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Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 20
Yuletide signups so far:
3 requests for Frederician RPF, 2 offers
2 requests for Circle of Voltaire RPF, 3 offers !! :D :D
(I am so curious as to who the third person is!)
3 requests for Frederician RPF, 2 offers
2 requests for Circle of Voltaire RPF, 3 offers !! :D :D
(I am so curious as to who the third person is!)
Fredersdorf: The Dirk Fahlenkamp Version (I) - Generalities
Speaking of the bibliography, I'm grateful there is one at the end, because Fahlenkamp doesn't use footnotes. This is a problem regarding one particular point, to which I'll get soon; anyway, the bibliography means I can at least make two guesses as to where he might have the intel from. But first time more overall observations: one of the attractions of the book is that he was also able to look up and scan some of the original letters, including our very favourite one about telling Frederdorf to be at the window so Fritz can see him when riding out but not to open it and have a fire burning (April 1754), and my sneaky second fave, Fritz kidding Fredersdorf about only drinking the elixir he sends him and nothing else or he will lose "the male power of love" for life. Other illustrations include photos of Zernikow and the mulberry trees (mine are just as good), of the landscape of Gratz, Fredersdorf's home town in Pomerania, of the registry listing Fredersdorf's baptism (as with Shakespeare and many other non-nobles, we don't actually know Fredersdorf's exact birthday; we do know on which day he was baptized, because that's the kind of information which was registered, and the relevant church archive survived), and of the golden snuff box with the bullet in it that saved Fritz' life in the 7 Years War. Fahlenkamp also provides information for just about everyone ever mentioned in the letters, and going by the bibliography, I can see that he used the same "Fritz and music" books I had read for the musicians, for example.
On the downside: given just how much we've ready by now, there is very little information here I hadn't seen before. For example, Fahlenkamp duly provides both versions of the Fritz/Fredersdorf origin story, i.e. either Fredersdorf was summoned to Küstrin to cheer up the Prince, or Fritz spotted him in Frankfurt an der Oder during the concert the students had prepared for him as a christmas gift, and while hinting the first one is his personal favourite doesn't pretend one is better sourced than the other. OTOH, he's an unquestioning believer in the authenticity of Catt. (At which point I feel like exclaiming "Koser, thou hast lived in vain! Am I the only one who ever reads the goddam preface?!?) There is some new stuff, including the frustratingly not annotated whomper I mentioned. And I was reminded of things I had read in Richter's edition but either not registered or forgotten. when reading the Richter edition. Plus, of course, Fahlenkamp isn't a nationalistic homophobe writing in 1726 insisting on Fritz' fatherly love for Fredersdorf, Wilhelmine being a hysterical woman, and the German national destiny.
Now, here are the new-to-me or brought-back-to-my-memory items:
- when Fredersdorf was born, Gartz actually was still a part of Sweden; Fredersdorf became a Prussian subject only at age 12, courtesy of FW having taken part in the Great Northern War which Sweden lost (which meant they had to hand over Southern Pomerania to Prussia); it's a river town, located at the Oder, with some very slight hills around
- Fredersdorf was the seventh and youngest child of town musician Joachim Fredersdorf and, so Fahlenkamp claims, "his wife Anna Christiane Fredersdorf born von Frederborn". I'm assuming this is from the baptism registry. Colour me confused, because no one, not even the early 19th century letters edition which makes Fredersdorf the son of a Frankfurt merchant, mentioned his mother having been nobilty; and it would be stunning messalliance for a noble lady to have married the town piper. I therefore tentatively suggest that "Frederborn" might be her place of origin, i.e. she's from F., not a "von F."; but it's just a theory
- Fahlenkamp has a transcription of the entire donation documement of Fritz giving Fredersdorf Zernikow, dated Charlottenburg, June 26th (
- the document says Zernikow was given "in recognition of the tireless, diligent, devoted and loyal service" which Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf has given so far and will give in the future; Fredersdorf later is referred to as "our dear faithful", and I also find it interesting that the linguistically, the document doesn't just specify Zernikow will also go to Fredersdorf's descendant or otherwise heirs and their heirs, but says it will remain "his or her true property"; this is important because women inheriting isn't a given in German lands at this time (MT: Don't I know it!), but the document specifically says female heirs are just as valid
- the letter excerpts remind me that Seckendorff's biographer might be an outlier in considering Old Dessauer as the most evil man of his time, but Fritz and Fredersdorf aren't fans, either, for this is how they talk about his death:
Fritz: Eichel will send you the letter back. Get me two Pour Le Merité crosses and mail them to me; Old Dessauer has kicked the bucket.Now take care of yourself, Gott bewahre Dir!
