In this paper I will explore brewing and Katharina von Bora’s role as an interpretive lens to understand her vital role to the economic health of the growing Luther household.

• Between my work with the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Gettysburg, involvement with Appalachian Brewing Company to brew beers for the Seminary’s Fall and Spring Academy’s, my journey to Germany following the “Footprints of the Reformers”, and research performed to complete course requirements, I began to wonder if beer would better help me understand Katharina von Bora (Katie) Luther’s role in the growing economic health of the Luther household.  This paper will explore Katie’s household activity using medieval brewing development, monastic brewing tradition, and economic brewing practice as the interpretive lens.

  While they were not the first to brew beer, in 1CE the Roman historian Tacitus (Germania) identifies beer drinking as being part of German daily life, “including those who lived on both sides of the northern limits of Roman rule”[1].  Production in these earliest days was predominately home-based.   Following the development of monasteries we can trace the development of specialized brewing facilities. The Plans for St. Gall, drawn up in 820 CE, includes three “breweries” which made beer of decreasing quality (one version each) for:  1) Guests (including nobles and royal officials), 2) Brothers, and 3) Paupers or the poor[2].   Starting with “the expansion of towns in the eleventh or twelfth century”[3]we see the beginning of commercial brewing, which would evolve from large-scale Brewers Guild operations into corporations as we know today.  In Luther’s

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  [1] (Unger 2004, 22)

  [2] (Unger 2004, 28)

  [3] (Unger 2004, 37)

   

  day all three of these modes of production were in use (home, monastic, and guild/commercial).[1]  Conflict between town authorities who wanted production and consumption taxes (to offset government expenses) led to regulations involving who could produce how much beer and at what periodicity (peil).  “Complaints from commercial brewers about monastic competition did not go away.  They showed up even in the sixteenth century, for example in DresdenGermany.  The Duke of Lorraine as late as the sixteenth century still got his beer from a monastery”[2]

  While some might consider it happenstance, the following historical timeline is provided to help better connect the dots between the Reformation and beer (using the implementation and extension of the Reinheitsgebot or Bavarian Purity Law or later German Beer Purity Law):

  1483    Martin Luther is born on 10 November

  1487    Reinheitsgebot passed for City of Munich by Duke Albert IV of Bavaria

  1499    Katherine Von Bora (Katie) is born on 29 January

  1504    Katie enters the Brehna Benedictine Cloister (near Halle)

  Black Cloister built in Wittenberg with Elector support for 40 Augustinian monks

  1508    Katie moved to the Marienthorn Convent in Nimbschen (near Grimma)

              Luther brought to Wittenberg to teach theology

  1512    Martin Luther receives Doctor of Theology from University Wittenberg

  1516    Tetzel sent to Germany and preached for indulgence in Meissen for St. Peter’s[3]

              Reinheitsgebot extended to all of Bavaria by Duke William IV on April 23

  1517    Martin Luther posts his 95 Thesis

  1523    Katie escapes from Marienthorn Convent on 4 April and is brought to Wittenberg

  1525    Katie & Martin Luther married -- take-up residence in the Black Cloister, 13 June

  An observation we can make from the above timeline is how Martin and Katie Luther were born and raised during a period of growing beer culture.  They grew up in what became a pivotal period for what we today define as the German brewing style. 

   

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  [1] (Unger 2004, 26-36)

  [2] (Unger 2004, 36)

  [3] (Encyclopedia Britannica n.d.)

   

