Meanwhile, the movement rose higher and higher, and reached Thuringia, the district with which Luther personally was most a.s.sociated. His patron, and what is more, the only friend of toleration in high places, the n.o.ble-minded Elector Friedrich of Saxony, fell ill and died on May 5th, and was succeeded by his younger brother Johann, the same who afterwards a.s.sisted in the suppression of the Thuringian revolt. Almost immediately thereupon Luther, who had been visiting his native town of Eisleben, travelled through the revolted districts on his way back to Wittenberg. He everywhere encountered black looks and jeers. When he preached, the Munzerites would drown his voice by the ringing of bells. The signs of rebellion greeted him on all sides.
The "Twelve Articles" were constantly thrown at his head. As the reports of violence towards the property and persons of some of his own n.o.ble friends reached him his rage broke all bounds. He seems, however, to have prudently waited a few days, until the cause of the peasants was obviously hopeless, before publicly taking his stand on the side of the authorities.
On his arrival in Wittenberg, he wrote a second p.r.o.nouncement on the contemporary events, in which no uncertainty was left as to his att.i.tude. It is ent.i.tled, "Against the Murderous and Thievish Bands of Peasants."[24] Here he lets himself loose on the side of the oppressors with a b.e.s.t.i.a.l ferocity. "Crush them" (the peasants), he writes, "strangle them and pierce them, in secret places and in sight of men, he who can, even as one would strike dead a mad dog!" All having authority who hesitated to extirpate the insurgents to the uttermost were committing a sin against G.o.d. "Findest thou thy death therein," he writes, addressing the reader, "happy art thou: a more blessed death can never overtake thee, for thou diest in obedience to the Divine word and the command of Romans xiii. 1, and in the service of love, to save thy neighbour from the bonds of h.e.l.l and the devil."
Never had there been such an infamous exhortation to the most dastardly murder on a wholesale scale since the Albigensian crusade with its "Strike them all: G.o.d will know His own"--a sentiment indeed that Luther almost literally reproduces in one pa.s.sage.
The att.i.tude of the official Lutheran party towards the poor countryfolk continued as infamous after the war as it had been on the first sign that fortune was forsaking their cause. Like master, like man. Luther"s jackal, the "gentle" Melanchthon, specially signalized himself by urging on the feudal barons with Scriptural arguments to the blood-sucking and oppression of their villeins. A humane and honourable n.o.bleman, Heinrich von Einsiedel, was touched in conscience at the _corvees_ and heavy dues to which he found himself ent.i.tled. He sent to Luther for advice upon the subject. Luther replied that the existing exactions which had been handed down to him from his parents need not trouble his conscience, adding that it would not be good for _corvees_ to be given up, since the "common man" ought to have burdens imposed upon him, as otherwise he would become overbearing. He further remarked that a severe treatment in material things was pleasing to G.o.d, even though it might seem to be too harsh. Spalatin writes in a like strain that the burdens in Germany were, if anything, too light. Subjects, according to Melanchthon, ought to know that they are serving G.o.d in the burdens they bear for their superiors, whether it were journeying, paying tribute, or otherwise, and as pleasing to G.o.d as though they raised the dead at G.o.d"s own behest. Subjects should look up to their lords as wise and just men, and hence be thankful to them. However unjust, tyrannical, and cruel the lord might be, there was never any justification for rebellion.
A friend and follower of Luther and Melanchthon--Martin Butzer by name--went still farther. According to this "reforming" worthy a subject was to obey his lord in everything. This was all that concerned him. It was not for him to consider whether what was enjoined was, or was not, contrary to the will of G.o.d. That was a matter for his feudal superior and G.o.d to settle between them.
Referring to the doctrines of the revolutionary sects, Butzer urges the authorities to extirpate all those professing a false religion.
Such men, he says, deserve a heavier punishment than thieves, robbers, and murderers. Even their wives and innocent children and cattle should be destroyed (_ap. Janssen_, vol. i. p. 595).
Luther himself quotes, in a sermon on "Genesis," the instances of Abraham and Abimelech and other Old Testament worthies, as justifying slavery and the treatment of a slave as a beast of burden. "Sheep, cattle, men-servants and maid-servants, they were all possessions,"
says Luther, "to be sold as it pleased them like other beasts. It were even a good thing were it still so. For else no man may compel nor tame the servile folk" (_Sammtliche Werke_, vol. xv. p. 276). In other discourses he enforces the same doctrine, observing that if the world is to last for any time, and is to be kept going, it will be necessary to restore the patriarchal condition. Capito, the Stra.s.sburg preacher, in a letter to a colleague, writes lamenting that the pamphlets and discourses of Luther had contributed not a little to give edge to the bloodthirsty vengeance of the princes and n.o.bles after the insurrection.
