 

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Women Writing About Women and Reform in the Late Middle Ages

Anne Winston-Allen

The Pennsylvania State University Press

University Park, Pennsylvania

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Disclaimer:
Some images in the original version of this book are not
available for inclusion in the eBook.

   -- 

Winston-Allen, Anne, –

Convent chronicles : women writing about women and reform
in the late Middle Ages / Anne Winston-Allen.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN --- (alk. paper)
. Christian literature, German—Women authors—History and criticism.
. Christian literature, Dutch—Women authors—History and criticism.
. German literature—Early modern, –—History and criticism.
. Dutch literature—–—History and criticism.
. Nuns as authors.
. Women and literature.
. Reformation—Germany—History.
. Reformation—Netherlands—History.
I. Title.
PT.W 
.⬘⬘—dc


Copyright 䉷  The Pennsylvania State University

All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
Published by The Pennsylvania State University Press,
University Park, PA -

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use acid-free paper. Publications on uncoated stock satisfy
the minimum requirements of American National Standard
for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed
Library Materials, ANSI Z.-.

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           J a n e

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 

   ix
   xi

Introduction: Women Writing in the Late Middle Ages 

 Late Medieval Nunneries: Accounts by Women 

 The ‘‘Women’s Religious Movement’’ and the Observant Movement:

Female Piety and the Establishment 

 Women of the Reform 

 Opponents of the Reform and Enclosure 

 Did Nuns Have a Renaissance? Libraries and Literary Activities 

 ‘‘Femininity-in-Writing’’: New Heroines, Strategies, and Roles in

Late Medieval Piety 

 
  
 

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

Map Convents from which primary sources by women are cited.

 Petrarca-Master, woodcut from [Francesco Petrarca,] Von der Artzney beyder
Glück, des guten und widerwertigen (About the Medicine of Both Kinds of Fate:
The Good and the Vexatious). Book , chapter . Edited by Georg Spalatin and
Peter Stahel. Augsburg: Steyner, .
 Tapestry (detail): two Dominican nuns weaving. Late fifteenth century. Bamberg,
Diözesanmuseum (photo: Diözesanmuseum).
 Benedictine nun and school child. Illustration from a song book (detail). Cloister
Archive, Ebstorf,   , fol. v. Fifteenth century (photo: Lüneburger
Klosterarchive).
 Hoofkijn van devotien (Garden of Devotion), Antwerp, Gerhard Leeu, .
Reproduced by permission of the Koninklijke Bibliotheek, The Hague
(No.  B ).
 Somme le Roi. Bodleian Library, Oxford,  , fol. v. Fifteenth century.
Reproduced by permission of the Bodleian Library, Oxford (photo: Bodelian
Library).
 Illustration (c. ) from a choir book of Cloister Heilig Kreuz, Regensburg,
showing beside the donor and her niece (novice in white veil) four reforming
sisters from St. Katharina in Nuremberg (photo: Bischöfliche Zentralbibliothek
Regensburg).
 The handwriting of Sister Regula, ‘‘Buch von den heiligen Mägden und Frauen’’
(Book of Holy Maidens and Women, c. ),  L, fol. r (Kloster Lichtenthal)
Badische Landesbibliothek Karlsruhe (photo: Badische Landesbibliothek
Karlsruhe).
 Illustration of Elsbeth Stagel (d. c. ), composing the Lives of the Sisters of Töss.
Manuscript copied c.  in the scriptorium of St. Katharina in Nuremberg,
Stadtbibliothek Nürnberg,  Cent.  a, fol. r (photo: Stadtbibliothek
Nürnberg).
 Clare of Assisi with Pope Gregory IX. One of  illustrations by Sibilla von
Bondorf for a Life of St. Clare (c. ). Badische Landesbibliothek Karlsruhe, 
Thennenbach , fol. r (photo: Badische Landesbibliothek Karlsruhe).
 Illustration by Sibilla von Bondorf of Clare of Assisi writing with pen and scraper.
Badische Landesbibliothek Karlsruhe,  Thennenbach , fol. r (photo:
Badische Landesbibliothek Karlsruhe).

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  

This book took shape in the summer of . I had received a DAAD
(German Academic Exchange Service) grant to work at the Staatsbibliothek
in Berlin as guest of the project researching unpublished vernacular ser-
mons in German archives. Originally, what I had wanted to study were the
concepts of reform expressed by popular preachers in the period just prior
to the Reformation. Because virtually all the sermons in German that sur-
vive from the Middle Ages were written down or copied by women who
heard them in convent parish churches, a good place to look was in the
sermon collections that nuns made for their cloister libraries. Perhaps the
best collection is that of the former great library of the Strasbourg cloister
of St. Nicolaus in undis, remnants of which are now in Berlin and contain
some  sermons. Wanting to learn more about the women who made
this remarkable collection, I had been looking at cloister annals and other
historical writings. But I had not thought of making these the focus of
a study until Hans-Jochen Schiewer, co-director of the sermon project,
remarked that women’s convent chronicles struck him as a particularly
interesting topic. It was this comment that stayed with me and changed the
direction of my research.
Already I had run across a few chronicles while searching for women’s
writings about their activities in the fifteenth-century Observant reform, a
movement to which the sisters at St. Nicolaus as well as most of the other
sermon transcribers belonged. This movement, originating in Italy in the
previous century, was an initiative to revive piety and reform religious
orders that spread in the s throughout the German-speaking territories
and other parts of Europe. Observant groups gained adherents in most
religious orders but they also affected the laity through an increased focus
on the care of souls, the founding of lay religious confraternities, and the
influence of popular reform preachers. Trying to find accounts of it written
by women, I had scoured the footnotes of the large collection of German
dissertations on individual cloisters in the Theological Seminar library at

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 Preface and Acknowledgments

the University of Freiburg. Here I had come across references to several

nuns’ chronicles, which until only recently were of little interest to anyone.
But I was convinced that there were more of them.
Besides writing historical accounts and collecting sermons, women in
the movement had compiled, translated, and copied large numbers of de-
votional works. Other researchers had already noted an astonishing amount
of scribal activity in Observant women’s houses in the fifteenth century.
Some three hundred volumes were copied by sisters at St. Katharina in
Nuremberg alone. And yet, despite this voluminous production, I discov-
ered that there was no comprehensive study in German or English of con-
vent chronicles nor was there a survey of fifteenth-century women’s
writings. Where were the studies examining the transition from the sister-
books of the fourteenth century to women’s religious pamphleteering in
the sixteenth century? Where were texts by women of the fifteenth century
at all?
If such texts had been neglected by German researchers, they were to-
tally absent from English-language surveys of women’s writing. The Ency-
clopedia of Women in the Middle Ages () lists German visionary writers
from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries—Hildegard of Bingen, Elisabeth
of Schönau, Herrad of Landsberg, and the Helfta mystics—but no women
later than that. Conspicuously absent are the known authors of fourteenth-
century sister-books: Anna von Munzingen, Christina Ebner, Katharina
von Gueberschwihr, Elisabeth of Kirchberg, Elsbeth Stagel, and mystical
writers Margareta Ebner and Adelheid Langmann. Although the Encyclope-
dia lists fifteenth-century writers Christine de Pizan and Margery Kempe,
it lists none from the Dutch- and German-speaking areas, even though
women’s contributions there are considerable. Clearly, this is a problem
that needs to be addressed.
Many of the chronicles had been transcribed from old manuscripts by
scholars, local historians, and antiquarian collectors in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries and simply printed verbatim in collections of historical
documents, local or regional periodicals, and ethnological or church history
journals. But they had not been studied as a group. Rather, women’s his-
torical writings from the Middle Ages have been almost completely ignored
in articles and monographs on the chronicle as a literary genre. A few have
been examined in works on individual convents or regions, such as Gudrun
Gleba’s book () on women’s houses in Westphalia and Heike Uff-

{ xii }

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 Preface and Acknowledgments

mann’s articles (, ) on chronicles in the area of Lüneburg. But I

wanted to look at a larger group. Accordingly, this present study is the first
to survey nun’s convent chronicles and historical writings collectively
across orders and regions in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries.
What connects these texts scattered over a wide area and representing
many orders is their relationship to the Observant movement. The Obser-
vance itself is a relatively well-kept secret compared to the much better
known devotio moderna movement, or Brothers and Sisters of the Common
Life, which emerged in the Netherlands in the late fourteenth century.
Looking at the collection of articles in the widely used volume Christian
Spirituality: High Middle Ages and Reformation (), for example, one finds
an entire chapter devoted to the devotio moderna but none to the Observant
movement, even though it was a widespread development affecting nearly
all religious orders in the fifteenth century. In English there are two or
three monographs dealing either with the Observance in individual orders
or with reform actions by Observants initiated by the Council of Basel
(–). Yet German sources yield seventeen books (if one counts order-
centered studies) and dozens of articles. Published proceedings of three
symposia in Berlin, which include papers on Observant initiatives in four-
teen different religious orders, underscore the need for wider recognition
of the development as a whole, traversing order and national boundaries.
About women’s role in the movement at large there is no monograph in
either language.
Present-day women’s historians have tended to regard female Obser-
vants as the tools of men who wished to incarcerate and suppress them. At
the same time they object that the nuns who refused to be reformed have
been used in the master narrative as foils for the ‘‘good women’’ who
accepted the Observance. I take up this issue because it seems to me that
female Observants have been treated less seriously than were the move-
ment’s male supporters. Rather than categorizing the women as either
pawns or protofeminists, I wanted to look at the complex social, political,
and cultural reasons why women both supported and opposed the reform.
Exploring these motives casts light on possibilities of female agency, the
social power structures surrounding convents, and late medieval spirituality
both in and outside the cloister. Ultimately, studying the past is looking at
texts left behind by those who lived it. But the past reads differently accord-
ing to whether one is examining texts by dominant or by subordinate

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 Preface and Acknowledgments

groups and whether the texts are external or internal records. While previ-
ous studies of the reform have used only reports written by men, I wanted
to examine women’s accounts. Not surprisingly, these offer an alternative
view of female agency, one that challenges the traditional narrative about
women.
Almost all of what researchers know about medieval women’s houses
has come from external sources: official judicial and church records, vitae
or reports of religious women by male writers. I wanted to know in what
ways the accounts left by women confirm or contest the master narrative.
This study is, thus, the first to draw on internal sources about convents,
sources that reveal women’s own representations of themselves and their
lives in fifteenth-century German religious communities.
Jennifer Summit’s Lost Property: The Woman Writer and English Literary
History, – () demonstrates well how the ‘‘woman writer’’ was
constructed by male authors, editors, translators, and printers and defined
by her very ‘‘exteriority’’ to literary tradition as being absent or lost. In the
same way, I argue that the fifteenth-century ‘‘convent woman’’ has been
constructed by external authorities and sources as absent in the sense of
silent, marginal, and walled-off from society. Nuns’ writings, however,
show that these women were intimately involved in close-knit family, so-
cial, and convent networks with connections throughout medieval society.
Neither were they silent. Substantial numbers of still almost completely
unknown works by women produced in the Dutch- and German-speaking
regions exist and need to be taken into account. Theories that argue from
convent women’s silence must be reexamined in the light of actual texts.
New judgments about the literary and social history of medieval women
writers will follow as more of these works come to light. As the chronicles
and historical texts dealt with here demonstrate, the visionary mode, so
often regarded as medieval women’s primary manner of self-expression,
was not the only kind of writing in which women engaged. Such chroni-
cles and other writings are texts that theorists need to carry their work
further.
Recent colloquia on women’s studies urge new ways of analyzing wom-
en’s agency. They seek to identify its female forms, how agency functioned,
the circumstances in which women were able to exercise power. Of partic-
ular interest are new paradigms that examine female power relations
through women’s connections with men. In this context the Observant

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 Preface and Acknowledgments

movement offers a particularly well documented case study of an alliance

of this kind as seen from the point of view of women who acquired posi-
tions of power through their involvement in it. The texts they left behind
illustrate the relation between authority and text production by women.
Like mystical and visionary works that conferred power or sister-books
that represented social strategies, historical writings and chronicles are also
political. Reform chronicles comprise a literary sub-genre that was both
generated by the reform and at the same time constitutive of it, seeking
to validate, construct, and perpetuate the Observance. A New Historicist
approach looks at how these works function in a cultural-historical frame-
work. Seeking to expand the textual base of women’s literary artifacts, New
Philologists deal with works further out on the margins of the literary
realm. They view all texts as part of a discourse that has to be reconstructed
in order to fully understand literary production. By using a discursive
model in this study, I hope to underscore the particular importance in the
fifteenth century of the increasing shift to vernacular language, a shift that
allowed women to join in and to affect the nature of the religious discus-
sion.
At the same time that women chronicled the Observance, they resisted
the dominant discourse by portraying themselves differently from their
male biographers. They protested earlier attempts to exclude women from
religious orders and even left blank spaces in their manuscripts for visions
that male censors refused to let them record. Participating in a literary
Renaissance of their own, women in networks of Observant convents ex-
plored literary production and exchange as a form of agency. The authori-
zation to write histories, copy and translate devotional literature into the
vernacular, to transcribe, edit, and disseminate sermons all opened opportu-
nities for more active engagement in the public discourse on spirituality.
While women’s importance as the largest audience for, and as the chief
transmitters of, sermons in the vernacular has gone largely unnoticed, the
cultural significance and force of their collective choices and participation
as a reading community cannot long be ignored.
Women’s preferences and alternative point of view as a majority subcul-
ture will become clearer as more of their texts are recovered and read. The
images that women present of themselves in fifteenth- and early sixteenth-
century chronicles correspond remarkably closely to those identified in two
studies that have appeared since this manuscript was completed: Charlotte

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 Preface and Acknowledgments

Woodford’s Nuns as Historians in Early Modern Germany () and Rebecca

Garber’s Feminine Figurae: Representations of Gender in Religious Texts by
Medieval German Women Writers – (). Woodford’s study of
convent chronicles from the Reformation and Counter-Reformation pe-
riod in Bavaria is historiographic, examining the history of the chronicle as
a literary genre. Similarly, Garber’s work examines three related sub-genres
of women’s writings from the twelfth to the fourteenth century: vision
cycles, personal revelations, and sister-books. Although different in ap-
proach, these two new studies and mine reach similar conclusions about
the complex functions served by women’s writings, the constitutive role of
women’s communities in their production and reception, and above all,
the different image that women put forward of themselves in their own
works. With this study I hope to provide the link between these other two
examinations of earlier and later writers. Together they constitute a much
needed, first connected survey of women writers in the German-speaking
region from the twelfth to the seventeenth century.

Ann Matter once characterized the ideal in scholarly research as ‘‘a gener-
ous exchange.’’ That this spirit is alive and well has been amply demon-
strated at critical points in the progress of this project. For generous help
along the way, I would like to express my thanks chronologically to Sarah
DeMaris for sharing her extensive knowledge of women and the Obser-
vance and for giving me the manuscript of her forthcoming edition of
Johannes Meyer’s Ämterbuch; to Richard Kieckhefer, Barbara Newman, and
Merry Wiesner for generous recommendations in support of grant propos-
als; to Hans-Jochen Schiewer and Volker Mertens for invaluable advice and
placing at my disposal the resources and library of the Berlin research proj-
ect on sermon transcriptions; to Monika Costard, assistant on the project,
for sharing with me her expertise, tea, M&Ms, and her articles on convent
women and sermons; to Sabina von Heusinger for a guided tour of medie-
val Constance and a prepublication copy of her dissertation on Johannes
Mulberg and the Dominican Observance; to Ulrich Ecker for his assistance
in researching references at the Freiburg Stadtarchiv and a copy of his dis-
sertation on the reform of Kirchheim; to Wybren Scheepsma for papers,
articles, and his book on convent women in the Windesheim Congrega-
tion; to Thomas Mertens for an advance copy of his article on women as
ghostwriters of sermons; to Werner Williams-Krapp for an unpublished

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 Preface and Acknowledgments

conference paper on reformed cloisters in Nuremberg; to Abbess Irmgard

von Funcke for an unpublished transcription of the chronicle of Ebstorf; to
Sigrid Schmitt for her generous hospitality in Mainz and for two chapters
of her soon to be published Habilitationsschrift on religious women in
Strasbourg; to Anne Bollmann for her forthcoming article on Alijt Bake;
to Sara Poor for two prepublication chapters of her monograph on Mech-
thild of Magdeburg; to Martina Backes for advance copies of articles on
Magdalena Beutler and other medieval women, for helpful suggestions
about archival materials, and especially for the courage to undertake with
an amazingly unreliable automobile an excursion to the Archives départe-
mentales, Haut-Rhin, in Colmar; to Larissa Taylor for careful reading and
insightful suggestions that greatly improved the present manuscript; and to
Penn State Press Editor-in-Chief, Peter Potter, for listening, critiquing,
advising, and supporting this project all along the way.
Special thanks go to the American Association of Teachers of German
and the DAAD for summer research support, to the Southern Illinois Uni-
versity and Professional Women’s Association for a grant to purchase mi-
crofilms, and to SIU for a year-long sabbatical to write this book. My hosts
for many years in Freiburg, Ingrid and Werner Hoefel, not only took me
to see the cloisters Schönensteinbach and Sylo, Sélestat, but insisted on
hiking the eight kilometers around and up the hill to Herrad of Landsberg’s
famous abbey, St.-Odile, towing me the last part of the way. To them I
want to express my long-term gratitude. Last, but chronologically first and
always there with his support, not only towing but patching, jump-starting,
and steadying the load on the long haul, I thank my perfect partner, Jim.

{x v i i}

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 Preetz 32
54 Ribnitz

elb
e

r
ode
we
se
r
8
6 spr
ee

ems
Deventer 50 Helmstedt
Osnabruck
7 23 13
18 26
27 14
15
36 48 Münster

el
be
11
rh

Ghent Antwerp
ine

saale
17 51
12
Brussels Erfurt
33
e
meus

37 main

Trier Mainz
38
Nuremberg 43
marn 10 40
e
25 dan
Pforzheim 46 u be
22
Strasbourg 29 24 30 21
seine 45 20
34
31 Ulm
2 39 4 inn
1 3
49 Freiburg 16
9 42
52
55
19
44 28 47 41
0 mi 100 Zürich
Bern
0 km 100 53 35
5

Convents from Which Primary Sources by Women are Cited

(14th through Early 16th Century)
1. Adelhausen (sb) 19. Katharinental (sb) 33. Rolandswerth (lit) 49. Unterlinden (sb)
2. Alspach (lit) 20. Kirchberg (Württemberg) 34. Söflingen (lett) 50. Wienhausen (c)
3. Altomünster (c) (sb, r) 35. Sonnenburg (lett) 51. Weissfrauen Cloister,
4. Bickenkloster (c, lit, r) 21. Kirchheim unter Teck 36. St. Agnes, Emmerich (sb) Erfurt (lit)
5. Brixen (lett) (St. John Bapt.) (r) 37. St. Agnes, Mainz (lit) 52. Zoffingen (r)
6. Bronopia (lett) 22. Kirchheim am Ries (lit) 38. St. Agnes, Trier (j)
7. Deventer and Diepenveen 23. Lamme-van-Dieze House 39. St. Katharina, Colmar (lett) Primary Sources by Men
(sb, sb) in Deventer (sb) 40. St. Katharina, Nuremberg about Women
8. Ebstorf (c, c) 24. Lichtenthal (lit) (r, lett) 53. Inselkloster, Bern (c)
9. Engelport (lett) 25. Maihingen (c) 41. St. Katharina, St. Gall 54. Ribnitz (c)
10. Engelthal (sb) 26. Marienberg at Helmstedt (c, sb) 55. Schönensteinbach (c, sb)
11. Facons (lit) (lett) 42. St. Klara, Freiburg (lit)
12. Galilea in Ghent (lit) 27. Marienthal (Niesing) (c) 43. St. Klara, Nuremberg (lett) Legend:
13. Gertrudenberg (c) 28. Oetenbach (sb) 44. St. Maria Magdalena an c = chronicle
j = journal
14. Heiningen (c) 29. Penitents, St. Maria den Steinen (lit) lett = letter(s)
15. Herzebrock (c, c) Magdalena, Strasb. (lit) 45. St. Nicholas in Undis (r) lit = devotional work, poem,
16. Inzigkofen (c) 30. Pforzheim (r) 46. Steinheim (j) sermon reconstruction, vita
m = manual, handbook
17. Jericho in Brussels (lit) 31. Pfullingen (c) 47. Töss (sb) r = reform account
18. Jerusalem in Utrecht (lit) 32. Preetz (m) 48. Überwasser (c) sb = sister-book

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 Introduction
Women Writing in the Late Middle Ages

In the year , on the Feast of the Epiphany, an anonymous woman

completed a Book of Sisters, an account of the lives of sixty-six nuns of the
cloister of St. Agnes at Emmerich on the Rhine. Her narrative opens with
these words:

Here begins the prologue of the book of the sisters of St. Agnes in
Embrick [Emmerich], under the rule of St. Augustine, the life and
converse of the honorable sisters serving God at the cloister of St.
Agnes, which was founded in the year of our Lord . . . . Thus
have I undertaken to write a little—to the honor of God and the
Virgin—in praise of those who lived and for the edification of
those who will come after [us]—a consolation to all devout souls.
And because I am simple and uneducated, I desire that those who
read or hear this should not disdain it, but examine the lives and
virtues of those who are described in this book.1

Despite the author’s request for remembrance, her book reached few read-
ers and was all but forgotten for the next five hundred years. The one
surviving copy was discovered and edited by Anne Bollmann and Nikolaus
Staubach in . This kind of literary-historical obscurity is more the rule
than the exception for works by monastic women of the late Middle Ages.
It has led to the mistaken assumption that they left no substantial written
records about themselves. But, in fact, they did.
A survey of the remains of women’s convent libraries turns up many
similarly obscure vernacular convent chronicles, historical accounts, and
other kinds of writings. This book surveys works composed by women
in monastic orders during the fourteenth, fifteenth, and early sixteenth
centuries in Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Belgium, and the Netherlands.

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 Introduction

Produced in fifty-two different women’s communities, they include,

besides the Emmerich text, two other books of sisters, twelve women’s
cloister chronicles, five foundation narratives, six accounts by nuns of the
reform of convents, plus numerous other annals and historical writings.
While four of the women’s accounts are in Latin, the others are all in
dialects of German and East Netherlandish. Also included are three
women’s chronicles from a later period that cite verbatim from fifteenth-
and early sixteenth-century annals. These works, along with letters, poems,
and mystical and devotional texts comprise only a small part of medieval
women’s writings, which are still extant but unstudied in cloister, regional,
and national archives.2
The female monastics who produced these works represented a signifi-
cant presence in medieval society. Like many northern convents, the St.
Agnes cloister in Emmerich had originally been founded as a house of
Sisters of the Common Life but by the middle of the fifteenth century had
become a monastic community. Women’s houses of Devout Sisters were
the first to be founded by the devotio moderna or Common Life movement,
which began in the Netherlands toward the end of the fourteenth century,
and constituted the majority of Common Life establishments. Even though
only thirteen of the women’s communities were officially admitted to the
Windesheim Congregation (the movement’s monastic branch), houses of
Sisters of the Common Life outnumbered those of the Brothers by a ratio
approaching three to one.3 John Van Engen’s more conservative estimate
counts some forty male and ninety female houses spread throughout Hol-
land and Germany at the end of the fifteenth century.4 Despite their nu-
merical majority, however, the women of the movement were largely
ignored by the scholarly community until , when Gerhard Rehm pub-
lished a groundbreaking study of the Sisters of the Common Life in Ger-
many. By Rehm’s estimate German sister-houses numbered about seventy
as compared to twenty-five for the Brothers.5 Still, it took another twelve
years before the first extensive study of the cloister life and writings of the
women of the Windesheim Congregation appeared.6
In the more traditional monastic orders, the ratio of women’s to men’s
houses is less imposing than in the Common Life movement but remains
substantial. The number of female religious in Germany alone, c. , has
been estimated at between , and ,.7 From its founding c. ,
the women’s branch of the Dominican order grew so rapidly that, by the

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 Women Writing in the Late Middle Ages

early fourteenth century, there were seventy nunneries to forty-six friaries.8

Particularly in southern German cities such as Strasbourg, which alone was
home to no fewer than seven houses of Dominican nuns, religious women
constituted an important presence.9 In northern Germany, the high ratio of
nunneries to priories was primarily in the Cistercian order. Here one finds
in the sixteenth century forty-three women’s as compared to fifteen men’s
houses.10 Although nuns were outnumbered by male monastics in Europe
as a whole, the number of women religious approached or even exceeded
that of men in many places.11
Despite the significant numbers of these religious establishments, rela-
tively little is known about the day-to-day lives of the many women who
inhabited them from the point of view of the sisters themselves. Jeffrey
Hamburger’s recent books on medieval nuns as artists have provided essen-
tial information on the spiritual and artistic inner workings of German-
speaking communities. Yet, as Hamburger points out, this geographic re-
gion and historical period have long been neglected by North American
medievalists as compared with studies of French, Italian, and English nuns.
Much research remains to be done.12 Women were, for example, active
participants alongside men in the reform movements that swept the Ger-
man-speaking areas in the fifteenth century. They left behind accounts that
offer a different perspective on the struggle for renewal and reform on the
eve of the Reformation. Consequently, to fully understand the dynamics
of change that resulted in the radical religious upheavals of the Protestant
Reformation in the sixteenth century, those records require further study.
In their comprehensive history of women in Europe, Bonnie Anderson
and Judith Zinsser argue against the idea that the ‘‘invisible majority’’ had
‘‘no history’’ or achieved little that is ‘‘worthy of inclusion in the historical
record.’’13 Other women’s historians have asked provocatively whether a
‘‘master narrative,’’ which does not include half of the population, is legiti-
mate.14 Clearly, the past looks different, Joan Ferrante asserts, ‘‘just with
women sharing the stage.’’15 Fortunately, it is a very large stage and there is
plenty of room on it. The task now is to rewrite the action with faces,
names, and firsthand accounts from the women whose own histories and
works, like the Emmerich Book of Sisters, have long been gathering dust in
the archives.
Aside from a few mystical works composed by female visionaries, almost
all primary texts used by modern scholars to study medieval women were

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 Introduction

recorded by men.16 In addition to the vitae of charismatic, radically ascetic,

and even sometimes deranged women composed by their male confessors,
the most common documents studied have been court protocols, visitations
records, registers and charters.17 Perhaps it should not surprise that the
largest single source of information on the everyday life of medieval
women has been criminal court proceedings.18 A sampling of these kinds
of protocols, along with scholarly and popular accounts, can be found in
Eileen Power’s classic Medieval English Nunneries (), still the most
widely used authority on medieval convent life. For all its excellence and
splendid wealth of information, however, Power’s landmark study is almost
entirely lacking in sources actually written by women. Worse yet, many of
the popular songs, ribald and moral tales it includes depict nuns satirically
as naive, silly, vain, spiteful, or sexually unchaste.19 Critiquing these kinds of
salacious sources, Shulamith Shahar cites a typical twelfth-century nunnery
description attributed to Renart, in which a nun leaves her own infant
unattended in order to serve as midwife to other nuns who are about to
give birth.20
Reacting against such depictions, Caroline Walker Bynum asserts that
‘‘the stories men liked to tell about women reflected not so much what
women did as what men admired or abhorred. . . . It is crucial not to take
as women’s own self-image the sentimentalizing or the castigating of the
female in which medieval men indulged.’’ To overturn stereotypes like
these Bynum recommends studying ‘‘works in which women wrote about
their own visions and mystical experiences and about life among the sisters
in their households, beguinages, and convents.’’21
Unfortunately, these kinds of texts are hard to find. Although many
prominent women mystics’ writings can be documented, especially from
the thirteenth century on, in most cases their revelations were edited or
recorded not by the women themselves but with the assistance of well-
meaning and sympathetic male collaborators. The philological difficulties
this creates have led scholars to question whether a ‘‘female voice’’ can be
distinguished at all.22 A step in the right direction is Albrecht Classen’s
search for alternative sources. Classen suggests four areas or genres where
female voices from the Middle Ages can be identified. Listed are () reli-
gious songs, () love poetry in books of popular song, () letters for public
or private consumption, and () religious pamphlets of the Reformation
era.23 By broadening the range of texts to encompass writings that are less

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 Women Writing in the Late Middle Ages

conventionally ‘‘literary,’’ one can identify many more works by women.

These include histories, eyewitness reform reports, and cloister annals, as
well as more nontraditional sources such as prioresses’ manuals, books of
advice, and New Years’ addresses to their communities, books of sisters,
personal devotional books, meditational exercises and interpretations of
biblical texts, and even student compositions. This study comprises these
primary sources, along with more conventional types of writings.
One eye-opening effort to present some of these alternative tests to an
English-speaking audience is Daniel Bornstein’s translation of Bartolomea
Riccoboni’s chronicle and necrology of the convent of Corpus Domini in
Venice (–).24 Bornstein concludes that ‘‘far from being closed in
upon themselves and interested exclusively in their own spiritual lives, the
sisters of Corpus Domini were deeply engaged in the world beyond their
walls.’’ Indeed, the picture of women that emerges in Sister Bartolomea’s
chronicle diverges significantly from conventional wisdom about what
nuns in the late Middle Ages thought and were like. Bornstein asserts that
Sister Bartolomea’s chronicle is noteworthy because it records and illumi-
nates ‘‘a particularly dramatic moment in the long history of the Catholic
Church,’’ namely, the schism created by the election of three rival popes
and the great church councils subsequently called to deal with it.25 There
are, however, other reasons for studying this and other women’s accounts.
The texts collected in this study recall a similarly dramatic moment in
the history of the medieval church: the intense struggle for reform waged
by fifteenth-century activists in the Observant movement. But they also
record another important juncture. From the point of view of women’s
history, the fifteenth century constitutes a critical period in religious wom-
en’s efforts to find new avenues of engagement and self-expression. To
these women, activism in the Observant movement, to which most of
them belonged, offered alternatives to the old avenue of influence that had
been closed off to women by censorship of mystical and visionary writings.
At the same time that the Observance imposed a stricter rule, it placed
some women in positions of authority and created conditions that encour-
aged literary production, new networks of exchange between women’s
cloisters, and a more active role in the late medieval discourse on religious
piety and practice.
In the religious transformations that preceded the Reformation, both
male and female monastics were deeply involved. The fifteenth century,

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 Introduction

dominated by the great church councils, calls for religious change, and
efforts at top-down reform, was a time of intense religious ferment that
spawned countless middle- and lower-level reform initiatives.26 The Ob-
servant reform advocated, on the one hand, a return to the strict piety
practiced by the founders of the orders and, on the other, a new spirituality
similar to that of the devotio moderna or Common Life movement (which
was spreading at the same time from the Netherlands across northern Eu-
rope).27 Although the Observant revival was brought to prominence by the
great reform councils, its origins date back to the previous century. Having
begun in the s among Franciscans in Italy, the reformed piety was
promoted among Augustinians in the s, Dominicans in the s, and
reached the upper Rhine valley by the turn of the century. From there the
movement spread in the s throughout the German-speaking territor-
ies. By the early sixteenth century, it had achieved a majority hold in the
fatefully important province of Saxony, where Martin Luther, himself an
Observant, was a leader in the reformed faction of Augustinians.28 Local
initiatives such as these and a growing participation by secular authorities
in reforms paved the way for more radical and rapid changes to follow,
affecting the whole populace.
Among Dominicans, an approximately equal number of men’s and
women’s religious communities had joined the Observance by the s.
In spite of women’s participation and eye-witness reports, studies tradition-
ally have cited only accounts written by male activists, usually those by
Dominicans Johannes Nider and Johannes Meyer, and Augustinian Johan-
nes Busch. Even Constance Proksch’s  monograph on chronicles of
the reform movement, which draws on thirty-five convent histories, uses
only chronicles written by men.29 The chronicles and accounts written by
female reform activists have not been studied in a systematic way. Yet, in
these accounts, one reads of prioresses soliciting help from other prioresses
to introduce the Observance in their own communities, of groups of sisters
accompanying male activists on missions to reform other cloisters, and of
struggles inside convents between Observants and opponents of the reform.
By examining these and other texts, this study thus explores the distinctive
nature of women’s religious and literary activities at a key moment in both
the history of Western Christianity and the ongoing construction of a his-
tory for women. The accounts of the Observant reform from women’s
perspective are texts that must be integrated into the history of the Obser-

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 Women Writing in the Late Middle Ages

vant movement. Moreover, they call for a reconsideration of late medieval

women’s role, agency, and attitudes about themselves.
For the medieval female population, even more than for men, religion
was of critical cultural importance. Feminist historian Gerda Lerner has
called it ‘‘the primary arena on which women fought for hundreds of years
for feminist consciousness.’’30 Yet the fifteenth-century Observant reform
presents something of a dilemma in the feminist context. On the one hand,
the imposition of strict claustration on female monastics and the require-
ment that all goods be held in common are seen as attempts to subjugate
women and to appropriate their wealth.31 Understandably, then, feminist
scholars applaud their plucky medieval sisters who fought the efforts of
reformers to encloister them and place their private possessions in the con-
vent’s hands. In some convents women resisted physically, as did nuns at
Nuremberg, who for a time held off male reformers by brandishing a large
crucifix at them.32 In many other places, nuns left reformed cloisters for
other communities rather than join the Observance against their will. On
the other hand, at the same time that many women opposed the reform
there were others who supported it and were as committed to its goals as
male activists. Voting with their feet, many joined the rapidly expanding
new Observant communities. Others took part in the effort to spread the
movement, working side by side with men and sometimes independently.
What are scholars to do, for example, with women like Katharina von
Mühlheim who set off with parties of reformers to introduce the Obser-
vance at three other cloisters, or with prioresses like Sophie von Münster,
Margareta Zorn, and Margareta Regenstein, who each engaged in the re-
form of four cloisters? Clearly, it is difficult to decide who the heroines are
here: the women who fought for the movement or those who fought
against it. Most women religious opposed the strict seclusion, austerity, and
renunciation of private property demanded by the reformers. But, while
women who supported the reform constitute only a small group, they left
numerous records. Pictured in their own writings, these women saw them-
selves as active agents with positive political and spiritual agendas. It is now
clear that more studies are needed of women on both sides of the reform
controversy, as well as examinations of their agency and relationships to
their male mentors.
Feminists do not object to women launching reform efforts of their own
but rather to programs imposed on them from outside, especially when

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 Introduction

what male reformers imposed was ‘‘control.’’33 Yet to say that women were
subject to the machinations of religious and secular overlords is not to say
that female religious were uninterested in reform. What has been missing
is women’s own perspective on their situation, their struggles, aims, and
hopes. In her  study, historian Joan Ferrante cautioned that many
medieval women may rightly be characterized as ‘‘victims,’’ but for scholars
to concentrate too much on misogyny and the negative is to play into the
hands of the patriarchal view that ‘‘women were able to do little, therefore
they did nothing valuable.’’ Instead, Ferrante advocates studying what she
calls ‘‘examples of positive practice,’’ that is, women who ‘‘were active and
effective’’ despite prejudices and the constraints placed upon them.34 One
does not have to look far to find such accounts. The sources this study
examines are filled with portraits of active and effective women. These are
not queens and saints but less high-profile, more ordinary women, though
still of the patrician classes, whom female chroniclers celebrate for their
practical resourcefulness, leadership and personal virtue.
Because so little is known about cloister life from the point of view of
the women who lived it, Chapter  reviews recent scholarship, combining
it with women’s own depictions of life inside the walls of a medieval con-
vent. Does the assertion that convent life was repressed and monotonous,
a ‘‘horrible tedium,’’ agree with nuns’ own descriptions?35 Can the conflicts
that arose over reform justly be called ‘‘trivial nuns’ squabbling,’’ as another
scholar asserts?36 A look at women’s own narratives about their lives inside
the convent reveals a surprisingly broad range of theatrical, literary, and
artistic pursuits. Far from a sense of repression, these nun’s self-portraits
convey a very positive opinion of themselves and their spiritual work. As
educational and living establishments for the upper classes, medieval con-
vents played an essential role in the ‘‘economy of social prestige.’’ Admis-
sion to an exclusive convent was often a coveted position and a way of
achieving higher social status. In narratives by medieval women, who had
few options, often none desirable, the convent is frequently depicted as a
safe haven offering them an alternative and a choice.
Besides preserving the extensive and influential family connections of
the convents’ inhabitants in medieval society, women’s religious houses
served important roles as money-lending institutions, adjudicators of legal
disputes, and recorders of wills, deeds, and transactions. Beyond this, wom-
en’s religious houses constituted a significant presence through the religious

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 Women Writing in the Late Middle Ages

services their parish churches provided, their performance of the liturgical

offices, the keeping of lists of the dead, and the offering of prayers for the
souls of the deceased. The extent of these multiple, interlocking social,
financial, and spiritual links between religious houses and the lay commu-
nity are reflected in the intense engagement of the lay populace in conflicts
over convent reforms that erupted in the fifteenth century.
Chapter  examines how the environment for women religious changed
from the thirteenth to the sixteenth century, as reflected in fourteenth- and
fifteenth-century narratives. In these works, the sisters depict the origins of
their communities as beguine settlements. They celebrate how the ‘‘found-
ing mothers’’ established religious houses in the thirteenth century and tell
stories about women seeking an alternative religious lifestyle, setting up
their own communities, supporting each other financially, and working
together in strikingly nonhierarchical relationships with male advisors.
Their foundation stories depict the women’s struggle to achieve regular
status, acceptance into religious orders, and the sanction of the church hier-
archy. While some of the foundation histories were written in the fifteenth
century, others date from the fourteenth century and earlier. All the stories,
however, were written for female audiences and all feature female protago-
nists as active, self-directed agents.
By the fifteenth century, conditions had begun to change rapidly as divi-
sions within the Catholic church reached crisis proportions. At the same
time that church councils and new religious movements took up the ban-
ner of reform, city councils and territorial princes stepped in to demand
greater control and oversight of religious institutions. Dominican women’s
houses—by then recognized fixtures of the religious establishment—
became subjects of the newly influential laity’s vision of a more pious soci-
ety. Themselves members of the increasingly powerful and affluent urban
non-noble class, Observant reformers questioned the privileges and im-
munities of the old religious elite and campaigned to open cloisters to a
wider spectrum of the population. Thus, for some women of the burgher
classes, reform gave access to positions of leadership in convents.
After tracing the development of the Observant movement, the follow-
ing chapters will look at the women who supported and opposed it. Chap-
ter  focuses on those who took part in spreading the Observance, both
women who willingly undertook or even initiated it and those who were
drafted to go out with reform parties. Not all of the nuns who participated

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 Introduction

as reformers wrote about it, but several of them left firsthand accounts. Like
the convent foundation narratives, these reform artifacts place women in
the foreground and portray them with agency and initiative, with strong,
capable, and dedicated personalities. They particularly prize leadership abil-
ities, the same qualities, ironically, that enabled women to successfully op-
pose the reform.
Chapter  looks at these opponents. Examining case studies of the re-
form’s most famous failures, it reviews the strategies women used to fend
off takeovers by reformers. In successful resistance campaigns, women were
able to solicit effective support from their networks among the minor no-
bility. Rejecting any interference in the internal affairs of their houses, ab-
besses fought to stay in power and avert infringements of the convent’s
independence or social prestige. In elite houses, the critical issue was often
loss of privileges for the nobility and the admission of women of lower
rank. While some Conventual houses supported a more moderate kind of
reform, they staunchly resisted the loss of private property and more austere
practices, insisting that their traditional piety and way of life were in no
way inferior.
Always at the core of this conflict was the difficult issue of enclosure.
More complicated than merely an effort by the church hierarchy to further
subjugate women, the move was bound up with public pressures of an
economic, political, and social nature. Among the Observants, the ideal of
withdrawal from the world was advocated as a spiritual necessity and pro-
posed for men as well as women. Surprisingly, enclosure was used, in some
instances, by women as a way to limit secular access and outside interfer-
ence in their affairs. But the opponents of the reform were unmoved and
resisted enclosure, often quite successfully, to defend their interests both as
individuals and as communities.
Chapter  examines the explosion of scribal activity that occurred in
Observant women’s convents. Especially in the houses reached by the
Bursfeld reform, primarily Benedictine and Cistercian communities, much
effort was put into copying the new liturgical texts that had been mandated
as part of the Bursfeld program to simplify and standardize the liturgy. But
in all orders, books and often a program of education were some of the
most important things reforming sisters brought with them. For Dominican
women, reformer Johannes Meyer promoted a reading plan and a booklist.
Under the Observance, communal and individual reading assumed signifi-

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 Women Writing in the Late Middle Ages

cance as a means of introducing the newly reformed sisters to the spiritual-

ity of the movement.
The result was what Werner Williams-Krapp has called a ‘‘literary explo-
sion’’ of text production.37 Library collections expanded at a rapid rate as
books were copied and exchanged among Observant houses through a
network of interlibrary loans. Although almost all of the collections built
up in this expansion of women’s libraries have since been dispersed or
destroyed, a few medieval catalogues of what was contained in them re-
main. These inventories are impressive. The largest library to have partially
survived was that of the Dominican sisters of St. Katharina in Nuremberg,
which comprised some  to  volumes. In its time, the library at St.
Katharina constituted the largest collection of German-language manu-
scripts of the Middle Ages. In most houses, the greatest expansion occurred
in the first fifty to seventy-five years following the reform. Even though
only ten percent of cloisters belonged to the Observance, this small number
of houses produced ninety percent of the manuscripts from the period.38
At St. Katharina, approximately half of the volumes housed there were
copied by the sisters themselves.
Authorized by the Observance to keep records, write histories, and copy
works to supply the growing demand for devotional literature, the women
began to make their own translations from Latin into the vernacular. They
also composed original poems, interpretations of biblical texts, devotional
works, tracts, books of practical advice, accounts of the reform, and con-
vent chronicles. For their personal study and reflection they compiled col-
lections of excerpts from religious works. In addition, they collected
sermons by their own ‘‘house preachers’’ and by guest preachers. Some
sermons were copied, others summarized or reconstructed from notes. The
result is that virtually all of the surviving vernacular sermons were preserved
and made into collections by women, producing a literature primarily for
female audiences. Despite the long neglect of women’s works, it is becom-
ing clear that, in both Germany and the Low Countries, the fifteenth cen-
tury constituted a period of extremely active religious literary and scribal
engagement on the part of women.
Drawing some conclusions about the nature and aims of feminine writ-
ing and its distinctiveness, Chapter  considers the strategies used and roles
played by religious women in late medieval piety. While in earlier centuries
mysticism had given them a voice and a means of exercising power, by the

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 Introduction

fifteenth century this power had been heavily eroded through increased
censorship. Deprived of visionary revelations as a route to influence,
women began to focus on other literary modes. Accordingly, the portraits
they draw of themselves in fifteenth-century chronicles differ from those
of earlier mystical works and from what nineteenth- and twentieth-century
literary historians asserted was innately and typically ‘‘female.’’ The self-
portraits of women in fifteenth-century chronicles are just as much literary
fictions as those in earlier visionary writing, but they serve different aims.
Instead of charismatics who fall into trances, the new heroines are portrayed
as in the world rather than out of it. They are models of spiritual fervor but
also of practical skills and attainable virtues. The chronicles depict convent
inhabitants as aware of their history, contrast the old with the new, and
celebrate the introduction and continuation of the Observance. Aimed at
a new generation, they seek to inspire their audiences to persevere in the
reform.
The larger range of texts that are available in the fifteenth century makes
it possible to compare parallel works by men and women and circumvent
some of the problems of mediation that have always plagued studies of
‘‘women’s’’ writing. In form, convent writings do not conform to estab-
lished models but tend to be idiosyncratic and eclectic. The language used
by the female vernacular chroniclers is less educated and bears a closer
resemblance to spoken than conventional written language. The tone is
immediate and personal, unlike that of conventional chronicles. Women
frequently use the first person, address the reader directly, and speak of the
community as ‘‘we’’ and ‘‘our.’’ Their texts concentrate much more than
the men’s on the religious life itself. Yet women’s concentration on re-
formed spirituality does not have only an internal focus. Perhaps the most
surprising discoveries of my research are examples of convent sisters editing
texts specifically for distribution to the laity. For these sermon transcribers
and editors, the Observance provided an arena for active engagement in
the religious conversation of the day.
The sources upon which this study relies illustrate many of the difficul-
ties of working with women’s texts. First of all, they are texts of many
types, dispersed over a large region (see map, page xviii) and a -year
timespan. Besides letters and various kinds of devotional works, they in-
clude fourteenth-century Dominican women’s collections of mystical vitae
that contain convent foundation narratives (Adelhausen, Engelthal, Katha-

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 Women Writing in the Late Middle Ages

rinental, Oetenbach, Töss, and Unterlinden), fifteenth- and sixteenth-cen-

tury vitae of sisters in houses of the New Devout (Deventer, Diepenveen,
Emmerich), chronicles, housebooks, annals, and journals (Altomünster,
Ebstorf [], Heiningen, Herzebrock [], Maihingen, Marienthal, Pful-
lingen, St. Gall, Überwasser, Zoffingen), reform accounts (Kirchberg, Kir-
chheim, Nuremberg, Pforzheim, Steinheim), and manuals or handbooks
(Preetz, St. Gall). In addition, there are two chronicles in manuscripts that
extend beyond this time period but cite excerpts verbatim from New Years’
addresses by Prioress Ursula Haider in  and , and excerpts from
the old Inzigkofen chronicle of .39 The Wienhausen chronicle, from a
manuscript dated , is included because it contains entries copied from
the earlier Low German, fifteenth-century chronicle.40
The problems of establishing women’s authorship are fewer than might
be supposed. In the best cases, as in the Adelhausen sister-book, the writer
identifies herself with the colophon, ‘‘I, Sister Anna von Munzingen, who
composed this book.’’41 Similarly, the ‘‘Book in the Choir’’ at cloister
Preetz begins with the words, ‘‘In the year of our Lord , on the vigil of
St. Michael, this book, which was begun by me, Anna von Buchwald, in
, was completed and finished.’’42 In other cases, a writer may be anon-
ymous because she identifies herself only as ‘‘I, Sister Anna, Prioress,’’ as in
the Maihingen ‘‘Housebook,’’ for example, where three prioresses have
compatible dates and bear this first name.43 Often the author does not name
herself but interjects revealing personal comments, as does the chronicler
of Pfullingen, who says, ‘‘As I write this, I have great hopes that the Lord
will not abandon us,’’ and ‘‘Pray to God for the writer, she composed this
for you out of love.’’44 In the chronicle of Ebstorf, the narrator uses the
pronoun ‘‘we,’’ and speaks of her colleagues as ‘‘the daughters.’’45 In cases
where sufficient internal clues in the text itself are lacking, the gender of the
writer and sometimes even the name have been revealed by other convent
documents. Because institutional documents were continually added on
to, however, the issue becomes problematic when the earlier entries were
recopied by later hands. Sometimes, as at Maihingen, the abbess collected
the materials and prepared an outline, which scribes completed.
An example of the complicated, layered history of many of these texts is
the case of the Töss sister-book, some, but clearly not all, of which was
composed by Elsbeth Stagel (d. ca. ).46 In the fifteenth century, a pro-
logue, an epilogue, a vita of Henry Suso’s mother and one of Elsbeth herself

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 Introduction

were appended to the work by Johannes Meyer (–) who copied

and edited three of the nine sister-books (those of Töss, Katharinental, and
Oetenbach). Meyer, one of the earliest and most radical of the Dominican
Observants, realized that the women’s texts of the previous century, with
their emphasis on poverty, virtue, and spiritual devotion, could supply spir-
itually edifying vernacular readings for women in newly reformed cloisters.
Yet Ruth Meyer, who compared other manuscripts of the St. Katharinental
sister-book to Johannes Meyer’s version of it (in the same manuscript with
the Töss sister-book), finds that Meyer’s changes to the body of the text
were limited to modifying chapter headings, rewording unclear passages,
and removing three sections that he did not consider sufficiently edifying.
Meyer’s prologue and epilogue are the only parts not found in other manu-
scripts of the Katharinental text.47 Since they do not differ appreciably from
the sister-books that Meyer did not edit, the three sister-books abridged by
him are regarded as essentially the women’s own work. Scholars agree that,
unlike other women’s texts of the fourteenth century, sister-books were
conspicuously lacking in the influence of confessors either as initiators or
as advisors to their composition.48
Another difficulty is that many of the sources in this study are accessible
only as unpublished manuscripts or as transcriptions made in the eighteenth
or nineteenth century and printed whole or in excerpted form in regional
or difficult-to-access periodicals. Magdalena Kremer’s chronicle of the re-
form of cloister Kirchheim is available, for example, in a collection of docu-
ments on the history of the counts of Württemberg, published in .
Except for the Dominican sister-books, preserved in multiple copies made
by the Observants, almost all of the women’s chronicles, manuals, journals,
and reform accounts have survived from the Middle Ages in only one single
manuscript copy, often still located in a convent library or regional archive.
Like Magdalena Kremer’s chronicle, printed because it recounts deeds of
three of the counts of Württemberg, the parts of women’s chronicles that
have been published most often are those that contain accounts of wars and
revolts. The only sections of the chronicle of Überwasser in print are epi-
sodes that relate the Anabaptist uprising in Münster in –.49 Thus, in
many women’s works, the sections dealing with ‘‘important events’’ have
been deemed worthy of publication, while the rest has not.
The question of genre is complicated by the fact that even internally
these texts are not of one type. Typically, they are hodgepodge collections,

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 Women Writing in the Late Middle Ages

combining letters, inventories, financial accounts, and general advice, in-

terspersed piecemeal within a sort of chronicle format. As such, they do
not conform to conventional notions of ‘‘literature’’ or belong to estab-
lished genres. Indeed, many of these institutional annals are such idiosyn-
cratic hybrids as to defy categorization. Rather, they constitute a subgenre
of their own that has so far received no attention. Even institutional texts
by named writers such as Anna von Buchwald and Magdalena Kremer are
not included in the Verfasserlexikon, the standard reference work on Ger-
man medieval writers. Because these and other women’s institutional writ-
ings do not fall into traditional categories or qualify as literary texts in the
conventional sense, they have long been excluded from the most broadly
defined canon.
Their character as hybrid works makes dealing with them ‘‘whole’’
problematic, since they can be read in so many different ways. Anna von
Buchwald’s ‘‘Book in the Choir,’’ although largely about liturgical reform,
is also a chronicle and ledger book that can be read as an economic and
social history of the cloister. Yet it is just as much an autobiography of Anna
herself. Moreover, in dealing with texts that cover events extending from
the thirteenth through the sixteenth centuries, a single study can focus only
on a few of the many topics and in a limited time frame. Since the chroni-
cles were written in the wake of the Observant movement, a primary
theme in them is reform. As noted, the last chapter of this study examines
the complex question of how they were composed, what political agendas
the women had in mind, and the relationship between power and text
production.
For the most part, these women’s texts are not finished literary works or
intended as such, but examples of utilitarian record keeping and narrative
accounts that were written down ‘‘for the record,’’ as a witness to current
and future generations. Yet, despite all the factual, historical, and financial
data contained in them, cloister chronicles are also representations that se-
lect out of the everyday certain events to which the writer wants to give
particular significance. Although not considered ‘‘literature’’ in the tradi-
tional sense, chronicles are literary fictions just as much as they are ‘‘docu-
ments,’’ a distinction that New Cultural historians have for the most part
abandoned as moot, if not meaningless.50 Indeed, the move of literary and
cultural historians from an aesthetic to a more anthropological perspective
has led to a more inclusive approach, one that views literary texts as parts

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 Introduction

of a larger cultural discourse encompassing all kinds of written artifacts. In

this context, then, convent annals do not need to be upgraded to ‘‘litera-
ture’’ to be worthy of study.
Examining only parts of hybrid works, each one with its own compli-
cated history, has its limitations. In drawing from a diverse set of writings
from fifty-two different houses, this study cannot treat more than a few of
them whole. Instead, I have attempted to put together a broader composite
picture from the fragments and disparate sources that have survived—a
mosaic like the works themselves. Dealing with the texts piecemeal and
anecdotally does not assume, however, that they constitute a transparent
window on the past. Clearly, each has, along with a complex textual gene-
sis, its own recognized discursive agenda.
From the point of view of gender identity, however, the women’s own
words are also important. These surviving accounts from the Middle Ages
have been neglected for so long that these female voices are heard here in
many cases for the first time. It is exactly because they are so unfamiliar
that they have been allowed to speak as much as possible, for themselves
and anecdotally in their own words. No longer can it be said, as one scholar
has observed: ‘‘Apart from a few exceptions—accounts about women in
the Middle Ages were written only by men: at first almost exclusively by
clerics, then more and more often lay persons, but again only men. Behind
these [men’s] accounts we perceive only the murmuring of numberless,
nameless—or named but not consulted—unheard women.’’51
Before long, as more and more women’s accounts are recovered, this
statement will be ancient history. Women will acquire names, their mur-
muring will become distinct speech, and their contributions will be recog-
nized. This study brings onto the stage and into the spotlight many women
whose names, lives, and writings were previously little known. It demon-
strates that women did not murmur but spoke distinctly in written records
of many different kinds beyond the mystical works that are most often
associated with them. In addition to examining the written records these
religious women left behind, this study recognizes their contributions as
users, selectors, and transmitters of texts. For in the late Middle Ages it was
women who constituted the principle audience for sermons and devotional
literature in the vernacular. Moreover, as makers of personal collections of
extracts and sermon summaries, as well as compilers of anthologies, con-
vent women’s choices and collective reading preferences influenced the

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 Women Writing in the Late Middle Ages

selection, promotion, and transmission of the works that have come down
to us. By preserving these works in their libraries and repositories, by ex-
changing them among themselves and with the laity (even editing some),
convent women were major participants in and helped to shape the vernac-
ular discourse on religious piety and reform in the period leading up to the
Reformation.

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 
Late Medieval Nunneries
Accounts by Women

Although much has been said about the absence of women in the historical
master narrative, little has been written about the histories that women
themselves produced. Yet as far back as Hrosvit of Gandersheim’s Origins of
the Convent of Gandersheim (c. /) and Sister Bertha’s Life of Adelheid,
Abbess of Vilich () women have been writing chronicles, histories, and
accounts of their own. The reason these and similar works have been ne-
glected in the ‘‘grand récit’’ is illustrated by the comments of Carl Corne-
lius, mid–nineteenth-century editor of the ‘‘Chronicle of the Sisterhouse
Marienthal’’ (c. ). In his introduction, Cornelius explains that the
work ‘‘confines itself strictly to the fortunes of the cloister which in times
of peace are insignificant and of no interest to a larger audience. Only
where the uprising [of Anabaptists in Münster] intrudes into the quiet life
of the women does it acquire historical import.’’1 Today, however, histori-
cal import is being defined in new ways that recognize competing subcul-
tures and encompass alternative points of view. Gender theorists argue, for
example, that power can be understood in paradigms other than public
authority, and feminists are looking for methods of analyzing women’s
agency through social processes and cultural transformations.2 Most re-
cently, attention has been drawn to feminine social networks, alliances, and
to the cultural impact of these subgroups in medieval society.3
Although female religious were regarded in the nineteenth century and
earlier as ‘‘insignificant’’ and as having no ‘‘historical import,’’ newer sec-
ondary research and the narratives that medieval convent women them-
selves wrote have shown them to be much more intimately connected
throughout medieval society than was previously recognized. Their letters
to family members, for example, and the correspondence between prior-
esses recording exchanges of gifts and advice indicate some of the social
networks in which convent women were engaged and the personal

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 Convent Chronicles

contacts they maintained. These and other artifacts demonstrate that female
religious were by no means silent or cut off from society. Some of the texts
to be looked at here highlight, for example, their social and economic
presence as operators of boarding schools, employers of workers and arti-
sans, producers of cloth and books, dispensers of food to the poor, and
providers of places of retirement for widows and the elderly.
Fourteenth-century records for the city of Freiburg show that the city
contained, besides five large women’s cloisters, at least  women living
in ten houses as unincorporated religious groups.4 In , men’s and
women’s convents together owned one-sixth of all the properties within
the central city and by  they had increased their holdings to one-fifth.5
Secular constituencies regularly borrowed from or invested capital with
religious communities. In addition to their significant physical and financial
presence, women’s cloisters had familial ties to the townsfolk, as institutions
where the sisters, daughters, aunts, and cousins of many of the most pros-
perous and prominent families lived. In convent parish churches, nuns and
parishioners worshiped together, separated by a screen. This proximity to
the holy women was valued because it was believed to heighten the power
and significance of parishioners’ prayers.6 Moreover, to be buried near them
and to have the nuns pray for one’s soul would lessen time in purgatory.
By maintaining lists of the dead for whom they prayed, nuns thus served as
keepers of written records, which included also the wills, charters, deeds,
and transactions of the secular community. Not least, for people living in
the vicinity of the cloister, life was regulated by the ringing of the convent’s
bells.7
While the chronicles and literary texts that medieval convent women
produced provide an alternative narrative to the dominant male-produced
one, they do not contradict it on all points. Rather, as participants in the
same institutional system, the female writers reflect and vary the ideological
views that produced these institutions. Their perspective on institutional
ideology differs significantly on one point, however, from that of the mas-
ter narrative: in all of these texts women are at the center rather than at the
margins or in the background. They are active and not passive agents.
Beside the ‘‘women worthies’’ of the kind portrayed as models of feminine
virtue by Plutarch, Bocaccio, or the authors of saints’ lives, convent wom-
en’s narratives include portraits of many more of the rank and file. By
describing themselves differently, choosing other issues, images, and infor-

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 Late Medieval Nunneries

Image not available

Fig.  Petrarca-Master, woodcut from [Francesco Petrarca,] Von der Artzney beyder Glück,
des guten und widerwertigen (About the Medicine of Both Kinds of Fate: The Good and the
Vexatious). Book , chapter . Edited by Georg Spalatin and Peter Stahel. Augsburg:
Steyner, .

mation from those presented by the dominant narrative, they call into ques-
tion its ability to offer a whole or valid picture of medieval life. Certainly,
the satirical stereotypes of nuns in the many ribald tales and songs that
have come down to us, caricatures such as the popular sixteenth-century
woodcut of nun as ‘‘cloister cat’’ (see Fig. ), leave room for alternative
representations.8

It is not that women’s accounts are more ‘‘factual’’ than popular tales or
depictions by male biographers. They are literary representations and self-
fashionings just as imaginative as other medieval literary works, biographies,
histories, and documents. But they differ in being unmediated by male
collaborators, have different agendas, and address different issues. Though
composed by women, they are not ‘‘voices’’ per se but literary self-depic-
tions serving particular functions for the communities of female religious
in which they were composed. Less the creations of individuals than of

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 Convent Chronicles

these communities, the chronicles, annals, and sister-books were often

written and added on to by a succession of female contributors. As institu-
tional texts, these collective portraits constructed a group identity by com-
piling a narrative about the community’s past and providing role models
for both present and future generations of sisters. They were intended to
foster a sense of common mission and commitment to the community.
Many works also function as reform literature, produced by women em-
powered by the Observance to write histories of their houses (see Chapter
).
But before turning to the Observant movement and its implications for
late-medieval women religious, this chapter will look at the situation of
convent women from the point of view of recent secondary literature and
also as represented in accounts by medieval women themselves on topics
they chose to address. The questions of greatest concern to them, although
relating to their own community, also reflect social issues and developments
in the larger society of which convents were an integral part. Their anec-
dotes deal with a wide range of significant issues, including marriage, inher-
itances, social status, dowries and financial assets, the costs and problems of
running a cloister, the economic impact of convent labor and its products
on the secular community, poor relief, standards of living, hygiene, nutri-
tion, longevity, literacy, education, patronage of the arts and artistic pro-
duction, male-female friendships, working relationships with stewards,
clerical overseers, and, of course, religious life.
The striking thing about these convent women’s self-portraits in all types
of texts—whether chronicles, vitae, manuals, letters, or student essays—is
their depiction of themselves as self-determining, active agents taking the
initiative in solving the problems that face them. Collectively, they express
a strong sense of self-worth and, in first-person narratives, indicate many
forceful personalities. While some portraits are hagiographic, idealized de-
pictions, others are more realistic and sober biographies. Especially in these
latter works, and in their everyday letters exchanging opinions and practical
advice, convent women seem much more ‘‘normal’’ than in traditional
external depictions of them, their lives more varied and often more difficult
than in popular stereotypes. The stories women tell to women are clearly
different from those that men tell to them or those that men tell about
them to men. In the same way that audiences influence the nature of the
narrative, these literary representations for female readers and hearers con-

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 Late Medieval Nunneries

tain agendas that are specific to women’s cultural situation. This situation
will be considered below, as background to the reforms by combining sec-
ondary sources with accounts narrated by medieval women who viewed it
from the inside.

Why Women Entered Cloisters: Nun’s Stories

One of the foremost issues in the writings of inhabitants of convents was

the question of why they were there. In some cases, entry into a convent
is depicted as a trauma or crisis situation, in others a matter of course. Often
women in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, before the Observant
reforms, entered religious houses as young children, sometimes at the death
of a parent. Typical is the comment on Elisabeth von Weiler who, as the
author of the Weiler sister-book matter-of-factly relates, ‘‘was five years of
age, when she came to the cloister.’’9 Jutta Sperling remarks that patrician
girls in sixteenth-century Venice were sent off to convents ‘‘as soon as they
could walk, speak, and eat on their own.’’ There they grew up and received
a rudimentary education. If a marriage could not be arranged for them by
their parents they simply remained in the convent where they had grown
up among friends and female relatives.10 Some scholars thus suggest that
girls placed as children in a convent were not likely to be ‘‘fired by a sense
of religious vocation,’’ but in many accounts convent life seems rather to
have fostered it.11 Magdalena Kremer writes, for example, in her ‘‘Chroni-
cle of Kirchheim’’ (c. ) of Subprioress Elisabeth Herwert, one of the
reformers from Alsace, who had lived in a convent from childhood but
transferred to join an Observant community.

This sister had been from childhood at the cloister of St. Katharina
in Augsburg, also of the Dominican order. And when she became
an adult, God began to work in her conscience so that she con-
ceived the desire to go to the cloister of Schönensteinbach, which
was the first and oldest cloister of the Observance in the German
provinces. And when she had received permission from her superi-
ors and had traveled as far as Sélestat, she heard that there was
fighting in the area [Alsace] and that she could not get to Schönen-
steinbach. So she asked for shelter in cloister Sylo at Sélestat [also

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an Observant house]. This was granted, and she liked this cloister
so much that she asked to remain there.12

Elisabeth later came with a party of seven sisters from Sylo to reform the
cloister of Kirchheim (in Württemberg). The practice of taking in children
was disapproved of, however, by the Observant reformers in the fifteenth
century, who raised the cloister entrance age to fourteen and closed many
convent schools for children.
In some cases, girls were placed in convents as orphans when one parent
remarried, or simply because parents sought a secure, religious life for their
daughter and spiritual insurance for themselves. The Emmerich Book of
Sisters () tells of Beel te Mushoel (d. ), whose father died. Her
mother, wishing to remarry, placed her in the cloister on the advice of
relatives. The account narrates in a very realistic way how the fourteen-
year-old girl was homesick and had trouble adjusting to her new home
among the Sisters of the Common Life.

When she came to live here she was a nice, likeable girl of about
fourteen years of age who in better days had been tenderly raised
by her mother. And therefore it was exceedingly difficult for her
when she had to leave her mother. But, because she saw that her
mother desired it and it was her wish, she acquiesced, although it
was trying and difficult for her. For she had been high spirited and
merry and now had to behave in a restrained, subdued manner.
Oh, this life seemed so unsettling to her that her heart failed her
when she thought that she must spend her life here. But our Lord
helped her, so that with time things got better. For when she
learned to read the Holy Scriptures, she began to acquire the
knowledge and love of God.
She showed herself to be industrious and learned to do all the
things that our sisters did. She came to the workhouse and there
she was uncommonly useful and helpful and assisted those with
whom she worked [spinning or weaving]. For she was reliable in
her work and did not spare herself. It was her custom to do it
vigorously, as though she were the strongest of all; such was her
willing character. . . . When she was young, this good sister often
had to master herself with great effort, for she was very merry and

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 Late Medieval Nunneries

lively by nature and loved talking with people. Thus her nature
and this life were like light and darkness. And therefore she had a
hard, difficult life and had to overcome her nature and break it. I
believe that many a saint in heaven did not have as hard a time of
it as this life was for her.

Beel successfully made the adjustment, according to the narrator, and then
had to face another one when the sisterhouse became an enclosed August-
inian cloister in . Beel struggled with the decision. Because of her
reluctance, she sought the advice of a renowned holy woman, Mechthild
van der Mollen, who ‘‘ignited’’ her heart with a vibrant spiritual vocation:

[S]he was distressed and afflicted in her heart, for it seemed impos-
sible to her to bear the restrictions of the rule. And she thought
and considered that she would rather leave here, before she would
do that. . . . [S]he wanted first to visit a holy woman who lived at
Nijmegen and was called Mechthild van der Mollen, of whom she
had heard many wonderful things, for example, that she received
from God secret and hidden things and knew the future and made
prophecies. She conceived a great desire to visit this Mechthild,
received permission from her superiors, and traveled together with
another sister to Nijmegen to see the woman and speak to her. . . .
They talked affectionately and fervently with one another for a
long time, such that through the working of the Holy Spirit and
the earnest and ardent urging of the worthy woman Mechthild,
Sister Beel’s heart became completely ignited by the love of God
and she resolved to join the holy order.13

This account goes on to tell of Sister Beel’s spiritual transformation and

later of a terrible accident in which she fell onto the point of a pole, which
poked out her eyeball and blinded her in one eye. Yet Beel overcomes her
grief at this accident, regains her natural cheerfulness, and becomes a model
and inspiration to other members of the community.

Marriage Rejected?
In narratives composed by women from the fourteenth through the six-
teenth centuries at both convents and sisterhouses of the Common Life,

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 Convent Chronicles

avoidance of an unwanted marriage is a frequent scenario.14 The Emmerich

Book of Sisters tells how Mechtelt van Diedem (d. ), the second woman
to lead the young community, joined when she heard that she was to be
shown to a man that her parents wanted her to marry. Mechtelt seems to
have been traumatized by the prospect and was reluctant to be introduced.
Her relatives’ attempt to trick her into it precipitated a decision to seek the
safe haven and the alternative of a religious life among the sisters. Although
stressing the honorableness of the match, the story focuses on Mechtelt’s
mental state and her secret pondering of her decision. At last, the account
reports, she took matters into her own hands.

Mechtelt van Diedem was born in one of the best and most promi-
nent families of this city of Emmerich. Her parents were good
people who honored and served God and raised their daughter
tenderly and honorably. And when she had reached her maturity,
so that she was eighteen years of age, her parents decided, on the
advice of friends and relatives, to fit the girl out richly and respect-
ably in marriage to a well born established man of the world. So it
happened that her friends were to travel to Wesel to a great wed-
ding that was to be held there and they took this young woman,
Mechtelt, with them. And they planned that the man to whom
they wanted to give her in marriage should come there so that he
could see her. For she was a very charming, attractive, pleasant
person, whom one could very honorably and appropriately take to
wife. After they had arrived at Wesel, this excellent young woman
learned of what her friends wanted to do. Now when she heard
this, she kept silent about it and went secretly aboard a ship and
sailed back home so that her friends and relatives knew nothing of
it. So she came in obedience to God and at the urging of the Holy
Ghost to the sisters who had only recently started this community,
and humbly asked that she might join them and serve God together
with them.15

Narratives of this kind are so numerous in women’s writings as to constitute

a major theme in their works. A less realistic account, but more program-
matic as a protest, is the case of Hedwig von Gundelsheim, narrated by
Katharina von Gueberschwihr in the Unterlinden sister-book (c. ),

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which tells how Hedwig, who was not willing to wed, steadfastly refused
to open her hand to swear the marriage vow.

It was also the custom that a sword should be brought in upon

which the groom and the bride were to place their thumbs so that
the vows could be made valid. She, however, made her hand into
a fist and clamped her thumb inside so tightly that no one, even
using great force, could pull it out. When, however, some said,
that her whole hand must be laid on the sword, she put up such
resistance that no man by his strength could get her hand out of
her pocket.

The story relates how the bridegroom sensibly felt pity for her, released her
from the marriage contract and withdrew. But the distraught parents turned
her over to an uncle who beat her and housed her in a pigsty. When
the girl became dangerously ill, the uncle—afraid of being charged with
homicide—called for advisers and his priest. The advisers declared, writes
Katharina with passion: ‘‘The murderers are all those who treated the girl
in such an inhumane fashion.’’ The advisors decide that the girl, should she
survive, must be allowed to enter a religious order, ‘‘since they had discov-
ered how she could not be moved either by threats, flattery, or martyrdom,
to enter the married state.’’16
While women’s accounts do not differ from men’s on the issue of chas-
tity, the women’s narratives pointedly and vigorously condemn all who
would give women in marriage against their will. The girls in these stories
defy parental authority by escaping to the safe haven of a religious commu-
nity and devoting themselves to Christ. While the sober vitae composed at
sisterhouses and convents of the New Devout use marriage-rejection stories
to illustrate how an act of expediency develops into a true vocation for
piety, the earlier Dominican sister-books tend to depict a radical commit-
ment to chastity already fully developed from the beginning. They portray
extreme situations in which heroic female spiritual athletes demonstrate
charismatic power. More will be said about these kinds of narratives as a
strategy for exercising agency in Chapter .
Other typical accounts describe sisters who were ‘‘married against their
will’’ and then entered the convent after being widowed.17 Bynum notes
that young women were generally given in wedlock at fifteen or seventeen

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to men on average thirteen to fifteen years their senior,18 an age discrepancy

that—for the lesser partner, anyway—may have increased the unequalness
and unhappiness of the relationship. Young widows might, thus, have cho-
sen retirement in a convent over remarriage. Christine de Pizan (–c.
), widowed in her early twenties, chose the convent for her daughter
but not for herself. She, however, advised women to remain in their wid-
owhood, saying: ‘‘The lot of the married woman is sometimes no sweeter
than that of one who has been taken captive by the Saracens.’’19
Women living in convents were not only free from the dangers of con-
tinuous childbearing but also less likely to contract contagious diseases, and
lived well beyond the childbearing years. The average lifespan of abbesses
in the Middle Ages—estimated at . years—exceeds by almost thirty
years that of women outside the cloister who lived on average only .
years.20 On the vegetarian diet of many convents, some women survived
to a very great age. The sister-book of Töss (c. ) mentions Adelhait
von Lindow, who reached the age of one hundred, and Elsbet von Cellin-
kon who was ninety but senile.21 Similarly, Anna von Munzingen’s chroni-
cle of Adelhausen () tells touchingly of Sister Metzi von
Walthershoven, who

reached the age of one hundred years, and was so overcome with
grace many years before her death that she cried out constantly by
day and by night ‘‘Little Jesus, little Jesus, dear little Jesus, beloved
little Jesus, happy little Jesus, sweet little Jesus.’’ And she did this
indefatigably and with such a loud voice that no one could get any
rest. And her face was so rosy and her eyes so bright that one might
say God showed her his wonders.22

One is tempted to ask how many husbands could have borne this with
such equanimity.
To married women, especially those who had grown up and been edu-
cated at the convent, it offered a familiar place of retirement in widow-
hood, an asylum during periods of marital conflict, or a temporary retreat
while husbands undertook long trips abroad.23 To those who took the veil
out of expediency and without a real vocation for the religious life, Shu-
lamit Shahar asserts, the convent offered ‘‘relative freedom from male dom-
ination,’’ education, and the opportunity—as abbesses or officers in the

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community—to exercise their talents of leadership and organization.24 Here

they could substitute religious pursuits for menial domestic duties. Indeed,
great abbeys such as Gandersheim, Essen, and Quedlinburg offered intellec-
tual training that was the best of its kind. There women could devote
themselves to learning and the arts.25

Inheritances and Handicaps: The Daughters’ Tales

Generally, the expense of placing a daughter in a convent was less than that
of paying a dowry to secure an eligible bridegroom. In some cases, women
were placed there by male relatives eager to both rid themselves of the
responsibility of caring for them and come into control of the women’s
property.26 The story of how Abbess Sophia von Münster successfully re-
covered her sisters’ inheritances from the hands of their brothers is told
with a certain indignant relish by Anna Roede in her second ‘‘Chronicle of
Herzebrock’’ (c. ). As abbess, Sophia took out a loan for the financially
strapped cloister from her wealthy father— gulden at six percent inter-
est—and had paid the interest on it for two or three years when her father
died. At his death, her brothers demanded the return of the principal as
part of their inheritance. But Sophia argued that she did not intend to pay
it back, because her sister, Jutta, had received only fifty gulden as her patri-
mony and the other two sisters nothing at all. She reasoned that ‘‘they also
belonged to the family and were legitimate children as well as she and the
others; so she intended to keep the money for herself and her two sisters as
their part.’’27 Anna relates that the assertive Sophia won her case against the
brothers.
Women’s accounts do mention ‘‘backward’’ or retarded girls living in
cloisters. The Oetenbach sister-book, for example, relates several anecdotes
of the simple-minded Sister Agnes, a particular favorite of the cloister’s
benefactor, Count Rudolf von Rapperswil, who liked to converse with
her. The author of the Oetenbach foundation account was especially fond
of telling droll stories. In an anecdote featuring the ingenuous Sister Agnes
and Count Rudolf, she writes:

[H]e asked her how often the convent drank wine. And she an-
swered, ‘‘Oh often, my Lord. Whenever the sisters take commu-

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nion, we drink wine,’’ meaning the wine in the communion

chalice. And when he offered to send them bread, she said, ‘‘Lord,
you keep it, I can’t carry it.’’ So he called for a boat and loaded it
with wine, bread, and schmalz and sent this to the cloister often,
especially on feast days.28

In another episode, the count offered her the choice of a robe, and the
guileless Sister Agnes would have picked one of the cheapest ones. But his
wife, the countess, the story relates, ‘‘pointed out to her secretly one that
was good. And she took that.’’ But other less humorous accounts tell of
sisters unable to learn to recite the office such as Verena Senn at St. Kathar-
ina in St Gall who, the chronicle notes, was a hard worker but ‘‘simple
minded so that she could not participate in reciting the hours like the
others.’’29
Unlike men’s narratives, women’s seldom mention illegitimate girls such
as Sophie, daughter of Duke Wilhelm of Braunschweig and Lüneburg,
who repeatedly ran away from the cloister of Mariensee. Her story circu-
lated in popular accounts decrying immorality in convents.30 In a later cen-
tury, Sister Arcangela Tarabotti (–), author of Inferno monacale
(Hell of Nuns, written –), denounced the practice of forcing girls to
enter convents. At the same time, she insisted on strict enforcement of the
decrees of the Council of Trent, which mandated that no novice should be
permitted to take vows unless ecclesiastical examiners made sure she was
truly devout.31

The ‘‘Disadvantage’’ of Rank?

One of the important reasons young women entered cloisters was attribut-
able to, Eileen Power asserts, ‘‘the disadvantage of rank,’’ that is, the ‘‘nar-
rowness of the sphere to which women of gentle birth were confined’’ due
to the limited number of occupations considered appropriate to the nobil-
ity. For these families, the convent was ‘‘the refuge of the gently born,’’ a
finishing school and living establishment for the daughters of the upper
classes.32 As a nun, a woman of the nobility or urban patriciate could live
among equals and enjoy a comfortable lifestyle that offered a respectable
alternative, perhaps even superior to marriage. Many girls joined commu-

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nities not only where sisters, cousins, or aunts were already in residence
but also in which ancestors had resided for generations. In those elite fami-
lies whose daughters routinely became abbesses, the cloister played an im-
portant dynastic role in administering patrimonial lands and benefices. In
family dynastic strategies, the church had as important a role as marriage,
and care was taken to retain hold of certain abbeys.33 Even for the lower
ranks of the elite, the monastery was no less a part of family strategy, a way
of preserving fortunes and fortifying reputations. As Jutta Sperling has so
insightfully pointed out, ‘‘patrician nuns were, so to speak, living meta-
phors of the nobility’s mythical qualities.’’ Symbolically, she identifies the
‘‘bodies of nuns’’ as ‘‘sites where the honor, purity, and distinction of the
nobility as a class resided.’’ Service to God on behalf of the family was a
responsibility and a valued contribution to its well-being. Accordingly,
Sperling estimates that in , due partly to dowry inflation, over fifty
percent of patrician women in Venice lived in convents.34
While monachization may have been involuntary, so was marriage or
spinsterhood when no suitable groom could be found. Particularly in the
case of noble women, sometimes none of the available choices was good.
If no suitable partner could be arranged for by her family, a girl often simply
remained where she had grown up, among friends and relatives in the
community that had educated her. In some cases, such as that of a daughter
of the Coronaro family cited by Sperling, a young woman insisted on en-
tering a convent out of a sense of social superiority, that is, because she
could not find a groom of status equal to hers. Indeed, it was quite possible
for a family’s wealth and standing in the ‘‘economy of prestige’’ to be too
high for an appropriate husband to be found.35 Although marrying ‘‘down’’
could lower a woman’s standing, placing a daughter in an exclusive con-
vent could actually upgrade the status of a less prominent family. At St.
Katharina in St. Gall, Barbara Enzinger, the daughter of a stone mason, was
admitted through the prerogative of a newly elected bishop to recommend
one woman for admission. In gratitude, the girl’s father presented the con-
vent with a gold-plated monstrance.36 While not all cloisters were exclusive
in their admissions policies, especially after the reform, others such as Rijns-
burg Abbey were extremely selective and, according to regulations issued
in , admitted ‘‘only nuns who were of noble descent on both paternal
and maternal sides for at least four generations.’’37
With its exclusively aristocratic inhabitants, Rijnsburg Abbey main-

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tained the customs of the secular court. Its abbesses, regularly chosen from
the very highest nobility, were waited on by a chamberlain, a cupbearer,
and pages. Hüfer notes that its account books record outlays for ceremonial
dinners to receive new members that provided for instrumental music
(drums, trumpets, fifes, cymbals, and violins).38 Likewise, the abbesses of
Überwasser in Münster invested their ministers with the lands owned by
the convent as fiefs after the manner of secular rulers.39 Lina Eckenstein
points out that the women who headed the great Saxon abbeys had ‘‘the
duties and privileges of a baron,’’ distributing patronage in the form of
leases on convent lands, holding legal jurisdiction over them, and employ-
ing judges to settle disputes.40

Canoness Houses

As living establishments for the daughters of the nobility, these canoness

houses more closely resembled seminaries for young ladies or elegant
boarding houses than religious monasteries. Unlike members of the regular
orders, canonesses were not bound by formal vows and had no habit, com-
mon meals, common dormitory, or claustration. They were permitted to
own property, to keep servants, and to eat their meals in the private apart-
ments where they lived. Their chief duties entailed singing the Hours and
attending religious services. The only vows taken were those that promised
obedience to the abbess and chastity while in residence at the convent.
With the abbess’s permission women could travel, visit relatives, and might
leave at any time to marry.41 The abbey of Überwasser served, for example,
as a religious foundation for the daughters of the Münsterland aristocracy.
A fourteenth-century account described it as having a separate house and
garden for the abbess, separate quarters for the prioress and for each of the
other residents, all located abound a central ambulatory.42
The earliest great imperial abbeys were established by the newly chris-
tianized Saxon nobility in the ninth century. Here the old pagan cult of
veneration of ancestors found expression in Christian prayers for the souls
of the dead. Convents founded by the ruling families served as a means of
assuring prayers and veneration of the dynasty’s illustrious ancestors.43 The
oldest houses were often erected on the property of the foundress. A royal
abbess was the best choice to lead the abbey, because she served as a link to

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the royal house and, as a family member, could keep the crown actively
committed to the support of the monastery.44
The famous abbey at Gandersheim was founded toward the end of the
ninth century by Oda and Liudolf, Duchess and Duke of Saxony (d. ),
for their daughter Hathumod (d. ). Oda and Liudolf had four daughters,
one of whom married, with the other three, Hathumod, Gerberga, and
Christina, serving in succession as abbesses of Gandersheim. Hrosvit’s
chronicle of Gandersheim (c. /) depicts Oda as the moving force
behind the establishment of the abbey and its de facto head. After the death
of Liudolf, Oda retired there and, Hrosvit asserts, survived to the age of
. Considering Hrosvit’s description, Oda’s rule may well have seemed
 years, for she is depicted as a stern disciplinarian and a bigger than life,
awe-inspiring figure. Although canonesses had much greater freedom than
women in the regular orders observing a monastic rule, life under Gerberga
and her mother, Oda, was closely monitored. According to Hrosvit, Gan-
dersheim was not a place for relaxation of discipline.

The august Oda, also staying within the cloister,

Inspected with vigilant concern
The deeds and devotion, the habits and even the manner of living,
Of the community of sisters very frequently
So that none of them would ignore the rule of the ancestors
And presume to order her life as according to her own judgment.
(ll. –)45

Determining the exact status of canoness houses and their distinction

from Benedictine convents is often difficult. From the tenth century on-
ward, successive waves of reform initiatives attempted to place canoness
houses under a monastic rule but met with little success.46 In , the
Council of Reims decreed that ‘‘women called canonesses’’ must adopt
either the Benedictine or the Augustinian rule.47 At Münster, an attempt
had been made even earlier to convert the Abbey of Überwasser to a Bene-
dictine cloister. A habit and enclosure had been introduced there and the
women lived under the Benedictine rule until the reformer, Bishop Egbert,
died in ; they later reverted to their former way of life.48 Jo Ann Mc-
Namara points out that many of the German houses took to calling them-
selves Benedictine, but their inhabitants continued to live as canonesses.49

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It is often difficult to draw a line between ‘‘regular’’ and ‘‘extra-regular’’

groups of women’s communities because of their diversity of status, organi-
zation, and function.50 Likewise, the adaptability from informal to formal
communities was much more typical for women than it was for men.51 In
many cases, however, it is simply not possible to tell with which order a
community was affiliated or how closely.
Despite reform efforts of Hildesheim bishops Berthold I (–) and
Bernhard I (–), Gandersheim remained a canoness house.52 The
Abbey of Vilich, however, converted itself early on to the Benedictine
order at the instigation of its first abbess, Adelheid herself, as Sister Bertha’s
Life of Adelheid () proudly relates. Bertha’s portrait of Adelheid as a
saintly reformer stresses the differences between the women’s lives as can-
onesses and those of Benedictines. Bertha’s idealized depiction, a kind of
plaidoyer for the regular life of the Order, relates that the abbess began the
transition to the Benedictine rule surreptitiously.

Thus she held in contempt the daily hour of restoration, the meat
and other food which was well selected and varied and was content
only with monastic foods. This she did, however, without the
knowledge of her table companions, except one good sister, who
was a silent accomplice. In public she shone in linen garments but
next to her skin she wore a rough woolen garment in the spirit of
repentance and thus she subdued the soft nature of her noble body
so that she might suffer the dictates of a hard law for the sake of
God. When, after a year, she had summoned up the necessary
strength and hoped that it would be sufficient to continue the
work she had begun, Adelheid put into action the long-deliberated
silent vow, not alone, but with the grace of God. Then she called
upon the venerable abbess and the leaders of the Cologne convent
of the Holy Mother of God [where her sister was abbess] and hum-
bly put herself under their knowledgeable guidance so that through
their teachings she would find the way into the order.53

As it turned out, not all of the residents of the house wanted to accept the
Benedictine rule and some left the convent rather than do so.
Although abbess of an exclusive house of noble canonesses was a socially
prominent position, the women whom Hrosvit and Bertha portray are

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distinguished rather for their religious zeal. Like the indomitable Oda,
Adelheid, too, was a stern disciplinarian. Bertha recounts how Adelheid
disliked sisters singing badly and berated those lying abed with illnesses.

[I]t happened that one of the sisters could not keep the [tune] of
the choir of loudly singing voices . . . and the good mother would
correct her and box her ears, then for the rest of her life the sister
had a beautiful voice and sang clearly. In this same manner she
often reproached some sisters who suffered from long-term ill-
nesses that they were wasting their time uselessly if they did not
labor with their hands and shortly after she had reproached them,
they were healed by the grace of the Lord.54

This anecdote gives a rather startling female perspective on what seems to

have been considered proper discipline applied by a ‘‘good’’ woman to
other women of the upper classes in the eleventh century, clearly a harsher
age than our own.

Rank and Religiosity

Some houses admitted only women of the nobility, but the presence of
those of the highest rank was considered an important asset even in houses
of the mendicant orders. It was exceptional for a woman of the old free
nobility to join either a Cistercian or a mendicant nunnery. She would
more usually have entered a Benedictine house or a foundation of secular
canonesses.55 Yet there are cases of princesses, such as Anna of Stargard (d.
), niece of the Duke of Braunschweig and Lüneburg, who entered the
Cistercian cloister of Wienhausen, which was not composed exclusively of
noblewomen. One sees, in the account rendered in the cloister chronicle,
the competition—not only within the house but between houses—over
the issue of social rank. The chronicler relates how Princess Anna’s uncle,
the duke, ordered that she ‘‘should receive no preferential treatment be-
cause of her high standing, but be dealt with like the other sisters.’’ The
partisan chronicler asserts, however, that

[s]he had spent three years in the cloister and, although still very
young, she nevertheless outshone her companions in love, humil-

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ity, and friendliness and exceeded them in obedience. This was a

mighty thorn in the flesh of some resentful sisters and they worried
that she would one day accede to the office of abbess. In order to
forestall this, they falsely reported to her relatives (but under a pre-
tense of kindness) that she was not behaving as was proper to her
station. When her mother, Lady von Stargard, heard this, she asked
the abbess to bring her daughter along with several other young
sisters to stay at Celle for a few days. Now when the abbess was
returning to the cloister with the daughter, the young woman was
taken from the wagon by force and held captive despite her tearful
protests. She was forced to put on secular clothing against her will,
but nevertheless continued to wear her habit underneath. Finally,
she was sent to a cloister called Ribnitz, which housed only noble
women, under the pretense that Wienhausen was not strict
enough.56

This tale of friction and competition for social prestige reflects the changes
occurring at Wienhausen and at other cloisters during the fourteenth and
fifteenth centuries. The Wienhausen incident took place during the term
of reform prioress Susanna Potstock (–), the first prioress of the
burgher class, and shows the tensions this shift brought about. Records at
the Dominican cloister of Kirchberg in Württemberg, where formerly only
daughters of noble families had been accepted, show that by the latter half
of the fourteenth century, the majority of inhabitants were affluent non-
nobles. In  a commoner was for the first time named prioress there.57
In  a Provincial Chapter of Benedictines decreed that when not
enough noble candidates were available commoners could be accepted.58
Throughout the fourteenth century, members of the wealthy urban mer-
chant class accounted for an increasing number of convent admissions. In
the Observant reforms of the fifteenth century, as will be seen in Chapters
 and , removal of social barriers to cloister admissions became one of the
goals of the movement, particularly in Benedictine houses reached by the
Bursfeld reformers. Yet, although admissions generally became more open,
they did not change the face of things altogether. For example, between
 and  the Observant Dominican house of St. Maria Magdalena an
den Steinen in Basel took in eighty-five new entrants. Of this group, thirty-
five still belonged to the aristocracy. Indeed, of the thirteen Observant

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sisters who reformed the house in , seven were themselves of noble
birth.59

Lay Sisters and Fees

Women from less affluent families often entered cloisters as lay sisters. They
paid a smaller dowry and, instead of reciting the monastic hours as the
better educated choir nuns did, they were responsible for the washing,
cleaning, and cooking at the convent.60 Because they were not required to
be able to read and write, their devotions consisted largely of repetitions of
the Ave Maria, the Lord’s Prayer, and similar devotions.61 At the Clarissan
house in Nuremberg, the lay sisters were instructed to pray twenty-four
Our Fathers at matins; five at lauds; seven at prime, terce, sext and non;
twelve at vespers; and seven at compline.62 Not strictly enclosed, lay sisters
could go in and out of the convent. On rare occasions, a lay sister might
work her way up to choir-sister as did Sister Christina Reyselt, whose story
is told in the chronicle of the cloister of Pfullingen. The account, written
by one of the sisters (c. ), prizes Christina’s resourcefulness, relating
how she negotiated the right to become a choir nun. In tandem with the
reform, the well-liked and capable Christina rose in the monastic ranks.

