The Münster Rebellion of 1534 epitomizes a pivotal moment in the annals of religious upheaval, manifesting in a city that proclaimed itself the New Jerusalem amidst the tumult of the Protestant Reformation. In an audacious bid for divine vindication, a baker-turned-prophet and a tailor who ascended to kingship led a fervent group of believers, convinced that the end times were upon them. Their actions escalated from fervent spiritual fervor to violent insurrection, culminating in a siege that would see the city besieged by external forces while its inhabitants succumbed to starvation and chaos. This episode delineates the transformation of a once-peaceful religious movement into a catastrophic chapter of sectarian violence, ultimately shaping the trajectory of groups we recognize today, such as the Amish and Mennonites. As we explore the complexities of this rebellion, we shall dissect the ramifications of misguided zeal and the profound implications it bore for future generations.

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A baker who called himself a prophet, a tailor who crowned himself king.

Followers who believed the end of the world was at their doorstep and that they would be the ones to greet it.

They burned books, seized property, and waited for Christ to return.

Outside the walls, an army gathered.

Inside, the faithful starved.

This is the story of what happens when peaceful religious movements produces its most violent chapter and how the aftermath would shape communities.

You might pass on a country road.

Today, we're talking about the fallout from, once again, Martin Luther and his Reformation.

Right.

And we are also talking about the siege of a town in Germany, Munster.

This is the Munster rebellion.

And this.

This key moment would actually be a major part in creating what we now know as the Amish and the Mennonites.

It started from a violent takeover of a city in the 16th century, and it ended with some of the most peaceful people with the best furniture I've never seen.

So all of that and more on another episode of the Remedial Scholar.

That's ancient history.

I feel I was denied need to know information.

Belongs to the museum.

Welcome, one and all.

I am the remedial scholar, Levi.

That's right.

It's been me the whole time.

I'm joined by Kevin.

Kevin of History Goon fame.

I've shouted him out a couple times on the show, so finally got you here.

Welcome.

Yeah, man, it's been a long time coming.

I mean, this was like, I was supposed to do this on my old show.

That's true.

The darkest of windows.

Yes.

And that was.

And that was over a year ago.

Almost two years ago.

Almost two years ago at this time.

Yeah.

Geez.

Yeah.

Well, you know, I'm super good at planning stuff, so.

Yeah, same here.

I blame it on the adhd.

But, hey, we got you now.

That's the important thing for sure.

Anybody that doesn't know about your show, you want to kind of give them a little rundown.

Quick plug.

Sure.

My show is called History Goon.

I do a little bit of everything if you want.

Like, I do a lot of World War II stuff.

I'm branching out more into other venues as well.

Trying to get a little bit older to kind of brush up on the.

More, like medieval history, because that's also cool.

Yeah.

I'm a big weapon nerd.

So if I get into an episode where I'm like, oh, there's.

They had this kind of a gun, and I'm like, hold on.

I have to, like, figure out everything about this.

I did an episode about weird tanks a couple of.

A couple episodes ago.

Yeah, that man.

The adhd, it took hold.

Hyper fixated on.

I'm recording, and I'm like, wait, what's this, though?

Yeah, what's this one?

Let's.

Let's talk about that, too.

Even though I don't have anything written for.

That is such a, like.

Yeah.

Unique thing to, like, while you're in the midst of recording or while you're, like, locked in on writing up something and you just hit, like, a random curiosity bit.

You're like, wait a minute.

What?

Hold on.

No, I got to figure more out about this.

And it.

It only gets more interesting, I think, the further back you go, because there's a lot of, like, gray area because not all of it's written down, you know, where, like, World War II, everybody wrote everything down and recorded it and took pictures and documented all the stuff.

And you get, like, further and further back and you're.

Well, hold on, what's this.

This country's perspective on this?

Because these guys had one, you know, and it's.

It's super fun, and it gives us a lot of source material, so.

Oh, for sure.

But, yeah, your show is.

I mean, obviously we're two different people, and the shows are not identical, but we have a very similar dark humor and also love of history.

So this is the perfect crossover.

So I'm excited, and I think this story, you're gonna like it.

What's really fun is when you hit a story that you know like a little bit about, and then you start digging into it and you go, oh, no.

Yeah, this was way worse.

Yeah.

Okay, well, I did one on the Jan Sobieski, who is the king of Poland.

And like, you look at the historical things and like, ah, yes, the.

The Polish marched in and they fought these guys.

And then you're like, no, no, no, no, you didn't tell me that this was the largest cavalry charge in recorded human history.

Yeah.

And, yeah, you know, when they.

When they just like, glaze over it with, like, a simple.

And then they fought on the 28th, it's like, okay, but hold on, we're missing some key details here.

What was the fight like?

How did they win?

What a Roman stuff.

And they're like, Ah, 150,000 men died in the battle.

And you're.

How.

That's.

That's a lot.

Way too many.

Why do you.

I can't even get five people to agree on a good time for D and D. And they're getting 150,000 people.

To die to be like, hey, let's go fight these other dudes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So this story, it's a little bit of, I mean it's, it's not medieval, it's 15th, 16th century.

But you know, it's going to be a little bit of religious revolution, little rebellion, little, A little bit of everything.

It's kind of got it all.

I like it.

I also, it's, it was super random.

Like I just came across it in the most random way, just looking up crazy history stuff and I like.

It was.

So this is such a niche topic that there's not even that many like audiobooks about it.

There's only like a couple YouTube videos and then like you can find information on it.

But it's just not like here, learn all about it.

So little.

Here's a 400 year old book.

Try to translate it.

Yeah, so it's a little nervous but also like exciting to bring it out for everybody.

I'm, I'm hoping, I'm hoping it goes well.

But listen, it's, it's got all the stuff.

It's, it's, it lets me connect some dots that, you know, are, have always been there in my mind.

But it's also, you know, some stuff, some recurring characters.

We talked a little bit about it.

Martin Luther, the boy, the man.

And I mean, Amish people.

Revolution.

I mean, yeah, that's, that's words you don't usually put in the same sentence.

Exactly.

Are you, how excited are you about this now?

I'm pretty pumped actually.

Like, yeah, let's do some weird stuff.

Yeah, so give a little roadmap here.

What's going to go down.

We got obviously the Protestant Reformation because all roads lead to Martin Luther.

Then we're going to move from that into the different splinterings from the sub genres, as it were, and then get into some more of the radical reformers from that time, particularly in the German region.

