cross, went to the Church of Saints Gervasius and Protasius and sung
mass. Grossulani also, bearing a cross, entered the same church and
mounted the pulpit, attended by Ariald de Marignano, and Berard,
Judge of Asti. Silence being made, and Liprand having taken his
place barefooted "on the marble stone at the entrance to the choir,
containing an image of Hercules," Grossulani addressed the people;
"Listen, and I will silence this man in three words." Then turning
to Liprand, he asked, "You have charged me with being a simoniac. To
whom have I given anything? Answer me."
Liprand, raising his eyes to the pulpit, pointed to those who
occupied it and said, "Look at those three great devils, who think
to confound me by their wit and wealth.[44] I appeal to the judgment
of God."
[44] "Proposuisti quod ego sum simoniacus per munus a manu. Modo
die: cui dedi; Tunc presbyter super populum oculos aperuit, et
digitum ad eos, qui stabunt in pulpito, extendit, dicens, Videte
tres grandissimos diabolos, qui per ingenium et pecuniam suam
putant me confundere."
Grossulani said, "But I ask what act of simony do you lay to my
charge?"
Liprand answered, "Do you answer me, What is the lightest form of
simony?"
The Archbishop, after some consideration, answered, "To refrain from
deposing a simoniac."
"And I say that is simony which consists in deposing an abbot from
his abbacy, a bishop from his bishopric, and an archbishop from his
archbishopric."[45]
[45] It is very evident from this discussion that Grossulani was
innocent of true simony; the whole charge against him was due to
his having quashed the election of Landulf, and thus of having
deposed, after a fashion, "an archbishop from his archbishopric."
The people became impatient, and began to shout, "Come out, come
out to the ordeal!" Then Liprand "jumped down from the stone,
containing the image of Hercules," and went forth accompanied by the
multitude to the field where the pyre was made. There arose then
a difficulty about the form of oath to be administered. Liprand,
seeing that there was some hesitation, said, "Let me manage it, and
see if I do not satisfy you all!" Whereupon he took hold of the hood
of the Archbishop and shook it, and said in a loud voice, "That
Grossulani, who is under this hood, he, and no other, has obtained
the archbishopric of Milan simoniacally, by gift of hand, gift of
tongue, and gift of service. And I, who enter on this ordeal, swear
that I have used no charm, or incantation, or witchcraft."
The Archbishop, unwilling to remain, remounted his horse and rode
to the Church of St. John "ad concham," but Ariald of Marignano
remained to see that the ordeal was rightly carried out. When
the pile was lighted, he said to the priest, "In heaven's name,
return to your duty, and do not rush on certain death." But Liprand
answered, "Get thee behind me, Satan," and signing himself, and
blessing the fire with consecrated water, he rushed through the
flames, barefooted, in sackcloth cassock and silk chasuble. He came
out on the other side uninjured; a sudden draught had parted the
flames as he entered, and when he emerged his feet were not burnt,
nor was his silk chasuble scorched.
The people shouted at the miracle, and Grossulani was obliged to fly
from the city.
It was soon rumoured, however, that Liprand was suffering from a
scorched hand and an injured foot. It was in vain for his friends to
assure the people that his hand had been burnt when he was throwing
the holy water on the flames before he entered them, and that his
foot was injured not by the fire, but by the hoof of a horse as
he emerged from the flames. One part of the mob began to clamour
against Liprand that he was an impostor, the other to exalt him as
a saint, and the streets became the scene of riot and bloodshed.
At this juncture Landulf of Vereglate, who had been just elected
to the vacant see, arrived from Jerusalem, and finding that the
Archbishop had fled the city, he appealed to the people to cease
from their riots, and promised to have Grossulani deposed, or at
least the charges brought against him properly investigated at
Rome. The tumults were with difficulty allayed, and the Archbishop,
Landulf, and Liprand went to Rome (A.D. 1103). A Synod was convened
and Liprand brought his vague accusations of simony against the
Archbishop. Landulf refused to support him, so that it is hardly
probable that he can have felt himself aggrieved by the conduct of
Grossulani. Liprand, being unable to substantiate his charge of
simony, was obliged to change the nature of his accusation, and
charged the Archbishop with having forced him to submit to the
ordeal of fire. The Pope and the Synod required the Archbishop
to clear himself by oath; accordingly Grossulani did so, in the
following terms: "I, Grossulani, by the grace of God Archbishop,
did not force Liprand to enter the fire." Azo, Bishop of Acqui, and
Arderic, Bishop of Lodi, took the oath with him; at the same time
the pastoral staff slipped from the hands of the Archbishop and
fell on the floor, a sign, the biographer of Liprand says, that he
forswore himself.[46]
[46] It is evident from the account of Landulf the younger
himself, that the Archbishop did not force the priest to enter on
the ordeal.
