Masculinity in the Reformation Era 9780271091112

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Masculinity in the Reformation Era

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Habent sua fata libelli

SIXTEENTH CENTURY ESSAYS & STUDIES SERIES GENERAL EDITOR Michael Wolfe St. John’s University EDITORIAL BOARD OF SIXTEENTH CENTURY ESSAYS & STUDIES ELAINE BEILIN Framingham State College CHRISTOPHER CELENZA Johns Hopkins University MIRIAM U. CHRISMAN University of Massachusetts, Emerita BARBARA B. DIEFENDORF Boston University PAULA FINDLEN Stanford University SCOTT H. HENDRIX Princeton Theological Seminary

RAYMOND A. MENTZER University of Iowa HELEN NADER University of Arizona CHARLES G. NAUERT University of Missouri, Emeritus MAX REINHART University of Georgia SHERYL E. REISS Cornell University ROBERT V. SCHNUCKER Truman State University, Emeritus

JANE CAMPBELL HUTCHISON University of Wisconsin–Madison

NICHOLAS TERPSTRA University of Toronto

ROBERT M. KINGDON University of Wisconsin, Emeritus

MARGO TODD University of Pennsylvania

RONALD LOVE University of West Georgia MARY B. MCKINLEY University of Virginia

JAMES TRACY University of Minnesota MERRY WIESNER–HANKS University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee

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Masculinity in the Reformation Era

Edited by Scott H. Hendrix Susan C. Karant-Nunn

Sixteenth Century Essays & Studies 83 Truman State University Press

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Copyright © 2008 Truman State University Press, Kirksville, Missouri USA All rights reserved tsup.truman.edu Cover art: Virgil Solis, David and Goliath, ca. 1562. Woodcut, from Veit Dietrich, Summaria vber die gantze Biblia (Frankfurt a.M.: David Zepheln, Johan Raschen, & Sigmund Feierabend, 1562). Image courtesy of the Kessler Reformation Collection, Pitts Theology Library, Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia. Cover design: Teresa Wheeler Type: Bembo Std: © 1990, 2002 Adobe Systems Incorporated. All Rights Reserved. © 1990, 2002 The Monotype Corporation Plc. All Rights Reserved. Optima: Copyright (c) 1981, 1982, 1983, 1989 and 1993, Linotype Library GmbH or its affiliated Linotype-Hell companies. All rights reserved. Printed by: Thomson-Shore, Dexter, Michigan USA

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Masculinity in the Reformation era / edited by Scott H. Hendrix, Susan C. Karant-Nunn. p. cm. — (Sixteenth century essays & studies ; v. 83) Includes index. ISBN 978-1-931112-76-5 (hardback : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-935503-53-8 (e-book) 1. Masculinity—Europe—History. 2. Masculinity—Religious aspects— Christianity—History. 3. Reformation—Europe. 4. Europe—History—1492– 1648. 5. Social change. I. Hendrix, Scott H. II. Karant-Nunn, Susan C. HQ1090.7.E85M37 2008 305.3109409'031—dc22 2008008655

No part of this work may be reproduced or transmitted in any format by any means without written permission from the publisher. The paper in this publication meets or exceeds the minimum requirements of the American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI Z39.48–1992.

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Contents Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ix Dimensions of Manhood Scott H. Hendrix and Susan C. Karant-Nunn

Part One: Deviating from the Norms A Married Man Is a Woman . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Negotiating Masculinity in Early Modern Northwestern Spain Allyson M. Poska

The Reform of Masculinities in Sixteenth-Century Switzerland . . . . . . . . .21 A Case Study Helmut Puff

“The First Form and Grace” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .45 Ignatius of Loyola and the Reformation of Masculinity Ulrike Strasser

Masculinity and Patriarchy in Reformation Germany . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .71 Scott H. Hendrix

Part Two: Civic and Religious Duties Father, Son, and Pious Christian . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .95 Concepts of Masculinity in Reformation Geneva Karen E. Spierling

Masculinity and the Reformed Tradition in France . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .120 Raymond A. Mentzer

Rumor, Fear, and Male Civic Duty during a Confessional Crisis . . . . . . . .140 B. Ann Tlusty

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Part Three: The Man Martin Luther The Masculinity of Martin Luther . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .167 Theory, Practicality, and Humor Susan C. Karant-Nunn

“Lustful Luther” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .190 Male Libido in the Writings of the Reformer Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks

About the Contributors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .213 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .215

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Acknowledgments This book is the expanded product of sessions organized by the editors for the annual meeting of the Sixteenth Century Society and Conference (formerly the Sixteenth Century Studies Conference). Scholars of the Reformation era whose research concentrates on different parts of Europe were asked to reflect on ways in which masculinity was constructed and expressed in the areas they studied. The sessions were held at three successive conferences in 2002, 2003, and 2004, and we thank the Society for allowing us to include these sessions in their programs. We are grateful to all the scholars invited to prepare papers for agreeing to publish their revised essays in this collection. The editors are among those who contributed papers to those sessions. The essay by Scott Hendrix that appears in this collection, “Masculinity and Patriarchy in Reformation Germany,” is reprinted from the Journal of the History of Ideas 56 (1995). We thank the editors of the Journal and its publisher, Johns Hopkins University Press, for allowing the article to be reprinted here. We also invited two other scholars of early modern Europe, Helmut Puff and Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks, to contribute essays on masculinity to our collection. The essay by Professor Wiesner-Hanks, “'Lustful Luther': Male Libido in the Writings of the Reformer,” was originally published in Sexuality and Culture in Medieval and Renaissance Europe, edited by Philip M. Soergel (Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History 3/2, New York: AMS Press, 2005). We extend our appreciation to AMS Press for allowing her essay to be reprinted in this collection. We also thank Sandra Kimball at the University of Arizona for her ongoing assistance, including the preparation of this manuscript. Her intelligent, watchful labors made it possible for Professor Karant-Nunn to take on activities that she otherwise could not have done. Scott H. Hendrix Susan C. Karant-Nunn

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Introduction Dimensions of Manhood Scott H. Hendrix and Susan C. Karant-Nunn

I

f the first generation of researchers after 1970 discovered many facets of women’s history, including the multitude of ways in which European societies attempted to shape girls into the kinds of women they wanted, the second generation has also noted the ways in which those societies formed boys into men. Initially uneasy about seeming to revert to telling the stories of males, scholars are now exploring the simultaneous efforts to craft both sexes into adults who would conform to normative ideals of femininity and masculinity to which late medieval and early modern rural communities, towns, and noble courts aspired. Apropos of early modern Europe, Claudia Opitz has described how our pioneering colleagues gradually departed from an exclusive search for past women’s lives in favor of examining the interactive forces of women and men in their class-based variations. She traces the development of the innovative, useful category of gender, introduced by thinkers like Gerda Lerner, Gisela Bock, and Joan Scott. No later than the early 1990s, the search was on in North America and Great Britain for the formative and constitutive elements of masculinity, and that endeavor has quickly spread to the rest of Europe.1 It has entailed the study of being-a-

1Opitz, Um-Ordnung der Geschlechter, 58–86. See also Wiesner-Hanks, Women and Gender, 10–18; and Kühne’s recollection in Männergeschichte, 9–10.

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man from an entirely new perspective, one that could draw inspiration from the ethnographic scrutiny of other societies. The fundamental insight that expectations of women equally entail understandings of manhood has become ubiquitous, and the examples multiply apace. Among the earliest in this country was Clare Lees’ anthology, Medieval Masculinities.2 After summarizing Aristotle’s thought on women as defective men, Vern Bullough declared: “We have tended to look at the restrictions put upon the woman by such assumptions. What is sometimes overlooked is that they also put limitations on male development.”3 With her 1991 introduction to a collection on gender, Heide Wunder both anticipated and stimulated more recent research. 4 In Martin Dinges’ well-known volume, Hausväter, Priester, Kastraten, Heike Talkenberger perceived, in the sixty funeral sermons that she surveyed, the dimensions of Christian manhood in programmatic form. Along with the decisiveness and reason stereotypically ascribed to men, some qualities that were praised and simultaneously advocated were widely associated with being a woman: humility, chastity, tenderness, emotionality, and religiosity.5 Talkenberger also pointed to class differences as a factor in the shaping of gender ideals. Alison Levy has recently observed that Florentine portraits of widows in their mourning weeds implicitly contain the dead man and thus prolong his memory. These pictures were in fact commissioned by men.6 Levy’s insight that they have a nullifying effect on the women portrayed could be applied to Robert Schumann’s song-cycle, Frauenliebe und Leben, and most especially to the song, “Nun hast Du mir den ersten Schlag getan.” With the husband’s death, the wife in some sense, and certainly in her own eyes, has ceased to exist. In English literature, Lynn Enterline and Mark Breitenberg have been early theorists of masculinity.7 Also in literary studies, Kathleen Long has edited a group of essays on a French crisis of masculinity that is

2Lees,

Medieval Masculinities. “On Being A Male,” 33. 4Wunder, “Überlegungen zum Wandel.” See also Wunder, “Wie wird man ein Mann?” Wunder’s publications since 1994 have often dealt with questions of gender. For a list of her publications from 1974 to 1995 see Wunder, Der andere Blick, 349–53. 5Talkenberger, “Konstruktion von Männerrollen,” 59–62. Hadley’s Masculinity ranges through the medieval era with essays on such diverse topics as Byzantine eunuchs and William the Conqueror’s relationship to his son. 6Levy, Re-membering Masculinity, esp. 59–91. 7See Enterline, Tears of Narcissus; and Breitenberg, Anxious Masculinity. 3Bullough,

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perceptible in the works of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century writers. 8 Most recently, Todd W. Reeser has put forward the concept of “moderate masculinity.” Examining literary discourse, he finds that Montaigne and other writers advocated restraint (but not abstinence) as the ideal, one that men could attain but women, who were by nature immoderate, could not. In examining the literary evidence, Reeser overlooks the considerable historical work on Stoicism and social discipline, which would provide even broader support for his thesis.9 Among historians of early modern England, Alexandra Shepard has taken both normative and practical masculinity into her account. She demonstrates that definitions of the masculine have been diverse because they are strongly affected by class, age, marital status, and situation.10 This point is invaluable. We take inspiration from these scholars and from the many others who have preceded us. As historians who have concentrated largely on the sixteenth-century religious movements that are collectively referred to as the Reformation, we recognize that Reformation specialists were for a while hesitant to take up research on women in relation to the new confessions and that more recently they have been equally cautious about pursuing Protestant definitions of manliness. Over the last twenty-five years, however, historians have not confined themselves to studying prominent religious women like Katharina von Bora,11 Marguerite de Navarre,12 Katharina Schütz Zell,13 and Argula von Grumbach.14 They have also identified the differences that religious ruptures and reformations made in the existence of ordinary women.15 While much about the lives of early modern women remains to be investigated, a respectable beginning has been made. The purpose of the present collection, however, is to increase the number of studies that piece by piece are reconstructing the identity of manhood in Reformation Europe. The authors of the essays in this volume 8Long, High Anxiety. Essays in this volume feature women as transgressors and men’s reaction to these images. 9Reeser, Moderating Masculinity, 11–48. 10Shepard, Meanings of Manhood, 246–53. 11Treu, Katharina von Bora; Hahn and Mügge, Katharina von Bora; and Smith, “Katharina von Bora through Five Centuries.” 12Smarr, Joining the Conversation; Marguerite de Navarre, Les comédies bibliques, ed. Marczuk et al.; Thysell, Pleasure of Discernment; and Reid, King’s Sister. 13McKee, Katharina Schütz Zell; and McKee, Church Mother. 14Halbach, Argula von Grumbach; and Matheson, Argula von Grumbach. 15Paradigm-setting publications on women and the Reformation, to select only a few, have been Davis, “City Women and Religious Change”; Irwin, Womanhood in Radical Protestantism; Roper, Holy Household; Conrad, Zwischen Kloster und Welt; and Kobelt-Groch, Aufsässige Töchter Gottes.

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examine the ways in which sixteenth- and seventeenth-century authorities, both secular and religious, labored to turn those boys and men subject to them into the Christian males they sought. The vision of these authorities was still quite binary, despite the acknowledgment in erudite thought of masculine women and feminine men, and despite the deviations that real-life exigencies produced.16 Yet no one, whether highly educated or not, advocated such departures; and ideal types of women and men, conveyed in normative media, were clustered at each end of what we in the West may regard as the gender spectrum. Although sixteenth-century ideals are also discussed in these essays, they treat practice more than theory. As a result, they present evidence of the disparities that existed between gender paradigms and lives-as-lived. On the good advice of an anonymous assessor of this book when in manuscript form, the nine contributions are organized as follows: (1) four essays (Poska, Puff, Strasser, and Hendrix) treat departures from that abstract standard that early modern models prescribed; (2) three others (Spierling, Mentzer, and Tlusty) relate masculinity to concrete civic settings and the expectation that men conform themselves to collective needs; and (3) two further essays (Wiesner-Hanks and Karant-Nunn) take up again that irresistible celebrity and prolific self-witness, Martin Luther.

Part One: Deviating from the Norms In her essay, Allyson Poska takes us to the villages of Galicia in northwestern Spain. Real conditions there, whether political or economic, were rooted in class identity, and those conditions affected the behavior of both men and women. Peasant men disregarded prescriptive treatises by elite authors, who touted high birth, maintenance of honor, restraint but willingness to fight, and provision for family needs. According to inquisition records, these men displayed their maleness in premarital and extramarital sexual relationships. Beginning in the sixteenth century, over half the men in parts of the region migrated to new locales in search of sustenance for themselves and their families. Galician uxorilocal customs kept those men who remained in the region resident in the homes of in-laws and excluded them from the control of household money. Since they rarely sent for their

16Cadden,

Meanings of Sex Difference, 201–27.

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wives at a later date, Galician men who ventured outward both gained independence and asserted their masculinity by choosing to migrate. Helmut Puff draws on Lyndal Roper’s contention that two contrasting male figures, the well-disciplined and the unruly, dominated early modern conceptualizations of the man.17 He analyzes evidence taken from interrogations of Werner Steiner, a member of the Zurich elite and a former priest, whose faith authorities regarded as questionable owing to Steiner’s attraction to homoeroticism. Puff observes the association in history between heresy and “unnatural intercourse,” and he notes how yielding to such temptations posed a danger to Steiner’s soul and to society. In the course of Steiner’s life, Puff identifies different masculine codes that could conflict with one another: the military, the academic or clerical, the familial, and the humanist-Reformed. Steiner was a friend of Zwingli and a historian, who struggled to absorb a new religious identity and also enjoyed sex with men. Puff compels us to think not of two uniform, opposing masculinities, one dictated from the pulpit and one defined by praxis; instead he presents a spectrum of masculinity with overlapping expressions and ambiguities over a life span. Assessing Ignatius of Loyola’s so-called Autobiography and the constitutions that he wrote for the Society of Jesus, Ulrike Strasser asks how Loyola and Jerome Nadal, his missionary-emissary, conceived of a complete manliness for their followers. After all, Jesuit men had to deny themselves the wedded bond and the progenitive function that European society included in its definition of maleness. Strasser proposes a “reimagined clerical masculinity,” which included spirituality that was clearly Catholic and emotionality that was stable and secure. Ignatius, as portrayed in the Autobiography, became a model for the numerous Catholic men who entered the Society of Jesus during the sixteenth century. In this “paternal instruction,” he can be seen to favor cooperation and affective ties among members, the readership that he imagined as “sons.” Jesuits were to seek chastity even in the midst of women, spiritual bravery that encouraged weeping, and spiritual paternity. In defense of the Virgin, they were to substitute the pilgrim’s staff for the dagger of the knight who defended female honor. Scott Hendrix moves beyond the Protestant conception of patriarchy and asks what it meant for actual patres familias to bear the burdens of their theoretical headship. Having sifted through the prescriptive writings of ten

17Roper,

“Was There a Crisis?”

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prominent German clerics, all but one of whom had been a Catholic monk or priest, Hendrix identifies five strands of masculine vulnerability and personal need to which these writers refer. Heads of households had to uphold a high standard: marrying and remaining chaste as it was defined for that bond; restraining marital sexual expression; forbearing calmly in the face of wifely flaws and household exigencies; accepting the responsibility of supporting a family; and taking on the larger burden of blame that the authors ascribed to husbands when a marriage went awry. Like Puff, Hendrix disputes the validity of narrow, monolithic definitions of masculinity. The ten writers he consults dealt with manhood as it manifested itself in various roles and in relation to others. Society assigned heavy responsibilities to men; husbands needed support from their wives in order to fulfill the roles that preachers and tract-writers defined and were supposed to exemplify for them.

Part Two: Civic and Religious Duties Within the concrete environment of Geneva, Karen Spierling asserts that masculine traditions, such as the right of men to name their children as they pleased, ultimately hindered the Reformed church from achieving all that it desired from the men of that city. By common consent—established long before the Reformation—only those men who married and suitably provided for their children were regarded by the public as fully masculine. Nonetheless, one aspect of being male that still existed was the requirement to obey other men. Church authorities also sought to incorporate piety and conformity into being a Christian man. From the consistory records, Spierling cites examples of men who, in the eyes of the Genevan divines, fell short of the official ideal because they had fathered children out of wedlock. For the biological fathers simply to provide for these infants was insufficient. Moreover, in matters concerning the discipline of children and the obligation to make them attend catechism lessons, the men of the consistory intervened and demanded obedience from fathers. Catechetical instruction was a persistent bone of contention between the consistory and the men and boys of Geneva, because a father was accustomed to being in charge of his son’s time. For Huguenot France, Raymond Mentzer accepts the premise that the Reformation in its Calvinist variation underscored patriarchal masculinity. Fathers were now present at their children’s baptisms and took

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responsibility for raising them in the true faith. The spiritual standing of the father determined that of his offspring. What had been a more feminine and private sacrament now became masculine and public. Mentzer finds in the domestic culte familial a stronger emphasis on the preeminence of the father in the household. In the public cult as well, when the elements of the Eucharist were distributed, either the men preceded the women or they communed at a separate table. Within the congregation, which was drawn from the solid bourgeoisie, the men wielded disciplinary powers and sternly scrutinized every fellow Christian. Reformed consistories identified female transgressors more readily than male. Yet, as Mentzer notes, the powerful Huguenot articulation of masculinity had vigorous roots in medieval convictions, even though French Reformed men departed from their predecessors by enforcing their own codes of masculinity with greater rigor. Ann Tlusty evaluates the ramifications of an armed rebellion in Augsburg in 1584 by some of the city’s Protestant men when they saw that Dr. Georg Müller, their inflammatory preacher who opposed the new Gregorian calendar, was being escorted out of town. These male citizens expressed their masculinity in response to a perceived threat from the city’s Catholic majority. Stories of the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre and the Spanish Fury in Antwerp lingered in their consciousness. Violence in defense of self, household, and religion informed their sense of both maleness and citizenship, and they feared a compulsory conversion to Catholicism. Apart from Müller’s militant preaching, Tlusty traces the spread of fear, through conversation and rumor, from the upper levels of society to the lower. Against a tense imperial political and religious background, the lines between men of the competing faiths hardened, especially when the rebels lost part of their male power through governmental curtailment of their right to use arms within urban precincts.18

Part Three: The Man Martin Luther In her essay on the “Lustful Luther,” Merry Wiesner-Hanks shows how sexuality figured prominently in Reformation social teachings as it had within late medieval Catholicism, but now with a difference. 19 Concentrating on the lectures on Genesis that Luther gave between 1535 and

18On 19See

the necessity of men’s submission, see also Müller, “Naturwesen Mann.” also Wiesner, “Luther and Women.”

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1545, Wiesner-Hanks describes the recurrent theme of male lust. She notes the drama of the teacher’s descriptive vocabulary: furor libidinis, foeda et horribilis voluptas, among many others. The sex drive is like a disease. Through his language and by the extent of his attention to the subject, we come partly to know Luther’s experience of his own sexuality. Although he acknowledged feminine eroticism, he repeatedly characterized the male sex drive as beyond containment. Surprisingly, he expressed understanding for Lot and his daughters in the matter of their incest, but he also exploited many opportunities to extend his critique to Catholic celibates. Lustful humankind, including Martin, urgently required divine grace! Karant-Nunn finds in the interaction between Martin Luther and his wife Katharina von Bora clues to this husband’s self-definition as a man. Weighting her findings slightly differently than Wiesner-Hanks, she argues that Luther breaks with dominant antecedents by ascribing a powerful sex drive to both women and men. The Fall, regarded by the reformer mainly as Eve’s fault, catapulted Eve and Adam into the distinct sex roles that Luther maintains were permanently God’s will for the relationship between husbands and wives. Yet, in their life together, Käthe often assumed the classic male role, and Luther wittily acknowledged that fact in his letters to her. His salutations in those letters reveal the flexibility of his practical masculinity. The memory of his parents’ jocular interaction served Martin as a model for teasing his own wife in a seemingly cruel manner within earshot of their boarders and guests. Jibes by the husband directed toward the wife were, he thought, an aspect of marital intimacy. We today cannot avoid seeing them as reflecting his traditional misogyny, however.

Findings Several general conclusions emerge from these essays. One is the near-universality within Europe of normative ideals for the comportment of men and women and the binary tendency of these ideals, even though they were modified according to class. Practicality and necessity, on the other hand, produced noticeable departures from dictated norms. One should ask, indeed, how often behavior conformed to those ideals, even when both men and women purported to subscribe to them. The essays by Puff and Strasser, for example, describe both homoerotic and monastic departures from the articulated standard. Individual men, including such contrasting figures as Ignatius of Loyola and the men of rural Galicia, constructed

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solutions that fitted their own predicaments. A second conclusion is that patriarchy was burdensome. American feminists recognized this early on when they held out to men the relief from their onerous duties that full partnership with women would afford them. One might debate whether Luther enjoyed greater liberty as an Augustinian friar than as a “lustful” husband and caring father. In the end, however, the reformer’s permitting his wife to deviate from the norm and assume full control of their family’s existential vicissitudes allowed Luther to give his undivided attention to writing. Finally, in their submission to an expanding state and its power, nearly all men, and not just those in Augsburg or Geneva, lost some of their masculine liberties. Except at the highest levels of authority, men, too, were required to obey and to accept the curtailment of rights they had earlier possessed. As the liberties of men were increasingly circumscribed, the model of women’s subordination may have provided them with some compensation in the domestic sphere. In that and other ways, near-binary visualization of the proper roles of men and women prevailed throughout the sixteenth century and beyond, in spite of the ways in which those ideas, as seen in these essays, were regularly disregarded. During the Reformation era, Catholic and Protestant governors alike made similar demands upon men. Further research will provide additional examples of the myriad ways in which actual people shaped their responses to meet as many of their pressing needs as possible.

Bibliography Breitenberg, Mark. Anxious Masculinity in Early Modern England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Bullough, Vern. “On Being a Male in the Middle Ages.” In Medieval Masculinities, edited by Clare Lees, 31–45. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994. Cadden, Joan. Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages: Medicine, Science, and Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Conrad, Anne. Zwischen Kloster und Welt: Ursulinen und Jesuitinnen in der katholischen Reformbewegung des 16./17. Jahrhunderts. Mainz: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 1991. Davis, Natalie Zemon. “City Women and Religious Change.” In Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France, 65–95. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1975. Enterline, Lynn. The Tears of Narcissus: Melancholia and Masculinity in Early Modern Writing. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1995. Hahn, Udo, and Marlies Mügge, ed. Katharina von Bora: Die Frau an Luthers Seite. Stuttgart: Quell Verlag, 1999. Hadley, Dawn M., ed. Masculinity in Medieval Europe. London: Longman, 1999.

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Halbach, Silke. Argula von Grumbach als Verfasserin reformatorischer Flugschriften. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 1992. Irwin, Joyce L. Womanhood in Radical Protestantism, 1525–1675. New York: Edwin Mellen Press, 1979. Kobelt-Groch, Marion. Aufsässige Töchter Gottes: Frauen im Bauernkrieg und in den Täuferbewegungen. Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag, 1998. Kühne, Thomas, ed. Männergeschichte–Geschlechtergeschichte: Männlichkeit im Wandel der Moderne. Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag, 1996. Lees, Clare, ed. Medieval Masculinities: Regarding Men in the Middle Ages. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994. Levy, Alison. Re-membering Masculinity in Early Modern Florence: Widowed Bodies, Mourning and Portraiture. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2006. Long, Kathleen, ed. High Anxiety: Masculinity in Crisis in Early Modern France. Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies 59. Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 2002. Marguerite de Navarre. Les comédies bibliques. Edited by Barbara Marczuk, Beata Skrzeszewska, and Piotr Tylus. Geneva: Droz, 2000. Matheson, Peter, ed. Argula von Grumbach: A Woman’s Voice in the Reformation. Edinburgh: T & T Clark, 1995. McKee, Elsie Anne. Katharina Schütz Zell. 2 vols. Leiden: Brill, 1999. ———, ed. Church Mother: The Writings of a Protestant Reformer in Sixteenth-Century Germany, Katharina Schütz Zell. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2006. Müller, Maria E. “Naturwesen Mann: Zur Dialektik von Herrschaft und Knechtschaft in Ehelehren der Frühen Neuzeit.” In Wandel der Geschlechterbeziehungen zu Beginn der Neuzeit, edited by Heide Wunder and Christina Vanja, 43–68. Frankfurt/Main: Suhrkamp, 1991. Opitz, Claudia. Um-Ordnung der Geschlechter: Einführung in die Geschlechtergeschichte. Tübingen: Edition Diskord, 2005. Reeser, Todd W. Moderating Masculinity in Early Modern Culture. North Carolina Studies in the Romance Languages and Literatures 283. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2006. Reid, Jonathan. King’s Sister, Queen of Dissent: Marguerite of Navarre (1492–1549) and Her Evangelical Network. Leiden: Brill, 2008. Roper, Lyndal. The Holy Household: Women and Morals in Reformation Augsburg. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. ———. “Was There a Crisis in Gender Relations in Sixteenth-Century Germany?” In Roper, Oedipus and the Devil: Witchcraft, Sexuality, and Religion in Early Modern Europe, 37–52. London: Routledge, 1994. Shepard, Alexandra. Meanings of Manhood in Early Modern England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Smarr, Janet Levarie. Joining the Conversation: Dialogues by Renaissance Women. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2005. Smith, Jeanette C. “Katharina von Bora through Five Centuries: A Historiography.” Sixteenth Century Journal 30 (1999): 745–74. Talkenberger, Heike. “Konstruktion von Männerrollen in württembergischen Leichenpredigten des 16.–18. Jahrhunderts.” In Hausväter, Priester, Kastraten: Zur Konstruktion von Männlichkeit in Spätmittelalter und Früher Neuzeit, edited by Martin Dinges, 29–74. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998. Thysell, Carol. The Pleasure of Discernment: Marguerite de Navarre As Theologian. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.

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Treu, Martin. Katharina von Bora. 3rd ed. Wittenberg: Drei Kastanien Verlag, 1999. Wiesner-Hanks, Merry E. “Luther and Women: The Death of Two Marys.” In Disciplines of Faith: Studies in Religion, Politics and Patriarchy, edited by Jim Obelkevich, Lyndal Roper, and Raphael Samuel, 295–308. London: Routledge, 1987. Reprinted in Feminist Theology: A Reader, edited by Ann Loades, 123–37. London: SPCK, 1990. ———. Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Wunder, Heide. Der andere Blick auf die frühe Neuzeit. Königstein: Ulrike Helmer Verlag, 1999. ———. “Überlegungen zum Wandel der Geschlechterbeziehungen im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert aus sozialgeschichtlicher Sicht.” In Wandel der Geschlechterbeziehungen zu Beginn der Neuzeit, edited by Heide Wunder and Christina Vanja, 12–26. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1991. ———. “Wie wird man ein Mann? Befunde am Beginn der Neuzeit (15.–17. Jahrhundert).” In Was sind Frauen? Was sind Männer? Geschlechterkonstruktionen im historischen Wandel, edited by Christiane Eifert et al., 122–55. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1996.

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Part One

Deviating from the Norms

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A Married Man Is a Woman Negotiating Masculinity in Early Modern Northwestern Spain Allyson M. Poska

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n the tiny village of Mandayo in Galicia, the poor, rural region of northwestern Spain, a folk song criticizes a cohort of local men: “The little village of Mandayo / is a village of few men; / Those few that there are / they call ‘remendafoles.’”1 The word remendafoles in the regional dialect of Galego refers to men without spirit or personality. Collected in the midnineteenth century, this ditty raises provocative questions about the meaning of masculinity in Spanish society. Men were supposed to be proud, obsessed with personal honor, virile, and display a tendency towards violence.2 Moreover, they were charged with providing their families with food, shelter, and protection. However, those are not the qualities that made a man in Mandayo. Rather, the folk song indicates that Galician men demonstrated their masculinity by their willingness to migrate. Indeed, many Galician men fulfilled this expectation. Beginning in the sixteenth 1Pérez Ballesteros, Cancionero popular gallego, 3:43. I thank Alison Weber, Elizabeth Lehfeldt, and Christopher Wilson for their help on this article. 2For an early discussion of Spanish masculinity, see Brandes, Metaphors of Masculinity. Although Spanish men have attracted little attention recently, a wide array of works have appeared on Latino masculinity, all of which address these qualities in some form or another. See, for instance, Mirandé, Hombres y Machos: Masculinity and Latino Culture.

3

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century, they migrated by the thousands; the men who remained were remendafoles. Only by examining both the ideals of early modern Spanish masculinity and the realities of rural life in the region can one understand how migration became a defining characteristic of masculinity in northwestern Spain. The relationship between the ideals of masculinity as articulated in a variety of cultural media and the realities of gender as enacted in everyday life is complicated. Studies of early modern Spanish women have clearly demonstrated that few women aspired to, let alone achieved, the feminine ideals espoused by elite authors.3 In fact, I have argued on the basis of other sources that the realities of women’s behavior were more closely tied to regional social, political, and economic realities than to the ideals of femininity expressed by cultural elites. This essay will explore that same relationship between ideal and reality—this time in terms of masculinity. It will first examine the masculine expectations described in a range of early modern texts. Although far from complete, this overview will provide some insight into the expectations for men of the period. Then it will analyze the experiences of peasant men from Galicia in the context of those ideals. Elite literature expounded highly class-based and often conflicting ideals of masculinity that had little resonance for peasant men. Unable to fulfill those expectations, Galician men chose to migrate. Spanish masculinity was essentially antifeminine. Under no circumstances were men supposed to act like women, and effeminacy was a serious insult. Sodomites and impotent men were described as effete.4 However, sexuality was not the only basis for such a powerful charge. One critic even ridiculed Philip II for his effeminate personal habits.5 For those who desired more specific guidance on the subject of how to be masculine, early modern Spain offered a variety of behavioral manuals. Surprisingly, some of the most extensive descriptions of masculine expectations are contained in one of the most famous pieces of prescriptive literature for women, Juan Luis Vives’s Education of a Christian Woman

3Works on the difference between the ideals and realities of women’s lives in early modern Spain include Perry, Gender and Disorder in Early Modern Seville; Lehfeldt, Religious Women in Golden Age Spain; and Poska, Women and Authority. 4For more on effeminacy, see Garza Carvajal, Butterflies Will Burn, 30–33. On the social stigma against the passive partner, see Berco, “Social Control and Its Limits,” 343–44. See also the discussion of Dr. González in Spurling, “Honor, Sexuality, and the Colonial Church,” 45–67. 5Parker, Philip II, 203. For an interesting discussion of the use of the discourse of effeminacy to discredit Enrique IV during the reign of Isabel I, see Weissberger, Isabel Rules, 69–95.

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(1524). In the midst of his instructions about women’s behavior, Vives provided extensive commentary on the qualities that he desired in men. For instance, he praised men who were eloquent, talented, wise, just, and generous.6 Vives also advocated strong male control over women. One learns in the course of the text that only “mad” husbands allowed their wives to read chivalric novels, and Vives matter-of-factly praised brothers who killed their unwed pregnant sister in order to protect their honor.7 Vives also detailed what was undesirable in men. Weak men surrendered themselves to vile and unworthy things because of women.8 Untrustworthy men led women into improper behavior, such as gazing into eyes, talking alone, and dancing. Men were the unnamed actors against whom women must guard their behavior: “From meetings and conversations with men, love affairs arise.”9 Men seduced women and were deceitful.10 He decried men who were dirty, drunk, wrathful, stupid, imprudent, idiotic, cruel, and bloodthirsty, and compared them to beasts.11 When describing the desirable moral and physical qualities of a sonin-law, Vives was very pragmatic. He admonished parents not to look for riches, but for “how he [the potential son-in-law] will acquire what he does not have and how he will hold on to what he has acquired.” A man’s sole responsibility in his marriage was to provide sustenance for his family.12 Thus, for Vives, the standard of masculinity was a complex combination of courtier and breadwinner, a strong, but temperate man who did not submit to base and vulgar instincts. At approximately the same time, Antonio de Guevara composed two manuals for courtiers that also provide some insight into masculine ideals, the Libro áureo de Emperador Marco Aurelio (The Golden Book of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius) and the Reloj de príncipes (The Dial of Princes). In the former, Guevara used a fictionalized biography of Marcus Aurelius to explain his vision of a perfect prince and courtier. He counseled young courtiers to be generous without being ostentatious, properly dressed for their station, courteous, and honest.13 Among other desirable qualities, 6Vives,

Education of a Christian Woman, ed. Fantazzi, 85. Education of a Christian Woman, ed. Fantazzi, 76, 84. 8Vives, Education of a Christian Woman, ed. Fantazzi, 104. 9Vives, Education of a Christian Woman, ed. Fantazzi, 144. 10Vives, Education of a Christian Woman, ed. Fantazzi, 147, 154. 11Vives, Education of a Christian Woman, ed. Fantazzi, 161. 12Vives, Education of a Christian Woman, ed. Fantazzi, 158. 13Guevara, Aviso de privados, esp. ch. 8. Available online at http://www.filosofia.org/cla/gue/ guepc.htm. Guevara’s Reloj and the accompanying Avisos de privados were translated into English by Sir XXXXXX 7Vives,

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Guevara praised wisdom, asserting that “the richest man is the wisest man…the poorest is the most simple man.”14 He also included advice for husbands. According to Guevara, the second rule for husbands, after admonishing them to be patient with their wives when they were displeased, was “to provide for his wife (according to his ability) all that is necessary for her.”15 Here again, the author asserts the importance of being both a fine courtier and a good provider. A century later, in 1620, Alonso Gerónimo de Salas Barbadillo (1581– 1635) wrote his El caballero perfecto (The Perfect Gentleman), a courtesy manual along the lines of Castiglione’s The Courtier. Salas Barbadillo’s perfect gentleman is Don Alonso, whose every act demonstrates his masculine perfection. Don Alonso is wellborn and handsome. His good looks mirror his perfect soul without any sign of effeminacy. He is skilled in arms, hunting, and dancing. He knows philosophy, mathematics, and history. 16 As Salas Barbadillo’s story proceeds, the reader is regaled with tales of Don Alonso’s courage, kindness, generosity, discretion, loyalty, and moderation. However, Don Alonso also understands the cultural norms that govern men’s behavior. He applauds men who carefully guard their honor, even an enraged husband who kills his adulterous wife and her lover.17 Some of the most vivid portrayals of masculinity appear in early modern Spanish drama. In particular, Spain’s playwrights emphasized that in order for a man to maintain his honor, he must maintain the chastity of the women in his care. In their desire to entertain, Spanish playwrights pushed the limits of desirable masculine behavior to the extremes. There are numerous examples, but the most famous is probably Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s El médico de su honra (The Surgeon of His Own Honor, 1629). In this drama, Don Gutierre can only assert his masculinity and restore his honor by killing his wife over her rumored infidelity. In Tirso de Molina’s El burlador de Sevilla (The Trickster of Seville, 1639), Don Juan is the ultimate lothario. He seduces women purely for the thrill, undeterred by the injury that he causes to the honor of both the women and the men who were charged with protecting their honor. Scholars now acknowledge that neither the playwrights nor Spanish society in general condoned 14

Thomas North in 1557 and became very popular as the Dial of Princes. 14Guevara, Libro áureo, ch. 3. Available online at http://www.filosofia.org/cla/gue/guema.htm. 15Guevara, Reloj, bk. 2, ch. 16. 16Salas Barbadillo, El caballero perfecto, ed. Marshall, 5–6. 17Salas Barbadillo, El caballero perfecto, ed. Marshall, 70.

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such extreme behavior; however, it is important to note that such negative examples of masculinity were a regular feature of Spanish drama and that not everyone in the audience understood the problematic nature of those male characters. Imposters performing masculinity also provide insight into cultural expectations of men. The manly woman—the mujer varonil who dresses and acts like a man—was a regular feature of golden age literature.18 These female characters often gave authoritative performances of masculine behavior as they struggled to contrast the man they appear to be with the biological female underneath their garments. In Pedro Calderón de la Barca’s La Vida es sueño (Life is a Dream, 1636) Rosaura, dressed as a man, explains to Segismundo the essential qualities of both masculinity and femininity: As a woman, I persuade you / to mend my honor, / as a man I come to encourage you / to recover your crown. As a woman, I come to move you / when I place myself at your feet. / As a man, I come to serve you / with my sword and my life. And so, if today as a woman you might love me, / as a man, I will give you death in honest defense of my honor, because I shall be / in its loving conquest, / a woman to beg your kindness, / a man to obtain honor.19 In her striking speech, Rosaura emphasizes masculine courage, loyalty, and the preservation of honor through violence when necessary. This emphasis on masculinity based on militaristic ideals was not merely the product of fiction; it was also the dominant feature of the life of Catalina de Erauso (b. 1592), the cross-dressing, swashbuckling woman who fled to Spanish America at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Erauso changed her physical appearance by cutting her hair and wearing men’s clothing, and concealed her femininity through a series of violent encounters. She not only killed on the battlefield, but also participated in a number of duels, even killing her own brother. For Erauso, the negation of her femininity required her to be hypermasculine, in this case being more violent than most biological men. She was even willing to challenge other men’s masculinity in order to prove her own. At one point when playing cards with a merchant, he raised the bet. When Erauso queried how much, he responded, “I raise you a cuckhold’s horn!” Erauso met this masculine 18Thanks

to Christopher Wilson for this suggestion. de la Barca, La vida es sueño, lines 2902–17.

19Calderón

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challenge with the retort, “I’ll see you that horn and raise you the one that’s still on your head!” The two fell to fighting, and eventually Erauso killed his (or her) opponent.20 Similarly, when the Inquisition questioned Eleno/a de Céspedes, a hermaphrodite, about his/her sexuality, he/she attempted to prove not only that he/she had a penis but also that he/she conformed to traditional notions of masculinity. In addition to claiming that he/she had enjoyed sexual relations with women, like Erauso, he had become a soldier.21 In their desire to be seen as men, each of these three famous gender transgressors chose male aggression as a key characteristic of their masculinity. Thus, early modern Spaniards expected their men to be many things: wellborn, wise, protective of their honor, temperate but willing to employ violence when necessary, generous but good providers for their families. As complex and often contradictory as these qualities were, the realities of masculinity were, without a doubt, even more complicated for non-elite men. Scholars have often assumed that cultural priorities transcended class and other differences; however, few peasant men could aspire to the masculine ideals put forward by Spanish elites.22 The realities of peasant life meant that the rhetoric of masculinity would have made little sense to peasant men, but even if it did, the mechanisms for fulfilling those expectations and emulating those models were largely inaccessible to them, especially in Galicia. From the outset, peasant men were disadvantaged by elite authors’ explicit connection of masculinity to lineage. Noble birth was, to be sure, a precondition for other desirable male qualities like bravery,23 but Old Christian lineage was critical to masculinity, as Spanish society equated non-Christian blood with effeminacy.24 Most of the Spanish peasantry were in fact Old Christians; however, that bond between elite and peasant men did not trump the importance of noble birth. The place of elite men 20Erauso,

Lieutenant Nun, 40. For more on Erauso, see Perry, “From Convent to Battlefield.” story of Eleno/a has been studied extensively. For much of the trial, see Inquisitorial Inquiries, 41. For a gendered analysis of Céspedes, see Vollendorf, Lives of Women, 11–31. 22Ruiz, “The Peasantries of Iberia,” 71. For an extensive reconsideration of the image of the peasant in Spanish literature, see Fox, Refiguring the Hero. For a discussion of images of peasants in the Middle Ages, see Freedman, Images of the Medieval Peasant. 23Fox, Refiguring the Hero, 38. 24For more on portrayals of Muslims and Jews as effeminate, see Mirrer, “Muslim Men in the Ballad” and “Jewish Men in the ‘Cantar de mio Cid,’” chs. 3 and 4 of Women, Jews, and Muslims in the Texts of Reconquest Castile. Such portrayals also appear in early modern England; Biberman, Masculinity, Anti-Semitism, and Early Modern English Literature. 21The

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in the social hierarchy rested on their differentiation from the masses of men. According to the common proverb, “no son todos hombres que mean a la pared” (all are not men who piss against the wall).25 Differences among men were critical to the maintenance of the Spanish social hierarchy; and thus some men were, by virtue of their noble birth, more manly than others. Many authors extolled the importance of wisdom, eloquence, and schooling to masculinity. Of course, wisdom has many meanings, and people of any class and educational level might be wise; however, Spanish elites increasingly came to value advanced education. Over the course of the sixteenth century, more positions in the expanding bureaucracy were reserved for letrados, the university-educated elite. Education became an important means to acquire power, wealth, and prestige.26 If peasant men aspired to assert their masculinity through the acquisition of knowledge, they would have had a difficult time pursuing that course. Educational opportunities for peasant men in northwestern Spain were extremely limited. Some of the larger towns had schools for orphan boys, but these schools operated on very limited budgets and faced regular crises that impeded any educational gains. In 1616, the city council of Ourense found its school for orphan boys, the Colegio de San Cosme, in disarray. The boys’ teacher had deserted the school, and the orphans had been left out on their own, hungry and begging in the streets. 27 The situation improved over the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as the Jesuits opened a number of schools, both at the primary and the advanced level, but illiteracy rates remained very high.28 No more than half of Galician men could even sign their names until after 1800. 29 A man’s lack of education did not necessarily mean that he lacked wisdom; however, if the comments of inquisitors are at all representative, then Castilian elites did not view Galician peasant men as wise, but as ignorant, foolish, and superstitious. In 1572, Inquisitor Diego González wrote to authorities in Madrid about the need to establish a tribunal in Galicia:

25The saying appears in the entry for hombre (man) in the 1611 dictionary by Sebastián de Covarrubias Orozco, Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española. 26For the most extensive study of the changing role of education, see Kagan, Students and Society in Early Modern Spain. 27AHPO, Acuerdos del Ayuntamiento, 26 July 1616, Libro Municipal 18, fol. 91. 28For a study of the Jesuits and education in the region, see Rivera Vázquez, Galicia y los Jesuitas. 29Saavedra, La vida cotidiana en la Galicia, 369.

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If any part of these kingdoms needs an inquisition, it is Galicia, a land that is prepared to take up any novelty since it does not have the religion that there is in Old Castile, having no priests, no literate persons, nor sumptuous churches, nor people interested in hearing mass or sermons, nor things befitting a divine state, and [people] full of superstitions.30 These illiterate, superstitious men were in serious need of correction by wiser, better educated Castilian men. Later, as they passed sentence on the accused, inquisitors often referred to peasant men (and women) as rustic. That is how they described Domingo de Iglesia, a thirty-year-old farmer accused of saying that sex between a single man and a single woman was only half of a sin.31 They referred to another young man accused of the same heresy as “a simple and ignorant man.”32 Of course, this might be attributed to the fact that these men made clearly unwise and heretical statements, but inquisitors generally took the low intellect of the peasantry for granted and considered it as they meted out punishments. From early on, officials acknowledged this problem. In 1585, inquisitors in Santiago de Compostela complained: The reason that little rigor is used with the fornicators is that we understand through experience…that the natives of these kingdoms, where among the farmers and peasants there is a great lack of doctrine, say many foolish things out of ignorance and without knowing what they say. Without any heretical intent, [they say] that for a single man and a single woman to have carnal access is not a sin,…and commonly the justices of this kingdom tolerate such things and do not punish them as they should.33 The Inquisition did not take its own advice. The notion that peasants were generally rustic or simple was so pervasive that most were given lesser punishments or released outright. Some authors asserted that masculinity was linked to early modern notions of honor. However, this does not seem to have been the case in Galicia. Either Galician men were unfamiliar with the expectation that their masculinity relied on the preservation of the chastity of the women in 30Contreras,

El santo oficio, 461. Sección Inquisición, legajo 2042, no. 32 (1594), fol. 5. 32AHN, Sección Inquisición, legajo 2042, no. 35 (1598), fol. 5. 33Contreras, El santo oficio, 628–29. 31AHN,

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their care, or they were remarkably unsuccessful in their preservation of that chastity. My research on sexuality in early modern Galicia indicates a broad cultural acceptance of nonmarital sexuality. Consistently high rates of illegitimacy and premarital conceptions indicate that premarital sexuality was a regular and tolerated component of Galician relationships. Illegitimacy rates in early modern Galicia ranged as high as 15 percent, and another 10 percent of brides came to the altar pregnant.34 Nor were such high rates of illegitimacy and premarital sex unique to Galicia. Thus, many peasant men whose masculinity relied on the chastity of the women in their charge were likely to be severely disappointed. General tolerance for nonmarital sex meant that Galician men bragged about both the quantity and quality of their sexual experiences, despite the fact that elite authors generally condemned sexual promiscuity and society frowned upon such indiscretions. According to Ann Twinam, “A traditional masculine priority was the protection of their partner’s honor, rather than any advertisement of their own sexual exploits.”35 Nevertheless, peasant men were so confident of the public importance of asserting their virility that they did not deny making such statements, even when they were brought before the Inquisition on charges of simple fornication (saying that sex between single people was not a sin). In 1581 Domingos da Pena, a farmer, stood before the Inquisition accused of having said that when he was single he had had sex with seven women in one day and four women another day. According to the trial summary, when one of his listeners tried to tell him that he would go to hell if he failed to confess his sexual sins, he replied that there was no problem since the women were not related to one other and they were all single. The inquisitors were not impressed with his logic. Domingos was fined, given one hundred lashes, and exiled for three years.36 Similarly proud of their sexual exploits, Amaro Pérez was accused of saying that sleeping with two sisters was the same as eating two apples37 and Alonso Golin, a farmer and tavern keeper, used a similar metaphor when he admitted he had sex with a mother and her three daughters and that it was no more of a sin than eating four apples from a branch that had hit him.38 Although the community must have tolerated a 34See Poska, Regulating the People, 103–9; and Saavedra, La vida cotidiana, 260. For statistics on premarital conceptions, see Dubert García, “Los comportamientos sexuales premaritales,” 128. 35Twinam, “The Negotiation of Honor,” 87. 36AHN, Sección Inquisición, legajo 2042, no. 8 (1581), fol. 9b. 37AHN, Sección Inquisición, legajo 2042, no. 8 (1581), fol. 17. 38AHN, Sección Inquisición, legajo 2042, no. 18 (1587), fol. 6b.

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considerable amount of braggadocio (only 131 men were denounced for simple fornication between 1550 and 1700), these men exceeded community tolerance for such chatter and fell victim to the different expectations of inquisitors and other officials. As has already been mentioned, most discussions of men associated masculinity with violence. Courtiers and gentlemen were expected to be skilled at the use of arms and willing to use them in the service of their king. Cross-dressing women and hermaphrodites asserted their manliness by carrying weapons and using them when necessary. However, on this topic too, peasant men’s actions complicate our understanding of masculinity. Of course, the only licit channel for masculine violence was through the military, and there were many opportunities for military service during the early modern period. Spain was not only involved in almost constant international warfare, but after the Portuguese rebellion of 1640, fighting actually took place on Galician soil. During the second half of the seventeenth century and throughout the eighteenth, warfare stretched Spanish professional armies to the limit. 39 Yet, noblemen were increasingly retreating from their military obligations, and Galician peasant men seem to have resisted the opportunity to prove their masculinity through military service.40 The sources reveal little evidence that Galician men went off to fight for their king. During the Portuguese rebellion, the Spanish monarchy even brought in Irish soldiers to defend the region, although some peasant men might have been conscripted.41 During eighteenth-century military levees, one-fifth of Galician men were reported absent. Many of those men had permanently migrated and were not merely fleeing the levee, but many more sought exemptions from military service because of hardships. In the city of Tuy, 38 percent of men asked for exemptions as only sons or as heads of households, in Mondoñedo 36 percent of eligible men and in Santiago de Compostela 27 percent asked not to be sent to war.42 Thus, even if war was a masculine pursuit, more than 50 percent of Galician men refused to use the military as a means of proving their manliness.

39For more on conscription and the Spanish crown, see McKay, The Limits of Royal Authority. On early modern soldiers, see White, “Spain’s Early Modern Soldiers,” esp. 31. 40White, “Spain’s Early Modern Soldiers,” 26. 41AHPO, Acuerdos del Ayuntamiento, 28 Agosto 1653, Libro Municipal 25, fol. 60. The city council minutes note the arrival of five companies of Irish soldiers. 42Rey Castelao, “Movimientos migratorios en Galicia,” 116.

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Why was military service such an undesirable mechanism for proving masculinity? Without a doubt, peasant men faced the disdain of professional soldiers and noblemen, and even their king. According to one famous anecdote, during the siege of Metz in 1552, Emperor Charles V asked if the men who were dying were gentlemen. When he learned that the men were poor soldiers, he allegedly responded that it did not matter if they died, for if they had been good men (hombres de bien), they would not have served him for only six pounds per month.43 In fact, local authorities generally turned to the dregs of society when called upon to provide soldiers. Prisoners, vagabonds, and troublemakers were forcibly conscripted.44 Pay was poor. A day laborer earned three times more than a soldier.45 Thus, soldiering was neither honorable nor economically desirable for peasant men. Although Galician men rejected military service, peasant men across the peninsula demonstrated a propensity to engage in brawls over a variety of mostly trivial subjects. Notarial records are filled with descriptions of legal disputes over property boundaries and dowry conflicts that involved friends, neighbors, and even relatives coming to blows.46 Inquisition records relate the spontaneous violence of men who lost at cards. The men were accused of heresy after breaking crucifixes or otherwise vandalizing religious objects during their outbursts.47 Scott Taylor has demonstrated the degree to which peasant men engaged in violence over debts and insults of all sorts.48 However, peasant men in Galicia and elsewhere in Spain seemed to shy away from retributive violence when daughters or even wives fell victim to the seductive wiles of disreputable men. Rather than kill the offending couple, fathers and husbands called upon the court system to redress serious violations of masculine honor. When a daughter was seduced by a promise of marriage, neither fathers nor daughters insisted on punishment for the offender or on marriage of the couple. Instead, plaintiffs seem to have been just as content with financial compensation in the form of a dowry as a way to restore lost honor. In Galicia, the restoration of a woman’s honor (and 43The anecdote is repeated in Vicens Vives, Imperio, aristocracia, absolutismo, los Austrias, imperio Español en América, 134. 44White, “Spain’s Early Modern Soldiers,” 31. 45White, “Spain’s Early Modern Soldiers,” 36. See also White, “The Experience of Spain’s Early Modern Soldiers.” 46See, for instance, AHU, protocolo 1738, fol. 18 (1672). 47See, for instance, AHN, legajo 2042, no. 16, fol. 1 (1586). 48Taylor, “Credit, Debt, and Honor”; and Taylor, “Women, Honor, and Violence in a Castilian Town.”

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thereby the honor of the men in her family) cost a man thirty to forty ducats. Both the woman and her seducer were then free to move on to other relationships.49 As Abigail Dyer has demonstrated, even the husbands of adulterous wives reconfigured the incidents, thereby preserving their honor without either suffering the disgrace of adultery or resorting to violence. For instance, rather than accuse their wives of adultery, husbands charged the offending men with seduction, making the women unwilling participants in the act rather than active adulterers. One husband even successfully protected his honor by shielding his wife from charges of capital adultery after numerous affairs. Instead, he accused her of “talking to a married man,” a much less serious offense.50 In general, neither families nor communities condoned murder and no one saw any advantage to killing local women.51 Masculine violence in Galicia was reserved for more frivolous acts. Finally, even the most basic of masculine qualities, the ability to provide for the family, was highly constrained in Galicia. Acting as the primary economic provider could provide masculine status and authority. Unfortunately, Galician society did not rely on male breadwinners; to the contrary, it made it difficult for men to perform that role. At least two critical factors conspired to prevent men from asserting their economic dominance. First, Galicia was the most densely populated region in Spain, almost twice that of other regions. Second, Castilian law mandated partible inheritance. Consequently, already small Galician family plots steadily decreased in size from one generation to the next. Peasant men, but not women, found the size of their inheritances too small for effective cultivation. Although a small plot was enough land to provide basic subsistence, it could be tended by a woman and was therefore insufficient for the economic demands made on a man. In this case, size mattered.52 In response, thousands of Galician men (upwards of 50 percent in some areas) chose to migrate rather than attempt to eke out a living at home.53 49For much more on this issue, see Poska, Women and Authority, 75–111. For a study of such cases in the Basque Country, see Barahona, Sex Crimes, Honour, and the Law in Early Modern Spain. 50For more on this, see Dyer, “Seduction by Promise of Marriage.” For her discussion of husbands reconfiguring their wives’ adultery, see Dyer, “Heresy and Dishonor,” 139–42. 51As Taylor has noted, when public disputes erupted, both participants and bystanders were expected to calm the situation before violence broke out; “Credit, Debt, and Honor,” 12. 52Thanks to Liz Lehfeldt for her insight on this problem. 53For more on issues of property, gender, and migration in Galicia, see Poska, Women and Authority, 22–40.

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When men chose to migrate, local traditions of leaving extra inheritance portions for daughters and uxorilocal residence constrained men’s access to property and authority. In uxorilocal areas, a Galician man lived in the home and under the authority of his in-laws, often just his mother-inlaw, for at least part of his adult life. Anthropological research on the region has demonstrated the effect of these marriage and inheritance patterns on men. The son-in-law came into the home of his in-laws as an outsider. As long as his in-laws were alive, he had no authority over his wife or even his children.54 In public matters, he worked for and represented his wife’s family, not his own.55 In order to fulfill her obligation to her family, a wife would have to side with her mother in intrafamilial conflicts.56 In financial terms, a husband gained only token control over his wife’s dowry as long as the couple lived under her parents’ roof. Grooms who were poor and brought little or nothing to the marriage were often not much more than servants at the disposal of the head of the household, often the mother-in-law.57 Galician men from the recent past frequently expressed negative feelings about their lack of authority in the home. One informant told anthropologist Carmelo Lisón Tolosana, “When the mother-in-law is alive, she has all the authority; she manages everything. She keeps the money.”58 Another anthropologist has described husbands from the region as “broken in” after about one year of marriage.59 In fact, a common Galician proverb explicitly delineates the son-in-law’s place in his wife’s family home: “A married man is a woman” (home casado muller é).60 The situation was not necessarily better for a man who married and lived in his family’s home (virilocal residence). Most of these men were also excluded from familial authority since they would not become the heads of their own households until the deaths of their fathers. The authority of women in the household has led to the creation of the stereotype of the cuckolded Galician man. In one commonly related folktale, the woman dominates both her husband and her lover: Once there was a married couple. The married man was a cuckold because he let the priest have his way with his wife. One day 54Gilmore,

“Men and Women in Southern Spain,” 960. Cultural, 245. 56Rodríguez Ferreiro, “Estructura y comportamiento de la familia rural Gallega,” 449. 57Lisón Tolosana, Antropología cultural, 248. 58Lisón Tolosana, Antropología cultural, 246. 59Brøgger, Nazaré, 36. 60Rey-Henningsen, World of the Ploughwoman, 97. 55Lisón Tolosana, Antropología

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the man went to mass and as he was leaving the priest called him a cuckold. The man was very surprised and told his wife that he would not go to mass anymore because the priest had called him a cuckold. The wife responded that she would go to mass the following Sunday and make the priest feel ashamed of himself. The following Sunday she said to the priest, “Reverend, why did you call my husband a cuckold, seeing that you are wearing a new shirt made with my flax and accepted the kiss I gave you; you lifter of my skirt, ruffler of my pubic hairs, who gave you leave to call my husband a cuckold?”61 Even at home, therefore, Galician men faced challenges to their masculinity and ridicule by women. We cannot know with certainty how early modern Galician men felt about living in these homes dominated by women. However, the grooms’ lack of status in the family clearly conflicted with the expectations for masculinity espoused by Castilian elites. As a result, Galician peasant men demonstrated their masculinity by migrating. Although historians now realize that the early modern peasantry was much more mobile than once assumed, Galician men migrated in remarkable numbers.62 On their own initiative, they flocked to the booming cities of Andalusia, the opportunities available in the capital city of Madrid, the grain harvests of central Castile, the jobs left empty in Portugal as a result of Portuguese imperial expansion, and, slightly later, to the promise of the Americas. By the middle of the eighteenth century, half of all the parishes in Galicia suffered from some dearth of men, and more than half of those had fewer than ninety men for every one hundred women.63 On the Atlantic coast, by the second half of the eighteenth century, there were only sixty men per hundred women in forty-one of the fifty communities studied by regional demographers.64 In some places, women outnumbered men nearly two to one. Certainly, throughout the first half of the twentieth century, when large-scale male migration from Galicia was at its highest, anthropological informants made a direct connection between masculinity and migration. Anthropologist Susana de la Gala González has found that, since women were doing much of the subsistence agriculture, some men decided to 61Rey-Henningsen, Tales

of the Ploughwoman, 107–8. an excellent discussion of peasant mobility, see Vassberg, The Village and the Outside World. 63Dubert García, Historia de la familia en Galicia, 19–20. 64Rey Castelao, “Movimientos migratorios en Galicia,” 93. 62For

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migrate because they felt that they contributed little to the household. 65 Some Galician men even asserted that domineering women contributed to the high rates of male migration. One of anthropologist Marisa Rey-Henningsen’s interviewees stated, “This is no life for a man; those who’ve been away know what it is to be a man.” One informant told Rey-Henningsen, “Here, a man who wants to feel he is something has to go away and not come back. But if he does come back, he must have money in his pocket, or else he’s nothing.”66 Moreover, in his study of Galego migrants to Argentina, historian José Moya has found that migrant men feminized their nonmigrating counterparts by referring to them as “too homey.” According to Moya, “Too homey did not imply here the ideal of patriarchal security…but a lack of drive.” Men who remained in Galicia failed in their masculinity. Again, according to Moya, “The rite of emigration in Galicia…reaffirmed a certain definition of masculinity: man, not only as provider, but as wanderer, explorer, adventurer.”67 Although I cannot assume that these men’s words directly convey the attitudes of early modern men, they bring depth to our analysis of the large-scale migration of Galician men. First, migration offered the potential for men to make secure, independent livings. A man could acquire an income independent of his wife’s family and her inheritance. Second, migration allowed men to assert their independence from the female influence that pervaded Galician culture. Galegos could not meet basic standards of masculinity as long as they remained at home under the thumbs of wives and mothers-in-laws. Indeed, Galician men rarely sent for their wives and families to join them. Instead, as immigrants forging new lives in new places, they could be independent men. Better yet, if they returned from abroad with enough money, they could then form their own households where they held the purse strings and wielded authority over their wives and children. Thus, for a variety of reasons, Galician men could not or did not meet traditional elite notions of masculinity. Economically disadvantaged and socially disenfranchised, peasant men had to search for new mechanisms to assert their manliness. Galician men proved their masculinity by choosing to migrate. The implications of this decision were far-reaching.

65Gala

González, “Day Workers, Main Heirs,” 147. of the Ploughwoman, 96. 67Moya, Cousins and Strangers, 95. 66Rey-Henningsen, World

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In the process of becoming men, Galician migrants transformed both the Iberian peninsula and the Spanish empire.

Bibliography Archives AHN AHPO AHU

Archivo Histórico Nacional, Madrid Archivo Histórico Provincial de Ourense Archivo Histórico Universitario, Santiago de Compostela

Printed Works Ballesteros, José Pérez. Cancionero popular gallego. Vol. 3. Madrid: Richard Fe, 1886. Facsimile reprint, Madrid: Akal, 1979. Barahona, Renato. Sex Crimes, Honour, and the Law in Early Modern Spain: Vizcaya, 1528– 1735. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2003. Berco, Christian. “Social Control and Its Limits: Sodomy, Local Sexual Economies, and Inquisitors during Spain’s Golden Age.” Sixteenth Century Journal 36 (2005): 343–44. Biberman, Matthew. Masculinity, Anti-Semitism, and Early Modern English Literature. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Press, 2004. Brandes, Stanley. Metaphors of Masculinity: Sex and Status in Andalusian Folklore. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1980. Brøgger, Jan. Nazaré: Women and Men in a Prebureaucratic Portuguese Fishing Village. Case Studies in Cultural Anthropology. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1992. Calderón de la Barca, Pedro. La vida es sueño. In Diez comedias del siglo de oro, edited by José Martel and Hymen Alpern, 611–97. 2nd edition. New York: Harper & Row, 1968. Contreras, Jaime. El Santo Oficio de la Inquisición de Galicia: Poder, sociedad, y cultura. Madrid: Akal, 1982. Covarrubias Orozco, Sebastián de. Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española. Madrid: Editorial Castalia, 1994. Dubert García, Isidro. “Los comportamientos sexuales premaritales en la sociedad Gallega.” Studia Histórica, Historia Moderna 9 (1991): 117–42. Dyer, Abigail. “Heresy and Dishonor: Sexual Crimes before the Courts of Early Modern Spain.” PhD diss., Columbia University, 2000. ———. “Seduction by Promise of Marriage: Law, Sex and Culture in Seventeenth-Century Spain.” Sixteenth Century Journal 34 (2003): 439–55. Erauso, Catalina de. Lieutenant Nun: Memoir of a Basque Transvestite in the New World. Translated by Michele Stepto and Gabriel Stepto. Boston: Beacon Press, 1996. Fox, Dian. Refiguring the Hero: From Peasant to Noble in Lope de Vega and Calderón. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1991. Freedman, Paul. Images of the Medieval Peasant. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1999. Gala González, Susana de la. “Day Workers, Main Heirs: Gender and Class Domination in the Parishes of Mourisca and Beba.” Anthropologica 41 (1999): 143–53. Garza Carvajal, Federico. Butterflies Will Burn: Prosecuting Sodomites in Early Modern Spain and Mexico. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003. Gilmore, David D. “Men and Women in Southern Spain: ‘Domestic Power’ Revisited.” American Anthropologist 92 (1990): 953–70.

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Guevara, Antonio de. Aviso de privados y doctrina de cortesanos. Valladolid, 1539. ———. Libro áureo de Marco Aurelio. Seville, 1528. ———. Reloj de príncipes. Valladolid, 1529. Kagan, Richard L. Students and Society in Early Modern Spain. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974. Kagan, Richard L., and Abigail Dyer, eds. Inquisitorial Inquiries: Brief Lives of Secret Jews and Other Heretics. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2004. Lehfeldt, Elizabeth A. Religious Women in Golden Age Spain: The Permeable Cloister. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Press, 2005. Lisón Tolosana, Carmelo. Antropología cultural de Galicia. Madrid: Akal, 1983. McKay, Ruth. The Limits of Royal Authority: Resistance and Obedience in Seventeenth-Century Castile. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1999. Mirandé, Alfredo. Hombres y Machos: Masculinity and Latino Culture. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1997. Mirrer, Louise. Women, Jews, and Muslims in the Texts of Reconquest Castile. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1996. Moya, José C. Cousins and Strangers: Spanish Immigrants in Buenos Aires, 1850–1930. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Parker, Geoffrey. Philip II. London: Penguin/Cardinal, 1979. Perry, Mary Elizabeth. “From Convent to Battlefield: Cross-dressing and Gendering the Self in the New World of Imperial Spain.” In Queer Iberia: Sexualities, Cultures, and Crossings from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance, edited by Josiah Blackmore and Gregory S. Hutcheson, 394–419. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999. ———. Gender and Disorder in Early Modern Seville. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990. Poska, Allyson M. Regulating the People: The Catholic Reformation in Seventeenth-Century Spain. Leiden: Brill, 1998. ———. Women and Authority in Early Modern Spain: The Peasants of Galicia. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006. Rey Castelao, Ofelia. “Movimientos migratorios en Galicia, siglos XVI–XIX.” In Migraciones internas y medium-distance en la peninsula Ibérica, 1500–1900, edited by Antonio Eiras Roel and Ofelia Rey Castelao, 2:85–130. Santiago de Compostela: Xunta de Galicia, 1994. Rey-Henningsen, Marisa. The Tales of the Ploughwoman. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1996. ———. The World of the Ploughwoman: Folklore and Reality in Matriarchal Northwest Spain. Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia Academia Scientiarum Fennica, 1994. Rivera Vázquez, Evaristo. Galicia y los Jesuitas: Sus colegios y enseñanza en los siglos XVI al XVIII. A Coruña, Spain: Fundación Pedro Barrié de la Maza, 1989. Rodríguez Ferreiro, Hilario M. “Estructura y comportamiento de la familia rural Gallega: Los campesinos del Morrazo en el siglo XVIII.” In Actas del II Coloquio de Metodología aplicada: La documentación notarial y la historia, 439–58. Santiago de Compostela: Universidad de Santiago de Compostela, 1984. Ruiz, Teófilo F. “The Peasantries of Iberia, 1400–1800.” In The Peasantries of Europe from the Fourteenth to the Eighteenth Centuries, edited by Tom Scott, 49–73. London: Longman, 1998. Saavedra, Pegerto. La Vida cotidiana en la Galicia del antiguo régimen. Barcelona: Crítica, 1994. Salas Barbadillo, Alonso Gerónimo de. El Caballero perfecto. Edited by Pauline Marshall. Boulder: University of Colorado Press, 1949.

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Spurling, Geoffrey. “Honor, Sexuality, and the Colonial Church: The Sins of Dr. González, Cathedral Canon.” In The Faces of Honor: Sex, Shame, and Violence in Colonial Latin America, edited by Lyman L. Johnson and Sonya Lipsett-Rivera, 45–67. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1998. Taylor, Scott. “Credit, Debt, and Honor in Castile, 1600–50.” Journal of Early Modern History 7 (2003): 8–27. ———. “Women, Honor, and Violence in a Castilian Town, 1600–50.” Sixteenth Century Journal 35 (2004): 1079–97. Twinam, Ann. “The Negotiation of Honor.” In The Faces of Honor: Sex, Shame, and Violence in Colonial Latin America, edited by Lyman J. Johnson and Sonya Lipsett-Rivera, 69– 102. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1998. Vassberg, David E. The Village and the Outside World in Golden Age Castile: Mobility and Migration in Everyday Rural Life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Vicens Vives, Jaime. Imperio, aristocracia, absolutismo, los Austrias, imperio Español en América. Vol. 3, Historia de España y America. Barcelona: Editorial Vicens Vives, 1961. Vives, Juan Luis. The Education of a Christian Woman: A Sixteenth-Century Manual. Edited and translated by Charles Fantazzi. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. Vollendorf, Lisa. The Lives of Women: A New History of Inquisitional Spain. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University Press, 2005. Weissberger, Barbara F. Isabel Rules: Constructing Queenship, Wielding Power. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004. White, Lorraine. “The Experience of Spain’s Early Modern Soldiers: Combat, Welfare, and Violence.” War in History 9, no. 1 (2002): 1–38. ———. “Spain’s Early Modern Soldiers: Origins, Motivation, and Loyalty.” War and Society 19 (2001): 19–46.

