By the Grace of God: Women’s Agency in the Rhetoric of Katharina Schütz Zell and Martin Luther

Schütz Zell’s Self-Authorization

Katharina Schütz was born into an artisan family in the free city of Strasbourg.¹ She was well-educated, although not in Latin, which tells of the favorable attitude of the Schütz family – especially the father – towards education.² In Strasbourg, Schütz had a reputation as a devout Christian and was a role model of piety and religious custom for other young women.³ She even identified herself as a Kirchenmutter (church mother) from the age of ten, as she wrote in an autobiographical text in 1557.⁴ Until she became influenced by evangelical theology, and especially by Luther’s ideas, Schütz had planned to remain unmarried and to support herself as a weaver.⁵ It is possible that the medieval mulieres religiosae (religious women), the beguines, were her inspiration.⁶

The evangelical movement that later led to the Protestant Reformations formally arose in Strasbourg through, in Ozment’s words, “tedious, almost scholastic disputations” from the beginning of the 1520s onward.⁷ The city was a scene for doctrinal debates, one of which took place between a few Catholic clergy, notably Thomas Murner (1475–c.1537) and Conrad Treger (1480/3–1543), and evangelical clergy, such as Martin Bucer (1491–1551).⁸ Internal debates within the evangelical movement occurred as well: there were different views on baptism,⁹ for example, and different interpretations of the Eucharist from Luther and from theologian Andreas Karlstadt (1486–1541).¹⁰

Since the late 1510s, after reading Luther’s texts and hearing local evangelical preachers’ speeches, Schütz began to re-evaluate her decision to stay unmarried. Schütz’s first public evangelical act was to marry evangelical preacher and priest Matthias Zell (1477–1548) in December 1523.¹¹ In 1524, the Catholic bishop of Strasbourg, Wilhelm von Honstein (c. 1470–1541), denied beneficium (privileges) to, and later excommunicated, six married clerics including Zell.¹² Schütz Zell was quick to participate in the debate on clerical marriage that was ongoing in Strasbourg and elsewhere in Germany.¹³ The question was not merely about the rearrangement of societal life but also about anthropological views.¹⁴ The justification for the demand for clerical marriage can be summed up in a remark Luther made in 1523: “We were all created to do as our parents have done, to beget and rear children. This is by God laid out, commanded, and implanted in us, which is proved by our bodily members, daily emotions, and the example of the whole world.”¹⁵ He noted that the vow of celibacy questioned “whether a man can and should be a man.”¹⁶ From the evangelical point of view, concubinage among the clergy was clear evidence that pastors should be allowed to marry.¹⁷

In this debate Schütz Zell now took part. She wrote an open letter to the bishop, but the city council denied its publication.¹⁸ McKee characterizes this denial as a “balancing act” – Schütz Zell’s interference in an already delicate situation, where conflicts arose quickly and easily, was anything but desirable.¹⁹ A woman writing to a bishop was, moreover, an outrage. It seems that this reaction of the council withheld reservations about, or even denied, women’s authorship. Discussing the case of Mechthild of Magdeburg (c. 1210–1282), Sara S. Poor suggests that women’s authorship was accepted only when it discussed feminine topics or when it was subject to men’s dominion.²⁰ Men’s reservations did not restrain Schütz Zell. She addressed the topic of clerical marriage in a treatise and subsequently published an apologia for her own marriage in early September 1524.²¹ Having started to write publicly in 1524, usually on issues of the day, she continued to publish for altogether thirty-four years, until 1558. This was an exceptionally long period for a middle-class person to write publicly; most lay pamphleteers usually only published material over a period of a few years.²²

