Sentence of Death of Gerrit Corneliss

Whereas Gerrit Corneliss, also called Gerrit Boon, boatman, citizen of this city, at present a prisoner here, unmindful of his soul's salvation, and of 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 the past ten years, and has further dared repeatedly to go into the assembly of the condemned sect of the Mennonists or Anabaptists, and has also, about eight years ago, renouncing and forsaking the baptism he received 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 although he, the prisoner, has been urged and repeatedly admonished, by my lords of the court as well as by various ecclesiastical persons, to forsake the aforementioned condemned 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 stated, has committed a crime against divine and human majesty, disturbing by means of said sect the common peace and welfare of the country, according to the import of his majesty's decrees existing in regard to this; which misdeeds, for an example to 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 taken his obstinacy and stubbornness into account, 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 all his property confiscated for the benefit of his majesty aforesaid. Done in court, on the 26th of June, in the year 1571, in the presence of all the judges, by the advice of Cornelis Jacobss Brouwer, and Hendrick Cornelis, burgomasters; with me present as secretary. Subscribed.

W. PIETERSS.