Katharina and Martin Luther

by Michelle DeRusha

  Not only was she the mother of his children, his nurse, his business manager, and the manager of his household, Katharina was Luther’s confidante, a person whose companionship he truly enjoyed. It’s obvious the two respected and trusted one another and delighted in each other’s company. It may not have been head-over-heels love from the start, but it didn’t take long for Luther to become quite smitten indeed.

  A “Dear and Precious Man”

  As we’ve noted all along, we don’t definitively know how Katharina felt about Luther because we don’t have her perspective on their marriage. We must make do with the bits and pieces we can glean from the observations of others and from the few words we do have from Katharina herself.

  For example, the number of letters written by Luther in reply to Katharina hint at how frequently she wrote to her husband when he was traveling. We also know that she fretted about his health and worried about his overall safety. As was noted earlier, after having a premonition that danger would befall him, Katharina begged Luther not to travel to his dear friend Spalatin’s wedding—a request Luther heeded. When Luther became gravely ill with an attack of kidney stones while traveling in Smalcald and it was thought he might die, Katharina left Wittenberg immediately in order to be by his side (he recovered before Katharina arrived and subsequently wrote to her that he was happily on his way home to her).52 Luther also frequently consoled Katharina in his letters and tried to ease her anxieties about him. When he was in Eisleben, for instance, just before his death in 1546, he urged her to read John and the Small Catechism and gently reminded her that rather than worrying herself, she should hand her fears and anxiety over to God53 (see the third letter in the appendix). Just a handful of Katharina’s own words about her husband exist today, and they are all contained in a single letter, written to her sister-in-law, Christina von Bora, two months after Luther’s death. In this brief but moving correspondence we glimpse the depths of Katharina’s grief.

  I can easily believe that you have heartfelt sympathy for my poor children and me. For who would not easily be troubled and saddened over such a precious man as my dear husband was? He served not just one city or a single country, but the entire world. For that reason I really am so sad that I can’t tell anyone how full of sorrow my heart is. And I don’t know what I’m thinking and how I’m feeling. I can’t eat or drink, nor even sleep. And if I had had a princedom or empire and lost it, I wouldn’t have been as sad as now when our dear Lord God has taken this dear and precious man from me, and not just from me, but from the whole world. If I think about it, then I can’t speak nor even have someone write because of the pain and crying (God surely knows that).54

  One can hear in her words Katharina’s attempt to be strong, to put on a brave face in the midst of such a devastating loss. She begins her letter resolutely, declaring the impact Luther’s death has had on the world, but her resolve quickly dissolves into an expression of personal grief. She can’t eat, she can’t drink, she can’t sleep. Grief has so muddled her thoughts and emotions, she admits that she can’t even think straight. Ernst Kroker notes that Katharina had dictated this letter, but even that task was nearly impossible, given her incessant weeping and unrelenting pain. This is the heartbreaking letter of a grief-stricken wife. As Philip Melanchthon and Reformation leader Paul Eber later reported, Katharina especially lamented that she had been unable to tend to Luther during his last days and hours and that he had died without her at his bedside.55

  The Perfect Match

  A 1530s portrait of the Luther family (which biographers Rudolph and Marilynn Markwald suggest was likely painted by Lucas Cranach) depicts Katharina sitting in a chair in the garden, their daughter Magdalene sliding from her lap and beginning to toddle away from her. Their oldest child, Hans, stands next to his mother, while Luther sits across from Katharina, seated comfortably in a large chair with an open book on his lap. Standing behind Luther is a man, possibly Philip Melanchthon, and sitting behind Katharina is an elderly woman, presumably her aunt, Magdalena, bent over her needlework.56

  As the Markwalds note, at first glance the painting seems to portray a typical family gathering, but a closer look reveals something interesting. Katharina is not depicted in the background, sewing or knitting, but is seated front and center in the foreground. And while her maternal qualities are highlighted, with one child on her lap and another standing nearby, she also appears to be discussing or perhaps even arguing a point with her husband. Katharina is speaking, and Luther is listening.57 The message is clear: Katharina was not a mere bystander; she was an engaged and devoted partner to Luther and an active participant in the Reformation.