The Archbishop withdrew his authority confirmed by the Holy See, and
he returned to Milan, where he was well received.
The Archbishop took an unworthy opportunity, in 1110, of ridding
the city of the presence of Liprand for that priest having taken
into his house and cured a certain Herebert of Bruzano, an enemy
of the Archbishop, who was ill with fever. Grossulani deprived
Liprand of his benefice, and the priest retired into the Valteline.
Troubles broke out in Milan between the two parties, which produced
civil war, and the Archbishop was driven out of the city, whereupon
Liprand returned to it. The friends of Grossulani persuaded him to
visit Jerusalem, and he started, after having appointed Arderic,
Bishop of Lodi, his vicar (A.D. 1111). During his absence both
parties united to reject him, and they elected Jordano of Cliva
in his room (Jan. 1, A.D. 1112). Mainnard, Archbishop of Turin,
hastened to Rome, and received the pall from the Pope, on condition
that it should not be worn for six months. But the rumours having
spread that Grossulani was returning from Jerusalem, Mainnard came
to Milan, and placed the pall on the altar of St. Ambrose, whence
Jordano took it and laid it about his shoulders.
On the return of Grossulani, civil war broke out again between
the two factions, which ended in both Archbishops being summoned
to Rome in 1116; and the Pope ordered Grossulani to return to his
bishopric of Savonia, and confirmed Jordano in the archbishopric
of Milan. But before this Liprand had died 3rd January, 1113. His
sanctity was almost immediately attested by a miracle, in spite of
the disparagement of his virtues by the party of the Archbishop
Grossulani; for a certain knight of Piacenza, having swallowed a
fish-bone which stuck in his throat, in sleep saw the priest appear
to him and touch his throat, whereupon a violent fit of coughing
ensued, in which the bone was ejected; this was considered quite
sufficient to establish the claim of Liprand to be regarded as a
saint.
The Anabaptists of Münster.
To the year 1524 Münster, the capital of Westphalia, had remained
faithful to the religion which S. Swibert, coadjutor of S.
Willibrord, first Bishop of Utrecht, had brought to it in the 7th
century. But then Lutheranism was introduced into it.
Frederick von Wied at that time occupied the Episcopal throne. He
was brother to Hermann, Archbishop of Cologne, who was afterwards
deprived for his secession to Lutheranism.
The religious revolution in the Westphalian capital at its
commencement presents the same symptoms which characterised the
beginning of the Reformation elsewhere. The town council were
prepared to hail it as a means of overthrowing the Episcopal
authority, and establishing the municipal power as supreme in the
city.
Already the State of Juliers had embraced the new religion, and
faith had been shaken in Osnabrück, Minden, and Paderborn, when the
first symptoms appeared in Münster.
Four priests, the incumbents of the parishes of St. Lambert, St.
Ludger, St. Martin, and the Lieb-Frau Church, commonly called
Ueberwasser, declared for the Reform. The contemporary historian,
Kerssenbroeck, an eye-witness of all he describes, says of them,
"They indulged in the most violent abuse of the clergy, they cursed
good works, assured their auditors that such works would not receive
the smallest recompense, and permitted every one to give way to all
the excesses of so-called Evangelical liberty."[47] They stirred up
their hearers against the religious orders, and the people clamoured
daily at the gates of the monasteries and nunneries, insisting on
being given food; and the monks and nuns were too much frightened
to refuse those whom impunity rendered daily more exacting.[48] On
the night of the 22nd March, 1525, they attacked the rich convent
of nuns at Nizink, with intentions of pillaging it. They failed
in this attempt, and the ringleaders were seized and led before
the magistrates, followed by an excited and tumultuous crowd of
men and women, "evangelically disposed," as the chronicler says.
