From their eager violation of existing church usages with unholy parade, and their notorious behavior at the Second Religious Conference we have become acquainted with several leaders of this disorderly party, Conrad Grebel, William Rœubli and Simon Stumpf. Two others, Felix Manz and John Brœdlein, were added; the first of whom by his scientific culture, and the second by his strength of character, as well as by his stubbornness and pride, which did not indeed allow of entire harmony of feeling, soon drew attention, as among the most dangerous.
Manz, like many others in that dissolute age, the intelligent son of a clergyman, had acquired a considerable knowledge of the Hebrew language, little known at that time, and when the want of instruction in it began to be generally felt, he thought himself specially called to become a teacher of it. And had a place been immediately created for him and richly endowed out of the revenues of the newly organized Chapter of Canons, it is highly probable, at least if Bullinger's representation of the man be true, that he would have chosen the nobler path of pure scientific activity. But this was not done, and with Grebel he appeared at the head of the insurgents. In the house of his mother at Zurich, in the New Town, he instituted a nightly meeting, where at first a slight dissatisfaction with the course, which the work of reform had taken, was expressed only in general terms; but by degrees more decided projects were matured--to possess themselves, if possible, with the direction of affairs, and, as they styled it, to found a new church. To this plan they next sought to win over Zwingli. Stumpf and Manz, as he himself tells us, had repeated conversations with him on this subject. They begged him to bring no doctrines into the pulpit, except such as they would agree upon among themselves beforehand. "No one"--said Manz still further--"is to be received into our church, who has not the assurance in himself that he is without sin."--"And will you belong to it?" asked Zwingli with a stern look. Manz was silent; but from that time forth, he and his associates began to calumniate the Reformer everywhere and throw obstacles into his path.
But the actual outbreak of disturbances was occasioned by Brœdlein. A year before, whilst pastor at Quarten, in the bailiwick of Sargan, he had made himself conspicuous. With Rœubli he was among the first of the clergy, who violated the rules of fasting and the vow of celibacy. He had done both in the assurance of evangelical right and Christian liberty; and when the landvogt spoke to him about it, he made answer not in the most courtly terms: The landvogt ought to punish the lewd and adulterous persons who swarm in his neighborhood, instead of him and his virtuous wife. He was bound rather to protect him, and compel the other clergy to marry. The special sanctity of the priesthood was at an end. If one steals, then you should hang him, even though he would anoint his whole body with oil. The tale-bearers had lied about him like rogues. "Still"--he concluded in a tone somewhat more moderate--"I build my hopes not on men of this world. That much you ought to know of me. God has numbered all the hairs of my head, and not a sparrow falls to the ground without His will, so neither can any one injure me or my wife, if it be not His will, and therefore, dear landvogt, you need send neither thirty nor a hundred men to fetch her. If she has sinned against God, then send the smallest child, and she must come. But if you wish to take, or cause her to be taken from me by force, then know, that you act against God, divine righteousness and the Gospel. Yet I will not repel force by force. I once indeed thought it necessary to do this; but God has commanded me otherwise, and hence I may not teach it to my brethren."
In fact, the landvogt, at the requisition of the ruling cantons, threw him into prison. How he escaped is not known. After the Religious Conferences in Zurich we find him as assistant at Zollikon, and here he seems to have been the first to introduce into Switzerland the doctrines of the Anabaptists, which elsewhere had caused so much dissension. Of all, who sought by means of these doctrines to create discord, to make a show or found a party, we can say, that, without exception, they were men of narrow minds, or, in worse cases, hypocrites with dishonorable private aims. Though it cannot be denied, that in later times respectable men have lived in our country under the name of Anabaptists, and are even yet to be found, still their moral worth springs not from their otherwise innocent mode of baptism, but from their religious exercises, their simple way of living, and the good examples, which they have before their eyes. Yet here also we durst not forget, that it is not the part of history to examine articles of faith, but to keep to events and the external phenomena of life.
In May, 1424, when the decree of the government was issued for the abolition of images and the mass, it was told in Zurich, that the inhabitants of Zollikon, roused by the preaching of Brœdlein, had broken down the images and altars in the church and even carried away the baptismal font; that the doctrine had spread among them, that it was unchristian to baptise children, because no examples of it were found in the Gospel, although frequent mention was made of the baptism of adults; that in fact a deluded multitude had desired to be baptised again; that it had been granted to them by several, who set themselves up for apostles; that some ran about in the houses preaching, explaining the Scriptures and administering the Supper; that others, and those often the most simple, pretended to prophesy; and that in general an improper and blasphemous game was carried on in religious matters. They were informed also that Manz and Grebel had appeared there, and the foolish movement was beginning to spread over the surrounding country.
