VII. The Anabaptists in Strassburg and the Netherlands

The democratic guilds had been victorious in Münster, but having won all their successes solely through the help of the lower masses of the population, they could not, as had often happened before in similar cases, throw aside the tools which had been used as soon as they had attained their object. The victory had been won by a lucky stroke of fortune, not by a decisive defeat of the adversary in open fight. Peace, therefore, merely meant a temporary cessation of hostilities, while the prospect of more severe battles loomed up before the middle-class democracy, making them afraid to drop their connection with the proletarian democrats. The convictions of the latter found their most congenial expression in Anabaptism. The prominent position which the proletariat had attained in Münster made that town the centre of the Baptist faith in Lower Germany.

Zwinglians having made their appearance in Münster during the year 1532, in addition to Catholics and Lutherans, the Baptists joined them. The two centres from which Anabaptist doctrines spread into Lower Germany were Strassburg and the Netherlands.

In Strassburg, which was in close economic and political intercourse with the great towns of North Switzerland, the Zwinglian State Church triumphed in 1525. The struggle of Zwinglianism against Catholicism and Lutheranism assisted the Baptists in Strassburg, as in other South German towns. After Augsburg, as we have already seen, Strassburg became the most important centre of the South German Baptist community. It there held its ground longer than in other places, thanks to the power possessed by the “common man”, and to the fear of an insurrection, which prevented the Council from taking decisive measures against the Baptists. So strong were these people in this powerful capital, that the most important of the Church leaders there, especially Capito, continued the policy at first followed by Zwingli, and for a long time showed a great inclination towards Baptist opinions.

During the great persecution Strassburg was a city of refuge for those “Brothers” who did not emigrate to Moravia, and after the Baptist community in Augsburg had been cruelly suppressed, it became the metropolis of the movement in South Germany, so long as such a movement could be said to exist.

Nearly all the prominent men among the South German Baptists passed through the new metropolis at various times; but the most important of them all was the journeyman furrier, Melchior Hofmann, from Hall in Swabia, a man who had travelled a great deal. In 1523 he had preached the Evangelical doctrines in Livland, and had become a preacher in the German community at Stockholm. Driven from there, he took refuge in Holstein, where King Frederick of Denmark granted him the means of livelihood and freedom to preach. But when he changed from Lutheranism to Zwinglianism, he was banished from the country (1529), and turned towards Strassburg, where he was soon carried away by the Baptist opinions, becoming one of the community in 1530, and, after the old chiefs had fallen or been driven out, rising to a position of the highest prominence among them.

An eccentric and visionary enthusiast, he took up with Hans Hut’s views on the millennium, which must now have found a still more favourable soil among the Brethren, as the persecution against them was still raging. In fact, if there had not been some signs of a speedy deliverance, it would have been difficult to remain steadfast in the midst of the cruelties of the hunt for heretics. But the fiercer the persecution, the stronger grew their faith in the promises which foretold the approaching collapse of the existing state of society-that most passionate desire of their hearts. Nothing more, however, was to be expected from the Turks.

Strassburg was looked upon as the heavenly Jerusalem by Hofmann; for it was confidently expected that power would fall to the Baptists, in that place, within a very short time, perhaps in the year 1533.

But Hofmann agreed so far with the Baptists’ usual mode of thinking, that he declared himself against all employment of force. He relied upon the effect of his propaganda, which was that God would bring about victory, and that all rebellion was sinful.

At first Hofmann met with angry resistance in the community. Two different parties were formed, of which his finally triumphed, perhaps more from his success in the Netherlands than from the force of his arguments, or the innermost needs of the Brothers.

He was too restless, however, to remain long in Strassburg. In 1539 he went down the Rhine to promulgate his new conviction in the Netherlands.

The Netherlands was the home of heretical communism north of the Alps. There Beghardism had its origin; there “the Brothers of the Common Life” had worked, and educated the people. But the rapid economic development of the country which led to the creation of communism there, also matured a strong government, the most dangerous enemy of communism. At the beginning of the sixteenth century the government was far more powerful and absolute than in the neighbouring part of Germany.

