Tag Archives: Dutch Anabaptists

Disputing Dispossession

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After the 1694 expulsion and dispossession of Mennonites from the city of Rheydt, negotiations were both urgent and extensive. (For the narrative of this event, as reported by Rheydt Mennonites themselves, please see my post from May 4, 2021.) The protracted aftermath – hundreds of letters, petitions, and memos sent between Elector Palatine Johann Wilhelm and his commissioners, representatives of the Dutch States General, King William III of England and Stadtholder of the Netherlands, and Holy Roman Emperor Leopold III – ultimately demonstrated a small but significant rhetorical space that had been carved out through years of piecemeal economic toleration.1 Indeed, these high-level epistolary discussions often included appeals for de facto tolerance based on Mennonite economic usefulness or political obedience.

Though decisions happened primarily in these diplomatic debates, other Mennonite groups also took it upon themselves to urge intercession on behalf of the Rheydt community. These appeals often turned upon an argument for a shared Christianity, while at the same time defending against ongoing accusations of heresy – and we’ll look at one such letter today. The collective “baptism-minded” [tauffgesindt] community of the duchy of Cleve had been involved in raising funds to free the imprisoned Rheydt Mennonites in the summer of 1694, and subsequently petitioned their elector, Frederick III of Brandenburg, to plead on the Rheydt community’s behalf. They began a September 1694 letter by declaring “that those, who are of our opinion in the matter of baptism but otherwise faithful to Christian beliefs based on God’s Word” had been “attacked without warning.”2 This affront had occurred despite the community’s adherence to a faith that did “not in any way challenge the common ground of Christian religion.”3 These Mennonites were those for whom “the carrying of weapons among them was held to be prohibited, but that nothing else was sought other than to live a quiet and peaceful life under their Christian authority, to honor themselves by honest dealings, to live in Christian love and unity with their neighbors and to contribute to the common good all that appertains to a faithful subject and citizen,” and that such obvious virtues had led, “not only in England and Holland but also in various provinces of the Holy Roman Empire [to]…freedom of residence, trade and commerce like other Christian inhabitants.”4 They therefore insisted on a common Christianity, but ultimately grounded their appeal for toleration in practical, economic successes in nearby communities and territories.

This mix of theological inoffensiveness and practical economic appeal became even more clear as the Cleve community dealt with the issue of the Peace of Westphalia. The 1648 Peace of Westphalia had redefined the relationship between Christian communities, Christian authority, and the Holy Roman Empire. Calvinism now joined Lutheranism and Catholicism as legitimate official religions, and, importantly, rulers who mandated one were no longer allowed to expel dissenting believers from the other two groups. Mennonites, however, were not included in this expansion of imperial toleration. The Cleve community acknowledged that they had heard others talk about their exclusion from the treaty: “In the meantime, we hear that we, not belonging to the three religions admitted to the Roman Empire, are to be feared as heretics and therefore our property, wherever it may be, is to be confiscated.”5 The community was forced to acknowledge the invectives thrown against them, and the economic penalty that had long attended charges of heresy.6 The Cleve community therefore identified the vulnerability that their extra-Westphalian status accentuated, even as they pushed back against the conflation of non-tolerated and “heretical” groups. They stopped short, however, of making any claims on Westphalian identity: “So it should be noted that we are not looking for any rights dedicated to these three religions in the same statutes, but rather we are asking for nothing more than what we, under your Serene Elector’s Merciful protection live peacefully…so that our mere things, without some fault of our own, may not be taken.”7 This plea was underscored by the accusation that the commerce available even to “heathen, Turks and Jews” had become impossible for Mennonites – a claim that they were owed at least the same, if not more, protection than these other exogenous groups.

The Cleve Mennonites’ insistence on their common Christian status under the Peace of Westphalia is striking, especially when considered next to their still-requisite denial of any connection to the 1534/5 Kingdom of Münster. The community was unsurprisingly explicit in its denunciation, acknowledging “a certain sect of people, which one calls re-baptizers, that also committed varying severe errors, and in particular have tried to bring about turmoil and insurrection [unruhe und Emperung] in ecclesiastical and secular rule […] out of which formed in the city of Münster a terrifying example.”8 These “pernicious heretics” had been dealt with justly according to the laws of the empire, the Cleve community emphasized, with strict punishments doled out to both ringleaders and followers.9 It was moreover well known, they argued, that Menno and all peaceable Anabaptists who followed him had willingly chosen a faith and a life that distinguished themselves from their “unruly” brethren – and exonerated them, in turn, from these lingering accusations of heresy. “[Menno] does not have the slightest community with those of Münster,” they argued, and “instead they have as their first and main maxim that they do not interfere with matters of spiritual or secular rule, and prove themselves to be against all turmoil [unruhe].”10 This letter from the “baptism minded” of the duchy of Cleve was longer than most other petitions in the aftermath of the Rheydt dispossession, perhaps indicating both the gradually increasing space for, and the ongoing character of, negotiations around Anabaptist identity.

Rheydt Mennonites would be portrayed by secular authorities throughout the negotiations as either a heretical threat or an economic boon, or perhaps some mixture of the two. This malleability in their identity had proved essential to their survival thus far, but also inherent to their persecution. Although the targeting of a flourishing religious minority group was far from a unique tactic, in the case of dispossessed Rheydt Mennonites it occasioned another semi-public discussion about who was and was not a Christian – and would eventually develop into a debate over who was and was not a “Protestant.”

1. Achieved through the exchange of protection fees [Schutzgeld] for the issuance of protection letters [Schutzbriefe]. For an example of Schutzgeld payments as recorded in the registers of the city of Emden, please see my post from May 28, 2020.

2. Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz[GSPK], I. HA Rep. 34 Nr. 2112, 6r.

3. GSPK, I. HA Rep. 34 Nr. 2112, 7r.

4. GSPK, I. HA Rep. 34 Nr. 2112, 7v.

5. GSPK, I. HA Rep. 34 Nr. 2112, 8v.

6. The 1532 Constitutio Criminalis Carolina had codified laws concerning heresy, criminality, and property for application within the Holy Roman Empire. For the language of the Carolina, see “Appendix B. CONSITUTIO CRIMINALIS CAROLINA,” in Prosecuting crime in the Renaissance: England, Germany, France, edited and by John H. Langbein (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1974), 259-308.

