Women of the Reformation

After a rise in population that limited opportunities for women in the broader economy, new rhetoric for controlling the lives of women blossomed within the Protestant Reformation. The ideas of Martin Luther and John Calvin were traditional, dictating that women were subordinate to their husbands and that their duties existed within the home. This tightening of social expectations on women reaped consequences on any women who chose to exist outside of the traditional ideals of marriage and child-rearing, and such women were seen as ‘deviant.’ Despite laws and harsh punishments for being deviant, some women resisted and pushed against societal boundaries successfully. 

In the early modern period, the population began rising in Europe because of a drop in mortality levels and state centralization. The effect on women was fewer jobs and a higher rate of marriage. Women were also marrying younger, and therefore having more children. Broadly speaking, women were removed from the economy and roles outside of the home, and to justify these new, restrictive rules, stronger rhetoric was necessary (Lecture, 05/03/2023), so male authors began writing about how women should act, and Protestants generally opposed the anti-woman and anti-marriage literature of the Catholics, effectively suppressing women in some ways while offering them dignity and control within the home. 

Two of the most important reformers of the Protestant Reformation were Martin Luther and John Calvin, who shaped the ideals of marriage and women in the early modern period. A major change the Reformation enacted was the end of mandatory celibacy in Lutheran areas, as “protestants championed marriage as spiritually preferable to celibacy” (Zophy, p. 297). This shift to clerical marriage resulted in the closing of convents; some embraced the change, while others objected. A nun from Geneva, Jeanne de Jussie, defended keeping the convents open and wrote, “...keep us in your [elected officials in Geneva] safeguard and protection so that those enemies [Genevan protestants] of God do not violate or disturb us. For we do not want any innovation of religion or law or to turn away from divine service...” (RPSP, Source. No. 23). Yet others wrote exposés of nunneries, declaring that they were not special places for women and that supervisory male clergy could be as unbearable as any abusive husband (Lecture, 05/03/2023). Another woman who had previously been a nun, Katharina Schütz Zell, argued on behalf of clerical marriage, after marrying a priest, Matthew Zell. She wrote, “... should priests have [legal] wives, they would have to choose one and give up the others. They will not be able to behave as they do with the prostitutes: throwing out one, taking in another” (RPSP, Source No. 22), her point being that priests would have less opportunity to commit worldly sins if they were legally bound by marriage. 

Convents closing did mean that women who had been raised and taught in convents no longer had nunneries as an option for education, but they were not cut off from education entirely. “Reformers such as Martin Luther stressed “biblical literacy” and he helped establish schools for girls...some schools were forced to hire literate women as teachers [due to a lack of employable men], opening yet another profession to women” (Zophy, p. 298). However, the ministry remained forbidden to women in Protestant and Catholic territories. John Calvin justified the disallowance of women in the ministry with the ideas of Tertullian (a church father, c. 160-230): “...no woman in church is allowed to speak, teach, baptize, or make offerings; this so that she may not usurp the functions of men” (Zophy, p. 298), a sentiment that fed into the patriarchal ideals of the time. 

Patriarchy was the basis of gender roles in the early modern period, ideals that men and women alike subscribed to. Luther had a traditional view and saw women as subordinate to men, possessing inferior abilities, that they should “remain at home, sit still, keep house, and bear and bring up children” (Lecture, 05/03/2023), but he also saw them as “partners” in marriage. Calvin viewed women similarly to Luther, but he also focused on women’s role to educate the young in Calvinist doctrine, and he gained a good reputation for creating Geneva as a “woman’s paradise” because its laws severely punished men who beat their wives (Lecture, 05/05/2023). Many reformers argued “marriage was the “natural” vocation for women and urged husbands to treat their wives and children in a kindly manner” and the Reformation “affirmed patriarchy time and time again as wives were continually admonished to be obedient to their husbands” (Zophy, p. 297-98). In a Protestant household, “the best husband was the one who could provide security, honor, and status; the best wife one who was capable of running a household and assisting her husband in his work” (RPSP, Source No. 27). Luther’s beliefs made the family the focal point of society and church, which gave women a new sense of dignity within their “biblical duties” in the home.  

With marriage being such an important aspect of early modern society, premarital sex, though a common practice, was discouraged in most Protestant areas, along with infanticide, since “The stability of the patriarchal family was considered an important foundation of the patriarchal state” (Zophy, p. 298). As such, pregnancy out of wedlock could be severely punished, and “...unmarried young people [were viewed] as a source of disorder...[as] unmarried women risked getting pregnant out of wedlock” (RPSP, Source No. 26). In Denmark in 1549, Laws even required unmarried people to register or leave, stating, “all girls who are self-supporting [lit. self-feeding] should enter into service again or be expelled from the city at once” (RPSP, Source No. 26). If a woman did become pregnant out of wedlock, punishment could be avoided if the parents married each other, but if a “self-supporting” woman chose to raise the child or the father could not be found, the situation became trickier. Legal arrangements were sometimes made to support the child, and authorities did their best to track down the father to avoid the support of the child falling to the community. One example of a lawsuit regarding pregnancy out of wedlock is from France in 1548: “...Honys [father] will be obliged and obliges himself to give and pay her, each month for the next two full years, one écu soleil...de Marville [mother] has promised and here promises to raise and support, well and duly, from this point on, a young girl named Claude...” (RPSP, Source No. 26). 

