Beyond Women and the Family: Towards a Gender Analysis of the Reformation

Author(s): Merry E. Wiesner

Source: The Sixteenth Century Journal, Vol. 18, No. 3 (Autumn, 1987), pp. 311-321
Published by: The Sixteenth Century Journal
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SixteenthCenturyJournal
XVIII, No. 3, 1987

Beyond Women and the Family:

Towards a Gender Analysis of the Reformation
MerryE. Wiesner
University
ofWisconsin-Milwaukee
havebegunto exploretheimpactofRefyears,historians
Withinthelastfifteen
andtoevaluideasand institutional
ormation
changeson womenandthefamily,
Thesestudiesmakecreativeuse ofnew
ate women'srolesin theReformation.
arerarelyintegrated
intogeneralintermethodsand sources,buttheirfindings
had
theidea thatthe"real" Reformation
reinforces
Thisghettoizing
pretations.
gender
nothingto do withwomen.We needto movebeyondthis,and integrate
class. Thiswillmeanreof analysisas fullyas we now integrate
as a category
basicterminology.
issues,and analyzing
thinking
manypoliticaland intellectual
OF THEREFORMATION
have traditionallydealt with issues of
HISTORIANS
gender in one of threeways. Most have simplyignoredthem,assuming
either that women shared theirfathers' and husbands' experience so
that gender made no difference,or else that women played no significant part in the Reformation.A second group has focused on the few
women for whom there are numerous sources, generallyqueens and
noblewomen who supported or suppressed the Protestant
Reformation.'These make comparisons with male rulers possible, but
are limitedto a verysmall group of extraordinarypeople.
A third type of study has examined male opinions about gender
roles.2Law codes, sermons, church and school ordinances, tracts,and
(London: Blackie and Sons, 1857); Nancy
'James Anderson, Ladiesof theReformation
Lyman Roelker,"The Appeal of Calvinism to FrenchNoblewomen in the SixteenthCenHistory2 (1971/1972):391-418 and "The Role ofNobleofInterdisciplinary
tury,"TheJournal
63 (1972); Charmarie
women in the FrenchReformation,"ArchivfuirReformationsgeschichte
Blaisdell, "Renee de France Between Reformand Counter-Reform,"ArchivfurReforna"Louise of Savoy and the Reformof
63 (1972): 196-225; Gordon Griffiths,
tionsgeschichte
the Church," SixteenthCenturyJournal10/3(1979): 29-36.
Reformades Vereinfuir
2WaldemarKamerau, "Die Reformationund die Ehe, " Schriften
39 (1892); A. Bomer, "Die deutschen Humanisten und das weibliche
tionsgeschichte
4 (1897): 94-112; Sigmund Baranowski,Luthers
furKulturgeschichte
Geschlecht," Zeitschrift
Lehrevon der Ehe (Munster: Heinrich Schoningh, 1913); Lilly Zarncke, "Die Naturhafte
25 (1935): 281-305; ArthurCarl PiepEheanschauung Luthers,"ArchivfurKulturgeschichte
korn, "The Doctrine of Marriage in the Theologians of Lutheran Orthodoxy," Concordia
Theological
Monthly34/7(1953): 465-89, and "The Theologians of LutheranOrthodoxyon
Monthly35/4(1954): 276-83; Olavi
Polygamy,Celibacy,and Divorce," ConcordiaTheological
Lahteenmaki,Sexus und Ehe bei Luther,Schriftender Luther-AgricolaGesellschaft,no. 10
(Turku: LutherAgricolaGesellschaft,1955); RobertStupperich,"Die Frau in der Publizis37 (1957): 204-33; William Lazareth,
tik der Reformation,"Archivfir Kulturgeschichte
Lutheron theChristianHome(Philadelphia: Muhlenberg,1960); ElisabethAhme, "Wertung
und Bedeutung der Frau bei Mertin Luther," Luther,35: 61-68; EmmettW. Cocke, Jr.,

" Religion
"Luther'sViewofMarriageand theFamily,
in Life42 (5pring1973):103-16.

