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ANABAPTISM in MORAVIA and SILESIA Martin Rothkegel

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ANABAPTISM in MORAVIA and SILESIA Martin Rothkegel CHAPTER FIVE ANABAPTISM IN MORAVIA AND SILESIA Martin Rothkegel The period during which Moravia was considered as a “Promised Land” by the Anabaptists coincides approximately with the first cen- tury of Habsburg rule over the Lands of the Bohemian Crown, a heterogeneous political entity that consisted of the Kingdom of Bohemia, the Margraviate of Moravia, the Duchy of Upper and Lower Silesia along with the County of Glatz, and the Margraviates of Upper and Lower Lusatia. The spread of Anabaptism into Moravia began only a few weeks prior to the Battle of Mohács, during which Louis II Jagiello, the childless young king of Bohemia and Hungary, fell on the battlefield against the Turks on August 29, 1526. A few months later, the Austrian Archduke Ferdinand I of Habsburg suc- ceeded to the Bohemian throne and also assumed rule over of a part of Hungary. During the tenures of Ferdinand I and his successors, Moravia was caught in a permanent tension between the centralizing, abso- lutist tendencies of Habsburg politics and the “critical loyalty” of the Moravian lords, who persistently defended their liberties and privi- leges laid down in the traditional estate constitution. This tension— heightened from the late 16th century on by the religious antagonism between the Catholic overlords and the predominantly Protestant estates—culminated in the rebellion of the confederated estates of the Bohemian Lands in 1618–1620. In 1619 the estates accepted the Protestant Elector Frederick V of the Palatinate as Bohemian king instead of Ferdinand II, the Habsburg heir to the throne. Already in the next year, however, Habsburg troops defeated the estates in the Battle at the White Mountain near Prague on November 8, 1620. Two years later, all Anabaptists had to leave Moravia.1 1 For the history of the Bohemian Lands from 1526 to 1620, cf. Winkelbauer (2003), esp. 1: 79–104, 205–214; 2: 18–28, 63–67, 166–181; Bahlcke (1994); Vorel (2005); esp. on Moravia: Válka (1995); esp. on Silesia: Petry/Menzel (2000). 164 martin rothkegel The Anabaptists profited from the tolerant religious attitudes cher- ished by an influential fraction among the Moravian lords. Since the 15th century, Hussites and Catholics coexisted peacefully on the basis of a series of legal agreements guaranteed by the estates. These cir- cumstances led to the emergence of a “supra-denominational” ethos among the Moravian nobility. Since the early 16th century, many of them included within their protection members of the Unity of Brethren (or Bohemian Brethren) and other religious dissenters whose confession lacked formal legal recognition.2 Religious dissenters con- tinued to be tolerated on aristocratic domains and in towns and cities subject to nobles even in the face of persistent attempts by Ferdinand I to suppress the Anabaptist movements in all of his ter- ritories.3 Nevertheless, during his reign Ferdinand I pushed through three waves of persecution that either suppressed or impaired the development of various Anabaptist groups represented in Moravia. The persecution of 1528 brought an end to the further dissemina- tion of Anabaptism among the indigenous German-speaking popu- lation, especially in the larger cities. The persecution of 1535–1536 was directed against the communitarian Anabaptist immigrant com- munities; while the last major wave of repressive measures of 1547–1552 impacted especially the Hutterian Brethren. A number of Anabaptists were executed during these persecutions.4 Compared with the significant Anabaptist presence in Moravia, Anabaptism found very limited response in Bohemia, and that only temporarily and sporadically within the local German minority com- munities of Prague and in the centers of silver mining in south and north Bohemia.5 By contrast, a vigorous Anabaptist movement emerged between the late 1520s and the 1540s among the local population in parts of Silesia and in the County of Glatz. 2 Cf. Zeman (1973); Macek (2001), 385–416; Winkelbauer (2003), 2:148–156; Válka (2005), 229–260. 3 Cf. Packull (1995), 187–198; Kohler (2003), 188–192. 4 On the Anabaptist policies of Ferdinand I, cf. BL 1 (1877), 93, 268–270, 381, 385, 437, 611, 621; Kamení‘ek 3 (1905), 467–481; Hrubÿ (1935), 7–21.—Executions of Anabaptist preachers and lay people are documented for Brünn 1528: Loserth (1893), 217, QGT 5 (1951), 278, Zieglschmid (1943), 63f.; Znaim 1529: ETE 1 (1902): 425f., Zieglschmid (1943), 71f.; Brünn 1535: HE 2 (1987), 180–182, Zieglschmid (1943), 154f.; and Olmütz 1538: Dudík (1861), 9. 5 On Anabaptists in Bohemia, cf. ”imák (1907), 241–245; Wappler (1908), 183–186; HE 2 (1987), 189–194; Zieglschmid (1943), 162; Zeman (1969), 235f., 272; Loesche (1895), 77..
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