
 dissension could only be put an end to by se- 
 paration. Accordingly, the u men of the common 
 life" or "men of the staff" ("Stabler"), so- 
 called because they said that no Christian ought 
 to carry a sword or any other weapon, decided 
 to shake the dust off their feet and depart 
 from their opponents, the "men of the sword," 
 as they termed them. The territorial lord, 
 Leonhard of Lichtenstein, although, in his cha- 
 racter of magnate and ruler, favouring the latter, 
 as partizans of concessions to the powers of this 
 world, nevertheless seems to have used his 
 utmost endeavours to affect a reconciliation be- 
 tween the two parties. On the " men of the 
 staff" proving obdurate, however, Leonhard 
 issued an order that left them no alternative 
 but to quit his domains. No sooner had they 
 gone than Leonhard regretted having driven 
 out a number of peaceable and industrious sub- 
 jects, so hurriedly riding after them, accompanied 
 by a small party of horsemen, he came up with 
 them at a place called Bogenitz. He asked them 
 why they were leaving Nikolsburg. Their con- 
 science and heart, they said, witnessed against
 
 PERSECUTION OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 85 
 
 his preachers; they even disapproved of his 
 having resisted the Austrian Provost on their be- 
 half, for, said they, the latter had been sent against 
 them by those having authority, and to resist 
 the powers that be was to resist the ordinance 
 of God. Leonhard seems to have been struck 
 with admiration at their unshakeable constancy, 
 for finding that he could not persuade them, he 
 accompanied them a stage further on their way, 
 and having treated them to meat and drink, 
 took his leave. 
 
 Their ultimate goal was Austerlitz, where the 
 territorial lords, the brothers Von Kaunitz, were 
 known to be friendly to the new doctrines. The 
 messengers they sent in advance to beg for an 
 asylum were warmly received, the brothers Von 
 Kaunitz sending three large waggons to facili- 
 tate the advance of their main body, at the 
 same time assigning to them a temporary 
 resting-place, pending the erection of their 
 houses on the Oats-market (Hafenmarkt], for 
 which houses they were presented with the 
 necessary land and timber. But here new dis- 
 putes arose. Sebastian Franck relates that they 
 had in Austerlitz overseers for the whole com- 
 munity and one common dish from which each
 
 86 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 took what he had need of; but he goes on to 
 state that the strictest discipline in matters of 
 faith was enforced, and excommunication was 
 frequent. "There was as much liberty of con- 
 science among them," he says, " as among the 
 Papists. He who will not say them yea in all 
 things, for him hath God stopped the ears, and 
 be he not willing to turn back they cast him 
 out." Similar dissensions, various in kind, oc- 
 curred in the other Moravian centres. One 
 tendency would succeed in making itself para- 
 mount in Ausspitz, for example, and another in 
 Rossitz. 
 
 Altogether the Anabaptist communities seem 
 to have been approaching a condition of internal 
 disintegration, when a leader appeared, who suc- 
 ceeded in restoring something like order. The 
 leader was Jakob Huter, a preacher hailing from 
 the Tyrol, who was sent to Austerlitz with a 
 colleague in the autumn of 1529 to report on the 
 situation. Huter, on returning to the Tyrol, 
 organised a series of missionary companies whom 
 he sent out into Moravia. They found every- 
 where disputes and jealousy rife. It was alleged 
 that the elders took more than their share in 
 the good things of the community. Reublin, the
 
 PERSECUTION OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 87 
 
 spokesman of the malcontents, (quoted in Cor- 
 neliiis Vol. 77, //. 252 <?59, note, letter to Pil- 
 gram Maarbeck) alleges various grievances of 
 administration as well as of doctrine. In the 
 catalogue that he sets forth we find, for example, 
 "maids are compelled to enter into wedlock with 
 young men without their knowledge or consent, 
 and are sought to be held thereto. Moreover, 
 young children are injured by being given hard 
 food, without milk, the issue of this treatment 
 being such that more than twenty have perished." 
 The writer adds : u it were enough to make a 
 stone pity them." Some who had paid fifty 
 gulden into the common fund had to see their 
 own children suffering hunger. As a result, 
 Reublin and his followers migrated from Au- 
 sterlitz to Ausspitz, where the Abbess of the 
 Convent in whose territory the town lay offered 
 them asylum. Reublin himself, however, seems 
 to have fallen under suspicion of similar prac- 
 tices to those with which he charged the 
 Austerlitzers. 
 
 At this juncture Huter was definitely called 
 in as arbitrator, and was finally driven from 
 Tyrol by the persecution which was there started. 
 This was in the late summer of 1533, more than
 
 88 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 two years and a half after the split in Austerlitz. 
 He was received in Ausspitz in a friendly 
 manner. Financially, the community seems to 
 have been in a bad way ; so much so, indeed, 
 that they required the material assistance of 
 Huter and his Tyrollers to enable them to pay 
 their rent-dues to the Convent on whose lands 
 they dwelt. Reproaches, with unpleasant refer- 
 ences to Ananias, were bandied about amongst 
 the Brethren. The situation, however, in Tyrol 
 had the effect of steadily augmenting the number 
 of immigrants into Moravia. But the Austrian 
 authorities began to take steps for cutting off 
 this last retreat of the Brethren. 
 
 The new persecution was occasioned by the 
 events occurring at this time in Westphalia. 
 In vain the Moravian Anabaptists with perfect 
 truth disclaimed all connection with the Miinster 
 movement. Anabaptism, let it take never so 
 passive or non-resistant a form, became now 
 suspect to the governing classes everywhere. 
 The assembly of the Moravian estates, in a sitting 
 held on the first Sunday in Lent, 1534, decreed 
 that u the Anabaptists shall henceforth no longer 
 be borne within the land, but shall be driven 
 out." The shortest possible respite was given
 
 PERSECUTION OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 89 
 
 them. They were to leave the land by St. 
 George's Day, and find their bread elsewhere. 
 Accordingly, large numbers, in spite of prohibi- 
 tions, went back to the territories whence they 
 came. Jakob Hute.r himself, with many of his 
 countrymen, returned into Tyrol. But his work 
 in Ausspitz had not been in vain, notwithstanding 
 the confusion and discord that reigned there. 
 He had succeeded in gaining over a large 
 number of the Brethren to submit to the regime 
 which he established, and which was termed the 
 "Hurtercher Ordnung" or regime of Huter. 
 By this time, in fact, he had become recognised 
 as the head of the movement in both Moravia 
 and Tyrol. But shortly after his return he was 
 arrested in accordance with the Imperial man- 
 date. His trial and execution followed. But 
 we are anticipating. 
 
 The movement in Tyrol began early in the 
 history of Anabaptism, and was recruited by 
 more than one strong wave of immigration from 
 the other Austrian territories, where the Imperial 
 edicts were more rigorously carried into effect. 
 This was the case in the autumn of 1527, when 
 many arrived from Lower Austria, also in the 
 early spring of 1528, when they came from the
 
 go RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 domains of the Archbishop of Salzburg, because 
 of the persecution, already referred to, in that 
 district. In consequence, orders were sent to 
 all the principal places throughout Tyrolese 
 territory, to all the local magistrates, enjoining 
 them not to tolerate the pernicious error, while, 
 in order that no one might excuse himself by 
 pleading ignorance of the mandates, it was 
 ordered that they should be read in churches 
 on every third Sunday. Still the sect continued 
 to exist, holding meetings at night in secret 
 places. 
 
 The persecution at this time (1528 1529) 
 raged well-nigh everywhere throughout southern 
 Germany and Austria, The Swabian League 
 instituted flying columns for the purpose of 
 hunting down Anabaptists, with instructions to 
 shoot them on the spot as outlaws. Blaurock, 
 the protagonist of re-baptism, was burned at 
 Klausen in the Tyrol in 1529. 
 
 Up to the autumn of 1527, besides Nikolsburg, 
 Augsburg had gradually become, owing to its 
 political security for the time being, one of the 
 chief seats of the movement. Among the Brethren 
 at Augsburg were many well-to-do citizens. These 
 naturally belonged to what may be termed the
 
 PERSECUTION OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 91 
 
 "moderate party" that is the party whose 
 tendencies, whilst they adhered to the purely 
 theological side of the movement, were to 
 follow their personal and class interests in the 
 material affairs of life. Hence they looked with 
 little favour on the communism of the Zurich 
 Brethren, and still less on the new and politi- 
 cally subversive tendencies that had been sought 
 to be introduced into the Anabaptist commu- 
 nities by certain of the ex-followers of Miinzer, no- 
 tably by Hans Hut. The two first synods of 
 the Anabaptists were held at Augsburg; one 
 in the spring of 1526, and the other in August 
 of the following year, just before the outbreak 
 of the persecution. The latter synod was at- 
 tended by more than sixty delegates from all 
 the German-speaking countries. Considerable 
 divergencies of opinion in the communities, 
 divergencies fallincr under the heads of moderate 
 
 o o 
 
 or extreme respectively, were there represented. 
 Amongst the leaders of the party in Augsburg, 
 where he successfully agitated for a time, was 
 Hans Denck. It was he, in fact, who, by his 
 eloquence and the influence of his personality, 
 raised the Augsburg community to the important 
 place it attained in the movement. Denck was
 
 92 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 a learned theologian, whose salient doctrine was 
 that of the inner light and inner word rendering 
 sacraments and scriptures superfluous to the true 
 believer. His sympathy with the economical 
 and political side of the movement was not 
 great, and he had broken many a lance with 
 Hans Hut on these points. Denck subsequently 
 went to Basel, where he modified his views, appa- 
 rently under the influence of Oecolampadius, and 
 where late in the year 1527 he died of the plague. 
 But neither persecution nor the loss of leaders 
 seriously affected the progress of the movement. 
 It continued to grow even where to all outward 
 appearance it had been stamped out. Up to 
 this time, that is, from its origin to about 1530, 
 Anabaptism had been predominantly theological, 
 or at least non-political. The doctrine of passive 
 non-resistance was itself purely a deduction 
 from a theological position. It was professedly 
 accepted by almost all the Anabaptist communi- 
 ties, at any rate so far as the discountenancing 
 of rebellion against the temporal authority was 
 concerned. The thoroughgoing spirits insisted 
 on its logical carrying-out in the refusal to 
 assist, even by the payment of taxes, the powers 
 that were, in any coercive or warlike enterprise.
 
 PERSECUTION OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 93 
 
 The community of goods, based on similar 
 theological grounds, was indeed a sacred prin- 
 ciple with many congregations of the Brethren, 
 although not with all ; but in no case, in the 
 bodies founded during the earlier years of the 
 movement, do we find evidences of any general 
 sympathy with the Miinzerite political idea of 
 the sword of sharpness being wielded by the 
 elect against the unbelieving world. Hans Hut's 
 success at Nikolsburg, and probably at Augsburg 
 also, was due to his championing the cause of 
 the logical non-resistants against the more 
 moderate temporisers. Yet, in spite of his 
 fervent enunciation of them, it would not seem 
 that he succeeded in acquiring any following 
 worth mentioning for his political-revolutionary 
 theories. 
 
 Sufficient has been said to show the general 
 character of the movement, theoretical and prac- 
 tical, and its fortunes during these years. To 
 weary the reader by multiplying the names 
 of obscure leaders or the details of the persecu- 
 tions endured would be purposeless. It is enough 
 to say that the non-political tendencies present 
 in these earlier communities continued to 
 maintain themselves in many cases, as, for in
 
 94 KISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 stance, in Moravia, after a new and more 
 aggressive spirit had seized what may henceforward 
 be described as the main movement, a movement 
 that, in the beginning of the fourth decade of 
 the century, constituted itself along the valley 
 of the Rhine and its adjacent districts. The rise, 
 progress, and culmination of this movement we 
 shall now have to consider.
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 MELCHIOR HOFFMANN AND THE REVOLUTIONARY 
 MOVEMENT. 
 
 WE have seen that in central and south- 
 eastern Germany Anabaptists continued to main- 
 tain, barring isolated individuals here and there, 
 the attitude of non-resistance and the voluntari- 
 ness of association that characterized it from 
 the first. The fearful waves of persecution which 
 successively swept over it succeeded at length 
 in partially checking its progress. The only 
 sections of this part of the Empire in which it 
 succeeded in retaining any sort of effective orga- 
 nization was in the Moravian territories, where 
 the reforms and discipline originated by Jacob 
 Huter, were continued and developed by his 
 successors. Here the Anabaptist doctrines in 
 their earlier form continued to flourish in spite 
 of attempts to stamp them out by persecution. 
 The Moravian communities, owing to their com- 
 parative immunity from persecution, and still
 
 96 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 more to their better internal organization, con- 
 tinued to send out apostles to other parts of 
 Germany. On the other hand, their existence 
 had more effect in destroying the power of 
 Anabaptism in other parts of the Empire than 
 their missionary zeal had in extending its sphere 
 of influence. There was a continuous drain of 
 stalwarts in the faith from other parts of Germany 
 to Moravia. These came singly and in companies 
 from all the districts of central, southern, and 
 eastern Germany. The organization became 
 more closely knit together, whilst the concen- 
 tration of industrious peasants and handicraftsmen 
 in the communities settled in these regions had 
 the inevitable result of raising them to a condi- 
 tion of material prosperity that made them the 
 envy of their neighbours. Of this, however, we 
 shall speak more at length in a later chapter. 
 Meanwhile a movement had sprung up in 
 western and northern Germany, following the 
 course of the Rhine Valley, that effectually threw 
 the older movement of southern and eastern 
 Germany into the background. These earlier 
 movements remained essentially religious and 
 theological, owing, as Cornelius points out (Vol. 
 II. p. 74), to the fact that they came immedi-
 
 MELCHIOR HOFFMANN. 97 
 
 ately after the overthrow of the great political 
 movement of 1525. But although the older 
 Anabaptism did not itself take political shape, it 
 succeeded in keeping alive the tendencies and 
 the enthusiasm out of which, under favourable 
 circumstances, a political movement inevitably 
 grows. The result was, as Cornelius further 
 observes, an agitation of such a sweeping char- 
 acter that the fourth decade of the sixteenth 
 century seemed destined to realise the ideals 
 which the third decade had striven for in vain. 
 The new direction in Anabaptism began in 
 the rich and powerful Imperial city of Strasburg, 
 where peculiar circumstances afforded the Brethren 
 a considerable measure of toleration. Strasburg 
 stood, ecclesiastically, at the head of the Zwinglian 
 party in the Empire. In this way Strasburg had 
 special connections with most other parts of 
 Germany. At the head of the Strasburg theo- 
 logians stood Martin Butzer and Wolfgang 
 Kapitan, Kaspar Hedian and Matthias Sell. 
 Although closely united with the Churches of 
 northern Switzerland, Strasburg differed from 
 other towns that had also adopted reformed doc- 
 trines, in that it had no all-powerful personality 
 within its walls ready to give the signal for 
 
 7
 
 98 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 the official reformation to close its ranks defini- 
 tively against those holding extreme doctrines. 
 There were not wanting preachers who urged 
 such a course, but the City Council maintained 
 an independent attitude and declined to give 
 them ear when they suggested that the secular 
 arm should step in and punish opinion. The 
 ecclesiastical leaders themselves, moreover, al- 
 though generally adopting the Zwinglian position, 
 maintained a certain independence of attitude, 
 and were, as a rule, averse to theological wrangl- 
 ing when this took the form of irreconcilable 
 polemic. 
 
 It was in the year 1526 that the Anabaptist 
 preachers first appeared in Strasburg. Towards 
 the end of the same year Denck and Hatzer 
 arrived and energetically carried on the new 
 propaganda. The usual disputations followed, 
 and, although no severe measures were taken, 
 there were not wanting some fines and expul- 
 sions, but so mild was the regime of the autho- 
 rities that many even of those expelled returned 
 unmolested in a few weeks. Only once, during 
 the sitting of the Reichstag of Speyer in 1529, 
 did the Rath allow itself to be drawn into a 
 harsher view of the case, some of the sectaries
 
 MELCHIOR HOFFMANN. 99 
 
 being imprisoned and a few even put to the 
 torture. Among these was Reublin, who on his 
 release from prison was expelled the town and 
 threatened with drowning should he come back. 
 But the Rath before long returned to its old 
 course of impartial toleration. After Reublin's 
 expulsion Pilgram Maarbeck became the leader 
 of the movement. 
 
 The semi-official heads of the Strasburg refor- 
 mation were by no means at one among them- 
 selves as to doctrine, some of them even 
 approaching Hans Denck's views on theological 
 questions, notably on those of infant baptism, 
 ot the near approach of the millennium, or the 
 end of the world, although it is true they at 
 the same time repudiated re-baptism, voluntary 
 communism, and other tenets of the sect. Kapi- 
 tan especially went great lengths in this direction. 
 The want of a strong personality, the want of 
 unity of purpose in such leaders as these, gave 
 the official reformation in Strasburg a permanent 
 stamp of weakness. Under these circumstances 
 Anabaptism naturally grew to a point at which 
 it rivalled the former in influence. But up to 
 this time the movement had nevertheless been 
 conducted on the old theological lines.
 
 ioo RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 The man who gave the impulse in the new 
 direction was Melchior Hoffmann, by trade a 
 skinner, from the Imperial city of Schwabisch- 
 Hall. Carried away, first by the general Refor- 
 mation ferment, and afterwards by the Ana- 
 baptist agitation, early devoting himself to preach- 
 ing, he consistently refused all material recom- 
 pense for his labours, basing his practice on 
 that of the Apostles. The speciality of Hoffmann's 
 preaching would seem to have been from the 
 first the strong emphasis with which he dwelt 
 on the signs of the approaching end of the 
 world. A man of little education, but of strong 
 imagination, his reading of the Bible afforded 
 him material for the construction of original and 
 glowing pictures of the u last things" and the 
 reign of the saints. In these he seemed to 
 voice the half-conscious thoughts and imaginings 
 of countless numbers among the humbler folk 
 in that age of newly-awakened Bible-reading, and 
 of social change that presented itself to the mind 
 in the theological garb then forming part 
 of the average man's intellectual constitution. 
 Hoffmann had travelled much, especially in 
 northern Germany, and had even visited Sweden, 
 having been for a time preacher to the German
 
 MELCHIOR HOFFMANN. 101 
 
 colony in Stockholm. He had been at an earlier 
 period of his career a companion of Karlstadt. 
 Returning from northern Germany, he arrived 
 in Strasburg probably in the early summer of 
 1529. He does not appear to have joined the 
 Anabaptist body long before this, if at all. A 
 year previously we find him still standing in 
 relation with Luther, who writes concerning him 
 that " he means well, but is rash and allows 
 himself to be carried away." On the other hand, 
 Hatzer, soon after his arrival in Strasburg, writes 
 to Zwingli praising him as an able combatant 
 for the Zwinglian doctrine in Zeeland, Sweden, 
 Denmark and Holstein. Before long, however, 
 Hoffmann came out in his Anabaptist colours. 
 It was most probably in Strasburg that he was 
 re-baptized and formally joined the sect. Hence- 
 forward he regarded himself and was regarded 
 by his followers as a specially ordained prophet 
 to console the elect and call the unregenerate 
 world to repentance. Yet, notwithstanding Mel- 
 chior's ecstatic visions and theories respecting 
 the millennium and the last judgment, he did 
 not at first actively oppose himself to the non- 
 resistance doctrine till then general among the 
 Brethren.
 
 102 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS 
 
 An interesting question arises as to the iden- 
 tity of Melchior Hoffmann with Melchior Rink, 
 alluded to in a previous chapter. For the identity, 
 may be urged the fact that both Melchiors are 
 described as skinners, both are said to have 
 been natives of Schwabisch-Hall, while Johann 
 van Leyden in his statement before his judges 
 alleges that Hoffmann had also gone under the 
 name of Rink. Moreover, we repeatedly find 
 the two names mentioned as working at the 
 same time and place. On the other hand, the 
 latter circumstance does not always tally, as 
 Rink is spoken of as at Marburg in August 1529, 
 at the time that Hoffmann was supposed to be 
 in Kiel. This circumstance has induced Dr. Ludwig 
 Keller ^Geschichte der Wiedertauffer" p. 128) to 
 conclude that Rink was a separate person. 
 "There remains at present nothing for it," he 
 says, "but to assume that Rink and Hoffmann 
 were two persons, who in the year 15 30 laboured 
 in common for the cause of Anabaptism." The 
 close resemblance of the view as well as of the 
 movements of the two men (if such we may 
 suppose them to have been) is in any case 
 curious. Rink, like Hoffmann, was a great partisan 
 of the theory of inward illumination and pro-
 
 MELCHIOR HOFFMANN. 103 
 
 phecies. They are both reported to have taught 
 that Christ "was not born of the flesh of the 
 Virgin Mary." The mildness and magnanimity 
 of Rink's character is admitted even by hostile 
 witnesses. Hoffmann does not seem to have 
 remained long in Strasburg after his re-baptism, 
 but to have gone north again. He is reported 
 as working in company with Rink in the late 
 autumn of 1529 at Emden in Friesland, but the 
 success of the cause in that place appears to 
 have been more attributed to Rink than to Hoff- 
 mann, at least, the name of Rink is the more 
 prominent. Among the converts here made was 
 one Johann Volkert, who shortly after went to 
 Amsterdam, where he founded a community that 
 became the centre of an Anabaptist movement 
 throughout the Netherlands. This part of the 
 history of Anabaptism, owing to the secrecy 
 with which the propaganda and organization 
 was surrounded, remains obscure ; what is known 
 on the subject being almost entirely taken from 
 the confessions of Brethren when on their trial 
 and under torture. From these we learn of 
 congregations founded at Liege, Maestricht and 
 Aachen. These had their own judges to decide 
 disputes among members of the body, and
 
 io 4 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 contemptuously refused to recognise the authority 
 of " the godless " as they termed the temporal 
 powers. In spite of persecutions here as else- 
 where, the sect spread rapidly after the year 
 1530 in Friesland, Holland, the Austrian Nether- 
 lands, and generally along the valley of the Rhine. 
 We find Hoffmann in the year 1531 ministering 
 to the brethren at Amsterdam. It is conjectured 
 that he shortly afterwards visited Miinster. In 
 any case the new movement in the north made 
 rapid strides. There is little doubt that at this 
 time, if not from the beginning, it had come 
 entirely under the influence of Hoffmann. 
 
 Some time after his reception into the Ana- 
 baptist body at Strasburg, Hoffmann, while in 
 most other points accepting the prevalent doc- 
 trines of the Brethren, broke entirely loose from 
 the doctrine of non-resistance, maintaining, in 
 theory at least, the right of the elect to employ 
 the sword against the worldly authorities, u the 
 godless," the " enemies of the saints." It was 
 predicted, he maintained, that a two-edged sword 
 should be given into the hands of the saints to 
 destroy the mystery of iniquity, the existing 
 principalities and powers, and the time was now 
 at hand when this prophecy should be fulfilled.
 
 MELCHIOR HOFFMANN. 105 
 
 The new movement in the north-west, in the 
 lower Rhenish districts, and -the adjacent West- 
 phalia, sprang up and extended itself, therefore, 
 under the domination of this idea of the reign 
 of the saints in the approaching millennium and 
 of the notion that passive non-resistance, whilst 
 for the time being a duty, only remained so 
 until the coming of the Lord should give the 
 signal for the saints to rise and join in the 
 destruction of the Kingdoms of this world and 
 the inauguration of the Kingdom of God on 
 earth. 
 
 Hoffmann's whole learning seems to have 
 been limited to the Bible, but this he knew from 
 cover to cover. It is difficult at this time to 
 conceive the enthusiasm with which all, but es- 
 pecially the poorer classes, provided they could 
 read at all, threw themselves into Bible-reading. 
 The appearance of the Lutheran translation 
 produced a revolution. The handicraftsman on 
 his bench and the peasant in his field would 
 have their Bibles, over which they pored. Whole 
 books would be learned by heart. For the 
 common man there was no other reading save 
 the Bible and popular theological tracts or pam- 
 phlets commenting thereon or treating current
 
 io6 ISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 social questions in the light of Biblical story 
 and teaching. The followers of the new move- 
 ment in question acquired the name of Melchio- 
 rites. Hoffmann now published a book explan- 
 atory of his ideas, called " The Ordinance of 
 God^ which had an enormous popularity. It 
 was followed up by other writings amplifying 
 and defending the main thesis it contained. 
 
 The Melchiorite communities of the north-west, 
 for the rest, were similar in character to the 
 Anabaptist communities of southern and south- 
 eastern Germany. Whoever joined the Brother- 
 hood vowed to live conformedly to the will of 
 Christ, to abjure the world and its ways, and 
 to regard his fellow-believers as brothers and 
 sisters. He promised to deem his worldly goods 
 as a trust held for the Brethren, to give all his 
 superfluity to the poor, and to adopt a modest 
 and simple costume. The Bible was read and 
 commented on, and the ceremony of bread- 
 breaking assiduously observed. Outwardly these 
 communities seemed to have the same peaceable 
 character as those of south Germany and Moravia, 
 and in fact the notion of vengeance ultimately to 
 to be effected by the sword appears at first to have 
 been left very much in abeyance. The carrying
 
 MELCHIOR HOFFMANN. 107 
 
 of weapons was discouraged, and the returning 
 of good for evil was inculcated. It was ominous, 
 however, that Melchior Hoffmann was acclaimed 
 as the prophet Elijah returned according to 
 promise. 
 
 Up to 1533, Strasburg continued to be regard- 
 ed as the chief seat of Anabaptism, so far at 
 least as the movement along the Rhine and the 
 adjacent countries was concerned. The new 
 doctrines continued to be energetically and 
 openly preached and their following numerous. 
 Melchior himself regarded Strasburg as the new 
 Jerusalem from which the saints should march 
 out to proclaim the new Kingdom. After his 
 propagandist journey in the north he accordingly 
 returned to Strasburg, where his passionate 
 oratory stirred the handicraftsmen and town- 
 proletariat to its depths. He proclaimed the 
 end of the year 1533 as the date that would 
 see the coming of the Lord, and the inaugura- 
 tion of the reign of the saints. The excitement 
 among the poorer sections of the town popula- 
 tion consequent on Hoffmann's preaching grew 
 so intense that a popular rising was feared. 
 The prophet himself was in consequence arrest- 
 ed and imprisoned in one of the towers on the
 
 108 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 city wall. Crowds, however, assembled on the 
 other side of the moat, so that they might 
 perchance catch a glimpse of their leader, when 
 lo ! he appeared at the grated window and from 
 thence succeeded in throwing his voice across 
 the moat to repeat his warnings and prophecies. 
 All the Apocalyptic plagues, said he, had been 
 fulfilled, save the vengeance of the Seventh 
 Angel, Babylon was falling and they were on 
 the threshold of the new kingdom of righteous- 
 ness and peace. 
 
 When Hoffmann returned from the north- 
 west to Strasburg a large number of his disciples 
 followed him in the belief that Strasburg was 
 to be the home of the saints, the New Jerusalem, 
 whence they were to go forth, conquering and 
 to conquer, and in truth at this time the great 
 Imperial city swarmed with the Anabaptist 
 faithful. But Hoffmann's confidence in a speedy 
 release from his confinement was not realised. 
 It must not be supposed that the Melchiorite 
 party embraced the whole of the Anabaptist 
 body in Strasburg, as it may be said to have 
 done in the lower Rhenish districts. There was 
 a considerable opposition party among the 
 Strasburg Brethren. In the end, however, Hoff-
 
 MELCHIOR HOFFMANN. 109 
 
 mann's party triumphed, as much from the effect 
 of his startling successes in the Netherlands, 
 and the north-west generally, as from the argu- 
 ments of his supporters, or the force of his 
 own eloquence. 
 
 Towards the close of 1533, in spite of the 
 Melchiorite agitation and of the visions and 
 prophecies of the Melchiorite prophets and 
 prophetesses, so zealously interpreted by the 
 new Elias, the Anabaptists, numerous as they 
 were, shewed no signs of acquiring the mastery 
 of the city either by the force of persuasion or 
 of overt insurrection, while at the same time 
 the town authorities began to give unmistakable 
 indications of using stronger measures than 
 heretofore. It began to be whispered abroad 
 among the Brethren that Strasburg was after 
 all not destined to be the New Jerusalem, but 
 that the Lord had rejected it because of its 
 unbelief, whilst all eyes were turned to the 
 astounding successes of the party in the north- 
 west, and especially to the great Episcopal 
 City of Miinster in Westphalia, where events were 
 developing with astounding rapidity, and the 
 conviction gained ground every day on all hands 
 that not Strasburg, but Miinster was ordained
 
 no ISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 to be the seat of the future Kingdom of God. 
 Hoffmann had prophesied on his return to Stras- 
 burg early in the year and of the sincerity of 
 his belief there is no reason to doubt that he 
 would be seized and imprisoned for six months, 
 at the end of which time the Saviour would 
 return to claim his inheritance and free his 
 servants from their chains. But things turned 
 out quite otherwise. Poor Hoffmann, who, by his 
 enthusiasm, eloquence, and power of organiza- 
 tion, had created the great movement in the 
 north-west, never again recovered his liberty. 
 He died in his dungeon ten years later. They 
 could not keep him from writing. Deprived of 
 paper, he found means of scratching his inspira- 
 tions on the margins of the devotional books 
 allowed him. Deprived of these, he succeeded 
 in inscribing his thoughts on his linen. 
 
 During the Middle Ages, the Netherlands and 
 districts of the Lower Rhine had ever been a 
 favourable soil for heresies and quasi-heresies in 
 which the theory of a common life and the 
 community of goods formed an essential part. 
 There it was that the Beghards flourished most, 
 there the " Brethren of the Common Life" had 
 their most prosperous communities. But by the
 
 MELCHIOR HOFFMANN. in 
 
 end of the fifteenth century, the premature eco- 
 nomic development and political circumstances 
 had combined to create a strong centralized 
 Government there, which was not favourable to 
 the success of popular movements, religious or 
 political. The Hapsburgs, to whom the power 
 of the extinct house of Burgundy in these 
 countries had reverted, and who held the seven- 
 teen provinces under their centralized sway as 
 part of the Spanish monarchy, were a strong 
 support of the Catholic power and the Papal 
 pretensions, which they found indispensable for 
 their own purposes. Irregular forms of religious 
 enthusiasm, no less than the orthodox Lutheran 
 or Zwinglian reforming tendencies, were put down 
 with an iron hand. But revolutionary views, though 
 driven underground, were not altogether wanting, 
 especially among the guilds of journeymen- 
 weavers. Hither also the doctrines ofMelchior 
 Hoffmann were carried, though they made little 
 overt progress, owing to the adverse political 
 conditions. 
 
 It was not Flanders and Brabant that became 
 the head-quarters of Anabaptism ; it was to 
 Holland, and more especially to Amsterdam that 
 the Brethren flocked. From Amsterdam and
 
 ii2 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 other Dutch towns Melchiorite missionaries went 
 forth in all directions through the neighbouring 
 territories, preaching the new word, proclaiming 
 the approaching advent of Christ and his Saints 
 to reign over the world in righteousness, to cast 
 down the mighty from their seats and to raise 
 up them of low degree. The principal organizer 
 of this missionary movement was one Jan Matthys, 
 a master-baker of Haarlem, who speedily ac- 
 quired the leadership of the Anabaptist party 
 in Holland owing to his strong personality and 
 persuasive powers. The Brethren saw in him 
 a new and Heaven-sent prophet to whom was 
 delegated, by God himself, authority to confer 
 apostleship. The doctrines of Matthys were 
 practically identical with those of Melchior Hoff- 
 mann, with the difference that the revolutionary 
 side with Matthys broke all bounds, and the 
 notion of a Holy War in the literal sense was 
 placed in the forefront of his teaching. What 
 with Melchior was prophecy of what was about 
 to happen became with Matthys a direct incite- 
 ment to revolt as a religious duty. With him 
 there was to be no delay. It was the duty of 
 all the Brethren to shew their zeal by at once 
 seizing the sword of sharpness and mowing down
 
 MELCHIOR HOFFMANN. 113 
 
 the godless therewith. In this sense Matthys 
 completed the transformation of Anabaptism be- 
 gun by Hoffmann. Melchior had indeed rejected 
 the non-resistance doctrine in its absolute form, 
 but he does not appear in his teaching to have 
 uniformly emphasized the point, and certainly 
 did not urge the destruction of the godless as 
 an immediate duty to be fulfilled without delay. 
 With him was always the suggestion, expressed 
 or implied, of waiting for the signal from Heaven, 
 the coming of the Lord, before proceeding to 
 action. With Matthys there was no need for 
 waiting, even for a day, the time was not merely 
 at hand, it had already come. The same causes, 
 the dislocation of the economic conditions of 
 mediaeval life and the rise of the earlier forms 
 of modern capitalism (described at length in 
 "German Society at the close of the Middle 
 Ages" and recapitulated in Chapter I. of ^The 
 Peasants War"} causes which immediately led 
 up to the Peasant revolt, and on its bloody suppres- 
 sion to the rapid spread of the earlier Anabap- 
 tism with its political quietism and its despondent 
 doctrine of non-resistance these causes, now 
 that the memory of the great defeat and the 
 despair following it, had faded somewhat from
 
 ii4 &ISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 the minds of men, led to the natural man 
 reasserting himself and to renewed hopes of his 
 being saved in this world by his own action. 
 Add to this that the Dutch and Low-German 
 populations of the north-west had either not 
 suffered at all from the results of the rebellion 
 of 1525 or only to a very limited extent, as 
 compared with those of southern and south- 
 eastern Germany, and were therefore more or less 
 virgin soil from a revolutionary point of view. 
 Notwithstanding some opposition at first to 
 his new departure, Jan Matthys soon succeeded 
 in gathering around him a number of enthusiastic 
 disciples. If Melchior Hoffmann had been Elijah 
 and if he were lost to them by the machina- 
 tions of the godless, was not Jan Matthys Enoch, 
 who should follow in his steps and bring his 
 work to a conclusion? Among Matthys' most 
 intimate followers was Jan Bockelson from 
 Leyden. Bockelson was a handsome and strik- 
 ing figure. He was the illegitimate son of one 
 Bockel, a merchant and Biirgermeister of Soe- 
 venhagen, by a peasant woman from the 
 neighbourhood of Miinster, who was in his service. 
 After Jan's birth Bockel married the woman and 
 bought her her freedom from the villein status
 
 MELCHIOR HOFFMANN. 115 
 
 that was hers by heredity. Jan was taught the 
 tailoring-handicraft at Leyden, but seems to have 
 received little schooling. His natural abilities, 
 however, were considerable, and he eagerly 
 devoured the religious and propagandist litera- 
 ture of the time. Amongst other writings the 
 pamphlets of Thomas Miinzer especially fascinat- 
 ed him. He travelled a good deal, visiting 
 Mechlin and working at his trade for four years 
 in London. During this period he probably 
 saved a little money, and returning home married 
 the widow of a seafaring man. He now set up 
 in trade on his own account and seems to have 
 travelled as far as Lisbon on business affairs, 
 but business apparently was not his vocation 
 and he speedily became bankrupt. He then 
 threw himself with ardour into the Anabaptist 
 agitation, coinciding as it did with views that had 
 always enlisted his sympathies, and, scarcely 
 twenty-five years old, he was won over to the 
 new propaganda of Jan Matthys. 
 
 Kerssenbroek, a courtly chronicler of the move- 
 ment, alleges that Bockelson, whom he sneers 
 at as a tailor and stage-king, had from youth 
 displayed a certain literary faculty and had 
 written plays which he had produced u for
 
 n6 &ISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 money." Bockelson had nothing in him of the 
 asceticism characteristic of so many of his Ana- 
 baptist co-religionists. Matthys was now head 
 of the Anabaptist communities in Holland and 
 the adjacent territories. These were more homo- 
 geneous in theory and more closely federated than 
 those in south-eastern Germany that dated from 
 the earlier years of the movement, and he soon 
 managed to carry things entirely his own way.
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 THE REFORMATION MOVEMENT IN THE EPISCOPAL 
 TERRITORIES OF MUNSTER. 
 
 WESTPHALIA was swept by the reformation no 
 less than other parts of the Empire. In the 
 towns the same political and social causes of 
 discontent existed as elsewhere, and the same 
 agitations were taking place. That the ferment 
 of the time was by no means altogether the 
 outcome of religious zeal, as subsequent historians 
 have persisted in representing it, was recognised 
 by the contemporary heads of the official Refor- 
 mation. Thus, writing to Luther, under date 
 August 29th, 1530, his satellite, Melancthon, has 
 the candour to admit that the Imperial Cities 
 u care not for religion, for their endeavour is 
 only toward domination and freedom." As the 
 principal town of Westphalia at this time may 
 be reckoned the chief city of the Bishopric of 
 Munster. This important ecclesiastical principality 
 was held " immediately of the Empire." It had as
 
 n8 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 its neighbours Ost-Friesland, Oldenburg, the 
 Bishopric of Osnabriick, the county of Marck, and 
 the Duchies of Berg and Cleves. Its territory 
 was half the size of the present province of 
 Westphalia, and was divided into the upper and 
 lower diocese, which were separated by the 
 territory of Fecklenburg. The Bishop was a 
 prince of the empire and one of the most im- 
 portant magnates of north-western Germany, 
 but in ecclesiastical matters he was under the 
 Archbishop of Koln. The diocese had been 
 founded by Charles the Great. The ferment 
 within the principality, and especially in the 
 chief town Miinster, which had been suppressed 
 in the spring of 1526 by the ecclesiastical autho- 
 rities, and an attempt to revive which in 1527 
 had failed, was fanned anew into flame by the 
 famine and pestilence that marked the year 
 1529. At harvest-time in that year the frightful 
 pestilence known as the English " sweating 
 sickness" broke over Westphalia. "It was a 
 violent inflammatory fever, which after a short 
 rigour, prostrated the powers as with a blow; 
 and amidst painful oppression at the stomach, 
 headache, and lethargic stupor, suffused the 
 whole body with a foetid perspiration. All
 
 THE REFORM A TION IN MUNSTER. 1 1 9 
 
 this took place within the course of a few hours, 
 and the crisis was always over within the space 
 of a day or night. The internal heat that the 
 patient suffered was intolerable, yet every re- 
 frigerant was certain death." The devastation 
 caused was frightful. In Dortmund, out of five 
 hundred attacked in the first four days, four 
 hundred and seventy succumbed. 2 This instance 
 seems to fairly well represent the average high 
 percentage of deaths to cases. The harvest 
 itself, during which the plague began, was ex- 
 ceptionally bad, and this, added to the general 
 economic changes of the time, caused a special 
 local rise in price, such as, in the words of a 
 contemporary, " no man had ever known before." 
 The bushel of rye, which in the summer of 
 1529 had been three and a half (German) 
 shillings, rose in less than a year to nine shil- 
 lings. The harvest of 1530 was no better than 
 that of the previous year, so that in 1531 the 
 price of barley rose to fourteen shillings the 
 bushel. The long threatened invasion of the 
 Turks now seemed imminent, and throughout 
 
 1 Hecker's "Epidemics of the Middle Ages' 1 p. 181. 
 - Keller, " Wiedertaufer" p. 291.
 
 120 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 the empire extraordinary Turks' taxes were im- 
 posed. These in some cases amounted to ten 
 per cent of the total income. An Archdeacon 
 of Dortmund, writing to his superior, states 
 that u the misery is appalling and indescribable." 
 Meanwhile the authorities of Miinster, who 
 had hitherto succeeded in keeping down any 
 revolutionary movement, were determined to 
 stamp out all tendencies to innovation in Church 
 or State so far as this was possible. But it was 
 not possible in the long run. The renewed 
 outbreak of reforming ideas was coincident with the 
 time of calamity and scarcity above spoken of. Its 
 occasion was the preaching of a hitherto un- 
 known young priest at a church in the neigh- 
 bourhood of Miinster. Bernhardt Rothmann, for 
 such was his name, had studied theology at the 
 university of Deventer. He subsequently filled 
 the post of schoolmaster, and in the year 1529 
 obtained the chaplaincy of the church of St. 
 Mauritz, outside the walls of Miinster. He soon 
 seems to have acquired relations with the reform- 
 ing party in the city and to have begun to 
 preach heretical doctrines. The result was that 
 he lost his post as chaplain for the time being. 
 After a year and a day, however, he was allowed
 
 THE REFORM A TION IN MUNSTER. i 2 1 
 
 to return, but his views had acquired increased 
 strength and consistency during the interval. 
 Henceforward (the beginning of 1531) his 
 church became the centre of a reforming 
 movement. On the night of Good Friday, 1531, 
 we are told, there were disturbances in the church 
 on the part of Rothmann's followers. Although 
 the guildsmen and journeymen were the first to 
 be attracted to him, it is sufficiently evident 
 that he soon obtained influence among members 
 of the town patriciate and even over certain of 
 the Prince-Bishop's Councillors. He ventured 
 openly to allege that Bishop Friedrich himself 
 was not unfavourable to his teaching, which may 
 possibly have been true, for it was an open 
 question with many of the spiritual potentates 
 of the Empire at the time, whether to take sides 
 with the Reformation and establish their power 
 on a purely political basis, as secular princes 
 as Albrecht, Duke of Prussia, had done or to 
 throw their influence into the opposite scale, the 
 maintenance of the status quo, political and 
 religious. Rothmann's preaching at first had 
 the usual reformation colour. True religion con- 
 sisted in faith in Christ and in the practice of 
 brotherly love, rather than in the performance
 
 122 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 of outward rites and ceremonies, such as fasting, 
 confession, hearing mass, etc. These doctrines 
 did not necessarily imply a breach with the 
 established Catholicism, but constituted what was 
 called the Erasmian standpoint of many within 
 the Church. 
 
 The time, however, had now come when the 
 more decided and energetic of the malcontents 
 with the current Church theory and practices 
 were forced to take their stand with one or other 
 of the schismatic reform Churches and sects. 
 After a journey to Wittenberg, in the spring of 
 1531, Rothmann returned to Minister, in July, 
 determined to overthrow the dominant Church 
 doctrine and organization. This becoming evi- 
 dent, we cannot be surprised that the church 
 of St. Mauritz was soon found closed against 
 him. Not to be beaten, he tried preaching in 
 the churchyard, but the Bishop, who, whatever 
 may have been the case before, had by this 
 time fully made up his mind to stand by the 
 old order of things, had his countermand ready 
 and issued an inhibition against the daring 
 innovator. Driven from his quarters outside the 
 walls, Bernhardt took up his residence within 
 the city, where he was received by his friends
 
 THE REFORMATION IN MUNSTER. 123 
 
 with open arms. The agitation in Munster now 
 had a religious leader and became so threaten- 
 ing that the Cathedral Chapter sought the inter- 
 vention of the Emperor, who induced the Bishop 
 at their instance to issue a mandate expelling 
 the young preacher from the Munster territory. 
 But the town authorities were either too weak 
 or too unwilling to take the necessary steps for 
 giving this order its effect, so Rothmann remain- 
 ed in Munster jealously guarded by his friends 
 and the centre of an active party. The religious 
 reformation in Munster now for the first time 
 made common cause with the political discontent. 
 On January 23rd, 1532, Rothmann drew up 
 his confession of faith, which the party immedi- 
 ately laid before the Rath with the prayer that 
 it might be granted to any citizen to subscribe 
 thereto. The response was not unfavourable, 
 and on Sunday, February i8th, Rothmann gave 
 his first public address to the city in the church- 
 yard of St. Lamberti. A few days later, he 
 was placed in possession of the church itself, 
 and almost immediately after was appointed, by 
 a decree of the Rath, first Evangelical preacher 
 of the parish church which had been built out 
 of municipal funds. At the same time, he was
 
 124 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 granted one of the guild-houses as his official 
 place of residence. 
 
