Baptism

Particular to the case of baptism, though, was the anxiety felt about those Christians who professed the so-called believer’s baptism, whom English-language scholars usually refer to as Anabaptists.2 See Monge, Des communautés mouvantes; Hill, Baptism, Brotherhood, and Belief, 98–135. Reformed Protestants needed to demonstrate their commitment to infant baptism first, as a way of distinguishing themselves from the near-universally reviled Anabaptists. This proved a challenge at times. Indeed, Reformed Protestants proved especially anxious about the dangers of being cast as akin to Anabaptists. This is in part because their theological critique of the Catholic and Lutheran ritual systems substantially overlapped with Anabaptist critiques but also because the absence of Reformed from the baptismal font might wrongly imply that they were Anabaptists themselves.3 Mirjam van Veen, “Calvin and the Anabaptists,” in Holder, John Calvin in Context, 364–72. Catholic and Lutheran debaters repeatedly lumped Reformed Protestants and Anabaptists together into a single dangerous category of sacramentalist heresy.4 Scholz, Strange Brethren, 77–79; Spohnholz, Tactics of Toleration, 58–66. On Lutheran anti-Reformed polemic more generally, see Nischan, Lutherans and Calvinists. But the matter was more than a rhetorical one. Reformed consistories routinely found people with Anabaptist ideas or who attended Anabaptist services within their own congregations. This nagging problem only reinforced their sense of danger.5 Spohnholz, “Overlevend non-conformisme”; Schipper, “Across the Borders of Belief,” 93–95; Gorter, Gereformeerde migranten, 89–90; Pettegree, “Struggle for an Orthodox Church.” Thus, whether their welcome in cities or towns of the Holy Roman Empire was formal or informal, warm or begrudging, Reformed Protestant migrants in the Empire needed to ensure with absolute certainty that no one confused them with Anabaptists.

As a result, the stakes could be high if new Dutch Reformed parents failed to show up at their local parish to baptize their infant. They might be arrested (and expelled or executed), their congregation might gain a reputation for harboring Anabaptist heresies or, if they chose to travel elsewhere for the rite, they risked the newborns dying en route. Pastors, elders, and parents navigated these perils as best they could. The result was a wide variety of options for how and where Dutch Reformed living in these migrant communities baptized their children. Their order of preference generally went as follows. The best-case scenario was to baptize newborns safely in the presence of their own congregation according to a Reformed baptismal liturgy. The next best option was to baptize in a local, recognizably Protestant church, even if it was not Reformed. The third option was to travel to a Protestant church elsewhere. Their fourth best option was to have the infant baptized in a local Catholic church. This diversity of options also meant that Dutch Reformed consistories often proved unable to keep track of the baptisms of children born within their congregations. There were simply too many jurisdictions and too many clergymen who might have been involved to keep it all straight.

In Cologne, of course, baptisms were required by law to take place in a Catholic church. Reformed Protestant parents put themselves into considerable danger if they failed to appear at the baptismal font in one of the city’s nineteen parish churches soon after a new birth.6 See Monge, Des communautés mouvantes. When Peter van den Eynde, the Reformed elder from Mechelen, failed to show up in a parish church to baptize his newborn twins (Peter and Katline) in 1572, city officials arrested him for suspected Anabaptism. After two weeks of detention, he was banished from Cologne.7 Gorter, Gereformeerde migranten, 138. In 1580, the Reformed Netherlander Herman Schonk was also arrested when officials noticed his absence from the Catholic baptismal font following a recent birth. When questioned, Schonk explained that he had baptized his child in Bedburg, where the nobleman Hermann von Neuenahr maintained a Reformed pastor in his Unterherrschaft within the archbishopric of Cologne, because (he explained) Cologne’s priests do it wrong.8 Gorter, Gereformeerde migranten, 139. On the legal and ecclesiastical situation for Neuenahr’s Unterherrschaft within the archbishopric of Cologne at the time, see Goeters, “Die Herrschaft Bedburg,” in 400 Jahre Bedburger Synode, 49–71. On the these kinds of noble inholdings as centers of Protestantism, see also Gillner, Freie Herren, Freie Religion. The Neuenahr lands also provided sanctuaries for Anabaptists. See Monge, “Überleben durch Vernetzung.”

