There was a loophole, however. In advance of his death, a husband could assign to his wife the legal right to some of his property for her lifetime, and this is exactly what Luther finally did. On January 6, 1542, he wrote his testament, bequeathing to Katharina a “widow’s dower” that included the Zülsdorf estate; a small cottage in front of the Black Cloister that would serve as Katharina’s and the children’s residence; and the silver cups, medals, and jewelry, which had an estimated value of 1,000 Gulden.20 Anticipating that Katharina would be the victim of vicious gossip and rumors after his death, Luther also stipulated that his friends protect her from malicious rumors and from those who would surely insist that she had hidden cash reserves from her own children.21 Finally, Luther stated for the record that there was no such cash on hand, and that Katharina would be more than 450 Gulden in debt if Luther did not succeed in paying it off during his lifetime.22 Predicting that Katharina would be accused of poor management, he also stated that the accounting books could be examined publicly as proof of what income had been received. Two years after writing his will, on February 1, 1544, Luther listed his bequests in the city record book, stating that, with the exception of the Black Cloister (which had been given to him as a gift by the elector), all his properties and the gardens within the city limits should go to Katharina upon his death.23
Unfortunately, Luther stubbornly overlooked one critical component of his will and testament. The law required that for it to be valid, the will not only had to be stated in writing, it also had to be notarized by a lawyer. Luther didn’t care for lawyers (a distaste that perhaps stemmed from his father’s vehement wish for Luther to pursue that profession), and thus he adamantly refused to have his will notarized by one. Instead, he asked Melanchthon, Cruciger, and Bugenhagen to sign the documents, banking on the expectation that their signatures would serve as a proper testament of the will’s authenticity. In short, Luther trusted that his own signature and seal and the signatures of his friends would carry far more authority and weight than that of a lawyer’s. He was wrong. Without the signature of an attorney, the will was not legally binding.
Luther’s second error was that he did not designate a guardian for Katharina or his children, but instead confidently appointed Katharina, as the mother, the best guardian for their children.24 “You bore the children, you nursed them; you will not manage their affairs to their disadvantage,” he said. “I am opposed to guardians; they seldom do well.”25 Luther was centuries ahead of his time in granting his wife this responsibility. His decision signaled that their relationship consisted of more than attraction or compatibility, but at its core was based on mutual respect. At the same time, however, Luther’s unconventional decision was also incredibly foolish and ultimately left Katharina in a terrible position. The fact was, a widow and her children were, by law, not allowed to live independently without a guardian. Katharina couldn’t serve as a guardian to her children because as a widow, she was required to have a guardian herself. Luther knew this, yet in ignoring this critical detail, he put Katharina at risk to lose everything, including custody of her own children.
Where There’s a Will, There’s a Way
In the early days and weeks following Luther’s death, Wittenberg and Saxony officials allowed Katharina and her children a respectful peace. The elector kept this promise to Luther, writing to Katharina to express his condolences and assure her that “for the sake of your husband we are ready to be at your and your children’s disposal and will not forsake you.”26 Luther’s friends rallied around the grieving widow and her children, sending money and supplies to help sustain them. However, it wasn’t long before the tides began to turn. In particular, the elector’s chancellor, Gregor Brück, formerly one of Luther’s close friends, opposed Katharina’s attempts to secure her own future and the future of her children.
Brück, it turned out, held a long-brewing grudge against Katharina. Years before she had counseled Luther on a decision that had negatively affected the chancellor, and he hadn’t taken kindly to “the rib” meddling in political affairs. As a result, Brück was now determined to make life difficult for Katharina. He accused her of greed and mismanagement of her inherited funds and stymied her attempts to purchase the estate of Wachsdorf, ownership of which Katharina believed would secure her children’s future. In addition, Brück suggested to the elector that Katharina send her two youngest boys away to boarding school (at twenty, Hans was considered an adult, so Brück didn’t have as much control over his future), dispense of her property, and live with her daughter on a modest allowance provided by the elector. He announced that he intended to “break up Kate’s extravagant household” and “take Luther’s three sons away from their mother.”27 Finally, Brück suggested that Katharina and her children should be given separate guardians who would oversee their affairs.
