Katharina and Martin Luther

by Michelle DeRusha

  To a Distant Land

  While confusion about Katharina’s ancestry persists, scholars agree that her mother died in 1505, and that her father remarried a woman by the name of Margarete, a widow, within the year. We also know that Katharina’s father, Hans, was in debt. Although the von Boras were members of the landed gentry, meaning they owned land and were considered nobility, they were what we might call “house poor” today. Hans was a “gentleman farmer”—a knight, indicated by the title “von”—but his relatively small parcel of land, combined with an agricultural crisis in the early 1500s, did not produce enough to pay the bills. In addition to Katharina, Hans had three sons and perhaps another daughter with his first wife, and his second wife brought several children of her own, and no dowry, to the marriage in 1505.8 Katharina’s father simply couldn’t support his expanded family on his income. Something had to give, and that something was Katharina.

  Shortly after her mother died in 1505, Katharina von Bora’s father packed up his six-year-old daughter and her paltry belongings and traveled from their rural home in Saxon Germany to a Benedictine convent in Brehna. There she bid goodbye to her father and the only life she had ever known. When she entered the cloister school, Katharina was still reeling from her mother’s death. She would remain behind convent walls for the next eighteen years of her life.

  It’s tempting to criticize Hans von Bora for a decision that seems heartless and more than a little selfish. But there are additional factors to consider: it was not unusual for families in the Middle Ages and early modern period, especially the nobility, to send their young daughters off to cloister schools and even to the convent for life. For example, twelfth-century German mystic Hildegard of Bingen, the tenth-born child in her family, was sent by her parents to the convent at age eight as a tithe (as the tenth child, she represented 10 percent of their assets) to the church and to God.9 In many cases convent schools were the only opportunity for girls to receive any education at all. Most medieval villages had only one school, which typically enrolled only boys, so many parents did what they had to do to ensure their daughters’ education. Furthermore, schools connected with Benedictine cloisters were noted for their stellar academic reputation. As Kroker notes, “Katie certainly received a better education with the Benedictine nuns in Brehna than she could have received otherwise as a young girl of the nobility anywhere else in the country at that time.”10

  Hans von Bora may not have initially intended his daughter for the religious life when he enrolled her in the cloister school in Brehna; the decision may have been a temporary measure, the best solution to a difficult situation. Enrolling Katharina in a convent school at the age of six resulted in one less mouth to feed for Hans von Bora, along with the assurance that his daughter would be well cared for.

  Regardless of Hans von Bora’s intentions, the decision undoubtedly had a tremendous impact on young Katharina. Imagine, for a moment, that long, uncomfortable, one-hundred-mile journey via horse-drawn wagon from her rural childhood home to the cloister school. The trip would have taken the better part of two days, and just a few miles into it, the familiar, comforting surroundings would have given way to new and unfamiliar terrain. We can’t know for sure the thoughts that tumbled through her young mind, but we can try to put ourselves in Katharina’s shoes, imagining what it must have been like to bounce along those rough roads. The route took them across fertile fields and meadows and into the bustling city of Leipzig, where Katharina would have experienced an overwhelming array of new sounds, sights, and smells. Perhaps these experiences distracted her from the hard truth of what she was leaving behind and the fear of all that lay ahead. Or perhaps young Katharina was simply too terrified and grief-stricken to notice much at all. Perhaps her father tried to soothe her fears; or maybe he sat silently at her side, wrestling with remorse and regret. There’s a chance Katharina was excited about the new experiences that awaited her, but it’s far more likely the six-year-old girl, still grieving the sudden death of her mother and now leaving behind everyone and everything she’d ever known, sat small and quiet on the wagon seat, trembling with dread, sorrow, and fear.