Cologne’s Dutch Reformed elders also sometimes urged new parents to hurry up with the baptism, probably anxious not only for the parents’ safety but for that of the whole congregation. They visited Anna Sauvage in July 1577 because she had waited three months to baptize her son.9 WMV 2/2, 107. In August 1585 they similarly urged Jan Flagelet to speed up the baptism of his newborn.10 WMV 2/2, 221. Elders gave the same push to Hans Claessens in January 1587. They urged Andries Lambrecht to hurry up with the baptism of his children—presumably twins—in April 1588.11 WMV 2/2, 297. This effort was about keeping up appearances, lest their Catholic neighbors suspect them of harboring Anabaptists. But it was more than that. In seventeenth-century France, Reformed parents sometimes delayed the baptism of their children for long periods, as a self-conscious rejection of the Catholic teaching that infants who died before baptism were damned to hell.12 Benedict, Huguenot Population, 23–28. But of course, such parents were unlikely to be suspected of Anabaptism, which barely existed in that country. Elsewhere, Dutch Reformed pastors did urge parents to avoid emergency baptisms to sickly infants, based on the same rejection of Catholic doctrine, but instead to wait for upcoming Sunday worship services for the baptism.13 Alastair Duke, “The Reformation of the Backwoods: The Struggle for a Calvinist and Presbyterian Church Order in the Countryside of South Holland and Utrecht before 1620,” in his Reformation and Revolt, 263; Evenhuis, Ook dat was Amsterdam, 2:50–53. But in Cologne, fear that Anabaptism might be lurking risked the reputation of the parents but also that of the entire congregation. Thus, the consistory’s main concern was speeding up, not slowing down, the pace of baptism as a matter of combating the spread of heresy from within.

Cologne’s Dutch Reformed elders also sometimes arranged baptisms in nearby Protestant polities, just as they did for marriages. In the spring of 1575 a Reformed woman traveled to Hückelhoven, part of another small Unterherrschaft ruled by Count Hermann von Neuenahr within the archbishopric of Cologne.14 Goeters, “Die Herrschafft Bedburg,” in 400 Jahre Bedburger Synode, 63–64. In May 1586, they prepared an attestation for Lisbeth de Beekers (Lijsbeth die Backersche) to baptize her child in Oberwinter (“Wynteren”), a small Herrlichkeit, 46 kilometers up the Rhine where the local lord also supported a small Reformed congregation.15 WMV 1/3, 237. In November 1587, the elder Jan Castelyn met with the new mother Yngel Tobias to advise her on where she could travel to baptize her infant.16 WMV 1/3, 282. In some cases, members of Cologne’s Dutch Reformed consistory also helped organize baptisms for members of their congregation with Protestant pastors from outside the city. In 1578, the pastor Johannes Christianus came to Cologne (where he had earlier served as pastor in 1572) from the Herrlichkeit of Bedburg, another Protestant noble enclave within the archbishopric of Cologne, to baptize the first born child of a young Reformed couple.17 Goeters, “Die Herrschafft Bedburg,” in 400 Jahre Bedburger Synode, 60. The situation was probably similar in November 1587, when Cologne’s Dutch Reformed elders gave permission for the wealthy merchant Wouter van der Meersch (i.e., Gualtero del Prato) to arrange for a minister from elsewhere (“eenen vrembden Dienaer”) to baptize his infant son.18 WMV 1/3, 285–86; Gorter, Gereformeerde migranten, 139. But elders did not appreciate it when members of the congregation arranged for private baptisms on their own. On October 13, 1578, they admonished the recent widow Anna van Venlo for organizing a private baptism of her newborn without consistorial approval.19 WMV 1/3, 120. In January 1587, they sent one of the elders, Hans Castelyn, to investigate whether there was a “foreign minister in the city in order to baptize children.”20 WMV 1/3, 251. Whatever intelligence they had must have been solid because in November they admonished Jan Flagelet for having an outside minister baptize his children there without permission.21 WMV 1/3, 285; Gorter, Gereformeerde migranten, 139. This Jan Flagelet may be the son of the previous man mentioned with the same name, because in the intervening years, the elders begin to mention the widow of Jan Flagelet in their records, for example, WMV 1/3, 269. Elders’ chief concern seems to have been not that baptism was performed by another congregations’ minister specifically, but that it had happened without the knowledge and support of Flagelet’s home congregation.