In the very first lines of her apologia, Schütz Zell informs her readers of her intention to attack per verba not only Murner and Treger, the Catholic opponents of the evangelicals in Strasbourg, but also Johann Cochlaeus (1479–1552).²³ She includes a biblical notion: “What is weak before the world, that God has chosen so that He might put to shame what is strong.”²⁴ This passage can be read as self-referential; as Schütz Zell seeing herself as aware of her gender and social standing but chosen by God for her mission. She appears to be humble but, as McKee notes, her body of work is hardly self-dismissive.²⁵ This kind of humility topos aims to gain the reader’s favor – it notes the writer’s humility but highlights her authority. As such, and even though the context is very different in Schütz Zell’s case, the use of this topos resembles that of medieval mystical women, who also leaned on God’s authority when justifying their speaking.²⁶

Indeed, Schütz Zell did not doubt her own value as a public agent. In her apologia, she writes:

I see how many souls already belong to the devil and continue so, which was also the reason that I have helped to raise up clerical marriage. With God’s help I was also the first woman in Strasbourg who opened the way for clerical marriage. Then I was still not consenting or wishing to marry any man. However, since I saw the great fear and furious opposition to clerical marriage, and also the great harlotry of the clergy, I myself married a priest with the intention of encouraging and making a way for all Christians – as I hope has also happened. Therefore I also made a little book in which I showed the foundation of my faith and reason for my marriage.²⁷

The quotation encapsulates Schütz Zell’s self-understanding as a laywoman and a Christian who believed in her right to speak up. She signals in the apologia that she wrote not because of her desire for public agency, but because of personal circumstances: “I have indeed seen what my excessive patience has done, namely, because I have not defended myself against the great lying insults done to me, both good people and bad have become suspicious, believing that I am guilty.”²⁸

What was Schütz Zell guilty of, then, in the minds of her contemporaries? This becomes evident in the next lines of her treatise: “Good people have understood my patience as if it were a confession that I deserve what is said and because of that they have taken offense. ‘How the flesh clings,’ they have said to each other.”²⁹ She was suspected of marrying for lust, not for reason or religious conviction, which was a common suspicion that the evangelicals faced when they married. Denial of physical attraction and arguments for the morality of their action was thereby a common justification among the reformers, such as Schütz Zell, Luther, and, for instance, Luther’s colleague Justus Jonas (1493–1555).³⁰

Schütz Zell stresses that her actions are those of a Christian rather than those of a spouse: “[I write] [n]ot because he is my husband, but only because he is my brother and fellow member of the body in Christ. Otherwise (if I defended him as my husband) I would not be acting according to the word of God but according to human love.”³¹ Following the apostle Paul, Schütz Zell believed that there is weder man nach weyb (no husband or wife) in Christ.³² In writing about her marriage, she therefore aimed to be understood and appreciated first and foremost as a Christian acting out of love for her neighbor and not as a spouse.³³ McKee proposes that Schütz Zell was demanding an independent role for herself, and that she needed to authorize herself because of her gender.³⁴ It is improbable, however, that she would have extended her claim of an independent role to other women.³⁵

Schütz Zell acknowledges the hierarchy between spouses and her position as a woman when she notes that, if he knew of the matter, her husband would not allow her to write and publish the apologia.³⁶ Zitzlsperger argues that this passage indicates that Schütz Zell understood her place in society and within the gender system, with the goal of making herself an object with which her readers could easily identify.³⁷ In this way, Schütz Zell implies that she took only a few liberties with her role and understood her husband’s position as the authority. I argue that she may have aimed to safeguard him from accusations concerning her writing. This kind of preparation for critique and persuasion of readers paradoxically emphasizes the liberties she took from the proper role of a woman when she wrote publicly.³⁸