Fredersdorf: The Old Prince will enjoy meeting all the devils he's always sworn by; and other than Geheimrat Deutsch, no one will wish him a good journey.
Fritz uses the term "verreckt", which isn't just slang for dying, but contemptuous slang, so maybe "has bit the dust" would be a better translation, I keep wavering between the two and defer to you two as the native speakers. Geheimrat Deutsch was a veteran official in the army supply line, who Fahlenkamp guesses might now afraid for his job. -
- Alkmene's fur was black (yay! actual intel!)
- Carel the page, who gets mentioned repeatedly in several of the later letters, was Carl Friedrich von Pirch, born on October 12th 1739, who was hired in 1754 as the King's page for ten Taler monthly salary (at last a Fritizian page salary! I always wanted to know); he remained with Fritz into the 7 Years War but managed to mishandle a loaded gun which exploded (this actually happened a lot, believe it or not, I remember it from Füssel's 7 Years War book) and thus got himself killed in 1757
- Fahlenkamp tells the same anecdote about Fritz not using spurs on horses and why that Mildred told us eons ago
- (Gaetano Appolline Baldassare) Vestris, male star ballet dancer (lived from 1729 - 1808), who was one of the divas Fredersdorf had to negotiate for, had such a healthy ego that he said "there are only three great men in Europe: The King of Prussia, Voltaire and I"
- Fahlenkamp employs the art of the very selected quote when claiming that our Lehndorff "maliciously describes Fredersdorf as 'a common man from the most backward Pommarania without any education'"; if you'll recall, the complete sentence goes " It is not a little amazing that a common man from the most backward Pommarania without any education could acquire such decency, grace of conduct and quickness of mind" (for the entire Lehndorff on Fredersdorf passage, see October 25th 1757); Fahlenkamp also quotes Voltaire's "He has a chancellor who never talks" etc. up to "and all these positions are fulfillled by a single man named Fredersdorf, who is also valet, chamberlain and cabinet secretary", but attributes this passage not to Voltaire (who gets quoted by name in other parts of the book), but to "a French envoy"; I'm side eyeing you now, Fahlenkamp
Re: Fredersdorf: The Dirk Fahlenkamp Version (II) - Embezzlement Alert
On April 9th 1757, Fredersdorf gets dismissed from his office as Chamberlain for, as it is said, dishonesty together with the Kriegs and Domänenrat Johann Pfeiffer when buying Kiekemal near Mahlsdorf. Kiekemal was then an empty dispopulated era in the south east of Berlin. The King had provided money for the resettling of this era, which however ended up being pilfered by the director of the Ressettling Commmission of the Kürmärkische Kammer, Johann Friedrich Pfeiffer (1717 - 1787) into his own pockets, under the cooperation of Frederdorf. That his closest confidant Fredersdorf took part in this must have been a heavy blow to Friedrich. The whole thing - an affair that dragged on for years - was discovered when several of the colonists complained, who had been lured from Würtemburg to Brandenburg with the promise of land and no taxes and had ended up being stuck in miserable huts for which they had to pay rent.
Okay. This is pretty detailed. (It's also the only time Fahlenkamp mentions this, on page 27 when giving an overview of Fredersdorf's life.) So you can imagine my frustration about the lack of a footnote telling me what Fahlenkamp's source might have bene. The bibliography gives me only two books that could be the source, neither of which I had read: a) Carlyle's magnum opus about Fritz, or b), more likely: Alfred Weise: König und Kämmerer - Eine Freundschaft. Berlin 1944. (The date makes me queasy, for obvious reasons, but I suppose I'll have to look for this one now.) So does this mean Fredersdorf is guilty of corruption after all? Not so fast. I googled Johann Friedrich Pfeiffer, and came up with not one but three articles about his life (among so many other things, he'd been responsible for founding of 105 villages is part of the Prussian settlement program until 1750 - , none of which mention Fredersdorf, but all of which mention he actually won his trial which was decided in his favour. Despite being exonorated, he left Prussia afterwards. Now this could just mean he could have bribed the judge, except that the entire rest of Pfeiffer's life makes him sound not just like a straight arrow but a progressive one. To quote one of the shorter summaries of his life:
Johann Friedrich von Pfeiffer was born in Berlin as the son of a royal councilor. He was equally successful as a practitioner of regional development and as a theoretician of absolutist economics. In Prussian service until 1750 he established 105 villages as part of the Frederician settlement policy in the Mark Brandenburg. In 1750 he left Prussia after the unjustified accusation of embezzlement, went to Silesia, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg, Saxony, Austria, Bavaria, Switzerland and several smaller German states. From 1769 he worked in Hohenlohe, from 1778 to 1781 in Hanau on the improvement of agriculture and manufacturing.
