![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
The Anabaptists were condemned in the sixteenth century for theological, social, economic and political reasons, especially after the catastrophe of Münster in 1534–35. Persecution was sometimes intense, though it gradually eased. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, despite persistent memories of Münster, favourable opinion grew. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Anabaptists were still harried for their practice of non-resistance, but praised for their hard work, drawn into the evangelical community of the new world and rehabilitated by historians. In the recent past they have been admired for their pacifism and their pioneering role in a world of religious pluralism.
Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 James M. Stayer, Werner O. Packull and Klaus Depperman, “From Monogenesis to Polygenesis: The Historical Discussion of Anabaptist Origins,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 49, no. 2 (1975): 83–121.
2 Martin Luther, Von der Wiedertaufe an zwei Pfarrherrn (Wittenberg: Georg Wachter, 1528), quoted by John S. Oyer, Lutheran Reformers against Anabaptists: Luther, Melancthon and Menius and the Anabaptists of Central Germany (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff), 121.
3 Cited by Gary K. Waite, Eradicating the Devil’s Minions: Anabaptists and Witches in Reformation Europe, 1525–1600 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007), 39.
4 Quoted by Cornelius Krahn, Dutch Anabaptism: Origin, Spread, Life and Thought (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1981), 248.
5 Alan Kreider, “When Anabaptists were Last in the British Isles,” in Coming Home: Stories of Anabaptists in Britain and Ireland, ed. Alan Kreider and Stuart Murray (Kitchener, ON: Pandora Press, 2000), 176.
6 As Sebastien Castellio wrote to Beza. Roland H. Bainton, “The Anabaptist Contribution to History,” in The Recovery of the Anabaptist Vision: A Sixtieth Anniversary Tribute to Harold S. Bender, ed. Guy F. Hershberger (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1957), 319.
7 Thomas More, The second parte of the co[n]futacion of tyndals answere in whyche is also confuted the chyrche that tyndale deviseth (London: William Rastell, 1533), f. cccciii, quoted in Gary K. Waite, Anti-Anabaptist Polemics: Dutch Anabaptism and the Devil in England, 1531–1660 (Thunder Bay, ON: Pandora Press, 2023), 43. I am grateful to Professor Waite for kindly giving me early access to his work.
8 Mirjam van Veen, ““ … Polué et Souillee … ”: The Reformed Polemic against Anabaptist Marriage, 1560–1650,” in Sisters: Myth and Reality of Anabaptist, Mennonite and Doopsgezind Women, ca. 1525–1900, ed. Mirjam van Veen et al., eds, (Leiden: Brill, 2014), chap. 4.
9 Leland Harder, ed., The Sources of Swiss Anabaptism: The Grebel Letters and Related Documents (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1985), 345.
10 Linda A. Hubert Hechte, “Anabaptist Women and their Families in Tirol, 1527–1531,” in Sisters, ed. van Veen et al., 65.
11 Adversus Anabaptistas Philippi Melanthonis Iudicium (1528), cited by Oyer, Lutheran Reformers against Anabaptists, 151–52.
12 E.g. Christoph Andrea Fischer, Vierundfunffzig Ehrbliche Vrsachen Warumb die Wiedertauffer nicht sein im Land zu leyden (Ingoldstadt: Angermeyer, 1607), 54, quoted by James M. Stayer, “Community of Goods and Economics,” in Brian C. Brewer, ed., T & T Clark Handbook of Anabaptism (London: T & T Clark, 2021), 275.
13 Felix May quoted by James M. Stayer, Anabaptists and the Sword (Lawrence, KS: Coronado Press, 1972), 100.
14 M. Cunerus Petri, Den Schilt teghen die Wederdoopers (Louvain, 1568), f. 61, quoted by A. L. E. Verheyden, Anabaptism in Flanders, 1530-1650: A Century of Struggle (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1961), 60 n. 92.
15 Brad S. Gregory, Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), 202.
16 Harold S. Bender, “The Anabaptist Vision,” in The Recovery of the Anabaptist Vision, ed. Hershberger, 32.
17 Gregory, Salvation at Stake, 84, 80.
18 Waite, Eradicating the Devil’s Minions, 20.
19 C. A. Cornelius, Geschichte des Münsterischen Aufruhrs (Leipzig, 1860), Vol. 2, 52, quoted by Bender, “Anabaptist Vision,” 45.
20 Michael Driedger, “Anabaptists and the Early Modern State: A Long-Term View,” in A Companion to Anabaptism and Spiritualism, 1521–1700, ed. J. D. Roth and James M. Stayer (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 517.
21 Krahn, Dutch Anabaptism, 239, 250.
22 Mary Eleanor Bender, “The Sixteenth-Century Anabaptists in Literature,” in The Recovery of the Anabaptist Vision, ed. Hershberger, 280.
23 Andrew Crome, “The Münster Rising, Memories of Violence and Perceptions of Dissent in Restoration England,” Historical Journal 65, no. 4 (2022): 946–68.
24 Driedger, “Anabaptists and the Early Modern State,” 522; Henry Elias Dosker, The Dutch Anabaptists (Philadelphia: Judson Press, 1921), 253.
25 Jean Séguy, Les Assemblées Anabaptistes-Mennonites de France (Paris: Mouton, 1977), 145; Mark Jantzen, “The Trouble with Marrying Prussian Lutheran Boys: The End of Endogamous Marriages in the Mennonite Community in the Polish Vistula Delta, 1718–1808,” in Sisters, ed. van Veen et al., 286.
