Friedrich Brecklings “Wahrheitszeugen”

Guido Naschert
Friedrich Brecklings “Wahrheitszeugen”
A Handbook on Religious Nonconformism around 1700
(series: Gothaer Forschungen zur Frühen Neuzeit, Vol. 23)
Franz Steiner publishing house, 2024
ISBN: 978-3-515-13215-2
320 pages
64 EUR

This handbook on the "truth witnesses" of the mystical spiritualist and Lutheran Friedrich Breckling (1629–1711) makes his "invisible church" of religious dissenters and outsiders tangible by name for the first time. The book is intended as an aid to understanding the Europe-wide networks of religious non-conformism. Breckling compiled the papers in it, which are now kept in the Gotha Research Library, in the 1690s during his exile in The Hague: It is a topographical catalogue of more than 1,078 "truth witnesses". It is supplemented by an encyclopaedia of persons. In addition, Breckling's literary-historical bibliography "Bibliotheca Bibliothekarum" will be made accessible for the first time. It comprises around 2,000 entries and bears witness to the book erudition of a dissident who saw himself as a "librarian of God". An introductory analysis, maps and an index of the estate round off the volume, which was produced at the Gotha Research Centre.

You can also read the article by Dr Daniel Gehrt on the Gotha Research Library blog (in German only).