Marjorie Elizabeth Plummer

Interests

Teaching

Early Modern European Cultural and Social History; Renaissance/Reformation; History of Early Modern Religion; Early Modern Gender History; History of the Holy Roman Empire/Germany; Late Medieval Europe; Toleration and Persecution in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe

Research

My primary research focus is on the early Reformation; most specifically the impact of the reform movement on family and gender roles and the role played by printing, propaganda, and changing legal development on social and religious identity in Early Modern Germany. In addition, I work on question of toleration, religious diversity, and coexistence in communities from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries.

Courses

Scholarly Contributions

Books

• Plummer, M. E. (2021). Stripping the Veil: Convent Reform, Protestant Nuns, and Female Devotional Life in Sixteenth Century Germany.
• Plummer, M. E. (2020). Cultural Shifts and Ritual Transformations in Reformation Europe: Essays in Honor of Susan C. Karant-Nunn. Leiden: Brill. doi:https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004436022
• Plummer, M. E., & Harrington, J. F. (2019). Names and Naming in Early Modern Germany. Oxford: Berghahn Books.
• Plummer, M. E., & Christman, V. C. (2018). Topographies of Tolerance and Intolerance: Responses to Religious Pluralism in Reformation Europe. Leiden: Brill.
• Johnson, C., Luebke, D. M., Plummer, M. E., & Spohnholz, J. (2017). Archeologies of Confession: Writing the German Reformation, 1517-2017. Oxford: Berghahn Books.
• Plummer, M. E. (2012). From Priest’s Whore to Pastor’s Wife: Clerical Marriage and the Process of Reform in the Early German Reformation. Farnham; Ashgate (2012, 2013); Paperback edition Oxford: Routledge (2017).
• Plummer, M. E., & Barnes, R. (2009). Ideas and Cultural Margins in Early Modern Germany: Essays in Honor of H.C. Erik Midelfor. Ashgate (2009); Routledge.

