April 2000 Huppi
April 2000
Research note:
Identifying Jacob Ammann
JOHN HPPI*
Jacob Ammann, whose reform movement in
Alsace, Switzerland and the Palatinate led to a well-known and painful
schism in the 1690s, is one of the most controversial figures in Anabaptist
history. Thanks to recent archival work by Robert Baecher we now know
something of Ammann’s ministry in Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines, Alsace in the
years following 1695,[1]
but his early life has remained an object of speculation. Was he born
in the Simmental or in the Oberaargau or somewhere else? Did he grow up
in the Anabaptist faith or was he a convert? When did he move to Alsace?
How old was he in 1693 when he confronted Hans Reist? What was his genealogical
relationship to the minister Uli Ammann? What were some of the early influences
that helped to shape his life?
I first became interested in these questions
in 1992, when-in my search for information about Anabaptists named Eichacher-I
stumbled across a reference to Jacob Ammann in the Mandatenbuch
of Thun castle. These books were compilations by district administrators
of important decrees and regulations received from Bern. There I stumbled
upon an order dated December 14, 1693 telling the governor to be on the
lookout for “Jaggi Ammann of Oberhofen, a roving arch-Anabaptist” and
offering a reward of one hundred Thaler for his capture.[2]
Sensing that this was a significant find, I digressed from my task long
enough to copy out the entry and later looked unsuccessfully for the original
in the Mandatenbcher of the capital, Bern.[3]
The absence of an entry in the Bernese Mandatenbcher was not too
surprising since the order dealt with a single man and was not widely
issued. But I did find the text under that date in the Ratsmanual,
the register where all formal decisions of the two governing councils
(Large and Small) are noted. The order concerning Jacob Ammann had been
issued to only seven districts: Thun, Burgdorf, Brandis, Trachselwald,
Landshut, Signau and Oberhofen (recorded in that order).[4]
Curiously, the phrase from the Thun Mandatenbuch about Jacob being
from Oberhofen does not appear in the Bernese Ratsmanual, nor in
the text as recorded in the Mandatenbuch of Oberhofen itself.[5]
That was the extent of my search at the
time. I have since learned that the administrations of Burgdorf, Trachselwald
and Landshut chose not to copy this order into their Mandatenbcher;
those of Signau and Brandis unfortunately do not survive. I am reluctant
to make very much of the fact that both Thun and its neighboring district
Oberhofen went to the trouble to enter into their books the order to capture
Ammann. To determine whether it received special attention there would
require a detailed comparison of their Mandatenbcher with the
Ratsmanuale to see what, if any, directives from Bern were being
more generally left out.
It may well have been the recording scribe
in Thun who added the phrase “von Oberhofen,” realizing they had dealt
with this man before. The other possibility is that the phrase did appear
in all seven letters from the capital, but the scribe in Oberhofen chose
to drop it.[6]
Independently, Swiss historian Hanspeter
Jecker had occasion to search the Ratsmanuale, which led him to
the district Mandatenbcher-the reverse of my own experience. He
persevered with the Ratsmanuale, finding the report of a bungled
capture of Jacob Ammann at Walkringen, Bern the following summer, in July
1694.[7]
In 1993 a conference at Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines
commemorating the tercentenary of the schism once again whetted my interest
in Ammann. There I learned of the theory that he was from Madiswil, a
parish in the Oberaargau region of Bern.[8]
I was skeptical, sharing the uneasiness expressed by Isaac Zrcher that
a man who found his largest following around the Lake of Thun in the Berner
Oberland (the Bernese highlands) would himself have come from the
flatter country to the north, where temperament and dialect were different.[9]
I decided to pursue the older hypothesis advanced by Delbert Gratz in
1951, that Jacob Ammann had originated in Erlenbach in the Simmental.
