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].
Almost equally difficult was the reform of Mariensee, where again the Bishop of Minden did all in his power to oppose reform, having (according to Busch) been bribed by the nuns to defend them. The Duke of Brunswick, however, forced the nuns to admit the reformers and forced the Bishop to send four emissaries to assist in carrying out the reform. These four prelates entered the house first to ask the nuns if they would consent to receive reform; but they refused, and one young woman tore off her veil and crown and casting them at the feet of the Bishop’s suffragan cried: “Always hitherto you have told me that I need not be reformed and now you want to compel me to be reformed. Behold your crown and veil! I will no longer be a nun.” The Bishop’s emissaries after this gave up their half-hearted attempt to reform the house and retired, leaving the field to Busch and his companions. The Duke then caused four carriages to be brought to the door, in which the rebellious nuns could be taken away, whereat the Abbess and the nuns climbed up into the vaults of the church and hid themselves there. The Duke ordered his servants to fetch ladders and place them against the roof and then to climb up and fetch down the nuns, but the prudent Busch prevented this, saying that the nuns would push over and kill the first who went up the ladder. Instead he went into the choir and, finding one nun still walking there, threatened her that unless the whole convent came down from the roof at once, they should be taken away in the carriages, “to-night you shall be in the Duke’s castle of Nyerstadt, tomorrow in his castle of Calenberg, and after that outside his lands, perchance never to return.” Whereupon the horrified nuns descended.
Then followed an amusing scene. All the nuns agreed to accept the new reforms, except one young woman, who refused:
“Then,” says Busch, “I said to the lord Duke, ‘This sister scorns obedience and contradicts everything.’ Whereupon, finding how perverse she was, he seized her and tried to draw her to the carriage. But when he had thrown his arms about her, she fell back flat on the ground, the Duke on the top of her, and the other nuns on the top of the Duke, each pushing the other on to him, so that the Duke could not raise himself from off her, especially as his arms were crushed beneath her scapular. And we, who saw him lying thus, stood away, waiting for the end of the business. At length he got one arm away from her, and with it pushed off the nuns who were lying upon him, hitting them and drawing blood from their arms, for he was a man and the nuns were like children, without strength and resistance.”
(This was the age of chivalry!) When he had got rid of these nuns he lifted the nun on whom he was lying, pulled his other arm free and sprang to his feet again, saying to the vassals and servants, who were standing round: “Why do you allow your liege lord thus to be trampled under foot by nuns?” One of them replied for all, “Gracious lord! we have ever stood by thee where the war engines were hurling their stones and the bows their arrows; only tell us what we are to do and we will willingly do it.” Then said he, “Whichever nun I seize, do you seize her too,” and they replied. “Willingly, gracious lord.” Whereupon the nuns gave in and professed themselves willing to be reformed. But they were still recalcitrant at heart, and when Busch, Rutger and the Duke were going away, they all began to sing the antiphon “Media vita” at the top of their voices and pursued the hapless reformers through the church, pelting them with burning candles. One girl followed them outside to the cemetery, chanted “Sancte deus, sancte, fortis, sancte et immortalis” three times and falling on her knees, bit the ground thrice in sign of a curse, and threw stones and earth after them. In the end, however, even this stormy convent was reduced to peace and reform, after three reformed nuns from Derneburg were brought in to teach them[2146].
Busch had almost as much difficulty with the nuns of Derneburg, an Austin house near Hildesheim, in which, as he says: “the nuns had long lived an irregular life, owning private property, and, according to public rumour, incontinent,” paying long visits outside their house as often as they pleased and performing only the minimum routine of monastic life. On one occasion, Busch tells us,
When I was taking their private possessions away from the nuns and placing them in the common stock, it happened that I was going through their cupboards and cellars, for several of them had a small cellar encircling the monastery, which was entered by three or four steps and had covered vaults, in which they kept their beer and other private allowances. They were showing me the cellars, and going down into them before me, and the last nun said to me: “Do you go first now, father, for my cellar is the same as those of the other sisters,” and without thinking I did so. But when I went down into it, she suddenly clapped to the door or vault over my head and stood upon it. I was shut up alone in there, thinking what would have happened if the nuns had shut me up there secretly; and I shouted to my brother, who was standing outside with them, bidding him cause them to open the door and let me out. At length after some delay they opened the trap-door of the cellar and let me come out. After that I was never willing to go first into any closed place in any nunnery, lest anything of the kind should happen, and lest I should be unable to get out easily. But when two or three preceded me, then I followed them. One only going in front did not suffice me, lest they should shut me up for some time alone with her and then spread tales about me. The sister who did this was good enough and very simple, whence I was astonished that she should think of such a thing.
It was while he was reforming this house, too, that he was attacked by several armed laymen, who took the part of the nuns. The nuns of Derneburg were never effectually reformed, although Busch gave himself the greatest trouble over them. At the end of three years they prevailed upon their friends and relatives in the neighbourhood to get rid of Busch and his brethren, and the nuns received Henry, Abbot of Marienrode, as their spiritual father and reformer instead. But they did not gain by the change, for he, being a Cistercian, introduced a nun of his own order as their prioress, and finally the Bishop of Hildesheim, the Abbot of Marienrode and other reformers came one morning to the house and, rebuking the nuns for their imperviousness to reform, made them come away in all their old clothes, leaving their books and possessions behind them, placed them in carriages and distributed them among other houses, where many were forced to become Cistercians. The house itself was turned into a Cistercian priory. “Thus,” says Busch, not without some satisfaction, “they lost the holy father St Augustine with me!”[2147]
The methods employed by Busch to carry out a reform were to undertake the initial stages himself and if necessary to obtain a few nuns from a previously reformed house to live in the convent and bring it to right discipline. He always began by hearing the confessions of the nuns, which often caused considerable fluttering in the convent. At St George, near Halle, he found that the convent was subordinated to the monastery of Zinna, and received its confessor from that house, which Busch decided to alter, for the Abbot of Zinna was impeding his reforms. He therefore bade the Abbess send the sisters to confess to him, but she replied:
“The sisters dare not confess to you by reason of the apostolic mandate and the abbot of Zinna and our own confessor, who comes from him.”