The earliest Anabaptist confession, The Seven Articles of Schleitheim (1527), forbade in Article 4 the patronage of drinking places. Capito, the reformer of Strasbourg, states in a contemporary letter that the Anabaptists had undertaken to refrain, among other things, from drinking (“zu meiden das üppige Spielen, Saufen, Fressen, Ehebrechen, Kriegen, Totschlagen”). Bullinger, Zwingli‘s successor in Zürich, in his 1560 work against the Anabaptists (Von der Wiedertaufferen Ursprung) states that they drank only unfermented sweet cider (Süssmost) and water. Anabaptists were often identified as such because they refused in the inns to drink alcoholic liquors to the health of other guests, whereupon they were arrested and executed. An illustration of this is Michael Seifensieder, a preacher of the Hutterites, who with two associates [Hieronymus Kals and Hans Oberecker -ed.] was arrested on Jan. 8, 1536, in an inn in Vienna for the above reason,* having been discovered by his refusal to drink, and was finally burned at the stake on March 31, 1536.
* The episode as described in the Martyrs Mirror runs thus:
While they were eating supper, the people tried to ascertain their character by drinking to their health; but when they perceived that they would not respond, the host had some paper brought, and wrote a letter in Latin, which, among other things, read as follows, “Here are three persons who appear to me to be Anabaptists.” But he did not know that Brother Jerome [Hieronymus Kals] understood Latin. Then said Jerome to the other brethren, they would watch together, let things go as the dear Lord should please. Two hours afterwards the constables came and brought them bound before the judge, and when they had been examined they were put in prison.
On this day..
- 1984: Ryszard Sobok
- 1794: Madame Lavergne and Monsieur Lavergne, united in love
- 1832: James Lea and Joseph Grindley, arsonists
- 1777: James Molesworth, in the words of the Founding Fathers
- 1843: A bunch from Heage hanged
- 1949: Dr. Chisato Ueno, because life protracted is protracted woe
- 1923: Konstanty Romuald Budkiewicz, Catholic priest in the USSR
- 1312: Pierre Vigier de la Rouselle, Gascon
- 1984: Ronald Clark O'Bryan, candyman
- 1856: William Bousfield, Calcraft'd
- 2001: Mariette Bosch, love triangulator
- 1947: Qazi Muhammed, father of Kurdistan