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[Illustration: CATHARINE DE BORA,
_WIFE OF LUTHER_.]




                           CATHARINE DE BORA;


                                  OR,

                          Social and Domestic
                             SCENES IN THE
                            HOME OF LUTHER.

                                   BY
                            JOHN G. MORRIS,
 TRANSLATOR OF “THE BLIND GIRL OF WITTENBERG,” AND PASTOR OF THE FIRST
                     LUTHERAN CHURCH OF BALTIMORE.

                             PHILADELPHIA:
                          LINDSAY & BLAKISTON.
                                 1856.

      Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1856, by
                          LINDSAY & BLAKISTON,
  in the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States for
                 the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
        STEREOTYPED BY J. FAGAN    PRINTED BY C. SHERMAN & SON.




                               CONTENTS.


                                                                     Page

                                  CHAPTER I.
  Clerical Celibacy—Luther—Bernhardi’s Marriage—Treatment of
          Catharine De Bora—the Convent—Wealthy Nuns—Convent
          Life—the Escape—Treatment of the Nuns—Florentine de
          Oberweimer—Leonard Koppe—Luther’s Defence                     9

                                 CHAPTER II.
  Luther’s Reflections—Example of the Apostles—Celibacy—Gregory
          VII.—Luther’s Change of Mind—Luther’s Marriage—Character
          of Catharine                                                 27

                                 CHAPTER III.
  Wedding-Dinner—Melanchthon—Slanders                                  43

                                 CHAPTER IV.
  Luther’s Domestic Life—Character of Catharine—Perils of
          Luther—Sickness—Death of his Parents—Private
          Life—Catharine                                               52

                                  CHAPTER V.
  Income—Expenses—Hospitality—Charity—Diet—Afflictions—
          Despondency—Journeys—Death                                   70

                                 CHAPTER VI.
  Catharine, a Widow—Her Support—Sufferings—Journeys—Death             84

                                 CHAPTER VII.
  Luther’s Children—Domestic Character—Catharine                       94

                                CHAPTER VIII.
  Character of Catharine                                              120




                                PREFACE.


There are many interesting and characteristic incidents in the domestic
life of Luther which are not found in biographies of the great Reformer.
The character of his wife has not been portrayed in full, and who does
not wish to become better acquainted with a woman who mingled many a
drop of balsam in those numerous cups of sorrow which her celebrated
husband was compelled to drink?

This little book is the result of extensive research, and exhibits facts
attested by the most reliable authorities, many of which will be new to
those of my readers who have not investigated this particular subject.

                                                                J. G. M.

Baltimore, June, 1856.




                            LUTHER AT HOME.




                               CHAPTER I.

  Clerical Celibacy—Luther-Bernhardi’s Marriage—Treatment of Catharine
  de Bora—the Convent—Wealthy Nuns—Convent Life—the Escape—Treatment of
  the Nuns—Florentine de Oberweimer—Leonard Koppe—Luther’s Defence.


The celibacy of the clergy was one of the strongest pillars on which the
proud edifice of Romish power rested. It was a stupendous partition-wall
which separated the clergy from all other interests, and thus
consolidated the wide-spread authority of the Pope. It cut off the
secular clergy, as well as the monks, from all domestic ties. They
forgot father, mother, and friends. Political obligations to their
sovereign and country were disregarded, but the cord which bound them to
the interests of Rome was only the more tightly drawn.

Superior purity was the presumed ground of the system, but a total
surrender of all rights, and complete submission to the will of the
Pope, were its legitimate results. He was regarded as the only parent of
the clergy—the only sovereign to whom they owed allegiance—the only
protector in whom they were to confide, and, as dutiful sons, obedient
subjects, and grateful beneficiaries, they were obliged to exert
themselves to the utmost to maintain his authority and extend his
dominion. Clerical celibacy was regarded not only as a duty, but as the
highest attainment in moral perfection. The system was introduced with
caution and maintained with sleepless vigilance and zeal. There were
some who saw its errors and disadvantages, and desired its abolition,
but their remonstrances were unheeded and their clamors silenced.

That, however, which was considered impossible by the whole Christian
world, was accomplished by a single man, who himself had been a monk,
and whose first duty as such was a vow of celibacy! That man was Martin
Luther, Augustinian Monk, Doctor of Theology at the University of
Wittenberg, who, by his heroic conduct in relation to this subject, has
only added to the other inappreciable services he has rendered the
Church. It was he who was bold enough to abandon the monastic order,
and, in spite of the principles of the Church as they prevailed in that
age, _to enter the married state_. This adventurous step led to the
deliverance of a large portion of the clergy from the chain of Papal
power. From having been the slavish satellites of a foreign master in
Italy, they became patriotic subjects and useful men at home.