  Known for its high-caliber curriculum, the Benedictine cloister school in Brehna primarily attracted the daughters of nobility who were there to be groomed as nobles’ wives. The remainder of the Brehna students were orphans. Such was the case of Klara Preusser, daughter of the Leipzig magistrate Dr. Johann Preusser. Klara entered the Benedictine cloister school when her parents died, around the same time Katharina arrived, and perhaps because of their shared history, the two became friends. Many years later, when Katharina was married to Luther and Klara was living in Halle as the wife of Magdeburg chancellor Lorenz Zoch, Klara wrote to Katharina, reminiscing about their years together in the cloister school. She promised to visit Wittenberg so the two could renew their friendship. Unfortunately, this letter is the only factual information we have about Katharina’s four years at the cloister school, and we don’t know whether the two friends ever reunited in Wittenberg.11

  Katharina was likely schooled in reading, writing (in Latin and German), and arithmetic, as well as in morals, manners, and religion. It’s not known how often she saw her family or if she was allowed to visit home during her four years at the cloister school. Given the distance between her father’s estate and the school and the arduous travel required by horse-drawn wagon, it’s unlikely Katharina saw her father or siblings very often, if at all. We do know her uncle, Baron von Rachwitz, lived near the cloister school—Katharina and her father stopped at the baron’s estate on their initial trip to Brehna—so she may have found some comfort in the proximity of extended family. But it’s also very possible that the day Katharina kissed her father goodbye at the entrance of the cloister school was the last time she ever saw him.

  A Sudden Change

  Four years later, on a summer morning in 1509, an emissary stepped down from a horse-drawn carriage, knocked on the door of the cloister school, and presented a letter to the prioress. Unbeknownst to her, Katharina’s father had made arrangements with the abbess of a Cistercian convent in Nimbschen, forty-two miles south of Brehna, for his ten-year-old daughter to become a nun. Hans von Bora had put aside a small amount of money to support Katharina’s enclosure in the convent for the rest of her life. The letter delivered by the emissary was an announcement of this plan, as well as details and instructions for Katharina’s transfer from the cloister school to the Cistercian convent Gottes und Marienthron (Throne of God and St. Mary) in Nimbschen, effective immediately.

  As far as we know, Katharina was not consulted about this decision. Not only had she no say in determining the course of her life, she hadn’t even been privy to the particulars—for example, which convent and which order she would enter as a novitiate. That said, the news of her transfer to Marienthron may not have come as a huge surprise. After all, it was common for families to place their young daughters in the convent—at least temporarily—as the nunnery was one of only two viable options (the other being marriage) for noblewomen like Katharina.

  “The nunneries of the early Middle Ages not only offered women the chance to pursue the ascetical life; they performed an important social role in providing a haven for the daughters and widows of the aristocracy for whom no suitable marriage [could] be found,” explains medieval historian C. H. Lawrence. “The women who entered them, and the families that placed them there, expected them to enjoy the society of their own kind. They were thus aristocratic and socially exclusive communities.”12 Katharina’s contemporary, the Spanish Carmelite nun Teresa of Avila, for example, was first placed in the convent by her father in order to protect her virginity and prepare her to lead a devout domestic life. But for Teresa of Avila, the convent life was hardly the stringent, austere existence one might assume. For the first twenty-six years of her life as a nun, Teresa lived in a two-floor suite in the convent, complete with fine furniture and its own kitchen. She spent much of her time entertaining friends and
relatives, was encouraged to leave the convent when she needed to, and was even referred to as “Dona Teresa,” a nod to her social standing.13 In other words, life in a sixteenth-century convent didn’t necessarily entail dire poverty and hardship but was often more of an exclusive, women-only aristocratic society in and of itself.

  For all we know, Katharina may have desired to become a nun on her own accord (although the fact that she would later escape from the cloister suggests otherwise). On the other hand, she may have assumed that once she reached the proper marrying age—which, in the early modern period, was anywhere from the late teens to the early twenties for women—she would be matched with a suitable husband. Given the fact that she was only ten years old when the decision was made, it’s likely Katharina hadn’t given the matter much thought at all.

