Our
Germans Within The Vines; A General Background on Our German Americans
Some of this Table
reflects SWOPE heavy research within it, easily identified in the
Table of Contents and occuring largely in its middle.
See also
Ancestor
Map of Central Europe with known regions for the Swiss/German
Residences of All our German Ancestors
and
Our
German Surnames in Order of Appearance in America
|
Table of Contents
1)
Introduction: Our German Speaking Ancestors [Relevant to All our
German Surnames]
2)
The Palatinate and the Palatines[Relevant to Nearly All our German
Surnames]
3)
The Germans [Relevant to All our German Surnames; Who they are]
5)
Germany From Charlemagne to age of Feudalism; The Emergence of the Holy
Roman Empire [Relevant to All our German Surnames]
6)
About Schwabia of the Suebi-Our Namesake Region
7)
The (Schwabian) Peasants War of 1525 and its effects on Germany
8)
Schwabia Today
|
| |
A) Ancestor Map
of Central Europe with known regions Swiss/German Residence German
Ancestors and
Our German Surnames
in Order of Apperanace
[Relevant to All our German Surnames]
|
I) Introduction: Our German Speaking Ancestors
In 1710, when the first
of the writerís direct German speaking ancestors boarded a ship to
brave a three month and treacherous journey across often unfriendly waters,
he and his family had in mind a new start in the New World, the concept
of which gained higher meaning with William Penn's plan for his colonial
possesion. Such was Penn's concept and its effect that Thomas Jefferson
, a great student of history, declared Penn one of the most
able statesmen in collective world history. Penn's radical concept of a
true seperation of church and state evident in the acceptance of all faiths
bound only in common pursuit to build a thriving society was the primary
impetus of emmigration for this, the first wave of German immigration to
America . The relationship of the Pennsylvania colonials with the Native
Americans differed significantly from that of our
Virginia ancestors arriving 90 years before and this was again because
of Penn and the able stewardship of his secretary James
LOGAN [our direct], both of whom mastered negotiation with the natives
far more ably than their Virginian forebears. Still, it could not be lost
on those emmigrating in these early years that the natives might be rightfully
alarmed at their neverending arrivals, neither lost that the natives would
be able to muster the numbers and moral fortitude necesarry to defend their
land if need be. They knew they were going to wilderness regions; Many
of these first heads of household were no longer young. Despite these significant
hazards our ancestors left Europe. Although the situation leading
to emmigration was surely motivated by the desire for freedom
of religion , our first German immigrants also hungered for freedom
from the threat of war and its effects, the century just passed being the
"century of war" for Europe, and Germany in particular [with the first
portion of the 18th century part of that "century of war" ]. The first
of our German immigrants were absolutely resolved in their Anabaptist faith,
a doctrine practised by Mennonites and a splinter group from them, the
Amish. By 1720, five of our German surnames are known present in
America, and all in Pennsylvania, and these were non anabaptist protestants
involved in the Mennonite Settlement of
Lancaster [then Chester] County, while the arrival of Reformed and
Lutherans among our Germans was commencing. Most central to
the Anabaptist doctrine of our first German Americans was the refusal of
infant baptism; Anabaptist doctrine holds baptism a covenant with
God to be expressed between a cognizant participant and their diety.
Most baptisms for Anabaptists occured at about the age of 12 and non infant
baptism was considered heretical to both Catholics and Non Anabaptist Protestants
. First practising in Switzerland and the Palatinate of Germany in
the 1520s, as a group these Mennonite Anabaptists had suffered
vigorous persecution involving torture, death by drowning,
beheading and burning at the stake, confiscation of properties, expulsion
from villages sometimes in the dead of winter and without shoes on their
feet, the outlaw of their religious practise and the threat
of imprisonment in rebellion of the law, absence of legal recognition
of marriage, the ban on funerals in the faith, and social stigmatization
. Our first German immigrant male head of household was
a leader of the Mennonites, a Bishop of that church, Hans
HERR. Although having a tremendous history of oppresion in their background,
the anabaptists were not the only protestants to suffer enough to cause
them to leave their homeland. All of our Germans were present in America,
and Pennsylvania, by 1800 minus Otto
Reinecke who arrived 1868 and possibly William
Henry Stair who is known born in Pennsylvania in 1830 but whose ascendancy
is not yet revealed. By the time of arrival of the last among our
German forebears [Otto Reinecke above mentioned] the primary impetus for
emmigration was economic, and was encompassed in what would later be called
the "second wave" of German immigration to America.
The 17th century in Europe, [repeated
here lest its reality be underestimated] called in the whole of the continent
the "century of war" , encompassed more than religious intolerance
and struggle. The upheavals, the battles, the shifting religious
balance and subsequent dischord and sketchy realignments, the wholescale
wars, the long periods of hunger, the occasional inevitable cannibalism,
the loss of half the german population in a span of 30 years during the
war with that name and the arrival of more armies in other wars with
other names one on top of another were not a result merely of the Reformation
and the Catholic Churchís response expressed in the Counter Reformation
and ultimately manifested in religious carnal battle. In Germany,
the struggle of the " Big Three" state sanctioned religions (Catholic,
Lutheran, Calvanist) in vigorously suppressing each other and binding
together when necessary to suppress other groups beyond them was not only
doctrine based. The reasons were in large part economic and
territorial, an expression of a massive redistribution of power and
the struggles of the power brokers . These struggles spread into the early
18th century. To cap it off, in the winter of 1708-1709, the
year of Hans Herrís emmigration with his family, Germany had the most severe
winter in its known history. Writers about this event comment that
the winter was so cold birds fell dead from the sky, livestock could
not survive and wood would not burn . Even the climate carried a deadly
chill.
Most of our relatives were not Mennonite,
and in terms of the percentage breakdown of German peoples as a whole,
our Anabaptist portion within the German emmigrant group is
likely a fair representative sample. The Hans
Herr familyís departure to the new world predated only by 1 year
the precense of another direct forebear in America. In just a few more
years the start of our Lutheran and Calvanist (Reformed) German
Ancestorís arrivals, toe on heel, would commence. These families came
largely from the Palatinate and the regions closely surronding
it and when found with surnames assigned to a
map of that region are seen in very close geographic proximity by modern
standards.
Our Ancestor ( in using this term
I now mean all the individuals, male and female encompassed in the
emmigration of Germanic peoples present in this portion of the tree) was
hoping for a ìNew Lifeî according to so many sources, one he
hoped would be free of ongoing war, wholescale devastation of his region
and the populace therein and which would include for him a right to freedom
of conscience as well as the right to the bounty of the land he would
work hard to produce, a life blessedly free of marauding armies
marching through pillaging, burning, plowing under, and otherwise
destroying itís fields while looting and razing its cities and villages.
For some there was the added benefit that no tithes and allegiances represented
by the feudal structure would exist. Whether yeoman or shopkeeper
this Ancestor brought with him his language, his culture, his family
(evident not only in the ship lists showing precense of spouse and children,
but evident in subsequent arrivals of members of extended families
left in the homeland and encouraged by and then becoming part of an evolving
community) . This ancestor brought his identity. I am not convinced
that this Ancestor wanted a new life so much as he wanted his own
and to leave many other lives far behind. In general as regards these
branches, he was leaving Germany, the heart of the Holy Roman Empire, and
specifically the Palatinate within the German borders. Hectic and splintered,
Germany was the heartland of the greater Holy Roman Empire, an empire which
lost its potential for greatness by 1600 at which time Germany itself
represented 30 secular and 50 ecclesiastical princes. Adding to the mix
of noble ego and interest and further contributing to its dischord,
The Holy Roman Empire extended from the Netherlands to Italy, and included
areas far removed geographically, linguistically and culturally from the
Germany which was its heartland.
To Top of Page [ Our
Germans Within The Vines]
On to 2.
The Palatinate and the Palatines
All pages of Within The Vines are Copyright ©Protected.
See Terms of Use |
2)
The Palatinate and the Palatines , Also Baden
Our German American families
came largely from the Palatinate and the regions closely
surronding it and when found with surnames assigned
to a map of that region are seen in very close geographic proximity
by modern standards.
In the period of the emmigration
of our forebears the Palatinate was united not geographically but
politically and in the form of The Elector Palatinate (AKA Count
Palatine) who controlled both the Rhenish or Lower and the Upper
Palatinate.
In terms of American geneology,
when we speak of ancestors from the Palatinate, we are referencing a general
geographic area known as the Rhenish-Palatinate and Germanic language use.
The Palatine ancestors are more accurately described as a group of German
speakers of the South West portion of present day Germany who were generally
escaping religious persecution and the wars that had engulfed the
Lower Palatinate and the regions closely surronding it. For the first wave
of immigrants, they were also escaping a freeze of 1708-1709 the like of
which has not lately been experienced.
The Palatinate is known as the Pfalz
to Germans and is " In German history, the lands of the count palatine,
a title held by a leading secular prince of the Holy Roman Empire. Geographically,
the Palatinate was divided between two small territorial clusters: the
Rhenish, or Lower, Palatinate and the Upper Palatinate. The Rhenish Palatinate
included lands on both sides of the middle Rhine River between its Main
and Neckar tributaries. Its capital until the 18th century was Heidelberg."23
(The
Heidelberg area gave forth Swope,
Spangler,
Ziegler,
Wolfhardt
lines)
"The Upper Palatinate was located
in northern Bavaria, on both sides of the Naab River as it flows south
toward the Danube, and extended eastward to the Bohemian forest. The boundaries
of the Palatinate varied with the political and dynastic fortunes of the
counts palatine." 10
Today "The Rhenish Palatinate extends
from the left bank of the Rhine and borders in the S on France and in the
W on the Saarland and Luxembourg. Neustadt an der Weinstrasse is the capital;
Ludwigshafen, Kaiserslautern, Pirmasens, and Speyer are the chief cities.
It is a rich agricultural region, famed for its wines.
"The Upper Palatinate (Ger. Oberpfalz)
is a district (c.3,725 sq mi/9,650 sq km) of NE Bavaria, separated in the
east from the Czech Republic by the Bohemian Forest. Regensburg is the
capital. Agriculture and cattle raising are the chief occupations."2
Many Swiss Mennonites migrated
to the Palatinate with escalation of hostilities in Switzerland and the
family registers of Swiss Mennonites often show a generation or two in
Germany and often the Palatinate before their emmigration, usually
via England or Rotterdam, to America. Likewise, some Protestants
who were not Mennonite left Germany seeking respite in Switzerland, lingering
there several generations before embarking again for England or Holland
to obtain passage to American shores. Our
Spangler ancestors are one example of this migratory pattern to Switzerland.
Having left Germany during the 30 Years War and apparantly persecuted for
their Lutheran faith, two generations later a Spangler returned to
the Palatinate. Many of that ancestorís children then emmigrated
to America. Our direct
Herr
ancestors of Switzlerland had a son born in Germany just prior to departure
from Europe.
Baden
From which hail our Bender,
Bachman and Meals forebears and at the time
under discussion part of the Palatinate.
ElectricLibrary.com: "Pronounced
As: bädn , former state, SW Germany. Karlsruhe was the capital. Stretching
from the Main River in the northeast across the lower Neckar valley and
along the right bank of the Rhine to Lake Constance (Bodensee), the former
state of Baden bordered on France and the Rhenish Palatinate in the west,
Switzerland in the south, Hesse in the north, and Bavaria and Württemberg
in the east. It included the cities of Mannheim, Pforzheim, Heidelberg,
Baden-Baden, Freiburg, and Rastatt and, in the south, most of the Black
Forest. Until the French Revolution the area was a confusing jigsaw puzzle
of petty margraviates and ecclesiastical states (the bishoprics of Mainz,
Speyer, Strasbourg, and Konstanz). The Breisgau belonged to the Hapsburgs,
the Mannheim-Heidelberg area to the Rhenish Palatinate."2
Before
discussing the political nature of Germany itself and the larger Holy Roman
Empire (which both the Swiss and German ancestors were leaving) a
brief review of who the German people were is in order. For this, we must
travel far back in time to first mention of the peoples
of this region of the world.
|
2)
The Palatinate and the Palatines , Also Baden
Our German American
families came largely from the Palatinate and the regions
closely surronding it and when found with surnames
assigned to a map of that region are seen in very close geographic
proximity by modern standards.
In the period of the emmigration
of our forebears the Palatinate was united not geographically but
politically and in the form of The Elector Palatinate (AKA Count
Palatine) who controlled both the Rhenish or Lower and the Upper
Palatinate.
In terms of American geneology,
when we speak of ancestors from the Palatinate, we are referencing a general
geographic area known as the Rhenish-Palatinate and Germanic language use.
The Palatine ancestors are more accurately described as a group of German
speakers of the South West portion of present day Germany who were generally
escaping religious persecution and the wars that had engulfed the
Lower Palatinate and the regions closely surronding it. For the first wave
of immigrants, they were also escaping a freeze of 1708-1709 the like of
which has not lately been experienced.
The Palatinate is known as the Pfalz to
Germans and is " In German history, the lands of the count palatine, a
title held by a leading secular prince of the Holy Roman Empire. Geographically,
the Palatinate was divided between two small territorial clusters: the
Rhenish, or Lower, Palatinate and the Upper Palatinate. The Rhenish Palatinate
included lands on both sides of the middle Rhine River between its Main
and Neckar tributaries. Its capital until the 18th century was Heidelberg."23
(The
Heidelberg area gave forth Swope,
Spangler,
Ziegler,
Wolfhardt
lines)
"The Upper Palatinate was located
in northern Bavaria, on both sides of the Naab River as it flows south
toward the Danube, and extended eastward to the Bohemian forest. The boundaries
of the Palatinate varied with the political and dynastic fortunes of the
counts palatine." 10
Today "The Rhenish Palatinate extends from
the left bank of the Rhine and borders in the S on France and in the W
on the Saarland and Luxembourg. Neustadt an der Weinstrasse is the capital;
Ludwigshafen, Kaiserslautern, Pirmasens, and Speyer are the chief cities.