Luther’s friends didn’t exactly rally to Katharina’s cause, despite his stipulation in his will that they serve as his “dear Kate’s witness and protect her from useless, evil, and envious tongues.”28 When Brück claimed that Martin and Paul would be in poor hands with their mother and better off at boarding school, neither Melanchthon nor Cruciger defended Katharina. In fact, Melanchthon suggested that all three boys should be separated from their mother and from each other. Hans should study at the electoral chancellery, he suggested, and the two younger boys should each board with their own tutor.
Melanchthon and Cruciger also refused to serve as Katharina’s guardians. Their reasoning? Katharina would never heed their advice—an assumption probably grounded in experience. Ultimately the elector appointed Katharina’s brother, Hans von Bora, and Erasmus Spiegel, the captain of the city guard, as her guardians, with Luther’s brother Jacob, Wittenberg mayor Ambrosius Reuter, and electoral physician Matthew Ratzeberger as guardians for the children. Melanchthon and Cruciger were appointed secondary guardians, and even in that lesser, supporting role, Melanchthon still complained that Katharina pestered them relentlessly to keep her petitions moving forward.29 In his and the other guardians’ defense, working with Katharina and caught between her single-minded strong will and Brück’s vengeful resistance couldn’t have been an easy position.
The one person who did keep his word to Luther was Elector Johann Frederick. Ignoring Brück’s suggestions, the elector ratified Luther’s will, earmarked a generous sum to support Katharina and her two younger sons and daughter, and decreed that the purchase of the Wachsdorf estate be decided not by Brück but by Katharina’s and her children’s guardians. The only point on which he agreed with Brück was the subject of the guardians: the elector ordered separate guardians to be named for Katharina and her children, which, while not a decision with dire consequences, did slightly complicate Katharina’s life.
After months of discussion between Katharina, Chancellor Brück, Elector Frederick, and the guardians, Katharina’s strong will and savvy negotiating skills prevailed. Luther’s properties, including the Black Cloister and the gardens, remained in her possession. She retained custody of her children—the younger boys continued to live with her and Margarete and were not sent off to boarding school. She was allowed to purchase the Wachsdorf estate, which would become the property of her sons when they came of age, and her children were granted an annual stipend of 1,000 Gulden, with an additional 5 percent added each year. Her only failure was that she was not allowed one guardian for the whole family, but Katharina knew when to quit pushing. In the most critical matters, she had won.
Katharina had exhibited relentless determination and resilience. She had pursued the business and financial decisions she thought would best benefit her children, and she had refused to be cowed by Brück’s attempts to bully her into a position of powerlessness. Above all, Katharina had put her children and their future livelihood above all else, including her own reputation, and had proven herself a formidable opponent to some of the most powerful authorities in Wittenberg and Saxony. As Ernst Kroker points out, Katharina had the elector to than
k more than the others, “but most of all she had herself to thank.”30
Unfortunately, Katharina’s victories were short-lived. War was on the horizon, and even greater challenges lay ahead.
By the fall of 1546, just months after Luther’s death, Wittenberg had become a military zone. Men, armed with whatever weapons they could find—swords, spears, matchlock muskets, and even rocks—positioned themselves along the bulwark that surrounded the city and prepared for the attack of Emperor Charles V and his troops, which, bolstered by Hungarian reinforcements, were advancing toward Wittenberg. As news spread that the town of Zwickau, 128 miles south of Wittenberg, had been seized, Katharina and her children packed a wagon with as many valuables and necessities as they could fit and set their sights on Magdeburg, about fifty miles northwest of Wittenberg, one of the few remaining towns that had not been captured.
