SPIRITUALIZING THE CRUSADE: DAVID JORIS IN THE CONTEXT OF THE EARLY REFORM AND ANABAPTIST MOVEMENTS IN THE NETHERLANDS, 1524-1543

This dissertation contributes to a scholarly understanding of the important role played by David Joris in the early Dutch Sacramentarian and Anabaptist movements between 1524 and 1542.;It was within this complex matrix of spiritual and practical turmoil that David Joris sought to invigorate the flagging hopes of perplexed Anabaptists. While Joris was typical of Dutch radical reformers in his odyssey from Sacramentarianism to Anabaptism, the punishment he received at the hands of the authorities as an early reformer (1528) helped to forge his uniquely cautious Anabaptist stance and may partially explain both his early and continued opposition to the violent tactics of radical groups and his theology of inwardness. Joris, however, attempted to reach a compromise agreement with the remaining Munsterites and Melchiorites and to unify all of Dutch Anabaptism under his charismatic leadership. To do so he offered radical Anabaptists enough continuity with past beliefs and hoped to provide them an avenue to maintain their reform zeal and at the same time lay down their weapons.;Joris, by his attempts to unite the fragmented Anabaptist movement and by his success at gaining a large and devout following, became the most important Anabaptist leaders in the Netherlands for the half-decade following the defeat of the Munster kingdom in 1535. Joris' support came largely from artisans who had joined the Anabaptist movement earlier and who found his religion of internal exile more appropriate for remaining in the urban centres of the Netherlands than the sectarian option presented by Menno Simons.;Worsening economic crises, increasing persecution and the general inability of moderate Sacramentarian leaders to achieve major reforms made the more radical restitutio program of Melchior Hoffman readily acceptable to a significant segment of urbanites by the time of his preaching campaign in Emden in 1530. Reform hopes were transformed into attempts to establish the eschatalogical kingdom in various urban centres such as Munster, Amsterdam and Strasbourg. With the failure of these radical experiments to reform society, many Anabaptists--the majority of whom were urban artisans--became disillusioned and found themselves displaced from both their homes and means of livelihood.