VI. The Disturbances in Münster

The Reformation movement began to develop itself and to let loose the class antagonisms of that era later in North, than in South Germany. In a great measure this is attributable to the economic backwardness of the North Germans. In those districts of the North-West which were more highly developed, the Reformation agitation was checked by the proximityofthe Hapsburg Netherlands, from which Charles V. could exercise far more adverse influence upon the border districts than he could upon the other parts of the Empire.

The peasants in the North did not join in the universal movement, as the events of the year 1525 in South and Central Germany found no echo among them, partly on account of their being in a better position than their brothers in Upper Germany, and partly because single districts were more separated from each other, and intercourse between them was consequently less frequent than in the more thickly settled North.

Only two aspects of the Reformation were prominent in South Germany; the princely and the municipal; but the municipal Reformation in the North was marked by severer and keener contests between the municipal and the princely authorities on the one side, and on the other between the guilds and the municipal patricians. The analogy with South Germany goes still further; for the struggle between these conflicting classes could not be fought out without the lowest stratum of the urban population taking part m the movement.

The most celebrated and powerful of the North German cities which played a part in the Reformation was the Hanse town of Lübeck.

The aristocratic Town Council sided with the existing authority, i.e., the Catholic Church, while the democrats made the cause of the “Gospel” their own. In 1530 an insurrection gained the victory over the nobles and Church; the constitution was changed to suit democratic ideas, and the Church property confiscated by the town. But this victory had been won only by the guilds combining with the masses of the “common” people. The leader in the conflict, and the most prominent representative of the union was Jurg Wullenweber, Burgomaster of Lübeck, in the year 1533. The fact that he had been obliged to rely on the common people makes it comprehensible why he should have manifested sympathy with the Anabaptists. So notorious was this sympathy, that when he was Burgomaster of the town, the report went through Germany that L ubeck had been won over to the cause of the Anabaptists. Whether Wullenweber really did favour the opinion of the Baptists, and if so, to what extent, cannot now be ascertained. Certain it is, however, that the Anabaptists in Lübeck gained no advantage from his sympathy, nor did any of the other North German cities in which they were numerously represented.

In one town only were they temporarily successful, thanks to a singular conjunction of circumstances – in Münster.

North-Western Germany was particularly rich in ecclesiastical principalities; Cologne, Münster, Paderborn, Osnabrück, Minden, &c. Of these, the Archbishopric of Cologne and the Bishopric of Münster were by far the most important.

The social and political contests in the ecclesiastical principalities took a special colour. There the reigning prince united in his person the ruling powers of both Church and State; though he was by no means an absolute prince in consequence. Much more dependent on the Emperor arid the Pope than a secular lord, he was at the same time more of a puppet than a ruler among the nobility and clergy in his dominions. The election of Bishops had everywhere been monopolised by the Chapter for themselves, and these, like the higher and more lucrative places in the Church generally, had become a privilege of the nobility (in Münster since 1392). Nobility and clergy were in consequence bound together in a close association of mutual interests, and they presented a far more formidable phalanx against their elected ruler than was the case in the secular principalities. The constitutional States had, in consequence, more to say in the ecclesiastical provinces than in the others; but in the constitutional States, again, the nobility and the Church were in the majority, when united. The cities were always outvoted; the lesser among them were oppressed, while the greater were driven to help themselves in whatever way they could.

Under these circumstances the nobility and the higher Church dignitaries had the most to lose, and therefore held fast to the old faith. They preferred sharing with the Vatican the huge amount of wealth which the Church had amassed in the ecclesiastical principalities, to losing it altogether.

The Bishops, on the other hand, were not to be depended on. Only too easily did they give way to the temptation which the example of their temporal neighbours offered them. Conversion to the Lutheran doctrines promised them not only independence of the Pope, who taxed them heavily, but a free right over Church property and great power over the nobles. It is, therefore, not at all surprising that the Bishops of Münster, like many of their colleagues, opposed the Evangelical doctrines in a very lukewarm and halfhearted manner; and, indeed, not seldom secretly favoured them.

When Bernt Rothmann, in 1531, began to preach Lutheran doctrines in the suburb of Münster (St. Moritz) the Chapter appealed in vain to Bishop Frederick, petitioning him to restrain the mischief which was being done. He certainly forbade Rothmann to preach, but did not do the smallest thing to enforce his mandate, thus enabling Rothmann to continue his ministry undisturbed. Only an Imperial command at last induced the Bishop to stop him (in January, 1532). Rothmann quitted St. Moritz; not to turn his back on the country, however, but to be the better able to assail the Church in Münster at its centre; that is, he transferred his preaching to Münster itself.

