“Elisabeth’s manly courage”: Testimonials and Songs of Martyred Anabaptist Women in the Low Countries (Anabaptist and Mennonite Studies (New Series))

“Since Anabaptists judged the preservation of martyrs’ examples of particular importance and since a relatively high proportion of women appear in the martyrological collections, documents from the Anabaptist tradition are a rich source for understanding gender norms in the past.” –Marybeth Carlson in the Sixteenth Century Journal Among the most moving writings of the Reformation in the sixteenth-century Low Countries are the final words of Anabaptists condemned to death for their faith. Through a series of circumstances we have a significant body of such writings by women: Anabaptists were the most severely persecuted among Protestant groups, Anabaptist women made up a comparatively high proportion of those martyred, and Anabaptists attached great importance to preserving the memory of the martyred, regardless of gender, through the written word. As these women recount the details of arguments with their inquisitors, their feelings during turbulent months in prison, their love for their children, husbands, parents, and friends, their ecstasy at having been found worthy to die for their faith, one cannot help but be moved, and impressed, by their voices and their experiences. Their writings reveal them to be articulate and courageous individuals who show not only a form of “manly courage” but the kind of personal courage which is rooted in a self-assurance uncommon for women of the time, one based on taking personal responsibility for the most important matter in their lives, their own salvation. Archival documents are included in the Dutch original with an English translation on the facing page. There are also texts and music for martyr songs, highlighting the well-known and central role of song in preserving memory of martyrs in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. This edition is a reprint of the original 2001 text published with Marquette University Press. The present Pandora Press edition of 2024 includes a new preface by historian Christina Moss, providing an essential addition to the Anabaptist and Mennonite Studies (New Series), edited by Maxwell Kennel.