  While we can’t know Katharina’s thoughts and expectations regarding this life-altering decision, consider this question: If Hans had enrolled his daughter at the cloister school in Brehna so that she would receive a proper education and grooming for marriage, as was posited earlier, why this sudden, dramatic change in course? Why transfer Katharina to a convent for life?

  According to most scholars, there is one probable answer to this question: money. While some young women did feel an authentic religious conviction and a call toward the contemplative life, many had their future determined for them by their parents or guardians simply because it was cheaper for a daughter to become a nun than to be betrothed to a man in a particular social stratum.14 The fact was, the entrance fee to a convent was markedly lower than the dowry needed to attract a husband of Katharina’s social order. Katharina would have been expected to marry a nobleman, and thus come to marriage with a substantial dowry. Hans von Bora, whose financial troubles had only worsened in the four years Katharina was enrolled in the Brehna cloister school, may not have had any choice but to send his daughter to the convent.

  But why transfer Katharina to a different convent? Why did Hans von Bora have his daughter removed from Brehna, where she could have entered the Benedictine cloister along with some of the girls she had grown close to during her four years there, and lived out her life in a place that was familiar, a place that had become home? Again, the answer is likely money. The entrance fee—called a “cloister dowry,” symbolizing the fact that a nun became the bride of Christ when she entered the convent—for the Benedictine cloister at Brehna was much higher than the fee to enter the Cistercian convent in Nimbschen. Hans von Bora paid thirty Groschen—the lowest possible fee, and a pittance—for his daughter to live at the convent in Nimbschen for what he assumed would be the rest of her life.

  The price was low for a reason. The Cistercian convent in Nimbschen was Spartan, even by medieval standards. At the Benedictine cloister school in Brehna, each building was well designed and aesthetically appealing, and the monastery’s refined architecture served to enhance the entire town, note the Markwalds.15 After four years there, Katharina was accustomed to the abbey’s impressive complex of airy, light-filled buildings, including a large cloister church; ample sleeping quarters for the nuns; a bakery and kitchen; root, apple, and wine cellars; and an infirmary, a guesthouse, and the school buildings, in addition to outlying barns and extensive land. In contrast, Marienthron, the Cistercian convent at Nimbschen, was simple and bare to the point of severity. Constructed of dark rock extracted from the local hillsides, the rough exterior gave the entire convent a somber, gloomy feel. The walls were not plastered, making the buildings seem crudely or hastily constructed, and the church was unadorned and indistinguishable from the other buildings. Neither decorations nor artwork were allowed in the church or elsewhere in the convent, save the occasional simple wooden cross. Windows were made of clear glass, not colorful stained glass, so as not to be distracting. Only ruins of the convent in Nimbschen remain today, but even in those one can see the starkness and austerity of the structures.16

  The ruins of the Marienthron convent in Nimbschen, Germany, where Katharina lived as a cloistered Cistercian nun for fourteen years. [Linda Bushkofsky]

  Unlike fellow nun Teresa of Avila, Katharina wouldn’t enjoy high-society convent living and a two-floor suite. Instead, she would sleep in a bare-bones dormitory with the other novitiates. And unlike Teresa of Avila, who frequently entertained guests and was allowed to leave the convent to travel, Katharina lived in silence; saw no one save the prioress, her fellow novitiates, and the priest assigned to the convent; and was not allowed to leave the walled enclosure.

