Pietism and women in the 18th Century
After an intensive three weeks in which I sat through fours hours of theology classes a day I finally have some time to think about what brought me here. For years I tackled material on the body, in particulars women's bodies, during pregnancy and childbirth, and more generally throughout their reproductive years. It sounds like something very 20th Century but it was in the 18th Century a period characterised by government concern over lack of population. This was in the old Holy Roman Empire that was recovering from the Thirty years war, which had devoted vast regions of the empire, depleted both resources and people. In this moment of religious warfare and radical religious change, there emerged a group of reformed Lutherans, though the Lutherans would not recognised them as 'one of them' that called to a deep personal conversion. In practical terms Pietists, as they were derogatorily referred to by Lutherans, sought to create or mirror God's kingdom on this earth. In