John, however, was an optimist and thoroughly believed in the omnipotence of paper decrees.
The people complained that they were hungry. John promised that he would tend to it. And forthwith a royal ukase, duly signed by His Majesty, ordained that all wealth in the city be divided equally among the rich and the poor, that the streets be broken up and used as vegetable gardens, that all meals be eaten in common.
So far so good. But there were those who said that some of the rich people had hidden part of their treasures. John bade his subjects not to worry. A second decree proclaimed that all those who broke a single law of the community would be immediately decapitated. And, mind you, such a warning was no idle threat. For this royal tailor was as handy with his sword as with his scissors and frequently undertook to be his own executioner.
Then came the period of hallucinations when the populace suffered from a diversity of religious manias; when the market place was crowded day and night with thousands of men and women, awaiting the trumpet blasts of the angel Gabriel.
Then came the period of terror, when the prophet kept up the courage of his flock by a constant orgy of blood and cut the throat of one of his own queens.
And then came the terrible day of retribution when two citizens in their despair opened the gates to the soldiers of the bishop and when the prophet, locked in an iron cage, was shown at all the Westphalian country fairs and was finally tortured to death.
A weird episode, but of terrible consequence to many a God-fearing and simple soul.
From that moment on, all Anabaptists were outlawed. Such leaders as had escaped the carnage of Münster were hunted down like rabbits and were killed wherever found. From every pulpit, ministers and priests fulminated against the Anabaptists and with many curses and anathemas they denounced them as communists and traitors and rebels, who wanted to upset the existing order of things and deserved less mercy than wolves or mad dogs.
Rarely has a heresy hunt been so successful. As a sect, the Anabaptists ceased to exist. But a strange thing happened. Many of their ideas continued to live, were picked up by other denominations, were incorporated into all sorts of religious and philosophic systems, became respectable, and are today part and parcel of everybody’s spiritual and intellectual inheritance.
It is a simple thing to state such a fact. To explain how it actually came about, that is quite a different story.