 The head of the democratic-municipal move- 
 ment was Bernhardt Knipperdollinck, a cloth- 
 merchant materially well-situated and an excep- 
 tionally able speaker and leader who, in 
 addition to several other citizens of credit 
 and renown, forsook his class-interests for the 
 cause of justice to the common man. It is 
 reported that as early as 1524 Knipperdollinck 
 made a voyage on a Dutch ship with the sub- 
 sequent Anabaptist, Melchior Rink, to Sweden, 
 and visited Stockholm. The two men led an 
 iconoclastic attack on the churches, only stopped 
 by the direct intervention of the Swedish King. 
 Knipperdollinck was a disciple of Melchior Rink 
 in the earlier years of the Reformation move- 
 ment, before the rise of Anabaptism properly 
 so-called. The lower German territories, penetrat- 
 ed as they were by the great highway of the 
 Rhine and thereby in easy communication with 
 Switzerland and southern Germany, were in a 
 favourable geographical position for feeling the 
 effects of every new tendency among the refor- 
 ming parties. It is highly probable that before 
 the propagandist activity of Melchior Hoffmann
 
 THE REFORM A TION IN MUNSTER. 1 2 5 
 
 and his followers, " the gospel of the common 
 man," as Anabaptism came to be called, had 
 already been preached in these regions by 
 journeymen and the smaller travelling traders. 
 In any case the population of Westphalia was well 
 prepared for revolutionary teaching, both political 
 and religious. The town of Miinster itself, like 
 Koln, and the other larger cities of north-west 
 Germany, had been deeply stirred by the events 
 of the spring and summer of 1525, whilst, as 
 above mentioned, 1527 saw an abortive attempt 
 to revive them under the leadership of Knipper- 
 dollinck. But although up to the time of which 
 we now write it had been possible to smother 
 signs of incandescence in the inflammable material 
 that abounded within the walls, the inflammable 
 material remained the same and only awaited an 
 effective kindling to burst out into conflagration. 
 Unsatisfactory as the new turn affairs had 
 taken in Miinster at the beginning of 1532 must 
 have been to the Bishop and his Chapter, they 
 were powerless to do anything in the then state 
 of public feeling in the city, partially backed, 
 as it was at least, by the municipal authorities. 
 About two months after the presentation to the 
 Rath of Rothmann's Confession of Faith, how-
 
 126 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 ever, Bishop Friedrich abdicated, and Miinster 
 received a new Prince-Bishop in the person of 
 Erick of Osnabruck on the 27th of March, 1532. 
 Erick had the reputation of favouring moderate 
 reforming tendencies. This being the case, the 
 " moderate" party in Miinster, who under 
 Friedrich had maintained an attitude of at least 
 passive opposition, at once ranged themselves 
 on the side of their new temporal and spiritual 
 lord. In consequence, an episcopal mandate on 
 the i yth of April, 1532, directed against Roth- 
 mann and his followers, had the effect of inducing 
 the Rath, together with the heads of the Guilds, 
 to order Rothmann to cease his preaching until 
 further notice. This order was the occasion of 
 the first definite breach between the moderate 
 and the extreme parties of the city. The com- 
 mands of the Municipal authorities were an- 
 swered in a document, dated 28th April, in 
 which the " common man " announced his inten- 
 tion of holding by his chosen preacher at all costs. 
 The struggle having been thus begun, it 
 remained to be seen which side would come 
 out victorious in the immediate issue pending. 
 Neither the Episcopal nor the Municipal autho- 
 rities possessed adequate means for giving effect
 
 THE REFORM A TION IN MUNSTER. 1 2 7 
 
 to their decrees, whilst the power of the town- 
 democracy rose higher every day. In the 
 meantime, on the I4th of May, Bishop Erick 
 died, and for over a fortnight, pending the new 
 election, the See remained vacant. The want 
 of an over-lord proved favourable to the agitation. 
 On the first of June, a new Prince-Bishop 
 was appointed in the person of Count Franz 
 von Waldeck, formerly a Canon of Koln. His 
 elevation and his whole career bound up his 
 interests with his powerful Rhenish neighbours, 
 especially with his spiritual superior the Arch- 
 bishop of Koln, and these being important pillars 
 of the Imperial and Catholic policy, it is not 
 difficult to imagine on what side the power of 
 Mlinster's new lord was engaged. On the first 
 
 o o 
 
 of July, a revolutionary committee composed of 
 thirty-six burghers was formed for the ostensible 
 purpose of watching events in the interests of 
 the democracy and of the new religious tenden- 
 cies. Stormy meetings of citizens followed in 
 one of the Guild-houses, at which various demands 
 were formulated, the chief being that all the 
 
 o 
 
 parochial churches should be handed over to 
 Evangelical preachers. The Rath, feeling its 
 position insecure, signed an agreement on the
 
 128 KISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 1 5th of July, conceding the democratic demands, 
 and on the loth of August all the churches in 
 the gift of the municipality were solemnly handed 
 over to the new teachers. An injunction of 
 July 1 2th, under the sign-manual of the Emperor 
 Charles V, directing Bishop Franz to expel 
 Rothmann and proceed against other disturbers 
 of order with the utmost rigour, did not help 
 matters. A mandate summoning the town to 
 order and obedience was issued without result. 
 The influence of the knighthood of the surround- 
 ing territory, warning and threatening the town, 
 was then brought to bear, but all without avail. 
 The burghers declared that they would rather 
 lose worldly goods and even life itself than 
 consent to surrender the true worship of God. 
 Thereupon the Prince-Bishop and his advisers 
 resolved upon resort to force of arms. Letters 
 were sent out to the temporal and spiritual 
 nobles owning allegiance to the See, enjoining 
 them to forward all available assistance without 
 delay. 
 
 In October overt action began inside the 
 town on the part of the Bishop's minions by 
 the sequestration of the goods of the disaffected 
 citizens and by indictment of the leaders of the
 
 THE REFORM A TION IN MUNSTER. 1 2 9 
 
 movement. At the same time, communication 
 between the different quarters of the town was 
 cut off by chains placed across the streets, and 
 other measures. It was also attempted to isolate 
 the town itself. The citizens now saw that war 
 was meant, and accordingly on the 25th of 
 October the heads of the different city-ward- 
 ships appeared before the Rath, demanding 
 weapons and armour, which had to be accorded 
 them. Immediately after, bodies of the Bishop's 
 horsemen and the surrounding knighthood appear- 
 ed before the gates. Yet, notwithstanding these 
 demonstrations, the Bishop did not venture at 
 present to proceed to extremities. His prepara- 
 tions were not complete. He had neither men, 
 arms, nor money enough. Add to this, the 
 other smaller towns of the diocese shewed signs 
 of beginning to grow restive. The Evangelical 
 party was making great progress throughout 
 the whole land. The town of Miinster had, 
 moreover, sent to Philip of Hesse, begging him 
 to intervene. The Emperor, himself in sore 
 
 straits owing: to the Turkish war, had been 
 t> 
 
 obliged to make concessions to the Niirnberg 
 Protestants. 
 
 Other reasons of policy combined to render 
 
 9
 
 130 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 it too dangerous for the Prince-Bishop to risk 
 at this juncture calling down upon himself the 
 hatred, if not the overt hostility, of all the Pro- 
 testant interests of North Germany. The report 
 that reached his ears of a proposal on the part 
 of influential citizens that the town should hand 
 itself over to Burgundy also increased his sense 
 of the delicacy of the situation. The result was 
 that negotiations were entered upon, and the 
 intervention of the Landgraf of Hesse declined. 
 At first, the chances of an understanding being 
 arrived at seemed not unfavourable. The Bishop 
 on his side, on October 29th, entered into a 
 treaty of offence and defence with Evangelical 
 Hesse. 
 
 As the negotiations were continuing, a number 
 of spiritual and temporal nobles who were con- 
 cerned therein had taken up their abode in the 
 little township of Telgte, within the town-territory 
 of Miinster. The burghers now bethought them- 
 selves of using this circumstance for gaining a 
 point of vantage over the Bishop, and on Christmas 
 night about a thousand armed citizens of the 
 town guard marched out and occupied the little 
 town without resistance. Thus on the morning 
 of the 26th of December the nobles assembled
 
 THE REFORM A TION IN MUNSTER. 1 3 1 
 
 there found themselves prisoners in the hands 
 of the people of Munster. This coup, however 
 it may be judged from an ethical standpoint, 
 was a highly politic one, since the town now 
 possessed hostages of the first value, a fact that 
 tied the hands of the aristocratic followers of 
 the Bishop. It also gave Philip of Hesse 
 a fresh opportunity of intervening, and in 
 fact on December 2Qth an understanding was 
 arrived at between Philip and Franz, in conse- 
 quence of which Councillors were despatched 
 from the court of Hesse to Munster. On the 
 8th of January, 1533, the new negotiations be- 
 gan, and Landgraf Philip promised the burghers 
 to use his friendly offices for the formal admis- 
 sion of the town of Munster into the new 
 Evangelical League of Schmalkalden. The result 
 was that Franz and his Chapter had to give in, 
 and by a charter, signed and sealed on February 
 i4th, 1533, Munster was formally constituted an 
 Evangelical town. 
 
 The other small towns of the principality, 
 however, which had begun to follow the example 
 of Munster, were not so fortunate, and the 
 authorities were fairly successful in re-establish- 
 ing the old order of things in them. But the
 
 132 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 agitation continued none the less, varied with 
 stormings of churches and the like, not alone 
 in the towns, but even in the country districts 
 far and wide throughout Westphalia, so that 
 eventually here also concessions had to be made. 
 In the neighbouring Prince-Bishopric of Minden 
 serious disturbances had taken place as long 
 ago as 1529 and, as in Minister, a committee 
 of thirty-six burghers had been appointed, whose 
 first act was to set up an escaped monk as a 
 reformed pastor in the church of St. Simeon. 
 It is noteworthy that in this case the revolt was 
 confined exclusively to " the common man," the 
 journeymen, and the town proletarians, for the 
 guilds held steadily by the patrician Rath. But, 
 this notwithstanding, with the assistance of the 
 Evangelical Count Erich von Hoya the revolu- 
 tion was successful, and Minden became an 
 Evangelical town. The wealthier religious foun- 
 dations had in all cases to furnish heavy tribute 
 to the municipal coffers, whilst in some the 
 buildings were turned into almshouses and schools 
 
 o 
 
 and the valuables they contained confiscated for 
 civic use. In Herford similarly an ecclesiastical 
 revolution had been effected. About the same 
 time Lippstadt shewed signs of religious disaffec-
 
 THE REFORMATION IN MUNSTER. 133 
 
 tion. In Soest, friction between the Council and 
 the general assembly of the citizens had broken 
 out two years before, in the summer of 1531. 
 Here, however, the demands of the popular 
 party were undisguisedly economic; the immunity 
 of the clergy from taxation was to be abolished, 
 they were to be forbidden to exercise any trade 
 in the town, the general assembly of the citizens 
 was to have control of the town government, 
 and things of a like nature were claimed. 
 
 What strikes one in these revolts of the early 
 years of the fourth decade of the century, as 
 in those of 1525, is the almost precise similarity 
 of procedure in all cases. One almost invari- 
 able feature of them is the establishment by the 
 journeymen, poorer guildsmen, and town prole- 
 tarians, of a committee of public safety in 
 opposition to the patrician Rath, which some- 
 times received the support of the official guild 
 influence, and sometimes not, but which was 
 usually, at least for the time being, successful 
 in seizing the lion's share of the executive power 
 and in making the legitimate authorities sub- 
 servient to its will. In most cases, the religious 
 garb in which the movement so often clothed 
 itself allows us plainly to see through to the
 
 134 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 deeper-lying social discontent which constituted 
 its real substance. (Cf. Keller, u Wiedert'dufer" 
 pp. 102, 113.) 
 
 Bernhardt Rothmann, although at first at least 
 outwardly Lutheran, early showed signs of diver- 
 gencies in the matter of Church organisation 
 from the orthodox Lutheran model. After his 
 visit to Wittenberg in 1531, he repaired to 
 Strasburg, where he was for a long while under 
 the influence of the Zwinglian Kapitan, and here 
 he was converted to the Zwinglian ideas. On 
 his return, however, he seems to have concealed 
 his change of view until his power was established 
 with the reforming party in Miinster. It was 
 not till the summer of 1532 that he openly broke 
 with the Lutheran standpoint and began to play 
 tricks with the Sacrament. One of these tricks 
 was the use in this connection of a kind of flat 
 cake called Stute, owing to which he acquired 
 the sobriquet of u Stuten Berndt," Berndt being 
 the shortened form of Bernhardt. He was found 
 expressing strong opinions on the worthlessness 
 of the ceremonial observance. His views in this 
 respect, it soon became evident, went as far 
 beyond the Zwinglian's as the latter went be- 
 yond the Lutheran's. He did not, however, meet
 
 THE REFORM A TION IN MUNSTER. 1 3 5 
 
 with any strong opposition in Miinster itself, 
 although the Lutherans outside began to feel 
 uneasy, and Luther's jackal, Melancthon, wrote 
 him an admonitory letter. The exact nature of 
 the model intended by Rothmann for the new 
 Miinster Church organisation we do not know, 
 but we may certainly conclude that it was mainly 
 on Zwinglian lines. 
 
 After the treaty of peace between the town 
 and its territorial over-lord, on the I4th of 
 February, 1533, Miinster became the centre to 
 which religious and political malcontents flocked 
 from all sides. At the same time, now that 
 the opposition to the Catholic Church had been 
 successful, the divergencies of the reform party 
 with each other assumed, as was only natural, 
 more importance. Differencies arose between 
 Rothmann and the newcomers. Already in the 
 summer of 1532 a preacher, by name Heinrich 
 Roll, alias " Wassenberg," whence his disciples 
 are known as the u Wassenberger," owing to 
 his opinions had been driven out of the territory 
 of Jiilich and had sought refuge in Miinster. 
 Roll, or u Wassenberg," was a determined oppo- 
 nent of infant baptism. He was at first opposed 
 on this point by Rothmann, although otherwise
 
 136 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 they worked together. By May, 1533, however, 
 he had succeeded in gaining Rothmann over to 
 his views. 
 
 The Lutheran party, headed by the Syndicus 
 of the town, Van der Wieck, became now seriously 
 disturbed at the direction their leading pastor's 
 teaching and practices were taking. They sent 
 delegations to him, earnestly entreating him not 
 to compromise the religious unity of the reform 
 party by the discussion of these knotty and 
 dangerous points of doctrine. Rothmann insisted 
 on retaining his liberty of action. He and his 
 partisans were next ordered to appear before 
 the Rath, which summarily directed him to 
 abstain from the promulgation of anti-Lutheran 
 doctrines. It is reported that at the time he 
 gave an undertaking to obey. But, however 
 this may be, we find him a few days later 
 denouncing infant baptism before his congrega- 
 tion with greater energy than ever. The head 
 of the Mlinster Evangelical Church rightly 
 thought himself strong enough to defy the 
 Miinster Council. 
 
 He and his partisans now proclaimed the 
 thesis that in religious matters the final judgment 
 rests with the general assembly of citizens. To
 
 THE REFORMATION IN MUNSTER. 137 
 
 point the moral of this, one of the Wassenberger 
 party, who had made himself particularly ob- 
 noxious to the Lutheran Council by his violent 
 onslaughts on the practice of infant baptism, 
 was made assistant preacher in the church of 
 St. Lamberti itself. Doctrines akin to those of 
 Anabaptism, relative to mutual assistance and the 
 duty of the division of worldly substance amongst 
 believers also found favour with the preachers 
 of St. Lamberti. The conflict continued in a 
 sub-acute stage throughout the summer of 1533. 
 It was made acute by an order of the Rath 
 enjoining the Reformed pastors of the town to 
 carry out the practice of infant baptism. 
 
 The matter was brought to a definite issue 
 on September 7th, when the children of two 
 Lutheran Councillors were brought to the church 
 of St. Lamberti to be christened. Staprade, 
 the assistant preacher, refused to perform the 
 rite. Thereupon, as it would appear, Staprade 
 himself, as a non-burgher, was expelled the city, 
 while Rothmann and the other anti-Lutheran 
 clergy were cited before the Council and threaten- 
 ed with deposition and expulsion. The latter 
 now, in a letter dated the i;th of September, 
 took up the gauntlet and renounced their
 
 138 ItlSE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 allegiance to the Council, alleging that they 
 were enjoined by Holy Writ to obey God 
 rather than man. The Rath answered this 
 move by deposing the signatories and closing 
 their churches against them. Immense excitement 
 seized the "common man" in consequence. So 
 threatening did matters look indeed, that the 
 Rath saw itself compelled to a measure of 
 compromise. They consented to grant Roth- 
 mann under certain restrictions the church of 
 Servetius. Rothmann now made himself con- 
 spicuous by a life of penitence, rigour, and zeal 
 in works of charity, which increased his reputa- 
 tion as a Heaven-sent teacher day by day. 
 Meanwhile the new theories of brotherly love, 
 the surrender of worldly goods to poorer brethren, 
 and the like, spread rapidly. Many well-to-do 
 citizens literally fulfilled the injunction of selling 
 all they had and giving to the poor, those 
 possessing houses destroyed their rent deeds, 
 creditors forgave their debtors what was owing 
 them, and all who had embraced the new faith 
 poured out their wealth in acts of charity. Roth- 
 mann now set up a printing-press in his house, 
 from which pamphlets and broad sheets were 
 issued and carried by various means into far
 
 THE REFORMATION IN MUNSTER. 139 
 
 distant territories, especially into those of the 
 north-west. 
 
 From this time forward, the authority of the 
 Rath diminished daily, whilst the influx of foreign 
 elements into the city continued unabated. On 
 November 6th an agreement was entered into 
 between Rothmann's party and the Council, by 
 which the former agreed that certain of their 
 preachers should leave the town, but that Roth- 
 mann should remain and the rank and file of 
 his followers be unmolested. At the same time 
 the Council took steps to import new u Evangel- 
 ical " pastors after its own heart, to replace the 
 deposed and exiled Rothmannites or Wassen- 
 bergers. The Council now seemed to be in a 
 fair way of recovering its authority, when a 
 sudden influx of the most fanatical and energetic of 
 Anabaptist elements flooded the town and upset 
 all its calculations. These were our friends the 
 so-called Melchiorites, active partisans of Jan 
 Matthys and his itinerant apostles. Within the 
 last few weeks, the party of Matthys had grown 
 to extraordinary dimensions, persecution had 
 broken down the opposition of the non-resistants 
 to Matthys' propaganda of the sword, whilst 
 the other Melchiorites, who awaited a sign from
 
 140 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 Heaven that the day was at hand, were made 
 confident by the declarations of Matthys' mis- 
 sionaries, who went forth after the manner of 
 their New Testament exemplars in pairs and 
 assured the wavering that the sign had al- 
 ready come, that Enoch had already appeared 
 to announce the great day. Enoch, it is scarcely 
 necessary to say, was none other than Jan 
 Matthys himself, as to whose signs and wonders 
 the wandering prophets were eloquent. Where- 
 ever they came, new converts to Anabap- 
 tism in the sense of Jan Matthys were made. 
 Communities, often with a numerous member- 
 ship, were founded. Shepherds, or u Bishops" 
 as they were now sometimes called, were ap- 
 pointed, and the apostles would pass on. The 
 one topic of conversation along their track among 
 the new converts, whether in the journeymen's 
 guild-room, on the highways or in the fields, 
 was the imminent day of retribution when the 
 mighty should be cast down from their seats 
 and the man of low degree should be raised 
 up, when the godless world should be smitten with 
 a two-edged sword and the saints should reign for 
 ever in the new Kingdom of God about to 
 arise on the ruins of the kingdoms of this world.
 
 THE REFORM A TION IN MUNSTER. 1 4 1 
 
 Notwithstanding the success of the moderate 
 party in Miinster in getting rid of the recalci- 
 trant pastors and in installing good evangelical 
 Lutherans in their stead, there was one weak 
 place in their position, and that was the retention 
 in the city of the head and front of the offend- 
 ing movement, Bernhardt Rothmann. It was 
 only too obvious that the city Council lacked 
 the power or the courage to remove the most 
 dangerous enemy of the order they aimed at 
 establishing. The followers of Rothmann, re- 
 inforced by kindred spirits in the shape of 
 Anabaptist strangers driven by persecution on 
 the one side and fanaticism on the other from 
 north and south, east and west, but especially 
 from the west and north-west, who had sought 
 a haven of refuge in the chosen city of Miinster, 
 soon took heart of grace. Rothmann himself 
 developed an unpleasing activity in preach- 
 ing his favourite doctrines in conventicles and 
 otherwise. 
 
 On September 8th, 1533, a journeyman smith 
 began openly to proclaim the doctrines of Ana- 
 baptism in the churchyard of St. Lamberti. The 
 Rath, stirred by this to spasmodic action and 
 seeing plainly that behind the young smith stood
 
 142 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS 
 
 Bernhardt Rothmann, three days later plucked 
 up courage to issue an order for expulsion 
 against the latter, at the same time withdrawing 
 from him the protection of the authorities, 
 which in other words meant a sentence of out- 
 lawry. Rothmann coolly told the bailiff who 
 brought him the decree that he stood in no need 
 of the protection of these fathers of the city, 
 that he was quite content to rely upon God 
 and his disciples for all the protection he want- 
 ed. He now openly shewed his contempt for 
 the town government by not only refusing to 
 quit the city, but by beginning to preach again 
 without any attempt at concealment. The answer 
 of the authorities was the arrest, not of Roth- 
 mann himself, but of the young smith whose 
 preaching had given rise to the Rattis action. 
 This sufficed to raise a hornet's nest. The day 
 after the arrest, September i6th, about two 
 o'clock in the afternoon, all the members of the 
 smiths' Guild assembled in their guild-room, and 
 proceeded to the town-hall (Rathhaus], clamor- 
 ously demanding the release of their colleague. 
 As far as one can gather, the Guild-masters, no 
 less than the journeymen, were to the fore in 
 this action. So threatening was the attitude of
 
 THE REFORMATION IN MUNSTER. 143 
 
 the assembled smiths that the Council had to 
 give way, with the result that Johann Schroeder, 
 the imprisoned smith, after being handed over 
 to them, was carried in triumph through the 
 principal streets. On learning of the powerless- 
 ness of the authorities to enforce their decrees 
 against the will of the popular party, the banish- 
 ed preachers ventured without further ceremony 
 to return, and by the end of the year they 
 were all back in the town. On New Year's 
 Day, 1534, Roll took possession of the pulpit 
 in one of the city churches, once more to thunder 
 out his invectives against Luther and all his 
 followers. 
 
 Finally, on January 5th or 6th, two of the 
 apostles of Jan Matthys entered the town, pro- 
 claiming that God had sent a new prophet on 
 earth to herald the end of the dispensation of 
 this world and the beginning of the millennium. 
 They exhorted all, as they valued their salva- 
 tion, to be rebaptized. Miinster, they said, was 
 to be the new Jerusalem where the saints were 
 to reign in unity and brotherly love, constrained 
 by no law and no authority. God, they said, 
 had revealed to his prophet that it was by means 
 of the elect themselves, acting as his instruments,
 
 M4 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 that his kingdom should be established. A rage 
 for rebaptism seized upon all, the leaders no 
 less than the rank and file submitting to it, 
 Rothmann and Roll amongst the rest. Having 
 effected their object and sewn the seed, the 
 Dutchmen, a day or two later, passed on, but 
 their advent had lain the train of all that followed. 
 Miinster had become Anabaptist ; whole sections 
 of the population went mad with excitement, 
 citizens and strangers, guildmasters and journey- 
 men, even monks and nuns, were swept into 
 the whirlpool of fanaticism. 
 
 On the 1 3th of the month, the young enthu- 
 siast Jan Bockelson of Leyden arrived in Miin- 
 ster accompanied by a colleague, proclaiming 
 themselves apostles of God through his prophet 
 Jan Matthys. It was not the first time that 
 Bockelson had been in Munster, having resided 
 there for three months the previous year, and 
 it was on his return to Leyden later in the 
 summer that he received the call from the prophet 
 of Haarlem, and began to devote his life to the 
 new propaganda. The young apostle was at 
 this time twenty-five years of age, handsome in 
 face and figure, and with an eloquence well- 
 calculated to arouse enthusiasm. He soon had
 
 THE REFORM A TION IN MUNSTER. 1 4 5 
 
 all the women of the movement at his feet, 
 and became the foremost figure. Immediately 
 he entered into relations with the leaders of the 
 popular party, both on the religious and the 
 political side, becoming intimate with Rothmann 
 and Roll, and, above all, with the well-to-do 
 burgher and cloth-merchant, Bernhardt Knipper- 
 dollinck, whose daughter he gained in marriage. 
 The aims of Knipperdollinck were essentially 
 political, but the interests of the political and 
 religious revolutionists seemed now identical. 
 Rothmann, Roll, and the earlier leaders now fell 
 into the background. They had, it is true, no 
 choice being left them, to make common cause 
 with the new movement, and to allow them- 
 selves, whether they would or not, to be carried 
 away with it. The popular party, the poor 
 guildsmen, the journeymen, the floating popula- 
 tion of proletarians and strangers, soon made 
 it evident that they meant carrying matters alike 
 in politics, in social relations, and in religion, to 
 their logical conclusion. Rothmann seemed to 
 have had a presentiment of the turn things 
 would take some months before, when he advised 
 a friend of his, through the latter's wife, who 
 sought his counsel, to accept an appointment
 
 146 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 elsewhere than in Minister, u for," said he, 
 41 things will not go well here!" 
 
 From this time forward, the attempt to put 
 the new doctrines in practice became more and 
 more the vogue. Women played a prominent 
 part in this new phase. Gold, costly vessels, 
 and jewellery of all sorts were brought into the 
 common fund. Meanwhile the immigration of 
 outside elements continued. After a time Jan 
 Matthys himself was summoned by Bockelson 
 to take part in the foundation of the new mil- 
 lennial order of things. Matters were now plainly 
 past the power of Rath or any other worldly 
 authority, but it must not be supposed that the 
 governing body of Munster surrendered without 
 at least the show of a struggle. On January 8th, 
 an attempt had been made by the Council to 
 obtain satisfaction in the matter of the returned 
 preachers, though nothing came of it but abortive 
 negotiations. Serious differences now broke out 
 within the governing body itself. A week later, 
 however, a decree of expulsion was with some 
 difficulty carried, and the preachers, with the 
 exception of Rothmann himself, were conducted 
 outside the walls by the city constables. But 
 they were no sooner without the gate than
 
 THE REFORMATION IN MUNSTER. 147 
 
 they were met by a body of their friends, and 
 brought back round the rampart of the town 
 to another gate, at which they re-entered. 
 
 The authorities now appealed to the Bishop, 
 who on January 23rd issued a mandate enjoining 
 them in accordance with the Imperial edicts to 
 root out the plague of Anabaptism that had 
 infected the town, and threatening all who 
 favoured Anabaptist doctrines with the ban of 
 the Empire. But this episcopal blind thunder 
 did not alter the course of events. The agita- 
 tion continued unabated. At dusk on January 
 28th, an attempt to seize the town was made 
 by the revolutionary party. Armed bands 
 appeared at several points, closing the streets 
 with chains and committing other insurrectionary 
 acts, but the disturbance was damped down by 
 the leaders of the movement, who, at a meeting 
 held in Knipperdollinck's house, decided that 
 the moment for overt action had not arrived. 
 On the 3Oth, the Council held a conference 
 with the heads of the Guilds, the result of 
 which was a decision to maintain personal 
 freedom in matters of religion, but to resolutely 
 discourage any attempts at provocation on either 
 side.
 
 148 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 The decisive step by which the Anabaptists 
 proclaimed themselves in insurrection was taken 
 on February Qth, 1534, when, at seven o'clock 
 in the morning, five hundred armed Anabaptists 
 suddenly seized the market-place and certain 
 doors of the Rathhaiis. The party of order 
 quickly gathered together its forces. Evangel- 
 icals and Catholics stood shoulder to shoulder 
 in the work of defending the old kingdom of 
 this world in Mlinster, as represented by the 
 Council and governing authorities, against the 
 new kingdom of God as represented by the 
 Anabaptist saints. All the streets and narrow 
 lanes leading up to Ueberwasser Kirchhof were 
 protected by ordnance. The towers of the 
 Cathedral, the so-called " Mirror Tower " (Spiegel 
 thurm) and other parts of vantage were garrison- 
 ed, and the wooden bridges leading over the 
 river were torn down, with one exception. 
 Meanwhile the streets were in a state of uproar. 
 Enthusiasts rushed through them swinging 
 weapons in the air and proclaiming the day of 
 the Lord. On the other side, an urgent mes- 
 sage was despatched to the Prince-Bishop. The 
 latter promised, without prejudice to the rights 
 and privileges of the town, to enter with a
 
 THE REFORMATION IN MUNSTER. 149 
 
 numerous body of cavalry and restore order, if 
 the civic authorities would leave two gates open 
 to him. But the Evangelicals were mistrustful 
 of the Episcopal assurances, and with good reason 
 feared that, if successful, the opportunity would 
 be used for crushing the Reformation in Munster 
 altogether. The Anabaptists now sent some 
 horsemen to the principal armoury situated at 
 the so-called Aegidi-gate to seize the cannon. 
 The party of order, on hearing of this, immediately 
 despatched fifty armed men to forestall them. 
 These only succeeded in laying hands on one 
 piece of ordnance however. Messages were 
 now sent to the neighbouring villages, calling 
 on the peasants to come to the assistance of 
 order and Munster. Night coming on put an 
 end for the moment to actual hostilities though 
 not to the excitement in the town. The fanatics 
 continued to parade the streets, women as well 
 as men, singing, praying, and declaring that 
 Heaven was opening and that a legion of angels 
 was about to descend on the town to deliver 
 the saints and root out the godless. But the 
 cooler heads of the revolutionary party took 
 care to place guards at the several positions 
 occupied by them, at the various gates that they
 
 150 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 had seized, at the principal marketplace (Prinzipal- 
 markt) and the Rathhaus. 
 
 Similar measures were taken by the Evangel- 
 icals and Catholics, now united on behalf of the 
 Council and government of the town. The 
 rallying cry of the Anabaptists was " Father," 
 that of the Party of Order was u Christ." At 
 dawn, Knipperdollinck was arrested in the quar- 
 ter of the town known as the " Ueberwasser," 
 by the second Biirgermeister. Whilst endeavour- 
 ing to raise the populace, he was incarcerated 
 with twenty-five other Anabaptists in a tower 
 on the city wall hard by. The belfry of the 
 church of St. Lamberti now began to boom 
 forth its call to arms and the streets to fill with 
 excited crowds and to resound with the clashing 
 of weapons. The two Biirgermeisters, the Syndic, 
 and several Councillors now hurriedly met in 
 the Ratkhaus, which the insurgents would seem 
 
 o 
 
 to have evacuated, but the street in front of 
 the Municipal buildings rapidly filled with armed 
 rebels, clamorously demanding the release 
 of their imprisoned brethren. The authorities 
 temporised whilst their Catholic and Evangelical 
 allies hurried up to defend the civic head- 
 quarters. The battle lasted for some hours,
 
 THE REFORMATION IN MUNSTER. 151 
 
 when the party of order was compelled to re- 
 treat. At this moment, the country people, 
 who, in respo nse to the summons of the previous 
 evening, had since early morning begun to arrive, 
 suddenly appeared to aid the defence. A report 
 at the same time was spread that the Bishop 
 with his men-at-arms was marching on the city. 
 This circumstance, more than the arrival of the 
 reinforcements, made the Anabaptists, who up 
 to this time had had the best of the fight, willing 
 to negotiate. This was probably further facili- 
 tated by the fact that the Chief Biirgermeister, 
 Tylbeck, was known to be secretly sympathetic 
 to their cause. The negotiations were opened, 
 Tylbeck having replied to the Prince-Bishop's 
 messengers sent to apprise him of the coming 
 of his over-lord, that he required no outside 
 help for the restoration of order in the city. 
 An agreement was come to by which freedom 
 in religious matters was to be strictly maintained, 
 whilst in secular affairs the lawful authority was 
 to be obeyed. All prisoners were set free and 
 a general amnesty proclaimed. Peasants who 
 had come to assist law and order were regaled in 
 the Rathhaus at the cost of the town, after which 
 they returned home to their respective villages.
 
 152 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 By the time this peace was concluded, the 
 Bishop with his horsemen had arrived within 
 striking distance of Munster. On hearing of the 
 turn things had taken within the walls, he was 
 furious, but, with the town closed against him, 
 there was nothing for it but to go back. 
 Tylbeck, it is alleged, with a view of keeping 
 the matter in his own hands, had not communi- 
 cated to his colleagues the letter he had received 
 from the Bishop the previous evening, announc- 
 ing his intention of entering the city with an 
 armed force on the morrow. But it was perfectly 
 evident that the Bishop, though for the moment 
 compelled to desist from his intention, would 
 never accept the "dogs' peace," as the party 
 of order afterwards termed it, that had just been 
 concluded. If it was to be maintained, the city 
 would have to prepare for the eventuality of a 
 siege at the hands of its Prince-Bishop. In view 
 of this, large numbers of well-to-do burghers, 
 who themselves disapproved of the arrangement 
 that had been come to, left the city during the 
 next few days. 
 
 On the other hand, the stream of Anabaptist 
 immigration received a further and hitherto un- 
 paralleled impetus, not merely from the immunity
 
 THE REFORM A TION IN MUNSTER. 1 53 
 
 that now seemed guaranteed under the shadow 
 of St. Lamberti, but from the action of Knip- 
 perdollinck, through Rothmann, who by this time 
 had become the mere instrument of the new 
 prophets. Knipperdollinck and the prophets 
 made Rothmann write a circular letter to the 
 Anabaptist communities in other towns, couched 
 as follows : 
 
 "Bernhardt Rothmann, the servant of the 
 Heavenly Father, to all His brethren who dwell 
 among the heathen, health and divine blessing ! 
 Be it known to ye all that the Heavenly Father 
 hath sent unto us certain prophets who proclaim 
 the pure word of God with most marvellous 
 gift of tongue and in the spirit of everlasting 
 salvation ! He who seeketh his everlasting salva- 
 tion, let him forsake all worldly goods, and let 
 him with wife and with children come unto 
 us here to the New Jerusalem, to Zion, to the 
 Temple of Solomon ! Besides the treasure 
 in Heaven it shall be requited to him tenfold 
 in money and goods for that which he hath 
 left behind him ! " This letter was despatched 
 by special messengers, far and wide, to a 
 large number of towns, to almost all the towns 
 of Westphalia, to Osnabruck, Soest, Wesel,
 
 154 XISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 etc. and to many other territories as well, as 
 far as Liibeck and Hamburg. Heinrich Krechting, 
 a local magnate of the town of Schoppingen, 
 was the leader of a little body of the faithful 
 to the new Zion. He and his party, who brought 
 a baggage train with them, were seized at a 
 small town two hours from Miinster, where he 
 was imprisoned. His son, however, succeeded 
 in escaping, and hurrying to Miinster brought 
 back with him a body of a hundred and fifty 
 Anabaptists, who liberated his father, and took 
 him and his safely to the haven of the saints. 
 Heinrich's brother, Bernhardt Krechting, a pastor, 
 soon afterwards arrived, bringing with him his 
 congregation. Peter Schwering, a wealthy mer- 
 chant, also led a body of followers from Coesfeld. 
 For days the roads leading to Miinster were 
 crowded with Anabaptist pilgrims from every 
 side, some alone with the staff in their hands, 
 others in parties consisting of their families and 
 friends, bringing with them waggons containing 
 such of their household stuff as they could 
 transport; large numbers mad with religious 
 excitement, dancing and singing " Hosannah. 1 ' 
 Holland and Friesland furnished the largest 
 contingents among the pilgrims.
 
 THE REFORM A TION IN MUNSTER. 1 5 5 
 
 The peace had scarcely been concluded, when, 
 as we are informed, (by hostile witnesses certainly) 
 the women of the Anabaptist party began 
 on a larger scale the pious orgies which had 
 been going on at intervals for weeks past 
 in Anabaptist circles of the city. Knipperdol- 
 linck's wife and mother-in-law, it is stated, 
 rushed, with black veils over their heads, up 
 and down the streets, calling the women to 
 repentance. The response was immense. Women 
 flocked after them from all wards of the city 
 through the streets to the chief market-place, 
 their hair flying in the wind, their clothes dis- 
 ordered, and, in some cases, half naked. One 
 eye-witness relates that they threw themselves 
 on their faces on the ground, and tore their 
 breasts, stretching their arms out so as to form 
 a cross, whilst others lay on their backs, foaming 
 at the mouth, staring up at the sky with a look 
 of anxious expectation. They would then spring 
 up, raving, grinding their teeth, and clapping 
 their hands, invoking blessings and curses from 
 Heaven at the same time. Groups would utter 
 loud shouts, crying that Heaven would protect 
 the New Jerusalem. Everything was counted by 
 these female fanatics as a sign sent from Heaven ;
 
 156 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 a stone appearing out of the snow that lay in 
 the streets, a pool of blood proceeding from an 
 ox recently killed in the slaughter-house hard 
 by. All was miraculous, a token sent as an 
 encouragement or a warning to the saints. 
 Actual hallucinations were common. Some saw 
 a great fire with blue and black flames descend 
 from Heaven and cover the city ; hysterical 
 laughter and crying were heard on all hands. 
 Ever and anon a group of men and women 
 would be seen rushing through the streets 
 shouting u Repent and be baptized ! Slay the 
 unbaptized heathen!" Suddenly the rays of the 
 sun struck a newly-gilded weather-cock on one 
 of the patrician houses of the market-place, 
 dazzling the eyes of those who looked that way. 
 The assembled women fell on their faces and, 
 with folded hands, cried, u Oh ! Father, Father, 
 most excellent King ofZion, spare thy people!" 
 Seeing the effect it produced, the weather-cock 
 was removed by a sober-minded burgher, and 
 the ecstasy of the crowd stopped at once. 
 Within the next few days, the Btirgermeister 
 Tylbeck, who, while secretly sympathising with 
 the Anabaptists, had remained nominally the 
 head of the constituted authorities of the city,
 
 THE REFORM A TION IN MUNSTER. 1 5 7 
 
 went over openly to the revolutionary party. 
 Rothmann, after having, as stated formerly, re- 
 baptized himself, conferred the symbol on others, 
 especially on the nuns who daily fled from the 
 convents in the town. 
 
 Amongst those to arrive within the next few 
 days was none other than the greatest of the 
 prophets, the ci-devant master-baker of Haarlem, 
 Jan Matthys himself, bringing with him his newly 
 wedded wife, a beautiful nun from the Convent 
 of St. Agnes in his native city. Matthys now 
 for some time had been convinced that Strasburg, 
 which he had formerly in accordance with his 
 master, Melchior Hoffmann, deemed the destined 
 seat of the New Jerusalem, had been rejected, 
 and that the Divine choice had fallen on the 
 capital of the great Westphalian bishopric. 
 Matthys, in his character of the prophet Enoch, 
 the head of all the prophets of the new gospel, 
 on his arrival formally proclaimed Miinster as 
 the city revealed to him by God as the seat 
 of the millennial kingdom, in the place of Stras- 
 burg rejected for its unbelief. Against the city 
 of the saints, said he, the powers of this world 
 would be able to achieve nothing. 
 
 One day, the chief market-place was filled
 
 158 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 with the faithful, come to hear an announcement 
 of the great prophet. When Matthys appeared, 
 he had with him two stone tablets which he 
 placed on the steps of a well opposite the wall 
 of St. Lamberti's churchyard. He then announced 
 to the awestruck multitude that he had just 
 spoken with the Lord of Hosts, that the spirit 
 of the living God was upon him, declaring that 
 he was ordained to impart to them the will of 
 God. This was, first and foremost, that he and 
 Jan van Leyden (Bockelson) should instruct them 
 in the pure and holy service of God, such as 
 was proper to a chosen people. Matthys con- 
 cluded with the adjuration, u Almighty be our 
 doctrine and our power, and praised be the will 
 of our Father, Who has sent us here to found 
 the New Jerusalem, the city of Regeneration, 
 the thousand years Kingdom, according unto 
 His Holy pleasure ! " 
 
 Life in Miinster was relieved by travesties of 
 the dispossessed cultus. A waggon would be 
 drawn up on the market-place, dragged by six 
 Anabaptists in the garb of the religious orders, 
 the driver representing the Prince-Bishop in his 
 robes, whilst a man in priestly garments sat in 
 the waggon reading a parody of the Mass.
 
 THE REFORM A TION IN MUNSTER. 1 5 9 
 
 The waggon was drawn through the streets 
 surrounded by an excited crowd shouting, " Down 
 with the Catholics ! Down with the Evangelicals ! 
 Death to the heathen and to the godless ! " 
 The foreign elements produced by the recent 
 immigration now considerably outnumbered the 
 genuine burgher population, which was being 
 daily diminished by withdrawals. The heads 
 of the town government, finding themselves 
 rapidly becoming powerless, fled. Tylbeck, as 
 we have seen, went formally over to the Ana- 
 baptists, and his colleague, a patrician, and a 
 chief pillar of the party of order escaped to a 
 small town not far distant. The town Syndicus, 
 Van der Wieck, left the city, with the intention 
 of seeking an asylum in Bremen. He was, how- 
 ever, treacherously captured by men in the 
 Bishop's service, a few miles from Minister, and 
 after being taken from one prison to another, 
 was beheaded without trial, by the Bishop's 
 order. Van der Wieck was the leader of the 
 orthodox Protestant party in Miinster. 
 
 The town being now practically without a 
 government, it was decided by the Anabaptist 
 leaders to summon the inhabitants for the elec- 
 tion of a new Council and officers. This was
 
 160 XISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 done, with the result, as was obvious beforehand, 
 that a Council and Government, composed 
 entirely of Brethren, was got together. The 
 head Burgermeister, Tylbeck, notwithstanding his 
 defection from the Party of Order, was not 
 only not re-elected, but, which seemed rather 
 hard, was for the time being thrown into prison. 
 The leaders may conceivably have regarded 
 him as a time-server, who trimmed his sails to 
 the wind and whom it would not be safe to 
 trust. In his stead, Bernhardt Knipperdollinck 
 and his friend the master-tailor Kibbenbroick 
 were chosen respectively to the posts of first 
 and second Biirgermeister. Ever since the unsta- 
 ble "Peace" of February loth the town had 
 been virtually in the control of the Anabaptist 
 leaders After the election of the new Council 
 on February 28th, it came formally into their 
 hands and was definitely organized as an Ana- 
 baptist community. The reign of the Saints 
 had begun; Anabaptism had reached its zenith 
 as a political power. 
 
 Before proceeding to the history of the events 
 that followed, we will now pause to consider 
 the whole movement, in general survey, up to 
 this turning-point in its fortunes. As we have
 
 THE REFORM A TION IN MUNSTER. 1 6 1 
 
 seen it was the expression of tendencies which 
 had been sporadic throughout the whole of the 
 later Middle Ages, and which asserted them- 
 selves with renewed emphasis from the beginning 
 of the Reformation. These tendencies were: 
 (i) the thoroughgoing carrying-out of the notion 
 of the right of private judgment in matters of 
 religion as opposed to authority ; (2) the demo- 
 cratic idea of the equality of all Christians, the 
 duty of the Brethren, the true followers of Christ, 
 to possess as though they possessed nothing, 
 in a word to hold all things in common ; (3) the 
 belief in the approaching advent of the end of 
 the world, or of the millennium. All these 
 tendencies were absorbed after 1525 into the 
 new movement under its distinctive sign, rebap- 
 tism, or adult baptism. The latter served as a 
 symbol for the paramountcy of private judgment 
 in matters of religion as opposed to that of a 
 hierarchical Church-organisation into which an 
 infant was received without any act of will on 
 its part. It was also a convenient token by 
 which the elect, the Saints, definitely proclaimed 
 themselves as separate from the world. The 
 doctrine of non-resistance, which was so prom- 
 inent in the Anabaptism communities up till the 
 
 ii
 
 1 62 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 time that Jan Matthys obtained control of the 
 movement in Holland and north-west Germany, 
 for before his time even Melchior Hoffmann and 
 his followers were content, like the rest, with 
 non-resistance till the great day had arrived 
 was a natural result of the literal interpretation 
 of many passages in the New Testament. And 
 this leads us once more to advert to an impor- 
 tant feature of the movement, its strange at- 
 mosphere of Bible-reading to the exclusion of all 
 other literature. This was also characteristic of 
 earlier analagous movements, but not to the same 
 extent as with the Anabaptists. During the 
 Middle Ages proper, the knowledge of letters 
 and the means of reading were scanty, while 
 for the most part portions only of the Hebrew 
 Scriptures were accessible at all in the vulgar 
 tongue. There had been more than one trans- 
 lation into German of books of the Bible before 
 Luther's, but it was Luther's translation that 
 first made the Bible as a whole a household 
 book and a personal possession of the German- 
 speaking peoples. Amongst the skilled artisans, 
 journeymen and better situated peasants of the 
 early sixteenth century, there were not a few who 
 could read sufficiently to make out the text of
 
 THE REFORMATION IN MUNSTER. 163 
 
 the new German Bible, whilst those who could 
 not read would form a circle round those who 
 could, and the latter, from their coign of intel- 
 lectual vantage, would not merely read, but 
 would often expound, the text in their own 
 fashion to their hearers. These informal Bible- 
 readings became the chief religious function 
 among the Anabaptists. This naive continuous 
 and discursive study of the Old and New Testa- 
 ments had its natural outcome in a population 
 lacking almost all that constitutes what we now 
 call education. Men and women read and re- 
 read, heard and re-heard, pondered and re- 
 pondered the text hallowed by its supposed divine 
 origin, until they could think of nothing else. 
 Soon they came to live in a dream-world, to 
 re-live in their daily life and in the events of 
 their own time, the narratives and prophetic 
 visions of their one book. Destitute of all 
 knowledge of history, save perhaps here and 
 there an isolated fragment, there was no break 
 for them between the biblical story and their 
 own age. They, the Anabaptists, were the 
 chosen people, who had come out of Babylon, 
 renouncing the world, the flesh, and the devil, 
 prepared to meet the Messiah when he should
 
 1 64 ISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 descend from the clouds upon the earth to 
 establish the millennial kingdom of which the 
 Apocalypse spoke. It is difficult for us nowa- 
 days to throw ourselves back into the state of 
 mind of these guileless people, whose beliefs 
 were no mere pious opinions kept in a com- 
 partment by themselves, and not affecting their 
 everyday thought and action. They were to 
 them certainties as real and living as the world 
 
 o 
 
 surrounding them, and hence of quite as much 
 practical moment as the affairs of their trade or 
 as a journey about to be undertaken. 
 
 We have further to bear in mind, not merely 
 the ideas themselves, but the mediaeval back- 
 ground of thought that constituted their setting. 
 No breath of criticism or disbelief in the modern 
 sense touched them. The whole horizon of 
 these simple folk was bounded by a supernatural 
 view of the universe, now a more especially 
 biblical supernaturalism, as it had before been 
 the supernaturalism of the theory of the world 
 and of man of popular mediaeval Catholicism. 
 The idea of inspiration was ever present to them. 
 The only conflict that might possibly arise in 
 this connection was the conflict between the 
 inspiration enshrined in the letter of Holy Writ
 
 THE REFORMATION IN MUNSTER. 165 
 
 and the inspiration that the inner light directly 
 afforded to the soul of the individual believer. 
 The Anabaptists, in perfectly consistent accor- 
 dance with their Biblical-Christian theory of 
 things, would admit no break in the conditions 
 of revelation between biblical and primitive 
 Christian times and the year of grace in which 
 they then found themselves. Prophets were as 
 possible in the third and fourth decade of the 
 sixteenth century as they had been in the first 
 century of the Christian era, or a thousand years 
 before that era. Special revelation vouchsafed 
 to the soul of the individual believer was as 
 conceivable then as ever it had been, nay, was 
 even likely to happen more frequently then than 
 in years gone by, for did not all things point 
 to the fulfilment of the ancient prophecies of 
 Holy Writ, to the day being at hand when the 
 Messiah should come with his legions of angels, 
 preceded by Elias, to restore all things, to over- 
 throw the kingdoms of this world with their 
 principalities and powers, and establish the Holy 
 City, the New Jerusalem, as the Metropolis of 
 the world, the delight of all nations? Was it 
 not written that the weak and the lowly should 
 inherit the earth? and was it not now the poor
 
 1 66 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 handicraftsman and peasant who accepted the 
 true word ? Was it not out of the ranks of the 
 poor and the lowly that the new prophets were 
 being called, to whom were vouchsafed the latest 
 revelations of the will of the Father? 
 
