SIMONS, MENNO (1496–1561). Dutch priest, the major northern European leader of an Anabaptist group that later came to be known as the Mennonite church. His firm leadership and numerous writings helped to consolidate the pacifist wing of early Dutch Anabaptism and to make it normative, after the ill-fated attempt of some to establish the kingdom of God by force in the northern German city of Münster in 1534–1535.

Simons was born of peasant stock in Witmarsum, in the province of Friesland, in 1496 and was enrolled in a monastic school at an early age. Since Friesland was dominated by the Premonstratensian Order at that time, and since Simons was installed in 1524 by that order as a priest in Pingjum as well as in his home parish of Witmarsum in 1531, it may be assumed that he was a member of that order and received his training in it, perhaps...