The total number of the peasants and their allies who fell either in fighting or at the hands of the executioners is estimated by Anselm in his _Berner Chronik_ at 130,000. It was certainly not less than 100,000. For months after the executioner was active in many of the affected districts. Spalatin says: "Of hanging and beheading there is no end." Another writer has it: "It was all so that even a stone had been moved to pity, for the chastis.e.m.e.nt and vengeance of the conquering lords was great." The executions within the jurisdiction of the Swabian League alone are stated at 10,000. Truchsess"s provost boasted of having hanged or beheaded 1,200 with his own hand. More than 50,000 fugitives were recorded. These, according to a Swabian League order, were all outlawed in such wise that any one who found them might slay them without fear of consequences.
The sentences and executions were conducted with true mediaeval levity.
It is narrated in a contemporary chronicle that in one village in the Henneberg territory all the inhabitants had fled on the approach of the Count and his men-at-arms save two tilers. The two were being led to execution when one appeared to weep bitterly, and his reply to interrogatories was that he bewailed the dwellings of the aristocracy thereabouts, for henceforth there would be no one to supply them with durable tiles. Thereupon his companion burst out laughing, because, said he, it had just occurred to him that he would not know where to place his hat after his head had been taken off. These mildly humorous remarks obtained for both of them a free pardon.
The aspect of those parts of the country where the war had most heavily raged was deplorable in the extreme. In addition to the many hundreds of castles and monasteries destroyed, almost as many villages and small towns had been levelled with the ground by one side or the other, especially by the Swabian League and the various princely forces. Many places were annihilated for having taken part with the peasants, even when they had been compelled by force to do so. Fields in these districts were everywhere laid waste or left uncultivated.
Enormous sums were exacted as indemnity. In many of the villages peasants previously well-to-do were ruined. There seemed no limit to the bleeding of the "common man," under the pretence of compensation for damage done by the insurrection.
The condition of the families of the dead and of the fugitives was appalling. Numbers perished from starvation. The wives and children of the insurgents were in some cases forcibly driven from their homesteads and even from their native territory. In one of the pamphlets published in 1525 anent the events of that year we read: "Houses are burned; fields and vineyards lie fallow; clothes and household goods are robbed or burned; cattle and sheep are taken away; the same as to horses and trappings. The prince, the gentleman, or the n.o.bleman will have his rent and due. Eternal G.o.d, whither shall the widows and poor children go forth to seek it?" Referring to the Lutheran campaign against friars and poor scholars, beggars, and pilgrims, the writer observes: "Think ye now that because of G.o.d"s anger for the sake of one beggar, ye must even for a season bear with twenty, thirty, nay, still more?"
The courts of arbitration, which were established in various districts to adjudicate on the relations between lords and villeins, were naturally not given to favour the latter, whilst the fact that large numbers of deeds and charters had been burnt or otherwise destroyed in the course of the insurrection left open an extensive field for the imposition of fresh burdens. The record of the proceedings of one of the most important of these courts--that of the Swabian League"s jurisdiction, which sat at Memmingen--in the dispute between the prince-abbot of Kempten and his villeins is given in full in Baumann"s _Akten_, pp. 329-46. Here, however, the peasants did not come off so badly as in some other places. Meanwhile, all the other evils of the time, the monopolies of the merchant-princes of the cities and of the trading-syndicates, the dearness of living, the scarcity of money, etc., did not abate, but rather increased from year to year. The Catholic Church maintained itself especially in the South of Germany, and the official Reformation took on a definitely aristocratic character.
According to Baumann (_Akten, Vorwort_, v, vi), the true soul of the movement of 1525 consisted in the notion of "Divine justice," the principle "that all relations, whether of political, social, or religious nature, have got to be ordered according to the directions of the "Gospel" as the sole and exclusive source and standard of all justice." The same writer maintains that there are three phases in the development of this idea, according to which he would have the scheme of historical investigation subdivided. In Upper Swabia, says he, "Divine justice" found expression in the well-known "Twelve Articles,"
but here the notion of a political reformation was as good as absent.