And then we're going to move into the Anabaptist movement.

And the guys who kind of took this movement and pushed it into, I'll say, cultish behavior, they took over a city at some point.

So a lot of, a lot of, a lot of interesting stuff.

And then nothing violent ever happened in Germany ever, ever again.

Yeah, this was the last time anybody was ever angry there.

So that's cool.

Like.

Yeah, it's great.

Okay, so let's start with Martin Luther, Marty.

Mart.

Mart.

Mart.

What a, what a tangle web he weaved, really.

He's literally just messing things up.

For everybody.

I personally have talked about him in my Gunpowder Plot episode a little bit in a Christian or Christmas episode.

I did.

I don't know how much you've ever looked into him, if at all.

Not really a bunch.

I know he always looks angry.

He does.

He kind of like, has that, like.

Very stern, you know.

Yeah.

Like he's.

He caught you, like, reaching in a cookie jar.

Disappointed.

Grandpa Faith.

Yeah.

100% perfect.

Because I have a little bit of a background on him.

Just a really influencing figure of history.

He hangs a couple signs, get some things going, and then the next couple hundred years are just really archaic for most of Europe because of it.

I think he would have loved TikTok personally.

I think he loves getting trends going.

So this is.

I mean, out there doing dances and stuff.

That's right.

He's like, check out these theses.

What's up?

Yeah.

All right.

His father was a landlord of sight of type, owned a couple mines, and his mother was, quote, trading class stock and middling means.

So that, I mean, I don't know exactly what that means, but it sounds rude if I was going to guess.

Allegedly she was a bath attendant and a prostitute.

So, yeah, pretty cool.

I mean, hey, you know, working moms, it's tough.

It's a tough job out there.

So it is the oldest profession, so.

That's right.

So the first description of her comes from a religious scholar who is named Martin Marty.

And I'm not making that up.

That's.

That's this guy's name.

And also, how hilarious for somebody to have that name and contribute to the accounts of Martin Luther's mother.

Right.

Good old Martin Marty.

If anybody's gonna know about any kind of bath, bath attendance, it's going to be a guy named Martin Marty.

I know that for a fact.

If you flip the two and called him Marty Martin, he sounds like a NASCAR driver.

Yeah.

Old Mark Martin.

Yeah, exactly.

Exactly.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So anyway, Martin Luther's father wanted him to become a lawyer.

He was not super pumped about that.

He was dreading class every single day.

He described his lessons as hell and purgatory.

So, you know, having fun, it's just basically any college classes.

Am I right, fellas?

Good times.

Yeah.

After graduating college, he followed his father's wishes to study law.

But he did quit, basically instantly.

He didn't care about laws that man used to control other men.

He was more concerned with the laws that govern our minds, man.

Yeah, fair enough.

Must have Got into, like, hacky sack or something in college.

He also thought studying law was too uncertain, which I don't want to say he's, like, confused.

But he dropped out of law school to study philosophy and theology and life.

So, like, those are pretty uncertain stuff.

Yeah.

One's not going to make you a bunch of money.

Yeah, yeah.

The one thing he learned at this time was that he should always question people and authority, no matter how smart they seem to be or what their pedigree is.

And that checks out because that is exactly what he would be famous for doing.

Like, took that lesson, art, soon finished up with philosophy because they didn't talk about God enough for him.

He liked the reasoning, but, you know, didn't like the fact that the reasoning was never led to God, which he thought it should be.

So, you know, hey, all right.

He's got that, like, correcting teacher vibe.

Like, in this.

Hey, you failed to mention God at the end of this.

You didn't put that in the form of.

You didn't form that in the.

With God in there anywhere.

So the answer doesn't count.

Fair enough.

Yeah.

One of the things that people.

Scholars about Martin Luther don't really know a whole lot is that why he was super invested in God and why he.

Like, his personal belief was that you could only really learn about God through divine revelation.

But nobody's for sure on how he came to it.

Because if he's like, divine revelation is the only way you can come to God.

That means divine revelation happened to him.

But there's a couple stories onto how it came about.

One of them is more believable than the other.

But the first story is once that a good friend of his had died and that he was shocked by it.

And then the other one was that he was struck by lightning.

So, I mean, take your pick.

Or that lightning struck near his horse.

Yeah.

I was like, yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and say it was probably his friend died, but, you know, I'm not gonna say he didn't get struck by lightning.

I don't want to.

I don't want that to happen to me.

Yeah.

I mean, getting struck by lightning would kind of put you on the path to be like, I think I saw God afterwards.

I was.

I think I might actually be him.

Yeah.

And one of the.

One of his superiors at the monastery noted that he needed a lot of work to distract him from his excessive introspection.

Busy man.

Yeah, he's a thinker.

He's.

The philosophy is not getting out of his system, I guess.

Hey, quit thinking for a few minutes and go do something like pick up a ramp.

Hey.

Yeah, we noticed that all the leaves are still in the yard.

Grab a shovel and keep thinking, buddy.

Yeah, I mean, everything that I've read so far is.

It all feels very on brand for Martin Luther, like what we know about him.

15, 15, he was made a vicar of Saxony and Thuringia.

And it's like a super senior priest, essentially.

He was awarded a doctorate of theology, making him Dr. Martin Luther.

And now all he needed was his son to be a king.

And there we go.

Or maybe not be assassinated by the FBI, but definitely assassinated by the FBI.

They never have once ever assassinated anybody.

I don't know why you would say.

They would never do that.

If you're listening, they would never do that.

They would never do that.

For legal reasons.

I like to keep my guy on his toes, you know?

Yeah.

Oh, shit.

Okay.

Thought they were onto us for a second.

They're not.

We're good.

I've got an NSA agent in my closet.

He just hangs out, you know, I.

Mean, just by the sheer velocity of random stuff that me and you are googling at any given time, it's gotta be happening.

Yeah.

Wait, wait, wait till I do my IRA episode.

And then they're like, hey, guess what?

You can't fly anymore.

Yeah, yeah, sorry.

You can't even go anywhere.

We locked you down.

Yeah.

Enjoy your.

Enjoy your one bedroom apartment, bud.

That's where you're gonna be for a long time.

Okay, well, you know, Martin Luther, he took his.

His life of the cloth very seriously.

At this point, he lectured on various books of the Bible, really getting into the nitty gritty of them.

This intense studying led him to finding an annotated translation, which aided his views changing on terms like penance and righteousness, which are some of the bigger parts of his whole thing.

