A SUPPER.
In October there was a great religious festival, which Bockhold called the Lord's Supper. A table of 4,200 covers was prepared for men and women. The king, the queen, and their principal officers, served on the occasion. Bockhold perceiving a stranger in the crowd ordered him to be arrested and brought before him. 'Wherefore,' said he, 'hast thou not on a wedding garment?' He pretended to believe that the man was a Judas, and ordered him to be expelled; then going out himself, he beheaded him with his own hands. He then re-entered, exulting and smiling at this exploit.[521]
When the repast was over, he asked if they were all ready to do the will of God. 'All,' they replied. 'Well, then,' said the king, 'this will is that some of you should go forth to make known the wonderful things which God has done for us.' He forthwith nominated six of them to go to Osnabruck, and the same number to go to various other towns in the neighborhood. He gave to each of them a piece of gold of the value of nine florins and a viaticum. On the same evening these apostles quitted Munster; and on their arrival at the towns which had been assigned to them, they made their entrance, filling the air with horrible outcries. 'Be converted,' they said, as they went along the streets; 'repent! The time which God in his mercy leaves you is short. The axe is laid at the root of the tree. If you do not receive peace, your town will soon be destroyed.' Next, presenting themselves to the assembled senate, they spread their cloaks upon the ground, threw down their pieces of gold,[522] and said,—'We proclaim peace to you; if you receive it bring hither what you possess and place it with this gold. Our king will ere long have conquered the whole world and subdued it to righteousness.' Those envoys who had been despatched to the towns belonging to the bishop of Munster were at first favorably received; but presently they were all arrested, and several were put to the torture. Not one of them, however, would acknowledge himself in error. 'We wait for new troops from Friesland and from Holland, and then,' repeated they, 'the king will go forth and will subdue the whole earth.' They suffered the extreme penalty of the law, as men guilty of sedition.
The king encountered difficulties not only in the neighboring towns, but likewise in his own capital, and even in his harem. There was at Munster a woman of great courage and determination, who boasted that no man should ever marry her. John of Leyden commanded that she should be carried off and placed in the number of his wives; but the woman, with her independence of character, finding the morals and the manners of this harem intolerable, made her escape. This was in the king's eyes a very great crime. He therefore had her arrested, conducted her himself to the great square, cut off her head with his own hand, and then, filled with wrath and vengeance, trampled her body in the dust. Bockhold had ordered that all his other wives should be present at this hateful scene, and had directed them to sing a hymn of praise after the execution. These unhappy creatures did, accordingly, strike up their song in the presence of the mutilated and desecrated body of their companion.[523]
CHAPTER V.
THE ANABAPTISTS OF MUNSTER. CHASTISEMENT.
(1535-1536.)
CHASTISEMENT.