8
Escape

Each of the dozen or so nuns waited alone in her cell, nervous, perhaps even terrified as she sat poised on the edge of her bed in the dark. Escaping from a convent was a punishable offense, and it was a particularly egregious crime in Duke George’s Saxony, the territory where Marienthron was located. Though the women had weighed the pros and cons of their decision carefully, the tension and anticipation must have held them rigid with fear as they waited, knowing one tiny mistake could destroy their carefully orchestrated plan.

Initially the nuns had taken a conservative approach in their bid for freedom. Most of them had penned letters to their families, requesting to be released from Marienthron and allowed to return home. Encouraged by Luther’s writings, they declared that they were done with the cloistered life, which they now believed to be unnecessary for, and perhaps even a hindrance to, their salvation.

As was expected, the women’s families were unwilling to offer any assistance or support. After all, they’d already paid a one-time fee to have their daughters placed in the convent for life; it didn’t make financial sense to encourage their release, especially when their dowries had likely been used to support other family members.1 Many were also afraid of Duke George. A person caught facilitating the abduction of a cloistered nun faced stiff fines and exclusion from court appointments, which were highly sought positions.2 Nuns were very occasionally allowed to leave the convent, but the official release process was complicated and required a papal dispensation, which was expensive and typically available to only the highest nobility.3 There is no evidence that Katharina attempted to contact her family. She likely knew her father’s answer without even asking.

Ignored by their families, the discontented nuns made a bold move: they turned to Martin Luther himself. Leonhard Koppe, the Torgau merchant who delivered herring and other goods to the convent, carried their letter from Nimbschen to Wittenberg. Moved by their plea, Luther vowed to aid their escape. “For God is not pleased with any worship, unless it comes freely from the heart,” he wrote, “and consequently no vow is valid unless it has been made willingly and with love.”4

It’s not known how the escape plan was formulated and communicated to the nuns. In an environment in which silence was rigorously enforced, we can only imagine how stealthily the women collaborated on the details of such a complicated plan. Perhaps notes were passed from nun to nun and kept hidden in the folds of their habits. Maybe they snatched quick bits of conversation while weeding the garden or washing dishes. Perhaps they had a clandestine meeting place, shielded by the trees on the outskirts of the convent grounds. Historians surmise that an older nun by the name of Magdalene von Staupitz, a teacher in the convent (and the sister of Luther’s former mentor, Johann von Staupitz), served as the lead contact.5 Because she often received school supplies from Koppe, she would have known him personally and had regular contact with him. But we don’t know how she conveyed the plan to the other nuns or how they worked out the intricate details Koppe couldn’t orchestrate. All we know is they succeeded; the plan went off without a hitch.

On the evening of April 4, 1523, the cloistered nuns at Marienthron celebrated Easter eve much like they did every year. They gathered in the church for the Easter vigil service, a time of quiet reflection, meditation, prayer, and Holy Communion, and then made their way outside to the courtyard, where they participated in the consecration of the Easter fire. The Paschal candle, representing the light of Christ, was lit and the flame was passed from woman to woman.

The nuns chose to flee on Easter eve for a reason: it was the one night of the year in which their worship practice diverged from the regular routine. Instead of performing Compline and retiring early as they normally did, the nuns stayed up much later for the lighting of the Paschal fire. Katharina and her peers hoped the abbess and the other nuns would be too distracted by the disruption in their routine to notice any late-night stirring or noise once everyone had retired to bed.

The ritual lighting and passing of the Paschal candle was performed the same way it always was, but for a handful of the nuns gathered in the courtyard that night, an undercurrent of tension and anticipation sparked just below the surface. As the candlelight flickered, bathing the women’s faces in a warm glow, the Easter fire they passed from hand to hand symbolized a personal resurrection of sorts—hope for a new beginning and a new life.

