III. The Fortune and Fate of the Anabaptists in Switzerland

The first decisive blow received by the Anabaptists fell upon them before the outbreak of the Peasant War.

Inflamed by their preachers, and especially by Reublin, many parents refused to have their children baptized. In vain did pastors and Councilmen exert themselves to persuade the recalcitrants to yield. On the 18th of January, therefore, the Council issued an order for the compulsory baptism of children, at the same time enacting the punishment of exile to any one transgressing the decree. The execution of the order began three days later, by the banishment of Reublin, Hätzer, Andreas von der Stülzen, together with Brodli, from Graubunden, who acted as preacher in Zollikon, but supported himself by manual labour.

The answer to this blow was fit and bold. An assembly was convened of the Brothers remaining in Zurich, at which Jürg Blaurock, at one time a monk in Chur, rose and asked Conrad Grebel to baptize him with the true Christian baptism. After the ceremony had been performed, Jürg baptized all others present at the meeting. From that time rebaptism, or late baptism, was the recognised symbol of admission to the league of Brethren. An attempt was made to arrive, at the same time, at a practical realisation of communism.

When the Zurich Brethren espoused the doctrine of rebaptism, they did so with the full consciousness of what awaited them.

“The Council caused many to be thrown into prison, among whom were Manz and Blaurock. Interdictions, trials, and punishments followed; then more imprisonments, conferences, and severer punishments. But this people had a spirit which mocked at the theology of Zwingli, and as wind spreads the fire, so did violence spread the name of their Church far and wide.”

In fact the exiles from Zurich soon sowed the seed of their doctrines throughout all German Switzerland, their greatest success being achieved on the German frontier, in Waldshut, Schaffhausen, and St. Galle.

In these and other towns of Switzerland and South Germany, the Zurich Reformation movement met with an active response; and, as in Zurich, there also appeared a radical Anabaptist party, who wished to go beyond the reform of Zwingli, and who were more successful than their coadjutors had been in the capital, where the population was less plebeian in character.

The wholesale expulsions from Zurich at the beginning of the year 1525 helped to stir up the above-mentioned towns. Grebel repaired to Schaffhausen; Brodli began to preach at Hallau, in the vicinity of the same town; and Reublin finally went to Waldshut. In Schaffhausen the new doctrines made but slow progress; but Hallau was soon won over, as well as Waldshut, where the leader of the movement was Dr.Balthasar Hubmeier, who, as we know, had had dealings with the Bâle circle.

This man merits a somewhat closer view. Born in Friedberg, near Augsburg, in 1480, he had devoted himself to a scholastic career; and had been made professor in the University of Ingolstadt, of which he was appointed Pro-Rector in 1515. He passed the following year at Regensburg, where he was preacher in the cathedral, and became conspicuous chiefly for his agitation against the Jews, whom the handicraftsmen accused of causing the decay of the town and the crafts. In 1519 the Jews were banished, and soon after Hubmeier also left. What drove him away we do not know; perhaps his participation in the Reformation movement. He betook himself to Waldshut, which was at that time in the possession of the Hapsburgs, and there he soon acquired an important influence as a preacher, especially among the common people. This influence was increased when, owing to the impulse given to the movement in Waldshut by the Zurich Reformation, a democratic agitation began against the ruling dynasty. This agitation, which finally led to the insurrection of the town against the Hapsburgs on the eve of the Peasant War, was headed by Hubmeier, whose role was the same as that played in Zurich by Zwingli, with whom he was in constant communication.

As we have already remarked, the success of this movement was coincident with the prosperity of the Anabaptists in Waldshut.

When Zwingli took up the cudgels against the Brethren, Hubmeier was forced to a decision. In Waldshut the common people had more power than in Zurich, and were in closer proximity to the rebellious peasants of South Germany. Hubmeier separated himself from Zwingli, and with his community went over to the Baptists, with whom he had previously been in sympathy, and was on many points in accord. When Reublin came to Waldshut, Hubmeier was baptized by him (Easter, 1525). More than three hundred citizens followed his example, and with Hubmeier the town was soon won over to the cause. This rebellious city became “a rock of the Baptist Church; a centre whence revival preachers and missions were dispatched in all directions” (Cornelius).

A rapid increase took place simultaneously in the St. Galle community, and all Appenzell was soon roused to excitement.

Manz carried the Baptist doctrines to Graubünden; others spread them in Bâle and Berne; while in the canton of Zurich itself the agitation did not stagnate, in spite of all the measures taken by the authorities. For a long time it was particularly successful in the highlands of the Grüningen.

These great successes would have been impossible without the Peasant War, which stirred up the people of Switzerland and Southern Germany. But when this great war was at an end; when the rebellious German peasantry lay in the dust, bleeding from a thousand wounds, the position of things in the confederacy was altered for the Baptists. The lower classes now grew faint-hearted and despairing, while the rulers became more arrogant, their thirst for blood fired by the famous example of their German neighbours. In the second half of the year 1525 the persecution of the Anabaptists became general throughout Switzerland, and all the more bitter and cruel in proportion to the increase of danger threatening from the communistic sectarians, under the aegis of the Peasant War.

As early as the beginning of June the Council of St. Galle was roused from its lethargy and decreed the prohibition of rebaptism. Burgesses were forced to swear unconditional obedience to the authorities, under penalty of banishment from the town. In July Manz was arrested by the Council of Chur and handed over to Zurich, while in August the Council of Schaffhausen gained the mastery over the Anabaptists. October saw the arrest of Grebel and Blaurock, and in November Berne enacted the penalty of banishment on the advocates of Anabaptism. Finally Waldshut, the rock of the Anabaptists, fell into the hands of the Austrian Government without resort to arms, and Hubmeier, to whom all other loopholes of escape were closed, fled to Zurich, where he was seized and imprisoned.

This year, which during its first half had been so full of brilliant success for the Anabaptists, ended in the complete overthrow and dispersion of the entire league.

Most of them fled to Germany, e.g., Rueblin, Hatzer, and Blaurock.

Others repented and renounced their errors, among whom the best known was Hubmeier. After he had recanted and sworn never again to enter the canton of Zurich, he was mercifully set free (April, 1526). “Nevertheless,” mourns Bullinger, “however reasonable and right-minded the simple erring folk were made by this act of Dr. Balthasar, there were many Baptists who neither by this nor by any other means could be induced to better themselves.”

The authorities pursued them with corporal punishments of increased severity. As early as March 7, 1526, the Council of Zurich had decreed that all who obstinately adhered to the Anabaptist cause “should be laid in the tower, kept on bread and water, and left to die and rot,” women and maidens as well. Moreover, it threatened with rigorous punishment all who might shelter an Anabaptist or supply him with food and drink. Finally, the death penalty was ordained for those who should relapse, the first to suffer being Felix Manz. He was drowned on the 5th of January, and his property confiscated.

Persecution however did not succeed in suppressing the doctrine of Anabaptism in Switzerland; and indeed no communistic sect has hitherto being annihilated by violent measures. But circumstances no longer favoured the sect, and hence, after the overthrow of the German peasants, the communistic movement in the Swiss confederacy was soon forced back to the level at which it stood before the beginning of the Reformation, viz., that of a secret league, boding no danger to the governing classes but in the highest degree dangerous to its members – a league whose existence was made known only by occasional law proceedings and executions. As far as publicity was concerned, the movement had vanished.