In the second phase, the "Divine justice" idea began to be applied to political conditions. In Tyrol and the Austrian dominions, he observes, this political side manifested itself in local or, at best, territorial patriotism. It was only in Franconia that all territorial patriotism or "particularism" was shaken off and the idea of the unity of the German peoples received as a political goal. The Franconian influence gained over the Wurtembergers to a large extent, and the plan of reform elaborated by Weigand and Hipler for the Heilbronn Parliament was the most complete expression of this second phase of the movement.
The third phase is represented by the rising in Thuringia, and especially in its intellectual head, Thomas Munzer. Here we have the doctrine of "Divine justice" taking precedence of all else and a.s.suming the form of a thoroughgoing theocratic scheme, to be realized by the German people.
This division Baumann is led to make with a view to the formulation of a convenient scheme for a "codex" of doc.u.ments relating to the Peasants" War. It may be taken as, in the main, the best general division that can be put forward, although, as we have seen, there are places where, and times when, the practical demands of the movement seem to have a.s.serted themselves directly and spontaneously apart from any theory whatever.
Of the fate of many of the most active leaders of the revolt we know nothing. Several heads of the movement, according to a contemporary writer, wandered about for a long time in misery, some of them indeed seeking refuge with the Turks, who were still a standing menace to Imperial Christendom. The popular preachers vanished also on the suppression of the movement. The disastrous result of the Peasants"
War was prejudicial even to Luther"s cause in South Germany. The Catholic party reaped the advantage everywhere, evangelical preachers, even, where not insurrectionists, being persecuted. Little distinction, in fact, was made in most districts between an opponent of the Catholic Church from Luther"s standpoint and one from Karlstadt"s or Hubmayer"s. Amongst seventy-one heretics arraigned before the Austrian court at Ensisheim, only one was acquitted. The others were broken on the wheel, burnt, or drowned.
There were some who were arrested ten or fifteen years later on charges connected with the 1525 revolt. Treachery, of course, played a large part, as it has done in all defeated movements, in ensuring the fate of many of those who had been at all prominent. In fairness to Luther, who otherwise played such a villainous role in connection with the peasants" movement, the fact should be recorded that he sheltered his old colleague, Karlstadt, for a short time in the Augustine monastery at Wittenberg, after the latter"s escape from Rothenburg.
Wendel Hipler continued for some time at liberty, and might probably have escaped altogether had he not entered a protest against the Counts of Hohenlohe for having seized a portion of his private fortune that lay within their power. The result of his action might have been foreseen. The Counts, on hearing of it, revenged themselves by accusing him of having been a chief pillar of the rebellion. He had to flee immediately, and, after wandering about for some time in a disguise, one of the features of which is stated to have been a false nose, he was seized on his way to the Reichstag which was being held at Speier in 1526. Tenacious of his property to the last, he had hoped to obtain rest.i.tution of his rights from the a.s.sembled estates of the empire. Some months later he died in prison at Neustadt.
Of the victors, Truchsess and Frundsberg considered themselves badly treated by the authorities whom they had served so well, and Frundsberg even composed a lament on his neglect. This he loved to hear sung to the accompaniment of the harp as he swilled down his red wine. The cruel Markgraf Kasimir met a miserable death not long after from dysentery, whilst Cardinal Matthaus Lang, the Archbishop of Salzburg, ended his days insane.
Of the fate of other prominent men connected with the events described, we have spoken in the course of the narrative.
The castles and religious houses, which were destroyed, as already said, to the number of many hundreds, were in most cases not built up again. The ruins of not a few of them are visible to this day. Their owners often spent the sums relentlessly wrung out of the "common man"
as indemnity in the extravagances of a gay life in the free towns or in dancing attendance at the Courts of the princes and the higher n.o.bles. The collapse of the revolt was indeed an important link in the particular chain of events that was so rapidly destroying the independent existence of the lower n.o.bility as a separate status with a definite political position, and transforming the face of society generally. Life in the smaller castle, the knight"s _burg_ or tower, was already tending to become an anachronism. The Court of the prince, lay or ecclesiastic, was attracting to itself all the elements of n.o.bility below it in the social hierarchy. The revolt of 1525 gave a further edge to this development, the first act of which closed with the collapse of the knights" rebellion and death of Sickingen in 1523.
The knight was becoming superfluous in the economy of the body politic.
