“Good and evil fortune are to a brave man as his right hand and his left: he uses either equally well.”—Saying of S. Catherine of Sienna.
Charitas Pirkheimer, the eldest daughter of John Pirkheimer and Barbara Löffelholz, was born on the 21st of March, 1466. Her family was a distinguished one in the annals of Nuremberg, her native town, one of those old free cities of Germany whose burghers, as Æneas Sylvius, afterwards Pope Pius II., once said, were better lodged and more daintily fed than the kings of Scotland. Among the citizens of Nuremberg there was a kind of prescriptive aristocracy or patriciate composed of those families technically called “Rathsfähig”—that is, capable of being elected members of the ruling body or council of the little republic. Of those whose names occur again and again in this history one of the most ancient was that of the Pirkheimer, who, for at least a hundred and fifty years before the birth of Charitas, had been celebrated for their learning, piety, and statesmanship. Upright and honorable in their private life, as well as in the execution of their public trusts, they were looked up to by all, and their women no less than their men were distinguished for strength of character, love of learning, and solid, enlightened piety.
Nuremberg was at that time a centre of art and letters. Her youths went to Italy and studied at the old universities of Padua and Bologna, whence they brought back the prevailing enthusiasm for classical lore; the new art of printing had found in her citizens discerning patrons; the streets were full of the beautiful houses of the rich merchants; churches and monasteries adorned with treasures of sacred art abounded, as even to this day the passing tourist can see; Albert Dürer, Adam Krafft, and Peter Vischer made their native city known far and wide in the world of art; while Regiomontanus drew his astronomical instruments from Nuremberg and published his works there, and his disciple, Martin Behaim, a Nuremberger by birth, discovered the sea-route to the East Indies. Literature was even more firmly established, and John Pirkheimer himself instituted a sort of academy after the model of those of the Italian princes. Wilibald, his only son and the last of his name, continued his work and became famous as the friend or patron of nearly all the renowned men of learning of his time.
Among these refining influences Charitas grew up, and early showed her enthusiasm for “polite” studies. The historians of Nuremberg, Lützelberger and Dr. Lochner, both Protestants, have left high testimony of the breadth of her intellect and the great consideration in which she was held by men of all parties. The latter calls her “a gifted, enlightened, pious, and prudent woman, who has conferred lasting honor on the Convent of St. Clare,” and who “deserves a high degree of respect for the firmness and dignity with which she withstood the storm of the Reformation, which to her and her community was a sorrowful event.” Lützelberger, in a lecture delivered at Nuremberg, said to his Protestant audience:
“The Reformation was a deep grief to her pious heart, accustomed as it was to the gentle amenities of convent life, and, if we would judge her aright, we must put ourselves entirely in her circumstances. But this done, she will appear to us peculiarly worthy of respect and consideration as a gifted and conscientious opponent of the new religion.… Both by speech and in writing did she oppose all attempts to convert her; and even if we differ from her, we cannot but admire her earnest conviction, her prudence and understanding, and especially the patience which she added to her other virtues.”
Her father, John, was at the time of her birth a doctor of civil law (the degree had been conferred at the University of Padua), and was shortly after called to the service of the Bishop of Eichstädt, William of Reichenau, as counsellor, in which capacity he also for some years served the Duke of Bavaria and the Archduke of Austria at their respective courts at Munich and Innsbrück. He was also often sent as envoy and representative to other courts, after which services he returned to his native city and died there, a member of the council. Of his seven daughters only one married—Juliana, the youngest; the rest all took the veil. Charitas and Clara were joined in a lifelong friendship in the Convent of St. Clare in Nuremberg. By all accounts the former seems to have entered the convent at the age of twelve, whether as a novice or a scholar we are not told. The convent had existed as a Clarist institution for two hundred years, when some nuns of Söflingen, near Ulm, had introduced the Franciscan rule; but the building, which was several centuries old, had been tenanted before by a community of Sisters of St. Mary Magdalen. All the nuns, with very few exceptions, were Nurembergers by birth and descent (this was a condition of their admittance); and as each generation of every illustrious family was represented by one or two members, the convent had become peculiarly a cherished local institution, whose welfare was closely connected with that of the town. One of the council was charged with its temporal concerns, and gifts and bequests were often made to it by the citizens. It was also the school where the young girls of patrician family were mostly educated.
A model of strict observance and reformed rule, it was under the spiritual direction of the barefooted Franciscans, who, in the middle of the fifteenth century, under the protection of Pope Eugenius IV., had, in a time when discipline was relaxed in many of the houses of their order, taken up their abode in Nuremberg and put things upon the old ascetic footing ruled by the great reforming saint, Francis of Assisi.
