The Anabaptist movement spreads to southwest Germany,…
January 1534 CE
The Anabaptist movement spreads to southwest Germany, Austria, Moravia, along the Danube, and down the Rhine to the Netherlands.
Numbering less than one percent of the central European population in central Europe, the Anabaptists are largely of humble social origin.
A forceful attempt to establish theocracy is made at Münster, in Westphalia, where the group has gained considerable influence, through the adhesion of Bernhard Rothmann, the Lutheran pastor, and several prominent citizens; and the leaders, Jan Matthys (also spelled Matthijs, Mathijsz, Matthyssen, Mathyszoon), a baker from Haarlem, and Jan Bockelson (or Beukelszoon), a tailor from Leiden.
Bernhard Rothmann is a tireless and vitriolic opponent of Catholicism and a writer of pamphlets that are published by his ally and wealthy wool merchant Bernhard Knipperdolling.
The pamphlets at first denounced Catholicism from a radical Lutheran perspective, but soon started to proclaim that the Bible called for the absolute equality of man in all matters including the distribution of wealth.
The pamphlets, which are distributed throughout northern Germany, successfully cal upon the poor of the region to join the citizens of Münster to share the wealth of the town and benefit spiritually from being the elect of Heaven.
With so many adherents in the town, at the elections for the magistracy, Rothmann and his allies have little difficulty in obtaining possession of the town, and placing Bernhard Knipperdolling as the mayor after deposing the mainly Lutheran magistrates, who, until then, had seen him as an ally in their own distrust of, and dislike for, Catholics.
Matthys is a follower of Melchior Hoffman, who, after Hoffman's imprisonment at Strasbourg, had obtained a considerable following in the Low Countries, including John of Leiden.
John of Leiden and Gerrit Boekbinder had visited Münster, and returned with a report that Bernhard Rothmann was there teaching doctrines similar to their own.
Matthys identifies Münster as the "New Jerusalem", and on January 5, 1534, a number of his disciples enter the city and introduce adult baptism.
Rothmann apparently accepts "rebaptism" that day, and well over a thousand adults sre soon baptised.
Vigorous preparations are made, not only to hold what had been gained, but to spread their beliefs to other areas.
Groups
Commodities
Subjects
Regions
Central Europe
View →Subregions