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The Reform of Masculinities in Sixteenth-Century Switzerland A Case Study Helmut Puff

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he notion that masculinity underwent a profound change in the sixteenth century is almost as old as the history of masculinities. R. W. Connell, one of the field’s pioneers, approaches the period between 1450 and 1620 as a time of new beginnings. Novel concepts of sexuality and selfhood surfaced, he contends, in the context of nascent colonialism, the emergence of capitalism, and religious reforms: reformers of various persuasions actively advocated “marital heterosexuality,” playing into a “growing cultural emphasis on the conjugal household.”1 In Connell’s vision, this advocacy was linked to the rise of so-called “hegemonic masculinities,” masculinities that occupy “the hegemonic position in a given pattern of gender relations.”2 As Scott Hendrix has shown, Protestantism in fact

1Connell, Masculinities, 186. The section on early modern masculinity opens the chapter on “The History of Masculinity.” I have chosen to quote from Connell’s latest book-length study on the subject that has occupied him since the mid-1980s. 2Connell, Masculinities, 76. On the reception of Connell, see Dinges, Männer—Macht—Körper, 7–33.

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assigned to the male sex the role of social, political, and religious leadership.3 The burgeoning literature on marriage and the household in Reformation Europe provided guidance for patriarchs confronted with the daunting task of leading spouses, households, and communities.4 Other researchers have chosen still other points of departure. In Wolfgang Schmale’s history of modern masculinity, the fifteenth century saw the appearance of a novel figure that triumphed in Christian anthropology and the arts, the “new Adam”: an ideal man with a flawless body whose religious, social, and artistic meanings oscillated between the earthly and the spiritual.5 Despite these intriguing approaches, there also have been cautionary notes against taking the rise of innovative masculinities after 1500 at face value. Periodizing thus reiterates well-rehearsed ideas of the Renaissance, the Reformation, and humanism as historical ruptures. Lyndal Roper marshals evidence from everyday life in early modern cities to shed critical light on histories of gender and masculinity that rely primarily on constructs, norms, and ideals.6 The vir gravis et honestus, to quote an educational topos,7 was appealing to particular social groups, she argues. His sobriety was a norm that did not, or was not meant to, encompass all men. While Norbert Elias famously argued that the early modern period saw the extension of bodily discipline from the elites to the populace, it remains a matter of debate how this shift toward restraint reached and affected different social groups.8 Roper’s urban archives indeed abound with men who caused trouble, through their outward appearance as well as through their comportment. They drank, fought, and “whored” excessively. In their infatuation with excess, these males seem to have come alive from the pages of Rabelais’s Gargantua. Roper has therefore issued the call to conceptualize the relation between two figures that seemingly stood apart from one another in early modern societies: the well-disciplined man and the unruly man. Marc Breitenberg has delved into a different, though related, dialectic of masculinity. Analyzing a range of literary texts and early modern

3Hendrix,

“Masculinity and Patriarchy in Reformation Germany.” deutschsprachiger Ehelehren, vol. 1, pt. 1, Handschriften und Drucke, ed. Kartschoke et al. 5Schmale, Geschichte der Männlichkeit in Europa, 15–40. 6Roper, “Was There a Crisis in Gender Relations in Sixteenth-Century Germany?” and “Drinking, Whoring, and Gorging: Brutish Indiscipline and the Formation of Protestant Identity,” in Roper, Oedipus and the Devil, 37–52, 145–67. 7Puff, “Lernpraxis und Zivilisationsprozess.” 8Elias, The Civilizing Process. 4Repertorium

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discourses, this critic focuses on “anxious masculinity.” The imbrication of desire and anxiety proves an apt lens to grasp the multiform tensions constitutive of historical genders.9 In Renaissance England, the object of Breitenberg’s study, masculinity figured in manifold and often contradictory ways. In a culture defined by various demands on men and ideals of manhood, the supposedly strong male subject appears again and again as vulnerable, wounded, or fragile. Paradoxically, it is precisely this contradictoriness, Breitenberg finds, that shores up a patriarchal system in which men held a privileged place: “Anxiety is an inevitable product of patriarchy at the same time as it contributes to the reproduction of patriarchy.”10 Exploring one man’s biography provides a welcome antidote to streamlining the history of masculinity into chronologies or typologies and helps us to confront the experiential vagaries of early modern men. Lived masculinity will open a window, or at least a crack, onto the scenarios of masculinity that sixteenth-century men enacted and traversed. Individual portraits rely on an abundance of sources available mostly for the elites. Werner Steiner (1492–1542), the subject of this story, belonged to several such elites. He was a wealthy citizen from the town of Zug, a descendant of a prominent Swiss family, and an educated cleric. The title of a papal protonotarius and the fact that he went on a pilgrimage to Palestine testify to his considerable stature and social prominence. This man became one of the earliest followers of the reform cause in Switzerland, as evidenced by his marriage and his prolific writings. As somebody who sided with the reformers, Steiner lived through a transitional period: the introduction of religious reforms with their new focus on heterosexual desire. This essay will approach this biography retrospectively, from the point of its failure; one can understand this vita’s dénouement as an echo of a life lived at the intersection of different masculinities. In 1541, the council of Zurich arrested and incarcerated Werner Steiner, a follower of Huldrych Zwingli (1487–1531) and a friend of Zwingli’s successor, Heinrich Bullinger (1504–75).11 “Under great tears and sighs,” the suspect asked “the councilors fervently and most respectfully to do the best and to show him mercy.”12 Professed with the utmost vigor, Steiner’s plea for clemency followed a logic that is well-known from the 9Breitenberg, Anxious

Masculinity in Early Modern England. Masculinity in Early Modern England, 3. 11StAZ, A 27.26 (c. 1536/1542) and A 27.14 (1541). See also Fretz, “Steineri fata.” 12StAZ, A 27.10, “confession” (1541). 10Breitenberg, Anxious

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criminal investigations before the council of Zurich.13 Suspects sought to demonstrate their remorse for their alleged crimes, and they begged the authorities to do what befitted them, namely, to temper justice with mercy. According to the incriminating evidence that had come to light during the interrogation, Steiner’s deeds were of a kind that clemency alone could save him, a former Catholic priest turned Protestant, from a stricter sentence. Though the delict in question was not mentioned, the protocol of the interrogation leaves no doubt that the transgression at stake was sodomy, that is, sexual activities between men. The concerted petitions—Steiner’s own as well as those of his wife, children, and relatives—did not fail to sway the councilors, or so the scribe stated.14 After all, the fateful “confession” of 1541 must have reminded the councilors that, however severe his transgressions, Steiner was one of them. Scion of one of the most distinguished families from Zug, 15 Steiner had left his hometown when the rising tide of religious conflict had made it opportune to seek refuge elsewhere. After a short stay in Berne, he settled in neighboring Zurich. There, he acquired a magnificent house and became a citizen in the year of his move, 1529. In Zurich, an urban center that provided shelter for many a Protestant émigré, he befriended some of the city’s most outstanding citizens and scholars.16 Steiner’s sentence, permanent house arrest, thus reflected his high social standing and the respect he commanded among members of Zurich’s ruling class. Clearly the councilors had options when assessing Steiner’s sentence. Our protocol notes that instead of house arrest, one could have imposed a “secular, great punishment,” namely, the death sentence.17 The juxtaposition of these two punishments, both said to have been within the range of justice, bespeaks a glaring tension. On the one hand, Steiner’s relatives seized the opportunity to exploit the situation. Not long after the sentence had been issued, they were successful in achieving its mitigation. In 1542, the council permitted Werner Steiner to leave his house in order to attend church service or to visit family members. Emboldened by this turn of events, his advocates wanted to reverse the sentence entirely. This time, the council refused to 13Puff,

Sodomy, 77–104. 27.10, “confession” (1541). 15StAZ, Steiner-Archiv, W I 18, 58: Erb, Das Geschlecht der Steiner von Zug; W I 18, 50: Stammtafel der Familie Steiner von Zug. 16Meyer, Der Chronist. For more literature, see Bullinger, Briefwechsel, 1:45; and Puff, Sodomy, 229n141. 17StAZ, A 27.10, “confession” (1541). 14StAZ, A

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comply.18 Soon thereafter, Steiner passed away, carried off by the plague in 1542. On the other hand, reformers in Zurich and beyond were in a state of shock that one of their own faced a criminal investigation.19 What was the nature of Steiner’s transgressions? In 1541, he confessed to desiring to have sex with other males on various occasions. In 1518, for instance, while waiting for a church benefice, he was working as a steward to a priest in Schwyz, when Hans Kern, a farm laborer, passed through. During the night that followed, the two, though of widely different social status, shared the same bed upon Steiner’s invitation. As both men stated separately, Steiner volunteered “to teach” his bedfellow the pleasures of mutual self-enjoyment on this occasion. The future priest, it emerged, had not only questioned the uneducated lower-class man about his amorous pursuits but had also, at least according to Kern, coaxed him to confess to Steiner. By giving Kern small gifts of money and clothes, Steiner further urged Kern to consent to mutual masturbation—a lesson the latter seems to have refused.20 Should Steiner’s transgression be captured by the incriminating term sodomy? While he admitted to actual sex acts only obliquely, it became clear that he would have engaged in sexual intercourse if the objects of his desire had consented. At any rate, the various episodes unearthed during the interrogation testified to Steiner’s lifelong entanglement with homosociality’s erotic side. The council’s ambiguous sentence refers to the ambiguous nexus of “homosocial desire,” to use Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick’s formulation. 21 The boundary between legitimate contacts and illegitimate eroticism was anything but unequivocal. This insecurity leads into the heart of all-male milieus in early modern Europe. Alan Bray has carved out the cultural anxieties that manifested themselves around the question of what separated sodomy from friendship in Renaissance England.22 This uneasiness does not seem to have crystallized into a phobia. As a source of anxiety, however, it proved powerful at times. To be sure, male sociability lay at the foundation of the early modern political order. Whether in monarchies, aristocratic regimes, or republics, governance relied on associations among 18StAZ, A

27.10, “confession” (1541). by Johannes Zwick (29 June 1541) and Simon Grynäus (26 July 1541) to Heinrich Bullinger; see Bullinger, Briefwechsel, 11:237, 264. I am very grateful to the editors for having shared these letters with me prior to their publication. 20StAZ, A 27.10, “confession” (1541). 21Sedgwick, Between Men, esp. 1–5. 22Bray, “Homosexuality.” 19Letters

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men. As a result, politics was deeply enmeshed with male companionship.23 Sodomy was imagined to stand in stark opposition to the lawful bonds between males. Same-sex eroticism was viewed as defying order as well as religion. Those said to be sodomites stood outside Christianity; the sodomite was a lawless nonperson. A particular anxiety may have caused the council to lean toward a mild sentence: fear of the term heretic. In sixteenth-century Zurich, heresy, heretic, or to heresy connected several semantic layers.24 One was religious. Derived from the word for Cathars, ketzer designated dissenters from Christianity, people who had fallen from what was considered the one and only religious truth. Yet the semantics of heresy also included sexual activities. Heresy referred to so-called unnatural intercourse, that is, sex between men, between man and beast, and, rarely, heterosexual sodomy—the kind of sex acts church polemicists pictured dissenters as having perpetrated. If heresy appeared in a primarily religious context, the word may have carried sexual connotations only occasionally. Yet if heresy was used in legal proceedings or defamations, it frequently designated sexual activities exclusively, especially male-male intercourse. In these latter contexts, the term could still retain religious connotations: Sexual heresy referred to the divinely ordained sexual order that supposedly had been violated by religious dissenters. By the late medieval period, these semantic layers operated independently of one another. In Steiner’s case, however, heresy’s semantic components threatened to collapse. If publicly sentenced, Steiner would have proved to Catholic believers the utter depravity of Zwinglians. For them, his unorthodox sexual practices would have aptly marked his religion as an error. The Zurich council thus had to be wary that Swiss Protestants not be made the butt of a cruel invective. In this period, tensions were rampant between cantons like Zug in the Confederation that resisted religious reforms and those few like Zurich that embraced them. Not surprisingly, these conflicts breathed new life into heretic and similar insults.25 Zwingli himself was targeted.26 And so was Steiner 23Bray, The

Friend. Sodomy, 13, 17–18. 25Steiner owned a volume of Reformation pamphlets now at the ZBZ, Sammelband II DD 381. Among other publications, this collection features a printed defense of a contentious reform sermon held in Lucerne—an event where Steiner was present. The title of this print publication features the term “defamed as heretical”: Antwurt bruder Conradt Schmids Sant Johansen ordens Commenthür zu Küßnach am Zürich See / vff etlich wyderred der o so die predig durch jn gethon in der loblichen statt Lucern geschmächt vnd kätzerisch gescholten habend (n.p., 1522). On Konrad Schmid, see Staedtke, “Heinrich Bullingers Bemühungen,” 31–32. 26Holenstein and Schindler, “Geschwätzgeschichte(n).” 24Puff,

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in Zug, where protesters paraded their discontent. In 1523, 1525, and 1527 “malicious fellows” (mutwillige gesellen) made a clamor in front of his house. They yelled “Lutheran heretic” (lütterrsch ketzer). They left a dead cat on the house’s threshold, a sure sign that they were accusing this cleric, who lived with a woman, of being a religious heretic (note the resonance between katze for cat and ketzer, heretic, as well as the animal’s erotic associations with women’s genitals). They spread excrement on the family mansion. They smashed windows. Finally, they broke into the house while its owner was absent. Despite Steiner’s repeated protests, the council did not bring these disruptions of the urban peace to a halt.27 The intricacies of the term heretic are a reminder that categories like homosexuals with their suggestion of a group defined by a particular sexual outlook had little resonance in early modern Europe. If one needed proof for this statement, one could very well cite Werner Steiner’s deposition before the council. Even though the interrogation focused almost exclusively on sex between men, the protocol does not treat Steiner’s erotic predilections as a specific sexuality. Rather, homoeroticism appears on a continuum of desires and practices. This continuum encompassed a wide range: masturbation, which Steiner claimed to have learned while in France as a student, and mutual masturbation with his companions, which he picked up also from French men. Probably in response to a question put before him, he stated that sexual intercourse with women did not stop him from desiring to engage in the aforementioned pleasures with men. The erotic continuum as suggested by the document followed an emotional logic as well as a logic of doing. Steiner described the effects of masturbation on his being and body, for instance, as beneficial. It “always did him good” (wellichs allwägen wal than), he is reported to have said. 28 Accordingly, sexual activity with women could at least on one occasion satisfy desires that had been kindled by males. Steiner was not acting uniquely when his actions were inscribed into what he presented as habitual codes. The protocols of sodomy investigations are replete with similar statements, calculated to placate the interrogators and, ultimately, the judges. Like other suspects, Steiner attempted to increase the impact of this self-presentation by offering a counterpoint to his own desires and actions. He suggested drawing a line between the desires he harbored and those of others that, he implied, were deserving of 27StAZ,

Steiner-Archiv, W I 18, 47, fols. 5r–6v: Ursach. 27.10, “confession” (1541).

28StAZ, A

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greater punishment. He professed that he had never “florenced” nor thought of it.29 He thus offered to restrict the manifold meanings of vicium sodomiticum to what he claimed not to have committed, namely, anal intercourse. By comparison to this latter sin, his own were negligible and should, so the implication, remain free of sanction. Such an understanding of sodomy was not only Steiner’s. Anal intercourse occasionally featured in judicial terms as the “true sodomy.”30 Possibly, this narrow notion reflected how some sexual actors conceived of their doings and, what is more, how they defended them when interrogated by the authorities. Steiner may have hoped to find allies among the councilors, men who shared a similar understanding of what constituted sodomy. In this instance, the narrow definition of sodomy came from an unlikely source, a highly educated cleric who had a degree in theology from the Sorbonne. Among other incidents, the protocol reports an encounter Steiner had in a bathhouse, those erotically charged institutions for care of the body.31 That time his “lusts” (glust) to have sex with the house’s male servant were so strong that he succeeded in controlling his urge only with great effort. The overwhelming sensation he experienced had him belch, and “made him feel like throwing up.” But he “resisted the temptation” (anfechtung), so the wording. The protocol specifies the suspect’s utter passivity; Steiner neither sought to relieve himself nor accosted the servant. In suggesting a landscape of erotic impulses, physical reactions, and mental processes, this passage is extraordinary not only among the sources concerning Werner Steiner. During the investigation the suspect repeatedly sought to defuse potential accusations. In this instance, he presented a different self, a self in the snares of sinful entanglement. It is therefore important to remind ourselves that his deposition on this point was not voluntary. Remarkably, he had related the incident to Hans Kern. The Kern brothers’ arrest had caused the whole investigation of Steiner to unravel. Hans Kern’s deposition brought Steiner’s previous revelation to the surface and led the Zurich authorities to look into the matter. In the context of Steiner’s deposition, the narration of the encounter with a nameless servant had a detectable function. The episode illustrated 29StAZ, A

27.10, “confession” (1541). for instance, Gyger, L’épée et la corde, 309: “la propre sodomitique, c’est assavoir par derriere” (the true sodomy, that is to say, from behind), 1493. 31Here and in the following, see StAZ, A 27.10, “confession” (1541). Steiner belonged to an association of people who attended baths to improve their health, the “Gesellschaft der Badenden in Urdorf.” See Bullinger, Briefwechsel, 4:328. Whether or not the event occurred there is uncertain. 30See,

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that he was capable of mastering his urges. The story’s plotline, victory over temptation, staged a mature Steiner for all the councilors to see, a man who successfully tamed the lusts that threatened to control him. After all, Steiner’s line of defense rested, among others, on arguing that his deeds and desires ought to be dismissed as youthful transgressions. To apply this legal principle to Steiner’s actions, however, would have meant to stretch the definition of youth considerably. Surely he had picked up erotic habits while he was a young student in a foreign country, or so he said. Yet when Steiner met Kern in Schwyz in 1518, he was in his midtwenties. When they met again in the 1520s and 1530s, Steiner was considerably older and was living with a woman. His interest in a male companion does not seem to have abated despite his advanced age. The episode in the bathhouse therefore revolved around a man’s finally being able to restrain his physical impulses—impulses that Steiner’s case showed were hard to rein in. 32 Significantly, in the bathhouse scene his self became the site of conflict. The episode may provide at least fragmentary insight into that which writings in the vein of psychohistory all too often have lacked, concrete evidence of the mechanisms of sexual self-repression.33 A shift to more repressiveness in modern times has been something of a credo in this psychoanalytically inspired literature, and Protestants have qualified as precursors of modern repression in sexualibus. Indeed, the passage’s wording evokes an imaginary scheme of upper and lower, of hierarchies and juxtapositions. These verbal images imply a split between mind and body. They conjure up a hydraulic notion of sexuality: natural bodily urges are said to be set in opposition to the workings of the mind. The German phrase for “to belch” in this context literally translates as “to push upward.” He “overcame” (überhept) his “lusts,” the phrasing goes. In addition, the document also deploys a quasi-military idiom. It speaks of temptation, or rather “impugnation” (anfechtung), which Steiner fought on the battleground of his body. To the modern reader, these formulations are reminiscent of those proposed by Sigmund Freud, the theorist of sexual drives and of the superego. They also resonate with the theories of Norbert Elias, the sociologist who claimed a link between state formation and the emergence of individual control mechanisms around matters of the body. 32Unfortunately, the exact date of his supposed victory over male-male desire is unknown. Since the confession is chronologically organized, it must have occurred relatively late in Steiner’s life, perhaps in Zurich during the 1530s. 33See, for instance, Ussel, Sexualunterdrückung.

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One word complicates our reading of this passage as introspective in character: temptation (anfechtung).34 The term was a key concept in the vernacular religious literature disseminated during the late Middle Ages. Publications of this kind originated in the thirteenth century and became an ever more popular instrument of religious instruction on the eve of the Reformation. In this literature, anfechtung (impugnatio) had a particular inflection relevant to our episode. Impugnatio signifies a danger to the spiritual self. Frequently, the word appears in phrases that ascribe agency to man’s fiend—as if temptation were a demonic agent.35 When evil forces threaten to penetrate, both mind and body are at risk; sensuality merely counts as one temptation, though a particularly strong one, against which a man needs strong defenses. The term impugnatio is therefore emblematic of a mind-set in which a person is seen as beleaguered by evil forces. A true Christian will be capable of extricating himself, all the more so if he is equipped with the spiritual fortification offered by religious instruction. This verbal scenario, one may add, is indicative of a vast emotional landscape whose contours can only be sketched here. For our context, it is decisive that the term deflects the origin of temptation from the self, placing homoerotic impulses in the outer, not the inner world.36 In this sense, Steiner’s notion of temptation is consistent with his strategies of defense before the council (though one cannot be sure whether the wording is his).37 He proved victorious over temptation by waiting out a devilish attack. This word and its exegesis give a cue to look to the outer world when delving into Steiner’s affective household, inverting a suggestion of introspection into something better called extrospection. A particular state of mind is of interest in this episode: vacillation and hesitation. Markedly, Steiner remained inactive. In this momentary inertia, one may detect a faint echo of the various value systems that shaped this life. Viewed thus, the scene in the bathhouse appears linked to other noteworthy moments in Steiner’s vita. 34Frühneuhochdeutsches Wörterbuch,

vol. 1, cols. 1102–6. among others, Megenberg, Das Buch der Natur, 269: “die anvechtung habent von den poesen gaisten”; Beheim, Die Gedichte, 252: “anvechtung der pösen veind”; Langen, “Eine neue Quelle,” 164: “Dy funfft anfechtung ist von / auswendigen creaturen, wan so der tewfel den menschen…”; Wagner, “Ein nücz und schone ler,” 152: “anfechtung des tewfels”; Folz, Die Meisterlieder, 42: “anfechtung der feind”; and Pauli, Die Predigten, 39: “die anfechtung des bösen gaist.” 36Schultz, “Love without Desire.” 37It is clear that the literature Steiner owned featured the term; see Die beschwerungen des H. Röm. Rey. ([Augsburg: Sigmund Grimm and Marx Wirsung], 1521), C 1r: “Von anfechtungen der Curtisanen.” This text is bound together with other pamphlets Steiner owned. StAZ, Steiner-Archiv, fol. W 18, 49. 35See,

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Werner Steiner was anything but a martyr of the Reformation, although early historians of Protestantism have tried to portray him precisely as that.38 To be sure, in his embrace of reform ideas he took courageous steps at times, but his true talent lay elsewhere. Steiner was something of a vacillator. He maneuvered before his family and friends, the authorities, and (one suspects) God. These maneuvers bring to the fore the many codes among which Steiner moved, sometimes with more, sometimes with less skill. To give an example: Steiner married Anna Rüst only in 1529. While the children that sprang from this union were immediately legitimized before the council, as the laws in his hometown permitted, he, a priest, papal secretary, pilgrim-to-the-Holy-Land Steiner—not to mention the reader of Luther’s The Estate of Marriage who later authored a treatise on matrimony—had been living in a marriagelike relationship since 1522. Only in 1527, after the death of a close relative and mayor (Ammann) of Zug, Leonhard Steiner, did Werner Steiner embrace the reforms more overtly. When he left his hometown in 1529 to escape increasing pressure to conform to the old creed, he did so as an honorable citizen without having to forfeit his family’s considerable possessions. When, in a later year, a relative deprived him of a wine harvest (for reasons that are unclear), he actively sought compensation. When he returned to Zug for a short visit in 1537, he was even honored with a traditional welcoming ritual, as he proudly noted in his ledgers.39 In other words, Steiner continued to collect his dues, pensions, and interests—an income that afforded him a comfortable life in Zurich. Given the increasing tension between the emerging confessions, this was a remarkable feat. The city of Zug did not have to break with Werner Steiner nor Werner Steiner with Zug. Shortly after his move to Zurich, Steiner authored an apology whose autograph still exists.40 As an apologist, he had a twofold mission. First, he explained why he left Zug, the city of his ancestors. Second, his justification revolved around the question of what compelled him to break with the religion that these same ancestors had held dear. This “autobiography,” as the text has been termed somewhat ineptly, harnessed a plethora of 38See Kirchhofer, Wernher Steiner. I have used the copy from the Universitätsbibliothek Tübingen. See also Stadlin, Der Topographie des Kantons Zug, 353–63. 39StAZ, Steiner-Archiv, W I 18, 49, fols. 26v, 35v. See the following paragraph for more information on this document. 40StAZ, Steiner-Archiv, W I 18, 49. This account of events between 1522 and 1542 was addressed to his children, relatives, and religious compatriots. Excerpts in Liebenau, “Aus Werner Steiner’s Leben und Schriften.”

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explanations in order to expound his move and metamorphosis. On his apology’s first page, for instance, Steiner presented various biblical excerpts as a testimony to his unwavering faith.41 Yet what this document reveals most prominently is the distance that separated an early Protestant like Steiner from an unconditional proponent of the evangelical truth such as Bullinger.42 Steiner’s truth was patient. It was a truth that did not exclude practical considerations. Steiner was also economical in revealing the truth when his blackmailers were arrested. When Uli Kern, brother of Hans, was apprehended for disruptive behavior, his cash funds raised the authorities’ suspicions. Hans Kern attempted to flee but was seized shortly thereafter in Schwyz. Once imprisoned, the brothers Kern were forced to reveal the name of their benefactor. They also stated the reasons why they were successful with their demands: according to them, Steiner had attempted to have sexual intercourse with Hans several times.43 By having given in to their demands, Steiner validated his blackmailers’ story—a collusion that threatened to overshadow his later life. The Kerns continued to extort money from him over many years. After their arrest, Steiner was called before the council to testify (and so were others, including his friends Konrad Pelikan and Heinrich Bullinger). But he chose not to reveal the reason for his payments until he broke down and made his final deposition in 1541. Usually, a member of the elite who was under suspicion was protected from an accusation or a court trial. Who would believe the deposition of farm laborers and peasants if a Steiner, an influential, wealthy, well-educated citizen, contradicted their version of what had happened? Events, however, unfolded otherwise. For one thing, the Kerns were under arrest in cantons that, unlike Zurich, opposed religious change. This fact added the spice of confessional strife to the whole affair when these cantons asked the authorities in Zurich for legal assistance, a common practice among Swiss authorities. If the matter had been about words only, Steiner might still have gotten away with his evasiveness. Yet his payments spoke eloquently. This monetary language cast doubts on his claim that his support for the Kerns was charitable in character, meant to relieve indigent peasants. In the 1530s, it seemed as if the Kerns’ financial demands would never end. Steiner finally tried to put a stop to this draining of his resources. He engaged a mediator 41StAZ,

Steiner-Archiv, W I 18, 49, fol. 1r. Staedtke, “Heinrich Bullingers Bemühungen.” 43The relevant documents in StAZ, A 27.10 and A 27.14. 42See

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in the matter, none other than Bullinger, who was indebted to Steiner for the refuge he had taken with Steiner’s family in a time of need. In fact, it was in Steiner’s very house that the call to succeed Zwingli as leader of the Zurich reform had reached him. Bullinger met the Kerns and learned from their allusions that they accused Steiner of sodomy. In Steiner’s life, different masculinities intersected. What is at stake in formulating this thesis is less a theoretical position, the irreducible plurality of masculinities per se. Rather, it is the claim that Steiner’s life resonated with, was shaped by, and ultimately failed to bring into harmony different masculine codes—codes that were in accord as well as in conflict with one another: military masculinity, the masculinity of academics and clerics, the masculinity of the family patriarch, as well as the masculinity operating in the milieu of humanist and reformed Zurich.44 Moving between the communities that clustered around these codes contributed to the difficulties of this life. Werner Steiner knew the military sphere through his own eyes. He erected a memorial to generations of Swiss soldiers in authoring a chronicle that covered the period from the origins of the Confederation to Steiner’s own time.45 A pastiche of chronicled events, interspersed with songs from the relevant military campaigns, takes up the bulk of the volume. To be sure, songs were an important means of warfare, of propaganda, and of forging a memory of military events. Yet when Steiner composed these annals, Swiss historiography boasted no model for doing so. By monumentalizing the Swiss military experience, Steiner enshrined heroic masculinity as a thing of the past, commemorating the communal life of soldiers while making a contribution to overcoming Swiss entanglements in foreign wars. In fact, Steiner was an eyewitness to one of the most fateful military events in Swiss history. As a young man in his early twenties, Steiner had accompanied his father and his brother Michael during a campaign on Italian soil in 1515, when Swiss aspirations to become a European power peaked. The battle of Marignano during that campaign put an end to those ambitions, however. The Swiss Confederation, this oddity of a state in the midst of Europe, lost the aura of invincibility it had acquired over four decades of

44It would mean to overestimate this as a typology instead of taking it as a heuristic tool to discuss different spheres, which this list is meant to be. 45ZBZ, MS A 158, Liederchronik. See Gagliardi and Forrer, Katalog der Handschriften der ZBZ, cols. 133–34. The manuscript text in Zurich is a copy of the autograph in Lucerne, which I was unable to consult. The chronicle was never printed. See also Brändly, “Die Zuger Humanisten,” 218.

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victorious warfare. The Steiners suffered great losses: Michael Steiner died of his wounds. His brother Uli fell several years later.46 During these years, the “sale” of mercenary soldiers to belligerents was the subject of intense public debate. Mercenary activities had proven lucrative for the Swiss political elite. They benefited tremendously from alliances with foreign powers as well as from the costly permits necessary to recruit Swiss men on Swiss soil for foreign service. Yet as much as the Confederation or its political leaders gained financially, the same Confederation was strained to a breaking point as a result.47 In Italy, Steiner heard the preaching of Zwingli, who strictly opposed engagements of Swiss men on foreign soil.48 Steiner’s own opposition to “mercenarianism” meant a break with the family’s tradition.49 His father, Werner Steiner (1452–1517), was not only an influential Swiss politician; he was also an internationally recognized power broker. Several generations of his family had engaged in warfare. Their allegiance to the French crown made possible their rise to social prominence during the fifteenth century. Their elevated status is evident from the fact that several family members held the position of mayor (Ammann) in Zug. One of the benefits the Steiner family received for their support of French foreign policy was the stipend that paid for the studies pursued by Werner Steiner junior in Paris.50 As a foreign student in France, some years before his trip to Lombardy, the adolescent Steiner observed comportment that was overtly male and learned to appreciate male sociability.51 In inns and in academic circles, he apparently became attracted to male companionship, and he proceeded to expand his horizons by imitating what he saw. His deposition of 1541 claims that it was in France that he first discovered the erotic gain a man could draw from socializing with other men. He saw men caress their genitals. He was pestered by a fellow traveler in an inn where he stayed 46Bodmer,

“Werner Steiner,” 242–43; and StAZ, Steiner-Archiv, W I 18, 58: Erb, Das Geschlecht,

19. 47See

Groebner, Liquid Assets. “Chronicon Tugiense,” 238. The ZBZ holds a publication by Huldrych Zwingli on this theme from Steiner’s possessions (Res 979): Ein göttlich vermanung an die Ersamen / wysen / eerenuesten / eltisten Eydgenossen z Schwytz / das sy sich vor frömden herren hütind vnd entladind / Huldrichi Zwinglij / Einualtigen verkünders des Euangelij Christi Jhesu (first published in 1522). 49It is not entirely clear when this opposition first manifested itself. The documents we have are retrospective writings. 50StAZ, Steiner-Archiv, W I 18, 58: Erb, Das Geschlecht, 8–20. 51See Karras, From Boys to Men, 67–108. 48Steiner,

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overnight. He claims to have declined these advances, but years later he would enact a comparable scenario with Hans Kern. In retrospect, therefore, Steiner’s stay in France marked the beginning of a lifelong fascination with male-male intimacy—a fascination whose sedimented reflections appear in his “confession.” Sadly, there is little information about the academic training Steiner received at the Sorbonne. One can gather, however, from what is known about Steiner and about the University of Paris in the early sixteenth century that he received training in scholastic theology. Humanism reached him only late. When it did, it was mostly through the mediation of the Swiss reformers. Yet whatever lessons Steiner received in Paris, he seems to have learned well. Among the educated clerical elite, the young magister apparently moved with exceptional ease. The papal nuncio Antonio Pucci met Steiner in Switzerland. He reported that such an erudite cleric and gifted sermonizer should be won for the future of the church, and he awarded Steiner the dignity of a title, papal secretary or protonotarius apostolicus—a mere title but nonetheless a high distinction for a young theologian.52 In 1517, Steiner stood at the beginning of a distinguished career in church service, or so it seemed. Around 1518, he acted as steward to a priest in Schwyz—the place where he had his fateful encounter with Hans Kern. The following year, Steiner went on a pilgrimage to the Holy Land with a group of Swiss pilgrims. If he traveled to Jerusalem as penance for the sins he had committed or tried to commit with Hans Kern in 1518, this is not known for a fact. It is an interpretation suggested by the sequence of events in Steiner’s life. As such, it is not improbable. The travel guide he bought in Venice bears no trace of such intention, however. 53 One can only suspect that he went to see firsthand the locations near the Dead Sea that, according to tradition, testified to God’s wrath over the sexual sins of the inhabitants of Sodom as well as four other cities—sites that merited an extensive description in his guidebook.54 Upon his return from Jerusalem, Steiner had his portrait painted to commemorate the pilgrimage. It shows the penitent traveler kneeling in prayer, with rosary in hand and the requisite cross on his robe. His bearded figure is positioned 52Meyer,

Der Chronist, 74, quoting Wirz, Akten, 173. de Monte Sion], Veridica terre sancte (ZBZ, Gal. IV 301). See Bodmer, “Werner Steiners Pilgerführer.” 54[Burchardus], Veridica sancte terre, H5r–H7r. 53[Burchardus

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between the family coat of arms and a horse in front of a landscape that allows for Palestinian associations.55 After the death of his father in 1517, Steiner became active in church life. He made donations and commissioned the manufacture of liturgical instruments. He supported charities for the poor in his hometown. He was also appointed canon in the nearby abbey of Beromünster.56 The heraldic windowpane he ordered in 1520 prominently displays several elements associated with his vita: an erect ibex—symbol of a proud family tradition—beneath the cross of the Jerusalem pilgrim and the ecclesiastical hat of the papal secretary.57 Choice was involved in combining these visual components. Obviously, Steiner pictured his own life as a continuation of his family’s stature while adding to it: he gave the family tradition a markedly clerical twist. In part, Steiner’s vita followed a familial logic. As the only surviving male descendant of Werner Steiner père, he presided over the family’s fortunes after 1517. The patriarchal-familial dimension of his biography becomes manifest in his attempts to secure the family name for the future. He offered a sum of money for the yet unborn sons of a relative who had no male successors from his first marriage but planned to remarry. 58 It is anything but accidental in this context that the debate around clerical celibacy reached Steiner early. In 1522 he attended a meeting where this matter appeared on the agenda.59 In 1523 Steiner read a momentous treatise that had just seen the light of day, The Estate of Marriage (1522)—Martin Luther’s passionate sermo to embrace matrimony as a divinely ordained mode of life. Steiner’s copy, preserved at the Zentralbibliothek Zürich, reveals how systematically he read.60 He focused on doctrinal issues, underlined certain passages, added notes on the pamphlet’s margins, and signed the title page of his copy as follows: “I read this treatise on matrimony in the year 1523.” He seems to have used that material for one of

55Bodmer,

“Werner Steiners Pilgerführer,” 74. The caption does not specify where this painting

is held. 56StAZ,

Steiner-Archiv, W I 18, 49, 38. See Meyer, Der Chronist, 77–79. “Zuger Humanisten,” illustration no. 189 (Schweizerisches Landesmuseum). According to Erb, Das Geschlecht, 27 (StAZ, Steiner-Archiv, W I 18, 58), it is the only surviving window of several similar ones commissioned by Steiner. 58StAZ, Steiner-Archiv, W I 18, 49, fols. 29r–29v. 59Meyer, Der Chronist, 85–103. 60Martin Luther, Vom eelichen Leben (1522), in ZBZ, Sammelband II DD 381, 15. Luther’s text is part of a volume of Reformation pamphlets, mostly 1521–23, collected and owned by Steiner. 57Brändly,

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his sermons.61 A cleric by this time, he had started to live openly with Anna Rüst.62 It is likely that Steiner had not always lived chastely. One may think of Steiner’s encounter with Hans Kern in Schwyz in 1518. Even though the two men did not engage in what Steiner offered to teach this farm laborer, that same night Kern fetched a known prostitute to take his place (the deposition of 1541 is so focused on the question of male-male sodomy that it fails to report what happened that night). As soon as it was propagated by the reformers, clerical marriage offered itself as a welcome opportunity to the thirty-year-old Steiner. Marriage permitted him to combine the life of the cleric with that of the head of family. In this instance, Steiner does not seem to have hesitated. He entered into a union with Anna Rüst and, in quick succession, they had no fewer than thirteen children.63 By his marriage, Steiner pioneered a mode of life that would help to transform the world traditionally inhabited by clerics, scholars, and academics.64 In subsequent years, marriage became a feature of Reformation masculinity. Living a domestic life demarcated the old from the new clergy. Marital life thus became an important rallying point for the reformers. Through his union with Rüst, Steiner created public awareness about his religious inclinations. No wonder that agitated crowds in his hometown expressed their discontent with behavior they considered unbecoming to a cleric. Later in life, on the occasion of the marriage festivities of his oldest daughter in 1537,65 Steiner even treated the subject of matrimony in a sermon that, though never published, contributed to the growing body of literature on marriage. It was a short treatise that featured precepts on three topics: entry into matrimony, the couple’s legal affairs, and matrimony as a divinely ordained mode of life.66 Biblical education was another component of the particular brand of masculinity that characterized the Reformation in Zurich. In this regard, 61Luther,

Vom eelichen Leben, title page (in the hand of Werner Steiner): “Perlegi anno domini

1523.” 62Their first daughter, Maria, was born 25 March 1523. See Rordorf-Gwalter, “Die Geschwister,” 191. 63StAZ, Steiner-Archiv, W I 18, 58: Erb, Das Geschlecht, 44. 64Algazi, “Scholars in Households.” 65At the age of fourteen, Maria Steiner married the pewterer Rudolf Rordorf; see StAZ, Steiner-Archiv, W I 18, 58: Erb, Das Geschlecht, 45. 66ZBZ, MS S 415, fols. 348r-351r: Ein christen bricht von der Ee. The text is transmitted as an addon to Steiner’s commentaries on the Pentateuch. See Gagliardi and Forrer, Katalog der Handschriften, col. 1322. I plan to discuss this treatise in a different context.

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Steiner had much catching up to do. In 1519, waiting for passage to the Holy Land, he acquired a printed Bible (he paid barely more for it than the amount he paid for his pilgrim’s guide).67 Yet the Bible he bought to take on his pilgrimage was not an edition that conformed to humanist editorial standards. It was probably a secondhand volume printed more than twenty years earlier—an edition that has left barely a trace in the venerable annals of Bible printing around 1500.68 Eager to improve himself and make up for the deficits of his erudition, Steiner, once in Zurich, became a student of biblical exegesis. He attended lectures on the Old Testament given by the eminent Huldrych Zwingli and Theodor Bibliander (1506–62). 69 The marginalia in the Bible he owned are lecture notes for the most part. Based on this training, he even ventured into authoring a German commentary on the first five books of the Bible. Steiner’s will to educate himself in biblical humanism predated his move to Zurich. Bullinger, though younger, took Steiner, this able-minded follower of the gospels, under his wing. He dedicated to him a pedagogical treatise written in 1528 with one purpose in mind: to wed the studia humanitatis to the new theology in the spirit of Zwingli and other reformers like him. This studiorum ratio encapsulates the pedagogical project of Protestant humanism. According to Bullinger, all study, whether of ancient languages, ancient literatures, or the sciences, fed into what amounted to the center of all learning, the Bible, God’s conversation with humanity.70 In the preface Steiner comes across as the perfect recipient of this treatise: a student most willing to improve himself. Indeed, Steiner supposedly urged 67StAZ, Steiner-Archiv, W I 18, 52: Biblia sacra impressa in felici Venetorum civitate, 1497. A descendant had the volume restored and copied Steiner’s inscription: “Anno Domini 1519 die Junii nona Wernerus Lapidanus Zuginus presbiter sedis apostolice prothonotarius comparavit sibi hunc librum pro sex marcellis, apud nos pro tribus. Initium sapientiae timor Domini [Psalm 110:10]. Iste liber fuit mecum in terra sancta ubique in locis sanctis quae peregrine solent visitare.” On the price for the books Steiner bought, see Bodmer, “Werner Steiners Pilgerführer,” 72. 68This fact is particularly instructive if one compares Steiner with the slightly younger Thomas Platter, who, though his trajectory from a life of rags to wide respect among humanists differed considerably from Steiner’s, belonged to the same generation of scholars. Like Steiner, Platter lived part of his life in Zurich. Late in life, the two men strove to make up for the deficits of their education. Unlike Steiner, Platter went to great lengths in order to have access to a Hebrew Bible from Venice. See Platter, Hirtenknabe, Handwerker und Humanist, 48–49. On Platter’s reading habits, see Puff, “Leselust.” 69StAZ, Steiner-Archiv, W I 18, 52: Biblia (1497). He attended these lectures as early as 1525, as testified in the following marginalium: “Tiguri [die] lun[ae] 19 iunii anno 1525 inceperunt primum cursum bibliae” (marginal note to Genesis 1). As late as 1534, he attended the third cursus with Theodor Bibliander (a3v). 70Bullinger, Studiorum ratio. The formulaic conversation of God with humanity alludes to a sentence on p. 60: “Nam loquitur nobiscum per ista Deus.” See also Bullinger’s letter to Steiner of 1 May 1528, in Bullinger, Briefwechsel, 1:177–78.

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Bullinger to compose this manual on how to organize his studies, but Bullinger also intended to encourage Steiner and others like him.71 The Zurich reform was more than a purely academic affair, however. Humanist reformers were called upon personally to embody the religiously inspired morality they advocated. They strove to bring into harmony inner beliefs and outer appearance, religious tenets and civic community. They fashioned themselves into exemplars of virtue capable of guiding others to follow in their footsteps. In other words, they carried the light of the gospels into all spheres of life. Not surprisingly, the capstone to the edifice of Bullinger’s argument is the point that a virtuous life takes precedence over philosophical and rhetorical expertise. This message is reiterated in two concluding poems, one of which is a rejection of voluptuousness and an exhortation to lead a pure life: …guard your senses day and night, as one guards breakable windows at the sentry. Subject the impermanent body to the rule of the mind And look for God with a thirsting heart.…72 The reformers welcomed Steiner’s arrival. He was independently wealthy, a man in no need of financial support, unlike many other Protestant immigrants who flocked to Zurich. Steiner was well integrated into the social networks of the city. Letter writers mentioned him frequently when sending brotherly greetings to other representatives of reformed Zurich. He advanced money on behalf of his friends; he asked for advice in matters of the faith; he received copies of pamphlets that had just appeared in print and became the dedicatee of a number of publications. 73 In his pursuit of scholarly interests, Steiner settled on history above all other disciplines.74 He composed several chronicles. Insofar as history 71Bullinger,

Studiorum ratio, 10–13. in Voluptatem apud Sillium” and “Exhortatio ad puritatem vitae,” in Bullinger, Studiorum ratio 138–41, here 140: “Nonsecus ac fragiles vigili statione fenestras / custodi sensus nocte dieque tuos. / Imperioque animi mutabile subiice corpus, / atque sitibundo pectore quaere Deum.” 73See Bullinger’s letters to Steiner, 24 June 1524 and 31 October 1530, in Bullinger, Briefwechsel, 1:45–46, 200–201. For Bullinger’s dedication of his commentaries on a selection of New Testament epistles (February 1536), see Briefwechsel, 6:109–10. The index to Bullinger’s Briefwechsel identifies the many letters in which Steiner is merely mentioned as the recipient of greetings. For letters exchanged between Huldrych Zwingli and Steiner, see Huldreich Zwinglis sämtliche Werke, 7:540–41, 20 July 1533; and Huldreich Zwinglis sämtliche Werke 8:30–31, 19 February 1523. See also the letters printed in Brändly, “Peter Kolin von Zug”; Brändly, “Bartholomäus Stocker von Zug”; Meyer, Der Chronist, 195–200; and Rordorf-Gwalter, “Die Geschwister,” 187–93. 74Feller and Bonjour, Geschichtsschreibung der Schweiz, 172–74. See also Meyer, Der Chronist, 163–207. 72“Virtus

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reflected the inevitable progress of a Christian faith inspired by the gospels, he considered it a valuable field. Bullinger himself ventured into this area when authoring a history of the Reformation (1567).75 Yet history stood apart from the center of theological debate, and Steiner’s scholarly activities never came to fruition. His chronicles, compilations, and collections were never printed, even though some seem to have been fully prepared. In fact, it is not certain that the Zurich elite fully trusted Steiner. It is noteworthy that there is no evidence of pastoral activities after Steiner moved to the city. Several spheres of masculinity noticeably intersected in Steiner’s vita. How, therefore, did Steiner negotiate among these different codes and communities? To be sure, Steiner was not equally invested in all the arenas discussed above: the military, the clergy, the family, reform circles. Some codes of masculinity shaped his life more permanently than others; some communities were more essential than others. He was an outsider to the life of Swiss soldiers, for instance, although he definitely seems to have been an interested observer. Suspended between theological training, love for his fatherland, and the toll military campaigns took on his family, his stance on the “mercenary business” brought him into opposition to his family’s path to social prominence. At the same time, he acted vigorously to preserve the family name. Steiner was a member of a generation that also lived through the formation of a new religious identity—a shift that men like Steiner had to master. His embrace of humanist-reform masculinity does not seem to have been fully successful. Whoever partakes of different codes and communities in times of change is at risk. This is what Steiner’s life bespeaks above all. In certain moments, homoerotic desire brings to the fore the tensions inherent in other arenas of masculinity. Does homoeroticism circumscribe a distinct code in Steiner’s biography? One could argue that this was the case. It appears that Steiner was aroused by men different from him, not so much in age—Kern was only slightly younger—but in social class. We hear of a farm laborer and a servant. Likely there were others; Steiner only confessed when he had to. To state it differently: he exploited his social status to coax others into having sex. The locations of these scenarios of desire are also telling: an inn, a bedchamber, a bathhouse, all of which indicate a certain transience of sociosexual life. What is known of Steiner’s erotic cathexis conforms to the habits of other upper-class men found guilty of sodomy. In early modern Europe, 75Bullinger,

Reformationsgeschichte.

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homoeroticism was tied to social disparity, for instance, differences of age and of class. Whether or not a superior social position was tied to insertive sexual acts, as many researchers have posited, is an assumption Steiner would have contradicted vigorously.76 Be that as it may, one could say in his case that homoerotic activity followed distinct patterns of behavior. Claiming same-sex eroticism as a particular masculinity has a price, however. It means to cordon off sexual activity from the social contexts in which it occurred. In other words, it means to defuse the constructive as well as disruptive force homoeroticism acquired. As a rule, historians of sexuality have therefore taken a different stance. They argue that sodomy was coextensive with hegemonic manhood in early modern Europe, at least as long as the authorities refrained from interference and, as some would claim, as long as the sex acts in question were “active.” 77 This view is more consistent with what Steiner’s “confession” brought to light. There is little in these records that would suggest that homoeroticism formed a particular code. Strategies like the ones named above were at work in heterosexual liaisons as well. Unlike the homosexual, the sodomite was not a particular type, neither in the imagination nor in social life. In fact, homoeroticism had its place in the different spheres where men socialized. It is reported from the life of mercenaries. It provided a sexual outlet for men in the academic sphere. Clerics engaged in it.78 In fact, the history of masculinity and the history of homosexuality complement each other: a history of masculinity that fails to take note of homoeroticism will not do full justice to what it meant to live a man’s life in early modern Europe. In turn, a history of sexuality will have to work toward taking into account the social and gendered contexts of sexual acts more broadly. In this sense, the encounter of these two histories is still at its beginning.

76See

Halperin, How to Do the History, ch. 4, 104–37. is communis opinio among historians of sexuality. See, for instance, Trumbach, Sex and the Gender Revolution, vol. 1. 78Puff, Sodomy, passim. 77This

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Bibliography Archives StAZ ZBZ

Staatsarchiv Zürich Zentralbibliothek Zürich

Printed Works Algazi, Gadi. “Scholars in Household: Refiguring the Learned Habitus, 1480–1550.” Science in Context 16 (2003): 9–42. Beheim, Michel. Die Gedichte. Edited by Hans Gille and Ingeborg Spriewald. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag, 1968–72. Bodmer, Jean-Pierre. “Werner Steiner und die Schlacht bei Marignano.” Zwingliana 12 (1965): 241–47. ———. “Werner Steiners Pilgerführer.” Zwingliana 12 (1964): 69–73. Brändly, Willy. “Bartholomäus Stocker von Zug.” Zwingliana 3 (1950): 171–76. ———. “Peter Kolin von Zug.” Zwingliana 9 (1950): 159–71. ———. “Die Zuger Humanisten.” Innerschweizerisches Jahrbuch für Heimatkunde 8/10 (1944/46): 206–20. Bray, Alan. The Friend. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. ———. “Homosexuality and the Signs of Male Friendship in Elizabethan England.” In Queering the Renaissance, edited by Jonathan Goldberg, 40–61. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1994. Breitenberg, Mark. Anxious Masculinity in Early Modern England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Bullinger, Heinrich. Briefwechsel. Vol. 1, Briefe der Jahre 1524–1531. Edited by Ulrich Gäbler and Endre Zsindely. Zürich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 1973. ———. Briefwechsel. Vol. 4, Briefe des Jahres 1534. Edited by Endre Zsindely et al. Zürich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 1989. ———. Briefwechsel. Vol. 6. Edited by Hans Ulrich Bächtold and Rainer Henrich. Zürich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 1995. ———. Briefwechsel. Vol. 11, Briefe des Jahres 1541. Edited by Rainer Henrich, Alexandra Kess, and Christian Moser. Zürich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 2005. ———. Reformationsgeschichte: Nach dem Autographen herausgegeben. 3 vols. Edited by J. J. Hottinger and H. H. Vögeli. Frauenfeld: Beyel, 1838–40. ———. Studiorum ratio. Edited by Peter Stotz. Zürich: Theologischer Verlag Zürich, 1987. [Burchardus de Monte Sion.] Veridica terre sancte regionumque finitimarum ac in eis mirabilium descriptio. Venice: Ioannes Tacumus, 1519. Connell, R. W. Masculinities. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. Elias, Norbert. The Civilizing Process: Sociogenetic and Psychogenetic Investigations. Translated by Edmund Jephcott. Oxford: Blackwell, 2000. Feller, Richard, and Edgar Bonjour. Geschichtsschreibung der Schweiz vom Spätmittelalter zur Neuzeit. Vol. 1. 2nd ed. Basel: B. Schwabe, 1979. Folz, Hans. Die Meisterlieder. Berlin: Weidmann, 1908. Fretz, Diethelm. “Steineri fata.” Zwingliana 4 (1926): 377–84. Frühneuhochdeutsches Wörterbuch. Vol. 1. Edited by Robert R. Anderson, Ulrich Goebel, and Oskar Reichmann. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1989. Gagliardi, Ernst, and Ludwig Forrer. Katalog der Handschriften der ZBZ, Neuere Handschriften seit 1500. Zürich: Zentralbibliothek, 1982.

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Groebner, Valentin. Liquid Assets, Dangerous Gifts: Presents and Politics at the End of the Middle Ages. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002. Gyger, Patrick J. L’épée et la corde: Criminalité et justice à Fribourg, 1475–1505. Lausanne: Section d’histoire médiévale Faculté de Lettres, 1998. Halperin, David M. How to Do the History of Homosexuality. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. Hendrix, Scott. “Masculinity and Patriarchy in Reformation Germany.” Journal of the History of Ideas 56 (1995): 177–93. Holenstein, Pia, and Norbert Schindler. “Geschwätzgeschichte(n): Ein kulturhistorisches Plädoyer für die Rehabilitierung der unkontrollierten Rede.” In Dynamik der Tradition: Studien zur historischen Kulturforschung, edited by Richard van Dülmen, 41–108, 271– 81. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1992. Huldreich Zwinglis sämtliche Werke. 13 vols. Berlin, Leipzig, Zürich: C. A. Schwetschke and Heinsius, 1905–. Karras, Ruth Mazo. From Boys to Men: Formations of Masculinity in Late Medieval Europe. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003. Kirchhofer, Melchior. Wernher Steiner, Bürger von Zug und Zürich: Eine Einladung zur Jubelfeyer der schweizerischen Reformation. Winterthur: Steinerische Buchhandlung, 1818. Langen, Elvira. “Eine neue Quelle für die Kenntnis des mystischen Lebens im Kloster Pillenreuth (Untersuchungen und Texte).” PhD diss., Heidelberg, 1960. Megenberg, Konrad von. Das Buch der Natur. Edited by Franz Pfeiffer. Hildesheim: Olms, 1971. Meyer, Wilhelm. Der Chronist Werner Steiner, 1492–1542: Ein Beitrag zur Reformationsgeschichte von Zug. Stans: Ad. & P. von Matt, 1910. Pauli, Johannes. Die Predigten. Edited by Robert G. Warnock. Munich: Beck, 1970. Platter, Thomas. Hirtenknabe, Handwerker und Humanist: Die Selbstbiographie, 1499 bis 1582. Edited by Heinrich Boos. Nördlingen: Greno, 1989. Puff, Helmut. “Lernpraxis und Zivilisationsprozess in der Frühen Neuzeit.” In Zivilisationsprozesse: Zu Erziehungsschriften der Vormoderne, edited by Rüdiger Schnell, 255–76. Cologne: Böhlau, 2004. ———. “Leselust: Darstellung und Praxis des Lesens bei Thomas Platter, 1499–1572.” Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 84 (2002): 133–56. ———. Sodomy in Reformation Germany and Switzerland, 1400–1600. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. Repertorium deutschsprachiger Ehelehren der Frühen Neuzeit. Vol. 1, pt. 1, Handschriften und Drucke der Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin/Preußischer Kulturbesitz (Haus 2). Edited by Erika Kartschoke et al. Berlin: Akademie, 1996. Roper, Lyndal. Oedipus and the Devil: Witchcraft, Sexuality, and Religion in Early Modern Europe. London: Routledge, 1994. ———. “Was There a Crisis in Gender Relations in Sixteenth-Century Germany?” In Roper, Oedipus and the Devil, 37–52. London: Routledge, 1994. Rordorf-Gwalter, Salomon. “Die Geschwister Rosilla und Rudolf Rordorf und ihre Beziehungen zu Zürcher Reformatoren.” Zwingliana 3 (1915): 180–93. Schmale, Wolfgang. Geschichte der Männlichkeit in Europa, 1450–2000. Cologne: Böhlau, 2003. Schultz, James A. “Love without Desire in Mären of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Centuries.” In Mittelalterliche Novellistik im europäischen Kontext: Kulturwissenschaftliche Perspektiven, edited by Mark Chinca, Timo Reuvekamp-Felber, and Christopher Young, 122– 47. Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag, 2006.

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Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky. Between Men: English Literature and Male Homosocial Desire. New York: Columbia, 1985. Stadlin, Franz Karl. Der Topographie des Kantons Zug erster Theil. Vol. 4, Die Geschichte der Stadtgemeinde Zug. Lucern: Meyer, 1824. Staedtke, Joachim. “Heinrich Bullingers Bemühungen um eine Reformation im Kanton Zug.” Zwingliana 10 (1954): 24–47. Steiner, Werner. “Chronicon Tugiense de A. 1503 usque ad A. 1516.” Helvetia: Denkwürdigkeiten für die 22 Freistaaten der Schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft 7 (1832). Trumbach, Randolph. Sex and the Gender Revolution. Vol. 1, Heterosexuality and the Third Gender in Enlightenment London. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. Ussel, Jos van. Sexualunterdrückung: Geschichte der Sexualfeindschaft. Giessen: Focus, 1977. Wagner, Renata. “Ein nücz und schone ler von der aygen erkantnuß”: Des Pseudo-Johannes von Kastl ‘Spiritualis philosophia’ deutsch. Munich: Beck, 1972. Wirz, Caspar. Akten über die diplomatischen Beziehungen der römischen Kurie zu der Schweiz, 1512–52. In Quellen zur Schweizer Geschichte, vol. 16. Basel: A. Geering, 1895.

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“The First Form and Grace” Ignatius of Loyola and the Reformation of Masculinity Ulrike Strasser

T

he Society of Jesus is one of the great success stories of the sixteenth century. From its simple beginnings as a small circle of like-minded friends, a religious start-up company of sorts, it rapidly grew into an enterprise of global scale, attracting thousands of young men willing to join and eager to go wherever their mission should take them. Numbering only ten men at the time of its foundation in 1540, the Society expanded to 1,000 members by 1556, the year its founder, Ignatius of Loyola, died. Another decade later, in 1565–66, the Society’s membership had made a big jump to 3,500. The religious corporation kept growing throughout the century to reach an impressive total of 13,000 Jesuits worldwide by 1615. A stunning example of premodern religious globalization, the Society’s members quickly ventured into far-flung regions, weaving a missionary network that covered the vast distances from the metropoles of Europe to the colonial peripheries of Asia and the Americas.1 1

I would like to thank Amy Hollywood, Dani McClellan, Michelle Molina, Sarah Farmer, Michelle Hamilton, and Marc Baer for their helpful responses to different parts of this project. Special thanks go to Vivian Folkenflik for her thoughtful and thorough reading of the entire text. 1These numbers can be found in Smith, Sensuous Worship, 3. On the Society as a “world-spanning unity,” see Clossey, “Distant Souls.”

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In exploring the reasons for this breathtaking expansion of the Jesuit enterprise, much has been written about the Society’s spiritual appeal. The religious genius and charisma of its founder as well as some of his followers have been noted. Moreover, scholars have remarked on the Society’s potent combination of pastoral care, social activism, and intellectual engagement, which put it on the forefront of Tridentine Catholicism even if it was not founded to combat Protestantism. Last but not least, historians of the Society have identified its ability to minister to elites and rally political support as factors that account for its good fortunes.2 By comparison, very little has been said about another dimension of the Jesuit success story, although this aspect seems no less crucial to our understanding of the phenomenon—namely, the Society’s emotional appeal as an all-male organization and a homosocial fellowship of men who embodied a reimagined clerical masculinity that other men wanted to emulate.3 Alongside the religious crisis, and inseparable from it, the century of the Reformation witnessed a crisis of gender norms coupled with a profound challenge to traditional clerical masculinity.4 As Protestant reformers shifted the social site of sacrality from continent clerics to the procreative, patriarchal family, men who still donned the robes of the Catholic clergy were thus necessarily opting for both a faith and a type of manhood that was under attack. In this age of competing confessions and competing masculinities, what might have drawn men to the rather novel Society of Jesus? Differently put, what was so compelling about this redefinition of a masculine way of life as to persuade men to forgo other emotional attachments and male identities in order to become a Jesuit? This essay proposes that one can locate answers to these questions in the charismatic masculinity that Ignatius of Loyola as the founding father of the Jesuit order modeled for and generated in his followers. Ignatius presented an exemplar of a new type of manhood in a text commonly known as his Autobiography.5 During the decade of the Society’s most rapid expansion, this text circulated among its members and outsiders; Ignatius’s energetic emissary Jerome Nadal also employed the narrative as a recruitment tool in various European countries to explain the nature of the Jesuit 2See, for example, Bangert, A History of the Society of Jesus; O’Malley, The First Jesuits; Osuna, Friends in the Lord; Ravier, Ignatius of Loyola and the Founding of the Society of Jesus; Guibert, The Jesuits; and Rahner, The Spirituality of St. Ignatius of Loyola. 3For suggestions that point in this direction, see Rhodes, “Join the Jesuits, See the World.” 4Roper, “Was There a Crisis in Gender Relations?” 5Olin, Autobiography of St. Ignatius.

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vocation.6 What points of identification might men across Europe have found with the Basque nobleman-turned-religious? As a German historian, I want to consider aspects of Ignatian manhood that were particularly resonant for men from these confessionally embattled lands: his sexuality, piety, and relationships with others, especially women. Although the Autobiography barely touches on the subject of the Reformation, these features set Ignatian masculinity apart from Protestant manhood for German audiences. On several missionary journeys to the Holy Roman Empire, Jerome Nadal indeed invited such comparison by typecasting Ignatius as an “anti-Luther” and a new David facing the Lutheran Goliath.7 Ignatian manhood, however, had not been constituted in reaction to Protestantism; it was neither an embattled nor an anxious masculinity. Its affective appeal to German men rested on a double advantage: on the one hand, Ignatian manhood allowed for unambiguous differentiation from a threatening Protestant masculinity; on the other hand, it offered the possibility of resolving the emotional tensions that had come to surround Catholic clerical masculinity into a secure and comfortable identification with this type of manhood.

Conversations Between Fathers and Sons: The Autobiography as a Primary Source Ignatius’s Autobiography is an invaluable source for the history of the Jesuits but it also raises a host of interpretive problems. Ignatius related the narrative of his unfolding vocation orally, on three separate occasions between 1553 and 1555, to a younger member of his order, Luis Gonçalves da Câmara. Câmara first committed Ignatius’s story to memory before he had a chance to put a few notes on paper. Because of timing and circumstances, Câmara had to rely on different scribes, Spanish as well as Italian, when he dictated the full-length version of Ignatius’s recital. This complex production of the text, involving layers of personal memories and languages, cautions against simplistic approaches to this source as a factual account of the life of Ignatius of Loyola. Moreover, the rhetorical composition of this text, as Marjorie O’Rourke Boyle has argued in a fascinating study on the topic, suggests that its proper place is not in the genre of (auto)biography but that of epideictic rhetoric; the 6O’Malley, 7O’Malley,

“Historiography of the Society.” “Historiography of the Society,” 5.

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text’s purpose was to evoke in the reader a desire for emulation of its praiseworthy protagonist.8 In other words, its purpose was moral rather than biographical or historical in a straightforward empiricist sense. O’Rourke Boyle takes as her silver thread the text’s construction of Ignatius as a once vainglorious person who has learned—and can now teach others—how to master this vice. The structure, content, and historical uses of the text, however, indicate that the so-called Autobiography was also after a more specific imitation for its target audience. It functioned as a textual initiation into Jesuit manhood by presenting Ignatius as a male role model to be imitated by a male readership with a possible interest in joining the Society. The spiritual conversion runs parallel to a social conversion. The text begins at a point of crisis in Ignatius’s soldierly and chivalric manhood, the occasion on which he was wounded at Pamplona in 1521. It ends abruptly in 1538 while Ignatius is drafting constitutions for the Society, that is, after Ignatius and his companions arrive in Rome but before the actual founding of the Society. Câmara wants to peruse “all those papers relating to the constitutions,” but Ignatius refuses to show him.9 Clearly, his conversion from soldier to religious man, not the elaboration of rules of conduct, is the foundational event of the narrative.10 To be sure, a text’s ultimate effects hinge on the individual and often idiosyncratic interpretive acts of its readers.11 Yet even in the absence of explicit responses from readers, there is compelling evidence that Ignatius’s Autobiography was a potent rhetorical tool that made a deep and lasting impression on its target audience of male recruits. Above all, the text’s efficacy derived from the way in which it modeled as well as facilitated emotionally charged conversations among men. It gave rise thereby to a form of homosocial intimacy, an attentive and sustained response to the deepest concerns of the soul that was difficult to come by in other social and institutional arenas. As such, the experience provided a taste of one defining feature of a Jesuit’s life: the regular practice of self-examination under the guidance of a more spiritually advanced man, most notably during the spiritual exercises, which centered on the dyad of spiritual director and exercitant. While the institutions of the court, the university, and the craft workshop were homosocial in nature and accorded men interaction with 8See

Boyle, Loyola’s Acts. of St. Ignatius, 94. 10The plotline in Ignatius’s account represents a reversal of several contemporary autobiographies of soldiers. See Levisi, “Golden Age Autobiography,” esp. 100–106. 11Strohm, Theory and the Premodern Text; and Strohm, “Chaucer’s Audience(s).” 9Olin, Autobiography

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other men, these interactions were regulated by constant competition with one another. Knights, university scholars, and craftsmen alike established their masculinity first and foremost by measuring themselves against other men, especially their elders.12 By contrast, the homosocial milieu of the Society of Jesus emphasized cooperation among men for the sake of their common good (“the greater glory of God”) and fostered abiding emotional ties between spiritual fathers and their sons. Labeled a “paternal instruction” and “testament” by Jerome Nadal, Ignatius’s account of his unfolding vocation belongs on the continuum of advice literature written by fathers to their sons.13 According to the literary scholar Walter Ong, authors cast their readers in a specific role with respect to the text, a process he calls “fictionalizing the audience.” Beginning in the late Middle Ages, a framing narrative was often employed for this purpose. Luis Gonçalvas de Câmara used precisely this rhetorical device to structure his recounting of Ignatius’s story. In his preface, Câmara recounts the initial circumstances leading to the telling of the tale and invites the reader into the intimate initial oral setting that precedes and shapes the written account to follow.14 In so doing, Câmara introduces a father-son dynamic that is seminal for the reception of text. To put it in Ong’s terms, Câmara’s preface fictionalizes his reader as a son in dire need of “paternal instruction” who can count on his father’s ability, even eagerness, to provide it. This is mirrored within the narrative as Câmara describes an affectively intense, transformative encounter between two men. He recalls how he first approached Ignatius—whom he calls simply “the father”—in the garden of the Jesuit residence in Rome to give “an account of some of the inner concerns of my soul.” Ignatius in response relates incidents from his own life relevant to the son’s struggles and offers helpful advice to the troubled younger man. The effect is immediate and profound: “He spoke to me in this manner that greatly consoled me so that I could not restrain my tears.” Câmara’s tears of consolation model a response to Ignatius’s narration for those who hear or read it for the first time. The “moral contract” between author and reader demands that the latter embrace the value system of the former at least temporarily, if he wants to experience the emotional release promised by the text. 15 12This

is one of the main arguments developed in Karras, From Boys to Men (for example, 10–11). applied those terms to the autobiography; Olin, Autobiography of St. Ignatius, 1. 14Ong, “The Writer’s Audience Is Always a Fiction.” 15Ulrike Gleixner has argued that the principle of a “moral contract” also underlay the communicative act of early modern sermons, in this instance requiring of listeners that they enter the moral XXXXX 13Nadal

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The contract cuts both ways, though, according to Câmara’s preface. Ignatius is no less affected and transformed by the communication than the younger man. For many years, Jerome Nadal and Juan Alfonso de Polanco had failed to persuade Ignatius to give a full account of his spiritual journey, but the conversation with Câmara altered his view of the matter in terms of an obligation to God as well as to the listener: “When he retired to his room, he had a great desire and inclination to do it, and (speaking in a manner that showed that God had enlightened him as to his duty to do so) he had fully decided to reveal all that had occurred in his soul until now. He had also decided that I should be the one to whom he would reveal these things.”16 The preface portrays the son’s quest and his receptiveness to the father’s message as another precondition for the telling of the tale—a secret that will be shared with Câmara, who will in turn pass it on to equally receptive readers. But the broader dissemination of Ignatius’s story lay in other hands. Jerome Nadal, who (in John O’Malley’s assessment) more than anyone else, even Ignatius, gave the Society’s “first two generations their esprit de corps and taught them what it meant to be a Jesuit,” mined the narrative. He used it in his private conversations and sermons, as well as in speeches to Jesuits everywhere. Nadal saw in Ignatius an emblem of what God wanted for the Jesuit order, or in his own words, “the first form and grace” of the Society. When he learned that Ignatius had begun to tell his story to Câmara, he commented that “the father could do nothing of greater benefit…and that this was truly to found the Society.”17 Not the acts of the founder, suggests Nadal, but Ignatius’s modeling of the conversion process in the Autobiography renders the Society possible. Subsequently, this textual source was a focal point for the father-to-son conversations that Nadal carried on during his many sojourns across Europe. Missionary work in German lands rated among Nadal’s highest priorities for the Society. Troubled by the conditions he encountered during a first journey there in 1555, he pushed the Society to intensify its efforts in the Holy Roman Empire and himself returned for two extended visits in 16

universe of the preacher in order to experience an emotional catharsis. Using the example of the baroque preacher, Abraham a Sancta Clara, Gleixner argues that this dynamic explains the efficacy of sermons in transmitting gender norms to audiences; see Gleixner, “Weibliche Zanksucht und männliche Trunksucht,” esp. 92–93, 100–101. 16Olin, Autobiography of St. Ignatius, 15–16. 17Olin, Autobiography of St. Ignatius, 17. In secular society, the founding of a household and the writing of an autobiography for posterity often coincided. See Wunder, “What Made a Man a Man?”

