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The Modern Devotion (1968)

The Modern Devotion

(1968)–R.R. Post–rechtenstatus Auteursrechtelijk beschermd

Confrontation with Reformation and Humanism


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B. The struggle against the dos and the proprietarii

In the monasteries of the old order there were, however, two things which aroused Groote's indignation and which he fought against zealously and persistently. Here his combative nature was revealed which was soon to be evident elsewhere. The old orders and in particular, it would seem, the convents, admitted no one without payment of a sum of money on entry, a dos or dowry. This, from a certain point of view not unreasonable, practice was officially forbidden by various church regulations and Groote considered it as simony. Still worse, and completely in conflict with the rules of the orders, was the division of a great part of the monastic wealth and revenue into prebends, so that each member enjoyed his own income and also continued to own money he had brought with him or acquired later. This was at variance with the idea of communal property and had various detrimental effects on monastic life. The communal life was disrupted, individual property had to be administered and the produce from tillage and stock to be disposed of, thus breaking the monastic clausura. This further led to the use of individual incomes to buy better food and clothes and thus to the creation of rich and poor monks and sisters within the same monastery. It even brought about the ruin of the whole. The monks or sisters who enjoyed private incomes were referred to as proprietarii(ae) and it is these who were attacked by Groote, as indeed by all later monastic reformers. Neither he nor his successors however, were able to conquer this abuse completely before the great reformation - especially not in the so called noble abbeys, which sheltered mainly the daughters of the aristocracy. These knights considered a monastery with individual prebends as a means of assuring their daughters a position somewhat in keeping with their station. One radical way of legitimizing such a situation was to change the rule and the order - for example the transition of the Benedictinesses or Cisterciannesses to Canonesses - following the rule of St. Augustine. The former nuns were often given their own house, where the community life consisted principally or entirely of the communal singing or praying the hours in the same church. A section of Groote's letters carries on the struggle against the dos and against the proprietarii. We saw that this problem was already under discussion in the attempt to place Elsebe of Gherner in the convent of St. Clare in Cologne. In 1382 Groote seized the chance to initiate an improvement when the abbey of Altenkamp, mother house of the Cistercian convent of Ter Hunnepe, near Deventer, received a

new abbot. In a long letter1 Groote congratulated the new abbot and suggested a programme of reform, namely to eradicate the abuse of the proprietarii and to abolish the dowry. We shall return shortly to this first point. What interests us here is what he writes to the abbot concerning the dowry. As an example he names the convent of Ter Hunnepe near Deventer. Here a sister from Deventer has entered who, if admitted as heiress to the family estate in the name of the convent, will bring with her more than the convent has received in the past 30 years from donations and from all other proprietariae. However, according to the law of Urban IV2 she may, on reception into the convent, either before or after profession, receive neither ornaments nor jewels, gold nor meals under the pretext of custom, under pain of excommunication. What then must be said of those convents which accept only the daughters of rich and noble persons, and then only if they contribute a certain sum?. The wise, the devout, the accomplished, all are excluded if they are poor. Poverty is condemned and despised by those for whom the love of poverty is prescribed. Why? Because they wish to be rich and live after their reception, either entirely or in part from their own resources. By accepting a dowry, they are already turning the novices into proprietariae.3 This method has resulted in enormous poverty and want throughout the convent as a whole. This could be easily remedied if the father abbot would take the necessary measures. If he does so, his reward from God will be great, but if he does not, malediction threatens.4

Shortly afterwards Groote returned to the situation in Ter Hunnepe in another letter to the abbot of Altenkamp.5 Groote exhorted the abbot to help eradicate this loathsome abuse, this diabolical recklessness prevailing among the nuns of Ter Hunnepe. Great scandal will surely be occasioned by the symoniaca pravitas in this country where people in the world have abandoned their usury and other customs, less evil than simony. Lay people who wish to correct their vices, despise the religious who retain their greater failings. ‘In my opinion these sisters will bring mockery and contempt upon the rulers and the aristocracy. I myself, and the parish priest of Deventer and other devout people will consider them as excommunicated and rejected by the church. We shall avoid them and tell others to do the same. Their chaplain has

already departed since it is plain that the nuns wish to keep the girl from Kampen whom they have received contrary to the decree of Urban IV. For she has, under the pretext of custom, offered 60 old “scilts” and other things to the abbey and the nuns. If you are a good shepherd you must act against this, otherwise you are more the tyrant who is of the world and speaks from the world. The priest John, their confessor, also considers himself obliged to depart and to close the organ, fearful of the irregularity he would be incurring should he celebrate in the presence of these excommunicated women. You must help, you can help, and the symoniaca pravitas will then be abolished. For this God will bless you.’