Schütz Zell describes her writing as part of a working relationship with the evangelical clergy.³⁹ She notes that she is as capable of writing about theological issues as her male colleagues, who, with her help, can save their precious time for matters more important than defending their marriages: “I want to communicate to him [Conrad Treger], himself, in writing, and answer this little book. For he and his book are not worth bothering those who should be ceaselessly busy with the word of God, … they should not be hindered in that task by having to answer him.”⁴⁰ She writes of discussions with male theologians elsewhere in the text as well, implying that she was as gifted in theological matters as men and thus well able to discuss with them.⁴¹ Schütz Zell’s inability to respond to theological treatises written in Latin was not an obstacle because those texts could be translated for her; writing on Johann Cochlaeus, whose work she was criticizing, she notes: “I will perhaps ask him to give it to me in the German language and so answer him.”⁴² Schütz Zell was not the only women writer to justify herself this way. Other publicly active women offered similar explanations for their agency and writing: Ursula Weyda (<1510–>1565), for example, announced that she spared Luther’s precious time by writing on his behalf.⁴³

Despite regarding herself as gifted as her male contemporaries, Schütz Zell also indicates that she is aware of the arguments male theologians could use against her agency as a woman.⁴⁴ She anticipates her opponents thoughts in, for example, the following way: “What is in the Ezekiel passage is ‘You son of man’ – that is not said to you but to learned men.”⁴⁵ To counter argument like this, she bases her own on biblical and apocryphal passages that serve as “theological justification for her actions.”⁴⁶ She refers to Paul, who insisted that there were no women or men in Christ,⁴⁷ as well as to the Book of Joel, wherein it is said that God pours out his Spirit upon women and men alike,⁴⁸ using each as evidence that she is entitled to her writing.⁴⁷ Gabriele Jancke notes that lay people often used Joel and Paul to authorize public speech.⁴⁹ And as Päivi Räisänen-Schröder maintains, the passage from the Book of Joel was used especially by laywomen to legitimize their public activity.⁵⁰

Schütz Zell further compares herself with powerful women such as Judith⁵¹ and Esther⁵² by hoping that God would help her in her battle against Treger as he had helped those women against Holofernes and Haman.⁵³ She also compares herself to the Queen of Sheba who tested the wisdom of Solomon.⁵⁴ The wisdom of her Solomon, namely Johann Cochlaeus, was not, however, convincing. Schütz Zell indicates that Cochlaeus is actually quite foolish; she plays with his name and notes that he was no more than a kochleffel (wooden spoon) that makes “noise in an empty pot.”⁵⁵ She also compares herself to Balaam’s donkey that spoke when its master was unable to see the angel.⁵⁶ Schütz Zell uses all of these metaphors to justify her right to speak up when circumstances demand it.

Other laywomen during the sixteenth century used similar metaphors and positions to argue for their public role. These women took Paul’s insistence on women’s silence in the congregation into account, but used Paul’s other texts as well as other biblical passages to argue against it.⁵⁷ For instance, Argula von Grumbach used the very same analogies that Schütz Zell employs.⁵⁸ It seems obvious that the similarities between Schütz Zell and these other women go against Thomas Kaufmann’s proposition that Schütz Zell would have been unique among women of her time.⁵⁹ In this sense, at least, she was not.

Schütz Zell’s main argument concerning her agency in the apologia, as elsewhere in her production, seems to be that she – a lay person and a woman – had not only the right but also the obligation to defend her faith in public regardless of her gender.⁶⁰ McKee observes, however, that Schütz Zell did not extend her argument to other women but regarded herself as a special case and as a coworker of the male reformers.⁶¹ So did a lot of women in similar positions. Her strategies of self-authorization were not unique in their form, nor were they a phenomenon of just the sixteenth century. In general, women’s self-authorization in writing became increasingly extensive during the late Middle Ages.⁶² Women commonly argued that they were exceptional cases, often by alluding to the grace of God.⁶³ Thus, even if Schütz Zell was one of a kind as an individual, she was one of the many participants in a long-ongoing discourse around women’s agency.

