re-baptised by Rottmann on the 11th January, and became some
of his most devoted adherents. Their conduct in the sequel was
characterised by the most shameless lubricity.
The prince-bishop at this time published a decree against the
Anabaptists, outlawed Rottmann and five other preachers of that sect
in Münster, and ordered his officers to check the spread of the
schism through the other towns of his principality.
On the 23rd January, Rottmann having noticed some Catholics and
Lutherans amongst his audience in the church of the Servites,
abruptly stopped his sermon, saying that it was not meet to cast the
pearls of the new revelation before swine.[135] Then he descended
from the pulpit, and refused to remount it again. But probably
the real cause of this sudden cessation was, that the views of
the leader were undergoing a third change, and he was unwilling
to announce his new doctrine to an audience of which all were not
prepared to receive it. He continued to assemble the faithful in
private houses, and to hold daily assemblies, in which they were
initiated into the further mysteries of his revelation. In every
parish a house was provided for the purpose, and none were admitted
without a pass-word. In these gatherings the mystic was able to
give full development to his views without the restraint of an only
partially sympathising audience.
[135] _Ibid._ p. 476.
On the evening of the 28th January, at seven o'clock, the
Anabaptists stretched chains across the streets, assembled in
armed bands, closed the city gates, and placed sentinels in all
directions. A terrible anxiety reigned in the city. The Lutherans
remained up and awake all night, a prey to fear, with their doors
and windows barricaded, waiting to see what these preparations
signified. The night passed, broken only by the tramp of the
sectarian fanatics, and lighted by the glare of their torches.
Dawn broke and nothing further had taken place, when suddenly two
men, dressed like prophets, with long ragged beards, ample garments,
and flowing mantles, staff in hand paced through the town solemnly,
up one street and down another, raising their eyes to heaven,
sighing, and then looking down with an expression of compassion on
the multitude, which bowed before them and saluted them as Enoch and
Elias. After having traversed the greater part of the town, the two
men entered the door of Knipperdolling's house.[136]
[136] Kerssenbroeck, p. 476.
The names of these prophets were John Matthisson and John Bockelson.
The first was the chief of the Anabaptist sect in Holland. The
part which the second was destined to play in Münster demands
that his antecedents should be more fully given. Bockelson was
the bastard son of Bockel, bailiff of the Hague, and a certain
Adelhaid, daughter of a serf of the Lord of Zoelcken, in the diocese
of Münster. This Adelhaid purchased her liberty afterwards and
married her seducer. John was brought up at Leyden, where he was
apprenticed to a tailor. He visited England, Portugal, and Lubeck,
and returned to Leyden in his twenty-first year. He then married the
widow of a boatman, who presented him with two sons. John Bockelson
was endowed by nature with a ready wit and with a retentive memory.
He amused himself by learning nearly the whole of the Bible by
heart, and by composing obscene verses and plays. In addition to his
business of tailoring, he opened a public-house under the sign of
"The Three Herrings," which became a haunt of women of bad repute.
The passion for change came over Bockelson after leading this sort
of life for a while, and he visited Münster in 1533, as we have
already seen, and thence passed to Osnabrück, from which place
he was expelled. After wandering about Westphalia for a while he
returned to Leyden. Next year, in company with Matthisson, the head
of the Anabaptists, he visited Münster, which the latter declared
prophetically was destined to be the new Jerusalem, the capital of a
regenerate world, where the millennial kingdom was to be set up.[137]
[137] Kerssenbroeck, part ii. p. 51 _et seq._; Heresbach, p. 31;
Hast, p. 324.
The two adventurers reached their destination on the 13th January,
and Knipperdolling received them into his house. Some of the
preachers were informed of their arrival, but were required to keep
the matter secret till the time ordained of God should come for
their revealing themselves to the world.
