Early Modern German Historians Confront the Reformation’s First Executions

On 1 July 1523, before a crowd of stunned spectators, two young friars, Hendrik Voes and Johann van den Esschen, were burned alive on the Grand Plaza of Brussels. Members of the Augustinian cloister in nearby Antwerp, the friars had been convicted of holding heretical Lutheran ideas. The man responsible for the deaths, Frans van der Hulst, played the double role of imperial and papal inquisitor, reflecting the fact that both pope and emperor were involved in the proceedings. In Wittenberg, Martin Luther and his circle were keeping close tabs on the events in Brabant via contacts with members of