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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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Chapter Eleven
The Sisters from c. 1420 to c. 1480

More so than that of the fraters, the investigation of the history of the Sisters of the Common Life is rendered difficult by lack of data and uncertainty about the information we do possess. We have seen the rapid growth of the movement, especially in the cities of Zwolle, Deventer, Zutphen and elsewhere, not only in the number of houses, but also in the number of inmates of the various foundations. This was continued later in Flanders (Elsegem 1417; Oudenaarde 1420; Deinze 1456; Ghent St. Agnes 1433 and St. Barbara 1423, Assonide 1452),1 but it was checked in that several of these houses adopted a monastic rule. This was usually first the Third Rule of St. Francis, and subsequently that of St. Augustine. Those who adopted this latter became monastics in the full sense of the word, the others at first only gradually. The transition of the Sisterhouses of the Common Life to convents continued in this period.2 It is noteworthy, however, that even before 1430 many of the Tertiary convents adopted the Rule of St. Augustine, whereas those which did so between 1430 and 1450 were exceptions. After this the transition again became more common, so that between 1450 and 1480 about thirty Tertiary houses exchanged their Rule of St. Francis for that of St. Augustine.3 They were usually motivated by the desire for a stricter life; first for a monastic rule, then for a stricter rule and finally for the clausura. All this was achieved at the expense of the Sisters of the Common Life, so that the question arises whether any of these Sisterhouses in the strict sense survived and whether new foundations came into being. It seems to me that the question is an important one for the history of the Modern Devotion. One may take the attitude that the Sisters of the Third Order and the Augustinesses - including those which did not become associated with Windesheim or even with Sion - were products of the Modern Devotion and continued to form part of it even after the transition to a convent. This is so up to a certain point, but it appears to me that

these became too tinged with monasticism to bear comparison with the first foundations of Geert Groote. The Tertiaries, moreover, soon gained contact with the Franciscans, or at least with the Franciscanminded Devotionalists. It thus seems preferable to exclude these groups from a description of the Modern Devotion. One might, indeed, protest that the Windesheimers were also monastics. This is true, but they owed their origin to Geert Groote and the first Brethren and maintained constant contact with the Brothers. We must not forget, however, that several Brothers worked as rector and pastor in the convents of Tertiaries or Augustinesses. This may warn us against drawing too sharp a line of demarcation.

In his Liber de origine devotionis modernae, i.e. the second part of his Chronicon, John Busch twice gives the number of monastic foundations since the initiative of Geert Groote, once in the prologue and once in the last chapter.1 Since he completed his book in 1464, one may assume that he is setting down the state of affairs existing shortly before. In the prologue he says that he is past 60 and has been a monastic for 40 years (44 years according to another manuscript). Since he was born in 1399 and was clothed in 1419, this brings us to the year 1460.2 The figures given for the foundations correspond. It is a remarkable fact that Busch sees the entire Modern Devotion as a monastic movement, namely, new foundations and reformation of the older. According to Busch there were at that period 80 reformed monasteries united with Windesheim and spread over 17 dioceses; more than 50 congregations of Brothers and Sisters and over a hundred foundations of the Third Order.3 The houses of the fratres around 1460 are known; I make the number 18: Deventer, Zwolle, Hulsbergen, two in 's-Hertogenbosch, Doesburg, Groningen, Amersfoort, Delft, Gouda, Brussels, Ghent, Geraardsbergen, Münster, Cologne, Wesel, Herford and Hildesheim. There would thus have been around 32 houses for Sisters of the Common Life in 1460. Unfortunately it is only possible to state very approximately which these were, since it is usually impossible to establish whether the various congregations maintained contact with the Brothers and at what period they adopted a monastic rule. With this reservation I mention the following Sisterhouses which existed around 1460 and still fully

retained the character of the Sisters of the Common Life. In Deventer the Buyskinhuis, the Lammenhuis, the Kerstekenshuis, the Master Geert's house and the Brandeshuis. In Zwolle, the house Op de Maat, the Kinderhuis, the Kadeneterhuis and the Bosch house; in Zutphen the Adamanhuis, the Master Henry house and the Rondeel. There were also houses in the following places: Gouda, Grave, Genemuiden, Groningen, 's-Hertogenbosch, (Ten Orten), Lochem, St. Michielsgestel, Nijkerk, Nijmegen, Rossum, Wamel, Brielle, Utrecht and in the German localities of Borken, Scuttorpe, Coesfeld, Wesel, Herford, Immenhausen, Kalkar, Cleves, Rees. This gives us 34 Sisterhouses in all.

