The Münster Rebellion

The post medieval era of the 1530's was a bloody time in Northern Europe. This wasn't due just to the harshness of daily life that prevailed throughout the world at the time, but religious fervour combined with recent developments, had sowed new divisions in society that would continue to ripple through culture up until the present day.

In 1517, a priest named Martin Luther had famously nailed his list of objections to the doors of the castle church in Wittenburg, Germany. As we all appreciate, the Catholic Church was known to be extremely intolerant of criticism during the period, and anyone asking too many questions was at serious risk of being charged with heresy, imprisonment, torture and execution.

Though excommunicated by the Pope, Luther was fortunate enough to be spared these trials, partly due to his reputation of having a fiery intellect and partly due to some friends in powerful positions.
Fundamentally, he was complaining about Catholic Church policies that he perceived to be more about making money than saving souls. These included the practice of indulgences where a wealthy person would officially be able to reduce the amount of time spent in purgatory by simply making a substantial donation of money to the church.

One of Luther's other beliefs however was equally heretical and involved the concept that not only should people be able to read the bible themselves, but that they should be able to interpret the bible themselves. Up until this time, both the reading and interpretation had been strictly controlled by the clergy. Mass was traditionally conducted in Latin, and the same language was used to make hand-written copies of the sacred texts.

The recent invention of the mobile printing press contributed to the ensuing chaos.
Various people, including Luther, had begun printing excerpts from the bible in the common language, and passing them around. This led to fierce debate, the schism began and various groups sprung up with their own interpretations of Christianity.

One of these groups were the Anabaptists. Anabaptism (Re-baptism) is a common concept in many of today's branches of Christianity.
Their central belief which differed from traditional catholicism was the concept that since infants were baptised without any real awareness of what was going on, their baptisms couldn’t count. Thus, a soul could only be saved from the torments of hell by baptism conducted as an adult, or at least, at a certain level of maturity. A rational enough concept in modern times, but by 16th-century standards, it was nothing short of heresy. As one would expect, The Church strongly disagreed with any such dissent and began applying the full force of it's power to quelling the discourse.

This time however, the debate had gotten out of control too quickly. Different sects were springing up faster than they could be put down and around 1530, the Anabaptists discovered their very own divine prophet man known as Jan Matthys. Previously a baker from Haarlem in Holland, Matthys began preaching the word of Anabaptism and stressing the importance of conversion to the faith by predicting a forthcoming holy war, judgement day and the destruction of the wicked.

At the time, a group of Anabaptists seized control of the walled City of Munster. They were led largely by two men, Bernhard Knipperdolling and Jan Van Lyden. Knipperdolling was a well known local official and quickly secured his position as Lord Mayor of Munster. They called Jan Matthys to join them, declared the city to be a "New Jerusalem" and began to enact various laws such as the public ownership of all property, and the burning of all books except the bible. The local populace were given the choice of immediate conversion to the new faith, or expulsion from the city.

Unsurprisingly, this was not only unpopular with the Catholic Church but also the local ruling class, not in the least, the official in charge of Munster, a man known as Franz Von Waldeck who held the title of “Prince Bishop”.

Von Waldeck got to work on surrounding the city with a hastily gathered army while the besieged Anabaptists sent messengers out across Northern Germany to call all other Anabaptists to Munster for the forthcoming holy event and the second coming of Jesus, which Matthys had predicted would occur right there in Munster. Unfortunately, the other wealthy landowners across northern Germany had also been making lives miserable for their local Anabaptists, and once the Prince Bishop's forces had effectively cut off the city, no help was coming.
Further compounding to the crisis faced by the citizens of Munster occurred when Jan Matthys, after collapsing in a religiously inspired fit, declared that he would ride out and defeat the surrounding army practically single handed. After equipping him with a horse, armour and weapons, he rode out of the city with a handful of his most loyal disciples while the townspeople gathered on the walls to witness the expected biblical-style miracle.

Jan Matthys and the followers who rode out were cut to pieces. His head was put on a spike for the Anabaptists to see and that night, his genitals were nailed to the city gates. The citizenry started to understandably worry about their predicament.
With impeccable timing, prophet number two appeared. Surprisingly, this turned out to be the charismatic Jan Van Lyden. Van Lyden declared that God had come to him in a vision, told him that things would be alright and that the loyal anabaptists would be saved by Easter 1535. Additionally, God had also instructed him to marry the comely wife of the very recently departed Jan Matthys.

The new prophet was hastily accepted as a lifeline by the desperate townspeople, still reeling from the bloody death of the previous incumbent that very morning.

The months went on, a few disorganised attacks by the Prince Bishop's forces were successfully repelled by a ferocious defence from the fearless Munsterites which helped reinforce their belief in divine support for their cause.

Easter 1535 arrived and all eyes were on Jan Van Lyden. The prophet (now wearing a crown fashioned by the town goldsmith) in a probably widely unpopular statement, announced that he had received another vision from God which made more sense of his previous prediction.
He explained that when God had said the Anabaptists would be saved, he hadn’t meant that they would be literally saved, but rather, their souls would be saved. Van Lyden acknowledged his responsibility in the mix up but managed to successfully put it down to the sheer pressure and workload of the role he had undertaken.

Things went from grim to worse, food was running out forcing the Anabaptists to eat mice and weeds. The leadership passed more laws and enforced them brutally to the point that even the most minor infractions would result in a sentence of death. By this time, Bernhard Knipperdolling had added the title and position of Chief Executioner to his resume.

Further draconian law-making contributed to the bizarreness of the situation, polygamy was declared not just permissible in the incredibly pious community, but mandatory, and any disagreement with the leaders of the city was met with the executioner's sword.
After another month or so, a successful night raid saw a group of soldiers break into the city and open the gates. The Prince Bishop's forces stormed the city and after a series of bloody engagements through the town, the revolutionary ringleaders were rounded up and prepared for trial.
Bernard Knipperdolling, Jan Van Lyden and a third unfortunate, Bernhard Krechting were found guilty of heresy and insurrection against the Holy Roman Empire. Their punishment was to be publicly tortured in the city square for a period of not less than one hour apiece, before being killed by a dagger thrust to the heart.
Their mangled remains were placed in cages, and suspended from the tower of St Lambert's Church.

The bodies have long gone, but the cages remain in place to the current day, and are considered a must-see tourist attraction in the beautiful city.

A beautiful city with a dark story to tell of course.


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