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A Reformation for Women? Sin, Grace and Gender in the Writings of Argula Von Grumbach1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 January 2009

P. Matheson
P. Matheson
Affiliation:
University of OtagoPO Box56 Dunedin New Zealand
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Extract

Argula von Grumbach, a contemporary of Luther, was the first woman Protestant author to be published, some 30,000 copies of her eight writings circulating between 1523–4. She leapt into the public eye by challenging the Ingolstadt theologians to debate with her, a mere woman, their actions in forcing a young student, Arsacius Seehofer, to retract publicly his reforming views. The Bavarian noblewoman, who defended her right to speak out by a lively new reading of Scripture, and who broadened her appeal by a comprehensive call for the reformation of church and society, had to cope with vicious attacks on her personal life and with death threats. Her incomprehensible neglect by Reformation historians is only now beginning to be remedied. This paper addresses her understanding of sin and grace.

Type
Research Article
Information
Scottish Journal of Theology , Volume 49 , Issue 1 , February 1996 , pp. 39 - 55
Copyright
Copyright © Scottish Journal of Theology Ltd 1996

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References

2 The Classical, Patristic and scholastic roots of the view of woman as not only defective but morally dangerous are well documented; cf. O'Faolain, Julia and Martines, Lauro, (eds.) Not in God's Image: Women in History from the Greeks to the Victorians. New York, 1973Google Scholar a brief review of some of the sixteenth century issues in Wiesner, Merry, ‘Beyond Women and the Family: Towards a Gender Analysis of the Reformation’ Sixteenth Century Journal 18 (1987) pp. 311–321CrossRefGoogle Scholar; ibid., ‘Family, Household and Community’, in Brady, T., Oberman, H., Tracy, J. (eds.). Handbook of European History 1400–1600. Late Middle Ages, Renaissance and Reformation. Volume 1. Structures and Assertions. (Leiden, 1994) pp. 51–78Google Scholar; King, Margaret L., Women of the Renaissance (Chicago, 1991) esp.ch.2CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Robischeaux, Thomas, Rural society and the Search ofOrder in Early Modern Germany (Cambridge, 1989) esp.pp. 95–120CrossRefGoogle Scholar; not all these treatments are equally reliable on church-related issues; cf. also Douglass, Jane Dempsey, Women, Freedom and Calvin. Princeton, 1985Google Scholar.

3 Matheson, Peter, Argula von Grumbach: a Woman's Voice in the Reformation (=AVG) (Edinburgh, 1994)Google Scholar.

4 Cf. her household papers; the Bayerische Hauptstaatsarchiv, Munich: Personenselekt Cart. 110 (Grombach); I hope to publish a selection of these in the near future; the very vivid and moving prayers, clearly minted for lay people, are quite traditional in their invocation of one's personal angel and of the saints, and in their understanding of good works and merit.

5 ‘And if you had recognised the day of your visitation, you would weep with me.’ AVG, p. 157f.

6 The poem by ‘Johannes of Landshut’ and her response to it: AVG 160–195.

7 AVG, p. 89.

8 ‘I have heard that you are reported as saying that if my own husband would not do it, some relative should act, and wall me up.’ AVG, p. 145.

9 Cf. Moxey, Keith, Peasants, Warriors and Wives. Popular Imagery in the Reformation. (Chicago and London, 1989) pp. 101–126Google Scholar.

10 von Günzburg, Eberlin, Sämlliche Schrijien Bd. 3, ed. Enders, Ludwig (Neudrucke deutscher Literatunvercke des XVI und XVIIJahrhunderts; Halle, 1900) p. 128/24ff.Google Scholar; Georg Hauer, Drey chtistlich pndig vom//Salve regina/dem Eua//geli vnnd heylgen schrift// gemep (Landshut, 1523) Fiii.

