at, while one of the saints
trampled his wife to death under the influence of the spirit. But it
is unfair to judge the whole movement by these excesses.

The new sectaries, of course, ran the gauntlet of persecution. In 1529
the emperor and Diet at Spires passed a mandate against them to this
effect: "By the plenitude of our imperial power and wisdom we ordain,
decree, oblige, declare, and will that all Anabaptists, men and women
who have come to the age of understanding, shall be executed and
deprived of their natural life by fire, sword, and the like, according
to opportunity and without previous inquisition of the spiritual
judges." Lutherans united with Catholics in passing this edict, and
showed no less alacrity in executing it. As early as 1525 the
Anabaptists were persecuted at Zurich, where one of their earliest
communities sprouted. Some of the leaders were drowned, others were
banished and so spread their tenets elsewhere. Catholic princes
exterminated them by fire and sword. In Lutheran Saxony no less than
thirteen of the poor non-conformists were executed, and many more
imprisoned for long terms, or banished.

And yet the radical sects continued to grow. The dauntless zeal of
Melchior Hofmann braved all for the propagation of their ideas. For a
while he found a refuge at Strassburg, but this city soon became too
orthodox to hold him. He then turned to Holland, where the seed sowed
fell into fertile ground. Two Dutchmen, the baker John Matthys of
Haarlem and the tailor John Beuckelssen of Leyden went to the episcopal
city of Muenster in Westphalia [Sidenote: Muenster] near the Dutch {102}
border, and rapidly converted the mass of the people to their own
belief in the advent of the kingdom of God on earth. An insurrection
expelled the bishop's government and installed a democracy in February,
1534. After the death of Matthys on April 5, a rising of the people
against the dictatorial power of Beucklessen was suppressed by this
fanatic who thereupon crowned himself king under the title of John of
Leyden. Communism of goods was introduced and also polygamy. The city
was now besieged by its suzerain, the Bishop of Muenster, and after
horrible sufferings had been inflicted on the population, taken by
storm on June 25, 1535. The surviving leaders were put to death by
torture.

The defeat itself was not so disastrous to the Anabaptist cause as were
the acts of the leaders when in power. As the Re