Anabaptism
Related: 1500s - rebellion - heresy - counterculture - protestantism - libertine
Key text: Lipstick Traces (1989) - Greil Marcus
Definition
Anabaptists ("re-baptizers", from Greek ana and baptizo; in German: Wiedertäufer) are Christians of the so-called "radical wing" of the Protestant Reformation. The term was coined by critics, who objected to the practice of performing baptism for adults whose previous baptism, as infants, the Anabaptists claimed was not valid. Various groups at various times have been called Anabaptist, but this article focuses primarily on the Anabaptists of 16th century Europe. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anabaptist [Mar 2005]
Münster rebellion
Proto-socialism
In 1534 the Anabaptists took power in the Münster Rebellion and founded a democratic proto-socialistic state. The town was recaptured in 1535; the Anabaptists were tortured to death, their dead bodies were exhibited in cages, which hung from St. Lamberti's steeple. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%FCnster [Mar 2005]
Polygamy
The radical Anabaptists of Münster also practiced polygamy, but they had little influence after the defeat of the Münster Rebellion in 1535. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polygamy [Mar 2005]
The Münster Rebellion
The Münster Rebellion was an attempt by radical Anabaptists to establish a theocracy in Münster. The city became an Anabaptist center from 1532 to 1535, and fell under Anabaptist rule for 16 months - from February 1534, when the city hall was seized and Bernhard Knipperdolling installed as mayor, until its fall in June 1535. It was Melchior Hoffman, who initiated adult baptism in Strassburg in 1530, and his "brand" of eschatological Anabaptism, that helped lay the foundations for the events of 1534-1535 in Münster. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%FCnster_Rebellion [Mar 2005]
Libertine
Libertine is the name given to certain political or social groups active in Europe in the 17th century. Libertinism was a form of freethinker philosophy, and was first derisively applied to a Dutch Anabaptist sect in the 16th century that rejected many of society's established mores, and advocated a community of goods and of women. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertine [Mar 2005]
Peasant revolts
Peasant revolts were popular uprisings by European peasants against their lords and the institution of serfdom, including the 1358 Jacquerie in France, the 1381 Peasants' Revolt in England, the 1524-1526 Peasants' War in Germany and the 1573 Croatian and Slovenian peasant revolt. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peasant_revolt [Mar 2005]
Peasant revolts (2)
The [Münster] rebellion came late in the whole series of peasant rebellions which characterized the late medieval world -- indeed the time of its occurrence belongs more to the renaissance than to the middle ages. Earlier rebellions had occurred in Italy (1304-7), Flanders (1323-8), France (1356), England (1381), Northern Spain (1437) and Hungary (1514), and in Bohemia (1419-34). Germany itself had undergone earlier insurrections in 1476; in the 1490s; in 1502; in 1513; in 1514; and in 1517. None of these succeeded; all were suppressed. None was as well organized or widespread as the rebellion of 1525. --http://members.eisa.com/~ec086636/german_peasants_war.htm [Mar 2005]
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