APPENDIX III

There are two sets of couples who refuse to speak to one another and we caused them to make peace with each other and to kiss and be friends (quantum ad os, et deosculari ad invicem), and we forbade that any mention should henceforth be made of the bone of contention between them, on pain of excommunication, which we have called down upon her who shall be the first to mention it, and we ordered the Abbess to keep us informed[2081].

At St Saëns a certain Johanna Martel—evidently a lady of substance with relatives in the neighbourhood—was said in 1259 to be rebellious, disobedient and given to wrangling with the Prioress[2082], and in 1265 the house was full of discord[2083]. At Almenèches (1250) there was a good deal of quarrelling in cloister and choir[2084].

Quarrels were common, however, in houses against which no grave moral disorders were ever charged. St Amand was perhaps the worst of these; there in 1258 the Archbishop ordered that each nun was to forget the injury and offence of the other, before she presumed to receive communion[2085]; but the discords continued and in 1262 he wrote:

Because we found there many heart-burnings and rancours among the nuns, we ordered the abbess and the confessor that they should reconcile those whom they knew to have fallen into this fault before, and that they should live in charity as far as they were able, punishing offenders by taking away their beer and pittances[2086].

But it was in vain, and after seven years Rigaud was still commanding the Abbess to labour to the best of her ability that the nuns should live in peace and concord[2087]. At Bondeville (1251 and 1255) it will be remembered that one of the charges against the Prioress was her quarrelsomeness[2088]; and in 1259 a certain Lucy was found to be aquarrelsome and ill-tempered person, disobedient to the Prioress and given to wrangling with her in the frater, whereupon the Archbishop enjoined a penance of silence upon her[2089]. At St Désir de Lisieux (1254) there were two or three nuns who would not speak to the rest[2090]; and even at the great Abbaye aux Dames at Caen Rigaud noted in 1267, “There was great contention among them and concerning this they had a case in the law-courts”[2091].

Quarrelsomeness was, however, a mild fault compared with the really bad immorality which prevailed in some of the houses. At three of them, St Aubin, St Saëns and Bival, this state of affairs continued from visitation to visitation; they were evidently hopelessly corrupt. At the two others (Villarceaux and Almenèches) there is mention of serious disorders only once and from the Archbishop’s silence on later occasions it may be hoped that he succeeded in reforming the houses. One of these isolated cases was in many ways the most serious of all; Rigaud’s note of his visitation of Villarceaux in 1249 reads more like a description of La Maison Tellier than that of a priory; except that the former was more discreet:

We visited the priory of Villarceaux. There are twenty-three nuns and three lay sisters. [Here follow several minor disorders.] Only four nuns there are fully professed, to wit Eustachia, Comitissa, Ermengarde and Petronilla. Many of them have pilches made from the fur of rabbits, hares and foxes. They eat flesh unnecessarily in the infirmary; they do not observe silence anywhere and they do not keep within the cloister. Johanna of “Aululari” once went out of the cloister and lived with someone, by whom she had a child; and she sometimes goes out of the cloister to see that child; item she is ill-famed (infamata) with a certain man called Gaillard. Isabella la Treiche is a fault finder, murmuring against the Prioress and others. The cellaress is ill-famed with a man called Philip of Villarceaux. The Prioress is too negligent and does not reprove, nor does she get up [for matins]. Johanna of Auvilliers goes outside the house alone with Gayllard and within the year she had a child by him. The cellaress is ill-famed with Philip of Villarceaux and with a certain priest of her own neighbourhood. Item the subprioress with Thomas the carter. Idonia her sister with Crispinatus. Item the prior of Gisors frequents the house for the sake of the said Idonia. Philippa of Rouen is ill-famed with the priest of Suentre, in the diocese of Chartres; Marguerita the treasuress with Richard de Geneville, clerk. Agnes of Fontenoy is ill-famed with the priest of Guerreville, of the diocese of Chartres. La Tooliere [? the chambress] is ill-famed with Sir Andrew de Monchy, knight. They all wear their hair long to their chins (nutriunt comam usque ad mentum) and scent their veils with saffron. Jacqueline came back pregnant from a certain chaplain, who was expelled from the house for this. Item Agnes de Montsec was ill-famed with the same. Ermengarde of Gisors and Johanna of Auvilliers beat each other. The Prioress is drunk almost any night ... she does not rise for matins nor eat in the frater nor correct faults[2092].