The rise of capitalism, the sudden development of the world-market, the subst.i.tution of a money medium of exchange for direct barter--all these new factors were doing their work. Obviously the great gainers by the events of the momentous year were the representatives of the centralizing principle. But the effective centralizing principle was not represented by the Emperor, for he stood for what was after all largely a sham centralism, because it was a centralism on a scale for which the Germanic world was not ripe. Princes and margraves were destined to be bearers of the _territorial_ centralization, the only real one to which the German peoples were to attain for a long time to come. Accordingly, just as the provincial _grand seigneur_ of France became the courtier of the King at Paris or Versailles, so the previously quasi-independent German knight or baron became the courtier or hanger-on of the prince within or near whose territory his hereditary manor was situate.
The eventful year 1525 was truly a landmark in German history in many ways--the year of one of the most accredited exploits of Doctor Faustus, the last mythical hero the progressive races have created; the year in which Martin Luther, the ex-monk, capped his repudiation of Catholicism and all its ways by marrying an ex-nun; the year of the definite victory of Charles V. the German Emperor, over Francis I. the French King, which meant the final a.s.sertion of the "Holy Roman Empire" as being a national German inst.i.tution; and last, but not least, the year of the greatest and the most widespread popular movement Central Europe had yet seen, and the last of the mediaeval peasant risings on a large scale. The movement of the eventful year did not, however, as many hoped and many feared, within any short time rise up again from its ashes, after discomfiture had overtaken it. In 1526, it is true, the genius of Gaismayr succeeded in resuscitating it, not without prospect of ultimate success, in the Tyrol and other of the Austrian territories. In this year, moreover, in other outlying districts, even outside German-speaking populations, the movement flickered. Thus the traveller between the town of Bellinzona, in the Swiss Canton of Ticino, and the Bernardino Pa.s.s, in Canton Graubunden, may see to-day an imposing ruin, situated on an eminence in the narrow valley just above the small Italian-speaking town of Misox. This was one of the ancestral strongholds of the family, well known in Italian history, of the Trefuzios or Trevulzir, and was sacked by the inhabitants of Misox and the neighbouring peasants in the summer of 1526, contemporaneously with Gaismayr"s rising in the Tyrol. A connection between the two events would be difficult to trace, but the destruction of the castle of Misox, if not a purely spontaneous local effervescence, looks like an afterglow of the great movement, such as may well have happened in other secluded mountain valleys.
The Peasants" War in Germany we have been considering is the last great mediaeval uprising of the agrarian cla.s.ses in Europe. Its result was, with some few exceptions, a riveting of the peasant"s chains and an increase of his burdens. More than 1,000 castles and religious houses were destroyed in Germany alone during 1525. Many priceless works of mediaeval art of all kinds perished. But we must not allow our regret at such vandalism to blind us in any way to the intrinsic righteousness of the popular demands.
The elements of revolution now became absorbed by the Anabaptist movement, a continuation primarily in the religious sphere of the doctrines of the Zwickau enthusiasts and also in many respects of Thomas Munzer. At first Northern Switzerland, especially the towns of Basel and Zurich, were the headquarters of the new sect, which, however, spread rapidly on all sides. Persecution of the direst description did not destroy it. On the contrary, it seemed only to have the effect of evoking those social and revolutionary elements latent within it which were at first overshadowed by more purely theological interests. As it was, the hopes and aspirations of the "common man" revived this time in a form indissolubly a.s.sociated with the theocratic commonwealth, the most prominent representative of which during the earlier movement had been Thomas Munzer.
But, notwithstanding resemblances, it is utterly incorrect, as has sometimes been done, to describe any of the leaders of the great peasant rebellion of 1525 as Anabaptists. The Anabaptist sect, it is true, originated in Switzerland during the rising, but it was then confined to a small coterie of unknown enthusiasts, holding semi-private meetings in Zurich. It was from these small beginnings that the great Anabaptist movement of ten years later arose. It is directly from them that the Anabaptist movement of history dates its origin. Movements of a similar character, possessing a strong family likeness, belong to the mental atmosphere of the time in Germany. The so-called Zwickau prophets, for example, Nicholas Storch and his colleagues, seem in their general att.i.tude 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. Thomas Munzer, the only leader of the movement of 1525 who seems to have been acquainted with the Zurich enthusiasts, was by no means at one with them on many points, notably refusing to attach any importance to their special sign, rebaptism. Chief among the Zurich coterie may be mentioned Konrad Grebel, at whose house the sect first of all a.s.sembled. At first the Anabaptist movement at Zurich was regarded as an extreme wing of the party of the Church reformer, Zwingli, in that city, but it was not long before it broke off entirely from the latter, and hostilities, ensuing in persecution for the new party, broke out.
