A City Abolished Money and Private Property. It Ended With Bodies in Iron Cages.

The Quiet Archive

The doors had no locks. That was the law now — to bolt a door was a crime against everyone.  ⟡ This narration features AI-assisted voice production, carefully crafted for consistency and clarity.  ─── ◈ ───  A CITY ABOLISHED MONEY AND PRIVATE PROPERTY. IT ENDED WITH BODIES IN IRON CAGES.  Five hundred years ago, a walled city in Germany tore down the oldest wall of all — the one between mine and yours. For sixteen months, no one owned anything. Then the army came. This is the story of the people who tried to live without the word "mine," and of what was left behind when they failed.  ◈ A sealed city that abolished money, emptied the churches, and unlocked every door ◈ A quiet community that shared not just its property, but the family itself, for thirty years ◈ A gentle farm of poets and dreamers, undone in a single winter night ◈ Three vanished worlds — and the three small, stubborn objects that outlived them all  The wall between mine and yours was torn down with such hope. Again and again, it rebuilt itself.  The rise and fall of history's forgotten communes — from the siege of Münster in Westphalia, to the Oneida Community in New York, to Brook Farm in Massachusetts.  History told with space to breathe.  ─── ◈ ───  00:00:00 — The Cages on the Tower 00:08:37 — A City Begins to Boil 00:21:54 — The Tailor Who Would Be King 00:33:11 — The Gate Opens in the Dark 00:43:30 — The Quiet After the Iron 00:54:28 — The Last Strange Idea 01:05:19 — Poets Learning to Farm 01:16:46 — What the Objects Remember  ─── ◈ ───  ✧ Support the project: https://linktr.ee/quietarchivum ✧ Help keep these stories alive — quietly, consistently.  ─── ◈ ───  ✧ Subscribe for history told without noise. ✧ New stories arrive when they're ready — and not before. ✧ Leave a comment if this one stayed with you.  #Munster #Oneida #BrookFarm #Anabaptists #Utopia #Communes #History #Reformation #AmericanHistory #Radical #ForgottenHistory #SocialHistory #Storytelling #Documentary #HistoryTold

Transcript

00:00:00For most of human history, one idea has held the world together, so quietly that we rarely notice it is

00:00:07there.

00:00:08The idea is ownership.

00:00:10This is mine, and that is yours.

00:00:14My house, my land, my share, my name on the door.

00:00:19We are taught it before we can speak, and we carry it all our lives without questioning it,

00:00:25the way we carry the ground beneath our feet.

00:00:28It feels less like a choice than like a law of nature.

00:00:33But it is not a law of nature.

00:00:37It is a decision, made and remade by every society,

00:00:43and across the centuries a small number of people have looked hard at that decision and refused it.

00:00:50They have asked a dangerous question.

00:00:53What if nothing were mine and nothing were yours?

00:00:57What if a group of people held everything together, in common, and lived as a single body, instead of a

00:01:05crowd of separate lives?

00:01:08These attempts have gone by many names, commune, communities, utopias.

00:01:14The word changes with the century, but the reach beneath it stays the same.

00:01:20To take the wall that runs between one person and the next, the wall of mine and yours, and pull

00:01:27it down on purpose.

00:01:29Some of them shared only their property, their land, and their money, and their work.

00:01:36Others went further, and tried to share the things we hold most closely of all.

00:01:46They believed that if people could only stop dividing the world into what belongs to me and what belongs to

00:01:54you,

00:01:55something better might grow in the space left behind, less greed, less loneliness.

00:02:02A life where no one was master, and no one was servant, and no one was left to face the

00:02:08world alone.

00:02:10They were not fools, most of them, and they were not idle dreamers.

00:02:15They were preachers and farmers, scholars and workers, ordinary people who looked at the ordinary world and believed with their

00:02:23whole hearts that it could be remade.

00:02:25They gave up what they owned, they left the lives they knew, some of them gave up far more than

00:02:32that.

00:02:33And again and again, across the centuries and across the world, these communities rose, and burned bright for a time,

00:02:44and then came apart.

00:02:46Some ended in horror.

00:02:48Some ended so quietly that the world barely noticed they were gone.

00:02:53Almost none of them lasted.

00:02:56The wall between mine and yours, torn down with such hope, kept rebuilding itself, in ways the dreamers never saw

00:03:07coming.

00:03:08But each time one of these worlds ended, it left something behind.

00:03:13A small, stubborn trace, outliving the dream that made it, waiting in the quiet for someone to find it and

00:03:21wonder what it had been.

00:03:24This is the story of some of those worlds.

00:03:28Of the people who tried to live without the word mine, and of what became of them when they did.

00:03:36It begins in a walled city in Germany 500 years ago, with three empty cages hanging from a tower.

00:03:43High on the tower of a church in a German town, three iron cages hang from the stone.

00:03:49They are empty now.

00:03:52They have hung there for close to 500 years.

00:03:56A traveller, walking below, might miss them at first.

00:04:01They are small against the great, grey height of the tower.

00:04:06Dark shapes bolted far above the street.

00:04:09But once the eye finds them, it stays.

00:04:13Three cages in a row, thin and rusted.

00:04:17Still fixed to the wall where someone raised them long ago.

00:04:22They were not made to hold birds.

00:04:25The town is called Munster.

00:04:27Today, it is a calm place.

00:04:30Bicycles and bookshops.

00:04:31Students crossing the wet squares under grey light.

00:04:35A visitor could spend a week there and never look up.

00:04:39Still, those three cages remain.

00:04:42High on the church of St. Lambert.

00:04:44Kept and mended across the centuries, never taken down.

00:04:49The town keeps them on purpose.

00:04:52It does not hide what once happened inside its walls.

00:04:57Because for a short time, in this ordinary place,

00:05:01something happened that almost no city in Europe had ever dared.

00:05:07Munster abolished private property.

00:05:10It abolished money.

00:05:12It emptied the churches and burned the books.

00:05:15It threw open the locked houses and shared out the bread,

00:05:19the beds, the gold, the land.

00:05:22All of it held in common, owned by no one.

00:05:25For a little over a year,

00:05:28a whole city tried to live without the words,

00:05:30mine and yours.

00:05:32It did not end quietly.

00:05:35It ended with those cages,

00:05:37and with what was placed inside them for the crowd below to see.

00:05:42To understand how a city arrives at such a thing,

00:05:46you have to go back.

00:05:48Back before the siege,

00:05:50before the hunger,

00:05:51before the killing.

00:05:53Back to when Munster was only a town like any other,

00:05:57walled and busy,

00:05:58ruled by a bishop,

00:05:59thick with trade.

00:06:01It began,

00:06:02as these things often do,

00:06:04with a feeling in the air.

00:06:06A sense that the old order was cracking,

00:06:09that the powerful had grown fat

00:06:11while the poor went hungry,

00:06:13and that the world was due for a great and final change.

00:06:18Into that feeling walked the preachers.

00:06:21They came from the movement,

00:06:23the age called the Anabaptists.

00:06:26They taught that the church had lost its way,

00:06:29that baptism belonged to grown men and women who chose it,

00:06:33not to infants who could not.

00:06:35It sounds like a small quarrel now,

00:06:38a question of when to pour the water.

00:06:40In that century,

00:06:42it was enough to get you burned.

00:06:44The Anabaptists were hunted across Europe.

00:06:48Driven from one town,

00:06:50they carried their faith to the next,

00:06:52and they began to speak of a place

00:06:54where they might finally be safe,

00:06:56a city that would be theirs.

00:06:58A new beginning,

00:07:00walled and holy,

00:07:01where the meek would inherit

00:07:03not the earth to come,

00:07:04but the streets they walked on now.

00:07:07They found their city in Munster.

00:07:11Munster was not the only place

00:07:13to reach for such a thing.

00:07:15In other centuries,

00:07:16in other lands far from that grey tower,

00:07:19other people would try the same,

00:07:21to pull down the wall between mine and yours,

00:07:25to live as one body,

00:07:27to share everything,

00:07:28to build heaven while still breathing.

00:07:31And each of them,

00:07:32when it ended,

00:07:33left something behind.

00:07:35A set of iron cages.

00:07:38A factory that still sells its wares.

00:07:41A field of ashes

00:07:43where a great house was meant to stand.

00:07:46Small, stubborn objects

00:07:48that outlived the dream that raised them.

00:07:51These stories survive the way

00:07:54those cages survive.

00:07:56Not on their own.

00:07:58Someone has to keep them

00:07:59and mend them

00:08:00and carry them

00:08:01to the next person

00:08:02who looks up and wonders.

00:08:04If you would like to help carry this one,

00:08:07you can follow along here on the channel

00:08:09or on whatever podcast platform

00:08:12you already use to listen.

00:08:13It costs nothing at all.

00:08:16And it keeps these quiet histories alive

00:08:19and reaching the people

00:08:21who have not yet heard them.

00:08:23Now we go back to the tower

00:08:25and to the town

00:08:27as it was before the cages were ever forged.

00:08:30Before the siege.

00:08:32Before the crowning.

00:08:34When Munster was only a city

00:08:36beginning to boil.

00:08:37Munster in those years

00:08:39was a city that lived by its hands.

00:08:42It sat in the flat green country of Westphalia,

00:08:46walled and gated.

00:08:47A place of some ten thousand souls.

00:08:50Cloth and grain moved through it.

00:08:53Its guilds were strong.

00:08:54Its craftsmen proud.

00:08:56Its market loud, six days a week.

00:08:59Butchers, bakers, tailors, smiths.

00:09:02Men who worked and paid

00:09:04and expected a voice

00:09:06in how their city was run.

00:09:08And yet the city

00:09:10did not truly rule itself.

00:09:13Munster belonged to a bishop

00:09:15and the bishop was also a prince.

00:09:18He held the land,

00:09:19the courts,

00:09:20the last word.

00:09:22Around him stood the clergy

00:09:24and the clergy in that age

00:09:26owned a great deal.

00:09:28Houses, rents,

00:09:30whole streets.

00:09:30They paid little in tax

00:09:33and answered to no city law.

00:09:36And they lived well

00:09:38while the guildsmen carried the weight.

00:09:41This was an old saw

00:09:43and it had ached for generations.

00:09:46The townsmen and the bishop's men

00:09:48had quarrelled for a hundred years

00:09:50over money,

00:09:51over courts,

00:09:53over who owed what to whom.

00:09:55It was the ordinary grinding

00:09:56of a medieval town against its lord.

00:09:59On its own,

00:10:00it might have ground on

00:10:02for another hundred years

00:10:03and changed nothing.

00:10:05Then a new sound

00:10:06came over the wall.

00:10:08In the early 1530s,

00:10:11a young chaplain in the city

00:10:12began to preach

00:10:14against the old church.

00:10:15He had trained inside it.

00:10:17Now he turned against it

00:10:19in the way of the great

00:10:21German reformer

00:10:22whose words were shaking

00:10:23every town in the land.

00:10:25He preached

00:10:26that the church

00:10:27had grown rich and false.

00:10:29That salvation

00:10:30came by faith,

00:10:32not by fees

00:10:33paid to priests.

00:10:34That the people

00:10:35should read the holy book

00:10:37for themselves.

00:10:38The city loved him for it.

00:10:41The guilds stood behind him.

00:10:44When the bishop demanded

00:10:46that he be silenced,

00:10:48the townsmen

00:10:49shut their gates

00:10:50and kept their preacher.

00:10:52By 1533,

00:10:54Munster had won.

00:10:57The bishop was forced

00:10:58to sign a peace

00:10:59and to allow

00:11:00the new preaching

00:11:01inside the walls.

