Jacob the Chandler
“What do you understand about St. John’s Apocalypse?” the friar asked the chandler. “At what university did you study? At the loom, I suppose? For I understand that you were nothing but a poor weaver and chandler before you went around preaching and rebaptizing. . . . I have attended the university of Louvain, and for long studied divinity, and yet I do not understand anything at all about St John’s Apocalypse. This is a fact.” To which Jacob answered: “Therefore Christ thanked his heavenly Father that he had revealed and made it known to babes and hid it from the wise of this world, as it is written in Matt. 11:25.” “Exactly!” the friar replied, “God has revealed it to the weavers at the loom, to the cobblers on the bench, and to bellow-menders, lantern tinkers, scissors grinders, brass makers, thatchers and all sorts of riff-raff, and poor, filthy and lousy beggars. And to us ecclesiastics who have studied from our youth, night and day, God has concealed it.”

Disputation between Jacob de Keersgieter and Mgr. Friar Cornelis, a Franciscan monk; in the presence of Mhr. Jan van Damme, Recorder, and Mhr. Michiel Houwaert, Clerk of the Criminal Court, on the 9th of May, AD 1569, quoted in Thieleman J. van Braght The Martyrs’ Mirror (1660)