satisfy the Evangelicals the Catholics must be completely deprived
of the exercise of their religion. In spite of every hindrance,
mass had been celebrated every Sunday in the cathedral. All the
parish churches had been deprived of their priests, but the minster
remained in the hands of the Catholics. As Christmas approached,
many men and women prepared by fasting, alms, and confession,
to make their communion at the cathedral on the festival of the
Nativity.
The magistrates, hearing of their design, forbade them
communicating, offering, as an excuse, that it would cause scandal
to the partisans of the Reform. They also published a decree
forbidding baptisms to be performed elsewhere than in the parish
churches; so as to force the faithful to bring their children to the
ministrations of men whom they regarded with aversion as heretics
and apostates.[90]
[90] _Ibid._ p. 353.
No envoys from the capital attended the reunion of the chambers at
Wollbeck on the 20th December. But Münster sent a letter expressing
a hope that the difference between the city and the prince might be
terminated by mediation.
This letter gave the diet a chance of escaping from its very
difficult position of enforcing the rule of the prince without
money to pay the soldiers. The diet undertook to lay the suggestion
before the prince-bishop, and to transmit his reply to the envoys of
Münster.
Francis of Waldeck then quitted his diocese of Minden, and betook
himself to Telgte,[91] a little town about four miles from Münster,
where he was to receive the oath of allegiance and homage of his
subjects in the principality. The estates assembled at Wollbeck, and
all the leading nobles and clergy of the diocese hastened to Telgte
and assembled around their sovereign on the same day. A letter was
at once addressed to the senate of Münster by the assembled estates,
urging it to send deputies to Telgte, the following morning, at
eight o'clock, to labour together with them at the re-establishment
of peace.
[91] _Ibid._ p. 354 _et seq._ Sleidan, French tr. p. 407.
The deputies did not appear; the senate addressed to the diet,
instead, a letter of excuses. The estates at once replied that in
the interest of peace, they regretted the obstinacy with which the
senate had refused to send deputies to Telgte; but that this had
not prevented them from supplicating the bishop to yield to their
wishes; and that they were glad to announce that he was ready to
submit the mutual differences to the arbitration of two princes of
the Empire, one to be named by himself, the other by the city of
Münster. And until the arbitration took place, the prince-bishop
would provisionally suspend all measures of severity, on condition
that the ancient usages should be restored in the churches, the
preachers should cease to innovate, and that the imprisoned vassals
of the bishop should be released.
This missive was sent into the town on the 25th; the magistrates
represented to the bearer "that it would be scandalous to occupy
themselves with temporal affairs on Christmas-day," and on this
pretext they persuaded him to remain till the morrow in Münster.
Then orders were given for the gates of the town to be closed, and
egress to be forbidden to every one.
Having taken these precautions, the magistrates assembled the
provosts of the guilds, and held with them a conference, which
terminated shortly before nine o'clock the same evening; after which
the subaltern officers of the senate were sent round to rap at every
door, and order the citizens to assemble at midnight, before the
town-hall. A nocturnal expedition had been resolved upon; but the
movement in the town had excited the alarm of the Catholics, who,
thinking that a general massacre of those who adhered to the old
religion was in contemplation, hid themselves in drains and cellars
and chimneys.
Arms were brought out of the arsenal, cannons were mounted, waggons
were laden with powder, shot, beams, planks and ladders. At the
appointed hour, the crowd, armed in various fashions, assembled
before the Rath-haus.[92] The magistrates and provosts then selected
six hundred trusty Evangelicals, and united them to a band of three
hundred mercenaries and a small troop of horse. The rest were
dispersed upon the ramparts and were recommended to keep watch;
then it was announced to the party in marching order that they were
to hasten stealthily to Telgte and capture the prince-bishop, his
councillors, the barons, and all the members of the estates then
assembled in that little town.
[92] Kerssenbroeck, p. 358 _et seq._ Sleidan, French tr. p. 408.
Sleidan also gives the number as 900; Dorpius, f. 392 b.
However, the diet, surprised at not seeing their messenger return,
conceived a slight suspicion. Whether he feared that his person was
in danger so near Münster is not known, but fortunately for himself,
the prince, that same evening, left Telgte for his castle of Iburg.