He wrote numerous works on a wide range of subjects, such as forestry and finance, silkworm breeding, coking coal and means to improve the happiness of Germany. From 1781 to 1784 his six-volume work was published, corrections to famous state, financial, police, cameral, commercial and economic writings of this century.
In 1782 he was appointed professor for the newly established subject of cameralistics as part of the reform of the University of Mainz. It provided for a four-year course of study that covered subjects such as national history, natural law, applied mathematics, law, statistics, chemistry, agriculture and forestry, finance, trade and accounting. The goal was not just to strengthen state power through improved economic power. He wanted to combine the advocacy of the legal principle and an international policy that was ready to be understood with the outlawing of offensive wars.
Speaking of the outlawing of offensive wars, here, from another article, is Pfeiffer on this subject in one of his works, addressing Certain Princes:
"The voice of humanity can sometimes be heard under the roar of thundering cannons and calls out to even the most stubborn conquerors: Your enemies are people like you; if you you may have been entitled to humiliate them, but it would be unjust to exterminate them."
From yet another article on Pfeiffer.
P.s treat works according to the model of → Joh. Heinr. Gottlob Justi (1720–71) the entire canon of camera sciences, which he divided into state government, police science, political economy and finance. At the center of his state theory, which is based on natural law, is the idea of freedom determined by political and civil liberties, popular sovereignty and the right to resistance. P.'s goal was to overcome Germany's economic and political weakness. To this end, he developed a bundle of liberal economic and social reform proposals, which often anticipated the measures implemented after the turn of the century. P. pleaded for a consolidation of the empire with secularization of the clerical principalities and mediation of smaller imperial estates. A nationally united empire with a federal structure divided into powers is emerging as an ideal. In terms of constitutional theory, P. propagated a constitutional monarchy with a unicameral system and a broad voter base. Due to the systematic nature of his considerations, P. is to be regarded as an early representative of a national liberal program.
This does not sound like a corrupt embezzler to me. It does, however, sound like a guy who might have been very unpopular in a work written and published in 1944, when historical liberals like Rudorf Virchow were vilified in the rewritten German history. Be that as it may, it also sounds like a guy who on the one hand has all the qualifications you want for someone in charge of your agricultural program, but also like someone predestined to but heads with Fritz once he realises that the "enlightened monarch" self definition only goes so far and not further. Without having further information, and, to repeat an old point, keeping in mind Lehndorff has heard nothing of this in connection to why Fredersdorf when he visits him in October 1757 is out of office (but sees as the two reasons Fredersdorf's ill health and Glasow), keeping further in mind yet another contemporary source when reporting the Glasow scandal also reports the rumor that he resonsible for Fredersdorf being out of office), and keeping in mind that Pfeiffer's law case wasn't a secret but a public one, I'm just left with more questions:
- why does Fahlenkamp not mention that Pfeiffer was in fact exonorated from the embezzlement charge (possible answer: because Fahlenkamp's source was the Third Reich era book which does not mention this; if otoh Fahlenkamp has the story from Carlyle, I'm lost as to why Carlyle or Pfeiffer don't mention it, either)
- why do contemporaries Lehndorff and Henckel von Donnersmarck did catch the Glasow story as a possible explanation of Fredersdorf's downfalll, but entirely missed out on Fredersdorf being charged as Pfeiffer's accomplice in a lawcase that went on for years? (Possible answer: because the "Fritz' new chamber hussar found out poisoner! Might have also toppled Fredersdorf! is more sensational than an embezzlement law case; however, Lehndorff later does report in detail on the whole Miller Arnold lawcase in which Fritz got involved, and he notes down all about Reisewitz embezzling, so it's not like he's not interested in civil law cases if there's a connection to high places) (Other possible answer: Because there is no contemporary account connecting Fredersdorf with Pfeiffer as fellow embezzling culprits; this was a detail that entered the saga much, much later)
