Proud of this achievement, the insurgents defied all authority, secular and ecclesiastical, and installed Bernhard Rottmann as preacher and pastor of the Evangelical religion in St. Lambert's Church. "Thenceforth," says the Münster contemporary historian, "it may well be understood that they did not limit themselves to simple tumults, but that murders, pillage, and the overthrow of all public order followed. The success of this first enterprise had rendered the leaders masters of the city."
Bishop Frederick von Wied felt that his power was at an end. He was a man with no very strong religious zeal or moral courage. He resigned his dignity in the sacristy of the church of Werne, reserving to himself a yearly income of 2,000 florins. Duke Eric of Brunswick, Prince of Grubenhagen, Bishop of Paderborn and Osnabrück, was elected in his room. The nomination of Eric irritated the Lutheran party. He was a man zealous for his religion, and with powerful relations. Rottmann at once sent him his twenty-nine articles, and the artisans of Münster, who had embraced the cause of Rottmann, handed in a petition to the magistrates (April 16th, 1532) to request that compulsion might be used to force every one to become Lutheran, "because it seems to us," said they, "that this doctrine is in all points and entirely conformable to the Gospel, whilst that which is taught by the rest of the clergy is absurd, and ought to be rejected."62 The bishop-elect wrote to the magistrates, insisting on the dismissal of Rottmann, but in their answer they not only declined to obey, but offered an apology for his conduct.
The bishop wrote again, but received no answer. Wishing to use every means of conciliation, before adopting forcible measures, he sent a deputation to Münster to demand the expulsion of the preacher, but without success.
The people, becoming more insubordinate, determined to take possession of other churches. One of the most important is the church of Unsere Lieb-frau, or Ueberwasser, a church whose beautiful tower and choir attract the admiration of the traveller visiting Münster. This church and parish depended on the convent of Ueberwasser; the rector was a man of zeal and power, a Dr. Martin, who was peculiarly obnoxious to the Lutheran party. A deputation was sent to the abbess, Ida von Merfelt, to insist on the dismissal of the rector and the substitution of an Evangelical preacher.63 The lady was a woman of courage; she recommended the deputation to return to their shops and to attend to their own business, and announced that Dr. Martin should stay at his post; and stay he did, for a time.
The bishop was resolved to try force of arms, when suddenly he died, May 9th, 1532, after having drunk a goblet of wine. Several writers of the period state that it was poisoned. A modern historian says he died of excess of drink – on what authority I do not know.64 He had brought down upon himself the dislike of the Lutherans for having vigorously suppressed the reforming movement in Paderborn. The history of that movement in this other Westphalian diocese is too suggestive to be passed over. In 1527 the Elector John Frederick of Saxony passed through Paderborn and ordered his Lutheran preachers to address the people in the streets through the windows of the house in which he lodged, as the clergy refused them the use of the churches. Next year the agitation began by a quarrel between some of the young citizens and the servants of the chapter, and ended in the plundering and devastation of the cathedral and the residences of the canons. The leader of the Evangelical party in Paderborn was Johann Molner of Buren, a man who had been expelled from the city in 1531 for murder and adultery; he left, taking with him as his mistress the wife of the man he had murdered, and retired to Soest, "where," says a contemporary writer, Daniel von Soest, "he did not remain satisfied with this woman only." He returned to Paderborn as a burning and shining gospel light, and led the iconoclastic riot. Duke Philip of Grubenhagen supported his brother, and the town was forced to pay 2,000 gulden for the damage done, and to promise to pay damages if any further mischief took place, and this so cooled the zeal of the citizens of Paderborn for the Gospel that it died out.65
The chapter retired to Ludwigshausen for the purpose of electing the successor to Bishop Eric, who had only occupied the see three months; their choice fell on Francis von Waldeck, Bishop of Minden, and then of Osnabrück. The choice was not fortunate; it was dictated by the exigencies of the times, which required a man of rank and power to occupy the vacant throne, so as to reduce the disorder by force of arms. Francis of Waldeck was all this, but the canons were not at that time aware that he had himself strong leanings towards Lutheranism; and after he became Bishop of Münster he would have readily changed the religion of the place, had it not been that such a proceeding would, under the circumstances, have involved the loss of his income as prince-bishop. Later, when the disturbances were at an end, he proposed to the Estates the establishment of Lutheranism and the suppression of Catholicism, as we shall see in the sequel. He even joined the Smalkald union of the Protestant princes against the Catholics in 1544.