00:11:03On paper,

00:11:04it was a Lutheran town now,

00:11:06reformed,

00:11:07governed by its own council,

00:11:09proud of what it had taken

00:11:10from its prince.

00:11:12The preacher

00:11:13did not stop there.

00:11:15His words kept moving,

00:11:18past the German reformer,

00:11:19past the careful middle path.

00:11:23He began to teach

00:11:24that grown men and women

00:11:25should be baptized again,

00:11:27by their own choice,

00:11:28as the first Christians

00:11:30had been.

00:11:31He spoke of a coming age,

00:11:33a time when the meek

00:11:34would be lifted

00:11:35and the mighty pulled down,

00:11:37and the whole rotten order

00:11:39swept clean.

00:11:40Word of this

00:11:41traveled fast,

00:11:43and it traveled north.

00:11:45Across the border,

00:11:47in the low countries,

00:11:48a new movement

00:11:50was being hunted

00:11:51from town to town.

00:11:53Its people believed

00:11:54much the same thing,

00:11:56and they believed

00:11:57the end of days

00:11:58was near.

00:11:59They had been burned

00:12:01and drowned for it.

00:12:02Now they heard

00:12:04that a single city

00:12:05in Westphalia

00:12:06had thrown open

00:12:08its gates

00:12:08to men who preached

00:12:10re-baptism

00:12:11and a world made new.

00:12:13To the hunted,

00:12:15Munster began to sound

00:12:17like a promise,

00:12:18a refuge with walls,

00:12:20a place the age

00:12:21had a name for,

00:12:23the New Jerusalem.

00:12:25They came in the winter

00:12:26and the spring,

00:12:27whole families,

00:12:29on foot and by cart,

00:12:30selling what they owned

00:12:32to make the journey.

00:12:33Among them

00:12:34came the men

00:12:35who would soon

00:12:36rule everything.

00:12:37A baker from the town

00:12:39of Harlem,

00:12:40a heavy man

00:12:41with burning eyes,

00:12:42who spoke as though

00:12:43God spoke through his mouth,

00:12:45and behind him

00:12:46a younger man,

00:12:47a tailor from the city

00:12:48of Leiden,

00:12:49handsome and quick

00:12:51and hungry

00:12:51for more than cloth.

00:12:53They were prophets,

00:12:55they said,

00:12:56sent ahead of the end.

00:12:57The adult baptisms

00:12:59began in the streets.

00:13:01Water poured

00:13:02over grown men

00:13:03and women,

00:13:04day after day,

00:13:05hundreds,

00:13:06and then thousands

00:13:07choosing the new faith

00:13:09in the open.

00:13:09and the city tilted.

00:13:13Those who would not

00:13:14be re-baptized

00:13:16began to feel

00:13:17like strangers

00:13:18in their own homes.

00:13:20Old families,

00:13:21Catholic and Lutheran alike,

00:13:23looked at the crowds

00:13:25in the squares

00:13:25and understood

00:13:27that the town

00:13:28was slipping

00:13:28into other hands.

00:13:31In February of 1534,

00:13:33the tilt became a fall.

00:13:35The city held

00:13:37its yearly election

00:13:38for the council

00:13:38and the re-baptized

00:13:40won it.

00:13:41The men who believed

00:13:43the end was near more

00:13:44now held the keys

00:13:45to the gates,

00:13:47the treasury,

00:13:48the watch.

00:13:49What came next

00:13:50came quickly.

00:13:52Those who refused

00:13:53the new baptism

00:13:54were given a choice,

00:13:56accept it,

00:13:57or leave.

00:13:58In the dead

00:13:59of a February morning,

00:14:01a long line of people

00:14:02walked out

00:14:03through the snow,

00:14:04out of the gates,

00:14:05leaving houses

00:14:06and shops

00:14:07and everything

00:14:08too heavy to carry.

00:14:10Behind them,

00:14:11the gates swung shut.

00:14:13Inside the walls,

00:14:15the city was now

00:14:17theirs alone.

00:14:18Ten thousand believers,

00:14:20or near it,

00:14:22sealed in together,

00:14:24certain that the old world

00:14:26was ending

00:14:26and that theirs

00:14:28was the one chosen place

00:14:30where the new one

00:14:31would begin.

00:14:33Outside,

00:14:34on the frozen fields,

00:14:36the bishop

00:14:37was already

00:14:37gathering his army.

00:14:40And inside,

00:14:41the prophets

00:14:42turned to the work

00:14:43they had come to do.

00:14:44To take this

00:14:46ordinary city

00:14:46of guilds

00:14:47and markets

00:14:48and to remake it,

00:14:50street by street

00:14:51and law by law,

00:14:52into something

00:14:53the world

00:14:54had never seen.

00:14:56Everything held

00:14:57in common,

00:14:58nothing owned.

00:14:59The wall

00:15:00between mine

00:15:01and yours

00:15:01pulled down

00:15:02for good.

00:15:03That work

00:15:04began the moment

00:15:05the gates were barred,

00:15:06and it began

00:15:08with the property.

00:15:09By the spring

00:15:09of that year,

00:15:10no one in Munster

00:15:12could buy anything.

00:15:13There was nothing

00:15:15to buy it with.

00:15:16In the first weeks

00:15:17after the gates

00:15:18were barred,

00:15:19the prophets

00:15:20abolished money.

00:15:22Coin was gathered up,

00:15:23gold and silver,

00:15:25both,

00:15:25carried to the leaders

00:15:26and pooled.

00:15:28A man who kept

00:15:29back his savings

00:15:30was a man who

00:15:31did not trust

00:15:32that the end was near,

00:15:33and to doubt the end

00:15:35was a kind of treason now.

00:15:37What money

00:15:38could once do?

00:15:39The community

00:15:41would now do instead.

00:15:43No wages,

00:15:44no prices,

00:15:46no rent.

00:15:47Bread would be given,

00:15:49not sold.

00:15:50A city of 10,000 people

00:15:52simply stopped

00:15:54using the thing

00:15:55every city runs on.

00:15:58Then came the doors.

00:16:00Private property

00:16:01was declared a sin

00:16:03against the new order.

00:16:04If all were brothers

00:16:05and sisters

00:16:06in the last days,

00:16:07then no brother

00:16:08could own,

00:16:09while another

00:16:10went without.

00:16:11The believers

00:16:12were told to bring

00:16:13what they had

00:16:14into the open,

00:16:15food,

00:16:16cloth,

00:16:16tools,

00:16:17furniture,

00:16:18all of it,

00:16:19and the doors

00:16:20of the houses

00:16:21were to stay unlocked

00:16:22day and night,

00:16:23so that what was inside

00:16:25belonged to anyone

00:16:26who needed it.

00:16:28To lock a door

00:16:29in Munster

00:16:30was now a crime.

00:16:32The lock itself

00:16:33was an insult

00:16:35to the whole idea

00:16:36of the place.

00:16:38Men were appointed

00:16:39to manage the sharing.

00:16:41The chronicles

00:16:42called them deacons.

00:16:43They kept lists

00:16:45of what the city held

00:16:46and what each household

00:16:47lacked,

00:16:48and they moved goods

00:16:50from the full houses

00:16:51to the empty ones.

00:16:53The homes left behind

00:16:54by those who had fled

00:16:55in the snow

00:16:56were opened and emptied

00:16:57and given out.

00:16:59Grain was gathered

00:17:00into common stores.

00:17:02Meals in time

00:17:03were taken together

00:17:04at long tables,

00:17:06hundreds of mouths

00:17:07fed from one kitchen,

00:17:08the reading of Scripture

00:17:10over the food.

00:17:11It was,

00:17:13on its surface,

00:17:14the thing the age

00:17:15had only dreamed,

00:17:16a city where nothing

00:17:18was owned

00:17:19and no one starved,

00:17:21where the word

00:17:22mine had been struck

00:17:23out of the language

00:17:24and the whole town

00:17:26lived as one household

00:17:27under God.

00:17:29But a city

00:17:30held together this

00:17:31tightly needs

00:17:33more than sharing.

00:17:34It needs obedience.

00:17:37And obedience

00:17:38in Munster

00:17:40was becoming

00:17:41the only law.

00:17:42The prophets ruled now

00:17:44and their word

00:17:46was taken

00:17:46as the word of God.

00:17:48The old city council

00:17:50still met,

00:17:51but the real power

00:17:52sat with the men

00:17:53who claimed

00:17:54to hear heaven directly.

00:17:56Above them all

00:17:57stood the baker

00:17:58from Harlem,

00:17:59the heavy prophet

00:18:00with the burning eyes.

00:18:02And what he declared

00:18:03was not debated.

00:18:05It was carried out.

00:18:07The churches

00:18:08were emptied first.

00:18:10The great cathedral

00:18:11was stripped

00:18:12of its images.

00:18:12Its statues pulled down,

00:18:15its paintings destroyed.

00:18:17Altars were smashed.

00:18:19The organ

00:18:20was broken apart.

00:18:21The believers

00:18:22held that all of it

00:18:23was idolatry,

00:18:25the clutter

00:18:26of a false

00:18:26and fattened church,

00:18:28and they cleared

00:18:29it out with hammers.

00:18:31Then the books.

00:18:33Everything written,

00:18:34save the holy book itself,

00:18:36was declared a danger

00:18:37to the pure faith.

00:18:39Records,

00:18:40letters,

00:18:40the works of scholars,

00:18:42the libraries

00:18:43of the clergy

00:18:44in the town.

00:18:45All of it

00:18:46was gathered

00:18:46into the square

00:18:47and burned.

00:18:48The smoke

00:18:49of centuries

00:18:50of writing

00:18:51rose over the rooftops.

00:18:53A city

00:18:53that had lived

00:18:54by its records

00:18:55now kept

00:18:56only one book

00:18:57and read it

00:18:58as a map

00:18:59of the very days

00:19:00they believed

00:19:00they were living.

00:19:02With the past

00:19:03burned,

00:19:04the present

00:19:05tightened.

00:19:06Rules multiplied.

00:19:08What could be worn?

00:19:09What could be said?

00:19:11How the day

00:19:12was to be spent?

00:19:13All of it

00:19:14fell under the eye

00:19:15of the prophets.

00:19:17Complaint

00:19:17became sin.

00:19:19Doubt

00:19:20became treason.

00:19:21The refuge

00:19:22that had opened

00:19:23its gates

00:19:24to the hunted

00:19:24was closing

00:19:25its fist

00:19:26on the people

00:19:27inside.

00:19:28And beyond the wall

00:19:30the bishop's army

00:19:31was digging in.

00:19:32The siege

00:19:33had begun

00:19:34in earnest.

00:19:35Cannon

00:19:36were dragged

00:19:37into place

00:19:37on the flat fields.

00:19:39Trenches

00:19:40were cut

00:19:40around the city.

00:19:42The bishop

00:19:42had gathered

00:19:43soldiers

00:19:43and money

00:19:44from his fellow

00:19:45princes,

00:19:46Catholic

00:19:46and Lutheran

00:19:47together,

00:19:48for once

00:19:48agreed on something.

00:19:50Whatever their quarrels,

00:19:52none of them

00:19:52wanted this.

00:19:53A city

00:19:54with no owners,

00:19:55no money,

00:19:56no masters,

00:19:58but its profits.

00:19:59It had to be

00:20:00put down

00:20:01before the idea

00:20:02could travel.

00:20:04Inside Munster,

00:20:06the prophet

00:20:07took the closing ring

00:20:08as proof.