To understand the true inwardness of the Anabaptist and similar movements, it is necessary to endeavour to think oneself back into the intellectual conditions of the period. The Biblical text itself, now everywhere 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 afforded a _point d"appui_ for the mystical tendencies now becoming universally prominent--a _point d"appui_ 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 G.o.d 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 was not so much positive doctrines as an att.i.tude of mind that was the ruling spirit in Anabaptism 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 Zurich sect, by one of those seemingly inscrutable chances in similar cases of which history is full, not only prospered greatly but went forth conquering and to conquer. It spread rapidly northward, eastward, and westward. In the course of its victorious career it absorbed into itself all similar tendencies and local groups and movements having like aims to itself. As was natural under such circ.u.mstances, we find many different strains in the developed Anabaptist movement. The theologian Bullinger wrote a book on the subject, in which he enumerates thirteen distinct sects, as he terms them, in the Anabaptist body. The general tenets of the organization, as given by Bullinger, may be summarized as follows: They regard themselves as the true Church of Christ well pleasing to G.o.d; they believe that by rebaptism 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 benefices, 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 be rich, but that among the Brethren all things should be in common, or, at least, all available for the a.s.sistance of needy Brethren and for the common cause; that the att.i.tude of the Christian towards authority should be that of submission and endurance only; that no Christian ought to take office of any kind, or to take part in any form of military service; that secular authority has no concern with religious belief; that the Christian resists no evil and therefore needs no law courts nor should ever make use of their 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 by force to believe, nor should any be slain on account of his faith; that infant baptism is sinful and that adult baptism is the only Christian baptism--baptism being a sacrament which should be reserved for the elect alone.
Such seem to represent the doctrines forming the common ground of the Anabaptist groups as they existed at the end of the second decade of the fifteenth century. There were, however, as Heinrich Bullinger and his contemporary, Sebastian Franck, point out, numerous divergencies between the various sections of the party. Many of these recalled other mediaeval heretic sects, e.g. the Cathari, the Brothers and Sisters of the Spirit, the Bohemian Brethren, etc.
For the first few years of its existence Anabaptism remained true to its original theologico-ethical principles. The doctrine of non-resistance was strictly adhered to. The Brethren believed in themselves as the elect, and that they had only to wait in prayer and humility for the "advent of Christ and His saints," the "rest.i.tution of all things," the "establishment of the Kingdom of G.o.d upon earth,"
or by whatever other phrase the dominant idea of the coming change was expressed. During the earlier years of the movement the Anabaptists were peaceable and harmless fanatics and visionaries. In some cases, as in Moravia, they formed separate communities of their own, some of which survived as religious sects long after the extinction of the main movement.
In the earlier years of the fourth decade of the century, however, a change came over a considerable section of the movement. In Central and South-eastern Germany, notably in the Moravian territories, barring isolated individuals here and there, the Anabaptist party continued to maintain its att.i.tude of non-resistance and the voluntariness of a.s.sociation which characterized it at first. The fearful waves of persecution, however, which successively swept over it were successful at last in partially checking its progress. At length the only places in this part of the empire where it succeeded in retaining any effective organization was in the Moravian territories, where persecution was less strong and the communities more closely knit together than elsewhere. Otherwise persecution had played sad havoc with the original Anabaptist groups throughout Central Europe.
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 (_Munsterische Aufruhr_, vol. ii. p. 74), to the fact that they came immediately after the overthrow of the great political movement of 1552. 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 circ.u.mstances, a political movement inevitably grows. The result was, as Cornelius further observes, an agitation of such a sweeping character that the fourth decade of the sixteenth century seemed destined to realize 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 Stra.s.sburg, where peculiar circ.u.mstances afforded the Brethren a considerable amount of toleration. It was in the year 1526 that Anabaptism first made its appearance in Stra.s.sburg. It was Anabaptism of the original type and conducted on the old theologico-ethical lines. But early in the year 1529 there arrived in Stra.s.sburg a much-travelled man, a skinner by trade, by name Melchior Hoffmann. He had been an enthusiastic adherent of the Reformation, and it was not long before he joined the Stra.s.sburg Anabaptists and made his mark in their community. Owing to his personal magnetism and oratorical gifts, Melchior soon came to be regarded as a specially ordained prophet and to have acquired corresponding influence. After a few months Hoffmann seems to have left Stra.s.sburg for a propagandist tour along the Rhine. The tour, apparently, had great success, the Baptist communities being founded in all important towns as far as Holland, in which latter country the doctrines spread rapidly. The Anabaptism, however, taught by Melchior and his disciples did not include the precept of patient submission to wrong which was such a prominent characteristic of its earlier phase.
