A Life in Letters: Argula Von Grumbach (1492–1556/7) Peter Matheson
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Early Modern Women: An Interdisciplinary Journal 2009, vol. 4 A Life in Letters: Argula von Grumbach (1492–1556/7) Peter Matheson omen’s letters in the early modern period offer insight into the Wcontours of daily life, the networks which provided food and goods and services, and the geography of human relationships, but we are learn- ing to tread carefully when interpreting them. As Jane Couchman and Ann Crabb point out, “We no longer read women’s letters as simple, sincere expressions of emotions and experiences.”1 The style, the language, the forms of address and farewell, the relationship to the recipient are all modi- fiers. Phrases such as “heartily beloved mother” may be conventional, but need we assume that they are insincere? Today’s reader will miss nuances, and be liable to pick up quite unintended messages. Letters are as varied as costumes or songs or the conversations they contrive to replace. Technically, letters in this period posed difficulties to do with tem- peramental quills and scarce paper and messy ink, not to mention the need for a trustworthy letter carrier. Writing a letter could be a major undertak- ing. Men, certainly those of the nobility, put it off whenever they could. Tradespeople were seldom confident of their writing skills. Letters tended to be hurried affairs, as the rubric “in haste” just before the final signature indicates. They might have to be whipped off at the most inopportune moments, because a carter, who could deliver the letter, had unexpectedly turned up, or because a letter carrier was impatiently, and expensively, waiting. Yet substantial investments of time, effort, and emotion went into the writing of letters. Children of the nobility, for example, were often edu- cated far from home, and could be desperate for news and encouragement, 27 28 EMWJ 2009, vol. 4 Peter Matheson money or clothes. At times of family crisis, or during the religious turmoil of the early 1520s and the convulsions of the Peasants’ War, letters were a lifeline, passing on crucial information, maintaining networks of support, relieving anxieties. A prized letter from “Dr Martin” (Luther) would be passed around one’s entire circle of friends.2 The mid-summer and mid- winter missive from the merchant, with the accumulated six month bill, on the other hand, was no doubt dreaded. This selection of letters highlights the interests, contacts, and responsibilities of a quite remarkable Bavarian noblewoman, Argula von Grumbach. She was the mother of four children, though only one of them survived her, and was a widow for much of her later life, her second hus- band dying soon after the first. She played a key role in the early years of the Reformation in Bavaria, and is one of the select group of outstanding women writers in the early modern period.3 In 1523–1524, she penned seven letters (and a poem) addressed to Ingolstadt University on the Danube, to her prince, Duke William of Bavaria, to two other princes, to the city councils of Ingolstadt and Regensburg, and to an influential rela- tive. The printing presses snapped them up, the first pamphlet running to a sensational seventeen editions. The pamphlet audaciously suggested a public debate in German between herself, a lay person and a woman, and the prestigious Ingolstadt theologians. The clerics had coerced a young Lutheran, Arsacius Seehofer, into recanting his views before the assembled University. Her publication raised a raft of wider issues: about censorship, the right of women to speak out on religious matters, the taboo subject of violence against women, and the need to reform the church and the legal and educational system. These pamphlets indicated her formidable skills as a writer and as an exegete of Scripture, but are not included here because they are already available in English.4 As a result of her open support of the Lutheran movement, despite edicts against such support, her husband, Frederick, was dismissed as ducal administrator at Dietfurt. In the wake of the Peasants’ War, moreover, a repressive atmosphere set in. She could publish no more pamphlets, but continued to promote the reformist cause on a local level. Her children were educated by Lutheran teachers, her eldest attending Wittenberg University. A Life in Letters 29 The selected correspondence throws light on teaching practices, cur- riculum, and the emerging tensions between schools and the lifestyle of the male nobility, including Argula’s brother and husband. It documents, too, the cooling of initially warm relationships with liberal Catholics such as Frederick von Leonrod, a canon at Eichstett, as confessional divisions hardened.5 At the Diet of Augsburg in 1530, Argula von Grumbach not only urged the Protestant princes to stand firm but also