Gratz based his argument on entries from 1730 in the Manual der Tuferkammer,
the records of the Bernese government’s chamber of Anabaptist affairs,[10]
where an unnamed woman-“a daughter of the Tuferlehrer [Anabaptist
preacher] Jacob Amman of Erlenbach who has died outside the land”-appeared
before the chamber on April 12, 1730 and “requested to receive the holy
baptism and to be accepted into the bosom of our church.”[11]
In the parish registers of Erlenbach Gratz
found only one candidate for the Anabaptist preacher mentioned-a Jacob
Ammann baptized February 12, 1644 as the son of Michael Ammann and Anna
Rupp.[12]
Given this evidence, Gratz showed restraint in not rushing to identify
this Jacob as the Anabaptist leader. At the same time, however, he made
an assumption that the preacher’s daughter actually received state church
baptism. In 1730 the Tuferkammer had directed Jacob’s daughter to Erlenbach,
giving her two letters, the text of which is the sum total of the matter
as recorded in their records. She was to hand the first letter to the
governor in Wimmis castle, which had jurisdiction for the lower Simmental,
and the second to the church minister in Erlenbach, who was to instruct
and baptize her.[13]
There is no evidence, however, that she ever followed through.
Her baptism does not appear in the baptism
register of Erlenbach, which would have been necessary to validate her
citizenship rights there, nor in that of Wimmis, where Gratz’s reading
of the letter to the governor places it.[14]
After her baptism the governor was supposed to give her four Thaler, charging
the expense to the central government in Bern.[15]
There is, however, no record in his annual financial accounts that he
indeed paid out the money. Whether she actually arrived in Erlenbach or
not, Jacob Ammann’s daughter likely wandered back out of Bernese territory
without being baptized.
How she had come to stand before the Tuferkammer
remains unclear. Most likely, it was of her own free will. Since they
released her to travel to the Oberland to present letters, apparently
unescorted, it seems improbable that she had been arrested. Likely her
audience with the Tuferkammer in Bern made it clear that baptism was
the only path to legal residence. Had she already been to Erlenbach, after
a falling out with the Anabaptists, seeking relatives and financial assistance?
We will probably never know. I am convinced, however, that the Tuferkammer’s
rationale for sending her to Erlenbach was a jurisdictional one. As subsequent
findings have confirmed, Erlenbach was the family’s Heimatort, their community
of ancestral citizenship. Since the late 1600s, a person in the Bernese
state needing public assistance was expected to return to his community
of citizenship, which could not refuse him residence and aid.[16]
In most cases, the community of citizenship remained constant from generation
to generation, no matter where the person moved.[17]
For some years I let the Ammann materials
sit untouched. But I returned to them soon after hearing of Mark Furner’s
discovery of a new Ammann entry in the Ratsmanual, dated June 4,
1680 (presented in this issue of MQR as an accompanying research
note). On June 4, the Bernese government wrote to its governor in Oberhofen
in response to a letter from him to the central Chorgericht, the
court which had jurisdiction over religious and moral matters. The governor
had reported that Jacob Ammann “of Erlenbach” had become “infected with
the Anabaptist sect.” The Bernese council now instructed the governor
to send for Ammann, question him again, and, with the local minister’s
help, try to convince him with kind words to return to the right path.
If unsuccessful, he was to have Ammann escorted to the border and banished.
Regardless of whether Ammann was willing to swear the oath-the standard
oath never to return to Bernese territory-he was to be told that if he
ever did come back he would be considered a perjurer and flogged. His
property was to be inventoried and divided with the children, with his
own portion added to the local church fund. Since these were standard
orders,[18]
we cannot assume that he had children at this point. In any case, I found
none for this Jacob Ammann in the baptism register of Hilterfingen, the
state church parish to which Oberhofen belongs; and a search of the surviving
Kontraktenmanuale (contract registers) did not turn up an inventory
or division of his property.
