Profiles of Anabaptist Women: Sixteenth-Century Reforming Pioneers

The South German/Austrian Anabaptist Context

62 Profiles of Anabaptist Women assumption of responsibility for the family's business set Leupold free to do his work as an elder. All the evidence indicates that she was his faithful co­ worker throughout their life together. Leupold died in the spring of 1563. By this time Anna was well over seventy years of age and no longer in good health. In the two remaining years before her own death, she twice wrote to Ursula to come to Ilanz to look after her until her death. But sometime during those two years Ursula herself died; Anna never saw her daughter again. She died alone, with no family near her, early in 1565. The momentum of Anna's business energy and ability seemed to carry on beyond her death. A local man went to court to get the Scharnschlager inheritance for his wife who, he claimed, was Anna's cousin. He turned out to be an imposter.24 At considerable expense, local officials in Ilanz located the remaining members of the family, Anna's two grandsons, in Moravia. They eventually inherited what Anna had so carefully protected.25 Although there is not a single trace of evidence regarding Anna's own faith, we do know that she was a woman who made decisions about the direction of her life. The story strongly supports the view that by her own decision she took upon herself the tribulation of Christ that was the lot of those who, in the sixteenth century, dissented from the official religious orthodoxies. Notes 1 Anna's story could well be included alongside those of other Tirolean Anabaptist women. We have chosen to include her story with those of Swiss Anabaptist women because she spent the final twenty years of her life living in Ilanz, Switzerland. 2 QGTS, vol. 2, p. 528. 3 This is evident from a letter she wrote to her brother. QGTS, vol. 2, pp. 511­13. 4 Ibid., p. 520. 5 Ibid., p. 511. 6 Ibid. 7 TA, Ost. E, p. 461. 8 QGTS, vol. 2, p. 523. 9 Ibid., pp. 518­20. 10 TA, Elsass, II, p. 343. 11 TA, Ost.H, p. 461. 12 QGTS, vol. 2, p. 512, especially note 11. 13 Ibid., p. 511 .note 6. 14 See TA, Elsass II, pp. 346­53 for the text of this important statement. An English translation is found in William Klassen, "Leupold Scharnschlager's Farewell to the Strasbourg Council," MQR 42 (1968): 213­18. 15 QGTS, vol. 2, pp. 511­13. 16 Ibid., pp. 513­14. 17 Ibid., p. 523. Anna Scharnschlager of Hopfgarten, Tirol 63 18 Ibid., p. 541. 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid., pp. 518­21. 21 Ibid., pp. 521­23. 22 Ibid., p. 528. 23 For an English translation see Donald F. Durnbaugh, ed., Every Need Supplied (Philadephia: Temple University Press, 1974), 48­52. 24 Ibid., pp. 530­32. 25 Ibid., pp. 532­41. MARGARET HELLWART OF BEUTELSBACH Margaret Hellwart was born about 1568 and lived a few kilometres east of Stuttgart, in the village of Beutelsbach, one of a number of villages whose administrative centre was Schorndorf. Her husband was Georg Hellwart. He was not an Anabaptist, but seems to have supported his wife. There is no record of children. Margaret's story begins for us in the spring of 1608, when she was forty years old. The first entry about her, which appears in a report made by the Lutheran General Superintendent to the Synod, reveals that previously she had been warned numerous times to attend church and the Lord's Supper at the parish church, but that the warning was unsuccessful.1 Anabaptists had been in Beutelsbach and area in considerable numbers since at least 1555. In the 1560s the group in Beutelsbach was large enough to have its own leader [Vorsteher].2 People were normally identified as Anabaptists if they did not attend Sunday worship or the Lord's Supper at the Lutheran village church. The Anabaptists repeatedly said over the years that there was no church discipline amongst the Lutherans, and that they could not take the bread and wine with unregenerate people. Some would, under pressure, attend the regular preaching services, but drew the line at the Lord's Supper. Anabaptists met for worship wherever they could. A wood near Esslingen, not far from Beutelsbach, was a common meeting place in 1602.3 Sometime before 1575 Swiss Brethren missionaries passed through, and...