Among the Austin nunneries which gave Busch endless trouble was that of Derneburg, near Hildesheim, where he was appointed to visit as father confessor between 1440 and 1442[1015]. The nuns there were in the habit of dining out continually, and when exception was taken to this, gave as an excuse that relatives and friends were always ready to entertain them at meals, but refused to furnish contributions in kind towards the support of the convent. Busch got over this difficulty by pleading with the lay people, but his action in the matter still further roused the rebellious spirit of the nuns. On one occasion his life was attempted at their instigation; on another, when he went to inspect their cellar, they locked him in and left him there. As a consequence of this he refused from that time forward to be the first to go on any tour of inspection. His efforts to impress these nuns were in vain, and finally he asked for the assistance of the bishop of Hildesheim and the abbot of the Cistercian house of Marienrode; as a consequence the rebels were conveyed away from Derneburg to other convents, and their house was given into the hands of Cistercian nuns. Similar difficulties occurred at Wennigsen, at Mariensee and at Werder, where the Duke of Hannover interfered in the most arbitrary manner[1016]. At Wienhausen the abbess and convent refused to conform to the rule of St Benedict, though the additional authority of their diocesan and of Duke Otto of Brunswick was brought to bear on them[1017]. Forcible measures were resorted to in this case also. The abbess was deposed and she and her nuns were carried away in a chariot to other nunneries, and nuns from the reformed house of Derneburg were installed in their place.
At the Cistercian nunnery of St Georg, near Halle, the nuns at first declared that they were exempt from the visits of the diocesan, and refused admission to the delegates. After prolonged opposition they yielded to Busch[1018]. At Heiningen the nuns pleaded poverty as an excuse for staying away from home[1019]. Many settlements complained of poverty and insufficient revenue, among which was Frankenberg, near Goslar[1020]. The nuns of Dorstad earned money by taking pupils from outside the precincts[1021], and other houses, among them that of Neuwerk, received girls and boarded and educated them. Busch however forbade their doing so on the ground that intercourse with secular interests was harmful. At Neuwerk, which was a Cistercian nunnery at Erfurt[1022], the wealth of the community in vessels, vestments, and books was quite a revelation to Busch. The house owned thirty books of devotion (the convent at the time consisted of thirty inmates), a number which appeared to Busch so considerable that he did not insist on the nuns adopting the service-book in use at Windesheim, as this change would have rendered their books useless to them.
The nuns at Neuwerk readily accepted the proposed reforms, and received nuns from the reformed nunnery of Heiningen who dwelt with them for three years and helped them to restore their system of religious discipline and teaching. The abbess Armengard von Rheden, of the wealthy Benedictine nunnery of Fischbeck on the Weser[1023], also agreed to receive nuns from a reformed house into her establishment as teachers.
Full details are preserved of the reform of the nunnery of Marienberg[1024] near Helmstädt in Saxony, the prioress of which, Helena von Iltzen, hearing of the work of Busch, sought his assistance in matters of reform. Her house is said to have belonged to no order in particular. When she applied to Busch he was resident provost (after 1459) of the Austin canonry of Sülte near Hildesheim. He travelled to Bronopie, a nunnery situated outside Campen on the confines of Holland, to consult with the prioress, who accordingly deputed two nuns of her convent, Ida and Tecla, and one lay sister Aleydis, to repair with him to Marienberg. Of the two nuns Ida had been chosen for her knowledge of religious service, Tecla for her powers of instruction. Busch describes how he travelled across Germany with these women in a waggon drawn by four horses, and how on their arrival at Marienberg Ida was appointed to act as sub-prioress, and Tecla as teacher, and how the prioress of the house reserved to herself the management of temporal affairs only. Tecla is described as well versed in grammar (grammatica competenter docta); she instructed the inmates of the house in scholastic knowledge (scientiis scholasticalibus) with such success that her pupils after three years were able to read Holy Writ, and readily composed letters and missives in correct Latin (litteras sive missas in bona latina magistraliter dictarent). ‘I have seen and examined these myself,’ says Busch.
After three years the illness of Ida made the nuns desirous of returning to their own convent, and Busch again undertook to escort them. A proof of the affection they had won during their stay and of the regret that was felt at their departure is afforded by the letters which passed between them and their friends. They were staying for some nights at the nunnery of Heiningen on their journey home when two letters reached them. In one the nuns wrote describing their grief. ‘When we see your empty places in the choir, the refectory, and the dormitory, we are filled with sorrow and weep.’ And they wish that the distance which separates them were not so great, then at least they might go to visit their friends. When Tecla’s pupils (the letter says) entered the schoolroom for their lessons on the Saturday, they wept so much that the prioress, who was in great grief herself, was constrained to try to comfort them. The other letter, a short one specially addressed to Tecla, was written by these pupils: this accompanied the longer letter, and in it they assured her of their continued admiration and devotion. Ida, Tecla and Aleydis in reply sent two letters to Marienberg. A longer one was addressed by them to the convent collectively, and a shorter one by Tecla to her pupils, in which she praises them for having written such a good Latin letter and assures them that she is glad to think of her stay with them, since it has been productive of such good results.
The nunnery of Marienberg, which had so readily accepted reforms, acted as advocate of similar changes to other houses. Busch tells us that the nunnery of Marienborn situated not far from it, and the nunnery at Stendal in Brandenburg, accepted reforms at its instigation[1025].
In the records of Busch comparatively few charges of a coarse nature are brought against nunneries, but he adds an account of two nuns who were in apostasy, and who were persuaded by him to return to their convents. One had left her convent and had adopted lay clothing[1026]; the story of the other, Sophie, an illegitimate daughter of Wilhelm, duke of Brunswick, reads like a romance[1027]. The girl had been stowed away in the convent of Mariensee by her relatives for convenience, but indifferent to vows unwillingly accepted, she ran away and for seven years lived in the world, tasting few of the sweets of life and much of its bitterness. At last, broken in spirit by the loss of her child, she was persuaded by Busch to come and live in the convent of Derneburg, the members of which received her with tender pity for her sufferings and treated her with loving care. Finally she agreed to return to the nunnery she had originally left, glad of the peace which she found there.
Some of the nunneries on which pressure was brought to bear by the monastic reformers altogether ceased to exist. The historian of the diocese of Speyer (Rheinbayern) tells us that the Benedictine nunnery of Schönfeld was interfered with in 1443 and fell into decay, and that its property was appropriated; that the Cistercian nunnery of Ramsen also ceased to exist, owing to feuds between Count Johann II of Nassau and the abbot of Morimund, who both claimed the right of interference; and that the dissolution of Kleinfrankenthal, a settlement of Austin nuns situated in the same diocese, was declared in 1431 by Pope Eugenius IV on account of the evil ways of the nuns[1028].
The historian of the reforms undertaken in the diocese of Trier notifies many important changes[1029]. He considers that the nuns in many convents had drifted away from the former strictness of discipline and lived as Austin canonesses, returning to the world if they chose to get married. Many of these settlements now accepted stricter rules of life, and among them were the nunnery of Marienberg (diocese of Trier), the abbess of which, Isengard von Greiffenklau († 1469), had come under the influence of Johannes Rode—and Oberwerth, which owed reform to its abbess Adelheid Helchen (1468-1505).
On the other hand Elisabeth von Seckendorff, abbess of the time-honoured nunnery of St Walburg at Eichstätt, refused to see that a changed condition of things demanded reform. The bishop of Eichstätt made his power felt; she was deposed, and Sophie was summoned from the nunnery of St Maria at Cöln, and made abbess in her stead (1456-1475)[1030].