  Stubborn, opinionated, blunt, and often crass, sickly, prone to melancholy, and a classic workaholic, Luther was not an easy man to live with. As biographer Edith Simon so aptly noted, Luther may have claimed he wanted a more obedient spouse, but “how would he have fared with a meek wife?”58 Luther found the best possible partner in Katharina, a woman who deeply loved and respected him, yet also managed his volatile moods and his difficult personality and offered him intellectual stimulation and companionship. Luther undoubtedly understood how challenging and difficult he was. Feisty and strong, courageous and smart, industrious and utterly devoted, Katharina was, in fact, the perfect match for Martin Luther, and he knew it.

  14

  A Family Affair

  Katie is fulfilling Genesis 3:8 where the Lord God said to the woman, ‘in pain shall you bring forth children,’” Luther wrote to a friend on October 21, 1525—his way of announcing that Katharina was expecting their first child.1 The news spawned a revival of the malicious rumors and gossip that had plagued the couple leading up to and following their wedding. Some speculated that Katharina would give birth to the antichrist or a two-headed monster. Others suggested that the pregnancy smacked of blasphemy and sacrilege, “a double breach of monastic vows.”2 Luther and Katharina ignored the rumors, delighted that God had blessed them so quickly and easily with a pregnancy.

  As marriage was essentially a sixteenth-century noblewoman’s only viable option outside the convent, bearing and rearing children was the natural expectation of such a union. In fact, marriage was so closely equated with pregnancy, motherhood, and family, standard wedding gifts of the time often included swaddling (diapers), cradles, and infant bathing tubs.3 Motherhood was by far a woman’s most important role during medieval and early modern times, and childlessness was viewed as a curse of the devil.

  Augsburgian Bernhard Rem described the ideal Christian woman as “a wife who washes her children’s nappies each day, who feeds them pap, gives her husband food to eat, and nourishes her children in the sweat of her brow,” a definition that inextricably linked marriage with motherhood.4 Likewise, Luther also had plenty to say about the role of women as mothers. He praised the biblical Rachel as “an example of very beautiful and motherly affection and chastity,” noting, “the only thing she seeks is offspring from her flesh.”5 “The saintly women desire nothing else than the natural fruit of their bodies,” he said, speaking of both Rachel and Leah in his Lectures on Genesis. “For by nature woman has been created for the purpose of bearing children. Therefore she has breasts; she has arms for the purpose of nourishing, cherishing, and carrying her offspring. It was the intention of the Creator that women should bear children and that men should beget them—with the exception of those men whom God Himself has excepted.”6

  Katharina fulfilled her expected wifely duty quickly. On June 7, 1526, just a few days short of their first wedding anniversary, she gave birth to their first child, a son, Johannes, whom they called Hans. The baby was named after Luther’s father, Hans, and Johannes Bugenhagen, the Wittenberg pastor who had married Luther and Katharina one year before. Luther wrote to his good friend, John Rühel, the following day: “Yesterday . . . at two o’clock, my dear Katie, by God’s great grace, gave to me a Hansen [one of the variations on his nickname] Luther.”7 Two months later Luther was still eagerly spreadin
g the good news: “God in his great goodness has blessed me with a healthy and vigorous son, John, a little Luther,”8 he wrote to his friend, Michael Stifel.

  Luther was obviously overjoyed as well as undoubtedly relieved that both his son and wife had survived the rigors of labor and delivery. Childbirth was a dangerous endeavor for both mother and child in the Middle Ages and early modern period, although maternal mortality, at between 1 and 2 percent, was lower than one might assume for the time. While major complications like eclampsia or hemorrhaging were rare, when they did occur they were almost always fatal, as were instances in which the infant was breech or otherwise not positioned correctly and had to be turned in utero.9 The widespread introduction of forceps in the eighteenth century helped with delivery challenges, but during Katharina’s time such tools were not yet available. Thankfully, none of Katharina’s six pregnancies and deliveries presented any extraordinary challenges.