Apollonia Tucher was Charitas’ best and dearest friend. They lived together more than fifty years, and died within a few months of each other. Through her Charitas also learnt to know and appreciate Sixtus Tucher, her cousin, the provost of St. Lawrence, also a prominent man in those days. Apollonia was at that time prioress and Charitas a teacher in the convent school. The provost kept up a regular correspondence with the two nuns, of which unfortunately one part has been lost; but all his letters are preserved, and were first translated into German by his nephew, Christopher Scheurl, and dedicated to a successor of his at St. Lawrence—Provost George Behaim. His advice to Charitas and her friend was a great boon, and now and then he would send little presents, such as gilt lanterns for the church, which he always accompanied by some symbolical warning. Among other things, he once reminded them that the convent life alone was not enough to save their souls. “There is no other way to deserve the eternal Fatherland,” he says, “but by industriously keeping all God’s commandments.” He also furnished them with books, a Commentary on the Liturgical Hymns and Sequences, 1494, and 1506, and the Discourse of St. Augustine on the Siege of Hippo. This was sent apropos of a siege in 1502 which Nuremberg suffered at the hands of the Margrave Casimir, and during which three hundred brave and noted burghers, all heads of families, lost their lives. On the occasion of her father’s death, in 1501, he writes to Charitas:
“Therefore we must not sorrow when a man has deserved to return from a strange land to his own country, from an inn to his own house, from work to rest, from death to life, from time to eternity, and especially when he has, by a blessed exchange, accumulated many good works; for we are all like unto merchants sent into this pilgrimage of earth, that with temporal goods we may buy and win eternal life.”
This learned and holy man died at the age of forty-six, in 1507, but not before he had seen his friend Charitas chosen abbess of St. Clare. She was only thirty-eight, but her strength of character made the choice unanimous; and if the nuns could have foreseen what a stormy time they would soon have to tide over, they would have congratulated themselves still more on their good sense in electing her. From henceforth she was the heart and soul of the convent: the nuns looked to her for advice, support, and comfort; the council saw in her a distinguished, learned, and enlightened countrywoman, the example not only of her own community, but of those in the neighborhood who followed her lead. One of the first events that marked her rule was the attack of the plague which visited Nuremberg in 1505 and laid low one of her own spiritual family. She insisted upon nursing the sick nun, notwithstanding the remonstrances of her anxious sisters, and was rewarded by the recovery of the patient. In those years of peace and prosperity the convent fully vindicated its claim to being a house of happy labor. Besides the instruction given to the young girls of the city, the nuns were occupied in various artistic works, such as illumination, copying, and embroidery. Their particular industry was the manufacture of carpets and tapestries for hangings. They fulfilled orders for public and civic buildings, as well as for private families, and once the town council gave the imperial regalia into their hands for putting in order for the coronation of Charles V. at Aix-la-Chapelle. Nuremberg had the care of these venerated garments, and was jealous of its reputation; so that the nuns felt a high responsibility in being allowed to handle and repair such treasures. They carefully mended and re-embroidered the white dalmatic, and lined other pieces of the imperial dress, until they were fit to do honor to the care of the city of Nuremberg. The convent had also a library of some note for that time, the Scriptures and the fathers of the church forming the principal part of it. Charitas’ favorite among the latter was St. Jerome. She was solicitous concerning the daily reading of the Scriptures, both in Latin and in German, which was done in common as well as in private—a fact which she brought to her own defence in the evil days that followed. She might truly say that she stood on evangelical ground; for, as she wrote to the learned but scarcely Christian Celtes, she saw in Scripture the “field of the Lord, whence learning must draw the kernel from the shell, the spirit from the letter, oil from the rock, and blossoms from the thorn.”
She had much to do also to manage the temporal concerns of her house. The town demanded a yearly account of her stewardship; and in every report made by the council on her administration there is nothing but praise and recognition of her business talents. She corresponded with a circle of lettered friends whom she knew through her brother Wilibald, and these literary friendships form one of the most interesting phases of her life. Conspicuous among her friends was her brother himself, the friend of Albert Dürer, who has left us a portrait of him, the correspondent of Erasmus, the polished man of letters, the scholar of two Italian universities, for some time the head of the council of the republic, and the leader of the Nuremberg contingent in the war with Switzerland (1499). This last office he held when he was only twenty-nine, and he afterwards became the historian of the war. When the first beginnings of the Reformation disturbed and excited all thoughtful minds in Germany, he looked upon them as simple moral reforms, a renewal of ancient fervor and discipline. But as the true nature of the changes heralded by Luther broke upon him, he separated himself from the movement and rallied to the side of the church doctrines so ruthlessly attacked. He proved a great support to his sister in the days when the convent was under the ban of the triumphant Reformers of Nuremberg, and his opinion of the classical studies which some of the atheistic literati would fain have exalted as the only learning fit for civilized men was clearly expressed in these words: “It is not my belief that Christian knowledge is incomplete without heathen literature. God forbid! Divine Wisdom needs no human inventions, and it is possible to attain to the highest point of theology without the help of Plato and Aristotle.” Wilibald was accustomed to write to his sister in Latin, as Sixtus Tucher also did, and Charitas’ style, notwithstanding her lowly opinion of her own proficiency, was such as to do honor to her education. He often sent her presents of books—for instance, the Hymns of Prudentius, the Christian poet, and some writings of her favorite doctor, St. Jerome. Later on he dedicated to her the works of Fulgentius, which he had edited. Both Charitas and her sister Clara were great admirers of Erasmus and diligently read his German translation of the New Testament (in 1516), as well as some works of the famous scholar Reuchlin (1520). To the former Charitas excused herself from writing “on account of her bad Latin,” but sent him many complimentary messages through her brother, and both he and Reuchlin spoke of her in high terms in their letters to Wilibald. Clara also was marvellously fond of books, and playfully told her brother that there was nothing she envied out of her convent except his library. The women of the Pirkheimer family all seem to have been distinguished for their love of art and books. Catherine, Charitas’ niece, was almost a transcript of her aunt and showed a wonderful strength of character. The abbess’ married nieces were earnest and generous women, a great support to the convent in the evil days that followed; and her sister Sabina, the abbess of a Benedictine monastery on the Danube, was a patroness of sacred art, the friend of Dürer, who sent her designs for her illuminations and took great interest in the school of miniature-painting established in her community.