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1562–63 and 1566–67.18 Nadal’s activities in Germany spanned the years from the completion of the Autobiography to the consolidation of the Society’s distinct “way of proceeding” and the gradual replacement of Ignatius’s own recital with a lengthy vita by Pedro de Ribadeneyra, which was officially commissioned and composed with an eye towards the founder’s canonization.19 The number of Jesuits in the empire, which was merely fifty in 1555, increased eightfold by 1575, with many new recruits from German lands signing on to a life in the Society. No doubt, Ignatius’s Autobiography and the skillful employment of this text by the gifted rhetorician Nadal contributed to the phenomenal increase in numbers.20 Nadal certainly believed in the power of “the father’s” example to spawn more spiritual sons. What was at stake was not sexual reproduction but another, no less potent, kind of propagation. As Nadal would put it to an audience in Cologne in 1567, Ignatius’s gift of his conversion story was a generative act: “The whole life of the Society is contained in germ and expressed in Ignatius’s story.”21

Chastity Made Easy? Ignatius and the Question of Sexuality By the time of Ignatius, continence had long been established as a hallmark of clerical masculinity—even if individual clerics honored the ideal in its occasional breach rather than consistent fulfillment. To give up the freedom to act on carnal desire was a threshold that one simply had to cross on the path from layperson to religious man. The meaning of vows of poverty and obedience left some room for negotiation, whereas the vow of chastity was unequivocal. Not surprisingly, in the adulthood conversion described in Ignatius’s Autobiography, the embrace of chastity stands at the very beginning. Câmara’s account proffers no details about Ignatius’s earlier experiences with women but includes a vague general remark about “youthful escapades” in the preface that could well refer to sexual adventures.22 Ignatius’s early life as soldier 18O’Malley,

First Jesuits, 275. Jesuits objected to the substitution; O’Malley, “Historiography of the Society of Jesus,” 7. On Ribadeneyra narrative and his role as an “image-maker,” see Levy, Propaganda, 118–27. On Ribadeneyra’s varied activities as a biographer, see Bilinkoff, “Many ‘Lives’ of Pedro de Ribadeneyra.” 20O’Malley, First Jesuits, 275. 21Cited in O’Malley, First Jesuits, 65. 22Olin, Autobiography of St. Ignatius, 16. 19Some

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and knight make this reference plausible. Indeed, continence becomes an issue when Ignatius experiences a severe crisis in his soldierly and chivalric masculinity during the period of convalescence after the battle of Pamplona. Military prowess has brought him into bed, where he now finds himself blocked in his ability to perform like the man he used to be. It does not help that there is no reading material to restore his chivalric manhood. “True adherence to knightly models of masculinity,” as Ruth Karras has pointed out, “required living up to literary models.” 23 Without access to chivalric books, Ignatius resorts to religious texts to pass the time. The pull towards imitation of literary models is no less powerful but is now directed towards clerical masculinity. Although Ignatius still indulges fantasies about “what he would do in the service of a certain lady,” a competing set of self-images intrudes more and more forcefully. He contemplates whether he should follow the masculine path of St. Francis or St. Dominic, and he substitutes concern for the suffering of others for his suffering for a lady.24 In the end, it all happens quickly. Once Ignatius has decided to leave his old life behind and is already forgetting about the lady, he immediately has a vision that confirms such amnesia as salutary. The Virgin Mary—a remote and disembodied femininity that is both like and unlike that of the courtly lady—appears with the Christ child. Rather than elaborating the vision, the text elaborates its emotional effects: From this sight he received for a considerable time very great consolation, and he was left with such loathing for his whole past life and especially for the things of the flesh that it seemed that all the fantasies he had previously pictured in his mind were driven from it. Thus from that hour until August 1553 when this was written, he never gave the slightest consent to the things of the flesh.25 This is not merely a spiritual experience but an experience of great emotional catharsis, as Ignatius moves from sexual desire to “loathing” to the permanent purgation of all “fantasies.” This note of relief concludes the discussion of Ignatius’s continence in the Autobiography, and the narrative never returns to it again. Struggles with sexual desire, so central to the 23Karras,

From Boys to Men, 66. of St. Ignatius, 23. 25Olin, Autobiography of St. Ignatius, 24–25. 24Olin, Autobiography

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Reformation campaign, are remarkably peripheral and relatively mild in the account of Ignatius’s unfolding vocation. In the same way that the reading of religious texts sparked Ignatius’s desire to imitate the religious life and facilitated a rapid transition into chaste clerical manhood, the reading of the Autobiography held the promise of similar results for other men. The Ignatius of the Autobiography furthermore models how to protect the chastity of others. In one instance his actions are directed against his old peer group, the soldiers, in another instance, against his new peer group of clerics, but in both cases he differentiates himself from his peers. On his journey to Rome in 1523, Ignatius finds himself traveling with a mother and her daughter. The group is separated during a stay at a hostel that also houses many soldiers. Loud screams awake Ignatius in the middle of the night as the military men have attempted to rape the women. He cannot help but object loudly, even though this means risking an attack. His old soldierly bravery, the scene intimates, has become harnessed to a more recent rejection of sexuality and violence. He is choosing a new kind of homosocial companionship that is commensurate with his new masculine self-understanding.26 Spiritualized bravery is also evident in a second moral intervention. Immediately upon his return to Spain in 1535 from his studies in Paris, Ignatius embarks upon a campaign against concubinage. He persuades the governor of Azpeitia to outlaw the popular practice whereby priests’ concubines covered their heads as if they were legal wives.27 Ignatius appears here as an agent of moral purification who fears neither custom nor other clerics. In so doing, he prefigures a role that Jesuits subsequently assumed in many places after the Council of Trent, often to the dismay of local clerics. In the wake of the Reformation, the sexual purity of Catholic priests took on new urgency as an embodiment of fundamental doctrinal differences from Protestantism. Biological reproduction and fatherhood had long been mainstays of masculinity for men in the secular world. In denouncing the holiness of chastity and advocating an active sexuality within marriage for everyone, Protestants sought to turn their clerics into men like any other—a male priesthood of married, sexually active believers. Tridentine Catholics asserted the superiority of chastity to marriage by insisting on the 26Olin, Autobiography

of St. Ignatius, 45–46. Autobiography of St. Ignatius, 83. On the various reforms initiated by Ignatius in Azpeitia and their legal aspects, see Brieskorn, “Ignatius in Azpeitia 1535,” esp. 107–8, on the issue of clerical concubinage. 27Olin,

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sexual purity of priests and securing it through anticoncubinage campaigns. This uncompromising emphasis on purity more than ever cast Catholic clerics as unlike other men.28 Jesuits became instrumental in producing this growing divide among Catholic men on the issue of sexual purity. It is interesting that Germany where Nadal forcefully promoted Ignatius’s example was home to men who were willing to play just this role. When Michel de Montaigne traveled through the duchy of Bavaria in 1580, he could not help but note: The Jesuits who govern strongly in this land have caused considerable agitation and made themselves hated by the people, because, under threat of heavy penalties, they have forced the clergy to drive away their concubines; according to the complaints of the clergy, this appears to have been a generally tolerated condition, as if it were a legitimate tradition.29 To go against tradition and popular sentiment, fellow clerics, and countrymen took conviction and emotional strength. What made this stance a psychological possibility for young men? One answer may be the way that Jesuits came to the Tridentine agenda of moral purification from a less defensive place, and with an agenda of their own. The Ignatius of the Autobiography is not primarily concerned with the enforcement of chastity, or more broadly speaking, with fighting the Reformation. His primary concern is the betterment of souls, his own and those of others, and this becomes the primary mission for the men who joined his order. 30 Defined neither by sexuality nor its absence, Ignatian masculinity fit with the clerical masculinity envisioned at Trent but did not share its more defensive features. Arguably, this made Ignatian masculinity a more secure and hence more inviting variant of Tridentine manhood.

Of Scruples and Tears: A New Piety for a New Man As befits a religious man, Ignatius’s piety was the core feature of his masculinity, setting the parameters for inner states as well as outer achievements. The Autobiography paints the picture of a quasi-androgynous, spiritually 28Dürr,

“…‘die Macht und Gewalt der Priestern aber ist ohne Schrancken,’” esp. 76. in Lederer, “Reforming the Spirit,” 162. 30See the nuanced treatment of the complex relations among the Society of Jesus, the CounterReformation, and Catholic Reform by O’Malley, “Was Ignatius of Loyola a Church Reformer?” 29Cited

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complex, and initially rather tormented person who achieves a new equilibrium of feeling and acting. In the end, Ignatius emerges as a religious man who draws on masculine and feminine elements to forge an action-oriented mysticism that differentiates him from both female and male mystics. To begin with Ignatius’s more feminine attributes, passages of his Autobiography echo the themes of suffering, fasting, and emotiveness that have become familiar from the life histories of female mystics. Ignatius tortures himself with excessive worries (“scruples”) about his sins with a depth of self-doubt and spiritual suffering that is more commonly found in hagiographies of women.31 At Manresa, the location of Ignatius’s most decisive spiritual experiences, he undergoes a period of severe scruples that no amount of confession is able to cure. “Although he realized that those scruples did him much harm and that it would be wise to be rid of them, he could not do that himself.”32 Thrown into a suicidal state, he determines “that he would not eat or drink until God took care of him or until he saw that death was indeed near.” Like many a fasting female mystic before him, Ignatius saves his appetites for the Eucharist alone and does not “break off his abstinence” until ordered by a confessor.33 At least a few of Ignatius’s followers noted the father’s capacity to metamorphose into modes typically considered feminine. His later biographer Ribadeneyra, whom Ignatius had taken under his wing as a boy, reminisced about Ignatius’s maternal qualities as a leader, recalling fondly how he had “raised me at his breasts since my childhood and tender age.” 34 Such metaphorical uses of the feminine, even of the female breast, were not new in religious writings by men. These themes appeared in earlier Cistercian texts, like those of Bernard of Clairvaux, and have led Caroline Bynum to argue that the primary purpose of feminine imagery was to mitigate the power of masculine officeholding, to soften the emotional impact of male authority on subordinate men.35 Strategic femininity by the male leadership also had an important psychological function in the Society of Jesus with its strict hierarchies and emphasis on obedience. It could smooth over the inevitable tensions of father-son relationships that it created in the first place.36 31See

the comprehensive analysis of the lives of 864 saints by Weinstein and Bell, Saints and Society, 40. of St. Ignatius, 34–35. 33Olin, Autobiography of St. Ignatius, 36. 34Cited in Bilinkoff, “Many ‘Lives’ of Pedro de Ribadeneyra,” 185n15. 35Bynum, Jesus as Mother, 110–69. 36In the world at large, the Jesuits voluntarily assumed a more feminine position with respect to XXXXX 32Olin, Autobiography

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Ignatius’s capacity to weep represents another defining feature of his piety. Ignatius made frequent tears part of the range of affects that characterizes the experience of a Jesuit; in so doing, he recoded weeping as a truly masculine ability in terms of his new definition of clerical manhood. The Autobiography indeed charts Ignatius’s spiritual progress in his developing ability to cry. From a wounded soldier suppressing his tears during two painful surgeries, he grows into a fervent believer who experiences “so much sobbing that he could not control himself.”37 At the very end of the story, when Ignatius is working on the constitutions for his order, copious crying has become a daily habit: “…he always said the prayer and the mass with tears.”38 The gender of tears was ambiguous in Ignatius’s culture. Depending on the context, tears could be associated with either masculinity or femininity, or with both. The chivalric masculinity in which Ignatius was raised, for instance, included a conception of weeping as particularly manly. Knightly manhood required a flaunting of emotions. This turned the knight’s public tears into one measure of the depth of feeling of which he was capable and thus into a measure of his manhood.39 When the Ignatius of the Autobiography learns how to cry for Christ, he can draw on chivalric ideals of manhood and transpose them into a religious register. El Cid, the paragon of Spanish male identity, provided Ignatius with another powerful model of a hero whose tears enhanced rather than eroded his masculinity. The famous El Canter de Mio Cid indeed opens with El Cid “crying from his eyes” at the sight of the home he is forced to leave along with all the material objects signifying his wealth and status; this oral-formulaic phrase made its way into other epics, chronicle texts, and the romances as well.40 More to the point, the epic of El Cid and its ethics of masculinity fed directly into the bellicose culture of the Reconquest, which offered men ways of fusing together military and religious

37

the power of office, staying clear of the “papacy, episcopacy, pastorate” and embracing humility as the hallmark of their vocation; O’Malley, “Was Ignatius of Loyola a Church Reformer?” 181–82. 37Olin, Autobiography of St. Ignatius, 22. He first sheds tears when he recognizes he has acted out of vainglory rather than charity in giving his clothes to a beggar; Olin, Autobiography of St. Ignatius, 32. His first uncontrollable weeping occurs in Manresa after a vision; Olin, Autobiography of St. Ignatius, 38. See Boyle, Loyola’s Acts, 68. 38Olin, Autobiography of St. Ignatius, 94. 39Karras, From Boys to Men, 65. 40Rico, Cantar de Mio Cid, 103. For example, the Chanson de Roland contains a variation of the phrase; Michael, Poema de Mio Cid, 75n1.

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traits and behaviors into a single subjectivity and shaped clerical culture in the centuries prior to the lifetime of Ignatius.41 Weeping, of course, also had another religious pedigree in the penitential and compassionate weeping that grew out of monastic practice to become a widespread form of devotion in the late Middle Ages. As is true of many cultures, this religious weeping was coded mainly yet not exclusively as feminine in the Christian West.42 The unrestrained flow of tears was one manifestation of God’s flowing grace and gifts to his saints, male as well as female.43 It was a particular hallmark of the affective piety that came to be associated with dramatic female weepers such as Margery Kempe. Yet Margery’s tears and those of other saintly women were part of a tradition that also included the public sobs of holy men, like those of St. Francis of Assisi, whose example in turn was a trigger and a template for Ignatius’s conversion.44 Ignatius’s innovation consists of resolving this ambiguity surrounding tears by unequivocally claiming them as masculine for himself and his sons. Here it is important to note that the overall purpose of the body in Ignatian spirituality diverged from that in Franciscan spirituality and was directed toward exclusively masculine ends. Francis’s affective piety was bound up with a more severe asceticism. Bonaventure’s Life of St. Francis, the Franciscan order’s preferred hagiography, reports extreme austerities and other acts of willful destruction of the body. Francis makes no secret of his view that the flesh is above all a locus of sin and an obstacle to the spirit: “He used to call his body Brother Ass, for he felt it should be subjected to heavy labor, beaten frequently with whips, and fed with the poorest food.”45 Francis whittles away at his body to facilitate the entering of the spirit, a process that culminates for him famously in receiving the stigmata and being “totally transformed into the likeness of Christ crucified.”46 By contrast, Ignatius embraced and advocated a more tempered asceticism. His action-oriented mysticism required a body made porous for the divine yet strong enough to carry out the kinds of missions in distant 41I

am very grateful to Michelle Hamilton for alerting me to these texts and connections. a cross-cultural and comparative view, see Patton and Hawley, Holy Tears, esp. 12–14, on gender and weeping. 43McEntire, Doctrine of Compunction, 1–63; and Boyle, Loyola’s Acts, 68–69. 44Atkinson, Mystic and Pilgrim, 129–56. 45Bonaventure…Life of St. Francis, trans. Cousins, 222. 46Bonaventure…Life of St. Francis, trans. Cousins, 303–7, quote at 306. 42For

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lands that were the domain of men. The tears of missionary men, while softening the soul, should not flow from an unduly weakened body. His constitutions for the Society featured a separate chapter entitled “The Preservation of the Body,” in which Ignatius demands from his followers proper care of the physical self: Just as an excessive preoccupation over the needs of the body is blameworthy, so too a proper concern about the preservation of one’s health and bodily strength for the divine service is praiseworthy and all should exercise it.47 The Autobiography dates Ignatius’s turn toward a modicum of selfpreservation as part of the Manresa period. A fervent Ignatius who was driven to forgo sleep in order to converse with God comes to the conclusion that this impulse was probably of demonic origin and that he should “sleep for the appointed hour.” Around the same time, Ignatius breaks his long abstinence and resumes the consumption of meat. He remains convinced that this dietary change accords with God’s will even though his confessor raises concerns to the contrary.48 Significantly, Câmara’s account follows this information with a discussion of how much God taught Ignatius at the time and the uncontrollable tears and great stirrings of the soul that resulted. Alongside the affective excess, one also finds a caution against excessive demands upon the body and self-exploitation, a call for moderation that was coded as masculine in early modern culture and invoked in support of exclusively male missionary work. Heightened religious affect arises in Ignatian devotion where excess meets self-restraint and the preservation of physical stamina. The result is a manhood that is at once highly emotional and properly regulated, in fact almost hypermasculine in proportion to the volatility of affect contained by a physically active missionary body. The appeal of Ignatian piety was not lost on young Catholic men in the German Empire. Like Martin Luther’s spiritual crisis, Ignatius’s “great scruples” revolved around their time’s most pressing question: how will I be saved? Ignatius gave a Catholic answer by forging a new kind of apostolate that integrated good works and faith as much as it integrated the best of masculine and feminine qualities. Consequently, this new apostolate

47Ignatius

of Loyola, ed. Ganss, 292. of St. Ignatius, 36–37.

48Olin, Autobiography

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broadened the range of affective experiences and emotional vocabulary available to men. German Jesuits followed in the father’s footsteps when they resorted to maternal images, such as that of the mother bear, to explain their pastoral role in sermons.49 They embraced feminine qualities in themselves and attempted to instill them in other men. Thus the Jesuit school in Münster taught boys the same virtues that contemporary advice manuals advocated for girls: “moderation, simplicity, decorum, and shame as befits honorable priests and clerical men.”50 Ignatius’s example was able to authorize practices like those of the Ingolstadt Jesuit Jakob Rem (1546–1618). Rem acquired a reputation for holiness on the basis of abilities typically associated with saintly women: prophetic speech, great capacity to deliver souls from purgatory, and the ability to levitate.51 While contemporary holy women in Bavaria tended to perform such feats behind cloister walls, Rem’s maleness allowed for a public staging of pious practices coded as feminine.52 This gender fluidity arose directly from Ignatius’s unique and compelling combination of affective piety and active involvement in the world.

Negotiating Masculinity, Negotiating Otherness According to John O’Malley, a consideration of the interaction between European Jesuits and various others is indispensable to understanding Jesuits.53 Likewise, such consideration seems indispensable to understanding their masculinity. Ignatius’s Autobiography opens a window onto dynamics between Jesuits and two other groups: nonbelievers and women. For Ignatius and his later followers, settling into a comfortable relationship with these two particular groups was a true milestone on the way to a new masculinity. How to deal with men of other faiths? A scene that occurs shortly after Ignatius’s convalescence encapsulates the answer. On his way to Montserrat, Ignatius contemplates how best to perform deeds for God’s glory, when he is presented with an opportunity in the person of a “Moor”

49Dürr,

“…‘die Macht und Gewalt der Priestern aber ist ohne Schrancken,’” 81. “…‘die Macht und Gewalt der Priestern aber ist ohne Schrancken,’” 81–82. 51Johnson, “Blood, Tears, and Xavier-Water,” 200. 52Examples can be found in Strasser, State of Virginity, esp. 119–48. See also Strasser, “Una profetessa in tempo di guerra.” 53O’Malley, “Historiography of the Society,” 25–26. 50Dürr,

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(moro). After the forced expulsion earlier in the century, this could only be a Muslim convert.54 The text’s deployment of the derogatory moro instead of the historically accurate morisco marks the man as never fully Christian. The term foreshadows the lesson about profound otherness that follows. The Moor’s otherness manifests itself in religious as well as gender unorthodoxy. Moro was a term for sodomite, the binary opposite of the Latin vir or real man.55 Moreover, this “Moro” starts to argue with Ignatius about the perpetual virginity of Mary. He contends that there were many “natural reasons” for the Virgin Mary to lose her virginity when Christ was born. Ignatius tries his best to persuade his interlocutor but to no avail. The man disappears, and Ignatius regrets that he let him attack the Virgin’s honor without consequences; men of his class were taught to defend women’s sexual honor.56 Even though Ignatius is tempted to chase the man down and kill him with his dagger, he ultimately lets his mule be guided by God and pick a path that leads away from the man and his murder. When he finally arrives in Montserrat, Ignatius once and for all exchanges the dagger for a pilgrim’s staff at the altar of Our Lady. 57 The contrasting phallic images of dagger and staff are emblematic of a shift in masculine identities. The dagger stands for a life of warfare, aggression, and the defense of women’s honor. The pilgrim’s staff stands for a life of service for God, wandering the earth, forgoing violence. By trading one for the other, Ignatius is changed from a soldier to a soldier of Christ. He will continue to be brave but will now be brave on behalf of God. He will no longer think of “a certain lady” but pledge all his loyalty to the Queen of Heaven. Manly interaction with religious others for whom the Moor is a standin facilitates this shift. Ignatius as exemplar in this scene encourages active engagement—he argues with the man—and discourages a violent response: he abandons his desire to kill him. The manly thing to do is to not fight with weapons but with words, to channel one’s aggression into persuasive rhetoric and education. Work with Muslims would become an important aspect of Jesuit missionary work within Europe.58 But Ignatius, a citizen of a colonial power, 54Boyle,

Loyola’s Acts, 61. Carvajal, Butterflies Will Burn. 56Boyle, Loyola’s Acts, 63. 57Olin, Autobiography of St. Ignatius, 31–32. 58The Jesuit mission to convert Muslim slaves in Naples has been documented by Selwyn, “Planting Many Virtues There.” Cf. Selwyn, “Procuring in the Common People These Better Behaviors.” 55Garza

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also models a way of relating to others outside of Europe and presents a masculine alternative to the violent conquistador. In the colonial setting, the missionary, like the conquistador, would be displaced from the disciplinary restraints of familiar social relationships, easy prey to misguided impulses. Ignatius here typifies a controlled and clerical masculinity that resorts to arguments and not blows, to conversion instead of conquest. This critique of the conquistador masculinity, albeit embodied and implicit rather than articulated and elaborated, mirrors that of his compatriot and contemporary Bartolomé de Las Casas.59 But what might male Catholic audiences in Germany have made of this episode? The Moor was a distant figure for them, and colonial adventures were no more than armchair fantasies after the collapse of the German colony in Venezuela in 1555.60 Yet this heretic’s claims were not unlike those of Protestants who also combined religious difference and the disruption of sexual norms. It seems a short conceptual step from the Moor’s assertion that “natural reasons” would lead even the Virgin Mary towards a sexually active life to the Protestant invocation of a natural sex drive and the reformers’ demotion of the holy Virgin to a mere human being. Like Ignatius, German Catholic men could well feel the sting of an attack on the honor of Mary. Along the same lines, Ignatius’s response strikes deep chords for German Catholic audiences. He does not fight the Virgin’s detractors with his dagger, but discovers a new manhood—for him and his future companions—in devotion to this idealized femininity. This concept of a brotherhood dedicated to an abstract feminine principle was bound to fall on fertile ground in German areas like Bavaria, where Jesuits kindled the flames of an already impassioned cult of Mary.61 It seems no coincidence that the first treatise on the Virgin by a Jesuit, De Maria virgine incomparabili (also known as Opus Marianum), was published by the apostle of Germany, Petrus Canisius, in Ingolstadt in 1577.62 Ignatius’s relationships with real women were no less important to the formation of Jesuit masculinity. In contrast to other all-male organizations, such as the university, the question of women’s exclusion was not 59On Las Casas as a critic of conquistador masculinity as an emerging new form of manhood, see Connell, Masculinities, 187. See also Bilinkoff, “Francisco Losa and Gregorio Lopez.” 60On the importance of imaginary colonialism to early modern Germans and the sixteenthcentury Venezuelan adventure as a colonial “urfantasy,” see Zantop, Colonial Fantasies. 61Soergel, Wondrous in His Saints, 27–43 and 163–65. 62Baumstark, ed., Rom in Bayern, 548–49; and O’Malley, First Jesuits, 270.

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raised at the beginnings of the Society of Jesus, but was rather the result of long negotiation during a process of masculine self-definition. The formal exclusion of women from the order occurred only in 1547, after the events recounted in the Autobiography, but before the actual composition and dissemination of the text (which was then used by Nadal to construct a much more homosocial world than it describes). In a sense, women’s official exclusion was a sequel to the Autobiography, since intensifying connection with some of its female characters, notably Isabel Roser, who attempted to start a female branch of Jesuits, prompted Ignatius to take this step. 63 The Autobiography already conjures up the dangers and difficulties of supervising women. At the same time, it reveals Ignatius’s special bond with women and disagreement among his companions over the extent of their involvement with the other sex. Women play important roles in Ignatius’s unfolding vocation. They repeatedly nurse him back to health and provide material, emotional, and even spiritual support for him and his companions. During his early days at Manresa, Ignatius fell seriously ill but was cared for by “many prominent ladies.” They held night watches and made sure he dressed properly after his recovery.64 Also at Manresa, he received his most profound advice from “a woman of great age who had long been a servant of God.”65 Although Ignatius was trying hard to find other spiritual guides, “she alone seemed to him to enter more deeply into spiritual matters. Therefore, after leaving Barcelona, he completely lost this eagerness to seek out spiritual persons.”66 Yet with few exceptions, notably Ignatius’s benefactress Isabel Roser, the women in the Autobiography remain anonymous. This rhetoric of anonymity downplays the de facto significance of women at the Society’s founding, which shines through the Autobiography in many places and has been documented in detail by Olwen Hufton for the 1540s and early 1550s. During his time in Rome in particular, Ignatius looked to influential female patrons to open doors for him and to help him develop the kind of support network that would guarantee the approval and long-term survival of his religious order. He proved himself a gracious recipient of their favors at the time. But once Jesuits found favor among high-powered men, “a sign of their arrival in power politics,” women’s role in promoting the 63Rahner,

ed., Letters to Women, 262–95. of St. Ignatius, 41. 65Olin, Autobiography of St. Ignatius, 34. 66Olin, Autobiography of St. Ignatius, 43. 64Olin, Autobiography

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Society declined dramatically and their contributions began to fade from historical memory.67 The Autobiography shows traces of the same amnesia. The Autobiography also speaks to the perceived dangers of close contact with women. When a married woman visits Ignatius in a hospital in Alcala several mornings in a row, promptly removing her veil before she enters his room, rumors reach the vicar general Juan Rodríguez de Figueroa, and the rumors become part of an investigation. And when two women, a widow and her daughter, subsequently disappear from the city to go on a pilgrimage by themselves, Ignatius finds himself hauled up in jail under suspicion that he encouraged the dishonorable behavior. Only after the women return and confirm that they had acted on their own accord is he released from confinement.68 Accordingly, caution in malefemale relationships is the message that Ignatius gives his followers. Shortly after their arrival in Rome, he addresses his companions with a request to that effect: “It is necessary that we be very careful of ourselves and that we not enter into conversations with women, unless they are prominent.” 69 The order shows that Ignatius held a class-based view of women, which had him distinguish between trustworthy upper-class women and potential patrons on the one hand, and women who posed a risk to him and his society on the other.70 In this instance, the sons do not heed the father’s advice—with predictable results. Two of his followers have to face unlawful accusations when two women whom they visited to discuss spiritual matters later become pregnant.71 While fear of scandal no doubt played a role in Ignatius’s refusal to accept a female branch of his order, his statements on the subject give the impression that this motive is secondary to Ignatius’s deep desire to maintain freedom of movement and the primacy of men’s commitments to each other.72 He wanted only sons, no daughters, in his permanent care. Of the examples set by Franciscans and Dominicans, Ignatius noted, “We observe how their orders are much burdened and troubled by the constant

67Hufton, “Altruism and Reciprocity,” quote at 329. Hufton focuses on Leonor de Mascareñas, Leonora de Vega Osorio, and her daughter Isabel. 68Olin, Autobiography of St. Ignatius, 63–65. 69Olin, Autobiography of St. Ignatius, 89. 70Hufton also remarks on this categorization; “Altruism and Reciprocity,” 332–33. 71Olin, Autobiography of St. Ignatius, 89. 72This interpretation differs from Hufton, who speculates that Ignatius was driven primarily by the desire of “guarding his new order against all imputations of scandal”; Hufton, “Altruism and Reciprocity,” 333.

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complaints of their houses of nuns.”73 It was the Society’s calling, he outlined in his constitutions, to “be ready at any time to go from one part of the world to another, wherever they may be sent by the supreme pontiff or their superiors.” Formalized spiritual care of women threatened to tie down his men and obstruct their manly missions, which included adventures afar. “We must always stand with one foot raised, so to speak,” Ignatius explained to a Spanish lawyer and advocate of women’s admission into the Society, “that we may be able to run freely from one place to another.”74 The choice of verb, not just moving or walking but running freely, hints at a religious variant of the male fear of commitment. Ignatius indeed achieved an unusual degree of male autonomy for his order. St. Francis fought all his life to prevent the organization of a female branch and, unlike Ignatius, saw women as a source of sin best avoided. 75 St. Dominic had every intention of keeping the cura monialium to a manageable minimum. In the end, the papacy overruled the wishes of both men and forced them to accept women religious into their permanent care.76 In stark contrast to his religious role models, Ignatius was able to enlist a papacy under shock at the Reformation to make his Society the only exclusively male religious order. Pope Paul III had already granted Isabel Roser and two of her companions their wish to take vows and place themselves in the obedience of Ignatius, when the latter persuaded the pope to go back on his command, release the women from their vows, and deny all future female requests of this kind.77 To be sure, an all-male, highly mobile troop of missionaries under papal command suited Ignatius’s vision as well as the needs of a papacy faced with the rising tide of Protestantism. After the papacy officially absolved the Society from the burden of cura monialium in 1547, Ignatius could invoke obedience to the pope, a higher masculine authority, to justify his refusal to admit women. He uses this line of argument in a letter to Spanish nuns eager to be admitted into his obedience, in which he further redescribed his Society as a thoroughly masculine invention by claiming 73Memorandum on a female branch given to Father Miguel Torres upon his departure for Spain in November 1545; Rahner, Letters to Women, 308. 74Emphasis mine. The comment was directed at Mateo Murranos, a Spanish lawyer; Rahner, Letters to Women, 254. 75Bonaventure …Life of St. Francis, trans. Cousins, 222. 76The classic account remains that by Grundmann, Religiöse Bewegungen im Mittelalter, 208–73. 77Juana, Infanta of Spain and daughter of Charles V and Isabella, remains “the only Jesuitess on record,” a circumstance which the society could not prevent but attempted to keep secret; Hufton, “Altruism and Reciprocity,” 337.

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that women’s exclusion had always been part of the design. Barring women meant cementing bonds among men, horizontally and vertically: The vicar of Christ has closed the door against our taking on any government or superintendence of religious, a thing which the Society begged from the beginning. It is judged that it would be for the greater service of God…that we should have as few ties as possible in order to be able to go wherever obedience to the Sovereign Pontiff…may call us.78 The papal privilege of 1547 gave Jesuits maximum control over their connection to women. Their pastoral work did not preclude emotionally intensive relationships and spiritual friendships with women of the kind Ignatius modeled in his Autobiography. Jesuits, as is well known, were popular confessors among nuns as well as laywomen. Rumor had it that they were in the habit of “coming between a man and a wife.” 79 But while women’s structural neediness for sacramental mediation brought with it a steady supply of female charges, the papal privilege presented Jesuits with an out, and even an obligation, to place their attachment to each other as brothers above that to women or possible sisters. This dialectic between satisfying contact with women and unchallenged male homosociality can be observed in the German Empire and appears to be another decisive factor in the Society’s successful recruitment of men from these regions. Bavarian Jesuits, for example, attempted to obstruct the presence of Mary Ward and her “Jesuitesses,” insisting on their independence from the group. Although Ward and her followers made their place in the religious landscape, they had to forgo their ambition to create a female counterpart to the Society.80 Yet the same men were at the forefront of ministering to women, be it the ladies of the Wittelsbach courts, the throngs of laywomen who sought them out as confessors and soul-doctors (Seelenärzte), or the female possessed whom Jesuits cured in public exorcisms.81 When it came to women, Jesuits could enter relations 78Letter to Teresa Rejadella, Benedictine convent in Barcelona, 15 May 1549; Rahner, Letters to Women, 355. 79Hufton, “Altruism and Reciprocity,” 345. 80Strasser, State of Virginity, 155–63. For other examples of interaction between “Jesuitesses” and Jesuits, see Conrad, Zwischen Kloster und Welt. 81New members were often admitted to the Society of Jesus because they had a talent and willingness to become examiners of women penitents; Bilinkoff, Related Lives, 19-21. On Jesuits as doctors of the soul, see Lederer, Madness, Religion, and the State. High-profile female exorcisms by Jesuits are discussed in Roper, “Exorcism and the Theology of the Body.”

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without certain obligations; they enjoyed a freedom to interact and form emotional attachments together with the freedom to avoid permanent commitment and prioritize homosocial bonds among men. In short, they had the best of both worlds.

Findings In her impressive recent history of masculinity in late medieval Europe, Ruth Karras has highlighted the crucial importance of fatherhood and patrilineality to hegemonic conceptions of manhood. To father legitimate children and pass on one’s name and property were most manly acts. In spite of the significance of fatherhood, however, Karras also notes that companionate relationships between fathers and sons remained scarce in literary sources: “Fathers may be proud of their sons, but do not play a major role in their formation. It was the fact of patrilineal reproduction, rather than the relationship with a son, that contributed to medieval manhood.”82 This essay has identified a key to the Jesuits’ phenomenal recruitment of young men in the Society’s promise of a lifelong homosociality that centered on emotionally sustaining father-son relationships, and blended companionate and hierarchical bonds in psychologically compelling ways. A template of such a relationship underlies the production as well as the uses of the Autobiography of Ignatius, the Society’s Urvater. The formation of the Jesuit, this text suggests, emerges in the dyad between father and son, spiritual director and exercitant. Of course, other male religious orders too provided venues for men to experience forms of spiritual kinship and religious patrilineality. The Society of Jesus alone, however, created a technology of the self, the spiritual exercises, which was also a technology of a father-son intimacy that was hard to come by in the world at large. But what specifically in Father Ignatius might have prompted young German men to become sons in his order? This essay has argued that the Ignatius of the Autobiography embodied masculine qualities that appealed to Catholic Germans after the turmoil of the Reformation. While forged at a time of crisis in clerical masculinity, Ignatian manhood was not formulated as an answer to this crisis but offered a model of manhood that was distinctly Catholic yet self-assured as well as novel.

82Karras,

From Boys to Men, 166.

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As with all forms of masculinity, the meaning of Ignatian masculinity was centrally constituted with respect to the feminine and females. Notably, his particular manhood made ample room for the feminine at the level of symbolic but firmly established boundaries with actual women. These boundaries provided stability and made it less pressing for Jesuits to reject feminine qualities in themselves. By simply belonging to the order one had already proven oneself to be a man and could now cultivate aspects of the feminine. Accordingly, Ignatian piety allowed for a broad range of emotional and sensual experiences, a blend of disposition and practices that early modern society coded as masculine and feminine. It also fostered ardent devotion to the idealized femininity of the Virgin Mary. These symbolic valorizations of the feminine made for a stark contrast with Protestants. Ignatian masculinity, of course, also diverged from Protestant manhood with respect to actual women. Ignatius represented the chaste clergy for whom continence, once achieved during conversion, ceased to be an emotional struggle. At the same time, he modeled for his followers how to cultivate emotionally and spiritually sustaining connections with women. Because he also obtained for his Society the privilege of avoiding institutional commitments to women, his masculinity ultimately implied considerable freedom in delineating one’s involvement with women. To be sure, Protestant clerics could take wives, but these men also had to prove their manhood in permanent institutional liaisons with the opposite sex. Jesuits, by contrast, could have female society in important and satisfying ways while enjoying freedom of movement and homosocial fellowship. For the same reason, Jesuits also offered an attractive alternative to the already existing religious orders for men. Unlike traditional monks, Ignatius’s followers were able to move in mixed-sex milieus and traverse different regions of the world as part of an international organization. Wherever they were, however, their identity as men was firmly anchored in the single-sex environment of the Society. Its de jure exclusion of women unfailingly put the masculinity of its members beyond doubt and gave the Society an edge over the mendicant orders founded by St. Francis and St. Dominic. In spite of these differences, however, male religious and laymen on both sides of the confessional divide also had something in common. Gender hierarchies characterized Protestant and Catholic marriage just as they shaped the same churches’ ecclesiastical institutions. The men of each group benefited from these hierarchies and thus from what R. W. Connell

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aptly terms the “patriarchal dividend” that accrues to men even at times when masculinity is in crisis.83 After all, the sixteenth century witnessed not only a crisis in masculine self-understanding but also a consolidation of patriarchal power. Father Ignatius in the end was a man of his time.

Bibliography Atkinson, Clarissa W. Mystic and Pilgrim: The Book and the World of Margery Kempe. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1983. Bangert, William. A History of the Society of Jesus. St. Louis, MO: Institute of Jesuit Sources, 1986. Baumstark, Reinhold, ed. Rom in Bayern: Kunst und Spiritualität der ersten Jesuiten. Munich: Hirmer Verlag, 1997. Bilinkoff, Jodi. “Francisco Losa and Gregorio Lopez: Spiritual Friendship and Identity Formation on the New Spain Frontier.” In Colonial Saints: Discovering the Holy in the Americas, edited by Allan Greer and Jodi Bilinkoff, 115–28. New York: Routledge, 2003. ———. “The Many ‘Lives’ of Pedro de Ribadeneyra.” Renaissance Quarterly 52 (1999): 180–96. ———. Related Lives: Confessors and Their Female Penitents, 1450–1750. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2005. Bonaventure: The Soul’s Journey into God, The Tree of Life, The Life of St. Francis. Translated and introduced by Ewert Cousins. Classics of Western Spirituality. New York: Paulist Press, 1978. Boyle, Marjorie O’Rourke. Loyola’s Acts: The Rhetoric of the Self. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997. Brieskorn, Norbert. “Ignatius in Azpeitia 1535: Eine rechtshistorische Untersuchung.” Archivum historicum Societatis Iesu 49 (1980): 95–112. Bynum, Caroline Walker. “‘…And Woman His Humanity’: Female Imagery in the Religious Writing of the Later Middle Ages.” In Gender and Religion: On the Complexity of Symbols, edited by Caroline Walker Bynum, Stevan Harrell, and Paula Richman, 257– 88. Boston: Beacon Press, 1986. ———. Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982. Clossey, Luke. “Distant Souls: Global Religion and the Jesuit Missions of Germany, Mexico and China, 1595–1705.” PhD diss., University of California, Berkeley, 2004. Connell, R. W. Masculinities. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. Conrad, Anne. Zwischen Kloster und Welt: Ursulinen und Jesuitinnen in der katholischen Reformbewegung des 16./17. Jahrhunderts. Mainz: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 1991. Dürr, Renate. “…‘die Macht und Gewalt der Priestern aber ist ohne Schrancken’: Zum Selbstverständnis katholischer Seelsorgegeistlicher im 17. und 18. Jahrhundert.” In Hausväter, Priester, Kastraten: Zur Konstruktion von Männlichkeit in Spätmittelalter und Früher Neuzeit, edited by Martin Dinges, 75–99. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998.

83Connell,

Masculinities, 79.

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Garza Carvajal, Federico. Butterflies Will Burn: Prosecuting Sodomites in Early Modern Spain and Mexico. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2003. Gleixner, Ulrike. “Weibliche Zanksucht und männliche Trunksucht.” In Bildungsgeschichten: Geschlecht, Religion und Pädagogik in der Moderne, edited by Meike Sophia Baader, Helga Kelle, and Elke Kleinau, 91–102. Cologne, Weimar, Vienna: Böhlau, 2006. Grundmann, Herbert. Religiöse Bewegungen im Mittelalter. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1961. Guibert, Joseph de. The Jesuits: Their Spiritual Doctrine and Practice. Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1964. Hufton, Olwen. “Altruism and Reciprocity: The Early Jesuits and Their Female Patrons.” Renaissance Studies 15 (2001): 328–53. Ignatius of Loyola: Spiritual Exercises and Selected Works. Edited by George E. Ganss. Classics of Western Spirituality. New York: Paulist Press, 1991. Johnson, Trevor. “Blood, Tears, and Xavier-Water: Jesuit Missionaries and Popular Religion in the Eighteenth-Century Upper Palatinate.” In Popular Religion in Germany and Central Europe, 1400–1800, edited by Bob Scribner and Trevor Johnson, 183–203. Houndsmill, UK: Palgrave Macmillan, 1996. Karras, Ruth Mazo, From Boys to Men: Formations of Masculinity in Late Medieval Europe. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003. Lederer, David. Madness, Religion, and the State in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006. ———. “Reforming the Spirit: Confession, Madness and Suicide in Bavaria, 1517–1809.” PhD diss., New York University, 1995. Levisi, Margarita. “Golden Age Autobiography: The Soldiers.” In Autobiography in Early Modern Spain, edited by Nicholas Spadaccini and Jenaro Taléns, 97–118. Minneapolis, MN: Prisma Institute, 1988. Levy, Evonne. Propaganda and the Jesuit Baroque. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. McEntire, Sandra J. The Doctrine of Compunction in Medieval England: Holy Tears. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1990. Michael, Ian, ed. Poema de Mio Cid. Madrid: Castalia, 1987. Olin, John C., ed. The Autobiography of St. Ignatius of Loyola. 6th edition. New York: Fordham University Press, 1992. O’Malley, John W. The First Jesuits. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993. ———. “The Historiography of the Society of Jesus: Where Does It Stand Today?” In The Jesuits: Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts, 1540–1773, edited by John O’Malley, Gauvin Alexander Bailey, Steven J. Harris, and T. Frank Kennedy, 4–7. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999. ———. “Was Ignatius of Loyola a Church Reformer?” Catholic Historical Review 77 (1991): 176–93. Ong, Walter. “The Writer’s Audience Is Always A Fiction.” Publications of the Modern Language Association 90, no. 1 (1975): 9–21. Osuna, Javier. Friends in the Lord: A Study in the Origins and Growth of Community in the Society of Jesus. London: The Way, 1974. Patton, Kimberley Christine, and John Stratton Hawley, eds. Holy Tears: Weeping in the Religious Imagination. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005. Rahner, Hugo. The Spirituality of St. Ignatius of Loyola. Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1980. ———, ed. Saint Ignatius Loyola: Letters to Women. Freiburg: Herder, 1960.

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Rhodes, Elizabeth. “Join the Jesuits, See the World: Early Modern Women in Spain and the Society of Jesus.” In The Jesuits, II: Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts, 1540–1773, edited by John W. O’Malley, Gauvin Alexander Bailey, Steven J. Harris, and T. Frank Kennedy. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005. Rico, Francisco, ed. Cantar de Mio Cid. Barcelona: Crítica, 1993. Roper, Lyndal. “Exorcism and the Theology of the Body.” In Roper, Oedipus and the Devil, 171–98. London: Routledge, 1994. ———. “Was There a Crisis in Gender Relations in Sixteenth-Century Germany?” In Roper, Oedipus and the Devil, 37–52. London: Routledge, 1994. Selwyn, Jennifer. “Planting Many Virtues There: The Jesuit Popular Missions in the Viceroyalty of Naples, 1550–1700.” PhD diss., University of California, Davis, 1992. ———. “Procuring in the Common People These Better Behaviors.” Radical History Review 67 (1997): 4–34. Smith, Jeffrey Chipps. Sensuous Worship: Jesuits and the Art of the Early Catholic Reformation in Germany. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2002. Soergel, Philip. Wondrous in His Saints: Counter-Reformation Propaganda in Bavaria. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993. Strasser, Ulrike. State of Virginity: Gender, Religion and Politics in an Early Modern Catholic Polity. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004. ———. “Una profetessa in tempo di guerra: Il caso di Maria Anna Lindmayr (1657– 1729).” In I Monasteri Femminili Come Centri di Cultura fra Rinascimento e Barocco, edited by Gianna Pomata and Gabriella Zarri, 365–87. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 2005. Strohm, Paul. “Chaucer’s Audience(s): Fictional, Implied, Intended, Actual.” The Chaucer Review 18 (1983): 137–45. ———. Theory and the Premodern Text. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2000. Weinstein, Donald, and Rudolph Bell. Saints and Society: The Two Worlds of Western Christendom, 1000–1700. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982. Wunder, Heide. “What Made a Man a Man? Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Findings.” In Gender in Early Modern German History, edited by Ulinka Rublack, 21–48. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Zantop, Susanne. Colonial Fantasies: Conquest, Family, and Nation in Precolonial Germany, 1770–1870. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997.

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Masculinity and Patriarchy in Reformation Germany Scott H. Hendrix

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he family in early modern Europe was a patriarchal unit. This view, confirmed by contemporaries and historians alike, held that the man, as both husband and father, was supposed to rule his wife and the rest of the household. The German pastor Justus Menius stated it trenchantly in 1528: “A husband has two functions: first, he should rule over his wife, children, and servants and be head and master of the entire house; second, he should work and produce enough to support and feed his household.” 1 Theologians and humanists shared this opinion about the man's role in marriage. In Reformation Germany, the model of patriarchy was promoted both by the Hausväter literature and by the pamphlets of Protestant preachers like Menius. These authors, and presumably many of their readers and listeners, believed they were living in a time “when fathers ruled.” 2 Humanists, who admonished men to fulfill their civic as well as their familial duties, argued that a man who could not rule his family was a man 1Justus Menius, Erynnerung, Biv. The same view was promoted by the Lutheran preacher in Joachimsthal, Johannes Mathesius (1504–65), in his wedding sermons. A summary of his teaching is given by Karant-Nunn, “Kinder, Küche, Kirche.” On Menius (1499–1558), see Kawerau, “Menius, Justus.” 2Ozment, When Fathers Ruled; Roper, The Holy Household, esp. 40–46; and Coudert, “The Myth of the Improved Status of Protestant Women.” For the Hausväter literature, see Hoffmann, Die “Hausväterliteratur.”

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who could not exercise authority in the commonwealth.3 Historians have gradually introduced nuances to the profile of patriarchy in early modern society. A family ruled by the husband and father was by no means a family that lacked affection or was incapable of emotional exchange. Spouses could be tender toward each other, and parents could cherish their children even if the housefather was in charge.4 Nor did a patriarchal structure mean that sixteenth-century citizens were unable to imagine a different configuration for their families or their societies. The unruly woman of the sexual inversion portrayed in literary sources and in carnival games challenged the patriarchy of daily life even if she did not alter it.5 Women who obeyed their husbands in the home could simultaneously be partners in the family business, work alongside their spouses at hard jobs, or contribute income from their own labor.6 Female religious, who did not have to render obedience to husbands, could pose direct challenges to male rulers. The abbesses of cloisters in Lüneburg, for example, refused to convert their convents to Protestantism in spite of pressure applied by Duke Ernest, his chancellor, and his theological advisers.7 While these modifications of the patriarchal model have made the contributions and handicaps of women more visible, the men who exercised domestic and civic authority in early modern Europe remain to some extent hidden. Aside from their obligation to rule, the outline of their masculinity is indistinct. What did it mean for a man to be a patriarch, especially in the family, and what kinds of burdens and expectations were joined to that role? For that matter, what did it mean to be a man in early modern Germany? Did the men who exercised authority and the other men who admonished them to that exercise harbor a specific concept of masculinity? Or did they operate instead with implicit assumptions about men when they bothered to distinguish genders at all? An investigation of what it was like for ruling fathers to be men can further complement our picture of the patriarchal family. Assistance for answering these questions is available from German 3Yost,

“Changing Attitudes”; and Kelso, Doctrine for the Lady of the Renaissance, 83–91. “Emotion und Affektion”; and Ozment, When Fathers Ruled, 61–63, 162–63. 5Davis, “Women on Top,” in Davis, Society and Culture, 124–51, 310–15, esp. 142–46; and Scribner, “Reformation, Carnival and the World Turned Upside-Down,” in Scribner, Popular Culture, 72–101. 6See Ozment, Magdalena and Balthasar; Karant-Nunn, “The Women of the Saxon Silver Mines”; Wiesner, Working Women in Renaissance Germany; and Howell, “Women, the Family Economy, and the Structures of Market Production.” 7Wrede, Die Einführung der Reformation im Lüneburgischen, 127–32, 210–26; and Wiesner, “Ideology Meets the Empire.” 4Lenz,

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Protestant preachers, whose pamphlets on marriage, such as the one written by Justus Menius, provide clues to the male dimension of patriarchy. Similar pamphlets were written by at least nine other authors: Erasmus Alber, 8 Andreas Althamer,9 Johann Brenz,10 Johann Bugenhagen,11 Veit Dietrich,12 Johann Freder,13 Steffan Klingebeyl,14 Martin Luther,15 and Urbanus 8Erasmus Alber (ca. 1500–53) was born in the Wetterau and died in Neubrandenburg after serving as teacher and pastor in many towns in central and northern Germany. He wrote his book on marriage while serving as pastor in Sprendlingen near Frankfurt, where his first wife died in 1536. He married a second time around 1542 in Neustadt/Brandenburg; see Kohls, “Alber, Erasmus.” 9Andreas Althamer (ca. 1500–39), from Brenz near Heidenheim, was humanistically trained in Leipzig and Tübingen and served briefly as preacher in Schwäbisch Gmünd and then as reformer in Brandenburg-Ansbach. He married in Gmünd in June 1525 and, despite a sermon in his own defense, was dismissed shortly thereafter by the city council. In 1536 he contracted a second marriage with Maria Cleopha in Ansbach. See Schornbaum, “Althamer, Andreas”; see also Kolde, “Althamer, Andreas”; and Brecht and Ehmer, Südwestdeutsche Reformationsgeschichte, 78–80. 10Johann Brenz (1499–1570) was born in Weil der Stadt and spent most of his life in Württemberg. After becoming a preacher in Schwäbisch Hall in 1522, he introduced the Reformation to that city and remained its chief evangelical pastor until he was forced out by the Augsburg Interim in 1548. After 1535 he also served as Propst in Stuttgart and as theological adviser to Duke Christoph. In 1530 Brenz married Margarete Gräter Wetzel, the widow of his patron and friend in Hall; two years after she died in 1548 he married Katharina Eisenmenger, who was also from Schwäbisch Hall. See Brecht, “Brenz, Johannes”; and Brecht and Ehmer, Südwestdeutsche Reformationsgeschichte, passim. 11Johann Bugenhagen (1485–1558) was called Pomeranus after his native territory of Pomerania. After studying two years in Greifswald, he served as rector of the school in Treptow and as lecturer in the cloister Belbuck. In 1521 he went to Wittenberg, where he lived in the house of Philipp Melanchthon before he married Walpurga (maiden name unknown) in 1522 and became pastor of the city church in 1523. From 1528 to the 1540s, Bugenhagen was a visiting reformer in North Germany and in Denmark. His family, including at least three daughters and one son who lived to adulthood, sometimes accompanied him on these trips. See Holfelder, “Bugenhagen, Johannes”; and Leder, “Johannes Bugenhagen Pomeranus.” 12Veit Dietrich (1506–49), a native of Nuremberg, studied in Wittenberg, where he lived in Luther’s home and preserved in writing many of Luther’s house sermons and some of his lectures and table conversation. As Luther’s secretary, Dietrich accompanied him to Coburg during the Diet of Augsburg (1530). In 1535 he returned to Nuremberg to become the preacher at St. Sebald. Shortly after his return, he married Kunigunde Leys, also from Nuremberg; they had five children. See Simon, “Dietrich, Veit”; and Klaus, Veit Dietrich. 13Johann Freder (1510–62) grew up in Pomerania, studied and lived in Wittenberg from 1524 to 1537, then served as pastor, often amidst controversy, in Hamburg, Stralsund, Greifswald, and Wismar. In Wittenberg he lived in Luther’s house while Veit Dietrich also lived there. In 1536 Freder married Anna Falk, a relative of the wife of Justas Jonas. She died in Wismar in 1562 just four days before the death of her husband. See Kähler, “Freder, Johannes”; Müller, “Freder, Johannes”; and Hendrix, “Christianizing Domestic Relations.” 14Little is known about Steffan Klingebeyl beyond what he revealed in his treatise Von Priester Ehe published in 1528. Presumably he was a priest in the diocese of Kammin since he addressed this defense of his recent marriage to its bishop, Erasmus von Manteuffel. According to Otto Clemen, Klingebeyl may have succeeded Johann Oldendorp as syndic of Lübeck. The name Klinkebiel was known in that city; WA 26:528–29. See Clemen, “Miszellen”; and Jannasch, Reformationsgeschichte Lübecks, 129, 201. 15Martin Luther’s (1483–1546) best known tracts on marriage are Vom ehelichen Leben (1522, WA 10/2:275–304), and Von Ehesachen (1530, WA 30/3:205–48). In 1525 he married Katharina von Bora, a former nun, who had come to Wittenberg after Luther had instigated the escape of several nuns from XXXXX

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Rhegius.16 Except for Veit Dietrich, who was ordained a Lutheran pastor, all of these men had been priests or monks who married and became Protestant clergy. The view of men expressed by these erstwhile priests and monks was mostly implicit. Men already married, considering marriage, or being encouraged to marry remained mostly hidden behind the roles that they assumed in marriage and public life. They were lectured on the benefits of marriage and occasionally apprised of its burdens. As men, however, the male spouses, actual or potential, stayed under cover, and were urged to behave responsibly and to fulfill their obligations. Through this cover of expectations and admonitions, there is nevertheless a glimpse of what these authors thought it meant to be a man in early Reformation Germany. Often it is difficult to distinguish between the expectation and the reality, between what these male theologians thought men should be and what in fact men were. Still, allowing for that difficulty and for the risk of generalizing about men in this narrow range of sources, one can say the following: in pamphlets on marriage by these Protestant preachers, (1) men were regarded as vulnerable to sexual provocation; (2) they required sexual expression and restraints on that expression; (3) the responsibility of providing for a family was judged a burden; (4) men needed to be supported emotionally and domestically; and (5) in some cases at least, men were held to higher standards than women and were more readily blamed. These dimensions of masculinity require elaboration before discussing their significance for the larger picture of early modern patriarchy.

Sexual Vulnerability Without marriage, feared several of our authors, men would fall prey to sexual promiscuity. This fear stemmed directly from the poor chastity 16

the cloister Nimbschen. This was Luther’s only marriage and it produced six children, four of whom survived into adulthood. Having lived through six difficult years in Wittenberg after her husband’s death, Katharina moved to Torgau to avoid the plague and died there on 20 December 1552. See Bornkamm, Martin Luther, 230–33, 354–67; Treu, Katharina von Bora; and Smith, “Katharina von Bora.” 16Urbanus Rhegius (1489–1541) was born in Langenargen on Lake Constance and studied in Freiburg and Ingolstadt. After serving as an evangelical preacher in Augsburg, he was called in 1530 by Duke Ernest of Lüneburg to organize the new Protestant church in that territory. On 16 June 1525, in Augsburg, three months after presiding at the wedding of his colleague Johann Frosch, Rhegius married Anna Weissbrücker, a well-educated daughter of the city. They had at least eleven children and she outlived him by a quarter century, dying in Celle in 1566. Rhegius was probably the illegitimate son of a cleric; John Eck once called him the son of a priest’s whore. See Maximilian Liebmann, Urbanus Rhegius, 70, 194–96; and Cassel, Geschichte, 1:430n1.

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record of celibate monks and priests,17 and it was used as a primary argument for clerical marriage. In his Good Book on Marriage (1534), Erasmus Alber thanked God for letting him be alive at the same time that clerical marriage was reestablished; otherwise, he and fellow priests would have to live in the devil’s whorehouse under the torment of a bad conscience. 18 After thanking God, Alber gave Luther credit for restoring marriage to a place of honor; if he had done nothing else, Luther should be praised for this accomplishment alone. However, lamented Alber, only a few men were really grateful that, because of Luther, they were not sitting in the cloister, languishing in the priesthood, or running after whores. 19 In effect, Alber was arguing that by elevating and extending marriage Luther had saved men. That argument is striking because it presumes that men in particular needed to be rescued; they were targets of the devil’s campaign against chastity, especially if they were unmarried priests. Because he had married expressly to avoid unchastity, Alber was convinced that the devil had continued to persecute him. The “poisonous tongues of some evil women” had persuaded Alber’s wife that he had a sexual relationship with an old woman. Alber thought it a ridiculous and fanciful notion that he, who had a fine, young wife, would carry on with an old, ugly woman; in fact, he sounded downright insulted that the gossips had thought him capable of such bad taste.20 Alber believed this rumor was the devil’s revenge on him for having escaped fornication through marriage. He was all the more convinced that both sexual promiscuity before marriage and illicit relationships after marriage posed a serious threat to men. Alber was not alone in his fear. It was expressed by other evangelical preachers like Andreas Althamer in Schwäbisch Gmünd. Defending his marriage before the council of that city in 1525, the former priest used 1 Corinthians 7:2 (“Let every one have his own wife in order to avoid unchastity”) to launch a diatribe against the sins of whoredom and fornication.21 The only way for pastors to avoid those sins and to preserve the purity of the church was to marry. The very same year in Augsburg, where he was preaching at the wedding of his colleague Johann Frosch, Urbanus 17Postel,

“Horenjegers und Kökschen.” Eyn gut buch von der Ehe, Aii. This work was a complete revision of De re uxoria by Francisco Barbaro, to which Alber added substantial theological and personal material. See Wolf, Quellenkunde, 2.2:10. 19Alber, Eyn gut buch von der Ehe, Bii. 20Alber, Eyn gut buch von der Ehe, Ei v–Eii. 21Althamer, Ain Sermon von dem eelichen stand, B. 18Alber,

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Rhegius argued much the same way. For a long time, proclaimed Rhegius, a law existed against clerical marriage, with the result that priests had to live without wives. This law ignored the priests’ fragility, even though they had provided ample and scandalous proof of their weakness. In spite of that proof, people still preferred to see priests live indecently with unattached women than to live chastely with their own wives.22 The unmarried priest was a fragile, vulnerable man but, in the opinion of Rhegius, people overlooked that vulnerability rather than sacrifice the illusion of the chaste and celibate priest. Not only priests and monks, however, but all men were susceptible to unchastity. This susceptibility had deep theological roots in original sin. A major purpose of marriage was to check the effects of such sin, because, argued the Nuremberg preacher, Veit Dietrich, most people on earth were unable to live chastely outside of marriage. Indeed, marriage was a medicine for the malady of nature because, if we could not marry, then we would live in sin, soil ourselves with unchastity, and bring God’s wrath upon us.23 The inability to live chastely outside marriage applied in theory to women as well as to men, since both sexes were corrupted by sin. Nevertheless, in the eyes of Justus Menius, men seemed to be more at risk than women. After reminding his readers that Adam was not able to survive without a wife before the Fall, Menius gave men who lived after the Fall no choice. Since they were men, created by God, they had to marry or risk the loss of their eternal salvation.24 A clever and forceful form of urging marriage upon men appeared in the Dialogue in Honor of Marriage written by the Lutheran pastor, Johann Freder, and published in 1545.25 A dialogue between two men, Antonius and Johannes, was the device used by Freder to defend the integrity of marriage by shielding women against their detractors. Because he had heard such terrible things about women, Antonius, the cautious partner in the dialogue, was hesitant to marry. Johannes, his concerned antagonist, told Antonius he should marry to save his soul; otherwise, his immoral life and his whoremongering would cause him to burn. Johannes followed this admonition with a lengthy rebuttal of slanderous proverbs about women, which Freder had found in Sebastian Franck’s Sprichwörter of 1541. While 22Rhegius, Ain

Sermon vom eelichen stand, Aiii–Aiii v. ehestand, in Etliche Schrifften, ed. Reichmann, 139. 24Menius, Erynnerung, Biii. 25Freder, Ein Dialogus. For an analysis, see Hendrix, “Christianizing Domestic Relations,” 197– 23Dietrich, Vom

212.

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Freder’s defense of women is noteworthy, the main purpose of the Dialogue was to convince reluctant men that they were more vulnerable to lust if their natural desire was not channeled through marriage.

Sexual Expression and Restraint The susceptibility of men to sexual corruption presupposed that men, priests and nonpriests, were entitled to legitimate sexual expression. That entitlement could be obscured by the many admonitions to marry for the purpose of avoiding unchastity. It was, however, implicit in the affirmation of marriage as God’s will for the majority of men. Our authors were convinced that men, unless they possessed the gift of chastity, had the right to sexual expression in marriage. Sometimes this conviction grew out of facing the truth about oneself. For example, the former priest Andreas Althamer disclosed that he decided to marry once he discovered that the gift of chastity had not been granted to him.26 The argument that marriage was necessary to avoid unchastity was more of a grudging admission that sexual expression was inevitable than a declaration of male entitlement. Nevertheless, one can still detect in these tracts an awareness that sexual expression belonged to maleness. Objecting to the argument that clerical marriage was prohibited by papal law, Urbanus Rhegius, like Althamer, cited as a higher authority 1 Corinthians 7:2, “Let everyone have his own wife in order to avoid unchastity.…” Rhegius then asked, “Who is ‘everyone’? Is it not every man? Are priests not also men? Does changing what he wears make a man different from the way he was born?”27 To his superior, the bishop of Kammin in Pomerania, Steffan Klingebeyl argued that marriage was better than abstinence because, in Genesis 1 and 2, marriage received God’s blessing while there was no such blessing for abstinence. “God blessed both man and woman,” continued Klingebeyl, “and not the man alone; much less will he bless those who are men and yet refuse to be men, although they do not have that grace and gift of chastity which is so exalted, precious, and rare.”28 The men who refused to be men were the priests and monks who took the vow of celibacy without the gift of chastity. Failing that gift, men could only be men if they fulfilled their natural sexual desires in the divinely blessed estate of marriage. 26Althamer, Ain

Sermon von dem eelichen stand, B. Sermon vom eelichen stand, B. 28Klingebeyl, Von Priester Ehe, Civ. 27Rhegius, Ain

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Taken together, the vulnerability to unchastity and the entitlement to sexual expression make a strong statement about sexuality as an essential component of masculinity in early sixteenth-century Germany. In the works analyzed here, male sexuality was restricted to heterosexuality and the sexuality of women does not receive equal attention. After all, the authors of these tracts were male clergy for whom homosexuality was officially a sin, and most of them had been priests who married. While some had also been monks, no former nuns and obviously no former women priests are represented. Consequently, our authors do not present a balanced discussion of sexuality but the impassioned advocacy of male heterosexual expression by men who had taken the vow of chastity and then either lived with a bad conscience or suffered under the contradiction that those vows posed to their male identity. This contradiction was felt strongly by Andreas Althamer in his own life: “It ought to be at least possible that we can keep our vows, but I cannot vow to be chaste any more than I can vow to fly.”29 Although his colleague in South Germany, Johann Brenz, recommended that chastity be sought incessantly from the Lord, 30 Althamer nonetheless seemed to be very sure of his limits as a man.

