Münster Rebellion Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
The Münster Rebellion was a attempt by radical Anabaptists to establish as theocracy in Münster. The city became an Anabaptist center from 1532 to 1535, and fell under Anabaptist rule for 16 months - from February 1534, when the city hall was seized and Bernhard Knipperdolling installed as mayor, until its fall in June 1535. It was Melchior Hoffman, who initiated adult baptism in Strassburg in 1530, and his brand of eschatological Anabaptism, that helped lay the foundations for the events of 1534-35 in Münster.After the Peasants' War, a second and more determined attempt to establish a theocracy was made at Münster, in Westphalia (1532-1535). Here the group had gained considerable influence, through the adhesion of Bernhard Rothmann, the Lutheran pastor, and several prominent citizens; and the leaders, Johann Matthys (or Matthijs, Mathijz, Matthyssen, Mathyszoon), a baker of Haarlem, and Jan Bockelson or Beukelszoon, a tailor of Leiden, had little difficulty in obtaining possession of the town and deposing the magistrates. Matthys was a follower of Melchior Hoffman, who, after Hoffman's imprisonment as Strassburg, obtained a considerable following in the Low Country, including Jan Bockelson. Bockelson and Gerard Boekbinder visited Münster, and returned with a report that Bernhard Rothmann was there teaching doctrines similar to their own. Matthys identified Münster as the "New Jerusalem", and on January 5, 1534, a number of his disciples entered the city and introduced adult baptism. Rothmann apparently accepted "rebaptism" that day, and well over 1000 adults were soon baptized. Vigorous preparations were made, not only to hold what had been gained, but to proceed from Münster toward the conquest of the world. The town was being besieged by Francis of Waldeck, its expelled bishop. In April 1534 on Easter Sunday, Matthys, who had prophesied God's judgment to come on the wicked on that day, made a sally with only thirty followers, under the fanatical idea that he was a second Gideon, and was cut off with his entire band. He was killed, his head severed and placed on a pole for all in the city to see. Bockelson, better known in history as John of Leiden, was installed as king.
Claiming to be the successor of David, he claimed royal honours and absolute power in the new "Zion". He justified the most arbitrary and extravagant measures by the authority of visions from heaven, as others have done in similar circumstances. John of Leiden legalized polygamy, and himself took sixteen wives, one of whom he beheaded with his own hand in the marketplace in a fit of frenzy. As a natural consequence of such license, Münster was for twelve months a scene of unbridled profligacy. Community of goods was also established. After an obstinate resistance the town was taken by the besiegers on June 24, 1535, and in January 1536 Bockelson and some of his more prominent followers, after being cruelly tortured, were executed in the market-place. Their dead bodies were exhibited in cages, which hung from the steeple of St. Lamberti church. (These cages are still hanging there.)
The outbreak at Münster was the crisis of the Anabaptist movement. It never again had the opportunity of assuming political importance, the civil powers naturally adopting the most stringent measures to suppress an agitation whose avowed object was to suppress them. It is difficult to trace the subsequent history of the group as a religious body. The fact that, after the Münster insurrection the very name Anabaptist was proscribed in Europe, is a source of twofold confusion. The enforced adoption of new names makes it easy to lose the historical identity of many who really belonged to the Münster Anabaptists, and, on the other hand, has led to the classification of many with the Münster sect who had no real connection with it. The latter mistake, it is to be noted, has been much more common than the former. The Mennonites, for example, have been identified with the earlier Anabaptists, on the ground that they included among their number many of the fanatics of Münster. But the continuity of a sect is to be traced in its principles, and not in its adherents, and it must be remembered that Menno Simons and his followers expressly repudiated the distinctive doctrines of the Münster Anabaptists. They have never aimed at any social or political revolution, and have been as remarkable for sobriety of conduct as the Münster sect was for its fanaticism.
In English history frequent reference is made to the Anabaptists during the 16th and 17th centuries, but there is no evidence that any considerable number of native Englishmen ever adopted the principles of the Münster sect. Many of the followers of Thomas Müntzer and Johann Bockelson seem to have fled from persecution in Germany and the Netherlands to be subjected to a persecution scarcely less severe in England.
The excesses of John of Leiden, the Brigham Young of that age, cast an unjust stigma on the Baptists, of whom the vast majority were good, quiet people who merely carried out in, practice the early Christian ideals of which their persecutors prated. They have been reckoned an extreme left wing of the Reformation, because for a time they followed Luther and Zwingli. Yet their Christology and negative attitude towards the state rather indicate, as in the case of John Wyclif, Jan Hus and the Fraticelli (Brethren), an affinity to the Cathars and other medieval sects. But this affiliation is hard to establish.
The Anabaptists were great readers of the Book of Revelation and of the Epistle of James, the latter perhaps by way of counteracting what they considered Luther's one-sided teaching of justification by faith alone. Luther rejected this scripture as "a right strawy epistle". English Anabaptists often knew it by heart. Excessive reading of Revelation may have increased the aberrations of the Münster fanatics.
Reference
External Links
Zürich: Seedbed of Radical Change - offers a more in depth look at attempts to rehabilitate the Anabaptist label after Münster
Anabaptist Radicals Declare Muenster the "New Jerusalem" - an account of the Anabaptist uprising in Münster from Odd News
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