Celtes was one of Charitas’ correspondents, and dedicated to her his compilation of the works of Roswitha, the poet-nun of Gandersheim in the tenth century. On the occasion of his being attacked by robbers she writes him a letter of condolence, in which, in the style of the day, she alludes to “the precious treasure of true wisdom, which is the noblest and only possession wherein consolation may be found”; but at another time she thinks it due to her conscience to speak to him of a higher wisdom, and says:
“Your worthiness, of which I am a humble follower, will pardon me for being also a lover of your salvation, and therefore do I beseech you from my heart, not, indeed, to give up worldly knowledge, but to add to it that higher one which will lift you from the writings of the heathen to the sacred books, from the earthly to the heavenly, from the creature to the Creator. For although no kind of knowledge or experience ordained of God is to be despised, yet a virtuous life and the study of theology is to be considered above everything; for man’s mind is weak and may err, but true faith and a good conscience can never err.”
Christopher Scheurl, a clever jurist and called the Cicero of Nuremberg, who had learnt letters at the University of Bologna, dedicated his book on “The Use of the Mass” (Utilitates Missæ) to Charitas, and sent it to her from Bologna, where it was printed in 1506, through his uncle, Sixtus Tucher. In his dedication Scheurl says that in all his life he has only known two women—the pious Cassandra of Venice and Charitas of Nuremberg—who “for their gifts of mind and fortune, their knowledge and high station, their beauty and their prudence, could be compared to Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, and to the daughters of Lælius and Hortensius.” He praises her that, following the example of her illustrious ancestors, she has preferred “the book to the wool and the pen to the spindle,” and proved her high degree of mental culture by such remarkable letters as he had seen and received.
Albert Dürer was also often in communication with the sister of his friend Wilibald. He, with the administrator of the convent, Kaspar Nützel, and another companion, had gone in 1518 to the Reichstag at Augsburg, where the painter was to take the old Emperor Maximilian’s portrait. They wrote her a joint account of their doings there, which she received in the same jesting spirit as it was written; for she says she “cried for laughing” when she read it. She also touches on the political questions of the day, and playfully gives them each his lesson to learn in Augsburg. The convent administrator was to admire in the Swabian Confederation “an example of strict observance”; the secretary of the council, Lazarus Spengler, was to observe “the apostolical life in common” of the members; and the painter to take note of the fine buildings for which Augsburg was famous, in case they might some day want good designs for the rebuilding of the convent choir. She also bade them not to forget the “little gray wolf” among the stately black and white habits of the religious of Augsburg (her nuns wore a gray habit), and alluded to the three men as the captive “sand-hares”—a name given to the burghers of Nuremberg, first in scorn, but now become a mere jest.
Charitas’ mind was like a diamond of many facets; she was no angular, sour ascetic, narrow in her sympathies and petrified in her prejudices, but a genuine, warm-hearted woman, with as much love for innocent mirth on the one hand as for the widest researches of learning on the other. With her the words of her contemporary, Abbot Trithemius, were true—“To know is to love”—and her affection for her own family, no less than her appreciation of the intellectual movement of the age, is shown in her voluminous correspondence. She and her brother often exchanged little simple domestic presents, and she delighted to send him sweetmeats, preserves, and cakes made in the convent, often with her own or her nieces’ hands.