- advocatus diaboli: what if the way Pfeiffer was exonorated at the end of his trial was by discovering Fredersdorf was the real culprit? But this just begs again the question of why do none of the articles I found on Pfeiffer, all of whom appear to be certain of his innocence, mention the Fredersdorf connection; also, if that's the case, one would expect Fahlenkamp to have phrased his description differently, because he certainly makes it sound as if Pfeiffer was guilty as hell and also the main embezzler
Oh, and what Fahlenkamp doesn't say is what the wiki Fredersdorf article says, of Fredersdorf dying broken hearted over his dishonor. So we're still left without a source as to where wiki got that one from. As I said, for now I'm going with either Carlyle or Weise, and am steeling myself for the prospect of having to read another Nazi era history to find out. But not now. Because I also got a copy of Boswell's German and Swiss Travel journals from the Stabi, and it's absolutely golden in all it provides (among other things, James Boswell in 1764 already hearing the story that Fritz had lots of sex with whores as a young man and is currently impotent as a result, and also, Boswell BEFORE his meeting with Voltaire hearing the "why must he always send me his dirty laundry?" tale, again in 1764, which means along with MT s letter to Joseph we have two non-Voltaire contemporary sources proving that story was making the rounds long before Voltaire's memoirs (or his rewritten letters) were published (and it wasn't in his anonymous trashy pamphlets from the 1750s)
In conclusion: footnotes referencing sources are your friends, history writers. We're as addicted to all the tabloid melodrama as any, but we really want to know where it comes from.
Re: Fredersdorf: The Dirk Fahlenkamp Version (II) - Embezzlement Alert
Not in Carlyle according to my search function. Which leaves,
Alfred Weise: König und Kämmerer - Eine Freundschaft. Berlin 1944. (The date makes me queasy, for obvious reasons, but I suppose I'll have to look for this one now.)
I'm sorry. Thank you for taking one for the team (again).
This does not sound like a corrupt embezzler to me. It does, however, sound like a guy who might have been very unpopular in a work written and published in 1944, when historical liberals like Rudorf Virchow were vilified in the rewritten German history.
Ahh, yes, that would make sense.
I second all your questions, and look forward to seeing what you find!
Because I also got a copy of Boswell's German and Swiss Travel journals from the Stabi, and it's absolutely golden in all it provides (among other things, James Boswell in 1764 already hearing the story that Fritz had lots of sex with whores as a young man and is currently impotent as a result, and also, Boswell BEFORE his meeting with Voltaire hearing the "why must he always send me his dirty laundry?" tale, again in 1764
Oh, nice. You + Boswell = gold!
In conclusion: footnotes referencing sources are your friends, history writers. We're as addicted to all the tabloid melodrama as any, but we really want to know where it comes from.
Alas, some people are gossipy sensationalists with scholarly instincts, while others are just gossipy sensationalists.
Re: Fredersdorf: The Dirk Fahlenkamp Version (II) - Embezzlement Alert
My brain: Fredersdorf = NOT GUILTY KTHX
I am still stanning for Fredersdorf's innocence (and Fritz not accusing him of anything) until we get, like, incontrovertible evidence that is stronger than Lehndorff not hearing anything about it :P
Anyway in conclusion, yay Boswell :DD
Re: Fredersdorf: The Dirk Fahlenkamp Version (I) - Generalities
If you need to look up any threatment method our heroes might have used, or did use, this is your book to consult.
And when might I want to do that? For fic.
Duly noted. ;)
he was also able to look up and scan some of the original letters, including our very favourite one about telling Frederdorf to be at the window so Fritz can see him when riding out but not to open it and have a fire burning (April 1754),
Which tells us that these letters survived the Worst Fanboys!
Other illustrations include photos of Zernikow and the mulberry trees (mine are just as good)
No doubt!
the golden snuff box with the bullet in it that saved Fritz' life in the 7 Years War
Where is this object to be found today?
given just how much we've ready by now, there is very little information here I hadn't seen before.
*nods* This is what I was expecting.
OTOH, he's an unquestioning believer in the authenticity of Catt. (At which point I feel like exclaiming "Koser, thou hast lived in vain!