Late that night, while the rest of the convent slept soundly after the evening’s festivities, a single sharp sound like the crack of a whip pierced the air. It was the signal the nuns had been waiting for all night. Dressed in their white habits and black veils, they fled their cells with just the clothes on their backs and ran silently down the dark halls and outside to where the wagon waited. Details about their escape are so scant, we don’t even know for sure how many nuns fled with Katharina that night. In a letter to a friend four days following their escape, Luther mentioned that nine nuns left the Nimbschen cloister.6 In their biography of Katharina von Bora, the Markwalds cite twelve nuns, nine of whom are mentioned by name.7 Luther biographer Edith Simon lists eleven nuns by name, noting that two were placed immediately with their families.8

The nuns and Koppe evidently kept the details of the escape to themselves and refused to boast about their feat, even after they’d made it to safety. Years later, rumors about the nuns’ infamous escape continued to circulate. Long after the convent had fallen into disrepair, some suggested the small window covered in wild grapevines and still visible in the rubble was the window from which Katharina escaped. Others claimed that a silk slipper which was displayed for years at an inn on the convent grounds belonged to Katharina, who had lost it as she fled (modern historians dismiss this story; as a Cistercian nun, Katharina wouldn’t have been wearing such a fancy silk slipper).9 Some speculated the nuns climbed over the garden wall, others insisted they chiseled a hole through the stone, and still others assumed the guard colluded with the nuns and simply unlocked the gate for them to leave. As Katharina von Bora’s biographer Ernst Kroker notes, each of these stories is purely speculative.10 The truth is, there were many ways for the fugitives to escape, and no one knows for sure how the nuns reached the wagon that waited outside the convent walls. That part of Katharina’s story is and will probably always remain a mystery.

It was cold that early April night. The nuns huddled together under a tarp on the hard planks as the wagon jolted over the bumpy roads. Rumor has it the women hid in herring barrels, but the more likely scenario is that Koppe simply used his merchant wagon, in which he often carried herring and other goods, to transport the nuns under cover. The women held their breath as the wagon lurched beyond the boundaries of the convent’s land and skirted along the borders of Duke George’s territory.

Even without the fabled herring barrels, the escape was nothing short of miraculous, says Kroker. No one had revealed their secret; there’d been no traitor among them; none of the many letters that had passed back and forth between the nuns and Koppe had been intercepted; and anywhere between nine and twelve nuns had managed to sneak out of their cells undetected on Easter eve and escape from the convent unimpeded.11 As dawn’s first light began to streak the sky, the wagon made its way into Torgau to the sound of church bells ringing in Easter morning. The nuns had made it; they were free.

Jilted

In Torgau, the women had a bite to eat, rested a bit, and exchanged their habits and veils for secular clothes provided by the local pastor. Imagine for a moment how odd it must have felt for Katharina to don the dress and head covering of a typical sixteenth-century German woman after almost twenty years of wearing only the plain habit and veil. One wonders: Did she feel vulnerable and exposed, or was there a sense of liberation and excitement in the air as the women dressed in the borrowed clothes, the fabric smooth and unfamiliar against their skin, their waistlines and bodices accentuated, free of the bulky, shapeless robes? We don’t have a description of the hand-me-down dresses the nuns wore that first day of freedom, but regardless of the quality or the detailing of the cloth, the clothes must have been more elaborate than anything they had worn in a long time.

On Monday, the day after Easter, the nuns traveled the thirty-one miles to Wittenberg. With a population of 2,500 people, the town would have seemed like a booming metropolis to Katharina. As the horse-drawn wagon jostled over the city’s cobblestone streets, she took in the sights: the Elbe River on one side of the city and the moat on the other; the marketplace, noisy and bustling with merchants and shoppers; the Castle Church, where Martin Luther had presumably nailed his Ninety-five Theses six years before; and the Church of St. Mary, where, little could she have imagined at the time, Katharina would recite her marriage vows just over two years from that very day.

A short distance from the church the wagon stopped in front of a formidable stone building. The complex was known as the Black Cloister, the driver informed the nuns, and at one time had housed Wittenberg’s Augustinian monks. In the wake of Luther’s reforms, however, most of the monks had moved on, leaving only two remaining in residence: an elderly monk and Martin Luther himself. As the wagon drew to a halt, Luther stepped from the Black Cloister to greet the nuns whom he had helped escape.