It is a rich agricultural region, famed for its wines.
"The Upper Palatinate (Ger. Oberpfalz)
is a district (c.3,725 sq mi/9,650 sq km) of NE Bavaria, separated in the
east from the Czech Republic by the Bohemian Forest. Regensburg is the
capital. Agriculture and cattle raising are the chief occupations."2
Many Swiss Mennonites migrated to the
Palatinate with escalation of hostilities in Switzerland and the family
registers of Swiss Mennonites often show a generation or two in Germany
and often the Palatinate before their emmigration, usually via England
or Rotterdam, to America. Likewise, some Protestants who were
not Mennonite left Germany seeking respite in Switzerland, lingering there
several generations before embarking again for England or Holland to obtain
passage to American shores. Our Spangler ancestors
are one example of this migratory pattern to Switzerland. Having left Germany
during the 30 Years War and apparantly persecuted for their Lutheran faith,
two generations later a Spangler returned to the Palatinate. Many
of that ancestorís children then emmigrated to America. Our direct
Herr
ancestors of Switzlerland had a son born in Germany just prior to departure
from Europe.
Baden
From which hail our Bender,
Bachman and Meals forebears and at the time
under discussion part of the Palatinate.
ElectricLibrary.com: "Pronounced As: bädn
, former state, SW Germany. Karlsruhe was the capital. Stretching from
the Main River in the northeast across the lower Neckar valley and along
the right bank of the Rhine to Lake Constance (Bodensee), the former state
of Baden bordered on France and the Rhenish Palatinate in the west, Switzerland
in the south, Hesse in the north, and Bavaria and Württemberg in the
east. It included the cities of Mannheim, Pforzheim, Heidelberg, Baden-Baden,
Freiburg, and Rastatt and, in the south, most of the Black Forest. Until
the French Revolution the area was a confusing jigsaw puzzle of petty margraviates
and ecclesiastical states (the bishoprics of Mainz, Speyer, Strasbourg,
and Konstanz). The Breisgau belonged to the Hapsburgs, the Mannheim-Heidelberg
area to the Rhenish Palatinate."2
Before discussing the political nature
of Germany itself and the larger Holy Roman Empire (which both the Swiss
and German ancestors were leaving) a brief review of who the German
people were is in order. For this, we must travel far back in time
to first mention of the peoples of this region of the world.
|
|
|
Encyclopediac.com
describes ìGermansî as follows:
A "Great ethnic complex of ancient Europe,
a basic stock in the composition of the modern peoples of Sweden, Norway,
Denmark, Iceland, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, N Italy, the Netherlands,
Belgium, Luxembourg, N and central France, Lowland Scotland, and England.
From archaeology it is clear that the Germans had little ethnic solidarity;
by the 7th cent. B.C. they had begun a division into many peoples. They
did not call themselves Germans; the origin of the name is uncertain. Their
rise to significance (4th cent. B.C.) in the history of Europe began roughly
with the general breakup of Celtic culture in central Europe. Before their
expansion, the Germans inhabited N Germany, S Sweden and Denmark, and the
shores of the Baltic. From these areas they spread out in great migrations
southward, southeastward, and westward.
"Although the earliest mention of the
Germans is by a Greek navigator who saw them in Norway and Jutland in the
4th cent. B.C., their real appearance in history began with their contact
(1st cent. B.C.) with the Romans. The chief historical sources for the
culture and distribution of the Germans are Tacitus' Germania and Agricola
and the remnants in later ages of early Germanic institutions. Apart from
describing their barbarity and warlikeness, Caesar's Commentaries tell
little. As the centuries passed the Germans became increasingly troublesome
to the Roman Empire. The Vandals in the west and the Ostrogoths
in the east were the first to attack the empire seriously. The Ostrogoths
were a part of the Gothic people, often called the East Germanic, whose
language (Gothic) was the first written Germanic language. The Goths apparently
moved SE from the Vistula River to the Balkans, thence W across Europe."
2
The above indicates the first mention
of Germans of the 4th century would be exactly that , people identified
as "Germans". But, as the above also indicates, the
tribes that composed the apparant amalgam of people represented by the
general term Germans were identified individually earlier, most notably
by the Romans.
The FIRST inhabitants of Germany, those
displanted by the German tribes, were the Celts. "The Celts are
the first recorded peoples of the territory now known as Germany but, between
1000 BC and 100 BC, Scandinavian tribes gradually migrated from the north
and conquered them. These northern people then settled the territory between
the Elbe and Oder rivers and turned to agrarian pursuits. In the 1st century
BC, the area comprised an estimated 4 million people and land had become
a scarce commodity. Because of this overpopulation, several tribes in the
region began to emigrate including the Visigoths to Spain, the Vandals
to North Africa, and the Angles and Saxons to England. Other tribes such
as the Teutons and Cimbri were defeated and destroyed.
"Between 12 BC and AD 16, the Romans tried
to conquer the Germanic tribes but only a small portion of southwestern
Germany came under their control. Unlike most of the territory to the west
which did fall at the hands of the Roman legions, the Germanic tribes of
central Europe maintained their traditional ways and remained unaffected
by much of the Roman influence." 1
"At the end of the 2d cent. B.C., the German
tribes began to expand at the expense of the Celts, but they were confined
by Roman conquests (1st cent. B.C.-1st cent. A.D.) to the region E of the
Rhine and N of the Danube. The Romans penetrated briefly (12 B.C.-A.D.
9) as far east as the Elbe River"(in the Teutoburg Forest (which is) a
hilly range in NW Germany, (there) "is a monument -the HermannsdenkmalÝ-
commemorating the victory (A.D. 9) of the Germans under Arminius -or Hermann
in modern German- over the Roman legions under Varus....)...From the late
1st cent. A.D. to the 3d cent. they (the Romans) held the Agri Decumates,
protected against Germanic inroads by a fortified line from Cologne to
Regensburg. In a series of great migrations (4th-5th cent.) the German
tribes (who did not all come from present-day Germany) overran most of
the Roman Empire, while Slavic tribes occupied Germany E of the Elbe."2
4
) The German Tribes and our relationship to them
See Map
of Migration of the German Tribes 373-500 A.D.
"The chief German tribes included the
Alemanni, the Angles , the Burgundii , the Lombards, the Saxons, and the
Visigoths." 2
In terms of this discussion, The Franks,
another Germanic Tribe, is likewise important, but they migrated to Gaul
by the time of their greatest direct influence as leaders.
The Angles and Saxons would become
the Anglo-Saxons, but any discussion of them in Britain must include the
Jutes.
We Swopes of Broadway have blood of many
Germanic tribes mentioned in the above paragraph, but many not through
our direct German ancestors arriving to America in the 18th century but
rather through a circuitous route, that is , the female Stewart Line
marrying into the Swope line via the union of Nancy Moore McCurdy with
John Adam Swope in Adams County, Penna. Nancy Moore McCurdy descended
from the union of Petheric of the Cairn McCurdy with the 7th Grandaughter
of Robert II of Scotland through that kingís liason with Moira Leitch
(of whom no more is known). All entries of individuals on the tree from
prior to 1000 AD are oweing solely to Margaretís own precense as our Grandmother
in the tree and her 7th G Grandfather Robert II of Scotland.
A) The
Suevians, The Alemanni & the meaning of our Surname SWOPE
The Swope name comes from the
Suevi. Our first known Swope ancestor is identified (if one
relies on the work of Morse and McLachlin encompassed in The Swope Book
of Remembrance) living in the mid 1600s, residing in Sinsheim.
Despite the dispute I raise with the work in the headwater entries of our
Swope lines regarding Yostís parentage, we can surely name a first
direct Swope forebear in Germany OR America as Yost Swope who died
in Penna, and this ancestor is held in common by both The Swope Family
by G E Swope and The Swope Book of Remembrance by Morse and McLachlin,
although the birth and death dates vary in those two sources and
The Book of Remembrance takes the line up a generation. Any conjecture
as to Swope ascendancy beyond these upper branches is linked only to the
Surname, an eponymous one, relevant to an area of Germany and the tribe
which once held it . Thus, in endeavoring to establish the historical context
of our Swope Forebears beyond the mid 17th, we must work without
names, and can only link in a general sense relevant to the tribe itself.
Sinsheim suffered terribly in the War of the Palatinate and, like Heidelberg,
was totally destroyed and burned along with all its records.
In regard to the Suevi, Comptonís Encyclopedia
states that the Suevi (or Suebi) is " a collective name of
a number of ancient Germanic peoples who lived in the Elbe River region;
With the Vandals they overran Gaul and in 409 founded a kingdom in northwest
Spain" 6
" These Suevi are probably actually best
thought of as a collective group of a number of German tribes (including
the Marcomanni and Lombards), which are mentioned in the 1st century BC
by Gaius Julius Caesar as dwelling east of the Rhine River. The Roman historian
Cornelius Tacitus (1st century AD) described them as inhabiting all of
central Germany. " 7
" The Suebi, or Suevi, mentioned by Tacitus
as a central German people, gave their name to Swabia. They probably included
a number of smaller tribes, (including) the Alemanni.... Others were the
Semoni, the Hermunduri, and the Quadi. TheSuebi lived near the Elbe c.650
B.C.; thence they spread south into Germany. By 100 B.C. they no longer
constituted a political unit, although Tacitus maintained that they retained
cultural and religious unity. The Teutons, who were allied with the Cimbri
in 103 B.C., were crushed (102 B.C.) by Marius at Aquae Sextiae (present-day
Aix-en-Provence). By an extension of the name of that tribe the Germanic
peoples are sometimes called Teutonic. " 2 " One group of Suevi,
allied with the Vandals and the Alans, swept down on the Iberian Peninsula
in AD 407, conquered it from the Hispano-Romans living there, and apportioned
out the territory. As a result, by 411 the Suevi were established in present-day
northern Portugal and Galicia, and by 452, in Castile. They adopted Catholic
Christianity and ruled until 469 when they were subjugated by the Visigoths,
who had been co-opted by the rulers at Rome. The Suevi, and Alamanni, who
remained in Germany are the ancestors of the medieval Swabians. The name
is also spelled Suebi." ' 7
THE ALEMANNI
" A Germanic tribe, a splinter
group of the Suebi . The Alemanni may have been a confederation of
smaller tribes. First mentioned (A.D. 213) as unsuccessfully assaulting
the Romans between the Elbe and the Danube, they later settled (3d cent.)
in upper Italy. By the 5th cent. they occupied territories on both sides
of the Rhine south of its junction with the Main (present Alsace, Baden,
and NE Switzerland). Their westward expansion brought them into conflict
with the Franks, whose king Clovis I ( one of our directs-see the Franks
below) defeated them in 496. In 505 he forced them to retire into Rhaetia,
and in 536 they passed under Frankish rule. By the 7th cent. they had accepted
Christianity. Swabia is also known as Alamannia, and the High German dialects
of SW Germany and Switzerland are called Alemannic. In French speech the
name Allemands came to signify all Germans." 2
Detail regarding the history of Swabia
as a geographical entity will be given following this present discussion
of the Major Tribes of Germany.
B) THE
ANGLES AND SAXONS
"The Angles came either from Angeln,
a district in what is now Schleswig-Holstein, or from Denmark." (Ed note:
the writer is speaking about the invasion of England and this does not
limit their existence to either locale but is pointing where the first
inhabitants of Britain of this stock are thought to have hailed from )
. "They were just entering the agricultural stage of civilisation
when they arrived in Britain. The Angles occupied the central part of southern
Britain and the northern and eastern coasts. They founded the embryonic
kingdoms of Mercia, Northumbria and East Anglia. These territories were
called Engla land, or Angle land, from which the name England came." 8
"The ancient geographer Ptolemy first mentioned
the Saxons in a book he wrote during the AD 100's. According to Ptolemy,
the Saxons lived in what is now the state of Schleswig-Holstein in Germany.
They were a warlike people who invaded Roman territory in the second half
of the 4th century, during the reigns of the emperors Julian and Valentinian.
By the close of the 6th century all northwest Germany as far east as the
Elbe River had become Saxon territory"8
The Saxons were a "Germanic people, first
mentioned in the 2d cent. by Ptolemy as inhabiting the southern part of
the Cimbric Peninsula (S Jutland)...they gradually extended their territory
southward across the Weser River. A politically unified people, the Saxons
were ruled by princes or chieftains. Their assemblies, in which all classes
except slaves were represented, were consulted on all issues of war and
peace. In the 3d and 4th cent. the Saxons were active in raiding expeditions
along the coasts of the North Sea. The European coast from the Loire to
the Scheldt rivers and the southeastern coast of Britain, where defenses
were erected against their piratical raids, were known to the Romans as
litora Saxonica [Saxon shores]. By the 5th cent. Saxons had established
settlements along the north shore of Gaul, especially at the mouth of the
Loire, and eventually these Saxons came under Frankish domination. As the
Roman occupation of Britain weakened, the Saxons increased their marauding
attacks and also began (c.450) to make settlements there, resisting all
efforts to drive them off. By the end of the 6th cent. they and their neighbors
the Angles were firmly established in the island, laying the foundations
of the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms . Wessex, the kingdom of the West Saxons, became
dominant. After the migration to Britain, the Saxons on the Continent came
to be identified by historians as the Old Saxons. By virtue of their conquest
(531) of Thuringia, they occupied NW Germany. In 566 they were subjugated
by the Franks and forced to pay tribute. The Old Saxons waged intermittent
war with the Franks until the end of the 8th cent., when they were conquered
by Charlemagne and absorbed into his empire. After this conquest they were
forcibly converted to Christianity. In the division of the empire by the
Treaty of Verdun (843), the lands of the Saxons were included in the section
that formed the basis for modern Germany.") 2
"By the 6th cent., the Anglo-Saxons
had established themselves in Britain, and the Franks had taken over nearly
all of present-day France, W and S Germany, and Thuringia. (The term) Anglo-Saxons
was first used in Continental Latin sources to distinguish the Saxons in
England from those on the Continent, but it soon came to mean simply the
English". 2
Our
Direct Lines and The Jutes, Angles and Saxons:
When speaking of the Anglo Saxons
of Britain, the Jutes must also be included.