The Burgundian House, and, after its extinction in 1477, its successor, the House of Hapsburg, had united the seventeen provinces of the Netherlands into one whole, by the most diverse means – through inheritance, by purchase, and by conquest.

Moreover, in 1504, the Hapsburgs had also succeeded to the throne of Spain, in which country despotism had already made great progress. The Church especially was there reduced to almost total dependence upon the Crown. The Inquisition, which nowhere exercised such terrible power as in Spain, had become a blind tool of a despotism which crushed all intractable elements. Abroad the strength of the Spanish power was so great at that time that it ventured to take up the quarrel with France about Italy and the Papal rule. As kings of Spain, the Hapsburgs had even more reason for supporting Catholicism than they had in their capacity as rulers of Austria (then threatened by the Turks) and Emperors of Germany, whose power was undermined by the Evangelical princes, for the Catholic Church had become one of the most important, if not the most important of their instruments of power.

They had, therefore, every reason for being decidedly opposed to Protestantism; but they could attack it with more energy in the Netherlands than in Germany. As Emperor of Germany, Charles V united the Netherlands to the Spanish kingdom in 1516. Besides the highly efficient means of governmental power which the Netherlands offered him, he had at his command the forces of the Spanish throne with which he could crush all opposition in any of his dominions. Without outwardly touching the old forms of government, he took from them every vestige of political freedom. The despotism which assumed such terrible proportions under Philip II, and which later on could be put down only by a sanguinary war of nearly a hundred years’ duration (1561-1648), and then in only a portion of the Netherlands, was initiated by Charles V, who, whenever, it appeared necessary, relentlessly enforced his autocratic power.

The lower classes were kept down with an iron hand, and rendered powerless so long as there was no great conflict among the rulers themselves. This was the reason why the native land of heretical communism apparently remained an unfruitful soil for communistic propaganda during the first decade of the German Reformation. The mind of the people, however, was well prepared, and communistic tendencies were widespread before Hofmann appeared on the scene.

At the end of the fifteenth century “Waldensian” secret societies were reported to exist in Flanders and Brabant, and were called “Turlupins”, or “Pifles”, often also (and this is worthy of notice) “Tisserands” (weavers). “They were strict in their morals, charitable towards all men, and harboured no revengeful feelings. Many joined the Dutch Anabaptists, and added much to their strength.”

According to their own tradition, the Baptists had spread their propaganda to the Netherlands as early as the year 1534, and indeed it is known that three “Brothers” suffered martyrdom for the cause in Holland in 1527.

Hofmann’s importance lay, not in his introduction of Anabaptism into the Netherlands, but in the courage he imparted to the members of the sect to propagate their doctrines. This courage flowed from his convincingly confident prophecy that the end of the existing order of society was at hand, and that the year 1533 would see the inauguration of the new state of things. The effect of his preaching was enhanced by the pestilence and famine which had been prevalent since 1529, as well as by the democratic movement in the adjacent provinces of Lower Germany, especially in Westphalia.

It is worthy of remark that the new sect (called Melchiorites, from Melchior Hofmann) could never obtain a firm footing in Flanders and Brabant, where economics and politics had reached an advanced stage of development, and where the executive power was strong and concentrated. The centre of the movement lay in the towns of the Northern provinces – in Holland, Zealand, and Friesland, which, though backward in politics and economics, had for that very reason preserved a large measure of municipal independence, and which, unlike Flanders and Brabant, were afterwards successful in freeing themselves from Spanish domination. Amsterdam became the seat of the leading community of Anabaptists.

The Melchiorites had hardly begun to be numerous, when they divided themselves into two parties. All of course believed in the imminent coming of the New Jerusalem, but the more practical among them were forced to admit that it would not come of itself, by means of a miracle, but that the proletariat must free itself. They maintained that they must fight their opponents with the same weapon which had been used in the subjugation of the people: that the sword, which the godless had drawn from its scabbard against God’s people, should now be turned against the hearts of their tyrants.

