Marie Toft

Ane Marie Elise Toft, later Grundtvig, née Carlsen was a wealthy Danish landowner who owned and efficiently administered the Rønnebæksholm estate near Næstved which she had inherited from her first husband following a marriage lasting less than two years. She opened up Rønnebæksholm to religious revivalists, attracting both clerics and laymen to the estate. In 1851, she married the influential philosopher, N.F.S. Grundtvig, who had visited the estate in 1846. Her manor house subsequently became one of the principal centres of Grundtvigian activity while Grundtvig became deeply devoted to Toft, treating her as his independent and spiritually equal partner.