Alit Bockel

Alit Bockel (* around 1490 near Darup ; † around 1521 near Darup) was the mother of the future Anabaptist king Jan van Leyden (1509–1536).

Surname

The name Alit was mentioned by Jan van Leyden during his interrogation in Dülmen in 1535 as the name of his mother. Other sources mention the name Aleke ( Low German "the noble, distinguished"). The spelling Alyt can also be found.

The name Bockel is attributed to her due to her marriage to Johann Bockel (presumably correctly: Beukel Gerritsz), who was Jan van Leyden's father. Other spellings of the name are Bokel or Beukel.

There is reason to believe that Alit did not bear the Bockel name. The list of names of the mayors, aldermen and Schulten of the city of Leiden shows that surnames around 1500 were rarely used there. Instead, it was customary to follow the first name with the father's name with the suffix -zoon ("-sohn") or -ddaughter ("-daughter") ( patronymic ). This practice was so common that -zoon and -daughter were simply abbreviated with -z or -dr in written names . The name Jan Beukelsz (as Jan van Leyden was also called) means "Jan, the son of Beukel", where Beukel was the father's first name.

According to this naming practice, Alit would have used her father's name with the addition of -daughter as the second name , but not her husband's first name (Beukel), since she was not "Beukelsddaughter" (unless her father was also called Beukel, which was descent from the Münsterland is unlikely).

Furthermore, Jan van Leyden's father could not have been called Johann (Jan) Bockel if Jan van Leyden's original name was Jan Beukelsz. Otherwise the later “Anabaptist King” should have been called Jan Jansz.

Life

Alit was born on the farm Zeleke (according to other sources Zoelken or Zolke) in the area of ​​Darup in the Münsterland (according to another representation on Hölkers Kotten near Darup). Her parents were cottagers on the farm and had several children. She was a serf of the landlord of Schedelich from birth and worked as a maid. A member of this family, Goddert von Schedelich, Droste in Dülmen in the service of the Bishop of Münster, may have met their son Jan later during his imprisonment in Dülmen. Years later, Goddert was busy with the question of the execution of Anabaptists in the area.

She later moved to Soevenhave (probably Zevenhoven near Leiden, cf. Soevenhoven) in the Leiden area . There she became the maid of the lower schoolboy Bockel (according to another source Beukel Gerritsz). After four years of adulterous intercourse she impregnated her and she had her son Jan. After living with him for seven years and being subjected to village ridicule, she finally became Bockel's wife after his wife died and he had ransomed her from serfdom. She then had more children from her husband, one of whom became the wife of the mayor of Leiden and died in poverty in 1568 after separating from her husband.

Later, when she visited her relatives in her home country, she wanted to settle a dowry matter. On the way home to Leiden she fell ill and after only a few kilometers on the way between the Zeleke and Darup farms, she sat under a tree. There she died. Her body was found under the tree, taken to Darup and buried there. Her son Jan was then brought up to live with relatives, where he learned to read and write.

This representation is not undisputed. On April 2, 1528 a certain Beukel Gerytzoon, widower of an Alijdge Jansdaughter, with his two underage children Jan and Annetgen, appeared in front of two lay judges in Leiden in order to have the maternal inheritance (200 Karlsgulden) paid out to the two children until they came of age and to be able to use them for their maintenance. As security for the children's inheritance claim, he offered a house with four rooms on the corner of Noordeinde and Kort Rapenburg streets in Leiden. The entry in the “Great Book of Proofs” of the Weisenkammer in Leiden contains the margin note added later: “This Jan later became 'King of Munster', as many credible historians […] report”.

A house owned by Beukel Gerytzoon makes Leiden likely his place of residence in 1528 and is not compatible with the office of the under-school in Zevenhoven (about 20 km from his house). It is therefore assumed that he either lost or never owned the sub-school office in Zevenhoven at that time. This assumption is also supported by the fact that Dirk Jansz was Schulze in Zevenhoven in 1526.

However, the evidential value of this source is difficult to assess. After all, as the most populous city in Holland, Leiden had around 14,000 inhabitants at that time. The name combination Beukel, Alijdge and Jan does not inevitably lead to an identification with the family of the Anabaptist prophet, but quite likely.

To estimate the probability, one must first know how common the first names were in the area at that time. If you take z. B. the Lijst van Welgeborben van Rijnland, van 1500–1665 for the years 1500 to 1536, the name Jan is found 112 times and the name Beukel once among the 923 names. If the name Alijdge is estimated at a frequency of 1%, the probability of a name combination Beukel-Alijdge-Jan is 0.000001315. Assuming 3000 families for 14,000 inhabitants, the probability of a family with this combination of names in Leiden around 1528 is an estimated 0.00394399, i.e. around 0.4 percent. It is therefore very unlikely that there was another family with this name combination in Leiden at the time.

In addition, it is the later added aside that makes the source meaningful. This marginal note can only have been entered before the two lay judges seven years after Beukel Gerytzoon's appearance. One of the two lay judges (Frans Geryt Doensz) was still in office at that time (1535) and could have remembered. However, the phrase “many credible historians” makes a later entry likely.

In art

• In Giacomo Meyerbeer's opera Le prophète ( The Prophet ), Jan van Leyden's mother is one of the main characters under the fictional name Fidès (English: "Faith"). It is designed less according to its historical model, but rather a dramatic allegory of true religion.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Johannes Scherr: megalomania. 1876.
2. ↑ ^{a b} Westfälische Zeitschrift ( online resource )
3. ↑ ^{a b c} Ralf Klötzer: The interrogations of the Anabaptist leaders from Münster on July 25, 1535 at House Dülmen. In: Westphalian magazine. Volume 155, 2005, pp. 51-92. ( Online resource )
4. ↑ ^{a b} Christiaan Vermey: Oudheden en gestichten van Rhynland. 1719.
5. ^ Friedrich Müller: History of the old counts of Tecklenburg in Westphalia. 1842, p. 242.
6. ^ ^{A b} Leopold von Ranke : German history in the age of the Reformation. 1843, volume 3, p. 550.
7. ↑ Johann Samuelansch : Allgemeine Encyclopädie der Wissenschaften und Künste . 1842, p. 438.
8. ↑ ^{a b} R. van Dülmen: The Anabaptist Empire in Münster, 1534–1535. 1974.
9. ^ JO Plassmann: History of the city of Münster in Westphalia from the oldest times to the present. 1926.
10. ↑ ^{a b c} L. Knappert: De opkomst van het protestantisme in eene noord-nederlandse stad. Geschiedenis van de herrorming within suffering. 1908, p. 143 ( online resource ).
11. ^ F. Lintz: West German magazine for history and art. 1882, p. 455.
12. ↑ ^{a b} Harry C. Schnur : Mystic Rebels. Kessinger Publishing, 1995.
13. ^ Internet portal Westphalian history .
14. ↑ L. Panhuysen: Jantje van Leiden. Lost Verleden, 2003.
15. ^ ^{A b} Johann Chr. Faesser: History of the Anabaptists in Munster. 1860, p. 76.
16. ^ PC Molhuysen, PJ Blok: Nieuw Nederlandsch biografisch woordenboek. Deel 9, 2008, p. 63 ( online resource ).
17. ^ ^{A b} Symon van Leeuwen, Coutumen van Rijnland . Inleyding, p. 74 ( Lijst van WELGEBORENEN van RIJNLAND, van 1500-1665 ).
18. ^ M. North: History of the Netherlands. Third edition. CH Beck, 2008, ISBN 978-3-406-41878-5 , p. 24.