Catharine de Bora: Social and Domestic Scenes in the Home of Luther

by John G. Morris

When, on the following day, the marriage of Luther became generally known, the town council of Wittenberg sent him various articles, such as are usually considered essential to wedding festivals of every age and country.

CHAPTER III.

Wedding-Dinner—Melanchthon—Slanders.

Thus had Luther, actuated by the purest motives, suddenly and silently, entered into this matrimonial alliance. Now it was no longer secret, and in compliance with a custom common in that day he determined to invite a number of his friends, in and out of Wittenberg, including his parents, to a wedding-dinner. This was to occur on the 27th of June, two weeks after his marriage. On that day also, he purposed to conduct his wife publicly to his own residence at the Augustinian monastery. To his absent friends he sent written invitations, seven of which are still extant. But he was particularly desirous of having his parents, who resided at Mansfeld, present on the occasion. He was anxious to show them that he had finally gratified their most ardent wishes in abandoning the monastic life and entering on matrimony. But he also wished to make them personally acquainted with Catharine, and to receive from them their parental blessing. They, with three or four others of his friends, accepted the invitation. At this, as well at the other more private festival on the day after his marriage, the town council of Wittenberg expressed their highest respect for Luther by sending him some essential contributions to his dinner.

It may appear remarkable, at first sight, that Melanchthon, Luther’s most intimate friend and inseparable companion, should not have been present at this nor at the previous solemnity, nor even consulted by Luther on the subject of his marriage. But he well knew the timidity and excessive sensitiveness of Melanchthon. He knew that his friend was so painfully concerned for his reputation and peace of mind, that though he could not disapprove of the act, yet he would reprove him for the manner and time, fearing the evil consequences that might result to the work of the Reformation. Hence Luther did not consult Melanchthon, and even avoided his company at this time. The whole circumstance occasioned much painful anxiety to Melanchthon, not because he did not sanction the act in itself, but because it would give the numerous enemies of Luther fresh occasion for more bitter persecution and more virulent calumny.

Although Luther had acted with great deliberation in this affair, making it a subject of most fervent prayer, and hastening its consummation in order only to avoid excitement, yet occasionally he sometimes seemed deeply depressed on that very account, because in the opinion of many, the whole transaction was calculated to injure his reputation. But through the fraternal consolations of Melanchthon, he was soon restored to his usual vivacity. He felt himself happy in the possession of Catharine; for his marriage, instead of interfering with his numerous professional engagements, only inspired him with renewed courage and strength in the prosecution of his work. In many of his letters written at this period, he expresses the most affectionate interest in his wife and the most perfect satisfaction with his connubial state.

It would, however, have been surprising if the enemies of Luther had passed in silence his marriage with a former nun. The most outrageous slanders and abominable falsehoods might have been anticipated. Their hatred of the man who had shaken the pillars of their spiritual despotism, was also to be vented against the woman whom he had chosen for his wife. “See,” cried out these despicable slanderers, “see the real design of his apostasy from the Catholic Church! It was only that he might marry.” And yet Luther was not married until eight years after he had taken the first step towards the Reformation. They loaded Catharine with the most opprobrious and disgraceful epithets, and endeavored to cover her husband with shame and contempt. But they did not reflect that if Luther had been inclined to an irregular course of life, he might more easily, with much less excitement and much less censure too, have indulged his evil propensities as an unmarried monk than as a married clergyman. Even King Henry VIII. and Duke George of Saxony sent him letters most bitterly censuring his course. The language of the royal slanderer of England is especially vulgar, and his accusations are infamous. But his more recent enemies have not been less virulent. Luther, in dealing such a terrible blow on their forefathers, has fearfully wounded them also, and that wound will never heal. They most dishonestly perverted his language, and endeavored to dishonor the name of Catharine by the most wretchedly contrived and disgraceful fables. The principal object of Luther’s enemies was to sever the matrimonial bond which united him and his wife. They exerted all their diabolical cunning to gain Catharine over by their machinations, and induce her to separate herself from Luther in order to return to the convent. Two young men, members of the University of Leipzig, were employed to write Eulogies on Monastic Life, and send them to Luther in the hope that they would fall into Catharine’s hands, and induce her, as a penitent sinner, to resume the veil. But neither he nor his wife honored these writings with much attention at that time. They were sent back to their authors in not quite as good a condition as when received, for the servants, without Luther’s knowledge, had taken special pains to deface them. They accompanied the papers with the Latin word asini (asses), so ingeniously arranged in a square, that beginning in the centre the same word could be read in forty different directions. Some time after, Luther answered these writings and constructed several amusing fables on them. The treatment of these eulogies by Luther and his wife, and especially by the servants, created such an excitement in Leipzig that Jerome Walther, a councillor, found it necessary to communicate a full report of the whole transaction to the Court Chancellor of Duke George. The infamous attempt, however, to separate Luther and his wife signally failed.

