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ABSTRACT
In the earliest decades of the promotion of evangelical reform, several writers argued that in such times, women were also being called to speak out publicly, following prompting by the Spirit in interpreting Scripture. This article explores the work of three women in the upper Rhine region and in Geneva, analyzing their use of Scripture to determine the form and content of their arguments for a woman’s voice in the Church. In the process they also had to counter the Scriptures which were traditionally used to prohibit the female contribution. A brief comparison is drawn with Anne Askew in England. The study finds that these women showed broad familiarity with Scripture and significant sophistication; but it also observes how as Protestant churches developed, male theologians reasserted the traditional prohibitions, so that women found themselves again relegated to public silence.
Notes on contributor
R. Gerald Hobbs is Emeritus Professor of Church History and Church Music at Vancouver School of Theology, Vancouver, Canada.
Notes
100 Documents Illustrative, 121 (n. 62). See Argula, 65.
101 On female roles in north-eastern Switzerland in 1525–1526, and the probable influence on Zwingli’s evolving attitude, see Jelsma, “A ‘Messiah for Women’,” 295–306, and von Greyerz, “Reformation, Gender, and Sexuality,” 167–74.
102 Cf. Luther above at n. 86 with his Infiltrating and Clandestine Preachers, LW 40, 388–92: ‘At last the women too would claim the right of “sitting by” and telling the men to be silent. Then one woman silencing the other – oh what a beautiful holiday, auction and carnival that would be! What pigsties could compare in goings-on with such churches?’ The earlier exceptions were understood by the later Luther as extraordinary, including the examples of holy women prior to Pentecost. But now that a reformed ministry has been established, the Old Testament examples are no longer relevant; women are henceforth governed by Paul’s command to keep quiet in an ordered congregation.
103 Zwingli, The Preaching Office, in H. Zwingli Writings 2, 170–1.
104 Bucer, Enarrationum In Evangelia, f. 100r, commenting on ‘Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God’ (Matt 4:7). It is only fair to note that Bucer’s remarks here were not directed particularly against women, but against all those who preached while refusing to engage in learning the biblical languages; this may well have included Lambert!
105 E.g. Schütz-Zell at the burial of her husband, and perhaps of others; on D’Entières’s probable evasion of the prohibition, see Davis, Church and Society, 82–3.
106 For interesting parallels within Dutch Calvinism a century later, see De Baar, “‘Let your women keep silence,’” 295–306; and in contrast, on women in the Quaker tradition see Larson, Daughters of Light, 14–42.
107 In her MS letter to Caspar Schwenckfeld, Schütz-Zell, Church Mother, 196–7.
1 Erasmus, Paraclesis, quoted here from Olin, Christian Humanism, 97, 100. Latin: ‘Christus sua mysteria quam maxime cupit evulgari. Optarim ut omnes mulierculae legant evangelium, legant Paulinas epitolas … Addam audaciter illud, nulli non licet esse Theologum’, Paraclesis on-line, http://reader.digitale-sammlungen.de, 9, 14. Cf. Boyle, “Weavers, Farmers, Tailors,” 1–7.
2 Eck, Enchiridion, 79.
3 See Boyle, “Weavers, Farmers, Tailors,” 1. Cf. Bainton, Women of the Reformation, a work drawing heavily upon older articles by German scholars in particular.
4 Cf. Russell, Lay Theology in the Reformation.
5 1a pars, dist. 23, canon 29, Corpus iuris canonici, vol. 1, 86.
6 Acts of Lateran IV, Canon 3=Decretales, 5.7.13, in Ibid., Corpus iuris canonici, vol. 2, 788.
7 Ambrose quoted in Decreti 2a pars, c. 33.5, c. 17, 19, Corpus iuris canonici, vol. 1, 1255; Innocent III in Decretales 5.38.10, Corpus iuris canonici, vol. 2, 887.
8 E.g. Aquinas, Summa theologiae, 1a, q. 92, a1. See www.sacred-texts.com/chr/aquinas/summa/sum102.htm, and Decreti 2a pars, c.33, q.5.13–4, Corpus iuris canonici, vol. 1, 1254.
9 Cf. Lerner, The Creation of Feminist Consciousness.
10 King and Rabil Jr., editors of the series, “The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe,” have raised this issue in summary fashion in their series introduction to McKinley’s Dentière edition: Marie Dentière. Epistle, xiii–xiv, and to one of McKee’s Schütz-Zell editions: Schütz-Zell. Church Mother, xiii–xiv. Our analysis will be more comprehensive and comparative.
