I. The Anabaptists before the Peasant War

At the period of the German Reformation one centre of the communist movement lay in Saxony. Another existed in Switzerland – that peculiar conglomeration of peasant and urban republics, which had concentrated themselves round the central mass of the Alps for united defence against their common enemies.

They had completely freed themselves from the German Empire, and had succeeded in setting limits to Papal spoliation.

This new and independent commonwealth, however, had not at that time become a unified state. Almost the only bond of union between its constituent parts was the knowledge that each, by itself, was powerless against its princely neighbours. But with this common interest, there existed others of an antagonistic nature between the rustic, primitive cantons, where economics were behind the age, and the rich cities which were far advanced in that respect.

This antagonism was manifested clearly during the Reformation, in which movement the primitive cantons had no interest. Papal exploitation, already materially diminished in the confederation, pressed lightly, as a rule, on these poor districts. On the other hand, they had every reason for remaining on a good footing with the Catholic Powers (France, Milan, Venice, the Pope, and the Hapsburgs), as these were the chief consumers of the only valuable commodity which the peasants and petty nobility of Switzerland could at that time bring into the market, namely, their warlike sons. Reislaufen, or mercenary service, was the chief source of revenue for the country folk, especially in the mountain cantons. A union with the Reformation movement boded a breach with the Catholic Powers, and threatened this source of wealth with exhaustion. Hence the honest country folk had held fast to the faith of their fathers.

The towns were differently situated. Their middle-class citizens had no interest in mercenary war service; on the contrary, they disliked it, as it strengthened the power of their enemies, the nobility, and increased the warlike capacities of the lower classes from whom they derived their wealth. For the Swiss mercenaries were not homeless tatterdemalians, but sons of peasants, who, after the completion of their war service, returned to their native land.

The towns, indeed, had every reason for animosity against the Catholic Powers. Moreover, though Papal exploitation was more restricted in Switzerland than in Germany, that covetous Power held more tenaciously to its rights in the towns than in the poor mountain districts. The antagonism to the Catholic princes (par excellence, the Hapsburgs) was every whit as great as the enmity to the Papacy. The German Reformation was a revolt, not only against the Pope, but in like manner against the Emperor, i.e., the House of Hapsburg, and it was so regarded in Switzerland also.

The House of Hapsburg had long ceased to be the “hereditary enemy” of the primitive Swiss cantons, which were already too firmly established to be threatened by that dynasty; and while having nothing to gain by opposition to it, they had nothing to lose in the way of war-pay and bribe-money. Quite otherwise was it with the cities of North Switzerland bordering on the territories of the Hapsburgs, which, menaced and coveted by that House, were in constant enmity to it. Zurich, in particular, had the liveliest interest in the struggle with that line of monarchs, and was the pioneer of the Reformation in Switzerland; while the primitive cantons made cause with Catholicism, the successors of Tell allying themselves with the Hapsburg Ferdinand.

In Switzerland, as in Germany, the Reformation brought a communistic movement to the surface; but as the circumstances of the confederation were quite different from those of Saxony, the character of the communism in the two countries also differed greatly.

While in Saxony the movement was materially influenced by Taborite tradition, in Switzerland these exercised hardly appreciable power. The movement, however, had for a long time been considerably exposed to the influences of the Waldenses and Beghards; the former coming from Southern France and Northern Italy, and the latter from the Netherlands along the Rhine valley, finally reaching Bâle by way of Cologne and Strassburg.

In contrast to the Taborites, who favoured violent measures, the Waldenses were peacefully inclined. This contrast alone must have resulted in producing other sentiments among the communists of Switzerland than those prevalent in Saxony, as well as different ideas and actions. But the character of a social movement in any country is determined much less by imported doctrines, than by its peculiar social and political circumstances. Saxony was distinguished by its mining industry, especially by its silver mines. While this industry was favourable to the growth of the power of its princes, it also created a strong and defiant proletariat among the miners, living together, as they did, in large masses. It encouraged production for the markets in the agricultural districts, but, at the same time, engendered a thirst for land among the landlords, and intensified to the highest degree all the social antagonisms of that epoch.