The Burdens of Marriage Many former priests discovered, however, that to be a married man was not simply to have a channel of blessed release. Being married also entailed obligations of which husbands were constantly reminded by secular and spiritual authorities. The Nuremberg preacher Veit Dietrich claimed that most marriages involved excessive conflict and that, in addition to prayer, a special effort to reduce it was required from the husband. That effort, enjoined upon men in 1 Peter 3:7, entailed the use of reason with their wives in place of violence. Because women were weaker and more subject to their emotions, Dietrich asked men to overlook their agitation and to give their spouses extra consideration.31 Dietrich employed a stereotype of women and argued that women should adjust to their husband’s temperament. In keeping with this view, he believed that the burden of keeping the peace was placed primarily upon men. Instead of addressing the conflict directly, men were supposed to hide their anger, overlook the irritation of their 29Althamer, Ain

Sermon von dem eelichen stand, Cii. in Eesachen, Eiv. 31Dietrich, Eine kurtze vermanung, in Etliche Schrifften, ed. Reichmann, 129–30. 30Brenz, Wie

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wives, and restore calm with an encouraging word. Violence was not manly: you are still a man, Dietrich admonished husbands, when you refrain from hitting your wife.32 Keeping the peace was not the husband’s only responsibility. If the marriage did not go well, the man should blame himself. If he was unhappy with his wife, observed Dietrich coldly, then he was at fault for not looking harder and picking a better mate. Instead of marrying for looks or money, he should have asked more cautiously for God’s blessing. To Dietrich, who married late himself,33 it seemed that either way a man could scarcely win. If he picked a good wife, then the biggest burden and the greatest sorrow of marriage would be her death. If he picked a complaining and incompetent wife, then the husband spent the marriage wishing he were dead.34 Whether he was content with his partner or not, the man still had to worry about how he would feed his wife and children. The duty of being what is now glibly called the “provider” was noted by several writers. Dietrich named it the peculiar burden to be shouldered by married men; it was the punishment for his sin just as the woman’s punishment was to bear children in pain.35 Few records report men’s reactions to this burden. The stage was set, however, for many conscientious men to feel inadequate as providers or to chafe at jobs they disliked but out of necessity still had to perform. One of Dietrich’s fellow citizens from Nuremberg, Balthasar Paumgartner, often seemed overwhelmed and discontented with his business as a merchant even though by means of it he provided well for his wife Magdalena, who managed the home and the office, and for his son until the boy died at the age of seven.36 From the Frankfurt fair in 1584 Balthasar wrote, “I am now involved in the most arduous work. For my part I wish it were over and done with; then something good would gladly be due me. But for now I must demand payments. Plenty of screaming and bickering will be the result, and for this reason I would much prefer to be at home.”37 From his deathbed in Zerbst in the year 1600, doctor of theology Johann Major voiced regret about his inadequacy in the roles of partner 32Dietrich,

Eine kurtze vermanung, in Etliche Schrifften, ed. Reichmann, 131. above, note 12. 34Dietrich, Vom ehestand, in Etliche Schrifften, ed. Reichmann, 143. 35Dietrich, Vom ehestand, in Etliche Schrifften, ed. Reichmann, 142–43, 145. Menius (Erynnerung, C) had a more compassionate view of a man’s labor and cautioned against making an idol of work. 36Ozment, Magdalena and Balthasar, 56–88. 37Ozment, Magdalena and Balthasar, 63. 33See

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and provider. Major apologized to his wife that, owing to so much tribulation in their lives, he had behaved so oddly toward her and that, owing to his long illness, he had been able to provide only skimpily for her and their son.38 Earlier in the century those former priests and monks who did marry found it a shock to be faced with supporting a family. Unlike Luther, not every former monk was able to keep his job and obtain the monastery as his home! Consider, for example, the experience of the Hessian pastor, Hartmann Ibach.39 In 1533 Ibach requested from Philip of Hesse a personal refund of money that had been given on his behalf, during his former monastic life, to the Teutonic Knights and to the Franciscans in Marburg. After sixteen years in these houses he had left the cloister, itinerated as an evangelical preacher, married a former nun, and finally settled as pastor in Marburg with his wife and child. In 1533 a sick, disappointed, and impoverished Ibach asserted that in place of money he preferred to recover his health, which had been ruined by twenty-eight years of chanting and preaching. He was no longer able to serve as a pastor, but he had learned no other skill. Besides that, for seven years he and his family had been unjustly chased from place to place and accumulated many debts. Now the portion of his father’s estate that had been wasted on the cloisters should rightfully be restored to him. Ibach’s words reveal not only a sick and disappointed pastor but a man for whom the support of a family turned out to be quite as demanding as his celibate life had been unrewarding. We do not know how Ibach fared with his entreaty, but he would have received little sympathy from other preachers like Veit Dietrich and Johann Bugenhagen. Generally, they added to the onus placed on men by telling them to shape up and take care of their obligations. Bugenhagen was especially critical of men who failed to live up to expectations. He believed that a man’s duty to his family also entailed responsibility for the community and its stability. In his tract on adultery and desertion, Bugenhagen claimed that an act of adultery by a man who asked forgiveness did less damage than desertion, because the deserter harmed not just wife and children but also property, household, government, neighbors, reputation, and honesty.40 Bugenhagen’s emphasis on accountability to the community highlights a side of the male public role that has received less attention 38Lenz,

“‘Ehestand, Wehestand, Süssbitter Standt?’” 390. the following account, see Schilling, Gewesene Mönche, 16–21. 40Bugenhagen, Vom Ehebruch und Weglauffen, Riii. 39For

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than power and authority. In the early modern period, for men to marry was at the same time to take on the social burden of upholding the structure and values of the community. Even strictly within the family, however, preachers offered little relief to the unhappy man. Veit Dietrich admonished men that it was not enough that they married; they also had to be God-fearing and invite Christ to the wedding. They must persist in their devotion when they encountered crosses and temptations because God would supply merciful aid.41 In essence Dietrich was echoing Luther’s advice to use the power of God’s word to relieve the burden of an unhappy marriage: “Now look, when the devil comes to you and you think you’ve had enough, be smart, seize God’s word and say to yourself, ‘God has made me a man; he has put this woman into my arms and she is to be mine.’… For the sake of the word she will please you more than another woman with a golden veil.” 42 These words, however, were surely small comfort to men who were suffering in a seriously unhappy marriage. They indicate instead that such men were expected to bear that burden without complaint even while supporting the family and serving the larger community. Under these obligations and under scrutiny for how well they performed, men might take welcome refuge behind the cover of their roles.

The Benefits and the Costs of Support In addition to the word, Protestant preachers believed that men deserved domestic support to aid them in the performance of their public work. They had wives to take care of the home while they provided for the family and served the community. Erasmus Alber, perhaps speaking of himself, said that it was a great joy for a man to know that he had a devoted wife at home who was caring for the house and children and thus freeing him to care for the commonweal.43 Besides, added Alber, with her able management a good housekeeper would increase what the labor of the husband brought home; for what good would it do if the man earned a fortune at work while at home his wife was dishonest and irresponsible? 44 Why

41Dietrich, Vom

ehestand, in Etliche Schrifften, ed. Reichmann, 146–47. Eine Hochzeitpredigt, Ciii. 43Alber, Eyn gut buch von der Ehe, Aiv. 44Alber, Eyn gut buch von der Ehe, F. 42Luther,

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should a man not perform his public duties well and be held accountable for them if he had been relieved of household duties? Even when he had been relieved of domestic duties,45 the man still had to be given emotional support. To perform well outside the home meant that he had to be kept in a positive mood inside the home. Therefore, said Alber, a wife should constantly stay alert to the man’s demeanor in order to judge what he could bear and what might provoke him. Accordingly, she could adjust herself to him and not, as Alber puts it, cross her man.46 In the dialogue between Agatha and Barbara translated by Alber, Agatha gave Barbara this kind of advice about how to behave with her drunk and abusive husband. When, Agatha argued, the man from time to time caused conflict, his irritation would soon pass if the woman did not contradict him.47 Agatha also encouraged wifely accommodation with the following example. Trainers of various animals knew how to behave with them, she said. How much more then should we adjust our behavior to the moods of husbands with whom we spend our entire lives. 48 These last comments could be dismissed as another expression of the ancient female Volksmund that advised women how to handle men. Women who adjusted themselves to men, however, would recognize the compound burden that such an expectation, taken seriously, placed upon a sixteenthcentury wife in that patriarchal epoch. To be expected to adjust constantly to the husband’s mercurial behavior on top of submitting to his authority was a grim requirement. In light of the demands it placed on women, it is possible to overlook the unfair stereotype of men that this advice perpetuated. It was assumed that men had a more unstable temperament than women; consequently, they had to be humored and coddled by women in order to face the cold, cruel world outside. Presumably, if men were upset too much by their domestic life, they might begin to lose confidence outside the home. Alber and other preachers who echoed this idea believed that men needed to be protected by women who had considerable influence over them inside the home. While this notion may have been advanced to compensate women for the power they lacked in the public sphere, its

45Renaissance authors had already argued that the availability of a wife to manage domestic affairs was a practical advantage of marriage; see Kelso, Doctrine for the Lady, 79–80. 46Alber, Eyn gut buch von der Ehe, Eiii–Eiii v. 47Alber, Das Ehbüchlin, Biii v. 48Alber, Das Ehbüchlin, Biv–Biv v.

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presence in tracts on marriage still introduces a note of dissonance into descriptions of the household as a male monarchy.49 The Hausherr was a fragile and protected ruler whom the woman of the house could easily undo. Dietrich said that men were already battered by the hard knocks that came with providing for a family. Thus, when they came home, women could make them lose control by stoking the fire of their frustration with obstreperous words. Instead, of course, women should perform the “good, God-pleasing work” of yielding to their husbands and pacifying them with soft, gentle words.50 Such protection of men in the home may have served the needs of early modern society,51 but the men who actually received such protection paid a price for it. If applied in earnest, the strategy of pacification meant that men at home would never be confronted directly or have their anger and frustration addressed in ways that would diminish the possibility of abuse. If Protestantism reinforced patriarchy by “entrusting husbands with functions which had previously been divided among husbands, rulers, and priests,”52 it not only made life harder on women in the home, but it also increased the burdens placed upon men. The need to execute multiple functions in the home extended the distance between the man and other members of the household and made it less inviting for him to disclose his failings and fragility. The strategy of protection and pacification, allegedly an advantage for both women and men, did not necessarily benefit either. To his credit, Alber recognized that the best protection a man could receive at home was not to be isolated from family issues but to be offered emotional support. Whether the man was doing well or poorly, his wife was to be a companion and an intimate friend who could share both his happiness and his unhappiness. He could confide in her and her pleasant company would soothe him; he would not want to live without her, and if anything happened to her, he would feel as if it happened to him as well. 53 49Lenz, “‘Ehestand, Wehestand, Süssbitter Standt?’” 387: “Die Oeconomia ist eine Monarchia, das ist, ein solch Regiment, darinnen nur einer herrschet und regieret, nemlich der Wirth im Hause, der mus allein Herr im Hause sein, nach dem mus sich alles, was im gantzen Haus ist, richten, wie die Schiffleute nach der Cynosura.” 50Dietrich, Vom ehestand, in Etliche Schrifften, ed. Reichmann, 145–46. 51Ozment, When Fathers Ruled, 70: “In the communities of Reformation Europe, it was believed that marriage, family, and society could not long survive if the ‘fathers of the house’ lost their nerve. The consequences of men doubting their abilities and fearing their responsibilities were all too clear in fragile premodern society. In their strength and self-respect lay also the well-being of all around them .” 52Coudert, “The Myth,” 70. 53Alber, Das Ehbüchlin, Dii–Dii v.

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To this sharing of emotions, Luther added dependability and trustworthiness as the highest benefits of marriage. A man could rely upon his wife, entrust his body and his property to her, and know that it was as safe with her as with himself.54 For Luther, for Alber, for Dietrich, and for the other men who remained silent, did the benefits of sharing and support outweigh the potential isolation of being protected? The sources do not readily answer this question. They do suggest, however, that patriarchy had both a practical and a soft side. In practice, as evidence from the workshops of Augsburg also shows, marriage was a financial and domestic bargain between husband and wife.55 This bargain did not necessarily contradict the Protestant model of marriage as a patriarchal companionship, even when the admonitions of preachers to marry young did conflict with the city council’s desire to have men postpone marriage until they had established themselves in a trade.56 Once ready to marry, however, men not only had to enter the female space of a bridal bed,57 they also created a domestic and economic space that they might indeed rule but that they alone did not run. Instead, when the marriage was satisfactory and they were not isolated from the family’s emotional center, men received as much as they gave from the subjects of their dominion.

Blame and Consideration When discord in a relationship led to legal action or social embarrassment, our authors granted less consideration to men than to women. They did not express it that way, but in fact when the woman’s injury was manifest, they blamed the man and took the woman’s side. They rarely if ever regarded the side of the man as of importance equal to the woman’s injury. For example, Johann Brenz argued that a man who impregnated a virgin or a widow should be admonished by the pastor to marry her. In Brenz’s eyes, the man had deceived an innocent woman and stolen her most precious earthly possession. Since he could not repay her with money, he could save her reputation only by marrying her. Even though no law forced him to marry her, Brenz declared that the man ought to be motivated by 54Luther,

Eine Hochzeitpredigt, Aii v. Holy Household, 134. 56Roper, Holy Household, 142. 57Roper, Holy Household, 145. 55Roper,

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Christian love and honor to take that step. If there was a single vein of piety and integrity left in the fellow, he would prefer the Christian thing to do over what he wanted to do.58 It sounds as if Brenz did not expect very much of the men whom he belittled as Gesellen. Nor was he prepared to listen to their side. If the man did not heed the pastor’s urging, then he should be turned over to the civil authorities for punishment.59 In deciding whether or not a Christian man could have more than one wife, Brenz used the same condescending tone. The issue had to be addressed, he said, so that no simple man would get the idea that two wives were allowed. Brenz based his answer on Paul’s statement (1 Corinthians 7:4) that the man’s body belonged to his wife and the wife’s body to her husband. But it was the man’s body and mind that concerned him, especially the behavior of frivolous young fellows who promised marriage to two or three young women at once.60 Young men were potentially irresponsible and had to be forewarned. Johann Bugenhagen likewise gave little consideration to men. He discussed their obligations in light of the only grounds for divorce that he held to be legitimate: adultery and desertion. When either occurred, in Bugenhagen’s strict view, the relationship was immediately severed long before any writ of divorce could be served. Such a document was actually worthless or, in the graphic equation of Bugenhagen, “Scheidebrieff ist scheissbrief ” (A letter of divorce is a shit letter).61 It was possible, of course, for either the man or the woman to commit adultery or to run away, but Bugenhagen assumed in both cases that the perpetrator was male. In the case of adultery, the male adulterer became one body with the “whore” and the former wife was left a widow. By punishing him, the authorities used their power to save the “poor, innocent wife.” 62 Secret desertion took place when a scoundrel furtively left his pious wife or told her lies about why he was leaving. For Bugenhagen, that man had gone to the devil and could stay there.63 It is not surprising that Bugenhagen assumed the man was at fault. For social and economic reasons, most adulterers who became known and most deserters were probably male, just as today most abusers who become 58Brenz, Wie

in Eesachen, Ciii v, in Frühschriften, part 2, ed. Brecht et al., 277. in Eesachen, Ciii v, in Frühschriften, part 2, ed. Brecht et al., 277. 60Brenz, Wie in Eesachen, Civ, D, in Frühschriften, part 2, ed. Brecht et al., 278, 280. 61Bugenhagen, Vom Ehebruch und Weglauffen, Oii. 62Bugenhagen, Vom Ehebruch und Weglauffen, Niii v. 63Bugenhagen, Vom Ehebruch und Weglauffen, Rii. 59Brenz, Wie

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marked are male. For Bugenhagen, as mentioned earlier, desertion in particular shamed and undermined the community for which men were responsible. Bugenhagen’s goal was not to be fair to both spouses in a family that he could extract from its social context and clinically investigate. In his roles as pastor and drafter of church orders, Bugenhagen was not a therapist but a community organizer who wished to impose moral and religious discipline. Bugenhagen’s words, however, do expose him as a particularly strict moralist who divided men into honest and dishonest types64 and showed little sympathy for the particular men who were guilty of adultery or desertion. Confronted with the argument that the wife could be at fault and cause the man to run away, Bugenhagen responded, “Be it so or not, if the wife is not an adulteress or if the man is in no mortal danger as long as he stays at home, then the scoundrel has no excuse.”65 All blame was to be heaped upon the rascal who ran away.66 He tore asunder what God in marriage had joined together,67 and he dishonored the wife and all her sex in an unchristian scandal to the community.68 The zeal with which Bugenhagen supported the forsaken family is understandable and even admirable. The sarcasm he employed to belittle the man who returned to his parish and sought repentance is harder to appreciate: “If he is serious, let his pastor send him running at least two or three territories away, and there let the man consult a pastor where it will not do me or my parish any harm. It will not harm the man at all. He wanted it this way. He is a deserter and already accustomed to running.”69 Perhaps Bugenhagen would have said the same about a repentant woman who deserted her family, but he did not record it here.

Masculinity and Patriarchy Masculinity has often been confused with stereotypes of manliness. A good example of that confusion occurred at the end of the nineteenth century in a book on marriage and the Reformation by the German historian Waldemar Kawerau. “The close of the fifteenth century and the dawn of the six64Bugenhagen, Vom

Ehebruch und Weglauffen, Riii. Ehebruch und Weglauffen, Riii v. 66Bugenhagen, Vom Ehebruch und Weglauffen, Ri v. 67Bugenhagen, Vom Ehebruch und Weglauffen, Sii v. 68Bugenhagen, Vom Ehebruch und Weglauffen, S. 69Bugenhagen, Vom Ehebruch und Weglauffen, Ti v. 65Bugenhagen, Vom

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teenth,” wrote Kawerau, “constituted a thoroughly manly epoch.” 70 For the refined scholar Kawerau, who identified with the lofty ideals of humanism, that “manly epoch” exhibited grobianism in the extreme: “While humanism sought to spread a new educational ideal devoted to natural beauty and refinement, popular taste delighted almost exclusively in all that was coarse, unrefined, and obscene; melancholy, superstition, and dread were combined with pleasure in the most vulgar forms of realism and the basest kinds of humor.”71 As a result of this contrast, manliness or masculinity in the early sixteenth century was reduced to superstition, vulgarity, and obscenity. As Kawerau constructed it, the Reformation arrived just in time to give German culture a new moral ideal, the cornerstone of which was an upgraded respect for marriage and the family. Not only through faith but also through marriage both men and the degenerate manly culture could be saved. Such stereotypes of masculinity do an injustice both to the Reformation and to the men who lived during that era. In that century, too, men were different in many respects from one another. Witness the three Behaim boys as they disclosed themselves in the letters translated by Steven Ozment.72 Of the three, only Stephan Carl approximated the image of masculinity that led Kawerau to construct his straw man of a manly epoch. Whether or not the popular German culture of the early sixteenth century was as one-sidedly vulgar as Kawerau painted it, he was certainly mistaken to name it manly. Where men exhibited that kind of vulgarity and coarseness, they were likely guided by a subcultural image of masculinity that valued what the social elites regarded as unrefined. According to the apologetic and hortatory pamphlets analyzed here, the manliness of the domestic patriarch was anything but the vulgar hypermasculinity portrayed by Kawerau. Our authors were not focusing on men as men in gender isolation, but on the roles and relationships of men that were important to themselves and to their communities. Since they all agreed that married men were patriarchs of the family, they could have typed men as strict, insensitive, withdrawn, or unyielding. In fact, these Protestant preachers viewed men neither as supermen nor as weaklings. Their patriarchs were vulnerable instead of vulgar, needing structure for their sexual fulfillment, and requiring care from their spouses. When they 70Kawerau,

Die Reformation und die Ehe, 8: “…eine durchaus männische Epoche.” Die Reformation und die Ehe, 8. 72Ozment, Three Behaim Boys, 161–283. 71Kawerau,

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misbehaved in relationships, men received less sympathy and consideration than did women, because men were held to high standards of public responsibility and quickly blamed when they violated those standards. In summary, these German pastors regarded patriarchs as partners and providers and, occasionally, as villains. In part, this view of men derived from the religious and social perspective of the preachers who wrote these tracts. In part, however, this view of men existed long before and extended far outside Reformation Germany. “A separation of the sexes—into private wives and public husbands— was already firmly established in the households of the medieval countryside.”73 In most of the cultures studied by anthropologist David Gilmore and presented in his controversial book Manhood in the Making, men were also defined by the roles of partner and provider. “To be a man in most of the societies we have looked at, one must impregnate women, protect dependents from danger, and provision kith and kin.”74 Our authors spoke most directly about the circumstances of impregnating and the consequence of provisioning, but they also recognized the obligation of patriarchs to defend the dependents under their rule. Under the cover of these roles, however, men were regarded as subject to the human limitations on both genders; they were susceptible to temptation and vulnerable to failure. In spite of moralistic attitudes and fearful admonitions, our authors were sensitive to that vulnerability and respectful of the contributions men made to their families and communities. Deep down they also recognized what Gilmore maintained was a typical characteristic of manhood: “a criterion of selfless generosity, even to the point of sacrifice.” In various cultures he found that “real men were those who gave more than they took and served others.”75 When Dietrich listed the burdens of marriage for men, he was indirectly acknowledging the kind of restraint and reciprocity that an amicable marriage required. When Brenz submitted that a man with an ounce of pious blood in his veins would choose the Christian thing to do over what he wanted to do, he was saying that to be a man was to sacrifice one’s own desires for the good of a woman, a child to be born, and a community. When Bugenhagen sarcastically scolded the rascals who deserted their wives, he, too, was saying that to be a man was to stay in place for the sake of others. 73Bennett, Women

in the Medieval English Countryside, 6. Manhood in the Making, 222–23. 75Gilmore, Manhood in the Making, 229. 74Gilmore,

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The encumbrances on sixteenth-century men and the sacrifices expected of them were different from the public handicaps of women and the burdens placed upon them, but they existed nonetheless and extracted their costs from men in ways less visible then and now to the people who write about them. For married men, one of the basic costs was the conflict between their needs as men and society’s expectations of them as patriarchs. Under the cover of patriarchy men, like women, required affection, support, and consideration that would pay back the investment in others that their roles demanded.

Abbreviations WA

D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Schriften. 81 vols. Weimar: Böhlau, 1883–.

Bibliography Alber, Erasmus. Das Ehbüchlin: Ein gesprech zweyer weibe mit namen Agatha und Barbara und sunst mancherley vom Ehestand Eheleuten unnd jederman nützlich zulesen. N.p., 1534. ———. Eyn gut buch von der Ehe was die Ehe sei…weiland zu Latin gemacht durch den Wolgelerten Franciscum Barbarum Rahthern zu Venedig Nun aber verdeutscht durch Erasmum Alberum. Hagenau, 1534. Althamer, Andreas. Ain Sermon von dem eelichen stand dz er auch den priestern frey sey gethon zu Schwebischen Gemünd durch Andream Althamer im Jar. 1525, and Ob die Christlich Kirch den gaistlichen hab die Ee verbotten. N.p., 1525. Bennett, Judith M. Women in the Medieval English Countryside: Gender and Household in Brigstock Before the Plague. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. Bornkamm, Heinrich. Martin Luther in der Mitte seines Lebens. Edited by Karin Bornkamm. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1979. Brecht, Martin. “Brenz, Johannes.” Theologische Realenzyklopädie 7:170–81. ———, and Hermann Ehmer. Südwestdeutsche Reformationsgeschichte. Stuttgart: Calwer Verlag, 1984. Brenz, Johannes. Wie in Eesachen unnd den fellen so sich derhalben zutragen nach Götlichem billichem rechten Christenlich zu handeln sey (Schwäbisch Hall, n.d. [1529]). In Johannes Brenz, Frühschriften, part 2, edited by Martin Brecht, Gerhard Schäfer, and Frieda Wolf, 255–96. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1974. Bugenhagen, Johannes. Vom Ehebruch und Weglauffen D. Johan Bugenhagen Pomer an Königlich Maiestat zu Denemarcken etc. Wittenberg, 1540. Cassel, Clemens. Geschichte der Stadt Celle mit besonderer Berücksichtigung des Geistes- und Kulturlebens der Bewohner. Vol. 1. Celle: Verlag und Druck von W. Ströher, 1930. Clemen, Otto. “Miszellen zur Reformationsgeschichte.” Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte 32 (1911): 298–99. Coudert, Allison P. “The Myth of the Improved Status of Protestant Women: The Case of the Witchcraze.” In The Politics of Gender in Early Modern Europe, edited by Jean R.

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Brink, Allison P. Coudert, and Maryanne C. Horowitz, 61–90. Kirksville, MO: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1989. Davis, Natalie Zemon. “City Women and Religious Change.” In Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France, 65–95. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1975. ———. Society and Culture in Early Modern France: Eight Essays by Natalie Zemon Davis. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1975. Dietrich, Veit. Eine kurtze vermanung an die Eheleut wie sie sich im Ehestandt halten sollen, and Vom Ehestand unnd wie man sich darein schicken sol (1544). In Etliche Schrifften für den gemeinen man von unterricht Christlicher lehr und leben und zum trost der engstigen gewissen, durch V. Dietrich mit schönen Figuren. Nürnberg. M.D.XLVIII, edited by Oskar Reichmann, 127–47. Assen: Van Gorcum, 1972. Freder, Johann. Ein Dialogus dem Ehestand zu ehren geschrieben. Durch M. Johan Freder…Mit einer Vorrede D. Mart. Luth. Wittenberg, 1545. Gilmore, David D. “Men and Women in Southern Spain: ‘Domestic Power’ Revisited.” American Anthropologist 92 (1990): 953–70. Hendrix, Scott. “Christianizing Domestic Relations: Women and Marriage in Johann Freder’s Dialogus dem Ehestand zu Ehren.” Sixteenth Century Journal 23 (1992): 197–212. ———. “Masculinity and Patriarchy in Reformation Germany.” Journal of the History of Ideas 56 (1995): 177–93. Holfelder, Hans Hermann. “Bugenhagen, Johannes.” Theologische Realenzyklopädie 7:354–63. Howell, Martha C. “Women, the Family Economy, and the Structures of Market Production in Cities of Northern Europe during the Late Middle Ages.” In Women and Work in Preindustrial Europe, edited by Barbara A. Hanawalt, 198–222. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986. Jannasch, Wilhelm. Reformationsgeschichte Lübecks vom Petersablass bis zum Augsburger Reichstag 1515–30. Lübeck: Schmidt-Römhild, 1958. Kähler, Ernst. “Freder, Johannes.” In Neue Deutsche Biographie, 5:387–88. Karant-Nunn, Susan C. “Kinder, Küche, Kirche: Social Ideology in the Sermons of Johannes Mathesius.” In Germania Illustrata: Essays on Early Modern Germany Presented to Gerald Strauss, edited by Andrew C. Fix and Susan C. Karant-Nunn, 121–40. Kirksville, MO: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1992. ———. “The Women of the Saxon Silver Mines.” In Women in Reformation and CounterReformation Europe, edited by Sherrin Marshall, 29–46. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1989. Kawerau, Gustav. “Menius, Justus.” Realenzyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche 12 (1903):577–81. Kawerau, Waldemar. Die Reformation und die Ehe: Ein Beitrag zur Kulturgeschichte des sechzehnten Jahrhunderts. Halle: Verein für Reformationsgeschichte, 1892. Kelso, Ruth. Doctrine for the Lady of the Renaissance. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1956. Klingebeyl, Steffan. Von Priester Ehe des wirdigen Herrn Licentiaten Steffan Klingebeyl mit einer Vorrede Mart. Luther. Wittenberg, 1528. Kohls, Ernst-Wilhelm. “Alber, Erasmus.” In Theologische Realenzyklopädie 2 (1978): 167–70. Kolde, Theodor. “Althamer, Andreas.” In Realenzyklopädie für protestantische Theologie und Kirche 1 (1896): 413–14. Leder, Hans-Günter. “Johannes Bugenhagen Pomeranus—Leben und Wirken (1485– 1558).” In Johannes Bugenhagen: Gestalt und Wirkung; Beiträge zur Bugenhagenforschung, edited by Hans-Günter Leder, 8–37. Berlin: Evangelischer Verlagsanstalt, 1984. Lenz, Rudolf. “‘Ehestand, Wehestand, Süssbitter Standt?’ Betrachtungen zur Familie der frühen Neuzeit.” Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 68 (1986): 371–405.

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———. “Emotion und Affektion in der Familie der frühen Neuzeit: Die Leichenpredigt als Quelle der historischen Familienforschung.” In Die Familie als sozialer und historischer Verband, edited by Peter-Johannes Schuler, 121–46. Sigmaringen: J. Thorbecke, 1987. Liebmann, Maximilian. Urbanus Rhegius und die Anfänge der Reformation. Münster: Aschendorff, 1980. Luther, Martin. Eine Hochzeitpredigt uber den spruch zun Hebrern am xiii. Capitel. Geprediget durch D. Mar. Luther. Wittenberg, 1531. Menius, Justus. Erynnerung was denen so sich ynn Ehestand begeben zu bedencken sey. Wittenberg, 1528. Müller, Herrmann. “Freder, Johannes.” In Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, 7:327–31. Ozment, Steven. Magdalena and Balthasar: An Intimate Portrait of Life in 16th-Century Europe Revealed in the Letters of a Nuremberg Husband and Wife. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1986. ———. Three Behaim Boys: Growing Up in Early Modern Germany. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1990. ———. When Fathers Ruled: Family Life in Reformation Europe. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983. Postel, Rainer. “Horenjegers und Kökschen: Zölibat und Priesterehe in der hamburgischen Reformation.” In Städtische Gesellschaft und Reformation, edited by Ingrid Batori, 221– 33. Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1980. Rhegius, Urbanus. Ain Sermon vom eelichen stand wie nutz not gut und frey er jederman sey durch D. Urbanum regium. Augsburg, 1525. Roper, Lyndal. The Holy Household: Women and Morals in Reformation Augsburg. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. Schilling, Johannes. Gewesene Mönche: Lebensgeschichten in der Reformation. Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag. 1990. Schornbaum, Karl. “Althamer, Andreas.” In Neue Deutsche Biographie, 1:219. Scribner, R. W. Popular Culture and Popular Movements in Reformation Germany. London: Hambledon Press, 1987. Simon, Matthias. “Dietrich, Veit.” In Neue Deutsche Biographie, 3:699. Smith, Jeanette C. “Katharina von Bora through Five Centuries: A Historiography.” Sixteenth Century Journal 30 (1999): 745–74. Treu, Martin. Katharina von Bora. 3rd ed. Wittenberg: Drei Kastanien Verlag, 1999. Wiesner, Merry E. “Ideology Meets the Empire: Reformed Convents and the Reformation.” In Germania Illustrata: Essays on Early Modern Germany Presented to Gerald Strauss, edited by Andrew C. Fix and Susan C. Karant-Nunn, 181–95. Kirksville, MO: Sixteenth Century Journal Publishers, 1992. ———. Working Women in Renaissance Germany. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1986. Wolf, Gustav. Quellenkunde der deutschen Reformationsgeschichte. Vol. 2. Gotha: F. A. Perthes, 1916–22. Wrede, Adolf. Die Einführung der Reformation im Lüneburgischen durch Herzog Ernst den Bekenner. Göttingen: Dieterich’sche Universitäts-Buchhandlung, 1887. Yost, John K. “Changing Attitudes towards Married Life in Civic and Christian Humanism.” Occasional Papers of the American Society for Reformation Research 1 (December 1977): 151–66.

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Father, Son, and Pious Christian Concepts of Masculinity in Reformation Geneva Karen E. Spierling

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ccording to one of the most familiar stories from the Genevan consistory records, in the summer of 1546, Amyed Chappuis, a barber, stood beside Claude Bastard, the godfather of his son, as Bastard presented the infant to be baptized and declared that the child’s name was Claude. 1 The minister refused to baptize the child with this name because it was that of a local saint—one of a considerable list of names labeled superstitious, and therefore unacceptable, by the Reformed pastors. Instead, the minister baptized the boy Abraham. Chappuis quickly took the boy into his own arms, insisting that if no one would baptize his son with the name Claude, then he would wait until the boy was fifteen to have him baptized, presumably so that he could choose his own name.2 1This essay is based on evidence found in the records of the Genevan consistory and the Genevan city council housed in the Archives d’État de Genève (AEG). More discussion of issues involving baptism and catechism referred to in the following pages may be found in Spierling, Infant Baptism. 2AEG, Procès Criminels, 1e série, 431, 20–30 August 1546. This case is discussed at length in the context of the Genevan naming controversy by Naphy, Calvin, 144–53, esp. 146; and by Spierling, Infant Baptism, 144–46.

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This essay will examine Chappuis’ case as one of several windows into concepts of masculinity in Reformation Geneva during the period 1540–60. One of the most interesting aspects of this famous confrontation is that Chappuis was, in one way, upholding the church’s and city’s expectations of men, and specifically of fathers, at the same time that he was violating one of the basic premises behind those expectations. Rather than serving as proof of his commitment to the Reformed faith and community, Chappuis’ participation in his son’s baptism ultimately demonstrated his willingness to challenge Reformed ideals and authority in order to meet another expectation that Genevans had of men: protecting their own family interests and traditions. With this in mind, the following pages address concepts of masculinity in Reformation Geneva instead of one allpervasive concept. In Geneva neither church nor city authorities articulated their expectations of men specifically in terms of a concept of masculinity. They did, however, have well-defined standards for the behavior of Genevan men and, in many cases, clear views on how men’s behavior should be distinguished from that of women. Some Genevan inhabitants and church members also expressed strong opinions about what they expected of men. Not surprisingly, these ideas did not always coincide. Thus, one of the many issues negotiated in Geneva during the Reformation was precisely what defined a man as a man. For John Calvin and the Reformed pastors of Geneva, masculinity was closely tied to obligations to the family, the city, and the church. Most important was a man’s duty to God; all other obligations originated in this overarching responsibility. To be a (Reformed) Christian man was to live a godly life by providing for one’s family both materially and spiritually. A pious man, the Reformers believed, would not only earn a living in order to feed, clothe, and house his wife and children, but he would also ensure that his children (and his servants) were educated in the Christian faith at home and attended catechism services regularly. Some of these obligations pertained to women as well, but, generally speaking, Genevan men were held more publicly accountable for the well-being and religious nurture of their children. Both the consistory and the city council records from 1540 to 1560 provide ample evidence of the ways in which Reformers attempted to publicize and enforce their concept of masculinity among Genevan men. These records also reveal how some Genevans challenged the ideas of the

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church and city authorities, seeking instead to defend and promote their own concepts of masculinity. As the first step toward a thorough understanding of sixteenth-century Genevan concepts of masculinity, the following discussion will focus on conflicts over the connection between fatherhood and masculinity. Based on the archival sources, this essay argues that competing expectations of fathers and sons in Reformation Geneva resulted in an ongoing process of negotiation about the definition of masculinity and served as an obstacle to the thorough implementation of the Reformation as envisioned by Calvin and his colleagues.

Authority and Obedience in Early Modern Europe Historical scholarship on the issues of gender, masculinity, and the relations between men and women in early modern Europe often emphasizes themes of authority, discipline, and obedience or submission. Several decades ago, scholars focused especially on the authority given to men and the obedience demanded of women and children by Reformers and Protestant authorities. In When Fathers Ruled, Steven Ozment explored the German reformers’ emphasis on the family as the basic unit for the reformation of church and society by focusing on the responsibilities of men within those families. While he emphasized the shared responsibilities of mothers and fathers, Ozment ultimately presented a picture of patriarchal authority within families reinforced by Protestant teachings.3 Similarly, in her discussion of Lutheran education for girls in Zwickau of the 1520s, Susan Karant-Nunn observed that one of the main purposes of such schools was to train girls to be “submissive wives.”4 In a later work, Lyndal Roper argued that the “evangelical urban moralism” that undergirded patriarchal notions about marriage and the household in Augsburg were tied to “a view of all human relationships…as being structured around authority and submission.”5 In the last decade, historians have begun to pursue this theme of authority and submission in other human relationships besides marriage. A recent approach to the issue of obedience in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries is presented by

3Ozment, When

Fathers Ruled. “Continuity and Change,” 19. On the issue of wifely submission, see Wiesner, Women and Gender, 26–28. 5Roper, Holy Household, 57. 4Karant-Nunn,

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Heide Wunder in her analysis of the construction of masculinity in Hans von Schwinichen’s record of his life. Wunder explains the importance of obedience in the relationship between father and son and then asserts that such obedience was “essential in order to be able later to command obedience as lord of the manor, aristocratic administrator, and husband.”6 In other words, masculinity required a man to demonstrate obedience to others during his life and not only to require submission from his wife and servants. This idea—the need for boys and men to be obedient to certain other men—is part of what makes the discussion of masculinity in Geneva interesting and more complicated than one might expect. Discussions about masculinity, such as they were, occurred within the context of male authorities imposing their disciplinary expectations upon male inhabitants of the city. The specific matters contested in these situations included, among others, providing for one’s family, disciplining one’s children, respecting one’s parents, and attending catechism (or ensuring that one’s children attended catechism). In most cases, the interests of the Genevan city council and the consistory overlapped and reinforced each other. John Calvin’s vision for reforming both church and society was based on his conviction that a disciplined, orderly society would be one in which people’s needs could be best met and God’s grace would be most evident. The city council’s ultimate acceptance of Calvin’s leadership in reforming the church was, similarly, based on the conviction that such an orderly, reformed society was vital to the survival of the newly independent Geneva.7 Both the religious and the secular leaders of Geneva thought masculinity entailed obedience to higher authorities and the assertion of a man’s own power over his wife, children, and social inferiors. While this suggests that Wunder’s description of the link between obedience and masculinity held true throughout western Europe, the following discussion will demonstrate that even within Geneva, there were men who challenged the assumptions behind this notion.

Masculinity and Fatherhood in Geneva Religious reformers and secular leaders across western Europe emphasized the role of men as husbands and heads of households. Scott Hendrix has

6Wunder, “Construction of Masculinity,” 320. On the importance of obedience in early modern society, see Wunder, “Gender Norms,” 42–43. 7Spierling, “Making Use of God’s Remedies,” 788–89.

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examined the specific expectations that German reformers had of married men and the support that they hoped to offer those same men in living up to their responsibilities. The marital responsibilities Hendrix addressed included the obligation to raise one’s children and not to neglect one’s offspring or desert one’s family.8 Such obligations of husbands and fathers were fundamental to official concepts of masculinity in Geneva, too. This connection between family responsibility and masculinity was not, of course, created by sixteenth-century reformers. In late medieval Europe, guilds had great influence on notions of masculinity; in the guild system, a man could not become a master unless he was married. Thus, full adult masculinity required that a man be both the head of a workshop and the head of a family.9 As mentioned above, Protestant reformers across Europe also emphasized the importance of marriage and family, making the nuclear family the main building block of a pious Christian society. The Genevan church and city council were by no means unique in their efforts to tie the definition of manhood and masculinity closely to the roles of responsible husband and father. They did, however, pursue that goal with unusual diligence. The Genevan authorities, both church and city, expected all parents— fathers and mothers—to nurture and discipline their children, to provide for their physical and spiritual needs, to arrange for education and vocational training, and to make sure they learned the tenets of the Reformed faith. All this was part of the parental responsibility to raise one’s children to be faithful members of the Reformed community. While traditional assumptions have left women, including mothers, largely impotent in the patriarchal system of Genevans, recent work has suggested that mothers were also held responsible for their children’s well-being. Evidence from Calvin’s writings as well as from the archival records demonstrates a variety of Genevan attitudes regarding women’s authority within the family. For example, Raymond Blacketer has described an emphasis on shared parental responsibility in Calvin’s commentary on Deuteronomy 21:18–21. Calvin argues that God gives children to parents as a gift; in return, it is “the God-given duty

8Hendrix,

“Masculinity and Patriarchy.” Holy Household, 31. She notes that the city of Augsburg went even further in the late fifteenth century, when a city council decree “stipulated that only those currently married could hold urban office.” In view of such practices, journeymen’s rejection of contact with women may have been a way to draw a distinction between themselves and their married employers; Wiesner, Christianity and Sexuality, 85. 9Roper,

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of parents to raise their children properly.”10 Both the honor and the responsibility connected to children pertain to mothers as well as fathers. Blacketer concludes: “The practical application is that both father and mother are responsible for their children’s upbringing and should do everything possible to train their children properly. Since God has so honored the mother, she too must do her part to discharge her office faithfully.”11 My own examination of the consistory and city council records for the duration of Calvin’s time in Geneva has demonstrated that both bodies sought to hold mothers, as well as fathers, responsible for the nurture and education of their children.12 Despite this acknowledgment of mothers, a man’s responsibility for his family was most often more public than a woman’s.13 Fathers were the first ones called to account if their children were not baptized, if the ministers considered their children’s godparents to be inappropriate, and if their children were not attending catechism or were misbehaving at church or elsewhere in the city. Fathers were also the first summoned if neighbors reported that children were being neglected, or if they had been sent to live outside of Geneva with Catholics for education or work. And it was fathers who held the first right of consent to the engagements and marriages of their minor children; the views of a mother regarding such matters “counted only if her husband was absent, and then only if they concurred with those of other relatives.”14 Finally, in Reformation Geneva, fathers were frequently held responsible for the upbringing of their illegitimate children. Although they did not always win this argument, Calvin and the Reformed pastors preferred that no illegitimate child be baptized until his or her father had publicly recognized and accepted the baby as his own. 15

10Blacketer, The School of God, 240. Barbara Pitkin also emphasizes that Calvin expected both mothers and fathers to “teach godliness” to their children; Pitkin, “‘The Heritage of the Lord,’” 171. Similarly, within his description of the patriarchal nature of sixteenth-century society, Steven Ozment asserts that men and women shared parenting responsibilities “to an unusually high degree”; Ozment, When Fathers Ruled, 132. 11Blacketer, The School of God, 243. 12In an article based on the first five years of consistory records, however, Jeffrey Watt has emphasized the responsibility of fathers over that of mothers in ensuring children’s religious education; Watt, “Calvinism, Childhood, and Education,” 447. 13As Scott Hendrix points out, this public/private division between husbands and wives (and therefore fathers and mothers) was not necessarily a creation of the Reformation period; Hendrix, “Masculinity and Patriarchy,” 192–93, citing Bennett, Women in the Medieval English Countryside, 6. 14Witte and Kingdon, Sex, Marriage, and Family, vol. 1, Courtship, Engagement, and Marriage, 181. 15In practice, however, they would generally proceed with baptism as long as a church member in good standing presented the child for the sacrament.

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All of this is to say that for the members of both the consistory and the city council in Reformation Geneva, taking care of one’s family was an important part of being a faithful Christian man. To abandon, neglect, or abuse one’s children was not only to be less than masculine, it was to be less than human. This point is clearly articulated in the 1557 case of Thibauld Gaultier, who had a son by a servant and did not provide any care for the mother or child. In October of that year, the boy was three months old and near death because of Gaultier’s neglect. Having heard the accusations against him and Gaultier’s refusal to rectify the situation, the consistory sent him to the city council for punishment. The consistory reported that Gaultier refused to provide any money to feed the child; it asserted that this was “an outrageous thing, contrary to all humanity of a father toward his child.”16 The council reiterated the consistory’s judgment, declaring that Gaultier “deserves grave and corporal punishment because he has treated his son with cruelty and inhumanity, taking no more care of him than a beast.” As a result, the council declared that Gaultier should be imprisoned. In view of the fact that Gaultier had not shown up for his own hearing, it was further ordered that the council itself should see to it that each year enough money was deducted from Gaultier’s income to feed and provide for his son “until he has come of age.”17 The insistence that a father should provide for his children, legally recognized or not, was not in itself a new idea. Medieval parents strove to care for their children, too. Medieval communities relied on responsible parents to help maintain social stability. In Reformation Geneva, however, according to the views promulgated by both church and city authorities, being a responsible father became a requirement for being considered a respected member of the civic community and a pious Christian. All three attributes, as well as being a faithful husband, belonged to a complete definition of masculinity. The most pertinent cases in the consistory records concern men who were acting as responsible fathers but who understood a father’s priorities differently than the church and city authorities did. One example is the case of Amyed Chappuis, which will be discussed further below. Chappuis was acting to protect his family but not as a faithful Christian as defined by the 16AEG, Procès Criminels, 2me série 1174, 21 October 1557. The idea that extreme parental cruelty is contrary to nature also appears in Calvin’s sermon on Deuteronomy (31 December 1555), discussed in Blacketer, The School of God, 249. 17AEG, Procès Criminels, 2me série 1174, 21 October 1557.

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Reformers. In the face of persistent traditional notions of masculinity and paternal responsibility, the church and city of Geneva had to find a way to reconcile their determination that fathers should take financial and material responsibility for their children with their desire for all members of the community to be disciplined and godly. In the terms of this essay, the question was: How could piety be made an inherent part of masculinity? This question confronted reforming authorities across western Europe, not only those in Geneva. For example, Heidi Wunder has demonstrated for sixteenth-century Germany that the virtue of piety was demanded of men as well as women and that it was connected to secular as well as to civic behavior. Wunder presents a definition of piety composed by Hans Sachs, a shoemaker and poet from sixteenth-century Nuremberg, which is apt for Reformation Geneva as well: Piety is obedient and humble, subservient, fair, true, and gracious, peaceful, friendly, mild, and communal, honest, sincere, and demure, silent, truthful, discreet, undemanding, modest, soft-tempered, composed, moderate, and well-disciplined at all times.18 As Wunder points out, while modern readers might assume that this description applied to women, Sachs was listing virtues expected from the male inhabitants of Nuremberg. The challenge in German cities as well as in Geneva was how to reconcile this vision of “obedient and humble…mild and communal” masculinity with the more traditional emphasis placed upon the demonstration of virility, participation in violence, and the protection of one’s family name and honor. 19 This struggle is evident in cases such as Gaultier’s, when men resisted efforts to enforce official standards of masculinity. This is seen also in the case of Amyed Chappuis. One of the initial responsibilities of a father, according to the Reformed authorities, was to make sure that his newborn child was baptized in a Reformed church, at the time of a sermon, in front

18Quoted in Wunder, “Gender Norms,” 42; English translation by Lyndal Roper. Originally cited in Könneker, “Die Ehemoral,” 235. 19On the connection between masculinity and sexual performance in early modern Europe (especially France and Italy), see Muir, Rituals, 27–31. For similar themes in concepts of masculinity among the nobility, see Wunder, “Construction of Masculinity,” 318–22.

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of a congregation. The ceremony of baptism was the first public declaration of the child’s name and the first public acknowledgment of parents and child as a family, as well as the moment when parents promised to raise their children in the Reformed faith.20 According to Calvin’s vision for the Reformed community, the public ceremony of baptism was crucial in establishing who would be responsible for a child as he or she grew up. While Calvin’s reasons for wanting fathers to participate in baptism emerge clearly from his baptismal liturgy and teachings, it was not always clear to Genevans themselves that this practice was necessary. In Geneva, as elsewhere in Europe, it was customary for a father not to attend the baptism of his own child. Traditionally, a father’s role on the day of baptism was to host the celebration that followed the church service. His absence from the actual sacrament was further justified by the Roman Catholic Church’s strictures regarding spiritual kinship and godparents. The church held, and it was generally believed, that the relationship between a child and its godparents was spiritual and thus pure, while that with its own parents was corporal and thus tainted with the very human stain of original sin. Consequently, the presence of either parent at the ceremony of baptism might pollute the sacrament itself. One might even say that a father’s physical, human masculinity made him an inappropriate participant in his child’s rite of baptism. So, for reasons of both practicality and religious belief, Genevan fathers did not attend their children’s baptisms before the Reformation.21 In light of this fact, it is a surprise that Chappuis, generally an opponent of the Reformed authorities, was present at his son’s baptism. Simply by attending the ceremony, he was complying with the Reformers’ desire that fathers should be responsible for their children’s baptisms. At the same time, by seizing his child and rejecting not only the name pronounced by the minister but also the very act of baptism, Chappuis was turning that desire on its head. He was acting as a father (not simply as a parent), taking action to preserve a family tradition and protect the honor of his child’s chosen godfather. In a way, this was just what the Reformers were asking men to do. But when Chappuis’ vision of his responsibility to his family diverged from the Reformers’ vision of godly, disciplined behavior, he went

20While Calvin ideally wanted both mothers and fathers to present their children for baptism, in sixteenth-century Geneva mothers were usually still at home recovering from childbirth, and they rarely attended the baptisms of their own children. 21For further discussion of the issues involved, see Spierling, Infant Baptism, 91–93, 109–12. See also Naphy, Calvin, 144–66; and Karant-Nunn, “‘Suffer the little children.’”

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from being a Christian man, fully masculine in the eyes of the Reformers, to something less than a man and less than a Christian, because he was rejecting the assistance offered by God in the form of the discipline of the Reformed church.22 In this case, one sees a man living up to the city council’s expectations of masculine behavior but not up to the church’s religious standards. Chappuis was married, his son was born within wedlock, he was providing for his son and, in his own view, he was fulfilling one of his masculine obligations by defending the honor of his child’s godfather and, therefore, protecting the relationship between his son and the boy’s godfather. In contrast, cases such as Gaultier’s that involved illegitimate children clearly violated both legal and religious expectations of Genevan men. What can one learn from such cases, in which the physical masculinity of a man was demonstrated by the very existence of the child, but Reformed expectations regarding masculine responsibility were more difficult to enforce? In these instances, the authorities’ definition of masculinity involved publicly acknowledging one’s child and taking responsibility, financial and otherwise, for the upbringing of that child. Both church and city officials were again confronting traditional ideas about masculinity that focused less on the care of the child and more on the reputation of the parents, particularly the father. This conflict is clearly demonstrated in a case involving another Genevan named Denis Potier. In 1555, Potier presented his stepgrandson, Benjamin, for baptism at Saint-Pierre, the main church in Geneva. Serving as the boy’s godfather, Potier stated publicly that the boy had been born within the bonds of marriage and was the son of his stepdaughter, Marthe, and her husband, André Dymonnet. As the case progressed through the consistory and city council, it was revealed that Benjamin was actually the son of Amyed Varoud, with whom Marthe had an affair before she married Dymonnet. Because he was the one who had lied publicly about Benjamin’s paternity and had prompted the minister to record that lie in the official baptismal registry, Potier was chastised, ordered to cry mercy to God and to the city magistrates, and to amend the baptismal registry with the correct name of Benjamin’s father.23 When he appeared before the 22Calvin

addresses the duty of Christians to make use of “remedies” provided by God in Inst.,

1.17.4. 23AEG, Registres du Conseil de Genève 50, fol. 10, 15 October 1555. The full details of this case are presented in Spierling, Infant Baptism, 158–59, 170–76. Further discussion and translation of the case record may be found in Witte and Kingdon, Sex, Marriage, and Family, vol. 1, Courtship, Engagement, XXXXX

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consistory during the investigation, Potier protested his innocence, insisting that he could neither “declare nor say that the infant belonged to Amyed Varoud in the presence of so many people.”24 While Potier was not the father of the illegitimate child in this case, he felt a responsibility as the male head of the family to protect the honor of his family generally and his stepdaughter specifically by concealing Benjamin’s illegitimate birth. The consistory and the city council both rejected his reasoning, but that does not diminish the impassioned nature of it, which comes through clearly in the records. Potier believed he was upholding his masculine duty of protecting his family and ensuring that his grandson would be cared for and recognized as a citizen of Geneva. The members of the consistory, on the other hand, found Potier lacking in the honesty and piety required of Reformed Christian men. As this case suggests, the issue of illegitimate children was a complicated one, especially as it related to definitions and demonstrations of masculinity. Traditionally, while it was possible for men to ignore their illegitimate children, it was also possible for them to provide for those children without having to acknowledge them publicly. The Reformed authorities of Geneva, however, were intent on publicly recording the names of the parents of such children in order to secure their financial support. They were also determined to punish the parents who had participated in illicit sexual relations.25 Families who attempted to conceal the illegitimate status of a child had to go to greater lengths than they did before the Reformation, as demonstrated by the actions of Denis Potier. The competing expectations of men who fathered illegitimate children are further illuminated by the case of Françoys Humbert of Annecy that was tried in July 1550. Humbert worked as a servant in Geneva and was tried by the city council for helping to conceal the fact that his employer, Marin Maillet, had an illegitimate child with a female servant named Noelle.26 A year earlier, Humbert had publicly acknowledged the child as his. Just a month before the trial, on 5 June, Noelle herself had confessed to the consistory that she had committed paillardise (fornication) with Humbert and had borne his child, who had been baptized in a Catholic 24

and Marriage, 233–35, 255–60. 24AEG, Registres du Conseil de Genève 50, fol. 20v, 28 October 1555. 25For an introduction to the issue of fornication in Calvin’s theology, Genevan statutes, and consistory cases, see Witte and Kingdon, Sex, Marriage, and Family, vol. 1, Courtship, Engagement, and Marriage, 414–24. 26AEG, Procès Criminels, 2me série 861, 14–29 July 1550.

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place. (Noelle had since been married and was now also called to account for having had a Catholic wedding.27) But by July, the city council had discovered that in fact the child belonged to Maillet, a wealthy citizen of Geneva, and not to Humbert, his servant. As the story unfolded, the magistrates discovered that Maillet had paid Humbert to accept the child as his own. Noelle also had been convinced through the promise of money to acknowledge Humbert as the father, even though they never had any physical relationship.28 This particular case provides a fine example of the complicated ways that notions of masculinity could overlap and tug at one another in Reformation Geneva. Françoys Humbert, according to his own claims, was trying to act as a responsible man and servant; as a result of his actions, his master’s honor was protected, the child was cared for, and, of course, Humbert profited financially. The child was not abandoned; rather, Maillet provided for him through Humbert. One view of Humbert’s actions might have been that he was going above and beyond the Reformed standards of masculine responsibility by accepting responsibility for a child that was not even his. But as with Potier, despite the apparently good—or at least less than malicious—intentions of Humbert, the city council determined that, rather than exceeding their expectations of Christian men, he had violated both the church’s and the city’s standards by conspiring in a deception that allowed his employer to evade his own Christian, masculine responsibilities. At one point in the interrogation, when asked yet again whether he had had “carnal relations” with Noelle, Humbert responded that it was “an act of conscience that should be left to God.”29 But the Genevan consistory generally was unwilling to rely solely on people’s consciences. Calvin’s vision for reforming church and society was founded on the conviction that weak and sinful human beings could only survive as a stable society with the gifts of authority and discipline provided by God. 30 Based in part on this idea, both church and city authorities claimed the right to careful oversight of the domestic life of all Genevan inhabitants. As a result, men such as Maillet and Humbert who traditionally exercised considerable autonomy in terms of their households now could be called to account for almost anything, and especially for suspicion of fornication and fathering 27AEG,

Registres du Consistoire de Genève 5, fol. 36v, 5 June 1550. Procès Criminels, 2me série 861, 14–29 July 1550. 29AEG, Procès Criminels, 2me série 861, 14–29 July 1550. 30In one example, Calvin described discipline as the “sinews” of the church, “through which the members of the body hold together”; Inst., 4.12.1. 28AEG,

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illegitimate children. Even if the consistory was likely to uphold their authority in the end, these men still had to face a public critique of their family and behavior. In cases involving paillardise, they also faced certain admonitions and punishment from both church and city. Despite these efforts of the Genevan authorities, traditional notions connecting virility and family honor to masculinity persisted in the city. Men such as Maillet seem both to have taken pride in the masculinity demonstrated by siring illegitimate offspring and to have gone to great lengths to fulfill their masculine duty of protecting the honor of their legitimate, recognized family. Even before the Reformation, the Genevan city authorities had challenged these traditional concerns by attempting to tie the masculinity of impregnating women to the equally masculine responsibility of publicly acknowledging and providing for the resulting child. 31 The Reformed church built on that medieval effort, binding it not only to social stability but to religious faith and godly living.

Providers, Disciplinarians, and Sons Not surprisingly, Genevan authorities believed that both the piety and the stability of the community were also affected by fathers’ treatment of their legitimate offspring. According to both church and city, fathers were responsible for the discipline and the religious education of their children. Mothers shared that burden, but since they were ultimately expected to submit to their husbands, mothers were seldom independently called to account unless they were widows.32 While both church and city supported paternal authority within families, they sometimes intervened in an attempt to alter a man’s behavior toward his children and his wife. It is usually impossible to know from the consistory and council records precisely what such men thought of the authorities’ intercession in their private lives. But the records do show that while some men cooperated with the consistory’s efforts to reconcile families and promised (at least for the moment) to change their behavior, others chafed at the necessity of unquestioning obedience to the church and city authorities. 31Regarding efforts of the pre-Reformation Genevan city council to make sure that fathers provided for their illegitimate children, see Naef, Les origines, 232. 32It was more common for the consistory to summon both parents in cases of domestic problems or mistreatment of children. On widows’ responsibility for their children, see Spierling, “Making Use of God’s Remedies,” 796–800.

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This returns us to a key problem faced by the reformers: If the family was to be the building block for a stable and Reformed Geneva, how could the authorities both affirm the authority of male heads of household and insist on their own power over those same men? The simple answer would be, echoing Wunder’s arguments, that obedience to one’s superiors was as much a part of masculinity in early modern Europe as was demanding obedience from one’s inferiors. But the behavior of some Genevan men suggests that obedience to the Genevan authorities, and particularly to the consistory, was an affront to their own masculine pride and privileges. As a result, both church and city had to grapple with this paradox— asserting their authority over men whose own authority they were trying to reinforce—throughout the period of the Reformation. This is seen particularly in cases in which the consistory or council chastised men for the ways they were treating their families. As Scott Hendrix has demonstrated, Protestant reformers’ visions of the Christian household placed both the privilege of power and the burden of significant responsibility on the shoulders of husbands and fathers. Church and city authorities expected Genevan men to provide for their wives and children, and they worked together in their attempt to force all husbands and fathers to attend to their families. For example, when in 1548 Master Amied, a courier, was summoned for spending all his money on gambling, the consistory admonished him to “live honestly” and attend to his family’s needs. The entry concludes by saying that if Amied “perseveres in following the games, he will be sent to Messieurs, who will know how to chastise him well.”33 Several months later another man, La Tornier, received remonstrances that he “should provide for his wife and his small children, and he should not frequent the taverns, consuming all of his substance and roaming about as a vagabond.” The consistory reminded him that he had “the charge of children” and gave him “several other Christian admonitions.” They concluded that if La Tornier did not mend his ways, they would “proceed otherwise,” suggesting that he, too, might face the more earthly punishments of the city council.34 While the reaction of these two men is not recorded, it is certain that some Genevan men found the requirement to be both pious Christians and responsible fathers and husbands overwhelming, or even contradictory. This is demonstrated by the 1548 case of Ayme Dunam, whom the consistory 33AEG, 34AEG,

Registres du Consistoire de Genève 4, fol. 17, 29 March 1548. Registres du Consistoire de Genève 4, fol. 38v, 21 June 1548.

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accused of being “so changed that it seems that he no longer has any affection for the word of God.” Dunam protested that he did indeed have affection for the word, “knowing that it is the lamp of the faithful to enlighten him.” He went on to explain the drop in his church attendance by describing an exchange he had with another man, Jacques du Val, from Paris, after a sermon at the church of Saint-Gervais. Du Val remarked to him that he thought it was “the business of some rich men to go to church meetings and stay there until ten in the morning.” He continued that “it would be better if he worked to feed his little children, seeing that he was poor.” Dunam had replied that “he would very much like to work to feed his little children” but that he could not do both that and follow the word of God, for which he would receive God’s grace.35 The consistory records contain many types of excuses from people like Ayme Dunam, who were accused of not attending sermons often enough or at all. Nevertheless, the anecdote related by Dunam reflects a real paradox that some men faced in Reformed Geneva. Demonstrating one’s piety as a Reformed Christian required making decisions that sometimes had a negative impact on one’s social or economic situation. While in the minds of the Reformers, piety was inseparable from discipline and diligence and was thus a likely predictor of social and economic stability, in the lives of some Genevans frequent church attendance might rather interfere with their business and inhibit their efforts to provide for their families. Regarding the disciplining of those families, the consistory’s efforts to enforce the Reformed vision of paternal responsibility was also perceived by some men as an intrusion and an unwelcome restriction of their autonomy. Echoing Calvin’s call for moderation in all aspects of a pious life, the court was concerned that Genevan fathers should discipline their children strictly but not too harshly. This attempt by the authorities to control the disciplining of the city’s children reflected a wider trend, also observed in Germany by Joel Harrington. The challenge both in Germany and in Geneva was to strike the right balance between overly strict discipline and the equally dangerous extreme of indulgence.36 The consistory’s efforts to rein in both extremes of disciplinary behavior provoked resistance from some Genevan men. For example, when the 35AEG,

Registres du Consistoire de Genève, fol. 49, 16 August 1548. “Bad Parents,” 20–23. Addressing the search for balance in discipline in German sources, Steven Ozment asserts that “the harsh parent was thought to err less than the one who was too lenient”; Ozment, When Fathers Ruled, 147. 36Harrington,

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court accused Claude Galleys of having beaten his young son too severely, Galleys responded that “there was no one who could keep him from punishing and beating his child, not even Messieurs themselves.” When he admitted to having made this remark, the consistory admonished him and ordered him to attend sermons.37 Both consistory and city council supported a father’s right and responsibility to discipline his children as an aid to resisting temptation and managing the burden of original sin. But abusive treatment, such as that carried out by Galleys, might backfire, pushing a child farther astray from the Reformed way of life. On the other hand, treating one’s children indulgently also posed a risk, both to the souls of the children and to the Reformed community. In view of this, the consistory also pursued fathers who were not diligent enough in their discipline. Sometimes, rather than trusting a man to decide on the appropriate way to chastise his own child, the consistory assigned a particular punishment to a child and expected the father to carry out its orders. When this happened, the underlying assumption was that a model Reformed man would obey the consistory’s order to punish his child in order to enforce the child’s obedience to his father and the consistory. As mentioned above, such demands of obedience may have corresponded with traditional expectations of men, especially those held by the nobility, but they also presented a paradox to the men receiving such orders from the consistory. In these situations, the fathers in question were deprived of the authority to make their own decisions about their families. Some cases indicate, however, that certain men tried to override the court’s command and enforce their own ideas about discipline when they found the consistory’s orders to be too harsh. This seems to have been the case with Jehan de Presles and Jacques de Vignes, who were both summoned by the consistory for “not having wanted to do their duty of chastising their children as the consistory had commanded them to do.” When the court stated that the two men had not carried out the public beating that the consistory had ordered, Presles and Vignes explained that their children (presumably their sons) had fled the public scene, but that the children had received their beatings the next day. The consistory, apparently skeptical of this explanation, instructed the men that, if they had not already carried out the beatings, they should do so now.38 While one cannot know for certain if these men 37AEG, 38AEG,

Registres du Consistoire de Genève 14, fol. 93v, 17 November 1558. Registres du Consistoire de Genève 20, fol. 134v, 16 September 1563.

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actually had punished their children, the record is still very suggestive. If Presles and Vignes did not oppose the fact of punishing their children, they may very well have opposed the public nature of the beating. It is one thing to discipline a child in the privacy of one’s own home, even in the limited privacy of an overcrowded sixteenth-century Geneva, but another thing entirely to be the one to carry out a public punishment of one’s own child. While the authorities may have intended such occurrences to be public affirmations of the authority of fathers, they were also a very public reminder that such paternal authority was constrained by the secular and religious powers of the city. The situation in which many Genevan men found themselves—having their own authority strictly regulated by more powerful men—was further complicated by the intervention of church and city in cases involving wayward sons. Church and city both expected fathers to discipline their children according to Reformed values and standards; but these same authorities also enforced their expectation that children should show respect and, when grown, provide support to their parents.39 Fathers who had not successfully exerted their authority in demanding such respect and assistance might turn to the consistory for help. In such cases, the fathers were relying on the consistory to enforce their paternal rights and privileges; the sons, on the other hand, were now the ones rejecting (or trying to manipulate) the Reformed definition of masculinity. This dynamic may be observed in the case of Ameyd de la Rive the younger. When la Rive was questioned about his whereabouts during a Sunday vesper service in March of 1546, he explained that he had been at his father’s house because his father was sick. On the surface, this was an excuse that corresponded to the Reformers’ concept of masculinity: taking responsibility for one’s parents (although at the cost of participation in the church community in a manner similar to the case of Master Amied described above). The young man asserted that he had not left the house after eight o’clock, and he “did not confess otherwise.” But despite la Rive’s attempt to present himself as a conscientious son, the consistory asserted that he was rumored to “frequent the taverns and that his father and mother are not too happy with him.” He denied this and any involvement with the Sunday night commotion the consistory was investigating. The consistory came to no conclusion regarding la Rive’s involvement in 39Regarding Calvin’s emphasis on children’s obligations to their parents, see Pitkin, “‘The Heritage of the Lord,’” 171–74; and Blacketer, The School of God, 252–55.

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the disturbance, but they did remonstrate with him “to be obedient to his father and mother.”40 While there is no indication that his father had brought the case against him, neither his father nor his mother appeared to defend their son. The resulting impression is that la Rive’s father willingly allowed the court to speak for him. This correlation between fathers’ and authorities’ views of paternal privileges and filial obligations is demonstrated in the explicit words of Calvin himself. These appear in the 1548 case of Jean Frochet, a dressmaker sent to the consistory by the city council with the accusation that “he is always drunk and that instead of working at his mestier he only roams about with truant and dissolute people.” Calvin chastised Frochet, saying that “a young man should be chaste and modest, being a servant to his father and mother, not going out drinking with rogues.”41 Calvin’s wording echoes Hans Sachs’ description of pious behavior, and it reflects Calvin’s own theology. Cases such as this represent one way in which the concepts of masculinity held by Genevan authorities and the male inhabitants of the city did, at times, overlap. Taken all together, these examples show that, from the authorities’ point of view, the stability and piety of Genevan society required, in part, that disciplined behavior become an integral part of masculinity, regardless of the age or responsibilities of the man in question.

Masculinity and Catechism Attendance The issues of discipline and the obligations of both young men and fathers intersect in cases related to catechism attendance, which involved concepts of masculinity in a number of ways. Church and city held fathers primarily responsible for sending their children to catechism, expecting them to answer to the consistory when their children did not attend catechism services and to cooperate with the consistory’s disciplining of their children in cases of truancy. At the same time, some fathers and sons viewed the Sunday afternoon catechism service as an intrusion on their traditional male pastimes of swordplay and gambling, usually practiced outside the city walls. 40AEG, Registres du Consistoire de Genève 2, fol. 40, 11 March 1546. Note the case of Loyse, daughter of Andrie Neant, admonished for being disobedient to her mother; AEG, Registres du Consistoire de Genève 2, fol. 42, 18 March 1546. The place of mothers in Reformed Genevan expectations is complex and not yet fully understood. While fathers clearly took precedence legally, in terms of private family workings, the consistory in no uncertain terms, and repeatedly, supported the right of pious mothers to expect obedience and respect from their children. 41AEG, Registres du Consistoire de Genève 4, fol. 3, 23 February 1548.

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Thus, in attempting to enforce catechism attendance by all the youth of the city, the consistory (supported by the city council) was directly confronting a traditional definition of masculinity completely disconnected from Reformed piety, regular church attendance, and even family obligations. According to the Genevan authorities, ensuring the proper religious instruction of one’s children was a fundamental responsibility of both fathers and mothers but, as with the other topics discussed thus far, fathers were the first to be held publicly accountable for their children’s lack of religious knowledge or failure to attend catechism. The consistory cases involving fathers accused of not sending their children to catechism are fairly straightforward in terms of their implication for concepts of masculinity: such fathers were failing in a fundamental aspect of masculinity as defined by church and city. In these situations, fathers most often simply promised to do better, as in the case of Jean Emery, who had never sent his children “to catechism to be instructed in the fear of God,” despite previous admonitions from the consistory. In 1548, Emery promised to “be diligent from now on and send them to catechism.”42 The consistory records do not tell for certain whether or not he followed through on this promise, but he did not appear to take the command as an affront to his manhood or a threat to his authority over his family. The more complex catechism cases are those involving boys who attended the catechism service but misbehaved or who skipped catechism altogether in favor of swordplay, target practice, or other gaming. These issues appear as a recurrent theme throughout the consistory records of the 1550s and 1560s. In these instances, it is more apparent that competing concepts of masculinity were at play in the decisions of both the children who misbehaved and the fathers who chose whether or not to condone their actions. The fact that misbehavior and delinquency (as defined by the authorities) were a common problem is demonstrated by the general wording of the consistory’s repeated complaints to the city council. For example, in May 1550, the consistory recommended that the council be notified “about the insolent acts done by the children” who sometimes played with their papegays (birds made of paper or wood used as targets in shooting practice) during services or who played their tambourines (small versions of drums used by soldiers), disrupting sermons.43 Nearly a decade later, the 42AEG,

Registres du Consistoire de Genève 4, fol. 67, 25 October 1548. Registres du Consistoire de Genève 5, fol. 34, 22 May 1550. Whether the boys were playing their drums inside the church or in the streets outside is unclear. 43AEG,

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consistory again turned to the magistrates for assistance, reporting that “the children do nothing but yell and fight around the churches during sermons, especially during the catechism.” They asked the council to give careful thought to the matter of how best to “suppress and correct the youth.” 44 None of these entries about catechism involve parents complaining about their sons’ behavior; the consistory does not even mention complaints from members of the congregation. This lack of protest, as well as the ongoing problem of misbehavior at catechism despite stringent efforts by the consistory and council, indicate that the boys’ and young men’s behavior was acceptable to some part of Genevan society. Playing at military and hunting exercises may not have prepared boys to be pious Christians, but it did prepare them to undertake other masculine roles, including family provider and defender of the city, and it gave them the opportunity to demonstrate the traditional masculine virtues of physical strength and skill. The consistory records make it clear, however, that the reformers saw these traditionally male pastimes as disruptive and distracting from the serious obligations of pious Christians. The fact that young men were choosing to engage in these activities rather than attending catechism services posed a particular challenge to the Reformers: How could they create a truly reformed society if those most in need of reform refused to attend the service specifically intended to teach them how to be Reformed Christians? In their efforts to enforce attendance at catechism, the consistory and council sometimes overrode the authority of fathers, sending boys who had misbehaved directly “to the school to be whipped to strike fear into the others.”45 This may have been because the fathers themselves were considered complicit in their sons’ behavior. There is no doubt that some Genevan men placed less value on catechism attendance than did the members of the consistory. François Barjon, for example, not only brought his gun to church so that he could go out shooting afterwards, but was accused of having said that he did not want to send all four of his children to catechism “because it suited him to have two of them lead the animals out into the fields.”46 Choosing between church attendance and family obligations was 44AEG, Registres du Consistoire de Genève 16, fol. 220v, 23 November 1559. Enforcing catechism attendance presented a challenge to reformers throughout western Europe. See, for example, Strauss, Luther’s House of Learning, 268–76; Todd, The Culture of Protestantism, 82; Mentzer, “Disciplina nervus ecclesiae,” 106. 45AEG, Registres du Consistoire de Genève 17, fol. 29, 14 March 1560. 46AEG, Registres du Consistoire de Genève 17, fol. 130–130v, 15 August 1560.

