THE REFORMATION - A MÜNSTER ANABAPTIST

DISCOVER THE PRACTICES AND PERILS OF LIFE DURING THE MÜNSTER  REBELLION - GERMANY, 1534-35

In the aftermath of Martin Luther’s Reformation, the German city of Münster had become the centre of radical Anabaptism, a Christian movement that is an offshoot of Protestantism. Anabaptists had flocked to the city after its bishop had granted them religious freedom from persecution, but when he changed his mind they were able to fight back and take control. They managed to hold the city for around 16 months before succumbing to the bishop’s brutal siege. The Anabaptist leaders were tortured and executed in the marketplace, and their bodies placed in cages that can still be seen hanging from St Lambert’s Church today.

GET BAPTISED

Anabaptism is a faction of Protestantism that does not recognise infant baptism. Instead, Anabaptists believe that only adults who are able to make the conscious decision to confess their faith in Christ can be baptised. When the Anabaptists took control of Münster in 1534, a mass baptism was held and any adult citizen who refused to take part was expelled from the city.

SPREAD THE WORD

With the Anabaptists in power, Münster was declared as the seat of the ‘New Jerusalem’, as chosen by God, where the new Millennium would be heralded from. Evangelical Anabaptists began spreading this news to encourage more people to repent their sins and join them. The message successfully reached the oppressed Dutch Anabaptists, leading many to travel to the city.

GO HUNGRY

Bishop Franz von Waldeck, who had been expelled from Münster by the Anabaptists, gathered together troops to launch a siege against the city. They formed an ever-closer ring around the settlement, cutting it off from the rest of the world in an attempt to prevent the spread of the Anabaptist faith and starve the citizens out. Many perished from the resulting famine.

GET MARRIED

When Jan van Leiden became the leader of Münster shortly after the Anabaptists took control, he legalised polygamy, allowing male citizens to have more than one wife. This was likely because the women outnumbered the men by more than three to one, since many of their fathers and husbands had either fled, been expelled or were killed in the siege.

SHARE GOODS

Jan van Leiden also established Münster as a community of goods, an institution practiced by the Jerusalem church. All deeds and debt documents were destroyed as a result, and all property and wealth was evenly distributed among everyone in the community. This also helped to ensure that the poor received their fair share of food during the bishop’s siege.

DEFEND THE CITY

Although Franz von Waldeck’s troops mainly tried to starve the citizens of Münster out, they did launch a few attacks on the city. One such battle saw 8,000 German Landsknechts storm the walls, but the Anabaptists managed to defeat them, leaving 3,000 dead. The Anabaptists also launched a few attacks of their own, taking out some of the surrounding enemy’s cannon.

SURRENDER

More than a year into the siege, a citizen of Münster betrayed the city by leading the bishop’s troops through a weak spot in its defence. The starving population fought for hours, attempting to gain back control of the streets, until Franz von Waldeck eventually promised them safe conduct if they agreed to surrender.

BE KILLED

Unfortunately the bishop’s promise was merely a trick, and most of the citizens of Münster were massacred while his troops continued their rampage through the city. Those who did survive had to witness their Anabaptist leaders be tortured with red-hot tongs, stabbed through the heart and put on display in large metal cages that hung from the church steeple.

In "All About History", UK, issue 53, excerpts pp. 20-21. Digitized, adapted and illustrated to be posted by Leopoldo Costa.

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