DURANT"S S o C
Vol. VI THE REFORMATION
Pgs. 398-402
In the Netherlands, Melchior Hofmann, a Swabian tanner, preached the Anabaptist gospel with exciting success He sent out through Holland twelve apostles to announce the glad tidings.The ablest of them was a young tailor, Jan Beuckelszoon, known to history as John of Leyden and to Meyerbeer’s opera as Le Prophet. Without formal education, he had a keen mind, a vivid imagination, a handsome presence, a ready tongue, a resolute will. He heard Jan Matthys and was won to Anabaptism ( 1533). He was then twenty-four. In that year he accepted a fatal invitation to come and preach in Münster, the rich and populous capital of Westphalia.
Named from a monastery around which it had grown, Münster was feudally subject to its bishop and cathedral chapter. Nevertheless the growth of industry and commerce had generated a degree of democracy. The assembled citizens, representing seventeen guilds, chose ten electors, who chose the city council. But the well-to-do minority provided most of the political ability, and naturally dominated the council. In 1525, enthusiastic over peasants uprisings, the lower classes presented thirty-six “demands” to the council. A Lutheran preacher, Bernard Rottman, made himself the mouthpiece of discontent, and asked Jan Marthys to send some Dutch Anabaptists to his aid. Fearing insurrection the “party of Order” arranged to have Bishop Franz von Waldeck enter the town with some 2000 troops. The populace , led by Matthys, Rottman, and John of Leyden fought them in the streets, drove them out, and took martial control of Münster ( Feb. 10, 1534). New Elections were held; the Anabaptists won the council; the exciting experiment began.
Münster found itself at once in a state of war, besieged by the bishop and his reinforced army, and fearful that soon all the powers of order and custom in Germany would unite against it. To protect itself against internal opposition, the new council decreed that all non Anabaptists must accept rebaptism, or leave the city.. It was a cruel measure , for it meant that old men, women carrying infants, and bare footed children had to ride or trudge from the town at the height of the German winter. During the siege both sides executed without mercy any persons found working for the enemy. Matthys died fighting in an abortive sortie, (April 1534) and thereafter John of Leyden ruled the city as its king.
The communism that was now set up was a war economy, as perhaps all strict communism must be; for men are by nature unequal, and can be induced to share their goods and fortunes only by a vital and common danger; internal liberty varies with external security, and communism breaks under the tensions of peace. In peril of their lives if they fall short of unity, inspired by religious faith and inescapable eloquence, the besieged accept a “socialist theocracy” in the desperate hope they were realizing the New Jerusalem visioned in the Apocalypse. The members of the Committee of Public Safety were called “ the elders of the twelve tribes of Israel” and John Leyden became “King of Israel”.
Public morals were regulated by strict laws. Dances, games, and religious plays were encouraged, under supervision, but drunkenness and gambling were severely punished, prostitution was banned, fornication and adultery were made capital crimes. An excess of women caused by the flight of many men, moved the leaders to decree, on the basis of Biblical precedents, that unattached women, should become companions of wives -- in effect, concubines. The newly attached women seem to have accepted the situation as preferable to solitary barrenness. John, released and re-enthroned, took several wives, and (said his enemies) governed with violence and tyranny. He must have had some genial qualities, for thousands gladly bore his rule, and offered their lives in his service. When he called for volunteers to follow him in a sortie against the bishop, many more women enlisted than he thought wise to use.
Though many Anabaptists in Germany and Holland repudiated the resort of their
Münster brethren to force, many more applauded the revolution. From Amsterdam, fifty vessels sailed (March 1535 ) to carry reinforcements to the beleaguered city, but all were dispersed by Dutch authorities. Confronted with this spreading revolt, the conservative forces of the Empire, Protestant as well as Catholic, mobilised to suppress Anabaptism. Luther, who in 1528 had counselled lenience with the new heretics, now advised (in 1530) “the use of the sword “ against them as “they were not only blasphemous but highly seditious.” City after city sent money or men to the bishop; a Diet at Worms ordered a tax on all Germany to finance the siege of Münster by its bishop.
Facing famine and deteriorating morale, king John announced that all who wished might leave the city. Many women and children, and some men , seized the opportunity.. The men were imprisoned or killed by the bishop’s men, who spared the women for divers services. One of the émigrés saved his life by offering to show the bishop’s soldiers an undefended part of the city walls. A force of Landsknechts scaled them and opened a gate. Soon several thousand troops poured into the town.. Starving citizens barricaded themselves in the market place, then they surrendered on a promise of safe conduct to leave Münster. When they yielded up their arms they were slaughtered. John Leyden and two of his aids were bound to stakes; every part of their bodies was clawed with red-hot pincers, their tongues were pulled from their mouths; at last daggers were thrust into their hearts.
The Bishop regained his city and augmented his former power. Luther advised Philip of Hesse to put to death all adherents of the sect. The Anabaptists accepted the lesson, postponed communism to the millennium, and resigned themselves to the practice of such of their principles-- as did not offend the state. Menno Simons, a catholic priest converted to Anabaptism (1531) gave to his Dutch and German followers such skilful guidance that the “Menonites” survived all tribulations, and formed successful agricultural communities in Holland, Russia, and America. There is no clear filiation between the Continental Anabaptists and the English Quakers and the American Baptists; but the Quaker rejection of war and oaths, and the Baptists insistence on adult baptism probably stem from the same traditions of creed and conduct that in Europe took Anabaptist forms.
The theology that supported them through hardship, poverty, and martyrdom hardly accords with our transient philosophy; but they too, in their sincerity, devotion, and friendliness, enriched our heritage, and redeemed our tarnished humanity. *
*A branch of the Anabaptists migrated (1719) from Germany to Pennsylvania and settled in or near Germantown, Philadelphia: these ’Dunkers’ now number some 200,000. In 1887 many Anabaptists of Moravian descent left Russia and settled in South Dakota and Alberta. In eastern Pennsylvania the “Amish” Mennonites -- named from a seventeenth-century leader, Jokob Amen -- still officially reject razors, buttons, railroads, automobiles, motion pictures, newspapers, even tractors, but their farms are among the tidiest and most prosperous in America. The world total of Mennonites in 1949 was 400,000.
