May 27: Müntzer and the beginnings of Anabaptism

Thomas Müntzer was an early associate of Martin Luther who broke away in favor of a new, more radical reform movement called Anabaptism. His increasingly violent following of a few hundred peasants led a nervous Duke of Saxony to summon Müntzer for an interview. Müntzer declared himself to the Duke as a new Daniel, in possession of direct revelations from God, and urged profound but unspecified changes in German society. Müntzer narrowly escaped over the town walls that night.

By the following year, 1525, Müntzer found himself at the head of an 8,000-man irregular army of disaffected, apocalypticially-minded peasants. On May 15 they were met outside the city of Frankenhausen by 2000 cavalrymen with cannon support. Rousing his troops for battle, Müntzer declared not just that God would assure their victory, but also that he would personally be able to catch enemy cannonballs in his cloak.

The 2000 cavalrymen killed 5000 of the peasants while sustaining only six casualties of their own. Müntzer caught no cannonballs in his cloak, and was instead found after the rout hiding in an attic nearby. During nearly two weeks of torture, he recanted his entire ministry, begged forgiveness, and accepted Catholic communion before being beheaded on May 27.

The apocalyptic Anabaptist movement, however, would continue bloodily on into the 1530s without Müntzer (see Jan. 22).

May 27: A visit to the Cloisters...

Illuminated manuscript of the Apocalypse of John, from Normandy circa 1330. At The Cloisters Museum, New York.