Wibrandi's rose petal

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Wibrandi's rose petal

Wibrandis Rosenblatt (* 1504 in Säckingen ; † November 1, 1564 in Basel ) was successively the wife of the three important reformers Johannes Oekolampad , Wolfgang Capito and Martin Bucer .

Life

She was the daughter of Hans Rosenblatt (around 1475 - around 1530), the later mayor of Säckingen and imperial field captain, who was hardly ever at home with his family. Nothing is known about her childhood. Her mother Magdalena Strub later moved to Basel , where her family came from and where she had several relatives on the city council.

In 1524, the twenty-year-old Wibrandis married the humanistically educated Basel Magister Ludwig Keller, who also called himself Ludwig Cellarius († 1526). Cellarius died as early as the summer of 1526, leaving her with a daughter, who was called Wibrandi's mother.

The marriages and children at a glance

  • 1524 to 1526 with Ludwig Cellarius († 1526), ​​one daughter;
  • 1528 to 1531 with Johannes Oekolampad (1482–1531), two daughters and a son;
  • 1531 to 1541 with Wolfgang Capito (1478–1541), five children;
  • 1542 to 1551 with Martin Bucer (1491–1551), two children;

Marriage to Oekolampad

Memorial plaque for Wibrandis Rosenblatt (1504–1564). Oekolampad community hall, Allschwilerplatz, Basel.
Memorial plaque for Wibrandis Rosenblatt, Oekolampad Church

In 1528 the reformer Johannes Oekolampad married Wibrandis, 22 years his junior, who was an enthusiastic supporter of the new doctrine. Erasmus von Rotterdam mocked that Oekolampad had married an attractive young woman as a penance for Lent. In the eyes of Oekolampad, she was a little too young, but a good Christian from a respectable, but not too rich family. A year after their marriage, he wrote to Capito: “My wife is what I always wanted. She is neither quarrelsome nor gossipy and does not hang around, but takes care of the household. ”Wibrandis was exactly the wife the reformers of the time wanted: hardworking, modest, obedient and knowledgeable of the Bible. Since she was a citizen of Basel, Oekolampad was also granted citizenship in 1530. From this marriage arose three children: Eusebius (after Eusebius of Caesarea , a teacher of the church ), Irene (from the Greek peace) and Aletheia (from the Greek truth).

As the wife of a reformer, Wibrandis had the house full of guests, refugees and those in need. At that time she was already in correspondence with Agnes, von Capito's wife, and Elisabeth, von Bucer’s wife, as well as with Anna Zwingli . In April 1531 Oekolampad died, leaving Wibrandis as a widow with three children.

Marriage to Capito

Meanwhile, in Strasbourg, Capito had lost his wife to the plague. For a widower with several children, such a situation called for immediate remarriage in the 16th century. Capito had Sabina Bader , the widow of an executed Anabaptist leader from Augsburg, in mind, but his friend Bucer thought that the somewhat eccentric Capito needed a practical woman who was firmly anchored in the Reformed movement. Wibrandis was a suitable match, and Bucer hoped that the plight of the widow of Oekolampad and her three children would keep Capito away from the Augsburgers.

In fact, Capito, over fifty years old, married Wibrandis, who was twenty years his junior, and took her to Strasbourg, where Capito was pastor. This husband was not easy, he suffered from depression, was very impractical and had got into financial distress due to sureties he had naively taken on. The pastor's wife Wibrandis had to be very frugal in order to be able to take care of the refugees and those seeking help that are common in this house. In addition, she gave her husband five children (Agnes, Dorothea, Johannes Simon, Wolfgang, Irene) in a nine-year marriage. In 1541 Capito died during a plague epidemic, which also killed three of Wibrandis' children: the eldest son Eusebius as well as Dorothea and Wolfgang. The former daughter Irene von Oekolampad had died before the daughter Irene von Capito was born.

Marriage to Bucer

Elisabeth Silbereisen , Bucer's first wife, who had already given birth to 13 children, and four of her children fell victim to the same plague epidemic as Capito. On her deathbed, she made Bucer and Wibrandis promise to marry each other in order to care for the children of both families. Bucer did this in 1542. Wibrandis brought four children into the marriage, whom Bucer regarded as his own children alongside his disabled son Nathanael. Here, too, Wibrandis was responsible for a large rectory household with numerous guests and those seeking help, which she often had to manage alone during her husband's many trips. There were two other children from this marriage: Martin, who died as a toddler, and Elisabeth. Bucer said of his wife that she was perfect in every way, only that she didn't reprimand him as often as Elisabeth did.

In 1548 Bucer had to leave Strasbourg - his exile was a condition of Charles V for a peace treaty. He moved to England, where Thomas Cranmer in Cambridge offered him a position as professor of theology. He did not feel well there and had health problems, whereupon Wibrandis decided on a visit that the whole family had to go to England. In 1549 she had done the whole move and came to England to take care of Bucer through two more difficult winters.

Bucer died in 1551 and Wibrandis returned to Strasbourg, where their daughter Aletheia was married to a young pastor. After the death of her son-in-law in 1553, she went with her two unmarried daughters to her hometown of Basel and lived there as a respected widow until she died in 1564 of a rampant epidemic , probably the plague .

See also: Women of the Reformation

literature

  • Sonja Domröse: Women of the Reformation. Learned, courageous and faithful. Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-525-55012-0 .
  • Irina Bossart: Wibrandis Rosenblatt (1504–1564) - "your servant in the Lord" or: The word takes shape in action. In: Adelheid M. von Hauff (Ed.): Women shape diakonia. Volume 1: From Biblical Times to Pietism (). Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 978-3-17-019570-7 , pp. 321-336.
  • Susanna Burghartz : Wibrandis Rosenblatt - The reformers' wife. In: Theological Journal. Vol. 60, No. 4, 2004, pp. 337-349, ( digital version (PDF; 105.63 KB) ).
  • Roland H. Bainton : Women of the Reformation. From Katharina von Bora to Anna Zwingli. 10 portraits (= Gütersloh paperbacks. 1442). 2nd Edition. Gütersloher Verlags-Haus, Gütersloh 1996, ISBN 3-579-01442-0 , pp. 84-102.
  • Ernst Staehelin : Mrs. Wibrandis. A figure from the battles of the Reformation period. Gotthelf-Verlag, Bern et al. 1934.

Fiction

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ [1]
  2. ↑ Uxor ca est, qualem semper optavi neque aliam vellem ... , quoted in Bossart (2006), p. 326.
  3. ^ HJ Selderhuis: Marriage and Divorce in the Thought of Martin Bucer. Vol. 48 Sixteenth century essays & studies, Truman State Univ. Press, 1999, ISBN 0-9435-4968-X , p. 123
personal data
SURNAME Rosenblatt, Wibrandis
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Wife of Johannes Oekolampad , Wolfgang Capito and Martin Bucer
DATE OF BIRTH 1504
PLACE OF BIRTH Säckingen
DATE OF DEATH November 1, 1564
Place of death Basel