The Letters of Magdalena and Balthasar

The Letters of Magdalena and Balthasar

The letters of Magdalena and Balthasar give us a glimpse into the lives of a merchant couple in 16th century Nuremberg, Germany. Renaissance Nuremberg was a city much like Florence, full of culture and based on a strong merchant economy. The only difference was that while Florence was predominately Catholic, Nuremberg's residents were Protestant (Patrouch, 2-13-01). In this city, the plague ended the lives of thousands and this couple was alive to see the suffering it created. This caused two reactions in them. One was that of fear; a fear that they too would die from the plague and so they are both very careful with their health. The second was a vision of a God that could both punish and save them from damnation. In the letters of this book we discover how a Protestant couple in Renaissance Germany dealt with the illness and suffering that their loving God had bestowed upon them.

Between 1560 and 1584, Nuremberg lost thousands of its residents to an epidemic that was sweeping Europe. This was the reason for the couple's preoccupation with purgative health care methods such as periodic bleedings, salve solutions, and bathing and drinking spring waters such as those of Lucca, Italy. In the introduction of this book, Ozment states that Magdalena and Balthasar are "devotees of purgative medicine, in search of effective prophylaxis against the ragging maladies and diseases of their age (Ozment, 14). Due to this fear of sickness and death, Magdalena and Balthsar are fanatics of the medical remedies of the time.

Through these letters we can see that religion played a major role in the lives of the couple. As we read in the introduction, they seem to have a "love-hate relationship with God, their Afflicter and Redeemer" (Ozment, 14). Throughout their letters we will discover the strong beliefs that this couple had in the "medicine" of their time and the God that they both feared and loved.

Magdalena is the one who was exposed most to this deterioration that was occurring in Nuremberg. Numerous times she remorsefully mentioned the news of a lost friend or relative in her letters to Balthasar. Once while Balthasar was in Altdorf Magdalena wrote, "I must report to you a death among our friends in every letter I write; I wish it were not so" (M.