311
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312

TheSixteenth
Century
Journal

other prescriptivesources give many clues to male opinions about the

properroles formen and women. The "debate about women," whether
women were moral or immoral,good or bad, rationalor emotional,sinful or saved, was a hot topic forhumanists, theologians, and satirists
duringthe earlymodernperiod. Both Protestantand Catholicreformers
enteredintothisdebate, adding theiropinions about the natureofwomen. The various opinions are relativelyeasy to assess as the sources are
oftenpublished, and the termsof discussion familiarto those who work
with other philosophical and theological topics. Male attitudesformed
the intellectualstructuresand institutionswithinwhich men and women operated, so such studies are a valuable startingpoint in analyzing
how one group viewed gender differences.We must be wary of taking
themtoo far,however, especiallysince partofthe earlymodern "debate
about women" was simplya rhetoricalexercise.
Withinthe last fifteenyears, the rise of women's historyand family
historyhas led to new ways of exploringissues of gender. Historiansof
women have evaluated the reformers'ideas about women more care3EleanorMcLaughlin, "Male and Female in ChristianTradition:Was There a Reformation in the SixteenthCentury?" in Male and Female:ChristianApproachesto Sexuality,ed.
Ruth TiffanyBarnhouse and Urban T. Holmes III (New York: Seabury, 1976); JohnH.
Bratt"The Role and Status of Women in the Writingsof JohnCalvin," in Renaissance,Reformation,Resurgence,ed. Peter de Klerk (Grand Rapids: Calvin Theological Seminary
1976); and CharmarieJenkinsBlaisdell "Response to 'The Role and Status of Women in
the Writingsof JohnCalvin' " in Ibid; JohnK. Yost, "The Value of Married Life forthe
Social Order in the EarlyEnglishRenaissance," Societas6 (1976): 25-39 and "Changing Attitudes toward Married Life in Civic and ChristianHumanism," OccasionalPapersofthe
AmericanSocietyforReformation
Research1 (1977): 151-66; Lowell Green, "The Education of
Women in the Reformation,"HistoryofEducationQuarterly
19/1(1979): 93-116; JoyceIrwin,
ed. Womanhood
inRadicalProtestantism
(New York: E. Mellen, 1979); Ian MacLean, TheRenaissanceNotionofWoman:A Studyin theFortunesofScholasticism
and MedicalSciencein European IntellectualLife (Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1980); Kathleen Davies,
"Continuityand Change in LiteraryAdvice on Marriage," in Marriageand Society:Studies
in theSocialHistoryofMarriage,ed. R. B. Outhwaite (New York: St. Martins,1981); ManfredP. Fleischer,"Are Women Human? The Debate of 1595Between Valens Acidalius and
Simon Gediccus," SixteenthCenturyJournal12/2 (1981): 107-21; Charmarie Blaisdell,
"Calvin's Lettersto Women: The Courting of Ladies in High Places," SixteenthCentury
Journal13/3(1982): 67-84; Suzanne W. Hull, Chaste,Silentand Obedient:EnglishBooksfor
Women1475-1640(San Marino, Calif.: Huntingdon Library,1982); J. K. Sowards, "Erasmus and the Education of Women," SixteenthCenturyJournal13/4(1982): 77-89; Edmund
Leites, "The Duty to Desire: Love, Friendshipand Sexualityin Some PuritanTheories of
Marriage," Journal
ofSocialHistory15 (1983): 383-408; Carole Levin, "Advice on Women's
Behaviorin Three Tudor Homilies," International
Journal
ofWomen'sStudies6/2(1983): 17685; Paul Russell, " 'Your sons and your daughtersshall-prophesy':Common People and
the Futureof the Reformationin PamphletLiteratureof SouthwesternGermanyto 1525,"
Archivfir Reformationsgeschichte
74 (1983): 122-40; JaneDempsey Douglass, Women,Freedom,and Calvin(Philadelphia: Westminster,1985); KatherineUsher Henderson and Barbara F. McManus, Half Humankind:Contextsand Textsof the Controversy
AboutWomenin
England,1540-1640(Urbana: Universityof Illinois Press, 1985); MerryE. Wiesner "Luther
and Women: The Death of Two Marys" in DisciplinesofFaith:Religion,Patriarchy
and Politics,ed. JamesObelkevich, Raphael Samuel, and Lyndal Roper (London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul, 1986).

