Katharina Luther Read online

  Katharina Luther Nun. Rebel. Wife.

  Anne Boileau

  Foreword

  It has always struck me as astonishing that the tremendous transition from medievalism to modernism continues in Britain to revolve around the drama of a royal divorce. When Martin Luther, an intellectual monk, threw a stone into the stagnating waters of the Christianity of his day, it would have been impossible to imagine that the ripples of his action would still be flowing in our time. But they are. The Reformation was not a one-off event but a spiritual and social current which goes on disturbing the Church.

  Who was Martin Luther, the scholarly though at first unprepossessing German religious who was to shake the Church and Europe to their foundations? There are countless histories to give an answer, but as in many other cases it takes an imaginative storyteller to actually reveal the man – or woman – behind some world-changing event. By choosing to reveal Luther during his courtship and marriage, fatherhood and broken vows, or rather the different vows which setting up house with Katharina required, Anne Boileau shows us the profoundly human basis of the reformed faith. She brings the aristocratic young nun and the learned early middle-aged monk together in a way which is both intimate and ‘public’ in the sense that, in spite of the popular anti-monastic feeling which was sweeping Europe, made marriage between a monk and a nun a sensational, even scandalous happening. And Martin and Katharina themselves had to discover the thing which each of them had been trained to live without, their sexuality.

  Anne Boileau describes the Luther courtship and marriage with a delightful freshness. Here are two people in a small country town as the rulers of the world begin to take sides in the Catholic–Protestant debate. From now on Luther will be loathed or venerated. Meanwhile, and beautifully described by Anne Boileau, who is an excellent naturalist, the sixteenth century German countryside provides an enchanting reality of its own. Katharina Luther. Nun. Rebel. Wife. is a fine historical novel which extends our narrow view of the Reformation.

  Ronald Blythe

  Contents

  Title Page

  Foreword

  Chapter 1: My Book

  Chapter 2: Childhood at Lippendorf

  Chapter 3: A Schoolgirl at Nimbschen

  Chapter 4: Life as a Novice

  Chapter 5: The Fragrance of Cloves

  Chapter 6: Ascension Day

  Chapter 7: Escape to Wittenberg

  Chapter 8: The Cranach House

  Chapter 9: Ave in Love

  Chapter 10: Hieronymous

  Chapter 11: A Debate

  Chapter 12: Two Proposals

  Chapter 13: The Storks’ Nest

  Chapter 14: Whitsun Fair

  Chapter 15: Carp Ponds

  Chapter 16: Martin a Rock

  Chapter 17: Broad Beans

  Chapter 18: Tante Lena’s Letter

  Chapter 19: The Good Book

  Chapter 20: A New Life

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  My Book

  Wo ein melancholischer Kopf ist, da ist dem Teufel das Bad zugerichtet.

  A head filled with melancholy is like a bathtub prepared for the devil.

  Something hit me on the cheek and fell to the ground at my feet. It was a goose’s foot. Someone must have thrown it from the poulterers’ stall, but the women were busy plucking geese and talking amongst themselves, and seemed quite unaware of me. I was in my seventh month and beginning to feel heavy. I could deny it no longer: they were talking about me and their hostility was palpable. I knew what they were saying: “That renegade nun, she’s no good. She broke her own vows and has made him break his too. A nun and a monk, marrying! It’s immoral, a crime against God, a union forged in hell. Any fruit of such a union will be evil, a monster, something unnatural!”

  These and other such insults were flying about the streets of Wittenberg in conversations, and spreading up and down the Elbe in pamphlets vilifying me and my marriage to Dr Martin Luther. When we first got married most of the town seemed to be in favour of our union, welcoming our marriage and cheering us as we walked to the church, applauding us when we danced with them in the evening. But the atmosphere has changed. People are jumpy, superstitious, worried, looking around for a scapegoat. Other towns have their witch hunts and vendettas, so why should Wittenberg be immune from such things? But I find it hurtful, that they should turn against me; and it was me, not him, they were blaming. Simply being a woman is enough to incur their wrath, it seems. Men are drawn to women, aroused by them; but they hate them too, and despise them. But why? Are not half of our kind women? Do not all men spring from women, and as baby boys feed at their mothers’ breasts? Even our Lord was not too proud to be born of woman, and Mary, the Mother of God, is a universally loved and revered. Though perhaps not so much now. No, in some ways, the Blessed Virgin has been dethroned. Is that what’s gone wrong?