It was quite otherwise with Switzerland, where there was no mining industry and hence no warlike proletariat. Agriculture to a large extent was still at a very primitive stage. Land communism was very strong, and there was not the least vestige of absolute princely power. We find rather a collection of peasant and town republics, with a peasant and urban democracy, which, so long as it felt itself weak and menaced, was in sympathy with communism, whose nearest enemy was its enemy also.

All this must have tended to strengthen the peaceable tendencies of the Waldenses and Beghards in Switzerland and to make class antagonisms less acute than in Saxony, where the movement acquired more of a proletarian character. In Münzer’s time there were very few communists in Saxony belonging to the upper classes. This is one of the reasons why Münzer towered to such a height above the nameless masses who supported him and made him feared, but among whom there were no prominent combatants able, by their writings, to hand down their memory and personality to posterity.

It was quite otherwise with the Swiss communists and those influenced by them, who counted numerous men of social prominence and culture in their ranks. It is impossible to keep our glance long fixed on any individual, for we are confused by the brilliant constellation of their interesting and characteristic men of talent. Though the Swiss movement is feebler than the Saxon, and from an historical point of view less important, it is more valuable to literature, and stands on a higher intellectual plane.

We have perhaps said enough as to the generic character of the movement.

Numerous traces of the Waldenses and Beghards are to be found in Switzerland during the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries; but they are only blood traces; in other words, executions. The sects were chiefly composed of people from the lower classes, such as craftsmen, proletarians, and peasants, who preached communism secretly in hidden confederacies. Together with this proletarian movement however, a sort of salon-communism seems to have been instituted at the beginning of the sixteenth century.

While Zurich was the Wittenberg of the confederation, Bâle played the same role in Switzerland that Erfurt did in Saxony, as it was the headquarters of Swiss Humanism. A circle of free-thinking savants and artists was formed in the town, of which the central figure, after 1513, was Erasmus, the bosom friend of Thomas More. All sorts of novel ideas were discussed in this coterie, including probably many peculiar to the later order of Anabaptists; for among the “erudite men” gathered at that time in Bâle, we find several who subsequently became leaders of that sect. Conrad Grebel, the son of a Zurich patrician, and already “a distinguished defender of the Gospel”, was there in 1521 and 1522; Dr. Balthasar Hubneir, from Waldshut, was in frequent communication with the circle; and among its members were the Swabian Wilhelm Reublin, pastor of St. Albans, Bâle, and Ulrich Hugwald, a Bâle professor, who, as we have seen, had joined Oekolampadius in requesting Münzer to agitate. We also find Ludwig Hatzer, the bookbinder Andreas auf der Stülzen, Simon Stumpf, and others, all of whom were subsequently zealous agitators among the Anabaptists.

We may also mention the significant fact that Thomas More’s Utopia had at that time aroused marked attention in Bâle.

The first edition of this work (which was written in Latin) appeared in Louvain, in the year 1516, under the supervision of More’s friend Erasmus, who was then staying in that town. In 1518 it became necessary to issue a new edition, which came out in Bâle and was produced by the celebrated printer, Froben. We can see from a letter written by Beatus Rhenanus to Pirkheimer how eagerly Utopia was discussed in Bâle.

In 1524 the German translation by Claudius Canticula was also published in Bâle: this was the first translation of the book into any language.

Nothing positive, however, is known about the communistic movement in Bale; and it has hitherto been impossible to remove the veil of obscurity covering the infancy of the Anabaptist order, or rather its connection with the earlier communistic movements. The first clear indication of the new sect appeared in Zurich at the time of Zwingli’s Reformation.

The Lutheran Reformation began with the resistance to one of the most active means of taking money from Germany to Italy – the sale of indulgences. Zwingli’s activity in the direction of reform (first as pastor in Glarus from 1506 to 1516, then as parish-priest in Einsiedlen from 1516 to 1519, and lastly as pastor in Zurich) began with a struggle against the means by which the money of the Papacy was brought into Switzerland, viz., mercenary war service. Luther began as a theologian, Zwingli as a politician, his first attacks being directed, not against Catholic dogmas, but against the neighbouring Valois and Hapsburg dynasties. In 1519, he was still so high in favour with the Vatican, that when he fell ill with the plague, the Papal legate hastened to send him his body-physician. Not until the waves of the German Reformation reached Switzerland, did the conflict in that country with the temporal power of the Pope become one against Catholicism (1522). As soon, however, as the Zurichers had entered this path, they went rapidly forward without encountering any serious obstacles.

