BOKELSZOON (BEUKELSZOON, BOCKELSON, BOCKHOLD), JOHANN. — Leading figure of Anabaptism in Germany, better known by the name of John of Leiden, born in Münster about 1509, and executed in the same city in 1536. He did not adopt the new doctrines until after a visit to Münster to hear the able Anabaptist preachers, to whose party he adhered. In 1533 he returned definitively to Münster, where, after the murder of Johann Metthesen at the beginning of 1534, he married his widow and became an “apostle.”
Exploiting the disorders of the city, the audacity of this demagogue knew no bounds. On 25 April 1534, at his suggestion, a decree was issued banishing all who refused to accept the new baptism. Churches, monasteries, and libraries were destroyed; community of goods was also introduced. Alleging heavenly revelations, he suppressed the magistracy, installed twelve of his own judges, and then assumed absolute power, taking the title of king and governing the city of Sion, as he called Münster. He introduced polygamy and is said to have taken sixteen wives. In a manifesto he proclaimed his imminent expedition to punish all the kingdoms of the earth and subject them to himself, and he had already divided the neighboring lands among his confederates. Disorder reached its height. Only after a ten-month siege was the Prince-Archbishop of Münster, aided by troops of other princes, able to take the city (25 June 1535). Bokelson, his chancellor Krechting, and his executioner Knipperdolling were executed after many outrages, and their limbs, enclosed in iron chests, were hung from the tower of St. Lambert’s.