The members of the diet, after long waiting, sent some men along the
road to the capital to ascertain whether their messenger was within
sight. These men returned, saying that the gates of Münster were
closed and that no one was to be seen stirring.
The fact was singular, not to say suspicious, and a troop of horse
was ordered to make a reconnaissance in the direction of Münster. It
was already late at night, so, having given the order, the members
of the diet retired to their beds. The horse soldiers beat the
country, found all quiet, withdrew some planks from a bridge over
the Werse, between Telgte and Münster, to intercept the passage, and
then returned to their quarters, for the night was bitterly cold. On
surmounting a hill, crowned by a gibbet, they, however, turned once
more and looked over the plain towards the city. A profound silence
reigned; but a number of what they believed to be will-o'-the-wisps
flitted here and there over the dark ground. As, according to
popular superstition in Westphalia, these little lights are to be
seen in great abundance at Yuletide, the horsemen paid no attention
to them, but continued their return. These lights, mistaken for
marsh fires, were in fact the burning matches of the arquebuses
carried by those engaged in the sortie. On their return to Telgte,
the horse soldiers retired to their quarters, and in half-an-hour
all the inhabitants of the town were fast asleep.
Meanwhile, the men of Münster advanced, replaced the bridge over
the Werse, traversed the plain, and reached Telgte at two o'clock
in the morning. They at once occupied all the streets, according to
a plan concerted beforehand, then invaded the houses, and captured
the members of the diet, clergy, nobles and commons. Three only of
the cathedral chapter escaped in their night shirts with bare feet
across the frozen river Ems. The Münsterians, having laid their
hands on all the money, jewels, seals, and gold chains they could
find, retreated as rapidly as they had advanced, carrying off with
them their captives and the booty, but disappointed in not having
secured the person of the prince. They entered the cathedral city
in triumph on the morning of the 26th December, highly elated at
their success, and nothing doubting that with such hostages in
their hands, they would be able to dictate their own terms to the
sovereign.
But the expedition of Telgte had made a great sensation in the
empire. Francis of Waldeck addressed himself to all the members of
the Germanic body, and appealed especially to his metropolitan, the
Elector of Cologne, for assistance, and also to the Dukes of Cleves
and Gueldres. The elector wrote at once to Münster in terms the
most pressing, because some of his own councillors were among the
prisoners. He received an evasive answer. The Protestant princes of
the Smalkald league even addressed letters to the senate, blaming
energetically their high-handed proceeding. Philip Melancthon also
wrote a letter of mingled remonstrance and entreaty.[93] The only
result of their appeals was the restoration to the prisoners of
their money and the jewels taken from them.
[93] Kerssenbroeck, p. 368.
John von Wyck, syndic of Bremen, was despatched by the senate of
Münster to the Landgrave Philip of Hesse, to ask him to undertake
the office of mediator between them and their prince. The Landgrave
readily accepted the invitation, and Francis of Waldeck was
equally ready to admit his mediation, as he was himself, as has
been already stated, a Lutheran at heart. The people of Münster,
finding that the bishop was eager for a pacific settlement, insisted
on the payment of the value of the oxen he had confiscated, as a
preliminary, before the subject of differences was entered upon. The
prince-bishop consented, paid 450 florins, and allowed the Landgrave
of Hesse to draw up sixteen articles of treaty, which met with the
approval of both the senate and himself.
The terms of the agreement were as follows:[94]--
I. The prince-bishop was to offer no violence to the inhabitants of
Münster in anything touching religion. "The people of Münster shall
keep the pure Word of God," said the article; "it shall be preached
to them, without any human additions by their preachers, in the six
parish churches. These same preachers shall minister the sacraments
and order their services and ceremonies as they please. The citizens
shall submit in religious matters to the judgment of the magistrates
alone, till the questions at issue are decided by a General Council."
[94] _Ibid._ p. 392 _et seq._
II. The Catholics were to exercise their religion freely in the
cathedral and in the capitular churches not included in the
preceding article, _until Divine Providence should order otherwise_.
The Lutheran ministers were forbidden to attack the Catholics, their
dogmas and rights, _unless the Word of God imperiously required
it_;--a clause opening a door to any amount of abuse. As the
speciality of Protestantism of every sort consists in negation, it
would be impossible for an Evangelical pastor to hold his position
without denouncing what he disbelieved.