11 Salve Regina, Mater Misericordiae,

Vita dulcedo et spes nostra, salve,

Ad te clamamus, exules filii Hevae

Ad te suspiramus, gementes et flentes,

In hac lacrymarum valle …

12 It will be significant that she never refers to the Virgin Mary among her considerable list of Biblical role models; for a very different inversion of traditional models for women's conduct cf. Carmelo Lisón-Tolosona. ‘The Beatae. Feminine Responses to Christianity in Sixteenth-century Castile’, in James, W. and Johnson, D.H. (eds.) Vernacular Christianity: Essays in the Social Anthropology of Religion. (Oxford, 1988) pp. 51–59Google Scholar.

13 She is not explicitly named; but, as I have argued elsewhere, she will probably be meant; AVG p. 19f.; cf. Argula's repeated references to his criticisms from the pulpit: ‘I had to listen for ages to your Decretal preacher crying out in the Church of Our Lady; Ketzer! ketzer!’, “‘Heretic, Heretic’”; also her cutting references to the ‘doctor of theology’ and the attacks she suffered from him: AVG, pp. 79, 119.

14 ‘Mary gives birth without pain or any damage to her virginity; you wretched woman with great pain and brokenness; Mary's birth was accompanied by the adoration of the angels; while weeping and crying midwiveswere around you, you sick and impotent woman’; Hauer, op. cit., Giii; cf. Aii, Giiv.

15 AVG, p. 166.

16 ‘As sixteenth century men debated women's nature, becoming more obsessed with women's sexuality and controlling unmarried women, gender became increasingly important as a determinant of human experience.’ Merry Wiesner, ‘Beyond Women and the Family’, p. 318; this suspicion of women may well have been as true of Protestant areas as of Catholic; cf. Watt, Jeffrey, ‘Women and the Consistory in Calvin's Geneva’; Sixteenth Centuty Joumal 24 (1993), pp. 429–439CrossRefGoogle Scholar; a partial exception to this norm is the anonymous Frawenbiechlin. Zu rum vnd breyse allen tugentsamen auch erberen wybern … which has an extensive section on stubborn, quarrelsome and bad women, as well as on outstanding Biblical women such as Esther and Judith, but does look forward also to an honest woman emerging as a writer1 who will instruct us men about how we too should comport ourselves’ (Augsburg, 1522) B iii.

17 ‘However, I suppressed my inclinations; heavy of heart, I did nothing. Because Paul says in 1 Timothy 2: “The women should keep silence, and should not speak in church.” AVG, p. 79; cf. Williams, Rowan, Teresa of Avila (London, 1991) esp. pp. 163–171Google Scholar; the writings of the French Protestant woman, Marie de Dentiére, provide an interesting parallel: cf. Douglass, Jane Dempsey, ‘Marie Dentiere's use of Scripture in her Theology of History’, Burrows, M. S., Rorem, P., eds., Biblical Hermeneutics in Historical Perspective. (Grand Rapids, 1991) pp. 225–242Google Scholar; ibid., ‘A report on Anticlericalism in Three French Women Writers 1404–1549’, in Dykema, A., Oberman, H., Anticlericalism in late medieval and early modern Europe (Leiden: New York, 1993) pp. 243–256Google Scholar.

18 AVG, p. 142; no doubt a crack at Hauer's expense, it is a point emphasised also by her mentor Speratus; cf. Rublack, Hans-Christoph, Gescheiterte Reformation (Stuttgart, 1978) p. 13n. 33Google Scholar.

19 AVG, p. 118.

20 AVG, pp. 103, 121; there are interesting parallels to medieval women mystics such as Hildegard of Bingen, whose dazzling visions give her the confidence Argula von Grumbach derives from Scripture; interestingly, both women have a pronounced apocalyptic bent, draw heavily on the imagery of light, and bombard the powerful in church and state with impassioned correspondence; cf. Beer, Frances, Women and Mystical Experience in the Middle Ages (Woodbridge, 1992), esp. p. 26fGoogle Scholar.

21 AVG, p. 178.

22 AVG, pp. 90, 77, 134.

23 AVG, p. 126.

24 AVG, p. 120.

25 AVG, p. 79; Halbach argues lhat this was a pretext, since she gave men remarkably little time to intervene! Silke Halbach, Argula von Grumbachals Verfasserin reformalorischer Flugschriften (Europaische Hochschulschriften; Vol. 468; Frankfurt a. Main, 1992), p. 114, n. 77Google Scholar.

