Florentina of Oberweimar
Florentina was born in 1506 in Germany. She was a Cistercian religious sister who tried to flee the convent several times, and is known for her bestseller. The dates of Florentina’s death are not known.
On her father’s side, Florentina’s origins lie in the noble family of Oberweimar, which lived in the Thuringia region in a place of the same name – Oberweimar. Florentina’s mother’s family came from the Watzdorf family, which also lived in Thuringia.
At the age of six, Florentina was placed in the Cistercian convent in Eisleben to be raised. At the age of eleven (or 14), Florentina realised that she did not wish to spend her whole life in the convent, but the girl was forbidden to return home. It was explained to her that, since she had received the convent’s blessing as a teenager, there was no way back to life outside. She had to become a nun. It should be noted that at the Helfta convent Florentina was together with her relatives. Her mother’s relative Katharina of Watzdorf was the abbess, that is, the head of the convent; another relative on her mother’s side, named Margaretha of Watzdorf, was the convent’s teacher. The head of the convent’s novitiate, Katharina of Oberweimar, was Florentina’s relative on her father’s side. Surrounded by such relatives, Florentina’s hopes for freedom were limited. Under the influence of this control and against her own will, she took the vows of a religious sister, becoming a nun at the age of 16.
Having come into possession of Martin Luther’s writings, Florentina began to read them avidly. In 1523 the young woman decided to flee the convent and head towards freedom, but she did not manage to escape. Florentina was punished with blows and placed in the convent prison. In December 1523 the girl wrote from the convent prison a letter to her relative Kaspar von Watzdorf “as a famous lover of evangelical truth” (her own words), asking for his help to get out. At Christmas 1523, her relatives decided to increase Florentina’s punishment – she was ordered to remain imprisoned in a cell for the rest of her life. But soon everything changed. The girl’s plea and prayers were heard, and in the spring of 1524 Florentina managed to get out of the convent. There are two different versions of how she got out.
The first version holds that Florentina’s relative Kaspar von Watzdorf, after consulting with Luther, got the girl out of the cell.
The second version supposes that the letter Florentina wrote to her relative was intercepted, and that Florentina also tried to write to Luther himself, but that letter too was intercepted by the head of the convent. Florentina is said to have managed to escape the convent on her own at the moment when a guard left the cell door open.
Once Florentina was gone, the convent’s abbess spread rumours that the girl had robbed the convent. It was precisely this false slander that prompted Florentina to begin writing her memoirs about the dark side of convent life.
This case gave Luther the opportunity to continue to take an open stand against the convent system. A year earlier, in 1523, Luther had written the treatise “Reasons and Answers: Why Maidens May in a Godly Manner Leave the Convents”. After getting out, Florentina herself described her bitter experience in the convent in the treatise “An Account of How God Helped a Maiden Out of a Convent”[1]. Luther sent Florentina his foreword and notes for the conclusion, and helped to get the young woman’s memoir to the publisher. Her treatise was published in 1524 in Wittenberg and became one of the most sought-after writings of its time. The treatise was published in several Reformation cities – Augsburg, Nuremberg, Strasbourg and twice in Erfurt – 6 times within a single year. The young woman’s treatise gained popularity also because it bore the inscription – with a foreword by Martin Luther. It is also telling that Florentina’s name as author appears nowhere in the treatise.
Later the treatise written by Florentina was printed together with Luther’s works, and it is perhaps for this very reason that we know of it.
Once free, Florentina perhaps lived together with her relatives in Watzdorf. Luther’s opponent Johannes Cochlaeus wrote that Florentina had lived for some time with Luther. Unfortunately, Florentina’s further life is not known to us.
In the 1520s, hundreds of religious sisters and monks left the convents. Among them was also Luther’s wife, Katharina von Bora. The Oberweimar convent, in which our heroine Florentina lived, was closed in 1525 because of the events of the Reformation. Some sources indicate that, under the influence of Florentina’s treatise, the inhabitants of Eisleben razed this Helfta convent to the ground.
In 1542 the convent building was secularised – it began to be used for everyday purposes.
In Mariana Lepadu’s painting, Florentina is depicted in a Cistercian habit; behind her an open door, and light fills the room.
Katharina Mosbach
In the autumn of 2017 a distinctive movement began – first several women who had experienced sexual violence from a well-known Hollywood producer revealed, one after another, the suffering of their past to the wider public. Such openness about the sexual violence endured, which for centuries had been suffered in silence, hushed up out of shame and concealed, sparked a worldwide women’s campaign called “Me Too” (in English).
In these months, when we are experiencing something truly new – the courage of women to share what they have experienced publicly, despite the differing reactions of those around them, from understanding to condemning (see, she is to blame herself) – we can notice that the world’s society is becoming a little more liberated. For when women’s voices become audible, light shines into so intimate and forbidden an aspect as the power and gender relations of women and men, and there are fewer works of darkness. Our deepest conviction is that the quality of mutual relations in society can arise only together with a woman’s dignity and freedom of expression.
Continuing our theme of the women of the Reformation in Central Germany, we wish to mention a woman for whom marriage was by no means a pot of honey. Our heroine is named Katharina Mosbach. Katharina’s date and place of birth are not known. There is information that she was married to a superintendent, Pastor Simon Mosbach, and lived in the town of Weiden. Katharina was actively involved in both the life of the congregation and that of society.
About Simon it is known that he worked as a superintendent in Sangerhausen in 1570. Three years later he died at the age of 49, leaving Katharina widowed, without income and alone with their sons. Katharina and the children had to move out of the family residence. Let us recall that in the Middle Ages women had no right to inherit the property or funds left by their husbands (even Katharina von Bora could not receive the property bequeathed to her that Luther had intended for her).
In 1577 the woman married Peter Krämer – a wealthy and successful entrepreneur. The new husband was an unbeliever and, moreover, violent, and in her new marriage Katharina experienced regular violence. Unlike today, a woman had nowhere to turn for help; she had to suffer in silence and solitude.
In the painting, Katharina is depicted with a broken rose as a sign that violence was perpetrated against her.
Related articles: Women of the Reformation in Central Germany, Part I
Women of the Reformation in Central Germany, Part II
Women of the Reformation in Central Germany, Part III
[1] Ein Gesicht, wie Gott einer Ehrbarn Klosterjungfrauen ausgeholfen hat.