Jacob Ammann probably embraced Anabaptism
in 1679. Earlier, on March 12, 1671, he was in good standing with the
state church where he served as sponsor at the baptism of Uli Immer and
Barbara Frutiger’s son Jacob.[19]
Following the Ratsmanual reference to Oberhofen,
I began browsing the contract registers of Oberhofen and quickly found
a crucial piece of new evidence. Searching the year 1679, the year before
Ammann was denounced to Bern as an Anabaptist, I discovered a contract
dated August 2, 1679, in which “Master Jacob Amen the tailor, resident
at Oberhofen” sold his house in Oberhofen village, along with a spot of
vineyard, to “Ulrich Ammen, his beloved brother at Thal in the jurisdiction
of Erlenbach.”[20]
Here was not only the missing link between Oberhofen and Erlenbach, but
also concrete evidence for Robert Baecher’s hypothesis presented in Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines
in 1993 that Jacob Ammann made his living as a tailor.[21]
In 1951 Delbert Gratz had doubted that
there was a blood relationship between Jacob and Ulrich (Uli), the two
Ammanns involved in the schism. He had found an Anabaptist named Ulrich
Ammann living in Peseux, Canton Neuchtel in 1733 who reported being born
1661 in Oberhofen. Unfortunately, however, Gratz was not able to check
the baptism register of Hilterfingen, the state parish to which Oberhofen
belongs. There we discover that Michael Ammann and Anna Rupp baptized
a baby named Uli in Hilterfingen on January 12, 1662.[22]
This is the same couple that Gratz had found baptizing five children in
the parish of Erlenbach over the years 1638-1651.[23]
Their son is the only Ulrich Ammann in the Hilterfingen baptism register
during that whole century and is a near perfect match for the birth information
recorded in Neuchtel.
Sometime after the birth of Uli the parents
returned to live in Erlenbach. On May 1, 1673 Michael Ammann and his wife
Anna Rupp, residents at Thal in the parish of Erlenbach, had a document
drawn up concerning their estate by a notary in Oberhofen. Michael is
referred to as Meister, meaning he had mastered a trade, which
is not specified here. Because of age they were no longer able to take
care of their farm property without the help of their children. Most of
them-except daughter Cathrina, now of legal age-had already left the house
and were gainfully employed. Uli was just a boy of eleven. If Cathrina
would stay and help the parents until their deaths, she was to have thirty
crowns for her wages, in property or coin, beyond her normal inheritance.
Should she marry and move out before they died, she was to receive two
crowns for each year of work, likewise to be paid after the parents died.[24]
Delbert Gratz found an entry in the Chorgerichtsmanual of Erlenbach
which reveals that Michael Ammann and his daughter Cathrina were censured
on July 9, 1693 for not having attended church services nor taken communion
for some time.[25]
In a document dated Martin’s Day (November
11) 1673, “Master Michel Amann the tailor at Thal, in the parish of Erlenbach”
took over a debt of thirty crowns owed to Hans Jacob Wildt of Bern by
“honorable Master Jacob Amann the tailor, his beloved son, presently residing
at Oberhofen.”[26]
Clearly both father and son were tailors.
Beyond reasonable doubt then, the Jacob
Ammann of Erlenbach who was denounced in Oberhofen as an Anabaptist in
1680 is the son of Michael Ammann and Anna Rupp. And, unless we postulate
an intervening generation, their son is almost certainly the Jacob Ammann
of Erlenbach who died as a Tuferlehrer outside the land and whose
daughter requested state church baptism in Bern in 1730.
The arch-Anabaptist named Jacob Ammann
for whom the government of Bern was searching in December 1693 is, of
course, the Jacob Ammann of the schism. In the district of Thun, at least,
he was considered to have been from Oberhofen. Jacob, the son of Michael
Ammann and Anna Rupp, not only became an Anabaptist there, but he had
a brother named Uli, eighteen years his junior, who was born in Oberhofen.