On April 8 Luther had casually mentioned to a friend, “I heard yesterday that nine nuns have left cloister Nimpschau, their prison, among whom are the two Sessatzers, and the Staupitz.”12 He reported this tidbit of information as if it was a piece of unfamiliar news or gossip (along with misspelling Nimbschen), which we know it was not, as Luther helped to orchestrate the nuns’ escape. Perhaps this was Luther’s attempt to distance himself from the crime, at least with those outside his inner circle. Maybe he intentionally played ignorant to throw those suspicious of his involvement off his trail. When Koppe and the nuns arrived on his doorstep, however, Luther graciously welcomed them, praised them for their courage, and set about finding temporary quarters for the refugees. A few days after the nuns’ arrival in Wittenberg, however, the reality of the situation set in.

Clearly the women did not have the skills to support themselves, and most were rejected by their families, who refused to accommodate them. Luther expressed frustration and resentment over the fact that he had been burdened with the nuns’ care. “I ask that you, too, would do a work of love and beg for some money from among the rich courtiers for me, and perhaps give some yourself,” he pleaded with his friend, George Spalatin, “so I can get food for the refugees for at least eight or fourteen days and also some dresses, since they have no shoes or clothing.”13 Luther learned the hard way that advocating on paper for the closing of monasteries and cloisters was one thing; the reality of dealing with it personally was a much different story.

Immediately after helping Katharina and her fellow nuns escape from Marienthron, Luther continued to call for the widespread closing of convents. His introduction to a memoir written by Florentina von Oberweimar, who escaped from a Cistercian convent in Eisleben in 1524, for instance, was filled with passionate rhetoric against both the monastic life and the families who forced that existence upon their daughters. “Behold, dear people, what poisonous, evil, bitter, false, and lying folk the nuns are, whereas they want to be the holy and tender brides of Christ,” Luther wrote in 1524. “Woe unto you now and forever, lords and princes, parents and relatives, who push your children, your relatives, or your neighbors, body and soul, into such murderous graves or allow them to remain therein.”14 For a long time Luther considered himself a liberator of cloistered women. Once, when accused of being a thief of women because he’d helped to plan the Nimbschen nuns’ stealthy midnight escape, he responded, “I freely answer, yes, a blessed robber am I.” But, he was quick to explain, he believed he had freed the poor souls from jail and human tyranny and set them on the right path.15

As time went on, however, Luther’s rhetoric softened, and his approach to the widespread closing of convents became much more conservative, most likely as a result of the hardships he had witnessed among the nuns who had fled Marienthron without a backup plan. “I’m pleased to hear that the remaining nuns at Nimbschen have put aside their cloister habits. But first they have to decide what they want to do when they leave the nunnery so they do not regret their withdrawal,” he cautioned Spalatin in 1534, upon hearing that the remaining Marienthron nuns had decided to leave the cloister. “Unless they are assured of having a future spouse or of a place where they are permanently taken care of, I would not advise their leaving.”16 Luther hadn’t fully realized the burden of responsibility that came with the closing of convents when he’d so cavalierly advocated for the release of all cloistered nuns in his earlier writings. Now that he’d personally lived through the reality of finding support for the Nimbschen nuns, he suggested a more cautious plan.

Wittenberg’s Matchmaker

Despite the fact that Luther and Koppe endeavored to be discreet about the nuns’ escape, the women quickly became the talk of Wittenberg. “A wagon load of vestal virgins has just come to town all more eager for marriage than for life. May God give them husbands lest worse befall,” one young man wrote to a friend.17 Luther’s friends Nikolaus von Amsdorf, a theology professor at the University of Wittenberg, and George Spalatin joked between themselves: “They’re beautiful, dignified, and all from the aristocracy,” wrote von Amsdorf. “The oldest among them . . . I have appointed for you, my dear brother, to be her husband. If you want a younger one, however, then you are to have the choice among the most beautiful.”18 All joking aside, marriage was the best and most viable option for the former nuns, and for a time, Luther took on the role of Wittenberg’s matchmaker, writing letters to potential suitors and helping to arrange engagements for the nuns who hadn’t been taken in by their families.

Certainly not an old maid by early modern standards (compared to the High Middle Ages, when girls were legally allowed to be married at age twelve and boys at age fourteen19), at age twenty-four, Katharina was considered to be at her prime marriageable age, and it wasn’t long before she had a suitor. Hieronymus Baumgartner of Nuremberg was an alumnus of the University of Wittenberg and a friend of both Luther and Melanchthon. Baumgartner visited Wittenberg often and became acquainted with Katharina, who at the time was staying with Philipp and Elsa Reichenbach, who were friends with the Baumgartner family. Rumors swirled around town as Katharina and Hieronymus were seen together more and more frequently. Katharina adored Baumgartner, but it was not one-sided; he reciprocated her affection.20 When he traveled back to Nuremberg, everyone, including Katharina, assumed Baumgartner would return to Wittenberg with his parents’ blessing and a promise of marriage.