This Christina had been a servant of the Sisters of Saint Clare in

Nuremberg. When some of them were sent to Brixen to introduce
the reform, the sisters wanted her to accompany them. But she did
not want to go unless she could join the order of Saint Clare. She
was accepted as a lay sister. So she traveled with them and was a
great comfort on the way. When the reform had been instituted at
Brixen they wished to keep her there, so they had Sister Christine
educated and she became a choir nun.63

In this post-reform account, the women seem to applaud the enterprising

woman’s advancement. More will be said about Christina in the context of
the aims of the Observance in Chapter .
For many young women, not only restrictive admissions policies but
also expense prevented them from entering a cloister. Although the rule of
Saint Benedict forbade the outlay of a dowry for a cloister entrant, some

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sources indicate the payment of a ‘‘voluntary’’ donation.64 Others, such as

the Cistercian cloister of Saarn on the Ruhr, had a fixed entrance fee in
writing. In  each young woman at the start of her Saarn novitiate paid
 gold gulden, roughly six times the annual income of a stonemason (
gulden).65 Before ever becoming a novice, she would have paid nine gul-
den per year for her schooling. In addition, each entrant at Saarn was re-
quired to bring with her a substantial trousseau comprising two robes, one
coat, three head cloths, a bed and bedding, a bed frame, a chest, table linens
totaling  ells in length, towels also  ells in length, a silver beaker or
bowl of at least  weight.66
According to Brigitte Degler-Spengler, in the fourteenth century there
was no firm dowry at Gnadental in Basel but rather annual annuities paid
to the cloister by the inhabitants. Entrants in the fifteenth century paid a
sum of at least  gulden, with the daughters of the wealthiest families
bringing  or  gulden. This was still a substantial amount, since ac-
cording to city tax records before –, only ten to eleven percent of
the population even paid taxes on  to  gulden.67 Marie-Claire Däni-
ker-Gysin estimates the worth of a dowry at the cloister of Töss as approxi-
mately the price of a farm.68
Records at the St. Katharina cloister at St. Gall, a Dominican house
predominantly of wealthy urban-class women, show that the burgher
daughters of St. Gall often brought assets in commodities rather than in
money. Anna Krumm came with the deed to one and one-half vineyards
producing , liters of wine annually, and Anna Sattler brought—besides
 gulden and an annual endowment of  gulden for masses for her fam-
ily—four bushels of grain, sixteen barrels of oats, and four chickens in per-
petuity.69 Usually these substantial dowries became the property of the
cloister only upon the death of the sister or—as was the case at Söflingen—
they could be willed to a relative residing in the cloister.70 Often, however,
the payments ceased when a sister died.71

Prioresses as Financial Managers

Despite the sizeable dowries paid to the them, most women’s communities
were far poorer than men’s. Penelope Johnson estimates the mean worth
of nunneries at only fifteen percent of that of priories, while the average

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number of inhabitants of a women’s convent was much larger than that of a

men’s monastery. For example, in mid–thirteenth-century northern France
women’s convents averaged thirty-five nuns, the number in men’s reach-
ing only about twenty-three monks.72 The nuns’ inability to perform the
sacraments may have diminished their attractiveness to donors wishing to
establish foundations to have masses said after their deaths.73 Women’s
cloisters, while owning extensive properties, were thus often in financial
difficulties.
The chief sources of income for nunneries were donations for burials on
the cloister grounds, endowments to finance prayers for souls, dowries,
rents, and annuities for the upkeep of the sisters. Since rents were often
paid in the form of grain, fruit, wine, cheese, eggs, or poultry, cash was
often in short supply.74 Repairs and enlargements to cloister buildings were
dependent on donor gifts, which were encouraged by the granting of in-
dulgences. When the Clarissan house at Nuremberg undertook a building
program in , thirty donors were permitted to tour the cloister in order
to form an idea of the state of the buildings.75 A special indulgence was
conferred upon them, allowing each donor to choose a confessor to absolve
him of all sins for ten years—even sins reserved to the pope. To avoid hard
feelings, the city council selected the thirty recipients, and anyone who was
not chosen, but had attended a service on certain holy days or made a
donation to the convent church, could receive a lesser indulgence of forty
days.76
Another source of cloister income was from the provision of housing
for lay pensioners, who received a house or apartment and meals from the
cloister kitchen for life in exchange for a sum of money or an annuity.
Such an arrangement also provided for burial in the cloister cemetery and
intercessory prayers. Some pensioners worked as gatekeepers, carpenters,
gardeners, or provided other services to the convent. At cloister Klingental,
an agreement made in  with the widow, Elsi Sattler, states that

in exchange for all her cash and property, the sisters would permit
[the Widow Sattler] to live in the little weaver’s house by the front
gate and supply her with wood for heating and cooking,  liters
of common wine, the same amount of superior vintage every fall,
money for meat, fish,  eggs, a gallon of peas and lentils, a gallon
of salt, two loaves of bread a day; and, after her death, burial within

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the cloister and intercessory prayer services on the seventh and

thirtieth anniversaries of her death.77

Emil Erdin cites the amount paid by a lay pensioner for lifetime care at the
Magdalen cloister in Basel as between  and  gulden for each person.
This was approximately equal to the dowry paid by a nun.78
Besides taking in pensioners, women’s cloisters earned money by teach-
ing children. While this worked for urban cloisters, it was not feasible for
those lying outside centers of population. Inflation continually eroded the
value of fixed rents paid to the cloister on its properties, so income from
these sources steadily declined. By the second half of the fifteenth century,
convent ledger books show increasing deficits and buildings in disrepair.79
For those cloisters already in poor financial health, the costs of instituting
a reform sometimes dealt a fatal blow, especially since sisters who refused
to accept the reform could transfer to other cloisters, taking their dowries
and annuities with them. Although visitation protocols, such as those of
Wendelin Fabri of St. Katharina (St. Gall), in , state that in the case of
a transfer annuities shall remain with the first cloister, there are numerous
other records of sisters taking a pension or assets to another convent.80 At
St. Nicolaus in undis, Strasbourg, where prioress Agnes Vigin and a num-
ber of sisters proposed joining the Observance, the idea was rejected by
eight residents, who elected to transfer to other houses, demanding to be
recompensed not only for the funds and goods they had brought when
they entered the cloister but also the monies paid for the festive meal served
to the convent on the day of their entrance, plus the value of apartments
left to them by the wills of deceased sisters, and even payment for services
rendered in educating children. This huge sum was duly paid out, nearly
impoverishing the remnant community.81 In other cases, as at Medingen
and Heilig Kreuz in Regensburg, property was divided equally between
two houses.82 But books the reformers brought with them had to be re-
turned to the first cloister at their deaths.83
At Überwasser (Münster) in , pensions were paid to sixteen canon-
esses who chose to leave the house rather than accept the reform (even
though during the transition they could wear secular clothing, keep their
servants, and were not required to sing the Hours). But their departure
nearly bankrupted the convent. The cloister chronicle calculates the costs
of the reform, for legal fees and pensions paid out, at  gulden.84 The

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reform abbess, Sophia Dobbers—who reports that she was required to pay
pensions of  gulden a year to the women who had left—registers the
financial toll and hard feelings on both sides over the financial arrangement.
‘‘In the year  we were so poor that we could not give them [the sisters
who had left] their money. This we regretfully reported to my Lord [the
bishop] and showed our accounts. . . . But the women on the outside [who
had left the house] threatened to have their friends rob and burn us.’’85
Ordered to pay, Sophia says the cloister mortgaged everything, including
its monstrances and a valuable painting of the Virgin, which the abbess later
redeemed. Similarly, convents that sent out reforming sisters to introduce
the Observance at other cloisters sometimes suffered substantial financial
losses; St.Katharina, St. Gall, for example, was forced to pay out  gulden
to Cloister Zoffingen for the dowries of the two reformers it had sent
there.86
Because women could not perform the sacraments themselves, women’s
houses were obliged to pay for the daily masses and other services per-
formed by their chaplains. The cloister rules of the Clarissan sisters of ‘‘auf
dem Wörth’’ in Strasbourg state that the cost of each sung mass was usually
one schilling.87 The chronicle of the St. Katharina cloister at St. Gall records
that in September of  the sisters’ new lector took up his duties, agree-
ing to read or sing mass daily, ‘‘according to the needs of the day.’’ On
Sundays and holidays he was to preach and administer the sacraments. For
these services he received room and board plus a salary of twelve gulden (a
little more than half the salary of a stonemason). The cloister chronicle
records that this brother gave to the sisters, among other gifts, ‘‘four beauti-
ful turned candle sticks’’ for their choir altar.88

Women’s Comments on Provosts: Praise and Blame

Clearly, the men responsible for pastoral care or supervision of the con-
vent’s finances sometimes themselves contributed to the needs of the clois-
ter out of their own pockets. At Ebstorf, wealthy provost Matthias von
Knesebeck paid for the construction of a large and airy building where the
sisters could work together. The Ebstorf sister who, c. , chronicled the
reform (/) tells enthusiastically of the building of the new structure,
which was extremely expensive: ‘‘One must assume that the costs for all of

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it exceeded  florins. But he told us in chapter in the clearest terms that
he had paid the costs himself out of monies that he had inherited and out
of annuities and benefices that he had received from princes when he had
served as chancellor and secretary. Thus he had spent none of our assets
because it was to be a memorial to him.’’89
Because most provosts were clerics, they served as both financial and
spiritual overseers of the cloister.90 In Braunschweig and Lüneburg, pro-
vosts were usually ducal chaplains, secretaries, or chancellors, hand picked
to represent the duke’s interests as the cloister’s representative in the pro-
vincial diet.91 A provost was appointed, first, by a cloister’s founding donor
and, subsequently, by his successors, and usually selected by the prioress
from a short list of names submitted to her. Gustav Voit asserts that all
cloisters made efforts to shake off the burden of secular rule and frequently
succeeded in supplanting and replacing the office of provost with stewards
of their own.92
Not all relationships with the cloister’s provost were as felicitous as the
one at Ebstorf. Anna Roede laments bitterly in her Chronicle of Herzebrock
over the dishonest stewards and businessmen who enriched themselves at
the cloister’s expense, saying, ‘‘[T]hey made themselves rich and us poor.
God knows their names.’’93 At Preetz, enterprising prioress Anna von
Buchwald (–) recounts in her handbook for future prioresses and
the convent) how difficult it was to get incompetent provosts to deliver
wood from the cloister’s own forests for use in the new fireplace in the
refectory that Anna herself had built to replace the intolerable old smoky
one.

Finally I, Anna, had it torn down in  and moved from the
north side to the west corner of the same building where it was
rebuilt and is now located so that it draws the smoke no matter
how the wind blows. But when the fireplace was finished we had
no wood to burn and did not know where we could get as much
as was needed. I took the greatest trouble to urge the provosts [two
in succession] to provide us with wood, but they ignored it and
paid no attention to the lack of wood.

Finally, in desperation, Anna begged the Bishop of Lübeck to instruct the

provost to bring wood, which the bishop did in a written communication

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to the habitually negligent Provost Dornebusch. Anna reveals her sense of

relief and accomplishment when she writes, ‘‘And thus we were provided
by God’s grace with a fireplace and wood, which up that time had been
unheard of.’’ No shrinking violet, Anna adds, ‘‘This comfort, Beloved, you
have obtained through my efforts, therefore remember me to God in your
prayers!’’94 Indeed, guaranteeing prayers for their souls in the future was
one of the reasons women wrote accounts of themselves.
The conflict over the fireplace at Preetz was not the only frustrating
encounter Anna von Buchwald had with Provost Dornbusch. Anna and
the oldest sisters of the convent had also asked him to repair the roof on
one of the buildings, which had not been maintained for sixty years; it had
such rotten wood that ‘‘the vaulting and walls were going to ruin.’’ Provost
Dornbusch’s rude and sarcastic refusal embittered her so much that Anna
reported it word-for-word in her book. Dornbusch said that he would
only rebuild the kitchen ‘‘so that he might get something in the pot. [And]
that would be difficult enough!’’ But he had no intention of making any
other repairs.95

Living Conditions and Daily Life

With or without incompetent managers and inadequate supplies of wood,

living conditions in medieval cloisters were harsh by modern standards.
Women’s accounts of it are recorded in texts such as a set of student essays
from the fifteenth century written in Latin at Ebstorf and preserved in the
cloister library. An essay by one young woman gives a glimpse of the hard-
ships endured in the cold months of winter.

In the winter time I suffer from lack of activity. I don’t make good
use of winter days because of the extreme cold from which I suffer.
My hands are so numb that I can scarcely move them to write.
Besides that my ink is frozen solid. I am resolving to make new
gloves from a new shift that my parents bought me at market. A
small piece of material is left over. And I will form them out of
white sheep’s wool. Then my hands will stay nice and warm when
I cover them with the gloves.

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Another essay describes elaborate preparations for a bath.

Next week the convent will bathe. Wood has been brought in.
The laborers cut it on the allodial land. We remunerated them
well, sending them butter and cheese via the cook. The girls have
come bringing a great stove for heating. The bath is ready. I will
go quickly so that I arrive in time for vesper prayers. I will cover
my head with a pillow so that my brain will not be overheated.96

At Preetz, one of the indefatigable Anna von Buchwald’s first undertak-

ings as a prioress who loved cleanliness and order was scrubbing and repair-
ing the bathhouse. She writes about how she first hired two workers ‘‘who
cleaned the entire bathhouse’’ and three more who cleaned up the over-
grown area around it where overflow from the river had eroded and soft-
ened the ground around the bridge that formed the approach to the
bathhouse. Then Anna had the workers bring in pebbles so that the court-
yard approach, where ‘‘there was often standing water,’’ would not be too
muddy to walk across. Last, she put up a wall ‘‘so that [the sisters] could
walk about in the yard when they wished and stroll about in the fresh
air—more than they had before my time. For when there was no wall with
gate, walkway and railing, no religious person could go outside the door of
the bathhouse. For this pray to God for me when you use it.’’ These
changes were not merely cosmetic but necessary sanitary precautions since,
as Anna shockingly relates, the channel was so shallow and overgrown that
‘‘in dry periods [the women] could have no water for cooking and it was
unsanitary because all sorts of trash washed up there such as dead pigs, dogs,
chickens and other filthy refuse which [they] often found in the ditch and
complained to me about.’’97 After digging a new channel and putting in
flagstones outside, Anna added drains, fireplaces, tables, and benches to
facilitate washing, drying, and ironing of clothes.
The benefits of the renovated bathhouse, no doubt, made life in Preetz
more pleasant. At the wealthy Dominican cloister of Klingental in Basel,
the sisters had greater comforts (two bathhouses) and more relaxed disci-
pline. In summer they swam and romped in the Rhine while citizens
watched in amusement from the bridge, a practice that brought protests
from the city council.98 While at Kingental most nuns had a room of their
own, at Preetz Anna records that she struggled with a shortage of cells and

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dormitory beds for the younger sisters, twenty-two of whom had to sleep
on the floor in the attic or wherever they could find a space. Anna managed
to get fifteen small cells constructed for the eldest sisters and dark cubicles
under the stairs for the seven youngest.99
Ulrich Faust comments that in Benedictine cloisters in Lower Saxony
and Schleswig-Holstein nuns slept in common dormitories until the fif-
teenth century, when individual cells came into use.100 The size of a nun’s
cell at the Magdalen cloister in Basel, where a new row of cells was added
between  and , is given as ‘‘eleven shoes in length and nine shoes
in width.’’101 Even at Klingental not every nun had a cell as soon as she
made her profession. Often she had to wait for one to be bequeathed to
her by the death of a sister. In order to have the use of a cell for life, one
had to pay the cloister twenty gulden. The amount for larger cells with a
view of the Rhine was, of course, higher. Some sisters had the use of more
than one cell, such as Prioress Clara zu Rhein who had nine of them.
Indeed, records at Klingental indicate that the standard of living at such
wealthy establishments was high. Besides furniture—beds, chests, chairs,
benches, and tables—Klingental nuns were permitted to outfit their quar-
ters with wall hangings and embroidered pillows, woven bed and sofa cov-
ers, coverlets of fur or serge, white linen tablecloths and hand towels, tin
plates, bowls, and platters, silver and silver- or gold-plated drinking vessels,
spoons, and salt cellars, tin or brass pitchers, jugs, and water or fish pots, as
well as candle holders. psalters, breviaries, and other books.102
For women living enclosed, the garden was an important part of the
cloister compound. Under the rules of the Bursfeld reform, all sisters were
strictly required to work in the garden.103 At Ebstorf, where the garden was
replanted with trees in , the author of the cloister chronicle ()
rejoices over this improvement, saying, ‘‘It is for us no small pleasure to go
walking there, for it is as though we could observe all the loveliness of
earthly paradise.’’104 At Preetz, each nun had her own garden plot where
she could grow herbs or food for herself and her tablemates.105 These plots
were at the women’s disposal and Prioress Anna von Buchwald’s instruc-
tions state that ‘‘any sister may give her garden plot to another during her
life and without explanation.’’106
Artifacts of day-to-day life in convents include letters written and re-
ceived by nuns. In Observant houses of the regular orders, letters sent out-
side the cloister were to be read by the prioress, in part to prevent disputes

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within the cloister from being aired in public to the detriment of the con-
vent’s reputation.107 Evidence that some correspondence reached the out-
side without the abbesses’ knowledge is demonstrated by some very angry
letters that Sister Maria von Wolkenstein sent to her brothers from the
Clarissan cloister at Brixen in , when Nicholas von Cusa was trying to
reform it. Maria was the leader of a faction that was attempting to depose
the abbess. Writing secretly to her brother Leo, she complained that ‘‘they
[the abbess and her party] are closing every chink in the wall and even
closing up holes that we never knew about. . . . Send only Ulrich here
anymore and on Sunday or Monday. This I ask you faithfully. And . . . only
send the letter by a messenger you are sure of.’’108
Another reason for a prioress to monitor letters was the correspondence
between nuns and male ‘‘spiritual friends.’’ In some places, convent women
had what were understood to be special relationships, called ‘‘spiritual
friendships,’’ in which the partners exchanged missives of endearment. A
large number of these letters, written at the unreformed Clarissan house of
Söflingen, have survived. Editor of the Söflingen letters Max Miller asserts
that these supposedly scandalous messages, written in the language of inti-
mate affection, are artifacts of friendships between couples who regarded
themselves as joined in a kind of ‘‘spiritual marriage’’ and even used each
other’s initials in signing their letters.109 In , for example, Sister Geno-
veva Vetter wrote to Father Johannes Spieß, signing herself with his initial
G[enoveva] Sp[ieß].

I wish you a blessed, joyful day, dearest. Your letter arrived and
you gave me much joy and I ask you affectionately, if matters have
been settled, let me know this evening by way of Heßlin, how
things went and if he [Jodocus Wind] has been removed from
office [in Ulm]. Know that I saw you yesterday most gladly with
my whole heart, and I ask you to make me happy and send me
good news today. Dearest, let me commend myself to you faith-
fully as I trust your faithfulness.110

Karl Suso Frank points out that these relationships were in no way secret.111
The Söflingen women often had a portrait of their spiritual friend hanging
in their cell. Jodocus Wind, who is mentioned in Genoveva Vetter’s note,
affectionately called his own spiritual mate, Magdalena von Suntheim, his

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‘‘very lovely dear,’’ his ‘‘dear miss,’’ ‘‘dear little woman,’’ or ‘‘true dear
sweetie.’’ Fearing for her reputation, Magdalena reminds him in another
letter that she is ‘‘a very proper old thing.’’112 These male-female friendships
were neither carnal nor ‘‘mystical’’ in nature but more often political and,
unfortunately, probably disruptive, since they arose from or created rivalries
within the community.113
Even in a larger context, convent women were not as marginalized as is
commonly thought. Ursula Peters points out that Dominican women of
the fourteenth century dwelt in ‘‘flourishing convents’’ and enjoyed ‘‘a
wealth of contacts with important religious and secular luminaries of their
time.’’114 Indeed, many female writers represent themselves as extremely
content with life in a monastery. The fourteenth-century compiler of the
Lives of the Sisters at Töss depicts Sister Margret Willin saying, ‘‘This is the
most splendid life that ever was.’’115 Similarly, a sister at Ebstorf c. ,
citing St. Bernard exclaims, ‘‘If there is paradise on earth, it is either in
books or in the cloister.’’116 Where amity and true piety reigned, the sisters
are liberal in their praise of one another. At St. Agnes’s in Emmerich, the
chronicler writes, one sister was often known to say of Sister Mechtelt von
Kalker, ‘‘Being around Mechtelt is like being with an angel.’’117
A few letters that survive show that nuns kept up contacts with women
in other cloisters and not only corresponded but also frequently exchanged
letters and gifts. A letter from Prioress Kunigunda Haller of St. Katharina
in Nuremberg to fellow Prioress Angela Varnbühler in St. Gall thanks the
sisters for a gift of fine linen canvas. On another occasion, Prioress Haller
writes, ‘‘[K]now that I and the sisters have received your precious package
with great joy and thanks and I can write to you with satisfaction of the
happiness and rejoicing with which the sisters received it. God be your
reward for such kindness.’’118

Food

One of the topics that seems to distinguish women’s writings from men’s
is the subject of food. Like women of the present day, medieval women
often chose to write about food and record what they had (or did not have)
to eat. As in other dormitory-like situations, satisfaction with cloister life
did not always extend to the cuisine. At Ebstorf, a young sister wrote in a

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Latin essay, ‘‘I am very hungry. Thus far I have fasted and eaten nothing at
all [today]. Our entire midday meal was over salted. We pushed it away
[and] I did not eat a bite. Yesterday I had [only] warm beer. Now I must
eat bread dipped in sauce. . . . I prefer a soft-boiled to a hard egg. Hard-
cooked and fried eggs lie heavy on my stomach.’’119 Perhaps this was writ-
ten during Lent when only one meal a day was eaten.120
The bill of fare was an important topic, since in most cloisters meat was
forbidden throughout the year, except for patients in the infirmary, where
it might be needed to restore an invalid’s strength. The Bursfeld regulations
in , however, do allow nuns to have meat three times per week if they
cannot do without it.121 Using visitation records from , Voit describes
the diet at Engelthal as including, morning and evening, one-third liter
wine and one-half liter of beer, soup, meat, cabbage, and carrots or turnips;
in the evening, rice and barley in addition. On feast days, three types of
vegetables and two types of fish were served.122 In contrast, at St. Katharina,
St. Gall, meat was not eaten and a warm meal was served only once a day,
at noon. Here the evening meal consisted of a piece of bread or spice cake
with dried fruit, and sometimes wine.123 While St. Gall sisters ate only
water and bread on Good Friday, at Klingental the sisters were served
lamb.124 In most cloisters special fare was served on days when anniversary
masses were celebrated for the souls of deceased donors. The special dishes,
such as a fish meal from Johann zum Thor for the nuns at St. Maria Magda-
lena an den Steinen in Basel, were gifts from the donors to the sisters, who
would take part in the services with songs and prayers for donors’ souls.125
Foundation narratives from Dominican houses, about the beginnings of
their communities in the thirteenth century, tell stories of privations and
hunger in the early days when they were poor beguine settlements. The
author of the Oetenbach foundation narrative tells about the miserable food
that the founding mothers had to eat.

They had a holy sister named Mechthild von Schaffhausen who

baked bread for them as well as she could, [but] it was so sour and
doughy that they laid it in the sun to dry. On some loaves the crust
fell away and on others the inside did, so that they had not enough.
And often they were given beet chard to eat and this happened so
often that it piled up in the bowls. [A]nd sometimes when some-
one wanted to help them they made them a cake without eggs and

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that was dough cooked in fat. So they suffered such great privation
that sister Beli von Ebnot said later that she was often very hungry
and had a great desire for something to eat and to drink. They very
seldom had wine and, if the sisters were ill, they boiled water with
caraway and kept it in wooden containers and drank that for wine.
Now the young ones and the sisters who could not fast after prime,
they were given no more than a soup.

This author, whose love of earthy and amusing stories differentiates her
lively style from Johannes Meyer’s didactic additions, tells how one Sister
Bertha had a bright idea for increasing the meat supply. By placing it under
shingles, she grew maggots in it, which she cooked with the meat. The
narrator reports that what was served ‘‘looked as though it had been sprin-
kled with maggots,’’ so the sisters would not touch it ‘‘and ate nothing but
dry bread.’’126
Other less comic narratives, such as Anna von Munzingen’s Chronicle
of Adelhausen (), likewise emphasize the hunger and privations of the
cloister’s early days. Anna tells of a miraculous incident when the women,
having no more food at all, received a timely donation.

And once during Shrovetide, while they were singing vespers, the
cellaress had not a single egg to give to the convent, and she sat
down in misery and wept from her heart and asked Our Lord that
he would advise her that she might have something to give the
convent on Shrove Tuesday and in that hour a woman came and
brought two hundred eggs, and she rejoiced and praised God
heartily.

In another more miraculous, loaves-and-fishes kind of story, a youth whom

the women had never seen before and whom they took to be an angel
brought the convent a beautiful loaf of bread that, to their amazement,
served all of them.127
While later accounts may be more realistic, they still tell of insufficient
budgets. Writing in her account book for , a glum Prioress Anna von
Buchwald says, ‘‘For seven years I gave you each in Lent one pound of
raisins, but this year they were too expensive, so you will not get them.’’
We know from her accounts that the favorite delicacy at Preetz was al-

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monds, which the sisters made into almond milk and marzipan. In her log
for  Anna writes, ‘‘At the end of the year I was  marks in debt for
your sakes because of the almonds which I bought for you again . . . and
you asked me for.’’ Anna manages to pay the debt but writes, ‘‘God knows,
I was greatly worried the whole year and I have not been able to give you
the thirteen schillings this year. For if I had distributed them, as I have
always done before and never failed to, I would have been in debt.’’128
Elfriede Kelm comments that the fifty to ninety cloister inhabitants at
Preetz had to manage on three cattle, thirty-two lambs, and two goats,
while a vicar received each year for himself one-half of an ox (salted) and a
fattened pig.129

Arts and Education

Despite economic privations, all was not grim at Preetz, however. As Anna
reports, one of the reasons for the debts incurred by the cloister in 
was the building or repair of an organ.130 This luxury is not uncommon in
women’s convents of the fifteenth century. The chronicle of St. Katharina
at St. Gall records the purchase of an organ in . Here a letter from
Prioress Haller at Nuremberg warmly congratulates the St. Gall women on
this acquisition: ‘‘I rejoice in my heart that you have an organ and over the
sisters’ joy and reverence for it. It is of great comfort to a choir in singing,
especially when you have a proper organist.’’131 With or without an organ,
the singing of the Hours is often mentioned in women’s writings as a very
satisfying and fulfilling activity. Anna Roede portrays in her chronicle of
Herzebrock of the enthusiasm of Abbess Sophia von Gozes (–).

She never tired of the service. By day and by night she was always
the first and the last one as she always managed to do. And when
she thought the manner of singing was not up to standard, she
brought in a sister from [the convent of] Vinnenberg, Hilleke
Sternenberg. She instructed the convent and the children every
day in singing and she [the abbess] took the lessons too and learned
like a child, for she had a beautiful light voice. And in payment she
gave the sister a new habit.132

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Anna recounts that this same abbess embroidered for the sisters’ choir two
antependia of exceptional quality (a ‘‘Maria in sole’’ and a very large an-
nunciation scene), as well as the best cover for the high altar.133
Women’s expressed interest in describing these kinds of artistic and cre-
ative activities at their houses contrasts radically with the view expressed by
Friedrich Techen that convent life was a ‘‘dreadful tedium.’’134 Lina Eck-
enstein asserts, rather, that cloister life ‘‘ceases to appear monotonous’’
when one enters one of the old treasuries and reflects ‘‘on the aims and
aspirations which were devoted to producing this wealth in design and
ornamentation.’’135 Calligraphers, painters of miniatures, embroiderers, and
weavers all found creative expression in the making of myriad objects of
sacred art. Besides needlework antependia and intricately embroidered
vestments, convent women produced large numbers of tapestries on secular
and religious themes both for their own use and on commission. That
this was not unusual is shown by a fifteenth-century tapestry, now at the
Diözesanmuseum in Bamberg, which depicts two Dominican nuns at a
loom weaving (Fig. ).136
Beyond producing works of their own, women’s accounts record that
prioresses were patronesses of the arts who frequently commissioned works
for their houses. Chronicles describe some of these commissions, including
the prioress’s role in choosing the designs. At Ebstorf (c. ), a sister
relates how

the prioress had an exceptionally beautiful treasure made, namely,

an ostrich egg, which had long lain in the cabinet of the sacristan.
This she had covered with gold and silver. Also four apostles of
silver and a silver incense container. All this she had made from
small silver pieces of jewelry which the sisters had owned before
the reform and had turned in [to the common chest]. The greater
part—in silver and gold ornaments—she still keeps in a coffer.137

Besides expressing pride in the accomplishment, these kinds of chronicle

entries served as proof of ownership of works of art. Among the most active
patrons was the ever-enterprising Anna von Buchwald, who commissioned
for her convent—besides an altar of unique design, numerous frescos and
wall decorations—more than twenty-eight paintings.138
Besides the occupations of daily choral singing and recitation, convent

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 Image not available

Fig.  Tapestry (detail): two Dominican nuns weaving. Late fifteenth century. Bamberg,
Diözesanmuseum.

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women describe the staging of imaginative and sometimes dramatic devo-

tional productions (some of which will be described in Chapter ). At the
cloister of Villingen, the ever-creative Prioress Ursula Haider (d. )
continually organized pageants, undertook imaginary ‘‘pilgrimages,’’ and
invented devotional exercises inspired by the seasonal celebrations of the
church year. The overall impression is one of lively amateur theatrical ac-
tivity. The Bicken Cloister chronicle tells, for example, how at Advent
Prioress Ursula Haider would designate a particular evening for a candle-
light dinner of fish and wine, served ‘‘with her own hands,’’ to which she
invited the sisters and in which she herself would appear in the role of ‘‘the
representative of eternal wisdom.’’ When the meal was almost finished,
Prioress Haider reportedly played her dramatic role with great success.

[She] ordered all the lights to be put out and knelt before the
whole convent with great humility and began to speak with such
delightful words that the sweet women were moved to great piety
and wept hot tears. . . . When she had finished her talk, which
lasted at least half an hour, they lighted the candles again and re-
joiced. Then the dear Mother came and bought a gift or two, as
holy poverty would allow [a paper picture or a little straight pin],
and distributed them to the whole convent, each one the same,
[wishing each] a happy new year.139

Prioress Ursula was particularly imaginative in putting on spiritual pageants.

Most well known are the imaginary ‘‘pilgrimages’’ to Rome and to the
Holy Land, which she arranged with parchments representing the stations
of the journey that the sisters undertook individually or in a procession. As
the chronicle indicates, the sisters proceeded ‘‘with monstrance and lighted
candles, with song and great devotion through the ambulatory—from one
parchment letter [each representing a holy site] to the next as though they
were present in the Holy Land.’’140 Indeed, with her unceasing flow of
ideas, Prioress Ursula seemed capable of organizing a theatrical production
for almost any occasion.
Beyond choral singing, celebrating the feasts of the church year, creating
artistic works, and devotionally contemplating the paintings and objects
commissioned for their cloister churches, convent women write about op-
portunities to enrich their lives through education. They praise the benefits

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of being able to read Latin texts and understand the beauties of the liturgy.
At Ebstorf (c. ), a sister writes candidly about the satisfactions of her
education:

Oh what sweetness it is in the divine service to hear and to read

the sacred texts, the words of the holy Gospel from the mouth of
the Lord, the words of the sacred teachers both of the Old and the
New Testaments. . . . [And] conversely, how disagreeable it is to
stand in choir, to read and to sing and not to understand.

The same sister, perhaps a novice, gives an account of the schooling-in-

progress that she was receiving at Ebstorf:

[Our teacher] explained to us declination, the ‘‘Donatus,’’ and the

‘‘glossed Donatus’’ word for word completely. . . . And she pro-
poses soon to explain to us the first part of Alexander [de Villa, Dei
Doctrinale], if God preserves her health. [The teacher had recovered
from a nearly fatal illness.] She makes every effort toward the goal
that we may properly understand the declinations of words, cases,
and tenses.

Telling of making her profession together with her classmates, the writer
records the ages of novices at Ebstorf in the late fifteenth century and de-
scribes the girls’ views of the significance of their vocation.

[I]n the same year that our teacher came to the school, at advent
of the sixth year of the priorate of our beloved abbess, we made
our profession on the first Sunday of advent and were consecrated
to the order. A noble and worthy state to which God in his excel-
lence had preordained and chosen us before we were born. There
were six of us and four laysisters. [T]wo of us were still very young,
one eleven and the other ten, the other four were fifteen years of
age.141

While the exact circumstances of the composition of this text are not
known, it was apparently written to be read aloud to the convent commu-

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nity and expresses the young women’s indoctrination into the literate cul-
tural atmosphere at Ebstorf.
According to convent records, the average age of girls (some orphans)
on being admitted to the elite Klingental cloister for schooling was between
five and ten years of age. Here each child was placed in the care of an
adult, sometimes a relative, who became the child’s ‘‘cloister mother.’’ An
impression of nuns’ activities as foster mothers and teachers may be gained
from a fifteenth-century illustration made at Ebstorf showing a small child
being instructed by a nun in music (Fig. ). Each girl at Klingental lived in
the cell of her cloister mother and owed obedience to her and to the older
‘‘cloister daughters.’’ If she remained in the cloister, a grown ‘‘daughter’’
would often continue to live with her cloister mother and to care for her
when she became old and enfeebled. At her death, the ‘‘mother’’ usually
bequeathed to her ‘‘daughter’’ the use of part of her property and her
cell.142 In the fifteenth century, nearly all Observant houses raised the mini-
mum age for profession of vows from twelve or even younger to fourteen
or fifteen. The regulations from the cloister of Pfullingen, for example,
state that ‘‘girls under the age of fifteen and women over the age of forty-
six should not be accepted.’’143 Bursfeld reformers, such as Johannes Busch,
closed convent boarding schools for lay children, however, because they
felt that the running of a school made contact with the world unavoidable
and interfered in the house’s character as a religious cloister.144 The loss of
this source of income no doubt added to the hardships of financially trou-
bled convents that had previously depended on it.

Work

Many women’s houses supplemented their meager incomes by copying

manuscripts, weaving woolen and linen cloth, or doing washing and mend-
ing for men’s houses.145 At St. Agnes in Emmerich, formerly a house of
sisters of the Common Life but after  an enclosed Augustinian cloister,
all the women worked at spinning and weaving woolen cloth and had a
production quota to be met every day. The Emmerich book of sisters
() tells of Sister Griet van Gorchem who became blind at the age of
seventy-three. Concerned, lest she become a burden to the house, she
devoted herself industriously to spinning and weaving. The account states

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 Image not available

Fig.  Benedictine nun and school child. Illustration from a song book (detail).
Cloister Archive, Ebstorf,  V , fol. v. Fifteenth century.

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that in the fifteen years until her death at age eighty-eight, Griet spun each
year enough yarn for fifty to sixty ells of cloth.146
Producing the necessary amount of thread or yarn for the day’s weaving
was not an easy task and the Emmerich Book of Sisters records that the older,
faster spinners would sometimes help the young ones meet their quotas.
The chronicler tells the story of how one day a tired younger sister came
to an older sister, Beel te Mushoel, and said, ‘‘Dear sister, I don’t know
what to do. I think I would rather die than spin all the time.’’ Beel advised
her, ‘‘But my dear child, do not think that, but rather: with this spinning
you shall gain heaven.’’147 While work is depicted realistically as labor, the
economic necessity of it is sublimated to the goal of enabling the pursuit of
a religious life and ultimately salvation. The didactic function of the narra-
tive is clearly to model the behavior of its female readers. Here women
teach other women and spur them on to more earnest spiritual devotion.
Unlike the earlier sister-books, these fifteenth-century collections of vitae
focus on the unspectacular, depicting heroism in small deeds of the rank
and file. At the sisterhouse of Marienthal (called Niesing) in Münster,
weaving was the chief source of income. Yet the convent chronicle relates
that when the sisters produced enough goods to affect the local market, the
weavers’ guild objected and demanded that the looms be destroyed, thus
the women had to stop production. In the Chronicle of Marienthal, com-
posed c. , one of the sisters records the confrontation (), but not
without irony.

[T]here was one there who told the town council he would wager
his neck that we had one hundred looms—he was named Claus
Munt. And councilman Munsterman took him along and showed
him the eleven looms and told him that he had said he would
wager his neck that we had one hundred. To which he answered,
‘‘That’s what was told to me!’’ Then we had to bring the looms
outside the door where a great, nameless crowd stood with the
wagons, [and] who could not wait until the looms were broken
up.148

Despite their own financial hardships, part of convent women’s

work—in both poor and wealthy religious houses—was feeding the poor.
In  the town council of Basel issued orders on the care of the poor

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that required the individual cloisters on a specific day to give every poor
person ‘‘a bowl of gruel and about a penny’s worth of bread.’’149 Maria
Hüffer estimates that during the famine years of –, the wealthy can-
oness house of Rijnsburg fed an estimated , people every day.150 From
the beginnings, almsgiving was one of the chief means by which women
of the nobility expressed not only their piety but also their authority. These
rituals of charity guaranteed them a high-ranking place in heaven appro-
priate to their high status on earth.151 Early vitae, such as Bertha’s Life of
Adelheid, Abbess of Vilich, celebrate in hagiographic fashion the abbess’s
compassionate giving. With the feminine writer’s typical penchant for de-
scribing food, Bertha tells how Adelheid concerned herself with providing
the proper kind of nutrition for each recipient of her alms.

At one time, almost the whole world was afflicted by a bitter fam-
ine and great masses of the starving came from everywhere, to
partake of her generosity, as from the breast of a mother. All
through the streets and at every crossroad many lay half-dead and
waited for the accustomed dispensing of her alms. Touched by
their great need, Adelheid herself cared with devotion for every-
one. To the healthy and robust she parceled out bread and bacon;
the ill she served cabbage and vegetables carefully boiled with
meat. The dying and those almost despairing of life she revived
with broths mixed with water and flour and other nourishment,
always watching with diligence that the body not be put in peril
by overeating after a lack of proper food.

Bertha goes on to describe how the saintly Adelheid was known to take off
her shoes and put them in the beggar’s vessel.152 Both poor and rich houses
exercised patronage through spiritual giving and interceding for the souls
of the ‘‘needy dead.’’153

Spiritual Life

Between reading and singing services for the dead and performing the mo-
nastic office, convent women spent at least four to five hours of their day
in choral prayer.154 Marie-Luise Ehrenschwendtner estimates that medieval

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nuns spent roughly eight hours a day in chapel performing their liturgical
duties.155 Accordingly, women write a great deal about choral prayer.
Sometimes they characterize their performances as very hearty, as for exam-
ple in the ‘‘Chronicle of Inzigkofen,’’ a nineteenth-century abridgement
of the older chronicle begun in  by Apollonia Besserer (–)
and Elisabeth Muntprat (d. ). ‘‘The women are said to have sung, as
the old chronicle records, so eagerly and manfully that they could be heard
clearly all the way to the bridge.’’156 The Housebook of the newly established
Brigittine cloister of Maihingen (founded ) tells how the initial meager
group of eight, and sometimes only five, singers had difficulty putting to-
gether two choirs to perform the office. But the Housebook (begun in )
narrates how the women, in an equally manful way,

sang their seven Hours industriously every day. . . . And when the
sisters had sung matins they had to spin until it was time to sing
prime. It was often very hard on them when several times there
were not more than two in one choir, and the fifth sat in the
middle and sang in both choirs. For often the worthy Mother had
to be with another sister at the [convent] door, and the stewardess
in the kitchen to prepare the food . . . so the five sisters had to
sing, whether it went well or badly for them.

Somehow the food got prepared and the Hours sung creditably enough—at
least, so it sounded to the townspeople, who reported, ‘‘Something is sing-
ing with you; its voice is as loud as if an angel were singing with you.’’157
At Preetz, however, Prioress Anna von Buchwald felt that the number
of services the women were obligated to sing was exhausting her nuns.
Always efficient and enterprising, Anna writes that she tried to reduce the
burden on them by consolidating some of the services. On the day of her
ordination as prioress, she threw herself on her knees before the bishop and
the superiors of her order to lament the many ‘‘worries, strains, and hard-
ships’’ endured by her sisters, who, ‘‘because of the quantity of singing,
reading and other things, were taxed beyond their abilities and tormented.’’
Anna requested permission to reduce the number of readings and to allow
the sisters to use a written text (rather than having to learn all the offices by
heart), as well as to read the first two masses at the same time. These re-
quests were roundly rejected by the bishop and the abbot, who repri-

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manded her harshly before the entire convent. Then, unexpectedly, the
next day, they approved the changes. Anna, intensely practical and always
focused on the spirit rather than the letter of prescribed duties, asserts that
she made the changes ‘‘not because I am averse to work or lazy, but so that
my beloved sisters in Christ would not be too exhausted, weak, and de-
jected . . . [rather] so that they would serve God more ardently in other
things and continue their service the more diligently.’’158
When not performing the monastic office, services for the dead, or other
prescribed duties, nuns could devote themselves to private readings and
devotions. In her Lives of the Sisters of Unterlinden (/), Katharina von
Gueberschwihr depicts the spiritual zeal of idealized charismatic predeces-
sors in the convent, women striving to purify their consciences ‘‘in manly
fashion’’ (a term frequently applied to women’s feats of devotion or radical
asceticism).

Mornings and evenings they assiduously examined the secrets of

their conscience. If they became aware of anything that even mod-
erately affected their heart or darkened its purity, they disciplined
themselves most strenuously and cleansed themselves through pure
confessions. . . . Armed in manly fashion against all temptations of
the flesh and the devil, they held aloft the shield of faith and care-
fully pulled out the thorn bushes of vain thoughts by the roots.159

In private exercises, requiring a kind of calisthenics, some women

worked out like spiritual athletes, praying in different postures—with out-
stretched arms, kneeling, face to the ground, or prostrate—mentally weav-
ing imaginary ‘‘gifts’’ for the Virgin and Child or a ‘‘mantle’’ to cloak a
deceased sister in the other world.160 Freeing souls from purgatory through
prayer was one of religious women’s primary vocations, one way of partici-
pating in ‘‘Christ’s work in the world.’’161 The sister-book of cloister Töss
(c. ) narrates how, after a morning of prayer and sewing, Sister Beli
von Liebenberg said she would dearly like to know ‘‘how many souls the
sisters had released from purgatory by their prayers that forenoon.’’162
Bynum cites , souls that the mystic Mechthild of Magdeburg was
reputed to have saved from purgatory. Christ also appeared to Gertrude of

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Helfta and told her exactly how many souls had been released ‘‘from ex-
actly how much purgatory by exactly which devotions of the commu-
nity.’’163
Through intercessory prayer and other works of piety, such as almsgiv-
ing, women offered their own spiritual merits on behalf of helpless souls
since, as God had assured Mechthild of Hackeborn, ‘‘it was his habit to
repay every gift of charity with an equal store of charity.’’ Thus, McNamara
explains, even women ‘‘who felt themselves to be far from assured of their
own salvation still became convinced that they had spiritual wealth enough
to save others,’’ and part of a nun’s contemplative mission was ‘‘repenting
for the sins of others and suffering in their place.’’164
By suffering on earth, one could reduce one’s own suffering after death
but, more important, one could redeem others. As Bynum succinctly puts
it, ‘‘[T]o suffer was to save and be saved.’’165 In this way, prayer, fasting, and
other austerities were regarded as ‘‘service,’’ the substituting of one’s own
suffering for that of others. Even illness, if offered as a ‘‘gift,’’ could become
a source of merit and a way to exercise charity, that is, the winning of
mercy for souls in purgatory.166 Accordingly, in her Lives of the Sisters of
Unterlinden, Prioress Katharina explains the mission of her nuns and their
devotion to the Virgin by declaring that they ‘‘observed a stricter and
harder discipline in life than usual,’’ in order to gain more effectively ‘‘the
Grace of the Lord and his mercy.’’167
As a place apart from the sinfulness of the world, the cloister in Prioress
Katharina’s view is a higher plane where holy women offer prayers for the
needs of the whole community as a kind of ‘‘public work.’’ Certainly, it
was clear to the populace at large that the more holy the life of the interces-
sor, the more efficacious would be the prayers. Everyone knew of saints
who had worked miracles with their supplications. Margaret of Hungary’s
prayers were reputed to have kept the Danube from overflowing and those
of Clare of Assisi to have saved her town from an imperial army.168 Yet,
even in less dangerous times, the interests of the local community were
intimately bound up with the spiritual life of its cloister. Ellen Ross under-
scores this relationship between monasteries, ‘‘whose raison d’être was
prayer,’’ and the society outside, which ‘‘provided both the need for prayer
and financial support in return for prayer.’’169 Thus, more important in
medieval towns than the imposing physical presence of the convent, with

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its visible church and cemetery, was the vital spiritual presence it repre-
sented. Inside it, the women interceded in prayer for a populace—both the
living and the dead—that needed security in this life and especially in the
next. Indeed, for the soul’s journey through purgatory, the populace re-
quired very powerful and efficacious intercession.
Accordingly, the writings of nuns like Katharina von Gueberschwihr
express a very positive view of women, their mission, and the role they
played in their religious life and work. For these women, religious practice
and the dispensing of spiritual patronage to the needy were ways of exercis-
ing an authority that constituted a form of empowerment. To be sure, the
stories of sisters who would not have chosen the religious life for them-
selves are rarely told. Only occasionally do the narratives include women
such as Fye Vreysen, who, after visiting friends on the outside, lost her zest
for living in the sisterhouse. She became depressed, physically ill, and died
an early death.170 The author of the Deventer book of sisters used Fye’s
story to illustrate the manifest dangers inherent in contact with the world.
Certainly, women’s options both inside and outside the cloister were
limited. But for those who actively chose or developed a vocation for
the religious life, entering a women’s community could be a strategy
for exercising agency that allowed for religious self-development and in
which opportunities to teach, create, and hold positions of responsibility
and leadership were many. Moreover, through spiritual patronage women
could command respect and exert influence in the world beyond the
cloister.
The stories that religious women composed about themselves constitute
an alternative narrative that calls into question the popular caricature of the
nun as ‘‘cloister cat.’’ Their depictions of daily life, work, and spiritual
activities within the cloister do not confirm the stereotypes in ribald tales
about nuns. How, for example, does one liken Unterlinden’s Prioress Ka-
tharina to her close contemporary, Madame Eglantyne, Chaucer’s self-in-
dulgent prioress in the Canterbury Tales? And how are Anna von
Buchwald’s accounts of hardworking nuns to be reconciled with modern
descriptions of nunneries as ‘‘enclaves for female leisure.’’171 Clearly, narra-
tives differ in style and content according to the audiences for whom they
are produced. They are culturally specific and shaped by users for specific
ends that reflect spiritual and social anxieties, power relations, and strategies
for dealing with them. From the medieval perspective, the spiritual condi-

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tion of a cloister was of critical importance, since it was connected directly

to the health and well being of the secular community. Accordingly, Chap-
ter  will look at the publicly perceived state of health of women’s cloisters
in the fifteenth century, at changing expectations, societal pressures, and at
idealist as well as opportunist reformers.

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 
The ‘‘Women’s Religious Movement’’
and the Observant Movement
Female Piety and the Establishment

Any discussion of women’s religious activities in the late Middle Ages owes
much to Herbert Grundmann’s groundbreaking study, Religious Movements
in the Middle Ages.1 Since the book’s publication in , Grundmann’s
thesis of a ‘‘women’s religious movement’’ has repeatedly come under fire
for, among other things, conjuring up anachronistic associations with mod-
ern-day feminism. How can one speak of a ‘‘women’s religious move-
ment’’ in the late medieval period?2 Did women at the time see themselves
collectively as participants?
According to Grundmann’s theory, the twelfth and thirteenth centuries
gave rise to a growing pressure from women of all social strata for active
participation in religious life.3 Grundmann traces the origins of this pressure
to the influence of wandering lay ministers who preached apostolic poverty
and evangelism. Inspired by the ideal of the apostolic life, large numbers of
lay people turned their backs on the world to embrace poverty and simplic-
ity in the way that the earliest Christians did. The most popular of these
charismatic preachers, Robert of Arbrissel (c. –) and Norbert of
Xanten (c. –), established religious communities where their male
and female followers could pursue a life of strict asceticism and discipline.4
It was out of these foundations that Fontrevaud, with its double monaster-
ies for men and women, and the new Premonstratensian order developed.
By the mid-twelfth century, so many women had been attracted to the
movement that there are reports of more than a thousand Premonstraten-
sian sisters living in the diocese of Laon alone. Similarly, another chronicle
from the year  describes ‘‘innumerable women’’ taking up a religious
form of life.5
Documenting a fourfold increase in new establishments for women in
this period, scholars since Grundmann have suggested additional factors

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besides the apostolic life movement to explain the increase in women living
as religious. These conditions include the much debated ‘‘surplus’’of
women and a decentralization of power in which the lesser nobility gained
in influence and demonstrated its new prerogatives by founding convents.6
Yet it is clear that even the large numbers of new foundations were unable
to handle the press of patrician women wanting to live as religious. Jacques
de Vitry (c. –) asserted that these women were so numerous that
‘‘three times as many Cistercian cloisters would have been needed’’ to take
them all in.7 Overwhelmed by the applications for admission, both the new
Premonstratensian and the older Cistercian orders declared a moratorium
on admission of any more women’s houses.8 Concerned about the endan-
gered situation of large numbers of ‘‘beguines,’’ or religious laywomen,
living in unincorporated groups throughout the diocese of Liège, Vitry
obtained from newly elected Pope Honorius III (–) his ‘‘verbal’’
consent for women to live in communal houses without belonging to an
order or following a rule.9 In the north the numbers of these unincorpo-
rated groups rose to some three percent of all women. In Cologne there
were one hundred beguine houses and sixty in Strasbourg, where they
constituted as much as ten percent of the female population.10
When the first Dominicans and Franciscans began to arrive in the south
of Germany in the thirteenth century, they encountered similarly large
numbers of women living together in groups without a rule and outside
the institutional structures of the church. The mendicant friars promptly
took over their spiritual care and advised them to adopt a rule and apply
for admission to their orders. The response was overwhelming. Within its
first twenty-five years, women’s houses in the Dominican order grew from
four in France, Spain, and Italy to thirty-two in the German provinces
alone and to eighty there by .11 Providing pastoral care for so many
religious women soon placed demands on the order that could not be met,
and the Dominicans, like the Cistercians and the Premonstratensions, closed
their doors to women. But this action did not eliminate the pressure to
accept more women into the order, especially when popes continued to
make exceptions. Finally, the Dominican order took the radical step of
divesting itself even of those women’s houses already admitted and decreed
that the brothers must henceforth cease providing pastoral care to all female
religious communities.12 Only after some twenty years was a compromise
worked out, allowing for sacramental duties to be delegated to secular

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 Female Piety and the Establishment

priests serving as chaplains, and women were again admitted to the Domin-
ican order.13

Women Writing about Beguines

Did women in their chronicles and foundation histories write about these
events and do their narratives about beguines register a sense of belonging
to a movement of religious women? Grundmann cites Hadewijch (fl. c.
–), whose writings, he asserts, indicate ‘‘a consciousness of the inter-
connections of the new feminine piety.’’ Hadewijch mentions beguines in
Flanders, Brabant, Paris, Zealand, Holland, Frisia, England, and ‘‘beyond
the Rhine.’’14 That women knew the history of their collective struggle for
acceptance into religious orders and were acquainted with writings by ear-
lier women authors (as will be shown in Chapter ) can be verified in a
chronicle composed around  by Magdalena Kremer at the cloister of
Kirchheim unter Teck in Württemberg. Magdalena writes of the early days
of women’s efforts to gain admittance to the Dominican order and of their
subsequent expulsion. Remarkably, however, she uses this account to tell
of a successful collective counteraction by women in response to being
denied recognition and pastoral care. Many women, she asserts, went on
foot to Rome and joined together to protest their situation to the Pope.
Attributing the resolution of the problem to women’s collective effort,
Magdalena describes their successful lobbying and the positive outcome:

[F]rom many cloisters in German lands two or three sisters from

each set out on foot, joined together, and traveled under great
hardship to Rome where they protested their desperate situation
and misery to our holy father the pope and besought him that he
would again place them under the direction and protection of the
Dominicans. The pope perceived their great earnestness and re-
turned them to the care of the Dominicans. And where they pre-
viously had had one women’s cloister, they now had seven to
one.15

Magdalena rejoices in the sevenfold increase in Dominican women’s

houses, despite the hierarchy’s attempts to keep them out. Her version of

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the events reflects not only the sisters’ feeling of accomplishment at win-
ning their suit but also a sense of solidarity in their growing strength of
numbers. Certainly, Magdalena’s picture of scores of German Adelheids
and Hildegards marching on Rome in a kind of women’s second Germanic
invasion seems a startling one for a female author in the late Middle Ages.
Literary historian Peter Dinzelbacher has argued that formulations such
as ‘‘we women’’ begin to appear for the first time in the fifteenth century.16
He identifies Christine de Pizan (–c. ), author of the Book of the
City of Ladies, as the first woman writer to express an awareness of women
collectively in opposition to the masculine world. If Dinzelbacher’s hy-
pothesis is correct, it marks a significant watershed in women’s thinking.
As early as , Dominican women had begun writing foundation ac-
counts of the formation of their communities out of gatherings of beguines.
Five of the nine Dominican sister-books composed between  and 
at women’s houses in Switzerland, Alsace, and Southern Germany were
prefaced by foundation narratives that had already been added in the four-
teenth century. Three of the nine were later edited by Johannes Meyer,
who cut out visions that he objected to and supplied didactic prologues
and epilogues.17 Yet the ironic approach taken by the author of the Oeten-
bach sister-book clearly distinguishes her style from Meyer’s. She, too,
mentions the moratorium on Dominican pastoral care of women’s com-
munities but describes a different solution. In her narrative, the beguine
founding mothers solve the problem by pitting the Dominicans friars
against their rivals, the Franciscans. When the Dominicans hear that the
women might join the order of the Poor Clares instead, they become
alarmed and decide to take over their care again. In this way the women
succeed in gaining the help of the men.18
In the Oetenbach sister-book, as in several foundation narratives, the
author relates how two of the beguine women subsequently make the ar-
duous trip to Rome to get confirmation of their community’s acceptance.
The chronicler tells how Hemma Walaseller and another sister took an
elderly secular priest with them as their escort on their journey to Rome.
Once there, the sisters again prove more effective than the men. With
God’s help they see their matter quickly arranged ‘‘ahead of many a great
lord who had been there long before them.’’19 The chronicler expresses
evident satisfaction in the sisters’ success, in spite of the disadvantages of
being poor and female.

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 Female Piety and the Establishment

While fourteenth-century sister-books lack explicit ‘‘we women’’

wording, they celebrate female agency and initiative in the founding of
beguine communities and in achieving the incorporation of these commu-
nities into the order. In these narratives, the beguine founding mothers
observe the spirituality of the new men’s mendicant communities and so-
licit their guidance and friendly advice. But the stories depict the women
as the primary agents and initiators of the beguine ‘‘gatherings.’’ Stressing
the lay women’s desire for a life devoted to religion, the foundation stories
portray the extreme privations they endured in establishing and financing
a house, helped by lay women of the neighborhood. Thus the Oetenbach
foundation story relates with characteristic irony how a woman named
Gertraut von Hilzingen, who lived in the city of Zurich,

gained a burning desire to live such a holy spiritual life as [the

Dominicans] and so she took with her two persons of good will
and they moved to an abandoned house that was in that city and
there they established a cloister. And when they entered the house,
the rain was coming in everywhere so that it was almost filled with
water. Thus they moved in, relying on God’s mercy, and had at
first nothing but water and bread. That was a poor state of affairs
for such exalted brides of God.

Here, as in other foundation stories, solidarity is a prominent theme in

descriptions of the way the beguine women supported one another. Thus
the Oetenbach author relates, ‘‘Of the three sisters, one was named sister
Mechthild von Woloshofen. She helped out in her father’s inn, but she had
such sympathy for the other two that she left it and ate water and bread
with them.’’20
Often solidarity takes the form of women helping other women mone-
tarily. The foundation account in the sister-book of cloister Katharinental
(c. /), near the Swiss town of Diessenhofen, tells of the communi-
ty’s origins in a beguine gathering at Winterthur.21 In this narrative, the
decisive initiative is taken by a widow named Williburg von Hünikon, a
woman of considerable property. This enterprising and wealthy widow
joins an already existing community of poor women and maintains them
with her own funds while looking for a better situation for the group.

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Where women and men work together in these narratives, it is in decidedly

non-hierarchical relationships. Thus the foundation account states:

[W]hen this blessed Sister Williburg came to them and became

well acquainted with the holy and blessed life that [the beguines]
led, she became very eager to better their condition and that she
might help them to a secure and permanent place where they
could serve our Lord undisturbed and in a proper manner. . . . And
they heard of the good intention which the honorable priest Herr
Hugh at Diessenhofen had to establish a cloister where forty
women might serve the Lord. When Sister Williburg heard this,
she hurried to him on foot and asked about his plans and told him
of their needs and what she intended. This appealed to him and
they agreed that they wanted to do all in their power to establish
an honorable cloister of the Dominican order in that place. . . .
Then sister Williburg brought her group from Winterthur and
they lived in a house until the cloister was built.22

Acting in an equal partnership, Hugh becomes the chaplain and Williburg

the prioress of the new community.
Unlike the accounts of Gandersheim, Quedlinburg, and Essen, great
dynastic foundations for women established in earlier periods on the initia-
tive of a noble patron, the fourteenth-century narratives stress the commu-
nities’ humble and independent origins. Donors come into the picture only
after a group of pious, spiritually dynamic women has banded together to
start a community on their own.23 Even though these stories were written
a century or so after a community’s first gathering, after the cloisters had
become wealthy and secure, they depict the hardships and celebrate the
initiative of the beguine ‘‘founding mothers’’ as a way of creating a com-
munal identity and a fictive golden age of beguine spirituality.
Christina Ebner (–), who composed the foundation history and
sister-book of Engelthal, the Little Book of the Overwhelming Burden of Grace,
entered the cloister in . Thus Christina may have known personally
some of the former beguines who were present at the community’s incor-
poration as a Dominican house in .24 Christina’s narrative tells how a
certain Adelheid Rotter left the entourage of Princess Elisabeth of Hungary
to live as a penitent in Nuremberg. There she joined a group of beguines,

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 Female Piety and the Establishment

who asked her to become their leader. The women did not have sufficient
funds to establish a cloister, but each one brought all that she possessed.
Emphasizing the beguines’ earnest desire to live as a religious community,
Christina depicts in the typical manner of the sister-books the women’s
charismatic spirituality. She tells how the beguines organized themselves
and invented a rule of order, relying on Adelheid, who was literate and
had been at court. Through their self-fashioned ritual, they acted out their
religious devotion.

They read the Hours as well as they were able. At compline they
went to their mistress [Adelheid] and asked her what they should
do on the following day, and that they did willingly. When they
sat at table, their mistress sat at the head. After she had eaten a little,
she read to them in German: and it occasionally happened that
some of them fell into a swoon and lay unconscious like the dead,
for they were totally absorbed in God, as though departed. . . .
When people heard of their holy life, they gave them freely all that
they needed, especially Kunigunde, the Queen of Bohemia, who
was very generous to them.

In , when Nuremberg was placed under interdict because of the ex-
communication of Emperor Friedrich II (Hohenstaufen), the group of be-
guines left Nuremberg and went to a manor outside of the city, where, the
narrator continues, ‘‘they had to do heavy work and cut their grain them-
selves, wash, bake, and do all the chores. This they did with great devotion
and patience.’’25 After they had lived as a self-organized group for some
time, turning for advice to a local pastor, the women petitioned the first
Dominicans to arrive in their region to join their obedience. But, as in the
other sister-book foundation stories, the focus here is on devout beguine
women starting a community on their own.
While poverty is an important theme in the women’s stories about their
beguine foremothers, it is not a constant. It does not figure prominently, for
instance, in the foundation story that Prioress Elisabeth Kempf (–)
added to the Unterlinden sister-book (Colmar) when she translated it from
Latin into German. The original, composed by Prioress Katharina von
Gueberschwihr around , had contained no account of the cloister’s
founding.26 Elisabeth Kempf ’s addition draws from other convent docu-

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ments and tells the story of two very enterprising, noble widows who estab-
lished and managed a lay religious community. Hiring a priest to conduct
services, they organized a manner of life patterned on what they call the
‘‘old cloisters.’’ In planning the community, the first members consult their
network of widow friends who offer their opinions and assistance.

There lived in Colmar two widows, respected for their piety, up-
right life, and their noble families—Agnes von Wittelnheim and
Agnes von Herkenheim. On the advice of Walther, a lector at the
Dominican men’s convent in Strasbourg. . . . God gave them the
desire to found a convent. They made their intention known to
other widows in the neighborhood in order to hear their opinions
about it. These women responded joyfully with advice and eager
assistance. The two widows rented out the houses that they owned
in Colmar for a yearly sum and moved with their sons and daugh-
ters to the outskirts of town to a place called ‘‘under the Linden,’’
where there was a house and some property around it. After a short
time they left that place on the advice of two respected women
who had joined their group, and moved, on the evening of the
feast of St. John the Baptist , to a place called Aufmühlen,
which is next to the chapel of that saint. There were then eight of
them. . . . Soon afterward they built on the same location some
houses and a long, wide, and high stone dormitory. They enclosed
themselves in this building and there led a pious life in the fear of
God. After the manner of the old cloisters, they had maids and
laborers work their fields and vineyards and paid a priest of spotless
reputation at their own expense, who said the mass for them almost
daily.

In Elisabeth’s story, the two widows eventually make the arduous trip to
the papal court to petition for incorporation into the Dominican order. In
Rome, they do some research and visit the women’s cloister of San Sisto,
established by Saint Dominic, in order to study its physical construction
and the nuns’ habit and practices. Then, continues Elisabeth, ‘‘with great
eagerness and persistence, they requested that Pope Innocent IV grant them
the order and dress of the Dominicans and asked that they be placed under

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the care and direction of the order and enjoy its privileges.’’27 The account
includes the text of Pope Innocent’s decree, issued in .
In the Unterlinden case, as in the other narratives, it is primarily women
who help beguine women. Its depictions agree with recent studies showing
a high number of female patrons for beguine settlements. Forty-five per-
cent were founded by women as the principle donors. Moreover, Walter
Simons’s study calls the beguine movement ‘‘the only movement in medie-
val monastic history that was created by women and for women.’’28 The
sister-book foundation narratives strongly emphasize female patronage and
self-starting mutual support. The Katharinental account, for instance, not
only mentions generous townspeople but also singles out by name specific
women who helped the community financially.29 Like other stories that
women wrote for each other, the foundation account of the Clarissan clois-
ter of Pfullingen, composed by an anonymous sister around , tells how
two noble women established a cloister themselves and then traveled to
Rome to receive permission to incorporate the house into the order of the
Poor Clares.

On Saint Martin’s day in the year of our Lord  this cloister
Pfullingen was begun by the noble, well-born lady Mechthildt and
lady Irmel von Pfullingen, of the noble family of Rempen. And
they went themselves in person to Rome and acquired permission,
and with their property and with holy alms built this cloister. Let
it be known that the first donation given was a little lamb or sheep
that, by the grace of God, became an entire strain and herd. God
be praised. Afterward, in the year  on St. Otmar’s day, the
same women entered the holy order of Saint Clare.30

The narrative tells how years of military campaigns subsequently decimated

the cloister’s holdings. But the chronicler emphasizes the women’s re-
sourcefulness in protecting what little they could from the marauding sol-
diers. She recounts, for example, ‘‘Once the sisters took everything that
they could carry and hid it in the refectory under the benches and [hiding
the cache] stood before them close together in their cloaks.’’31 Thanks to
the women’s clever collective stratagem, the soldiers found nothing to con-
fiscate and left the cloister.
For most of the convents that grew out of thirteenth-century beguine

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settlements, the origins were small, poor, and obscure, making it difficult
to identify to what order they first belonged. Particularly in ‘‘Cistercian’’
cloisters, it is often unclear exactly what the nature of the women’s affilia-
tion with the order was.32 Likewise, many self-established convents that
received pastoral care from the Dominicans were never officially accepted
into that order. The stories about the founding mothers of these houses,
which became part of the sister-books in the fourteenth and fifteenth cen-
turies, are a far cry from the earlier women’s narratives about great noble
abbeys such as Gandersheim. Both Hrosvit’s Origins of the Convent of Gan-
dersheim (c. /) and Bertha’s Life of Adelheid, Abbess of Vilich ()
relate splendid foundations.33 In both of these accounts, the monasteries are
organized by the wealthy and powerful parents of the first abbesses. Sister
Bertha relates, for example, how at Vilich the noble father, Count Megen-
goz, and mother, Countess Gerberga, daughter of Duke Godfrey, took an
active part in overseeing the building of a monastery for their daughter
Adelheid. Bertha relates how Vilich Abbey, built some seventy years be-
fore, was closely supervised by the exacting Lady Gerberga, who ‘‘re-
mained steadfastly at the place where the monastery was to be built,
accelerating the pressing work on the structure with magisterial foresight.’’
In this narrative, Adelheid’s parents donate the building and its furnishings,
recruit the women who are to inhabit it, and arrange the privileges and
safeguards that will protect their daughter and their investment. Bertha
relates:

Then they collected together a community of virgins in that place

who were to tend the Divine Service. From the convent of the
Holy Virgins [where Adelheid was being schooled], they redeemed
their daughter with a gift of land, and handed over to her the care
of the future direction and government of Vilich. . . . When they
had decorated the place worthily, they gave it into the hand of
the Emperor Otto III, so that his protection would defend it in
perpetuity. Graciously, he freed the place from all secular yoke and
laws and bestowed upon it the liberties according to the laws and
constitutions of the convents of Gandersheim, Quedlinburg and
Essen, namely, that a judge or advocate could never demand ser-

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vices thereupon nor could govern in the boundaries of the area of

that convent unless it pleased the abbess and her congregation.34

Clearly, these much earlier foundation narratives—composed by women

but with a male audience and the illustrious donor families in mind—were
not the models for the accounts that fourteenth-century Dominican
women composed. It is doubtful that they even knew about them. Rather,
the foundation stories in the Dominican sister-books appear to have been
modeled on Gérard de Frachet’s (d. ) Vitae Fratrum (Lives of the Breth-
ren of the Order of Preachers), which was compiled in response to a man-
date from the Dominican Chapter General in  to collect any ‘‘edifying
occurrences’’ within the order so as to chronicle its origins and develop-
ment. Frachet’s Lives contains a number of monastic foundation histories
of individual convents.35
Gertrud Jaron Lewis asserts that the sister-books are more than simply
feminine versions of Frachet’s work. Above all, they present a different
view of women from the male-authored Vitae patrum, Vitae fratrum, and
Vincent of Beauvais’ Speculum historiale, all of which contain a few token
saintly women but portray the vast majority of females as disreputable, silly,
or, at worst, downright satanic. Lewis cites the ‘‘depressingly negative’’ and
steady diet of misogynist tales offered to monastics, both male and female,
in their daily reading as the backdrop against which the ‘‘unique and novel
achievement of the authors of Sister-Books’’ stands out. If not an actual
backlash, Lewis suggests, we have in sister-books at least images of virtuous
women and—more important—a ‘‘consciously feminine perspective.’’
Here women are not only the authors but also the subject and the audience
for the texts. Women in the sister-books ‘‘talk directly about themselves,
their own community, their values and attitudes.’’36
Wilhelm Oehl has called the sister-books ‘‘typically female, without a
trace of objective history writing.’’37 One wonders if a truly ‘‘objective’’
view would include such a categorization of what is female. But clearly
these ‘‘histories,’’ written by fourteenth-century women, must be seen in
their late-medieval context. If patterned on Gérard de Frachet’s work, they
fit within a tradition of foundation narratives that is not female. Yet they
differ in presenting a point of view that places women at the center rather
than at the margins. These stories do not characterize women as subaltern,

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passive recipients of pastoral care or as persons who have been ‘‘sent’’ to

nunneries but as women choosing and actively initiating an alternative life-
style, one entirely devoted to religion. The portrait of enterprising, re-
sourceful, and determined beguine founding mothers is, perhaps, not so
unusual a view as has been supposed.
The literary genre to which these accounts belong and the political
agenda they represent with be discussed in Chapter . The important point
here is that these works were written with a particular aim in mind. Com-
posed some one hundred years after the beguine communities had become
wealthy and secure houses of regular Dominican nuns, the sister-books
look backward to their beguine origins and the communities’ most cele-
brated visionaries for models, in order to combat what they perceive as a
falling away from spirituality in their own time. The anecdotes of the fer-
vent piety of women in the community’s past are designed to inspire the
contemporary generation to renew its spiritual devotion.38 In the Töss sis-
ter-book, for example, the narrator reports that she asked Sister Elisabeth
Bechlin, a resident of the cloister for sixty-two years, to provide an anec-
dote for her book. When Sister Elisabeth wanted to know what it was to
be used for, the narrator replied that it was to provide a model, one that
would inspire readers to strive for God’s grace, because, as she laments,
‘‘the love of God is beginning to decline these days in many places in the
hearts of men.’’39 The sense of spiritual decline that worried the compiler
of the Töss sister-book in the fourteenth century would become far more
acute in the following century as the social and religious landscape under-
went rapid and radical changes.

Religious Practice and Women’s Convents

These worries were not unjustified, for by the late fourteenth century the
church was, indeed, in a state of crisis, having two, and later three, rival
popes. Religious orders were headed up by rival Masters General and at
ground level mendicant friars were in competition with parish clergy.
These divisions created confusion among the laity and undermined morale
in the monastic ranks. Decimated by plague in the fourteenth century, the
religious orders had not recovered. In southern Germany only  of what
had been  Franciscan friars remained.40 In many institutions the state

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of religious practice was alarming, as can be seen in Bishop Matthias Ram-

mung’s reform regulations for the St. Guido chapter house at Speyer
(–). These directives state that no member ‘‘may bring a dog with
him into the choir’’ or use ‘‘abusive language during a chapter meeting.’’
During the singing of the psalms, ‘‘[o]ne side of the choir may not begin
to sing or recite their verse until the other side has completed its psalm
verse. . . . During the office the members of the chapter are required to
sing or to read. They should not poke and tease each other [or] disturb
others during the common singing and prayer.’’41 In many women’s houses
the situation was not much better, since the male monastic orders were
poorly equipped to supply them with qualified priests.42 At Nuremberg the
Clarissan sisters complained in a letter to the town council, circa , that
the Franciscan friars did not ‘‘keep an upright common life,’’ or instruct
them in ‘‘proper faith,’’ but instead led them away from it.43 Women at the
Strasbourg convents of St. Mark, St. Katharina, and St. Nicolaus in undis
objected that Dominican brothers had entered their cloisters without per-
mission, wanting to dance.44 In the fifteenth century, it had become a lay-
man’s sport in Zurich to scale the walls of the cloister of Oetenbach at
Shrovetide and play pranks or dance with the sisters. Here, a New Year’s
Eve escapade in /, reported in the minutes of the town council,
ended in a pillow fight.45
But it takes two to tango, and men were not the only dancers. At the
Clarissan cloister of Söflingen it was rumored that the nuns wore shrovetide
costumes. Officials in  reported finding there ‘‘pointed shoes’’ and a
‘‘cleavage enhancing bodice.’’46 The reforming Count Ulrich of Württem-
berg was horrified to learn that both his son and his brother had danced
and carried on loudly with the sisters at the Dominican cloister of Kirch-
heim during a visit in .47 More serious, however, was a letter written
to the bishop of Constance, c. , by an unnamed clergyman who com-
plained that at Klingental the women were not observing the rule of silence
and stayed up so late at night that they slept through early mass—which
only three or four of the forty nuns attended. The informant remonstrates
that in choir the sisters chatted in loud voices and brought dogs and birds
with them. When admonished to be quiet, they refused to sing. If the
religious service were too long, the sisters would sneak out of the choir
before the end instead of listening to the sermon and stroll chatting
throughout the cloister. Furthermore, the writer complains, many did not

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take communion regularly. The anonymous whistle-blower identifies the

prioress as the source of the problem, accusing her of currying favor with
the younger sisters by letting them do anything they wished and herself
keeping company with a man named Wilhelm.48
Other kinds of complaints cite gross inequities of wealth and poverty
within women’s cloisters. A tract from / states that, while some
convent women enjoyed jewelry, expensive clothing, valuable utensils, soft
beds and good food, others sisters were poorly and thinly clothed and had
to live on watery broths and pea soup. Some, it asserts, live ‘‘like lords’’
while others resemble shabby beggars.49 Visitation records from the Cister-
cian cloister at Jena seem to corroborate this charge, showing that a few
nuns there owned as many as fifty or one hundred veils, while the others
had five or six.50
Despite the possession of substantial individual property, many women’s
houses in the fifteenth century were in serious financial trouble. Critics
asserted that the nuns, rather than giving over all their assets to the cloister,
were keeping some of them outside for their own private use.51 More real
and pervasive problems, however, were financial mismanagement, infla-
tion, and the inexorable shift from an agricultural to a currency-based
economy that had eroded many convents’ financial base.52 By  the
Augustinian cloister of Heiningen, for example, had run up , gulden
in debts and was so poor that the women had no candles even to eat by in
winter.53 At Zoffingen, reforming sisters sent from St. Gall in  were
appalled to find the cloister out of food and nearly bankrupt. The newly
arrived reformers record in the Zoffingen account book and chronicle,
‘‘When we arrived in the cloister, we found nothing that one could live
on, only about six or seven measures of wine and about eight pounds of
nuts. There was neither schmalz nor salt nor grain nor meal that we could
survive on.’’ Setting to work, the sisters succeeded in turning the situation
around and by  the convent’s eight inhabitants (all but three of them
over age sixty) had increased to twenty-six.54 At the Benedictine cloister of
Herzebrock Sister Anna Roede writes that feuds and military campaigns
had so damaged her cloister that ‘‘the Divine Service could not be held
night and day with such ardent devotion as had been their practice. This
was due to the great uproar caused by the fighting.’’55
Even where the sisters could attend to spiritual matters, some cloisters
were so lacking in good leadership and a common understanding of their

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 Female Piety and the Establishment

mission that destructive rivalries arose. At the Clarissan cloister in Nurem-

berg a particularly grievous rivalry came to light in which two factions
harassed each other on the feast days of their respective saints. Writing to
the city council, one group of sisters complained, ‘‘You should also know
that recently on Saint John the Evangelist’s day a new book containing his
vita was brought out and read at table and that is against the wishes of the
majority of the convent . . . who are devoted to Saint John the Baptist [and]
will think up something new to do in retaliation. Thus the irritation never
ends and keeps escalating.’’56 To escape conditions like these, sisters often
left troubled cloisters for better situations, as did Sister Guta Rüssin who
transferred in  from the house of the Penitents of St. Maria Magdalena
an den Steinen at Basel to a Cistercian house. Sister Guta cites two reasons
for her move: the poverty of the convent and the constant traffic of secular
visitors, which she felt to be detrimental to the spiritual life of the house.57
Certainly not all reports of moral and spiritual laxity in women’s houses
are reliable. Some were exaggerations, while others were simply false.
Often the reputation of the nuns was purposely defamed by fervent agita-
tors trying to initiate a reform or justify one afterward. Even sincere re-
formers could sometimes be overzealous and politicians often opportunistic
or unscrupulous. A vigorous public debate at Strasbourg in / led
popular Observant preacher and secular priest Johannes Kreutzer (d. )
to denounce all unreformed cloisters as ‘‘brothels.’’58 Sometimes financial
problems that were not of the nuns’ making were, nevertheless, used as the
pretext for a reform. At the cloister of Medingen, for example, the sisters
were blamed when a dishonest male steward embezzled their funds and
fled. The nuns were then forced on pain of excommunication to pay the
unjustly incurred debts. And when, having undertaken to pay, they became
impoverished and their living conditions so intolerable that the nuns had
to go home to their parents, they were criticized for breech of the rule of
enclosure. Intervention to take control of the cloister’s finances thus ap-
peared to be justified.59 In some cases the defamations were simply wrong,
as at Söflingen where, as has been mentioned, a critic claimed that there
were a large number of pregnancies at the cloister. Max Miller has since
demonstrated that this was a false understanding of terminology. For, in
context, the word that had been interpreted as meaning ‘‘pregnant’’ actu-
ally signified ‘‘puffed up, proud, or rebellious.’’60
Lest all women’s religious houses be condemned out of hand as sorely

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in need of reform, some distinctions must be drawn. Polemics denouncing

them for allowing ownership of private property, servants, separate living
quarters and meals do not always distinguish between expectations for nuns
living under a rule and canoness houses that, as has been shown, never
prohibited any of the above. In many cases, and especially by the fifteenth
century, the difference between nunneries of the regular orders and canon-
ess houses of choir sisters was difficult to determine.61 Some cloisters offi-
cially broke their connections to the regular orders, while in others the
relationship was only loosely defined.62 Perhaps the only thing that can be
said with certainty is that the term ‘‘canoness’’ is not synonymous with
‘‘unreformed’’ and women’s convents cannot all be lumped together.

The Church Regenerate

The church of the fifteenth century was not entirely in decline. In many
parts it was healthy, and in others vigorously regenerating. Far from being
an age on the wane, the period before the Reformation was one of intense
religious ferment that gave rise to new forms of spirituality, driven by the
increasing influence and demands of the urban burgher class and its reli-
gious needs.63 The eagerness of the general populace for sermons in this
period is only one measure of a vigorous upsurge in popular piety.64
As has been mentioned, one of the movements that arose toward the
end of the fourteenth century and experienced its greatest expansion in the
s and s was that of the New Devout or Brothers and Sisters of the
Common Life. The movement offered the option of a third or ‘‘middle’’
way between lay status and the religious orders, a manner of living as ‘‘De-
vout’’ without being professed religious.65 Seeking a more intense spiritual
experience, the New Devout formed communities in private houses,
where they began to emulate a life based on that of the apostles and the
early church. The earliest of these communities was a house for women in
Deventer that founder Geert Grote (d. ) organized by turning over to
them his own residence. The Devout sisters required no vows or seclusion
from the world but practiced a life of great simplicity centered on tech-
niques of meditation. Like other parishioners they attended mass at the
parish church. The sisters were expected to work to support the house, to
live communally and, holding their goods in common, to devote them-

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 Female Piety and the Establishment

selves to reading devotional books and the liturgical Hours.66 Over 
such sister-houses were founded in the fifteenth century along the lower-
and middle Rhine, as well as in other parts of Westphalia, lower Saxony,
Hessen and the Baltic coast.67 They constituted almost half of all cloister
foundations in the fifteenth century.68 Many of these sister-houses, like St.
Agnes in Emmerich, later took on the Augustinian rule and lived enclosed.
Some were reformed by Observants or themselves sent women to intro-
duce their way of life at unreformed houses, as did the convent at Diepen-
veen, a former sisterhouse that dispatched three sisters to reform
Hilwartshausen on the Weser.69 In this and other reforms carried out by
Windesheim-trained Observant activists such as Johannes Busch, the devo-
tionalist movement and the Observant reform initiative overlap.
Recent research has made increasingly clear that the New Devout
movement did not arise in isolation but must be seen in relationship to
other reform and Observant movements taking place in the religious orders
at this same time.70 Many orders developed a spirituality in the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries resembling that of the devotionalists or devotio mod-
erna but that was spawned by the Observant reform movement. Both de-
velopments were part of what Kaspar Elm calls the ‘‘new spiritual
landscape’’ at the end of the Middle Ages.71 Many of these independent
initiatives, instigated locally by monastics themselves have, until recently,
been ignored and little done to trace them beyond any strictly order-cen-
tered compass or, as Katherine Walsch comments, to establish lines of de-
velopment toward the reforming movements of the sixteenth century.72

The Observants: An Overview

While reform, ‘‘the leitmotif of German history in the fifteenth century,’’

was a call that resounded from every quarter, the Observant movement
itself did not originate in the fifteenth century or with the great reform
councils.73 Rather, it began earlier at a grassroots level and simultaneously
within various orders.74 A quick overview here of the Observant move-
ments in the Franciscan, Augustinian, Dominican, and Benedictine orders
will show the commonalities and general aims.
Among the Franciscans, an initiative to return to observance of the Rule
of Saint Francis as it was first conceived is associated with the ‘‘Spirituals’’

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of the early fourteenth century and the charismatic Angelus Clarinus (d.
).75 These self-styled poor and devout brothers lived in hermitages and
pursued a life of penitence and prayer. Toward the turn of the fifteenth
century in France, Colette of Corbie (–), a former beguine who
had become a Clarissan nun, launched her own reform of the order and was
successful in founding twenty-two convents.76 At the same time, radical
eremitical initiatives among Franciscans in Spain urged not only a return to
a life of poverty but also strict silence and seclusion. Following the Council
of Constance, a more moderate form of observance was promoted by pop-
ular preachers Bernardino of Siena and John of Capistrano, but the issue of
radical poverty ultimately split the Franciscan order into separate branches
of Observants and Conventuals.77
In the Augustinian order, an Observant movement that was strongly
influenced by the example of the Franciscan eremitical ideal developed in
Italy about . From the first Observant house at Lecceto, it spread in
the fifteenth century throughout the Italian Augustinian provinces and de-
veloped strong followings in Spain and Saxony, where Martin Luther, early
on, was himself a resident of three Observant houses. Besides penance,
prayer, common life, and observance of the rule without exemptions, the
Augustinian reformers devoted themselves with increased commitment to
the sacramental life of the laity.78
Among Dominicans, the order from which the most documents in this
study stem, the Observance was promoted by Master General Raymond of
Capua (–), biographer and confessor to Saint Catherine of Siena (d.
). But it was actually Catherine who is credited with having persuaded
Raymond that a renewal of the order was possible and who pressed him to
pursue it.79 In  at the general chapter meeting in Vienna, Raymond’s
plan was emphatically dramatized by the flamboyant Conrad of Prussia (d.
) who appeared at the meeting dressed as a penitent and with a rope
about his neck. Before the assembled brothers, Conrad accused himself and
the entire order of not living in accordance with the rule and the constitu-
tions. Raymond placed Conrad in charge of organizing an Observant house
at Colmar in Alsace. Within a year, the charismatic Conrad had recruited
thirty like-minded brothers and proceeded to take over the house, much
to the consternation of many former inhabitants and citizens of Colmar.
Afterward, Master General Raymond decreed that each Dominican prov-
ince should designate one convent as an Observant house for those who
wished to keep the original rule of the order completely and strictly.80 In
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 Female Piety and the Establishment

Italy, reformer Giovanni Dominici (–) was named vicar of San

Domenico di Castello in Venice. There, in , he founded the first Ob-
servant convent in Italy. Three years later, Corpus Domini was founded at
the instigation of a group of Observant women who wished to establish an
observant cloister with Giovanni Dominici as their confessor.81 In the Ger-
man territories, Conrad of Prussia organized the first Observant house for
women (), locating it at Schönensteinbach (near Guebwiller in Alsace).
In the Benedictine order, reform movements sprang up in the fourteenth
and fifteenth centuries at more than six different Observant centers in Italy,
Austria, and Germany: Subiaco (), San Giustina in Padua (), Melk
(–), Kastl (–), St. Matthias in Trier (–), and Bursfeld-
Clus on the Weser river (c. ).82 The Council of Basel (–) itself
issued reform decrees mandating a new liturgy and new statutes for all
Benedictine cloisters.83 To the Bursfeld Union, one of the largest reform
congregations (many of whose activists, like Johannes Busch, came out of
the Windesheim Congregation of the New Devout), observance meant a
strict adherence to the common life, shared meals, and the presence of
everyone in choir. Bursfeld Observants reduced the length of their monas-
tic office so that the monks would have time for individual meditation
and spiritual exercises along with the manual labor that the reformers had
reinstated. Because the liturgy had become so overladen in the course of
the centuries with variations and special offices that took up an inordinate
amount of time, it was cut back and returned to the simplest daily liturgy
of the rule. Chanting was to be kept plain and performed mostly a capella.
Moreover, the changes that the Bursfelders made in the breviary were
aimed, they asserted, at allowing the office to be performed more slowly,
more attentively, and with greater devotion.84 Substantial negotiation and
effort went into the construction of this new, simpler common liturgy,
which was to replace with a uniform manner of worship all the divergent
practices that had grown up around it.85
At the women’s cloister of Ebstorf, which was refomed c. /, one
of the sisters composed an account of the sweeping changes that were in-
troduced there. She relates how the prioress of Hadmersleben came with
two sisters to instruct the women of Ebstorf in the new liturgy and de-
scribes the considerable the labor this entailed for everyone.

On the first Sunday after her arrival, we changed the choral singing
and the entire music. And the women had an enormous amount
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of work because they often copied out during the day what was
going to be sung that night. Twelve sisters were appointed at the
beginning, six in one choir and six in the other, to sing the office.
All the others were exempted so as to watch until they had been
instructed in the manner of it. All the books for the choral singing,
as well as the readings, the graduals, and the antiphons had to be
discarded. They were cut up and destroyed and new ones copied.86

Besides the simplification, standardization, and reanimation of the liturgy,

which were carried out in Benedictine houses, Observant programs in
other orders most often meant:

. Revival of the rule of poverty and divestiture of private property,

. Restoration of common meals and living quarters,
. Institution of enclosure for women (or restricted time outside the
convent for men),
. Elimination of exemptions to the rule and special privileges for the
nobility, and
. Creation of more open admissions policies.

Despite these domestic program objectives, Dominican Master General

Raymond of Capua insisted that the reform was not a matter of externals—
not of ‘‘eating and drinking’’—but of the inward mind, a restoration not
of the letter but of the spirit of the rule.87 What was sought was a renewal
of fervor.
To Dominicans of the radical first generation of reformers, the Obser-
vance meant totally divesting the house of wealth. The men’s convents at
Chur and Guebwiller ridded themselves of accumulated property by turn-
ing their assets over to women’s convents, which because of enclosure
could not rely on begging. Several Franciscan houses accomplished divesti-
ture by transferring their holdings to charitable institutions.88 In women’s
cloisters, personal devotional paintings, statuettes, and private altars were
relocated to the communal areas, where they could be venerated in com-
mon.89 Bursfeld reformer Johannes Busch describes, for example, his party’s
arrival at Wienhausen, where

in the choir behind the altar where [the women] stand and in their
seats, most of the sisters each had images of Christ and the saints,

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 Female Piety and the Establishment

both sculpted and painted, for their own devotion. All of which
we thence removed and placed toward the east in the space be-
tween their choir and church, so that all could see them equally,
have devotion from them in common and not in private in the
manner to which they were accustomed.90

Particularly among the houses of the Bursfeld Union, class privileges for
the nobility were seen as inconsistent with the ideal of the common life
and convents were to be opened to all ranks of society.91 As might be
expected, a democratization of admissions, which undermined the special
position of cloisters as representations of the exclusivity and inaccessibility
of the noble class, was staunchly opposed by the families of aristocratic
nuns. But, in some cloisters, compromises were worked out so that a re-
form could be instituted and still only noble applicants admitted. This hap-
pened in  at Überwasser, where the reform statutes state: ‘‘At the
request of the ruling estates, the canoness house of Überwasser shall retain
its old privileges, rights, and customs. In particular, only school children
and young ladies who are of genuine and proper noble parentage on both
sides will be admitted. For this purpose a genealogical examination . . . will
be required.’’92 Despite arrangements like this one, democratization was,
nevertheless, a trend that would not be reversed as will be seen in the
chapters to follow. Moreover, the opening of convents to more women of
lower social standing was one of the most significant and far-reaching
changes brought by the Observance.
Particularly in Dominican houses, and especially in its early, most radical
phase, the Observance brought a major reorientation focused on reduced
contact with the world in order that the community might pursue a con-
templative life in common. The reform statutes of Dominican men’s
houses stressed the primacy of solitude, meditation, and life in a closed
community instead of preaching, begging, and ministry in the world. At
Basel, for example, the brothers were permitted to leave their house no
more than once a week and were expected to live as a cloistered commu-
nity devoted to prayer, study, and meditation.93 This change to a more
contemplative life in the early phase of the Observance later shifted to
include an increased emphasis on pastoral activities and on spiritual revival
among the laity, particularly through the founding of lay confraternities
such as the new rosary brotherhood.94 While some Observants early on

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stressed simplicity and regarded excessive learning with suspicion, others

were strongly influenced by the Renaissance enthusiasm for academic study
of Christian ‘‘sources’’: the Scriptures and the Church Fathers. Moreover,
many of the second generation of Observants came from university circles.
It was these so-called ‘‘cloister humanists’’ who stressed the importance of
study for the spiritual renewal of convent life.95 This development, as will
be seen in Chapter , had a far-reaching effect on women.
Instituting the Observance and its program often necessitated the build-
ing of new common rooms, usually a new refectory and a dormitory or,
at least, cells of uniform size;96 in women’s cloisters it meant building or
completing an enclosing wall. At Überwasser, after a contentious reform,
the convent was all but impoverished by the departure of most of the
old residents. Nevertheless, reform abbess Sophia Dobbers installed a new
refectory, a dormitory, and a new wall around the entire convent. The cost
of her ambitious construction program ran to some  gulden.97 Changes
like these were a financial strain on marginal women’s cloisters and re-
quired donors as well as community support, which, in most cases, was
there.

The Laity and the Reform

Despite the austerities of Observant life, the movement attracted adherents.