In his book De Symonia ad Beguttas Groote discusses the question of the dowry and notably the problem of whether it is simony1 to buy a place (or prebend) in a Beguine house. After explaining the concept of simony and describing the state of life of the Beguines, Groote gives his answer. Beguines are not monastics, yet their clothing is different from that worn in the world. They consider their status as the best way to God, and they may not freely return to the world. Although they have monastic customs, they have no community of property - at most they receive something from a communal chest or pot. Groote calls the payment of money for admission simony, since admission opens the way to a more or less spiritual way of life. Although he has no law books to hand in writing this treatise, he recognizes that canon law does not forbid the payment of this dowry among the Beguines. With this, however, he cannot agree. This may not be simony according to the letter but it is according to the spirit. For this custom gives rise to great abuse! He poses the situation thus: Two candidates apply for a place; one is suitable but has no money; the other is unsuitable but has money. The rich candidate will be preferred, which is not good for the spiritual life of the other Beguines.2

This contrast seems to me not entirely accurate. One might say: Two candidates are both suitable, but one can pay the dowry and the other not. In this case the preference did not lead to the fatal result, and the woman could live. But this treatise too confirms Groote's particular care for the growth of the monasteries and other spiritual institutions. The remark that the laity act upon his sermons better than the nuns of Ter Hunnepe is not anti-clerical. His actions are always inspired by love

for the spiritual institutions. For the rest Groote here reveals a stern mentality, a tendency to rigorism. He takes no account for circumstances, finds the positive law too lax, and now evolves the idea of a spiritual simony.

Possibly even more strongly than the giving of a dowry Groote condemns the retention of personal property by monastics. The letter of congratulation to the new abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Altenkamp, which we have quoted, is filled with indignation at this deeply rooted abuse, which is in conflict with the monastic rule.1 He lets it appear that he has every confidence in the new abbot, yet nevertheless sends the monks a copy of the letter in question, together with an accompanying note in which he exhorts them to support the abbot in his attempt to abolish the dowry and personal property, particularly in the case of Ter Hunnepe.2 Groote hoped, he wrote to the abbot, that following the example of Abraham, he would favour the son of the promise, Jacob before Esau, and, with Abraham, would flee idolatry. ‘Are you astonished?’ he asks the abbot, what idols must be driven out and avoided. I answer: the monks with their own property (proprietarii monachi) are great and exceedingly great idolators. They cannot be excused, either by the authority of the abbot, or of the bishop or o the pope, or by any power on earth. ‘It is evident from the admonition and excommunication that the church must consider them as pagan idolators. And that they may be a warning to the living, their bodies are not buried in consecrated earth, but on a dung heap and under anathema as required by the ecclesiastical law and the fathers.’3

‘It is terrible to think what their life will be in the hereafter! How many are there who try to excuse and exonerate the proprietarii by saying that what they possess, they have with the permission of the abbot or superior. Woe to the monasteries, but double woe to those through whom this scandal enters the monasteries.’ Groote therefore exhorts the abbot to eradicate carefully and discreetly this abuse from his own monastery of Altenkamp so that it may finally disappear from the dependent institutions. It is difficult to eradicate a deeply rooted custom, but easy for a faithful prelate who seeks, not what is his but, like the apostles, what is of many.

He must pour oil on the weak, but not without wine; that is, he must see that generous portions are distributed from the communal coffers

and also from the abbot's goods. His work must be accompanied, moreover, by soft and gentle admonitions. But the wine of menace must also flow, and disparities in food and clothing be abolished; the wine of the sacrifice of personal money and incomes; the wine of excommunication. Groote elaborates this allegory further. It must be pointed out, not only that personal property is a danger to virtue, but also that it leads to discord, quarrelling, faction, disobedience, to excursions, diversions, feasts, drunkenness, slander and other vices. On the other hand, if everything is held in common, a good religious life prevails with the necessary quiet and an abundance of what is essential. Surely it is well known that private property gives rise to poverty and a dearth of possessions, as can be observed in practice.1

Another result is that the monks become dependent on the world and upon their blood relations.2 They must sell, buy and exchange outside the walls of the monastery. That is a return to Egypt, the introduction of reprehensible Egyptian customs. This scandalous life affects those who come in contact with it; there is no sanctity within the monastery or without. Donations to the monastery cease. All manner of lawsuits follow and the rulers and judges no longer protect the monastic property. And so that this may not be imputed to the evil of the times or to the aging of the world, but to the proprietarii and the unworthy, he refers to the monasteries and orders where this abuse does not exist. This legislation also contributes to the impoverishment of the monasteries, and lay people in many countries will not have it that their inheritances should go to their sons or daughters, monks or nuns, or to their monastery.3 They apportion a small amount to them, either for their souls or for their life and thus cut them off from the future succession of parents and friends. If the superiors had not done their best to gain possession of this little immediately, although tainted with simony and personal property the custom of exclusion from the family succession would never have become current.4

Nor would the abuse ever have originated whereby every upstart worldling, whether physically deformed, handicapped or mentally ill was received into the monastery, (not as a sacrifice to God, but to their own advantage, not as an honour, but as a charge to the cloister), or

those who were unfit for marriage or unworthy of the paternal inheritance.1 Should the abbot combat this evil, nothing but good will result, but if he does not, he will be accursed. ‘May God grant you the courage to reform the proprietarii. Do not repulse those who are willing to help you, and begin with soft admonitions to those who are prepared to follow you.’