00:20:09God was gathering

00:20:11his enemies

00:20:11so that he might

00:20:13destroy them

00:20:14all at once.

00:20:15The end

00:20:16was not near.

00:20:17It was here

00:20:18at the gates

00:20:20in the smoke

00:20:21of the cannon.

00:20:23At Easter,

00:20:24the baker

00:20:24from Harlem

00:20:25acted on that faith.

00:20:27He believed

00:20:28God had shown

00:20:29him a sign

00:20:30that he was

00:20:31to ride out

00:20:32from the city

00:20:33with only

00:20:33a small band

00:20:34of men

00:20:35as a shepherd

00:20:36meeting a wolf

00:20:37and that heaven

00:20:38would scatter

00:20:39the great army

00:20:40before him.

00:20:41On the holy day

00:20:42he called

00:20:43for his horse,

00:20:44gathered a handful

00:20:45of followers

00:20:46and passed

00:20:47through the gate

00:20:47toward the bishop's

00:20:49lines.

00:20:50He did not

00:20:51come back.

00:20:52The soldiers

00:20:53cut the little band

00:20:54apart in the open field

00:20:55and the prophet

00:20:57with them.

00:20:58The news

00:20:59went through

00:21:00Munster

00:21:00like cold water.

00:21:03The man

00:21:04whose voice

00:21:04had been

00:21:05the voice of God

00:21:06was dead in the mud

00:21:08outside the wall

00:21:09and the wall

00:21:10still held

00:21:11and the army

00:21:13was still there.

00:21:14For a moment

00:21:15the city

00:21:16stood without

00:21:17a prophet.

00:21:18The great certainty

00:21:20had a hole in it

00:21:21and something

00:21:22had to fill

00:21:23the hole.

00:21:24The younger man

00:21:25stepped forward,

00:21:26the tailor

00:21:27from Leiden,

00:21:28handsome,

00:21:29quick and certain.

00:21:31He told

00:21:31the frightened city

00:21:32that the baker's

00:21:34death had been

00:21:34foretold,

00:21:35that it changed

00:21:36nothing,

00:21:37that the end

00:21:38was still coming

00:21:39and he would

00:21:40lead them

00:21:40into it.

00:21:41and the city

00:21:43having nowhere else

00:21:44to turn

00:21:45listened.

00:21:46The tailor

00:21:47was about to become

00:21:48something no elected

00:21:49council

00:21:50and no burning

00:21:51prophet

00:21:52had yet dared to be.

00:21:53Something changed

00:21:55in the way

00:21:55the tailor spoke.

00:21:57For a while

00:21:58he was a prophet

00:21:59among prophets,

00:22:01one voice of God

00:22:02among the others.

00:22:03Then that summer

00:22:04the voice shifted.

00:22:06He no longer

00:22:07spoke only

00:22:08of the end

00:22:08of the world.

00:22:09He began to speak

00:22:11of a kingdom

00:22:11and of a king

00:22:13and of who

00:22:14that king would be.

00:22:16He said

00:22:17God had shown it

00:22:19to him.

00:22:20That Munster

00:22:21was not just

00:22:23a refuge

00:22:23but the seat

00:22:25of a new realm.

00:22:26The new Jerusalem

00:22:27made real

00:22:28and that it needed

00:22:30a ruler

00:22:31as the old Israel

00:22:32once had.

00:22:33A king anointed

00:22:35by heaven

00:22:36to lead the last

00:22:37of the faithful

00:22:38through the final days.

00:22:40The man God

00:22:41had chosen,

00:22:42it turned out,

00:22:44was the tailor

00:22:44from Leiden.

00:22:46He was crowned

00:22:47in the great square.

00:22:49A former apprentice

00:22:50in cloth,

00:22:51a man who had arrived

00:22:53in the city

00:22:53with almost nothing,

00:22:55now stood before

00:22:56the people

00:22:56in fine robes,

00:22:58a golden chain

00:22:59on his chest,

00:23:00a crown on his head,

00:23:02and a sword

00:23:03carried before him.

00:23:04He took a throne,

00:23:06he took a court,

00:23:07he named his officers

00:23:08and his household

00:23:09and gave them titles

00:23:11out of the holy book.

00:23:13The city

00:23:14that had abolished

00:23:15mine and yours now

00:23:17had a king

00:23:18who wore gold

00:23:19while it starved.

00:23:21There was no contradiction,

00:23:23the preaching said.

00:23:24The king did not

00:23:25own his robes

00:23:26as a man owns property.

00:23:28He wore them for God

00:23:30as a sign,

00:23:31the way the kings

00:23:32of old Israel

00:23:33had worn their crowns.

00:23:35The gold

00:23:36was the community's gold,

00:23:38gathered from

00:23:38the melted coin,

00:23:40placed on the king's body

00:23:41to show heaven's favor.

00:23:43To the faithful,

00:23:45this was not

00:23:46wealth returning.

00:23:47It was the last kingdom

00:23:49taking its rightful shape.

00:23:51Then came the harder decree.

00:23:54The king proclaimed

00:23:56that the men of Munster

00:23:57could take more

00:23:58than one wife,

00:23:59that the old law

00:24:01of one man

00:24:01and one woman

00:24:02was finished

00:24:03and that the faithful

00:24:05were to marry many

00:24:06and to fill the city

00:24:07with children

00:24:08of the new covenant.

00:24:10The reasons given

00:24:12were drawn

00:24:13from the holy book.

00:24:14The patriarchs

00:24:16of old Israel

00:24:17had many wives,

00:24:18the preaching said,

00:24:20and this was the age

00:24:21of the last Israel restored.

00:24:23But there was a colder

00:24:25reason underneath.

00:24:28The siege

00:24:29had changed the city.

00:24:31Many men

00:24:32had fled or fallen,

00:24:33and the women

00:24:34left inside

00:24:35far outnumbered them.

00:24:37A city

00:24:38where every woman

00:24:39was to be a wife,

00:24:41and no woman

00:24:42was to stand alone,

00:24:44had to make

00:24:45the arithmetic

00:24:45work somehow.

00:24:47Multiple marriage

00:24:49made it work.

00:24:50For many of the women,

00:24:52the decree

00:24:53was not liberation.

00:24:54It was force.

00:24:56They were required

00:24:57to marry

00:24:58and to accept it,

00:24:59whether they wished to

00:25:01or not.

00:25:02Some refused.

00:25:03When a group of them

00:25:05resisted,

00:25:05along with men

00:25:06who would not accept

00:25:07the new order,

00:25:08the answer

00:25:09was swift and hard.

00:25:11There was a rising

00:25:12against the king

00:25:13that summer,

00:25:14and it was put down.

00:25:15The leaders

00:25:16were executed

00:25:17in the square,

00:25:18and the city watched.

00:25:20The king

00:25:21took several wives

00:25:22himself.

00:25:24The most visible

00:25:25among them

00:25:26became a kind of queen,

00:25:28at his side

00:25:29in the great ceremonies.

00:25:31His household

00:25:32grew into a court,

00:25:33with servants

00:25:34and officers

00:25:35and a discipline

00:25:36all its own,

00:25:38while beyond the palace,

00:25:39the ordinary people

00:25:41lined up for their share

00:25:42of a shrinking

00:25:43supply of bread.

00:25:45Because the food

00:25:46was running out,

00:25:48was running out.

00:25:49The siege

00:25:49had closed tight

00:25:50around Munster.

00:25:52Nothing came in now.

00:25:53The common stores

00:25:55that had seemed

00:25:55so full in the spring

00:25:57were thinning

00:25:58through the summer

00:25:59and into the autumn.

00:26:00The kitchens

00:26:01still served,

00:26:02but the portions fell.

00:26:04The city

00:26:05that had promised

00:26:06that no one

00:26:06would go hungry

00:26:07was learning

00:26:08what a wall

00:26:09really means

00:26:10when an army

00:26:11sits outside it

00:26:12and waits.

00:26:13still the king ruled

00:26:16and still

00:26:17the preaching held.

00:26:19Each hardship

00:26:20was folded

00:26:21into the story.

00:26:23Hunger was a test.

00:26:25The dead prophet

00:26:26was a sign.

00:26:27The tightening ring

00:26:29was God

00:26:30gathering his enemies

00:26:31for slaughter.

00:26:32Every terrible thing

00:26:34that happened

00:26:35became proof

00:26:36that the end

00:26:37was closer,

00:26:38that deliverance

00:26:39was near,

00:26:40that the faithful

00:26:42had only to hold

00:26:43on a little longer

00:26:44and heaven

00:26:45would break the siege

00:26:46in a single day.

00:26:48Messengers

00:26:49were sent out

00:26:50over the wall

00:26:51in secret,

00:26:52carrying the king's word

00:26:53to the believers

00:26:54in other towns.

00:26:55Rise up,

00:26:56they said.

00:26:57Come to us.

00:26:58The new Jerusalem

00:27:00is here

00:27:00and the hour

00:27:01is at hand.

00:27:02In a few places,

00:27:03small risings

00:27:04were attempted.

00:27:05They were crushed

00:27:06and their people

00:27:07killed,

00:27:08and no army

00:27:09of the faithful

00:27:10ever came marching

00:27:12to Munster's gates.

00:27:14Inside,

00:27:15the king held

00:27:16his court

00:27:17and his crown,

00:27:19and the people

00:27:20held their hunger,

00:27:21and the two things

00:27:23sat side by side

00:27:25in the same starving city

00:27:27through the last

00:27:28warm weeks

00:27:28of the year.

00:27:30Outside,

00:27:31the bishop

00:27:32stopped hoping

00:27:33to storm the walls.

00:27:35He had lost men

00:27:36trying.

00:27:36Now he chose

00:27:38as the slower,

00:27:39surer weapon.

00:27:40He would not

00:27:41break into Munster.

00:27:43He would simply

00:27:44close it

00:27:44and wait

00:27:45and let the winter

00:27:47do the rest.

00:27:47The king told the city

00:27:49that God would

00:27:50break the siege

00:27:51before the harvest.

00:27:53The harvest came

00:27:54and went,

00:27:55and the siege

00:27:56did not break.

00:27:57The fields

00:27:58the people

00:27:59could see

00:27:59from the walls

00:28:00were not theirs

00:28:01to reap.

00:28:02They belonged

00:28:03to the army now,

00:28:04and the army

00:28:05let the grain

00:28:06stand and rot

00:28:07rather than feed

00:28:08the town

00:28:08it was strangling.

00:28:10Inside Munster,

00:28:12the counting began.

00:28:14How much bread

00:28:15was left?

00:28:16How much grain

00:28:17in the common stores?

00:28:19How many mouths?

00:28:21The deacons,

00:28:23who had once

00:28:23moved food

00:28:24from full houses

00:28:25to empty ones,

00:28:27now moved smaller

00:28:28and smaller amounts,

00:28:29because every house

00:28:31was empty

00:28:32in the same way.

00:28:33The portions

00:28:35fell through the autumn.

00:28:37Then they fell again.

00:28:38By winter,

00:28:40the common kitchens

00:28:41were serving something

00:28:42that was bread

00:28:43only in name.

00:28:44When the flour

00:28:45ran low,

00:28:46it was stretched

00:28:47with whatever

00:28:48could be ground.

00:28:49When that ran out,

00:28:51the people

00:28:51went looking further.

00:28:53They ate the horses

00:28:55first,

00:28:56then the dogs

00:28:57and the cats.

00:28:59Then the rats

00:29:00that came

00:29:00for what the people

00:29:01could no longer spare.

00:29:03When the animals

00:29:04were gone,

00:29:05they boiled leather.

