KNIPE, MARIA [SSNE 5369]
- Surname
- KNIPE, KNYPE, SCHIRENBECK, KLINGENBERG
- First name
- MARIA
- Nationality
- ENGLISH
- Region
- GOTHENBURG
Text source
Maria Knipe was the daughter of Anthony Knipe [SSNE 4676] and Maria Langen. Her father had a turbulent career first in Sweden and then in Norway. Maria was born in Gothenburg on 6 February 1646. When her father moved from Sweden three years later he took his family with him, and they appear to have spent time in the Netherlands before moving to Norway. In 1649 Knipe was appointed Norway's first customs officer general on 28 July 1649 with an official residence in Bergen. Knipe was disliked by his colleagues, and Hannibal Sehested, the Norwegian viceroy, suggested that it was foolish for all of the country's tolls to be collected by one man who could so easily abscond across the sea to Scotland. Indeed Knipe's downfall came a short while later. On 25 June 1654 he was suspended from his duty as Customs Officer General. Knipe moved from Bergen to Copenhagen and on 2 January 1655 the king provided him with a travel pass to go to Holland, England and Germany. After settling back in London, Knipe began a campaign against some Bergen burgesses including Peder Bloch, who Knipe claimed owed his wife money, and Soren Sorensen whose ships he twice had seized in London. Frederik III asked Knipe's daughter and acting factor, Maria, to provide the proof of this debt, but also instructed the president and Council of Bergen part of the debt in the meantime. Maria in turn said she had asked her father for the papers, but that he did not have them. By August 1668, the Norwegians had grown so weary with the situation that they persuaded Frederik III to act against her. On 31 August 1668, Maria, now a widow after the death of her husband Schirenbeck of Bergen, was ordered to remove herself to Copenhagen. She remarried to a man called Klingenberg. Her son, Samuel Antonsen Schirenbeck became a pharmacist in Naestvedt in 1678 and eventually returned to Bergen in 1683. She also had four daughters: Rebecca who married Elias Dabrix, Catherine Pernille who married Jens Pedersen Dahlhof, Charlotte Amelia who married Jacob Wech, and Anna Maria whose husband's name is not known. Maria died on 25 April 1691 and was buried in Christian church that year.
Sources: Bergen Statsarkiv, Sollied Arkiv; C. Rise Hansen (ed.), Aktstykker og Oplysninger til Rigsraadets og Stændermødernes Historie i Frederik III’s Tid, (2 vols., Copenhagen, 1959 & 1974), II, p.337, Risgsraad minute, May 1652; Norske Rigsregistranter, (ed.), Y. Nielsen and E. A. Thomle, vol. 10 (Christiania, 1887), passim; Norske Rigsregistranter, vol. 11 (Christiania, 1890), passim; Norsk Biografisk Leksikon, vol. vii (1936), p.431; R. Fladby and G. Foslie (eds.), Norske Kongebrev (6 vols., Oslo, 1962), I, pp. 200, 284, 259, 286; J.W. Flood, Norges Apothekere fra 1588 til 1908, (Christiania, 1908), p.21.
Female. Widow.
Service record
- DENMARK-NORWAY, BERGEN, NORWAY
- Arrived 1649-01-01
- Departed 1668-08-31
- Capacity BUISINESS FACTOR, purpose MISC. BUISINESS, TRADE, COMMERCE, MERCANTILE
- DENMARK-NORWAY, COPENHAGEN
- Arrived 1668-09-01
- Purpose MISC.
- SWEDEN, GOTHENBURG
- Departed 1649-12-31
- Purpose MISC.