When it was finally safe to return home to Wittenberg in early spring of 1547, Katharina discovered that, while the Black Cloister was intact, her other properties in the country had suffered irreparable damage. Her fields and gardens had been ravaged, and her livestock was decimated, either stolen or butchered. She was on the verge of financial ruin.
There was no time, however, to begin the process of restoration. By late spring, Elector Johann Frederick was taken prisoner, and Charles V entered Saxony and conquered Wittenberg. Katharina and her children fled just in time. They hoped to make it all the way to Denmark, where King Christian III was a friend and ally. Instead, the refugees were forced to stop in Braunschweig, about sixty miles west of Magdeburg. It was too dangerous to travel any farther.
By June it was considered safe to return to Wittenberg, which was now under the control of Duke Moritz of Saxony, who had allied himself with Charles V. From her seat in the wagon during the long journey home, Katharina observed the utter destruction of the landscape, farms, and houses. Hardly a tree was left standing. Crops were ravaged, farmhouses destroyed, barns and stables ruined, and livestock stolen. Katharina’s own rural properties in Wachsdorf, Zülsdorf, and Boos (where, beginning in 1539, she leased fifty-six acres of pasture land to supplement her cattle-breeding operation) were in ruins. Her cattle were gone, and many of the buildings and stables had been burned by the people of Wittenberg themselves to inhibit the enemy from settling in close to the city walls. She had worked tirelessly to retain and maintain the properties Luther had bequeathed her, all for naught. Katharina was more destitute than ever. She gathered what few silver cups and tankards she had left to pawn. And then, pen in hand, she begged.
Calling in Favors
A mere eight of Katharina’s letters are extant, none of them addressed to Luther and all but one connected with economic or legal concerns. Her “official” letters, in which she negotiated her and her children’s legal status, were preserved, pointing to an interesting observation made by historians Sandra Cavallo and Lyndan Warner: “The widow often becomes visible to the historian because she left traces of her new ‘uncovered’ legal status.”31 That is, as a married woman, Katharina didn’t exist, at least legally—she was simply connected to her husband’s legal status. But as a widow, her legal and patrimonial condition changed, and Katharina became more independent, at least comparatively.
For example, in one of her rare extant letters, Katharina secretly wrote to her godfather, the electoral treasurer Hans von Taubenheim, for help in leasing a rural property in Boos. “Please do not listen to those [such as Chancellor Brück] who maintain that I want to bring the estate, deceitfully, as an inheritance into my possession. I just ask that the Boos farm be leased to me for a year or two at a reasonable rent so I will [have a place] to keep my household and livestock more conveniently. Please do not let this petition get into anybody else’s hand.”32 Likewise, several letters have survived in which Katharina requested financial aid from the elector and other authorities, which she did with increasing frequency during and following the Schmalkaldic War. In 1547, for example, Katharina wrote to King Christian III of Denmark to express her gratitude for his financial assistance. “Since during this past year I had so much deep sorrow and suffering, with the death of my husband and then the dangerous wars and devastation of this land,” she wrote, “it has been a great comfort to me to receive from Your Royal Highness 50 talers so I can better maintain myself and my children, and for this I want to give you my most humble thanks.”33
After her second return home to Wittenberg in June of 1547, however, Katharina’s letters grew increasingly desperate. Her appeals were eloquent and humble, but to the point, and she didn’t hesitate to remind her benefactors of their relationship with Luther. For example, in the spring of 1549 she wrote to both thank and appeal to Duke Albrecht of Prussia, who had provided Hans with a scholarship to study at Königsberg. “I do not want to bother you with reminiscing about the great privation in my household after this last war and how hard it is to nourish and maintain myself and my children from my devastated and depredated properties,” she wrote. “I do not doubt that Your Highness would, for the sake of my husband—a true prophet in these last dangers and restless times—also take me as Luther’s surviving widow and my children under your gracious protection.”34
In 1550, after she had remortgaged Zülsdorf and pawned her remaining silver, she wrote a humble plea to King Christian III of Denmark, noting, “As Dr. M. Luther’s widow I am making this petition as I and my children are receiving less now and the restlessness of this time has laid many heavy burdens on me,” and pleading, “Would Your Royal Highness please arrange such help for this purpose?”35 She heard nothing in response. Finally, in 1552, she wrote her eighth and last of her extant letters, again to King Christian:
Since my late dear husband has always loved Your Royal Highness and considered you a most Christian king, and you have always favored him with such an allowance, I am now constrained by my urgent need to humbly beseech Your Royal Majesty in my misery to have mercy on this unworthy widow, who is now forsaken by everybody, and graciously forward said allowance. More damage has been done to me by my friends than by my enemies. For these and other reasons, I am compelled to humbly petition Your Royal Highness to help me since everybody treats me like a stranger and no one has mercy on me.36
Katharina’s desperation and despair are obvious. Impoverished, in deep debt, her property remortgaged to the hilt, Katharina was forced to rely on her late husband’s famous name, call in favors, and even beg in order to ensure her survival and the survival of her children.