After these terrible revelations the Archbishop directed a letter of injunctions to the convent, which, contrary to his usual practice, was copied into his diary[2093]. These injunctions deal only with general breaches of the rule, which by loosening discipline would tend to give opportunities for the behaviour described in thecomperta, and they contain no reference to specific cases of immorality. Thus he provides for the proper performance of divine service; for the maintenance of silence; for the simultaneous entry of the nuns into their dorter, the keys of which and of the cloister were to be carefully kept and a “Visitor” appointed to see that the rule was kept in these matters; he forbids secular or suspected persons to be entertained or lodged within the cloister, and nuns to be given permission to go outside without good reason and a companion, or to speak with any external person unlicensed and unaccompanied; he deals also with the frivolous garments, the sports on Innocents’ Day and the quarrels which he had found; he forbids the reception of any more nuns without licence, orders the frequent rendering of accounts, warns them to live in common, and ends with an order to recite his letter at least once a month in the chapter. These injunctions seem strangely superficial in comparison with thecompertawhich precede them; but a note entered in the Register, on the occasion of the next visitation of Villarceaux, would seem to suggest that the Archbishop had taken other steps to deal with the matter. It is there written: “Here are twenty nuns, but six of them were not present; for one of them left the house and married in the world and two are without the house, according to a previous mandate and ordinance of ours”[2094]. It is possible that the Archbishop had sent separate letters (not copied into his Register) dealing with the worst cases of immorality, and that he had sent two of the erring nuns to do penance in another house. At any rate there are no further complaints of immorality against Villarceaux, and perhaps prompt measures at the beginning of his career as visitor had stayed the nuns on their downward course.

It was on Rigaud’s first visitation of Almenèches also that moral disorders were found. He went there in 1250 and found that the rule had been greatly relaxed. The nuns (who were among the most inveterate property owners recorded in the Register) used to run up debts in the town, doubtless with the money given to them for the purchase of their food. They did not live a communal life, they admitted seculars to talk with them in the cloister, they remained away from Matins and Compline, they had drinking parties after Compline, and they were always quarrelling. The result of this laxity showed in more serious faults. Sister Tiphaine was a drunkard (ebriosa); three other nuns, Hola, Aaliz the chantress and the late prioress had each had a child; and a fourth, Dionisia Dehatim, wasill-famed with a certain Master Nicholas de Bleve. In this case some of the disorder may have been due to the fact that the house was without an abbess, she having died shortly before[2095]. Here again it is impossible to tell what steps the Archbishop took to reform the house, but at his two subsequent visitations, although the nuns persisted in their refusal to live a communal life, there were no further notices of immorality.

One may hope that these were exceptional cases in the history of the houses concerned. But there was nothing exceptional about the bad behaviour of St Aubin and St Saëns and to a lesser degree of Bival. The Archbishop first visited the latter house in 1248 and found there “several nuns ill-famed of the vice of incontinence”; the abbess resigned, probably as a result of this discovery[2096]. No complaint of immorality was made at the next two visitations; then in 1254 the Archbishop noted that sister Isabella had had a child at Whitsuntide by a priest[2097]. At the next visitation (1256) he found that Florence had had a child recently and that the whole house had fallen into ill-repute because of this; Rigaud on this occasion ordered the removal of the convent priest, “on account of the scandal of the nuns and populace, though we found nothing that could be proved against him”[2098]. On the eight subsequent visitations there were no further charges of immorality.