Münster was a large city, rich and well fortified, the chief town, not only of the bishopric, but of the whole of Westphalia. Democracy had proved itself particularly strong there. Originally as was the case in every medieval town, the Council had been exclusively in the hands of the patricians, the “hereditary race” (Erbmänner), as they were called in Münster. But when the trades and handicrafts began to flourish, and the guilds attained to power and importance, they also were admitted into the Council, which was thenceforward selected annually by ten electors (Korgensten), who were nominated by the assembled citizens. Only half of the four-and-twenty members of the Council were to be drawn from the aristocratic class; but as the management of municipal affairs had already become an occupation which demanded more time and knowledge than was, as a rule, attainable for a man of the lower classes, the twelve seats in the Council which appertained to the citizens again and again fell to the members of a few wealthy families, from among whom, little by little, a second aristocracy was developed, less eminent than the Erbmänner, but united to them by association of interests.

Thus the Council gradually became once more exclusively representative of the municipal aristocracy; men who lived partly on their rents from the leasing of their landed property, and partly by commercial enterprise. But, next to the Council, the power of the companies or guilds held its ground. There were seventeen guilds in Münster, each of which possessed its own Guildhall, and made bye-laws for its own guidance. The “Schohaus” Guildhall was the central point of the assembled civic guilds. In Lent, shortly after the election of the Council, the four-and-twenty guildmasters met there, and elected two aldermen. “These,” says a Münster historian of those times, “are the heads and representatives of the whole community of burgesses, and their authority is so great that they, together with the guildmasters, could reverse the decisions of the Council if they wished. Hence the magistrates can hardly decide anything of importance in matters concerning the welfare of the community, without the consent of the above-mentioned principals.”

In peaceful times, certainly, the Council was at liberty to act very much according to its own sweet will; but if it came to a conflict between the community and the Council, or between the clergy and community, the authority of the Council vanished very quickly.

This had been practically demonstrated more than once, especially in 1525. The mighty struggle in Upper Germany did not pass over Lower Germany without leaving its traces. In the towns the “common man” everywhere arose; the result of this, in Cologne as in Münster, was an agitation against the clergy, which increased into violent rebellion when the Council endeavoured to oppose the movement. The people resisted, and nominated a committee of forty men, who formulated the demands of the community in thirty-six articles; not concerning religious subjects, but on economic questions; thus proving that the guilds were the instigators of the movement.

But though the articles were accepted by the Council (the Chapter even signing some of them), they were not carried in their entirety. The overthrow of the North German uprising brought the South German agitation also to a standstill, while, at the same time, it set free the power of the victorious princes, and enabled them to help their friends in the South. It came to a compromise between the clergy and the town, by which the rights of the clergy were restored; and, in return, the latter relinquished all their original claims to compensation and security against any contingent future injury.

Peace was thereby restored, though the opposition of the civic elements (particularly the town democracy) to the rich, privileged, and tax-imposing clergy continued. The mighty catastrophe of 1525 had set the masses in motion, though they had taken but little interest in the Reformation up to that time. This was the case, not only with Münster, but with the whole of Lower Germany, where the “cause of the Gospel” now found a joyful reception. The clergy were at the head of the movement, which had originally been purely economic, but now began to make use of religious arguments, and to assume an apparently purely religious character.

This is a phenomenon which often meets us in the period of the Reformation, and finds its analogy in modern middle-class and proletarian movements.

The cause of this is not difficult to discover. As long as a social movement is merely a question of the special demands of the moment, its economic character is clearly evident. But the deeper its penetration and the greater its expansion, the more it seeks to transform the whole of society – i.e., the whole of the commonwealth – the greater becomes the necessity for establishing a rational connection between its separate claims. Thoughtful men will feel impelled to be clear as to the ultimate aims of a movement whose first efforts represent only passing demands, and will endeavour to explain these on lofty general principles. In proportion to the limit of economic knowledge in any age, and the generally subversive aims of the movement, the arguments and theories of the agitators appear as a rule more and more mystical, and the malcontents more easily lose a right comprehension of the economic basis of their agitation. When, for example, the cause of a movement happens to be only a question of free trade, or some trifling tax; or when it concerns shorter hours of labour and higher wages, the economic principle is clear enough to the most shortsighted. But if the movement has to do with the general class-antagonism of the middle class or proletariat against existing society, then, to a superficial observer, the economic basis is almost wholly lost sight of, and it becomes a question of the everlasting principles of natural right, reason, justice, &c., &c. At the time of the Reformation, the general tone of thought was not legal, but theological, and, in consequence, the more radical a social movement, the more theological were its party words; such as the “Will of God”, the “Word of Christ”, and others of a similar nature.