The great restorer of the true gospel doctrine might have lived in open profligacy as a monk, and it would not probably have been noticed; but to marry was an unpardonable sin. The acknowledged teachers of the priests have laid down such doctrine as the following: Cardinal de Campeggi has taught that “It is a greater sin for a priest to marry than to lead an infamous life.” The Jesuit Coster taught that “Although a priest who indulges the most unnatural appetite commits a great evil, yet he sins still more if he marries;” and Cornelius à Lapide remarks, “For those who have taken the vow of chastity, it is better that they live unchastely than marry.” The men who taught such morals were the opponents of Luther’s marriage. The most influential of his enemies at this time was Erasmus, who, in the beginning did not disallow Luther’s merits, but he was fond of ridicule and sarcasm. He slandered Catharine most infamously, but eight months afterwards he had the magnanimity to retract his false accusations.

As we have already learned, Luther had determined to give a particular wedding-festival especially for the sake of his own parents, but we have no account of his having invited the parents of his wife. Every unprejudiced reader will conclude that either her parents were dissatisfied with her flight and marriage, or, what is more probable, they were no longer living. For from the well-known letter of Luther to Koppe, we cannot even with certainty conclude that her parents were living at the time of her escape from the convent. He states that those nine nuns had most earnestly implored their parents and relatives to deliver them from the prison, from which we presume that some of them were orphans, and for this reason applied to their relations. But Luther’s enemies still maintained that the parents of his wife were living, but were of no account, and hence not mentioned at all. It is likely that poverty first moved them to place their daughter in a convent early in life. Luther and some of his cotemporaries bear testimony to the fact that she possessed no property. At one place he thus expresses himself relative to the condition of her property, “As thou gavest her to me, so I return her to thee again, O thou faithful God, who richly aboundest in all things; support, sustain, and teach her as thou hast supported, sustained, and taught me, thou Father of the orphan and judge of the widow.” Even if she had taken property with her into the convent, how could she have secured it in her flight? But when Erasmus writes and says, “Luther has married a wife, a most beautiful daughter of the celebrated family of Bora, but, as is said, without a fortune,” this might also proceed from the dissatisfaction of her relatives with her marriage and her flight from the convent.

But though those enemies of Luther could not exactly show the humble condition of his wife’s parents, others tried hard to throw doubt, at least, on her noble birth. They could not deny that her mother was entitled to that distinction of rank, but they totally reject her father’s claim to it, and because Luther does not mention him in his writings, they draw the unsound conclusion that he must have belonged to the very lowest class of society. Catharine’s honor would not in the least have been periled even if her father had been of humble birth. But the most unimportant circumstances were industriously used by Luther’s enemies to degrade him; hence, they would not allow her distinguished birth, although the plainest proofs of the fact were given. His opponents sometimes contradicted each other. They all agreed in most scandalously calumniating him, but in their accusations they sometimes singularly differed, and often unintentionally wrote something which was more honorable to Luther than injurious. Cochlaeus, for example, charges it as the greatest sin of Luther “that he rescued from the convent nine nuns, who were all of noble rank, and, to the eternal disgrace of so many distinguished families, led them away.” Could this deadly enemy of Luther only have conjectured that some of his brethren of the faith ever intended to assail Catharine’s birth, he would have been more careful than to have spoken of noble rank and distinguished families. But the testimony of one such cotemporary is proof sufficient of her noble origin, and we need not stop to refute those who maintain that there never even existed a family of de Bora.