Townspeople admired the Observants’ religious zeal and the way they con-
ducted services in their convent churches. To their credit, the Observant
friars were regarded as more strongly committed to the care of souls than
were local unreformed parish clergy.98 In many places, a competition devel-
oped as soon as it became clear that the reformed monasteries were pre-
ferred by townspeople for burials, endowments, and religious services.
Other cloisters were forced to make efforts to improve their way of life in
order not to look bad by comparison with the Observants or to lose the
support of the populace.99 At Cologne, the city council went so far as to
request that only professors and students from Observant convents be sent
to university there.100 But the reform often had financial consequences for
cities. In Nuremberg, the extremely wealthy widow Kunigunde Schreiber
informed the town council that she wished to enter the Observant cloister
of Schönensteinbach in Alsace (taking her large fortune with her) because

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 Female Piety and the Establishment

Nuremberg had no Observant house of its own for women. Immediately,

the council took steps to recruit sisters from Schönensteinbach to come
and institute the Observance at the Dominican cloister of St. Katharina.101
More than merely an internal matter, reform of monastic houses was
closely connected to the larger interests of secular constituencies. Often the
arrival of a reform party was the occasion for a public ceremony in which
the populace and lay officials expressed their support. The degree of lay
interest and involvement is described by Prioress Adelheid von Aue in her
account of the reform of Sylo in Sélestat. Adelheid, prioress of St. Katharina
in Colmar, relates in a letter how the party of five sisters that she sent to
Sylo in  was met on the road by citizens and city magistrates, who
acted as a welcoming committee and conducted the sisters into town: ‘‘And
there rode out to [meet] them more than a mile from Sélestat the patrons
and many men, and with a great show of respect escorted them into Sélestat
and to the cloister. . . . The city magistrates and the town council were all
present and promised to help and support them in all things.’’102 The wel-
coming committee may also have been a bodyguard, since, as will be seen,
this was also a hard-fought reform that was opposed by relatives of several
of the Sylo sisters. As this and other accounts show, the lay authorities, both
town councils and territorial rulers, were almost always deeply involved in
the reform of convents.
Increasingly, and at all levels, the laity was coming to consider itself
responsible for the church’s performance and wished to exert greater con-
trol over it.103 As part of this process, religious institutions were becoming
more and more assimilated to municipal institutions and values.104 Al-
though contrary to church doctrine, the lay populace still believed that the
effectiveness of prayers depended on the devoutness of those who offered
them. Moreover, sins and vices could have dire consequences, bringing on
God’s wrath in wars, plagues, and bad harvests. Only true piety could avert
punishments and bring God’s blessings. In , the city council of Basel
wrote to Conrad of Prussia to request that female reformers be sent to Basel
from Schönensteinbach. In its letter of request, the council explained why
it wanted Observant sisters, citing the extraordinary power of these holy
women’s prayers. The council’s letter asserts that ‘‘supplications offered by
honorable religious people are more acceptable to God and more powerful
than those of other sinners.’’105
Beyond security in the present life, the lay persons needed powerful and

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efficacious prayers to aid their helpless souls in purgatory. The continuance

of earnest and regular performance of prayers, vigils, and religious offices
was thus a matter of common concern. At the South Tyrolean convent of
Brixen, religious services were placed under interdict in , when the
Clarissan sisters refused the reform mandate issued by newly appointed
Bishop Nicholas von Cusa. In a letter, Sister Maria von Wolkenstein, leader
of the resistance, reports with little sympathy how representatives of the
city council came themselves to the convent and asked the sisters to accept
the reform. Rather than acquiesce to rules she opposed, however, Maria
transferred to another house.106 With spiritual concerns like these on their
minds, the lay public had a strong vested interest in securing the services of
reformed religious for their community. And because of their material gifts
to these houses, donors felt justified in expecting not only full value but
also some control. Reform was thus anything but simply an internal matter
of convents and orders; it was something everyone had a stake in.
One aspect of the Observant reforms that appealed strongly to the laity
at large was the reassigning of ‘‘benefits’’ (of masses said for rich donors) to
the entire civic community. At Nuremberg () and Basel (), for
example, the Observants decreed that anniversary masses for families of
wealthy donors would be continued but would henceforth be said for all
souls.107 This move toward a more inclusive and egalitarian religious prac-
tice, like more open admissions to convents, was one of the changes sup-
ported by popular demand and arising from changes in lay attitudes and
expectations. In general, townspeople, city magistrates, and local territorial
rulers all saw greater access and control over cloisters as likely to benefit
them.
On the other hand, patrician families, especially the lower nobility to
which Maria von Wolkenstein belonged, and those who had made large
endowments to benefit their cloistered daughters did not wish to see con-
trol of these annuities to pass into the common chest. They feared that
stricter enclosure would restrict access to their daughters, as it did, for ex-
ample, at St. Agnes in Strasbourg, where the visiting window was covered
with a grille that could not be seen through.108 These families staunchly
opposed the reform, even where very moderate reform statutes, such as
those issued in  for the Benedictine abbey of Rijnsburg near Haarlem,
specified only that the sisters could no longer receive overnight visitors for
‘‘more than three days.’’109 Although nuns who refused to accept the re-

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 Female Piety and the Establishment

form were permitted to transfer to other cloisters, taking their dowries with
them, even this option often placed them at an inconvenient distance from
their families. The departure of too many sisters, with their assets, could
weaken the financial health of a house, sometimes with disastrous conse-
quences both for the house and the community, because its closing would
deprive the leading families of a necessary institution for educating and
housing their daughters.
In addition, families whose ancestors had endowed a cloister and been
buried in its cemetery for generations understandably felt a proprietary in-
terest. Those who could object sometimes rather spectacularly took the law
into their own hands. At Klingental in Basel, for example, Albrecht von
Klingenberg zu Hohentwil, a descendent of one of the patron families,
protested the attempted reform of the cloister in – as an affront to
the women of the nobility housed there. Declaring a private war against
both the reformers and the city of Basel, Klingenberg captured and thrashed
Dominican friars, kidnapped townspeople, and threatened to burn the
city.110 Similarly, convent women of powerful families were not without
recourse to weapons of their own. When Engelthal (near Nuremberg) was
threatened with a reform in , its prioress drafted a letter that was signed
by seventeen influential nobles, warning that they would intervene. One
letter in the exchange contained a death threat for the Observants.111

City Councils

In spite of disturbances and even armed protests by rural nobility who

opposed the reform, cities and city councils generally saw advantages in it
for them. One way for city magistrates to gain greater economic control
over cloisters was to participate in the reform of these houses. Thus, it was
at this critical juncture that the citizenry often stepped in to make its de-
mands. At Villingen in , for example, as a travel-weary party of re-
forming sisters from Valduna neared the city, having been on the road with
their vicar for nine days, the burghers blocked the way into town and
refused to let the reformers pass unless they promised to pay taxes and
‘‘fulfill all the obligations of citizens.’’ The exhausted sisters had no choice
but to agree, although, the Bicken cloister chronicle remonstrates, ‘‘it was
a great hardship for a poor, unendowed, small cloister.’’112

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On the other hand, as the Basel city council noted, observant cloisters
remained desirable because they would attract the daughters of wealthy
families seeking a convent with a good reputation, and these women would
‘‘bring with them very many [financial] assets.’’113 Citizens wanted to have
women’s convents, especially Observant ones, within the city limits to pro-
vide schooling and pious institutions for the daughters of the increasingly
affluent town patriciate. Yet they were loath to have too much property in
the ‘‘dead’’ (i.e., non–tax-paying) hand of the church. Thus, whenever
they could, they maneuvered to increase fiscal control. Even before the
reforms, cities such as Zurich had passed laws prohibiting cloisters from
purchasing additional houses, gardens, or other properties and decreed that
whatever was bequeathed to a convent would have to be sold off within
one year. Similarly, in  Regensburg prohibited citizens from donating
interest income to a cloister without notifying the town council. Other
cities, such as Cologne (), decreed that all town properties must remain
in the hands of citizens.114
The anonymous sister who wrote the chronicle of Marienthal (Niesing),
an Augustinian house in Münster, illustrates the problem in her story of
how her community was started as a house of Devout sisters by three
women who had between them three schillings. Soon people began to give
the sisters donations and a childless couple willed them a house. The small
community of women joyfully moved into it. But then, the narrator re-
counts, ‘‘the burghers [of Münster] objected and did not want to allow this
because [the man] was not a citizen. For this reason we had to purchase
this place and give the city , gulden. Yet, with the help and support of
good friends, we received back as many donations as if the city had given
us a benefice to support a priest. And in this way we established this con-
vent in the year .’’115 In these houses for women of lower social rank,
founded in the fifteenth century and located in flourishing cities, powerful
town councils often demanded oversight not only of the house’s financial
affairs but also of its internal organization and religious life. Accordingly,
when the Marienthal women adopted the Augustinian rule in , the
house was placed under the protection of the city council. The magistrates
then stipulated that two pious citizens would be appointed with visitation
rights to evaluate whether or not the women were living according to the
regulations. The town council also required a twice-yearly accounting of

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the house’s finances.116 At Nuremberg, the council was able to decree that
only women born in the city could be admitted to its cloisters.117

Territorial Rulers and the Observance

Protection by a territorial lord, rather than by a city council, did not neces-
sarily confer greater independence or immunity from the Observants.
Clearly, townsfolk and urban magistrates were not the only ones interested
in oversight and change. Following the failure of the Council of Basel
(–) to effect a thorough-going monastic reform, territorial lords
themselves increasingly took over the prerogative to reform convents,
seeing it as their natural responsibility and—not inconveniently—a way of
consolidating power. The result was an increasing subordination of cloisters
to the territorial state.118
Indeed, sovereignty and reform went hand in hand. Manfred Schulze
points out that what moved many secular princes to support the Observants
was neither ‘‘power hunger’’ nor personal ‘‘religious conviction’’ but rather
both, that is, a political concern for divine protection of the realm. Even
more than city magistrates, territorial princes felt that the church was their
church and the piety of the people their responsibility.119 To assure God’s
protection of the realm, the prudent prince needed both a devout populace
and the prayers of pious monks and nuns, for only then would God bestow
His blessings.120 Like city councils, princes feared God’s punishments,
which could be meted out as war, pestilence, and bad harvests.
According to Johannes Uytenhove’s treatise, On Reform (), a cloister
reform was a work of merit equal to that accruing to the ‘‘founder’’ who
had endowed the house.121 Thus Duke Albrecht of Bavaria underwrote the
costs of instituting a reform of the house of Poor Clares in Munich. He
paid travel expenses for three Clarissan sisters to journey to the Observant
house in Nuremberg and be trained in their way of life.122 In Württemberg,
Count Ulrich (d. ) urged the reform of the women’s cloisters in his
realm. He acquired a decree from Pope Pius II, solicited the help of the
Dominican Master General, and selected the Observant houses from which
reforming sisters were to be recruited. Along with his wife and his daugh-
ter-in-law, the count then wrote letters to prioresses in  requesting

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them to send Observant sisters.123 In Ulrich’s letter to the Observant Dom-

inican sisters at Sylo in Sélestat in , he offers his justifications and makes
an appeal for their help in undertaking the reform: ‘‘[F]or the sake of God’s
honor, the great blessings and good that may arise from it, and to avoid
dishonor to God and sinful life in this cloister, we urge and request most
earnestly and eagerly that you will favor our holy undertaking and send
reforming sisters to us.’’124 The prioress of Sylo agreed to send seven sisters
and Ulrich supplied wagons to bring the women from Alsace to Württem-
berg. Magdalena Kremer’s narrative of this reform effort describes a high-
profile reception for the reform party, with secular and ecclesiastical digni-
taries who met the sisters when they arrived at Kirchheim: ‘‘We were
received honorably: There were the two lords of Württemberg, the elder
Count Eberhard, who is called Eberhard of Urach, and the young Count
Eberhard of Stuttgart [Ulrich’s son and successor]. These two lords entered
the convent along with us, other nobles, and learned masters and prelates,
both ecclesiastical and secular persons.’’125 In this reform, organized and
orchestrated by the ruler of the realm, the change of leadership, as Magda-
lena describes it, went smoothly—at least in its initial stages. But soon the
problems began. Once installed, the new Observant prioress and officers
had to win over the rest of the cloister community, which, as Magdalena
also relates, was a much more difficult task. Much of her narrative tells
how a few years later five of the old sisters, aided by the new count, tried
unsuccessfully to reverse the reform and take back control of their cloister.
Besides initiating the reform of convents in their territories, secular rulers
also founded new religious houses. Between  and , twenty-three
Observant convents were established in middle- and eastern Germany.126
Like earlier foundations, these were not disinterested financial outlays but
a move aimed at securing divine support for the sovereign. At the dedica-
tion of Schönensteinbach in Alsace, Catherine of Burgundy presented en-
dowments to the sisters with the admonition, ‘‘Take these temporal goods,
live piously, and pray to God for the House of Austria.’’127
The reform or founding of cloisters, while contributing to the consoli-
dation of the state, might also be an expression of sincere personal piety.
Returning from a pilgrimage to the Holy Land, the Duke of Cleves stopped
over at Bologna, where he became acquainted with the Observant house
in that city. Its thriving spiritual atmosphere is said to have impressed him
so much that he recruited reformed monks from Rotterdam to found a

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similar house at Kalkar in .128 The Emmerich Book of Sisters reports

how he urged the devout women of their sister-house, who were not
bound by vows, to take on a rule. In her vita of Mother Mechtelt van
Diedem, the chronicler, obviously a supporter of the reform, gives an ac-
count of what were clearly very controversial and much-debated changes
at the time. Here, Mother Mechtelt tries to justify the wishes of the duke
to the sisters:

When [Mechtelt van Diedem] had been Mother [of this house] for
two years, His Lordship the Duke and Prince of Cleves asked the
sisters to take on the rule of Saint Augustine and live according to
it, which the sisters were very unwilling and not prepared to do.
And they repeatedly said to her in a troublesome and severe way
that she should not allow it but should resist. And she would an-
swer amicably, ‘‘Dear sisters, let us not oppose our superiors and
go against the worthy ruler of our land who wishes and desires this
that we and our house should not come into disrepute.’’129

Mechtelt decided not to go against the wishes of the duke. But not all the
sisters accepted the change. Some, as will be seen in Chapter , continued
to live in the house without taking the vows.130 In his account of the reform
of the cloister of Mariensee, Augustinian Observant Johannes Busch relates
how the Duke of Brunswick himself accompanied Busch on his reform
mission. The sisters at Mariensee defied the reform mandate and climbed
up inside the roof of the church. Then the duke went into the choir and
announced that the women would be taken away in the carriages, which
he had parked at the door, and transported out of his lands if they did not
accept the reform. Apparently, the women here had not organized their
own militia of relatives, as sometimes happened. Now, faced with deporta-
tion, they decided to acquiesce.131
Not all secular princes were strong supporters of the Observance. Many,
along with most of the lower nobility, were its most powerful and consis-
tent opponents. And not all of the princes who supported the reform did
so all of the time. Archduke Sigismund of Austria (–) first sup-
ported but then opposed the reform of Klingental in Basel.132 Wooed by
both sides, Sigismund, who owed the city of Basel a large sum of money,
was offered , gulden by the reforming sisters to allow them to remain

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at Klingental but , by other sisters who opposed the reform. He ac-
cepted the higher offer.133

Clerical Politics

No less unpredictable and hard fought were conflicts within the church
itself between proponents and adversaries of the Observant reform. Some
bishops actually thwarted the efforts of the Observants because they re-
sented intervention from outside or because they wished to carry out the
reforms themselves, thereby strengthening their political position and
bringing cloisters more closely under their own control. Thus within the
religious orders, power struggles arose between Observants and Conventu-
als and led to strategic reform efforts for the control of certain areas. In the
Dominican province of Teutonia (encompassing Austria, southern Ger-
many, the Rhine valley, and the Low Countries), the Observants achieved
a majority in the s. But still the Conventuals controlled the cities of
Freiburg, Hagenau, Speyer, Strasbourg, Weissenburg, and Zurich. When
in Strasbourg the Dominican convent of St. Agnes was, nevertheless, made
Observant in  by authority of the city council, the opponents of the
reform tried to derail the process by bringing the matter before the bishop
of Strasbourg. The bishop’s chancellor ordered the measure reversed and
called reforming Father Heinrich Schretz to account, asserting that it was
against the bishop’s wishes for any ‘‘monk’’ to exercise such authority in
his bishopric. This touched off a dispute between the bishop and the Stras-
bourg city council members, who announced that the bishop had ‘‘no
authority over them.’’ In the end, the reform was upheld by the order.134
Yet even a master general such as Salvus Casseta (–), who himself
personally supported the Observants, nevertheless for the sake of peace and
the unity in the order often had to forbid some efforts to reform the wom-
en’s cloisters. This was the case, for example, in the Conventual-held area
of Zurich (where Oetenbach and Töss were located).135
By most accounts, the great reform councils of Constance and Basel,
which were organized to restore unity and renew the church ‘‘in head and
members,’’ had only limited success. Although the council at Constance
(–) successfully ended the papal schism, its achievements in institut-
ing reform were less effectual.136 Yet in , the Council of Basel tasked

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the Windesheim Congregation with reforming the Augustinian cloisters.

And in the following year, it launched an expanded Benedictine initia-
tive.137 The council itself encouraged secular rulers as well as city authorities
to support the reform of cloisters. Significantly, it was the engagement of
secular princes in cloister reform that paved the way for their more exten-
sive activities in the next century. Thus, the increasing involvement of
secular forces—both civic magistrates and territorial princes—in religious
reform produced an essentially different environment, one that would be-
come a political precondition for the Reformation.138
In all these conflicting interests, women were intimately involved, often
finding themselves the focus of a power struggle among influential family
networks to which most of them belonged. Against this background of
power politics, popular sentiment, and Observant activism surrounding
cloisters, issues of agency are hard to tease out. What was women’s interest
in reform when they supported it? And how did they implement their
aims? In a few cases, women were themselves the primary initiators of
reform and successfully solicited the help they needed to put it into place.
But in most cases women worked together with male Observant activists.
Certainly, not all female Observants wanted to be reformers. Many ac-
cepted the call to go out with reform parties as part of their vow of obedi-
ence. But all who went out took over the leading offices in the houses they
reformed. Some may have been motivated by the desire to become prior-
esses themselves; others were committed to the ideals of the Observance.
But whenever a reform took place, power was at stake. Abbesses and prior-
esses of the elite old guard stood to be deposed and replaced by others,
often of lower rank, who rose to new positions of social status and influ-
ence. For many women of lower social status, the reform opened access to
a religious vocation that was previously unavailable to them. Overall, the
Observant initiatives to take control of religious houses succeeded because
they were attempts to conform them to an ideal of piety that resonated
with the interests of the laity and reflected the changing power structures
of the fifteenth century.
Clearly, from  to  the religious landscape had changed radically.
Between the time of the fourteenth-century Dominican sister-books, with
their narratives about beguine founding mothers trekking to Rome to seek
admittance for their communities, and the time of the fifteenth-century
Observant movement, beguine settlements had been officially banned by

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church councils. The communities that grew from the earlier beguine
‘‘gatherings’’ had joined the establishment and become accepted fixtures
of the regular orders. Despite this acceptance, however, expectations and
constituencies were changing. The fifteenth century was a period of enor-
mous ferment, an age of transition, in which a new political, social, and
economic order was emerging, fueled by a commercial revolution and a
century of rapid population growth. Disparate religious movements and an
interval of almost unparalleled intellectual activity were beginning to affect
long-held assumptions.139 Whereas in the fourteenth century the laity had
not yet begun to involve itself greatly in oversight of the church, a century
of increasing of urban prosperity and influence brought a new self-confi-
dence and a new relationship between the laity and its church. It was not
that the new, more powerful urban populace opposed the church. On the
contrary, despite the expressions of anticlericalism and dissatisfaction with
religious institutions, what lay people wanted and envisioned was a more
pious society of which the church was an integral part.140
As cities expanded, they encircled outlying convents along with the con-
vent properties and, accordingly, sought to exercise jurisdiction over them.
While this self-confident urban citizenry took a more active and proprie-
tary interest in ‘‘its’’ convents and ‘‘its’’ church, the educated elite of Hu-
manist circles began to engage more actively in discussions of religious
problems. The privileges and immunities enjoyed in the religious commu-
nities by the old social elite were less readily taken for granted. It was not
only women’s but also men’s religious communities that came under closer
scrutiny. Many of the Observant reformers were themselves members of
the new wealthy urban burgher families. Having the power to demand
change, the laity exercised it. In this shifting environment, women too
found a new role to play. Many took part along with men in the program
of the Observants, as will be seen in the chapters to follow. In becoming
participants in the Observant movement, women, like the population at
large, began to take a more active part in the intense religious discussions
being carried on during the fateful century of experimentation and change
that preceded the Reformation.

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 
Women of the Reform

With every good work the beginning is the most difficult part, especially in found-
ing or reforming a cloister. For one must endure great worry and effort in building,
as well as deprivations and poverty at the start.
—Magdalena Kremer, c. 

Not all of the sisters who participated in the reform wrote about it,1 but a
few, like Magdalena Kremer, left behind firsthand accounts. Written from
the perspective of those who assumed power, these artifacts of the Obser-
vant movement are strongly partisan. They illustrate that ‘‘women’s texts’’
are not just about women but overlap with other genres, in this case reform
literature. Moreover, they constitute a unique example of how groups in
power not only shape the kinds of texts that are produced but determine
which ones will be preserved. As participants in the Observant movement
and tasked with taking over the governance of reformed cloisters, women
received authorization to write histories, keep records, and document the
reform. Observant leaders, some guided by the growing Humanist interest
in history writing or by a penchant for record keeping, encouraged women
to compose house annals and copy devotional works and instructional texts
in vernacular translations. For women, this authorization to write would
be of enormous importance.
An overview of their role in the reform effort will help connect together
the different kinds of narratives and records that have survived. These in-
clude letters by women who went on missions as reformers or as temporary
teachers, other eyewitness accounts, house chronicles, handbooks, and
vitae. Although these narratives tend to idealize the reformers and portray
their actions in a positive light, they also describe women’s opposition to
the Observance and take particular pains to document the legality of the
transitions of power in which their authors took part. Here both reform

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and anti-reform prioresses are depicted, engaged in conflicts with secular

and ecclesiastical authorities, sometimes trying to implement a reform, at
other times trying to avert one. In these battles, as will be seen in this
chapter and the next, winners and losers were on both sides. This chapter
will examine the Observant side, why and under what circumstances they
took part in the reform effort. What were their responsibilities and how
was the Observance implemented? What was their relationship to male
superiors and activists in the movement and, above all, to the women they
‘‘reformed’’? How much agency did they really have?
The account by Magdalena Kremer was perhaps the most detailed report
of how a reform was carried out. Magdalena was a member of the party
that came from Alsace to institute the Observance at the convent Kirch-
heim unter Teck (in Württemberg) in .2 She begins with a brief sketch
of the beginnings of the movement among Dominicans, citing as her mod-
els the celebrated sisters of Schönensteinbach.

When the blessed friars of our holy order saw that some sisters’
cloisters were becoming secular houses and that they did not want
to observe the rules of the order, these friars wanted to reform
these cloisters and bring them back to their original, true character.
But when one speaks of keeping the observance, that means keep-
ing its early, real nature, like the sisters in Alsace at Schönenstein-
bach.3

Although scarcely a household word today, the cloister of Schönenstein-

bach was well known in the fifteenth century. The first Observant wom-
en’s house in the German-speaking territories, Schönensteinbach had been
founded by Conrad of Prussia, the same charismatic reformer who had
appeared at the  meeting of the Vienna chapter general dressed as a
penitent and wearing a rope about his neck in order to publicize the order’s
sinfulness in not keeping the rule. As a consequence, or perhaps as an
advance arrangement, Master General Raymond of Capua appointed Con-
rad to take over the men’s convent at Colmar and to establish there a
reformed community strictly devoted to observance of the original rule as
in the order’s early days. Conrad and thirty like-minded brothers succeeded
in colonizing the Colmar house against the strong resistance of the original
residents and objections from some townspeople.

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Wishing to start an Observant house for women, Conrad located an

abandoned Augustinian cloister about fourteen miles away in the forest at
Schönensteinbach. To found and finance his new community, the enter-
prising Conrad approached Duke Leopold IV of Austria and his wife,
Catherine of Burgundy, sovereigns of the Habsburg lands in Alsace. Both
Leopold and Catherine liked the idea of founding an Observant cloister
and endowed the project, giving Conrad a free hand to organize it and
renovate the buildings. In his circuit preaching, Conrad had identified nuns
at several Dominican convents who were interested in forming a new com-
munity based on the model of Conrad’s Observant house for men. For this
new foundation he chose thirteen women to represent symbolically Christ
and his twelve apostles.4 Most were nuns from cloisters in the area: Katha-
rinental (near Constance), St. Katharina and Unterlinden (in Colmar), and
Sylo (in Sélestat).5 Included in the thirteen were three lay sisters whose
previous convents are not known. The account of the founding of Schönen-
steinbach, related in Johannes Meyer’s Book of the Reform of the Dominican
Order (), is based on an earlier history (now lost) composed by Elisa-
beth Meringer (d. ), one of the thirteen founders and Schönenstein-
bach’s second prioress.6 Elisabeth herself had come from Katharinental, a
cloister that in the fourteenth century had produced its own foundation
history and a sister-book of the house’s most famous inhabitants.
Soon after its founding, the Schönensteinbach community had devel-
oped a reputation for extraordinary piety and had begun to grow. By 
it had expanded to fifty-two members and had established two daughter-
houses at Wijk-bij-Duurstede () and Westroye (), both in the
bishopric of Utrecht.7 By , the cloister had registered  entrants,
many of whom had been sent out with reform parties to introduce the
Observance at other cloisters.8 From this center, the Observant movement
spread during the first seventy years of the reform to twenty-two other
Dominican women’s convents. Parties from Schönensteinbach reformed
Unterlinden (Colmar, ), St. Katharina (Nuremberg, ), St. Maria
Magdalena (Freiburg, ), Engelport (Guebwiller, ), and St. Maria
(Medlingen, ). From these cloisters, Schönensteinbach women went
on with other groups to houses as far away as Brünn in Bohemia.9
Not only did Schönensteinbach itself experience extraordinary growth
but also the houses it had reformed. St. Maria Magdalena in Pforzheim
increased from twenty-six to fifty and Himmelskron at Hochheim (near

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Worms) from thirty to seventy sisters.10 St. Katharina at Nuremberg sent

out four reforming parties to other cloisters, and St. Maria Magdalena an
den Steinen at Basel dispatched contingents to five cloisters between 
and .11 Many of these reforms were bitterly contested, as was that
at St. Agnes in Strasbourg (). Prioress Barbara von Benfelden, at the
neighboring cloister of St. Nicolaus in undis, describes how St. Agnes first
lost half of its inhabitants, but then more than tripled its original size. A
supporter who sheltered the party of reform sisters during the hardest days
of the struggle, when they were driven out of the cloister, Prioress von
Benfelden reports with satisfaction:

This blessed community became like the green palm standing by

the flowing waters. Thus this convent put out green shoots and
grew and increased in virtues and spirituality expanding in such a
short time, that is, ten years, to fifty-seven persons, all taking the
habit of the order of St. Dominic. [And] Before [it] was enclosed
[the sisters] had numbered no more than sixteen—of whom only
eight had remained.12

Reform in other orders proceeded in similar ways. Clarissans at Nurem-

burg, for example, dispatched missions to Brixen (), Bamberg (),
Pfullingen (), Eger (), and the Angerkloster in Munich ().13
Most spectacular was the Benedictine cloister of Marienberg at Boppard on
the Rhine, which reported an increase from nine sisters when it became
Observant in  to one hundred during the tenure of its abbess, Isengard
von Greiffenklau.14
Not all who entered Observant houses were new recruits. Many, in fact,
were transfers and some, like Johanna von Mörsberg, changed monastic
orders in joining.15 On the other hand, many women left convents to avoid
the reform. Yet overall, Observant cloisters showed greater fiscal and nu-
merical growth than unreformed houses in the same period.16 Some of the
shift may be explained, of course, by the desire of male heads of households
to send their daughters to strictly Observant nunneries. But in Württem-
berg, transfers to Observant houses outside the territory reached such
alarming proportions that the ruling counts of Württemberg-Stuttgart de-
clared a moratorium. At Kirchheim alone at least six nuns left for the Ob-
servant house of Sylo (at Guebwiller in Alsace).17 Magdalena Kremer relates

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 Women of the Reform

that when her party of Observant sisters arrived to reform Kirchheim in

, they found there some twenty-three sisters. Over the next ten years,
the community grew to forty-eight. She attributes the increase to the
response of the laity, saying that the reform ‘‘pleased all the townspeople;
and this cloister had a good name so that many honorable young women
joined us.’’18

Women’s Role as Reformers

Perhaps partly because of the influence of Schönensteinbach, the Domini-

can Observance in its early days made more headway among women’s
cloisters than among men’s.19 Yet, even though reforms were often set in
motion by city councils or initiated by secular rulers, nunneries seldom
became successfully Observant without a strong reform prioress and cadre
of sisters to implement the plan. Thus, although authorities might formu-
late a reform, women were necessary to make it work.20 Still, despite the
large number of women known to have participated—some as initiators—
their role has generally been ignored or, as in the case of Magdalena Beutler,
discounted. Critics mention, for example, the remarkable, single-handed
reform of the convent of the Poor Clares at Freiburg, where Magdalena
Beutler in  induced the sisters to renounce private property. Nonethe-
less, Wilhelm Schleussner and Wilhelm Oehl disparage her actions as a
‘‘neurotically motivated imitation of similar activities by her mother,’’ Mar-
gareta von Kenzingen.21 (Margareta was one of a party from Unterlinden
that six years earlier had reformed St. Maria Magdalena an den Steinen in
Basel.) While Magdalena was certainly a flamboyant and even outrageous
personality, it does not follow that she did not have a serious interest in
making her cloister Observant, a plan in which she also succeeded. Point-
ing to Colette of Corbie’s (–) reform of Clarissan convents in
France and Flanders, Bynum states emphatically, ‘‘Women were not only
followers, manipulated and circumscribed in their religious ideals by pow-
erful clerics; they were leaders and reformers as well.’’22
It is clear that women have worked together with men in missionary
and reform efforts throughout the history of the church. In the earliest
days of the christianization of the Germanic tribes, the English monk Saint
Boniface wrote to England asking Abbess Tetta of Wimbourne to send over

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as a help to his mission ‘‘the virgin Lioba, whose reputation for holiness and
virtuous teaching had penetrated across wide lands.’’23 Nor did the practice
of sending parties of men and women on missions to other cloisters origi-
nate with the Observants.24 In the previous century, the Oetenbach sister-
book (c. ) recounts, for example, that in  four sisters from their
house went in company with a brother to the new cloister of Brunnadern
in Bern, where they by their ‘‘example, life, and teaching’’ instructed the
sisters there ‘‘in all spirituality of the order and in godly virtues.’’25 Still,
fifteenth-century women reformers have been characterized as pawns and
victims, described as ‘‘pitifully naive,’’ and ‘‘unbelievably otherworldly’’
young women from simple, non-affluent backgrounds. A look at who
these women were and the circumstances under which they engaged in the
reforms will provide a more numanced view of a wide range of motiva-
tions.

Reluctant Reformers

Clearly, not everyone who was an Observant wanted to be a reformer.

When one considers the hardships and sufferings recorded in some of the
hard-fought struggles and failed attempts, it is not surprising that women
would have been reluctant to leave their home communities. Their daunt-
ing task was to go out as reforming colonists into hostile environments
where, if they were successful, they might have to remain permanently. In
one particularly arduous and discouraging example, four Dominican sisters
from Himmelskron and Liebenau in  failed in their attempt to intro-
duce the Observance at the house of the Penitents of St. Maria Magdalena
in Strasbourg. The Strasbourg sisters had balked at adopting Dominican
practices, claiming they were being made to ‘‘join another order.’’ When
the town council became divided over the issue, the Observant sisters were
withdrawn and sent, instead, to reform the convent of St. Katharina in
Colmar. There only two of the twelve inhabitants agreed to join the Ob-
servance, with the rest vehemently rejecting it. The ten who rejected re-
form vilified the reformers and objected so violently that the Master
General threatened to incarcerate them. Eventually, the majority of the
resisters departed for another cloister, leaving the traumatized Observants
and the few sisters who stayed to rebuild a debilitated community.27

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The reform of the convent of Gnadenzell in Offenhausen was so con-

tentious that it took three tries. In the first attempt, when five Dominican
sisters arrived from Pforzheim, they found that the residents had taken
everything moveable out of the cloister so that it was almost uninhabitable.
The residents then exercised such effective passive resistance that after a
month the reformers became discouraged and left. In  the original
Gnadenzell women frustrated the efforts even of seasoned reformer Johan-
nes Meyer, who tried to teach them the Observant way of singing. To warn
of his approach and trip him up, they placed pans and plates on the dark
stairs.28 Finally, in , a third reform party, this time from Sylo, suc-
ceeded—at least, nominally—but life for the reformers cannot have been
pleasant. In the notorious failed reform of Klingental (–), the resist-
ers reportedly threatened to strangle the reforming sisters and set the cloister
on fire.29 The undoing of this reform came, at the last, not from violence
but from the cloister’s financial collapse. The defeated Observant sisters had
to withdraw after a painful two-year ordeal. Such a difficult task required
extraordinary fortitude and strength of character.30 The most direct testi-
mony to the exceptional character of some of the women who were sent
on these missions is found in a letter from Prioress Kunigunda Haller at
Nuremberg to Angela Varnbühler, prioress at St. Gall. Kunigunda laments
that the Dominican Provincial wants to recruit for the reform effort Sister
Veronika Bernhart, who, she asserts, is ‘‘capable in all things.’’31
Considering the difficulties and hostility groups of reforming sisters en-
countered at unwilling houses, it is no wonder that even committed Ober-
vants paled at the thought of being sent out to undertake a reform. At
Schönensteinbach, the prioress first declined when the Master General
asked for volunteers to reform Unterlinden in Colmar in , but later
undertook it.32 Sisters at St. Gall declined twice to send a party to Zoffingen
at Constance but complied when the bishop threatened them with excom-
munication.33 Reformers such as Johannes Busch were not loath to apply
pressure to get the recruits they wanted. After Prioress Gertrud von Harles-
sem at Hildesheim refused to send sisters to Erfurt—objecting that it was
too far away—Busch threatened her with the admonition that God would
allow her to die within the year if she rejected this opportunity to work for
His honor. She did, indeed, die within the year, but on her deathbed gave
Busch the three sisters he asked for.34
Prioress Gertrud’s hesitation was a grave failing, because Observants in

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Benedictine cloisters of the Bursfeld reform were required to accept any

reassignment if called upon to do so in the interest of the reform.35 The
call was, thus, usually accepted but often with expressions of dismay. The
chronicle of the Bicken cloister reports that the Poor Clares of Valduna,
chosen by Franciscan Provincial Heinrich Karrer to reform the Villingen
house, ‘‘came forward with tears in their eyes.’’36 Similarly, Magdalena
Kremer, herself one of the Sylo sisters selected for the reform party to
Kirchheim, tells how the group was chosen after Johannes Meyer came to
their cloister with letters of authorization from the Dominican provincial
and with requests from the Count of Württemberg. Magdalena relates:

[A]nd this is how the selection was made: first the brothers gave
the letters that they had brought from our worthy Father Provin-
cial and from his Lordship and her Ladyship [the count and
countess] to the Mother Prioress of Sylo and ordered her to read
all the letters to the elders [the governing sisters] of the cloister. . . .
Afterward the elder nuns were ordered to choose eight sisters for
the reform party and to indicate to the brothers what offices they
were selected to hold. . . . Thus they took six choir sisters and a
lay sister. And these came forward and prostrated themselves, ac-
cepting the obedience. . . . And with full absolution of all their
sins [they] indicated that they wished to accept dutifuly without
objections and to submit themselves to the ordeal to the honor of
God.37

A Letter Home: Katharina von Mühlheim

In a letter she wrote to her former prioress at Schönensteinbach, Katharina

von Mühlheim has left a rare, first-person account of how one woman felt
about leaving her surrogate cloister family to go on three reforming mis-
sions. Katharina had first gone with a reforming party to Nuremberg in
, and was setting off in  for a second cloister in Tulln, Austria,
where she would become prioress. ‘‘[T]he Lord God has again called me
on to another cloister in obedience to Him (as our Mother prioress will tell
you in a letter) which has caused and still causes me some concern, but
since I see that it could not be otherwise, I have surrendered myself entirely

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to God, however and wherever he wants me to go, I also want to go and

even if it should cost me my life.’’38 At this time, Katharina was looking
back on ten years at Schönensteinbach and eight at Nuremberg. She would
subsequently spend thirty years as prioress at Tulln before setting off a third
time in  for Brünn in Bohemia.39 Her touching letter home reveals
something of the special bond among the sisters at Schönensteinbach and
of Katharina’s own character and personality.

Although I know that I am unfortunately truly unworthy and un-

suited for such good, holy works, I am happy to see that God’s
honor and His praise are made perfect in all things. Therefore my
dearest Mothers and Sisters, I remind you of all the faithfulness,
love and zeal that you have always had especially for all of us from
Schönensteinbach. Remember that you are our first mothers in the
order and let me ask you to remember me to God. This I ask you
humbly and desire from all of you in common, from each one
individually, and [your prayers] also [for] all the sisters with whom
I will have to live in the future. I would never have thought that I
would have to spend my life alone with [only] one sister from
Schönensteinbach. Know that it makes me very sad that I must
live so far from Schönensteinbach and henceforward so far from all
those sisters. Dear Mothers, give my regards to Father Heinrich
your confessor, [asking] his faithful remembrance and prayers,
which I do not doubt of, and let him know of this. No more at
this time as God be with us eternally, amen. Written at Nuremberg
with a heavy heart on Easter Wednesday, .40

A prioress could refuse to answer the call to provide nuns for reform
missions but rarely did so. This seems evident from the kind of moral
pressure that Johannes Nider, the prior of the Nuremberg Dominican
men’s convent, applies in his letter written to the prioress of Schönenstein-
bach in , asking for ten ‘‘zealous and capable’’ sisters (the party that
would include Sister Katharina von Mühlheim) to come to Nuremberg
and reform the women’s convent there. In his letter, Nider gives eight
reasons why the Schönensteinbach sisters should comply. Looking at his
persuasive arguments, one can see why they did. Nider appeals first to the
women’s sense of piety, their loyalty and honor. Then he moves on to duty

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and ends with a cry of distress from the men at Nuremberg. Summarized
briefly, the arguments assert why the sisters should undertake the reform:

. For the increase of God’s honor.

. For the sake of St. Dominic and the order.
. For the betterment of the lay people who have requested it.
. Because people are saying that the Hussite heresy has arisen ‘‘on ac-
count of priests, monks, and women in cloisters being unreformed,’’
and the women ‘‘will undermine the health of the Christian faith’’ if
they do not help by sending capable reformers.
. Because it will not be a burden to the prioress financially, since the
annuities of the sisters will remain at Schönensteinbach.
. Because it is a worthy endeavor to renew an old cloister, since they
will be responsible for all the good that comes of it.
. Because they owe it to the Dominican brothers at Nuremberg for the
prayers and services rendered to the sisters. Moreover, the brothers at
Nuremberg will be shamed before the populace if they do not send
sisters.
. Because great anger will arise in the whole city of Nuremberg if the
women should not hear their request. For, he asserts, ‘‘all the people
here and round about now know that several attempts have been
made to reform St.Katharina and if you do not send zealous and
capable women, we will be a laughingstock.’’41

We know from Sister Katharina von Mühlheim’s letter home after eight
years at Nuremberg and from other sources that the women went, the
reform was successful, and the men were not made a laughingstock.

Teachers and Office-holders

The role of the female reformers was not only to demonstrate the Obser-
vant way of life in practice but often also to teach Latin or introduce the
new Benedictine liturgy. In , Johannes Busch took three sisters from
Bronopia (near Kampen)—Ida, Tecla, and a lay-sister, Adelheid—to reform
Marienberg (at Helmstedt). During their three years at Marienberg, Ida,
the eldest, took over as subprioress in charge of ‘‘spiritual matters,’’ while

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the regular prioress, Helena, continued to oversee the material running of

the cloister. Tecla instructed in singing, grammar, and school subjects. After
her departure three years later, Tecla’s pupils wrote in their newly acquired
Latin to thank their teacher for all that she and the others had done, includ-
ing the lay-sister Adelheid, whom they refer to as ‘‘our capitan’’ (capitanea).
Tecla’s letter in reply reflects pleasure in her pupils’ accomplishments. ‘‘I
rejoice with you that you have made so much progress that you could
compose such a letter in Latin. Gladly, most gladly have I taught you,
seeing your gratitude.’’42 Prioress Helena wrote as well, thanking the visi-
tors ‘‘for all the good done in spiritual and material things.’’ Tecla’s warm
but modest response seems to reflect unusually amicable relations during
the three-year stay.

[F]rom the beginning, your zeal for God and love for the holy
reform never waned and for us, his servants however unworthy,
but you constantly strove to make progress, to acquire good virtues
and knowledge of the Holy Scriptures. Thus, you yourselves have
become stronger in the love of God and learning of true virtues,
and have with God’s help grown and advanced greatly in the nec-
essary knowledge and understanding of the scriptures.

Concluding, Tecla writes, ‘‘You now have been educated as teachers of

others in your own house and outside your house in cloisters that you
will reform.’’43 Marienberg sisters went on to reform Mariabrunn (near
Helmstedt) and Stendal (in Altmark).
In order to institute the Observance, reform sisters were usually placed
in charge of the chief offices. That they were not young and naive women,
as critics have suggested, but usually experienced sisters who had held these
positions in their home convents, can be seen in Magdalena Kremer’s ac-
count, which provides enough information to ascertain their ages and qual-
ifications. Magdalena reports how the reformers were installed in their
offices. Barbara Bernheimer was invested with the office of prioress, a nun
with thirty-eight years of experience whom Magdalena describes as ‘‘a
wise, skillful, honorable, good sister in spiritual and material matters.’’44
Adding up the years Barbara had spent at previous convents, one sees that
she could not have been any younger than fifty. Similarly, Sub-Prioress
Elisabeth Herwert, who had transferred to Schönensteinbach in , was

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an intrepid sixty-seven. The third sister, Barbara von Speyer, who took
over as bursar, was one of the reformers of Sylo itself fourteen years before
and thus could not have been younger than twenty-six.45 We do not know
the ages of the other four Observants from Alsace, but the blanket assertion
that reformers were young and inexperienced women does not hold for
the known Kirchheim data.
In the few other cases where the ages of participants can be ascertained,
there are sometimes reforming sisters of very advanced age, such as Kathar-
ina von Mühlheim. After ten years at Schönensteinbach, eight as a reformer
at Nuremberg, then thirty years as reform prioress of Tulln (Austria), Ka-
tharina set off a third time for Brünn in Bohemia at the age of at least
sixty-two.46 Yet some reform prioresses were as young as Mechthild von
Niendorf, who was only twenty when she became head of Ebstorf. From
what we know of Mechthild in the Ebstorf chronicle, she was a woman
with a very strong personality. Heike Uffmann suggests that Mechthild
succeeded because she had an ‘‘integrative personality’’ and was ‘‘charming
and friendly, but firm and definite.’’47 Some reform prioresses, like Marga-
ret Meyer, who headed the ill-fated effort at Klingental and died there,
could only be called seasoned veterans. Sixteen years earlier Margaret had
helped to reform Sylo and then had served as prioress at Engelport before
being sent to Klingental. As a former prioress, Margaret would surely have
known the ins and outs of managing convent finances. Thus suggestions
that Klingental and other similar efforts failed because the women were
inexperienced and incapable of handling money are also without support.48
In the annals of the Observance, there are many women who went on
missions to two, three, and—in a few cases—even four or more cloisters.
Of the original early sisters at Schönensteinbach, Margareta von Masmüns-
ter and Maria Magdalena Bettunger each went on to reform or found two
more houses.49 Mechthild and Truta von Bollwig went with reforming
missions to Unterlinden (), St. Maria Magdalena at Basel (), and
Himmelskron ( or ); Anna Minckhin, a prioress at Schönenstein-
bach, became reform prioress at Unterlinden and later at Liebenau.50 Most
remarkable of all were Margareta Regenstein of Unterlinden, who partici-
pated in four reform missions, and Margareta Zorn, who transferred to
Schönensteinbach from the unreformed St. Margaret’s in Strasbourg and
then, in eighteen years, participated in three more successful reforms and
one failed effort.51

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Even those women who were reluctant to leave their home communi-
ties and encounter difficult and often hostile situations considered the or-
deal part of their vow of obedience. Magdalena Kremer quotes Sister
Elisabeth Herwert, one of the seven reformers drafted to come from Sylo
to Kirchheim, as saying, ‘‘We were called here by obedience and for the
praise of God, and we would rather be hacked to pieces like weeds than
retreat against the will of our superiors.’’52 But the ordeal was often a pro-
tracted one. Even long after a reform had been instituted, things did not
always go smoothly, as opponents fought continual rear-guard actions. At
Kirchheim, for example, after the old Count Ulrich died, several of the
dispossessed women enlisted help from his son, Eberhard. The new sover-
eign reversed his father’s policy and supported the resisters’ plan to take
back their cloister because it coincided with his own interests. Eberhard
was already deeply in debt and happy to find an excuse to take control of
the cloister’s assets to ease his own financial problems.53
Magdalena’s chronicle tells how Eberhard ordered the expulsion of the
seven reformers, herself included. But, she asserts, the cloister resolved to
resist and banded together with the Sylo sisters rather than give them up.
So Eberhard blockaded the convent and tried to starve them out. Through
three long seiges, with no food or firewood and their barns set ablaze, the
nuns held out. In the third seige, Magdalena relates how the sisters con-
sumed all their supplies and burned their furniture for heat. At last, the
count’s uncle, Eberhard the Elder, interceded on their behalf. Magdalena’s
narrative celebrates the women’s solidarity and courage in standing up to
the count. She portrays how the other sisters hid the reformers among
themselves and declared that they were ‘‘all reformers.’’ Fearing a breech
of the walls, the women gathered together in the chapel.

[Some of the sisters] thought they should stand in front, holding

the crucifix before them. . . . And the reforming sisters thought
[rather] that they should stand together so that the injustice would
only come upon them and not upon the others. . . . But the other
sisters said that they should not do that but should mix themselves
together so that no one would know which were the reformers.
. . . [And they said to the reformers,] ‘‘We will take your places in
the choir, one in the prioress’ chair, holding a crucifix before her,
and she will say ‘I am the prioress, what do you want?’ ’’ And two

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or three wished to do the same in the place of the sub-prioress and

in the places of the other reformers. Thus they called on the sisters
to resist our opponents with a united front and truthfully. For they
did not speak untruth when they said they were reformers too.
. . . They were all reformers; for, indeed, the whole convent was
united.54

This idealized report may or may not represent the sentiments of all the
sisters, but it reveals those of one who was a reformer herself. Her convic-
tion is expressed in the dramatic way she chooses to depict the events and
the women’s role in them.

Implementing a Reform

The way of introducing the reform was to allow a trial period, after which
those sisters who did not want to accept it could transfer to an unreformed
cloister. Trial periods varied from one year, as at Adelhausen in Freiburg
(reformed ), to three months at the Bicken cloister in Villingen (),
or only two months at Engelthal near Nuremberg (in ).55 Johannes
Meyer gives an account of how at St. Katharina in Nuremberg (in )
the master of the order, Bartholomeus Texerius, decreed ‘‘that all the sisters
who had been in the convent previously should remain there and try [the
Observance] humbly, as much as they were well disposed and desired it.
And [he] set them a goodly time as their goal. And those who after that
time did not want to remain should be found places in other houses of
[the] order.’’ Texerius charged the new reform prioress to ‘‘allow all the
convent sisters to continue to live as they had been accustomed to: to eat
meat, to forgo fasting, to sleep on soft mattresses, to wear their previous
shifts and clothing, and the like, as long as the sisters were pious and did
what was required gladly and with good grace, and of their own free will,
but humbly and obediently.’’56
This account relates how the Nuremberg city council was still split over
the issue of reform. Consequently, the party of reforming sisters from Schö-
nensteinbach had to be housed temporarily in the home of one of the
townspeople for a week while the council debated. But after a week, Mas-
ter General Texerius was ‘‘filled with the Holy Spirit’’ and ordered that the

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Observant sisters should be taken into the convent secretly at night. Meyer
asserts that the superiors spoke ‘‘graciously’’ with both groups of sisters.57
They agreed that the Observants should be installed into the offices, thus
presenting the city council with a fait accompli. Another account, written
by one of the St. Katharina sisters, probably one of the Observants, gives a
different perspective. It mentions none of the external wrangling. Instead,
it focuses on the sisters and their vote, saying, ‘‘[A]ll the sisters of this
convent were present and gave their votes to said Father Johannes Nider
to choose a prioress.’’ After naming the new prioress and the officers, the
chronicler writes:

Afterward, the said master of the order gave the thirty-five sisters a
period to think over whether they wanted to keep the Observance.
Those who did not wish to could be accommodated in other clois-
ters. Thus the sisters agreed to the holy Observance, except for
eight sisters who said that it was too difficult for them and that
they did not wish to [do] it. . . . The eight sisters [whose names
are listed] took with them books, clothing, jewels, annuities, rents,
cash, chests, cabinets, and other household goods, more than be-
longed to them. But twenty-seven of the sisters remained and ten
sisters from Schönensteinbach.

The writer goes on to tell how those who stayed gave over their private
property to the convent: jewels, cash, chests, cabinets, extra clothing, in-
cluding ‘‘coats of finely woven wool, of squirrel and other furs, cloaks
and down comforters.’’58 The items collected were sold and the proceeds
invested. The sister’s narrative differs from Meyer’s in that it is primarily
concerned with demonstrating the legitimacy of the takeover and with
giving names and an exact accounting of the property that was collected.
Unlike Meyer, she does not describe the sneaking in of the women at
night or the men’s exhortations to the sisters, but proceeds straight to the
vote.
At Überwasser (Münster), in contrast, the trial period was one year.
Until Easter, the nuns were permitted to wear long dresses, keep their
servants, and were not required to take part in the singing of the Hours.
Those over age sixty could have a room of their own as well as a servant.
Yet after the trial year, fifteen sisters elected to leave and pensions had to be

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paid out to them as settlements.59 Dominican officials expressed their con-

cern that no one should be forced to join the Observance and Provincial
Jakob von Stubach admonished reformers at Gmünd in  that no one
was to be driven out of the convent.60 At the Clarissan cloister of Söflingen
some of the sisters, who had left the house because of the reform, later
returned and were allowed to live there under a modified form of the
Observance with special dispensations, such as the privilege of visiting with
their friends.61
In many cases, when sister-houses of the New Devout were ‘‘reformed’’
by the introduction of the Augustinian rule and enclosure, as was St. Agnes
at Emmerich in , not all the women accepted the change. The Em-
merich sisters had already solemnly renounced ownership of property in
, but many felt that living under a monastic rule was incompatible
with their freedom to pursue their own pious devotional exercises and live
by the work of their hands.62 Thus, even after the community accepted the
rule, some of the sisters continued to live in the house without taking the
vows or accepting enclosure. The Emmerich book of sisters tells, for exam-
ple, of Sister Ide Ruijtkens, who said that keeping the rule of the order
would overtax her abilities. ‘‘Sister Ide had not joined the order and this
she explained by saying she had not taken orders because she was not strong
of mind and was often overly worried and uneasy, that she could not do all
the things properly and keep the order. And therefore she continued in her
original simple ways and served God as best she could.’’63
In some accounts it is the resident abbess, converted by Observant
preaching, who decides to join the reform. At least this is the explanation
given by the chronicler at the Bridgettine cloister of Maihingen (–
). She relates how Magdalena von Oettingen, abbess of the neighbor-
ing Cistercian cloister of Kirchheim am Ries (–), was converted
by the preaching of Father Peter Karoli, Maihingen’s confessor, and de-
cided to become an Observant.

Father Peter went often to Kirchheim, to the lady abbess and her
convent, for she was a particular friend of the holy order and of all
spiritually devout people. [He] told the lady abbess and the other
women, who were all still unreformed, many good things about a
blessed, reformed life and of the anxious situation that those who
own property and are not reformed find themselves in.64

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The Observant chronicler explains how as a result of Father Peter’s preach-

ing the abbess and some of the sisters decided to join the reform despite
strong opposition from within the community.

And he instructed them in many gracious teachings, so much so

that their hearts became ardently inclined toward the reform. And
he devoted special attention to the lady abbess with good teach-
ings, for he saw that she was a person with a particular understand-
ing and affinity for God. And with God’s help, he led her to
entirely accept the Observance, even though she faced strong resis-
tance from several women in her cloister. There were some who
were not willing to agree to it. . . . Several left the house, who did
not want to be among the sheep of Christ the Lord. But those who
remained henceforward led a devoutly spiritual life as an enclosed
community, which still exists.65

Unfortunately, no further account of the implementation of this reform is

given.
In some cases, women were motivated to join the reform by the desire
to take part in the Jubilee indulgence proclaimed in  by Pope Nicholas
V (–), in which only reformed cloisters could participate. Wishing
to gain its benefits, Prioress Adelheid von Bortfeld and a faction of the
canonesses at Heiningen solicited the help of the provost of Sülte, in Hild-
esheim, who after some hesitation, carried out a reform despite the opposi-
tion of the other women in the house.66

Women as Initiators of Reform

Beyond scenarios in which women took part in the reform effort out of
obedience, as converts of Observant pastors, or sought to gain the Jubilee
indulgence, many women initiated reforms on their own. In some cases,
however, such as that of Alijt Bake (–), female reformers acted
too independently and were reprimanded for their activities by church
authorities. Inspired by the model of Colette of Corbie, Alijt Bake, prioress
of the Windesheim house of Galilea in Ghent, worked to bring about a
spiritual revival in her own cloister. But she ran into difficulties with the

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leadership of the Windesheim Congregation over her outspokenness and

her mystical and ‘‘philosophical’’ writings. When Alijt failed to modify
her activities sufficiently, she was removed as prioress and sent to another
cloister.67
Other women were inspired by the example of Schönensteinbach or
similar communities and requested help in introducing the Observance at
their own houses. At the Clarissan convent of Gnadental in Basel, Abbess
Clara Seckinger in  petitioned for a reform of her cloister on the model
of Alspach (in Alsace), the first Observant Clarissan house in the province.68
More enterprising was Elisabeth Kröhl (d. ), abbess of the Cistercian
convent of Heggbach. Under the pretense of taking a cure, Elisabeth visited
several cloisters to find out the best practices before initiating a reform of
her own house.69
Citing from the old chronicle begun in  by the Augustinian sisters
of Inzigkofen (near Sigmaringen), a seventeenth-century abridged version
asserts that the sisters decided to institute ‘‘all the rules and good practices’’
of the Observant house at Pillenreuth (near Nuremberg). In  they sent
two lay sisters to request a copy of their reform statutes.70 After studying
the Pillenreuth reform statutes, the Inzigkofen sisters followed up with a
list of forty-one written questions, asking for clarification and advice on
how to implement the rules. In the close relationship that subsequently
grew up between the two convents, the sisters at Inzigkofen refer to Pillen-
reuth in their chronicle as ‘‘our magistra, teacher, and instructor in the holy
order of . . . Saint Augustine.’’71
Two accounts by Johannes Meyer in his Book of the Reform resemble
others he is known to have solicited from prioresses. In these two accounts,
Meyer reports how reforms were initiated by women who successfully
agitated to join the Observance. One of the most high-profile efforts was
led by prioress Agnes Vigin at St. Nicolaus in undis, Strasbourg. Meyer
relates how Prioress Vigin and the sisters at St. Nicholas had earlier hosted
a party of Observant sisters who stopped there on their way to reform
Himmelskron at Hochheim (near Worms). Impressed by these reformers,
Prioress Vigin and some of the sisters petitioned to join the Observance
themselves, but their request was ignored because the Dominican men’s
convent at Strasbourg belonged to the Conventual, or unreformed, faction.
So Agnes and her supporters then approached the town council and won
its approval after threatening to transfer if their cloister did not join the

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Observance. Finally, in , the Dominican Provincial for Teutonia

agreed to authorize Observant sisters from Unterlinden and Basel to under-
take the reform with Father Peter Gengenbach. Meanwhile, inside the
cloister, the situation was tense. Most of the younger sisters opposed the
change and declared their intention to leave and take their property with
them if the reform should be instituted. After much agitation in the con-
vent, in the city council, and among friends and relatives of both sides,
eight of the sisters elected to leave, at an almost debilitating cost to the
cloister of , gulden.72
After St. Nicolaus had been reformed for about thirty years, Brid Mel-
burgen, the new prioress of St. Agnes (in Strasbourg) began to organize
support for a reform of her own cloister. Meyer reports that Prioress Mel-
burgen and three supporters obtained the backing of a group of the clois-
ter’s trustees, friends, and some city councilors. They approached the
Dominican Master General, who agreed to send Father Heinrich Schretz
and four Observant sisters from Unterlinden in . But the reform was
opposed by other sisters in the convent and by their vicar, Johannes Wolfh-
art. When Wolfhart heard that a reform party was on its way, he ordered
the gates to be locked. Prioress Melburgen and her three supporters, who
tried to keep the gate open, were locked out. The matter was brought
before the city council, Schretz’s letters of authorization read out, and the
council decided for the Observants.73
The details of these last two cases show particularly how involved wom-
en’s family networks, townspeople, city councils, bishops, and Conventual
congregations all were in decisions about the reform of women’s cloisters.
Sigrid Schmitt’s study of Strasbourg illustrates the importance of the chang-
ing social composition in Observant convents and the strong pressure for
the reform exerted by the burgher magistrate class to which Prioress Brid
Melburgen and her three supporters belonged. This pressure was so strong
that the minority party succeeded in forcing a reform of St. Agnes, even
though the majority of the sisters opposed it. Subsequently, more women
from the increasingly powerful city magistrate class were admitted to Stras-
bourg cloisters.74
Both the St. Nicolaus in undis and the St. Agnes accounts are in the
Strasbourg manuscript of Meyer’s Book of the Reform, which also contains
additional chapters about St. Agnes that are not in the other manuscripts of
Meyer’s work. Annette Barthelmé suggests these were composed by one

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of the Strasbourg sisters.75 This is confirmed by Meyer’s ‘‘Open Letter to

Dominican Sisters’’ (c. ), which lists his writings and says of the Book
of the Reform, ‘‘to this book a considerable part was appended by the prioress
of St. Nicolaus in Strasbourg [Barbara von Benfelden], as she herself was
concerned with the work of the reform.’’76 Meyer seems to be referring to
the additional chapters about St. Agnes’s merger with and reform of St.
Margaret’s in , which are found only in the Strasbourg manuscript.77
The accounts about Strasbourg cloisters St. Nicolaus and St. Agnes are also
each far longer than his other reports. And in these narratives the prioress
and principal figures are referred to by name, with the women playing a
central role in spearheading the reform efforts. Thus it seems likely that
Meyer was working from detailed sources supplied by Prioress von Ben-
felden.
Confirmation that Meyer used accounts from prioresses is found in
Adelheid of Aue’s letter to Meyer in , in which she states, ‘‘You have
asked for information about Sylo.’’ Seraphin Dietler, who included the
actual letter in his version of the Chronicle of Cloister Schönensteinbach, pref-
aces it by saying that Meyer had asked the prioress for the names of the
sisters who participated in the reform and how it was carried out.78 Prioress
von Aue’s account matches almost verbatim Meyer’s version in his Book of
the Reform, except for one important difference: Adelheid’s narrative attri-
butes more of the initiative to the women than does Meyer. Her account
tells in the first person how she helped and advised the prioress and five
sisters at Sylo who themselves wanted to join the Observance. Prioress
Adelheid writes:

And since you want to know about the cloister Sylo, be informed
that some sisters of that house for a long time had a great desire
and earnest longing to join the Observance, so much so that for
ten years the prioress continually expressed her desire to transfer to
our Observant cloister. But I always comforted her with letters and
other gestures of friendship and asked her to endure and be patient,
for her desire would soon be fulfilled and I would do my best for
her. In the meantime, I wrote to the donors and spoke personally
with them so that they agreed because there were five sisters in the
cloister who wanted to be reformed.79

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Adelheid goes on to tell how the six sisters and their spiritual mentors wrote
to the master general who in  appointed Father Heinrich Schretz to
take five sisters from St. Katharina in Colmar to reform Sylo.
The profile of the reform party from Adelheid’s cloister is similar in age
and experience to the women whom Magdalena Kremer described in her
account of the reform of Kirchheim. Among the party were Barbara Krebs,
sub-prioress for twenty-six years, and Ursula Surgand. Both of them had
been at St. Katharina since before it was reformed in .80 Barbara Krebs
would go on to reform St. Gertrude in Cologne two years later and Marga-
ret Meyer, also of the party, later headed missions to both Engelport ()
and Klingental ().81
Here again city magistrates intervened in support of the Observants with
offers of help and assistance. Prioress Adehleid states that, of the twenty
inhabitants of Sylo, five favored and fifteen opposed the reform. One of
the opponents left before the reformers arrived, and afterward four more
did so without requesting permission, for which they were excommuni-
cated. Yet the influence of the town council and the Dominican master
general was sufficient to institute the reform, at least on a trial basis. Abbess
Adelheid closes her letter to Meyer by asking for his prayers that the seeds
planted at Sylo ‘‘will grow and bear fruit.’’82
As noted, Adelheid’s version gives greater emphasis to the requests of
the Sylo prioress during the ten years before the reform and to her own
activities, which are in the foreground of her account. Meyer, however,
attributes the initiative to the perspicacity of Master General Conrad Asti,
who during a visitation ‘‘noticed that the prioress herself and some of the
other good sisters desired wholeheartedly that their cloister should be re-
formed.’’83 From this it is apparent that Prioress Adelheid, who gives less
emphasis to Asti, perceived herself as more active in bringing about the
reform than did her male mentors. Adelheid’s narrative resembles earlier
women’s accounts in which beguines play the central roles as the founders
of religious communities. Women, it seems, tended to perceive themselves
as more active and instrumental than did their male co-participants.

Women on Their Own

The clearest description of women taking the initiative and instituting a
reform by themselves is found in accounts left by sisters at St. Katharina in

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St. Gall. The chronicle, begun by Prioress Angela Varnbühler (–)

and the sister-book by Elisabeth Muntprat (d. ), provide a close look
at both the reform and the extraordinary friendship between Varnbühler
and Prioress Kunigunda Haller, her mentor in Nuremberg. It was Haller
who provided the sisters at St. Gall with a written how-to course on the
Observance. Thoma Vogler’s  history of the convent asserts that the
initiation of reform at St. Gall shows no influence of the lector. ‘‘We do
not even know his name, probably a Dominican of Constance. But this
[men’s] convent was itself not reformed and the women would have re-
ceived little impetus from this quarter.’’84
Angela Varnbühler, who began the chronicle that covers the years –
, tells how she entered the cloister in  at age thirteen. Together
with the ardently religious Angela, a few like-minded sisters began to live
in voluntary poverty. The prioress at the time, a friend of the Observance,
was unable to gain majority support and was succeeded in  by a strong
opponent of the reform. But the situation was reversed four years later
when Anna Krumm, one of the Observant group, was elected and insti-
tuted the common life for all. The sister-book, begun in  by Elisabeth
Muntprat, recounting the history of the cloister from  to , de-
scribes the first stage of the reform: ‘‘In the year , we began a commu-
nal life which the worthy mother prioress and several sisters so greatly
desired that they had begun it among themselves earlier, but in this year
[] they initiated it for the [whole] convent. It was accomplished with
great anguish and worry that would fill a book.’’85 The chronicle gives a
graphic account, reporting that ‘‘some sisters set themselves against it, so
that one sister, screaming loudly, wounded our sub-prioress so that she
almost died, but God showed his grace and she survived another twenty-
two years.’’ Eventually, all but three of the convent’s fourteen sisters ac-
cepted voluntary poverty, and twenty new members joined the community
under Prioress Anna Krumm’s direction. Anna died in  and was suc-
ceeded by the charismatic Angela Varnbühler, who proceeded to reform
the entire life of the cloister. Under Varnbühler’s leadership, the sisters
decided that they wished to be an enclosed cloister and, in , sent a
delegation to the bishop of Constance for his approval, afterward also solic-
iting the approval of the St. Gall city council. Vogler comments that the
first stage of the reform (voluntary poverty) was introduced with a great
deal of opposition, but the latter stage (enclosure) with none.86

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The decision to embrace voluntary poverty and asceticism may have

been motivated by the model of Saint Catherine of Siena, whose biography
can be found in at least six manuscripts in the cloister library. But the most
important influence was Varnbühler’s correspondence with Kunigunda
Haller, prioress (–) of the Observant Dominican cloister at Nurem-
berg. This correspondence, in which Haller acted as mentor, extended over
many years. Although Varnbühler’s half of the conversation has not sur-
vived, one can see from Haller’s letters, which were copied into the St.
Gall sister-book, how the friendship developed and how Haller guided the
progress of the reform at St. Gall, a convent that had never been officially
accepted into the order, even though the women repeatedly tried to gain
admission. In one early letter, Prioress Haller writes her encouragement to
Angela: ‘‘Not occasionally, but often and continually I rejoice over your
great, earnest, scrupulous striving, that is appropriate to the order, to spiri-
tuality and the Holy Observance. May God grant me His grace that I may
be equal to your desires [in guiding you.]’’87 With similar enthusiasm, she
writes repeatedly, ‘‘your boundless love and zeal for the holy Observance
are the great joy of my heart.’’88
Haller and the sisters at Nuremberg instructed the sisters at St. Gall,
shared books and advice on the practices of the Observance, as Elsbeth
relates in the sister-book.

In the year , when we enclosed our cloister, the above men-
tioned worthy mother prioress [Haller] at Nuremberg began to
help and instruct us in her most faithful and friendly letters and to
advise us in all spirituality. And she and her dear daughters taught
us with such faithfulness and love . . . lent us their books in a most
friendly way, . . . [and] answered all our questions as we desired
about how they observed the rule, as is written hereafter.89

Prioress Haller, who especially valued the rule of silence, writes in one
example:

There is no part of the rule more suited to me than holy silence. It

is as though rooted in my nature. When I assumed the office of
prioress it was a great cross to my heart that I worried about my
silence. . . . Our old, dear mother prioress told us often in chapter

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that the old monastics sometimes kept silence for the whole of
Lent and Advent, not only in those places and times when talking
is forbidden, but [also] other useless words.90

In her role as mentor, Haller calls silence ‘‘a key to all spirituality and a
foundation stone of peace’’ as well as ‘‘the greatest basis of devotion and
the resting place of the holy spirit.’’91 Haller provided the St. Gall sisters
with a detailed handbook (over  pages copied into the sister-book) on
all aspects of the day-to-day implementation of an Observant regime and
many letters of encouragement.
The women’s reform at St. Katharina highlights the question of agency.
How much maneuvering room did female religious have in shaping their
own lives? It is clear, for example, that women sometimes chose enclosure
as a way to limit outside interference in their internal affairs, as will be seen.
Yet their options were limited. How did women operate in relation to
ecclesiastical and secular authorities? In the accounts that women left about
themselves one finds many portraits of self-confident, energetic, enterpris-
ing, innovative, and resourceful personalities. Often they tell stories about
the frustrations endured from external powers that either thwarted the pri-
oress’s efforts to accomplish a goal or tried to tyrannize them. In some
narratives the protagonists manage to accomplish their aims by exceptional
entrepreneurship or resist the pressure applied to them through ingenuity
or sheer courage. In dealing with ecclesiastical authorities they were bound
by their vows of obedience, but in facing up to secular injustice and tyran-
nical exercise of power, the women portray themselves resisting boldly and
resourcefully.

Prioress Anna von Buchwald

As members of the nobility and of the upper classes, nuns were not lacking
in self confidence. Anna von Buchwald, prioress at Preetz (–)
begins her ‘‘Book in the Choir’’ with a drawing of the coats of arms of
both sides of her family and proudly announces herself as the author: ‘‘This
book was written by Mother Prioress Anna von Buchwald, composed new
by her. It is useful to all and eliminates most of the errors which can usually
only be avoided with great effort. . . . If you read it, you will never go

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wrong.’’92 This confident introduction prefaces Anna’s advice to the sisters.

Her careful record-keeping and practical spirituality show a concern with
the well being of her community. Never afraid to innovate, Anna early in
her term of office proposed changes in the performance of the liturgy that
emphasized spirituality and understanding over rote memorization. As
mentioned earlier, Anna suggested and received approval for her plan to
shorten the numerous readings, masses, and special vigils, which taxed the
strength the nuns in her cloister. But she also proposed to allow them to
sing from books instead from rote memory. Anna writes that in the third
year of her priorate she observed three novices endeavoring to sing the
antiphons and graduals by heart as was the practice, and she noticed how
those with lesser ability ‘‘labored greatly and with heavy anxiety’’ to learn
the difficult texts.

I observed their abilities and great efforts and permitted them—and

not only them but all the other novices who will come to the
school in the future—to sing these texts from books and no longer
from memory . . . so that their health would not be too much
affected by the extreme effort of learning by rote but [that they]
could serve God with hearty singing and study the music more
perfectly and more eagerly.93

Anna preferred a simpler liturgy and a smaller number of well sung pieces
over many badly sung ones. After receiving the prelate’s approval for her
plan she writes unabashedly: ‘‘Yes, dearest sisters in Christ, I, the aforesaid
Anna, ask with a full heart that you, now and in the future, all of you
who, because of my efforts, will enjoy this alleviation—these changes and
attenuations of your labor in this cloister—will remember in prayer my
name which stands at the beginning and the end of this book.’’94 Always
practical, Anna even introduced warming pans for the early service so that
all would take part.
Besides the liturgical reforms she introduced, perhaps the most telling
example of Anna’s remarkable capabilities and her resourceful agency, de-
spite all the difficult restraints placed on her, was the renovation of the
cloister. Anna had long had a running conflict with the provost who refused
almost all requests to repair the facilities. When Anna repaired the sixty-
year-old rotting roof at her own expense, the provost refused even to feed

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the workers, so that the sisters had to pay for their food out of the refectory
funds.95 Most of the cloister’s buildings were sadly in need of repair. Lest
one think that Anna was exaggerating the need for renovation, her descrip-
tion of the state of the bakery house gives an idea both of her reasons for
concern and of the difficulties of life in fifteenth-century convents. Anna
writes that the roof beams were so rotten that tiles frequently fell onto the
floor.

When it rained or snowed, our grain was flooded and sprouted.

How our beer could agree with us after that, one can imagine! It
rained into the flour bin and leaked into the vats when beer was
being brewed and into the dough trough when sourdough was
rising. We were constantly afraid that the bakery house would fall
down and then we would not have been able to rebuild it for ,
gulden. Then we saw that the walls had separated from each other
and were hollow so that they could no longer stand.96

By , twenty-three years after Anna had begun her book, the last in a
series of incompetent provosts had departed, leaving the cloister deeply in
debt. Anna writes, ‘‘[B]ecause no one could be found who wanted to take
on the office because of the debts,’’ she was herself allowed to take over
the financial management of the cloister for a period of four years.97
Anna set to work immediately. After making an inspection of the
grounds with the eldest sisters, she and the other sisters undertook a fund-
raising campaign among friends, relatives, townspeople, and associates with
whom the convent did business. Under Anna’s direct stewardship, the
cloister was almost entirely rebuilt. She added a new bakery, mill, hospital,
provost’s house, stained glass windows, vaulting, as well as an organ for the
church, all, she states, without incurring any new debts for the cloister.
Convinced of the health benefits of fresh air, Anna replaced all of the old,
stationary cloister windows with new ones that could be opened on fine
days. Her considerable expertise in fund-raising included rewarding donors
by including their coats of arms in the stained glass windows that they
funded. By astute management and her capital funds campaign, organized
with the equally astute help of her sister Dilla, Prioress Anna succeeded in
paying off all the cloister’s debts accumulated by the three previous pro-
vosts. Finally, in  a new provost was appointed, this time a good man-

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ager with whom Anna worked harmoniously and in great mutual respect
throughout her remaining years as prioress.98

Ursula Haider

In fiscal matters Anna von Buchwald was possibly the most effective prior-
ess to leave an account of her activities, but she was certainly not the only
enterprising one. Another was Ursula Haider (–), reform prioress
at the Bicken cloister in Villingen, a house of Poor Clares. Hearing of the
Jubilee indulgence announced in  that would be granted for visiting
the seven churches of Rome and which was augmented in  to include
the holy places in Palestine, Ursula placed descriptions of holy places (writ-
ten on parchment) at certain locations in the cloister so that her nuns could
make the pilgrmage ‘‘in spirit’’ without leaving the confines of their clois-
ter.99 Then Ursula decided to apply to Pope Innocent VIII for a bull offi-
cially granting the indulgence to her nuns for making the spiritual
pilgrimage within their own cloister, since they lived enclosed. To support
her application she solicited letters from the mayor and members of the
Villingen city council as well as from many influential friends and acquain-
tances including Count Eberhard of Württemberg and sent them by mes-
senger to Rome. But the messenger returned with the disheartening report
that the application had not gotten past the office of one of the cardinals
because it was not accompanied by the necessary gratuities. Ursula then
started over again and solicited another set of letters of application, even
though the Poor Clares could not offer the thousand ducats that would
normally accompany such a request.
For the second attempt, the Bicken cloister chronicle states, Ursula re-
cruited Father Conrad von Bondorf, who was an acquaintance and former
classmate of Pope Innocent, to carry the request to Rome. This time the
application reached the pope who granted the request of the poor sisters
without requiring ‘‘one single kreutzer in payment.’’ When the letter of
indulgence was brought back to the Bicken cloister, the nuns carried it
tearfully from station to station in a solemn procession with singing and
candlelight.100
Ursula Haider was not only a determined woman but, like Anna von
Buchwald, also very self-confident in her opinions. She left behind a book

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of her writings and revelations, some of which describe dream-visions of

conversations with ‘‘a master and doctor of holy writ, a Dominican’’ (possi-
bly Johannes Tauler). The Bicken cloister chronicle quotes extensive pas-
sages from Ursula’s text. In one encounter she says assertively to her
Dominican interlocutor, ‘‘[H]ear me and do not withdraw until I have
explained my opinion to you.’’ After she spoke, Ursula, never short on self-
esteem, reports his reply, ‘‘God be praised that He created you, a creature in
which His light of grace so shines,’’ and tells her that her writings will
become widely known.101

Dorothea Koler and the Sisters of Marienthal

Max Straganz refers to Dorothea Koler (d. ), leader of the party sent
from Nuremberg in  to reform the Clarissan cloister at Brixen, as ‘‘a
woman of manly spirit.’’102 The portrait of Abbess Koler, composed about
seventy years later by a sister at the convent of Pfullingen (c. ), tells
how she defied Duke Sigismund of Tirol by honoring a papal interdict that
had been placed over him and, together with other Observants, refusing
afterward to have religious services conducted in the convent church. The
story of these events, narrated rather melodramatically in the Pfullingen
chronicle, illustrates the involvement of the townspeople in the issues con-
cerning the convent and its religious services.

And from day to day the situation got worse, so that every day they
were threatened with violence, sometimes that [the townspeople]
would cut their clothes off at the belt and drive them out of town
with sticks, sometimes other threats. And once they said that if
they did not hold with the community [and stop honoring the
interdict] they should know for sure that they would all be
drowned, for ‘‘that’s what they were good for’’—that and a lot of
other things. Then abbess [Koler], standing in the open door of
the cloister clapped one hand in the other and replied, ‘‘I hope and
trust God and all the Nurembergers that they will not let it go
unpunished.’’103

The sisters went on refusing to ring the bells for services until at last the
exasperated duke evicted the women from his lands (). But Abbess

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Koler refused to go unless transportation was provided for the sick and
elderly sisters. To this the duke, somewhat shamed, acquiesced.
A different kind of breach between the convent and citizenry is related
in the chronicle of Marienthal (Niesing) in Münster, a house of Sisters of
the Common Life that had taken on a rule and lived enclosed. The narra-
tive tells how, during the Anabaptist uprising of , the nuns were
evicted from their cloister. The convent chronicle (c. ) relates how a
mob of Anabaptist townsfolk came to the cloister, demanding that the
women should join them and be baptized. But the sisters, as their chronicle
states, were ‘‘harder than a stone, for a stone can be moved more than we.’’
And so the mob drove them out of their cloister, although it was snowing
heavily. Looking for each other on the outside a few days later in the
aftermath of the snow and general chaos, the sisters discovered that three
of their number were missing.

[T]here was one sister who customarily took care of the sick, and
she had remained in the infirmary with two elderly invalid sisters
until Sunday. So three of our sisters, who had come out, went back
and asked earnestly at the door that the three sisters should be
brought out . . . but [the pillagers] refused and said they must go
away or be shot. And so the sisters drew back very sad and the
Anabaptists fired shots after them.104

Waiting at a distance, the women saw the infirmary sister coming out with
the two invalids and, despite the danger to themselves, ran to help them.
Their courage and concern for the sick—like Dorothea Koler’s—mark
them as women of more than ‘‘manly spirit.’’ Rather than the spiritual
warrior of the fourteenth-century sister-books, winning the Lord’s grace
and mercy through hard discipline and asceticism, the heroine in fifteenth-
and sixteenth-century convent chronicles is portrayed standing up to the
duke or risking her safety to care for the sick.

Barbara Bernheimer and Christina Reyselt

Magdalena Kremer’s narrative tells how, under Prioress Barbara Bern-

heimer, the women of Kirchheim not only held out against the Count of

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Württemberg through three seiges by his troops but also how the women
launched a propaganda campaign to fight back. In order to mobilize public
opinion, the nuns published a flier (which Magdalena includes) addressed
to ‘‘all Christian princes, knights, noblemen, and all others’’ in which they
detailed the injustices committed against them by Count Eberhard the
Younger and the circumstances and course of the seige.

[W]e cannot understand such fearful persecution and uncalled for

violence from someone who is supposed to be our gracious sover-
eign or protector, he who not only does not protect us but himself
undertakes to starve us. We urgently seek and cry out with flowing
tears for help and comfort. [Signed] The Prioress and the entire
Dominican Convent of St. John the Baptist at Kirchheim unter
Teck.105

Whether it was this broadside that brought Eberhard’s uncle with his troops
to their rescue is not clear. But in this and other writings the sisters pub-
lished the names of those who had helped them and those who had not. In
this struggle against the count, Observant women mounted a very public
resistance against a more powerful secular authority.
Sometimes the women’s resistance to secular pressure was more individ-
ual, immediate, and direct. Christina Reyselt at Brixen in , for exam-
ple, took matters into her own hands when the papal interdict was issued
against Duke Sigismund of Tirol. The Observants, as mentioned, upheld
the interdict while the Conventuals did not. The Pfullingen chronicle re-
counts that, in order to prevent the cloister’s bells from being rung for
services by the duke’s men, Christina climbed up to the bell towers, took
the clappers out of the bells, and hid them so well that even later they could
not be found.106 This audacious strategem is typical of the capable and
ambitious Christina, the former servant who had worked her way up to
choir sister. In the chronicle narrative she shows her resourcefulness again
during the long and arduous journey from Brixen to cloister Pfullingen
(near Reutlingen in Württemberg), after the duke evicted the women in
. The chronicler portrays graphically how the astute Christina took
charge in this crisis:

In the night when the sisters were told that they were to be ex-
pelled, she took cord and sacking and had the wagons covered

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 Women of the Reform

with it. And [she collected] all the things that might be of use on
the journey, particularly all the chickens and capons, which she
beheaded with a cleaver and stuffed into sacks and pillowcases, also
spice cakes and whatever was at hand. And [on the road] whenever
they came to honorable people who were friendly to the sisters
and did anything to help them, Christina always had something
with which to show their gratitude, perhaps a spice cake or the
like. And when they came to an inn, she usually had something
that was good to cook.107

In these women’s writings, Observant nuns are not represented as other-

worldly and docile. Their self-portraits sketch them as self-directed and
purposeful. The convent chronicles depict everyday life in a fifteenth-
century religious house as less sterile, monotonous, and detached than is
often assumed. The celebrated sisters of Schönensteinbach had to evacuate
their cloister four times when maurading armies crossed through their terri-
tory.108 Frequently, they received letters and reports back from members of
their community who had gone to reform cloisters as far away as Bohemia.
Women in different Observant convents knew about the history of the
reform in their order and wrote in their chronicles not only about their
accomplishments but also those at other houses.109 Moreover, they knew
the political situation at court, to which they sent representatives to plead
their cause, when they were being harassed by a local territorial lord. They
knew where the levers of ecclesiastical and secular power lay and how to
access them through the right influential connections. They struggled with
economic hardships and rejoiced at their successes in dealing with these
authorities. As in any surrogate family, the most highly valued acts in these
stories are those of selflessness or of resourcefulness that benefited the com-
munity. What is, perhaps, most surprising today are monastic women’s
extensive networks and the close relationships among members of different
cloistered communities.
Where larger political conflicts were concerned, especially the struggle
for church reform and renewal, nuns were intently engaged and cloister
life was far from quiet and detached. Daniel Bornstein has shown how
avidly and with what partisan interest the nuns at Corpus Domini followed
papal politics, the struggles of rival papal candidates, and the efforts of the
councils of Pisa and Constance to end the schism. Although convent

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women were not at the same levers of power, they were participants in the
political conflicts, class struggles, and economic reorganizations of their
time. At Brixen and Kirchheim Observant women agitated politically
against secular overlords. While they lost in the confrontation at Brixen,
they won at Kirchheim and Maihingen.110 In these encounters with those
in power, the women acted resourcefully and courageously, despite their
subordinate position. Agency, solidarity, and compassionate concern for
one another are prominently depicted in their accounts: Anna von Buch-
wald’s efforts to ease the burdens on her novices, Ursula Haider’s exertions
to gain the jubilee indulgence for her community, Dorothea Koler’s audac-
ity in demanding transport for the sick and elderly, and the unnamed sister
at Marienthal’s choice to remain with the invalids and care for them while
her cloister was being sacked. Yet this is but one half of the picture. What
about the agency of their sisters on the other side of the reform issue? It is
to these women that this study will now turn.

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 
Opponents of the Reform and Enclosure

This was the way of life I found kept in this monastery [when I entered it] forty
years ago; for as many years I myself have kept it and will continue to serve in this
way and no other.
—Katharina von Hoya, Abbess of Wienhausen (d. )

Although women who supported the reform left behind many accounts,
those who opposed it did not.1 Either they did not write them at all or the
texts were not preserved in the archives of their Conventual or Observant
houses. Occasionally, the chronicle of an Observant house contains entries
by sisters who were not kindly disposed to the reform, but these, too, are
rare. Thus, for reports of women’s resistance, one must rely mainly on
male reformers’ records or other documents. Yet these relate a number of
examples of women’s strong—sometimes successful—opposition.
In his account of reform activities among Benedictine, Cistercian, and
Augustinian houses for both men and women in the diocese of Hildesheim,
Johannes Busch tells of his appointment as father confessor to the nuns of
Derneburg (–). He relates how he was caught off guard when one
of the women ambushed him as he undertook to transfer the women’s
individual property into a common chest. Accompanying him to inspect
the last of the private cellars in which the Derneburg nuns kept their beer
and other personal stocks, the seemingly guileless sister who owned this
store said to Busch, ‘‘[Y]ou go first now, Father, for my cellar is the same
as those of the other sisters.’’ Then, he recounts,

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. . . . At length

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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. . . . The sister who did this was good enough
and very simple, whence I was astonished that she should think of
such a thing.2

Busch may have underestimated the ‘‘simplicity’’ of the sister who trapped
him, though he should not have. For women did not take kindly to having
their jewelry, and especially their beer, taken away, even if it was placed in
common use.
The sisters at Derneburg were not the only ones to take violent measures
to prevent the imposition of Observant practices. At St. Katharina in Augs-
burg, women wielded sticks and skewers to drive away workmen who
were heightening the wall around their cloister.3 At St. Katharina in Nurem-
berg, nuns fended off the first wave of male reformers by brandishing a
large crucifix at them.4 When outraged families of the nuns at Glaucha
retaliated against the Observants by withholding donations that would go
into the common purse, Busch countered by announcing to the townspeo-
ple in their churches that the nuns would all be transferred if the cloister
became too poor to support them.5 Sometimes armed friends and family
members attacked reformers on the roads or issued death threats.6 In nearly
all cases involvement of the lay populace was intense and feelings ran very
high.
The nuns were usually quite willing to accept improvements to their
education and even the discipline of conformity to the rule but they ada-
mantly opposed infringements of the cloister’s prestige and independence,
especially where bishops, secular lords, or city councils tried to tighten
control over them. The participation of secular authorities in the reforms,
as well as the handing over of cloister offices to ‘‘foreign’’ sisters who had
no familial ties to the local nobility, tended to isolate a convent and
strengthen the grip of centralized secular and ecclesiastical authorities on
it.7 For resisting these measures nuns were labeled ‘‘worldly’’ or ‘‘wild,
roguish women’’ by the frustrated reformers.8
To make matters worse, teams of visitors often had different ideas about
reform and the officials got into conflicts with one another.9 The author of
the account in the chronicle of Wienhausen, a sister hostile to the Obser-

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vance, complained bitterly that even after reform had been instituted, dif-
ferent groups kept issuing conflicting sets of instructions.

[N]evertheless her Highness the Duchess of Braunschweig and

Lüneburg, Anna von Nassau [who had requested the reform] and
Provost Heinrich Wetemann called for many visitations by fathers
and Dominicans, who often entered the cloister without the bish-
op’s authority and either introduced or forbade this thing or that
thing under the pretext of improvement, as, for example, that the
principal mass should not be performed as it previously had been
by the clergy and the assembled sisters, but must be sung by the
women alone. Also that there should be no more organ or instru-
mental music at matins and vespers. That the chapel of St. Fabian
and Sebastian for particular reasons—which are unclear and con-
jured-up deceptions—should be closed.10

Most Conventuals did not feel that they were in need of reform and argued
that they were not living in violation of established rules. In fact, many
Conventual cloisters kept the rule in only a moderately less stringent way
than Observants and in complete conformity to papal dispensations on the
holding of property. Matthias Döring, a leader of the Franciscan Conventu-
als, argued that their manner of life was ‘‘entirely correct.’’11
Attempting to head off the Observants, the sisters at Oetenbach wrote
to Peter Wellen, the provincial for Teutonia, to ask what they would have
to do to preempt a reform. Wellen’s answer was that if they would sing the
choral Office, live together peaceably, and follow the rules of enclosure,
they need not fear being reformed against their will.12 Because both Töss
and Oetenbach were under the care of the Conventual, or unreformed,
Dominicans of Zürich, who objected to any incursions by the Observants,
attempts to reform these houses failed. Some Conventuals, such as Francis-
can Johannes Pauli, openly accused Observants of smugness and a ‘‘holier-
than-thou’’ attitude.13
Women such as Abbess Katharina von Hoya (d. ) at Wienhausen
saw no reason for change. Abbess Katharina asserted unabashedly that she
had been ‘‘living this way for forty years’’ and did not intend to change.14
Indeed, it can hardly be called stiff-necked disobedience for women to
want to keep to established practices that were guaranteed in writing by

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their charters. Renée Weis-Müller identifies the unreformed nuns as ‘‘tra-

ditionalists’’ and the reformers as the ‘‘representatives of modernity.’’ Weis-
Müller argues that the clash between Observants and Conventuals over the
nature of piety was a clash between the old and the new, the status quo
and changing expectations.15 Other scholars stress the importance of class
pressures.16 Traditionally, many women’s houses had never been intended
to be strictly subjected to a rule but were founded as patrician finishing
schools and living establishments for the unmarried daughters of the nobil-
ity. Some convent women could even honestly claim ignorance of the rule,
as did two sisters at Rechentshofen (near Pforzheim).17 The inhabitants of
the most elite religious foundations, in many cases, had entered them as
part of a dynastic strategy or family tradition. Despite the unsuccessful at-
tempts of earlier popes to convert secular into regular canonesses by placing
them under a rule, Pope Alexander VI in  confirmed the rights of
certain houses to forgo vows and habits. They were permitted to own
private property, to live in individual quarters on a fixed income, and even
to take a yearly leave to visit parents and family.18 Often it is difficult to
establish the exact status of a particular house centuries after its founding.
When at Rechentshofen, nominally a Cistercian house, hearings were held
about a projected reform (c. ), the families of the women disparaged
the idea of enclosure as too ‘‘ignoble’’ and ‘‘rustic’’ a life for their privileged
daughters. ‘‘The nobility and our ancestors . . . founded this and similar
cloisters so that their and their posterity’s daughters would be cared for, but
not under enclosure or in such strictness as that under which you and your
monks live or ‘those ignoble types and rustics in your enclosed monas-
tery.’ ’’ Moreover, these young women could not keep the Observance
because of their ‘‘delicate constitutions.’’19 At Engelthal, when a similar
reform attempt was initiated in , Sub-prioress Martha von Kürmreuth
and a few of her sisters actually visited several reformed Dominican cloisters
and afterward wrote a letter to their vicar; they had seen ‘‘great strictness
and unendurable hardship, . . .’’ which their own ‘‘parents, ancestors, and
other friends had not intended them to be subjected to.’’ Furthermore,
the city of Nuremberg had promised them and their servants ‘‘conditions
appropriate to the princely classes.’’20 Even men, Abbot Johannes Trithem-
ius (d. ) reports, claimed that they were ‘‘noble, sensitive and of deli-
cate health’’ and therefore could not endure ‘‘fasting, austerity, vigils,
flagellation and other such exercises.’’21 Not surprisingly, then, the number

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of entrants coming from the rural nobility declined drastically in many

houses after the reform.22 Here the division between supporters and oppo-
nents of the reform was along class lines.

The Abbess and the Cardinal

One of the most prominent battles in which ecclesiastical authorities tried

to assert control over a house of noble canonesses was the attempted reform
of the abbey of Sonnenburg. The resulting conflict between the powerful
abbess, Verena von Stuben, and the newly appointed cardinal, Nicholas
von Cusa (–), was a match of the strongest wills from which nei-
ther emerged unscathed. A larger than life struggle, it has been the subject
of several literary works.23
The wealthy abbey of Sonnenburg was located in the bishophric of
Brixen to which Cardinal Cusa was appointed in . Named papal legate
two years before, Cusa was charged with instituting reform in all of the
German-speaking territories. Yet this assignment turned out to be most
difficult in his own bishophric because, as Morimichi Watanabe points out,
Cusa was ‘‘a bourgeois Rhinelander’’ and the women of Sonnenburg were
daughters of the Tyrolese nobility, who considered him an upstart.24 Be-
sides having a higher social rank than Bishop Cusa, Sonnenburg’s abbess
had the status of a minor territorial ruler and exercised control over the
abbey’s extensive lands.25 One of Cusa’s sucessors wrote, after a visitation
to Sonnenburg in , that the nuns there

are noble and, in spite of many attempts, could not be enclosed

even up to the present day, because they rely [for support] on the
nobility of this province. This reliance is so great that, although
they recognize the bishop in spiritual matters, in secular matters—
even those closely related to spiritual ones—they call on the terri-
torial princes and the nobility for their protection and rebel against
the bishop.26

Cusa encountered exactly these difficulties. Having issued a decree in 

that all the convents of the province ‘‘must be reformed within one year’’
and that all women’s cloisters were to be enclosed, Cusa expected compli-

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ance from Sonnenburg, nominally a Benedictine house. But the nuns there
had never been cloistered and were in the habit of traveling about freely.
Abbess Verena, in particular, was often away from the convent to attend
weddings, to appear at social functions, and to administer the financial and
legal affairs of her cloister’s lands and villages. While her nuns might devote
themselves to religious matters, the abbess saw her own office primarily as
political and administrative rather than as religious. She realized clearly that
enclosure would make it impossible for her to administer her holdings in
the accustomed way. As an alternative she suggested to Cusa that he might
reform the nuns but exempt her.
This proposal did not suit the cardinal. Indeed, the reform statutes that
Cusa drew up after an official visitation of the cloister in  stress em-
phatically his view that in a reformed cloister the abbess must be the spiri-
tual leader of her community; she should set an example by being present
for the performances of the liturgical offices.