Hoping to ally the effervescence, the magistrates asked the cause
of complaint against the nuns of Nizink, and then came out the
true reason, for which religious prejudice had served as a cloak.
They complained that the monks and nuns exercised professions to
the prejudice of the artisans; and they demanded of the magistracy
that their looms should be broken, the religious forbidden to work
at trades, and their superabundant goods to be distributed among
the poor. The orators of the band declared in conclusion "that if
the magistrates refused to grant these requests, the people would
disregard their orders, displace them by force of arms, and put in
their stead men trustworthy and loyal, and devoted to the interests
of the citizens."[49] Alarmed at these threats, the magistrates
yielded, and promised to take every measure satisfactory to the
insurgents.[50] On the 25th May, accordingly, the Friars of St.
Francis and the nuns of Nizink were ordered to give up their looms
and accounts. The friars yielded, but the ladies stoutly refused.
The magistrates, however, had all the looms carried away, whilst a
mob howled at the gates, and agitators, excited by the four renegade
priests, ran about the town stirring up the people against the
religious. "All the worst characters," says the old chronicler,
"joined the rioters; the curious came to swell the crowd, and people
of means shut themselves into their houses."[51] For Johann Groeten,
the orator of the band, now proclaimed that having emptied the
strong boxes of the monks and nuns, they would despoil all those
whose fortunes exceeded two thousand ducats.
[47] Kerssenbroeck, p. 114.
[48] _Ibid._ p. 115.
[49] Kerssenbroeck, p. 116.
[50] _Ibid._ p. 117.
[51] _Ibid._ p. 120.
The rioters next marched to the town hall, where the senators
sat trembling, and they demanded the immediate confirmation of a
petition in thirty-four articles that had been drawn up for them by
their leaders. At the same time the mob announced that unless their
petition was granted they would execute its requirements with their
own hands.
It asked that the canons of the cathedral should be required to pay
the debts of the bishop deceased; that criminal jurisdiction should
be withdrawn from the hands of the clergy; that the monks and nuns
should be forbidden to exercise any manufacture, to dry grain, make
linen, and rear cattle; that the burden of taxation should be shared
by the clergy; that rectors should not be allowed to appoint or
dismiss their curates without consent of the parish; that lawsuits
should not be allowed to be protracted beyond six weeks; that beer
licences should be abolished, and tolls on the bridges done away
with; that monks and nuns should be allowed free permission to
leave their religious societies and return to the world; that the
property of religious houses should be sold and distributed amongst
the needy, and that the municipality should allow them enough for
their subsistence; that the Carmelites, the Augustinians, and the
Dominicans should be suppressed; that pious foundations for masses
for the repose of souls should be confiscated; and that people
should be allowed to marry in Lent and Advent. The magistrates
yielded at once, and promised to endeavour to get the consent of the
other estates of the diocese to the legalising of these articles.[52]
[52] Kerssenbroeck, p. 126.
On the morrow of the Ascension, 1525, the magistrates closed the
gates of the town, and betook themselves to the clergy of the
chapter to request them to accept the thirty-four articles. The
canons refused at first, but, in fear of the people, they consented,
but wrote to the bishop to tell him what had taken place, and to
urge him to act with promptitude, and not to forget that the rights
and privileges of the Church were in jeopardy.
It was one of the misfortunes in Germany, as it was in France,
that the clergy were exempt from taxation. This precipitated the
Revolution in France, and aroused the people against the clergy;
and in Germany it served as a strong motive for the adoption of the
Reformation.
The canons now fled the town, protesting that their signatures
had been wrested from them by violence, and that they withdrew
their consent to the articles. The inferior clergy remained at
their post, and exhibited great energy and decision. They deprived
Lubert Causen, minister of St. Martins, one of the most zealous
fautors of Lutheranism in Münster, and the head of the reforming
party. When his parishioners objected, a packet of love-letters
he had written to several girls in the town, and amongst others
some to a young woman of respectable position whom he had seduced,
came to light, and were read in the Senate. The reformer had in
his letters used scriptural texts to excuse and justify the most
shameless libertinage.[53] Johann Tante, preacher at St. Lambert,
and Gottfried Reining, of Ueberwasser, were also deprived. As for
the Lutheran preacher at St. Ludger, Johann Fink, "his mouth was
stopped by the gift of a fat prebendal stall, and from that moment
he entirely lost his zeal for the gospel of Wittenberg, and never
uttered another word against the Catholic religion."[54]
[53] Kerssenbroeck, p. 128.
