A History of the Münster Anabaptists

A History of the Münster Anabaptists

Author: George von der Lippe

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2008-05-26

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 0230612563

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A defining work in the "Inner Emigration" literary movement, Friedrich Reck-Malleczewen's History of the Münster Anabaptists was written in 1937 as a criticism of the Nazi regime. This English translation includes documents, scholarly essays, and a detailed introduction.


False Prophets and Preachers

False Prophets and Preachers

Author:

Publisher: Penn State Press

Published: 2016-04-01

Total Pages: 348

ISBN-13: 0271091266

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In February 1534, a radical group of Anabaptists, gripped with apocalyptic fervor, seized the city of Münster and established an idealistic communal government that quickly deteriorated into extreme inequality and theocratic totalitarianism. In response, troops hired by the city's prince-bishop laid siege to the city. Fifteen months later the besieged inhabitants were starving, and, in the dead of the night, five men slipped out. Separated from his fellow escapees, Henry Gresbeck gambled with his life by approaching enemy troops. Taken prisoner, he collaborated with the enemy to devise a plan to recapture Münster, and later recorded the only eyewitness account of the Anabaptist kingdom of Münster. Gresbeck's account, which attempts to explain his role in the bizarre events, disappeared into the archives and was largely ignored for centuries. Before now, Gresbeck's account was only available in a heavily edited German copy adapted from inferior manuscripts. Christopher S. Mackay, who previously produced the only modern translation of the main Latin account of these events, has adhered closely to Gresbeck’s own words to produce the first complete and accurate English translation of this important primary source.


The Tailor-King

The Tailor-King

Author: Anthony Arthur

Publisher: Macmillan

Published: 2011-04-01

Total Pages: 333

ISBN-13: 142997043X

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He was only a Dutch tailor's apprentice, but from 1534 to 1535, Jan van Leyden led a radical sect of persecuted Anabaptists to repeated triumphs over the combined powers of church and state. Revered by his followers as the new David, the charismatic young leader pronounced the northern German city of Muenster a new Zion and crowned himself king. He expropriated all private property, took sixteen wives (supposedly emulating the biblical patriarchs), and in a deadly reign of terror, executed all who opposed him. As the long siege of Muenster resulted in starvation, thousands fled Jan's deadly kingdom while others waited behind the double walls and moats for the apocalyptic final attack by the Prince-Bishop's hired armies, supported by all the rulers of Europe. With the sudden rise to power of a compelling personality and the resulting violent threat to ordered society, Jan van Leyden's distant story strangely echoes the many tragedies of the twentieth century. More than just a fascinating human drama from the past, The Tailor-King also offers insight into our own troubled times.


New Jerusalem

New Jerusalem

Author: Paul Ham

Publisher: Random House Australia

Published: 2018-10-29

Total Pages: 457

ISBN-13: 0143781316

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IN FEBRUARY 1534 a radical religious sect whose disciples were being persecuted throughout Europe seized the city of Münster, in the German-speaking land of Westphalia. They were convinced that they were God’s Elect, specially chosen by the Almighty to be the first to ascend to Paradise on Judgement Day, as told in the Book of Revelation. And it would all happen here, in ‘New Jerusalem’ (as they renamed the city), during Easter 1535, when God and Christ would descend and usher in the End Times. But the ‘Melchiorites’, as they were called after their founding prophet, would be well-prepared for Apocalypse, swiftly turning the city into a Christian theocracy: They threw out the Catholics and Lutherans, ‘rebaptised’ their followers, destroyed all old religious icons, adopted a communist system of shared property, and imposed a new law of polygamy that compelled all women and girls who’d reached puberty to marry. Because women outnumbered men about three times, many men had 3-5 wives. John of Leiden, who proclaimed himself ‘king’ of New Jerusalem, had 16 wives – all according to God’s exhortation in Genesis to ‘go forth and multiply’. The backlash against the sect would be long and brutal. The Catholic and Lutheran powers were determined to make a terrible example of what they saw as a dangerous mob of crazed heretics. And so began the siege of Munster. For 18 months, the city was shut off from the world, periodically attacked and then slowly starved. And yet, for most of this time, the sect clung to their faith with astonishing resilience, even as they descended into hellish suffering. ‘New Jerusalem: Judgement Day 1535’ is a story of religious obsession and persecution, of noble ideals trampled to dust, of slavish sexual surrender....all in the name of Christ. It tells of one of the first violent revolts of the Reformation, which, together with the Peasants’ War of 1524-25, helped to ignite 110 years of religious conflict that ended with the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. The story holds a terrible fascination in our own time, on the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, scarred again by the return of religious wars, of hatred and slaughter, all in the name of a god or a faith.


