Peter Schmalwieser

Peter Schmalwieser (* 1703 in Pennewang in Upper Austria; † 1757 in Transylvania ) was an Austrian secret Protestant and exile .

Life

Peter Schmalwieser was a secret Protestant from Upper Austria. He was born in 1703 as the son of Sebastian and Maria (née Kurz) Schmalwieser at the Mörtelbauer-Gut zu Arbing, in the Pennewang parish. In January 1742 he married Maria Faisthuber (* January 21, 1722), the daughter of Paul Faisthuber from Schmalwiesergut, one of the leading secret Protestants in Pennewang and the surrounding area.

In the 1750s, under Empress Maria Theresa, the pressure on the secret Protestants was increased and there was a targeted search for them. So-called missionaries looked for "heretical books" (prayer, song and devotional books, Bibles) on the farms or tried to research meeting places for secret Protestants. Pastor Pachner von Pennewang reported to the dean Giovanelli von Gunskirchen that the missionary Father Antonius Prandmühler at the Weberwastlgut in Balding (the owner was Peter's widowed sister-in-law Magdalena Schmalwieser) had surprised Maria Schmalwieser at a conventicula.

In order to avoid the impending deportation to Transylvania, Maria fled to Regensburg in 1755 , but kept coming back to her husband and children. During this time Peter Schmalwieser ran the farm alone and looked after the four sons Mathias (* 1743), Peter (* 1746), Thomas (* 1750) and Georg (* 1752). Since the pressure from the Catholic Church grew and debts had accumulated, he decided in 1756 to flee with the whole family to Regensburg, where his daughter Eva, who was born in 1755, stayed with friends. At Frankenmarkt , near the border, however, they were picked up by toll officers and taken to the Frankenburg regional court.

The quote from Peter Schmalwieser comes from the interrogation protocol (Lambach Abbey)

"The books had given us light"

which is also used in the book " Way of the Book ".

Peter and Maria were sentenced to nine months of detention "under iron" and the subsequent deportation to Transylvania. The sons Mathias and Peter had to stay behind in the conversion house in Kremsmünster. The daughter Eva, who was born in Regensburg, stayed in Regensburg. Only the sons Thomas and Georg were allowed to go to Transylvania with them. Peter Schmalwieser died shortly after arriving in Transylvania in 1757. His wife and sons were settled in Denndorf around 1759 .

literature

• The way of the book. Edition Tandem, Salzburg
• Bernhard Capesius: The country folk in Transylvania history and dialect . Publishing house of the Academy of the Romanian People's Republic, Bucharest 1962.
• Alfred Obernberger: transmigrants from the area around Wels in Transylvania. In: 9th yearbook of the Wels Museum Association 1962/63. Pp. 155–165 ( online (PDF) in the forum OoeGeschichte.at).
• Rudolf Moser: Fates of transmigrants and exiles from the area around Wels. Source contributions on the history of crypto-Protestantism in Upper Austria. In: 18th yearbook of the Musealverein Wels 1972. pp. 149–215 ( online (PDF) in the forum OoeGeschichte.at).
• Hans Krawarik: Exul Austriacus: denominational migrations from Austria in the early modern period. LIT Verlag Münster, 2010. S. 219ff: The destruction of a secret Protestant clan north of Lambach.
• Ute Küppers-Braun: transmigrant children between indoctrination and propaganda. In: Rudolf Leeb, Susanne Claudine Pils, Thomas Winkelbauer (eds.): State power and salvation of the soul: Counter-Reformation and secret Protestantism in the Habsburg monarchy. Oldenbourg Verlag, 2007, pp. 213-230.

Web links

• The way of the book
• Secret Protestantism in Upper Austria