St Aubin and St Saëns must be charged with persistent immorality, continuing over a long period of years. They seem indeed to have been little better than brothels. At St Aubin in 1254 Aeliz of Rouen was incontinent and had lately had a child by a priest[2099]. In 1256 she was in trouble again:

We unveiled Aeliz of Rouen and Eustachia of Etrepagny for a time, on account of their fornication. Item we sent Agnes of the Bridge (de Ponte) [the same whose quarrelsomeness had been reproved in 1254] to the lazar-house of Rouen, because she consented to Eustachia’s sin and even procured it, as the rumour runs,et quia dedit dicte Eustachie herbas bibere ut interficeretur puer conceptus in dicta Eustachia, secundum quod dicitur per famam[2100]. We removed the Prioress from office. We postponed the infliction of a punishment upon Anastasia, the subprioress, for ill-fame of incontinence against her, until she should be made prioress there[2101].

Here at last we have definite information of the steps taken by Rigaud to deal with a bad case; two nuns were unveiled and sent to do penance among lepers and the prioress was deposed; but what a confession of weakness that Rigaud should propose to fill the place of the latter with a woman herself ill-famed of sin. The effect of his punishment upon the two nuns whom he had unveiled was, moreover, unfortunate, for they went from bad to worse. The next year Eustachia was inapostasy (vagabunda) and had been pregnant when she left the convent and the blame for it was set down to John, the chaplain of Fry. Aeliz of Rouen also was “in grave sin”[2102]. In 1261 the Archbishop came again. Aeliz had borne a child since his last visitation and she was said to have had three children in all; Beatrice of Beauvais had had a child at Blaacort and her lover was the Dean of St Quentin, of the Diocese of Beauvais. The Prioress informed Rigaud that these two had long been in serious fault and that they had undergone penance according to the rule[2103]. In 1263 Aeliz and Beatrice had run away (“led,” Rigaud confided to his diary, “by the levity of their spirits and by the instigation of the devil”) and he ordered them not to be readmitted without his special licence[2104]. The next year Beatrice was still wandering abroad and was said to have had several children[2105]. No more is heard of these erring sisters at the three subsequent visitations, but it is evident that the discipline of the house was still far from good, and the constant visits of a miller and of several other men (all clerics)[2106]had caused scandals in 1265 and again in 1267[2107]. In 1267 the Subprioress was punished for giving up her office at her own will[2108]; and in 1268 there is an ambiguous entry which leads one to suppose that Anastasia had never became prioress after all and that Eustachia (it may not be the same woman) was back again; on that occasion Anastasia “late subprioress” was punished because she gave up her office contrary to the will of the Prioress, while Eustachia and Margaret were punished because they would not undertake it, when commanded to do so[2109].

The case of St Saëns was hardly less serious; for the first six visitations there was no charge of immorality, though it is clear from the Archbishop’s note in 1254 that the discipline of the house was lax and in particular that the nuns had leave of absence to stay away alone for as long as a fortnight at a time and that their priest was incontinent[2110]. In any case the visitation of 1259 showed a state of things so disgraceful, that it is difficult to believe that it could have arisen within the two years that had elapsed since the last visitation.

Some of them stayed away unduly long when they happened to go out with the licence of the Prioress. We ordered that such were to be given a shorter term by which to return. Johanna Martel was rebellious and disobedient and she wrangled with the Prioress and went out riding to see her relatives, wearing a mantle of burnet with sleeves; and she had a private messenger whom she used often to send to those relatives. Nicholaa had had a child in the same house on Maundy Thursday and its father was said to be Master Simon, the parson of St Saëns; the boy was baptized in the monastery and then sent to a certain sister of Nicholaa’s. She lay in the monastery and underwent her churching with them; she was attended in childbed bytwo midwives from the village. Item another of the nuns had a child by the same Simon. The Prioress was held suspect with Richard of Maucomble; it was also said that she managed the goods and business of the house badly and that she concealed some of the rents and returns. The same Richard had lodged in the house together with the brother and parents of the Prioress and had often dined there[2111].