That this Uli also became an Anabaptist is indicated by the record of
1733 that Gratz found in Neuchtel. The pieces all fit. To be sure, the
evidence is circumstantial but, spectacular new findings to the contrary,
I believe we can identify the Jacob and Uli Ammann of the schism as sons
of the couple from Erlenbach. That Jacob Ammann was from Erlenbach and
Oberhofen helps explain why he gained his largest following in Switzerland
around the Lake of Thun, as shown by the work of Ernst Mller, Robert
Baecher and Hans Rudolf Lavater.[27]
In 1693 Jacob Ammann from Erlenbach and
Oberhofen was 49 years old, hardly a young man. Milton Gascho in his essay
on the Amish Division begins a list of missing letters with one from Hans
Reist, a letter in which Reist supposedly called Ammann a “young fellow.”[28]
Since Reist’s letter has not been found, it is unfortunate that Gascho
places the phrase in quotation marks. As he makes clear (p. 252, n. 71),
the phrase is his own extrapolation, based mainly on passages in Jacob
Ammann’s letter of November 22, 1693. The key passage in Ammann’s letter
is probably:
Auch hat der Huli Hans zu mir Jaggi Ammon
selbsten gesagt er stand vor mir, so wir doch im gleichen Dienste gestanden
sind. Ist das nicht ein geistlicher Hochmuth? Es scheint wohl daß
er ber das Erb unser Glaubens hat wollen herrschen in der Meinung als
ob man die Alten nachfolgen sollte, ob schon ihr Wort und Lehr
nicht nach Gottes Wort und Lehr gerichtet ist, und auf der Jnger
Lehr und Ordnung nicht zu viel sehen sollten, wie dasselbige in seinem
umher geschickten und abtrnnigen Brief geschrieben ist.[29]
As translated by John Roth:
Hans Reist also said to me, Jakob Ammann,
that he had more authority than me; but we are indeed in the same office.
Is that not spiritual arrogance? Indeed, it seems as if he wishes to rule
over the heritage of our faith in the assumption that one should follow
the old ones even if their words and teaching do not conform to
the word and teaching of God and that one should not pay too much regard
to the teachings and the discipline of the younger [ministers]
as is written in his widely distributed and apostate letter.[30]
The opposition old versus younger
is apparent there. Der Jnger seems to be an undeclined form of
der Jngeren, indeed “of the younger [ministers],” as Roth translates
it. Thus, the issue seems to be more one of seniority than physical age.
Hanspeter Jecker has found some secondhand
evidence that Ammann had been ordained to the ministry by Hans Reist himself.
The following sentence appears in an undated letter from David Baumgartner
to Elias Dtwiller: “Es hat auch disser hans Reist dm Jacob Ammen der
[sic] angesetzde und Eltiste dienst befohlen.”[31]
Unless we can date the letter approximately, we do not know how far it
is removed from the events. However, it does seem reasonable for the leader
of the Emmental congregation to have ordained a new minister in the neighboring
congregation to the south.
My findings in Oberhofen show that Ammann
was not a native clan of that community, yet two contemporary men surnamed
Ammann resided there, both named Jacob! Fortunately for us, one of them
died on January 6, 1680,[32]
just seventeen days before the local Chorgericht decided to summon the
other one, for reason unstated,[33]
and six months before the Oberhofen governor reported to the central Chorgericht
in Bern that Jacob Ammann “of Erlenbach” was a budding Anabaptist. The
deceased man is listed as “Jacob Ammann, Michel Straub’s son-in-law.”
Michael Straub was a baker and innkeeper in Oberhofen,[34]
and Ammann, who was married to Straub’s daughter Johanna, had worked for
a time as innkeeper in Spiez.[35]
He is not Jacob Ammann the tailor. In fact, early in 1679 Jacob Ammann
the tailor at Oberhofen lent 300 pounds to an Ulrich Immer, and both Michael
Straub and “his son-in-law” Jacob Ammann served as witnesses of the transaction.[36]
Even more helpful is a document dated Martin’s
Day (November 11) 1679. Uli Ammann, who we learn here was also a tailor,
borrowed 500 pounds from Rudolf Oswald, putting up as security the house
he had just purchased from his brother Jacob. Both brother Jacob Ammann
and his wife Verena Stdler served as Uli’s guarantors.[37]
It is uncommon for a woman to be mentioned in that capacity. The reason
must be that her dowry or an inheritance was still tied up in that piece
of property. Uli had purchased it for 1300 pounds, to be paid off in installments
over four years. It may be he was borrowing the 500 pounds from Oswald
in order to pay Jacob! Between November 11, 1679 and January 1, 1680 we
find Jacob Ammann the tailor at Oberhofen lending out just over 500 pounds
to three different parties. One of the borrowers, Hans Schallenberg, residing
at Thal in Erlenbach, has Uli Ammann, Jacob’s brother, serving as his
guarantor.[38]
I suspect that these convoluted financial
dealings are a reflection of Jacob’s conversion to Anabaptism. He was