Angles (and Anglo Saxons) relate to our
Anglo Saxon direct forebears found in the branches of Wessex and Kent and
being on the tree in ascendancy from our Scot and Scotch Irish lines identified
via the Steward/McCurdy marriage of the late 16th Century as detailed above.
They include King Alfred the Great among others. King Alfred's own ascendancy
is historically known only to the level of his grandfather and identification
of this grandfather to continue the line involves scholarly evaluation
in the absence of extant documentation or archeological evidence to prove
it. Traditionally King Alfred is a descendant of Hengest, a brother
to Horsa; these two are credited as the first anglo saxons in Britain.
Many consider these brothers mythical, , while others consider Hengest
an historical figure with later pedigrees seeking to link to him.
Jose Luis Borge wrote a poem about them; the two are present in the
Anglo Saxon Chronicles and in writing's by Nennius regarding . Historians
studying these two brothers present in British literature from the dark
ages suggest that Hengest and Horsa can be most plausibly interpreted as
dioscuric horse-gods. The following is how the dark ages historians wrote
of him.
King Hengest was Jute.
"Tradition says that the Anglo-Saxon settlement
of England began in 449, when Vortigern invited two Jutish chiefs, Hengest
and Horsa, to help him defend Kent against invading tribes.
Much of the information about the Jutes in England comes from Ecclesiastical
History of the English Nation (731), a book by the English historian Bede.
Archaeological findings have shown that the Jutes had much in common with
both the Saxons in Britain and the ancient Franks....Some historians say
the Jutes came from the area of Denmark known today as Jutland." 8
King Hengest, who died in the mid 5th
century, was married to Vortigernís daughter, and Vortigern was Celt. It
was Hengest of the two brothers who had the progeny continuing the Kingship
. In this way, the " first Anglo Saxon Kingship" in Britain was in fact
Anglo Celt.
Again, Hengest and Horsa are felt to be
mythological creations found within the pedigrees of ancient kings.
C)
THE FRANKS and OUR Franks
The Franks were a Germanic tribe.
Vital in terms of French History , among the persons direct to us involving
the Franks is Charlemagne. France derives itís name from Francio,
a Sicambrian of the 1st century BC. His descendants are said to be kings
of the Franks, a tribe that settled in the Roman province of Gaul.
ìThe Franks were a confederation formed in Western Germany of a certain
number of ancient barbarian tribes who occupied the right shore of the
Rhine from Mainz to the sea. Their name is first mentioned by Roman historians
in connection with a battle fought against this people about the year 241.
'" 17
" Their name means 'courageous' or 'bold',
the kind of name that might have been used by warbands to describe themselves.
For that is the likeliest origin of the Franks - groups of adventurers
banding together to attack the lower Rhine frontier of the Roman Empire.The
military power of the Franks developed rapidly after the middle of the
Third Century and, along with the Alamanni and others, they began raiding
the Western Empire freely between 250 and 275, sweeping across Gaul in
274-5. The Franks operated by sea as well as land, raiding the Channel
coasts and using rivers to attack inland. According to one source, they
invaded eastern Spain and seized ships with which to invade Africa.9 "9
"The Romans stabilised the Rhine frontier
during the reign of Diocletian (284-305) and groups of defeated Germans
were settled in northern Gaul at the end of the Third Century, tilling
the soil and providing unspecified military service to Rome. " 9"By the
third century AD, the Germanic tribe known as the Franks rose to prominence
in the northwest of Germany near the lower and middle Rhine Valley. They
were identified by writers of the day as the Salians, Ripuarians and Chatti,
and are believed to have shared the same language and many laws. In 358,
the Salian Franks assumed control of Toxandria, the region skirting the
modern French - Belgian border. "1 "The two major divisions were the Salian
Franks in the north and the Ripuarian Franks in the south. The two groups
expanded independently, although they sometimes united against a common
enemy.16 It was from the northern or Salian Franks that
the French Kingdom emerged. ìThe Salian Franks became allies
of the Roman Empire late in the 4th cent. î 16
OUR FRANKS
We have likely ascendancy to the
first known Frankish rulers, the Merovingians, of whom the contemporaneous
Gregory of Tours wrote, but this is conjecture, the geneological link from
the earlier Merovingian to the subsequent Carolingian dynasty of which
we are surely part being often and variously presented but as yet
unproven in any way. For this reason, our direct Frankish lines must be
considered headwatered at present in the late part of the 6th and early
part of the 7th century in the form of the Sainted and powerful
Pepin I , Mayor of the Palace [of Austrasia] found in service to the Merovingian
Kings which his dynasty supplanted. Pepin is Charlemagne's GGG Grandfather.
Pepin is patriarch to the Carolingian dynasty of which Charlemagne was
part. Pepin was deemed a saint, and the following appears
in the All Saints Index: " Blessed Pepin of Landen (AC)(also known as Pippin)
Died February 21, c. 646. Pepin was, perhaps, the most important, powerful
person in the empire during his age. As duke of Brabant and mayor of the
palace (first minister) of kings Clotaire II, Dagobert I, and Sigebert
III, he determined much of the policy of the Franks. Pepin, the ancestor
of the Carolingian dynasty of French kings, was the husband of Blessed
Itta and father (of) Grimoald, of Saint Gertrude of Nivelles and Saint
Begga. He is described as ' a lover of peace and the constant defender
of truth and justice,' though it may not seem that way at first glance."
What is clear is that in this period the
Mayors of the palace were gaining power exceeding that of their lords,
the Merovingian Kings.
The Merovingian Kings are known with historicity
from their dynastical founder King Merovech , and these kings
ruled France from the time of Clovis (481-511) to the year 751. Kings
from Merovech to Childeric III (ruled 743-751) are called the Frankish
Kings or Kings of the Franks. They are likewise called the Long-Haired
Kings, and cutting their hair for them was symbolic of a loss of Kingly
Status and Priviledge. Gregory of Tours (538 to 594) wrote of them in his
History of the Franks.
Many historians have spent many years trying
to establish a geneological link between the Carolingian Kings and the
Merovingian Kings before them, as it seems clear such a geneological link
exists, but its evidence is not forthcoming. Many scenarios connecting
the Carolingian royals to the earlier Merovingian royals exist. Still,
at present, all is scholarly conjecture, and in fact, our Frankish lines
can only be taken back with historicity to the Carolingian Kings.
D)
THE VISIGOTHS-Likely Collaterals
The Visigoths intermarried with
the royals of the Merovingian Dynasty discussed above. The Merovingians
gave way as a dynasty to our assured directs, the Carolingians,
who themselves took their dynastic name from Charlemagne. If any
geneological connection is made that can be considered firm between the
Carolingian and the Merovingian Kings before them, then the Lombards will
be our collaterols .
E) THE
LOMBARDS& BURGUNDII (Lombards/ Likely CollaterAls,
Burgundii-Likely Direct)
The Lombard and Burgundii
leaders intermarried with the royals of the Merovingian dynasty, and if
any geneological connection is made that can be considered firm between
the Carolingian and the Merovingian Kings before them, then the Lombards
will be our collaterols and the Burgundii our directs. Both the Lombards
and the Burgundii share the period of the Merovingian Dynasty.
Burgundy, as a territory " was divided
first into the Roman provinces of Lugdunensis and Belgic Gaul, then into
Lugdunensis and Upper Germany . It prospered, and Autun became a major
intellectual center. In the 4th cent. Roman power dissolved, and the country
was invaded by Germanic tribes. It was finally conquered (c.480) by the
Burgundii, a tribe from Savoy. The Burgundii accepted Christianity, established
their Lex Burgundionum, and formed the First Kingdom of Burgundy, which
at its height covered SE France and reached as far south as Arles and W
Switzerland." 2
F)OTHER GERMAN TRIBES
"Many other Germanic tribes appeared in
various ancient periods. The Chamavi were in the 1st century north
of the Rhine and SE of the Zuider Zee; by the 4th cent. they had moved
southward and joined with the Frankish people. The Cimbri appeared in Transalpine
Gaul late in the 2d cent. B.C. and fought Roman armies; c.103 B.C. they
migrated to Italy with some Helvetii and Teutons and were crushed by Marius
in 101 B.C. The Eruli, or Heruli, possibly stemming from Jutland, inhabited
the shores of the Sea of Azov, E of the Don, in the 3d cent. A.D. They
fought with the Goths against the Huns, joined Odoacer in his attack on
the Roman emperor, and settled in North Lower Austria. In the 6th cent.
their kingdom was destroyed by Lombards, and they disappeared as a group.The
Gepidae, a Gothic people, moved southward from the Baltic at Vistula into
the Hungarian plain west of the Danube. Overwhelmed by Attila, they survived
only to be defeated in 489 by Theodoric the Great and in 566 by the Lombards
and Avars. They disappeared soon after. The Marcomanni, probably originally
part of the Suebi, lived N of the Danube in Germany in the 1st and 2d cent.
A threat to the Roman border, they were defeated by Marcus Aurelius in
the Marcomannic War (166?180). They moved into the country of the Celtic
Boii and probably expanded into Bavaria, where they seem to be the Baiuoarii,
or Boiarii, ancestors of the Bavarians....
ìAmong the Scandinavians, the Icelanders
are included, and they it is who produced the first German literature.
" 2
|
5)
Germany From Charlemagne to the age of Feudalism; the emergence of the
Holy Roman Empire
On the death of Charlemagne (A Frank)
his empire was divided in Frankish tradition among his living male heirs.
"Civil wars erupted that lasted until 870 when two Frankish kingdoms emerged,
that of the West Franks, France, and that of the East Franks, Germany.
It was also at about this time that the Vikings and Magyars (Hungarians,
originally from the northeastern Europe near the confluence of the Volga
and Kama rivers) conducted their invasions. " 1
" In 876, Charles III (839-88), emperor
of the East Franks, inherited the kingdom of Swabia (southwestern Germany,
present German states of Baden-Wurttemberg and Bavaria)."..The last Carolingian
king of the East Franks was Louis the Child (reign 899-911). On the death
of Louis the Child (reigned 899-911) , "...The dukes of Swabia...initially
elected the duke of Franconia king of Germany as Conrad I. In 919, however,
they turned
their allegiance to Saxony who they believed
to be better able to defend them against the Magyars."2
The precense of the invading Norsemen,
Slavs and Magyars "contributed to economic breakdown and localization,
manifest in the manorial system which gave way to the Feudal system. (The)
manorial system was economic-the peasants held land from the lord (Fr.
seigneur) of an estate in return for fixed dues in kind, money, and services"
2, while Feudalism went further, involving an allegiance
to the overlord, not just fixed dues. "Political localization was
evident in the emergence of powerful duchies and in the growth of feudalism.
The dukes of Franconia,
Swabia, Bavaria, Saxony, and Upper and
Lower Lorraine emerged as the most powerful magnates of Germany." 2
The use of the term Holy Roman Emperor
did not occur until several centuries after the first of them, Otto. Charlemagne
had called himself Emperor of the West, a title that had died with the
fall of the Roman Empire in
the 5th century, and seen by him as a
title that had been suspended in time by the abdication of the last
Roman emperor in 476. 5
"The Holy Roman Empire came into existence
with the imperial coronation (962) of Otto I. ...Otto's empire comprised
the German duchies, Lorraine (or Lotharingia), Italy, and Burgundy, which
had its own nominal king. Burgundy ... was formally annexed in 1033...."
2
The Holy Roman Empire did not just encompass
the area of Germany pertaining to the German Princes and German King,
neither did the Emperor have to be German.
|
 |
In the 17th century, the Germany we know was
in fact part of The Holy Roman Empire and extended from the Mediterranean
to the North Sea, composed of independent city-states each able to
leverage taxes, have there own armies, make their own money,enforce their
own borders, and so a loose collection forming the whole. " Its main
component was Germany and German speaking territory. The Germanic area
of Central Europe in the year 1700 was a patchwork of some three hundred
loosely organized sovereign territories wherein the delusionary concept
of the divine right of kings was accepted, rulers reigned supreme within
their own borders, and an emperor prevailed overall. The Empire was further
structured into nine districts which were under jurisdiction of governors
or ëelectorsí who chose the emperor."10
"The empire was justified by the claim
that, just as the pope was the vicar of God on earth in spiritual matters,
so the emperor was God's temporal vicar; hence he claimed to be the
supreme temporal ruler of Christendom. Actually, the power of the emperor
never equaled his pretensions. Although the emperors were accorded diplomatic
precedence over other rulers, their suzerainty early ceased over France,
S Italy, Denmark, Poland, and Hungary; and their control over England,
Sweden, and Spain was never more than nominal. The authority of the emperors
in Italy and Germany was sometimes nonexistent, sometimes real.
