Both the moderate Protestant (Lutheran) and the Catholic burghers who had remained were indignant at the acts of destruction committed, and openly expressed their opposition.

The result was their expulsion from the city; the condition of being allowed to remain became now the consent to rebaptism and the formal adoption of Anabaptist principles.
Muenster now took the place Strassburg had previously held as the rallying point of the Anabaptist faithful, whence a crusade against the Powers of the world was to issue forth.

The Government of Muenster, though it officially consisted of the two Buergermeisters and the new Council, to a man all zealous Anabaptists, left the real power and initiative in all measures in the hands of Jan Matthys and of his disciple, Jan Bockelson, of Leyden.

The reign of the saints was now fairly begun.

Various attempts at an organized communism were made, but these appear to have been only partially successful.