 That, in a mental and moral atmosphere 
 dominated by these beliefs, hysteria and actual 
 insanity should be rife was only to be expected : 
 the mind of whole sections of the population 
 over a vast area of territory was hypnotized, 
 and it needed not much that individuals, especi- 
 ally women, from out the masses held under 
 control by the dominant beliefs, should completely 
 lose their mental balance and become raving 
 maniacs. Of course the stress of the economical 
 circumstances consequent on that breaking up 
 of the mediaeval conditions of life, to which we 
 have so often referred throughout these studies 
 of the social side of the Reformation in Germany, 
 was largely responsible for the sudden ascendency 
 obtained by these views over the poorer popula- 
 tions of such extended territories, an ascendency 
 which resulted in the focussing of the movement 
 in one town, and in the remarkable events of 
 the years 1534 and 1535 that followed. The 
 political and economic aspirations of the demo-
 
 THE REFORMATION IN MUNSTER. 167 
 
 cracies, especially of the German cities, called 
 forth by the pressure of circumstances, readily 
 and naturally clothed themselves in a religious 
 or theological garb, whilst the religious aspira- 
 tions themselves seemed to demand political 
 and economic revolution as the conditions of 
 their fulfilment. 
 
 The effect of the arrest of Melchior Hoffmann 
 in Strasburg the previous year was considerable 
 in these northern territories of the Empire, not 
 merely among his actual disciples, numerous as 
 they were, but amongst the susceptible and 
 sympathetic population generally. The Brethren, 
 who in pursuit of their handicraft had wandered 
 north, related in their southern dialect with 
 what confidence Hoffmann, on being thrown 
 into prison, had thanked God that the hour had 
 struck, had raised his hand to Heaven, and 
 sworn by the living God that he would neither 
 drink water nor eat bread till the time had 
 arrived when he could with outstretched finger 
 point to him who had sent him. They brought 
 with them tracts that Hoffmann had written 
 during his confinement and had succeeded in 
 smuggling out of the prison to his adherents. 
 Hoffmann had predicted that he would be seized
 
 1 68 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 and imprisoned by the godless. His prophecy 
 had come true. He had also predicted that he 
 should be speedily released and be caught up 
 in the clouds to join the Lord and return with 
 him in glory to judge the earth. u Oh, Saints 
 of God," he wrote from his prison, " raise your 
 heads, your hearts, your eyes, your ears. Your 
 salvation is before the door. All the plagues 
 have been fulfilled save that of the seventh 
 angel of vengeance." 
 
 Throughout the winter of 1533 1534 the 
 tracts of Hoffmann were to be found in the 
 hands of the popular party in Mlinster, and 
 were earnestly studied. But the doctrines of 
 Hoffmann contained, as compared with those 
 of Matthys, a considerable non-resistance element. 
 The notion that it was the duty of the elect to 
 bear the evils God inflicted upon them, and to 
 resist not those in authority, but to await the 
 day of vengeance that would come in its good 
 time, was still the predominant doctrine among 
 the Melchiorites of Westphalia until the coming 
 of the apostles of Jan Matthys early in January, 
 1534. Essentially the Anabaptism of Holland, 
 Friesland and Westphalia was identical with the 
 Anabaptism of Moravia, the Tyrol, and southern
 
 THE REFORM A TION IN MUNSTER. 1 6 9 
 
 Germany, as that was with the original doctrine 
 as held and preached by the little pioneer com- 
 munity of Zurich constituted by Konrad Grebel 
 and his friends. But there was one theory 
 prevalent in the north-west, chiefly owing to the 
 teaching of the two Melchiors, Hoffmann and 
 Rink, (if we are to regard them as two persons) 
 which was viewed with disfavour by most of 
 the earlier communities of southern and south- 
 eastern Germany, and this was the theory of 
 the imminency of the second advent of Christ 
 and of the millennium. This innovation, for the 
 most part peculiar to the Anabaptists of the 
 north-west, was not only not held by their brethren 
 of the south, but was even on occasion strongly 
 combated by them. And, as it turned out, 
 this apocalyptic point of view, notwithstanding 
 the apparent identity of doctrines otherwise, was 
 destined to form a crucial line of demarcation 
 between the earlier Anabaptism of the third 
 decade of the century, which had its principal 
 seat in south-eastern Germany, Austria and 
 Switzerland, and the later Anabaptism of the 
 fourth decade, which prevailed mainly in Holland, 
 Friesland, Westphalia, and the north-west gener- 
 ally. From the belief and expectation of the
 
 1 70 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 immediate advent of a day of vengeance, out 
 of which would arise the reign of the saints on 
 earth, it was but a step to the conviction that 
 Providence would work his purposes through the 
 human agency of the elect themselves. Mel- 
 chior Hoffmann had prophesied his own imprison- 
 ment, his liberation, and the end of the age 
 for the year 1533. The first of these prophecies 
 proved correct, but the others disappointed the 
 expectation of the many thousands of Melchior's 
 followers. As the year 1533 became autumn, 
 and as autumn faded into winter, and yet there 
 was no sign of the anxiously awaited catastrophe, 
 doubts must have arisen in the minds of many 
 as to the infallibility of Hoffmann's interpreta- 
 tions of the signs of the times. 
 
 Doubts transformed themselves in the active 
 and energetic mind of the master-baker of Haar- 
 lem into the conviction that the Saints themselves 
 must take to the sword, that the time of endur- 
 ing, forbearing, meekness and suffering was 
 past, and that it was his mission to shew them 
 the new way of vengeance and the destruction 
 of the godless, by which they should accomplish 
 the will of God, work out their own salvation, 
 and inaugurate the millennial reign. The sue-
 
 THE REFORM A TION IN MUNSTER. 1 7 1 
 
 cess so rapid and so extraordinary of his followers, 
 the apostles he sent forth into all the neighbour- 
 ing lands, confirmed him in the belief in his 
 divine mission. The wonderful reports brought 
 to him of the events in Miinster, of the victories 
 gained by the elect over worldly authorities, of 
 the zeal that inspired the whole population, at 
 last left no doubt in his mind that Miinster was 
 the chosen city. This conviction once forced 
 upon him, his course became clear. He, the 
 prophet, specially chosen of God to prepare the 
 way for Him, must depart without delay to this 
 new city of God, to take the lead in the work 
 of vengeance and regeneration.
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE REIGN OF THE SAINTS. 
 
 THE goal was now obtained by the election 
 of the 23rd of February, and the reconstitution of 
 the government of Minister. The Anabaptists 
 obtained a supreme political power. The Holy 
 City, the New Jerusalem, the Zion of the prophets 
 was definitely founded. The old burghers of 
 Miinster were become an insignificant and power- 
 less minority. As to the character of the new 
 inhabitants of Miinster, if we are to believe an 
 u instruction " drawn up by the district assembly 
 of Koln in October, 1534, it consisted largely 
 of very questionable elements; u all fugitive, 
 banished and evil-doing citizens and inhabitants 
 from among the towns of the bishopric of Miin- 
 ster came thither together," are the words used. 
 And again, in an official report to Bishop Franz 
 von Waldeck, we read "so soon as the town 
 had come into their power did they utterly 
 overthrow all divine Christian order and justice, 
 all spiritual and temporal rule and policy, and
 
 THE REIGN OF THE SAINTS. 173 
 
 did set up a bestial life." The histories that 
 have been written subsequently of the great 
 Anabaptist movement in Miinster, from that of the 
 contemporary Kerssenbroick downwards, have 
 all been couched in this tone. The leaders of 
 the Anabaptists were cunning and designing 
 rogues, while their followers were the offscouring 
 of the earth, composed of some fools and of 
 more knaves, whose end was plunder, and whose 
 means were anarchy. This, of course, is only 
 one more instance of how the dominant class 
 of every age writes history in its own interest, 
 and of how it has hitherto succeeded not only 
 in imposing its view on the average intelligence 
 of its own time, but in handing it down to 
 the second-hand historians of subsequent ages. 
 These, as a rule, themselves the pensioners 
 of the dominant classes of their own time, 
 slavishly copy their predecessors in the art of 
 slandering the enemies of an older ruling class. 
 Now, at the beginning of the twentieth century, 
 for the first time in history has the opposition to 
 the interests of the propertied classes acquired suf- 
 ficient strength and consistency to make headway 
 against the distortion of history designed to 
 pander to their passions. It would, of course,
 
 174 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 be absurd to deny that amongst those who 
 flocked from all sides to Miinster in the name 
 of the new doctrine, there may have been some 
 individuals who might possibly answer to the 
 descriptions officially given. In all movements 
 whose seed-ground is a decaying economic state 
 of things, are to be found the flotsom and jetsom 
 cast forth by decay. In the early sixteenth 
 century, we may be quite sure, the revolt against 
 moribund feudalism was not ideal in all its 
 individual elements. It would be manifestly fool- 
 ish to expect such to be the case with sections 
 of a population more or less suddenly cast adrift 
 from their social and economic moorings. But 
 at the same time there can be no doubt in the 
 mind of any person who has seriously studied 
 the history of social movements, that the bulk 
 of those who thronged the city of Miinster in 
 the year 1 534, were infinitely honester and nobler 
 characters at bottom than the unscrupulous ruffi- 
 ans of the moribund feudalism with whom they 
 were at war. 
 
 At the time at which we have now arrived, 
 as already stated, the immigrants, of whom an 
 important portion hailed from Holland, consider- 
 ably outnumbered the original inhabitants who
 
 THE REIGN OF THE SAINTS. 175 
 
 remained within the walls. The question of 
 language offered comparatively little difficulty, 
 as the local Platt or Low German dialect of 
 Westphalia closely approached that other Low- 
 German dialect of Holland which, owing to its 
 having become enshrined in a literature of its 
 own, and to its being the dialect of a people 
 through long centuries politically separated from 
 the rest of Germany, we are accustomed to call 
 the Dutch language and so the newcomers and 
 the Miinsterites were mutually intelligible from 
 the first. A few weeks doubtless sufficed to make 
 the strangers proficients in the tongue of the 
 native-born inhabitants. 
 
 Already before the new elections the Catholic 
 churches and religious houses had been stormed 
 and the contents rifled by crowds of zealots. 
 Even the Cathedral was not spared. On the even- 
 ing of the 24th of February it was entered and 
 sacked, many remarkable specimens of mediaeval 
 art being destroyed. The notion of making a 
 complete break with the past was carried to 
 the point not merely of consigning to the flames 
 all official documents and charters dealing with 
 the feudal relations of the town, which would 
 have been at least intelligible, but of handing
 
 176 KISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 over to the same fate the priceless collection 
 of mediaeval and Renaissance manuscripts and 
 printed books which had been formed by the 
 patrician Rudolph von Langen. The systematic 
 destruction of all manuscript or printed relics of 
 the past that could be laid hands on, seems to 
 have been carried out by the direct order of 
 the new authorities, and the work lasted from 
 the 1 5th to the 23rd of March. The wealthy 
 church of St. Mauritz, outside the walls, where 
 Bernhardt Rothmann had originally been called 
 to the pulpit, was also burned to the ground, 
 although in this case military reasons were 
 assigned as an excuse. These measures, not 
 unnaturally, excited the indignation of the Evan- 
 gelical and Catholic burghers who had remained, 
 an indignation which did not fail to show itself, 
 in some cases in active opposition. The opposi- 
 tion of the older inhabitants to the work of 
 destruction which the Anabaptists had resolved 
 to carry through to the bitter end, led to the 
 decision to slay or drive out the godless and 
 the heathen, by which was understood all who 
 refused to receive baptism at the hands of the 
 brethren appointed to administer it. The decree 
 enjoining this was issued for Friday, February
 
 THE REIGN OF THE SAINTS. 177 
 
 27th. It was the second Friday in Lent. On 
 this day at seven o'clock in the morning, con- 
 tingents of Anabaptists paraded the streets, 
 shouting : u Away with the godless ! God will 
 straightway awake and will punish thee ! " These 
 contingents, which were armed with muskets, pikes, 
 and halberds, proceeded themselves to accomplish 
 the work of God in driving out the unbaptised 
 men, women and children. It was a bitter cold 
 winter's day, a cutting wind accompanied by 
 sleet swept through the narrow streets and 
 byways of the old mediaeval city. Says Meister 
 Heinrich Gresbeck : u One ought not on that same 
 Friday to have hunted a dog from the town, 
 so bitter was the weather on that same Friday." l 
 A great cry was heard, according to Gresbeck, 
 from the women and children, as they were 
 driven out of the gates. (On the other hand, 
 Gresbeck does not mention that the Bishop at 
 this juncture was murdering every Anabaptist 
 he could lay his hands on.) The one condition 
 of being allowed to remain was the consent to 
 undergo the cardinal Anabaptist rite of rebaptism. 
 Those who pledged themselves to be rebaptized 
 were immediately marched up to the market- 
 
 1 Geschichtsqudlen des Bisthums Miinster, vol. 2, page 19. 
 
 12
 
 178 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 place. On this day alone three hundred were 
 baptized, but the baptizings lasted in all three 
 days. After the ceremony was over, the rebap- 
 tized were required to repair to the house of 
 one or other of the Biirgermeisters, Knipper- 
 dollinck and Kibbenbroick, and sign their name 
 in a register which was kept there for the 
 benefit of the new converts. Three or more 
 Anabaptist bishops or shepherds remained in 
 attendance all day long in the market-place to 
 perform the ceremony, now required to be 
 undergone by every inhabitant of Mlinster. 
 The Anabaptist preachers, each of whom had 
 a large vessel containing water standing before 
 him, would first of all admonish the candidate 
 for baptism to abandon his sins and follow 
 goodness, after which he had to kneel down, 
 when, bending low his head, he would receive 
 from the hand of the administering u Bishop" 
 three sconces full of water poured over it, one 
 for the Father, one for the Son, and one for 
 the Holy Ghost. Those who were unable 
 through age, infirmity, or sickness, to repair 
 to the market-place were allowed, a represent- 
 ation to this effect being made, to receive the 
 rite in their own homes, " but," observes Gres-
 
 THE REIGN OF THE SAINTS. 179 
 
 beck, u few of those who were thus baptized 
 against their will were fully aware what they 
 were to suffer, otherwise not so much as a 
 child would have remained in the city." On 
 the other hand, those who had been driven out 
 as little dreamt that their expulsion meant a long 
 exile from hearth and home. They had hoped 
 that possibly in a few hours, or in any case, in 
 a few days, they would have been permitted to 
 quietly re-enter the city at another gate. 
 
 But this was not to be. Knipperdollinck and 
 Kibbenbroick in conjunction with their Council 
 organised a watch, having its centre in the market- 
 place, with a banner and a watch-fire. The 
 circuit of the walls was also carefully patrolled, 
 Knipperdollinck and Kibbenbroick and the 
 "prophets" between them taking it in turn to 
 inspect matters. One night, as the two Burger- 
 meisters and Jan of Leyden were performing 
 their duty, accompanied by two of the guards, 
 they saw a great fire suspended in the air before 
 the town, together with two gigantic swords. 
 This fire, which the exalted imagination of the on- 
 lookers doubtless exaggerated and supplied with 
 the two swords, probably had as its basis as 
 Meister Heinrich Gresbeck rationalistically sug-
 
 i8o RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 gests in a watch-fire made by the free-lances 
 of the Bishop, who was beginning now to seri- 
 ously organise the siege of the town. It was, 
 however, immediately hailed by the Anabaptist 
 chiefs as a sign from Heaven that God would 
 watch over the town. Visions became now the 
 order of the day and night. The faithful were 
 informed that the appearance of three cities had 
 been seen hovering over the town. One was 
 Miinster itself, another Strasburg, and a third 
 Deventer. They were, it was said, the three 
 cities chosen by God as the rallying places of 
 the faithful, of which Miinster was the chief. 
 This survival of the original belief held by the 
 Hoffmannites, that Strasburg was to be the Zion 
 of the new movement, is noteworthy. 
 
 The Government of Miinster now consisted, 
 officially, of the two Biirgermeisters and the newly 
 elected Anabaptist Rath, assisted, unofficially, 
 but with so much the more real power, by 
 Jan Matthys and his disciple Jan Bockelson of 
 Leyden. One day, soon after the occurrences 
 just referred to, Matthys and Bockelson called 
 all the people together to the Cathedral. They 
 then ordered those who had been baptised on 
 the Friday to separate themselves from the
 
 THE REIGN OF THE SAINTS. 181 
 
 rest. These, like the remainder of the people, 
 had come armed. They were, however, ordered 
 to lay down their muskets and remove their 
 armour, after which they had to lie on their 
 faces and pray the Father that they might stay 
 in the town and be accepted into grace. u For," 
 said the preachers, u God would have nothing 
 unclean in the city of Miinster. He would have 
 a holy people to praise his name." The multitude 
 of the newly-baptised lay prostrate in this way 
 for nearly an hour, "fearing," says Gresbeck, 
 " lest they should be fallen upon and slaughtered 
 by the Anabaptists." At last they were allowed 
 to rise, and marched in procession to the church 
 of St. Lamberti, where a similar ceremony was 
 repeated, but genuine religious excitement seems 
 to have seized these people also, for Gresbeck 
 relates ^Gcschichtsquellen" vol. 2, p. 24) that 
 men and women embraced one another and 
 danced, while invoking the Father. Women and 
 children, he also states, u made a horrible din" 
 (gresslik Gehiit) in the church. Finally Jan of 
 Leyden entered the church, and proceeding to 
 the high altar, proclaimed: "Dear Brethren, 
 it is God's will that I make known unto you, 
 that ye have received Grace from God, and
 
 1 82 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 shall remain with us and be his Holy people." 
 Tokens were now struck and distributed in 
 St. Lamberti, bearing the inscription u The 
 Word was made Flesh." A few weeks later 
 others were distributed with the words "The 
 Word was Flesh." These tokens were worn 
 hung round the neck. Woe betide anyone 
 now who doubted the authority of the prophets, 
 or attempted to make a jest of their mission. 
 One of the town guards, a smith named Riischer, 
 while performing his watch was rash enough 
 one night to observe u The prophets will pro- 
 phesy till they've broken our necks. One might 
 think they had a devil in their bodies." This 
 was reported to the great men and their 
 preachers, who thereupon had the luckless soldier 
 seized and thrown into one of the towers. 
 The next day a general assembly of the men 
 was called to adjudicate on the matter. On 
 the prisoner being brought and placed in the 
 midst of the Assembly, the Prophets and the 
 Preachers charged him with having spoken 
 disrespectfully of God, his Prophets and his 
 Apostles, repeating the words he had said. 
 On his confessing the truth of the allegation, the 
 Prophets and the Apostles or Preachers declared
 
 THE REIGN OF THE SAINTS. 183 
 
 him worthy of death, since he had incurred God's 
 wrath. In spite of the protests of the Miinster 
 burghers, including the second Bin-germeister Kib- 
 benbroick, Jan of Leyden seized a halberd and 
 stabbed him twice in the body. He was sub- 
 sequently brought to the Cathedral, where he 
 threw himself upon the ground, in the sight of the 
 people, begging for mercy. Matthys then took 
 up a musket, as though he would shoot the delin- 
 quent, but, according to Gresbeck, the firearm 
 refused to go off. The probability is that the 
 whole thing was intended by the leaders simply 
 as a piece of play-acting to intimidate the disaf- 
 fected. Gresbeck alleges that Matthys sub- 
 sequently shot him through the body, but with- 
 out killing him. This, however, is incredible, 
 seeing he relates the man walked home after- 
 wards. A day or two later the Prophets and the 
 Preachers came to the house and informed him 
 that it was the will of God that he should not 
 die, but recover ; as fate would have it, however, 
 he did die within a week. A free-lance who 
 had found his way into the town, and had 
 been heard to threaten to shoot one of the 
 preachers, was executed. This last execution 
 will hardly excite surprise as the free-lance
 
 1 84 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 obviously laid himself open to being dealt with 
 severely. As regards the case of the too free- 
 spoken citizen of the town-guard, although he 
 undoubtedly, if Gresbeck's report is to be cre- 
 dited, received injuries from which he died, it 
 would not seem that the intention was to kill 
 him, and even here allowance must be made 
 for the condition of a besieged town, and the 
 feelings of men who daily lived in the fear of 
 traitors. In fact, the ruthless bias of the verdict 
 of the conventional historian, full as he is of 
 dominant class-prejudices against all that threat- 
 ens dominant class-interest, is crucially exhibited 
 in his judgment of this affair of Miinster, as in 
 the case of the Paris of the Revolution, the 
 Paris of the Commune, and in other similar 
 instances. The aforesaid historian assumes the 
 right to judge men under conditions of great 
 popular excitement and imminent danger from 
 without, by the same standard that he would 
 have a right to apply to them under normal 
 conditions. He never for a moment dreams of 
 dealing out the same measure to highly respect- 
 able governments representing class-interests 
 under analogous circumstances. Miinster in 1534, 
 however different otherwise, was, in this respect,
 
 THE REIGN OF THE SAINTS. 185 
 
 like the Paris of 1792. It was a community 
 imminently threatened by an external foe, for 
 which the toleration of traitors or spies in its 
 midst meant ruin and destruction. Under these 
 circumstances, naturally, deeds are done and 
 justifiably done, which under normal circum- 
 stances would be rightly condemned. The critic 
 and historian who so unsparingly condemns the 
 Anabaptists of Miinster for certain executions or 
 other events that took place during the siege 
 of the town, or the sans-culottes of Paris for 
 the September massacres, when the arrival 
 before the city of the armies of the European 
 coalition seemed to be only a matter of days, 
 would never think of treating similar acts even 
 though perpetrated on a much greater scale, 
 when an orthodox government is in question, 
 by similar severe canons, but coolly waves them 
 aside with remarks about the unhappy neces- 
 sities of the situation, or even with stale phrases 
 such as that "war is war," and the like. Cir- 
 cumstances, though they may not excuse every- 
 thing, do undoubtedly excuse a great deal, and 
 those who have exceeded the limits of what 
 may be excused or condoned by circumstances, 
 have been assuredly far more often represent-
 
 1 86 KISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 atives of law and order, that is, of the privileged 
 classes, than the depositaries of the power of 
 popular insurrection. 
 
 After the newly-baptized had been duly 
 received by Jan of Leyden in the cathedral, 
 and had had the hands of two of the foremost 
 preachers laid on their heads with a blessing, 
 the Anabaptists believed themselves compar- 
 atively secure against internal traitors. The 
 next procedure was to endeavour to organise 
 the kingdom of God as it was conceived by 
 the Anabaptists generally, and especially as 
 formulated by Matthys. This involved on the 
 economic side Communism, not in the means 
 of production, as modern Socialism demands, 
 but in the objects of consumption, as mediaeval 
 Christian Communism demanded. Accordingly, 
 as Gresbeck informs us, the Prophets, Preachers 
 and the whole Rath took counsel together how 
 they might make all goods common. Nevertheless 
 no definite attempt seems to have been made to 
 carry out a scheme of universal Communism. 
 This was mainly limited to the precious metals. 
 It was decided that all should bring their money, 
 silver and gold to a certain place. Thereupon 
 the prophets and the preachers proclaimed from
 
 THE REIGN OF THE SAINTS. 187 
 
 the pulpit that all should be common, and that 
 one should have as much as the other. "Dear 
 Brethren and Sisters," said they, " insomuch 
 as we are one people, brethren and sisters, so 
 it is the whole will of God that we bring our 
 money, silver and gold together. One shall 
 have so much as another. Each shall bring his 
 money up to the chancery by the Rathhaiis, 
 there shall the Council sit and receive the 
 money." Our friend Bernhardt Rothmann cried : 
 " A Christian durst have no money be it silver 
 or gold. He is a Christian, and all that Christian 
 brethren or sisters have belongs to the one as 
 much as to the other. The brethren shall pos- 
 sess no other thing but their food, clothes, house 
 and home. What ye require that shall ye obtain. 
 God will have nothing lying idle. One thing 
 like the other shall be common to all. Such is 
 the duty of us all. It is mine as well as thine, 
 and thine as well as mine." Large numbers 
 of the faithful, thus admonished, carried their 
 portable property to the place appointed. Many 
 brought their entire possessions in money and 
 precious metals ; others brought a large quantity, 
 while keeping a residue for private purposes. 
 The latter were suspect, while those who refused
 
 1 88 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 to comply with the order at all, chiefly those 
 who had been compulsorily baptized on the 
 momentous Friday, were declared to be god- 
 less, and to merit being rooted out. Against 
 such Jan of Leyden inveighed in the market 
 place. They were declared outlaws from the 
 Christian community, and were threatened with 
 so severe penalties that they were forced to 
 yield. As will be seen, the Communism of the 
 Anabaptists was very largely the exaggerated 
 Christian almsgiving of the Annanias and Sap- 
 phira episode, modified, it is true, by a little 
 coercion, but in its form at least, voluntary. 
 
 In every parish of the town three deacons 
 were appointed to administer the common good 
 in the shape of provisions. Here a more 
 genuine communism was inaugurated, but was 
 imperfectly carried out. The deacons went into 
 all the houses, impounding corn, meat and vege- 
 tables, and after they had made a note of what 
 they required for the use of the poor citizens, 
 all above what was notified the proprietors might 
 keep for themselves. 
 
 To emphasise the solidarity of the com- 
 munity of the saints, common meals were now 
 instituted. In front of every gate leading out
 
 THE REIGN OF THE SAINTS. 189 
 
 of the city a house was taken over, which was 
 called the house of the community; every one 
 could go and eat there, though it was proba- 
 bly specially designed for the defenders who 
 kept watch, or who worked at the defences 
 of moat and wall. Before every gate there 
 was a captain and a preacher. Each deacon 
 was responsible for one of these houses, whose 
 function it was to supply the comestibles and 
 to superintend the cook and caretaker of the 
 house. During the mid-day meals, a youth was 
 appointed to read a chapter from the Old 
 Testament or from the Prophets. When those 
 assembled had finished they sang a psalm in 
 the vernacular, after which they rose up and 
 left. Thereupon, the rank and file having had 
 their food, the captains and officers of the ad- 
 ministration would sit down to table, on the 
 principle of the last being first and the first 
 last. The deacons further took the meat, bacon, 
 and corn from the monasteries and the cellars of 
 those burghers who had left the town. Gresbeck 
 states that in the summer of 1534 ten to twelve 
 hundred oxen were consumed, together with a 
 quantity of other meat, butter and cheese, 
 besides codfish and herring. Herring, however,
 
 190 JIISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 appears not to have been popular in the earlier 
 days when there was plenty, though, as Gres- 
 beck observes, the time came afterwards, as the 
 town began to suffer from the effects of the 
 continued siege, when men were glad enough 
 to get herring to eat. 
 
 It was not long before a modification was in- 
 troduced into the government of the town. The 
 prophets with the preachers or apostles, as they 
 were variously called, chafed at being nominally 
 under the control of the secular authority of 
 the Biirgermeisters and the Great Council, not- 
 withstanding that the latter was composed, as 
 we have already seen, of fanatical Anabaptists 
 elected on the 23rd of February. The prophets 
 and preachers were almost entirely composed 
 of Dutchmen and Frieslanders. 
 
 One day Jan Matthys invited some of his 
 countrymen and others to a feast, for the doc- 
 trine of Matthys did not involve asceticism or 
 the mortification of the flesh. In the middle 
 of the proceedings Matthys became grave, threw 
 up his hands, and was silent for a few moments. 
 The guests were stricken with amazement. 
 Suddenly he rose up, and with the words: "Oh 
 dear Father, not as I will, but as thou wilt!"
 
 THE REIGN OF THE SAINTS. 191 
 
 gave each person present his hand, at the 
 same time kissing him on the lips, with the 
 words " God's peace be with you all." After 
 which he departed with his wife. The other 
 guests, after remaining some time longer, also 
 departed on their several ways. The next day 
 Jan Matthys, taking with him some twenty com- 
 panions, made a sortie from the town upon 
 the camp of the enemy outside the walls. The 
 attack seems to have been courageous, but the 
 handful of men was soon overpowered, and 
 Jan Matthys fell pierced with a pike. His corpse 
 was immediately seized by the Bishop's free- 
 lances, his head severed from his body, and 
 the latter, we are told, hewn into a hundred 
 pieces. The Bishop's free-lances then called 
 over the walls to the Anabaptists in the town, 
 that they should come out and fetch their 
 leader. 
 
 Jan Matthys is described as a tall man with 
 a long black beard. His death spread conster- 
 nation among the faithful within the walls, espe- 
 cially among the Dutchmen and Frieslanders. 
 With the death of Matthys, his disciple, Jan 
 Bockelson of Leyden, naturally became the leader 
 of the movement and the head of the city.
 
 1 92 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 Matthys has, of course, been represented by 
 the conventional class-historian as a designing 
 rogue, who for his own purposes deceived the 
 people. It is scarcely necessary to point out to 
 the impartial reader how utterly inconsistent is 
 this theory with the admitted circumstances of 
 his death. The master-baker of Haarlem was 
 doubtless a genuine fanatic, if there ever was 
 one, who believed in all truth and sincerity in 
 his having been entrusted with a divine mission. 
 Much has been made, as shewing his eagerness 
 for the good things of life, in his having brought 
 a young and beautiful wife from Haarlem to 
 Minister. These same historians find nothing 
 inconsistent with the sincerity of Luther in his 
 having adjured celibacy and taken to himself a 
 wife. The fact was, in this respect the two men 
 resembled one another. Jan Matthys no more 
 believed or professed asceticism than Martin 
 Luther. Consistent to the last, Matthys, in true 
 Anabaptist fashion, when in the midst of a feast 
 with his friends, became suddenly inspired with 
 the idea that he had a call to risk his life on 
 the morrow at the head of a handful of followers, 
 in order to free the New Jerusalem from the 
 besieging cohorts of this world. He loyally
 
 THE REIGN OF THE SAINTS. 193 
 
 carried out the mandate of what he believed 
 to be the will of God as revealed to him, and in 
 this way, fearless, and faithful to his convictions, 
 went to his death. 
 
 The same religious fanaticism which animated 
 Matthys continued to inspire his followers. A 
 young woman from Friesland, described as ex- 
 ceptionally beautiful, conceived the idea of acting 
 the part of another Judith, and assassinating the 
 arch-enemy of the New Israel, Bishop Franz von 
 Waldeck himself. She left the town amid the 
 blessings of the prophets, the preachers, and 
 Knipperdollinck. Believing it to have been 
 revealed to her that she should enter unscathed 
 in open daylight the camp of the enemy, she 
 passed out of the gate only to be arrested by 
 the outposts. Brought before the Bishop's 
 Provost, Theodor von Meerfeld, she first excused 
 her proceeding by alleging that she was weary 
 of the life in the town, and that she had pur- 
 posely allowed herself to be made prisoner in 
 order to reveal to the Bishop the best way of 
 obtaining entrance. She refused, however, to 
 disclose anything except to the Prince-Bishop 
 himself, and demanded to be taken to him. 
 Meanwhile one of the original town burghers, 
 
 13
 
 1 94 JtlSE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 who knew of the plan, managed to escape, and 
 also get himself arrested by the Bishop's sentries. 
 In consequence of this man's denunciation Hille 
 Feiken, the would-be Judith, was placed on the 
 rack, and a full confession extorted from her. 
 In the course of her evidence obtained in this 
 manner she stated that before coming to Miinster 
 she had given away all the property she possess- 
 ed in her native place, that she needed neither 
 money nor goods, her one desire being to live 
 with the saints in the New Jerusalem, and that 
 for this reason she had wandered thither. The 
 only reward she hoped for in the success of 
 her enterprise was the knowledge that she had 
 delivered the saints of God from their enemy. 
 She was willing to suffer whatever might befall 
 her. Nothing should turn her, neither suffering 
 nor death, from the word of God as preached 
 by his prophets. She was beheaded after having 
 made her confession.
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 THE NEW ISRAEL. 
 
 IN the midst of the consternation and depres- 
 sion among the Brethren of Miinster, caused 
 by the death of their great prophet, the voice 
 of Jan Bockelson of Leyden, his disciple, was 
 heard in a public assembly which he had called, 
 praying the brethren not to despair because 
 their leader had fallen, u for," said he, " God 
 shall raise up unto us another prophet, who 
 shall be greater and higher than was even Jan 
 Matthys. God willed that Matthys should die, 
 his time was come, and God hath let him die, 
 to the end that ye should not place all your 
 faith in him and hold him for higher than God. 
 For what Matthys did and prophesied was even 
 done by God through him, and God is even 
 mighty enough to give unto us a new prophet in 
 his stead." The oration delivered on this occasion 
 raised Bockelson to a position in the public mind 
 greater than even that he had previously oc- 
 cupied, and secured for him without contradiction
 
 196 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 the reversion of the prophetic mantle of Matthys, 
 for which he had long seemed destined. 
 
 The doctrine that Miinster was the holy city, 
 that God would have it, that all who dwelt therein 
 should be a holy people, and that all those 
 still in sin must be rooted out, was incessantly 
 preached. After every exhortation of this kind, 
 the disciples of the new prophet would once 
 more dash through the streets and lanes of the 
 town, brandishing their naked swords, dancing, 
 and crying: " Father, father, give us light!" 
 
 The temporary depression caused by the fate 
 of Jan Matthys was soon followed by the reac- 
 tion in the shape of a fresh wave of fanaticism. 
 Once more women and girls were to be seen 
 with hair floating in the wind and their dress 
 in disorder, dancing in the cathedral close, anon 
 proceeding thence in wild capers through the 
 town, up one street and down another, crying 
 " Father, father, father, give, give, give !" They 
 would advance in pairs and then join hands 
 and dance until they could dance no more. As 
 they were led home exhausted they looked, 
 says our contemporary chronicler Gresbeck, " so 
 pale and so white of countenance, even as 
 though they had been dead."
 
 THE NEW ISRAEL. 197 
 
 The nominal o-overnment of the town had 
 
 o 
 
 been from the first, as may be imagined, little 
 more than an instrument in the hands of the 
 prophets and their followers. Jan of Leyden 
 now bethought himself of consolidating his own 
 power as leader and of organising the com- 
 munity of the Saints in even more exact ac- 
 cordance than heretofore with the principles of 
 Anabaptism as interpreted by his master Jan 
 Matthys and himself. Jan Bockelson had some- 
 thing more than the mere elan of the fanatic 
 and enthusiast, such, for instance, as Melchior 
 Hoffmann. He had considerable capacity for 
 organisation, keenness of insight into the charac- 
 ters and motives of men, and great political 
 adroitness. He knew how to utilise in the most 
 effective way his extraordinary gift of popular 
 oratory and to win the now mixed population 
 of Munster for the ideas which he had doubt- 
 less persuaded himself into sincerely believing, 
 that Munster was the chosen city of God, and 
 that the power of its holy Saints was ordained 
 to extend itself over all nations, tongues and 
 peoples. Such was the constant theme of his 
 discourses on the frequent occasions when the 
 citizens were called together in public assembly.
 
 198 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 Thus enthusiasm was never allowed to flag. 
 But, in addition to his hold on the people, 
 Jan of Leyden had the tact to retain, outwardly 
 at least, the confidence of the leaders who had 
 previously acted under Matthys. Bernhardt 
 Rothmann, Heinrich Krechting, of whose arrival 
 in MiAnster we have already spoken, and, above 
 all, Bernhardt Knipperdollinck, became avowedly 
 staunch henchmen. Bockelson now determined 
 that it was time to abolish even the show of 
 an independent secular power such as was 
 ostensibly vested in the Council and Biirger- 
 meisters elected on February 23rd. The New 
 Jerusalem must have a definitely theocratic con- 
 stitution. The organisation of the New Israel 
 should be modelled on that of the Old. One 
 day, therefore, Jan called the inhabitants together 
 and informed them that he had received a divine 
 revelation to the effect that a new government 
 must be set up. The old one, said he, was 
 appointed after the manner of men; the new 
 one should be established by God himself on 
 the model given in the Holy Scriptures. The 
 proposition was at once agreed to, no man 
 daring to gainsay the prophet. 
 
 Jan next proceeded to name twelve u elders,"
 
 THE NEW ISRAEL. 199 
 
 influential men of the town, some of them 
 members of the old council. Among them was 
 the ex-blirgermeister Hermann Tylbeck, who 
 was now again received into Anabaptist favour. 
 These elders Bockelson presented to the people, 
 amidst their acclamations, as their future govern- 
 ment, at the same time publicly handing over 
 to them the sword of justice, intimating thereby 
 that they had power over life and death. In 
 imitation of the biblical model a table of the law 
 was drawn up, containing amongst others the 
 following provisions : " Each shall perform his 
 allotted task with diligence, shall fear God and 
 the authority set over him, for it beareth not 
 the sword in vain, but is the avenger of evil 
 deeds. All things which the elders determine, 
 the prophet Jan of Leyden shall, as the true 
 servant of the Almighty and of his holy autho- 
 rity, proclaim to the congregation. Bernhardt 
 Knipperdollinck shall be the guardian of public 
 order and the magistrate to whom is intrusted 
 the carrying out of the decisions of the elders. 
 To this end he shall be accompanied by four 
 attendants in arms." 
 
 The new constitution, embodied in this table 
 of the law, contained in all thirty-one articles.
 
 200 ISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 Some there were regulating the victualling of 
 the New Israel, the fabrication of clothes and 
 other details affecting the industrial and economic 
 life of the community. Seven deacons with 
 subdeacons were appointed to superintend and 
 organise this department, which included the 
 establishment and maintenance of the daily meals^ 
 already referred to as being taken by the 
 brethren in common at the public tables. The 
 military and defensive operations formed another 
 department of the administration. Church-bells 
 and the metal coating of steeples were melted 
 down and used for military purposes. Heinrich 
 Krechting was appointed chancellor, and his 
 signature was necessary to give effect to all 
 public documents. A common garb was enacted, 
 and a special cloth provided, that the clothing 
 department was to use in its manufacture. The 
 table of the law concluded with the provision: 
 "Every member of the New Israel shall follow 
 without wavering every precept that the Holy 
 Scripture setteth forth, according as it com- 
 mandeth or forbiddeth aught." 
 
 The twelve Elders, who regarded themselves 
 as representatives of the twelve tribes of Israel, 
 invariably had a large Bible lying open before
 
 THE NEW ISRAEL. 201 
 
 them as they took counsel. In their capacity 
 of supreme criminal court a case came before 
 them on June 28th, which has sometimes been 
 quoted as an instance of the brutality ot the 
 Anabaptist regime in Miinster. It is related that 
 some free-lances, probably deserters from the 
 Bishop's camp, were holding a carouse, and 
 after they had continued their potations to the 
 point of hilarious drunkenness, the innkeeper 
 and his wife refused to serve them any more, 
 at which they threatened to go and treat them- 
 selves from the inn-cellars. The innkeeper and 
 his wife had them at once arrested and brought 
 before the twelve, alleging their rights in their 
 own house. The free-lances were ordered to be 
 fettered and thrown into one of the towers. 
 The next day they were called up to the 
 cathedral close to be tried. Heinrich Krechting, 
 the chancellor, then read the act of accusation 
 which he had drawn up. Thereupon the free- 
 lances fell upon their knees, begging for mercy 
 and promising to work all day in the moat at 
 the most laborious of the defensive operations, 
 if they were but released. In the result -some 
 were allowed grace, whilst others were con- 
 demned to death. Of these, two were immediately
 
 202 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 bound to lime-trees in the close, and shot through 
 the body with firearms, while the rest were 
 taken back to prison again. The following day 
 they were again brought to the same place. This 
 time four of the condemned were bound to trees 
 and executed in the same manner as their 
 companions had been the previous day. " So," 
 observes our friend Meister Heinrich Gresbeck, 
 " were these same fellows shot through because 
 of a hasty word and a drink of beer." But 
 here again, monstrous as the sentence seems, 
 and at ordinary times doubtless would have been 
 even in the Middle Ages, we must not forget 
 the excessive dread, on the part of the Ana- 
 baptists, of disturbance in the town, which might 
 be purposely got up to afford the opportunity 
 of opening one of the gates to the enemy. 
 The generally hostile witness, Gresbeck, admits 
 the strength of this feeling as in some sort a 
 palliation of the severity exercised. Moreover, 
 the defenders were few compared to the be- 
 siegers, and their chief advantage over them 
 lay in their sobriety as against the enemy's 
 drunkenness. 
 
 The idea that absorbed the whole community, 
 that the entire life and institutions of the Brethren
 
 THE NEW ISRAEL. 203 
 
 were to be founded on the Old Testament, was 
 acted on up to the introduction of polygamy. 
 This was decided at a meeting consisting of 
 the twelve Elders and all the preachers, where 
 it was broached by Jan of Leyden in person. 
 In view of the well-known asceticism of the 
 Anabaptists in general, Karl Kautsky is of the 
 opinion that this step was rendered almost a 
 necessity owing to the enormous excess of the 
 female over the male population in the city. 
 Certain it is, as he justly points out, that 
 prostitution was not tolerated within the walls 
 of the New Jerusalem. The very communism 
 of the brethren itself sufficed to render this 
 difficult or impossible, so that women who wished 
 to live by the sale of their bodies had no alter- 
 native but to seek their market outside the 
 walls amid the forces of law and order in the 
 Bishop's camp. In addition to this, one of the 
 first edicts of the twelve Elders was one of 
 Draconian severity directed against adultery and 
 seduction. It would look, indeed, as though the 
 attempt to carry out sexual asceticism had broken 
 down by its own weight and the weight of the 
 conditions in which the town was placed, and 
 that the leaders had no alternative left them
 
 204 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 other than to regulate the disorder caused by 
 nature asserting herself a disorder which no 
 number of ascetic edicts of however drastic a 
 nature could effectually stem by a legal modifi- 
 cation of the marriage system adapted to the 
 existing circumstances. How far the precedent 
 of the Hebrew patriarchs and Kings influenced 
 the decision of the Anabaptist authorities is 
 impossible to say with certainty, though that it 
 did so admits of no doubt. Whether Jan's appeal 
 to biblical precedent and to the injunction to 
 be fruitful and multiply, etc., was chiefly the 
 cover used to sanction a measure which the 
 prophet's astuteness in practical matters led him 
 to see was indispensable, if the social organisa- 
 tion of Miinster was to hold together, or whether 
 the logical carrying-out of the idea of the New 
 Israel already entered upon by him was the 
 determining factor, it is at present impossible to 
 decide. It may be remarked in this connection, 
 that religious asceticism in sexual matters has 
 invariably throughout history carried its own 
 reaction within it. It has always tended to pass 
 over into its opposite. 
 
 In any case it is certain that the number of 
 women in Miinster during the siege was little
 
 THE NEW ISRAEL. 205 
 
 short of three times that of the men, and that 
 perhaps the larger number of these women were 
 left quite without male protectors or friends, many 
 of the original male burghers having fled and 
 left their houses in charge of their womenkind. 
 This of itself might have sufficed at least to 
 suggest some modification of the marriage law 
 in a sense adverse to strict monogamy. Jan, 
 as stated, succeeded without much difficulty, in 
 inducing the Elders and the Preachers to take 
 this view of the matter. Rothmann, indeed, be- 
 came especially enthusiastic on the question. As 
 to the women, they seem to have been divided 
 in their views. Some are said to have objected 
 strongly, one indeed, we are told, preferring 
 suicide to compliance. The majority, however, 
 the evidence shows, readily and even joyfully 
 acquiesced in the new order of things. 
 
 The edict enjoining all women to unite them- 
 selves with one of the brethren was promulgated 
 by Rothmann as spokesman for the leaders, on 
 July 23rd. It now became the test of good 
 citizenship to carry out this mandate. Those 
 who proposed to marry were to give three days 
 notice, during which they were to pray that God 
 would bless the new union with offspring, and
 
 206 &ISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 to vow to live to the honour and glory of God 
 and his chosen people, the Saints. Rothmann 
 adjured the people assembled in the cathedral 
 close in enthusiastic tones that it was the will 
 of the Lord that the Saints should increase and 
 multiply as the sands of the sea, and that all 
 who refused to accept the new matrimonial 
 relations were incurring the wrath of God, which 
 would sweep them from the earth. His dis- 
 course was greeted with shouts : u Long live 
 the prophet!" The preacher, Bernhardt Krech- 
 ting, brother of Heinrich, then cried out: "All 
 his laws are holy and wise ! " a cry that was 
 repeated by the assembled concourse as one 
 man. Therewith was the new regime inaugurated. 
 But there remained some, specially among the 
 men, otherwise zealous Anabaptists, who still 
 had misgivings on the point. These the prophets 
 in a series of discourses lasting three days, set 
 themselves to convince, calling to their aid 
 biblical examples of Abraham, Jacob, David, 
 Solomon, etc. In this they seem to have been 
 successful, so far at least as the otherwise sincere 
 adherents of the Anabaptist doctrine were 
 concerned. 
 
 The secret enemies, however, of the new
 
 THE NEW ISRAEL. 207 
 
 regime thought this a favourable moment to stir 
 up strife and betray the town. A certain " master- 
 smith," an ex-alderman, named Heinrich Mollen- 
 becke, constituted himself the leader of this 
 movement and soon gathered together some 
 two hundred partisans, whom he persuaded to 
 make a bold stroke for overthrowing the Ana- 
 baptist authority, seizing the leaders, and opening 
 the gates to Franz von Waldeck. the Prince- 
 Bishop. Accordingly, just a week after the 
 promulgation of the edict concerning polygamy 
 by Rothmann in the Cathedral close, on the 
 3Oth of July, at midnight, the houses of Bockel- 
 son, Rothmann, the Krechtings, Knipperdollinck, 
 and other prominent Anabaptists, were broken 
 into and they themselves bound and carried 
 captive into the Rathhaus. The people having 
 been called together, Mollenbecke and his 
 accomplices endeavoured to enlist their sym- 
 pathies for the coup detat they had accomplished. 
 The result was not encouraging to the con- 
 spirators, a few cheered, but the bulk either 
 remained silent or gave vent to murmurings. 
 Nothing daunted, the conspirators determined 
 on the surrender of the town. Luckily for the 
 Anabaptists, however, and unluckily for them-
 
 208 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 selves, they resolved to postpone action to the 
 following day. In the ensuing hours the loyal 
 Anabaptists were not idle, and the following 
 morning the call-drum, which Mollenbecke caused 
 to be beaten for the purpose of rallying his 
 followers on the Market-street, was also the 
 signal for the Anabaptists, headed by the master- 
 goldsmith Redecker, or as some accounts say 
 Tylbeck, to appear on the scene. Considerably 
 outnumbering the rebels as they did, they had 
 no difficulty in scattering them, after making 
 twelve prisoners. The ringleaders with a few 
 followers retreated into the Ratkhaus, which they 
 made their citadel. Redecker and his friends, 
 however, lost no time in posting cannon over 
 against the municipal head-quarters, which after 
 a short bombardment was forced to capitulate, 
 Mollenbecke and his band being driven amid 
 a shower of blows and curses to prison. Four 
 thousand gulden stolen from the municipal coffers 
 were found on their persons. Jan of Leyden 
 and his colleagues were liberated amid the 
 plaudits of the people. 
 
