Woman under Monasticism

The other part of the poem advises the ‘ladies dear,’ who have taken the habit which is a holy thing, to let their lives correspond with their outward array. The writer enlarges on the good conversation and the virtues of the holy women who were professed in the past, and enumerates as models of virtuous living a number of women saints chiefly of English origin.

Productions such as this clearly show in what direction the estimation of religious houses and their inmates was tending. The nature of devotional pursuits and keeping the houses was not yet called into question, but apart from its religious significance the nunnery had little to recommend it. As places of residence these houses still attracted a certain number of unmarried women, and as centres of education still exerted some influence, but the high standard they had at one period maintained was a thing of the past.

§ 2. Reforms in Germany

The history of monastic reform on the Continent previous to the Reformation supplies us with many interesting particulars both of the position of monasteries generally and of the convent life of women. Though religious settlements had been little interfered with before the Church Council at Constance, extensive reforms were undertaken subsequent to it in order to secure a return of discipline. The movement was inaugurated from within the religious orders, and led to the union of different houses into so-called congregations. But its peaceable character was soon marred by the introduction of political and party interests. Thirty years after the first convent reforms, it was no longer a question of how far the well-being and right living of monk and nun should be secured, but how far religious settlements could be made amenable to external interference and who should have the right of interfering with them.

For this complication the instability of political life is partly responsible. The authority of the Pope had greatly decreased, and, at the beginning of the 15th century, the Emperor no longer kept the balance between the contending parties. The prelates of the Church, many of whom were independent temporal princes, had succeeded in allying themselves to the impoverished, but influential, nobility. In South Germany especially the Church was becoming more and more aristocratic; birth, not merit, secured admission and promotion in the ecclesiastical body. The townships were generally opposed to the Church and the nobility; they emphatically insisted on their rights, but their combined efforts to make their influence felt in the constitution had signally failed. Apart from them stood the princes and minor potentates, who tried to coerce the nobility, in many cases succeeded in depriving their prelates of their rights, and availed themselves of the general relaxation of authority to promote their own selfish ends.

To these different representatives of power the monastery became debatable ground, where the diocesan, the township and the prince of the land in turn claimed the right of interference and where in many instances their interests clashed. The greater settlements, which held directly from the Emperor, were not drawn into the conflict; it was round the lesser ones that contention chiefly raged.

One of the most interesting movements in the direction of monastic reform is associated with the Benedictine monk Johannes von Minden († 1439) who, as representative of the abbot of the house of Reinhausen near Göttingen, was present at the general chapter of Benedictine abbots held near Constance in 14171009. Johannes returned to his convent burning with reformatory zeal, which his abbot and fellow-monks would not countenance. He left his convent and after many hardships was enabled by the help of a rich patroness to settle at Bursfeld, where he realized some of his ideas1010. His views agreed with those of Johannes Rode († 1439), a Carthusian, who had become abbot of the Benedictine monastery of St Matthias at Trier, and the joint efforts of these men resulted in a scheme of mutual supervision and control of different houses by means of periodical visitations undertaken by members of the Benedictine order. The settlements which agreed to the innovation joined in a union or so-called congregation, to which Bursfeld gave its name. The union or congregation of Bursfeld was eventually joined by one hundred and thirty-six monasteries of men and sixty-four of women. The purpose of the union was not to attempt any new departure, but to guarantee the maintenance of discipline as a means of securing the return of prosperity.

