Luther, vol. 4 of 6

by Hartmann Grisar

A similar view prevailed throughout Christendom.

One of the most popular of Italian preachers was Gabriel Barletta, who died shortly after 1480. Amongst his writings there is a Lenten sermon entitled: “De amore conjugali vel de laudibus mulierum.” In this he speaks of the “cordial love” which unites the married couple. He points out that marriage was instituted in Paradise and confirmed anew by Christ. Explaining the meaning of the ring, he finds that it signifies four things, all of which tend to render Christian marriage praiseworthy. He declares that a good wife may prove an inestimable treasure. If he dwells rather too much on woman’s physical and mental inferiority, this does not prevent him from extolling the strength of the woman who is upheld by Christian virtue, and who often succeeds in procuring the amendment of a godless husband.[432]

Barletta, in his sermons, frequently follows the example of his brother friar, the English Dominican preacher, Robert Holkot († 1349), whose works were much in request at the close of the Middle Ages.[433] Holkot had such respect for Christian matrimony, that he applies to it the words of the Bible: “O how beautiful is the chaste generation with glory; for the memory thereof is immortal.” Since the “actus matrimonialis” was willed by God, it must be assumed, he says, that it can be accomplished virtuously and with merit.[434] If the intention of the married couple is the begetting of children for the glory of God, they perform an act of the virtue of religion; they also exercise the virtue of justice if they have the intention of mutually fulfilling the conjugal duties to which they have pledged themselves. According to him, mutual love is the principal duty of the married couple.[435] Franz Falk has dwelt in detail on the testimony borne by the Late Middle Ages to the dignity of marriage.[436]

Commencing with the prayers of the marriage-service and the blessing of the ring, the prayers for those with child and in child-bed, and for the churching of women, he goes on to deal with the civil rights pertaining to the married state and with the Church’s opinion as witnessed to in the matrimonial handbooks and books of instruction and edification. With the respect for the Sacrament and the dignity of the married woman there found expressed, Falk compares the sentiments likewise found in the prose “novels” and so-called “Volksbücher,” and, still more practically expressed, in the numerous endowments and donations for the provision of bridal outfits. “It is quite incomprehensible,” such is the author’s conclusion, “how non-Catholic writers even to the present time can have ventured to reproach the Church with want of regard for the married state.”[437] Of the information concerning bridal outfits, he says, for instance: “The above collection of facts, a real ‘nubes testium,’ will sufficiently demonstrate what a task the Church of the Middle Ages here fulfilled towards her servants and children.... Many other such foundations may, moreover, have escaped our notice owing to absence of the deeds which have either not been printed or have perished. From the 16th century onwards records of such foundations become scarce.”[438]

In the “Internationale Wochenschrift” Heinrich Finke pointed out that he had examined hundreds of Late-mediæval sermons on the position of women, with the result, that “it is impossible to discover in them any contempt for woman.”[439] The fact is, that “there exist countless statements of the sanctity of marriage and its sacramental character ... statements drawn from theologians of the highest standing, Fathers, Saints and Doctors of the Church. Indeed, towards the close of the Middle Ages, they grow still more numerous. The most popular of the monks, whether Franciscans or Dominicans, have left us matrimonial handbooks which imply the existence of that simple, happy family life they depict and encourage.”[440] Finke recalls the 15th-century theologian, Raymond of Sabunde, who points out how union with God in love may be reproduced in marriage. Countless theologians are at one with him here, and follow Scripture in representing the union of Christ with the Church as an exalted figure of the marriage-bond between man and wife (Eph. v. 25, 32). Of the respect which the ancient Church exhibited towards women Finke declares: “Never has the praise of women been sung more loudly than in the sermons of the Fathers and in the theological tractates of the Schoolmen.” Here “one picture follows another, each more dazzling than the last.”[441] Certainly we must admit, as he does, that it is for the most part the ideal of virginity which inspires them, and that it is the good, chaste, virtuous wife and widow whom they extol, rather than woman qua woman, as a noble part of God’s creation. Their vocation as spiritual teachers naturally explains this; and if, for the same cause, they seem to be very severe in their strictures on feminine faults, or to strike harsh notes in their warnings on the spiritual dangers of too free intercourse with the female sex, this must not be looked upon as “hatred of women,” as has been done erroneously on the strength of some such passages in the case of St. Antoninus of Florence and Cardinal Dominici.[442]

“Just as Church and Councils energetically took the side of marriage” when it was decried in certain circles,[443] so the accusation of recent times that, in the Middle Ages, woman was universally looked upon with contempt, cannot stand; according to Finke this was not the case, even in “ascetical circles,” and “still less elsewhere.”[444] The author adduces facts which “utterly disprove any such general disdain for woman.”[445]

The splendid Scriptural eulogy with which the Church so frequently honours women in her liturgy, might, one would think, be in itself sufficient. To the married woman who fulfils her duties in the home out of true love for God, and with zeal and assiduity, the Church, in the Mass appointed for the Feasts of Holy Women, applies the words of Proverbs:[446] “The price of the valiant woman is as of things brought from afar and from the uttermost coasts. The heart of her husband trusteth in her ... she will render him good and not evil all the days of her life. She hath sought wool and flax and hath wrought by the counsel of her hands.... Her husband is honourable in the gates when he sitteth among the senators of the land.... Strength and beauty are her clothing, and she shall laugh in the latter day. She hath opened her mouth to wisdom.... Her children rose up and called her blessed, her husband, and he praised her.... The woman that feareth the Lord, she shall be praised.”—Elsewhere the liturgy quotes the Psalmist:[447] “Grace is poured abroad from thy lips,” “With thy comeliness and thy beauty set out, proceed prosperously and reign.... Therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows.”

It cannot be objected that the ordinary woman, in the exercise of her household duties and of a humbler type of virtue, had no part in this praise. On the contrary, in honouring these Saints the Church was at the same time honouring all women who had not, by their misconduct, rendered themselves unworthy of the name. To all, whatever their rank or station, the high standard of the Saints was displayed, and all were invited to follow their example and promised their intercession. At the foot of the altar all were united, for their mother, the Church, showed to all the same consideration and helpful love. The honours bestowed upon the heroines of the married state had its influence on their living sisters, just as the Church’s “undying respect for virginity was calculated to exercise a wholesome effect on those bound by the marriage tie, or about to be so bound.”[448]

In Luther’s own case we have an instance in the devotion he showed in his youth to St. Anne, who was greatly venerated by both men and women in late mediæval times. The vow he had made to enter the cloister he placed in the hands of this Saint. The liturgical praise to which we have just listened, and which is bestowed on her in common with other holy spouses, he repeated frequently enough as a monk, when saying Mass, and the words of the Holy Ghost in praise of the true love of the faithful helpmate he ever treasured in his memory.[449]