John Calvin NEH Institute, day two

I am reading about martyrdom and death in Western Europe from approx 1500-1700. Not all people who were killed could be considered martyrs. Two Augustinian monks were burned in Brussels in July 1523. There were many people killed (Protestants, Anabaptists & Roman Catholics) in the name of religion in Western Europe. Not so many deaths in Italy



Anabaptists believed you had to renounce your baptism and constantly be aware of accepting baptism. They got rid of clergyman, leaders were Karlstadt Muntzer. They believed in a Augustinian Spiritualism & Utopia, wanted everyone to go to heaven, believed that you could have direct contact with God, they believed you had to be good on the inside (spirit) and follow the scripture. They read and sang and preached, believed that God was in all people. They believed in personal responsibility for moral practices, not predestination. Live life according to God's will & read the scriptures. They took their anticlerical sentiment and transferred it to Luther and educated scholars as well, as they perceived them to be monopolizing the scripture. They criticized Luther for making the passion more "honey sweet", while ignoring the bitterness of it. Wanted internal change and it needed to be demonstratable.
Anabaptists encouraged women to take an active role, they fought in the peasants war and took part in the Anabaptist movement. Women hid and sheltered the persecuted, they supported their husbands, but if they did not feel spiritual harmony they left them. Reduced sacraments to only communion and baptism. They were upset by indulgences, separated themselves from the world because the world was evil and everyone lived in sin.