26 AVG, p. 183; in Renaissance thought and portraiture Judith oscillated between heroine and femme fatale, cf. Anderson, Jaynie, ‘The Head-hunter and Head-huntress in Italian Religious Portraiture’ in James, W. and Johnson, D. H. (eds.) Vernacular Christianity. Essays in the Social Anthropology of Religion (Oxford, 1988), p. 64Google Scholar.

27 AVG, p. 184f.

28 As in her letter to the Elector Frederick; AVG, p. 134.

29 Cf. Ursala Hess on the complexity of the concept of humility in this period: ‘Oratrix humilis. Die Frau als Briefpartnerin von Humanisten, am Beispiel der Caritas Pirckheimer’, in Worstbrock, F., ed. Der Brief im Zeitalter der Renaissance (Weinheim, 1983) esp. p. 196fGoogle Scholar.

30 AVG, p. 87.

31 AVG, p. 103.

32 AVG, p. 90.

33 AVG, p. 182.

34 An interesting example of the use of prejudice against prejudice; as is her mockery of Johann of Landshut:

Awesome for you God's visitation

Plagued solely by a group of women.

AVG.pp. 120, 185.

35 AVG, p. 133f.

36 AVG, p. 108.

37 Unlike the tendency of the Reformers to restrict women's role to the domestic realm: cf. Wiesner, Merry, ‘The death of two Marys’ in Obelkevich, J. et al. (eds.) Disciplines of Faith: Studies in Policy, Politics and Patriarchy (London, 1987), pp. 295–308Google Scholar; though Luther can speak warmly of Mary, the sister of Martha, having ‘chosen the good portion’; and pictures Christ saying: ‘Mary has chosen and found the right thing to do. She is sitting at My feet and listening to what I am saying… This is the secret, just to hear Me’; LW 23, 247; cf. also LW 53, 14; W 4, 401; W 40, 687; W 45, 549; his consistent view is thatwomen, children and incompetents, except in emergency, have to be excluded from any active exercise of ministry, which, rather giving himself away, he defines as ‘positions of sovereignty’; LW 41, 154f.

38 AVG, p. 147.

39 AVG, p. 110.

40 Cf. her letter to Duke John of Simmern: ‘I recognised from several of your Princely Grace's statements that he is beginning to read the Scriptures and the word of God…’; and to Adam von Thering: ‘Therefore, my beloved lord and cousin, I plead with you as a friend to devote yourself to the Holy Scriptures.’ AVG, pp. 126, 148.

41 A very similar note is struck by Katharine Schützin, or Katherine Zell, the wife of Matthew Zell in Strassburg, using the same term ‘stragen’ for admonition, which Argula von Grumbach uses:Entschuldigung für M. Matthes Zellen… (Strassburg, 1524) A 6v; I am indebted to Prof. Elsie McKee for my copy.

42 AVG, pp. 75, 78, 156; note the repeated use of Ezekiel 33 to yoke her moral critique to a prophetic commission or ‘talent’ from God; it throws an interesting light on how early Protestant women saw their co-responsibility for their societies.

43 Wiesner, Merry, ‘Women's Defence of their Public Role’, in Rose, Mary Beth (ed.) Women in theMiddle Ages and the Renaissance: Literary and Historical Perspectives (Syracuse, 1986) pp. 1–28Google Scholar.

44 AVG, p. 75f.

45 Cf. the eloquent passage in her letter to Duke William: AVG, p. 104f.

46 AVG, p. 85.

47 AVG, p. 90.

48 AVG, p. 87.

49 Anticlericalism in Three French Women', p. 256.

50 AVG, p. 81.

51 Referring to Acts 15; AVG, p. 121f.

52 AVG, pp. 85, 106.

53 AVG, p. 107.

54 AVG, pp. 108.

55 AVG, p. 105.

56 AVG, p. 84.

57 AVG, p. 88.

58 AVG, p. 102.

59 AVG, p. 90.

60 AVG, p. 103.

61 AVG, p. 75.

62 AVG, p. 25f.

63 Classen, Albrecht, ‘Women Poet and Reformer: the 16th Century Feminist Argula von Grumbach’, Daphnis 20, 167–197Google Scholar; Russell, Paul, Lay Theology in the Reformation. Popular Pamphleteers in southwest Germany 1523–1525 (Cambridge, 1986) pp. 185–211Google Scholar.