Five years later (in 1264) Petronilla of Dreux was ill-famed of incontinence with Ralph, the hayward (messerius) of the Priory, and also with a married man, and the Archbishop ordered the former to be removed from his office and not to be permitted to frequent the priory. The Prioress was ill-famed with a priest, and it was said that she often went to the manor of Esquequeville and elsewhere, where she entertained many guests and kept ill company (ubi secum habebat multos convivas et inhonestam societatem ducebat), for which Rigaud censured her and ordered her to improve. There was more scandal about Nicholaa (now called “of Rouen” and described as the chantress); it was apparently common talk in the village that she used to dine with her sister at Rouen, in the house of Master Simon, Rector of St Saëns, and rumour made a yet more serious charge against her[2112]. “But,” says the Archbishop, “we could find nothing to prove concerning this in our visitation and the nuns said that the last charge was falsely and mendaciously imputed to her”[2113]. Nevertheless it is significant that Nicholaa’s name should still, after five years, be connected with the Rector of St Saëns and with her complacent sister. In 1265 there was no mention of immorality, but the nuns were living together “in discord and disorder”:

“Because indeed,” wrote Rigaud, “we perceived them to be in a bad state, particularly as concerning certain observances of the rule, we sought eagerly how we might labour to reform them to a more honest and salutary condition, according to God and to their rule”;

and he returned the next day to complete his measures for this reform[2114]. But in 1266-7 the cellaress Petronilla of Dreux was again very gravely ill-famed (plurimum diffamata) with Ralph, “a certain yeoman who served them in harvest time” and there can be no better proof that the Archbishop’s injunctions often went unfulfilled, for he had ordered Ralph’s expulsion in 1264[2115]. Nevertheless the rest of the house was in good order, so perhaps his eager labour had not been altogether in vain. In 1267, however, things were as bad as ever. The Prioress, Johanna of Morcent, was ill-famed with the same priest against whom she had been warned in 1264; Petronilla of Dreux was still “very gravely ill-famed with Ralph de Maintru, as she was before; and,” says the Archbishop, with one of those personal touches which make his Register a real human document, “Agnes of Equetot and Johanna of Morainville we found to be liars and perjurers, when we demanded certain things of them on oath; wherefore we came away from the place, as it were impatient and sad ... (Quasi impacientes et tristes)”[2116]; it was indeed no wonder.

FIFTEENTH CENTURY SAXON VISITATIONS BY JOHANN BUSCH

Three accounts of medieval visitations stand out in general interest above all others, the thirteenth century Norman visitations of Eudes Rigaud, Archbishop of Rouen, described in his diary, the fifteenth century English visitations of Alnwick, Bishop of Lincoln, described in his Register[2117]and the almost contemporary German visitations of the Austin Canon and reformer Johann Busch, described in hisLiber de Reformatione Monasteriorum. Busch’s account is less formal and more literary than those of Rigaud and Alnwick; he sets out not to keep a journal, like the former, nor to record official documents, like the latter, but to look back in retrospect upon his work and to make for posterity a chronicle of the reforms connected with the congregation of Windesheim. For this reason, and because Busch was a remarkable man, his book will probably transcend the others in interest for the general reader; his account of the difficulties which he encountered is so vivid and at times so humourous, the sidelight thrown upon his own character shows him so admirable and yet so human.

