Anabaptist history

For those who want to learn much more about the history of Anabaptism (and have a lot of time on their hands), the videos linked below may be a good place to turn. The twenty-two class sessions (each over an hour in length) are led by Dean Taylor and were filmed at Faith Builders Educational Programs (Guy Mills, Pennsylvania).

One might want to begin with day 5, when the topic turns to the Reformation. Note also days 13 and 14, which deal with the Hutterites, and day 18, which turns to the Russian experience.

• Anabaptist History (day 1): Welcome


• Anabaptist History (day 2): The Early Church


• Anabaptist History (day 3): Early Church Problems and Constantine


• Anabaptist History (day 4): The Church Councils and the Pilgrim Church


• Anabaptist History (day 5): Erasmus, Luther, and the Radical Reformation


• Anabaptist History (day 6): The Early Life of Zwingli and Conrad Grebel


• Anabaptist History (day 7): The Birth of the Anabaptists


• Anabaptist History (day 8): The Early Swiss Brethren


• Anabaptist History (day 9): The Martydom of Michael Sattler and the Schleitheim Confession


• Anabaptist History (day 10): Growth and Persecution of the Swiss Brethren


• Anabaptist History (day 11): The Birth of the Amish


• Anabaptist History (day 12): Early Anabaptist Concept of Missions and the Kingdom of God


• Anabaptist History (day 13): The Birth of the Hutterites, Part 1


• Anabaptist History (day 14): The Hutterites, Part 2


• Anabaptist History (day 15): The Munster Tragedy and Melchior Hoffman


• Anabaptist History (day 16): Menno Simons and the Early Dutch Anabaptists


• Anabaptist History (day 17): The Church Splits of Holland—Lessons for Today


• Anabaptist History (day 18): The Dutch Decline and the Russian Mennonite Fire


• Anabaptist History (day 19): The Anabaptists Come to America


• Anabaptist History (day 20): Anabaptist Revival

• Anabaptist History (day 21): Mission and Missiology

• Anabaptist History (day 22): “Be History Makers!”

History of Anabaptism video 2

An earlier video (see here) touched on the origins of Anabaptism before focusing on the Hutterite influence on the modern Bruderhof movement. The video embedded below provides further details on the 1525 birth of Anabaptism in Zurich as well as the persecution and spread of Anabaptism over the following centuries. The video, titled “The Spread of the Anabaptists: The Story of the Amish, Mennonites, and Hutterites,” was produced for a Lancaster, Pennsylvania, historical society, hence the focus on Lancaster at the outset.

From Brüttisellen to Lushton 3

The road from Brüttisellen has led us thus far to a Hutterite Bruderhof in Moravia (see here). Before we stop and look around at our Moravian wilderness experience (to appropriate a biblical concept), we need to tie up some loose ends.

Little by little additional details of Heinrich Bühler’s life are falling into place, most recently thanks to an article on him in the Mennonitisches Lexikon. First the article in full (German original, written by Christian Neff, below), then a few observations.

Bühler, Heinrich, a Täufer [Baptist] from Brütisell in the county of Kyburg in Switzerland (Canton of Zurich) moved in 1602 with his wife and children to Moravia. Four times he came back to his home as an emissary of the Hutterite Brethren to work for emigration to Moravia. When he left Moravia the fourth time, he brought many letters given him by his Swiss brothers and sisters for their loved ones at home. He was imprisoned in the Wellenberg with his companion Joachim Arbel. During his interrogation he stated that he had come home from Weselen (a Hutterite Brethren Bruderhof), having received from the Brotherhood a command to visit his friends in Switzerland, to persuade them to go with him to Moravia. He had been in the country (Switzerland) six weeks. On 6 July 1614 the prisoners were released from their [imprisonment], after they promised not to return, “failing which it would be counted as perjury and they would be punished accordingly.” Their return to Moravia was delayed until autumn. Nothing further is known about them. See Loserth 1895. (Neff 1913, 290–91)

1. Heinrich’s return to Zurich in 1614 was not the first time he had made the 450-mile journey. In fact, it was his fourth trip home in twelve years.

2. Although Heinrich may well have hoped to claim his inheritance, as stated in The Chronicle of the Hutterian Brethren (see further here), that probably was not his primary reason for returning. Rather, his real purpose was missional: to convince Swiss citizens to join a Hutterite community in Moravia. It was the same reason that led him to return to Zurich the first three times. (As a side note, Heinrich would have turned over any proceeds from the inheritance to his Bruderhof, so he had nothing to gain personally by securing his inheritance.)

3. As stated in the Chronicle, Heinrich brought back letters from fellow Hutterites to their families in Switzerland. (The Loserth article cited at the end of the Neff entry tells quite a bit more about those letters; we will return to that topic in the near future.)

4. The Chronicle differs from the Neff entry in several details: (1) the last name of Heinrich’s companion is Arter in the Chronicle, Arbel here; (2) the Chronicle has the two Hutterites arrested on 9 July and released on 24 October, while the Neff entry does not indicate when the two were arrested but has them released on 6 July. Loserth agrees with Neff and cites the official acts for 6 July found in the Zurich State Archives as evidence.

5. Both sources agree that the two men returned to Moravia in the autumn. The Chronicle attributes this to a long imprisonment, but Loserth explains that the men stayed in the Zurich area until a third Hutterite, Heinrich Hartmann, was also released from prison (Loserth 1895, 209 n. 1).

6. Remarkably, and most important of all, we learn where Heinrich lived in Moravia: in a Bruderhof in Weselen. Now that we know exactly where to look, we are ready to stop and explore our family’s Moravian temporary home. We will do so in the next post in this series; for now a simple photo of Weselen will have to suffice.

Photograph © Honnyho Žblecht. Posted on Flickr here.

