Grounded Upon God's Word: Cross Bearers Series, #3

CHAPTER 1

Wartime Babies

Let your mind wander back to the 1640s. Perhaps you excelled in history class at school and can remember some exciting historical event from that decade. What do you remember about the 1640s?

If you remember anything, you likely remember wars in 17th-century Europe—religious wars! On the continent, the Thirty Years’ War is ending. Of course, nobody really knew that the long series of wars between the Catholics and the Protestants¹ were finally concluding; we only know that fact by looking back at the events. Europe is tired of war, or at least should be. Portions of Germany have lost the majority of their inhabitants, with half of the males now dead. The average drop in population for the German states is 25-40%.

In England, a middle-aged man is going through a bout of depression and finally has a religious experience. He becomes stoutly Puritan and sees England as full of sin and in serious need of spiritual reform: All residues of Roman Catholicism must be purged! Oliver Cromwell will eventually rise to the highest levels of politics, dragging his bloody sword through the land right alongside his Bible. He is one of the 59 men to sign his name to the death sentence of King Charles I—using the latter part of Numbers 35:33 as a rationale.² But after he dies and Charles II takes the throne, Cromwell’s body is dug up—on the twelfth anniversary of Charles I’s execution—and posthumously executed. The severed head is displayed outside of Westminster Abbey for the next 24 years. Oliver Cromwell’s name is enshrined in England to this day, right beside words like hero and liberator—as well as genocide and dictator.

But now we lift our eyes beyond the clang of sword and boom of gun to the quiet, upper³ valleys of the Swiss Canton of Bern. It is Monday, February 12, 1644. We can imagine a young married couple emerging from their home above the village of Erlenbach im Simmental⁴ with something—someone!—bundled tightly in a blanket. Two children toddle excitedly in their parents’ footsteps through the creaky-cold snow as they make the descent toward the village chapel, about half a mile below their large chalet.

The bundle contains their newest joy, whom they have named Jakob. By Canton law, they must baptize their new child within fourteen days of birth. Had they lived in the city, the same law specified eight days. Did they carry little Jakob to the Erlenbach chapel out of duty and fear of Canton law, or out of love for his soul? After all, if Jakob is not baptized, he cannot inherit property. Baptism and citizenship are closely interwoven in 17th-century Switzerland—in fact, inseparable. There are fines for disobeying the baptism law.

The Erlenbach Reformed chapel, where little Jakob Ammann was baptized as a baby in February 1644.

Or were Michel and Anna Ammann concerned for the spiritual benefits of baptism? According to the prevalent teaching of their day, little Jakob had inherited the guilt of Adam’s sin and needed to be washed from that guilt. To not baptize the child would be risking an eternity in hell if he died!

We will likely never know the parents’ motives, but we do know with certainty that on February 12, 1644, Jakob Ammann⁵was baptized in the Erlenbach Reformed Church.⁶ The chapel still stands, the Taufrodel (Baptismal Record) still exists, and little Yaggi⁷—the innocent little recipient of infant baptism that day— still exerts a positive influence on tens of thousands, over three and a half centuries later. Hundreds of thousands have been, and still are being, affected by his decisions. He, like Oliver Cromwell, had a vision for a purified church. But unlike Oliver, Jakob never tried to cleanse the church by political means and a bloody sword.

And yet, little Yaggi would gain a reputation as a troublemaker, a tyrant, a dictator, one who swiftly excommunicated those who hesitated to agree with him.

Jakob Ammann made some serious mistakes in his life. Who has not? But worse than that, those who opposed him wrote most of the history books for many generations. Jakob’s mistakes were held in the forefront again and again, until the mention of his name could only conjure negative stereotypes.

We will look at his life outside of the stereotypes. After all, Jakob acknowledged his mistakes. He confessed and apologized. He even placed himself in the Bann,⁸ asking his antagonists to receive him back.

The following chapters are the story of Jakob Ammann, de-stereotyped. However, we must first look at the historical forces that shaped Jakob and his contemporaries.

¹ The wars were not exactly drawn along Catholic/Protestant lines, nor were they entirely religious in character. However, religion was one of the major underlying sources of contention in the early stages of the conflict.

² . . .the land cannot be cleansed of the blood that is shed therein, but by the blood of him that shed it.

³ Upper, in this case, means south of the city of Bern. The Aar River begins high in the Alps and flows north.

⁴ The name is rather long, but we need to use the full name since there are several Erlenbachs in Switzerland. The im Simmental is German for in the Simme Valley. Simmental cattle got their name from the valley.

⁵ Other spellings encountered in the sources include Jacob Ammen, Jacob Amen, Jacques Aman, Jacob Aman, Jacqui Aman, Jacquy Aman, Jacquy Amand, Yacob Amen, Yacob Ami, Jacqui Amand, Jacob Ami, Jaggi Amman, and Yägi Amen. He usually signed his name iA and sometimes i.AMME. In this book we will consistently use the spelling seen here, except in quotes.

⁶ The date of his birth is unknown, but was most likely within two weeks preceding his baptism.

