Freaks of Fanaticism, and Other Strange EventsBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Religion
Freaks of Fanaticism, and Other Strange Events
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
History; Mysticism; Patarines
Luther wrote as well, not to Rottmann, but to the magistrates
of Münster, praising their love of the Gospel, and urging them
to beware of being drawn away by the damnable errors of the
Sacramentarians, Zwinglians, _aliorumque schwermerorum_.[87] The
senators received this apostolic epistle with the utmost respect
and reverence imaginable; they communicated it to Rottmann and
his colleagues, and ordered them to obey it. But the senate had
long lost its authority; and this injunction was disregarded.[88]
"Disorder and infidelity made progress; the idle, rogues,
spendthrifts, thieves, and ruined persons swelled the crowd of
Evangelists."[89]
[87] _Ibid._ p. 349.
[88] Kerssenbroeck, p. 351.
[89] _Ibid._ p. 351.
However, it was not enough to have introduced the new religion, to
satisfy the Evangelicals the Catholics must be completely deprived
of the exercise of their religion. In spite of every hindrance,
mass had been celebrated every Sunday in the cathedral. All the
parish churches had been deprived of their priests, but the minster
remained in the hands of the Catholics. As Christmas approached,
many men and women prepared by fasting, alms, and confession,
to make their communion at the cathedral on the festival of the
Nativity.
The magistrates, hearing of their design, forbade them
communicating, offering, as an excuse, that it would cause scandal
to the partisans of the Reform. They also published a decree
forbidding baptisms to be performed elsewhere than in the parish
churches; so as to force the faithful to bring their children to the
ministrations of men whom they regarded with aversion as heretics
and apostates.[90]
[90] _Ibid._ p. 353.
No envoys from the capital attended the reunion of the chambers at
Wollbeck on the 20th December. But Münster sent a letter expressing
a hope that the difference between the city and the prince might be
terminated by mediation.
This letter gave the diet a chance of escaping from its very
difficult position of enforcing the rule of the prince without
money to pay the soldiers. The diet undertook to lay the suggestion
before the prince-bishop, and to transmit his reply to the envoys of
Münster.
Francis of Waldeck then quitted his diocese of Minden, and betook
himself to Telgte,[91] a little town about four miles from Münster,
where he was to receive the oath of allegiance and homage of his
subjects in the principality. The estates assembled at Wollbeck, and
all the leading nobles and clergy of the diocese hastened to Telgte
and assembled around their sovereign on the same day. A letter was
at once addressed to the senate of Münster by the assembled estates,
urging it to send deputies to Telgte, the following morning, at
eight o'clock, to labour together with them at the re-establishment
of peace.
[91] _Ibid._ p. 354 _et seq._ Sleidan, French tr. p. 407.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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