If you were a woman in the 1500s in Germany, your entire life was decided by your guardian. Like children, women had legal guardians who made decisions for them. If a father, brother, or husband wasn’t available, the local authorities would appoint a guardian, much like we do today with orphans. Women couldn’t get married, have a job, own property, or even have legal rights to their children without permission from their guardians.
This is the backdrop of Katharina von Bora’s life, and it’s what makes her rejection of a suitor when she didn’t have a penny to her name so fascinating. Her life shows us that Christian faithfulness isn’t about being married or single but about holding fast to the grace and freedom we’ve been given in Christ.
Life in the Convent
Katharina “Katie” von Bora was born to a lower-level noble family. When she was 5, she was sent to a convent school for girls. It was a fine place to live, and she was treated well. But when she was 10, her father lost all his money, and it was decided she’d become a nun. Most convents required a dowry from the family—a “donation” to take care of the woman for the rest of her life. Since her father had no money, he sent her to a charitable convent that had no minimum dowry.
Christian faithfulness isn’t about being married or single but about holding fast to the grace and freedom we’ve been given in Christ.
When she turned 16, she was old enough to take her vows. What other choice did she have? She couldn’t get married; she couldn’t get a job. This was her life decided for her by her father; there was no other legal option. Moreover, running away from a convent in the Holy Roman Empire was punishable by death.
The convent was silent. Talking and friendships were forbidden. Contact with the outside world, even family, was forbidden. Voices were to be used only for prayer or worship. This was the era when making yourself weak was a sign of spiritual strength. So the women in the convent lived on about 1,000 calories a day, with no meat besides the occasional fish. They were allowed to sleep here and there. It was a situation ripe for additional abuses.
Escape to True Freedom
In 1520, the reformer Martin Luther wrote, “A Christian is the perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is the most dutiful servant of all, subject to everyone.” This paradox was the crux of his vision of Christian freedom. You don’t have to prove yourself to anyone, because your salvation is by grace alone. You must be a dutiful servant to your neighbor, because you wear the identity of Christ.
In 1521, Luther was working out the implications of his doctrine of Christian freedom. He taught that if the Christian identity is received freely, it’s not tolerable to spiritually manipulate Christians to get what you want out of them. In his treatise “On Monastic Vows,” Luther proclaimed that anyone in a monastic order forced to take vows against his or her will was free in Christ to leave the order. Soon, monks left their monasteries and returned to their families, or sought jobs and started families of their own. It was years before any nuns attempted the same feat. Even if they could safely escape to a region loyal to the Protestant cause, they still needed guardians.
Katie’s story is the famous one: she was one of a dozen escaped nuns who showed up at Luther’s doorstep penniless, without guardians, and with only the clothes on their backs. He wrote all their families, but most wouldn’t (or couldn’t) take the women back. Luther had a situation on his hands. So this awkward university professor, this champion of grace alone, started matchmaking.
Leftover Nun with Lofty Expectations
Luther matched Katie up with a man named Jerome Baumgartner. They quickly fell in love and started making plans for marriage. But after going home to his parents to get their permission, Baumgartner ghosted Katie for about a year. Luther wrote him on behalf of Katie multiple times, and eventually it was found out that Baumgartner’s parents had married him off to a wealthy 14-year-old from a powerful family. They called Katie a “spinster” and wouldn’t approve of the penniless, 24-year-old runaway.
Meanwhile, all the other nuns who’d escaped found suitable husbands and got married. So when Katie’s engagement fell through, Luther went about finding another match for this “leftover nun.” Katie didn’t make it easy on him. By that time, she was known for her strong opinions and strong will. Finally able to talk, she spoke her mind. The home where she stayed was that of the wealthy Cranach family, who treated her as a daughter. There, she rubbed shoulders with houseguests like King Christian of Norway, Denmark, and Sweden, who was in Wittenberg studying the Reformation doctrines.
The only man Luther could find to court Katie was a reverend, Kaspar Glatz. He was stingy with his money and his compliments. He was a grouchy man, and after meeting him, Katie immediately rejected him. While talking with Luther’s friend and colleague Nikolaus von Amsdorf, who was trying to explain to her that beggars can’t be choosers, Katie said she was content to stay single. After all, she’d left the prison of the convent; she wasn’t about the enter the prison of being married to a man she couldn’t respect. When Amsdorf asked who on earth could meet her high expectations, Katie said she’d be willing to marry either him or Luther.
Loving Your Neighbor and Spiting the Devil
Katie knew Christian freedom means we’re free to serve and love our neighbors; it doesn’t mean we must fear man and do whatever our neighbors want. Katie staked her life on that paradox.
Christian freedom means we’re free to serve and love our neighbors.
Amsdorf went to Luther and said Katie was only willing to marry Luther himself—conveniently leaving his own name off her list in the retelling. Luther considered Amsdorf’s proposition. He said if he’d intended to marry, he would’ve married Eva, one of the other nuns he’d married off. She was pretty and sweet. Katie was . . . well, Katie spoke her mind. She wasn’t his first choice; she was the one who was left. But Luther prayed, and then he decided to marry Katie. Getting married would heal some grievances his father had with him, and it’d make a political and theological statement to the world: that monks and nuns were free to marry. Most important of all, Luther said getting married would “spite the devil,” who was against all Christian freedom.
Luther and Katie weren’t in love when they married. They weren’t even well suited, as they were the two most stubborn people in the Holy Roman Empire. But their stubbornness was pointed in the same direction, and within a matter of weeks, confessions of love and affection for his wife started to seep into Luther’s letters to his friends. Instead of being a drag on his ministry, as his friends worried she’d be, Katie enabled Luther to teach and preach more than ever before. She unburdened him. Their marriage was built on respect and the freedom to serve one’s neighbor—which included each other.
The Word Sets Us Free
What can we learn from Katie? She clearly believed that Christian freedom applied to her too. In Christ, she was “a perfectly free lord of all.” No one could tell her who she had to marry. No one would tell her she needed to marry at all. Later, as the wife of the famous Luther, she repeatedly saw how people told him what “needed” to be done so the church would survive. Luther’s answer: “I did nothing; the Word did everything.” Having a proper handle on who holds the church and the world together frees us from spiritually manipulative compulsion.
But when this word of freedom is grasped by faith, we can truly love the neighbor God has put in front of us. By marrying Luther, Katie chose a position that enabled her to use her home as a hospital during the Black Plague, take in orphans, host dignitaries and scholars from around the world, and be the deepest encouragement to her husband. Her life was a life of service, in true freedom.
The Gospel Coalition