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A GenderAnalysisoftheReformation 313
fully,paying particularattentionto the contradictionbetween female
spiritual equality and wifelyobedience, the end of the veneration of
Mary and the saints, and the importanceof femaleliteracy.They are examininghow these ideas were communicatedthroughthe use of plays,
woodcuts, marriageand funeralsermons,pamphlets,letters,and popular stories.3
The institutionaland politicalchanges which accompanied the Reformationoftenaffectedwomen's lives more than changes in religious
ideas alone. The closing of the convents,the secularizationand centralization of public welfareand charitableinstitutions,changes in marriage
and baptismal ordinances, the possibilityof divorce, clericalmarriage,
the closing of public brothels,and the hardships createdby the religious
wars all had a particularimpact on women, and have recentlybeen the
focus of local and regional studies.4 Some of these politicaland institutional changes were the directresultsof Protestantdoctrinewhile some
ofthemwere unintended,thoughnot unforeseen,consequences. Whatever the case, examiningthem has oftenrequired archivalresearch,for
the fullrecords of such changes have not been published.
Historiansofwomen have also begun to explorewomen's responses
to the Reformation,responses ofboth words and actions.5Women were
4NatalieDavis, "City Women and Religious Change" and "Women on Top" in her Societyand Culturein EarlyModernFrance(Stanford,StanfordUniversityPress, 1975); Sherrin
Marshall Wyntges,"Women in the ReformationEra" in BecomingVisible:Womenin European History,ed. Renate Bridenthaland Claudia Koonz (New York: Houghton Mifflin,
1977), and "Women and Religious Choices in the SixteenthCenturyNetherlands,"Archiv
far Reformationsgeschichte
75 (1984): 276-89; Ruth Liebowitz, "Virgins in the Service of
Christ: The Dispute over an Active Apostolate forWomen During the CounterReformation,"in WomenofSpirit,ed. RosemaryRadfordRuether(New York: Simon and Schuster,
1979), 131-52; Dagmar Lorenz, "Vom Klosterzur Kilche: Die Frau vor und nach der ReformationDr. MartinLuthers," in Die Frau vonderReformation
zur Romantik:Die Situationder
Frau vordernHintergrund
der Literaturund Sozialgeschichte,
ed. Barbara Becker-Contarino
(Bonn: Bouvier Verlag HerbertGrundmann, 1980), 7-35; E. W. Monter,"Women in CalvinistGeneva," Signs 6/2(1980), 189-209; Susan Karant-Nunn,"Continuityand Change:
Some Effectsof the Reformationon the Women ofZwickau," Sixteenth
Century
Journal13/2
(1982): 17-42; R. Po-Chia Hsia, Societyand ReligioninMinster,1535-1618(New Haven: Yale
UniversityPress, 1984); Thomas Max Safley, Let No Man Put Asunder:The ControlofMarriagein the GermanSouthwest:A Comparative
Study1550-1600 (Kirksville,Mo.: Sixteenth
CenturyJournalPublishers,1984); Lyndal Roper, "Going to Church and Street:Weddings
in ReformationAugsburg," Past and Present106 (1985): 62-101, and "Discipline and Respectability:Prostitutionand the Reformationin Augsburg," HistoryWorkshop
19 (1985);
3-28.
5Mostof the sources in the previous note also discuss women's activities.Additional
sources may be found in: Roland Bainton, Womenof theReformation
in Germanyand Italy
(Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1971), WomenoftheReformation
in Franceand England(Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1973), and WomenoftheReformation:
FromSpain to Scandinavia(Minneapolis; Augsburg,1977); A. M. McGrath,Womenand theChurch(Garden City,N.Y.: Doubleday, 1972); PatrickCollinson, "The Role of Women in the EnglishReformation,Illustrated
by the Life and Friendshipsof Anne Locke," Studiesin ChurchHistory2 (1975): 258-75;
Claire Cross, " 'Great reasoners in scripture': The Activities of Women Lollards,
1380-1530," in MedievalWomen,ed. Derek Baker (Oxford: Blackwell, 1978); Minna Wein-