Bühler, Heinrich, ein Täufer aus Brütisell in der Grafschaft Kyburg in der Schwiez (Kanton Zürich), war 1602 mit Frau und Kindern nach Mähren verzogen. Viermal kam er wieder in seine Heimat als Emissär der huterischen Brüder, um für die Auswanderung nach Mähren zu wirken. Als er das vierte Mal Mähren verließ, kam er viele Briefe mit, die ihm seine schweizerischen Brüder und Schwestern für ihre Lieben in der Heimat mitgaben. Er wurde mit seinem Gefährten [291] Joachim Arbel in dem Wellenberg gefangen gehalten. Bei seinem Verhör gab er an, daß er von Hause Weselen (Haushabe der huterischen Brüder) gekommen sei und von der Bruderschaft daselbst den Befehl erhalten habe seine Freunde in der Schweiz zu besuchen, um sie zu bewegen mit ihm nach Mähren zu ziehen. Sechs Wochen habe er sich im Land (in der Schweiz) ausgehalten. Um 6. Juli 1614 wurden die Gesangenen aus ihrer hast entlassen, nachdem sie zuvor versprochen hatten nicht wieder zurückzukehren, “widrigenfalls es ihnen als Meineid angerechnet und sie darnach gestraft würden.” Ihre Rückkehr nach Mähren verzögerte sich bis in den Herbst. Weiteres ist nicht über sie bekannt. (s. Loserth, “Der Communismus d. mähr. Wiedert.).

Sources

Loserth, Johann. 1895. “Der Communismus der mährischen Wiedertäufer im 16. and 17. Jahrhundert: Beiträge zu ihrer Lehre, Geschichte and Verfassung,” Archiv für österreichische Geschichte 81:135–322. Available online here.

Neff, Christian. 1913. Bühler. Pages 290–91 in vol. 1 of Mennonitisches Lexikon. Edited by Christian Hege and Christian Neff. Frankfurt am Main: Hege and Neff.

History of Anabaptism video 1

In 1920 Eberhard Arnold, inspired by Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount as well as Anabaptist writings rediscovered in the late nineteenth century, established a Bruderhof community in Sannerz, Germany. The video embedded below offers a brief (5:33) explanation of the relation of the modern Bruderhof movement to Anabaptists in general and Hutterites in particular, teaching us about Anabaptist and Hutterite history along the way.

To learn more about Eberhard Arnold and the Bruderhof movement, see here.

From Brüttisellen to Lushton 2

The first post in this series (see here) began with our ancestor Heinrich Bühler (aka the younger) in Brüttisellen, a village 6 miles northeast of Zurich, Switzerland. We then traced his journey in 1602 to Moravia 450 miles to the east. This post explores the Anabaptist exodus to Moravia in greater detail, in order to contextualize Heinrich’s 1602 emigration and life in Moravia.

Execution of two Mennonites in the Netherlands; they were
strangled, held over a fire, then killed with a pitchfork.

As has been noted several times, the Anabaptist movement suffered persecution almost immediately after it arose. In all cases the persecutors were the officials of the state religion and their political allies, whether the Catholic Church (e.g., in Austria or the Spanish-controlled parts of the Netherlands) or the Reformed Church (e.g., in Switzerland). With regard to the latter, C. Henry Smith elaborates:

The story of the persecution of the Mennonites in the land of their origin, the Swiss Republic, supposedly the home of religious toleration, was the most bitter and the most disgraceful in all the annals of Europe. They were relentlessly attacked by both State and Church for nearly three hundred years. The death penalty was inflicted until well within the seventeenth century; they were condemned to serve as galley slaves as late as the eighteenth century; and were left to rot in filthy prisons, and banished to foreign lands up to the beginning of the nineteenth century. (Smith 1920, 83)

As a result of this persecution, which was particularly fierce in the Zurich area, many Anabaptists fled to more tolerant locations. A favored destination was Moravia, then part of the Kingdom of Bohemia. Although Bohemia was ruled by the staunch Catholic Archduke Ferdinand of Habsburg (beginning in 1556, Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand I), the lords of the manor cities were the real power on the local level, and they generally had little interest in persecuting otherwise industrious subjects.

Moravia (dark green) within the context of today’s Czech Republic
(dark gray) and the surrounding nations.

So it was that beginning in the 1530s thousands of Anabaptists flocked to Moravia. Except for a few limited times of persecution, they were able to live in relative peace and safety. One of these Anabaptist groups was the Hutterites (or Hutterian Brethren), who fled to Moravia from Tyrol (Austria). By the end of the sixteenth century (i.e., just before Heinrich immigrated), Hutterites in Moravia numbered 17,000 or more.

The Hutterites adhered to all of the typical Anabaptist beliefs—adult baptism of believers, nonviolence, and separation from the world—but also practiced a community of goods, giving up their claims to private ownership and holding all possessions in common. To that end, Hutterites were organized into Bruderhofs (farm colonies). Friedmann writes:

Bruderhofs were quite elaborate establishments consisting as a rule of several larger and smaller houses…, usually around a village common or square. The ground floor of the buildings was used for community living: dining hall, kitchen, and rooms for nursery, school, laundry, spinning, weaving, and sewing, and also for maternity rooms. The roofs (thatch mixed with clay to make them fireproof, a much-discussed invention of the Brethren) were high and steep so that the attics contained two stories of small chambers (Stuben, Oertel) where the married couples lived with their small children. 

By the beginning of the seventeenth century, there were around one hundred Bruderhofs scattered across Moravia, although they were clustered most densely around the city of Nikolsburg.

So why this long excursus on Moravia and the Hutterites? Because Heinrich Bühler did not simply emigrate to Moravia to live alongside the Hutterites and other Anabaptists. According to the account of his imprisonment in The Chronicle of the Hutterian Brethren (see here), Heinrich was a Hutterite who returned to Zurich from Moravia in 1614 to claim his inheritance.

We will probably never know when Heinrich became a Hutterite—Was he won over by Hutterian missionaries to the Zurich area, or did he flee Brüttisellen for Moravia on his own and join the Hutterites after encountering them there?—or where exactly in Moravia Heinrich lived, but we can have a good sense of his life while he was there.

He no doubt lived in a Bruderhof along with his wife and children and alongside his Hutterite brothers and sisters. He dined with them, worked with them, and worshiped with them. In short, he became a part of the Bruderhof community. That community life was short-lived, however, and it was not too many years before Heinrich had to pick up and move his family to a safer locale once again. That is a story for another post, but before that we should stop and look around a bit at the area of Moravia in which Heinrich may have lived, which will be the subject of the next post in the series.

Sources

Friedmann, Robert. 1953. Bruderhof. Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online.