sought to patch up disagreements between Wittenberg and the South German Protestants on the Eucharist. She met Luther personally for the first time at Coburg and seems to have initiated him into the mysteries of weaning infants.6 Her life was punctuated by tragedy. Her husband died in 1530, and her second husband, Graf von Schlick, died in 1535. Her daughter Apollonia and her eldest son George died in 1539, and there is a grim reference in the Würzburg archives to her attempts to track down the murderer, named Kretzer, of her second son, Hans-Jörg, in 1545.7 Only her son Gottfried survived her.8 The letters presented here come from an impressive corpus of per- sonal papers, 132 documents in all, some quite extensive, some undated fragments, mainly dealing with money and business matters. About half come from the 1530s, most of the remainder from the 1520s and the 1540s. Their fortuitous survival is probably due to their impounding as part of a later case involving her son, Gottfried, before the imperial court, the Reichskammergericht.9 Clearly she, not her husband, looked after the finances. The mer- chants’ bills contain fascinating details about the textiles, food, and spices (including saffron) she ordered for the household. It was to her that the Würzburg canon, Jörg von Grumbach, appealed in October 1523 for the repayment of a loan of 20 gulden he had made to them “in their distress.”10 Her husband had failed to reply. Like some other noblewomen, she took responsibility not only for household matters and for the education of the children, an expensive business, but for the running of the estates, at Burggrumbach in the north and at Lenting, near Ingolstadt. For a while, Martin Cronthal, the city clerk of Würzburg, her kinsman and close friend, managed the estates in the north for her. He saw her as his “sister in Christ,” and they exchanged letters and Lutheran pamphlets.11 His 30 EMWJ 2009, vol. 4 Peter Matheson attempts to mediate between the authorities and the rebellious peasants in Würzburg in the summer of 1525 led to his imprisonment and dismissal. The correspondence has frequent references to planting and harvest- ing, the sale of wine and wheat, the care of the cattle, the misconduct of farm workers. She was proud of her cheeses, arranged for the digging of wells and the maintenance of the buildings, and sponsored the manufac- ture of cooking oils. Two letters sent from Burggrumbach by her teenage son George to his mother in the summer of 1532 detail his abortive attempts to nego- tiate the transfer of lands from his deceased father’s name to his own. Incidentally he describes Hans, Adam von Grumbach’s son, as “a peasant, a typical Grumbach,” hardly complimentary to his own father, and makes disparaging remarks about the Franks, in comparison to the Bavarians. He identifies, that is, with his mother’s culture. Throughout her life Argula von Grumbach was in financial difficulty, taking out loans, postponing payments to tradesmen, repeatedly pawning her jewelry. She generally paid for her purchases in grain or other produce, as a letter of October 18, 1535, from Erhart Himmel signifies. He extended her a year’s credit. On the 24th of the same month, Salomon, who had lent her money,12 threatened in a letter to sell off her pawned necklace because of the delay in redeeming it. Financial embarrassment was commonplace among the nobility, but in her case it was not brought about by prodigal spending, but by a paucity of resources. It may be that the death in 1535 of her second husband Graf von Schlick accentuated her financial problems. Despite this, she insisted on all four children receiving a good education. Unfortunately, none of the letters she wrote to key reforming fig- ures—such as Luther, Spalatin, Melanchthon, and the Nuremberg reform- er Osiander—has survived, nor their letters to her.13 Most of her letters to her children, to their teachers, to her friends and relatives are also lost, as are any she may have written to her husbands. Luther’s handwritten dedi- cation of a copy of his 1522 book of prayers to “the noble woman, Hargula (sic) von Stauff at Grumbach” was thought to be lost, but I came across it, safe and sound, in the Berlin State Library (see fig. 1). We have to rely for information about her on letters addressed to her from friends, relatives, tradespeople, innkeepers, and her children. Her eldest, George, for exam- A Life in Letters 31 Figure 1. Eyn bett// buchlin// Der zehen gepott.// Des glawbens.// Des vater vnßers,// Des Aue Marien// Vnnd ettlich ver=deutschte Psalmen.// D. Mar. Luthers (Wittenberg: Joh. Grunenberg, 1522). A Little Book of Prayers, with the Ten Commandments, the Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, the Ave Maria, and some psalms translated into German by Dr Martin Luther. Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin; Luth 2900 KD.