But she was not destined to end her life in these pleasant and peaceful interchanges of friendship. The storm was brewing, and the “new learning,” or new doctrine, as it was called, was beginning to take formidable proportions and go far beyond the needed reforms which Pope Adrian VI., one of the noblest men who ever sat in the apostolic chair, so anxiously recommended to the nuncio Chieregati on the occasion of the Reichstag at Nuremberg in 1522. Charitas grieved to see holy things indiscriminately attacked, often with unworthy motives cloaked by the convenient plea of conscience and zeal for the Gospel, and grieved still more to hear no voice among her learned friends raised in defence of all she held dear. At last, however, Jerome Emser, licentiate of canon law at Leipsic, and private secretary of Duke George of Saxony, published a masterly defence of the old faith, and Charitas eagerly read it through and caused it to be read aloud to the nuns during meals. The sisters and the abbess of the Convent of St. Clare at Eger, who had sent her Emser’s writings, begged her to acknowledge them in a letter to the author, which she accordingly did, writing in fervent, unconstrained terms and thanking him in the name of her sixty sisters and all other convents of her order. But this letter fell into other hands, and in a distorted, mutilated shape, and accompanied by a malicious commentary on its sentiments and motives, was published by an enemy of Emser and Charitas. Even her brother Wilibald, who had not yet seen through the real motives of the Reformers, was vexed at her taking part in the fray, and told her she had better have held her tongue. This was the beginning of a teasing persecution of pin-pricks which gradually became serious and well-nigh insupportable as years went on. Her brother, when he had fully rallied to the Catholic party, had left the council and could be of little practical use to his sister, while the majority of the council were decidedly hostile. The convent’s administrator especially used his station and authority only to torment the poor nuns. Charitas at this time began to keep a diary, of which her biographer has made good use. Dr. Lochner, the historian of Nuremberg, recognizes that many evil deeds were done in the name of religion; and as to the case of the Convent of St. Clare, he says that “it was the victim of that force which at many times clothes itself in the garb of a moral and divine reform, without being any the less mere force, the right of the strongest.”
In 1524 Charitas says:
“There came to the convent many strangers, men and women, but especially the latter, to tell the nuns the new things that were being taught from the pulpit, and to represent to them what a ‘damnable’ state was that of the religious life, and how impossible it was for them to be saved in the cloister, adding most unceremoniously that nuns were all the devil’s creatures. Many citizens spoke threateningly of withdrawing their relatives from the convent, whether the persons in question wished it or no.”
As may be supposed, these attacks made no impression on the sisters; but the town council, ready enough now to seize upon any pretext, ascribed their steadfastness to the influence of their spiritual directors, the Franciscans, and ordered the convent to be put under the control of the new preachers. Charitas immediately drew up a petition, which was approved by the community, in which she represented to Kaspar Nützel, the administrator, that this was the first time for forty-five years that she had seen her sisterhood in grief, and went on to beseech him, as he had always been her friend and supporter in temporal matters, so, now that she required his help more than ever, he would not fail her in this spiritual distress. She likewise wrote to Jerome Ebner, another of the highest dignitaries of the council, whose daughter Katharine was one of her community; and to Martin Geuder, her brother-in-law, to whom she touchingly appealed on the ground of the innocence and evangelical character of the community.
“I beg of you,” she says, “do not allow yourself to be persuaded by those who untruly say that the clear word of God is hidden from us; for, by the grace of God, this is not so. We have the Old and New Testaments here as well as you who are out in the world; we read it day and night, at meals, in the choir, in Latin and in German, in common and in private. By God’s grace we know well the holy Gospels and St. Paul’s Epistles, but still I think he is more praiseworthy who fulfils the Gospel’s precepts in his actions than he who has them always on his lips, but does not act up to them.” She continues: “We desire to be no burden or offence to any one; but if any one can point out an abuse, let him do so, and we will gladly reform it. For we acknowledge ourselves to be weak creatures, who may go easily astray, and who do not dare to take pleasure in good works. We only ask that no one shall do us wrong and violence, and that we shall not be forced to do that which we consider a disgrace and against our eternal salvation.”
Charitas’ former petition to Nützel was now supplemented by a more formal petition of the convent, addressed to the town council. She protested against the violent change meditated, and repelled the idea of submitting to spiritual directors imposed by the republic; she asked the councillors why they should object to a few women voluntarily living in common, and besought them not to root up a time-honored institution which was so intimately connected with the annals of their native city. Part of the council was decidedly in favor of less violent measures, and by the advice of these members the intrusion of Lutheran directors was put off for a time and affairs left to take their own course; but the lull was but momentary. People still besieged the convent, threatening its inmates and disseminating scandalous rumors in the town, and the poor nuns lived in daily fear of some outbreak. This was in the Advent of 1524, and in March, 1525, the storm broke loose again.
One of those frequent and useless disputations on the subject of religion which made such a characteristic feature of the sixteenth-century movement took place at Nuremberg at the beginning of March. Eight religious of the Carmelite, Franciscan, and Dominican orders took the Catholic side against seven preachers of the Lutheran doctrines (among them the famous Osiander) under the leadership of the prior of the Augustinians at Nuremberg. The debate lasted for eleven days, or five sessions, without any shadow of an accommodation appearing possible, and at the sixth session the Catholic doctors gave in a written statement to the effect that the affair had become a discussion such as by imperial mandate was strictly forbidden, and that, as there was no impartial judgment to be looked for, the presidents of the colloquium being known adherents of the new doctrines, they thought it best to retire from the useless conflict. The council, however, had attained its end, and prepared an opportunity for formally introducing the new religion into the republic. The convents and monasteries were ordered to give up their rule and the members to enter the world again. Four of the male communities did as they were bid; the Dominicans and Franciscans still refused to comply. The former were compelled to leave in 1543, and the latter stood their ground till the last brother died. They were, however, forbidden to preach and hear confessions, and the direction of both convents of women, St. Clare and St. Catherine, was taken from them.