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314

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Journal
TheSixteenth

not simplypassive recipientsof the Reformationmessage, but leftconvents, refusedto leave convents,preached, prophesied, discussed religion with friendsand family,convertedtheirhusbands, lefttheirhusbands, wrote religious poems, hymns, and polemics, and were martyredon all sides of the religiouscontroversy.Officialsources, such as
tax lists, city council minutes, and court documents, reveal some of
these actions, as do occasional published and unpublished writings.
forfewerwomen than men
Finding such sources can be very difficult,
recorded theirthoughts,ideas, and reactions,and when theydid, their
writingswere rarely saved, for they were not regarded as valuable.
Many of Luther's lettersto women, forinstance,are stillextant,though
only a few of theirsto him are. None of his wife's numerous lettersto
him survive, though most of his to her do. Finding informationabout
women in officialsources also poses special problems,forsources are arranged by male names, occupations, and places of residence,withwomen recorded only sporadically and then oftenonly when widowed or
a pictureof women's responses to the
single. Despite these difficulties,
Reformationis slowly emerging,enabling us to compare these across
class, regional, and denominational lines and to the more familiar
responses of men.
Historiansof the familyhave frequentlyfocused on the Reformation
period, viewing it as a time of great change in both the structureand
functionof the family.6Like historiansof women, they have explored
stein, "ReconstructingOur Past: Reflectionson Tudor Women." International
Journalof
Women'sStudies1/2(1978): 133-41; Carolyn Andre, "Some Selected Aspects of the Role of
Women in 16thCenturyEngland," International
Journal
ofWomen's
Studies4/1(1981): 76-88;
Carole Levin, "Women in the Book of Martyrsas Models of Behaviorin Tudor England,"
International
Journalof Women'sStudies4 (1981): 196-207; Retha Warnicke, Womenof the
EnglishRenaissanceand Reformation
(Westport,Conn.; WestportPress, 1983); Lorna Jane
Abray, The People'sReformation:
Magistrates,Commons,and Clergyin Strasbourg1500-1598
(Ithaca: Cornell UniversityPress, 1985); Hans-ChristophRublack, "Martin Lutherand the
Urban Social Experience," SixteenthCenturyJournal16/1(1985): 15-32; MerryE. Wiesner,
"Women's Defense of theirPublic Role" in Womenin theMiddleAges and Renaissance,ed.
Mary Beth Rose (Syracuse: Syracuse UniversityPress, 1985), 1-27; Mary Prior,"Reviled
and CrucifiedMarriages:the Position of Tudor Bishops' Wives," and Marie B. Rowlands,
"Recusant Women, 1560-1640," in Womenin England,1500-1800,ed. Mary Prior(London:
Methuen, 1985), 118-80; Heather M. Vose, "Marguerite of Navarre: that 'Righte English
Woman,' " SixteenthCenturyJournal16/3(1985): 315#33.
6J.L. Flandrin,"Repression and Change in the Sexual Lifeof Young People in Medieval and Early Modern Times," Journalof FamilyHistory2/3 (1977): 196-210; Pierre
Goubert, "Family and Province: A Contributionto the Knowledge of FamilyStructurein
EarlyModern France," Journal
ofFamilyHistory2/3(1977): 179-95; Lawrence Stone, Family,
Sex and Marriagein England1500-1800(London: Penguin, 1977); JoelBerlatsky,"Marriage
and Familyin a Tudor Elite: Familial Patternsof Elizabethan Bishops," JournalofFamily
History3/1 (1978): 6-22; Roger A. P. Finlay, "Population and Fertilityin London,
1580-1650," Journalof FamilyHistory4/1 (1979): 26-38; Hans-Christoph Rublack, "Zur
Sozialstrukturder protestantischeMinderheit in der geistlichenResidenz Bamberg an
Ende des 16. Jahrhunderts,"in The UrbanClasses,theNobility,and theReformation:
Studies
on theSocial Historyof theReformation
in Englandand Germany,ed. WolfgangMommsen,