"The territorial limits of the empire
varied, but it generally included Germany, Austria, Bohemia and Moravia,
parts of N Italy, present-day Belgium, and, until 1648, the Netherlands
and Switzerland. Some countries (e.g., Hungary) were ruled by the emperor
or imperial prince but were outside the empire, while others (e.g.,
Flanders, Pomerania, Schleswig, and Holstein) were part of the empire but
were ruled by foreign princes who held their lands in fief from the emperor
and took part in the imperial diet." 4
"Not every German king became emperor,
however, because the popes, especially when elections to the kingships
were disputed, often claimed that the selection of the emperor was their
prerogative. Despite the fact that the German kingship and the imperial
office were technically elective, they tended to become hereditary."4
"The Emperor had to be a worthy man, aged
18 or more, reside in the Empire, be of noble birth (all four grandparents
had to be noble, according to the Schwabenspiegel), and of lay status (this
was not explicitly stated). No law required that he be Catholic,
and, although the text in a number of laws assumes that the emperor is
Catholic, jurists saw no obstacle to the choice of a Protestant prince.
Nor did he have to be German, as the examples of Alfonso of Castile and
Charles V showed" 3
"The territorial components of the Empire
fell into one of the following categories
principalities (Fürstentümer, principatus in Latin), subdivided
into
electorates,
duchies,
principalities,
palatine counties, margraviats, landgraviats, princely counties (gefürstete
Grafschaften)
imperial counties (Reichsgrafschaften)
free lordships (freie Herrschaften, dominia)
ecclesiastical territories (praelaturae)
free imperial cities (Reichsstädte)
free imperial villages (Reichsdörfer, pagi imperii) " 3
"As a result of their difficult dual
role as emperors and German kings, and especially because of their interests
in Italy, Otto's successors could not prevent the German dukes and their
vassals from increasing their power at the expense of the central authority.
Imperial power was further undermined by the conflict between emperors
and popes, manifest in the struggle over investiture."2
Investiture was "a ceremony by which an
overlord transferred a fief to a vassal or by which, in ecclesiastical
law, an elected cleric received the pastoral ring and staff (the symbols
of spiritual office) signifying the transfer of the office. After the oath
of fealty, the lord invested the vassal with the fief, usually by
giving him some symbol of the land or office transferred"2
In the late 11th century, when "
there was no general agreement as to the powers of the pope and the Holy
Roman emperor in installing German bishops; it was only generally recognized
that both had rights in the matter.... In 1075, Gregory (Pope Gregory VII)
forbade lay investiture, and the bitter struggle began in earnest. The
encouragement of rebellious nobles in Germany and the excommunication of
Henry IV were followed by steady warfare....Especially in such difficult
times, the emperor needed power over the bishop-princes. The papacy also
maintained its ground....Holy Roman Emperor Henry V maintained the claims
of his father and extended them ruthlessly. He made a vague settlement
before his coronation, but at the last moment refused to surrender lay
investiture; he seized the pope and forced him to surrender the church
claims. Paschal (Pope Paschal II) later disavowed this forced agreement.
The emperor and the antipopes he had set up effectively staved off settlement."2
We can see that even before the Prostestant
reformation, dischord with the Catholic Church manifest in Germany
in the form of the Holy Roman Emperor and the right of investiture lay
the groundwork for the greater dischord as a whole presented with
the Reformation. |
|
|
|
|
6) About Schwabia of
the Suebi
(Swabia (German Schwaben, Latin Suevia), and the Suevi)
"Swabia is rich in history and
is a treasury of German architecture. Settled in the 3d cent. by the Germanic
Suebi and Alemanni during the great migrations, the region was also known
as Alamannia until the 11th cent. (The Alemannic, or Swabian, dialects
of the various regions of Swabia [in its largest sense] remain linguistically
closely related.) "2 "The
region was first known to the Romans as Alamannia because at the time its
settlers were the Germanic tribe of Alamans. When the Romans began to conquer
the area, it was incorporated as part of the Agri Decumates. It later received
its present name from later German migrants, the Suevi, who became amalgamated
with the Alamanni in the 5th century AD. "7
"Around 500, Alemannia came under
the control of the waxing Frankish Empire. But its ruling house, the Merovingians
(Franks) were not strong and by 689 Swabia was virtually independent.
It was brought back under control in the 730's and 740's by Charles Martel,
founder of the Carolingian Dynasty, who deposed the hereditary dukes of
Swabia and subdivided it to be ruled by counts reporting directly to him.
This situation continued until the 9th century and the dissolution of the
Empire under the grandsons of Charlemagne. Between 900-11, largely because
the central royal authority failed to stem the tide of invading Magyars
(Hungarians) and Normans, the Alemannians were able to become an independent
"stem-duchy", organized, like those of the Bavarii, Franks, Saxons and
Thuringii, around the people of an historic tribe. As in all the duchies,
the dukes were those who proved they could meet the miltary demands of
those anarchic times. The first duke's family were known by the sobriquet
dux Raetianorum, i.e. defenders of the Alpine passes of Switzerland, reflecting
their role as military leaders and organizers. During this period, Swabia
controlled not only parts of Switzerland, but lands west of the Rhine River,
i.e. including the Alsace. " 7
As one of the "stem duchies of
medieval Germany in the 9th century... (Schwabia) far exceeded its present
boundaries, including also Alsace & Switzerland east of the Reuss River.
In 1079 the duchy was bestowed on the house of Hohenstaufen, which in 1138
also obtained the imperial title."
2
"On the extinction (1268) of the
dynasty, Swabia broke up into small temporal and ecclesiastic lordships
and lost its political identity. The Swiss part became independent in 1291
and the Hapsburg territories in Alsace passed to France in 1648, but Breisgau
and the other Hapsburg domains in South Baden remained Austrian until
1803?6, except from 1469 to 1477, when they were ruled by Charles the Bold
of Burgundy. The rest of Swabia was held in large part by the counts (later
dukes) of Württemberg, by the margraves of Baden-Durlach, by the landgraves
of Fürstenberg, by the princes of Hohenzollern, by the bishops of
Strasbourg, Konstanz (Constance), and Augsburg, by several powerful abbeys,
and by a multitude of petty princes, counts, and knights.
"Most of the Swabian municipalities
had obtained the status of free imperial cities (i.e.,virtually independent
republics) by 1300. Among them were Augsburg, Ulm, Schwäbisch
Gmünd, Reutlingen, and Ravensburg. Their wealth, due mainly to commerce
and industry, made them the most powerful element of the country, and they
made their superior power felt by forming a series of leagues, starting
in 1331. The Swabian League of 1376-89 successfully opposed Emperor Charles
IV but was eventually defeated by the count of Württemberg. The most
important Swabian League was that of 1488-1534.
"The chief Swabian cities accepted
the Reformation in the 16th cent., but the countryside has remained divided
between Catholics and Protestants to the present day. With the commercial
revolution of the 15th and 16th cent. the Swabian cities temporarily lost
most of their importance. (In the 19th cent. some, especially Stuttgart,
revived as industrial centers.) When the Holy Roman Empire was organized
in circles in the 16th cent., theSwabian Circle, similar in extent to the
present region, was created. At the diet of Regensburg of 1801?3, which
acted largely under the influence of Napoleon I, many of the small ecclesiastic
and feudal holdings were taken over by Baden, Württemberg, and Bavaria.
"
2
Swabia " with its capital at Augsburg,
was a medieval duchy in the lands now forming southwestern Germany. Its
territories covered the area now occupied by Baden-Württemberg (the
Black Forest) and parts of western Bavaria (to the Iller River) and northern
Switzerland. It owes its importance to its strategic position between the
upper reaches of two of Europe's most important rivers, the Danube and
the Rhine.
"In the seventeenth, eighteenth
and early nineteenth centuries, as areas of eastern Europe were conquered
from the Ottoman Turks, many from Swabia migrated to areas in the Austro-Hungarian
and Russian Empires. The Danube River, or Donau, was the most frequently
used means of transportation for the trek and this group came to be known
as the Donauschwaben. "7
Contemporary Schwabia in Detail showing major places of interest re
tourism (this relates to Bavarian Shwabia only)
http://www.itcwebdesigns.com/tour_germany/index-schwabia.htm
7)The
(Schwabian) Peasants War 1525 & its effects on Germany
All this talk of nobles, allegiance, investiture, princes of
the church, secular princes, Kings and Emperors and such leaves out the
important element of the peasant in Schwabia. For this part of the discussion,
Iíll rely on Frederich Engels words in his "the
German Peasants War" Chapters .
"The peasants of Schwabia rose up
against their clerical and secular leaders in 1525, and the movement speared
into what is known as the Peasants War which encompassed much of
Germany and had a profound effect on all of it, as well as on the Holy
Roman Empire of which it was part....
"The first peasant conspiracy in
Germany as a whole came into being in 1476, in the bishopric of Wuerzburg,
a country already impoverished ëby bad government, manifold taxes, payments,
feuds, enmity, war, fires, murders, prison, and the like,í and continually
plundered by bishops, clergy and nobility in a shameless manner,,,
"From the moment when Luther's declaration
of war against the Catholic hierarchy set into motion all the opposition
elements of Germany, not a year passed without the peasants coming forth
with their demands. Between 1518 and 1523, one local revolt followed another
in the Black Forest and in upper Suabia. Beginning in the Spring of 1524,
these revolts assumed a systematic character. In April of that year, the
peasants of the Abbey of Marchthal refused serf labour and duties; in May
of the same year, the peasants of St. Blasien refused serf payments; in
June, the peasants of Steinheim near Memmingen declared they would pay
neither the tithe nor other duties; in July and August, the peasants of
Thurgau rebelled and were quieted partly through the mediation of Zurich,
partly through the brutality of the confederacy which executed many of
them. Finally, a decisive uprising took place in the Margraviate of Stuehlingen,
which may be looked upon as the real beginning of the Peasant War.
"The peasants of Stuehlingen suddenly
refused deliveries to the Landgrave and assembled in strong numbers. On
October 24, 1524, they moved towards Waldshut...Here they organised an
evangelical fraternity, jointly with the city middle-class....The uprising
spread rapidly over the entire territory of present-day Baden. A panic
seized the nobility of Upper Suabia, whose military forces were all engaged
in Italy, in a war against Francis I of France...The Suabian Union, comprising
the princes, the nobility, and the imperial cities of Southwest Germany,
tried conciliatory measures without guaranteeing the peasants real concessions.
The latter continued their movement...The peasants were promised a peaceful
agreement, either directly between the interested parties, or by means
of an arbitrator, and an investigation of complaints by the court at Stockach.
The troops of both the nobility and the peasants were dispersed.
"The peasants formulated sixteen
articles, the acceptance of which were to be demanded of the court at Stockach.
The articles were very moderate. They included abolition of the hunting
right, of serf labour, of excessive taxes and master privileges in general,
protection against wilful arrests and against partisan courts. (editors
note: the courts were composed solely of nobility). The peasants' demands
went no farther.....Nevertheless, immediately after the peasants went home,
the nobility demanded continuation of all contested services pending the
court decision... Thus the conflict was renewed.... In January, 1525, the
entire country between the Danube, the Rhine and the Lech, was in a state
of fermentation. In February, the storm broke....the peasants arose on
February 9 ...,They were 10,000 to 12,000 strong.
"On February 25, the Upper Allgaeu
troops, 7,000 strong, assembled at Schusser, moved by the rumour that troops
were marching against the dissatisfied elements who had appeared in this
locality as everywhere else. The people of Kempten, who had conducted a
fight against their archbishop throughout the winter, assembled on the
26th and joined the peasants. The cities of Memmingen and Kaufbeuren joined
the movement on certain conditions. The ambiguity of the position of the
cities in this movement was already apparent. On March 7, the twelve Memmingen
articles were proclaimed in Memmingen for all the peasants of Upper Allgaeu.....The
peasants also arose in Lower Allgaeu... and in the estates of Truchsess.
The movement started in the early days of March. This Lower Allgaeu troop...
consisted of 7,000 men.
"All these troops adopted the Memmingen
articles...A sixth troop was formed on the Danube, simultaneously with
the others. From the entire region, Ulm to Donauwoerth, from the valleys
of the Iller, Roth and Biber, the peasants came to Leipheim, and opened
camp there. From fifteen localities, every able-bodied man had come, while
reinforcements were drawn from 117 places. ...
"Thus, at the beginning of March,
there were between 30,000 and 40,000 insurgent peasants of Upper Suabia
in six camps under arms. ...
"At last the Suabian Union, with
free hands and in command of the first contingents, threw off its mask,
declaring itself 'to be ready, with arms in hand and with the aid of God,
to change that which the peasants wilfully ventured.'
"The peasants adhered strictly
to the armistice. On Judica Sunday they submitted their demands, the famous
Twelve Articles, for consideration. They demanded the election and removal
of clergymen by the communities; the abolition of the small tithe and the
utilisation of the large tithe, after subtraction of the priests' salaries,
for public purposes; the abolition of serfdom, of fishing and hunting rights,
and of death tolls; the limitation of excessive bonded labour, taxes and
ground rents; the restitution of the forests, meadows and privileges forcibly
withdrawn from the communities and individuals, and the elimination of
wilfulness in the courts and the administration....The growing agitation
everywhere, the continued local conflicts of the peasants with the nobility,
the news of a growing revolt in the Black Forest for the preceding six
months and of its spread up to the Danube and the Lech....explain the rapid
succession of peasant revolts in two-thirds of Germany. The fact, however,
that the partial revolts took place simultaneously, proves that there were
men at the head of the movement who had organised it through Anabaptists
and other emissaries....
"In the Palatinate, peasant troops
were formed on either bank of the Rhine by the end of April. They destroyed
many castles and monasteries, and on May 1 they took Neustadt on the Hardt.