not planning to run away with all his assets, which he probably realized
would not be successful because the government would then have sought
to recover them from his family. Apparently Jacob put the house in Oberhofen
into Uli’s name in order to help this seventeen year old brother, not
yet an Anabaptist himself, get his start in life. Jacob reasoned that
if his estate were confiscated, Uli would probably be able to keep the
house and make payments to the government. Uli was formally accepted as
a Hintersss, a non-citizen resident, in Oberhofen at the end of
1682.[39]
He remained there through 1686, after which time his name no longer appears
in the list of non-citizen residents.[40]
He still used an Oberhofen notary as late as 1690, when he sold three
pieces of hayland within the boundaries of Erlenbach to an Abraham Ltscher
of Latterbach.[41]
It remains unclear where Jacob Ammann’s
wife Verena Stdler came from. Over the years 1675-1678 Jacob had an apprentice
named Jacob Stdler, Daniel’s son from Buchholterberg, whom he taught
the tailoring trade. And on January 1, 1680 one of the men to whom Ammann
loaned 200 pounds was another Jacob Stdler, who sat on the court at Krattigen,
above the south shore of the lake.[42]
These may be relatives of Verena. No marriage entry for Jacob and Verena
has turned up in the state church parish registers, neither in Hilterfingen
nor in Aeschi, the parish to which Krattigen belongs. Buchholterberg was
part of the parish of Oberdiessbach, for which no marriage records survive
between 1655 and 1693.
Aside from the biographical data, the big
issue raised by my findings is, of course, the significance of Jacob Ammann’s
having practiced the tailoring trade. What role did it play in the development
of Amish clothing regulations? The enforcement of Bernese sumptuary laws
would have to be examined in order to learn what the Bernese state expected
of its tailors in maintaining public modesty. A tailor named Hans von
Knel, a contemporary of Jacob Ammann, was cited before the Chorgericht
of Aeschi, on the south side of Lake Thun, and fined for making people
pants with creases.[43]
So tailors were held accountable, at least to some extent.[44]
Ammann was undoubtedly sensitized to clothing issues long before he became
an Anabaptist.
While the Anabaptists in Bern were probably
exemplary in their modesty, it seems unlikely that they wore garb distinctively
different from the rest of the peasant population there. Such would have
made them easier targets for government persecution. At Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines,
however, where Ammann settled, they found a tolerant government but developed
dissension among themselves. As cited by Robert Baecher, the 1702 report
of a Catholic priest describes three Anabaptist groups there, separate
in their religion: “In order to distinguish themselves, one wears the
beard long and the men and women never wear anything but linen winter
and summer; the others wear the beard shorter and are dressed in coarse
cloth; and the third are about like the Catholics.”[45]
In 1697 Gerhard Roosen, a prominent businessman
and elder in the North German Mennonite community of Hamburg-Altona, wrote
a letter to friends in Alsace in which he offered his own perspective
on the matter:
. . . I am deeply sorry that you have been
so unsettled by people who hold or think highly of themselves and make
laws about things that are not established for us in the Gospel. If there
were commandments in the writings of the apostles regarding how and with
what a believer should be clothed, or whether he should go to this or
that country, and one lived contrary to this, then the passage would have
something to say. But in my view it is contrary to the Gospel that one
wants thus to bind the conscience to a style of hat, dress, or stocking,
shoes or the hair on your head, or to make a distinction as to which country
one lives in, and then punishes with the ban according to whether one
claims yet another thing for oneself, or does not want to accept it. .
. . From where then does friend Jakob Ammann get that which he adopts
as the basis for giving commandments to those people and expel from the
fellowship those who do not want to obey him? If he truly considers himself
a minister of the gospel of Jesus Christ and wants to pursue the external
law, then he must not have two coats, nor money in his purse, nor shoes
on his feet.[46]
In Jacob Ammann’s long letter of November
22, 1693 he stated that while he had excommunicated no one on account
of clothing, styling beards or long hair: “If there would be someone who
wants to be conformed to the world with shaved beard, with long hair,
and haughty clothing and does not acknowledge that it is wrong, he should
in all fairness be punished. For God has no pleasure in the proud.”[47]
Clearly, clothing was an issue already at the beginning of the schism.