Smith, C. Henry. 1920. The Mennonites: A Brief History of Their Origin and Later Development in Both Europe and America. Berne, IN: Mennonite Book Concern. Available online here.

From Brüttisellen to Lushton 1

Assuming the line traced from Grandpa back to Heinrich Bühler in the early seventeenth century (see here) is correct, we know that the earliest known point of our family journey lies in Switzerland, in a small village outside of Zurich. So how did get from point A to point B, from where we were at the beginning of the seventeenth century to where we ended up in the first half of the twentieth century? Over the course of the next week or two we will explore, in varying degrees of detail, the main points on the journey from Switzerland to the United States, from the Canton of Zurich to a farm just south of Lushton, Nebraska. Who knows? We may even construct an actual map of our family wanderings along the way.

Wangen-Brüttisellen today.

We begin in the region of Zurich, Switzerland. If the Heinrich Bühler who died in 1613 (see here) is our first known ancestor (I suspect he was), our story begins in the village of Feldbach, on the north shore of Lake Zurich. If the elder Heinrich was not the father of Heinrich Bühler the younger, whose return to Zurich is recounted The Chronicle of the Hutterian Brethren, then our story starts with the younger Heinrich, in the village of Brüttisellen, 6 miles northeast of Zurich (or 16 miles northwest of Feldbach).

Either way, we can say with relative certainty that our earliest known ancestors were of Swiss stock. We can also conclude that they were Anabaptists, at least beginning with Heinrich the younger. If, as we suspect, Heinrich the younger was born around 1580, then by his early twenties he had joined an Anabaptist church or community. How do we know this? Because in 1602 Heinrich the younger left his native Switzerland and settled in Moravia, roughly 450 miles to the east (see further here).

Why did Heinrich move his family so far away? Only one explanation makes sense. The Switzerland of his day was dominated by the Reformed Church established by Huldrych Zwingli (1484–1531), a state church that had no patience with or tolerance of the individualistic, nonconforming Anabaptists. As the ruling power, the Reformed authorities sought to stamp out every trace of Anabaptist practice and thought, often using any means necessary.

During the mid-1500s many Swiss Anabaptists fled for their lives to safer locales in the surrounding states, including Prussia. But beginning around 1570, Moravia (in the eastern part of today’s Czech Republic) became a favored destination. Horst Penner elaborates:

Following this first Swiss flight directly to Prussia, Moravia enjoyed priority in the years 1570–1610; it was the “golden age” of the Hutterites. The news of the “promised land” in Moravia and the “new Jerusalem” in Nikolsburg penetrated even into the best circles of the city of Bern. Women from these families—the name Vogt also appears in this context—went with their children to Moravia. Hans Schellenberg, Hanß Albrecht, and Heinrich Buhler from the Canton of Zurich moved from Switzerland and went to Moravia.

Route from Brüttisellen, Switzerland, to Nikolsburg (modern Mikulov), Moravia.

The only reasonable explanation for Heinrich Bühler the younger’s actions is that he left Brüttisellen in order to avoid persecution, quite possibly to save his and his family members’ lives. By fleeing the area for the safety of Moravia, Heinrich saved himself and his family from the fate of Hans Landis of Zurich, who was executed in 1614, the last of a long line of Swiss Anabaptist martyrs (Smith 1920, 85).

Step 1, then, involved a journey of around 450 miles from Switzerland to Moravia. We will talk more about Moravia in the next post of this series. I think we've covered quite enough ground for one day.

Sources

Penner, Horst. 1978. Die ost- und westpreussischen Mennoniten in ihrem religiösen und sozialen Leben in ihren kulturellen und wirtschaftlichen Leistungen. Weierhof: Mennonitischer Geschichtsverein.

Smith, C. Henry. 1920. The Mennonites: A Brief History of Their Origin and Later Development in Both Europe and America. Berne, IN: Mennonite Book Concern. Available online here.

From Kleefeld with Love 3

We pick up the story in the earlier post about Kleefeld (see here) as Anna (Enns) Harder Klein narrates several visits to Kleefeld many years after the horrible events of the late 1920s through the mid-1940s.

Now I wish to relate something of our journey back to our Heimat in Russia. … We left in July of 1963. Brother Gerhard accompanied us. We were overwhelmed with emotion as we approached our village of Kleefeld. We wandered about everywhere, peering over the hedges and examining the gardens. At the cemetery we were able to locate stones with familiar names, including father’s and grandfather Wiens’s grave. … Many of the gravestones were broken. … We traversed the village, back and forth. Some houses were in ruins. … Our parents’ home was still standing, but the barn and machine shed had been dismantled. …
     In June of 1976, my husband and I returned again. Much had changed in the intervening thirteen years. Alexanderkrone had been nicely built up. The church/school building had been converted into a clubhouse. Many of the houses had been dismantled and the materials taken to Neukirch. Friedensruh was almost entirely dismantled. No trace was left of Pragenau and Steinfeld. Here everything was plowed under. Almost nothing was left of our beloved Kleefeld. The cemetery had been entirely destroyed and the area now used as a manure pile. This upset me terribly. Not far from Melitopol, I later met a Russian woman with whom I had gone to school. When I began speaking about the cemetery in Kleefeld, I became quite agitated and said I couldn’t imagine someone stooping so low as to use a cemetery for a manure pile. She agreed with me. (Harder 2003, 190–92)

The site of Kleefeld today. No trace of the village is visible from the air.

As noted in a 2014 post about Kleefed (see here, scroll down), none of the village’s houses or buildings or streets remain today.

It seems that some portions of the village were burned during World War II. John Harder explains: “Sara [Helene Harder Käppel] made a last visit … to her beloved Kleefeld just as the German Wehrmacht (occupation army during World War Two) ordered the evacuation of all Germans to Germany ahead of the retreating troops. As she left Kleefeld for the last time, she looked back and saw her beloved village in flames” (Harder 2003, 193, quoting Leland Harder, The Blumstein Legacy,  130).

The buildings within Kleefeld that avoided the torch in the 1940s no doubt included those that still stood in 1963. In all likelihood, they were dismantled or collapsed during the late 1960s and early 1970s, with useable materials being used somewhere else and rubble carted away. Whatever the cause or course of their demolition, they are certainly gone forever now.