11 The four women have also been linked by Carbonnier-Burkard, “La Réforme en langue de femmes,” 173–92.
12 For an example, see the quotation below at n. 32.
13 ‘so darff und mag ich unn auch eyn yder Christ wol christenlich schreiben, singen, sagen, rathen, reden berichten, anzeygen und handeln, etc. ist und heyszt alles gepredigt. Dise meine Geschrifft ist und heyszt auch eyn Predig oder Sermon, darumb so bin ich auch eyn prediger’. Eckhart zum Drübel, 96–7.
14 For biography and bibliography by Matheson, see Argula, and Stjerna, Women and the Reformation, 71–85, 236–9.
15 For a list of these primary texts, see Argula, 197–200.
16 Schütz-Zell 2, Writings; McKee, Schütz-Zell 1, Life and Thought, 265–95; Schütz-Zell, Church Mother. See also Stjerna, Women and the Reformation, 109–31, 243–6; Hobbs, “Le cri d’une pierre”; McKee, “Katharina Schütz-Zell: une réformatrice.”
17 See Oxford Bibliographies, s.v.; McKinley’s introduction to Dentière, Epistle, 1–48; Encyclopedia of Women, 113–5; Backus, “Marie Dentière,” 171–95.
18 The south German and Swiss evangelicals looked vainly to the house of Valois to commit to the evangelical cause. See Peter and Berthoud, Le Livre et la Réforme, 183–261.
19 La guerre et deslivrance de la ville de Genesve (1536). This ascription is challenged by McKinley in Dentière, Epistle, 8. But after careful exploration of D’Entières’ ‘feminism’, the attribution is accepted by Backus, “Marie Dentière,” 181.
20 D’Entières, Epistre Tresutile; English trsl.: Dentière, Epistle.
21 Ibid., 79. McKinley suggests that this ‘bag’ refers to lucrative positions the queen is expected to award prominent churchmen with.
22 Agrippa, Declamatio; English trsl: Declamation. This influence is noted as well by Carbonnier-Burkard, “Langue de femmes,” 185; but Backus, “Marie Dentière,” 187, argues that there is no direct dependency. I find the stylistic and thematic parallels too close, however, to concur with this judgement.
23 A contemporary opponent describes her as having ‘idiotic [=vernacular] quotes from the Bible/like a quilt with a hundred patches/not one of which the other matches/and many you quote are wrong.’ Argula, 164.
24 I have examined all the documents in their original, but since as all are now available in modern English translation, I shall cite the latter.
25 A preface to Argula’s first work, “Account of a Christian woman,” affirms the right of a woman to speak. Matheson is unconvinced of Osiander’s authorship. If he is correct, this simply means another theologian provided the arguments: see Argula, 57–75, with arguments for other candidates like Balthasar Hubmaier, Eberlin von Günzburg, or Sebastian Lotzer, but offering no conclusive evidence for any of them.
26 Argula, 73, 182; Dentière, Epistle, 49 (heading).
27 Argula, 89–90; Schütz-Zell, Church Mother, 62 (heading); Dentière, Epistle, 49, 79–81.
28 Argula, 79–80.
29 Ibid., 176, also the preface, 73; Schütz-Zell, Church Mother, 82. D’Entières names Joel 2:21 on her title page (Epistle, 49); this might be intended to invite to the whole periscope, but she makes no further allusion to it.
30 Schütz-Zell, Church Mother, 82; Dentière, Epistle, 79–80.
31 Argula, 75, 81.
32 My own translation of the original; cf. Schütz-Zell 2, Writings, 45–6, and Schütz-Zell, Church Mother, 81–2.
33 [Biblia. Strasbourg 1485], vol. 2, BSB Ink-B-491, in http://daten.digital-sammlungen.de/bsb00025992/image_338 (consulted 4 June 2015).
34 See Schütz, Church Mother, 70.
35 The Luther German of 1532 and 1545: “Du kind des Menschen,” “Du Menschenkind,” see WA.DB 11/1, 438–9.
36 Although not published until 1529, see an insistence on the generic character of the Hebrew ashre-ha’ish [blessed is the man] at Psalm 1:1, and therefore the absence of distinctions of gender, class, race, education in the blessing being pronounced, see Bucer, Sacrorum Psalmorum libri, f. 1v; this will certainly have been discussed in the Strasbourg prophezei. Cf. Reuchlin. De rudimentis, 37. 50–1. 86, where on ben [son], he states: “hoc vocabulum significans filios vel filias.”
