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How A Runaway Nun Helped An Outlaw Change The World Of Religion!
Kattarian (Katharina) Von Bora “die Lutherin”
Men, Just imagine the perfect wife! You come home shattered after a hard day’s work, hot and sticky and dying of thirst, your wife greets you with a kiss and a large stein of German beer. Then she tells you to go sit down while she cooks you the largest succulent ribeye steak that you’ve ever seen. While sitting there with a grin and smelling the aroma of her cooking, and slurping your beer. The kids bring you your slippers, you’re in heaven as you slurp again at your beer and think to yourself, what have I done to deserve this! Well, believe it or not, that actually happened to one person that I know in history. However, this true-life saga I am about to tell you is about the wife, whom I have really admired since my student day’s back in the 1950s. When she first came to my attention and I hoped one day I would have a woman Just like her, I have written papers on her and several discussions too! Her name was Kattarina (Katharina) Von Bora (1499-1552)! Kattarina is a Germanic/Nordic name and from her ancestry, it fits right in place. Katharina was not some peasant either, she was well educated and believed to have been born the daughter of a Saxon landed gentry. [Fischer/v.Stutterheim in: AfF (2005) pp. 242ff; Wagner in Genealogie (2005) pp. 673ff, Genealogie (2006) pp. 30ff; Wagner in FFM (2006), pp. 342ff]
At the age of about 5 years, Katharina was sent to the Benedictines in 1504 to be educated, and at age 9 years, she moved to the Cistercian monastery of Marienthron (Mary’s Throne) in Nimbschen, near Grimma, where her maternal aunt was already a member of the community. Katharina is well documented at this monastery in a provision list of 1509/10.[CDS Codex Diplomaticus Saxoniae Regiae II 15 Nr. 455]
Yet, in late 1522 or thereabout Katharina and many other nuns at the monastery became disillusioned by Catholicism and monastic life and she wrote to Martin Luther begging for assistance. On Easter Eve, 4 April 1523, Luther sent Leonhard Köppe, a merchant and city councilman of Torgau, who regularly delivered herring to the monastery. The nuns successfully escaped by hiding in Köppe’s covered wagon among the fish barrels and fled to Wittenberg.
At the time a local student wrote to a friend: “A wagon load of vestal virgins has just come to town, all more eager for marriage than for life. God grant them, husbands, lest worse befall.”
All the nuns found husbands except Katharina, as none of the proposed matches resulted in marriage. She told Luther’s friend and fellow reformer, Nikolaus von Amsdorf, that she would be willing to marry only Luther or von Amsdorf himself. Amsdorf declined (silly man) and Martin Luther the bigot took Katharina as his wife on the 13th June 1525. However, the enemy Rome stated that the marriage was incestuous, they would—wouldn’t they!
However, I am not going to discuss Luther, but what history has basically forgotten—his wife, Katharina aka “die Lutherin” a woman I believe to be a great person in her own right. Ex-nun, Master Brewer, cattle breeder, and a mother of six (although, sadly she lost 2 of her own children) including being the mother of five orphans. She is considered one of the most important participants of the Reformation because of her role in helping to define Protestant family life and setting the tone for clerical marriages.
What more does a man want in a woman, a Master Brewer, Cattle breeder, fertile wench and an ambassador of womanhood? Free German beer and stake—and the TV controller for yourself every night….that is heaven! Well, it was what I wanted 50 odd years ago out of my marriage. However, what I got was nothing like what Luther had, so I cannot say I am not envious.
For Kattarina!
What do you say, was history unkind to this great lady?
Keep safe!
Cofion
Jero Jones
Article URL : https://breakingnewsandreligion.online/discuss/