Argula von Grumbach (née von Stauff) (1492-1554?) was a Bavarian noblewoman who, starting in the early 1520s, became involved in the Protestant Reformation debates going on in Germany. She became the first Protestant woman writer, publishing letters and poems promoting and defending Martin Luther as well as his co-worker Philipp Melanchthon and other Protestant groups. She is most known for directly challenging the University of Ingolstadt’s faculty when she wrote a letter to them speaking out against the arrest of a Lutheran student. As one of the few women at the time openly speaking out her views, her writings sparked controversy and often became bestsellers, with tens of thousands of copies of her letters and poems circulating within a few years of their publication.

Argula von Grumbach was born as Argula von Stauff in 1492, the year known for when Christopher Columbus sailed for the New World. Her family lived in Ehrenfels castle, which was their baronial seat. The von Stauff family were Freiherren, who were lords with independent jurisdiction only accountable to the Emperor, and they were among the pre-eminent leaders of Bavarian nobility.