'My Lord Katie'

I was scrolling back through previous articles on this blog (as you do) and, as someone who’s recently been getting really into all this Reformation stuff, E.C’s post from April on Martin Luther caught my eye. I thought I’d throw in my twopence too.
I could sit here and type out the key elements of Lutheranism (original Lutheranism, I mean – it’s changed a bit since Luther’s day) but something else caught my eye, and that was a short post I found on the women of the Reformation, featuring none other than Luther’s wife, Katharina von Bora.

(Before I start, if anyone needs a quick introduction to Luther, this song by the History Teachers does the trick.)

Katharina (or Katherine) von Bora was sent by her father to a Benedictine abbey, aged just five, to receive an education, but was transferred four years later to a Cistercian chapter near Grimma, where she took her vows and became a nun in 1515.

However, Katharina’s religious life was about to be shaken up a whole lot more than merely by a change in chapter. Luther had nailed his theses to the door of Wittenberg Cathedral, and before long, religious reform in Germany was underway. This young Cistercian nun got wind of these evangelical ideas and became dissatisfied with life in the abbey. She and eleven other nuns, having sought help from Luther and his fellow reformers beforehand, managed to escape in secrecy, hiding in a fish-filled wagon. (Also, it’s worth noting that smuggling nuns was a capital offence, so hats off to the wagon driver, Leonhard Koppe.)

Because it was against canon law for their families to take these nuns back, Luther had to find jobs or husbands for all of them. He managed that for everyone except Katharina. Determined to set an example of clerical marriage, he married the last runaway nun left.

Luther and Katharina were married at some point in 1525, which definitely raised eyebrows. He hadn’t told his friends that he had planned to marry her.

Luther being Luther, by marrying, had broken the Roman Catholic rule of clerical celebacy. Some priests had – and continued to - marry in secret (perhaps one of the most obvious examples being Thomas Cranmer in 1532) but Luther didn’t. Their original, private wedding ceremony was followed by a much more public one. This was a pretty big deal: one of Luther’s contemporaries, Philipp Melanchthon, saw it as an ‘unlucky deed’ which would bring about the downfall of the Reformation (though he might have just been miffed because he wasn’t invited to the wedding).

Katharina von Bora, painted by Lucas
Cranach the Elder, 1526

Also, as clerical marriage was almost unprecedented, Katharina effectively had to answer one big question: What were clerics’ wives supposed to do?

The answer, it turns out, was an awful lot.
It was said that Martin Luther knew next to nothing about how to run a household - presumably monks didn’t need these skills – so the task fell to his new wife. Katharina was, in essence, the perfect housewife. As well as supporting her husband in the Reformation, she managed to:

• Raise ten children (six of her own, one of her nephews and three others)
• Run the household, including looking after all those theologians and students Luther kept bringing into the house.
• Look after the gardens and livestock.
• Run the brewery. (Monasteries were allowed to brew beer, and Luther House was an old Augustinian cloister. Katharina used this to her advantage.)

Following Luther’s death in 1546, his widow fought tooth and nail for her lands, property and her family. They were a tight unit, and when Chancellor Brück was adamant that her sons should be properly educated away from home, Katharina was having none of it. Brück was eventually forced to give up, and the boys stayed where they were.

What was worse, the remaining Luthers no longer had the money to maintain their house. They were allowed to keep it, and were given money and a farm by the Elector, but with the outbreak of the Schmalkaldic War, the family had to flee. They later returned to find that their farm had been used by the two armies: the buildings had been burnt down and the animals had gone. They wound up in debt, and Katharina had to take in students from Wittenberg University to make more money.

Perhaps, in light of what other women have done, Katharina Luther doesn’t stand out as the perfect role model, or someone who deserves extra praise, but what she did was nevertheless admirable, and her influence in the Reformation regarding the argument against clerical celibacy was very significant. The Luthers were a high profile couple, and Katharina was held in high esteem by her husband, who called her ‘my lord Katie’ and ‘the boss of Zulsdorf’ (Zulsdorf being the name of their farm). Sexual freedom for the clergy was an important aspect of the Reformation, and it was Martin and Katharina Luther who led the way.

V.G

(Oh, and a final piece of trivia for you: Martin and Katharina’s line still continues today through their daughter, Margarete. One of their descendants was the German president, Paul von Hindenburg.)

'That Martin Luther guy's pretty funky'

          Hello dear readers, it is I, back again for your regular dose of extremely odd and nonsensical ramblings with just a dashing of actual Historical information. Now, please do excuse me, because it's almost half ten in the evening and, unlike actual 'normal' teenagers, I tend to stop functioning all together after around 8pm. Before 12 am doesn't look good either. But nonetheless, here I am, ready to impart the very little knowledge that I have on to you, who probably knows it anyway and is only reading this blog for a good laugh at somebody who attempts to seem knowledgeable.
   Anyway. On to the History bit. You see, the title of this article is, I believe, a brilliant representation of my mental state at the moment. It is, however, my poor, failing brains first response to reading a few articles on line about Luther and Lutherism (I wonder where they got the name from?).
    Now, Luther isn't really 'my type'. Although not a Catholic, he was a bit of a religious fanatic and didn't, in fact, really want to start a revolution at all, it seems. He targeted academics, it seems, at the 95 theses (a document in which he basically ripped the Catholic Church to shreds) was written in Latin, and was so inaccessible for the lay person. He said that it was impossible for all men to become equal and was, in general, concerned with keeping the status quo in all aspects of life apart from religion.
   In fact, from a Lutherist point of view, the Catholic Church could be seen as the revolutionary party, as it had moved drastically away from the teachings of Christ, and Luther could have been seen as a reactionary, trying to 'turn the clock back', and focus on Christians having a personal faith, rather than one controlled entirely by the Church. Luthers main problem with the Catholic Church was that it seemed to lie to the people, telling them that they could effectively 'buy' their way into heaven, as well as placing a lot less store by personal repentance and faith, and instead focusing on the power of the Church itself.
    No, the reason that I like him is that he wasn't afraid to stick up for what he thought was right. He nailed his 95 Theses onto the door of Wittenburg cathedral, and refused to stand down for what he believed, even when facing the prospect of execution at his trial in the city of Worms. That bravery and courage - to fight for what he believed, is something that I think should be admired.
     He has also won a place as one of my favorite History Boys because he did not agree with the idea that it was only through the Catholic Church that you could find freedom and redemption. He thought that a lot of faith should be a personal thing, and although I have my own views on religion, I thoroughly agree with the idea that people should be able to discover it themselves. Because if your ticket to heaven lies in the hands of one body of people, then that body has a supreme control over your every move. And one thing I can't stand is anybody having supreme control over anybody else.
   I think that's why I fell in  love with his story. One document, nailed to the door of a cathedral, sparked a revolution that gave people just a little bit more freedom.
   Anyway, sleep really does call me, so I think I'll have to love you and leave you!
   E.C