WEBVTT NOTE 5. Protestants and Catholics (continued) 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.440 6. Totalitarian Communism in Münster 2 00:00:06.440 --> 00:00:12.560 Northwestern Germany in that era was dotted by a number of small ecclesiastical states, 3 00:00:12.560 --> 00:00:19.520 each run by a prince-bishop. The state was run by aristocratic clerics who elected one 4 00:00:19.520 --> 00:00:26.880 of their own as bishop. Generally these bishops were secular lords who were not ordained. 5 00:00:26.880 --> 00:00:32.680 By bargaining over taxes, the capital city of each of these states had usually wrested 6 00:00:32.680 --> 00:00:36.440 for itself a degree of autonomy. 7 00:00:36.440 --> 00:00:43.380 The clergy, which constituted the ruling elite of the state, exempted themselves from taxation 8 00:00:43.380 --> 00:00:48.000 while imposing very heavy taxes on the rest of the populace. 9 00:00:48.000 --> 00:00:54.480 Generally, the capital cities came to be run by their own power elite, an oligarchy of 10 00:00:54.480 --> 00:01:02.680 of Guilds, which used government power to cartelize their various professions and occupations. 11 00:01:02.680 --> 00:01:07.560 The largest of these ecclesiastical states in northwest Germany was the Bishopric of 12 00:01:07.560 --> 00:01:14.580 Münster and its capital city of Münster, a town of some 10,000 people, was run by the 13 00:01:14.580 --> 00:01:16.640 town guilds. 14 00:01:16.640 --> 00:01:22.720 The Münster guilds were particularly exercised by the economic competition of the monks who 15 00:01:22.720 --> 00:01:28.720 who were not forced to obey guild restrictions and regulations. 16 00:01:28.720 --> 00:01:34.240 During the Peasants' War, the capital cities of several of these states, including Münster, 17 00:01:34.240 --> 00:01:39.840 took the opportunity to rise in revolt, and the Bishop of Münster was forced to make 18 00:01:39.840 --> 00:01:42.440 numerous concessions. 19 00:01:42.440 --> 00:01:48.480 With the crushing of the rebellion, however, the bishop took back the concessions and reestablished 20 00:01:48.480 --> 00:01:50.800 the old regime. 21 00:01:50.800 --> 00:01:57.100 By 1532, however, the guilds, supported by the people, were able to fight back and take 22 00:01:57.100 --> 00:02:03.840 over the town, soon forcing the bishop to recognize Münster officially as a Lutheran 23 00:02:03.840 --> 00:02:05.580 city. 24 00:02:05.580 --> 00:02:09.340 It was not destined to remain so for long, however. 25 00:02:09.340 --> 00:02:15.780 From all over the northwest, hordes of Anabaptist enthusiasts flooded into Münster, seeking 26 00:02:15.780 --> 00:02:18.920 the onset of the New Jerusalem. 27 00:02:18.920 --> 00:02:24.240 From the Northern Netherlands came hundreds of Melchiorites, followers of the itinerant 28 00:02:24.240 --> 00:02:27.040 visionary Melchior Hoffman. 29 00:02:27.040 --> 00:02:33.680 Hoffman, an uneducated furriers apprentice from Swabia in southern Germany, had for years 30 00:02:33.680 --> 00:02:39.320 wandered through Europe preaching the eminence of the Second Coming, which he had concluded 31 00:02:39.320 --> 00:02:47.640 from his researches would occur in 1533, the 15th centenary of the death of Jesus. 32 00:02:47.640 --> 00:02:53.400 Melchiorism had flourished in the northern Netherlands, and many adepts now poured into 33 00:02:53.400 --> 00:02:58.520 Münster, rapidly converting the poorer classes of the town. 34 00:02:58.520 --> 00:03:05.160 Meanwhile, the Anabaptist cause in Münster received a shot in the arm when the eloquent 35 00:03:05.160 --> 00:03:12.040 and popular young minister, Bernt Rothman, a highly educated son of a town blacksmith, 36 00:03:12.040 --> 00:03:14.160 converted to Anabaptism. 37 00:03:14.160 --> 00:03:23.160 Originally a Catholic priest, Rothman had become a friend of Luther and the head of the Lutheran movement in Minster. 38 00:03:23.160 --> 00:03:34.160 Converted to Anabaptism, Rothman lent his eloquent preaching to the cause of Communism as it had supposedly existed in the primitive Christian Church, 39 00:03:34.160 --> 00:03:42.160 holding everything in common with no mine and thine, and giving to each according to his need. 40 00:03:42.160 --> 00:03:59.160 In response to Rothman's reputation, thousands flocked to Münster, hundreds of the poor, the rootless, those hopelessly in debt, and people who, having run through the fortunes of their parents, were earning nothing by their own industry. 41 00:03:59.160 --> 00:04:07.160 People in general who were attracted by the idea of plundering and robbing the clergy and the richer burghers. 42 00:04:07.160 --> 00:04:15.160 The horrified burghers tried to drive out Rothman and the Anabaptist preachers, but to no avail. 43 00:04:15.160 --> 00:04:30.160 In 1533, Melchior Hoffman, sure that the Second Coming would happen any day, returned to Strasbourg, where he had had great success, calling himself the Prophet Elias. 44 00:04:30.160 --> 00:04:53.160 Hoffman, for all the similarities with the others, was a peaceful man who counseled nonviolence to his followers. After all, if Jesus were imminently due to return, why commit against unbelievers? 45 00:04:53.160 --> 00:05:15.160 Hoffman's imprisonment, and, of course, the fact that 1533 came and went without a second coming, discredited Melchior, and so his Munster followers turned to far more violent post-millennialist prophets, who believed that they would have to establish the kingdom by fire and sword. 46 00:05:15.160 --> 00:05:22.780 The new leader of the coercive Anabaptists was a Dutch baker from Harlem, one Jan Mathis. 47 00:05:22.780 --> 00:05:30.080 Reviving the spirit of Thomas Münzer, Mathis sent out missionaries or apostles from Harlem 48 00:05:30.080 --> 00:05:37.560 to re-baptize everyone they could, and to appoint bishops with the power to baptize. 49 00:05:37.560 --> 00:05:44.400 When the new apostles reached Münster in early 1534, they were greeted, as we might expect, 50 00:05:44.400 --> 00:06:08.000 Another apostle soon arrived, a young man of twenty-five who had been converted and 51 00:06:08.000 --> 00:06:12.660 baptized by Mathis only a couple of months earlier. 52 00:06:12.660 --> 00:06:20.720 This was Jan Bockelsen, who was soon to become known in song and story as Johann of Leiden. 53 00:06:20.720 --> 00:06:26.500 Though handsome and eloquent, Bockelsen was a troubled soul, having been born the illegitimate 54 00:06:26.500 --> 00:06:33.100 son of the mayor of a Dutch village by a woman serf from Westphalia. 55 00:06:33.100 --> 00:06:38.660 Bockelsen began life as an apprentice tailor, married a rich widow, but then went bankrupt 56 00:06:38.660 --> 00:06:42.820 when he set himself up as a self-employed merchant. 57 00:06:42.820 --> 00:06:50.540 In February 1534, Bockelsen won the support of the wealthy cloth merchant Bernt Knipperdahlink, 58 00:06:50.540 --> 00:06:57.340 the powerful leader of the Münster guilds, and shrewdly married Knipperdahlink's daughter. 59 00:06:57.340 --> 00:07:03.860 On 8 February, son-in-law and father-in-law ran wildly through the streets together, calling 60 00:07:03.860 --> 00:07:06.780 upon everyone to repent. 61 00:07:06.780 --> 00:07:12.620 After much frenzy, mass writhing on the ground and the seeing of apocalyptic visions, the 62 00:07:12.620 --> 00:07:20.440 Anabaptists rose up and seized the town hall, winning legal recognition for their movement. 