Johann Busch was born in 1399 and in 1419 became a canon in the Austin monastery of Windesheim, a new foundation, famed for the strictness of its rule and already the head of a congregation of daughter houses. He has left an interesting account of the doubts and temptations which assailed him during his novitiate; they were the stormy dawn clouds of a day which was to become glorious in the annals of his order. During the next twenty years he held from time to time various posts in different houses of the reformed congregation; in 1431 he was attached to the nunnery of Bronopia, in 1436 he became Subprior of Wittenberg and in 1439 he went to Sülte, near Hildesheim, where he was made Prior in the following year. He had therefore had considerable experience of monastic houses and it was when he became Prior of Sülte that his great work as a reformer of monasteries began. He undertook it originally at the request of the Bishop and Chapter of Hildesheim, who were appalled at the decadence of monastic life in that diocese and anxious for the introduction of reforms on the model of Windesheim. His success in Hildesheim prompted Archbishop Günther of Magdeburg to invite him to carry the reforming movement into that diocese and in 1447 Busch becamepraepositus[2118]of the Neuwerk in Halle. This brought him to the notice of the Papal Legate Nicholas of Cues, who came to holda provincial council in Magdeburg in 1451, and Nicholas, himself an ardent reformer, issued a general mandate empowering him to enter and reform the Austin monasteries of the provinces of Magdeburg, Mainz, Saxony and Thuringia. Unfortunately Busch now quarrelled with the Archbishop of Magdeburg and had to resign in 1454. He returned to Wittenberg and continued his campaign of reform, turning his attention specially to nunneries. Then, after a short sojourn at Windesheim he returned to Sülte in 1459, where he remained until his death in 1480. He left behind him two books, aChronicon Windeshemense, and theLiber de Reformatione Monasteriorum, which between them give an invaluable account not only of the rise of Windesheim and of the reforming movement which emanated from it, but of the life and character of Busch himself[2119].

Book II of theLiber de Reformatione Monasteriorumdescribes the reform of twenty-three nunneries and two houses of lay sisters, of which the great majority belonged to his own order of Austin Regular Canons[2120]. The work was not carried out without considerable opposition, not only from the nuns themselves, for the desire for reform seldom came from within the unreformed orders[2121], but also from their friends and kinsmen in the world, to whom they frequently appealed for help. Moreover certain ecclesiastical magnates, notably the Bishop of Minden, opposed and impeded reforms in their districts, and even when they submitted to such reforms lent them an indifferent and easily discouraged support. On the other hand Busch received hismost powerful support from great ecclesiastics such as the Cardinal Legate Nicholas of Cues, the Archbishop of Magdeburg and the Bishops of Halberstadt and Hildesheim, and also from the superiors and chief inmates of houses belonging to the congregation of Windesheim, or already reformed under its influence. Men such as Rutger, prior of Wittenberg, were of the greatest assistance to him; they accompanied him as co-visitors and promoted his work in every possible way, while the reformed nunneries often provided him with nuns to dwell for a time in the houses which he was reforming and to teach their inmates how to comport themselves. Apart from such powerful ecclesiastical support Busch was particularly fortunate in the assistance which he received from the Dukes of Brunswick, Otto, William and Henry, who reigned during his lifetime. These nobles, especially Duke William, had the greatest esteem for Busch and not infrequently accompanied him on his visitations, lending the temporal intimidation of their arguments and armed retainers to his more spiritual menaces. The support of the secular arm was, indeed, necessary, in view of the opposition of lay kinsfolk to the reform of their daughters and sisters.

The monastic houses of Germany had by the fifteenth century fallen into great laxity of rule. The nuns seem to have lost all knowledge of how to perform the ordinary offices of convent life, in choir, chapter and frater, according to the rule, and Busch was often at pains to go carefully through the routine with them, teaching them what to do at each moment. This occasionally gave rise to some amusing scenes. At one of the first houses to be reformed, St Mary Magdalen near Hildesheim (1440), Busch and an elderly monk of Sülte were teaching the nuns by ocular demonstration how to comport themselves in frater. Having arranged the sisters in seemly order Busch and brother John Bodiker began to intoneBenedicite, after the fashion of reformed religious; but the nuns, who had not been accustomed to singing theBenediciteat table, all burst out laughing, instead of following. Busch and the brother, however, kept on until the nuns collected themselves and came in with bowed heads at the verseGloria patri. Similarly when Busch was showing them how to confess their own and proclaim others’ faults in chapter (a custom which they had completely lost), brother John, acting the sinner, rose up among the sisters and cast himself flat upon the pavement, whereat “the astonished nuns fell to marvelling that such an old brother should seek thus to lie prone”[2122].