Chapters

• Plummer, M. E. (2021). Anna Jacobäa Fuggerin (1547–87) and St. Katharina Convent in Augsburg: The End of An Experiment in Simultaneity. In Women Reformers in Early Modern Europe: Profiles, Texts, and Contexts, edited by Kirsi Stjerna. Minneapolis: Fortress Press.
• Plummer, M. E. (2021). “‘'Nyemant zum glauben zu dringen ist’: Nonnen und ihre Entscheidungsprozesse in der frühen Reformation in Sachsen, 1521-1560 ('No one is to be forced to believe': Nuns and Their Decision-Making Processes in the Early Reformation in Saxony, 1521-1560). In Über Religion entscheiden: Religiöse Optionen und Alternativen in der mittelalterlichen und frühneuzeitlichen Christenheit [Choosing my religion: Religious Options and Alternatives in Late Medieval and Early Modern Christianity], Studies in the Late Middle Ages, Humanism, and the Reformation, edited by Matthias Pohlig and Sita Steckel(pp 113-133). Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. doi:10.1628/978-3-16-160274-0
• Plummer, M. E. (2020). Aging and Retirement after the Reforming of the Convent in Ernestine Saxony. In Cultural Shifts and Ritual Transformations in Reformation Europe, edited by Victoria Christmas and Marjorie E. Plummer(pp 90-113). Leiden: Brill. doi:https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004436022_006
• Plummer, M. E. (2020). Protestant and Catholic Nuns Confronting the Reformation. In Embodiment, Identity, and Gender in the Early Modern Age, edited by Amy E. Leonard and David M. Whitford(pp 85-96). London: Routledge.
• Plummer, M. E., & Tlusty, B. A. (2020). Catholic-Protestant Coexistence. In Late Medieval and Early Modern Augsburg 1400-1800, edited by Mark Häberlein and B. Ann Tlusty(pp 247-270). Leiden: Brill. doi:https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004416055
• Plummer, M. E. (2019). State and Law. In A Cultural History of Marriage, Vol. 3: In the Renaissance and Early Modern Age, edited by Joanne Ferraro. London: Bloomsbury Academic(pp 51-68.). London: Bloomsbury Academic, c. 2018.
• Plummer, M. E. (2018). Building New Catholic Churches: Religious Diversity and Interconfessional Relations in the Soester Börde, 1649-1750. In Interkonfessionalität in der Frühen Neuzeit: Kontexte und Konkretionen, edited by Luisa Coscarelli, Rogier Gerrits, and Thomas Throckmorton,(pp 39-59). Peter Lang. doi:https://doi.org/10.3726/b14536
• Plummer, M. E. (2018). Parish Clergy, Village Politics, and Devotional Practices in the Convent Church of Welver, 1532-1697. In Topographies of Tolerance and Intolerance: Responses to Religious Pluralism in Reformation Europe(pp 223-247). Brill. doi:https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004371309
• Plummer, M. E. (2017). A View from the Choir: Forming Lutheran Culture in Pluriconfessional Westphalian Convents. In Cultures of Lutheranism: Reformation Repertoires in the Early Modern Era(pp 189-211). Past and Present, 234, Supplement 12. doi:https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtx047
• Plummer, M. E. (2017). Augsburg. In Dictionary of Luther and the Lutheran Traditions(pp 52-53). Grand Rapids: Baker Academic.
• Plummer, M. E. (2017). Convents. In Dictionary of Luther and the Lutheran Traditions, edited by Timothy Wengert(pp 166-168). Grand Rapids: Baker Academic.
• Plummer, M. E. (2017). Estate of Marriage. In The Essential Luther: Christian Life in the World, vol. 5, edited by Hans Hillerbrand(pp 32-77). Minneapolis: Fortress Press.
• Plummer, M. E. (2017). Human Frailty, Female Virtue: Visual Representations of Women Before and During the Early German Reformation. In Stirring the World: German Printmaking in the Age of Luther, edited by Henry Luttikhuizen(pp 21-33). Grand Rapids: Calvin College.
• Plummer, M. E. (2017). Marriage and Divorce. In Dictionary of Luther and the Lutheran Traditions(pp 486-487). Grand Rapids: Baker Academic.
• Plummer, M. E. (2017). Prison Tales: The Miraculous Escape of Stephen Agricola and the Creation of Lutheran Heroes during the Sixteenth Century. In Archeologies of Confession: Writing the German Reformation, 1517-2017(pp 262-283). Oxford: Berghahn Books.
• Plummer, M. E. (2017). Saxon Electors, The, and Luther. In The Oxford Encyclopedia of Martin Luther, edited by Derek Nelson and Paul Hinlicky(pp 3: 319-333). Oxford: Oxford University Press. doi:10.1093/acrefore/9780199340378.013.270.
• Plummer, M. E. (2017). Sermon on the Estate of Marriage. In The Essential Luther: Christian Life in the World, vol. 5, edited by Hans Hillerbrand(pp 17-31). Minneapolis: Fortress Press.
• Plummer, M. E. (2016). Neither Nun nor Laywoman: Entering Lutheran Convents during the Reformation of Female Religious Communities in the Duchy of Braunschweig, 1542-1634. In Devout Laywomen in the Early Modern World(pp 196-218). Oxford: Routledge.
• Plummer, M. E. (2014). Persona non grata: Former Nuns, Property Disputes, and the Female Defence of Marriage in the German Reformation. In Politics, Gender and Belief: The Long-Term Impact of the Reformation. Essays in Memory of Robert M. Kingdon(pp 209-236). Geneva: Droz Publishing.
• Plummer, M. E. (2014). ‘Nothing More than Common Whores and Knaves’: Married Monks and Nuns in the Early German Reformation. In Mixed Matches: Transgressive Unions in Germany from the Reformation to the Enlightenment, edited by David M. Luebke and Mary Lindemann(pp 45-62). Berghahn Books, 2014.
• Plummer, M. E. (2009). ‘The Much-Married Michael Kramer’: Evangelical Clergy and Bigamy in Ernestine Saxony, 1522-1542. In Ideas and Cultural Margins in Early Modern Germany: Essays in Honor of H.C. Erik Midelfort, edited by Marjorie E. Plummer and Robin B. Barnes(pp 99-115). Aldershot, Hambleton: Ashgate Publishing.
• Plummer, M. E. (2003). Augsburg. In Europe 1450-1789: An Encyclopedia of the Early Modern World, vol. 1, edited by Jonathan Dewald(pp 166-168). New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.