Each abbess must give the greatest attention to the preservation of

her own soul and those of all the sisters and guide them with
wholesome teaching and her good example. . . . She is required by
the rules and holy ordinances to be present with the others as much
as possible at the proper times: in choir, in chapter, the refectory,
the dormitory, and especially at matins, high mass, vespers, com-
pline, so that by her presence a greater discipline and integrity
will be observed and the Divine Office performed with greater
application.27

Abbess Verena’s almost total ignorance of the rule and her focus on material
and political matters made her unsuited to the role of spiritual leader that
Cusa and the reform tried to impose on her. Well practiced and skillful in
political maneuvering, the abbess managed to hold Cusa at bay for six years.
She stalled, repeatedly asking for extensions, filing petitions at the papal
court, negotiating over details of procedure and jurisdiction, without ever
instituting any of the mandated changes.28
Early on Cusa demanded that Verena resign as abbess and appointed Afra
von Velseck as administrator in her place. When Verena refused to resign,
Cusa excommunicated her, placed Sonnenberg under interdict, and for-
bade that any rents be paid to the cloister or any supplies delivered. When

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the village of Enneberg refused to pay its rents, Verena appealed to her
brother-in-law, Jobst von Hornstein, who gathered a troop of supporters
and mercenaries to attack the village. When the troops approached, the
villagers let loose an avalanche of stones and counterattacks, killing fifty of
the mercenary soldiers and capturing their leader, Jobst von Hornstein.
When a contingent of the cardinal’s men stormed the convent, Verena
escaped and then returned after Duke Sigismund of Austria’s forces retook
the cloister. Eventually, a peace agreement was worked out that called for
Verena’s resignation and transfer, but granted her a handsome annual pen-
sion to be paid by the cloister.
Verena left Sonnenberg but continued to negotiate with Cusa about the
conditions for removing the ban he had placed on her, conditions that were
humiliating and held her entirely responsible for the deaths at Enneberg.29
Cusa’s demands caused Verena to make repeated written protests to Rome,
decrying the cardinal’s treatment of her. Finally, after seven years of con-
flict, Verena was absolved from the ban. Future abbesses of Sonnenberg
proved to be no more compliant in accepting Cusa’s stipulations or those
of ensuing bishops, however. The cloister was never successfully reformed.
The cardinal’s dogged attempt to institute reform by force and without
the cooperation or support of the secular authorities—with whom he was
also in conflict—was doomed from the outset. For her part, Verena neither
understood the goals of the reform nor trusted Cusa’s motives in pursuing
it. Knowing nothing about the Observance and having no contact with
any reforming Observant nuns, she was convinced of Cusa’s duplicity. His
motives, she believed, had nothing to do with religious observance, and
the reform was only a fabricated excuse to take away the cloister’s property.
Matters of spirituality do not figure prominently, if at all, in Verena’s objec-
tions. Her concern is rather with issues of authority. In a memorandum
explaining her reasons for resigning, Verena writes sarcastically, ‘‘First of
all, it is His Grace’s [Cusa’s] opinion, that I as abbess should have no power
other than to assign penances to the women, and I should be obedient to
them and they to me and should in all things be like them and they like
me. . . . And I, as abbess, shall not contradict.’’30 One can hear in this
memorandum Verena’s contempt for Cusa’s stipulations.
Although Cusa himself may have been sure of his intentions, modern
scholars are not. One of his aims was to regain the episcopal possessions
that had been ceded by his predecessors. To this end he carefully examined

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the titles and legal records on properties that had formerly belonged to the
bishops of Brixen. These measures made it difficult for him to convince
Verena that he was interested only in the spiritual condition of her cloister.
Sadly, Cusa never understood Verena’s motivations and her suspicions of
him but referred to her simplistically as a ‘‘Jezebel.’’31 Their resentful ex-
changes and the failed outcome of the reform did Cusa and the Observance
little credit and left Verena embittered.

Rijnsburg Abbey

Another case involving an exclusive Benedictine abbey for daughters of the

highest nobility was Rijnsburg, a house that only admitted women of noble
parentage on both maternal and paternal sides for four generations. Located
near Haarlem, Rijnsburg had long been the most exclusive convent of the
area. Although ostensibly a Benedictine house, it was inhabited by women
who were little acquainted with the rule. Life in Rijnsburg followed the
ceremonies of the court; and the abbess was daily attended by her chaplain,
three servants, and a chamberlain, all of whom strode in order before her
when she went to mass.32
In , as part of his reform mission to the northern provinces, Nicho-
las von Cusa visited Rinjsburg. He had issued a proclamation that all men’s
and women’s convents in the diocese of Utrecht were to return to strict
observation of the rules and statutes of their order. Only the year before,
Abbess Margareta van Oostende (d. ) had successfully fended off a
reform attempt by protesting that Rijnsburg was an exempt cloister and
not subject to the bishop of Utrecht but under the direct protection and
jurisdiction of the Pope. Abbess Margareta had appealed successfully to
Philip of Burgundy (d. ), himself no opponent of reform but a ruler
unwilling to allow an exempt cloister in the bishop’s diocese to be re-
formed by people ‘‘from outside.’’33 Philip could not, however, refuse the
visit of papal legate Nicholas von Cusa, who had been commissioned and
empowered by the pope himself to institute reform.
At Rijnsburg, Cusa mandated that the nuns follow the rule of St. Bene-
dict, divest themselves of personal property, give up consumption of meat,
share common meals and a common dormitory, wear the habit, and ob-
serve enclosure. His visit incited a series of protests by the nuns against these

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infringements of their rights. To prevent encroachments on his sovereignty,

Philip of Burgundy then decided to appoint his own personal reformers for
the diocese of Utrecht. Thus, in , Rijnsburg was visited again, this
time by appointees of the bishop of Utrecht. They issued new, milder
reform statutes for the women that allowed the older sisters to go in and
out of the cloister in pairs, with the approval of the abbess. Guests could
also be received but not for longer than three days. Yet the women ob-
jected to these restrictions as well and launched a counteroffensive by com-
posing their own new set of regulations, which their new abbess, Beatrix
van Reimerswaal (–), succeeded in getting approved. The new
regulations allowed more freedom, including walks as a group to a nearby
cloister in the summer months. Male guests and persons on business could
enter the cloister between the hours of  a.m. and  p.m. As a preemptive
measure against any further Observant reformers, the Rijnsburg nuns solic-
ited an official legal opinion as to whether reformers could impose a stricter
rule than that which had customarily been followed in the cloister ‘‘as far
back as human memory could recall.’’ This important legal ruling affirmed
that they could not.34
Nevertheless, in  a new visitation by the reform abbots was ordered
at the request of successor Philip the Handsome (d. ). This time, eight
Observant sisters were brought in from the cloister of Hagenbusch. The
situation of the reformers was untenable, however, because, despite their
presence, Abbess Beatrix remained head of the cloister. The women soon
segregated into two camps, singing the hours separately and eating sepa-
rately, as the old Rijnsburgers carried on a silent but determined resistance
to the reforms. Before two months were up, the Observant sisters had
requested and received permission to leave. Philip was not pleased and
another group of four reform sisters was sent from Klaarwater, an Obser-
vant house in the diocese of Utrecht. This time the two groups accommo-
dated each other’s liturgical practices and lifestyles. The Observants
remained for eight months.35
The Rijnsburg sisters then tried a new strategy to reverse the reform.
This time they hired expensive lawyers to take five requests to Rome.
Their influential chartered procurers acquired for them the five separate
papal proclamations affirming all of their exemptions and then presented
the sisters with an enormous bill, which the wealthy women were, fortu-
nately, able to pay.36 In the meantime, Abbess Beatrix had cultivated an

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improved relationship with Philip the Handsome, then installed his banner
and coat of arms at the entrance to the cloister as symbols of Phillip’s pro-
tectorate over them. Although the Bursfeld congregation continued to try
to reform Rijnsburg, the efforts had little effect after the acquisition of their
specific exemptions from the pope. How Abbess Reimerswaal might have
fared with a determined Nicholas von Cusa in residence as bishop of her
diocese, one cannot say. But Rijnsburg’s more pro-active tactic of paying
for the best professional legal services and the sisters’ cultivation of influen-
tial protectors worked more effectively than Abbess Verena von Stuben’s
stalling and negotiating over details, procedure, and jurisdiction.

Überwasser

Like Sonnenburg and Rijnsburg, Überwasser was a noble house in which

the abbess held the status of a minor territorial ruler and was also attended
by a retinue of court officials such as chamberlain and cupbearer.37 Con-
verting this kind of establishment to a reformed Benedictine convent, one
without private property and with enclosure, was a wrenching experience.
The cloister chronicle and account book, written by at least two hands—
the earlier of which opposed the Observance—includes accounts of two
reforms of the cloister by Observants in  and . The later hand is
probably that of reform Abbess Sophia Dobbers (–) herself.38 The
writer opposing the Observance attributes the bishop’s action of imposing
a reform prioress to a political intrigue. This writer tells how, when the old
abbess died in , the sisters elected a certain Countess von Werth to
succeed her. But the newly appointed bishop of Münster, Johann von
Baiern, in an act of ‘‘political revenge,’’ refused to confirm her and, instead,
brought in Richmodis von der Horst from the Observant cloister of the
Machabäer (Maccabees) in Cologne. The chronicler asserts that Countess
von Werth was denied the appointment because her influential friends in
the Cologne cathedral chapter had prevented Johann from becoming
bishop of Cologne. The writer goes on to relate rather bitterly how Rich-
modis was brought in instead at great cost to the convent.

The bishop wanted to reform this cloister; and thus did not con-
firm the above mentioned lady. He fetched a lady out of the clois-

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ter in Cologne called the Maccabees; this was [Richmodis] von

der Horst. The bishop brought the lady here in great state at the
cloister’s expense. When she was installed, the two days [of cere-
monies] cost more than  gulden. The lady and those who came
with her were here for a year and three months.39

Although Schulze concludes that Abbess Richmodis left because the hostil-
ity of the Überwasser sisters drove her away, Linneborn suggests that she
may have felt that the reform was well enough established.40 Abbess Rich-
modis’s successor, chosen from within the cloister, remained in office for
twenty years, but either a rigorous reform was not carried out or laxity
crept back in. New provisions issued at her death specified, for instance,
that during a transition period the sisters could keep their servants and did
not have to sing the choral hours.41
In  a concerted effort was made finally to convert the Überwasser
cloister from a house of secular canonesses to a reformed Benedictine one.
This time the bishop enlisted the support of the city council, the nobles,
the cathedral chapter, the emperor, and the pope.42 Against such a power-
ful, united front the women could do little to resist and were given one
year to decide if they wished to remain in the cloister or transfer to another.
Over the heads of the sisters and contrary to their choice, the cathedral
chapter appointed Hilburgis von Norrendyn as abbess, who came with
three reforming sisters from the Benedictine convent of St. Aegidius. From
February to the following June, the inhabitants of the cloister lived as two
opposing camps. The chronicler recounts the tense situation and its out-
come: ‘‘The sisters who were supposed to reform here ate in the abbey
[and] the others in St. Ludger’s chapel, from the feast of St. Agatha [Febru-
ary th] until St. Boniface day [June th]. Then [a week later] the old sisters
departed and left the cloister to them.’’43 What precipitated this crisis was
the death of the reform abbess from St.Aegidius. The old sisters had quickly
elected a new abbess, one opposed to reform, and had installed her in the
abbess’s apartments. At the same time, however, the three Observant sisters
elected Sister Sophia Dobbers at St. Aegidius. The bishop’s commissioners
hastily confirmed Sophia, brought her to the convent, and installed her on
Sunday. Now another hand, friendly to the reform, writes,

Then on Monday and Tuesday the commissioners and the mayor

came and requested the sisters to leave. This was on Thursday

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[June th]. So on that day they left. . . . Item: sixteen sisters

departed of their own will on that day and were each given ten
gulden. [Later they would receive a pension of twenty gulden an-
nually as payment for the dowries they had brought to the con-
vent.]44

A few of the old sisters later returned. The chronicle goes on to recount
with evident satisfaction how Abbess Sophia built a new refectory, a dormi-
tory, and a cloister wall, remaining abbess of Überwasser until her death in
.
The most significant differences between the successful conversion of
Überwasser to an Observant house—albeit after repeated attempts—and
the less effective efforts at Sonnenberg and Rijnsberg were the imposition
of an Observant abbess and the combined authority represented by the city
council, the local nobility, and the cathedral chapter under the leadership
of a forceful reforming bishop. Against such odds women who were un-
willing to live under the Observance had no choice but to move to another
cloister. The choice of transfer with a pension was, however, open to them.

Freiburg

Johannes Meyer describes how at Freiburg, where three cloisters were re-
formed in , the sisters’ resistance was worn down by talking at them.
In his Book of the Reform of the Dominican Order Meyer relates how—one
after another—first he, then a local nobleman, then three city officials
talked to the women for days on end ‘‘until the sisters began to make
progress.’’ Referring to himself in the third person, Meyer writes that he
(the reformer)

told the sisters what God gave him to say, imploring them and
exhorting them as much as he could. And, after he had said all he
could on behalf of God and the order, the wise Lord Thüring von
Hallweil, Landvogt [the duke’s governor] and marshal, spoke most
reasonably in the name of his most gracious Lord, Duke Sigismund
of Austria. After that the city of Freiburg spoke through three elo-
quent intelligent men. And although the sisters at first were all
unwilling and in no way wanted to be enclosed and reformed nor

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to accept any sisters from cloisters of the Observance, the good

father persevered with the help of God and exhorted the gentle-
men also to persevere whenever he saw any wavering. Thus from
day to day the sisters began to relent and to submit themselves to
the spiritual life.45

Meyer’s method of exhortation and persuasion was not altogether success-

ful, since only five of the ten sisters at the Magdalen cloister accepted the
reform; the other five ‘‘ran away secretly at night by means of the stream
that flowed through the cloister.’’ Meyer calls them ‘‘foolish, ignorant’’
women.46 But at the other two Freiburg cloisters, Adelhausen and St.
Agnes, the women opted to try the Observance. The transition was not
without problems, however, for three years after the reform of Adelhausen,
Meyer writes of only mixed success so far. He still had hopes for a good
outcome.

But note, the sisters were given a year to try it. And those who did
not wish to remain could transfer to another cloister. But the prior-
ess died before the year was up and a sister from Unterlinden was
made prioress and many sisters left for other cloisters that are not
reformed. And so a different sister, from [the cloister of] St. Kathar-
ina at Colmar, was made prioress, and thus the beginning was more
gradual. But it is to be hoped that Adelhausen will bear great fruit.47

Johannes Busch, in contrast, used more of a carrot-and-stick method to

effect reform. He typically assembled all the sisters in the refectory, read out
Cusa’s reform decree, and promised the Jubilee indulgence for compliance
but excommunication for disobedience. This procedure was the same for
both men’s and women’s houses.48 Brigitte Degler-Spengler reports that
during the ‘‘reform years’’ there was a great deal of shifting between clois-
ters ‘‘and not only to cloisters of the same order.’’49 Often most or all of
the old sisters departed, leaving only the reform sisters in charge. At Villin-
gen, for example, before the arrival of Ursula Haider’s party of reform
sisters, the Bicken cloister had just six nuns. Of these, the chronicle says,
five left and only one elected to stay.50
In some cases those who left later decided to return. At Gertrudenberg
in , two young sisters eagerly welcomed the reformers, though five

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departed. The five, however, found life outside the cloister no longer to
their liking and elected to return.51 Similarly, at Kirchheim four sisters
elected to leave, with three of them returning. This was, however, not a
happy situation because Magdalena Kremer’s chronicle reports that they
continued to resist the reform. Unwilling to accept the rules on enclosure,
one sister simply climbed over the wall, complaining that she ‘‘had to take
care of her business and could no longer send messages outside.’’52 In the
most drastic cases of resistance, such as at Derneburg in , the nuns who
refused the reform were packed onto wagons and transported to other
cloisters against their will.53
At Söflingen, the sisters who refused to accept the Observance were
forcibly removed from the cloister by the city of Ulm’s troops and given
two weeks to think the matter over. Eight of thirty-six women, including
five novices, elected to return. No sister was prevented from returning and
those who did were allowed to live there under the reform with special
dispensations, such as the right to receive visits from friends.54 The others,
however, remained outside the cloister where they carried on a three-year
legal battle for reinstatement, seeking help from the pope, the emperor,
secular princes, and the cities. In lawsuits heard in Strasbourg and Rome, a
monetary settlement at last was reached in , amounting to a hefty sum
of , gulden. Although the women did not regain control of their clois-
ter, those sisters who elected to transfer to other houses were granted the
right to take their dowries and personal property with them.55

Wienhausen

At Wienhausen, ‘‘recalcitrant’’ sisters were also transported to other houses.

Here again we have two differing accounts of the circumstances surround-
ing the forced expulsions: one by reformer Johannes Busch and another by
a sister at Wienhausen who was critical of the proceedings. Busch relates
how in  he went with three prelates and Duke Otto of Lüneburg and
Braunschweig to institute the reform of Wienhausen. Duke Otto sum-
marily gathered Abbess Katharina von Hoya and all the sisters in the refec-
tory and announced to them, ‘‘The Lord [bishop] of Hildesheim and I
desire that you should accept the reform; this shall be carried out. Those of
you who wish to be reformed, go to the right side of the refectory, and

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those who do not wish it to the left.’’ Busch indicates that the sisters defied
the order and, he reports, ‘‘immediately all the nuns went to the left.’’56
The Wienhausen chronicle gives a more nuanced version.57 Rather than
the women’s disobedience, which Busch stresses, the writer emphasizes
their loyalty to the abbess. She states that it was not out of rebellion that
the nuns stood with her but out of solidarity. Thus the chronicler relates,

So that one could see which [sisters] wished to comply and which
would show themselves to be disobedient, they ordered that these
should stand on one side and those on the other side in two groups.
Then they saw that all went to stand by the abbess, not out of
rebellion, as one might think, but to show their obedience to their
abbess from whom they did not want to be parted living or dead,
except for one who went to the other side. But, as soon as she saw
that her sisters had joined the abbess, she went over to that side.

The chronicler goes on to recount in disparaging language how the duke

‘‘slyly’’ separated the abbess from the sisters, ‘‘locked up’’ those who were
officers in a separate house, and interrogated the abbess again by herself,
‘‘angrily’’ taking away her keys and deposing her from office. Then he put
her and the cellaress in a wagon and sent them away without the sisters’
knowledge to Derneburg. Finally, he ‘‘lured’’ the officers out and sent
them off to different cloisters.58
One wonders what the duke feared from these women. But it should be
remembered that Duke Wilhelm had gotten into a melee with the nuns at
Mariensee. There Busch relates a comical but violent scene in which the
duke and several women fell in a pile on the ground and the duke had to
fight his way out of the tangle. Busch tells how the duke first seized an
obstinate nun and tried to draw her to the carriage:

[But] 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
onto him, so that the duke could not raise himself from off her,
especially as his arms were crushed beneath her scapular. . . . 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.

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In this rather unseemly encounter, the impetuous duke seems to have come
out better than the women. Indeed, Busch remarks, ‘‘he was a man and
the nuns were like children, without strength.’’59 Against such choleric
secular rulers, women had little recourse, unless they could call upon more
powerful family allies.
After Abbess von Hoya was transported to another cloister and a new
reform abbess and officers from Derneburg were brought in, the reform
met with little further resistance. The chronicler recounts bitterly how the
sisters had to turn in their cash, tableware, cooking utensils, and other
valuables, which the reform abbess from Derneburg sold off ‘‘in a thievish
manner’’ and ‘‘to the great detriment of the cloister.’’ The women had to
bring out their ‘‘golden chain, set with jewels and pearls from which hung
pictures of several saints.’’ The Bursfeld reformers had objected to excess
splendor and possession of private devotional art that should have been held
in common. The Wienhausen chronicler rejects this, lamenting that ‘‘the
paintings of the saints and their decorations were looked down on and
many good practices and traditions were abolished and declared to be fool-
ery, with the result that many a previously peaceful soul was cast into sad-
ness and anxiety.’’60
Busch, on the other hand, complains that the women at Wienhausen
had misunderstood the meaning of the common life. They thought that
they were observing the rule of poverty because they kept their purses with
their private money in a common chest to which one sister had the key.
When one wanted to buy something, ‘‘she went to the keeper of the key
and asked her to open the chest. And she always agreed, permitting her to
take as much as she wanted of her money, for it was her property.’’ Al-
though they ate in a common refectory, Busch objects, they provided their
own food: ‘‘One had much and lived well and another sitting beside her
had less and was poor.’’61 This was not the common life as Busch under-
stood it. The Wienhausen chronicle sees the situation from a different per-
spective, however, saying that ‘‘before the reform each one provided her
own [food] herself, whatever she was entitled to for her needs, so that the
cloister’s assets might be preserved in a good state and might multiply.’’62
The chronicler is highly critical of Duke Otto and the reformers, partic-
ularly the abbess of Derneburg, who was placed in charge of the cloister.
But the chronicler has nothing but praise for Susanna Potstock, the com-
moner who was brought in with the Observant party to take over as reform

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prioress at Wienhausen. The writer calls her a ‘‘person of humility and

many virtues,’’ and concedes in a fair-minded way that ‘‘this Susanna car-
ried out her office faithfully, industriously, and fairly, dealing with her nuns
like a mother with her daughters [and] helping them in spiritual and mate-
rial matters.’’63 Later chosen as abbess, Susanna remained for thirty-two
years and died in  while engaged in introducing the reform at the
cloister of Medingen.

St. Katharina, Nuremberg

Another cloister from which there are two differing accounts, one by a
male reformer and another by one of the sisters, is the Dominican cloister
of St. Katharina in Nuremberg. This convent was discussed briefly in
Chapter . In the annals of the Dominican reform, the men’s convent at
Nuremberg was the second in the German provinces to become Observant
after Conrad of Prussia had established his first house at Colmar in .
An attempt was made at this very early stage to reform the women’s house
as well. But this was before Conrad had founded the first Observant wom-
en’s convent at Schönensteinbach. Moreover, it was undertaken by men
alone, without Observant women to institute it and was a dismal failure.
Johannes Meyer recounts the women’s resistance and the violent scene
in his Book of the Reform. Conrad had obtained a mandate from the pope
for the reform and enclosure of the women’s cloister. In Meyer’s account,
it is the women who do the shoving when the prior and city councilmen
tell them what the pope has ordered.

The prior charged the sisters, earnestly and with virtuous humility,
to obey and admonished them to be enclosed. When the sisters
heard this, they resisted and, with very offensive behavior and un-
ladylike manners and gestures rebelled against submission to the
pope and godly obedience. Then the prior ordered that they
should restrain such openly disobedient sisters and hobble their
feet; and he ordered one brother to lift up the foot of one sister.
Then she said, ‘‘I will not be bound by anyone but this citizen, my
cousin.’’ So the burgher went and started to do as she had said and
knelt at her feet. And she gave him a wicked shove with her foot,

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hitting the worthy man so furiously that he fell over backwards on

to the ground. And the storm of anger was so great that the prior,
with his brothers and the city councilmen, had to leave, for his
admonition was making no headway.64

Meanwhile, the sisters took council with ‘‘wise seculars and learned priests’’
who advised them that they should not allow the papal bull to be read to
them. For if they did not hear it, they could not be held to it or placed
under the ban. The sisters therefore refused to admit the reformers again.
Nevertheless, the Observants managed to sneak into the cloister while
workmen were leaving it. The sisters tried to drive them out by swinging
a large crucifix and screaming so loudly that they could not hear the bull
being read out. The brothers responded by drawing forth sacks of flour
which they threw in the women’s faces so that they could not see. As a
result of the melee, Master General Raymond of Capua decided only to
enclose the house but not to force the women to adopt a stricter way of
life against their will.65
Thirty-two years later, in , a second attempt was undertaken, this
time with the aid of ten women Observants from Schönensteinbach and
with a different outcome. The second effort was initiated when the move-
ment had been well established and after Schönensteinbach had begun to
achieve its famous reputation. Though still in the early days of the Domini-
can Observance, four women’s houses had already been reformed and the
Observance at the Nuremberg men’s house was now over thirty years old.
Thus, the women at St. Katharina knew the Dominican men and also that
support for the Observants within the city was growing.
Prior of the Dominican nun’s house, Johannes Nider sent a letter to the
prioress at Schönensteinbach, requesting a party of Observant sisters. The
group that arrived in Nuremberg included the indomitable Katharina von
Mühlheim, whose letter home (as well as Nider’s to the sisters at Schönens-
teinbach) has been discussed in Chapter . Nider himself later included an
account of the reform in book III, chapter  of his Formicarius (Ant Hill),
composed in . In addition to Nider’s text, there are Johannes Meyer’s
version and another account written by one of the women—probably an
Observant. Nider depicts the events as an example of the power of prayer
to overcome both the women’s resistance and that of their influential allies
in the city council. Because the council had agreed to carry out the reform

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only if the women accepted it willingly, much depended on winning the

consent of the sisters.66 Nider asserts that the reform party from Schönen-
steinbach was ‘‘openly’’ brought into the cloister. This is contradicted by
Johannes Meyer’s account that they entered secretly at night, indeed even
before the divided city council had finished debating the issue.67 Yet Nider
maintains that council members in the opposition were present and that
their purpose was to hear the views of the Nuremberg sisters. Nider was
extremely anxious and had asked in his sermon on that day for prayers for
an outcome that would be pleasing to God.68 To everyone’s amazement,
including Nider’s, the women agreed.
The other account, written soon after the reform by one of the sisters,
mentions nothing about disagreement—internal or external. It is, however,
more accurate about the chronology of events, giving exact dates of the
one-week delay, during which the reform party was not permitted to enter
the cloister. In the woman’s account, the focus is strongly on the legality of
the Observant take-over: the sisters’ vote, the transfer of their possessions
to the common chest, and the disposition of their funds. As the writer
indicates, not all the sisters agreed to this: ‘‘Here one will find written how
the Observance was begun and how many of the sisters from before the
Observance remained in the cloister, how many of them left, what [posses-
sions] they turned over, what of their property was sold and for what
amount, and how the money was invested again.’’ The author records
that thirty-five sisters resided at St. Katharina before the arrival of the ten
reformers. She also recounts, ‘‘[T]he sisters agreed to the holy Observance
except for eight sisters who said that it would be too difficult for them.’’
Five sisters transferred to Engelthal and three to Frauenaurach. Yet, as men-
tioned above, this writer stated that ‘‘all the sisters of this convent were
present and they all gave their votes to the above named Johannes Nider
to choose a prioress.’’69
We are not privy to the discussion that preceded the sisters agreeing to
the reform, since all of the accounts were written by Observants and none
reported the details of the exchange. Nider’s narrative stresses the power of
prayer and Meyer’s the persuasiveness of Nider and Master General Texer-
ius. The sister’s report, on the other hand, focuses on the procedural pro-
priety of the take-over by constructing a record of the actions taken and
accounting for the funds collected. What is tantalizingly missing from all
the accounts is a description of the interactions between the reformers from

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Schönensteinbach and the sisters who remained or transferred. Letters do

survive, however, written later by reform prioress at Nuremberg, Kuni-
gunda Haller (–). This correspondence, in which Haller advises the
sisters at St. Gall, as was seen in Chapter , gives an impression of effective
leadership and of a woman as committed to Observant ideals as the male
reformers. Still, without the city council’s request, the widow Schreiber’s
intention to take her fortune to Alsace, and Nider’s intercession (including
his eight-point letter soliciting a reform party), the Schönensteinbach sisters
would not have taken over at St. Katharina. But they did so, whether
reluctantly or not, in a cooperative effort with male activists.

Klingental

A final example of women’s successful resistance to the reform—in fact,

the most notorious and large-scale failure of the Observants—was at
Klingental, Basel’s most elite and wealthiest cloister. The struggle has been
admirably described by Renée Weis-Müller in her insightful study of the
case. Already in , when the women’s cloister of St. Maria Magdalena
an den Steinen in Basel had been reformed, the sisters at Klingental took
evasive action to prevent the Observance from being carried to them.
Claiming that poor oversight by the Dominicans had damaged their cloister
spiritually and materially, they were able to disengage from their superiors
and to place themselves under the jurisdiction of the bishop of Constance.70
In spite of this, the Dominicans undertook to reform them in , with
the aim of regaining control of the wealthy cloister. Even if the campaign
may have begun ideologically, Rudolf Wackernagel suggests that any
higher aims were soon replaced by those of ‘‘pure power and domi-
nance.’’71
Lined up on opposing sides and with convent women at the center of
the conflict was an array of constituencies, including two of the wealthiest
and most prominent rival clans in Basel. On the one side, opposing the
reform, was the family of former Prioress Clara zu Rhein, which included
some of the cloister’s leading benefactors. On the other side were the von
Eptingens, who had donated more than , gulden to the cloister. Sup-
porters of the reform, besides the Dominicans and Carthusians, included
the town council and the city confederacies of Bern, Obwalden, and Nid-

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walden. Arrayed against it were the secular clergy; the bishop of Basel, the
Augustinians; the confederacies of Zürich, Lucern, and Schwyz; the rural
aristocracy; and, eventually, Archduke Sigismund of Austria.72 The city
council itself, although in favor of the Observants, was subdivided into
factions that wanted only moderate reform and those that opposed any
compromises.
Into this tinderbox were sent thirteen Observant sisters from Engelport
in Guebwiller. When the Dominican officials read out the reform bull,
the unwilling sisters drowned them out with shouting and threatened the
reformers. The city bailifs then responded by locking the recalcitrant
women into their cells. Subsequently, thirty-nine of the forty-one Klingen-
tal sisters left the cloister rather than be reformed. Under threat of excom-
munication (for leaving without permission), nine of them eventually
returned.73 Now on the outside, the evicted Klingental women waged in-
tensive financial warfare against the reform party. Having taken one of the
convent’s seals with them (besides their personal fortunes), the old Klingen-
tal sisters proceeded to collect the cloister’s rents and draw out its funds.
When the reformers were required to pay pensions and settlements to those
who had left, there was no money and the reformers were forced to mort-
gage the cloister’s assets at a fraction of their value to raise the cash. Soon
tenants began to refuse to pay rents to either group until the conflict was
resolved.74 Besides cashiering the cloister’s assets, the evicted sisters effec-
tively mustered the support of powerful aristocratic friends, who blockaded
the roads to Basel. Count Oswald von Thierstein, Archduke Sigismund’s
regional administrator, imposed an embargo on Basel’s grain trade and con-
fiscated rents and produce from lands in Alsace owned by Basel citizens.75
After two years, the cloister stood on the edge of total financial ruin. Fear-
ing the impact on the city of such an enormous fiscal collapse and the
effects of the grain embargo, the mayor and town council changed alle-
giance and abandoned support for the reform party.
Although the financial debacle had brought the Observant reformers to
their knees, the death blow was dealt by a bizarre chain of events in which
the visiting archbishop of Granea, Andrea Zamometić, during his stay in
Basel issued a call for a general church council directed against Pope Sixtus
IV. Because Zamometić happened to have a distant connection to Stephan
Irmi, the prior of the Basel male Dominican convent, who had spearheaded
the reform effort, Pope Sixtus IV reversed his support for the reform of

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Klingental and ruled in favor of the evicted sisters. He ordered the party of
Observants to return home to Engelport and gave the cloister back to the
old Klingental sisters with all their rights and possessions. Stephan Irmi was
removed as prior and the Dominican men’s house forced to pay enormous
damages of , gulden.76
Now thoroughly disgusted, both groups of women subsequently dissoci-
ated themselves from the Dominicans. The old Klingental sisters changed
their order and habit, officially joining the Augustinians. The reforming
sisters, embittered over what they considered a betrayal by their Dominican
overseers, wandered from cloister to cloister for years before finding a
home at an Observant house of the Augustinian order.77 The prioress of
their original home convent of Engelport, Elsbeth Dürner, was also de-
posed. In August of  she wrote angrily to a friend, ‘‘[H]ow the convent
and I have been disloyally slandered with lies and interfered with in respect
to the prelates of the holy church and the master of our order, by which
means they try to make inroads and violently exercise their dominance
over us. In such a manner are we treated by the men at Basel.’’78
The original sisters at Klingental who had successfully opposed the Ob-
servant movement felt that their form of piety was in no way inferior.
Indeed, until the reform sisters arrived, new members of their community
had always adopted the traditional practices. To them, the thirteen reform-
ers from Alsace were upstart intruders who had no right to change the
established ways. To the women of the reform, on the other hand, Obser-
vantism constituted a purer piety.
The victory here for the opponents of the Observance illustrates the
importance of financial considerations as a factor in the reform of women’s
cloisters. The impact of the threatened financial collapse of Klingental on
the city of Basel underscores the significant role women’s houses played in
the economic life of cities. Likewise, the convent sisters’ networks of allies
and the pressure they could bring to bear make clear the women’s political
influence even from inside the cloister walls. The complex interaction of
economic, political, and religious forces involved in reform efforts meant
that the outcome often depended on which group—the Observants or
their opponents—could mobilize the more powerful secular and clerical
forces. Where women resorted to delaying tactics, law suits, political in-
fluence, or economic pressure to slow the process or make it costly to

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secular constituencies, they were able to avert reform or retain some of

their assets.

Resistance to Reform in Men’s Convents

Lest it appear that men did not oppose the reform as violently or more
successfully than women, a brief look at the case of the men’s Dominican
house in Basel is useful. This reform in  was possibly the most conten-
tious and hard-fought effort of all and probably the reason Klingental had
undertaken to separate from the order. Johannes Meyer, himself later a
resident of this house, gives a partisan account in chapters  and  of his
Book of the Reform of the Dominican Order.79 Meyer was one of the most
committed hard-liners among the early Observants, especially on the issue
of poverty. As he tells it, there were many citizens of Basel who urged the
reform of the men’s house after the women’s cloister of St. Maria Magda-
lena an den Steinen had become Observant in , but there were also
many citizens against it. Few of the convent’s inhabitants themselves were
willing. Therefore the Basel city council wrote to Master General of the
order, Bartholomeus Texerius, requesting him to use his authority to insti-
tute the reform. When Texerius, along with the German provincial and
the city council, tried to introduce the reform by bringing in four brothers
from the Observant house in Nuremberg, the resident friars fought against
them with ‘‘devilish violence and hellish power.’’ Meyer relates bitterly
how discord ‘‘in the entire city’’ forced the Obervants to withdraw.

[A]lso the sisters of the cloister of Klingental and their lay friends,
the powerful and the common, were so at odds and hateful that
great divisiveness and discord affected the entire city of Basel, such
that the master of the order [Texerius] had to leave and the city
council withdrew its support. The brothers who had been sent
from Nuremberg had to withdraw. And the nastiness and disobedi-
ence of the brothers and sisters was so great that several books
could be written about it.

Texerius was driven out of the city by an armed force of noblemen and
commoners and forced to take refuge in Bern. After excommunicating the

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rebels, Texerius is reputed by Meyer to have declared, ‘‘I will have a con-
vent that keeps the rule of the order in a spiritual way, or die!’’80
Concerned to see the ban lifted, Basel citizens sent a number of concilia-
tory messages. Finally, a delegation of citizens along with the four brothers
who had led the fight against the reform traveled to Bern to beg forgiveness
and the removal of the ban. Describing the reconciliation, Meyer writes:
‘‘When the four brothers lay prostrate before the master [Texerius] and he,
intending to absolve them from the ban, had started to speak the words of
absolution, he began to recall what he had suffered in this matter and his
heart was so moved that he proceeded to weep so profusely that he was
unable to speak and another father had to absolve the brothers in his
place.’’81 Yet not all went smoothly thereafter when the exiled reformers
from Nuremberg returned to institute the Observance. Even though the
rebels were encouraged to stay and were given special privileges allowing
them to eat meat, to sleep on regular bedding, and the like, nearly all
of them left, one after the other, for unreformed houses. The convent,
nevertheless, recovered and Basel went on to become a leading center of
the Observance, although it did not succeed in reforming Klingental de-
spite three attempts.
Perhaps the Klingental women were more effective in averting reform
because the wealth and status of their house far exceeded that of any other
cloister in the city. The approaching financial collapse of such a major
institution was a matter grave enough to outweigh the desire for religious
change and would have averted the reform even without the clerical in-
trigues and internal reverses that undermined the position of the Obser-
vants. Above all, these violent controversies reveal the strong public
engagement in issues involving its convents and the active participation of
the citizenry at Basel in matters of reform even before the more radical
Reformation of the sixteenth century.

Excursus: The Problematic Issue of Enclosure

Besides economic factors, the most contested element in the Observants’

program was clearly the question of enclosure. For reasons both religious
and non-religious, women resented and resisted this infringement of their
freedom. At the sister-house in Emmerich, for example, Sister Nese in

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gheen Nijelant outspokenly opposed it on religious grounds because, as the

sister-book narrator attests, ‘‘it seemed to her that there was more humility
and holiness in a life of simple poverty than if one had every need satisfied
and lived under the coersion of the rule.’’82 At the cloister of Herzebrock,
Observant writer Anna Roede tells in her chronicle of Sister Alheit Vollen-
spit’s anxiety over the idea of being enclosed.

At first this same sister Alheit could not well accept that she should
be enclosed. At last she was won over by good exhortations. So
she desired from the prior at Osterberg that he and the convent
would give [us] the painting of ‘‘Our Lady of Suffering’’ that we
now have in our choir—for it belonged to him. And she wanted
to have it here and to go before it daily and lament her sufferings.
In this manner she agreed to be enclosed. So [the picture] was
given.83

In other cases, however, opposition was less amenable to persuasion. At the

Clarissan cloister of Brixen, Maria von Wolkenstein wrote to her brother
Leo: ‘‘My dearest, faithful Brother, we are letting you know that we do not
want to stay in this cloister with all the bad things happening. Therefore, I
call on you as a true brother to help me transfer to another cloister. And
God knows that we want to keep the rule. But the additions and so many
amendments are more than the entire rule.’’ In another letter Maria com-
plains that she can no longer have visitors or send notes in and out easily:
‘‘They have closed up all the holes that Ulrich used.’’84 After the Domini-
can convent of St. Agnes in Strasbourg was enclosed, notes were passed in
and out through ‘‘secret underground openings.’’ Some of the sisters
sneaked outside and, together with their friends and supporters, tried to
frighten the enclosed Observant sisters by placing bundles of wood and
kindling under the dormitory.85
Despite reformist propaganda, enclosure was in most cases not an older
practice that was being reinstated but a new one. Although claustration had
been mandated in the rule for nuns (Regula ad moniales) composed by Cae-
sarius of Arles (–), it was not part of either the Benedictine or the
Augustinian rule.86 Except for a few orders, such as the Cistercians and the
Poor Clares, enclosure was not widely practiced before  when Pope
Boniface VIII (–) decreed in the bull Periculoso that all nuns who

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had taken solemn vows and were living under an accepted rule were to be
perpetually cloistered. Even after Periculoso, most nuns remained unen-
closed, opting to wait and see if the decrees would be reversed or actually
enforced.87
Perhaps stronger than the church’s pressure on women was that of the
secular population over social problems arising from open cloisters. In Basel
so many complaints were heard about nuns being on the streets at night
that city bailiffs were finally ordered to arrest them.88 It was, thus, not the
church hierarchy alone but in many cases public demand and political pres-
sure that progressively mandated enclosure as necessary to a ‘‘safe and hon-
orable’’ alternative to marriage. Here the interests of the patrician classes
were most involved. In Venice, where preachers in the early sixteenth cen-
tury repeatedly compared convents to public brothels, clausura laws were
finally introduced, transforming cloisters into what Jutta Sperling provoca-
tively has called ‘‘safe-deposits of patrician blood and bodies that the state
depended upon for the reproduction of its aristocracy.’’89 Yet beyond the
social imperative of protecting the purity and moral reputation of the
wealthy classes, a fiscal problem was created when women in religious
establishments did not take solemn vows and could leave their communities
at any time to make claims on family inheritances.90 Accordingly, for the
affluent lay public, enclosure was often an economic issue as well as a moral
and social one.
From a religious point of view, however, the idea of withdrawal from
the world and of living in seclusion had roots that went back to the earliest
monastic communities and the desert hermits. Accordingly, the first wom-
en’s convents were founded away from towns where living removed from
the world was practiced as part of the nun’s vocation.91 Schönensteinbach
itself was established in an abandoned convent in a forest. Yet, as Thomas
Lentes explains, in referring to the enclosure ceremony at its founding: the
primary aim was not really outward but inward enclosure, the creation of
an inner space for meditation:

The establishing of enclosure, the separation from the world, is

not understood—in the way that is often asserted—as a prison for
regimented women, but as the creation of a visual inner space for
meditation on the passion [‘memoria passionis’]. . . . Ultimately,
the aim is not the outward but the inward enclosure of the nuns

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. . . the turning of the eyes away from the world and fixing the
gaze on the crucified one as an essential step in the reform of the
inner person.92

Withdrawal from the world did not apply only to women but was proposed
as an ideal for Observant men as well. Accordingly, Dominican Master
General Raymond of Capua’s directives stress the primacy of solitude and
meditation.93 After the men’s convent at Basel was reformed, for example,
a wall was erected and the Observant brothers were permitted to leave
their house no more than once a week. Instead of traveling about, they
were expected to devote themselves to prayer, study, and meditation.94 This
constituted a significant departure from the Dominican order’s traditional
emphasis on preaching and a shift of focus toward a form of interiorized
piety like that practiced by the New Devout who themselves discouraged
public preaching and the ‘‘vanity’’ it encouraged.95 Similarly, the reform
statutes for Observant Franciscans of Saxony, issued in , permitted the
brothers to preach, but they were admonished to return to the cloister
immediately afterward.96 Worrying that pastoral care would interfere with
meditation and devotions, Nicholas von Cusa advocated that it should be
delegated to the parish priests.97 The degree of sentiment on this issue as a
reform measure is registered in the anonymous tract Reformatio Sigismundi,
which circulated at the Council of Basel and aggressively demanded that
strict enclosure be instituted for men and ‘‘no monk should be seen on the
streets at all.’’98
But what did claustration mean for women and how was it practiced?
Like other measures, there were degrees of enclosure. Nicholas von Cusa’s
reform statutes for Rijnsburg state, for example, that sisters might leave the
cloister with the vicar of Utrecht’s permission.99 On a day-to-day basis,
however, nuns only had contact with outsiders through the ‘‘speaking win-
dow,’’ the ‘‘rotating window’’ (through which things were passed in and
out), and the ‘‘confession window.’’ The only persons allowed to enter
Observant cloisters were the confessor and the provost. The confessor lived
in a house of his own outside the cloistered area but heard confessions and
administered communion through a window between the nuns’ choir and
the outer church—sometimes called the ‘‘little Jesus window.’’100 In re-
formed convents, a separate altar was often built for the nuns in their own
choir where they sang the monastic hours by themselves, as the Wien-

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hausen chronicle records.101 Hamburger quotes Anna von Buchwald at

Preetz, explaining how she made a private choir for the sisters because the
clerics and the laity were ‘‘in the way’’ during communion.

All our predecessors took communion at the high altar, on account

of which we were often obstructed by clerics and the laity, who
were always standing about there. Because of this I had one altar
enclosed in our choir . . . there we henceforth undertook to take
communion, and I had the doors to the choir closed. . . . I had the
ironwork between the choir and the sanctuary made.102

Likewise a sister at Ebstorf writes (c. ), ‘‘In the third year of the reform,
the altar in the choir was taken down and a small chapel was built with a
communion window. Before this they [the sisters] had gone to the altar.’’103
Perhaps it is not surprising that Observant women wrote a good deal
about enclosure. Magdalena Kremer indicates, for example, that claustra-
tion was often difficult and required fortitude. In her chronicle of the re-
form of Kirchheim (c. ), she writes a short, sermon-like commentary
on the subject:

[W]e read that Josephus wrote of St. Mary Magdalene that from
the day that she was converted, she never looked at any man again.
And that is to be believed, because she left the world completely
and fled from all men into the wilderness. . . . After she suffered
temptation and affliction she was driven by the spirit of God into
the inner desert where God fed her by his angels for more than
thirty years. And I have written this as an illustration that we should
not become complacent, but be alert and always cautious and stout
hearted with great fortitude, not only each one for herself, but also
each to the other.104

Other accounts from sixteenth-century Observant women, long accus-

tomed to living enclosed and ideologically opposed to the Lutherans who
tried to open their cloisters, describe how they resisted the attempts. Sister
Eva Neyler’s (d. ) first-person narrative recounting efforts to convert
the Dominican sisters of Pforzheim to the new faith reports with alarm
how the divider between the outer church and the nuns’ choir was torn

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out ‘‘so that you could see all the way to the dormitory.’’ Without the
grille to shield them from view, Sister Eva reports, the women responded
by slinking down as far as possible in their seats during religious services so
that ‘‘no one could see us, except when we came in and went out, and
[we] pulled our veils so low that they could see neither nose nor mouth.
Thus the people crowded around that they might view us and practically
stood on each other’s heads.’’ Adding to this circus atmosphere, the locks
were taken off of their doors, the sisters were plagued by men entering the
cloister unannounced and especially by the provost coming into their cells,
offering to get them a husband, and kissing them. Sister Eva exclaims indig-
nantly, ‘‘We would scarcely have been sure of our honor if we had not
protected each other.’’ She relates the women’s collective strategy for head-
ing off the provost, how they clustered around whenever he spoke to any
sister alone. Confused, the provost complained that he ‘‘could not speak a
word to any of them without two or three others showing up. So we
said it was our custom.’’105 After the twenty-three choir nuns were finally
permitted to leave Pforzheim in  and moved to the unreformed clois-
ter of Kirchberg in Württemberg, they reinstated enclosure, even though
Kirchberg was an open convent. In her account of their reform of Kirch-
heim, Sister Eva reports matter-of-factly how the old residents all left their
house rather than be enclosed:

[T]he cloister was daily overrun with secular people, which was
very difficult for us and we did not want to suffer it for the long
term, for it was because of this that we had left Pforzheim, that we
might again keep the Observance as we are committed to. But the
[seven] Kirchberg women did not want to accept it, did not want
to be enclosed, nor to lose their friends and serving maids or to
take on our Observance which was intolerable to them. We would
have liked to keep them, but they did not want to stay and went
out to their friends in the world.106

Similarly, Abbess Caritas Pirckheimer (d. ) and the Poor Clares of
Nuremberg fought every attempt of the city council to open their cloister,
even the uncovering of a window that would allow visitors to see the
sisters when they conversed.107 These women, ideologically committed to
seclusion and used to the autonomy they enjoyed within it, felt safe within

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their cloister but anxious about contact with the outside world. Indeed, in
some narratives by Observant women in the fifteenth century, claustration
is employed as a means of freeing themselves from outside interference and
control. Some used it, as did Prioress Barbara Bernheimer at Kirchheim, to
fend off the machinations of an intrusive overlord; they refused the tyranni-
cal duke or his representatives into the cloister to negotiate with them by
saying it was against the sisters’ regulations.108
The most unusual instance, however, is the case of women self-imposing
enclosure at the cloister of St. Katharina at St. Gall. Here, as previously
noted, a small group of sisters in the house, had adopted the common life
under the influence of the religiously charismatic Angela Varnbühler. Later,
when Angela was elected prioress, she began a correspondence, asking for
advice on how to institute the Observance with Kunigunda Haller, prioress
at Nuremberg, whose letters were copied into the sister-book. After several
years under their own self-fashioned form of the Observance, the sisters
decided to enclose themselves, as Prioress Varnbühler asserts in the convent
chronicle, ‘‘We enclosed our cloister with the unanimous will of the sisters’
council (Ratschwestern) and of the entire convent.’’ Later the women also
decided to cover the ‘‘speaking window.’’ This Prioress Varnbühler ex-
plains, saying, ‘‘not being seen is not part of the rule of the Order, but it is
a heavenly grace’’:

We covered our conversation window with [perforated] tin by

unanimous decision of the senior sisters and of the whole convent
on the Saturday before the feast day of St. Thomas Aquinas, to the
praise of Almighty God. And separated ourselves from the view of
our friends out of love for our heavenly bridegroom, that we might
become more focused on the holy, worthy sacraments and might
better keep the three essential vows, which we are pledged to ob-
serve. May God in heaven strengthen us in His praise and increase
His grace and reward with good—as He Himself is good—all those
who helped and advised us. Oh, inwardness, what a help thou art
to spirituality.109

The measure was hotly disputed by the nuns’ families and by the citizens
of St. Gall, who did not take kindly to being shut out by the sisters. But

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the nuns held to their decision. When Prioress Kunigunda Haller received
word of it, she wrote from Nuremberg:

I learned of the closing and covering of your window. Oh, how it

lifted my heart and I rejoiced in the immeasurable goodness of
God, who in such a fatherly way is helping you to overcome.
From day to day you will experience the great grace and succor of
God that will come to you because of this. From what manifold
false images, sins and temptations you will be preserved. This you
will experience often with God’s help. It is scarcely possible that a
spiritual person may escape untroubled from looking at the world.
A well-guarded eye makes a spirit turned inward.110

The convent of St. Katharina possessed six German copies of Thomas à

Kempis’s Imitation of Christ, one of which had been given to them by Kuni-
gunda Haller.111 Whether or not Haller’s advice had anything to do with
Kempis’s book cannot be determined, but its first chapter, ‘‘On the Imita-
tion of Christ and Contempt for all the World’s Vanites,’’ ends with a
similar admonition: ‘‘Think often of that wise word: ‘The eye is not satis-
fied with seeing nor the ear filled with hearing.’ Be zealous therefore to
separate your heart from the love of things which are seen, and to turn it
to the things which are not seen.’’112 In this unusual instance, enclosure has
changed its orientation. Rather than being shut in, the women at St. Gall
voted to shut the world out, much to the consternation of the town. The
reversal—self-enclosure—might be explained, beyond its religiously ascetic
significance, as a kind of taking control and limiting influence from the
outside.
Caroline Bynum has stated that if we are to know ‘‘which aspects of
reality [medieval people] were rejecting and which they were affirming
when they ‘renounced the world,’ where they felt themselves able to make
choices, and what they felt to be the important differences in the roles open
to them or imposed upon them, we must find ways of answering these
questions from the works they actually wrote.’’113 Perhaps a look here at
another text by an Observant woman will help to explain what was being
rejected and affirmed in renouncing the world. At least one effect of enclo-
sure was the development of a rich life of the imagination which generated
literary works undertaking imaginary pilgrimages and journeys ‘‘into the

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interior’’of the individual. One such work is an exercise composed by Mar-

gareta Ursula von Masmünster (d. /), prioress at the Penitents’ clois-
ter St. Maria Magdalena an den Steinen in Basel and one of the reformers
who came there from Unterlinden. In a work called ‘‘The Spiritual Sea
Voyage,’’ she invites the sisters to go with her on an imaginary voyage that
will take nine weeks and end at Easter. This spiritual journey is designed to
free the participants from ‘‘the raging sea of old bad habits’’ and disorderly
life.114 The text states that after vespers on Septuagesima Sunday the group
of those who want to make the trip will set out together. But before they
‘‘leave,’’ the sisters are instructed to ‘‘say farewell to their friends.’’ During
the ‘‘holy time’’ they are not to go to the visiting window.115 And prior to
undertaking the inward pilgrmage, the participants must make an account-
ing, both outwardly and inwardly, by making their confession and receiv-
ing communion before the group is to ‘‘depart.’’
Each week of the voyage the travelers will focus on a particular aspect
of Christ’s passion, observing complete silence until Easter Wednesday. As
long as they are on the trip, they must practice humility, patience, love,
and obedience among one another. They are to continue to carry out their
offices with exceptional integrity and be punctual in all things. With special
prayers and flagellations (five blows), they are to immerse themselves in the
sufferings of Christ during the Passion. On the ship they will take with
them the angels, patriarchs, prophets, and ‘‘David to play the harp.’’116 The
work describes the symbolism of the parts of the ship (which represents the
soul) and the pilgrim’s equipment. Visiting imaginary churches and staying
at imaginary inns, the travelers at last arrive at ‘‘the holy grave.’’ It is an
exercise reminiscent of Ursula Haider’s theatrical pilgrimages to the seven
churches of Rome and the Holy Land, as well as of Felix Fabri’s work for
women, the ‘‘Sionpilgerin’’ (Zion Pilgrim, ), which it predates. In a
similarly imaginative way, the chronicle of the Bicken cloister relates sev-
eral of Ursula Haider’s (d. ) dramatic ceremonies and candelight pro-
cessions that she enacted with the Poor Clares at Villingen.
Another theatrical exercise in the same manuscript, and possibly also by
Margareta Ursula von Masmünster, is called ‘‘Going with Jesus into the
Desert.’’ This imaginary pilgrimage takes the participants on a visit to the
desert fathers, spending a day with each hermit. Here again the participants
leave the world, and live in the ‘‘wilderness’’ where they ‘‘flee all creatures
and observe silence.’’117 In a series of departures, the sisters practice virtues,

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 Opponents of the Reform and Enclosure

resist the evil spirit, break the will, and detach themselves from worldly
inclinations. By renouncing the world, they are imitating the desert her-
mits, purifying themselves and undertaking a journey into the interior of
the soul.
The renunciation of the world in order to undertake an interior pilgrim-
age is a fundamentally different concept from that of enclosure to protect
the chastity of the nun; yet the concepts are linked. In the iconography of
the Observance, which borrows from Marian iconography, enclosure is
most often depicted by the image of the enclosed garden (hortus conclusus)
of the Old Testament Song of Songs (.), the Marian symbol of chastity.
At the same time, however, it represents a spiritual love garden in which
the dialogue between the soul and its divine spouse takes place. This scene
of interior, spiritual communion is depicted in numerous devotional texts
like the Garden of Devotion, Antwerp,  (Fig. ). It is in this garden of
the soul that the believer cultivates spiritual virtues, which are symbolized
as trees and plants in works such as The King’s Summa (Somme le Roi, thir-
teenth century). Thus, a fifteenth- century illustration shows women wa-
tering trees of virtue under Christ’s supervision as head gardener (Fig. ).118
On another level, Observant imagery links the enclosed garden with the
popular symbol of the garden of heavenly paradise, that ultimate goal
toward which all humankind is striving. In medieval devotional illustrations
this heavenly realm is frequently conflated with the garden of the Incarna-
tion in images that show the Madonna and child seated within a walled
enclosure–usually in company with several saints. A manuscript illustration
of this type from the Dominican convent of Heilig Kreuz in Regensburg
depicts the four reform sisters who came from Nuremberg to introduce the
Observance (c. ). Here, each of the women (and the niece of the
donor, a novice in a white veil) is shown kneeling in front of an enclosed
garden containing the Virgin and child with Saints Catherine, Margaret,
Ursula, and Apollonia (Fig. ).119 Here, as in other texts and illustrations of
reform literature, the cloister is idealized as the earthly precursor to the
garden of heavenly paradise. Thus Barbara von Benfelden writes (c. /
) of the reform of St. Agnes’s in Strasbourg, referring to the cloister as ‘‘a
special herb garden’’ and asserting that, after it was reformed, ‘‘this convent
sent out green shoots, grew, and increased in virtue and spirituality.’’120
This symbolism of interority and enclosure, representing the cloistered
life, the soul, the conscience, or the chaste heart as a garden in which

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 Image not available

Fig.  (above and opposite) Hoofkijn van devotien (Garden of Devotion), Antwerp, Gerhard
Leeu, .

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 Image not available

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 Image not available

Fig.  Somme le Roi. Bodleian Library, Oxford,  , fol. v. Fifteenth century.

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 Image not available

Fig.  Illustration (c. ) from a choir book of Cloister Heilig Kreuz, Regensburg,
showing beside the donor and her niece (novice in white veil) four reforming sisters from
St. Katharina, Nuremberg.

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 Convent Chronicles

virtues and spirituality are nurtured, was taken up and cultivated by Obser-
vants on a large scale in numerous devotional allegories that reached a
high point of production in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Dietrich
Schmidtke’s definitive study of late-medieval garden allegories identifies
over fifty works of this genre produced in German- and Netherlandish-
speaking areas that still survive in hundreds of copies.121 As a symbol with
imagery that both appealed to women and powerfully represented the Ob-
servant ideals of interiority and withdrawal from the world, it is not surpris-
ing that some ninety percent of these manuscripts stem from the libraries
and scriptoria of convents of Observant women. They are texts that incor-
porate the intimate phraseology of the Song of Songs, that most popular of
all late-medieval books on love. Typically, they begin with quotations from
the canticle, such as, ‘‘I have come to my garden’’ (.) or ‘‘A garden
enclosed is my sister, my spouse’’ (.), expressions that romanticize and
spiritualize withdrawal from the world. In the discourse of Observant spiri-
tuality, seen, for example, in Kunigunda Haller’s letters and Angela Varn-
bühler’s chronicle, withdrawal from the world is represented as a gift of
love to the heavenly bridegroom.122 In this unusual case, women can be
seen discussing and fashioning their own form of observance.
It was, thus, under the leadership of the fervently religious Angela Varn-
bühler that enclosure was appropriated, self-imposed and transformed into
a kind of heroic asceticism akin to the radical piety of the female spiritual
athletes in the Dominican sister-books of the fourteenth century. That the
St. Gall sisters knew and read these earlier women’s works is indicated by
the copies they possessed in their cloister library. Indeed, the Observants
were not slow to see the utility of appropriating such works to the reform
or to copy and circulate them. The correspondence between Prioress Varn-
bühler and Prioress Haller, the use of the fourteenth-century women’s
texts, and the creation of new ones demonstrate some of the ways in which
Observants defined the discourse. After assuming power, they exercised it
through text production and dissemination, even influencing what works
from earlier periods would be handed down. It was, accordingly, with the
authorization and encouragement to write, engendered by the momentum
of the reform, that women in Observant houses produced their own histor-
ies. And it was through these networks that advice was shared and texts
distributed. Thus the documents that survive are largely those generated by
and constitutive of the reforms.

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 Opponents of the Reform and Enclosure

As in the case of the reform at St. Katharina, in Nuremberg virtually all

the surviving accounts are by Observants. But while the women, who took
part with men in the reform effort, use the discourse generated by the
Observance, their writings often have different agendas. Meyer, a funda-
mentalist convinced of the rightness of the Observant cause, was chiefly
interested in chronicling the progress of the reform at large. Nider, al-
though he had written the letter asking for ten reform sisters from Schönen-
steinbach in order that the Nuremberg brothers should not be made ‘‘a
laughingstock,’’ stressed in his report the workings of the Holy Spirit and
the miraculous conversion of the Nuremberg women rather than the con-
tribution of the sisters from Schönensteinbach. The observant sister, on the
other hand, names in her account not only the reformers but all of the rank
and file sisters affected by the reform, including those who left the cloister.
Compiling a narrative for the legal record of procedures and the disposition
of funds, she shows a mindfulness of the implications for the cloister’s privi-
leges and monetary assets. Thus, while working in alliance with men in the
reform effort, women constructing their own history often emphasized
different concerns.
After becoming an enclosed house, literally a community turned inward,
the St. Gall sisters began industriously reading, exchanging, and copying
devotional literature and dramatically expanded their library. Not only at
St. Gall and Nuremberg but also at many reformed houses, women living
enclosed took advantage of the authorization to participate through their
networks in the religious conversation going on not only among Observant
cloisters but in the larger population as well. The result was an unparalleled
burst of scribal activity in the scriptoria of women’s houses of the Obser-
vance, as will be seen in the chapter to follow.

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 
Did Nuns Have a Renaissance?
Libraries and Literary Activities

So let us then in the prime of our lives not be indolent or slothful, but with all vigor
apply ourselves to the study of grammar until we have arrived at the knowledge of
rightly reading, understanding and composing prose or verse. And let us now plant
and seed the garden of our intelligence, so that we may eat the sweet fruit all the
days of our lives.
—A sister at Ebstorf, c. 

Joan Kelly-Gadol, David Herlihy, and others have debated the provoca-
tively phrased question: ‘‘Did women have a Renaissance?’’1 In this chapter
I shall argue that in at least some Observant cloisters they did. It was not
the same ‘‘rebirth’’ that men in the secular and religious worlds were expe-
riencing at this time, but a contemporaneous, alternative, intense flowering
of scribal, literary, and religious activity focused on the production of texts
in Latin and especially the vernacular.
About the education of women in Observant cloisters a considerable
amount is known, particularly at Ebstorf whose library contains a history
of the house, an account of its reform, 2 as well as some essays written by
female students in the fifteenth century. Earlier chapters in this study have
discussed the teaching of Latin as part of the reform initiative. The Ebstorf
reform account, composed in Latin c.  by one of the sisters, eulogizes
education and exhorts the sisters not to falter in their efforts to acquire it.

Therefore we ought to work hard for a good foundation and apply

ourselves with all vigor to our lessons, so that the golden jewel of
education—however modest—should not be lost in this revered
place by our negligence and idleness. Rather let us make every

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 Convent Chronicles

effort that it shall increase from day to day. For if we were to lose
gold or silver, the loss might be recouped, but if the foundation of
learning were to be lost, it would do irreparable damage to the
religious life. For whenever in cloisters the acquisition of learning
goes into decline, the result most assuredly is the destruction of the
religious life as well.3

In the first years after the Observance was instituted at Ebstorf (/)
under the direction of Prioress Metta von Niendorf (d. ), the women
devoted themselves to copying new liturgical books as fast as they could.
One sister recounts:

In three years the prioress arranged for the production of six large
books which she also had decorated artistically, page by page, with
gold letters and illuminations. For there were artists among the
sisters who understood this craft. In the first year of her priorate
she had three sisters—for the sake of speed—copy a lectionary.
Another part, the winter section, was copied by one sister alone.
Likewise, Sister N [Elisabeth von Nigendorp] transcribed two
great antiphonals and also a hymnal for the prioress, also two pro-
cessionals, one for the provost and the other for the prioress, all
decorated with illuminations and gold.4

The account goes on to relate how the women labored mightily to produce
for themselves two more antiphonals, two hymnals (not yet completed),
two great psalters, a collectar, an evangeliar, and two lectionaries. A cloister
chronicle, composed by the same sister in , lists twenty-seven massive
manuscripts that the women copied (breviaries, collectars, graduals, gospel-
books, psalters, antiphonals, lectionaries, hymnals) and proudly names the
six sisters who accomplished this monumental work. Ending her account,
the sister exclaims enthusiastically, ‘‘All of these books are as dear to us
as precious pearls because of the sweet and delightful writings that they
contain.’’5
What remains of the library at Ebstorf, which had its greatest growth
during this period, are  volumes, most of them in Latin.6 As with other
libraries assembled in women’s cloisters at the end of the Middle Ages, the
greater part has not survived. Most were destroyed by fire (as was the great

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 Libraries and Literary Activities

library at Adelhausen, where  volumes burnt up in ), decimated by

military conflicts, or dispersed during the Protestant Reformation. Andreas
Rüther and Hans-Jochen Schiewer list nearly all of the South-German
Dominican women’s cloister libraries as lost.7
Still, a handful of collections have survived, at least in part. Prominent
among these is the collection that once existed at St. Nicolaus in undis
(Strasbourg) which was partially rescued when author Daniel Sudermann
(–c. ) purchased some of its manuscripts as the library was being
broken up in  after Strasbourg had become Protestant.8 At St. Kathar-
ina (St. Gall) the late-medieval library once contained some  volumes,
of which  are still extant.9 Larger still was the collection at St. Katharina
in Nuremberg which, by the end of the fifteenth century, had accumulated
between  and  volumes. Almost all of its manuscripts were acquired
after the cloister was reformed in  and almost half of these volumes
were copied by the sisters themselves.10 Examining the records of the li-
brary’s holdings before , Werner Williams-Krapp found that during its
first  years the convent of St. Katharina had acquired only  books. By
the end of the fifteenth century, however, the sisters copied and acquired
so many vernacular works that they possessed, according to Karin Schnei-
der, ‘‘the largest collection of German language manuscripts known in the
Late Middle Ages.’’11
This was not the only cloister to experience a ‘‘literature explosion’’ in
this century. It is estimated that more than eighty percent of the manu-
scripts that made up the libraries of Observant cloisters were produced or
acquired in the period after the reform.12 Although only ten percent of
men’s and women’s religious houses belonged to the Observance, nearly
ninety percent of German manuscripts owned by convents come from this
very small number of reformed women’s houses.13 It is clear from several
accounts that one of the things reform sisters usually brought with them
was books for copying. At Medingen, for example, four Observant sisters
arrived in  from Pforzheim, carrying with them ten manuscripts and
specific instructions that the German non-liturgical books were to be re-
turned to Pforzheim upon the death of the reformers.14 To exchange works
for copying, Observant women’s cloisters organized an extensive interli-
brary loan system and began industriously expanding their collections in
order to satisfy an increasing demand for devotional literature in the ver-
nacular. The circulation of these texts suggests that Observant convents

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were often in closer contact with Observant houses of other orders than
they were with non-reformed convents of their own order.15
Reading, both communal and individual, was an important part of the
daily regimen of Observant cloisters. The chronicle of cloister Medingen
related that during meals one of the youngest nuns read aloud from the
rule, from the lives of the saints, or other text.16 According to the reform
statutes for St. Katharina in Nuremberg, reading was done in the work
room as well as at evening meals and included some Latin texts.17 A list of
what the women heard still survives in a catalogue containing an impressive
 table readings made by a sister at St. Katharina between  and
.18
In his ‘‘Book of Offices’’ for Dominican sisters, Johannes Meyer pro-
vides a plan for the education of novices.19 Here Meyer recommends that
each prioress should assign ‘‘pious, God-fearing sisters educated in the lib-
eral arts’’ to instruct the young sisters in ‘‘the art of ‘grammatticka’.’’ Be-
sides the study of Latin, so that they can understand the liturgy, Meyer
urges that the novices devote themselves to texts that will teach them what
he calls ‘‘the Godly art,’’ that is, piety. Meyer goes so far as to recommend
a list of eleven works, which include: ‘‘Hugo’s book of proper training’’
(Hugh of St. Victor’s ‘‘Rule for Novices’’), the Cloister of the Soul, ‘‘The
Meditations of St. Bernard,’’ the ‘‘Meditations and Prayers of St. Anselm,’’
The Lives of the Saints, Heinrich Seuse’s Little Book of Eternal Wisdom, the
Goad of Love, Thomas à Kempis’s Imitation of Christ, Thomas Peuntner’s
Little Book of Loving God, Rudolf von Ems’s Barlaam and Josaphat, the
‘‘Book of the Virtues and Vices,’’ and ‘‘other similar books.’’20 These, he
recommends, should be read not all at once but a little bit at a time, a
program that would have lent itself well to readings at table. Meyer’s in-
structions also included a system for cataloguing a library.21
The list of table readings at St. Katharina (Nuremberg) includes a de-
scription of the contents of each volume, annotations that reveal the cata-
loguer’s considerable familiarity with the texts. Besides saints’ lives and
many mystical and moral works like those Meyer recommended, the list
contains readings dealing with practical, applied spirituality. For example,
the entry for volume N  identifies the manuscript as

[a] little book containing, first, a good lesson entitled: ‘‘Whoever

wishes to better his life completely.’’ After that comes the question,

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‘‘Whether one can acquire one virtue without acquiring the oth-
ers,’’ ‘‘How one may have all of them,’’ and ‘‘What it means to
humble oneself under God’s mighty hand,’’ and many good teach-
ings about why people are more inclined toward evil than toward
good, and what the conscience is and what true piety is and about
the three powers of the soul and four praiseworthy virtues, and
about the holy sacrament and a good prayer to Our Lord, and the
rule of the Dominican order, and three sermons that [Johannes]
Tauler preached, and about the mass and the rule of divine love.
This little book was copied by the sisters.

Another entry, O , states: ‘‘A little book, containing a very good prayer
and an exhortation on the saints and on the holy sacrament and the Last
Supper and about the sufferings of Christ and the Imitation of Christ. This
book was copied by Sister Clara Paumgartner and is located in the choir.’’22
A thorough cataloguer, the cloister librarian includes the names of copyists,
donors, and information on volumes received as gifts from other cloisters,
such as in N , ‘‘the life of Saint Margaret was sent to us from Tulln,’’ or
E , ‘‘a book of the lives of St. Peter and St. Paul, a gift sent to Prioress
Haller from Colmar.’’ The cataloguer also records the sisters’ donation of
many books to other cloisters, explaining, ‘‘[T]here were so many surplus
books and often three and four copies of the same work, which were too
many, and the sisters at Regensburg, Gotteszell, and elsewhere had such a
deficiency.’’23 Here one glimpses the active interchange going on in wom-
en’s Observant networks, both within and across orders, in their efforts to
help build up their libraries.
In  Meyer dedicated two books to the prioress of St. Nicolaus in
undis in Strasbourg. His dedication asks that she distribute his text among
all cloisters of the Dominican order that understood German.24 Accord-
ingly, copies were sent to the sisters at St. Gall and distributed even among
Observant houses outside the order, as is seen in the copy made at St. Gall
and sent as a gift to the Augustinian sisters of Inzigkofen. Its affectionate
dedication reflects the close relations between Observants of different or-
ders: ‘‘And this book we wish to be a sign of our eternal friendship and
love for you, and yours for us, in constant faithfulness to God until the
time that we will be written into the book of life where we will assuredly
be united eternally before God’s face . . . an affectionate jewel from us

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 Convent Chronicles

to you.’’25 Evidence of a similar cordial exchange of books between the

Dominican sisters at St. Gall and the Poor Clares at the reformed cloister
in Villingen is found in a manuscript, sent to St. Gall by the Clarissan sisters,
that contains a collection of poems on birds and fish composed by Prioress
Ursula Haider (d. ). A notation in the manuscript states, ‘‘The es-
teemed, devout women of the Villingen Poor Clares gave us these little
birds and minnows. May God bless them eternally! God be praised!’’26
Another manuscript formerly in the library of cloister Inzigkofen contains
texts copied by eleven different hands at four cloisters, including St. Ka-
tharina in St. Gall, Schönensteinbach, the Augustinian cloister in Pillen-
reuth, and possibly St. Katharina in Nuremberg.27
At St. Katharina in St. Gall the sisters were permitted to copy books in
their free time, as long as they did not neglect their other duties. A writer
in the St. Katharina sister-book expresses enormous satisfaction and delight
with the fine quality of books copied and illuminated in the women’s scrip-
torium, exclaiming that these are ‘‘such beautiful books; anyone who sees
them will not believe that a woman could do such good work.’’ The clois-
ter chronicle proudly names the scribes and the sister-book asserts, ‘‘[I]t is
not improper for a sister to write her name into a book that she has copied,
as long as it is not out of vanity. It is often remembered for more than one
hundred years and benefits a sister’s soul.’’28 Fine copying and library build-
ing thus became a way of adding to the prestige of the house as well as
meeting a need for group and individual reading material.29
This is not to say that there was no women’s copying of books before
the fifteenth century. Indeed, a manuscript illumination c.  shows a
Cistercian sister with pen and scraper (for erasures), copying a text.30 The
Oetenbach sister-book (c. ) records that when the widow and mystic,
Ita von Hohenfels, came to Oetenbach, ‘‘there came with her three
women. One could write and illuminate, the other could paint, and the
third embroider. . . . Thus they and other sisters copied books, so that each
year the scriptorium earned ten marks by illuminating and copying’’ (an
amount equivalent to the annual upkeep of three sisters).31 But in the fif-
teenth century the volume of books copied increased exponentially. At St.
Katharina in Nuremberg the sisters produced in their scriptorium between
 and  manuscripts.32 Other libraries, such as that at St. Katharina (St.
Gall), contain manuscripts from the fifteenth century almost exclusively.

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Having about  books before the reform, the library doubled in size
between  and .33
Not all growth in libraries can be attributed to the Observance. Some
scholars argue that the trend may have been part of a larger cultural phe-
nomenon in fifteenth-century society at large.34 And this point is well
taken. Many of the books in cloister libraries were donated by secular
friends and relatives of the sisters. Karin Schneider has shown that many
works considered primarily to be ‘‘nuns’ literature’’ actually were brought
to the cloister by sisters or were gifts from laypersons.35 Yet it remains to be
explained why the same extraordinary growth did not occur in the libraries
of houses that were not reformed. For example, in the east-middle German
territories, which remained largely unaffected by the Observance, there
was little increase in copying and transmission of vernacular literature. The
convent libraries of the province of Saxony contain only a few manuscripts
relative to the large numbers in the province of Teutonia.36 Comparing
libraries of two Dominican convents, St. Katharina at Nuremberg and the
unreformed Dominican convent of Engelthal (near Nuremberg), Williams-
Krapp found that Engelthal had a larger library in the fourteenth century
but still possessed only fifty-four German books in , while the collec-
tion at St. Katharina had grown exponentially.37 If such growth were a
general cultural phenomenon, it would be expected to have affected librar-
ies at all cloisters. The particular impetus for this activity at reformed wom-
en’s houses was, as has been noted, the desire of Observants to provide
vernacular table readings and suitable materials with which to educate
newly reformed women in the spirituality of the Observance. Even the
vernacular Bible, which in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries had been
considered dangerous in the hands of beguines and nuns, now became part
of the library collections of Dominican women.38 At the reformed Cister-
cian abbey of Lichtenthal (Baden-Baden), the list of table readings made by
cloister librarian, Sister Regula, provides for the entire Bible to be read
completely through every year.39

Women Become Translators

Since part of the reform program was to promote private as well as commu-
nal reading, the Observants also encouraged the translation of devotional

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works. A few of the women identified as translators of works from Latin

include Claranna von Hochenburg (d. ) at Schönensteinbach, Eliza-
beth Kempf (d. ) and Dorothea von Kippenheim (d.  or fl.c.
/) at Unterlinden, Anna Ebin (d. ) at Pillenreuth, Aleydis
Ruyskop (d. ) at Rolandswerth, and Sister Regula (d. ) at Lich-
tenthal.40
The librarian responsible for providing the texts to be read at table, Sister
Regula, explains in her introduction to Das Leben Jesu her method and
reason for making the translation.

This book is called ‘‘The Life of Jesus’’ and is translated from the
Latin of the Holy Gospel into German in the briefest form, out of
affection and love for those who are not educated to understand
Latin and therefore sometimes are frustrated when they have much
to read. For them this book is fashioned so that they themselves
will inwardly awaken in sympathetic contemplation.41

Regula hastens to assure the reader that her translation has been approved
by the authorities, saying, ‘‘Our Lord of Mulbrunn (Maulbronn) and Mas-
ter Berthold have pronounced this book good and proper’’ and suitable to
be read at table.42
But that Regula sometimes chafed under the censorship of the authori-
ties and contested their decision can be seen in her ‘‘Book of the Holy
Maidens and Women’’ (Fig. ). In the manuscript to this collection of
women saints’ lives that Regula compiled, she states at one point, ‘‘Here I
wanted to write a vision of St. Catherine’s birth, but it was not allowed.
So be it.’’ But Regula left a blank space for it in the manuscript anyway.
The ‘‘vision’’ or insight about St. Catherine’s birth was apparently a revela-
tion of Regula’s own, one she says ‘‘God gave [her] to understand.’’43 Such
revelations were being increasingly censured. At the Council of Constance
(–), for example, Jean Gerson cautioned confessors not to accept
as true any revelations from women without subjecting them to minute
scrutiny.44
Nevertheless, at least ten manuscripts survive in which Sister Regula
commented on and edited texts according to her own lights.45 In her col-
lection of saints’ lives, drawn from sixteen different sources, Regula leaves
out some of the most violent scenes, replacing them with the disapproving

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Fig. . The handwriting of Sister Regula, ‘‘Buch von den heiligen Mägden und Frauen’’
(Book of Holy Maidens and Women, c. ),  L, fol. r (Kloster Lichtenthal) Badische
Landesbibliothek Karlsruhe.

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words, ‘‘and other even more devilish tortures, which are not useful to
write or hear.’’ At other times she excises miracles and expresses her own
opinion on the works: ‘‘They are not needed for a godly life. . . . [T]he
clear mirror of [St. Francis’s] virtuous life is sufficient for us to follow.’’45
In including her own comments, adding to and cutting out portions of
the works she copied or translated, Sister Regula demonstrates her own
engagement with the texts and confidence in her evaluations of them. Al-
though she does not write the vision of St. Catherine’s birth, she resists the
censors ideologically by leaving space for it, perhaps hoping for a change
of opinion.

Women’s Works

At Nuremberg, Katharina Tucher (d. ), a widow and an avid reader

who entered the cloister of St. Katharina as a lay sister sometime around
, did record visions and brought them with her to the convent along
with twenty-four books, which she had copied herself. These included
numerous mystical texts, devotional works and sections of the Bible, in
addition to her own revelations.47 The Revelations, written down between
 and , take the form of dreams and dialogues between herself and
Jesus, Mary, her confessor, or other figures. Yet their format is ambiguous,
so that these conversations might be construed as religious insights or re-
ported dreams rather than supernatural phenomena or visions that were
subject to censorship. In one dream sequence Katharina speaks in the voice
of a soul accompanying her divine Lord on a hunt, then as a lamb. In
another she is a dove flying abroad with her mate. These dialogues and
dream-visions serve mainly to illustrate edifying points or to bring Kathar-
ina to repentance and into a closer relationship with her spiritual spouse.
At the Bicken cloister in Villingen, another sister, most likely the inde-
fatigable Ursula Haider, left behind an account of her own visions and
revelations. Later compiler of the cloister history, Sister Juliana Ernst, re-
ports that they were found in  among the ‘‘old books in the infirmary.’’
Sister Juliana copied excerpts from these visions verbatim (‘‘von wort zue
wort’’) into the chronicle.48 The visions include conversations with Mary
Magdalene and ‘‘a Dominican,’’ either Heinrich Seuse or Johannes Tauler.

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They contain echos of Seuse’s Little Book of Eternal Wisdom, to which Sister
Ursula was particularly devoted but also passages lifted from Tauler’s ser-
mons. Juliana says that some of Ursula’s mystical chapters ‘‘were too lofty
for [her] childish understanding’’ and therefore she left them out.49 These
visions superficially resemble those of earlier works. But they seem to have
more the character of insights that occurred to Prioress Ursula while con-
templating a particular question arising from her reading of certain mystical
texts. She wishes, for example, to know how Mary Magdalene felt when
she saw her beloved Lord departing for the last time at his ascension. Stand-
ing before her reliquary, she prays: ‘‘Oh, chosen creature of God, mirror of
penitence, Holy Mary Magdalene, I recall to you all the love that you felt
in the presence of your beloved and ask that you give me to understand
the great lamentation that you felt for your most beloved master when he
ascended into heaven before your eyes.’’50 Ursula then goes on to expand
on this question for sixteen lines before a voice, which seems to come from
the reliquary, answers her. The vision has more the character of a didactic
homily or devotional meditation than a revelation like those of the mystical
writers of the fourteenth century.51
Ursula was a composer of verse as well. Either alone or together with
some of the other Bicken cloister Clares, she composed a collection of
some seventy emblematic poems entitled ‘‘Our Lady’s Little Fish and
Birds,’’ a copy of which they sent as a gift to the Dominican sisters of St.
Katharina at St. Gall. Only the gift copy at St. Gall survives and is desig-
nated with the notation that it was sent by the Poor Clares at Villingen.
Each poem in the collection names one kind of bird or fish and pairs it
with a virtue and the name of a particular sister.52 All the names are those
of actual residents of the Bicken cloister, for example, ‘‘The Green Finch
(Cecilia Bayer)’’ and ‘‘The Hawk (Anna Bruhi).’’ Each poem carries a di-
dactic message: ‘‘I am called the Green Finch / and am well known to
[God’s] spiritual children. / My song exhorts you / to advance daily in
discipline and virtue. / Then, with your sisters you will put out green
shoots / in lovely May, like a flower in bloom.’’ Or, ‘‘Hawk is my name.
Solitude is my song. / Jesus, the Lord, embraced me in love / when He
hung alone and comfortless upon the cross. / At all times keep your spirit
turned inward and in harmony. / For then you will arrive at the highest
good / and enter eternally into God’s secret hiding place.’’53 While the

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poems (reproduced here without rhyme or meter) may be artistically naive,

they testify to the creative atmosphere at Villingen under Prioress Ursula
Haider and to the nature of other literary activities going on in the cloister.
The Bicken cloister chronicle also contains two of Ursula Haider’s New
Year’s addresses from  and , which were copied word-for-word
into Juliana’s account. The four-page New Year’s address from , for-
mer Prioress Haider’s ‘‘spiritual gift’’ to the sisters, was delivered from her
bed in the infirmary and opens with an apparent reference to the plaques
representing locations in the Holy Land that she had placed throughout the
cloister: ‘‘Dearest spiritual children, for your sakes I have spent a long time
walking about and have traversed the whole of blessed Jerusalem and all
the holy places and stations to see if I might perhaps buy or turn up some-
thing that I could bring to Villingen to my sickbed and there distribute to
my own dearest spiritual children for New Year’s.’’ Prioress Ursula tells
how on the way she met a noble merchant from whom she bought ‘‘a
beautiful temple’’ at a bargain price and in spite of her poverty, saying, ‘‘I
returned with my purchased treasure to the Black Forest to my dark little
sickroom.’’54 She goes on to describe the fantastic temple, reminiscent of
that in Parzival’s castle of the Grail. But the temple, as her audience realized
from the outset, is a spiritual one that symbolizes the martyred body of
Christ. This New Year’s address constitutes a kind of homily preached by
their former prioress, probably continuing a New Year’s tradition that
began when Ursula was still in office and addressed the community regu-
larly as was permitted on certain occasions.
At Freiburg Sister Magdalena Beutler (–) of the house of Poor
Clares composed another kind of work, a long meditation on the Our
Father (‘‘Erklärung des Vater Unsers’’ or ‘‘Paternoster-Gebetsbuch’’). She
assembled texts from many sources to form a series of seventy-seven pray-
ers, all of them beginning with the phrase, ‘‘Our Father who art in
heaven.’’55 Sister Veronika Ainkürn, at the reformed Cistercian cloister of
Kirchheim am Ries, composed a set of prayers titled, ‘‘Sequence or Inter-
pretation of the Psalter’’ (c. /). When Sister Agnes Bühler (d. )
made a copy of it, she noted, ‘‘This little book belonged to the devout and
spiritual sister Veronika Ainkürn. She composed and wrote it herself by the
grace of the Holy Spirit.’’ The work of  pages, now at the convent of
Neresheim, survives in only this one copy, but Arnold Schromm cites it as
evidence of other original works that are no longer extant.56 Similarly, in

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Alsace at the Clarissan cloister of Alspach, a Sister Margetha von Kent-

zingen (fl. ) is said to have composed a work on the Passion of Christ.
A cloister necrology dating from the eighteenth century states that Marga-
retha ‘‘led a very holy and austere life. It seems Christ revealed to her many
secrets of his holy suffering. The book in which she wrote her visions with
words and colored illustrations is still in our hands.’’57 If this illustrated
work has survived, its present location is unknown.
Women also composed works in Latin. For example, Aleydis Ruyskop
(d. ), a distinguished scholar at cloister Rolandswerth (Nonnenwerth),
composed seven Latin homilies on St. Paul and is praised for her learning
by the humanist writer Johannes Butzbach (–). In  Butzbach
dedicated to Ruyskop his ‘‘On Distinguished Learned Women.’’ In his
‘‘Little Book about Famous Painters’’ (), he names Gertrud von Bü-
chel, an accomplished painter also at the convent of Rolandswerth.58 At
Unterlinden a Latin vita of Prioress Elisabeth Kempf (d. ) was com-
posed, probably by her successor Agatha Gossembrot. Prioress Kempf her-
self translated numerous works into German, including the Unterlinden
sister-book, to which she also made additions.59
Only recently have women writers who resided in religious houses
founded by the Common Life movement in the Low Countries and upper
Rhine region begun to receive attention. In his study of Windesheim can-
onesses, Wybren Scheepsma lists twelve works, including a two-volume
autobiography, composed by Alijt Bake, a sister at the Galilea cloister in
Ghent, where she became prioress in .60 Inspired by the example of
Colette of Corbie, Alijt attempted a reform of her cloister only to run
afoul of the male leadership of the Windesheim Congregation, which took
exception to her mystical and religious writings. When Alijt did not accept
their admonitions, they removed her as prioress and exiled her to a convent
in Antwerp, probably Facons. That same year () the leaders of the
chapter issued a prohibition against women writing revelations or concern-
ing themselves with theological matters.61
At Facons, Sister Jacomijne Costers was stricken with plague in 
but miraculously recovered. Afterward she wrote ‘‘Vision and Example,’’
a description of how, during her illness, she was taken on a journey through
purgatory and hell, where she witnessed the fate that befalls the unrepen-
tant. She received from Christ a program of reform that she was to insti-
tute.62 Among Jacomijne’s friends and supporters at Facons was Sister

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Mechthild van Rieviren (d. ), who wrote her own ‘‘biography’’ of
spiritual experiences and revelations.63
In Utrecht, Bertha Jacobs (Suster Bertken, –) was a canoness at
the Jerusalem convent and later an anchoress at the Buurkerck (Maria de
Mindere), where she lived enclosed for fifty-seven years. Two books of her
work, On the Passion of Our Dear Lord Jesus Christ (/) and a collection
of tracts, prayers, and poems () were published after her death.64 Maria
van Hout (Maria van Oisterwijk, c. –), was educated in the be-
guine house, Bethlehem, in Oisterwijk. In  she moved with two other
sisters to Cologne and there took up residence at the Carthusian house of
St. Barbara. Maria penned five religious tracts and fourteen letters of spiri-
tual guidance (Sendbriefe), which were published by Melchior von Neusz
in Cologne ().65 Another anonymous woman writer in Oisterwijk
(–), whose familiarity with cloister life indicates she may have
spent her later years in a religious house, composed the mystical Pearl (pub-
lished ) and the On the Temple of Our Soul ().66
In addition to devotional works, prayers, and exercises—such as Marga-
reta Ursula von Masmünster’s (d. /) spiritual ‘‘Sea Voyage,’’ dis-
cussed above—women in the Common Life and Observant movements
also composed texts describing their way of life. Two such works include
that of Salome Sticken, prioress of Diepenveen, ‘‘Rule of Life’’ (/),
composed for a convent in Westphalia, and a handbook on ceremonies by
Katharina von Mühlheim.67 In this manual Katharina describes all the feast
days and ceremonies, explaining how they are to be prepared for and cele-
brated. Handbooks such as Anna von Buchwald’s ‘‘Book in the Choir’’ for
the sisters at Preetz are, besides chronicles, among the most typical kinds of
writing of fifteenth-century prioresses.

Private Prayer-books and Devotional Anthologies

Much larger in number than the original works written by convent women
are religious anthologies and private prayer-books of all kinds compiled by
sisters in the Common Life movement as well as in convents of the regular
orders. Gerhard Achten points to a veritable ‘‘explosion’’ of private prayer-
books created in the second half of the fifteenth century, most of them as
yet unexamined by scholars.68 Of the fifty-one surviving volumes of the

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library at Ebstorf, nearly one-third are personal prayer-book anthologies—

ten in Latin and six in Low German. Surveying them, Helmar Härtel re-
marks that although all originated at Ebstorf, they are various in their
contents.

One clearly orders the prayers according to the church year, an-
other according to the Lenten period, another relates almost all the
prayers to the eucharist. None of them is a liturgical prayer-book;
[and] only in one case are prayers from the mass present in signifi-
cant numbers. [Rather] each book represents an individual collec-
tion of religious texts, usually without attribution as to author, and
no prayer-book is a copy of any other. Central themes are the
devout visualization of the sufferings of Christ, the veneration of
the Savior’s Mother and, in the Low German books, particularly
the communion.69

Sisters of the Common Life also occupied themselves with compiling per-
sonal collections of texts and notes for private meditation in their own
cells.70 The Emmerich book of sisters mentions, for example, Sister Mech-
telt van Kalker’s habit of writing ‘‘devout things’’ in a book. Anne Boll-
mann suggests that Sister Mechthelt would have been copying prayers,
writing personal resolutions or quotations from her spiritual reading.71
Studying a rediscovered woman’s prayer-book (dated ), from the
Weissfrauen cloister in Erfurt, Adolar Zumkeller asserts that the compiler’s
selections show ‘‘the influence of the devotio moderna with its simple, affect-
ive immersion in the life of the historical Jesus and its piety focused on the
practice of the spiritual life.’’ Yet in his analysis of the owner’s spirituality,
Zumkeller does not give credit to the sisters for their part in these develop-
ments through selecting the excerpts collected in their personal devotional
anthologies. Rather, he observes, ‘‘the reform efforts of a Nicholas of Cusa
and later cloister visitors were not without fruit.’’72 Clearly, there is much
more to be learned about women’s religious belief and practice from exam-
ining what the sisters chose for their individually compiled prayer-books
and personal anthologies. What topics and images did they leave out?
Through which networks did they acquire the texts? And, above all, how
did their collective preferences affect the spiritual discourse connecting not

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only cloisters but also relatives among the laity with whom they exchanged
information and books.
Along with making anthologies of prose texts, women in the fifteenth
century collected songs and made them into books. The libraries of Ebstorf,
Marienberg, Medingen, Pfullingen, and Wienhausen all contained song-
books compiled in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. The Wien-
hausen book, for example, includes fifteen melodies with thirty-six Low
German, seventeen Latin, and six mixed-language songs. Except for a few
secular ones and religious contractures of folk songs, the texts are reli-
gious.73 Echoing Zumkeller’s assessment of the Erfurt prayer-book anthol-
ogy, Ida Riggert-Mindermann describes these collections of verses as
characteristic of ‘‘the mysticism associated with the Devotio Moderna.’’74
Here, again, the networks through which women received and shared
these songs and verses need to be studied.
In addition to copying large numbers of books for their libraries, fif-
teenth-century women also illustrated them.75 The St. Katharina cloister in
Nuremberg, which accumulated the largest library of vernacular works of
its day, also developed its own style of book illustration. Among the artists
who can be identified is Barbara Gwichtmacher (d. ), who at Nurem-
berg illuminated a breviary and a two-volume missal (). Margarete
Karteuser copied and, together with four other sisters, illuminated an eight-
volume antiphonal (–). Other sisters at Nuremberg, whose names
are not known, illustrated the ‘‘Legend of St. Vincent’’ (c. ) and the
sister-book, Lives of the Sisters of Töss (Fig. ).76 At Freiburg, miniaturist
Sibilla von Bondorf, a sister at the Clarissan house (c. –) and later in
Strasbourg (–) illustrated numerous works, including a life of St.
Clara in thirty-three full-page images and a life of St. Elisabeth (Figs.  and
).77 Surveying manuscript illumination in women’s cloisters of the upper
Rhine region, art historian Christian von Heusinger identifies centers in
Strasbourg, Colmar, Basel, and Freiburg, commenting that virtually all of
the works originated at reformed houses.78 While, in many cases, new litur-
gical books were mandated by the reforms, the decoration of saints’ lives
(including those of Clare and Elisabeth) and of the sister-book of Cloister
Töss indicate an interest in female role models and literature about women
as well as their history. Like women’s reading preferences, their choices to
illustrate particular works and their selection of scenes and images are ripe
for further investigation. This is true as well for most of the works produced

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Fig. . Illustration of Elsbeth Stagel (d. c. ), composing the Lives of the Sisters of Töss.
Manuscript copied c.  in the scriptorium of St. Katharina (Nuremberg) Stadtbibliothek
Nürnberg,  Cent. V a, fol. r.

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Fig. . Clare of Assisi with Pope Gregory IX. One of  illustrations by Sibilla von Bon-
dorf for a Life of St. Clare (c. ). Badische Landesbibliothek Karlsruhe,  Thennenbach
, fol. r.

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Fig. . Illustration by Sibilla von Bondorf of Clare of Assisi writing with pen and scraper.
Badische Landesbibliothek Karlsruhe,  Thennenbach , fol. r.

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by women which have only been mentioned here, but which will, it is
hoped, be the subject of other studies.

