Schaff - History of the Christian Church Vol. 8 - Media Sabda Org

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It is not known whether Zwingli really consented to the death sentence, but
he certainly did not openly oppose it. f142
Six executions in all took place in Zurich between 1527 and 1532. Manz
was the first victim. He was bound, carried to a boat, and thrown into the
river Limmat near the lake, Jan. 5, 1527. He praised God that he was about
to die for the truth, and prayed with a loud voice, “Into thy hands, O Lord,
I commend my spirit!” Bullinger describes his heroic death. Grebel had
escaped the same fate by previous death in 1526. The last executions took
place March 23, 1532, when Heinrich Karpfis and Hans Herzog were
drowned. The foreigners were punished by exile, and met death in Roman
Catholic countries. Blaurock was scourged, expelled, and burnt, 1529, at
Clausen in the Tyrol. Hätzer, who fell into carnal sins, was beheaded for
adultery and bigamy at Constance, Feb. 24, 1529. John Zwick, a
Zwinglian, says that “a nobler and more manful death was never seen in
Constance.” Thomas Blaurer bears a similar testimony. f143 Hübmaier, who
had fled from Waldshut to Zurich, December, 1525, was tried before the
magistracy, recanted, and was sent out of the country to recant his
recantation. f144 He labored successfully in Moravia, and was burnt at the
stake in Vienna, March 10, 1528. Three days afterwards his faithful wife,
whom he had married in Waldshut, was drowned in the Danube.
Other Swiss cantons took the same measures against the Anabaptists as
Zurich. In Zug, Lorenz Fürst was drowned, Aug. 17, 1529. In Appenzell,
Uliman and others were beheaded, and some women drowned. At Basle,
Oecolampadius held several disputations with the Anabaptists, but without
effect; whereupon the Council banished them, with the threat that they
should be drowned if they returned (Nov. 13, 1530). The Council of Berne
adopted the same course.
In Germany and in Austria the Anabaptists fared still worse. The Diet of
Speier, in April, 1529, decreed that “every Anabaptist and rebaptized
person of either sex be put to death by sword, or fire, or otherwise.” The
decree was severely carried out, except in Strassburg and the domain of
Philip of Hesse, where the heretics were treated more leniently. The most
blood was shed in Roman Catholic countries. In Görz the house in which
the Anabaptists were assembled for worship was set on fire. “In Tyrol and
Görz,” says Cornelius, f145 “the number of executions in the year 1531
reached already one thousand; in Ensisheim, six hundred. At Linz seventythree
were killed in six weeks. Duke William of Bavaria, surpassing all