Katherine Von Bora

She was well known – perhaps even notorious in her own time. Ask most people today about Katherine Von Bora, however, and you are likely to hear “Katherine Von who?” My brothers and sisters, this should not be. Katherine, or Kate Von Bora was the wife of Martin Luther. Although she is in no way considered a Reformation theologian, her life and actions greatly influenced the new ideas about women and the Christian family that were taking shape.

Katherine Von Bora was born in 1499 to a poor family of the minor nobility. After her mother’s early death, her father placed her in a convent. Kate was not yet 10 years old. Such practices were not uncommon at this time. Kate took the veil at age 16, four years before her future husband would nail the infamous 95 theses to the church door.

Even behind the walls of the convent, Katherine and her fellow nuns heard about Luther and the ideas of the Reformation. In 1523, she and eleven other nuns slipped over the walls of their convent and rode to the Black Cloister, crouching in a wagon full of barrels. (Sources differ as to whether the barrels were filled with fish or beer.) At the Cloister, Luther and his friends eventually found husbands for all the nuns except Kate. She was engaged for a time, but the man broke off the engagement rather dramatically – he married someone else. Then, in June of 1525, she and Luther were married.

Most people feel a little nervous before they get married, but the Luthers had every reason to feel downright scared. (Fortunately, neither Luther nor Kate scared easily.) Both appear to have respected and liked each other, but on Luther’s side, at least, the marriage certainly didn’t start out as a passionate love match. Further, the Luthers could expect disagreement and anger from his detractors and even from some of his sympathizers. After all, both he and Kate had previously taken vows of celibacy, which they now broke. Some people even predicted that only deformed children would be born to former monks and nuns.

Despite the odds and the controversy, however, married life for Martin and Kate Luther quickly became a source of great joy and contentment. Luther believed that God spoke and worked through the normal courses of daily life, and found much inspiration in being a husband and father. He was vigorously against celibacy as a requirement for most people, believing that it went against the natural, God-given inclinations of both men and women. This was revolutionary. Luther viewed marriage and sex as gifts of God, and wasn’t shy about expressing his delight. According to him, “My Katie is in all things so obliging and pleasing to me that I would not exchange my poverty for the riches of Croesus.”

Kate herself appears to have been a courageous, intelligent woman with a sense of humor. She quickly took over management of the Black Cloister and presided over a growing household that would include six children (two died young) and extended family, plus an ever changing parade of friends, students, and others who came to listen to Luther and enjoy the lively household. It wasn’t unusual for Kate to prepare meals for over two dozen people each day. She supervised the entire estate and household, with Luther remarking “In domestic affairs I defer to Katie. Otherwise I am led by the Holy Ghost.” Kate ran the house and garden, brewed beer, and bred cattle. When Luther purchased a farm in Zolsdorf, Kate ran that too. The Luthers were never wealthy, but were it not for Kate’s good management and her earnings from the farm, they would have been much poorer than they were.

The relationship between Kate and Luther was one of love and affection. He teasingly called her “My lord Kate,” but had great respect for her quick mind and witty tongue. She had been educated at the convent, and listened to his theological discussions in Latin. She was an influence on his thought, and consequently much of Protestant theology, in several ways. One was “his unusually high opinion of womankind, which contrasts strongly with the misogyny so widespread especially in the medieval and Renaissance church” and “his open, happy espousal of play” (Haile, p. 269, 271). Luther could be full of teasing comments about chattering women, but at the bottom of it all was an abiding respect and appreciation.

Kate’s influence can also be seen in the Protestant ideas of family. She provided a living, successful example of a godly woman who was a true partner with her husband, who competently ran a household – which at that time was more like a small business – and who raised a Christian family. She was an embodiment of the ways in which Christianity is lived out in the routines of daily life. Luther mentions her “traveling around, overseeing her farms, buying cattle and grazing them, brewing beer, etc. while trying to read the Bible between tasks” (Haile, p. 266). Today’s busy 21^st century women can probably relate.

Now, quick quiz: “Who was Katherine Von Bora?”