mitigation of judgment upon the Anabaptists, and declared that their real history had yet to be written His contributions to our knowledge of the Münster affair are not only of great value in themselves, but his labours encouraged other scholars to delve among the records for the facts regarding a much-misunderstood and greatly abused people. The next great service was rendered by Dr. Josef Beck, Counsellor of the Austrian Supreme Court of Judicature, whose Geschichts-Bücher der Wiedertäufer
(Historical Writings of the Anabaptists)[1] marks an epoch in the study of these people. With great industry he gathered from archives and libraries a vast mass of original Anabaptist literature, to which he added a rich collection of his own; and from these sources he collated, condensed, and edited a volume that for the first time gave the world an inside view of Anabaptist teaching and history.
It is not practicable, nor is it necessary, to speak
- ↑ This was published in 1883, as vol. xliii. in the Fontes Rerum Austriacarum, Second Series, and also reprinted separately.
to the Old Catholics. But at the time he wrote this book he was in full communion with the Roman Church, had shown no symptom of separation from it, and was, so far as anything appeared, in full sympathy with all its doctrines. What else but a Roman Catholic should one call him in 1855?