00:29:07Shoes,

00:29:08straps,

00:29:09the hides

00:29:09off the old drums,

00:29:11anything

00:29:11that had once

00:29:12been a living thing.

00:29:14They dug for roots

00:29:16under the snow.

00:29:17They ate grass

00:29:18and moss,

00:29:19and the whitewash

00:29:21of lime

00:29:21scraped from the walls.

00:29:23The chronicles

00:29:24set it all down plainly,

00:29:26one thing after another,

00:29:28in the order

00:29:29that hunger

00:29:30works through a city.

00:29:32Children died first,

00:29:34as they always do.

00:29:36Then the old,

00:29:37the bodies were more

00:29:38than the living

00:29:39could bury

00:29:39with any care,

00:29:40and the strength

00:29:41to dig

00:29:42was itself running out.

00:29:45Through all of it,

00:29:46the king

00:29:47kept his court,

00:29:48his household

00:29:50still ate.

00:29:51The grain

00:29:52that remained

00:29:53flowed first

00:29:54to the palace,

00:29:55to the officers,

00:29:56to the men

00:29:57with weapons

00:29:58who kept the order.

00:29:59A starving city

00:30:01can be held together

00:30:03only by force,

00:30:04and force

00:30:05has to be fed.

00:30:07So the people

00:30:08at the bottom

00:30:09starved fastest,

00:30:10while the men

00:30:11at the top

00:30:12starved last,

00:30:13or not at all.

00:30:15The preaching

00:30:16did not stop.

00:30:18Every death

00:30:19was folded

00:30:20into the story,

00:30:21the way

00:30:21every hardship

00:30:22had been.

00:30:24This was

00:30:25the winnowing.

00:30:26God was separating

00:30:27the true

00:30:28from the weak.

00:30:30The suffering

00:30:31itself

00:30:31was the sign

00:30:32that the end

00:30:33was almost here,

00:30:34that those

00:30:35who endured

00:30:35to the last

00:30:36would be lifted

00:30:37while the world

00:30:38burned.

00:30:39Hold on,

00:30:40the preaching

00:30:40said.

00:30:41Hold on a little

00:30:42longer.

00:30:44Some could not

00:30:45hold on,

00:30:45and some would not.

00:30:47As the winter

00:30:49deepened,

00:30:50people began

00:30:51to slip out

00:30:52of the city,

00:30:53not to fight,

00:30:55to leave.

00:30:56They climbed

00:30:57over the walls

00:30:58at night,

00:30:59or begged

00:31:00the guards

00:31:00to open a gate,

00:31:02choosing the mercy

00:31:03of the enemy

00:31:04over the certainty

00:31:05of the kitchen.

00:31:07Women and children

00:31:08mostly,

00:31:10and the men

00:31:10too weak

00:31:11to matter

00:31:12to the king

00:31:12any more.

00:31:14What waited

00:31:15outside

00:31:15was not mercy.

00:31:17The bishop

00:31:18had given orders.

00:31:20The city

00:31:21was to be sealed,

00:31:22and sealing it

00:31:23meant that no one

00:31:24crossed the line

00:31:25to safety.

00:31:26The men

00:31:27who came out

00:31:28were killed.

00:31:29The women

00:31:29and children

00:31:30who came out

00:31:31were kept

00:31:32in the no-man's land

00:31:33between the wall

00:31:34and the trenches,

00:31:35in the cold,

00:31:36given little,

00:31:37allowed neither

00:31:38back into the city

00:31:39nor forward

00:31:40into the camp.

00:31:42They lived

00:31:42in the gap,

00:31:43in the open,

00:31:44through the winter.

00:31:46Many of them

00:31:46died there,

00:31:47in the strip

00:31:48of frozen ground

00:31:49between the two sides,

00:31:51belonging to neither.

00:31:53From the walls

00:31:54the people

00:31:55of Münster

00:31:56could see them,

00:31:57and from the trenches

00:31:59the bishop's soldiers

00:32:01could see the walls.

00:32:03Between them

00:32:04lay the dying,

00:32:05in a place

00:32:06that was no city

00:32:07and no camp,

00:32:08held there

00:32:09by two certainties

00:32:11that had no room

00:32:12for them.

00:32:13Still the gates

00:32:14stayed shut.

00:32:16Still the king

00:32:17held his throne.

00:32:18The city

00:32:19had promised

00:32:20a world

00:32:21without hunger,

00:32:22and it had become

00:32:23one of the hungriest

00:32:25places in Europe,

00:32:26sealed by an army

00:32:28that would not leave

00:32:29and ruled by a king

00:32:30who would not yield.

00:32:32Something had to give.

00:32:35A wall this thin,

00:32:37a hunger this deep,

00:32:39a hope stretched

00:32:40this far past

00:32:41the harvest

00:32:42it had been promised.

00:32:44It could not hold forever,

00:32:46and everyone

00:32:47on both sides

00:32:48of the wall

00:32:49knew it now.

00:32:51In the end,

00:32:52it was not the army

00:32:53that opened Münster.

00:32:55It was two men inside,

00:32:57starving like the rest,

00:32:59who decided

00:32:59that the kingdom

00:33:00was finished

00:33:01and that they would be

00:33:02the ones to end it.

00:33:04They knew a way

00:33:05through the wall,

00:33:06and on a June night

00:33:08they went looking

00:33:09for the bishop's lines.

00:33:11Two men moved

00:33:12along the base

00:33:12of the wall

00:33:13in the dark,

00:33:14keeping low,

00:33:15feeling for the place

00:33:16they knew.

00:33:18They had lived in Münster

00:33:20through all of it.

00:33:21They had starved

00:33:22with the rest.

00:33:24Somewhere in that last winter

00:33:25they had stopped believing,

00:33:27and once a man

00:33:28stops believing

00:33:29inside a city like that,

00:33:31he becomes very dangerous

00:33:33to it.

00:33:34They knew the walls.

00:33:35They knew which gate

00:33:37was weak,

00:33:37which stretch

00:33:38was thinly watched,

00:33:40how the guard

00:33:41was set

00:33:41at the darkest hour.

00:33:43and they carried

00:33:44that knowledge

00:33:45out toward the trenches

00:33:46to trade it

00:33:47for their lives.

00:33:49The bishop's officers

00:33:51listened.

00:33:52Deserters had come out

00:33:54before,

00:33:55half dead,

00:33:56with nothing to offer

00:33:57but their hunger.

00:33:59These two

00:34:00had something real,

00:34:02a way in,

00:34:03a night,

00:34:05a gate,

00:34:06a plan.

00:34:07Terms were struck.

00:34:08The two men

00:34:10would open the way,

00:34:11and in return

00:34:12they would be spared.

00:34:14On the night

00:34:15they named,

00:34:16in late June,

00:34:17the bishop's soldiers

00:34:19gathered in the dark

00:34:20near the weak point

00:34:21in the wall.

00:34:23Inside,

00:34:24the city was

00:34:25as it had been

00:34:26for months,

00:34:27starving,

00:34:28thinned,

00:34:29held together

00:34:30by the king's word

00:34:31and the officer's swords.

00:34:33The preaching

00:34:34still promised deliverance.

00:34:36The king

00:34:37still swore

00:34:38that God

00:34:39would break the siege

00:34:40in a single blazing day,

00:34:42that the enemy

00:34:43would be scattered,

00:34:44that the faithful

00:34:45had only to endure.

00:34:48But the words

00:34:49had worn through.

00:34:51A city can be told

00:34:53that its hunger

00:34:54is holy,

00:34:55only so many times

00:34:57before the hunger

00:34:58answers back.

00:35:00The certainty

00:35:01that had carried

00:35:02Munster

00:35:02since the gates

00:35:03first closed

00:35:04was not gone

00:35:06in a great moment

00:35:06of doubt.

00:35:07It had simply

00:35:08thinned,

00:35:09night after night,

00:35:11the way the bread

00:35:12had thinned,

00:35:14until there was

00:35:15almost nothing

00:35:16left of it

00:35:16but the men

00:35:17with weapons

00:35:18and the king

00:35:19in his palace.

00:35:21The story

00:35:22that every death

00:35:23was a sign

00:35:24had finally run out

00:35:25of people

00:35:26willing to die

00:35:27for it.

00:35:28Into that hollow

00:35:29certainty

00:35:30on that June night

00:35:32the soldiers came.

00:35:34The two deserters

00:35:36opened the way.

00:35:38A small force

00:35:39slipped through

00:35:40the weak point

00:35:40and moved to take

00:35:42a gate from the inside

00:35:43to hold it open

00:35:45long enough

00:35:46for the army

00:35:47behind them.

00:35:48There was fighting

00:35:49in the dark

00:35:50at once,

00:35:51confused and close,

00:35:53the defenders

00:35:54waking to find

00:35:55the enemy

00:35:55already within the walls.

00:35:58For a few hours

00:35:59it hung in the balance.

00:36:01The believers

00:36:02who could still fight

00:36:04fought hard.

00:36:05They knew

00:36:06what taking the city

00:36:07would mean.

00:36:08They had no line

00:36:09of retreat,

00:36:10no mercy waiting,

00:36:12nothing behind them

00:36:13but the wall

00:36:14and the army

00:36:15pouring over it.

00:36:16They fought

00:36:17in the streets

00:36:18and the squares,

00:36:19in the dark,

00:36:20around the very cathedral

00:36:21they had stripped

00:36:23bare a year before.

00:36:25It was not enough.

00:36:27More soldiers

00:36:28came through

00:36:29the open gate

00:36:30and then more

00:36:31until the weight

00:36:33of the army

00:36:33was inside the walls.

00:36:36By morning

00:36:37the fighting

00:36:38had become a massacre.

00:36:40The defenders

00:36:41were cut down

00:36:42where they stood.

00:36:43Hundreds were killed

00:36:44in the streets

00:36:45that day.

00:36:46The men

00:36:47who had held out

00:36:48to the very end

00:36:49dying within sight

00:36:50of the palace

00:36:51and the market

00:36:52and the tower.

00:36:54The king

00:36:55did not die

00:36:55in the fighting.

00:36:57He was taken alive.

00:36:59The tailor

00:37:00from Leiden

00:37:01who had worn

00:37:02the crown

00:37:02and the golden chain

00:37:03and had ruled

00:37:04the last kingdom

00:37:05of the faithful

00:37:06was pulled out

00:37:08of the falling city

00:37:09and put in chains.

00:37:10The most visible

00:37:12of his wives

00:37:12was taken too.

00:37:14The men

00:37:15of his court

00:37:15who survived

00:37:16the night

00:37:17were seized

00:37:17alongside him.

00:37:19By the end

00:37:20of that day

00:37:21Munster belonged

00:37:23to the bishop

00:37:23again.

00:37:24The gates

00:37:25stood open.

00:37:27The banners

00:37:28came down.

00:37:29The experiment

00:37:30that had abolished

00:37:31money and property

00:37:32and the old world

00:37:34itself was over

00:37:35sixteen months

00:37:37after it began

00:37:38ended

00:37:39in a single

00:37:40night of killing.

00:37:42The bishop

00:37:43entered the city

00:37:44he had spent

00:37:45more than a year

00:37:46trying to take.

00:37:47He found it

00:37:48emptied by hunger

00:37:49littered with the dead.

00:37:51Its churches

00:37:52bare,

00:37:53its stores

00:37:54gone,

00:37:55its people

00:37:55either killed,

00:37:56fled,

00:37:57or waiting in silence

00:37:59for whatever

00:37:59came next.