  I could bear it no longer, and made my way home along Castle Street, stumbling, and praying incoherently to the Blessed Virgin. My vision was blurred and my mouth dry. The sensation of the clammy goose’s foot was still cold against my cheek. My child was kicking within me and for the first time I felt a surge of revulsion; perhaps they were right? Was it a sin, a monk and a nun, both breaking their vows? Perhaps my child is a little monster growing within me, with a tail, or scales, or what else. It might be furry, like a rat. A neighbour of the Luthers in Eisenach, when Martin was small, gave birth to a dormouse after being frightened by one in her flour bin while heavily pregnant!

  I longed to return to the security and anonymity of my life in the convent. Or to my time with the Cranachs, when I was just one of the fugitive nuns, of no great import; I could go about my business without anyone taking any notice. But when I married Martin I became famous, like him; many people respected me because they knew and liked us both; but others were afraid of me, even hostile, and no longer honest. So on that Friday morning in April I felt all the doors closing upon me. I felt trapped from without by hostility and malevolence, and from within by the child growing in my belly, a child which some say is an evil thing, the Antichrist as foretold in Revelation.

  Somehow I reached the Cloister gate and holding my shopping basket against my belly I pushed open the old studded portal with my shoulder and stepped through into the darkness of the porch. Some fool, probably the goat boy Joachim, had left a wooden bucket lying in my path. Blinded by tears and the shade after the bright sunshine outside, I stumbled against it, tripped and fell to the ground. Winded and frightened, I lay on the cobbles unable to move. Was my baby hurt? Gasping for breath, I pressed my cheek against the cool stones – cabbages, fish, onions and bread lay strewn about me, and a flagon of vinegar was smashed, its acid smell and stain spreading into my sleeve. I’ll just lie here, I thought, until someone comes to help me.

  Tölpel the dog found me, prostrate and gasping like a netted carp. Then they all came, fussing round, Tante Lena, Dorothea, Agnes. With their sympathy and gentle hands, helping me up, dusting me down, their arms round my shoulders, my strength and pride dissolved; I broke down in wracking sobs, miserable, anxious and exhausted.

  Martin was out that day, but as soon as he returned he came up to our room.

  “You must stay here, dearest. Stay quiet and away from noise and commotion. You mustn’t be scared or the child will be fearful too. I will not have you exposed to the calumny of those foolish, cruel people. Our baby’s safety and health, your health, is too important.”

  I was settled in our big four-poster with the blue damask drapes and red borders, washed and brushed in my linen nightgown, my long hair loose and the pillows plumped up. It was late afternoon, and the sun was slanting in through the window. Martin sat down on the b
ed and touched my cheek with the back of his hand. He stroked my hair back behind my ear as if I were a child. Then he took my hand in his, and kissed it. He turned it over, and traced his forefinger along my lifeline, as if seeing it for the first time.

  “It’s all because of Eve.”

  “What’s because of Eve?”

  “Your pain and travail. The trouble you women have with child bearing. It’s a punishment for Eve’s transgressions. She took the fruit. She persuaded Adam to eat of it. It was her fault. Genesis 3 verses 16 to 22. To the woman he said, ‘I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you.’”

  I closed my eyes and said nothing.

  “Before the Fall from Grace,” he went on, stroking the soft skin of my wrist and lower arm, “women bore children with no pain, no trouble. Then Adam and Eve were cast out of the garden and life became more difficult. You women have to atone for Eve’s sins. That is why I want you to stay here safe within the walls of the Cloister with plenty of rest, until our child is born. Get up late, have a long rest after lunch. Sleep. You should not go out and see ugly things or be frightened and insulted as you were today. You must keep quiet and safe, and see only those people who wish us well, our real friends.”