So taught Jan Mathys, a baker of Haarlem, who was the first of the Melchiorites to counsel violent measures. “Jan Mathys was the first to demand and inaugurate the use of arms and force against the authorities,” said Jan van Leyden to his judges; and in an earlier confession, he tells of the dissension which had arisen between Mathys and Hofmann.

The doctrines promulgated by Mathys were favoured in the Netherlands by the circumstance that class antagonisms were much more acute in that province than in Switzerland, the native land of the Baptist sect. In the Netherlands, hardly a single representative of the upper classes was to be found in the ranks of the order, the movement in that country being eminently proletarian in character, and among classes who had nothing to lose but their fetters; a fact which must have increased both the strength of their resistance and their eagerness for it.

Mathys succeeded in firmly establishing himself in the community of Amsterdam, and also gained many adherents outside that community by the instrumentality of his messengers, the number of which increased with the growth of the Melchiorites. By far the most prominent among them was the before-mentioned Jan Bockelson of Leyden. His mother, who was a tradeswoman from the neighbourhood of Münster, had been servant to Bockel, mayor of Soevenhagen, to whom she bore a son – Jan (1509).

She subsequently married Bockel, after having bought her freedom. Jan learned the craft of tailoring in Leyden, but received a very scanty mental training. His extraordinary natural endowments, however, compensated for this. After studying Münzer’s works, he took a lively interest in the stirring questions of his day, and was especially enthusiastic concerning communism. His mental horizon was broadened by extensive travels also. As a journeyman tailor, after going to Flanders, he visited England, where he remained four years. On his return home, he did not pursue his craft, but married the widow of a mariner, and set himself up in trade. Business took him to Lübeck and Lisbon; but having no luck, or perhaps lacking the requisite business capacity, he became a bankrupt just at the time when the Baptist sect made its appearance in the Netherlands. With all the ardour of youth, he now embraced the doctrines with which he had always been in sympathy. Much as he had seen and experienced, he was not yet twenty-five years old when he was won over to the cause of Jan Mathys (November 1533).

Handsome, vivacious, enthusiastic and of captivating eloquence, he soon made conquest of hearts. Enjoyment of life and of the beautiful was a conspicuous trait of his character, in striking contrast to the bulk of his associates, who favoured a gloomy puritanism; in this respect he also completely differed from Thomas Münzer. From early youth he had manifested poetical talent, and Kerssenbroick informs us that “he had also written all sorts of plays, which, as was customary in that country, he produced on the stage before the whole people, to gain money.” His proclivity and aptitude for theatrical affairs were afterwards displayed in Münster.

Kerssenbroick, however, has little cause for deriding him as a “tailor” and “theatre king”. The masters whose devoted servant Kerssenbroick was, trembled for fear of the tailor and theatre king; for to the characteristics just described, the dictator of Münster united an inflexible will and a penetrating acuteness, which made him an opponent to be dreaded.

Before Bockelson became a partisan of Mathys, the latter was at the head of the Melchiorites in the Netherlands, Hofmann having left in the beginning of the year 1533 to return to Strassburg, as the time for the commencement of the New Jerusalem had arrived. Hofmann had prophesied that he should be taken prisoner and remain confined for half a year, but that then the Redeemer would come. The first part of the prophecy was soon fulfilled, as he was arrested in May. The Brothers were now on the tenterhooks of expectation, and looked forward with feverish impatience to the time when, at last, there should be an end to all sorrow and want.

The remainder of the prophecy lacked fulfilment. The year 1533 drew to its close, and all continued to be quiet in Strassburg. As a chief result of Hofmann’s agitation, the Council was spurred on to energetic measures against the Baptists. All their wavering adherents fell away from the sect, and their cause from that moment continued to lose ground in the town. Just at this time, however, an impetus was given to the enthusiasm of the Brothers, which made it blaze up once more; for “throughout the Netherland communities a report was spread that the Lord had rejected Strassburg on account of its unbelief, and had in its stead chosen Münster as the seat of the New Jerusalem” (Cornelius).

Let us now see what had meanwhile been transpiring in Münster.