Our readers will recall to mind those words of Luther at the Wartburg, on hearing that his teaching was making the clergy marry and monks renounce the obligation of their vows. No wife, he declared, should be forced upon him. He remained in his convent; looked on quietly, as one friend and fellow-labourer after the other took advantage of their liberty; wished them happiness in the enjoyment of it, and advised others to do the same; but never changed his views about himself.

His enemies reproached him with living a worldly life, with drinking beer in company with his friends, with playing the lute, and so on. Nor was it merely his Catholic opponents who sought in such charges material for vile slander, but also jealous ranters like MÜnzer gave vent to their hatred in this manner. All the more remarkable it is that no slanderous reports of immoral conduct were ever launched at this time, even by his bitterest enemies, against the man who was denouncing so openly and sternly offences of that description among the superior, no less than the inferior, clergy. Calumnies of this kind were reserved for the occasion of his marriage.

In truth, his life was one of the most arduous labour, anxiety, and excitement; and as regards his bodily needs, he was satisfied with the plainest and most sparing diet and the simplest enjoyments. The Augustinian convent, whence he received his support, being gradually denuded of its inmates by their abandonment of monastic life, its revenues accordingly were stopped. Luther informed Spalatin in 1524 of the poverty to which they were reduced; not indeed, as Spalatin well knew, that he concerned himself much about it, or wished to make it a subject of complaint; if he had no meat or wine, he could live well enough on bread and water. Melancthon describes how once, before his marriage, Luther's bed had not been made for a whole year, and was mildewed with perspiration. 'I was tired out,' says Luther, 'and worked myself nearly to death, so that I fell into the bed and knew nothing about it.'

When, moreover, he exchanged, as we have seen, in the autumn of 1524, the monastic cowl for the garb of a professor; and when he and the prior Brisger were the only ones of all the former monks left in the convent, he remained quietly where he was, and never entertained the idea of marriage. A noble lady, Argula von Staufen, wife of the Ritter von Grumbach, formerly in the Bavarian army, who had written publicly for the cause of the gospel, and thereby incurred, with her husband, the displeasure of the Duke of Bavaria, and who was now in active correspondence with the Wittenbergers and Spalatin, expressed to the latter her surprise that Luther did not marry. Luther thereupon wrote to Spalatin on November 30, 1524, saying, 'I am not surprised that folks gossip thus about me, as they gossip about many other things. But please thank the lady in my name, and tell her that I am in the hands of the Lord, as a creature whose heart He can change and re-change, destroy or revive, at any hour or moment; but as my heart has hitherto been, and is now, it will never come to pass that I shall take a wife. Not that I am insensible to my I flesh or sex, … but because my mind is averse to wedlock, because I daily expect the death and the well-merited punishment of a heretic.'

Shortly afterwards Luther wrote to his friend Link: 'Suddenly, and while I was occupied with far other thoughts, the Lord has plunged me into marriage.' It was in the spring of 1525 that he had formed this resolve, which speedily ripened to its fulfilment.

In a letter of March 12, 1525, he complained to his friend Amsdorf, who had gone to Magdeburg, of depression of spirits and temptation, and besought him to pay him a friendly visit to cheer him. It was, as we see from the contents of the letter, a temptation, which caused Luther to feel that, in the words of Scripture, it was 'not good for man to be alone,' but that he ought to have a help-meet to be with him. As to the choice of such a help-meet he may have already talked with Amsdorf, and very possibly they may have spoken of a lady of Magdeburg of the family of Alemann, who were conspicuous there for their devotion to the evangelical cause.

But Luther's own choice turned on Catharine von Bora, a former nun. Sprung from an ancient, though poor family of noble blood, she had been brought up from childhood in the convent of Nimtzch near Grimma. We find her there as early as 1509; she was born on January 29, 1499, and was consecrated as a nun at the age of sixteen. When the evangelical doctrine became known at Nimtzch, Catharine endeavoured with other nuns to break the bonds, which she had taken upon herself without any real free-will or knowledge of her own. In vain she entreated her relatives to release her. At length one Leonhard Koppe, a burgher and councillor of Torgau, took her part. Assisted by him and two of his friends, nine nuns escaped secretly from the convent on Easter Eve, April 5, 1523. Luther justified their escape in a public letter addressed to Koppe, and collected funds for their support, until they could be further provided for. They fled first to Wittenberg, and here Catharine stayed at the house of the town clerk and future burgomaster, Philip Reichenbach.