1. For biographical studies of Katharina Schütz Zell, see McKee, Life and Thought, 3–229; Kirsi Stjerna, Women and the Reformation (Malden: Blackwell, 2009), 109–31; Sonja Domröse, Frauen der Reformationszeit: Gelehrt, mutig und glaubensfest (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011), 45–57. [↩]
2. Kaufmann, “Pfarrfrau,” 176; McKee, Life and Thought, 4–9, 12–28; Stjerna, Women, 112; Domröse, Frauen, 45. [↩]
3. McKee, Life and Thought, 28. See also Charlotte Methuen, “Preaching the Gospel through Love of Neighbour: The Ministry of Katharina Schütz Zell,” Journal of Ecclesiastical History 61 (2010): 710–11. [↩]
4. Katharina Schütz Zell, “Ein Brief an die gantze Burgerschafft der Statt Strassburg/von Katherina Zellin/dessen jetz saligen Matthei Zellen/dess alten und ersten Predigers des Evangelij diser Statt/nachgelssne Ehefraw/Betreffend Herr Ludwigen Rabus/jetz ein Prediger der Statt Ulm/sampt zweynen brieffen jr und sein/die mag mengklich lesen und urtheilen on gunst und hasss/sonder allein der war heit warnemen: Dabey auch ein sanffte antwort/auff jeden Artickel/seines brieffs,” in Katharina Schütz Zell, vol. 2, The Writings, 170; Jancke, “Publizistin,” 57; Kaufmann, “Pfarrfrau,” 176. [↩]
5. McKee, Life and Thought, 10–12, 14; Stjerna, Women, 111; Methuen, “Preaching the Gospel,” 710, 712. [↩]
6. Two of Schütz Zell’s relatives in Strasbourg may have been beguines, as Methuen notes. Methuen, “Preaching the Gospel,” 711. A study worth reading concerning women religious in the high and late Middle Ages and the beginning of the early modern era is Walter Simons, Cities of Ladies: Beguine Communities in the Medieval Low Countries, 1200–1565 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001). Strasbourg deserves a few mentions in the book. See also Griffiths and Hotchin, Partners in Spirit. [↩]
7. Steven Ozment, The Reformation in the Cities: The Appeal of Protestantism to Sixteenth-Century Germany and Switzerland (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1975), 13. [↩]
8. McKee, Life and Thought, 59–60. [↩]
9. Kaarlo Arffman, Reformaatio vai restituutio? Historiallinen argumentti reformaattoreiden ja kastajaliikkeen väittelyssä lapsikasteen oikeutuksesta, Suomen kirkkohistoriallisen seuran toimituksia 167 (Helsinki: Suomen kirkkohistoriallinen seura, 1994), 30–1. [↩]
10. Karl Drescher, “Einleitung,” in D. Martin Luther’s Werke Kritische Gesamtausgabe. 18. Band. Schriften 1525 (Weimar: Böhlau 1908), 37–61, esp. 41–2; Martin Brecht, Martin Luther: Ordnung und Abgrenzung der Reformation 1521–1532, vol. 2 (Stuttgart: Calwer Verlag 1986), 163–5. Karlstadt stayed in Strasbourg during the fall of 1524. Note that Andreas Bodenstein von Karlstadt is in the current standard usage called Andreas Karlstadt, after his hometown. [↩]
11. Stjerna, Women, 112–13. For discussion in Strasbourg concerning clerical marriage, see McKee, Life and Thought, 42–9; Methuen, “Preaching the Gospel,” 713–14. [↩]
12. McKee, Life and Thought, 51. According to Domröse, there were seven priests involved. Domröse, Frauen, 46. [↩]
13. For examples of the rhetoric concerning the moral state of clergy, see Joel F. Harrington, Reordering Marriage and Society in Reformation Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 35–8. [↩]
