Kaspar Braitmichel

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Kaspar Braitmichel , also Kaspar Schneider (* in Silesia ; † 1573 in Austerlitz ) was an Baptist who wrote the opening chapters of the oldest chronicle of the Hutterite Brothers in Moravia .

Life

Falkenstein Castle ruins

The tailor Kaspar Braitmichel, who came from Silesia, joined the Anabaptists in the 1530s, was captured, but was able to escape and finally lived on the Moravian brother farms of the Hutterites . In 1538 he was elected servant of necessities and ten years later as servant of the word .

In 1539 he was captured together with 150 other Anabaptists during a worship service and brought to Falkenstein Castle in Lower Austria . The prisoners were to be transferred from there to Trieste to work as galley slaves on Venetian ships . Braitmichel managed to escape from prison in an unknown manner. He turned back to Moravia and rejoined one of the Hutterite brother farms near the Slovakian border. With the support of the Hutterite chief Peter Walpot , he began to write the great history book of the Hutterite brothers , in the language of the Hutterites also known as our community history book or the big history book . The copy, created by Hauptrecht Zapf and continued until 1591, is still guarded as a treasure by the Hutterites in the USA today . A meticulous edition was presented by Andreas Johannes Friedrich Zieglschmied in 1943.

Works (selection)

In addition to his work as a chronicler, Braitmichel also worked as a songwriter. In the Anabaptist hymn book Songs of the Hutterite Brothers there are four songs that go back to Kaspar Braitmichel:

  • Take note, dear brothers mine
  • O Lord God rich in heaven
  • Christian manner, zeal and drive
  • I cry to you, O Lord God

Two letters from Braitmichel have also survived. A letter from the year 1568 is addressed to the Baptist Leonhard Dax and his fellow sufferers in Alzey prison in the Palatinate. The other letter, called a reminder letter , went to the by Gabriel Ascherham founded Anabaptist community of Gabrielites in Silesia.

literature

  • Josef Beck: The history books of the Anabaptists in Austria-Hungary , Vienna 1883 (reprint 1967).
  • Johann Loserth: The communism of the Moravian Anabaptists in the 16th and 17th centuries , in: Contributions to their history, teaching and constitution , Vienna 1894.
  • Rudolf Wolkan : The Songs of the Anabaptists: A Contribution to German and Dutch Literature and Church History , Behr, Berlin, 1903.

Web links

Wikisource: Kaspar Braitmichel  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Heinold Fast: The left wing of the Reformation , Bremen 1962, p. 1f
  2. ^ Robert Friedmann: Braitmichel, Kaspar (d. 1573) . In: Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online
  3. ↑ Braitmichel biography at GAMEO ; accessed on November 23, 2010
personal data
SURNAME Braitmichel, Kaspar
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Kaspar Schneider
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Baptist, chronicler of the Anabaptists
DATE OF BIRTH 16th Century
PLACE OF BIRTH Silesia
DATE OF DEATH 1573
Place of death Austerlitz