The nunnery of Langendorf, near Weissenfels in Saxony, was incorporated into the union of Bursfeld, and a comprehensive scheme of rules1011, which gives us an insight into the tone and tendency of the German mediæval nunnery on the reformed plan, was drawn up for its use. The rules recall those contemporaneously drafted for the monastery of Sion in England. We have in them similar directions concerning an elaborate ritual, similar exhortations to soberness of living and gentleness of manner; the information on convent life and daily routine is equally explicit; and we hear of the different appointments inside the convent, and of the several duties of its members. There is also an exhaustive list of possible failings and crimes, followed by directions as to correction and punishment. Cats, dogs and other animals are not to be kept by the nuns, as they detract from seriousness; if a nun feels sleepy during hours, she shall ask leave to withdraw rather than fall asleep; if a nun dies of an infectious disease, her corpse shall not be carried into church, but the burial service shall take place outside. No member of the convent shall be chosen abbess unless she has attained the age of twenty-nine, – a provision which I have not come across elsewhere. The abbess has under her the same staff of officers whose duties have already been described. There is the prioress, the sub-prioress, the teacher of the novices, the cellaress, the chauntress, the sub-chauntress, the sexton, the keeper of books, the chambress, the infirmaress, the portress and others. We are told how novices made profession and how the hours of the Virgin were to be kept. We are also informed of the occupations of the nuns between hours, and learn that they were active in many ways. There are references to the transcribing of books, to binding books, to preparing parchment, and also to spinning and weaving; but the transcribing of books is pronounced the more important work, since it is more akin to spiritual interests. Further we hear about visits paid by the nuns, and about the reception of visitors. Only professed religious women were to be received on a visit inside the convent precincts; other visitors were to dwell and take their meals outside.

In the case of this nunnery it is unknown how far the convent showed readiness to join the congregation of Bursfeld, or how far it was persuaded or coerced into doing so. The movement in favour of monastic reform entered on a new stage with the advent of the zealous and influential reformer, Johann Busch († after 1479), the promoter of the congregation of Windesheim. The work of Busch is the more interesting as he has left a detailed account of it. His book ‘On monastic reform’ describes the changes he advocated and the means by which he effected them during a contest of over thirty years1012. He was a native of Zwolle in the Netherlands and entered the Austin convent of Windesheim, where he attracted so much attention that he was summoned to Wittenberg in Saxony (1437), and there conducted monastic reforms at the desire of the prior. He remained in Saxony for many years, residing sometimes at one place, sometimes at another, and pursued his plans so ardently that he occasionally transcended the limits of his authority1013. His success in persuading convents to reconsider their tenor of life and in inducing lay princes and prelates to assist him in his efforts was so great that Cardinal Cusanus, of whom we shall hear more, pronounced him especially fitted to act as a monastic reformer (1451). His book contains a detailed account of his work in connection with about twenty nunneries. His great merit and that of the congregation of Windesheim was the introduction of German devotional books.

From these and other descriptions we gather that many nunneries willingly accepted the proposed changes in so far as they were designed to raise the standard of teaching and to improve the system of discipline, but that opposition was made where the changes tended to interfere with the position and prestige of the settlement. In some cases a compromise was effected by the energetic and intelligent conduct of the lady superior; in others the direct refusal of the nuns to conform resulted in open force being brought to bear on them. Scenes were enacted which recall the turbulence of early Christian times, and show how strong a sense of independence still lived in some convents.

Among the Austin nunneries which gave Busch endless trouble was that of Derneburg, near Hildesheim, where he was appointed to visit as father confessor between 1440 and 14421014. The nuns there were in the habit of dining out continually, and when exception was taken to this, gave as an excuse that relatives and friends were always ready to entertain them at meals, but refused to furnish contributions in kind towards the support of the convent. Busch got over this difficulty by pleading with the lay people, but his action in the matter still further roused the rebellious spirit of the nuns. On one occasion his life was attempted at their instigation; on another, when he went to inspect their cellar, they locked him in and left him there. As a consequence of this he refused from that time forward to be the first to go on any tour of inspection. His efforts to impress these nuns were in vain, and finally he asked for the assistance of the bishop of Hildesheim and the abbot of the Cistercian house of Marienrode; as a consequence the rebels were conveyed away from Derneburg to other convents, and their house was given into the hands of Cistercian nuns. Similar difficulties occurred at Wennigsen, at Mariensee and at Werder, where the Duke of Hannover interfered in the most arbitrary manner1015. At Wienhausen the abbess and convent refused to conform to the rule of St Benedict, though the additional authority of their diocesan and of Duke Otto of Brunswick was brought to bear on them1016. Forcible measures were resorted to in this case also. The abbess was deposed and she and her nuns were carried away in a chariot to other nunneries, and nuns from the reformed house of Derneburg were installed in their place.