7. GSPK, I. HA Rep. 34 Nr. 2112, 9r.

8. GSPK, I. HA Rep. 34 Nr. 2112, 6v.

9. GSPK, I. HA Rep. 34 Nr. 2112, 7r.

10. GSPK, I. HA Rep. 34 Nr. 2112, 7r.

From the Flat Files

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Tucked away in the office of the Menno Simons Historical library is a flat file that has eleven drawers filled with various and sundry historical treasures. I thought it might be interesting to dive in and sample a few of the items housed therein.

The first item I wanted to highlight is a bill for two shillings and six-pence or half-a-crown printed in colonial Pennsylvania in 1772. 

Next is an announcement issued in March 1862 by Lt. Col. J.R. Jones at the behest of General Stonewall Jackson to muster the militia for the Confederate Army in Rockingham County. This announcement contains a provisio for conscientious objectors that states, “I am authorised to say to the Tunkers and Menonites [sic], that Gen. Jackson believes them to be sincere in their opposition to engaging in war, and will detail them as teamsters, etc. They can serve their state as well in such a capacity as if bearing arms.”

Here is a full transcript of the announcement: 

Attention Militia

Special Order   Head quarters, V.P.

Non. 1853                                           March 31 1862

Lieut. Col. J.R. Johnes 33 D Regiment Va. Vols.
is ordered to proceed to Rockingham County for the purpose of bringing out the Militia.  
By order of Maj. Gen. Jackson, A.S. Pendleton, A.A.G
A company of cavalry has been ordered to report to me here, for the purpose of executing the above order; and any additional force necessary will be sent. I sincerely hope, therefore, that All Militia Men Will promptly report themselves, and avoid the mortification of an arrest. I am authorised to say to the Tunkers and Menonites [sic], that Gen. Jackson believes them to be sincere in their opposition to engaging in war, and will detail them as teamsters, etc. They can serve their state as well in such a capacity as if bearing arms

Come Forward, Then, Promptly. 

You brethren from Rockbridge, Augusta, Shenandoah and Page are in the field, and our brave little army is hard pressed by the enemy.

You will rendezvous at the courthouse

On Thursday morning at 9 o’clock. Prepare to leave for the army. 

J.R. Jones Ct. Col.      33d Regt vol

We have a poster depicting scenes from the 1936 Mennonite World Conference held in Amsterdam.

And finally, we have a number of lovely etchings depicting Mennonite groups in the Netherlands.

“Mennonist Church named the Waterlanders” 
“Mennonist Church named the Flemings”
“The Sun; Depiction of the division of the bread in the Holy Supper by the Mennonites”
J.V. Schley “The Lord’s Supper of the Anabaptists Premiere figure”
J.V. Schley “The Lord’s Supper of the Anabaptists Seconde figure”

 
I hope you enjoyed this peek into the treasure chest that is our flat files. If you would like to see more, you can visit this website that contains a number of scans of other items in our collection.

Public Nudity and Prophecy in Early Anabaptism: The Cases of Lienhard Jost and the Naaktlopers

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On the 10th of February, in 1535, the Melchiorite Anabaptist Hendrick Hendricks Snyder addressed a group of seven men and five women and prophesied to them of God’s impending wrath. Then he cast off first the weapons and then the very clothes he wore, and threw them into the fire.[1] The other men and women followed suit and burned all their clothing as well. The group then ran into the city, shouting “Woe, woe, woe! Divine wrath, divine wrath, divine wrath!” Unarmed and small in numbers, the naaktlopers or “naked walkers” were easily captured by the Netherlandish authorities. They refused clothing even as they were escorted to prison, citing their intention to proclaim the “naked truth.”[2] All the men involved in the incident, and some of the women, were sentenced to capital punishment as a result of their involvement, and the authorities in Amsterdam were motivated to enforce imperial edicts against Anabaptism more stringently than they had before.[3]

The naaktlopers’ demonstration provided ample fodder for polemicists who sought to warn their readers about the dangers and excesses of Anabaptism. A little more than a decade after the incident, in 1548, the Dutch humanist and Catholic priest Lambertus Hortensius published a scathing account of Anabaptism in the Low Countries. Hortensius’ account circulated in several editions well into the seventeenth century and in several countries. A Dutch translation appeared in 1667, and in 1702 a French adaptation was published. The Dutch and French editions came accompanied with a striking woodcut of the incident, intended to further shock the audience and convince them of Anabaptism’s ridiculousness, if not its nefariousness.

1702 woodcut
A woodcut featuring the naaktlopers from the 1702 French edition of Lambertus Hortensius’ anti-Anabaptist polemic, available at https://books.google.com/books?id=Ei-qGw_urRUC

For Hortensius and his translators, the naaktloper incident provided prime evidence of just how ludicrous Anabaptism was, and how deluded and unreasonable its followers were. Their descriptions of the event alternated between ridicule and pity for the persons involved. “Since these people were full of nothing but visions and each one considered himself a prophet, when the mood seized them, one could see them committing completely strange and ridiculous acts,” wrote Hortensius’ French translator. He went on to describe their decision to cast off their clothes and walk around Amsterdam naked as “one of the most ridiculous [ideas] that could befall the imagination.”[4] For these early modern polemicists, the naaktlopers, with their immoderate excess and their willingness to perform every strange idea that came into their heads, perfectly encapsulated the failings of Anabaptism. More recent histories of Anabaptism have largely recounted the story of the naaktlopers as part of the general uproar surrounding the establishment of the Anabaptist kingdom of Munster, but have largely treated the public nudity aspect of the story as a curious but isolated incident.