00:38:01What came next

00:38:02was not quick

00:38:03and it was not

00:38:05merciful.

00:38:07The bishop

00:38:08had not fought

00:38:08this long

00:38:09to simply hang

00:38:10his prisoners

00:38:11and move on.

00:38:13The king

00:38:14who had made

00:38:14Munster a kingdom

00:38:15was going to be

00:38:17made into

00:38:17as something

00:38:18else.

00:38:19A lesson,

00:38:20a warning,

00:38:22fixed

00:38:23where every

00:38:24traveller

00:38:24and every

00:38:25citizen

00:38:26would see it

00:38:27and remember

00:38:28and think

00:38:29twice

00:38:30before dreaming

00:38:31this dream

00:38:32again.

00:38:33The tailor

00:38:34from Lydon

00:38:35had months

00:38:36left to live

00:38:37and the tower

00:38:38of St. Lambert

00:38:39was waiting

00:38:40for what the bishop

00:38:41meant to hang

00:38:41from it.

00:38:42Before they killed

00:38:43him,

00:38:43they showed him.

00:38:45The king

00:38:46was kept

00:38:47alive

00:38:47through the

00:38:48summer

00:38:48and the autumn

00:38:49and into

00:38:49the winter

00:38:50and in that

00:38:51time

00:38:52the bishop

00:38:52made use

00:38:53of him.

00:38:54The tailor

00:38:55from Lydon

00:38:56who had worn

00:38:56a crown

00:38:57and ruled

00:38:57a kingdom

00:38:58was put

00:38:59on a chain

00:39:00and led

00:39:00from town

00:39:01to town

00:39:02in the country

00:39:02around

00:39:03Munster

00:39:03displayed to

00:39:04the people

00:39:05like a

00:39:05captured animal.

00:39:06Come and

00:39:07see,

00:39:07the showing

00:39:08said.

00:39:09Here is the

00:39:10man who

00:39:10abolished

00:39:11property.

00:39:12Here is what

00:39:13became of him.

00:39:13the dream

00:39:15on a leash

00:39:16for the paying

00:39:16crowds.

00:39:18He was

00:39:19questioned at

00:39:20length.

00:39:21Learned men

00:39:22came to argue

00:39:23with him,

00:39:24to record

00:39:24his answers,

00:39:26to understand

00:39:27how a tailor

00:39:28had come to

00:39:29believe he was

00:39:30a king

00:39:30anointed by

00:39:32God.

00:39:32The records

00:39:34of those talks

00:39:35survive.

00:39:36He did not

00:39:37fully break.

00:39:38He defended

00:39:39what he had

00:39:40done,

00:39:40or explained

00:39:42it,

00:39:42or fell

00:39:43silent.

00:39:43But he

00:39:45did not

00:39:45become

00:39:45nothing,

00:39:46and that

00:39:47too the

00:39:48chroniclers

00:39:49set down.

00:39:50The end

00:39:51was fixed

00:39:52for January

00:39:53in the

00:39:54great market

00:39:54square of

00:39:55Munster,

00:39:56in front

00:39:56of the

00:39:57people.

00:39:58Three men

00:39:59were to

00:40:00die together,

00:40:01the king

00:40:02and two

00:40:03of his

00:40:03chief

00:40:03officers.

00:40:05The execution

00:40:06was made

00:40:07a public

00:40:07thing,

00:40:08deliberate

00:40:09and slow,

00:40:10carried out

00:40:11with hot

00:40:11irons before

00:40:12a watching

00:40:13crowd.

00:40:14It was

00:40:14meant to

00:40:15last.

00:40:16It was

00:40:16meant to

00:40:17be seen.

00:40:18The bishop

00:40:19did not

00:40:20want a quick

00:40:20death that

00:40:21the city

00:40:22might forget.

00:40:23He wanted

00:40:23a punishment

00:40:24that would

00:40:25fix itself

00:40:26in memory,

00:40:27so that no

00:40:28one who stood

00:40:29in that square

00:40:30would ever be

00:40:31tempted by

00:40:32such a kingdom

00:40:33again.

00:40:34The chroniclers

00:40:35recorded that

00:40:37the king bore it

00:40:37in silence

00:40:38for a long

00:40:39time.

00:40:39Then it was

00:40:40over,

00:40:41and the three

00:40:42men were

00:40:42dead,

00:40:43and the square

00:40:44held only the

00:40:45crowd and the

00:40:45cold and the

00:40:46thing that had

00:40:47been done in

00:40:48front of it.

00:40:49But the bishop

00:40:50was not

00:40:51finished,

00:40:52because a body

00:40:53buried is a

00:40:54body forgotten.

00:40:56Three iron

00:40:57cages were

00:40:58brought.

00:40:58The bodies

00:40:59of the king

00:41:00and his two

00:41:01officers were

00:41:02placed inside

00:41:02them, one

00:41:04man to each

00:41:04cage, and

00:41:06the cages

00:41:06were hoisted

00:41:07up the side

00:41:08of the tower

00:41:08of St.

00:41:09Lamba, high

00:41:10above the

00:41:11square, and

00:41:12bolted to the

00:41:13stone where

00:41:13the whole city

00:41:14could see

00:41:15them.

00:41:16There they

00:41:17hung, three

00:41:18iron cages

00:41:19against the

00:41:20grey height

00:41:21of the tower,

00:41:22holding the

00:41:22three men who

00:41:23had tried to

00:41:24build heaven

00:41:25inside these

00:41:25walls.

00:41:26The bishop

00:41:27left them

00:41:28there on

00:41:28purpose, in

00:41:29the open air,

00:41:30through the

00:41:31seasons and

00:41:32the years, until

00:41:33time and the

00:41:34weather did to

00:41:34the bodies what

00:41:36time and

00:41:36weather do.

00:41:38For a

00:41:38generation, the

00:41:40cages hung

00:41:41full.

00:41:42Then, slowly,

00:41:44they hung

00:41:45empty, and

00:41:46empty is how

00:41:48they stayed.

00:41:49They are still

00:41:50there today.

00:41:51The bodies

00:41:52are long

00:41:53gone, taken

00:41:54down at last,

00:41:55but the cages

00:41:56were never

00:41:57removed.

00:41:58Five centuries

00:41:59later, they

00:42:00still hang from

00:42:01the tower of

00:42:02St.

00:42:02Lambert, three

00:42:03iron shapes over

00:42:05a quiet German

00:42:05and square, and

00:42:07the town keeps

00:42:08them and mends

00:42:08them and does

00:42:09not take them

00:42:10down.

00:42:11That is what

00:42:13Munster left

00:42:14behind.

00:42:15Not the

00:42:16sharing, not

00:42:17the common

00:42:17bread, not

00:42:19the open

00:42:19unlocked

00:42:20doors.

00:42:21Those lasted

00:42:22sixteen months

00:42:23and vanished in

00:42:25a single night

00:42:26of killing.

00:42:27What lasted

00:42:28was the iron.

00:42:29The warning the

00:42:30bishop bolted to

00:42:31the tower

00:42:32outlived the

00:42:33dream it was

00:42:34meant to

00:42:35bury, and

00:42:36it is the

00:42:37first thing

00:42:37the town

00:42:38shows you

00:42:39still.

00:42:40A city

00:42:41tried to

00:42:41abolish the

00:42:42wall between

00:42:43mine and

00:42:43yours, and

00:42:45what remained

00:42:45of it was

00:42:46three empty

00:42:47cages kept

00:42:48for the

00:42:48looking.

00:42:49It would be

00:42:50easy to think

00:42:51that this was

00:42:52the shape of

00:42:53every such

00:42:54attempt, that

00:42:56to reach for

00:42:56a world with

00:42:57nothing owned

00:42:58was always to

00:43:00end in iron

00:43:00and fire, in

00:43:02a starving

00:43:03city and a

00:43:04punished corpse.

00:43:06Munster is

00:43:07the story most

00:43:08often told, and

00:43:10it is told

00:43:11because it

00:43:12ended so

00:43:12terribly.

00:43:14But it was

00:43:15not the only

00:43:15city to try.

00:43:17In other

00:43:18centuries, in

00:43:19a country that

00:43:19did not yet

00:43:20exist when the

00:43:21cages were

00:43:22forged, other

00:43:23people would

00:43:24pull down the

00:43:24same wall

00:43:25between mine

00:43:26and yours.

00:43:27They would

00:43:27abolish property

00:43:28too, and

00:43:29hold.

00:43:30There were no

00:43:30cages this

00:43:31time.

00:43:32That is the

00:43:32first thing to

00:43:33understand.

00:43:34The story we

00:43:36have just

00:43:36left ended

00:43:37in iron and

00:43:38fire, because

00:43:39it is the

00:43:40story people

00:43:40reach for

00:43:41when they

00:43:42want to say

00:43:42that such

00:43:43dreams always

00:43:44end in

00:43:44horror.

00:43:45It is the

00:43:46warning bolted

00:43:47to the

00:43:47tower.

00:43:48But it is

00:43:49not the

00:43:49shape of

00:43:50every attempt,

00:43:51and to

00:43:51believe it

00:43:52is the

00:43:52shape is

00:43:53to miss

00:43:54what actually

00:43:54happened when

00:43:55others tried.

00:43:56tried, because

00:43:57others did

00:43:58try, and

00:44:00some of

00:44:01them did

00:44:01not burn, and

00:44:02did not

00:44:03starve, and

00:44:04were not put

00:44:05down by any

00:44:06army.

00:44:07Some of

00:44:08them simply

00:44:08lived, for

00:44:10years, quietly,

00:44:12in the ordinary

00:44:13daylight of a

00:44:14country farm, with

00:44:16children and

00:44:17gardens and

00:44:17account books,

00:44:19holding everything

00:44:20in common and

00:44:21harming no one,

00:44:23and drawing

00:44:24almost no

00:44:25notice at

00:44:25all.

00:44:27One of

00:44:27them lasted

00:44:28more than

00:44:29thirty years.

00:44:31It grew up in

00:44:32the middle of

00:44:32the 1800s, in

00:44:34the hills of

00:44:35the state of

00:44:36New York, in

00:44:37a young country

00:44:38still figuring

00:44:39out what it

00:44:39was.

00:44:40It called

00:44:41itself a

00:44:41community, and

00:44:43it named

00:44:43itself after

00:44:44the place it

00:44:45settled, Oneida.

00:44:47Say it

00:44:48plainly, and

00:44:49it sounds like

00:44:50nothing much, a

00:44:51soft word for

00:44:52a green valley,

00:44:53country, but

00:44:54inside that

00:44:55word, for a

00:44:56generation, people

00:44:57lived a life almost

00:44:59as radical as

00:45:00anything the

00:45:01burned prophets

00:45:01of Munster had

00:45:02preached.

00:45:04They abolished

00:45:05private property.

00:45:07Everything the

00:45:08community owned, it

00:45:10owned together.

00:45:11The land, the

00:45:13houses, the

00:45:14tools, the

00:45:15money that came

00:45:16in, all of it

00:45:18held in common,

00:45:19shared out by

00:45:20need and not by

00:45:22ownership.

00:45:23No one at

00:45:24Onida owned the

00:45:25bed they slept

00:45:26in, or the

00:45:27coat they wore, and

00:45:29unlike Munster, this

00:45:31was not the frenzy of

00:45:32a sealed and

00:45:33starving city.

00:45:34It was calm, it

00:45:36was organized, it

00:45:38was written down in

00:45:39ledgers, a

00:45:40minutes, and kept

00:45:41running, year

00:45:43after year, in the

00:45:44plain light of an

00:45:45American afternoon.