At the Cistercian nunnery of St Georg, near Halle, the nuns at first declared that they were exempt from the visits of the diocesan, and refused admission to the delegates. After prolonged opposition they yielded to Busch1017. At Heiningen the nuns pleaded poverty as an excuse for staying away from home1018. Many settlements complained of poverty and insufficient revenue, among which was Frankenberg, near Goslar1019. The nuns of Dorstad earned money by taking pupils from outside the precincts1020, and other houses, among them that of Neuwerk, received girls and boarded and educated them. Busch however forbade their doing so on the ground that intercourse with secular interests was harmful. At Neuwerk, which was a Cistercian nunnery at Erfurt1021, the wealth of the community in vessels, vestments, and books was quite a revelation to Busch. The house owned thirty books of devotion (the convent at the time consisted of thirty inmates), a number which appeared to Busch so considerable that he did not insist on the nuns adopting the service-book in use at Windesheim, as this change would have rendered their books useless to them.

The nuns at Neuwerk readily accepted the proposed reforms, and received nuns from the reformed nunnery of Heiningen who dwelt with them for three years and helped them to restore their system of religious discipline and teaching. The abbess Armengard von Rheden, of the wealthy Benedictine nunnery of Fischbeck on the Weser1022, also agreed to receive nuns from a reformed house into her establishment as teachers.

Full details are preserved of the reform of the nunnery of Marienberg1023 near Helmstädt in Saxony, the prioress of which, Helena von Iltzen, hearing of the work of Busch, sought his assistance in matters of reform. Her house is said to have belonged to no order in particular. When she applied to Busch he was resident provost (after 1459) of the Austin canonry of Sülte near Hildesheim. He travelled to Bronopie, a nunnery situated outside Campen on the confines of Holland, to consult with the prioress, who accordingly deputed two nuns of her convent, Ida and Tecla, and one lay sister Aleydis, to repair with him to Marienberg. Of the two nuns Ida had been chosen for her knowledge of religious service, Tecla for her powers of instruction. Busch describes how he travelled across Germany with these women in a waggon drawn by four horses, and how on their arrival at Marienberg Ida was appointed to act as sub-prioress, and Tecla as teacher, and how the prioress of the house reserved to herself the management of temporal affairs only. Tecla is described as well versed in grammar (grammatica competenter docta); she instructed the inmates of the house in scholastic knowledge (scientiis scholasticalibus) with such success that her pupils after three years were able to read Holy Writ, and readily composed letters and missives in correct Latin (litteras sive missas in bona latina magistraliter dictarent). ‘I have seen and examined these myself,’ says Busch.

After three years the illness of Ida made the nuns desirous of returning to their own convent, and Busch again undertook to escort them. A proof of the affection they had won during their stay and of the regret that was felt at their departure is afforded by the letters which passed between them and their friends. They were staying for some nights at the nunnery of Heiningen on their journey home when two letters reached them. In one the nuns wrote describing their grief. ‘When we see your empty places in the choir, the refectory, and the dormitory, we are filled with sorrow and weep.’ And they wish that the distance which separates them were not so great, then at least they might go to visit their friends. When Tecla’s pupils (the letter says) entered the schoolroom for their lessons on the Saturday, they wept so much that the prioress, who was in great grief herself, was constrained to try to comfort them. The other letter, a short one specially addressed to Tecla, was written by these pupils: this accompanied the longer letter, and in it they assured her of their continued admiration and devotion. Ida, Tecla and Aleydis in reply sent two letters to Marienberg. A longer one was addressed by them to the convent collectively, and a shorter one by Tecla to her pupils, in which she praises them for having written such a good Latin letter and assures them that she is glad to think of her stay with them, since it has been productive of such good results.