He began to view the church as corrupt, crazy.

And then it had lost sight of the truths of Christianity.

Also crazy.

It'll happen.

15:17 is when he did the thing.

He.

He posted his 95 theses and this.

I mean, it criticized the practice of selling indulgences by the Catholic Church, which is essentially bypassing punishment of sin or lessening, which is a big deal for, you know, purists.

This practice, selling these punishments, was something that Luther did not think the church really had the authority to do and felt that people should be more concerned with their salvation in general, rather than buying their way out of purgatory.

Which makes sense.

Absolutely.

He stood by his statements, engaging in debates on the topic with other members of the clergy and the theologians.

Too many vowels in that word.

This made his stance more clear to people, but not everyone was pumped about it.

I'll give you one guess to one of the people that was not pumped about it.

I bet he lives in Italy and has a big funny hat.

He does have a big funny hat.

Do you know this guy?

No, actually.

Would he have been in Italy, or would this be around the time that one of them was kidnapped and moved to France?

I don't remember.

That's a good question.

I think this is Italy.

Okay.

Pope Leo, the 10th.

Which is crazy, because we got a new Pope Leo, don't we?

Right?

Yeah, we do.

Nice.

He's back for vengeance.

My biggest thing with him is like, dude, you're a Cubs fan.

Like, what are you doing?

Yeah, that's embarrassing.

Well, that's why he's got such impressive faith.

He's like, this is the only way I can get salvation, because I can't put my faith into the bears or the cups.

Yeah.

I mean, it could be worse.

Could be the White Sox, but hey.

Well, hey.

And you got to think that he probably didn't care at that point.

Like, he had already ruffled enough feathers that he kind of expected that to happen.

Like, okay, I'm gonna do my own thing now.

Exactly.

So the initial response to his writings were mixed.

Outside of the church, inside the church.

People were like, yeah, I mean, I get it.

It's kind of criticism, but I don't know if it's like, that crazy to, like, excommunicate him and stuff, because got to remember, this is old school Catholicism.

Excommunicated.

It's like, well, we're sending you to hell whether you like it or not.

Like, so.

And you could be excommunicated for, like, anything.

Yeah.

And they were just like.

And it was like, a big deal for everybody.

Like, oh, like, you.

You hear about somebody getting excommunicated, and you're like, well, we better not talk.

To him anymore, because I don't want.

I'm not that guy.

Yeah, right.

So as the word spread around the region, as he engaged in debates further, these splinter groups began to spread across Germany and then into Scandinavia and then eventually into England.

Obviously we've.

I've discussed it breaking into England in my.

The Gunpowder Plot episode.

But in Germany, the splinter groups are kind of as follows.

Lutherans obviously direct followers of Martin Luther, emphasizing justification of their souls by faith alone.

Right.

The supreme authority of Scripture and rejection of most Catholic traditions and reform the church from within.

And then we have Calvinists.

They follow a guy named John Calvin who emphasized God's sovereignty, predestination and the importance of church governance.

And they rejected also many of the Catholic traditions.

That's going to be a big theme in a lot of these.

Yeah.

And they wanted to establish a completely new form of church government instead of like bringing people from within and rebuilding it.

I also mentioned Predestination, and that's essentially a film with Ethan Hawke.

No, I mean, it is, but it's not in this term.

It's a great movie, though.

I don't think I've seen that.

Oh, man.

Highly recommend.

Predestination is a.

Is the theological idea that God's will is everything.

Your soul's fate is up to the big man.

This is obviously a big contrast to the whole free will thing.

So.

Yeah.

Next we have the most fun sounding names.

The Zwinglin.

Oh, man.

Zwinglians.

Z W I N G L I A N S. Yeah, they're not.

That's.

That's a.

They're not from here.

That's like an alien race of some sort of.

Yeah, I kind of wish they would.

Have been a mass effect, you know.

I wish they would have been the most popular because, like, how much fun would it be talking about.

Yeah, well, his dad's Catholic and her mom's Zwinglian.

Like just that in common conversation would.

Be driving five miles down the road.

When you get to the Winglion church, you hang a left and you'll be right there.

Man, we really just a letdown.

I get a time machine.

That's the first thing I'm doing.

Yeah.

So the Zwinglians followed Ulrich Zwingli.

So he wanted to reform the church from within, but have a more focused on communal ownership and shared leadership.

So a church government of the people, for the people kind of thing.

He also held crazy opinion that contradicted that of Martin Luther, that the Eucharist, the blood and wine, the cracker stuff were just symbolic and not the literal body of Jesus, which, you know, I mean, that doesn't seem that crazy to me.

I'm a little surprised that Martin Luther was like, no, that's still real.

Sorry.

Yeah.

With all of his.

All of his differences with it.

That's one that is kind of like, weird.

A very weird hill to die on for him.

Yeah.

I feel like, in contrast to like all of the other stuff.

Yeah.

The Immaculate Conception.

Not real.

The crackers and juice.

Real.

Absolutely real.

Turns out he just really liked getting hammered on the.

On the wine.

Church is my favorite.

Yeah.

We're going to keep doing communion.

It's going to be 10 hours long.

Bring us.

Bring a glass.

It's a good time.

Bring your unc up.

This diversion between the two is symbolic itself with Lutheran retaining way more Catholic traditions compared to Zwingli.

And then, I mean, ultimately there's a lot of differences between every single one, but that in general is the bulk of it.

Right.

The second to last reform group is the Anglicans, who famously were started when Pope Henry VIII broke from the Catholic Church after Pope Leo did not grant him a divorce because he was related to the guy's wife who may or may not have been infertile, but probably was since he remarried and knocked that lady up, like, right away.

I think there's another guy that might have done that too.

Yeah.

English, I think.

Yeah.

Sounds about right.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Crazy.

And the last group is the focus of our story, the Anabaptists.

Now, do you want to venture out on a guess to.

To what they might be about?

I honestly don't know.

I know that there's so many different, like, offshoots and branches of Protestantism that I can't keep up with them.

Yeah, no, that's fair.

It's actually like, it's super interesting because this group has ties to modern day Amish culture.

And so, like, knowing that it's like, started so far back at a very specific point is part of the interesting bit in this story for me.

So they were more radical for the time.

You might not know it by looking at the Amish people today, but they were.

They were pretty crazy back then.

You know, obviously calling them radical, not super surprising given that the title of this episode is probably something.

Something rebellion.

But.

And the good news is the Amish aren't going to hear this, so.

