Katie Luther, First Lady of the Reformation: The Unconventional Life of Katharina von Bora by Ruth A. Tucker (review)

Published in 2017 to coincide with the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, this work offers an imaginative take on the life and significance of Katharina von Bora, Martin Luther’s wife and partner of twenty years. Ruth Tucker makes the spirited argument that Bora, former nun, housewife, mother, nurse, brewer, baker, farmer, business woman, and family breadwinner, was also an outspoken and independent woman in her own right, whose greatest contribution was nothing less than making Luther’s Reformation possible (133–4).

Tucker presents Bora’s life chronologically, beginning with her entry at age five into a Benedictine boarding school from which she was funneled into a religious vocation, her escape from the convent along with eleven others in 1523 and arrival in Wittenberg, and her surprise engagement and marriage to Martin Luther in 1525. Tucker divides the years of Bora’s married life in Wittenberg into themes including parenthood, spirituality, and the Luthers’ marital relationship, and concludes with Luther’s death in 1546 and Bora’s in 1552.

The challenge of portraying Bora’s life is that she is a person of tremendous significance about whom we have little historical information. Tucker does not provide new information on Bora but instead relies on existing biographical sources. Stories about female church figures past and present (Hildegard of Bingen, Caritas Pirckheimer, Susanna Wesley, Patricia O’Donnel-Gibson, and Tucker herself) are woven throughout; these stories serve as a lens through which the reader is invited to imagine what Bora’s feelings and motivations might have been.

The weakness of this approach is that the comparisons are speculative, and the parallels, especially when separated by centuries, can seem stretched. Tucker’s presentation is much stronger when she relies on scholarly descriptions of contemporary life to help the reader imagine Bora’s life. For example, Tucker’s discussion of daily life in Wittenberg becomes quite compelling when she leaves behind comparisons with farm life in Wisconsin and instead uses sources to describe the stink of life in this “miserable, filthy little town” with its newly founded university and lack of sanitation codes (67). Similarly, her description of the woes of sixteenth-century German innkeeping is fascinating and increases the reader’s appreciation of Bora’s drive and competence in running the Black Cloister as a boardinghouse.

Tucker’s most intriguing analysis has to do with the nature of the relationship between Katherine and Martin, which she argues functioned as one of equality (despite Luther’s writing that women should be subservient in marriage) and dependence on the part of Luther. Tucker delves into Luther’s depression and writes that for all his greatness, Luther was “a weak man, both physically and emotionally,” while Bora’s strength was inverse to his weakness (137). Without her ministrations and support, Luther might not have lived beyond his mid-forties, or might have succumbed to mental instability.

Tucker wonders why it is that Katharina von Bora was written out of history, not only after her death, but also by Luther’s contemporaries. She concludes that it is not because of gender but rather because of personality and pursuits. As an independent and outspoken woman who focused throughout her life on business and economics, she did not present the ideal image of the gentle and spiritual pastor’s wife. “Brand Bora” did not sell. But without Brand Bora the Reformation would have been altered significantly.

This work provides an approachable introduction to Katharina von Bora’s life, appropriate for use in the congregation and introductory classes.