A council was being held in the house of Knipperdolling, when the
prophets entered it after having finished their peregrination of
the town. Rottmann, Roll, Clopris, Strapedius, Vinnius, and Strahl
were engaged in a warm discussion. Some of the party were of opinion
that the moment had arrived, now that all the Anabaptists were under
arms, for a general purification of the city by the massacre or
expulsion of Catholics and Lutherans; the others thought that the
hour of vengeance had not yet struck, and that the day of the Lord
must not be antedated. The quarrel was appeased by the appearance of
the two prophets, who were hailed as messengers sent from heaven to
announce the will of God. Then Matthisson and his companion knelt
down and wept, and having meditated some moments, they uttered
their decision in voices broken by sobs. "The time for cleansing
the threshing-floor of the Lord is not yet come. The slaughter of
the ungodly must be delayed, that souls may be gathered in, and
that souls may be formed and educated in houses set apart, and not
in churches which were lately filled with idols. But," said they in
conclusion, "the day of the Lord is at hand."
These words reconciled the council. On the evening of the 29th, the
Anabaptists laid aside their arms and returned to their homes.[138]
The events of the night had utterly dispelled the last traces of
courage in the magistrates; they did not venture to notice the
threatening aspect of the armed fanatics, or to remonstrate with
them for barricading the streets. To avert all possible danger from
themselves was their only object; and to effect this they published
an act of toleration, permitting every man to worship God and
perform his public and private devotions as he thought proper.
[138] Kerssenbroeck, part i. p. 477 _et seq._
The power of Rottmann had become so great, through the events
just recorded, that a false prophecy did not serve to upset his
authority. On the 6th February, at the head of a troop of his
admirers, he invaded the Church of Ueberwasser, "to prevent the
Evangelical flame kindled in the hearts of the nuns from dying
out."[139] Having summoned all the sisters into the church, he
mounted the pulpit and preached to them a sermon on matrimony, in
which he denounced convents and monasteries, in which the most
imperious laws of nature were left unfulfilled, and "he urged the
nuns to labour heartily for the propagation of the human race;"
and then he completely turned the heads of the young women, by
announcing to them with an inspired air, that their convent would
fall at midnight, and would bury beneath its ruins every one who was
found within its walls. "This salutary announcement has been made to
me," said he, "by one of the prophets now present in this town, and
the Heavenly Father has also favoured me with a direct and special
revelation to the same effect."[140]
[139] Kerssenbroeck, p. 479.
[140] Hast, p. 329 _et seq._
This was enough to complete the conversion of the nuns, already
shaken in their faith by the sermons they had been compelled to
listen to for some time past. In vain did the Abbess Ida and two
other sisters implore them to remain and despise the prophecy.
The infatuated women, in paroxysms of fear and excitement, fled
the convent and took refuge in the house of Rottmann, where they
changed their clothes, and then ran about the town uttering cries of
joy.
The prophecy of Rottmann had been repeated by one to another
throughout Münster. No one slept that night. Crowds poured down the
streets in the direction of Ueberwasser, and the square in front of
the convent was densely packed with breathless spectators, awaiting
the ruin of the house.
Midnight tolled from the cathedral tower. The crowd waited another
hour. It struck one, and the convent had not fallen. Master
Bernard was not the man to be disconcerted by so small a matter.
"Prophecies," cried he, "are always conditional. Jonah foretold that
Nineveh should be destroyed in forty days, but since the inhabitants
repented, it remained standing. The same has taken place here.
Nearly all the nuns have repented, have quitted their cloister
and their habit, have renounced their vows--thus the anger of the
Heavenly Father has been allayed."[141]
[141] Kerssenbroeck, p. 479.
The preacher Roll was next seized with prophetic inspiration. He ran
through the town, foaming at the mouth, his eyes rolling, his hair
and garments in disorder, his face haggard, uttering at one moment
inarticulate howls, and at another, exhortations to the impenitent
to turn and be saved, for that the day of the Lord was at hand.[142]
[142] Dorpius, p. 394.
A young girl of eighteen, the daughter of a tailor named Gregory
Zumberge, was next seized. "On the 8th February she was possessed
with a sort of oratorical fury, and she preached with fire and
extraordinary volubility before an astonished crowd."