63 00:07:20.440 --> 00:07:27.460 In response to this successful uprising, many wealthy Lutherans left town, and the Anabaptists, 64 00:07:27.460 --> 00:07:34.700 feeling exuberant, sent messengers to surrounding areas, summoning everyone to come to Munster. 65 00:07:34.700 --> 00:07:39.940 The rest of the world, they proclaimed, would be destroyed in a month or two. 66 00:07:39.940 --> 00:07:44.980 Only Munster would be saved to become the new Jerusalem. 67 00:07:44.980 --> 00:07:51.180 Thousands poured in from as far away as Flanders and Freesia in the northern Netherlands. 68 00:07:51.180 --> 00:07:57.440 As a result, the Anabaptists soon won a majority on the town council, and this success was 69 00:07:57.440 --> 00:08:04.820 was followed three days later on 24 February by an orgy of looting of books, statues and 70 00:08:04.820 --> 00:08:12.120 paintings from the churches and throughout the town. Soon, Ion Mathis himself arrived, 71 00:08:12.120 --> 00:08:19.360 a tall gaunt man with a long black beard. Mathis, aided by Bockelson, quickly became 72 00:08:19.360 --> 00:08:27.400 the virtual dictator of the town. The coercive Anabaptists had at last seized a city. The 73 00:08:27.400 --> 00:08:31.880 The Great Communist Experiment could now begin. 74 00:08:31.880 --> 00:08:38.020 The first mighty program of this rigid theocracy was, of course, to purge the New Jerusalem 75 00:08:38.020 --> 00:08:44.600 of the unclean and the ungodly as a prelude to their ultimate extermination throughout 76 00:08:44.600 --> 00:08:46.700 the world. 77 00:08:46.700 --> 00:08:52.640 Mathis called, therefore, for the execution of all remaining Catholics and Lutherans, 78 00:08:52.640 --> 00:08:58.640 But Kniper Dahlink's cooler head prevailed, since he warned Mathis that slaughtering all 79 00:08:58.640 --> 00:09:04.600 other Christians than themselves might cause the rest of the world to become edgy, and 80 00:09:04.600 --> 00:09:09.400 they might all come and crush the new Jerusalem in its cradle. 81 00:09:09.400 --> 00:09:15.780 It was therefore decided to do the next best thing, and on 27 February the Catholics and 82 00:09:15.780 --> 00:09:21.960 Lutherans were driven out of the city in the midst of a horrendous snowstorm. 83 00:09:21.960 --> 00:09:28.920 In a deed-prefiguring communist Cambodia, all non-anabaptists, including old people, 84 00:09:28.920 --> 00:09:35.240 invalids, babies and pregnant women, were driven into the snowstorm, and all were forced 85 00:09:35.240 --> 00:09:41.120 to leave behind all their money, property, food and clothing. 86 00:09:41.120 --> 00:09:47.080 The remaining Lutherans and Catholics were compulsorily re-baptized, and all refusing 87 00:09:47.080 --> 00:09:51.240 this ministration were put to death. 88 00:09:51.240 --> 00:09:56.800 The expulsion of all Lutherans and Catholics was enough for the bishop, who began a long 89 00:09:56.800 --> 00:10:02.720 military siege of the town the next day on 28 February. 90 00:10:02.720 --> 00:10:09.160 With every person drafted for siege work, John Mathis launched his totalitarian communist 91 00:10:09.160 --> 00:10:11.760 social revolution. 92 00:10:11.760 --> 00:10:16.480 The first step was to confiscate the property of the expelled. 93 00:10:16.480 --> 00:10:22.560 All their worldly goods were placed in central depots, and the poor were encouraged to take 94 00:10:22.560 --> 00:10:29.080 according to their needs, the needs to be interpreted by seven appointed deacons chosen 95 00:10:29.080 --> 00:10:31.200 by Mathis. 96 00:10:31.200 --> 00:10:37.280 When a blacksmith protested at these measures imposed by Dutch foreigners, Mathis arrested 97 00:10:37.280 --> 00:10:39.800 the courageous Smithy. 98 00:10:39.800 --> 00:10:46.160 Summoning the entire population of the town, Mathis personally stabbed, shot and killed 99 00:10:46.160 --> 00:10:52.340 the Godless Blacksmith, as well as throwing into prison several eminent citizens who had 100 00:10:52.340 --> 00:10:55.380 protested against his treatment. 101 00:10:55.380 --> 00:11:01.640 The crowd was warned to profit by this public execution, and they obediently sang a hymn 102 00:11:01.640 --> 00:11:04.800 in honor of the killing. 103 00:11:04.800 --> 00:11:10.400 A key part of the Anabaptist reign of terror in Munster was now unveiled. 104 00:11:10.400 --> 00:11:16.960 Unairingly, just as in the case of the Cambodian Communists four and a half centuries later, 105 00:11:16.960 --> 00:11:23.160 the new ruling elite realized that the abolition of the private ownership of money would reduce 106 00:11:23.160 --> 00:11:29.280 the population to total slavish dependence on the men of power. 107 00:11:29.280 --> 00:11:35.640 And so Mathis, Rothman and others launched a propaganda campaign that it was unchristian 108 00:11:35.640 --> 00:11:42.440 to own money privately, that all money should be held in common, which in practice meant 109 00:11:42.440 --> 00:11:50.600 that all money whatsoever must be handed over to Mathis and his ruling clique. Several Anabaptists 110 00:11:50.600 --> 00:11:56.600 who kept or hid their money were arrested and then terrorized into crawling to Mathis 111 00:11:56.600 --> 00:12:04.720 on their knees, begging forgiveness and beseeching him to intercede with God on their behalf. 112 00:12:04.720 --> 00:12:09.320 This then graciously forgave the sinners. 113 00:12:09.320 --> 00:12:15.080 After two months of severe and unrelenting pressure, a combination of propaganda about 114 00:12:15.080 --> 00:12:21.440 the Christianity of abolishing private money, and threats and terror against those who failed 115 00:12:21.440 --> 00:12:28.080 to surrender, the private ownership of money was effectively abolished in Münster. 116 00:12:28.080 --> 00:12:34.640 The government seized all the money and used it to buy or hire goods from the outside world. 117 00:12:34.640 --> 00:12:42.640 Wages were doled out in kind by the only remaining employer, the theocratic Anabaptist state. 118 00:12:42.640 --> 00:12:50.640 Food was confiscated from private homes and rationed according to the will of the government deacons. 119 00:12:50.640 --> 00:12:56.640 Also, to accommodate the immigrants, all private homes were effectively communized, 120 00:12:56.640 --> 00:13:00.640 with everyone permitted to quarter themselves anywhere. 121 00:13:00.640 --> 00:13:06.000 It was now illegal to close, let alone lock, doors. 122 00:13:06.000 --> 00:13:13.520 Communal dining halls were established where people ate together to readings from the Old Testament. 123 00:13:13.520 --> 00:13:21.840 This compulsory communism and reign of terror was carried out in the name of community and Christian love. 124 00:13:21.840 --> 00:13:29.600 All this communization was considered the first giant steps toward total egalitarian communism, 125 00:13:29.600 --> 00:13:42.600 where, as Rothman put it, all things were to be in common, there was to be no private property and nobody was to do any more work but simply trust in God. 126 00:13:42.600 --> 00:13:47.600 The workless part, of course, somehow never arrived. 127 00:13:47.600 --> 00:13:58.600 A pamphlet sent in October 1534 to other Anabaptist communities hailed the new order of Christian love through terror. 128 00:13:58.600 --> 00:14:05.680 For not only have we put all our belongings into a common pool under the care of deacons, 129 00:14:05.680 --> 00:14:08.640 and live from it according to our need. 130 00:14:08.640 --> 00:14:14.640 We praise God through Christ with one heart and mind, and are eager to help one another 131 00:14:14.640 --> 00:14:17.620 with every kind of service. 