37 See below at n. 54.
38 See Hobbs, “Pluriformity,” 465–6.
39 Argula, 73–4, 183–5; Schütz-Zell, Church Mother, 69–70, 72; Dentière, Epistle, 54.
40 Argula, 74, 183–4. For D’Entières, Tobit appears as exemplar of the righteous few, Marie Dentière. Epistle, 67. In all the Bibles at the disposition of our authors, the deutero-canonical books were include, although from Luther and Olivétan forward they were placed in a separate section. An interesting echo of the use of Hebraic deutero-canonical sources occurs in the retention of these as acceptable baptismal names (when the names of Catholic saints were looked upon with disfavour) amongst Reformed Protestants in mid-century; see Richard, Untersuchungen, 191–226 (especially Judith and Susanna). I am unclear why McKee sees here in Schütz-Zell an ‘advanced Protestant spirit’; see Schütz-Zell 2, Writings, 33, n. 52, and Schütz-Zell, Church Mother, 72, n. 30.
41 In the “Apologia for Master Matthew Zell,” Schütz-Zell 2, Writings, 33; the lapse is corrected tacitly by McKee in Schütz-Zell, Church Mother, 72.
42 Argula, 90, 157.
43 D’Entières was writing of course to Marguerite of Navarre who is still a practising Catholic, and she speaks with reverence, Dentière, Epistle, 54–5; later she twice used the traditional epithet ‘mother of God’ in regard to Mary. The paucity of reference in the earliest writings of these women to the Virgin Mary and the absence of the Magnificat already noted is probably reticence about texts associated with Marian Catholic devotion; in 1553 Schütz-Zell did include her as one who received the message from an angel, Church Mother, 209.
44 Dentière, Epistle, 55, and also Argula, 88.
45 Argula, 83, 168. The Ingolstadt student intended a rebuttal; he referred to Martha’s sister as ‘the Magdalene’, according to the traditional blending of the Gospel Marys. The traditional view was under assault from Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples after 1517, and fiercely defended by Noël Beda of the Sorbonne; see Porrer, Jacques Lefèvre d’Étaples.
46 Infiltrating and Clandestine Preachers, LW 40, 390–1.
47 Dentière, Epistle, 67–8. McKinley confuses Micaiah ben Imlah (1 Kings 22) with Micah of Moresheth, a later prophet whose book is included in the Twelve Minor Prophets ‒ see Dentière, Epistle, 68, n. 30. But the marginal reference to ‘3 Roy 22’ [1 Kings 22] clearly designates the former. The confusion may have been helped by the fact that the two names in La Bible (1535) of Olivétan are treated identically as ‘Micheah’ although they differ somewhat in Hebrew. D’Entières probably used Olivétan’s Protestant Bible, but she probably had an older translation as well, such as La saincte Bible by Lefèvre d’Étaples (1530). In this Bible Lefèvre (who had little Hebrew) gave both names as ‘Micheas’. Lefèvre retains ‘iii [et iiii] des Rois’ [3–4 Kings], which is also D’Entières’s usage. See also below notes 94 and 95.
48 That is, her speaking out in public ought not to cause such a stir, for unlike the donkey, she is gifted with intelligent speech. My own translation here. Cf. Schütz-Zell, Church Mother, 81–2.
49 Luther, To the Christian Nobility, LW 44, 136, 205.
50 Argula, 182, 195.
51 Cf. at n. 5 above.
52 Argula, 75; Schütz-Zell, Church Mother, 81–2; Dentière, Epistle, 55.
53 Argula, 76.
54 Dentière, Epistle, 56.
55 See n. 7.
56 Argula, 118–9, 179, 187.
57 Dentière, Epistle, 79.
58 Ibid., 53. My own translation from Epistre. Her concern for the ‘femmelettes’ certainly echoes Erasmus’s concern for the ‘mulierculae’ with which this paper began (see in n. 1); it may be evidence she had read Erasmus.
59 See above n. 32.
60 Which, as Matheson points out, she apparently conflates; see Argula, 79, n. 62.
61 Ibid., 75, 79.
62 Dentière, Epistle, 53.
63 Thus Matheson, Argula, 162, 168.
64 Ibid., 173–95.
65 Ibid., 77.
66 Dentière, Epistle, 76.
67 My own translation from the original Epistre; cf. Dentière, Epistle, 55–6. This passage may owe inspiration to Agrippa, Declamation, 70–1.
