They are the earliest known Treuthardts from Zweisimmen parish records.
Husband: Hr. Kirchmeyer Bartolome Treuthardt
Wife: Katharina Tritten
These were Friedrich's great-grandparents.
They are my great-great-great-great-grandparents.
Bartolome and Katharina lived at Zweisimmen.
Bartolome was the Kirchmeyer (Küster or Verwalter) at Zweismmen.
A Kirchmeyer (Küster or Verwalter) is what in English would be called "verger" or "sexton."
He was a worker, administrator, trustee or custodian of the church at Zweisimmen. Depending on the size and complexity of the church, he may have been the lowliest of custodial workers, or he may have supervised workers who, when called upon, performed many of the duties for pay (small).
The definition of "verger," a word used chiefly in the Church of England, is "a church official who acts as caretaker and attendant, looking after the interior of a church and often the vestments and church furnishings."
The definition of "sexton" is "a person employed to act as caretaker of a church and its contents and graveyard, and often also as bell-ringer, gravedigger, etc."
A sexton was responsible for the graveyard. He dug or oversaw the digging of the graves and burial of the bodies in the church graveyard. He maintained the gravestones, the grass and vegetation, fences, etc., either personally or with help from others. If animals were involved (e.g. sheep, goats or cows to graze the grass), he would have managed (or borrowed) them too.
He took care of the church building and, either personally or with assistants, oversaw the cleaning of its interior. This would have included all the upkeep in maintaining the structure inside and outside.
As the manager of the church's contents, he would have monitored all the activities that pertained to the church, whatever that meant, in order to guard and protect its contents. He assisted the pastor with the vestments, made sure the textiles were clean and that the proper colors were used at the proper times. He would have hung and put them away safely (maybe kept locked in a cabinet). No doubt he oversaw the sewing of new vestments and hangings, when they got worn out. If there was an organ, he would have kept an eye on it and maybe an ear as well.
Whatever was needed for the performance of church services, such as replacing candles, setting out communion ware, keeping the baptismal font, lecterns and pulpit clean and polished, must have been his responsibility. The smaller items surely were stored away when not in use, probably under lock and key. He would have been responsible for the keys.
If there were mischievous boys around, he would have made sure they didn't put graffiti on those pretty painted walls. (To clarify here, no Swiss boy would have even THOUGHT of doing such a thing. He would have been discovered at once and punished with a sound whipping or other memorable painful and emotional display of wrath by a number of prominent villagers).
The Kirchmeyer was the bell-ringer (and polisher). As such, he would have known the language of the bells. Whether that was ringing bells on Sunday morning to call the villagers to the divine service, or for announcing deaths (ringing the number of years of a person's life), or ringing for special occasions, he probably trusted no one else to ring the bells.
The above comments are my interpretation of what a Kirchmeyer at Zweisimmen may have accomplished, based upon the definitions of the words "verger" and "sexton." Bartolome certainly would have had a large responsibility for the management of the church, if he did all those things.
In one description of a sexton in an English church in the 1800's, I discovered that the sexton worked with the documents of the church, meaning that he served as a type of librarian and caretaker for the archives (i.e., was literate). In the latter part of the 1700's a book and archive collection would have been precious. [In the case of this English sexton, his very literate young son had access to the library key and he would enter on his own and read the books. Sometimes he took the books. Later he became a good author.]
Extending those ideas, if our Bartolome did many or all those things, he would have known a great deal about the community in addition to his knowledge of church governance. Being an original member of the community, more longterm in his position than the pastors (who came and went every few years), he would have trained the new pastors in the goings-on of their church and community. He may have provided them respectful and reverential counseling. In these ways, checks and balances were provided to each other by the Pastor (who came from someplace else) and the Kirchmeyer (who was, for the most part, a permanent fixture in the church) for the over-all orderly running of the church.
It would not have been an easy job. The depths of the responsibilities made this a full-time profession. Bartolome and Katharina must have lived near the church so that he could spend most of his time there. It is not unreasonable to assume that Katharina had a part in some of these responsibilities as well, in supporting the position of her husband. In summary, Bartolome was a glorified servant, and he probably did not feel very glorified when he was performing some of the duties. Hmmm. That sounds like a musician.
Speaking of music, I have a feeling that the church had an organ, and that Bartolome was a singer himself. It is pretty certain that he was friends with the choir director.
I do not know how many children Bartolome and Katharina had. Their son Jacob was born in 1779, and he was baptized on December 2. One of Jacob's Baptismal sponsors was the choir director from Zweisimmen.
(See my post #46 for another mention of Bartolome.)
No comments:
Post a Comment