The same day the spirit fell on Knipperdolling and Bockelson; they
ran about the streets with bare heads and uplifted eyes, repeating
incessantly in shrill tones, "Repent, repent, repent, ye sinners;
woe, woe!" Having reached the market-place, they fell into one
another's arms before a crowd of citizens and artizans who ran
up from all directions. At the same moment, the tailor, Gregory
Zumberge, father of the preaching damsel, arrived with his hair
flying, his arms extended, his face contorted, and a wild light
playing in his eyes, and cried, "Lift up your heads, O men, O dear
brothers! I see the majesty of God in the clouds, and Jesus waving
the standard of victory. Woe to ye impious ones who have resisted
the truth! Repent, repent! I see the Heavenly Father surrounded by
thousands of angels menacing you with destruction! Be converted! the
great and terrible day of the Lord is come.... God will truly purge
His floor, and burn the chaff with unquenchable fire.... Renounce
your evil ways and adopt the sign of the New Convenant, if you wish
to escape the wrath of the Lord."
"It is impossible," says the oft-quoted writer, who was eye-witness
in the town of all he describes, "impossible to imagine the
gestures and antics which accompanied this discourse. Now the
tailor leaped about on the stones and seemed as though about to
fly; then he turned his head with extraordinary rapidity, beating
his hands together, and looking up to heaven and then down to
earth. Then, all at once, an expression of despair came over his
face, and he fell on the pavement in the form of a cross, and
rolled in the mud. A good number of us young fellows were there,"
continues Kerssenbroeck, "much astonished at their howling, and
looking attentively at the sky to see if there really was anything
extraordinary to be seen there; but not distinguishing anything we
began to make fun of the illuminati, and this decided them to retire
to the house of Knipperdolling."[143]
[143] Kerssenbroeck, p. 483.
There a new scene commenced. The ecstatics left doors and windows
wide open, that all that passed within might be seen and heard by
the dense crowd which packed the street without. Those in the street
saw Knipperdolling place himself in a corner, his face to the wall,
and carry on in broken accents a familiar conversation with God
the Father. At one moment he was seen to be listening, then to be
replying, making the strangest gestures. This went on for some time,
till another actor appeared. This was a blind Scottish beggar, very
tall and gaunt--a zealous Anabaptist. He was fantastically dressed
in rags, and wore high-heeled boots to add to his stature. Although
blind, he ran about exclaiming that he saw strange visions in the
sky. This was enough to attract a crowd, which followed him to the
corner of the König's Strasse, when, just as he was exclaiming,
"Alas, alas! Heaven is going this instant to fall!" he tumbled over
a dung-heap which was in his way. This accident woke him from his
ecstasy, and he picked himself up in great confusion, and never
prophesied again.[144]
[144] _Ibid._ p. 479.
But his place was speedily supplied by another man named Jodocus
Culenburg, who, in order to convey himself with greater rapidity
whither the Spirit called him, rode about the town on a horse,
announcing in every street that he heard the peal of the Last
Trumpet. Several women also were taken with the prophetic spirit,
and one, named Timmermann, declared that "the King of Heaven was
about to appear like a lightning-flash, and would re-establish
Jerusalem." Another woman, whose cries and calls to repentance had
caused her to lose her voice, ran about with a bell attached to her
girdle, urging the bystanders with expressive gestures to join the
number of the elect and be saved.[145]
[145] Kerssenbroeck, p. 484.
These fantastic scenes had made a profound impression on many of
the citizens of Münster. A nervous affection accompanying mystic
excitement is always infectious. The agitation of minds and
consciences became general; men and women had trances, prayed in
public, screamed, had visions, and fell into cataleptic fits. In
those days people knew nothing of physical and psychological causes;
the general excitement was attributed by them to supernatural
agency. It was simply a question whether these signs were produced
by the devil or by the Spirit of God. The Catholics attributed
the signs to the agency of Satan; the Lutherans were in nervous
uncertainty. Were they resisting God or the devil? Fear lest they
should be found in the ranks of those fighting against the Holy
Spirit drew off numbers of the timorous and most conscientious to
swell the ranks of the mystical sect. Münster was exhibiting on a
large scale what is reproduced in our own land in many a Wesleyan
and Ranter revival meeting.