The nunnery of Marienberg, which had so readily accepted reforms, acted as advocate of similar changes to other houses. Busch tells us that the nunnery of Marienborn situated not far from it, and the nunnery at Stendal in Brandenburg, accepted reforms at its instigation1024.

In the records of Busch comparatively few charges of a coarse nature are brought against nunneries, but he adds an account of two nuns who were in apostasy, and who were persuaded by him to return to their convents. One had left her convent and had adopted lay clothing1025; the story of the other, Sophie, an illegitimate daughter of Wilhelm, duke of Brunswick, reads like a romance1026. The girl had been stowed away in the convent of Mariensee by her relatives for convenience, but indifferent to vows unwillingly accepted, she ran away and for seven years lived in the world, tasting few of the sweets of life and much of its bitterness. At last, broken in spirit by the loss of her child, she was persuaded by Busch to come and live in the convent of Derneburg, the members of which received her with tender pity for her sufferings and treated her with loving care. Finally she agreed to return to the nunnery she had originally left, glad of the peace which she found there.

Some of the nunneries on which pressure was brought to bear by the monastic reformers altogether ceased to exist. The historian of the diocese of Speyer (Rheinbayern) tells us that the Benedictine nunnery of Schönfeld was interfered with in 1443 and fell into decay, and that its property was appropriated; that the Cistercian nunnery of Ramsen also ceased to exist, owing to feuds between Count Johann II of Nassau and the abbot of Morimund, who both claimed the right of interference; and that the dissolution of Kleinfrankenthal, a settlement of Austin nuns situated in the same diocese, was declared in 1431 by Pope Eugenius IV on account of the evil ways of the nuns1027.

The historian of the reforms undertaken in the diocese of Trier notifies many important changes1028. He considers that the nuns in many convents had drifted away from the former strictness of discipline and lived as Austin canonesses, returning to the world if they chose to get married. Many of these settlements now accepted stricter rules of life, and among them were the nunnery of Marienberg (diocese of Trier), the abbess of which, Isengard von Greiffenklau († 1469), had come under the influence of Johannes Rode – and Oberwerth, which owed reform to its abbess Adelheid Helchen (1468-1505).

On the other hand Elisabeth von Seckendorff, abbess of the time-honoured nunnery of St Walburg at Eichstätt, refused to see that a changed condition of things demanded reform. The bishop of Eichstätt made his power felt; she was deposed, and Sophie was summoned from the nunnery of St Maria at Cöln, and made abbess in her stead (1456-1475)1029.

We have detailed accounts of reforms in South Germany from the pen of another contemporary writer, Felix Fabri († 1502), a Dominican friar of Ulm1030. He tells us how Elisabeth Krelin († 1480), abbess of the important Cistercian nunnery, Heggbach, a woman of great intelligence and strong character, effected reforms in her house on her sole responsibility. These changes were productive of such good results that many nuns left the houses to which they belonged and came to live under her. Gredanna von Freyberg († 1481), abbess of the ancient and wealthy Benedictine nunnery of Urspring, hearing of these changes, came on a visit to Heggbach, where she made friends with the abbess, and when she left she was bent on carrying out similar changes in her own convent. But here she met with opposition. Her nuns, who were members of the nobility, aware that the changes advocated meant interference with the liberty they enjoyed, divided for and against her, and those who were against her appealed to their relatives for support. Gredanna in vain asked for help from the abbot of the monastery of St Georg in the Black Forest to which her house was allied; he dared not interfere, and it was only when the archduchess Mechthild of Austria called upon him to do so, that he summoned nuns from the reformed nunnery of St Walburg at Eichstätt and with them and some monks came to Urspring. But the rebellious nuns, nothing daunted, shut themselves up in the outlying buildings of the infirmary, which they barricaded; the soldiers were called out but from a religious dread refused to attack them. Nothing remained short of placing these ‘amazons’ as Fabri calls them in a state of siege; the pangs of hunger at last forced them to yield. The reforms which Gredanna then effected were productive of such beneficial results that the house regained a high standing.

