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In February 1534, a radical group of Anabaptists, gripped with apocalyptic fervor, seized the city of Münster and established an idealistic communal government that quickly deteriorated into extreme inequality and theocratic totalitarianism. In response, troops hired by the city's prince-bishop laid siege to the city. Fifteen months later the besieged inhabitants were starving, and, in the dead of the night, five men slipped out. Separated from his fellow escapees, Henry Gresbeck gambled with his life by approaching enemy troops. Taken prisoner, he collaborated with the enemy to devise a plan to recapture Münster, and later recorded the only eyewitness account of the Anabaptist kingdom of Münster. Gresbeck's account, in which he attempts to explain his role in the bizarre events, disappeared into the archives and was largely ignored for centuries.Before now, Gresbeck's account was only available in a heavily edited German copy adapted from inferior manuscripts. Christopher S. Mackay, who produced the only complete and accurate English translation of this important primary source, here presents a transcription of the original manuscript and related letters, fully annotated and with an introduction and glossary.

Archaeological excavation of the ancient city of Bethsaida has retrieved a wealth of information on some of the most intriguing topics from 10th century BCEto 4th century CE. This volume includes reports on archaeological and geological findings from 1997 to 2006 and the cultural and historical contexts of the findings.

Experts in the field continue to research and investigate the site of Bethsaida, and have retrieved information on some of the most critical topics in research from 10th century BCE to 4th century CE. In this volume, thirteen articles shed light on the history of the region, and look at the remains dating from the time of David to that of Jesus.

In Renaissance Italy a good execution was both public and peaceful-at least in the eyes of authorities. In a feature unique to Italy, the people who prepared a condemned man or woman spiritually and psychologically for execution were not priests or friars, but laymen. This volume includes some of the songs, stories, poems, and images that they used, together with first-person accounts and ballads describing particular executions. Leading scholars expand on these accounts explaining aspects of the theater, psychology, and politics of execution.The main text is a manual, translated in English for the first time, on how to comfort a man in his last hours before beheading or hanging. It became an influential text used across Renaissance Italy. A second lengthy piece gives an eyewitness account of the final hours of two patrician Florentines executed for conspiracy against the Medici in 1512. Shorter pieces include poems written by prisoners on the eve of their execution, songs sung by the condemned and their comforters, and popular broadsheets reporting on particular executions. It is richly illustrated with the small panel paintings that were thrust into prisoners'' faces to distract them as they made the public journey to the gallows.Six interdisciplinary essays explain the contexts and meanings of these writings and of execution rituals generally. They explore the relation of execution rituals to late medieval street theater, the use of art to comfort the condemned, the literature that issued from prisons by the hands of condemned prisoners, the theological issues around public executions in the Renaissance, the psychological dimensions of the comforting process, and some of the social, political, and historical dimensions of executions and comforting in Renaissance Italy.