Transcribing and Reconstructing Sermons

Another area of intense activity, besides copying, illustrating, translating,

or composing devotional texts, tracts, handbooks and chronicles, was the
collecting and trading of sermons among women in Observant convents.
Although it is clear that sermons had been an important part of library
collections in earlier centuries, in the fifteenth century they multiplied dra-
matically as nuns compiled anthologies of contemporary sermons—both
those by visitors and their own ‘‘house preachers.’’ In the library of the
Nazareth sisterhouse at Geldern, sermons constituted fully one-third of the
collection, while in the eighty-six surviving manuscripts from the library
of St. Nicolaus in undis (Strasbourg) alone there are .79 As communal
reading material, they constituted an important part of the daily literary fare
of the refectory. At St. Katharina in Nuremberg, for example, the catalogue
of table readings shows that some of the most frequently used works were
sermons of local pastor Albrecht Fleischmann, whose texts the sisters had
transcribed and kept for devotional reading.80 The sisters’ collection con-
tains, as well, many others that were preached at their cloister.
These sermons, as they were heard and later reread and studied, consti-
tuted a significant part of the women’s education and continuing spiritual
instruction. At Nuremberg it was a good education, for there many of the
speakers were men with formidable academic qualifications, such as the
distinguished visiting scholar Johannes Streler, dean of the theological fac-
ulty in Vienna, and the most frequent guest, Gerhard Comitis, lector at the
Dominican men’s convent.81 The female audience for these sermons at St.
Katharina was literate and thoroughly grounded in a knowledge of the
scriptures and religious-devotional and sermon literature. At Basel, the
women of the Penitents’ cloister St. Maria Magdalena an den Steinen were
favored with guest sermons by participants attending the great church
council held there from  to . An array of eminent speakers, in-
cluding Johannes of Brandenturn (later cardinal), Heidelberg professor Ni-
kolaus of Jauer, illustrious Vienna University scholar Johannes Coeli, and

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others spoke in the convent church.82 Accordingly, the attitudes of the

sisters reflect those of the preachers of the day.83
As the female branch of the Order of Preachers, Dominican nuns saw it
as part of their mission to transcribe, collect, and share sermons with other
cloisters. Parties of reforming sisters often brought with them or sent col-
lections from their home cloister. It was, for example, the sisters from St.
Maria Magdalena an den Steinen, coming to reform the Strasbourg cloister
of St. Nicolaus in undis, who most likely brought with them the sermons
preached at their house by the delegates at the Council of Basel.84 Because
of this, often the only copies that exist of the vernacular sermons of many
preachers are those preserved by nuns at cloisters where they were deliv-
ered. For instance, twenty-eight sermons given in the years  and 
by Johannes Pauli, otherwise known as the author of the satirical moral
tales, Schimpf and Ernst (), were transcribed and kept by a nun at the
Bicken cloister in Villingen.85 Thirty-nine sermons delivered by preachers
at Nuremberg survive only in one manuscript containing summaries made
by the sisters at St. Katharina.86 Similarly, in Strasbourg sisters at St. Nico-
laus in undis and those at the convent of the Penitents of St. Maria Magda-
lene made many of the only copies of sermons in the vernacular by the
most popular preacher of the day, Johannes Geiler von Kaysersberg. They
even saw some of them into print. The series published in  as The
Souls’ Paradise was taken down by Susanna Hörwart and Ursel Stingel at the
cloister of the Penitents and corrected for publication by Geiler himself.87
Evidence of the women’s careful reading and use of these sermons as
materials for study is shown by the ‘‘Ebstorf Collection of Homilies,’’ deliv-
ered by house preachers and transcribed by a nun during the years –
. In the margins of the manuscript are notes by a later nun’s hand
from around /.88 Similarly, Adolar Zumkeller, in his study of the
personal prayer-book of a sister at the Weissfrauen cloister, cites several
entries referring to points made by the convent’s confessor with the nota-
tion, ‘‘These words were preached by Father Confessor, Georg.’’89 Besides
efforts to internalize the pastor’s words, a practice common to both sister-
houses of the Windesheim Congregation and cloisters of the Observance,
the making of anthologies of house sermons preached by the convent’s
own lectors served as a way of honoring one’s confessor and enhancing the
reputation of the cloister.90
While Dietrich Schmidtke identifies the individual practice of recording

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the sermons one has heard as particularly characteristic of the fifteenth-

century reform movement, sermons were transcribed, read, and studied
earlier, but before the thirteenth century primarily in Latin rather than the
vernacular.91 A fourteenth-century manuscript of sermons from a women’s
house in Cologne contains, for example, the notation, ‘‘We are writing
down some of his [Bishop Ailbret’s] words . . . so that they will remain in
our memory. For blessed are those that hear the word and keep it, as Our
Lord says.’’92 Wolfgang Stammler found notes on a sermon by Johannes
Tauler in a manuscript from Klingental along with the nun’s comment,
‘‘This is the part of the sermon that I liked best.’’93 In the fifteenth century,
however, vernacular transcriptions increased exponentially. There are per-
sonal collections of sermons, sermon notes, and synopses made by women
like Sister Agnes Sachs at St. Nicolaus in undis in Strasbourg (–),
and Katherina Gurdelers at the St. Agnes cloister in Trier (c. ). A
manuscript copy of Agnes Sachs’s collection confirms: ‘‘These sermons
were heard by Agnes, daughter of Stefan Sachs. And she kept them in her
heart and wrote them down and wrote them again from her transcript.’’94

The Art of Transcribing

The questions of how and when women transcribed sermons have created
controversy. In  Wolfgang Stammler asserted that most of the German
sermons from the Middle Ages that have come down to us were recon-
structed after the service from memory, mostly in women’s convents.95
This assertion has been challenged by Paul-Gerhard Völker who argued
that a transcript made from memory would unavoidably have gaps in the
development of the theme due to the impossibility of noting down the
exact words of the speaker at a time when no system of German shorthand
yet existed.96 Thus a partial transcription should differ stylistically from an
original work. Comparing texts, however, Völker finds that there is no
identifiable difference between transcriptions and ‘‘authentic’’ texts. More-
over, written copies of sermons show no more gaps or inconsistencies in
content and form than other types of literature. He therefore concludes
that in most cases the preacher himself must have written or read and cor-
rected the transcripts.97 Indeed, many were never delivered at all but ser-
mons composed to be read. The most prominent examples are those by St.

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Bernard of Clairvaux, which Jean Leclercq asserted were never preached

in the form that we have them.98
Puzzling, however, are the many manuscripts that contain prefaces in
which the scribes make no mention that their texts have been corrected.
Instead, they take full responsibility for the errors in their versions. For
example, a series of twenty-four sermons on the Passion of Christ, preached
to the sisters at St. Nicolaus in undis by Peter of Breslau in , begins
with the caveat:

No one should think that they [the sermons] are word-for-word,

for that was beyond my capabilities. I confess my understanding
[to be] too weak and my mind too foolish. Rather, many words
have been left out that embellished the sermons, [those] that make
ardent, devout hearts eager to listen and which show masterful
artistry and cleverness, that paltry understanding and imprecise
hearing could not retain. For, if I were to write the sermons in
perfection of word and precept, I would need the intellect and the
grace of the preacher.99

More than a modesty topos, this introduction seems to refer to the actual
difficulties and shortcomings of transcription. Similarly, the nun who com-
piled the twenty-eight sermons delivered at the Bicken cloister in Villingen
by Johannes Pauli (–) writes, ‘‘Let it be known that, if in these
transcribed sermons not all points have been so delightfully presented, mas-
terfully rehearsed, and precisely drawn, it is not the fault of the lector but
of the poor scribe. She earnestly desires that you will forgive her and pray
for her.’’100 No mention is made here of the text being corrected or even
approved by Pauli himself. This transcription differs, for example, from the
‘‘Basel sermons,’’ which are accompanied by the notation that they have
been ‘‘checked and corrected by two eminent masters who were also parti-
cipants in this same council.’’101
Völker asserts that he knows of only two cases of actual simultaneous
transcription. One is that of Caritas Pirckheimer (–), prioress of
the Clarissan cloister in Nuremberg, who wrote down the sermons of Ste-
phan Fridolin (c. –), as the manuscript says, ‘‘from this worthy
father’s mouth word for word.’’ The second case is that of a male scribe
who copied the sermons of an Augustinian lector (unidentified) ‘‘while he

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spoke.’’102 There are, however, other accounts of apparently simultaneous

note-taking, such as that reported in the Diepenveen book of sisters, which
says of Sister Liesbeth van Delft (d. ): ‘‘And when our Father [Johannes
Brinckerinck] gave a collation, she sat and wrote it down from his mouth
on her tablet.103 As early as , followers of Martin Luther had begun
taking down Luther’s German sermons using a shorthand system invented
by Georg Rörer. Rörer, along with Kaspar Cruciger and Stephan Roth,
friends from student days and all efficient Latin note-takers, combined Latin
shorthand with Rörer’s  special abbreviations to record Luther’s words,
translating them simultaneously into Latin and afterward converting them
back into German again.104
Although no formal shorthand for German existed in the medieval pe-
riod, ancient Roman systems were used earlier in the dictation of patristic
works and for taking notes at lectures.105 A pupil of Hugh of St. Victor (d.
) is known to have transcribed lectures by writing notes on wax tablets
and then taken them to the master to be corrected. The famous sermons of
Bernard of Clairvaux, some assert, may have been simultaneously tran-
scribed by listeners, and later edited by him.106
How well nuns would have been able to do this is a question raised by
Kurt Ruh, who provides as an example two versions of a sermon by Hein-
rich Riss, O.P. (d. ). One version, dated , is found in a manuscript
from St. Katharina in Nuremberg and the other in a Zürich manuscript of
unknown provenance dating from c. –. The Zürich text is a care-
fully worked out, scholarly ‘‘literary’’ sermon, while the copy from St.
Katharina has gaps and lacks all of the rhetorical elements, careful formula-
tions, and erudite wording of the other version. Ruh concludes his com-
parison with the remark, ‘‘This is how a transcript by the much admired
nuns equipped with amazing memory looks!’’107 If nothing else, Ruh’s
example should convince anyone, who has lingering doubts about whether
women actually wrote down sermons, that they did. What Ruh aims to
demonstrate here is the difficulty of reproducing a text adequately from
memory.
Yet perhaps the ‘‘nun with the good memory’’ should not be dismissed
so quickly, or at least not left in this state of literary limbo. It may be that
the nun’s text was not a literary effort at all. Ruh lists four categories of
written sermons:

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. Texts written by the preacher himself.

. Texts transcribed by someone else but checked by the preacher.
. Texts reconstructed from memory by auditors.
. Translations from Latin.108

Yet, as Gerrit Zieleman has suggested, a different perspective may come

from an additional category, ‘‘reworked sermons’’ (reportationes), which in-
cludes ‘‘notes and partial transcriptions.’’109 While these sets of notes were
often revised, they were not recomposed as either sermons for reading or
literary productions. Rather, they were used as devotional aids of the type
common in houses of the Sisters of the Common Life to enable the auditor
to retain and internalize the important points presented in the sermon.
Women in sister-houses took notes on the ‘‘collations,’’ those nonliturgical,
moral addresses delivered to the sisters usually on Sunday or feastday after-
noons. For women, particularly, the collation was a spiritual high point of
the week; they had fewer other resources than the Brothers. In order to
meditate on the lessons, the women often made notes on the talks and
copied them into personal devotional books as a way of keeping these
spiritual ‘‘points’’ in memory and to study them again later.110
It is clear that making summaries or notes on sermons in order to assimi-
late and reflect on them was also practiced in Observant houses outside the
devotio moderna. At Inzigkofen, a later chronicle reports an entry from the
old cloister chronicle, ‘‘anno  and a few years thereafter,’’ about an
occasion in which a sermon of Martin Luther’s was read at table and the
women made notes from it, at least until the confessor found out.

At this time it happened that a sermon was lent to our convent that
the above-mentioned doctor [Luther] had made about the Lord’s
Prayer. This was read at table and pleased all so much that some
copied down some points from it. But immediately afterward our
father confessor Phillip gave an exortation ordering that those who
had copied down something of Luther’s teaching, be it little or
much, should turn it in or do without communion.111

The chronicle of the Bicken cloister reports that Ursula Haider required
her novices to write sermon summaries as an exercise: ‘‘She wanted the

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novices, when they listened to the sermons, to write them down word for
word, as much as each one according to her ability was able to grasp. And
when they had summarized them, she had them brought to her, read them
over thoroughly, and corrected what was missing or omitted.’’112 Writing
out notes is also mentioned in the Diepenveen book of sisters, which de-
scribes Sister Alijt Bruuns, saying, ‘‘She was very desirous of hearing the
word of God in the collation and wrote the most memorable points on her
tablet in order to retain them and afterward to write them on paper.’’113
These references indicate that some women were well practiced in both
taking notes and writing summaries that recorded the main points of ser-
mons.
Besides making personal synopses, women reconstructed sermons to
share and honor, as well as preserve, the words of their house preacher.
One such collection was made by Maria van Pee (Pede), prioress (–
/) at the cloister of Jericho in Brussels. In her anthology of the
sermons of Jan Storm, Maria modestly states in the prologue:

I have compiled this book from many collations that were

preached in our convent over five years by a worthy priest who
was our confessor. . . . I lament from the bottom of my heart that
I am so inept in my understanding that I could not remember
in order to write word for word all the beautiful quotations and
authorities of the saints that he gathered in his sermons, [and] the
way he interpreted them so beautifully. But I have only been able
to retain the simple meaning contained in them, as closely as I
could.114

To differentiate texts that were merely copied from those that were recon-
structed from notes, fifteenth-century scribes sometimes indicated in their
manuscripts that texts were copied from ‘‘authentic’’ documents and had
been checked or corrected. In these cases, the scribe usually explained that
she did not take them down herself but had copied them from other manu-
scripts. Thus, Zieleman posits, sermons that lack such a statement of source
authenticity are often reconstructed texts.115
Hans-Jochen Schiewer offers another explanation for the differences in
style and quality of sermon reproductions. He argues that the polished
pieces must have been made by nuns who had requested copies of the

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sermons they heard from their confessors or guest preachers and who then
copied these into their collections. Citing complaints from preachers about
nuns asking them for copies of their sermons, Schiewer concludes that
actual transcriptions by women are likely the exception rather than the
rule.116 Yet even if such exceptions constitute only a small percentage of
extant sermons, they represent a substantial number, given the thousands
of German and Dutch sermons that have survived, most of them still un-
studied and many even uncatalogued.117

Were Convent Women Writers of Sermons?

Although women lacked the formal education accorded to men, it seems

clear from their accounts that notetaking and recomposing collations were
skills that many practiced and became adept at. Thomas Mertens argues
that women reconstructed and wrote out finished sermons in a manner that
tried to assimilate and imitate the style and authority of their confessor.118
Sometimes this involved writing out the text from an outline borrowed
from the preacher, as Sister Janne Colijns most likely did. In recomposing
their confessors’ texts, women assumed male roles, effectively becoming
co-authors or ‘‘ghost writers’’ as Mertens concludes:

In copying out the sermons of their father confessor, the sisters

took over his role completely. This is the most striking aspect of
their work. They wrote complete, well-structured texts in which
an authoritative ‘‘I’’ speaks to the beloved sisters. They took up
their role as genuine ghost writers, and precisely because they
played it so convincingly, modern researchers have disbelieved the
claims made in the prologues that a sister wrote the sermons.119

Certainly no one would expect women, without a comparable educa-

tion, to write in as polished a manner as university-educated men. That
some had greater natural gifts, more education to begin with, and were
more adept than others in reproducing a text from notes is probable. Many,
as has been shown, simply never regarded their writings as ‘‘literary’’ efforts
but only as devotional aids. Yet even these non-literary texts and ‘‘reporta-
tiones’’ are valuable in their own right as records of what women listeners

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thought was interesting, relevant, and worth recording. In this regard, ac-
curacy of transcription is less important than the fact that nuns wrote these
texts at all. At a minimum, such notes, summaries, and transcriptions testify
to the intense engagement of fifteenth-century women as participants in
the religious conversation.
From the point of view of ‘‘New Philology,’’ of course, the accuracy
issue is irrelevant, since each text has validity in its own right. Editors seek-
ing to reconstruct ‘‘authentic’’ texts may have a vested interest in establish-
ing original authorship, but as examples of the discourse of the time, all
texts are part of the conversation. What is clear is that the primary collec-
tors, consumers, and users of vernacular sermons were women. From re-
constructing the texts of others it is not a great leap to constructing one’s
own; and on specific occasions prioresses were themselves required to for-
mally address their communities, no doubt sometimes incorporating parts
of sermons they had read. The New Year’s addresses ‘‘preached’’ by Prior-
ess Ursula Haider to the sisters at Villingen, discussed above, were not an
unusual occurrence. Instructions for prioresses in the ceremonial and in the
‘‘Sister-Book’’ of St Katharina St. Gall state that at Christmas and on the
Feast of the Annunciation, ‘‘the prioress shall deliver a brief spiritual exhor-
tation to the sisters of such material as will ignite their hearts in godly love,
renew and increase their good desires to serve God with ardent love until
death. She should also exhort them, through true repentance and penance
and confession, to extirpate all the sins of their past life by the power of the
birth of our Savior Jesus Christ.’’120 Likewise, Magdalena Kremer includes
edifying exhortations of her own for readers of her chronicle of the reform
of Kirchheim that are very much in the style of a sermon. She writes, for
example,

The honor of God and the welfare of souls, the devotion and love
of the people for this cloister, the godly service in the cloister and
the good, harmonious life of the sisters, all this and other good
things the enemy of mankind cannot tolerate. He caused this clois-
ter so much suffering that it cannot all be written. The benevolent
almighty God imposed this [on us] in fatherly good faith, who only
imposes or allows things to happen for a good purpose. For, the
teachers tell us, the evil spirit tempts men in order to deceive them.
One person tempts another in order to know him. [But] God

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tempts an individual in order to test him. God especially wants to

prove the good people through the evil ones, for otherwise they
would not be distinguishable from one another. God also says in
the Gospel, it is necessary that vexation should come upon us. But
woe to him from whom the vexation comes; it would be better
for him that a millstone were hung about his neck and [he] were
sunk in the depths of the sea. Thus a famous, well-educated and
pious master and priest in the cathedral chapter at Strasbourg once
preached that the devil’s messsengers were more evil than the devil
himself.121

Magdalena’s many references in her chronicle to the Gospels, church

fathers, sermons, and the words of the cloister’s confessor represent material
she assimilated or appropriated for her text in the same way that preachers
freely borrowed from other sources in preparing their sermons. In many
passages, she quotes in Latin and demonstrates her familiarity with the Old
and New Testaments. Here Magdalena uses sermons she has heard or read,
pieces that spoke particularly to her in some way, as support for arguments
she makes in a text of her own. This kind of layered composition with
references and quotations from other sources may be typical of the sermon
form, but is clearly something new in women’s writing.

Writing Chronicles and Histories of Reform

Finally, as is evident from the primary sources on the reform used in this
study, women in Observant convents were encouraged to write their own
histories. These fifteenth-century chronicles, housebooks, and historical
accounts differ from the earlier foundation legends and the sister-books
composed in the fourteenth century. Containing few vitae of the traditional
sort, they focus instead on tracing the history and growth of the community
continuously from its inception up to the present day. Rather than follow-
ing any established form, these tend to be hybrid works that combine to-
gether diverse mixtures of records and narrative. Within the amalgam there
are often examples of women’s assimilation of the art of preaching, such as
Elisabeth Muntprat’s (d. ) introduction to the sister-book of St. Ka-
tharina, St. Gall.

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For the opening, Elisabeth adopts a ceremonious tone, using long peri-
odic phrasing, expressive of the solemnity she deems appropriate to begin-
ning such a book. Her account is intended to document the legitimacy
and worthiness of the community’s past and to inspire present and future
generations of readers to carry on the tradition and to fulfill the vision of
the founders. Beginning with a kind of short sermon, Elsbeth writes,

Jesus Christ, our own heavenly spouse, we desire to place here as

a solid foundation stone and underpinning on which all heavenly
edifices, not made by hands but by the grace of the Holy Spirit,
are built. In the words of St Paul, He is a right-angled corner-
stone—for He rules all things with His power ordering them har-
moniously and strongly—and a keystone, which holds together in
the bond of love all those who give themselves to his honor. The
same, who through His mercy in this place has begun to work His
grace and planted our worthy convent, we ask that He will water
it with His sweet, loving spirit . . . so that those who come after us
may know and understand how our worthy convent was estab-
lished and has grown . . . that what our predecessors built up with
such great effort shall not fall into decline, but rather the earnest-
ness and love of spirituality, which our predecessors possessed shall
with God’s help grow in us and in those who follow after us to the
increase of the Holy Observance.122

Magdalena Kremer adopts a similar tone when she compares the sisters
of her convent to the children of Israel and the women’s hardships to those
of Old and New Testament saints, saying, ‘‘God always imposes great worry
and suffering on his dear friends.’’123 In her first Chronicle of Herzebrock (c.
), Anna Roede also sermonizes on the evils of the day. Citing Matthew
:, she exhorts her sisters to examine their consciences: ‘‘Oh, what an
ardent flame [of devotion] there once was in holy Christiandom and what
is there now?!’’124 These kinds of miniature sermons and exhortations by
women are often found embedded within the most diverse historical narra-
tives. They are frequently interspersed among inventories of holdings, fi-
nancial records, letters, copies of documents, necrologies, vitae, accounts
of miracles, information on the running of the cloister and the performance
of the liturgy. Perhaps the most eclectic is Anna von Buchwald’s ‘‘Book in

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the Choir,’’ which has been described as ‘‘a chronicle, diary, account book,
Rule and liturgical handbook, all combined into one.’’125 Similarly, the
cloister annals of Heiningen are ‘‘a colorful mixture of chronicle, inventory
of properties, account book, necrology, and written contracts.’’126 What
these chronicles, housebooks, and annals all express, however, is the desire
to leave an accurate record.
Since all chronicles covering more than one generation are based on
earlier written and oral accounts, the earliest history of the convent is nec-
essarily drawn from whatever older documents may have survived. The
new histories written in the fifteenth century and thereafter take pains to
state their sources and often lament the inadequacies in the older records.
Thomas Head points to women’s taking over ‘‘primary custodianship’’ of
the traditions of their own communities as a development that arises for
the first time in the early modern period.127 It is a development that re-
ceived strong impetus in the fifteenth century from Observant reformers,
especially Benedictines and Dominicans, who issued mandates that each
convent should write its own history.128 Thus chroniclers often write with
a ‘‘before’’ and ‘‘after’’ perspective on the Observance. The scrupulous
sister compiling the chronicle of Pfullingen (c. ) writes, for example,

Exactly how many sisters have died since the founding of the clois-
ter to the introduction of the Observance we are not sure. We find
no more than . But we have heard of some in particular, whose
names we do not find recorded. Therefore we do not know the
correct total. . . . And that is the reason that we do not know the
number of the first [founding] sisters. The book in which they
were listed was written in the year  [i.e., over a century ear-
lier].129

The necrology of the Poor Clares of Alspach, written in the eighteenth

century, gives an insight into the reasons for the loss of the cloister’s older
documents.

From the first one hundred years after the establishment of our
order, little or nothing is to be found, doubtless because of the
deterioration and loss of our old writings, chronicles, and annals
which have become partly unreadable due to being buried in the

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ground during times of war. Partly also because the Conventual

fathers confiscated many of them when we in  withdrew from
their jurisdiction and joined the Observants.130

This concern with accuracy is especially present in those works that

combine an inventory of properties with the historical narrative, such as
the Hausbuch of Cloister Maihingen (begun c. ). Here, the chronicle
states, shall be recorded ‘‘each abbess’s term in office, what events took
place during that time, also most of the donors and benefactors, and all the
anniversary services that have been endowed up until now and many other
things that are necessary and useful to know.’’131 At the death or resignation
of each abbess, the account accordingly gives the exact value of the assets
and debts passed on to her successor. Of Abbess Barbara Goldschelk (–
) the book relates, for example, ‘‘The old Mother Superior, Barbara,
called the new [abbess] to her and handed over to her in the presence of
the eldest sisters and the two treasurers eleven hundred gulden. And all the
debts of the convent were paid so that we did not owe a heller.’’132 Later,
in recounting a conflict between the cloister and Count Ludwig XIII of
Öttingen over taxes, the chronicler warns future abbesses to guard their
privileges and not give in to pressure, ‘‘because once one agrees to a tax or
other infringement of the cloister’s immunity, it will always remain
thus.’’133 Such strict accounting was important at Maihingen because the
convent was in financial difficulties at the time the housebook was com-
piled. One of its purposes was to record and analyze precisely the causes of
the cloister’s economic decline so as to bring about a recovery and keep
future abbesses from making the same mistakes.134
Combining old written documents with eyewitness accounts by the old-
est living members of the community, the new chronicles attempt to lend
authority to their narratives by specifically citing and often naming their
first-hand sources. Anna Roede writes, for example in her Later Chronicle
of Herzebrock (c. ), ‘‘What is written hereafter I gathered together out
of rent contracts, deeds, letters of immunity, and the old writings that the
abbesses in these years left behind.’’ As her witness, she writes, ‘‘All this . . .
I heard from the blessed Sophia Mysener and a few other old sisters.’’135
Likewise, in Anna’s earlier Chronicle of Herzebrock (), she writes, ‘‘This
I heard from the old sisters who were here before the reform and who had
heard of it also from other old sisters.’’136 Part of the increased sensitivity to

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accuracy and the identification of sources grew out of the interest of the
Observance in record keeping. Thus the chronicler at Pfullingen at first
laments her inadequate information about the earliest sisters, but later writes
with satisfaction, ‘‘But from the time of the Observance onward, ,
ninety-five sisters died, whose names and dates of death have been written
down diligently.’’137
Examining thirty-five Observant convent histories, all of them from
men’s houses, Constance Proksch’s study of reform and history writing in
the late Middle Ages () posits the ‘‘reform chronicle’’ as a distinct
historiographic type, characterized by a particular structure and point of
view. Proksch defines it as essentially ‘‘antithetical’’ in form, since the ac-
counts typically describe a period of decline prior to the reform. They
then contrast this phase with a flowering of cloister life after the successful
introduction of the Observance, which is depicted as a critical turning point
in the history of the cloister.138 Like previous monastery chronicles, the
reform chronicle is not written for outside consumption or even primarily
for future generations, but for the current residents of the house with the
purpose of connecting them to their past and making them aware of their
traditions and responsibilities. Indeed, most reform chronicles were com-
posed in a late or declining phase of the Observance. Thus their aim is to
inspire the current generation to persevere in or renew the reform.139 Like
the account at Ebstorf, these works tend to idealize the reform. Anna
Roede looking back on the days of the beginning of the Observance, writes
in her Later Chronicle of Herzebrock (c. ) of reform Abbess Sophie von
Münster (–): ‘‘In this abbess’ time the reform flourished with all
spirituality and love and peace and harmony. The divine office was strictly
observed day and night. . . . Oh, if only things were still as at that time!’’140
Even chronicles written at a later period, such as that of St. Gertrude in
Cologne (), number the prioresses from this starting point, designating
them as the first, second, third, etc. ‘‘after the reform.’’ Prioresses before
the Observance are not numbered.141 At Wienhausen, the old account c.
, from which the Chronicle of  was compiled, similarly shifts from
very brief résumés of each prioress before the Observance to longer and
much more detailed narratives and inventories after .
Observant cloisters of the regular orders were not alone in encouraging
the writing of chronicles and other kinds of texts. Wybren Scheepsma
identifies in women’s houses of the Common Life movement at least ‘‘fif-

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teen different historiographical or biographical texts.’’142 Like the chronicles

in convents of the Observance, these texts are often of a hybrid nature.
Anne Bollman describes the Emmerich book of sisters as a combination of
‘‘hagiography, spiritual exercise, memorial, and cloister history.’’143 Con-
taining little in the way of mystical visions, revelations, or the radical asceti-
cism of the spiritual athletes in the fourteenth-century sister-books, the
vitae in the later books of the Sisters of the Common Life offer an ideal
that is attainable by ordinary people.144 As the prologue added to the Die-
penveen book of sisters in  (probably by Sister Griet Essink), explains,
‘‘because it would be impossible for me to describe all the virtues, I have
undertaken here to gather only a few, so that we may imitate their virtues
and example.’’ Concluding, she writes, ‘‘But let us consider these few as an
example to live by and recognize that to imitate them will, in our own
weakness, be challenge enough.’’145 Similarly, the author of the book of
sisters of the Master Geert House, Deventer, states: ‘‘Let us listen with
fervent desire to the way these women, our fellow sisters, devoted them-
selves to Christ, lest we should think it impossible to imitate what they
accomplished, who were here before us in this place and almost at the
same time.’’146 Bollmann explains that reading the lives of the ‘‘charismatic
founders’’ and of successive generations was seen as a powerful means of
teaching and ‘‘socializing’’ novices to keep alive the devout piety of the
founders. Like the reform chronicles of the Observance, these works con-
vey a view of decline and renewal. They provide a sense of endangered
spirituality and of threats to the survival of the community. Pointing to the
recurrent threat to the community of plague, Bollmann emphasizes that
the collections of vitae serve in a way as ‘‘ars moriendi,’’ that is, texts that
teach how to live by teaching how to die well.147 Besides the Emmerich
book of sisters, those of Diepenveen and the Master Geert House of De-
venter have been edited, but other versions and fragments of texts from
other houses are still being recovered and have yet to be edited.148
Although R. R. Post laid to rest any assertions that adherents of the
devotio moderna could be viewed as Renaissance humanists, Thomas Mer-
tens has demonstrated how the movement, nevertheless, revived several
early Christian literary genres by composing new works based on these
older models. In addition to ‘‘collation books,’’ influenced by the Collatio-
nes patrum of John Cassian (d. ), the New Devout composed ‘‘Lives of
the Sisters’’ and ‘‘Lives of the Brothers’’ based on the older ‘‘Lives of the

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 Libraries and Literary Activities

Fathers’’ (Vitae patrum). These incorporated the Early Christian practice of

‘‘farewell discourses,’’ carefully recording any ‘‘edifying ‘point’ made by a
sister on her deathbed.’’149 Composing new vernacular works on these early
Christian models was not a practice limited only to men’s houses of the
Brethren of the Common Life.
Scheepsma has characterized women’s important role in the Common
Life movement—a contribution largely ignored until recently—as a ‘‘sec-
ond religious women’s movement.’’150 Like the thirteenth-century ‘‘wom-
en’s religious movement’’ posited by Grundmann which spawned the large
number of beguine foundations, this new wave of women’s communities,
spread in the last decades of the fourteenth and in the fifteenth centuries
across the northwest of Europe and Germany, far outnumbering new foun-
dations for men. Grundmann theorized that the extraordinary flowering of
women’s writing that coincided with the founding of beguine houses in
the thirteenth century arose from the reciprocal influences of beguine spiri-
tuality and mendicant preaching. In a similar way, the fifteenth century saw
a new productive pairing of religious enthusiasm and involvement with
preaching in the sister-houses and convents of the Common Life as well as
in the convents of the Observance. In this later period, however, women
focused on collecting, reconstructing, and exchanging sermons. In some
cases, as the next chapter will show, they also edited and revised them for
distribution to the laity.
Women’s avid engagement with sermons in the fifteenth century was
but part of a larger engagement with vernacular texts of many kinds. In-
deed, it was the shift to their own language, along with the authorization
to write in it, that brought many more women into the conversation. Be-
yond that, use of the vernacular affected the nature of the discussion by
creating a different relationship to the text and the Word, overall a different
religious sensibility. Women’s transcription and dissemination of vernacular
sermons were encouraged by preachers such as Johannes Geiler von Kays-
ersberg because, among other things, they were useful in furthering the
aims of the reform. What was probably not so clear was that women, in
reconstructing sermon texts from notes, became co-authors of the sermons
and assumed male roles.
The increasing shift to the language of the laity in the production and
exchange of devotional literature by monastic women was a fundamental
structural change that empowered them to participate in a broader range of

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literary activities than ever before. Use of the vernacular also furthered
the exchange of books between female monastic networks and the laity.
Observant women’s copying and dissemination of manuscripts preserved
not only their own works but played an important part in determining
which others would receive wider circulation. Their scribal activities dis-
seminated works such as the devotional garden allegories, of which some
hundreds of copies survive from this period, and affected which works
from earlier periods would be passed on. As previously mentioned, it was
the Observants’ copying and circulating of the fourteenth-century sister-
books as reading material for newly reformed women’s cloisters that res-
cued these texts from oblivion. Only one manuscript of the sister-books
survives from the fourteenth century as compared with twenty from the
fifteenth century. Of these, almost all are from the scriptoria of Observant
convents, most of them women’s houses.151 Along with these visionary
vitae, the women copied works of earlier mystical writers, including Hein-
rich Seuse (d. ) and the sermons of Meister Eckhart (d. /) and
Johannes Tauler (d. ). Four-fifths of their extant texts are found in
manuscripts from the fifteenth century.152 It was, however ironically, the
copies made by Observants that contributed to the repopularizing of these
mystical writers. Here, again, women’s collective reading preferences must
be taken into account as a significant factor in textual transmission. More-
over, even sister-books from an earlier century must be read in the context
of the reform to which they owe their survival.
In the creation of a literary culture for women, both the reform effort
and the shift to the vernacular played a part. They were factors that pro-
duced a new form of agency by enabling participation in literate discourse
on a larger scale and in wider networks than previously. Present-day re-
searchers seeking to construct a literary chronology for women thus find
that a traditional secular periodization is often a poor fit. For convent
women in particular, scribal and literary production are more closely linked
to reform movements and religious currents. In the case of fifteenth-
century Observant sisters, the reform-related compilation of sermon an-
thologies, cloister histories, books of sisters, manuals, and devotional works,
in addition to translating and copying of texts constitute a renaissance—if
not in the conventional sense then at least as an intense flowering of literary
engagement on the part of monastic women.

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 
‘‘Femininity-in-Writing’’
New Heroines, Strategies, and Roles in Late Medieval Piety

This book was finished, to the honor of God and Mary his dear Mother, on epiph-
any of the year . . . . I knew that I was not qualified, but when I saw that it
would not be done by anyone else, I undertook this task out of love for God and
my fellow sisters. I hope I have written nothing except what is true before God
and would be affirmed by truthful and credible sisters. Although I confess the work
to have been often irksome and I often unwillling, the inner compulsion that I felt
and the sweet fragrance that I as well as others perceived at times when I was very
immersed in it strengthened me in this good work. May it be to the praise and
glory of God and all of those who are written about in this book. May we follow
their example, encourage one another, renew ourselves, and after our labors in this
short life join in their company.
—Book of Sisters, St. Agnes, Emmerich ()
Here I begin a little book of the origins of the cloister of Engelthal and the magni-
tude of grace which God brought forth in these women at the beginning and
thereafter. . . . [God] is powerful in benevolence to his friends, for He alone rules
all things, blessing some and not others.
—Christine Ebner, Little Book of the Overwhelming Burden of Grace (c. )

The question has often been raised why medieval women chose to employ
certain literary forms and whether these forms and poses represent some-
thing characteristically feminine. Complicating the issue has been the
problem of recovering texts that were not mediated by male redactors.
Indeed, before the fourteenth century only very few texts can be ascribed
to women that were not transmitted by male scribes and mentors. Begin-
ning about , however, works began to appear in which confessors are
conspicuously absent as authors and collaborators. These ‘‘nuns’ books,’’ as
they were often labeled, were long regarded by literary historians as par-
ticularly characteristic of women’s writing and frequently cited as clear
examples of a unique Frauenmystik. Early commentators thought they knew

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 Convent Chronicles

what this was and, throughout the nineteenth century and even up to
middle of the twentieth, characterized them as examples of ‘‘feminine’’
hysteria, poor imitations of men’s mystical writing and works of ‘‘mis-
guided aspirations,’’ ‘‘inferior talent,’’ and ‘‘bad taste.’’1 As late as ,
literary historian Josef Quint described sister-books as ‘‘sick,’’ pseudo-mys-
tical works that ‘‘exhaust themselves in strange visions.’’2 These and other
such women’s writings were explained as hallucinations of the overheated
brain that resulted from a misunderstanding of theology and the faith itself.
At worst they were regarded as symptoms of a cultural decline, not only
decadent but pathological and downright dangerous.3
Such judgments, proceeding as they did from established views of doc-
trinal and psychological correctness, continued to be promulgated until
mid-century. By this time, however, scholars had begun to reexamine and
rehabilitate nuns’ books. Arguing that these works should be removed from
the category of mystical writings altogether, medievalists assigned them,
instead, to the genre of hagiographic texts. Looked at in this way, as exam-
ples of saints’ lives, fourteenth-century nuns’ vitae do not seem sick or
theologically misguided at all. In structure and literary conventions these
works fit well within a long and respected tradition accepted for men’s
vitae. As has been shown, Anna von Munzingen’s Adelhausen sister-book
was probably modeled on Gérard de Frachet’s Vitae fratrum, an account of
the lives of the early Dominican brothers.4 Moreover, the practices of self-
mortification the sister-books depict belong to a long tradition of voluntary
suffering exercised in order to atone for evil and to show devotion to
Christ. It is a tradition that dates back through monasticism and to the
desert fathers of the third and fourth century.5 The fasting, self-flagellation,
and other asceticisms practiced in men’s convents were frequently recom-
mended to women by their male spiritual mentors. In one often-cited
example, Venturino da Bergamo (–) sent Katharina von Gueber-
schwihr, prioress at Unterlinden, a gift of several scourges along with in-
structions that she and the sisters should discipline themselves nightly in
the church, giving their bared shoulders seven lashes for each verse of a
Miserere.6
To understand the meaning of these ostensibly female and hysterical,
radically ascetic practices—particularly the trances and visions that are re-
counted in the sister-books—one needs to look at their function within
the larger system of cultural beliefs and consider their role as strategies

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 New Heroines, Strategies, and Roles

and instruments operating within a particular social order. In hagiographic

writings, the genre to which such works have now been tentatively reas-
signed, ascetic practices, miracles and paramystical phenomena are every-
where present and constitute what Peter Dinzelbacher identifies as essential
‘‘evidence of holiness.’’ Indeed, Dinzelbacher states that there is scarcely
any thirteenth-century saint’s legend without dreams, visions, and super-
natural appearances.7 In the sister-books they serve as proof of a sister’s holy
life. Indeed, to have spiritual trances and visions was considered the particu-
lar mark of the elect, the outward sign of those chosen by God to receive
His special grace and recognition. As Christine Ebner’s (d. ) Little Book
of the Overwhelming Burden of Grace reports, women at the cloister of Engel-
thal received so much ‘‘grace’’ that there was only one sister who did not
experience trances, and she appears suspect.8 Not only sisters but entire
cloisters competed with one another in the effort to show themselves pre-
ferred by God. To the degree that these literary idealizations of spiritual
grace represent actual practices—itself a debatable assertion—the arduous
fasting and night vigils they portray could well have been conducive to the
fainting spells or hallucinations that conferred this important special status.
Lest one think that the cultural reward structure that made this extreme
behavior worthwhile is unique to the Middle Ages, Siegfried Ringler sug-
gests a tour of the training facilities of modern-day olympic athletes, which
to the physically unfit look much like torture chambers.9
Examining the literary form of sister-books, Ringler argues that the fe-
male authors wrote the way they did ‘‘not because they did not know any
better,’’ as earlier critics had assumed, ‘‘but because they chose to.’’ That
is, these texts were consciously crafted examples of a specific literary genre
designed to make a particular kind of statement.10 By depicting the spiritual
blessings bestowed on the community through its most exceptional mem-
bers, its spiritual giants of the past, fourteenth-century sister-books served
as advertisements of God’s favor and the spiritual power and importance of
a cloister. As a political strategy illustrating the virtue of the women’s lives,
these works served to protect and enhance the prestige of a religious
house.11 If women more than men were drawn to trances, visions, and
radical asceticism—or, at least, to depicting them in their writing—it may
have been because these phenomena opened avenues of influence that
were not otherwise available to them. Indeed, visionary phenomena and
radical asceticism could elevate female mystics even above priests by placing

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them in direct relationship with God.12 This intimate relationship—

expressed in fainting and trances—was understood by men such as Jacques
de Vitry to be a kind of conjugal intimacy, ‘‘the King lying with his
bride.’’13 It awed and fascinated Vitry, for such intimacy was inaccessible to
him as a man.
For visionary women, to be one of God’s chosen intimates was to be
privy to divine knowledge and even to speak on behalf of God with an
authoritative voice in a climate in which women were otherwise strictly
prohibited from publicly expressing theological views. Empowered by
their mystical aura, a few women acquired considerable influence.14 The
celebrated mystic at Engelthal, Christine Ebner, author of the Engelthal
sister-book as well as her own revelations, became so renowned that in
 she was visited by King Charles (later Emperor Charles IV) accompa-
nied by a retinue of dukes and counts, all of whom knelt before her and
asked for her blessing.15 In addition to the authority conferred by the role
of spokesperson for God, extreme asceticism, weeping, praying, and fasting
were means to acquire power to blunt the wrath of God. By becoming
conduits—agents and brokers—of divine mercy, these women also gained
the authority to mitigate the sufferings of souls in purgatory.16 Their charis-
matic suffering and self-abnegation were thus not, as many scholars have
asserted, an internalization of male misogyny but, as Bynum asserts, a kind
of rebellion. They functioned as an effective strategy countering the
church’s exclusion of women from preaching and speaking out on religious
subjects.17 As noted in Chapter , this kind of asceticism also served an
important altruistic purpose: it provided noble women living in voluntary
poverty with a vast source of spiritual wealth that could be freely dispensed
as charity.18 Thus, Bynum continues, substituting one’s own suffering
through illness and austere practices for the guilt of others is not a ‘‘symp-
tom’’—it is ‘‘theology.’’19
Earlier, Herbert Grundmann had suggested that women’s mystical
turn—‘‘the route to the inside’’—was a path taken because women’s reli-
gious needs were not being met.20 Yet it might also be understood as a road
taken because women had previously been so effectively silenced: a route
to speech. Generally, the social groups affected by a loss of status tend to be
the most conscious of alternative modes of expression, linguistic registers,
and the power of language.21 Certainly the mystic, Mechthild of Magde-
burg [c. –c. /]—a patrician beguine living in an ever more

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 New Heroines, Strategies, and Roles

marginal, endangered position and one of the first women ever to write in
German—used her native vernacular in a totally unprecedented way. In
portraying mystical encounters of the soul with the divine, Mechthild cre-
ated abstract nouns, invented compound verbs, and fashioned new mean-
ings. Juxtaposing verse and prose narratives, dialogues, prayers, and visions,
she depicted ecstatic states in ways never before imagined. Mechthild’s as-
tonishing work The Flowing Light of the Godhead (c. /) broke not
only the bounds of the old Low German language and its usage, but it
shattered women’s long observed, near total silence in their own tongue.22
Authorized, indeed, commanded to write by the divine greeting she re-
ceived in her visions, Mechthild gained an audience and a following for
her literary self-expression and achieved notoriety even during her own
lifetime.
While Mechthild was encouraged and her work translated by male re-
dactors, in the fifteenth century women’s visionary writings had become
objects of suspicion as concern grew within the church over the influence
wielded by female mystics. Officials were increasingly uneasy over the ac-
tivism and the mass followings stirred up by holy women like Birgitta of
Sweden (c. –). Women’s revelatory writings were considered par-
ticularly subversive because the direct line to God that they established
created an alternative hierarchy that bypassed the authorities. The church
responded with censorship, the issuance of guidelines on how to distinguish
authentic from false visions, and a strategy of containment to restore the
balance of power.23 Soon the relationship between clerics and visionary
women changed from encouragement to caution. Men who, like Jacques
de Vitry (c. –), Thomas de Cantimpré (c. –c. ) and oth-
ers had been fascinated by female mystics and collaborated with them in
the recording of their visions, now warned against the dangers of false
visions and excess.24
With the censoring of visionary writings, mysticism as a secure and ef-
fective route to influence for women was all but closed off. Thus it is not
surprising that in the fifteenth century one should find them writing in a
different voice and in other genres not thought of as female. The very idea
that women wrote in a mystical-visionary mode because that was their
nature appears absurd when they were forced to seek another outlet and,
accordingly, used other literary modes. Bynum asks the telling question: if
women became mystics ‘‘because they are intrinsically more emotional,

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imaginative, religious, or hysterical than men, why did it take centuries for
this to emerge?’’25

New Literary Strategies, New Heroines

Women had, of course, always been able to write in other modes. And
when a different strategy was called for in the fifteenth century, they pro-
duced other kinds of texts: reform chronicles and accounts, handbooks,
devout biographies, as well as religious tracts and devotional texts. Growing
out of the religious movements of the fifteenth century, these writings are
characterized by a very different voice. Like their antecedents, the earlier
sister-books, these new chronicles and vitae portray the exceptional piety
and religious devotion of past members of the community. Unlike the ear-
lier sister-books, however, they are largely devoid of the ‘‘feminine’’
trances and spiritual ecstasies that nineteenth-century commentators had
come to expect. Instead, they relate the religious and political struggles of
the community and the introduction of the reform. Rather than celebrat-
ing the convent’s visionary or radically ascetic spiritual giants, these texts
commemorate the leadership of capable abbesses and their accomplish-
ments for the community, especially those who reinvigorated its spiritual
life. In writing their own history, fifteenth-century Observant women
present a view of themselves that is based less on extreme asceticism than
on character and competence.
Although these annals and reform chronicles were composed at Obser-
vant houses, male supervisors did not figure substantially in their composi-
tion beyond encouraging women to keep records and write their own
cloister histories. This is true both for accounts in the reform of the regular
orders and for collections of biographies composed by sisters at convents of
the New Devout, where, despite strong ties, the sisters and brothers kept
at a strictly discrete distance from each other.26 Similarly, chronicles of
Observant houses manifest less contact with male mentors than earlier
works, principally because under the Observance only the confessor and
provost had even limited access to the cloister. Like the earlier sister-books,
fifteenth-century chronicles also have political and propagandistic aims,
presenting a kind of collective portrait of the convent that depicts idealized
figures of the past in order to demonstrate the convent’s spiritual power

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 New Heroines, Strategies, and Roles

and to inspire the present generation.27 Most were written or supervised by

abbesses, prioresses, or their assistants, who largely determined their con-
tent. For example, the author of the Hausbuch of cloister Maihingen ex-
plains who is to have charge of the chronicle and what it is to contain.

Now, since an abbess has much to do and is burdened with tempo-

ral as well as spiritual things, this book should always be entrusted
to a prioress and placed in her hands to be in charge of it so that
what is written is entered by her or by others with the advice of
the abbess and approved by both, whatsoever is useful and neces-
sary and what will serve for the betterment or as a warning, and
also what happens during the term of each abbess.28

As artifacts of the Observance, these works portray the reform abbess as a

new kind of heroine. She is depicted as a spiritually vibrant woman and a
dynamic leader, strong not only in character but, above all, in business
sense. In many cases, she is represented as the real moving force behind the
reform. Anna Roede’s second chronicle of Herzebrock tells how abbess
Sophia von Stromberg herself initiated the Observance by soliciting the
bishop for help in finding monks experienced in reform, who would assist
her to institute enclosure. She relates, ‘‘[Abbess Sophia] managed to ac-
quire, with the help of good people [and] by making many humble re-
quests, two good men from the convent [of Osterberg], two old pious
men.’’ Anna specifies that this was ‘‘three years before the reform.’’29 In
, Abbess Stromberg died and was succeeded by the even more effective
Sophia von Münster who pursued the reform with ‘‘great labor and indus-
try.’’ Under Sophia’s leadership the formerly impoverished cloister began
to flourish both spiritually and fiscally after Sophia, an effective and assertive
manager, lobbied for an inheritance for one of the sisters and secured do-
nations to the cloister. In addition to Herzebrock, the energetic Abbess
Sophia oversaw the reform of three other cloisters: Malgarten, St. Ger-
trudenberg, and Gerden.30
Even more active and imposing was Ebstorf ’s prioress, Mechthild von
Niendorf (d. ), who is described as the reformer of six cloisters. In
elegiac terms, the author of the convent chronicle compares Prioress Mech-
thild to an eagle and the sisters under her guidance to eaglets.

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[S]he is the firm lover of the monastic life, the actual foundress of
the reform, first in our cloister [and then in others.] Like an eagle
that holds its young up to the sun to test their fitness in its blaze
and leaves the remains of its food for the other birds to enjoy, so
this inordinately beloved mother shared the grace she had received
from God with other cloisters. Four lay near to our area and the
fifth in the diocese from which she stemmed, namely, Meyburg.
To these regions she led her daughters, those of whom she knew
that they could bravely endure the brilliance of the sun, under the
regimen of the new monastic life, . . . setting an example by her
own life.31

This eulogy, based on Latin models, differs in style from most women’s
chronicles and shows the strong emphasis at Ebstorf of training novices in
Latin grammar and composition. The portrait, thus, resembles those of
earlier heroic abbesses in the works of Hrosvit and Bertha.
Expressive of the Observants’ program opposing elitism in cloisters, the
new reform abbess is often portrayed as indifferent to social rank. Herze-
brock chronicler, Anna Roede, a goldsmith’s daughter who was very sensi-
tive to class differences, repeatedly asserts in her account that nobility of
character is superior to nobility of rank. She praises Abbess Sophia, under
whom she served as cloister secretary, for not being swayed by such distinc-
tions, asserting: ‘‘[D]uring the term of this abbess, the reform blossomed in
all spirituality, in love and peace, in unity. . . . She was no respecter of
persons and did not consider whether one was of the nobility or not, as St.
Benedict says in the rule. And because humility flowered in her, so she
brought forth much fruit in those under her.’’32
At Wienhausen, where the chronicle reports resistance to the reform,
the writer portrays the loyalty of the sisters to their old noble abbess, Ka-
tharina von Hoya. At the same time, however, the account emphasizes the
humility and virtue of Susanna Potstock, the young commoner who was
brought in by the abbess of Derneburg to institute the Observance and
replace the high ranking aristocrat, Katharina von Hoya. Susanna proves
her own nobility of character by quietly joining the deposed Abbess von
Hoya in the wagon that was to take her away. Only after expressing empa-
thy and demonstrating her humility by leaving the cloister together with
the old abbess does Susanna return to accept the office of prioress. Having

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proved herself to be a leader of outstanding character, she eventually gains

the support of the sisters. The chronicle states that the new abbess served
for thirty-two years ‘‘with the greatest care and industry.’’33
Although not at all uniform or conforming to a standard monastic
chronicle format, women’s hybrid texts serve some of the same political
functions as earlier sister-books.34 For the abbesses who supervised the writ-
ing of these chronicles a chief aim, as examples have shown, was the pro-
tection of their houses. The narratives are not constructed only with
contemporary audiences in mind, but often as political instruments to aid
and advise future prioresses. Besides advice, they incorporate and often
copy into the text fiscal and legal documents for the safeguarding of the
house and the sisters who will come after them. Because nunneries were
always more vulnerable than men’s convents to fiscal encroachment and
interference from outside, a major theme in women’s chronicles is the
struggle to maintain their immunity from secular jurisdiction. Unlike the
earlier sister-books, which defended and legitimated the women’s commu-
nity through a strategy of demonstrating its spiritual power and influence,
fifteenth-century women’s chronicles attempt to establish a documentary
paper trail of legality. Thus their narratives name names and recount ‘‘for
the record’’ and for future generations how secular rulers tried, sometimes
successfully, to exact duties and assert control over them in violation of the
convent’s official guarantees of exemption from secular authority. In these
anecdotes, prioresses are shown networking effectively and helping each
other. In one example, a warning and object lesson for future prioresses,
the Hausbuch of cloister Maihingen relates how Count Ludwig XIII of
Oettingen (d. ) demanded payment of a tax, which Abbess Barbara
Goldschelck (–) refused to remit. To collect the tax, the count
confiscated one of the convent’s horses. Consulting her old steward, the
abbess discovers that the steward has been paying this tax secretly himself
in order to avoid difficulties with the count. Alarmed at the setting of a
precedent that will infringe on the cloister’s sovereignty, Abbess Barbara
writes to her colleague, Magdalena von Oettingen, who was abbess of
Kirchheim am Ries (–) and also the count’s cousin. This tactic
was effective, for the account relates that Abbess Magdalena

wrote a strongly worded letter to her cousin, Count Ludwig, rep-

rimanding him that he should wish to persecute the poor cloister

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in such an unjust manner, saying in the letter that the holy mother,
St. Birgitta, would punish him and that he would fall from his
horse and break a foot, as later happened. But he scorned the warn-
ing. A few days afterward, when the count rode to Landshut to see
the duke, he fell on entering the palace and broke his leg. Then he
remembered what the abbess of Kirchheim had written and called
on God and St. Birgitta to help him. And he ordered that the
[sisters] at Maihingen be given back their horse. And he was laid
up for a considerable time and afterward never again taxed the
cloister. Later he came here on crutches and was a good friend
to us.

To prove the veracity of the story, the Maihingen chronicler interjects a

personal remark (a typical strategy in women’s texts), asserting, ‘‘Lest any-
one should think this is made up, our old sister Veronica herself saw him
standing on crutches in front of the speaking window and was there when
the settlement was agreed on.’’35
Other women’s chronicles transcribe into their narrative papal letters of
exemptions, deeds establishing property rights, records of donations, ac-
counts of the acquisition of relics, histories and genealogies of famous
founders that connect their houses to influential protectors—anything that
will establish and defend their claims of independence.36 Speaking directly
and personally into the record, Anna Roede, for example, documents the
donation of a farm, saying, ‘‘This I found written in the old missal and the
actual deed must have burnt up.’’37 To establish the legitimacy of other
bequests received, Anna provides the names of the donors and the story
behind each gift. Likewise, the Hausbuch of Maihingen lists for the benefit
of future abbesses the names of bishops who exempted the cloister from
taxes and details the papal gift of the cloister’s relics.
Chronicles also function to exonerate the women via the official record
of possible blame for damage to the cloister’s economic base. Anna Roede
tells the women’s side of the story, documenting how the damage was not
incurred by the sisters themselves but was caused by feuds, poor stewards,
and corrupt suppliers. Anna specifically identifies the people at fault. When
she does not directly name them, she warns ominously, ‘‘God knows their
names!’’38 As mentioned earlier, the women at Kirchheim unter Teck re-
sisted Count Eberhard’s attempts to reverse the reform and to starve them

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 New Heroines, Strategies, and Roles

out. To gain public support, they composed and circulated a flier that de-
tailed their grievances against him. As a strategem, the sisters named names,
listing all the persons who had helped them. This flier Magdalena Kremer
copied verbatim into her account. At another point, she portrays the sisters’
spirited resolve to hold out and describes their defiance during the seige:

It should also be known for the betterment of all those who shall
come after us that in all our affliction, grief, and privation our
singing and reading never diminished, rather we sang even more,
. . [and] the soldiers surrounding the convent said to each other,
‘‘Oh, dear God, how can the women sing so joyfully in such suf-
fering?’’ And they told us afterward that they had benefitted greatly
from it. And all who were in the town were also amazed and
improved by the unceasing religious services.39

The most important political purpose of the chronicles is, of course, to

protect and to perpetuate the reform. Resistance to the forces that would
weaken the cloister’s spirituality is thus one of the most prominent themes
of these texts. But threats to the Observance are not always external. At
Ebstorf, for example, the chronicler admonishes her sisters to resist the
danger posed by laziness and slothfulness, and not to take for granted what
others have accomplished by hard work. As she reminds her readers, the
present generation has been privileged ‘‘to grow up in the reform from
childhood, as in a rose garden.’’40 The writers typically look back on the
early days of the reform as a kind of golden age. Thus Anna Roede writes
of the earlier flowering of the reform when Sophia von Münster was abbess
(–) and exclaims, ‘‘But a real reform lasts generally not above one
hundred years. In the first fifty years it blooms and in the second fifty years
it wanes, just as do the days, unfortunately, before our eyes. May God make
us better.’’41
As texts whose aim is to protect, perpetuate, and shape the Observance,
reform chronicles create a different image of women from the portraits
they drew of themselves in the mystical sister-books of the fourteenth-
century. These fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century narratives portraying
reform sisters defying the secular authorities for the sake of the Observance
or abbesses colluding to protect the interests of their communities depict
women who are more in the world than out of it. Instead of the ecstatic

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faints, trances, and visions foregrounded in the sister-books, the authors

emphasize fortitude, assertiveness, and industry. In the light of these depic-
tions and of Hrosvit’s and Bertha’s portraits of heroic abbesses from a much
earlier period, the idea that what is unique about women’s writing is some-
thing female, in the sense of mystical, must be reexamined. To be sure,
visions and radical asceticism could still function as effective routes to
power despite increased censorship, as will be seen in the case of Magdalena
Beutler, but the route was perilous and had to be embarked on differently.

Femininity-in-Writing?

While working on his study Women Writers of the Middle Ages (), Peter
Dronke related that a number of friends and colleagues asked him, ‘‘Do
you think there is something about these women writers that distinguishes
their work from that of men?’’ Dronke always replied that he ‘‘was not
searching for a Platonic Form, Femininity-in-writing, which would mani-
fest itself similarly in every female text.’’ Nevertheless, he did identify a
common denominator in the women’s texts he studied. This was a certain
‘‘immediacy,’’ their authors’ way of looking at themselves ‘‘more con-
cretely and more searchingly’’ than many of their male contemporaries.42
Beyond this, what other qualities have been proposed to characterize wom-
en’s writing?
Early feminist critics, approaching the question from a literary theoreti-
cal point of view, compared men’s rational, logical, hierarchical, and linear
language to women’s a-rational, contra-logical, circular, or non-hierarchi-
cal self-expression. They also identified in some women’s works a unique
focus on bodily sensations and images—a way of writing the body.43 Histo-
rians, on the other hand, use terms like emotional, intuitive, subjective,
sentimental, narcissistic, spontaneous, or ‘‘focused on the inner life’’ to
describe the way women write.44 Caroline Walker Bynum employed the
term feminine (even when referring to writers like Heinrich Seuse) to
mean ‘‘affective, exuberant, lyrical, and filled with images.’’45 In his survey
of women’s convents in Basel, Rudolf Wackernagel identified as character-
istic of late-medieval women’s chronicles what he described as a ‘‘tone of
sweetness’’ or ‘‘winsomeness.’’46 Other literary historians, however, have

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 New Heroines, Strategies, and Roles

noted only women’s ‘‘clumsy syntax,’’ ‘‘poor word choice,’’ ‘‘labored

rhymes,’’ ‘‘simple rhyme schemes,’’ or the ‘‘need for training.’’47
In the chronicles surveyed in the present study, a kind of ‘‘immediacy’’
related to the quality Dronke identifies can be seen in their personal tone.
The female chroniclers often include themselves in their texts or interrupt
the third-person narrative with first-person comments. Thus the Pfullingen
chronicler states, ‘‘As I write this, I have great hopes’’ that the Lord will
not abandon the community. The writers address the reader directly, using
the familiar (‘‘du’’) form and terms of endearment such as ‘‘dearest be-
loved.’’ Near the end of her account, the Pfullingen chronicler says, ‘‘Pray
to God for the writer. She composed this for you out of love.’’48 Angela
Varnbühler, the prioress at St. Gall, begins the chronicle of the convent of
St. Katharina with herself and her entrance into the cloister, then shifts to
‘‘we,’’ saying, ‘‘In the year , I, Engel Varnbühler, was born on Pente-
cost Wednesday, entered the cloister in  on the day after Corpus
Christi, and took orders on the Feast of St. Margaret. . . . In  we began
the common life.’’49 Similarly, Abbess Sophia Dobbers begins her entries
on the reform of Überwasser with the words, ‘‘In , I arrived.’’50 Other
female chroniclers interject frequent personal comments. Anna Roede poi-
gnantly relates, ‘‘[Abbess Sophia von Münster] died in my arms.’’ Speaking
of hard times at the hands of the Lutherans, she exclaims, ‘‘Oh what sad
children we were then’’ and ‘‘Oh God, what wonders we lived through in
our time and what is still to come before the Judgment Day!’’51 The wom-
en’s sense of sisterhood is expressed in frequent references to their commu-
nity as ‘‘we’’ and to their house as ‘‘our’’ cloister.52 More often than men’s
chronicles, women’s cloister histories include and name individual mem-
bers of the rank and file.
Similar to chronicles, the personal tone of books of sisters composed at
convents and sister-houses of the New Devout also tends to be inclusive
and collective. Anne Bollmann notes that the Emmerich collection of bio-
graphies treats lay sisters in the same way as choir sisters, regardless of rank.
Bollmann speaks of a ‘‘we-author’’ and describes the writing process in
these works as ‘‘interactive,’’ a conglomerate of collective memories of
sisters that were generated by oral interviews and discussions about the
deceased. The author acts as ‘‘the pen’’ of her community, recording the
flow of the collective memory.53
Besides their vividness of affect and more intimate tone, women’s

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chronicles differ formally from those of men. Although the women authors
are aware that they are writing for posterity, they are largely unfamiliar
with the standard forms of the chronicle and tend to invent their own
idiosyncratic formats, often interspersing their accounts within other docu-
ments.54 Stylistically, they demonstrate a much wider variation of train-
ing—often a lack of training—in grammar and rhetoric. The ability to read
is clearly not the same skill as the ability to write, and thus many women’s
chronicles are filled with elliptical expressions, partially articulated ideas,
repetitions, non-chronological sequences, incomplete and run-on sen-
tences. Frequently agitated or polemical, these accounts bear all the marks
of orality, resembling spoken conversations or dictated texts more than
deliberately crafted literary compositions. Because they are written in re-
gional dialects, the vocabulary tends to be that of the idiomatic spoken
language of the particular locality and is less homogeneous than the Ger-
man written by male monastics who traveled about. In short, women’s
language is generally not school language. The brothers, who have gone
through a long process of education, think and express themselves differ-
ently even in the vernacular from female chroniclers who, despite their
familiarity with the sermon form and its conventions, have little experience
with the practice and style of history writing. The non-standard form, con-
tent, and manner of expression of these convent chronicles illustrate well
just how much training influences what and how people write.
Skeptical of the possibility of discerning a feminine voice at all in medie-
val women’s mystical works, Ursula Peters argued that literary historians
cannot distinguish ‘‘a specifically female level of expression’’ but only the
‘‘ideological production of programmatic preconceptions about women.’’55
The dilemma here, as described by Hamburger, is the effort by feminist
critics to recover female voices from the past, while at the same time ar-
guing that the female author is only a medium for the voice of male super-
visors who ‘‘mouth the dominant discourse.’’ But while Hamburger admits
the significant influence on women of male spiritual advisors, he is not
willing to grant them the status of ‘‘ventriloquists.’’56 With fifteenth- and
early sixteenth-century texts the problem of mediation can be approached
differently because the number and variety of works composed by women
is substantial enough to allow comparison of parallel works composed by
men and women. One can, for example, contrast cloister annals by women
at women’s houses with those composed by male chroniclers at men’s

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houses or by male chroniclers at women’s houses. My focus here will be

on works in the vernacular, the language that women considered their
own, but which was used by male authors when writing for women or for
the less well-educated laity, particularly the nobility. How do these male-
authored vernacular texts resemble their feminine counterparts?
Not surprisingly, men’s chronicles, even those written in the vernacular,
tend to be consciously constructed as literary works observing literary con-
ventions. Gallus Öhem’s German Chronicle of the Monastery of Reichenau [c.
/], for example, begins with a dedication and prologue.57 The dedica-
tion is to the current abbot and contains an elaborate modesty topos depre-
cating Öhem’s own ‘‘artistry’’ and ‘‘wisdom,’’ despite the fact that he had
studied at two universities. The concept of artistry in writing as expressed
here is a very different approach and tone from that encountered in most
female-authored chronicles. Öhem goes on to explain that he has organized
his work in three parts: founders, abbots, and the privileges and services of
princes and nobility. Addressing his work ‘‘to the Swabian nobility,’’ he
also includes the coats of arms of members of the convent and donors.
Histories written by women, in contrast, tend to be smaller in scale and
particular in focus.58 They concentrate more on internal events and on
the spirituality of the members than do similar chronicles by their male
compatriots. When external conflicts are narrated they most often deal with
the women’s struggles to resist secular control. The men’s reform chroni-
cles, on the other hand, deal more with power conflicts that affect the
standing of the cloister in the world. They rarely touch on the day-to-day
religious life within the house or that of the individual members of the
community. The German Chronicle of the Monastery of St. Gall (c. ), for
example, centers on the history of the ongoing warfare between the abbey
and the town, over which the abbey tried to assert its jurisdiction. The
abbey’s chronicler insists on calling St. Gall a ‘‘monastery city’’ even though
the town had declared itself a ‘‘free imperial city.’’59 Much of his account is
an inventory of the property destroyed in this conflict and plans for a new
monastery to be built elsewhere, which is described in extremely detailed
legal language. Reference to the spiritual or inner life of the members of
the community is minimal here as well. Likewise, Raphael Hanisch’s ver-
nacular account (/) of the conflict between rival houses of Conven-
tual and Observant Franciscans in Breslau (Wroclaw) makes no mention of
the religious differences between the two groups.60 Rather, Hanisch details

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the politics and tactics of a struggle in which the Observants lose and with-
draw from Breslau. Generally, the men’s accounts lack the inward focus
and more intimate tone of the ‘‘we’’ and the ‘‘our’’ that is found in the
women’s narratives. By these criteria, anyone reading two anonymous ac-
counts could, most likely, identify which one was written by a male and
which by a female chronicler.
But what about a male chronicler writing about a women’s house? An
example of this kind of vernacular text can be found in Lambert Slaggert’s
German Chronicle of Cloister Ribnitz, a history of a house of Poor Clares
composed by its confessor, –. Slaggert opens first with a history of
the Franciscan order, then of the Poor Clares and a geneology of the princes
of Mecklenburg, before he begins the story of Ribnitz.61 Although Slaggert
recounts the events in the administration of each abbess in turn, his history
records many political events and conflicts external to this cloister. Clearly
written with the ruling family in mind, whose history Slaggert narrates, the
work does not highlight the outstanding abbesses, but treats each one in
turn in a more or less formulaic way. Often cryptically concealing more
than it reveals, Slaggert’s work is the more remarkable for what it does not
say about the women. Of Elisabeth of Mecklenburg, the cloister’s seventh
abbess, who was forced to resign during the reform of , Slaggert only
comments, ‘‘For many reasons which are better kept silent than written
about, she lost the support of the sisters who refused to recognize her as
abbess any longer or be under obedience to her.’’ Whether this was because
she supported or opposed the reform is not made clear, although Slaggert
intimates that the change was imposed from outside and instituted with
great difficulty. A second reform requiring the sisters to give up their pri-
vate property was carried out in . Here the first to comply was Elisa-
beth’s successor, Abbess Dorothea von Mecklenburg. Slaggert reports
laconically that her action was imitated by the others, but ‘‘with great un-
willingness’’ and with ‘‘no real love for it.’’62 More details about the wom-
en’s role and reaction to the reform are not forthcoming. Indeed, except
for the names of those in the ducal family who were inhabitants of the
cloister, little is said about the lives or deeds of any sisters other than the
abbesses, who are portrayed as unexceptional, routinely going through
the motions of being abbess.
In contrast to Slaggert’s chronicle of Ribnitz, the histories composed by
women, as already noted, typically celebrate the community’s outstanding

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leaders and portray them as exceptional for their virtue, spirituality, or lead-
ership and administrative abilities. Yet, at the same time, the works tend to
be more inclusive of sisters other than abbesses and prioresses. While the
women are in the foreground of these stories, men are often included in
the role of helpers. Tore Nyberg observes that men in the chronicles of
Maihingen and Altomünster fall into two categories: they are either helpers
or ‘‘threats [usually secular men] to the integrity of the cloister or to monas-
tic life as an expression of feminine distinction.’’63 In most of the women’s
accounts surveyed in this study the sisters portray themselves as the initia-
tors or co-initiators of the of the activities within the cloister and the men
as working with them in a common endeavor. Recalling the early days of
the Observance at Herzebrock under Abbess Sophia von Münster, Anna
Roede portrays the men as helpers, recounting how there were not enough
sisters to sing the hours antiphonally as the sisters wished, so the provost
and confessor made up one choir and the sisters the other. She reports how
the two men copied new choir books ‘‘and helped us day and night, so
that the divine service would be primary.’’64
Despite the typical use of ‘‘we’’ and ‘‘our’’ in their cloister histories and
a few accounts of women in opposition to men, as in Magdalena Kremer’s
narrative about women’s march on Rome to secure readmittance to the
order, the texts contain few direct remarks on gender. Those that do com-
ment tend to describe instances in which women succeeded where men
did not. The Ebstorf chronicle tells how the convent had first been occu-
pied by a group of male canons who received a vision that the altar would
be served by nuns. Sometime later one of the canons, while searching for
a golden ring that he had lost, knocked over a candlestick, starting a fire
that burned the house to the ground. The canons then abandoned the site.
Wishing to refound a religious community in that place, a local count asked
his sister, who was a Benedictine nun, to send women of her order who
‘‘would gladly embrace poverty out of love for God.’’ In this way, the ring
that the men had lost passed to the women. The Ebstorf chronicler goes
on to explain that the ring that each sister receives on entering the order
symbolizes her betrothal to the divine bridegroom and is a consecration
‘‘so sublime and great’’ that it is ‘‘second only to that of the priest.’’65 Even
more than in men’s works, women depict themselves as distinguished by
their religious calling.
Another narrative about a woman succeeding where men failed de-

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scribes the founding of the Bridgettine community at Maihingen. It tells

how the men who first started what was to be a Bridgettine double convent
were unable to get a contingent of women to come to Maihingen from
the older community already established at Gnadenberg. The Hausbuch of
Maihingen relates the story of an enterprising widow, Anna Kerg, who
would later become a lay sister in the house. Anna was frustrated by the
men’s inability to get results and so took up the cause herself. Soliciting
letters of invitation from the local count and from the Abbess of Kirchheim
am Ries, the energetic Anna took them herself to Gnadenberg. Here the
Hausbuch comments, ‘‘So the dear Sister Anna went there with the two
letters and accomplished more than the brothers had in ten years.’’66
Karen Glente argues that male authors see women as essentially passive
while female writers depict them as active. Comparing works about vision-
ary women, Glente examined Thomas de Cantimpré’s vita of Margaret of
Ypres (d. ) and Jacques de Vitry’s biography of Marie of Oignies (d.
) with Katharina von Gueberschwihr’s vitae of the charismatic women
at Unterlinden (c. ). While the accounts are not contemporary, Glente
justifies her selection by citing the extreme paucity of any unmediated texts
at all by women. She argues that male authors, Vitry and Cantimpré, depict
women primarily in terms of gender. Katharina of Gueberschwihr, on the
other hand, portrays them as ‘‘people (Menschen) who happen to be
women.’’67 While the men consider visionary women to be highly excep-
tional and other, Katharina distinguishes degrees of piety in her models and
encourages the sisters in her cloister to imitate the spirituality of these
women as an incrementally achievable goal. Both Thomas de Cantimpré
and Jacques de Vitry depict God as the initiator and the women as merely
acquiescing in being chosen by him. In contrast, Katharina von Guebersch-
wihr focuses on the women’s active role in initiating the mystical contact.
She describes the women who levitate as seeking to raise themselves toward
heaven. Here there is a reciprocal complementarity, a working together of
the women’s piety and God’s grace.68 This difference of perspective on
agency is, likewise, an important aspect of women’s self-representation in
fifteenth-century reform chronicles.
An examination of fifteenth- and early-sixteenth-century collections of
vitae of religious women in Observant convents and sister-houses of the
New Devout offers a perspective on how the conventions of composing
nuns’ vitae had changed. Unlike their predecessors in the fourteenth cen-

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tury, fifteenth- and sixteenth-century collections of vitae depict the sisters

as examples of virtue in practical day-to-day activities rather than as excep-
tional spiritual athletes interceding for souls in manly fashion. Theirs is a
world of very hard work in which heroism is embodied through examples
such as the handicapped sister in the Emmerich book of sisters (c. )
who spun cloth year after year with bleeding fingers because of a severe
burn she had suffered earlier.69 These women display ardent spirituality,
humility, selflessness, and practical virtues rather than visions and feats of
asceticism that were frowned upon by the censors.

The Case of Magdalena Beutler

That visionary works continued to be composed by women despite censor-

ship of them should not surprise. What does perhaps surprise, however, is
the way they were reinvented to pass muster in the language and service of
reform. Mystical texts or revelations were written, for example, by Alijt
Bake, Jacomijne Costers, and Magdalena Beutler, all of whom also single-
handedly undertook reforms of their convents. Here Magdalena Beutler
(–), known as Magdalena of Freiburg and a sister at the house of
Poor Clares in that city, will serve as a case in point.70 By casting herself as
a visionary in the cause of the Observance, Sister Magdalena gained control
not only over her own convent but became one of the best known, albeit
most controversial, women of her time. Her original vita, compiled either
by her confessor or by Sister Elisabeth Vögtin, Madgalena’s contemporary
in the cloister, has been lost. But two different versions in texts composed
before Magdalena’s death () survive in manuscript copies from 
and /.71 What is remarkable is how well Sister Magdalena seems to
have grasped what only a few women before her understood, namely, the
power of visionary and para-mystical episodes to gain influence over others
both within and outside the cloister. Magdalena was clearly aware of this,
but consistently claimed reform as her aim and justification.
The ‘‘Magdalenen-Buch’’ () tells how in  on the eve of the
Feast of the , Virgins, Magdalena, then twenty-two, miraculously
vanished for three days. All the sisters, their confessor, and their steward
searched the cloister for her without finding a trace. On the second night,
as the downcast sisters were assembled in the choir to perform their office,

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two knocks were heard and a letter fluttered down into their midst. The
note turned out to be a message from the missing Magdalena, written in
her own blood. It exhorted the sisters not to grieve or to search further, for
she was ‘‘a prisoner of God’’ and in a place where the Lord wanted her to
be. Urging the sisters to adopt voluntary poverty, Magdalena admonished
them portentously, ‘‘God help you in the future, when I a miserable child
and prisoner of God shall preach poverty to you.’’72
On the third day, when the women came into the choir for matins, they
discovered Magdalena lying before the altar ‘‘as though dead.’’ The sisters
tried to revive her, but she did not respond until three hours later, when
the vita reports:

[S]he gave a great sigh and began to move. The sisters went to her,
raised her up, and began to speak with her, but she remained silent,
spoke not a word to anyone, but embraced each of the sisters in
turn and then went and laid herself before the altar. After a while
she took pen and paper and wrote to the women of the cloister
that they should earnestly and diligently turn to God, for the Lord
had revealed to her the great and unutterable pain that their de-
ceased sisters suffered . . . who had been so devoted to material
possessions and did not want to hold all goods in common.

Magdalena’s disappearance, her letter from ‘‘the other world,’’ and her
dramatic return had a profound effect on the convent. The ‘‘Magdalenen-
Buch’’ reports that, as a result, the sisters ‘‘abandoned themselves and com-
pletely dedicated themselves to voluntary poverty and to other austerities
which they earlier had resolutely resisted.’’73 This amateur theatrical staged
by Magdalena in order bring her sisters to the point of accepting reform
had worked brilliantly. Always a somewhat controversial member of the
community, Magdalena afterward came to be regarded as a visionary and
was able through further disappearances and visions to keep religious fervor
in her cloister at a high pitch.
The daughter of an equally flamboyant mother, Magdalena was perhaps
predestined for this role. Johannes Meyer describes how her mother, the
wealthy widow Margareta von Kenzingen, had placed the five-year-old
Magdalena in the cloister of the Poor Clares and then abandoned her own

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 New Heroines, Strategies, and Roles

large fortune in order to take up a life of poverty and ministry to the sick
in the city of Marburg where she lived unrecognized. Some time later, her
vita relates, she was wrongfully accused of theft and sentenced to death by
drowning. Only when Margareta was brought forward to be executed did
a priest from Freiburg recognize her and testify that she was an honorable
person, and moreover, of a very prominent family. Margareta was released
and afterward entered the newly reformed Dominican cloister of Unterlin-
den in Colmar. From Unterlinden she later went with a group of Obser-
vants to undertake the reform of the St. Maria Magdalena an den Steinen
cloister in Basel where she remained until her death, revered there as one
of the cloister’s most illustrious mystics.74
About four years before her death, Margareta had become concerned
about the unreformed house of Poor Clares in Freiburg where her daughter
(now age seventeen) was living. Believing that the cloister was not spiritual
enough, she tried to have Magdalena moved to an Observant house. The
daughter, however, refused to leave the Clares, won her case in a hearing
before the city council, and—it seems—decided instead to imitate her illus-
trious mother by reforming the Clarissan cloister herself. In this she suc-
ceeded and went on to achieve even greater notoriety than her well-
known mother.
Magdalena’s awareness of the power of visionary experiences and the
supernatural to gain influence and the right to speak with authority is
matched by her reformist zeal and her conviction that the end justifies the
means. Scrupulously wording her statements so that they contained no
untruths if taken literally, Magdalena had perpetrated her first small decep-
tion, her disappearance, for what, she believed, was a good cause. Seeing
its remarkable result, Magdalena became convinced that she wanted to be-
come a martyr for reform. Perhaps she realized that she could have an even
more powerful effect by orchestrating her own canonization. Accordingly,
a year later Magdalena prophesied that in thirty-four days she would die.
This she announced along with the news that she had requested God to
grant an indulgence to all who would ‘‘honor His name’’ or ‘‘perform a
good work during her life or after her death.’’75 Moreover, she petitioned
God to guarantee that all would be saved who were present at her death.
At this point her plan seems to have gotten out of control, for the news
spread quickly beyond the cloister. On the appointed day, Epiphany of the

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 Convent Chronicles

year , hordes of lay people and prominent church officials streamed
into Freiburg on foot, on horseback, and in every kind of wagon, jamming
the city to witness the death of the now famous prophet.
Despite Magdalena’s best efforts, she failed to die on that day. Tearfully,
she was forced to announce that God had miraculously spared her, much to
the consternation of most onlookers and particularly Observant reformer,
Johannes Nider, who pronounced it a self-deception.76 Indeed, Magdale-
na’s scheme had backfired and she was discredited. But not entirely, for
although Magdalena had lost credibility in the eyes of the public and most
churchmen, her Clarissan sisters remained loyal to her and esteemed her to
the end of her life as a true visionary. Even before her death at age fifty-
one in , the sisters began collecting her revelations, compiling her vita,
and afterward referred to her as ‘‘our good, blessed Magdalena.’’77 Even
outside her cloister the failed effort at martyrdom had contributed to her
notoriety. Beyond the two fifteenth-century versions of her vita containing
her revelations (each set filling some  to  manuscript pages), three
fragmentary vitae survive that include letters and accounts about her.78
Karen Greenspan points out that, besides the revelations, at least two devo-
tional works sometimes attributed to a Sister Magdalena exist in over forty
manuscripts and eleven printed copies.79 Although Schleussner maintained
that the two longer vitae were both probably written by male Franciscans,
it is also possible that the author of the earlier manuscript, the ‘‘Magda-
lenen-Buch’’ (), was sister Elisabeth Vögtin. The cloister’s ‘‘Gedenk-
buch’’ states that Vögtin wrote about Magdalena’s ‘‘blessed life and virtues’’
to which she had been an eyewitness.80 While not deciding the issue, it
may at least be possible here to shed some light on the question by applying
some of the criteria this study has identified as characteristic of women’s
writings in this period.
Like many women’s texts, the  ‘‘Magdalenen-Buch’’ follows no
conventional format. It is a hodgepodge of letters, songs, prayers, exercises,
visions, and biography in no chronological sequence, while the other ver-
sion (composed from some of the same sources) is organized chronologi-
cally. The  text has many more first-person interjections, references to
‘‘us’’ and to ‘‘our mother’’ [superior] and, above all, a warmer, more inti-
mate tone than that of the later version. It speaks, for example, of touching,
grasping, holding, and hugging the visionary Magdalena, as the sisters tried
to revive her. In contrast, the other version recounts rather matter-of-factly,

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 New Heroines, Strategies, and Roles

‘‘They found her lying right before the altar in front of the Holy Sacrament,
appearing as though dead. Then they read matins with great fear and
trembling.’’81 Unlike this more impersonal version, the  text depicts a
later intimate scene of the sisters sitting together in a circle around Magda-
lena as she speaks of her supernatural experience until late into the night:
‘‘The sisters were full of joy and all went to her and sat in a circle around
her and listened to her words and talked with her until midnight when the
bell struck twelve.’’82 The prayers and revelations, either dictated or written
by Magdalena herself, that form the largest portion of the two works seem
stylistically unimproved. The prayers constitute a kind of stream-of-con-
sciousness devotional monologue, a sort of religious rap, which has not
fared well with critics. The revelations are difficult to read because of their
lack of punctuation and run-on sentences. Often didactic in nature, they
comprise admonitions and lessons in which Magdalena preaches to her
sisters a spiritual way of life. Many of the visions are introduced with rubrics
such as, ‘‘Here She Teaches the Sisters How They Should Pray Devoutly’’
or ‘‘How the Holy Body of Our Lord Pays for All Our Sins.’’ Others relate
visual and auditory revelations, but are prudently recounted as perceived
‘‘not in God’s actual words, but heard as though in a dream’’ or ‘‘in a
heavenly, light sleep.’’83
The interesting question that arises here is whether Magdalena, in her
bid to acquire influence and to use it in the cause of the reform, consciously
styled herself after earlier famous visionary women, most notably Hildegard
of Bingen and Mechthild of Hackeborn (or Mechthild of Magdeburg). This
question arises because in one of her dream-visions of the realm of the
blessed, she reports seeing two figures whom she identifies as Hildegard
and Mechthild. She addresses them and Mechthild answers, ‘‘I am God’s
servant Mechthildis . . . and with me is the blessed Hildegard [Hilgartdis].
. . . God revealed to us much that we had to make known to the world so
that men should profess that they were created for nothing other than to
praise and serve the eternal God.’’84 The reference here could be to Mech-
thild of Magdeburg, whose controversial writings had been translated from
the original Middle Low into Middle High German about . Although
Mechthild was thought to have been largely forgotten by the fifteenth cen-
tury, Sara Poor has traced the reception of Mechthild’s Flowing Light of the
Godhead both as a complete text and as excerpts in anthologies that circu-
lated in fifteenth-century women’s convents.85 The other possibility is that

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Magdalena was referring to another Helfta mystic, Mechthild of Hackeborn

(–), whose Latin Book of Special Grace was also excerpted for col-
lections.86 Similarly, Hildegard of Bingen’s visionary works were believed
to have been forgotten, yet a look at the library catalogue from the years
– at St. Katharina in Nuremberg lists a work called ‘‘The Prophe-
cies of Saint Hildegard.’’87 Gertrud Lewis points out that Hildegard was
listed in the official index of saints and revered as such in fifteenth-century
Germany.88
Clearly, Magdalena was not alone among fifteenth-century women
writers in citing other female mystics. Not only have scholars underesti-
mated how much contact women’s convents had with each other, but also
how much women knew about other mystics. Anne Bollmann points to
Alijt Bake, visionary author, reformer, and prioress of the Galilea cloister in
Ghent, who cites the writings of Catherine of Siena (–), Mech-
thild of Magdeburg, and Mechthild of Hackeborn. Not only does it appear
that Magdalena Beutler patterned herself on Hildegard and Mechthild, but
Alijt Bake states in her autobiography that she is ‘‘walking the path’’ of
Colette of Corbie, saying, ‘‘For just as Sister Colette was a mother of our
order in the reformation of the holy religion, I should also be a mother of
our order in the reformation of the inner life.’’89
Both Magdalena and Alijt were likely also affected by the model of
reform activism represented by Catherine of Siena whose biography was
well known among convent women from the many copies given by fami-
lies to their daughters on entering a cloister. Both the St. Gall and Nurem-
berg St. Katharina libraries contain several copies of it.90 It is also clear that
the mystical model was still a very powerful one. Probably because of her
visions, Alijt was chosen prioress of the Galilea Cloister in Ghent even
though she was only thirty and had made her profession only five years
before.91 Yet the price was high. Alijt Bake was censured and exiled by the
Windesheim authorities (and died a year later) while Magdalena Beutler
was publicly discredited. Even the latest edition of the Verfasserlexikon refers
to her as an ‘‘hysteric.’’92 In contrast, Catherine of Siena, who paid the price
for her extreme asceticism by an early death at age thirty-three, enjoyed
the protection of Dominican Master General Raymond of Capua, who
composed her vita himself. Among other things, he saw its importance for
promoting the Dominican reform. Yet even Catherine was forced to de-
fend herself against suspicions about the authenticity of her visions.93

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Like Magalena Beutler’s revelations, the mystical writings of Alijt Bake

do not fit into standard categories. They are, like many women’s writings,
a loosely organized, hybrid mix of genres: visionary revelations, spiritual
lessons, and every-day experiences in a sort of diary format, a mix that
Bollmann identifies as ‘‘rapiarium’’ (anthology of extracts) structure.94
These kinds of books, compiled by Devout Sisters for personal study and
contemplation, contained short anecdotes, aphorisms, extracts, and medita-
tions designed to foster spiritual growth. Like the anthologies, Alijt’s writ-
ings are intended for ‘‘convent-internal’’ or personal use. A characteristic
that Natalie Davis identified as typical of women’s histories also applies
here. Like those Davis surveyed, these works are particular in focus, de-
signed for a specific community, an intimate, convent-internal setting and
in-house consumption.95 Although Prioress Bake was well read in classical,
patristic texts, and the mystical literature of her time (she refers to sermons
by Johannes Tauler and to works by Rulman Merswin and Jordanus von
Quedlinburg), she chose to compose edifying religious manuals for the
sisters.96 Books of advice, such as Anna von Buchwald’s ‘‘Book in the
Choir,’’ Elsbeth Muntprat’s sister-book at St. Gall, and Katharina von
Mühlheim’s handbook of instructions for ceremonies seem to be a form
particularly favored by female writers. Like Alijt’s books for edification and
instruction, these works take cognizance of the literary requirements and
the circumstances of life in a community of sisters. Women’s needs for
different kinds of books can be illustrated by the vita of Andries Yserens in
the book of sisters of the Lamme-van-Dieze House in Deventer. Sister
Andries spent twenty years in the kitchen, serving in the office of kitchen
mistress, before being chosen to head her community. Finding it more
difficult to concentrate on spiritual exercises while preparing food than
while doing other work such as spinning, Sister Andries used cherry pits to
keep her place in her devotions.97 The ideology of the Modern Devotion
and the living situation in sister-houses required a different way of reading,
one that favored texts written in small, discrete units as points to ponder
while working. Because women lacked the years of education and struc-
tured time needed to study or write works requiring sustained concentra-
tion, accommodations made to their circumstances influenced the forms of
literature they produced.
Like Magdalena Beutler, who was influenced by the writing of earlier
female mystics and composed revelations of her own, adapting them to the

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religious issues and movements of her day, Alijt Bake was a reader and user
of texts. Even though her writings remained largely unknown, Bollmann
shows that they were, nevertheless, copied and transmitted anonymously
under new titles and in adaptations.98 Indeed, by compiling religious an-
thologies, women created new texts of their own. Choosing works that
appealed to their interests and excerpting their meaningful points, they
passed on these preferences in written form.99 Likewise, by taking notes
and writing up summaries of sermon highlights that they wished to retain,
women were participating in shaping the religious discourse of the day by
formulating it in their own words. Alijt Bake, for example, adapted and
reflected on sermons by Johannes Tauler and others in writings of her
own.100 In this way, many women in fifteenth-century religious houses
became not only consumers but producers of religious literature.

Women as Consumers, Contributors, and Disseminators of the Literature

of Piety

In the transcribing and sharing of collections of their own house sermons,

women took part in an absorbing activity that involved them in a conversa-
tion not only within networks of Observant houses but with the laity as
well. Moreover, both house-sermon transcriptions and many of the vernac-
ular devotional works that the sisters copied and exchanged for their own
use also were circulated to devout friends and family members outside the
cloister. Because little in the way of theology and devotional literature had
been written specifically for a lay reading public in the vernacular, interest
was high and women’s convent libraries became an important source for
the religious texts that circulated, were copied, and eventually printed for
the laity. These texts, written for a monastic readership, were borrowed
mainly from women’s convent libraries which, unlike those at men’s
houses, consisted primarily of works in German.101 As illustrated by these
kinds of exchanges, it was the alliance of reform and lay piety—not just
one or the other—that brought vernacular religious literature to its greatest
distribution.102 That this was not an insignificant development can be dem-
onstrated by the number of late medieval devotional books, saints’ lives,
religious songs, and tracts that were published in editions far larger than
any that secular fictional writing ever achieved. Together they constitute

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 New Heroines, Strategies, and Roles

some seventy to eighty percent of the total production of works in the late
Middle Ages.103 Their significance for at least one female reader is candidly
expressed in the Emmerich book of sisters which describes Sister Lijsbet
Kaels’s love of books, saying she ‘‘had a large number of devotional books
and she used to call them her ‘bellows.’ For, she said, ‘with these I blow
upon my heart and ignite the flame so that it glows with love for my
God.’ ’’104
That women were, indeed, a large part of the audience for German
devotional texts, read aloud or privately, and for vernacular preaching in
the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries is illustrated by attendance at
sermons. Larissa Taylor points out that women in the audience outnum-
bered men four to one.105 Of the vernacular sermons that have come down
to us, virtually all were copied in the women’s religious houses where
they were preached and were transcribed for individual study. Accordingly,
researching German-language sermons for the fifteenth century literally
means reading literature that was meant primarily for religious women.106
Besides transcribing sermons, women also edited them for a lay readership.
Susanna Hörwart and Ursula Stingel at the Magdalen cloister in Strasbourg
not only transcribed for publication many of the sermons of Strasbourg
preacher Johannes Geiler von Kaysersberg, but a letter from Geiler (dated
) explains that Prioress Hörwart edited his enclosed sermon to make it
appropriate for lay readers. Geiler’s letter addressed to the sisters at the
Freiburg house of the Penitants of St. Maria Magdalena states:

Know that our mother prioress at Strasbourg [Susanna Hörwart]

did not want to make the sermon available to the laity [as it was
preached to the sisters] but selected from it what she considered
appropriate for lay persons, adding to and subtracting from it as she
saw fit. I am sending it to you enclosed. You may distribute it to
whomever you wish so that God will be glorified by all of us, both
religious and lay people, now and forever. Amen.107

Elsewhere, Geiler refers to the same Prioress Susanna as ‘‘a lover of God
and of her neighbor, a builder and upholder of the reform and of the spiri-
tual life.’’108
It is clear here that these women’s engagement in reformed spirituality
had more than merely an internal focus. It is of a piece with the greater

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rank-and-file engagement in religious issues and especially reformed

preaching in the two decades preceding the Reformation. As collectors,
choosers, transmitters, and consumers of religious literature, convent
women must be taken into account as participants in the late-medieval
conversation on spirituality. Their involvement—itself a kind of empower-
ment—was an outgrowth of the Observant movement.