Oh, that's true.

Well, there's a lot that live near me.

I might just drive by their barns and blast it full.

That'd be crazy.

There's Some that live just over the border in a small town in New York from where I am.

And I'm like.

I try to.

I'm like, I'm gonna.

I'm gonna not make you guys angry.

Cause you have really, really good baked goods.

Yeah.

It's like, I hate getting stuck behind your wagons, but, God, the pie is fantastic.

Yeah.

So these guys, it's.

I mean, it's radical for the time, but it's not really radical in general, except for this one splinter cult group.

But their beliefs, they kind of roll back the years on the church.

They.

They bring it back to a little more grounded in who Jesus was and kind of what he was all about, which is pacifism, importance of community life.

Right.

We're all part of the same flock.

We all got to take care of each other.

They believe the old tenets of love thy neighbor and all that jazz.

Right.

Instead of the church being how the community came together, the community.

Community would just be the church.

Like that.

You didn't really have a central authority.

You didn't have the Pope in the big hat telling you how to listen to the scripture, how to translate something into a specific part of your life.

It was.

This is what we believe.

All of us are kind of together on this.

And that's how they did it.

Which is.

It makes the most sense, especially for the time period like, yeah, communities are huge.

Like, that's how most people survived.

And you hunker down in your little village area or whatever.

And that was.

That was it.

So super decentralized comparatively.

They also had a huge difference in terms of baptism, which obviously, Anabaptists, Baptism is in the name.

They believe that baptism should not be done instantly to an infant.

They find that the practice of baptism is something only fit for an adult who can, you know, understand the levity of the action.

That's fair.

Yeah.

I kind of like that better, honestly.

Yeah.

Like, hey, don't.

Don't dunk the baby in the water.

Let them grow up and figure out if this is what they want.

If they can put their.

Which I think is kind of a really broad worldview way to approach it, too, because they're like, we don't even know if they're going to want to be a part of this thing.

Which is crazy, because it's like Catholics are join or die.

And it kind of kind of feels like that's what you see more frequently now.

Yeah.

Is people, like, in their, you know, like, late teens, 20s, 30s, where they're like, yeah, I think I'M going to start trying.

I'm going to, I'm going to try this.

Yeah.

And you've.

Because you've had time to like, develop your own opinion.

Yeah.

In your brain and everything.

Yeah, yeah.

Absolutely.

Not being forced into it.

Yeah.

So Catholics believe that the practice was, you know, God's grace being imparted on the child.

And Anabaptists believe that the baptism was a symbol of their repentance and their faith rather than a sacrament.

And, you know, they believe that the individual should understand and consent to this and be an adult and fully understand it to do so.

Catholics never really big on the whole consent or adult things.

Yeah.

Yep.

Yeah.

As, as someone who was.

As someone who was thrown out of Catholic Church as a very small child.

Because I was, I think last time my mom brought me to church, I was like 2 or 3.

And being a 3 year old kid, I had a car.

I had a little matchbox car.

And they're like, he needs to either go to the kids thing or go home.

And my mom's like, I guess we're going home.

Yeah.

This is all I need to know about this organization.

It's like she, she grew up Catholic too.

And I was like.

And you know, that was the, that was like the one thing that my grandmother was like before she died.

She's like, have the boys baptized.

And she's like, they're in their teens now, so they're going to do their own thing and if they want to, they'll find their way back to it.

Yeah.

It's a weird thing to.

Yeah.

I never, like, had any kind of religious, like, guidance as a, as a child.

My mom never made us go.

She always talked about her, her parents made her go, but like, she never made us go.

And I.

Only real religious, like, influence I ever had.

And I'm not religious now, but like, at the time I was in Cub Scouts and we had to do.

There was like a section on religion.

And so we split up into our different religions.

And I was like, I don't know where to go.

And my mom's like, you can go to this one because it's closest to our house.

Which upset me because my best friend Colton, he was Catholic and so he went to a different one and I'm like, dang it, why can't I be Catholic?

I had no idea what it even meant.

I just knew I wanted to hang out with my friend.

It's one of those things that was never forced on us, but it was an option.

She was like, yeah, if you want to, we'll go.

Cool.

That's fine.

It was like.

That's where I kind of felt, like, a little bit different with it, where as I've gotten older, I've had some, you know, change of mindset, and it's like, well, I'm kind of glad that I wasn't forced into this.

And if I'm going to find something like that, I can do it on my own and figure out what works best for me.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I think that's honestly the way it should be.

If.

If it works for you, that's awesome.

Like, I have a lot of.

A lot of really religious friends, and I love them dearly.

And then I have a lot of friends who have no care in the world.

And I like, you know, I love them too, that it's just whatever works for you.

That's cool.

Just don't push your politics on me, man.

As long as you're not, like, super, super, like, over the top about it, where, like, you won't talk to somebody because they're not.

Yeah.

You know, I was like, yeah, that's.

That's weird.

I don't like that at all.

Absolutely.

All right, so the.

The Protestant Reformation is in full effect at this point.

This.

This little pacifist organization of the Anabaptists, they.

We gotta.

We gotta figure out how the heck that they took over a city because they were.

You know.

I forgot about that part.

Yeah.

They seem like.

When I laid all them out, they seem like the most chill out of all of them, too.

That's the best part about this.

Yeah.

It's like these guys are just, like, hanging out.

They're like.

They got their cows and stuff.

They're doing their own thing and.

Yeah.

All of a sudden, beards and.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I should also note that the Anabaptist movement, as all of the other ones, didn't happen as soon as he, you know, nailed the things on the door.

They were, you know, ideas and rumblings and contradiction of Catholic doctrine brewing over time.

That this is.

This is just like a moment where everybody's like, you know what?

This guy's getting a lot of heat for it.

We might as well just go now.

Like, this is our basically biggest chance.

So.

Yeah, that.

That was the big leap of it.

Revolutions don't happen in a vacuum.

Right.

They, you know, it's a little bit of a slow start sometimes, but eventually they got.

They got to it.

So that's.

That's pretty crazy to think about, but it makes sen. Also, they kind of dipped their toes into rebellion.

And what would unfold before the actual events of our main story is another rebellion.

It's pretty exciting.

And this was against the noble and the clergy alike.

Peasants and townspeople across central Europe not pumped about the feudal system, weirdly enough.

It's crazy that they had to make that point.

Why don't you guys like this?

It's great for us.

What do you mean?

What do you mean?