⁷ German J sounds like our English Y. Thus Jacob sounds like Yacob. The Swiss habitually added an i (li) to many names as an endearing diminutive. Thus Jacob became Yaggi, equivalent to our Jakie. Jacob Ammann is referred to as Yaggi in some historical documents.

⁸ The German spelling of a word that means, in its root sense, the same as our English word ban and refers to excommunication. We will meet this concept later in the story.

CHAPTER 2

Plague, War, and the Little Ice Age

We cannot comprehend Jakob Ammann entirely unless we place him in the greater context of European history. Can we understand 17th-century Europeans, for example, without considering the plague?

We modern North Americans have no idea whatsoever what life would look like if, on a routine basis, about 1/3 of our neighbors would suddenly die within a few days. Not just once, but every so many years, on an unpredictable basis, the plague raged through Europe. Some small villages were entirely depopulated, although most of them had some survivors. In 1612, the Canton of Zürich lost 1/3 of its population to the tiny bacteria that traveled in the fleas that hitchhiked on the backs of the common rat.

No one had any idea, though, at that time, who or what was responsible for the Black Death. When the plague would strike a town, many would flee. The more kind-hearted ones would help to bury the dead, sometimes paying the death penalty for their charity.

A small percentage who contracted the plague would survive. But the fear! Fear that we can only imagine today, sitting in our armchairs reading statistics like 1/3 of the population of Europe dying from the plague.

Then There was War

For Europe, the 1600s were all about war. One has to search very carefully to find a year in the seventeenth century in which no European kingdom was warring against another. In fact, some historians consider the seventeenth century to be one of history’s most combative eras.¹ First it was the Poles and Swedes (1600- 1629), then the English and the French (1627-1629), wars between The Three Kingdoms (British, Irish, and Scots) from 1639-1653, the rebellion of the Portuguese against Spanish oversight (1640- 1668), the Thirteen Years’ War between the Poles and Russians (1654-1667), then the Swedes and Poles again from 1655-1660, then the French and the Dutch (1672-1678), and finally the Nine Years’ War (1688-1697) between France and many of the other European nations. There were also numerous other minor conflicts and several wars with the Ottoman Turks.

From 1618 to 1648, the Thirty Years’ War devastated Europe, even as numerous smaller conflicts were being fought at the same time.

And the Big One

The previous paragraph left out the war that affected Europe the most: The Thirty Years’ War that stretched from 1618-1648. Just as modern North Americans have no idea what it was like to deal with the Black Plague that killed 1/3 of Europe, we have no idea what it was like to suffer from three decades of war that wiped away almost half the population. For thirty years, armies marched across Europe, doing what armies do, both to soldiers and civilians. The Thirty Years’ War was one of the most destructive armed conflicts Europe ever experienced. Although only eight million people are estimated to have died—compared to World War II’s 15-20 million² —the total percentage of population loss is quite distinct: About 40% of the European population died in the Thirty Years’ War, compared to about 10% in World War II.³ In some places in what is now Germany, the loss was about 75% of the population. On average, half the males in Europe died because of the Thirty Years’ War: some because of fighting, others because of starvation or disease spread by the marauding armies.

Jakob Ammann was born near the end of this conflict, and without a doubt it affected his way of life. Although Switzerland was spared from any direct conflict on its soils, many Swiss mercenaries were hired by various other kingdoms. This boosted the Swiss economy, since the money brought home by the mercenaries added to the local economy, and prices for agricultural commodities were up because of the conflict.

But the Thirty Years’ War touched Jakob even more directly. By the time the last army had trampled through Alsace and the Palatinate to the north, practically every vestige of civilization had been wiped away. If the inhabitants had not been killed, they had fled to the nooks and crannies in the woods. Buildings were burned and fields were growing up in brush. It has been said that one could walk for 20-30 miles and not see another human soul.

The lords of those lands were quite eager to find some settlers to make the lands productive once again, and Swiss Anabaptists were being forced into exile. That match was perfect. The hardworking, honest Anabaptists were even given a bit more freedom of religion, although open evangelism was still forbidden. The owners of the lands sometimes gave Anabaptists special deals because of their good work ethic. A few lords, being influenced by Pietism, were even sympathetic and turned a blind eye to the religious activities of their subjects.

In the aftermath of the Thirty Years’ War, the Swiss Brethren moved north into Alsace and the Palatinate.

Thus, while Jakob Ammann was still a lad, Anabaptists were beginning to trickle north out of Switzerland to the lands devastated by plague and war. Little did the lad realize he would someday follow and make his home in a small Alsatian valley.

Boom, then Bust

With every economic boom, a bust is bound to follow. So it was with the increase of money that circulated in the Swiss cantons during and immediately following the Thirty Years’ War. An increase in available money means inflation. Rising incomes often mean more loans, since humans are prone to spend more than they have when times are good. Thus the poor—spiritually poor—Swiss were sucked into a waiting trap.

When the German states began recovering from the war, they no longer needed to import agricultural goods. Prices for grain and other commodities fell. Meanwhile, the cities in the Swiss Confederation had spent lots of money building fortifications and trying to be prepared in case the conflict would come to their land. The result was a big debt load, which they tried to overcome by raising taxes. When the Swiss mercenaries came home after the war, income from outside the cantons dropped. The