sies that had previously resisted the
government, now supported it in this one particular, persecution of the
Anabaptists. When at Amsterdam [Sidenote: 1534] the sectaries rose and
very nearly mastered the city, death by fire was decreed for the men, by
water for the women. From Antwerp they were banished by a general edict
especially aimed at them supplemented by massacres in the northern
provinces. [Sidenote: June 24, 1535] After the crisis at Muenster,
though the Anabaptists continued to be a bugbear to the ruling classes,
their propaganda lost its dangerously revolutionary character. Menno
Simons of Friesland, after his conversion in 1536, became the leader of
the movement and succeeded in gathering the smitten people into a large
and harmless body. The Anabaptists furnished, however, more martyrs than
did any other sect.

Lutheranism also continued to spread. The edict of 1540 confesses as
much while providing new and sterner penalties against those who even
interceded for heretics. The fact is that the inquisition as directed
against Lutherans was thoroughly unpopular and was resisted in various
provinces on the technical ground of local privileges. The Protestants
managed {245} to keep unnoticed amidst a general intention to connive at
them, and though they did not usually flinch from martyrdom they did not
court it. The inquisitors were obliged to arrest their victims at the
dead of night, raiding their houses and hauling them from bed, in order
to avoid popular tumult. [Sidenote: 1543] When Enzinas printed his
Spanish Bible at Antwerp the printer told him that in that city the
Scriptures had been published in almost every European language,
doubtless an exaggeration but a significant one. Arrested and imprisoned
at Brussels for this cause, Enzinas received while under duress visits
from four hundred citizens of that city who were Protestants. To control
the book trade an oath was exacted of every bookseller [Sidenote: 1546]
not to deal in heretical works and the first "Index of prohibited books,"
drawn up by the University of Louvain, was issued. A censorship of plays
was also attempted. This was followed by an edict of 1550 requiring of
every person entering the Netherlands a certificate of Catholic belief.
As Brabant and Antwerp repudiated a law that would have ruined their
trade, it remained, in fact, a dead letter.

Charles's policy of repression had been on the whole a failure, due
partly