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Bob Scribner Practical Utopias: Pre-Modern Communism and the Reformation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Bob Scribner
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Type
Utopian Faith
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 36 , Issue 4 , October 1994 , pp. 763 - 774
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1994

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References

85 Stayer, , Anabaptist Community of Goods, 146.Google Scholar

86 Hostetler, Hutterite Society, 32–33;Google ScholarStayer, , Anabaptist Community of Goods, 146. Plümper. Gütergemeindschaft der Täufer, 145, speaks incorrectly of a “democratic” structure.Google Scholar

87 QGT Württemberg, p. 1006, lines 27–29.

88 Clasen, , Anabaptism. A Social History, 283–4.Google Scholar

89 Plumper, Gütergemeindschaft der Täufer, 109–114;Google Scholar on the prohibition of innkeeping by Peter Riedemann “since this goes with all that is ungodly, unchaste and decadent” (Friedmann, , Hutterite Studies, p. 122).Google Scholar

90 Clasen, , Anabaptism. A Social History 285, on grain policy.Google Scholar

91 Klassenacute;, Economics of Anabaptism, 91–93;Google Scholar see also the description in the Hutterite Chronicle, 402–7, for many of these details.Google Scholar

92 Hutterite Chronicle, 406. This passage also includes the image of the beehive, mentioned above.Google Scholar

93 See the justification offered by Lorenz Huf in 1556 in the Hutterite Chronicle, 336.Google Scholar

94 On many of the points in this paragraph, Plümper, , Gütergemeindschaft der Täufer, 117–23.Google Scholar

95 Clasen, , Anabaptism. A Social History, 292;Google ScholarHruby, Friedrich, “Die Wiedertäufer in Mäh-rent,” Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte, 30 (1933), 1–36, 170–211; 31 (1934), 61–102; 32 (1935), 1–32, here (1933), p. 195, on the loans.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

96 It was estimated by the Hutterite Chronicle, (p. 674) that the moveable wealth of the 24 Bruderhof still in existence in 1622 was 364,000 Talers on the lowest estimate, an impressive sum, given the previous two decades of relentless persecution and plundering.Google Scholar

97 For taxation imposed by the Moravian Estates, Hruby (1933), 192.

98 Plümper, , Gutergemeindschaft der Täufer, 148.Google Scholar

99 Stayer, , Anabaptist Community of Goods, 158;Google ScholarClasen, , Anabaptism. A Social Historc, 234–5.Google Scholar

100 Clasen, , Anabaptism. A Social History, 213–14, on the importance of immigrants from the Tyrol for the Moravian communities; geographic contiguity and the ties established between the two territories from the beginning may have contributed here.Google Scholar

101 Wappler, , Tduferbeuegung in Thüringen, 358.Google Scholar

102 Clasen, , Anabaptism. A Social History, 222–4.Google Scholar

103 Plumper, , Gütergemeindschaft der Täufer, 202–4,Google Scholar concludes that Hutterite community of goods was socially rather than religiously motivated, although Stayer, Anabaptist Community of Goods, 157–8, is right to stress the kernel of profound religious motivation which exclusively linked community of goods to the presence of true Christian community in Hutterite thought. However, this motivation as found in the movement's leading theologians may not have been characteristic of all, or even most, of its members.Google Scholar

104 Clasen, , Anabaptism. A Social History, 235–8;Google ScholarPlumper, , Gütergemeindschaft der Täufer, 135–8.Google Scholar

105 Clasen, , Anabaptism. A Social History, 238; for Brandenburg-Ansbach, see QGT Brandenburg, p. 359; for Wiirttemberg, note 106 below.Google Scholar

106 QGT, Württemberg, p. 397, lines 20ff and p. 417, lines 13ff; see also pp. 476, 524, 592, 620, 634, 673, 699, 822, 837, 853, 882. See 1104 for testimony of poverty and debt as a motive for immigration in the years 1572–1617.

107 QGT Brandenburg, p. 342 (1535); QGT Wiirttemberg, p. 855 (1614); QGT Baden and Pfalz, 1, 207 (1589).

108 Plumper, , Gütergemeindschaft der Täufer, p. 136.Google Scholar

109 QGT Wurttemberg, p. 851.

110 Clasen, , Anabaptism. A Social History, 236, 239.Google Scholar

111 Ibid., p. 285.

112 QGT Wurttemberg, p. 689, lines 19–20.

113 Wiedertäuferakten Hessen, p. 521.

14 See various examples in QGT Wurttemberg, pp. 621 (abandonment of wife, 1586); 627 (three men who squandered their wealth and abandoned their families, 1587), 630 (ran off with his father's maid, whom he had got pregnant but would not marry), 840 (young unmarried couple, 1613), 860 (took three sons and abandoned wife, 1615), 868 (abandoned wife and children to run away with wife of another man who had earlier run off to Moravia with a maidservant, 1615).