LOL
Am I the only one who ever reads the goddam preface?!?
Probably? I mean, it's more rare for me to skip a preface than to read it. Which is why I'm grateful without end that you are our Vorleser!
Plus, of course, Fahlenkamp isn't a nationalistic homophobe writing in 1726 insisting on Fritz' fatherly love for Fredersdorf, Wilhelmine being a hysterical woman, and the German national destiny.
:D Where does he stand on shipping them?
when Fredersdorf was born, Gartz actually was still a part of Sweden; Fredersdorf became a Prussian subject only at age 12
Oh DUH. My brain. See, if you ask me when Fredersdorf was born, I tell you 1708. If you ask me where, I tell you Pomerania (which I remember because of Lehndorff). If you ask me when (parts of) Pomerania became Prussian, I will say 1720 and tell you about the Siege of Stralsund and such. And yet if you'd asked me when Frederersdorf became Prussian, my reply would have been, "He was born Prussian??"
So yes, good thing you read this!
Fredersdorf was the seventh and youngest child
Ooh, good to know!
dated Charlottenburg, June 26th
I have updated the chronology accordingly, thank you.
cahn, FW died on May 30th, so that really was barely a month later
The chronology tells me he was buried June 22!
but Fritz and Fredersdorf aren't fans, either
Yeah, neither is Wilhelmine!
- Alkmene's fur was black (yay! actual intel!)
Yay! Is that from the letters?
Carel the page, who gets mentioned repeatedly in several of the later letters, was Carl Friedrich von Pirch, born on October 12th 1739
If auction sites are to be trusted, here is a picture of him, his father, and two of his brothers.
ten Taler monthly salary (at last a Fritizian page salary! I always wanted to know)
Yay!
managed to mishandle a loaded gun which exploded (this actually happened a lot, believe it or not, I remember it from Füssel's 7 Years War book)
Oh, yeah, Duffy talks about this too! He points out that it makes sense: no matter how much you drill in peacetime, you're under tremendous stress when the bullets are flying around you, and you're very likely to make mistakes. And if you're relying on muscle memory, and miss a step, you might very well reload an already loaded gun, not realizing that you haven't fired, or that the last attempt to fire was unsuccessful and the gun is still loaded, and then, boom!
It was also common for soldiers in the front lines to be taken down by misfires from behind.
Also, as the battle went on and the gun barrel accumulated with powder remnants from the previous rounds, the guns became more difficult to manage and more prone to misfires.
A battle was not a fun place, is what I'm saying!
- (Gaetano Appolline Baldassare) Vestris, male star ballet dancer (lived from 1729 - 1808), who was one of the divas Fredersdorf had to negotiate for, had such a healthy ego that he said "there are only three great men in Europe: The King of Prussia, Voltaire and I"
There's a reason why, until last year, the only thing I remembered about the Fritz/Voltaire fallout from 20 years ago was a biographer's description of it as inevitable because "two prima donnas can't share the same stage."
- Fahlenkamp tells the same anecdote about Fritz not using spurs on horses and why that Mildred told us eons ago
Reminder for
Fahlenkamp employs the art of the very selected quote when claiming that our Lehndorff "maliciously describes Fredersdorf as 'a common man from the most backward Pommarania without any education'";
OMG, I *hate* when authors do that! I feel personally insulted, like, do you really think none of your readers consult primary sources?
but attributes this passage not to Voltaire (who gets quoted by name in other parts of the book), but to "a French envoy";
In his (partial) defense, I usually see this attributed to "a French visitor" or "a contemporary, probably Voltaire," or the like, because it's the anonymous pamphlet that we think but don't *know* is Voltaire.
But "envoy"! Voltaire would have liked to have been French envoy to Prussia, but both the French and Fritz were smarter than that.
I'm side-eyeing too.
Re: Fredersdorf: The Dirk Fahlenkamp Version (I) - Generalities
Well, the entire book is about their relationship, unlike Richter, he doesn't think Fredersdorf himself is of no interest, though he agrees with him and other letter readers that these letters allow a pretty unique look into Fritz because they were so emphatically not written for publication or to be read by anyone other than the recipient.
The word "homoerotic relationship" is never spoken, though Fahlenkamp says that Fredersdorf's good looks were "probably" one of several reasons why he attracted Fritz' attention, and points out that Mrs. Fredersdorf is only mentioned once, in the "nurse" letter, and that then Fritz continued to write to Fredersdorf as if she didn't exist. I.e. he implies, but doesn't say directly.
