Freaks of Fanaticism, and Other Strange Events

by S. Baring-Gould

On the evening of the 28th January, at seven o'clock, the Anabaptists stretched chains across the streets, assembled in armed bands, closed the city gates, and placed sentinels in all directions. A terrible anxiety reigned in the city. The Lutherans remained up and awake all night, a prey to fear, with their doors and windows barricaded, waiting to see what these preparations signified. The night passed, broken only by the tramp of the sectarian fanatics, and lighted by the glare of their torches.

Dawn broke and nothing further had taken place, when suddenly two men, dressed like prophets, with long ragged beards, ample garments, and flowing mantles, staff in hand paced through the town solemnly, up one street and down another, raising their eyes to heaven, sighing, and then looking down with an expression of compassion on the multitude, which bowed before them and saluted them as Enoch and Elias. After having traversed the greater part of the town, the two men entered the door of Knipperdolling's house.[136]

The names of these prophets were John Matthisson and John Bockelson. The first was the chief of the Anabaptist sect in Holland. The part which the second was destined to play in Münster demands that his antecedents should be more fully given. Bockelson was the bastard son of Bockel, bailiff of the Hague, and a certain Adelhaid, daughter of a serf of the Lord of Zoelcken, in the diocese of Münster. This Adelhaid purchased her liberty afterwards and married her seducer. John was brought up at Leyden, where he was apprenticed to a tailor. He visited England, Portugal, and Lubeck, and returned to Leyden in his twenty-first year. He then married the widow of a boatman, who presented him with two sons. John Bockelson was endowed by nature with a ready wit and with a retentive memory. He amused himself by learning nearly the whole of the Bible by heart, and by composing obscene verses and plays. In addition to his business of tailoring, he opened a public-house under the sign of "The Three Herrings," which became a haunt of women of bad repute. The passion for change came over Bockelson after leading this sort of life for a while, and he visited Münster in 1533, as we have already seen, and thence passed to Osnabrück, from which place he was expelled. After wandering about Westphalia for a while he returned to Leyden. Next year, in company with Matthisson, the head of the Anabaptists, he visited Münster, which the latter declared prophetically was destined to be the new Jerusalem, the capital of a regenerate world, where the millennial kingdom was to be set up.[137]

The two adventurers reached their destination on the 13th January, and Knipperdolling received them into his house. Some of the preachers were informed of their arrival, but were required to keep the matter secret till the time ordained of God should come for their revealing themselves to the world.

A council was being held in the house of Knipperdolling, when the prophets entered it after having finished their peregrination of the town. Rottmann, Roll, Clopris, Strapedius, Vinnius, and Strahl were engaged in a warm discussion. Some of the party were of opinion that the moment had arrived, now that all the Anabaptists were under arms, for a general purification of the city by the massacre or expulsion of Catholics and Lutherans; the others thought that the hour of vengeance had not yet struck, and that the day of the Lord must not be antedated. The quarrel was appeased by the appearance of the two prophets, who were hailed as messengers sent from heaven to announce the will of God. Then Matthisson and his companion knelt down and wept, and having meditated some moments, they uttered their decision in voices broken by sobs. "The time for cleansing the threshing-floor of the Lord is not yet come. The slaughter of the ungodly must be delayed, that souls may be gathered in, and that souls may be formed and educated in houses set apart, and not in churches which were lately filled with idols. But," said they in conclusion, "the day of the Lord is at hand."

These words reconciled the council. On the evening of the 29th, the Anabaptists laid aside their arms and returned to their homes.[138] The events of the night had utterly dispelled the last traces of courage in the magistrates; they did not venture to notice the threatening aspect of the armed fanatics, or to remonstrate with them for barricading the streets. To avert all possible danger from themselves was their only object; and to effect this they published an act of toleration, permitting every man to worship God and perform his public and private devotions as he thought proper.

The power of Rottmann had become so great, through the events just recorded, that a false prophecy did not serve to upset his authority. On the 6th February, at the head of a troop of his admirers, he invaded the Church of Ueberwasser, "to prevent the Evangelical flame kindled in the hearts of the nuns from dying out."[139] Having summoned all the sisters into the church, he mounted the pulpit and preached to them a sermon on matrimony, in which he denounced convents and monasteries, in which the most imperious laws of nature were left unfulfilled, and "he urged the nuns to labour heartily for the propagation of the human race;" and then he completely turned the heads of the young women, by announcing to them with an inspired air, that their convent would fall at midnight, and would bury beneath its ruins every one who was found within its walls. "This salutary announcement has been made to me," said he, "by one of the prophets now present in this town, and the Heavenly Father has also favoured me with a direct and special revelation to the same effect."[140]

This was enough to complete the conversion of the nuns, already shaken in their faith by the sermons they had been compelled to listen to for some time past. In vain did the Abbess Ida and two other sisters implore them to remain and despise the prophecy. The infatuated women, in paroxysms of fear and excitement, fled the convent and took refuge in the house of Rottmann, where they changed their clothes, and then ran about the town uttering cries of joy.

The prophecy of Rottmann had been repeated by one to another throughout Münster. No one slept that night. Crowds poured down the streets in the direction of Ueberwasser, and the square in front of the convent was densely packed with breathless spectators, awaiting the ruin of the house.