Occasionally, fear of being associated with Anabaptists encouraged some Dutch Reformed migrants in Cologne to baptize their infants in the city’s Catholic churches.22 Gorter, Gereformeerde migranten, 109. Jan van Laer, for instance, was temporarily suspended from the Lord’s Supper for having his infant baptized by one of Cologne’s priests in 1573.23 WMV 1/3, 60. For a similar case about the same time in the Reformed church for those from east of the Maas (i.e., the “German” Reformed congregation), see Simons, Kölnische Konsistorial-Beschlüsse, 51. In 1580, the new mother Anna, wife of Jan Sauvage, similarly confessed her guilt before the congregation for having her newborn baptized in one of Cologne’s Catholic churches.24 660WMV 1/3, 141–42, 146, 147. It is not clear that this is the same person as Anna Sauvage, mentioned earlier, though this is possible. The previously mentioned woman was married to Guillaume Wijbaut, while this one is only listed as Jan Sauvage’s wife. They may be the same woman or related. In September 1588, the Dutch Reformed consistory at Cologne wrote to a synod (which one is not clear, since that word had multiple meanings at the time) to ask what they should do if they were unable to dissuade someone in their church from baptizing his children “in papistry.”25 WMV 1/3, 310. On diverse meaning of synods, see chapter 5. Similar to burials, elders’ central concern was the possible temptation to idolatry associated with holy water, crucifixes, clerical vestments and the like, not the validity of Catholic pedobaptism. While there is no comparable evidence from Aachen during the years when Protestantism remained underground, we can surmise that the situation there was similar.

In the small hometowns of Cleves, the same basic pattern emerged. In some cases, particularly if the Reformed community had a strong local patron, arranging for a baptism in the presence of their own congregation proved relatively easy. But when they did not, baptisms could attract unwanted attention. In April 1576, elders in Emmerich asked the delegates at the classis of Cleves whether they could baptize children only in their presence, rather than in front of the whole congregation, to avoid risking unwanted attention. The classis approved of this but only if such a practice was done “with discretion,” and not if this was permitted only to wealthy members of the congregation.26 Simons, Synodalbuch, 522. Elsewhere, Protestants did not support private baptisms because they failed to convey the communal principle of the sacrament. Karant-Nunn, Reformation of Ritual, 55. And in June 1576, the pastor officiating a baptism in Emmerich warned attendants not to discuss their presence at the rite with others.27 Schipper, “Across the Borders of Belief,” 91. Reformed migrants in Xanten sometimes traveled to Wesel or other nearby locations with a Protestant church for baptism. In early 1573 Floris van Randwijk and Mechtel van Boeckholt took their son Arnold to Wesel to be baptized.28 Schipper, “Across the Borders of Belief,” 144–45. As mentioned earlier, the baby died soon after making the journey and was buried in Xanten. When they had their next child, in 1574, they decided to move to Wesel for the birth so that they would not have to travel with a fragile infant. In Rees, too, parents often took infants to Protestant towns for baptisms.29 Dünnwald, Konfessionsstreit und Verfassungskonflikt, 157–58; Schipper, “Across the Borders of Belief,” 145. While Rees’s Reformed elders may have encouraged parents to make the trip, their arrival in the community to which they traveled sometimes worried locals. In June 1574, Wesel’s Reformed elders wrote a letter to their colleagues in smaller towns around the duchy of Cleves asking them to stop sending members of the congregations to baptize newborns in Wesel, warning of the “disunity and division that would arise from this.”30 EKAW Gefach 72,1 fols. 35v, 36r. Spohnholz, Tactics of Toleration, 179. Apparently, Weselers feared that the city would get a reputation with ducal officials for violating Pfarrzwang or supporting sacramentarian heresy in the duchy.