There's a reason why, until last year, the only thing I remembered about the Fritz/Voltaire fallout from 20 years ago was a biographer's description of it as inevitable because "two prima donnas can't share the same stage."
Andrew Mitchell: I put it far more elegantly when talking about Fritz and Heinrich by saying "two suns cannot share the same firmament".
George Lucas: That's what YOU think.
Re: Fredersdorf: The Dirk Fahlenkamp Version (I) - Generalities
Andrew Mitchell: I put it far more elegantly when talking about Fritz and Heinrich by saying "two suns cannot share the same firmament".
LOL! IDK, Mitchell, you know I love you but I'm not sure elegant is what is the most accurate here...
George Lucas: That's what YOU think.
Hee!
Re: Fredersdorf: The Dirk Fahlenkamp Version (I) - Generalities
Haha, well, elegance aside, it's missing the point that the reason I invoked the (paraphrased from memory) quote that I did was because our ballet dancer shows why "prima donna" was a natural metaphor, whereas "suns in the same firmament", however well phrased, is irrelevant to the Baldassare quote.
Re: Fredersdorf: The Dirk Fahlenkamp Version (I) - Generalities
LOL, ...maybe you are? (I like reading prefaces myself -- which reminds me, mildred got me to skip the Lehndorff one, but maybe if I get ahead of her I can go back and read it!)
Fredersdorf was the seventh and youngest child of town musician Joachim Fredersdorf
OOH. This is actually very cool to me, because I was wondering how he got to be so very good with people as you'd have to be to deal with Fritz, but yeah, being the youngest of seven would -- well, obviously having a bunch of older siblings is not a sufficient condition (Heinrich, for instance, having a much different personality :P ) but in my observation of large families it often seems to help a lot. (Though I headcanoned him as an older child in his family, for no real reason, so gonna have to undo that headcanon.)
the document doesn't just specify Zernikow will also go to Fredersdorf's descendant or otherwise heirs and their heirs, but says it will remain "his or her true property"; this is important because women inheriting isn't a given in German lands at this time (MT: Don't I know it!), but the document specifically says female heirs are just as valid
Oh wow, that is really cool. It does seem to suggest Fredersdorf insisted on it (I can't imagine Fritz would have).
Fritz uses the term "verreckt", which isn't just slang for dying, but contemptuous slang, so maybe "has bit the dust" would be a better translation
Yeah, "bit the dust" I think has a little more of that connotation (not a whole lot, but more than "kicked the bucket").
Fahlenkamp employs the art of the very selected quote when claiming that our Lehndorff "maliciously describes Fredersdorf as 'a common man from the most backward Pommarania without any education'"
Fahlenkamp don't DO that! Maligning both Fredersdorf and our man Lehndorff >:(
Re: Fredersdorf: The Dirk Fahlenkamp Version (I) - Generalities
There are, in fact, two prefaces in that edition. One is the original one by Schmidt-Lötzen from 1907, and the other is actually an article a female historian wrote about tracking down the surviving Lehndorff diaries in the Leipzig archive when she was trying to verify a quote about EC, who was her main subject.
I was wondering how he got to be so very good with people as you'd have to be to deal with Fritz, but yeah, being the youngest of seven would -- well, obviously having a bunch of older siblings is not a sufficient condition (Heinrich, for instance, having a much different personality :P
Heinrich and Amalie both - of the three youngest Hohenzollern (Amalie, Heinrich, Ferdinand, in that order born), only Ferdinand seems to have had a conflict-averse nature. However, these were siblings living under very different circumstances than Fredersdorf and his siblings would have. For starters, they only had to share the bedroom with one other sibling, not five. And had servants paying attention that they would be scrubbed and well dressed (and saying their prayers, with FW as a father).
Fahlenkamp don't DO that! Maligning both Fredersdorf and our man Lehndorff >:(
I know! I kept muttering "UNFAIR!" while reading this.
Re: Fredersdorf: The Dirk Fahlenkamp Version (I) - Generalities
I noticed the two prefaces and the introduction, which is why I skipped to the main text. I do intend to go back and read them! But I have to *work* for every line of German I read, there's 15 pages' worth, and I was just more excited about the entries themselves. So I skipped ahead.
