Mathys, or Jan Mathiesen, was a baker of Haarlem, who, constituted an Anabaptist bishop, was preaching the new gospel through the Netherlands and gathering recruits to the community of God’s saints which had been established at Muenster.  “Full of hope for the future,” says Professor Pearson, “Jan sets out for Muenster to join the saints.  Still young, handsome, imbued with a fiery enthusiasm, actor by nature and even by choice, he has no small influence on the spread of Anabaptism in that city.  The youth of twenty-three expounds to the followers of Rottmann the beauties of his ideal kingdom of the good and the true.  With his whole soul he preaches to them the redemption of the oppressed, the destruction of tyranny, the community of goods, and the rule of justice and brotherly love.  Women and maidens slip away to the secret gatherings of the youthful enthusiast; the glowing young prophet of Leyden becomes the centre of interest in Muenster.  Dangerous, very dangerous ground, when the pure of heart are not around him; when the spirit ‘chosen by God’ is to proclaim itself free of the flesh.

“The world has judged Jan harshly, condemned him to endless execration.  It were better to have cursed the generations of oppression, the flood of persecution, which forced the toiler to revolt, the Anabaptists to madness.  Under other circumstances the noble enthusiasm, with other surroundings the strong will, of Jan of Leyden might have left a different mark on the page of history.  Dragged down in this whirlpool of fanaticism, sensuality, and despair, we can only look upon him as a factor of the historic judgment, a necessary actor in that tragedy of Muenster, which forms one of the most solemn chapters of the Greater Bible.”

Gradually Jan rose to be head of the saints, Mathiesen having been killed, and none other displaying so much strength of purpose or magnetic enthusiasm.  And here his mind gave way.  Like so many absolute rulers before and since, he could not resist the ecstacies of supremacy.  To resume Professor Pearson’s narrative:  “The sovereign of Sion—­although ’since the flesh is dead, gold to him is but as dung’—­yet thinks fit to appear in all the pomp of earthly majesty.  He appoints a court, of which Knipperdollinch is chancellor, and wherein there are many officers from chamberlain to cook.  He forms a body-guard, whose members are dressed in silk.  Two pages wait upon the king, one of whom is a son of his grace the bishop of Muenster.  The great officers of state are somewhat wondrously attired, one breech red, the other grey, and on the sleeves of their coats are embroidered the arms of Sion—­the earth-sphere pierced by two crossed swords, a sign of universal sway and its instruments—­while a golden finger-ring is token of their authority in Sion.  The king himself is magnificently arrayed in gold and purple, and as insignia of his office, he causes sceptre and spurs of gold to be made.  Gold ducats are melted