Abstract
Magdalena Luther, beloved daughter of the Wittenberg reformer, died on 20 September 1542 at the age of thirteen.1 Her parents were devastated by her slow death from a virulent fever. As Magdalena’s last hour approached, her mother Katharina lay exhausted from weeping while Martin Luther grappled with the impending loss. ‘I love her very much,’ he prayed aloud. ‘But if it is thy will to take her, dear God, I shall be glad to know that she is with thee.’2 Luther fell to his knees beside her bed and wept bitterly, praying that Magdalena would be saved. He asked her if she was prepared to join her heavenly father; she responded that she was. She died in his arms, we are told.’ After her death the prayers of her parents for her salvation ceased. Magdalena was now beyond human intercession: ‘separation’ is the term Luther later used to describe her death.
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Notes
On the relationship between cultural reproduction and cultural transforma-tion, see Marshall Sahlins, Historical Metaphors and Mythical Realities: Structure in the Early Histoty of the Sandwich Islands Kingdom (Ann Arbor, 1981), pp. 67–72, and idem, Islands o f History (Chicago, 1985), pp. 136–56.
The essays in Bernhard Jussen and Craig Koslof sky, eds, Kulturelle Reformation. Sinnformationen im Umbruch 1400–1600, Verof fentlichungen des Max-Planck-Instituts ftir Geschichte 145 (Gottingen, 1999) explore the redefinition of a series of medieval cultural distinctions.
‘Dem Heren sy dank vor zolchen zaligen affscheit und ehrlike begreffnisse!’ Friedrich Runge, ‘Hermann Bonnus’ Tod und Begrabnis (Bericht seines Bruders an die Eltern in Quakenbruck)’, Mitteilungen des Vereins fur Geschichte und Landeskunde von Osnabrück 16 (1891): 264. Cf. Petra Savvidis, Hermann Bonnus, Superintendent von Liibeck (1504–1548). Sein kirchenpolitisch-organisatorisches Wirken und sein praktisch-theologisches Schrifttum (Lubeck, 1992).
On the dangers the dead could pose to the living, see Mireille Othenin-Girard, “Helfer” und “Gespenster”: Die Toten und der Tauschhandel mit den Lebenden’, in Kulturelle Reformation. Sinnformationen im Umbruch 1400–1600, ed. Jussen and Koslof sky, pp. 159–91.
See Barbara Happe, Die Entwicklung der deutschen Friedhof e von der Reformation bis 1870, Untersuchungen des Ludiwg-Uhland-Instituts 77 (Tiibingen, 1991), pp. 11–16, 188–216.
On the ‘good death’ in the Lutheran tradition, see Rudolf Mohr, Protestantische Theologie und Frornmigkeit im Angesicht des Todes wdhrend des Barockzeitalters (Marburg, 1964). On the final days and last words of Luther and Melanchthon, see Christof Schubart, Die Berichte iiber Luthers Tod und Begrabnis (Weimar, 1917), and Nikolaus Muller, Philipp Melanchthons letzte Lebenstage, Heirngang und Bestattung (Lcipzig, 1910).
Happe, Entwicklung der deutschen Friedho fe, p. 199, citing Ernst Hagemann, ‘Liibecks Friedhof e’, in Der Wagen. Ein Liibeckisches Jahrbuch (Liibeck, 1952–3), pp. 103–6.
Joachim Schwartzkopf, Rahels Kreis und Todes Bette. Das ist die trawrige Historie aus Gen. 35 von dem klaglichen Tod der heligien Ertzmutter Rahel/bey dem Christlichen Leichbegengnis/der weyland Ehrbaren und Vielehrentugendreichen Frawen Fr. Anna Litzmannin… (Wittenberg: August Boreck, 1628). See Arno Böttcher, ‘Neuruppinische Leichenpredigten’, Brandenburgia Monatsblatt 17 (1908–9): 535–66, 539.
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© 2000 Craig M. Koslofsky
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Koslofsky, C.M. (2000). Death, Ritual and History. In: The Reformation of the Dead. Early Modern History: Society and Culture. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230286375_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230286375_7
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