The status of Women in the Protestant Reformation was deeply influenced by Bible study, as the Reformation promoted literacy and Bible study in order to study God's will in what a society should look like. This influenced women's lives in both positive and negative ways, depending on what scripture and passages of the Bible were studied and promoted. The ideal of Bible study for commoners improved women's literacy and education, and many women became known for their interest and involvement in public debate during the Reformation. In parallel, however, their voices were often suppressed because of the edict of the Bible that women were to be silent. The abolition of the female convents resulted in the role of wife and mother becoming the only remaining ideal for a woman.

Women's role during the Reformation

Education The Reformation promoted literacy and the study of the Bible in vernacular language in order to study how society should look like in the eyes of God. Commoners and not only clergy were now encouraged to study the Bible, which in turn encouraged literacy. Literacy and Bible study were, to a varying degree, encouraged for women as well, for them to be a biblical influence for children and their husband.

Schooling for girls and literacy for women consequently and gradually became more common. For example, the Swedish Church Ordinance of 1571 mandated the education of girls along with the boys.Den svenska kyrkoordningen 1571 jämte studier kring tillkomst, innehåll och användning published by Sven Kjöllerström, Lund 1971. Bible studies had different effects on the position of women, depending on which scripture was studied, and how it was interpreted. In some cases, it benefitted women, when they found passages suggesting women were equal to men in the presence of God. In other cases, it did the opposite, when misogynic passages of the Bible were emphasised.

The women's ideal promoted during the Reformation was the women were to be silent and obedient wives and mothers, devoted to household tasks and childcare. The purpose of women's education was the development of an accepted concept of marriage and training in domestic skills. Women were taught how to look after children, care for their homes, make clothing for her family, and tend livestock.

Marriage

The Reformation abolished the celibacy for priests, monks and nuns and promoted marriage as the ideal state for both men and women. While men still had the opportunity to become clergymen, women could no longer become nuns, and marriage came to be seen as the only proper role for a woman. Consequently, marriage was idealized, and the role of women within marriage was studied within the context of Bible studies.

The Biblical role of a wife was regarded to be that of a companion to her husband, but she was always his subordinate.See Ephesians 5:22 in the Bible. Obedience was demanded by husbands, and wives were restricted in their actions.See multiple Bible verses on the women's obedience at Open Bible Website: https://www.openbible.info/topics/womans_obedience| accessed 18 August 2023.For a contemporary discussion of biblical references on this topic, see Hargraves Home and Health post, "Does the Bible teach that women are subordinate?". Website: https://www.hargraveshomeandhearth.com/does-the-bible-teach-that-women-are-subordinate/ | accessed 18 August 2023.

In some cases, the reformation resulted in males committing bigamy, as polygamy for men was tolerated in the Bible. Elisabeth of Hesse exposed the secret bigamy of her brother Philip. Philip I had committed bigamy by the approval of the reformer Martin Luther.

Marriage of nuns A new phenomenon during the Reformation was the abolition of the female convents and the marriage of former nuns. When the nunneries were closed, nuns were formally allowed to return to their families or marry.

The most famous example was the former nun Katharina von Bora, who married the reformer Martin Luther. Other examples were former abbess Charlotte of Bourbon, former abbess Katharina von Zimmern of Fraumünster Abbey in Zürich, and former abbess Birgitta Botolfsdotter of Vadstena Abbey in Sweden.Signum svenska kulturhistoria: Renässansen (2005) Charlotte of Bourbon, who was forced to become a nun by her family against her own will, ran away from the convent to the Protestant Electorate of the Palatinate, and married to the Protestant William the Silent, Prince of Orange in 1575.Blaisdell, Charmarie, 'Religion, Gender, and Class: Nuns and Authority in Early Modern France', in Michael Wolfe (ed.), Changing Identities in Early Modern France (London, 1997), pp. 147–168. There were cases in which former nuns married former monks, such as when the Swedish nun Ingeborg Åkesdotter married the former monk Hans Klasson Kökkemäster, who became a Lutheran priest after the Swedish Reformation.Gadd, Pia: Frillor, fruar och herrar – en okänd kvinnohistoria Falun 2009

The marriage of nuns still remained controversial in the eyes of the public, however. While these marriages were officially encouraged by the reformers, they were nevertheless in practice seen as controversial by the public, who were raised to believe in the sanctity in the celibacy of priests, monks and nuns. Katharina von Bora was thus by some considered to be a horrible role model for women who, like herself, had married priests, as well as for former nuns who had left their convents, despite the official doctrine.

The pastor's wife

In parallel to the abolition of the nunneries, a new informal position for women within the church was created in the form of the pastor's wife. In many cases, the priests married their housekeepers, with whom they had already been living with before priests were allowed to marry. An example of this was the marriage between the Catholic priest Curatus Petrus (Per Joensson) and his housekeeper-mistress Anna Pehrsönernas moder, with whom he had two sons: he and other Swedish priests were commanded to marry their housekeeper-mistresses after the introduction of Reformation in Sweden.