Though Zwingli surpassed Luther in perspicuity and consistency, the Zwinglian Reformation movement none the less followed, in one respect, the same direction as the Lutheran. Like the latter, it exerted itself at the beginning to bring about the co-operation of all the classes who were dissatisfied with existing ecclesiastical conditions. In Zwingli’s case, however, as in Luther’s, the united struggle was followed by a rupture. Each of the allied parties and classes sought to profit by the victory in the furtherance of its own interests, and in accordance with its own views. The leader of the movement, the reformer, who had hitherto been supported by all classes, was now forced to decide in favour of one of these in opposition to the others, and thus to turn against a part of his former co-workers. This is a peculiarity of all revolutionary movements which are accomplished by the co-operation of different classes having opposing interests. When the conflict with the ruling Church began in Zurich, the communistic sectarians of that place no longer deemed it necessary to maintain strict secrecy. As early as the spring of 1522, it came to the knowledge of the authorities that an “heretical school” existed in the town; an association in which the bookseller, Andreas auf der Stülzen (who had belonged to the Bâle circle) acted as teacher. This association had not yet been proscribed; on the contrary, we find its members in friendly intercourse with Zwingli.

Late in the autumn of 1522, Conrad Grebel returned from Bâle to Zurich, and immediately joined the “heretical school.” Independent and wealthy from his earliest years, he had studied in Vienna and Paris, acquiring some fame as a savant, but also seriously impairing his health by the excesses of his student life.

On his return to his home in Zurich, he devoted himself with enthusiasm to the cause of the Church movement, and became one of the “Brethren,” though continuing to be on the best of terms with Zwingli.

He was followed by many of his associates in the Bâle circle, to whom Zurich seemed a freer field for their activity. Wilhelm Reublin left his living in Bâle and received one in Wietikon; Simon Stumpf became pastor in Hongg, near Zurich; and Ludwig Hatzer, an erudite young priest from Thurgau, who had also been in Bale, was to be found in Zurich in 1523.

The associates who thus flocked in from abroad were joined by numerous proselytes from the town itself. Among these the most prominent was Felix Manz, a philologian, who with Grebel was soon in the front rank of the “Spirituals”, as the Zurich Brethren were first called.

The community continued to grow, and at length began to feel its strength. Zwingli cast loving glances at it. The chief concern of the association was now to urge him onward along the path of social reform; the effort, however, resulting in a quarrel, which became more and more bitter.

The Brethren demanded the abolition of Church imposts – tributes and tithes; a step which Zwingli himself had openly advocated. But he now grew apprehensive of the league. On the 22nd of June, 1523, the Great Council of the town pronounced emphatically against the idea of attacking the Church tithes; a hint which was apparently not lost on Zwingli, for three days latter he delivered a sermon in the cathedral, in which he sided with the Council. This showed that he intended to sever his connection with the Brethren.

Meanwhile this did not make the Brethren yield. They invited Zwingli to organise the Church in such a way as to make it independent of the State. The answer was the introduction of the State Church in the autumn, and the decision that all Church affairs should in future be referred to the Great Council, i.e., to the governing classes.

This arrangement was a great blow to the “Spirituals”, who had not begun the struggle with the Papal Church merely to place a compliant instrument of power in the hands of the wealthy. The conflict between them and Zwingli now became a bitter one; but while the “Spirituals” fought with words only, Zwingli had the whole power of the State at his disposal, and made abundant use of it. As early as the end of 1523, the Brethren began to be arrested and banished, Simon Stumpf being among the first victims, in December.

The persecution, however, did not overawe the Brethren; it rather increased their zeal, and bound them more closely together. The sect grew rapidly both in the town and country, as the exiles carried their doctrines into the neighbouring cantons, where they soon gained a following. At the same time the Brethren began to dissociate themselves more and more from the mass of the population, and the condemnation of infant baptism gradually came to the fore, as their distinguishing tenet.

Such was the state of affairs in the beginning of the year 1525.