In the year 1529 the democratic Protestant movement in Lower Germany received a special stimulus. At that time a terrible famine broke out, which lasted till 1531, as Sebastian Franck tells us in his Chronicles, published in this year. At some places a bushel of rye cost three shillings and sixpence, and in the following summer nine shillings. In 1531 the price went up still more. In Dortmund in 1530, a bushel of rye cost five shillings and sixpence; in 1531 the price had gone up to fourteen shillings. A devastating plague, the so-called “English sweating sickness”, ravaged the country, at the same time as the famine.

Then came the Turkish invasion, which was felt in Lower Germany, in consequence of the war-tax, i.e., the “Turkish tax”, which was at once levied. But in those parts of the country which had nothing to fear from the Turks, this tax must have been most exasperating, in the midst of so much distress, especially as the rate of assessment was not low. For instance, in the Duke of Cleves’ Principality it was 10 per cent. on the income.

This must have intensified the social antagonism immensely, adding bitterness to the contests of the democracy against the wealthy clergy, who knew only too well how to avoid taxation themselves, and to whom, in their shortsighted avarice, it did not occur to subscribe voluntarily to the war expenses.

In this state of affairs the preaching of Bernhard Rothmann found a favourable hearing; and when he withdrew in 1532 from St. Moritz to Münster, he was received with open arms by the democracy, and protected from all attempts at violence. The most prominent of the democratic party was a rich cloth-merchant, named Bernhard Knipperdollinck; “a stately man, still young in years, with beautiful hair and beard; brave, frank, and strong in appearance, gestures, and movements; full of plans, clever in speech, and swift in deed” (Cornelius); stubborn, active, and with a propensity for the romantic.

It was very fortunate for the struggling, aspiring democracy at a time when they had to put forth all their strength in defence of Rothmann, that the clerical authorities were taken up with internal affairs which were characteristic of the Church at that period.

Bishop Frederick was an ease-loving noble, whom the office of Bishop pleased so long as it occasioned little trouble and brought in plenty of money. Now, when the difficulties of the Church multiplied, when Pope, Emperor, and Chapter urged him to a more energetic policy in defence of the Church, the Bishop’s chair grew odious to him. He therefore looked about for a successor who should take the episcopal commission off his hands for a good round price; and such a person he at last found in Bishop Eric of Paderborn and Osnabriick, a noble as greedy of land as he was capable of paying for it, and who gladly seized the opportunity to add yet a third episcopal commission to the two he already possessed. The Catholic Archbishop of Cologne and the Lutheran Elector of Saxony were the intermediaries in this clerical traffic (whether they received commission fees is not known). The purchase-money was fixed at 40,000 gulden. By a gross fraud, these nobles, as pious as they were powerful, gained the consent of the Chapter: a counterfeit agreement was laid before the latter, instead of the real one, in which only half of the true amount was stated as the purchase-money. And it was a person of this class who took upon himself to defend religion, morals, and property against the Anabaptists!

After he had received his price, Eric was provisionally elected Bishop in 1531, and Frederick laid down his episcopal dignity in March, 1532.

During this interim the heretics throve gaily in Münster. The entrance of the new Bishop upon his office did not affect them much, however, as he looked upon himself in the light of a ruler rather than a Bishop, and the spread of the Lutheran teaching was even less distasteful to him than it had been to his predecessor. Moreover, he was the close friend of the Elector John of Saxony (one of the intermediaries in the purchase of the Bishop’s chair) and of Landgrave Philip of Hesse, both leaders of the Evangelical movement in Germany. In fact, so little did he hesitate to manifest his Protestant sympathies, that he acted as a witness to the marriage of Graf von Tecklenburg with a nun who had quitted the cloister.