In the hometowns of Cleves that relied on itinerant pastors or shared pastors splitting their time between multiple congregations, parents sometimes had to wait for the sacrament. In November 1576, the elder at Goch noted to new parents that their shared pastor, Servatius Wijnants (from Weert, in neighboring Guelders) could not safely make it to Gennep to baptize their newborn, and they could not get to the noble enclave of Hörstgen, ruled by the Reformed Myllendonk noble family. They recommended that the parents instead travel with their infant to Goch, on the condition that they not tell anyone in Gennep the reason for their journey.31 Van Booma, Communio clandestina, 1:221; Schipper, “Across the Borders of Belief,” 145. The fact that Reformed believed that salvation did not require baptism, which constituted an external sign of the inward sacrament, meant that parents did not have to worry that newborns might suffer eternal damnation if they died before baptism could be administered.

The threat of punishment convinced some Reformed Protestants in Cleves hometowns to baptize their infants in Catholic parish churches as well.32 While we don’t have surviving evidence about whether any Reformed Protestants asked Lutheran clergy to baptize their newborns, the fact that some had priests administer infant baptisms makes this likely. Social pressure could also convince parents to compromise on this point. In 1577, the wife of Bernd de Snyder explained that she had promised to neighbors who had helped her in childbirth that she would let Goch’s Catholic priest baptize her twins.33 Schipper, “Across the Borders of Belief,” 94. Apparently her husband agreed, since they did not have the money for a trip to Wesel, a forty-two-kilometer journey that required crossing the Rhine. When the elders warned Bernd not to take this step, he reminded them that they too had been baptized in the Catholic Church and had not been rebaptized when they left Rome. Elders were appalled and disgusted that Bernd would so easily “sacrifice his children to Satan.” He went ahead and baptized his infants in the city church with, as the elders complained, five or six “godless papists and enemies of the congregation of Christ” as godparents. We only know the details of the story because Bernd later repented. But he was not alone. The Reformed Protestant Thies de Bommeler baptized his newborn in Goch’s Catholic Church in 1591.34 Van Booma, Communio clandestina, 1:331. In Kalkar, too, some Reformed Protestants baptized infants in the local Catholic Church.35 Ehrenpreis, “Die Vereinigten Herzogtümer Jülich-Kleve-Berg,” in Schilling and Smolinsky, Der Augsburger Religionsfrieden, 263. Those who received permission to attend sermons in Reformed congregations but did not submit to disciplinary oversight of the elders, probably also baptized infants in Catholic parish churches in Cleves hometowns.36 See Van Booma, Communio clandestina, 1: 34–35.

In Protestant asylums, baptism was a far less fraught matter for Dutch Reformed migrants. This might seem unsurprising, given most Protestants’ shared critiques of Catholic sacramental theology.37 Karant-Nunn, Reformation of Ritual, 66–71. And yet, Lutheran-Reformed conflicts on the sacraments, including baptism, could be intense. At times, the polemical chasm seemed as intractable as any other religious conflict of the Reformation era. Reformed Protestants especially mocked those Lutherans who retained exorcisms as a part of the rite, which they saw as a superstitious holdover from Catholicism.38 Nischan, “Exorcism Controversy.” See also Raitt, Colloquy of Montbéliard, 137–47. They also criticized Lutherans’ willingness to accept emergency baptisms, performed by a midwife or other layperson, in the case of justified fear that the infant might die before getting to a church. Such a view, Reformed critics countered, implied that the external actions of the rite itself were required for salvation and not merely God’s grace.