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a recurrent theme for Genevans in the first decades of the Reformation, but in the cases involving catechism, the consistory was particularly concerned about fathers who were simply joining their sons in recreational activities. Some fathers “led their children outside the city gates” at catechism time to let them play or to have them carry their fathers’ guns (hacquebutes) for the fathers’ games. When the consistory reported this to the council as part of its increased efforts to crack down on problems of catechism attendance, the magistrates recommended that each week the names of the fathers who tried to help their sons skip catechism should be recorded and reported to the consistory, who would then send the men to the council to be chastised.47 There is no indication that this issue was ever resolved to the consistory’s satisfaction; complaints regarding catechism were still cropping up after Calvin’s death in 1564. The ongoing problem of catechism attendance is one of the clearest examples of the confrontation between traditional and Reformed understandings of masculinity and the privileges and responsibility attached to being a man. According to Calvin’s plan for reforming the church, catechism services were a vital instrument for spreading and instilling Reformed values.48 The difficulty, of course, was that most people needed to appreciate those values in order to be diligent about attending services or sending their children. The role of catechism in shoring up the Reformed community seems to have become especially problematic as boys became young men and decided that they had outgrown the need for catechism. Many of them, as mentioned above, preferred to focus on other more physical aspects of being young men in Geneva. The problem, from the point of view of the Reformers, was that such young men had not outgrown their need for catechism lessons. This concern was reinforced by cases such as that of Jacques de Crigny, who missed catechism and asserted that “catechism was for the little children, and as for himself he was well instructed.” When asked to make a statement of his Reformed faith, Crigny “responded that we are saved by the grace of God,” but then he “added that our good works will save us.”49 This traditional Catholic belief in the effectiveness of good works was just the sort of idea that catechism lessons were intended to suppress. Cases such as Crigny’s and the others discussed here presented a significant obstacle to the Reformers’ efforts to transform Genevan society 47AEG,

Registres du Consistoire de Genève 18, fol. 104, 21 August 1561. “‘The Heritage of the Lord,’” 186–89. 49AEG, Registres du Consistoire de Genève 16, fol. 220, 23 November 1559. 48Pitkin,

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and impose their concept of masculine obligations by using catechism to teach the population Reformed doctrine and the notions of piety bound up in that doctrine.

A Negotiated Masculinity Before drawing any sweeping conclusions about Reformed Genevan concepts of masculinity and challenges to those ideas, it is important to acknowledge two things that are not implied by the Reformed concept of masculinity. First of all, while both church and city in Geneva (as elsewhere in Europe) were governed by a patriarchal system, this did not necessarily imply any innate strength or deserving on the part of men. Calvin’s theology was firmly founded on the notion of weak and corrupt human beings—both men and women—completely dependent upon the grace and power of God.50 This may seem like a nearly irrelevant point, since in practice men did hold positions of authority and power that were not open to women. Still, in order to understand Genevan concepts of masculinity as sixteenth-century Genevans themselves did, it is vital to recognize this point. In addition, as noted earlier, while men held particular responsibilities, they were not the only ones with such obligations, particularly in matters of family and children. Both the consistory and the city council held mothers as well as fathers responsible for the behavior, education, and survival of their children. These two points remind us that in the eyes of both church and city authorities, men and women had some important characteristics in common. Both were weak, sinful, and unable to accomplish any good without the grace of God. Both were responsible for taking care of their spouses. Although husbands and wives had different specific tasks within a marriage, both were expected to love their spouses and to strive to live a life of godly discipline. And both were expected to provide for the material and spiritual care of their children—to protect them from physical harm, to provide them with education and vocational training, and to raise them to be faithful members of the Reformed community. Nevertheless, as discussed above, men were most often publicly called to account for the care of their children. This was just one of the ways in 50The idea that weakness was one part of being both male and human was not unique to Calvin. Scott Hendrix describes the assistance that German reformers attempted to provide to men in view of their inherent vulnerabilities; Hendrix, “Masculinity and Patriarchy,” 181–90.

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which the Genevan authorities sought to make masculinity inseparable from disciplined, pious Reformed Christian belief and behavior—both in public and in private. This linkage of masculinity to piety was an important tool in building a following for the Reformed church and in giving men who had not chosen to devote their lives to the church a strong motivation to become active in the Reformed church community. But the insistence that masculinity implied a strict Reformed piety also posed a challenge to the church’s and city’s attempts to build a stable Genevan community when Genevan men acted on their own concepts of masculinity. Some men accepted particular aspects of the official concept of masculinity but rejected others in favor of more traditional expectations. Such was the case with Amyed Chappuis, who attended his son’s baptism, as the Reformed church demanded, but then publicly repudiated the authority of the minister who refused to baptize his son with the chosen name of Claude. Others rejected the Reformed definition of masculinity altogether, as did Thibauld Gaultier when he impregnated a servant, refused to provide for his illegitimate son, and then fled the city to avoid punishment. And many struggled to assert their own paternal authority within the context of the greater power of the church and the city, as when François Barjon chose to send some of his children to herd his animals rather than to catechism. Reformed masculinity required Genevan men to submit to the authority of other men, even when they questioned the priorities of those in power. Traditional notions of masculinity may have carried this expectation as well, but some Genevan men resisted both the Reformed and traditional insistence on obedience. As a result, the concept of masculinity was a matter of ongoing negotiation throughout the period of the Reformation in Geneva.

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Bibliography Archives AEG

Archives d’État de Genève

Printed Works Bennett, Judith M. Women in the Medieval English Countryside: Gender and Household in Brigstock Before the Plague. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987. Blacketer, Raymond. The School of God: Pedagogy and Rhetoric in Calvin’s Interpretation of Deuteronomy. Dordrecht: Springer, 2006. Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. Edited by John T. McNeill and translated by Ford Lewis Battles. 2 vols. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960. Harrington, Joel. “Bad Parents, the State, and the Early Modern Civilizing Process.” German History 16 (1998): 16–28. Hendrix, Scott. “Masculinity and Patriarchy in Reformation Germany.” Journal of the History of Ideas 56 (1995): 177–93. Karant-Nunn, Susan C. “Continuity and Change: Some Effects of the Reformation on the Women of Zwickau.” Sixteenth Century Journal 13 (1982): 17–42. ———. “‘Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not’: The Social Location of Baptism in Early Modern Germany.” In Continuity and Change, the Harvest of Late-Medieval and Reformation History: Essays Presented to Heiko A. Oberman on His 70th Birthday, edited by Robert J. Bast and Andrew C. Gow, 359–78. Leiden: Brill, 2000. Könneker, Barbara. “Die Ehemoral in den Fastnachtspielen von Hans Sachs. Zum Funktionswandel des Nürnberger Fastnachtspiels im 16. Jahrhundert.” In Hans Sachs und Nürnberg: Bedingungen und Probleme reichsstädtischer Literatur. Hans Sachs zum 400. Todestag, edited by Horst Brunner, Gerhard Hirschmann, and Fritz Schnelbögl, 219–44. Nuremberg: Verein für Geschichte der Stadt Nürnberg, 1976. Mentzer, Raymond A. “Disciplina nervus ecclesiae: The Calvinist Reform of Morals at Nîmes.” Sixteenth Century Journal 18 (1987): 89–116. Muir, Edward. Rituals in Early Modern Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Naef, Henri. Les origines de la Réforme à Genève. Geneva: La Société d’Histoire et d’Archéologie de Genève, 1936. Naphy, William G. Calvin and the Consolidation of the Genevan Reformation. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1994. Ozment, Steven. When Fathers Ruled: Family Life in Reformation Europe. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983. Pitkin, Barbara. “‘The Heritage of the Lord’: Children in the Theology of John Calvin.” In The Child in Christian Thought, edited by Marcia J. Bunge, 160–93. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001. Roper, Lyndal. The Holy Household: Women and Morals in Reformation Augsburg. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. Spierling, Karen E. Infant Baptism in Reformation Geneva: The Shaping of a Community, 1536– 1564. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2005. ———. “Making Use of God’s Remedies: Negotiating the Material Care of Children in Reformation Geneva.” Sixteenth Century Journal 36 (2005): 785–807.

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Strauss, Gerald. Luther’s House of Learning: Indoctrination of the Young in Reformation Germany. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1978. Todd, Margo. The Culture of Protestantism in Early Modern Scotland. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002. Watt, Jeffrey R. “Calvinism, Childhood, and Education: The Evidence from the Genevan Consistory.” Sixteenth Century Journal 33 (2002): 439–56. Wiesner-Hanks, Merry E. Christianity and Sexuality in the Early Modern World: Regulating Desire, Reforming Practice. London: Routledge, 2000. ———. Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Witte, John, Jr., and Robert M. Kingdon. Sex, Marriage, and Family in John Calvin’s Geneva. Vol. 1, Courtship, Engagement, and Marriage. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005. Wunder, Heide. “Construction of Masculinity and Male Identity in Personal Testimonies: Hans von Schweinichen (1552–1616) in His Memorial.” In Time, Space, and Women’s Lives in Early Modern Europe, edited by Anne Jacobson Schutte, Thomas Kuehn, and Silvana Seidel Menchi, 305–23. Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies 57. Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 2001. ———. “Gender Norms and Their Enforcement in Early Modern Germany.” In Gender Relations in German History: Power, Agency and Experience From the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Century, edited by Lynn Abrams and Elizabeth Harvey, 39–56. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1997.

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Masculinity and the Reformed Tradition in France Raymond A. Mentzer

T

he notion that the Reformation contributed to the intensification of masculinity in early modern Europe now seems a commonplace. Scholars working in history and literature have made this point on numerous occasions and for a variety of linguistic and civic cultures. In her discussion of events in sixteenth-century Augsburg, Lyndal Roper argues vigorously that “gender relations…were at the crux of the Reformation.” Within Roper’s interpretative framework, the German Protestant male leaders, both clerical and lay, resolutely advanced “a vision of women’s incorporation within the household under the leadership of their husbands.”1 Scott Hendrix’s examination of the pamphlet literature that German Lutheran preachers composed on the subject of marriage draws attention to the theological underpinnings of their views on husband and household. The question is straightforward. What in this prescriptive literature were men’s approved roles and their responsibilities within the family?2 The contributors to a recent collection focusing on masculine authority in the world of early modern French letters offer an especially nuanced perspective as they emphasize a general anxiety over gender roles. 1Roper, The 2Hendrix,

Holy Household, 1–5. “Masculinity and Patriarchy.”

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They nonetheless reaffirm continuing masculine attempts to control the feminine.3 Yet another commentator characterizes the Reformation in England as “men taking on women—and winning.”4 Few specialists, however, have examined the development and enhancement of masculinity within the context of local churches, the people who constituted these communities of faith, and their life of worship. What, in the case of the early modern French Reformed churches, were the institutional and liturgical vectors for the advance of masculinity? How did the changing constructions and circumstances differ from late medieval ecclesiastical forms and the corresponding arrangements for religious devotion? Were there major shifts in the function and position assigned men, on the one hand, and women, on the other? How were the transformations, such as they were, perceived? What was the reaction of ordinary people? Finally, how did the faithful mediate what modern scholars have generally understood as the extension and strengthening of masculinity by the leadership of the French Reformed movement? Let us begin by focusing on the two Reformed sacraments: baptism and the Lord’s Supper. Within these sacred rituals, ecclesiastical officials systematically expanded masculine participation, often to the disadvantage of traditional female roles. Baptism in the late Middle Ages possessed a strong element of feminine involvement. Many infants, perhaps the majority according to recent scholarship on the subject, were given emergency baptism, the so-called ondoiement in the francophone world, immediately upon birth.5 This swift and urgent action would have taken place in the home—the acknowledged feminine sphere. The administrator was typically the midwife or another of the women who attended and aided in the birth. Medieval and later post-Tridentine Roman Catholic parents believed the ceremony was essential for the protection and salvation of their children. Infants were often sickly, and, in any event, their survival was always precarious. Those who died unbaptized were, according to the medieval church, forever consigned to limbo and thus denied entry into heaven. For their part, the Reformed churches of France vigorously rejected the medieval notion of limbo as the dwelling place for innocent 3Long,

High Anxiety, ix–xvii. Religion and Devotion, 308. Swanson draws upon the work of Richmond, “The English Gentry,” 140–42. 5Emergency baptisms had become “standard practice during the later Middle Ages” according to Spierling, Infant Baptism, 67. See also Cressy, Birth, Marriage, and Death, 63–65; Taglia, “Delivering a Christian Identity,” 80–87; and Wiesner, “Early Modern Midwifery,” 106–7. 4Swanson,

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souls kept from heaven by lack of baptism.6 At the same time, Reformed religious authorities wished to underscore the father as the head of the family and simultaneously curtail women’s sacral roles. Baptism in French Reformed circles occurred in the temple and was deeply embedded in the congregation’s worship. A vigorous public element permeated the ceremony, which ordinarily occurred toward the conclusion of the principal Sunday sermon service. Infants could no longer be baptized privately in the birthing chamber. Nor would the ceremony take place separately from major communal religious services and be limited to relatively few persons, mostly family members, as was the case in the late Middle Ages. The entire body of the faithful now witnessed the event and welcomed its newest member. In addition, the pastor alone was authorized to baptize. Midwives, helpful neighbors, and other individuals could no longer perform the ceremony, even in a crisis when the baby appeared to be gravely ill and in danger of dying. In his Institutes of the Christian Religion, John Calvin was adamantly against the practice of emergency baptism, maintaining that it was “wrong for private persons to assume the administration of baptism.” He added that “Christ did not command women, or men of every sort to baptize, but gave this command to those whom he had appointed apostles.” Baptizing was a “function of the ecclesiastical ministry.” He continued at some length in the Institutes to develop his view that women, in particular, were not permitted to baptize: “Concerning women, it was decreed…that they should not presume to baptize at all.”7 From Calvin’s perspective, the prohibition of women’s administration of baptism was absolute. Indeed, he tied it to the first centuries of the Christian church and ancient commentators such as Epiphanius (ca. 315–403) and Tertullian (ca. 160–220). Early practice, as Calvin understood it, “held that a woman was not allowed to speak in the church, and also not to teach, to baptize, or to offer.” Permission to baptize “was not even given to the holy mother of Christ.”8 Not surprisingly, Calvin’s followers in France labored arduously to prevent midwives and other women from baptizing newborns, while simultaneously bolstering the place of men, above all the newborn’s father and godfather, in the baptismal ceremony. The Discipline of the Reformed Churches of France, an official, regularly updated statement of ecclesiastical polity, laid out the guidelines and, in 6Spierling, “Daring Insolence toward God?” 101–3; Spierling, Infant Baptism, 67–83; and Mentzer, “Laity and Liturgy.” 7Calvin, Institutes, 4.15.20, 1320–21. 8Calvin, Institutes, 4.15.21, 1321–22.

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particular, established the obligations of parents and godparents. An infant typically had at baptism both a godfather and godmother who, along with the father, presented the baby for the ceremony at the temple. The godparents answered in the child’s stead basic questions about the Christian faith—the essentials for induction into the Christian community. A spiritual responsibility obliged these sponsors to watch over the godchild’s proper religious training; together with the father they made a “promise to instruct the infant in the religion.”9 Provision of other support, principally material and financial, in the event of the parents’ death may have also been expected. Consequently, sponsors had to be of suitable age and circumstances. Deaf-mute persons, for example, could not serve because the church most likely viewed their condition as an impediment to instilling in children the rudiments of the faith. More commonly, sponsors had to be old enough to assume their potential duties. Fourteen years was the minimum age, and the individual had already to have begun participation in the Lord’s Supper; that is to say, the individual needed to be a full, active member of the congregation. Finally, the Reformed churches would not permit women alone to present children for baptism; they were presumably incapable of fulfilling the godparents’ charge on their own. A man, however, could act alone as godfather, thus suggesting the church’s acceptance of a male godparent’s capacity for the spiritual nurturing and religious instruction of children.10 The same viewpoint applied, naturally enough, to the biological parents. The father seems not to have necessarily been present for baptism at the church during the medieval period.11 In some cases, he may have been attending to the details of the subsequent family festivities. The French Reformed churches took a strong position on this matter. Although the mother continued typically to remain at home, recovering from the birth, the father’s presence was now obligatory.12 Local churches were quite firm about enforcing the requirement. The church of Monbazillac in the French southwest, for instance, explicitly declared than no child could be 9AD, Tarn,

I 1, 217. Protestants du Midi, 46–47; Méjan, Discipline de l’Église, 262–74; Félice, Les protestants d'autrefois, 175–94. 11Spierling (Infant Baptism, 91) notes Genevan fathers’ “deep-seated habit of not attending baptismal ceremonies.” Karant-Nunn (Reformation of Ritual, 64) indicated that in Saxony fathers did not wish to attend the ceremony. On the other hand, at Nuremberg the father seems to have been present at the baptismal ceremony; Wiesner, “Early Modern Midwifery,” 106. 12For practice at Geneva, see Spierling, “Daring Insolence toward God?” 99–100, 118–19; and Spierling, Infant Baptism, 38, 91–93, 111–12, 220–21. 10Garrisson,

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baptized unless the father was present to “promise jointly with the godfather and godmother that the infant would be raised in the fear of God.” Along similar lines, the church enjoined men who had married Catholic women to ensure the baptism of their children in the Reformed faith. 13 Conversely, men who had been “suspended” or excommunicated and thereby barred from the Lord’s Supper were prevented from presenting their infants for christening. The Discipline was unequivocal on this point: “The children…of excommunicates may not be received for baptism….” Individual churches enforced the rule closely. At Saint-Amans, the church forbade a number of excommunicated men from presenting their infants for baptism until they “submitted to the judgment” of the church. Other Protestant communities, Montauban and Nîmes for example, acted similarly.14 The father acted on behalf of the family in its dealing with the greater community. His exclusion from the sacramental life of the church shaped the religious experience of all family members, even newborns. These various requirements certainly reinforced the role of the father, who was generally understood to be the male head of household, as the public voice and representative of the family. The Reformed churches of France even held him accountable for proper registration of the baptism in the local church’s livre de baptêmes, an early modern precursor to contemporary records of vital statistics. The father and godfather informed the pastor of the child’s name; they also provided those of the father and mother, godfather and godmother. Following the baptismal ceremony, the administering pastor, father, and godfather signed the register and thereby established the infant’s religious and civil standing.15 The masculine authority attributed to the father was sufficiently strong that some churches, that of Viane for instance, recognized “his right” to consent to the infant’s baptism. The issue arose in the case of mixed marriages where a Reformed woman had wed a Catholic man. Thus, the consistory of Viane requested that Anthoine Amen affirm, in the presence of its secretary and several witnesses who subsequently signed the consent agreement, that he would not “prevent” his daughter’s baptism in the Reformed church. The mother was obviously Protestant. Another man, again Catholic, “relinquished his right, consenting that [his] infant [boy] be baptized at the sermon service” by the 13AM,

Bergerac, Registre de l’Église réformée de Monbazillac, 29 octobre 1629. Discipline, 262–63; AD, Tarn, I 8, 13 mai 1588, 6 février 1591; AD, Tarn-et-Garonne, I 1, fols. 223–24; and BN, MS fr. 8667, fol. 351. 15Méjan, Discipline, 266. 14Méjan,

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Reformed pastor.16 Again, the mother was Protestant. In the end, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the Reformed tradition in France transformed what had been a highly feminine and often private sacrament into a masculine, wholly public ceremony. The transformation was consonant with the view of Calvin and his followers concerning the family and the place of the father and husband within it. Calvin likened the household to a small individual church where the pious father, as the head and master of his family, supervised and instructed the members in accordance with the talents and capabilities that he had received from God.17 The father, the ancient and revered paterfamilias, assumed a sacerdotal role at the very heart of the family. Much as he directed other aspects of family life, the father became its spiritual and ethical guide. Ideally, he conducted himself with firm benevolence. Among the literate bourgeoisie and nobility in particular, the father officiated over household religious services. He led the family in giving thanks to God before meals and, each evening after supper, directed his wife, children, and servants in reading from scripture, saying prayers, and jointly singing several psalms.18 The French Protestant tendency to assign much of the burden of piety to the home—the culte familial—had the obvious effect of concentrating considerable religious influence in the hands of the father. At the same time, the husband and father represented the family in the civic sphere. He bore, as noted above, primary responsibility for a newborn’s baptism and, as a result, controlled the child’s initiation into the community of believers. Fathers and husbands were accountable in other ways too. Local consistories frequently summoned them to answer for the misdeeds of their wives, offspring, and servants. Heads of household had to explain when family members failed to attend sermon services and catechism, married someone from the Catholic community, quarreled with neighbors, or uttered scandalous blasphemies. The elders from the small town of SaintGervais sternly scolded a man for allowing his wife to swear on the devil. In the early seventeenth century, the church of Layrac chastised a tailor and several other men for permitting their daughters to marry Catholics or, more pointedly, for “delivering them to Satan.”19 The consistory of Saint16AD, Tarn,

B 1280, fols. 83v, 101. les synodes, 1:85. 18Félice, Les protestants d’autrefois, 85–90; and Garrisson, Les protestants, 37–39, 88–91. 19AN, TT 269, fol. 953v; and AD, Gers, 23067, 29 décembre 1607, 26 mars 1608. See Mentzer, “Le consistoire,” 389; and Mentzer, “Persistence,” 220–21. 17Aymon, Tous

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Amans, to take yet another example, summoned a woman and accused her of participating in the “debauchery” of dancing and masked balls. She denied the entire matter and refused to submit to correction. Her defiance and insubordination led to immediate suspension from the Lord’s Supper. The pastor and elders then pointedly told her husband, himself an elder, to take control of his disobedient wife and ensure her appearance before the consistory. Failing this, he too would be suspended from the sacrament and dismissed from the office of elder.20 In a more positive vein, consistories occasionally counseled women to obey their husbands according to the “word of God.” Finally, some pastors and elders implicitly recognized a Catholic husband's right to prevent his Protestant wife from attending Reformed services or appearing before the consistory, even though they generally dispatched a delegation to persuade him otherwise. 21 Masculine patriarchal authority, its recognition, and acceptance were profound, substantial, and pervasive. Reformed liturgical innovations and modifications led as well to dramatically increased lay male involvement in the celebration of the Eucharist. The greater influence and participation assigned to laymen in the procedures surrounding the Lord’s Supper had both indirect and direct elements. The pastors, elders, and deacons who sat on the consistory, an administrative and supervisory body within every local French Reformed church, had responsibility for monitoring proper behavior within the community. According to the Discipline, the elders, in particular, were to “watch over” the faithful, ensuring that they participated in the worship services and lived in accord with approved moral standards. Above all, they were to report whatever “scandals and faults” as well as devotional laxities had occurred in the community.22 Each elder had an assigned neighborhood in the town and regularly informed the consistory of the various misdeeds that had taken place in his district since the group’s previous meeting. The moral offenses included verbal disputes and physical quarrels, abusive and scandalous language, blasphemy, sorcery and magic, sexual misconduct such as fornication and adultery, dancing and games, excesses of food and drink, and participation in charivaris, masquerades, and carnival. The elders, in addition, kept track of absences from catechism lessons, 20AD, Tarn,

I 8, 3 juin 1603, 20 septembre 1603. Gers, 23015 (H25, Hôtel de Condom), 1 mars 1613, 3 avril 1613, 12 juin 1613; AN, TT 269, dossier 25, fol. 964; and BN, MS fr. 8666, fol. 28. 22Méjan, Discipline, 224, 303. 21AD,

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sermon services and the quarterly celebrations of the Lord’s Supper in addition to sabbath breach, polluting contacts with Catholicism, and irregularities surrounding marriage. These guardians of the communal welfare were also expected to visit each and every family within their supervisory sectors on an annual basis.23 The arrangements accorded the elders enormous influence and prestige as they became responsible for the spiritual and moral well-being of the faithful. The elders’ supervision of the community was ultimately connected to the necessity of screening people for the Eucharist. Only those persons living a proper Christian life and possessing a sound understanding of the faith could participate in the Lord’s Supper. Individuals who had been excommunicated or who had gravely transgressed the strict morals standards of the Reformed church needed to seek forgiveness and reconciliation before they could be admitted to the communion celebration. The sacral meal was the appropriate moment for repentance and the restoration of communal harmony. The faithful also had to attend catechism and demonstrate a basic knowledge of Christian beliefs and prayers. Catechism was a prerequisite for anyone—adult or adolescent—who wished to participate in the Eucharist. The assumption was that communicants ought to comprehend the essentials of the faith and, at a minimum, know the Decalogue, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Apostles’ Creed. Toward these ends, the elders and deacons frequently shared with the pastor the task of conducting the general, obligatory adult catechism lessons in the several weeks before the celebration of the sacrament.24 Notwithstanding the primary responsibility of pastors to offer catechetical instruction, many local congregations enlisted elders and deacons to help with the discharge of these duties. The church of Nîmes, perhaps because of a shortage of pastors during the initial decade, entrusted catechism to the deacons, assisted by the elders. Only later did the pastors assume catechizing duties, and, even then, elders appear to have taught people living in the suburbs. 25 The consistory of Saint-Amans, to borrow another example, habitually chose three elders to conduct catechism. The church of Saint-André-de-Sangonis similarly appointed two elders to catechize the faithful. Catechism lessons at Troyes also took place under the direction of deacons and were apparently 23Chareyre, “‘Great Difficulties’”; Garrisson, Protestants du Midi, 229–316; and Mentzer, “Disciplina nervus ecclesiae.” 24For practice at the churches of Layrac and Montagnac in Gascony, see AD, Gers, 23015, 20 mai 1594, 24 février 1596, 25 mai 1596, 25–26 novembre 1596; 23067, 3 mars 1579. 25Chareyre, “Consistoire et catéchèse,” 404.

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held in private homes. The consistory of Layrac initially divided the town into three districts and in each secured a house in which the elders would teach catechism. Not until much later did the pastor take charge and move the instruction into the temple.26 In short, laymen—elders as well as deacons—enjoyed a substantial role in imparting to other believers the basic truths and indispensable prayers of Christianity. The catechizing process, along with the ongoing monitoring of people’s behavior, effectively distinguished worthy from unworthy participants in the eucharistic celebration. Upon completion of catechism, each person received from the appropriate elder an entry token that he or she subsequently presented for admittance to the communion service. The tokens were collected at the temple. During the earliest years in some churches, “each of the faithful placed his token on the [communion] table.” 27 Later, larger communities such as Castres had two communion tables and assigned an elder to each. The elder held a basin or plate in which the communicant placed her or his token.28 Alternatively, an elder would collect the tokens at the temple door. In either case, no one could participate without the token that he or she had obtained from the elder. The overt purpose of this highly invasive system was to ensure that those who participated were fit by virtue of correct belief and proper behavior. At the same time, the responsibility shouldered by the lay male elders—these communal moral sentinels who monitored behavior, taught the rudiments of the faith, and screened participation in the eucharistic meal—must have been energizing, empowering, and gratifying. The very celebration of the Lord’s Supper reinforced the stature of these otherwise unexceptional men—sons, husbands, and fathers who were largely members of the bourgeoisie and professional elite. The elders, to be sure, occupied an important ecclesiastical office but were not part of the ordained priestly or pastoral order. In fact, they served no more than annual terms. Still, as churches prepared for the central ritual of the Eucharist, they assigned each of the elders a specific critical task. One elder, as has already been noted, distributed the entry tokens to the members of the community in good standing. These individuals had attended catechism and were thereby qualified to receive the bread and wine. Another elder 26AD, Gers, 23067, 3 mars 1579, 22 février 1587, 18 mars 1588, 4 février 1603, 6 mars 1618; AD, Tarn, I 8, 21 mars 1593; AN, TT 268, dossier 9, fol. 647; and Roberts, “Demands and Dangers,” 167. 27Anjubault and Chardon, “Papier et registre,” 35–36. 28AD, Tarn, I 1, 94; I 2, fols. 180, 224.

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collected the tokens at the service. A third elder supervised the faithful as they moved toward the table. Two or three furnished the bread, wine, and linens. Sometimes an elder would offer a scriptural reading while the faithful communed; others collected offerings for the poor.29 Altogether, ordinary men assumed extraordinary roles, particularly when compared to medieval practices, in the celebration of the Eucharist. The elders also entered into the liturgy in profound fashion by virtue of their frequent administration of the cup. Although customs varied from one church to another, the overall effect seems to have been unambiguous. In principle, the pastor distributed the cup. An elder handed him the cup and he presented it to the faithful. Yet in both urban and rural churches, an elder often presented the cup directly to the people. The Discipline insisted that the pastor present the cup to the faithful and then hastily added “insofar as possible.”30 By the early seventeenth century, some churches developed a system whereby “the minister distributes the bread for the Lord’s Supper and the senior elder, the cup.”31 Large urban churches advanced a practical argument. If the elders did not distribute the cup, the service would be interminable.32 The logic did not prevent smaller churches in the rural landscape from observing analogous customs, judging by seventeenthcentury procedures. The church at Viane, much like all Reformed congregations in the realm, celebrated the Lord’s Supper four times each year—on Easter, Pentecost, sometime in September, and during the Christmas season. On each occasion, most churches conducted the service on two successive Sundays. Accordingly, the consistory of Viane habitually designated two elders, one for each Sunday, to “give the cup.” The elders of Aubenas also “administered” the wine, and likewise at the village of Saint-Romande-Codières, an elder, aided by a second elder, “distributed” the communion cup.33 As with other aspects of liturgical life, the changes introduced by Reformed authorities underscored the position of laymen who were at once heads of families and leaders within the community. A final element of the Lord’s Supper that underscored masculine privilege was the order of reception. Most medieval churches acknowledged the 29AD, Tarn,

I 1, 35; I 8, 31 mars 1589; B 1280, fol. 74; and Garrisson, Protestants du Midi, 241–46. les synodes, 1:57; and Méjan, Discipline, 277. 31AD, Gers, 23067, 19 juin 1587, 1 avril 1588, 31 août 1591, 11 juin 1593, 25 mars 1594, 24 mars 1606. 32Méjan, Discipline, 277; and Roussel, “Faire la Cène,” 109–10. 33AD, Tarn, B 1280, fols. 74, 87–87v, 90v, 91, 94v, 99, 104v, 106v; AD, Gard, 5 E 295/5, fols. 1– 5 and 27–28; I 6, 9 avril 1659, 30 mai 1659; and AD, Ardèche, 65 J Non coté, fols. 3v–10. 30Aymon, Tous

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privilege and distinction of a few people in the communion service. The politically and socially distinguished generally received first. Gender differences were likely also taken into account. The Reformed churches maintained and, in some ways, heightened this preferential treatment in the celebration of the Eucharist. Once the pastor had prepared the bread and wine, the members of the congregation proceeded two by two toward the communion table. Still, they followed a carefully delineated order for approaching the table. Pastors, elders, and deacons went first, then local nobles, members of the judiciary, city consuls and, finally, the remaining members of the faithful. The faithful were also segregated according to gender. The men, not surprisingly, preceded the women, who also came forward by rank. According to one commentator, the men received first owing to the “prerogative of their sex.”34 Some churches, Castres for instance, carried these distinctions even further and used separate communion tables that were gender specific: one for the men, the other for the women.35 The arrangement unquestionably reiterated, amplified, and reified the principle of male preeminence. Other aspects of the liturgy also displayed a strong sense of masculine authority. The enormous weight placed on holy scripture as the sole source of God’s revealed truth meant the regular explanation of the Bible through the vehicle of the pastor’s sermon. The centrality of the sermon led, in turn, to a thorough reassessment of architectural arrangements for worship. French Reformed Protestants used the term “temple” to designate the building in which they worshiped. It was in conscious imitation of what they took to be ancient Christian nomenclature. These temples were auditory spaces where pastors conscientiously communicated the word of God to the faithful. Among the more striking architectural innovations was the introduction of pewing. It was part of an ambitious plan to make the faithful sit quietly and listen attentively to the sermon with its crucial elucidation of the divine truth contained in holy writ. The pulpit occupied a central position in the temple, and around it the Reformed authorities positioned benches. Seating was segregated according to social status, age, and gender. Ecclesiastical and political officials—pastors, elders, and deacons along with nobles, political officials, judges, and other members of the elite—occupied prominent places close to the pulpit. Women 34From Moïse Amyraut, Apologie pour ceux de la religion (Saumur, 1647), quoted in Mours, Le protestantisme, 95. See also AD, Gers, 23015, 11, 21, 28 novembre 1612; 2301, 2 février 1614. 35AD, Tarn, I 1, 94; I 2, fols. 180, 224.

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and children also gathered close to the preacher, although their location had more to do with a perceived need for supervision than the recognition of prominence. The church of Sedan, for example, situated pews for the women alongside the pulpit, while children occupied a special section called the parquet des petits. At Die, women again sat on the benches closest to the pulpit.36 Almost every French temple had a well-defined women’s section. Men, for their part, occupied the space along the walls of the temple, toward the back, and in the galleries.37 These arrangements seem as well to have satisfied a need for ritual purity. The separation of the sexes, whether at the reception of the Lord’s Supper or at more routine parts of prayer and worship, led to the assertion of male ascendancy and protection from contamination by women. The congregation of Castres in the French southwest even cut a special “women’s door” in the local temple. 38 Presumably, men could thereby avoid coming into physical and psychological, real and imagined contact with women as they entered and exited the sermon service and participated in the many other ceremonies associated with worship and devotion. Altogether, men placed themselves in a decidedly supervisory and segregated position over women within the liturgical life of the French Reformed communities. These same men, particularly those who acted as elders, also shouldered enormous responsibility for the moral and spiritual well-being of their fellow believers. It must have been an intoxicating and burdensome experience to attempt a transformation of society in order to make it ever godlier. Their efforts to regulate sexuality and exercise greater supervision over marriage merit special attention. Both were key features of the Calvinist endeavors toward morals control and social discipline. The ways in which these developments unfolded offer important clues for a discussion of masculinity within the Reformed community. Consistorial interest in detecting and punishing people who engaged in sexual misconduct, mostly fornication, has frequently been exaggerated. Still, the struggle against that which ecclesiastical authorities considered sinful sexual activity was real and relentless. The members of the consistory often found it easier to identify female offenders than their masculine companions. An unmarried woman who was pregnant or had recently given birth offered, in their view, unmistakable 36Sapin, L’Église réformée de Sedan, 73–74; BSHPF, MS 666bis, 23 mai 1613; AD, Ardennes, 31 J 4, 1 juillet 1627; and AD, Drôme, D 63. 37Mentzer, “Le débat des bancs.” 38AD, Tarn, I 1, 234.

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evidence of having committed fornication. Consistories throughout France typically summoned more women than men to answer for this and related sins. At the same time, the Reformed churches were determined to discover and chastise the women’s male partners.39 Consistorial resolve on this point related, in part, to the notion that all sinners deserved punishment, especially for scandalous public wrongdoing such as fornication. Given the prevailing views of masculine preeminence, men bore special responsibility for these improper sexual activities. Reformed leaders during the early modern period would have articulated male accountability in terms of physical, intellectual, and moral ascendancy. They would have been far less attentive to the woeful imbalance of power in relationships that we tend to recognize today. Nonetheless, men were liable for women’s involvement in these sinful acts. The daughters of Eve may have been temptresses, but men were supposed to have the virtue and strength to resist their sexual allure. More importantly, men had an obligation to instruct and guide women, above all their wives and daughters, in recognizing and abiding by the correct standards of Christian behavior. On a closely related subject, the control that the French Reformed churches assigned fathers and husbands within marriage extended to the very processes by which people formed matrimonial unions. The ensuing treatment is by no means exhaustive or encompassing. Rather, it concentrates on the elements that bear directly on this discussion of masculinity. Accordingly, the assertion of masculine domination began with the selection of marriage partners. The father had a commanding voice in this matter, and the Reformed church stood ready to endorse his influence. When a young woman of Nîmes actively resisted her father’s efforts to have her marry a military captain, the consistory very much took her father’s side. In the end, she was excommunicated for her obstinacy in opposing paternal and consistorial directives.40 A second element in the reinforcement of paternal control over marriage procedures was the vigorous attempt to prevent clandestine marriage, a practice that was not uncommon in the late Middle Ages. 41 Marriage among French Protestants involved a complicated, two-step public process, which in some ways built upon the medieval system. The first stage was the 39Mentzer,

“Disciplina nervus ecclesiae,” 103–4, 110–11. MS fr. 8667, fols. 156, 157, 160v, 187, 190v, 194v, 290, 333, 366v, 372, 372v. 41According to Helmholz (Marriage Litigation, 31) there were a “large number” of clandestine marriages in the late medieval world. 40BN,

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betrothal, in which the couple exchanged reciprocal and, within the French Reformed orbit, compulsory promises to wed. The promises were sometimes formalized in a notarial contract; it elucidated the economic provisions between bride and groom and their respective families. The insistence upon the indissolubility of these promises to a future marriage represented a distinct departure from late-medieval practice. Reformed ecclesiastical authorities sought to avoid what they regarded as the overly subtle and confusing medieval distinction between the betrothal (the words of the future tense) and the solemnization of the marriage (the words of the present tense). When a young woman sought to annul her engagement to a goldsmith, the consistory pointed out that she had signed written betrothal promises. Unless she ceased further postponement and married her fiancé, she would be excommunicated. The woman complied. In addition, the Protestant engagement ceremony with its solemn, binding promises to a future marriage was public in that it took place in the presence of witnesses. The absence of the prescribed witnesses, construed as two adults, invalidated the arrangement. The consistory declared null and void promises exchanged by couples privately and secretly.42 Once again, families, parents, and especially fathers found control over their sons and daughters’ marriages measurably increased. Clandestine unions, whose purpose was often to skirt family objections, were strictly prohibited. The celebration of the marriage—its solemnization by the pastor in the temple—occurred several weeks after the betrothal. The delay allowed for the public announcement of banns on three successive Sundays and the accompanying publicity. This procedure would presumably turn up any impediments or obstacles to the marriage. In this regard, one of the requirements was that the contracting parties needed parental consent, written if possible, for their union. Here, the monarchial state and the Reformed church wholly concurred in asserting patriarchal control over marriage. The requirement was that women younger than twenty-five and men younger than thirty needed their parents’ assent. To be sure, French royal statute, notably Henry II’s edict of 1556, established the specifics of this obligation. The edict permitted parents to disinherit underage daughters and sons who wed without their approval. For their part, the Reformed churches of France endorsed the obligation, readily agreeing with the crown on the need for reinforcement of parental authority over marriage. The Nîmes consistory, for example, severely censured Louise 42BN,

MS fr. 8666, fols. 172, 188, 192.

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Borrete for failure to obtain her parents’ consent.43 The same pastors and elders obliged a young agricultural worker to write his father for permission to marry, despite the fact that the father was a Catholic who lived in Normandy at the other end of the kingdom.44 In all of this, however, one must be cautious about evaluating the relationship between the Reformation and masculinity. The powerful articulation of masculinity that this essay seeks to portray and appreciate was not limited to the Protestant milieu and appears to have had strong roots in the late Middle Ages. Comparable conditions existed within the Catholic world with its more traditional, less scripturally oriented understanding of Christianity. If the seventeenth-century example of Pierre and Michel Terrade, notaries from Bas-Limousin, is an accurate indication, the paterfamilias drew considerably on pre-Reformation customs. This Catholic father and son successively watched over their family’s physical and spiritual well-being through a potent combination of Christianity and folk magic. Over some sixty-five years, they recorded in their Livre de raison, a domestic memoir and account book, nearly sixty recipes for treating human and animal ailments. The human illnesses covered a gamut of afflictions: toothaches, skin rashes, eye infections, boils, kidney stones, gout, fevers, coughs, and the inevitable accidental cuts and injuries inflicted by kitchen utensils and farm implements. The patriarchal remedies blended medicinal herbs with official and popular invocations, Christian and magical gestures. The men of the Terrade family made Christian signs of the cross and drew mysterious circles, beseeched the Virgin Mary and various saints, and administered sage and fennel. The prescribed treatment for a sore foot was to “make the sign of the cross on the ailing foot, while reciting ‘Ante, per ante et super ante,’ then ‘Christus te leguat [sic]45 et custodiat and beata Virgo Maria’ and ‘beati Martini et omnium sanctorum et sanctarum.’” Terrade father and son invoked a range of saints depending on the nature of the illness, for saints had clear medical specializations in the family’s view. Medications accompanied both acts and words, and these appropriate plants and herbs acquired sacred significance in the hands of their administrator. For coughs and fevers, a person should “eat the bloody herb that is known as sanguis Christi.” The plant in question was sage, a fairly 43BN, MS fr. 8666, fols. 52v, 54–55, 57v–58, 62–62v, 172; MS fr. 8667, fols. 5v, 15v–16, 56, 82, 84bis, 85v, 91, 96–96v, 99v, 151, 153v, 178, 251v, 280. See Bels, Le mariage; and Mentzer, “The Reformed Churches,” 173–81. 44BN, MS fr. 8667, fol. 9v. 45In its original form the text may have read tueat.

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common medication, which the people of southern France regarded as the favorite of the Virgin mother. Fennel, mallow, and garlic were the next most popular items in this paternal pharmacy, followed by juniper berries, rue, fern, clover, fenugreek, and a host of other far more exotic plants and herbs. In a more religious vein, the head of the family might seek to heal the afflicted person through the use of holy water or tree branches that had been blessed by the clergy on Palm Sunday. Some prescriptions cured maladies, others warded them off. Accordingly, Pierre and Michel Terrade inscribed slips of paper with efficacious formulae. These little bits and scraps were carefully folded and placed in small cloth sacks that people wore around their necks or attached to cows and sheep. They also took the talismans and strategically placed them in the doorframe of the house or at the four corners of the granary. The family, its animals, house, and food supply required protection; and the knowledgeable patriarch had the ability to shield everyone from harm as well as offer remedies when illness and injury struck.46 If Terrade fathers and husbands functioned as healers among their kin and even within their village, they did so with considerable petitioning of the divine, thereby mediating for those under their charge on many levels and in many ways. Remedies did not simply function materially; they also possessed a vital spiritual, indeed magical element. The head of the household was its physician and apothecary, priest and magician. The learned patriarch recited Latin, French, and Occitan prayers and solicited assistance from priestly relatives to protect both animals and humans with thaumaturgic rites connected to the mass and feast days of the saints. Pierre Terrade pronounced blessings in which he called upon Christ, the Virgin, Saint Michael, Saint Peter, and a multitude of others for assistance. His son Michael would take “the right hand of the sick person and with it make three crosses and in each case say ‘Christus vincit, Christus regnat, Christus imperat.’” The Pater Noster, Ave Maria, and a variety of other well-known prayers were deemed equally efficacious. Finally, father and son recited formulae that were decidedly less Christian, though the pair never ventured beyond the realm of beneficial white magic. These healing and protective rites along with their associated activities occurred under the careful orchestration of the male head of household, perhaps better characterized as the clan chieftain. He safeguarded the family and maintained its orderly

46Lemaître,

Le scribe et le mage, 227–50.

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existence in an otherwise threatening and chaotic universe.47 Masculine preeminence appears to have had a long history, which the Reformation buttressed and redirected but did not entirely originate. Before concluding, let us return briefly to the early modern Protestant universe. Masculinity in the French Reformed tradition obviously had enormous strength and profound endurance. It could, nonetheless, be a fragile and unstable construction that was challenged from time to time. Take, for example, a widow of Montauban who publicly ridiculed masculine phallic prowess when she commented to several other women gathered near a tailor’s shop that men who “are unable to father children and who do not embrace their wives six or seven times each night deserve to be impaled in the public square.”48 Presumably, those who claimed authority by virtue of sexual potency must be prepared to accept the consequences of failure. Less confrontational was the manner whereby women remained steadfast in their faith following the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. They continued to instruct their children in basic Protestant devotional practices, and many were imprisoned for refusing to abandon their faith. Most famously, Catholic royal officials imprisoned Marie Durand as late as 1730; she was no more than a teenager. She and several female companions remained half-forgotten for decades in the Tour de Constance at AiguesMortes in southern France. Durant did not obtain her release until 1768 after thirty-eight years in prison.49 Many other young Protestant women were confined less harshly in female convents. Nonetheless, they were continually pressured to convert to Catholicism or permitted to leave the confines of the convent only if they promised to marry Catholic men. The tactic appears to have been singularly unsuccessful. Still other women actively assumed the sacerdotal roles after 1685 as communities of faith found themselves abandoned by pastors who were forced into exile. Anne Montjoye, for instance, conducted religious services in secluded woods and private homes throughout Périgord for several years in the late 1680s. She directed the assembled faithful as they prayed, read passages from holy writ, and sang psalms. When royal authorities finally captured her in 1688, she refused to abjure and ended her life on the gallows. Another female preacher was sufficiently celebrated that she became known as the prêcheuse.50 Only slowly 47Lemaître,

Le scribe et le mage, 251–81. I 1, fols. 230–30v. 49Bost, Les martyrs d’Aigues-Mortes; and Danclos, Marie Durand. 50Mours and Robert, Le protestantisme, 59, 80. 48AD, Tarn-et-Garonne,

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over the course of the eighteenth century did men such as Antoine Court reestablish a formal ecclesiastical organization and thereby reassert male domination over religious devotion.51 As the Christian sacraments and various devotional practices (masses said privately or in near seclusion witnessed largely by clergy behind the rood-screen and baptism celebrated by women in the birthing chamber) moved from the private or semiprivate domain and entered the public sphere, they acquired a far more masculine character. Laypersons, particularly elders drawn from the urban bourgeoisie, enjoyed a degree of liturgical participation and involvement in ecclesiastical affairs that was unknown prior to the Reformation. The stature and position accorded laymen certainly increased the Reformation’s appeal to midlevel professionals and those engaged in commercial activities. The elders, who as members of the consistory had enormous responsibility for enforcing proper behavior in the community, found that their role in the Lord’s Supper—the social and religious center of the Reformed community—strengthened their authority and moral prestige. They effectively controlled people’s access to the sacral meal and, by extension, to the saving grace that the sacrament signified. Husbands and fathers were responsible for the spiritual and material well-being of the family. Ideally, they brought their offspring to the temple for induction into the community of believers, officiated at family prayers every evening, guided sons and daughters in their marriages, and ensured the correct belief and proper behavior of everyone living under the ancestral roof. The new Reformed ecclesiastical polity certainly underscored these innovations and the intensification of male dominance. The elders wielded enormous influence as they watched over and supervised the faithful with attention to such primary human concerns as marriage and sexuality. These church officials, who intruded broadly and deeply within people’s daily activities and devotional habits, possessed all the attributes of the proper burghers, who later figured so prominently in the Reformation narrative as recounted by Max Weber.52 Today, scholars view the religious transformations with a keen eye to changes in gender roles and the strengthening of masculinity. The Reformed churches worked to augment men’s ecclesiastical authority and sacral power in significant ways, and their endeavors appear to have found sympathetic resonance within the wider contours of early modern European society. 51See,

for example, the recent study by Bost, Ces Messieurs de la R.P. R. Protestant Ethic.

52Weber, The

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Bibliography Archives AD AM AN BN BSHPF

Archives Départementales, France Archives Municipales, France Archives Nationales, Paris Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris Bibliothèque de la Société de l’Histoire du Protestantisme Français, Paris

Printed Works Anjubault, M., and Henri Chardon, ed. Papier et registre du Consistoire de l’Église du Mans, réformée selon l’Évangile, 1560–61 (1561–62 nouveau style). Vol. 1 of Recueil de pièces inédites pour servir à l’histoire de la Réforme et de la Ligue dans le Maine, edited by M. Anjubault and Henri Chardon. 2 vols. Le Mans: Ed. Monnoyer, 1867–68. Aymon, Jean. Tous les synodes des Églises réformées de France. 2 vols. The Hague, 1710. Bels, Pierre. Le mariage des protestants français jusqu’en 1685. Paris: Librairie Générale de Droit et Jurisprudence, 1968. Bost, Charles, ed. Les martyrs d’Aigues-Mortes, 1686–1768. Nîmes: La Cour, 1997. Bost, Hubert. Ces Messieurs de la R.P. R.: Histoires et écritures de huguenots, XVIIe–XVIIIe siècles. Paris: Honoré Champion, 2001. Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. Edited by John T. McNeill, translated by Ford Lewis Battles. 2 vols. Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1960. Chareyre, Philippe. “Consistoire et catéchèse: L’exemple de Nîmes, XVI–XVIIe siècles.” In Catéchismes et Confessions de foi: Actes du VIIIe Colloque Jean Boisset, edited by MarieMadeleine Fragonard and Michel Péronnet, 403–23. Montpellier: Université de Montpellier III, 1995. ———. “‘The Great Difficulties One Must Bear to Follow Jesus Christ’: Morality at Sixteenth-Century Nîmes.” In Sin and the Calvinists: Morals Control and the Consistory in the Reformed Tradition, edited by Raymond E. Mentzer, 63–96. Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 1994. Cressy, David. Birth, Marriage and Death: Ritual, Religion, and the Life-Cycle in Tudor and Stuart England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. Danclos, Anne. Marie Durand et les prisonnières d’Aigues-Mortes. Paris: Lanore, 2002. Félice, Paul de. Les protestants d'autrefois: Vie intérieure des églises, moeurs et usages, les temples, les services religieux, les actes pastoraux. 2nd ed. Paris: Fischbacher, 1897. Garrisson, Janine. Les protestants au XVIe siècle. Paris: Fayard, 1988. ———. Protestants du Midi, 1559–1598. Toulouse: Privat, 1980. Helmholz, Richard H. Marriage Litigation in Medieval England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974. Hendrix, Scott. “Masculinity and Patriarchy in Reformation Germany.” Journal of the History of Ideas 56 (1995): 177–93. Karant-Nunn, Susan C. The Reformation of Ritual: An Interpretation of Early Modern Germany. London: Routledge, 1997. Lemaître, Nicole. Le scribe et le mage: Notaires et société rurale en Bas-Limousin aux XVIe et XVIIe siècles. Ussel: Musée du Pays d’Ussel, 2000. Long, Kathleen, ed. High Anxiety: Masculinity in Crisis in Early Modern France. Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies 59. Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 2002.

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Méjan, François. Discipline de l’Eglise réformée de France annotée et précédée d’une introduction historique. Paris: Editions “Je Sers,” 1947. Mentzer, Raymond A. “Le consistoire et la pacification du monde rural.” Bulletin de la Société de l’Histoire du Protestantisme Français 135 (1989): 373–91. ———. “Le débat des bancs dans les Églises réformées de France.” Bulletin de la Société de l’Histoire du Protestantisme Français 152 (2006): 393–406. ———. “Disciplina nervus ecclesiae: The Calvinist Reform of Morals at Nîmes.” Sixteenth Century Journal 18 (1987): 89–116. ———. “Laity and Liturgy in the French Reformed Tradition.” In History Has Many Voices, edited by Lee Palmer Wandel, 71–92. Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 2003. ———. “The Persistence of ‘Superstition and Idolatry’ among Rural French Calvinists.” Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture 65 (1996): 220–33. ———. “The Reformed Churches of France and Medieval Canon Law.” In Canon Law in Protestant Lands, edited by Richard H. Helmholz, 165–85. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1992. Mours, Samuel. Le protestantisme en France au XVIIe siècle (1598–1685). Paris: Librairie Protestante, 1967. ———, and Daniel Robert. Le protestantisme en France du XVIIIe siècle à nos jours. Paris: Librairie Protestante, 1972. Richmond, Colin. “The English Gentry and Religion, c. 1500.” In Religious Belief and Ecclesiastical Careers in Late Medieval England, edited by Christopher Harper-Bill, 121– 50. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell Press, 1991. Roberts, Penny. “The Demands and Dangers of the Reformed Ministry in Troyes, 1552– 1572.” In The Reformation of the Parishes, edited by Andrew Pettegree, 153–74. Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 1993. Roper, Lyndal. The Holy Household: Women and Morals in Reformation Augsburg. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. Roussel, Bernard. “Faire la Cène dans les Églises réformées du royaume de France au seizième siècle (ca. 1555–ca. 1575).” Archives de Sciences sociales des Religions 85 (1994): 99–119. Sapin, Annik. L’Église réformée de Sedan de ses origines jusqu’au rattachement de la principauté à la France (1562–1642). Paris: Thèse de l’Ecole des Chartes, 1974. Spierling, Karen E. “Daring Insolence toward God? The Perpetuation of Catholic Baptismal Traditions in Sixteenth-Century Geneva.” Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 93 (2002): 97–125. ———. Infant Baptism in Reformation Geneva: The Shaping of a Community, 1536–1564. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2005. Swanson, Robert N. Religion and Devotion in Europe, c. 1215–c. 1515. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995. Taglia, Kathryn. “Delivering a Christian Identity: Midwives in Northern French Synodal Legislation, c. 1200–1500.” In Religion and Medicine in the Middle Ages, edited by Peter Biller and Joseph Ziegler, 77–90. Woodbridge, UK: York Medieval Press, 2001. Weber, Max. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Translated by Talcott Parsons. London: Routledge, 1992. Wiesner, Merry E. “Early Modern Midwifery: A Case Study.” In Woman and Work in Preindustrial Europe, edited by Barbara Hanawalt, 94–113. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986.

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O

ften the best place to start a story is in the middle. This one begins in the middle of a well-known confessional crisis. In June of 1584, the city council in Augsburg made a decision to remove the militant preacher Dr. Georg Müller (also Mylius) from his post as superintendent and pastor of St. Anna Church and escort him out of the city. The problem the city government had with Müller was not only that he was preaching against the new Gregorian calendar, which had been introduced in Augsburg in 1583. It was also that his anti-Catholic sermons were encouraging rumors, exploiting fears, and driving a wedge between Lutherans and Catholics in the city. The association of the calendar with Pope Gregory XIII (1572–85), along with its official introduction by the Catholic emperor Rudolf II (1575–1612), was naturally troublesome to many Protestants. After all, if power over measuring time itself was conceded to the pope, what would come next? The situation was particularly ticklish in Augsburg, where the Protestant majority of the population was already uneasy about the imbalance of power in the Catholic-dominated city council. Müller’s inflammatory sermons were further destabilizing a precarious situation. 140

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So the councilors had decided that Dr. Müller had to go. To avoid causing a scene, they tried to slip him out of town quietly, without warning and in the company of only a few guards. Their plan backfired; citizens loyal to Müller noticed the wagon being escorted by armed guards and intervened, while onlookers ran to spread the news. The rebellious preacher was rushed to safety. Word spread quickly. Soon the council house was under siege by a swarm of armed citizens. Shots were fired in the streets and from the windows of houses; one struck the council’s captain of the guard in the arm. For a moment, the city was paralyzed by fear and chaos. This episode, as the climax of the calendar struggle (Kalenderstreit) in Augsburg, has received considerable attention from historians, who have generally examined it as part of an ascending crisis in confessional relations leading from the religious Peace of Augsburg to the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War.1 The incident, it is argued, illustrates the sociopolitical nature of the process of confessionalization; the Protestant citizens were not only concerned about their spiritual autonomy, but were also reacting to their belief that they were being politically and economically exploited at the hands of the wealthy Catholic council members.2 This essay will consider the events of 1583–84 with more attention both to the perspective from the street and to the greater European context. A close reading of the records produced before, during, and after the uprising of June 1584 reveals a situation more complicated than a mob response to social and religious pressure. In rushing to arm themselves and hit the streets at the first sign of trouble, Augsburg’s Protestant townsmen were responding to their very real fears of a massacre on the level of those that had taken place in Paris and the Netherlands a decade before. They were also living up to their expected role as male citizens, in which they had been socialized to respond with armed violence to any threat to themselves, their homes and families, and their community. For Augsburg’s male citizens, the threat came in two layers. First, fears were fed by rumors of atrocities that would be visited upon themselves and their faith. These rumors, although probably unfounded, were not only 1See, for example, Mauer, “Kalenderstreit und Krisenstimmung”; Warmbrunn, Zwei Konfessionen, 359–75; Zorn, Augsburg, 204–5; and Radlkofer, “Die volkstümliche…Literatur.” Roeck (Eine Stadt, 125–88) ties confessional concerns to a polarizing economic situation. The calendar conflict was part of a larger debate over the control of appointments to Lutheran clerical offices (Vokationstreit); the best account in English of the relationship between these issues is in Creasman, “Policing the Word,” 257–307. 2Immenkötter, “Kirche zwischen Reformation und Parität.”

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taken seriously by Augsburg’s residents but were seen as dangerous or even seditious by city leaders. What might have been understood as idle gossip among women or servants took on a political character when it came from the mouths of men of status. These fears were then exacerbated by the belief of many men that their right to self-defense, and thus their personal power and political agency, was being usurped by “outsiders” in the form of professional mercenaries. Thus it was not only their lives and families that were being threatened, but also their masculine identity. The protective role of male citizens was related to their status as political actors. Early modern men who were ordered to disarm or to stay in their houses, and were therefore made impotent in the face of danger, were essentially placed in the status of women and clerics. They naturally reacted by reasserting their position with public displays of bravado, which in turn were viewed by the authorities as acts of political rebellion. The events in Augsburg during 1583 and 1584 take on greater meaning if seen as part of a struggle not just over the balance of power between confessions, but over the relationship of citizens to their communities and their government. In fact, religious polarization was more an effect of this event than a cause. The unifying effect of collective fear strengthened ties of solidarity among Protestants and among Catholics, while bravado ensured that the members of each group gave voice to their mistrust. Although the violence in this case was effectively contained, the bonds of solidarity that had been created did not dissolve; confessional lines had been more sharply drawn and remained taut. In taking steps first to allay local fears and then to curb the power of its citizens, however, the city council was responding to struggles over civic rights of dominion that predated the Reformation. To explain the riot of 1584, then, one must first move beyond the local and imperial politics that have traditionally concerned the tellers of this particular story and add the state of anxiety produced by reports of confessional bloodbaths in France and the Netherlands. Tales of the “blood wedding” (Bluthochzeit) in Paris (between Margaret of Valois and Henry of Navarre) began making the rounds in Germany immediately after the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre (24 August 1572), describing not only unbelievable cruelty against men, women, and children, but also the looting and plundering of Protestants’ homes, libraries, and wine cellars. While most of these accounts were written by Huguenot sympathizers lamenting the horror of the episode and extolling its martyrs, some Catholic reports

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celebrated it, feeding the belief that the Catholic powers had formed a secret alliance with papal interests in the empire with a goal of crushing all Protestants.3 Subsequent stories of the massacre of thousands of Dutch Protestants in Antwerp during the “Spanish Fury” in early November of 1576 added fuel to the fire, particularly as German troops were reported to have participated in the attack. Prints and engravings, pamphlets, and plays ensured that these events were kept alive in the minds of the German populace.4 Naturally, news of these frightening events also circulated via sermons, and Dr. Müller certainly did his part to fan the flames of fear from his pulpit in Augsburg. According to his own account, he was first brought before the Augsburg mayors in 1576 for preaching that the Jesuits were primarily to blame for the bloodbath in Paris. These militant Catholics, he claimed, were now working locally as well as internationally, turning the Augsburg authorities against the Lutheran populace even as they encouraged the emperor to raise his sword against Protestants throughout the empire. Müller denied that his sermon violated local ordinances against confessional insults. Rather, he maintained, he was simply drawing on the massacre to illustrate the fact that Christ’s apostles were still subject to persecution and martyrdom, something that could happen at any time and for which all pious Christians must be prepared.5 In recounting his tale of fear among the Augsburg populace, Müller referred repeatedly to the specter of foreign massacres. The situation was exacerbated by the council’s decision to recruit special troops for extra security during the transition to the new calendar. The presence of foreign mercenaries, referred to in much of the Protestant literature as “Spanish and Dutch soldiers,” increased the anxiety of the populace and gave Müller more ammunition for spreading fear of a “Parisian Wedding” or an “Antwerp Kermis.”6 In the face of a threat they perceived as not only spiritual, but also physical and economic, many of Augsburg’s male citizens were preparing well ahead of 4 June 1584, to exercise what they understood as their natural 3Kingdon, Myths, 1–6, 112–24; Spitz, “Imperialism,” 78–83. For a list of works on the massacre distributed in Germany after 1572, see Schottenloher, Bibliographie, 4:49. 4Parker, Dutch Revolt, 178; and Tanis and Horst, Images of Discord, passim. The reports were probably intentionally exaggerated. Estimates range from a few hundred to several thousand deaths; Israel, Dutch Republic, 185; Voet, Antwerp, 202–3; and Marnef, “The Towns and the Revolt,” 98. 5Müller, Augspurgische Handel, C1r–v. For rules on confessional insults, see StAA, Schätze ad 36/8, Zucht- und Polizeiordnung, 1580; and Creasman, “Policing the Word,” 193–95, 203, 253–56. 6“Parisische Hochzeit” and “Antorffische Kirchwey.” See Müller, Augspurgische Handel, F2r–v, G2v. Troops were hired in the fall of 1583 and strengthened by one thousand the following March; Roeck, Eine Stadt, 129–30.

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right of self-defense. Here it is desirable to inject the second, largely ignored element into this story, namely the role of the individual players, the men whose words and actions promoted, disseminated, and responded to this air of fear and anxiety. In responding to the threat of attack with bravado and in their willingness to resort to arms, they were reaffirming their status as men and citizens. German law in the sixteenth century allowed people of all stations to protect themselves, along with their families, from threats to life, limb, and property. The right to resist threats and tyranny with force of arms extended not only to individuals and communities but also to the estates of the empire, whose collective protection was theoretically the responsibility of their rulers.7 In order to exercise their right to protect their subjects, however, rulers naturally required an armed force of some kind. This responsibility rested primarily with local citizens. More than an individual freedom, then, the right of self-protection was a matter of civic honor and duty, by means of which citizens controlled crime and ensured order in their communities. In cities and towns throughout Germany, the household functioned as a local defense unit, regularly providing men to serve in a variety of military, police, and firefighting functions. Normally, each household was required to supply one adult male to be available to serve rotating watches as citizen guards (Bürgerwache).8 In times of crisis, however, such as military attacks and fires, all grown men were normally required to appear at a designated location to protect the community. And regardless of what form the threat took, they were expected to show up properly armed. Full citizenship could not be attained without maintenance of personal armor and weapons. In some towns, the purchase of weapons and armor was also a prerequisite of marriage, which underscored the relationship between male sexual maturity and the bearing of arms.9 7The literature on the right to resist (Widerstandsrecht) is vast; for overviews, see Dilcher, “Widerstandsrecht”; Missling, “Widerstand und Menschenrechte”; and Friedeburg, Widerstandsrecht. The degree to which traditional rights of self-defense may be extended to religious practice was a question of some debate during the sixteenth century. See Estes, Whether the Secular Government; Böttcher, Ungehorsam oder Widerstand? and Cardauns, Die Lehre. 8Village men also served defense functions that grew out of a somewhat different legal structure (defined by lord-subject relationship rather than common defense) but were in practice very similar. For descriptions of defense duties for villagers, see HStAS, C3 3599; and BHSA, Reichskammergericht C1610. 9StAM, A 266/04a, Ordnung und Articul, Welche alle und jede Burger […] jährlich zum erenüert vund bestätigten Regiment schwören, 1636, 11v. See Tlusty, “Civic Defense.”

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An armed male populace represented civic power both on a practical and a symbolic level. But in times of tension, armed men could be hard to control. The men who took to the streets in the riot of 1584 were reacting to what they saw as a threat to their lives and an attack on their religious convictions—a danger coming not from outside the city walls but from sinister forces within the city and even from within their own government. This was a particularly volatile situation, as the mounting pressure on household heads to shore up their collective reputation with public expressions of bravado was combined with the justification of religious piety. As the conflict escalated, the city council’s own fear that the unstable situation might actually explode into a German-style “Parisian Wedding” led the ruling Catholics and Lutherans to reach an uneasy compromise. The first signs of unrest are identifiable within weeks of the introduction of the new calendar in early 1583. In Augsburg’s court records, the change appears without fanfare; Wednesday, 13 February, moves into Thursday, 24 February, with no more explanation than the comment “according to the new style.”10 If civic leaders were hoping that the new style would be equally simple to implement outside the courtroom, however, they were in for a disappointment. A decree issued on 16 April (new style) and publicized the following day admonished Augsburg’s population to ignore irresponsible talk by “hotheads” (veüwrige Köpf) and abide by the new calendar.11 Although it included a warning against resisting the council’s authority, the decree was primarily concerned with explaining the decision on practical grounds and reassuring the Protestants that the change was made for “civic, political reasons,”12 not for reasons of confessional bias. The adjustment was necessary, the announcement insisted, in order to coordinate markets and political events with the surrounding Catholic territories that had already accepted the new calendar. Otherwise, trade in important foodstuffs might be interrupted and the incomes of local craftsmen adversely affected. Thus the decision was made for the good of Augsburg’s citizens.13 The 16 April decree provides the first evidence of the authorities’ attempts to control the rumors that were already circulating in connection 10“secundum

nouum stylum.” StAA, Strafbuch 1581–87. in StAA, Chroniken, 10, Chronik von Siedeler, 115r–158r. 12“aus…burgerlichen, Polittischen ursachen.” StAA, Chroniken, 10, Chronik von Siedeler, 156r. 13“gmainer burgerschafft zu guetem.” StAA, Chroniken, 10, Chronik von Siedeler, 157r. At this stage, the majority of the Protestant council members also endorsed the change; Immenkötter, “Kirche,” 406. 11Transcribed

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with the new calendar. The council notes specifically that the decision had been coordinated with other Protestant cities, with the assurance that the purpose of the change was not to interfere with the celebration of Protestant holidays. “Hostile rumors”14 were thus to be accorded no merit, and those who spread “nasty, thoughtless, but unfounded talk”15 to the contrary were to be held for “agitators and spoilers of the general peace.”16 Despite their efforts, city leaders in Augsburg were unable to mollify many of the Protestants. This was true of Protestant patricians within the council itself as well as throughout the city at large—a situation that would prove particularly problematic as the crisis escalated. Nor was the council able to quell the spread of rumors in the streets. The first arrest for agitation occurred in early November, when four men were interrogated, two of them under torture, for spreading dangerous rumors. The primary instigator in this case was cabinetmaker Gedeon Mair, who was accused of going about saying that the Duke of Bavaria, the bishop of Augsburg, both mayors (Stadtpfleger), and the “priests’ servants” (Pfaffenknechte) in the council had concluded a pact to “fall upon [the Protestants] in their churches and in their houses, and to murder them.” 17 Initially, Gedeon admitted only that he had heard “from the peasants who come here from Bavaria”18 that the plan was to force everyone into one (Catholic) religion, and added that when he passed this information on to two other craftsmen, they responded that “they did not believe [the council] would have such a thing in mind.”19 Gedeon had also heard that the council lords Marx Fugger and Anton Christoph Rehlinger planned to close the craftsmen’s shops by force on the Catholic holiday of Saints Simon and Jude,20 but he insisted he had paid no heed to the rumor. Like his fellows, he didn’t believe that the council was capable of such an act. He did, however, warn his friends not to go about without arms, and he

14“widerwerttige[s] 15“böse

geschrei.” StAA, Chroniken, 10, Chronik von Siedeler, 157v. leichtferttige, doch vngegründte reden.” StAA, Chroniken, 10, Chronik von Siedeler,

155r. 16“aufwigler vnd betrüeber gemaines burgerlichen frid wesens.” StAA, Chroniken, 10, Chronik von Siedeler, 157v. 17“in d[en] kirchen: vnd die and[er]n in den heusern zu vberfallen, auch alle zu tod zeschlagen.” StAA, Urgichten Gedeon Mair, 7 November 1583. 18“von den baurs leuthen so vß Bairn herein komen.” StAA, Urgichten Gedeon Mair, 7 November 1583. The Bavarian peasants could only have been Catholics. 19“sy glauben nit, d[a]z sy d[er] gleich[en] furnemen warden.” StAA, Urgichten Gedeon Mair, 7 November 1583. 20October 28.