  The Cistercians

  The Cistercian Order was founded in 1098 in the village of Cîteaux (Latin name, Cistercium),17 France, when a Benedictine abbot by the name of Robert of Molesme left his monastery in Burgundy, France, with twenty-one supporters to found a new order that would more strictly adhere to the Rule of St. Benedict. Robert’s successor, Stephen Harding, established the first female Cistercian convent in Le Tart, France, in 1120.18 These early founders of the Cistercian Order yearned to return to the poverty, simplicity, and isolation that were hallmarks of the original Benedictine Rule, established by St. Benedict of Nursia in 529. “The early Cistercians wanted to roll back the centuries of monastic development to revive what they believed to be the pure simplicity of St. Benedict’s plan,” says C. H. Lawrence. “It was applied to everything—to dress, food, buildings, and furniture. It was simply a question of getting back to the Rule of St. Benedict, which was to be observed to the letter.”19

  For Katharina, this meant that her significantly limited life in the Benedictine cloister school became infinitely more limited when she crossed the threshold of the Cistercian convent. For starters, the location of the convent at Nimbschen was intentionally isolated. According to regulations of the Cistercians’ General Charter in 1134, monasteries were to be constructed in remote, rural locations, far from towns, villages, or castles.20 Marienthron was set deep in a valley and protected by a hill on one side and dense woods on the other. Beyond that were the fields, planted with wheat, rye, barley, oats, hemp, flax, and hops. The buildings were modest and built low to the ground (especially compared with the soaring cathedrals indicative of other orders); towers, steeples, and any other architectural accoutrements were not allowed by the order.

  The buildings were divided into two main sections. The Propstei (provost’s section) housed the provost, a Cistercian lay official who oversaw the convent, along with two monks from the nearby Pforta Abbey, who were responsible for hearing confessions and for the overall spiritual supervision of the nuns. The Propstei also included an underground room where many of the convent’s craftsmen and laborers, such as the blacksmith, the cook, the baker, the furnace man, and the miller, lived and worked. Between forty and fifty workers supported the lives of forty-three nuns. Behind the Propstei was the Klausur (cloister), where the nuns lived. A deep ditch ran along the bottom of the hill, and the entire complex was surrounded by a stone wall—both features were intended to keep the nuns separate from the world outside.21

  “Cistercian foundations were located with an eye to the preservation of seclusion and strict enclosure,” Lawrence notes. “The sites they accepted were generally on deserted or uncultivated lands, far removed from inhabited settlements.”22 A watchman was positioned at the convent’s gate at all times, and even the entrance to the convent itself was partially hidden, sending a clear message to “all would-be intruders: Zutritt verboten! (‘Off limits!’).”23 Inside the church, a screen in the shape of a cross divided the nuns and postulants (the candidates, like Katharina, seeking formal entrance to the convent) from anyone else who might be visiting the convent and attending worship services, although pilgrims and visitors were not typically allowed into the church.

  As far as we know, neither her father nor her stepmother accompanied Katharina from Brehna to Nimbschen. At best she made the journey with a guardian from the convent school; perhaps she even traveled the forty-two miles alone, with only the driver of the carriage by her side. In his biography of Kat
harina von Bora, Ernst Kroker paints an idyllic picture of the Nimbschen convent and the surrounding land, describing it as “situated in the midst of a quiet lovely landscape,” complete with “wooded hills,” a “calmly flowing river [bordering] the meadows and fruitful fields,” a “shady forest and sunny fields.”24 But the harsh reality of her situation undoubtedly tainted how Katharina received such a picturesque view. The fact is, Katharina knew that as a cloistered nun, she wouldn’t have the freedom to experience this landscape, however beautiful and tranquil, in person. Knowing that a lovely landscape lay just beyond the convent’s walls would only serve to deepen her sense of isolation.

  One can only imagine Katharina’s apprehension, how her heart must have sunk when she glimpsed the ugly, low-slung buildings from the carriage as the convent came into view. One can only imagine her dread and dismay as she walked through Marienthron’s gates, knowing that once she stepped inside, she wouldn’t be allowed to leave. Once again Katharina had been plucked from her familiar, comfortable surroundings and deposited into a foreign environment. Once again she was required to live among strangers. Once again she was forced to adapt to a new, unfamiliar routine. But this time was worse because this move, she knew, was to be her last. Here in this remote countryside, behind these formidable walls, Katharina would live out the rest of her life.

  2

  A Nun without a Choice