Unfortunately, we do not have Ammann’s reply to the scriptural issues
raised by Roosen. Jacob Ammann was not the first Anabaptist to promulgate
clothing regulations,[48]
but he probably is the one who introduced distinctive dress among his
people, in the beginning making many of the pieces himself.
John Hppi is
an independent researcher living in Logan, Utah. 1. Robert Baecher, “Le
‘patriarche’ de Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines” in The Amish: Origin and Characteristics
1693-1993, ed. by Lydie Hege and Christoph Wiebe (Ingersheim, France:
Association franaise d’histoire anabaptiste-mennonite, 1996), 55-70.
A translated version of this essay appeared in MQR 74 (Jan. 2000),
145-58. Return to Text
. Staatsarchiv
Bern, Bez Thun A 6, Mandatenbuch Thun N 3 (1688-1712), 225-26. “Wir habend
der nohtdurfft seyn erachtet, Jaggi Ammann von Oberhofen, einem im land
hin und her streichenden ertztaffer alles ernsts nachforschen ze lassen.
. . .” Return to Text
. Staatsarchiv
Bern, A I 490, Mandatenbuch N 10 (July 17, 1693-Dec. 19, 1704). Return
to Text
. Staatsarchiv
Bern, A II 550, Ratsmanual N 238 (Nov. 17, 1693-Jan. 24, 1694), 214.
Return to Text
. Staatsarchiv
Bern, Bez Thun 12, Mandatenbuch Oberhofen 1652-1709, 293. Return to
Text
. Jacob Ammann
had resided in their community, but not as a citizen. His political
rights were in Erlenbach in the Simmental, a mountain valley to the southwest.
Return to Text
. Hanspeter Jecker,
“Jakob Ammanns missglckte Verhaftung im Bernbiet 1694,” Mennonitica
Helvetica 18 (1995). Jecker mentions the phrase “von Oberhofen” (58,
n.10) found in the Thun version of the capture order, calling it an important
clue to Ammann’s residence before his move to Alsace. Return to Text
. John A. Hostetler,
Amish Society (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins U. Press, 1980), 42. Return
to Text
. Isaac Zrcher,
“Die Ammann-Reist Kontroverse,” Informations-Bltter 10 (1987),
10. Return to Text
. Delbert Gratz,
“The Home of Jacob Amman in Switzerland,” MQR 25 (Jan. 1951), 137-39.
Return to Text
. Staatsarchiv
Bern, B III 191, Manual der Tuferkammer II (1726-1733), 236-37. Return
to Text
. Staatsarchiv
Bern, K Erlenbach 1, Taufrodel 1590-1670, 214. The mother’s name was not
recorded in this baptismal entry. However, the Michael Ammann married
to Anna Rupp was the only father named Ammann baptizing children during
this time period. As of 1628, Bernese law required baptism in the state
church within eight days of birth in the city and within fourteen days
of birth throughout the countryside.-Hermann Rennefahrt, Die Rechtsquellen
des Kantons Bern, Erster Teil: Stadtrechte, Sechster Band,
zweite Hlfte: Das Stadtrecht von Bern VI: Staat und Kirche, Sammlung
Schweizerischer Rechtsquellen, II. Abteilung (Aarau: Sauerlnder, 1961),
841, 875. Before 1628 baptism was required within three days of birth
in the city and within eight days in the countryside. Return to Text
. Staatsarchiv
Bern, B III 191, Manual der Tuferkammer II (1726-1733), 236-37. Here
is a full transcription of the entries: Mitwuchen, den 12. Aprilis 1730.