15 For the problems of vagrants of this kind, Scribner, R. W., “Mobility: Voluntary or Enforced: Vagrants in Wurttemberg in the Sixteenth Century,” in Jaritt, Gerhard and Muller, Albert, ed., Migration in der Feudalgesellschaft (Frankfurt, 1988), 65–88.Google Scholar

116 IS QGT Wurttemberg p. 691.

117 Ibid., pp. 642 (1589, a widow who remarried but shortly thereafter emigrated to the Hutterites with one of her children, leaving the other behind with her new husband; although her husband travelled after her, she refused to retum); 643 (a woman who abandoned her spendthrift husband, 1589).

118 For widows emigrating to Moravia with their children, see QGT Wurttemberg, pp. 642, 825, 881, 906; see also p. 889 for a returning widow who claimed that she had left her son behind in order that he might learn a trade.

119 There are numberous examples in QGT Wurttemberg, but those on pp. 648 are striking (a woman who was the sole member of her family not to have emigrated, but who intended to join them, 1590): 806 (an account of how many members of one family over the years to 1608 emigrated to Moravia); 880 (brother and sister both in Moravia).

120 For Hutterite letters filled with affection for family members still living “in the world,” see Wiedertäuferakten Hessen, pp. 496–503, 506–17 for the years 1587. 1597 respectively.

121 Clasen, , Anabaptism. A Social History, 305–30,Google Scholar especially 330. Stayer, , Anabaptist Community of Goods, 88–92.Google Scholar

122 Plumper, , Gütergemeindschaft der Täufer, 149–50.Google Scholar

123 Clasen, , Anabaptism. A Social History, 283–4.Google Scholar

124 QGT Württemberg, p. 819.

125 Stayer, , Anabaptist Community of Goods, 150;Google ScholarPlumper, , Gatergemeindschaft der Taufer, 148.Google Scholar

126 Ibid., p. 148, although this would be at variance with his emphasis on the guild character of the communities, since village artisans were rarely organised into guilds.

127 Klassen, , Economics of Anabaptism, 79–80.Google Scholar

128 Plümper, , Gütergemeindschaft der Taufer, pp. 151–5,Google Scholar drawing on Giercke, emphasises the notion of guild corporatism and ties the concept of Nahrung to it, but the latter clearly went well beyond the guild mentality to encompass, for example, the peasant mentality with its emphasis on adequate subsistence. For “sacral corporatism,” see Brady, Thomas A., Ruling Class, Regime and Reformation at Strasbourg 1520–1555 (Leiden, 1978), 3–19, who emphasises that it is not tied simply to the urban context.Google Scholar

129 The concept of “communalism” injected into discussion of early modern German history by Peter Blickle over the past decade has proved so far to be either too restricted (membership of the commune was usually limited to male heads of households), too diverse (urban and rural communalism cannot be as easily equated or allied as Buckle initially assumed) or too multifarious in its practical expressions to serve as a unifying conceptual tool. See the most recent discussion in the essays in Blickle, P., ed., Stadtgemeinde and Landgeeminde in Mitteleuropa. Emn struktureller Vergleich (Stuttgart, 1991),Google Scholar and critical assessments by Friedeburg, R. von, “‘Kommunalisms’ and ‘Republicanisms’ in des frūher Neuzëit,” Leitschrift fur Historische Forschung, 21 (1994), 65–91;Google ScholarScribner, B., “Communalism: Universal Category or Ideological Construct,” Historical Journal, 37:1 (03, 1994), 199–204.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

130 Plümper, , Gütergemeindrehaft der Täufer, 145, some of whose points I have enlarged or slightly modified.Google Scholar

131 Plümper's notion that hierarchical structures were “as good as completely abolished” in favour of a “complete equality of all members” cannot be accepted in the light of the strong elitist position of the community's leaders and officers, and the absence of gender equality.

132 The secondary literature has until recently been heavily dependent on the work of those attached to Hutterite belief, for example, Friedmann, , Hutterite Studies:Google Scholar the main sources have either been those of produced by the Hutte?tes themselves as part of the validation of their tradition (see Friedmann, , Hutterite Studies, 151–254, especially 151–6 on the Hutterite chronicles) or those generated by their persecutors. One rarely finds sources or studies produced from outside these two source traditions, although Hruby, “Die Wiedertäufer in Mähren,” revealed the importance of sources in Moravian archives, especially those of the Estates.Google Scholar

133 Clasen, , Anabaptism. A Social History, 139–41.Google Scholar

134 QGT Österreich 3, p. 520, lines 19–21: “sei gar nicht dem gleich, wie sie ehmals fürgaben.”

135 Clasen, , Anabaptism. A Social History, 252–3,Google Scholar and Plümper, . Gütergemeindschaft der Täufer, 47 on the early years.Google Scholar

136 Hutterite Chronicle, 408–9.Google Scholar

137 For these features, Clasen, , Anabaptism. A Social History, 252–4,Google Scholar on the leaders and 273–4 on dissension and indiscipline, especialy sexual indiscipline, which may especially have been a youth problem; Friedmann, , Hutterite Studies, 124Google Scholar on youth; Plümper, . Gütergemeindschaft der Täufer, 60–61.Google Scholar

138 For the invocation by the Estates of an established freedom of religion on the accession of Ferdinand I in 1526, see Hruby (1933:1 1); for the struggle with the Habsburg rulers until tacit tolerance (pp. 12–23).