132 00:14:17.620 --> 00:14:23.640 And accordingly, everything which has served the purposes of self-seeking and private property 133 00:14:23.640 --> 00:14:30.840 such as buying and selling, working for money, taking interest and practicing usury, or eating 134 00:14:30.840 --> 00:14:37.560 and drinking the sweat of the poor, and indeed everything which offends against love, all 135 00:14:37.560 --> 00:14:44.800 such things are abolished amongst us by the power of love and community. 136 00:14:44.800 --> 00:14:50.280 With high consistency, the Anabaptists of Münster made no pretense about preserving 137 00:14:50.280 --> 00:14:56.160 Communizing Intellectual Freedom While Communizing All Material Property. 138 00:14:56.160 --> 00:15:02.040 For the Anabaptists boasted of their lack of education and claimed that it was the unlearned 139 00:15:02.040 --> 00:15:06.960 and the unwashed who would be the elect of the world. 140 00:15:06.960 --> 00:15:12.560 The Anabaptist mob took particular delight in burning all the books and manuscripts in 141 00:15:12.560 --> 00:15:20.760 in the Cathedral Library, and, finally, in mid-March 1534, Mathis outlawed all books 142 00:15:20.760 --> 00:15:24.380 except the Good Book, the Bible. 143 00:15:24.380 --> 00:15:30.920 To symbolize a total break with the sinful past, all privately and publicly owned books 144 00:15:30.920 --> 00:15:35.240 were thrown upon a great communal bonfire. 145 00:15:35.240 --> 00:15:41.280 All this ensured, of course, that the only theology or interpretation of the Scriptures 146 00:15:41.280 --> 00:15:48.280 Open to the Munsterites was that of Mathis and the other Anabaptist preachers. 147 00:15:48.280 --> 00:15:55.160 At the end of March, however, Mathis' swollen hubris laid him low. Convinced at Easter time 148 00:15:55.160 --> 00:16:01.240 that God had ordered him and a few of the faithful to lift the bishop's siege and liberate 149 00:16:01.240 --> 00:16:07.600 the town, Mathis and a few others rushed out of the gates at the besieging army and were 150 00:16:07.600 --> 00:16:11.040 were literally hacked to pieces. 151 00:16:11.040 --> 00:16:17.400 In an age when the idea of full religious liberty was virtually unknown, one can imagine 152 00:16:17.400 --> 00:16:23.400 that any Anabaptists whom the more orthodox Christians might get hold of would not earn 153 00:16:23.400 --> 00:16:26.520 a very kindly reward. 154 00:16:26.520 --> 00:16:31.480 The death of Mathis left Münster in the hands of young Bockelsen. 155 00:16:31.480 --> 00:16:37.360 And if Mathis had chastised the people of Münster with whips, Bockelsen would chastise 156 00:16:37.360 --> 00:16:43.600 Bockelsson wasted little time in mourning his mentor. 157 00:16:43.600 --> 00:16:50.240 He preached to the faithful, God will give you another prophet who will be more powerful. 158 00:16:50.240 --> 00:16:54.840 How could this young enthusiast top his master? 159 00:16:54.840 --> 00:16:59.920 Early in May, Bockelsson caught the attention of the town by running naked through the streets 160 00:16:59.920 --> 00:17:05.580 in a frenzy, falling then into a silent three-day ecstasy. 161 00:17:05.580 --> 00:17:11.900 When he rose again, he announced to the entire populace a new dispensation that God had revealed 162 00:17:11.900 --> 00:17:13.580 to him. 163 00:17:13.580 --> 00:17:19.820 With God at his elbow, Bockelsen abolished the old functioning town offices of council 164 00:17:19.820 --> 00:17:26.940 and burgomasters, and installed a new ruling council of twelve elders, with himself, of 165 00:17:26.940 --> 00:17:30.480 course, as the eldest of the elders. 166 00:17:30.480 --> 00:17:36.280 The elders were now given total authority over the life and death, the property and 167 00:17:36.280 --> 00:17:43.760 the spirit of every inhabitant of Münster. A strict system of forced labor was imposed, 168 00:17:43.760 --> 00:17:50.760 with all artisans not drafted into the military, now public employees, working for the community 169 00:17:50.760 --> 00:17:58.800 for no monetary reward. This meant, of course, that the guilds were now abolished. 170 00:17:58.800 --> 00:18:03.160 The totalitarianism in Munster was now complete. 171 00:18:03.160 --> 00:18:10.080 Death was now the punishment for virtually every independent act, good or bad. 172 00:18:10.080 --> 00:18:16.240 Capital punishment was decreed for the high crimes of murder, theft, lying, avarice and 173 00:18:16.240 --> 00:18:18.560 quarreling. 174 00:18:18.560 --> 00:18:24.800 Also death was decreed for every conceivable kind of insubordination, the young against 175 00:18:24.800 --> 00:18:30.600 against their parents, wives against their husbands, and, of course, anyone at all against 176 00:18:30.600 --> 00:18:38.000 the chosen representatives of God on earth, the totalitarian government of Münster. 177 00:18:38.000 --> 00:18:45.040 Berndt Knipperdahlink was appointed High Executioner to enforce the decrees. 178 00:18:45.040 --> 00:18:51.780 The only aspect of life previously left untouched was sex, and this now came under the hammer 179 00:18:51.780 --> 00:18:58.940 of Bockelsen's Total Despotism. The only sexual relation permitted was marriage between two 180 00:18:58.940 --> 00:19:06.220 Anabaptists. Sex in any other form, including marriage with one of the godless, was a capital 181 00:19:06.220 --> 00:19:13.200 crime. But soon Bockelsen went beyond this rather old-fashioned credo and decided to 182 00:19:13.200 --> 00:19:20.300 establish compulsory polygamy in Münster. Since many of the expellees had left their 183 00:19:20.300 --> 00:19:49.780 Compulsory polygamy was a bit too much for many of the Münsterites, who launched a rebellion 184 00:19:49.780 --> 00:19:57.940 in Protest. The rebellion, however, was quickly crushed, and most of the rebels put to death. 185 00:19:57.940 --> 00:20:04.540 Execution was also the fate of any further dissenters. And so, by August 1534, polygamy 186 00:20:04.540 --> 00:20:08.700 was coercively established in Münster. 187 00:20:08.700 --> 00:20:14.580 As one might expect, young Bockelsen took an instant liking to the new regime, and before 188 00:20:14.580 --> 00:20:20.700 For long he had a harem of fifteen wives, including Devara, the beautiful young widow 189 00:20:20.700 --> 00:20:23.140 of Jan Mathis. 190 00:20:23.140 --> 00:20:29.660 The rest of the male population also began to take to the new decree as ducks to water. 191 00:20:29.660 --> 00:20:35.420 Many of the women did not take as kindly to the new dispensation, and so the elders passed 192 00:20:35.420 --> 00:20:43.500 a law ordering compulsory marriage for every woman under, and presumably also over, a certain 193 00:20:43.500 --> 00:20:50.180 in Age, which usually meant being a compulsory third or fourth wife. 194 00:20:50.180 --> 00:20:57.380 Moreover, since marriage among the godless was not only invalid, but also illegal, the 195 00:20:57.380 --> 00:21:05.100 wives of the expelees now became fair game and were forced to marry good Anabaptists. 196 00:21:05.100 --> 00:21:11.300 Refusal to comply with the new law was punishable, of course, by death, and a number of women 197 00:21:11.300 --> 00:21:18.100 Women were actually executed as a result. Those old wives who resented the new wives 198 00:21:18.100 --> 00:21:25.220 coming into their household were also suppressed, and their quarreling was made a capital crime. 