However, as far as convents are concerned, it seems as though the Protestant reformers, far from acting as innovators, had done no more than give violent and extreme application to forces which had for some time been at work. The dissolution was led up to by a succession of conventual changes, and before the outbreak of the Lutheran agitation, at least one well-wisher of the system in Germany, Tritheim, had despaired of putting this system to new and effective uses. Not that monasticism can be said to have generally outlived its purposes at the time of the Reformation. In some countries, as in France and Spain, it subsequently chronicled important developments. But where German elements were prevalent, convents were either swept away, or put to altogether different uses by the Protestants, or else allowed to continue on a very much narrowed basis by the Catholics. Many convents fell utterly to decay in course of time and ceased to exist at the beginning of this century, others again still linger on but are mere shadows of their former brilliant selves.
The reason for these changes lay not altogether with those who professed religion in convents, they were part of a wider change which remoulded society on an altered basis. For the system of association, the groundwork of mediæval strength and achievement, was altogether giving way at the time of the Reformation. The socialistic temper was superseded by individualistic tendencies which were opposed to the prerogatives conferred on the older associations. These tendencies have continued to the present with slight abatements, and have throughout proved averse to the continuation of monasticism which attained greatness through the spirit of association.
Repelled through the violence and aggressiveness of the reformers, and provoked by the narrowness of Protestantism generally, some modern writers take the view that the Reformation was throughout opposed to real progress, and that mankind would have been richer had the reformers left undisturbed many of the institutions they destroyed. The revenues of these institutions would now have been at the disposal of those who would put them to public and not to personal uses. As far as convents, especially those of women, are concerned, I cannot but feel sceptical on bothpoints. Granting even that these houses had been undisturbed, a possibility difficult to imagine, experience proves that it is hardly likely they could now be used to secure advantages such as they gave to women in the past. Certainly it is not in those districts where women’s convents have lived on, securing economic independence to unmarried women as in North Germany, nor where they have lingered on along old lines as in Bavaria, that the wish for an improved education has arisen among women in modern times, nor does it seem at all likely that their revenues will ever be granted for such an object. It is in those countries where the change in social conditions has been most complete, and where women for a time entirely forfeited all the advantages which a higher education brings, and which were secured in so great a measure to women by convents in the past, that the modern movement for women’s education has arisen.
(to accompanyp. 253).
Rhythmus Herradis Abatissae per quem Hohenburgenses virgunculas amabilitersalutat et ad veri sponsi fidem dilectionemque salubriter invitat.
Salve cohors virginumHohenburgiensium,Albens quasi liliumAmans dei filium.Herrat devotissima,Tua fidelissima,Mater et ancillula,Cantat tibi cantica.Te salutat milliesEt exoptat indies,Ut laeta victoriaVincas transitoria.O multorum speculum,Sperne, sperne seculum,Virtutes accumula,Veri sponsi turmula.Insistas luctamine,Diros hostes sternere,Te rex regum adjuvat,Quia te desiderat.Ipse tuum animumFirmat contra Zabulum.Ipse post victoriamDabit regni gloriam.Te decent deliciae,Debentur divitiae,Tibi coeli curia,Servat bona plurima.Christus parat nuptiasMiras per delicias,Hunc expectes principemTe servando virginem.Interim moniliaCircum des nobilia,Et exornes faciemMentis purgans aciem.Christus odit maculas,Rugas spernit vetulas,Pulchras vult virgunculas,Turpes pellit feminas.Fide cum turtureaSponsum istum reclama,Ut tua formositasFiat perpes claritas.Vivens sine fraudibusEs monenda laudibus,Ut consummes optimaTua gradus opera.Ne vacilles dubiaInter mundi flumina,Verax deus praemiaSpondet post pericula.Patere nunc asperaMundi spernens prospera.Nunc sis crucis socia,Regni consors postea.Per hoc mare naviga,Sanctitate gravida,Dum de navi exeasSion sanctam teneas.Sion turris coelicaBella tenens atria,Tibi fiat statio,Acto vitae spatio.Ibi rex virgineusEt Mariae filiusAmplectens te reclametA moerore relevet.Parvi pendens omniaTentatoris jocula,Tunc gaudebis pleniterJubilando suaviter.Stella maris fulgida,Virgo mater unica,Te conjugat filioFoedere perpetuo.Et me tecum trahereNon cesses praecamine,Ad sponsum dulcissimumVirginalem filium.Ut tuae victoriae,Tuae magnae gloriae,Particeps inveniatDe terrenis eruat.Vale casta concio,Mea jubilatio,Vivas sine crimine,Christum semper dilige.Sit hic liber utilis,Tibi delectabilisEt non cesses volvereHunc in tuo pectore.Ne more struthineoSurrepat oblivio,Et ne viam deserasAntequam provenias.Amen Amen AmenAmen Amen AmenAmen Amen AmenAmen Amen Amen.
The women here designated as saints are either included in theActa Sanctorum Bollandorum, or else, this work waiting completion, are entered as saints in the ‘Table Hagiographique’ of Guérin,Les Petits Bollandistes, 1882, vol. 17.