Skip to main content

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).







  Print Friendly and PDF


Comments

  1. The attack against the ecclesiastical position of the Mennonites by the voivode of Pomerelia took place in 1676 and not in 1667 (see the note 9):

    https://books.google.ca/books?id=BzU_AAAAYAAJ&pg=258#v=twopage&q&f=false

    This can also be found in the "Eine polnische Starostei und ein preussischer Landrathskreis. Geschichte des Schwetzer Kreises 1466-1873", vol. 2 by Hans Maercker published in the magazine "Zeitschrift des Westpreussisschen Geschichtsvereins.", issue 17, Danzig, 1886, page 53:

    https://dlibra.bibliotekaelblaska.pl/Content/49705/PDF/Heft17.pdf

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Vaccinations in Chortitza and Molotschna, beginning in 1804

Vaccination lists for Chortitza Mennonite children in 1809 and 1814 were published prior to the COVID-19 pandemic with little curiosity ( note 1 ). However during the 2020-22 pandemic and in a context in which some refused to vaccinate for religious belief, the historic data took on new significance. Ancestors of some of the more conservative Russian Mennonite groups—like the Reinländer or the Bergthalers or the adult children of land delegate Jacob Höppner—were in fact vaccinating their infants and toddlers against small pox over two hundred years ago ( note 2 ). Also before the current pandemic Ukrainian historian Dmytro Myeshkov brought to light other archival materials on Mennonites and vaccination. The material below is my summary and translation of the relevant pages of Myeshkov’s massive 2008 volume on Black Sea German and their Worlds, 1781 to 1871 (German only; note 3 ). Myeshkov confirms that Chortitza was already immunizing its children in 1804 when their District Offic...

Sesquicentennial: Proclamation of Universal Military Service Manifesto, January 1, 1874

One-hundred-and-fifty years ago Tsar Alexander II proclaimed a new universal military service requirement into law, which—despite the promises of his predecesors—included Russia’s Mennonites. This act fundamentally changed the course of the Russian Mennonite story, and resulted in the emigration of some 17,000 Mennonites. The Russian government’s intentions in this regard were first reported in newspapers in November 1870 ( note 1 ) and later confirmed by Senator Evgenii von Hahn, former President of the Guardianship Committee ( note 2 ). Some Russian Mennonite leaders were soon corresponding with American counterparts on the possibility of mass migration ( note 3 ). Despite painful internal differences in the Mennonite community, between 1871 and Fall 1873 they put up a united front with five joint delegations to St. Petersburg and Yalta to petition for a Mennonite exemption. While the delegations were well received and some options could be discussed with ministers of the Crown, ...

Landless Crisis: Molotschna, 1840s to 1860s

The landless crisis in the mid-1800s in the Molotschna Colony is the context for most other matters of importance to its Mennonites, 1840s to 1860s. When discussing landlessness, historian David G. Rempel has claimed that the “seemingly endemic wranglings and splits” of the Mennonite church in South Russia were only seldom or superficially related to doctrine, and “almost invariably and intimately bound up with some of the most serious social and economic issues” that afflicted one or more of the congregations in the settlement ( note 1 ). It is important from the start to recognize that these Mennonites were not citizens,  but foreign colonists with obligations and privileges that governed their sojourn in New Russia. For Mennonites the privileges, e.g. of land and freedom from military conscription, were connected to the obligation of model farming. Mennonites were given one, and then later two districts of land for this purpose. Within their districts or colonies , villages w...

What is the Church to Say? Letter 4 (of 4) to American Mennonite Friends

Irony is used in this post to provoke and invite critical thought; the historical research on the Mennonite experience is accurate and carefully considered. ~ANF Preparing for your next AGM: Mennonite Congregations and Deportations Many U.S. Mennonite pastors voted for Donald Trump, whose signature promise was an immediate start to “the largest deportation operation in American history.” Confirmed this week, President Trump will declare a national emergency and deploy military assets to carry this out. The timing is ideal; in January many Mennonite congregations have their Annual General Meeting (AGM) with opportunity to review and update the bylaws of their constitution. Need help? We have related examples from our tradition, which I offer as a template, together with a few red flags. First, your congregational by-laws.  It is unlikely you have undocumented immigrants in your congregation, but you should flag this. Model: Gustav Reimer, a deacon and notary public from the ...

Shaky Beginings as a Faith Community

With basic physical needs addressed, in 1805 Chortitza pioneers were ready to recover their religious roots and to pass on a faith identity. They requested a copy of Menno Simons’ writings from the Danzig mother-church especially for the young adults, “who know only what they hear,” and because “occasionally we are asked about the founder whose name our religion bears” ( note 1 ). The Anabaptist identity of this generation—despite the strong Mennonite publications in Prussia in the late eighteenth century—was uninformed and very thin. Settlers first arrived in Russia 1788-89 without ministers or elders. Settlers had to be content with sharing Bible reflections in Low German dialect or a “service that consisted of singing one song and a sermon that was read from a book of sermons” written by the recently deceased East Prussian Mennonite elder Isaac Kroeker ( note 2 ). In the first months of settlement, Chortitza Mennonites wrote church leaders in Prussia:  “We cordially plead ...

