Catharine de Bora: Social and Domestic Scenes in the Home of Luther

The work presents a biographical sketch of the Reformer’s household life through the perspective of his wife, Catharine, tracing her earlier convent escape, marriage, and role in managing home, finances, hospitality, and charity. It balances accounts of clerical celibacy debates and Luther’s defense of marriage with intimate scenes of caregiving, illness, domestic discipline, and social pressures. Chapters treat the couple’s wedding, household economy, parenting, external slanders, journeys, and Catharine’s later widowhood and hardships. Sources and contemporary testimonies are used to portray her character, resilience, and influence on the domestic stability that supported the reformer’s public work.