Batenburgers. A radical Anabaptist sect, led by Jan van Batenburg, which flourished briefly in the 1530s in the aftermath of the Münster Rebellion. 163. ... The Münster Rebellion was an attempt by radical Anabaptists to establish a theocracy in the German city of Münster. ...

Jan van Batenburg was born around 1495, the bastard son of a nobleman from Gelderland, and became mayor of a town in the Dutch province of Overijssel. At some point in time - it is unknown when or why - he fell out with the local Habsburg-Burgundian authorities, was exiled, and lost his property. Van Batenburg would thenceforth always regard the Holy Roman Emperor as his mortal enemy. Events February 22 - King Charles VIII of France enters Naples to claim the citys throne. ... Capital Arnhem Queens Commissioner Jan Kamminga Area  - Total  - % water 2nd 5137 km²  ?% Population  - Total (2004)  - Density 4th 1,966,929 379/km² Anthem Ons Gelderland For the historical duchy also called Gelderland, see Guelders Gelderland (English also Guelders) is a province of the Netherlands, located in the central eastern... Overijssel is a province of the Netherlands, located in the central eastern part of the country. ... Habsburg (sometimes spelled Hapsburg, but never so in official use) was one of the major ruling houses of Europe. ... Burgundian is either of the following; An extinct language of the Germanic language group spoken by the Burgundians. ... The Holy Roman Emperor was, with some variation, the ruler of the Holy Roman Empire, the predecessor of modern Germany, during its existence from the 10th century until its collapse in 1806. ...

During the early 1530s, Van Batenburg converted to Anabaptism and found himself the leader of a large number of his co-religionists in Friesland and Groningen. His sympathies originally lay with the revolutionary Anabaptists who held Münster, but between Easter and Pentecost 1535 the Batenburgers from Groningen urged him to declare himself as 'a new David'. Before long Van Batenburg had established a new and completely independent sect, which quickly became the most extreme of all the early Anabaptist movements. This article is about the province Friesland in the Netherlands. ... Groningen can refer to: A province of the Netherlands. ... Position - Münster in Germany Town Hall at Prinzipalmarkt Münster: Prinzipalmarkt Münster is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. ... Easter is the most important religious holiday of the Christian liturgical year, observed in March, April, or May to celebrate the resurrection of Jesus from the dead after his death by crucifixion (see Good Friday), which Christians believe happened at about this time of year around AD 30-33. ... The name of the Jewish holiday Shavuot is commonly translated as Pentecost. Pentecost is the Christian festival that commemorates the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles, fifty days after the Resurrection of Jesus at Easter, and ten days after the Ascension. ... Michelangelos David David fighting Goliath David (דָּוִד Beloved, Standard Hebrew Dávid, Tiberian Hebrew Dāwiḏ; Arabic داود Dāʾūd Beloved), as referred to as King David, was the third and one of the most the well-known kings of ancient Israel, as well as the most mentioned man in the...

In August 1536 the leaders of the various Anabaptist groups met in Bocholt in a final attempt to maintain the unity of Anabaptism. At this meeting the major areas of dispute between the sects were polygamous marriage and the use of force against non-believers. David Joris (1501-1556) tried to compromise by declaring the time had not yet come to fight against the authorities, and that it would be unwise to kill any 'infidel' (non- Anabaptists), lest the Anabaptists themselves be seen as common thieves and killers. Joris' compromise was, however, rejected, and he and his followers subsequently split from the other Anabaptist groupings. // Events February 2 - Spaniard Pedro de Mendoza founds Buenos Aires, Argentina. ... There are two towns called Bocholt Bocholt in Germany, see Bocholt, Germany Bocholt in Belgium, see Bocholt, Belgium This is a disambiguation page — a navigational aid which lists other pages that might otherwise share the same title. ... David Joris (ca. ...

Van Batenburg, correctly suspecting that his fervent belief in both polygamy and force would be condemned by other Anabaptist leaders, had stayed away from the conference at Bocholt, although he had sent representatives. He was disgusted by Joris' propositions, called him 'the son of a whore' and threatened to kill him. The rivalry between the two Anabaptist leaders would last until Van Batenburg's death.