You don't want to give me all your shit that you grew?

Yeah.

What's wrong with you?

You do all the work and I keep it all that.

I feel like that's a great thing.

It's a great deal.

I.

You're.

You're not dead and I get.

Stop ruining a good thing.

Okay.

The Japanese are gonna love this.

Yeah.

I mean, if anybody did feudalism good, it's the Japanese.

They kind of like perfected it almost, you know.

Yeah.

But yeah, so the, the.

The German Peasants War essentially, you know, the.

The precursor to this whole thing, but also like a precursor to the upheaval the feudal system in general.

One of the main figures of the Peasants War was a name man named Thomas Munser.

And he was a preacher and leader for the peasants, which, you know, kind of ironic that they had issues with clergy, but this preacher was leading them.

So obviously a lot more nuanced than that, but you know, just still on paper, pretty funny.

Swabian region protested against their lord's demands and increased taxes and labor.

Common theme.

Nice to see that 500 years ago we had issues that haven't changed for anybody.

Right.

Politics has always been the same.

Yeah, that's pretty fun.

The movement spread quickly throughout southern Germany.

A lot of support.

Thousands of peasants and townspeople started to pick it up and demanded changes to be made, including obviously getting rid of serfdom.

Makes sense.

Redistribution of land, greater autonomy.

Serfdom.

If you're unaware, for the listeners, it's forced labor system which was incredibly common in medieval Europe.

They.

They really.

They perfected serfdom.

They were bound to the land that they worked for.

The lord who owned it in exchange for the labor came in way of protection from the outside invaders for the workers.

And also they got to keep a little bit of what they produced.

So that Was cool.

It's kind of like the mafia.

Like, yeah, we know that your store is not in danger right now, but.

We could make it in danger.

Yeah, we're gonna.

We can either make it in danger or we can protect you from it.

Yeah, well, and the best part about it is it's like, well, that other kingdom over there wouldn't be attacking us if you didn't piss them off, so.

Exactly.

Why am I catching heat for this?

I'm just growing potatoes over here.

Yeah, yeah.

We're mere peasant folk.

We don't have any say in this.

I can't vote for king.

Yeah, I didn't vote for him.

Yeah, exactly.

The most significant moment of the war was the siege of Frankenhausen, where Muntzer led a large force of peasants to attempt to capture a town.

This is not the capturing that we're talking about.

This is a pre capture capture.

And the peasants broke formation almost immediately.

They were not ready for the fight that they.

They got themselves into, which is kind of funny to think about.

Like, they were like, yeah, we're gonna get them.

And then it's like, what's that rumbling sound?

And it's just black over the hill.

I brought my pitchfork.

I wasn't ready for horses.

Yeah, Oddly enough, you know, peasants not super good at military strategy.

Who'd have thought, right?

Yeah.

Munser was captured and executed, and the number of peasants killed are estimated to be as high as seven.

This one.

One city alone.

Damn.

The rest of the war went pretty much the same.

The authorities crushed the rebellions pretty, pretty quickly and not surprising at all.

But, you know, in the following decade, after this peasants war, few influential subgroups would try and plant the seeds of more revolution.

Like, hey, we kind of lost this one.

But we could, we keep going.

We could win the big guy.

We just got to organize better.

We got to try harder next time.

Yeah.

So one of those people being the Anabaptist group, which again, these guys are supposed to be pacifists.

And they're like, guys, I think we could do it.

We got to at least try.

There's.

Yeah, I mean, hey, the worst that can happen is we all die, so.

Exactly.

And this group actually began to bring in some different people who were like minded and wanted to, you know, contribute to the cause.

One man named Jan Mathis.

He's only 20 something in Leiden, Netherlands.

Not a super lot about him, but likely a merchant or a baker.

One of the two.

Or both.

Maybe.

Maybe he sold the baking, I don't know.

He learned about the Anabaptist movement, most likely through the teachings of a guy named Melchior.

I don't know Melchior Hoffman.

And yeah, it's like M E L C H I O R. Yeah, this is medieval Germany.

I mean, they're just doing whatever they want.

It's that dragon dog's cousin from Neverending Story.

Exactly.

Yeah, that's exactly.

Drinks a bunch of Mountain Dew though.

So.

Yeah.

So this guy Jan had some theological education himself.

Maybe he was like an like altar boy or something like that.

Anyway, Hoffman influenced Jan to join the Anabaptists.

You know, this adult baptism, pacifism movement, community life, all the things.

And Jan's like, let's go, dude.

And then a different guy named Jan Leiden, he also moved to Munster.

So you got the two yawns and yon squared.

Yeah, that's right.

Now they, they moved to the town Munster, which is in Westphalia.

And it's not a super or it wasn't a super big city at the time, but it was growing.

Like it was a good trade point.

It had around 9,000 residents, which is pretty good for back then.

Not really crazy today, but it was on the up and up.

It was, it was growing.

It was like in a nice sweet spot where a lot of trade routes kind of worked through it.

So the town itself had a partial self government, which is kind of interesting.

They had like a city council that had various guild members, merchants, artisans that kind of made all the decisions instead of it being like one guy.

So pretty cool.

But they did get a little crazy when it turns to.

In terms of like response to the Protestant Reformation.

And the Anabaptists moved to town and then just started like baptizing everybody.

Ah, okay.

So they quickly baptized one third of the population.

Yeah, it was more of a.

More of a soft takeover than coming in with a. Torches and pitchforks.

Yeah, yeah.

So they kind of, they did, did the slow play.

But while they're doing this, like, while this Anabaptist movement is growing under everybody's noses, the non Anabaptists are starting to.

They're starting to notice some stuff.

They're getting harassed at some point.

They like the nobles and wealthy Catholics, they're like, you know what?

I think it's time to go visit your in the hills.

Martha.

Let's go.

We're gonna.

We're just gonna take a quick vacation.

We'll be back.

I.

And this is like, all before Yan Mathis even gets here.

Like, this is starting to happen.

So they kind of step into the existing Anabaptist movement from a different Anabaptist group in a different town and then move in and then, you know, hilarity ensues.

So the.

I guess so they did have a central governing figure kind of thing.

His name was Franz Von Valdich.

He was a prince bishop, which I had never heard of until this time.

But, yeah, he was a prince and a bishop.

So he had both held both hats.

He could do both things.

He could be political and he could be religious, which is usually.

They kept him a little separate.

So, you know, it was kind of like a check and balance system almost.