She was now in her twenty-sixth year, when Luther turned his thoughts towards her. He told afterwards his friends and Catharine herself, with perfect frankness, that he had not been in love with her before, for he had his suspicions, and they were not unfounded, that she was proud. He had even thought, shortly before, of arranging a marriage between her and a minister named Glatz, who later on, however, proved himself unworthy of his office. Catharine, on the other hand, is said to have gone to Amsdorf, as the trusted friend of Luther, and to have told him frankly that she did not wish to marry Glatz, but was ready to form an honourable alliance with himself or with Luther. If Cranach's portrait of her is to be trusted, she was not remarkable for beauty or any outward attraction. But she was a healthy, strong, frank and true German woman. Luther might reasonably expect to have in her a loyal, fresh-hearted, and staunch help-meet for his life, whose own cares or requirements would cause him little anxiety, while she would be just such a companion as, with his physical ailments and mental troubles, he required. In the event of her haughty disposition asserting itself unduly, he was the very man to correct it with quiet firmness and affection.

What further considerations induced him to marry, appear from his letters, in which he urged his friends to do likewise. Thus he wrote on March 27 to Wolfgang Reissenbusch, preceptor of the convent at Lichtenberg, saying that man was created by God for marriage. God had so made man that he could not well do without it; whoever was ashamed of marrying, must also be ashamed of his manhood, or must pretend to be wiser than God. The devil had slandered the married state by letting people who lived in immorality be held in high honour. Luther, in thus frankly stating the natural disposition of man to married life, spoke from his own experience. 'To remain righteous unmarried,' he said once later on, 'is not the least of trials, as those know well who have made the attempt.' In referring as he did to the devil, he probably had in his mind the scandal which threatened him if he should decide on marrying. He then goes on to say to Reissenbusch that if he honoured the Word and work of God, the scandal would be only a matter of a moment, to be followed by years of honour. To Spalatin he writes on April 10: 'I find so many reasons for urging others to marry, that I shall soon be brought to it myself, notwithstanding that enemies never cease to condemn the married state, and our little wiseacres ridicule it every day.' The 'wiseacres' he was thinking of were professors and theologians of his circle at Wittenberg. Not only was he resolved, however, to obey the will of his Creator, despite all condemnation and ridicule, but he deemed it his duty to testify to the rightness of the step by his example as well as by his words. His enemies, in fact, were taunting him that he did not venture to practise himself what he preached to others. A few days after, immediately before his departure for Eisleben, he wrote again to Spalatin, recommending his friend, who had been so utterly averse to matrimony, to take care that he was not anticipated in the step.

Amidst all the terrors of the Peasants' War, which had now broken out in all its violence, and in earnest contemplation of a near end possibly threatening himself, he had formed the fixed resolve, as his letter of May 4 to RÜhel shows, to 'take his Kate to wife, in spite of the devil.' This is the first letter in which he mentions her name to a friend. And to this resolve he steadily adhered during the troublous weeks that followed, when he was called on to pay the last honours to his Elector, to rouse men to the sanguinary contest with the peasants, and to hear contumely and reproach heaped upon his stirring words. Besides writing to the Cardinal Albert himself, recommending him to marry, he sent a letter also on June 3 to his friend RÜhel, who held office as one of his advisers, saying, 'If my marrying might serve in any way to strengthen his Grace to do the same, I should be very willing to set his Grace the example; for I have a mind, before leaving this world, to enter the married state, to which I believe God has called me.' He had thoughts of this kind, he added, even if it should end only in a betrothal, and not an actual marriage.

He speedily gave effect to his final resolve, in order to cut short all the loose and idle gossip which threatened him as soon as his intentions were known with regard to Catharine von Bora. He took none of his friends into his confidence, but acted, as he afterwards advised others to act. 'It is not good,' he said, 'to talk much about such matters. A man must ask God for counsel, and pray, and then act accordingly.'

As to how he finally came to terms with Catharine we have no account to show. But on the evening of June 13, on the Tuesday after the feast of the Trinity, he invited to his house his friends Bugenhagen, the parish priest of the town, Jonas, the professor and provost of the church of All Saints, Lucas Cranach with his wife, and the juristic professor Apel, formerly a dean of the Cathedral at Bamberg, who himself had married a nun, and in their presence was married to Catharine. The marriage was solemnised in the customary way. The pair were asked, by the priest present, Bugenhagen, according to the custom prevailing in Germany, and which Luther afterwards followed in his tract on Marriage, whether they would take one another for husband and wife; their right hands were then joined together, and thus, in the name of the Trinity, they were 'joined together in matrimony.' The ceremony was therewith concluded, and Catharine remained thenceforth with Luther as his wife. Some days after Luther gave a little breakfast to his friends; and the magistracy, of whom Cranach was a member, sent him their congratulations, together with a present of wine. A fortnight later, on June 27, Luther celebrated his wedding in grander style, by a nuptial feast, in order to gather his distant friends around him. He wrote to them saying that they were to 'seal and ratify' his marriage, and 'help to pronounce the benediction.' Above all he rejoiced to be able to see his 'dear father and mother' at the feast. Among the motives for his marrying he especially mentioned that he had felt himself bound to fulfil an old duty, in accordance with his father's wishes.

