Jacob Frederik Ahrenfeldt (1730)|KPHL-3DL,KPHL-3X4,KFCJ-8PJ
JACOB FRIDRICH AHRENFELDT claims to be 71 years old, which the courts considered correct. It has not been possible to get a baptism certificate for him. He explains that he has had three children with ANNE MARIE HANSDATTER, that they are not married, and that they have lived as man and wife for 20 years. He explains that he has been wandering around for some years without a permanent address, and that he has earned his money by curing horses. He claims that he has not been begging, and that he knows nothing of the false certificates. But the court has found the false confirmation certificate of ANNE CATHRINE’s on him. He confessed that he knew it was false. He has, he says, received a better upbringing that the others. He has been the leader of this group of wandering people, and because of him his daughters have been so ill raised.
The verdict of 16 April 1801 was: JACOB FRIDERICH AHRENFELDT must go to the Correction House for 2 years. ANNE MARIE HANSDATTER must go to the Correction House for 2 years, JOAHNNES DICKES must go to the Correction House for 1 year. ANNE CATHRINE AHRENFELDT must go to the Correction House for 1 year. ANNE KIRSTINE AHRENFELDT must go to the Correction House for 1 year.
It is very interesting that JACOB FRIDRICH AHRENFELDT says that he had received a better upbringing than the others. It is rather strange that he has the name “AHRENFELDT” which in a Danish context signals a family background of higher bourgeoisie or even new nobility. In 1660 Denmark changed to absolute monarchy and the king at once began to push the old nobility aside and to call in Germans, whom he raised to form a new nobility, and good and loyal bourgeois citizens also got the chance climb upwards in the society. In Jylland there was a family of the old, but low nobility by the name AHRENFELDT, and I am wondering if JACOB FRIDRICH AHRENFELDT belonged to it, but had turned into a “black sheep.” His words about a better upbringing is interesting in this connection.
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