But you and Koser have taught me the error of my ways, and I am making an effort to be better about reading introductory material these days! ;)
Re: Fredersdorf: The Dirk Fahlenkamp Version (I) - Generalities
Re: Fredersdorf: The Dirk Fahlenkamp Version (I) - Generalities
Can you double-check whether the text says "Frederborn" or "Flederborn"? Because that could be either a typo on your part (caused by obvious reasons!), or a misreading or miswriting of the registry, because Flederborn was the old German name for a village in Pomerania.
I was also wondering if poor people even necessarily *had* last names in Poland at this date, and Wikipedia says:
Gradually the use of family names spread to other social groups: the townsfolk (burghers) by the end of the 17th century, then the peasantry, and finally the Jews.[citation needed] The process ended only in the mid-19th century.
So in eastern Pomerania, near the Polish border, in a multi-ethnic area...maybe the toponym was all she had?
Also, remember when some random Saxon lady liked Fredersdorf and left him her estate? The book that tells me about that, Herrenhaus und Hütten, tells me Fredersdorf left it to 7 heirs, his siblings and their descendants. Which gives me the names and dates of some of them, plus an excerpt from his 1755 will.
Sources, what sources? The book, btw, should be side-eyed heavily, as it subscribes to beliefs like "Fredersdorf got permission to marry by pretending to be dying." Anyway, this is what the book says the will says:
- Anna Christiane, widowed Wagner, his youngest, still living sister, born in 1704.
- Three children of his late oldest sister, Sophia Elisabeth Leuenberg, (1695-1746).
- The two sons of his youngest brother, Johann Christian (1700-1740).
- Maria Elisabeth Höpffner, born in 1732, daughter of his oldest, already dead brother, the town musician Joachim Martin, born 1697.
So that gives us 4 of the 6 siblings. The other two may not have lived long enough to have had children. 5 out of 7 would be a pretty good survival rate!
Also, one of the nephews, born 1727, is listed as König-Preußischer Hofrat, which would imply that maybe Fredersdorf's family got some favor too, but I'm taking that cautiously, because the only other source I can find for his name and that title is a book called "Barberina: Fritz's mistress," which has this nephew as the treasurer in charge of paying for dancers...in 1745. When he would be 18, and when that was totally Michael Gabriel Fredersdorf's position. So...grain of salt.
Re: Fredersdorf: The Dirk Fahlenkamp Version (I) - Generalities
Heh, not least because Fredersdorf's youngest sister is called "Anna Christiane" here (which is apparently his mother's name), "Anna Cath." in the literal quote from his will (unsourced as you note, why doesn't she say where she got that from?), and "Anna Christina" a couple pages down, which might be closest, because there's a facsimile signature attached that seems to say just that. But hey, the author also calls Fredersdorf's noble benefactress "Susanna" and "Susanne" in turns, so who cares about names?
(She also links the nephew to some letters in the secret state archive, but searching their digital data bank for "Fredersdorf", I only turned up entries for our guy.)
That said, even if the names and maybe even the dates are to be taken with a heavy grain of salt, if at least the gist of the will is correct, it seems like all but the youngest of his siblings are dead by 1755, so he doesn't seem to be an outlier when it comes to his dying age.
Re: Fredersdorf: The Dirk Fahlenkamp Version (I) - Generalities
To play devil's advocate, Christiane/Christina and Susanne/Susanne are the kind of name interchange that happened among contemporaries (they *didn't* care about names the same way we do), so they're often represented differently in our sources, and it's possible Anna had three names (swapping the order of names was common as well), but definitely this author doesn't inspire confidence that they're not just being sloppy with their source material.
Also. If you're going to quote verbatim from Fredersdorf's will, CITATIONS OMG. *headdesk*
if at least the gist of the will is correct, it seems like all but the youngest of his siblings are dead by 1755, so he doesn't seem to be an outlier when it comes to his dying age.
I did notice that!
Re: Fredersdorf: The Dirk Fahlenkamp Version (I) - Generalities
I checked: "Fredeborn", in fact, so the typo is likely to be Fahlenkamp's, for I agree, "Flederborn" would make much more sense!
Also, you are die einzige Detektivin again, what with finding out the (likely) names of Fredersdorf's siblings. The oldest brother being named after Fredersdorf Snr. and following him as town musician makes sense, too.
Re: Fredersdorf: The Dirk Fahlenkamp Version (I) - Generalities