26 Gregory, Salvation at Stake, 244.
27 Yme Kuiper, “The Dutch Enlightenment and Patriotism: Mennonites and Politics in Late Eighteenth-Century Friesland,” in European Mennonites and the Challenge of Modernity over Five Centuries: Contributors, Detractors and Adapters, ed. Mark Jantzen, Mary S. Sprunger and John D. Thiesen (North Newton, KS: Bethel College, 2016), 77.
28 Driedger, “Anabaptists and the Early Modern State,” 530; Séguy, Les Assemblées Anabaptistes-Mennonites de France, 182.
29 Séguy, Les Assemblées Anabaptistes-Mennonites de France, 6.
30 Dosker, Dutch Anabaptists, 246.
31 Jantzen, “Trouble with Marrying Prussian Lutheran Boys,” 288–99.
32 Adolf Weber, a National Liberal, quoted in Mark Jantzen, “Changing Definitions of Treason and Religious Freedom for Mennonites in Prussia, 1780–1880,” in European Mennonites and the Challenge of Modernity, ed. Jantzen, Sprunger and Thiesen, 245.
33 E. K. Francis, “Anabaptism and Colonization,” in Recovery of the Anabaptist Vision, ed. Hershberger, 256.
34 Melvin Gingerich, “Discipleship Expressed in Alternative Service,” in Recovery of the Anabaptist Vision, ed. Hershberger, 264.
35 Gingerich, “Discipleship Expressed in Alternative Service,” 268.
36 John D. Thiesen, “Menno in KZ or Münster Resurrected: Mennonites and National Socialism – Historiography and Open Questions,” in European Mennonites and the Challenge of Modernity, ed. Jantzen, Sprunger and Thiesen, 325.
37 Quoted by Bender, “Anabaptist Vision,” in Recovery of the Anabaptist Vision, ed. Hershberger, 35. On Keller’s Ursula, see Berit Jay, “From Zealots to Saints: The Dichotomy of Anabaptist Images in Swiss Historical Fiction,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 93, no. 1 (2019): 57–79.
38 Séguy, Les Assemblées Anabaptistes-Mennonites de France, 382.
39 Nataliya Venger, “Mennonite Privileges and Russian Modernization: Communities on a Path from Separateness to Legal and Social Integration,” in European Mennonites and the Challenge of Modernity, ed. Jantzen, Sprunger and Thiesen, 153.
40 Dilaram M. Inoyatova, “Mennonites in Central Asia and their Role in the Modernization of Economics and Culture in the Region,” in European Mennonites and the Challenge of Modernity, ed. Jantzen, Sprunger and Thiesen, 165–77.
41 Séguy, Les Assemblées Anabaptistes-Mennonites de France, 7.
42 Ernst Crous, “Anabaptism, Pietism, Rationalism and German Mennonites,” in Recovery of the Anabaptist Vision, ed. Hershberger, 245.
43 Bender, “Anabaptist Vision,” in Recovery of the Anabaptist Vision, ed. Hershberger, 35.
44 Devin C. Manzullo-Thomas, “Born-Again Brethren in Christ: Anabaptism, Evangelicalism and the Cultural Transformation of a Plain People,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 90, no. 2 (2016): 203–37.
45 Ernest A. Payne, The Anabaptists of the Sixteenth Century and their Influence on the Modern World (London: Carey Kingsgate Press, 1949), 8 n. 4; A. G. Dickens and John Tomkin, The Reformation in Historical Thought (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1985), 215–6.
46 Joseph von Beck, The History Book of the Anabaptists of Austria-Hungary (Vienna, 1883), cited in R. Foth, “Joseph von Beck,” in The Mennonite Encyclopedia, ed. Harold S. Bender and C. Henry Smith (Hillsboro, KS: Mennonite Brethren Publishing House, 1955), Vol. 1, 258–9; Payne, Anabaptists of the Sixteenth Century, 8 n. 4.
47 Williston Walker, The Reformation (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1900), 355, quoted by Dickens and Tomkin, Reformation in Historical Thought, 355.
48 Dickens and Tomkin, Reformation in Historical Thought, 238–46
49 Gerhard Zschäbitz, Zur Mitteldeutschen Wiedertäuferbewegung nach dem grossen Bauerkrug (Berlin: Rütten and Loening, 1958), cited by Dickens and Tomkin, Reformation in Historical Thought, 259.
50 J. Newton Brown, The Life and Times of Menno, the Celebrated Dutch Reformer (Philadelphia: American Baptist Publication Society, 1853), 13.
51 Payne, Anabaptists of the Sixteenth Century, 18.
52 Geoffrey R. Elton, Reformation Europe, 1517–1559 (London: Collins, 1963), 103.
53 Jay, “From Zealots to Saints,” 69–77, 57 n. 1.
54 Stayer, “Community of Goods and Economics,” 278.
55 Ibid., 276, 278.
56 John Howard Yoder, The Politics of Jesus (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1972); David E. Fitch, “Neo-Anabaptism among Contemporary Christians,” in T & T Clark Handbook of Anabaptism, ed. Brewer, 472.
57 Stuart Murray, “How a Network Works: Reflections on the Development of the Anabaptist Network in the British Isles,” in Coming Home: Stories of Anabaptists in Britain and Ireland, ed. Kreider and Murray, 157.
58 John D. Roth, “Global Anabaptism and Ecumenism,” in T & T Clark Handbook of Anabaptism, ed. Brewer, 484.
59 I am grateful to the Baptist Union of Hungary for inviting me to give this paper at a conference in Budapest in April 2023 marking the quincentenary of the appearance of Anabaptist principles in the Carpathian basin.