Some time after his reception into the Anabaptist body at Stra.s.sburg, Hoffmann, while in most other points accepting the prevalent doctrines 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, "the G.o.dless," "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 princ.i.p.alities and powers, and the time was now at hand when this prophecy should be fulfilled. The new movement in the North-west, in the lower Rhenish districts, and the adjacent Westphalia 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 pa.s.sive 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 G.o.d on earth.
Hoffmann"s whole learning seems to have been limited to the Bible, but this he knew from cover to cover. A diffusion of Luther"s translation of the Bible had produced a revolution. The poorer cla.s.ses, who were able to read at all, pored over the Bible, together with such popular tracts or pamphlets commenting thereon, or treating current social questions in the light of Biblical story and teaching, as came into their hands. The followers of the new movement in question acquired the name of Melchiorites. Hoffmann now published a book explanatory of his ideas, called _The Ordinance of G.o.d_, which had an enormous popularity. It was followed up by other writings, amplifying and defending the main thesis it contained.
Outwardly the Melchiorite communities of the North-west had the same peaceful character as those of South Germany and Moravia, holding as they did in the main the same doctrines. It was ominous, however, that Melchior Hoffmann was proclaimed as the prophet Elijah returned according to promise. Up to 1533 Stra.s.sburg continued to be regarded as the chief seat of Anabaptism, especially by Melchior and his disciples. It was, they declared, to be the New Jerusalem, from which the saints should march out to conquer the world. Melchior, on his return journey to Stra.s.sburg from his journey northwards, proclaimed the end of 1533 as the date of the second advent and the inauguration of the reign of the saints. Owing to the excitement among the poorer population of the town consequent upon Hoffmann"s preaching, the prophet was arrested and imprisoned in one of the towers of the city wall. But 1533 came and went without the Lord or His saints appearing, while poor Hoffmann remained confined in the tower of the city wall.
Meanwhile the new Anabaptism spread and fermented along the Rhine, and especially in Holland. In the latter country its chief exponent was a master baker at Harleem, by name Jan Matthys, who seems to have been a born leader of men. While preaching essentially the same doctrines as Hoffmann, with Matthys a Holy War, in a literal sense, was placed in the forefront of his teaching. With him there was to be no delay. It was the duty of all the Brethren to show their zeal by at once seizing the sword of sharpness and mowing down the G.o.dless therewith. In this sense Matthys completed the transformation begun 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 G.o.dless 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. His influence among the Brethren was immense. If Melchior Hoffmann had been Elijah, Jan Matthys was Elisha, who should bring his work to a conclusion.
Among Matthys" most intimate followers was Jan Bockelson, from Leyden.
Bockelson was a handsome and striking figure. He was the illegitimate son of one Bockel, a merchant and Burgermeister of Saevenhagen, by a peasant woman from the neighbourhood of Munster, who was in his service. After Jan"s birth Bockel married the woman and bought her her freedom from the villein status 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 literature of the time. Amongst other writings the pamphlets of Thomas Munzer especially fascinated him. He travelled a good deal, visiting Mechlin and working at his trade for four years in London. Returning home, he threw himself into the Anabaptist agitation, and, scarcely twenty-five years old, he was won over to the doctrines of Jan Matthys. The latter with his younger colleague welded the Anabaptist communities in Holland and the adjacent German territories into a well-organized federation. They were more h.o.m.ogeneous in theory than those of Southern and Eastern Germany, being practically all united on the basis of the Hoffmann-Matthys propaganda.
The episcopal town of Munster, in Westphalia, like other places in the third decade of the sixteenth century, became strongly affected by the Reformation. But that the ferment of the time was by no means wholly the outcome of religious zeal, as subsequent historians have persisted in representing it, was recognized by the contemporary heads of the official Reformation. Thus, writing to Luther under date August 29, 1530, his satellite, Melanchthon, has the candour to admit that the Imperial cities "care not for religion, for their endeavour is only toward domination and freedom." As the princ.i.p.al town of Westphalia at this time may be reckoned the chief city of the bishopric of Munster, this important ecclesiastical princ.i.p.ality was held "immediately of the empire." It had as its neighbours Ost-Friesland, Oldenburg, the bishopric of Osnabruck, 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 f.e.c.klenburg. The bishop was a prince of the empire and one of the most important 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.