00:45:46The man who

00:45:48founded it was not

00:45:50a prophet on a

00:45:51horse, he was a

00:45:52preacher, trained

00:45:53for the ministry, a

00:45:55serious and

00:45:55controlling man with

00:45:57a set of ideas he

00:45:58had been building

00:45:59most of his adult

00:46:00life.

00:46:01He taught a thing he

00:46:03called by names that

00:46:04sounded gentle.

00:46:07Perfectionism, Bible

00:46:09communism, the

00:46:11belief, roughly, that

00:46:13a person could be

00:46:14free of sin here on

00:46:15earth, in this

00:46:16life, and that a

00:46:18community of such

00:46:19people should live

00:46:21entirely as one, not

00:46:22just sharing goods, but

00:46:25dissolving the

00:46:26ordinary walls that

00:46:27separate one

00:46:28household, one

00:46:29family, one person

00:46:31from another.

00:46:32If the saved were

00:46:34truly one body, he

00:46:36reasoned, then the

00:46:38divisions of the old

00:46:39world, mine and

00:46:40yours, husband and

00:46:42wife, my child and

00:46:44your child, all of

00:46:46it belonged to a

00:46:47fallen order they

00:46:48were leaving behind.

00:46:50He gathered

00:46:51followers, first a

00:46:53small circle, then

00:46:55more, until there

00:46:56were a few hundred

00:46:57of them living

00:46:58together on the

00:46:59land at Oneida.

00:47:01And there they

00:47:02built something that

00:47:03has almost no equal

00:47:05in the history of

00:47:06these experiments, not

00:47:08for how it ended, but

00:47:10for how long and

00:47:11how calmly it

00:47:12worked.

00:47:13They farmed.

00:47:14They ran workshops.

00:47:16They kept the books

00:47:18balanced.

00:47:18They raised their

00:47:19children in common, in

00:47:21a separate children's

00:47:23house, apart from the

00:47:24parents who had born

00:47:26them.

00:47:27They held long

00:47:28meetings where the

00:47:29community judged

00:47:30itself out loud, member

00:47:32by member, and they

00:47:34arranged love and

00:47:35marriage in a way so

00:47:36complete and so

00:47:38strange to the world

00:47:39outside, that when

00:47:41the world finally

00:47:42understood it, that

00:47:44understanding was the

00:47:45beginning of the

00:47:46end.

00:47:47But that came later.

00:47:49For a long stretch of

00:47:51years, none of it

00:47:52fell apart.

00:47:54This is the part the

00:47:56Munster story makes

00:47:57hard to believe, that

00:47:59you could pull down

00:48:00the wall between mine

00:48:02and yours and simply

00:48:03live.

00:48:04Wake up, work the

00:48:06land, eat at the

00:48:08common table, put the

00:48:10children to bed in the

00:48:11common house, close the

00:48:13ledger on another

00:48:14ordinary year.

00:48:15No siege, no crown,

00:48:18no hunger.

00:48:19A radical dream, running

00:48:21quietly, paying its own

00:48:23way, for longer than

00:48:25most marriages last.

00:48:28How they did it, day

00:48:29to day, is stranger and

00:48:31gentler, and in some

00:48:33ways harder than

00:48:34anything that happened

00:48:35behind the walls of

00:48:36Munster.

00:48:37And it began with the

00:48:39thing the founder cared

00:48:40about most, not the

00:48:42property.

00:48:43The property was almost

00:48:44the easy part.

00:48:46It began with how they

00:48:48decided to love one

00:48:49another.

00:48:50A visitor to Oneida

00:48:51would have found no

00:48:52husbands and no wives.

00:48:55There were men and

00:48:56women, and there were

00:48:57children, and there were

00:48:59more than 200 people

00:49:00living together on the

00:49:01land, but there were no

00:49:03couples.

00:49:04No man could point to

00:49:05one woman and call her

00:49:07his wife, and no woman

00:49:09could point to one man.

00:49:10The thing every other

00:49:12household in the country

00:49:13was built on, the

00:49:15married pair, the

00:49:16closed door, the

00:49:17private family, simply

00:49:19did not exist here.

00:49:21The founder had a name

00:49:23for what replaced it.

00:49:24He called it complex

00:49:27marriage.

00:49:28The idea was plain, and

00:49:31to the world outside it

00:49:32was monstrous.

00:49:34If the members were all

00:49:36one body, all saved, all

00:49:40belonging to God and to

00:49:41each other, then every man

00:49:44was married to every woman,

00:49:46and every woman to every

00:49:48man.

00:49:48the whole community was, in

00:49:51a sense, a single, vast

00:49:53marriage.

00:49:54To love one person alone, to

00:49:58want one one person above

00:49:59the rest, was called special

00:50:02love, and special love was

00:50:04treated as a fault to be

00:50:06corrected.

00:50:07But a community with no

00:50:09marriages still has to answer

00:50:11the oldest question.

00:50:12What about children?

00:50:15The founder's answer was a

00:50:17method of birth control he

00:50:19taught to the men, one that

00:50:22placed the whole burden of

00:50:23preventing a child on them.

00:50:25The details belonged to the

00:50:27bedroom, the effect belonged to

00:50:30the whole community.

00:50:31It meant that love and child

00:50:33bearing could be pulled

00:50:35apart, and that the

00:50:37community, not nature, would

00:50:40decide when children came, and

00:50:42who would bear them.

00:50:43And the community did decide.

00:50:46Unions were not left to

00:50:48feeling.

00:50:49When two members wished to

00:50:50come together, the request

00:50:52often passed through a third

00:50:54person, an older member, or a

00:50:56small committee, partly to keep

00:50:59any two people from folding into

00:51:01a private couple, and partly to

00:51:03steer who paired with whom.

00:51:05Attachment was watched.

00:51:07Anything that looked like an

00:51:08exclusive bond, a man and a

00:51:11woman drifting quietly toward

00:51:12each other, was noticed, named,

00:51:15and broken up.

00:51:17The children raised in this way

00:51:19were, before long, raised

00:51:21apart.

00:51:22Once they were weaned, they were

00:51:25moved into a house of their

00:51:26own, cared for together, away

00:51:29from the men and women who had

00:51:31born them.

00:51:32A mother could see her child, but

00:51:35she was not to make too much of

00:51:37it.

00:51:37To love your own child more than

00:51:39the others was another kind of

00:51:42special love, another wall

00:51:44between mine and yours.

00:51:46And the community discouraged it

00:51:49as firmly as it discouraged the

00:51:51exclusive couple.

00:51:53The records keep the cost of this.

00:51:55A mother judged too attached to her

00:51:58own child might be kept from the

00:52:00child for a while to cure her of

00:52:02the attachment.

00:52:03Some of them grieved.

00:52:05The community counted the grief as a

00:52:08fault in the mother, not in the

00:52:09rule.

00:52:11The tool that held all of this

00:52:13together had a gentle name too.

00:52:16They called it mutual criticism.

00:52:18A member would sit before a

00:52:21committee or before the whole

00:52:23gathered community and be told

00:52:25openly and at length everything

00:52:28the others found wrong in them.

00:52:30Their pride, their selfishness,

00:52:33their special attachments, their

00:52:36faults of temper.

00:52:38It was meant to file down the

00:52:40individual, to wear away the

00:52:42private self until only the shared

00:52:45body was left.

00:52:46Some found it cleansing.

00:52:49Others sat through it as through a

00:52:51slow fire.

00:52:53Either way, it turned every member

00:52:55inward toward the whole and away

00:52:59from the small private loves that

00:53:01might have pulled the community

00:53:02apart.

00:53:04Against all of this, holding

00:53:07property in common was almost the

00:53:09easy part.

00:53:11Compared with giving up your

00:53:13husband, your wife, your own

00:53:15child, your private self.

00:53:18Giving up the deed to a house was

00:53:21nothing at all.

00:53:22That is the quiet lesson of Oneida,

00:53:25and it runs opposite to Munster.

00:53:28The hardest wall between mine and

00:53:30yours was never the one around

00:53:33money.

00:53:34It was the wall around the people

00:53:36we love.

00:53:38Oneida pulled down both and kept

00:53:40them down for a generation.

00:53:42And for a long time, it held.

00:53:47The workshops turned a profit.

00:53:49The books balanced.

00:53:51The strange, ordered, watchful life

00:53:55ran on, year after year, in the

00:53:58green hills of New York, while the

00:54:00country around it had little idea what

00:54:03was happening on the quiet farm.

00:54:06But the country was beginning to find

00:54:08out.

00:54:09And the founder, growing older, was

00:54:12reaching for one last idea, stranger

00:54:15than all the others.

00:54:16He meant to use the community's control

00:54:18over birth to breed a better kind of

00:54:21human being.

00:54:22When he did, he set in motion the thing

00:54:25that would finally pull Oneida apart.

00:54:28The founder was getting old, and a

00:54:30community built around one man feels it

00:54:33when that man begins to fail.

00:54:35For thirty years, his word had held

00:54:39Oneida together.

00:54:40He had shaped the marriages, led the

00:54:43criticism, settled the quarrels, kept

00:54:46the strange machine running by the force

00:54:48of his own certainty.

00:54:50But he was aging now, his health going,

00:54:54his grip loosening, and there was no one

00:54:57of his weight to take his place.

00:54:59His son, whom he hoped would follow him,

00:55:01did not even share his faith.

00:55:04The center of Oneida was starting to

00:55:07soften, and everyone inside could feel

00:55:10it.

00:55:11Before it softened entirely, he reached

00:55:14for one last idea.

00:55:17And it was the strangest of them all.

00:55:21He had spent decades deciding who at

00:55:24Oneida might have children and who might

00:55:26not.

00:55:27Now he proposed to turn that control

00:55:30toward a purpose.

00:55:32He would use it to breed better human beings.

00:55:35He called it stirpiculture, from the Latin

00:55:38for stock or lineage, and it meant choosing

00:55:41which members would have children together,

00:55:43matched by health and character and

00:55:45spiritual fitness, to improve the human

00:55:48material of the community itself.

00:55:51A committee would approve the pairings.

00:55:54applicants would put themselves forward, or be

00:55:58put forward, and be judged suitable or not to

00:56:02become parents.

00:56:04Over the last years of the community, a number of

00:56:08children were born this way, planned and selected.

00:56:11The first deliberate attempt of its kind on that

00:56:14soil, the founder fathered several of them himself.

00:56:18It was, in his mind, the crowning work.

00:56:23A community that had abolished the private

00:56:26family would now design the future family by choice.

00:56:31To the world outside, it was one strangeness too many.

00:56:36For years, Oneida had been left mostly alone.

00:56:40It was prosperous, quiet, orderly, and it paid its way.

00:56:46And a country has a way of tolerating what does not

00:56:50trouble it.

00:56:51But the community had always had enemies, and now

00:56:56they found their moment.

00:56:58Church leaders in the region had long seen Oneida as

00:57:02an offence, and one clergyman in particular took up a

00:57:06campaign against it, gathering allies, pressing the case

00:57:11in public, and to the authorities.

00:57:14The charge that carried the most weight was the gravest

00:57:17one.

00:57:18It concerned the way the youngest members had been brought

00:57:21into the community's system of complex marriage.

00:57:25At ages, the outside world found intolerable, and the campaign

00:57:29named it plainly and demanded the law step in.

00:57:33It was the accusation Oneida could not survive in the

00:57:36open, and it turned public unease into real legal danger.

00:57:41The pressure closed in through the 1870s, and by the end of

00:57:46the decade, it had reached the founder himself.

