Women in Anabaptist Munster: Sadness and Suffering Part 9

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Sep 5, 2000

The impact of the fall of Munster to the bishop was devastating for the women and children of Munster. By the time the city fell, starvation was rampant. The people of Munster had been living on softened leather, cow dung, mice, cats grass and whitewash scratched off the walls. The majority of adult men died during the final siege of Munster, leaving only women, children and elderly men. The remaining citizens of Munster were driven from the city; only a few ever chose to return. The saga of the Anabaptist kingdom of Munster is one of the more bizarre events of the Protestant reformation in Western Europe.

While all the citizens of Munster were impacted by the occupation, and siege, women, as has been shown in this paper, were perhaps most harshly affected. The institution of polygamy supported misogyny taken to a new and disturbing extreme. The impact of polygamy on women in Munster must have been, in some ways, much like the impact of women in modern Christian polygamous communities. While the majority of women in Munster are unnamed, the names and lives of a few remain in the historical record. The vast majority of women carried on the struggle of all women in the renaissance and reformation. They sought to raise their children, maintain a relationship with God, and live at peace with their spouses. The laws and justice of the Anabaptist kingdom made all of these difficult, if not impossible.

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