“I have planted a garden and dug a well. Now, come and be crowned with a wreath of roses and lilies…”
Thus, wrote Martin Luther (1483 – 1546) in the summer of 1525 to his best friend, Spalatin, to announce his marriage to Katharine von Bora.
In 1522 Martin Luther had returned to Wittenberg from his sojourn at Wartburg Castle after the Diet of Worms. Here, he once more set up his home at the Augustinum, the house of his order, the Augustinian monks. In 1525, however, Luther married Katharina von Bora, with whom he began to organise what is now called the Luther-House as a University College. Here, he entertained students and numerous visitors and friends, who came to sit if not at the feet at least at the table of the great church reformer. It is believed that the household counted up to 50 persons from time to time.
One of Käthe von Bora’s primary jobs was to cater for the large household and part of this work was to work their garden. Later, this was the inspiration for the cultural construction of the ideal Protestant vicarage, in which – according to Luther – the vicar and his wife were expected to see themselves as primarily responsible for their house, household and congregation as if they were apprenticed to God. When the couple had their first child, Luther wrote that if he “might only go on living, he would joyfully be a gardener”.
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