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especially told them that “they shouldn’t go to the sermon unarmed,” 21 so that they would be able to defend themselves if they were attacked while at church. He meant this only “so that if some unrest should break out in the church, they could put it down.”22 Gedeon’s defensive strategy was actually aimed at highlighting his civic obedience, for local ordinances required all male citizens to interfere in fights and other altercations, using force when necessary to keep the peace.23 Based on Dr. Müller’s account of the events of 1584, the rumors Gedeon might have heard were more frightening than the closing of shops. Müller accused the Catholics of intentionally spreading stories—which, he noted, may or may not have been true—that the soldiers guarding the city would be given leave on the holiday to attack the Protestants “and to have an Antwerp Martin’s night”; the soldiers were so bold, in fact, that when they saw citizens in fine clothes, they would brag that “those clothes would soon suit them as well.”24 Thus the threat was not only to the Protestant faith but also to shops, households, and even clothing, all symbols associated with the power and autonomy of Augsburg’s male citizens. Under torture, Gedeon Mair began to name additional names. The rumor that the bishop had made a pact with civic leaders to force Protestants to convert, he claimed, he had heard from the shoemaker [Christoff]25 Widenmann, who had also said, “When the tumult starts, he wants to see to it that he also kicks up a row and kills someone as quick as any other.”26 The gunsmith Wurstle had said that “if the [city guards] want to shut up their shops, as is being spoken about, then he himself would help stop the authorities and turn them away.”27 From another gunsmith, called Rem, Gedeon had heard something that must have been even more disturbing to the

21“so

solten sy…on wehrn nit in die Predig geen.” StAA, Urgichten Gedeon Mair, 7 November

1583. 22“damit wann man etwa in den kirch[en] ein rumor anfing, d[a]z sy denselben abstillen khonden.” StAA, Urgichten Gedeon Mair, 7 November 1583. 23StAA, Ordnungen, Zucht- und Polizeiordnung, 1537, D1v; StAA, Schätze ad 36/8, Zucht- und Polizeiordnung, 1580, 74r–75r; and SuStBA, 4º Cod. Aug.132, Zucht- und Polizeiordnung, 1621, 29v. 24“vnd eine Antorfische Martinsnacht zuhalten: wenn sie an den Bürgern schöne Kleider sahen / rhümeten sie sich vngescheucht / diese Kleider wurden ihnen bald auch wol anstehen.” Müller, Augspurgische Handel, M2v. 25Mistakenly identified by Mair as Jakob Widenmann. 26“wann der lermen angieng wolt er auch sechen das er sich vmbtumelt, vnd eben sobald einen vmbrecht als d[er] ander.” StAA, Urgichten Gedeon Mair, 7 November 1583. 27“wann man inen mit des vogts wach wie man vßgeben die läden wolt zuschlagen, so wolt er selbsten die oberkheit helffen premsen vnd herumb ruecken.” StAA, Urgichten Gedeon Mair, 7 November 1583.

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authorities: “That all of those on Smithy Lane have made a pact, that if they try to close the shops, they would defend themselves, for they have weapons and guns in their houses, and some have stockpiled up to six or seven loaded guns in their shops, as well as stones and similar things in the houses.”28 Schmiedgasse (Smithy Lane) is located near the city center, just down the hill from the council house and a stone’s throw from the Barfüer Tor (Franciscan gate) that separated the midtown area from the poorer “Jakob’s suburb.” The curving medieval street with its tightly packed rows of timberframed houses took its name from the smiths who had their homes and shops there, among them the gunsmiths and cutlers who, according to Gedeon Mair, had gathered to gossip about their defense preparations. Unfortunately for Gedeon, this story had provided sufficient grounds for stepping up the severity of the torture, under which his testimony took a shape that shadowed, and perhaps was shaped by, the worst fears of his accusers. Not only the smiths of Schmiedgasse but craftsmen throughout an entire quarter had made a pact to defend their homes and shops on the upcoming holiday with whatever force was necessary. Fears had been enflamed, Gedeon claimed, by a locksmith named Peter Eisele, who had gone from house to house to spread news of the danger in an area stretching from the smiths to the slaughterhouse to Schwabeneck, a lane on the edge of the bishop’s quarter. In other words, the conspiracy was taking shape only blocks from the town hall and the wealthy uptown area. “Once they had overcome the guards,” Gedeon reported, “then they would fall upon Lord Mayor Rehlinger in his house and see if he has the power and authority to force this upon the citizens…and they also said they would attack Marx Fugger and the other council members in the same way.” 29 Despite his masculine bluster in the streets, the sixty-year-old Gedeon Mair was not a strong man and did not bear the martyrdom of the strappado well. Due to his advanced age and weak condition, he was spared further torture. Nonetheless, after the ropes had been removed, he volunteered a

28“das sy sich an d[er] schmidgassen all mit ein ander verbunden, wann man inen die läden zuschlag wellen sy sich wehrn weil sy wehrn vnd puchssen im hauß haben, wie dann mancher 6 in 7 geladne Püchsen im laden, auch stein vnd d[er]gleich[en] in die heuser geordnet haben.” StAA, Urgichten Gedeon Mair, 7 November 1583. 29“wann sy…die wach vberwunden hetten, wolten sy dem Herrn Stattpfleger Rechlinger ins Hauß gefallen sein, vnd gesechen haben, ob er macht vnd gwalt hebt die burgerschafft also zuzwingen dises hab er vom Peter Eisele d[e]n Remen vnd Würstle gehört, item sy haben sich auch vernemen lassen, gleicher gestalt herr Marxen Fugger vnd den anderen Ratspersonen einzufallen.” StAA, Urgichten Gedeon Mair, 7 November 1583.

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final report: “[Christoff] Widenmann also said that when the ruckus began, he wanted to be in the middle of it [as] they attacked the monks and papists and slew them;…he also wanted to help to overrun the Jesuits and to tear down and burn their building; and he himself wanted to assist in attacking the council lords and hanging them from the city hall.”30 Their fears were not unfounded, he explained, but came from a reputable source. During the imperial diet of 1582, while Gedeon was on duty as a night watchman, several members of the guard told him that their captain had recruited them with the promise of enjoying a “Dutch war” in Augsburg. When the trouble started, they were told, all they had to do was pick the fanciest of the houses they had been given to guard, and a “good booty” would be theirs.31 Christoff Widenmann, the next to be questioned, did not contest Gedeon’s story, defending himself only on the grounds that he had spoken out of “thoughtlessness” (vnbedacht) and never had any intention of following through on his threats; in a second interrogation, he claimed he was drunk.32 The locksmith Peter Eisele, accused of talking his neighbors into joining a defense pact against the authorities, flatly denied any participation in the rumors. As there was no corroborating evidence, Eisele was released, but both Gedeon Mair and Christoff Widenmann were publicly whipped and permanently banished. Not surprisingly, the rumors reported by Gedeon Mair neither began nor stopped on Schmiedgasse. Nor were the responses limited to talk. The uncertainty created by a change in the calendar, which literally amounted to a shift in time at the hands of an untrustworthy source, had now been given a name—the attack would come in the form of foreign troops attacking Protestant homes. Once a fear is named, it can be countered with action.33 So, just as Gedeon had suggested, some men were taking concrete steps to protect themselves, their shops, and their households. Among them was the merchant Daniel Mair, who decided to fight fire with fire by hiring his own 30“[Christoff] Widenmann hab auch gesagt wann d[er] lermen angieng, wolt er selbst darumb vnd daran sein, d[a]z man den Münch vnd Pfaffen einfiel sy stürmete vnd zu todt schlieg: Item er wolt helffen, d[a]z man auch den jesuitern einfiel sy gleichffals stürmete, irn Paw niderriß, vnd verprennete: Item er wolt selbsten die H. Stattpfleger vnd Rats Herrn helffen sturmen vnd zum Rathaus heraus henckhen.” StAA, Urgichten Gedeon Mair, 7 November 1583. 31“werden sy irs Niderlendisch kriegs alhie ergetzt…so konnen sy ein gute peut bekomen.” StAA, Urgichten Gedeon Mair, 7 November 1583. 32Claiming drunkenness was a common defense for otherwise indefensible behavior; see, Tlusty, Bacchus and Civic Order, 96–102. 33Bouwsma, “Anxiety,” 222. See also Kapferer, Rumors, 104: “Group identity is more easily built up through the unanimous designation of a common enemy.”

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minimilitia. Reacting to rumors that the city would be turned over to soldiers and “attacked and plundered during the night” on the upcoming festival of Saints Simon and Jude,34 Daniel engaged five local citizens as household guards, “to protect his house, office, and his other possessions… so that in the case of an uproar, his property would not be taken by force.”35 Daniel paid his men two gulden per week and provided them with food for a night watch. Among Daniel’s men were a fencing master and the weaver Steffan Mair, a former soldier who went by the nickname “Fresser” (Glutton); all of them, he assured the council, were local citizens. Daniel’s guards remained in service to his household for only three weeks that fall; their services would be required again, however, when things heated up the following spring. Daniel Mair was not the only member of the privileged classes to take the rumors seriously. Within days of the arrest of Gedeon Mair and Christoff Widenmann, another group of male rumormongers and witnesses were arrested and brought before the council for questioning, this time including members of Augsburg’s patrician elite. Remarkable in this case is that the new action reveals a network of rumor and response that ignores the lines of the class-based society, apparently beginning at the bottom but managing to spiral upward until it touched Augsburg’s highest social circles. Also notable about the rumors is their distinctly masculine character. The stories spreading like fire through the streets of Augsburg began and ended with matters of concern to men. Interrogations began at the top. Bernhard Walther, an influential member of Augsburg’s patrician class,36 reported that he had been waved over by patrician Carl Reichung while on his way home a few weeks before. Reichung then repeated a rumor he had heard in the patrician drinking room (Herrentrinkstube) regarding a conversation that had supposedly taken place over dinner between the Catholic patrician and councilman Octavius Fugger and the Protestant Dr. Lucas Stenglin. Both were members of Augsburg’s leading families.37 Fugger, according to Walther’s 34“bey

nechtlicher weil angegriffen vnd geplündert.” Müller, Augspurgische Handel, M2v. bewarung seines hauß, schreibstuben vnd anderer seiner sach…damit ime vf solch[en] fall da ein auflauf entstünde das seinig nit mit gewalt genommen werd.” StAA, Urgichten Daniel Mair, 20 June 1584. 36Walther became a member of Augsburg’s Small Council in 1584; Historischer Verein für Schwaben HP 293, “Ausgburger Ämterbesetzung 1548–1806,” by Benedict von Paris, currently held in StAA. 37Octavius Fugger was a member of the Small Council between 1580 and 1600; Historischer Verein für Schwaben HP 293, “Ausgburger Ämterbesetzung 1548–1806,” by Benedict von Paris, currently held in StAA. Lucas Stenglin was a physician from an influential merchant family with many XXXXX 35“zu

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account, asked Stenglin why “[the Protestants] don’t want to accept the new calendar, as it is a political work” (a secular matter),38 to which Stenglin replied, “You know well why.”39 Fugger then reportedly retorted by threatening that “they will soon be descended upon in their churches and taught to accept the calendar.”40 Walther, of course, assured his interrogators that he took no notice of the rumor, noting that he “holds Herr O[ctavius Fugger] for the sort of gentleman who would not talk in such a manner.”41 Herr Reichung, when questioned, said that he had heard the rumor from Wolf Peter while playing cards with him in the drinking room, and he also claimed that he had not believed it, in spite of the fact that he had repeated it to Walther. Wolf Peter in turn reported having heard it from Endres Metz, also in the patrician drinking room, while Endres Metz said that he heard it from Sebastian Rentz, who had been at Metz’s house. With Sebastian Rentz the rumor began to move down the social ladder, though only slightly at first (Rentz also belonged to one of Augsburg’s leading families but was still a youth).42 His source of the rumor, however, was the servant of his relative Hans Kechler, a young boy named Hans Schwemmer. According to Rentz, Schwemmer had reported Fugger’s remark with the explanation that he had heard it directly from Stenglin’s servant, Hans Schöbl. The rumor sounded all the more believable because, Rentz noted, Schöbl had added the observation that Dr. Stenglin had appeared very discouraged when he returned from his dinner with Fugger.43 Stenglin’s servant, Hans Schöbl, gave a slightly different version of events. He had occasion, he pointed out, to accompany his master to many houses, and there was a great deal of talk, all of which saddened the doctor. He had indeed told others that Stenglin had been to Octavius Fugger’s 38

ties to government and was one of the founding fathers of Augsburg’s Collegium Medicum. 38“warumb sie den newen Calendar weil es ein politisch werkch sey, nit auch anemen.” StAA, Urgichten Hans Schwemer, 10 November 1583–20 January 1584. 39“ir wissen wol warumb.” StAA, Urgichten Hans Schwemer, 10 November 1583–20 January 1584. 40“man werd sie in iren kirch[en] bald haimsuechen vnd den calender lehrnen anemen.” StAA, Urgichten Hans Schwemer, 10 November 1583–20 January 1584. 41“halt auch H. O. fur einen sollich herrn, d[a]z er d[er]gleich[en] nit reden werd.” StAA, Urgichten Hans Schwemer, 10 November 1583–20 January 1584. 42Rentz was identified in the documents as Junkherr, a term that in Augsburg meant “young lord”; Rentz actually belonged to a merchant family with ties to the Mehrer Gesellschaft. See Häberlein and Reinhard, Augsburger Eliten. 43According to communications theorist Susan Coppess Pendleton (“Rumor Research,” 75–77), rumor credibility is partly tied to an authoritative source.

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house and had come home in an unhappy mood, afterwards warning others at the table to pray fervently.44 He denied spreading any other rumors. Another servant also testified that Schöbl had said nothing about churches or about Fugger, only that “things were not well” (es stee nit wol). As for Dr. Stenglin himself, he not only denied repeating the rumor but also noted that he had never shared a meal with Octavius Fugger. It appeared to the council, then, that the words had been put in Fugger’s mouth by the link between Schöbl and Rentz, namely Kechler’s servant Hans Schwemmer, who subsequently faced a full interrogation in front of the magistrates. Schwemmer explained the misunderstanding as follows: While he and Stenglin’s servant Hans Schöbl were waiting in the street for their respective masters, their small talk of service and horses eventually turned to the affairs in the city. Schöbl was worried about the fact that people were locking up their houses and “was concerned that no good would come of it; they [Catholics] might force them [Protestants] to accept the calendar.”45 Upon returning home, Schwemmer repeated Schöbl’s words to his master, the young Hans Kechler, “in confidence.”46 Kechler’s relative Sebastian Renz was also present and reacted by asking, “What? No good come of it? How should no good come of it?”47 To this Schwemmer incautiously replied, “I don’t know what he meant, he just said that no good would come of it. I suppose he means that they will one day be fallen upon in church.”48 The boy then claimed that Kechler and Rentz warned him not to repeat such words, which he had spoken out of ignorance; nonetheless, the patrician son Rentz then repeated Schwemmer’s words to others, apparently embellishing them as he did so. Schwemmer claimed that no one had said that the threat had come from Fugger. It is unlikely that Schwemmer imagined the fear of attacks in church entirely on his own. His words resemble too closely the imagery invoked by Gedeon Mair’s testimony. At the same time, however, it is reasonable to suppose that Schwemmer would have been eager to pass on the stories he 44“sie sollen weidlich betten.” StAA, Urgichten Hans Schwemmer, 10 November 1583–20 January 1584. 45“trag sorg, es werd nit gut thun, man möchts ein mal lehrnen den calender anemen.” StAA, Urgichten Hans Schwemmer, 10 November 1583–20 January 1584. 46“inn vertrauen.” StAA, Urgichten Hans Schwemmer, 10 November 1583–20 January 1584. 47“Wie? nit gut thun? wie soll es nit gut thun?” StAA, Urgichten Hans Schwemmer, 10 November 1583–20 January 1584. 48“waiß weder ich nit wie ers maint, er hat halt gesagt, es we[r]d nit gut thun, ich denckh wol, er vermain etwan, sie möchten ein mal inn der kirch vberfallen werden.” StAA, Urgichten Hans Schwemmer, 10 November 1583–20 January 1584.

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had heard from other servants. The court scribe described Schwemmer as “a simple-minded person who is not able to support himself,” noting also that he was “very fearful and faint of heart.”49 Rentz had also described him as a “young child” (jung kind). An adolescent servant, enjoying a rare moment of undivided attention from his socially superior employers, might have been unable to resist the perception of social approval to be gained by passing on such important information. Theorists researching the functions of rumor and gossip generally agree that a major reason for passing on unsubstantiated information is to raise personal status, especially in the case of those on the lower end of the social scale.50 Out of context, the careless words of a serving boy would hardly have been worth the council’s attention. More likely than not, such talk would have been dismissed as gossip or idle talk (Geschwätz or Klatsch), belonging to the domain of women, children, and servants and thus deemed insignificant. But as soon as Hans Schwemmer’s words were taken up by his young masters and passed on, the character of the rumor changed. On the tongues of male citizens of consequence, the same information was accorded the status of Geschrei, a word implying defamation or protest that was potentially political in character.51 Only when the idle talk had attracted the attention of council members, then, did it become subversive; yet once this happened, everyone in the chain, right down to the very bottom, could be held accountable. Unfortunately for Schwemmer, his warning that the Protestants would be “fallen upon in church”52 recalled too closely the threatening images of a populace armed against its government described in the torture chamber by Gedeon Mair and Christoff Widenmann. Although testimony certainly allows the conclusion that the patrician sons Hans Kechler and Sebastian 49“ein einfaltiger mensch, der sein notturfft nit fürbringen kan, ist darzu gar forchtsam vnd kleinmüetig.” StAA, Urgichten Hans Schwemmer, 10 November 1583–20 January 1584. 50Stewart and Strathern, Witchcraft, 36–37; Goodman and Ben-Ze´ev, Good Gossip, 3; and Kapferer, Rumors, 14. 51The word Geschrei was used to describe rumors related to this incident by the authorities, the defendants, and repeatedly by Müller; on distinctions between Geschwätz, Klatsch, and Geschrei, see Holenstein and Schindler, “Geschwätzgeschichte(n),” 47–51, 69–71. Compare to records of seventeenth-century conflicts in Augsburg, in which women's fights were often characterized as resulting from Geschwätz; StAA, Strafbücher, Frevelprotokolle, 1 February 1670, 23 August 1670, 27 September 1670, 19 May 1684, 27 May 1684. Geschwätz does not appear in protocols of male delinquents during the same period (based on a sample of 723 records of fights between men, 1604-84, from the same records, many of which mention coming to blows over “words” [“von wortten zuestraichen khommen”] but none of which includes the term Geschwätz). 52“inn der kirch vberfallen.” StAA, Urgichten Hans Schwemmer, 10 November 1583–20 January 1584.

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Rentz also played a part in stepping up the drama of the rumor, the servant at the bottom of the ladder undoubtedly made a less politically volatile scapegoat; in addition, he easily fit the early modern stereotype of the gossiping servant who posed a danger to the household.53 Little Hans Schwemmer was banished from the city.54 The public whipping and banishment of these troublemakers, however, did not put an end to the rumors. The pattern of this masculine gossip was repeated again and again in Augsburg’s streets. Fear was countered with bravado, and bravado was shored up with weapons and more talk. 55 The result was not only the potential for an armed crisis, but also an increased sense of solidarity among Lutherans and a greater cultural divide between the confessions. Volatile rumors gave meaning to the general anxiety experienced by Augsburg’s populace and constructed a clearer division and specific perception of self and other, providing male citizens an opportunity to take action. By bearing arms and standing up for their shops, their neighborhoods, and their religion, they were both dealing directly with their fears of being massacred “in the night” and expressing their identity and agency as men and as citizens.56 That this identity included the right and duty to bear arms was recorded in countless defense ordinances and reinforced by daily experience with citizen guards, requirements for using force to intervene in fights, and the generally competitive nature of masculine culture.57 The militant response to the new calendar continued to cause problems throughout the spring of 1584. A particular point of contention was the refusal of Protestant butchers to slaughter for Easter according to the 53Holenstein

and Schindler, “Geschwätzgeschichte(n),” 43. Strafbuch 1581–87, 107r. 55At least thirty-four men and one woman were questioned in 1583 and 1584 about the passing of rumors; all of those questioned also mentioned other men who were involved, but only one reported passing information to a woman (these numbers reflect only cases involving rumors, not all those arrested in conjunction with the calendar revolt); StAA, Urgichten 1583–84, Kalenderstreitakten 26 (now Religionsakten, currently being recatalogued), and Kalenderstreitakten, criminalia 1583–89 (now Religionsakten 79). The process was strikingly similar to the “culture of fear” identified as a feature of modern American life by sociologist Barry Glassner in The Culture of Fear. 56That rumors can serve to shore up popular agency is supported by research suggesting that, in providing a challenge to official information sources, they can function as a check on the power of authority; Kapferer, Rumors, 14–21, 263. 57Tlusty, “Civic Defense.” It is impractical to cite here the vast literature linking the historical construction of masculinities to competition and violence. Recent treatments with bibliographical information include DeKeseredy and Schwartz, “Masculinities and Interpersonal Violence”; Reichert, “Bravado”; Connell, Masculinities, 257–60; Spierenburg, Men and Violence; Shepard, Meanings of Manhood, 127–51; and Manning, Swordsmen, 139–244. 54StAA,

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new calendar, leaving Catholics without meat for the holiday; ten butchers were arrested for this infraction.58 By June, rumors were circulating that if the Protestants celebrated the upcoming Pentecost holiday by the old calendar, the Catholics would smash their shop doors and windows and force them to open for business.59 Local and imperial authorities responded in turn with the recruitment of more special troops to put down any unrest, and that complicated the problem.60 Dr. Müller, meanwhile, continued to preach fear and disobedience, finally leading to the decision by the authorities to remove him from the city. In the decree of banishment, Müller was accused of frightening citizens with warnings of attacks, plundering, robbery, and massacres; elsewhere they charged him with seeking to start a bloodbath.61 As noted, the melee that followed has been well documented elsewhere. But what is of interest in this context is that some of Augsburg’s citizens thought it necessary not just to protect their pastor but to protect their household from the authorities. The merchant Daniel Mair had rehired two of his five men two weeks before, and his was only one of many households that stood armed and ready. During the height of the confusion in the streets, shots were fired not only from Daniel’s house but also from several others.62 The one hit of the day was scored by Daniel’s guard Fresser, the former soldier, who wounded the local guard captain (whom Müller had maligned as a “German-Spanish soldier”) in the arm.63 That evening, in response to rumors in the streets that houses would be set on fire, Daniel also recalled the other three members of his private militia. This time he raised their pay to two and a half gulden per week in return for standing watch both day and night.64 In invoking the fear of fire, Daniel’s argument played with the notion of obedience versus disobedience; by defending his home against a potential fire, he was protecting not only his family, but the entire city, from potential disaster, and at the same time living up to defense ordinances that expected all citizens to be firefighters. Müller, too, had drawn upon the fear of fire in his invective against the hiring of foreign guards. According to his diatribe, 58StAA,

Strafbuch 1581–87, 116r–v, 117v, 119r–v. Urgichten Hans Amman, 8 June 1584. 60During the night of 4–5 June 1584, two hundred soldiers were recruited from outside the city, and all of the gates were fortified with artillery; Kaltenbrunner, “Der Augsburger Kalenderstreit,” 522. 61“vberfall, todtschlag, plunderung vnd raub.” “Müller…zueinrichtung des lang gesucht[en] blutbads…,” StAA, Kalenderstreitakten 26. 62StAA, Urgichten Hans Mersperg, 25 June 1584. 63“Deudschspannischer Kriegsman.” Müller, Augspurgische Handel, J3v. 64StAA, Urgichten Daniel Mair, 20 June 1584. 59StAA,

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citizens had been ordered in October 1583 to remain in their homes and let the mercenary troops handle emergencies, depriving them of their natural right of self-defense. As a result, a fire breaking out during the night went unnoticed, causing the death of seven people.65 In the eyes of the authorities, however, the city guards upon whom these householders had fired were not marauding Spaniards or arsonists, but their own officially designated representatives. Shooting at them was thus equivalent to mounting an armed offense against the city leaders personally. Interrogators of the persons arrested in this incident accused them of offending the government’s right to a monopoly on military power. The accused, they insisted, knew that the authorities kept a “strong guard” and that the city’s guards were in the streets for the “protection of everyone.” 66 A private defense system was hardly necessary. These accusations were formulated in response to the householders’ fears that additional guards had been hired to use against the Lutheran populace rather than for general security. The householders for their part defended their right as housefathers to protect their families and blamed countless rumors for their overreaction. Daniel Mair testified that the public outcry led him to believe that it was necessary to defend his household against “bad, riotous, depraved people who would rather plunder than do anything else.” 67 He was also not the only one who had hired armed guards, he noted, and in fact he had asked another householder “how much he pays his people” before deciding on an appropriate pay scale.68 According to Daniel and others arrested for firing out of their homes, by the afternoon of 4 June, a great many houses were armed to the teeth and waiting for trouble. A member of mead seller Wolfgang Bruckhmair’s household, who had also shot at the guards from the windows, explained that “earlier there had been all kinds of talk going around that the guards were not to be trusted but had been permitted to loot”;69 thus he responded to the threatening 65“…damit also der…Bürgerschafft sich selbs vnnd die irige / sampt gemeinem Vaterland wider einige noht zuschützen alle macht vnd fug genommen.” Müller, Augspurgische Handel, G3r–v. According to local chronicles, three people were killed in a fire on 29 October 1583; Stetten, Geschichte, 1:664. 66“starckhe wach.” StAA, Urgichten Daniel Mair, 20 June 1584). “zu menickhlichs schutz vnd schirm.” StAA, Urgichten Hans Metsperger, 25 June 1584. See also StAA, Ratsbuch 20:1, 1546, 124v, which forbade citizens to hire their own guards unless they were traveling on civic business. 67“böse aufrüerische verdorbne leut die lieber blündern als etwas anders thun.” StAA, Urgichten Daniel Mair, 20 June 1584. 68“was er seinen leüt geb.” StAA, Urgichten Daniel Mair, 20 June 1584. 69“zuvor allerley reden vmbgangen das der wach nit wol zu getrauen sonder von inen blünderung zulassig sei.” StAA, Urgichten Balthasar Streiffer and Hans Metsperger, 25 June–5 July 1584.

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posture of the guards outside the house “out of fear” (auß angst ) and with the intention of protecting the women and children in his house. In the end, Augsburg was spared the horror of a “Parisian Wedding.”70 For the council, however, the situation was extremely sensitive. An armed attack on representatives of authority was a serious crime. Even the verbal threats to which some of the defendants admitted could have been grounds for corporal punishment—at the least, such talk was likely to cost the rebel his tongue or his hand, if not his life.71 But punishments in this case had to be dealt out cautiously. For one thing, although the council claimed the right to a monopoly on armed power in the city, they also depended on an armed citizenry to serve as their representatives both in matters of local defense and in carrying out police functions. In a city turned against itself, it was difficult to draw lines between insurrection and defense. In addition, confessional tensions were running high among members of the council as well as in the streets. A harsh reaction to the fear-fed revolt could have split the council and led to more unrest and possibly to intervention by imperial troops. Thus, council members moved quickly to resolve the crisis, first and foremost by finding a solution to the problem of the new calendar. A citizens’ committee (Bürgerausschuss) was created with representatives from each of the three estates (patricians, merchants, and commoners) to negotiate a solution. Tension was then diffused by means of a compromise, this time also endorsed by the Protestant minority on the council, which allowed the Lutherans to celebrate the upcoming Pentecost holiday according to the old calendar but required them to follow the new one from then on. Local Lutheran pastors sanctioned the decision from the pulpit the following Sunday and Monday, and the militant Dr. Müller found a new home in Protestant Ulm. The next step was an attempt to identify the source of the local rumors. In August, a delegation commissioned by the emperor subjected all members of the citizens’ committee, starting with those of the illustrious Fugger family, to a closed inquisitio. The aim of the imperial commission was to root out seditious elements, especially among those in a position of power, by identifying what it was that the people feared and why they had 70According to the city’s report to the imperial commission, only one commoner (not further identified) was killed and several others in addition to the guard captain were wounded; StAA, Kalenderstreitakten 26, 53r. 71Punishment records noted that the rebels had forfeited their right to live; Creasman, “Policing the Word,” 264. For an example of loss of tongue for seditious talk in Augsburg, see StAA, Urgichten Andreas Steiner, 14 May 1544.

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turned against the authorities. All those interrogated were sworn to secrecy.72 Naturally, the commoners on the committee kept their replies artfully humble, revealing little. Among the patricians, however, the record reveals men who, while diplomatic in their responses, were outspoken about their critique of confessional politics and the balance of power in the city. To Lutheran council members, the problem lay with the abuse of power by their Catholic colleagues, especially their attempts to meddle in matters of Lutheran religious life. A number of patricians complained that council appointments depended more on family connections than on qualifications; others hinted at general discrimination against Lutherans in the city. Not surprisingly, the Catholics placed the blame primarily on Müller’s shenanigans.73 When asked what might have moved the people in the streets to rebellion, the representatives who were interrogated suggested that they were not only frightened by rumors of an attack, but also angered by the presence of foreign soldiers in the city. Most historians have seen the recruitment of foreign soldiers as a sticking point because of the financial burden it would theoretically impose on the populace. While the expense of maintaining troops in the city was a common source of irritation, there is no evidence that the participants in this uprising were concerned with taxes; quite to the contrary, some were obviously prepared to pay out considerable sums for their own private protection. What these men were reacting to was an infringement on their rights of collective self-defense. By usurping the defensive right of local citizens, the soldiers appropriated their agency and power and undermined their status as political actors. The character of the city was thus changed from an active body, both as individual representatives (householders) and as a corporation, to one that was occupied and passive. According to defense ordinances, those men who had no place guarding the streets were to stay in their homes and were thus relegated to household space. A symbolic redefinition of a role that was active and public to one that was passive and domestic would be seen as emasculating, which encouraged public displays of bravado in reaction. The recruitment of foreign soldiers, intended as a stabilizing measure, actually had the opposite effect. 72For

a detailed description of these proceedings see Warmbrunn, Zwei Konfessionen, 367–69. number of social and economic concerns also surfaced, particularly targeting the Fugger’s manipulation of civic finances and political power in their own interests: StAA, Kalenderstreitakten 28, 129r–174v; Warmbrunn, Zwei Konfessionen, 369; and Roeck, Eine Stadt, 133–37. The patricians were questioned in more detail than were the commoners regarding the source of the trouble. 73A

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The spark that flickered in Augsburg’s streets threatened to destabilize more than local politics. For even as city leaders struggled to diffuse the situation locally, songs and stories about the events in Augsburg were circulating throughout the empire, and once again the fear escalated as rumors moved from town to village to court. Like the members of Augsburg’s ruling elite, the German princes found themselves struggling to defend their territories against the “fire” of words that threatened to reduce the religious peace to ashes.74 Daniel Mair, in protecting his household from an outside threat, became a literal expression of Agrippa’s assertion that “the household is a metaphor for the state.”75 By the summer of 1584, not only Augsburg’s craftsmen and merchants, but princes, dukes, and other civic governors were poised to draw their weapons, like any good housefather, in protection of their domains. The extreme sensitivity of the situation forced not only the local council, but also the emperor to act with caution in punishing the perpetrators. Most of the participants in the uproar were ultimately pardoned, in a number of cases with imperial intercession.76 At about the same time, local ordinances governing the civilian militia were amended. The standard requirement that all male citizens appear armed and ready to defend their city in case of an emergency, which had been part of their annual oath, was deleted. Instead, only those with “special orders” (sondere bevelch) were to appear in the street; all other men were to stay in their houses with their wives and children and await instructions.77 Similar measures had been taken during the volatile years between the Schmalkaldic War and the Peace of Augsburg (the Interim), when rumors circulated that there was a plan to sound the alarm bell in the city as a test of the citizens’ loyalties.78 Incidents such as these strained the Reformation ideal of the household as a bastion of civic defense and challenged the authorities’ monopoly on violence. The result was not only a widening gap between the confessions, but also between authority and populace in their access to civic power. 74“…feur, so sich dem lauttern Religion Friden zuwieder anzinden will.” HStAS, A140, Reichsstadt Augsburg, letter from Herzog Ludwig to Ulm, 30 May 1584. On songs of the Kalenderstreit, see Radlkofer, “Die volkstümliche…Literatur.” On attempts to suppress calendar songs and stories, see Creasman, “Policing the Word,” 257–307. 75“Das Haus ist ein Bild des Staates.” Agrippa von Nettesheim, Die Eitelkeit, ed. Mauthner, 300. 76See, for example, StAA, Strafbuch 1581–87, 122r, 125v, 126r, 142v. On the practice of issuing general pardons after revolts, see also Würgler, “Diffamierung und Kriminalisierung.” 77StAA, Schätze 13c, Ordnung des Stadtregiments unter Carl V, 33r. Special decrees to this effect were also issued on 10 and 14 June 1584; StAA, Kalenderstreitakten 26. 78StAA, Polizeiwesen 1, 1546; SuStBA, 2º S.14 No. 30, 25 June 1549; and Evangelisches Wesensarchiv 1561, Tom. 2, Außzug der Newen Ordnung die Vnderhauptleüth betreffend 1552.

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The militant Dr. Müller’s role as fearmonger, then, was ultimately effective in furthering Protestant solidarity and reinforcing mistrust of the rival Catholic group. Among the populace, both religions were radicalized by the fear of each other that temporarily obliterated shared interests. 79 By invoking the specter of foreign atrocities to construct a local enemy, Müller managed to advance the process of confessionalization. But his ultimate goal of turning back the clock failed. The new calendar remained in effect. And despite the creation of an increased sense of group identity among both Catholics and Protestants, the negotiations of the imperial council were effective in preventing more violence. Relations between the confessions in Augsburg remained relatively peaceful for a generation following this event. The specific ingredients that went into the rebellion of 1584 were hardly unique: start with an armed male populace socialized to respond to a threat with violence, add a hotheaded religious fanatic or two, create a memory of past martyrdom and a rumor of immediate danger, and then find an easily identifiable enemy toward which to point the guns. Bloodshed is the likely result. The calendar uprising in Augsburg was not very bloody, but the fear of a Parisian terror was real and palpable in the streets. This fear played a role in strengthening, politicizing, and radicalizing religious identity among the populace. Only by turning to the negotiating table and seeking compromise was a greater catastrophe averted. In responding to a perceived threat with action, the men of Augsburg were living up to the demand of early modern citizenship, which required them to serve as defenders of their families, households, towns, and faith. The resort to arms in defense of self and community was one of the most obvious acts in the performance of masculine identity. By asserting their masculinity with the force of arms, however, these citizens placed their governors on the defensive. The council thus reacted by forcing them into a less active role, effectively stripping them of a part of their male power. The cycle of threats to order, followed by steps designed to “domesticate” the male populace, would be repeated again and again throughout the early modern period, ultimately leading to a general disarmament of the civilian population and the monopolization of military power by the state.

79For a more recent parallel of this process that also considers the relationship of rumor to masculinity and religious difference, see Das, “Crisis and Representation.”

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Bibliography Archives BHSA HStAS StAA StAM SuStBA

Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv, München Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart Stadtarchiv Augsburg Stadtarchiv Memmingen Staats- und Stadtbibliothek Augsburg

Printed Works Agrippa von Nettesheim. Die Eitelkeit und Unsicherheit der Wissenschaften. Edited by Fritz Mauthner. Munich: Müller, 1913. Böttcher, Diethelm. Ungehorsam oder Widerstand? Zum Fortleben des mittelalterlichen Widerstandsrechtes in der Reformationszeit (1529–1530). Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1991. Bouwsma, William J. “Anxiety and the Formation of Early Modern Culture.” In After the Reformation: Essays in Honor of J. H. Hexter, edited by Barbara C. Malament, 215–46. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1980. Cardauns, Ludwig. Die Lehre vom Widerstandsrecht des Volks gegen die rechtmässige Obrigkeit im Luthertum und im Calvinismus des 16. Jahrhunderts. 1903. Reprint, Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1973. Connell, R. W. Masculinities. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. Creasman, Alyson. “Policing the Word: The Control of Print and Public Expression in Early Modern Augsburg, 1520–1648.” PhD diss., University of Virginia, 2002. Das, Veena. “Crisis and Representation: Rumor and the Circulation of Hate.” In Disturbing Remains: Memory, History, and Crisis in the Twentieth Century, edited by Michael Roth and Charles Salas, 37–62. Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2001. DeKeseredy, Walter, and Martin Schwartz. “Masculinities and Interpersonal Violence.” In Handbook of Studies on Men and Masculinities, edited by Michael Kimmel et al., 353–66. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, 2005. Dilcher, Gerhard. “Widerstandsrecht.” In Handwörterbuch zur deutschen Rechtsgeschichte, edited by Adalbert Erler, Ekkehard Kaufmann, and Dieter Werkmüller, 5:1351–64. Berlin: E. Schmidt, 1998. Estes, James M., ed. and trans. Whether the Secular Government Has the Right to Wield the Sword in Matters of Faith: A Controversy in Nürnberg, 1530. Toronto: Centre for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, 1994. Friedeburg, Robert von. Widerstandsrecht und Konfessionskonflikt: Notwehr und Gemeiner Mann im deutsch-britischen Vergleich 1530 bis 1669. Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1999. Glassner, Barry. The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things. New York: Basic Books, 2000. Goodman, Robert F., and Aaron Ben-Ze´ev. Good Gossip. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1994. Häberlein, Mark, and Wolfgang Reinhard, eds. Augsburger Eliten des 16. Jahrhunderts: Prosopographie wirtschaftlicher und politischer Führungsgruppen 1500–1620. Berlin: AkademieVerlag, 1996. Holenstein, Pia, and Norbert Schindler. “Geschwätzgeschichte(n): Ein kulturhistorisches Plädoyer für die Rehabilitierung der unkontrollierten Rede.” In Dynamik der Tradition: Studien zur historischen Kulturforschung, edited by Richard van Dülmen, 41–108, 271– 81. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer, 1992.

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Immenkötter, Herbert. “Kirche zwischen Reformation und Parität.” In Geschichte der Stadt Augsburg: 2000 Jahre von der Römerzeit bis zur Gegenwart, edited by Gunther Gottlieb et al., 391–412. 2nd ed. Stuttgart: Theiss, 1985. Israel, Jonathan. The Dutch Republic: Its Rise, Greatness, and Fall, 1477–1806. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995. Kaltenbrunner, Ferdinand. “Der Augsburger Kalenderstreit.” Mittheilungen des Instituts für Oesterreichische Geschichtsforschung 1 (1880): 497–540. Kapferer, Jean-Noël. Rumors: Uses, Interpretations, and Images. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1990. Kawerau, Waldemar. Die Reformation und die Ehe: Ein Beitrag zur Kulturgeschichte des sechzehnten Jahrhunderts. Halle: Verein für Reformationsgeschichte, 1892. Kingdon, Robert. Myths About the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacres, 1572–1576. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988. Manning, Roger B. Swordsmen: The Martial Ethos in the Three Kingdoms. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Marnef, Guido. “The Towns and the Revolt.” In The Origins and Development of the Dutch Revolt, edited by Graham Darby, 84–106. London: Routledge, 2001. Mauer, Benedikt. “Kalenderstreit und Krisenstimmung: Wahrnehmungen von Protestanten in Augsburg am Vorabend des Dreißigjährigen Krieges.” In Zwischen Alltag und Katastrophe: Der Dreißigjährige Krieg aus der Nähe, edited by Benigna von Krusenstjern, Hans Medick, and Patrice Veit, 345–56. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1999. Missling, Bodo. “Widerstand und Menschenrechte.” PhD diss., Eberhard-Karls-Universität Tübingen, 1999. Müller, Georg. Augspurgische Handel, So sich daselbsten wegen der Religion vnd sonderlich jüngst vor zwey Jaren im werenden Calender streit mit Georgen Müller D. Pfarrer vnd Superintendenten daselbst zugetragen. Wittenberg, 1586. Parker, Geoffrey. The Dutch Revolt. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1977. Pendleton, Susan Coppess. “Rumor Research Revisited and Expanded.” Language and Communication 18 (1998): 69–86. Radlkofer, Max. “Die volkstümliche und besonders dichterische Literatur zum Augsburger Kalenderstreit.” Beiträge zur bayerischen Kirchengeschichte 7 (1901): 1–32, 49–71. Reichert, Michael. “Bravado.” In Men and Masculinities: A Social, Cultural, and Historical Encyclopedia, edited by Michael Kimmel and Amy Avonson, 1:107–8. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-Clio, 2003. Roeck, Bernd. Eine Stadt in Krieg und Frieden. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1989. Schottenloher, Karl, ed. Bibliographie zur deutschen Geschichte im Zeitalter der Glaubensspaltung, 1517–85. Vol. 4. 2nd ed. Stuttgart: A. Hiersemann, 1957. Shepard, Alexandra. Meanings of Manhood in Early Modern England. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 2003. Spierenburg, Pieter, ed. Men and Violence: Gender, Honor, and Rituals in Modern Europe and America. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 1998. Spitz, Lewis. “Imperialism, Particularism, and Toleration in the Holy Roman Empire.” In The Massacre of St. Bartholomew, edited by Alfred Soman, 71–95. The Hague: M. Nijhoff, 1974. Stetten, Paul von. Geschichte der Heiligen Römischen Freyen Stadt Augspurg aus Bewährten JahrBüchern und Tüchtigen Urkunden gezogen und an das Licht gegeben. Vol. 1. Frankfurt am Main, 1743. Stewart, Pamela J., and Andrew Strathern. Witchcraft, Sorcery, Rumors, and Gossip. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.

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Tanis, James, and Daniel Horst. Images of Discord: A Graphic Interpretation of the Opening Decades of the Eighty Years’ War. Bryn Mawr, PA: Bryn Mawr College Library, 1993. Tlusty, B. Ann. Bacchus and Civic Order: The Culture of Drink in Early Modern Germany. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 2001. ———. “Civic Defense and the Right to Bear Arms in Early Modern Germany.” Acta Historiae 10, no. 2 (2002): 493–506. Voet, Léon. Antwerp: The Golden Age. Antwerp: Mercatorfonds, 1973. Warmbrunn, Paul. Zwei Konfessionen in einer Stadt: Das Zusammenleben von Katholiken und Protestanten in den paritätischen Reichsstädten Augsburg, Biberach, Ravensburg und Dinkelsbühl von 1548 bis 1648. Wiesbaden: F. Steiner, 1983. Würgler, Andreas. “Diffamierung und Kriminalisierung von ‘Devianz’ in frühneuzeitlichen Konflikten: Für einen Dialog zwischen Protestforschung und Kriminalitätsgeschichte.” In Devianz, Widerstand und Herrschaftspraxis in der Vormoderne: Studien zu Konflikten im südwestdeutschen Raum (15. bis 18. Jahrhundert), edited by Mark Häberlein, 249–76. Constance: Universitätsverlag Konstanz, 1999. Zorn, Wolfgang. Augsburg: Geschichte einer deutschen Stadt. Augsburg: Mühlberger, 1972.

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The Masculinity of Martin Luther Theory, Practicality, and Humor Susan C. Karant-Nunn

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ne of the scholarly achievements of the last two generations has been to place Martin Luther back into his times by revealing the extent to which he relied upon the thought of certain immediate as well as longerterm antecedents in arriving at his Europe-shaking ideas. Feminists have broadened this perspective in noting how traditional his and his followers’ concepts of the nature and place of women were.1 While the empirical and 1

A version of this essay was presented at a conference on masculinity at the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, University of California, Los Angeles, in February 2001; and in German as “‘Mihi reliquerit animum paene muliebrem’: Die Maskulinität von Martin Luther,” at the University of Erfurt in November 2001. A revised German version appeared as “‘Fast wäre mir ein weibliches Gemüt verblieben.’” The present rendition contains new material on humor as an aspect of marriage. 1Wiesner, “Luther and Women.” On the goals of the German Lutheran Reformation for women and marriage, see Roper, Holy Household. According to Roper (“Gender and the Reformation,” 292– 94), the witch craze cannot be omitted from any consideration of the trajectory of women’s status in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Cf. Karant-Nunn, “Reformation of Women”; and KarantNunn, “Reformation Society, Women and the Family.” A prominent example from the germanophone world is Koch, “Maior dignitas est in sexu virili.” Not everyone shares this point of view. Most notable in English are Ozment, When Fathers Ruled; Wunder, He Is the Sun, She Is the Moon (in which Wunder does not devote much attention to Luther or the Reformation but stresses the full partnership of women); and Hendrix, “Christianizing Domestic Relations.” An outspoken critic in the German language is Schorn-Schütte, “‘Gefährtin’ und ‘Mitregentin.’”

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theoretical literature on women in early modern Europe now burgeons, a great deal remains to be done on men as men in the wake of the Reformation. Nevertheless, a good beginning has been made.2 This essay will discuss Luther’s own ideals concerning proper masculine behavior and his private attempt to embody those ideals, which modern scholarship seems not to have addressed. The two parts of this essay will examine his theory and his life. In contrast to John Calvin, Luther has left ample evidence of his private self, and that evidence makes possible educated guesses concerning his own manhood.

Luther’s Theology of Being a Man It is wise to take to heart Rüdiger Schnell’s admonition that one must differentiate among the types of texts within which Luther—although Schnell is not writing specifically about Luther—articulates his views and the audiences for which his utterances were intended. Schnell rightly observes that all sorts of opinions on women, men, and marriage existed in the late Middle Ages and that examining the nature of their hearers or readers can help one to understand their differences and arrive at a better assessment of a particular author’s position.3 Thus, Luther’s formal treatises on, say, the book of Genesis will not be unrelated to his social views, but they were presented in Latin to well-educated men, and they may well differ from popularizing treatments in the vernacular for dissemination to a broad laity. Schnell also insists that writings vary according to rhetorical genre. Commentary about women in Latin may well fall into the category

2Whether or not they take up precisely the question of Reformation concepts and expressions of masculinity, a number of relevant books and articles have now appeared. Prominent among them are Moser-Rath, “Familienleben im Spiegel der [Catholic] Barockpredigt”; Dugan, “Funeral Sermon”; Lees, Medieval Masculinities, ix–xiii, xv–xxv; Roper, Oedipus and the Devil, 37–52, 125–44; Hendrix, “Masculinity and Patriarchy”; Müller, “Naturwesen Mann”; Smolinsky, “Ehespiegel im Konfessionalisierungsprozess”; Karant-Nunn, “‘Fragrant Wedding Roses’”; Schnell, “Geschlechtergeschichte und Textwissenschaft”; Schnell, Frauendiskurs; Talkenberger, “Konstruktion von Männerrollen,” 7–28; Swanson, “Angels Incarnate”; Burghartz, Zeiten der Reinheit; and several of the outstanding essays in Rublack, Gender in Early Modern German History. In respect of France, several essays adduce literary evidence of a crisis of masculinity; Long, High Anxiety. 3Schnell stresses this both in the introduction to Text und Geschlecht, and in Frauendiskurs, passim. This is doubtless true for other language areas, or, apropos of Latin literature, for all of Europe. To balance the widespread perspective that medieval authors almost uniformly disparaged women, see Blamires, Case for Women; and Blamires, Woman Defamed and Woman Defended. Nevertheless, there is a pervasive asymmetry between masculine and feminine qualities, with the female the inferior, even in the literature that employs them. See Bynum, “‘…And Woman His Humanity,’” 257.

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of misogynistic writings of the type that celibate and suffering clergy composed for delivery to other clerics. By contrast, sermons about marriage were given every January (the second Sunday after Epiphany on the continent) to entire congregations. Preachers did not intend to discourage ordinary women and men from getting married, and they presented marriage in a favorable light. Indeed, it is from this homiletic tradition that Luther drew much of his praise of the marital estate and within which he defined roles and relationships. He rejected resolute misogyny but retained the elevation of marriage. Luther’s frame of reference is thoroughly binary. He regards the entire inanimate as well as animate world as divided into female and male. One day he held forth in Latin, to the learned men at his dinner table, on Genesis 1:27: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Luther elaborated as follows: Male and female he created them. Even though this statement is made principally about human beings, nevertheless it is to be assigned to all creatures in the world, to those that fly through the sky, to the fishes of the sea, to the animals of the land. Thus has God engraved matrimony upon all creatures, as upon trees, the sky, [and] the land; and one can distinguish this in stones. If indeed there are masculine and feminine among trees, they produce fruit longer and more happily when the masculine and feminine, like the sexes, are planted close to one another; the masculine always extends his branches toward the feminine as if embracing her; and the female lifts up her own branches to the male. In the same way, the sky is the male, the earth the female, which is made fruitful by her husband the heaven. The same thing can be seen whether in stones or gems, as, I think, in corals, emeralds, and others. And so marriage is depicted in all creatures, even among the hardest stones. This magnification of marriage is beautiful.4 Already one sees that by its very nature, the male is higher and loftier than the female, as heaven is to earth and the sun is to the moon, and that masculinity entails the function of impregnating, of rendering the female 4WATR 1:560, no. 1133, where other dinner guests’ transcriptions of this opinion are also noted. This particular record was made by Veit Dietrich. Cf. WATR 1:4, no. 7: “Marriage occurs in all of nature, for among all creatures there are male and female. Even trees marry, and gems. Thus, among rocks and stones there is also marriage.”

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fruitful.5 This fundamental vision of the masculine is, of course, in no way original to Luther but can be traced back to the ancient world. It was consistently expounded during the Middle Ages.6 Men are higher and women lower; men are made to be fathers and women to be mothers. The sexes’ bodies reflect and constitute their respective destinies. Luther declared in 1531, “Men have broad chests and narrow hips, and for that reason they have more understanding than the women, who have narrow chests and wide hips and lower bodies [Gefäß], so that they ought to stay at home and sit still in the house, [and] keep house and bear and raise children.”7 The story of the Creation is the foundation of Luther’s relational scheme. Adam was made fully in the image of God, which was a “most excellent and noble” thing. His understanding was most clear, his memory the best, his will most pure. He had no fear of death. His eyesight was very likely clearer than an eagle’s.8 In Luther’s reading, even before the Fall, women were different from and lesser than men: “A woman is similar to our Lord God, similar not in her tits or navel [a euphemism for her genitals], but because she exercises dominion within the family.”9 Eve was, after all, taken from Adam’s side and presented to him to aid and comfort him. Adam is the recipient and beneficiary of God’s generosity. As the male, Adam was always capable of higher-order reasoning than Eve, whereas “she was unsophisticated and simple.”10 As the more rational being, Adam would have understood and obeyed the divine command to avoid the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and Satan knew this. The devil approached Eve because he was aware that, as a woman, she was vulnerable.11 Eve doubted the instruction of God; she questioned it and was able to be persuaded that it would do no harm to eat that apple, that “we 5Vorlesungen über 1. Mose, 1535–45, WA 42:114. Throughout nature, the male is superior to the female. 6Cadden, Meanings of Sex Difference. 7WATR 1:19, no. 55. 8Vorlesungen über 1. Mose, WA 42:46. 9Vorlesungen über 1. Mose, WA 45:51. Luther is inconclusive about the degree to which women are made in the image of God. He agrees that women are not excluded from the glory of the future life. Still, they are weaker and lower in status. He asserts, using the traditional metaphor, that the sun is more excellent than the moon but that the moon, too, is an excellent body. Nevertheless, “the woman did not equal the glory and dignity of the man”; WA 45:51–52. 10Predigten über das erste Buch Mose gehalten, 1523–24, WA 14:129. So much of these sermons is in Latin that one must imagine a learned audience, but this is not absolutely certain inasmuch as preachers in the vernacular sometimes drafted their homilies in Latin. Decisive, in my view, is the length and detail of this series, along with the language. 11WA 14:130–31.

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shall not die.”12 “Eve was led astray, not Adam, because Eve believed what she heard from the serpent; but Adam knew that it was not the truth but voluntarily consented to the devil, thinking, ‘Because she eats, I shall eat.’”13 Man, with his greater perceptivity, was not deceived but was aware of choosing to transgress. Luther imagines Adam saying to himself afterward: “It is my fault, for I was ordained to be governor and lord of the woman, and I should have forbidden her.”14 Before the Fall, Adam was Eve’s superior in his nature and in his functions. Eve was his auxiliary and subordinate.15 They loved one another nevertheless, and were partners in their dominion over the earth. Their tasks were light, for in the garden of Eden, God provided everything they needed. Luther adheres to the view that Eve’s responsibility for the debacle was primary. Adam’s allegedly more acute intellectual powers do not move the Reformer to assign greater blame to him.16 In Luther’s eyes, Adam’s penalty was appropriately lighter. Eve deserved and received the more severe punishment. God laid down the basic superiority of the man in nature at the Creation. Even after the Fall, Adam retained the image of God.17 Yet both Eve and he were susceptible to “vices of the spirit” that they had not known in their state of innocence: “Incredulity, the ignorance of God, despair, hatred, and blasphemy.”18 The enduring societal definitions of both sexes’ duties were consequences of the Fall. The gentle features of Adam and Eve’s harmonious interaction in the brief prelapsarian interlude now hardened, were binding upon both, and became potentially problematic. Cast out of Eden into a thoroughly inhospitable world, Adam had to earn his bread by the sweat of his brow until he returned to the dust out of which he had come. 19 At the moment of their disobedience, the mother and father of humanity became lustful. Humans’ bestial appetites are “manifest signs of original sin.” 20 In 12Vorlesungen

über 1. Mose, WA 42:117–20. über das erste Buch Mose gehalten, WA 14:133. 14WA 14:138; cf. Luther’s later thought about Adam’s reasoning in Vorlesungen über 1. Mose, WA 42:136. Adam allowed himself to be persuaded that punishment would not follow. 15This theme appears again in Luther’s 1527 series of sermons on Genesis, Über das 1. Buch Mose Predigten, WA 24:29, 83–84. 16See Isotta Nogarola’s dialogue “with” Ludovico Foscarini on whose fault was greater, in King and Rabil, Her Immaculate Hand, 57–69. 17Vorlesungen über 1. Mose, WA 42:51. 18Vorlesungen über 1. Mose, WA 42:86. 19Genesis 3:18–19. 20Vorlesungen über 1. Mose, WA 42:89. 13Predigten

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commenting on this, Luther decisively rejects that prominent strand of intraclerical misogyny, most famously represented by the Malleus maleficarum, which labels women more carnally desirous than men.21 Luther finds both sexes to be overcome with desire. Throughout his mature works, he attributes as powerful a sex drive to men as to women. Indeed, one could argue from his writings that the lust of many men surpasses that of most women and that men pose a greater threat to women’s safety and to the social order. This was the conclusion of an active pastor rather than an isolated theoretician. Luther readily adopts the Augustinian assertion that husbands and wives serve one another as “remedium ad peccatum,” a remedy for sin—that is, for worse sin, for Luther regards even marital sex as unavoidably fraught with sin.22 In the act of generation, he laments, people are unable to think of God.23 Human mating is like an epileptic seizure or a fit of apoplexy.24 Sexual desire serves to guarantee the perpetuation of the species, and for that reason and because it protects society against unrestrained lust, God covers its shortcomings with the mantle of his grace. 25 Luther decisively rejects what R. N. Swanson has termed the third gender, emasculinity, namely that of men who have taken religious vows of celibacy with its concomitant abstinence.26 A constant theme in Luther’s learned tracts, his sermons, his correspondence, and his spontaneous dinnertime utterances is his scorn for the Catholic insistence on celibacy. Because virtually all men find their sex drive (which God implanted in them) irresistible, prelates, priests, monks, and friars will ineluctably fail to be continent. Because they are not married, their failure will sow disorder on every side—precisely what Luther finds to be the case in Catholic lands. He stresses the irony of the pope’s rejecting clerical marriage and thus effectively preferring fornication in its many forms.27 Luther is persuaded that God requires marriage of every male, except that very rare individual who possesses the divine gift of abstinence. Otherwise, men’s irrepressible sexuality must be channeled, in keeping with God’s will and the public need. 21The famous assertion by Dominicans Heinrich Krämer and Jakob Sprenger that “all witchcraft comes from carnal lust, which is in women insatiable,” is most readily available in the North American market in Kors and Peters, Witchcraft in Europe, 183–88. 22“opus est muliere etiam ad remedium peccati.” Vorlesungen über 1. Mose, WA 42:88. 23Vorlesungen über 1. Mose, WA 42:53. 24Vorlesungen über 1. Mose, WA 42:89, 100. 25Karant-Nunn, “Female Sexuality.” On the last point, see, for example, Predigten des Jahres 1545, WA 49:19, no. 803, 4 August. 26Swanson, “Angels Incarnate,” passim. 27WATR 3:129, no. 2978b, for example, but this is a regular theme, not just in Luther’s informal conversations.

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With the Fall comes men’s assignment to nourish and provide fully for their spouse, children, and household. Doing so is a truly onerous task, despite the fact that Adam’s penalty was, Luther thinks, light in contrast to Eve’s.28 Even though many of Luther’s contemporaries no longer tilled the soil as Adam had been condemned to do, all men had to work in the public sphere at their vocation. The husband, Luther summarizes, “governs the home, takes part in public affairs, wages war, defends his own, tills the earth, builds, plants.”29 Men rule, teach, and preach. Luther informally outlines the stages of a man’s life: first comes infancy and then at seven years comes boyhood, when they are to be introduced to basic literature and the liberal arts; they begin to notice the world when they are fourteen and can be taught higher subjects. At twenty-one they want to marry. At twentyeight they are heads of households and patresfamilias. At thirty-five they take part in governing public affairs and the church. At forty-two men are in top form; they are kings. But from then on their acuity begins to decline, and by seventy they are in quite another condition.30 Occasionally a woman has some good advice, but offices are given to men.31 Women, by contrast, are confined to the home; and Luther is convinced that they should nearly always stay there. Metaphors of woman as a house or like the snail, which carried its house around on its back, were widespread, and Luther employs them.32 Men’s burdens are especially great, for they not only go out of the house to work and earn, but they must also oversee house and hearth. The wife submits in all things. Her dominion is circumscribed, and even within the home it is delegated to her by her husband, who supervises all that she does. By nature the masculine physique is stronger than the feminine, but quite apart from inborn tendencies, the postlapsarian woman, as part of her penalty for sin, must endure far more than the pain of childbirth. She will have all the discomfort and ailments that accompany pregnancy. 33 The husband must be patient with his wife on two scores: first, because she is 28Predigten

über das erste Buch Mose gehalten, WA 14:141. über 1. Mose, WA 42:151, 158. 30WATR 3:203–4, nos. 3161a, 3161b. 31In Genesin Declamationes, 1527, WA 24:107. 32Vorlesungen über 1. Mose, WA 42:99, and esp. 151–53. 33Vorlesungen über 1. Mose, WA 42:87. But for the Fall, opines Luther, women would have had several children at one time rather than, as in his day, the most fertile women being pregnant every year (WA 42:162). He may mean by this that in the prelapsarian milieu parents could have forgone sex except for the occasional multiple-birth reproduction. 29Vorlesungen

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physically and intellectually weaker; and second, because in her parturient function she will be subject to many fleshly ills. Luther foresees that masculine patience will have its limits. He nonetheless urges it upon all men.34 They should not beat their wives unless there is no other recourse; rather, they should speak seriously with a disobedient spouse. “Unbeaten is the best,” he declares.35 But husbands are duty-bound to control their wives’ untoward behavior, just as they must that of their children and servants. Luther uses the word effeminate, as many other men of the day did, to indicate qualities of weakness and inferiority.36 By comparison, that which is masculine is strong and superior. Men must not grudgingly enter into matrimony but do so with conviction. They should love their wives devotedly and enjoy reciprocity. Long before his own wedding, Luther surpasses both Peter and Paul in his enthusiasm for marriage. He agrees that “it is better to marry than to burn,” and one should not be reluctant but should rejoice in the pairing. Likewise, he exceeds Peter in urging husbands to love their wives. The word love in English bespeaks many kinds and degrees. Peter’s notion of love was probably calm, just as Luther’s was at the time he married. But Luther writes in 1519, as well as later, about the strength and singularity of marital affection, which he terms bridal love. He applies it not alone to the honeymoon but to a couple’s entire life together.37 In sum, in his theological works Luther depicts Adam as initially magnificent, physically, intellectually, and spiritually. The shortcomings of contemporary men are owing to sin. God’s creatures were deformed by original sin. All their afflictions are marks of the human departure from God’s commands. Now men are still superior to women, but they are charged with greater obligations than they can easily fulfill. They administer the public and the private sphere,38 and they must earn enough money

34Vorlesungen

über 1. Mose, 1535–45, WA 42:160. des Jahres 1525, WA 17/1:27: “ungeschlagen ist am besten.” 36See, for example, “The Freedom of a Christian,” in Dillenberger, Martin Luther, 66: “childish and effeminate nonsense.” Cf. WA 7:58: “puerilia et muliebria deliramenta.” 37Ein Sermon von dem ehelichen Stand, 1519, WA 2:167. See also Ein ander Sermon Doctor Martin Luthers, an dem andern Sontage nach der erscheinung Christi, Von dem ehelichen stande, WA 21:67–68. The latter dates from 1528, two and a half years after Luther had entered into wedlock, but its content is fully consistent with what he had written earlier. 38These words are used rhetorically, without accepting Jürgen Habermas’ assertions about the early modern separation of public and private spheres; Habermas, Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit. See a moderate, appealing modification in the essays contained in Emmelius et al., Offen und Verborgen. 35Predigten

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to sustain their families. Luther himself was unable to bear all the burden that he allocated to husbands in his teachings.

Luther as Realist at Home Luther made a serious effort to conform his life to his principles. He took very seriously the husband’s headship over his wife. He and Johann Bugenhagen, city pastor in Wittenberg, became very impatient with the city scribe of Zwickau, Stephan Roth, whose wife kept running off. In 1528, they jointly wrote to him: Grace and peace in Christ, together with authority over your wife. Your lord and mistress has not yet come to me, my dear Stephan, and this disobedience of hers to your wishes displeases me. Indeed, I am beginning to be somewhat put out with you, too, because you are soft-hearted; and out of the service by which you should have helped her, you have made a tyranny and have treated her so tenderly heretofore that it would seem to be your own fault as well that she now ventures to defy you in everything. Certainly, when you saw that the ass was greedy for fodder, that is, that your wife, because of your indulgence and consideration, was becoming unmanageable, you should have remembered that you ought to obey God rather than your wife and not have allowed her to despise and trample underfoot the marital authority, which is the glory of God, as Saint Paul tells us.39 Luther was persuaded that men who were overly permissive in dealing with their wives compromised their masculinity accordingly. Throughout his works, he intermittently disparages “she-men” (Siemänner). In doing so, he reflects the opinion that prevailed among his contemporaries, some of whom carried out rituals of degradation against men whose wives dominated them, such as making them ride backward on a donkey.40 Luther chided his own wife for talking too much and accused her of wanting to be clever. He commented casually to the men at his table, “God created man 39WABr

4:442, no. 1253. theme occurs in many guises. A readily available example is the sixteenth-century broadsheet print, “Kein edler schatz ist auff der ert / Dann ein frums weib die ehr begert,” reproduced and translated in Ozment, When Fathers Ruled, 52–53. All the dangers-of-women themes, prominent in art and literature, provide other examples. Among these are Phyllis riding Aristotle, Virgil in a basket, Samson and Delilah, and Solomon worshiping idols. 40This

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with a broad chest, not wide hips, so that the man in that part of him can grasp wisdom; but that place where filth comes out is small; this is reversed in a woman. For that reason she has much filth and little wisdom.”41 Both Katharina and Martin accepted the theoretical roles assigned to them. At least in the presence of others, Käthe addressed her husband as “Herr Doktor”; and Martin everywhere used the familiar “Du” in speaking to his wife. In the abstract, Martin was in charge of all that his wife, children, student boarders, and servants did; but in a practical sense, Käthe administered every facet of the household. Between these spouses it was doubtless understood that, in some technical sense, all the authority that Käthe wielded was delegated to her by her husband. By whatever means she acquired the power, she oversaw the finances, pantry, and nursery. Martin could not have been the world-shaking clergyman and scholar that he was without conceding this domain to her. He trusted her completely and could not have dispensed with her multifaceted labor. Partly for this reason, he took the unorthodox measure in his will of naming her the guardian (Vormund) of their children.42 She wielded the household scepter, saving, as he noted, only his masculine right. The Luthers’ sexual relationship was central to their marriage. The frequency and conviction with which Luther attacks vows of celibacy may lead one to conclude that the Reformer had been all too familiar with sexual desire as an Augustinian friar. In 1519, six years before he wed, he still maintained that celibate chastity was the best state, but he insisted that no one was without “evil fleshly lust.”43 He continued to regard sexual desire as tainted by sin. When he insisted in 1525 (just after marrying Katharina von Bora) that he had not wed Käthe out of love, he meant that lust had not motivated him. He had not, as he put it, “burned for her”; rather, he esteemed her. Quickly, however, he came to appreciate their intimacy, and his enjoyment reinforced the conviction with which he advocated wedlock. He could be unrestrained in his private correspondence. He wrote to his friend Georg Spalatin on 6 December 1525, upon Spalatin’s marriage: Believe me, my mind exults in your marriage no less than yours did in mine.… Greet your wife kindly from me. When you have your Katharine in bed, sweetly embracing and kissing her, think: 41WATR

2:285, no. 1975. this point, see the summary by Treu, Katharina von Bora, 72; a curious treatment is Fabiny, Martin Luther’s Last Will. 43Ein Sermon von dem ehelichen Stand, 1519, WA 2:168. 42On

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“Lo, this being, the best little creation of God, has been given to me by Christ, to whom be glory and honor.” I will guess the day on which you will receive this letter, and that night I will love my wife in memory of you with the same act, and thus return you like for like. My rib and I send greetings to you and your rib.44 Probably more revealing of the Luthers’ sex life, however, is the Reformer’s moving letter to Käthe of 1 February 1546, two weeks before he died. He tells her that the letter is from her “old, poor love, and, as Your Grace knows, impotent.” He assures her jokingly that he no longer fears that he will be tempted by “the pretty women.”45 On 7 February, he returns to the subject of his impotence. He urges her to consult Philipp Melanchthon, who will understand and give her advice. He assures her, “I would gladly love you if I could, as you know.”46 The fact that Luther brings this up in his letters suggests that it is a recent development as well as something that urgently concerns her. He implicitly reveals that sex is a regular part of their life together and that the lack of it will be distressing to her. Both of these passages offer evidence that in contrast to his clerical predecessors, Luther integrated sexuality into his condoned existence as at once a pastor-theologian and a husband. He has decidedly abandoned “emasculinity” as ideal and as practice. He criticizes Saint Jerome as having been unchristian in what he wrote against marriage.47 In living out and publicizing the new union between piety and the marriage bed, Luther was indeed a revolutionary. A feature central to Martin Luther’s identity as a married man is his sense of humor. Reformation scholars are aware of this aspect of the Reformer’s persona because they regularly encounter his witticisms, and they are assisted in this perception by the sheer volume of Luther’s surviving personal documents. Additionally, the previously less respected Table Talk is now seen as a window onto Luther’s private life that is unavailable for other leading figures in this religious movement. Readers of Luther’s works can be variously shocked and entertained as well as informed. Their world, half a

44WABr 3:635, no. 952. In October 2005, Eric Gritsch informed me in person that prior to 1983, the five-hundredth anniversary of Luther’s birth, by common agreement among themselves, Luther scholars did not refer to this letter. I find Luther’s sentiment touching rather than embarrassing. 45WABr 11:275–76, no. 4195. 46WABr 11:287, no. 4201. 47WATR 3:40–41, no. 2867b.