But very thoroughly not separating church and state.

Yeah.

So he was.

He was tasked with bringing a Catholic order back to this city.

And he was a little more political than he was religious.

And he had, you know, his sights on higher offices in the future.

He was a little more pragmatic in terms of how he opted to deal with these guys.

He wanted to negotiate with the Anabaptists.

He didn't want to come in, bring all the army in.

He just wanted to, like, all right, let's get some city council guys to kind of work with these guys.

And we can kind of basically legally kick them out if we need to, but we don't need to, like, bring the army in.

And that didn't really work out the way he wanted wanted to.

He did try, like, a loose blockade, which was essentially setting up a series of, like, not highwaymen situations, but, like, hey, we're not letting you go this way.

And like, but it wasn't like, straight up, don't ever come this way.

It was like, hey, just probably should come back at another time and just strain them a little bit.

Not a full on, like, blockade, but yeah, so that's.

That's his tactic as.

As this is going.

Meanwhile, Jan Mathis, he starts to get himself a little more involved in the church.

He's starting to convert people.

He's out in the communities preaching that Hoffman guy who basically converted him.

He was imprisoned for his rebellious, rebelliousness and his presence missing from the Anabaptist movement.

Well, we got a leader that we need.

And so Yan Mathis, he's.

You know what?

I think I can do it.

I'm new to this, but I think I can handle it.

And so he started Sliding in, trying to be a leader.

Power vacuum.

Yeah.

So this was.

This was kind of a big change in direction because Hoffman was very traditional Anabaptist, very pacifist, very nonviolent.

John Mathis, not so much.

He was like, we gotta resist the oppression.

This is.

This is something that a lot of the other Anabaptists were kind of thinking, but they're like, well, I don't know.

Our leader is kind of steadfast in this.

And so everybody started going, you know what?

This might be the move.

And this city is now primed for some rebellion.

Maybe let's try violence just this once.

We see, you know, and if it doesn't work, then, you know, what have we lost as a leader?

Mathis was.

Or Matthias, I don't know.

It's one of the two.

I'm going to call him Mathis, since that's what I've been saying this whole time.

He's very charismatic.

He had strong convictions, and he wielded them in a way that would inspire people, you know, even if their original beliefs contradicted what he was saying.

He was that kind of, like, leader just really got people going.

So he had that.

And then also he had this other thing that he did, which was he started to tell people that he was a prophet.

That's bad.

Which, you know, maybe he was.

I don't know.

But that's.

That's what he was telling him, which is a really good sign.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, that's exactly what you want in a leader is I'm actually one of the guys.

The big ones.

Yeah.

So even crazier is more people began to convert after that, and it was easier for Matthias and co to kind of sway opinion, the more people they got right via elections.

Like, they kind of had an electoral system, you know, they had the city council people.

Well, the more people that they converted, the more likely that they were going to get some people in those chairs.

So they were able to kind of create an underground network of people that were influenced by this guy.

And now we're sliding into different legal positions, which is the.

The long game.

Right.

Yep.

So this, along with the Anabaptist, decided opposition to a traditional path.

Path.

Paphos passes.

Oh, man.

Pacifism.

Had to take a breath.

My tongue didn't want to work.

Yeah, I get that.

Yeah.

Pacifism, by way of expanding their arsenal, made things shaky on the negotiation front for old Prince Bishop Valdec.

Right.

Which he had still been trying to handle.

He started to compromise.

Installed while waiting for guidance from Charles V. Was busy fighting France and the Ottomans.

So I guess he's kind of busy.

Whatever doesn't write, he doesn't call.

Yeah, Those damn Ottomans.

I feel bad because I've had so many episodes where I'm like, man, I make the Ottomans out to be the bad guys a lot.

You're like, yeah, yeah.

Sometimes they were the.

Sometimes.

Well, you know, everybody's a bad guy at some point for sure to somebody else.

Yep.

Yeah.

So the Anabaptists, they.

They had this organizing going down, and then they started arming themselves.

A very good sign.

So while they were getting chased out of different areas around Germany, they all started to move to Munster.

And they also took over a church, St. Lambert's Church in Munster, which, you know, Catholic people, not super pumped about that.

Yeah, they might not be.

Yeah.

Mathis names this compound of sorts.

New Jerusalem also.

Pretty bold move.

Yeah.

They began to expel people who they deem godless.

So now we're cooking.

They also says that, you know, hey, Christ, he's not.

He.

He's coming back.

He's not going to that other Jerusalem, though.

He's coming to this one, because this is New Jerusalem.

This is the.

This is the new one.

He's gonna like this one more than where he actually lived at one point.

So.

And we're in Munster, so we have the good cheese.

So that's why he's coming here.

Well, and the thing about Jesus is, not a lot of people talk about this, but he loves seasons.

He'd rather be in the middle of Germany where he can watch the leaves turn, you know?

Yep.

Get some snow.

He loves the snowball fight.

I mean, it's the one time where everybody can walk on water.

You know what I mean?

So.

Oh, that's fantastic.

So Mathis, buddy Yan van Leyden van Leiden.

He's a former tailor and actor, and he becomes Mathis's deputy.

They began to claim all of the property within the walls of the city, began to burn all of the books that were not the Bible.

And their goals were on the rest of the world once they solidified this city, which is.

It's good to have ambitions, I guess.

You know, they.

They were ready.

Yeah, they were ready.

Because here's the thing.

The prophet Mathis told everybody that Satan would be coming to their doorsteps, and they just had to with withstand his barrage just a little bit until Jesus comes back to this Jerusalem, the new Jerusalem, obviously.

So at that point the Anabaptists have pretty much completely taken over the city through legal routes.

And then also now they were forcing people out, they ran off the prince bishop, which is not good if you want to make higher offices.

You have a feeling that that's not going to get when it comes for the mid year review.

I don't think that's going to look good on his resume.

You know what I mean?

It says here a bunch of pacifists kick you out of your town.

What's that about?

We're going to have to really consider this.

Yeah.

Moving forward.

We're just, we're thinking Johnson's probably the better fit.

We're going to present you with a formal written write up that you need to sign and then we're going to sign it and put it in your file just in case this happens again.

Yeah.

So after that Valdick, he's, he's decided negotiations have failed.

It's time to get a little serious about this.

This is not, this is no longer just a light thing.

He had assembled troops and began to blockade the city, obviously blockading.

He's tried it before but he's doing it a little more intently this time.

He's got, it's got his heart in it.

