Medieval English Nunneries c. 1275 to 1535 Part 47

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, was ill-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 Saens 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 Saens 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 in apostasy (_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 Saens 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 Saens; 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 by two 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 sec.u.m 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 Saens, 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 Saens 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 G.o.d 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 doc.u.ment, "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.

APPENDIX III

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 his _Liber 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 doc.u.ments, 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 a.s.sailed 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 Sulte, 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 Sulte 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 Gunther of Magdeburg to invite him to carry the reforming movement into that diocese and in 1447 Busch became _praepositus_[2118] of the Neuwerk in Halle. This brought him to the notice of the Papal Legate Nicholas of Cues, who came to hold a 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 Sulte in 1459, where he remained until his death in 1480. He left behind him two books, a _Chronicon Windeshemense_, and the _Liber 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 the _Liber de Reformatione Monasteriorum_ describes 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 his most 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 a.s.sistance 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 a.s.sistance which he received from the Dukes of Brunswick, Otto, William and Henry, who reigned during his lifetime. These n.o.bles, 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 Sulte 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 intone _Benedicite_, after the fas.h.i.+on of reformed religious; but the nuns, who had not been accustomed to singing the _Benedicite_ at 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 verse _Gloria 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 p.r.o.ne"[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 owners.h.i.+p of private property. The nuns were almost universally _proprietarie_, 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 their own meals and dined in _familia_. 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 of _proprietas_ by 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 h.o.a.rds. 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 att.i.tude 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 n.o.bles 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, the _praepositus_ of 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 the _praepositi_, 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 fas.h.i.+on. 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 Wulfinghausen 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 called _superpellicia_, 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 tongue _Ranse_, 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 fas.h.i.+on 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 widespread _proprietas_ brought 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 Wulfinghausen, for instance, Busch told the nuns that he had never heard a word breathed against their chast.i.ty[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 chast.i.ty, 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 pa.s.sage 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 of _proprietas_ in 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 s.e.x," 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 G.o.d and men, to the grave peril and eternal d.a.m.nation of their souls. For first laying aside the fear of G.o.d, they fall into the sin of property in small things, then in greater things and then in the _peculium_ of money and clothes, thence they break out 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 n.o.bly 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 G.o.d 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 or _praepositi_, who resented his interference in their domain. At the Magdalenenkloster at Hildesheim, their confessor, who had been with the nuns for eight years, desired to be released after the reformation of the house, saying to the _praepositus_: "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 the _praepositus_ of 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 n.o.bles 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 a.s.sembled sisters and bade them receive reformation, but they, crossing their hands above their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, 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:

"If I were duke of this land I would rather have that song than a hundred florins, for there is no curse over us and over your land, but a benediction and heavenly dew, but over these nuns is a stern rebuke and the sign of their reformation. But we are few, being but our four selves, and the nuns are many. If they were to attack us with their distaffs and with stones hidden in their long sleeves, what should we do? Let us call in others to help." Then the duke, going up alone to them said, "May what you sing be upon you and your bodies"; and to his servants who were standing with the nuns in the choir, he said, "come hither to us."

The nuns followed the Duke and the servants, thinking that their chests and money boxes were going to be broken up, whereupon the Duke rebuked them, saying that if they and their n.o.ble friends and the Bishop of Minden opposed reform any longer, he would turn them off his lands. The nuns then asked to be allowed to take counsel with their friends and relatives, to which the Duke, on Busch's intercession, unwillingly agreed. The friends accordingly came to a conference, but all they did was to repeat the nuns'

request in the same form, and they continued to do so after the Duke had given them two or three chances to reconsider the matter; whereupon he sent them away, and they rode off, followed by their s.h.i.+eld-bearers. The Duke then ordered the gates of the house to be opened to Busch, but the nuns returned a message that the keys were lost. The Duke, on Busch's authority, sent for several rustics and villeins, who brought a long bench and broke open the door. The reformers went up into the choir and there found the nuns, flat on their faces with arms out like a cross, and round them a circle of little wooden and stone images of saints, with a burning candle between each. Seeing that it was useless to resist, they approached the visitors, and the Duke addressed them, saying that if they would receive reform, he would keep them on his land, and if not carriages were ready to take them away for ever. The nuns begged him to "remove those monks from their necks," when they would do his will, but the Duke replied that he did everything by the advice of Rutger and Busch.

The nuns then gave way and the reform was begun, after which the Duke and his followers rode away, leaving his councillor and notary with Busch. But at nightfall the nuns sent their _praepositus_ to Busch, with the message: "My ladies the prioress and nuns say that they are not willing to serve as they promised, but they wish to remain as they were and are." The Duke had to be sent for once more and eventually all the nuns submitted except one, who seems to have fallen into a fit, and the reform went on apace:

"Because we instructed them kindly and not austerely," says Busch, "they said to us, 'At first we thought that you would be very austere and unkind, but now we see that you are gentle as the angels of heaven. Now we have more faith in you than in the lord duke.'"

Busch's troubles, however, were not over, for twice within the next few days he was attacked by armed men objecting to the new enclosure of the nuns, and only his native wit and conciliatory words saved him from a very dangerous situation[2145].