The first open attack on St. Clare was made five days after the religious disputation, on the 19th of March, 1525. A deputation from the council demanded admittance into the interior of the convent, and, though Charitas pleaded the “enclosure” and offered to gather the community at the grated window through which it was customary to speak with strangers and men, she was forced to accede to their demand and admit the councillors into the winter refectory. The two representatives began with a honeyed address, telling the assembled nuns that, now the light of the Gospel was fully manifested in the city, it were a shame that they alone should be denied the privilege of seeing it. Therefore a learned and distinguished preacher, Herr Poliander, of Würzburg, would impart to them this knowledge, and, the Franciscans being removed, the council would provide the nuns with suitable confessors. The abbess heard them out, and then retorted that her nuns were well stored with Gospel knowledge, which had been clearly preached to them before, and that the connection between their order and the Franciscans was of long date and authorized by papal and imperial decrees, but that, if they were to suffer violence in this matter, God and their conscience urged them to declare that it was so, and that they protested against such violence being used. The councillors said that, since they objected to secular[73] priests as confessors, they might choose one of the Augustinians (who had apostatized), since they too were “religious.” But Charitas answered: “If we are to have religious, why not leave us the Franciscans? We know and honor them and have had long experience of them; but as to the order you name, we also know how lax its discipline has grown.”
“Nay,” said the councillors, “you will soon not have that to complain of; for these brothers will doff their cowls and enter into another state.”
To which the abbess replied: “That is no comfort to us. They could only teach us to follow their example; and as they have taken to themselves wives, they would have us take husbands. God forbid!”
The useless conversation was carried on some time longer, and on Charitas asking the reason why the council so oppressed her sisterhood, and whether they had committed any offence, the councillors were forced to allow that the “council knew of no offence or abuse on their part, but, on the contrary, only of honor, diligence, and modesty,” but that in other communities it was not always so, and the new laws must be enforced everywhere alike. The very next day Poliander, the Lutheran preacher, came for the first time to preach to the reluctant nuns, while on the 21st of March the Franciscans were allowed to pay their charges a farewell visit, administer the sacraments, say Mass, and preach. This was the last time the nuns enjoyed these holy privileges; henceforward the dying were deprived of the Viaticum and Extreme Unction, and Mass was no longer said in the convent chapel. On the 22nd Charitas assembled a chapter of her nuns, which decided on presenting a second petition to the council, and the abbess sent to ask Kaspar Nützel to come in person to the convent. He consented and sent her a friendly message, but it was clear he expected submission. He came and set before the community the advantages of gracefully giving way and the evil they would entail on themselves by resistance; but Charitas answered to the point: that, although he had spoken in friendly terms, he had not mentioned the real subject of the dispute—i.e., the question of who should be the convent’s spiritual directors. “We see,” she said, “that every means is being used to drive us to accept the new doctrines, but until the whole church accepts them neither will we. Nothing will part us from the fellowship of the universal church nor from the vows we have vowed unto God.” She then offered to let the administrator ask each nun her opinion separately during her own absence; but Nützel saw that this would be useless, and even refused to take the petition, whereupon the abbess read it aloud before him. The gist of it was contained in the prayer that, in the name of the Gospel-freedom which the times had so extolled, no violence should be done to the consciences of the nuns. They begged also that if their confessor was taken from them, at least no one should be imposed upon them in his place. But it was evidently in vain, although Nützel reluctantly pledged himself to represent their case to the council. Before he left the convent, however, he attempted to cajole the abbess out of her firm resistance to his wishes, and, taking her aside, begged her to put her authority and influence on his side, telling her that she might personally do much to prevent even bloodshed, and that, if he could only win her over, he would think himself sure of the city and the neighborhood. Indeed, many pinned their faith to her steadfastness and looked to her example for support in their own temptations. But neither flattery nor threats could win her over, nor even the hint that by her obstinacy she would confirm others in contumacy, and bring upon her native town the vengeance of the peasants who had risen in arms against the Catholics. To this she answered calmly that it was well known that the peasants had risen because, in the midst of this new preaching of fraternity and evangelical freedom, they saw a way to abolish the custom of vassalage, and meant forcibly to possess themselves of that which their richer brethren were so glibly prating of in theory. As the second petition had remained without effect, Charitas drew up a third, a model of clearness and logic. Quoting St. Paul, she said, “I can do all things in Him who is my strength,” and she again assured the council that nothing would drive the sisters out of the church. This paper was signed by all the nuns. She also asked through Nützel for a secular priest, a holy man of the name of Schröter, for a confessor, since the council was determined that the Franciscans should no longer serve the convent; but this prayer was also refused.