14. I discuss this in my doctoral dissertation Sini Mikkola, “‘In Our Body the Scripture Becomes Fulfilled’: Gendered Bodiliness and the Making of the Gender System in Martin Luther’s Anthropology (1520–1530)” (PhD diss., University of Helsinki, 2017). [↩]
15. D. Martin Luther’s Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe. Band 12, An die herrn Deutschs Ordens, das sie falsche keuscheyt meyden und zur rechten ehlichen keuscheyt greyffen Ermanung (Weimar 1883–), 242. References will be abbreviated to WA. [↩]
16. WA 12, 243. [↩]
17. For concubinage, see, e.g., Ozment, When Fathers Ruled, 5; Plummer, Priest’s Whore, 11–50; 167–209; Stjerna, Women, 35; Jennifer D. Thibodeaux, The Manly Priest: Clerical Celibacy, Masculinity, and Reform in England and Normandy, 1066–1300 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015), passim. [↩]
18. McKee, Life and Thought, 51; Stjerna, Women, 118. [↩]
19. McKee, Life and Thought¸ 51. [↩]
20. Sara S. Poor, Mechthild of Magdeburg and Her Book: Gender and the Making of Textual Authority (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011), 181–2. [↩]
21. Jancke, “Publizistin,” 58; McKee, Life and Thought, 62; Methuen, “Preaching the Gospel,” 708–9. [↩]
22. Roper, Holy Household, 2–3; McKee, Life and Thought, xii. A good example of a lay pamphleteer publishing during a very limited time is the noble-born Argula von Grumbach (c.1490–c.1564), who successfully published her eight pamphlets during 1523–4. See Zitzlsperger, “Mother,” 382. For an English translation of von Grumbach’s writings, see Peter Matheson, Argula von Grumbach: A Woman’s Voice in the Reformation, ed. and trans. Peter Matheson (Edinburgh: Clark, 1995). [↩]
23. Cochlaeus was a German humanist and controversialist against the evangelicals. [↩]
24. Katharina Schütz Zell, “Entschuldigung Katharina Schützinn/für Matthes Zellen/jren Eegemahel/der ein Pfarrher und dyener ist im wort Gottes zů Straβburg. Von wegen grosser lügen uff jn erdiecht,” in Katharina Schütz Zell, vol. 2, The Writings, 21, trans. Elsie McKee. Compare with I Corinthians 1: 27. [↩]
25. McKee, Life and Thought, 397. [↩]
26. For women and God-given authority, see Meri Heinonen, “Brides and Knights of Christ: Gender and Body in Later Medieval German Mysticism” (PhD diss., University of Turku, 2007), esp. 22; Salmesvuori, Power and Authority, esp. 29. In her doctoral dissertation, Rose-Marie Peake proves that early modern European women used similar imagery and topoi as their medieval sisters. Rose-Marie Peake, “The Daughters of Charity and Moral Management in Seventeenth-Century France: Creating Conservative Catholics, Securing Survival” (PhD diss., University of Helsinki, 2015). [↩]
27. Schütz Zell, “Entschuldigung,” 39–40. [↩]
28. Ibid., 24, trans. Elsie McKee. [↩]
29. Schütz Zell, “Entschuldigung,” 24, trans. Elsie McKee. [↩]
30. Plummer, Priest’s Whore, 136, 138–9. For Luther’s denial of lust as the reason for his own marriage, see, e.g., WA BR 3, no. 900, 541, 4–8. To Nikolaus von Amsdorf (21 June 1525). [↩]
31. Schütz Zell, “Entschuldigung,” 23, trans. Elsie McKee. [↩]
32. Re Paul, compare with Gal. 3: 28. Schütz Zell, “Entschuldigung,” 23. [↩]
33. McKee makes the same observation of Schütz Zell. See McKee, Life and Thought, 397. [↩]
34. Schütz Zell, “Entschuldigung,” 23, ref. 13. [↩]
35. McKee, Life and Thought, 55, ref. 18, 396; Methuen, “Preaching the Gospel,” 718. [↩]
