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More Royal News! Mennonites give gifts of “Oxen, Butter, Ducks, Hens & Cheese” to new King (1772)

What do Mennonites offer a new king? The ritual ceremonies of homage to a new European king—as we see on TV these days--are ancient. Exactly 250 years yesterday, Frederick the Great became king over Mennonites in the Vistula River Delta where most of our ancestors lived. Here is how that played out.

On May 31, 1772, Heinrich Donner was elected elder of the Orlofferfelde Mennonite Church, 25 km north of Marienburg Castle in Polish-Prussia; thankfully he kept a diary (note 1). Only a few months later the weak Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth collapsed and was partitioned by powerful, land-hungry neighbours: Austria, Prussia and Catherine the Great’s empire. In the preceding decades Mennonites had lived with significant autonomy, felt secure under the Polish crown and could appeal to the king for protection. Now some 2,638 Mennonite families were under Prussian rule.

Frederick II took possession of his new lands on September 13, and then invited four persons of nobility plus clergy from each district to Marienburg for Sept. 27 to pay homage in a formal ceremony and recognize him as king; penalties were threatened for those who refused. The Marienburg Castle is only 7 kilometres from the Mennonite Heubuden Church. At the castle the Polish political elite (Szchlachta) took a pledge of loyalty and obedience, and in turn Frederick granted them the right to becomes members of the Prussian nobility (note 2).

Mennonites scrambled to prepare as well, and Donner records that “all Mennonite congregations” contributed to the large food gift of two fattened oxen, 400 pounds of butter, 50 ducks, 50 hens, and 20 wheels of cheese—a gift most appropriate to feed those gathering for the large Huldigung event (note 3). The gift not only symbolized Mennonite recognition of Fredrick’s sovereignty, but opened the door for Mennonites to deliver their own formal supplication for freedom of religion and freedom from military enlistment.

This was appropriate procedure and protocol. Historically at such an event, a new king promises his subjects protection and the preservation of their rights and privileges. For example in Frederick’s September 1772 “patent of possession,” the Protestant king granted Roman Catholics freedom of religion, and promised “to govern the whole country in such a way that the reasonable and well-thinking inhabitants may be happy and be content."

Mennonites received their response from the new rulership on October 6, 1772: “His Royal Majesty lets the Mennonite Congregation in Polish-Prussia know that …they are under supreme protection from any hindrances with regard to their religious practices. With regard to the “the enlistment of themselves and their children for soldiering in the regiments, this shall be decided shortly to their satisfaction … they will have to pay a yearly contribution, and then they can pursue their trade without disturbance.” (Note 4)

Mennonites were fundamentally opposed to military enlistment, and the new king agreed pragmatically that these subjects could serve his state “better as taxpayers and producers of goods than as soldiers” (note 5). The deal: in lieu of military service, Mennonites would be required to support the military with a large annual lump sum tax—enough to pay the majority capital portion and annual operating costs of a new military cadet school in Culm (note 6).

Moreover, because Prussian army conscription was not universal but canton-based, falling almost exclusively upon agricultural workers, the king also placed restrictions on Mennonite land acquisitions per canton as well. Frederick exerted only enough pressure on Mennonites to successfully increase their military tax obligations and to curtail their rates of land ownership, but not so much as to lose them as productive citizens. His heirs were less savvy or willing to negotiate—which would lead many Mennonites to consider the offers of the Catherine and immigration.

Finally, here is a petition and appeal by Donner and a ministerial colleague eight years later to the king. In 1780 they could not pay the large military tax because of the flooding of the Nogat River (note 7). Unfortunately the petition and appeal was unsuccessful (note 8).                                       

---

Most Sublime Great King, Most Gracious King and Lord.

[We trust] Your Royal Majesty will not take it amiss that we Mennonites of the two congregations of Orloff and Tiegenhagen, situated in the district of Tiegenhoff, take refuge in your throne in our extreme distress.

We have been ruined by the flooding of the Nogat River; some of our lands have silted over completely, and the rest have become unusable for this year. We still have our livestock from which we must feed ourselves in order to keep alive.

In this distress, on the 8th of April we made a humble presentation to the Royal West Prussian Chamber for the remission of the current year's amount payable for the cadet school, which affects our two congregations. However, we have received a decision in which our request for this and future years was completely rejected.

With great effort we made the first payment in the month of June. However the September deadline for the second is now approaching, and despite employing our full strengths, we are unable to meet it, because we are completely unable to earn our own bread.

For this reason, we take refuge in the throne of our Most Gracious King, humbly asking for a glimpse of Your gracious mercy, and to graciously waive the cadet school fee due from us this year. Most gracious King, we reverently honour the great mercies that Your Majesty has shown us in granting us the gracious Privilegium [charter of privileges]. However we also live in the firm hope that Your Majesty does not want us poor and lowly people to be put in the position of enjoying this grace only in prosperous times, but also in times of scarcity. This is our only consolation in our misery and we die waiting for a gracious hearing.

Your Royal Majesty's most humble servants,

  • Dirk Tiessen, Elder of the Tiegenhagen [Mennonite] Congregation

  • Heinrich Donner, Elder of the Orloff [Mennonite] Congregation

August 12, 1780, Tiegenhoff

--Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

 

---Notes---

Note 1: Heinrich Donner and Johann Donner, Orlofferfelde Chronik, transcribed by Werner Janzen and edited by Merle Schlabough, 2022. From Mennonite Library and Archives-Bethel College, Prussian-Polish sources (online), https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/cong_303/ok63/orlofferfeldechronik.html.

Note 2: Cf. Walter Kuhn, Geschichte der deutschen Ostsiedlung in der Neuzeit, vol. 2: 15. bis 17. Jahrhundert (Graz: Böhlau, 1957), 89; for list of participants and background, see Max Bär, Westpreußen unter Friedrich dem Großen, vol. 2, Quellen (Leipzig: Hirzel, 1909), 737-763, https://pbc.gda.pl/dlibra/publication/379/edition/1971/content.

Note 3: Westpreußischer Adel 1772, Institut Deutsche Adelsforschung, https://adelsquellen.de/adelsforschung/huld.htm.

Note 4: Donner and Donner, Orlofferfelde Chronik.

Note 5: Gordon A. Craig, The Politics of the Prussian Army: 1640–1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1964), 22.

Note 6: Cf. Frederick II, “Mennonite Charter of Privileges, 1780,” in Mark Jantzen, Mennonite German Soldiers: Nation, Religion, and Family in the Prussian East, 1772–1880 (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 2010), 255.

Note 7: “Two copies of a letter to the mighty king and Lord, his majesty etc. etc. from ‘your most humble servants,’ the two congregations at Orloff and Tiegenhagen,” August 12, 1780, Dirk Tiessen, Elder, Tiegenhof, and Heinrich Donner, Elder, Orloff. Mennonite Library and Archives—Bethel College, https://mla.bethelks.edu/archives/V_18/00_Register/SKMBT_C35109030510350_0023.jpg.

Note 8: Donner and Donner, Orlofferfelde Chronik, 1780.


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