Photograph of 1930 Kleefeld school children reproduced in Harder 2003, 93.
Photograph provided by Gerhard Dyck, Winnipeg.

No one can say what would have happened to Grandpa and Grandma, their children, and my generation had our ancestors remained in Molotschna. Nor can we say what happened to the Bullers who did stay in Kleefeld, such as the three Buller children Abraham, Neta, and Katja identified in the photograph to the right.

All we can know is that we are the fortunate ones who benefit even now from our forebears’ brave decision to leave.

Source

Harder, John A., ed. and trans. 2003. From Kleefeld with Love. Kitchener, Ontario: Pandora Press. From Kleefeld with Love can be purchased here.

From Kleefeld with Love 2

A post from several weeks ago (here) mentioned the book From Kleefeld with Love, edited and translated by John A. Harder (2003). The book presents a series of letters “written by Mennonite women during the onset of Soviet Russia’s most turbulent years, 1925 to 1933.” The book reveals in stark terms what turns the lives of Grandpa and Grandma and their children would have taken, had their forebears remained in Kleefeld and never journeyed to the U.S.

In a letter written decades after Stalin’s first Five-Year Plan (1928–1932) and World War II (1939–1945), Anna (Enns) Harder Klein reflected on the events of those terrible years. I include a portion of the letter in this post, with more to follow in a subsequent post:

Our dear Heimat [home] has been lost to us forever, but our precious memories still remain. Our dear forebears worked diligently to provide a sunny and comfortable home for us. Unfortunately, today our village is in ruins. …
     After studying ten years at the Zentralschule [high school] in Alexanderkrone, I began teaching in Kleefeld, and then for two years in Alexanderkrone. In 1925 I moved to Friedensruh, where I met David Harder. We were married on June 27, 1937. Sadly, our marriage came to an abrupt end four months and three days later on October 30,1937, when he was arrested. He went missing and was never heard from again. Our son David D. was born on June 4, 1938, but he never did get to see his father. Between 1935 and 1938, many men were arrested without cause. Almost all of them were never heard from again. Stalin actually arrested huge numbers. More accurately, he had them killed. After this we had the dreadful war [World War Two] that brought further death to additional thousands upon thousands.
…
[189] My brother Gerhard was sent to the Swerdlovskaja camp Tirdel Ubgest. Here he stayed, along with 18 other men from Kleefeld. All but Gerhard and Jacob Voth, son of Franz Voth, died there of starvation.… The German-speaking men and young boys from the various villages had been herded together like animals being driven for watering at the river. Then they were loaded onto wagons and taken to various camps, 15,000 men in all. Please read what follows carefully. Of these 15,000 only 4,000 were still alive in 1944. It would require a substantial book to adequately record the suffering of our German people in Russia. (Harder 2003, 188–90)

From Kleefeld with Love can be purchased here.

Source

Harder, John A., ed. and trans. 2003. From Kleefeld with Love. Kitchener, Ontario: Pandora Press

Buijler time

That is how a Dutch elder from the eighteenth century spelled our family name: Buijler. That is just one of the interesting revelations from Horst Penner’s discussion of the origin of our name, part of a 135-page chapter discussing a host of Mennonite names from East and West Prussia.

Presented without comment (for now) is the entire entry on our family name (with the original German below):

The Bullers from the Kulm and Schwetz lowland likely come from Switzerland.
     In 1602 Heinrich Bühler, a Täufer [Baptist], moved from Brüttisellen in the county of Kyburg in Switzerland (Canton of Zurich), with his wife and children to Moravia. In 1614 he returned along with another brother from Moravia to Switzerland to deliver letters, among other things, but primarily to inquire concerning his inheritance. He was thrown in the Zurich tower and finally, after fifteen weeks in prison, where he resisted all attempts at conversion and threats, was dismissed to Moravia.
     When the Täufer community was expelled from Moravia several years later, the Bühlers probably went to West Prussia and joined the Old Flemish community in Schönsee—in 1800 these communities were still called the “Swiss communities.”
     In 1719 Berents Hulshoff [Hendrik Berents] among the local Old Flemish called the name Buijler (Dutch spelling), which through development became Büller by 1776 and Buller today. Even so, however, the form Buller already existed in 1695 in Schönsee.


Die BULLER aus der Kulmer und Schwetzer Niederung kommen wahrscheinlich aus der Schweiz.
     Im Jahre 1602 ist Heinrich Bühler, ein Täufer aus Brütisell in der Grafschaft Kyburg in der Schweiz (Kanton Zürich), mit Frau und Kindern nach Mähren verzogen. Im Jahre 1614 kommt er zusammen mit einem anderen Bruder aus Mähren in die Schweiz, um unter anderem Briefe zu überbringen, in der Hauptsache aber wegen seiner Erbschaft nachzufragen. Er wird in Zürich in den Turm geworfen und schließlich nach 15 Wochen Haft, in der er allen Bekehrungsversuchen und Drollungen widerstanden hatte, nach Mähren entlassen. — Als die Taufergemeinschaft in den nächsten Jahren aus Mähren vertrieben wurde, sind die Bühlers wahrscheinlich nach Westpreußen gezogen und haben sich der alt flämischen Gemeinde in Schönsee angeschlossen—diese Gemeinden werden noch um 1800 die “Schweizer Gemeinden” genannt.
     1719 nennt Berents Hulshoff unter den dortigen alten Flamingern den Namen Buijler (holländ. Schreibweise), der in der Konsignation von 1776 zu Büller und heute zu Buller geworden ist. Da neben existiert allerdings auch schon im Jahre 1695 in Schönsee die Namensform Buller. (Penner 1978, 245–46)

Source

Penner, Horst. 1978. Die ost- und westpreussischen Mennoniten in ihrem religiösen und sozialen Leben in ihren kulturellen und wirtschaftlichen Leistungen. Weierhof: Mennonitischer Geschichtsverein.

Heinrich’s inheritance?

People from around the world are interested in their histories, their origins, and every day more of them post their discoveries online. André Gut of Switzerland, for example, has posted the results of his genealogical investigations on the Geneanet website.