German Peasants' War and Anabaptist Community of Goods

German Peasants' War and Anabaptist Community of Goods

Author: James M. Stayer

Publisher: McGill-Queen's Press - MQUP

Published: 1991

Total Pages: 253

ISBN-13: 0773508422

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"Contemporary misogyny and antisemitism have their roots in the demonization of women and Jews in medieval Christendom. In church art and mass preaching, the construct of the devil as an outcast from heaven and the source of all evil was linked both to the conception of women as sensual and malicious figures betraying man's soul on its arduous journey to salvation and to the notion of Jews as treacherous dissidents in the Christian landscape. These stereotypes, widely disseminated for over three hundred years, persist today. The exemplum, or cautionary story incorporated into preachers' manuals and popular homilies, was an important mode of religious teaching for clerical and lay folk alike. Sermon narratives drawn from Hindu mythology, Arab storytelling, and secular folktales entertained all classes of medieval society while dispensing theological and cultural instruction. In Devils, Women, and Jews, the vital genre of the medieval sermon story is, for the first time, made accessible to specialists and nonspecialists alike. Rendered in modern English, the tales provide an invaluable primary resource for medievalists, anthropologists, psychologists, folklorists, and students of women's studies and Judaica. Critical introductions and explanatory headnotes contextualize the tales, and comprehensive endnotes and a bibliography allow readers to follow up analogue and subject studies in their own areas of interest."--from amazon.ca.


The Anabaptist Story

The Anabaptist Story

Author: William R. Estep

Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 354

ISBN-13: 9780802808868

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Four hundred seventy years ago the Anabaptist movement was launched with the inauguration of believer's baptism and the formation of the first congregation of the Swiss Brethren in Zurich, Switzerland. This standard introduction to the history of Anabaptism by noted church historian William R. Estep offers a vivid chronicle of the rise and spread of teachings and heritage of this important stream in Christianity. This third edition of The Anabaptist Story has been substantially revised and enlarged to take into account the numerous Anabaptist sources that have come to light in the last half-century as well as the significant number of monographs and other scholarly works on Anabaptist themes that have recently appeared. Estep challenges a number of assumptions held by contemporary historians and offers fresh insights into the Anabaptist movement.


A Companion to Anabaptism and Spiritualism, 1521-1700

A Companion to Anabaptism and Spiritualism, 1521-1700

Author: John Roth

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2007

Total Pages: 603

ISBN-13: 9004154027

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This handbook of Anabaptism and Spiritualism provides an informative survey of recent scholarship on the Radical Reformation, from the 1520s to the end of the eighteenth century. Each chapter offers a narrative summary that engages current research and suggests directions for future study.


Henry Gresbeck's Account of the Anabaptist Kingdom of Munster

Henry Gresbeck's Account of the Anabaptist Kingdom of Munster

Author: Christopher Mackay

Publisher: Early Modern Studies

Published: 2018-04-02

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781612481869

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In February 1534, a radical group of Anabaptists, gripped with apocalyptic fervor, seized the city of Münster and established an idealistic communal government that quickly deteriorated into extreme inequality and theocratic totalitarianism. In response, troops hired by the city's prince-bishop laid siege to the city. Fifteen months later the besieged inhabitants were starving, and, in the dead of the night, five men slipped out. Separated from his fellow escapees, Henry Gresbeck gambled with his life by approaching enemy troops. Taken prisoner, he collaborated with the enemy to devise a plan to recapture Münster, and later recorded the only eyewitness account of the Anabaptist kingdom of Münster. Gresbeck's account, in which he attempts to explain his role in the bizarre events, disappeared into the archives and was largely ignored for centuries. Before now, Gresbeck's account was only available in a heavily edited German copy adapted from inferior manuscripts. Christopher S. Mackay, who produced the only complete and accurate English translation of this important primary source, here presents a transcription of the original manuscript and related letters, fully annotated and with an introduction and glossary.


The Anabaptists and Contemporary Baptists

The Anabaptists and Contemporary Baptists

Author: Malcolm B. Yarnell

Publisher: B&H Publishing Group

Published: 2013

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 1433681749

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Scholars and pastors (Paige Patterson, Rick Warren, etc.) offer essays on sixteenth-century Anabaptists (Balthasar Hubmaier, Leonhard Schiemer, Hans Denck, etc.) proposing to recover the Anabaptist vision among Baptists as a means of restoring New Testament Christianity.