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millennium removed from the early sixteenth century, is characterized by prevailing values that do not coincide with those of early modern Germany, and so readers of Luther must be cautious about asserting that what they find amusing Luther intended to be so. When Luther declares, for example, that the sex act is like an epileptic fit, he means it. In his eyes, sensuous excesses could “rage through the streets” and disrupt public as well as private life, and they did not conform to God’s preference for modest sexual expression—along with moderate eating and drinking—in his human creatures.48 When he directs a vulgar, highly witty arrow at Sebastian Franck for his collection of misogynist aphorisms, calling Franck “a great arse-bumblebee,” Luther would likely be annoyed by our levity. He intends to reprimand Franck and all others who think the worst of women. Luther deliberately cultivated humor in the household setting where he was surrounded by his closest family members and also by guests and boarders. Matters of theology and worship were altogether serious and should be so treated by the whole community. The circle of one’s intimates was the place for men to exercise their comic gifts, to pun and insinuate. Humor lay at the heart of Luther’s masculine authority, as he thought that it should for other heads of household too. He writes to Käthe from Eisenach in 1540, relieved that Melanchthon is recovering from severe illness: “Master Philipp is returning to life again from the grave; he still looks sick, yet he is in good spirits, jokes and laughs again with us, and eats and drinks with us as usual. Praise be to God!”49 The men at his table could share the comic elements of all manner of things. We recall Luther’s episodes of constipation and depression, but his companions also note those occasions when he was in high spirits. “He was happy and joked with his friends and with me,” wrote Johannes Mathesius, later Luther’s first biographer, in 1540.50 Luther even played with his dog in the dining room.51 In this setting, he teases Lucas Cranach the Younger, who wanted to sit by his new wife and constantly engaged her in conversation.52 On another occasion, he inquires of “Muhme Lehna,” Katharina’s aunt Magdalena von Bora, with whom Käthe had lived in the convent at Nimbschen and who was now engaged to

48On

avoiding overindulgence, see WA 10/1/1:32. 9:172, no. 3511, 10 July 1540. 50WATR 5:43, no. 5284. 51WATR 3:26–27, no. 2849b. 52WATR 5:214, no. 5524; 5:336, no. 5736. Cf. WATR 4:161–62, no. 4138, directed at Ambrosius Berndt, who talked privately with his bride. 49WABr

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be married, whether she would not like to return to the convent. Lehna protests, “No, no!” Luther slyly asks his male table-mates, “Why do you suppose that women do not wish to be made virgins?” All the men smile, in silence.53 Luther once joked that after the Fall, and after their exit from the garden of Eden, for the remaining nine hundred years of their marriage, Adam and Eve argued about who was at fault: “You ate the apple!” “Why did you give it to me?” Luther comments: “They must have had an amazing household regimen!”54 Another time, and despite his disapproval of Jerome’s ascetic advice to widows, he remarks on the disadvantages of marrying a widow: “A maiden, as you will. A widow, as she will. Beware of the one who has had two husbands! My horse will kick you!”55 When he attends the wedding of Hans Lufft’s daughter and goes to the festivities after the ceremony, at the bedding of the couple, he advises the groom to be lord in the house—when the bride is not at home! Luther himself placed the groom’s shoe on the top of the hard canopy of the marital bed, so that the groom might dominate in the marriage.56 At the dining table, he expresses approval of this popular custom.57 Luther regularly used humor in interacting with Katharina; to do so was part of his definition of himself as a husband. With the help of anthropologists, I have finally realized what Luther means when he looks back upon his parents’ marriage and recalls: “My father…slept with my mother and joked with her, just as I do with my wife, and [still] they were pious people, just as all the patriarchs, archfathers, and prophets did and were.” 58 I used to think that gescherzt (joked) was a euphemism to cover the sex act, but Luther seldom resorted to euphemisms and it did not seem to be a saisfactory explanation. Furthermore, despite his oft-professed advocacy of marriage and his demonstrative love of his wife, he expressed what by modern lights are dreadful slanders of women—their responsibility for the Fall, their idiocy, their guile, and their susceptibility to temptation because of their pride and lust for dominance. How do these seemingly contradictory convictions fit together? 53WATR

2:534, no. 2589, date uncertain. 3:514, no. 3675. 55WATR 5:319, no. 5683, year uncertain. 56WATR 3:593, no. 3755 (1538). 57WATR 5:334, no. 5733, year uncertain. 58WATR 2:166, no. 1658, mid-1532; WATR 2:166–67, no. 1659, mid-1532; and WATR 3:213, no. 3181b, June 1532. Emphasis added. 54WATR

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In 1940, the British structural-functionalist anthropologist Alfred Reginald Radcliffe-Brown identified what he labeled “joking relationships” in African society.59 This concept has become part of the vocabulary of the discipline of anthropology and is now applied to Western groups and settings.60 Radcliffe-Brown defines it as follows: What is meant by the term “joking relationship” is a relation between two persons in which one is by custom permitted, and in some instances required, to tease or make fun of the other, who in turn is required to take no offence. It is important to distinguish two main varieties. In one the relation is symmetrical: each of the two persons teases or makes fun of the other. In the other variety the relation is asymmetrical: A jokes at the expense of B and B accepts the teasing good humouredly but without retaliating; or A teases B as much as he pleases and B in return teases A only a little. There are many varieties in the form of this relationship in different societies. In some instances the joking or teasing is only verbal, in others it includes horseplay; in some the joking includes elements of obscenity, in others not.61 One of the functions of joking relationships is to render minimal the potential for conflict in a bond.62 Luther instinctively regarded the happy marriage as a joking relationship and as a bond that was sustained by humor. Observing his demeanor, one may perceive that Luther lived out his jocular tie to Katharina. The evidence is chiefly in the form of his letters to her and his frequent interaction with her in the dining room in the presence of their guests. No single interpretation is sufficient for either context; both letters and jokes have various levels of meaning. But one of those levels is indeed his performance of the husband’s teasing, the ridicule, the mirthful insults of the marital commitment. He was the comedian, and she was the straight woman. Theirs was an asymmetrical joking relationship. His often charming epistolary jousts are

59Radcliffe-Brown, “On Joking Relationships”; and Radcliffe-Brown, “A Further Note on Joking Relationships.” The former is reprinted in Graburn, Readings, 145–50; and in Kuper, Social Anthropology, 174–88. 60One amusing example is Schütte, Scherzkommunikation unter Orchestermusikern. 61Radcliffe-Brown, “On Joking Relationships,” in Kuper, Social Anthropology, 174. 62On the constructive nature of joking relationships see, for example, Stevens, “Bachama Joking Categories.” For a summary of patterns of such relationships in so-called primitive societies, see Brant, “A Preliminary Study.”

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well known, in particular the salutations. In 1534, he greets her as “my friendly, dear lord, Lady Katherin von Bora, Mrs. Dr. Luther in Wittenberg.” He continues teasingly, “Yesterday I got hold of a bad drink and had to sing. If I don’t drink well, I am sorry, and I would so enjoy it. And I thought what good wine and beer I have at home, and in addition a beautiful lady—or should I say lord.”63 In 1540, he writes to her as “the rich lady of Zulsdorf, Lady Mrs. Doctor Katherin Ludherin, physically resident in Wittenberg but mentally sojourning in Zulsdorf, my little love, to her hands.”64 In 1545, he says, “To my friendly, dear housewife Catherina [sic] of Luther von Bora, preacher, brewer, gardener, and whatever else she can be.”65 In 1546, he addresses her, “My dear housewife Katherin Ludherin, Mrs. Doctor, swine marketeer of Wittenberg, my gracious lady, to her hands and at her feet.”66 On 10 February 1546, eight days before his death, Luther pens, “To the holy, anxious lady, Lady Katherin Luther, Mrs. Doctor, resident of Zulsdorf in Wittenberg, my gracious dear housewife.” He calls her “my most holy lady Mrs. Doctor.”67 Luther’s language is all the more witty for its complex topography. It expresses his great love of his wife; it puns and plays mightily. It reveals his ongoing recognition that she is a member of the German nobility and that he himself is of humbler provenance. It also acknowledges his cession to her of masculine activities along with his awareness of not being able to function as a theologian and pastor without her. In spite of what they both accept to be husbands’ and wives’ proper arenas, he must transfer to her such a degree of authority that she is his “empress” and his “lord.” 68 His use of Lady and gracious refers both to her social rank and to her daily, practical superiority in everything having to do with the household and family. In their private life, he is her subject and her dependent. By unspoken agreement, he is willing to take on feminine traits and to permit her masculine ones. He jokes with her in the body of his letters too: “Today at eight we drove away from Halle, yet we did not get to Eisleben but returned to Halle again by nine. For a huge female Anabaptist met us with waves of 63WABr

7:91, no. 2130. 9:205, no. 3519. 65WABr 11:149, no. 4139. 66WABr 11:286, no. 4201. 67WABr 11:291, no. 4203. 68Luther calls Käthe his empress in the closing of a 1530 letter to Nicolaus Hausmann; WABr 5:237, no. 1527. 64WABr

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water and great floating pieces of ice; she threatened to baptize us again, and has covered the whole countryside.”69 And again: Most holy Mrs. Doctor! I thank you very kindly for your great worry, which robs you of sleep. Since the date when you started to worry about me, the fire in my quarters, right outside the door of my room, tried to devour me; and yesterday, no doubt because of the strength of your worries, a stone almost fell on my head and nearly squashed me as in a mouse trap.70 Like interlopers in the dining room, readers observe that the Reformer gives vent to the gamut of emotion from love to rage. A relaxed and self-confident host, he jokes here too with Katharina, whereas she is invariably serious in the responses that are recorded. One day Käthe comments to her husband in the hearing of their guests: “Ah, sir, the church was so full today that it stank!” Martin replies: “There were also piles of filth there, although concealed. The best thing about it is that they [the people] carried it all out with them again.”71 It is perhaps astonishing that Luther spent so much time at the table holding forth on marriage and the nature of women. It is easy to forget that Käthe is present. Occasionally, she takes part in the conversations. She weeps openly over the death of their daughter Magdalena, and Martin comforts her.72 She rubs salve on his arthritic legs, and as she does so, he pronounces, “The Latin word uxor, wife, comes from unguendo, smearing unguent.”73 Katharina may have dashed out occasionally to assist the serving maids, and she left the table when she was in the early stage of pregnancy and was nauseated.74 Otherwise, she was the hostess, and she heard what were often dreadful—but sometimes highly approving—utterances of her spouse on the nature of womankind. It seems that the barbs Luther directs at women are intended partly for his wife’s ears specifically and form part of their joking relationship. They are, as Luther perceived it, a means of maintaining goodwill and thus strength in his marriage. If one assumes that Katharina is the target of her husband’s observations, his slurs may be viewed with somewhat less hostility. At times, he speaks in Latin, 69WABr

11:269, no. 4191, 25 January 1546. 11:291, no. 4203, 10 February 1546. 71WATR 2:526, no. 2563b, date uncertain. 72WATR 5:187, no. 5491, September 1542. Magdalena died in August. 73WATR 5:488, no. 6100, date uncertain. 74WATR 3:257, no. 3298b (1533). 70WABr

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which would have been comprehensible to her when on a simple subject; at times he speaks in German, and often he mixes the two. She understands what he is saying. Katharina enjoys the dining-room conversation and takes part in it. Laughing at her, Luther inquires whether she has said an Our Father before she preached so many words.75 One day an Englishman is their guest, and he does not speak German. Luther says, “I suggest my wife to you as your instructor in the German language. She is particularly fluent. She can speak so well that she far surpasses me. But eloquence is not to be praised in women. It befits them to lisp and stammer; that is more suited to them.”76 At another meal, Luther opines that women’s eloquence about domestic matters surpasses that of Cicero, but their thoughts on politics are worthless; whatever they can’t achieve with words, they accomplish by means of tears.77 Katharina is there; she listens. Perhaps she has ventured a remark on a political issue. Women need, her husband thinks, to wear a veil to remind them of their proper subordination.78 He uses a different metaphor on another day when, presumably, Käthe has again uttered a point of view: “No blouse is as unattractive on a woman as when she wishes to be clever.”79 Luther declares that women are not to be trusted. We are given no context for this statement. He says: “What goes in through their ears comes out through their mouths.” Thus men should not entrust secrets to them.80 On the surface this is not amusing. But as a joke between Käthe and him, it takes on a different coloration. When Luther holds forth about mismatched couples, it may be that he recalls the sixteen-year separation in age between Katharina and himself: “When an old man takes a young woman to wed, that is a very ugly spectacle, for she can take no pride or pleasure in him; the opportunity is gone. There is no longer anything attractive or strong about him. An old man and a young woman are against nature.”81 Discoursing on the division of the entire creation between male and female, Luther declares, “In the woman are defects in strength and intelligence. The defect in strength is tolerated because the men nourish them; we wish [they did not have?] 75WATR

2:285, no. 1975, June 1531. 4:121, no. 4081 (1538). 77WATR 1:531, no. 1053, first half of the 1530s. Cf. WATR 2:286, no. 1979, summer 1531. 78WATR 1:611, no. 1229, first half of the 1530s. 79WATR 2:130, no. 1555, date uncertain. 80WATR 3:311, no. 4434, March 1539. 81WATR 4:332, no. 4474 (1539); cf. WATR 5:601, no. 6322, date uncertain. 76WATR

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the defect in their intelligence [defectum ingenii desideramus], but we should also consider their character, for marriage is a necessary thing which may be seen in all of nature.”82 Luther enjoins the young Lucas Cranach, who has just married and is quite enamored of his bride, “Don’t behave that way! Before half a year has passed, you will have had enough! You will prefer any maid in the house to your wife!”83 The unseen, unheard participant in this conversation is Katharina von Bora Lutheryn. One cannot see her exchange glances with her husband, but they probably did. It is known for a fact, from Luther’s correspondence, that six months before declaring that he had not married his wife for love, he was infatuated with her. He joked to his men friends that, as a bride, in order to stay near her beloved, Käthe had sat by Luther as he worked. She had once interrupted him to inquire, “Doctor, sir, is the Hofmeister in Prussia the Margrave [of Brandenburg’s] brother?”84 Her simplicity tickled Martin, but he fully reciprocated her ardor. Years later, he teases her by repudiating a feeling that they both acknowledged. At another meal, he informs his guests, within her hearing, that thirteen years before, he would have preferred to marry Eva Schönefeld. “At that time, I didn’t love my Käthe, for I suspected her of being proud and arrogant. But it pleased God well that I should have mercy on her. And God be praised, that was good advice!”85 If he had asked his friends, he recalled, they would have pressed him not to marry Käthe but somebody else. 86 He announces publicly that Käthe can persuade him to do anything she pleases, for he concedes the dominion in the household to her, saving only his right and his honor. He takes aim at her, however: “The governance of women never achieved anything good.”87 At another meal, he picks up the same subject: “When God made Adam the lord over all creatures, everything stood in its good and proper order, and everything was governed in the best way. But when the woman came and wanted her hand too in the soup and to be clever, everything fell to pieces and became a disorderly wasteland.”88 This is not merely the Reformer’s opinion on the origins of evil; he is joking with his wife. Perhaps one day he found fault 82WATR

4:498–99, no. 4783, from the 1530s. 5:214, no. 5524. 84WATR 2:165, no. 1656, mid-1532. 85WATR 4:504, no. 4783, from the 1530s. 86WATR 2:166, no. 1656, mid-1532. 87WATR 3:25-26, no. 2847a, 1532–33. 88WATR 1:528, no. 1046, date uncertain. 83WATR

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with the food, or else he was inspired by, as he saw it, Eve’s guilt in feeding the apple to Adam. To a discussion about the blessing of a good marriage, he adds, “That man is a martyr whose wife and maid don’t know how to do anything in the kitchen. This is the first calamity out of which many evils follow!”89 Luther’s letters to close friends and especially to his wife are larded with jokes. Likewise, his commentary at table should be regarded as jocular as well as serious when it touches on Käthe, womanhood, marriage, and housekeeping. One needs to read the Table Talk from a perspective that is different from past perspectives. Luther’s view of the masculine spousal role stands revealed here, if only one peers through an altered magnifying glass. He believed that the husband should joke with his wife in expressing love and instructing her. He should “look through his fingers” (as the Germans said) at his wife’s faults. Humor provided a mechanism for preventing or diminishing tension among those who lived (and ate) in close proximity to one another so that they might discuss sober matters and yet endure their closeness. Husbands, in Luther’s demonstrated opinion, can contribute to nuptial contentment by maintaining good humor toward their wives even as they make their criticisms known. The Luthers’ asymmetrical joking relationship by no means diminishes the fact of Martin’s late medieval worldview—of his sincerity in regarding women as lesser creatures than men and properly subordinated to them. Yet, in the service of facetiousness, he may well have sharpened the hyperbolic edge of his expression. If the wisdom of Rüdiger Schnell’s admonition concerning the identification of audiences is taken to heart, then Katharina Lutheryn must be placed back in the dining room.

Martin Luther’s Masculinity Luther was more tradition-bound than he liked to think in his definitions of the proper traits and activities of women and men and of the relations between them. His mental universe was still thoroughly binary. Nonetheless, he initiated changes in the concept of masculinity among his followers—and he was aware of attempting to do this. He altered both theory and practice for Lutheran clergymen by joining their marital sexuality with sanctity.

89WATR

3:515, no. 3675, from the 1530s.

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Even though the sex act included sin for both husbands and wives, God, he said, overlooked this sin in the service of Christian procreation. Luther brought clerics into close, committed familiarity with their wives and daughters. Whereas Catholic priests had been formally obliged to maintain a distance from women, Lutheran pastors now knew the feminine sex in more than the proverbial biblical sense. Catholic religious men had known them as well, but with a sense of transgression, even in those cases where they paid an annual concubinage fee to the bishop. Certainly, some priests must have engaged, too, in psychological intimacy with their longterm “cooks,” the mothers of their children; but in the church’s eyes, this would only have compounded their infraction. Luther rejected this model not alone on the grounds that celibacy led ineluctably to promiscuity. He was persuaded that God’s presentation of Eve to Adam as consort and helpmeet was meant to set the pattern for all adult humanity. “It is not good that man should be alone.”90 Proper masculinity kept spousal company. On 13 June 1525, at the age of forty-one, Luther took spousal company. If one may believe his reminiscence about his parents’ marriage, his father provided a template for mature sexuality and the psychic dimensions of spousal interaction. Without advice books, simply by following the paternal route, Luther made his way. He joked regularly with his wife, and he had sex with her. These were central to his concept of being a man. Joking enabled him to flirt and criticize simultaneously. His seemingly harsh bantering was an effort to maintain an ideational boundary even though Katharina regularly permeated it. Comedy enabled him to tolerate Käthe’s indispensable transition across the gender divide into that realm of dominion that was properly male. Only by compromising his theoretical principles could Luther gain the freedom he required to write and to take part personally in the shaping of a new religious polity.

90Genesis

2:18.

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Abbreviations WA WABr WATR

D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Schriften. 69 vols. Weimar: Böhlau, 1883–. D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Briefwechsel. 18 vols. Weimar: Böhlau, 1930–85. D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Tischreden. 6 vols. Weimar: Böhlau, 1912–21.

Bibliography Blamires, Alcuin. The Case for Women in Medieval Culture. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997. ———. Woman Defamed and Woman Defended: An Anthology of Medieval Texts. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992. Brant, Charles S. “A Preliminary Study of Cross-Sexual Joking Relationships in Primitive Society.” Behavior Science Notes 7 (1972): 313–30. Burghartz, Susanna. Zeiten der Reinheit—Orte der Unzucht: Ehe und Sexualität in Basel während der Frühen Neuzeit. Paderborn: Schöningh Verlag, 1999. Bynum, Caroline Walker “‘…And Woman His Humanity’: Female Imagery in the Religious Writing of the Later Middle Ages.” In Gender and Religion: On the Complexity of Symbols, edited by Caroline Walker Bynum, Stevan Harrell, and Paula Richman, 257– 88. Boston: Beacon Press, 1986. Cadden, Joan. Meanings of Sex Difference in the Middle Ages: Medicine, Science, and Culture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Dietrich, Veit. Eine kurtze vermanung an die Eheleut wie sie sich im Ehestandt halten sollen, and Vom Ehestand unnd wie man sich darein schicken sol (1544). In Etliche Schrifften für den gemeinen man von unterricht Christlicher lehr und leben und zum trost der engstigen gewissen: Durch V. Dietrich; Mit schönen Figuren, Nürnberg. M.D.XLVIII, edited by Oskar Reichmann, 127–47. Assen: Van Gorcum, 1972. Dillenberger, John, ed. and trans. Martin Luther: Selections from His Writings. New York: Doubleday, 1961. Dugan, Eileen. “The Funeral Sermon as a Key to Familial Values in Early Modern Nördlingen.” Sixteenth Century Journal 20 (1989): 631–44. Emmelius, Caroline, et al., eds. Offen und Verborgen: Vorstellungen und Praktiken des Öffentlichen und Privaten in Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit. Göttingen: Wallstein, 2004. Fabiny, Tibor. Martin Luther’s Last Will and Testament: A Facsimile of the Original Document, with an Account of Its Origins, Composition, and Subsequent History. Dublin: Ussher Press; Budapest: Corvina Kiadó, 1982. Graburn, Nelson, ed. Readings in Kinship and Social Structures. New York: Harper & Row, 1971. Habermas, Jürgen. Strukturwandel der Öffentlichkeit. Frankfurt am Main: Luchterhand, 1962. Hendrix, Scott. “Christianizing Domestic Relations: Women and Marriage in Johann Freder’s Dialogus dem Ehestand zu Ehren.” Sixteenth Century Journal 23 (1992): 197–212. ———. “Masculinity and Patriarchy in Reformation Germany.” Journal of the History of Ideas 56 (1995): 177–93. Karant-Nunn, Susan C. “Female Sexuality in the Thought of Martin Luther.” Unpublished paper presented to the seminar on Luther and women, Seventh International Congress for Luther Research, Oslo, Norway, 1988.

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———. “‘Fragrant Wedding Roses’: Lutheran Wedding Sermons and Gender Definition in Early Modern Germany.” German History 17 (1999): 25–40. ———. “The Reformation of Women.” In Becoming Visible: Women in European History, edited by Renate Bridenthal, Susan Mosher Stuard, and Merry E. Wiesner, 174–201. 3rd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1998. ———. “Reformation Society, Women and the Family.” In The Reformation World, edited by Andrew Pettegree, 433–60. London: Routledge, 2000. King, Margaret L., and Albert Rabil Jr., eds. Her Immaculate Hand: Selected Works By and About the Women Humanists of Quattrocento Italy. Binghamton, NY: Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1983. Koch, Elisabeth. “Maior dignitas est in sexu virili”: Das weibliche Geschlecht im Normensystem des 16. Jahrhunderts. Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann, 1991. Kors, Alan C., and Edward Peters, eds. Witchcraft in Europe, 1100–1700: A Documentary History. 2nd ed. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001. Kuper, Adam, ed. The Social Anthropology of Radcliffe-Brown. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1977. Lees, Clare, ed. Medieval Masculinities: Regarding Men in the Middle Ages. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994. Long, Kathleen, ed. High Anxiety: Masculinity in Crisis in Early Modern France. Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies 59. Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 2002. Moser-Rath, Elfriede. “Familienleben im Spiegel der [Catholic] Barockpredigt.” In Daphnis: Zeitschrift für mittlere deutsche Literatur und Kultur der Frühen Neuzeit, vol. 10, bk. 1, Predigt und soziale Wirklichkeit: Beiträge zur Erforschung der Predigtliteratur, edited by Werner Welzig, 47–65. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1981. Müller, Maria E. “Naturwesen Mann: Zur Dialektik von Herrschaft und Knechtschaft in Ehelehren der Frühen Neuzeit.” In Wandel der Geschlechterbeziehungen zu Beginn der Neuzeit, edited by Heide Wunder and Christina Vanja, 43–68. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1991. Ozment, Steven. When Fathers Ruled: Family Life in Reformation Europe. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983. Radcliffe-Brown, Alfred R. “A Further Note on Joking Relationships,” Africa 19 (1949): 133–40. ———. “On Joking Relationships.” Africa 13 (1940): 195–210. Reprinted in Graburn, Readings, 145–50; and Kruper, Social Anthropology, 174–88. Roper, Lyndal. “Gender and the Reformation.” Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 92 (2001): 290– 302. ———. The Holy Household: Women and Morals in Reformation Augsburg. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989. ———. Oedipus and the Devil: Witchcraft, Sexuality, and Religion in Early Modern Europe. London: Routledge, 1994. Rublack, Ulinka, ed. Gender in Early Modern German History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Schnell, Rüdiger. Frauendiskurs, Männerdiskurs, Ehediskurs: Textsorten und Geschlechterkonzepte in Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit. Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag, 1998. ———. “Geschlechtergeschichte und Textwissenschaft: Eine Fallstudie zu mittelalterlichen und frühneuzeitlichen Ehepredigten.” In Text und Geschlecht: Man und Frau in Eheschriften der Frühen Neuzeit, edited by Rüdiger Schnell,145–75. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1997.

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Schorn-Schütte, Luise. “‘Gefährtin’ und ‘Mitregentin’: Zur Sozialgeschichte der evangelischen Pfarrfrau in der Frühen Neuzeit.” In Wandel der Geschlechterbeziehungen zu Beginn der Neuzeit, edited by Heide Wunder and Christina Vanja, 109–53. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, 1991. Schütte, Wilfried. Scherzkommunikation unter Orchestermusikern. Forschungsberichte des Instituts für deutsche Sprache 27. Tübingen: Günter Narr Verlag, 1991. Smolinsky, Heribert. “Ehespiegel im Konfessionalisierungsprozess.” In Die katholische Konfessionalisierung, edited by Wolfgang Reinhard and Heinz Schilling, 311–31. Gütersloh: Gütersloher Verlagshaus, 1995. Stevens, Phillips, Jr. “Bachama Joking Categories: Toward New Perspectives in the Study of Joking Relationships.” Journal of Anthropological Research 34 (1978): 47–71. Swanson, Robert N. “Angels Incarnate: Clergy and Masculinity from Gregorian Reform to Reformation.” In Masculinity in Medieval Europe, edited by D. M. Hadley, 160–77. London: Longman, 1999. Talkenberger, Heike. “Konstruktion von Männerrollen in württembergischen Leichenpredigten des 16.–18. Jahrhunderts.” In Hausväter, Priester, Kastraten: Zur Konstruktion von Männlichkeit in Spätmittelalter und Früher Neuzeit, edited by Martin Dinges, 29–74. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998. Treu, Martin. Katharina von Bora. 3rd ed. Wittenberg: Drei Kastanien Verlag, 1999. Wiesner, Merry E. “Luther and Women: The Death of Two Marys.” In Disciplines of Faith: Studies in Religion, Politics and Patriarchy, edited by Jim Obelkevich, Lyndal Roper, and Raphael Samuel, 295–308. London: Routledge, 1987. Reprinted in Feminist Theology: A Reader, edited by Ann Loades, 123–37. London: SPCK, 1990.

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“Lustful Luther” Male Libido in the Writings of the Reformer Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks

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or three internationally acclaimed scholars of the Reformation, lust was at the heart of the Protestant Reformation. In several works, Thomas More wrote repeatedly and scathingly about Luther’s “open lyuyng in lechery wyth his lewd lemman the nunne,” his “lecherous lust,” and his “sensuall and lyncencyous lyuynge…in open incestuouse lechery without care or shame.”1 For More, Luther’s lust surpassed that of the prophet Muhammad, the ancient Romans, or other “Paganys ydolaters” who had “neuer taught nor suffred folke to breke theyr chastyte promysed onys and solempnely dedycate to god.”2 Five centuries later the Dominican historian Heinrich Denifle agreed, writing that Luther was “completely overcome by lustfulness.”3 More’s words have been largely forgotten as unbecoming to his 1

I first began thinking about the issues considered here while working with Susan Karant-Nunn on our translation and edition of Luther’s writings on women (Luther on Women). This article owes much to conversations with her over several years, as well as with Scott Hendrix, who has been foremost among intellectual historians of the Reformation in addressing ideas about men as men. My thanks to them both, and also to David Whitford for extensive bibliographic advice about the theological context of Luther’s lectures on Genesis. My thanks as well to my colleagues Jeffrey Merrick, Gina Bloom, Mark Netzloff, Mark Amsler, and Margaret Atherton for their comments on an earlier version of this paper. 1More, “A Dialogue Concerning Heresies,” in Works, 6.1:378, 366, 375. 2More, “A Dialogue Concerning Heresies,” in Works, 6.1:375. 3Denifle, Luther und Luthertum, 1:115.

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saintly image, and Denifle’s have been discredited as Catholic slander; but Heiko Oberman stressed Luther’s “assertion that sexual drives were a divine force or even God’s vital presence” and his rejection of “the vitiation of body, senses, and sensuality.” Oberman comments that the “lustful Luther deserve[s] to be read and understood without the monkish priggishness of so-called cultivated citizens.”4 Oberman’s charge, made twenty years ago, went generally unheeded in scholarly treatments of the Reformation, and “monkish priggishness” (or concerns about the reactions of conservative parents) meant that presentations of the Reformation to students, though they now generally discuss clerical celibacy, marriage, divorce, and Luther’s own marriage, continue to omit any mention of lust or other aspects of sexuality. 5 This avoidance of sexuality has begun to change in two areas of Reformation scholarship—that focusing on gender and that examining the process of social discipline—but the roots of both in women’s and social history has meant that discussions of sex in the Reformation focus primarily on women or on the consequences of lust—fornication, adultery, children born out of wedlock, infanticide—not on its nature.6 4Oberman, Luther, 273, 275, 276. Richard Marius, who on many other issues about Luther disagrees with Oberman, does agree on this, noting that “for Luther sexuality was as much a part of life as eating”; Marius, Martin Luther, 261. In his exhaustive biography of Luther, Martin Brecht discusses the role of sexuality in Luther’s ideas and life only briefly, though he is one of the few scholars even to mention this in regard to Luther’s later life and thought; Brecht, Martin Luther: Shaping, 91, 200; and Brecht, Martin Luther: The Preservation, 235–36. 5Most surveys of the Reformation now include at least a few pages on women and marriage, generally introduced in the section on Luther’s own marriage and the debate over clerical celibacy. Cameron’s textbook, The European Reformation, gives women and the family (linked, of course) four pages out of five hundred and ideas about sexual morality one. Greengrass’s Longman Companion, which describes itself as covering “every aspect of the careers and writings of Luther and Calvin,” has one page on marriage and two on church discipline, including some sexual issues. The European Reformations by Lindberg has a solid six-page section on ideas and practices regarding celibacy and clerical marriage. Zophy’s A Short History integrates material on women, gender, and sexuality better than any other survey. Among studies of the reformers’ specific ideas, there is a relatively full discussion of sexual relations in Selderhuis, Marriage and Divorce, 173–83. Bast’s Honor Your Fathers has the best integration of gender issues. Of the extensive literature on Protestantism and marriage, only Lähteenmäki, in Sexus und Ehe bei Luther, focuses extensively on ideas about sexuality, but his discussion is quite abstract and makes no distinctions as to gender. Clark has recently commented that “the hoped-for ‘paradigm shift’ [toward integrating gender]” has had “less than overwhelming success” in Christian history as a whole; Clark, “Women,” 395. It is certainly true for studies of the Reformation. 6See, for example, Roper, “Will and Honor”; Dülmen, Frauen vor Gericht; Burghartz, Zeiten der Reinheit; Rublack, “The Public Body”; Pallaver, Das Ende; Robisheaux, Rural Society; Schmidt, Dorf und Religion; Dixon, Reformation and Rural Society; Rublack, Magd, Metz’ oder Mörderin; and Schuster, Die freien Frauen. Among the few studies that specifically discuss men are: Hausväter, Priester, Kastraten, ed. Dinges; and Puff, Sodomy. For a broader discussion of scholarship on sexuality in early modern Germany, see Wiesner-Hanks, “Disembodied Theory?”

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The focus on women while discussing sex in the Reformation is warranted to some degree, for the sexual activities of women—or of some women, such as Eve or nuns—were more often singled out in sermons and lectures than were those of men. Because the effects of women’s sexual activities were more readily apparent than were those of men, women’s sexuality was also of greater concern to political and religious authorities, who passed and enforced laws against fornication, illegitimacy, prostitution, or such things as “lewd and lascivious carriage,” primarily by restricting women’s activities, not those of their male partners.7 This continued focus on women may have led us, however, as it did early modern authorities, to blame the victim and to neglect the root (or at least a root) cause of such social ills, namely, male lust. This paper will explore that topic directly, not in the life but in the writings of Luther, concentrating principally on his lectures on Genesis, given from 1535 to 1545.8 The lectures were given by a mature Luther, ten to twenty years after he had married. We might thus expect them to be slightly less forceful in their assertion of the power of lust than his earlier writings against clerical celibacy, written when he was an unmarried ex-monk still wearing his monastic cowl. 9 We would be wrong. The book of Genesis provides Luther (and other commentators, of course) with many opportunities for ruminating on male lust, beginning with the story of Creation.10 Commenting on Genesis 1:28 (“Be fruitful 7For

numerous examples, see Wiesner-Hanks, Christianity and Sexuality. is disagreement among Luther scholars about the extent to which the ideas of their sixteenth-century editors (particularly Veit Dietrich, who was most responsible for the final form of their transcription from the notes of several students) might have influenced the published versions of the lectures on Genesis. Luther did not plan on publishing them, though he did write a preface to the first volume, published in 1543, commenting that the lectures were not polished but that they might prove useful. Most scholars now agree with Brecht: “We must be very cautious in making use of the lectures on Genesis. Nevertheless, the bulk of this commentary, with its amazing richness of features and allusions, undoubtedly does come from Luther”; Brecht, Martin Luther, 3:136. Reservations about the lectures were raised very forcefully by Meinhold, Die Genesisvorlesung, but disputed by Jaroslav Pelikan in his introduction to the American edition of Luther’s Works, of which they are the first volumes, and more recently by Asendorf, Lectura in Biblia. Doubts about the texts center on the extent to which Dietrich may have been influenced by Philipp Melanchthon’s theological ideas, particularly about the law; how Melanchthon’s ideas about libido differed from Luther’s is never mentioned. A summary of the dispute may be found in Nestingen, “Luther in Front of the Text,” and in Maxfield, Luther’s Lectures on Genesis. 9De votis monasticis Martini Lutheri iudicium (1521), WA 8:573–669; Vom Eelichen Leben (1522), WA 10/2:275–304; and An den herrn Deutschs Ordens, das sie falsche keuscheyt meyden und zur rechten ehlichen keuscheyt greyffen Ermanung, WA 12:232–44. 10Analyses of gender issues in the interpretations of Genesis 1–3 by a number of authors, including Paul, rabbinic commentators, Greek and Latin fathers, and the Shakers—though not Luther—can be found in Robbins, Genesis 1–3 in the History of Exegesis. Discussions of Augustine in this collection XXXXX 8There

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and multiply”), three times in a single paragraph he terms lust a “leprosy” through which “the body becomes downright brutish and cannot beget in the knowledge of God.” This “unavoidable leprosy of the flesh [lepra libidinis], which is nothing but disobedience and loathsomeness attached to bodies and minds,” makes “procreation only slightly more moderate than that of the brutes.”11 Procreation is linked to “the perils of pregnancy and of birth,” but it is clear that the main issue here is not Eve, but Adam and others involved in the “begetting of offspring” (emphasis added). This focus on the power of men’s (or at least Adam’s) lust is even clearer when Luther turns to the second chapter of Genesis. He uses Genesis 2:16 (“And he commanded him, saying, ‘Eat from every tree of paradise’”) as proof of “the establishment of the church before there was any government of the home and of the state; for Eve was not yet created.”12 This establishment shows that man was created for an immortal and spiritual life, to which he would have been carried off or translated without death after living in Eden and on the rest of the earth without inconvenience as long as he wished. There would not have been in him that detestable lust [foeda libido] which is now in men, but there would have been the innocent and pure love of sex toward sex [simplex et purus amor sexus ad sexam]. Procreation would have taken place without any depravity [vicio], as an act of obedience. Mothers would have given birth without pain.13 Several sentences later, Luther reiterates these consequences of the Fall: “There still remains in nature the longing of the male for the female, likewise the fruit of procreation; but these are combined with the awful hideousness of lust [horribili foeditate libidinis] and the frightful pain of birth.”14 Thus birth pains for women result from the Fall (a connection repeated ad nauseam by early modern preachers and moralists), but for men 11

by Elizabeth Clark and Susan Schreiner are particularly interesting in light of Luther’s views. For an interpretation of Genesis 2–3 by a contemporary feminist Lutheran scholar, see Stratton, Out of Eden. 11LW 1:71; WA 42:54. Translations in LW are made from WA. The lectures on Genesis comprise WA 42, 43, and 44; they were edited by G. Koffman and D. Reichert and published in 1911. The Latin original from the WA is included at a few points where the wording seems especially pertinent. Citations from other works of Luther are taken directly from the WA, and the translations are my own. 12LW 1:103; WA 42:79. 13LW 1:10; WA 42:79. 14LW 1:104; WA 42:79.

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lust is a consequence. In other places, Luther notes that women are lustful too, but here he has pointed out explicitly that Eve has not yet been created, and the long quotation given above about what would have been different without the Fall is referring specifically to Adam. So as not to sound too much like Thomas More, it should be noted that Luther makes clear in this exposition that “wretched and hideous lust and concupiscence” are not the only consequence of the Fall: “Original sin really means that human nature has completely fallen; that the intellect has become darkened…and the will is extraordinarily depraved.… The passion of lust [furor libidinis] is indeed some part of original sin. But greater are the defects of the soul: unbelief, ignorance of God, despair, hate, blasphemy.”15 These comments are made in the context of God’s charge to Adam, however, again before the creation of Eve, so that libido is clearly one of sin’s consequences for men.16 God’s recognition that Adam needs a companion (Gen. 2:18) occasions further comments on the “hideousness inherent in our flesh.”17 Luther equates lust not only with leprosy, but with epilepsy: Now, alas, it is so hideous and frightful a pleasure [foeda et horribilis voluptas] that physicians compare it with epilepsy or falling sickness. Thus an actual disease is linked with the very activity of procreation. We are in a state of sin and of death; therefore, we also undergo this punishment, that we cannot make use of woman without the horrible passion of lust and, so to speak, without epilepsy.18 15LW 1:114; WA 42:86. Asendorf notes that Luther sees the major consequence of the Fall as “vere totus lapsus naturae humanae,” rather than viewing it solely as “misera et foeda libido seu concupiscentia,” a view Asendorf attributes to “Sophists.” He does comment that Luther saw the “furor libidinis” as a minor consequence, but does not analyze this further; Asendorf, Lectura, 321 (the Latin phrases are his, not Luther’s). 16This point is also made by Boyd in “Masculinity and Male Dominance,” to my knowledge the only scholarly treatment of the issues in this paper. Boyd notes that “Luther identifies unbelief and sexual lust as the two most prominent manifestations of the pervasiveness and continuance of original sin” (22), but he sees Luther’s understanding of the negative consequences of lust in man primarily as making “him subject to the woman” (23). As will be shown below, Luther did not view male lust as primarily related to relations between men and women but to men’s nature as men. Boyd’s primary point in this article, however, is that Luther sees male dominance and men’s obligation to rule as consequences of the Fall and punishments for Adam as well as for Eve. On this I would agree. 17LW 1:118; WA 42:89. 18LW 1:119; WA 42:89. Along with epilepsy and leprosy, in his commentary on 1 Corinthians 7, Luther equates trying to control lust with trying not to urinate; WA 12:116–17. His comments about illness before and after the Fall make it clear that he viewed epilepsy and leprosy, like lust, as consequences of the Fall; whether or not he thought Adam and Eve urinated in the Garden of Eden is not clear.

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Thus, woman is also necessary as an antidote against sin. And so, in the case of the woman, we must think not only of the managing of the household which she does, but also of the medicine which she is.… It is a great favor that God has preserved woman for us—against our will and wish, as it were— both for procreation and also as a medicine against the sin of fornication. In paradise woman would have been a help for a duty only. But now she is also, and for the greater part at that, an antidote and a medicine; we can hardly speak of her without a feeling of shame, and surely we cannot make use of her without shame. The reason is sin.19 Luther’s long discussion of God’s curses after the Fall (Gen. 3:17–19) focuses, as one would expect, on childbearing and obedience for Eve and work and disease for Adam, but as the discussion turns from Eve to Adam, Luther cannot seem to resist stating one final time: “The husband has a raging lust kindled by the poison of Satan in his body.”20 Luther views lust as part of the curse again in his commentary on Genesis 4:1 (“Adam knew his wife”): Procreation remained in nature when it had become depraved, but there was added to it that poison of the devil, namely, the prurience of the flesh and the execrable lust [foeda libido] that is also the cause of sundry adversities and sins, all of which nature in its unimpaired state would have been spared. We know from experience the excessive desire of the flesh [carnem immodice appetere]…. All this stems, not from what was created or from blessing, which is from God, but from sin and the curse, which is an outgrowth of sin.21 After Adam, the rest of Genesis offers countless examples of the power and problems of lust—so many examples, in fact, that Luther often feels obligated to defend Moses (and thus, obliquely, himself) for writing so much about sex: Therefore no one should take offense at the mention of the fact that Adam knew his Eve…. There is no disgrace in what Moses 19LW

1:116, 118; WA 42:87, 89. 1:203; WA 42:152. 21LW 1:238; WA 42:177. 20LW

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is saying here about God’s creation and his blessing…. The Holy Spirit has a purer mouth and purer eyes than the pope. For this reason he has no misgivings about referring to the copulation or sexual union of husband and wife, which those saints [i.e., the popes] condemn as execrable and unclean. Nor does the Holy Spirit do this in only one passage. All scripture is full of such accounts, so that on this score, too, some have restrained young monks and nuns from reading the holy books.22 It offends the papists that the book of Genesis so often mentions about the fathers that they begot sons and daughters. Therefore they say that it is a book in which there is nothing except that the patriarchs were too fond of their wives, and they consider it an indecency that Moses so studiously makes mention of such matters.23 Thus I have heard all too often in school—not only from jurists but also from theologians—that the writings of Moses contain nothing but the lustful deeds of the Jews, since he devotes a great deal of attention to the recording of genealogies and marriages. Such opinions give proof of foul minds, which pass rash judgments on the deeds of the saints on the basis of their own character.24 Many are offended by the fact that in this first book Moses relates so much about the procreation of the fathers.25 The story of Cain and Abel centers primarily on human failings other than lust—anger, jealousy—and Luther’s discussion of Cain’s marriage focuses on whom he married (his sister) and when (before he murdered Abel), not why. The enumeration of Cain’s descendants leads to a brief consideration of Lamech (Cain’s great-great-great-grandson), who had two wives: “The theologians discuss whether Lamech married two wives because of his lust or whether he did it for some other reason. I myself do not think that he became a polygamist solely because of his lust, but because of his desire to increase his family and because of his desire for rule.”26

22LW

1:237, 238, 239; WA 42:177, 178. 1:357; WA 42:262. 24LW 3:42; WA 42:578. 25LW 4:302; WA 43:353. 26LW 1:316; WA 42:233. 23LW

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Genesis 5:32 provides Luther with the opportunity for a long disquisition on a man who was able to withstand the power of lust (“But when Noah was five hundred years old, he begat Shem, Ham, and Japtheth”): In our age you hardly find one man among a thousand who refrains from relationship with women until his thirtieth year. But when Noah had lived unmarried for so many years, he finally marries and begets children. This is convincing proof that he was fit for marriage before that time, but that he had refrained from it for a definite reason. Therefore, in the first place, he must have possessed an extraordinary gift of chastity and an almost angelic nature…. No other example of such extreme continence occurs in all history.27 The very next verses of Genesis provide Luther with an opportunity for further comments on the rarity of Noah’s continence (Gen. 6:1–2: “And when men had begun to multiply on the face of the ground and daughters were born to them, the sons of God saw that the daughters of men were fair; and they took to wife such of them as they chose”): The increase of men of which Moses speaks refers not only to the times of Noah but also to the age of the earlier patriarchs. It was then that the transgression of the first table [of the Ten Commandments], namely, contempt of God and of his word, had its beginnings. After this followed the flagrant sins: the injustice, tyranny, and lusts of which Moses makes particular mention here and from which he starts out as from the source of evil. Consult all the historical accounts, look at the Greek tragedies, the barbarian and Latin history of all times; you will discover that every sort of trouble had its origin in lust. Where the word is not present or is disregarded, men cannot avoid falling into lusts. Lust [libido] brings with it countless other evils: haughtiness, injustice, perjury, etc.… After the first table has been cast aside, the second table, too, is cast aside, and lust takes over the first or principal position. Lust [libido] becomes utterly bestial and looks down upon the procreation of children…. When lust [libido] becomes supreme in this way, the preceding and following commandments are undermined and lose their power. 27LW

1:356, 357; WA 42:261, 262.

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Respect for parents is violated, murder is committed, the property of others is seized.28 This passage is highly gender-specific—the sons of God and the daughters of men—and in his explication Luther returns to male lust. He does mention a standard list of women who caused men to sin—Eve, Helen, Jezebel, and a foreign woman who led Solomon astray—and notes that marriages between the “sons of God”—who are for him the descendants of Seth—and the “daughters of men”—the descendants of Cain— had been prohibited because “into the homes of their husbands daughters bring the thoughts and even the ways of their own parents.” 29 It is the “unruly” and “less restrained” sons of God, however, who are the primary force behind these prohibited mixed marriages: The descendents of the patriarchs…fell into sensuality and lust and took to wife whomever they wished…. They no longer saw either God’s command or his promise but simply followed the desire of the flesh [desiderium carnis], disdained the artless, good, and respectable girls of their own family, and married Cainite women whom they found dainty, attractive, and witty.30 As in his discussion of Adam, Luther here views male lust as a projection that is somewhat detached from women. One might expect that the sons of men (that is, of Cain) would be even more lust-filled than the sons of God and so pose a danger to the daughters of God, but Luther has a two-part explanation for why this is not mentioned. One is that “the daughters in the holy family could more readily be prevented from marrying Cainites” as they were more restrained and tractable than their brothers; the other is that they were not attractive and so under no threat. Not only did the sons of God “prefer the flattering, bedecked, and voluptuous women of the Cainite family,” but “the sons of men undoubtedly looked down upon the pitiable girls of the holy family, whom the holy fathers had not brought up in luxury but in simplicity and modesty and in poor circumstances. Therefore it was unnecessary to pass such a law for the girls who were usually disregarded by the aristocratic Cainites.”31

28LW

2:8, 9; WA 42:267, 268. 2:29; WA 42:283. 30LW 2:30, 31; WA 42:283, 284. 31LW 2:29, 31; WA 42:283, 284. 29LW

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This lust and disobedience ultimately provoke the Flood, but fortunately God’s call for procreation is reinforced soon after the waters recede: “And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth’” (Gen. 9:1). Luther comments: “Because before the Flood God has been provoked to wrath by the sin of lust, it was necessary, on account of this awful expression of wrath, to show now that God does not hate or condemn the lawful union of a man and a woman but wants the human race to be propagated by it.”32 Though God’s blessing on human sexual activity has been reaffirmed, the problems created by lust are not fewer for the postdiluvian patriarchs than they were for Adam or Noah. While many of the matriarchs, such as Sarah, Rachel, and Rebecca, suffer from problematic fertility, so that the miracles of God in their lives involve long-despaired-of pregnancies, the patriarchs become involved in a range of sexual relationships—polygamy, marriage to much younger wives, incest—that Luther seeks to explain. There is Abraham, who takes Hagar as his second wife at the urging of Sarah. Luther asserts that Abraham “lies with Hagar only to prevent the promise of God from being obstructed [and] remains the chaste husband of his very chaste wife.”33 He uses the incident for a thundering denunciation of “promiscuous relations” and praise of marriage as a “legitimate, divinely instituted union.”34 One might have expected, given Luther’s earlier support of the bigamy of Phillip of Hesse, that he would be talking about Abraham’s marriage to Hagar, but he completely ignores the fact that Genesis calls Hagar Abraham’s wife, generally referring to her simply by name, or as “the maid,” as Ishmael’s mother, or occasionally as Abraham’s concubine. Instead he attacks “the Jews [who] use Abraham’s example to justify polygamy.”35 For Abraham, “it was a difficult thing to lie with her [Sarah’s] maid and an Egyptian at that; and yet he overcomes this antipathy and obeys Sarah when she implores him.”36 His subsequent decision to let Sarah do what she pleases with the pregnant Hagar “clears the very virtuous patriarch of all suspicions of lust.”37 Lust is thus unavoidable for most people, but not for Abraham.38 32LW

2:131; WA 42:353. 3:46; WA 42:582. 34LW 3:48; WA 42:582. 35LW 3:47; WA 42:582. 36LW 3:49; WA 42:583. 37LW 3:57; WA 42:589. 38Luther’s inability to describe Hagar as Abraham’s wife stems from more than an unwillingness XXXXX 33LW

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Abraham’s polygamy is a relatively minor problem compared to the complex sexual situations in which Lot finds himself. First, there is the situation at Sodom, which was even worse than that which gave rise to the Flood, for Luther notes specifically that though the sons of God did take daughters of men at their will, their lust “still stayed within bounds” as they did not commit incest or “pollute themselves with the disgrace of the Sodomites [sodomorum turpitudine se polluerunt].”39 Lot’s fellow citizens had gone much further, however: The heinous conduct of the people of Sodom is extraordinary, inasmuch as they departed from the natural passion and longing [a naturali ardore et desyderio] of the male for the female, which was implanted into nature by God, and desired what is altogether contrary to nature. Whence comes this perversity? Undoubtedly from Satan, who, after people have once turned away from the fear of God, so powerfully suppresses nature that he blots out the natural desire [naturalem concupiscentiam] and stirs up a desire that is contrary to nature.… But what shall we suppose was in the mind of godly Lot, toward whose house everybody was going during this uproar in the whole city? He alone feared God, and in his house he maintained discipline and chastity to the utmost of his ability, while the others indulged freely and without shame in adultery, fornication, effeminacy, and even incest to such an extent that these were not regarded as sins but as some pastime, just as today among the nobility and the lower classes of Germany fornication is regarded as a pastime, not as a sin, and for this reason is also entirely unpunished.40

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to attribute lust to Abraham; it comes also from his opinions about her own character and those of her descendants. In the one place where he does admit she was Abraham’s wife, he describes her status as an example of her pride: “Then she is enlightened with a new light of the Holy Spirit, and from a slave woman she becomes a mother of the church, who later on instructed her descendants and warned them by her own example not to act proudly; for, as she said, she had been a lawful wife of Abraham, the very saintly patriarch, and had borne his firstborn son. But this physical prerogative had been of no benefit to her. Indeed, this prestige had given rise to her pride. But after she had been cast out on account of her pride and had been humbled, she finally attained grace”; LW 4:58; WA 43:177. Earlier Luther had compared her pride to that of a louse on a person’s head, to the false church, and, most tellingly, to the Turks. My thanks to my colleague Abbas Hamdani for alerting me to this unwillingness— found in many other Christian commentators as well—to recognize Hagar as Abraham’s wife. 39LW 2:9; WA 42:268. 40LW 3:255, 254; WA 43:57, 56.

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Though Luther has often chided earlier commentators on their prudery and their criticism of Moses for discussing sexual issues so extensively, on this issue even Luther has some doubts: Moses proceeds with a description of this terrible sin. I for my part do not enjoy dealing with this passage, because so far the ears of the Germans are innocent of and uncontaminated by this monstrous depravity; for even though this disgrace, like other sins, has crept in through an ungodly soldier and a lewd merchant, still the rest of the people are unaware of what is being done in secret.… Let this be said with due respect for innocent ears, for I do not relish dealing with these matters. Yet we must be on our guard lest such shocking utterances carry away and ruin the age that is rash and is in general inclined to sin.41 Luther’s hesitancy on this issue is ultimately lessened by the opportunity it provides for an attack on Catholic clergy and the papacy: “The Carthusian monks deserve to be hated because they were the first to bring this terrible pollution [contagium hoc horribile] into Germany from the monasteries of Italy. Of course, they were trained and educated in such a praiseworthy manner at Rome.”42 41LW

3:251–52, 254; WA 43:55, 56. 3:252; WA 43:56. Compared with the extent of his comments on men’s lust after women, Luther has relatively little to say about men’s lust for other men. In addition to the material on Sodom in the lectures on Genesis, there are brief comments in other works, such as one of his sermons on 1 Peter. There he equates the clerical estate with Sodom because of greed, luxury, idleness, and arbitrary power, but he also comments: “I do not want to speak here of other secret sins which are unmentionable”; LW 30:78; WA 14:46. For a lengthier discussion of the topos of sodomy as the “unspeakable sin,” see Puff, Sodomy, 51–53. A few selections from Luther’s Table Talk also refer to same-sex relations among men. (1) “Doctor Martin Luther’s prayer of thanks for marriage: When I am by myself, I thank the Lord God for the knowledge of marriage, especially when I compare this estate to the godless, incestuous, shameful celibacy among the papists and to the abominable “Italian marriages”; WATR 1:464, no. 913. “Italian marriage” was a reference to same-sex relations, although the WA glosses this term as “pederasty.” (2) “Next there was a discussion about that which is called Italian marriage, which for a long time has exceeded every lewdness and the adulteries of the Germans; although these sins are human, their filthiness is satanic. [Doctor Martin Luther said:] ‘God protect us from this devil! For by the grace of God there is no mother tongue in Germany that knows anything about such wickedness’”; WATR 3:630– 31, no. 3807. Thanks to my colleague Martha Carlin for helping me with this translation. (3) “I appeal and demand of the Roman See, that is of those who decide whether the popes are men or women, in the name of all of us. If they are men, they should show their witnesses” [or “show their testicles”] against us heretics. If they are women, then Paul says to them, ‘Women should keep silent in church.’ It is necessary to know this because of the common rumor, known throughout all of Europe, that honorable morality has been eradicated. It is said and well known that the kings and queens of the Roman curia are great hermaphrodites, androgynes, boy prostitutes [cynaedi], and sodomites [pedicones]. These XXXXX 42LW

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After Lot escapes the destruction of Sodom and his wife is turned into a pillar of salt, he ends up in a cave with his two daughters, who decide to get him drunk so that they can engage in sexual relations with him. According to Genesis 19:33, Lot did not know when his eldest daughter lay down or when she arose. Luther explains as follows: It is true that human beings who are in the height of excitement become mentally deranged and both say and do things which they later forget. For the mind, as though engulfed by the intensity of the excitement [magnitudine perturbationis], is not conscious of itself. Thus Lot was undoubtedly aware of having had intercourse with his daughters, since coition is a shaking of the entire body and an excitation of the soul and body…[but] Lot was intoxicated in a twofold way: his body with wine and his heart with cares…and for this reason [he] does not remember afterwards what he did.… It behooves us to excuse the father as well as the daughters and not to magnify their guilt, for they are not sinning, like the ungodly, because of lust, idleness, smugness, or malice; they are sinning as the result of great perplexity.43 Luther is careful in this passage never to use the word libido when describing Lot’s mental and physical state or his actions; as in the case of Abraham, Luther removes Lot from what Luther elsewhere so forcefully describes as an unavoidable human condition. His comments on this event and the subsequent birth of Lot’s two sons (or grandsons) are very brief— so brief, in fact, that he felt impelled to explain himself by saying he had “so great a mass of things to do.”44 Jewish interpreters of this passage— whom Luther calls “swine” and “asses”—receive far more censure in this section than do Lot and his daughters. The later example of incest between Judah and his daughter-in-law Tamar (Gen. 38:1–30) occasions a much longer discussion, although the focus is primarily on Tamar rather than on Judah, about whom Luther says only: “We shall suspect no evil.… For it is no hidden evidence of levity to flare up with lust so suddenly, as though by 43

are all not competent to make a judgment about heretics”; WA 54:287; “Against the Papacy in Rome, Established by the Devil, 1545.” The words for “testicles” and “witnesses” are the same in Latin and the two meanings were related, because testifying in court according to Roman law was limited to those who had testicles, that is, to men. 43LW 3:308, 309, 311; WA 43:95, 96, 98. 44LW 3:311; WA 43:100.

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nature and because of his morals he were rather inclined to lust.” 45 Luther’s brevity regarding Lot’s incest, which some commentators— and not only Jewish ones—see as one of the most disturbing events in Genesis, is striking, particularly in comparison with his seemingly boundless ruminations on Genesis 24:2, in which Abraham asks his old servant to “put your hand under my thigh” and swear he will find a proper wife for Isaac. After an unsurprising discussion of the authority of parents in the marital arrangements of their children, Luther waxes euphoric over Abraham’s loins: Holy Scripture frequently speaks highly of the loins and the thigh. To be sure, it appears to be a hideous object because of the lust and the horrible concupiscence which, in the human body, has its seat in the loins and the thigh; yet God regards as a most sacred object one which by its nature is vile, indecent, and polluted by sin.… Abraham believed that his thigh was sacred [sacrum], not on account of himself but on account of the promise of God, because that promise includes his thigh, and that promise is most holy [sanctissima]. Therefore it sanctifies Abraham’s thigh, so that those who come out of it through the lust and sexual intercourse of the flesh are also reckoned as chaste.… No virgin is so chaste and pure that she does not feel a desire for a man. Young men have the same experiences, and, what is more, indecent dreams and pollutions follow. Assuredly there is no true chastity in that case; it is only external, because lust is burning within the blood and in the innermost feelings.… Thus the male or female organ is most indecent and does a very vile work; but because the promised seed has come out of the thigh of Abraham, it covers that indecency and makes it a sacred object.… Because of the blessing God would put up with conjugal lust [libidinem coniugalem].46 As he did when explaining the brevity of his commentary on Lot’s incest, Luther seems to catch himself in the middle of his reverie and warns against the example of the Midianites, who worshiped Abraham’s thigh so much that they put up a phallic altar and “soon fell into the most indecent idolatry and the indecency of lust.”47 Luther’s devotion falls only barely 45LW

7:30; WA 44:324. 4:231, 233, 238, 239; WA 43:302, 303, 306, 307. 47LW 4:235; WA 43:304. 46LW

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short of that of the Midianites, however, for he describes Abraham’s thigh as “blessed” or “sacred” fourteen times in this passage. Luther must turn from Abraham’s symbolic loins to his real ones when explaining later why in Genesis 25, at the age of about 140, “decrepit, near the grave, and altogether moribund,” Abraham married the much younger Keturah. Luther initially calls it a “seemingly very bad example that gravely offends everybody” including Paul, Jerome, and Nicolas of Lyra.48 How can this be explained? First, although Abraham might seem to be “already as good as dead,” his was a “healthy old age…and he had a strong and vigorous body, not like our people, most of whom are completely exhausted when they have barely reached their fiftieth year.”49 Second, as one would expect from Luther’s earlier discussion of Abraham and Hagar, Abraham was not “prompted by lasciviousness” and “was not a lustful old man; but whatever he did, he did because of his love and desire for offspring and at God’s command.”50 Just as with the Midianites, however, Abraham’s example was not to be followed: But people must be diligently warned that such examples of the fathers should not be taken as a pattern to be imitated, since there is a great difference between Abraham’s desire and that of an old woman who marries a young man. [Note the gender reversal.] For although Abraham is under the sin of lust to the same extent others are, he is nevertheless the master and not the slave of lust.51 Luther repeats these warnings elsewhere without the gender reversal: “If an old man takes a young wife, this is a very ugly spectacle; there is no pride or lust in such a man, for the opportunities for these are past. There is nothing attractive or strong about him any more. For this reason an old man with a young wife is contrary to nature. It is best if like and like are paired together.”52 According to Luther, therefore, although Abraham as an old man could marry without lust (indeed, marrying without lust was a 48LW

4:300; WA 43:351. 4:302; WA 43:352. 50LW 4:303; WA 43:353. When Abraham marries Keturah, Sarah has been long dead and buried; as Luther and others have commented, she is the only matriarch whose burial is described at length (Genesis 23). Whether Hagar was also dead by this point is not clear from Genesis; the last time she is mentioned is Genesis 21:21, when she finds a wife for Ishmael in Egypt. The wife’s name is not given here or in the list of Ishmael’s descendants in Genesis 25:12–18. 51LW 4:305; WA 43:55. 52WATR 4:332, no. 4474. 49LW

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sign of his sanctity), for real men (and women) living after the patriarchal age, marriage without the possibility of lusting after one’s spouse was shameful. Abraham was not the only patriarch to be the master of his lust, and Luther reserves his greatest respect in this regard for Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, who were able to withstand the force of lust when they were young men. Isaac’s marriage at forty points out that he did not take a wife in the well-known passion of youth but stood firm for a considerable time in his battle against and victory over the flesh and the devil. For the accounts and the experience of individuals attest how great the impatience of lust is in youth, when the urgent sensation of the flesh begins and the one sex has an ardent desire for the other [ardet sexus in sexum]. This is a malady common to the entire human race, and those who do not resist its first flames and do not suppose that there is something for them to endure, plunge into fornication, adultery, and horrible lusts.… Thus Isaac, too, felt the flames of lust [flammas libidinis] just as other adolescents do. But he was taught by his father that one must contend against these flames, first by reading holy scripture and praying, and then by working, being temperate, and fasting.… If you feel the flame, take a psalm or one or two chapters of the Bible, and read. When the flame has subsided, then pray.53 Jacob is even more amazing in his continence, for, as Luther figures it, he did not fall in love with Rachel until he was “eighty or at least seventy-eight” and so “became a husband for the first time when he was eighty-four years old.”54 This was not because he somehow escaped the power of lust: At that time nature was stronger and more perfect, so that a man was capable of procreating when he was about fifteen or sixteen years old. To endure and conquer that wickedness of the flesh and law of the members—which is called lust [libido]—from that year on and in the very flower of one’s age is certainly a great miracle and a very fierce fight against the flesh. Few have withstood it.… It would not have been strange if during such a long 53LW 54LW

4:333, 334; WA 43:376, 377. 5:288, 291; WA 43:627, 630.

