Hutterite Beginnings: Communitarian Experiments during the Reformation

by Professor Werner O. Packull

"The publication of this volume is cause for celebration! The years of painstaking research in untold towns, cities, and libraries in Europe, as well as in North America, the empathy the author brought to the subject... the skill evident in translating, especially technical terms, and the firm grasp of both minute details and their implications, as well as the overall story, have raised the level of historical scholarship to a new high."--Cornelius J. Dyck, Church History The oldest and largest communal society in North America, the Hutterites--Anabaptists of German origin, like the Amish, Mennonites, and Brethren--have long been the subject of scholarly study and popular curiosity. Werner Packull tells the comprehensive story of the Hutterite beginnings in their original homelands--particularly in Tyrol and Moravia--and discovers important relationships among early Anabaptist sects. "Extensive quotations from the Hutterite Chronicle, the prison letters, and other witness accounts give immediacy to Packull's narrative and provide English readers with a window on primary sources that remain largely untranslated... With its wealth of evocative source material, it is a highly readable account that will appeal not only to specialists but also to undergraduates and general readers."--Erika Rummel, American Historical Review "Packull is to be lauded for doing the research so thoroughly and presenting the results so lucidly. His is a meticulous and masterful piece of scholarship in a neglected area of ecclesiastical history."--Bibliotheque d'Humanisme et Renaissance "An indispensable tool and resources for all who describe and interpret these traditions from religious and social perspectives."--Walter Klaassen, Conrad Grebel Review "This remarkable history of early Swiss and Upper German Anabaptism sets a new norm for scholarship, combining as it does for the first time in such depth the methodologies of social history and the history of ideas. Werner O. Packull seems to have left no stone unturned."--Leonard Gross, Mennonite Quarterly Review

488 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1996

Reviews

[Michael Atnip · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent overview of early Hutterite history. Well researched and written. Probably the best book available for a thorough overview of Hutterite beginnings.

[Rob · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite a thorough account of the formation of the proto-Hutterite communities - from Zwingli, to the early Anabaptist communities in the Tyrol and Moravia, to the persecutions meted out by Ferdinand I and the emergence of the Hutterites as a distinctive group in the 1530s. It was not exactly a page-turner, however, and took more than a little perseverance to slog my way through, but I managed to do it.