 The next day Mollenbecke and seven com- 
 panions were fastened with iron bands round 
 their necks to the lime-trees in the cathedral
 
 THE NEW ISRAEL. 209 
 
 close. Before them a judgment seat had been 
 erected and on it sat the prophet himself. Having 
 passed sentence of death, Jan called upon those 
 present, as they would do God a service, to 
 fire the first shot. The head conspirators, includ- 
 ing Mollenbecke, having been despatched in this 
 manner by the populace, Bockelson called upon 
 Knipperdollinck and his four assistants to deal 
 justice to the remaining prisoners, fifty-eight in 
 number, who had been guarded in the back- 
 ground. Knipperdollinck, with the red mantle 
 of the executioner thrown over his arm, stepped 
 forward holding aloft the great sword. One 
 after another the remaining prisoners were 
 beheaded and their corpses buried in two large 
 ditches. Reactionary writers have of course 
 made the most of this exercise of martial 
 law, to the detriment of the Anabaptists, con- 
 veniently forgetting that had such executions 
 taken place at the behest of the representatives 
 of class-interest and its order, they would have 
 been the first to applaud the act as showing 
 " vigour" under circumstances calling for a 
 " strong hand." 
 
 The measures adopted on this occasion, in 
 any case, seem to have had the effect of 
 
 14
 
 210 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 silencing opposition to the new edict and the 
 Anabaptist administration generally. It was now 
 compulsory for every woman to have a husband, 
 although the choice of whom they would have was 
 left to them. All previous marriages were held 
 to be dissolved as such by the new edict. In 
 most cases, however, the original wives remained 
 on condition of cheerfully receiving the new 
 comers, whom they were to embrace with the 
 greeting: "Welcome, dear Christian sister!" 
 This did not prevent disturbances from arising 
 in households between the womenfolk. So serious 
 did this become in certain cases that the autho- 
 rities had to step in, and numbers of quarrel- 
 some women were arrested and imprisoned in 
 the Rosenthal Monastery, which had been set 
 apart for the purpose. In those cases where 
 the continuance of marital relations or of co- 
 habitation proved untenable, divorces were 
 granted. 
 
 The prophet Bockelson set the example of 
 obedience to the new regulation, in taking to 
 himself three wives, Divara, widow of the deceas- 
 ed Jan Matthys, Knipperdollinck's daughter Klara, 
 and Margaretha Modersohn. Rothmann also took 
 three wives, a course soon followed by the other
 
 THE NE W ISRA EL 211 
 
 leaders, including the Krechtings and Knipper- 
 dollinck himself. The original wife of Knipperdol- 
 linck, having spoken evil words of the edict 
 enjoining this reconstruction of domestic relations, 
 had to suffer the penalty. She was compelled 
 to stand for some hours on the Prinzipalmarkt, 
 holding the executioner's sword, and then to 
 humbly beg forgiveness. Six schools were now 
 established in different parts of the town for the 
 instruction of the children in the Anabaptist 
 doctrine. 
 
 Meanwhile the siege was continuing, but the 
 military situation was not unfavorable to the 
 Anabaptists. After vainly endeavouring to initiate 
 negotiations for peace early in May, the manning 
 of the fortifications had been carried on with 
 redoubled vigour and sorties made almost daily. 
 The Bishop, already sorely tried in his resources, 
 resolved to attempt to carry the town by storm. 
 A demand for surrender was accordingly made 
 on Whitsunday, May 24th. On the demand 
 being refused, preparations were made for the 
 assault. Owing, however, to premature movement 
 of one of the divisions of the besieging army, 
 as well as to the vigilance of the Anabaptist 
 guards on the walls, Bockelson, the Krechtings,
 
 2i2 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 and Knipperdollinck had time to organise their 
 followers, who encountered the Bishop's forces 
 with such a vigorous resistance that they were 
 driven back in confusion with heavy loss, amidst 
 the triumphant shouts of the defenders. 
 
 This success naturally contributed to further 
 the Anabaptist cause, not only in Mtinster but 
 throughout the whole of the neighbouring terri- 
 tories, and seemed to give hope of a diversion 
 in the shape of a general rising. For the next 
 three months no further attempt on a great scale 
 was made by the besiegers to seize the town, 
 the idea being apparently to reduce it by famine. 
 Towards the end of August, however, the in- 
 habitants perceived indications of a renewed 
 assault being in preparation. The defenders 
 could see from the walls that trenches were 
 being dug, cannon brought into position, and an 
 unwonted activity displayed in the camp. The 
 result was once more enthusiasm and organisation 
 on the part of the Anabaptists ; this time all the 
 inhabitants of the town, old and young, including 
 the women, according to Gresbeck, hurried to 
 the walls to assist in the work. " Within the 
 city," says he, u was not one left, save old 
 people and sick people." The practice of chaffing
 
 THE NE W ISRAEL. 2 1 3 
 
 the soldiers of the Bishop, a favourite diversion 
 of the Anabaptists on the walls, was freely 
 resorted to on this occasion. " When will ye 
 come? We have baked and brewed, three and 
 four nights long, the brew is long finished : will 
 ye not come? : ' But it was not before the next 
 morning that the Bishop's free-lances ventured 
 on the attack. Meanwhile every preparation 
 had been made to receive them. On the first 
 signal of battle, the defenders crowded to man 
 the outer fortifications and the gates, which were 
 the object of attack, and with them they brought 
 u tar-wreaths," heavy stones, and vessels contain- 
 ing boiling water and quick-lime, all which things 
 were hurled down on the heads of the assaulting 
 free-lances, who, driven back, returned again to 
 the charge, and in some instances three times, 
 but in vain. Leaving numbers of dead and 
 wounded behind them, they were forced at length 
 to retreat into their camp, once more amid the 
 derisive cries and mocking challenges of the 
 Miinsterites. After this success Jan of Leyden, 
 with his colleagues and the Preachers, headed 
 a joyous procession through the town, singing 
 hymns of thanksgiving. Addressing the assembled 
 people: " Dear brethren," said Jan, u have we
 
 214 &ISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 not a strong God? He it is who has helped us. 
 With our own might we had not done it. Let 
 us now be joyful, and give thanks to the Father ! " 
 The danger passed, no time was lost in rebuilding 
 the gates destroyed by the onslaught of the free- 
 lances and in repairing the fortifications. 
 
 But this military success was not merely of 
 moment for the defence of the town. It also had 
 important results in matters of internal politics, 
 since it was the direct occasion of the assumption 
 by Jan of Leyden of the dignity of King 
 of the New Zion. The idea, it is said, had 
 already been mooted amongst the leaders. It was 
 indeed in consonance, like the rest of their orga- 
 nisation, with the biblical model. A few days 
 after the defeat of the Bishop's army an Anabaptist 
 preacher, who recently had attained the rank of 
 prophet, appeared on the Prinzipalmarkt be- 
 fore the assembled people, declaring that the 
 Heavenly Father had revealed to him that Jan 
 of Leyden, that holy man and prophet of God, 
 had been divinely called to be King of the 
 whole earth, to cast down the mighty from 
 their seats and raise up them of low degree. 
 To him should be given the crown, sceptre, 
 and throne of his father David, until God should
 
 THE NE W ISRAEL . 215 
 
 take it from him again. He then called upon 
 the twelve Elders to resign their office into the 
 hands of the new King, and, as a symbol 
 thereof, to hand over the sword of justice which 
 they had received on their appointment. On the 
 Elders surrendering their sword of office to the 
 speaker, the latter, calling upon Jan of Leyden, 
 then formally handed over the emblem of supreme 
 authority to the new King, with the words : 
 "Receive this sword of justice, and therewith 
 the power to bring all the peoples on the 
 earth under thy authority ! " Having then an- 
 ointed the head of Jan, in biblical fashion, he 
 proclaimed in a loud voice : " In the face of the 
 whole people of God, I declare thee hereby 
 King of the New Zion." Thereupon, the 
 anointed one, Jan Bockelson of Leyden, him- 
 self stepped forward to address the people: 
 u God hath chosen me," he said, "to be King 
 over the whole world. But I tell ye, dear 
 brethren and sisters, I had rather tend the 
 swine or follow the plough than be King. Yet 
 that which I do, I must forsooth do, in that God 
 hath appointed me thereto." After he had 
 thus spoken, Gresbeck tells us, the people 
 remained silent, until Jan called upon them
 
 216 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 to praise and thank God, upon which they broke 
 out into the hymn : u To God on high alone 
 be praise," after which the assembly dispersed. 
 The first act of Jan of Leyden, in his new 
 capacity, was the re-organisation of public 
 functions. The twelve Elders resigned as such, 
 though many were appointed to places in the 
 new organisation. Jan reserved to himself the 
 office of public executioner. The meaning of 
 this, as Kautzky has pointed out, is not far to 
 seek. The office of executioner, in mediaeval 
 times, was reckoned the lowest and most 
 degraded calling, involving social ostracism. 
 Bockelson, therefore, in his new capacity of King 
 of Zion, in taking upon himself the obloquy of 
 this office, was only following out the New Test- 
 ament injunction, so dear to the Anabaptist 
 heart, that the first should be last and that he 
 who would be highest should be servant of all. 
 Knipperdollinck became in this, as in all other 
 functions, the representative, or vice-steward, 
 of the King. Rothmann was made royal orator 
 and steward. Most of the former twelve Elders, 
 with other prominent Anabaptists, became royal 
 counsellors. Hermann Tylbeck was made master 
 of the ceremonies.
 
 THE NE W ISRAEL. 2 1 7 
 
 Jan, who, like his master, Matthys, was no 
 puritan, but, on the contrary, seems to have 
 always had a taste for the dramatic and was 
 never averse to display as such, arranged his 
 court down to the smallest detail, with due 
 regard to scenic effect. He always appeared 
 in public richly attired and surrounded by a 
 numerous retinue. Two crowns were made for 
 him, a royal crown and an imperial crown, both 
 of which were of the finest gold and covered 
 with precious stones. He wore a golden chain, 
 still extant, to which a ball was attached, 
 containing two crossed swords, the ball emblem- 
 atic of the world, the crossed swords of the 
 highest jurisdiction. On the ball was a golden 
 cross on which were the words : " A Kine of 
 
 o 
 
 righteousness everywhere." His royal sword, 
 with its golden sheath, was attached to a heavy 
 golden belt. The sceptre was rich in gold and 
 precious stones. The goldsmiths ' and tailors ' 
 guilds in the New Jerusalem were busily 
 employed for weeks in furnishing forth the 
 insignia of the new court. For the numerous 
 retinue were attired on a scale of correspond- 
 ing magnificence. Their garments of the finest 
 cloth and silk were light blue and red \ on their
 
 2i8 KISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS 
 
 arms gleamed the heraldic shield of the new 
 Kingdom, the globe, the cross, and the swords. 
 Divara, the late widow of Matthys, noted for 
 her beauty, was named queen by Bockelson, 
 the other wives being enjoined to obey her in 
 all things. Even these secondary wives, how- 
 ever, were allowed to gratify their vanity to 
 the full in the matter of dress and toilet luxuries. 
 On the Prinzipalmarkt a magnificent throne 
 was erected, to which the King repaired three 
 times a week in state, to administer justice. 
 On these occasions his comino; was heralded 
 
 O 
 
 by a fanfare of trumpets. Before him marched 
 the master of the ceremonies, Hermann Tylbeck, 
 with a white staff in his hand. Immediately 
 behind followed the King, attired in his royal 
 garments, the crown on his head, the sceptre 
 in his hand, riding on a white horse and accom- 
 panied by two gorgeously dressed pages, one 
 on either side, one bearing the Old Testament 
 and the other the great sword of justice. A 
 long procession followed, headed by the vice- 
 gerent Knipperdollinck, the royal orator Roth- 
 mann and the newly appointed chancellor 
 Krechting. The rest of the procession con- 
 sisted of councillors and attendants on horse-
 
 THE NE W ISRAEL. .219 
 
 back and on foot, whilst bringing up the 
 rear, came the royal bodyguard, who sur- 
 rounded the throne and court during the 
 judicial proceedings. 
 
 The pomp and magnificence of the new King- 
 dom, Jan declared, was for the honor and glory 
 of God. He, a poor human being, was simply 
 acting as God's representative on earth. The 
 time was at hand, said he, when the whole 
 people of the New Israel should sit on silver 
 chairs and eat from silver tables, when gold 
 and silver would have no more value than 
 common stones, for the Glory of this world 
 should pass away into the hands of the Saints. 
 Addressing the people on the first occasion 
 that he thus appeared after his coronation, Jan 
 painted in glowing terms to the citizens, the 
 time coming when the Kingdom of God should 
 be established over all the Kingdoms of the 
 earth, when he and his followers should 
 go forth from Miinster conquering and to 
 conquer. Bockelson showed himself in the 
 new organisation at once energetic and 
 politic, he had obtained the support and 
 attached to his person all the influential 
 Anabaptists in Miinster. His bodyguard and
 
 220. RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 most of his courtiers were composed of 
 his compatriots, the Dutchmen and Fries- 
 landers. l 
 
 The pomp and show that characterised the 
 reign of Jan Bockelson as King of the New Jerusa- 
 lem has often enough been treated as conclusive 
 evidence of hypocrisy. There is, however, no 
 justification for this conclusion. It is quite ad- 
 missible to suppose that these things were done 
 simply to inspire confidence in the people by 
 the outward signs of wealth and power. The 
 whole wealth of the city appeared concentrated 
 in the new state, in the official representation 
 of the community of the Saints. To make this 
 official representation of the new order of things 
 as imposing as possible was to impress the 
 imagination of the people, to keep their spirits 
 
 1 In the account of the circumstances connected with the 
 assumption of the Kingship by Jan of Leyden, I have in 
 the main followed the treatment of the subject by Dr. 
 Ludwig Keller, who in his capacity of Royal Librarian and 
 Keeper of the Archives at Miinster, has had the opportunity 
 of investigating the whole of the extant state documents 
 relating to the Anabaptists in Miinster, and is hence the 
 best court of appeal on doubtful points. I have purposely 
 disregarded the foolish and malignant gossip of Kerssen- 
 broick, which some later historians have repeated.
 
 THE NEW ISRAEL. 
 
 up, and to encourage them in their resistance, 
 alike passive and active, to the common foe. 
 To this must be added, however, that Jan had 
 the dramatic instinct strong in him. It doubtless 
 
 O 
 
 seemed to him appropriate that the New Jeru- 
 salem, the model of the kingdom of God 
 throughout the earth, should be inaugurated 
 with all the pomp and circumstance charac- 
 teristic of mediaeval temporal power. That as 
 a mere matter of policy he was right, is in- 
 dicated by the fact of the length of time the 
 city held out, and of the comparative unanimity 
 that the population displayed during the sub- 
 sequent period of the siege. 
 
 A new prophet now arose in the person of 
 one Henrikus, an ex-schoolmaster. One day, 
 as the King was on his throne on the Prinzipal- 
 markt, surrounded by his court for the purpose 
 of administering justice, this Henrikus rose up 
 and declared that, for three nights in succes- 
 sion, he had been awakened at a certain hour 
 by a voice saying: " Prepare." On the third 
 night, he had fallen on his knees with a prayer : 
 " Dear Father, what shall I prepare?" where- 
 upon the voice answered him : u Thou shalt 
 proclaim to my people great joy." After this
 
 222 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 statement, Jan arose, saying: u Dear brethren 
 and sisters, let us thank the Father," and there- 
 upon knelt down. The assembled people did 
 the same, singing a German psalm. Another 
 day, Dusentschur, the goldsmith of Warendorf, 
 he who had anointed Bockelson Kingr and who 
 
 o 
 
 had for some time held the rank of prophet, rose 
 up on the Prinzipalmarkt, in the presence of 
 the King and people, declaring that God had 
 revealed to him a sumptuary ordinance respect- 
 ing the number of clothes that Christian brethren 
 and sisters might retain for their own use. 
 This divine revelation, he explained, ordained 
 that a man might not have in his possession 
 more than one coat, two pairs of hose, two 
 doublets, and three shirts: a woman only one 
 skirt, one mantle and four chemises. No one 
 should possess more than one bed and four 
 sheets. This ordinance at once acquired the 
 force of law. Bockelson ordered the deacons 
 to make a house-to-house visitation sequestrating 
 all the property that they found over and above 
 the allotted measure. Thus far the communistic 
 principles of Anabaptism were consistently car- 
 ried out. All the riding horses of the town 
 were now concentrated in the court of the King's
 
 THE NE W ISRAEL. 223 
 
 residence abutting on the cathedral close, and 
 
 o 
 
 a squadron of light horse was now organised 
 as additional body-guard. They were frequently 
 exercised, clad in full armour, in front of the 
 cathedral, in order that the people might be 
 still further impressed with a sense of the 
 material power at the disposal of their cause. 
 
 We have seen that Jan Bockelson had suc- 
 ceeded not only in acquiring the enthusiastic 
 support of the people, but also in attaching all 
 the leaders to him as supreme head of the 
 Miinster community. Whether this adhesion to 
 the new order of things was in all cases purely 
 voluntary has been called in question. Keller 
 conjectures that especially Knipperdollinck and 
 Rothmann had been driven by circumstances into 
 the new position they occupied rather than had 
 been consciously working for it. They certainly, 
 more particularly Knipperdollinck, suffered a loss 
 of power and prestige through the change. 
 Rothmann had been for some months little more 
 than the spokesman and echo of the Dutch 
 prophets. But Knipperdollinck had until recently 
 occupied the foremost position in the Mianster 
 Commonwealth. It is readily conceivable that 
 the new development of things was not quite
 
 224 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 to his liking. Certain actions of his are reported, 
 tending to show that he at one time really 
 meditated the overthrow of Bockelson. He 
 withdrew himself, it is said, some days from 
 public affairs into his house, and then went out 
 declaring that he had a revelation, visiting, it 
 is said, the people working at the defences. 
 But the nature of the revelation our informant 
 Gresbeck does not tell us. 
 
 Shortly afterwards, Knipperdollinck had the 
 call to repentance cried in the streets, a practice 
 which was common previous to the communi- 
 cation of some new revelation to the Brethren. 
 It so happened that this was one of the days 
 on which Jan held his court of justice on the 
 market-place. As usual on such occasions, one 
 of the preachers was addressing the multitude, 
 it being the custom for a sermon to be delivered 
 at the beginning and end of the proceedings. 
 Knipperdollinck burst in upon the assembly in 
 the middle of the discourse, crying : u Holy, holy, 
 holy is the Lord, holy is the Father, and we 
 are a holy people!" As he said this, he began 
 to dance in front of the King's throne, declaring 
 that the preceding night it had been revealed 
 to him that he was to play the part of court-
 
 THE NEW ISRAEL. 225 
 
 fool. He then began to perform the antics of 
 a madman, prostrating himself before the throne, 
 jumping up and down, throwing himself into all 
 manner of gestures. He called upon one of 
 the attendants with a halberd to follow him 
 and strike down the godless. Knipperdollinck 
 continued dancing till he fell over two of the 
 benches on which the women were sitting, 
 rolling over on the ground as one possessed. 
 Rising to his feet, he declared that the Holy 
 Ghost had passed through him, and proceeded 
 to kiss the bystanders on the mouth, with the 
 words: "Thou art holy, God hath made thee 
 holy!" Jan, who had looked on in silent em- 
 barrassment, at last rose up, saying: "Dear 
 Brethren and Sisters, let us praise and thank 
 God and go home ! " The multitude then dispersed 
 after a remonstrance addressed by Knipper- 
 dollinck to the King and the singing of a hymn. 
 The next day there was again an assembly 
 on the Prinzipalmarkt. On this occasion, it is 
 related, Knipperdollinck advanced before Jan 
 and seated himself on the throne in his stead, 
 with the words: "It is I who of right should 
 be King here, since it is I who have made 
 thee what thou art." At this Bockelson was
 
 226 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 enraged and went home. He subsequently 
 returned, however, and resumed his place on 
 the throne, which Knipperdollinck had now 
 vacated. Having bidden Knipperdollinck to be 
 silent, Jan addressed the people, saying : ll Dear 
 Brethren and Sisters, heed ye not the thing 
 which Knipperdollinck hath said, for he is not 
 in his right mind." He proceeded to deliver 
 one of those eloquent discourses that had always 
 won the heart of the people, who remained 
 unaffected by what had happened in their loyalty 
 to him. Jan had Knipperdollinck arrested. He 
 was liberated after three days on begging 
 pardon and averring that he had been beguiled 
 by the devil, not knowing what he did. 1 (Gres- 
 beck, Bericht, pp. 142 50). 
 
 A complete reconciliation between Bockelson 
 
 1 Gresbeck hints at other causes for Bockelson's resent- 
 ment, besides the ostensible one in question. He seems to 
 suggest that Knipperdollinck was connected with a party 
 among the Anabaptists in the town, who advocated the 
 appointment of an additional king. "They would," he says, 
 "have a worldly and spiritual king." "Many of these," he 
 says, "were also seized and kept many days in durance. 
 The same are Dutchmen and Frieslanders ; had they been 
 burghers or free-lances the King would have had them 
 beheaded."
 
 THE NEW ISRAEL. 227 
 
 and Knipperdollinck seems to have been effected 
 before many days were over, for shortly after- 
 wards we hear of a triumphal procession of Jan 
 through all the streets and open places of the 
 town, when he was accompanied by his court 
 and his full military retinue, horse and foot, 
 with Knipperdollinck, in his earlier capacity 
 of master of the ceremonies, taking a leading 
 part. Everywhere the King of the New Jerusalem 
 was greeted with enthusiasm by the whole popu- 
 lation, the women especially distinguishing them- 
 selves by the ardour of their loyalty. As yet, 
 in the late autumn and early winter of 1534, 
 want of provisions had hardly made itself felt 
 in Miinster. The public tables were still fairly 
 well supplied, and from time to time special 
 feasts were given in the King's palace or in 
 the open air in the cathedral close, now called 
 by the faithful the Hill of Zion. Jan, with his 
 artistic instincts, saw to it that the proceedings 
 were accompanied by music and at times by 
 song and dance as well. At intervals on these 
 occasions a chapter of the Old Testament would 
 be read by someone appointed for the purpose. 
 Some of these functions, were kept up far 
 into the night.
 
 228 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 As showing the devotion of the people to 
 the new King the following incident will serve. 
 One day a crier was sent through the town 
 to announce that the hour had come when the 
 New Israel, under the leadership of its King, 
 should go forth into the promised land, and that 
 all should make themselves ready for their 
 departure. As some ten thousand persons, two 
 thousand men and eight thousand women, it is said, 
 were assembled on the u Domhof" in obedience 
 to the summons, Jan appeared in full regalia, 
 accompanied by his court, and announced to 
 the multitude that the hour had not yet come, 
 that he had only wished to try their faith, and 
 that he begged them now to be his guests at 
 a joyful feast. Benches and tables were hastily 
 made ready, and the whole concourse sat down 
 to the rich fare provided. The King himself, 
 with his Queen, and his court-functionaries 
 served the people with their own hands. As 
 soon as the feast was over, Jan rose up to 
 address the people. " God," he said, " had 
 relieved him of his dignity of King and he would 
 now abdicate." Thereupon the ex-goldsmith, 
 and now prophet, Dusentschur, in his turn rose 
 up and declared that God had revealed to him
 
 THE NEW ISRAEL. 229 
 
 the command that their dear brother, Jan of 
 Leyden, should continue King, an announcement 
 which was accepted with acclamation by the 
 people. Thus was Jan confirmed in his office 
 by a kind of popular election. Jan now announc- 
 ed to those assembled that a divine revelation 
 had enjoined him to send forth twenty-seven 
 chosen men in the capacity of apostles. Dusent- 
 schur read the names and the places, amongst 
 others, Soest, Osnabriick, Warendorf and Coes- 
 feld. The apostles immediately departed as 
 ordered. It is said that Jan ended this feast 
 by the execution of a prisoner with his own 
 hand, a statement that, coming as it does from 
 hostile sources, may well be open to doubt. 
 
 The travesties of the Catholic cultus continued 
 at intervals throughout the whole siege. Grotesque 
 effigies of the Bishop, hung round with letters 
 of indulgence, were popular. On one occasion, 
 one of these figures was mounted on an old 
 horse, to the tail of which a large parchment 
 representing the agreement entered into by the 
 Bishop with the town of Miinster on February 
 i4th, 1533, was attached, and the animal was 
 then driven out of the city in the direction of 
 the Bishop's camp. The soldiers hurried up to
 
 230 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 ascertain who the intruder was, and on dis- 
 covering the hoax, hewed the figure in pieces 
 to the great amusement of the Anabaptist 
 guards on the wall. Towards the end of the 
 year 1534, famine began to make itself unmis- 
 takably manifest. The duty of the deacons to 
 provide the daily meals became daily more 
 difficult. Strong measures had to be taken to 
 prevent the hoarding up of provisions by private 
 individuals ; it was stringently forbidden to bake 
 or brew in private houses ; the millers were 
 prohibited from grinding corn for private persons. 
 A house to house search was made for hidden 
 food or drink, and concealment of the necessaries 
 of life was visited with the severest penalties. 
 The hope of relief from the brethren outside 
 in the other towns of Westphalia, and indeed as 
 far off as Friesland and Holland, found expression 
 in the revelations and visions, that formed part 
 of the atmosphere of the Anabaptist world. Many 
 of these emanated from Jan himself, others from 
 the other prophets. One night, we are told, Jan 
 ran barefoot through the streets and along the 
 wall, crying: "Israel, rejoice, thy deliverance is 
 near ! " Words of encouragement from their King 
 and leader always infused fresh confidence into
 
 THE NE IV ISRAEL 231 
 
 the impressionable population. Once the King 
 actually made preparations for heading a sortie. 
 He had all available sacks in the town brought 
 together into the hands of the deacons, prepara- 
 tory to taking them with himself and followers, 
 hoping to return with them filled with corn and 
 flour for the hungry population. A rumour as to 
 this having reached the camp outside, the soldiers 
 of the Bishop were not slow in casting jeers at 
 the defenders of the ramparts, asking why Jan 
 of Leyden delayed coming. He should only 
 hurry, they said, and they would see to the 
 filling of his sacks for him. But Jan's practical 
 good sense kept him back in time from a project 
 that, under the existing conditions, without a 
 relieving force to co-operate with him, would have 
 meant certain destruction. 
 
 The towers of the churches were now partially 
 broken down and used as platforms for the planting 
 of ordnance. The " Lambertikirche " alone of 
 the principal churches remained untouched. Its 
 lofty tower was used as the chief watchtower, 
 from which an alarm was blown whenever a 
 movement of the enemy in the direction of the 
 city was observed. Some smaller ecclesiastical 
 buildings were demolished and the materials
 
 232 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 used for strengthening the fortifications. By the 
 beginning of 1535 all the churches, streets and 
 public places were renamed so as to obliterate 
 all memory of Catholic times. To this end also, 
 all Catholic festivals and observance days were 
 done away with as such ; the distinction between 
 Sunday and week-day was likewise abolished 
 on the same grounds. Work on the walls and 
 in the trenches, and in collecting and carrying 
 material for repairs in the defensive works, 
 naturally occupied much of the time of the in- 
 habitants. But their King Jan took steps to 
 distract them as far as possible from dwelling 
 on the miseries of their situation, by means of 
 amusement and instruction combined in the shape 
 of dramatic representations. For this purpose, 
 the choir of the cathedral was transformed into 
 a stage, somewhat after the manner adopted for 
 the old Catholic mystery-plays of the earlier Middle 
 Ages. Curtains were hung right across the nave, 
 at the entrance of the choir. 
 
 Gresbeck has left an account of one of these 
 Anabaptist mystery-plays. It represented the 
 story of the rich man and Lazarus. "They 
 began to play," says Gresbeck, u and played 
 and made speech one with the other. When
 
 THE NEW ISRAEL. 233 
 
 the rich man had made a speech with Lazarus, 
 three pipers, who stood by the stage, played a 
 piece in three parts. Then the rich man spake 
 again, and then the pipers played again, and so 
 the play went through to the end. At the last 
 came the devils and did fetch the rich man, 
 body and soul, and did draw him behind the 
 curtain. There was a great laughter in the 
 cathedral and much merry talk." (Gresbeck, Be- 
 rickt, p. 1 68.) In the above we have an illustra- 
 tion again of the powerful influence exercised by 
 tradition and the intellectual atmosphere into 
 which we have been born, even when we are 
 with our conscious will engaged in a bitter 
 protest, as we suppose, against that tradition 
 and atmosphere. Jan of Leyden and his fol- 
 lowers, so far as their conscious endeavours 
 were concerned, aimed at destroying all vestige 
 of the hated Catholic-Feudal system of society, 
 against which they were ostensibly rebelling. 
 Yet strangely enough, as it might seem, they 
 could think of no form of dramatic representation 
 more appropriate than something scarcely dis- 
 tinguishable from the old traditional mystery-play 
 so familiar to the mediaeval mind. Again, the 
 pomp of the New Jerusalem, the importance,
 
 234 &ISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 attached to which may possibly have been 
 suggested, as Kautsky has observed, from 
 frequent readings of the Johannine Apocalypse, 
 was through and through mediaeval in character. 
 The Middle Ages were always great in pageants, 
 and the pageant-life of the Middle Ages had 
 never attained such dimensions or such magni- 
 ficence as it did when they were nearing their 
 close during the earlier half of the sixteenth 
 century. Even under the storm and stress of 
 siege and hunger in Miinster in 1535, we see 
 the old careless, naive and joyous life of mediaeval 
 times still active. The true puritanical spirit, 
 indirect outcome of the new conditions of life 
 then indeed arising, but not as yet become 
 dominant, only sporadically asserted itself. The 
 difference is marked in this respect between the 
 Anabaptists of Mianster and the English Puritans 
 of over ' a century later. So true is the com- 
 monplace that our minds run in grooves and 
 that it takes a long time before we can free 
 ourselves from our old habits of thought. 
 
 But in spite of amusements, in spite of visions, 
 in spite of revelations of coming help, day by 
 day as the new year 1535 advanced, the terrible 
 ravages of hunger made themselves more and
 
 THE NEW ISRAEL. 235 
 
 more felt. At the same time, the Bishop's forces 
 continued to draw an ever tightening cordon 
 around the doomed city. All possible communi- 
 cation with the outer world was now cut off, 
 and the hope of relief from outside grew daily 
 fainter. The horses were now slaughtered for 
 food. With the first indications of spring, an 
 attempt was made to cultivate the not incon- 
 siderable amount of garden and arable land 
 within the walls. Miinster is even to-day a 
 town of orchards and market-gardens. The 
 available land was divided into lots and dis- 
 tributed among the inhabitants for cultivation. 
 But the result did not answer to expectation. 
 Jan and the Preachers unceasingly exhorted the 
 people to regard the present condition of famine 
 in the light of a fast ordained by God, which 
 it was the duty of the Saints to observe till the 
 time of feasting should come again. 
 
 Up to this time no steps had been taken by 
 the authorities to prevent people leaving the 
 town. The forces of the Anabaptists had been, 
 moreover, largely recruited by fugitives from the 
 Bishop's camp. The King now resolved that it 
 was time to regulate the departures. One of 
 the Preachers, therefore, who appears to have
 
 236 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 also acted as public crier, was told off to announce 
 throughout the town, that for four days it should 
 remain free to all to leave if they pleased, but 
 that after the expiration of that time all those 
 caught attempting to escape should be executed 
 as traitors. During the four days, large numbers 
 of men, women and children flocked to the 
 Rathhaus to claim the promised escort to the 
 outer ramparts. It was a terrible alternative 
 that presented itself to the famished inhabitants 
 in Miinster. Death from hunger within the walls, 
 or probable death at the hands of the Bishop's 
 mercenaries without. Almost all those of an age 
 to bear arms were seized as they neared the 
 trenches of the besiegers and summarily put to 
 death. Old men, women and children were left 
 without shelter in the open field. The Bishop 
 sought counsel of the Archbishop of Koln and 
 the Prince-Bishop of Cleves, his allies, as to what 
 course he should pursue. They told him to drive 
 the fugitives back into the town. This was tried, 
 but they unanimously refused to move, saying 
 they preferred immediate death in the camp 
 of the besiegers to death by starvation 
 in Miinster. At this, these unfortunate half- 
 starved fugitives were arrested and the epis-
 
 THE NEW ISRAEL. 237 
 
 copal monster had a number of them execut- 
 ed; the remainder, mostly women and children, 
 being interned in various towns of the bish- 
 opric. 
 
 Notwithstanding famine, and siege, the faith 
 of the leaders and of the bulk of the inhabitants 
 of Miinster seemed to be little affected. The 
 belief in the ultimate victory over the whole 
 world of the millennial kingdom inaugurated in 
 Miinster remained for the most part unimpaired. 
 But Jan, with his practical sense, knowing that 
 disaffection existed in the town and tended to 
 increase with the growth of the famine and the 
 
 o 
 
 apparent hopelessness of the situation, bethought 
 himself of a plan of placing the defence of the 
 gates in the hands of persons upon whom he 
 could thoroughly rely. Whether he had any 
 special reasons for distrusting any of the existing 
 defenders we know not. But the defence of 
 the gates was obviously a matter of prime im- 
 portance for the safety of the town. It only 
 required a single act of treachery on the part 
 of the commander of one of the gates for the 
 city to be hopelessly lost. It was therefore 
 only natural and wise that such a post of special 
 confidence should be occupied by persons of
 
 238 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 whose fidelity the King had personal assurance. Ac- 
 cordingly, under the pretext of choosing betimes 
 the twelve " dukes," as they were called, or 
 governors, among whom the kingdoms of the 
 earth were subsequently to be divided, subject 
 to the headship of their divinely-appointed 
 King, Jan decided to carry out an important 
 plan of reorganisation in the defence. To gain 
 popular support for the measure and to confer 
 more indisputable authority for the new officers, 
 it was determined that the latter should be 
 chosen by a suffrage of the Brethren. On the 
 appointed day, therefore, all the adult inhabitants 
 of Miinster, men and women, were ordered to 
 the gate belonging to the particular ward of 
 the city in which they resided. After one of the 
 preachers had here held a service, voting papers 
 were distributed, upon which each person was 
 to write the name of the Brother he wished to 
 see fill the office of " duke." This being done, 
 all the voting papers were collected into an 
 urn by the royal councillor who directed the 
 proceeding at each of the places appointed. An 
 attendant page thrust his hand into the urn, 
 and drew out, haphazard, one of the voting papers 
 which he handed to the councillor. The latter
 
 THE NEW ISRAEL. 239 
 
 then read out the name supposed to be written 
 thereon, the bearer of which he thereupon pro- 
 claimed the duke appointed to take over the 
 command of the defence at the particular gate 
 in question. The reader will see that the elec- 
 tion was not by majority-vote, but by a process 
 purporting to be a kind of mixture of democracy 
 and chance, or, as the Anabaptists doubtless 
 believed it, divine Providence. It has been 
 suggested, not without reason, that the name 
 announced by the councillor who was functioning 
 was not necessarily the one that was written 
 on the paper handed to him by the boy; but 
 one that had been previously decided upon by 
 Jan and his trusted councillors. It is, in fact, 
 not improbable that a deception of this kind 
 was practised, but if so, it was a deception for 
 which it must be admitted there was considerable 
 excuse, in view of the vital importance of the 
 issues that hung upon the election. An inju- 
 dicious choice might have meant the speedy 
 betrayal of the town and all within it to the 
 hordes of the Bishop's free-lances, thirsting as 
 they were for blood and plunder. 
 
 The proceeding accomplished, Jan himself on 
 horseback, attired in his kingly robes, made a
 
 240 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 tour of the twelve gates, and at each one, 
 solemnly and with a ceremonial customary in 
 the New Jerusalem on public occasions, inaugurat- 
 ed the newly chosen duke in the office to which 
 he was called at first in the defence of Miinster 
 and later as vicegerent of the King of Zion in 
 the government of the millennial monarchy. 
 This was followed by a feast at which all 
 the dukes had places of honour with the King 
 and his councillors. Afterwards, we are told, 
 the guests danced u each with his own wife." 
 The proceedings concluded with the King pre- 
 senting each duke with a silken band embroidered 
 with the most costly gold, which each wore 
 round his neck. These silken bands were hung 
 with gold and silver coins. The election of 
 the dukes meant a complete change in the per- 
 sonnel of the officers at each gate. Every duke 
 chose for himself a lieutenant to act as his 
 representative. The latter in his turn chose a 
 quartermaster. These three were supreme at 
 their own gate and the section of the defensive 
 works allotted to it. 
 
 But no reorganisation of the defence could 
 finally save the city. Famine and the superior 
 force of the besiegers rendered a prolonged
 
 THE NEW ISRAEL. 241 
 
 resistance impossible. The numbers in the town 
 were gradually reduced by starvation and the 
 diseases accompanying want of food, and by 
 flight, for in the last part of the siege this 
 happened daily. The usual state of things in 
 a besieged and hunger-stricken city obtained in 
 Miinster. According to Gresbeck everything 
 that had life was eaten, dogs, cats, rats, mice, 
 etc. Dark suggestions of cannibalism were as 
 usual not wanting, but Gresbeck is honest enough 
 to admit that he never saw any evidence of 
 the latter. In the course of the month of May, 
 large numbers of women left the city together 
 with nearly all the children, amongst them four- 
 teen l out of the fifteen wives of Jan of Leyden, 
 the one remaining being the Queen and late 
 widow of Matthys. It was necessary to limit 
 the population as far as possible to those engag- 
 ed in the work of the defence. Even then the 
 suffering of the city was great enough. 
 
 It is necessary now to say a few words anent 
 the charge of bloodthirstiness commonly brought 
 by historians against the Miinster Anabaptists. 
 
 1 This statement by a hostile contemporary witness disposes 
 of the story of the execution by Jan of one of these women, 
 Elisabetha Wandscherer, for wishing to leave the town. 
 
 16
 
 242 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 The charge is based on the fact of sundry ex- 
 ecutions having taken place in the city during 
 the siege. As usual, reactionaries have set up 
 for the Anabaptists of MiAnster, conducting the 
 defence of a beleaguered town in the 1 6th cen- 
 tury and at death-grips with a pitiless enemy, 
 a supererogatory standard of mildness and 
 humanity, which the governing classes they 
 champion would not under normal conditions 
 attempt to attain. When, of course, they can 
 show that the Mtinsterites did not come up to 
 it, they affect to be staggered with horror. The 
 Anabaptists had arrived at the supreme power 
 in Miinster in February, 1534, in a perfectly 
 legal manner. Franz von Waldeck had there- 
 upon made war against the city, at the same 
 time continuously murdering in cold blood any 
 Anabaptists that fell into his hands. A portion 
 of this sect which, as we have seen in former 
 chapters of this work, notwithstanding its doc- 
 trine of non-resistance to evil consistently carried 
 out and hence its ultra-peaceable character, had 
 been for years the victim of the most fiendish 
 persecution had at length resolved upon vigo- 
 rous measures of self-defence, and as fortune 
 would have it, had come into possession of a
 
 THE NEW ISRAEL. 243 
 
 strongly fortified town against which war had 
 immediately been levied by its persecutors as 
 representing the existing order of society. All 
 knew that it was a case of life and death and 
 that the capture of the city meant their exter- 
 mination. Under these circumstances, no reason- 
 able person can wonder that measures of ex- 
 ceptional severity had to be adopted and carried 
 out against traitors and all whose acts militated 
 against the safety of the town. Executions there 
 undoubtedly were within the walls of Minister 
 at the hands of the Anabaptist authorities. Of 
 the circumstances of most of these we are 
 ignorant, but as to those cases of which we 
 have information, afforded it must be remem- 
 bered exclusively by hostile witnesses, it is 
 plain that we have to do with either acts of 
 overt treachery or at least such as seriously 
 menaced order within the town itself, on the 
 maintenance of which the general safety so 
 much depended. These were certainly inflicted 
 without regard to rank or sex, for the fol- 
 
 o 
 
 lowers of Jan of Leyden were no respecters 
 of persons. 
 
 The executions, unfortunately, though not 
 unnaturally, increased as the famine increased
 
 244 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 and the hope of succour from without died away. 
 As might be expected, the temptation to half- 
 concealed disaffection and to open treachery 
 rose with the conditions mentioned. During the 
 last month of the siege the executions were 
 most numerous, although the incredible state- 
 ment of one account, that on June 3rd fifty-two 
 persons suffered, may well be doubted. In one 
 respect, certainly, even in this connection, it 
 must be admitted that the much maligned sec- 
 taries showed themselves superior to their time. 
 We do not hear of the torture being inflicted 
 before the condemnation, as was usually the 
 case elsewhere at that period, whilst the modes 
 of death themselves were exclusively those sanc- 
 tioned by the conscience of the nineteenth cen- 
 tury. The only forms of execution practised by 
 the Anabaptists in Miinster were hanging, shoot- 
 ing, and beheading. Partisans of the dominant 
 classes of that age may well be invited to com- 
 pare the, for the period, comparatively humane 
 conduct of the Anabaptists with the bestial 
 blood-lust of their enemies. 
 
 It remains to sum up briefly the nature of 
 the institutions of the New Israel before con- 
 cluding the present chapter. Of these the most
 
 THE NEW ISRAEL. 245 
 
 notorious are the so-called communism that 
 was established and the new marriage law, 
 permitting, and in some cases even enjoining, 
 polygamy for the saints. As we have seen in 
 an earlier chapter, communism in a mediaeval 
 sense (that is, communism in the economic 
 product as distinguished from communism in 
 the means of production) formed an under- 
 current, so to say, in all the forms of Anabap- 
 tism and was in various parts a recognised insti- 
 tution long before Jan Bockelson and the leaders 
 of Miinster appeared upon the scene. Free 
 views of the marriage relation were, as we have 
 seen also, occasionally to be met with among 
 the earlier adherents of the movement. But, 
 in both cases, the practical application of these 
 doctrines was primarily determined by the 
 peculiar local conditions obtaining in Miinster 
 during the siege. The communism, for example, 
 was never complete, but was only, as Kautsky 
 has pointed out, carried as far as the exigencies 
 of the moment rendered it desirable. The con- 
 fiscation of private property for the common- 
 weal did not, for a long time, extend beyond 
 money and the precious metals, a plentiful supply 
 of which was necessary for defraying the expenses
 
 246 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 of sending out missionaries, and otherwise main- 
 taining intercourse, such as it was, with the 
 outer world, as well as for inducing as many as 
 possible of the Bishop's free-lances to desert 
 and enter the service of the defence. 
 
 Later on, as famine began to make itself felt, 
 and clothes began to wear out, private food 
 stores, together with superfluous wardrobes, 
 were also confiscated for the general use. The 
 wealth of the religious houses, a by no means 
 inconsiderable factor in Miinster, was of course 
 secularised or "municipalised" when they were 
 abolished by the new order of things, after which, 
 as generally occurred, their inmates abandoned 
 them of their own accord to join the Anabap- 
 tist community. The same happened to the 
 goods of hostile burghers who had fled. It is 
 possible also that guild-property as such was 
 regarded as available for public purposes. 
 
 How far the common meals started at an 
 early period of the siege extended to all the 
 inhabitants is doubtful ; that the whole community 
 on special occasions sat down to a common 
 meal in the open air is clear. But various 
 indications would seem to show that, as regards 
 every-day life, the public meals were mainly
 
 THE NEW ISRAEL. 247 
 
 confined to those actively engaged on the walls 
 and in the trenches, the houses set apart for 
 them being situated as close as possible to the 
 gates. In these common meals women as well 
 as men took part, for the Anabaptist women 
 were amongst the most active in the work of 
 defence. It is plain that the private household, 
 with the private meals held therein, was not 
 abolished as an institution. This comes out in 
 the matter of the confiscation of the private 
 food stores. We hear also of rations being 
 served out to private households. The common 
 table of each town- ward was, of course, open 
 to all the inhabitants of the ward, but there 
 is no reason to suppose that there was any 
 compulsion as to attendance. It is probable, 
 however, that during the last few months of 
 the siege, when food was becoming scarce, 
 little was obtainable except at the public tables. 
 Private property and even inheritance was 
 never, as such, formally abolished in Miinster. 
 So much is evident by the regulations drawn 
 up at various times during the siege, which 
 have been preserved mainly by the hostile 
 witness Kerssenbroick. One of these, the work 
 of the twelve Elders, has it : " Should any man,
 
 248 1VSE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 by the providence of God, be shot or other- 
 wise fall asleep in the Lord, none shall venture 
 to keep such one's goods for himself, whether 
 arms, garments, or whatsoever they may be ; 
 but he shall bring it before the sword-bearer, 
 Knipperdollinck, who shall lay it before the 
 Elders to the end that by them it may be 
 adjudged to the true heirs." Again, one of a 
 series of twenty-four articles drawn up by Jan 
 of Leyden in January, 1535, provides that 
 whilst no one of his own initiative shall appro- 
 priate booty captured from the enemy, but shall 
 surrender it to the proper authorities, yet the 
 latter may give him a portion of it, which he 
 is free to use as he likes. Other articles of 
 this code whilst strictly forbidding buying or 
 selling, also enjoin fair dealings in the exchange 
 and barter that had taken its place. A curious 
 regulation is the appointment of certain craftsmen, 
 who had to be exempt from the work of defence 
 in order that they might labour at their craft for 
 the common benefit of the new house of Israel. 
 Thus two master-shoemakers, with their six 
 journeymen, were to provide shoes for all the 
 community. In a similar way, tailors were ap- 
 poined, and blacksmiths to make keys! The
 
 THE NEW ISRAEL. 249 
 
 allusions to masters and journeymen in these 
 regulations indicate that the Anabaptists' com- 
 munism, as practised in Miinster, involved no 
 serious breach with the then current conditions 
 of industrial life. The disciples of Matthys and 
 Bockelson, although doubtless in theory com- 
 munists in the mediaeval sense of the word, 
 were unable under the conditions of a beleaguer- 
 ed town, where everything was subordinate to 
 the emergencies of the moment, to undertake 
 any systematic application of their doctrines. 
 