Whilst a portion of the people fell in with such follies, disturbances arose at the same time in the opposite quarter. The majority of the inhabitants of Meilen would no longer suffer their two priests, who had married, to enter the church. They broke into their houses, wasted their wine and provisions, and it was only with difficulty that the government succeeded in bringing about a sort of compromise between the shepherds and their flock.
A month later followed the so-called "Storming of Ittingen." The landvogt in the Thurgau had taken the reformer Œchsli prisoner, and was conveying him by night to the tower at Stein. He cried out for help; the watchful citizens of Stein, on the strength of documents, which gave the right to do this only to them, hurried after, to set him at liberty. Their neighbors of Stammheim, in the canton of Zurich, joined them, and the whole country was soon in motion; but the captors had a considerable start, and the Thur, swollen to the full, prevented the passage of the excited multitude. In a rage they then fell upon Ittigen, the hated monastery of the Carthusians. It was plundered, and set on fire by some one, who was never found out; which act, as is easy to imagine, awakened the earnest interference of the Confederates.
They who were most deserving of punishment fled. Zurich herself cast into prison some others, who were suspected, on account of their prominent place among the insurgents, and not powerful enough to make resistance. These were Hans Wirth, sub-vogt at Stammheim, with his two sons, both priests, and Burkhart Ruetiman, sub-vogt at Nusbaumen. But the Confederates demanded the delivery of the prisoners at Baden before the court of the ruling cantons, since the criminal act was committed in the Thurgau, and not in the canton of Zurich. The Council of Zurich had to comply. But in Baden the prisoners were tried for other things than the transactions in the Thurgau, put to the rack, and with the exception of one of Wirth's sons, actually executed. The sentence was unjust. Not even the most remote personal participation in the plundering and burning of Ittingen could be proved against them. For the part they took in the removal of the images at Stammheim, which chiefly kindled the hatred of the Confederates, they were not responsible to them. That the government had delivered up these men, so beloved in the circle of their home, to such a fate, produced a very unfavorable impression on the inhabitants of the northern part of the canton, the more so, because the condemned had met death in a brave and Christian manner, and aided not a little to increase the disorders, which afterwards prevailed there.
At this juncture the flame broke out in the German provinces lying beyond the Rhine. Thomas Muenzer, at a later period leader of the Saxon Anabaptists, had come to Basel in Frickthal, and Waldshut in Cleggau. In Waldshut he made the acquaintance of the preacher at that place, Balthasar Huebmeier, who, though a man possessed of an honest will, a tolerable knowledge of Scripture and great courage, was yet apt to lend a willing ear to everything new and striking. When preaching at Regensburg he had raised a riot against the Jews, then founded a chapel for pilgrims, then turned to the doctrines of Luther, and was just now as ready to embrace those of the Anabaptists.
Through him Waldshut became for a short time the chief seat of this disorder, from which, in church and state, such hazardous consequences were to be feared. First led by Muenzer, and after he had gone to the Hartz Mountains, by Simon Rœubli, who had been expelled from the territory of Zurich, Huebmeier set himself up as the apostle of Anabaptism, and, according to his own confession, rebaptized the greater part of the inhabitants of Waldshut. The warnings of the Austrian government, at first mild and then earnest, had no effect upon them, and the demand for the dismission of the obnoxious preachers was also in vain. On the contrary, similar fanatics and adventurers of every sort streamed thither from all sides, and when Austria armed herself for severe measures, formal resistance was determined on. Volunteers for this purpose were obtained chiefly from the territories of Zurich. At the first news of the outbreak the government sent a courier to demand their return; but after hearing an address from Rudolph Collin, who, formerly a canon at the Minster, was obliged to leave the territory of Luzern on account of his adherence to the Reformation, and had now joined them with upright feelings and an honest purpose, they declared they would rather die than return home. And their answer won for them immediately a party in the Council. "We are attracted"--so they wrote--"to the Christian brethren at Waldshut, who sigh under oppressive tyranny, not by money, nor for our own private ends--only for the defence of God's Word and from a regard to the honor of Zurich. The Spirit of the Lord has called them to arms; there is no seditious person among them; their captain is Jesus Christ."