The naaktlopers, however, were not entirely unique among their coreligionists. The third chapter of Strasbourg prophet Lienhard Jost’s visions reveals that he engaged in public nudity as a prophetic act, just as the naaktlopers did. Lienhard recounted that, one night, he felt the Spirit of God tell him to rise immediately, disrobe, and run through the streets of Strasbourg naked in order to sound the Mord Glock—the alarm bell located in Strasbourg’s cathedral. He rose immediately and ran through the streets of Strasbourg, shouting the following prophetic utterance: “Murder upon murder! The child in its mother’s womb must and will be terrified before the word of the Lord comes to pass . . . if the lords and rulers of the city only knew that their princely clothes will be removed from them before God and the world, that they might seek God again, they would all cry along with me…but after this the child in its mother’s womb will rejoice again, and all those who have been sad will find peace.”[5] Like the naaktlopers, Lienhard’s actions resulted in his capture. However, given the relative tolerance of Strasbourg’s magistrates toward religious dissenters, he met with a much lighter sentence—he was brought to Strasbourg’s hospital, where he was deemed insane and moved to an asylum. He remained there for a few months until his release.

This is the only incidence of public nudity in Lienhard’s visions, but it nevertheless is not out of place. In his 2015 article on Lienhard’s prophecies, Jonathan Green notes the prevalence of clothing-based imagery. Lienhard counsels his audience to throw off their stinking clothes in order that God might clothe them, although he quickly clarifies that he is speaking in spiritual, not physical terms.[6] Green also notes the performative nature of Lienhard’s visions in general. Lienhard was not content to merely share the words of God, but instead frequently contrived an object lesson. He chewed and then spit out bread in order to demonstrate his rejection of “idolatrous masses,” and he poured wine on his bed and watched it spread as a symbol of how a God-sent abundance of good things would soon spread across the earth.[7] Lienhard’s own experiences of God were multi-sensory. He not only saw and heard God’s messages, he felt and tasted them. Since his experience of divine revelation that was so arresting and all-consuming, it is unsurprising that Lienhard would attempt to replicate aspects of this experience for his audience.

It is impossible to establish with certainty whether Hendrick Hendricks Snyder and the rest of the naaktlopers were familiar with Lienhard’s prophetic career, but it seems distinctly possible, and perhaps even likely. Melchior Hoffman assiduously disseminated their visions and prophecies among his followers. In 1533, his associate Cornelijs Poldermann testified to Strasbourg’s Protestant preachers in a letter that the whole Netherlands were full of the Josts’ books—an obviously hyperbolic claim, but one that nevertheless speaks to the popularity the Josts’ visions enjoyed among Hoffman’s followers in the Low Countries.[8] Thus, Snyder and his compatriots may well have read Lienhard’s visions, or at least been apprised of their contents if they could not read them themselves. Their cries of woe even echo Lienhard’s cries of “murder upon murder,” although Lienhard went further and promised God’s eventual mercy after announcing impending judgment. He also tied nakedness to the casting off of superfluous wealth, and the historical record does not say whether any of the naaktlopers made a similar connection.

Whether or not the naaktlopers drew their inspiration from Lienhard, however, the practice of public nudity as a prophetic act has a long-established place in the Jewish and Christian canon. In Isaiah 20, God commanded Isaiah to remove the sackcloth and ashes he had previously worn to prophesy and instead to prophesy completely naked for a period of three years as a portent of God’s impending judgment on Egypt.[9] Isaiah’s display is the only divinely sanctioned instance of post-Garden of Eden public nudity in the Bible—Noah’s drunken exhibitionism in Genesis earned the patriarch and his son divine censure—but it is not, for all that, an aberration.[11] The Old Testament prophets frequently engaged in visually arresting, often shocking and bizarre displays as a means of reinforcing God’s message. Early modern Christians in search of a more recent example could point to Saint Francis of Assisi, who made a public display of his rejection of his parents and his upbringing by publicly casting off his clothing before the Bishop of Assisi. This incident had a powerful hold on the imaginations of medieval Christians; it was not only recounted in many of St. Francis’ vitae, but also became the subject of several different artistic depictions of the life of Francis in late medieval and Renaissance-era European churches and chapels.

It is difficult to ascertain just how much Lienhard Jost and the Amsterdam naaktlopers knew about the biblical and medieval prophets and saints who came before them. Lienhard Jost was an illiterate peasant labourer, and the educational status of Hendrick Hendricks Snyder and his followers is not known. It is probable that they never had the opportunity to study the biblical text in much detail or read saints’ vitae for themselves. Nevertheless, they may well have become acquainted with some of these examples through preaching, ecclesiastical artwork, or oral tradition. Elements of Lienhard’s account suggest that he may have, consciously or unconsciously, drawn inspiration from the life of St. Francis of Assisi. It is true that he never mentioned Francis by name and he frequently derided the Catholic mass as idolatrous and clerical celibacy as an abomination. Even so, however, there are some striking points of similarity between the life of the Strasbourg prophet and that of the Italian mendicant. Lienhard’s motivation for running around Strasbourg naked bears a strong resemblance to the Francis’ motivation for disrobing in front of his father and the bishop of Assisi. For both men, the casting off of clothing represented an emphatic rejection of wealth and opulence. In Francis’ case, he rejected the wealth and opulence to which he had been born and which his family still enjoyed. In Lienhard’s case, though he himself was not endowed with much wealth to cast off, he physically enacted the spiritual renunciation he expected from Strasbourg’s ruling class. Another event in Lienhard’s life also mirrored that of St. Francis: in pondering the wounds of Christ, Lienhard received a physical reminder of these wounds on his right foot, which calls to mind Francis’ reception of the stigmata, a famous event that inspired many imitators—particularly women—well into the seventeenth century.[12]

The surviving accounts of the naaktlopers are far less detailed than Lienhard’s description of his visions, and make it difficult to say with certainty even what their motivation was for running into Amsterdam unclothed—whether it was a warning of God’s impending wrath, a reminder of humanity’s vulnerability, or a call to cast off worldly wealth and greed—let alone what people in biblical or church history served as their inspiration. Nevertheless, regardless of whether Hendrick Hendricks Snyder and his followers consciously imitated Lienhard Jost or Francis of Assisi or the prophet Isaiah in their public display of nudity, their actions, while shocking (and purposefully so), were not an aberration. Lienhard Jost and the naaktlopers’ decisions to disrobe publicly form part of a long Judeo-Christian tradition of prophecy as a public performance, designed not only to share the word of the Lord, but also to communicate his message to the people visually through the use of striking physical displays and object lessons. The word had become flesh in Jesus, and, in a lesser way, it became flesh again and again through his messengers.