  When Katie moved into the Black Cloister two former monks (Martin and the former Prior) were living in what was virtually a large bachelor pad.  The occupants had no way to support themselves, let alone to support a facility built for 40 teaching ascetics, after Electoral officials confiscated the Black Cloister’s income.  In 1524 Martin appealed to the Elector, “to take the whole monastery for himself as Lord, but to leave a room for the two for him and his last comrade in front of the monastery beside the hospital”[1].  In response the Elector allowed them, “to live in the Cloister and perhaps it was at this time that Luther was allotted a fixed income of 100 Gulden per year.”[2]    While a legal writ for ownership of the Black Cloister was not awarded until February 4^th, 1532, Martin and Katie were given “free use” of the former monastery and became owners “by fact” prior to receiving this deed.[3]  The subsequent deed read, “nothing excluded, as a true and free inheritance, free of all tax and any compulsory service, with the rights to brew, to malt, to sell beer….”[4] Since the rights to brew, malt and sell beer were included in the legal writ “issued in Torgau on February 4, 1532,”[5] it seems logical these rights pre-existed the signing of the formal deed.  In those days monasteries had the right to brew 12 times per year while “even the most active brewers made beer on the average little more than once a month.”[6] According to a display at “Lutherhaus” the Black Cloister had the right to brew “eleven times per year,” yet Ernest Kroker writes, “The brewing rights, which the cloister had for twelve brewings per year were transferred to Luther and Katie, and Katie understood the business.”[7]   The economic value of this right becomes clear in Richard Unger’s book Beer in the Middle Ages and Renaissancewhen he wrote,

  
  

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  [1] (Kroker 2013, 77)

  [2] (Kroker 2013, 77)

  [3] (Kroker 2013, 77)

  [4] (Kroker 2013, 77)

  [5] (Kroker 2013, 77)

  [6] (Unger 2004, 179)

  [7] (Kroker 2013, 100)

  “Brewing in monasteries escaped urban tax collectors.”[1]  With this legal infrastructure in mind, why would Katie be able to do anything with these circumstances when she joined Martin in the Black Cloister?

  As stated above, Katie entered the Marienthorn Convent in 1508.  Like most monasteries Marienthorn had a brewery which produced, “the light convent beer, the so called Kofent.”[2]  As a self-sustaining community, the convent had fields of grain and “hops.”[3] As a postulant and a sister we don’t know Katie’s duties in the convent but based upon her later ability to brew beer and treat the sick it is likely she spent time in the brewery, when she was not working with the head of the Infirmary who for a long time was her aunt, Magdalena von Bora.[4]  After escaping Marienthorn, Katie was prepared, “for organizing and maintaining a large and demanding household”[5] while she was initially placed in the home of the Wittenberg Town Clerk (Phillip and Elsa Reichenbach) before moving to the Lucas and Barbara Cranach household which included both a print shop and pharmacy. 

  Brewing was important for the success of typical peasant households as a source of income in England.  “… for a “typical peasant household, commercial brewing was seldom the primary means of support …. Brewing became an attractive proposition for women wishing to increase their “housekeeping” money by working from home.”[6]   Limitations however were often imposed by town governments upon “the number of times per week, per month, or per year that a brewer

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  [1] (Unger 2004)

  [2] (Kroker 2013, 15)

  [3] (Kroker 2013, 16)

  [4] (Kroker 2013, 19)

  [5] (Markwald 2002, 53)

  [6] (Hornsey 2003, 331)

   

  could turn out” beer.[1]  While medieval women generally lacked basic political, legal, and economic rights, “the bigger producers were often women though brewing in general, and commercial brewing in particular, was done by the whole family, often organized by the wife.”[2]  The letters Luther wrote to Katie often provide us our best window into the Luthers relationships in general and with Katie in particular.  Besides Martin calling Katie “the lady of the house” he used several titles for her to include “the Virgin, Doctor, even Preacher” as well as numerous functional titles such as “the brewer.”[3] 

  After they were married Katie found the monastery in a state of serious neglect with much of the household inventory simply missing.  Following their marriage the Elector doubled Luthers “salary” to 200 Gulden (over time ultimately increasing it to 400).  “Beginning in 1536, the Elector also sent a regular delivery of grain and malt…”[4]  Money was often an issue in running such a large household with so many important visitors and students.  “Bit by bit, 130 Gulden was spent on the brewing house, which was located in the southwest corner of the courtyard, and on brewing equipment.”[5]  General demand for beer had increased by the fifteenth century as Richard Unger records, “The milder weather in south-western Germany had favored the production of wine, but changes in the relative prices of wine and beer combined with efforts by both governments and private individuals to raise beer consumption in grape-producing regions led to positive results over time for beer.  Wine became more of a luxury or festive drink while beer became the daily beverage, often for no other reason than price.  Beer prices in Germany fell in the fifteenth century by about 50 percent over the one hundred years.”  Urban beer