Observant Women and the Reformation

In the battle for church renewal it is perhaps ironic that the Observant
reformers should have been the staunchest opponents of the Lutheran and
Zwinglian reforms. And female Observants were the most resistant of all.109
Women in non-observant cloisters such as Töss and Oetenbach in Zürich
had a less strict form of enclosure and were, thus, more open to the new
teachings. At Oetenbach, Lutheran relatives of cloistered nuns made con-
certed efforts to bring these women into contact with the preachers of the
new faith and so ‘‘to curb the influence of the Dominicans.’’ In  the
Zürich city council arranged for Huldrych Zwingli (–) to preach
at the convent of Oetenbach. Speaking in the cloister church, Zwingli
declared monasticism to be ‘‘hypocrisy.’’ Accounts report that after Zwin-
gli’s sermons ‘‘several women declared themselves to be enthusiastic fol-
lowers of the reformer.’’ Soon the convent split into two parties: a majority
group which held fast to the old faith and a minority one which followed
Zwingli and was dubbed ‘‘the Lutherans.’’ By , when most of the
Zürich citizenry had adopted the Zwinglian persuasion, the city council
took over Oetenbach and its property. The cloister was opened and the
women who remained were required to engage in useful work for the
benefit of the poor and to wear ordinary women’s clothing.110
Reports of the nearby Conventual cloister of Töss record that it too split
into opposing factions. At first the faction supporting the new faith applied
to the Zürich authorities to exempt them from singing the office at matins.
They asked to read it instead, ‘‘due to the extreme cold’’ which made for
‘‘poor singing.’’ Later they petitioned to end it altogether. Still not wishing
to leave the convent, however, they proposed to spend their time there
‘‘more profitably,’’ to increase their allowances, to wear ordinary clothing,
and to end claustration. Finally, in  the majority petitioned for dissolu-

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tion of the cloister. Although most of the women left the house, a few
continued to live there on fixed allowances.111 Halter comments that in
general the Conventual women’s convents presented less opposition to the
new faith than the Observant houses, citing particularly the Inselkloster in
Bern and St. Katharina in St. Gall, both of which resisted tenaciously to
the last.112
At St. Gall, cathedral organist Fridolin Sicher touchingly describes the
nuns’ sad procession to the church when the town council required the
sisters of St. Katharina to attend sermons on the new faith there.

Then the women went forth shamefacedly two by two with the
youngest in front according to age. But they showed little joy or
eagerness: old, sick, limping women with great swollen eyes, for
clearly they had found this going out a great hardship. It appears
that those who were there would have preferred to stay separated
from the world in their cloister until death. Otherwise they would
have left [the house] before this, considering the quantity of scorn
and denigration of their order that had been preached to them
[and] they would gladly have gone into the world, had they wished
it and [would have] been treated mildly enough by the people, but
none of them wanted to come out.113

Of the fifty-one inhabitants of the cloister, three eventually renounced their

vows. Two of the three married, but one soon left her husband and entered
another cloister at Kreuzlingen. Vogler points out that St. Katharina was ‘‘a
thorn in the flesh’’ to St. Gall, since it lay inside the city walls even though
its extensive properties completely encircled the city. After the city had
joined the Zwinglian camp, marauding parties of townsfolk began periodi-
cally vandalizing the cloister and its properties. To save the books and other
precious items, Sister Regula Keller tried to smuggle them out to other
convents. Eventually, however, the city council took over St. Katharina,
effectively ending all semblance of monastic life there. Not one to give up,
Regula Keller remained near by, living with a small community of women.
Despite repeated arrests, she waged a continuous forty-year legal battle for
reinstatement of the convent.114
In their chronicles there are many first-hand accounts from the women
themselves about the conflicts with the Lutheran new sect. Eva Madgalena

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Neyler’s (d. ) chronicle of the Dominican house in Pforzheim, which

had been reformed in  by sisters from St. Katharina in Nuremberg,
tells how the thirty-nine sisters solemnly resisted for eight years. Neyler
asserts with satisfaction that ‘‘by God’s grace [they] wore out eighteen
preachers.’’115 At last the nuns received permission to move as a group out
of the territory of the Margrave of Baden to a dilapidated cloister (Kirchb-
erg) near Sulz on the Neckar that was inhabited by seven non-observant
nuns. Here they instituted a reform according to the Observance, which,
as recounted above, drove away the house’s seven original inhabitants.116
At the Dominican cloister of Steinheim, near Marbach, which had been
reformed by sisters from Unterlinden in , an anonyomus nun kept a
diary from  to . In it she kept a record for posterity of the sisters’
struggle against Duke Ulrich of Württemberg and his efforts to convert the
women to Protestantism and gain control of their cloister. The diary’s edi-
tor, Konrad Rothenhäusler, comments that as late as  Protestant church
officials in Württemberg reported how little headway the Reformation had
made in women’s cloisters, even though all of the men’s houses had long
been reformed.117 After fifty soldiers had been quartered in their cloister,
the diary relates, intimidation and threats forced the women to accept the
duke as their ‘‘protector’’ and hand over their letters of exemption from
secular jurisdiction. Mass and the singing of the Office were forbidden, yet
the sisters secretly continued to ‘‘read the Hours at midnight two by two
in the refectory,’’ refusing to accept the new faith, the author insists, ‘‘not
out of defiance’’ but because they could not act ‘‘against their consciences.’’
The anonymous sister’s account breaks off with the women’s fate still un-
certain. Rothenhäusler reports that the sisters remained in their cloister,
continuing to perform the office in secret, until the last one died sometime
around . Its author explains, the diary was written as a ‘‘protest to God
and the world’’ to document how the sisters unjustly were forced by threats
of violence to give up their privileges and yet remained true to the old
faith.118 At Herzebrock, Anna Roede’s second chronicle gives an Observant
women’s perspective on Lutheran assertions that the Word of God was not
reaching the cloisters. Anna writes indignantly that the sisters were each
‘‘as well trained as that [Lutheran] priest, for they all understood well what
they sang and read, [both] the Old Testament and the New.’’119
Although the overwhelming majority of Observant women’s houses re-
jected the new sects, not all of them did. At Münster, for example, the

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sisters at Überwasser, which had been reformed in , joined the Anab-
aptists early on. Their chronicle tells how the majority of the sisters, includ-
ing the chronicler herself, Elisabeth Fridaghes, was won over by the new
teachings. Shortly after reporting favorably on Bernard Rothmann’s Palm
Sunday sermon in , the chronicle breaks off, after its author and most
of the sisters joined Rothmann’s sect. From other accounts it is known that
only the prioress and two sisters held to the old beliefs. Yet, although the
Anabaptist sisters abandoned the rule, they continued to live for a time in
the convent, circulating in town as agitators for Rothmann’s party.120 In
contrast, the sisters at Marienthal (Niesing), another Münster house of Au-
gustinian nuns, first founded as a house of Sisters of the Common Life,
rejected the Lutheran teachings. Their chronicle relates how the Anabaptist
mobs drove them out of their cloister. Among the crowd were sisters from
Überwasser, who urged the Marienthal women to have themselves bap-
tized.121
According to Jonathan Grieser, these two reformed convents, Überwas-
ser, an old aristocratic Benedictine house of former canonesses, and Ma-
rienthal, a former sister-house, established only in the fifteenth century and
then becoming an enclosed Augustinian cloister, belie the conventional
wisdom about the relationship between religious houses and social class.
For in this case it was Marienthal, the house of less prestigious burgher
daughters—the sisters, aunts and offspring of city council members—who
opposed the Anabaptist movement, taking sides against the town council
during its struggle against the prince-bishop. Meanwhile, the aristocratic
nuns of cloister Überwasser joined the Anabaptist council members. Ac-
cordingly, Grieser cautions against ‘‘identifying convents too closely with
particular social classes or groups.’’ Citing the activities of the Überwasser
sisters in agitating for the Anabaptist cause, Grieser asserts, ‘‘we must begin
to view women as participants as well as victims.’’122 The issue here is not
a simple one, for the aristocratic house had clearly had conflicts with
prince-bishops in the past. During the reform by Observants in ,
which was supported by the bishop and the town council together, all the
old sisters had left. Who replaced them and what the social composition of
the house was by  needs further study.123
Sigrid Schmitt has demonstrated that in Strasbourg the social make up
of women’s religious houses often changed dramatically in the wake of the
reforms. Her study illustrates how class struggles within the city council

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 Convent Chronicles

over the social ambitions of the rising urban patriciate played a decisive role
in the reform of women’s convents by Observants in the fifteenth century
and by Protestants in the sixteenth. Support for the Observants was related
to the desire for broader access to cloisters by the daughters of the wealthy
and powerful municipal magistrate class.124 Jutta Sperling’s study of con-
vents in the city of Venice similarly concludes that enclosure was linked to
social status and constituted less an attempt to subjugate women than a way
to preserve the purity, exclusivity, and isolation of the aristocratic caste.
While the open communities of religious tertiaries were available to
women of the less elite classes, the enclosure of nuns symbolized the inac-
cessibility of these houses to all but the very few of the highest ranks of
society. It constituted part of a larger cultural system of transactions that
affected whole families and their social rank.125

Conclusion

It is clear that the Observant reforms of the fifteenth century cannot be

viewed—as they so often have been—simply as efforts by men to subordi-
nate women or of the church hierarchy to enforce Periculoso (the papal
decree of enclosure). Nor can the Observant movement be seen as just a
repetition of many waves of reform that preceded it. Rather, the fifteenth-
century movement was bound up with a larger shift that connected the
nuns and the populace as a whole and was disruptive of old power struc-
tures. Indeed, one of the most striking things about the introduction of the
Observance at men’s as well as women’s houses was the impassioned and
sometimes even violent involvement of the city populace. A very powerful
force that resonated with the interests of the laity, reform discourse merged
on the one hand with the struggle of the increasingly powerful urban mag-
istrate class for greater access and control of religious institutions and, on the
other, with the maneuvers of territorial rulers to consolidate their power at
the expense of the lesser aristocracy. The fact that the Observance was
imposed even in cloisters where all of the aristocratic inhabitants opposed
it is symptomatic of the waning power of the women’s noble families, as
Schmitt shows. The acceptance of larger numbers of daughters of the bur-
gher class after the reform in Strasbourg bears witness to the pressure being
exerted from below to open cloisters to a wider spectrum of society.126 To

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 New Heroines, Strategies, and Roles

this end, reform was a powerful tool in the hands of religious activists of the
burgher class like Johannes Nider, Johannes Busch, and Johannes Meyer.
Whether they intended it or not, the Observance was effective in dislodg-
ing the nobility, both female and male, from long entrenched positions of
authority and exclusivity within the religious orders and in opening them
up to a new influx of devout religious.
These changes were rarely achieved without bringing in a new prioress
and reform sisters to take over the principal offices and institute the Obser-
vance. For these women, participation in the reform effort provided not
only an avenue of religious engagement but, for non-noble reform prior-
esses such as Susanna Potstock, a career advancement. In cases where
women acted independently, as did Magdalena Beutler, reform was an op-
portunity to employ the old, still viable (though dangerous) visionary
model for acquiring influence. For other women, however, Observant ac-
tivism and literary exchange constituted a new way to have a voice in the
larger conversation on spirituality, a way that did not depend on the mysti-
cism or asceticism that had in earlier centuries been the only routes to
religious influence for women.

In , a prologue and epilogue were added (probably by Sister Griet

Essink) to the book of sisters at the Diepenveen convent of St. Mary and
St. Agnes, a work that also contains a long account of the reform of Hil-
wartshausen (on the Weser) by three of the Diepenveen sisters. In the pro-
logue, Sister Griet refers to her convent with traditional imagery, calling it
‘‘an orchard’’ (bomgoert) and referring to the virtues of the women as
‘‘devout plants’’ that blossomed there. Concluding, she remarks, ‘‘nobody
should think that there are not more sisters whose lives we ought to de-
scribe. [For] many devout sisters have died in this place and amongst them
there were many whose virtues would definitely be worth recording.’’127
This comment could apply equally well to the attempt of the present study
to survey women writers in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries using
the literary portraits made by women in the Observant movement. It has
not been possible here to treat sufficiently all of the writers and works
that are ‘‘worth recording,’’ but only to outline a field that is still virtually
untouched.
Women’s literary historians have, for example, often raised the question
why female contemporaries of Christine de Pizan did not write their own

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 Convent Chronicles

‘‘cities of ladies.’’ As it turns out, and this study has tried to show, they did.
Contemporaries in actual communities of ladies composed sister-books and
convent chronicles that celebrate, not the mythological figures of Pizan’s
virtual city, but women much closer at hand: former inhabitants of these
communities. These works commemorate in a similar way female moral
virtue, spiritual achievements, and the deeds of heroic prioresses and ordi-
nary sisters. Yet, as this example also shows, the potential benefits of cross-
fertilization in the study of women writers in the Anglo-French and Ger-
man-Dutch worlds of the Middle Ages have long gone unrecognized, as
researchers construct histories of women independently on both sides of a
linguistic and cultural divide. Clearly, the pool of works by medieval
women authors needs to be enlarged across national and linguistic borders.
More inclusive interdisciplinary studies need to be undertaken that will
encompass new geographical and linguistic categories such as those sug-
gested by Jacqueline Wogan-Brown.128
The chronicles produced in real cities of ladies by female writers of
the fifteenth century Observant movement constitute complex collective
strategies, works that were not only generated by the reform but, at the
same time, sought to shape, validate, and perpetuate it. Differing in form,
style, and content from the master narrative, women’s accounts portray
female reformers as leaders and initiators in their own right. Seen from
women’s perspective, the reform efforts appear more broadly based, multi-
faceted, and involved with social change. As more of their texts come to
light, what remains is to study them individually and to establish their place
in literary-historical studies. As these new voices from the eve of the Refor-
mation demonstrate, the past changes: it looks different with women shar-
ing center stage.

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

Introduction

. Unless otherwise indicated, all translations are mine. The author of the book does not give
her name, but Anne Bollmann and Nikolaus Staubach suggest that it was most probably Mechtelt
Smeeds. See Schwesternbuch und Statuten des St. Agnes–Konvents in Emmerich, ed. with introduction
by Anne Bollmann and Nikolaus Staubach, Emmericher Forschungen  (Emmerich: Emmericher
Geschichtsverein, ), –, . For the English title, I have used the term ‘‘book of sisters’’ to
distinguish the works written in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries at sisterhouses of the Common
Life or New Devout from the fourteenth-century Dominican ‘‘sister-books.’’ See Wybren Scheepsma,
‘‘ ‘For hereby I hope to rouse some to piety’ ’’: Books of Sisters from Convents and Sister-Houses
Associated with the ‘Devotio moderna’ in the Low Countries,’’ in Women, the Book, and the Godly, 
vols., ed. Lesley Smith and Jane Taylor (Cambridge: Brewer, ), .
. Since this project was begun more than six years ago, a large number of studies are in progress
and a list-serve, ‘‘Mittelalterliche Frauenklöster,’’ organized by Katrinette Bodarwé for exchange of
information on medieval women’s communities has been established. See www.frauenkloester.de.
Three fifteenth-century chronicles that I have not been able to include are Sophie von Stolberg’s
chronicle of Helfta and the chronicles of Lüne and Heligkreuz (Braunschweig). Nor was the original
of Anna von Buchwald’s ‘‘Buch im Chor’’ accessible, because it was being restored. See Jo Ann
McNamara, Sisters in Arms: Catholic Nuns through Two Millennia (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, ), ; Hans Patze, ‘‘Klostergründung und Klosterchronik,’’ in Blätter für deutsche Landes-
kunde  (): –; and Heike Uffmann, ‘‘ ‘Wie in einem Rosengarten . . . .’ Die Ebstorfer
Klosterreform im Spiegel von Chronistik und Tischlesung,’’ in ‘‘In Treue und Hingabe’’:  Jahre Kloster
Ebstorf, ed. Marianne Elster and Horst Hoffmann (Uelzen: Becker, ), . The chronicle of the
Clarissan cloister in Nuremberg was not included because it is not clear whether it was composed by
the sisters or by lay chronicler Nikolaus Glasberger. See Lotte Kurras and Franz Machilek, eds., Caritas
Pirckheimer, –, Ausstellung der Katholischen Stadtkirche Nürnberg, June –August , 
(Munich: Prestel, ), .
. Scheepsma, ‘‘ ‘For hereby I hope to rouse some to piety,’ :. For more on the devotio moderna
movement, see Chapter .
. John Van Engen, ‘‘The Virtues, the Brothers, and the Schools,’’ Revue Bénédictine 
(): .
. Gerhard Rehm, Die Schwestern vom gemeinsamen Leben im nordwestlichen Deutschland. Untersu-
chungen der Devotio moderna und des weiblichen Religiösentums, Berliner Historische Studien , Ordensstu-
dien  (Berlin: Dunker and Humblot, ), .
. Wybren Scheepsma, Deemoed en devotie: De koorvrouwen van Windesheim en hun geschriften (Am-
sterdam: Prometheus, ), forthcoming in English translation, The Canonesses of Windesheim and their
Writings (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell and Brewer). More recently, six of the Sisters of the Common
Life have been included in Kurt Ruh’s history of mystical writers in the West, Geschichte der abendlän-
dischen Mystik, vol.  (Munich: Beck, ). In addition, Anne Bollmann is currently at work on a
study of the books of sisters produced in women’s communities of the Modern Devout.

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 Notes to Pages –

. Matthäus Bernards, Speculum Virginum: Geistigkeit und Seelenleben der Frau im Hochmittelalter
(Cologne: Böhlau, ), .
. Marie-Luise Ehrenschwendtner, ‘‘ ‘Puella litteratae’: The Use of the Vernacular in the Domin-
ican Convents of Southern Germany,’’ in Medieval Women in their Communities, ed. Diane Watt (To-
ronto: University of Toronto Press, ), .
. Francis Rapp, ‘‘Zur Spiritualität in elsässischen Frauenklöstern am Ende des Mittelalters,’’ in
Frauenmystik im Mittelalter, ed. Peter Dinzelbacher and Dieter R. Bauer (Ostfildern: Schwaben Verlag,
), ; and Andreas Rüther and Hans-Jochen Schiewer, ‘‘Die Predigthandschriften des Straßburger
Dominikanerinnenklosters St. Nikolaus in Undis,’’ in Die deutsche Predigt im Mittelalter, ed. Volker
Mertens and Hans-Jochen Schiewer (Niemeyer: Tübingen, ): .
. Elke Dißelbeck-Tewes, Frauen in der Kirche. Das Leben der Frauen in den mittelalterlichen Zister-
zienserklöstern Fürstenberg, Graefental und Scheldenhorst (Cologne: Böhlau, ), .
. Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval
Women (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, ), ; and Daniel Bornstein,
‘‘Women and Religion in Late Medieval Italy: History and Historiography,’’ in Women and Religion in
Medieval and Renaissance Italy, ed. Daniel Bornstein (Chicago: Chicago University Press, ), .
. Jeffrey Hamburger, The Visual and the Visionary: Art and Female Spirituality in Late Medieval
Germany (New York: Zone Books, ), . See also idem, Nuns as Artists: The Visual Culture of a
Medieval Convent (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, ).
. Bonnie Anderson and Judith Zinsser, A History of their Own: Women in Europe from Prehistory
to the Present (New York: Harper and Row, –), :xiii.
. Gabrielle Spiegel, The Past as Text: The Theory and Practice of Medieval Historiography (Baltimore:
Johns Hopkins University Press, ), .
. Joan Ferrante, To the Glory of Her Sex: Women’s Roles in the Composition of Medieval Texts
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, ), .
. Aside from Hrosvit, Bertha of Vilich, and the Helfta mystics, most texts by women before the
fourteenth century were dictated to male confessors, scribes, or collaborators. For a list of medieval
women writers, see Barbara Newman, From Virile Woman to Woman Christ (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, ), –. On the difficulty of distinguishing female voices, see Catherine M.
Mooney, Gendered Voices: Medieval Saints and Their Interpreters (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, ).
. All of these are now being resourcefully reexamined by scholars such as Marilyn Oliva in The
Convent and Community in Late Medieval England: Female Monasteries in the Diocese of Norwich, –
(Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell, ), –, , –, –.
. Sully Roecken and Carolina Brauckmann, Margaretha Jedefrau (Freiburg: Kore, ), :.
. Eileen Power, Medieval English Nunneries, c.  to  (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, ). Lina Eckenstein, in her path-breaking work Women under Monasticism (; repr. New
York: Russel and Russel, ), deplores the frequent medieval depictions of the nun as ‘‘a slothful and
hysterical,’’ if not a ‘‘dissolute’’ character, viii.
. Shulamith Shahar, The Fourth Estate: A History of Women in the Middle Ages, trans. Chaya Galai
(London: Methuen, ), .
. Caroline Walker Bynum, ‘‘Religious Women in the Later Middle Ages,’’ in Christian Spiritual-
ity. High Middle Ages and Reformation, ed. Jill Raitt, Bernard McGinn, and John Meyendorff (New
York: Crossroad, ), .
. Hamburger, The Visual, –; Ursula Peters, ‘‘Frauenliteratur im Mittelalter? Überlegungen
zur Trobiaritzpoesie, zur Frauenmystik und zur feministischen Literaturbetrachtung,’’ Germanisch-Ro-
manische Monatsschrift, n.F.  (), .
. Albrecht Classen, ‘‘New Voices in the History of German Women’s Literature from the Mid-
dle Ages to : Problems and New Approaches,’’ German Studies Review  (): , .
. [Bartolomea Riccoboni] Life and Death in a Venetian Convent: The Chronicle and Necrology of
Corpus Domini, –, ed. and trans. Daniel Bornstein (Chicago: Chicago University Press, ),

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 Notes to Pages –

. See also other titles in the Chicago series, The Other Voice in Early Modern Europe, edited by
Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil Jr.
. [Bartolomea Riccoboni] Life and Death in a Venetian Convent, .
. Johannes Helmrath, Das Basler Konzil –: Forschungsstand und Probleme (Cologne: Böh-
lau, ), .
. Kaspar Elm, ed., Reformbemühungen und Observanzbestrebungen im spätmittelalterlichen Ordenswe-
sen, Berliner Historische Studien , Ordensstudien  (Berlin: Dunker und Humblot, ), –.
Thoma Vogler’s inventory of the library of the Observant Dominican sisters at St. Katharina in St. Gall
in the fifteenth century contains, for example, six German copies of Thomas à Kempis’s Imitation
of Christ. See Geschichte des Dominikanerinnen-Klosters St. Katharina in St Gallen – (Fribourg,
Switzerland: Paulus, ), , .
. Walter Ziegler, ‘‘Reformation and Klosterauflösung. Ein ordensgeschichtlicher Vergleich,’’ in
Reformbemühungen und Observanzbestrebungen im spätmittelalterlichen Ordenswesen, ed. Kaspar Elm, Berli-
ner Historische Studien , Ordensstudien  (Berlin: Dunker und Humblot, ), ; Euan Cam-
eron, The European Reformation (Oxford: Clarendon, ), .
. Constance Proksch, Klosterreform und Geschichtsschreibung im Spätmittelalter (Cologne: Böhlau,
).
. Gerda Lerner, The Creation of Feminist Consciousness (New York: Oxford University Press,
), vii–viii.
. Jo Ann Kay McNamara, Sisters in Arms: Catholic Nuns through Two Millennia (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, ), .
. Johannes Meyer, Das Buch der Reformacio Predigerordens, ed. Benedictus Maria Reichert, Quel-
len und Forschungen zur Geschichte des Dominikanerordens in Deutschland  (Leipzig: Harrassowitz,
), .
. McNamara, Sisters, .
. Joan Ferrante, To the Glory of Her Sex: Women’s Roles in the Composition of Medieval Texts
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, ), –.
. Friedrich Techen, ed. Die Chroniken des Klosters Ribnitz (Meklenburgische Geschichtsquellen
 (Schwerin: Bärensprungsche Hofdruckerei, ), .
. Herman Hallauer, ‘‘Nikolaus von Kues und das Brixener Klarissenkloster,’’ Mitteilungen und
Forschungsbeiträge der Cusanus-Gesellschaft  (): .
. Werner Williams-Krapp, ‘‘Observanzbewegung, monastische Spiritualität und geistliche Li-
teratur im . Jahrhundert,’’ Internationales Archiv für Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Literatur  (): .
. Williams-Krapp, ‘‘Observanzbewegung, monastische Spiritualität,’’ ; Karin Schneider, ‘‘Die
Bibliothek des Katharinenklosters in Nürnberg und die städtische Gesellschaft,’’ in Studien zum städ-
tischen Bildungswesen des späten Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit, ed. Bernd Moeller et. al (Göttingen:
Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, ), –; Eugen Hillenbrand, ‘‘Die Observantenbewegung in der
deutschen Ordensprovinz der Dominikaner,’’ in Reformbemühungen und Observanzbestrebungen im spätmit-
telalterlichen Ordenswesen, ed. Kaspar Elm, Berliner Historische Studien , Ordensstudien  (Berlin:
Dunker and Humblot, ), ; Regina D. Schiewer, ‘‘Sermons for Nuns of the Dominican Obser-
vance Movement,’’ in Medieval Monastic Preaching, ed. Carolyn Muessig (Leiden: Brill, ), .
. Juliana Ernst (–), editor of the Chronicle of the Bicken Cloister in Villingen, states
that she found two New Year’s addresses from  and  given by former prioress Ursula Haider
(d. ), saying, ‘‘I will cite them here word for word as they came from her mouth.’’ See [Juliana
Ernst,] Die Chronik des Bickenklosters zu Villingen, ed. Karl Jordan Glatz, Bibliothek des Litterarischen
Vereins in Stuttgart  (Tübingen: Fues, ), . The editor of the Chronicle of Inzigkofen says,
‘‘Here I cite from the old house chronicler: ‘In the year  . . .’;’’ see ‘‘Die Geissenhof ’sche Chronik
des Klosters Inzigkofen,’’ ed. Theodor Dreher, Freiburger Katholisches Kirchenblatt  (): col. .
This old chronicle was begun in  by Apollonia Besserer (–) and Elisabeth Muntprat (d.
). See Werner Fechter, Deutsche Handschriften des . und . Jahrhunderts aus der Bibliothek des
ehemaligen Augustinerchorfrauenstifts Inzigkofen (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, ), , , . Johannes Mey-
er’s editing of three sister-books is discussed below and in Chapter .

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 Notes to Pages –

. See the introduction by editor Horst Appuhn to the Chronik und Totenbuch des Klosters Wien-
hausen (Wienhausen: Kloster Wienhausen, ), v–viii.
. [Anna von Munzingen,] ‘‘Dis sint die gnade, die vnser Herre hett getan semlichen swestern in
disem closter ze Adelnhusen,’’ in ‘‘Die Chronik der Anna von Munzingen. Nach der ältesten Abschrift
mit Einleitung und Beilagen,’’ ed. J. König, Freiburger Diozesan Archiv  (): .
. Preetz, Archiv, Klosterpreetz,  , fol. v. Translation cited from Jeffrey Hamburger,
The Visual and the Visionary: Art and Female Spirituality in Late Medieval Germany (New York: Zone,
), .
. Augsburg, Staatsarchiv  Kloster Maria Maihingen MüB , fol. v. See also Alfred Schröder,
‘‘Das Hausbuch des Klosters Maihingen. Quellenkritische Untersuchungen,’’ Archiv für die Geschichte
des Hochstifts Augsburg  (): –.
. Johannes Gatz, ‘‘Pfullingen,’’ Alemania Franciscana Antiqua  (): . The original manu-
script of this chronicle is now lost, but a transcription was published in . This transcription reads:
‘‘For as long as I have been in [the cloister] I am very hopeful that the Lord will not abandon us.’’ See
‘‘Anno dni MCCL an Sant Martins tag da ist dis Closter Pfullingen an gefangen worden,’’ in ‘‘Duae
Relationes circa Monasterium Brixinense O. Clar.,’’ ed. Maximilianus Straganz, Archivum Franciscanum
Historicum  (): –, at .
. ‘‘Innumerabiles grates . . .’’ [Chronicle of Ebstorf, ], in ‘‘Litterarisches und geistiges Leben
in Kloster Ebstorf am Ausgange des Mittelalters,’’ ed. Conrad Borchling, Zeitschrift des historischen Vereins
für Niedersachsen  (): .
. Klaus Grubmüller’s analysis of the layering in the Töss sister-book identifies six stages in the
work’s construction. A prologue and a vita of Elisabeth Bechlin were added, for example, by another
sister—possibly from material by Elsbeth Stagel—before other accretions and, as a final stage, Johannes
Meyer’s abridgements and his additions of an epilogue and an aditional prologue in the fifteenth cen-
tury. See Klaus Grubmüller, ‘‘Die Viten der Schwestern von Töss und Elsbeth Stagel: Überlieferung
und literarische Einheit,’’ Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie  (): –; Alois Haas, ‘‘Elsbeth
Stagel,’’ in Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon, ed. Wolfgang Stammler and Karl Lan-
gosch (Berlin: de Gruyter, ), : col. ; and Werner Fechter ‘‘Johannes Meyer OP,’’ in Die
deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon,  (), col. .
. Das St. Katharinentaler Schwesternbuch. Untersuchung, Edition, Kommentar, ed. Ruth Meyer, Mün-
chener Texte und Untersuchungen  (Tübingen: Niemeyer, ), –. Meyer also made an
abridged, alphabetical version of the Adelhausen sister-book, a register of the convents’ inhabitants, but
the original work by Anna von Munzingen survives. See. J. König, ‘‘Die Chronik der Anna von
Munzingen. Nach der ältesten Abschrift mit Einleitung und Beilagen,’’ Freiburger Diözesan-Archiv 
(): –.
. Ursula Peters, Religiöse Erfahrung als literarisches Faktum: Zur Vorgeschichte und Genese frauenmys-
tischer Texte des . und . Jahrhunderts (Tübingen: Niemeyer, ), , .
. ‘‘Chronik des Schwesternhauses Marienthal, genannt Niesinck in Münster,’’ in Berichte der
Augenzeugen über das Münstersche Wiedertäuferreich, ed. Carl Cornelius, –, Geschichtsquellen des
Bisthums Münster  (; repr. Münster: Aschendorff, ); and ‘‘Klosterchronik Überwasser wäh-
rend der Wirren –,’’ ed. Rudolf Schulze, in Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte der Stadt
Münster, vol. , ed. Eduard Schulte, – (Münster: Aschendorff, ). Similarly, the only published
excerpts from the journals of Prioresses of Frauen-Chiemsee, Magdalena Auer (d. ) and Ursula
Pfaffinger (d. ) are those for the years –, recounting the war of succession between the
Palatinate and Bavaria; however, these may have been written by a scribe. See Ernst Geiß, ed., ‘‘Rela-
tion der Aebtissin Ursula der Pfäffingerin von Frauen-Chiemsee über den pfälzisch-bayerischen Erb-
folge-Krieg,’’ Oberbayerisches Archiv für vaterländische Geschichte  (): –; Rudolf Rainer,
‘‘Magdalena Auer,’’ in Die deutsche Literature des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon, ed. Kurt Ruh et al., : col.
 (Berlin: de Gruyter, ); Helgard Ulmschneider, ‘‘Ursula Pfäffinger,’’ Verfasserlexikon, :cols.
– (); and Charlotte Woodford, Nuns as Historians in Early Modern Germany (Oxford: Claren-
don, ), –.

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 Notes to Pages –

. See Gabrielle Spiegel, ‘‘History, Historicism, and the Social Logic of the Text in the Middle
Ages,’’ Speculum  (): ; idem, ‘‘Theory into Practice: Reading Medieval Chronicles,’’ in The
Medieval Chronicle: Proceedings of the st International Conference on the Medieval Chronicle, Driebergen/
Utrecht, July –, , ed. Erik Kooper, – (Amsterdam and Atlanta: Rodopi, ); Lynn Hunt,
ed., The New Cultural History (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, ); and
Anton Kaes, ‘‘New Historicism and the Study of German Literature,’’ The German Quarterly  ():
–.
. Rolf Sprandel, ‘‘Frauengeschichten in der Geschichtsschreibung des spätmittelalterlichen
Deutschland,’’ in Aufgaben, Rollen und Räume von Frau und Mann, ed. Jochen Martin and Renate
Zoepffel (Munich: Alber, ), :.

Chapter 
. ‘‘Chronik des Schwesternhauses Marienthal, genannt Niesinck in Münster,’’ in Berichte der
Augenzeugen über das Münstersche Wiedertäuferreich, ed. Carl Cornelius, Geschichtsquellen des Bisthums
Münster  (; repr. Münster: Aschendorff, ), lxxxiii.
. See Mary C. Erler and Maryanne Kowaleski, ‘‘Introduction: A New Economy of Power
Relations: Female Agency in the Middle Ages,’’ in Gendering the Master Narrative: Women and Power in
the Middle Ages, ed. Erler and Kowaleski (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, ), –.
. Erler and Kowaleski, ‘‘Introduction’’; and Susan Frye and Karen Robertson, eds., Maids and
Mistresses, Cousins and Queens: Women’s Alliances in Early Modern England (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, ).
. Sully Roecken and Carolina Brauckmann, Margaretha Jedefrau, vol.  (Freiburg: Kore,
), .
. Petra Rohde, ‘‘Die Freiburger Klöster zwischen Reformation und Auflösung,’’ in Geschichte
der Stadt Freiburg im Breisgau, ed. Heiko Haumann and Hans Schadek, vol.  (Stuttgart: Theiss,
), .
. Marilyn Oliva, The Convent and Community in Late Medieval England: Female Monasteries in the
Diocese of Norwich, – (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell, ), .
. Ibid., , ; Joan Ferrante, To the Glory of Her Sex: Women’s Roles in the Composition of
Medieval Texts (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, ), ; Penelope D. Johnson, Equal in Mo-
nastic Profession: Religious Women in Medieval France (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, ), .
. Roberta Gilchrist comments on the ‘‘stereotyping’’of women’s religious houses as ‘‘poor,
scandalous, passive institutions.’’ Even recent reassessments of the historical evidence for nunneries, she
asserts, ‘‘devalue female religious experience.’’ See Gender and Material Culture: The Archeology of Reli-
gious Women (London: Routledge, ), , . Marilyn Oliva has noted that histories of monasticism,
such as the first volume of David Knowles’s standard work ‘‘omitted any mention of nuns,’’ saying that
‘‘evidence for female monasteries was ‘non-existent’.’’ In fact, Oliva argues, a great deal of evidence
exists about female houses ‘‘in the very same documents’’ that Knowles and others used to study male
monasteries while they were dismissing women’s convents as ‘‘unimportant.’’ The problem, she argues,
has been relying too heavily on anecdotal evidence left by men which has resulted in a negative picture
of nuns that ‘‘trivializes their functions and diminished their significance.’’ See Oliva, Community,
–, .
. ‘‘Vahe ich an etwaz zu schreyben von den heiligen swestern, dy gewesen seyn zu Weyler,’’ in
‘‘Mystisches Leben in dem Dominikanerinnenkloster Weiler bei Esslingen im . und . Jahrhund-
ert,’’ ed. Karl Bihlmeyer, Würtembergische Vierteljahrshefte für Landesgeschichte, n.F.  (): .
. Jutta Giesela Sperling, Convents and the Body Politic in Late Renaissance Venice (Chicago: Univer-
sity of Chicago Press, ), .
. Shulamith Shahar, The Fourth Estate: A History of Women in the Middle Ages, trans. Chaya Galai
(London: Methuen, ), .
. [Magdalena Kremer,] ‘‘Wie diß loblich closter zu Sant Johannes Baptisten zu Kirchen under

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 Notes to Pages –

deck prediger-ordens reformiert ist worden und durch woelich personen,’’ in Geschichte des Herzogtums
Wuerttemberg unter der Regierung der Graven, ed. Christian Friedrich Sattler, d ed. (Tübingen: Reiss,
–), :.
. ‘‘Das Schwesternbuch von Sankt Agnes,’’ in Schwesternbuch und Statuten des St. Agnes–Konvents
in Emmerich, ed. with introduction by Anne Bollmann and Nikolaus Staubach, Emmericher For-
schungen  (Emmerich: Emmericher Geschichtsverein, ), –.
. In discussing the origins of earlier beguine communities, historians have stressed as a contribut-
ing factor many women’s rejection of marriage. This view is expressed by Daniela Müller, Claudia
Opitz, Peter Dinzelbacher, and Ute Weinmann. Their positions are summarized in Martina Spies,
Beginengemeinschaften in Frankfurt am Main: Zur Frage der genossenschaftlichen Selbstorganisation von Frauen
im Mittelalter (Dortmund: Ebersbach, ), –. On beguines’ rejection of marriage, see also Walter
Simons, Cities of Ladies: Beguine Communities of the Medieval Low Countries – (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, ), –. Feminist Rebekka Habermas sees the development of
beguine houses as a kind of emancipatory revolt against the limited roles assigned to women in medie-
val society, the formation of a ‘‘feminine alternative culture.’’ See ‘‘Die Beginen—eine ‘andere’ Kon-
zeption von Weiblichkeit?’’ in Die ungeschriebene Geschichte. Historische Frauenforschung, Dokumentation .
Historikerinnentreffen April , ed. Wiener Historikerinnen (Vienna: Wiener Frauenverlag, ), .
. ‘‘Schwesternbuch von Sankt Agnes,’’ ed. Bollmann and Staubach, . The book of sisters of
the Master Geert House in Deventer relates a similar account of Sister Gese Broeckelants, who likewise,
entered the women’s community when her parents promised her in marriage. ‘‘When this good sister
was still living with her parents and was not yet very old, she was promised in marriage to a man.
When she heard that, she was extremely depressed and wept a great deal. And since she knew of no
help from anyone, she turned to our dear Lord. And went therefore to the church, prostrated herself
before the holy sacrament, and asked our Lord to free her of this burden [and] she would serve Him
eternally. And as she lay there and offered herself to our dear Lord, she thought the words came to her,
she should go to Deventer and ask for a place in Master Geert’s House. And before she rose from the
spot where she had been praying, she promised God her chastity;’’ Hier beginnen sommige stichtige punten
van onsen oelden zusteren (naar het te Arnhem berustende Handschrift Uitgegeven, ed. Dirk de Man (The
Hague: Nijhoff, ), –, fols. v–r.
. [Katharina von Gueberschwihr,] ‘‘Les ‘Vitae sororum d’Unterlinden,’ Edition critique du ma-
nuscrit  de la Bibliothèque de Colmar,’’ ed. Jeanne Ancelet-Hustache, Archives d’histoire doctrinale et
littéraire du moyen age  (): –.
. See, for example [Bartolomea Riccoboni,] Life and Death in a Venetian Convent: The Chronicle
and Necrology of Corpus Domini, –, ed. and trans. Daniel Bornstein (Chicago: Chicago Univer-
sity Press, ), .
. Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval
Women (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, ), .
. Shahar, Fourth Estate, –.
. Sperling, Convents, ; Elke Disselbeck-Tewes, Frauen in der Kirche. Das Leben der Frauen in den
mittelalterlichen Zisterzienserklöstern Fürstenberg, Graefental and Scheldenhorst, Dissertationen zur mittelalter-
lichen Geschichte  (Cologne: Böhlau, ), , .
. [Elsbeth Stagel?] Das Leben der Schwestern zu Töß, beschrieben von Elsbet Stagel samt der Vorrede
von Johannes Meier und dem Leben der Prinzessin Elisabet von Ungarn, ed. Ferdinand Vetter, Deutsche
Texte des Mittelalters  (Berlin: Weidmann, ), , .
. [Anna von Munzingen,] ‘‘Dis sint die gnade, die vnser Herre hett getan semlichen swestern in
disem closter ze Adelnhusen,’’ in ‘‘Die Chronik der Anna von Munzingen. Nach der ältesten Abschrift
mit Einleitung und Beilagen,’’ ed. J. König, Freiburger Diözesan-Archiv  (): .
. Renée Weis-Müller, Die Reform des Klosters Klingental und ihr Personenkreis, Baseler Beiträge
zur Geschichtswissenschaft  (Basel and Stuttgart: Helbing and Lichtenhahn, ), .
. Shahar, Fourth Estate, .
. Lina Eckenstein, Women under Monasticism (; repr. New York: Russel and Russel,
), .

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 Notes to Pages –

. Bruce Venarde, Women’s Monasticism and Medieval Society: Nunneries in France and England,
– (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, ), .
. [Anna Roede,] ‘‘Anna Roedes spätere Chronik von Herzebrock,’’ ed. Franz Flaskamp, Jahr-
buch der Gesellschaft für Niedersächsische Kirchengeschichte  (), –.
. ‘‘Die Stiftung des Klosters Oetenbach und das Leben der seligen Schwestern daselbst, aus der
Nürnberger Handschrift,’’ ed. H. Zeller-Werdmüller and Jakob Bächthold, Zürcher Taschenbuch 
(), . These humorous anecdotes, so different in style from Johannes Meyer’s didactic ones,
differentiate the earlier text material from later additions.
. St. Gall, Stiftsbibliothek,  St. Katharina, Wil, ‘‘Klosterchronik,’’ Nr. , fol. r; and Thoma
Vogler, Geschichte des Dominikanerinnen–Klosters St. Katharina in St. Gallen – (Fribourg, Switzer-
land: Paulus, ), .
. Karl Grube, Johannes Busch Augustinerpropst zu Hildesheim: Ein katholischer Reformator des .
Jahrhunderts (Freiburg: Herder, ), ,  n. .
. Arcangela’s views on enforcement of the decrees of the Council of Trent appeared in her La
semplicità ingannata, published posthumously in . See Sperling, Convents, , .
. Eileen Power, Medieval English Nunneries, c. – (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, ), , .
. Cited in Joanne Baker, ‘‘Female Monasticism and Family Strategy: The Guises and Saint Pierre
de Reims,’’ Sixteenth Century Journal  (): –.
. Sperling, Convents, , xiv.
. Ibid., , , .
. St. Gall, Stiftsbibliothek,  St. Katharina, Wil, ‘‘Klosterchronik,’’ Nr. , fol. v; Vogler, St.
Katharina, .
. Maria Hüffer, Die Reformen der Abtei Rijnsburg im . Jahrhundert (Münster: Aschendorff,
), .
. Hüffer, Die Reformen, .
. Rudolf Schulze, Das adelige Frauen- (Kanonissen-) Stift der Hl. Maria (–) und die Pfarre
Liebfrauen-Überwasser zu Münster Westfalen (Münster: Aschendorff, ), .
. Eckenstein, Monasticism, ; Baker, ‘‘Family,’’ .
. Jo Ann Kay McNamara, Sisters in Arms: Catholic Nuns through Two Millennia (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, ), , ; Merry Wiesner-Hanks, ed. Convents Confront the
Reformation: Catholic and Protestant Nuns in Germany, trans. Joan Skocir and Merry Wiesner-Hanks
(Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, ), .
. Schulze, Kanonissen, .
. Ulrich Faust, ed., Die Frauenklöster in Niedersachsen, Schleswig-Holstein und Bremen, Germania
Benedictina : Norddeutschland (St. Ottilien: EOS-Verlag, ), .
. McNamara, Arms, .
. Hrosvitha of Gandersheim, Hrosvithae Opera, ed. Helene Homeyer (Paderborn: Schöningh,
), .
. Schulze, Kanonissen, .
. McNamara, Arms, .
. Schulze, Kanonissen, –.
. McNamara, Arms, .
. Katherine Gill, ‘‘ ‘Scandala’: Controversies Concerning Clausura and Women’s Religious
Communities in Late Medieval Italy,’’ in Christendom and its Discontents, ed. Scott Waugh and Peter
Diehl (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ), .
. Oliva, Convent, .
. Faust, Frauenklöster, .
. [Bertha of Vilich,] Mater spiritualis: The Life of Adelheid of Vilich, trans. Madelyn Dick (Toronto:
Peregrina, ), –.
. [Bertha of Vilich,] Mater spiritualis, –.

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 Notes to Pages –

. John B. Freed, ‘‘Urban Development and the ‘Cura Monialium’ in Thirteenth-Century Ger-
many,’’ Viator  (): .
. Chronik und Totenbuch des Klosters Wienhausen, ed. Horst Appuhn (Wienhausen: Kloster Wien-
hausen, ), fols. –. Regarding the date and historical layering of this chronicle, see Chapter ,
note .
. R. Krauß, ‘‘Geschichte des Dominikaner-Frauenklosters Kirchberg,’’ Württembergische Viertel-
jahreshefte n.F.  (): . Marilyn Oliva has established that for English cloisters in the diocese of
Norwich between  and  ‘‘the vast majority of nuns came not from the aristocracy, but rather
from medieval society’s middling social ranks. See Oliva, Convent, .
. Hermann Tüchle, ‘‘Süddeutsche Klöster vor  Jahren, ihre Stellung in Reich und Gesell-
schaft,’’ Blätter für deutsche Landesgeschichte  (): .
. Emil Erdin, Das Kloster der Reuerinnen Sancta Maria Magdalena an den Steinen zu Basel von den
Anfängen bis zur Reformation (etwa –) (Fribourg: Paulus, ), .
. Vogler, St. Katharina, ; Das St. Katharinentaler Schwesternbuch. Untersuchung, Edition, Kom-
mentar, ed. Ruth Meyer, Münchener Texte und Untersuchungen  (Tübingen: Niemeyer, ),
; [Bartolomea Riccoboni,] Life and Death in a Venetian Convent: The Chronicle and Necrology of Corpus
Domini, –, ed. and trans. Daniel Bornstein (Chicago: Chicago University Press, ), .
. Johannes Meyer, Ämterbuch, ed. Sarah DeMaris, Monumenta ordinis fratrum praedicatorum
historica (Rome: Institutum Historicum Fratrum Praedicatorum, in press.) I am grateful to Sarah De-
Maris for providing me an advance copy of her manuscript.
. Johannes Kist, Das Klarissenkloster in Nürnberg bis zum Beginn des . Jahrhunderts (Nuremberg:
Sebaldus, ), .
. ‘‘Anno dni MCCL an Sant Martins tag da ist dis Closter Pfullingen an gefangen worden,’’
in ‘‘Duae Relationes circa Monasterium Brixinense O. Clar.,’’ ed. Maximilianus Straganz, Archivum
Franciscanum Historicum  (): ; see also Johannes Gatz, ‘‘Pfullingen,’’ Alemania Franciscana Antiqua
 (): .
. Disselbeck-Tewes, Zisterzienserklöstern, –.
. Ibid., , –, ; Lydal Roper, The Holy Household: Women and Morals in Reformation
Augsburg (Oxford: Clarendon, ), .
. Disselbeck-Tewes, Zisterzienerklöstern, .
. Brigitte Degler-Spengler, Das Klarissenkloster Gnadental in Basel –, Quellen und For-
schungen zur Basler Geschichte  (Basel: Reinhardt, ), –.
. Cited in Ulrich P. Ecker, ‘‘Die Geschichte des Klosters S. Johannes-Baptista der Dominikaner-
innen zu Kirchheim unter Teck,’’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Freiburg, ), ; Marie-Claire Däni-
ker-Gysin, Geschichte des Dominikanerinnenklosters Töß –, Neujahrsblatt der Stadtbibliothek
Winterthur  (Winterthur: Ziegler, ), –.
. Vogler, St. Katharina, –. In  Elisabeth Muntprat brought with her to the cloister
interest on a deposit of  gulden held by the city of Überlingen. Her Father gave an additional 
gulden to endow anniversary prayers for his soul. Later Elisabeth also received an annuity of five gulden
from an uncle. Ibid., .
. Karl Suso Frank, Das Klarissenkloster Söflingen: Ein Beitrag zur franziskanischen Ordensgeschichte
Süddeutschlands und zur Ulmer Kirchengeschichte (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, ), ; Weis-Müller, Klingen-
tal, .
. Däniker-Gysin, Töß, .
. Johnson, Monastic, , .
. Oliva, Convent, .
. Gustav Voit, Engelthal—Geschichte eines Dominikanerinnenklosters, vol. , Schriftenreihe der Alt-
nürnberger Landschaft  (Nuremberg: Koru and Berg, ), ; Ecker, Kirchheim, –; Kist, Klaris-
senkloster, –.
. Kist, Klarissenkloster, .
. Ibid., –.

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 Notes to Pages –

. Rudolf Wackernagel, Geschichte der Stadt Basel, vol.  (Basel: Helbing and Lichtenhahn, ),
–.
. Erdin, Reuerinnen, , .
. Annette Barthelmé, La Réforme dominicaine au XVe siècle en Alsace et dans l’ensemble de la province
de Teutonie, Collection d’études sur l’histoire du droit et des institutions de l’Alsace  (Strasbourg: Heitz,
), –.
. Brigitte Hilberling,  Jahre Kloster Zoffingen, – (Constance: Merk, ), ; Däni-
ker-Gysin, Töß, ; Voit, Engelthal, :.
. Johannes Meyer, Das Buch der Reformacio Predigerordens, vol. , ed. Benedictus Maria Reichert,
Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte des Dominikanerordens in Deutschland  (Leipzig: Harras-
sowitz, ), .
. Canisia Jedelhauser, Geschichte des Klosters und der Hofmark Maria-Medingen von den Anfängen im
. Jahrhundert bis , Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte des Dominikanerordens in Deutsch-
land  (Leipzig: Harrassowitz, ), ; Lotte Kurras, ‘‘Ein Bildzeugnis der Reformtätigkeit des
Nürnberger Katharinenklosters für Regensburg,’’ Mitteilungen des historischen Vereins für die Geschichte der
Stadt Nürnberg  (), .
. Jedelhauser, Maria-Medingen, .
. Johannes Linneborn, ‘‘Die Reformation der westfälischen Benedictiner-Klöster im . Jahr-
hundert durch die Bursfelder Congregation,’’ Studien und Mitteilungen zur Geschichte des Benedictineror-
dens  (): –; Schulze, Stift, .
. Münster, Nordrhein-Westfälisches Staatsarchiv Münsterscher Studienfonds, Stift Überwasser,
Akten Nr. , fol. v; and Schulze, Stift, –, .
. Hilberling, Zoffingen, .
. Andreas Rüther, Bettelorden in Stadt und Land. Die Straßburger Mendikantenkonvente und das Elsaß
im Spätmittelalter, Berliner Historische Studien , Ordenstudien  (Berlin: Dunker and Humblot,
), . Disselbeck-Tewes sets the value of twenty-four schillings at one gulden in . See Zister-
zienserklöstern, . Roper cites the annual income of a stonemason at about twenty-one gulden in
. See Roper, Household, .
. St. Gall, Stiftsbibliothek,  St. Katharina, Wil, ‘‘Klosterchronik,’’ Nr. , fols. v, r. See
also Vogler, St. Katharina, .
. ‘‘Sorores karissime . . .’’ [Ebstorf reform account, c. ,] in ‘‘Litterarisches und geistiges
Leben in Kloster Ebstorf am Ausgange des Mittelalters,’’ ed. Conrad Borchling, Zeitschrift des historischen
Vereins für Niedersachsen  (): .
. Ida-Christine Riggert, Die Lüneburger Frauenklöster, Quellen und Untersuchungen zur Gesch-
ichte Niedersachsens im Mittelalter  (Hanover: Hahn, ), , , .
. Dieter Brosius, ‘‘Die Lüneburger Klöster und ihr Verhältnis zum Landesherrn,’’ in Das Bened-
iktinerinnenkloster Ebstorf im Mittelalter: Vorträge einer Tagung im Kloster Ebstorf vom . bis . Mai ,
ed. Klaus Jaitner and Ingo Schwag (Hildesheim: LAX, ), –; Riggert, Lüneburger, .
. Voit, Engelthal, :.
. Anne Roede, Spätere Chronik, –.
. Since the manuscript was unavailable due to its restoration and digitalization for on-line acces-
sibility, references are to Gustav von Buchwald, ‘‘Anne von Buchwald, Priorin des Klosters Preetz
–,’’ Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Schleswig-Holsteinische Geschichte  (): –.
. von Buchwald, ‘‘Anne von Buchwald,’’ .
. Helmar Härtl, ‘‘Die Bibliothek des Klosters Ebstorf am Ausgang des Mittelalters,’’ in ‘In Treue
und Hingabe’:  Jahre Kloster Ebstorf, ed Marianne Elster and Horst Hoffmann, Schriften zur Uelzener
Heimatkunde  (Uelzen: Becker, ), .
. Buchwald, ‘‘Preetz,’’ –.
. Weis-Müller, Klingental, .
. Buchwald, ‘‘Preetz,’’ .
. Faust, Frauenklöster, .

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 Notes to Pages –

. Erdin, Reuerinnen, .

. Weis-Müller, Klingental, –.
. Linneborn, ‘‘Bursfelder,’’  (): . Johannes Meyer’s ‘‘Ämterbuch’’ includes a list of
plants recommended for the cloister garden. See J. König, ‘‘Die Chronik der Anna von Munzingen.
Nach der ältesten Abschrift mit Einleitung und Beilagen,’’ Freiburger Diözesan-Archiv  (): ,
Beilage  (appendix ).
. ‘‘Innumerabiles grates . . .’’ [Chronicle of Ebstorf, ], in ‘‘Litterarisches und geistiges Leben
in Kloster Ebstorf am Ausgange des Mittelalters,’’ ed. Conrad Borchling, Zeitschrift des historischen Vereins
für Niedersachsen  (): .
. Elfriede Kelm, ‘‘Das Buch im Chore der Preetzer Klosterkirche. Nach dem Original darge-
stellt,’’ Schriften des Vereins für Schleswig-Holsteinische Kirchengeschichte, / (/): .
. Kelm, ‘‘Das Buch im Chore,’’ ; Buchwald, ‘‘Preetz,’’ .
. Kist, Klarissenkloster, . The reform regulations governing the Clarissen sisters at Pfullingen
state that letters sent outside the cloister were to be read by the prioriess, Gatz, ‘‘Pfullingen,’’ .
. Letter from maria von Wolkenstein to Leo von Wolkenstein, December , in Appendix
to Hermann Hallauer, ‘‘Nikolaus von Kues und das Brixener Klarissenkloster,’’ Mitteilungen und For-
schungsbeiträge der Cusanus-Gesellschaft  (): .
. Max Miller, Die Söflinger Briefe und das Klarissenkloster Söflingen bei Ulm im Spätmittelalter (Würz-
burg: Triltsch, ), , ; Frank, Söflingen, .
. Letter from Genovera Vetter to Johannes Spieß, August , in Appendix to Miller,
Briefe, .
. Frank, Söflingen, .
. Miller, Briefe, .
. Frank, Söflingen, –.
. Ursula Peters, Religiöse Erfahrung als literarisches Faktum: Zur Vorgeschichte und Genese frauenmys-
tischer Texte des . und . Jahrhuderts (Tübingen: Niemeyer, ), .
. [Elsbeth Stagel?] Töß, ed. Vetter, .
. ‘‘Sorores karissime . . . ,’’ ed. Borchling, .
. Schwesternbuch von Sankt Agnes, ed. Bollmann and Staubach, .
. Vogler, St. Katharina, . Volger’s reference to folio r of the St. Gall, Stiftsbibliothek,  St.
Katharina, Wil, ‘‘Schwesternbuch,’’ Nr. , is incorrect. I have been unable to locate the correct folio.
. Härtel, ‘‘Ebstorf,’’ –.
. Disselbeck-Tewes, Frauen, .
. Riggert, Lüneburger, , .
. Voit, Engelthal, :.
. St. Gall, Stiftsbibliothek,  St. Katharina, Wil, ‘‘Schwesternbuch,’’ Nr. , fol. ; Vogler,
St. Katharnia, .
. Weis-Müller, Klingental, .
. Erdin, Reuerinnen, –.
. ‘‘Die Stiftung des Klosters Oetenbach,’’ ed. Zeller-Werdmüller and Bächthold, –. The
Oetenbach sister-book is one of the three that Johannes Meyer edited. For a summary of his cuts and
additions, see Das St. Katharinentaler Schwesternbuch. Untersuchung, Edition, Kommentar, ed. Ruth Meyer,
Münchener Texte und Untersuchungen zur deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters  (Tübingen: Nie-
meyer, ), –.
. [Anna von Munzingen,] ‘‘Dis sint die gnade . . . , ed. König, .
. Buchwald, ‘‘Preetz,’’ . Reporting on one of her frequent trips to Lübeck to purchase stores,
Anna writes in , ‘‘[When] I was in Lübeck, I bought  pounds of almonds at . schillings a
pound totaling . marks, which I got for you again from the previous year because almonds were so
expensive; idem. .
. Kelm, ‘‘Buch,’’ .
. Buchwald, ‘‘Preetz,’’ .

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 Notes to Pages –

. St. Gall, Stiftsbibliothek,  St. Katharina, Wil, ‘‘Klosterchronik,’’ Nr. , fol. r. I have not
been able to find the letter from Haller that Volger cites. See Vogler, St. Katharina, , , note .
Gudrun Gleba reports organs being repaired or purchased new at Herzebrock, Gertrudenberg, St.
Ägidien, and Malgarten. See Reformpraxis und materielle Kultur: Westfälische Frauenklöster im Mittelalter
(Husum: Matthiesen, ), .
. Roede, Spätere Chronik, .
. Edeltraud Klueting, Das Bistum Osnabrück : Das Kanonissenstift und Benediktinerinnenkloster
Herzebrock, Germania Sacra n.F.  (Berlin: de Gruyter, ), ; Roede, ‘‘Spätere Chronik,’’ .
. Friedrich Techen, ed., Die Chroniken des Klosters Ribnitz, Mecklenburgische Geschichtsquellen
 (Schwerin: Bärensprungsche Hofdruckerei, ), .
. Eckenstein, Monasticism, . Many of these artistic activities have been brought to light re-
cently in Jeffrey Hamburger’s seminal studies, Nuns as Artists and The Visual and the Visionary.
. Jeffrey Hamburger, Nuns as Artists: The Visual Culture of a Medieval Convent, California Studies
in the History of Art  (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, ), –;
Victoria Joan Moessner, ‘‘The Medieval Embroideries of Convent Wienhausen,’’ in Studies in Cistercian
Art and Architecture, ed. Meredith Lillich (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, ), :;
Marie Schuette, Deutsche Wandteppiche (Leipzig: Bibliographisches Institut, ), –. A tapestry
from the last quarter of the fifteenth century showing two Dominican nuns weaving a tapestry is
reproduced in Winfried Wilhelmy, Drache, Greif und Liebesleut’: Mainzer Bildteppiche aus spätgotischer
Zeit. Ausstellungskatalog, Schriften des Bischöflichen Dom- und Diözesanmuseums Mainz (Mainz: Phil-
ipp von Zabern, ), .
. ‘‘Sorores karissime . . . ,’’ ed. Borchling, .
. Buchwald, ‘‘Preetz,’’ ; Jeffrey Hamburger, The Visual and the Visionary: Art and Female Spiri-
tuality in Late Medieval Germany (New York: Zone Books, ), –.
. [Juliana Ernst,] Die Chronik des Bickenklosters zu Villingen, ed. Karl Jordan Glatz, Bibliothek des
Litterarischen Vereins in Stuttgart  (Tübingen: Fues, ), . Juliana cites from an old manuscript
found in the infirmary, which she identifies as written by former prioress Haider.
. [Juliana Ernst,] Die Chronik, .
. ‘‘Sorores karissime . . . ,’’ ed. Borchling, –.
. Weis-Müller, Klingental, –.
. Frank, Söflingen, .
. Grube, Busch, .
. Jutta Prieur, Das Kölner Dominikanerinnenkloster St. Gertrud am Neumarkt, Kölner Schriften zu
Geschichte und Kultur (Cologne: dme-Verlag, ), ; Erdin, Reuerinnen, ; Linneborn, ‘‘Burs-
felder,’’ .
. Schwesternbuch von Sankt Agnes, ed. Bollmann and Staubach, ,  n. ,  n. .
. Ibid., .
. ‘‘Chronik des Schwesternhauses,’’ ed. Cornelius, .
. Degler-Spengler, Gnadental, .
. Huffer, Rijnsburg, .
. Jo Ann McNamara, ‘‘The Need to Give: Suffering and Female Sanctity in the Middle Ages,’’
in Images of Sainthood in Medieval Europe, ed. Timea Szell (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, ), .
. [Bertha of Vilich,] Adelheid, trans. Madelyn Dick, –.
. McNamara, ‘‘Suffering,’’ .
. HieronymusWilms, Das Beten der Mystikerinnen dargestellt nach den Chroniken der Dominikanerin-
nenklöster zu Adelhausen, Dießenhofen, Engeltal, Kirchberg, Oetenbach, Töß und Unterlinden, Quellen und
Forschungen zur Geschichte des Dominikanerordens in Deutschland  (Leipzig: Harrassowitz,
), .
. Marie-Luise Ehrenschwendtner, ‘‘ ‘Puellae litteratae’: The Use of the Vernacular in the Dom-
inican Convents of Southern Germany,’’ in Medieval Women in their Communities, ed. Diane Watt
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, ), .

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 Notes to Pages –

. A nineteenth-century abridged edition and continuation by Georg Geissenhof of the old
chronicle begun by Elisabeth Mundprat and Apollonia Besserer was published by Theodor Dreher. See
‘‘Die Geissenhof ’sche Chronik des Klosters Inzigkofen,’’ ed. Theodor Dreher, Freiburger Katholisches
Kirchenblatt  (): col. . See also Werner Fechter, Deutsche Handschriften des . und . Jahrhund-
erts aus der Bibliothek des ehemaligen Augustinerchorfrauenstifts Inzigkofen (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke,
), .
. Augsburg, Staatsarchiv,  Kloster Maria Maihingen MüB , fol. r. See also Nyberg, Tore,
Dokumente und Untersuchungen zur inneren Geschichte der drei Brigittenklöster Bayerns –, Quellen
und Erörterungen zur bayerischen Geschichte, n.F. , vol.  (Munich: Beck, ), . Although
the scribe has not been identified, materials for the Housebook were assembled by Prioress Walburga
Scheffler and a successor who identifies herself only as ‘‘Prioress Anna.’’
. Buchwald, ‘‘Preetz,’’ , –.
. [Katharina von Gueberschwihr,] ‘‘Vita,’’ .
. Hamburger, Artists, –; Francis Rapp, ‘‘Zur Spiritualität in elsässischen Frauenklöstern am
Ende des Mittelalters,’’ in Frauemystik im Mittelalter, ed. Peter Dinzelbacher and Dieter R. Bauer (Ost-
fildern: Schwabenverlag, ), –; Gertrud Jaron Lewis, By Women, for Women, about Women:
The Sister-Books of Fourteenth-Century Germany (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, ),
–; [Elsbeth Stagel?] Töß, ; Thomas Lentes, ‘‘Die Gewänder der Heiligen. Ein Diskussionsbei-
trag zum Verhältnis von Gebet, Bild und Imagination,’’ in Hagiographie und Kunst der Heiligenkult in
Schrift, Bild und Architektur, ed. G. Kerscher (Berlin: D. Reimer, ), ; Engène Honeé, ‘‘Image
and Imagination in the Medieval Culture of Prayer: A Historical Perspective,’’ in The Art of Devotion in
the Late Middle Ages in Europe, –, ed. Henk van Os (Princeton: Princeton Unversity Press,
), .
. Ellen Ross, The Grief of God: Images of the Suffering Jesus in Medieval England (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, ), .
. [Elsbeth Stagel?] Töß, .
. Bynum, Feast,  n. ; idem, Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages
(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, ), . The ‘‘Tagebuch der Angela von
Holfels,’’ diary of Sister Angela Holfels (–) at the Augustinian convent of St. Agnes in Trier
contains a sort of personal account book of prayers said; Hamburg, Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek
 Theol.  .
. Ross, Grief, , McNamara, ‘‘Suffering,’’ , idem, Arms, . For women like Clare of
Assisi who were ‘‘not intended’’ to preach, Degler-Spengler asserts, St. Francis had prescribed a mission
of prayer and strict fasting. See Gnadental, . Similarly, Patricia Ranft asserts, St. Dominic established
a contemplative base at Prouille for women to be ‘‘partners in the apostolate’’ by supporting the work
of the order through prayer,’’ Women and the Religious Life in Premodern Europe (New York: St. Martin’s
Press, ), –.
. Bynum, Feast, , .
. Barbara Newman, From Virile Woman to Woman Christ: Studies in Medieval Religion and Literature
(Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, ), .
. [Katharina von Gueberschwihr,] ‘‘Vita,’’ .
. Michael Goodich, ‘‘The Contours of Female Piety in Later Medieval Hagiography,’’ Church
History  (): –.
. Ross, Grief, .
. Hier beginnen sommige stichtige punten van onsen oelden zusteren, ed. Dirk de Man (The Hague:
M. Nijhoff, ), –. See also John Van Engen, Devotio Moderna: Basic Writings (New York:
Mahwah: Paulist Press, ), .
. Hiltrud Gnüg and Renate Möhrmann, eds. Frauen Literatur Geschichte: Schreibende Frauen vom
Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart (Stuttgart: Metzler, ), xi. See also Margaret Bäurle and Luzia Braun,
‘‘Klöster und Höfe—Räume literarischer Selbstentfaltung,’’ in idem, .

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 Notes to Pages –

Chapter 

. Herbert Grundmann, Religious Movements in the Middle Ages: The Historical Links between Heresy,
the Mendicant Orders, and the Women’s Religious Movement in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Century, with the
Historical Foundations of German Mysticism, ed. and trans. Stephen Rowen (Notre Dame: University of
Notre Dame Press, ).
. Even the question how to translate the term ‘‘religiöse Frauenbewegung’’ is controversial:
should it be ‘‘religious women’s movement’’ or ‘‘women’s religious movement?’’ The latter is how
Rowen’s recent translation renders it most of the time. Questioning whether such a movement may
not actually have existed much earlier in the Middle Ages, Jo Ann McNamara argues that women’s
religious communities have always tended to be invisible to the historical record, at least ‘‘until a male
preacher, cleric or monastic community adopted them into the world of account-books and charters,’’
Sisters in Arms: Catholic Nuns through Two Millennia (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, ),
, . Brigitte Degler-Spengler, on the other hand, objects to Grundmann’s terminology. She
doubts that one should speak of a ‘‘religious women’s movement’’ at all. Instead, she suggests the
terms ‘‘religious lay persons’ movement,’’ ‘‘feminine religious movement,’’ or, less simply, ‘‘religious
movement among women.’’ See ‘‘Die religiöse Frauenbewegung des Mittelalters: Conversen-Non-
nen-Beginen,’’ Rottenburger Jahrbuch für Kirchengeschichte  (), . Ute Weinmann has proposed the
designation ‘‘social-religious movement,’’ a label Ulrike Denne identifies as preferred by medievalists
in the former East Germany. Cited in Ulrike Denne Die Frauenklöster im spätmittelalterlichen Freiburg im
Breisgau (Freiburg: Alber, ), . Peter Dinzelbacher rejects Grundmann’s term on the grounds that
it does not correspond to any ‘‘medieval expression.’’ See his ‘‘Rollenverweigerung, religiöser Auf-
bruch und mystisches Erleben mittelalterlicher Frauen,’’ in Mittelalterliche Frauenmystik, ed. Peter Din-
zelbacher (Paderborn: Schöningh, ), . The most systematic objections, however, have been
lodged by Martina Wehrli-Johns, who challenges Grundmann’s view of the importance of the apostolic
poverty movement. She argues that his excessive fascination with the concept of voluntary poverty
caused him to overlook the more important development of the twelfth-century ‘‘penitential move-
ment.’’ See Martina Wehrli-Johns, ‘‘Voraussetzungen und Perspektiven mittelalterlicher Laienfrömmig-
keit seit Innozenz III. Eine Auseinandersetzung mit Herbert Grundmanns ‘Religiösen Bewegungen,’ ’’
Mitteilungen des Instituts für österreichische Geschichtsforschung  (): –, , .
. Grundmann, Religious Movements, .
. Ibid., –, –; Brigitte Degler-Spengler, ‘‘ ‘Zahlreich wie die Sterne des Himmels’: Zister-
zienser, Dominikaner und Franziskaner vor dem Problem der Inkorporation von Frauenklöstern,’’
Rottenburger Jahrbuch für Kirchengeschichte  (): ; Penelope D. Johnson, Equal in Monastic Profession:
Religious Women in Medieval France (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, ), . Even earlier than
Robert and Norbert, who received official permission to preach in  and , Bruce Venarde
points to wandering preachers already afoot at mid-century. See Women’s Monasticism and Medieval
Society: Nunneries in France and England, – (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, ), .
. Brigitte Degler-Spengler, ‘‘Die religiöse Frauenbewegung des Mittelalters: Conversen-Non-
nen-Beginen,’’ Rottenburger Jahrbuch för Kirchengeschichte  (): , . The Order of Canons Regular
of Prémontré was founded by Norbert of Xanten in . It constituted a middle step between the
contemplative life of the earlier orders and the active life of the friars of the thirteenth century.
. Venarde, Nunneries, xii, , , –. On the ‘‘Frauenfrage,’’ see also Walter Simons, Cities
of Ladies: Beguine Communities of the Medieval Low Countries – (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, ), x–xi, ; Ernest McDonnell, The Beguines and Beghards in Medieval Culture
with Special Emphasis on the Belgian Scene (; repr. New York: Octagon, ), –; Karl Bücher
Die Frauenfrage im Mittelalter, d ed. (Tübingen: Laupp, ).
. Degler-Spengler, ‘‘zahlreich,’’ .
. Ibid., ; Annemarie Halter, Geschichte des Dominikanerinnen-Klosters Oetenbach in Zürich –
 (Winterthur: Keller, ), , Grundmann, Movements, .

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 Notes to Pages –

. Grundmann, Movements, .

. Amalie Fößel and Anette Hettinger, Klosterfrauen, Beginen, Ketzerinnen. Religiöse Lebensformen
von Frauen im Mittelalter (Idstein: Schulz-Kirchner, ), . According to McDonnell, neither Co-
logne nor Strasbourg ever possessed more than two men’s beghard houses, Beguines and Beghards, .
. Despite the Cistercians’ moratorium, women’s houses had increased from  to  between
 and . Degler-Spengler, ‘‘zahlreich,’’ –; Gustav Voit, Engelthal—Geschichte eines Domini-
kanerinnenklosters, . vols., Schriftenreihe der Altnürnberger Landschaft  (Nuremberg: Koru and Berg,
): :.
. The Dominicans, the Franciscans, as well as the Cistercians attempted to stem the flow by
requiring that nuns be strictly cloistered and stipulating that only houses having endowments sufficient
to make them completely self-supporting would be accepted. Degler-Spengler, ‘‘zahlreich,’’ , ;
Voit, Engelthal, :; Grundmann, Movements, ; Halter, Oetenbach, .
. Besides acquiescing to special requests by influential friends and relations among the higher
nobility, the popes themselves wanted to regulate unincorporated and unstructured women’s commu-
nities to guard against uncontrolled diversity and keep women from falling into heresy. Degler-Speng-
ler, ‘‘zahlreich,’’ , , .
. Grundmann, Movements, . Hadewijch’s dates have been contested, see Wybren Scheepsma,
‘‘Hadewijch und die ‘Limburgse Sermoenen’. Überlegungen zu Datierung, Identität und Autentizität,’’
in Deutsche Mystik im abendländischen Zusammenhang: Neuerschlossene Texte, neue methodische Ansätze, neue
theoretische Konzepte, ed. Walter Haug and Wolfram Schneider-Lastin, – (Tübingen: Niemeyer,
).
. [Magdalena Kremer] ‘‘Wie diß loblich closter zu Sant Johannes baptisten zu kirchen under
deck prediger-ordens reformiert ist worden und durch woelich personen,’’ in Geschichte des Herzogtums
Wuerttemberg unter der Regierung der Graven, d ed., ed. Christian Friedrich Sattler (Tübingen: Reiss,
–), :.
. Dinzelbacher, ‘‘Rollenverweigerung,’’ –.
. The sister-books of Töss, Katharinental, Adelhausen, Engelthal, and probably Oetenbach con-
tain foundation histories that were incorporated into these works in the fourteenth century. To the
Töss sister-book, a prologue that had existed separately as a latin text, ‘‘De monasterio sororum in
Thosse’’ was translated and added in the fourteenth century, as was that attached to the vitae in the
Katharinental sister-book. Engelthal contains an account of the cloister’s founding that was part of the
work’s original conception. Here Christina Ebner seems to have combined historical information from
the cloister’s book of properties and rents () with a legendary tale about a harpist who left the
retinue of Elisabeth of Hungary to take up a religious life. In this work the foundation story forms part
of the first vita. A foundation narrative was added to the Unterlinden sister-book by Prioress Elisabeth
Kempf in the fifteenth century, and one to the Kirchberg book in , probably by the Dominican
Pius Kessler. The Weiler and Gotteszell works do not contain foundation accounts. See. Susanne
Bürkle, Literatur im Kloster: Historische Funktion und rhetorische Legitimation frauenmystischer Texte des .
Jahrhunderts (Tübingen and Basel: Francke, ), –, esp. –; Das St. Katharinentaler Schwest-
ernbuch. Untersuchung, Edition, Kommentar, ed. Ruth Meyer, Münchner Texte und Untersuchungen 
(Tübingen: Niemeyer, ), –, ; and the entries in Kurt Ruh et al., Die deutsche Literatur des
Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon,  vols. (Berlin: de Gruyter, – ); Voit, Engelthal, :–. For a listing
and a comprehensive overview, see Gertrud Jaron Lewis, By Women, for Women, about Women: The
Sister-Books of Fourteenth-Century Germany (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, ).
. ‘‘Die Stiftung des Klosters Oetenbach und das Leben der seligen Schwestern daselbst, aus der
Nürnberger Handschrift,’’ ed. H. Zeller-Werdmüller and Jakob Bächthold, Zürcher Taschenbuch 
(): –.
. Ibid., –.
. ‘‘Stiftung,’’ ed. Zeller-Werdmüller and Bächthold, –.
. On the dating of this foundation account to the fourteenth century see Bürkle, Literatur im
Kloster,  note , and Das St. Katharinentaler, ed. Meyer, –.

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 Notes to Pages –

. St. Katharinentaler, ed. Meyer, –.

. Ulrich Ecker points out that a major donor was later often designated as a ‘‘founder,’’ and
earned the title retroactively by the gift of goods and privileges, regardless of when the endowment
was actually made. See Ulrich P. Ecker, ‘‘Die Geschichte des Klosters S. Johannes-Baptista der Domini-
kanerinnen zu Kirchheim unter Teck’’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Freiburg, ), , note .
. Voit, Engelthal, :. An even older German cloister chronicle and account book, composed
by Engelthal prioress Elsbet Schenkin von Klingenburg, dates from . See Suzanne Bürkle, Litera-
ture, .
. [Christine Ebner,] Der Nonne von Engelthal: Büchlein von der Gnaden Überlast, Karl Schröder,
ed., Bibliothek des Litterarischen Vereins in Stuttgart  (Tübingen: Litterarischer Verein, ), –.
Christine includes a moving account of the beguines’ charismatic spirituality as they are learning to
sing the Hours before their induction as Dominicans. She relates:

In the first Advent when they sang the Hours, their first singing mistress was named Hailrat.
She was wondrously beautiful and sang exceptionally well and learned quickly and was very
devoted to Our Lord. This showed in her life and all her works. Now, when they came to
the fourth Sunday in Advent, they were singing matins, and when they came to the fifth
response ‘‘Virgo Israel,’’ and the verse, ‘‘In caritate perpetua,’’ she sang in German and sang
so incredibly beautifully that one would have thought it was the voice of an angel. The
verse reads in German: ‘‘I have loved you with an eternal love and have drawn you to me
in my mercy.’’ This verse our Lord spoke as a prophecy to the human race. The convent
was so filled with devotion that they all fell to the floor in a swoon and lay there until they
came back to themselves. Then they sang matins to the end with even greater devotion
(–).

. [Katharina von Gueberschwihr,] ‘‘Les ‘Vitae sororum d’Unterlinden.’ Edition critique du ma-
nuscrit  de la Bibliothèque de Colmar,’’ ed. Jeanne Ancelet-Hustache, Archives d’histoire doctrinale et
littéraire du moyen age  (): –; idem, Lebensbeschreibung der ersten Schwestern des Klosters der
Dominikanerinnen zu Unterlinden von deren Priorin Catharina von Gebsweiler, trans. Elisabeth Kempf,
[–], ed. Ludwig Clarus (Regensburg: Mainz, ); and Karl-Ernst Greith, ‘‘Elisabeth Kempfs
Übersetzung und Fortsetzung der ‘Vitae sororum’ der Katharina von Gueberschwihr,’’ Annuaire de la
Société d’Histoire et d’Archéologie de Colmar  (): –.
. [Katharina von Gueberschwihr,] Lebensbeschreibung, trans. Kempf, ed. Clarus, –.
. Simons, Cities, , . Similarly, Fößel and Hettinger, comment on the phenomenon of
women helping beguine women, Klosterfrauen, .
. St. Katharinental, ed. Meyer, .
. ‘‘Anno dni MCCL an Sant Martins tag da ist dis Closter Pfullingen an gefangen worden,’’
in ‘‘Duae Relationes circa Monasterium Brixinense O. Clar.,’’ ed. Maximilianus Straganz, Archivum
Franciscanum Historicum  (): ; and Johannes Gatz, ‘‘Pfullingen,’’ Alemania Franciscana Antiqua 
(): .
. ‘‘Anno dni MCCL . . . ,’’ ed. Straganz, .
. Müller, ‘‘Frauenklöster,’’ ; Gerhard Rehm, Die Schwestern vom gemeinsamen Leben im nordwes-
tlichen Deutschland. Untersuchungen der Devotio moderna und des weiblichen Religiösentums, Berliner Histori-
sche Studien , Ordensstudien  (Berlin: Dunker und Humblot, ), . Franz Felten points out
that the distinction between canonesses and nuns is easier to make in theory than in practice where
one encounters numerous transitional forms. See ‘‘Frauenklöster und -stifte im Rheinland im .
Jahrhundert. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Frauen in der religiösen Bewegung des hohen Mittelalt-
ers,’’ in Reformidee und Reformpolitik im spätsalisch-frühstaufischen Reich, ed. Stefan Weinfurter, Quellen
und Abhandlungen zur Mittelrheinischen Kirchengeschichte  (Mainz: Seibert, ), .
. [Hrosvit of Gandersheim,] ‘‘Primordia coenobii Gandeshemensis,’’ in Hrosvithae Opera, ed.
Helene Homeyer (Paderborn: Schöningh, ), –; and [Bertha of Vilich,] ‘‘Vita Adelheidis

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 Notes to Pages –

Abbatissae Vilicensis,’’ ed. Oswald Holger-Egger, in Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptorum, ed.
Pertz, Holger-Egger et al., vol. , part , pp. –.
. Cited from [Bertha of Vilich,] Mater spiritualis: The Life of Adelheid of Vilich, trans. Madelyn
Bergen (Toronto: Peregrina Press, ), –.
. Gertrud Jaron Lewis, By Women, for Women, about Women: The Sister-Books of Fourteenth-
Century Germany (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, ), –; J. König, ed., ‘‘Die
Chronik der Anna von Munzingen. Nach der ältesten Abschrift mit Einleitung und Beilagen,’’ Freib-
urger Diözesan-Archiv  (): –. This is disputed, however, by Bürkle, Kloster, –. See also
Gérard de Frachet, Lives of the Brethren of the Order of Preachers –, trans. Placid Conway (London:
Burns, Oates, and Washbourne, ), v.
. Lewis, Sister-Books, –.
. Cited in ibid., .
. Walter Blank, ‘‘Die Nonnenviten des . Jahrhunderts. Eine Studie zur hagiographischen
Literatur des Mittelalters unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Visionen und ihrer Lichtphänomene’’
(Ph.D. diss., University of Freiburg, ), ; and Otto Langer, Mystische Erfahrung und spirituelle
Theologie. Zu Meister Eckharts Untersuchungen mit der Frauenfrömmigkeit seiner Zeit, Münchener Texte und
Untersuchungen zur deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters  (Munich and Zürich: Artemis, ), .
. [Stagel?,] Töß, ed. Vetter, . Klaus Grubmüller’s analysis of the layering in the construction
of the Töss sister-book places the vita of Elisabeth Bechlin at the third (of six) stages in the development
of the text. This vita and a prologue were added by another sister, possibly from material by Elsbeth
Stagel, before later accretions and Johannes Meyer’s editing. See Klaus Grübmuller, ‘‘Die Viten der
Schwestern von Töss und Elsbeth Stagel: Überlieferung und literarische Einheit,’’ Zeitschrift für deutsche
Philologie  (): –.
. Veronika Gerz-von Büren, Geschichte des Clarissenklosters St. Clara in Kleinbasel –,
Quellen und Forschungen zur Basler Geschichte  (Basel: Reinhardt, ), . Benedictine cloisters
housed on the average only five, ten, or at most twenty monks. Perhaps the saddest example was the
once great abbey of St. Gall, which in  had only two conventuals left: One had elected the other
abbot and the second held all the remaining cloister offices and their incomes. As the ‘‘abbot’’ was
neither educated nor a priest, the monastic offices had to be performed by Benedictines from other
cloisters, or by mendicants, or sometimes even by pensioners who were clothed in monk’s habits.
See also Gerhard Spahr, ‘‘Die Reform im Kloster St. Gallen –.’’ Schriften des Vereins für
Geschichte des Bodensees und seiner Umgebung  (): –, . Spahr asserts that St. Gall’s revenues,
which in  had amounted to  marks silver, had shrunk to only  marks in . Monasteries
like St. Gall, which accepted only nobles, could not attract sufficient numbers. Many members lived
separately in their own houses or castles, spent their time hunting or fighting, were illiterate, and
brought their ‘‘Hausfrauen’’ with them to church.
. Franz Haffner, Die kirchlichen Reformbemühungen des Speyrer Bischofs Matthias von Rammung in
vortridentinischer Zeit (–) (Speyer: Pilger, ), –. Johannes Helmrath points out that in
the diocese of Geneva in the fifteenth century, twenty-nine percent of the priests had concubines, see
‘‘Reform als Thema der Konzilien des Spätmittelalters,’’ in Christian Unity: The Council of Ferrara-
Florenz /–, ed. Giuseppe Alberigo (Louvain: Louvain University Press, ), . Adalbert
Mischlewski comments that in Memmingen the general preceptor of the order of St. Anthony, Peter
Mitte de Caprariis, paid  gulden for his daughter’s wedding in  out of funds belonging to the
monastery; see ‘‘Spätmittelalterliche Reformbemühungen im Antoniterorden,’’ in Reformbemühungen
und Observanzbestrebungen im spätmittelalterlichen Ordenswesen, ed. Kaspar Elm, Berliner Historische Stu-
dien , Ordensstudien  (Berlin: Dunker and Humblot, ), .
. Jutta Prieur, Das Kölner Dominikanerinnenkloster St. Gertrud am Neumarkt, Kölner Schriften zu
Geschichte und Kultur (Cologne: dme-Verlag, ). .
. Letter from the Clarissan sisters to the Nuremberg city council [c. ], in appendix to
Johannes Kist, ed., Das Klarissenkloster in Nürnberg bis zum Beginn des . Jahrhunderts (Nuremberg:
Sebaldus, ), –, at .

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 Notes to Pages –

. Francis Rapp, ‘‘Zur Spiritualität in elsässischen Frauenklöstern am Ende des Mittelalters,’’ in
Frauenmystik im Mittelalter, ed. Peter Dinzelbacher and Dieter R. Bauer (Ostfildern: Schwaben Verlag,
), .
. Annemarie Halter, Geschichte des Dominikanerinnen-Klosters Oetenbach in Zürich –
(Winterthur: Keller, ), –.
. Karl Suso Frank, Das Klarissenkloster Söflingen: Ein Beitrag zur franziskanischen Ordensgeschichte
Süddeutschlands und zur Ulmer Kirchengeschichte (Ulm: Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, ), –.
. Ulrich Ecker, ‘‘Die Geschichte des Klosters S. Johannes-Baptista der Dominikanerinnen zu
Kirchheim unter Teck’’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Freiburg, ), . Yet noble visitors, especially a
cloister’s patrons, are frequently mentioned being entertained at women’s convents including Adel-
hausen in Freiburg and Klingental in Basel. Not only patrons but also family members dined with the
sisters in a large external refectory at Klingental during parish fairs. At the Dominican house of Töss
women left the cloister to take the waters at a spa; records in Bern from  report nuns traveling
about the city at night. See Sully Roecken and Carolina Brauckmann, Margareta Jedefrau, vol.  (Frei-
burg: Kore, ), ; Renée Weis-Müller, Die Reform des Klosters Klingental und ihr Personenkreis,
Baseler Beiträge zur Geschichtswissenschaft  (Basel and Stuttgart: Helbing and Lichtenhahn, ),
; Marie-Claire Däniker-Gysin, Geschichte des Dominikanerinnenklosters Töß –, Neujahrsblatt
der Statbibliothek Winterthur  (Winterthur: Ziegler, ), .
. Weis-Müller, Klingental, –.
. Arnold Schromm, Die Bibliothek des ehemaligen Zisterzienserinnenklosters Kirchheim am Ries:
Buchpflege und geistiges Leben in einem Frauenstift, Studia Augustana  (Tübingen: Niemeyer, ), .
. Barbara Frank, Das Erfurter Peterskloster im . Jahrhundert. Studien zur Geschichte der Klosterreform
und der Bursfelder Union, Veröffentlichungen des Max-Planck-Instituts für Geschichte , Studien zur
Germania Sacra  (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, ), .
. Halter, Oetenbach, .
. Hermann Tüchle, ‘‘Süddeutsche Klöster vor  Jahren, ihre Stellung in Reich und Gesell-
schaft,’’ Blätter für deutsche Landesgeschichte  (): .
. Gerhard Taddey, Das Kloster Heiningen von der Gründung bis zur Aufhebung, Veröffentlichungen
des Max-Planck-Instituts für Geschichte  (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, ), .
. Brigitte Hilberling,  Jahre Kloster Zoffingen, – (Constance: Merk, ), –, .
. [Anna Roede,] ‘‘Anna Roedes spätere Chronik von Herzebrock,’’ ed. Franz Flaskamp, Jahr-
buch der Gesellschaft für Niedersächsische Kirchengeschichte  (): –.
. Letter from the Clarissan sisters to the Nuremberg city council [c. ], in Kist, ed., Klarissen-
kloster, ; Georg Pickel, ‘‘Geschichte des Klaraklosters in Nürnberg,’’ Beiträge zur bayerischen Kirchen-
geschichte  (): –. A similar rivalry was reported at Katharinental in Johannes Meyer’s Buch
der Reformacio Predigerordens, ed. Benedictus Maria Reichert, Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte
des Dominikanerordens in Deutschland  (Leipzig: Harrassowitz, ), . On the two Saint Johns,
see Hans-Jochen Schiewer, ‘‘Die beiden Sankt Johannsen, ein dominikanischer Johannes-Libellus und
das literarische Leben im Bodenseeraum um ,’’ Oxford German Studies  (): –; and Jeffrey
Hamburger, St. John die Divine: The Deified Evangelist in Medieval Art and Theology (Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University of California Press, ), –.
. Emil Erdin, Das Kloster der Reuerinnen Sancta Maria Magdalena an den Steinen zu Basel von den
Anfängen bis zur Reformation (etwa –) (Fribourg: Paulus, ), .
. Medard Barth, ‘‘Dr. Johannes Kreutzer (gest. ) und die Wiederaufrichtung des Domini-
kanerinnenklosters Engelporten in Gebweiler. Kritisch und geschichtlich behandelt,’’ Archiv für elsäs-
sische Kirchengeschichte  (): –.
. Ida-Christine Riggert, Die Lüneburger Frauenklöster, Quellen und Untersuchungen zur Gesch-
ichte Niedersachsens im Mittelalter  (Hanover: Hahn, ), –.
. Max Miller, Die Söflinger Briefe und das Klarissenkloster Söflingen bei Ulm im Spätmittelalter (Würz-
burg: Triltsch, ), –; Frank, Söflingen, –.
. Riggert, Lüneburger, . For an earlier period, much has been written about whether the

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famous house of Gandersheim should be designated as a Benedictine convent or a ‘‘Stift’’ (a canoness

house). For a summary, see Bert Nagel, Hrosvit von Gandersheim (Stuttgart: Metzler, ), –.
. The cloister of Klingental, for example, called itself ‘‘Dominican’’ up until  when it tried
to disconnect from the order and place itself instead under the jurisdiction of the bishop of Constance
as an Augustinian house of choir nuns. In  the Dominicans tried to win it back by attempting a
reform. Weis-Müller states, ‘‘In form, Klingental was definitely a cloister, but its character was some-
thing like that of a ‘Stift’ (a canoness house), not one with a strict way of life based on the Aachen
statutes [which prescribed a common life], but one like many other houses’’; Klingental, , . To
complicate matters further, there were also regular canonesses (canonici regulares) who took vows,
lived a common life without private property, wore a habit, lived enclosed and were more like regular
nuns than like secular canonesses (canonici saeculares). See Ulrich Faust, ed., Die Frauenklöster in Nieder-
sachsen, Schleswig-Holstein und Bremen, Germania Benedictina  (St. Ottilien: EOS-Verlag, ), .
. Dietrich Schmidtke, Studien zur dingallegorischen Erbauungsliteratur des Mittelalters. Am Beispiel
der Gartenallegorie, Hermea, Germanistische Forschungen n.F.  (Tübingen: Niemeyer, ), .
. Joseph Lortz, The Reformation in Germany,  vols., trans. Ronald Walls (New York: Herder,
), :; Bernd Moeller, ‘‘Piety in Germany around ,’’ in The Reformation in Medieval Perspec-
tive (Chicago: Quadrangle, ), , , .
. John Van Engen, ‘‘The Virtues, the Brothers, and the Schools,’’ Revue Bénédictne  ():
; Van Engen, ed. and trans., Devotio Moderna: Basic Writings (Mahwah, N.Y.: Paulist Press, ),
; Kaspar Elm, ‘‘Die Brüderschaft vom gemeinsamen Leben. Eine geistliche Lebensform zwischen
Kloster und Welt, Mittelalter und Neuzeit,’’ in Ons geestelijk erf  (): –. For summaries of
the aims and practices of the Brothers and Sisters of the Common Life, see Albert Hyma, The Christian
Renaissance: A History of the ‘‘Devotio Moderna,’’ d ed. (Hamden, Conn.: Archon, ); Regnerus
Richardus Post, The Modern Devotion: Confrontation with Reformation and Humanism, Studies in Medieval
and Reformation Thought  (Leiden: Brill, ); Francis Oakley, The Western Church in the Later
Middle Ages (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, ), –; Kaspar Elm, ‘‘ ‘Vita regularis sine regula’:
Bedeutung, Rechtsstellung und Selbstverständnis des mittelalterlichen und frühneuzeitlichen Semire-
ligiosentums,’’ in Häresie und vorzeitige Reformation im Spätmittelalter, ed. Frantsiek Smahel and Elisabeth
Müller-Lückner, – (Munich: Oldenburg, ); and Otto Gründler, ‘‘Devotio Moderna,’’ in
Christian Spirituality: High Middle Ages and Reformation, ed. Jill Raitt, – (New York: Crossroad,
).
. Van Engen, Devotio, , , ; Heiko Oberman, ‘‘Preface,’’ in Devotio Moderna: Basic Writings,
ed. John Van Engen (Mahwah, N.Y.: Paulist Press, ), ; Gerhard Rehm, Die Schwestern vom gemein-
samen Leben im nordwestlichen Deutschland. Untersuchungen der Devotio moderna und des weiblichen Religiösen-
tums, Berliner Historische Studien , Ordensstudien  (Berlin: Dunker and Humblot, ), .
. Rehm, Schwestern, –.
. Ibid., –.
. Van den doechden der vuriger ende stichtiger susteren van Diepen veen (Handschrift D), ed. D. A.
Brinkerink (Leiden: Sijthoff ’s, ). The book of sisters of Diepenveen relates the reform of cloister
Hilwartshausen on pages –.
. Van den doechden, ed. Brinkerink, .
. Elm, ‘‘Verfall,’’ –. Particularly, the Benedictine reformers were influenced by the ideas
of the Devotio moderna. Uwe Neddermeyer shows, for example, that  of the total  copies of a
Kempis’s Imitatio Christi were made by Observant Benedictines; see ‘‘ ‘Radix Studii et Speculum Vitae’
Verbreitung und Rezeption der ‘Imitatio Christi’ in Handschriften und Drucken bis zur Reformation,’’
in Studien zum . Jahrhundert: Festschrift für Erich Meuthen, vol. , ed. Johannes Helmrath et al., , .
. Bernhard Neidiger, ‘‘Erzbischöfe, Landesherren und Reformkongregationen. Initiatoren und
treibende Kräfte der Klosterreformen des . Jahrhunderts im Gebiet der Diözese Köln,’’ Rheinische
Vierteljahrsblätter  (): ; Katherine Walsch, ‘‘The Observance: Sources for a History of the
Observant Reform Movement in the Order of Augustinian Friars in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth
Centuries,’’ Rivista di Storia della Chiesa in Italia  (): –; and Elm, ‘‘Verfall,’’ .