And it was also really the only way that they could put pressure on the city without, you know, just doing a full on assault.

And that was kind of like do we really want to get crazy right away?

And he felt not again very politically minded.

Didn't want to, didn't want that to look bad on, on his record there.

So he's like, ah, we're just going to wait him out.

We could do it.

Munster though, pretty good defensible city.

It goes back to the time of Charlemagne.

Heard of him?

Yep.

And you know that time frame, you can imagine the type of city that would be able to survive 800 years to this point.

It had double walls, towers and moats, great counter siege methods including huge stockpile when came in handy when the bishop decided to lay siege to the city.

And I mentioned that the Anabaptists once they took control that they took everything which also essentially turned this city into an early communist little city.

They were like, we're taking everything and then we're just going to distribute what you need and all the personal property, all of the food, redistributed it evenly which at first really did level the social structure because you had like wealthy people who could make it out but decided to convert and whatever.

And now everybody's kind of on the same page for now, which is how it always works.

You know, you get.

At first it seems cool.

It always starts with rainbows and puppies.

And then, yes, it's right.

Everybody is the same.

I love it.

Yeah.

Old hierarchies no longer in effect, poor were seemingly uplifted again for a time.

Of course, good times, they could not last, especially with the siege going on and everything.

You know, they got pesky pope lawyer guy outside and he wants to.

He wants to do battle.

So.

But even before that, it got a little.

A little tense, I'll say.

There was a strict disciplinary system, put it within the city that the Anabaptists were really testing the pacifist part.

There was a strict disciplinary.

Oh, I already said that.

They started to take anybody or anything that was deemed ungodly and then punish them by death, which is, you know, I mean, okay, just going to skip a lot of due process here a.

Little much, you know.

Yeah.

But you know, it's.

For Mathis, it's going great.

He's definitely not feeding into his ego or prophetic self diagnosis at all.

No, he definitely was.

He was.

He was telling anyone who was listening that God was going to use him as a vessel to deliver justice.

Pretty normal.

Pretty typical stuff.

You know, the one thing I will say about modern cultists who preach this kind of thing is like the guy themselves don't usually take the action.

They usually, you know, convince people to take action for them.

Right, right.

People's tempo temple, like that's kind of an off liar where he.

They literally force people to drink the juice.

But like, outside of that, it's mostly like, hey, you guys go and do this thing for me and then, you know, whatever happens, happens.

The other one that, that they really like to get real hands on with was the solar temple, if you've ever looked into them.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Wild.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So that is where our boy Mathis is a little bit different.

He's.

I want to get the job done.

I'm going to do the thing.

And he also really just believed what he was selling.

And.

And this is kind of like a thing that happens with many cult leaders as they start to believe their own bs, right.

They like, you know what?

I think I might be.

Look at all these people that convince to follow me.

I might just be the prophet.

Yeah.

Getting high on their own supply, as it were.

Right.

Yeah.

And I say all this because the next action that this guy decided to take is pretty awesome.

So they're surrounded the city, it's under siege, right.

They.

They got the prince Bishop outside going, hey, man, you're not getting any more food.

You should come out.

Jan Mathis is like, you know what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take a small band of some.

Just me and some boys, we're gonna go out there and we're gonna handle this.

Then we'll come back in and it's gone.

It's gonna be fine.

Now, I don't claim to be an expert strategist in military combat.

Okay.

I have defended my fortified city various times in various time periods in Total war franchise games.

Same.

And I've done this tactic a couple times, but it doesn't work out well for the guys leaving, like, ever.

If you go outside of the walls of the fort or whatever it is and everybody else is still inside, the enemies only have one point to attack, and that's you.

Yeah.

But, you know, I don't know specifically how he decided to handle this attack, but I'm going to go say he did it wrong.

He.

He had like this reckoning of sorts.

He and his followers saw military standing outside the wall as a monster, as a sign of the end times.

Right.

And he's like, this is the test.

This is the big guy.

He's testing us.

And we got to.

We got to take the challenge, essentially.

Oh, perfect timing.

He claimed that God would deliver victory if the faithful would strike boldly against the enemy.

So, yeah, he stated that just as Gideon triumphed with a small band of people in the Old Testament, he was going to be the deliverance for Munster.

Right.

We're going to go out, we're going to kick these guys asses.

We're going to have plenty of time to go back in and find all the eggs.

It's going to be a good day.

Yep.

It's going to be a good time.

And everybody is getting chocolate.

So ham and mashed potatoes were had.

Yeah.

After declaring this, everybody was like, no, don't go.

Does God speak directly to you?

No.

Then I don't want to hear it.

And even his deputy, Jan van Leyden, was even like, hey, man, I got to tell you, buddy, one from one Yan to another seems like a bad move.

And Mathis was having none of it.

He took his small group of troops and there wasn't an exact count, but it Wasn't enough.

And they left.

Charged directly at the much larger army.

And in a move that surprised absolutely nobody, they were quickly overwhelmed.

Yeah.

Yep.

So you wanna.

You wanna guess as to what happened to this fella after this?

Oh, the prophet.

The good prophet.

I'm gonna say he probably got an express trip to meet Jesus himself.

Well, yeah, 100%.

Yeah.

Yeah.

He was killed and beheaded.

And then his and all of the other guys.

Heads were put on pikes just outside the city walls, within viewing distance.

And his genitals were nailed to the city door.

Oh, yeah, That's a bad one.

Yeah, it's not great.

Yeah.

Despite this, the siege continues.

Those inside, they're like, you know what?

This is the end times.

Because they killed our prophet.

And that's just what happened.

Remember, it happened all the other guys.

Turns out he was just a dude.

Yeah.

So another divine test.

The God.

The God's tested us.

We gotta.

We gotta step up.

And now another power vacuum.

Right?

We got.

Yeah.

And Van Leyden, he's coming in.

He's.

It's my time, baby.

Yeah.

I am the prophet now.

Yeah.

And it's an easy transition because you don't have to change the first name on any of the signs.

Fair.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So scratch it out on the business cards.

Now, he was dubbed the Taylor King because he was allegedly a tailor's apprentice at one point.

He also had an eloquence and an ambition that was a little different than Mathis, but he also learned from Mathis.

So he was very persuasive in the way he did things.

And after Mathis died in his kamikaze mission, people were feeling a little less excited about their doomsday prophecies.

They were not super hopeful, especially when their prophet just got erased.

And his dangle is on the door now.

So, you know, a bit of a bummer.