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  [1] (Unger, Beer in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance 2004, 172)

  [2] (Unger 2004, 39)

  [3] (Stjerna 2009, 57)

  [4] (Kroker 2013, 83)

  [5]  (Kroker 2013, 100)

   

  consumption in the sixteenth century Low Countries is reported as “one liter for each person each day…”[1]  Ernest Kroker observes how in comparison to Katie’s beer, “Wittenberg beer was not cheap; the price went up to 3 pfennig for a small pitcher.  And since Luther estimated his daily expense for beer at 4 pfennig, he often would have been too short to have his usual nightcap if he had not had his house beer.”[2]  Katie’s frugalness is commonly written about, yet the Luthers would spend money on things which they needed to make the household work.  In 1544 the Luthers bought their 3rdand 4^th gardens which included “the hops garden on Specke Street."[3]  They also bought several other gardens or farms to fulfill household needs, but along with barley and hops one vital commodity was required to produce beer– water.  Water is vital to beer production since “85 percent of beer is water and in addition brewers needed large quantities of water for cooling and cleaning.  Finding good, clean water was a constant problem for brewers.”[4]  By 1542 Luther estimated that about 400 Gulden had been spent on the Cloister Garden and well. [5]  Luther does not write much about this well but during my visit to Lutherhaus I remember reading about the Luthers numerous exchanges with town fathers regarding the need for this Cloister Garden well.  Kroker writes, “It was certainly Katie’s effort that made this happen.”[6]  While water was needed to make watering the garden easier, I have to wonder if the well would also provide a controlled source of water for Katie’s brewing operation after seeing how the city water system operated.

  
  

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  [1] (Unger 2004, 130)

  [2] (Kroker 2013, 101)

  [3] (Kroker 2013, 98)

  [4] (Unger 2004, 167)

  [5] (Kroker 2013, 95)

  [6]  (Kroker 2013, 95)

   

  Martin Luther is known to have called his Katie the “Morning Star of Wittenberg.”  Ernst Kroker wrote, “To us her picture is really like a friendly star over the evangelical parsonage, which gave our people an abundance of fresh energy and pious chastity.  Luther could not have understood a figurative expression in this way, however.  He means rather: As the morning star anticipates the break of day, so Katie is the first one up early in the morning.”[1]  While Katie could only brew 12 times a year it is important to remember Martin and Katie rebuilt the monastery’s brew house and did not apparently brew beer within the Lutherhaus’ kitchen (note: the size or cost of a purchased copper brewing kettle if known would tell us how much beer was brewed at one time).  Yet with regard to the “the Morning Star of Wittenberg it is interesting to note how, “Brewers usually started work early, even before dawn, so that they could get the wort into fermentation troughs in the cool of the evening.”[2] 

  Because Katie Luther brewed in what became the “Lutherhaus” she is often considered a forerunner of the modern “home brewers” movement.  In this paper I have explored Katie’s household activity using medieval brewing development, monastic brewing tradition, and economic brewing practice as interpretive lens.  While writing this paper I have come to see Katie less as a home brewer and more as the first of what we refer to today as a microbrewer.  That is, Katie managed something much more equivalent to Appalachian Brewing Company’s “Battlefield” downstairs brewing operation here on the “Ridge” than a home brewer operation as we know today.  Yet regardless the size of Katie’s “haus,” we can see how beer both made the economy of the Lutherhaus work and Martin very happy ….

   

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  [1] (Kroker 2013, 75)

  [2] (Unger 2004, 148)

• Works Cited

  Encyclopedia Britannica. n.d. http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/589163/Johann-Tetzel (accessed May 10, 2014).

  Hornsey, Ian S. A History of Beer and Brewing. Cambridge: The Royal Society of Chemistry, 2003.

  Kroker, Ernst. The Mother of the Reformation. St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2013.

   

Markwald, Ruddolf K. Markwald & Marilynn Morris. Katharina Von Bora.St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2002.

 Stjerna, Kirsi. Women of the Reformation. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2009.

WUnger, Richard W. Beer in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. Philadelphia: University of Pensylvania Press, 2004.