Wimmis. Weilen vorweierin di, ihrem vorgeben nach, eine tochter des
uert lands verstorbenen tfer lehrers Jacob Ammans von Erlenbach, verlangt
den heil. tauff zu empfachen, und in die Scho unerer kirchen aufgenommen
zu werden; al laen Mehh. der tffer cammer den h. castlahnen hierdurch
frndlich ersuchen, die anstalt zu verfegen, da di mensch von herren
predigkanten zu Erlenbach darzu underwisen und vorbereitet, wan dan solches
wirt von Ihnen geschehen sein, so soll di mensch von Ihnen in dasiger
kirchen offentlich getaufft werden, demselbigen dan, wan es wirt getaufft
sein vier thaller fr die einbnd zu endtrichten, und Mngh. zu verrechnen.
Wormit&. Erlenbach an herren predigkanten. Mehh. der tffer cammer laen
denselbigen hierdurch frndlich ersuchen, vorweiserin di, des uert lands
verstorbenen tfer lehrer Jacob Ammans tochter, die den heil. tauff zu
empfachen und in die scho unserer kirchen aufgenommen zu werden verlangt,
darzu in der religion zu underweisen und zu diser heil. action vorzubereiten,
wan dan di mensch auf sein, des h. pfarrers befinden, gnugsamb instruiert
und vorbereitet sein wirt, vor offentlicher gemeind in der kirchen zu
tauffen, welchem dan von h. castlahnen, wan es wirt getaufft sein, etwas
an gelt fr die einbnd wirt endtrichtet werden. Wormit&. Return to
Text
. I believe
the antecedent of the phrase “in dasiger kirchen,” in that letter is more
likely Erlenbach. Return to Text
. Staatsarchiv
Bern, B VII 1885, Amtsrechnungen Wimmis, 1717-1756. Return to Text
. For an explanation
of Bernese citizenship law, see Paul Anthon Nielson, Swiss Genealogical
Research: An Introductory Guide (Virginia Beach: Donning, 1979), 1-5.
For a more detailed presentation, see Karl F. Wlchli, Die bernischen
Burgergemeinden als Heimatgemeinden (n.p.: Verband bernischer Burgergemeinden
und burgerlicher Korporationen, 1997). Return to Text
. The Familiennamenbuch
der Schweiz, 2d ed., 6 vols. (Zrich: Polygraphischer Verlag, 1968-1971),
the Swiss surname book, does not list Erlenbach as a community of citizenship
for an Ammann clan, and Isaac Zrcher (“Die Ammann-Reist Kontroverse,”
9) therefore discounted the possibility. The great limitation to the surname
book, however, is that it lists only clans still possessing the community
citizenship as of 1962. The local registrars were asked to send in lists
from their registers of citizens, in most Bernese communities begun about
1823, leaving out extinct surnames. Return to Text
. Hermann Rennefahrt,
Die Rechtsquellen des Kantons Bern, Erster Teil: Stadtrechte,
Sechster Band, erste Hlfte: Das Stadtrecht von Bern VI: Staat und
Kirche, Sammlung Schweizerischer Rechtsquellen, II. Abteilung (Aarau:
Sauerlnder, 1960), 441-60. Return to Text
. Staatsarchiv
Bern, K Hilterfingen 3, Taufrodel 1640-1710, 114. Return to Text
. Staatsarchiv
Bern, Bez Thun A 369, Gerichts- und Kontraktenmanual Oberhofen (1679-1683),
pp. 43-44. “Mr. Jacob Amen der schnyder wonhafft zu Oberhofen verkaufft
Ulrich Ammen, seinem geliebten bruder zu Thal im gricht Erlenbach, . .