The time had now come, thought Rottmann, for the destruction
of the enemies of God. Secret notice was sent to the different
Anabaptist congregations to be prepared to strike the blow on the
9th of February. Accordingly, early in the morning, 500 fanatics
seized on the gates of the city, the Rath-haus, and the arms it
contained; cannons were planted in the chapel of St. Michael, the
tower of St. Lambert's church, and in the market place; barricades
of stones, barrels, and benches from the church were thrown up. The
common danger united Catholics and Lutherans; they saw clearly that
the intention of their adversaries was either to massacre them,
or to drive them out of the town. They retreated in haste to the
Ueberwasser quarter, and took up their position in the cemetery,
planted cannons, placed bodies of armed men in the tower of the
cathedral, and retook two of the city gates. They also arrested
several of the senators who had joined the Anabaptist sect, but they
had not the courage to lay their hands on the burgomaster, Tilbeck,
who was also of that party. Two of the preachers, Strahl and
Vinnius, were caught, and were lodged in the tower of Ueberwasser
church.[146]
[146] Dorpius, f. 394.
Messages were sent to the villages and towns around announcing the
state of affairs, and imploring assistance. The magistrates even
wrote in the stress of their terror to the prince-bishop, asking him
to come speedily to their rescue from a position of imminent peril.
Francis of Waldeck at once replied by letter, promising to march
with the utmost rapidity to Münster, and demanding that one of the
gates might be opened to admit him. This letter was taken to Hermann
Tilbeck; but the burgomaster, intent on securing the triumph of the
fanatics, with whom he was in league, suppressed the letter, and did
not mention either its arrival or its contents to the senate. He,
however, informed the Anabaptists of their danger, and urged them to
come to terms with the Lutherans as speedily as possible.
At the same time the pastor, Fabricius, unable to restrain his
religious prejudices, even in the face of danger, sped among the
Lutheran ranks, inciting his followers against the Catholics, and
urging them to make terms with the fanatics rather than submit to
the bishop. "Beware," said he, "lest, in the event of your gaining a
victory, the Papists should recover their power, for it is they who
are the real cause of all these evils and disorders."[147]
[147] Kerssenbroeck, p. 405 _et seq._ Montfort., "Tumult.
Anabap.," p. 15 _et seq._; Bullinger, lib. ii. c. 8.
Whilst the preacher was sowing discord in the ranks of the party
of order, Rottmann and the two prophets, Matthisson and Bockelson,
roused the enthusiasm of their disciples to the highest pitch,
by announcing to them a glorious victory, and that the Father
would render His elect invulnerable before the weapons of their
adversaries.
The Anabaptist women ran about the streets making the most
extraordinary contortions and prodigious leaps, crying out that they
saw the Lord surrounded by a host of angels coming to exterminate
the worshippers of Baal.
Thus passed the night. At daybreak Knipperdolling recommenced his
course through the streets, uttering his doleful wail of "Repent,
repent! woe, woe!" Approaching too near the churchyard wall of
Ueberwasser, he was taken and thrown into the tower with Strahl and
Vinnius.
At eight o'clock the drossar of Wollbeck arrived at the head of a
troop of armed peasants to reinforce the party of order, and several
ecclesiastics entered the town to inform the magistrates that the
prince-bishop was approaching at the head of his cavalry.
Before the lapse of many hours the city might have been pacified and
order re-established, had it not been for the efforts of Tilbeck the
burgomaster, and Fabricius the divine. Mistrust of their allies had
now fully gained possession of the Lutherans, and the burgomaster
took advantage of the hesitation to dismiss the drossar of Wollbeck
and his armed band, and to send to the prince, declining his aid. By
his advice, also, the Anabaptists agreed to lay down their arms and
make a covenant with the senate for the establishment of harmony.
Hostages were given on either side and the prisoners were liberated.
Peace was finally concluded on these conditions: 1st. That faith
should be absolutely free. 2nd. That each party should support the
other. 3rd. That all should obey the magistrates.
The treaty having been signed, the two armed bodies separated, the
cannons were fired into the air, the drossar of Wollbeck and the
ecclesiastics withdrew, with grief at their hearts, predicting the
approaching ruin of Münster. The prince-bishop was near the town
with his troops when the fatal news was brought him. He shed tears
of mortification, turned his horse and departed.[148]
[148] Same authorities; Sleidan, p. 411.