[54] _Ibid._
By means of the mediation of the Archbishop of Cologne, a
reconciliation was effected. The articles were abolished and the
signatures annulled, and the members of the chapter returned to
Münster, which had felt their absence by the decrease in trade, and
the inconstant people "showed at least as much joy at their return
as they had shown hatred at their departure."[55]
[55] _Ibid._ p. 138.
There can be no question but that the Reformation in Germany was
provoked to a large extent by abuses and corruptions in the Church.
To a much larger extent it was a revolt against the Papacy which had
weakened and numbed the powers of the Empire throughout the Middle
Ages from the time of the Emperor Henry IV. But chiefly as a social
and political movement it was the revolt of municipalities against
the authority of collegiate bodies of clergy and the temporal
jurisdiction of prince-bishops, or of grand dukes and margraves and
electors favouring the change because it allowed them at a sweep
to confiscate vast properties and melt down tons of chalices and
reliquaries into coin.
In Münster lived a draper, Bernhard Knipperdolling by name, who
assembled the malcontents in his house, or in a tavern, and poured
forth in their ears his sarcasms against the Pope, the bishops,
the clergy and the Church. He was well known for his dangerous
influence, and the bishop, Frederic von Wied, arrested him as
he passed near his residence at Vecht. The people of Münster,
exasperated at the news of the captivity of their favourite, obliged
the magistrates and the chapter to ask the bishop to release him.
Frederick von Wied yielded with reluctance, using these prophetic
words, "I consent, but I fear that this man will turn everything
in Münster and the whole diocese upside down." Knipperdolling left
prison, after having taken an oath to keep the peace; but on his
return to Münster he registered a vow that he would terribly revenge
his incarceration and would make the diocese pay as many ducats as
his captivity had cost him hellers.[56]
[56] Kerssenbroeck, p. 143.
There was another man in Münster destined to exercise a fatal
influence on the unfortunate city. This was a priest named Bernard
Rottmann.[57] As a child he had been chorister at St. Maurice's
Church at Münster, where his exquisite voice had attracted notice.
He was educated in the choir school, then went to Mainz, where
in 1524 he took his Master's degree, and returning to Münster,
was ordained priest in 1529. He was then given the lectureship of
the church in which, as a boy, he had sung so sweetly. He shortly
exhibited a leaning towards Lutheranism, and the canons of St.
Maurice, who had placed great hopes on the young preacher, thinking
that he acted from inexperience and without bad intent, gave him
a paternal reprimand, and provided him with funds to go to the
University of Cologne, and study there dogmatic and controversial
theology; at the same time undertaking to retain Rottmann in the
receipt of his salary as lecturer, and to this they added a handsome
pension to assist him in his studies.
[57] _Ibid._ 148; Latin edition, p. 1517-9; Dorpius, f. 391 a.
The young man received this money, and then, instead of going to
Cologne, betook himself to Wittenberg, where he attached himself
to Melancthon. On his return to Münster, the canons, unaware of
the fraud that had been played upon them, reinstated Rottmann in
the pulpit. He was too crafty to publish his new tenets in his
discourses, and thus to insure the loss of his situation, but he
employed his secret influence in society to spread Lutheranism.
After a while, when he considered his party strong enough to support
him, he threw off the mask, and preached boldly against the priests
and the bishops, and certain doctrines of the Catholic Church.
The more violent he became in his attacks, the more personal and
caustic in his language, the greater grew the throng of people to
hear him. Then he preached against Confession, which he called "the
disturber of consciences," and contrasted it with Justification by
Faith only, which set consciences at ease; he preached against good
works, against the obligation to observe the moral law, and assured
his hearers that grace was freely imputed to them, live as they
liked, and that the Gospel afforded them entire freedom from all
restraints. "The shameless dissolution which now began to spread
through the town," says Kerssenbroeck, "proved that the mob adopted
the belief in the impunity of sin; all those who were ruined in
pocket, hoping to get the possessions of others, joined the party of
innovators, and Rottmann was extolled by them to the skies."[58]
[58] Kerssenbroeck, p. 152.
