Plague and Pestilence in Danzig, 1709

Russian and Prussian Mennonites trace at least 200 years of their story through Danzig and Royal Prussia, where episodes of plague and pestilence were not unfamiliar (note 1). Mennonites arrived primarily from the Low Countries and in large numbers in the middle of the 16th century—approximately 750 families or 3,000 refugees and settlers between 1527 and 1578 to Danzig and Royal Prussia (note 2). At this time Danzig was undergoing tremendous demographic, cultural and economic transformation, almost tripling in population in less than 100 years. With 80% of Poland’s foreign trade handled through this port city (note 3), Danzig saw the arrival of new people from across Europe, many looking to find work in the crammed and bustling city (note 4). Maria Bogucka’s research on Danzig in this era brings the streets of the maritime city to life:

“Sanitation facilities were inadequate … The level of personal hygiene was low. Most people lived close together: five or six to a room, sleeping two of three to a bed, sharing towels, eating from one bowl. As a result, contagious diseases were easily spread either by direct contact between individuals via the respiratory system, or by use of the same utensils, or transferred by insects such as fleas and lice. Venereal diseases spread rapidly mainly because of the influx to Danzig of large numbers of single men. The coastal climate of the city — cold and damp — as well as the insufficient heating and the use of cellars for housing the poor, resulted in a high frequency of rheumatic and pulmonary ailments.” (Note 5)

According to the Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence, the 1602 plague in Danzig killed 19,000 (note 6). In 1653, the city recorded some 600 weekly plague deaths for a time, with 11,116 deaths over the year. Four years later during the Swedish War, another 7,569 Danzigers died of the plague, compared to 2,569 births. And again in 1660, some 5,515 died of the plague, compared to 1,916 births in the city (note 7). Danzig’s hospitals at this time included infirmaries--the Pestilence Hospital, a Smallpox Hospital and Lazaretto or quarantine /isolation hospital (see pic; note 8).

We do not know how this series of plagues beginning in 1653 impacted the Mennonite community. But after a natural disaster caused dams to break and the lands to flood in 1667, a powerful government official for Pomerelia (near Danzig) argued that God was now punishing Poland and Danzig for its tolerance of Anabaptists. The official found broad support among the nobles in parliament for a plan to deport all Mennonites—which fortunately did not come to pass (note 9).

Danzig’s worst plague however hit in 1709 (note 10); Danzig saw about 2,000 such deaths per week in September and October. The city even paid for two extra chaplains in 1709 as "Pestprediger" who would visit the sick and conduct funerals for the poor. Total plague deaths that year: 14,533 persons. Pic 2 gives a sad glimpse of the societal breakdown in Danzig.

According to the Danzig Flemish Mennonite Church record of deaths, there were 15 deaths in 1707, 17 in 1708, an astonishing 409 deaths in 1709, and then down to 9 in 1710 (note 11). Not including unbaptized children, the Danzig Flemish Mennonites recorded 13 deaths on Sept. 18, 19, 20, 1709 alone (more than an average year; see pic 3). Elder Christof Engmann had died on September 9 together with five other congregational members. Visiting the sick was part of his call. On the final page of the death register completed a century later, the elder wrote: “There have never been as many deaths as during the plague of 1709.”

How was the Mennonite community prepared to deal with such calamities? How did events like these shape the spirituality of the tradition?

The 1709 plague led to a new "tradition" in the Mennonite church in Danzig: “to leave behind bequests for the care of the congregation's poor,” and to organize for their burial. This continued for the next two centuries, according to a later elder (note 12). Both the Frisian and Flemish Mennonites had church buildings immediately outside the city gates (Neugartener Gate and Petershagener Gate respectively), and each also had its own poor house/ hospice under the direction of deacons (note 13). Congregational families reorganized after the death of spouses. In the ten years before the plague, the Danzig Flemish Mennonite Church celebrated on average 13.8 marriages per year; in 1710 they had 42 marriages and 24 in 1711 (see note 11).

A medical report in 1710 records with confidence that the plague came via Thorn, an area further south where Mennonites too had lived since 1586 (note 14).

This 1710 report concludes with formulas for pharmacies, as well as a list of "Dos-and-Don'ts" (see pic). The Danzig doctor warns against buying gimmick cures from drifters or market-criers. He notes too that those who visited many people and also alcoholics were the first to die; particularly harmful was the consumption of "Brandwein," which Mennonites also brewed. "All stench and uncleanliness are very harmful," as well. But the good doctor also adds that staying calm and trusting God is a "great medicine" and recommended to all (note 15).

