Primary Contributors:
Cultures of Knowledge
Argula von Grumbach, a woodcut from Matthes Maler’s 1523 edition of her letter to the theological faculty of Ingolstadt. (Source of image: Forschungsbibliothek Gotha)
Argula von Grumbach (1492–c.1554)
Argula von Grumbach, née von Stauffen, was one of the earliest German women to publicly support the Reformation. She is best known for her involvement in the 1523 case of Arsacius Seehofer in Ingolstadt, who had been accused of heresy, imprisoned, and forced to publicly recant his teachings. Argula wrote to the theological faculty protesting his treatment. The letter became public and, along with her later letters to the city council and the local prince, circulated throughout the German-speaking world in at least fourteen separate editions and tens of thousands of individual pamphlets. Her decision to speak out, prompted by what she described as her duty as a baptized Christian, would cost her husband his post and herself a great deal of harassment.
Although further pamphlets published her letters to princes, city councils, and her irate uncle, no printed works after 1524 survive. Her private correspondence indicates that she continued to communicate with Reformers until at least the Diet of Augsburg in 1530. It also reveals other aspects of her life. She co-administered her husbands’ estates, was closely involved in her four children’s education, and spent a large portion of her time managing a difficult financial situation. Her later letters show her involvement in several legal disputes.
Argula’s life was marked by repeated tragedy. Her parents died when she was young. Her uncle, who took over her guardianship, was executed for his political manoeuvring. She outlived two husbands and three of her children. One of her sons died violently in what Argula believed to be a murder. The last surviving letter indicates that she spent her final years assisting her son Gottfried in the management of the Grumbach estates while battling illness. She died in relative obscurity between 1554 and 1557.
Partners and Additional Contributors
This metadata inventory was collated by Sara Joswig following the practicum she completed with Early Modern Letters Online [EMLO] as part of her MSc in Digital Scholarship at the University of Oxford in 2024. Sara continued to work with the EMLO union catalogue as a Digital Fellow and, for Argula von Grumbach’s correspondence, drew on the published work of Peter Matheson. It is hoped that scholars, students, and archivists will be encouraged to contribute to this ‘starter catalogue’ and will expand the inventory with metadata for the letters not currently itemized that may be found in the Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv in Munich.
Argula von Grumbach’s correspondence inventory represents a significant addition to the ongoing work in EMLO with both Reformation Correspondence and the ‘Women’s Early Modern Letters Online’ initiative [WEMLO]. For further details about EMLO or about WEMLO, please contact Miranda Lewis.
Key Bibliographic Source(s)
Peter Matheson, Argula von Grumbach (1492–1554/7): A Woman before Her Time (Oregon, 2013).
Peter Matheson, ed., ‘A Life in Letters: Argula von Grumbach (1492–1556/7)’, Early modern women, vol. 4, 1 (2009).
Peter Matheson, Argula von Grumbach: A Woman’s Voice in the Reformation (Edinburgh, 1995).
Contents
The inventory records the metadata of thirty-five letters dated between 1523 and 1552, featuring a total of twenty-seven correspondents and all written in German. Eight of the letters were printed and distributed in pamphlets in the same year that they were written and focus on her religious and political convictions. The other letters cover a wider range of topics including her financial situation, her parenting, legal troubles, or administrative matters. Each letter’s subject matter is indicated in the inventory in EMLO with a brief English abstract. The inventory draws only on letters which have been published, at least in part, and is therefore far from complete.
Provenance
Most of the manuscript letters in this catalogue come from the shelfmark ‘Personenselekt 110 (Grombach)’ in the Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv in Munich. This has not yet been fully itemized and is not yet accessible digitally. Matheson (2013) indicates that this shelfmark contains more letters, including correspondence with her children, with administrators of her estates, and with several female agents. The letters which she authored tend to survive only as drafts. One exception is the final letter in the current catalogue, which is from the Staatsarchiv Würzburg and which she seems to have dictated.
The eight published letters only survive in print, in several editions which often show slight typographical differences but tend to represent the same meaning. Only one contemporary print edition is referenced for each of these letters, but Matheson (1995) lists them all in his bibliography.
Further resources
Bibliography
Irmgard Bezzel, ‘Argula von Grumbach und Johannes aus Landshut: Zu einer Kontroverse des Jahres 1524’, in Hans-Joachim Koppitz, ed., Gutenberg-Jahrbuch 1986, vol. 61 (Mainz, 1986).
Silke Halbach, Argula von Grumbach als Verfasserin reformatorischer Flugschriften (Frankfurt am Main, 1992).
Peter Matheson, ‘Argula von Grumbach und die Anfänge der Reformation’, in Susanne Greiter and Christine Zengerle, eds, ‘Ingolstadt in Bewegung: Grenzgänge am Beginn der Reformation: Sammelband zur gleichnamigen Tagung in Ingolstadt am 15./16. März 2014’ (Göttingen, 2015).
Elisabeth Spitzenberger and Peter Matheson, ‘Argula von Grumbachs Beitrag zur Reformationsbewegung‘, in Reinhold Bernhardt, ed., Theologische Zeitschrift, vol. 73, 4 (2017) [DOI: https://doi.org/10.5169/seals-877627].
Additional Resources
Argula von Grumbach’s works in the Post-Reformation Digital Library.