00:57:50He faced the real possibility of arrest.

00:57:54And so, the man who had built Oneida, who had held it together

00:57:59for 30 years, did the thing his prophecies never accounted for.

00:58:05In the summer of 1879, he slipped away in the night and crossed the border

00:58:11into Canada, and he did not come back.

00:58:14He left behind a community without its centre, under public attack and

00:58:21afraid.

00:58:22From across the border he sent word with a suggestion that would have been

00:58:27unthinkable a few years before.

00:58:30The community should give up complex marriage.

00:58:34The thing that had defined Oneida, the dissolved family, the shared love, the whole radical heart

00:58:42of it, should simply be set aside.

00:58:46And the community agreed.

00:58:48Within weeks of his flight, Oneida announced that complex marriage was over.

00:58:54The members were free to marry in the ordinary way, one man and one woman, as the rest of

00:59:00the country did.

00:59:01Many of them did so quickly, pairing off into the private couples the community had spent

00:59:07a generation forbidding.

00:59:09The children left the common house.

00:59:11The old life folded up almost without a struggle.

00:59:16What was left was the property.

00:59:19Hundreds of people who had owned nothing individually for years now lived together on land and in

00:59:25workshops held entirely in common, with the belief that had bound them gone.

00:59:32With the belief that had bound them gone.

00:59:35The marriages were private again.

00:59:38Only the ownership was still shared.

00:59:41And a shared fortune, with no shared faith behind it, is a difficult thing to hold.

00:59:47The members were practical people.

00:59:50They had kept good books for thirty years.

00:59:53And they looked at what they owned together and began to ask a very ordinary question about

00:59:59how to divide it.

01:00:01The answer they reached would turn the last radical community in America into something

01:00:07no one could have predicted.

01:00:09A company.

01:00:10With shareholders and a board and a product on a shelf.

01:00:15In the end, they turned it into shares.

01:00:19It was the sensible thing to do.

01:00:21And the people of Oneida were nothing if not sensible.

01:00:26They had held everything in common for more than thirty years.

01:00:30And now the faith that justified it was gone.

01:00:34So they did what practical people do with a jointly held fortune.

01:00:38They counted it, valued it, and divided it into stock.

01:00:43Each member received shares in a new company, weighted by their years and their contribution.

01:00:49And the common property of the community became the private property of shareholders.

01:00:55The community that had abolished ownership dissolved itself into ownership.

01:01:02Not by force, not by siege, but by a vote and a ledger.

01:01:07On the first day of 1881, the Oneida community formally became a joint stock company.

01:01:16The radical experiment ended not with a martyr on a tower, but with a certificate of incorporation.

01:01:25The company kept the name of the valley, Oneida.

01:01:28And it needed something to make and sell, because a company must.

01:01:35The community had run many trades over the years.

01:01:40It had made animal traps and canned fruit and silk thread, and had turned a good profit doing it.

01:01:48But the trade that would carry the name into the future was a quieter one.

01:01:53The company chose to make tableware, knives, forks, and spoons.

01:02:00The people who had dissolved the family, shared their beds by committee, and raised their children in common,

01:02:07became in the end a manufacturer of household cutlery.

01:02:12The business did well.

01:02:14It did better than well.

01:02:17Freed of the strange life that had made it famous,

01:02:20The Oneida name spread across the country, not as a scandal, but as a brand.

01:02:27Stamped on the backs of spoons in ordinary kitchens.

01:02:31Through the next century, the company grew into one of the largest makers of tableware in the world.

01:02:37Its silverware sat in millions of homes, in drawers and on wedding registries.

01:02:43Set out for Sunday dinners by families, who had never heard of complex marriage or mutual criticism,

01:02:52or the preacher who fled to Canada in the night.

01:02:56The name outlived the meaning.

01:02:59That is the strange gift Oneida left behind.

01:03:03Walk through a house, almost anywhere in America, across the 20th century.

01:03:10Open the drawer beside the sink, and you might find the word Oneida lying among the forks.

01:03:18A word that had once meant the most radical rejection of private life the country had produced,

01:03:25Now meant a reliable spoon.

01:03:27The utopia had become a place setting.

01:03:32There is no tower here, and no crowd, and no iron.

01:03:36If you want to find what Oneida left, you do not look up at a church.

01:03:41You open a kitchen drawer.

01:03:43The company lasted far longer than the community that founded it.

01:03:48More than a hundred years as a maker of tableware.

01:03:52Its origins slowly forgotten by the people who used its goods.

01:03:57The great mansion the community built still stands.

01:04:02Kept now as a place to visit.

01:04:04Its rooms explaining a life the visitors can hardly believe was real.

01:04:10The rest settled into spoons.

01:04:14Munster left cages, kept as a warning.

01:04:18Oneida left cutlery, kept by accident.

01:04:21One dream ended in public horror, the other in quiet incorporation.

01:04:26And both left behind a small, hard object that outlasted the belief that made it.

01:04:32The cage and the spoon.

01:04:34Neither of them the thing the dreamers were reaching for.

01:04:37There is a third object still to place beside them.

01:04:41It is neither iron nor silver.

01:04:45It is ash.

01:04:47Because between the burning of Munster and the incorporation of Oneida,

01:04:52in the same young country that would one day fill its drawers with Oneida spoons,

01:04:57another group reached for the same dream.

01:05:00Gentler than either.

01:05:02Full of poets and idealists.

01:05:04Of long talks about a better world.

01:05:07Of hope almost entirely free of cruelty.

01:05:11They very nearly built it.

01:05:13And then, on a winter night,

01:05:16the house they were building burned to the ground.

01:05:18Some of the finest minds in America

01:05:21came to a farm outside Boston

01:05:23to learn how to milk cows.

01:05:25And they were not very good at it.

01:05:28That was rather the point.

01:05:30At Brook Farm,

01:05:32the poet was to work the field,

01:05:34and the field hand was to read the poets.

01:05:37And the old wall between the thinker and the labourer

01:05:40was to come down along with every other wall.

01:05:43A scholar who had spent his life among books

01:05:46would spend his mornings shoveling manure,

01:05:49and be the better and freer for it.

01:05:51It was, of all the experiments,

01:05:55the most hopeful and the most gentle,

01:05:57and in some ways the most purely dreamed.

01:06:01It began in the 1840s,

01:06:04in the green country at West Roxbury,

01:06:07in Massachusetts.

01:06:09Its founder was a former minister,

01:06:11a thoughtful man who had left his pulpit

01:06:15because he wanted to build a better way of living

01:06:18rather than only preach about it.

01:06:20He gathered around him a community

01:06:23of like-minded people.

01:06:25And together they bought a farm

01:06:27and set out to prove

01:06:30that a life of shared work

01:06:32and shared reward

01:06:33could be more humane

01:06:35than the scramble of the world outside.

01:06:39They held the property in common,

01:06:41in their way.

01:06:43Members bought shares in the farm

01:06:45and worked it together,

01:06:46and the labour was meant to be shared honestly,

01:06:50the pleasant tasks and the hard ones

01:06:52divided among all.

01:06:54Money mattered less here than the idea.

01:06:57What they were really after

01:06:58was a life where no one was ground down by toil

01:07:01and no one was made idle by wealth,

01:07:04a place where a person could work with their hands

01:07:07and feed their mind in the same day.

01:07:10And for a while it was,

01:07:12by all accounts,

01:07:14a lovely place to be.

01:07:16The people who lived there

01:07:18remembered it for the rest of their lives

01:07:21with a kind of ache.

01:07:23There were lectures and music in the evenings.

01:07:26There was dancing.

01:07:27There was good talk late into the night

01:07:30about philosophy and reform

01:07:32and the shape of a better world.

01:07:34The children were taught in a school

01:07:36that became one of the best regarded in the region,

01:07:40and outsiders sent their sons and daughters to it.

01:07:44The community made much of its money

01:07:47not from the stubborn soil,

01:07:49but from that school.

01:07:51The great thinkers of the age came and went.

01:07:54The circle of writers and philosophers

01:07:57who were remaking American thought in those years

01:08:00treated Brook Farm as one of their gathering places,

01:08:03visiting, lecturing, arguing,

01:08:06lending it their glamour,

01:08:08if not always their labour.

01:08:10One of them stayed longer than most

01:08:13and left the deepest mark.

01:08:16A young writer, not yet famous,

01:08:19joined the community in its earliest days

01:08:21and even served as one of its officers.

01:08:24He had hoped to find there

01:08:26the peace and the fellowship to do his work.

01:08:29Instead, he found that shoveling manure all morning

01:08:33left a man too tired to write a word at night

01:08:37and that the dream of the poet labourer

01:08:40was easier to describe than to live.

01:08:44He left disappointed.

01:08:46Years later, he turned the experience into a novel.

01:08:51A strange and shadowed book

01:08:53about a community much like Brook Farm.

01:08:57And through it, the farm passed into American literature.

01:09:01His name was Hawthorne.

01:09:03That novel would outlast the farm itself.

01:09:07Like the cages and the spoons,

01:09:10it became the thing that survived,

01:09:12an object left behind when the dream was gone.

01:09:15But that was still to come.

01:09:17For its first years,

01:09:20Brook Farm drifted along happily

01:09:22and lost money gently.

01:09:25It was never quite solvent.

01:09:27The soil was poor,

01:09:29the farmers were amateurs,

01:09:31and the account books leaned

01:09:33always the wrong way.

01:09:35But the spirit of the place carried it

01:09:38and the members loved it.

01:09:40And they believed

01:09:42that with a little more order

01:09:44and a little more capital,

01:09:46they could put it on a sound footing at last.

01:09:50And that belief,

01:09:52the wish to make the lovely amateur thing

01:09:54into a serious and lasting one,

01:09:57led them to a decision

01:09:58that would destroy it.

01:10:01In its later years,

01:10:03the community fell under the spell

01:10:06of a grand French theory of social reform.

01:10:10A complete blueprint

01:10:11for how an ideal community

01:10:13should be built and housed and organized.

01:10:16At the heart of that blueprint

01:10:18was a single great building,

01:10:21a vast communal house

01:10:23called a phalanstery,

01:10:25in which the whole community would live

01:10:28and work together under one roof.

01:10:31It was to be the physical body

01:10:33of the perfected society.

01:10:36The idea made in wood and stone.

01:10:39Brook Farm decided to build one.

01:10:42It poured the money,

01:10:43it did not really have,

01:10:45into the great house,

01:10:46the largest thing it had ever attempted,

01:10:49the structure that was to carry it

01:10:51from a fragile experiment

01:10:53into a permanent home.

01:10:55For months,

01:10:56the building rose on the grounds.

01:10:59It was nearly finished.

01:11:01The community had staked its future

01:11:04and its funds on it.

01:11:06And that future

01:11:07was almost literally within reach,

01:11:10a roof away,

01:11:11a season away,

01:11:12standing there in the Massachusetts air,

01:11:15waiting only for its final touches.

01:11:19Then,

01:11:19on a cold night,

01:11:21someone smelled smoke.

01:11:23It came from the great house,

01:11:24the one that was almost finished.

01:11:27By the time anyone understood

01:11:29what was happening,

01:11:30the new building was well alight.

01:11:33The community rushed to it in the dark,

01:11:36and there was nothing to be done.

01:11:38The phalanstery,

01:11:39the vast communal home

01:11:41they had staked everything on,

01:11:43the body of their perfected society,

01:11:46burned through the night

01:11:48while the people who had built it

01:11:50stood in the cold and watched.

01:11:52By morning,

01:11:54it was gone.

01:11:55Not damaged.

