ABSTRACT
On 13 June 1525, after weeks of speculation, Martin Luther secretly married Katharina von Bora, a former nun, in a private ceremony officiated by city preacher Johann Bugenhagen and attended by jurist Johann Apel, professor Justus Jonas, and artist Lucas Cranach and his wife. Over the last centuries, scholars, writers, artists, Wittenberg citizens-in their popular, annual Lutherhochzeit [Luther’s wedding] festival-and even a recent filmmaker have characterized this event as one of the iconic episodes of the Lutheran Reformation.1 Yet Luther’s marriage neither legalized nor heralded an immediate acceptance of priestly marriage even in reformed territories. Luther certainly was not the first cleric to marry. Three of the witnesses at his wedding-Apel, Bugenhagen, and Jonas-were former Catholic clergy who had all married by mid-1523, a full two years before this event. Only a few weeks prior to this event, Luther expressed hesitation about marriage even for political reasons, suggesting perhaps he would agree to a chaste marriage, a Josephehe, to support married clergy.2 Luther’s marriage does illustrate many aspects of the ongoing reform process. His mixed feelings about marrying, the atmosphere that led him to a decision, the subsequent outcry about marriage, and the personal trials that faced him and his wife in their married life had much in common with the many clergy who married before and after him in the first decades of the German Reformation.