[1] Samme Zijlstra, Om de ware gemeente en de oude gronden: Geschiedenis van de dopersen in de Nederlanden, 1531-1675 (Leeuwarden: Fryske Akademy, 2000), 135-136.

[2] Lambertus Hortensius, Tumultuum Anabaptistarum Liber Unus (Amsterdam: Henricus Laurentius, 1636), 55.

[3] Cornelius Krahn, Dutch Anabaptism: Origin, Spread, Life, and Thought (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1981), 148.

[4] Lambertus Hortensius and François Catrou, Histoire des Anabaptistes (Amsterdam: Jacques Desbordes, 1702), 106.

[5] Lienhard Jost, Ein Worhafftige Hohe und Feste Prophecey des Linhart Josten van Stroßburg, edited by Melchior Hoffman (Deventer: Albert Paffraet, 1532), fol. B3r.

[6] Jonathan Green, “The Lost Book of the Strasbourg Prophets: Orality, Literacy, and Enactment in Lienhard Jost’s Visions” in The Sixteenth Century Journal 46:2 (Summer 2015): 324.

[7] Green, 324-325.

[8] Manfred Krebs and Hans Georg Rott (eds), Quellen zur Geschichte der Täufer. Vol. 8. Elsass II. Teil: Stadt Straßburg 1533-1535 (Gütersloh: Gerd Mohn, 1960), 213.

[9] Isaiah 20:1-6.

[10] Genesis 9:20-23

[11] See Julian Gardner, “A Minor Episode of Public Disorder in Assisi: Francis renounces his Inheritance.” Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte 68:2 (2005): 275-285.

[12] Jost, Worhafftige Hohe und Feste Prophecey, fols. E1v-E2r. On the stigmata in late medieval and early modern mysticism, see Stephen Haliczer, Between Exaltation and Infamy: Female Mystics in the Golden Age of Spain (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002).

Considering Seventeenth-Century Schutzgeld

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The collection of Schutzgeld, or ‘protection money,’ had begun in the East Frisian city of Emden shortly after the city’s revolt against Count Edzard II in 1595. The first extant records date to 1601 and detail the amount owed by each Mennonite and Jewish household within the newly autonomous (and predominantly Calvinist) jurisdiction. (For a bit more on the earliest Schutzgeld records in Emden, please see my post from November 27, 2018.) But only a few registers of this particular tax remain for the city of Emden. We have documentation from the years 1601, 1602, 1626, 1638, 1737 and 1749. There are a few additional documents from the eighteenth century in which Schutzgeld was recorded from both across the county and within the city of Emden, but only compelled from Jews – a development that illustrates the increasingly disparate paths made for Mennonites and Jews in this area of the empire. But even with those additional accounts, we can see the records that remain are the exception rather than the rule. Today, I’ll examine the two sets of records from the mid-seventeenth century.

The 1626 Emden Schutzgeld records [Fig. 1] were clearly functional, as owed amounts were crossed out and replaced, red scratches along the edge denoted fulfilled obligations, and the slim bound booklet generally displayed marks of use and wear.1 The obligations were divided among 22 different geographic sections, named companies, each with a corresponding responsible captain. These captains were not Mennonites, but the leaders of the city or night watch – a communal obligation that this tax exempted Mennonites from performing. The numbers in these ‘companies’ varied from as few as one man or household (Dirck Simons, in Hindrich Busert’s company, who owed 3 Emden gulden) to as many as 19. There are 175 names overall, of which 19 were noted as Jews. Another 3 names were stricken from the record; as two of the three names stricken were widows owing only 1 gulden, it seems likely that these were either the recently dead or the benevolently omitted. Unlike the Schutzgeld records from a quarter-century before, however, none are here designated as ‘paupers’ and thus exempt from payment.

That leaves 153 paying Mennonite households, 9 of which were headed by widows and 3 of which appear to have been headed by underage sons. The density and prosperity of the Mennonite community in Emden held steady in the quarter century between 1602 and 1626. The total amount remitted by that Mennonite community came to 654 Gulden and 5 Schap – an amount figured through an informal sum on the back of the well-worn booklet itself.

The 1638 Schutzgeld records [Fig. 2], by contrast, are much cleaner and show no evidence of their use as a working document – but also include no amounts at all.2 There is no indication of amounts owed, the vagaries of collection, or indeed that money exchanged hands at all. This, then, is a list that named Mennonites and Jews, but shares little else in common with the list from just 12 years prior. This lack of consistency could perhaps be evidence for haphazard or even intermittent collection within the city of Emden, but it is more likely that this document represented a different stage in the process than the worn document of 1626. Additionally, the helpful numbering along the left edge of this document drops off in the middle of the second page, after ‘40,’ which confirms further that this is merely a draft of a later, more useable register.

There are 21 companies in the 1638 record, and a total of 176 names – almost no movement in the overall number of marginalized residents sharing this tax. However, the number of Jews has dropped significantly for such a small population, from 19 to 11. That leaves a modest increase in the number of Mennonite households, now at 165 and up from 153 in 1626. Of those 165 households, a steady number – 8 now, in comparison with the 1626 count of 9 – are widows. For the first time, a ‘doctor’ appears in the register: a ‘Doctor Eilde’ residing in the company of Captain Eggo Hermans. Without amounts, however, it’s hard to tell how prosperous this Mennonite doctor was – or indeed, whether the fortunes of the community had changed in aggregate.

Four captains’ names remain the same from the 1626 collection to that of 1638, a comparison that allow us to consider the nature of community change. The company of Viet Hindricks grew from 5 to 10 in those twelve years, and only two of the names remained the same: Nonne Aggen and Johan Jacobs ‘Flet,’ neither of whom appear in the index of the city archive. In Herman Gerrits’s company the growth was more modest, from 11 to 13, but a full seven of the names remained the same. This was perhaps a younger set of taxed households, and an area of the city with more Jewish inhabitants (4 were designated as Jews in both 1626 and 1638). The company of Jeldrich Taken grew from 7 to 12, with 4 names remaining the same. The number of Mennonites shrunk in the company of Johan Horstman, from 7 to 5, and there are two instances of family name matches but no individual persons who appear on both records.