  “But what about the house, the dairy? Who will brew and manage the kitchen and the vegetable garden and make sure everything runs smoothly?”

  “Your Aunt Lena is here. She knows what to do. Dorothea can manage the kitchen, and the brewing can be left to other women in the town. Stay here, my dearest. Don’t worry about the household, we’ll get by. You can tell us what needs doing, and keep an eye on things from up here. The captain on the bridge. Look after our baby. Forget the cruel things those people were saying. They are ignorant and foolish. Pray, rest, read and reflect. I shall visit you often, and join you every night when my work is done.”

  So that is why for the last three weeks I have been confined to the Cloister, in fact much of the time in my bedroom, only leaving it for necessary ablutions and short walks up and down the corridor. Never in my entire life have I been so idle, with nothing to do but pray, do a little stitch work and mending; I sleep, read and talk with friends when they visit me. So I have decided to put my time to good use; I will set down the story of my life; I may never have such a quiet time again. If I should die in childbirth then I shall leave something behind, and my child can read all about me, about his mother.

  I slept and dozed for two days after my fall. Then I asked Martin to get me some paper and ink. He did more than that. He went round to the Cranachs and told Lucas and Barbara about my fall, and how he wanted me to stay in my room; and that I wanted to write down my own story. Lucas had the men in the print shop prepare and stitch a book of the finest Italian paper. Barbara had it bound in the best calfskin. It was ready three days later and Martin brought it up to me with a supply of swans’ quills and a pot of best brown ink and a sand strewer. He also brought me loose sheets for letters.

  Every morning I sit in bed, propped up on feather pillows and write; then after my afternoon rest I get dressed and sit at the desk by the window overlooking the garden and read, or do more writing. From the east window I watch the hens scratching in the courtyard and the washing flapping gently on the line.

  Tante Lena brings me my breakfast.

  “How are the goats? The hens? What about the beehives?”

  “Don’t worry,” she says. “The goats are fine, the new kids are doing well; the hens are laying, we’ve got a surplus of eggs, so we’re selling some in the market. The piglets are growing as you watch. The blacksmith’s wife has come in to deal with the bees. As for the beer, enough other women in town are brewing, we can buy it from them. Look after your child. The Lord knows, you’ll have enough to do once he’s born and you’re up and about again.”

  Dorothea comes in every morning to consult me about meals for the following day. She goes to market twice a week, and tells me how many mouths we have to feed, about the state of the larder; food supplies are unreliable, so if she sees a good bargain she pounces on it, and I trust her.

  Solitude settles around me. Quietness. I sleep. And wake. And sleep again. How tired I have been and did not realise it. Little by little my exhaustion melts away, I sit up propped against the pillows and take my calfskin book and open it at the first page.

  In finest copperplate is written:

  “To my darling wife Käthchen. For her story. M.L.”

  As I sit in my room now on my own, with no-one to talk to but myself, I begin to relish the silence. It is a vibrant silence: a kid goat bleats; a horse walks through the stable yard; a cockerel crows; the creak, creak, creak, followed by sloshing water as someone fills a pail at the pump in the yard.

  Yesterday, for the first time, I heard a nightingale sing. I think of Martin, and his nickname ‘The Nightingale of Wittenberg’. When he was a little boy in Eisenach, he sang in the church choir and he and his friends used to sing folk songs in the streets for pennies. Here in my room I am in a pool of quietness; it’s soothing, and at the same time strengthening.