Heated conflicts between Protestant camps emerged in the mid-1550s over both exorcisms and emergency baptisms, including in Wesel.39 Spohnholz, Tactics of Toleration, 46, 52. See also Nischan, “Exorcism Controversy,” 31–51. And yet, once the initial confessional hostilities died down, most Reformed Protestants baptized their newborns in one of Wesel’s two parish churches without incident. Compromise helped make this possible since the city’s church ordinance included exorcisms and recognized emergency baptisms.40 Lurz, “Initation im Einfältigen Bedenken,” 294–95; Spohnholz, Tactics of Toleration, 39–40. A surviving liturgical book from the late sixteenth century includes the Einfältiges Bedenken (Simple Consideration) of Hermann von Wied, but also the Württemberg church ordinance of 1565 and Veit Dietrich’s guide for pastors from 1543. Next to the passage on baptism in the Württemberg church ordinance, which did not include the exorcism in its rite, is a marginal note from one of Wesel’s pastors, Johannes Havenberg, “If it is pleasing, read from the form of the Archbishop [Hermann von Wied],” which included the exorcism.41 EKAW Gefach 21,1 Kirchenordnung in Fürstentum Wüttemberg, fol. 6r. The note indicates some measure of choice as to whether baptismal exorcism was used or not. Given that Wesel’s pastors allowed congregants to choose for themselves how to receive the bread and wine in celebration of the Lord’s Supper, it seems reasonable to conclude that the choice referenced here was not made by pastors but offered to parents. The fact that even Lutheran defenders of baptisms regarded exorcisms as an indifferent matter (adiaphoron) made this option less controversial. Further, the fact that Reformed elders, like Jacques van der Haghen in 1581, and deacons, like Bernt Mensing in 1578 and 1589, baptized their newborns in Wesel’s churches probably served as a model for other Reformed Protestants to follow.42 These are among the 151 Reformed Netherlanders Jesse Spohnholz identified in the surviving baptismal lists from 1578 to 1582 for St. Willibrord’s parish in Wesel. Spohnholz, Tactics of Toleration, 79.

Some Reformed Netherlanders in Wesel, however, were not content to baptize their infant in a congregation so tainted by “superstition.” In August 1575, Matthijs Schaets, a Reformed refugee from Oudenaarde, explained to elders that he and his wife would have to move elsewhere before the birth of their next child because Wesel’s formula of baptism offended their consciences.43 EKAW Gefach 72,2, fol. 8r. Similarly, in the summer of 1579, Nicholas Muller, a Reformed Protestant from Brussels, refused to baptize his child in one of Wesel’s churches.44 Spohnholz, Tactics of Toleration, 79. We have found no specific examples of parents traveling for baptisms to more “pure” Reformed congregations that operated in secret elsewhere in the duchy.45 This claim corrects one made in Spohnholz, Tactics of Toleration, 79. However, in April 1580 the classis of Cleves permitted church members to skip the baptisms of others if they objected to the exorcisms used by “the Lutheran preachers.”46 EKAW Gefach 12,5 fol. 43r.

Ironically, it was supporters of the 1530 Augsburg Confession invariata—Lutherans—who raised a louder objection to baptizing children in Wesel’s churches because they resented the heretical contamination that the Reformed Protestants represented within their congregation. Further, unlike Reformed Protestants, they felt entitled to make their discontent known. Thus in 1562, Antwerp Lutheran Philip van Wesenbeke caused a scandal when he hired a Lutheran chaplain from the village of Mehr, fifteen kilometers down the Rhine, to baptize his child.47 Spohnholz, Tactics of Toleration, 61. In 1564, Johann von Pruit, a Weseler, appeared before the pastor who openly supported the Augsburg Confession invariata, Thomas Plateanus, rather than going to his neighborhood parish. As he explained when he got in trouble for the transgression, he “held himself to the pure Augsburg Confession and not to other sects. He did not want to anger any pious Christians and he suspected the faith of [his pastor Nicholas] Rollius.”48 SAW A3/55 fol. 65v. In 1578, the Lutheran Stephen Zemmemeister, brought his pregnant wife to Essen so that their newborn could be baptized in a church that taught the Augsburg Confession invariata.49 The child died upon his return, which prompted Zemmemeister to protest because he felt the pastor’s willingness to tolerate heresy was the cause of the tragedy. The pastor Gerhard Veltius blamed Zemmemeister for his contempt for the local church. Spohnholz, Tactics of Toleration, 129. In 1590, an anti-Reformed song circulated in manuscript form among Wesel’s hardline Lutherans, lambasting the “poisonous Calvinists,” who “reject the Holy Baptism … Reject the exorcism / Insult the churches and altars / Storm all images [and] / will not tolerate a baptismal font.”50 EKAW Gefach 65,2,2 fol. 4v. Spohnholz, Tactics of Toleration, 133.

