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A ‘Messiah for Women’: Religious Commotion in the North-east of Switzerland, 1525-1526

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Auke Jelsma
Auke Jelsma*
Affiliation:
Theological University, Kampen, The Netherlands
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Extract

On 17 January 1526 the Zurich reformer Ulrich Zwingli wrote a letter to the medical doctor Johannes Vadianus, congratulating him on his recent appointment as mayor of the Swiss city of St Gallen. He also asked him for more detailed information concerning the terrible events which were reputed to have taken place in the vicinity of St Gallen, especially in nearby Appenzell. The Anabaptists in that area were reported to have intercourse with each other’s women, with the approval of the women themselves. A woman of previously unimpeachable conduct was said to have taken to the streets naked, offering herself to all she met, with the words, ‘I have died in the flesh and live only in the spirit; everyone may now use me as he wishes’. And this was said to be but a sample of the incidents which demonstrated how severely the Anabaptists were guilty of misconduct.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 27: Women in the Church , 1990 , pp. 295 - 306
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 1990

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References

1 Huldrych Zwinglis Briefe, trans into German by O. Farner (Zurich, 1918), 1, pp. 168-72. See also his work In catabaplislarum slrophas elenchus, CR, 93 = Zwingli, Werke, 6, part 1 (reprinted Munich, 1981), pp. 1-196, in which Zwingli described the sexual excesses of the Anabaparists in St Gallen and Appenzell. For the history of the Anabaptists in Switzerland and especially in the environment of St Gallen and Appenzell, cf. Egli, E., Actensammlung zur Geschichie der Zúrcher Reformation in den Jahren 1519-1533 (Zurich, 1879)Google Scholar, Die Si. Caller Tãufer (Zurich, 1887), and Schweizerische Reformnationsgeschichte (Zurich, 1910); Fast, H., Heinrich Bullinger und die Tãufer (Weierhof, 1959)Google Scholar; Gabier, U., Huldrych Zwingli im 20. Jahrhunderl; Forschungsbericht und annotierte Bibliographie 1897-1972 (Zurich, 1975)Google Scholar and Huldrych Zwingli; Leben und Werk (Munich, 1983); Locher, G. W., Die Zwinglische Reformation im Raimen der Europãischen Kirchen-geschichte (Góttingen and Zurich, 1979)Google Scholar and Zwingli und die Schweizerische Reformation; Die Kirche in ihrer Geschichte, 3 (Góttingen, 1982); ,Yoder, J., Tãufertum und Reformation in der Schweiz 1523-1538 (Weierhof, 1959)Google Scholar.

2 Williams, G.H., The Radical Reformation (Philadelphia, 1962), pp. xxiii’xxxi Google Scholar.

3 Quellen zur Geschichte der Tãufer in der Schweiz, ed. H. Fast (Zurich, 1973), 2, pp. 567,568.

4 Cited by J. Horsch in ‘An inquiry into the truth of accusations of fanaticism and crime against the early Swiss brethren’, MennQR, 8 (1934), p. 18.

5 Wenger, J. C., ‘The Schleitheim Confession of Faith’, MennQR, 19 (1945), pp. 243’53 Google Scholar. See also R. Friedmann, The Schleitheim Confession (1527) and other doctrinal writings of the Swiss Brethren in a hitherto unknown edition’, MennQR, 16 (1942), pp. 82-98. In her study ‘Das Schleitheimer Tâuferbekenntnis 1527’, Schaffhauser Beitrãge zur vaterlãndischen Geschichte, 28 (1951), pp. 5-81, Beatrice Jenny made a connection between this confession and the excesses in the north-east of Switzerland.

6 Crespin, J., Histoire des vrays Tesmoins de la Verité de l’Evangile, qui de leur sang l’ont signée, depuis Jean Hus usques au temps present (Geneva, 1570), p. 84 Google Scholar. In the margin the words: ‘Chose horrible d’une femme qui se dit estre le Messias’.

7 Horsch, ‘An inquiry’, pp. 18-31, 73-89: ‘Likewise the Mennonites and Calvinists of the Netherlands were accused of being polygamists. Of Martin Luther it was asserted that he renounced Romanism because he desired license to sin, that he lived in drunkenness and other vices and finally ended his life as a wretched suicide’.

8 Peachey, P., Die sociale Herkunft der Schweizer Tàufer in der reformationszeit (Karlsruhe, 1954), pp. 76’9 Google Scholar: ‘Es handelt sich also um eine Bewegung, die umfassender war, als das Tàufertum’. ‘Die fünf extremen Fälle … sind psychopathische Fälle, meistens nicht einmal Täufer betreffend …’.

9 H. Fast, ‘Die Sonderstellung der Täufer in St Gallen und Appenzell’, Zwingliana, 11 (1960), pp. 223-40. The same opinion was held by Yoder, J., Tãufertum und Reformation in der Schweiz, 1, (Zürich, 1962), pp. 49’54 Google Scholar. Williams, The Radical Reformation, pp. 133,134.

10 H. Fast, ‘Die Sonderstellung’, p. 233.

11 Keller, J., ‘Sabbata’, in Fast, H., ed., Quellen zur Geschichte der Täufer in der Schweiz (Zurich, 1973). 2. PP. 590’638 Google Scholar. Complete edition: E. Egli and Schoch, R., Johannes Kesslers Sabbata (St Gallen, 1902)Google Scholar.

12 See for the banishments of Uliman (17 july 1525; 22 January 1526), Quellen, pp. 400, 401, 405, 406.

13 Luke 18. 17.

14 I Cor. 11.6.

15 II Cor. 3.6.

16 John 10. 33-8.

17 John 14.6.

18 See a remark in the book of baptisms of St Gallen; Quellen, p.619, n. 135.

19 Acts 16. 16-18.

20 See Jelsma, A., Tussen heilige en helleveeg, 2nd edn (The Hague, 1981), pp. 47, 48 Google Scholar. [German translation: Heilige und Hexen; Die Stetllung der Frau im Christentum (Konstanz, 1977), pp. 60-3].

21 Egli, E., Schweizerische Reformations geschichte, pp. 126’31. 344’56 Google Scholar.

22 Jelsma, A., ‘Women martyrs in a revolutionary age: a comparison of Books of Martyrs’. The article will appear with the other papers of the Anglo-Dutch Conference at Exeter (summer, 1988) in The Church and Revolution, ed. Berg, J.v.d. and Hoftijzer, P. G. (Leiden, 1990)Google Scholar.

23 During the first centuries, for example, Mani. For the early Middle Ages see Gregory of Tours, Historiae Ecclesiasticae Francorum Libri Decem, x, 25 PL 71, cols 556,557. In the twelfth century in the Netherlands, Tanchelm, in France, Eudo de la Stella.

24 See Reeves, M., The influence of Prophecy in the Later Middle Ages, a Study in Joachimism (Oxford, 1969), pp. 248 Google Scholar ff.

25 See Quellen, p. 705.

26 Williams, The Radical Reformation, p. 133.

27 I should like to thank Dr W. Koopmans for his help with the English version of my paper.