ABSTRACT
For dissident groups like the Anabaptists, continued survival depended both on effective communication and effective strategies of concealing their faith, and often, themselves. Concealing their faith was crucial in daily life as Anabaptists worked and lived among indifferent or hostile neighbours and sought to avoid the long arm of the secular authority. Anabaptists developed a number of techniques in their attempts to extend the group's membership and to save members from persecution. The chapter examines two very different court cases. One is run-of-the-mill, in which the Kirchsteiger family comes under suspicion of Anabaptism and seeks to extract itself from the charge. The other is a famous case dealing with a notorious Anabaptist leader, Hans Mandl, and two associates. The Kirchsteiger story is repeated often in court records of Anabaptists, not only in Tyrol but wherever secular authorities pursued the threat.