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period of continence Jacob had completely mortified his flesh and destroyed his innate power to procreate. For the years of his boyhood, youth, and manhood have now elapsed, and now he is eighty-four years old. He has struggled with his flesh for sixtyeight years. Yet desire [storghv] remained in him, and the natural inclination toward sex [naturalis inclinatio ad sexum].”55 Poor old Jacob had to wait a long time after meeting Rachel before he eventually married and had sexual relations with her. Luther comments: “Those papal swine…do [not] see the illustrious and invaluable example of chastity, which at the same time is coupled with wonderful patience.” 56 Jacob is eventually rewarded for his patience by having four wives—Rachel, Leah, and their maids, Bilhah and Zilpah—by whom he has twelve sons and one daughter, the inquisitive and unfortunate Dinah.57 Luther uses Genesis 30, which records the interpersonal quarrels and complexities of this polygamous household, as a new opportunity to compare the true chastity of the patriarchs with the false chastity of papists, whom he describes as: Those carnal and Epicurean men who regard these histories as examples of extreme baseness…like a pig or an ass would pronounce on some illustrious lutenist. They are the kind of people who are completely abandoned to lust, whoredom, and adultery, who dream day and night only of sexual fun and imagine what they would do if such license were granted to them that they would be able to change wives every night and have fun with the flames and ardent desires of the flesh as they have fun with their harlots.58 Although Luther earlier emphasized Jacob’s continued feelings of desire throughout the long period before he met Rachel and then during the waiting period, here he is very careful to note repeatedly that “the lust of the flesh was mortified in Jacob and kept within its limits; it did not wander 55LW

5:291–92; WA 43:630. 5:292; WA 43:630. 57Jacob’s daughter, Dinah, was raped by the young prince Shechem (Genesis 34); in his lectures on this chapter, Luther criticizes her for her youthful curiosity and uses the rape as a warning to other young women, but he does not blame her for instigating the attack or note that she was guilty of sexual sin the way most earlier medieval commentators had; LW 6:192–93. See Schroeder, “The Rape of Dinah.” 58LW 5:322; WA 43:651. 56LW

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forth to where it wished.”59 The patriarchs cannot (and should not) escape lust, but the best among them are able to control it. The best of the best in this matter was Joseph, who was in the prime of his life and, according to Genesis 39:6, “handsome and good-looking.” Luther is completely astounded by his ability to withstand the enticements of Potiphar’s (unnamed) wife, particularly as he was “all alone, without admonition, without sacrifices and sacred sermons.”60 Luther figures Joseph was twenty-seven at the time, noting that: When youths are about eighteen years old, original sin begins to rage, and there are horrible disturbances and thoughts of promiscuous lusts in their hearts.… For all the ten years, therefore, the young man lived in the trial imposed by evil lust; and he fought bravely, because he was stirred up to disgraceful love not only by one woman but rather by the lust of many women.… Joseph was a handsome youth with unimpaired strength. He was in the flower of his age, when he could easily have been influenced and overcome by a very highborn woman who urged him on with such persistence and effrontery.… It is difficult for a youth to be in conflict for ten whole years with such great enemies, the flesh and the devil, who assail him with so many battering rams and with so many convenient and suitable opportunities.… The devil attacks Joseph very gently and flatteringly, but it is horrible savagery. For when he sees that the godly cannot be overcome by any kind of torments, he finally attacks and overpowers them with lust and pleasures.… Surely this is a very great miracle which should be celebrated with the highest praises, namely, that such great chastity was found in a young man who had not yet experienced what a woman’s love was.… This example of continence in Joseph is exceedingly rare and is unparalleled.61 Luther had apparently forgotten his earlier comments about Noah’s unique ability to withstand lust for five hundred years and not a mere ten, but perhaps he is making a distinction between ante- and postdiluvial patriarchs; just as no one lived as long after the Flood as before, so the age 59LW

5:341; WA 43:664. 7:75; WA 44:355. 61LW 7:75, 76, 77–78, 80, 84, 86; WA 44:356, 357, 359, 362, 364. 60LW

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at which lust was strongest was shortened as well. It is the combination of youth and chastity in Joseph that makes him so extraordinary, for Luther comments many times in the lectures on Genesis and elsewhere that lust is particularly strong in young men and that both age and marriage diminish it.62 The lectures on Genesis provide Luther, then, with many opportunities for emphasizing the power of lust, so many in fact that the devoutly Lutheran editors of the American edition of his works could not avoid including “lust” as an index entry. Indeed, as noted above, Luther himself justifies talking about sexual issues so extensively. He links lust with other topics that are powerful and distasteful, such as the papacy and the Jews; for all three of these, Luther uses strong, even vicious language: swine, bestial, miserable, depraved, hideous, vile. Luther’s use of harsh language and sexual metaphors when referring to the papacy—especially as the “whore of Babylon”—has been noted earlier, but this link has been viewed within the context of ideas about women.63 The connections here are not with women, however, but with something that Luther views as decidedly more powerful: men. Richard Marius notes, somewhat offhandedly, that Luther “believed that women craved sex more than men did,” but does not give a specific citation for this assertion.64 Such a citation would be difficult to find. In Monastic Vows (1521) and in his commentary on 1 Corinthians 7 (1523), Luther couches the remedy for sexual desire in masculine terms: “Take a wife.” In the lectures on Genesis, his 62See several of the quotations above and the following statements by Luther: (1) “After this age [childhood] comes adolescence. Then there is a greater feeling of rebellion. Besides, there is the unsubdued evil, the passion of lust and desire. If one takes a wife, there follows a loathing of one’s own and a passion for strange women”; LW 2:119; WA 42:346. (2) “But when reason has matured, then, after the other vices have somehow become established, there are added lust and the hideous passion of the flesh, revelry, gambling, quarreling, fighting, murder, theft, and what not”; LW 2:127; WA 42:351. (3) “For lust has been sufficiently subdued in the saints so far as the second table is concerned. Theft, adultery, and murder do not harass them as they do young men whose flesh is still strong”; LW 3:5; WA 42:551. (4) “A youth is inclined to lust, a man to avarice and fame”; LW 30:244; WA 20:654. “The young fools think that they must not hold out; as soon as they feel lust, a whore should be there! The [early Christian] fathers called this the impatience of sexual desire, secretly suffered. But what one desires does not have to be made good so soon. That is, if I were you, I would not follow after lust”; WATR 4:554, no. 4857; cf. Sirach 18:30. Wunder notes that the few diaries and memoirs of early modern German men that exist, often organized by stage of life, view lust—and its consequences, largely premarital sexual activity with prostitutes or other women—as an expected part of becoming a man; Wunder, “Wie wird man ein Mann?” 133. By contrast, the funeral sermons for men—even for nobles who fathered several children out of wedlock—avoid mentioning this aspect of their lives; Talkenberger, “Konstruktion von Männerrollen,” 56. 63See, among many others, Wiesner-Hanks, Christianity and Sexuality, 59. 64Marius, Martin Luther, 261.

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comments about women’s lust state specifically that it is not as strong as men’s (as in the story of the “unruly” and “less restrained” sons of God noted above), or his comments are added as an afterthought to much longer discussions of men’s lust. When relating the story of Joseph, for example, he notes: “Girls, too, are aware of this evil [lust] and, if they spend time in the company of young men, they turn the hearts of these young men in various directions to entice them to love, especially if the youths are outstanding because of their good looks and strength of body.”65 His letters about nuns leaving the convent, some of which were addressed to nuns themselves, also mention the power of lust, but they do not say that women’s lust was stronger than men’s.66 Men’s lust could, however, be provoked by women, as Luther went on to say: “Therefore it is often more difficult for the latter [young men] to withstand such enticements [by women] than to resist their own lusts [cupiditatibus].”67 But Luther also says many times, giving biblical and historical examples of men who have tried this and failed, that men will feel the power of desire whether women are there or not: “It is not a real cure for lust if you avoid the sight of a woman.”68 Thus our analyses of ideas about lust belong not only or not even primarily within discussions of Luther’s marriage or his ideas about women or in studies of social discipline after the Reformation. Male (and to a lesser degree, female) libido is integral to his ideas about grace, sin, human nature, the two kingdoms, and redemption—that is, to Luther’s theology as well as his social thought and his own marital history.69 More and Denifle may have chosen to see Luther’s ideas about lust as rooted in his body, but they should also be seen as rooted in his mind.

65LW

7:76; WA 44:356. Open Letter to Leonard Koppe: Why Virgins Are Allowed to Leave the Convent in a Godly Way (1523; WA 11:398–99); and a letter of Luther to three nuns dated 6 August 1524 (WABr 3:326–28, no. 766). Karant-Nunn has also stressed that Luther does not view women’s sexual drive as stronger than men’s; “Female Sexuality in the Thought of Martin Luther.” My thanks to Professor Karant-Nunn for sharing this unpublished paper with me. 67LW 7:76; WA 44:356. 68LW 2:328; WA 42:497. 69Hendrix has similarly argued that Luther’s ideas about marriage deserve to be seen as more integral to his theology than traditionally they have been: “Luther’s reinterpretation of 1 Corinthians 7 was revolutionary and should be set alongside his argument for the priesthood of all believers in his Address to the German Nobility”; Hendrix, “Luther on Marriage,” 338. 66An

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Abbreviations LW WA WABr WATR

Luther’s Works. American edition, edited by Helmut Lehmann and Jaroslav Pelikan. 55 vols. Philadelphia: Fortress; St. Louis, MO: Concordia, 1955–86. D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Schriften. 69 vols. Weimar: Böhlau, 1883–. D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Briefwechsel. 18 vols. Weimar: Böhlau, 1930–85. D. Martin Luthers Werke. Kritische Gesamtausgabe, Tischreden. 6 vols. Weimar: Böhlau, 1912–21.

Bibliography Asendorf, Ulrich. Lectura in Biblia: Luthers Genesisvorlesung, 1535–1545. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998. Bast, Robert J. Honor Your Fathers: Catechisms and the Emergence of a Patriarchal Ideology in Germany, 1400–1600. Leiden: Brill, 1997. Boyd, Stephen B. “Masculinity and Male Dominance: Martin Luther on the Punishment of Adam.” In Redeeming Men: Religion and Masculinities, edited by Stephen B. Boyd, W. Merle Longwood, and Mark W. Muesse, 19–32. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 1996. Brecht, Martin. Martin Luther: The Preservation of the Church, 1532–1546. Translated by James L. Schaaf. Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1993. ———. Martin Luther: Shaping and Defining the Reformation, 1521–1532. Translated by James L. Schaaf. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990. Burghartz, Susanna. Zeiten der Reinheit—Orte der Unzucht: Ehe und Sexualität in Basel während der Frühen Neuzeit. Paderborn: Schöningh Verlag, 1999. Cameron, Euan. The European Reformation. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991. Clark, Elizabeth A. “Women, Gender, and the Study of Christian History.” Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture 70 (2001): 395. Denifle, Heinrich. Luther und Luthertum in der ersten Entwicklung, vol. 1. Mainz: Verlag von Franz Kirchheim, 1904. Dinges, Martin, ed. Hausväter, Priester, Kastraten: Zur Konstruktion von Männlichkeit in Spätmittelalter und früher Neuzeit. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998. Dixon, Scott. The Reformation and Rural Society: The Parishes of Brandenburg-Ansbach-Kulmbach, 1528–1603. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Dülmen, Richard van. Frauen vor Gericht: Kindsmord in der frühen Neuzeit. Frankfurt: Fischer Taschenbuch Verlag, 1991. Greengrass, Mark. Longman Companion to the European Reformation, c. 1500–1618. London: Longman, 1998. Hendrix, Scott. “Luther on Marriage.” Lutheran Quarterly 14 (2000): 335–50. Karant-Nunn, Susan C. “Female Sexuality in the Thought of Martin Luther.” Unpublished paper presented to the seminar on Luther and women, Seventh International Congress for Luther Research, Oslo, Norway, 1988. Lähteenmäki, Olavi. Sexus und Ehe bei Luther. Turku: Schriften der Luther-Agricola Gesellschaft, 1955. Lindberg, Carter. The European Reformations. London: Blackwell, 1996.

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Marius, Richard. Martin Luther: The Christian Between God and Death. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999. Maxfield, John A. Luther’s Lectures on Genesis and the Formation of Evangelical Identity. Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies 80. Kirksville, MO: Truman State University, 2008. Meinhold, Peter. Die Genesisvorlesung Luthers und ihre Herausgeber. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1936. More, Thomas. A Dialogue Concerning Heresies. In The Complete Works of St. Thomas More, vol. 6, edited by Thomas M. C. Lawler, Germain Marc’hadour, and Richard C. Marius, 360–82. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1963. Nestingen, James. “Luther in Front of the Text: The Genesis Commentary.” Word and World 14 (1994): 186–94. Oberman, Heiko A. Luther: Man between God and the Devil. Translated by Eileen WalliserSchwarzbart. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1989. Pallaver, Günther. Das Ende der schamlosen Zeit: Die Verdrängung der Sexualität in der frühen Neuzeit am Beispiel Tirols. Vienna: Verlag für Gesellschaftskritik, 1987. Puff, Helmut. Sodomy in Reformation Germany and Switzerland, 1400–1600. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003. Robbins, Gregory A., ed. Genesis 1–3 in the History of Exegesis: Intrigue in the Garden. Studies in Women and Religion 27. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1988. Robisheaux, Thomas. Rural Society and the Search for Order in Early Modern Germany. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989. Roper, Lyndal. “Will and Honor: Sex, Words, and Power in Augsburg Criminal Trials. Radical History Review 43 (1989): 37–52. Rublack, Ulinka. Magd, Metz’ oder Mörderin: Frauen vor frühneuzeitlichen Gerichten. Frankfurt: Fischer, 1998. ———. “The Public Body: Policing Abortion in Early Modern Germany.” In Gender Relations in German History: Power, Agency and Experience from the Sixteenth to the Twentieth Century, edited by Lynn Abrams and Elizabeth Harvey, 57–81. Durham: University of North Carolina Press, 1997. Schmidt, Heinrich R. Dorf und Religion: Reformierte Sittenzucht in Berner Landgemeinde der Frühen Neuzeit. Stuttgart: G. Fischer, 1995. Schroeder, Joy A. “The Rape of Dinah: Luther’s Interpretation of a Biblical Narrative.” Sixteenth Century Journal 28 (1997): 775–91. Schuster, Beate. Die freien Frauen: Dirnen und Frauenhäuser in 15. und 16. Jahrhundert. Frankfurt am Main: Campus Verlag, 1995. Selderhuis, Herman J. Marriage and Divorce in the Thought of Martin Bucer. Translated by John Vriend and Lyle D. Bierma. Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies 48. Kirksville, MO: Thomas Jefferson University Press, 1999. Stratton, Beverly J. Out of Eden: Reading, Rhetoric, and Ideology in Genesis 2–3. Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 208. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995. Talkenberger, Heike. “Konstruktion von Männerrollen in württembergischen Leichenpredigten des 16.–18. Jahrhunderts.” In Hausväter, Priester, Kastraten: Zur Konstruktion von Männlichkeit in Spätmittelalter und Früher Neuzeit, edited by Martin Dinges, 29–74. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1998. Wiesner-Hanks, Merry E. Christianity and Sexuality in the Early Modern World: Regulating Desire, Reforming Practice. London: Routledge, 2000.

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———. “Disembodied Theory? Discourses of Sex in Early Modern Germany.” In Gender in Early Modern German History, edited by Ulinka Rublack, 152–76. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002. Wunder, Heide. “Construction of Masculinity and Male Identity in Personal Testimonies: Hans von Schweinichen (1552–1616) in His Memorial.” In Time, Space, and Women’s Lives in Early Modern Europe, edited by Anne Jacobson Schutte, Thomas Kuehn, and Silvana Seidel Menchi, 305–23. Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies 57. Kirksville, MO: Truman State University Press, 2001. ———. “Wie wird man ein Mann? Befunde am Beginn der Neuzeit (15.–17. Jahrhundert).” In Was sind Frauen? Was sind Männer? Geschlechterkonstruktionen im historischen Wandel, edited by Christiane Eifert et al., 122–55. Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1996. Zophy, Jonathan W. A Short History of Renaissance and Reformation Europe: Dances over Fire and Water. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1999.

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About the Contributors Scott H. Hendrix is James Hastings Nichols Professor Emeritus of Reformation History and Doctrine at Princeton Theological Seminary. He chairs the planning committee of the International Congress for Luther Research and serves on editorial committees of several periodicals and monograph series. Recent books include Preaching the Reformation: The Homiletical Handbook of Urbanus Rhegius (2003) and Recultivating the Vineyard: The Reformation Agendas of Christianization (2004). Susan C. Karant-Nunn is professor of history and director of the Division for Late Medieval and Reformation Studies at the University of Arizona. She is coeditor of the Archive for Reformation History and author of The Reformation of Ritual: An Interpretation of Early Modern Germany (1997). She also coedited Luther on Women: A Sourcebook (2003). Her book, The Reformation of Feeling: Shaping Religious Emotions in Early Modern Germany, is forthcoming. Raymond A. Mentzer holds the Daniel J. Krumm Family Chair in Reformation Studies in the Department of Religious Studies at the University of Iowa. His most recent publications include La construction de l’identité réformée aux 16e et 17e siècles: Le rôle des consistoires (2006) and Society and Culture in the Huguenot World, 1559–1685 (coedited with Andrew Spicer, 2002). Allyson M. Poska is professor of history at the University of Mary Washington in Fredericksburg, Virginia. She is the author of three books: Regulating the People: The Catholic Reformation in Seventeenth-Century Spain (1998), Women and Gender in the Western Past (coauthored with Katherine French, 2006), and Women and Authority in Early Modern Spain: The Peasants of Galicia (2006). 213

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Helmut Puff is associate professor in the Department of German and the Department of History at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. His research focuses on German literature, history, and culture in the late medieval and early modern period with specialties in gender studies, the history of sexuality, the history of reading, and nonfictional texts of the Renaissance. He is the author of Sodomy in Reformation Germany and Switzerland (2003). Karen E. Spierling is associate professor of history at the University of Louisville. Her first book, Infant Baptism in Reformation Geneva: The Shaping of a Community 1536–1564, appeared in 2005. In addition to numerous articles on sixteenth-century Geneva, she is coediting with Michael Halvorson Defining Community in Early Modern Europe (forthcoming in January 2009). Ulrike Strasser is associate professor of history and affiliate faculty in women’s studies and religious studies at the University of California, Irvine. She has written the award-winning State of Virginity: Gender, Religion and Politics in an Early Modern Catholic State (2004). Her current monograph, Consuming Missions, explores the activities and narratives of German missionaries in the Pacific Rim. B. Ann Tlusty is associate professor of history and NEH Chair in the Humanities at Bucknell University. Her first book, Bacchus and Civic Order: The Culture of Drink in Early Modern Germany (2001), has been translated into German. She has also coedited two volumes: The World of the Tavern: The Public House in Early Modern Europe (2002) and Ehrkonzepte in der Frühen Neuzeit: Identitäten und Abgrenzungen (1998). Merry E. Wiesner-Hanks is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of History at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee. She is coeditor of the Sixteenth Century Journal, and her books and articles have appeared in English, German, Italian, Spanish, and Chinese. They include Early Modern Europe 1450–1789 (2006), Women and Gender in Early Modern Europe (3rd ed. 2008), and Luther on Women: A Sourcebook (with Susan Karant-Nunn, 2003).

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Index Abel, 196 Abraham Abraham’s thigh, 203–4 lust and age-disparate relationship, 204–5, 204n50 lust, master of his, 202 polygamy, 199–200, 199n38 abstinence, 55, 58, 77, 172. See also chastity Adam Justus Menius on unchastity, 76 Martin Luther on male lust, 193–94, 194n16, 194n18, 198–99 in Martin Luther’s humor, 179, 184–85 and Martin Luther’s theology of being a man, xvi, 170–71, 171n14, 173–74, 184–86 “new Adam,” 22 adultery in Galicia, xii, 6, 13–16, 14n50 incidents, 75, 200 male accountability, 80, 85–86 in Martin Luther’s commentary on Genesis, 205–6 in Reformation scholarship, 191 advice literature, 49, 59 Hausväter, 71, 71n1 moral contract device, 49–50, 49n15 age and attraction, 29, 40–41 baptismal sponsorship, 123 of biblical patriarchs, great age, 197, 204– 5, 207 and definition of masculinity, xi, 112 Martin Luther on age-disparate relationships, 183, 204–5 Martin Luther on stages of a man’s life, 173, 207–8, 208n62 Agrippa, 159 Aigues-Mortes, 136 Alber, Erasmus, 73, 75, 81–84 Good Book on Marriage, 75

Alcala, 63 Althamer, Andreas, 73, 75, 77 Amaro Pérez (Galician citizen), 11 Amen, Anthoine (Viane citizen), 124 Amied, Master (Genevan courier), 108, 111 Anabaptist, 181 Andalusia, 16 Anfechtung. See temptation Annecy, 105 Ansbach, 73n9 anticoncubinage, 53–54 Antwerp, xv, 143, 147 “anxious masculinity,” 22–23 Apostles’ Creed, 127 Argentina, 17 Argula von Grumbach, xi Aristotle, x armed conflict, 141–49, 153–57, 160 arms, 6, 12 in Augsburg, 144, 148, 154, 155n60, 159 sign of manliness, 6, 12 Asendorf, Ulrich, 192n8 Aubenas, 129 Augsburg, 84, 120 confessional crisis, xv, 140–60 Diet of Augsburg, 73n12 marriage and holding office, 99n9 Peace of Augsburg, 73n10, 141, 159 Urbanus Rhegius in, 74n16, 75 Augsburg, Bishop of, 146 Augustine, 172, 192n10 Aurelius, Marcus. See Marcus Aurelius authority, masculine, 72, 120, 124 in Martin Luther’s theology, 173–76 in Reformation Geneva, 97–98, 107–15, 117 Autobiography of St. Ignatius (Câmara), xiii, 46–59, 62–63, 65–66 as epideictic rhetoric, xiii, 47–48, 52–53, 55, 65

215

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216 autonomy, male, 63–67, 106, 109, 147 Ave Maria, 135 Azpeitia, 53 Ballesteros, Pérez: Cancionero popular gallego, 3 baptism Anabaptist, 182 emergency, 121 father’s presence, 103, 123 father’s right to consent, 124–25 French Reformed church, xiv, 121–25 mother’s presence, 103, 103n20, 123 in Reformation Geneva, 95–96, 100, 102–4, 117 sponsors, 123. See also godparents Barcelona, 62 Barfüer Tor, 148 Barjon, François, 114, 117 Bas-Limousin, 134 Basque Country, 14n49 Bastard, Claude (Genevan citizen), 95 bathhouses, 28, 40 Bavaria, 54, 59, 61, 65, 146 Behaim, Stephan Carl (Nuremberg citizen), 87 behavioral manuals Caballero perfecto, El (The Perfect Gentleman) (Salas Barbadillo), 6 Courtier, The (Castiglione), 6 Education of a Christian Woman (Vives), 4–5 Libro áureo de Emperador Marco Aurelio (The Golden Book of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius) (Guevara), 5 Reloj de príncipes (The Dial of Princes) (Guevara), 5 Belbuck (cloister), 73n11 Bernard of Clairvaux, 55 Berndt, Ambrosius, 178n52 Berne, 24 Beromünster, 36 Bible, 37–38, 38n68, 130, 196–210 citation of: 1 Corinthians, 75, 77, 85, 208, 209n69; 1 Peter, 78; Deuteronomy, 99, 101n16; Genesis, 77, 169, 192–95, 197, 202–4, 204n50, 206– 7, 206n57 Bibliander, Theodor, 38 bigamy. See polygamy Bilhah (wife of Jacob), 206 Blacketer, Raymond, 99 Bock, Gisela, ix body ideal man, 22 and Jesuit spirituality, 57–58

Index Martin Luther on men and women’s bodies, 170, 173, 175–76 Martin Luther on physicality of lust, 172, 193–94, 209 mind/body and lust, 27, 29–30 and sacraments, 84–85, 103–4 Bonaventure: Life of St. Francis, 57 Borrete, Louise (Nîmes citizen), 133–34 Boyd, Stephen, 194n18 Boyle, Marjorie O’Rourke, 47–48 Brandenburg-Ansbach, 73n9 bravado, 142, 144–45, 147–49, 154, 158 Bray, Alan, 25 Brecht, Martin, 191n4, 192n8 Breitenberg, Marc, x, 22–23 “anxious masculinity,” 23 Brenz (city), 73n9 Brenz, Johann, 73, 78, 88 bribery, 25, 106 Bruckhmair, Wolfgang (Augsburg mead seller), 156 Bugenhagen, Johannes (“Pomeranus,” Wittenberg pastor), 73, 80, 85–86, 88, 175 Bullinger, Heinrich, 23, 32–33, 38–40 Bullough, Vern, x Burlador de Sevilla, El (The Trickster of Seville), 6 Bynum, Caroline Walker, 55 Caballero perfecto, El (Salas Barbadillo), 6 Cain, 196, 198 Calderón de la Barca, Pedro Médico de su honra, El (The Surgeon of His Own Honor), 6 Vida es sueño, La (Life is a Dream), 7 calendar revolt in Augsburg, xv arming, 141, 154–55 and confessionalization, 140–43, 141n1, 145, 151, 154, 157–60 Protestant holidays, 146, 155, 157 rumor spreading 151–52, 154–55, 154n55 solution, 157, 160 transition to Gregorian calendar, 143, 145, 149 Calvin, John, on baptism, 103–4, 103n20 on catechism, 115, 116n50 on discipline, 106, 106n30, 109, 112, 116, 131 Institutes of the Christian Religion, 122 Martin Luther, in contrast to, 168 on masculinity, 96–100 on parenting, 100n10, 101n16 on patriarchy, 125 Calvinism, xiv, 131

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Index Câmara, Luis Gonçalves da Autobiography of St. Ignatius, 46–58 Cancionero popular gallego, 3 Canisius, Petrus, 61 Canter de Mio Cid, El, 56 Castiglione: The Courtier, 6 Castile, 9–10, 14, 16 Castres, 128, 130–31 catechism attendance in French Reformed churches, 125–28 in Geneva, xiv, 96, 98, 100, 112–17, 114n44 Cathars, 26 Catholicism, 24, 191 baptism, 103 confessional crisis in Augsburg, xv, 140–60 Jesuits, xiii, 45–68 Martin Luther on Catholic celibacy, xvi, 172, 186 Martin Luther on papacy, 201 in mixed marriages, 105–6, 124–26, 134 Saints Simon and Jude holiday, 146–50 Tridentine, 46, 53–54 as viewed in reformed Geneva, 100, 115 as viewed in reformed France, 121, 127 celibacy clerical, xiii, 36, 169 and male vulnerability, 75–77, 80 Martin Luther’s rejection of, xvi, 172, 176, 186, 192, 201n42 in Reformation scholarship, 191 Celle, 74n16 Céspedes, Eleno/a de, 8 Chappuis, Amyed (Genevan barber), 95–96, 101–4, 117 Charles V, Emperor, 13 chastity feminine trait of masculinity, x and Jesuits, xiii, 51–54, 67 and male sexual vulnerability, 74–78 Martin Luther on chastity among biblical patriarchs, 197, 200, 203, 205–8 Martin Luther’s, 176 women’s, guarding of, 6, 10–11 See also abstinence children, mistreatment of, 101, 107, 107n32, 109–10 Christ, 52, 56–57, 60, 81, 122, 135, 143 Christmas, 129 Cicero, 183 civic duty defense duties and right to arm, xv, xvii, 141–50, 144n8, 153–60 male, 141–42, 144, 147, 160, 201n42 civic investigations. See trials

217 class identity differing traits of masculinity, ix–xii, 102, 109 Eucharist, privileges of nobility, 129–30 and Galician masculinity, 4–6, 8–10, 12– 13, 16–17 and Ignatian view of women, 63 and illegitimate children, 105–6 of Martin Luther, 181 Martin Luther on fornication among lower classes, 200 rumor crossing class lines, xv–xvi, 150– 51, 153–54, 157–58, 158n73 Spanish trait of masculinity, 6, 8 Werner Steiner, affecting Zurich trial of, 22–25, 32, 34–35, 39–41 Clemen, Otto, 73n14 Cleopha, Maria, 73n9 clerical life, xvi, 169, 191–92, 196, 201n42 Augustinian, xvii, 176 Carthusian monks, 201 Dominicans, 63–64, 67, 172n21, 190 Franciscan, 57, 63–64, 67, 80 Lutheran, 185–86 Protestant, 23, 33, 35–37, 40–41, 73–77 See also Jesuits Coburg, 73n12 Colegio de San Cosme (school), 9 Cologne, 51 colonialism, effects of, 21, 60–61 community, male accountability to according to Martin Luther, 171–74 for fornication, 11–12 in French Reformed tradition, 124–28, 131–32, 137 in Reformation Geneva, 96, 100, 107n32, 110–17 in Reformation Germany, xiv, 80–81, 86– 89 competition, 49 concubinage, 53, 54, 186, 199 Confederation, Swiss, 26, 33–34 confession, 55, 65 confessional crisis in Augsburg, xv, 141–60 Connell, R.W., 21, 67 consistory investigations. See trials conversion Catholics to Protestant clergy, 73–74 forced, xv, 72, 136, 146–47 Ignatius of Loyola’s, 48, 50–52, 57 and Jesuit chastity, 67 Jesuit missionary, 60–61, 60n58 Werner Steiner (Zurich citizen), 31–32 Council of Trent, 53–54 Courtier, The (Castiglione), 6

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218 Court, Antoine, 137 Cranach, Lucas, the Younger, 178, 184 Creation, 170–71, 192–95 Crigny, Jacques de, 115 cross-dressing, 7, 12 cuckoldry, 7–8, 15–16 Culture of Fear, The (Glassner), 154n55 Dead Sea, 35 Decalogue, 127 De Maria virgine incomparabili (Canisius), 61 Denifle, Heinrich, 190–91, 209 Denmark, 73n11 desertion, 80, 85–86, 99, 101, 117 devil, the, 75, 81, 85, 125, 170–71, 195, 200, 207 Dialogue in Honor of Marriage (Freder), 76–77 Die, 131 Diet of Augsburg, 73n12 Dietrich, Veit, 73–74, 73n12, 76, 78–81, 83– 84, 88, 192n8 Dinah (daughter of Jacob), 206 Dinges, Martin: Hausväter, Priester, Kastraten, x discipline bodily, 22 disciplinary expectations of males in Reformation Geneva, 97–98, 102–4, 106–12, 106n30, 109n36, 116 Johann Bugenhagen on, 86 John Calvin on, 98, 106–12, 106n30, 109n36, 116, 131 Discipline of the Reformed Churches of France, The, 122, 124, 126, 129 disinheritance, 133 divorce, 85, 191 Dominic, Saint, 52 dominion, right of, 142 dramas, 6–7 Burlador de Sevilla, El (The Trickster of Seville) (de Molina), 6 Médico de su honra, El (The Surgeon of His Own Honor) (Calderón de la Barca), 6 drunkenness, 5, 112, 149, 202 Duke of Bavaria, 146 Dunam, Ayme, 108–9 Durand, Marie, 136 du Val, Jacques (Paris citizen), 109 Dyer, Abigail, 14 Dymonnet, André, 104 Easter, 129, 154–55 Eck, John, 74n16 Eden, garden of, 171, 179, 193, 194n18, 195

Index Edict of Nantes, 136 education, male, 6, 9–10, 35, 37–40, 60 effeminacy, xii Martin Luther on, 174, 200, 201n42 and masculinity in Galicia, 4, 6, 8, 17 Egypt, 204n50 Eisele, Peter (Augsburg locksmith), 149 Eisenach, 178 Eisenmenger, Katharina, 73n10 Eisleben, 181 El Cid, 56 elders, church, 126–31, 137 Elias, Norbert, 22, 29 Médico de su honra, El (Calderón de la Barca), 6 emasculinity, 172, 177 Emery, Jean (Genevan citizen), 113 England, xi, 23, 25, 121 Enterline, Lynn, x Epiphanius, 122 Epiphany, 169 Erauso, Catalina de, 7–8 Ernest, duke of Lüneburg, 72, 74n16 Estate of Marriage, The (Luther), 31, 36 Eucharist, in French Reformed churches age requirement, 123 the cup, 129 male participation, 121, 124, 126–31, 137 order of reception, xv, 129–30 Eve male lust, Martin Luther on Eve’s blamelessness for, 193–95, 194n16, 194n18 and Martin Luther’s humor, 179, 184–85 sexual activities, sermons on her, 192, 198 woman’s role, Martin Luther’s theology of, xvi, 170–71, 173, 186 excommunication, 124, 127, 132–33 exorcisms, 65 extortion, 32 extrospection, 30 Falk, Anna, 73n13 Fall consequences of, Martin Luther on, 193– 95, 194n16 as determining gender roles, Martin Luther on, xvi, 170–71, 173 Justus Menius on, 76 and Martin Luther’s humor, 179 familial roles defense of household, 141–44, 155–57, 160 fatherhood in Reformation Geneva, 96– 115

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Index French Reformed churches, as defined by, 120–25, 137 in Galicia, family honor, 5 in Galicia, uxorilocal residency, 15 Martin Luther on, 173–74 patriarchal remedies, 134–35 in Reformation Germany, xiv, 71–72, 74, 80–84, 86–87 See also fatherhood; head of household family honor, 13–14, 36, 40, 102–5, 107 fatherhood in French Reformed churches, sacramental roles, 123–25, 132, 137 illegitimacy, xiv, 100–101, 104–7, 107n31, 117, 131–32, 208n62 Martin Luther on, 170 and patriarchy, 71–72 in Reformation Geneva, xiv, 95–117 spiritual, 48–50, 55, 63, 66 trait of masculinity, 53, 66 See also procreation father-son relationship, xiv, 98, 107–15 fear, collective, 141–44, 148–49, 149n33, 152–60, 154n55 fear of commitment, 64 femininity, ix–x Ignatian strategic femininity, 55, 57–59, 61, 67 and Martin Luther, 181, 186 Flood, 199–200, 207 Florence, x folk remedies, 134–35 France, 27, 34–35, 102n19, 142 crisis of masculinity, x–xi, 168n2 Reformed tradition in, xiv–xv, 120–37 Francis of Assisi, Saint, 52, 57, 64 Franck, Sebastian, 76, 178 Sprichwörter, 76 Frankfurt, 73n8, 79 Frauenliebe und Leben (Schumann), x Freder, Johann, 73, 76–77 Dialogue in Honor of Marriage, 76–77 Freiburg, 74n16 Freud, Sigmund, 29 Frochet, Jean (Genevan dressmaker), 112 Frosch, Johann, 74n16, 75 Fugger, Marx (Augsburg council lord), 146, 148 Fugger, Octavius, (Augsburg patrician), 150– 52, 150n37, 157, 158n73 Gala González, Susana de la, 16–17 Galicia, xii, 3–18 Galleys, Claude, 110 gambling, 108, 112–13

219 Gargantua (Rabelais), 22 Gaultier, Thibauld (Genevan citizen), 101–2, 104, 117 gender norms and ideals, ix–xiv, 46, 49– 50n15, 56, 120, 137 binary vision of, xii, xvi–xvii, 169, 185 disruption of, 22–23 feminine, 4, 61, 67 Martin Luther’s ideal of masculinity, 168, 177 Spanish ideals of masculinity, 4–8, 11, 17 generosity, 5–6, 8, 88–89 Genesis, book of, xv, 168, 192–209. See also Bible, citation of Geneva, Reformation city versus church conflicts, 96, 99, 101– 4, 106–17 discipline and obedience in, emphasis on, 97–98, 107–10, 117 fatherhood responsibilities in, 98–117 father’s responsibility for family piety, 98– 100, 100n10, 100n12, 103, 107, 112–16 male accountability to community, 96, 100, 107n32, 110–11, 113, 116–17 male autonomy in, 106, 109 male obligation of authority in, 97–98, 107–15, 117 male obligation as provider in, 96, 98, 101–2, 104–13 traditional family honor in, 98, 102–5, 107, 111 traditional masculinity versus Reformed church in, xiv, 95–117 Germany, 71–89, 97–98, 102, 109, 120, 140– 60, 178, 200–201 Jesuit influence in, 50–51, 54, 58–59, 61, 65–66 Germany, Reformation, burdens of patriarchy in, xiv, 71–89 accountability, 74, 79, 84–86, 88 emotional and domestic burden, 74, 81– 84, 87 providing, 74, 78–81, 83, 88 sexual expression and restraint, 74, 77–78, 87 sexual vulnerability, 74–77, 87 Geschrei. See rumormongering, male Geschwätz. See women and rumor Gilmore, David: Manhood in the Making, 88 Glassner, Barry: The Culture of Fear, 154n55 Gmünd, 73n9 godparents, 100, 103, 123–24 Golin, Alonso (Galician farmer), 11 González, Diego (Inquisitor), 9

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220 Good Book on Marriage (Alber), 75 Gregorian calendar, 140, 145. See also calendar revolt in Augsburg Gregory XIII, 140 Greifswald, 73n11, 73n13 grobian masculinity, 87 group identity, 149n33, 160 Guevara, Antonio de Libro áureo de Emperador Marco Aurelio (The Golden Book of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius), 5 Reloj de prícipes (The Dial of Princes), 5 guilds, 99 Hagar (mother of Ishmael), 199, 199n38, 204, 204n50 Halle, 181 Ham (son of Noah), 197, 199 Hamburg, 73n13 Harrington, Joel, 109 Hausmann, Nicolaus: Hausväter, Priester, Kastraten (Dinges), x head of household in Augsburg confessional crisis, 156–60 in French Reformed tradition, 124–26, 135 in Galicia, 12, 22 Martin Luther as, 178 Martin Luther commentary, 173 in Reformation Geneva, 98, 105–8 in Reformation Germany, xiii–xiv, 71, 80–83, 83n51 hegemonic masculinity, 21, 41 Heidenheim, 73 Helen, 198 hell, 11 Hendrix, Scott, 21–22, 98–99, 108, 120, 209n69 Henry II (France), 133, 142 heresy, 10, 13, 26–27, 26n25 sexual, xiii, 26 hermaphrodites, 8, 12, 201n42 Hesse, 80 Holy Roman Empire, 47, 50 honor, xii, 3, 6–14 passim, 59, 85, 102–7, 184 Hufton, Olwen, 62 Huguenots, 120–37, 142 humanism, xiii, 22, 33, 35, 38–40, 71, 73n9, 87 Humbert, Françoys (Genevan servant), 105–6 husbands. See marriage Ibach, Hartmann, 80 Iberian peninsula, 18

Index Iglesia, Domingo de (Galician farmer), 10 Ignatius of Loyola, xiii, xvi–xvii, 45–68 Autobiography, xiii, 46–47 See also Jesuits illegitimacy discussed in Reformation scholarship, 191 and fathers, xiv, 100–101, 104–7, 107n31, 117, 131–32, 208n62 and mothers, 131, 192 rates in Galicia, 11 impotence, 177 incest, xvi, 190, 196, 199–200, 202–3 infanticide, 121, 191 Ingolstadt, 59, 61, 74n16 inheritance, 14–15, 17 Inquisition, xii, 8–13 Institutes of the Christian Religion (Calvin), 122 Isaac, 203, 205 Ishmael (son of Abraham), 199, 204n50 “Italian marriages,” 201n42 Italy, 33–34, 102n19, 201 Jacob, 205–207, 206n57 Japheth (son of Noah), 197, 199 Jerome, Saint, 177, 179, 204 Jerusalem, 35–36 Jesuits, xiii, 45–68 in Augsburg, 149 celibacy, xiii chastity, 51–54 emotionality, xiii, 46–49, 52, 55–59, 65– 67 exorcisms, 65 freedom of movement, 63–64 Galician schools, 9 as militants, 143 and nonbelievers, 59–61 spiritual fatherhood, 48–50, 55, 63, 66 spirituality, xiii, 46–48, 52–59, 62–63, 65– 67 strategic femininity, 55, 59, 67 and weeping, 49, 56–58, 56n37 and women, 61–67, 65n81 See also Ignatius of Loyola “Jesuitesses,” 62–65, 64n77 Jews and effeminacy, 8n24 and Martin Luther, 196, 199, 202–3, 208 Jezebel, 198 Joachimsthal, 71n1 joking relationships, xvi, 180–86 Jonas, Justas, 73n13 Joseph, 205, 207–8 Juan Rodríguez de Figueroa, 63 Juana, Infanta of Spain, 64n77

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Index Judah, 202–3 Kalenderstreit. See calendar revolt Kammin, 73n14, 77 Karant-Nunn, Susan, 97, 209n66 Karras, Ruth, 66 Kawerau, Waldemar, 86–87 Kechler, Hans (relative of Rentz, Sebastian), 151–53 Kempe, Margery, 57 Kern, Hans (farm laborer), 25, 28–29, 32–33, 35, 37, 40 Kern, Uli (brother of Hans Kern), 32–33 Keturah (wife of Abraham), 204 ketzer, 26–27 Klingebeyl, Stefan, 73, 77 Von Priester Ehe, 73n14 Krämer, Heinrich, 172n21 labor pain, 79, 193, 195 Lake Constance, 74n16 Lamech (Cain’s descendant), 196 Langenargen, 74n16 Las Casas, Bartolomé de, 61 Latino masculinity, 3n2 La Tornier (Genevan citizen), 108 Layrac, 125, 128 leadership, 22, 55, 120 Leah (wife of Jacob), 206 Lees, Clare: Medieval Masculinities, x Leipzig, 73n9 Lerner, Gerda, ix Levy, Alison, x Leys, Kunigunde, 73n12 Libro áureo de Emperador Marco Aurelio (Guevara), 5 Life of St. Francis (Bonaventure), 57 limbo, 121–22 Lisón Tolosana, Carmelo, 15 Long, Kathleen, x looting, 142, 149, 156 Lords’ Prayer, 127 Lord’s Supper. See Eucharist Lot, xvi, 200, 202–3 Loyse (daughter of Andrie Neant), 112n40 Lübeck, 73n14 Lucerne, 26n25 Lufft, Hans, daughter of, 179 Lüneburg, 72 lust and marriage, 77 in Martin Luther’s writings: on female lust, 209; lust as a consequence of the Fall, 176; on male lust, 171–72, 192–209;

221 male lust among biblical patriarchs, xvi–xvii, 192–209; male lust, strength with age, 208n62 in Reformation scholarship, 191 and Werner Steiner (Zurich citizen), 28– 29 women, witchcraft, and lust, 172n21 Luther, Martin biographical items, 73n12–13, 73n15, 80 daughter, Magdalena, 182 Erasmus Alber on, 75 humor, 177–86 marital expressions of love, 174, 179, 181, 184–85 his marriage in scholarship, 191, 209 masculine authority in household, 175– 78, 181, 186 masculine behavior, xvi, xvii, 174, 185 sex life, 176–77, 177n44, 186, 191n4 Table Talk, 177–79, 182–85, 201n42 working marriage with Katharina von Bora, 174, 176–85, 181, 186 Luther, Martin, writings of on celibacy, 172 Estate of Marriage, The, 31, 36 on female lust, 208–9 Genesis, commentary on, 168–69, 171n15, 186, 192–208, 192n8, 201n42 humor in, 177–86 on Jews, 196, 199, 202–3, 208 on lust, xv–xvii, 190–209 on lust inherent in the flesh, 194, 194n16, 194n18 on lustfulness withstood among biblical patriarchs of Genesis, 195–209: Abraham, 199–200, 199n38, 202–5; Cain and Abel, 196; Isaac, 205; Jacob, 205–7; Joseph, 205, 207–8; Judah, 202–3; Lot, 200–203; Moses, 195–97, 201; Noah, 197, 199, 207 on male lust, 192–209 on male lust as consequence of the Fall, 193–95, 194n16, 199 on male lust as the stronger lust, 172, 191–92, 195, 198, 202–3, 206n57, 208–9, 208n62 on marriage, xvi, 75, 177, 198, 209n69 on marriage and male authority, 73, 84, 169, 174–76 on marriage as a remedy for sin, 172, 196, 199, 201n42, 208 on marriage to Katharina von Bora, 177, 181–82

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222 Luther, Martin, writings of, continued on masculinity and male-female binary theory, 169–70, 183, 185 on masculinity and male superiority, 169– 70, 170n5, 185, 194n16 on masculinity, theology of, xvi, 169, 185 Monastic Vows, 208 papacy called womanish, homosexual, 201n42 Rüdiger Schnell and consideration of Martin Luther’s audience, 168–69, 170n10, 185 on sexual desire as tainted by sin, 172, 176, 186 Vom ehelichen Leben, 73n15 Von Ehesachen, 73n15 on women, nature of, 167–86 passim, 193–94, 197–99, 203, 206n57, 208– 9 Lutheranism, 27, 97, 120, 185–86, 208 opposed by Catholics, xv, 47, 140–60, 141n1 Lutheran pastors Dietrich, Veit, 73–74, 76, 78–81, 83–84, 88, 192n8 Freder, Johann, 73, 76–77 Mathesius, Johannes, 71n1, 178 Madrid, 9, 16 Maillet, Marin (Genevan citizen), 105–7 Mair, Daniel, 149–50, 155–56, 159 Mair, Gedeon (Augsburg cabinetmaker), 146– 50, 152–53 Mair, Steffan (“Fresser,” Augsburg guard), 150, 155 Major, Johann, 79 male preeminence, xv, 130, 132, 136 male sociability among Jesuits, 46, 48–50, 53, 65–67 and homosexuality, 25–26, 34 Malleus maleficarum, 172 Mandayo, 3 Manhood in the Making (Gilmore), 88 Manresa, 55, 56n37, 58, 62 Marburg, 80 Marcus Aurelius, 5 Marignano, battle of, 33 Marius, Richard, 191n4, 208 marriage betrothal and solemnization, 132–33 clandestine, 132–33 clerical, 53, 74–80, 172, 177, 185–86 and French Reformed elders, 126–27 Galician marital responsibilities, 5–6, 13, 15

Index and John Calvin, 97–99, 99n9, 116, 125 and Martin Luther, xvi, 169–86, 191, 196, 198, 203–5, 208 mixed, 124, 198 parental right to marital consent, 131–34, 137 and patriarchal responsibilities in Reformation Germany, xiv, 71–88, 120 polygamy, 85, 196, 199, 199n38, 206 and purchase of arms in Augsburg, 144 and Renaissance, 82n45 Swiss reform and marital heterosexuality, 21–23, 31, 36–37 See also weddings Marthe (stepdaughter of Potier, Denis), 104 martyrdom, 31, 142–43, 148, 160 Mascareñas, Leonor de (Alcala pilgrim), 63n67 masculine traits, ix–x authority, 72, 120, 124, 97–98, 107–15, 117, 173–76 autonomy, 63–67, 106, 109, 147 community, accountability to, xiv, 11–12, 80–81, 86–89, 96, 100, 107n32, 110–13, 116–17, 124–28, 131–32, 137, 171–74 confessional crisis, role in, xv, 141, 145– 47, 151–52, 155, 160 educated, 6, 9–10, 35, 37–40, 60 family disciplinarian, 101, 107, 109–14, 112n40 family, guardian of, xii–xiv, 88, 96–116, 134–35, 141–44, 155–57, 160, 173 family honor, guardian of, 13–14, 36, 40, 102–5, 107 family’s religious education, responsible for, 96–103, 100n10, 100n12, 107, 112–17, 114n44, 123–28, 132–34, 137 Galician, xii–xiii, xvi–xvii, 3–18 generosity, 5–6, 8, 88–89 head of household, xiii, xiv, 12, 22, 71, 80–83, 83n51, 98, 105–8, 124–26, 135, 156–60, 173, 178 honor, xii, 3, 6–14 passim, 59, 85, 102–7, 184 leadership, 22, 55, 120 medical care, 134–35 militarism, xiii, 7–8, 12–13, 12n39, 33– 34, 40, 48, 51–53, 56–57, 114, 173 moderation, xi–xii, 6, 22, 58–59, 61, 88, 109 obedience, xiv, xvii, 97–98, 107–10, 117 patriarchy, xiv, xvii, 22–23, 33, 36, 46, 68, 97–100, 116, 126, 132–35, 173 patriarchy in Reformation Germany, xiii, 71–89

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Index piety, xiv, 37–38, 85, 95–117, 125 provider, xii, xiv, 3–8, 14, 17, 71, 78–79, 83, 88, 96–98, 101–13, 134–35, 141–44, 155–57, 160, 171–74, 195 reason, x respect for elders, 98, 111 sexual restraint, xi, 28–29, 74, 77–78, 172, 178, 208–9 Spanish courtiers’, 5–6, 12 violence, xv, 3, 7–8, 12–14, 53, 60–61, 78–79, 102, 110, 141–42, 154n57, 160 virility, 3, 11, 53, 66, 88, 102, 107, 136, 144, 169, 177 vulnerability, xiv, 23, 74–78, 82–83, 87– 88, 116n50, 136 weeping, xiii, 56–58, 56n37 wellborn, xii, 6, 8 willingness to migrate, xii–xiii, 3–4, 12, 14–18, 14n53, 16nn62–64 wisdom, 8–9 women, control over, 5, 15, 71, 81–84, 121, 126, 174–75 women, guardian of, 6, 10–11, 13–14, 53, 60, 76, 78, 132, 173–74 masculinity “anxious masculinity,” 22–23 grobian, 87 hegemonic, 21, 41, 66 Latino, 3n2 of Martin Luther, 167–86 and Martin Luther’s commentary on lust, 190–209 threats to, 72, 132, 142, 158 traditional, 8, 11, 17, 46, 102–7, 110, 112– 17 masculinity, reform of, ix French Reformed tradition, intensified by, xv, 120–37 Genevan Reformed church versus traditional masculinity, xiv, 95–117 Ignatian redefinition of masculinity, 45–68 in Switzerland, 21–41 Mathesius, Johannes, 71n1, 178 medical care, 134–135 Medieval Masculinities (Lees), x Meinhold, Peter, 192n8 Melanchthon, Philipp, 73n11, 177–78, 192n8 Menius, Justus, 71, 73, 76 mercenaries in Augsburg confessional crisis, 142–43, 143n6, 155–56, 155n60 and homoeroticism, 41 private militias, 149–50, 155–56, 156n66, 158–59 Swiss “sale” of soldiers, 34, 40

223 Messieurs, 108, 110 Metz, Endres (Augsburg citizen), 151 Metz, siege of, 13 Michael, Saint, 135 Midianites, 203–4 migration, xii–xiii, 3–4, 12, 14–18, 14n53, 16nn62–64 militarism in Galicia, 7–8, 12–13, 12n39 and Jesuits, 48, 51–53, 56–57 Martin Luther commentary, 173 monopoly in Augsburg, 156–60 in Switzerland, code of masculinity, xiii, 33–34, 40, 114 See also armed conflict; mercenaries misogyny, xvi, 169, 172, 178. See also Malleus maleficarum missionaries, 45–68 moderation, xi–xii, 6, 22, 58–59, 61, 88, 109 Molina, Tirso de: El burlador de Sevilla (The Trickster of Seville), 6 Monastic Vows (Luther), 208 Monbazillac, 123 Mondoñedo, 12 Montaigne, Michel de, xi, 54 Montauban, 124, 136 Montjoye, Anne, 136 Montserrat, 59–60 More, Thomas, 190–91, 194, 209 Moses, 195–97, 201 motherhood, 99–100, 100n10, 107, 112n40, 116, 136, 170, 193 mothers-in-law, xii, 15, 17 Moya, José, 17 Muhammad, 190 Müller, Dr. Georg (“Mylius,” Augsburg preacher), xv, 140–41, 143, 147, 153n51, 155–58, 160 Münster, 59 Murranos, Mateo, 64n74 Muslims, 8n24, 59–61, 60n58 Nadal, Jerome, xiii, 46–47, 49–51, 54, 62 naming, xiv, 95, 103, 117, 124 Naples, 60n58 Navarre, Marguerite de, xi, 142 Neant, Andrie (Genevan citizen), 112n40 Netherlands, the, 141–42 Neubrandenburg, 73n8 Neustadt/Brandenburg, 73n8 Nicolas of Lyra, 204 Nimbschen (cloister), 73n15, 178–79 Nîmes, 124, 127, 132–33 Noah, 197, 199, 207

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224 Noelle (servant of Marin Maillet), 105–6 Normandy, 134 nuns, 80, 192 and Ignatius of Loyola, 64–65 and Martin Luther, 73–74n15, 196, 209 Nuremberg, 73n12, 76, 78–79, 102, 123n11 obedience, xiv, xvii, 97–98, 107–10, 117 Oberman, Heiko, 191 Oldendorp, Johann, 73n14 O’Malley, John, 50, 59 Ong, Walter, 49 Opitz, Claudia, ix original sin and children, 103, 110 and male unchastity, 76 Martin Luther on, 171, 174, 194, 207 orphans, 9 Ourense, 9 Ozment, Steven, 87, 97, 109n36 When Fathers Ruled, 97 pagans, 190 Palestine, 23 Palm Sunday, 135 pamphlets marriage, 71–89, 120 Werner Steiner’s (Zurich citizen), 26n25, 36 Pamplona, battle of, 48, 52 papacy and clerical marriage, 77 and Ignatius of Loyola, 55–56n36, 64–65 Martin Luther, attacks on, 201–2, 201n42, 206, 208 rumors in Augsburg calendar revolt, 143 Werner Steiner (Zurich citizen), papal associations of, 23, 31, 35–36 papists Martin Luther, slander of, 196, 201n42, 206 rumors in Augsburg calendar revolt, 149 See also Catholics paradise. See Eden, garden of Paris, 34–35, 53, 109, 141–43 “Parisian wedding,” 142–43, 145, 157, 160 parquet des petits, 131 Pater Noster, 135 paterfamilias, 125, 134. See also patriarchy patriarchy burdens of, xvii, 36 in Calvinism, xiv, 125–26 challenges to, 72, 132 in French Reformed tradition, 132–35 guidance literature, 22

Index Marc Breitenberg on, 23 in Martin Luther’s stages of life, 173 “patriarchal dividend,”68 Protestant emphasis on, 46 in Reformation Geneva, 97–100, 116 in Reformation Germany, burdens of, xiii, 71–89 in Swiss code of masculinity, 33 patrilineality, 66 Paul, Saint, 85, 174–75, 201n42, 204 Paul III (pope), 64 Paumgartner, Balthasar, 79 Paumgartner, Madgalena, 79 Peace of Augsburg, 73n10, 141, 159 Pelikan, Jaroslav, 192n8 Pelikan, Konrad, 32 Pena, Domingos da (Galician farmer), 11 Pentecost, 129, 155, 157 Périgord, 136 Peter, Saint, 135, 174 Peter, Wolf (Augsburg citizen), 151 pewing, 130–31 Philip II, 4 Philip of Hesse, 80, 199 piety, xiv, 37–38, 85, 95–117, 125 pilgrimages, 23, 35–36 plague, 25, 73n15 Platter, Thomas (Zurich humanist), 38n68 Polanco, Juan Alfonso de, 50 polygamy, 85, 196, 199, 199n38, 206 Pomerania, 73n11, 73n13, 77 Portugal, 16 Portuguese rebellion of 1640, 12 Potier, Denis (Genevan citizen), 104–5 Potiphar’s wife (unnamed), 207 pregnancy biblical patriarchs, problematic pregnancies involving, 199 Katharina von Bora’s, 182 and labor pain, 79, 193, 195 and Martin Luther’s commentary on the Fall, 173 and unwed women, 5, 11, 84, 131 Presles, Jehan de, 110–11 procreation and Martin Luther’s commentary on nature of men and women, 169–70, 186 and Martin Luther’s commentary on sin and lust, 193, 195–97, 199, 202–6 property defense of, 141, 144, 150 in Galicia, rights of, 13–15, 17 and marriage, 84, 133 partible inheritance, 14

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Index refund request, former monk, 80 “sale” of Swiss mercenaries, 34 of Werner Steiner (Zurich citizen), 31, 36 See also disinheritance; inheritance Protestantism confessional crisis in Augsburg, 140–60 and definition of lust, 190–191 Dutch, 143 French Reformed tradition, 120–37 and Jesuits, 46–47, 61, 64, 67 marriage and family, emphasis on, 99 and masculinity in scholarship, xi and patriarchy, 21, 71–84, 74n16, 97, 108 and Werner Steiner’s (Zurich citizen) conversion, 24, 26, 32, 38–39 providership in French Reformed tradition, 134–35 in Galicia, xii, 3–8, 14, 17 Martin Luther on male role, 171, 173–75, 195 in Reformation Geneva, 96–98, 101–13 in Reformation Germany, xiv, 71, 78–79, 83, 88 prudery, 191, 201 Prussia, 184 Pucci, Antonio, 35 punishment, 79, 85 Augsburg confessional crisis, cautionary punishments, 159 banishment, 86, 140, 149, 154–55 chastising, 104, 108, 110, 115, 132 children, 110–11 corporal, 149, 154, 157 death sentence, 24, 136, 157 French Reformed church elders’ duty, 131 house arrest, 24 Martin Luther’s thought on Adam’s, 171 in Reformation Geneva, cases involving traditional masculinity, 101, 104–8, 110–11, 115 Rabelais, François: Gargantua, 22 Rachel, 199, 205–6 Radcliffe-Brown, Alfred Reginald, 180 rape, 206n57 Rebecca, 199 rebellion, 12, 142, 155–57 Reconquest, 56 Reeser, Todd W., xi Reformation, xi, xv, xvii, 22, 30, 31 in France, 137 in Geneva, 95–117 in Germany, 71–89, 190–209 Heinrich Bullinger’s history of, 40 and masculinity, 37, 120–21, 136 and sexual desire, 53

225 Reformation scholarship, xi, 168 treatment of sexuality, 191–92, 191n5, 208 Reformed church, French Discipline of the Reformed Churches of France, The, 122 male preeminence and gender separation 130–32, 135–36 male role as church elders, 126–31, 137 male role in Eucharist, 126–31, 137 male role in marital consent, 132–34 male roles in baptism, 121–25 masculinity intensified in, xv, 120–37 Reformed church, Swiss, xiv, 23, 26, 31, 33, 35, 39–40 Rehlinger, Anton Christoph (Augsburg council lord), 146 Rehlinger, Lord Mayor (Stadtpfleger), 148 Reichung, Carl (Augsburg patrician), 150–51 religious education, paternal responsibility for in French Reformed tradition, 123–28, 132–34, 137 in Reformation Geneva, 96–103, 100n10, 100n12, 107, 112–17, 114n44 religious orders. See clerical life religious polarization, 142, 160 Reloj de príncipes (Guevara), 5 Rem (Augsburg gunsmith), 147 Rem, Jakob, 59 remendafoles (men without spirit), 3–4 Renaissance, 22–23, 25, 82n45 Rentz, Sebastian (Augsburg citizen), 151–54, 151n42 Rey-Henningsen, Marisa, 16n61, 17 Rhegius, Urbanus, 73–77, 74n16 Ribadeneyra, Pedro de, 51, 55 Rive, Ameyd de la, the younger, 111–12 Rodríguez de Figueroa, Juan. See Juan Rodríguez de Figueroa Romans, 190, 201n42 Rome, 48–49, 53, 62–63, 201 Roper, Lyndal, xiii, 22, 97, 120 Roser, Isabel, 62, 64 Roth, Stephan (Zwickau scribe), 175 Rudolf II, 140, 143, 157, 159 rumormongering armed conflict, leading to 154–56 arrests for agitation, 146–56 in Augsburg confessional crisis, xv, 140–60 collective fear response, 141–44, 148–49, 149n33, 152, 154–55, 154n55, 157– 60 crossing lines of class, 150–54 male, 142, 150, 153–54, 153n51, 154n55 source credibility in, 151n43, 154n56, 157 Rüst, Anna (wife of Werner Steiner), 31, 37

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226 Sachs, Hans (Nuremberg shoemaker and poet), 102, 112 sacraments, 137. See also baptism; Eucharist; marriage Saint-Amans, 124–27 Saint-André-de-Sangonis (church), 127 Saint-Gervais, 109, 125 Saint-Pierre, 104 Saint-Roman-de-Codières, 129 Saints Simon and Jude holiday, 146–50 Salas Barbadillo, Alonso Gerónimo de: El caballero perfecto (The Perfect Gentleman), 6 San Cosme, Colegio de. See Colegio de San Cosme Sancta Clara, Abraham a (baroque preacher), 50n15 Santiago de Compostela, 10, 12 Sarah, 199, 204n50 Satan, 125, 170, 195, 200. See also devil, the Saxony, 123 Schmale, Wolfgang, 22 Schmalkaldic War, 159 Schmiedgasse. See Smithy Lane Schnell, Rüdiger, 168, 185 Schöbl, Hans (servant of Lucas Stenglin), 151– 52 Schönefeld, Eva, 184 Schumann, Robert: Frauenliebe und Leben, x Schwabeneck, 148 Schwäbisch Gmünd, 73n9, 75 Schwäbisch Hall, 73n10 Schwemmer, Hans (Augsburg servant boy), 151–54 Schwyz, 25, 29, 32, 35, 37 Scott, Joan, ix Sedan (church), 131 Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky, 25 sedition, 142, 157 seduction, 5–6, 13–14, 14n50 self-defense, xv, 142, 144, 147, 149–50, 156– 60 selfhood, 21, 28–30, 66 sermons Andreas Althamer, marriage defense, 73n9 anti-Catholic fear, inducing, 140, 143, 155 and Bible, 130 funeral, x, 208n62 of Luther, Martin, 201n42 on marriage, 37, 71n1, 169 moral contract principle, 49n15 reform, 26n26 sexual activities of women, 192 Veit Dietrich and Luther’s house sermons, 73n12

Index Seth, 198 sexual heresy. See heresy, sexual sexuality adultery, xii, 6, 13–16, 14n50, 75, 80, 85– 86, 191, 200, 205–6 age-disparate, 199, 204–5 anal intercourse, 28 in Calvinist discipline, regulated, 131 concubinage, 53, 54, 186, 199 disfunction, 52, 177 heterosexuality, 21, 23, 27, 78 homosexuality, xiii, xvi, 23–28, 32–35, 37, 40–41, 78, 200–201, 201n42 Ignatius of Loyola’s sex life, 51 illicit sex in Galicia, 10–16 illicit sex, Martin Luther’s commentary on, 200, 206 illicit sex monitored in French Reformed tradition, 126, 131–32, 137, 172 illicit sex in Reformation Geneva, 105–7 illicit sex in Reformation Germany, 75–78 illicit sex of Werner Steiner (Zurich citizen), 23–24, 27–28, 32–35, 37 illicit sex and women, discovery and blame, xv, 192, 195, 202 incest, xvi, 190, 196, 199–200, 202–3 licit sex, 21–23, 37, 196, 199, 206 in Martin Luther’s commentary, xv in Martin Luther’s commentary on sex as tainted by sin, 172, 176, 186 Martin Luther’s sexuality, 177, 186 masturbation, 27 masturbation, mutual, 25, 27 premarital, xii, 11, 13, 51 promiscuity, 11, 74–75, 186, 199, 207 prostitution, 37, 192 rape, 206n57 Reformation scholarship, treatment in, 21, 191–92, 191n5 restraint, male, xi, 28–29, 74, 77–78, 172, 178, 208–9 virility, 3, 11, 53, 66, 88, 102, 107, 136, 144, 169, 177 See also lust shame, 16, 59, 86, 190, 195, 205 Shecham, 206n57 Shem (son of Noah), 197, 199 Shepard, Alexandra, xi sin and Ignatius of Loyola, 55, 57, 64 and John Calvin, 106, 116 and Martin Luther, 172–74, 176, 186, 194–95, 198 sexual, 10–11, 28, 35, 75–79, 131–32, 194–95, 200–201, 201n42, 206n57 See also original sin

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Index sleep, 58 Smithy Lane (Augsburg), 148–49 Society of Jesus. See Jesuits Sodom, 35, 200–201, 201n42 Solomon, 198 sons-in-law, 5, 15 Sorbonne, 28, 35 Spain, xii, 3–18, 53, 64n73 Spalatin, Georg, 176 Spanish courtiers’ code of masculinity, 5–6, 12 Spanish Fury, xv, 143 Sprendlingen, 73n8 Sprenger, Jakob, 172n21 Sprichwörter (Franck), 76 St. Anna Church, 140 St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, xv, 142–43 Steiner, Leonhard (mayor of Zug), 31 Steiner, Michael (brother of Werner Steiner), 33–34 Steiner, Uli (brother of Werner Steiner), 34 Steiner, Werner (1452–1517, father of Werner Steiner), 34 Steiner, Werner (Zurich citizen), xiii, 23–41 Stenglin, Lucas (Augsburg doctor), 150–52, 150n37 stigmata, 57 Stoicism, xi Stralsund, 73n13 strappado, 148 St. Sebald, 73n12 Stuttgart, 73n10 Swanson, R. N., 172 Switzerland, masculinity reform in, 21–41 Talkenberger, Heike, x Tamar (daughter-in-law of Judah), 202 Taylor, Scott, 13 tears, xiii, 49, 56–58, 56n37, 183 temples, 122–23, 128, 130–31 temptation, 29–30 Terrade, Michel and Pierre (Bas-Limousin notaries), 134–35 Tertullian, 122 testicles, 201–2n42 testify, 201–2n42 Teutonic Knights, 80 Thirty Years’ War, 141 Torgau, 73n15 Torres, Father Miguel, 64n73 torture, 146, 148, 153 Tour de Constance, 136 Treptow, 73n11 trials, investigative agitation and spreading rumors, calendar

227 revolt in Augsburg, 140–60 cases involving masculinity in Reformation Genevan, xiv, 95, 101–15, 112n40 female challenges to male authority in French Reformed tradition, 126, 132–34, 136 heresy, sexual, of Werner Steiner (Zurich citizen) for, 24–29, 32–34, 37 of Ignatius of Loyola, 63 Tridentine Catholics. See Catholicism, Tridentine Troyes, 127 Tübingen, 73n9 Tuy, 12 Twinam, Ann, 11 Ulm, 157 University of Paris, 34–35 urination, 194n18 uxorilocal residence, xii, 15–16 Varoud, Amyed, 104–5 Vega Osorio, Isabel de (daughter of Leonora de Vega Osorio), 63n67 Vega Osorio, Leonora de (Alcala pilgrim), 63n67 Venezuela, 61 Venice, 35, 38n68 Viane, 124, 129 Vida es sueño, La (Calderón de la Barca), 7 Vignes, Jaques de, 110–11 violence in Augsburg calendar revolt, xv, 141–42, 154n57, 160 Ignatius of Loyola’s rejection of, 53, 60–61 in males in Galicia, 3, 7–8, 12–14 in males in Reformation Geneva, 102, 110 in males in Reformation Germany, 78–79 Virgin Mary, xiii, 52, 60–61, 67, 134–35 virility challenged, 136 in Galicia, public importance, 11 as gender norm, 88, 102, 107 and Ignatius of Loyola, 53, 66 Martin Luther’s, 177 in Spanish society, 3 Vives, Juan Luis, 4–5 Education of a Christian Woman, 4–5 Volksmund, 82 Vom ehelichen Leben (Luther), 73n15 von Bora, Katharina (Käthe), xi, xvi–xvii, 73n15, 175–86 daughter, Magdalena, 182

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228 von Bora, Magdalena (“Muhme Lehna”), 178–79 Von Ehesachen, 73n15 von Grumbach, Argula. See Argula von Grumbach von Manteuffel, Erasmus, 73n14 Von Priester Ehe (Klingebeyl), 73n14 von Schwinichen, Hans, 98 vulnerability, male, xiv, 23, 74–78, 82–83, 87–88, 116n50, 136 Walther, Bernhard (Augsburg patrician), 150–51, 150n36 Ward, Mary, 65 Weber, Max, 137 weddings, 75, 81, 106, 142, 174, 179 Weil der Stadt, 73n10 Weissbrücker, Anna, 74n16 Wetterau, 73n8 Wetzel, Margarete Gräter, 73n10 When Fathers Ruled (Ozment), 97 Widenmann, Christoff (Augsburg shoemaker), 147, 149–50, 153 widows, x, 84–85, 107, 179 wifely accommodation, 82 wifely submission, 97, 107, 126, 173, 183, 195 wisdom, 8–9 Wismar, 73n13 witches, 167n1, 172n21 Wittenberg, 73n11–13, 73n15, 175, 181 women and baptism, 121–22 biblical, who caused men to sin, 198 as defective men, x as domestic support, xiv, xvii, 81–82, 82n45, 87, 120, 170, 173, 176, 195 as emotional support, xiv, 82–84, 87, 170 and illicit sex, discovery and blame, xv, 192, 195, 202 male abuse of, 84 male control over, 5, 15, 71, 81–84, 121, 126, 174–75

Index male exclusion of, 61–65, 67, 122 male guardianship of, 6, 10–11, 13–14, 53, 60, 76, 78, 132, 173–74 male seduction of, 6 male slander of, 76, 168n3, 179, 182 Malleus maleficarum, 172 manly, xii, 7, 175, 181, 186 Martin Luther’s commentary on nature of women, 167–86 passim, 193–94, 197–99, 203, 206n57, 208–9 misogyny, xvi, 169, 172, 178 motherhood, 99–100, 100n10, 107, 112n40, 116, 136, 170, 193 nuns, 64–65, 73–74n15, 80, 192, 196, 209 partnership, full, xvii, 167n1 Reformation scholarship, treatment in, 191, 208 religious, xi, 72, 78, 136–37 and rumor, 142, 153, 154n55 separation in church, xiv, 130–31 Sprichwörter (Franck), 76 unruly, 72, 126 widows, x, 84–85, 107, 179 witches, 167n1, 172n21 See also pregnancy; sexuality women’s history, ix–xi Wunder, Heide, x, 98, 102, 208n62 Wurstle (Augsburg gunsmith), 147 Württemberg, 73n10 Zell, Katharina Schütz, xi Zerbst, 79 Zilpah (wife of Jacob), 206 Zug, 23–24, 26–27, 31, 34, 37 Zulsdorf, 181 Zurich, xiii, 23–26, 28, 31–33, 36, 38–40 Zwickau, 97, 175 Zwingli, Huldrych, xiii, 23, 26, 33–34, 34n48, 38, 39n73 Zwinglians, 26