Katharina von Bora, Martin Luther's Wife

Martin Luther's Wife, Katharina von Bora

• Katharina von Bora was born in 1499 in the German village of Lippendorf.
• As a child, she attended a Benedictine monastery in Brehna in 1504 and moved to the Cistercian monastery MarienThron in Nimbschen.
• She got interested in the reformist movement, as the town of Grimma was nearby her monastery.
• Katharina escaped with other nuns from the convent to Wittenberg, hiding on a food delivery wagon Luther had sent on Easter Eve, April 4, 1523.
• Martin Luther found many of the nuns homes, husbands, and jobs.
• Katharina stayed with the city clerk of Wittenberg, Philipp Reichenback but lived with the painter Lucas Cranach the Elder and his wife Barbara.
• Katharina received several marriage proposals but held out hope for an engagement to Luther.
• On June 13, 1525, Martin Luther married the 15 years younger Katharina von Bora, setting a precedent for reforming reformist clergy to marry.
• Luther couple moved into the Augusteum, dubbed the "Black Cloister," the former dormitory and college of Augustinian friars studying in Wittenberg.
• Von Bora took over the monastery's administration, oversaw a small farm , and ran an on-site hospital.
• Martin and Katharina had six children together, of which only three survived. They also took in four orphans.
• Katharina struggled financially after Luther died in 1546.
• Although Luther had named her his heir in his will, it did not conform with Saxon Law.
• She was forced to leave Wittenberg because Protestant and Catholics nobles conflicted about it, at the outbreak of the Schmalkalden War from 1546 to 1547.
• Katharina died in poverty at Torgau in 1552 at 53.
• She was buried away from Martin Luther at St. Mary's Church in Torgau.

The English Reformation

• The marital problems and dynastic ambitions of King Henry VIII (1491-1547) led to the creation of an independent Church of England.
• Increasingly worried about not having a male heir, Henry wished to divorce his Spanish Catholic wife, Catherine of Aragon (1485-1536).
• King Charles V of Spain(1500-1558), Pope Clement VII refused Henry's request for an annulment.
• Henry eventually persuaded the English Parliament to pass the 1534 Act of Supremacy, which made the King of England rather than the Pope the head of the English (Anglican) Church.
• Henry then had his marriage to Catherine annulled.
• When Henry and Anne proved unable to conceive a male heir, English officials executed her, in May of 1536, for witchcraft, incest and adultery.
• Henry would go on to have another four other wives. His third produce a son, Edward VI, who reigned from 1547-1553.
• Edward was succeeded by his eldest half-sister Mary returning England to the Roman Catholic fold.
• After Mary died, Anne's Anglican Elizabeth would reign (1558-1603), which was successful and a long reign.
• Anglicanism became the dominant faith among English subjects throughout 16 century.
• Led by reformer John knox (c. 1514-1572), Scotland adopted Presbyterianism.
• Presbyterians deemphasize the power of appointed bishops.
• Puritan, a branch of the church sought to "purify" the church which are strict Calvinists.
• Immigrants from the British Isles brought Calvinist ideas to the Americas from the 17th century onward .

Other Early Protestant Faiths

• other New Protestant faiths are emerging during the 16th century, having religious beliefs that did not align with either Lutheranism or Calvinism.
• Mennonites began to preach that parishioners were equal to one another as the Christian church constituted the body of Christ on Earth.
• Anabaptists rejected infant baptism, agreeing that only adults capable of freely agreeing to baptism could be cleansed of sin.
• The Mennonites practiced traditional agrarian lifestyles and spoke a variant of Alemannic German in German states.
• Mennonites and Amish migrated to Canada and the United States in the 1600s and 1700s.
• Amish and Old Order Mennonites continue to live conservative lifestyles and eschew automobiles in favor of horses and carriages today.

Katharina von Bora, a former nun, became Martin Luther's wife in 1525, setting a precedent for reformed clergy marriage. She escaped a Cistercian monastery after getting interested in the reformist movement and married Luther after he helped the escaped nuns find homes. Together, they lived in the Augusteum.