Great as was the surprise which Luther occasioned by his speedy marriage, it was no greater than the talk and sensation that immediately ensued.

Among even his adherents and friends—especially the 'wiseacres' of whom he had spoken—there was much astonishment and shaking of heads. It was considered that the great man had lowered himself, and gossip was busy in asking what reasons could have induced him to take the step. Melancthon, his devoted friend, lost for the moment, as is shown by his letter of June 16 to the philologist Camerarius, his accustomed self-possession. He admitted that married life was a holy state, and one well-pleasing to God, and that its results might be beneficial to Luther's nature and character; but he was of opinion that Luther's lowering himself to this condition was a lamentable act of weakness, and injurious to his reputation—and that, too, at a time when Germany was more than ever in need of all his spirit and his energy. Luther had not invited him to be present on the 13th, from a suspicion that Melancthon would scarcely approve of what he was doing. A few days afterwards, however, he warmly besought Link, their common friend, to be sure and attend their nuptial feast on the 27th. That Luther, in this respect also, had acted as a man of strong character and determination, would soon be evident to them all.

His enemies seized the occasion of his marriage to spread vulgar falsehoods about him, which soon were further exaggerated, and have been raked up shamelessly again, even in our own time, or at least repeated in veiled and scandalous inuendoes.

[Illustration: Fig. 29.—LUTHER. (From a Portrait by Cranach in 1525.) At Wittenberg.]

As for Luther himself, he at first felt strange in the new mode of life which he had entered at the age of forty-one, so suddenly, and in the midst of his arduous labours, and the stirring public events and struggles of the time. At the same time he could not but be aware of the unfavourable reception which his step would encounter, even with his friends at Wittenberg. Melancthon found him, during the early days of his married life, in a restless and uncertain mood. But he remained firm in his conviction that God had called him to the married state. The same day that Melancthon wrote so anxiously to Camerarius about his marriage, Luther himself wrote to Spalatin, saying, 'I have made myself so vile and contemptible forsooth, that all the angels, I hope, will laugh, and all the devils weep.' In his letter of invitation to his friends for June 27, friendly humour is mingled with words of deep earnestness; nay, even with thoughts of death, and a longing for release from this infatuated world. Later on Luther preached, on the ground of his own experiences, about the blessings, the joys, and the purifying burdens of the state ordained and sanctified by God, and never without an expression of gratitude to God for having brought him to enter into it. Seventeen years after his marriage he bore testimony to Catharine in his will, that she had been to him a 'pious, faithful, and devoted wife, always loving, worthy, and beautiful.'

[Illustration: Fig. 30.—CATHARINE VON BORA, LUTHER'S WIFE. (From a
Portrait by Cranach about 1525.) At Berlin.]

Of the wedding feast of June 27 we have no further details. It was, so far as concerns the repast, a very simple one, as compared with the elaborate nuptial entertainments then in fashion. The university presented Luther with a beautifully chased goblet of silver, bearing round its base the words: 'The honourable University of the Electoral town of Wittenberg presents this wedding gift to Doctor Martin Luther and his wife Kethe von Bora. [Footnote: The goblet is now in the possession of the University of Greifswald.]

[Illustration: Fig. 3l.—LUTHER'S RING FROM CATHARINE.]

Apartments in the convent, which Brisger also quitted shortly after to become a minister, were appointed by the Elector as the dwelling-place of Luther. Here, therefore, Catharine had to manage her household.

[Illustration: Fig. 82.—LUTHER'S DOUBLE RING.]

Protestant posterity has been anxious to retain a memorial of this marriage in the wedding rings of the newly-married couple. These, however, were probably not used at the marriage itself, since Luther wished to have it solemnised so quickly and without the knowledge of others. But a ring has been preserved, which Luther, to judge from the inscription (D. Martino Luthero Catharina v. Boren 13 Jun. 1525), received at any rate from his Kate as a supplementary reminiscence of the day. In recent times—about 1817—it has been multiplied by several copies. It bears the figure of the crucified Saviour and the instruments of His death; in perfect keeping with the spirit of the Reformer, whose marriage, like the other acts of his life, was concluded in the name of Christ crucified. There exists also, in the Ducal Museum at Brunswick, a double ring, consisting of two interfastened in the middle, of which one bears a diamond with his initials M. L. D., and the other a ruby with the initials of his wife, C. v. B. The inner surface of the first ring is engraved with the words: 'WAS. GOT. ZUSAMEN. FIEGT,' (Those whom God hath joined together), and the second, 'SOL. KEIN. MENSCH. SCHEIDEN,' (Shall no man put asunder). This double ring was probably given by some friend to Luther, or, as others suppose, to his wife.