BUCKHOLDT [properly BEUKELSZ, or BOCKELSZOON], JOHANN (c. 1508-1535)

This article appears in Volume V04, Page 721 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: BRI-BUN

BUCKHOLDT [properly BEUKELSZ, or BOCKELSZOON], JOHANN (c. 1508-1535) , Dutch Anabaptist fanatic, better known as JOHN OF LEIDEN, from his place of

birth

BIRTH (a word common in various forms to Teutonic languages from the root of the verb " to bear ")

, was the illegitimate son of Bockel, burgomaster of Soevenhagen, who afterwards married his mother. He was born about 15o8, apprenticed to a tailor, became infected with the opinions of

Thomas

Miinzer, travelled in pursuit of his trade (being four years in London), married a widow, became bankrupt, and in September 1533 joined the Anabaptist

movement

MOVEMENT

under Johann Matthysz (Matthyszoon), baker of Haarlem. He had little education, but some literary faculty, and had written plays. On the 13th of January 1534 he appeared in Minster as an apostle of Matthysz. Good-looking and fluent, he fascinated women, and won the confidence of

Bernard

Knipperdollinck, a revolutionary cloth merchant, who gave him his daughter in

marriage

MARRIAGE

. The Munster Anabaptists took up arms on the 9th of February 1534 (see ANABAPTISTS). On the death of Matthysz (1534), Buckholdt succeeded him as prophet, added his widow to the number of his wives, and organized a new constitution for Munster, with twelve elders (suggested by the tribes of

Israel

ISRAEL (Hebrew for " God strives " or " rules "; see Gen. xxxii. 28; and the allusion in Hosea xii. 4)

) and other officers of a

theocracy

THEOCRACY (Gr. Oeoeparia, the rule of God, from Oebr, god, and -Kparca, Kpare v, to rule)

, but soon superseded these, making himself king of the new Zion. His arbitrary

rule

RULE

was marked by pomp and severity. Munster was retaken (June 25, 1535) by its prince-

bishop

, Franz von Waldeck. Buckholdt, after many indignities, was cruelly executed on the 22nd of January 1536; his

body

BODY

, and those of his companions, were hung in cages to the tower of the Lamberti church. His portrait is in Grouwelen der Hooftketteren (Leiden, 1607; an English edition is appended to Alexander Ross's Pansebeia, 2nd ed., 165J); a better example of the same is given by Arend.
See Arend, Algenaeene Geschiedenis des Vaderl and s (1846), ii., iii., 629 ; Van der Aa, Biographisch Woordenboek der Nederlanden (1853); E. Belfort Bax, Rise and Fall of the Anabaptists (1903). (A. Go.*)

End of Article: BUCKHOLDT [properly BEUKELSZ, or BOCKELSZOON], JOHANN (c. 1508-1535)

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