Journals/Publications

• Plummer, M. E. (2017). A View from the Choir: Forming Lutheran Culture in Pluriconfessional Westphalian Convents. Past & Present, 234(suppl_12), 189-211. doi:10.1093/pastj/gtx047
• Plummer, M. E. (2008). ‘Partner in his Calamities’: Pastors’ Wives, Married Nuns and the Experience of Clerical Marriage in the Early German Reformation. Gender and History, 20(2), 207-227. doi:10.1111/j.1468-0424.2008.00518.x
• Plummer, M. E. (2007). Clerical Marriage and Territorial Reformation in Ernestine Saxony and the Diocese of Merseburg in 1522-1524. Archive for Reformation History, 98, 45-70.

Presentations

• Plummer, M. E. (2022, February). Religious Diversity and Shared Religious Spaces in ‘Lutheran’ Churches. Reformation Conference: Religion, Politics, and Society. Claremont, CA: The Gould Center at Claremont McKenna College.
• Plummer, M. E. (2021, April). Susan C. Karant-Nunn’s Legacy and Cultural Shifts and Ritual Transformations. Meeter Center Reformation Conversation [Virtual]. Grand Rapids, MI: Meeter Center Reformation Conversation, Calvin College.
• Plummer, M. E. (2021, November). Trouble in Paradise: Monastic Reform in Mixed Confessional Convents in the Seventeenth Century. Gotteshäuser? Monastische Reform(ation) und ihr Nachleben. Hamburg (Virtual): University of Hamburg.
• Plummer, M. E. (2018, March/Spring). Leaving the Convent: Former Nuns Remember the Reformation in Electoral Saxony. Renaissance Society of America, New Orleans, LA, March 22-25. New Orleans, LA: Renaissance Society of America.
  More info

  Withdrew from conference due to broken foot.
• Plummer, M. E. (2018, March/Spring). Rough Confessionalization: Interactions between Soldiers and Abbesses in Pluriconfessional Convents in Westphalia and Lower Saxony, 1609-1648. Frühe Neuzeit Interdisziplinär Conference, St. Louis, MO, March 5-8 (Withdrew from conference due to broken foot.). St. Louis, MO: Frühe Neuzeit Interdisziplinär.
  More info