.” Return to Text
. Baecher,
“Le ‘patriarche’,” 67. Return to Text
. Staatsarchiv
Bern, K Hilterfingen 3, Taufrodel 1640-1710, 93. Return to Text
. Gratz, “The
Home of Jacob Amman in Switzerland,” 138-39. Return to Text
. Staatsarchiv
Bern, Bez Thun A 367, Kontraktenmanual Oberhofen 1672-1680, 39. Return
to Text
. Gratz, “The
Home of Jacob Amman in Switzerland,” 138. Return to Text
. Staatsarchiv
Bern, Bez Thun A 367, Kontraktenmanual Oberhofen 1672-1680, 60. Return
to Text
. Ernst Mller,
Geschichte der bernischen Tufer (1895; rpt, Nieuwkoop,
Netherlands: B. de Graaf, 1972), 279-319; Robert Baecher, “La communaut
anabaptiste du baillage de Sainte-Marie-aux-Mines 1690-1730,” Souvenance
Anabaptiste 6 (1987), 67; Hans Rudolf Lavater, “Die vereitelte Deportation
emmentalischer Tufer nach Amerika 1710,” Mennonitica Helvetica
14 (1991), 91-103. Return to Text
. Milton Gascho,”The
Amish Division of 1693-1697 in Switzerland and Alsace,” MQR 11
(Oct. 1937), 242. Return to Text
. Eine Begebenheit,
die sich in der Mennoniten-Gemeinde in Deutschland und in der Schweiz
von 1693 bis 1700 zugetragen hat, 4th Ed. (Baltic, OH: Raber’s Book
Store, 1985), 61. Return to Text
. Letters
of the Amish Division: A Sourcebook (Goshen, IN: Mennonite Historical
Society, 1993), 31. Return to Text
. Hanspeter
Jecker, “Das Dordrechter Bekenntnis und die Amische Spaltung” in The
Amish: Origin and Characteristics, 1693-1993, 221, n. 21. Return
to Text
. Staatsarchiv
Bern, K Hilterfingen 3, Totenrodel 1651-1710, 246. Return to Text
. Archiv der
Kirchgemeinde Hilterfingen, 2-2 Band 23.1.1, Chorgerichtsmanuale 1660-1699,
211. Return to Text
. Staatsarchiv
Bern, Bez Thun A 369, Gerichts- und Kontraktenmanual Oberhofen 1679-1683,
256. Return to Text
. This couple
baptized children in Spiez in 1673 and 1675. In both entries the husband
is called a local innkeeper.-Staatsarchiv Bern, K Spiez 1, Taufrodel 1595-1726,
250, 254. The family returned to Oberhofen by 1679.-Bez Thun A 369, Kontrakten-
und Gerichtsmanual Oberhofen 1679-1683, 62. Return to Text
. Staatsarchiv
Bern, Bez Thun A 367, Kontraktenmanual Oberhofen 1672-1680, 336. Return
to Text
. Ibid., 355.
“Mr. Ulrich Ammann der schnyder all haupt, denne Mr. Jacob Ammann sein
bruder, beid wonhafft zu Oberhofen und geprtig zu Thal in der Kilchri
Erlenbach, Castlaney Wimmis, und Verena Stdler sein haufrauw, sond’lich
sy die frauw mit handen und gwaltt obgedachts ihres ehemanns, brg vnd
mittgltten, . . .” Return to Text
. Ibid., 367-68,
371, 372-73. Return to Text
. Staatsarchiv
Bern, Bez Thun A 369, Gerichts- und Kontraktenmanual Oberhofen 1679-1683,
250-51. Return to Text
. Staatsarchiv
Bern, Bez Thun A 370, Gerichts- und Kontraktenmanual Oberhofen 1684-1691,
35, 112, 194-95, 280. Return to Text
. Staatsarchiv
Bern, Bez Thun A 371, Kontraktenmanual Oberhofen, 138. Return to Text
. Staatsarchiv
Bern, Bez Thun A 367, Kontraktenmanual Oberhofen 1672-1680, 320, 372.
Return to Text
. Walter Stalder,
Aeschi: aus Geschichte und Heimatkunde (Bern: Paul Haupt, 1991),
45. Return to Text
. See David
Luthy, “Clothing and Conduct in Swiss Laws: 1450-1700,” Family Life
(July 1994), 23-26 and the longer work by John Martin Vincent, Costume
and Conduct in the Laws of Basel, Bern and Zurich, 1370-1800 (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins Press, 1935). Return to Text
. Baecher,
“Le patriarche,” 60. Return to Text
. Letters
of the Amish Division, 68-69. Return to Text
. Ibid., 43.
Return to Text
. William R.
McGrath, The Mystery of Jacob Amman (Carrollton, OH: Amish-Mennonite
Publications, 1989), 23-25.
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