Martin Luther

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MARTIN LUTHER: THE RELUCTANT REVOLUTIONARY PROF. M. M. NINAN CHAPTER THREE FAMILY LIFE OF MARTIN Katharina von Bora Martin Luther's wife Katharina von Bora (German: [kataˈʁiːna fɔn bɔʁa]; January 29, 1499 – December 20, 1552), also referred to as "die Lutherin" was the wife of Martin Luther, German leader of the Protestant Reformation. Katharina is often considered one of the most important participants of the Reformation because of her role in helping to define Protestant family life and setting the tone for clergy marriages. Martin Luther married Katharina von Bora (1499–1552) in 1525. A former nun, she came to embody two very different roles in Reformation-era society: she was seen both as Europe’s most notorious “renegade nun” and as the model housewife for Lutheran clergymen. 48
MARTIN LUTHER: THE RELUCTANT REVOLUTIONARY PROF. M. M. NINAN 26-year-old former nun In April 1523, with the Reformation well under way, Katharina and 11 of her fellow nuns hid in a wagon and escaped from their Cistercian convent. Once the wagon arrived in Lutherstadt Wittenberg, she was taken in by the family of none other than Lucas Cranach the Elder. Born of a noble but poor family, Katharina was only three when she was sent away to school. It is certain that her father sent the five-year-old Katharina to the Benedictine cloister in Brehna in 1504 for education. This is documented in a letter from Laurentius Zoch to Martin Luther, written on October 30, 1531. This letter is the only evidence for Katharina von Bora's time spent within the monastery. At the age of nine she moved to the Cistercian monastery of Marienthron (Mary's Throne) in Nimbschen, near Grimma, where her maternal aunt was already a member of the community. Katharina is well documented at this monastery in a provision list of 1509/10. After several years of religious life, Katharina became interested in the growing reform movement and grew dissatisfied with her life in the monastery. Katherine sought the help of Martin Luther. On Easter Eve, 4 April 1523, Luther sent Leonhard Köppe, a city councilman of Torgau and merchant who regularly delivered herring to the monastery. The nuns successfully escaped by hiding in Köppe's covered wagon among the fish barrels, and fled to Wittenberg. Katherine with eight other nuns were placed in the house of the Wittenberg town secretary. Luther at first asked the parents and relations of the refugee nuns to admit them again into their houses, but they declined to receive them, possibly as this was participating in a crime under canon law. Within two years, Luther was able to arrange homes, marriages, or employment for all of the escaped nuns—except for Katharina. She first was housed with the family of Philipp Reichenbach, the city clerk of Wittenberg. Later she went to the home of Lucas Cranach the Elder and his wife, Barbara. Luther was likewise at the time the only remaining resident in what had been the Augustinian monastery in Wittenberg; the other monks had either thrown off the habit or moved to a staunchly Catholic area. Understandably, he felt responsible for her plight, since it was his preaching that had prompted her to flee the convent. Moreover, he had repeatedly written, most significantly in 1523, that marriage is an honourable order of creation, and he regarded the Roman Catholic Church’s insistence on clerical celibacy as the work of the Devil. Finally, he believed that the unrest in Germany, epitomized in the bloody Peasants’ War, was a manifestation of God’s wrath and a sign that the end of the world was at hand. He thus conceived his marriage as a vindication, in these last days, of God’s true order for humankind. Katharina had a number of suitors, including Wittenberg University alumnus Jerome (Hieronymus) Baumgärtner (1498–1565) of Nuremberg and a pastor, Kaspar Glatz of Orlamünde. None of the proposed matches resulted in marriage. She told Luther’s friend and fellow reformer, Nikolaus von Amsdorf, that she would be willing to marry only Luther or von Amsdorf himself. 49
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Martin Luther

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