Things grew worse and worse. Poliander preached vile and opprobrious sermons to the poor nuns, upbraiding and accusing them; and when he left Würzburg, two others, Schleussner and Osiander, succeeded him and preached regularly three times a week in the chapel. A sharp and degrading watch was kept over the nuns, as the council suspected them of stopping their ears with cotton-wool or exercising other petty devices to escape the words of the distasteful sermons. This continued throughout Lent, and the violence of the preachers inflaming the passions of the people, the nuns lived in daily fear of seeing the latter put into execution their frequent threat of burning down the convent. The serving-girls could hardly go out of the house in safety to purchase provisions, and the friends of the nuns had to use all manner of subterfuges to be able to visit them in peace, while every knock at the door frightened the poor women as if it heralded their doom. But worse was yet to come. On the 7th of June three of the councillors, Fürer, Pfinzing, and Imhof, visited the convent and laid before the nuns five propositions with which the council demanded instant compliance: an inventory was to be taken of all the convent possessions, a laxer rule introduced, the religious dress laid aside, the grated window replaced by a common one of glass, and free permission granted to every nun to leave if she chose, taking with her whatever dowry she had brought to the convent, or a suitable remuneration for the services done during her stay there. Charitas wisely showed a disposition to yield in minor matters, in which she knew that the council would find means at any rate to force her compliance, but on the matter of the religious vows she stood firm, answering:
“In so far as my sisters owe me any personal obedience and consideration, I am ready to forgive them the debt, but I cannot absolve them from vows vowed unto the Lord; for what are we poor creatures that we should lay hands on the things that are God’s?”
The council allowed her four weeks to make up her mind to these changes, and promised, in case of compliance, to protect the convent; but if these conditions were resisted, neither the house nor the nuns would be either protected or supported. Charitas called a chapter together and announced her determination to have nothing to do with an “open convent,” at the same time asking the sisters’ opinion on the council’s proposal. The nuns unanimously (there were nearly sixty of them) declared that they did not wish to be “made free” after the council’s pattern of freedom; they meant to keep to their vows and maintain their rule, and begged the abbess not to forsake them. She then swore to stand by them as long as they would stand by their vows, and exhorted them to steadfast courage and fervent prayer. Her friends in the council, seeing that their influence was too weak to help the convent, advised her to consent to the lesser propositions, and accordingly the inventory was quietly made and handed over to the authorities; the grating was taken down, and, at Wilibald Pirkheimer’s suggestion, some part of the nuns’ habit was dyed black and assumed only at the parlor window and in the gardens, while in the private parts of the house the usual gray garb was worn. But the nuns steadfastly refused to change the rule or to consider themselves absolved from their vows, and, unless they were to be forcibly ejected from the convent, there was no possibility of carrying out these two important changes. But the council was prepared for anything, and soon even this last violent act was publicly enforced.
Dame Ursula Tetzel had already tried some months before, with the help of her brothers, to get her daughter Margaret, who had been for nine years in the convent, to leave it and come home; but the girl herself vigorously resisted the attempt, and Charitas represented it to the mother as an infringement of the rights of the convent. Things had marched rapidly enough since then to enable Dame Tetzel to renew the attempt with more certainty of success; and accordingly she, with the wives of the two councillors, Ebner and Nützel, who had each a daughter in the convent, determined to take their children home at all hazards. They gave the nuns a week’s notice, and on the 14th of June appeared with a number of their male relations in two large conveyances or wagons. A great crowd had collected round the convent door, and a considerable excitement prevailed; the street and the churchyard were full. Charitas, on her side, had requested two of the councillors, Pfinzing and Imhof, to be present as witnesses of the disgraceful scene she foresaw. The young nuns, respectively nineteen, twenty, and twenty-three years old, fell on their knees before the abbess, weeping and entreating her not to let them be taken away. They even wished to hide themselves; but this, of course, Charitas forbade and led the girls with her to the chapel where they had taken their vows. She prayed and wept with them, and hesitated taking them over the threshold into the presence of their mothers; but the latter came into the chapel and violently upbraided their children, who with tears piteously begged to be left alone. Katharine Ebner especially spoke in eloquent tones for more than an hour, and, as the councillors afterwards said, “She spoke no word that was weak or useless, but talked with such force and cogency that every word weighed a pound.” Her mother stormed, and Held, the brother of Dame Nützel, threatened her “like an executioner,” but Katharine continued speaking in her own behalf and that of her friends: “Here will I stand and not move one step; and if you employ force, I will complain to God in heaven and every man upon earth.” She was rudely dragged forward, but, stretching her arms towards the abbess, cried out: “Dear mother, do not let me be driven away from you!” Four persons, however, seized hold of her, and amid loud cries on all sides she was dragged over the threshold of the chapel, where she and Margaret Tetzel fell over each other, the latter having her foot crushed in the crowd. Dame Ebner followed her daughter with angry threats, telling her that if she did not go willingly she would fling her down the stairs and break her head on the pavement below. At last poor Charitas could stand it no longer and took refuge in her cell, while the councillors who had witnessed the scene declared that, had they foreseen such a sad sight, they would not have come for a world of money, and never again would they lend the sanction of their presence to such violent proceedings.
The poor young nuns were put in the wagons and driven away, but they still cried out to the crowd that they were suffering violence and demanded to be taken back to their convent. Dame Ebner got so incensed that she struck her daughter on the mouth, and the poor girl bled all the way home. There were many in the crowd who cried “Shame!” and would gladly, had they dared, have attempted a rescue, but the strong hand of the “trained bands” of Nuremberg was not to be defied in vain. Charitas never saw her spiritual children again, but she heard from time to time that they were still unchanged in their feelings. Clara Nützel ate nothing for four days after she was taken away, and day and night cried to be taken back again.
