The Reputation of the Anabaptists over the Centuries

Abstract

ABSTRACT The Anabaptists were condemned in the sixteenth century for theological, social, economic and political reasons, especially after the catastrophe of Münster in 1534–35. Persecution was sometimes intense, though it gradually eased. In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, despite persistent memories of Münster, favourable opinion grew. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Anabaptists were still harried for their practice of non-resistance, but praised for their hard work, drawn into the evangelical community of the new world and rehabilitated by historians. In the recent past they have been admired for their pacifism and their pioneering role in a world of religious pluralism.