What is the Church to Say? Letter 3 (of 4) to American Mennonite Friends

Irony is used in this post to provoke and invite critical thought; the historical research on the Mennonite experience is accurate and carefully considered. ~ANF Mennonite endorsement Trump the man No one denies the moral flaws of Donald Trump, least of all Trump himself. In these next months Mennonite pastors who supported Trump will have many opportunities to restate to their congregation and their children why someone like Trump won their support. It may be obvious, but the words can be difficult to find. To help, I offer examples from Mennonite history with statements from one our strongest leaders of the past century, Prof. Benjamin H. Unruh (see the nice Mennonite Encyclopedia article on him, GAMEO ). I have substituted only a few words, indicated by square brackets to help with the adaptation. The [MAGA] movement is like the early Anabaptist movement!  In the change of government in 1933, Unruh saw in the [MAGA] movement “things breaking forth which our forefathe...

Widows, refugees, the unchurched, orphans and decommissioned soldiers: Building Church in Neuland, Paraguay

They were in unchartered waters when the Neuland (Colony) Mennonite Church in Paraguay was organized on November 12, 1947 under the innovative leadership of Hans Rempel (1908-2001). Rempel was ordained during German occupation of Ukraine, when “simple, untrained men and women called the believers together, read the Word, sang, and prayed” ( note 1 ). And for the others? In resettlement camps in Warthegau (annexed Poland) Rempel was encouraged by Heinrich Winter, the "last elder of Chortitza" to “make a new beginning ... like a farmer breaking up hard unplowed ground” (Jeremiah 4:3). After the refugees arrived in Paraguay in 1947, the church issues were many and the need for innovation was urgent. First , what should be the role of women in church leadership ? The tradition was very restrictive. The men however were largely missing and many of the women had experience of leadership in the re-establishment of church services during the German occupation of Russia. Innov...

Flooding as a weapon of war, 1657

If a picture is worth a thousand words, then these maps speak volumes. In February 1657, the Swedish King Carolus Gustavus ordered an intentional breach of the embankments along the Vistula River to completely flood the villages of the Danzig Werder. See the vivid punctures and water flow in 1657 map below; compare with the 1730 maps with rebuilt villages and farms ( note 1 ). In Polish memory this war is appropriately remembered as "The Deluge". Villages in the Danzig Werder (delta) from which Mennonites immigrated to Russia include: Quadendorf, Reichenberg, Krampitz, Neunhuben, Hochzeit, Scharfenberg, Wotzlaff, Landau, Schönau, Nassenhuben, Mönchengrebin, and Nobel ( note 2 ). In the war the suburbs outside the gates of Danzig suffered most; Mennonites lived here in large numbers, e.g., in Alt Schottland and Stoltzenberg. First, these villages were completely razed by the City of Danzig to keep the invading Swedes from using the villages to their advantage in battle. ...

"A Small Town near Auschwitz” – Chortitza Mennonite Refugee/ Resettlement Camps

Simple proximity to a place of horrors does not equal knowledge or complicity. Many Gnadenfeld-area Mennonite refugees were, for example, temporarily housed 20 km. away from the Bergen-Belsen Concentration Camp where 15-year-old Anne Frank died ultimately of typhus ( note 1 ). The day after liberation by British troops on April 15, 1945, camp survivors began to flow through neighbouring villages. “What a sight they were! They had been tortured and starved, and were swollen from lack of food. … We could hardly believe that the glorious country of Germany could commit such crimes against people,” Susanna Toews wrote ( note 2 ). My mother was only seven, but she remembers overhearing shocking descriptions given by their host family’s teenaged girls forced by the British to clean some of the camp buses. What about the much larger death camp at Auschwitz? There is a book entitled: A Small Town near Auschwitz: Ordinary Nazis and the Holocaust. It is about an administrator living near the ...

What is the Church to Say? Letter 1 (of 4) to American Mennonite Friends

Irony is used in this post to provoke and invite critical thought; the historical research on the Mennonite experience is accuarte and carefully considered. ~ANF American Mennonite leaders who supported Trump will be responding to the election results in the near future. Sometimes a template or sample conference address helps to formulate one’s own text. To that end I offer the following. When Hitler came to power in 1933, Mennonites in Germany sent official greetings by telegram: “The Conference of the East and West Prussian Mennonites meeting today at Tiegenhagen in the Free City of Danzig are deeply grateful for the tremendous uprising ( Erhebung ) that God has given our people ( Volk ) through the vigor and action of [unclear], and promise our cooperation in the construction of our Fatherland, true to the Gospel motto of [our founder Menno Simons], ‘For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ.’” ( Note 1 ) Hitler responded in a letter...