Freaks of Fanaticism, and Other Strange Events

by S. Baring-Gould

The Reformer of Münster began to entertain and to express doubts as to the validity of the baptism of infants, which he considered had not the warrant of Holy Scripture. Melancthon wrote urgently to him, imploring him not to create dissensions in the Evangelical Church by disturbing the arrangement many wise men had agreed upon. "We have enemies enough," added Melancthon; "they will be rejoiced to see us tearing each other and destroying one another.... I speak with good intention, and I take the liberty of giving my advice, because I am devoted to you and to the Church."[86]

Luther wrote as well, not to Rottmann, but to the magistrates of Münster, praising their love of the Gospel, and urging them to beware of being drawn away by the damnable errors of the Sacramentarians, Zwinglians, aliorumque schwermerorum.[87] The senators received this apostolic epistle with the utmost respect and reverence imaginable; they communicated it to Rottmann and his colleagues, and ordered them to obey it. But the senate had long lost its authority; and this injunction was disregarded.[88] "Disorder and infidelity made progress; the idle, rogues, spendthrifts, thieves, and ruined persons swelled the crowd of Evangelists."[89]

However, it was not enough to have introduced the new religion, to satisfy the Evangelicals the Catholics must be completely deprived of the exercise of their religion. In spite of every hindrance, mass had been celebrated every Sunday in the cathedral. All the parish churches had been deprived of their priests, but the minster remained in the hands of the Catholics. As Christmas approached, many men and women prepared by fasting, alms, and confession, to make their communion at the cathedral on the festival of the Nativity.

The magistrates, hearing of their design, forbade them communicating, offering, as an excuse, that it would cause scandal to the partisans of the Reform. They also published a decree forbidding baptisms to be performed elsewhere than in the parish churches; so as to force the faithful to bring their children to the ministrations of men whom they regarded with aversion as heretics and apostates.[90]

No envoys from the capital attended the reunion of the chambers at Wollbeck on the 20th December. But Münster sent a letter expressing a hope that the difference between the city and the prince might be terminated by mediation.

This letter gave the diet a chance of escaping from its very difficult position of enforcing the rule of the prince without money to pay the soldiers. The diet undertook to lay the suggestion before the prince-bishop, and to transmit his reply to the envoys of Münster.

Francis of Waldeck then quitted his diocese of Minden, and betook himself to Telgte,[91] a little town about four miles from Münster, where he was to receive the oath of allegiance and homage of his subjects in the principality. The estates assembled at Wollbeck, and all the leading nobles and clergy of the diocese hastened to Telgte and assembled around their sovereign on the same day. A letter was at once addressed to the senate of Münster by the assembled estates, urging it to send deputies to Telgte, the following morning, at eight o'clock, to labour together with them at the re-establishment of peace.

The deputies did not appear; the senate addressed to the diet, instead, a letter of excuses. The estates at once replied that in the interest of peace, they regretted the obstinacy with which the senate had refused to send deputies to Telgte; but that this had not prevented them from supplicating the bishop to yield to their wishes; and that they were glad to announce that he was ready to submit the mutual differences to the arbitration of two princes of the Empire, one to be named by himself, the other by the city of Münster. And until the arbitration took place, the prince-bishop would provisionally suspend all measures of severity, on condition that the ancient usages should be restored in the churches, the preachers should cease to innovate, and that the imprisoned vassals of the bishop should be released.

This missive was sent into the town on the 25th; the magistrates represented to the bearer "that it would be scandalous to occupy themselves with temporal affairs on Christmas-day," and on this pretext they persuaded him to remain till the morrow in Münster. Then orders were given for the gates of the town to be closed, and egress to be forbidden to every one.

Having taken these precautions, the magistrates assembled the provosts of the guilds, and held with them a conference, which terminated shortly before nine o'clock the same evening; after which the subaltern officers of the senate were sent round to rap at every door, and order the citizens to assemble at midnight, before the town-hall. A nocturnal expedition had been resolved upon; but the movement in the town had excited the alarm of the Catholics, who, thinking that a general massacre of those who adhered to the old religion was in contemplation, hid themselves in drains and cellars and chimneys.