Interesting to us is his list of the descendants of Heinrich Bühler of Zurich here. The key information is summarized nicely in the line of descent from Heinrich to André pictured below.

The line of descent lists two Heinrichs and two Felixes in alternating generations. Only the first pair is of interest to us, since the second Heinrich could not be ours, given the 1604 date of birth—too late for our Heinrich’s 1614 visit to Zurich as an adult.

Feldbach as viewed from Lake Zurich

The first Heinrich may be a different story. Elsewhere André Gut states that Heinrich was a farmer, miller, and lieutenant from Feldbach, a village on the north shore of Lake Zurich. He was, in other words, a citizen of Canton Zurich.

The date of his birth is unknown, but the year of his death is given as 1613 (indicated by the † symbol).

Think about that year within the context of the earlier post (see here) about Heinrich spending fifteen weeks in the Zurich prison. When was our Heinrich arrested in Zurich? What reason did he give the lords for journeying back to Zurich from his current home?

Maybe it is just a coincidence, but the juxtaposition of Heinrich the elder passing away in 1613 and our Heinrich arriving in Zurich ostensibly to deal with inheritance matters in mid-1614 is at least a little suggestive. It is too soon to draw conclusions (especially since our Heinrich is reported to have come from Brüttisellen, not Feldbach), but it would not be surprising to learn that this Heinrich was the father of our Heinrich. This would also mean that the first Felix listed in André Gut’s list was our Heinrich’s brother.

Another day, additional questions. Maybe André Gut has access to the original records that contain the answers to this set of questions.

Deutsch Konopat

A visual break from the recent heavy content: the village of Wielki Konopat today. When Heinrich Bühler settled here, it was known as Deutsch Konopat, which comprised Groß Deutsch Konopat on the west and Klein Deutsch Konopat on the east. The photographs below show the village  and its immediate environs today.

Commentary on the Heinrich the Hutterite post

The 1614 extract from The Chronicle of the Hutterian Brethren presents a fascinating account of Heinrich Bühler’s faithfulness in the face of persecution. That said, certain details in the report can stand further explanation. The following commentary offers additional background to the account, so that it can be fully understood both as a whole and in its particulars. Words and phrases set to bold in the full account receive comment further below.

On July 9, 1614, two brothers—Heinrich Bühler, a vinedresser, and Joachim Arter, a brewer—were captured at Zurich in Switzerland and imprisoned there for fifteen weeks.
     On the third day several lords of the council came to them in prison and summoned each brother separately. They asked them what they were doing in the country—had they come to mislead the people?
     The brothers replied that they had letters and messages to deliver in Zurich and other places, but the main reason for their coming was that both had an inheritance to claim.
     A week later the warden of the dungeon was sent to the brothers with a message that the lords would release them if they promised to leave the country at once and never return.
     The brothers said that on no account could they do this as it was against their faith and conscience.
     After a few days the lords came once more to them in the prison and first rebuked them for obstinately refusing to see that they, the lords, wanted only the best for them.
     Then they accused the brothers of misleading people, despising governmental authority, and rejecting the Christian church, which meant that they were an evil sect and could not be tolerated in the country. The brothers told them quite simply that they had no intention of misleading anyone. They were sorry that so many people were already misled and imprisoned in sin.
     They said they wished to respect governmental authority, as God commands, and be obedient in all that is right, besides paying their rents, taxes, and tithes. But in anything that would be against their faith and conscience, they would obey God rather than men. Regarding the Christian church, they said they valued it so highly that they had left home and fatherland in their desire to join the true church.
     These answers so enraged the lords that they refused to listen any longer. They withdrew in indignation, threatening to send them to the galleys, put them in the pillory, or beat them with rods.
     The town clerk and the town constable in particular sought out the brothers and urged them to abandon their plans and obey the lords if ever they wanted to see their wives and children again.
     The brothers answered that their wives and children were in good hands, so they were not worried about them even if they were never to see them again in this life. They would wait patiently for whatever God ordained.
     For quite a long time after this, the lords neither came to the brothers nor did anything further about them.

     On the last day of the month of July, a violent and terrifying storm broke over the city of Zurich. The Wellenberg tower where the brothers were imprisoned was struck by lightning in three different places. The cathedral and the Spitalkirche in Zurich were struck too.
     This event filled many people with great fear. They believed the storm was a punishment for their sins and for letting innocent men be kept in prison, because the brothers imprisoned in the Wellenberg were completely unharmed. Some encouraged the brothers by saying that these happenings might lead to their release.
     Many others, however, especially the band of Calvinist ministers (before they know that the great cathedral and the Spitalkirche had also been struck) put the worst interpretation on it, saying that in the storm God showed his displeasure with that sect—he was obviously punishing it, since the authorities were unwilling to do so.
     Within the next few weeks the lords came twice to the brothers in prison, each time with the question whether they had thought it over—were they ready to promise never again to enter the country?
     The brothers said they could not give such a promise, for the earth and all that is in it belongs to the Lord of heaven.
     They were again threatened with the galleys, the pillory, and beating with rods. One of the lords told them how terrible it would be in the galleys—they would certainly regret not having listened. The brothers replied that they would trust in God, whose eyes penetrate even into the depths of the sea.
     Try as they might, the lords could make no headway, for Heinrich and Joachim refused to give in. The brothers were taken from prison to the town hall, where the court official pointed out how extremely vexed the lords were by their obstinacy and their refusal to accept instruction.
     However, on account of the long imprisonment and the lightning that had struck the tower, it had already been decided that the brothers should return home to their people.
     Since the prisoners would neither swear nor even make a promise instead of an oath, the lords swore that if they were ever caught in their jurisdiction or territory again, they would receive very different treatment.
     Through God’s intervention, the two brothers were released on Friday morning, October 24. After fifteen weeks in prison they returned to the church of the Lord with clear consciences and completely at peace. Let us praise God for this! (Hutterian Brethren 1987, 605–8)

1. brothers: As elsewhere throughout The Chronicle of the Hutterian Brethren, the terms refers to brothers in the faith, not literal brothers. The Chroniclealso uses “sisters” in a similar manner.

2. vindresser: In addition to the raising of barley and oats, agriculture in the Zurich area included cultivation of grapes, that is, the development of vineyards. A vinedresser is the person who provides daily care, cultivating and pruning the vines.

