The Reformation’s 500th anniversary has brought renewed attention to its most significant players, and “Katie” Luther is no exception. Hence, we have a new biography by Ruth Tucker, Katie Luther, First Lady of the Reformation: The Unconventional Life of Katharina von Bora.

How do you write a book about a woman whose life story is vitally important to world history, yet almost completely unknown?

It’s hard to overestimate the significance of Katharina von Bora, whose marriage to and influence upon Martin Luther had tremendous implications for the Reformation. But it’s also hard to gather any substantial information about her. We have the bare facts of her life, a handful of letters written by her, and Luther’s own writings to and about her. But we have precious little else.

Yet the Reformation’s 500th anniversary has brought renewed attention to its most significant players, and “Katie” Luther is no exception. Hence, we have a new biography by Ruth Tucker, Katie Luther, First Lady of the Reformation: The Unconventional Life of Katharina von Bora.

The subtitle is something of a play on words, as one of the things for which Katie is best known is escaping the convent to which she had been sent at the age of five. But as dramatic as that story seems to us now, and as meaningful as her escape was, Tucker wisely cautions us not to romanticize it, or even over-spiritualize it.

What Katie Wasn’t

As with most of the other aspects of Katie’s life, we know little about why she decided to leave behind the life of a nun—which in some ways was safer and more comfortable than the life of an ordinary 16th-century German woman. Based on the evidence we do have, Tucker suggests that Katie’s approach to faith, and to life in general, was more pragmatic than pious. Although she regularly sat at the dinner table with Martin’s students and heard their in-depth discussions, she was unlikely to have been caught up in theological ideas or doctrinal debates; Tucker refers to her as more a Martha than a Mary. And her marriage to Martin Luther was, at least in the beginning, more a marriage of convenience than a love story.

In fact, Katie’s biographer is frequently driven to defining her by what she was not, rather than what she was—rather like a photographer making use of negative space to create a striking image. Thus, Tucker tells us, “Other nuns escaped and brought with them tales of misery and despair. [Katie] would have had the perfect forum at the table, but none of the students or other guests ever reported such comments from her.”  Continue reading…