These comparisons are more suggestive than anything. Twelve years represents perhaps half of a generation, and the 1638 records leave open the question of economic growth, prosperity, or burden. Schutzgeld was presumably a yearly tax, as it replaced watch service that was continuous for other male adults, but the lack of sources leaves confusing caesura in the historical record. What the remaining Schutzgeld sources continue to attest to, however, was the bureaucratic grouping of Mennonites and Jews together within the city of Emden. These religious minorities were nameable, even when the names given by governmental authorities were imprecise, and they were thus taxable. These were communities who continued to live and worship despite a lack of official toleration documents, and it is in this way that economic instruments must be read as crude (and inherently unstable) religious settlements. Informal toleration through taxation and through other one-time compulsory payments – for dikes, for military expenses, or just to balance the books; what older historiography has rightly labeled ‘extortion’ – provided both plausible cover and continuing threat for both Mennonites and Jews in early modern Emden.

  1. Stadtarchiv Emden, I. Reg. Nr. 415, 45-52. ↩
  2. Stadtarchiv Emden, I. Reg. Nr. 415, 95-98 and 101-103. ↩

1577 in 1947

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My dissertation focuses on the early modern period and addresses the economic experiences of nonconformists in the northwestern Holy Roman Empire. One piece of twentieth-century evidence, however, demonstrates how economic strength became a rhetorical pose necessary for later Mennonites—a pattern familiar to any minority group that must justify its continued existence to a wider community. This short nineteen-page pamphlet, The Cultural Achievements of the Mennonites in East Frisia and the Münsterland, written and published by Pastor Abraham Fast of Emden in 1947, began by explaining the common experience of Mennonites in what was now northwestern Germany: “In East Frisia and the Münsterland the Mennonites were, from the beginning, much less a segregated non-resident settlement community than later in the eastern part of the Empire or further in Russia.”1 This ‘integration’ was made easier by what Fast described as “blood and language,” common membership in a so-called “Saxon-Frankish-Friesian tribe” as those in the East Frisian and Westphalian communities to which they immigrated.

Predictably, in a publication dedicated to an elder of the Mennonite community in Gronau, Fast was effusive about the positive role Mennonites had played. This was both genuinely celebratory and an expedient means of justification; Fast argued that Mennonites had a small but nonetheless integral role as “economically and spiritually a good leaven for this region.” He dug into the archives to evidence this claim, pulling sources from the sixteenth, seventeenth and eighteenth centuries before turning to his main concern: the “most recent 150 years” of Mennonite history in the area (indeed, Fast gives quite a detailed industrial history of a number of textile firms). 2

My concern, of course, is his use of evidence from the early modern period. Fast highlighted the irony of sixteenth-century economic toleration: “This fact is simply appealing when one observes how the sharpest memories of the edicts against the Mennonites fade, while at the same time [they were] negotiating with these forbidden heretics over leases, money borrowing or even gifts for the princely court.”3 This ironic use of ‘heretic’ (‘Ketzer’) is striking. Most importantly for Fast, however, was the clear economic advantage to business dealings with Mennonites even as they were singled-out for religious nonconformity. Fast went on to argue that authorities recognized this advantage early on, and sought to bring Mennonites into these territories despite religious difference.

Fast, remarkably, harkened back to the same 1577 letter from the Emden council about which I wrote about a few months ago, and quoted from the complaint by Emden authorities that Anabaptists were taking up the most prominent houses and prominent roles in the wider business and merchant community. It is notable that Fast was here comfortable quoting from a letter that only ever referred this group as Anabaptists (Wiedertäufer) – and one in which their social position was made explicitly analogous to that of Jews. Fast went on to quote from a protection letter from 1688, in which authorities warned that the expiration of Mennonite protections would have a significant financial strain on the area, and to quote extensively from a 1708 petition by a governmental official in Norden who expounds upon the necessity of Mennonites for the larger community there – and especially for the poor.4

In his sparse use of early modern evidence, Fast meant only to set the stage for the more impressive economic achievements of Mennonites in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. However, the addition of the letter from 1577 does two unique things. First, it uses a hostile account as evidence for prosperity—the latter two pieces of early modern evidence appear to be neutral if not complimentary, while the 1577 letter was clearly pejorative. And secondly, it naturalizes the economic strength of the Mennonite community; it has always been so, and the community’s industriousness has paved the way for its inclusion.

Similarly, Fast listed a number of western Münsterland industrial concerns begun by Mennonites – most of which had been founded only during the nineteenth century, but which had grown out of a tradition of Mennonite weaving and cloth-trading that began in the early modern period.5 The relative wealth of Mennonites compared to wider society was a commonality amongst Mennonites in both East Frisia and the Münsterland, evidenced by the saying “only rich people belong to the Mennonites.”6 This pride in the relative wealth of the community is certainly a prominent theme of Fast’s pamphlet, and he noted that Mennonites gave generously to the poor of other confessions, as well as contributed significantly more to school taxes.

But Fast acknowledged some differences between the two communities, in a striking paragraph that closed his pamphlet:

“Worth mentioning, however, are the following peculiarities. In contrast to the families from Emden and Norden, the Münsterlanders did not appear on the political stage. But they built up all the more zealously as entrepreneurs that which gives public life its basis and its freedom of movement: the economy. On the other hand they revered, as did the East Frisian Mennonites, a religious inwardness and the free cosmopolitanism associated with it, as had always belonged to the tradition of these communities. Most of the above-mentioned, significant business founders in East Frisia and the Münsterland and their successes have put their forces at the service of local communities as church councilors and as deputies in the service of the Association of the German Mennonites, where the community in Emden shaped the spiritual center of the whole group and still shapes it until today.”7

But if Mennonites would eventually find themselves wealthy, and protected by that wealth – however reliable this ebullient pamphlet was – it took round and rounds of negotiation in the early modern period to establish their homes in communities such as Emden, Norden and Leer.