This scene of violence made a great stir at the time and awakened much sympathy for the convent, and at least it had this good effect: that no more forcible abductions were attempted. Some time later one nun, Anna Schwarz, whose sisters had left the other convent of Nuremberg, St. Catherine, left St. Clare of her own accord; she was the only one who voluntarily gave up her vows. In this case, however, her mother was not well pleased and by no means urged her to leave. The community was now reduced to fifty-one members, and of these none henceforward left the convent, unless by the call of God to a better and more peaceful life.
In the following autumn Melanchthon visited Nuremberg, and, though their views now differed, his friendship with Pirkheimer was not weakened. He inquired into the state of affairs, and, together with the administrator, Nützel, visited the convent and had a long conversation with the abbess. She says in her diary: “He was more gentle and discreet in his speech than any of the new teachers I have met before”; and, indeed, she had long had the greatest esteem for the young and ripe Greek scholar.
“He spoke much of the new doctrines,” she continues; “but when I told him that we did not place our hope in our own works, but solely in the grace of God, he replied that in that case we might be saved in the cloister quite as well as in the world. Indeed, we agreed in the main on all points, except concerning the vows, which he holds not to be binding, but yet strongly disapproved of the violence that had been done to the nuns to force them to give up their vows. He took leave of us in a very friendly manner, and afterwards strongly reproved the administrator and the other councillors for having forbidden the Franciscans to celebrate divine service at St. Clare, and having dragged the children out of the convent against their will; indeed, he told them that, between themselves, he considered that therein they had committed a grievous sin.”
Charitas dated from his visit a quieter state of things and the cessation of many petty persecutions on the part of Kaspar Nützel. She says of Melanchthon in her diary: “I hope God sent this man to us at the right time; …” and later in a letter she writes thus of the administrator: “Would to God every one were as discreet as Master Philip; we might then hope to be rid of many things that are very vexatious.”
Although the three young nuns were not restored to the convent, their parents, smarting under the many insinuations made against their conduct, conveyed to the abbess, through Sigismund Fürer and Leonard Tucher, a formal acknowledgment of their satisfaction at the “manner in which the girls had been brought up and their health cared for”; while the two men added of their own accord that as to the girls they must tell the truth—i.e., that if it depended upon them, they would be back at the convent before evening. Kaspar Nützel himself said the same thing to the abbess, thanking her for the care bestowed on his daughter’s physical and moral well-being, and acknowledging himself indebted to the convent for this favor. But, better than this, he soon wrote a letter in which he distinctly stated that he regretted having several times “overstepped his legitimate authority in his attempts to convert her to the new doctrines,” and promised that in future he would attend with peculiar zeal at least to the temporal concerns of the convent. Their possessions had, however, been so curtailed during these troublous times that they almost literally subsisted on alms.
On All Souls’ day, 1527, the same two councillors who had witnessed the forcible taking away of the young nuns two years before, and two other associates, were commissioned to institute a domiciliary visitation in the convent and to speak in private with each sister, with a view to elicit their grievances and give them a chance of speaking freely. The poor nuns were very much frightened at the proposal, but Charitas only made this remonstrance:
“Worthy masters,” she said, “you are somewhat vehement confessors. It has pleased our rulers to abolish private confession to one man, and now you require us poor women to confess to four men at once, and lay open to them all our spiritual needs!” And as the men were rather staggered, she continued: “You say many abuses among us have come to the ears of the council. We should like to hear them detailed. We have been driven and oppressed like worms for three years, and would gladly, if we could, have hidden ourselves under a stone like worms; but if we have offended in anything, let it be clearly brought home to us.”
The men looked at each other, and one said: “This point is not yet settled”; while another asked helplessly: “What am I to say? I do not understand the matter.” At last they went through the form of examining each nun alone and separately, and got tired and left off when they had examined thirty-nine. The preacher Osiander once held a discussion with Charitas for four hours without any result but both parties remaining stronger in their own belief; and on another occasion, when Dr. Link, formerly an Augustinian, and now preacher at the hospital, sent her a controversial pamphlet, she answered him in writing, argument for argument, and made all who saw her defence marvel at the clearness of her logic and the ease of her style. He had put himself forward as an example (doubtless because he had been, like her, a religious), but she answered:
“Forgive me if I do not care to follow the example of any man; our example is Christ, and, even if we were to look for models among men, it would be strange if we sought for them among living men while such men as St. Augustine, St. Jerome, St. Cyprian, and others are set aside and disowned.”
Later on she again wrote to him:
“If God does not inspire us with love for your new faith, we cannot of ourselves force our hearts to it. We should deceive ourselves and do violence to our conscience (which is wrong) if we were to listen to the threats or persuasions of men. It is no luxurious life, God knows, that keeps us in our convent; neither is it any belief that simply to have taken the veil assures salvation. We do not place our hope in the conventual rule, but in the mercy of God and his only Son. I hold none of my nuns back against their will; if they choose to leave, they are free to do so. I only ask that they should not be forced to do it, as has happened already on one occasion.”