3. They asked them what they were doing in the country: Heinrich was from the village Brüttisellen, just a few miles north of Zurich, so the lords’ question assumes that Heinrich had been absent from his homeland. They would not have asked such a question if he still lived in Brüttisellen. Stay tuned for further discussion about where Heinrich lived at this time.

4. come to mislead the people: The lords’ question reflects their suspicion that Heinrich and Joachim had come to Zurich as Hutterite missionaries. In fact, Hutterite missionaries (or emissaries) did often travel throughout Switzerland and the surrounding areas calling people to abandon their sins and/or current church affiliation in order to join God’s true church, the Hutterian Brethren.

5. both had an inheritance to claim: This is a key clue for a future post—not to be coy, but stay tuned.

6. dungeon: Although we often picture dungeons as being underground, the word simply refers to a place where prisoners are kept. See further number XX below.

7. leave the country at once and never return: As noted above, the lords believe that the two men were in Zurich on a missionary trip.

8. it was against their faith and conscience: The brothers’ refusal to leave and promise never to return because it was against their faith and conscience is consistent with the lords’ suspicion. If the two had come to Zurich on personal business rather than as a matter of spreading the faith, promising never to return would not violate their faith and conscience. It seems, then, that the Chronicle admits that the lords understood the purpose of the visit accurately.

9. they had left home and fatherland in their desire to join the true church: This statement confirms that Heinrich had left his homeland and provides the reason why: in order to join the true (Hutterian) church.

Swiss pillory from the eighteenth century

10. galleys, … pillory, … rods: Prisoners sent to the galleys had to endure the hard labor of rowing a ship. During this period in European history, slaves and convicted criminals made up the majority of the galley crew.

The pillory is often equated with the stocks that one sees in historical pieces from the Middle Ages or colonial America. However, the Swiss pillory is said to have differed, “being constructed in the form of a long cage, so that the offender can neither sit or kneel, but is under the necessity of continuing the whole time of the punishment in an exact posture” (Bankes et al. 1794, 887). In spite of their differences, the stocks and cage served the same purpose: to put some criminal on public display, where he or she would receive both verbal and, on occasion, physical abuse.

The meaning of “beat them with rods” is fairly self-evident, although he makeup of the rods (wood, as in a caning?) is unclear in the sources at hand; neither is it certain whether Swiss authorities also used whips or scourges in a similar fashion. Whatever the exact details might have been, the punishments threatened the two Hutterites were horrific and possibly life-threatening.

11. town clerk … town constable … lords: A council of lords (nobles) exercised authority in Zurich at this time, but the city government also included officials such as the clerk and constable, who were responsible for managing and enforcing council decisions.

12. Wellenberg tower: The Wellenberg tower, or Wellenbergturm, was a 50-foot tall tower built in the middle of the Limmat River, which runs through Zurich. Although it was originally built as some sort of fortification, for most of its history (at least from the 1300s until it was demolished in 1837) it served as a prison. It apparently had nine small cells spread over three floors. According to historian Arthur Dürst, the cells were so low that prisoners were barely able to sit upright. The worst offenders were confined to a wooden box in the attic that permitted no light to enter.

L: Drawing of the Wellenberg tower sitting in place in the Limmat River. R: Wooden staircase leading to two dungeons/cells.
See further the website of Prof. Aurther Dürst here.

13. cathedral and … Spitalkirche: The reference to the cathedral could be to one of the four primary churches in Zurich: Grossmünster, Fraumünster, Predigerkirche, and St. Peterskirche. The first two were the closest to the Wellenberg tower, which might argue in their favor. The Spitalkirche (that is, hospital church) is not identified further in the historical sources.

14. Calvinist ministers: Although Huldrych Zwingli led the Reformation in Zurich, after his death in 1531 his successor, Heinrich Bullinger, came to an agreement with John Calvin on the key doctrines of Reformed faith (the Second Helvetic Confession, 1549). Thus the state-sponsored church in Zurich could rightly be said to be led by Calvinist ministers.

15. depths of the sea: In the context of being threatened with hard labor in the galleys, the reference to the depths of the sea was both biblical in tone (Jonah) and relevant to the situation.

The Zurich town hall during this period.

16. town hall … court official: The town hall was located on the easy bank of the Limmat, roughly a quarter mile north of the Wellenberg tower. One would think that the court official was a judge, but the rest of the account implies that his responsibility was more to announce a decision than to make that decision. The lords are the ones with the authority to imprison and to release from prison. As with the clerk and the constable earlier, the court official serves only to exercise their policies and decisions.

17. the lords swore: Ironically, because the two Hutterites refused to swear they would not return, the city lords took it upon themselves to declare an oath that Heinrich and Joachim would be dealt with severely if ever they were found within the Zurich jurisdiction.

Sources

Bankes, Thomas, Edward Warren Blake, Alexander Cook, and Thomas Lloyd. 1794. A New, Royal, and Authentic System of Universal Geography, Antient and Modern. London: Cook. Available online here.

Hutterian Brethren. 1987. The Chronicle of the Hutterian Brethren. Vol. 1. Rifton, N.Y.: Plough.

Was Heinrich a Hutterite?

The proponents of the so-called Radical Reformation, who went far beyond Luther and other leading Reformers in their rejection of Catholic doctrine and their commitment to a strictly biblical lifestyle, formed various groups. Among these were Anabaptist sects such as the Mennonites, the Amish, and the Hutterian Brethren. All Anabaptists were united in their restriction of baptism to believers only (as opposed to infant baptism; the word Anabaptist derives from a compound containing the Greek words for “again” [ana] and “baptism,” thus to baptize again), and many of them also adopted a pacifist lifestyle, rejected oath taking, and sought to live separately from the world.

The Hutterites, for example, followed the teachings of Jacob Hutter (ca. 1500–1536), which included both the usual Anabaptist doctrines but added in communal living, that is, sharing all goods in common (see Acts 2:44). Facing the real threat of persecution for their beliefs, the Hutterian community fled Tyrol in Austria to Moravia, where they lived in relative peace and quite for over a century.