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. Berndt Hamm, ‘‘Von der spätmittelalterlichen Reformatio zur Reformation: Der Prozeß nor-
mativer Zentrierung von Religion und Gesellschaft in Deutschland,’’ Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte 
(): .
. The earliest successes were, in fact, not due to the central authorities. According to Walsh,
they occurred ‘‘as spontaneous independent initiatives, sometimes with secular encouragement, in sev-
eral different regions by individuals associated with a particular convent, locality, or spiritual tradtion’’;
Walsh, ‘‘Observance,’’ , Helmrath, ‘‘Basler Konzil,’’ .
. David Burr, The Spiritual Franciscans: From Protest to Persecution in the Century after Saint Francis
(University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, ), –.
. Joan Marie Richards, Franciscan Women: The Colettine Reform of the Order of Saint Clare in the
Fifteenth Century (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, ).
. Duncan Nimmo, ‘‘The Franciscan Regular Observance: The Culmination of Medieval Fran-
ciscan Reform,’’ in Reformbemühungen und Observanzbestrebungen im spätmittelalterlichen Ordenswesen, ed.
Kaspar Elm, Berliner Historische Studien , Ordensstudien  (Berlin: Dunker und Humblot, ),
, ; Duncan Nimmo, ‘‘Reform at the Council of Constance: The Franciscan Case,’’ in Renaissance
and Renewal in Church History, ed. Derek Baker, Studies in Church History  (Oxford: Blackwell,
), ; Paul Nyhus,’’The Franciscan Observant Reform in Germany,’’ in Reformbemühungen und
Observanzbestrebungen im spätmittelalterlichen Ordenswesen, ed. Kaspar Elm, Berliner Historische Studien
, Ordensstudien  (Berlin: Dunker und Humblot, ), ; Brigitte Degler-Spengler, Das Klaris-
senkloster Gnadental in Basel –, Quellen und Forschungen zur Basler Geschichte  (Basel: Rein-
hardt, ), ; Kurt Ruh, Geschichte der abendländischen Mystik, vol.  (Munich: Beck, ), –.
. Francis Xavier Martin, ‘‘The Augustinian Observant Movement,’’ in Reformbemühungen und
Observanzbestrebungen im spätmittelalterlichen Ordenswesen, ed. Kaspar Elm, Berliner Historische Studien
, Ordensstudien  (Berlin: Dunker and Humblot, ), –.
. Werner Williams-Krapp, ‘‘Frauenmystik und Ordensreform,’’ in Literarische Interessenbildung
im Mittelalter, ed. Joachim Heinzle (Stuttgart: Metzler, ), . Sabine von Heusinger suggests,
however, that Catherine’s Dominican biographers fashioned her as the standardbearer for the Obser-
vant reform. See ‘‘Catherine of Siena and the Dominican Order,’’ in Siena e il suo territorio nel Rinasci-
mento: Renaissance Siena and its Territory, ed. Mario Ascheri (Siena: Leccio, ), –.
. Meyer, Reformacio, :; Bernhard Neidiger, ‘‘Selbstverständnis und Erfolgschancen der Dom-
nikanerobservanten: Beobachtungen zur Entwicklung in der Provinz Teutonia und im Basler Konvent
(–),’’ Rottenburger Jahrbuch für Kirchengeschichte  (): ; Eugen Hillenbrand, ‘‘Die Obser-
vantenbewegung in der deutschen Ordensprovinz der Dominikaner,’’ in Reformbemühungen im spätmit-
telalterlichen Ordenswesen, ed. Kaspar Elm, Berliner Historische Studien , Ordensstudien  (Berlin:
Dunker und Humblot, ), .
. Neidiger, ‘‘Selbstverständnis,’’ , ; [Bartolomea Riccoboni,] Convent, .
. Petrus Becker, ‘‘Erstrebte und erreichte Ziele benediktinischer Reformen im Spätmittelalter,’’
in Reformbemühungen und Ordensbestrebungen im spätmittelalterlichen Ordenswesen, ed. Kaspar Elm, Berliner
Historische Studien , Ordensstudien  (Berlin: Dunker and Humblot, ), .
. Proksch, Klosterreform, ; Gebhard Spahr, ‘‘St. Gallen,’’ ; Helmrath, Konzil, .
. Karl Grube, Johannes Busch Augustinerpropst zu Hildesheim: Ein katholischer Reformator des .
Jahrhunderts (Freiburg: Herder, ), ; Barbara Frank, Peterskloster, ; Becker, ‘‘Ziele,’’ .
. Gerhard Müller, ‘‘Reform und Reformation. Zur Geschichte von spätmittelalterlicher und
früher Neuzeit,’’ Jahrbuch der Gesellschaft für niedersächsische Kirchengeschichte  (): .
. ‘‘Sorores karissime . . . ,’’ in ‘‘Litterarisches und geistiges Leben im Kloster Ebstorf am
Ausgange des Mittelalters,’’ ed. Conrad Borchling, Zeitschrift des historischen Vereins für Niedersachsen 
(), .
. Hillenbrand, ‘‘Observantenbewegung,’’ .
. Neidiger, ‘‘Selbstverständnis,’’ , ; Nyhus, ‘‘Franciscan,’’ ; Hillenbrand, ‘‘Observanten-
bewegung,’’ .
. [Johannes Busch,] Des Augustinerpropstes Iohannes Busch Chronicon Windeshemense und Liber de

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 Notes to Pages –

reformatione monasteriorum, ed. Karl Grube, Geschichtsquellen der Provinz Sachsen und angrenzender
Gebiete  (Halle: Hendel, ), –; Jeffrey Hamburger, The Visual and the Visionary. Art and
Female Sanctity in Late Medieval Germany (New York: Zone, ), .
. Cited from Hamburger, The Visual and the Visionary, . As a sign of their commitment to
poverty, Thomas of Prussia, the brother of Conrad, even supervised the tearing down of one of the
two towers at the women’s cloister of Schönensteinbach because it was ‘‘too splendid and inconsistent
with the poverty of Christ.’’ See Seraphin Dietler, Chronik des Klosters Schönensteinbach, ed. Johann von
Schlumberger (Guebwiller: Boltz, ), . It was only after these initial strictures were loosened
that the Dominican reform gathered momentum, even though poverty remained an issue that would
continue to divide Franciscan Observants.
. Proksch, Klosterreform, ; Barbara Frank, Peterskloster, .
. Rudolf Schulze, Das adelige Frauen- (Kanonissen-) Stift der Hl. Maria (–) und die Pfarre
Liebfrauen-Überwasser zu Münster Westfalen (gegründet ): Ihre Verhältnisse und Schicksale (Münster:
Aschendorff, ), ,  n. .
. Gabriel Löhr, Die Teutonia im . Jahrhundert: Studien und Texte vornehmlich zur Geschichte ihrer
Reform, Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte des Dominikanerordens in Deutschland  (Leipzig:
Harrassowitz, ), ; Franz Egger, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Predigerordens. Die Reform des Baseler
Konvents  und die Stellung des Ordens am Baseler Konzil – (Bern: Lang, ), –.
. Egger, Baseler, ; Martin, ‘‘Augustinian,’’ . Dominican Observants founded numerous lay
confraternities to promote religious devotion among lay men and women, the largest one being the
enormously popular rosary brotherhood established in . See Anne Winston-Allen, Stories of the
Rose: The Making of the Rosary in the Middle Ages (University Park: Penn State Press, ), –, and
Winston-Allen, ‘‘Tracing the Origins of the Rosary: German Vernacular Texts,’’ Speculum  ():
–.
. Barbara Frank, Peterskloster, ; Proksch, Klosterreform, ; Kaspar Elm, ‘‘Die Franziskanerobser-
vanz als Bildungsreform,’’ in Lebenslehren und Weltentwürfe in Übergang vom Mittelalter zur Neuzeit: Politik-
Bildung-Naturkunde-Theologie. Bericht über Kolloquien der Kommission zur Erforschung der Kultur des Spätmit-
telalters, ed. Hartmut Boockmann, Bernt Moeller and Karl Stackmann, Abhandlungen der Akademie
der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, Phil-hist. Klasse, F. , no.  (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck, ), ;
Franz Machilek, ‘‘Der Klosterhumanismus in Nürnberg um ,’’ Mitteilungen des Vereins für Geschichte
der Stadt Nürnberg  (): –.
. Proksch, Klosterreform, .
. Schulze, Überwasser, –.
. At Chemnitz, the citizenry in  built a monastery for the Observants, dedicated by the
donor families with ‘‘affection for the Observants who, through their exemplary life, their devout
celebration of the holy sacraments, and their assiduous hearing of confessions worked tirelessly for the
kingdom of God’’; Lucius Teichmann, ‘‘Die franziskanische Observanzbewegung in Ost-Mitteleuropa
und ihre politisch-nationale Komponente im böhmisch-schlesischen Raum,’’ Archiv für schlesische Kir-
chengeschichte  (): .
. Johannes Kist, ‘‘Klosterreform im spätmittelalterlichen Nürnberg,’’ Zeitschrift für bayerische Kir-
chengeschichte  (): .
. Hillenbrand, ‘‘Observantenbewegung,’’ .
. Karin Schneider, ‘‘Die Bibliothek des Katharinenklosters in Nürnberg und die städtische Ge-
sellschaft,’’ in Studien zum städtischen Bildungswesen des späten Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit, ed. Bernd
Moeller et al. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, ), ; Meyer, Reformacio, :–. At
Soest, the town council called for reform, citing the need for ‘‘religious services to be increased’’ and
prayers said ‘‘with regularity.’’ See Theodor Rensing, ‘‘Die Reformbewegung in den westfälischen
Dominikanerklöstern,’’ Westfalen  (): . Johannes Nider’s account of this reform can be found
book III, chapter  of his Formicarius (), published in a facsimile edition by Hans Biedermann, ed.,
[Johannes Nyder] Formicarius (Graz: Akademischer Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, ), and in Meyer’s
Reformacio, :–.

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 Notes to Pages –

. Letter from Prioress Adelheid von Aue to Johannes Meyer (), in Dietler, Chronik, ed.
Schlumberger, .
. Bernd Moeller, ‘‘Religious Life in Germany on the Eve of the Reformation,’’ in Pre-Reforma-
tion Germany, ed. Gerald Strauß (New York: Harper and Row, ), .
. Nyhus, ‘‘Franciscan,’’ . Euan Cameron asserts that laymen felt more and more that the
church was their church and they wished to control its personnel and behavior, in The European
Reformation (Oxford: Clarendon, ), .
. Dietler, Chronik, ed. Schlumberger, .
. Letter from Maria von Wolkenstein and convent sisters at Brixen to Maria’s brothers, Oswald,
Leo, and Friedrich von Wolkenstein (August ) in appendix to Hermann Hallauer, ‘‘Nikolaus von
Kues und das Brixener Klarissenkloster,’’ Mitteilungen und Forschungsbeiträge der Cusanus-Gesellschaft 
(): .
. Nyhus, ‘‘Franciscan,’’ –.
. Meyer, Reformacio, :.
. Maria Huffer, Die Reformen in der Abtei Rijnsburg im . Jahrhundert (Münster: Aschendorff,
), .
. Weis-Müller, Klingental, .
. Voit, Engelthal, :.
. [Juliana Ernst,] Die Chronik des Bickenklosters zu Villingen, ed. Karl Jordan Glatz, Bibliothek des
Litterarischen Vereins in Stuttgart  (Tübingen: Fues, ), .
. Erdin, Reuerinnen, .
. Halter, Oetenbach, –; Hillenbrand, ‘‘Observantenbewegung,’’ .
. ‘‘Chronik des Schwesternhouses Marienthal, genannt Niesinck in Münster,’’ in Berichte der
Augenzeugen über das Münstersche Wiedertäuferreich, ed. Carl Cornelius, Geschichtsquellen des Bisthums
Münster  (; repr. Münster: Aschendorff, ), .
. Wilhelm Eberhard Schwarz, ‘‘Studien zur Geschichte des Klosters der Augustinerinnen
Mariental, genannt Niesing zu Münster,’’ Zeitschrift für vaterländische Geschichte und Altertumskunde 
(): .
. Pickel, Klarakloster, . Similarly, the city of Gmünd reserved to itself jurisdiction not only
over admission of novices, but replacement of servants, and cloister finances, Gerhard Metzger, ‘‘Der
Dominikanerorden in Württemberg am Ausgang des Mittelalters,’’ Blätter für württembergische Kirchenge-
schichte, n.F.  (): .
. Manfred Schulze, Fürsten und Reformation. Geistliche Reformpolitik weltlicher Fürsten vor der Refor-
mation, Spätmittelalter und Reformation, neue Reihe  (Tübingen: Mohr, ), ; Dieter Mertens,
‘‘Monastische Reformbewegungen des . Jahrhunderts: Ideen-Ziele-Resultate,’’ in Reform von Kirche
und Reich zur Zeit der Konzilien von Konstanz (–) und Basel (–), ed. Ivan Hlavácek and
Alexander Patschovsky (Constance: Universitätsverlag Konstanz, ), .
. Schulze, Fürsten, ; Cameron, Reformation, .
. At the Reformreichstag of , Emperor Maximilian voiced his concern that God’s wrath
was already being felt in ‘‘severe pestilences and the human plagues called the evil ‘pox’ to a degree
not seen in human memory.’’ Maximilian charged the princes in attendance with seeing that God’s
commandments and those of the church were being heeded. They must themselves avoid sin ‘‘more
than they had in the past’’ and do good works. Schulze, Fürsten, , , . Concerned, many
enlisted in the Observant cause and undertook the reform of convents in their territories.
. Servatius Wolfs, ‘‘Dominikanische Observanzbestrebungen: Die Congregatio Hollandiae
(–),’’ in Reformbemühungen und Observanzbestrebungen im spätmittelalterlichen Ordenswesen, ed.
Kaspar Elm, Berliner Historische Studien , Ordensstudien  (Berlin: Dunker and Humblot,
), .
. Pickel, Klarakloster, .
. Schulze, Fürsten, ; Ecker, ‘‘Kirchheim,’’ –, –, .
. Letter of Count Ulrich of Württemberg to the women’s convent of Sylo in Sélestat (April

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 Notes to Pages –

) in appendix to Geschichte des Herzogtums Wuerttemberg unter der Regierung der Graven, ed. Christian
Friedrich Sattler (Tübingen: Reiss, –), :.
. [Magdalena Kremer,] ‘‘Wie diß loblich kloster zu Sant Johannes Baptisten zu Kirchen under
deck prediger-ordens reformiert ist worden und durch woelich personen,’’ in Geschichte des Herzogtums
Wuerttemberg unter der Regierung der Graven, ed. Christian Friedrich Sattler, d. ed. (Tübingen: Reiss,
–), :.
. Teichmann, ‘‘Observanzbewegung,’’ .
. Hillenbrand, ‘‘Observantenbewegung,’’ .
. Elm, ‘‘Verfall,’’ ; Wolfs, ‘‘Congregatio,’’ . Elector Ludwig von der Pfalz (d. ),
influenced by his wife, Princess Mechthild of Savoy (–), who as a girl had been schooled by
Observants and whose two sisters had entered the reformed cloister of St. Colett, called in French friars
from Touraine in  to reform the Franciscan cloister of Heidelberg. See Frank, Söflingen, –.
Piety was clearly not the only reason for founding a monastery. Elector Frederick I von der Pfalz (d.
) founded a Dominican monastery at Heidelberg to promote learning, especially the study of the
arts and theology. Likewise, Count Ulrich of Württemberg constructed a new cloister in Stuttgart
which he turned over to Observant Dominicans, recruited from the university city of Nuremberg,
who brought with them a large number of books and provided the Duke with a prestigious community
of scholars for his court seat. See Hillenbrand, ‘‘Observantenbewegung,’’ –.
. ‘‘Schwesternbuch von Sankt Agnes,’’ ed. Bollmann and Staubach, –, .
. See, for example, the account of Jde Ruijtkens, ibid., .
. Cited from Eileen Power, Medieval English Nunneries, c.  to  (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, ), .
. Ulrich Ecker, ‘‘Die Reform der Freiburger Dominikanerinnenklöster Adelhausen, St. Agnes
und St. Maria Magdalena, ,’’ Zulassungsarbeit zur wissenschaftlichen Prüfung für das Lehramt an
Gymnasien, Freiburg i. Br., , –.
. Weis-Müller, Klingental, , .
. Meyer, Reformacio, :–.
. Däniker-Gysin, Töß, –.
. Duncan Nimmo suggests that the council embodied ‘‘the highest aspirations’’ but failed in the
task it had set itself; ‘‘Constance,’’ . Others argue that the council failed because it focused its
energies on resolving the schism and settling conflicting economic interests. Nevertheless, Stump cites
‘‘the solemn, public example’’ which it set and ‘‘the expectation of renewal which this produced’’ as
encouraging the self-reform of those present. For a summary of other views, see Phillip Stump, The
Reforms of the Council of Constance, Studies in the History of Christian Thought  (Leiden: Brill, ),
, , ; Helmrath, ‘‘Reform,’’ .
. Joachim Homeyer,  Jahre Äbtissinnen in Medingen (Uelzen: Becker, ), ; Franz Sch-
rader, Die ehemalige Zistersienserinnenabtei Marienstuhl vor Egeln. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Zisterzienser-
innen und der nach-reformatorischen Restbestände des Katholizismus im ehemaligen Herzogtum Magdeburg,
Erfurter Theologische Studien  (Leipzig: St. Benno–Verlag, ), ; Helmrath ‘‘Reform,’’ .
. Neidiger, ‘‘Selbstverständnis,’’ ; Helmrath, Basler Konzil, ; Dieter Stievermann, ‘‘Die
württembergischen Klosterreformen des . Jahrhunderts: Ein bedeutendes landeskirchliches Struktur-
element des Spätmittelalters und ein Kontinuitätsstrang zum ausgebildeten Landeskirchentum der Früh-
neuzeit,’’ Zeitschrift für Württembergische Landesgeschichte  (): .
. Constance Proksch, Klosterreform und Geschichtsschreibung im Spätmittelalter (Cologne: Böhlau,
), ; Philip Soergel, Wondrous in His Saints: Counter-Reformation Propaganda in Bavaria (Berkeley
and Los Angeles: University of California Press, ), ; Kaspar Elm, ‘‘Reform- und Observanzbe-
strebungen im spätmittelalterlichen Ordenswesen. Ein Überblick,’’ in Reformbemühungen und Observanz-
bestrebungen im spätmittelalterlichen Ordenswesen, ed. Kaspar Elm, Berliner Historische Studien ,
Ordenstudien  (Berlin: Dunker und Humblot, ), –; Elm, ‘‘Verfall und Erneuerung des Ordens-
wesens im Spätmittelalter: Forschungen und Forschungsaufgaben’’ in Untersuchungen zu Kloster und
Stift, Veröffentlichungen des Max-Planck-Instituts für Geschichte , Studien zur Germania Sacra 

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(Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, ), ; Erich Methuen, Das . Jahrhundert, d. ed.,
Oldenbourg Grundriß der Geschichte  (Munich: Oldenbourg, ), .
. See, particularly, Rolf Kießling, Bürgerliche Gesellschaft und Kirche in Augsburg im Spätmittelalter:
Ein Beitrag zur Strukturanalyse der oberdeutschen Reichsstadt, Abhandlungen zur Geschichte der Stadt
Augsburg  (Augsburg: Mühlberger, ), –.

Chapter 
. [Magdalena Kremer,] ‘‘Wie diß loblich closter zu Sant Johannes baptisten zu kirchen under
deck prediger-ordens reformiert ist worden und durch woelich personen,’’ in Geschichte des Herzogtums
Wuerttemberg under der Regierung der Graven, ed. Christian Friedrich Sattler, d. ed. (Tübingen: Reiss,
–), :–.
. Ulrich Ecker, ‘‘Die Geschichte des Klosters S. Johannes-Baptista der Dominikanerinnen zu
Kirchheim unter Teck’’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Freiburg, ), , –, –.
. [Magdalena Kremer,] ‘‘Wie diß loblich closter,’’ .
. Seraphin Dietler, Chronik des Klosters Schönensteinbach, ed. Johann von Schlumberger (Gueb-
willer: Boltz, ), . Conrad of Prussia’s rules, ‘‘Ordinationen für reformierte Dominikanerinnen’’
(), are contained in Basel, Universitätsbibliothek,  E III , fols. v–v.
. Johannes Meyer, Buch der Reformacio Predigerordens, ed., Benedictus Maria Reichert, Quellen
und Forschungen zur Geschichte des Dominikanerordens in Deutschland  (Leipzig: Harrassowitz,
), –.
. Dietler, Chronik, ed. Schlumberger, ; Thomas Lentes, ‘‘Bild, Reform, und Cura Monial-
ium: Bilderverständnis und Bildergebrauch im ‘Buch der Reformacio Predigerordens’ des Johannes
Meyer (),’’ in Dominicains et Dominicaines en Alsace (XIIIe–XXe Siècle): Acts du Colloque de Guebwiller,
– avril , ed. Jean-Luc Eichenlaub (Colmar: Editions d’Alsace, ), . Paul Stinzi, on the
other hand, lists Elisabeth as the third prioress. See ‘‘Schönensteinbach,’’ Annuaire de la Société d’Histoire
Sundgauvienne (): .
. Jean-Charles Winnlen, Schönensteinbach: Une Communauté religieuse féminine – (Alt-
kirch: Société d’histoire Sundgauvienne, ), ; Meyer, Reformacio, :–, :, .
. Bernhard Thorr, ‘‘Die Dominikanerinnen von Schönensteinbach,’’ Annuaire de la Société d’His-
toire Sundgauvienne (): .
. From the cloisters they reformed, Schönensteinbach women went on with other groups to St
Maria Magdalena an den Steinen (Basel, ), Himmelskron (Worms, ), and Dominican houses
at Tulln (in Austria, ), Pforzheim (), as well as Brünn (). See Meyer, Reformacio, :iv–v;
Winnlen, Schönensteinbach, ; Ferdinand Seibt, ed., Bohemia Sacra: Das Christentum in Böhmen –
(Düsseldorf: Schwann, ), ; Vladimı́r Koudelka, ‘‘Zur Geschichte der böhmischen Dominikaner-
provinz im Mittelalter,’’ Archivum fratrum Praedicatorum  (): . Hieronymus Wilms lists also St.
Marien at Medingen () and Katharinental (). See Das älteste Verzeichnis der deutschen Dominikan-
erinnenklöster, Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte des Dominikanerordens  (Leipzig: Harras-
sowitz, ), , .
. St. Maria Magdalena an den Steinen (Basel, ), Himmelskron (Worms, ), and Domini-
can houses at Tulln (in Austria, ), Pforzheim (), as well as Brünn. See Meyer, Reformacio, :
iv–v, :, .
. St. Maria Magdalena an den Steinen had twelve sisters when it was reformed by women from
Unterlinden in  and increased to forty by , even though it had sent groups to reform Himmelskron
(with help from Schönensteinbach, ), St. Nicolaus in undis (), St. Michael’s Insel at Bern
(), and afterward Hasenpfuhl (c. ), and St. Agnes, Freiburg (). Dietler, Chronik, ed. Sch-
lumberger, ; Emil Erdin, Das Kloster der Reuerinnen Sancta Maria Magdalena an den Steinen zu Basel
von den Anfängen bis zur Reformation (etwa –) (Fribourg: Paulus, ), –, .
. [Barbara von Benfelden,] ‘‘Von zunemunge der geistlicheit und uff gang der tugenden der
swestern dis conventes des klosters sancte Agnesen,’’ in appendix to Annette Barthelmé, ed., La Réforme

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 Notes to Pages –

dominicaine au Xve siècle en Alsace et dans l’ensenble de la province de Teutonie, Collection d’études sur
l’histoire du droit et des institutions de l’Alsace  (Strasbourg: Heitz, ), .
. Gnadental, the Clarissan house at Basel, was reformed by women from Alspach (Alsace), the
first Observant house of Poor Clares. Brigitte Degler-Spengler, Das Klarissenkloster Gnadental in Basel
–, Quellen und Forschungen zur Basler Geschichte  (Basel: Reinhardt, ), ; Andreas
Rüther, Bettelorden in Stadt und Land. Die Straßburger Mendikantenkonvente und das Elsaß im Spätmittelalter,
Berliner Historische Studien , Ordensstudien  (Berlin: Dunker and Humblot, ), . For more
on the Nuremberg Clarissans, see Johannes Kist, ‘‘Klosterreform im spätmittelalterlichen Nüremberg,’’
Zeitschrift für bayerische Kirchengeschichte  (): .
. Virgil Redlich, Johann Rode von St. Matthias bei Trier (Münster: Aschendorff, ), –.
. Sister Johanna, a Poor Clare, had already left Gnadental before it was reformed, for the Obser-
vant Dominican house of St. Maria Magdalena an den Steinen—both of them in Basel; Degler-Speng-
ler, Gnadental, .
. Studying cloisters in Freiburg, Ulrich Ecker found that unreformed houses declined between
 and  in gifts and professions, while Observant convents tended to attract more of both. Ecker
contrasted Adelhausen (reformed in ) with St. Katharina of the same city (which was not re-
formed). Comparing city property owned by the two cloisters, Ecker found that at mid-century both
cloisters’ holdings were approximately the same (St. Katharina owning  sq. meters and Adelhausen
); by , however, the unreformed cloister’s holdings had shrunk to  sq. meters and Adel-
hausen’s had grown to ,. See Ulrich Ecker, ‘‘Die Reform der Freiburger Dominikanerinnenklöster
Adelhausen, St. Agnes und St. Maria Magdalena, ,’’ Zulassungsarbeit zur wissenschaftlichen Prü-
fung für das Lehramt an Gymnasien, Freiburg i. Br., , . Gudrun Gleba cites similar increases in
donations to cloisters after a reform. See Reformpraxis und materielle Kultur: Westfälische Frauenklöster im
späten Mittelalter, Historische Studien  (Husum: Matthiesen, ), –.
. Ecker, ‘‘Kirchheim,’’ –.
. [Magdalena Kremer,] ‘‘Wie diß loblich closter,’’ ed. Sattler, ; Ecker, ‘‘Kirchheim,’’ .
. Gerhard Metzger, ‘‘Der Dominikanerorden in Württemberg am Ausgang des Mittelalters,’’
Blätter für württembergische Kirchengeschichte, n.F.  (): .
. Jutta Gisela Sperling, Convents and the Body Politic in Late Renaissance Venice (Chicago: Univer-
sity of Chicago Press, ), .
. See Karen Greenspan, ‘‘Erklärung des Vaterunsers: A Critical Edition of a th-Century Mystical
Treatise by Magdalena Beutler of Freiburg’’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Massachusetts, ), , –;
Wilhelm Oehl, Deutsche Mystikerbriefe des Mittelalters, – (Munich: Georg Müller, ), ;
Wilhelm Schleussner, ‘‘Magdalena von Freiburg. Eine pseudomystische Erscheinung des späteren Mit-
telalters, –,’’ Der Katholik  (): –.
. Caroline Walker Bynum, ‘‘Religious Women in the Later Middle Ages,’’ in Christian Spiritual-
ity: High Middle Ages and Reformation, ed. Jill Raitt, Gernard McGinn, John Meyendorff (New York:
Crossroad, ), .
. Similarly, Othlon, a monk of St. Emmeram in Regensburg, wrote in the eleventh century of
Chunihilt, Berthgit, Chunitrud, Tecla, Lioba, and Waltpurgis, pious women who had come from
England. See Lina Eckenstein, Women under Monasticism (; repr. New York: Russel and Russel,
), , –.
. St. Dominic dispatched a group from his first foundation at Prouille to teach the women of
San Sisto the Dominican way of life. Heribert Christian Scheeben, ‘‘Die Anfänge des zweiten Ordens,’’
Archivum fratrum Praedicatorum  (): –.
. ‘‘Die Stiftung des Klosters Oetenbach und das Leben der seligen Schwestern daselbst, aus der
Nürnberger Handschrift,’’ ed. H. Zeller-Werdmüller and Jakob Bächthold, Zürcher Taschenbuch 
(), . Besides Abbess Adelheid’s reform of Vilich and of St. Maria of Cologne, McNamara cites
Himiltrude and Hauwide, abbesses, who in the eleventh century reformed the convents of St. Glode-
sind and St. Peter in Metz. In the early twelfth century Abbess Rissende of Faremoutiers asked for help
from the abbesses of Chelles and Joarre, ‘‘who had successfully reformed their own houses;’’ McNa-
mara, Sisters, .

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 Notes to Pages –

. Renée Weis-Müller, Die Reform des Klosters Klingental and ihr Personenkreis, Baseler Beiträge zur
Geschichtswissenschaft  (Basel: Helbing and Lichtenhahn, ), –; and Annette Barthelmé,
ed., La Réforme dominicaine au XVe siècle en Alsace et dans l’ensemble de la province de Teutonie, Collection
d’études sur l’histoire du droit et des institutions de l’Alsace  (Strasbourg: Heitz, ), –.
. The remnant community subsequently grew to fifty; Dietler, Chronik, ed. Schlumberger,
–.
. Metzger, ‘‘Dominikanerorden,’’  (): –; Martin Crusius, Schwäbische Chronik, 
vols., trans. Johann Jakob Moser (Frankfurt: Metzler and Erhard, ), :.
. Weis-Müller, Klingental, –.
. Johannes Busch reports that when Prior Bernhard at Hamersleben requested reformers to send
to Stendal, he asked Prioress Helena at Marienberg for women who were ‘‘well informed, zealous for
the reform and could be models for others in their manner of living and discipline in cloister life.’’
Karl Grube, Johannes Busch Augustinerpropst zu Hildesheim: Ein katholischer Reformator des . Jahrhunderts
(Freiburg: Herder, ), .
. St. Gall, Stiftsbibliothek,  St. Katharina, Wil, ‘‘Schwesternbuch,’’ Nr. , fol. r. Prioress
Haller also remonstrates, ‘‘[I]n thirteen years, I have sent eighteen sisters to [reform] other cloisters’’
(fol. r).
. Dietler, Chronik, ed. Schlumberger, –.
. Brigitte Hilberling,  Jahre Kloster Zoffingen, – (Constance: Merk, ), .
. Grube, Busch, .
. Johannes Linneborn, ‘‘Die Reformation der westfälischen Benedictiner-Klöster im . Jahr-
hundert durch die Bursfelder Congregation,’’ Studien und Mitteilungen zur Geschichte des Benedictineror-
dens  (): .
. [Juliana Ernst,] Die Chronik des Bickenklosters zu Villingen, ed. Karl J. Glatz, Bibliothek des
Litterarischen Vereins in Stuttgart  (Tübingen: Fues, ), .
. [Magdalena Kremer,] ‘‘Wie diß loblich closter,’’ ed. Sattler, –. The eighth sister was
Barbara Bernheim who was chosen to head the group.
. Letter from Katharina von Mühlheim to the prioress and sisters at Schönensteinbach ( April
), in Dietler, Chronik, ed. Schlumberger, .
. Seibt, Bohemia Sacra, .
. Letter from Katharina von Mühlheim, in Dietler, Chronik, ed. Schlumberger, .
. Letter from Johannes Nider to the prioress and sisters at Schönensteinbach ( October )
in Dietler, Chronik, ed. Schlumberger, –. Twenty-seven years later Nicholas of Cusa used a much
more subtle and complementary approach when he wrote to the Observant cloister of Poor Clares at
Nuremberg to request reforming sisters for Brixen saying:

[W]e have heard repeatedly, how many brothers and sisters of the Observance have been
sent out from several of your reformed cloisters in Nuremberg to many cloisters in other
places and have seeded the Observance where it has sprung up and through whom such an
honorable and upright Observance has been planted and has taken root . . . , [and] has
elevated your order, the city of Nuremberg, and the praise of yourselves and your cloister.
Because of this we beg earnestly that you will want—for God’s increase and that of your
order, for the observance of your rule, and also for our sakes—to send three or four sisters
from your cloister.

Letter from Nicholas of Cusa to the abbess and Clarissan sisters at Nuremberg ( August ), in
appendix to Hermann Hallauer, ed. ‘‘Nikolaus von Kues und das Brixener Klarissenkloster,’’ Mittei-
lungen und Forschungsbeiträge der Cusanus-Gesellschaft  (): .
. Letter from Sister Tecla to her pupils at marienberg, cited by Busch in [Johannes Busch,] Des
Augustinerpropstes Iohannes Busch Chronicon Windeshemense und Liber de reformatione monasteriorum, ed.
Karl Grube, Gesichtsquellen der Provinz Sachsen und angrenzender Gebiete  (Halle: Hendel, ),
; Grube, Busch, –. Often the women they taught were eager to learn. When three Observant

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 Notes to Pages –

sisters arrived at Fischbeck (on the Weser) from the Magdalen cloister at Hildesheim, Abbess Armgard
von Rheden, who had little formal education, attended all the Latin and other classes. Busch claims
that, under Abbess Armgard, Fischbeck became a sort of training center, taking in sisters from other
houses to be instructed and sending them back with Observants from Fischbeck to teach at their own
cloisters. Grube, Busch, , .
. Grube, Busch, –, [Busch,] Liber de reformatione, –.
. [Magdalena Kremer,] ‘‘Wie diß loblich closter,’’ ed. Sattler, .
. Magdalena Kremer herself was made sacristan, scriptrix, mistress of novices, and head singer.
Christina von Rheinau, ‘‘a very earnest and devout sister,’’ was named assistant bursar and door-keeper.
Katharina Meyger was to make rounds, and Laysister Fida (Fidela) took over as mistress of the kitchen.
[Magdalena Kremer,] ‘‘Wie diß loblich closter,’’ ed. Sattler, ; Ecker, ‘‘Kirchheim,’’ , –,
–.
. Katharina entered Schönensteinbach in . If she had been fourteen, the minimum age of
admittance for Observants, she could not have been any younger than sixty-two when she undertook
the reform of Brünn in  as leader of the women’s party. Seibt, Bohemia sacra, ; Meyer, Reformacio,
:; Dietler, Chronik, ed. Schlumberger, , , ; and Vladimı́r Koudelka, ‘‘Zur Geschichte der
böhmischen Dominikanerprovinz im Mittelalter. II. Die Männer und Frauenklöster,’’ Archivum Fratrum
Praedicatorum  (): .
. Heike Uffmann, ‘‘ ‘ . . . wie in einem Rosengarten . . . .’ Die Ebstorfer Klosterreform im
Spiegel von Chronistik und Tischlesung,’’ in ‘‘In Treue und Hingabe’’:  Jahre Kloster Ebstorf, ed.
Marianne Elster and Horst Hoffmann (Uelzen: Becker, ), –. For more on Mechthild, see
Chapter .
. Dietler, Chronik, ed. Schlumberger, , ; Weis-Müller, Klingental, . Other Veterans
include Edelin von Aue, for twenty-four years prioress of St. Katharina (Colmar) before reforming
Adelhausen in Freiburg; and Barbara Krebs, twenty-six years subprioress at St.Katharina (Colmar) be-
fore reforming Sylo (Sélestat) and later St. Gertrude (Cologne). See Meyer, Reformacio, :, , ;
Dietler, Chronik, ed. Schlumberger, , ; Jutta Prieur, Das Kölner Dominikanerinnenkloster St. Gertrud
am Neumarkt, Kölner Schriften zu Geschichte und Kultur (Cologne: dme-Verlag, ), .
. Dietler, Chronik, ed. Schlumberger, , , .
. Ibid., ; Erdin, Reuerinnen, .
. Margareta Regenstein went to St. Maria Magdalena an den Steinen (Basel), Himmelskron
(Hochheim), and finally Hasenpfuhl (Speyer), where she became prioress after the second attempt
there succeeded in . See Dietler, Chronik, ed. Schlumberger, –; Meyer, Reformacio, :–.
Margareta Zorn took part in successful reforms at Unterlinden, St. Maria Magdalena an den Steinen,
Himmelskron, and a failed effort to reform the Penitants of St. Maria Magdalena in Strasbourg in .
See Dietler, Chronik, ed. Schlumberger, , . No more accurate than the assertion that Observants
were naive and inexperienced women is the claim that they were simple girls from non-affluent back-
grounds. While it is true that the Benedictine reform made a concerted effort to eliminate class privi-
leges and that the trend throughout all orders was toward more open admissions policies, examination
of the background of a sample group of Dominican Observants sent from Unterlinden to St. Maria
Magdalena an den Steinen (Basel)—untypical, perhaps, only in its early date, —reveals that more
than half of the thirteen reforming sisters were members of the nobility. See Erdin, Reuerinnen, .
. [Magdalena Kremer,] ‘‘Wie diß loblich closter,’’ ed. Sattler, .
. Ecker, ‘‘Kirchheim,’’ –.
. Ibid., , .
. Meyer, Reformacio, :; [Juliana Ernst,] Chronik, ed. Glatz, ; Gustav Voit, Engelthal—
Geschichte eines Dominikanerinnenklosters,  vols., Schriftenreihe der Altnürnberger Landschaft 
(Nuremberg: Koru and Berg, ), :.
. Meyer, Reformacio, :–.
. Ibid., :.
. ‘‘Also vindt man hie geschriben wie die obseruantz angefangen ist worden,’’ in ‘‘Die Refor-

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 Notes to Pages –

mation des Katharinenklosters zu Nürnberg im Jahr ,’’ ed. Theodor von Kern, Jahresbericht des
historischen Vereins für Mittelfranken  (): –, –.
. Linneborn, Bursfelder,  (): –. Similarly, in the transition period at St. Agnes in
Strasbourg, sisters were not required to fast, abstain from meat, or get up to sing the Hours at matins.
And they retained a window where they could visit with their families. McNamara, Sisters, .
. Ecker, ‘‘Kirchheim,’’ . Similarly, reformers at Engelthal asserted that no one should
be ‘‘forced to an extremity,’’ but rather all must love and serve God ‘‘with a fervent heart.’’ Voit,
Engethal, :.
. Max Miller, Die Söflinger Briefe und das Klarissenkloster Söflingen bei Ulm im Spätmittelalter (Würz-
burg: Triltsch, ), . An unconventional method of winning over resisters is recounted, however,
in the Diepenveen book of sisters (after ) which describes the reform of the Augustinian house of
Hilwartshausen (on the Weser). When three reformers from Diepenveen arrived, the Hilwartshausen
sisters were violently agitated and ran about the cloister, calling them ‘‘devils.’’ The narrator relates
how the Mother Superior, giving a tour of her convent to head reformer Stine Groten, came upon an
angry resident who had thrown herself on the ground in a fit. Sister Stine, thinking her to be ill, said,
‘‘Dear Mother, let her be given some wine to drink and she will be better.’’ The effect was instanta-
neous: the account relates that, ‘‘when the sister heard that [Stine Groten] was so kind, her hostility
vanished. She changed completely and thereafter regarded her with affection.’’ The account goes on
to give an idealized picture of Sister Stine’s winning personality and manner of earning affection by her
good example; Van den doechden der vuriger ende stichtiger sustern van Diepen veen, Handschrift D, ed. D. A.
Brinkerink (Leiden: Sijthoff, ), .
. ‘‘Das Schwesternbuch von Sankt Agnes,’’ in Schwesternbuch und Statuten des St. Agnes–Konvents
in Emmerich, ed. Anne Bollmann and Nikolaus Staubach, Emmericher Forschungen  (Emmerich:
Emmericher Geschichtsverein, ),  n. , –.
. Ibid., .
. Augsburg, Staatsarchiv,  Kloster Maria Maihingen MüB , fol. r. See also Arnold Sch-
romm, Die Bibliothek des ehemaligen Zisterzienserinnenklosters Kirchheim am Ries: Buchpflege und geistiges
Leben in einem Frauenstift, Studia Augustana  (Tübingen: Niemeyer, ), ; Tore Nyberg, Doku-
mente und Untersuchungen zur inneren Geschichte der drei Brigittenklöster Bayerns –,  vols., Quellen
und Erörterungen zur bayerischen Geschichte, n.F.  (Munich: Beck, –), :.
. Augsburg, Staatsarchiv,  Kloster Maria Maihingen MüB , fol. r–v; Nyberg, Dokumente,
:.
. The women stated that they urgently wished to take part in the jubilee indulgence and the
‘‘holy reform which was being preached throughout Saxony.’’ See Gerhard Taddey, Das Kloster Hein-
ingen von der Gründung bis zur Aufhebung, Veröffentlichungen des Max-Planck-Instituts für Geschichte
 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, ), –. See also Grube, Busch, .
. Kurt Ruh, Geschichte der abendländischen Mystik,  vols. (Munich: Beck, –), :–;
Wybren Scheepsma, Deemoed en devotie: De koorvrouwen van Windesheim en hun geschriften (Amsterdam:
Prometheus, ), –.
. Degler-Spengler, Gnadental, . Likewise, in  seven Dominican sisters at Cronschwitz in
Saxony asked for assistance from the Elector in instituting a reform, against the wishes of the other
sisters in their house and their provincial. The women stated that they wanted to be reformed so as
‘‘not to end their days in such a miserable state.’’ See Helmut Thurm, Das Dominikaner-Nonnenkloster
Cronschwitz bei Weida (Jena: Fischer, ), ; Manfred Schulze, Fürsten und Reformation. Geistliche
Reformpolitik weltlicher Fürsten vor der Reformation, Spätmittelalter und Reformation, n.F.  (Tübingen:
Mohr, ), .
. Lina Eckenstein praises her as ‘‘a woman of great intelligence and strong character.’’ See
Eckenstein, Monasticism, ; also J. A. Giesel, ‘‘Eine Heggbacher Chronik,’’ Württembergische Viertelja-
hreshefte  (): . Instituting her reforms gradually and on her own responsibility, Eckenstein
asserts, Elisabeth began with the younger sisters, allowing the elder nuns to keep to their old ways at
first, bringing them incrementally to an Observant interpretation of the rule. Among the women

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 Notes to Pages –

mentioned by Johannes Busch is the elderly Abbess von Möllenbeck at Fischbeck (on the Weser), who
was moved by the spirit of reform but herself too old to effect it and thus requested help from the
Observant house of Wülfinghausen. This she received in the form of Sister Armengard von Rheden,
whom we have already met. Armengard not only instituted Observant practices at Fischbeck but
oversaw the reform of three neighboring cloisters: Wenningsen, Marienwerder, and Barsinghausen. See
Grube, Busch, , .
. ‘‘Inzigkofen Ursprung,’’ ed. Johannes Pflummern, in ‘‘A.B.C., Zur Geschichte des Nonnen-
klosters Inzigkofen,’’ ed. Georg Ludwig Stecher, Diözesanarchiv von Schwaben  (): ; ‘‘Die Geis-
senhof ’sche Chronik des Klosters Inzigkofen,’’ ed. Theodor Dreher, Freiburger Katholisches Kirchenblatt
 (): col. ; Werner Fechter, Deutsche Handschriften des . und . Jahrhunderts aus der Bibliothek
des ehemaligen Augustinerchorfrauenstifts Inzigkofen (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, ), , .
. The questions are preserved in the chronicle at Sigmaringen, Fürstlich Hohenzollernsche Hof-
bibliothek,  , vol. , fols. r–v; ‘‘Inzigkofen Ursprung,’’ ed. Pflummern, ; Fechter, Deutsche
Handschriften, –. The rules were those drawn up by Cardinal Branda de Castiglione, ‘‘reformer’’ for
the German lands after the Council of Constance.
. Meyer, Reformacio, :–; Dietler, Chronik, ed. Schlumberger, –.
. Meyer, Reformacio, :–.
. Sigrid Schmitt, Geistliche Frauen und städtische Welt. Stiftsdamen-Klosterfrauen-Beginen und ihre
Umwelt am Beispiel der Stadt Straßburg im Spätmittelalter (–), forthcoming.
. Barthelmé, La Réforme, . Barthelmé includes in her appendix a transcription of the rest of
the narrative about St. Agnes, –.
. Heribert Christian Scheeben, ed. ‘‘Handschriften I,’’ Archiv der deutschen Dominikaner 
(): .
. Strasbourg, Bibliothèque Nationale et Universitaire de Strasbourg,  , fols. v–v;
Barthelmé, La Réforme, , –. Sigrid Schmitt deals extensively with the reform of St. Margaret’s
in her forthcoming ‘‘Geistliche Frauen und städtische Welt. Stiftsdamen-Klosterfrauen-Beginen und
ihre Umwelt am Beispiel der Stadt Straßburg im Spätmittelalter (–),’’ Habilitationsschrift,
University of Mainz, . I am grateful to Dr. Schmitt for allowing me to read chapters from her
book manuscript.
. Letter from Prioress Adelheid von Aue to Johannes Meyer () in Dietler, Chronik, ed.
Schlumberger, . Meyer also compiled a history of the Inselkloster in Bern, as Meyer himself states,
‘‘with the industry and help of sister Anna von Sissach.’’ See Claudia Engler,’’ Anna von Sissach,’’ Die
deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon, ed. Kurt Ruh et al. (Berlin: de Gruyter, – ), :
cols. –; Wolfram Schneider-Lastin, ‘‘Die Fortsetzung des Ötenbacher Schwesternbuchs und an-
dere vermißte Texte in Breslau,’’ Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum  (): –; The lost work of
Elisabeth Meringer and the just recently rediscovered Inselkloster Chronicle illustrate the fate of many
such works belonging to women’s cloisters, including, for example, the original chronicle and texts of
Ursula Haider at the Bickenkloster, Villingen. An eighteenth-century account reports that, during an
inventory of property at Villingen by Imperial Commissioner von Gleichenstein in , there were
found ‘‘some antiquated chests and cabinets full of old books and writings. From these only the largest
or those with the best bindings were selected and the rest thrown into the oven’’ to keep the nuns
from retrieving them. See Karl J. Glatz, ‘‘Auszüge aus den Urkunden des Bickenklosters in Villingen,’’
Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins  (): .
. Letter from Prioress Adelheid von Aue to Johannes Meyer () in Dietler, Chronik, ed.
Schlumberger, –.
. Meyer, Reformacio, :–. They were to take over the offices of prioress and subprioress at
Sylo. Two other sisters, Elisabeth Ringler and Margaret Meyer were selected to serve as sacristan/
head singer and as assistant bursar. A fifth, Elsbeth von Rathsamhausen, had only recently made her
profession.

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 Notes to Pages –

. Dietler, Chronik, ed. Schlumberger, , –; Prieur, St. Gertrud, –; Weis-Müller,
Klingental, .
. Letter from Prioress Adelheid von Aue to Johannes Meyer () in Dietler, Chronik, ed.
Schlumberger, –.
. Meyer, Reformacio, :–.
. Vogler, St. Katharina, .
. St. Gall, Stiftsbibliothek,  St. Katharina, Wil, ‘‘Schwesternbuch,’’ Nr. , fols. v–r. A
similar account is found in Angela Varnbühler’s ‘‘Chronicle,’’ cited by Vogler, St. Katharina, .
. St. Gall, Stiftsbibliothek,  St. Katharina, Wil, ‘‘Chronik,’’ Nr. , fol. v; Vogler, St. Kathar-
ina, .
. St. Gall, Stiftsbibliothek,  St. Katharina, Wil, ‘‘Schwesternbuch,’’ Nr. , fol. r; Vogler,
St. Katharina, –.
. St. Gall, Stiftsbibliothek,  St. Katharina, Wil, ‘‘Schwesternbuch,’’ Nr. , fol. r.
. Ibid., fols. r–v.
. Ibid., fol. r.
. Vogler, St. Katharina, .
. Elfriede Kelm, ‘‘Das Buch im Chore der Preetzer Klosterkirche. Nach dem Original darge-
stellt,’’ Schriften des Vereins für Schleswig-Holsteinische Kirchengeschichte, / (/): .
. Gustav von Buchwald, ‘‘Anna von Buchwald, Priorin des Klosters Preetz –,’’ Zeit-
schrift der Gesellschaft für Schleswig-Holsteinische Geschichte  (): .
. Buchwald, ‘‘Preetz,’’ –.
. Ibid., –.
. Ibid., –.
. Ibid., .
. Ibid., .
. Wolfgang Müller, ‘‘Die Villinger Frauenklöster des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit,’’ in  Jahre
Kloster St. Ursula, Villingen, ed. Helmut Heinrich and Gisela Sattler (Villingen: Kloster St. Ursula, n.d.),
–; [Juliana Ernst,] Chronik, ed. Glatz, –.
. [Juliana Ernst,] Chronik, ed. Glatz, –.
. Ibid., –.
. Max Straganz, ‘‘Die ältesten Statuten des Klarissenklosters zu Brixen (Tirol),’’ Franziskanische
Studien  (): .
. ‘‘Anno dni MCCL an Sant Martins tag da ist dis Closter Pfullingen an gefangen worden,’’
in ‘‘Duae Relationes circa Monasterium Brixinense O. Clar.,’’ ed. Maximilianus Straganz, Archivum
Franciscanum Historicum  (): , –; Hallauer, ‘‘Klarissencloster,’’ ; and Wilhelm Baum,
Nikolaus Cusanus in Tirol. Das Wirken des Philosophen und Reformators als Fürstbischof von Brixen (Bozen:
Athesia, ), .
. ‘‘Chronik des Schwesternhauses Marienthal, genannt Niesinck in Münster,’’ in Berichte der
Augenzeugen über das Münstersche Wiedertäuferreich, ed. Carl Cornelius, Geschichtsquellen des Bisthums
Münster  (; repr. Münster: Aschendorff, ), –.
. [Magdalena Kremer,] ‘‘Wie diß loblich closter,’’ ed. Sattler, –.
. ‘‘Anno dni MCCL,’’ ed. Straganz, –; Johannes Gatz, ‘‘Pfullingen,’’ Alemania Franciscana
Antiqua  (): .
. ‘‘Anno dni MCCL,’’ ed. Straganz, .
. Paul Stinzi, ‘‘Schönensteinbach,’’ Annuaire de la Société d’Histoire Sundgauvienne (): –,
–.
. See, for example, Magdalena Kremer’s account of Ursula Surgend at St.Katharina in Colmar
and her part in the reform mission to Sylo in Sélestat: [Kremer,] Kirchheim, –.
. For the confrontation between the Brigittine cloister of Maihingen and Count Ludwig XIII
of Oettingen, see Chapter .

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 Notes to Pages –

Chapter 
. Katharina von Hoya, quoted in [Johannes Busch,] Des Augustinerpropstes Iohannes Busch Chron-
icon Windeshemense und Liber de reformatione monasteriorum, ed. Karl Grube, Geschichtsquellen der Pro-
vinz Sachsen und angrenzender Gebiete  (Halle: Hendel, ), .
. Katharina von Hoya, Des Augustinerpropstes Iohannes Busch, –, cited from Eileen Power’s
translation, Medieval English Nunneries, c. – (Cambridge University Press, ), .
. Rolf Kiessling, Bürgerliche Gesellschaft und Kirche in Augsburg im Spätmittelalter. Ein Beitrag zur
Strukturanalyse der oberdeutschen Reichsstadt, Abhandlungen zur Geschichte der Stadt Augsburg  (Augs-
burg: Mühlberger, ), .
. Johannes Meyer, Das Buch der Reformacio Predigerordens, ed. Benedictus Maria Reichert, Quel-
len und Forschungen zur Geschichte des Dominikanerordens in Deutschland  (Leipzig: Harrassowitz,
), :.
. Karl Grube, Johannes Busch Augustinerpropst zu Hildesheim: Ein katholischer Reformator des .
Jahrhunderts (Freiburg: Herder, ), –.
. Grube, Johannes Busch, ; Gustav Voit, Engelthal—Geschichte eines Dominikanerinnenklosters, 
vols., Schriftenreihe der Altnürnberger Landschaft  (Nuremberg: Koru and Berg, ), :.
. Dieter Stievermann, ‘‘Gründung, Reform und Reformation des Frauenklosters zu Offen-
hausen,’’ Zeitschrift für württembergische Landesgeschichte  (): ; Merry E. Wiesner, ‘‘Ideology
Meets the Empire: Reformed Convents and the Reformation,’’ in Germania Illustrata: Essays Presented
to Gerald Strauss, ed. Susan Karant-Nunn and Andrew Fix (Kirksville, Mo.: Sixteenth-Century Essays
and Studies, ), .
. Meyer, Reformacio, :.
. Gebhard Spahr, ‘‘Die reform im Kloster St. Gallen –,’’ Schriften des Vereins für Gesch-
ichte des Bodensees und seiner Umgebung  (): .
. Chronik und Totenbuch des Klosters Wienhausen, ed. Horst Apphuhn (Wienhausen: Kloster
Wienhausen, ), .
. Paul Nyhus, ‘‘The Franciscan Observant Reform in Germany,’’ in Reformbemühungen und
Observanzbestrebungen im spätmittelalterlichen Ordenswesen, ed. Kaspar Elm, Berliner Historische Studien
, Ordensstudien  (Berlin: Dunker and Humblot, ), ; Lucius Teichmann, ‘‘Die franziskani-
sche Observanzbewegung in Ost-Mitteleuropa und ihre politisch-nationale Komponente im böh-
misch-schlesischen Raum,’’ Archiv für schlesische Kirchengeschichte  (): , .
. Annemarie Halter, Geschichte des Dominikanerinnen-Klosters Oetenbach in Zürich –
(Winterthur: Keller, ), .
. Marie-Claire Däniker-Gysin, Geschichte des Dominikanerinnenklosters Töß –, Neujahrs-
blatt der Stadtbibliothek Winterthur  (Winterthur: Ziegler, ), , ; Dietrich Schmidtke,
Studien zur dingallegorischen Erbauungsliteratur des Mittelalters. Am Beispiel der Gartenallegorie, Hermaea,
Germanistische Forschungen, n.F.  (Tübingen: Niemeyer, ), .
. [Busch,] Liber de reformatione, .
. Renée Weis-Müller, Die Reform des Klosters Klingental und ihr Personenkreis, Baseler Beiträge
zur Geschichtswissenschaft  (Basel: Helbing and Lichtenhahn, ), ; Thoma Vogler, Geschichte
des Dominikanerinnen-Klosters St. Katharina in St. Gallen – (Fribourg, Switzerland: Paulus, ),
; Spahr, ‘‘St. Gallen,’’.
. See Sigrid Schmitt, ‘‘Geistliche Frauen und städtische Welt. Stiftsdamen-Klosterfrauen-Begi-
nen und ihre Umwelt am Beispiel der Stadt Straßburg im Spätmittelalter (–),’’ Habilitations-
schrift, University of Mainz, .
. Bruno Griesser, ‘‘Die Reform des Klosters Rechentshofen in der alten Speyrer Diözese durch
Abt Johann von Maulbronn –,’’ Archiv für mittelrheinische Kirchengeschichte  (): –.
. Rudolf Schulze, Das adelige Frauen- (Kanonissen-) Stift der Hl. Maria (–) und die Pfarre
Liebfrauen-Überwasser zu Münster, Westfalen (Münster: Aschendorff, ), ; Ulrich Faust, ed., Germa-
nia Benedictina : Norddeutschland (St. Ottilien: EOS-Verlag, ), –.
. Griesser, ‘‘Rechentshofen,’’ , . Similarly relatives of the nuns at St. Walburg, in Eich-

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 Notes to Pages –

stätt, opposed reform on the grounds that their daughters were of the nobility and too delicate to bear
the rigors of a strictly observant life, Jakob Marx, Geschichte des Erzstifts Trier, das ist der Stadt Trier und
des Landes, als Churfürstenthum und als Erzdiöcese, von den ältesten Zeiten bis zum Jahre ,  vols.,
(–; repr. Aalen: Scientia, ), :.
. Staatsarchiv Nürnberg, Rep.  a, n. , fol. ; Voit, Engelthal, :.
. Barbara Frank, Das Erfurter Peterskloster im . Jahrhundert. Studien zur Geschichte der Klosterreform
und der Bursfelder Union, Veröffentlichungen des Max-Planck-Instituts für Geschichte , Studien zur
Germania sacra  (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, ), .
. Stievermann, ‘‘Offenhausen,’’ .
. For a list of literary works, see Karl Knötig, Die Sonnenburg im Pustertal (Bozen: Athensia,
), .
. Morimichi Watanabe, ‘‘Nicholas of Cusa and the Tyrolese Monasteries: Reform and Resis-
tance,’’ History of Political Thought  (): .
. Wilhelm Baum, Nikolaus Cusanus in Tirol. Das Wirken des Philosophen und Reformators als Fürstbi-
schof von Brixen (Bozen: Athesia, ), .
. Rudolf Humberdrotz, Die Chronik des Klosters Sonnenburg (Pustertal),  vols., Schlern-Schriften
 (Innsbruck: Wagner, ), .
. Reform statutes for Sonnenburg drawn up by Nicholas of Cusa after a visit to the cloister on
November , ; in Appendix to Hermann Hallauer, ‘‘Eine Visitation des Nikolaus von Kues
im Benediktinerinnenkloster Sonnenburg,’’ Mitteilungen und Forschungsbeiträge der Cusanus-Gesellschaft 
(): –.
. Chief among the sticking points was the simultaneous battle between Cusa and the convent
over legal claims to three villages, especially grazing rights around the village of Enneberg. Verena, who
always suspected Cusa of greed for power and materialistic motives, insisted that this matter had to be
settled before the reform could be discussed. Cusa naively insisted that they were in no way connected.
Accordingly, the fight over Enneberg continued to escalate in tandem with the hardening of lines over
the reform. For more on the conflict over Enneberg, see Baum, Cusanus, –, and Albert Jäger,
Der Streit des Cardinals Nicolaus von Cusa mit dem Herzoge Sigmund von Österreich als Grafen von Tirol, 
vols. (Innsbruck: Wagner, ), :–.
. Cusa’s conditions called for Verena to ‘‘come to the great church at Bruneck when many
people would be there. Then she should throw herself on the ground before the altar while the priests
prayed the seven penitential psalms and sprinkled her with holy water. After which she might rise and
swear on a crucifix to be obedient to the church in the future. Then she should be struck on the
shoulders with a staff and required to keep the censures.’’ Verena was also required to pray for the souls
of those who had fallen in the battle at Enneberg for which she was held entirely guilty. Knötig,
Sonnenburg, –.
. Memorandum by Abbess Verena von Stuben, March , in Appendix to Hallauer, ‘‘Son-
nenburg,’’ . Verena kept a detailed record of the preceedings with the Cardinal, including copies of
the letters that passed between them with explanatory notes. This record is found in Innsbrück, Tiroler
Landesarchiv,  , ‘‘Missiv-Buch des Klosters Sonnenburg: Was sich mit dem Cardinal Nicolai
Cusan und der Abtissin Verena von Stuben zugetragen,’’ at . Verena’s memorandum continues:

Second: that I and the convent should be locked in so that his Grace has control over the
key, [and] he will lock and unlock it as he wills and for his business. Third: that a common
bailiff should be placed in charge of the convent’s property and shall manage it and the
convent. Fourth: The same bailiff shall be responsible to supply the subprioress with food,
clothing, and all that she requires for the women, and I, as abbess, shall not contradict.

. Baum, Cusanus, .

. Maria Hüffer, Die Reformen in der Abtei Rijnsburg im . Jahrhundert (Münster: Aschendorff,
), .
. Ibid., –, –.

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 Notes to Pages –

. Ibid., , –, , –, –.

. Ibid., –, –.
. For one bull alone the women owed seventy-four gold ducats, plus one hundred paid to a
cardinal, twelve to two lawyers, thirty to a private solicitor, eight to the chamberlain for arranging the
audience, fifty to two signatories, three hundred in travel expenses, and more. Ibid., –.
. Schulze, Liebfrauen-Überwasser, .
. ‘‘Klosterchronik Überwasser während der Wirren –,’’ in Quellen und Forschungen zur
Geschichte der Stadt Münster, ed. Eduard Schulte (Münster: Aschendorff, ), :.
. Münster, Nordrhein-Westfälisches Staatsarchiv, Münsterscher Studienfonds, Stift Überwasser,
Akten Nr.  (Cloister Annals), fol. r; see also Schulze, Liebfrauen-Überwasser, .
. Schulze, Liebfrauen-Überwasser, ; Johannes Linneborn, ‘‘Die Reformation der westfälischen
Benedictiner-Klöster im . Jahrhundert durch die Bursfelder Congregation,’’ Studien und Mitteilungen
zur Geschichte des Benedictinerordens  ():  n. . Perhaps Linneborn meant on the model of
Engelthal where specific sisters were named as assistants and successors to take over the offices when
the reform sisters would return to Nuremberg. See Voit, Engelthal, :.
. Linneborn, ‘‘Bursfelder,’’ ; Schulze, Liebfrauen-Überwasser, –.
. Linneborn, ‘‘Bursfelder,’’ .
. Schulze, Liebfrauen-Überwasser, .
. Münster, Nordrhein-Westfälisches Staatsarchiv, Münsterscher Studienfonds, Stift Überwasser,
Akten Nr. , fol. v; see also Schulze, Liebfrauen-Überwasser, , –.
. Meyer, Reformacio, :; Seraphin Dietler, Chronik des Klosters Schönensteinbach, ed. Johann
von Schlumberger (Guebwiller: Boltz, ), .
. Meyer, Reformacio, :.
. Ibid., :; Gustav Voit reports that at Engelthal the sisters who elected to leave took their
pensions with them, Engelthal, :.
. Busch made a list of all the convent’s inhabitants and interviewed each one individually. See
Grube, Busch, .
. Degler-Spengler, Brigitte, Das Klarissenkloster Gnadental in Basel –, Quellen und For-
schungen zur Baseler Geschichte  (Basel: Reinhardt, ), ; Isenard Frank, ‘‘Der Anschluß des
Salzburger Dominikanerklosters Freisach an die österreichischen Observanten, –,’’ Archivum
Fratrum Praedicatorum  ():  n. .
. [Juliana Ernst,] Die Chronik des Bickenklosters zu Villingen, ed. Karl Jordan Glatz, Bibliothek des
Litterarischen Vereins in Stuttgart  (Tübingen: Fues, ), –.
. Roswitha Poppe, ‘‘Gertrudenberg,’’ in Die Frauenklöster in Niedersachsen, Schleswig-Holstein und
Bremen, ed. Ulrich Faust, Germania Benedictina : Norddeutschland (St. Ottilien: EOS-Verlag, ),
.
. [Magdalena Kremer,] ‘‘Wie diß loblich kloster zu Sant Johannes Baptisten zu Kirchen under
deck prediger-ordens reformiert ist worden und durch wolich personen,’’ in Geschichte des Herzogtums
Wuerttemberg unter der Regierung der Graven, ed. Christian Friedrich Sattler (Tübingen: Reiss, ),
:, –.
. Grube, Busch, .
. Max Miller, Die Söflinger Briefe und das Klarissenkloster Söflingen bei Ulm im Spätmittelalter (Wurz-
burg: Triltsch, ), , , –.
. Ibid., ; Karl Suso Frank, Das Klarissenkloster Söflingen: Ein Beitrag zur franziskanischen Ordensge-
schichte Süddeutschlands und zur Ulmer Kirchengeschichte (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, ), .
. [Busch,] Liber de reformatione, .
. Although the manuscript of the chronicle is dated , editor Horst Appuhn states that the
text must have been copied from an older Low German one, probably from around , the time of
the reform, as can be seen by the names incorrectly rendered from the Low German, as well as from
errors in dates, and names of provosts left out of the record before . After  the dates are correct
and the record is complete. Appuhn comments that ‘‘in the High German version one can still perceive

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 Notes to Pages –

the powerful Low German style in which the accounts from the time of abbesses Katharina von Hoya
and Susanna Potstock are recorded.’’ Chronik Wienhausen, ed. Appuhn, v–vi, viii.
. Ibid., , –.
. [Busch,] Liber de reformatione, here quoted in Power, Nunneries, .
. Chronik Wienhausen, ed. Appuhn, –.
. [Busch,] Liber de reformatione, –.
. Chronik Wienhausen, ed. Appuhn, .
. Ibid., –.
. Meyer, Reformacio, :.
. Johannes Kist, ‘‘Klosterreform im spätmittelalterlichen Nürnberg,’’ Zeitschrift für bayerische Kir-
chengeschichte  (): .
. Theodor von Kern, ‘‘Die Reformation des Katharinenklosters zu Nürnberg im Jahr ,’’
Jahresbericht des historischen Vereins für Mittelfranken  (), .
. Meyer, Reformacio, :.
. Kern, Katharinenkloster, .
. The account, ‘‘Also vindt man hie geschriben wie die obseruantz angefangen ist worden . . . ,’’
is transcribed in its entireity in Kern, Katharinenkloster, –, here , –.
. Weis-Müller, Klingental, , .
. Ibid., , –; Wackernagel, Basel, :.
. Weis-Müller, Klingental, –, .
. Ibid., , ; Wackernagel, Basel, :. Weis-Müller speculates that some were children
whose care their guardians did not want to take on, Klingental, .
. Weis-Müller, Klingental, , –, .
. Ibid., .
. Ibid., , , , –.
. Annette Barthelmé, La Réforme dominicaine au XVe siècle en Alsace et dans l’ensemble de la province
de Teutonie, Collection d’études sur l’histoire du droit et des institutions de l’Alsace  (Strasbourg: Heitz,
), ; Weis-Müller, Klingental, , , –.
. Elsbeth Dürner to Wilhelm von Rappoltstein,  August , in Rappoltsteinisches Urkunden-
buch –, ed. Karl Albrecht,  vols. (Colmar: Waldmeyer, –), :.
. Meyer, Reformacio, :–.
. Ibid., :, .
. Ibid., :.
. Schwesternbuch und Statuten des St. Agnes–Konvents in Emmerich, ed. Anne Bollman and Nikolaus
Staubach, Emmericher Forschungen  (Emmerich: Emmericher Geschichtsverein, ), .
. Anna Roede, ‘‘Anna Roedes spätere Chronik von Herzebrock,’’ ed. Franz Flaskamp, Jahrbuch
der Gesellschaft für Niedersächsische Kirchengeschichte  (): . For more on enclosure and particularly
the art within cloisters, see Jeffrey Hamburger’s chapter, ‘‘Art, Enclosure, and The Pastoral Care of
Nuns, in idem, The Visual and The Visionary: Art and Female Spirituality in Late Medieval Germany,
– (New York: Zone Books, ).
. Maria von Wolkenstein to Leo von Wolkenstein, October/November , in appendix to
Hallauer, Kues, ; and Maria to Leo, December , idem, .
. Meyer, Reformacio, :–.
. Marilyn Oliva, The Convent and Community in Late Medieval England: Female Monasteries in the
Diocese of Norwich, – (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell, ), ; Elizabeth Makowski, Canon
Law and Cloistered Women: ‘‘Periculoso’’ and Its Commentators, – (Washington, D.C.: Catholic
University of America Press, ), –.
. Makowski, Canon Law, , –, , –, ; Brigitte Degler-Spengler, ‘‘ ‘Zahlreich wie
die Sterne des Himmels’: Zistersienser, Dominikaner und Fransziskaner vor dem Problem der Inkorp-
oration von Frauenklöstern,’’ Rottenburger Jahrbuch für Kirchengeschichte  (): –; Patricia Ranft,
Women and the Religious Life in Premodern Europe (New York: St. Martin’s Press, ), .

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 Notes to Pages –

. Weis-Müller, Klingental, . Power, Nunneries, describes attempts to impose claustration as
‘‘dictated by a real social necessity,’’ .
. Jutta Gisela Sperling, Convents and the Body Politic in Late Renaissance Venice (Chicago: Univer-
sity of Chicago Press, ), , .
. Merry Wiesner-Hanks, ed., Convents Confront the Reformation: Catholic and Protestant Nuns in
Germany, trans. Joan Skocir and Merry Wiesner-Hanks (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, ),
. See also Ranft, Religious, –.
. Oliva, Convent, , .
. Thomas Lentes, ‘‘Bild, Reform und Cura Monialium; Bildverständnis und Bildergebrauch im
‘Buch der Reformacio Predigerordens’ des Johannes Meyer (d. ),’’ in Dominicains et Dominicaines
en Alsace (XIIIe–XXe Siècle): Actes du colloque de Guebwiller, – avril , ed. Jean-Luc Eichenlaub
(Colmar: Editions d’Alsace), . Justifying enclosure for women, Ranft argues that in founding the
order Saint Dominic ‘‘saw two types of life as necessary and complementary to achieve the over-all
goal of the Order of Preachers, the active life of Martha and the contemplative life of Mary.’’ Dominic
and his group were involved in an active apostolate, but, as a first step, he established a contemplative
base at Prouille for women who were to be, Ranft asserts, ‘‘partners in the apostolate’’ and ‘‘the
lifeblood’’ of the order. Of the two types, the contemplative life was intended to be superior. Ranft
maintains that women were given the superior role in the eyes of the Dominicans, a fact which, she
attests ‘‘has been little noted.’’ See Ranft, Women, –.
. McNamara, Sisters, . In other orders, the Observance did not begin in cities like Rome,
Milan or Bologna, but in hermitages and cloisters in isolated locations. In its early stages, the movement
emphasized the ‘‘Vita eremitica’’ as the norm for monastics. See Kaspar Elm, ‘‘Die Fransiskanerobser-
vanz als Bildungsreform,’’ in Leben und Weltentwürfe im Übergang vom Mittelalter zur Neuzeit. Politik-
Bildung-Naturkunde-Theologie. Bericht über Kolloquien der Kommission zur Erforschung der Kultur des Spätmit-
telalters, ed. Hartmut Bookmann, Bernt Moeller, and Karl Stackmann, . Thus reform statutes for
Colmar and other Dominican men’s houses substitute life in a closed community for daily ministering
in the world. See Gerhard Metzger, ‘‘Der Dominikanerorden in Württemberg am Ausgang des Mittel-
alters,’’ Blätter für württembergische Kirchengeschichte, n.F.  (): –.
. Franz Egger, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Predigerordens. Die Reform des Baseler Konvents  und
die Stellung des Ordens am Baseler Konzil – (Bern: Lang, ), , –; Gabriel Löhr, Die
Teutonia im . Jahrhundert: Studien und Texte vornehmlich zur Geschichte ihrer Reform, Quellen und For-
schungen zur Geschichte des Dominikanerordens in Deutschland  (Leipzig: Harrassowitz, ), .
. Egger, Beiträge, ; Grube, Busch, –. For the Observant Dominicans of the Congregation
of Holland, Johannes Uytenhove’s regulations (De Reformatione, ) require enclosure as a aid to
keeping the rule. See Servatius Wolfs, ‘‘Dominikanische Observanzbestrebungen: Die Congregatio
Hollandiae (–),’’ in Reformbemühungen und Observanzbestrebungen im spätmittelalterlichen Ordens-
wesen, ed. Kaspar Elm, Berliner Historische Studien , Ordenssudien  (Berlin: Dunker and Humblot,
), .
. Manfred Schulze, Fürsten und Reformation. Geistliche Reformpolitik weltlicher Fürsten vor der Refor-
mation, Spätmittelalter und Reformation, n.F.  (Tübingen: Mohr, ), . Moreover, the Bursfeld
Congregation forbade free traffic in and out of men’s cloisters and also mandated enclosure; Grube,
Busch, , ; and Spahr, ‘‘St. Gallen,’’ .
. Johannes Linneborn, ‘‘Die Bursfelder Kongregation während der ersten hundert Jahre ihres
Bestandes,’’ Deutsche Geschichtsblätter  (/): .
. Tore Nyberg, ‘‘Der Brigittenorden im Zeitalter der Ordensreformen,’’ in Reformbemühungen
und Observanzbestrebungen im spätmittelalterlichen Ordenswesen, ed. Kaspar Elm, Berliner Historische Stu-
dien , Ordensstudien  (Berlin: Dunker and Humbolt, ), .
. Hüffer, Rijnsburg, .
. St. Gall, Stiftsbibliothek,  St. Katharina, Wil, Vogler , fol. r; see also Volger, St. Kathar-
ina, ; Barthelmé, La Réform, ; Ida-Christina Riggert, Die Lüneburger Frauenklöster, Quellen und
Untersuchungen zur Geschichte Niedersachsens im Mittelalter  (Hanover: Hahn, ), ,
–.

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 Notes to Pages –

. Chronik Wienhausen, ed. Appuhn, .

. Preetz, Archiv, Klosterpreetz, ‘‘Buch im Chor,’’ fol. r, translation cited from Jeffrey Ham-
burger, The Visual and the Visionary: Art and Female Spirituality in Late Medieval Germany (New York:
Zone Books, ), ,  n. .
. ‘‘Sorores karissime . . .’’ [Ebstorf reform account, c. ], in the appendix to ‘‘Litterarisches
und geistiges Leben in Kloster Ebstorf am Ausgange des Mittelalters,’’ ed. Conrad Borchling, Zeitschrift
des historischen Vereins für Niedersachsen  (): –, here .
. [Kremer,] ‘‘Wie diß loblich closter,’’ –.
. [Eva Magdalena Neyler,] ‘‘Item diß nachgeschriben geschicht und gewalt des vyntz von
Gott,’’ in ‘‘Die Vertreibung der Klosterfrauen aus Pforzheim,’’ ed. Dr. Holzwarth, Katholische Trösteinsam-
keit  (): –, here –, –. Another version of Eva Neyler’s account, from an
eighteenth-century copy, was edited by Karl Rieder in ‘‘Zur Reformationsgeschichte des Dominikan-
erinnenklosters zu Pforzheim,’’ Freiburger Diözesan-Archiv n.F.  (): –.
. Eva Neyler’s account of the arrival at Kirchberg is transcribed from Stuttgart, Landesbiblio-
thek, Cod. hist.  , fol. r–v, in R. Krauß, ‘‘Geschichte des Dominikaner-Frauenklosters
Kirchberg,’’ Württembergische Vierteljahreshefte, n.F. (): –. A transcription from an eighteenth-
century manuscript is found in Rieder, ‘‘Reformationsgeschichte,’’ –, here .
. Katharina M. Wilson, ed., Women Writers of the Renaissance and Reformation (Athens: University
of Georgia Press, ), –.
. [Kremer,] ‘‘Wie diß loblich closter,’’ . An example of a radically committed Observant,
Sister Bartolomea Riccoboni writes of the enclosure of the Dominican house of Corpus Domini at
Venice in , saying, ‘‘Just imagine what joy lingered in those minds that had for so long yearned to
be enclosed for love of the Lord Jesus Christ!’’ Later she says that the women’s fervor reached such a
point that ‘‘going to the windows bothered them terribly,’’ [Bartolomea Riccoboni,] Life and Death in
a Venetian Convent: The Chronicle and Necrology of Corpus Domini, –, ed. and trans. Daniel
Bornstein (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, ), , .
. St. Gall, Stiftsbibliothek,  St. Katharina, Wil, ‘‘Klosterchronik,’’ Nr. , fol. r and fol. r.
See also Vogler, St. Katharina, , –.
. St. Gall, Stiftsbibliothek,  St. Katharina, Wil, ‘‘Schwesternbuch,’’ Nr. , fol. r. See also
Vogler, St. Katharina,  n. . ‘‘Gesicht’’ has the meaning of both countenance and sight.
. Vogler, St. Katharina, , .
. Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, trans. E. M. Blaiklock (Nashville: Thomas Nelson,
), .
. Caroline Walker Bynum, Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages
(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, ), .
. Strasbourg, Bibliothèque Municipale,  , fol. r. That the work must have circulated
widely in a much abridged version is indicated by the copy in the Freiburg Universitätsbibliothek,
 , fols. v–v, which, unlike the Strasbourg manuscript, does not mention Margareta von
Masmünster’s name. Excerpts from the work can be found in Florenz Landmann, ‘‘Zwei Andachtsü-
bungen von Straßburger Klosterfrauen am Ende des Mittelalters,’’ Archiv für Elsässische Kirchengeschichte
 (): –. Dietrich Schmidtke cites ten manuscript copies, ‘‘Margaret Ursula von Masmünster,’’
in Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon, ed. Kurt Ruh et al. (Berlin: de Gruyter, ),
: cols. –.
. Strasbourg, Bibliothèque Municipale,  , fol. r.
. Freiburg, Universitätsbibliothek,  , fol. r.
. Strasbourg, Bibliothèque Municipale,  , fol. r. See also Landmann, ‘‘Andachts-
übungen,’’ .
. See Derek Pearsall and Elizabeth Salter, Landscapes and Seasons of the Medieval World (Toronto:
University of Toronto Press, ),  and plate b. Imagery of the devout soul in the garden also
recalls Jesus’ appearance to Mary Magdalene when she mistook him for the gardener.
. Lotte Kurras, ‘‘Ein Bildzeugnis der Reformtätigkeit des Nürnberger Katharinenklosters für

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 Notes to Pages –

Regensburg,’’ Mitteilungen des historischen Vereins für die Geschichte der Stadt Nürnberg  (): . See
also Anne Winston-Allen, Stories of the Rose: The Making of the Rosary in the Middle Ages (University
Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, ), –.
. [Barbara von Benfelden.] ‘‘Von zunemunge der geistlicheit und uff gang der tugenden der
swestern,’’ transcribed in appendix to Annette Barthelmé, La Réforme dominicaine au Xve siècle en Alsace
et dans l’ensemble de la province de Teutonie, Collection d’études sur l’histoire du droit et des institutions
de l’Alsace  (Strasbourg: Heitz, ), –, here . This account is only found in Strasbourg,
Bibliothèque Nationale et Universitaire de Strasbourg,  , fols. v–r, here r.
. Schmidtke, Erbauungsliteratur, , , , , . See also Anne Winston-Allen,
‘‘ ‘Minne’ in Spiritual Gardens of the Fifteenth Century,’’ in Canon and Canon Transgression in Medieval
German Literature, ed. Albrecht Classen (Göppingen: Kümmerle, ), –.
. St. Gall, Stiftsbibliothek,  St. Katharina, Wil, ‘‘Schwesternbuch,’’ Nr. , fols. r–v; St.
Gall, Stiftsbibliothek,  St. Katharina, Wil, ‘‘Klosterchronik,’’ Nr. , fols. r, r. See also Volger,
St. Katharina, , –.

Chapter 
. Joan Kelly-Gadol, ‘‘Did Women Have a Renaissance?’’ in Becoming Visible: Women in European
History, ed. Renate Bridenthal and Claudia Koonz, – (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, ); David
Herlihy, ‘‘Did Women have a Renaissance?: A Reconsideration,’’ Medievalia et Humanistica, n.s. 
(): –.
. ‘‘Sorores karissime . . . ,’’ ed. Conrad Borchling, in ‘‘Litterarisches und geistiges Leben im
Kloster Ebstorf am Ausgange des Mittelalters,’’ Zeitschrift des historischen Vereins für Niedersachsen  ():
. See also Wilhelm Spangenberg, Sophia Wichelmann, and Hans E. Seidat, Ebstorf aus der Chronik
(Uelzen: Becker, ), , and Heike Uffmann, ‘‘ ‘ . . . wie in einem Rosengarten . . .’ Die Ebstorfer
Klosterreform im Spiegel von Chronistik und Tischlesung,’’ in ‘In Treue und Hingabe’:  Jahre Kloster
Ebstorf, ed. Marianne Elster and Horst Hoffmann (Uelzen: Becker, ), –.
. ‘‘Sorores karissime . . . ,’’ ed. Borchling, in ‘‘Kloster Ebstorf,’’ .
. Ibid., –.
. From the Ebstorf Chronicle, ‘‘Innumerabiles grates . . . ,’’ ed. Borchling, in ‘‘Kloster
Ebstorf,’’ .
. Helmar Härtel, ‘‘Die Bibliothek des Klosters Ebstorf am Ausgang des Mittelalters,’’ in ‘In Treue
und Hingabe:’  Jahre Kloster Ebstorf, ed. Elster and Hoffmann, –; idem, ‘‘Die Klosterbibliothek
Ebstorf. Reform und Schulwirklichkeit am Ausgang des Mittelalters,’’ in Schule und Schüler im Mittel-
alter, ed. Martin Kintzinger, – (Cologne: Böhlau, ).
. Only remnants remain of the libraries at Schönensteinbach, St Maria Magdalena an den
Steinen (Basel), Liebenau (near Friedrichshafen), Himmelskron (Hochheim), St. Katharina (Colmar),
the ‘‘Insel’’ cloister in Bern, St. Agnes in Strasbourg, Engelport (Guebwiller), Sylo (Sélestat), and the
Dominican women’s convents at Pforzheim, Hasenpfuhl, Altenhohenau, Medingen, Medlingen, and
Tulln. See Andreas Rüther and Hans-Jochen Schiewer, ‘‘Die Predigthandschriften des Straßburger
Dominikanerinnenklosters St. Nikolaus in undis,’’ in Die deutsche Predigt im Mitttelalter, ed. Volker
Mertens and Hans-Jochen Schiewer (Niemeyer: Tübingen, ), –; Heiko Haumann and Hans
Schadek, eds., Geschichte der Stadt Freiburg im Breisgau,  vols. (Stuttgart: Theiss, ), :.
. Rüther and Schiewer, ‘‘Predigthandschriften,’’ ; Hans Hornung, ‘‘Der Handschriftensam-
mler D. Sudermann und die Bibliothek des Straßburger Klosters St. Nikolaus in Undis,’’ Zeitschrift für
Geschichte des Oberrheins  (): –; idem, ‘‘Daniel Sudermann als Handschriftensammler: Ein
Beitrag zur Straßburger Bibliotheksgeschichte’’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Tübingen, ).
. Thoma Vogler, Geschichte des Dominikanerinnen-Klosters St. Katharina in St. Gallen –
(Fribourg, Switzerland: Paulus, ), , –.
. Karin Schneider, ‘‘Die Bibliothek des Katharinenklosters in Nürnberg und die Städtische Ge-
sellschaft,’’ in Studien zum Städtischen Bildungswesen des späten Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit, ed.

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 Notes to Pages –

Bernd Moeller et al. (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, ), ; and Eugen Hillenbrand, ‘‘Die
Observantenbewegungen der deutschen Ordensprovinz der Dominikaner,’’ in Reformbemühungen und
Observanzbestrebungen im spätmittelalterlichen Ordenswesen, ed. Kaspar Elm, Berliner Historische Studien
, Ordensstudien  (Berlin: Dunker und Humblot, ), .
. Werner Williams-Krapp, ‘‘Observanzbewegung, monastische Spiritualität und geistliche Li-
teratur im . Jahrhundert,’’ Internationales Archiv für Sozialgeschichte der deutschen Literatur  (), ;
Schneider, ‘‘Bibliothek,’’ .
. Williams-Krapp, ‘‘Observanzbewegung,’’ .
. Regina Schiewer, ‘‘Sermons for Nuns of the Dominican Observance Movement,’’ in Medieval
Monastic Preaching, ed. Carolyn Muessig (Leiden: Brill, ), .
. Canisia Jedelhauser, Geschichte des Klosters und der Hofmark Maria-Medingen von den Anfängen im
. Jahrhundert bis , Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte des Dominikanerordens in Deutsch-
land  (Leipzig: Harrassowitz, ), . Similarly, a letter from reform prioress Anna Sneberger at St.
Agnes in Freiburg lists the books she and three reforming sisters brought from Basel. [Sneberger, Anna.]
Letter to the sisters at St. Maria Magdelena an den Steinen, Basel,  July . In ‘‘Frauengeschichte/
Geschlechtergeschichte/Sozialgeschichte. Forschungsfelder-Forschungslücken: eine bibliographische
Annäherung an das späte Mittelalter,’’ ed. Gabriela Signori. In Lustgarten und Dämonenpein: konzept von
Weiblichkeit im Mittelalter und Früher Neuzeit, ed. Annette Kuhn and Bea Lundt, – (Dortmund:
Ebersbach, ), at –.
. Werner Williams-Krapp, ‘‘German and Dutch Legendaries of the Middle Ages: A Survey,’’ in
Hagiography and Medieval Literature: A Symposium, ed. Hans Bekker-Nielsen (Odense: Odense Univer-
sity Press, ), .
. Ida-Christine Riggert, Die Lüneburger Frauenklöster, Quellen und Untersuchungen zur Ge-
schichte Niedersachsens im Mittelalter  (Hanover: Hahn, ), .
. Burkhard Hasebrink, ‘‘Tischlesung und Bildungskultur im Nürnberger Katharinenkloster. Ein
Beitrag zu ihrer Rekonstruktion,’’ in Schule und Schüler im Mittelalter. Beiträge zur europäischen Bildungsge-
schichte des . bis . Jahrhunderts, ed. Martin Kintzinger, Sönke Lorenz, and Michael Walter, Beihefte
zum Archiv für Kulturgeschichte  (Cologne: Böhlau, ), .
. A. Hauber, ‘‘Deutsche Handschriften in Frauenklöstern des späteren Mittelalters,’’ Zentralblatt
für Bibliothekswesen  (): ; Hasebrink, ‘‘Tischlesung,’’ .
. Meyer’s work, a translation and adaptation for women of Humbert of Romans’s (–)
Liber de instructione officialium ordinis praedicatorum, is currently being edited by Sarah DeMaris for the
series Monumenta ordinis fratrum praedicatorum historica.
. Meyer’s list of titles reads:

daz buch hugonis von der zücht [De institutione novitiorum] Daz buch von dem closter
der sel [Claustrum animae] Die betrachtung sancti bernhardi, Die betrachtung vnd gepet
Anshelmi Collationes patrum daz ist die red der altveter vnd der altveter leben daz leben
vnd die marter der heiligen [Der Heiligen Leben] Daz buchlin der wisheit daz do heist
horologium eterne sapientie vnd daz büchlin daz da heist Stimulus amoris vnd das büchlin
daz do heist von dem nach volgen christi [Imitatio Christi] daz buch von der mynn gotz
[Büchlein von der Liebhabung Gottes] daz buch Baarlaam daz buch von den tugenden vnd
vntugenden vnd ander des gelich der bücher.

Hasebrink, ‘‘Tischlesung,’’ –.

. J. König, ‘‘Die Chronik der Anna von Munzingen. Nach der ältesten Abschrift mit Einleitung
und Beilagen,’’ Freiburger Diözesan-Archiv  (): –.
. This catalogue of manuscripts, ‘‘Jtem die her nach geschriben pucher hat der convent hie zu
e

sant Kathereyn . . . , ’’ compiled – by one of the sisters, is edited by Franz Jostes in appendix II
to Meister Eckhart und seine Jünger. Ungedruckte Texte zur Geschichte der deutschen Mystik, Collectanea
Friburgensis  (Fribourg, Switzerland: Kommissionsverlag der Universitätsbuchhandlung, ), –
, here , .