  Withdrew from conference due to broken foot.
• Plummer, M. E. (2020, December). Working on Early Modern Women … in a Pandemic. Mary Martin McLaughlin Memorial Lecture. University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE: The Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program.
• Plummer, M. E. (2020, January). Abbess Margarethe von Watzdorf and her Convent. Mary Martin McLaughlin Memorial Lecture. University of Nebraska, Lincoln: The Medieval and Renaissance Studies Program.
• Plummer, M. E. (2019, February). Ringing Bells and Singing Hymns: Religious Fluidity, Hybridity, and Conflict in the Devotional Cultures of North German Convents. Forschungscolloquium zur Geschichte der Frühen Neuzeit [Research Colloquium on Early Modern History]. Berlin, Germany: Friedrich-Meinecke-Institut, Freie Universität Berlin (Germany).
• Plummer, M. E. (2019, May). Negotiating Mixed Religious Identities and Maintaining Devotional Communities in North German Pluriconfessional Convents, 1548–1595. Workshop on “Religious Women during Reform and Reformation”. Universität Tübingen (Germany),: Teilprojekt G02: Geistliche Frauengemeinschaften im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert: Ordnungsvorstellungen und Bedrohungskommunikation in Reform und Reformation.
• Plummer, M. E. (2018, March). Defending the Convent: Interactions between Soldiers and Nuns during the Thirty Years’ War in Germany. Inaugural Lecture. Tucson, University of Arizona: Division for Late Medieval and Reformation Studies and Department of History.
• Plummer, M. E. (2018, November). The Many Prisons of Stephen Castenbauer: Reformation History, Memory, and Historical Method. University of Arizona German Studies Colloquium. University of Arizona: German Studies.
• Plummer, M. E. (2018, October). Two Pistols, A Horse, and Dagger: How Religious Diversity led to Public Outcry against Clergy in the Wake of the Thirty Years’ War in Germany. Phi Alpha Theta Meeting. Tucson, University of Arizona: PAT, History Department.
• Plummer, M. E. (2017, April/Spring). Dangerous Choices: Women, Clergy, and Marriage in the German Reformation. Public Presentation, April 10. Holland Michigan: Hope College.
• Plummer, M. E. (2017, January/Winter). Inciting Terror and Building Walls: A Catholic Convent and Lutheran Pastor Fight for the Souls of the Parish of Welver, 1649-1745. American Historical Association, Denver, CO, January 5-8. Denver, CO: American Historical Association.
• Plummer, M. E. (2017, January/Winter). Uncovering Protestant Nuns during the Long Reformation in the Holy Roman Empire: Historiography Between Nationalism and Confessionalization. German History Seminar. Nashville, TN: Vanderbilt University.
• Plummer, M. E. (2017, June/Summer). Building New Catholic Churches: Religious Diversity and Interconfessional Relations in the Soester Börde, 1649-1750. A Symposium on “Kontexte und Konkretionen” in Interkonfessionalität. Hamburg, Germany: Graduiertenkolleg "Interkonfessionalität in der Frühen Neuzeit,” University of Hamburg.
• Plummer, M. E. (2017, June/Summer). St. Katherine’s Convent: An Experiment in Biconfessionalism?. Symposium “Reformation in der Reichsstadt Augsburg”, June 22, 2017. Augsburg, Germany: City of Augsburg, Augsburg City Archive, Diocese of Augsburg.
• Plummer, M. E. (2017, March/Spring). Re-Catholization Efforts of Catholic Nuns in Pluriconfessional Parishes of the Soester Börde during the Seventeenth Century. Renaissance Society of America, Chicago, March 30-April. Chicago,: Renaissance Society of America.
• Plummer, M. E. (2017, October/ Fall). Remembering 1624: Disputing Memory, Historical Documents, and Devotional Practice in Westphalian Pluriconfessional Convents After 1648. German Studies Association, Atlanta, GA, Oct. 5-8. Atlanta, GA: German Studies Association.
• Plummer, M. E. (2017, October/ Fall). To Leave the Convent or Stay: Nuns Remember the Early Reformation. Conference: Religion Entscheiden. Religiöse Alternativen und Optionen im spätmittelalterlichen und frühneuzeitlichen Christentum. Münster, Germany: Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münste.
• Plummer, M. E. (2017, October/ Fall). Where are They Now? The Experiences of Protestant and Catholic Nuns after Confronting the Reformation. Sixteenth Century Society Conference, Milwaukee, WI, Oct. 25-29. Milwaukee, WI,: Sixteenth Century Society Conference.
• Plummer, M. E. (2015, June/Summer). Trouble in Paradise: Creating Confessional Identity in Pluriconfessional Convents in the Age of the Thirty Years War. Forschungskolloquium—Frühe Neuzeit. Münster, Germany: Division of Early Modern History, Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster.