It is a not inconsiderable number, if we compare it with the number of Brotherhouses. What we know of some of the houses indicates that the Sisterhouses contained a greater number of members than the Brotherhouses. Here and there a new Sisterhouse will have been founded after 1460 but the transition from Sister congregations to convents of nuns continued. To judge from the large number of convents well supplied with members, convent life held considerable attraction for girls. The hundred convents of the Third Rule estimated by Busch1 will not be an accurate number, but on the other hand it may not be so far out. The large number of such convents, usually well populated, is characteristic for the regions in which the Modern Devotion was widespread in the 15th and the beginning of the 16th century. It was these women who competed with the textile industry by their weaving and spinning. Not only could they offer cheaper products on the market, they sometimes provided the employers with cheap labour, for example by spinning for a particular manufacturer. In the Dutch towns especially this led to conflicts with both employers and employees around the middle of the 15th century. Complaints were made to the sovereign Lord Philip the Good of Burgundy, but the dispute never reached violent proportions. The following compromises were sought and found: limiting of the number of looms in the convent; contribution to the expenses of the appropriate gild; the fixing of a maximum income per nun; taxation of the convents; limitation of goods held in mortmain by forbidding the convents to buy property or to acquire it by gift or legacy. These measures were not too successful in the 15th century, but in the 16th they undermined the economy of many convents and even brought about their downfall. This is

certainly true of the houses of the Sisters of the Common Life.

Like the rectors of the Brothers, the rectors of the Sisterhouses attended the colloquia of Münster or Zwolle, to whichever their house belonged.1 Often they constituted a problem for the members of the colloquium. Already at the first meeting of the Münster colloquium to make decrees, i.e. in 1433, the delegates decided that the rectors or confessors of the Sisters must so arrange their dwellings within the year that they were not joined to those of the Sisters. This was in order to avoid gossip. They also laid down that they had to have a companion (socius). If at all possible the dwelling must be so situated that the rector had not to pass through the Sisterhouse in order to reach the chapel. The sisters too might not enter the confessor's house, while their own house was closed to him and every other man, except in special cases. Even then the confessor had to be accompanied by the socius.2

Some of the Brothers aspired to the position of rector to the Sisters, as we have told.3 In 1486, the colloquium of Münster which met in November decided that the Brothers who resided with the Sisters and did not keep the statutes which applied to them, would no longer be considered as Brothers during their lifetime and would not share in the privileges of the Brotherhood after their death.4 This meant that they would not have the funeral service in the Brotherhouse to which they belonged, nor would they be listed in the book of the dead.5 But still the rectorate remained a sought-after position. Peter of Dieburg tells us that Herman of Rintelen, the first novice in Hildesheim to come from the city school, was appointed confessor to the Sisters ‘without having insisted or sought after this position, as alas is the usual custom.’6 The Münster colloquium accordingly decided in 1498 that those who put themselves forward for a post with the Sisters would never be sent to the place they had asked for.7 There were, however, exceptions. In 1496 the bishop of Lübeck and the cathedral deacon of Hildesheim requested the Brothers of that city to appoint confessors to the sisters at Ploem. This placed the Brothers in an embarrassing position. No one was very eager for the task and yet they wanted to oblige the deacon, since he was collator of the altar of St. Anthony which the Brothers served. Finally they agreed and

despatched frater Henry of Göttingen, a sensible and virtuous man. He only allowed himself to be persuaded on condition that he would be allowed to return should he be in danger to soul or body.1

 

The Sisters were the passive members of the Modern Devotion, in that they did not preach or exercise any religious influence on a certain category of people outside the community, unless by example. They wrote no religious treatises, unlike some of the Brothers, but put into practice what they had been taught by Geert Groote and his disciples. Like the Brothers and the canons of Windesheim, whom we shall mention later, they were the inner devout, who filled their day in humility, obedience and zeal with prayer, work and meditation. Even so, some of their members described the life of the Sisters, in short biographies of those who had put the ideals into practice and could thus be held up as examples.