64 AVG, p. 192; it is a neat reversal of conventional thinking when Katherine Schitzin/Zell leaps to the defence of her maligned husband in print, determined to champion his case, ‘und min eer/lyb/und leben fur in setzen’; Entschuldigung… B 7v; by her defence of Seehofer, of course, Argula von Grumbach was also defending a man's honour.

65 AVG, p. 155f.

66 Wiesner, , ‘Nuns, Wives, and Mothers’, p. 25Google Scholar.

67 Very similar arguments are used in 1539 by Marie de Dentiére; of particular interest in the section: ‘Defense pour les femmes’ in the Epistretres utilefaicteet composée par une femme chrestienne de Tomay … (Genéve, 1539) A4–A5; like Argula von Grumbach she cites numerous examples of Biblical women who have been called upon to speak out or act, when the wise of this world have failed; for the sake of their salvation women, too, need instruction, ‘And although we are not permitted to preach in public assemblies and churches, yet we are not prohibited from writing and admonishing one another …’ A 3; I am indebted to Professor Jane Dempsey Douglass for my copy, and for pointing out the similarities.

68 Caution may be in place, however, about seeing the language of weakness being deliberately used by Argula von Grumbach as a strategy of power, as has been suggested in the case of some other medieval and early modern women.

69 AVG, p. 141–149; 158; cf. Marie de Dentiere's hatred of violent persecution; Epistre trés utile, D 2v – D 4.

70 Halbach, p. 150.

71 AVG, p. 159, 149.

72 AVG, p. 145; the phrase is adopted from one of her mentors, Paul Speratus; Lyndal Roper notes, in the latter's case, the identification of the Word with the evangelical preacher; here, fascinatingly, Christ is identified with a woman; ‘Was there a Crisis in Gender Relations in Sixteenth Century Germany?’, in Hagenmaier, M. and Holte, S., eds, Krisenbewusstein und Krisenbewältigung in der frühen Neuzeit (Frankfurt a. Main, 1992), p. 381Google Scholar.

74 Katherine Zell is still more modest; she disclaims any pretensions to be a prophetic figure; she is nothing but Balaam's ass! Entschuldigung… C3; it is in a similarly paradoxical mode that Argula von Grumbach ‘exhibited a strong sense of herself as a woman in her writings …’; Merry Wiesner, ‘Nuns, Wives and Mothers: Women and the Reformation in Germany’, in Marshall, Sherrin, ed., Women in Reformation and Counter-Reformation Europe (Bloomington and Indianopolis, 1989) p. 23fGoogle Scholar.

74 AVG, p. 149, 142.

75 AVG, p. 147; in her Guerre et Deslivrance de la Ville de Genesve of 1536 Marie de Dentiére noted the rape of women and their daughters under the tyranny of the Duke of Savoy, and celebrated the new age in which widows and orphans can plead their cause; Mémoires et documents publiés par la Société d'histoire et d'archéologie de Genéve, XX, (Genéve, 1881), p. 375; I am indebted to Professor Jane Dempsey Douglass for my copy.

76 Miles, Margaret, Female Nakedness and Religious Meaning in the Christian West (New York, 1991)Google Scholar.

77 Again Marie de Dentiere strikes a similar note: the wealthy and powerful tar all opposition with a heretical brush: ‘Tellement que si aucun conterdict, presche, ou escrit contre eux, il sera iuge soudainement heretique …’; Epistre Tres Utile…; D 6v.

78 As Wiesner, Merry argues: ‘Beyond Women and the Family’, pp. 316, 321Google Scholar.