 As regards the question of the sexual arrange- 
 ments of the Saints in Miinster, it is only fair 
 to take into account the doctrines concerning 
 marriage contained in the " Bekenntniss des 
 Globens und Lebens der gemein Criste zu 
 Miinster" where, in the section dealing with 
 marriage, the conventional Christian doctrine 
 on the subject is emphasized to the fullest 
 extent. Marriage is proclaimed, to be a sacra- 
 ment of the highest order, typical of Christ and 
 the Church, etc., with a due wealth of quotations 
 from the New Testament. At the same time, 
 the charges of debauchery that had been brought 
 against the Saints by their enemies are in- 
 dignantly repudiated as foul slanders. Speaking
 
 250 KISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 of this, the apology goes on to say : u We leave 
 vengeance to God, for know we not that how 
 long soever we are fought against with blas- 
 phemous lies and with might, and the godless 
 pour out the measure of their evil doing, yea, 
 even though we suffer according to the flesh, 
 yet shall the truth conquer in our little con- 
 gregation, as Christ saith, Luke XII : Fear not, 
 little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure 
 to give you the kingdom." 
 
 Everything points to the fact that originally 
 the Minister Anabaptists, like the enormous 
 majority of their co-religionists elsewhere, pro- 
 fessed and practised asceticism in sexual as in 
 other matters. The modification that subse- 
 quently took place was of a peculiar character. 
 Had it been in the direction of a community 
 of wives or of free love, it would have had its 
 parallel in certain previous phases of mediaeval 
 Christian communism, for instance, the " Brethren 
 and Sisters of the Free Spirit," the heretical 
 Hussite sect of the " Adamites," etc. But as it 
 is, it stands unique in the history of mediaeval 
 socio-religious movements. The contract, or 
 sacrament, as it was conceived, of marriage, 
 once entered upon, was no less sacred and
 
 THE NE W ISRA EL. 251 
 
 binding after the introduction of polygamy, than 
 it had been under the previous monogamy. 
 The difference consisted solely in the lawfulness 
 of having more wives than one. In the twenty- 
 eight articles, promulgated by Jan of Leyden, 
 in January, 1535, months after polygamy had 
 been introduced, we find the same severity 
 against adultery and all forms of illicit sexual 
 intercourse as in the edict of the twelve Elders 
 already alluded to, which was enacted before 
 the introduction of the new marriage system. 
 That marriages concluded before re-baptism 
 should be regarded as null and void was only 
 a logical deduction from the idea of a new life 
 entered into by joining the community of the 
 Saints. The explanation of the polygamy of 
 the Mlinsterites is undoubtedly the one suggested 
 in an earlier part of the present chapter. 
 
 On the town falling into the hands of the 
 Anabaptists, a large emigration of the wealthy 
 inhabitants took place, as we know. But it was 
 mainly the master of the house who departed, 
 in these cases, with perhaps such of his sons 
 as were grown up, leaving behind the female 
 section of the household, as a rule a tolerably 
 large one in the Middle Ages. The average
 
 252 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 population of the town of Miinster in those times 
 is estimated at fifteen thousand. The number 
 present within the walls at any time during the 
 siege could not have exceeded, according to all 
 accounts, from twelve to thirteen thousand, whilst 
 some statements make it less. The number of 
 the male inhabitants is reckoned by Gresbeck 
 at two thousand, of which fifteen hundred are 
 mentioned as capable of bearing arms. There 
 were, of course, losses and gains in the adult 
 male population losses from military operations 
 and gains from prisoners brought in, and from 
 deserters from the Bishop's camp, who joined 
 the defenders. Allowing for this, however, the 
 difference in the numerical proportion of women 
 to men could not have been less than three or 
 four to one and was probably much more. 
 Given such a state of things, with an Anabaptist 
 code of morals prevailing and strictly enforced 
 in a town for months cut off from all intercourse 
 with the outer world, any reasonable man can 
 see that an untenable situation from the sexual 
 point of view must be created, which could only 
 be remedied either by a serious relaxation of 
 the sexual code itself, or else by an enlargement 
 of the moral and religious sanctions as regards
 
 THE NEW ISRAEL. 253 
 
 marriage. The latter was the course chosen by 
 Jan of Leyden and his colleagues. An almost 
 exclusive study of the Bible and the dominant 
 idea that absorbed the Anabaptists of living 
 over again the life of the Old Testament Israel, 
 as they conceived it, rendered the notion of a 
 plurality of wives plausible by its accordance 
 with the household of the patriarchal society 
 depicted in the Pentateuch. It may be true that 
 Jan Matthys probably, and certainly Jan Bockel- 
 son, did not in all respects share the ultra- 
 ascetic views of some amongst the Anabaptists, 
 any more than they shared the belief in the 
 doctrine of non-resistance so prevalent in the 
 sect ; but the evidence shows that even these 
 leaders accepted the strict doctrines on sexual 
 morality general among the Brethren. The 
 biblical-patriarchal view taken of the marriage 
 relation is further shown by the authority vested 
 in the husband over his wives and household 
 generally. This point of view comes out strongly 
 in a pamphlet published by Rothmann in October, 
 1534, as spokesman of the Mlinster Saints. 
 
 It should not be forgotten by the conventional 
 historian, who overflows with indignation at the 
 wickedness of the Miinsterites in instituting poly-
 
 254 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 gamy, that such accredited representatives of 
 orthodox Protestant respectability as Luther and 
 Melanchthon had declared polygamy to be not 
 contrary to Christianity. This, it is true, was 
 said by the distinguished "reformers" in ques- 
 tion in order to curry favour with Henry VIII. 
 of England and the Landgraf of Hesse respect- 
 ively, and they, together with their patrons, 
 would have wished doubtless to keep it, as 
 Kautsky has suggested, as a reserve doctrine 
 for the convenience of the great ones of the 
 earth on emergency. But their arguments which 
 showed that, whilst polygamy was avowedly 
 permitted by the Mosaic law, it had never been 
 forbidden by any precept or injunction of Christ 
 or the Apostles, must, to the Anabaptist mind, 
 have held equally good when applied in a 
 democratic sense. 
 
 The ground of the innovation introduced by 
 the prophets and preachers of Miinster, it must, 
 moreover, not be forgotten, was economic as 
 well as sexual. Large numbers of women had 
 been left deserted in the town and had to be 
 protected and provided for by the new regula- 
 tion. All such women came into the household 
 of one of the Brethren. In fact, it would seem
 
 THE NEW ISRAEL. 255 
 
 that there were a certain number among the 
 so-called wives under the new ordinance who 
 were such in name only and for whom the new 
 relation was avowedly merely one of protectional 
 maintenance. For the original edict, it must be 
 remembered, provided that no woman, old or 
 young, should remain outside the marital rela- 
 tion, although she was free to choose the man 
 she would have. The original edict, however, 
 did not remain in full force, being modified 
 more than once. The domestic disturbances 
 caused by the new arrangements, which were 
 first met by the imprisonment of the recalcitrant 
 women in one of the evacuated religious houses 
 prepared for the purpose, and even in two or 
 three cases, it is stated, by executions, were 
 later on dealt with by a liberal application of 
 a divorce law, which had been enacted to this 
 end. Towards the close of the siege, the major- 
 ity of the female population had left the town. 
 In concluding this chapter, we must once 
 more repeat that, in considering the conduct of 
 the Anabaptist authorities during their lease of 
 power in Mlinster, it is above all things neces- 
 sary to remember the altogether exceptional 
 conditions with which they were confronted.
 
 256 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 Miinster was from beginning to end a beleaguered 
 town, for the greater part of the time cut off 
 almost completely from all communication with 
 the outer world; the population was excep- 
 tionally disproportioned as regards the sexes, 
 and was composed, besides, largely of heteroge- 
 neous elements from various quarters, united 
 only in the one faith. Last, but not least, it 
 was not even an ordinary siege that was in 
 question, but one which all knew to mean 
 victory or the most terrible of deaths.
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 THE PROPAGANDA OUTSIDE MUNSTER. 
 
 ANABAPTISM outside Miinster continued to make 
 rapid progress during the siege. It is true that 
 there was a continuance of the two cross-currents 
 characterising the movement throughout the 
 north-western territories, that of the earlier 
 Hoffmannites, or Melchiorites, who still adhered 
 to the doctrine of non-resistance, and that of 
 Matthys and Bockelson, which not merely conced- 
 ed the right of self-defence, but proclaimed 
 that the millennial kingdom was to be establish- 
 ed by the sword of the Saints themselves. 
 From the spring of 1534 the latter had, however, 
 obtained for the nonce a decisive predominance. 
 The acquisition of Munster by the movement 
 was the turning-point. But the prophets at the 
 head of affairs in Munster were by no means 
 behind-hand in missionary zeal. Not content 
 to let things take their course, they at once 
 began sending out agitators throughout West- 
 phalia, the Netherlands and the Lower Rhine 
 
 17
 
 258 XISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 generally. In February 1534, Heinrich Roll and 
 Jakob von Osnabriick went forth. Their main 
 object in this case was to induce the Brethren 
 to come to Mlinster, alleging that all Christians 
 who entered Miinster would have houses and 
 beds placed at their disposal, that if private 
 house-accommodation should not suffice, room 
 would be found for them in the dispossessed 
 religious houses. They predicted a terrible 
 vengeance on the godless before Easter, and 
 that the tenth man should not remain alive 
 except in Miinster itself, which, they said, was 
 the city of the Lord and the New Jerusalem, 
 where the Lord would provide for his own and 
 all should have enough. Jakob, however, a 
 hoofsmith by trade, was soon arrested and 
 brought to Diisseldorf. 
 
 Numbers of letters were also sent out from 
 those who joined the Miinster community to 
 relations and friends, urging them to repent 
 of their sins and come into the fold of the 
 Saints. Rothmann himself wrote enthusiastically 
 to his friend Heinrich von Tongern, stating 
 that all the things predicted by the prophets 
 were being fulfilled. Heinrich was to persuade 
 all he could to come and bring all their gold
 
 THE PROPAGANDA OUTSIDE MUNSTER. 259 
 
 and silver with them. Manifestoes of a general 
 character were also not wanting, one of these, 
 (quoted by Keller, " Wiedertdufer" p. 148) 
 after urging the commandment of the prophets 
 that all should rise up and join the Saints in 
 the New Jerusalem, proceeds : u Let none 
 concern themselves as to husband or wife that 
 are unbelieving, neither shall ye take such with 
 you, nor unbelieving children who are dis- 
 obedient and not under the rod, for such profit 
 naught in the congregation of God." After 
 enjoining those who would come that they 
 should encumber themselves with nothing save 
 such money, clothes and food as were necessary 
 for the journey, together with such arms as 
 they might possess, the author of this appeal, 
 who signs himself u Emanuel," concludes : 
 "Come all together a half mile from Hazelt 
 at the Berg Kloster on the 24th day of March, 
 towards mid-day. Be prudent in all things! Ye 
 shall not come before the day named, but also 
 not later, nor shall anyone be tarried for after 
 the time appointed. Let none neglect to come. 
 If any remain behind, I will be guiltless of his 
 blood." The manifesto entitled u Confessions 
 of both Sacraments," issued in October, 1533,
 
 260 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 by Rothmann and the other preachers, was also 
 widely circulated in the neighbouring territory 
 during the ensuing years. 
 
 But more important than this was the pamphlet 
 or small book, published by Rothmann a year 
 later, in October, 1534, entitled " Restitution, 
 or the Setting up anew of just and wholesome 
 Christian Doctrine^, Faith and Life." The world, 
 declares Rothmann, has fallen from the truth, 
 in that it has been misled by the papacy and 
 by the so-called Evangelical teachers, but the 
 time is at hand when Christ shall restore the 
 world lost in sin, and this restitution or restora- 
 tion of the world shall take place by means 
 of the lowly and unlearned. " Look therefore," 
 he exclaims, u at that which was begun by Erasmus, 
 Luther and Zwingli, but behold in Melchior, Jan 
 Matthys, and here in our brother Jan of Leyden, 
 in them who are quite unlearned, as this world 
 counts learning, the truth has been gloriously 
 made manifest." In this work, which may be 
 taken as an official pronouncement of the views 
 of the Munster prophets and their followers, 
 Rothmann proceeds, after expounding the doc- 
 trines of Anabaptism, to justify the ordinances 
 the prophets had issued for the actual govern-
 
 THE PROPAGANDA OUTSIDE MUNSTER. 261 
 
 ment of the new house of Israel. The Old 
 Testament is represented as in no wise superseded, 
 all its institutions remaining in their full force, 
 as ideal forms of government and society, as 
 much as ever. Christ is represented as King 
 of Israel and of the whole world in a literal 
 sense. Three chapters are devoted to the some- 
 what easy task of justifying polygamy from 
 Holy Writ. Much space is devoted to refut- 
 ing the dogmas of the hated u Evangelicals " 
 followers of Luther and Zwingli justification 
 by faith alone, predestination, etc., etc. Other 
 chapters expound and justify, in the usual way 
 by biblical quotation, the doctrine of the com- 
 munity of goods. Others again, more immedi- 
 ately important than all, emphasize the duty 
 of the Saints to destroy the godless with the 
 sword. 
 
 The book had indeed for its main object, to 
 move the outside brethren to organise themselves 
 for the relief of Munster. As a further inducement 
 to this end, the joys of the people of God in 
 the New Jerusalem are described. Thus in 
 Chapter XII. we read : " Not alone have we placed 
 our goods in the hands of the deacons and 
 lived thereon according to our need, but with 
 
 O
 
 262 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 one heart and one mind do we praise God in 
 Christ and are well disposed to do each other 
 all manner of service." "All therefore which 
 had heretofore served to self-seeking and to 
 possession, such as buying and selling, labouring 
 to procure money, due or usury, even eating 
 and drinking with the unbelieving, oppressing 
 the poor, that is the using our brethren and our 
 neighbours that they shall work for us, that 
 thereby we may fatten ourselves on their labour 
 all these things and what further might destroy 
 the love between us, in the love of Christ and 
 the brethren, is quite fallen out of use by us, 
 and, as we know, God shall utterly root out 
 all such abominations. Therefore will we rather 
 go to our death than again return thereunto, 
 for we know that with such sacrifices the Lord 
 is well-pleased. Know ye that no Christian or 
 saint may please God who doth not in this wise 
 hold all things in common, or at the least is in 
 his heart well-disposed to do so." The conclusion 
 treats of the wonders wrought by God in the 
 defence of Munster already, and winds up with 
 an exhortation to the brethren to gird on the 
 sword and undertake forthwith the glorious work 
 of the final deliverance of the New Zion.
 
 THE PROPAGANDA OUTSIDE MUNSTER. 263 
 
 The foregoing book was followed, at an interval 
 of two months by another smaller pamphlet 
 known as u The little book of Vengeance," which 
 appeared in December 1534. This was also 
 from the pen of Rothmann. Vengeance, it says, 
 is at hand and will soon burst upon the powers 
 of this world. After it is accomplished shall 
 appear the new heavens and the new earth. 
 "Dear brethren, the time of vengeance hath 
 come upon us, God hath raised up the promised 
 David and armed him to vengeance and punish- 
 ment on Babylon with its people. Therefore, 
 dear brethren, arm yourselves to the battle, not 
 alone with the apostle's weapons of patience in 
 suffering, but also with the glorious armour of 
 David, to vengeance, to the end that ye may, 
 with God's power and help, utterly root out the 
 might of Babylon and all the godless world." 
 The pamphlet ends: "Look to it, therefore, 
 dear brethren, that ye hasten to lay hold on this 
 matter with earnestness and that ye betake 
 yourselves in such great numbers as in your . 
 power lies to come under the banner of God. 
 God, the Lord of Hosts, awaken in your 
 hearts the power of His Spirit, arm you and 
 His whole Israel according to His will, to His
 
 264 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 praise and to the increase of His Kingdom. 
 Amen." 
 
 Urbanus Rhegius answered the Anabaptists' 
 literature in a work which he probably wrote at 
 the end of 1534, and which was directly intended 
 to counteract the spread of the propaganda in 
 Osnabriick, where matters were beginning at 
 this time to look serious. It is entitled " De 
 Restittone Regni Israehtici" and pretends to 
 refute Anabaptism in a hundred and five articles 
 or theses. Amongst other things Urbanus charac- 
 terises as "a foolish and godless fable," that 
 hitherto had been the time of endurance, but 
 that now was the time of vengeance. "For," 
 says he, " naught but dreams of such prophets 
 and naught but a chatter contradicting the Scrip- 
 tures are the three worlds, which they have 
 divised to the end that they might establish 
 their error, and of which the first was the age 
 of sin from the creation of the world until the 
 flood, the second the age of persecution and 
 the Cross until our time, and the third the age 
 of restitution and vengeance, in which all the 
 godless are to be destroyed by the Anabaptists 
 and a bodily kingdom of Christ established 
 by them. This is an invention of the Devil to
 
 THE PROPAGANDA OUTSIDE MUNSTER, 265 
 
 tear the sword from the hands of the Authority 
 set up by God," etc. (Bouterwek, I. pp. 43-48.) 
 It is doubtful whether this work, to which 
 Luther contributed a foreword, had the effect of 
 converting a single Anabaptist from the error 
 of his ways, although doubtless the congregation 
 of the Lutheran faithful derived considerable 
 edification from the learned theologian's confident 
 refutation of the enemy. 
 
 Already early in the year 1534 various dis- 
 tricts of Holland were strongly permeated with 
 Anabaptism. Amsterdam was regarded by the 
 Anabaptist saints as the centre of their creed 
 in the Netherland countries, but Leyden, the 
 Hague, Haarlem, and other places had con- 
 siderable numbers of brethren within their walls. 
 Deventer especially distinguished itself as the 
 hope of the " Children of God," the Biirger- 
 meister himself having joined the sectaries. In 
 Brabant, it is stated in a letter addressed from 
 Antwerp to Erasmus of Rotterdam, there was 
 scarcely a village or town where the torch of 
 insurrection did not secretly glow. It is signi- 
 ficant that the writer attributes the success of 
 the new movement among the masses to the 
 communistic doctrines involved in it.
 
 266 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 In these countries also we find the same 
 phenomena of religious exaltation, amounting in 
 some cases to undoubted madness, as are re- 
 corded of the votaries of the movement by 
 Kessler in St. Gallen, and which we know were 
 to a greater or less extent its accompaniment 
 everywhere. Thus in Amsterdam we hear of 
 a meeting of seven men and five women in a 
 private house belonging to Jan Siewerts, a 
 cloth merchant, who was on a journey. One 
 Dirk Snyder filled the role of prophet at this 
 meeting, which appears to have been held at 
 3 a. m. Snyder lay down flat in the middle of 
 the room for some moments, during which all 
 were seized with fear and imagined that the 
 house trembled. He at length rose up, and 
 addressing one of those present, said : " I have 
 beheld God in His glory and have spoken with 
 Him. I have been ravished up to heaven and 
 been carried down to hell, where I have seen 
 all things. I tell thee the judgment-day ap- 
 proacheth and thou hast been damned for 
 ever." The man addressed fell on his knees and 
 cried: "Father, have mercy on me." Dirk after 
 a pause then changed his tone, saying : u The 
 Father hath pity on thee and hath adopted thee
 
 THE PROPAGANDA OUTSIDE MUNSTER. 267 
 
 as his child, so that thy sins are forgiven." 
 The next night the same persons, together with 
 others, again assembled in the house. After 
 preaching and praying had been carried on for 
 four hours, the prophet Dirk proceeded to take 
 off his clothes, which he threw in the fire that 
 was burning on the hearth. Standing in the 
 midst quite naked, he commanded the others, 
 men and women, to do likewise, saying that 
 all that came from the earth must be sacrificed 
 in fire to God. He was strictly obeyed by all. 
 Meanwhile the landlady of the lodging, proba- 
 bly alarmed by the fumes of burning garments, 
 entered the room, whereupon the prophet, en- 
 joined her in imperative tones to follow the 
 example of the rest of the assembly. She too 
 obeyed without a murmur. The prophet then 
 ordered all to follow him out into the street, 
 where they walked in procession, Dirk at their 
 head, crying : " Woe ! woe ! the vengeance of 
 God, the heavenly Father, is upon you!" The 
 citizens roused from their slumbers by the noise, 
 repaired in arms to the market-place, under the 
 impression that a hostile force had gained pos- 
 session of the town. On seeing the Anabaptist 
 fanatics, they arrested them all, save one woman
 
 268 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 who succeeded in escaping, but they steadily 
 refused to put on clothes, alleging that truth 
 was naked, and that its apostles must be so 
 also. In this condition they reached the Ratk- 
 haus, where they were confined. Meanwhile 
 flames broke out from the room where lay 
 the burning clothes, and the door was broken 
 open by the town authorities with blows from 
 axes. 
 
 Next day, a house-to-house visitation was made, 
 and many Anabaptists were seized, a respite of 
 some days being granted them to enable those 
 who would recant to do so and obtain a cer- 
 tificate from their priest. After the time was 
 expired, the utmost rigour of punishment awaited 
 them. Those concerned in the affair were all 
 executed, with the exception of the one woman 
 who has been mentioned as having escaped. 
 The landlady of the apartment where the scene 
 took place was hanged at her own door. 
 
 In February 1534, one of the brethren, a 
 former priest, was arrested with others and put 
 to the torture. Whilst on the rack he confessed 
 as to facts connected with the spread of the 
 movement and as to its meeting-places, a con- 
 fession that cost the Anabaptists dear, as it
 
 THE PROPAGANDA OUTSIDE MUNSTER. 269 
 
 gave the authorities the clues they wanted to 
 serve them for the organization of a thorough- 
 going campaign of persecution. Sweeping col- 
 umns, averaging some twenty men each, were 
 sent to scour the country districts. Whoever 
 was in the least suspect was at once arrested. 
 So great was the apprehension of resistance 
 that the arrests were generally made at night, 
 many being dragged from their beds. On the 
 2oth March, 1534, the towns of Deventer, Cam- 
 pen and Zwolle received an Imperial order to 
 adopt energetic measures to root out the 
 dangerous elements they were harbouring. Hun- 
 dreds of persons were arrested in these towns 
 alone on a charge of Anabaptism. But throughout 
 Holland the fiercest persecution was soon raging. 
 By the end of March five hundred persons were 
 in the dungeons of Utrecht and its neighbour- 
 hood. The summons by letter, broadsheet and 
 messenger to come to the relief of Miinster met 
 with a ready response. Thirty shiploads of 
 Anabaptists left the neighbourhood of Amster- 
 dam on the 2 ist March, 1534, for the relief of 
 u Zion." They were well supplied with weapons 
 and ammunition. In all there were nearly three 
 thousand men, besides numerous women and
 
 270 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 children, and they had four banners. This was 
 coincident with the great pilgrimage along the 
 highways leading from Dutch territories to the 
 famous Westphalian town. Numbers of the 
 pilgrims were seized by the sweeping columns 
 in small companies as they came in sight. As 
 for the ships, a more sudden and cruel fate 
 awaited them and their occupants. Five were 
 scuttled and sunk, all on board being drowned. 
 Of the prisoners taken alive, those supposed 
 to be the leaders were executed and their heads 
 fixed on poles along the highway, whilst their 
 trunks were fastened to the executioner's wheel 
 in the public places of the towns. The women 
 and children were in most cases sent to their 
 homes. 
 
 On the 25th December, 1534, an Entente took 
 place at Deventer, that stronghold of Anabaptism. 
 The project seems to have been well planned, 
 but was betrayed beforehand and therefore im- 
 mediately crushed by the authorities. Three 
 of the leading conspirators, among them the 
 son of the Biirgermeister, were beheaded on 
 the market-place. In January a real or imaginary 
 conspiracy at Leyden was unearthed, the object 
 of which was alleged to be to destroy the city
 
 THE PROPAGANDA OUTSIDE MUNSTER. 271 
 
 of Leyden by fire. This conspiracy is stated 
 to have been organised in the old house formerly 
 occupied by Jan of Leyden. In any case the 
 house was used for meetings of the Anabaptist 
 body and sustained a siege at the hands oi the 
 authorities. Although the brethren seem to 
 have made a valiant resistance, they were over- 
 powered eventually by the forces of u order" 
 and all put to death, the men being beheaded 
 and the women drowned, according to the 
 distinction usually made at the time in the 
 mode of execution of the sexes. Bockelson's 
 first wife is said to have been one of those 
 executed. 
 
 In almost every town in Holland, Brabant, 
 Flanders and the other territories of these north- 
 western regions there were communities of 
 Anabaptist saints, and in all of them at this 
 time sympathy with the Westphalian Zion was 
 keen and often practical. Ships were sent from 
 other places besides Amsterdam, filled with 
 men and munitions of war, round the north of 
 Holland with a view of reaching Miinster from 
 that direction. But almost all were intercepted. 
 
 One of the emissaries from Munster, Jan van 
 Geelen, who at the end of 1534 had originally
 
 272 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 been sent to Strasburg, appears early in 1535 
 again in the north-west. Towards the end of 
 
 o 
 
 February we find him in Friesland, conducting 
 a body of his co-religionists, some three hundred 
 in all, including women and children, who were 
 on their way to the Haven of the saints. On 
 the 28th February they were caught up by one 
 of the flying columns already alluded to as having 
 been instituted at the behest of the Imperial 
 authorities. The leader escaped, but the bulk 
 of the rank and file were executed, the men 
 by beheading and the women by drowning. 
 Van Geelen next appears in Amsterdam, where 
 he seems to have been connected with a plot 
 for seizing the city. Early in May, the town- 
 hall (Stadhms) was suddenly attacked by a body 
 of Anabaptist rioters, but the Town Council was 
 able to summon a force of well-to-do burghers. 
 A regular battle ensued, in the course of which 
 one of the Biirgermeisters lost his life. The 
 conflict lasted many hours, the Anabaptists having 
 succeeded in gaining possession of the municipal 
 headquarters, though apparently not without great 
 loss on their own side. Reduced to twenty-five 
 in number, they held the building valiantly against 
 the party of " order" outside, into whose ranks a
 
 THE PROPAGANDA OUTSIDE MUNSTER. 273 
 
 continuous hail of bullets fell. At last, by dint 
 of cannon and scaling-ladders the place was 
 captured, but only twelve Anabaptists were taken 
 alive. These were executed with diabolical 
 cruelty shortly afterwards, while at the same 
 time the bodies of their slain comrades were 
 hanged by the feet to gallows erected in the 
 central Market-place. Van Geelen himself, who 
 sought refuge in the tower of the Stadhuis, was 
 killed by a shot from one of the pieces of ordnance 
 deployed on the Market-place. 
 
 Meanwhile, at Bolswaert, in Friesland, on the 
 28th February, the sectaries made themselves 
 masters of an old monastery. More than three 
 hundred persons took part in the affair. The 
 monks were driven off and the building sacked. 
 Next day the Governor of the Province, Joris 
 Schenk, came and besieged the insurgents. 
 Negotiations followed; he promised them pardon 
 if they would lay down their arms and deliver 
 up the ringleaders, but they refused, being 
 resolved to live and die together. The siege 
 that ensued was terrific ; with six cannon the 
 Governor made four assaults, but was beaten 
 back each time. On April yth, however, they 
 were overcome. Not more than sixty were found 
 
 18
 
 274 ISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 alive, with seventy women and children. All 
 the prisoners were taken to Leuwarde, where 
 a number were sentenced to death. 
 
 Anabaptism was introduced into the town of 
 Liege about the year 1533, by a glass-maker 
 whose name is unknown. In Maestricht, Heinrich 
 von Tongern, having been driven from the terri- 
 tory of Jiilich towards the end of 1532 for 
 Anabaptist doctrines, had taken up his residence 
 in the house of a shoemaker. Here also a 
 considerable congregation was recruited among 
 the journeymen and poorer handicraftsmen. At 
 the beginning of September 1534, a guildmaster, 
 and a former Carmelite monk calling himself 
 Hendrik van Hilversum, the latter being spoken 
 of as the leader of the Maestricht Anabaptists, 
 were arrested. This Hendrik was no other than 
 Heinrich Roll, late of Mlinster, who before he 
 came to Maestricht had been sowing the seed 
 in Wesel. The wandering envoys from Miinster 
 were everywhere active throughout the winter 
 and the following spring, strengthening old ties 
 and instituting new ones, in the hope, vain 
 as it proved, of organising a powerful force of 
 enthusiasts to relieve Miinster now so hardly 
 pressed by the Bishop's army.
 
 THE PROPAGANDA OUTSIDE MUNSTER. 275 
 
 In some towns it was resolved by the City 
 Councils to order lists of strangers to be handed 
 in day by day after the closing of the gates, 
 while in many cases a strict curfew was introduced. 
 The Duke of Cleves, finding his own and all 
 the surrounding territories honeycombed with 
 Anabaptist associations, holding everywhere open 
 conventicles or secret meetings, ordered the 
 authorities of each district to report the exact 
 number of all landlords of places of public enter- 
 tainment in their jurisdiction, and to compel 
 them, under severe penalties, to report every 
 meeting that came to their knowledge at which 
 the rights of the existing spiritual and temporal 
 powers were called in question. This edict, issued 
 on the 3rd of April, 1534, was supplemented 
 towards the end of the year by one signed 
 jointly by the Duke and the Archbishop Hermann 
 of Koln. In this, death without hope of pardon 
 was made the punishment for rebaptism. It was 
 circulated early in the new year throughout all 
 the domains of the Duke Johann. Not alone 
 the local authorities were compelled to see to 
 its being made known, but the clergy were 
 ordered to read it from the pulpit at intervals 
 of four weeks.
 
 276 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 The larger towns along the Rhine were not 
 without their contingent of the new sectaries. 
 Thus even in strictly Catholic Koln, in the autumn 
 of 1534, we are told there were no fewer than 
 seven hundred adherents of the new sect. In 
 November, a number of executions took place 
 in consequence of a warning issued in September 
 by the Archbishop to the town authorities. 
 
 Turning back again to Westphalia, we find all 
 the smaller towns showing indications of following 
 the example of the chief town. Warendorf was 
 ripe for the advent of the Miinster emissaries 
 in October 1534, but here the Bishop, by vigorous 
 action, succeeded in suppressing the movement, 
 executing the Miinsterite apostles together with 
 their leading followers. The town itself was 
 humiliated and had to place itself at the Bishop's 
 mercy. The same thing occurred in Coesfeld, 
 where the inhabitants were compelled to surrender 
 Jan of Leyden's missionaries to the Bishop's 
 officers, by whom they were cruelly put to death, 
 having been carried in chains as a terrible 
 warning throughout other towns of the diocese. 
 
 The Munsterites were particularly concerned 
 to win over the town of Soest. This was a 
 Hanseatic town possessing considerable liberties,
 
 THE PROPAGANDA OUTSIDE MUNSTER. 277 
 
 but it was not free of the Empire, being subject 
 to the jurisdiction of the Prince-Bishop. The 
 prophet Dusentschur, who had drawn up the 
 list of towns from which help might be expect- 
 ed, had placed Soest at the head of it. His 
 hopes were based on the strong position of 
 the Democratic party there. Reformation dis- 
 turbances began there early in 1533. The 
 abolition of the religious houses was demanded, 
 together with the handing over of the buildings 
 themselves to the Soest burghers. A secret 
 league of the poorer citizens was formed against 
 the Rath and the guild-masters who stood by 
 the Rath. The latter succeeded in suppressing 
 the movement and sentenced the leaders to 
 death. Two thousand of the party of "order," 
 fully armed, occupied the Market-place. The 
 "common man," however, the poorer handicrafts- 
 men, the journeymen, and the town proletarians 
 flocked thither and raised a great outcry. The 
 women were specially conspicuous by their 
 lamentations. One u honourable pious woman," 
 as she is termed, gave utterance, it is said, to 
 a remarkable prophecy. Whilst the condemned 
 were passing by, she cried out to them : u Dear 
 friends, be content! God doth no wrong. Ye
 
 278 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 are not yet dead, and it shall yet be well with 
 you ! " Manfully, with head erect, they went 
 to their fate, averring that they would live and 
 die by the Gospel. The first victim knelt down 
 to await the blow of the executioner. The 
 blow fell, but only wounded the prisoner, who 
 was able to spring to his feet and wrench 
 the axe from the executioner's hand. When 
 this was seen, a violent disturbance arose 
 and the authorities dared not proceed with 
 the executions. Next day, the City Council- 
 room was stormed by five hundred men 
 and women demanding pardon for the pri- 
 soners, which the Rath thought it prudent to 
 accord. 
 
 In November 1534, the Elector Johann Frie- 
 drich of Saxony, who was conducting military 
 operations for the Bishop round Soest, was 
 present in the town, taking steps against the 
 spread of the movement, and on the iyth De- 
 cember the City Council at his instigation issued 
 a severe mandate, not only against Anabaptist 
 themselves, but also against all harbouring such 
 in their houses. The man who originally 
 introduced Anabaptism into Soest was a certain 
 Johann von Campen, a disciple of Melchior
 
 THE PROPAGANDA OUTSIDE MUNSTER, 279 
 
 Hoffmann. He was an enthusiastic propagandist 
 and worked with Hoffmann when he was in 
 Holstein and also in Llibeck and Brunswick. 
 As the Miinster emissaries, prophet Dusentschur 
 at their head, entered the town on the 8th 
 October, 1534, they are said to have conducted 
 themselves as if they were already masters of 
 the place, openly preaching insurrection. The 
 Rath repeatedly requested the Munsterites to 
 leave, but received only defiant answers. At 
 last, the heads of the Guilds and other leading 
 personages were called together to the Rathhaus, 
 and took oath to stand by the governing Council 
 in the action it was about to take against the 
 unwelcome visitors. On the 23rd October, 
 sentence of death was passed on the apostles 
 and immediately carried out. The disaffected 
 population were thus cowed and the authority 
 of the Rath was re-established. In Osnabriick, 
 not far distant, similar events were taking place ; 
 but right away to the north, in Hamburg, Bremen, 
 Liibeck, Luneburg, Wismar, and Rostock, the 
 population seethed with excitement, and were 
 strongly leavened with Anabaptist congregations 
 and doctrines. Towards the east, the spread of the 
 new teaching and of the net-work of Anabaptist
 
 280 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 organisation was felt in Brunswick, Hanover, 
 and Magdeburg, to mention only the principal 
 among the town-populations affected by them 
 and by the contemporary events passing in 
 Westphalia. 
 
 At this time, and throughout these northern 
 regions, territories, and cities of Germany, there 
 seems to have been an organisation involving 
 much closer relations than had existed as a 
 rule between the different Anabaptist communi- 
 ties in the south in the earlier periods of the 
 movement. This was in all probability due to 
 the new work initiated by Jan Matthys and so 
 energetically carried on by his disciples. From 
 various documents and protocols which have 
 been preserved, it would seem that a large 
 number of Anabaptist communities throughout 
 the north had agreed to take their cue from 
 Liibeck in the action they should adopt. They 
 appear to have been waiting for Liibeck to 
 follow the example of Miinster, and the expec- 
 tation that this would happen seemed at one 
 time in a fair way of fulfilment. But from 
 causes unknown to history, Liibeck did not imitate 
 Miinster. Threatening as matters looked, there 
 was no actual rising. Keller is of opinion
 
 THE PROPAGANDA OUTSIDE MUNSTER. 281 
 
 that the reasons may possibly be looked for 
 partly in the external complications in which 
 the Hanse town at this time had got entangled, 
 and partly in a revulsion of feeling among the 
 otherwise sympathetic population, on the ground 
 of the alleged excesses that were taking place 
 in Munster itself. As to the correctness of this 
 view, it is impossible at present to decide.
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 MiiNSTER's FALL AND THE FATE OF THE MOVEMENT. 
 
 WHEN in February 1534 so many highly re- 
 spectable ancient burghers of Miinster were 
 compelled to fly before the rising tide of Ana- 
 baptist fanaticism, they doubtless believed that in 
 a few days, or weeks at the outside, they would 
 be restored to their dwellings under the segis 
 of the Bishop's men-at-arms. Many among the 
 party of the " respectables " in the town, namely, 
 the Catholics and orthodox Protestants, were 
 indeed firmly convinced of this. Already in the 
 last days of 1533, the feudatories of the Bishop 
 throughout the diocese were ordered to hold 
 themselves in readiness to obey any sudden call 
 to arms that might be made upon them. In 
 the course of the following February this order 
 was renewed, but it was not until after the new 
 Anabaptist Council was chosen and the power 
 was in the hands of the insurrectionary party, 
 that a definite command was given to both 
 orders of feudatories to assemble immediately
 
 MUNSTER'S FALL. 283 
 
 at places appointed in the neighbourhood of 
 the city, fully armed, viz., with horse, armour 
 and halberd. The response, however, was not 
 satisfactory. Above all, the quality of the pea- 
 sants and the smaller landholders who came 
 left much to be desired from a military point 
 of view. The fact is that the old mediaeval 
 u levy of the tenants" had for a generation past 
 fallen into desuetude. Many tenants did not 
 reside on their fiefs, whilst some holdings had 
 fallen into the hands of churchmen and religious 
 houses. 
 
 In the sixteenth century it was no longer 
 possible to carry on warlike operations in the 
 old feudal manner, or with the old feudal mate- 
 rial, exclusively. The hired mercenary, the free- 
 lance or landsknecht, dominated the military 
 situation everywhere. At length recognising this 
 fact, Bishop Franz von Waldeck began recruiting 
 in earnest throughout all the neighbouring terri- 
 tories, but want of money prevented him even 
 in this way from obtaining an adequate supply 
 of trained soldiers. Such as it was, his army 
 was in time constituted, the chief commands being 
 distributed amongst his principal knightly vassals. 
 But it was not only men and money that failed
 
 284 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 Franz. He had no ordnance and quite insuf- 
 ficient powder and ammunition. In fact, at this 
 time, the early spring of 1534, there is no doubt 
 that concerted action on the part of the sectaries 
 in the numerous smaller towns and not a few 
 important ones where the Anabaptist party, as 
 such, was already strong, and where large sec- 
 tions of the population outside their ranks were 
 in sympathy with them, would have resulted in 
 at least a temporary victory for the cause 
 throughout the whole of north-western Germany 
 and possibly in Holland as well. The same 
 reasons, of course, which would have rendered 
 any permanent success impossible for the peasant 
 levies in the previous decade of the century 
 would have operated now to render any lasting 
 result unattainable for a movement that rested 
 economically in the main on the poorer sections 
 of the town populations. Although the era of 
 the craftsman was not as yet by any means 
 over, still, with the close of the Middle Ages 
 and the rapid decline of the Guild-industry, it 
 had become a decadent factor, which receded 
 in proportion to the advance made by the earlier 
 forms of modern capitalism. The dream of the 
 impoverished townsman of a millennial kingdom,
 
 AfUNSTER'S FALL. 285 
 
 based on mediaeval domestic communism and 
 animated by the ideals of the small artificer of 
 the time, was in itself as hopeless as the cor- 
 responding dream of the peasant ten years be- 
 fore, which also aimed at harking back to an 
 idealised form of a condition of things that had 
 
 O 
 
 passed away. The lines of social development 
 were moving in quite another direction. 
 
 So great was the Bishop's need financially 
 that, after resorting to the most desperate ex- 
 pedients in the matter of credit, hypothecating 
 taxes, rent-dues, and the like, with insufficient 
 results, the extreme course was adopted of turning 
 into money the gold and silver treasures of the 
 religious houses and churches. The act was 
 excused on the ground of the necessity of pre- 
 serving them from the sacrilegious hands of the 
 Anabaptists, but was, nevertheless, not carried 
 out without protests on the part of the eccle- 
 siastical authorities immediately concerned. Even 
 if money had been forthcoming, there would 
 have still remained the difficulty of procuring 
 the munitions of war within a reasonable time. 
 As late as May we hear of the besieging army 
 being unable to acquire the means to fire more 
 than about six ordnance shots a day. By slow
 
 286 KISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 degrees and with great difficulty pieces of ord- 
 nance came in, bought or loaned from neigh- 
 bouring nobles. But it proved still more trou- 
 blesome to hire men. The free-lances, who 
 were prepared to offer their services to any 
 potentate or any cause for a consideration, 
 fought shy of the Prince-Bishop, whose semi- 
 bankrupt condition was a matter of public no- 
 toriety. The same distrust prevented the nobles 
 and ecclesiastics, with whom the Bishop was 
 anxious to negotiate loans, from responding to 
 any great extent. On the other hand, the 
 Anabaptists were known to have the wealth of 
 the Metropolitan City at their disposal, and no 
 day passed but numerous free-lances entered 
 the town, not only singly, but even in companies, 
 to take service with the defence. They were 
 largely recruited from the class to which the 
 Anabaptists mostly belonged, namely, the town 
 proletariat. Hence their intrinsic sympathies may 
 have been on the side of the sectaries. 
 
 The Bishop's demands for help being coolly 
 received by the three principalities, Hesse, 
 Cleves and Koln, he turned towards the Imperial 
 possessions of Spain and Burgundy. The growing 
 rapprochement between Franz and the Court of
 
 MUNSTER'S FALL. 287 
 
 Brussels made the Evangelical Count (Landgraf} 
 Philip of Hesse anxious, and probably led to his 
 sending two small contingents to assist the 
 Bishop's army in the siege. On the 26th March 
 there was a conference of Princes and higher 
 nobles at a place called Orsoy. At this con- 
 ference the Duke of Cleves and the Archbishop 
 of Koln seem to have at length consented to 
 afford substantial aid in money, men and war 
 material. This enabled Waldeck to free him- 
 self from obnoxious obligations to the Evangelical 
 Hesse. He sent back the two contingents al- 
 ready received from the Count, and also for- 
 warded a letter of thanks by a special mes- 
 senger, informing him that he no longer re- 
 quired his help. 
 
 The Bishop was now relieved, in fact, for the 
 moment, from the necessity of relying on either 
 Hesse or Burgundy, and henceforward turned 
 his attention to his great Catholic neighbours. 
 But the delay caused by these negotiations had 
 given the Miinsterites time to perfect their 
 defensive works and to otherwise organise the 
 resistance to the besiegers. It was not until 
 the 2ist May that Waldeck felt himself strong 
 enough to begin the bombardment of the town.
 
 288 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 Five days later it was on a Whit-Monday 
 he proceeded to storm the ramparts. This 
 attack, carried out, in part at least, by drunken 
 and imperfectly disciplined free-lances, was easily 
 repulsed by the inhabitants, as we have seen. 
 
 A portion of the besiegers, nevertheless, seem 
 to have fought with vigour, and succeeded in 
 bringing the scaling-ladders up against the walls. 
 But this was as much as they could do before 
 the whole force was driven back in confusion 
 with heavy loss. The defeat had a serious 
 effect on the Bishop's position. No-one in the 
 camp would hear of repeating the experiment. 
 The Bishop's men had to confine themselves, for 
 a long period, to sapping and mining operations. 
 
 At the same time the two principal allies of 
 the Episcopal see, Cleves and Kbln, were en- 
 treated for more help. A new conference of 
 neighbouring potentates was called together in 
 June at Neuss, and on the 2Oth of the month 
 further support was promised, and an advance 
 of sixty thousand gulden in money was guaranteed. 
 On his side, the Bishop had to undertake to 
 accept as his counsellors Count Wilhelm of 
 Nassau and two other noblemen indicated by 
 his allies. They were to be present in the camp,
 
 MUNSTER'S FALL. 289 
 
 and all military measures proposed were to be 
 submitted to them. But it was not until more 
 than two months later, on the 24th August, 
 that it was decided in a council of war to employ 
 the full force of the besieging army in a new 
 assault on the city. A formal summons to sur- 
 render was to precede it. This was made on the 
 following day, accompanied by promises of am- 
 nesty. Jan of Leyden replied to the Bishop's 
 envoys that he had no need for his Lordship's 
 mercy, that the Heavenly Father would show 
 him mercy and would punish the godless who 
 were his enemies. 
 
 The Bishop, thinking that his offers had not 
 reached the population, reiterated them in letters 
 which he had secretly conveyed into the town. 
 Time was given until the 27th August to deliver 
 up the city. But the beleaguerers waited in vain. 
 Night fell on the 2yth August without a sign of 
 submission. On the 28th, the bombardment 
 began. Three days' cannonade effected some 
 breaches in the walls. At five o'clock in the 
 morning of the 3ist, the attack was opened 
 along the whole line. The Bishop's forces at 
 first succeeded in making some headway. They 
 pressed beyond the outer line of fortifications 
 
 19
 
 290 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 at several points, but it was soon found that a 
 well-organised resistance had been prepared. 
 Some treachery by certain persons from the 
 Bishop's camp had revealed the plan of attack, 
 it is said. As soon as the bulk of the mercenaries 
 had advanced within range, a well-directed fire 
 suddenly opened upon them from the battlements. 
 Columns advancing simultaneously were hurled 
 back in confusion. Repeated attacks on the 
 gates were made by detachments of free-lances, 
 but in every case without result. The assault 
 had proved a huge disaster for the partisans of 
 "order," and the discomfiture of the Bishop's 
 forces was complete. Forty-eight commanders 
 had fallen, besides many hundreds of the rank 
 and file. The Anabaptists, as already recorded, 
 were jubilant, and the signal victory had, as we 
 have seen, important results for the internal politics 
 of Munster. Unfortunately, as has always been 
 the case throughout history, the intrinsically weaker 
 party, the party of revolution, did not understand 
 the necessity of immediately following up its 
 success. Had a powerful sortie at once been 
 made, the entire camp of Miinster's feudal over- 
 lord might have been captured and the city freed, 
 at least for the time being. As it was, the
 
 MUNSTER'S FALL. 291 
 
 Bishop removed himself out of harm's way, 
 followed at no long interval by his leading nobles. 
 This was the signal for wholesale desertion on 
 the part of the mercenaries. It was, in fact, 
 only by extravagant promises of future good pay 
 that a remnant was persuaded to remain behind 
 to continue the contest with the " Kingdom 
 of God." 
 