The Bruchrain peasants, who appeared in this region, had on the previous
day forced Speyer to conclude an agreement. The Marshal of Zabern, with
the few troops of the Elector, was powerless against them, and on May 10
the Elector was compelled to conclude an agreement with the peasants, guaranteeing
them a redress of their grievances, to be effected by a Diet....."11
Some 150,000 peasants were hanged, decapitated,blinded, impaled,
or quartered. 12
"The class that suffered most from
the Peasant War was the clergy. Its monasteries and endowments were burned
down; its valuables plundered, sold into foreign countries, or melted;
its stores of goods consumed. They had been,\ least of all capable of offering
resistance, and at the same time the weight of the people's old hatred
fell heaviest upon them....
"The nobility had also suffered
considerably. Most of its castles were destroyed, and a number of its most
respected families were ruined and could find means of subsistence only
in the service of the princes. Its powerlessness in relation to the peasants
was proven. It had been beaten everywhere and forced to surrender. Only
the armies of the princes had saved it. The nobility was bound more and
more to lose its significance as a free estate under the empire and to
fall under the dominion of the princes.
"Nor did the cities generally gain
any advantages from the Peasant War. The rule of the honourables was almost
everywhere reestablished with new force, and the opposition of the middle-class
remained broken for a long time...Cities which had previously belonged
to the princes were forced to pay heavy indemnities, robbed of their privileges,
and made subject to the avaricious wilfulness of the princes (Frankenhausen,
Arnstadt, Schmalkalden, Wuerzburg, etc.), cities of the empire were incorporated
into territories of the princes (Muehlhausen), or they were at least placed
under moral dependence on the princes of the adjoining territory, as was
the case with many imperial cities in Franconia.
"The sole gainers under these conditions
were the princes. ...The church estates were secularised in their favour;
part of the nobility, fully or partly ruined, was obliged gradually to
place itself in their vassalage; the indemnities of the cities and peasantry
swelled their treasuries, which, with the abolition of so many city privileges,
had now obtained a much more extended field for financial operations.
"The decentralisation of Germany,
the widening and strengthening of which was the chief result of the war,
was at the same time the cause of its failure."
11
(This decentralisation of Germany exerted its influence on the
religious experience of our common German forebears. The princes
exerted force against the centrist government and were allowed by treaty
to practise the religion of their choice, as long as it was ìstate sanctionedî
-that is, after the 1550s, Catholocism and Lutheranism, and after the 1640s,
Catholocism, Lutheranism and Calvanism or Reformed. The populace
was forced to follow the local nobles religious preference, and frequent
changes of the ìofficial religionî forced frequent changes
of the populaceís own practise, and gave rise to constantly shifting
levels of tolerance or intolerance to any other religion than that currently
preferred by the current rulers. See History of Germany : the Reformation
present below for the staggering statistics on the change in official
religion in Germany and the parts of its whole. )
The 12 Articles were rounded up in printed form and burned, only a few
copies survive.
8) SCHWABIA Today
In German itís called Schwaben, and itís an "
historic region, mainly in S Baden-Württemberg and SW Bavaria, SW
Germany. It is bounded in the east by Upper Bavaria, in the west by France,
and in the south by Switzerland and Austria. It includes the former Prussian
province of Hohenzollern.
The main physical features of Swabia are the Black Forest; the valley
of the upper DanubeRiver, which rises there; the Swabian Jura, a mountain
range that extends parallel to and North of the Danube; and the valley
of the upper Neckar River. The Rhine and Lake Constance (sometimes
called the Swabian Sea) form the western and southern borders. The easternmost
section of Swabia is part of the Danubian plateau of Bavaria and is a Bavarian
province (c.3,940 sq mi/10,205 sq km), with Augsburg as capital."
2
"Today, the term Swabia is still
sometimes used to refer to the areas once encompassed by the medieval duchy.
The modern center is more thought to lie at Stuttgart and here and there
one can still often hear spoken the Swabian dialect, Schwäbisch (Schwobisch)
with its customary friendly greeting of 'Grüss Gott'. "
7
*Contemporary Bavaria Showing the region referred to as Schwabia. Schwabia
actually continues into westwardly neighboring Baden Wurtenberg.
Stuttgart is in Baden Wurtenberg. Image from:
http://www.iaw.on.ca/~helmut/tour_germany/baymap2.gif
9)
BUILD UP TO THE EMMIGRATION. 17th Century: A Backdrop
The 17th Century was full of wars. "There
were wars of conquest and liberation, civil wars and (so-called) wars of
religion which dramatically changed the relationships between countries.
These wars produced the decline of Spain, which was replaced by France
as the major continental power. Sweden emerged as the great power of the
Baltic region. Two revolutions in England produced a unique form of government,
and the creation of the United Provinces introduced into Europe an energetic
and powerful center of trade as well as a major cultural center."
? (lost footnote)
The Habsburgs, masters of alliance formation through marriage, treaty,
threat and at times force, were building up their power, and in 1619 Ferdinand
II Habsburg would be crowned Holy Roman Emperor. He was devoutly Catholic,
and his accension followed a period of protestant HRE monarchs. Religious
doctrine was not always an assurance of national alliances, as evidenced
in the Thirty Years War (1618-1648) in which foreign Catholic states
took active part against the powerful Catholic Habsburgs, fearing domination
by the Hapsburg kings . Much of the conflict in Europe of this century
was territorial and economic in nature (no great leap in logic) and not
limited by religious doctrine or affiliation.
To Recap:
In this period of history, the Germany we know was in fact part of
The Holy Roman Empire and extended from the Mediterranean to the North
Sea, composed of independent city-states each able to leverage taxes,
have there own armies, make their own money,enforce their own borders,
and so a loose collection forming the whole. 10 Its main component was
Germany and German speaking territory. The Germanic area of Central Europe
in the year 1700 was a patchwork of some three hundred loosely organized
sovereign territories wherein the delusionary concept of the divine right
of kings was accepted, rulers reigned supreme within their own borders,
and an emperor prevailed overall. The Empire was further structured into
nine districts which were under jurisdiction of governors or "electors"
who chose the emperor 10
10) Religious
Conflict Inside Germany The Reformation/ the Counter Reformation
At the time of the 30 Years War (began 1618), about half of Germanyís
states were Protestant and half Catholic, with Lutheranism the only state
recognized Protestant faith, having recieved sanction in the 1550s with
the Signing of the Treaty of Augsburg. This acceptance of state sanctioned
churches outside of Catholicism was hard won with each new group and the
process spanned decades while religious unrest spanned centuries. In Germany,
the recognition and protection of the first Protestants , the Lutherans,
was gained by the Treaty of Augsberg mentioned above, the very need
for which tells something of the dischord with which the Empire was dealing
as a result of the Reformation and the Catholic response to it. Catholicism
had to wrangle with the general complaints of the non catholic populace
regarding the Catholic Church (which is how the protest-ants gained their
name with the advent of Luther) and then, almost right away, the Catholics
and the then nascent Protestants had to deal with a splintering,
advancing Protestant theology, each sect more revolutionary than that before
it. Lutherans were recognized in the Treaty of Augsburg (granting
the individual German City-States the right to choose their own religion-
note that Luther lived 1483-1546) , but Calvinists were not (Calvin lived
1509-1564) . Basically in the signing of the treaty ending the 30
Years war (the Treaty of Westphalia-1648) , the Treaty of Augsburg (almost
100 years earlier) was reaffirmed, and the only change in the regard currently
under discussion was that Calvinism was recognized. What it
meant to be recognized as a state sanctioned church is that a Lord of the
city states could practise his preferred religion without fear of sanction
against him, as long as it was a State sanctioned alternative to Catholicism,
and this priveledge extended to his populace. Those not practising the
religion of the Lord often suffered as a result no matter what his religion.
Although initially the only alternative to Catholicism that enjoyed state
sanction was Lutheranism, followed by a third state sanctioned religion
with Calvinism nearly 100 years later, other Protestant doctrines
were practised and the state sanctioning of the three religions mentioned
caused all three to oppress the newer sects, just as the Lutherans joined
strenuously with the Catholics in trying to erradicate Calvanism.
Germany was splintered religiously as well as politically, and as
the Holy Roman Emperors themselves converted, or a new Emperor acceded
claiming a different church than his predecessor, the effect was felt throughout
the empire and the commonerís right to practise his religion (read here,
not in secrecy, in a church, with the right to burial within the
religion and overseen by a church leader and with the right to marriage
within the chosen doctrine as legally binding, without fear of retribution
or persecution, imprisonment and/or confiscation of property and in deference
to the individualís own conscience only) was entirely dependant on the
leaning of his Lordís (mortal, not divine) own practise.
"In accord with the
principle of cuius regio, eiuus religio most of the population changed
its faith five times in the 16th century. Catholic doctrine, supported
by Elector Louis V (d. 1544), was followed by the Lutheran under Frederick
II (d. 1556) and Otto Henry (d. 1559), the Reformed under Frederick III
(d. 1576), again the Lutheran under Louis VI (d. 1583), and finally the
Reformed under John Kasimir (d. 1592). These ecclesiastical changes were
one of the factors which made it possible for Anabaptism (Mennonites and
Amish) to enter the Palatinate early and to develop-in spite of much
resistance-to considerable strength. (In regards to the Electoral
Palatinate itself, it ) " had become
Lutheran in 1556, and then Reformed in 1560. From 1576 to 1583 a new elector
reintroduced Lutheranism, only to have this faith replaced by the Reformed
until 1620. During the Thirty Years' War, the Spanish and Bavarian Catholics
were twice dominant, but the treaties of Westphalia placed a Reformed Elector
on the throne. After each change, the new party attempted to repress completely
the other faiths. In other words, within the space of one hundred fifty
years the official religion (in the Electoral Palatinate) had been
changed eight times"12
"The new Big Three ecclesiastical
bodies (Catholic, Lutheran, and Reformed) forthrightly denied all other
religious groups the right to exist within the Empire, and the citizens
of each local district were forced to join whichever church was recognized
by the local nobility, an administrative carry-over from the Peace of Augsburg
in 1555. It is not over-simplification to frame the position of the Big
Three churches to all other groups as: 'Convert, leave, or die.' "
10
11) The 30 Years War *Unidentified
artist, from:
http://www.koni.onlinehome.de/basisdateien/inhalt-frames.htm
The rise of the Hapsburgs occured in the 17th century with the crowning
of Ferdinand II as Holy Roman Emperor in 1619, and Ferdinandís alliance
with the Pope was firm. When he was named, the Protestant nobles of Bavaria
rebelled and the Palatinate would suffer greatly as a result.
In 1618, in the Bohemian capital of Prague, three Imperial representatives
were thrown out of a window of the Hradshin Palace by angry Bohemian Protestant
nobles. The representatives survived the 70 foot drop, either through
divine intervention as claimed by the Catholics, or because
they landed on a dung heap as the Protestants said. Bohemia was a diverse
region, with many protestant nobles. The representatives had been tossed
because the man who was soon to become Emperor, the future
Emperor Ferdinand II, was a devout Catholic and had made it clear he wouldn't
tolerate Protestantism. This event is called the "Defenestration
of Prague" and it started the Thirty Years War. In 1619, when
Ferdinandís ascension should have occured, the Bohemians refused the crown
to Ferdinand, and he went to war to gain it, intent on destroying Protestantism
in that part of Europe. He quickly gained Bohemia, and defeated the other
Protestant regions that rose against him despite Protestant Dutch intervention,
and with the help of Catholic Spain. Soon not only the Protestant
countries of Europe were gravely concerned but also Catholic countries,
especially France, fretting that the war would lead to Europeís
domination by the Habsburgs- for them it was not so important he
was Catholic, the Habsburgs were just getting too powerful. The Danes threw
in troops, the French, though Catholic, gave support to the Dutch and Swedes,
Catholic French troops were sent into battle against Catholic Imperial
troops of the Emperor. Catholic Spain lost it's Atlantic trade routes and
lost to the Catholic French and the Holy Roman Emperor finally had to sign
the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. Regarding the war for the German people,
I think the following pretty much sums it up.
"The real losers in the war
were the German people. Over 300,000 had been killed in battle. Millions
of civilians had died of malnutrition and disease, and wandering, undisciplined
troops had robbed, burned, and looted almost at will. Most authorities
believe that the population of the Empire dropped from about 21,000,000
to 13,500,000 between 1618 and 1648. Even if they exaggerate, the Thirty
Years War remains one of the most terrible in history."14
"Trade and industry were non-existent;
towns and cities were in ruins and starving peasants even resorted to cannibalism.
It is estimated that half the population died."15
12) The
Edict of Nantes and its Subsequent Revocation
The 30 years War, waged 1618-1648, preceeded the Revocation of the
Edict of Nantes (signed Oct 22 1685 in the forty-third year of Louis
XIVís reign) and which occured in predominantly Catholic France.
The effect of the Revocation involved much of Europe, it could not
be contained to France alone, and so involved Germany . As a result of
the mass migration caused by the Revocation and its effects, Holland, Switzerland
and England also became involved .
It was Henry IV of France (Henry IV The Great Of France, King Of France
DE BOURBON ID # 19524 on this tree and The guy Queen Margot married in
the movie bearing her name) who produced the Edict of Nantes back
in 1598 following the French Wars of Religion and a long period of
civil unrest and battles. In 1572, protestant Henry , then far removed
from the throne and with little likelihood of accension to it, married
his cousin- the French Princess Margaret (Margaret De Valois ID # 19525
on this tree-Queen Margot in the movie again bearing her name), daughter
of Catherine de Medici (Catherine of Florence De MEDICI -ID # 19524
on this tree). Catherine de Medici was the widow of Henry II of France
and mother of three successive Catholic kings, Francis II, Charles IX,
and Henry III . Henry and Margaret married on 18 August 1572 in an attempt
by the Valois to placate the Protestants. The de Valois family had many
boys to fill the throne, but fate would leave the Valois line without progeny
when all the sons had gone through their reigns. This however, was not
considered a real possibility at the time of Henry and Margaretís marriage.