Because women had fewer opportunities for leadership and no political rights during the early modern period, they relied almost entirely on their social status and reputation. Within the patriarchy, women were constrained by certain behaviors, and if they acted outside of them, they could face a range of consequences. Women who broke sexual mores were labeled ‘whores’. Sexual deviancy included prostitution and extramarital sex. Evidence of social and legal intolerance of sexual misbehavior is abundant. A document written by Alessandro Trajano Petronio about Roman Lifestyle states, “As the land is fertile, and female wild animals have many offspring, so for the same reason women too are fertile. I am referring to those women who have intercourse with only their husbands, and not with infinite men, as prostitutes do instead” (RPSP, Source No. 24). Unlike the Middle Ages, when most European cities allowed prostitution in licensed city brothels, sexual activities were more regulated and disallowed during the early modern period. “By the sixteenth century, cities in central and northern Europe began to close their houses of prostitution, and southern European cities, especially those in Italy, licensed prostitutes and restricted their movements” (RPSP, Source No. 26). Priests even expected young, unmarried women to admit to a slew of different sins during their confessionals because sexual misconduct was expected from young, single women. A list from seventeenth-century Russia acted as a guide for such young women, indicating the types of sins they were “likely to commit.” Some examples of the questions were: “Did you play with your girlfriends inappropriately, as though with a man, or did you kiss youths with desire? Did someone defile you by force, either while asleep or while drunk?  Did you look at someone of the male sex with anticipation?” (RPSP, Source No. 26)

Women who performed magic—witches—or used language inappropriately were also considered to be deviant. In the Middle Ages, magic had been generally accepted, but during the early modern period “Witches were believed to have made a pact to deny God and serve the devil” (Zophy, p. 300). The first handbook on witchcraft and demonology, commissioned by Pope Innocent VIII was written by Jacob Sprenger and Heinrich Kramer. The handbook was titled Malleus Maleficarum (The Hammer of Witches) and was “laced with misogyny” and sums up “much of the worst in Western thought about women.” An excerpt from it reads, “Woman is more carnal than man...she always deceives...what else is woman but a foe to friendship, an inescapable punishment, a necessary evil, a natural temptation...to conclude, all witchcraft comes from carnal lust, which in woman is insatiable” (Zophy, p. 300). Also, women who used language inappropriately or cursed were considered dangerous, and they earned the term ‘scolds.’ A curse from a widow was considered to be extra dangerous, as “it went straight to God’s ear” (Lecture, 05/05/2023). 

Punishments for deviant women varied from public humiliation to torture and execution. Men were also sometimes punished for the behavior of deviant women. Public humiliation was usually utilized to keep people within a town or regional area in line, such as the charivari—or the English equivalent, known as the ‘skimmington.’ It was a procession through the town, in which a man sat backward atop a horse or donkey while villagers made ‘rough music’ and the “wife” beat the husband with a skimming ladle, a symbol of femininity. Processions like this were meant to enforce gender values of the period, and in this case, was a critique of men acting inferior to their wives or being cuckolded by them. Penance for ‘whores’ were similar; she would walk through the town market in underclothes, only covered by a white sheet, and sometimes she was put into the stocks overnight (Lecture, 05/05/2023). In more extreme cases, deviant women could be tortured or executed. A document from Germany in the sixteenth century describes the punishment of a criminal prostitute. It was common for “most women who sold sex [to combine] this with other types of work, and sometimes with criminal activity” (RPSP, Source No. 26). The woman being punished was Barbara Wissnerin, “a very base, lewd whore, who due to great unchastity, multiple theft, and breaking and entering [had] already been in the Loch[city jail] eight times” (RPSP, Source No. 26). Wissnerin had been publicly burned through the cheeks and had her first two fingers chopped off. None of the punishments seemed to help, and she was let out of the city after swearing an oath and also warned under penalty of death to not return. Still, she returned to the city and was caught thieving. Her final punishment reads: “Now on her own confession her day of execution is set for next Thursday, the first of March. For the said punishment she will be taken from life to death in water [i.e., drowned]” (RPSP, Source No. 26). 

Though societal expectations for women were strict in the early modern period, some women defied them successfully. Veronica Franco, an educated Venetian Cortigiana Onesta (honored courtesan) is one example; she had sex with elites and travelers, mingled with intellectual men, and she was a prolific writer. She spoke out about her and other courtesans’ mistreatment by men, and she didn’t hide her desires or intellectual capabilities. In a letter she wrote to a young man trying to win her affection, Franco exemplified her intellect eloquently: “You know full well that of all the men who count on being able to win my love, the ones dearest to me are those who work in the practice of the liberal arts and disciplines, of which (though a woman of little knowledge, especially compared to my inclination and interest) I am so fond...” (Selections: Pizan and Franco, p. 39). Another woman who persevered in her career, despite the best efforts of men to tame her, was Artemisia Gentileschi, who is considered to be the first professional female artist. After being raped by her mentor, Agostino Tassi, Gentileschi began including strong heroine characters in her paintings, such as Judith Slaying Holofernes. 

In the early modern period, from about 1500 to 1700, European women were met with many obstacles: patriarchal ideals, societal expectations, and a lack of opportunities. Some women fed into the patriarchal foundations of the Reformation, while some resisted—sometimes successfully, sometimes not. Regardless, after the relatively lax expectations of women during the Middle Ages, the early modern period and the Protestant Reformation caused a great shift in the lives of women across all of Europe.