199 00:21:25.220 --> 00:21:32.040 Many women were executed for quarreling. But the long arm of the State could reach only 200 00:21:32.040 --> 00:21:40.020 just so far, and in their first internal setback, Bockelson and his men had to relent and permit 201 00:21:40.020 --> 00:21:41.020 Divorce. 202 00:21:41.020 --> 00:21:48.560 Indeed, the ceremony of marriage was now outlawed totally, and divorce made very easy. 203 00:21:48.560 --> 00:21:55.420 As a result, Münster now fell under a regime of what amounted to compulsory free love. 204 00:21:55.420 --> 00:22:02.020 And so, within the space of only a few months, a rigid puritanism had been transmuted into 205 00:22:02.020 --> 00:22:05.540 a regime of compulsory promiscuity. 206 00:22:05.540 --> 00:22:16.540 Meanwhile, Bockelson proved to be an excellent organizer of a besieged city. Compulsory labor, military and civilian, was strictly enforced. 207 00:22:16.540 --> 00:22:28.540 The bishop's army consisted of poorly and irregularly paid mercenaries, and Bockelson was able to induce many of them to desert by offering them regular pay. 208 00:22:28.540 --> 00:22:37.020 Pay for money, that is, in contrast to Bockelson's rigid internal moneyless communism. Drunken 209 00:22:37.020 --> 00:22:44.220 ex-mercenaries were, however, shot immediately. When the bishop fired pamphlets into the 210 00:22:44.220 --> 00:22:50.700 town offering a general amnesty in return for surrender, Bockelson made reading such 211 00:22:50.700 --> 00:22:56.660 pamphlets a crime punishable by, of course, death. 212 00:22:56.660 --> 00:23:03.660 At the end of August 1534, the bishop's armies were in disarray and the siege temporarily 213 00:23:03.660 --> 00:23:04.660 lifted. 214 00:23:04.660 --> 00:23:11.860 Jan Bockelsen seized this opportunity to carry his egalitarian communist revolution one step 215 00:23:11.860 --> 00:23:13.020 further. 216 00:23:13.020 --> 00:23:19.540 He had himself named King and Messiah of the Last Days. 217 00:23:19.540 --> 00:23:25.540 Proclaiming himself King might have appeared tacky and perhaps even illegitimate. 218 00:23:25.540 --> 00:23:33.100 And so, Bockelsen had one Duesentschur, a goldsmith from a nearby town and a self-proclaimed 219 00:23:33.100 --> 00:23:36.820 prophet, do the job for him. 220 00:23:36.820 --> 00:23:43.740 At the beginning of September, Duesentschur announced to one and all a new revelation. 221 00:23:43.740 --> 00:23:50.540 Jan Bockelsen was to be king of the whole world, the heir of King David, to keep that 222 00:23:50.540 --> 00:23:55.260 throne until God himself reclaimed his kingdom. 223 00:23:55.260 --> 00:24:02.260 Unsurprisingly, Bockelsen confirmed that he himself had had the very same revelation. 224 00:24:02.260 --> 00:24:08.460 Duesentschur then presented a sword of justice to Bockelsen, anointed him, and proclaimed 225 00:24:08.460 --> 00:24:10.460 him king of the world. 226 00:24:10.460 --> 00:24:14.420 Bockelsen, of course, was momentarily modest. 227 00:24:14.420 --> 00:24:18.980 He prostrated himself and asked guidance from God. 228 00:24:18.980 --> 00:24:22.680 But he made sure to get that guidance swiftly. 229 00:24:22.680 --> 00:24:28.020 And it turned out, mirabile dictu, that ducenture was right. 230 00:24:28.020 --> 00:24:33.660 Bockelson proclaimed to the crowd that God had now given him power over all nations of 231 00:24:33.660 --> 00:24:35.500 the earth. 232 00:24:35.500 --> 00:24:41.340 Anyone who might dare to resist the will of God shall without delay be put to death with 233 00:24:41.340 --> 00:24:43.340 the sword. 234 00:24:43.340 --> 00:24:49.980 And so, despite a few mumbled protests, Jan Bockelson was declared king of the world and 235 00:24:49.980 --> 00:24:56.300 and Messiah, and the Anabaptist preachers of Münster explained to their bemused flock 236 00:24:56.300 --> 00:25:02.820 that Bockelsen was indeed the Messiah as foretold in the Old Testament. 237 00:25:02.820 --> 00:25:09.980 Bockelsen was rightfully ruler of the entire world, both temporal and spiritual. 238 00:25:09.980 --> 00:25:16.660 It often happens with egalitarians that a whole, a special escape hatch from the drab 239 00:25:16.660 --> 00:25:25.060 Uniformity of Life is created for themselves. And so it was with King Bockelson. It was, 240 00:25:25.060 --> 00:25:31.440 after all, important to emphasize in every way the importance of the Messiah's advent. 241 00:25:31.440 --> 00:25:38.360 And so Bockelson wore the finest robes, metals and jewelry. He appointed courtiers and gentlemen 242 00:25:38.360 --> 00:25:46.280 at arms, who also appeared in splendid finery. King Bockelson's chief wife, DeVara, was proclaimed 243 00:25:46.280 --> 00:25:52.720 Queen of the World, and she too was dressed in great finery and had a suite of courtiers 244 00:25:52.720 --> 00:25:54.840 and followers. 245 00:25:54.840 --> 00:26:00.980 This luxurious court of some two hundred people was housed in fine mansions requisitioned 246 00:26:00.980 --> 00:26:02.800 for the occasion. 247 00:26:02.800 --> 00:26:09.280 A throne draped with a cloth of gold was established in the public square, and King Bockelson would 248 00:26:09.280 --> 00:26:14.360 hold court there, wearing a crown and carrying a scepter. 249 00:26:14.360 --> 00:26:21.500 A royal bodyguard protected the entire procession. All Bockelsen's loyal aides were suitably 250 00:26:21.500 --> 00:26:31.620 rewarded with high status and finery. Knipperdahlink was the chief minister and Rothman royal orator. 251 00:26:31.620 --> 00:26:38.520 If communism is the perfect society, somebody must be able to enjoy its fruits, and who 252 00:26:38.520 --> 00:26:42.260 do better but the messiah and his courtiers. 253 00:26:42.260 --> 00:26:48.300 Though private property and money was abolished, the confiscated gold and silver was now minted 254 00:26:48.300 --> 00:26:53.240 into ornamental coins for the glory of the new king. 255 00:26:53.240 --> 00:26:58.840 All horses were confiscated to build up the king's armed squadron. 256 00:26:58.840 --> 00:27:06.600 Also names in Minster were transformed, all the streets were renamed, Sundays and feast 257 00:27:06.600 --> 00:27:12.900 Days were abolished, and all newborn children were named personally by the king in accordance 258 00:27:12.900 --> 00:27:16.160 with a special pattern. 259 00:27:16.160 --> 00:27:23.000 In a starving slave society such as Communist Minster, not all citizens could live in the 260 00:27:23.000 --> 00:27:26.240 luxury enjoyed by the king and his court. 261 00:27:26.240 --> 00:27:34.960 Indeed, the new ruling class was now imposing a rigid class oligarchy seldom seen before. 262 00:27:34.960 --> 00:27:41.340 So that the king and his nobles might live in high luxury, rigorous austerity was imposed 263 00:27:41.340 --> 00:27:44.500 on everyone else in Münster. 264 00:27:44.500 --> 00:27:50.280 The subject population had already been robbed of their houses and much of their food. 265 00:27:50.280 --> 00:27:55.800 Now all superfluous luxury among the masses was outlawed. 266 00:27:55.800 --> 00:28:01.640 Clothing and bedding were severely rationed, and all surplus turned over to King Bockelsen 267 00:28:01.640 --> 00:28:04.100 under pain of death. 268 00:28:04.100 --> 00:28:12.000 Every house was searched thoroughly and eighty-three wagonloads of surplus clothing collected. 