Anabaptist mandate

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The so-called Anabaptist mandate , more precisely the constitution , is a collection of provisions that were passed in 1529 at the Diet in Speyer to combat the Anabaptist movement .

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Ruins of the Speyer Council Court , where the Anabaptist mandate was decided

In this mandate , the Reichstag in Speyer decreed that those who practice rebaptism or allow it to be carried out on themselves, be it men or women, are to be punished with death: that everyone and every rebaptized and rebaptized, man and woman, understandable age, from natural life to death, with fire, heavy weight, or the like, according to the opportunity of the persons, without prior to the spiritual judge inquisition, be judged and brought. The punishment should therefore be carried out independently of negotiations before a spiritual inquisition court . On the basis of this mandate, only those supporters of the Anabaptist movement who publicly distanced themselves from their "Anabaptist" doctrine and practice and were ready to make an atonement should be spared . In this case, expulsion had to be refrained from in order to avoid the danger of further Anabaptist activities in other parts of the kingdom. For leaders of the Anabaptists ( preachers, main sellers, land runners and rebellious agitators ), however, under no circumstances could there be a pardon. Also, Anabaptists who relapsed after a revocation of their convictions should be punished with death without hesitation. The mandate also called for the death penalty for parents who withheld infant baptism from their newborn children. Anabaptists who escaped to other territories were also punished there. Officials who refused to accept the orders of the Anabaptist mandate should then fall from grace and face severe punishment.

This unified previous local regulations for the Reich territory. The Anabaptist mandate was based on the Codex Justinianus , in which so-called rebaptism was also made subject to the death penalty .

prehistory

Martyrdom of the Anabaptist leader Felix Manz
Archduke Ferdinand I.

The Speyrian Anabaptist mandate was not the first anti-Anabaptist law, but was rooted in a number of regional mandates that had been enacted earlier.

Mandate of Zurich (1526)

The first mandate against the Anabaptists was decreed on March 7, 1526 in Zurich and supplemented and tightened on November 19 of the same year by a further ordinance. Not only the practice of so-called rebaptism was punished here, but also the Anabaptist preaching. One of the first to be sentenced to death by drowning on the basis of these laws was the Zurich Anabaptist leader Felix Manz . The judgment was carried out in January 1527.

Farewell to the cities of Zurich, Bern and St. Gallen (1527)

The City Council of Zurich was soon looking for allies in its fight against the Anabaptists. In the late summer of 1527, together with the Swiss cities of Bern and St. Gallen, he issued the so-called farewell because of the rebaptized . The death penalty is justified here not only with the learned and practiced rebaptism, but also with the rebellious nature of the Anabaptists. Other federal cities and towns followed suit .

Decrees of Archduke Ferdinand I (1527)

The flourishing of the Anabaptist movement in Austria from 1527, which was closely associated with Hans Hut , led Archduke Ferdinand I to attempt to intervene with a number of mandates. In August 1527, referring to the Edict of Worms , he turned against the new, terrifyingly outrageous of the Anabaptists and threatened their representatives with the death penalty . In October of the same year, an Austrian governor ordered the subjects to report Anabaptist persons and activities to the responsible authorities for the purpose of prosecution, based on the ducal decree. In December 1527 Ferdinand I issued an official mandate against the Anabaptists and justified this with his fear of a future uprising by the common [= community] against all that could be conquered . In this context it is also important that the Archduke considered a court judgment on Anabaptists captured in Steyr to be too lenient. He revised the judge's decision and ordered the death penalty.

Imperial Mandate (1528)

The experience and regulations in Austria were probably the basis of the by on 4 January 1528 Reichsregiment imperial mandate adopted which can be regarded as a direct precursor of the so-called Anabaptists mandate. According to this, according to both spiritual and secular law, the death penalty was to be demanded for the teaching and practice of so-called rebaptism. Above all, the Anabaptists were reproached for having declared the overthrow and abolition of secular authorities to be their objectives. The death penalty was, however, not declared a binding norm in the implementing provisions finalizing the imperial mandate.

Negotiations at the Reichstag in Speyer (1529)

In the agenda of the Diet of Speyer in 1529 (Speyer II), the later Anabaptist mandate was initially not included. It was not until the so-called Great Committee intervened that the demand for a law against the so-called Anabaptists to be passed. There was no objection to this. This demand came in handy for both the Old Believers and the Protestant classes - albeit due to different motives. Even Philip of Hesse , who is known in the context of the Baptist persecution as quite prudent and tolerant rulers, the demand for a legal basis for the rich-wide eradication of the Anabaptist movement agreed explicitly.

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Peter Blickle: The Reformation in the Reich , 2000, p. 167.
  2. ↑ Hans-Jürgen Goertz: The Anabaptists. History and Interpretation , Munich 1980, p. 128.
  3. ↑ Johannes Kühn (arrangement): German Reichstag files under Emperor Karl V , Volume VII, 2nd half volume, Göttingen 1963, p. 1325 f.
  4. ^ Wording of the farewell in: The enthusiastic horror scenes of the St. Gallen Anabaptists at the beginning of the Reformation. A historical contribution to the knowledge of these sects and a side piece to the wild consumption = unrest; from the original = manuscripts of Johannes Keßler, a contemporary and eyewitness, edited (edited by Johann Friedrich Franz) , Ebnat im Toggenburg 1824, p. 88f (online at Google Books); accessed on October 29, 2010.
  5. ↑ Hans-Jürgen Goertz: The Anabaptists. History and Interpretation , Munich 1980, p. 130.
  6. ↑ Grete Mecenseffy (Ed.): Sources for the history of the Anabaptists , Volume 11: Austria Part I , Gütersloh 1964, p. 5.
  7. ↑ Grete Mecenseffy (Ed.): Sources for the history of the Anabaptists , Volume 11: Austria Part I , Gütersloh 1964, p. 55.
  8. ↑ Hans-Jürgen Goertz: The Anabaptists. History and Interpretation , Munich 1980, p. 132.
  9. ↑ Hans-Jürgen Goertz: The Anabaptists. History and Interpretation , Munich 1980, p. 125 f.
  10. ↑ Hans-Jürgen Goertz: The Anabaptists. History and Interpretation , Munich 1980, p. 132.
  11. ↑ See Johannes Kühn (arrangement): German Reichstag files under Karl V. , Volume VII, 2nd half volume, Göttingen 1963, pp. 1142f
  12. ↑ Hans-Jürgen Goertz: The Anabaptists. History and Interpretation , Munich 1980, p. 134 f.
  13. ↑ Compare with Franklin H. Littell: Das Self-Understanding of the Anabaptists , Kassel 1966, pp. 61–64 ( An unusual case: The tolerance of Philip of Hesse )