 But money was now again lacking. Writing 
 to the Duke of Cleves on the 6th September, 
 Waldeck complains that the attack and the 
 preparations for it have exhausted all that was 
 left of the money he received in June, and begs 
 him to come to his assistance without delay. 
 At the same time he expresses his conviction 
 that the Duke's help alone will not suffice, and 
 that it will be necessary to call out the whole 
 Imperial district of the Lower Rhine. On the 
 nth September the return-messenger arrived 
 with a letter in which Duke Johann promised to 
 raise, not merely the Lower Rhine district, but 
 also those of the Upper Rhine and Lower Saxony. 
 The reply rejoiced the Bishop's heart and relieved 
 him of apprehensions as to his ultimate success. 
 
 Meantime he had to keep the siege going 
 until the arrival of the reinforcements. The first
 
 292 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 step was the calling of a Landtag at Telgte, for 
 more money was urgent, even for the interim 
 operations. At Telgte, the Bishop laid before 
 the Westphalian u estates " the desperate straits 
 to which the diocese was reduced and the 
 imminent danger of delay in furnishing credits. 
 In consequence of his representations, it was 
 resolved to raise the necessary money by an 
 extraordinary tax of three gold gulden for every 
 field under the plough, and two gold gulden for 
 every field on sandy or otherwise non-agricultural 
 soil. From every peasant possessing a horse 
 half a gulden was levied, and from all working 
 for money-wages ten per cent of their earnings. 
 These taxes, which were collected with difficulty, 
 would not have proved sufficient to carry on 
 the siege had they not been supplemented by 
 an immediate advance of money from the Duke 
 himself. The situation continued for some little 
 time favourable for the insurgents, but they failed 
 to take advantage of it. The Anabaptists inside 
 Miinster were too much occupied with organising 
 their miniature Kingdom of God, just at this 
 moment, to spare the requisite energy for coping 
 with the primary necessities of ultimate military 
 success.
 
 MUNSTER'S FALL. 293 
 
 The effect of the Anabaptist victory of the 
 3 ist August was to increase the excitement in 
 the small Westphalian towns, including Waren- 
 dorf, and the attempt was eagerly made by them 
 to bring about an understanding between Miin- 
 ster and its Prince-Bishop. But it was of no 
 avail. As we know, on the arrival of the Ana- 
 baptist emissaries on the I2th October, Waren- 
 dorf openly declared for Minister and Anabaptism. 
 It was only the suddenness of the Bishop's ac- 
 tion in crushing the insurrectionary party in the 
 town that prevented a serious diversion in favour 
 of the Miinsterites from establishing itself. 
 
 The Protestant estates, which were now again 
 called upon to lend aid, showed themselves re- 
 calcitrant. The treacherous judicial murder of 
 the syndic of Mlinster, Von der Wieck, by the 
 Bishop, coupled with the report that it was 
 Waldeck's intention to violently upset the Charter 
 of religious .'freedom and reintroduce Catholicism, 
 had tended to alienate them. Waldeck had to 
 look elsewhere. His emissaries were sent to all 
 the Catholic Powers, great and small, through- 
 out the north-west. They represented, as was 
 in fact the truth, that the object of the Munster 
 Anabaptists was to raise insurrection far and
 
 294 JUSE AND PALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 wide in every town and village, and hence that 
 their own interests urgently demanded that they 
 should make common cause with him in crushing 
 out the centre of the most dangerous and wide- 
 spread disaffection the country had known. 
 Meanwhile the Duke of Cleves had called to- 
 gether the Lower Rhenish and Westphalian 
 "estates." The Bishop represented to them 
 the urgency of the situation, that he was acting 
 in the interest of the whole north-west country, 
 that up to the present time the siege had cost 
 him seven hundred thousand gulden, and that 
 for their own safety they should immediately 
 afford substantial help. The " estates," however, 
 thought that the matter was Imperial rather 
 than local, and concerned the whole German 
 peoples rather than any one portion of Germany. 
 They would only disburse some unexhausted 
 monies that had been raised against the threatened 
 Turkish invasion. 
 
 At his wits' end for resources, the Bishop 
 wrote on October 3ist to the Austro-Spanish 
 authorities at Brussels, urgently appealing for 
 aid, and he followed this up a fortnight later 
 by the despatch of envoys to press home his 
 arguments. His negotiations do not appear to
 
 MUNSTER'S FALL. 295 
 
 have met with any noteworthy results. At last, 
 on December i4th, a joint meeting of the 
 "estates" of the Lower Rhenish district (Kreis), 
 including Westphalia, and of the Upper Rhenish 
 district was with some difficulty brought about 
 at Coblenz. Some fifty representatives were 
 present, embracing delegates from all the im- 
 portant cities of the territories concerned. The 
 Bishop's own envoys were not slack in em- 
 ploying suitable terms to describe the desperate 
 nature of the situation, even going so far as to 
 declare that if adequate help were not immedi- 
 ately forthcoming the Bishop would have to let 
 the matter take its own course. These warnings 
 had their effect. After some discussion, the 
 following steps were decided upon, and the 
 document embodying them countersigned by 
 those present on December 26th. It was resolved 
 by the u estates " to construct and garrison seven 
 "block-houses" round the town of Mtinster. 
 These were to be connected with well-defended 
 moats and would constitute the first line of 
 defence. The outer line was to be occupied 
 by three hundred fully equipped horsemen, 
 whose function it would be to prevent the deser- 
 tion of the free-lances and to effectually cut oft
 
 296 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 Miinster from the outer world by stopping any 
 fugitives from the city who might succeed in 
 getting through the line of block-houses. The 
 Count of Dhaun and Falkenstein was made 
 Commander-in-Chief of the forces. New military 
 advisers were appointed. The " estates " pledged 
 themselves to furnish fifteen thousand Rhenish 
 gold gulden every month for six months. On 
 the other hand, the Prince-Bishop had to agree, 
 on the part of himself and his chapter, that no 
 fresh changes in the internal constitution of the 
 
 o 
 
 town should be undertaken without the consent 
 of the " estates," who were parties to the present 
 protocol. 
 
 It was clear that even these new arrangements 
 did not give any prospect of a speedy conquest 
 of the town. They simply meant its gradual 
 reduction by starvation. Waldeck was far from 
 satisfied. Moreover, he thought that his share 
 of the financial burden was too heavy, whilst 
 his authority was largely curtailed, being trans- 
 ferred to the Commander-in-Chief and the other 
 nominees of the " estates." As it was, he had 
 to call another session of his own " estates " 
 for the purpose of raising fresh taxes to meet 
 the situation.
 
 MUNSTERS FALL. 297 
 
 The besieged met these measures of the 
 enemy by a renewed and desperate effort to 
 rouse the surrounding provinces. It was at this 
 time that Bernhardt Rothmann published his 
 pamphlet entitled " Concerning Vengeance," 
 already referred to, which was secretly con- 
 veyed out of the town in thousands of copies 
 by messengers of the Anabaptist leaders, special 
 care being taken that it should be widely dis- 
 tributed in the northern Netherlands. The mes- 
 sengers started out on Christmas Eve, 1534. On 
 the following New Year's Day, once more four 
 burghers of Mtinster, having expressed their 
 willingness, were sent as apostles to the Brethren 
 without. They succeeded in getting through the 
 outposts and reached the town of Hamm. Thence 
 they went to Dortmund, Essen, and other cities 
 of the northern Rhine. Subsequently they 
 separated with the object of getting together 
 a relief force, appointing to meet again after 
 a certain time. One of their number, Zillis 
 by name, meanwhile fell into the hands of the 
 authorities, and from his confession, obtained 
 as usual under torture, (our only source for the 
 facts connected with this incident,) the mission 
 would seem to have been not altogether fruit- 
 
 O
 
 298 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 less, although the ultimate result hoped for was 
 not gained. 
 
 As we have seen, encouraged by knowledge 
 of the Bishop's embarrassment, and especially 
 by the Anabaptist victory of August 3ist, the 
 flame of insurrection flared up at various points 
 and continued to the end of the year to flicker 
 on throughout a widespread area. But it was 
 in all cases eventually suppressed. Even at the 
 end of January, 1535, in the diocese of Utrecht, 
 especially in the towns of Deventer and Zwolle, 
 matters looked extremely serious for the powers 
 that were. The Miinsterites, as the newly recruit- 
 ed free-lances came into the Bishop's camp, 
 found means of approaching them with offers 
 of higher pay, and doubtless again succeeded 
 in enticing some of them to their own side. 
 Meanwhile Waldeck was still in bodily fear of 
 an invasion on the part of the Netherland 
 " brethren " and kept spies of his own in Holland 
 and Friesland busy reporting to him whatever 
 took place. At this time the confidence in their 
 ultimate success on the part of Jan and his 
 colleagues seems to have been at its height. 
 
 One of the apostles taken prisoner by the 
 Bishop's agent at Osnabriick the previous October
 
 MUNSTER'S FALL. 299 
 
 was a former schoolmaster named Johann Graess. 
 He stood in high odour of Anabaptist sanctity 
 and was one of the intimates of King Jan him- 
 self. Condemned to death like the rest, he 
 entreated to be allowed a special audience of 
 Bishop Franz. This being granted, he declared 
 his willingness to turn traitor, on condition of 
 his life being spared. His proposal was that 
 he should be permitted to escape and return 
 to Mimster, there to learn the intentions of the 
 leaders and the plans of the Brethren in the 
 north-west. He was then to find a pretext for 
 again leaving the city, and, returning to the 
 Bishop, was to divulge his information to him. 
 The suggestion was accepted, and Graess was 
 enabled to go. Accordingly, one morning, he 
 presented himself with chains on his hands to 
 the watchmen at the gates of Miinster. Speedily 
 recognised, he was received with open arms as 
 the last survivor of the unhappy missionaries 
 sent out in the autumn. He was brought before 
 Jan and told him the story of the luckless fate 
 of his comrades and of his own adventures. 
 His reputation, high before, was greater still 
 now, and he became more than ever the con- 
 fidant of the King of Zion. At the beginning
 
 300 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 of January, he left the town on a pretended 
 mission to gather together the Brethren on the 
 Lower Rhine who were prepared for action, to 
 convene them at Deventer, and there to set 
 up the standard of the New Jerusalem, receiving 
 a special white flag from King Jan for this 
 purpose. Deventer once in the hands of the 
 Brethren, the march to the relief of Miinster 
 was to be undertaken. As soon as the watch- 
 men espied from the walls of Miinster the white 
 flag indicating the approach of him and his host, 
 the signal within the town was to be given, a 
 sortie made in full force, and the camp of the 
 besiegers thus attacked from both sides at once. 
 Graess left Miinster amid the blessings of its 
 saints and prophets. He was, however, no sooner 
 outside the defensive outworks, than he made 
 straight for the Prince-Bishop's quarters. Here 
 he betrayed all the plans of the Munsterites 
 and their Dutch supporters. Notwithstanding 
 the treachery owing to which the Bishop was 
 enabled to circumvent their main plan, the Ana- 
 baptists succeeded, as we know, in gaining some 
 headway in the north-west during the next few 
 months. The leading events connected with this 
 movement have been given in the last chapter.
 
 MUNSTER'S FALL. 301 
 
 With the ultimate extinction of the movement 
 in question in May, the last hope of relief from 
 without, for the beleaguered sectaries in Miinster, 
 vanished. 
 
 Already in April the condition of things in 
 the town was very desperate. We gain some 
 idea of what it was, not alone from Gresbeck, 
 but from a letter sent out during that month 
 by the Anabaptist authorities and intercepted 
 by the Bishop's men. Therein we read of women 
 and children in a state of most abject destitution, 
 crying lamentably in the streets, of many who 
 had for five days eaten no bread and lived on 
 weeds and grass. The necessity to which the 
 inhabitants were reduced, of slaughtering the 
 horses for food, also heavily handicapped the 
 defence, since in a sortie they were indispen- 
 sable for drawing the heavy ordnance. On the 
 other hand, the Bishop had at length succeeded 
 in rousing the Imperial estates to come to his 
 assistance, notwithstanding the opposition of the 
 free towns, many of which urged negotiations 
 with Miinster, offering themselves as intermedia- 
 ries, as well as of the Protestant princes who 
 were unwilling to see Miinster irrevocably given 
 back into the hands of the papal party. A
 
 302 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 fruitless attempt at bringing about a cessation 
 of hostilities was in fact made during April by 
 the biirgermeisters of Frankfurt and Niirnberg. 
 Within the town, as the weeks went on, 
 famine rose higher and higher. As the cats, 
 rats, mice began to give out, the people took 
 to stewing down old shoes, skins, the leather- 
 binding of books and the bark of trees. It 
 now became necessary to dismiss all non-com- 
 batants from within the walls. Some of these 
 falling into the hands of the enemy were put 
 to death, while others were interned in different 
 towns of the surrounding country. But the faith 
 and enthusiasm of the combatants was inex- 
 haustible. In a demand made by the commander 
 of Waldeck's army to surrender, the leaders 
 only replied that they were resolved to fight 
 for the truth to their last breath; that food 
 would not be lacking for them so long as they 
 had two arms left, since they would, if necessary, 
 devour the one while they retained the other 
 to fight the enemies of God; that the Saints 
 of God were ordained to destroy the fourth blast 
 of the Revelations, which signified the Holy 
 Roman Empire. In spite of everything, indeed, 
 the town continued to hold out against the
 
 MUNSTER'S FALL. 303 
 
 forces representing the whole of the mediaeval 
 order of society, political social and religious. 
 Force alone seemed incapable of breaking down 
 the resistance. 
 
 At length treachery came to the aid of the 
 powers of this world fighting against the New 
 Zion. On the night of the 24th of May, four 
 free-lances, among them an officer of Jan's body- 
 guard, Johann Eck von der Langen Straten, 
 accompanied by the citizen and guildsman Hein- 
 rich Gresbeck the subsequent bitterly hostile 
 chronicler of the Anabaptist regime in Miinster, 
 and our chief original authority for the events 
 of the siege, together made an attempt to 
 escape from the city. 
 
 They had succeeded in climbing the earth- 
 works of the besiegers when, in the darkness 
 of the night, Gresbeck lost sight of his com- 
 panions. Gresbeck himself was soon espied by 
 the watchmen alike of the defenders and the 
 besiegers, and summoned to surrender. He gave 
 himself up to the Bishop's free-lances, from whom 
 he begged his life, and who brought him at 
 his entreaty to their captain, who was in a 
 block-house hard by. Here, where one of his 
 companions was shortly after brought in, he
 
 304 &ISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 was given to eat and to drink, and questioned 
 as to the condition of the town and the defective 
 places in the defence. He betrayed everything 
 he knew as to the weakest gates and least 
 defensible points in the walls. Meanwhile Johann 
 or Hans von der Langen Straten had succeeded 
 in the darkness in getting through the lines, 
 and hearing that a captain of free-lances, Mey- 
 nart von Hamm, under whom he had formerly 
 served, was in the camp of the besiegers, made 
 straight for his tent and revealed to him the 
 desperate internal condition of Mtinster and, as 
 Gresbeck had done in the other case, the weak 
 places in the defensive works, besides suggesting 
 a skilfully devised plan for taking advantage 
 of them. 
 
 He undertook to introduce the besiegers into 
 the town for a stipulated sum of money. The 
 Bishop was apprised of the offer made, which 
 he agreed to eventually, after considerable 
 hesitation. Hans and Gresbeck were brought 
 together, and directed to do all that was neces- 
 sary for surprising the town according to the 
 method proposed by Hans. 
 
 It was resolved to effect the entrance on the 
 night of the 24th of June, a body of four hundred
 
 SIUNSTEJTS FALL. 305 
 
 trained soldiers being set apart for the purpose. 
 An abortive summons to surrender having been 
 made in the course of the day, a chosen body 
 of men set out on their march to Miinster in 
 the midst of a terrific thunderstorm at eleven 
 o'clock at night. The traitor Hans, who of course 
 knew every nook and corner of the defence, 
 conducted his men to near one of the gates 
 which was weakly garrisoned, where the moat 
 was narrowest and contained least water. A 
 temporary bridge was rigged up with materials 
 bought for the purpose by Gresbeck, across 
 which several men passed, when it broke down 
 and the rest had to swim. Scaling-ladders 
 were placed against the outer wall, and the 
 besiegers were soon in the watch-houses, which 
 they found filled with sleeping Anabaptists, who 
 were all immediately massacred, with the excep- 
 tion of one, from whom the password (which 
 happened to be u earth ") was extorted. 
 
 The main body of the besieging army now 
 began to move towards Miinster. The advance 
 guard, consisting of Hans Eck's men, marched 
 through the deserted streets to the Cathedral, 
 which they occupied, at the same time seizing 
 the reserve ordnance of the Anabaptists together 
 
 20
 
 306 ItfSE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 with a large quantity of ammunition which was 
 kept there. They had, however, omitted the 
 precaution of guarding both the outer and the 
 inner gates, which were closed behind them by 
 a few of the defenders who had now been 
 aroused. Gresbeck with a few companions, in 
 fact, had actually been caught between the outer 
 and inner walls and thus had been prevented 
 from following the main contingent. On perceiving 
 by the beat of the drums that the enemy was 
 within the walls, about eight hundred Anabaptist 
 combatants gathered together on the Prinzipal- 
 markt, and occupied the streets leading to the 
 Cathedral. The enemy were then attacked and 
 driven back to the Jakobi Church. Meanwhile 
 more of the defenders rolled up and a further 
 onslaught was made. The enemy being consider- 
 ably reduced in numbers, were forced back into 
 a narrow street which would have been a cul- 
 de-sac but for a small door in the wall, which 
 the captain of the free-lances espying, immedi- 
 ately availed himself of to free as many of his 
 men as had time to force a passage through. 
 Those who thus escaped made their way by 
 by-lanes again to the Cathedral close, where 
 they reorganised and fell upon the Anabaptists
 
 MUNSTER'S FALL. 307 
 
 in the rear. The latter who, in the melee, had 
 not noticed the turn things had taken, finding 
 themselves thus suddenly attacked from behind, 
 thought the main body of the besieging army 
 had effected an entrance. They in their turn 
 were now thrown into some confusion and 
 forced to retreat, but, quickly rallying, again 
 inflicted such losses on the enemy that by three 
 o'clock in the morning the free-lances were glad 
 to open negotiations with the King, Jan of 
 Leyden, during the course of which an armistice 
 was maintained. The time was utilised by 
 Steding, their leader, to send one of his men 
 to the unguarded portions of the wall to make 
 signs that succour was urgently needed. For 
 meanwhile Waldeck's army, on its arrival before 
 Miinster, had found the gates and walls again 
 well-manned. Treachery to his new master 
 being suspected on the part of Hans Eck, orders 
 were given by the Commander-in-Chief for a 
 retreat, which was effected amid the jeers of the 
 defenders on the wall. 
 
 Steding's emissaries being successful in making 
 their signals understood to the nearest posts of the 
 Bishop's army, an order was given for a renewed 
 advance. The vanguard succeeded in forcing
 
 3 o8 XfSE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 one of the gates, and morning light, which was 
 now breaking upon the streets of Miinster, saw 
 the free-lances of the besieging army streaming 
 into the city. As soon as Steding heard the 
 well-known signals, and his messengers returned 
 with the news that the Bishop's army was enter- 
 ing, he forthwith broke off negotiations initiated 
 with Jan of Leyden and the battle began anew. 
 A general storm of the town was now made 
 by the besiegers from six different points at 
 once. Ever fresh bodies of the Bishop's free- 
 lances poured in from different sides, and, before 
 long, virtually the whole town was in the 
 possession of the besiegers, with the exception 
 of the Prinzipalmarkt, where the Anabaptists 
 for a long time manfully stood their ground. 
 While the battle was proceeding, one of the 
 Bishop's men-at-arms, Johann Roichel by name, 
 forced his way into Jan of Leyden's palace 
 hard by the Cathedral, dashing into the private 
 audience-chamber with a view of seizing the 
 King himself, and was just in time to see the 
 latter escape by a secret door in the wainscot- 
 ing. On his attempting to follow him, Jan threw 
 his helmet in the way and succeeded in getting 
 clear of the building and making for the
 
 MUNSTER'S FALL. 309 
 
 gate. Roichel, forcing his way into the boudoir 
 of Jan's principal wife, the Queen (so called), he 
 compelled her to surrender to him the regalia 
 and the keys of all the gates that were in the 
 King's custody. After leaving the Palace, Roi- 
 chel was felled to the ground by an Anabaptist, 
 but, recovering himself, succeeded in reaching 
 one of the commanders of the besieging army 
 already in the city and handing the keys over 
 to him. In a short time the whole of the 
 besieging forces were streaming in at all the 
 gates. The Anabaptists fought with a desperate 
 courage, even the women joining in the struggle, 
 hurling missiles from the windows upon their 
 foes. Bernhardt Krechting and Knipperdollinck 
 were to the fore in the fray on the Prinzipal- 
 markt and round the Lamberti Church, where 
 they erected a stockade of wagons as their 
 last defence, aided by two or three pieces of 
 ordnance, with which they dealt deadly execu- 
 tion for a long time on the enemy. The numbers 
 of their followers reduced to three hundred and 
 Krechting captured, the rest threw down their 
 arms in despair. They, in fact, accepted an offer 
 made at this moment, to surrender their position 
 on a promise of a safe conduct to leave the
 
 310 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 city, a fact which shewed that the conquerors 
 still considered them not un formidable. Knipper- 
 dollinck had already succeeded in reaching a 
 place of safety, for the time being, in a house 
 near the town wall. Many of the saints had 
 sought refuge in the Rathhaus, which was imme- 
 diately stormed and the inmates massacred. 
 
 At last the fighting Anabaptists were reduced 
 to four men who had entrenched themselves 
 in the tower of the Lamberti Church. Here 
 they for some time bid defiance to their foes, 
 killing several of the enemy who attempted 
 to reach them. The tower was held until three 
 of their number had fallen. The free-lances at 
 last bursting in, seized the survivor and hurled 
 him down on to the street below. 
 
 By mid-day on this 25th of June, 1535, the 
 city of Munster, the New Zion, passed once more 
 into the hands of its feudal overlord, Franz 
 von Waldeck. The Prince-Bishop received the 
 news of the capture of Munster by special mes- 
 senger at six o'clock the same evening. An 
 atrocious massacre throughout every quarter 
 of the town now ensued. We read of many 
 thrown from windows to be caught on the 
 
 ij 
 
 spears of the free-lances in the street below.
 
 MUNSTER'S FALL. 3zi 
 
 The promise of safe conduct to the three hun- 
 dred who had surrendered on the Prinzipal- 
 markt was only partially effective. Little distinc- 
 tion was made by the murderous, plundering 
 bands of 'free-lances between these and others. 
 All alike, irrespective of sex or age, were in- 
 volved in an indiscriminate butchery. The 
 greater number of fighting Anabaptists lay dead 
 in the market-place and surrounding streets. Of 
 the leaders, Hermann Tylbeck, who was seized in 
 the ^Egidi monastery, was immediately murdered 
 and his body thrown into the neighbouring sewer. 
 No attempt was made by the commanders of 
 the Bishop's army to stay the blood-lust of their 
 men. When at last it was necessary to step 
 in, it was only to give murder a legal form. 
 To the indiscriminate massacre wholesale execu- 
 tions succeeded. Every street and every public 
 building were filled with the bodies of the slain. 
 
 o 
 
 Jan of Leyden on his escape from the 
 Palace had taken refuge in the tower over the 
 ^Egidi gate. His disappearance was the cause 
 of great annoyance to the conquerors. At 
 length his whereabouts were betrayed by a 
 boy, and the free-lances at once proceeded to 
 seize him. As they appeared he adjured them
 
 312 ISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 not to lay hands on the Lord's anointed. 
 They immediately fell upon him with the words, 
 " If thou canst do ought, straw King, free thyself 
 from our hands!" Tearing the heavy gold chain 
 from his neck, they carried him back, bound, to 
 the Palace. Bernhardt Krechting, the chief coun- 
 sellor of the King, (who had been captured in 
 the fight on the market-place) was also kept in 
 confinement. His brother Heinrich Krechting 
 succeeded in breaking-out of the doomed city 
 with the remains of the little band who surren- 
 dered on the promise of safe conduct. The 
 u minister of justice " of the New Zion, Knipper- 
 dollinck, had disappeared and could nowhere be 
 found, and since, owing to the close watch which 
 was kept on all the city gates, it was consid- 
 ered impossible that he could have escaped, it 
 was concluded that he must be still in the town. 
 Having been reported as last seen in the neigh- 
 bourhood of the so-called u New" Gate, the Com- 
 mander-in-Chief of the army, Ulrich von Dhaun, 
 gave orders for all the surrounding houses to 
 be searched. Knipperdollinck had, in fact, first 
 concealed himself in a small house in the city- 
 wall, whence he had attempted to gain the open 
 during the night. He had succeeded in getting
 
 MUNSTER'S FALL. 313 
 
 over the wall, but finding the moat too deep, 
 returned again to the town. All the women 
 dwelling in the neighbourhood of the " New " 
 Gate were now ordered to appear on the mar- 
 ket-place and given the alternative of either 
 betraying Knipperdollinck or leaving the city. 
 Knipperdollinck's landlady, who was among 
 them, chose the former course. A detachment 
 of fifty men was at once told off to arrest the 
 great Anabaptist leader. As a reward for her 
 treachery the woman was given the freedom of 
 the town and her house spared plundering, but 
 her husband was beheaded in the Lamberti 
 churchyard. 
 
 The fate of Bernhardt Rothmann is unknown. 
 It is generally supposed that he was killed in 
 the street-fighting, and Dr. Ludwig Keller seems 
 to be of this opinion, but his body was never 
 found, although every search was made for it. 
 Fabrizius Roland, in his account of the Miinster 
 rising, informs us that a doctor of the town, 
 Gerhardt Marcellus by name, had informed him 
 that Rothmann had escaped into Friesland, 
 where he had taken refuse in the house of a 
 
 o 
 
 friendly nobleman. Another report at the time 
 indicated the town of Lubeck as his place of
 
 314 KfSE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 concealment. The authorities at Liibeck, on being 
 communicated with, denied that he was there. 
 They alleged, however, that he had been seen 
 in Rothstock, but at the time of replying had 
 disappeared from thence, leaving no trace behind 
 him. It has been suggested that he may possibly 
 have taken ship from the last mentioned town 
 to Sweden, and found an asylum with certain 
 friends to the cause that Knipperdollinck had 
 made there during his sojourn in the year 1524. 
 In any case, so far as certainty is concerned, the 
 fate of Rothmann is likely to remain an histori- 
 cal mystery. 
 
 Four days after the conquest of the town, the 
 Prince-Bishop, Franz von Waldeck, made his 
 official entry into Miinster. Steding, the leader 
 of the Free-lances, marched out to meet his 
 master at the head of eight hundred of his men. 
 He then formerly handed over to him the gold 
 chain, the sword, and the spurs of the King of 
 Zion, together with the keys of the city. Miinster 
 presented a terrible aspect after four days of 
 pillage and massacre, with its ruined houses, its 
 heaps of corpses, and its hunger-stricken popula- 
 tion. Waldeck, however, only remained in the 
 city two days, since Nemesis in the shape of
 
 MUNSTER'S FALL. 315 
 
 the plague followed close on the inhumanity of 
 the conquerors. The traitor Hans Eck von der 
 Langen Straten, on claiming his share of the 
 booty, was repudiated with contempt for the 
 role he had played by the very free-lances whom 
 he had led into the city. He went off with his 
 booty, but died shortly after from the effects of 
 a wound he had received in an altercation with 
 one of his own men. The mercenary troops, with 
 the exception of a small garrison left in the 
 town, were before long: disbanded. 
 
 O 
 
 A court was now established for the trial of 
 those who held Anabaptist views. The women 
 were for the most part given the alternative of 
 formally recanting their faith or being banished 
 the town. As a matter of fact, many of those 
 who were steadfast were executed, among them 
 being Divara, Jan of Leyden's " Queen," who 
 heroically confessed herself to remain a rebap- 
 tized daughter of Zion. She was beheaded in 
 the Cathedral close. All the male inhabitants 
 of Munster who had been in any way prominent 
 during the late regime, fared similarly. Bockelson 
 himself, Knipperdollinck, and Bernhardt Krecht- 
 ing, as the leaders of the whole movement, were 
 reserved for a more cruel fate. The Prince-
 
 3 i6 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 Bishop had Jan brought to him to Yburg, where 
 his quarters were. On Bockelson being led be- 
 fore him, Waldeck mockingly asked him, u Art 
 thou a King?" To which Jan replied, " Artthou 
 a Bishop?" On being further interrogated with 
 what right he had usurped power over the 
 inhabitants of Miinster, he again replied by 
 demanding of his conqueror, u Who hath given 
 thee right and power over the city of Miinster ?" 
 On the Bishop's replying that he had been 
 elected by the Cathedral Chapter and had been 
 confirmed in his position by the Pope and Em- 
 peror, Jan rejoined, " And I have been called to 
 the leadership by God and his Prophets." Wal- 
 deck then reproached Bockelson with the suf- 
 ferings he had brought upon his people and 
 the heavy losses he had occasioned the diocese. 
 The prisoner once more replied that, so far as 
 he was concerned, he would have held out till, 
 together with his people, he had perished of 
 hunger, rather than have surrendered the New 
 Zion to the godless. For the rest, Waldeck could 
 get back his costs if he would imprison him in 
 a cage and let him be shewn to the curious ; 
 the tribute of a gulden from every one anxious 
 to see the King of Zion would bring in money
 
 MUNSTER'S FALL. 317 
 
 not merely sufficient to cover the expenses of the 
 campaign, but to pay all Waldeck's private debts 
 as well. " Good," replied the Bishop, u I will shut 
 thee up in a cage indeed, but otherwise than as 
 thou hopest!" Jan Bockelson of Leyden, Prophet 
 and King of the New Jerusalem, was accordingly 
 enclosed in an iron cage and transported from town 
 to town, and from village to village, in the charge 
 of a guard of free-lances, to be exposed in the 
 market-places. In the course of his journey ings, 
 it is related by Conrad Heresbach in his " Ge- 
 schichte der Miinsterischcn Wiedertdufer-rotte" 
 that he was brought to Duke John of Cleves, 
 who is stated to have asked him what had 
 originally led him to go to Miinster, to which 
 Bockelson answered that the spirit had revealed 
 to him that Miinster was destined to be the 
 Heavenly Jerusalem, and that he himself should 
 accomplish great things there. In order to as- 
 sure himself of the truth of this revelation, he 
 had visited Krechting on his way, and had cured 
 a sick serving-maid in his house. In Miinster 
 itself a vision appeared to him in his bed-chamber, 
 that a silversmith from Holland should be killed 
 in the fighting outside Miinster, and that he 
 himself received the command of God to marry
 
 3i8 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 his widow. Finally, Bockelson was cast in chains 
 into one of Waldeck's castles, Krechting and 
 Knipperdollinck being imprisoned elsewhere 
 While in prison an attempt was made to induce 
 the stalwart Anabaptist leaders to recant. Sun- 
 dry theologians were sent for this purpose to 
 discourse with them, but without result. It is 
 alleged, indeed, on the part of the authorities 
 that Jan made certain concessions, apparently 
 in the hope of saving his life. Whether this 
 report be true or not, coming as it does from 
 prejudiced sources, we have no means of judging. 
 But even these witnesses admit that, in principal, 
 he remained unshakable. 
 
 After an imprisonment of six months, the three 
 Anabaptist leaders were, on the igth of January, 
 1536, brought back to Minister, there to go 
 through the farce of a final trial and to suffer 
 execution. The latter event we relate in the words 
 of the courtly chronicler of the Anabaptist history 
 of Miinster, Kerssenbroick (II. page 212). The 
 scene took place on the 22nd of January, 1536, on 
 the Prinzipalmarkt, in the presence of the Prince- 
 Bishop and a number of clerical and temporal dig- 
 nitaries. "The executioners first of all enclosed 
 the King in a collar of iron," writes Kerssen-
 
 MUNSTER'S FALL. 319 
 
 broick and bound him to a stake. Thereupon 
 they seized glowing pincers and fettled him on 
 all fleshy and other parts of his body, in such 
 wise that the flame shot out and such a stench 
 arose that those on the market could not bear it. 
 A like punishment did the others suffer, albeit 
 they bore this torment with less patience than 
 the King, and made known their pain with much 
 lamentation and crying." The official chronicler 
 goes on to describe how Knipperdollinck sought 
 to strangle himself with the collar that bound 
 him to the stake, and how the executioners, 
 seeing this, tied his head fast to the stake with 
 a cord passed through his teeth, and how, after 
 these unhappy martyrs to the doctrine of Ana- 
 baptism had been tortured as above long enough 
 to satiate the blood-thirst of their persecutors, 
 their tongues were torn out and they were 
 pierced to the heart with a dagger. The bodies 
 of Jan of Leyden and his companions were, as 
 is well known, placed in cages (probably the 
 same in which they had been borne living as 
 a public spectacle) and these were hung to the 
 tower of the Lamberti Church, where they remain- 
 ed undisturbed until a few years ago. The old 
 tower having then become structurally unsafe,
 
 320 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 had to be pulled down and was, with question- 
 able taste, replaced by an ordinary modern 
 steeple, on which, however, the original cages 
 may still be seen. 
 
 The conventional historian, in his conventional 
 hatred of the old militant Anabaptism with its 
 communistic tendencies, and writing as he does 
 in the interest of the possessing classes of his 
 own day, has been found not ashamed to con- 
 done, or even to justify, this fiendish and 
 atrocious crime perpetrated by the dominant 
 classes of a bygone age. And this, be it 
 remembered, is the same conventional historian 
 who, when writing of the French Revolution, can 
 gasp in horror over the September massacres 
 or the Reign of Terror, or, when treating of more 
 recent events in French history, can similarly 
 maunder, shuddering at the execution of the 
 Archbishop of Paris by the communards of 1871. 
 Verily the ethical judgments of the conventional 
 historian are wonderful and past finding out on 
 any theory of ethical logic hitherto accepted. 
 The doctrine of the u class-struggle " as the 
 basis of ethical as of other judgments alone 
 makes their real meaning clear. 
 
 The extinction of the Kingdom of God in
 
 MUNSTER'S FALL. 321 
 
 Miinster meant practically the end of militant 
 Anabaptism. The slaughter of Anabaptists under 
 the form of public execution was fearful in the 
 territory owning allegiance to the inhuman 
 monster Franz von Waldeck. 
 
 A papal legate sent on a mission to Miinster 
 shortly after the events in question, relates that 
 as he and his retinue neared the latter town u more 
 and more gibbets and wheels did we see on the 
 highways and in the villages where the false 
 prophets and Anabaptists had suffered for their 
 sins." He remarks that the Prince-Bishop of 
 Miinster seemed more like a captain of war 
 than a spiritual Prince. He received them, he 
 says, in his castle near Miinster, in the costume of 
 a military commander, and the next day he es- 
 corted them with warlike array into the city 
 itself. But, notwithstanding wholesale slaughters 
 and executions, numbers of fugitives from the 
 fallen city of the Saints succeeded in reaching 
 distant lands. Many are said to have come 
 over to England and as we shall see in the 
 next chapter, Anabaptists, and Anabaptism, first 
 came into prominent notice in England shortly 
 after this time. The disciples of the militant 
 Anabaptism which had made Miinster their 
 
 21
 
 322 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 stronghold never again attained to more than 
 local prominence. There were, nevertheless, a 
 few attempts during the succeeding half century 
 at insurrection in the interest of Anabaptism. 
 Thus, in the summer of 1548, an effervescence 
 manifested itself again in the Miinster territories, 
 and in this, and the following year, there were 
 disturbances and many attempts at arson. Nume- 
 rous executions, amongst them that of the 
 Miinster Prophet Dusentschur's sister Margaret, 
 did not mend matters. The agitation continued, 
 and became so threatening that in October 
 1556 the Prince-Bishop engaged bodies of free- 
 lances to clear the districts of its Anabaptist 
 elements. Each man was paid a wage of four 
 thalers a month, with twenty thalers premium 
 for every Anabaptist prisoner brought in. This 
 seems to have had the effect of suppressing 
 the movement for the time being. Little more 
 was heard of militant Anabaptism in West- 
 phalia till the year 1574, when a certain Johann 
 Wilmsen, the son of a preacher who after the 
 capture of Miinster had escaped into the terri- 
 tories of the Duke of Cleves, proclaimed him- 
 self a new King of Zion. He followed closely 
 the doctrine and practice of Jan of Leyden, inclu-
 
 MUNSTE&S FALL. 323 
 
 ding communism and polygamy. He gathered 
 together some three thousand fighting men 
 around him, and for some time successfully 
 devastated Westphalia and its surrounding dis- 
 tricts, attacking, not without success, castles and 
 other strongholds of the nobility. For five years 
 he set the constituted authorities at defiance. 
 Wilmsen was at last seized in the territory of 
 Jiilich. After a period of imprisonment he was 
 burnt alive on the market at Cleves on the 
 1 2th of March, 1580. In the absence of fuller 
 and more impartial information concerning Wilm- 
 sen, it is difficult to say with certainty whether 
 he was a genuine fanatic of the type of the 
 Munster prophets, or whether we have to do 
 with a charletan who used the name and doc- 
 trine of Anabaptism as a cloak for mere plun- 
 der and brigandage. It should not be forgot- 
 ten in this connection, that he stedfastly denied 
 to the last the excesses alleged against him, 
 and that our information concerning- him comes 
 
 O 
 
 exclusively from hostile sources. 
 
 We have seen that from the time Anabap- 
 tism began to spread to any extent, there were 
 two currents in the party; the one taking the 
 original anti-physical force and mainly theolo-
 
 3 2 4 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 gical direction; the other, more definitely poli- 
 tical, which implicitly or explicitly recognised 
 the justifiability and even the duty of a resort 
 to carnal weapons in the battle against the god- 
 less powers ol this world. For a long time the 
 original pacific current maintained the ascen- 
 dency, until a persistent and merciless persecu- 
 tion gradually, in the opening years of the 
 fourth decade of the century, gave to that tend- 
 ing in the opposite direction a vast increase 
 in power, while with Matthys, Bockelson, and 
 the success of the movement identified with 
 them throughout the North-Western territories 
 of the empire, it became for the time being 
 dominant throughout the Anabaptist world. 
 
 The effect of the fall of Miinster and the extinc- 
 tion of the reign of the Saints was to give the 
 pacific and non-resistant elements within the party 
 an impetus which caused them finally to regain 
 their original ascendency . In spite of the flicker- 
 ings of the militant Anabaptism above referred 
 to as having taken place in Westphalia and the 
 neighbouring districts on different occasions 
 during the next half century, Anabaptism never 
 again achieved anything as an independent 
 political force. What is more, the social side of
 
 MUNSTE&S FALL. 325 
 
 the movement, which had previously been recog- 
 nised by both sections alike, tended more and 
 more to fall into the background in favour of 
 purely theological interests. 
 
 The old family-communism among the faithful, 
 founded on what was believed to have been 
 the practice of Apostolic times, ceased to be 
 insisted upon. Already, in a Congress held in 
 August 1536 at Bockholt, the advocates of pacific 
 tendencies gained a decided victory over the 
 militant section. An extreme moderate party 
 called the " Obbenites," after its founder, one 
 Obbe-Philipps, attained increasing influence. It 
 taught, as one of its leading tenets, that no other 
 social and political conditions than those already 
 established were to be looked for here below, 
 and that it was the duty of the Saints to accept 
 them in all humility as the dispensation of God. 
 
 The new direction was strengthened by the 
 ability and influence of a new recruit, Menno 
 Simon. Simon, who was born in Friesland in 
 1492, had been a Catholic priest. Some author- 
 ities state that he did not definitely join the 
 party till 1536, though he seems to have had 
 relations of some kind with the movement for 
 three or four years previously, having supported
 
 326 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 the teaching of the moderate and non-political 
 section in 1533 against Jan Matthys, whose star 
 was then in the ascendant. Menno Simon's brother, 
 it should be mentioned, had died bravely fighting 
 for his co-religionists, as one of the crusaders 
 who set out in the spring of 1535 in the forlorn 
 hope of relieving Munster. Whether he had 
 already joined the movement before or not, 
 Menno in any case first became recognised as 
 a leader of the party from the time of the 
 Bockholt Congress of 1536. The moderate 
 section thenceforward began to take the name 
 of Mennonites. They were opposed by the 
 Batenburgers, the followers of Johannes Baten- 
 burg, the blirgermeister of a small Dutch town, 
 who had recently joined the party, and after the 
 fall of Munster became the leader of the revolu- 
 tionary political section. Batenburg was executed 
 m J 537 in th e Netherlands, and, as already 
 remarked, the tendency in the party represented 
 by him and his followers rapidly and steadily 
 declined in influence and numbers. In addition 
 to Menno Simon, David Georg, or Joris, as he is 
 sometimes called, one of the apostles sent out 
 from Munster by Jan of Leyden in the autumn 
 of 1534, now came prominently to the fore as
 
 MUNSTER'S FALL, 327 
 
 a leader. He seems at first to have endeavoured 
 to unite the two sections, but later on his 
 influence was thrown entirely on the side of 
 the prevalent non-political tendencies. We shall 
 have occasion to refer to the subsequent career 
 of David Georg in the next chapter, in connec- 
 tion with the Anabaptist movement in England, 
 for it was in the form of his teaching as modi- 
 fied by Henry Nicholas that Anabaptism for 
 the most part took root in this country. As 
 regards the socio-political question, Georg or 
 Joris, unlike the Mennonites who repudiated all 
 notion of socio-political change in this world, 
 made a concession to the extreme party (so- 
 called) in professing to believe in the ultimate 
 acceptance of Anabaptist teaching by the great 
 ones of the earth, who would then voluntarily 
 lay down their wealth and privileges, and thus 
 the ideal of the reign of the Saints on earth 
 would be pacifically inaugurated. Both Joris 
 and Simon succeeded in dying in the odour of 
 peaceful and well-to-do middle-class respectability. 
 Joris certainly had to adopt an assumed name 
 in order to live unmolested in prosperous 
 circumstances as an esteemed burgher of the 
 town of Basel. (See next chapter.) Menno, on
 
 328 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 the other hand, had no occasion for such sub- 
 terfuges. The harmlessness nay, utility for the 
 governing classes of teaching which insisted 
 on submission to the powers that be as a 
 Christian duty, became at length recognised by 
 the temporal authorities within whose juris- 
 diction he worked, and Menno Simon was allowed 
 not only to live and die in peace, but also found 
 time and opportunity to amass a not inconsider- 
 able fortune. David Georg or Joris died in 
 1556 in Basel, and Menno Simon in 1559 at 
 Aldesloe in Holstein, on the estate of a nobleman 
 in that territory, who, in the course of a military 
 career in the Netherlands, having come into 
 contact with the Anabaptists of Menno's school, 
 had formed a high opinion of their thrift, 
 sobriety, industry, and the virtues generally 
 associated with a thriving community of handi- 
 craftsmen, and in consequence had offered the 
 lands within his jurisdiction as a home for their 
 leader and as many of the rank and file as 
 liked to settle there. Towards the end of the 
 1 6th century the Anabaptist communities on the 
 continent of Europe, from Moravia on the one 
 hand, to the extreme of north-west Germany on 
 the other, began to settle down, as a rule, into
 
 MUNSTER'S FALL. 329 
 
 law-abiding and generally prosperous, religious 
 organisations. The old persecution, although 
 now and again feebly flickering up under the 
 pressure of local circumstances, never more 
 became general or sufficient to seriously threaten 
 the existence of the communities. Even the 
 Netherlands, where in earlier times religious per- 
 secution had raged with such intense fury, became, 
 after their liberation from the house of Habs- 
 burg, a safe asylum for all Protestant sects, 
 the Anabaptist included. By this time almost 
 the whole of the Anabaptist sectaries of these 
 regions had accepted the teaching of Menno 
 Simon, and hence the two appellations Ana- 
 baptist and Mennonite had become practically 
 synonymous, the older one, in fact, tending to 
 fall into disuse. Towards the end of the century 
 the Mennonites began to be openly tolerated, and 
 their meetings unmolested, in the low countries. 
 In 1626 they were officially recognised as a 
 religious body with the right to freedom of 
 worship, and as such they exist to this day. 
 A similar fate has befallen the Moravians and 
 other fractions of the once powerful and wide- 
 spread Anabaptist party so dreaded by those 
 in authority.
 
 330 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 The Anabaptist revolt of the fourth decade 
 of the 1 6th century is commonly regarded as 
 a kind of continuation or recrudescence of the 
 great peasant revolt of the previous decade. 
 There is, of course, much of truth in this view. 
 Both movements sprang from like economic 
 causes, and both movements represented sub- 
 stantially the same order of thought as regards 
 their ideal expressions. There was, however, a 
 difference between the two movements in respect 
 of the classes engaged in them. The revolt 
 of 1524 25 was predominantly an agrarian 
 and a peasant movement, although it was power- 
 fully assisted by the poorer handicraftsmen and 
 disinherited classes generally dwelling within 
 the walled towns. It was the peasantry in this 
 case which took the lead and initiated the 
 movement in almost every instance. The Ana- 
 baptist movement of ten years later was, on 
 the contrary, predominantly a townsman's move- 
 ment, although, coinciding as its objects did with 
 the aspirations of the peasantry, it had a con- 
 siderable support from among them. The Ana- 
 baptists leaders were not, as in the case of the 
 Peasants War, in the main drawn from the class 
 of the u man that wields the hoe" (to paraphrase
 
 MUNSTER'S FALL. 331 
 
 the phraseology of the time) : they were tailors, 
 smiths, bakers, shoemakers or carpenters. They 
 belonged, in short, to the class of the organised 
 handicraftsmen and journeymen who worked 
 within city walls. One figure, however, is promi- 
 nent in both movements alike, if, perhaps, not 
 so much in the latter as in the earlier, and that 
 is the ex-priest or preacher, the man who for- 
 mulated the social discontent of the time in the 
 guise of its prevalent theological conceptions. 
 
