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PLACING A FEMALE PERSON AT THE CENTER OF SOCIETY, HISTORY,
AND RELIGION: KATHARINA VON BORA (16 TH C.) – FACTUAL AND
FICTIONAL VERSIONS OF A REFORMATION WOMAN’S LIFE IN
RELIGIOUS DISCOURSE
Gabriele JANCKE *
In 1525, the noblewoman and former Catholic nun Katharina von Bora (1499‐1552) married
Martin Luther (1483‐1546), who was a professor of theology and a former Catholic monk. Even by
contemporaries, this marriage was seen as an epoch‐making event. Highly contested between
different religious groups, this marriage between two religious persons soon served as marking a
radical break, the “Reformation”. This perceived “milestone” and emblem of complex social and
religious processes also has been of high relevance in historiography up to present times. Starting
with the day of the wedding, a wealth of literature developed where Katharina von Bora is made the
central character. She is presented as an exemplary pastor’s wife, as companion of a central male
agent of church and general history, as an efficient and economical housewife without intellectual
and theological ambitions, as evidence of a new and improved status of women in the context of the
Reformation, as proof of the worldliness of Reformation clergymen, as one of many women who
participated actively in bringing the Reformation about and who left their former ways of life on
account of this project.
Very little is known about the real person, her life and her own ideas about her life, her notions of
religion and society. 1 Yet, there are many texts written about her in various genres, along with
paintings, theatrical plays, annual public events, films, musicals, postal stamps, etc., from the 16 th
century to the present. All this is part of a wide range of discourses, leading into a field of long‐lasting
fascination, all the time connected with Martin Luther as “the” central male agent of the Protestant
Reformation (a view made especially effective in the liberal concept of historiography in the 19 th
century that was focusing on big men). Bora is always described as the wife of this central male
person. Concepts of marriage are central from the beginning not only for defining her person but
also for defining the religion represented by her. Biographical representations of Bora are other
people’s discourses through the centuries, giving voice to gendered concepts of society, history, and
religion that have powerful effects up to now.
The focus of this essay is on the decisive role of history in these representations, on some of the
main discourses involved, and on four types of religious discourse that can be found. I concentrate on
discourses in written form from the 18 th century up to the present, excluding those in other media
and earlier times.
Katharina von Bora was born in 1499 and died in 1552. She was a person of the 16 th century, living
her life as part of an early modern society with its early modern structures and living conditions,
socially as well as in political and religious respects. The discourses taking her as a topic obviously
deal with early modern history. At least this was the assumption at the start of this project. 2 By now,
I doubt very much that all these texts and pictures etc. are discourses on early modern history. In
fact, they are deeply situated in their own historical contexts, and more or less openly dealing with
the society and discourses of their own time. History is not just there in a simple way. It is something
that may be seen or not seen, that may be brought into actual contexts, selected and shaped and
plotted, as some field of existence and awareness of this existence that attracts attempts of
definition and of positioning in a wide range of relationships.
Topics related to Katharina von Bora change over time: In the 18 th century, there was confessional
polemics following early modern standards for debates among male scholars, talking about dogmatic
*
Free University of Berlin (Germany), Department. of History and Cultural Studies.