The election of the Bishop strengthened the Protestant cause in Münster enormously, but also led to a division of the movement into two parties. Much as Eric inclined towards the Reformation, it was not the Reformation of the lower classes, but of the higher, that he favoured; a reformation which increased the power of the rulers, but not that of the democracy, at the expense of the Church.

Against the clerical party and the knighthood, Eric sought for the support of the town patricians and the Council, with its adherents; the two together forming a “moderate party” which coquetted with the Lutherans.

So long as all their adversaries were Catholics, the urban democracy were willing to make the Lutheran doctrines serve as the foundation of their faith; but now that Lutheranism threatened to be turned from a weapon of defence into one in the hands of their most dangerous enemies, viz., the Bishop and the patricians, they began to lose their sympathy with Luther’s teachings, and to turn towards Zwinglianism, which was better suited to their wants.

Eric and the Council considered it most important that they should get the upper hand of the municipal democracy; and by beginning in this way they were sure of the assistance of the clergy. On the 17th of April, 1532, the Bishop issued a mandate, in which he offered a prospect of speedy reform in the Church; but asked, first of all, that the preacher whom the community had so arbitrarily protected should be removed.

The Council, thereupon, gave orders to Rothmann to discontinue his sermons; but the community would not consent, declaring that they would retain their preacher under all circumstances (April 28th).

Again the democracy were in luck. “In fact,” writes the good episcopalian, Kerssenbroick, “this upright Bishop would have effected much in this matter by means of his own authority and the support of his friends, if he had not been prevented by a premature death. Making more merry than usual at his castle of Fürstenau, situated in the Diocese of Osnabrück, he suddenly became ill; though some assert that he died suddenly, on May 14th, after having emptied a large beaker of wine.”

This event was the signal for an insurrection in all the three bishoprics which had been harassed and oppressed during the lifetime of him who had expired in so holy a manner. In Osnabrück, Paderborn, and Münster the people rose, drove away the Catholic priests, and appointed Protestant pastors of their own way of thinking; the Council being nowhere in a position to check them. In Osnabrück a compromise was effected between the clerical party and the town by the interposition of the knights. Paderborn was utterly crushed by force in October, 1532, by the Archbishop Hermann of Cologne; but in Münster, on the contrary, the rebels understood better how to carry out their plans.

The Chapter had immediately elected Franz v. Waldeck to succeed Eric; and on June 28th a letter from him arrived in Münster, summoning the town to return to its allegiance. The assembly of the hereditary aristocrats declared itself ready to submit; but that of the guilds decreed (July 1st) the formation of a confederacy for the defence of the gospel. The appointment of the committee of thirty-six men so frightened the Town Council that they joined it, and granted the demands of the community. The committee of thirty-six immediately urged the reorganisation of the Church on Evangelical principles, and sought for help from abroad, finally concluding an alliance with Philip of Hesse; and when, in October, Bishop Franz, supported by the clerical and secular aristocracy, made preparations to overcome Münster by force, the community compelled the Council to make counter preparations; three hundred soldiers were enrolled and the fortifications repaired.

There were unimportant collisions between the parties; but the Bishop shrank from a decisive advance upon the strong city, which threatened him either with defeat or with foreign intervention and the loss of his independence. Moreover, his coffers were empty, and the greedy clergy refused to make sacrifices for him. The Emperor, the most powerful protector of Catholicism in that region, was himself financially embarrassed at that time, in consequence of the Turkish war. Bishop Franz therefore endeavoured to return to the policy of his predecessor, and to make peace with the Council, entering into negotiations for this purpose.

Self-interest inclined the Council to make concessions, but the people would hear nothing of the kind. “Not a step backwards! rather let us kill and eat our children!” cried Knipperdollinck; and the masses supported him.

In order to manage the negotiations with more chance of success, the Bishop had betaken himself to the little town of Telgt, in the neighbourhood of Münster. But the proximity of the Bishop incited the warlike community to anything but peace. A sudden attack on Telgt was secretly planned and successfully carried out on the night of December 26th; but the Bishop himself was not captured, as he had accidentally left Telgt the day before. A great number, however, of the most illustrious representatives of the Catholic cause – ecclesiastical and secular aristocrats and fugitive hereditary patricians from Münster – were taken prisoners.

This victory had important results. By the interposition of Philip of Hesse a treaty was concluded (February 14., 1533), of which the chief stipulation was that the Bishop, Council, and knights should permit the democratic party such advantages as they had gained in the insurrection. Münster was thenceforth recognised as an Evangelical town.