269 00:28:12.000 --> 00:28:17.840 It is not surprising that the deluded masses of Münster began to grumble at being forced 270 00:28:17.840 --> 00:28:24.800 to live in abject poverty while the king and his courtiers lived in extreme luxury on the 271 00:28:24.800 --> 00:28:28.520 proceeds of their confiscated belongings. 272 00:28:28.520 --> 00:28:34.580 And so Bockelson had to beam them some propaganda to explain the new system. 273 00:28:34.580 --> 00:28:36.880 The explanation was this. 274 00:28:36.880 --> 00:28:42.600 It was all right for Bockelson to live in pomp and luxury because he was already completely 275 00:28:42.600 --> 00:28:46.000 dead to the world and the flesh. 276 00:28:46.000 --> 00:28:51.480 Since he was dead to the world, in a deep sense his luxury didn't count. 277 00:28:51.480 --> 00:28:58.040 In the style of every guru who has ever lived in luxury among his credulous followers, he 278 00:28:58.040 --> 00:29:03.620 He explained that for him material objects had no value. 279 00:29:03.620 --> 00:29:09.240 How such logic can ever fool anyone passes understanding. 280 00:29:09.240 --> 00:29:15.160 More important, Bockelsen assured his subjects that he and his court were only the advance 281 00:29:15.160 --> 00:29:17.280 guard of the new order. 282 00:29:17.280 --> 00:29:23.000 Soon, they too would be living in the same millennial luxury. 283 00:29:23.000 --> 00:29:29.180 Under their new order, the people of Münster would forge outward, armed with God's will, 284 00:29:29.180 --> 00:29:36.040 and conquer the entire world, exterminating the unrighteous, after which Jesus would return 285 00:29:36.040 --> 00:29:40.120 and they would all live in luxury and perfection. 286 00:29:40.120 --> 00:29:46.200 Equal communism with great luxury for all would then be achieved. 287 00:29:46.200 --> 00:29:53.400 Their descent meant, of course, greater terror, and King Bockelson's reign of love intensified 288 00:29:53.400 --> 00:29:56.640 its intimidation and slaughter. 289 00:29:56.640 --> 00:30:02.520 As soon as he proclaimed the monarchy, the prophet Duesenshur announced a new divine 290 00:30:02.520 --> 00:30:04.120 revelation. 291 00:30:04.120 --> 00:30:11.480 All who persisted in disagreeing with or disobeying King Bockelson would be put to death and their 292 00:30:11.480 --> 00:30:14.120 very memory blotted out. 293 00:30:14.120 --> 00:30:17.440 They would be extirpated forever. 294 00:30:17.440 --> 00:30:21.120 Some of the main victims to be executed were women. 295 00:30:21.120 --> 00:30:27.440 Women who were killed for denying their husbands their marital rights, for insulting a preacher, 296 00:30:27.440 --> 00:30:35.800 or for daring to practice bigamy, polygamy, of course, being solely a male privilege. 297 00:30:35.800 --> 00:30:41.080 Despite his continual preaching about marching forth to conquer the world, King Bockelson 298 00:30:41.080 --> 00:30:47.000 Men was not crazy enough to attempt that feat, especially since the bishop's army was again 299 00:30:47.000 --> 00:30:54.180 besieging the town. Instead, he shrewdly used much of the expropriated gold and silver to 300 00:30:54.180 --> 00:31:01.380 send out apostles and pamphlets to surrounding areas of Europe, attempting to rouse the masses 301 00:31:01.380 --> 00:31:08.280 for Anabaptist revolution. The propaganda had considerable effect, and serious mass 302 00:31:08.280 --> 00:31:15.920 Serious risings occurred throughout Holland and northwestern Germany during January 1535. 303 00:31:15.920 --> 00:31:21.440 A thousand armed Anabaptists gathered under the leadership of someone who called himself 304 00:31:21.440 --> 00:31:24.080 Christ, Son of God. 305 00:31:24.080 --> 00:31:30.320 And serious Anabaptist rebellions took place in West Frisia, in the town of Minden, and 306 00:31:30.320 --> 00:31:36.760 even in the great city of Amsterdam, where the rebels managed to capture the town hall. 307 00:31:36.760 --> 00:31:42.320 All these risings were eventually suppressed with the considerable help of betrayal to 308 00:31:42.320 --> 00:31:47.920 the various authorities of the names of the rebels and of the location of their munition 309 00:31:47.920 --> 00:31:50.000 dumps. 310 00:31:50.000 --> 00:31:55.600 The princes of northwestern Europe by this time had had enough, and all the states of 311 00:31:55.600 --> 00:32:01.880 the Holy Roman Empire agreed to supply troops to crush the monstrous and hellish regime 312 00:32:01.880 --> 00:32:04.120 at Münster. 313 00:32:04.120 --> 00:32:11.940 For the first time in January 1535, Münster was totally and successfully blockaded and 314 00:32:11.940 --> 00:32:15.200 cut off from the outside world. 315 00:32:15.200 --> 00:32:21.960 The establishment then proceeded to starve the population of Münster into submission. 316 00:32:21.960 --> 00:32:28.480 Food shortages appeared immediately and the crisis was met with characteristic vigor. 317 00:32:28.480 --> 00:32:34.240 All remaining food was confiscated, and all horses killed, for the benefit of feeding 318 00:32:34.240 --> 00:32:39.060 the king, his royal court, and his armed guards. 319 00:32:39.060 --> 00:32:45.560 At all times the king and his court ate and drank well, while famine and devastation raged 320 00:32:45.560 --> 00:32:52.040 throughout the town of Münster, and the masses ate literally everything, even inedible, they 321 00:32:52.040 --> 00:32:54.760 could lay their hands on. 322 00:32:54.760 --> 00:33:02.720 King Bockelsen kept his rule by beaming continual propaganda and promises to the starving masses. 323 00:33:02.720 --> 00:33:08.400 God would definitely save them by Easter or else he would have himself burnt in the public 324 00:33:08.400 --> 00:33:10.240 square. 325 00:33:10.240 --> 00:33:16.320 When Easter came and went, Bockelsen craftily explained that he had meant only spiritual 326 00:33:16.320 --> 00:33:18.160 salvation. 327 00:33:18.160 --> 00:33:24.080 He promised that God would change cobblestones to bread, and, of course, that did not come 328 00:33:24.080 --> 00:33:53.720 The poor hapless people of Minster were now doomed totally. The bishop kept firing leaflets 329 00:33:53.720 --> 00:33:59.120 Bockelsons into the town, promising a general amnesty if the people would only revolt and 330 00:33:59.120 --> 00:34:04.040 depose King Bockelsons and his court and hand them over. 331 00:34:04.040 --> 00:34:10.560 To guard against such a threat, Bockelsons stepped up his reign of terror still further. 332 00:34:10.560 --> 00:34:17.120 In early May, he divided the town into twelve sections and placed a duke over each one with 333 00:34:17.120 --> 00:34:20.360 an armed force of twenty-four men. 334 00:34:20.360 --> 00:34:23.400 The Dukes were foreigners like himself. 335 00:34:23.400 --> 00:34:27.880 As Dutch immigrants, they were likely to be loyal to Bockelsen. 336 00:34:27.880 --> 00:34:34.120 Each duke was strictly forbidden to leave his section, and the dukes in turn prohibited 337 00:34:34.120 --> 00:34:38.400 any meetings whatsoever of even a few people. 338 00:34:38.400 --> 00:34:44.240 No one was allowed to leave town, and any caught plotting to leave, helping anyone else 339 00:34:44.240 --> 00:34:52.480 Boeckles to leave, or criticizing the king, was instantly beheaded, usually by King Boeckleson himself. 