Yeah.

It's just a little, Little.

Little mojo gone.

MBD Van Lyden is.

He takes this opportunity, promotes himself, and telling his followers that he has now had.

That he too is going to receive divine authority.

He has been this whole time.

It's perfect and totally coincidental.

He claimed that God had appointed him as a successor and prophet as well.

Worked so good for the last guy.

He gained support from others in the flock, like the preacher Bernard Rothman, and another Bernard, Nipper Doling, which is a fun name.

That's a good one.

Yeah, Nipper Doling.

A lot of Yans and a lot of Bernies.

Anyway, Van Leiden slowly begins to consolidate his power.

Overruling and sidelining many of the people who were more moderate and hesitant in this whole siege.

They were like, we only want extremists.

Sorry, you're too chill for us.

By the.

So we're doing good.

We're.

That's just a little step further than the new Jerusalem.

He claims this kingdom by divine right, and now he is the Davidic king, like, of David, basically.

Okay, yeah.

So Davidic.

Yeah, that's probably how it is.

Even plans a ceremonial coronation, which, you know, most religions are pretty pumped about that, except for, you know, didn't we just break away from the one that does this all the time?

He's got a crown, he's got a scepter, he's got robes.

You know, this guy, he gets it, man.

Nothing the good Lord loves more than bodies for the big battle at the end of days.

And a guy playing dress up.

Yeah, he likes somebody with just a.

Little bit of flash, you know, you gotta have it.

I mean, if you're gonna be a good leader, you gotta have style.

And that's what a lot of people don't talk about.

I mean, we've all seen those super cool pants that Hitler wore that one time with the poofy thighs.

You know, that's true.

Yeah.

That's fashion, sweetie.

Okay.

And the excellent trench coats.

I mean, well, yeah, boss.

I mean, hey, they figured one thing out and that was style.

They might have been bad guys, but they look great.

Yeah.

Set the tone for all of the bad guys ever to like, just look cooler than everybody else.

Like, okay, I guess we are all okay with that.

We all just look like dorks.

And these guys are like stylish and all walking in slow motion for some reason right now.

In a few years, there has gone from a moderate trade hub to a profit led commune, and now to a theocratic monarchy, which is pretty, pretty exciting.

Under Van Leyden's rule, authority was central to him, obviously.

Be it civil, religious or military, punishments for dissent became more ferocious and executions happened, you know, just to keep the order.

We got to keep the peace.

Nothing, nothing keeps the peace better than just killing people.

Money no longer used or circulated.

Right.

Gotta keep going.

With the commune, step further along that lifestyle goods were redistributed even further because, you know, we have so much storage because this is like a big encampment that is like designed to withstand a long siege.

So they have a lot of stuff.

And this is a good move to kind of get people to chill out.

Because in Manor Lords, I've done this a couple of times where, yeah, people are getting hungry.

We got to empty the stores.

We got to, well, stop buying food.

Here you go.

You just can have it.

Because they're mad.

But, yeah, you gotta remember, these people are under siege.

They're a little tight on fun and resources.

So it's.

It's a balance you gotta.

You gotta really rock with.

Communal living was not just for the food or firewood either, because when you know it, Yan is about to take it a step further.

He is gonna have a community of wives, ladies and gentlemen.

Yep, that's right.

Now we're talking.

Now we're getting there.

Yep.

Divine right necessary for succession.

Every cult seems to do this in one way or another.

It's.

Eventually, it always ends up in polygamy.

And I don't know how they do it, but it's hilarious.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

That's right.

You know, and polygamy, it's introduced and justified by the Old Testament, right?

And similar to how, like, the extremist LDS guys do it, the fundamentalist guys.

And Van Leyden, he's, you know, crazy enough first in line for multiple wives, including the widow of her predecessor, obviously, like, you do.

And, you know, if you're a woman and you're like, yeah, but like, it was just polygamy.

It's not like arranged marriages.

So that's cool.

I got bad news.

Women who resisted polygamy faced coercion and in some cases, execution.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You don't want to marry me and my 16 wives?

Well, guess what?

You're dead.

How about that?

Now nobody's marrying you.

You're.

You're not people yet.

Yeah, yeah.

So polygamy, social policy, which enabled many of the widows from the people who were widows from the expulsion executions to now have husbands.

Granted, they were sharing that husband with, like, 12 other women, but you know what?

Good enough.

But city not just a romp fest, right?

We had stuff going on.

This is.

The apocalypse is ever closer.

It's just over the hill.

I can see it.

It's coming, you know, it's New Jerusalem, Zion, whatever you want to call it for whatever week it is.

You know, there.

There's constant sermons dedicated to Christ's imminent return, festivals organized by Leiden, trying to keep morale up, which must have been pretty tough, you know, how are you going to make people scared about fleeing and telling them that the world as they know it is about to be over.

But also expect them to, like, relax and hang out.

Just enjoy the music, man.

It's fine.

We got a craft fair.

Just ignore those guys through the gate staring at you.

The Grateful Dead is going to play in any minute, I swear.

How'd they get in here?

They've always been here, man.

And, you know, just a haze.

And all of these tensions exacerbated by the tightening of rations as the siege continued.

You know, people tried to do fun things like hunt mice and vermin around town to eat.

And then the pets were next.

And then as you do, you start to boil leather, which is never a good sign.

I don't remember which podcast.

I've talked about it before.

I'm pretty sure it was the Donner Pass one, where they're, like, eating clothes.

At some point, you start eating your shoes.

You're in bad, bad shape.

Yeah.

So, you know, good.

It's a good time.

Everybody's super chill and nobody's mad.

Famine ravaging the city alongside various diseases.

Probably syphilis if I was going to guess one.

Yeah.

Meanwhile, his Holiness Ben Lydon, hosting theatrical plays, huge feasts for himself in court.

Also a good sign.

Yeah.

He had spies running around who would rat on anyone who shared dissenting views.

You know what?

This guy actually figured communism out pretty quickly.

Yeah, he's kind of got it nailed, like, 300 years before anybody else did.

There's gonna be this dude east of here that's gonna really.

He's gonna do good at this, but not as good as me, you know.

More and more public executions, obviously, to keep order.

They varied.

Could be sword could be burned at the stake.

You know, it's whatever he's feeling.

Variety is the spice of life, after all.

That's right.

And then we have that guy, Bernard Rothman.

He was preaching sermons because he was the most.

I guess he was the best orator of the.

Of the group.