The Senate forbade the citizens to attend Rottmann's sermons, but
their orders were disregarded. The populace declared that Master
Bernard was the only preacher of the true Gospel, and they covered
with slander and abuse those who strove to oppose his seductive
doctrine. "Some of the episcopal councillors, however," says the
historian, "favoured the innovator. The private secretary of the
bishop, Leonhard Mosz, encouraged him secretly, and promised him his
support in the event of danger."[59]
[59] Kerssenbroeck, p. 152.
But the faithful clergy informed the bishop of the scandal, and
before Mosz and others could interfere, a sentence of deprivation
was pronounced against him.
Rottmann, startled by this decisive measure, wrote a series of
letters to Frederick von Wied, which have been preserved by
Kerssenbroeck, in which he pretended that he had been calumniated
before "the best and most just of bishops," and excused himself,
instead of boldly and frankly announcing his secession from the
Catholic Church. In reply, the bishop ordered him to quit Münster,
and charged his councillors to announce to him that his case
would be submitted to the next synod. Rottmann then wrote to the
councillors a letter which exhibits his duplicity in a clearer
light. Frederick von Wied, hearing of this letter, ordered the
recalcitrant preacher to quit the convent adjoining the church
of St. Maurice, and to leave the town. Rottmann thereupon took
refuge in the house of Knipperdolling and his companions. Under the
protection of these turbulent men, the young preacher assumed a
bolder line, and wrote to the bishop demanding a public discussion,
and announcing that shortly his doctrine would be published in a
pamphlet, and thus be popularised.
On the 23rd of January, 1532, Rottmann's profession of faith
appeared, addressed in the form of a letter to the clergy of
Münster.[60] Like all the professions of faith of the period, it
consisted chiefly of a string of negations, with a few positive
statements retained from the Catholic creed on God, the Incarnation,
&c. He denied the special authority of the priesthood, reduced the
Sacraments to signs, going thereby beyond Luther; rejected doctrines
of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, Purgatory, the intercession of saints,
and the use of images, pilgrimages, vows, benedictions, and the
like. It would certainly have been more appropriately designated
a Confession of Disbelief. This pamphlet was widely circulated
amongst the people, and the party of Lutheran malcontents, headed
by Knipperdolling, and Herman Bispink, a coiner and forger of
title-deeds, grew in power, in numbers, and in audacity.
[60] Kerssenbroeck, p. 165 _et seq._; Latin edition, Mencken, p.
1520-8: Sleidan, French tr., p. 406.
On the 23rd of February, 1532, Knipperdolling and his associates
assembled the populace early, and carried Rottmann in triumph to
the church of St. Lambert. Finding the doors shut, they mounted the
preacher on a wooden pulpit before the bone-house. The Reformer then
addressed the people on the necessity of proclaiming evangelical
liberty and of destroying idolatry; of overthrowing images and the
Host preserved in the tabernacles. His doctrine might be summed
up in two words: liberty for the Evangelicals to do what they
liked, and compulsion for the Catholics. The sermon produced a
tremendous effect; before it was concluded the rioters rushed
towards the different churches, burst open the doors, tore down the
altars, reliquaries, statues; and the Sacrament was taken from the
tabernacles and trampled under foot. The cathedral alone, defended
by massive gates, escaped their fury.[61]
[61] Kerssenbroeck, p. 185; Bullinger, "Adversus Anabaptist."
lib. ii. c. 8.
Proud of this achievement, the insurgents defied all authority,
secular and ecclesiastical, and installed Bernhard Rottmann as
preacher and pastor of the Evangelical religion in St. Lambert's
Church. "Thenceforth," says the Münster contemporary historian, "it
may well be understood that they did not limit themselves to simple
tumults, but that murders, pillage, and the overthrow of all public
order followed. The success of this first enterprise had rendered
the leaders masters of the city."