Article III. interdicted mutual recriminations. Article IV., in
strange contradiction with Article I., declared that the town of
Münster should obey the prince-bishop as legitimate sovereign in
matters spiritual and temporal. The bishop in the Vth Article
promised to respect the privileges of the subject.
The VIth Article forbade any one making an arbitrary use of the Word
of God to justify refusal of obedience to the magistrates. Article
VII. reserved to the clergy their revenues, with the exception of
the six parish churches, of which the revenues were to be employed
for the maintenance of the Evangelical pastors. By the VIIIth
Article the senate promised not to interfere with the collation to
benefices not in their hands by right. The IXth Article allowed the
citizens to deprive their pastors in the Lutheran churches, without
the intervention of the bishop. The rest of the Articles secured a
general amnesty, permission to the refugees to return, and to the
imprisoned members of the diet to obtain their freedom.
This treaty was fair enough in its general provisions. If, as was
the case, a large number of the citizens were disposed to adopt
Lutheranism, no power on earth had any right to constrain them, and
they might justly claim the free exercise of their religion. But
there were suspicious clauses inserted in the 1st and 2nd Articles
which pointed to the renewal of animosity and the re-opening of the
whole question.
This treaty was signed on the 14th February, 1533, by Philip of
Hesse, as mediator, Francis, Count of Waldeck, Prince and Bishop of
Münster, the members of chapter, the representatives of the nobles
of the principality, and the burgomasters and senators of Münster,
together with those of the towns of Coesfeld and Warendorf, in
their own name and in behalf of the other towns of the diocese.
The captive estates were liberated on the 18th February. How the
magistrates and town kept the other requirements of the treaty we
shall soon see.
The senate having been constituted supreme authority in spiritual
things by the Lutheran party, now undertook the organisation of the
Evangelical Church in the city; and a few days after the treaty had
been signed, it published an "Evangelical Constitution," consisting
of ten articles, for the government of the new Church.[95]
[95] Kerssenbroeck, p. 398 _et seq._
The 8th article had a threatening aspect. "The ministers of the
Divine Word shall use their utmost endeavours to gain souls to the
true faith, and to direct them in the ways of perfection. _As for
those who shall refuse to accept the pure doctrine_, and those who
shall blaspheme and be guilty of public crimes, the senate will
employ against them all the rigour of the laws, and the sword of
justice."
Rottmann was appointed by the magistrates Superintendent of the
Lutheran Church in Münster, a function bearing a certain resemblance
to that of a bishop.[96] Then, thinking that a bishop should be the
husband of one wife at least, Rottmann married the widow of Johann
Vigers, late syndic of Münster. "She was a person of bad character,"
says Kerssenbroeck, "whom Rottmann had inspired during her husband's
life with Evangelical principles and an adulterous love."[97] It is
asserted, with what truth it is impossible at this distance of time
to decide, that Vigers was drowned in his bath at Ems, in a fit,
and that his wife allowed him to perish without attempting to save
him. Anyhow, no sooner was he dead, than she returned full speed to
Münster and married her lover.[98]
[96] _Ibid._ p. 402.
[97] _Ibid._ p. 403.
[98] _Ibid._ p. 404.
The reformer and his adherents had been given their own way, and
the senate hoped they would rest satisfied, and that tranquillity
would be re-established in the city. But their hopes were doomed
to disappointment. Certain people, if given an inch, insist on
taking an ell; of these people Rottmann was one. Excited by him,
the Evangelicals of the town complained that the magistrates had
treated the Papists with too great leniency, that the clergy had
not been expelled and their goods confiscated according to the
original programme. It was decided tumultuously that the elections
must be anticipated; and on the 3rd March, the people deposed the
magistrates and elected in their room the leaders of the extreme
reforming party.[99] Knipperdolling was of their number; only four
of the former magistrates were allowed to retain office, and these
were men whom they could trust. Hermann Tilbeck and Kaspar Judenfeld
were named burgomasters; Heinrich Modersohn and Heinrich Redekker
were chosen provosts or tribunes of the people.[100]
[99] Kerssenbroeck, p. 404.