‘Forgive me, Lord abbot if I have said anything to you which seems harsh. God knows how true it is and how useful for you. Love for you compels me confidently to express the truth. Pray too excuse the writing, since copying was distasteful to the wretched scribe, a poor artist2’ A letter3 to the nuns is characteristic of Groote's ideas. He writes to a superior who is attempting to lead the sisters according to Christ, ‘something which perhaps she does not know.’ ‘In some convents the individual nuns have their own incomes, assigned to them by parents or relatives. I hope that this is not so with you, but if you do allow it, you are at fault. For to the monastic life pertain the three substantialia, obedience, chastity and poverty.’ Groote does not speak of the first two, but poverty was recommended by Christ and practised early by the Christians, and the professed are strongly pledged to this poverty. ‘If a sister says, I could not live, if I had not my own possessions, I answer with Christ: why did you begin to build the tower, which you cannot complete? If she says: I did not know, then my answer is: this ignorance means that you do not know the law, but you do know the fact. The obligation is very clear. If she says: the abbot or abbess gave me permission, then I say that he or she had no authority to do so. The Canon Law is opposed to it. Moreover, personal property is contrary to the aim of the monastic life according to the Rules of St. Augustine and St. Benedict. It also follows clearly from what St. Gregory says concerning the burial of a monk having personal possessions.’ Then follow various casus with their solutions. He does not wish to judge, nor to reassure monks who possess property which they are willing to resign into the hands of the abbot. ‘They are, however, in great danger. They may hear confessions, and those whom they have absolved, are absolved. But I should prefer to confess to another. He, however, who is not prepared to relinquish his property, is living in mortal sin and is a son of destruction. He may not be required to hear

confessions or to fulfil any other ecclesiastical function. The proprietarii do not harm the other monks who have no property. The former (the proprietarii), are not excommunicated by men, but by God. If one of them does fulfil an office, or celebrate Mass, he is committing mortal sin.1 If you should ask what advice do you give to professed sisters who do not receive sufficient clothing and food from the communal funds, then I say: they may accept something, and administer these goods, but as things alloted to them, not as their own property. They must be prepared to share what they have received with the other poor Sisters. I hope for salvation for such a sister, but it is seldom obtained.’2

The Palm Sunday sermon which Groote gave for a monastic community3 deals with the same subject, the property of the monks. Although this sermon begins in an oratorical form, its length (37 printed pages) and the nature of the last section would seem to indicate that Groote elaborated it into a treatise, as he did with the sermon contra focaristas. The contrast between the acclaim which Christ received at the Entry into Jerusalem and the actual poverty (no crown, riding on an ass) leads to the exhortation to the listeners to practise poverty. The monks are bound to poverty by the rules of the founders of the order and by church law. This obligation also appears from the well known story of Pope Gregory I concerning the burial of a proprietarius, from examples in the Vitae Patrum, from the decree of the fourth Lateran Council and from considerations of St. Thomas Aquinas. Christ's example renders poverty a duty for all Christians. It is, indeed, founded on love. The Pope cannot dispense from this obligation.4

The second section is a praise of poverty, elaborated not only by texts from the Holy Scriptures, but also by parallels from nature (born naked and return naked to the earth) taken from various classical writers. The whole appears rather over-emphasised, heavy and exaggerated.

We have now dwelt sufficiently on Groote's attitude towards the proprietarii. It is a struggle of principle. Groote rejects any form of

personal property among monks and nuns, although he shows himself flexible in the application of the strict commandment. The authorities must try at first gradually, with care and understanding, to eradicate this evil. These proprietarii are not to be found everywhere. Groote has in mind particularly the situation in Ter Hunnepe, yet speaks none the less in general terms. The prebendary system had not been introduced in the monastery entered by Matthias of Tiel but from the difficulties experienced by the said Matthias, as a recently professed monk, when he saw that several of his fellow-monks possessed property and administered it, it would appear that there too this abuse had gradually become current. Groote displays extreme moderation in his answer to Matthias of Tiel: ‘do not accuse anyone, do not admonish other people.’ In his struggle against the proprietarii he bases his arguments on the Holy Scriptures, the history of the first Christians, the aim of monasticism itself and the rules and precepts of the Fathers.1 Although here he does not yet call upon the faithful to shun the services of these proprietarii, he is of the opinion that those who enjoy incomes against the will of the abbot, may not be encouraged to celebrate Mass and perform the offices. They commit mortal sin with each of these sacred acts.


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