Rottmann and his colleagues exercised an extraordinary influence over the people; they persuaded the rich ladies and citizens' wives of substance to sell their goods, give up their jewels, and cast everything they had into a common fund. The prompt submission of so many proves that the number of fanatics who were sincere in their convictions was considerable. These proceedings led to estrangement in families. Kerssenbroeck relates that the wife of one of the senators, named Wardemann, having been rebaptised by Rottmann, "was so vigorously confirmed in her faith by her husband, who had been informed by a servant maid of the circumstance, that she could not walk for several weeks." Other women, who had given up their jewels and money to Rottmann, were also severely chastised by their husbands.[133] [133] _Ibid._ p. 472. The magistrates, afraid to touch Rottmann's person, hoped to weaken him by dismissing his assistants. They therefore, on the 15th January, 1534, ordered their officers to take the Anabaptist preachers, Clopris, Roll, and Strahl, and to turn them out of the town, with orders never to re-enter it. The mandate was executed; but the ministers returned by another gate, and were conducted in triumph to their parsonages by the whole body of the Anabaptists.[134] [134] Kerssenbroeck, p. 473. The fugitive nuns of Ueberwasser, to the number of eight, were re-baptised by Rottmann on the 11th January, and became some of his most devoted adherents. Their conduct in the sequel was characterised by the most shameless lubricity. The prince-bishop at this time published a decree against the Anabaptists, outlawed Rottmann and five other preachers of that sect in Münster, and ordered his officers to check the spread of the schism through the other towns of his principality. On the 23rd January, Rottmann having noticed some Catholics and Lutherans amongst his audience in the church of the Servites, abruptly stopped his sermon, saying that it was not meet to cast the pearls of the new revelation before swine.[135] Then he descended from the pulpit, and refused to remount it again. But probably the real cause of this sudden cessation was, that the views of the leader were undergoing a third change, and he was unwilling to announce his new doctrine to an audience of which all were not prepared to receive it. He continued to assemble the faithful in private houses, and to hold daily assemblies, in which they were initiated into the further mysteries of his revelation. In every parish a house was provided for the purpose, and none were admitted without a pass-word. In these gatherings the mystic was able to give full development to his views without the restraint of an only partially sympathising audience. [135] _Ibid._ p. 476.