With sentiments so favourable to the Reform, the new bishop would have yielded everything to the agitators, had they not assumed a threatening attitude, and menaced his temporal position and revenue, which were the only things connected with the office for which he cared.
The inferior clergy of Münster wrote energetically to him on his appointment, complaining of the innovations which succeeded each other with rapidity in the town. "The Lutheran party," said they in this letter, "are growing daily more invasive and insolent," and they implored the bishop to protect their rights and liberty of conscience against the tyranny of the new party, who, not content with worshipping God in their own way, refused toleration to others, outraged their feelings by violating all they held most sacred, and disturbed their services by unseemly interruptions.
Francis of Waldeck renewed the orders of his predecessor. The senate acknowledged the receipt of his letter, and promised to answer it on a future occasion.
However, the warmest partisans of Rottmann were resolved to carry matters to a climax, and at once to overthrow both the episcopal and the civil authority. Knipperdolling persuaded the butcher Modersohn and the skinner Redekker that, as provosts of their guilds, they were entitled to convene the members of their trades without the intervention of the magistrates. These two men accordingly convoked the people for the 1st July.66 The assembly was numerously attended, and opened tumultuously. When silence was obtained, a certain Johann Windemuller rose and proclaimed the purpose of the convention. "The affair is one of importance," said he; "we have to maintain the glory of God, our eternal welfare, the happiness of all our fellow-citizens, and the development of our franchises; all these things depend on the sacred ecclesiastical liberty announced to us by the worthy Rottmann. We must conclude an alliance against the oppressors of the Gospel, that the doctrine of Rottmann, which is incontestably the true one, may be protected." These words produced such enthusiasm, that the audience shouted with one voice that "they would defend Rottmann and his doctrine to their last farthing, and the last drop of their blood." Some of those present, by their silence, expressed their displeasure, but a draper named Johann Mennemann had the courage to raise his voice against the proposal. A furious band at once attacked him with their fists, crying out that the enemies of the pure Gospel must be destroyed; "already the bold draper was menaced with their daggers, when one of his friends succeeded in effecting his escape from the popular rage." However, he was obliged to appear before the heads of the guilds and answer for his opposition. Mennemann replied, that in weighty matters concerning the welfare of the commonwealth, tumultuous proceedings were not likely to produce good resolutions, and that he advised the separation of the corporations, that the questions might be maturely considered and properly weighed.67
The corporations of trades now appointed twenty-six individuals, in addition to the provosts, to decide on measures adapted to carry out the resolution. This committee decided "that one religion alone should be taught in the town for the future and for ever after;" and that "if any opposition was offered by the magistrates, the whole body of the citizens should be appealed to."68
These decisions were presented to the senate on the 11th July, which replied that they were willing not to separate themselves from evangelical truth, but that they were not yet satisfied on which side it was to be found, and that they would ask the bishop to send them learned theologians who should investigate the matter.
This reply irritated Rottmann, Knipperdolling, and their followers. On the 12th July fresh messengers were sent to the Rath (senate) to know whether it might be reckoned upon. The answer was equivocal. A third deputation insisted on an answer of "Yes" or "No," and threatened a general rising of the people unless their demands were acceded to.69 The magistrates, in alarm, promised their adhesion to the wishes of the insurgents, who demanded at once that "sincere preachers of the pure Gospel" should be installed in every church of Münster. The councillors accordingly issued orders to all the clergy of the city to adopt the articles of Bernard Rottmann, or to refute them by scriptural arguments, or they must expect the Council to proceed against them with the extremest rigour of the law.
