May 26, 1526

Within a few weeks of undergoing baptism from Balthasar Hubmaier, Hans Denck held a conversation with an old acquaintance who had recently shown up in Augsburg. That acquaintance was Hans Hut, erstwhile supporter of Thomas Müntzer who followed him into the deadly debacle at Frankenhausen. Ever since escaping the nobles’ onslaught against the revolting peasants at Frankenhausen and learning of Müntzer’s subsequent death, Hut had to adjust his apocalyptic beliefs that God was going to initiate a reign of justice by leading the peasants to military victory over their lords. But he still held apocalyptic expectations of Christ’s imminent return. 

Hut had returned to his home town of Bibra after escaping Frankenhausen uninjured in May 1525, but Hut’s willingness to speak publicly against clerical authorities in Bibra now proved to be a liability once most people recognized the dangers of being associated with leaders of the peasant revolts. By May 1526, he relocated to Augsburg, which was a familiar town from his earlier journeys for his book trade. Here he came into contact again with Hans Denck; the two had met in 1524 in Nuremberg, where Denck was working as a teacher. The two likely met since Denck kept close associations with printers in Nuremberg who published evangelical literature, which Hut had been eager to trade. 

Now, with his familiarity with Hubmaier and other Anabaptists in Augsburg, Denck apparently convinced Hut that the nascent Anabaptist group in the city was committed to living out church life in a fashion that would bring about the reign of Christ that Hut had been longing to see. Hut had already been convinced that infant baptism was in error, since he had spoken against it in Bibra and refused to baptize his child two years earlier. But he had doubts about the need for rebaptism. One of the first known Anabaptists in Augsburg, Kaspar Färber from the Tyrol, joined the conversation, and eventually Hut decided he wished to join the new congregation through rebaptism. Denck baptized him three days before Pentecost.  

Feeling filled with a Pentecostal gift from the Holy Spirit, Hut proceeded to evangelize and preach in many towns throughout southern and central Germany over the ensuing months, baptizing numerous people in these regions who would go on to be leaders in the free-church movement.¹  

About This Series

This post is part of a series entitled “The Reformation at 500: Timeline of the Free-Church Movement.” Click here for more information on this series.

Featured image courtesy of the Wick’sche Sammlung, ca. 1575, Zentralbibliothek Zurich, Ms. F 23, fol. 294.

1. Johann Loserth and Robert Friedmann, “Hut, Hans (d. 1527),” (1956), and Werner O. Packull, “Hut, Hans (d. 1527), “1987 Update” (1987), Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online, at https://gameo.org/index.php?title=Hut,_Hans_(d._1527); Herbert Klassen, “The Life and Teachings of Hans Hut,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 32 (1958): 171-205, 267-304; Werner Packull, “Gottfried Seebaß on Hans Hut: A Discussion,” Mennonite Quarterly Review 49 (1975): 57-67.  ↩︎