The bishop took one look at his new councilors and fled.
It was then that John of Leiden appeared upon the scene. He had come to Münster as the apostle of a certain Jan Matthysz, a Haarlem baker who had started a new sect of his own and was regarded as a very holy man. And when he heard of the great blow that had been struck for the good cause, he remained to help celebrate the victory and purge the bishopric of all popish contamination. The Anabaptists were nothing if not thorough. They turned the churches into stone quarries. They confiscated the convents for the benefit of the homeless. All books except the Bible were publicly burned. And as a fitting climax, those who refused to be re-baptized after the Anabaptist fashion were driven into the camp of the Bishop, who decapitated them or drowned them on the general principle that they were heretics and small loss to the community.
That was the prologue.
The play itself was no less terrible.
From far and wide the high priests of half a hundred new creeds hastened to the New Jerusalem. There they were joined by all those who believed themselves possessed of a call for the great uplift, honest and sincere citizens, but as innocent as babes when it came to politics or statecraft.
The siege of Münster lasted five months and during that time, every scheme, system and program of social and spiritual regeneration was tried out; every new-fangled prophet had his day in court.
But, of course, a little town chuck full of fugitives, pestilence and hunger, was not a fit place for a sociological laboratory and the dissensions and quarrels between the different factions lamed all the efforts of the military leaders. During that crisis John the tailor stepped forward.
The short hour of his glory had come.
In that community of starving men and suffering children, all things were possible. John began his régime by introducing an exact replica of that old theocratic form of government of which he had read in his Old Testament. The burghers of Münster were divided into the twelve tribes of Israel and John himself was chosen to be their king. He had already married the daughter of one prophet, Knipperdollinck. Now he married the widow of another, the wife of his former master, John Matthysz. Next he remembered Solomon and added a couple of concubines. And then the ghastly farce began.
All day long John sat on the throne of David in the market place and all day long the people stood by while the royal court chaplain read the latest batch of ordinances. These came fast and furiously, for the fate of the city was daily growing more desperate and the people were in dire need.