Towards the end of 1528 came a time of negative peace for the nuns, and, as the “silver wedding” or jubilee of the abbess fell about Christmas time, the convent prepared itself for a modest festival in honor of this event. It was the first time that an abbess had held her office for so many years, and the celebration was looked upon with so much the more interest that no former abbess had gone through such stirring and troublous times during the period of her abbess-ship. The festival was put off till Easter, 1529, and was long remembered by the nuns as one of their few red-letter days. Their friends from the town sent them presents of wine, fruit, cakes, and preserves, and Pirkheimer and Dame Ursula Kramer, his neighbor, both sent their plate to adorn the nuns’ table on the occasion. This pleased the simple women immensely, and Katharine, Charitas’ niece, wrote in glowing terms to her father, giving him an account of the festivities of the day. We will quote a few passages from her letter:
“In the morning the whole community came to the mother, each sister bearing a torch, and the prioress put a crown upon her head and led her to the choir, where we said the Office for the day and then sang the Mass as best we could. Then the mother took the Blessed Sacrament from the tabernacle and exposed it, and the community knelt to adore it and make a spiritual communion. We comforted ourselves with the words of St. Augustine: Crede et manducasti (Believe, and thou hast eaten). The mother then sat by the altar, and one by one we all went up to her and embraced her, … and she had her hands full of rings, and gave each of the sisters one as a pledge of their renewed espousals with their Bridegroom and of their resolve to be true to him; … although it has not been the custom hitherto with us, the mother thought that, considering these exceptionally sad years, it would be a remembrance of the obedience and earnestness with which we have hung together through these vicissitudes.… Then we took the mother to table, … and you, dear father, have proved yourself a generous host. The sisters said, ‘Oh! that Master Pirkheimer were here to see how we are enjoying his good gifts’; and your plate and Dame Kramer’s delighted us also mightily.… At last, at night, we had a little dance. The old nuns danced as well as the young ones. Mother Apollonia Tucher, who has been fifty-seven years in the convent, took hold of me and turned me round; … and the dance was so hearty that the mother said, ‘Dear children, spare my tables.’”
This was the last joyful event of Charitas’ life. Three months after this festival her niece Crescentia, Pirkheimer’s daughter, died, and the wicked tongues of the town took occasion to wag against the nuns, accusing them of worrying her to death; but Pirkheimer himself put down these scandalous rumors by publicly thanking the community for the care bestowed on his child, and by making a special gift to the convent in recognition of it. He also singled out the sisters who had had special care of his daughter during her illness, and sent them tokens of his gratitude; and, not content with this, he left the convent fifty gulden in his will, which they received after his death.
Another cross befell the abbess in the loss of reason of two of her nuns—a circumstance of which her enemies did not fail to make good use; but, the two sisters being perfectly harmless, except at long intervals, no removal was necessary, and they went about their common duties peacefully until their death.
In 1530 Charitas lost her well-beloved brother Wilibald, which was a sad break-up to her; but before he died he published an Apology for the Convent of St. Clare, which greatly comforted, if it did not help, the nuns. But the council contemptuously overlooked this as it had done all previous petitions.
Two years after her brother’s death the noble Charitas Pirkheimer followed him to a better land, and her sister Clara was chosen abbess in her stead. Her friend Apollonia Tucher died within a few months, on the 15th of January, 1533, and the new abbess the following month, whereupon her niece Katharine became abbess and ruled the community for thirty years. She was the last abbess but one; for towards the end of the century the last nun died and the convent reverted to the town.[74] But the good fight had been fought, and the noble defeat only brought fresh and eternal honor on the name of the Clarist Order; for, as says Montaigne, “There are defeats that dispute the palm with victories,” and Lacordaire comments thus on the saying: “This noble axiom applies no less to moral than to military defeats, and we should never tire of inculcating the principle that as long as honor and conscience are safe, so long also is fame deserved.”
[72] Charitas Pirkheimer, Abbess of St. Clare at Nuremberg. By Franz Binder. Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau. The biographer, Franz Binder, has compiled the life of Charitas, which we have condensed in the present article, from trustworthy sources, the principal ones being the Works of Wilibald Pirkheimer, in Latin, published at Frankfort in 1610; MS. letters of the Pirkheimer family preserved in the town library at Nuremberg; Charitas’ own diary, published at Bamberg in 1852; Dr. Lochner’s Biography of Celebrated Nurembergers, published in 1861; and other less important and shorter works in which passing reference is made to the events of Charitas’ life.
[73] Literally lay priests, but, we think, referring to seculars.
[74] The church of St. Clare at Nuremberg remained for a long time closed. It was then opened again and soon afterwards given over to Protestant worship. It was subsequently used for commercial purposes, as a magazine of wares, a market-place, and place for local exhibitions, and finally as a barracks. In 1854 it was given back to the Catholics of Nuremberg as their second church. In the following year its restoration was begun, and on May 13, 1857, the Church of St. Clare was publicly consecrated anew for Catholic worship.