Then, to place the seal on their cowardly conduct, they wrote to the prince-bishop on the 25th, to excuse themselves of complicity in the institution of Rottmann, but at the same time they undertook the defence of the Reformer, and assured the bishop that his doctrine was sound and irrefutable. At the same time they opened a communication with the Landgrave Philip of Hesse, asking that bulwark of the Reformation to protect them. Philip wrote back, promising his intervention, but warning them not to make the Gospel an excuse for revolt and disorder, and not to imagine that Christian liberty allowed them to seize on all the property of the Church. At the same time he wrote to the prince-bishop to urge upon him not to deprive the good and simple people of Münster of their evangelical preachers.70
In the meantime the seditious members of the town guilds grew impatient; and on the 6th August they sent a deputation to the town council reminding it of its promise, and insisting on the immediate deprivation of all the Catholic clergy. The magistrates sought to gain time, but the deputation threatened them with the people taking the law into their own hands, rejecting the authority of the council, and electing another set of magistrates.
"The Rath, on hearing this," says Kerssenbroeck, "were filled with alarm, and they considered it expedient to yield, in part at least, to the populace, and to deprive the clergy of their rights, rather than to expose themselves rashly to the greatest dangers."71
They resolved therefore to forbid the Catholic clergy the use of the pulpits of the churches, and to address the people in any form. This was done at once, and all ceremonies "contrary to the pure word of God" were abolished, and the faithful in the different parishes were required to receive and maintain the new pastors commissioned by the burgomaster and corporation to minister to them in things divine.
On the 10th August, a crowd, headed by Rottmann, the preacher Brixius, and Knipperdolling, fell upon the churches and completed the work of devastation which had been begun in February. The Cathedral and the Church of Ueberwasser alone escaped their Vandalism, because the fanatics were afraid of arousing too strong an opposition. The same day the celebration of mass and communion in one kind were forbidden under the severest penalties; the priests were driven out of their churches, and Rottmann, Brixius, Glandorp, Rolle, Wertheim, and Gottfried Ninnhoven, Lutheran preachers, were intruded in their room.72
The peace among these new apostles of the true Gospel was, however, subject to danger. Pastor Brixius had fallen in love with the sister of Pastor Rottmann, and the appearance of the girl proved to every one that the lovers had not waited for the ceremony of marriage. Rottmann insisted on this brother pastor marrying the young woman to repair the scandal. But no sooner was the bride introduced into the parsonage of St. Martin, of which Brixius was in possession, than the first wife of the evangelical minister arrived in Münster with her two children. Brixius was obliged to send away the new wife, but a coldness ensued between him and Rottmann; "however, fearing to cause dissension amongst their adherents by an open quarrel, they came to some arrangement, and Brixius retained his situation."73
These acts of violence and scandals had inspired many of the citizens with alarm. Those who were able sent their goods out of the town; the nuns of Ueberwasser despatched their title-deeds and sacred vessels to a place of safety. Several of the wealthy citizens and senators, who would not give up their religion, deserted Münster, and settled elsewhere. The two burgomasters, Ebroin Drost and Willebrand Plonies, resigned their offices and left the city never to return.74 The provosts of the guilds next insisted on the severe repression of all Catholic usages and the performance of sacraments by the priests; they went further, and insisted on belief in the sacrifice of the altar and adoration of the Host being made penal. The clergy wrote to the bishop imploring his aid, and assuring him that their position was daily becoming more intolerable; but Francis of Waldeck recommended patience, and promised his aid when it lay in his power to assist them.
On the 17th September, 1532, he convoked the nobles of the principality at Wollbeck, gave them an account of the condition of Münster, and conjured them to assist him in suppressing the rebellion.75 The nobles replied, that before adopting violent measures, it would be advisable to attempt a reconciliation. Eight commissioners were chosen from amongst the barons, who wrote to the magistrates, and requested them to send their deputies to Wollbeck on Monday, September 23rd, "so as to come to some decision on what is necessary for the welfare of the republic." The envoys of the city appeared, and after the opening of the assembly, the grand marshal of the diocese described the condition of the city, and declared that if it pursued its course of disobedience, the nobility were prepared to assist their prince in re-establishing order. The delegates were given eight days to frame an answer. The agitation in Münster during these days was great. The evangelical preachers lost no time in exciting the people. The deputies returned to the conference with a vague answer that the best way to settle the differences would be to submit them to competent and enlightened judges; and so the matter dropped.