Matters were fairly similar in Frankfurt. From 1554 to 1562, when Dutch-speaking Reformed Protestants had permission to worship in the Weißfrauenkirche along with English- and French-speaking migrants, they celebrated baptism as they saw fit, according to Reformed tradition.51 On these three refugee groups together, see Scholz, Strange Brethren. After the city council closed the Weißfrauenkiche in 1562, infants born in Frankfurt were required to be baptized in city churches. Frankfurt’s two Dutch Reformed ministers disagreed on how to respond. Gaspar van der Heyden wanted to refuse to baptize Reformed newborns in Frankfurt’s churches. He justified his position by citing the city pastors’ refusal to accept his congregation as part of the true church, but he also objected to the “papist opinion” that tolerated emergency baptisms.52 Gorter, Gereformeerde migranten, 141–42. His colleague, Petrus Dathenus, countered that Frankfurt’s pastors’ doctrine of baptism did not fundamentally deviate from Reformed teachings. Further, the fact that exorcism was not practiced in Frankfurt made the city’s baptisms less objectionable for Reformed migrants. As Dathenus explained, the requirement that parents and godparents reject Satan during the ceremony in place of exorcism was unnecessary, but it was not godless.53 As he explained in his letter to John Calvin, dated April 28, 1562. CO 19, ep. 3777, 396–97. For Frankfurt’s 1554 formula of baptism, Arend, Die evangelische Kirchenordnungen, 527–39. The 1589 revision was largely the same but includes instructions for how to conduct an emergency baptism. Arend, Die evangelische Kirchenordnungen, 547–51. With regard to the Lord’s Supper, Dathenus had vitriolic words for Frankfurt’s church and its pastors.54 See his Petrus Dathenus, Kurtze und warhafftige Erzelung. But on baptism, he saw no reason for confessional polemic. As it turned out, the two pastors’ disagreement was moot, since both men left Frankfurt after the closure of their church.

After another Dutch-speaking Reformed congregation reemerged in Frankfurt in 1570, Reformed Netherlanders baptized their children in Frankfurt’s city parishes without much ado. In 1575 city pastors reported to Frankfurt’s patricians that some Reformed had expressed reluctance about taking their newborns to the city church for baptism, but in general they complied.55 Meinert, Die Eingliederung, 382. We see no evidence of controversy emerging about this practice, either among local Lutherans or within Frankfurt’s Dutch-speaking Reformed congregation. Indeed, the elders focused on ensuring that they did not spark the wrath of magistrates by openly repudiating the local baptism rite.56 Gorter, Gereformeerde migranten, 43–44; Scharff, “Die niederländische und die französische Gemeinde,” 259–60. As at Cologne, it seems likely that an eagerness not to appear to be Anabaptist played a role in encouraging Reformed to accept baptism according to practices used in Frankfurt’s Lutheran churches. Overall, there seems to have been widespread agreement among Dutch Reformed migrants across the Holy Roman Empire with regard to baptism: baptisms in non-Reformed churches should be avoided if possible but not rejected if they occurred.

Starting in the 1590s, elders and pastors in Dutch Reformed migrant congregations in majority Catholic communities expressed new concerns that laypeople in their churches not have Catholics serve as godparents for their children or serve as godparents for Catholic children. Cologne’s Dutch Reformed elders warned Gillis Zeghers in March 1592, for instance, that he could only have members of his own church serve as godparents for his children.57 WMV 1/3, 272–73. They told Hans Mannaert the same later that year.58 WMV 1/3, 284. Their concern is understandable: if something happened to Zeghers or Mannaert, it would not be clear whether the children would be raised in the Reformed tradition. Elders also insisted that Reformed Christians not serve as godparents for children being baptized in the Catholic church. Elders at Goch admonished Willemken Luvendals for serving as a godparent at a Catholic baptism “over the Maas River” (over der Masen) in October 1593.59 Van Booma, Communio clandestina, vol. 1, 347, 348; Schipper, “Across the Borders of Belief,” 59. It’s not clear whether this new concern reflected the frequency of cross-­confessional friendships, described in chapter 3, a more intense patrolling of confessional boundaries by ministers and elders at the end of the century, or a combination of both.60 As happened elsewhere in the region. Spohnholz, Tactics of Toleration, 230–40; Ehrenpreis, Lokale Konfessionskonflikte; Luebke, Hometown Religion.