Forty Two Persons, Namely, Thirty Four Men and Eight Women, in the Year 1556

Since we greatly wanted to know the present condition of our fellow believers in Alsace, and also what happened among them before this in the persecutions they suffered, we received through a good friend of ours, H. Vlaming, now living at Amsterdam, an extract from a certain document which the elders and teachers in Alsace drew up about this matter and sent here. Translated from the Alsatian vernacular, the extract reads as follows:

As for the brothers and sisters who were executed for the faith in the country of Berne, forty-two persons were executed from the year 1528 until the year 1566, among whom were eight women. We have in our possession a brief abstract of their names and surnames, and also of the year and the day on which each of them was executed, and so on.

So far the extract of that letter, signed, as a whole, with the names and surnames of the elders and teachers in Alsace, which we would insert here, if we did not fear that even at the present day it might increase the persecution against them, from which they are not entirely free, as shall be shown in the proper place.