340 00:34:52.480 --> 00:34:58.600 By mid-June such deeds were occurring daily, with the body often quartered and nailed up 341 00:34:58.600 --> 00:35:02.160 as a warning to the masses. 342 00:35:02.160 --> 00:35:07.480 Boeckleson would undoubtedly have let the entire population starve to death rather than 343 00:35:07.480 --> 00:35:13.820 surrender, but two escapees betrayed weak spots in the town's defense, and on the night 344 00:35:13.820 --> 00:35:22.240 On the night of June 24, 1535, the nightmare New Jerusalem at last came to a bloody end. 345 00:35:22.240 --> 00:35:28.020 The last several hundred Anabaptist fighters surrendered under an amnesty and were promptly 346 00:35:28.020 --> 00:35:32.420 massacred, and Queen DeVara was beheaded. 347 00:35:32.420 --> 00:35:38.540 As for ex-King Bockelsen, he was led about on a chain, and the following January, along 348 00:35:38.540 --> 00:35:44.740 and with Knipperdahlink was publicly tortured to death and their bodies suspended in cages 349 00:35:44.740 --> 00:35:47.420 from a church tower. 350 00:35:47.420 --> 00:35:53.540 The old establishment of Münster was duly restored and the city became Catholic once 351 00:35:53.540 --> 00:35:54.540 more. 352 00:35:54.540 --> 00:36:02.020 The stars were once again in their courses and the events of 1534 and 1535 understandably 353 00:36:02.020 --> 00:36:10.020 led to an abiding distrust of mysticism and enthusiast movements throughout Protestant Europe. 354 00:36:13.020 --> 00:36:17.020 7. The Roots of Messianic Communism 355 00:36:18.020 --> 00:36:24.020 Anabaptist Communism did not spring out of thin air at the advent of the Reformation. 356 00:36:24.020 --> 00:36:37.020 Its roots can be traced back to an extraordinarily influential late 12th century Italian mystic, Joachim of Fior, 1145-1202. 357 00:36:37.020 --> 00:36:42.020 Joachim was an abbot and hermit in Calabria, in southern Italy. 358 00:36:42.020 --> 00:36:52.020 It was Joachim who launched the idea that hidden in the Bible, for those who had the wit to see, were prophecies foretelling world history. 359 00:36:52.020 --> 00:36:58.980 Concentrating on the murky book of Revelation, Joachim decreed that history was destined 360 00:36:58.980 --> 00:37:05.100 to move through three successive ages, each of them ruled by one of the members of the 361 00:37:05.100 --> 00:37:06.900 Holy Trinity. 362 00:37:06.900 --> 00:37:12.980 The first age, the age of the Old Testament, was the era of the Father, or the Law, the 363 00:37:12.980 --> 00:37:15.880 age of fear and servitude. 364 00:37:15.880 --> 00:37:21.840 The second age, the era of the Son, was the age of the New Testament, the era of faith 365 00:37:21.840 --> 00:37:24.240 Faith and Submission. 366 00:37:24.240 --> 00:37:30.160 Mystics generally think in threes, and Joachim was moved to herald the coming of the third 367 00:37:30.160 --> 00:37:37.580 and final age, the age of the Holy Spirit, the era of perfect joy, love and freedom, 368 00:37:37.580 --> 00:37:40.060 and the end of human history. 369 00:37:40.060 --> 00:37:46.480 It would be the age of the end of property, because everyone would live in voluntary poverty, 370 00:37:46.480 --> 00:37:51.700 and everyone could easily do so because there would be no work, since people would be too 371 00:37:51.700 --> 00:37:58.460 be totally liberated from their physical bodies. Possessing only spiritual bodies, there would 372 00:37:58.460 --> 00:38:05.420 be no need to eat food or do much else, either. The world would be, in the paraphrase of Norman 373 00:38:05.420 --> 00:38:13.380 Cone, one vast monastery in which all men would be contemplative monks, wrapped continuously 374 00:38:13.380 --> 00:38:17.940 in mystical ecstasy until the day of the Last Judgment. 375 00:38:17.940 --> 00:38:24.820 Joachim's vision already resonates with the later Marxian dialectic of the three allegedly 376 00:38:24.820 --> 00:38:33.080 inevitable stages of history, primitive communism, class society and then finally the realm of 377 00:38:33.080 --> 00:38:39.500 perfect freedom, total communism and the withering away of the division of labor and the end 378 00:38:39.500 --> 00:38:42.180 of human history. 379 00:38:42.180 --> 00:38:48.420 As with so many chileasts, Joachim was sure of the date of the advent of the final age 380 00:38:48.420 --> 00:38:55.260 and, typically, it was coming soon, in his view sometime in the first half of the next, 381 00:38:55.260 --> 00:38:58.180 the thirteenth century. 382 00:38:58.180 --> 00:39:05.460 The Joachite bizarreries quickly exerted enormous influence, particularly in Italy, in Germany 383 00:39:05.460 --> 00:39:10.380 and in the rigorous wing of the new Franciscan order. 384 00:39:10.380 --> 00:39:15.500 A new ingredient to this witch's brew was added a little later by a learned professor 385 00:39:15.500 --> 00:39:21.820 of theology at the great University of Paris at the end of the 12th century. Once a great 386 00:39:21.820 --> 00:39:28.700 favorite of the French royal court, Amalric's odd doctrines were condemned by the pope, 387 00:39:28.700 --> 00:39:37.160 and after a forced public recantation, Amalric died shortly thereafter in 1206 or 1207. His 388 00:39:37.160 --> 00:39:43.720 His doctrines were then picked up by a small secret group of erudite clerical disciples, 389 00:39:43.720 --> 00:39:49.880 the Amarians, most of whom had been students in theology at Paris. 390 00:39:49.880 --> 00:39:56.080 Centered at the important commercial cloth-making town of Troyes in Champagne, the Amarian 391 00:39:56.080 --> 00:40:03.500 missionaries influenced many people and distributed popular works of theology in the vernacular. 392 00:40:03.500 --> 00:40:09.460 Their leader was the priest William Arifax, who was either a goldsmith or an alchemist 393 00:40:09.460 --> 00:40:17.460 attempting to transform base metals into gold. Subjected to espionage by the Bishop of Paris, 394 00:40:17.460 --> 00:40:24.300 the 14 Amaurians were all rounded up and either imprisoned for life or burnt at the stake, 395 00:40:24.300 --> 00:40:31.860 depending on whether they recanted their heresies. Most of them refused to recant. 396 00:40:31.860 --> 00:40:37.920 The Amaurians, like Joachim, propounded the three ages of human history, but they added 397 00:40:37.920 --> 00:40:40.000 some spice to it. 398 00:40:40.000 --> 00:40:44.240 Each age apparently enjoyed its own incarnation. 399 00:40:44.240 --> 00:40:49.680 For the Old Testament, it was Abraham, and perhaps some other patriarchs. 400 00:40:49.680 --> 00:40:54.260 For the New Testament, the incarnation was, of course, Jesus. 401 00:40:54.260 --> 00:41:00.660 And now, for the dawning age of the Holy Spirit, the incarnation would now emerge in human 402 00:41:00.660 --> 00:41:03.220 and Human Beings Themselves. 403 00:41:03.220 --> 00:41:09.100 As might be expected, the Amarians considered themselves the new incarnation. 404 00:41:09.100 --> 00:41:15.060 In other words, they proclaimed themselves as living gods, the embodiment of the Holy 405 00:41:15.060 --> 00:41:17.100 Spirit. 406 00:41:17.100 --> 00:41:21.720 Not that they would always remain a divine elite among men. 407 00:41:21.720 --> 00:41:28.900 On the contrary, they were destined to lead mankind to its universal incarnation. 408 00:41:28.900 --> 00:41:34.860 The conjuries of groups throughout Northern Europe in the 14th century known as the Brethren 409 00:41:34.860 --> 00:41:40.540 of the Free Spirit added another important ingredient to the stew. 410 00:41:40.540 --> 00:41:47.540 The dialectic of reabsorption into God derived from the 3rd century Platonist philosopher 411 00:41:47.540 --> 00:41:49.540 Plotinus. 