W.J. Kühler has published some of these Vitae in the Archief voor de geschiedenis van het aartsbisdom Utrecht2 and D. de Man has published and annotated the Vitae of various other sisters of the Master Geert's house described in a manuscript in Arnhem with the lengthy title: Hier beginnen sommige stichtige punten van onsen oelden zusters.3 In his detailed introduction he has given a good account of the task of the rector and of the ‘meysterke’, the clothing and daily routine of the Sisters and the nature of their spiritual life.

The Sisters often entered at a very early age, sometimes as girls of nine, thirteen or fifteen and usually not older than twenty. Several came with the complete agreement and cooperation of their parents, but the biographers seem to prefer tales of how a young girl succeeded in misleading her father or mother, or perhaps both, by all sorts of subterfuges and coming secretly to the Master Geert's house. There she would remain, despite the arrival of the parents, backed up by high authority, to remove their daughter from the house.4 The dramatic peak was reached if the father later changed his mind and became reconciled with his daughter's choice, especially if he was of the nobility, whose protection and inheritance were welcome to the Sisters.

The regulations concerning dress and daily routine were only formulated gradually, probably not until John Brinckerinck, the second rector after Groote, introduced the communal life. The maintaining of the consuetudines was then considered very important.1 The Sisters' day resembled that of the fraters: rise at 4 o'clock, even for very young girls,2 and to the chapel as quickly as possible to pray the Matins, for the Sisters prayed the Hours as well as the Brothers, and probably in Latin. The Hours which Geert Groote translated were the so-called Little Hours (of the Holy Ghost, the Holy Cross and the Holy Virgin) which each prayed or could pray individually. For the rest it is not certain that the Sisters prayed the complete Office. As with the Brothers their principal task was to pray and work, the whole day through, while keeping their minds fixed upon God. Gertrude ter Venne, the ‘little plant’, devoted so much care to her inner life, walking before God from the early morning until the evening, that often, when she examined her conscience in the evening she could scarcely find anything but that she had spoken some unnecessary word and could hardly distinguish whether she had been more pious and more fervent at Mass than at her loom.3 It was the rector's task to raise the Sisters' religious life to as high a plane as possible4 and this resulted in some exaggeration. The Sisters never saw John Brinckerinck face to face;5 he probably preached standing at the back of the chapel while the Sisters kneeled. John Brugman too says: ‘I see you sitting with your backs towards me.’6

The rector was assisted by the ‘Meysterke’ who could deal with the Sisters personally, and allocated a task to each, sending one to work in the kitchen, another to do the cleaning, some to the brewery or the farm and others to weave. The life was often hard and humiliating, rendered more so by the wearing of worn out-clothes. The veneration of Christ formed the focal point of their religious life. They felt a devout fear of God the Father, but believed strongly in divine providence.7 All that was good happened through God's grace and this grace elevated natural goods deed to the supernatural. The terms

of the bridal mystique were commonly used when referring to Christ. Christ was the ‘beloved bridegroom’ and the Sister could call herself ‘God's bride.’1 The way to Christ was through meditation on His life and especially on His passion. These pious reflections usually occurred during Holy Mass and moved some of the Sisters to tears. ‘In comparison with the worship of Christ, the glorification of Mary receded into the background.’2 Repeated meditation and ‘rumination’ helped to keep alive the good intention; a ‘edercauwen’ (ruminare) as an early translation of W. Gansfort expresses it,3 assisted by short prayers4 and an examination of conscience in the evenings.5 Lofty mysticism is not found among the Sisters, but they practised a stern asceticism: self-immolation, humility and obedience.6 Several of the Sisters, however, were favoured with visions, presages or even the apparition of deceased persons, or else they were able to say that a loved or esteemed one was happy.