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A Gender
Analysis
oftheReformation315
both the reformers'ideas about the familyand the impact of legal and
politicalchanges on the familyas an institution.The formerhas meant a
concentrationon the Hausvaterliteratur
and other advice manuals for
parents and children,and the latterhas resultedin analyses of changes
in divorcelaws and inheritanceand guardianshippatterns.In addition,
familyhistorianshave used demographic statisticsto assess changes in
marriagepatterns,illegitimacyrates, number and spacing of children,
and familysize and constitution.They have combined demographic
statisticsand other sources to look at wetnursing,familystrategiesfor
maintainingand increasing wealth, patronage and godparentingpatterns. Drawing on anthropology,they have explored generationalconflict,the role of ritualin familylife,and how kinship systemsoperated.
Familyhistoryhas its own type of source problems in the Reformationperiod. Statisticalevidence is spotty,and categoriesoftenarbitrarily
assigned and changing;it is occasionallydifficult
to tellifan identityis a
name or an occupation,especiallyforwomen, whose maritalstatusis also oftenunclear. Children,particularlygirlsbut in some instances also
boys, were often left out of records until they reached a certain age.
Writtensources are heavily weighted toward the upper classes, or describefamiliesthat are in other ways atypical,such as those of prominent reformersor otherintellectuals.Descriptionsof both ideal and actual familylifeare almost all writtenby men, so thereis a stronggender
bias in the recordsof the one earlymodern institutionin which women
participatedin equal numbers.Nevertheless,existingsources have occasionally been used very creativelyand new sources discovered which
shed more lighton both internalfamilyrelationshipsand the relationship between changes in the familyand wider political and economic
changes.
There is thus some cause foroptimismwhen assessing recentdevelopmentsin both women's and familyhistory,but we stand at a particularlycrucialpoint,and I am disturbedby two trendsin thisarea ofReforwith Peter Alterand RobertScribner(Stuttgart:Klett-Cotta1979), 140-46; Jacques Dupaquier, "Naming Practices, Godparenthood and Kinship in Vexin 1540-1900," Journalof
FamilyHistory6/2 (1981): 135-55; Richard Greaves, Societyand Religionin Elizabethan
England (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1981); Thomas Robisheaux,
"Peasants and Pastors: Rural Youth Control and the Reformation in Hohenlohe,
1540-1680," SocialHistory6 (1981): 281-300; Susan Brigden,"Youth and the EnglishReformation," Past and Present95 (1982): 37-67; Barbara Harris, "Marriage 16th-century
Style:
Elizabeth Staffordand the Third Duke of Norfolk," Journalof Social History15 (1982):
370-82; Michael Mitterauer,The EuropeanFamily:FromPatriarchy
to Partnership
(Chicago:
Universityof Chicago Press, 1982); MiriamChrisman,"Family and Religionin Two Noble
Families: French Catholic and English Puritan," Journalof FamilyHistory8/2 (1983):
190-210; GrantMcCracken, "The Exchange of Childrenin Tudor England: An Anthropological Phenomena in Historical Context," Journalof FamilyHistory8/4 (1983): 303-13;
Stephen Ozment, WhenFathersRuled: FamilyLifein Reformation
Europe(Cambridge: Harvard UniversityPress, 1983); Safley,LetNo Man; ChristianeKlapisch-Zuber,Women,Family, and Ritualin RenaissanceItaly(Chicago: Universityof Chicago Press, 1985).

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mation scholarship.The firstis a trendtoward ghettoizingthe historyof

women and the family,of makingit simplya subset of social history,or
a separate field altogether.This can be seen in somethingas simpleand yet profound-as the way in which new books are cross-listedin
Libraryof Congress classifications.Rarelyare books about women and
the familycross-listedby geographicarea or timeperiod. Someone looking for Mary Prior's recent Womenin EnglishSociety,1500-1800 would
findit only under "women-historyof" and not "England-historyof";
Michael Mitterauer'sThe EuropeanFamilyis listed only under "familyhistoryof." ChristianeKlapisch-Zuber's new collectionof articles,Women, Family,and Ritualin RenaissanceItaly,is not cross-listedunder Renaissance, but only under women, family,and kinship. This reinforcesthe
idea thatthereis a splitbetween so-called real historyand what women
were doing, and thatthe historyof the familyis somehow independent
of political,economic, and social history.
This joint ghettoizingalso leads to viewing the historyof women
and the familyas the same thing,seeing the familyas the sole determinant of women's lives and only marginallyimportantformen. It also ignores women's intellectualand politicalhistorywhile converselyignoring male sexuality and familialroles and gender restrictionson men.
This tendencysometimescomes fromhistoriansof women themselves,
who leave out political questions because they feel they did not really
matterto most women, or shy away fromintellectualwomen because
they were such a minority.We are oftenuncomfortableeven to label
ourselves "Reformation"historiansbecause of the value contentof that
word, and preferthe more value-neutral"early modern." Intellectual
and politicalhistoriansthenfeeltheydon't have to address any ofthe issues raised by the new scholarship on women and the familybecause
such issues are not relevantto theirspecialty.These historiansremove
the "partly" fromNatalie Davis's comment that "the Reformationis
partlya quarrel about paternal authorityamong adult men,"7 and, also
swayed by the mystiqueof the word Reformation,returnto the idea that
the real Reformationhas nothingto do with women. As JaneDempsey
Douglass comments, "So often women's theological questions and
women's historyare marginalizedas irrelevantto 'serious' theology."8
This trendnot only reinforcesa dichotomybetween real historyand
women's history,but it also projectsour idea of the splitbetween public
and privateonto the sixteenthcentury.It makes the familypartof a private realm, distinctfromthe public realm of politicsand economic life.
This is both ahistorical-viewingthe privatizedfamilywe have inherited
from the nineteenth century as somehow timeless-and particularly
7Quoted in VersionsofHistory,ed. MARHO (New York: Pantheon, 1984), 109.
8Douglass, Women,Freedom,and Calvin,8.