  1. Abraham Fast, Die Kulturleistungen der Mennoniten in Ostfriesland und Münsterland (1947), 3. An editorial note on the inside of the front cover indicated that the text had been prepared in 1939 but its publication had been delayed by the Second World War. ↩
  2. That same editorial note indicated that he used a number of well-known nineteenth century works to gather this evidence, particularly J.P. Müller, Die Mennoniten in Ostfriesland. ↩
  3. Ibid., 3-4. ↩
  4. Ibid., 4-5. ↩
  5. Ibid., 13. ↩
  6. Ibid., 7-8. ↩
  7. Ibid., 18-19. ↩

Anabaptists and Jews in Emden, before Schutzgeld

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In January of 1577, the mayor and city council of Emden drafted a letter to Count Edzard II.1 Complaining primarily about the boldness with which Anabaptists went about both their religious and secular business in Emden, the letter nevertheless began with condemnatory descriptors for both Anabaptists and Jews. Grouping together two religious communities that were variously tolerated in the city, council members noted their aim in the letter’s opening paragraph: “and particularly to report on the seductive sect of the Anabaptists, and the vile, blasphemous Jews.”

They certainly reported in detail on the behavior of local Anabaptists. Though they named no leaders or even members, the council accused them of living “in the noblest houses,” gathering indiscriminately in public, and joining together to create business associations (which must have been profitable, to buy or rent such prominent houses); indeed, the council seemed to identify open prosperity as the foremost offense. They quickly tied that charge to a parallel accusation of “public conventicles, holding and preaching their seductive false doctrine in great considerable numbers . . . by which they seduced many simple hearts, also honest people.” This was particularly problematic for the city council as these preachers also regarded all authority as suspect. The council characterized the reach of these condemnations as totalizing: “And they hold as a principal piece of their heretical doctrine that all authority is damned and cannot be saved, that the evangelical preachers of this and all reformed Christian churches, officers and preachers are devils.” Anabaptist preaching, in other words, had all the necessary ingredients to subvert the current social order. Fervor was increasing, and with it a distrust in authority.

This did not, the council argued, bode well for the general peace. Pointing to the examples of “Münster, Amsterdam in Groningen and West Frisia,” the council warned that enabling Anabaptists “brought forth well-identifiable fruit.”2 A later paragraph explicitly referenced the danger of repeating the “riotous” events of the Kingdom of Münster, but this admonition appears to have been stricken from the final copy.3 While frantic appeals to the specter of Münster were a common trope of anti-Anabaptist polemic across the empire, the historic connections between Emden and Münster – not least of which was the millenarian preaching and teaching of Melchior Hoffmann – added texture to a letter saturated with fear.

The council finally addressed their accusations against Jews in the second-to-last paragraph of this draft, one completed in a different hand and presumably added at a later date. The first author, then, had not managed to address the Jews he had slandered in his opening salutation. Furthermore, this late charge against the Jewish inhabitants of Emden was both brief and vague by comparison. The council complained about the presence in Emden of “daily more Jews, and their usury (which, like cancer, daily eats away and spoils everything).”4 Though the number of Jewish inhabitants of Emden certainly may have been increasing at this time, the lack of specifics is not terribly convincing. Moreover, the charge of usury was perhaps the most ubiquitous in Christian polemics against Jews. A more generalized anti-Semitic aside can barely be imagined.

So why were Anabaptists and Jews grouped together in this plea? Perhaps the council was attempting to condemn both communities by an association with the other. This letter and others written in January of 1577 would, over the course of the next year, convince Enno II that a disputation would be the best way to counter the spread of Anabaptist teaching and rid the city of unrepentant Anabaptist sympathizers. Yet the disputation of 1578 did not, in fact, convert or drive away the majority of Anabaptists or self-defined Mennonites. Their residence in the city would continue to be disputed – resulting, over two decades later, in the institution of a specialized protection tax (Schutzgeld) collected from both the Anabaptist and Jewish communities. It is clear from this letter that secular authorities in Emden had long been thinking about these two groups as connected, even as little evidence exists of meaningful connections between the communities themselves. The Emden city council had begun to populate its own imaginary of the marginalized, an imaginary which endured to structure the taxed toleration of both Anabaptists and Jews in Emden for over two hundred years.

  1. Stadtarchiv Emden, I. Reg. Nr. 415, 12-14. ↩
  2. Ibid., 12-13. ↩
  3. Ibid., 13. ↩
  4. Ibid., 13. ↩

On the Emden Kirchenrat, and Naming Anabaptists

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An important set of sources for understanding Anabaptism in Emden are the Kirchenrat records, which were edited by Heinz Schilling in the 1980s. Though the Kirchenrat itself was established in 1544, the records did not begin for another decade due to the interruption of the Interim.1 Looking for inhabitants called before the consistory and labelled as some variation of “Täufer,” we can identify Reformed community members flirting with marginal beliefs and navigating life in Emden as it assumed its full height as a refugee city. These records begin after the rapid expansion of the city in the mid-1550s, following the influx of Dutch Calvinist refugees, and demonstrate a need to police the edges of the reformed community–precisely because there were a variety of nonconforming believers in the city.2

A few examples will give texture to this source. Johan van Bellen first appeared in the records on 15 November 1557. Subjected to instruction regarding his nonconforming beliefs, the “doepers” were identified as a source of these errors.3 Moreover, and incriminatingly, he had at least three unbaptized children. Van Bellen was something of a troublemaker; he recurred repeatedly in the records of the consistory, and was admonished for both his beliefs and actions.4 Though he was not always identified as holding Anabaptist sympathies, he was clearly an outsider – and he expressed this in a rare bit of direct speech: “So Menno Simons’ sect does not want me and you do not want me and the papists do not want me . . . ”5 Lacking any true institutional affiliations, he was brought before the consistory in an attempt to bring his religious and lifestyle choices under the aegis of a stabilizing authority.