Why should any of this matter to us? Simple: apparently Heinrich Bühler, whom we regard for the time being as one of our earliest ancestors, was a member of the Hutterian community for at least part of his life.

The most compelling evidence for this assertion derives from a work titled Das große Geschichtbuch der Hutterischen Brüder, which has been translated as The Chronicle of the Hutterian Brethren. The Chronicle was compiled over the course of nearly a century and a half, with the first events recorded taking place in 1525 and the last in 1665. The Chronicle was for much of this time a contemporary account recording events shortly after they had taken place. Remarkably, the entry for 1614 narrates the experience of one Heinrich Bühler. It is worth quoting in full.

On July 9, 1614, two brothers—Heinrich Bühler, a vinedresser, and Joachim Arter, a brewer—were captured at Zurich in Switzerland and imprisoned there for fifteen weeks.
     On the third day several lords of the council came to them in prison and summoned each brother separately. They asked them what they were doing in the country—had they come to mislead the people?
     The brothers replied that they had letters and messages to deliver in Zurich and other places, but the main reason for their coming was that both had an inheritance to claim.
     A week later the warden of the dungeon was sent to the brothers with a message that the lords would release them if they promised to leave the country at once and never return.
     The brothers said that on no account could they do this as it was against their faith and conscience.
     After a few days the lords came once more to them in the prison and first rebuked them for obstinately refusing to see that they, the lords, wanted only the best for them.
     Then they accused the brothers of misleading people, despising governmental authority, and rejecting the Christian church, which meant that they were an evil sect and could not be tolerated in the country. The brothers told them quite simply that they had no intention of misleading anyone. They were sorry that so many people were already misled and imprisoned in sin.
     They said they wished to respect governmental authority, as God commands, and be obedient in all that is right, besides paying their rents, taxes, and tithes. But in anything that would be against their faith and conscience, they would obey God rather than men. Regarding the Christian church, they said they valued it so highly that they had left home and fatherland in their desire to join the true church.
     These answers so enraged the lords that they refused to listen any longer. They withdrew in indignation, threatening to send them to the galleys, put them in the pillory, or beat them with rods.
     The town clerk and the town constable in particular sought out the brothers and urged them to abandon their plans and obey the lords if ever they wanted to see their wives and children again.
     The brothers answered that their wives and children were in good hands, so they were not worried about them even if they were never to see them again in this life. They would wait patiently for whatever God ordained.
     For quite a long time after this, the lords neither came to the brothers nor did anything further about them.

The Wellenberg tower sat in the middle of the
Limmat River until it was removed in 1837.

     On the last day of the month of July, a violent and terrifying storm broke over the city of Zurich. The Wellenberg tower where the brothers were imprisoned was struck by lightning in three different places. The cathedral and the Spitalkirche in Zurich were struck too.
     This event filled many people with great fear. They believed the storm was a punishment for their sins and for letting innocent men be kept in prison, because the brothers imprisoned in the Wellenberg were completely unharmed. Some encouraged the brothers by saying that these happenings might lead to their release.
     Many others, however, especially the band of Calvinist ministers (before they know that the great cathedral and the Spitalkirche had also been struck) put the worst interpretation on it, saying that in the storm God showed his displeasure with that sect—he was obviously punishing it, since the authorities were unwilling to do so.
     Within the next few weeks the lords came twice to the brothers in prison, each time with the question whether they had thought it over—were they ready to promise never again to enter the country?
     The brothers said they could not give such a promise, for the earth and all that is in it belongs to the Lord of heaven.
     They were again threatened with the galleys, the pillory, and beating with rods. One of the lords told them how terrible it would be in the galleys—they would certainly regret not having listened. The brothers replied that they would trust in God, whose eyes penetrate even into the depths of the sea.
     Try as they might, the lords could make no headway, for Heinrich and Joachim refused to give in. The brothers were taken from prison to the town hall, where the court official pointed out how extremely vexed the lords were by their obstinacy and their refusal to accept instruction.
     However, on account of the long imprisonment and the lightning that had struck the tower, it had already been decided that the brothers should return home to their people.
     Since the prisoners would neither swear nor even make a promise instead of an oath, the lords swore that if they were ever caught in their jurisdiction or territory again, they would receive very different treatment.
     Through God’s intervention, the two brothers were released on Friday morning, October 24. After fifteen weeks in prison they returned to the church of the Lord with clear consciences and completely at peace. Let us praise God for this! (Hutterian Brethren 1987, 605–8)

We will return to this account in due course. For now it is enough to know that over four centuries ago our forebear refused to abandon his faith and violate his conscience no matter what it cost him. By the way, this is not the only book that mentions Heinrich. Stay tuned to learn a little more from Horst Penner’s Die ost- und westpreussischen Mennoniten in ihrem religiösen und sozialen Leben in ihren kulturellen und wirtschaftlichen Leistungen (a used copy is en route from Germany; thank you Amazon.de!).

Source

Hutterian Brethren. 1987. The Chronicle of the Hutterian Brethren. Vol. 1. Rifton, N.Y.: Plough.

The long view

Since we have now surpassed four hundred years of Buller (and Bühler) history, it might be helpful to take a step back and look at how all the pieces of our family history, both those known and those believed to be true, fit together. We start with the inspiration for this blog: Grandpa and Grandma.

1. Chris and Malinda Franz Buller were both born in 1906 and lived their entire lives in Nebraska.

2. Chris’s father, Peter P, came to the Henderson area when he was ten, in 1879. He was born in the village of Alexanderkrone in Molotschna, a Mennonite colony in New Russia (now Ukraine).

3. Peter P’s father, Peter D, was born in Molotschna colony in 1845. The village of his birth is not known but is likely to have been Waldheim. Peter D accompanied his wife Sarah Siebert’s family from Kleefeld to Henderson in 1879.

4. Peter D’s father, David, lived most of his life in Molotschna and died there, a landowner in the village of Waldheim. According to the Buller Family Record, David’s family moved to Russia when he was between the ages of three and five. He was born in Prussia in 1817, presumably to a family of Bullers in the Przechovka church.