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A GenderAnalysisoftheReformation 317
misleading forthe sixteenthcentury,when in both politicaltheoryand
economic realitythe familywas a public institution.It also masks the
factthat the sixteenthcenturysaw a sharper split between public and
privatethan the Middle Ages, and so preventsquestions about why this
was happening.
One ofthe reasons forthiskind of ghettoizingis thatit makes things
easier. It is certainlysimplerto add new materialto traditionalcourses,
texts,and interpretations
by just tackingit on-"add women and stir"
as a sociologistfriendof mine puts it, and in the case of historynot even
much stirringis done. The desire to avoid a tough job is also a factorin
the second disturbingtrend,the unwillingnessto go beyond women's
historyand familyhistoryto gender history,to make gender "as integrated into historicalwork and teaching as class is now."
Untilveryrecentlygender historywould have been impossible,because we had so littleinformationabout the female half of the populationor about the partof male lives being unearthedby familyhistorians.
Some may feel it is stilltoo soon, but I don't thinkso. We who do this
type of researchcannot become exhausted or elated by bringingto light
obscure sources and just be satisfiedwith that. We have to use our new
informationto completelyrethinkcategories of analysis and ways of
asking questions in order to integratethe new material and come up
with a betterunderstandingof the period. We need to develop a methodology of gender analysis now, before the whole storyis in, to help
structurefutureresearchand avoid researchshaped solely by the availabilityof sources. We must overcome our resistance to theory,even
though being more bold and addressing largerissues resultsin harsher
criticism.
This rethinkingcannot be limitedsolely to those whose primaryresearch interestsare the familyor women, but must include all who work
and teach in the Reformationperiod. It will mean analyzing all maledefined categories,such as social and economic class or occupation, to
see which ones include women and how women fitinto them. It will
also mean examining the categories we have generally used only for
women, such as maritalstatus and numberof children,to see how they
determinemen's experiences as well. It will mean examiningnot only
power conflictsbetween families,but within them as well, looking at
economic and ideological sources for the power of individual family
members. It will mean viewing gender not as a physical or social fact,
but as a way of organizingand discussing the social relationsof power.
The changing importance of class and gender makes the picture
even more complex. In medieval Europe, there were more restrictions
by class thanby sex, but the gap between men and women in education,
9NatalieDavis in VisionsofHistory,118.