36. Schütz Zell, “Entschuldigung,” 23. [↩]
37. This suggestion is made by Zitzlsperger, “Mother,” 387. [↩]
38. I also discuss this question in Sini Mikkola, “Riutunut lammas ja Saban kuningatar: Naisten toimijuus ja itseoikeutus Katharina Schütz Zellin ja Florentina von Oberweimarin retoriikassa,” Finnish Journal of Theology 4 (2014): 423. [↩]
39. There is a similar notion of Schütz Zell’s self-understanding presented in McKee, Life and Thought, 451. [↩]
40. Schütz Zell, “Entschuldigung,” 32, trans. Elsie McKee. Schütz Zell alludes here to Treger’s booklet Ad reverendum in Christo P. et illustrem Principem Fabrianum de monte Falcone Lausanensem Episcopum paradoxa Centum fratris Conradi Tregarii Heluecii Augustiniani Familie per superiorem Germaniam provincialis de ecclesie Conciliorumque auctoritate. See Schütz Zell, “Entschuldigung,” 31, ref. 45. [↩]
41. See Schütz Zell, “Entschuldigung,” 34–5. [↩]
42. Ibid., 30, trans. Elsie McKee. This kind of self-authorization can be found also elsewhere in Schütz Zell’s apologia; see esp. 34–5. [↩]
43. Zitzlsperger, “Mother,” 391. [↩]
44. Methuen makes this point also in Methuen, “Preaching the Gospel,” 727. [↩]
45. Schütz Zell, “Entschuldigung,” 46, trans. Elsie McKee. [↩]
46. Quotation from Methuen, “Preaching the Gospel,” 708. [↩]
47. Schütz Zell, “Entschuldigung,” 46. [↩] [↩]
48. Compare with Joel 2: 28. [↩]
49. Jancke, “Publizistin,” 58. [↩]
50. Päivi Räisänen-Schröder, “Between Martyrdom and Everyday Pragmatism: Gender, Family, and Anabaptism in Early Modern Germany,” in Gender in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe, eds. Marianna Muravyeva and Raisa Maria Toivo (New York: Routledge, 2013), 93. [↩]
51. Compare with Judith 13: 6–8. [↩]
52. Compare with Esther 7: 10. [↩]
53. Schütz Zell, “Entschuldigung,” 33. McKee argues that as a whole, Schütz Zell compared herself more often with biblical women than with biblical men. See McKee, “Katharina Schütz Zell,” 235. [↩]
54. Compare with 1 Kings 10: 1. [↩]
55. Schütz Zell, “Entschuldigung,” 30. [↩]
56. Ibid., 45–6. Compare with Num. 22: 21–35. The metaphor of the donkey was also used by, for instance, Argula von Grumbach in her writings. Matheson, Argula, 182. [↩]
57. Zitzlsperger, “Mother,” 381. [↩]
58. Methuen, “Reforming Women,” 98; 100. [↩]
59. See Kaufmann, “Pfarrfrau,” 217. [↩]
60. McKee has made the notion concerning Schütz Zells’s entire textual production. McKee, Life and Thought, 390. [↩]
61. Ibid., 55, ref. 18, 396. See also Methuen, “Preaching the Gospel,” 718. [↩]
62. This has been noted in the following studies: Jane Chance, “Speaking in Propria Persona: Authorizing the Subject as a Political Act in Late Medieval Feminine Spirituality,” in New Trends in Feminine Spirituality: The Holy Women of Liège and Their Impact, eds. Juliette Dor, Lesley Johnson, and Jocelyn Wogan-Browne (Turnhout: Brepols, 1999), 269–94; Mary C. Erler and Maryanne Kowaleski, “Introduction,” in Gendering the Master Narrative: Women and Power in the Middle Ages, eds. Mary C. Erler and Maryanne Kowaleski (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003), 7. [↩]
63. See Merry E. Wiesner, “Women’s Defence of Their Public Role,” in Women in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance: Literary and Historical Perspectives, ed. Mary Beth Rose (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1986), 9–10. [↩]