The bishop's officers now captured a herd of fat cattle belonging to some citizens of Münster, which were on their way to Cologne, and refused to surrender them till the preachers of disaffection were sent away.76
The party of Rottmann and Knipperdolling now required the town council to raise 500 soldiers for the defence of the town, should it be attacked by the prince-bishop – to strike 2000 ducats in copper for the payment of the mercenaries, such money to circulate in Münster alone – to order the sentinels to forbid egress to the Catholic clergy, should they attempt to fly – and to impose on the Catholic clergy a tax of 4000 florins a month for the support of the troops. As the clergy had been deprived of their benefices, forbidden to preach and minister the sacraments, this additional act of persecution was intolerable in its injustice. The senate accepted these requisitions with some abatement – the number of soldiers was reduced to 300.77
The bishop, finding that the confiscation of the oxen had not produced the required results, adopted another expedient which proved equally ineffectual. He closed all the roads by his cavalry, declared the city in a state of blockade, and forbade the peasantry taking provisions into Münster. The artizans then marched out and took the necessary food; they paid for it, but threatened the peasants with spoliation without repayment, unless they frequented the market with their goods as usual. This menace produced its effect; Münster continued to be provisioned as before.78
Proud of their success, the innovators attacked Ueberwasser Church, and ordered the abbess to dismiss the Catholic clergy who ministered there, and to replace them by Gospel preachers. She declined peremptorily, and the mob then drove the priests out of the church and presbytery, and instituted Lutherans in their place.79
Notwithstanding the decrees of the senate, the priests continued their exhortations and their ministrations in such churches as the Evangelicals were unable to supply with pastors, of whom there was a lack. Brixius, the bigamist minister of St. Martin's, having found in one of them a monk preaching to a crowd of women, rushed up into the pulpit, crying out that the man was telling them lies; "but," says Kerssenbroeck, "the devotees surrounded the unfortunate orator, beat him with their fists, slippers, wooden shoes and staves, so that he fled the church, his face and body black and blue." Probably these women bore him a grudge also for his treatment of Rottmann's sister, which was no secret. "Furious at this, he went next day to exhibit the traces of the combat to the senate, entreating them to revenge the outrage he had received – he a minister of the Holy Gospel; but, for the first time, the magistrates showed some sense, and declared that they would not meddle in the matter, because the guilty persons were too numerous, and that some indulgence ought to be shown to the fair sex."80
The town council now sent deputies to the Protestant princes, Dukes Ernest and Francis of Lüneburg, the Landgrave Philip of Hesse, and Count Philip of Waldeck, brother of the prince-bishop, to promise the adhesion of the city to the Smalkald union, and to request their assistance against their bishop. The situation was singular. The city sought assistance of the Protestant union against their prince, desiring to overthrow his power, under the plea that he was a Catholic bishop. And the bishop, at heart a Lutheran, and utterly indifferent to his religious position and responsibilities, was determined to coerce his subjects into obedience, that he might retain his rank and revenue as prince, intending, when the city returned to its obedience, to shake off his episcopal office, to Lutheranize his subjects, and remain their sovereign prince, and possibly transform the ecclesiastical into a hereditary principality, the appanage of a family of which he would be the founder. He had already provided himself with a concubine, Anna Pölmann, by whom he had children.
Whilst the senate was engaged in treating with the Protestant princes, negotiations continued with the bishop, at the diets convoked successively at Dulmen and Wollbeck, but they were as fruitless as before. The deputies separated on the 9th December, agreeing to meet again on the 21st of the same month.
At this time there arrived in Münster a formal refutation of the theses of Rottmann, by John of Deventer, provincial of the Franciscans at Cologne.81 The magistrates had repeatedly complained that "the refusal of the Catholics to reply to Bernard Rottmann was the sole cause of all the evil." At the same time they had forbidden the Catholic clergy to preach or to make use of the press in Münster. This answer came like a surprise upon them. It was carried by the foes of the clergy to the magistrates. The news of the appearance of this counterblast created the wildest excitement. "The citizens, assembled in great crowds, ran about the streets to hear what was being said. Some announced that the victory would remain with Rottmann, others declared that he would never recover the blow."