Katharina’s hopes were dashed when weeks and then months passed with no word from her suitor. Even Luther intervened on her behalf, advising Baumgartner in an October 1524 letter: “If you intend marrying Katherine von Bora, make haste before she is given to some one else. She has not yet got over her love for you. I wish that you two were married.”21 Still, there was no reply until the spring of 1525, when Baumgartner announced his engagement to fourteen-year-old Sibylle Dichtel von Tutzing, who brought a sizable dowry to the marriage.22 Clearly Baumgartner’s parents, themselves nobility, had considered a runaway nun with no dowry an unacceptable bride for their son.

The breakup was a huge blow to Katharina. Not only was she heartbroken, she was also nearly out of options. Katharina had moved in with Lucas and Barbara Cranach, who lived in a huge, three-story house on the corner of Market and Schlosstrasse streets in Wittenberg. The fifty-year-old Lucas Cranach the Elder was an influential man and one of the wealthiest in the city: a city councilor, a good friend of Luther, and, most importantly, the court painter to Elector Frederick the Wise. He also operated a pharmacy, a wineshop, and a print shop; as Luther’s publisher, he made a great deal of money from the sale of Luther’s German New Testament and other writings.

Lucas and his wife, Barbara, had been very kind to Katharina—taking her in, providing clothing, food, and housing for her, standing in as her family when Katharina had no family to claim as her own. Yet the truth was, Katharina was penniless, and worse, she could not stay with the Cranachs forever. They had been exceedingly gracious and generous, but they were not Katharina’s blood relatives and could not be expected to provide for her for the rest of her life.

Nearly two years had passed since Katharina had escaped from the convent. All of the nuns who had fled Marienthron with her had either returned to their families or married. Katharina was the only one who had not found a sustainable living situation, and her options grew more limited by the day.

A Bold Proposal

Luther had one last idea—one more eligible bachelor he hoped would make a suitable match for Katharina. Kaspar Glatz was a doctor of theology and pastor of a parish in nearby Orlamünde. Intelligent, resourceful, a man of faith, and, most importantly, available, Glatz seemed to be the perfect suitor for Katharina . . . with one glaring exception: she didn’t like him. Katharina had heard Glatz was stubborn, opinionated, argumentative, and miserly. (These accusations largely proved to be true; Glatz later had to be removed from his congregation in Orlamünde because he argued so much with his parishioners.)23 She refused to have anything to do with Glatz and wouldn’t be swayed from her decision. Instead, she asked Nikolaus von Amsdorf to persuade Luther to abandon his plan. When von Amsdorf asked Katharina why a man of Glatz’s standing—a doctor, professor, and pastor—was not good enough for her, Katharina responded with a bold declaration: she would not refuse either von Amsdorf or even Luther himself, should either seek her hand in marriage, but Glatz she absolutely would not accept.24

Katharina must have realized the huge risk she took in refusing to accept Glatz as her husband. She was essentially out of options, and she knew it. She did not have the means to support herself. She could not continue to stay with the Cranachs indefinitely. She could not, or would not, return to the convent. Yet Katharina not only refused to settle for a husband she didn’t like, she did something virtually unheard of at the time: she essentially asked Luther (and von Amsdorf as well—it apparently didn’t matter which of them said yes) to marry her. “How much considered effort did it take in those days to do that?” wonders German biographer Eva Zeller. “How much excessive daring [Ubermut]—more than courage! And how much self-assurance!”25 Katharina’s bold move was daring indeed. Even more than self-assurance, her proposal illustrates the gravity of her plight.

Katharina von Bora had laid every last one of her cards on the table. She had risked it all because she had nothing and everything to lose. The ball was now firmly in Luther’s court. Would the renegade monk, the leader of the Protestant Reformation, the man who had single-handedly transformed the ways in which marriage was viewed in sixteenth-century Europe, accept this most unlikely proposal? We know Luther’s answer. The question is, why did he say yes?