Frau Wibrandis

The sixteenth century in Europe was a tumultuous time. It was the time of plagues, a time of wars, and a time of reformation. The Protestant Reformation was a decisive moment. We hear a great deal about men who shaped that time, such as Martin Luther, John Calvin, Ulrich Zwingli, Thomas Butzer, and innumerable others. But who were the women who stood behind those men? One of them was Wibrandis Rosenblatt. Hers is a remarkable story. She married and buried four men in succession, all of them Protestant reformers. She endured the daily hardships and annoyances of the Protestant parsonage. She cracked the whip on a wayward son. She liked family outings, especially during the grape harvest. Eventually she was swept away by the plague of 1564. Through all this, Wibrandis was a faithful witness to Christianity. The author of Frau Wibrandis, Ernst Staehelin, was a church historian and a professor at the University of Basel. He himself was Swiss and a descendent of Wibrandis. From the Translator's Preface: Wibrandis is 'the story of a woman in a man's world, almost totally eclipsed by the illustrious men in her life. She bore the brunt of it.'