Diary of Erdmuth von Zinzendorf

The file contains the diary of Erdmuthe Dorothea von Zinzendorf (1700–1756) written during her journey to the Netherlands in March–April 1736, together with her husband, Nikolaus Ludwig von Zinzendorf, their eldest daughter Henriette Benigna Justine and a retinue of companions and servants. The Zinzendorfs had invited German-speaking religious refugees from Moravia and Bohemia to settle on their estates in 1722. This settlement, Herrnhut, rapidly grew into the centre of the Moravian Church (the Unity of the Brethern), and the first Protestant missionary movement began in Herrnhut in the 1730s, with missionaries travelling to the Danish-controlled island of St Thomas in the Caribbean in 1732 and Greenland in 1733. The Zinzendorfs were deeply religious and heavily involved in this movement, with Erdmuthe playing a key role after Nikolaus was exiled from Saxony for his activities, not long after the period described in the diary. Nikulaus and their daughter Benigna sailed to the Netherlands, America and England during this period of exile but were eventually able to return to Saxony.