BOX 32 FOLDER 5 Roland H. Bainton Roland H. Bainton (1894-1984) was a church historian at Yale Divinity School, Yale University, specializing in the history of the Reformation. He was an ordained Congregationalist minister, but had also affiliated with the Quakers and was friendly to the “Goshen School” interpretation of Anabaptism. Within the American Society of Church History, of which Bainton was president in 1940, he apparently was something of an advocate for H. S. Bender and thus helped Bender become the Society’s president for 1943 and gain the platform for his (Bender’s) historic address and article, “The Anabaptist Vision.” (See Albert N. Keim, Harold S. Bender, 1897-1962, pp. 300-301, and esp. 310 ff.; and along with this folder, the researcher may do well to consult the folder “American Society of Church History, 1942-1943”; for biographical material on Bainton, a New York Times obituary is at http://www.nytimes.com/1984/02/14/obituaries/dr-roland-h-bainton-dies-retired-yale-divinity-teacher.html.).
{1} H. S. Bender to Roland Bainton, April 10, 1958 [to Bainton at Yale Divinity School]: sending a draft of statement to Lutheran Foundation for Reformation Research [correct name?] to work on “an Anabaptist Bibliography”; next Friday would be at “Church History meeting” [?? regional American Society of Church History, ASCH ?] and speak there with “Professor Meyer” and hoped for counsel from you; question whether a Dr. Schriebert was not Director of that foundation.
{2} H. S. Bender to Roland Bainton, May 7, 1958 [to him at Yale Divinity School]: thanks for note about the bibliography project; apparently it would receive $2500. // Enclosing Mennonite Encyclopedia article on Servetus for you to “correct, supplement, etc.”
{3} FOUR entries Roland Bainton to H. S. Bender, November 7, 1961 [stationery of Bainton at Yale Divinity School]: [cover note for next item; what suggestion did Bender have? • • • ATTACHED, James [unreadable surname] To Whom It May Concern, no date]; recommendation for a C. P. Clasen.... • • • ATTACHED, Claus-Peter Clasen [sic] to Roland Bainton, October 22, 1961 [on stationery of St. Antony’s College, Oxford to him at Yale Divinity School]: a bit of his personal history, education history; Fulbright scholar; had taught in a French teachers College at Nancy [NOTE: an MCC location]; etc. etc. • • • ATTACHED, a two-page certificate, in German, dated March 12, 1957 from a Wissenschaftliche Landesprufungsamt, apparently at Berlin.
{4} H. S. Bender to Roland Bainton, February 21, 1962 [to him at Yale Divinity School]: sending something from Dietmar Rothermund’s documents in his The Layman’s Progress in Religion and Politics in Colonial Pennsylvania 1740-1770 (1961)––re wrath of Quaker’s opponents regarding Mennonite support. // reference to Bainton’s October 17 letter [not extant here] about “Hershberger’s review” [likely Guy F. Hershberger, G. F. Hershberger, Guy Hershberger].
{5} H. S. Bender to Roland Bainton, May 22, 1962 [to him at Yale Divinity School]: reference to Bainton essay in the German translation of the Bender festschrift [The Recovery of the Anabaptist Vision]; Bainton had promised to send the German original of a “Franck quotation: [Sebastian Franck ??]; had not yet gotten it, so not treating it as an exact quotation. // The German edition probably would appear in a few months.
{6} Postcard, Roland Bainton to H. S. Bender, May 29, 1962: “ “sorry I let you down”; schedule for next two years [including a spring in Japan] would not allow [what had been requested, not extant here] for about 2 years––meanwhile hoped to read all Täufer Akten.