Several years before, two friends of Luther, who were his noble
assistants in the work of the Reformation, Melanchthon and Carlstadt,
had written treatises against clerical celibacy. Their books on this
subject were equally as unexpected, and created as much excitement among
the clergy, as Luther’s Theses against Indulgences had done six years
before.

Luther was not the first priest of those days who practically rejected
celibacy. As early as 1521, one of his friends and fellow-laborers,
Bernhardi, superintendent of the churches at Kemberg, had the boldness
to marry. He was the first ecclesiastic in Saxony who took this step,
and his wedding-day was long regarded as the _Pastors’ Emancipation
Day_; but Caspar Aquila, a priest residing near Augsburg, was married as
early as 1516, Jacob Knabe in 1518, and Nicolas Brunner in 1519.

Luther was free from all participation in Bernhardi’s marriage, for at
that time he was a prisoner in Wartburg Castle, and the first
intelligence came so unexpectedly, that whilst he admired the courage of
his friend, he was very apprehensive it would occasion him and his cause
many severe trials. Not long after, Bernhardi’s metropolitan, the
Cardinal Archbishop Albert, of Mainz and Magdeburg, demanded of the
Elector of Saxony, Frederick the Wise, to send Bernhardi to Halle, to
answer for his presumptuous act. Frederick did not yield to the demand
of the Archbishop, and the latter professed to be satisfied with an
anonymous defence of Bernhardi.

Luther himself sent a petition to Albert in behalf of the clergy who had
already married and of those who intended to marry. Subsequently,
however, Bernhardi suffered severely. When, in 1547, more than twenty
years after his nuptials, the Emperor Charles V. captured Wittenberg,
his savage Spaniards seized Bernhardi, and bound him fast to a table.
His wife rescued him from their murderous hands; but, soon after, others
laid hold of him, and after cruelly beating him, tied him to a horse and
dragged him to the camp at Torgau. A German officer, after much trouble,
had him liberated, and he finally, after unexampled suffering, reached
his family at Kemberg. A considerable number of priests followed the
example of Bernhardi. They were not deterred by the ban of the bishops,
nor by the fear of deposition and imprisonment. But all this would not
have created such immense excitement if Luther himself, to whom all eyes
were directed, had not resolved, by his own example, to strike a deadly
blow at priestly celibacy.

Catharine de Bora, a nun of the celebrated Bernhardin or Cistercian
convent at Nimtschen, in Saxony, was the person whom Luther chose as his
wife. She was born on the 29th of January, 1499. There is no authentic
record of the place of her birth, and the history of her childhood is
wrapped in obscurity. It is only as the nun Catharine that we first
became acquainted with her. Her Romish calumniators (and no innocent
woman was ever more bitterly and cruelly defamed,) declare that her
parents compelled her to become a nun against her will, because they
were poor and could not support her, and particularly because her
conduct was so objectionable that her seclusion was necessary. As
regards the first, it is true; she was not wealthy when she became the
wife of Luther; but, if she had been compelled to enter the nunnery, it
is likely that Luther would have mentioned it as an additional
justification of her flight. Her objectionable morality is based by her
enemies on the fact of her escape, and hence the accusation has no
ground whatever. There is not a particle of proof to establish the
calumnious charge.

This Convent was designated by the name of _The Throne of God_. It was
founded in 1250 by Henry the Illustrious. No trace of it remains at the
present day. In 1810-12 its ruins were removed to make room for the
erection of an edifice connected with a school for boys established at
that place.

Most of the inmates of this Convent were of noble birth, for at that
day, as well as at present, it was the policy and interest of the Romish
clergy to induce as many ladies of high rank as possible to take the
veil, thereby rendering the profession respectable, and securing large
sums as entrance fees if they were wealthy, and all their patrimony
after their decease.

It may seem strange that Catharine de Bora, who, according to her own
confession, was devout, industrious in the discharge of conventual
duties, and diligent in prayer, should have determined with eight other
“sisters” to escape from their prison. But when it is considered that
the convent was situated within the territory of the Elector Frederick
the Wise, who was Luther’s friend and patron—that Luther himself visited
a neighboring monastery at Grimma as Inspector—that in 1519, after the
dispute with Eck at Leipzig, he