Argula of Grumbach

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Argula von Grumbach (portrait medal made of lead by Hans Schwarz , around 1520.)

Argula von Grumbach , née Reichsfreiin von Stauff (* around 1492 at Ehrenfels Castle (Bavaria) , † probably around 1554 in Zeilitzheim ), was a Protestant journalist and reformer.

Coat of arms of the von Grumbach family according to Siebmacher's book of arms

Life

Argula was born as the daughter of Baron Bernhardin von Stauff and his wife Katharina von Toerring zu Seefeld at Ehrenfels Castle in today's Beratzhausen . Her father received the post of captain of Landshut from the Bavarian Duke Albrecht IV . Argula came to the Munich court as a maid of honor to the Duchess Kunigunde , an educated woman to whom she owed her education. Around 1502 she received a German Bible, which she largely learned by heart. When her two parents died of the plague within five days in 1509 , the Duchess took special care of her. In 1516 she married the Frankish imperial knight Friedrich (Wolfskeel) von Grumbach , who was a nurse in Dietfurt . From the marriage, which ended in 1530 with the death of Friedrich, had four children - Georg, Hans Georg, Gottfried and Appolonia, of whom only Gottfried survived his mother.

The clashes of the Reformation did not go unnoticed by her. She read the writings of Martin Luther and got in touch with Paul Speratus . In 1523 she could say of herself, “by Dr. Martinus to have read everything that went out in the German tongue ”. She also wrote to Luther herself and was in correspondence with Georg Spalatin and Andreas Osiander .

When the 18-year-old Wittenberg Magister Arsacius Seehofer was forced to withdraw and was banished to the Ettal monastery in Ingolstadt , she traveled to Osiander to discuss what to do with him. Osiander was amazed at Argula's knowledge of the Bible. Now she approached the Bavarian Duke Wilhelm and the Ingolstadt University with a few missives , which caused a great stir. Particularly noteworthy are her two writings, "Ain Christian writes ainer Erbarn women of the nobility, in which all Christian authorities are encouraged to live by the truth and the word of God and to treat such things more seriously on Christian duty" (1523) and "Wie eyn Christian fraw of the nobility in Beiern by jren in Gothic script well founded letters the Hohenschul zuo Jngoldstat vmb that they have treated a Euangelischen youth to contradict the Word of God. ”(1523). "Wie eyn Christliche fraw" was rapidly and extensively reproduced, so that in less than two months after it was written, 14 issues had appeared. Her writings spread far beyond Bavaria and reached around 30,000 readers. Argula thus became one of the first female authors in Protestantism. In 1524 she wrote in a letter to the mayor and the councilors of the imperial city of Regensburg : "The word of God must be our weapon - not to strike with weapons, but to love our neighbors and to have peace with one another."

Her advocacy for the Reformation brought her a lot of suffering. Her husband's office was taken away in 1524, the family got into trouble, the relatives took a sharp stand against them. Argula could not overcome these setbacks. In a letter to his friend Johann Briesmann in Königsberg, Luther called her "a unique tool of Christ" and emphasized that she waged her great battle with the spirit and Christian knowledge.

None of her letters to the university were ever answered. Under the pseudonym Johannes von Landshut, a mocking poem was even written on her, to which Argula von Grumbach responded with a much longer poem.

Argula put her hope in the 2nd Nuremberg Reichstag . She appeared there and was asked for an interview by the Count Palatine . However, their hopes were not realized. Luther, who could not write to her directly, asked Spalatin, who was in Nuremberg in 1524, to greet her and comfort her. In later years she no longer appeared in journalism. It became quiet and lonely around her. In 1530 she visited Luther at the Veste Coburg and had a conversation with him. She then traveled to Augsburg , where the Reichstag deliberated on the Confessio Augustana .

Little news has been received from her later life. After her husband died in 1529 or 1530, she married Count Burian Schlick zu Passau for the second time in 1533 , but was widowed again in 1535. In 1539 two of their children, Apollonia and Georg, died. According to most biographers, she herself died in Zeilitzheim in 1554 . Her grave is there near the Evangelical Lutheran parish church of St. Sigismund .

In the Straubing document book it is noted that the "old Staufferin" is said to have been imprisoned in Straubing in 1563 because she had caused her subjects in Köfering to apostate from the Catholic Church by reading rebellious books. This old Lutheran woman was probably not Argula von Grumbach, but her sister-in-law Anna von Stauff, who died around 1568.

The writer Louise Otto-Peters honored the Bavarian reformer in a poem in 1893.

Remembrance day

June 23 in the Evangelical Name Calendar .

Argula von Grumbach Prize

The Argula-von-Grumbach-Preis is the equal opportunity award of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria and has been awarded since 1998. The award honors the achievements of women in the church. Since 2006, the Argula-von-Grumbach-Foundation has been promoting, awarding and funding .

Publications

  • Argula Staufferin: The lucid, high-born prince vnd gentlemen / Herr [e] n Johansen / Pfaltzgrauen bey Reyn / Hertoge [n] zu Beyern / Counts zu Spanhaym [et] c. Meynem Gnedigist gentlemen. undated, undated [1523] ( digitized version of the Duchess Anna Amalia Library , Weimar).
  • Peter Matheson (ed.): Argula von Grumbach. Writings (= sources and research on the history of the Reformation. Volume 83). Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 2010, ISBN 978-3-579-05374-5 .

literature

Web links

Wikisource: Argula von Grumbach  - Sources and full texts

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ A nobleman who is indignant. In: Chrismon . 9/2014.
  2. ↑ Peter Matheson: Argula von Grumbach, p. 8.
  3. ↑ Uwe Birnstein : Who is Who of the Reformation: Margarete Blarer . Kreuz Verlag, Freiburg 2014, ISBN 978-3-451-61252-7 , p. 201.
  4. ^ Bernhard Kirchmeier: Argula von Grumbach, p. 16.
  5. ^ A b Argula von Grumbach. Birth name: von Stauff in the Ecumenical Saint Lexicon , accessed on February 27, 2019.
  6. ^ Peter Matheson: Argula von Grumbach. Göttingen 2014, ISBN 978-3-525-55072-4 , pp. 219-221.
  7. ↑ Andrea Seidel: Awards and Prizes Argula von Grumbach Prize . In: bayern-evangelisch.de . March 10, 2016. Retrieved March 13, 2016.
personal data
SURNAME Grumbach, Argula of
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Stauff, Argula von (maiden name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German reformer
DATE OF BIRTH around 1492
PLACE OF BIRTH Ehrenfels Castle (Bavaria)
DATE OF DEATH around 1554
Place of death Zeilitzheim