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 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 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:
“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 noble 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 shield-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.’”