Peace was secured for the moment by this treaty, but order was
not re-established. No sooner had the armed Anabaptists quitted
the market-place than it swarmed with women who had received
from Rottmann the sign of the New Covenant. "The madness of
the pagan bacchantes," says the eye-witness of these scenes,
Kerssenbroeck,[149] "cannot have surpassed that of these women.
It is impossible to imagine a more terrible, crazy, indecent, and
ridiculous exhibition than they made. Their conduct was so frenzied
that one might have supposed them to be the furies of the poets.
Some had their hair disordered, others ran about almost naked,
without the least sense of shame; others again made prodigious
gambles, others flung themselves on the ground with arms extended
in the shape of a cross; then rose, clapped their hands, knelt
down, and cried with all their might, invoking the Father, rolling
their eyes, grinding their teeth, foaming at the mouth, beating
their breasts, weeping, laughing, howling, and uttering the most
strange inarticulate sounds.... Their words were stranger than their
gestures. Some implored grace and light for us, others besought
that we might be struck with blindness and damnation. All pretended
that they saw in heaven some strange sights; they saw the Father
descending to judge their holy cause, myriads of angels, clouds
of blood, black and blue fires falling upon the city, and above
the clouds a rider mounted on a white horse, brandishing his sword
against the impenitent who refused to turn from their evil ways....
But the scene was constantly varying. Kneeling on the ground, and
turning their eyes in one direction, they all at once exclaimed
together, with joined hands, 'O Father! Father! O most excellent
King of Zion, spare the people!' Then they repeated these words for
some while, raising the pitch of their voices, till they attained to
such a shriek that a host of pigs could not have produced a louder
noise when assembled on market-day.
[149] Kerssenbroeck, p. 495 _et seq._
"There was on the gable of one of the houses in the market-place a
weathercock of a peculiar form, lately gilt, which just then caught
the sun's rays and blazed with light. This weathercock caused the
error of the women. They mistook it for the most excellent King
of Zion. One of the citizens discovering the cause, climbed the
roof of the house and removed this new sort of majesty. A calm at
once succeeded to the uproar; ashamed and full of confusion, the
visionaries dispersed and returned to their homes. Unfortunately the
lesson did not restore them to their senses."
Shortly after the treaty was signed, the burgomaster, Tilbeck,
openly joined the Anabaptists, and was rebaptised with all his
family by Rottmann.[150]
[150] Kerssenbroeck, p. 496.
The more sensible and prudent citizens, including nearly all the
Catholics and a good number of Lutherans, being well aware that the
treaty was, in fact, a surrender of all authority into the hands of
the fanatics, deserted the town in great numbers, carrying with
them all their valuables. The emigration began on 12th February.
The Anabaptists ordered that neither weapons nor victuals should
be carried out of the gates, and appointed a guard to examine the
effects of all those who left the city. The emigration was so
extensive, that in a few days several quarters of the town were
entirely depopulated.[151]
[151] Kerssenbroeck; Dorpius, ff. 394-5.
Then Rottmann addressed a circular letter to the Anabaptists of all
the neighbouring towns to come and fill the deserted mansions from
which the apostates had fallen. "The Father has sent me several
prophets," said he, "full of His Spirit and endowed with exalted
sanctity; they teach the pure word of God, without human additions,
and with sublime eloquence. Come then, with your wives and children,
if you hope for eternal salvation; come to the holy Jerusalem,
to Zion, and to the new temple of Solomon. Come and assist us to
re-establish the true worship of God, and to banish idolatry. Leave
your worldly goods behind, you will find here a sufficiency, and in
heaven a treasure."[152]
[152] _Ibid._, p. 502; Mencken, p. 1545.
In response to this appeal, the Anabaptists streamed into the
city from all quarters, from Holland, Friesland, Brabant, Hesse,
Osnabrück, and from the neighbouring towns, where the magistrates
exerted themselves to suppress a sect which they saw imperilled the
safety of the commonwealth.