Münster Rebellion

Background

Münster, a city in Westphalia, was the capital of a prince-bishopric, a territory in which the bishop also ruled as secular lord. Reformation ideas began spreading there around 1530, and by about 1531 the city is reported to have adopted Lutheran reform.

At the same time, an apocalyptic current within the Anabaptist movement, convinced that the end was near, was gaining strength in the Netherlands and northern Germany. The Anabaptists rejected infant baptism; they were a branch of the Radical Reformation that held that baptism should be administered only to those who had personally confessed their faith. This current was influenced by Melchior Hoffman, who taught that the Second Coming was imminent. Jan Matthys, a baker from Haarlem who had been influenced by Hoffman, emerged as a leader after Hoffman was imprisoned. Matthys abandoned Hoffman's nonviolent stance and held that oppression must be resisted by force.

Course of Events

• 1533: John of Leiden (born Jan Beuckelszoon), a former tailor who had been baptized by Matthys, moved to Münster.
• January 1534: Matthys proclaimed Münster the "New Jerusalem." On January 5 his disciples entered the city and began administering adult baptism. Bernhard Rothmann, the city's reform preacher, also appears to have been rebaptized that day. Soon more than a thousand adults had been baptized, and Anabaptists streamed in from across the Netherlands and Germany.
• February 1534: The Anabaptists, together with the local merchant Bernhard Knipperdolling and others, took control of the city government. Those who refused to accept Anabaptism were forced to leave the city. All books other than the Bible were burned, and the images and paintings in the churches were destroyed. A communal order abolishing money and private property was also put into effect. The expelled bishop, Franz von Waldeck, raised an army and laid siege to the city. According to some accounts, Lutheran as well as Catholic forces assisted in the suppression.
• April 5, 1534 (Easter): Matthys prophesied that God's judgment would fall on that day. Comparing himself to Gideon, he charged the besieging army with a small band of followers and was killed.
• Summer–Autumn 1534: John of Leiden, who succeeded to the leadership, asserted his authority by claiming to have received visions. Citing the example of the Old Testament patriarchs, he instituted polygamy, and in September he had himself proclaimed king. Münster thus became a theocracy (a state governed by religious leaders in the name of God) awaiting the Millennium.
• June 1535: The siege, which lasted about sixteen months, caused severe famine within the city. On June 24–25 the bishop's forces captured the city.

Outcome and Impact

The three leaders—John of Leiden, Knipperdolling, and Bernhard Krechting—were captured and interrogated. They were sentenced to death in January 1536 and, on January 22, were tortured and executed in the city's main square. Their bodies were placed in three basket-shaped iron cages and hung from the tower of St. Lambert's Church. The cages still hang from the tower today and have become one of Münster's well-known landmarks.

In the aftermath, Anabaptists as a whole came to be regarded as rebels, and persecution intensified in many places. In Amsterdam, too, Anabaptists are reported to have been executed or expelled.

Assessment

Most Reformers of the time judged the Anabaptists in light of the Münster episode. As a result, the Anabaptists long bore the reputation of being "a violent group preoccupied with the end times." Since the 1960s, a growing body of scholarship has reassessed the Anabaptists. These studies hold that Münster involved only some of the many Anabaptist factions and that it neither represents nor defines Anabaptism as a whole. At the same time, the episode is frequently cited as an example of the dangers that arise when prophecies of an imminent end and biblical literalism are combined with armed force.