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political influence, and economic power grew wider in the Renaissance.10Women shared a greatdeal withthe men oftheirown class, and
identifiedwith the aims and aspirationsof theirfathersand husbands,
but could not themselves achieve the same aims. As sixteenth-century
men debated women's nature,becoming more obsessed with women's
sexualityand controllingunmarriedwomen, gender became increasingly importantas a determinantof human experience. Thus to our analyses of social mobilityand class distinctionswe must add analyses of the
possibilities and consequences of stepping outside prescribed gender
roles forboth men and women.
To give an example of the kinds of questions integratinggender into
an analysis can lead to, the Moeller thesis will be used. This is Bernd
Moeller's idea of the relationshipbetween the acceptance of the Reformationand ideas of urban community,firstdiscussed in his essay, "Imperial Cities and the Reformation,""which posits thatimperialcitiesaccepted the Reformation,particularlyin its Zwinglian version, more
readilythan princelyterritories
because the residentsalreadyfelta sense
of communal responsibilitybeforeGod, and wanted to create a perfect,
holy cityon earth. Moeller has already been criticizedby Thomas Brady
forignoringclass antagonisms as motivatingforces,forcreatinga "romanticidealism" of unifiedurban communities.'2What happens when
we begin to ask questions relatingto gender?
Even ifcivicconsciousness was only an ideal, itwas one which went
back to the fourteenthcenturyamong both scholasticsand humanists,
and was based on ideals of public service. Since women were generally
criticized,ratherthan praised, forpublic actions, they were never considered withinthe contextof thisnew ideal, and were thus not members
of this new corpusmysticum.
In termsof actual politics,however, though
women did not vote or hold major public officesin sixteenth-century
German cities, they did pay taxes, provide soldiers for the city's defense, and were minorcityofficialssuch as marketinspectorsand gatekeepers.13 Women were referredto as Burger
or Nicht-biirger
in court
cases, and theircases were handled differently
depending on theirstatus.14 They had, as ChristopherFriedrichsdescribesit, "passive citizenship," and he would say that female heads of household had a type of
"active citizenship" as well.15Did women thus feel a part of this civic
10JoanKelly Gadol, "Did Women Have a Renaissance," in BecomingVisible,137-64.
"ImperialCitiesand theReformation:
ThreeEssays (Philadelphia: Fortress1972), 41-115.
12Ruling
Class, Regimeand Reformation
at Strasbourg,
1520-1555 (Leiden: Brill,1978).
13Merry
E. Wiesner,Working
Womenin RenaissanceGermany(New Brunswick,N.J.: Rutgers UniversityPress, 1986).
14Frankfurt,
Stadtarchiv, Gerichtssachen: Burger wieder Burger Burger wieder
Fremde, Ugb. 51, 54, 57, 69, 72.
15Urban
Societyin an Age ofWar:Nordlingen
1580-1720(Princeton:PrincetonUniversity
Press, 1979), 39.

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A Gender
Analysis
oftheReformation319
solidarity,even though the political theoristshad not included them?
Did sixteenth-century
people sense an ambiguityin the concept of citizen (Burger),i.e., thatitwas used sometimesto mean everyoneborn in a
place, and sometimesonly adult, marriedmales, or is thisambiguityonly the result of the impositionof modern ideas about what citizenship
entails?16What did it mean forthe status of women withina citywhen
thiscorpus also became a religiousentity,ratherthan one which was basically political,when the politicalGemeindealso became a religiousGe-

meinde?

The reformersaddressed many books of printedsermons to towns

and groups withintowns, but never specificallyto a group of women.
Does this mean they viewed women as part of male groups, never
thought of women as sharing common concerns, or recognized that,
afterthe closing of the convents, all-femalegroups would never gather
to hear a sermon?Medieval guild statutesreferto "brothersand sisters"
when there are female members and only "brothers" when there are
not. Thus when MartinBucer described the churchas a "brotherhood"
was he choosing to exclude women? Did women feel excluded? There
more women than men in every major German city
were significantly
fromthe fourteenthcenturyonward. This has oftenbeen linked with
the rise of late medieval urban mysticaland hereticalmovements,and
withthe rise of witchcraft
accusations.17Was it also a factorin the cities'
acceptance of the Reformation?If not, why not? In citieswhere both Lutheranismand Catholicismwere tolerated,such as Bamberg,therewere
a large number of inter-faith
couples.18What made a woman choose a
faithdifferent
fromthatofher husband, particularlyifthatfaithwas also
different
fromthat of her parents?How did cityrulersfitthis religious
diversitywithinthe most basic urban institutioninto theirideas of civic
solidarity?
What happens when we add questions of gender to those of class?
Though Moeller uses male language to describecitizens,well-to-dowidows or single women moving into a cityoftentook an oath of citizenship; did this group of women consider itselfpart of the urban community?Were these women more likelyto promote the Reformation?Did
the wives of urban patriciansinterpretthe Reformationas iftheywere
members of a dominant or subordinant group? Lower-class married
women often participatedin iconoclastic riots and heckled preachers
while theirhusbands remained at home. If such actions were inspired
by class antagonisms,why were women the active ones?
16Seee.g. David Sabean, Powerin theBlood:PopularCultureand VillageDiscoursein Early
ModernGermany(Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1984), 13.
17KarlBiicher, Die Frauenfrage
im Mittelalter(Tfibingen,1910); H. C. Erik Midelfort,
in Southwestern
Witchhunting
Germany,1562-1684 (Stanford: Stanford UniversityPress,
1972).
18Rublack,"Sozialstruktur."