Owing to a succession of events, beginning in 1529, which for those interested we may mention may be found discussed in full detail in _The Rise and Fall of the Anabaptists_ (124-71), by the present writer, the extreme wing of the Reformation party had early gained the upper hand in the city, and subsequently became fused with the native Anabaptists, who were soon reinforced by their co-religionists from the country round, as well as from the not far distant Holland; for it should be said that the Dutch followers of Hoffmann and Matthys had been energetic in carrying their faith into the towns of Westphalia as elsewhere. Without entering in detail into the events leading up to it, it is sufficient for our purpose to state that by a perfectly lawful election, held on February 23, 1534, the Government of Munster was reconst.i.tuted and the Anabaptists obtained supreme political power. Hearing of the way things were going in Munster, Matthys and his followers had already taken up their abode in the city a little time before. The cathedral and other churches were stormed and sacked during the following days, while all official doc.u.ments and charters dealing with the feudal relations of the town were given to the flames during the ensuing month. Both the moderate Protestant (Lutheran) and the Catholic burghers who had remained were indignant at the acts of destruction committed, and openly expressed their opposition. The result was their expulsion from the city; the condition of being allowed to remain became now the consent to rebaptism and the formal adoption of Anabaptist principles.
Munster now took the place Stra.s.sburg had previously held as the rallying point of the Anabaptist faithful, whence a crusade against the Powers of the world was to issue forth. The Government of Munster, though it officially consisted of the two Burgermeisters and the new Council, to a man all zealous Anabaptists, left the real power and initiative in all measures in the hands of Jan Matthys and of his disciple, Jan Bockelson, of Leyden. The reign of the saints was now fairly begun. Various attempts at an organized communism were made, but these appear to have been only partially successful. One day Jan Matthys with twenty companions, in an access of fanatical devotion, made a sortie from the town towards the bishop"s camp. Needless to say, the party were all killed. The great leader dead, Jan Bockelson became naturally the chief of the city and head of the movement.
Bockelson proved in every way a capable successor to Matthys. A new Const.i.tution was now given by Bockelson and the Dutchmen, acting as his prophets and preachers. It was embodied in thirty-nine articles, and one of its chief features was the transference of power to twelve elders, the number being suggested by the twelve tribes of Israel. The idea of reliving the life of the "chosen people," as depicted in the Old Testament, showed itself in various ways, amongst others by the notorious edict establishing polygamy. This measure, however, as Karl Kautsky has shown, there is good reason for thinking was probably induced by the economic necessity of the time, and especially by the enormous excess of the female over the male population of the city.
Otherwise the Munsterites, like the Anabaptists generally, gave evidence of favouring asceticism in s.e.xual matters.
Considerations of s.p.a.ce prevent us from going into further detail of the inner life of Munster under the Anabaptist regime during the siege at the hands of its overlord, the prince-bishop. This will be found given at length in the work already mentioned. As time went on famine began to attack the city.
It is sufficient for our purpose to state that on the night of June 24, 1535, the city was betrayed and that in a few hours the free-lances of the bishop were streaming in through all the gates. The street fighting was desperate; the Anabaptists showed a desperate courage, even women joining in the struggle, hurling missiles from the windows upon their foes beneath. By midday on the 25th the city of Munster, the New Zion, pa.s.sed over once more into the power of its feudal lord, Franz von Waldeck, and the reign of the saints had come to an end. The vengeance of the conquerors was terrible; all alike, irrespective of age or s.e.x, were involved in an indiscriminate butchery. The three leaders, Bockelson, Krechting, and Knipperdollinck, after being carried round captives as an exhibition through the surrounding country, were, some months afterwards, on January 22, 1536, executed, after being most horribly tortured. Their bodies were subsequently suspended in three cages from the top of the tower of the Lamberti church. The three cages were left undisturbed until a few years ago, when the old tower, having become structurally unsafe, was pulled down and replaced, with questionable taste, by an ordinary modern steeple, on which, however, the original cages may still be seen. A papal legate, sent on a mission to Munster shortly after the events in question, relates that as he and his retinue neared the latter town "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."