It is important to note that the consistory differentiated between generalized “Anabaptists” and those Mennonites, Jorists and others who were identifiable as belonging to a particular nonconformist community. On 26 July 1557, we see concern that one Severin Koperslager belonged to what must have been a small but persistent community of Jorists.6 Because David Joris himself, or some of his followers, had taken to announcing the coming of the “third David” by the later 1540s, the accusation was that Severin “knew another savior.” Severin is thus forced to gainsay David Joris and denounce him as a “spirit of the devil.” Most interestingly, however, no mention is made of “Anabaptists” or baptism at all, suggesting some separation between a larger understanding of Anabaptism and these individual charismatic groups. There are two later references to suspected Jorists; one mentioned as a “Davidiorismo” in February of 1559, and one who may be a papist or a libertine or belong to the “David-Joris” group.7 Again, neither of these accusations accompany anything like a denunciation of Anabaptism, and suggest a separate category has formed for the purposes of communal discipline.

In March of 1559, the two groups arose in conversation during the same day of consistory testimony8 In a discussion about bookbinding and publishing, Cornelis Benninck mentioned the need to address Mennonite writing in Holland, while Adrianus de Kuper presented two pamphlets he wrote against “de wederdopers.” Though representatives of these groups were not present to defend themselves, the separation of one from another seems significant. That the consistory would attempt to limit Mennonite publishing or publish treatises against marginalized beliefs is not surprising, but the careful deployment of these contested categories seems significant for decision making within the Reformed church court system.

These few pieces of the Kirchenratsprotokolle, then, might be read as merely the continuation of an increasingly sophisticated deployment of terms. The church council both took up and further populated the categories which we have seen in the official correspondences of the 1530s and 1540s, and it is certainly worth further study to determine how discourses between secular and religious authorities intertwined during this period. Yet the development of these distinctive categories proved operational for the Emden Kirchenrat, who associated particular beliefs or behaviors with certain Anabaptist groups and treated suspected individuals accordingly. That the church council found these categories to be meaningfully different may reflect a more intimate knowledge of these groups, or perhaps an increasingly codified understanding of exactly who these groups contained and what these groups believed. The creation of categories became useable knowledge, and altered the lives of individual nonconformists when authorities began to differentiate rehabilitation and punishment accordingly.

  1. Heinz Schilling, “Einleitung” in Die Kirchenratsprotokolle der reformierten Gemeinde Emden 1557-1620, Vol. 1 (Vienna: Heinz Böhlau, 1989), xviii-xix. Hereafter KRP. ↩
  2. A 2001 article by Samme Zijlstra examined some Anabaptists and spiritualists who came before the consistory, and focused on the theological differences that motivated conversions between members of the dominant Reformed church and these smaller, marginalized communities; Samme Zijlstra, “Anabaptists, Spiritualists, and the Reformed Church in East Frisia,” in Mennonite Quarterly Review (Jan. 2001, Vol 75:1), 57-73. ↩
  3. KRP I:10. ↩
  4. KRP I: 75, 80, 83, 115, 120, 126, 128. ↩
  5. KRP I: 141. ↩
  6. KRP I: 3. ↩
  7. KRP I: 71; 125. ↩
  8. KRP I: 78. ↩

Maeyken Boosers’ Pear: A Mennonite Relic at the Library

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Figure 1. A dried pear that belonged to Maeyken Booser, Collection of the Mennonite Church of Amsterdam (VDGA), on loan to the Special Collections, University of Amsterdam.  

There are a very small number of extant objects that have direct connections with the stories of early Anabaptist and Mennonite martyrs: the list of currently known items includes a part of a serviette owned by Thomas von Imbroich (1533-1558); a pear that Maeyken Boosers (d. 1564) gave to her relative (probably her son) Hans Booser in the time leading up to her execution; and a tongue screw, which was used on Hans Bret (d. 1577)1. The tongue screw is in private ownership, and the other two objects are a part of the collection of the Mennonite Church of Amsterdam (VDGA), on loan to the University of Amsterdam2. The Amsterdam Mennonite Church’s collection also includes the only extant handwritten letter by Menno Simons.3

The pear, cloth, and the tongue screw are historical items that occupy a middle ground between artifacts and memorial objects. These are not only of interest for scholarly research, but also items that have been considered to be of emotional or even devotional importance within the centuries-long Mennonite story.

I recently had the chance to see Maeyken Boosers’ pear in the Zaal Mennonitica (Mennonite Room) at the Special Collections library of the University of Amsterdam. Withered, shrunken, and extremely delicate, the 455 year old dried pear does not look much like a fruit any longer (figure 1). The story of Maeyken Boosers is well preserved in Dutch Mennonite circles and in the Mennonite martyrological literary tradition. Boosers was executed in Doornik (present day Tournai, Belgium) following imprisonment and torture. Notes to her family describe these trials, while demonstrating her dedication to her faith. Her story circulated as a song, “Die op den Heere betrouwen” (Those who trust in the Lord), which made its way into the late sixteenth-century Dutch Mennonite martyrology, Offer des Heeren4. Seventeenth-century martyrologies, including the Martyrs Mirror include several of her letters to her family.5 Maeyken passed along the pear to a member of her family during a visit to her in prison before her execution.6 Since then, the object has been protected and passed down over the centuries by her Dutch descendants.7 In the nineteenth century the pear found its way from the Booser family (sometimes written Boosers/de Booser) to the related Van Geuns family, after which time it entered into the Amsterdam Mennonite Church’s collection in the twentieth century.8

At present, the pear is stored in a simple oval box with a hand written label indicating the   contents (figure 2). However, up until the nineteenth century, it appears that the pear was kept in a silver casing. According to Samuel Cramer, writing about the “Mennonite relics” at the turn of the twentieth century, several of the older members of the Van Geuns family still remembered the silver container.9


Figure 2. The current container for the pear is labeled “Een gedroogde Peer/Gedachtenis van Mayken Booser/ 1564]” [A dried pear/Memorial of Mayken Booser/ 1564].

