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 an almost rejection of Luther's affirmation that our actions on this earth were not important for the salvation of our souls Pietist encouraged all to live a good Christian life and to promoted good christian lives, in particular through education. 

The second generation of Pietist's went on to set up a series of educational institutions, starting with an orphanage and a clinic, in the university town of Halle, a stone's throw form Luther's home university of Wittenberg. In the space of a decade these institutions included institutions for women with view to providing women with education up to university. These radical calls for education for women stemmed from the influence of Erasmus of Rotterdam and his humanist understanding of education on the Pietist founder Philipp Spener and were a natural consequence of Pietist understanding that to be saved all people, women and men, should be able to read and discuss the bible. It was through a better understanding of scripture that personal conversion could happen. Additionally, there was a Pietist understanding of personal vocation that was highlighted by their vocational training programmes, which was innovative for the period and would change how people viewed study and work. For many Pietist women should receive an education because they were human beings and this implied a broader education than was usually ascribed to women in this period. I found this all quite interesting and decided to turn it into a project and book manuscript but I also recognised a needed a better grounding the theology of the period. Hence the theology classes from this summer.

This turn from medical history to what can almost, thought not quite, be classified as history of christianity, but which I feel is more women's history and history of feminism, has raised some eyebrows. I do not think that the two projects I have done so far, midwifery training and women's education are as distant as people assume. While it is true that the reform of midwifery training, with its focus on pregnancy and childbirth, fell clearly in the field of medicine, it remains the training of women for a profession. The debates about women's access to an equal education with which the Pietist wrestled with entered into the questions society had about women who worked outside of the home. Being a midwife was a profession that through its 18th Century reforms took the woman out of the home and formed them into a professional corp, and yet it did not seem a challenge because of contemporary views of the appropriateness of women aiding women during childbirth. Midwifery was thus the first field of female education and professionalisation in the early modern period that served as a precedent for the education of women Pietist felt was necessary. In more practical terms, Pietist were central to the reform of education, and this included medical education, in Prussia and thus were poised to act in the area of women's education. Have a really strayed that far from my PhD project? I think not.