The provosts of the guilds hastily drew up a petition to the senate to expel the clergy from the town, and to confiscate their goods; but the magistrates refused to comply with this requisition, which would have at once stirred up civil war.82
Rottmann mounted the pulpit on St. Andrew's day, and declared that on the following Sunday he would refute the arguments of John of Deventer. Accordingly, on the day appointed, he preached to an immense crowd, taking for his text the words of St. Paul (Rom. xiii. 12), "The night is far spent, the day is at hand." The sermon was not an answer to the arguments of John of Deventer, but a furious attack upon the Pope and Catholicism. Knipperdolling also informed the people that he would rather have his children killed and cooked and served up for dinner than surrender his evangelical principles and return to the errors of the past.83
On the 21st December, 1532, Francis of Waldeck assembled the diet of the principality, and asked its advice as to the advisability of proclaiming war against Münster, should the city persist in its obstinacy.84 The clergy and nobles replied that, according to immemorial custom, the prince must engage in war at his own cost, and that they were too heavily burdened with taxes for the Turkish war to enable them to undertake fresh charges. Francis of Waldeck reminded them that he was obliged to pay a pension of 2000 florins to his predecessor, Frederick von Wied, and he affirmed that he also was not in a condition to have recourse to arms.
Whilst the prince, his barons and canons were deliberating, Rottmann had assumed the ecclesiastical dictatorship in the cathedral city, and had ordered, on his sole authority, the suppression of the observance of fast-days.
The spirit of opposition and protestation that had been evoked already manifested itself in strange excesses. "Some of the Evangelicals refused to have the bread put into their mouths at Communion," says Kerssenbroeck, "but insisted on helping themselves from the table, or they stained themselves in taking long draughts at the large chalices. It is even said that some placed the bread in large soup tureens, and poured the wine upon it, and took it out with spoons and forks, so that they might communicate in both kinds at one and the same moment."85
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.
Arms were brought out of the arsenal, cannons were mounted, waggons were laden with powder, shot, beams, planks and ladders. At the appointed hour, the crowd, armed in various fashions, assembled before the Rath-haus.92 The magistrates and provosts then selected six hundred trusty Evangelicals, and united them to a band of three hundred mercenaries and a small troop of horse. The rest were dispersed upon the ramparts and were recommended to keep watch; then it was announced to the party in marching order that they were to hasten stealthily to Telgte and capture the prince-bishop, his councillors, the barons, and all the members of the estates then assembled in that little town.
However, the diet, surprised at not seeing their messenger return, conceived a slight suspicion. Whether he feared that his person was in danger so near Münster is not known, but fortunately for himself, the prince, that same evening, left Telgte for his castle of Iburg. The members of the diet, after long waiting, sent some men along the road to the capital to ascertain whether their messenger was within sight. These men returned, saying that the gates of Münster were closed and that no one was to be seen stirring.
The fact was singular, not to say suspicious, and a troop of horse was ordered to make a reconnaissance in the direction of Münster. It was already late at night, so, having given the order, the members of the diet retired to their beds. The horse soldiers beat the country, found all quiet, withdrew some planks from a bridge over the Werse, between Telgte and Münster, to intercept the passage, and then returned to their quarters, for the night was bitterly cold. On surmounting a hill, crowned by a gibbet, they, however, turned once more and looked over the plain towards the city. A profound silence reigned; but a number of what they believed to be will-o'-the-wisps flitted here and there over the dark ground. As, according to popular superstition in Westphalia, these little lights are to be seen in great abundance at Yuletide, the horsemen paid no attention to them, but continued their return. These lights, mistaken for marsh fires, were in fact the burning matches of the arquebuses carried by those engaged in the sortie. On their return to Telgte, the horse soldiers retired to their quarters, and in half-an-hour all the inhabitants of the town were fast asleep.