The wedding of Henry and Margaret had brought Protestant nobles and commoners
to Paris for the celebrations, and its occasion allowed for the St Bartholomewís
massacre which occured on the 24th of August but spread through Paris and
into the French countryside, despite Royal edicts after they initiated
it that the unrest and persecution cease. Just prior to the massacre, Catharine
de Medici had attempted the assassination of Protestant Coligny (Gaspard
II, Ammiraglio Di Francia DE COLIGNY ID # 19274 on this tree) , whom she
detested for his influence upon her son, the monarch, Charles IX, and in
an attempt to reassert her control of her son, the King. "
The decision to have recourse to a massacre arose in Catherine's mind under
pressure of a sort of madness; she saw in this decision a means of preserving
her influence over the king and of preventing the vengeance of Protestants,
who were exasperated by the attack made on Coligny"
17 The massacre started at midnight on the advent of the 24th, and
itís first act was the this-time-succesful murder of Coligny, his body
once lifeless subjected to kicking and beheading. Margaret, the bride
to Henry, petitioned her new husband Henryís safety, and Henry
was taken to the King who requested his conversion; Henry refused, but
remained safe, while other Protestants were brutally murdered throughout
the city. Were it not for the now dead Colignyís friendship with the Catholic
King and all that that represented, Henry very well might have been murdered
through efforts of Catherine de Medici, the Kingís mother. The St
Bartholomewís Day Massacre caused "the
death of 3,000 Huguenots in Paris. The fervor spread and lasted until October
despite royal orders for it to stop. By the end, 70,000
Huguenots were murdered in France. Once over, it led to the resumption
of Civil War."16 "Thirty-five
livres were paid to the grave-diggers of the Cemetery of the Innocents
for the interment of 1100 corpses; but many were thrown into the Seine.
Ranke and Henri Martin estimate the number of victims in Paris at 2000....
In the provinces also massacres occurred. On the evening of 24 August,
a messenger brought to the Provost of Orléans a letter bearing the
royal seal and ordering him to treat all Huguenots like those of Paris
and to exterminate them, 'taking care to let nothing leak out and by shrewd
dissimulation to surprise them all'....In many places an excess of zeal
led to an increase of brutality. Lyons, Toulouse, Bordeaux, and Rouen all
had their massacres. So many Lyonese corpses drifted down the Rhône
to Arles that, for three months, the Arlesians did not want to drink the
river water. At Bayonne and at Nantes compliance with royal orders was
refused. The intervals between these massacres prove that on the first
day the Court did not issue formal orders in all directions; for instance,
the Toulouse massacre did not occur till 23 September and that of Bordeaux
till 3 October. " 17
Despite his near death with the St Bartholomewís
massacre, and the risks he took in refusing conversion even as the killing
occured outside the doors of the Louvre in which he was housed with the
King at the time of those events ,17 years following the St Bartholomewís
massacre Henry of Navarre Bourbon would return to Paris to be crowned
the French monarch and, on this occasion, would convert to Catholicism.
His conversion was made in an attempt to unite a very divided France, for
he knew he would never capture the faith of the largely Catholic (90%)
population. He abandoned Protestantism in his own practise, feeling the
peace of his country might be found with a tolerant Catholic king.
In 1598 he issued the Edict of Nantes which defined the rights of the French
Protestants (AKA Huguenots AKA French Calvinists). The Edictís
Revocation 87 years later (Oct 22 1685 ) by Louis XIV (ID 19576 on this
tree) caused one more period of disaster for Europe , but at the time of
itís signing, Henry of Navaree, now Henry IV of France, granted
the protestant French the right to worship in public, hold public office,
assemble, enter universities and administer their towns. The edict, though,
denied them some rights too, and is considered conciliatory to the Catholics
while still a seriously important document regarding religious freedom
and one often cited for itís political and diplomatic genius.ÝIt included
the formation of "special courts,
composed of Roman Catholic and Protestant judges, to judge cases involving
Protestants; retention of the organization of the Protestant church in
France; and Protestant control of some 200 cities then held by the Huguenots,
including such strongholds as La Rochelle , with the king contributing
to the maintenance of their garrisons and fortifications.
"The last condition, originally
devised for an eight-year period but subsequently renewed, was to serve
as guarantee to the Huguenots that their other rights would be respected;
however, it gave French Protestantism a virtual state within a state and
was incompatible with the centralizing policies of (the later) cardinals
Richelieu and Mazarin and of Louis XIV. The fall (1628) of La Rochelle
to Richelieu's army and the Peace of Alais (1629) marked the end of Huguenot
political privileges. After 1665, Louis XIV was persuaded by his Roman
Catholic advisers to embark on a policy of persecuting the Protestants.
By a series of edicts that narrowly interpreted the Edict of Nantes, he
reduced it to a scrap of paper. Finally, in 1685, he declared that the
majority of Protestants had been converted to Catholicism and that the
edict of 1598, having thus become superfluous, was revoked. No French Protestants
were allowed to leave the country; those who openly remained Protestants
were promised the right of private worship and freedom from molestation,
but the promise was not kept. " 2
With the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 "The
Huguenots were not allowed to hold public offices any longer. Protestant
marriages were declared illegal. Pastors were ordered to leave the country
in fifteen days. Parents could no longer instruct their children in the
Reformed faith, but were compelled, under heavy penalty, to have them baptized
and instructed by the priests. They were forbidden to emigrate, and those
who had done so must return in four months or suffer the confiscation of
their property. Churches and records were destroyed. Notwithstanding the
most strenuous efforts to prevent it, there was a stampede of the Protestants
to leave the kingdom, and we are told that about 400,000 of them left France.îîThousands
fled abroad to escape the system of dragonnades, and several provinces
were virtually depopulated. The revocation of the Edict of Nantes weakened
the French economy by driving out a highly skilled and industrious segment
of the nation, and its ruthless application increased the detestation in
which England and the Protestant German states held the French king. Its
object-to make France a Catholic state-was fulfilled on paper only, for
many secretly remained faithful to Protestantism, while the prestige of
the Roman Catholic Church suffered as a result of Louis's intolerance."
2
Our Forney cousins, and the Collateral families La Fevre and Ferree
likewise present on this tree were directly affected by the Revocation
of the Edict of Nantes, some members seeking asylum in Germany .
Our direct German ancestors already present in the Palatinate were also
affected.
13) The War of the Palatinate
The effects of the French civil war precipitated by the Revocation
was not contained to France alone causing the exodus as noted above of
thousands of Huguenots into other areas including neighboring Germany
and especially the Palatinate within it. This was followed in 1689 by the
War of the Grand Alliance which lasted until 1697 and was precipitated
with the marching of the French Sun King into the Palatinate in 1688
after he claimed it. Louis XIVís "influence
over the German states (through a combination of pensioning and lobbying
amongst the Elector-princes of the states that directly bordered France
and the river Rhine) peaked just before 1685[6]. "ì
19
The Holy Roman Emperor, then engaged with the Turks, was unable to
protect his populace.
The War of the Grand Alliance is likewise known as The Nine Years' War,
the War of the Palatinate, the War of the League of Augsburg,
and "on the American continent, as
King William's War and itís effects cascaded into the New World in the
form of the French and Indian Wars."20
The War of the Grand Alliance (1688-1697) marked an intermittent epoch
in the ongoing European wars that had never truly ended after the Thirty
Years' War and the Peace of Westphalia (1648). "So
much international concern was there over growing French hegemony, that
Britain led a coalition of powers to oppose her. These struggles became
known as the War of the Palatinate (or the War of the Grand Alliance or
War of the League of Augsburg, 1688-1697). One major effect was large scale
emigration from 1689 to 1697, and later, giving rise, for example, in the
United States to the phenomenon of the Pennsylvania Dutch."
21
I'll leave it to the authors cited below to explain the effect of Louis
XIV on our area of Germany.
FRENCH MARAUDERS.
"In the latter part of the
Seventeenth Century the fertile lands of the Palatinate were made the scene
of devastation, spoliation and ruin. Louis XIV suddently precipitated
eighty thousand troops on these people within the short period of seven
weeks, and changed that Paradise into a desert. Heidelberg, Mannheim and
Worms were looted and partly burned, twelve hundred villages were razed
to the ground and 40,000 inhabitants robbed of all they had. For example,
during the last night of a French commander's stay in one of
these towns, he caused it to be so completely and methodically plundered,
that he had himself nothing but straw to sleep on; and the next day this
bedding was employed in setting fire to the town, which was presently reduced
to ashes. Since the day of the Huns, Europe beheld no such devastation.
The Emperor of Germany who should have protected the Palatinate, had his
hands full with the Turks just then, and could do nothing to help them.
"
22
"In February, 1689, . . . [General]
Melac, blew up the walls of Heidelberg and its castle towers, and laid
half the city in ashes. . . . Such of the inhabitants as tried to rescue
their goods were slain. Every where were found the corpses of wretched
men frozen to death. The citizens of Manheim were compelled to assist in
destroying their fortifications, and were then driven out, hungry and naked,
into the winter cold, and their city was burned. . . ."
10
"Prior to the peace of Ryswick (1697)
and the succeeding peace of Utrecht (1713) the people were denied every
opportunity to recover. Congregations had to worship in the open air, and
thousands were compelled to flee from their homes. The district of Sinsheim,
in which the Spenglers"(And SWOPES)
"resided,
was scourged and devastated. In 1674 Turenne invaded it, the German forces
being under the command of the Duke of Lorraine. In 1689 the city of Sinsheim
was utterly destroyed by the French and the inhabitants exiled. Immense
multitudes went down the Rhine. They arrived at Holland, many utterly destitute,
and encamped by thousands in the environs of Amsterdam and Rotterdam, where
the Dutch did all they could to help them, their persecuted brethren in
faith. It was from the latter point that the Swiss, Palatines , and refugee
Huguenots sailed to find an asylumn on our hospitable shores. Thus began
that great influx of Germans whose numbers and character greatly affrighted
the English of Pennsylvania as to their supremacy, and to prevent their
political ascendency denied them for many years the privileges of citizenship.
"22
" .... At the peace of Ryswick,
October 30, 1697, ...the famous Ryswick clause was included, by which the
churches were to stand as they had been during the hostile occupation...
The Protestants ... lost their churches, and the Catholic service was restored
in entirely reformed communities. "10
"Lord (Thomas Babington) Macaulay
described the devastation in the Palatinate this way:The French commander
announced to near half a million of human beings that he granted them three
days of grace, and that, within that time, they must shift for themselves.
Soon the roads and fields, which then lay deep in snow, were blackened
by innumerable multitudes of men, women, and children flying from their
homes. Many died of cold and hunger; but enough survived to fill the streets
of all the cities of Europe with lean and squalid beggars, who had once
been thriving farmers and shopkeepers. Meanwhile the work of destruction
began. The flames went up from every market-place, every hamlet, every
parish church, every country seat. . . . The fields where the corn had
been sown were ploughed up. The orchards were hewn down. . . . The magnificent
Cathedral of Spires perished, and with it the marble sepulchres of eight
Ceasars. The coffins were broken open. The ashes were scattered to the
winds." 10
This War of the Grand Alliance which ended in 1697 was then followed
with the start of the War of the Spanish Succesion in 1701, and with it,
the French again marched into the Palatinate.
14) The War of
the Spanish Succession-More armies in the
Palatinate
"The eighteenth century began with
the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714). In 1707 a French army under
Marshall Claude-Louis-Hector Villars marched through the Palatinate spreading
terror and death. Along with oppressive taxation and religious turmoil,
life for Palatines was once again filled with suffering. Then came a blow
which broke the native spirit of many a Palatine; it was delivered by the
wrath of nature when the winter of 1708-09 was extremely harsh and long,
and soon French troops were in the German countryside."13
15) The History and
Rise of Pietism
The effect of all these events, the wars of the Grand Alliance and
the later War of the Spanish Succession (1701-14) devastated central Germany
yet again, in particular, the Palatinate. In the midst of the War of Spanish
Succession came the freeze of 1708-1709. One result of all these
alienating events would be the rise of religious pietism, a new form of
spirituality, which would suffer itís own persecution. "Economic
burdens on local nobility were immense. Farm lands were not replanted due
to constant invasion, and people were often forced into thievery and immorality
in order to survive. The future appeared to offer no hope or relief, only
despair and gloom. But then something new happened which took the Big Three
(The Catholic, Lutheran and Reformed Churches) by surprise. On the
soil of bloodshed and inter-faith disunity, another religious movement
sprung forth. Pietism would also became the next receptor of state imprisonment
and execution. It was a logical outgrowth of a religious populace that
was exhausted of both war and the insensitivity of church leadership; a
clergy that physically enforced attendance at worship and obeisance before
dignitaries. Because worship had become dull and insensitive (more of a
political tool) people naturally turned inwardly for spiritual renewal.
Originally content to remain as a sub-group within the Big Three state
churches, Pietists endeavored to substitute devotional formalism with a
more genuine intellectual and emotional experience. Adherents stressed
that faith, regeneration, and sanctification were qualities to be experienced
rather than being explained by a church official. Local governments, overwhelmed
with administrative disruptions and economic recovery from war, took little
notice of Pietism in its earliest form. However, when the Separatists evolved,
that would all change, for this new sub-group desired to clearly take the
movement outside of the Big Three, and possibly exist as free independent
groups without denominational structure. "13
But back to the Big Freeze and its outcome: The effect of the freeze
of 1708-09 was so profound in itself it forced an emmigration. It
was so cold that wood could not burn and some say birds fell frozen from
the air. ìOn 10 January 1709 the Rhine River froze and was closed for five
weeks. Wine froze into ice. Grapevines died. Cattle died in their sheds.
