Moravian Memoirs and Their Socioeconomic Contexts

ABSTRACT The Moravian memoir (Lebenslauf) has been an important part of the history and spirituality of the Moravian Church since the mid-eighteenth century. Thousands of memoirs are held in Moravian archives all over the world, in which individual Moravian members recorded their life stories and their encounter with the Moravian community. This article analyzes features of Moravian memoirs, which focus less on the “inner life” and global community of Moravian believers but rather on the socioeconomic context in which the memoirs are composed and the expression of this context in the memoirs. In doing so, the article examines what local conditions and customs are reflected in the memoirs. Such a reading goes purposely against the “grain” or intention of the text and thus sets aside the “why” of the production of the memoirs—which ultimately is the participation in and upholding of the “invisible church” or the global community. In such a reading, the Moravian memoirs are useful outside of their immediate context and demonstrate insight into the lives of ordinary men and women, and how these lives were impacted by socioeconomic change. The memoirs examined are from Fulneck in Yorkshire and Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland) and are chosen because they differ in some respects from the standard Moravian memoir structure.