When Caritas Pirckheimer, abbess of the Nürnberg cloister of St. Clare’s, died in 1532, her obituary in the cloister’sTotenbüchleinincluded the simple words “a mirror of all piety and learning and a lover of all virtues.”¹ The unique role that she played in defending her cloister and her faith during the period when the Reformation was formally accepted by the City Council of Nürnberg in 1525, however, remained largely unappreciated and unknown until the Bamberg archivist Constantin Höfler first published the manuscript of her personal account of that time in 1852, giving it the curious title ofDenkwürdig keiten...

What follows are descriptions of some of the things that happened to our cloister here at Saint Clare’s in Nürnberg in those dangerous, rebellious times, along with some letters written at the same time.¹

We all know that for a very long time it has been prophesied that in the year of our Lord 1524 a great deluge² is to occur by which everything on earth will be twisted and changed. And, although this has generally been understood as a flood, experience has taught us that the stars did not indicate water as much as misery, fear and distress, and...

The advent of the year 2000 was cause for celebration in the Franconian city of Nürnberg. The first documented mention of the city had occurred 950 years earlier on 16 July 1050, when Kaiser Heinrich III granted personal freedom to a young female surf by the name of Sigena. Thus, the history of the city was forever linked to the concept of personal freedom in general, and to that of the woman who symbolized that freedom in particular.

On the eve of the Reformation, Tetzel was promoting the sale of indulgences, a practice that had long been an acceptable activity....