68 Russell, “‘Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy’,” 122–39.
69 Argula, 72–3, 157.
70 Ibid., 154–5; Dentière, Epistle 57, 65.
71 Dentière, Epistle, 87.
72 On Askew see several useful essays in Beilin, Early Tudor Women Writers 1, 225–375.
73 Modern critical edn: Askew, Examinations. She identifies herself several times with Stephen (Acts 7). See Beilin’s Introduction on the role of John Bale, the Protestant publicist, ibid., xxx–xxxv.
74 See also Carbonnier-Burkard, “Langue de femmes,” 174–78. Carbonnier-Burkard likewise excludes Bale’s running commentary from consideration.
75 Examinations, 3, 51.
76 Ibid., 21.
77 Ibid., 106, 114.
78 Ibid., 97.
79 Ibid., 54.
80 Ibid., 29–30.
81 Ibid., 56. By royal decree a copy of the Great Bible of 1539 was chained to the pulpit here. On the severe restriction of readership in the last years of Henry VIII’s life, see Dickens, The English Reformation, 213.
82 Examinations, 94. As a term of opprobrium, ‘parrot’ here antedates usages documented in Oxford English Dictionary.
83 Ibid., 30, 92.
84 The “Passauer Anonymous,” in Heresy and Authority, 157–8.
85 To the Christian Nobility, LW 44, 134 (where Luther uses ‘Mensch,’ an inclusive term); see also Concerning the Ministry, LW 40, 20–3, 34–5 (there: while the community decides who exercises the ministry, ‘in time of emergency each may use it as deemed best’).
86 On the Clarity and Certainty, in Zwingli and Bullinger, 92–3. Zwingli concludes his address to the cloistered nuns affirming that ‘even the lowliest’ can speak when the teachers miss the truth. In the context, it is clear that Zwingli was privately encouraging the nuns to rebuke a Catholic confessor. But the sermon was subsequently (1524) published, so that he could certainly have been, and probably was, understood more broadly. But see n. 102 below.
87 Lambert, In Iohelem, f. 45v, claims that this phenomenon belongs to every age, including his own: ‘credentes utriusque sexus, quibus spiritus veritatis infunditur, ita ut valeant prophetare, id est evangelizare. Siquidem prophetia vertitatis praedicatio est, ut liquet 1 Corinth. 14’. In the Commentarii, V, 23, however, he is a more cautious: women can speak in public only when a man is not available or not enlightened.
88 See Carbonnier-Burkard, “Langue de femmes,” 185–6, and Backus, “Marie Dentière,” 171–95.
89 See Argula, 29–31, where he cites her comment in 1523 on a 40-year-old Bible which her examiners were also using. Matheson’s suggestion is confirmed at Argula, 78, where she quotes Jeremiah 48, 27 in a form that is pre-sixteenth century; and her references to individual psalms are Vulgate numbering of all pre-Luther editions, as are moreover those by Schütz-Zell in her writings of 1524 – see Schütz-Zell, Church Mother, 81.
90 Argula, 86.
91 See Strand, German Bibles.
92 [Olivétan], La Bible. Witness D’Entières’s reference to the name of God as ‘Jehovah’ which in his preface Olivétan quotes from Martin Bucer’s Psalms commentary of 1529 and 1532; see Dentière, Epistle 69. Cf. n. 48 above.
93 [Lefèvre d’Étaples], La saincte Bible. “Third and Fourth Kings” was the Vulgate manner of naming the Hebrew books of 1 and 2 Kings, a system retained in Lefèvre’s 1530 and 1534 Bibles for the Hebrew books of Kings, while using the Hebrew 1-2 Samuel for the first two ‘Kings’.
94 Dentière, Epistle, 69–71, 75, 77.
95 Backus, “Marie Dentière,” 189–90.
96 See above the argument around use of 1 Corinthians 1, the wise-foolish theme; see Russell, “‘Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy’,” 128–9.
97 See above at nn. 31–5.
98 Especially clear in Schütz-Zell, Church Mother, 81–2 ‒ see the excerpt at n. 25 above.
99 Argula, 84–5. Notice how promptly this imperial mandate is being claimed by would-be evangelicals. A few lines later (85) she names ‘the coming Council … in pursuit of the imperial mandate’, which has however not yet been publicly proclaimed.