 After the close of the i6th century, Ana- 
 baptism lost all politico-social importance on the 
 continent of Europe. It had, however, a certain 
 afterglow in this country, during the following 
 century, notably up to the time of the Civil 
 Wars and the Commonwealth. With this subject, 
 with the influence, that is, of Anabaptism and 
 allied doctrines in England during the i6th and 
 1 7th centuries, we shall proceed to deal in the 
 following chapter.
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE ANABAPTIST MOVEMENT IN ENGLAND. 
 
 ANABAPTISM would seem to have been intro- 
 duced into England a few years after its origin 
 in Zurich, but precisely how, when, or by whom 
 is difficult to determine. Its appearance in this 
 country was heralded, we gather, by a book 
 entitled " The Sum of Scripture," many extracts 
 from which were formally condemned by an 
 assembly of Bishops and other theologians, con- 
 vened by Archbishop Warham at the command 
 of Henry the Eighth, in 1530. Two proclama- 
 tions for heresy were the outcome of this con- 
 vention. The seeds of certain heresies, it was 
 declared, had been sown u by the disciples of 
 Luther and other heretics, perverters of Christ's 
 religion." Severe punishments were threatened 
 u against those malicious and wicked sects of 
 heretics who, by perversion of Holy Scripture, do 
 induce erroneous opinions, sow sedition amongst 
 Christian people, and finally disturb the peace 
 and tranquillity of Christian realms, as lately
 
 THE ANABAPTIST MO VEMENTIN ENGLAND. 333 
 
 happened in some parts of Germany, where, by 
 the procurement and sedition of Martin Luther 
 and other heretics, were slain an infinite number 
 of Christian people." 1 
 
 The "other heretics" referred to in the above 
 extracts may reasonably be assumed to have 
 been Anabaptists or teachers of similar ten- 
 dency, whilst the allusion to the disturbance of 
 the peace lately in some parts of Germany has 
 clearly in view the Peasants War of 1525, which 
 was attributed to the pernicious effects of the 
 new doctrines that by this time (1530) had been 
 well-nigh all absorbed into the Anabaptist move- 
 ment. The sentiments indicated can hardly refer 
 to any other sect or body. 
 
 Two years before the English Church Council, 
 in 1528, we hear of seven Anabaptists hailing 
 from Holland having been arrested and thrown 
 into prison, and of two of them being subse- 
 quently burned. ' This would seem to indicate 
 
 1 Wilkin's "Concilia," tome III. p. 737. The italics in the 
 quotations are the present author's. 
 
 2 This statement is to be found in Henry D'Anvers' 
 "Treatise of Baptism," second edition, 1674, but I have 
 been unable to confirm it in detail from contemporary 
 authorities.
 
 334 &ISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 that Anabaptism was introduced into England 
 from Lower Rhenish rather than directly from 
 the original Swiss or south German sources, and 
 these seven persons may well have been the 
 actual protagonists of Anabaptism in England. 
 In the year in which Henry obtained recog- 
 nition of his claims as supreme Head of the 
 Church (1535), two edicts were issued against 
 Anabaptists and Sacramentaries. u Many of the 
 King's loving subjects," it was alleged, "had 
 been induced and encouraged arrogantly and 
 superstitiously to argue and dispute in open 
 places, taverns, and ale-houses, not only upon 
 baptism, but also upon the Holy Sacrament of 
 the altar." Concerning the King's purposes 
 towards such, we are informed, "forasmuch as 
 divers and sundry strangers of the sect and false 
 opinion of the Anabaptists and Sacramentaries, 
 being lately come into this realm, where they 
 lurk secretly in divers corners and places, 
 minding craftily and subtilly to provoke and stir 
 the King's loving subjects to their errors and 
 opinions, whereof part of them by the great 
 travail and diligence of the King's Highness 
 and His Council be apprehended and taken, the 
 King's Most Royal Majesty declareth like
 
 THE ANABAPTIST MO VEMENT IN ENGLAND. 335 
 
 a godly and Catholic Prince, that he abhorreth 
 and detesteth the same sects and their wicked 
 and abominable errors, and intendeth to proceed 
 against such of them as be already apprehended 
 according to their merits and the laws of the 
 realm." Those who continued recalcitrant were 
 also commanded to depart from the Kingdom 
 in eight or ten days. 
 
 This first proclamation does not seem to have 
 had much effect, since we find it followed up 
 not long after by another, wherein it is stated 
 that many strangers baptised in infancy, but 
 contemning that Holy Sacrament, had presump- 
 tuously re-baptised themselves, and entering the 
 King's dominions had everywhere spread their 
 pestilent heresies " against God and His Holy 
 Scriptures, to the great unquietness of Christen- 
 dom and perdition of innumerable Christian souls." 
 A great number, it says, had already been 
 judicially convicted, and the rest u shall for the 
 same suffer the pains of death." Another clause 
 somewhat modifies this by enacting the banish- 
 ment of all such heretics within twelve days on 
 pain of death. (Wilkin, " Consilia," tome III. 
 p. 759). In the year following these proclama- 
 tions, we find records of ten persons having
 
 336 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS, 
 
 been put to death in accordance with their pro- 
 visions in various parts of the Kingdom, and of 
 ten others having saved themselves by a timely 
 recantation. 
 
 Two years later, in 1538, great efforts were 
 made to expel those holding Anabaptist views 
 from the country, and otherwise to root out 
 the heresy. Evidence of communication with 
 the continental sectaries on the part of Eng- 
 lishmen holding similar doctrines, was afforded 
 by certain letters found on one of the German 
 Brethren, by name Peter Tasch, who was ap- 
 prehended by order of the Landgraf of Hesse. 
 An extensive correspondence seems to have 
 been disclosed between Tasch and certain Eng- 
 lish Anabaptists, one of whom had recently 
 published a book on the Incarnation of Christ. 
 From this correspondence it appears that Tasch 
 himself was intending shortly to visit England. 
 The Landgraf, who was just then in negotiation 
 with Henry the Eighth with a view to the latter 
 assuming the Headship of a Protestant league 
 of German Princes, informed the English King 
 of the above facts, and we may rest assured that 
 the English Anabaptists suffered in consequence. 
 
 There are occasional, but not very frequent
 
 THE ANABAPTIST MO VEMENT IN ENGLAND. 337 
 
 allusions to English Anabaptism and Anabaptists 
 in Bishop Latimer's sermons. Thus, in the fourth 
 sermon preached before Edward the Sixth on 
 March 29th, 1549, Latimer says: U I should have 
 told you here of a certain sect of hereticks that 
 speak against this order and doctrine. They would 
 have no magistrates nor judges on the earth. 
 Here I have to tell you what I heard of late 
 by the relation of a credible and a worshipful 
 man of a town in this realm of England that 
 hath above five hundred hereticks of this er- 
 roneous opinion in it, as he said." The orthodox 
 Protestants appear to have professed, sincerely 
 or otherwise, to have held the theory about 
 this time, that the Anabaptist missionaries were 
 emissaries of the Pope, sent to discredit the 
 Reform-doctrines in general. Whether Latimer 
 took this view or not is uncertain, but an early 
 editor of his sermons appends a footnote to 
 the above passage, in which he says that per- 
 sons were employed by the Pope during King 
 Edward's reign to preach the pernicious doc- 
 trines of the Anabaptists for the purpose of 
 obstructing the proceedings of the Reformers. 
 (Cf. Carte, " History of England," tome III. 
 pp. 252 sqq.) 
 
 22
 
 338 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 During Elisabeth's reign English Anabaptism 
 took definite shape in the form of a sect or 
 party calling themselves the Family of Love. 
 Its originator was one Henry Nicholas, Henrick 
 Nicklaes, or Heinrich Nicolai, according to the 
 various renderings of his name in English, 
 Dutch, and German respectively. For literary 
 purposes, it should here be mentioned, he ex- 
 clusively used the initials " H. N." Nicholas, as 
 we shall henceforth term him, it having been 
 the name by which he was always known in 
 this country, was a native of Miinster, the great 
 continental seat of militant Anabaptism, and was 
 probably born in the early part of 1501. He 
 is described as a wonder-child, who disputed on 
 theological topics when he was only eight years 
 old, and on account of the posers he put to his 
 unhappy father, the latter took him to the 
 Minorite monks of Miinster for advice. Nicholas 
 married at twenty, having become a member of 
 the company of mercers of his native town. In 
 spite of his trade avocations, he seems to have 
 found time to continue his favorite theological 
 hobby, for we hear of him having been im- 
 prisoned for heresy in Miinster, although soon 
 afterwards liberated. How his business fared at
 
 THE ANABAPTIST MO VEMENT IN ENGLAND. 339 
 
 this time we do not know, but a few years 
 later, in 1530, before, that is, the rise of 
 the great Anabaptist movement in his birth- 
 place, he migrated to Amsterdam, in which 
 city he again established himself in business. 
 There is little doubt that here he definitely 
 joined the Anabaptist sect, and we learn that 
 he was imprisoned for some time in 1535 on 
 suspicion of complicity with the Munster King- 
 dom of God. It was not, however, till 1540 
 that he appears to have felt a special or inde- 
 pendent prophetic call. In this year, he started 
 on a mission as the third Anabaptist prophet, 
 as he called himself. Whom he deemed the 
 first and second is not quite clear, though 
 probably Melchior Hoffmann and Jan of Leyden 
 (or possibly Matthys) were meant. 
 
 He took with him on his journey three U E1 
 ders" from amongst those of the Brethren who 
 
 o 
 
 had joined him. One of these Elders, whose 
 assumed name was Tobias, has left a record of 
 events connected with the life of Nicholas, in a 
 book published some time during the third 
 quarter of the sixteenth century and entitled 
 u Mirabilia opera Dei : Certaine wonderfulle 
 Works of God which happened to H. N. even
 
 340 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 from his youth. Published by Tobias, a Fellow 
 Elder with H. N. in the Household of Love." 
 In this book Tobias relates at length H. N.'s 
 early theological heart-burnings, and his visions 
 and dreams portending his future role as prophet. 
 He did not assume such role, according to this 
 first-hand authority, until he was thirty-nine years 
 old, namely, as above said, in the year 1540, 
 when he received the customary Anabaptist 
 revelation from God to himself, endowing him 
 with prophetic gifts and powers. u The Lord," 
 says Tobias, u chose him to be a minister of 
 His Holy Word, and prepared or ordained to 
 H. N. for his assistance in the same administra- 
 tion, Daniel, Elidad, and Tobias (the writer), 
 which continued always with him." Our author 
 goes on to say that, u driven by the Holy Spirit," 
 H. N. now endeavoured to set down all the 
 Lord had revealed and commanded him. He 
 soon, however, received a revelation that he 
 was to write no more in the place in which he 
 then was namely, Amsterdam but was to 
 travel eastward towards a certain place "and 
 dwell there till I Myself, by the hand of My 
 Angel, bring thee from thence." The objective 
 seems to have been Emden, in Westphalia,
 
 THE ANABAPT1STMO YEMEN T IN EN GLAND. 341 
 
 where, as we otherwise learn, Nicholas resided 
 some time. He appears at this time to have 
 undergone persecution, since Tobias tells us 
 that the Lord afflicted him heavily through his 
 enemies. u The Lord suffered him to fall into 
 the hands of the wicked, his enemies . . . and 
 suffered him to taste and feel the condemnation 
 of all ungodly ones in the hellish fire." In his 
 affliction he occupied himself in composing 
 psalms, which are given at length by his bio- 
 grapher, but amount to little more than turgid 
 paraphrases of the biblical psalms. In Chapter 
 XXVI. Tobias relates how his friend and spirit- 
 ual father was released from his misery, how 
 he continued to set forth his godly testimony 
 in writing, and how certain u evil ones" and 
 u false hearts " defamed him notwithstanding 
 that he was u no man's enemy nor contemned 
 any man for his religion." We gather that 
 H. N.'s enemies again succeeded in getting a 
 mandate launched against him when in the 
 fifty-ninth year of his age, but he could not be 
 arrested, u for the Lord carried him by the 
 hands of His Angels, openly, before the eyes of 
 his persecutors, away from that land." 
 
 In his sixty-fifth year, H. N. was ordered by
 
 342 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 God to arise and journey towards a land which 
 is not mentioned, but which was possibly Eng- 
 land. He was to separate himself from his 
 friends, with the exception of certain who were 
 indicated to wit, the Ancients and the faithful 
 ones. "For of them shall travel with thee 
 twenty-four, and they shall be called unto Me 
 Nazareans." In addition, he was to take with him 
 four of the chiefest seraphim in the Household 
 of Love. The seraphim, it should be premised, 
 were the foremost order in the hierarchy into 
 which Nicholas had organised his new Church. He 
 was to take with him copies of all his writings, 
 to the end that he might revise them with the 
 help of his Elders, in order to make them more 
 plain to the understanding. Tobias, our author, 
 was of the party, and he relates that they tra- 
 velled u seven times seven days," without eating 
 any kind of animal food u or creature that had 
 any breath of life in itself or had received any," 
 or drinking " any wine or strong drink for to 
 rejoice our hearts." Much space is given to the 
 relation of their religious exercises and their 
 growth in spiritual life during their wanderings, 
 and of their insight into the meaning of true 
 Christian teaching. Finally, on the fiftieth day
 
 THE ANABAPTIST MO VEMENT IN ENGLAND. 343 
 
 of the journey came unto them u a still, soft, 
 silent voice, wind, or spirit," and they were 
 " enlightened in Christ." They became, Tobias 
 says, altogether one being with the living God- 
 head of Jesus Christ, which appeared to them 
 as in a cloud. They were informed that the 
 land they were now in was the holy place of 
 God's dwelling, where all His true lovers were 
 to be brought. H. N. and his twenty-four Elders 
 and four seraphim were to dwell there with 
 God eternally. God would, through H. N., set 
 up His most holy priestly office of Love, and 
 he was to declare the doctrine over all the 
 world through its ministry. And since God had 
 united Himself with H. N. and the Elders, u all 
 what ye out of the same My judgment curse, 
 separate, or condemn, shall be accursed, sepa- 
 rated, and into hell condemned, and all what 
 ye bless shall be blessed in the Heavens." His 
 writings, as before said, were to be carefully 
 perused with the Elders, and the godly testi- 
 monies were to be declared in the plainest 
 manner and so transcribed. 
 
 It is difficult out of the strange mystic rig- 
 marole of which this book for the most part 
 consists, to make out anything very definite as
 
 344 &fSE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 to the history of the movement and its founder, 
 or as to the geographical location of the coun- 
 try in which the organisation of the new Church, 
 the so-called Family of Love, received its final 
 shape. It may have been one of the provinces 
 of western Germany, or it may have been, as 
 already suggested, England, the country of its 
 greatest success. 
 
 Another book, published about the same time 
 as that of Tobias, is called: "The Displaying 
 of an horrible secte of grosse and wicked Here- 
 tiques, naming themselves the Familie of Love, 
 with the lives of their Authors and what doc- 
 trine they teach in corners. Newly set forth 
 by I. R., 1578." The initials on the title-page 
 stand for one John Rogers, and the book, as 
 may be gathered from the title, was written 
 from a hostile stand-point and may have been 
 intended as a counterblast to Tobias's work. 
 The author in the preface remarks upon the 
 daily increase of this heresy, how in many 
 shires there are meetings and conventicles of 
 this Family of Love, " and into what number 
 they have grown," says I. R., u my hart reweth 
 to speak that which one of the same societie 
 did auouch to me for truth." And again,
 
 THE ANABAPT1STMO VEMENT IN ENGLAND. 345 
 
 speaking of their literature, he complains that 
 u many bookes are abroade, which I have not 
 seene, and many I have seene, which I could 
 not have the use of to reade," for, he says, 
 that unless one will be "pliant to their doctrine," 
 it is difficult to get hold of their books. He 
 
 o 
 
 also complains that they would not confer or 
 talk of any points of their doctrine with any 
 save such as were inclined to be of the same 
 mind. The author had been familiar with some 
 of the sect for a long time and had had much 
 personal intercourse with them. He writes in 
 the hope that his book may do them good. 
 
 As regards the character and behaviour of 
 H. N., he has the testimony of u diuers ancient 
 persons and of good credite of the Dutch 
 Church, who have been acquainted with the 
 same H. N. and have dwelt together in one 
 citie, and in one streete, being neere neighbours 
 and familiar friends, who have declared and 
 testified the certeintie of his behaviour and 
 demeanor." Rogers draws attention to the fact 
 that H. N. was a disciple of David Georg (Joris) 
 and reproaches him with publishing Georg's 
 doctrines under his own name as the outcome 
 of a pretended revelation from God. The
 
 346 KISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 author's preface concludes with an exhortation 
 to flee those who say that they have had a 
 direct revelation from Heaven, such being con- 
 trary to the teaching of Scripture. 
 
 After Rogers's own preface follows another, 
 by a certain Stephan Bateman, " Professour of 
 Divinitie, 5 ' who says that it is time to redress 
 the evil of these heretics " or else will assuredly 
 followe the like plague on us, as was at Munster 
 in Germaine, by David Georg, John a Leede, 
 Knipper Dolling (sic.), and others, the seede 
 whereof is H. N., Henrie Nicholas, nowe of 
 Colone, his disciple here in England, Christopher 
 Vittel, Joyner, and many more. . . ." 
 
 The book itself proper begins with a biogra- 
 phy of David Georg, how he was born in 
 Holland at Delft, how he there taught his errors 
 for forty years, how in 1544 he fled to Basel 
 with his family and kinsfolk, calling himself John 
 of Bridges, how after settling there he and his 
 were made free burghers of the town, how he 
 married his daughters very worshipfully, and 
 how he built two houses, one of which was 
 burned down through lightning, whilst the loft 
 of the other collapsed. These calamities are 
 regarded by the pious Rogers as warnings of
 
 THE ANABAPTISTMO VEMENT IN ENGLAND. 347 
 
 God's displeasure at unsound doctrine. He states 
 that Georg lived eleven years in Basel " and it 
 was not espied what doctrine he taught." At 
 length, Georg's son-in-law beginning to suspect the 
 orthodoxy of his wife's father's theological views, 
 the latter endeavoured, unsuccessfully, to convert 
 him. He wrote divers books, says Rogers, 
 especially the " Wonder-Book," in which he 
 taught his damnable errors. He declared, it 
 was said, that he would not die, or that if he 
 did he would rise again within three years. 
 He died, nevertheless, on August i6th, 1556. 
 The magistrates at Basel did not get wind of 
 his doctrines until after his death. When they 
 did, they ordered a house search amongst his 
 acquaintances, and such as were suspect of his 
 heresy were compelled solemnly to recant. The 
 body of Georg was afterwards dug up and 
 burned, together with his books and papers, 
 on the market-place, a painting of him found 
 in his house being included. The account of 
 Georg given by Rogers is confirmed in its main 
 facts from other sources. 
 
 But the "pernicious doctrine," although it may 
 have been stamped out in Basel by these drastic 
 measures, continued its course in its original
 
 348 KISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 home in Holland, foremost amongst its exponents 
 being Henry Nicholas, who now began to main- 
 tain Georg's ideas under his own name in his 
 assumed role of prophet. He has, Rogers con- 
 tinues, u written many books in the Dutch tongue 
 in a rude style, which many of his followers and 
 scholars have translated into divers languages : 
 his " Evangelium Regni " is in Latin, many are 
 also in a Dutch letter in English, translated 
 
 o 
 
 (as is supposed) by Christopher Vitell, a joyner, 
 dwelling sometime in Southwarke. . . ." This 
 Vitell, already alluded to by Rogers in his 
 preface, seems to have been the most earnest 
 and energetic of Nicholas's followers in this 
 country. He is much mentioned in connection 
 with Anabaptist and kindred doctrine at this 
 time, and we shall return to him again later 
 on. Rogers himself attributes to Vitell a large 
 measure of the success obtained by the new 
 heresy in England. Vitell, he goes on to say, 
 by his wandering about had " infected many 
 people with his poisoned doctrine, so much so 
 that it is difficult to root it out, for even if they 
 recant publicly, yet they return to their old 
 opinions, as is well scene by many I could name, 
 for it is a maxima in the Familie to denie before
 
 THE ANABAPTIST MO VEMENT IN ENGLAND. 349 
 
 men all their doctrine, so that they may keep 
 the same secrete in their hearts." Many English- 
 men, he continues, have been to Flanders to 
 confer with this H. N., whose mild nature, 
 humility, and patience they praise. 
 
 In the second chapter of this polemical work 
 the author gives biographical facts concerning 
 Nicholas, " testified by certeine of the Dutch 
 Church yet living, who knew the man and were 
 acquainted with him." Rogers erroneously states 
 that H. N. was born in Amsterdam, adding that 
 he was by many called Henry of Amsterdam, 
 which was the case. He left Amsterdam, he 
 says, with his brother John, about 1533, "when 
 a certain sturre was in the towne tending to 
 a tumult." The two brothers, he states, had 
 prepared money to aid the Anabaptist Brethren 
 in Mlinster. Their intentions were, however, 
 discovered by the authorities, which led to their 
 arrest and imprisonment. u At the last," he 
 says, u they forsook the citie and came to Emden, 
 a citie of Westfriesland." John Nicholas, the 
 brother, was a brewer, whilst Henry, as we know, 
 was a mercer. Respecting the latter, Rogers 
 relates that he was of reasonable tall stature. 
 11 somewhat grosse in bodie." His son, also
 
 350 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 called by Rogers John, kept his shop, but 
 other authorities give the name of the son who 
 attended to the business as Franz. u Henrie," 
 our author states, u was very brave in his 
 apparell, he would go in his crimson satten 
 doublet everie holiday." He devoted his time 
 to the writing of books, of which, besides the 
 u Evangelium Regni," is mentioned u The Glasse 
 of Righteousness," under which name he published 
 two works, the smaller of which was the better 
 known. 
 
 Rogers goes on to allege that Nicholas kept 
 three women in his house "of same appareil." 
 One of these was his wife, he said, one his 
 sister, and one his cousin. The alleged cousin, 
 falling ill, confessed to some neighbours who 
 came to visit her that H. N. had "abused her 
 bodie." On these persons denouncing him to 
 the magistrates, he had to flee and his goods 
 were seized. This is alleged to have happened 
 when he was about fifty-seven years of age. 
 It must not, however, be forgotten that the 
 story comes from a hostile source and may not 
 be authentic. He remained an exile from Am- 
 sterdam in the house of one of his disciples 
 for a year or thereabouts, and was thought to
 
 THE ANABAPTIST MO VEMENT IN ENGLAND. 351 
 
 have gone with a companion to Naples after 
 this. Many think, adds Rogers, that he is dead, 
 but those of the Family of Love in England 
 affirm that he is still alive. "If it be so," says 
 Rogers, "by this collection (sic) he cannot be 
 lesse that 78 years olde." 
 
 His biography finished, our champion of or- 
 thodoxy goes on to discuss the doctrines ofH. 
 N. and his followers. He, first of all, endeavours 
 to show the identity of their tenets with those 
 of the Miinster Anabaptists, calling attention to 
 the title assumed by Nicholas of " Restorator 
 Omnium'' and comparing it to that of Roth- 
 mann's celebrated brochure " The Book of Re- 
 storation," from which he gives extracts "that 
 the reader may perceive howe in many things 
 their doctrine in Miinster and the Familie in 
 England do agree." Eight articles from the 
 same book are then quoted, amongst them that 
 the writings of the prophets shall now be ful- 
 filled, that Martin Luther and the Bishop of 
 Rome are false prophets, "but of both Luther 
 is the worst," that the time of u Restauration " 
 is at hand, etc. " Their teachers in Minister," 
 Rogers continues, "were all or the most part 
 Hollanders, and David Georg did there teache
 
 352 KISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 his blasphemous doctrine at that time." Amongst 
 other tenets gathered out of the books of H. N. 
 and taught in this country by the Family of 
 Love, the following are given by Rogers: 
 that H. N. could no more err than Moses, the 
 prophets, or Christ, that the Elders of the 
 Family of Love possess divinity, inasmuch as 
 God has in them again become man, and that 
 the books of H. N. are of equal authority with 
 the Bible. 
 
 Concerning H.N.'s style, Rogers has the fol- 
 lowing observations : u For indeed in his Bookes 
 he doeth not deale so plainly, as one being 
 ledde by the spirit of God, whereof he boas- 
 theth : but verie subtilely, and darkely. . . . Many 
 godly and learned men, to whom I have de- 
 liuered his books . . . have testified, that there 
 is no matter in the Author, that may bee 
 drawen into argument, but that it seemeth to 
 be as a riddle, or darke speeche." And again: 
 u As his tearmes and phrases are geyson and 
 unwonted, soe they doe dasell the simple, with 
 an admiration of a prudent spirite to be in the 
 Author, whiche of meane wittes can neither be 
 comprehended nor understood." 
 
 Emphasising the fact that H. N. is no more
 
 THE ANABAPTIST MO VEMENT IN ENGLAND. 353 
 
 than a disciple of David Georg, he quotes pas- 
 sages from Georg's writings to the effect that 
 the doctrine taught by Moses, the prophets, and 
 Christ, is not enough for salvation, but only to 
 keep people in order till the coming of himself, 
 David Georg, who is the true Messiah born ol 
 the Holy Ghost. According to Rogers, David 
 Georg u was the hatcher of this heresie, and 
 layde the egge, but H. N. brought forth the 
 chicken." Rogers hears that there are at least 
 a thousand followers of H. N. in England. Pas- 
 sages are also quoted tending to show that H. 
 IsT., probably at a later period of his life, favour- 
 ed sundry doctrines and practices of the Church 
 of Rome. He had said that his followers might 
 live under the obedience of any magistrate 
 however ungodly, be he even the Turk or the 
 Pope. He alleges that H. N. had been on terms 
 of intimacy with a certain Cardinal Granella. 
 By these facts he endeavours to give colour, 
 as regards H. N. and his teaching, to the old 
 calumny that the Pope was at the back of the 
 Anabaptist movement. He exhorts all the fol- 
 lowers of H. N. to forsake the " drowsy dreams 
 of a doting Dutchman," who, he complains, 
 would make u the true sense of the Holy Ghost" 
 
 23
 
 354 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 of none effect by turning the biblical narrative 
 into an allegory of his own tenets. 
 
 The latter portion of Rogers' book contains 
 "an admonition to Christopher Vitell," in which 
 the worthy Vitell is accused of having taught 
 the doctrine of the Arians during Mary's reign, 
 and of having had to recant the same at 
 St Paul's Cross in the first year of Elizabeth's, 
 "as by the .register of ye Bishop of London 
 doth manifestly appeare." Alluding to this and 
 apostrophising Vitell, the author says : u and now 
 Sathan hath possessed your mind with infinite 
 more blasphemies of H. N.," adding u some of our 
 own family can testify that you are an hypocrite 
 and a dissembler and live of the spoile of the 
 poor." At the close of the book, a confession 
 is given, made by two of the Family of Love, 
 or Familists, as the followers of H. N. were 
 commonly called, "before a worthy and wor- 
 shipful Justice of the Peace on the 28th of Maie, 
 1561, touching the errors taught amongst them 
 at their assemblies." The confession states that 
 they, the Familists, " be generally all unlearned," 
 that only some of them can read English and 
 that not very well, but of these the Elders and 
 Deacons are chosen, that the congregations
 
 THE ANABAPTIST MO VEMENT IN ENGLAND. 355 
 
 meet at one of the disciples' houses, usually to 
 the number of about thirty persons, the Bishop 
 or Deacon reading and expounding the Scrip- 
 ture to them. When any new member is to be 
 received into the congregation, all the Brethren 
 assemble, and the Bishop or Elder declares to 
 the new Brother that if he will be content that 
 all his goods shall be in common amongst the 
 rest of his Brethren he shall be received. He 
 is then formally admitted, all the men and women 
 of the congregation kissing him in turn. At 
 their meetings, it is stated by the two depo- 
 nents, they all have meat, drink, and lodging, 
 at the cost and charge of the owner of the 
 house, whom they call a Raab. It is added 
 that they remain as long as he has good vic- 
 tuals for them, whereby sometimes they lose 
 their Raab, who thinks himself overcharged 
 in the matter of hospitality. The meetings are 
 always held at night, each person knocking at 
 the door and announcing himself or herself 
 with the words, u Here is a Brother or Sister 
 in Christ." The Elder is not allowed to speak 
 when the Bishop is present, nor the Deacon 
 before either of his superiors. 
 
 At the beginning of Mary's reign, they refus-
 
 356 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 ed to go to church, but shortly afterwards 
 they seem to have agreed amongst themselves 
 to do outwardly all things that were required 
 of them, though inwardly holding steadfastly 
 to their faith. They are forbidden to say u God 
 speede," u God morrow," or u God even," but 
 are to address one another with the salutation 
 " speede," " morrowe," " even." They may not 
 say "God save" anything, for they affirm that 
 all things are ruled by nature and not directly 
 by God. At one time they prohibited the car- 
 rying of weapons, but as they became noted 
 and marked they now allow the bearing of 
 "staves." They are not bound to deal truly 
 with any man in word or deed that is not of 
 their sect. When their wives are to be deliv- 
 ered of child, they must use the help of none 
 other but those of their sect. If any of them 
 die, the husband or wife surviving must marry 
 again with one of the sect, or else the offence 
 is great. The marriage is made by the 
 Brethren, who bring them together, some- 
 times even when the persons designated live 
 a hundred miles asunder, as, for instance, 
 Thomas Chandler, who lived in Surrey, has his 
 wife fetched out of Ely by two of the congre-
 
 THE ANABAPTIST MO VEMENT IN ENGLAND. 357 
 
 gation, the man and the woman being utter 
 strangers. They can divorce themselves before 
 certain of the congregation, as indeed the same 
 Chandler and his wife did, after they had been 
 married a year. According to the deposition, 
 the Familists deny the dogma of the Trinity 
 and maintain that no man should be baptised 
 before the age of thirty. They hold, our de- 
 ponents say, that heaven and hell are present 
 in the world amongst us and that there are 
 
 o 
 
 none other. To bury the dead is objected to 
 by them. They repeat u let the dead bury their 
 dead." The two witnesses do not explain this 
 objection. They reject the Sabbath-Day, holding 
 all days to be alike. They believe that there 
 was a world before Adam's time as there is 
 now. They think that no man should be put 
 to death for his opinion, and they strongly 
 condemn Cranmer and Ridley for burning Joan 
 of Kent. All alms are given by them to the 
 Elders and Bishops, who have the distributing 
 of them at their will, but to whom they are 
 distributed no-one of the congregation knows. 
 The usual statement is added in this connection 
 as to the Bishops, Elders, and Deacons increas- 
 ing in riches and becoming wealthy, whilst
 
 358 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 their disciples waxed poor and fell into beggary 
 a statement that may be either true or a 
 calumny, so far as our means of judging at present 
 are concerned. It may even in this case have 
 been added by Rogers himself, the canons of 
 literary morality at this time not being strict. 
 
 We have given this evidence at length and 
 as nearly as possible in the alleged ipsissima verba 
 of the witnesses, as it is about the only succinct 
 statement in existence of the leading tenets of 
 the sect of the Familists. This, as will be noticed, 
 contains hardly a doctrine that cannot be par- 
 alleled in one or other of the earlier sects into 
 which the Anabaptist movement was divided, 
 and which are indicated in Bullinger's enumera- 
 tion. We should not, however, omit to mention 
 that both Nicholas himself and his followers, the 
 former towards the close of his life and the latter 
 at a subsequent period, were prepared to depre- 
 cate or even to repudiate the denomination of 
 Anabaptist. Thus the English Familists are 
 found presenting a petition to King James I. in 
 the year 1604, in which they u utterly disclaim 
 and detest all the absurd and self-conceited 
 opinions and disobedient and erroneous sorts of 
 the Anabaptists, Brown, Penry, Puritans, and
 
 THE ANABAPTIST MO VEMENT IN ENGLAND. 359 
 
 all the other proud-minded sects and heresies." 
 This emphatic declaration did not, however, 
 prevent them from remaining under the ban of 
 the law until they were lost sight of amongst 
 the numerous sects and parties of the Common- 
 wealth. 
 
 As to the writings of Nicholas himself, there 
 remains little to say. The Evangelium Regni, 
 regarded by many as his chief work, is to the 
 modern reader nothing but a turgid mass of 
 theological maunderings, which drones on page 
 after page without apparently coming to any 
 intelligible point, and out of which it is difficult 
 to make any coherent doctrine. In spite ot 
 everything, the sect seems to have made con- 
 tinuous progress towards the end of Elizabeth's 
 reign, and the action of the Privy Council in 
 1579 in deciding to hinder the further advance 
 of this " lovely fraternity" (Cf. Documentary 
 Annals, I. 392-396) does not seem to have resulted 
 in anything important. 
 
 We have seen that the most energetic and 
 probably the ablest apostle of H. N.'s teaching 
 in England was Christopher Vitell, the Southwark 
 joiner, who translated many of H. N.'s writings 
 from Dutch into English. The chief scene of his
 
 360 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 activity appears to have been the eastern counties, 
 especially Essex and Cambridgeshire. (Cf. Strype's 
 Annals, II. i. 487, ii. 285.) Vitell, it is reported, had 
 worked in Holland, where he made the acquaint- 
 ance of Nicholas and his followers, and whence, 
 it is said, he brought the doctrine into England in 
 the reign of Mary, when he came out of Delft 
 to Colchester and joined himself to the profes- 
 sors of the Gospel there. He taught that the 
 godly have in themselves free-will to do good, 
 and he u could not away with predestination." 
 Strype (ii. 596, 597) quotes the testimony of 
 one Henry Crinel concerning Vitell and his teach- 
 ing. This Crinel came to Colchester in 1555, 
 where he met the Anabaptist joiner, who, says 
 he, u as far as I could at that time learn, held 
 many strange opinions and also taught divers 
 points of doctrine scarce found and such as 
 seemed to be before unheard of." Vitell had, 
 Crinel says, left his trade of joiner to become 
 "a great and learned school-master of the doc- 
 trine of a man who lived, as he said, beyond 
 
 the seas This man he praised very much 
 
 and reported many wonderful things of his an- 
 gelic behaviour, who afterwards I understood 
 to be one Henry Nicholas, a mercer of Delft,
 
 THE ANABAPTIST MO VEMENT IN ENGLAND. 361 
 
 in Holland." Vitell, he says, denounced infant 
 baptism and condemned the Litany as set forth 
 in Edward VI. 's reign. He denied the divinity 
 of Christ and held that the godly cannot sin 
 and hence had no need of the prayer, "Have 
 mercy upon us miserable sinners!" Crinel ad- 
 mits that he was impressed with Vitell's " bab- 
 bling," as he terms it, so much so that he 
 thought of going to Oxford to consult Ridley 
 and Latimer on the matter, had he not met 
 with some men who satisfied his conscience in 
 the mean season. Vitell wandered about the 
 country and so came also to Willingham "where," 
 says Crinel, "I dwell; and sent me to come 
 and speak with him at an ale-house. But I sent 
 him word, I would not come at him, nor have 
 to do with him. This is very true : and so I 
 testify with mine own hand : By me, Henry 
 Crinel, of Willingham." It is clear from the 
 above that the Arianism attributed to Vitell in 
 the reign of Mary, which Roger seems to dis- 
 tinguish from his subsequent Familism, was 
 really part of one and the same teaching. Strype 
 also adds a similar statement to that of Rogers, 
 as to Vitell's having openly recanted and been 
 received again into the Church ; but he also
 
 362 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 admits that u the Family," meaning the Family 
 of Love, denied this. Vitell seems to have had 
 as co-adjutors in his propaganda two men named 
 John Kemp and Henry Hart, who were called 
 " free-will men " and who also had been infor- 
 med against for heresy in Mary's reign. 
 
 Towards the close of the sixteenth century 
 and in the first part of the seventeenth, various 
 tractates and polemical essays, other than those 
 mentioned, appeared, both attacking and defend- 
 ing the doctrines of H. N., though more usually 
 the former. Of these may be adduced one en- 
 titled " An Apology," purporting to be written 
 by u One of the Queen's Menial Servants" and 
 dedicated to the Parliament then sitting. It con- 
 sists in an endeavour to whitewash the Fami- 
 lists of the charge of heresy, insisting that they 
 do not reject the Apostles' creed and the dogma 
 of the Trinity, and protesting that they use no 
 other ceremonies, laws, sacraments, etc., than 
 such as the English Church admits, and that 
 they obey the Queen and the magistrates, both 
 spiritual and temporal. It indignantly repudiates 
 that they were libertines, sleeping with one 
 another's wives, that they desired, as was al- 
 leged, all men's goods to be in common, or that
 
 THE ANABAPTIST MO VEMENT IN ENGLAND. 363 
 
 they were hostile to the State that is, to the 
 temporal powers appointed by God. This tract, 
 though a mere piece of special pleading not to 
 be regarded as trustworthy in its representation 
 of the views of the sect, seems to have had 
 some vogue, as it was reprinted under the 
 Commonwealth in 1656. It may be taken as 
 belonging to a type of apologetic literature in 
 which the apologist sets himself the task of 
 showing that an unpopular system or doctrine 
 means simply nothing at all but what everybody 
 else amongst his contemporaries professes to 
 hold. We have in the present day, mutatis 
 mutandis, a corresponding kind of apologist for 
 Socialism, who is ever intent on showing that 
 Socialist principles involve little or no change, 
 other than in points of detail, in the constitu- 
 tion of the existing order of Society. 
 
 On the hostile side of the controversy may 
 be mentioned a brochure entitled " A Confu- 
 tation of certain Articles delivered unto the 
 Family of Love, with the Exposition of Theo- 
 philus, a supposed Elder of the same Family, 
 upon the same Articles." This book, dated 1579, 
 is dedicated to the Bishop of Ely, because, it 
 explains, such kind of heretics are to be found
 
 364 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 increasingly in his diocese. The writer, a certain 
 William Wilkinson, M.A., notes down fourteen 
 articles of heresies and errors of H. N., which 
 he purports to confute. These, he says, he 
 had shown to certain of the Family of Love 
 before publication, and had received answers 
 from Theophilus, one of their Elders, stating 
 that u out of his malicious mind" the author 
 had perverted the sense of the articles and 
 framed sundry of them into errors. Wilkinson, 
 in his turn, replies to Theophilus paragraph by 
 paragraph, concluding his book with an appendix, 
 u Notes to Know an Heretic," in which he quotes 
 largely from Bullinger, especially from his enume- 
 ration of the Anabaptist sects. In the same 
 year appeared another book, attacking the 
 teachings of H. N. and dedicated to the Earl 
 of Warwick, in which the author, J. Knewstubs, 
 in his dedicatory preface exhorts the Earl to 
 the u redress of a dangerous enormity which of 
 late hath broken out in this land," to wit, the 
 u atheism" brought by H. N. and his household, 
 "who would be called the Family of Love." 
 The book is called " A Confutation of certain 
 Monstrous Heresies taught by H. N." Knew- 
 stubs hopes that what he says will sufficiently
 
 THE ANABAPTIST MO VEMENT IN ENGLAND. 365 
 
 persuade his honour ' to enter into some speedy 
 care and consideration to suppress so great and 
 grievous a danger." 
 
 We hear of other sects, such as the Family 
 of the Mount, the Essentialists, and the Liber- 
 tines, which seem to have been off-shoots of 
 the Family of Love, holding similar doctrines 
 and practising a similar mode of life. Strype 
 (Annals, II. 379, 380) says of the Family of the 
 Mount that they lived in communism and in 
 mutual edification, that they denied the utility 
 of prayer, the resurrection of the body, also 
 heaven and hell in the conventional sense, 
 alleging that heaven is when men laugh, and 
 hell when they are in pain or sorrow. He 
 intimates that they held a rationalist explanation 
 of Scripture and that they averred that all 
 things came by nature. The Essentialists, he 
 says, took their opinions from a Mistress Dunbar, 
 a Scotchwoman. They believed that there was 
 no such thing as sin at all, for God did every- 
 thing in love. The Libertines, he says, held, 
 like the earlier Anabaptists, that no doctors nor 
 learned men could preach the word truly, basing 
 this opinion on the saying of Christ that the 
 Gospel was hidden from the wise and prudent
 
 366 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 and revealed to babes and sucklings. Like 
 the earlier Anabaptists, too, they asserted that 
 the Bible in itself was but ink and paper, that 
 it was of secondary significance only, but that 
 the true word of God was the spirit and life 
 of the individual believer. This is, of course, 
 simply a recrudescence of the old Anabaptist 
 doctrine of the " inner light." u These and the 
 like," remarks Strype, u were the spawn and 
 improvements of this Family of Love." All this 
 time H. N.'s writings were circulating in Eng- 
 lish, probably in Vitell's translation, as we know 
 that certain of them were his work. They in- 
 cluded the "Evangelium Regni," the " Glass of 
 Righteousness," and also his Epistles, which were 
 published in English, presumably by Vitell, in 
 1577, under the title of u The Choice Letters 
 of H. N., which he by the Holy Spirit of Love 
 hath set forth," etc. 
 
 The most flourishing period of the sect is not 
 quite easy to determine from the evidence, but 
 between 1570 and 1580 it undoubtedly created 
 considerable stir in the country, more especially 
 in the eastern counties, so much so that Eliza- 
 beth's lords of Council sent urgent letters to the 
 Bishop of Norwich, pressing him to take forth-
 
 THE ANABAPT1STMO VEMENT IN ENGLAND. 367 
 
 with most stringent measures for its suppression. 
 The Bishop, in his reply, promised to deal 
 severely with the sectaries during his next visit- 
 ation. On that occasion, he found that numbers 
 of his clergy were infected with the new heresy 
 (Strype, ii. 584). 
 
 More than two generations later, notwith- 
 standing persuasion and persecution, the Fami- 
 lists seem to have been still to the fore. Strype 
 refers to one Randal as " a Preacher to these 
 Sectaries, in an House within the Spittle- Yard 
 without Bishopsgate, London, in the year 1645, 
 teaching the very doctrine, and many people 
 flocking after him." In consequence of the 
 success of the propagandism in the above-men- 
 tioned year, a polemical brochure was published 
 entitled " A Brief Discovery of the Blasphemous 
 Doctrine of Familism," in which the usual charges 
 were made against the sect. 
 
 During the Commonwealth and subsequently, 
 the followers of Nicholas seem to have fallen 
 very much into the background amongst the 
 various sects, puritanical and otherwise, which 
 at that time had a popularity, and they never 
 again assumed their former importance. But 
 that the sect continued to exist until almost, if
 
 368 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 not quite, the end of the seventeenth century 
 is evidenced by the fact that Strype, writing in 
 the early part of the eighteenth century, says 
 that he remembers u a gentleman, a great ad- 
 mirer of that sect, within less than twenty years 
 ago, who told me that there then was but one 
 of the Family of Love alive and he an old 
 man." On the continent, the sect would seem to 
 have disappeared sooner. 
 
 The connection between the Family of Love 
 and Anabaptists generally and the various puri- 
 tanical and dissenting sects of the Commonwealth 
 and the time of Charles II. is rather obscure, 
 though traces of such a connection are visible 
 in several instances. For example, in certain 
 respects we find indications of the Anabaptist 
 tradition in such bodies as the " Ranters," and, 
 what is more important, in the Quakers and in 
 John Bunyan, as well, of course, as in the earlier 
 phases of the modern orthodox Baptist denom- 
 ination. Respecting the u Ranters," the fullest 
 account I have been able to obtain is from a 
 hostile pamphlet in the Bodleian Library entitled 
 "The Ranters' Ranting, or a True Relation ot 
 a Sort of People called Ranters, with some of 
 their abominable and wicked Carriages and
 
 THE ANABAPTIST MO VEMENT IN ENGLAND. 369 
 
 Behaviour at their Public Meetings." The 
 meetings, this pamphlet says, were held first of 
 all in Shoemaker's alley, in London, beginning 
 at four o'clock in the afternoon and sometimes 
 continuing till nine o'clock the next morning, 
 which time, says the writer, "was spent in 
 drunkenness, uncleanness, blasphemous words, 
 filthy songs, and mixed dancing of men and 
 women stark naked " A party of them were 
 apprehended at one of their meetings held in 
 Whitechapel. 
 
 The greeting of the Brethren consisted in a 
 kiss, followed by the words, "Welcome, fellow- 
 creature ! " the latter being the designation 
 generally used by the members of the sect to 
 each other. At a meeting held by them at a 
 tavern in London, one of them is alleged to 
 have let drop a paper, which was subsequently 
 found, containing the regulation summons to the 
 female members to assemble. This, which may 
 have been a forgery, was as follows : u Dear 
 Sister and Fellow Creature, whose sweetness we 
 reverence and whose person we adore, whose 
 witty conceits we admire and whose subtlety 
 we wonder at, we do by this our handwriting 
 enjoin that you personally appear at the place 
 
 24
 
 370 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 where we last had some infernal conference half 
 an hour past four in the afternoon of this present 
 day. Hereof you are commanded not to fail, 
 for that Beelzebub, Lucifer, Pluto, and above 
 twenty more of the Princes and Officers will 
 attend, etc. Signed Diabolo. Dated at our in- 
 fernall Pallace without Bishopsgate, tenth of 
 October, 1650." The writer of this curious 
 pamphlet, which describes the meetings of the 
 sect as simple orgies, states that one of the 
 members " discoursing at the Spittle said that 
 he knew no difference between God and the 
 Divell ; and being asked what he thought of the 
 Divell, he answered that it was an old woman 
 stuffed with parsley." Our author continues, "I 
 am credibly informed that some of them deny 
 the immortality of the soul, and so holding an 
 opinion that there is neither heaven nor hell, 
 etc." It is difficult to know whether we are to 
 regard this strange sect as having any real 
 organisation and following, or as denoting a 
 mere sporadic eccentricity on the part of a few 
 individuals without any continuance or indepen- 
 dent importance. In any case, even if it were 
 only a passing craze, the salutation and the 
 nudity of the gatherings recall some of the
 
 THE ANABAPTIST MO VEMENT IN ENGLAND. 37 1 
 
 characteristics met with in certain phases of 
 German Anabaptism, such, for instance, as we 
 have seen manifested, according to Kessler, in 
 the St. Gallen movement, as also in the case 
 narrated in a previous chapter as having happen- 
 ed at the house of the cloth-merchant in Am- 
 sterdam. 
 