The marriages of priests set the standard of a new role in society, which was that of the pastor's wife. The position of a pastor's wife was a new women's role in society, in which the pastor's wife was expected to engage in the welfare of the members of her husband's parish.

The new phenomenon caused problems because the pastor did not own his vicarage and his widow was thus left without means to support herself after his death. In Germany and the Nordic countries, this problem resulted in the phenomenon called widow conservation, in which the newly appointed pastor was expected to marry the widow of his predecessor.Karin Tegenborg Falkdalen: Kyrkomiljö på Jamtli (2007) Östersund (Swedish)

Public and professional role

The Bibles study and literacy promoted during the Reformation did have an effect on women's position, as secular women becoming publicly known as writers and authors, which had been uncommon before. The Calvinist Anne Locke was a translator and poet, who published the first English sonnet sequence. Catherine Parr, the sixth wife of Henry VIII, became the first English woman to publish a book (Prayers or Meditations) under her own name in 1545.

Despite the ideal of the domestic housewife promoted by the Reformation, women continued to fill different roles depending on their class, and while the role of nun was abolished, noblewomen continued to manage large estates and merchant women continued to manage businesses.

Some businesswomen benefitted from the secularisation of clerical property during the Reformation, as did their male counterparts. Anna Karlsdotter (d. 1552) was a noblewoman landowner who retracted donations her ancestors had made to the church.Tegenborg Falkdalen, Karin, Margareta Regina: vid Gustav Vasas sida : [en biografi över Margareta Leijonhufvud (1516-1551)], Setterblad, Stockholm, 2016 The merchant Anna Taskomakare, who successfully traded copper and iron, also benefitted of the Reformation's secularisation of clerical property.Anna taskomakare, www.skbl.se/sv/artikel/AnnaTaskomakare, Svenskt kvinnobiografiskt lexikon (article by Gabriela Bjarne Larsson), retrieved 2021-01-14.

Women Rulers and the Reformation There were examples of female rulers who benefitted and even introduced the reformation in their realms during their time in power. One such example was Elisabeth of Brandenburg, Duchess of Brunswick-Calenberg-Göttingen, who introduced the Reformation in Brunswick-Calenberg-Göttingen during her tenure as regent in 1540–1545,Ernst-August Nebig: Elisabeth Herzogin von Calenberg. Regentin, Reformatorin, Schriftstellerin, MatrixMedia Verlag, Göttingen, 2006, and Barbara von Wertheim, who also supported the reformation in her domain during her regency. Another example was queen Jeanne III of Navarre, who introduced the Reformation in Navarre. She also became a leader of the French Huguenots during the Huguenot wars in France, and as such played a major role in Protestantism during the Reformation.See biography of Jeanne III, by Nancy Lyman Roelker, (1968) Queen of Navarre, Jeanne d'Albret: 1528–1572. Cambridge Massachusetts: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-74150-1. The support Zwingli was given by Abbess Katharina von Zimmern of Fraumünster, who was the representative of the Emperor and de facto ruler of Zürich, played an important part for the successful introduction of the Reformation in ZürichIrene Gysel, « Katharina von Zimmern, Flüchtling – Äbtissin – Ehefrau – Witwe » [archive] [« Katharina von Zimmern, réfugiée, abbesse, épouse, veuve. »], sur http://frauen-und-reformation.de and consequently the spread of Zwingli's Protestanism in Europe.André Gounelle, « Zwingli, l'autre père de la Réforme » [archive], sur le site du journal Réforme

Aside from women rulers, powerful women acted as patrons of and used their influence to benefit the Reformation even when they were not themselves rulers. Queen Anne Boleyn, wife of King Henry VIII of England, was not only an indirect cause of the English Reformation due to the king's wish to marry her despite being denied an annulment from his first wife Catherine of Aragon: she also directly acted as a patron of Protestantism in England at the time. In France, Margaret of Valois-Angoulême was famous for her protection of protestants, as was Renée of France and Isabella of Navarre, Viscountess of Rohan.

Politics and patronage

During the Reformation, when women's role became a topic of discussion in context to the ongoing Bible studies, women's political power, as well as women's proper Biblical place in other areas, became a subject of debate. Female rule and women's role in politics was itself controversial for some Protestant reformers, most famously in The First Blast of the Trumpet Against the Monstruous Regiment of Women by John Knox. At the time, both Scotland and England were governed by female leaders. While in Europe, Knox discussed this issue of gynarchy with John Calvin and Heinrich Bullinger. While Knox believed that gynarchy was contrary to the natural order of things, Calvin and Heinrich believed it was acceptable for women to be rulers when the situation demanded.

Ecclesiastical status

Women tried to become involved in the Reformation all throughout Europe. Because the Reformation advocated study of the Bible, this was controversial, and women's voices in the Reformation were mostly suppressed, with their writings destroyed because of the edict in the Bible for women to be silent.