                ---Arnold Neufeldt-Fast

---Notes---

Note 1: This material was written largely in May 2020—after almost two months of “lock-down” because of the global COVID pandemic. A first part was posted in a Mennonite history Facebook Group in May 2, 2020, https://www.facebook.com/groups/MennoniteGenealogyHistory/permalink/3162624093771606/; this was followed by a second part on May 23, 2020, https://www.facebook.com/groups/MennoniteGenealogyHistory/posts/3219394624761219/). A public piece was posted in August in both English and German to address conservative Mennonites (https://trailsofthepast.com/2020/08/07/mennonitesepidemics/). Later in 2020 others began to write about the plagues in Danzig, including Glenn H. Penner, “The Great Plague of 1709,” Preservings 41 (2020), 43-46, https://www.plettfoundation.org/preservings/archive/41, and Kat Hill, “Death and Dreams in a Time of Plague,” Anabaptist Historians, posted October 1, 2020, https://anabaptisthistorians.org/2020/10/01/death-and-dreams-in-a-time-of-plague/.

Note 2: Cornelius Krahn, Dutch Anabaptism: Origin, Spread, Life and Thought, 1450–1600 (The Hague: Nijhoff, 1968), 219f., https://archive.org/details/dutchanabaptismo00krah.

Note 3: Maria Bogucka, “Danzig an der Wende zur Neuzeit: Von der aktiven Handelsstadt zum Stapel und Produktionszentrum,” Hansische Geschichtsblätter 102 (1984), 91f., https://www.hansischergeschichtsverein.de/file/hgbll_102_1984.pdf.

Note 4: Cf. Maria Bogucka, “Danzig an der Wende zur Neuzeit,” 95.

Note 5: Maria Bogucka, “Health care and poor relief in Danzig (Gdansk): The sixteenth- and first half of the seventeenth century,” in Health care and poor relief in Protestant Europe, 1500–1700, edited by Ole Peter Grell and Andrew Cunningham, 204–219 (New York: Routledge, 1997), 211, https://archive.org/details/healthcarepoorre0000unse/page/204/.  

Note 6: Encyclopedia of Plague and Pestilence: From Ancient Times to the Present, 3rd ed., edited by George C. Kohn (New York: Infobase, 2007), 87f. https://books.google.ca/books?id=tzRwRmb09rgC&lpg=PA88&vq=DANZIG&dq=danzig%20epidemic%201653&pg=PA87#v=onepage&q&f=false

Note 7: Reinhold Curicken, Stadt Dantzig: Historische Beschreibung (Amsterdam/ Dantzigk: Janssons, 1687), bk. 3, ch. 31. https://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de/de/fs1/object/display/bsb10805961_00011.html.

Note 8: Bogucka, “Health care and poor relief in Danzig (Gdansk),” 211, 206.

Note 9: Anna Brons, Ursprung, Entwickelung und Schicksale der Taufgesinnten oder Mennoniten in kurzen Zügen (Norden, 1884), 258f. https://books.google.ca/books?id=BzU_AAAAYAAJ&pg=PR1#v=onepage&q&f=false.

Note 10 / Pic 1: See Danzig’s weekly plague deaths on pic 1 below (far right column), from Johannes Kanold ed., Einiger Medicorum Send-Schreiben, von der An. 1708 in Preussen, und An. 1709 in Dantzig ... graßireten Pestilentz (Breßlau: Fellgiebel, 1711), 48f. https://archive.org/details/b30545687/page/48/mode/2up.

Note 11: "Records of Prussian Mennonite Churches in the Vistula Delta: Births, Baptisms, Marriages and Deaths in the Danzig Church 1665-1943. Family Books 1 and 2 of the Danzig Mennonite Church." Transliterated and digitized by Ernest H. Baergen, http://www.mennonitegenealogy.com/prussia/Danzig_Records.htm.

Note 12: Hermann G. Mannhardt, Die Danziger Mennonitengemeinde. Ihre Entstehung und ihre Geschichte von 1569–1919 (Danzig, 1919), 87, https://archive.org/details/diedanzigermenno00mannuoft. More generally, cf. Peter J. Klassen, Mennonites in Early Modern Poland and Prussia (Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins, 2009).

Note 13: Mannhardt, Danziger Mennonitengemeinde, 104-106.

Note 14: Manasse Stöckel, Anmerckungen, welche bey der Pest, die anno 1709 in Dantzig graßirte, beobachtet wurden (Hamburg, 1710), https://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de//resolve/display/bsb10815757.html.

Note 15 / pic 4: Stöckel, Anmerckungen (last page; unnumbered).