“I do not owe you obedience and I will not obey you ... I am in a good, pious, blessed, honourable, free, spiritual estate, wherein both my body and soul are well cared for ... I want to stay here ... I have given myself to God with full knowledge and awareness in eternal chastity here to serve him … No one of the world can sway me.” – Anna Wurm to her brother, 1524.
Anna Wurm’s brother, motivated both by financial interests and his passion for the new Reformed theology, wanted her out of the Strasbourg convent in which she had dwelt for over a decade. Anna obviously disagreed. It was a drama played out countless times in the 16th century as convents were closed and thousands of women returned into the world – some happily, but many others unwillingly.