  Before I married Martin and came to know him better, I took him for a giant, a rock, a fortress as impregnable as the mighty Wartburg which points a fist at the sky above the town of Eisenach. To me, as to the wider world, he was a man with the courage to defy the Church of Rome, to hold his ground at the courts of Augsburg and Worms, to state: “Here I stand, I can do no other. God help me. Amen.” He was the man who pinned up the Ninety-Five Theses, spelling out one by one what was rotten in the state of the church; the theses were printed and broadcast and he became famous because of them. This was the man who wrote hymns, both words and music, which caught on as popular songs sung by urchins in the streets of cities hundreds of miles away. He was a man who, having taken on a task, would work with such concentration, diligence and speed that the printers and publishers could hardly keep up with his output. A man who could hold a crowd silent and spell-bound as he spoke, and whose books and pamphlets were sold out within days of publication.

  But his strength, his impregnability, his defiance and fearlessness are a veneer only. Inside he is vulnerable, afraid, a little boy who longs for the approval of his father and of his God. He retreats to his study and works with such concentration you can almost touch the energy in the air, hear his brain ticking like a clock’s movement, as he deliberates, researches, refers, cross refers, reads, thinks, writes. It is my task to make sure he can apply himself to his work unhindered while I run the household and keep him feeling safe, reassured, and well. But for the moment, he is looking after me.

  My belly is growing large and the baby is lively. It’s hard to sleep with the extra weight and bulk; I’ve discovered a goose down pillow between my thighs makes lying on my side more comfortable. Martin is fascinated by the changes in me: he strokes my swollen stomach, and lays his ear to it in the hope of hearing his son’s heartbeat. He thinks it is a boy, and I hope for his sake it is. My body seems hardly to be my own. My gums are sore and bleed a bit when I clean my teeth; the physician pulled out one of my molars. But my hair is lustrous; my breasts are larger and patterned with blue veins; my nipples have grown and are deliciously sensitive; so at night, instead of the carnal act, my husband strokes my breasts with love and tenderness and I want to purr like a contented cat. I feel at ease with myself and cannot believe that the new life growing and kicking inside me is anything other than a normal healthy baby. I anticipate my confinement with a mixture of excitement and fear. Meanwhile, I have time on my hands and blank paper to fill.

  The freshly cut quill squeaks and scratches on the paper. I begin to write my story.

  Chapter 2

  Childhood at Lippendorf

  Man muss bisweilen durch die Finger sehen; hören und nicht hören, sehen und nicht sehen.

  From time to time you should watch the world through your fingers; hear and not hear, see a
nd not see.

  “Not just fleas, Greta. Head lice too!”

  There must have been a wedding, but I don’t remember it. I remember the screams as the three of us had our heads shaved in the courtyard, our gasps as Greta soaped us from top to toe and sloshed buckets of rain water over us. Our pale, bald heads. Then, after the water the fire.

  “Bedbugs, Greta! Open the windows, throw out the bedding, we’ll burn it all.”

  Horse hair mattresses, blankets, pillows, quilts, bedspreads, tumbling out of windows, women dragging them across the yard, hoisting them onto the flames; the fire growing in heat and fury as it was fed. The stink of burning horsehair and wool; black smoke in writhing billows, bedbugs popping.

  I recall the discomfort of new, ill-fitting clothes. A sense of loss and dread as strong and heavy in my stomach as I had felt a year earlier when our mother died.

  Stepmother fumigated all the rooms with baldrian.

  “The whole house is infested, Greta!” She was a small woman with dark, darting eyes and quick movements and I was scared of her. Cook hated her, and so did Hildegard, our nurse, but they dared not protest. The first time I heard Cook and Stepmother arguing in the kitchen I thought, ‘Oh please God, don’t let Cook go away, I couldn’t bear it.’ And being surprised at myself, because Cook was always so gruff towards us, not warm as my mother had been, but I realised how much I loved her.

  “If you can’t do something useful get out of my kitchen,” she would growl. So I would sit up at the table and do whatever task she gave me. I might scrub the rusty knives with a cork and sand, or shell peas or scrape scales off a fish for her. Then she would talk.

  “You should have seen the banquets they used to have when I was your age, Käthchen. Minstrels in the gallery. Candles on the long tables. And so many grand guests, the great hall lit up with torches.”