[100] _Ibid._ p. 405.
Next to the senate came the turn of the parishes. On the 17th March,
under the direction of Rottmann, the people proceeded to appoint
the ministers to the churches in the town. Their choice was not
happy; it fell on those most unqualified to exercise a salutary
influence, and restrain the excitement of a mob already become
nearly ungovernable.[101]
[101] _Ibid._ p. 406.
The new senate endeavoured to strengthen the Evangelical cause
by uniting the other towns of the diocese in a common bond of
resistance. They invited these towns to send their deputies to meet
those of the capital at a little inn between Münster and Coesfeld,
on the 20th March. The assembly took place; but so far from the
other cities agreeing to support Münster, their deputies read those
of the capital a severe lecture, and refused to throw off their old
religion and their allegiance to the bishop.[102]
[102] Kerssenbroeck, p. 407 _et seq._
On the 24th March, 1533, the burgomaster Tilbeck, accompanied by the
citizen Kerbink, went to Ueberwasser, summoned the abbess before
him, and ordered her to maintain at the expense of the abbey the
preachers lately appointed to the church in connection with the
convent. She was forced to submit.[103]
[103] _Ibid._ p. 413.
On the 27th of the same month one of the preachers invaded the
church of St. Ledger, still in the hands of the Catholics, at the
head of his congregation, broke open the tabernacle, drew out the
Host, broke it, and blowing the fragments into the air, screamed to
the assembled multitude, "Look at your good God flying away."
The same day the treaty was violated towards the Franciscans. Some
of the senators ordered them to quit their convent, their habit,
and their order, unless they desired still more rigorous treatment,
"because the magistrates were resolved to make the Church flourish
again in her ancient purity, and because they wanted to convert the
convent into a school."[104]
[104] _Ibid._ p. 413.
The superior replied that he and his brethren followed strictly
the rule of their founder, and that this house belonged to them by
right of succession, and that they were no charge to the town. He
said that if a building was needed for an Evangelical school, he
was ready to surrender to the magistrates a portion of the convent
buildings; all he asked in return was that he and his brethren
should be allowed to live in tranquillity. This proposal saved the
Franciscans for a time. The Evangelical school was established
in their convent, "but at the end of a month it had fallen into
complete disorder, whereas the old Papist school had not lost one of
its pupils, and was as flourishing as ever."[105]
[105] Kerssenbroeck, p. 415.
Whilst the senators menaced the monasteries, Knipperdolling and his
friend Gerhardt Kibbenbroeck pillaged the church of S. Lambert.
Scarcely a day now passed without some fresh act of violence done to
the Catholics, or Vandalism perpetrated on the churches.
On the 5th April the prior and monks of Bispinkhoff were forbidden
by the magistrates to hear confessions in their own church. The
same day the Lutherans broke the altar and images in the church of
Ueberwasser, and scraped the paintings off the walls.
On Palm Sunday, April 6th,[106] at Ueberwasser, some of the nuns,
urged by the preachers in their church, cast off their vows, and
joining the people, chanted the 7th verse of the 124th Psalm
according to Luther's translation--
"Der Strich ist entzwei,
Und wir sind frei."
[106] _Ibid._ p. 416.
"The snare is broken, and we are delivered;" and then they received
Communion with the pastors.
On the 7th the mob pillaged the church of the Servites, and defaced
it. Next day the Franciscans, who had made the wafers for the Holy
Sacrament for the churches in the diocese, were forbidden to make
them any more. On the 9th Knipperdolling, heading a party of the
reformed, broke into the cathedral during the celebration of the
Holy Eucharist, rushed up to the altar, and drove away the priest,
exclaiming, "Greedy fop, haven't you eaten enough good Gods yet?"
Two days later the magistrates ordered the chapter to surrender
into their hands their title deeds and sacred vessels. On the 14th,
Belkot, head of the city tribunal of Münster, entered the church of
S. Ledger, and carried off all its chalices, patens, and ciboriums,
whilst others who accompanied him destroyed the altars, paintings,
and statuary, and profaned the church in the most disgusting manner.