Comparatively little is known of Van Batenburg's theology. The Batenburgers believed that every man, and everything on earth, was owned, in a literal sense, by God. They also believed that they were God's chosen children. It followed, in their theology, that everything on earth was theirs to do with as they pleased. There was nothing wrong in making a living by robbing 'infidel', by which they meant any man who was not a member of their sect; indeed killing infidel was pleasing to their God. Those who joined the sect after 1535 - when the Münsterite leadership had declared the door to salvation to be closed - could never be baptised, they thought, but these men and women would nevertheless survive the coming apocalypse and be reborn in the coming Kingdom of God as servants of the Anabaptist elite. The Batenburgers also shared the views of the radical Münsterites on polygamy and property; all women, and all goods, were held in common. A few Batenburger marriages did occur, and Van Batenburg himself retained the right to present a deserving member of his sect with a 'wife' from the group's general stock of women. But such unions could be ended just as readily, and on occasion the prophet did order an unwilling wife to return to servicing the remainder of the Batenburger men. The term God (capitalized in English language as a proper noun) is often used to refer to a Supreme Being. ... Theology is reasoned discourse concerning God (Greek θεος, theos, God, + λογος, logos, word or reason). It also refers to the study of other religious topics. ... Kingdom of God (or Kingdom of Heaven) is a reference to many different ideas in Judeo-Christianity. ... The term polygamy (literally much marriage in late Greek) is used in related ways in social anthropology and sociobiology. ...

Jan Van Batenburg seems to have commanded the loyalty of at least several hundred men. Members of his sect were required to swear oaths of absolute secrecy, however, and had to endure a painful initiation designed to ensure they would be able to resist torture if they were ever captured, so the true extent of his following never emerged. The Batenburgers did not gather openly in public, and had their leader's dispensation to pose as ordinary Lutherans or Catholics, going to church and living apparently normal lives in the lands along the borders of the Holy Roman Empire and the Netherlands for several years after the fall of Münster. They recognised one another by secret symbols displayed on their houses or their clothing, and by certain ways of styling their hair. It was only after Van Batenburg himself was captured and burned at the stake, at Vilvoorde, Brabant, in 1538, that they came together at last, transforming themselves into a robber-band and infesting the Imperial marches for at least another decade under the leadership of a Leyden weaver called Cornelis Appelman. By this point the group had been reduced to a core of no more than 200 men, most of whom were joined by bonds of family or marriage. The Lutheran movement is a group of denominations of Protestant Christianity by the original definition. ... This page is about the Germanic empire. ... Vilvoorde (French: Vilvorde) is a municipality in the province of Flemish Brabant, in Flanders, one of the three regions of Belgium. ... Brabant is a former duchy in the Low Countries. ... Events Treaty of Nagyvarad. ... Leiden (in English also, but now rarely, Leyden) is a city and municipality in South Holland, The Netherlands. ...

Appelman remained active until his own capture in 1545. He was if anything more extreme than Van Batenburg, giving himself the title of 'The Judge' and killing any of his followers who refused to join his criminal activities, or proved themselves lax in killing, robbing or committing arson. Like Van Batenburg, he preached and practised polygamy, with the additional refinement that the women of his sect could leave their husbands at any time should they decide to marry a man further up the Batenburger hierarchy. Appelman himself murdered his own wife when she refused him permission to marry her daughter, and subsequently killed the girl as well. Events February 27 - Battle of Ancrum Moor - Scots victory over superior English forces December 13 - Official opening of the Council of Trent (closed 1563) Births April 2 - Elizabeth of Valois, Queen of Philip II of Spain (d. ...

After The Judge's death, the Batenburger sect fragmented into several tiny groups, one of which, the Children of Emlichheim, was active in the middle 1550s. Its sole creed appears to have been revenge against the infidel; on one notorious occasion its members stabbed to death 125 cows that belonged to a local monastery. The last of the Batenburger splinter groups, and also the largest, was the 'Folk of Johan Willemsz'. This sect persisted until about 1580, living by robbery and murder in the countryside around Wesel, on the Dutch-German border. When Willemsz himself was burned at the stake, the remnants of the group fled west. A number are believed to have found their way to Friesland, where they hid themselves among the local Mennonite community and were eventually absorbed into it. Events March 1 - Michel de Montaigne signs the preface to his most significant work, Essays. ... Wesel is a city (population about 61,689 in 2004) in Germany, located at the point where the Lippe River empties into the Rhine. ... This article is about the province Friesland in the Netherlands. ... The Mennonites are a group of Christian Anabaptist denominations based on the teachings and tradition of Menno Simons. ...

References

Books

• LG Jansma (1977). Melchiorieten, Munstersen en Batenburgers: een Sociologische Analyse van een Millennistische Beweging uit de 16e Eeuw. Buitenpost: np.

Articles

• LG Jansma (1984). 'Revolutionairee wederlopers na 1535.' In MG Buist et al (eds), Historisch Bewogen. Opstellen over de radicale reformatie in de 16e en 17e eeuw. Groningen: Wolters-Noordhoff.
• S. Zijlstra (1984). 'David Joris en de Doperse stromingen (1536-1539). In ibid.
• MEHN Mout (1996). 'Spiritualisten in de Nederlandse reformatie van de zestiende eeuw'. In Bijdragen en Mededelingen Betreffende de Geschiedenis der Nederlanden 111