Many Palatines traveled down the Rhine to Rotterdam in late February and
March. In Rotterdam they were housed in shacks covered with reeds. The
ones who made it to London were housed in 1,600 tents surrounding the city.
Londoners were resentful. Other Palatines were sent to other places, such
as Ireland, the Scilly Isles, the West Indies, and New York.
"Queen Anne was related to the
ruler of the Palatinate. On 24 March 1709 a British naturalization act
was passed whereby any foreigner who would take the oaths to the British
government and profess himself a Protestant would be immediately naturalized
and have all the privileges of an English-born subject for one shilling."21
"The citizens of London were astonished
to learn, in May and June, 1709, that 5,000 men, women and children, Germans
from the Rhine, were under tents in the suburbs. By October the number
had increased to 13,000, and comprised husbandmen, tradesmen, school teachers
and ministers. These emigrants had deserted the Palatinate, owing to French
oppression and the persecution by their prince, the elector John William,
of the house of Newburgh, who had become a devoted Romanist, though his
subjects were mainly Lutherans and Calvinists. ...Very few of the Palatines
sought to be naturalized in London, and probably a still smaller number
of them were attracted thither by a knowledge (of the act passed to naturalize
them)."10
16) The Effect on Pennsylvania
The effect of the 17th century in Germany would have profound effect
on the American British Colonies.
"The Germans were the largest non-English
group in colonial America. . . . Pennsylvania alone had 100,000 Germans
by 1776, and many thousands more had settled on the frontiers of Maryland,
Virginia and North Carolina. . . . By 1709 some 13,000 destitute German
Palatines had arrived in England. But England was only a temporary stopping
place, and nearly half of them went on to New York, North Carolina and
Pennsylvania.
The first wave of German immigrants brought mostly German Quakers;
Mennonites; Baptist Brethren, or Dunkers; and other small sects... A second
wave after 1730 consisted largely of Lutherans and Calvinists."10
"In 1731 there were 15,000
members of the Reformed Church in Pennsylvania from the Palatinate. Up
to 1776, when the importations ceased, 39,000 German emigrants had arrived
and settled mainly in Lancaster, York, Berks and Northampton counties.
As early as 1790, when the population of this State (Pennsylvania)
did not exceed 435,000 there were already 145,000 Germans"
22
17)
The Mennonite Experience Germany and Switzerland
Regarding Bishop Herr and our other Mennonite ancestors, I am providing
a history of their European experience, full of oppression, suppression,
exile, confiscation, torture, imprisonment and corporal punishment,
as presented in the Mennonite Encyclopedia, sited by source given in footnote.
For the 7 articles of the faith that details the tenets held by the
Mennonites i have linked to the online transcript of The Schleitheim
Confession ( Adopted by a Swiss Brethren Conference, February 24, 1527).
Go to:
http://www.anabaptists.org/history/schleith.html
Of interest as one reads this very large text may be the specifics involving
our Bar direct ancestors. Our ancestor Heinrich Bar wrote a letter
in " 1662, requesting to be excused
from paying 18 florins to the authorities to get married or have it confirmed.
He pleaded that his mother's family had provided one-third of the employed
help in the House of Streichenberg, and since her death his household was
depleted to the extent that he also must look for a female helper, as well
as look for a companion and helper in his household. The reply, dated April
29, 1662, said the rule was not to be relaxed"
24
"Accordingly the 400-year history
of the Anabaptists-Mennonites falls into three clearly defined eras: (1)
from the origin of Anabaptism ca. 1525 to its almost complete extinction
in the Thirty Years War (100 years); (2) from the immigration of Swiss
Mennonites from the middle of the 17th century until the reorganization
of the Palatinate ca.1800 (150 years); (3) from the beginning of the freedom
of the 19th century to the present (150 years). "
12b
I am including the text relevant to the first two periods as
this pertains to our Ancestors who left before the third and fourth in
Germany. It is noteworthy that no Amish sect exists in Germany
today. The following text is in entirity from the source Sited by
rrr@horseshoe.cc in his web pages as noted in the footnote details.
"I. The origin of Anabaptism in
the Palatinate presumably precedes the formation of the first congregation
in Switzerland. Johannes Risser, pastor of the Sembach congregation in
1832-68, says that "already by 1522, and especially after the Peasant Wars
(1525)" there were Anabaptists in the Palatinate, although he fails to
give any proof for 1522 date. In 1526 Jakob Kautz (q.v.), a native of the
Palatinate (Grossbaclenheim) and a Lutheran preacher at Worms, became an
Anabaptist. In 1527 Hans Denk (q.v.) and Ludwig Haetzer (q.v.) were living
in Worms and here published their German translation of the Prophets, which
soon went through thirteen editions. Worms was probably also the scene
of the first adult baptisms. 'People from the Palatinate who were rebaptized
at Worms are persecuted, imprisoned, and the same is happening in other
provinces' (Nikolaus Thomae, priest of Bergzabern).12
"The leading Protestant clergymen
of the Palatinate were not completely unsympathetic with the early Anabaptists.
When Hans Denk, for example, on his flight from Nurnberg, Augsburg, and
Strasbourg came to the Palatinate in early 1527 he was kindly received
and heard by Nikolaus Thomas in Bergzabern. He wrote, 'In a fraternal manner
Denk dealt with us. They parted as friends, although in many respects their
ideas differed. When I accompanied Denk he earnestly admonished me to live
a blameless life in accord with the Gospel, for which I am very grateful
to him.' In a letter to K. Hubert, Bucer's famulus, dated Jan. 28, 1529,
he says of five Anabapists who were employed in building the prince's castle
in Bergzabern that he associated with them 'on an entirely friendly basis,'
for they were 'God-fearing and honest people.'
"Soon after this Hans Denk was
in Landau where Johannes Bader (q.v.) was promoting the Reformation. Bader
was just on the point of writing his Briiderliche Warriung, a polemic against
the Anabaptists who had a considerable following around Landau even before
Denk's appearance there.....Bader did not hesitate to call for their forcible
suppression by the state. In early 1528 a mandate was issued in Landau
forbidding Anabaptists to stay there or the inhabitants to give them lodging,
both on penalty of corporal punishment.
"Suddenly the sharpest persecution
set in against the Anabaptists. On March 5, 1528, the unstable Elector
Louis V, 1508-44, upon the insistence of Emperor Charles V, issued a mandate
against the Anabaptists referring to the imperial mandate of Jan. 4, 1528,
which demanded capital punishment for Anabaptists. Soon many of the prisons
were full to overflowing. In Alzey (q.v.) many lay "in arrest," as the
elector wrote in 1528, "for a long time." A letter written by J. Cochiaeus
(q.v.) to Erasmus (q.t,.) on Jan. 8, 1528, contains the information that
eighteen Anabaptists were imprisoned for a considerable time at Alzey and
had been before the court several times. In Germany their number had reputedly
risen to 18,000.
"The Anabaptist trial at Alzey created
wide excitement. There was general uncertainty concerning the correct judgment
of the Anabaptists, from the elector, who sought the advice of jurists
and theologians, to the local officials, who kept asking for instructions.
The Palatine Chancellor Florenz von Venningen in 1527 wrote an extensive
document which argued that since the prisoners had accepted rebaptism they
were to be punished by death. The document was sent for consideration to
the juristic faculties at Cologne, Mainz, Trier, Freiburg, Ingolstadt,
Tbingen, Erfurt, Leipzig, Wittenberg, and Heidelberg. Erfurt and Wittenberg
declined to take a position, but the others expressed their agreement.
"The Anabaptist prisoners of Alzey
were warmly defended by Johann Odenbach (q.v.), the Protestant pastor of
Obermoschel. His "Sendbrief und Ratschlag" to the judges tells them that
they have treated many criminals better in prison than these poor people
who have committed no crime but have merely in error had themselves baptized.
"See with what great patience, love, and devotion these people have died,
how honorably they have resisted the world! ... They are holy martyrs of
God."
"In spite of intercession the Anabaptists
at Alzey were executed, the men by beheading and the women by drowning.
The exact number of the victims cannot be definitely ascertained. Julius
Lober's martyr list mentions fourteen in Alzey, three in Heidelberg, and
five in Bruchsal. The Hutterite chronicles give 350 as the total number
of martyrs in the Palatinate, based on reports of refugees who escaped
to Moravia and related that the Anabaptists were "taken to their execution
like sheep to slaughter." One of the last martyrs was Philipp von Langenlonsheim,
executed at Kreuznach in 1529.
"After 1529 there were probably
no Anabaptist executions in the Palatinate. Michel Leubel, the details
of whose trial were recently made public and who was drowned in the Rhein
at Speyer in 1533, may have been an exception. The Protestant electors,
beginning with Frederick II, who became a Lutheran soon after assuming
the government in 1544, tried to win the Anabaptists back to the state
church by kind methods. Under Frederick II, who was engaged in conflict
with Catholicism, Anabaptism seems to have been firmly implanted in the
Palatinate. Hutterite missioners in the second half of the century induced
many Anabaptists to go to Moravia, where the brotherhood was enjoying its
Golden Age. In the congregations at Worms and Kreuznach serious differences
arose concerning doctrine and discipline. The courts were constantly troubled
by the property left by the fugitives; in spite of emigration there were
continued reports of the spread of the movement.
"The church inspection ordered by
Otto Henry under the Superintendent of Strasbourg, Johann Marbach confirmed
these reports. It was discovered that Anabaptism was strongest where there
was a lack of intelligent preachers of the Gospel. Thereupon the pastors
were urged to learn what the erroneous articles of the sects were and to
counter them in the pulpit, not with noise and derogatory words but with
gentleness and honesty; this would be better than prematurely to threaten
these people with severe punishment, for they were otherwise honorable,
decent, and obedient. However, they should not be allowed to hold official
positions, and their dead should be denied a funeral sermon and ringing
of the bells.
"Upon the request of the Anabaptists
a disputation was held at Pfeddersheim in 1557, in which over forty Anabaptists,
including nineteen Vorsteher, took part. The questions debated concerned
infant baptism, government office, the oath, the reason for their leaving
the state church, communion, and the ban. The church declared the Anabaptists
defeated; but the Anabaptists persisted in their convictions. Soon after
this some important Lutheran and Catholic theologians held a disputation
at Worms and came to an agreement, not concerning the treatment of Zwinglians
and Sacramentists, but on the 'condemnation of the Anabaptists.' Thereupon
Otto Henry issued a severe mandate against the Anabaptists, threatening
them with expulsion and punishment according to imperial decree; it was,
however, not strictly enforced. Instead, the peaceful Anabaptists were
tacitly allowed to stay in the country.
"Under the Calvinist Frederick III
Anabaptism became still more firmly entrenched in the Palatinate. Frederick
was attacked by both the Catholics and the Lutherans; he was blamed for
the presence of the Anabaptists in his country. But he continued his practice
of trying to convert them by conversations with clergymen. ...
"The lot of the Palatine Mennonites
became harder under the son of Frederick III, the Lutheran Elector Louis
VI, 1576-83, who also took sharp measures against the Calvinists. He began
to expel the Anabaptists from the country, confiscate their goods to be
kept under curators. If an Anabaptist let himself be persuaded to accept
the state church, he received his property back after an examination by
the superintendent. The superintendents and the pastors were reminded by
an "electoral instruction' of Aug. 1, 1579, 'to refute Anabaptist errors
clearly from the pulpit frequently and to explain thoroughly the practice
and benefits of the sacraments." Obstinate Anabaptists were to be imprisoned
in the tower on bread and water, but were to be instructed both within
the prison and outside several times, "that they may be moved to real conversion.'
In cases of continued persistence they were to be expelled from the country;
this also happened to the Calvinists, one of whom was called almost an
Anabaptist. Upon the early death of Louis VI his brother John Casimir succeeded
to the government, 1583-91, who continued his Reformed father's church
polity. His brother's Anabaptist mandate was once more proclaimed, but
not strictly enforced. It was opposed by the government officials rather
than the clergy. The burgrave of Alzey reminded the government that the
state cannot be governed exclusively on confessional lines, but that political
and economic principles must also be considered. The government once more
urged the church council to conduct another disputation, but was refused
on the ground that the others had been fruitless. Thereupon the church
council issued a general order to all the inspectors who had to deal with
Anabaptists. The pastors were doubtful of results, for the Anabaptists
would, as one of them said, 'see nothing in the members of the church but
what will hurt them in their hearts and will cause horror and disgust,
namely, an unrestrained Epicurean life with cursing, swearing, overeating,
drinking, dancing, quarreling, fighting, scolding, fornication, immorality,
and the like.' In fact the Anabaptists kept replying, 'One could read God's
Word also outside the churches, since the people who go to church are very
wicked.' Many a pastor had to work hard with these Anabaptists. One complained
that he had 'become hoarse and almost sick.'
"The youthful Elector Frederick
IV, 1592-1610, like his uncle wanted peace in church affairs. When complaints
were heard about new inroads by Anabaptism, he ordered in 1596 to devote
greater care to their conversion. The church councillors, on the other
hand, demanded severer proceedings by the government. One week later, June
29, 1596, appeared the order of the councillors, that the Anabapists were
to be strictly watched, "although the pastors of all the villages shall
on their part neglect nothing of their constant and zealous instruction
and admonition."