A handwritten note, which has long accompanied the pear, offers a short account about the origins of the pear. The message is signed, “Jan de Booser.” He is thought to be the grandson of Maeyken – the son of Hans Booser, who received the pear from Maeyken in prison. Jan de Booser, who lived in Grossenfehn in East-Friesland, died around 1630, meaning that the note likely dates to the late sixteenth- or early seventeenth century.10 The note states, “[t]his pear was given by Mayke Boosers to our dear father [beste vader] Hans de Booser in Doornik in the prison to be honoured as an eternal memorial” for Maeyken who was “sacrificed on September 10, 1564” (figure 3).11

The text is transcribed again in later penmanship beneath the early modern hand, followed by addition instructions to see the account in Thieleman Jansz. van Braght’s Martyrs Mirror, volume II, p. 302. This is likely an inscription added by a later member of the Booser or Van Geuns family. The more modern hand also adjusts the death date to September 18, which matches with the date given in the Mennonite martyrs books.12 This handwritten note was briefly lost in the nineteenth century. Cramer details the rediscovery and reacquisition of the letter by Dr. J.B. Van Geuns, a member of the family then in possession of the pear.13

The careful preservation of this pear, together with the fact that it used to be kept in a fine silver casing certainly lends itself to the characterisation of the object as a “relic” in some respects.  Furthermore, the pear is referred to as a relic in the existing literature on this object; namely, the articles by Cramer and the Mennonite Encyclopedia entry on “Mennonite relics.”14 In other ways, the term is perhaps not appropriate, given the historical Mennonite perspectives on relic veneration, and given the history of the pear as an object. In broader Christian tradition, relics are objects or physical remains thought to be from early Christian apostles, saints, martyrs, and even Christ. Since the origin and spread of Anabaptist movements around Europe in the sixteenth century, Mennonites have eschewed the veneration relics along with the veneration of saints, images, and the Host. These theological decisions have shaped the appearance of Mennonite churches, as well as the form of Mennonite worship. While relics housed in fine reliquaries have a long history of attracting pilgrims and generating a tradition of miracle stories in the Catholic tradition, Mennonite churches have not systematically kept or searched for “relics,” and Mennonites have historically excluded important heritage objects – whether artifacts or memorial items – from within the church sanctuary. The pear is very explicitly an object intended as a memorial for Maeyken Boosers – this is stated in Jan de Booser’s note. However, the known history and provenance of the pear suggest that it was treasured for sentimental and devotional reasons within the family sphere. In keeping with long engrained Mennonite theological practice, it was not placed within a Mennonite worship space as an object to be venerated. Now, the pear is stored among rare books, letters, and prints, in a library. The aim in this post is not necessarily to arrive at a definitive conclusion about how we should relate to Maeyken’s pear and the other objects that belonged to Mennonite martyrs – as artifacts, memorial objects, or indeed as “relics.” However, it is always interesting to check in on the question of how we as Mennonites relate to material culture that pertains to our socio-religious history. As a memorial object in a library setting the pear certainly continues to garner some attention (and spark some scholarly library pilgrimages) from within the global Mennonite faith community and the networks of Mennonite history aficionados.

  1. Christian Neff, “Relics of the Martyrs,” Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online, Web, http://gameo.org/index.php?title=Relics_of_the_Martyrs&oldid=146122.↩
  2. Ibid. The pear is being housed within the University of Amsterdam’s Special Collections, and the cloth of Thomas von Imbroich is likely also there. See H.W. Meihuizen, Catalogus: Historische tentoonstelling achste doopsgezinde wereldcongres, Amsterdam RAI (Amsterdam: 1967), p. 25, cat. no. 40.  ↩
  3. This is also on loan to the Special Collections of the University of Amsterdam. See I.B. Horst, “De strijd om het fundament des geloofs: van melchioriten tot menisten,” in Wederdopers, menisten, doopsgezinden in Nederland: 1530-1980,  S. Groenveld, J.P. Jacobszoon, S.L. Verheus ed. (Zutphen: Walburg Pers, 1993), p. 35, figure 21. ↩
  4. The martyrology went through many editions in the last decades of the sixteenth century.  Karel Vos and Nanne van der Zijpp, “Maeyken Boosers (d. 1564),” Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online, Web. http://gameo.org/index.php?title=Maeyken_Boosers_(d._1564)&oldid=162649 .↩
  5. Thieleman van Braght, Het Bloedigh Tooneel of Martelaers Spiegel der Doopsgesinde of Weereloose Christenen, Die om ‘t getuygenis van Jesus haren Salighmaker geleden hebben ende gedood zijn van Christi tijd of tot desen tijd toe. 2nd ed. (Amsterdam: Hieronymus Sweerts, etc., 1685), part II, 302 ff.; in English translation, Van Braght, The Bloody Theatre or Martyrs’ Mirror of the Defenseless Christians Who Baptized Only upon Confession of Faith and Who Suffered and Died for the Testimony of Jesus Their Saviour . . . to the Year A.D. 1660 (Scottdale: Herald Press, 1951), pp. 667-669.↩
  6. Samuel Cramer, “Het reliek van Mayken Boosers,” De zondagsbode. Doopsgezind weekblad,  P. Feenstra Jr. Ed., vol. 15 (1902), p. 79. ↩
  7. Samuel Cramer, “Martelaarsrelieken,” Doopsgezinde Bijdragen, vol. 38 (1898), pp. 115-116.↩
  8. Ibid., pp. 115-116. ↩
  9. Ibid. ↩
  10. Cramer, “Het reliek van Mayken Boosers,” De zondagsbode, p. 79↩
  11. Original Dutch: “dese peere heeft Mayke Boosers/ an onse beste vader Hans de Booser binnen doornick int gevangenhuisz ver eert tot een eeuwyge gedachtenis/ geschiet Anno 1564 den 10 Septemb [sic.] op geoffert/ [signed] Jan de Booser”]↩
  12. The early modern handwritten note reads “September 10.” Cramer is first to note the discrepancy in date. Cramer, “Het reliek van Mayken Boosers,” De zondagsbode, p. 79.↩
  13. When Samuel Cramer first wrote about the pear in his 1898 article, the note remained lost. He wrote only on the basis of the pear, the martyr accounts, and the family recollections. His 1902 articles on the pear note that the paper has been found once again, and he offers a transcription. See Samuel Cramer, “Martelaarszaken,” Doopsgezinde Bijdragen vol. 42 (1902): pp. 150-171 especually, 168-170, transcription in Dutch on p. 168.↩
  14. Christian Neff, “Relics of the Martyrs,” Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online http://gameo.org/index.php?title=Relics_of_the_Martyrs&oldid=146122. (also in Mennonite Encyclopedia, print edition from the 1950s).↩