  Luther celebrated his son’s arrival, but as was the custom of the time, he wasn’t present during the labor or delivery. Instead, Katharina was attended by a midwife, perhaps a close friend or two, and probably at least one servant, all of whom would have assisted with the delivery. Whom she invited to attend the birth was an important decision; as historian Merry Wiesner points out, accusations of witchcraft had been known to result from the curses and anger of a neighbor excluded from the event.10 Katharina gave birth at home, in her own bedroom and in her own bed, as hospitals were not nearly as prevalent during the Middle Ages and the early modern period as they are today. Even if there had been an official hospital in Wittenberg at the time, labor and delivery was always relegated to the private realm of the home. A male physician was only called if either the mother or the infant, or both, had died or were dying, so his appearance was dreaded.11

  To prepare for her delivery, Katharina’s midwife, and perhaps Katharina herself, likely referred to Eucharius Rösslin’s Rosengarten, a popular manual first printed in 1513 and considered to be the foremost guide to gynecology, obstetrics, and infant and child care across much of northern Europe.12 Although the Rosengarten was a scholarly manual and drew on classical and medieval authorities, including Hippocrates, Galen, and Albertus Magnus, Rösslin himself was a practicing physician and thus offered practical and detailed instructions for prenatal care, labor, and delivery, as well as information about the possible complications that could occur in childbirth.13 The most harrowing section of the manual, for example, included eight pages of instruction for how to remove a dead child from the womb, a situation which, because of the primitive surgical skills of the time, posed the gravest threat to the mother’s life. Rösslin also devoted a section to the reverse situation: how to deliver a baby when the mother had died in childbirth.14 If Katharina had studied the Rosengarten in preparation for the birth of her first child, parts of it would have been sobering—if not downright terrifying—to read.

  When labor commenced, Katharina most likely followed the twofold regimen suggested by Rösslin. The first part aimed to speed the baby through the birth canal, and the second part was designed to lessen the mother’s pain. To hasten birth and encourage dilation, Katharina probably alternately stood and sat upright during labor and quite possibly used a special birthing chair that was popular in Germany and Italy during the time. The midwife also would have instructed Katharina in breathing exercises similar to the Lamaze exercises laboring women practice today, and she would have administered a number of medicinal remedies to ease the pain of contractions, some of which seem quite odd by modern standards. For example, a laboring woman was often given pepper or the evergreen flower hellebore to smell because it was believed that the act of sneezing hastened labor. The midwife also often lubricated the birth canal with duck fat, lily oil, or barleycorns saturated with saffron; applied a wool net soaked in a pungent oil made from evergreen leaves of rue; sprayed medicinal vapors (one of the more popular ones was made with dove dung) over the laboring mother; spread a variety of herbal poultices over the mother’s belly; and administered medicinal teas and broths comprised of potent opiates and herbs. Rösslin also suggested that the midwife encourage and console the laboring mother “by telling her that the birth is going to be a happy one, and that she is going to have a boy.”15

  Once she delivered the baby, the midwife was also responsible for expelling any remaining afterbirth (popular remedies thought to hasten that process ranged from instructing the mother to hold her breath and push to warming her genital area with the “sweet vapors of burned donkey hoofs”),16 tending to any bleeding, and stitching a lacerated birth canal or perineum. Katharina’s midwife also likely bathed little Hans in warm water, along with a bit of milk or fragrant blossom sap (elder or peach) and a fresh egg (a symbol of fertility). Luther, who would have been allowed into the bedroom once Katharina had been tended to, may have slipped a silver coin into Hans’s bathwater, both as a bonus for the midwife and a symbol of his pledge to care for his child.17 Hans would have then been rubbed with nut or other oils to protect his skin, swaddled in a blanket, and placed at Katharina’s left side, over her heart.18

  At this point, as was the custom of the time, Katharina’s housemaid probably went door-to-door in Wittenberg to declare the news of Hans’s birth, while Luther penned announcements, such as the ones quoted earlier. In some German towns, an aptly named “joy maid” carried a bouquet throughout town to announce the birth of a girl; if a boy had been born, the joy maid carried an additional, larger bouquet in her hand, “attesting to the age’s preference for male offspring.”19 Birthing not only a child but a son was the best news of all; Katharina had done well.