The most serious fault found by Busch, serious not only because it was a breach of one of the three substantial vows of monasticism, but because it brought in its train other and worse evils, was the ownership of private property. The nuns were almost universallyproprietarie, owning money and annual rents, to say nothing of their own private cooking and dining utensils, for, as always, communal life had gone with individual poverty and the nuns provided theirown meals and dined infamilia. At Derneburg Busch describes the girls and women of the village coming up to the doors and windows of the house with bread and meat and cheese in sacks and baskets for the nuns to buy[2123]. It was his custom on visiting a house to demand that all the private possessions of the nuns should be brought and heaped up before him. Unwillingly they came with the charters reciting their private rents, the ready money from their purses and chests, the gold and silver rings, the coral paternosters, and all the pots and pans and basins, the cups and plates and spoons which they used for their private meals. All these Busch carefully noted down: “I marvelled,” he says on one occasion, when he had collected a particularly large heap from quite a small house, “how they could have collected from their parents and predecessors and reserved for themselves, as it were by right of inheritance, such a large number of utensils”[2124]. All the money, endowments and implements thus brought together Busch then handed over to the common treasury and store-room of the house.

This rooting out of private property gave rise to the bitterest opposition. The nuns had been wont to evade the charge ofproprietasby the merest quibble, which Busch contemptuously swept away. They had deposited all their money and charters with the abbess and when they wanted any they had asked her for it; but she was merely the guardian of their private incomes, which were never merged in a common stock[2125]. When they found that this device was rejected by Busch, they did all they could to preserve their hoards. Sometimes they secretly sent their money out of the house before his arrival[2126]; sometimes they locked it up and tried to conceal it[2127]. The attitude of their kinsfolk also was a stumbling block. These gentlemen were willing enough to endow their own daughters and nieces, but not so willing to support the children of others by gifts which were turned to the common use. Thus it was the nuns who frequently protested that their house was too poor to permit of their living in common, since it was only by these individual endowments that they maintained their existence. It was therefore Busch’s practice, before completing the reformation of a house, to make the nuns obtain from their kinsfolk an undertaking to continue, and if possible to augment, the rents which they had been wont to give their relatives, on the threat of turning out the nuns and distributing them among other houses[2128]. The nobles and burghers of the district naturally wished to keep their kinswomen near them and the endowments were usually forthcoming. At St George (or Marienkammer) near Halle even this device did not result in a large enough income for the nuns; so Busch caused sermons to be preached in all the churches of the district,saying that because of their poverty the fathers of their order wished to distribute the nuns in other houses in the dioceses of Hildesheim and Halberstadt, but that they would be able to remain if they were helped by alms. Whereupon the townsfolk, out of pity for them, gave generously enough to support them for a whole year. Busch led the way himself, sending them openly two large cartloads of corn and a sack of cheeses, an example which was soon followed by the townsfolk, who had ample opportunity of observing the progress of the cart from Busch’s door to the gates of the convent, “for” (says he), “I lived on the eastern, they on the western side of the town.” Dr Paul, thepraepositusof St Maurice, Halle, also helped with a cask of wine[2129].

Closely connected with the question of private property was the dowry system, against which Busch also set his face, for it was not only in itself contrary to the rule, but it was one method by which the nuns received those private endowments which they afterwards turned to their own uses:

“All the nuns of Saxony,” says Busch, “whatever their order, made a simoniacal entry into their monasteries before the new reform, giving a sum of money for their reception; and according to ancient custom the newcomers give a certain potation to all thepraepositi, priests and chaplains and a great feast for their many friends and for all the nuns and inhabitants [of the house]. This was the common custom in all the nunneries of Saxony and particularly in those which were rich”[2130].