• Plummer, M. E. (2016, August/Summer). A View from the Choir: Sharing Sacred Space in Pluriconfessional Convents in Lower Saxony and Westphalia. Sixteenth Century Society Conference (SCSC), Bruges/Belgium, August 18-20. Bruges/Belgium: Sixteenth Century Society Conference.
• Plummer, M. E. (2017, July/Summer). Living with Heretics in a Time of War: Expressing Confessional Culture in Westphalian Pluriconfessional Convents. Workshop on Bekenner, Bekennen und Bekenntnis: Zugänge zu den Konfessionskulturen der Frühen Neuzeit, 5. Erlanger Sommerkurs zur Reformationsgeschichte. Erlangen, Germany: Friedrich-Alexander Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg.
• Plummer, M. E. (2015, February). Creating Lutheran Cultural Identity in Pluriconfessional Westphalian Convents. Workshop on Cultures of Lutheranism. Oxford, England: TORCH—The Oxford Research Centre in the Humanities.
• Plummer, M. E. (2015, October/ Fall). Parish Clergy, Village Politics, and Confessional Identity in the Convent Church of Welver, 1532-1712. Sixteenth Century Society Conference, October 22-25. Vancouver, BC Canada: Sixteenth Century Society Conference.
• Plummer, M. E. (2014, October/ Fall). Ringing Bells and Singing Hymns: Multiconfessional Convents and the Shared Use of Sacred Space in Westphalian Convents. Sixteenth Century Society Conference, New Orleans, LA, Oct. 16-19, 2014. New Orleans, LA: Sixteenth Century Society Conference.
• Plummer, M. E. (2014, September/Fall). Sharing Space with Apostates and Heretics: Experiments in Coexistence in Multiconfessional Convents. German Studies Association, Kansas City, KS, September 18-21. Kansas City, KS: German Studies Association.
• Plummer, M. E. (2013, January/Winter). Converting Convents: Monastic Reform and Evangelical Nuns in Braunschweig-Lüneburg during the Sixteenth-Century. American Society for Church History, New Orleans, LA, January 3-6. New Orleans, LA: American Society for Church History.
• Plummer, M. E. (2013, October/ Fall). Nuns in Multiconfessional Convents in North Germany. Sixteenth Century Society Conference, Puerto Rico, October 23-26. Puerto Rico: Sixteenth Century Society Conference.
• Plummer, M. E. (2012, March/Spring). Prison Tales: Clerical Resistance, Episcopal Authority, and the Creation of Lutheran Heroes in the Early German Reformation. The New College Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Sarasota, FL, March 8-10. Sarasota, FL: The New College Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Studies.
• Plummer, M. E. (2012, October/ Fall). A Matter of Conscience: From Imprisoned Clergy to Martyrs in Lutheran Histories of the mid- Sixteenth Century. German Studies Association, Milwaukee, WI, October 3-5. Milwaukee, WI: German Studies Association.
• Plummer, M. E. (2011, October/ Fall). Persona non grata: Former Nuns, Property Disputes, and Defense of Marriage in the Early German Reformation. Sixteenth Century Society Conference, Fort Worth, TX, October 27-30. Fort Worth, TX: Sixteenth Century Society Conference.
• Plummer, M. E. (2010, December/Winter). Women and Clerical Marriage in the Early Reformation. Strathmartine Centre Seminar. St. Andrews, Scotland: Strathmartine Trust.
• Plummer, M. E. (2010, October/ Fall). Reassessing Clerical Marriage through the Experience of Monks and Nuns. St. Andrews Reformation Studies Seminar, October 7, 2010. St. Andrews, Scotland: St. Andrews Reformation Studies Seminar, University of St. Andrews.
• Plummer, M. E. (2010, September/Fall). Whores or Housekeepers: Reassessing Clerical Concubines in Early Reformation Germany. Reformation Studies Colloquium, St. Andrews, Scotland, September 7-9. St. Andrews, Scotland: Reformation Studies Colloquium.
• Plummer, M. E. (2009, May/Spring). No Better than a Brothel’: Convents and the Attack on Celibacy in the Early German Reformation. Sixteenth Century Society Conference. Geneva, Switzerland,: Sixteenth Century Society Conference.
• Plummer, M. E. (2009, October/ Fall). Nothing More than Common Whores and Knaves’: Married Monks and Nuns in the Early German Reformation. German Studies Association, Washington, DC, October 8-11. Washington, DC: German Studies Association.
• Plummer, M. E. (2006, June/Summer). Defining Marriage: Disputed Engagements, Secret Marriage, and Seduction in Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, 1569-1624. Stipendiatenkolloquium (Research Seminar), Herzog August Bibliothek, June 26. Wolfenbüttel, Germany: Herzog August Bibliothek.
• Plummer, M. E. (2000, July/Summer). “The Politics of Priestly Marriage and Clerical Concubinage in Brandenburg-Ansbach, 1524-1545.”. Stipendiatenkolloquium (Research Seminar), Herzog August Bibliothek, July. Wolfenbüttel, Germany: Herzog August Bibliothek.

Case Studies

• Plummer, M. E. (2019. Hans Gallmeyer: Seduction, Bigamy, and Forgery in an Augsburg Workshop(pp 121-123).