01:11:57Gone.

01:11:59The largest thing

01:12:00the community had ever built,

01:12:03the structure meant to carry it

01:12:05into a permanent future,

01:12:07was a field of ash

01:12:09and blackened timber.

01:12:11And it had not been insured.

01:12:13Every dollar poured into it.

01:12:16Much of it borrowed.

01:12:18Much of it money

01:12:20the community never truly had.

01:12:22Went up with the smoke

01:12:24and did not come back.

01:12:26The fire did not kill anyone.

01:12:29That is worth saying,

01:12:30because it is the whole difference

01:12:32between this ending and the others.

01:12:34No one was executed.

01:12:36No one starved.

01:12:38No one was hung in a cage

01:12:40or driven across a border

01:12:41in the night.

01:12:42A building burned

01:12:44and no person was harmed.

01:12:46And by the ordinary measure

01:12:47of human suffering,

01:12:49Brook Farm's ending

01:12:50was the mildest of the three.

01:12:53And yet it was,

01:12:55in its own quiet way,

01:12:57the saddest.

01:12:59Because Munster

01:13:00fell to its own fanaticism

01:13:02and Oneida dissolved

01:13:04by its own hand.

01:13:06But Brook Farm

01:13:07was simply unlucky.

01:13:09It had hurt no one.

01:13:11It had dreamed

01:13:12the gentlest version

01:13:14of the dream.

01:13:15A life of shared work

01:13:17and evening music

01:13:18and honest talk.

01:13:20And it had asked

01:13:21only to be allowed

01:13:23to keep going.

01:13:24The fire did not judge it.

01:13:26The fire was just a fire.

01:13:29It took the house

01:13:30and with it the last hope

01:13:32the community had

01:13:34of ever standing

01:13:35on its own.

01:13:36They tried to go on.

01:13:38For a little while

01:13:40they held together,

01:13:41stunned,

01:13:42hoping to rebuild.

01:13:43But the money was gone

01:13:45and the heart

01:13:46was gone with it.

01:13:47The debts came due.

01:13:49Members began

01:13:50to drift away,

01:13:51back to the ordinary world,

01:13:53to the cities

01:13:54and the jobs

01:13:55and the private lives

01:13:56they had left behind.

01:13:57Within two years

01:13:58of the fire,

01:13:59the community closed.

01:14:01The farm was sold.

01:14:02The lovely,

01:14:04hopeful,

01:14:04unlucky experiment

01:14:05was over.

01:14:07The people

01:14:08who had lived there

01:14:09carried it with them

01:14:10for the rest

01:14:11of their days.

01:14:13In their letters

01:14:14and their memories,

01:14:16Brook Farm

01:14:17keeps a glow

01:14:18that Munster

01:14:19and Ornida

01:14:20never had.

01:14:22Those who were there

01:14:23spoke of it

01:14:24as the happiest

01:14:25time of their lives.

01:14:26a few golden years

01:14:28when they had believed,

01:14:30truly believed,

01:14:31that a kinder way

01:14:33of living was possible

01:14:34and had lived it

01:14:36briefly

01:14:36before it slipped away.

01:14:39What survived

01:14:40was not the farm.

01:14:42It was the book.

01:14:44The young writer

01:14:45who had shoveled

01:14:47its manure

01:14:47and left disappointed

01:14:49turned it,

01:14:51years later,

01:14:52into a novel.

01:14:53and the novel endured

01:14:55while the community faded.

01:14:57Long after

01:14:58the last member

01:14:59had gone

01:15:00and the fields

01:15:01had passed

01:15:02to other hands,

01:15:04people still met

01:15:05Brook Farm

01:15:06on the page.

01:15:08In the shadowed story,

01:15:09a future master

01:15:11of American letters

01:15:12had built

01:15:13from his months

01:15:15among the hopeful.

01:15:16The dream

01:15:18became literature.

01:15:20The ash

01:15:21fed a book.

01:15:23That is the third object.

01:15:25Not iron,

01:15:26not silver.

01:15:27Ash

01:15:28and the pages

01:15:29that grew from it.

01:15:31Three communities

01:15:32in three centuries

01:15:34and two countries.

01:15:37Three attempts

01:15:38to pull down the wall

01:15:39between mine and yours

01:15:41and live as one.

01:15:43One ended in fire

01:15:44and iron.

01:15:45One in a business decision.

01:15:47One in an accident

01:15:49on a winter night.

01:15:50and each of them

01:15:51when it was over

01:15:52left behind

01:15:54a small hard thing

01:15:55that outlasted the dream.

01:15:57A set of empty cages

01:15:59on a tower.

01:16:00A drawer full of spoons.

01:16:03A burned field

01:16:04and a book about it.

01:16:06It is tempting

01:16:08to line them up

01:16:09and draw a lesson.

01:16:11To say that these objects

01:16:13prove something.

01:16:14that

01:16:15thar the verdict

01:16:17history past

01:16:18on the dreams

01:16:20that made them.

01:16:21But the objects

01:16:22do not explain themselves.

01:16:24The cages,

01:16:26the spoons,

01:16:27the ashes.

01:16:28They sit there

01:16:29stubborn

01:16:30and quiet

01:16:31and they do not

01:16:33tell us

01:16:33what they mean.

01:16:35Perhaps the meaning

01:16:36is not in any one of them.

01:16:38Perhaps it is only visible

01:16:40when all three

01:16:41are set side by side

01:16:43and you stand back

01:16:44and look at what

01:16:45they have in common.

01:16:46Set them side by side.

01:16:48The cages,

01:16:49the spoons,

01:16:50the ashes.

01:16:52Three objects

01:16:53from three centuries

01:16:55left behind

01:16:55by three groups

01:16:57of people

01:16:57who reached

01:16:58for the same

01:16:59impossible thing.

01:17:00A sealed city

01:17:02in Germany

01:17:02that abolished

01:17:03money and property

01:17:04and ended on a tower.

01:17:06A quiet community

01:17:08in New York

01:17:08that dissolved

01:17:09the family itself

01:17:11and ended in a company.

01:17:13A gentle farm

01:17:14outside Boston

01:17:15that dreamed

01:17:16the kindest dream of all

01:17:17and ended in a fire.

01:17:19Different in almost

01:17:21every way.

01:17:22Alike in the one way

01:17:23that matters.

01:17:24Each tried to pull down

01:17:26the wall

01:17:26between mine and yours.

01:17:28Each failed.

01:17:29And each left

01:17:30a small hard object

01:17:32that outlasted

01:17:33the failing.

01:17:35It would be easy

01:17:36to say

01:17:37what these objects mean.

01:17:38people have been

01:17:40saying it

01:17:41for centuries

01:17:41that human beings

01:17:44are too selfish

01:17:45for such dreams.

01:17:46That the wall

01:17:47between mine

01:17:48and yours

01:17:49cannot be pulled down

01:17:51because it's built

01:17:52into us

01:17:52and every attempt

01:17:54to remove it

01:17:55must end

01:17:56in a cage,

01:17:57a spoon

01:17:58or a pile of ash.

01:18:00It is a clean lesson

01:18:01and a comfortable one

01:18:03and it lets everyone

01:18:05stop thinking.

01:18:06but the objects

01:18:08do not quite say that

01:18:09because look again

01:18:12at how differently

01:18:14they ended.

01:18:16Munster did not fail

01:18:17because sharing

01:18:18is impossible.

01:18:20It failed

01:18:21because a starving city

01:18:23under siege

01:18:24turned to a tyrant

01:18:25and tyrants

01:18:27end in blood

01:18:28whatever they preach.

01:18:30Oneida

01:18:31did not collapse

01:18:32from within.

01:18:33It ran

01:18:33calmly

01:18:35and successfully

01:18:36for more than

01:18:38thirty years

01:18:39and it ended

01:18:40not because

01:18:41the sharing

01:18:42broke down

01:18:42but because

01:18:44the world outside

01:18:45would not tolerate

01:18:46the rest of what it did

01:18:48and Brook Farm

01:18:50did not fall

01:18:51to human nature

01:18:52at all.

01:18:53It fell

01:18:54to a fire

01:18:55an accident

01:18:56a spark

01:18:57on a winter night

01:18:59that no theory

01:19:00of selfishness

01:19:01can explain.

01:19:03Three failures

01:19:04and three

01:19:05completely different

01:19:06reasons for failing.

01:19:08That is what the objects

01:19:09quietly refuse

01:19:11to let us forget.

01:19:12If the dream

01:19:13was simply impossible

01:19:14it would fail

01:19:16the same way

01:19:16every time

01:19:17it does not.

01:19:19So perhaps

01:19:20the lesson

01:19:21is not the clean one.

01:19:23Perhaps these objects

01:19:24are not proof

01:19:25that the war

01:19:26between mine

01:19:27and yours

01:19:27can never come down.

01:19:29Perhaps

01:19:30they are only proof

01:19:31of how many

01:19:32different things

01:19:32have to go right

01:19:33and how many

01:19:35different things

01:19:35can go wrong

01:19:36when people try.

01:19:38The fanaticism

01:19:39that ruined one

01:19:40the intolerance

01:19:42that closed another

01:19:43the plain bad luck

01:19:45that burned the third

01:19:47none of them the same

01:19:49none of them final.

01:19:51The dreams

01:19:52keep coming back

01:19:53in every century

01:19:55which is itself

01:19:56a kind of answer.

01:19:58If it were truly

01:19:59impossible

01:19:59people would have

01:20:01stopped reaching

01:20:01they have never

01:20:03stopped reaching.

01:20:05These are the stories

01:20:06this archive

01:20:07exists to keep.

01:20:09Not to tell you

01:20:10what to think of them

01:20:12but to set the objects

01:20:14side by side

01:20:15and let you stand

01:20:16back and look.

01:20:18If you have walked

01:20:19all this way with me

01:20:20through the fire

01:20:22and the spoons

01:20:22and the ash

01:20:23then you are the kind

01:20:25of person

01:20:26these quiet histories

01:20:27are made for.

01:20:29You can follow along

01:20:30here

01:20:30or on whatever platform

01:20:33you already use

01:20:34to listen

01:20:34and each new story

01:20:37will find you

01:20:38when it is ready.

01:20:39It costs nothing

01:20:41and it is how

01:20:42these small

01:20:43stubborn histories

01:20:44go on

01:20:45reaching the people

01:20:46who have not yet

01:20:47heard them.

01:20:48That is all the keeping

01:20:50they need

01:20:50someone to look

01:20:52and someone

01:20:53to remember.

01:20:55The communities

01:20:56are gone.

01:20:58The people

01:20:58who dreamed

01:20:59them

01:20:59are long dead.

01:21:01What they built

01:21:02lasted months

01:21:03or years

01:21:04or a single

01:21:06generation

01:21:06and then it was

01:21:08over

01:21:09and the world

01:21:10folded back

01:21:11into mine

01:21:11and yours

01:21:12as if they had

01:21:14never tried.

01:21:15But the objects

01:21:16remain

01:21:17the spoons

01:21:18in their drawers

01:21:19the ashes

01:21:20under the grass

01:21:21and high on a tower

01:21:23in a German town

01:21:24three iron cages

01:21:25empty now

01:21:26for five hundred years

01:21:28still bolted

01:21:29to the stone.

01:21:31The town

01:21:32has never

01:21:32taken them down.

01:21:34Perhaps it knows

01:21:35that someone

01:21:36someday

01:21:36will look up

01:21:37and wonder

01:21:38and begin to ask

01:21:40the question

01:21:40all over again.

01:21:41Amen.

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