Vistula River near Przechovka (modern Przechówko)

His father is not known, and it is not entirely certain that he is related to Bullers in the Przechovka church. However, several lines of evidence favor this conclusion: (a) David’s family emigrated to Molotschna between 1820 and 1822, which is the time frame of the Przechovka church’s emigration from Prussia to Molotschna; (b) the Przechovka church book skips over the year of David’s birth, which would explain why he does not appear in the book; (c) all the Bullers who entered Molotschna during the 1820–1822 period apparently came from the Przechovka church (other Bullers, e.g., from Hierschau, came roughly fifteen years later).

The weight of evidence, then, supports the conclusion that David’s father (and grandfather and great-grandfather and so on) were members of the Przechovka church and are listed in that church’s record of births, baptisms, marriages, and deaths.

5. Five or six generations (ca. 160 years) before David lived his ancestor whose first name is not (yet) known: Unknown Buller. He was born in the Przechovka area of Prussia, in the Vistula River delta, probably sometime in the 1653–1658 time frame. Unknown married Dina Thoms, whose family had come to Prussia from Moravia.

6. Heinrich Bühler lived at least two, possibly three generations before Unknown. Born around 1580 in Brüttisellen, 6 miles northeast of Zurich, Switzerland, Heinrich emigrated to the Polish province of Royal Prussia sometime after 1614, ultimately settling in the village of Deutsch Konopat, where he died (date unknown).

Now that we have traced our line back as far and as fully as possible (maybe someday we will draw the line from David to his father, grandfather, and so on), we are ready to fill in some details about our earliest known ancestor, Heinrich, who actually was quite notorious among certain circles in the early 1600s.

A scan is worth a thousand words

As mentioned earlier, Bullers were found in several cities, towns, and villages in the Polish province of Royal Prussia. One such locale with Buller residents was the city of Danzig, modern-day Gdańsk. Various records from the Danzig church are available online, courtesy of Bethel College’s Mennonite Library and Archives (for a full listing, see here).

One such resource is a book recording all baptisms performed between the years 1667 and 1800. On page 16 of that book one finds, for example, the church’s baptismal records for 1713–1715. The most complete entries offer the name of the person baptized, his or her father’s name, the baptized person’s relation to the father (i.e., son or daughter), and any special comments. Most of the entries, however, provide only the name of the person baptized.

What makes page 16 particularly interesting for us is that within the space of five lines we can see with our own eyes the spellings Buhler (no umlaut!) and Buller, as shown in the extract below. The first full name is Abraham Buhler; the last full name shown is Hans Buller.

Note first that the h in Abraham looks like the third letter in Buhler, which confirms that Buhler is the correct reading of the last name. Further, the two instances of the letter l in Buller are identical to the l after the h in Buller, which reinforces the conclusion that the two last names are spelled differently. One final observation: the u in both names has the same mark above it that we have seen before (see here)—we really need to figure out what that mark means!

What are we to make of this simultaneous appearance of Buhler and Buller? Is it significant that the first name is spelled Buhler rather than Bühler? Are these individuals from related “Buller” lines, or are they unrelated? In all likelihood, the person recording the names did not decide to spell one name one way and the other name another way, so if these individuals are related at some point in the past, how did the names come to be spelled differently? So many questions, so few answers … at least for now.

Unknown Buller 3 (revision)

The discovery that Bullers are documented via a land lease in Schönsee around the year 1695 means that the earlier explanation of the “all the Bullers are descendants of this family” should be revised. Although the most probable explanation—that this was the only family in the Przechovka church—remains unchanged, one should note that the other Buller families who began in this church did not move just to Volhynia in the late 1700s; other Buller families (all descendants of Heinrich, it would seem) settled elsewhere in the general region early on and thus became members of other churches.

In fact, the documented presence of Bullers in villages other than Deutsch Konopat (where we are told that Heinrich lived; see here) should lead us to revisit the question of where Heinrich resided when he emigrated from Switzerland to Royal Prussia in Poland, as well as where his immediate descendants are known to have resided.

Unknown Buller 4 (the in-laws)

The last tidbit of historical information to consider in this series is the statement that Unknown Buller’s father-in-law, Jacob Thoms, lived in Dorposch. Two questions that follow are: Where is Dorposch? When did Jacob Thoms live there?

Answering the first question leads us to begin to learn about the Polish/Prussian period of our family’s history. To start on a macro-level, Dorposch was a village in the Kingdom of Poland. More specifically, Dorposch was located in the southern part of the province named Royal Prussia (to the west of Chełmno [Kulm] in the southern part of the province).

After Jacob Thoms’s birth, around the time that his first grandchildren would have been born to Unknown and Dina, the Kingdom of Poland was partitioned, and most of Royal Prussia was incorporated into the Kingdom of Prussia, where it became the province known as West Prussia, one of the ten or more provinces that made up the Kingdom of Prussia (the number varied as the kingdom added new territory and provinces merged together or split into smaller divisions).

At that time (the eighteenth century), most Mennonite residents of Poland/Prussia lived in proximity to the Vistula River (the north–south river in the map above). Jacob Thoms was no exception. His home village of Dorposch (modern Dorposz Chełmiński) was located right on the bank of the Vistula (Polish: Wisła; German: Weichsel; for a larger map of the area, see here). Other nearby villages with Mennonite residents included Jeziorka, Tuchel, and Schönsee, to name just a few.

According to Richard D. Thiessen, Mennonites in Dorposch were associated with the church in Schönsee. He also notes that the 1776 Prussian census lists ten Mennonite families in Dorposch, with the following last names: Block, Gerth, Isaac, Koehn, Nachtigal, Odger, Sparling, and Voht. (The town of Schönsee will merit its own post at some point, since Buller is one of the family names listed on land leases from 1695 and after; see van der Zijpp and Thiessen.)

What significance does this have for our ancestor Jacob Thoms? Because Jacob is not listed in the 1776 Dorposch census, and because he is associated with the Przechovka church (not the Schönsee church, as far as we know), we can probably conclude that he left Dorposch and moved to the Przechovka vicinity (roughly 7 miles away), where he joined the Przechovka church and his daughter Dina met and married Unknown Buller. The rest, as they say, is history.

Source

Thiessen, Richard D. Dorposch (Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online.

Zijpp, Nanne van der, and Richard D. Thiessen. Schönsee (Kuyavian-Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland). Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online.