Katharina von Bora was the daughter of a Jan von Bora auf Lippendorf and his wife Margarete, whose family name has not been established. Both were only specifically mentioned in the year 1505. It is certain that her father sent the five-year-old Katharina to the Benedictine cloister in Brehna in 1504 for education. This is documented in a letter from Laurentius Zoch to Martin Luther, written on October 30, 1531. This letter is the only evidence for Katharina von Bora's time spent within the monastery. At the age of nine she moved to the Cistercian monastery of Marienthron (Mary's Throne) in Nimbschen, near
Philipp von Mansfeld Mansfeld married, in 1630, Margaretha Catharine von Lobkowicz but had no further children. Mansfeld first served under Ernst von Mansfeld and the Swedish Empire during the Thirty Years' War. The two were, in fact, second-cousins; Mansfeld's grandfather and Ernst von Mansfeld's father were half-brothers. Ernst von Mansfeld had originally fought on the side of the Catholics and Leopold V, Archduke of Austria, but conflicts with the Archduke had driven him to join the side of the Protestants. In 1622, Ernst von Mansfeld's troops faced the army of Johann Tserclaes, Count of Tilly at the Battle of Mingolsheim. They were victorious