The reform of Söflingen near Ulm1031, an account of which we also owe to Fabri, affords one more of many examples of the tyranny of interference. This house belonged to the order of St Clare, and like all the houses of this order was subject to the Franciscan friars, who had the exclusive right of control over them.

The Franciscans of Ulm having accepted reforms in consequence of the papal bull of 1484, the town authorities of Ulm called upon the nuns to do the same, and Fabri relates how ‘a number of burghers accompanied by religious doctors of various orders, by noblemen, their followers, and by members of the town-gilds, armed and unarmed, marched upon Söflingen in a great crowd, as though to fight for the glory of God.’ They conveyed with them a new abbess and a number of nuns of the reformed order of St Clare, whom they meant to instal at Söflingen. But here they were met by open defiance. The lady superior, Christine Strölin († 1489), shouted that she could not and would not be deposed, and her nuns vented their indignation in threats and blasphemy. Not by promises, not by threats, could they be persuaded to leave their lady superior. They rushed through the buildings, snatched up coffers and boxes, and followed Christine out of the house. Their loyalty and unanimity in defending their rights awaken feelings in their favour which are confirmed when we find the bishop of the diocese disapproving of the forcible measures resorted to by the citizens; endless quarrels and discussions ensued. The abbess Christine, after staying at various places, returned to Söflingen and was reinstated in her rights, on condition of adopting certain reforms; some of her nuns came back with her, but others refused to do so and went to live in other nunneries.

Details concerning the ‘reform’ of one other nunnery are worth recording because they show how a representative of the Church openly attempted to curtail the privileges of a powerful nunnery. The struggle of the nunnery of Sonnenburg in the Tyrol with the Cardinal Legate Nicolas Cusanus († 1464), bishop of Brixen, has been the subject of close historical enquiry, as its importance far exceeds the interests of those immediately concerned1032. In this struggle the representative of the Pope came into open conflict with the prince of the land, Sigmund, archduke of Austria and duke of Tyrol, who defied the Cardinal and obliged him to flee the country and seek refuge at Rome. The quarrel which began over the nunnery ended with the ban of excommunication being pronounced against Sigmund, and with his appeal to a Church Council against the authority of the Papal Curia.

Sonnenburg was the wealthiest and most influential Benedictine settlement of women in the land. It was in existence as early as the 11th century and had extensive powers of jurisdiction which repeatedly brought its abbess into conflict with her rival in power, the bishop of Brixen. Against him she had sought and secured the protection of the archduke; but at the time of the appointment of Cusanus as bishop, the settlement of a matter of temporal administration between herself and the bishopric was pending. Cusanus had obtained from Rome exceptional powers of monastic visitation, powers such as were conferred at a later date on the Cardinal Legate Ximenes in Spain and on the Cardinal Legate Wolsey in England. By virtue of these powers Cusanus at once transferred the affair with the abbess from the temporal domain to the spiritual, and in his character of monastic visitor and reformer sent a manifesto to the abbess and nuns to the effect that after the coming festival of Corpus Christi they were on no account to absent themselves from the convent or to receive visitors. The abbess, Verena von Stuben, and her convent, which consisted at the time of seven nuns, ignored this command, obedience to which would have cut off intercourse with the archduke and made attention to the pending matter of business impossible. More closely pressed, the abbess gave an evasive answer and lodged a complaint with Sigmund, in which she and the convent declared themselves ready to accept the desired change (p. 661033) but said that they were convinced that such a course at the present moment would be fatal to their position. It was clear to them that Cusanus was bent on their ruin. The archduke to whom they appealed declared that the prelate was transgressing the limits of his authority, and intimated to him that he would not have the temporalities of the house interfered with, – a decision to which Cusanus for the moment deferred.

The documents relating to the further progress of this quarrel are numerous. A kind of chronicle was kept at Sonnenburg written partly by the nuns, partly by the abbess, into which copies of over two hundred letters and documents were inserted. It bears the title ‘On what occurred between Cardinal Cusanus and the abbess Verena,’ and is now in the library at Innsbruck1034.