The unhappy Catholics, unable to resist, uttered loud lamentations,
and did not refrain from calling the perpetrators of the outrage
"robbers and sacrilegious," for which they were summoned before
the magistrates, and threatened with imprisonment unless they
apologised.[107]
[107] Kerssenbroeck 417.
As the news of the conversion of the city of Münster to the Gospel
spread, strangers came to it from all parts, to hear and to learn,
as they gave out, pure Evangelical truth.
Amongst these adventurers was a man destined to play a terribly
prominent part in the great drama that was about to be enacted at
Münster. This was John Bockelson, a tailor, a native of Leyden, in
Holland. He had quitted his country and his wife secretly to hear
Rottmann. He entered Münster on the 25th July, and lodged with a
citizen named Hermann Ramers. Having been instructed in the Gospel
according to Luther, he went to preach in Osnabrück, but from thence
he was driven. He then returned to his own home. There he became an
Anabaptist, under the instruction of John Matthisson, who sent him
with Gerrit Buchbinder as apostles of the sect to Westphalia in the
month of November, 1533.
The time had now arrived when the Lutheran party, which had so
tyrannically treated the Catholics in the city of Münster, was
itself to be despotically put down and trampled upon by a sect which
sprang from its own womb.
Rottmann had for some while been wavering in his adhesion to
Lutheranism.[108] He doubted first, and then disbelieved in
the Real Presence, which Luther insisted upon. He thought that
the reformation of the Wittenberg doctor was not sufficiently
thoroughgoing in the matter of ceremonial; then he doubted the
scriptural authority for the baptism of infants. Two preachers,
Heinrich Rott and Herman Strapedius, fell in with his views. The
former had been a monk at Haarlem, but had become a Lutheran
preacher. He regarded the baptism of infants as one of those things
which are indifferent to salvation. Strapedius was more decided;
he preached against infant baptism as an abomination in the sight
of God. He was named by the people preacher at S. Lambert's,
the head church of the city, in spite of the opposition of the
authorities.[109]
[108] Kerssenbroeck, p. 429 _et seq._; Sleidan, French tr. p.
409; Bullinger, "Adv. Anabapt.," 116, ii. c. 8.
[109] Kerssenbroeck, pp. 431, 432; Dorp., f. 322-3.
The Lutheran senate of Münster, which a few months previously had
been elected enthusiastically by the people, now felt that before
these fiery preachers, drifting into Anabaptism, their power was
in as precarious a position as was that of those whom they had
supplanted. Alarmed at the rapid extension of the new forms of
disbelief, they twice forbade Rottmann to preach against the baptism
of infants and the Real Presence, and ordered him to conform in his
teaching to authorised Lutheran doctrine. He treated their orders
with contempt. Then they summoned him before them: he appeared, but
on leaving the Rath-haus, preached in the square to the people with
redoubled violence.
The senate, at their wits' end, ordered a public discussion between
Rottmann and the orthodox Lutherans, represented by Hermann Busch.
The discussion took place before the city Rath, and the senate
decided that Busch had gained the day, and they therefore forbade
all innovation in the administration of baptism and the Lord's
Supper.
Rottmann and his colleague disregarded the monition, and continued
their sermons against the rags of Popery which still disfigured
the Lutheran Church. Several of the ministers in the town, whether
from conviction or from interest, finding that their congregations
drained away to the churches where the stronger-spiced doctrine was
preached, joined the movement. It was simply a carrying of negation
beyond the pillars of Hercules planted by Luther. Luther had denied
of the sum total of Catholic dogmas, say ten, and had retained
ten. The Anabaptist denied two more, and retained only eight. On
the 10th August a tumultuous scene took place in the church of S.
Giles.[110] A Dutch preacher began declaiming against baptism of
children. Johann Windemoller, ex-senator, a vehement opponent of
Anabaptist disintegration of Lutheran doctrine, who was in the
congregation, rushed up the pulpit stairs, and pulled the preacher
down, exclaiming, "Scoundrel! how dare you take upon you the
office of preacher--you who, a few years ago, were thrust into the
iron-collar, and branded on the cheek for your crimes? Do you think
I do not know your antecedents? You talk of virtue, you gibbet-bird?
You who are guilty of so many crimes and impieties? Go along with
you, take your doctrine and your brand elsewhere."
[110] Kerssenbroeck, p. 434.