"By the turn of the century, in
spite of oppression and emigration to Moravia, Anabaptism had increased
noticeably; for in the Catholic and Lutheran vicinity of Frankfort, e.g.,
the bishopric of Speyer and the graviate of Leiningen, it was much more
seriously persecuted. At the close of 1600 the Reformed councillors reported
that the Anabaptists in Dirmstein, Weisenheim , and Heppenheim were
becoming more established and that ...great numbers of them gathered near
Erpolzheim.. 'When they are ordered to go to church they say they have
a large church which has a big roof.' in Kriegsheim 66 were reported in
1601. In 1608 it was reported-though later denied-that even the schoolmaster
and his son had attended their meeting.
"When Frederick V (the 'Winter King,'
d. 1632 also present on this tree and married to our Stuart cousin) became
Palatine elector in 1610 and the Thirty Years War broke out in 1618, there
were still some Anabaptists in the Palatinate.... In the last Anabaptist
documents before the Thirty Years' War the church councillors raised serious
complaint about the increase in the number of Anabaptists in the district
of Alzey. It can certainly be assumed that a number of Mennonite families
maintained themselves in the Palatinate throughout the war, and then joined
the immigrant Mennonites.
"II. During the Thirty Years' War
the Palatinate was almost completely depopulated and devastated. The number
of Reformed clergymen had been reduced to one tenth of its former number
by murder, flight, and emigration. Elector Charles Louis, 1648-80, (Charles
I Louis Palatinate, Elector Palatine WITTELSBACH-also present on this tree)
called back the surviving ones. The repopulation of his lands was a serious
concern to him. He was generous not only to the Lutherans and Catholics,
but also to the Mennonites. He admitted a number of Moravian Hutterite
families to Mannheim (q.v.) in 1655, who established a small Bruderhof
here, which Duchess Elizabeth Charlotte of Orleans, the elector's daughter,
recalled in her letters written in 1718. Soon after the war a Mennonite
congregation assembled in Mannheim, to whom the elector assigned space
for a meetinghouse. He was especially interested in experienced settlers
who could rebuild the country. Thus he also admitted the Mennonites expelled
from other countries.
"One of the first groups to settle
in the Palatinate after the Thirty Years War came from Transylvania. After
severe oppression several of these families emigrated and in 1655 settled
in Kriegsheim, Osthofen, Harxheim, Heppenheirn and Wolfsheim near
Worms.... Some had become Quakers by 1665; e.g., the Schuhmacher family
in Kriegsheim.
"The state church was, however,
less tolerant than the elector. Already in 1654 voices are heard complaining
"about the offensive confusion with the Anabaptists, who despise proper
church services and the holy sacraments, let their children run about unbaptized,
hold their services boldly in the forests, and even solemnize marriages.'
From this time on, the church senate continued to warn the government that
'it is a necessity to stem the obstinate, fanatical stubbornness of such
people and bring them under the discipline of the Reformed Church, marriage,
baptism, etc.'
"In spite of all obstacles the Mennonites
made efforts to preserve official toleration and recognition from the elector.
In the Palatinate to the right of the Rhine, where also some Anabaptist
remnants had been preserved since the 16th century, two Mennonites, Hans
Mayer and Hans Koerber, decided in 1653 to present a petition to the elector
in the name of the congregation, in which they called themselves "Mennists,"
to obtain permission to meet for worship like their brethren on the left
side of the Rhine. But it took a decade, besides the intervention of influential
Quakers and even the intermediation of the King of England before Charles
Louis was willing to grant them a limited religious freedom. Finally on
Aug. 4, 1664, after much effort, they obtained the important general concession
which permitted them to meet in groups of more than twenty; but they were
forbidden to admit non-Mennonites to the meetings. In return they had to
pay an annual fee of six guilders per person as 'Mennist Recognition Money,'
a considerable tax, which was later doubled. Nevertheless this concession
was considered a great privilege, meetings having been completely prohibited
in 1661. A limit of 200 families was set for the total Mennonite population.
"The Mennonites in the Palatinate
were increased in number in 1671-72 when persecution in Switzerland reached
its climax. The refugees were received as brethren by the Palatine Mennonites
and were given generous support from the Dutch Mennonites, who had already
intervened in Switzerland for their toleration. On Nov. 2, 1671, Jakob
Everling, the preacher of the Obersulzen congregation, reported that 200
persons had come to the Palatinate, some of whom were cripples, old people
of 70-90 years, and families of eight to ten children. They arrived destitute
with their bundles on their backs and their children in their arms. In
January 1672, 215 persons had arrived west of the Rhine and 428 cast of
the Rhine. The influx of single families and groups continued into the
18th century. Especially in 1709-11 many Mennonite families came from Alsace
and Switzerland. Thus the numerous small congregations still existing in
the Palatinate were established.
"By the end of the 17th century
new difficulties overwhelmed the new settlers; economically by the French
invasion under Louis XIV, ecclesiastically by the Catholic reaction under
the electors of the Zweibriicken-Neuburg line which replaced the Protestant
Simmern line. In 1674 and 1689 large areas and numerous towns of the Palatinate
were devastated, causing serious losses to many Mennonites. Elector Philip
William, 1685-90, who had renewed the Mennonite concession in 1686, died
as a fugitive in Vienna. His strictly Catholic son and successor, John
William, 1690-1716, was very slow to renew the concession; it was finally
granted in 1698 after many petitions, and demanded high protection fees.
The early years of his reign saw the expulsion of the Mennonites from Rheydt
in 1694, which caused con- sternation in the entire Protestant world, and
also the emigration of a group of Mennonites from lbers- heim to Friedrichstadt
in Schleswig-Holstein in 1693.
"The first emigration of Palatine
Mennonites to North America also occurred at the close of the 17th century.
In 1685 a Quaker who had previously been a Mennonite, Peter Schumacher
of Kriegsheim near Worms, emigrated to Germantown, Pa. In the spring of
1707 the Kolb brothers-Martin, Johannes, Jakob, and Heinrich---emigrated.
Martin Kolb (q.t,.), who settled at Skippack, was one of the first Mennonite
preachers in America. He was probably the instigator of further Mennonite
emigration, which increased rapidly under Elector Charles Philip, 1716-42,
for he doubled their protection fees, limited their right to purchase land,
seeking thus to prevent the number of Mennonite families in the Palatinate
to rise above 200. In the spring of 1717 some 300 Palatine Mennonites were
in Rotterdam to embark for Pennsylvania where religious liberty was unrestricted;
they received financial support from the Dutch Mennonites. (Editors note:
THIS is the group in which Hans Herr embarked for America). With
this group a stream of German immigration set in which continued almost
without interruption until the second half of the 19th century. By 1732,
3,000 Palatine Mennonites had arrived in America. By 1773 the immigration
lists showed over 30,000 Palatine names, mostly non- Mennonite. The Mennonites
in America of Palatine origin numbered ca. 150,000 souls in 1935, of whom
35,000 were living in Lancaster County alone. A change in favor of the
Mennonites took place during the long rule, 1742-99, of the enlightened
Charles Theodore of the house of Pfalz-Sulzbach. Although he was Catholic,
he granted extensive liberties to the Lutherans, Reformed, Mennonites,
and Jews. The concession to the Mennonites was re-newed on Nov. 27, 1743,
and the protection fee reduced to six guilders. 'In return the Mennonites
advanced the sum of 10,000 guilders toward the election and coronation
expenses. Nevertheless the government at first still worked toward the
reduction of "this daily increasing condemned sect." Later, however, it
realized "that no better, more industrious, and competent subjects are
to be found, who, with the exception of their religion, their faith, and
their error, should serve the members of other faiths as an example in
morals as well as in working day and night.'
"Since that time, about the middle
of the 18th century, the Mennonites of the Palatinate achieved a leading
position in agriculture. 'The most perfect farmers in Germany are the Palatine
Mennonites,' wrote the State Economist Christian W. Dohm in the Deutsches
Museum in 1778. The official of Hilsbach said about them on Jan. 21, 1794,
'They are exemplary, industrious, and intelligent farmers. It would be
desirable that every farmer would appropriate their good knowledge of agriculture
and stock raising.' Jung-Stilling (q.v.), the pious physician and
economist, described the family life of David Moellinger (q.v.) of Monsheim
as "the highest ideal of agricultural happiness,' calling him the 'archfarmer
of our Palatine country and perhaps of the Holy Roman Empire," and his
friend and brother.
"About this time the Mennonites
of the Palatinate were also given more and more recognition by the Protestant
Church, to which Pietism contributed not a little. Gottfried Arnold (q.v.)
had already in 1699, in his Unparteusche Kirchen-und Ketzer-historic, defended
the Mennonites. Gerhard Tersteegen.(q.v.), like Jung-Stilling, carried
on personal correspondence with the Palatine Mennonites, and called Adam
Krehbill, the pastor at Weierhof, 'a man according to God's heart.' Peter
Weber (q.v.) of Hardenberg was a zealous devotee of Pietism.
"Now nearly all governmental restrictions
on the Mennonites of the Palatinate were removed. On April 20, 1769, Jakob
Hirschler, elder of the Gerols- heim congregation, wrote to Hans van Steen
in Danzig, 'Although our ruler is Roman Catholic, nevertheless nearly everywhere
Catholics, Lutherans, Reformed, Mennonites, and Jews are living side by
side. We are permitted to meet openly for worship wherever we wish, also
observe baptism and communion and solemnize marriages. Also we bury our
dead openly, and funeral addresses are held, often with many hearers, as
in other religions.'
"At this time the first Mennonite
meetinghouses were built in the Palatinate-Weierhof 1773, Sembach 1777,
Eppstein and Friedelsheim 1779. The rulers willingly gave their consent,
although they stipulated that the church must have the external appearance
of a farm building. The names and membership of the congregations are given
by Jakob Hirschler for 1769 as follows: "Erpolzheim and Friedelsheim 140,
Spitalhof 45, Ruchheim 26, Alsheim and lbersheimerhof 120. Oberflorsheim
and Spiesheim 100, Kriegsheim 52, Wartenberg and Sembach 250, Weierhof
90, Rheingrafenstein 32, Roedern and Schafbusch 45, Boechingen 68, Zweibrucken
94, Gerolsheim, Obersulzen, and Heppenheim, 112 Hoeningen 54, Eppstein-Friesenheim-Mannheim"
(no figures given, but "some 20 households "given
for Mannheim). In addition there were numerous scattered Amish families
living in the Palatinate around Zweibriicken and lxheim.All the congregations
were served by lay elders and preachers from their own midst."
12b
But by this time, the exodus to which we owe our heritage in form of
our first known American immigrants had already occured.
The above text regarding the Mennonite history is in entirity from the
source Sited by rrr@horseshoe.cc in his web pages as noted in the footnote
details.
To Top of Page [ Our
Germans Within The Vines]
All pages of Within The Vines are Copyright
©Protected.
See
Terms of Use
Sources Outside these pages useful for Further Research
Germany
GenWeb Project
Sources for this Page:
Footnotes:
1-John Howell, A Brief History of Germany, from GeneologyPro, Online
Journal reprint from Journal of Online Genealogy September 1997
2-Electric Libraryís Encyclopedia.com http://www.encyclopedia.com/articles/05037History.html
3-The Holy Roman Empire http://www.heraldica.org/topics/national/hre.htm#external
From the web pages of http://www.heraldica.org/intro.htm Copyright
© 1995-2001, François R. Velde
4-InfoPlease. com (Nature of the Roman Empire) http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0858647.html
5--InfoPlease. com (Origins of the Roman Empire) http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0858646.html
6- Comptonís Encyclopedia
http://www.comptons.com/encyclopedia/ARTICLES/0850/08711936_Q.html
7-German Geneology: Schwabia/Schwaben/Suevia http://www.genealogienetz.de/gene/reg/HIST/swabia.html
Bibliography at source
8 The Anglo Saxon Invasions; the Saxons, Angles and Jutes
http://members.netscapeonline.co.uk/pjhancocks/lhistory/germanic.htm
9The Dark Age Web Mark Furnival, 1998 Webmaster http://www.btinternet.com/~mark.furnival/franks.htm
10 Gene Garman, The Poor Palatines http://www.sunnetworks.net/~ggarman/palatine.html
11 Friederich Engles The Peasants War
12 An Illustrated History of Germany, by Andre Maurios.
12b Mennonite Encyclopedia, Mennonite Publishing House, Scottdale, PA,
1957, transcribed by http://www.horseshoe.cc/pennadutch/places/germany/regions/palatinate/palatine.htm
13 Rise of Pietism in 17th Century Germany. Written by Ronald J. Gordon
~ Published April, 1998 ~ Last Updated, May, 1998 © European Origin
of the Church of the Brethren.http://www.cob-net.org/pietism.htm
14 Professor Gerhard Rempel, Western New England College.
15 The Open Door Website. History: 17th Century http://www.saburchill.com/history/chapters/chap5130.html
16 The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition.ÝÝ2001. http://www.bartleby.com/65/
17 Catholic Encyclopedia on line http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02353c.htm
18 Pennsylvania LEFEVRES by George Newton LeFevre and Franklin D. LeFevre,
1979.
19 Before and After The Nine Years' War (1688-1697) http://www.crosswinds.net/~japa_lennie/his103essay1.html
h_szeto@hotmail.com/sourced (biblio. included)
20 infoPlease.com: Grand Alliance, War of the http://www.infoplease.com/ce6/history/A0821511.html
21German Geneology Rheinland-pfaltz Rhineland-Palatinate history
webmaster@genealogy.net http://www.genealogienetz.de/gene/reg/RHE-PFA/rhein-p-his.html
22 Edward W. Spangler; The Annals of the Families of Caspar, Henry,
Baltzer and George Spengler. York, Pennsylvania: The York Daily Publishing
Co., 1896.
23 Britannica.com
To Top of Page [ Our
Germans Within The Vines]
All pages of Within The Vines are Copyright©Protected.
See Terms of Use