Busch forbade the custom everywhere.

The nuns thus lived like seculars, performing the minimum number of services and owning private property. Like seculars also they loved to give that “fetis” pinch to their wimples, that elegant turn to their mantles, which changed the sombre habit of their order into the dress of a lady of fashion. Busch, in common with all the reformers of the later middle ages, has a great deal to say about their clothes. All the nuns of Saxony and Thuringia refused to crop their heads, and contented themselves with cutting their hair short at the neck[2131]. The nuns of Wülfinghausen and Fischbeck wore long flowing white veils over their heads, so that it was hardly possible to recognise them as nuns[2132]. Those of St Cyriac’s appeared very pompously arrayed in long tunics and mantles, with tall peaked caps and flowing veils, “que non monialium sed domicellarum castrantium apparatum habuerunt”[2133]. The nuns of Barsinghausen

were very slender, having underneath long tight tunics of white cloth, and above being clad in almost transparent robes of black linen, which they calledsuperpellicia, not girdled but flowing, with long sleeves, which they turned back for capes, beneath which almost all their form, which was bare underneath, could be seen[2134].

The nuns of the penitential order of St Mary Magdalen near Hildesheim wore

“a pleated veil, called in the vulgar tongueRanse, such as they imagine the blessed Mary Magdalen used to wear, and over tunics very straitly girdled at the breast, so as to make them appear slender, and with very loose pleated trains behind, from the girdle to the hem, after the fashion of secular women. I and my brother John Bodiker,” adds Busch, “censured their habit, for that it was not religious but rather ministered to worldly vanity, and with many pious admonishments we led them all in turn to put off those pleated veils and put over their heads plain white veils without folds and to give up those gowns, which were tight in the upper part and in the lower part wide and pleated, lest they should seem to be following worldly vanity and the subtlety of their own hearts, rather than religion”[2135].

As might be expected laxity of rule and widespreadproprietasbrought immorality in their train and Busch in several cases mentions that a convent was ill-famed for incontinence. On the other hand this was by no means invariably the case. At Wülfinghausen, for instance, Busch told the nuns that he had never heard a word breathed against their chastity[2136]. At Weinhausen, where the old abbess withstood reform so strenuously that she had to be removed by force, and where all the nuns possessed private incomes, he specially notes “these nuns observed well the vow of chastity, for their lady the old abbess ruled them very strictly, and they held her in great reverence and fear and called her ‘gracious lady,’ because of her high birth”[2137]. Moreover certain houses received reform so readily and became so soon models of good behaviour, that there cannot have been any very serious moral decay in them. But a passage in the course of Busch’s account of the reform of the Magdalenenkloster at Halle, shows his own opinion as to the relation between absolute immorality and lesser breaches of the rule, and shows in particular the important part which he held to be played by the vice ofproprietasin the downward path of a nun. It is interesting also because in it he attributes a great deal of the decadence of nunneries to insufficient control by their pastors and above all to too infrequent visitation:

“The feminine sex,” he says, “cannot long persist in the due observance of their rule without men, who are proven, and reformed and who often call them by wise counsels to better things. For our eyes saw no monastery of nuns belonging to any order (and there is no small number of them in Saxony, Misnia and Thuringia) who remained for long in their good intent, holy life and due reform without reformed fathers. For wherever nuns and holy sisters do not confess at set times, nor communicate, nor hold chapter meeting concerning their faults at least once a week, nor are visited by their [spiritual] fathers every year ..., such nuns and sisters we saw and heard often to be fallen from the observance of their rule and from the religious life to a dissolute life, odious in the sight of God and men, to the grave peril and eternal damnation of their souls. For first laying aside the fear of God, they fall into the sin of property in small things, then in greater things and then in thepeculiumof money and clothes, thence they breakout into the desires of the flesh and incontinence of the outward senses and so to the evil act, and thus they fear not to give themselves over bit by bit to all uncleanliness and foulness”[2138].

