Facsimile ‘Der Buhler Vogelherd’, c. 1535 from Flugblatter der Reformation und des Bauernfrieges

1975

Private Collection

Leipzig: Insel-Verlag Anton Kippenberg

In medieval times, women had three options – wife, nun, whore. After the Reformation, those options shrank as many convents were closed in newly converted Protestant areas. Reformers rejected celibacy, advocating marriage and attendance to the family as a ‘religious vocation’ for women. Men and women were considered equal in the ethereal eyes of the Lord, but not in the home where women were still expected to be subservient to men and do all the chores. The women, in this image above, have turned society on its allegorical head. The ‘deceptive’ women, helped by the devil (at right) have ‘bewitched’ the men, from all walks of life, into a trap. In a time of religious and political instability, the artist is portraying an image of society in moral decline.