But early in the year 1529 there arrived in Strassburg a much-travelled man, a skinner by trade, by name Melchior Hoffmann.

He had been an enthusiastic adherent of the Reformation, and it was not long before he joined the Strassburg Anabaptists and made his mark in their community.

Owing to his personal magnetism and oratorical gifts, Melchior soon came to be regarded as a specially ordained prophet and to have acquired corresponding influence.

After a few months Hoffmann seems to have left Strassburg for a propagandist tour along the Rhine.

The tour, apparently, had great success, the Baptist communities being founded in all important towns as far as Holland, in which latter country the doctrines spread rapidly.