To make matters worse, her friends blamed her. Bugenhagen, for instance, insinuated that she wouldn’t be poor if she knew how to manage her property properly.37 Not only was his comment unkind, it was also unfair and untrue. Since Luther’s death, Katharina had labored tirelessly to support herself and her children. In addition to attempting to maintain her properties and livestock in between fleeing and returning to war-torn Wittenberg, she also kept the Black Cloister open and welcomed boarders during the months she was living in town. To supplement that income, she also rented out two large rooms next to her living room for university professors to use as lecture halls.
Katharina was industrious and innovative, but her labors were not enough, even with financial assistance, to overcome the deep debt and the devastation her properties had incurred during the war. Given adequate time, she might have succeeded in digging herself out of the financial hole—she had certainly demonstrated savvy business skills and a seemingly endless determination in the past. Unfortunately, she didn’t have adequate time to prove herself. During the summer of 1552 the plague descended upon Wittenberg, and by autumn, the disease had spread to the Black Cloister. In order to protect her family from the deadly illness, Katharina was forced to flee Wittenberg for a third time.
She didn’t make it very far. Just outside Wittenberg, en route to Torgau with her two youngest children, Paul and Margarete, the horses pulling their wagon were startled. As they threatened to tip the heavy load, Katharina jumped to the ground,
landing hard and tumbling into a ditch of dirty, cold water, where she lay injured and barely conscious until her children managed to get her back into the wagon.
Katharina is buried in St. Mary’s Church in Torgau, Germany. [By A. Köppl, Gleiritsch (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons]
By the time Paul and Margarete got their mother to Torgau, found adequate lodging, and located a physician to attend to her, Katharina was near death. Several factors likely contributed to Katharina’s demise: the stress of living on the edge of financial ruin and poverty for the last six years; the violent fall from the wagon; the exposure and shock as she lay in the cold water while her two children frantically scurried to help; and perhaps even internal injuries that were never diagnosed.38
Katharina Luther’s epitaph can still be seen in St. Mary’s Church in Torgau, Germany. [By Clemensfranz (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons]
She remained in that precarious state, slowly fading, sometimes conscious but often not, for three months, until finally, on December 20, 1552, at the age of fifty-three, Katharina Luther died. Melanchthon wrote a lengthy commemoration in Latin, in which he acknowledged Katharina’s suffering by quoting the Greek playwright Euripides, who wrote, “No evil is so horrible for language to describe, No fate or God-imposed adversity, Which does not bring its burdens on mortals.”39 Because many of the university’s professors and students were in Torgau to escape the plague, Melanchthon posted a public obituary and an invitation to Katharina’s funeral on December 21. At three o’clock that afternoon, a surprisingly large crowd assembled and progressed to St. Mary’s Church. There, Katharina Luther was laid to rest beneath the loft of the boys’ choir, as Hans, Martin, Paul, and Margarete stood alongside her grave.
Katharina and Martin Luther Page 22
