A model of strict observance and reformed rule, it was under the spiritual direction of the barefooted Franciscans, who, in the middle of the fifteenth century, under the protection of Pope Eugenius IV., had, in a time when discipline was relaxed in many of the houses of their order, taken up their abode in Nuremberg and put things upon the old ascetic footing ruled by the great reforming saint, Francis of Assisi.
Apollonia Tucher was Charitas’ best and dearest friend. They lived together more than fifty years, and died within a few months of each other. Through her Charitas also learnt to know and appreciate Sixtus Tucher, her cousin, the provost of St. Lawrence, also a prominent man in those days. Apollonia was at that time prioress and Charitas a teacher in the convent school. The provost kept up a regular correspondence with the two nuns, of which unfortunately one part has been lost; but all his letters are preserved, and were first translated into German by his nephew, Christopher Scheurl, and dedicated to a successor of his at St. Lawrence—Provost George Behaim. His advice to Charitas and her friend was a great boon, and now and then he would send little presents, such as gilt lanterns for the church, which he always accompanied by some symbolical warning. Among other
things, he once reminded them that the convent life alone was not enough to save their souls. “There is no other way to deserve the eternal Fatherland,” he says, “but by industriously keeping all God’s commandments.” He also furnished them with books, a Commentary on the Liturgical Hymns and Sequences, 1494, and 1506, and the Discourse of St. Augustine on the Siege of Hippo. This was sent apropos of a siege in 1502 which Nuremberg suffered at the hands of the Margrave Casimir, and during which three hundred brave and noted burghers, all heads of families, lost their lives. On the occasion of her father’s death, in 1501, he writes to Charitas:
“Therefore we must not sorrow when a man has deserved to return from a strange land to his own country, from an inn to his own house, from work to rest, from death to life, from time to eternity, and especially when he has, by a blessed exchange, accumulated many good works; for we are all like unto merchants sent into this pilgrimage of earth, that with temporal goods we may buy and win eternal life.”
This learned and holy man died at the age of forty-six, in 1507, but not before he had seen his friend Charitas chosen abbess of St. Clare. She was only thirty-eight, but her strength of character made the choice unanimous; and if the nuns could have foreseen what a stormy time they would soon have to tide over, they would have congratulated themselves still more on their good sense in electing her. From henceforth she was the heart and soul of the convent: the nuns looked to her for advice, support, and comfort; the council saw in her a distinguished, learned, and enlightened countrywoman, the example not only of her own community, but of those in the neighborhood who followed her lead. One of the first events
that marked her rule was the attack of the plague which visited Nuremberg in 1505 and laid low one of her own spiritual family. She insisted upon nursing the sick nun, notwithstanding the remonstrances of her anxious sisters, and was rewarded by the recovery of the patient. In those years of peace and prosperity the convent fully vindicated its claim to being a house of happy labor. Besides the instruction given to the young girls of the city, the nuns were occupied in various artistic works, such as illumination, copying, and embroidery. Their particular industry was the manufacture of carpets and tapestries for hangings. They fulfilled orders for public and civic buildings, as well as for private families, and once the town council gave the imperial regalia into their hands for putting in order for the coronation of Charles V. at Aix-la-Chapelle. Nuremberg had the care of these venerated garments, and was jealous of its reputation; so that the nuns felt a high responsibility in being allowed to handle and repair such treasures. They carefully mended and re-embroidered the white dalmatic, and lined other pieces of the imperial dress, until they were fit to do honor to the care of the city of Nuremberg. The convent had also a library of some note for that time, the Scriptures and the fathers of the church forming the principal part of it. Charitas’ favorite among the latter was St. Jerome. She was solicitous concerning the daily reading of the Scriptures, both in Latin and in German, which was done in common as well as in private—a fact which she brought to her own defence in the evil days that followed. She might truly say that she stood on evangelical ground; for, as
she wrote to the learned but scarcely Christian Celtes, she saw in Scripture the “field of the Lord, whence learning must draw the kernel from the shell, the spirit from the letter, oil from the rock, and blossoms from the thorn.”
She had much to do also to manage the temporal concerns of her house. The town demanded a yearly account of her stewardship; and in every report made by the council on her administration there is nothing but praise and recognition of her business talents. She corresponded with a circle of lettered friends whom she knew through her brother Wilibald, and these literary friendships form one of the most interesting phases of her life. Conspicuous among her friends was her brother himself, the friend of Albert Dürer, who has left us a portrait of him, the correspondent of Erasmus, the polished man of letters, the scholar of two Italian universities, for some time the head of the council of the republic, and the leader of the Nuremberg contingent in the war with Switzerland (1499). This last office he held when he was only twenty-nine, and he afterwards became the historian of the war. When the first beginnings of the Reformation disturbed and excited all thoughtful minds in Germany, he looked upon them as simple moral reforms, a renewal of ancient fervor and discipline. But as the true nature of the changes heralded by Luther broke upon him, he separated himself from the movement and rallied to the side of the church doctrines so ruthlessly attacked. He proved a great support to his sister in the days when the convent was under the ban of the triumphant Reformers of Nuremberg, and his opinion of the classical studies which some of the atheistic
literati would fain have exalted as the only learning fit for civilized men was clearly expressed in these words: “It is not my belief that Christian knowledge is incomplete without heathen literature. God forbid! Divine Wisdom needs no human inventions, and it is possible to attain to the highest point of theology without the help of Plato and Aristotle.” Wilibald was accustomed to write to his sister in Latin, as Sixtus Tucher also did, and Charitas’ style, notwithstanding her lowly opinion of her own proficiency, was such as to do honor to her education. He often sent her presents of books—for instance, the Hymns of Prudentius, the Christian poet, and some writings of her favorite doctor, St. Jerome. Later on he dedicated to her the works of Fulgentius, which he had edited. Both Charitas and her sister Clara were great admirers of Erasmus and diligently read his German translation of the New Testament (in 1516), as well as some works of the famous scholar Reuchlin (1520). To the former Charitas excused herself from writing “on account of her bad Latin,” but sent him many complimentary messages through her brother, and both he and Reuchlin spoke of her in high terms in their letters to Wilibald. Clara also was marvellously fond of books, and playfully told her brother that there was nothing she envied out of her convent except his library. The women of the Pirkheimer family all seem to have been distinguished for their love of art and books. Catherine, Charitas’ niece, was almost a transcript of her aunt and showed a wonderful strength of character. The abbess’ married nieces were earnest and generous women, a great support to the convent in the evil days that followed; and her sister Sabina, the
abbess of a Benedictine monastery on the Danube, was a patroness of sacred art, the friend of Dürer, who sent her designs for her illuminations and took great interest in the school of miniature-painting established in her community.