He ends with an eloquent plea for a closer watch to be kept over nuns by those responsible for their spiritual welfare.

Such were the main faults which Busch strove to abolish in bringing the nunneries under the reformed rule of Hildesheim. It remains to give some account of the difficulties which he encountered in the course of his work. In some houses he was well received; at Erscherde he says of the nuns:

These virgins were well obedient, pious and tractable, ... dealing with us and with each other kindly and benignantly by word and deed, wherefore we were no little edified by them[2139];

and at St Martin’s, Erfurt, he says:

We found a prioress and nuns living in great poverty, very simple and humble, but of good will and ready for all good work; for they applied themselves promptly to obedience and to the observance of their rule, and very willingly brought to us all those things which they held in private possession[2140].

In other houses reform was not so easy. Busch was frequently impeded by old and obstinate members of a convent, who refused to accept a change in the routine which they had followed for so long. Such was the nobly born abbess of Weinhausen, who was over seventy years of age and had to be removed by force from the house, before any reforms could be carried out: “I found this way of life kept in this monastery forty years ago; this way have I served during as many years and this way and not otherwise will I continue to serve.” One cannot but pity the poor old lady, brought out of her house and forced to ascend the carriage which was to take her away, with Busch pulling her by one sleeve and the Abbot of St Michael by the other; and one is relieved to hear that she was allowed back again shortly afterwards, though forced to resign the position of Abbess[2141]. But Busch’s experience in reforming monasteries caused him to dread the opposition of men and women who had been long in religion. In the course of his panegyric on Fischbeck, which had been reformed from within by a remarkable Abbess, he says:

This monastery hath this advantage over many other Saxon houses, as well of monks as of nuns, that it contains no old people, for these old folk do not fear God nor care they for conscience or for obedience, but when no one is looking, then they do all that they think or desire, chattering with one another and with anyone else, by day and by night, even in places where it is forbidden by the rule[2142].

Besides the obstinacy of old members of the house Busch had also to contend with the occasional opposition of confessors orpraepositi, who resented his interference in their domain. At the Magdalenenklosterat Hildesheim, their confessor, who had been with the nuns for eight years, desired to be released after the reformation of the house, saying to thepraepositus: “I have been their confessor for so many years, yet nought do I receive from them, save one or two refections in three or four weeks. I would fain be free of them and let them get another confessor.” Busch comments significantly: “He said this, because when they were property-owners, they gave him many little gifts in money, and spices. Now, because they had no private property, they gave him nothing”[2143]. At the convent of White Ladies and at Marienberg thepraepositusof the house did everything possible to hinder the reform[2144]. Moreover in several cases Busch had also to deal with the opposition of laymen, objecting either to the enclosure of their kinswomen, or to the abolition of private endowments, or merely supporting on general grounds the objections of the nuns.

The difficulties encountered by a fifteenth century German reformer are best estimated by giving an account of some of Busch’s adventures at recalcitrant houses. At his first attempt to reform Wennigsen in Hanover (1455) he had against him the Bishop of Minden and all the nobles of the neighbouring castles, but he was supported by William Duke of Brunswick and by the authority of the Council of Basel. Taking with him the Duke, his minister Ludolph von Barum and Rutger, Prior of Wittenberg, Busch went to the house and they all four entered the nuns’ choir. The Duke addressed the assembled sisters and bade them receive reformation, but they, crossing their hands above their breasts, replied: “We have all concluded together and sworn that we will not reform nor observe our rule. We beseech you not to make us perjured.” Twice the Duke sent them out to reconsider their decision and twice they made the same reply, finally throwing themselves on their faces on the ground, spreading out their arms in the form of a cross and intoning in a loud voice the antiphon “Media vita in morte sumus.” The visitors, however, thought they were singing “Revelabunt celi iniquitatem Iude” (used as a spell in the middle ages) and the Duke was terrified, lest he should lose all his possessions. But Busch said:

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