Martyrs Mirror 1084SENTENCE OF DEATH OF GERRIT CORNELISS, SUR; NAMED BOON

Whereas Gerrit Corneliss, alias Gerrit Boon, boatman, citizen of this city, at present a prisoner here, unmindful of his soul's. salvation, and the obedience which he owed to our mother the holy church, and to his imperial majesty, as his natural lord and prince, rejecting the ordinances of the holy church, has been neither to confession nor to the holy sacrament for ten years past, and has further dared repeatedly to go into the assembly of the reprobated sect of the Mennonists or Anabaptists, and has also, about eight years ago, renouncing and forsaking the baptism received .by him in his infancy from the holy church, been rebaptized, and afterwards repeatedly received the breaking of bread according to the manner of the aforesaid sect, and also attended the assembly of the aforesaid sect, without speaking to them when they met together; and though he, the prisoner, has, by my lords of the court as well as by divers ecclesiastical persons, been urged, and repeatedly admonished, to forsake the aforementioned reprobated sect, and to return to our mother, the holy church, he nevertheless refuses to do it, persisting in his obstinacy and stubbornness, so that he, the prisoner, according to what has been mentioned, has committed crime against divine and human majesty, as by said sect perturbing the common peace and welfare of the country, according to the import of the decrees of his majesty existing in regard to this; which misdemeanors, for an example unto others; ought not to go unpunished; therefore,my lords of the court, having heard the demand of my lord the bailiff, and seen the confession of the prisoner, and having had regard to his obstinacy and stubbornness, have condemned said prisoner, and by these presents, do condemn him to be executed with fire, according to the decrees of his royal majesty, and declare ail his property confiscated for the benefit of his majesty aforesaid. Done in court, on the 26th of June, A. D. 1571, in the presence of all the judges, by the advice of Cornelis Jacobss Brouwer, and Hendrick Cornelis, burgomasters; I being present as secretary. Subscribed.