The Sisters had usually enjoyed some education, so that they could read and write. Books were thus provided in the houses. The same books in favour with the Brothers were also mentioned in connection with the Sisters; Pseudo S. Bernard, Speculum monachorum, Pseudo Bonaventure, Profectus religiosorum, The hundred articles by Suso, The spiritual marriage by Ruusbroec, The soliloquium of St. Augustine and The pseudo-Thomist de divinis nominibus in the early Dutch translation. All these were read by the Sisters. It is remarkable that the manuscript makes no mention of a life of Christ,7 although the Sisters will probably have read one of the several in circulation.8 Finally, it is perhaps interesting to quote a small passage from what Rudolf Dier writes about Lutgard de Buryck († 1453): In confession she told of those shortcomings to which others had drawn her attention, relying more upon others than upon her own judgement. She was never seen to sleep during the Hours, discourse or Mass, so that she seemed to have conquered sleep. She seldom or never assisted at Mass without shedding tears. When the fire bell rang she fell to her knees, thus assisting the unfortunates by her prayers. When speaking to others

she often remarked: ‘O, how precious is time, which we often spend so fruitlessly.’ During her youth she meditated devoutly on the life and passion of the Lord, etc. She was most attracted to Mary, the holy Mother of God. She also turned zealously, with pious prayers, to the angels and all the ranks of the saints, requesting their help. She devoutly venerated the relics of the saints. She was accustomed to offer herself frequently to God, renewing her good intention, since in future she wished to follow the rule of the house with more care.1

To touch now upon communion, I conclude with what is told of sister Ysentrude of Mekeren, Sister of the Master Geert's house († 1452): ‘Whenever it was allowed, she fervently received the body of the Lord in communion, so that she would have been ready every Sunday, had it so behoved. After communion she seemed to rejoice in the Lord as with a fresh joy, and to be inflamed by a new fire of love, and she was pleased when she saw many Sisters going to communion.’2

By around 1460 the Sisters of the Common Life had passed their peak. At this time they were still writing with enthusiasm about the life of ‘die olde susteren.’ This stopped, just as their expansion was almost entirely halted. A new Sisterhouse was begun in Germany in 1466 in a place called Ahlen, near Münster, which was certainly only incorporated in the colloquium of Münster in 1470, at the same time as the convent at Büderich near Düsseldorf.3

After this we hear nothing more of new Sister foundations, which does not mean that a successful attempt was not made here and there. The convents evidently held more attraction for the girls than these Sisterhouses. In addition, the difference may have become so slight that it was scarcely obvious to the outsider. The fact that the Sisters did not take vows was certainly an important difference, but for several years the Tertiaries did not take the three vows either, despite their monastic rule. They certainly did not feel any less bound, since it was intended that the Sisters, like the Brothers, should remain in their congregation until death - as single women, subject to the authority of the mistress and practising complete community of property. The daily life of these Sisters was scarcely different from that of many nuns, either Tertiaries or Augustinesses. It was stricter than that of the Benedictine or Cistercian nuns or the Canonesses of St. Augustine. Like the Tertiaries, the Sisters of the Common Life worked hard

to earn their daily bread, although they afterwards acquired landed property and houses from which they derived an income.

They entered the new period of Renaissance and Humanism as a healthy institution of dedicated women, but they had no special task or aim. As indeed did most of the other monastics of the time, they lived for themselves, in other words they sought their own spiritual salvation in a retreat from the world. They did not occupy themselves either with education, or with nursing the sick or with helping or comforting the poor and unfortunate. Their enthusiasm for their own institution might be great and their observance of their customs irreproachable, yet the day might come when other tasks would be required of the Sisters. The question then would be whether, in the following period, which is a period of crisis, they could manage to preserve their existence in the old form.

It is however scarcely possible to follow their history in the 16th century.


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