412 00:41:49.540 --> 00:41:56.460 Plotinus had had his own three stages, the original unity with God, the human history 413 00:41:56.460 --> 00:42:09.660 and the final return or reabsorption as all human beings are submerged into the one and 414 00:42:09.660 --> 00:42:12.340 history is finished. 415 00:42:12.340 --> 00:42:17.180 The Brethren of the Free Spirit added a new elitist twist. 416 00:42:17.180 --> 00:42:23.580 While the reabsorption of every man must await the end of history and the crude in spirit 417 00:42:23.580 --> 00:42:30.360 must meanwhile meet their individual deaths, there was a glorious minority, the subtle 418 00:42:30.360 --> 00:42:39.180 in spirit, who could and did become reabsorbed and therefore living gods during their lifetime. 419 00:42:39.180 --> 00:42:45.580 This minority, of course, were the brethren themselves, who, by virtue of years of training, 420 00:42:45.580 --> 00:42:52.140 self-torture and visions, had become perfect gods, more perfect and more godlike than even 421 00:42:52.140 --> 00:42:54.660 in Christ Himself. 422 00:42:54.660 --> 00:43:01.200 Once this stage of mystical union was reached furthermore, it was permanent and eternal. 423 00:43:01.200 --> 00:43:05.900 These new gods often proclaimed themselves greater than God Himself. 424 00:43:05.900 --> 00:43:13.700 Thus a group of female free spirits at Schweidenitz claimed to be able to dominate the Holy Trinity 425 00:43:13.700 --> 00:43:19.440 such that they could ride it as in a saddle, and one of these women declared that when 426 00:43:19.440 --> 00:43:24.680 When God created all things, I created all things with him. 427 00:43:24.680 --> 00:43:28.080 I am more than God. 428 00:43:28.080 --> 00:43:34.180 Man himself, therefore, or at least a gifted minority of men, could lift themselves up 429 00:43:34.180 --> 00:43:40.840 to divine status by their own efforts, far earlier than their fellows. 430 00:43:40.840 --> 00:43:45.320 Being living gods on earth brought many good things in its wake. 431 00:43:45.320 --> 00:43:51.480 In the first place, it led directly to an extreme form of the antinomian heresy. If 432 00:43:51.480 --> 00:43:57.860 people are gods, then it is impossible for them to sin. Whatever they do is necessarily 433 00:43:57.860 --> 00:44:05.100 moral and perfect. That means that any act ordinarily considered as sin, from adultery 434 00:44:05.100 --> 00:44:10.840 to murder, becomes perfectly legitimate when performed by the living gods. 435 00:44:10.840 --> 00:44:17.360 Indeed, the free spirits, like other antinomians, were tempted to demonstrate and flaunt their 436 00:44:17.360 --> 00:44:23.600 freedom from sin by performing all manner of sins imaginable. 437 00:44:23.600 --> 00:44:26.360 But there was also a catch. 438 00:44:26.360 --> 00:44:33.440 Among the free spirit cultists, only a minority of leading adepts were living gods. 439 00:44:33.440 --> 00:44:39.940 For the rank-and-file cultists striving to become gods, there was one sin alone which 440 00:44:39.940 --> 00:44:45.380 which they must not commit, disobedience to their master. 441 00:44:45.380 --> 00:44:52.820 Each disciple was bound by an oath of absolute obedience to a particular living God. 442 00:44:52.820 --> 00:44:59.100 Take for example Nicholas of Basel, a leading free-spirit guru whose cult stretched most 443 00:44:59.100 --> 00:45:01.700 of the length of the Rhine. 444 00:45:01.700 --> 00:45:07.540 Claiming to be the new Christ, Nicholas held that everyone's sole path to salvation is 445 00:45:07.540 --> 00:45:14.140 is making an act of absolute and total submission to Nicholas himself. 446 00:45:14.140 --> 00:45:21.900 In return for this total fealty, Nicholas granted his followers freedom from all sin. 447 00:45:21.900 --> 00:45:27.780 As for the rest of mankind, outside the cults, they were simply unredeemed and unregenerate 448 00:45:27.780 --> 00:45:33.940 beings who existed only to be used and exploited by the elect. 449 00:45:33.940 --> 00:45:39.900 This attitude of total rule went hand-in-hand with the social doctrine many free-spirit 450 00:45:39.900 --> 00:45:48.420 cults adopted in the 14th century, a communistic assault on the institution of private property. 451 00:45:48.420 --> 00:45:55.980 In essence, however, that philosophic communism was a thinly camouflaged cover for their, 452 00:45:55.980 --> 00:46:02.140 the free spirits, self-proclaimed right to commit theft at will. 453 00:46:02.140 --> 00:46:08.940 The free-spirit adept, in short, regarded all property of the non-elect as rightfully 454 00:46:08.940 --> 00:46:10.820 his own. 455 00:46:10.820 --> 00:46:17.980 As the Bishop of Strasbourg summed it up in 1317, they believe that all things are common 456 00:46:17.980 --> 00:46:22.540 whence they conclude that theft is lawful for them. 457 00:46:22.540 --> 00:46:29.700 Or as the free-spirit adept from Erfurt, Johann Hartmann, put it, the truly free man is king 458 00:46:29.700 --> 00:46:36.140 King and Lord of all creatures, all things belong to him, and he has the right to use 459 00:46:36.140 --> 00:46:38.160 whatever pleases him. 460 00:46:38.160 --> 00:46:44.520 If anyone tries to prevent him, the free man may kill him and take his goods. 461 00:46:44.520 --> 00:46:50.300 As one of the favorite sayings of the Brethren of the Free Spirit put it, whatever the eye 462 00:46:50.300 --> 00:46:55.260 sees and covets, let the hand grasp it. 463 00:46:55.260 --> 00:47:01.240 The final ingredient for the revolutionary communist Münzermünster-Stu came with the 464 00:47:01.240 --> 00:47:05.780 extreme Taborites of the early 15th century. 465 00:47:05.780 --> 00:47:11.880 All Taborites constituted the radical wing of the Hussite movement, a pre-Protestant 466 00:47:11.880 --> 00:47:19.380 revolutionary movement that blended struggles of religion, anti-Catholic, nationality, Czech 467 00:47:19.380 --> 00:47:27.620 vs. Upper Class and Upper Clergy German, and CLASS, artisans cartellized in guilds trying 468 00:47:27.620 --> 00:47:32.500 to take political power from the patricians. 469 00:47:32.500 --> 00:47:39.780 The new ingredient added by the extreme wing of the Taborites was the duty to exterminate. 470 00:47:39.780 --> 00:47:46.380 For the last days are coming, and the elect must go out and stamp out sin by exterminating 471 00:47:46.380 --> 00:47:52.420 All Sinners, which means, at the very least, all non-Taborites. 472 00:47:52.420 --> 00:47:58.380 For all sinners are enemies of Christ, and accursed be the man who withholds his sword 473 00:47:58.380 --> 00:48:02.260 from shedding the blood of the enemies of Christ. 474 00:48:02.260 --> 00:48:06.940 Every believer must wash his hands in that blood. 475 00:48:06.940 --> 00:48:13.820 Having that mindset, the extreme Taborites were not going to stop at intellectual destruction. 476 00:48:13.820 --> 00:48:20.020 In sacking churches and monasteries, the Taborites took particular delight in destroying libraries 477 00:48:20.020 --> 00:48:22.300 and burning books. 478 00:48:22.300 --> 00:48:29.620 For all belongings must be taken away from God's enemies and burned or otherwise destroyed. 479 00:48:29.620 --> 00:48:33.840 Besides, the elect have no need for books. 