  A Simple Baptism

  The single most important duty of the midwife, after assisting with labor and delivery, of course, was to ensure that the infant was immediately baptized if death was thought to be imminent. Unbaptized children were considered defenseless against Satan and eternal damnation, and parents counted death of an unbaptized child among their greatest fears. Stillborn infants were sometimes rubbed vigorously by the midwife or mother until “a spark of life was perceived, or imagined, and a baptism, ‘while alive,’ quickly performed.”20

  Hans Luther, however, was born in good health, and thus, as was the custom of the time, was baptized the afternoon he was born, at the parish church in the presence of his godparents, who included Bugenhagen, as well as Justus Jonas, Lucas Cranach, the wife of the mayor of Wittenberg, Electoral Vice Chancellor Christian Baier, Mansfeld Chancellor Caspar Muller, and Strasbourg professor Nikolaus Gerbel.21 Having given birth just hours before, Katharina was not present at her son’s baptism.

  The baptismal ceremony was laced with symbolism and ritual. Prior to the Reformation, the sacrament of baptism was as much an exorcism as a sacrament and a blessing. The priest typically began the service by blowing under the newborn’s eyes and commanding the devil: “Flee from this child, unclean spirit, and make room for the Holy Spirit.” In addition to the water poured over his head, the child also received the mark of the cross on his forehead and chest and a pinch of consecrated salt in his mouth, accompanied by the words: “Take the salt of [divine] wisdom, and may it atone for you in eternity.” The priest dabbed a mix of his own spit and dirt in the child’s nose and ears (symbolizing Christ’s healing of the deaf-mute man in Mark 7 and the blind man in John 9) while pronouncing a double command—the first for the child, the second for the devil—“[Dear child] receive the sweetness of God. . . . Devil, flee, for the judgment of God is near.” He then anointed the child’s chest and shoulders with olive oil and placed a consecrated mixture of olive oil and balsam—called the holy chrism—on the crown of the infant’s head. The final part of the baptism service was performed by one of the godparents, who clothed the naked, baptized child in the traditional white gown, called the Westerhemd or Wester, symbolizing purity and acceptance into the body of Christ. Finally, the father, or both parents if the mother was also present, accepted a lit candle as a symbol of the light of Christ.22


  In his Small Catechism, Luther greatly simplified the baptismal ceremony by stripping away much of the formality and symbolism and focusing on the water, which he considered the sole biblical element of the sacrament. Everything else—the oil, the holy chrism, the candle, the white gown, and even the exorcism and many of the prayers—he considered unnecessary human additions. Yet because many people of the time were reluctant to part from the traditions they valued, Luther continued to allow Protestant congregations to keep these human additions to the baptismal ceremony, as long as the pastors emphasized the cleansing element of the water. We can assume, though, that with his own son’s baptism, Luther stuck close to his own reforms. Hans’s was undoubtedly a very simple baptism.

  It’s questionable, as well, whether Luther and Katharina participated in another popular ritual of the time. The “white bath” (or Westerbad) traditionally took place three days after birth and was the occasion on which the white baptismal gown was ceremonially removed. The infant was thus “bathed out of the Wester” and dressed in the clothes he would typically wear from then on.23 Although the event was a popular one and often attended by friends and family and celebrated with a great feast, Luther never mentioned the “white bath” in any of his letters or Table Talk discussions. It’s likely the Luthers decided to skip this ceremony with Hans and their other five children in order to emphasize the importance of the sacrament of baptism without the distraction of the other traditional rituals. Or perhaps they simply couldn’t afford to host a banquet to celebrate the arrival of each child. Although the Luthers’ financial situation was much improved with Katharina at the helm, the birth of each subsequent child meant another person to clothe, feed, and provide for in the increasingly crowded Black Cloister.