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320

The SixteenthCenturyJournal

Mann) has become a commonplace

The termcommon man (gemeiner
to describe the peasant and lower-class supportersof the Reformation,
poand was frequentlyused in a verypositiveway by sixteenth-century
lemicists.As Lyndal Roper has pointed out, the termcommon woman
(gemeineFrau) was never used positively,and in factmeans prostitute.
While the common man is commonbecause he representsthe community,the common woman is such because she belongs to the whole male
communityand not to an individual man.19Since 'common' women
were decidedly not part of a civiccommunity-theywere requiredto be
foreignersin most towns-how could other, what we mightcall ordinary, women fitin? Was there a "revolution of the ordinarywoman"
correspondingto the "revolution of the common man"?
Most of these questions cannot yet-or perhaps even-be answered,
but they demonstratethe challenge that simplythinkingabout gender
differencescan post to accepted theories.
For another example we can use the issue of dowries. The dowry
and
was the most significantfactorin a young woman's marriageability
wealth and building economic alliances
a major method of transferring
between families.Recentlya few studies have been made of the dowry
duringthe Middle Ages and Renaissance, and the topic is brieflymentioned in some of the works on familyhistoryin the earlymodern period, but Reformationscholarshipis strangelysilenton the issue.20Since
Lutherhas oftenbeen praised forraisingthe statusofwomen withinthe
family,and a large dowryclearlyincreased a woman's standingvis-a-vis
her husband and in-laws, did he thus support the growthin dowries
which has been foundin many areas in the sixteenthcentury?Or did he,
like many other commentators,view dowries as a hindrance to marriage, and thus oppose them, given his ideas that marriage was the
properstateforall? What happened to dowryfundsforpool girlsin Protestantcities,i.e., which was stronger,the idea that all women should
be marriedor that good works, such as contributingto a dowry fund,
were not efficacious?Could a woman's large dowrymake up forher befaiththan her husband? Or, conversely,could being of
ing of a different
the correctfaithmake up fora lack of dowry? Were parents willingto
dower daughterswho changed faiths,thoughtheyfrequentlydisinherited sons who did? What happened to the dowryin cases of divorce?As
19" 'The common man,' 'the common good,' 'common women': Reflectionson Gender
and Meaning in the ReformationGerman Commune," Social History,forthcoming.
20StanleyChojnacki, "Dowries and Kinsmen in Early Renaissance Venice," Journalof
Interdisciplinary
History4 (1975): 571-600; Susan Mosher Stuard, "Dowry Increase and Incrementsof Wealth in Medieval Ragusa (Dubrovnik)," Journalof EconomicHistory16/4
(1981): 795-812; Diane Owen Hughes, "From Bridepriceto Dowry in MeditteraneanEurope," and Eleanor S. Riemer,"Women, Dowries and Capital Investmentin 13th-century
Siena," both in TheMarriageBargain:Womenand Dowriesin EuropeanHistory,ed. Marion A.
Kaplan (Binghamton,N.Y.: HarringtonPark Press, 1985).

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A GenderAnalysisoftheReformation 321
these questions indicate,researchon dowries can provide new ways of
exploringthe practicalimpact of the Reformation,the relationshipbetween theologicalchange and economic and politicalstructures,power
relationshipsbetween generationsand genders, affectionbetween family members, the weight given to religious and economic concerns in
making importantfamilydecisions, and no doubt many otherthings.
This articlehas primarilybeen questions, ratherthan answers, but
thatseems to be the pointwe have reached now. We have slowlylearned
where sources on women and the familyare to be found,and have a few
models for doing furtherresearch in other geographic areas, time
periods, occupational groups, and confessions.That researchmust continue, forthereis much more informationwaitingto be dug up fromarchives and libraries,but we must at the same time go beyond case
studies. We have to ask the large questions, the ones that make us rethinkall thathas been learned untilnow, the ones that,perhaps, cannot
be answered. Familyand women's historyhave not provided us solely
with new fields,but with a new lens to view the entireReformation.

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