Freaks of Fanaticism, and Other Strange Events — Context and Discussion

From Passion Play to Poisoned Parsnips

The first article, "A Swiss Passion Play," describes how a small hamlet's Easter performance escalated into a week-long trance state among participants. Baring-Gould emphasizes the physical contagion: the actors could not stop weeping, the audience pressed into the acting space, and the local authorities had to intervene. The author's method is to let the absurdity speak for itself—he reports that one man, playing Christ, actually believed he was dying on the cross.

Later, "The Poisoned Parsnips" shifts to political paranoia. A rumor that enemies had poisoned a crop of parsnips leads to mass hysteria and false accusations. Baring-Gould notes the readiness with which people accept such stories "without examination," a phrase he repeats from the preface. The two articles, though separated by subject, share a structural pattern: a small trigger, rapid spread, and a climax of irrational collective action.

The Rhetoric of the Preacher and the Mob

In the account of the Anabaptists of Münster, Baring-Gould focuses on the speeches of Bernhard Knipperdolling and Bernard Rottmann. He quotes Knipperdolling's vow to "terribly revenge his incarceration" and Rottmann's preaching against Confession as "the disturber of consciences." The author shows how these men used specific rhetorical tactics: Knipperdolling gathered malcontents in a tavern, while Rottmann slowly revealed his Lutheran leanings after being funded to study at Cologne—only to go to Wittenberg instead.

Baring-Gould traces the movement of these figures through the city: from the church of St. Maurice to the marketplace, from private houses to the bishop's palace. The geography of Münster becomes a map of escalating influence. The author notes that Rottmann's voice as a boy chorister "had attracted notice," and that same voice later drew crowds to hear his attacks on the clergy. The progression from sweet singer to incendiary preacher is a recurring motif in the collection.

Mysticism as a Double-Edged Faculty

Baring-Gould's preface describes mysticism as a "spiritual element" that can be regulated but, unregulated, becomes "mischievous." The articles repeatedly illustrate this duality. In "A Northern Raphael," a painter's religious fervor leads him to forge a miraculous image; in "The Patarines of Milan," a reform movement turns violent. The author does not condemn mysticism outright but shows its structural vulnerability to exploitation by charismatic leaders.

He also notes the recurring image of the crowd: in Wildisbuch, the audience joins the Passion Play; in Münster, the people force the bishop to release Knipperdolling; in Damascus, a mob murders Father Thomas. Baring-Gould's prose is clinical, almost detached, but the cumulative effect is a portrait of human nature's susceptibility to collective emotion. He rarely moralizes, preferring to let the documented events speak.

The Movement Between Scenes

The book's structure is geographical as well as thematic. Baring-Gould moves from Switzerland to Germany, from Italy to Syria, tracing fanaticism across cultures. Each article begins with a specific location—"About eight miles from Schaffhausen," "In Münster lived a draper"—and then zooms in on a single event. The transitions are abrupt, but the effect is cumulative: the reader sees the same patterns emerging in different settings.

Within each article, Baring-Gould uses movement as a narrative device. Characters travel from one city to another, from prison to pulpit, from obscurity to notoriety. The author tracks these journeys meticulously, often noting the distances and routes. This attention to physical movement reinforces the idea that fanaticism is not static but contagious, spreading through travel, trade, and rumor. The book itself becomes a kind of travelogue of delusion.

Readers approaching this collection should attend to Baring-Gould's method: he presents each case as a historian, not a moralist, and the power of the book lies in the accumulation of detail. The preface warns that mysticism can be "mischievous" when unregulated, but the articles themselves resist easy judgment. Pay attention to the settings—the tavern, the church, the marketplace—and the voices of the preachers and the crowds. The book is less about the truth of these events than about how they were perceived and remembered.

I finished that Baring-Gould book and felt unsettled for days, how belief can curdle into something terrible. It made me think of calmer days, wandering open fields instead. There’s a gentler kind of passion in Ladies in the Field: Sketches of Sport — Key Ideas to Explore, a quiet attention to the world that felt like a balm afterwards.