480 00:48:33.840 --> 00:48:38.540 When the kingdom of God on earth arrived, there would no longer be need for anyone to 481 00:48:38.540 --> 00:48:40.060 teach another. 482 00:48:40.060 --> 00:48:46.220 There would be no need for books or scriptures, and all worldly wisdom will perish. 483 00:48:46.220 --> 00:48:49.660 And all people, too, one suspects. 484 00:48:49.660 --> 00:48:57.180 Moreover, elaborating anew the theme of a return to a lost golden age, the ultra-Taberites 485 00:48:57.180 --> 00:49:04.100 proposed to return to the allegedly early Czech condition of Communism, a society with 486 00:49:04.100 --> 00:49:06.660 no private property. 487 00:49:06.660 --> 00:49:12.600 In order to achieve this classless society, the cities in particular, those centers of 488 00:49:12.600 --> 00:49:20.060 luxury and avarice, and especially the merchants and the landlords, must be exterminated. 489 00:49:20.060 --> 00:49:25.900 After the elect have established their communist kingdom of God in Bohemia by revolutionary 490 00:49:25.900 --> 00:49:33.800 violence, their task would be to forge and impose such communism on the rest of the world. 491 00:49:33.800 --> 00:49:39.520 In addition to material property, the bodies of the faithful would have to be communized 492 00:49:39.520 --> 00:49:41.120 as well. 493 00:49:41.120 --> 00:49:44.880 The Taborite Ultras were nothing if not logical. 494 00:49:44.880 --> 00:49:50.740 Their preachers taught, everything will be common, including wives, there will be free 495 00:49:50.740 --> 00:49:58.940 sons and daughters of God and there will be no marriage as union of two, husband and wife. 496 00:49:58.940 --> 00:50:05.860 The Hussite Revolution broke out in 1419, and in that same year the Taborites gathered 497 00:50:05.860 --> 00:50:11.900 in the town of Eusty in northern Bohemia near the German border. 498 00:50:11.900 --> 00:50:18.900 They renamed Eusty Tabor, that is, the Mount of Olives, where Jesus had foretold his second 499 00:50:18.900 --> 00:50:25.300 coming, had ascended to heaven, and where he was expected to reappear. 500 00:50:25.300 --> 00:50:31.740 The Taborites engaged in a communist experiment at Tabor, owning everything in common, and 501 00:50:31.740 --> 00:50:38.940 dedicated to the proposition that whoever owns private property commits a mortal sin. 502 00:50:38.940 --> 00:50:44.660 True to their doctrines, all women were owned in common, while if husband and wife were 503 00:50:44.660 --> 00:50:49.700 ever seen together, they were beaten to death or otherwise executed. 504 00:50:49.700 --> 00:50:56.140 Unfortunately, but characteristically, the Taborites were so caught up in their unlimited 505 00:50:56.140 --> 00:51:01.620 right to consume from the common store that they felt themselves exempt from the need 506 00:51:01.620 --> 00:51:03.220 to work. 507 00:51:03.220 --> 00:51:05.700 The common store soon disappeared. 508 00:51:05.700 --> 00:51:06.700 And then what? 509 00:51:06.700 --> 00:51:12.380 Then, of course, the radical Taborites claimed that their need entitled them to claim the 510 00:51:12.380 --> 00:51:18.700 property of the non-elect, and they proceeded to rob others at will. 511 00:51:18.700 --> 00:51:24.740 As a synod of the moderate, Taborites complained, many communities never think of earning their 512 00:51:24.740 --> 00:51:30.220 own living by the work of their hands, but are only willing to live on other people's 513 00:51:30.220 --> 00:51:37.220 property and to undertake unjust campaigns for the sole purpose of robbing. 514 00:51:37.220 --> 00:51:43.700 And the Taborite peasantry, who did not join the communes, found the radical regime reimposing 515 00:51:43.700 --> 00:51:56.500 Discredited among themselves, their more moderate allies and their own peasantry, the Communist 516 00:51:56.500 --> 00:52:01.620 regime of the radicals at Eusty Tabor soon collapsed. 517 00:52:01.620 --> 00:52:07.980 The torch of frenetic mystical communism was soon picked up, however, by a sect known as 518 00:52:07.980 --> 00:52:10.820 Bohemian Adamites. 519 00:52:10.820 --> 00:52:15.820 Like the free spirits of the previous century, the Adamites held themselves to be living 520 00:52:15.820 --> 00:52:23.300 gods, superior to Christ, since Christ had died, whereas they still lived. Impeccable 521 00:52:23.300 --> 00:52:30.780 logic, if a bit short-sighted. Yet, in a curious contradiction, the founder of the Adamites, 522 00:52:30.780 --> 00:52:37.040 the former priest Peter Canish, had already been captured and burnt by the Hussite military 523 00:52:37.040 --> 00:52:44.720 by Commander John Sitzka. The Adamites dubbed the dead khanish Jesus, and then selected 524 00:52:44.720 --> 00:52:50.560 as their leader a peasant whom they called Adam Moses. 525 00:52:50.560 --> 00:52:56.960 For the Adamites not only were all goods strictly owned in common, but marriage was considered 526 00:52:56.960 --> 00:53:05.160 a heinous sin. In short, promiscuity was compulsory, since the chaste were unworthy to enter the 527 00:53:05.160 --> 00:53:11.940 of the Messianic Kingdom. Any man could choose any woman at will, and that will would have 528 00:53:11.940 --> 00:53:18.800 to be obeyed. The Adamites also went around naked most of the time, imitating the original 529 00:53:18.800 --> 00:53:26.800 state of Adam and Eve. On the other hand, promiscuity was at one and the same time compulsory 530 00:53:26.800 --> 00:53:32.960 and restricted, because sex could only take place with the permission of the leader, Adam 531 00:53:32.960 --> 00:53:35.320 from Moses. 532 00:53:35.320 --> 00:53:41.640 Like the other radical Taborites, the Adamites regarded it as their sacred mission to exterminate 533 00:53:41.640 --> 00:53:47.640 all the unbelievers in the world, wielding the sword until blood floods the world to 534 00:53:47.640 --> 00:53:50.400 the height of a horse's bridle. 535 00:53:50.400 --> 00:53:56.920 They were God's scythe, sent to cut down and eradicate the unrighteous. 536 00:53:56.920 --> 00:54:03.080 The Adamites took refuge from the Tzitzka forces on an island in the river Nezarka, 537 00:54:03.080 --> 00:54:09.280 from which they went forth in commando raids to try their best, despite their small number, 538 00:54:09.280 --> 00:54:16.860 to fulfill their twin pledge of compulsory communism and extermination of the non-elect. 539 00:54:16.860 --> 00:54:22.940 At night, they sallied forth in raids, which they called a holy war, to steal everything 540 00:54:22.940 --> 00:54:34.940 True to their creed, they murdered every man, woman and child they could discover. 541 00:54:34.940 --> 00:54:41.500 Finally Tzitzka sent a force of 400 trained soldiers who besieged the Adamites Island 542 00:54:41.500 --> 00:54:49.780 and finally, in October 1421, overwhelmed the commune and massacred every single person. 543 00:54:49.780 --> 00:54:55.760 One more hellish kingdom of God on earth had been put to the sword. 544 00:54:55.760 --> 00:55:03.060 The Taborite army was crushed by the moderate Hassites at the Battle of Lipan in 1434, and 545 00:55:03.060 --> 00:55:07.860 from then on Taborism declined and went underground. 546 00:55:07.860 --> 00:55:13.740 But it continued to emerge here and there, not only among the Czechs but in Bavaria and 547 00:55:13.740 --> 00:55:17.060 other German lands bordering Bohemia. 548 00:55:17.060 --> 00:55:22.700 The stage was set for the Mincer-Minster phenomenon of the following century.