 The resemblance between many of the tenets 
 of the Quakers and those of the Anabaptists 
 is sufficiently clear. We see, for example, the 
 doctrine of non-resistance, the contempt for the 
 " steeple-houses " the Munsterites had called 
 churches u stone-heaps " the condemnation of 
 all outward forms and ceremonies, and the doc- 
 trine of the inspiration of the inner light as the 
 supreme court of appeal. These are all tho- 
 roughly Anabaptist in origin. The simple cha- 
 racter of their meetings, moreover, notwith- 
 standing some possible points of difference, 
 bears an unmistakable family likeness to those 
 of the Anabaptist sects. Anabaptism, especially 
 in its later form in the teaching of Henry Ni- 
 cholas and its off-shoots, was undoubtedly in 
 the air at the time when George Fox was born 
 and grew up. That he had come across writings 
 of an Anabaptist tendency, of the Familists and
 
 372 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 others, is exceedingly probable. The commu- 
 nistic side of the earlier Anabaptism appears 
 in a shadowy form in Quakerism in the shape 
 of the special stress laid upon the duty of alms- 
 giving to the poorer members of the denomi- 
 nation. It is also noteworthy that the parts of 
 England where the followers of Nicholas and 
 similar sects chiefly flourished, became the most 
 fruitful seed-ground of Quaker principles. By 
 their contemporaries the Friends were uniformly 
 regarded as a sect of Anabaptists, as may 
 easily be seen from the theological literature 
 of the period. 
 
 The extension of their objection to sacraments 
 to that of repudiating baptism itself does not 
 entirely differentiate them from the Anabap- 
 tists, for we find that Bullinger mentions some 
 amongst the Anabaptists of his own time who 
 regarded the ceremony as superfluous, whilst 
 certainly the bulk of them would have held it 
 not essential to the soul's salvation. We many 
 recall in this connection how Melchior Hoffmann 
 and his disciples agreed from motives of expe- 
 diency to the suspension of baptism for two 
 whole years. This they would hardly have done 
 had they deemed it an essential rite. Probably,
 
 THE ANABAPTIST MO YEMEN TIN EN GLAND. 373 
 
 by most Anabaptists it was never viewed in 
 any other light than as a useful sign to diffe- 
 rentiate the Brethren within the spiritual fold 
 from the heathen and godless without The 
 acceptance of infant baptism would have put 
 the Quakers out of court with Anabaptists of 
 every order, but the mere fact of going a step 
 farther and rejecting adult baptism as well, 
 would not. Even in their eccentricities and 
 aberrations a correspondence may be traced 
 between the English Quakers of the seventeenth 
 century and the German Anabaptists of the 
 sixteenth. Not alone is the ascetic puritanism of 
 the one prominent in the other, but the scorn 
 of all that savoured of the things of the world, 
 the lust of the eye and the pride of life, is 
 also reproduced in the plain, grey garb of the 
 Quaker and his special modes of salutation, in- 
 cluding his pedantic worship of the letter of 
 truthfulness, as illustrated in his refusal to adopt 
 the current forms of polite address. There is 
 more in these things than what is common to 
 the whole of the puritanical religious conscious- 
 ness of that period. The doctrine that the inner 
 light in the soul of the believer was the highest 
 standard of authority in spiritual matters, taking
 
 374 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 precedence even of the letter of Scripture itself 
 which the average puritan of the time regarded 
 as final is of itself a sufficient line of demar- 
 cation. 
 
 Even in the manifestations of religious mania 
 that afflicted certain of their members at times, 
 the earlier Anabaptism and the later Quakerism 
 have most distinct points of correspondence. 
 The very evidence of eccentric behaviour from 
 which the sect acquired its name serves to prove 
 this. No-one who has read the accounts of the 
 peculiar orgies recorded of the sectaries in Ger- 
 many and the Netherlands in the first half of 
 the sixteenth century will fail to recognise the 
 almost identical symptoms in those related 
 of the Quakers during the second half of the 
 seventeenth. Some remarkable stories of this 
 kind of thing are told in a work entitled u The 
 Fanatick History, or an exact Relation and 
 Account of the Old Anabaptists and New 
 Quakers," which was published anonymously by 
 one Richard Blome in 1660. It deals with the 
 latest English developments of religious sectari- 
 anism, besides including a history of the Ana- 
 baptists of Miinster. The work, although hostile, 
 contains many narratives of a detailed and
 
 THE ANABAPTIST MO VEMENT IN ENGLAND. 375 
 
 circumstantial character that can hardly be other- 
 wise than accepted as true in their essential 
 features. Thus we read how John Gilpin howled 
 upon his bed and cried in a hideous manner, 
 how he had visions and felt the divine spirit 
 enter his body, how he was promised to be 
 endowed with the spirit of prophecy, how at a 
 meeting of the Friends he was thrown upon 
 the ground in the midst of the company, where 
 he lay all night, how he was turned from back 
 to belly, making crosses continually with his 
 legs a distinct Anabaptist touch how he was 
 finally led down a street to enter u the fidler's 
 house," where his hand was carried to a " bass- 
 viol," upon which he played, afterwards being 
 impelled to fall a-dancing, and so forth. Many 
 more things of this nature indicative of acute 
 religious mania are given of this Gilpin, and 
 the narrative is alleged to be vouched for by 
 Gilpin himself and by others of known fidelity 
 in or near Kendal, in Westmoreland, where the 
 events are said to have happened, 
 
 Again, of John Tolderry, it is related that he 
 was exalted by earnest prayer at Quaker meet- 
 ings and half starved himself, because he resolved 
 to eat nothing that he liked, but lived only on
 
 376 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 crumbs and remnants of other people's food. 
 Two spirits appeared to him, and a voice told 
 him that in twenty-five days he should be perfect. 
 During these twenty-five days, he saw constant 
 apparitions and heard sweet music, and was 
 troubled with double voices, one commanding 
 one thing, the other the exact opposite. A 
 fly flew in his face one morning; he was 
 persuaded that it was a messenger from God, 
 and u from that time he was guided by flies in 
 many things." He felt himself moved to pierce 
 both ends of a needle through his thumbs and 
 to spread his hands with the needle in them 
 over his head, thus imitating Christ on the Cross. 
 He then fell as if dead, and lay for three- 
 quarters of an hour, in imitation of the three 
 days, after which he was raised to his feet again 
 and enjoined to tell his Quaker brethren what 
 had happened and also to choose apostles from 
 amongst them. A certificate is. added to this 
 narrative containing the names of a number of 
 people who were fully satisfied of the truth of 
 the things reported. 
 
 Of James Nayler, one of the most zealous 
 votaries of Quakerism, various occurrences illus- 
 trative of religious insanity are described. One
 
 THE ANABAPTIST MO VEMENT IN ENGLAND. 377 
 
 of Nayler's female disciples, named Dorcas 
 Erbury, who had been imprisoned for her faith 
 in Essex gaol, averred that he had raised her 
 from the dead. A copy of her depositions was 
 sent by the magistrates to a member of the 
 House of Commons. He reported it in Parlia- 
 ment, and a committee was appointed to examine 
 into the question, Nayler himself being sent for. 
 Previously to this, on October 24th, 1656, Nayler 
 had entered Bristol on horseback, accompanied 
 by one Timothy Wedlocke, a Quaker, with two 
 women leading his horse and crying all the way 
 u Holy! Holy! Holy!" Nayler was examined 
 in the House of Commons in the Painted 
 Chamber, and, in answer to questions, avowed 
 that he was a prophet of the Most High God, 
 and that such worship was due to him as repre- 
 senting the invisible spirit within him as was 
 given to Christ at Jerusalem. The House ordered 
 him to be straightway imprisoned for blasphemy. 
 He had many imprisonments, was flogged from 
 New Palace Yard to the Old Exchange, and 
 was sent afterwards to Bristol to endure a like 
 punishment. Whilst he was being flogged 
 through the streets of Bristol, his disciples 
 followed him, crying u Behold the Lamb of God !"
 
 378 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 In September, 1559, the author of the "Fana- 
 tick History" says, divers witches were dis- 
 covered at a meeting of Quakers and Anabaptists 
 in or near Sherborne, in Dorsetshire. He gives 
 their number as about two hundred. Details 
 of this affair would be interesting, but are not 
 forthcoming. Another curious feature of corre- 
 spondence between the religious aberrations of 
 Quakerism and Anabaptism is the antic of 
 appearing naked in public, so frequently met 
 with in cases of specially enthusiastic zealots of 
 either sect. Several instances of this, occurring 
 alike in churches and public assemblies and in 
 the streets of London, are recorded of persons 
 of both sexes alleged to belong to the Quaker 
 denomination in its earlier developments. The 
 circumstances connected with these incidents 
 aptly illustrate the notions of " policing " prevail- 
 ing in the seventeenth century, since these 
 good people seem seldom to have been interfered 
 with at the time, although sometimes they 
 covered long distances of London-town in their 
 nakedness, whilst if they were afterwards prose- 
 cuted it was generally for blasphemy or unsound 
 doctrine rather than for indecent behaviour. 
 It should be mentioned that James Nayler, who
 
 THE ANABAPTIST MO VEMENTIN ENGLAND, 379 
 
 died in 1660, wrote a reply to Blome just before 
 his death, in which he acknowledged his former 
 errors. 
 
 Leaving the Quakers, it is of importance to 
 note the traces left by Anabaptism on the two 
 chief monuments of the religious literature of 
 the seventeenth century, Bunyan's " Pilgrim's 
 Progress" and u Holy War." No one reading 
 the "Pilgrim's Progress" side by side with 
 Tobias ' story of the journey of Henry Nicholas 
 and his friends, when they set out to an unknown 
 destination, can fail to be struck with the idea 
 that Bunyan had read Tobias ' book or that, at 
 any rate, they lived in a like mental atmosphere. 
 We do not mean to say that there was 
 any correspondence in the detail of the story 
 but the general idea of the pilgrimage of the 
 aspiring Christian to a bourne of which he 
 knows not the whereabouts, his trials on the 
 way, his temptations, his growth in grace, and 
 so forth all this is undoubtedly there. It is quite 
 possible that memories of what Bunyan had 
 read or heard of the great struggle of the early 
 sixteenth century in Westphalia, and of the 
 wanderings and trials of the Anabaptist Saints 
 in their efforts to reach their Holy City
 
 380 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 of Mlinster, may have also vaguely floated 
 before his mind. We know that during the 
 
 o 
 
 seventeenth century, and especially about the 
 time of the' Commonwealth, the story of the 
 Mlinster Anabaptists was well-known and cir- 
 culated in a variety of versions throughout the 
 country, and that the opponents of Familists, 
 Baptists, Quakers, Fifth-Monarchy men, and 
 such-like sects, were never tired of " rubbing in" 
 the moral of the wickedness, as they represented 
 it, of Jan of Leyden and his followers. 
 
 It is significant to observe that Henry D'An- 
 vers, in his "Treatise on Baptism," intimates 
 his belief that the hatred with which the Miinster 
 Anabaptists were assailed, on the part of those 
 writing in the interests of authority, of course, 
 was largely due to the fact that they preached 
 and practised communism, as they understood 
 it. From this cause, he persuades himself, 
 u much of the clamour of the Miinster business 
 did arise." As regards Bunyan, there is distinct 
 evidence in his second great work, " The Holy 
 War," that he not merely knew of, but had 
 even carefully studied, the story of the siege 
 of Miinster. It would take too long here to 
 show this in detail, and it is the more unne-
 
 THEANABAPT1STMO VEMENT IN ENGLAND. 381 
 
 cessary inasmuch as it has been done with 
 considerable elaboration by Mr. Richard Heath 
 in the u Contemporary Review," (vol. 72, pp. 105- 
 1 1 8). Bunyan himself was a Baptist of the eastern 
 counties. His native place, Bedford, was not 
 far from the leading strongholds of Anabaptism 
 and allied movements. We cannot fail to recog- 
 nise that in him and presumably his co-religionists 
 of that time the old Anabaptist tradition was 
 still alive. Unlike Dissenters of a later date, 
 whom ignorance of history and economic influ- 
 ences had detached from all sympathy with the 
 social innovators of the sixteenth century, it is 
 clear that John Bunyan still retained his rever- 
 ence for Jan of Leyden and his fellow-martyrs 
 in the Anabaptist cause. The Miinsterites were 
 still for him the Saints of God, who were 
 warring against the powers of this world and 
 of Satan. 
 
 As regards the relation of the Anabaptist 
 movement of this history to the modern Dissent- 
 ing denomination of Baptists, there is not very 
 much to be said. The middle classes became 
 economically more prosperous, and settled down 
 from the religious and political perturbations of 
 the seventeenth century, after the Revolution that
 
 382 XISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 placed William of Orange on the throne. The 
 era of direct persecution for religious opinions 
 had passed, and the new circumstances eco- 
 nomic and political tended towards the modera- 
 tion of " respectability" in all departments of life. 
 Religious zeal sank into cold formality, and the 
 enthusiasm for political and social renovation 
 subsided into love of u order " as such, whatever 
 that " order" might be. The Quakers themselves 
 became gradually wealthy and ceased to be 
 aggressively propagandist. They held their meet- 
 ings in peace and quietness like other bodies, 
 and suffered from little worse than a certain 
 social ostracism, which also in time disappeared. 
 They became noted for their probity in business, 
 thrift, reliability, and other virtues especially dear 
 to the heart of the rising middle-class. 
 
 It was so also, mutatis mutandis, with the 
 Baptists. They too became frugal, sober and 
 industrious small middle-class persons. Religious 
 and political enthusiasm died down. Inconvenient 
 tenets and views of life were either dropped alto- 
 gether and repudiated or were allowed to fall into 
 the background and become "pious opinions." 
 As the matter stands with the later history of 
 the sect, about the only point it possesses in
 
 THE ANABAPTIST MO VEMENT IN ENGLAND. 383 
 
 common with its protagonist and ancestor, the 
 Anabaptism of the sixteenth and seventeenth 
 centuries, is the theological position of rejecting 
 infant baptism and practising adult baptism as a 
 sign of admission to membership of its Church. 
 There is nothing distinctive in any other respect to 
 differentiate the modern Baptist from other sects of 
 Protestant " orthodoxy ". With the disappearance 
 of the name Anabaptism, the thing itself went. 
 The old fervour, the zeal, the self-confidence, the 
 idealism, that stopped at nothing in their aim to 
 revolutionise all life in accordance with the con- 
 ception of Christianity as the religion of the 
 disinherited, have long ceased to exist in the 
 Christian sects of the modern world.
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 CONCLUSION. 
 
 IN the course of the studies just terminated 
 we have traced the main lines of social and 
 political thought and life during that remarkable 
 epoch, now nearly four centuries behind us, 
 in which the period known as the Middle 
 Ages was slowly but surely, (so to say,) winding 
 up its accounts with universal history. During 
 the first half of the i6th century, as more than 
 once remarked in the course of these pages, 
 the economic and political conditions of the 
 Middle Ages, although rapidly disintegrating, 
 were still in the main, outwardly intact. The 
 undercurrent of change which was breaking 
 through at different points manifested itself under 
 mediaeval forms. The same may be said of the 
 intellectual aspect of the period in question. The 
 old order of ideas was indeed changing, but the 
 new ideas of the time that took the place of 
 the old were still essentially dominated by a 
 mediaeval habit of thought. Thus the science
 
 CONCLUSION. 385 
 
 of the age was, taken as a whole, little more 
 than the folk-lore, and ecclesiastical conceptions 
 of the Middle Ages systematised under a new 
 form. It is true that through this mass of old 
 notions dressed-up anew, the facts and methods 
 of modern science were here and there piercing. 
 A Paracelsus amidst his abuse of the old medical 
 theories based on the teaching of Galen and 
 Avicenna, in favour of his own equally crude and 
 fantastic system founded on the supposed affin- 
 ities of things, nevertheless hit upon discoveries 
 the value of which is recognised to-day. Still 
 more a Copernicus who, working in the intellectual 
 atmosphere of his age, must have been unquestion- 
 ably in the main dominated by its modes of 
 thought, could, notwithstanding this, lay the found- 
 ation of modern astronomy. But in judging 
 of the age we must never forget that these 
 things were exceptional, and that the newly 
 awakened intellectual life of Christendom, in 
 the bulk, moved along the old lines and sought 
 to realise its dawning aspirations through meth- 
 ods dictated by these old ways of thought. 
 Thus its freshly awakened interest in the in- 
 vestigation of Nature expressed itself in the 
 search after the Philosopher's Stone, the Elixir of 
 
 25
 
 3 86 K1SE AXD FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS 
 Life, the Transmutation of Metals and such things. 
 
 o 
 
 The chief interest in the study of the heavens 
 for it lay in the calculation of nativities. 
 
 Yet there are some among the seemingly impos- 
 sible ends which the i6th century placed before 
 itself as the main objects of human science to 
 achieve, and which it sought to realise by 
 magical or quasi-magical means, that in the 
 light of recent scientific research, no longer 
 seem as absurd as they did in the early days 
 of modern rationalism. Communication at a dis- 
 tance through other than the ordinary channels 
 accessible to the senses, one of the achievements 
 ascribed to the mystic powers of the learned 
 alchemist and astrologer Cornelius Agrippa of 
 Nettesheim, is to-day a commonplace of the 
 telephone and wireless telegraphy. Aerial loco- 
 motion, which the i6th century regarded as the 
 exclusive privilege of the superior magicians, 
 the Simon Maguses, of the world's history, is 
 now a fact only awaiting some final touches to 
 revolutionise transit. Even the Elixir of Life, 
 impossible as it seems at first sight, has lost 
 some of its absurdity in the light of theories 
 based on recent experiments and now currently 
 held by physiologists of repute. In short, while
 
 CONCLUSION, 387 
 
 of the objects handed down to it from tradition 
 and furbished up anew by the freshly awake- 
 ned intelligence of the Renaissance period, which 
 the wisdom of that age placed before itself as 
 the goal of its endeavours, such as the calcu- 
 lation of nativities and the Philosopher's Stone, 
 some may have disclosed themselves to later 
 ages as mere absurdity, there are many other 
 things, at that time believed in as possible, but 
 rejected as equally absurd in the earlier stages of 
 modern science, which are nevertheless now the 
 realised assets of later invention and discovery. 
 There is however a striking difference. 
 Though some of the objects pursued by the 
 votaries of the pseudo-science of the Renais- 
 sance have been realised by modern scientific 
 discovery and invention, they have been reali- 
 sed in a different way and by very different 
 means to those alone conceived of by the cos- 
 mic speculator of the i6th century. The latter 
 had no idea in accordance with the pre- 
 vailing theory of the universe of achieving his 
 ends otherwise than by supernatural agencies 
 or mysterious and occult powers akin to these, 
 that he supposed to be inherent in nature. The 
 methods by which the real results have been
 
 388 RISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 attained have, of course, implied a complete 
 revolution in our conception of the order of the 
 universe. 
 
 The case of the social and political aspira- 
 tions of the period in question is similar. As 
 already pointed out, the communistic ideal of 
 the religio-political movements of the Middle 
 Ages which culminated in the Anabaptist revolt 
 of the 1 6th century, was that of the commu- 
 nism of the economic product, and was inva- 
 riably based on the notion of a return to the 
 economic conditions of the old village commu- 
 
 o 
 
 nity an ideal which appealed to the poor 
 handicraftsman and peasant especially when 
 smitten by the stress of changing circumstances. 
 The social revolution was conceived under a 
 theological guise as the u Millennial Kingdom," 
 the ''Restitution of All Things," the " Reign of 
 the Saints," and in cognate phrases. It was a 
 dispensation of the Deity to be initiated in the 
 relations of believers with each other, and the 
 full fruition of which, the " Kingdom of God 
 on Earth," would come when the time was ripe, 
 and was to be awaited with prayer and watch- 
 ing. It was under the dominance of this atti- 
 tude of mind that the conviction of the immi-
 
 CONCLUSION. 389 
 
 nence of the promised millennial reign seized 
 such vast numbers of the poor working-popu- 
 lation of Western Europe during those early 
 years of the fourth decade of the i6th century. 
 In such wise did the disinherited classes of that 
 age envisage their social revindication. Not so 
 does the proletariat of the modern Great Indus- 
 try look for its emancipation. The aspirations, 
 au fond legitimate as they were, of the mediae- 
 val working classes of the i6th century, were 
 historically retrogade in their form both as 
 regards the end conceived, and the means by 
 which it was believed that end would come to 
 pass and hence they were foredoomed to failure. 
 In the recognition of this the political economy 
 of a later age regarded the bare notion of 
 social and economic equality as a Utopian 
 absurdity, much as the physicist of the dawning 
 1 9th century would have regarded immediate 
 communication at a distance, or the reproduction 
 of the voices of the dead, the steering of 
 balloons, and such marvels of modern science. 
 Nevertheless, we now see once again to the 
 fore the notion of a social regeneration of 
 society, not indeed based on the immediate 
 communisation of the economic product, as 
 
 25*
 
 390 KISE AND FALL OF THE ANABAPTISTS. 
 
 was the former, (and necessarily so owing to 
 the then prevailing conditions of production) 
 but based on the communisation of the means 
 of production, concentrated as they are to-day 
 on a great scale, and on their exploitation for the 
 common use and benefit. Those who look for- 
 ward to a higher and better organisation of 
 society in our time no longer have visions 
 of a " New Jerusalem," of a divine " Millennial 
 Kingdom" brought about by the dispensation 
 of a supernatural Providence. They base their 
 hope and expectation, not on the vaticinations 
 of prophets claiming a divine mission, but on 
 the great facts of historic evolution and on the 
 analysis of the material basis of human life 
 to-day; in other words, on the conditions of 
 modern capitalist production. Thus, in social 
 as in physical matters, the crude fancies and 
 vaguely thought-out aims of an earlier age 
 are taken up again by modern scientific thought, 
 and while the old beliefs and dreams as to how, 
 when, and where, they should be brought 
 about, have been long set aside for ever, 
 modern science sees another way opened for 
 their realisation, a way necessarily undreamt of 
 four centuries ago. The goal as such, is indeed
 
 CONCLUSION. 391 
 
 seen to be attainable, but viewed in the light 
 of modern research, and after an intervening 
 industrial and economic evolution traversing 
 so many generations it looks far different 
 from what it did as regarded through the mists 
 of mediaeval and renaissance fancy. Thomas 
 Miinzer, Jan of Ley den, Jan Matthys, and the rest 
 of those who sought the revindication of social 
 justice in the early i6th century, have, together 
 with their aspirations, passed away for ever. 
 But foolish as their ideas seem to us to-day, 
 who regard the problem from so totally diffe- 
 rent a standpoint, let us not forget that with 
 all their follies and shortcomings, they were, 
 in a sense, the forerunners of Modern Socialism, 
 and, as such, let us spare them a passing 
 tribute of recognition!
 
 INDEX
 
 INDEX 
 
 Aachen, 103. 
 
 "Adamites," 47, 250. 
 
 Adultery and seduction, edict against, 203. 
 
 Aegidi gate armoury, 149. 
 
 Aldesloe, 328 
 
 Amsterdam, 64, 103, 104, in, 265, 266, 340, 349; relief 
 expeditions from, 269, 270, 272. 
 
 Anabaptists, their beginnings. 127; doctrines, 2865; dress, 
 48; methods of greeting, 48, 49; their sufferings and per- 
 secution, 6694; tendencies of the movement, 161 171; 
 hold Miinster. 172256; successes and failures outside 
 Miinster, 257281; fall of Miinster, 282 331; the movement 
 in England. 332 383, 
 
 Antwerp, 265. 
 
 Apostles sent forth, 229. 
 
 "Apostolic Baptists," 32, 34, 45. 
 
 Appenzell, 21, 58, 60. 
 
 Articles of theocratic government constitution, 199. 
 
 Augsburg, 25, 91. 
 
 "Augustin Baptists," 40. 
 
 Baptism by immersion, 54. 
 Baptism, Treatise on, 333, 380. 
 Baptists (Apostolic), 32, 34, 45. 
 
 (Augustin), 40. 
 
 (Holy and Sinless), 35. 
 
 (Praying), 36.
 
 3Q6 INDEX. 
 
 Baptists (Separate Spiritual), 34. 
 
 Basel, 58, 327, 328. 
 
 Bateman (Stephen), 346. 
 
 Batenburg (Johannes), 326. 
 
 " Batenburgers," 326. 
 
 Beck (J. von), quoted, 2 4. 
 
 Beghards, the, no. 
 
 Ber (Hans), the peasant, 34. 
 
 Bern, 21, 24, 64. 
 
 Berndt (Stuten), 134. 
 
 Bible, the, 9, 10, 14, 162, 164, 165. 
 
 Bible-readings, 163. 
 
 Bishop von Waldeck, see Waldeck. 
 
 Blaurock (Georg), 4, 17, 18, 20, 26; his death, 90. 
 
 Blockhouses proposed, 295. 
 
 Blome (Mr. Richard), quoted, 374, 379. 
 
 Bockelson (Jan), see Leyden, Jan of. 
 
 Bockholt, congress at, 325, 326. 
 
 "Bohemian Brethren," 33, 46. 
 
 Bolswaert, 273. 
 
 Bouterwek, quoted, 265. 
 
 Brabant, 265, 271. 
 
 Bremen, 279. 
 
 "Brethren of the Common Life," no. 
 
 Bristol, Quaker eccentricities at, 377. 
 
 Brodli (Hans), 6. 
 
 "Brothers and Sisters of the Spirit," 33. 47, 250. 
 
 Brunswick, 280. 
 
 Brussels, 287, 294. 
 
 Bullinger (Heinrich), quoted, 2943, 358, 364, 372. 
 
 Bumenin (Frena), 60. 
 
 Bunyan (John), 368, 379381. 
 
 Burgundy, 286, 287. 
 
 Butzer (Martin), 68, 97. 
 
 Campen, 269. 
 
 Campen (Johann von), 278, 279. 
 
 Cannibalism, 241.
 
 INDEX. 397 
 
 Carte's "History of England," quoted, 337. 
 
 Cathedral of Miinster sacked, 175. 
 
 Chandler (Thomas), Familist, 356, 357. 
 
 Charles II, sects in the reign of, 368. 
 
 Chur, 24. 
 
 Chur (Georg von), 4. 
 
 Cleves, 286, 288, 323. 
 
 Cleves (Duke of), 275, 287, 291, 294, 317. 
 
 Coblenz, 215. 
 
 Coesfeld, 154, 229. 279. 
 
 Colchester, 360. 
 
 Cologne, see Koln. 
 
 Committees of public safety established, 133. 
 
 Common meals, 188190, 200, 246, 247. 
 
 garb, 200. 
 
 Commonwealth, sects under the, 368. 
 Communism, 20, 40, 46, 93, 186 190, 245248, 325, 362, 
 
 365, 386. 
 
 "Concilia" (Wilkins), quoted, 333, 335. 
 Conference of Potentates, 288. 
 "Confessions of Both Sacraments," manifesto, 259. 
 Conventional historians, 320. 
 Copernicus, 385. 
 
 Cornelius, quoted, 34, 50, 96, 97, 333, 335. 
 Crinel (Henry), 360, 361. 
 
 D'Anvers (Henry), quoted, 333, 380. 
 
 Denck (Hans), Schoolmaster of Niirnberg, 26, 51; baptises 
 
 Hut, 75, 91, 92, 98. 
 Deserters from Miinster, 236. 
 Deventer, 265, 269, 270, 298, 300. 
 Dhaun and Falkenstein (Count), 296. 
 Divara, widow of Jan Matthys, marries Jan of Leyden, 210; 
 
 becomes Jan's queen, 218. 
 Divorces, 210. 
 
 Documentary Annals, quoted, 359. 
 "Dog's peace," 152.
 
 398 INDEX. 
 
 Dortmund, 119, 297. 
 
 Dukes elected, 238. 
 
 Dunbar, the Scotchwoman, 365. 
 
 Dusentschur, goldsmith, 222, 228, 229, 277, 279. 
 
 E 
 
 Eck (Hans), 303 307, 315. 
 
 "Ecstatic Brothers," 36. 
 
 Edict of Worms, 68. 
 
 Edward VI, 337, 361. 
 
 " Ehrbarkeit", the, 14. 
 
 Elders of Minister, the, 200. 
 
 Elisabeth (Queen), 338. 
 
 "Emanuel", signature to an appeal, 259. 
 
 Emden, 103, 340, 349. 
 
 England, Anabaptists in, 321, 327, 332. 
 
 Enoch, character assumed by Matthys, 140, 157. 
 
 Ensisheim, 7i- 
 
 Erasmus, 265. 
 
 Erbury (Dorcas), 377. 
 
 Erick of Osnabruck (Bishop), 126. 
 
 Essen, 297. 
 
 " Essentialists ", 365. 
 
 Ethical judgments of the conventional historian, 320. 
 
 Evangelical League, 131. 
 
 "Evangelium Regni", 348, 350, 359, 366. 
 
 Executions in Minister, 201, 214. 
 
 Familists, see Family of Love. 
 
 Family of Love, 328 368; depositions by two members, 
 
 354-358-. marriage customs, 356, 357. 
 Family of the Mount, 365. 
 Famine in Minister, 230, 241. 
 
 Fanaticism, 155, 156, 166, 193, 196, 266-268, 374378. 
 "Fanatick History", the, 374, 378. 
 Feiken (Hille), a would-be Judith, 193; beheaded, 194. 
 Ferdinand of Austria (Archduke), 24, 67, 8083.
 
 INDEX. 399 
 
 Fessler (Hans), 57. 
 
 Fifth-Monarchy men, 380. 
 
 Flanders, 271. 
 
 Fox (George), 371. 
 
 Franck (Sebastian), quoted, 28, 29, 32, 4247, 71, 85. 
 
 "Free Brothers", 37, 38. 
 
 Free-lances, execution of, 183, 201. 
 
 "Free-will men", 362. 
 
 Friesland, 103, 104, 154, 272, 273, 298. 
 
 Geelen (Jan van), 271 273. 
 
 Georg (David), or Joris, 326328, 345348, 35 1 353- 
 
 Gilpin (John), 375. 
 
 "Glasse of Righteousness", 350, 366. 
 
 Graess (Johann), 299, 300. 
 
 Granella (Cardinal), 353. 
 
 Graubtinden, 6, 21. 
 
 Grebel (Konrad), 4, 7, 8, n, 16, 18, 20, 54, 55, 169. 
 
 Gresbeck, quoted, 177 190, 202, 215, 226, 233, 241. 
 
 H 
 
 Haarlem, 265. 
 
 Hague (the), 265. 
 
 Hamburg, 154, 279. 
 
 Hamm, 297. 
 
 Hamm (Meynart von), 304. 
 
 Hanover, 280. 
 
 Hart (Henry), 362. 
 
 Hattinger (Margaretha), 59. 
 
 Hatzer (Ludwig), or Hetzer, 6, 7, 26, 46, 51, 98. 
 
 Heath (Mr. Richard), quoted, 381. 
 
 Hedian (Kaspar), 97. 
 
 Heling (Augustin), the preacher, 40. 
 
 Henrikus, schoolmaster, 221. 
 
 Henry VIII, 332, 334 336. 
 
 Heresbach, quoted, 317. 
 
 Herford, 132.
 
 400 INDEX, 
 
 Hesse, 286. 
 
 Hesse (Landgraf of), 72, 73, 129131, 287, 336. 
 
 Hilversum (Hendrik van), 274. 
 
 Hochmeister (Dr. Sebastian), 7, 24. 
 
 Hoffmann (Melchior), 100114, J 6? 171, 339- 372; his identity 
 
 with Melchior Rink, 102, 103 ; effect of his arrest, 167 ; his 
 
 prophecies, 170. 
 
 Holland, 104, 154, 265, 269, 271, 288. 
 "Holy and Sinless Baptists", 35. 
 "Holy War", Bunyan's, 379, 380. 
 Hoya (Count Erich von), 132. 
 Hubmeyer (Balthasar), 4, 7, 20, 22, 24, 25, 34. 76. 77; his 
 
 arrest, torture, and death, 7880; execution of his wife, 80. 
 Hut (Hans), 26, 46, 47; his death, 73; career and character, 
 
 73-77- 
 
 Huter (Jacob), 8689. 
 "Hutian Brothers", 39. 
 
 "I. R.", see Rogers, John. 
 
 Infant Baptism, 13, 14, 17, 22, 137, 373, 383. 
 
 Jacobi Church, 306. 
 
 James I, petition to. 358. 
 
 Jan of Leyden, see Leyden. 
 
 Joan of Kent, 357. 
 
 "John of Bridges", name taken by David Georg, 346. 
 
 Joris, see Georg. 
 
 Julich, 135, 274, 323. 
 
 K 
 
 Kapitan (Wolfgang), 97, 99, 134. 
 
 Kaunitz (von), the brothers, 85. 
 
 Kautsky (Herr Karl), quoted, 203, 234. 
 
 Keller (Dr. Ludwig), quoted, 102, 119, 134, 220, 259, 280, 281,313. 
 
 Kemp (John), 362.
 
 INDEX. 401 
 
 Kerssenbroick, quoted, 115, 173, 318. 
 
 Kessler (Johannes), quoted, 5363, 266, 371. 
 
 Kibbenbroick, 160, 178, 179. 
 
 Kirschmeyer, quoted, 71. 
 
 Klara, daughter of Knipperdolinck, 145, 210. 
 
 Knewstubs (J.), 364. 
 
 Knipperdollinck, 124, 145, 147, 150. 153, 178, 179, 198, 199, 
 346; his arrest, 150; Bin-germeister, 160, 178, 179; becomes 
 Jan's henchman, 198; magistrate of theocratic government, 
 199; acts as executioner, 209; vice-steward, 216; court-fool, 
 224; claims the kingship, 225 ; is arrested, 226; reconciled with 
 Jan, 227; flight and capture, 312, 313, 315; his fate, 318, 319. 
 
 Koln, 276, 286, 288. 
 
 Koln (Archbishop of), 118, 236, 275, 276, 287. 
 
 Krechting (Bernhardj, 154, 206; his capture, 309, 312, 315; 
 his fate, 318, 319. 
 
 Krechting (Heinrich), 154, 198; chancellor of the new govern- 
 ment, 200, 201; escapes, 312. 
 
 Lamberti Kirche, see St. Lamberti, Church of. 
 
 Landtag at Telgte, 292. 
 
 Langen (Rudolf von), 176. 
 
 Langen Straten (Johann Eck von der), see Eck. 
 
 Latimer (Bishop), 337, 361. 
 
 Leuwarde, 274. 
 
 Leyden, 265, 270, 271. 
 
 Leyden (Jan of), otherwise Jan Bockelson, 102, 114 116, 
 144146, 179183, 216, 289, 307, 308, 312, 339, 346; parent- 
 age, 114; becomes leader of the movement, 191 ; his character, 
 197; his wives, 210, 271; made king, 214. his fate, 315,324. 
 
 "Libertines", the, 365. 
 
 Lichtenstein (Leonhard and Hans von), 82, 84, 85. 
 
 Liege. 103. 274. 
 
 Linz, persecutions in, 72. 
 
 Lippstadt, 132. 
 
 Lower Rhine, 291, 300 
 
 Lower Saxony, 291.
 
 402 INDEX. 
 
 Liibeck, 154, 279281, 313, 314. 
 
 Liineburg, 279. 
 
 Luther, 3, 9, 135, 192, 265, 332, 333, 351. 
 
 M 
 
 Maarbeck (Pilgram), 87, 99. 
 
 Maastricht, 103, 274. 
 
 Magdeburg, 280. 
 
 Manz (Felix), 4, 8, 16, 18, 20, 21, 24; his execution, 73. 
 
 Marcellus (Gerhardt), 313. 
 
 Margaret, sister of Dusentschur, 322. 
 
 Marriage-laws, 205, 249 et seq. 
 
 Massacre in Minister, 310, 311. 
 
 Matthys (Jan), 112116, 139, 157, 190; killed by free-lances, 
 191; personal appearance, 191; character, 192 194. 
 
 Meals in common, 188. 
 
 Meerfeld (Provost Theodor von), 193. 
 
 Melancthon, 117, 135. 
 
 Mennonites, 326-329. 
 
 Minden, 132. 
 
 "Mirabilia opera Dei", 339. 
 
 Modersohn (Margaretha), one of Jan of Leyden's wives, 210. 
 
 Mollenbecke (Heinrich), ex-alderman, 207 209. 
 
 Moravians, 329. 
 
 Miiller (Magdalena), 59. 
 
 Minister, 117131; its Bishop, 118; Anabaptists in power, 
 172 256; cathedral sacked, 175, 176; church-bells, melted, 
 200; polygamy introduced, 203, 210; executions, 209, 243, 
 244; siege raised, 211; its fall, 282 et seq.\ three days' 
 cannonade, 289; famine, 301, 302; keys of the gates stolen, 
 309; besieging forces storm the market-place, 309; Bishop's 
 official entry, 314; trial court established, 315. 
 
 Miinzer (Thomas), 2, n. 
 
 Mystery-plays of Anabaptists, 232. 
 
 Mysticism, i. 
 
 N 
 
 Nassau (Count Wilhelm of), 228. 
 Nayler, the Quaker, 376 378.
 
 INDEX. 403 
 
 Netherlands (the), 103, 265, 297, 329. 
 
 Neuss, 288. 
 
 Nicholas (Henry), 327, 338-343, 345, 34^, 348-354, 359~ 366. 
 
 Nicholas (John), 349. 
 
 Nicolsburg, in Moravia, 25, 76, 8284. 
 
 Norwich (Bishop of), 366, 367. 
 
 Nuns, adhesion of, 157. 
 
 Niirnberg, 26. 
 
 Obbe-Phillips, 325. 
 Obbenites, 325. 
 
 Oecolampadius, 92. 
 " Ordinance of God ", 106. 
 Osnabruck, 229, 264, 279, 298. 
 Osnabruck (Jakob von), 258. 
 
 Pageants, 234. 
 
 Pamphlets and broadsheets, 138, 253, 260264. 
 
 Paracelsus, 385. 
 
 "Paterines", 33. 
 
 Peasants War, i 7; connection of Anabaptists with, 330, 
 
 33 i > 333, 
 
 ''Pilgrim's Progress", Bunyan's, 379. 
 Polygamy introduced into Minister, 203 206, 254, 323. 
 "Praying Baptists", 36. 
 Preachers, decree for their expulsion, 146. 
 Prinzipalmarkt of Minister, 214, 218, 221, 222, 225. 
 Prostitution not tolerated, 203. 
 Protestant League of German Princes, 336. 
 
 Q 
 
 Quakers, 45, 368, 371380.
 
 404 IXDEX. 
 
 R 
 
 Randal, the preacher, 367. 
 
 Ranters, the, 368371. 
 
 "Ranters Ranting" (the), 368370. 
 
 Re-baptism, 2, 18, 2224, 3 2 > 47- 
 
 Redecker, master-goldsmith, 208. 
 
 Reichstag of Speyer, 98. 
 
 Renaming of streets,- 232. 
 
 "Restitution", pamphlet, 260. 
 
 "Restoration (Book of)", 351. 
 
 "Restorator Omnium", title assumed by Henry Nicholas, 351. 
 
 Reublin (Wilhelm), 57, 17, 20, 86, 87, 99. 
 
 Rhegius (Urbanus), 264, 265. 
 
 Rhine districts, 104, 291. 
 
 Rink (Melchior), see Hoffmann, 102. 
 
 Rogers (John), 344-358. 
 
 Roichel (Johann), 308, 309. 
 
 Roland (Fabrizius), quoted, 313. 
 
 Roll (Heinrich), 135145, 258, 274. 
 
 Rostock, 279. 
 
 Rothmann (Bernhard), 120124, 134 139, 141, 142, 145, 258; 
 his printing-press, 138; his circular letter, 153 ; on communism, 
 187; becomes Jan's henchman, 198; advocates polygamy, 
 205; royal orator and steward, 216-, his pamphlet on marriage, 
 253; his manifesto, 259; his pamphlets, 260264; doubtful 
 fate, 313, 314. 
 
 Rothstock, 314. 
 
 Rotterdam, 265. 
 
 Riischer, a smith, 182, 183. 
 
 S 
 
 "Sabbata", Kessler's, quoted, 5363. 
 
 Sabbath-day rejected by the Familists, 357. 
 
 Sacramentaries, 334. 
 
 St. Gallen, 2124, 53-57, 266, 371. 
 
 St Lamberti, Church of, 123, 137, 141, 150, 153, 158, 181, 
 
 231 233, 3i3 3i9- 
 St. Mauritz, Church of, 120, 176. 
 Salzburg, 6971.
 
 INDEX. 405 
 
 Saltier (Michel), 73. 
 
 Saxony (Elector Johann Friedrich of), 278. 
 
 Saxony, Lower, 291. 
 
 Schaffhausen, 7, 20, 24, 54. 
 
 Schenk (Joris), 273. 
 
 Schmalkalden, Evangelical League of, 131. 
 
 Schroeder (Johann), the smith, 141143. 
 
 Schugger (Thomas), 61. 
 
 Schwering (Peter), 154. 
 
 Science in the i6th Century, 384388. 
 
 Sects, peculiar English, 358, 359. 
 
 Sell (Matthias), 97. 
 
 " Separate Spiritual Baptists ", 34. 
 
 Servet (Michael), 41. 
 
 Servetius, Church of. 138. 
 
 Sherborne witches. 378. 
 
 Shoemakers-alley, Ranters in, 369. 
 
 Siewerts (Jan). 266. 
 
 ''Silent Brothers", 55, 45. 
 
 Simon (Menno), 325 329. 
 
 Snyder (Dirk), 266, 267. 
 
 Social ideals then and now. 388391. 
 
 Soest, 133. 229, 276278. 
 
 Spain, 286. 
 
 Spiegel-thurm, the Mirror-tower of Miinster Cathedral, 148. 
 
 "Spirituals", 8, 13. 16, 17. 
 
 Staprade. assistant preacher at the church of St. Lamberti, 137. 
 
 Steding, 307, 308, 314. 
 
 Stilze (Andreas aut der), the bookseller. 7. 
 
 Storch (Nicholas), the so-called Zwickau prophet, 2. 
 
 Strasburg, 26, 64. 97110. 
 
 Strype's Annals, quoted* 360, 361^365 367. 
 
 Stumpf (Simon), 6, 7, 15, 16. 
 
 Stute, a kind of flat cake, 134. 
 
 "Stuten Berndt", Rothmann's sobriquet. 134. 
 
 "Sum of Scripture", 332. 
 
 Sumptuary ordinance, 222. 
 
 Supernaturalism, 164, 165. 
 
 Swabian League, 90. 
 
 Sweating sickness. 118.
 
 406 INDEX. 
 
 Taborites, 46. 
 
 Tasch (Peter), 336. 
 
 Telgte, 130, 292. 
 
 Theocratic constitution and government, 198, 199. 
 
 Thurgau, 6. 
 
 Tithes abolished, 12. 
 
 Tobias, the elder, 339344, 379. 
 
 Tolderry (John), 375. 
 
 Tongern (Heinrich von), 258, 274. 
 
 Travesties acted by the Anabaptists. 158. 159, 229. 
 
 " Treatise of Baptism ", D'Anvers', 333, 380. 
 
 Trinity dogma denied by Familists, 357. 
 
 Tylbeck, the Kiirgermeister, 151, 152, 156. 157. 159, 160. 199. 
 
 208, 216, 218, 311. 
 Tyrol, 26, 71, 8790. 
 
 U 
 
 Upper Rhine, 26, 291. 
 Utrecht, 269, 298. 
 
 Vadianus, name taken by Joachim von Watt. 23. 
 
 "Vengeance (Little Book of)", 263, 297. 
 
 Vienna, 64. 
 
 Visions, 180, 230. 
 
 Vitell. (Christopher), 346, 348, 354, 359, 362. 366. 
 
 Vogel (Wolfgang), chief proselyte of Hans Hut. 75. 
 
 Volkert (Johann), 103. 
 
 W 
 
 Waldeck (Count Franz von), Miinster's I'rinre-Uishop, 127 131, 
 
 282 ct scq.; woman's plan for his assassination. 193, 194. 
 Waldshut, 7, 20, 22, 24, 25. 
 Warendorf, 222, 229, 276, 293. 
 Warham, Archbishop, 332.
 
 INDEX. 407 
 
 " Wassenberg", alias of Heinrich Roll. 135. 
 
 " Wassenberger ", the. 135, 139. 
 
 Watt (Joachim von). 23. 
 
 Wedlocke (Timothy). 377. 
 
 Wesel, 274. 
 
 Westphalia, 322324. 
 
 Whitechapel, Ranters in. 369. 
 
 AVieck (Van der), syndicus of Miinster, 136. 159. 293. 
 
 AVilkin's "Concilia"', quoted. 333. 335. 
 
 Wilkinson (William). 364. 
 
 Willingham. 361. 
 
 Wilmsen (Johann), 322, 323. 
 
 Wismar. 279. 
 
 Wolimann (Wolfgang), 5355. 
 
 Women, part played by. 146. i55 ? 196, 247, 309; imprisoned 
 
 for quarrelsome behaviour, 210. 
 " Wonder-book ". the. 347. 
 Wiirtemberg, 5. 
 
 Zillis. a captured emissary from Miinster, 297. 
 
 Zollikon, near Ziirich, 6. 57, 59. 
 
 Zurich, 414. 55- 57- 5 8 - 
 
 Zwickau prophets. 2. 
 
 Zwingli, 5, 7-9. 12-17. 19-24. 
 
 Zwolle. 269. 298.
 
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