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 Notes to Pages –

. Ibid., , , . The convent of St. Katharina had sent a reform party to Tulln in .
. Hornung, ‘‘Daniel,’’ :a.
. Cited in Hauber, ‘‘Handschriften,’’ .
. St. Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. , fols. v–r; Vogler, St. Katharina, .
. Freiburg, Universitätsbibliothek,  . See also Werner Fechter, Deutsche Handschriften des
. und . Jahrhunderts aus der Bibliothek des ehemaligen Augustinerchorfrauenstifts Inzigkofen (Sigmaringen:
Thorbecke, ), –.
. St. Gall, Stiftsbibliothek,  St. Katherina, Wil, ‘‘Schwesternbuch,’’ Nr. , fol. r.
. At Überwasser, the account books of reform prioress Sophia Dobbers record sums paid in the
year —thirteen years after the reform—to purchase, commission, bind or illuminate at least eigh-
teen books, that included, besides the usual liturgical ones, a Vitae patrum, the Sermones Bernhardi, a
printed ‘‘school book,’’ and printed psalters. See Rudolf Schulze, Das adelige Frauen- (Kanonissen-) Stift
der Hl. Maria (–) und die Pfarre Liebfrauen-Überwasser zu Münster, Westfalen (Münster: Aschen-
dorff, ),  n. .
. Reproduced in Katrin Graf, Bildnisse schreibender Frauen im Mittelalter . bis Anfang . Jahrhund-
ert (Basel: Schwabe, ), plate .
. ‘‘Die Stiftung des Klosters Oetenbach und das Leben der seligen Schwestern daselbst, aus der
Nürnberger Handschrift,’’ ed. H. Zeller-Werdmüller and Jakob Bächthold, Zürcher Taschenbuch 
(): , Gertrud Jaron Lewis, By Women, for Women, about Women: The Sister-Books of Fourteenth-
Century Germany (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, ),  n. . Alison Beach has
illustrated in detail the scribal activities of nuns in the twelfth century. See ‘‘The Female Scribes of
Twelfth-Century Bavaria’’ (Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, ) and idem Women as Scribes: Book
Production and Monastic Reform in Twelfth-Century Bavaria (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
).
. Hillenbrand, ‘‘Observantenbewegung,’’ ; Schneider, ‘‘Bibliothek,’’ .
. Vogler, St. Katharina, .
. Klaus Graf, ‘‘Ordensreform und Literatur in Augsburg während des . Jahrhunderts,’’ in
Literarisches Leben in Augsburg während des . Jahrhunderts, ed. Johannes Janota and Werner Williams-
Krapp (Tübingen: Niemeyer, ), , , , ; Christoph Roth, Literatur und Klosterreform: Die
Bibliothek der Benediktiner von St. Mang zu Füssen im . Jahrhundert, Studia Augustana  (Tübingen:
Niemeyer, ), –.
. Cited in Elisabeth Schraut, ‘‘Kunst im Frauenkloster: Überlegungen zu den Möglichkeiten
der Frauen im mittelalterlichen Kunstbetrieb am Beispiel Nürnberg,’’ in Auf der Suche nach der Frau
im Mittelalter, ed. Bea Lundt (Munich: Fink, ), . See Karin Schneider, ‘‘Die Bibliothek des
Katharinenklosters in Nürnberg und die städtische Gesellschaft,’’ in Studien zum städtischen Bildungswesen
des späten Mittelalters und der frühen Neuzeit, ed. Bernd Moeller et al., – (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck
and Ruprecht, ).
. Williams-Krapp, ‘‘Observanzbewegung,’’ .
. Werner Williams-Krapp, ‘‘Die Bedeutung der reformierten Klöster des Predigerordens für das
literarische Leben in Nürnberg im . Jahrhundert,’’ paper presented at the conference on ‘‘Die litera-
rische und materielle Kultur der Frauenklöster im späten Mittelalter und in der frühen Neuzeit (ca.
–), February –, , Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel, p. . I am grateful to
Prof. Williams-Krapp for sending me a copy of his paper.
. Marie-Luise Ehrenschwendtner, ‘‘ ‘Puellae litteratae’: The Use of the Vernacular in the Dom-
inican Convents of Southern Germany,’’ in Medieval Women in their Communities, ed. Diane Watt
(Toronto: University of Toronto Press, ), –; Williams-Krapp, ‘‘Observanzbewegung,’’ .
. Gerhard Stamm, ‘‘Klosterreform und Buchproduktion: Das Werk der Schreib- und Lesemeist-
erin Regula,’’ in  Jahre Zisterzienserinnen-Abtei Lichtenthal: Faszination eines Klosters (Sigmaringen:
Thorbecke, ), –.
. Johannes Meyer, Das Buch der Reformacio Predigerordens,  vols., ed. Benedictus Maria Reichert,
Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte des Dominikanerordens in Deutschland  (Leipzig: Harras-

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 Notes to Pages –

sowitz, –), . At the end of a collection of sermons at Unterlinden (Colmar, Bibliothèque de
la Ville de Colmar,  II, fol. v) stands the colophon, ‘‘I sister Dorothea von Kippenheim, a
convent sister . . . translated this book from Latin into German for the praise of God,’’ Christian von
Heusinger, ‘‘Studien zur oberrheinischen Buchmalerei und Graphik im Spätmittelalter’’ (Ph.D diss.,
University of Freiburg, ), . See also Hans Rupprich, Die deutsche Literatur vom späten Mittelalter
bis zum Barock. I. Das ausgehende Mittelalter, Humanismus und Renaissance –, Geschichte der
deutschen Literatur von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart . (Munich: Beck, ), , ; Werner
Williams-Krapp, ‘‘Dorothea von Kippenheim,’’ in Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon,
ed. Wolfgang Stammler, Karl Langosch, and Kurt Ruh (Berlin: de Gruyter, ), : –. Another
Dorothea von Kippenheim at Unterlinden translated works around / and may have been con-
fused with the earlier Dorothea (d. ). See Karl-Ernst Greith, ‘‘Ulrich von Augsburg,’’ in Verfasser-
lexikon, :; idem, ‘‘Eine deutsche Übersetzung der ‘Vita Sancti Udalrici’ des Bern von Reichenau
aus Unterlinden in Colmar,’’ in Durch abenteuer muess man wagen vil: Festschrift für Anton Schwob zum .
Geburtstag, ed. Wernfried Hofmeister and Bernd Steinbauer (Innsbruck: Institut für Germanistik, ),
; idem, ‘‘Elisabeth Kempf (–). Priorin und Übersetzerin in Unterlinden zu Colmar,’’ An-
nuaire de la Société et d’Archéologie de Colmar  (/): –; Siegfried Ringler, ‘‘Anna Ebin,’’ in
Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon, ed. Kurt Ruh et al. (Berlin: de Gruyter, ),
:cols. –; Gertrud Jaron Lewis, Bibliographie zur deutschen Frauenmystik des Mittelalters, Bibliogra-
phien zur deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters  (Berlin: Schmidt, ), ; Lina Eckenstein, Women
under Monasticism (; repr. New York: Russel and Russel, ), ; Stamm, ‘‘Lichtenthal,’’ ;
idem, ‘‘Regula, Lichtenthaler Schreibmeisterin,’’ Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon,
ed. Kurt Ruh et al. (Berlin: de Gruyter, ), : col. –; Karl-Ernst Greith, ‘‘Die Leben-Jesu-
Übersetzung der Schwester Regula aus Lichtenthal,’’ Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und deutsche Litera-
tur  (); –; idem, ‘‘Heiligenverehrung und Hagiographie im Kloster Unterlinden zu Col-
mar,’’ in Dominicans et Dominicaines en Alsace, XIII–XXe Siècle, ed. Jean-Luc Eichenlaub (Colmar:
Archives Départementales du Haut-Rhin, ), ; Felix Heinzer and Gerhard Stamm, Die Hand-
schriften der Badischen Landesbibliothek in Karlsruhe. XI. Die Handschriften von Lichtenthal (Wiesbaden:
Harrassowitz, ), .
. Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek,  Lichtental , fol. r; Greith, ‘‘Schwester
Regula,’’ .
. Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek,  Lichtental , frontis leaf; Stamm, ‘‘Kloster-
reform,’’ .
. Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek,  Lichtental , fol. r; Stamm, ‘‘Klosterreform,’’ .
. Ute Stargardt, ‘‘Male Clerical Authority in the Spiritual (Auto)biographies of Medieval Holy
Women,’’ in Women as Protagonists and Poets in the German Middle Ages: An Anthology of Feminist Ap-
proaches to Middle High German Literature, ed. Albrecht Classen (Göppingen: Kümmerle, ), .
. Greith, ‘‘Schwester Regula,’’ .
. Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek,  L , fol. v; Stamm, ‘‘Klosterreform,’’ .
. [Katharina Tucher,] Die ‘Offenbarungen’ der Katharina Tucher, ed. Ulla Williams and Werner
Williams-Krapp, Untersuchungen zur deutschen Literaturgeschichte  (Tübingen: Niemeyer, ),
–; Karin Schneider, ‘‘Katharina Tucher,’’ in Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon, ed.
Kurt Ruh et al. (Berlin: de Gruyter, ), cols. –.
. [Juliana Ernst,] Die Chronik des Bickenklosters zu Villingen, ed. Karl Jordan Glatz, Bibliothek des
Litterarischen Vereins in Stuttgart  (Tübingen: Fues, ), –.
. Ernst, Chronik, .
. Ibid., .
. Ringler attributes to Haider a more ‘‘objective understanding’’ of the nature of divine revela-
tion, saying that it can also include the answer to a specific question ‘‘found in certain (mystical) texts.’’
Thus she freely incorporates the writings of Johannes Tauler as part of her own ‘‘revelations.’’ See
Siegfried Ringler, ‘‘Ursula Haider,’’ in Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon, ed. Wolf-
gang Stammler and Karl Langosch, (Berlin: de Gruyter, ), : cols. –.

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 Notes to Pages –

. St. Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. , fols. v–r; Carl Greith, Die deutsche Mystik im Pre-
diger-Orden (von –) nach ihren Grundlehren, Liedern und Lebensbildern (; repr. Amsterdam:
Rodopi, ), –; Vogler, St. Katharina, , .
. St. Gall, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. , fol. r–v.
. [Ernst,] Chronik, , .
. Karen Greenspan, ‘‘Erklärung des Vaterunsers: A Critical Edition of a th-Century Mystical
Treatise by Magdalena Beutler of Freiburg (Ph.D. diss., University of Massachusetts, ), –;
Peter Dinzelbacher, ‘‘Magdalena von Freiburg,’’ in Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon,
ed. Wolfgang Stammler and Karl Langosch (Berlin: de Gruyter, ), : col. .
. Kloster Neresheim,  Ne , frontice leaf; Arnold Schromm, Die Bibliothek des ehemaligen
Zisterzienserinnenklosters Kirchheim am Ries: Buchpflege und geistiges Leben in einem Frauenstift, Studia Au-
gustana  (Tübingen: Niemeyer, ), , .
. Ernst Herrgott, ‘‘Necrologium von Alspach,’’ Alemania Franciscana Antiqua  (): . This
Margartha von Kentzingen is apparently not the same person as Margareta von Kenzingen, the mother
of Magdalena Beutler, who died in . I thank Martina Backes for bringing this work to my atten-
tion.
. Eckenstein, Monasticism, ; Rupprich, Mittelalter, ; Edith Ennen, Frauen im Mittelalter
(Munich: Beck, ), . At this writing I have not been able to access the principal source on
Aleydis Raiscop which is K. Kossert, Aleydis Raiscop: Die Humanistin von Nonnenwerth, Gocher Schriften
 (Goch: H. Werner, ).
. Colmar, Bibliothèque de la Ville,  , fols. r–v, vita of Elisabeth Kempf by Agatha
Gosembrot; Herzog-August-Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel,  Extravagantes , , fols. r–r, Elisabeth
Kempf ’s translation of the ‘‘Vitae Sororum’’ of Unterlinden with additions. See also Karl-Ernst Greith,
‘‘L’activité littéraire des dominicaines d’Unterlinden aux XIVe et XVe siècles,’’ in Les Dominicaines
d’Unterlinden, ed. Madeleine Blondel and Jeffrey Hamburger (Paris: Somogy, ), :; idem, ‘‘Elisa-
beth Kempf,’’ –; Claudia Bartholemy; ‘‘Élisabeth Kempf, prieure à Unterlinden: une vie entre
traduction et tradition,’’ in Les Dominicaines d’Unterlinden, ed. Madeleine Blondel and Jeffrey Ham-
burger (Paris: Somogy, ), :–.
. The largest part of Alijt Bake’s works are contained in Brussels, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, 
– and Universiteitsbibliotheek, Ghent,  . For other manuscripts of her works see Wybren
Scheepsma, Deemoed en devotie: De koorvrouwen van Windeshein en hun geschriften (Amsterdam: Prometh-
eus, ), –; –, –. Most have been edited by Bernhard Spaapen in the series ‘‘Mid-
deleeuwse Passienmystiek,’’ II–V in Ons geestelijk erf – (–). See also Kurt Ruh, Geschichte
der abendländischen Mystik (Munich: Beck, ), :–.
. Scheepsma, Deemoed, ; Ruh, Mystik, .
. Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek,  s.n. ., fols. r–r; ed. Scheepsma, ‘‘De
helletocht van Jacomijne Costers (d. ),’’ Ons geestelijk erf  (): –. For information on
other works by her, see Scheepsma, Deemoed, –, –, .
. Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek,  s.n. ., fols. v–r. See Scheepsma,
Deemoed, –, –, .
. Van dye passie ons liefsherren ihū christi (Leiden: Seuersz, /). For a facsimile edition of
both books, see A. M. J. van Buuren, ed., Suster Bertken. Twee bij Jan Seversz in Leiden verschenen boekjes
(‘s-Gravenhage, Koninklijke Bibliotheek,  G ) in facsimile uitgegeven (Utrecht: Uti, ); Ruh, Mystik,
–.
. Der rechte wech zo der Euangelischer volkomenheit (Cologne: Neusz, ); Ruh, Mystik, –.
. Margarita Euangelica. Een devote boecxken geheeten Die Evangelische Peerle (Utrecht: Berntsen,
), [Van] den Tempel onser sielen (facsimile edition), ed. Albert Ampe (Antwerp: Russbroecgenoot-
schap, ); Ruh, Mystik, –.
. English translation: John Van Engen, Devotio Moderna (Mahwah, N.Y.: Paulist Press, ),
–. Stadtbibliothek, Nuremberg,  Cent VII , fols. v–r, Katharina von Mühlheim,
‘‘Handbook for the Sacristan;’’ Walter Fries, ‘‘Kirche und Kloster zu St. Katharina in Nürnberg,’’
Mitteilungen des Vereins für Geschichte der Stadt Nürnberg  (): .

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 Notes to Pages –

. Gerard Achten, Das christliche Gebetbuch im Mittelalter: Andachts- und Stundenbücher in Handschrift
und Frühdruck, Staatsbibilothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz, exhibition catalogue  (Wiesbaden:
Reichert, ), .
. Härtel, ‘‘Bibliothek,’’ –.
. Thomas Mertens, ‘‘Collatio und Codex im Bereich der Devotio Moderna,’’ in Der Codex im
Gebrauch, ed. Christel Meier, Dagmar Hüpper, and Hagen Keller, Münstersche Mittelalter-Schriften 
(Munich: Fink, ), .
. Schwesternbuch und Statuten des St. Agnes–Konvents in Emmerich, ed. Anne Bollmann and Niko-
laus Staubach, Emmericher Forschungen  (Emmerich: Emmericher Geschichtsverein, ), ,
 n. .
. Münnerstadt (Bad Kissingen), Augustinerklosterbibliothek,  , fols. –, –; Adolar
Zumkeller, ‘‘Vom geistlichen Leben im Erfurter Weissfrauenkloster am Vorabend der Reformation.
Nach einer neu aufgefundenen handschriftlichen Quelle,’’ in Reformatio ecclesiae: Beiträge zu kirchlichen
Reformbemühungen von der Alten Kirche bis zur Neuzeit. Festgabe für Erwin Iserloh, ed. Remigius Bäumer
(Paderborn: Schöningh, ), –. An example of a personal anthology is Badische Landesbiblio-
thek, Karlsruhe, Cod. Schwarzach , fols. r–v () compiled, and some texts possibly com-
posed, by Anna Schott at the cloister of St. Agnes and St. Margaret, Strasbourg.
. Kloster Wienhausen,  , fols. –; Paul Alpers, ed., ‘‘Das Wienhausener Liederbuch,’’
Niederdeutsches Jahrbuch  (–): –; Victoria Joan Moessner, ‘‘The Medieval Embroideries of
Convent Wienhausen,’’ in Studies in Cistercian Art and Architecture , ed. Meredith Lillich (Kalamazoo,
Mich.: Cistercian Publications, ), ; Klosterbibliothek Ebstorf,  VI , fols. –; Eduard
Schröder, ed., ‘‘Die Ebstorfer Liederhandschrift,’’ Jahrbuch des Vereins für Niederdeutsche Sprachforschung
 (): –; Johannes Gatz, ‘‘Pfullingen,’’ Alemania Franciscana Antiqua  (): –; Franz
Jostes, ed., ‘‘Eine Werdener Liederhandschrift aus der Zeit um ,’’ Jahrbuch des Vereins für Niederdeut-
sche Sprachforschung  (): –; Johannes Janota, ‘‘Werdener Liederbuch’’ in Die deutsche Literatur
des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon, ed. Kurt Ruh et al. (Berlin: de Gruyter, ), : cols. –; Walther
Lipphardt, ‘‘Niederdeutsche Reimgedichte und Lieder des . Jahrhunderts in den mittelalterlichen
Orationalien der Zisterzienserinnen von Medingen und Wienhausen,’’ Niederdeutsches Jahrbuch 
(): –. Although Lipphardt reproduces only songs from the fourteenth century, he lists the
provenance of twelve Medingen manuscripts from the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries containing
songs.
. Ida-Christine Riggert-Mindermann, ‘‘Monastisches Leben im Kloster Ebstorf und den ande-
ren Heideklöstern während des Spätmittelalters,’’ in ‘In Treue und Hingabe’:  Jahre Kloster Ebstorf, ed.
Marianne Elster and Horst Hoffmann (Uelzen: Becker, ), ; Jeffrey Hamburger, Nuns as Artists.
The Visual Culture of a Medieval Convent, California Studies in the History of Art  (Berkeley and
Los Angeles: University of California Press, ), . Walther Lipphardt, ‘‘Die liturgische Funktion
deutscher Kirchenlieder in den Klöstern Niedersächsischer Zisterzienserinnen des Mittelalters,’’ Zeit-
schrift für Katholische Theologie  (): –; Preussische Staatsbibliothek, Berlin,  germ. octav.
, fols. – (Deventersche Liederhandschrift.)
. In addition to literary production, there is some evidence of an increase in artistic activity in
weaving, painting, and commissioning of works for the building projects undertaken in reformed
cloisters. At Preetz, Anna von Buchwald commissioned a statue of the Virgin for the new altar and
more than twenty-eight paintings for the renovated cloister. The Wienhausen chronicle records that in
 three sisters restored the paintings in their choir. See Jeffrey Hamburger, The Visual and the
Visionary. Art and Female Spirituality in Late Medieval Germany (New York: Zone Books, ), ; and
Chronik und Totenbuch des Klosters Wienhausen, ed. Horst Appuhn (Wienhausen: Kloster Wienhausen,
), . See also Hamburger’s insightful treatment of the series of drawings made by sisters at the
Observant convent of St. Walburga in Eichstätt around , Nuns as Artists: The Visual Culture of a
Medieval Convent, California Studies in the History of Art  (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of
California Press, ). Tapestry making was, as Hamburger points out, difficult, costly, and less com-
mon than is supposed; Hamburger, Nuns, . Nevertheless, in  the nuns at Lüne began producing

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 Notes to Pages –

them. See Riggert-Mindermann, ‘‘Ebstorf,’’ . Other centers from which a substantial number of
fifteenth-century weavings and tapestries survive are Wienhausen (even earlier famed for its weaving),
Isenhagen, Ebstorf, and St. Katharina in Nuremberg, which had the largest and most famous manufac-
ture of the period. At Fischbeck an historical tapestry was made to preserve the cloister’s own founda-
tion history in picture form. See Erich Kittel, Kloster and Stift St. Marien in Lemgo, –. Festschrift
anlässlich des -jährigen Bestehens (Detmold: Naturwissenschaftlicher und historischer Verein für das
Land Lippe, ), –.
. Leipzig, Deutsches Buch-und Schriftmuseum, Kl. I ; Nuremberg, Stadtbibliothek,  Cent
V, a, fol. r;  Cent V, App. , p–w;  Cent III, ; and  Cent VI, g. See Karl Fischer, ‘‘Die
Buchmalerei in den beiden Dominikanerklöstern Nürnbergs’’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Erlangen,
), –.
. Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek,  Thennenbach ; Deutsches Buch- und Schriftmu-
seum, Leipzig, Klemm Collection  I, . Max Miller asserts that she did not go to Strasburg. See
Max Miller, Die Söflinger Briefe und das Klarissenkloster Söflingen bei Ulm im Spätmittelalter (Würzburg:
Triltsch, ),  n. ; David Brett-Evans, ‘‘Sibilla von Bondorf—Ein Nachtrag,’’ Zeitschrift für
deutsche Philologie  (), Sonderheft: –; Detlef Zinke and Angela Karasch, Verborgene Pracht:
Mittelalterliche Buchkunst aus acht Jahrhunderten in Freiburger Sammlungen (Lindenberg: Fink, ),
–; Clara und Franciscus von Assisi: Eine Spätmittelalterliche alemannische Legende der Magdalena Steim-
erin, mit  Miniaturen aus der Pergamenthandschrift der Badischen Landesbibliothek Karlsruhe, afterward Chris-
tian von Heusinger (Constance: Simon and Koch, ); Clara Bruins, Chiara d’Assisi come ‘altera
Maria’: Le miniature della vita di Santa Chiara nel manoscritto Tennenbach- di Karlsruhe, Iconographia
Franciscana  (Rome: Instituto storico dei Cappuccini, ); and Rainer Kößling, ed., Leben und
Legende der heiligen Elisabeth. Nach Dietrich von Apolda. Mit  Miniaturen der Handschrift von  (Leipzig:
Insel, ).
. Christian von Heusinger, ‘‘Studien zur oberrheinischen Buchmalerei und Graphik im Spätmit-
telalter’’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Freiburg, ), –; idem, ‘‘Spätmittelalterliche Buchmalerei
in oberrheinischen Frauenklöstern,’’ Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins  (): .
. Monika Costard, ‘‘Predigthandschriften der Schwestern vom gemeinsamen Leben. Spätmittel-
alterliche Predigtüberlieferung in der Bibliothek des Klosters Nazareth in Geldern,’’ in Die deutsche
Predigt im Mittelalter, ed. Volker Mertens and Hans-Jochen Schiewer (Tübingen: Niemeyer, ), ;
Hans-Jochen Schiewer and Volker Mertens, Repertorium der ungedruckten deutschsprachigen Predigten des
Mittelalters. Der Berliner Bestand. Vol. I: Die Handschriften aus dem Straßburger Dominikanerinnenkloster St.
Nikolaus in undis und benachbarte Provenienzen (Tübingen: Niemeyer, in press).
. Hasebrink, ‘‘Tischlesung,’’ .
. Ibid., . For a sample list of guest preachers at St. Katharina see Peter Renner, ‘‘Spätmittelalt-
erliche Klosterpredigten aus Nürnberg,’’ Archiv für Kulturgeschichte  (): –.
. Hans-Jochen Schiewer, ‘‘Universities and Vernacular Preaching. The Case of Vienna, Heidel-
berg, and Basle,’’ in Medieval Sermons and Society: Cloister, City, University: Proceedings of International
Symposia at Kalamazoo and New York, ed. Jacqueline Hamesse (Louvain-la-Neuve: Fédération Interna-
tionale des Instituts d’études médiévales, ), . These sermons are contained in  Staatsbiblio-
thek, Berlin, germ. quart. ;  germ. quart.  (both from St. Nicolaus in undis, Strasbourg), and
 germ. fol.  (from cloister Medlingen, reformed by sisters from Schönensteinbach.)
. Costard, for example, characterizes sermons intended for an educated convent audience as
focused on spritual themes rather than on miracles and saints’ legends that were more prominent in
parish sermons. See Monika Costard, ‘‘Zwischen Mystik und Moraldidaxe. Deutsche Predigten des
Fraterherren Johannes Veghe und des Dominikaners Konrad Schlatter in Frauenklöstern des . Jahr-
hunderts,’’ Ons geestelijk erf  (): .
. Rüther and Schiewer, ‘‘Predigthandschriften,’’ .
. Berlin, Staatsbibliothek,  germ. quart. , fols. –; Wolfgang Müller, ‘‘Die Villinger
Frauenklöster des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit,’’ in  Jahre Kloster St. Ursula, Villingen, ed. Helmut
Heinrich and Gisela Sattler (Villingen: Kloster St. Ursula, n.d.), .

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 Notes to Pages –

. Schriesheim (Heidelberg), Sammlung Eis, Cod. , fols. r–v; Renner, ‘‘Klosterpredig-
ten,’’ .
. Inserted at the end of the second main point of chapter  is the comment ‘‘up to this point
the sermons were written down from Dr. Kaysersberg’s mouth by Sister Susanna Hörwart of Augsburg,
prioress of the Penitants [of St. Mary Magdalene] here in Strasbourg, . . . Thereafter, they were dili-
gently continued to the end by Sister Ursel Stingel.’’ Johannes Geiler von Kaysersberg, Sämtliche Werke,
ed. Gerhard Bauer (Berlin: de Gruyter, ), :.
. Ebstorf Klosterbibliothek, Cod. VI , fols. –; Cod. VI g, fols. –; Borchling, ‘‘Ebst-
orf,’’ .
. Zumkeller, ‘‘Weissfrauenkloster,’’ ; see note  above.
. Costard, ‘‘Mystik,’’ , , ; Paul-Gerhard Völker, ‘‘Die Überlieferungsformen mittelalt-
erlicher deutscher Predigten,’’ Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur  (): .
. Dietrich Schmidtke, ‘‘Zur Geschichte der Kölner Predigt im Spätmittelalter: Einige neue
Predigernamen,’’ in Festschrift für Ingeborg Schröber zum . Geburtstag, ed. Dietrich Schmidtke and Helga
Schüppert, Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur  (Tübingen: Niemeyer,
, ; and Alison I. Beach, ‘‘Female Scribes of Twelfth-Century Bavaria’’ (Ph.D. diss., Columbia,
).
. Hamburg, Universitätsbibliothek, Cod. theol. ⬚ (excerpts of sermons of Johannes
Tauler preached at St. Gertrud, Cologne, fourteenth-century manuscript); Jutta Prieur, Das Kölner
Dominikanerinnenkloster St. Gertrud am Neumarkt, Kölner Schriften zu Geschichte und Kultur (Cologne:
dme-Verlag, ), . See also Philipp Strauch, ‘‘Kölner Klosterpredigten des . Jahrhunderts,’’
Jahrbuch des Vereins für Niederdeutsche Sprachforschung  (): –.
. Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek,  , fol. r–v; Wolfgang Stammler, ‘‘Tauler in Basel,’’ in
Johannes Tauler: Ein deutscher Mystiker. Gedenkschrift zum . Todestag, ed. Ephrem Filthaut (Essen:
Driewer, ), .
. Berlin, Staatsbibliothek,  germ. quart. , fols. v–v; Hornung, ‘‘Sudermann,’’ :–
. Since Agnes heard these preachers in different churches of Strasbourg, she must either have re-
corded them before she entered the cloister or perhaps entered as a lay sister since they were allowed
to go in and out. Katherina Gurdelers’s collection of  sermons and sermon summaries is found in
Universitätsbibliothek, Hamburg, Cod. theol. . See also Werner Wegstein, ‘‘Katherina Gurdelers,’’
in Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon, ed. Kurt Ruh et al. (Berlin: de Gruyter, ),
: cols. –.
. Wolfgang Stammler, ‘‘Predigt,’’ in Deutsche Philologie im Aufriß,  vols., d rev., ed. Wolfgang
Stammler (Berlin: Schmidt, –), :–.
. Völker, ‘‘Überlieferungsformen,’’ –.
. Ibid., , . See also Hans-Jochen Schiewer, ‘‘Spuren von Mündlichkeit in der mittelalter-
lichen Predigtüberlieferung. Ein Plädoyer für exemplarisches und beschreibend-interpretierendes
Edieren,’’ Editio  (): –, .
. Völker, ‘‘Überlieferungsformen,’’ –; Jean Leclercq, Recueil d’Etudes sur Saint Bernard et
ses écrits, vol.  (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, ), –. But see Christopher Holds-
worth, ‘‘Were the Sermons of St. Bernard on the Song of Songs ever Preached?’’ in Medieval Monastic
Preaching, ed. Carolyn Muessig (Leiden: Brill, ), –.
. Berlin, Staatsbibliothek,  germ. quart. ; Völker, Überlieferungsformen,’’ . See also the
transcriber’s comment in Staatsbibliothek Berlin,  germ. oct. , fol. r–v. In introducing her
rewritten transcript of a sermon by Geiler von Kaysersberg (c. ), this sister at St. Nicolaus in undis,
Strasbourg, wrote earnestly, ‘‘But as different from each other as a painted person is from a living one,
just as different is the sound of inanimate writing compared to the living words that he spoke. For the
grace and fire of the Holy Spirit that accompanied the living words cannot be expressed in writing.
Nevertheless, at the request of devout hearts, this lesson has been written down as well as possible by
this frail and simple person just as she heard it from his mouth.’’
. Robert G. Warnock, ed., Die Predigten Johannes Paulis, Münchener Texte und Untersuchungen
zur Literatur des deutschen Mittelalters  (Munich: Beck, ), . See above note .

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 Notes to Pages –

. Schiewer, ‘‘Mündlichkeit,’’ –.

. Munich, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum,  ; Universitätsbibliothek Augsburg (Fürstliche
Öttingen-Wallersteinsche Sammlung)  III. qu.. See Völker, ‘‘Überlieferungsformen,’’ .
. ‘‘[S]oe sat sij ende schrief hem dat uutten monde in hoer tafel,’’ Thomas Mertens, ‘‘Postum
Auteurschap de Collaties van Johannes Brinckerinck,’’ in  Jahr Kapittel van Windesheim, ed. A. J.
Hendrikman et al., Middeleeuwse Studies  (Nijmegen: Centrum voor Middeleeuswe Studies, Ka-
tholieke Universiteit Nijmegen, ), ; Van den doechden der vuriger ende stichtiger sustern van Diepen
veen, Handschrift D, ed. D. A. Brinkerink (Leiden: Sijthoff, ), –.
. Curt Dewischeit, Georg Rörer, ein Geschwindschreiber Luthers (Berlin: Schrey, ), –;
Laurenz Schneider and G. Blauert, Geschichte der deutschen Kurzschrift (Wolfenbüttel: Heckner, ),
–.
. Gerrit Cornelius Zieleman, ‘‘Das Studium der deutschen und niederländischen Predigten des
Mittelalters,’’ in Sô predigent etelı̂che: Beiträge zur deutschen und niederländischen Predigt im Mittelalter, ed.
Kurt Otto Seidel, Göppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik  (Göppingen: Kümmerle, ), .
. Holdsworth, ‘‘St. Bernard,’’ –.
. Nuremberg, Stadtbibliothek Cod. cent. VII, , fols. r–r; Zentralbibliothek Zürich, Cod.
D  (), fols. r–r; Kurt Ruh, ‘‘Heinrich Riß,’’ in Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfas-
serlexikon, ed. Kurt Ruh et al. (Berlin: de Gruyter, ), : cols. –.
. Kurt Ruh, ‘‘Deutsche Predigtbücher des Mittelalters,’’ Vestigia bibliae  (): –.
. Zieleman, ‘‘Predigten,’’ , .
. Mertens, ‘‘Collatio,’’ –; John Van Engen, ‘‘The Virtues, the Brothers, and the Schools,’’
Revue Bénédictine  (): .
. ‘‘Die Giessenhof ’sche Chronik des Klosters Inzigkofen,’’ ed. Theodor Dreher, Freiburger Ka-
tholisches Kirchenblatt  (): cols. –.
. [Ernst,] Chronik, .
. Deventer, Stads-en Athenaeumbibliotheek,  Suppl.  ( E ), fol. v; Mertens, ‘‘Col-
latio,’’  n. , .
. Brussels, Koninklijke Bibliotheek,  –, fol. r–v; Zieleman, ‘‘Studium,’’ , ,
–. See also Mertens, ‘‘Ghostwriting,’’ in press.
. Zieleman, ‘‘Studium,’’ .
. Schiewer, ‘‘Mündlichkeit, –; Berlin, Staatsbibliothek,  germ. quart. , fol. r;
printed in Volker Mertens and Hans-Jochen Schiewer, ‘‘Erschließung einer Gattung: Edition, Katalogi-
sieriug und Abbildung der deutschsprachigen Predigt des Mittelalters,’’ Editio  (): –; at
–.
. The inventory of German sermons in the Staatsbibliothek Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin,
alone consists of some ,, of which approximately , are unpublished. See Hans-Jochen
Schiewer, ‘‘German Sermons in the Middle Ages,’’ in The Sermon, ed. Beverly Kienzle, trans Debra
Stoudt. Typologie des sources du moyen âge occidental – (Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, ),
. Currently the DFG-Forschungsprojekt ‘‘Repertorium der ungedruckten deutschsprachigen Pre-
digten des Mittelalters,’’ under the direction of Professors Volker Mertens (Freie Universität Berlin)
and Hans-Jochen Schiewer (Universität Freiburg), is cataloging them and has completed volume I: Die
Handschriften aus dem Straßburger Dominikanerinnenkloster St. Nikolaus in undis und benachbarte Provenienzen
(Tübingen: Niemeyer, in press). See also Volker Mertens and Hans-Jochen Schiewer, ‘‘Erschliessung
einer Gattung: Edition, Katalogisierung und Abbildung der deutschsprachigen Predigt des Mittelalt-
ers,’’ Editio  (): –.
Moreover, comments such as those prefacing a sermon preached by Geiler von Kaysersberg at the
cloister of St. Nicolaus in undis seems unequivocal. Here, a sister writes,’’ The grace and fire of the
Holy Spirit that accompanied the living words cannot be expressed in writing. Nevertheless, at the
request of devout hearts, this lesson has been written down as well as possible by this frail and simple
person, just as she heard it from his mouth.’’ Berlin, Staatsbibliothek,  germ. oct. , fol. v.
. Thomas Mertens, ‘‘Ghostwriting Sisters: The Preservation of Dutch Sermons of Father Con-

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 Notes to Pages –

fessors in the Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Century,’’ in Seeing and Knowing: Women and learning in
medieval Europe – , ed. Anneke Mulder-Bakker (Turnhout: Brepols, in press). I am grateful to
Professor Mertens for sending me advance copy from his forthcoming article.
. Mertens, ‘‘Ghostwriting,’’ in press; Koninklijke Bibliotheek, Brussels,  II  (cat. ),
sermons of Jan Storm reconstructed by Janne Colijns.
. Vogler, St. Katharina, .
. [Magdalena Kremer,] ‘‘Wie diß loblich Kloster zu Sant Johannes Baptisten zu Kirchen under
deck prediger-ordens reformiert ist worden und durch woelich personen,’’ in Geschichte des Herzogtums
Wuerttemberg unter der Regierung der Graven, ed. Christian Friedrich Sattler, d ed. (Tübingen: Reiss,
–), :.
. St. Gall, Stiftsbibliothek,  St. Katharina, Wil, ‘‘Schwesternbuch,’’ fol. r.
. [Kremer,] ‘‘Wie diß loblich Kloster,’’ .
. [Anne Roede,] ‘‘Chronik des Klosters Herzebrock,’’ ed. Franz Flaskamp, Osnabrücker Mittei-
lungen  (): .
. Hamburger, Visual, .
. Gerhard Taddey, Das Kloster Heiningen von der Gründung bis zur Aufhebung, Veröffentlichungen
des Max-Planck-Instituts für Geschichte  (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, ), .
. Thomas Head, ‘‘Hrosvith’s ‘Primordia’ and the Historical Tradition of Monastic Communi-
ties,’’ in Hrosvit of Gandersheim: ‘‘Rara avis in Saxonia?’’ ed. Katharina M. Wilson, Medieval and Renais-
sance Monograph Series  (Ann Arbor, Mich.: Medieval and Renaissance Collegium, ), . Head
cites Natalie Davis, ‘‘Gender and Genre: Women as Historical Writers (–),’’ in Beyond their
Sex. Learned Women of the European Past, ed. Patricia Labalme (New York: New York University Press,
), –.
. Edeltraud Klueting, Das Bistum Osnabrück : Das Kanonissenstift und Benediktinerinnenkloster
Herzebrock, Germania Sacra n.F.  (Berlin: de Gruyter, ), ; Uffmann, ‘‘Rosengarten,’’ .
. ‘‘Anno dni MCCL an Sant Martins tag da ist dis Closter Pfullingen an gefangen worden,’’ ed.
Max Straganz, in ‘‘Duae relationes circa Monasterium Brixinense O. Clar.,’’ Archivum Franciscanum
Historicum  (): .
. Herrgott, ‘‘Necrologium,’’ .
. Augsburg, Staatsarchiv,  Kloster Maria Maihingen MüB , fol. r; Tore Nyberg, Dokumente
und Untersuchungen zur inneren Geschichte der drei Brigittenklöster Bayerns –,  vols., Quellen und
Erörterungen zur bayerischen Geschichte, n.F.  (Munich: Beck, –), :; idem, ‘‘Das Haus-
buch des Klosters Maihingen,’’ Jahrbuch des Vereins für Augsburger Bistumsgeschichte (): .
. Augsburg, Staatsarchiv,  Kloster Maria Maihingen MüB , fol. v; Nyberg, ‘‘Haus-
buch,’’ .
. Augsburg,  Kloster Maihingen MüB , fol. r.
. Nyberg, ‘‘Hausbuch,’’ –.
. [Anna Roede,] ‘‘Anna Roede’s spätere Chronik von Herzebrock,’’ ed. Franz Flaskamp, Jahr-
buch der Gesellschaft für Niedersächsische Kirchengeschichte  (): , –, .
. [Roede,] ‘‘Chronik,’’ . With a similar concern for authenticity, the chronicler at Maihingen
asserts, ‘‘this book is compiled from many written texts and from pious, truthful old sisters . . . also
from the witness of the old first sisters of our [Bridgettine] convent [founded ] who were them-
selves present and heard and saw many things,’’  Kloster Maihingen MüB , fol. r.
. ‘‘Anno dni MCCL an Sant Martins tag da ist dis Closter Pfullingen an gefangen worden,’’ ed.
Straganz, in ‘‘Duae relationes,’’ .
. Constance Proksch, Klosterreform und Geschichtsschreibung im Spätmittelalter (Cologne: Böhlau,
), , ; Uffmann, ‘‘Rosengarten,’’ .
. Hans-Werner Goetz, ‘‘Zum Geschichtsbewußtsein in der alemannisch-schweizerischen Klost-
erchronik des hohen Mittelalters (.–. Jh.),’’ Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters  ():
, –, –; Proksch, Klosterreform, , –.
. [Roede,] ‘‘Spätere Chronik,’’ ; Borchling, ‘‘Litterarisches,’’ .

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 Notes to Pages –

. Prieur, St. Gertrud, .

. Wybren Scheepsma, ‘‘ ‘For hereby I hope to rouse some to piety’: Books of Sisters from
Convents and Sister-Houses Associated with the ‘Devotio moderna’ in the Low Countries,’’ in Women,
the Book, and the Godly,  vols., ed. Lesley Smith and Jane Taylor (Cambridge: Brewer, ), :.
. Schwesternbuch, ed. Bollman and Staubach, .
. Scheepsma, ‘‘Books of Sisters,’’ , –, .
. Deventer, Stads- of Athenaeumbibliotheek,  Suppl.  [ E ], fols. r, r. (This is
not the  text edited by D. A. Brinkerink, but an unedited  version with additions probably by
Sister Griet Essink.); Scheepsma, ‘‘Books of Sisters,’’ .
. Hier beginnen sommige stichtige punten van onsen oelden zusteren, ed. Dirk de Man (The Hague:
Nijhoff, ), ; Scheepsma, ‘‘Books of Sisters,’’ . See also John van Engen, Devotio Moderna: Basic
Writings (Mahwah, N.Y.: Paulist Press, ), .
. Schwesternbuch, ed. Bollman and Staubach, , .
. See Bollmann, ‘‘Weibliche Diskurse: Die Schwesternbücher der devotio moderna zwischen Bio-
graphie und geistlicher Konversation,’’ in Kultur, Geschlecht, Körper, ed. Genus–Münsteraner Arbeits-
kreis für Gender Studies, – (Münster: Agenda, ), and idem forthcoming dissertation,
University of Groningen.
. Thomas Mertens, ‘‘The Modern Devotion and Innovation in Middle Dutch Literature,’’ in
Medieval Dutch Literature in its European Context, ed. Erik Kooper, Cambridge Studies in Medieval
Literature (New York: Cambridge University Press, ), –.
. Scheepsma, Deemoed, .
. Gertrud Jaron Lewis, By Women, for Women, about Women: The Sister-Books of Fourteenth-
Century Germany (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, ), –.
. Werner Williams-Krapp, ‘‘Dise ding sind dennoch nit ware zeichen der heiligkeit.’ Zur Be-
wertung mystischer Erfahrung im . Jahrhundert,’’ Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik 
(): –.

Chapter 
. H. Pyritz, Die Minneburg, nach der Heidelberger Pergamenthandschrift (CPG ), Deutsche Texte
des Mittelalters  (Berlin: Akademie, ), lxxii. Cited in Otto Langer, Mystische Erfahrung und spiritu-
elle Theologie. Zu Meister Eckharts Auseinandersetzung mit der Frauenfrömmigkeit seiner Zeit, Münchener
Texte und Untersuchungen zur deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters  (Munich: Artemis, ), ,
; and Josef Quint, ‘‘Mystik,’’ in Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturgeschichte, ed. Paul Merker, Wolfgang
Stammler et al., d ed. (Berlin: de Gruyter, ), :.
. Quint, ‘‘Mystik,’’ :.
. Langer, Mystische Erfahrung, , , ; Caroline Walker Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast
(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, ), ; Georg Kunze, ‘‘Studien zu den
Nonnenviten des deutschen Mittelalters’’ (Ph.D. diss., University of Hamburg, ), ; and Walter
Blank, ‘‘Die Nonnenviten des . Jahrnunderts. Eine Studie zur hagiographischen Literatur des Mittel-
alters unter besonderer Berücksichtigung der Visionen und ihrer Lichtphänomene’’ (Ph.D. diss, Uni-
versity of Freiburg, ), . See also Gabriele L. Strauch, ‘‘Mechthild von Magdeburg and the
Category ‘Frauenmystik’,’’ in Women as Protagonists and Poets in the German Middle Ages, ed. Albrecht
Classen, Göppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik  (Göppingen: Kümmerle, ), –.
. [Anna von Munzingen,] ‘‘Die Chronik der Anna von Munzingen. Nach der ältesten Abschrift
mit Einleitung und Beilagen,’’ ed. J. König, Freiburger Diözesan-Archiv  (): –.
. Giles Constable, Attitudes Toward Self-Inflicted Suffering in the Middle Ages (Brookline, Mass:
Hellenic College Press, ), , . Georg Kunze and Engelbert Krebs point to male vitae containing
self abnegations such as pouring cold water on food in order to diminish the enjoyment of it and
phenomena like levitation. See Kunze, ‘‘Nonnenviten,’’ ; and Engelbert Krebs, ‘‘Die Mystik in
Adelhausen. Eine vergleichende Studie über die ‘Chronik’ der Anna von Munzingen und die thauma-

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 Notes to Pages –

tographishe Literatur des . und . Jahrhunderts als Beitrag zur Mystik im Predigerorden,’’ in Fest-
gabe, Heinrich Finke, ed. Gottfried Buschbell (Münster: Aschendorff, ), , .
. Wilhelm Oehl, Deutsche Mystikerbriefe des Mittelalters, – (Munich: Georg Müller,
), –; and Jeffrey Hamburger, The Visual and the Visionary. Art and Female Spirituality in Late
Medieval Germany (New York: Zone Books, ), .
. Peter Dinzelbacher, ‘‘Die ‘Vita et Revelationes’ der Wiener Begine Agnes Blannbekin (d.
) im Rahmen der Viten- und Offenbarungsliteratur ihrer Zeit,’’ in Frauenmystik im Mittelalter, ed.
Peter Dinzelbacher and Dieter R. Bauer (Ostfildern: Schwabenverlag, ), .
. Hieronymus Wilms, Das Beten der Mystikerinnen, dargestellt nach den Chroniken der Dominikaner-
innenklöster zu Adelhausen, Dießenhofen, Engeltal, Kirchberg, Oetenbach, Töß und Unterlinden, Quellen und
Forschungen zur Geschichte des Dominikanerordens in Deutschland  (Leipzig: Harrassowitz,
), .
. Siegfried Ringler, ‘‘Die Rezeption mittelalterlicher Frauenmystik als wissenschaftliches Prob-
lem dargestellt am Werk der Christine Ebner,’’ in Frauenmystik im Mittelalter, ed. Peter Dinzelbacher
and Dieter R. Bauer (Ostfildern: Schwabenverlag, ), .
. Siegfried Ringler, Viten- und Offenbarungsliteratur in Frauenklöstern des Mittelalters. Quellen und
Studien, Münchener Texte und Untersuchungen zur deutschen Literatur des Mittelalters  (Munich:
Artemis, ), , .
. Blank, ‘‘Nonnenviten,’’ ; Ringler, ‘‘Rezeption,’’ ; Kunze, ‘‘Studien,’’ .
. Joan Ferrante, To the Glory of Her Sex: Women’s Roles in the Composition of Medieval Texts
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, ), .
. Glente, ‘‘Mystikerinnen,’’ . See also Oehl, Mystikerbriefe, .
. Marilyn Oliva, The Convent and Community in Late Medieval England: Female Monasteries in the
Diocese of Norwich, – (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell, ), ; and Claire Sahlin, ‘‘The
Prophetess as Preacher: Birgitte of Sweden and the Voice of Prophecy,’’ Medieval Sermon Studies 
(), .
. Anna Groh Seeholtz, Friends of God: Practical Mystics of the Fourteenth Century (; repr. New
York: AMS Press, ), ; and Leonard P. Hindsley, The Mystics of Engelthal: Writings from a Medieval
Monastery (New York: St. Martin’s Press, ), .
. Ellen Ross, The Grief of God: Images of the Suffering Jesus in Medieval England (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, ), , , , .
. Bynum, Feast, , –, .
. Ibid, Feast, ; Ross, Grief, ; and Jo Ann Kay McNamara, ‘‘The Need to Give: Suffering
and Female Sanctity in the Middle Ages,’’ in Images of Sainthood in Medieval Europe, ed. Timea Szell
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, ), –.
. Bynum, Feast, .
. Herbert Grundmann, Religious Movements in the Middle Ages: The Historical Links between Heresy,
the Mendicant Orders, and the Women’s Religious Movement in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Century, with the
Historical Foundations of German Mysticism, trans. Stephen Rowen (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University
Press, ), .
. Gabrielle Spiegel, ‘‘Theory into Practice: Reading Medieval Chronicles,’’ in The Medieval
Chronicle: Proceedings of the st International Conference on the Medieval Chronicle, Driebergen/Utrecht,
– July , ed. Erik Kooper (Amsterdam: Rodopi, ), .
. Mechthild of Magdeburg, The Flowing Light of the Godhead, trans. Frank Tobin (New York:
Paulist Press, ). See also Sara S. Poor, ‘‘Mechthild von Magdeburg, Gender and the ‘Unlearned
Tongue,’’ Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies  (): –.
. Werner Williams-Krapp, ‘‘ ‘Dise ding sind dennoch nit ware zeichen der heiligkeit.’ Zur Be-
wertung mystischer Erfahrung im . Jahrhundert,’’ Zeitschrift für Literaturwissenschaft und Linguistik 
(): –. For Johannes Meyer’s seven criteria for distinguishing true from false visions, see Das
Buch der Reformacio Predigerordens, ed. Benedictus M. Reichert, Quellen und Forschungen zur Gesch-
ichte des Dominikanerordens in Deutschland  and  (Leipzig: Harrassowitz, –), :–. In

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his forward to the St. Katharinental Sisterbook, Meyer concludes with the words, ‘‘But my dear Sisters,
I have confidence in you, that you can harvest the flowers from the grass and like the bee extract the
nourishment from the flower.’’ Das Katharinentaler Schwesternbuch. Untersuchung, Edition, Kommentar, ed.
Ruth Meyer, Münchener Texte und Untersuchungen  (Tübingen: Niemeyer, ), .
. Johannes Tauler, for example, had corresponded with and visited Margareta Ebner at Med-
ingen. See Manfred Weitlauff, ‘‘Margareta Ebner,’’ in Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexi-
kon, ed. Kurt Ruh et al. (Berlin: de Gruyter, ), :; and Oehl, Mystikerbriefe, . John Coakley,
‘‘Friars as Confidants of Holy Women in Medieval Dominican Hagiography,’’ in Images of Sainthood in
Medieval Europe, ed. Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski and Timea Szell (Ithaca: Cornell University Press,
), –; and idem, ‘‘Gender and the Authority of the Friars. The Significance of Holy Women
for Thirteenth-Century Franciscans and Dominicans,’’ Church History  (): .
. Caroline Walker Bynum, Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages
(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, ), –.
. Wybren Scheepsma, Deemoed en devotie: De koorvrouwen van Windesheim en hun geschriften (Am-
sterdam: Prometheus, ), .
. Spiegel, ‘‘Theory,’’ , .
. Augsburg, Staatsarchiv,  Kloster Maria Maihingen MüB , fol. r; Tore Nyberg, Dokumente
und Untersuchungen zur inneren Geschichte der drei Brigittenklöster Bayerns –,  vols., Quellen und
Erörterungen zur bayerischen Geschichte, n.F.  (Munich: Beck, –), :.
. [Anna Roede,] ‘‘Anna Roedes spätere Chronik von Herzebrock,’’ ed. Franz Flaskamp, Jahr-
buch der Gesellschaft für Niedersächsische Kirchengeschichte  (): ; and Gudrun Gleba, Reformpraxis
und materielle Kultur: Westfälische Frauenklöster in Mittelalter (Husum: Matthiesen, ), .
. [Roede,] ‘‘Spätere Chronik,’’ ed. Flaskamp, –, –.
. ‘‘Innumerabiles grates . . .’’ [Chronicle of Ebstorf, ], ed. Conrad Borchling, in appendix
to ‘‘Litterarisches und geistiges Leben in Kloster Ebstorf am Ausgange des Mittelalters,’’ Zeitschrift des
historischen Vereins für Niedersachsen  (): –, here –.
. [Roede,] ‘‘Spätere Chronik,’’ ed. Flaskamp, . Other qualities of an ideal reform abbess are
portrayed in the description of Jutteldis von Bevern who headed the group of sisters sent from Herze-
brock with a mandate to reform Gertrudenberg in . Parts of a lost chronicle, written in the early
sixteenth century by a contemporary of Jutteldis, are preserved by citations in Johann Itel Sandhoff ’s
chronicle of Gertrudenberg from . Sandhoff asserts that he is citing ‘‘word for word’’ a text written
by ‘‘a pious sister who lived at the time of [Abbess] Jutteldis,’’ Gleba, Reformpraxis, , ; Hans-
Hermann Breuer, ed. Die Gertrudenberger Chronik des Johann Itel Sandhoff vom Jahre  (Osnabrück:
Schöningh, ), . The chronicle narrates how Jutteldis and her party, together with the three sisters
who remained at the start of the reform, energetically undertook the revitalization of the cloister.
Jutteldis is praised as a beautiful and highly intelligent noblewoman who ‘‘conversed in a gracious
manner with persons of both high and low rank.’’ She is described as strict but motherly, diplomatic,
and not affected or misled in her decision making by ‘‘envious persons or prattlers;’’ Gleba, Reform-
praxis, –; Breuer, Gertrudenberger, . The laudatory account goes on to relate a miracle of multi-
plication of grain and bread for the poor. Jutteldis, also capable in business matters, likewise multiplied
the cloister’s monetary holdings through wise land purchases and her own inheritance. Portrayed as an
exemplary manager, she is credited with making improvements to the cloister’s buildings without
placing the house in debt ‘‘as before the reform.’’
. Chronik und Totenbuch des Klosters Wienhausen, ed. Horst Appuhn (Wienhausen: Kloster
Wienhausen, ), –. On the date and transmission of this chronicle, see Chapter  of this study,
note .
. On the monastic chronicle as a literary form see Hans Patze, ‘‘Klostergründung und Kloster-
chronik,’’ Blätter für deutsche Landesgeschichte  (): –; Volker Honemann, ‘‘Klostergründungs-
geschichten,’’ in Deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon, ed. Kurt Ruh et al. (Berlin: de
Gruyter, ), : cols. –; Hans-Werner Goetz, ‘‘Zum Geschichtsbewußtsein in der aleman-
nisch-schweizerischen Klosterchronik des hohen Mittelalters (.–. Jh),’’ Deutsches Archiv für Erfor-

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schung des Mittelalters  (): –; Klaus Schreiner, ‘‘Verschriftlichung als Faktor monastischer
Reform. Funktionen von Schriftlichkeit im Ordenswesen des hohen und späten Mittelalters,’’ in Prag-
matische Schriftlichkeit im Mittelalter, ed. Hagen Keller, –, Münstersche Mittelalter-Schriften  (Mu-
nich: Fink, ); Constance Proksch, Klosterreform und Geschichtsschreibung im Spätmittelalter (Cologne:
Böhlau, ); Rolf Sprandel, Chronisten als Zeitzeugen. Forschungen zur spätmittelalterlichen Geschichtssch-
reibung in Deutschland (Vienna: Böhlau, ); See also Natalie Z. Davis, ‘‘Gender and Genre: Women
as Historical Writers (–),’’ in Beyond Their Sex: Learned Women of the European Past, ed. Patricia
Labalme, – (New York: New York University Press, ); Gabrielle Spiegel, The Past as Text:
The Theory and Practice of Medieval Historiography (Baltimore, Md.: Johns Hopkins Uinversity Press,
); idem, ‘‘Theory into Practice: Reading Medieval Chronicles,’’ in The Medieval Chronicle: Proceed-
ings of the st International Conference on the Medieval Chronicle, Driebergen/Utrecht – July, , ed.
Erik Kooper, – (Amsterdam: Rodopi, ); Charlotte Woodford, Nuns as Historians in Early Mod-
ern Germany (Oxford: Clarendon Press, ).
. Augsburg, Staatsarchiv,  Kloster Maria Maihingen MüB , fols. v–r. See also Nyberg,
Brigittenklöster, :–.
. Sophia von Stolberg’s chronicle of Neu-Helfta lists the family and names of the founding
donors, so that the sisters will know them. See Hans Patze, ‘‘Klostergründung und Klosterchronik,’’
Blätter für Landesgeschichte  (): . Similarly, Anna Roede begins her first chronicle of Herze-
brock with Charlemagne and the bishops of Osnabrück, on the model of Erwin Ertman’s Osnabrücker
Bischofschronik, perhaps in order to connect the cloister with illustrious figures of the past. See [Anna
Roede,] ‘‘Chronik des Klosters Herzebrock,’’ ed. Franz Flaskamp, Osnabrücker Mitteilungen  ():
–.
. [Anna Roede,] ‘‘Spätere Chronik,’’ed. Flaskamp, .
. Ibid., .
. [Magdalena Kremer,] ‘‘Wie diß loblich closter zu Sant Johannes Baptisten zu Kirchen under
deck prediger-ordens reformiert ist worden und durch woelich personen,’’ ed. Christian Friedrich
Sattler, in Geschichte des Herzogtums Wuerttemberg unter der Regierung der Graven, d ed. (Tübingen: Reiss,
–), :–.
. ‘‘Sorores karissime . . .’’ [Ebstorf reform account, c. ], ed. Conrad Borchling, in appendix
to ‘‘Litterarisches und geististiges Leben in Kloster Ebstorf am Ausgange des Mittelalters,’’ Zeitschrift des
historischen Vereins für Niedersachsen  (): –, here , .
. [Anna Roede,] ‘‘Spätere Chronik,’’ ed. Flaskamp, .
. Peter Dronke, Women Writers of the Middle Ages: A Critical Study of Texts from Perpetua (d. )
to Marguerite Porette (d. ) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, ), x.
. Robyn Warhol and Diane Price Herndl, eds., Feminisms: An Anthology of Literary Theory and
Criticism (New Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, ), .
. Albrecht Classen, ‘‘The Implications of Feminist Theory on the Study of Medieval German
Literature. Also an Introduction,’’ in Women as Protagonists and Poets in the German Middle Ages: An
Anthology of Feminist Approaches to Middle High German Literature, ed. Albrecht Classen, Göppinger
Arbeiten zur Germanistik  (Göppingen: Kümmerle, ), ix; Laurie Finke, Feminist Theory, Wom-
en’s Writing (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, ), ; Shulamith Shahar, The Fourth Estate: A History
of Women in the Middle Ages, trans. Chaya Galai (London: Methuen, ), ; and Danielle Regnier-
Bohler, ‘‘Literary and Mystical Voices,’’ in A History of Women in the West II. Silences of the Middle Ages,
ed. Christiane Klapisch-Zuber (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, ), .
. Bynum, Feast, .
. Rudolf Wackernagel, Geschichte der Stadt Basel,  vols. (Basel: Helbling and Lichtenhahn,
–), :.
. Anne Holtorf, ‘‘Ebstorfer Liederbuch,’’ in Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon,
ed. Kurt Ruh et al. (Berlin: de Gruyter, ): : col. ; and Helga Schüppert, ‘‘Söflinger Briefe,’’ in
Verfasserlexikon : col. .
. Johannes Gatz, ‘‘Pfullingen,’’ Alemania Franciscana Antiqua  (): . But see the tran-

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 Notes to Pages –

scription, ‘‘Anno dni MCCL an Sant Martins tag da ist dis Closter Pfullingen an gefangen worden,’’
ed. Maximilianus Straganz, in ‘‘Duae Relationes circa Monasterium Brixinense O. Clar.,’’ Archivum
Franciscanum Historicum  (): –, at . Straganz’s transcription reads, ‘‘For as long as I have
been in [the cloister], I am hopeful that the Lord will not abandon us in the future.’’
. St. Gall, Stiftsbibliothek,  St. Katharina, Wil, ‘‘Klosterchronik,’’ Nr. , fol. v; and Thoma
Vogler, Geschichte des Dominikanerinnen-Klosters St. Katharina in St. Gallen – (Fribourg, Switzer-
land: Paulus, ), , .
. Rudolf Schulze, Das adelige Frauen- (Kanonissen-) Stift der Hl. Maria (–) und die Pfarre
Liebfrauen-Überwasser zu Münster, Westfalen (Münster: Aschendorff, ), .
. [Anna Roede,] ‘‘Spätere Chronik,’’ ed. Flaskamp, , , .
. Münster, Nordrhein-Westfälisches Staatsarchiv Münsterscher Studienfonds, Stift Überwasser,
Akten Nr.  (cloister annals), fol. v; see also Schulze, Überwasser, . A German account in the
chronicle of cloister Heiningen begins, ‘‘Our cloister Heiningen was founded . . . ,’’ Hildesheim,
Dombibliothek, Cod. Bev. b, fol. v. Magdalena Kremer narrates the reformers’ activities in the
first person, saying, ‘‘When we arrived at Kirchheim . . . ,’’ ‘‘Wie diß loblich closter,’’ .
. Anne Bollmann, ‘‘Weibliche Diskurse: Die Schwesternbücher der devotio moderna zwischen
Biographie und geistlicher Konversation,’’ in Kultur, Geschlecht, Körper, ed. Genus–Münsteraner Ar-
beitskreis für Gender Studies (Münster: Agenda, ), , , , . After the house had ac-
cepted a rule and was enclosed, it attracted women from a higher social stratum than that of the older
sisters.
. Only Anna Roede in her first chronicle models the first part on Ertwin Ertman’s chronicle
of the bishops of Osnabrück. See Franz Flaskamp, ‘‘Chronik des Klosters Herzebrock,’’ Osnabrücker
Mitteilungen  (): , –.
. Ursula Peters, ‘‘Frauenliteratur im Mittelalter? Überlegungen zur Trobiaritzpoesie, zur Frau-
enmystik und zur feministischen Literaturbetrachtung,’’ Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift, n.F. 
(): , quoted in Hamburger, Visual, .
. Hamburger, Visual, , .
. [Gallus Öhem,] Die Chronik des Gallus Öhem, ed. Karl Brandi, Quellen und Forschungen zur
Geschichte der Abtei Reichenau  (Heidelberg: Winter, ).
. Natalie Davis, ‘‘Gender and Genre: Women as Historical Writers (–),’’ in Beyond
their Sex. Learned Women of the European Past, ed. Patricia Labalme (New York: New York University
Press, ), , , .
. ‘‘Kurze Chronik des Gotzhuses St. Gallen (–),’’ ed. J. Hardegger, Mitteilungen zur
vaterländischen Geschichte  (): , .
. [Raphael Hanisch,] ‘‘Chronik der böhmischen Observantenprovinz (c. /),’’ ed. Niko-
laus Pol, Jahrbücher der Stadt Breslau, ed. Johann Gustav Büsching (Breslau: Friedrich Korn, ),
:–. See also Lucius Teichmann, ‘‘Die franziskanische Observanzbewegung in Ost-Mitteleuropa
und ihre politisch-nationale Komponente im böhmisch-schlesischen Raum,’’ Archiv für schlesische Kir-
chengeschichte  (): –.
. Fredrich Techen, ed., Die Chroniken des Klosters Ribnitz, Mecklenburgische Geschichtsquellen
 (Schwerin: Bärensprungsche Hofdruckerei, ), , –, –.
. Ibid., –, .
. Tore Nyberg, ‘‘Das Hausbuch des Klosters Maihingen,’’ Jahrbuch des Vereins für Augsburger
Bistumsgeschichte  (): .
. [Anna Roede,] ‘‘Spätere Chronik,’’ ed. Flaskamp, .
. ‘‘Innumerabiles grates . . .’’ [Chronicle of Ebstorf, ], ed. Conrad Borchling, in appendix
to ‘‘Litterarisches und geistiges Leben in Kloster Ebstorf am Ausgange des Mittelalters,’’ Zeitschrift des
historischen Vereins für Niedersachsen  (): –, here –, here , .
. Augsburg, Staatsarchiv,  Kloster Maria Maihingen MüB , fol. r; see also Nyberg, Brigitten-
klöster, –.
. Karen Glente, ‘‘Mystikerinnen aus männlicher und weiblicher Sicht: Ein Vergleich zwischen

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 Notes to Pages –

Thomas von Cantimpré und Katharina von Unterlinden,’’ in Religiöse Frauenbewegungen und mystische
Frömmigkeit im Mittelalter, ed. Peter Dinzelbacher and Dieter R. Bauer (Cologne: Böhlau, ),
, .
. Ibid., , –.
. Rolf Limbeck, Der St. Agneskonvent zu Emmerich, Emmericher Forschungen  (Emmerich:
Emmericher Geschichtsverein, ), .
. See Wybren Scheepsma, Deemoed en devotie: De koorvrouwen van Windesheim en hun geschriften
(Amsterdam: Prometheus, ), –; and Kurt Ruh, Geschichte der abendländischen Mystik. Vol. :
Die niederländische Mystik des . bis . Jahrhunderts (Munich: Beck, ), –.
. Wilhelm Schleussner, ‘‘Magdalena von Freiburg. Eine pseudomystische Erscheinung des spät-
eren Mittelalters, –,’’ Der Katholik  (): –, ; and Peter Dinzelbacher and Kurt
Ruh, ‘‘Magdalena von Freiburg,’’ in Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon, Kurt Ruh et
al. (Berlin: de Gruyter, ), : cols. –; and Karen Greenspan, ‘‘Erklärung des Vaterunsers: A
Critical Edition of a th-Century Mystical Treatise by Magdalena Beutler of Freiburg’’ (Ph.D. diss.,
University of Massachusetts, ), –. The ‘‘Magdalenen-Buch,’’ Mainz Stadtbibliothek, Cod. II
, copied in  by sister Margarethe Alden at the Cistercian convent of St. Agnes in Mainz, is
unedited. The other version of Magdalena’s vita is found in a copy c. / held by the Freiburg,
Universitätsbibliothek  .
. Magdalena’s letter, excerpted in (M) Mainz, Stadtbibliothek, Cod. II , fols. v–r, is
recorded in (F) Freiburg, Universitätsbibilothek  , pp. –. See Schleussner, ‘‘Magdalena,’’ .
It is also printed in Oehl, ‘‘Mystikerbriefe,’’ .
. Mainz, Stadtbibliothek, Cod. II , fols. r, v; and Schleussner, ‘‘Magdalena,’’ , .
. Heinrich Denifle, ‘‘Das Leben der Margareta von Kenzingen,’’ Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum
 (): –.
. Freiburg, Universitätsbibilothek  , p. ; and Schleussner, ‘‘Magdalena,’’ .
. Schleussner, ‘‘Magdalena,’’ –; and Kaspar Schieler, Magister Johannes Nider aus dem Orden
Prediger-Brüder: Ein Beitrag zur Kirchengeschichte des . Jahrhunderts (Mainz: Kirchheim, ), –.
. Schleussner, ‘‘Magdalena,’’ .
. Ibid., –, –; and Dinzelbacher and Ruh, ‘‘Magdalena,’’ : cols. –.
. Greenspan, ‘‘Erklärung,’’ , note . In other manuscripts the works are anonymously transmit-
ted. Dinzelbacher, on the other hand, does not attribute to her ‘‘Die goldene Litanei.’’ See Dinzel-
bacher and Ruh, ‘‘Magdalena,’’ : cols. –.
. Schleussner, ‘‘Magdalena,’’ ; and Martina Backes, ‘‘Zur literarischen Genese frauenmy-
stischer Viten und Visionstexte am Beispiel des Freiburger ‘Magdalenenbuches’,’’ in Literarische Kom-
munikation und soziale Interaktion: Studien zur Institutionalität mittelalterlicher Literatur, ed. Beate Keller et
al., – (Bern: Lang, ).
. Freiburg, Universitätsbibilothek  , p. ; and Schleussner, ‘‘Magdalena,’’ .
. Mainz, Stadtbibliothek Cod. II , fols. r–v; and Schleussner, ‘‘Magdalena,’’ .
. Mainz, Stadtbibliothek, Cod. II , fols. r, v, v, r.
. Ibid., fol. v.
. Sara S. Poor, ‘‘Mechthild von Magdeburg, Agency, and the Problem of Female Authorship,’’
(work in progress.) I thank her for allowing me to read an advance copy of this chapter of her manu-
script.
. Even a cursory look turns up parts of the text in women’s libraries at Unterlinden, Inzigkofen,
and Kirchheim am Ries. See Karl-Ernst Greith, ‘‘L’activité littéraire des dominicaines d’Unterlinden
aux XIVe et XVe siècles,’’ in Les Dominicaines d’Unterlinden, ed. Madeleine Blondel and Jeffrey Ham-
burger (Paris: Somogy, ), :; Werner Fechter, Deutsche Handschriften des . und . Jahrhunderts
aus der Bibliothek des ehemaligen Augustinerchorfrauenstifts Inzigkofen (Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, ), ;
and Arnold Schromm, Die Bibliothek des ehemaligen Zisterzienserinnenklosters Kirchheim am Ries: Buchpflege
und geistiges Leben in einem Frauenstift, Studia Augustana  (Tübingen: Niemeyer, ), , –.
Margot Schmidt finds eight complete texts and seventy-nine manuscripts with excerpts and fragments

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 Notes to Pages –

of Mechthild’s Liber specialis gratiae, ‘‘Mechthild von Hackeborn,’’ in Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters:
Verfasserlexikon, ed. Wolfgang Stammler, Karl Langosch, and Kurt Ruh (Berlin: de Gruyter, ), :
col. .
. ‘‘Sant Hilgarten weiszagung.’’ See Franz Jostes, ed., Meister Eckhart und seine Jünger. Ungedruckte
Texte zur Geschichte der deutschen Mystik, Collectanea Friburgensis  (Fribourg, Switzerland: Kommissi-
onsverlag der Universitätsbuchhandlung, ), . This is most likely a copy of Johannes Tortsch’s
Bürde der Welt, composed in German around /, which contains prophecies attributed to Hilde-
gard of Bingen. See Diss biechlin saygt an die wayssagung vo[n] zükunfftiger betrübtnusz. Wölliche grausmen
betrübtnusz vns klärlichen aussprechen ist. Sannt Birgitta. Sannt. Sybilla. Sant Gregorius. Sant Hilgart. Sant
Joachim. Vnd wirt genant die Bürde der welt, Augsburg: Hans Schönsperger, . The work (GW )
was first published in .
. Gertrud Jaron Lewis points out that Hildegard was listed in the Martyrologium romanorum. See
‘‘Hildegard von Bingen (–),’’ in Medieval Germany: An Encyclopedia, ed. John Jeep (New York:
Garland, ), .
. Anne Bollmann, ‘‘Being a Women on My Own’’: Alijt Bake (–) as Reformer of the
Inner Self,’’ in Seeing and Knowing: Women and Learning in Medieval Europe –, ed. Anneke
Mulder-Bakker (Turnhout: Brepols, in press). I am grateful to Anne Bollman for allowing me to read
her forthcoming article. See also Ruh, Mystik, :–.
. See Vogler, St.Katharina, , . Raymond of Capua’s biography of Catherine is also titled
‘‘Der Rosengarten.’’ Jostes, Texte, –.
. Ruh, Mystik, :–.
. Dinzelbacher and Ruh, ‘‘Magdalena,’’ in Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon,
ed. Kurt Ruh et al. (Berlin: de Gruyter, ), : col. .
. Peter Dinzelbacher, ed., Mittelalterliche Visionsliteratur: Eine Anthologie (Darmstadt: Wissen-
schaftliche Buchgesellschaft, ), –.
. Bollmann, ‘‘Being,’’ forthcoming.
. See above note . Anne Bollmann, ‘‘Weibliche Diskurse. Die Schwesternbücher der Devotio
moderna zwischen Biographie und geistlicher Konversation,’’ in Kultur, Geschlecht, Körper, ed. Genus–
Münsteraner Arbeitskreis für gender studies (Münster: Agenda, ), , , .
. Bollmann, ‘‘Being,’’ forthcoming.
. Bollmann, ‘‘Diskurse,’’ –.
. Bollmann, ‘‘Being,’’ forthcoming.
. Thomas Mertens, ‘‘The Modern Devotion and Innovation in Middle Dutch Literature, in
Medieval Dutch Literature in its European Context, ed. Erik Kooper, Cambridge Studies in Medieval
Literature (New York: Cambridge University Press, ), ; and idem, ‘‘Rapiarium,’’ in Dictionnaire
de spiritualité, ed. Joseph de Guibert, Marcel Viller, and Ferdinand Cavallera (Paris: Beauchesne, ),
: cols. –.
. Anne Bollmann, ‘‘A Woman Mystic at the Dawn of the Modern Era: Alijt Bake (–c.
) as a ‘Reformer of the Inner Life’ ’’ (paper delivered at the th International Congress of Medie-
val Studies, Kalamazoo, Mich., May , ); and idem, ‘‘Being,’’ forthcoming. Women’s networks
and the libraries they helped to build brought women into contact with a larger range of texts than has
been recognized. As indicated earlier in connection with Magdalena Beutler’s reading, manuscripts
such as those from the early sixteenth century at the Cologne Observant houses of St. Cecilia and St.
Maria Magdalena contain, as just one example, parts of works by Mechthild of Hackeborn and Ger-
trude the Great of Helfta excerpted in German translation. These manuscript anthologies of passages
from these and other authors were compiled mostly by men for women as private devotional and table
readings for the spiritual year. See Dietrich Schmidtke, Studien zur dingallegorischen Erbauungsliteratur des
Mittelalters. Am Beispiel der Gartenallegorie, Hermaea, Germanistische Forschungen, n.F.  (Tübingen:
Niemeyer, ), –, –.
. Schmidtke, Studien, ; and Werner Williams-Krapp, ‘‘Ordensreform und Literatur im .
Jahrhundert,’’ Jahrbuch der Oswald von Wolkenstein Gesellschaft  (): .

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 Notes to Pages –

. Klaus Graf, ‘‘Ordensreform und Literatur in Augsburg während des . Jahrhunderts,’’ in
Literarisches Leben in Augsburg während des . Jahrhunderts, ed. Johannes Janota and Werner Williams-
Krapp (Tübingen: Niemeyer, ), .
. Thomas Cramer, Geschichte der deutschen Literatur im späten Mittelalter (Munich: DTV,
), .
. Schwesternbuch und Statuten des St. Agnes–Konvents in Emmerich, ed. Anne Bollmann and Niko-
laus Staubach, Emmericher Forschungen  (Emmerich: Emmericher Geschichtsverein, ), –.
. Larissa Tayor, Soldiers of Christ: Preaching in Late Medieval and Reformation France (Oxford: Ox-
ford University Press, ), .
. Regina Schiewer, ‘‘Sermons for Nuns of the Dominican Observance Movement,’’ in Medieval
Monastic Preaching, ed. Carolyn Muessig (Leyden: Brill, ), .
. L. Dacheux, Die ältesten Schriften Geilers von Kaysersberg (; repr. Amsterdam: Rodopi,
), –. The sermon that Susanna Hörwart edited is that delivered at the Strasbourg cloister of
the Penitants on December , . See Johannes Geiler von Kaysersberg. Sämtliche Werke,  vols., ed.
Gerhard Bauer (Berlin: de Gruyter, –), : viii–ix.
. Geiler von Kaysersberg, Werke, :viii.
. Merry Wiesner-Hanks, ed. Convents Confront the Reformation: Catholic and Protestant Nuns in
Germany, trans. Joan Skocir and Merry Wiesner-Hanks (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, ),
; and Annette Barthelmé, La Réforme dominicaine au Xve Siècle en Alsace et dans l’ensemble de la province
de Teutonie, Collection d’études sur l’histoire du droit et des institutions de l’Alsace  (Strasbourg: Heitz,
), .
. Annemarie Halter, Geschichte des Dominikanerinnenklosters Oetenbach in Zürich – (Win-
terthur: Keller, ), , , –.
. Marie-Claire Däniker-Gysin, Geschichte des Dominikanerinnenklosters Töß –, Neujahrs-
blatt der Stadtbibliothek Winterthur  (Winterthur: Ziegler, ), –.
. Halter, Oetenbach,  n. .
. Vogler, St. Katharina, –.
. Ibid., , –, , –.
. R. Krauß, ‘‘Geschichte des Dominikaner-Frauenklosters Kirchberg,’’ Württembergische Viertel-
jahreshefte, n.F.  (): .
. See above Chapter , note .
. Konrad Rothenhäusler, Standhaftigkeit der altwürttembergischen Klosterfrauen im Reformations-Zeit-
alter (Stuttgart: Verlag der Aktien-Gesellschaft ‘‘Deutsches Volksblatt,’’ ), .
. Ibid., –, , , , .
. [Anna Roede,] ‘‘Spätere Chronik,’’ ed. Flaskamp, .
. [Elisabeth Fridaghes], ‘‘Klosterchronik Überwasser während der Wirren –,’’ ed. Rudolf
Schulze, in Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte der Stadt Münster i. W, ed. Eduard Schulte (Münster:
Aschendodrff, –), :.
. ‘‘Chronik des Schwesternhouses Marienthal, genannt Niesinck in Münster,’’ ed. Carl Adolf
Cornelius, in Berichte der Augenzeugen über das Münstersche Wiedertäuferreich, Gesichtsquellen des Bis-
thums Münster  (; repr. Münster: Aschendorff, ), –.
. Johathan D. Grieser, ‘‘A Tale of Two Convents: Nuns and Anabaptists in Münster, –
,’’ Sixteenth Century Journal  (): .
. On conflicts between the convent and the prince-bishops who were sometimes allied with
the city council on the issue of reform and sometimes at odds with it, see Gleba, Reformpraxis, .
. Sigrid Schmitt, ‘‘Geistliche Frauen und städtische Welt. Stiftsdamen–Klosterfrauen–Beginen
und ihre Umwelt am Beispiel der Stadt Straßburg im Spätmittelalter (–)’’ (Habilitationsschrift,
University of Mainz, ). I am grateful to Sigrid Schmitt for allowing me to read chapters of her
soon-to-be-published Habilitationsschrift.
. See Chapter  above, and Jutta Gisela Sperling, Convents and the Body Politic in Late Renaissance
Venice (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, ), , –, .

{ }

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 Notes to Pages –

. Schmitt, ‘‘Geistliche Frauen.’’ See also above, note .

. Deventer, Stads- of Athenaeumbibliotheek,  Supp-l.  [ E ], fols. r and v; cited
here from Wybren Scheepsma’s translation in ‘‘ ‘For hereby I hope to rouse some to piety’: Books of
Sisters from convents and Sister-Houses Associated with the ‘Devotio moderna’ in the Low Coun-
tries,’’ in Women, the Book, and the Godly,  vols., ed. Lesley Smith and Jane Taylor, :– (Cam-
bridge: Brewer, ), .
. Jacqueline Wogan-Browne, ‘‘Powers of Record, Powers of Example: Hagiography and
Women’s History,’’ in Gendering the Master Narrative: Women and Power in the Middle Ages, ed. Mary C.
Erler and Maryanne Kowaleski (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, ), –.

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 

 
Manuscripts that have been transcribed, whether critically edited or not, are located with
the printed works rather than the manuscript sources. All texts by women are listed under
the name of the author rather than the editor; anonymous works under the title or incipit.

Manuscripts

Augsburg, Staatsarchiv
 Kloster Maria Maihingen MüB  (Chronicle of Maihingen, compiled by Prioress Wal-
burga Scheffler and ‘‘Prioress Anna,’’ –, extracts published in Nyberg, Dokumente,
–)

Basel, Universitätsbibliothek
E III  (Konrad von Preussen, ‘‘Ordinacionen für reformierte Dominikanerinnen,’’ ,
fols. v–v)

Berlin, Staatsbibliothek
 germ qu.  ( sermons of Peter of Breslau transcribed at St. Nicolaus in undis, )
 germ. qu.  (Basel reform sermons, , fols. r–r)
 germ. qu.  (Agnes Sachs’s sermon collection, –, fols. v–v)
 germ. oct.  (Simultaneous transcription of a sermon by Johannes Geiler von Kaysers-
berg, preached in  at St Nicolaus in undis, fols. r–r)

Bloomington, Lilly Library, University of Indiana

 Ricketts : Johannes Meyer, ‘‘Ämterbuch’’ and ‘‘Buch der Ersetzung,’’ illuminated by
a pupil of Barbara Gwichtmacher at St. Katharina, Nuremberg, c. 

Brussels, Koninklijke Bibliotheek

 II  [cat. ] ( Sermons of Jan Storm, some transcribed by Janne Colijns, )
 – (Texts by Alijt Bake, most edited by Scheepsma or Spaapen)
 – ( sermons of Jan Storm transcribed by Maria van Pee, /)

Colmar, Bibliothèque de la Ville de Colmar

  (Vita of Elisabeth Kempf by Agatha Gossembrot, th century, fols. r–v)
  II (Anthology of sermons, meditations, and hagiographic texts translated by Doro-
thea von Kippenheim, after )

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 Selected Bibliography

Constance, Kloster Zoffingen, Archiv

 Rechnungs- und Chronikbuch

Deventer, Stads- of Athenaeumbibilotheek

 Suppl.  [ E ] (Diepenveen Book of Sisters, , with additions probably by
Sister Griet Essink; a different version from the  text edited by Brinkerink)

Ebstorf, Evangelischer Damenstiftsbibliothek

 V  (Song book, th century)
 VI  and  VI  (Sermon collection with marginal notes, /)
 VI  (Ebstorf Liederhandschrift, th century)

Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek
  (Notes from a sermon of Johannes Tauler preached at Klingental, th century, fol.
r–v)

Freiburg, Augustinermuseum
  (Antiphonal with illuminations, several by Sibilla von Bondorf, c. )

Freiburg, Erzbischöfliches Archiv

 Ha  (Abridged version [compiled ] of the old Chronicle of Inzigkofen, published
in shortened form by Dreher)

Freiburg, Stadtarchiv
  (Johannes Meyer, ‘‘Ämterbuch’’ and ‘‘Buch der Ersetzung,’’ c. –)

Freiburg, Universitätsbibilothek
  (Vita of Magdalena Beutler, copied /)
  (‘‘Die geistliche Meerfahrt,’’ abridged version, fols. v–v)
  (Anthology compiled by sisters at  cloisters: St. Katharina, St. Gall; Schönenstein-
bach; Pillenreuth; and St. Katharina, Nuremberg (?), , , , )
  (Sequentiary, some illuminations by Sibilla von Bondorf, c. )

Ghent, Universiteitsbibliotheek
  (Texts by Alijit Bake, most edited by Scheepsma or Spaapen)

Hamburg, Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek

 Theol. ⬚  (Tagebuch der Angela von Holfels, –)
 Theol.  (Katherina Gurdeler’s summaries of sermons and collations of Jakob van
Burigh, c. )
 Theol. ⬚  (Summaries of sermons preached by Johannes Tauler at St. Gertrud,
Cologne, th century)

Hildesheim, Dombibliothek
Cod. Bev. b (Chronik des Klosters Heiningen)

Innsbrück, Tiroler Landesregierungsarchiv

  (Missiv-Buch des Klosters Sonnenburg, ‘‘Was sich mit dem Cardinal Nicolai Cusan
und der Äbtissin Verena von Stuben zugetragen,’’ c. )

{  }

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 Selected Bibliography

Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibliothek

 Lichtental  (‘‘Buch von den heiligen Mägden und Frauen,’’ compiled and translated
by Sister Regula, c. )
 Lichtental  (‘‘Leben Jesu’’ and ‘‘Elsässische Legenda aurea,’’ translated by Sister Reg-
ula, c. , fols. r–v,r–v)
 Lichtental  (‘‘Legende von den   Märtyrern,’’ probably translated by Sister Reg-
ula, –, fols. r–r)
 Schwarzach  (Anthology of devotional texts compiled and some perhaps written by
Anna Schott, c. )
 Thennenbach  (Life of St. Clare with  illustrations by Sibilla von Bondorf, c. )

Leipzig, Deutsches Buch- und Schriftmuseum, Deutsche Bücherei

 Klemm Collection I,  (Vita of Elisabeth of Hungary, illuminated by Sibilla von
Bondorf, )
 Kl. I  (Breviary, illuminated by Barbara Gwichtmacher, c. /)

London, British Museum

 Add.  (Clarissan rule with  illustrations by Sibilla von Bondorf, th century)
 Add.  (Life of St. Francis with  illustrations by Sibilla von Bondorf, th century)

Mainz, Stadtbibliothek
Cod. II  (Das Magdalenen-Buch, )

Munich, Bayerisches Hauptstaatsarchiv

Cod. Kloster Altomünster Literale  (Chronicle of Altomünster, completed , extracts
published in Nyberg, Dokumente, –)
Cod. Kloster Frauenchiemsee Literale  (historical, legal, and economic accounts of Ab-
besses Magdalena Auer, –, and Ursula Pfaffinger, –)

Munich, Bayerisches Nationalmuseum

  (Sermons of Stephan Fridolin [d. ] simultaneously transcribed by Caritas Pirck-
heimer)

Munich, Staatliche Graphische Sammlung

Inv. Nr.  –  (Life of St. Francis,  illustrations by Sibilla von Bondorf, th
century)

Münnerstadt (Bad Kissingen), Augustinerklosterbibliothek

  (Anthology of prayers and meditations from the Erfurt, Weissfrauenklosterbiblio-
thek, )

Münster, Nordrhein-Westfälisches Staatsarchiv

Münsterscher Studienfonds, Stift Überwasser, Akten Nr.  (Cloister Annals, Überwasser,
–)

Neresheim, Klosterbibliothek Neresheim

 Ne  (‘‘Diß ist ain ordnung oder auß tailung des psalters Beatus vir,’’ composed by
Veronika Ainkürn, d. , fols. –)

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 Selected Bibliography

Nuremberg, Germanisches Nationalmuseum

  (‘‘Schwester Katrei,’’ tract translated by Anna Eyb [Ebin], c. –, fols. r–
v)

Nuremberg, Stadtbibliothek
 Cent III,  and  ( vols., missal copied by sisters at St. Katharina, Nuremberg, and
illuminated by Barbara Gwichtmacher, c. /)
 Cent V, a (Sister-book of Cloister Töß, illuminated by a pupil of Barbara Gwicht-
macher, c. , fols. r–v; also contains sister-books of St. Katharinental and Oeten-
bach, edited by Johannes Meyer)
 Cent V, App.  p–w ( vols., Antiphonal copied by Margarete Kartheuser and illumi-
nated by  hands, –)
 Cent VI, g (Vita of St. Vincent, illuminated by pupils of Barbara Gwichtmacher, c.
)
 Cent VII,  (Notes on a sermon by Heinrich Riß preached at St. Katharina, c. ,
fols. r–r)
 Cent VII,  (Handbook for the sacristan composed by Katharina von Mühlheim, c.
/, fols. v–r)

Preetz, Archiv, Klosterpreetz

  (Anna von Buchwald, ‘‘Buch im Chor,’’ –, and other writings)

Schriesheim (Heidelberg), Sammlung Eis

Cod.  ( sermon summaries by sisters at St. Katharina, Nuremberg, th century)

Sigmaringen, Fürstlich Hohenzollernsche Hofbibliothek

  ( vols., Chronicle of Inzigkofen, begun  by Elisabeth Muntprat and Apollonia
Besserer, recopied before  with letters and documents added and modernized
spelling)

St. Gall, Stiftsbibliothek

 St. Katharina, Wil, ‘‘Klosterchronik,’’ Nr.  (Chronicle of St. Katharina, St. Gall, –
, begun by Angela Varnbühler)
 St. Katharina, Wil, ‘‘Schwesternbuch,’’ Nr.  (Sister-book of St. Katharina, St. Gall,
the majority written – by Elisabeth Muntprat)

Strasbourg, Bibliothèque Nationale et Universitaire de Strasbourg

  (‘‘Buch der Reformacio Predigerordens’’ with additions by Barbara von Benfelden)

Strasbourg, Bibliothèque Municipale

  (‘‘Die geistliche Meerfahrt,’’ by Margareta Ursula von Masmünster, late th cen-
tury, fols. r–r; excerpts in Landmann, ‘‘Andachtsübungen’’)

Wolfenbüttel, Herzog-August-Bibliothek
 Extravagantes ,  (Eilsabeth Kempf ’s translation and continuation of the ‘‘Vitae Soro-
rum’’ of Unterlinden and her abridged adaptation of the ‘‘Liber miraculorum,’’ before
)
  Novi. (Chronicle and memorabilia, Cloister Heilig Kreuz, Braunschweig, /
)

{  }

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 Selected Bibliography

Printed Works

Sister-books, Chronicles, and Other Works by Women, Named and Unnamed

Anonymous. Margarita Euangelica. Een devote boecxken geheeten Die Evangelische Perle. Utrecht:
Berntsen, .
Anonymous. [Van] den Tempel onser sielen. Facsimile edition. Edited by Albert Ampe. Ant-
werp: Russbroecgenootschap, .
Adelheid von Aue. Letter,  November . In Seraphin Dietler’s Chronik des Klosters
Schönensteinbach, ed. Johannes von Schlumberger, –. See Dietler, Chronik.
‘‘Also vindt man hie geschriben wie die obseruantz angefangen ist worden. . . .’’ In ‘‘Die
Reformation des Katharinenklosters zu Nürnberg im Jahre ,’’ ed. Theodor von
Kern, –. See Kern, ‘‘Katharinenkloster.’’
[Anna von Munzingen.] ‘‘Dis sint die gnade, die vnser Herre hett getan semlichen swestern
in disem closter ze Adelnhusen.’’ In ‘‘Die Chronik der Anna von Munzingen. Nach der
ältesten Abschrift mit Einleitung und Beilagen,’’ ed. J. König, –. See J. König,
‘‘Die Chronik.’’
‘‘Anno dni MCCL an Sant Martins tag da ist dis Closter Pfullingen an gefangen worden.’’ In
‘‘Duae Relationes circa Monasterium Brixinense O. Clar.,’’ ed. Maximilianus Straganz,
–. See Straganz, ‘‘Monasterium Brixinense.’’
Bake, Alijt. ‘‘De autobiografie van Alijt Bake.’’ In ‘‘Middeleeuwse Passienmystiek III,’’ ed.
with introduction by Bernhard Spaapen. Ons geestelijk erf  (): –, –.
———. ‘‘De brief uit de ballingschap.’’ In ‘‘Middeleeuwse Passienmystiek IV,’’ ed. with
introduction by Bernhard Spaapen. Ons geestelijk erf  (): –.
———. ‘‘De lessen van Palmzondag.’’ In ‘‘Middeleeuwse Passienmystiek V. De klooster-
onderrichtingen van Alijt Bake, ,’’ ed. with introdiction by Bernhard Spaapen. Ons
geestelijk erf  (): –.
———. ‘‘De louteringsnacht van de actie.’’ In ‘‘Middeleeuwse Passienmystiek V. De
kloosteronderrichtingen van Alijt Bake, ,’’ ed. with introduction by Bernhard Spaapen.
Ons geestelijk erf  (): –.
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———. ‘‘ ‘Van die memorie der passien ons heren’ van Alijt Bake,’’ ed. with introduction
by Wybren Scheepsma. Ons geestelijk erf  (): –.
———. ‘‘De vier Kruiswegen.’’ In ‘‘Middeleeuwse Passienmystiek II,’’ ed. with introduc-
tion Bernhard Spaapen. Ons geestelijk erf  (): –.
———. ‘‘De weg der victorie.’’ In ‘‘Middeleeuwse Passienmystiek V. De kloosteronder-
richtingen van Alijt Bake, ,’’ ed. with introduction by Bernhard Spaapen. Ons geestelijk
erf  (): –.
———. ‘‘De weg van de ezel.’’ In ‘‘Middeleeuwse Passienmystiek V. De kloosteronder-
richtingen van Alijt Bake, ,’’ ed. with introduction by Bernhard Spaapen. Ons geestelijk
erf  (): –.
[Barbara von Benfelden.] ‘‘Von zunemunge der geistlicheit und uff gang der tugenden der
swestern dis conventes des klosters sancte Agnesen.’’ In La Réforme dominicaine au Xve
siècle en Alsace et dans l’ensenble de la province de Teutonie, ed. Annette Barthelmé, –.
See Barthelmé, Réforme.

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[Bertha of Vilich.] Mater Spiritualis: The Life of Adelheid of Vilich. Translated by Madelyn
Bergen Dick. Toronto: Peregrina, .
———. ‘‘Vita Adelheidis Abbatissae Vilicensis.’’ In Monumenta Germaniae, ed. Oswald
Holger-Egger, vol. , part : –. See G. H. Pertz, Oswald Holger-Egger et al.,
Monumenta Germaniae.
Beutler, Magdalena. ‘‘Erklärung des Vaterunsers.’’ In ‘‘ ‘Erklärung des Vaterunsers.’ A Criti-
cal Edition of a Fifteenth-Century Mystical Treatise by Magdalena Beutler of Freiburg,’’
ed. Karen Greenspan, –. See Greenspan, ‘‘Erklärung.’’
Christine de Pizan. The Book of the City of Ladies. Translation and introduction by Rosalind
Brown-Grant. London: Penguin, .
———. ‘‘Le Livre du dit de Poissy.’’ In Oeuvres poétiques de Christine de Pisan, ed. Maurice
Roy, :–. ; reprint, New York: Johnson, .
‘‘Chronik des Schwesternhauses Marienthal, genannt Niesinck in Münster.’’ In Berichte der
Augenzeugen über das Münstersche Wiedertäuferreich, ed. Carl Cornelius, –. Geschich-
tsquellen des Bisthums Münster . ; reprint, Münster: Aschendorff, .
Chronik und Totenbuch des Klosters Wienhausen. Edited by Horst Appuhn. Wienhausen: Klos-
ter Wienhausen, .
Costers, Jacomijne. ‘‘Visioen en exempel.’’ In ‘‘De helletocht van Jacomijne Costers (d.
),’’ ed. with introduction by Wybren Scheepsma. Ons geestelijk erf  ():
–.
[Dürner, Elsbeth.] Letter,  August . In Rappoltsteinisches Urkundenbuch –. 
vols., ed. Karl Albrecht, :. See Albrecht Urkundenbuch.
[Ebner, Christine.] Der Nonne von Engelthal: Büchlein von der Gnaden Überlast. Edited by Karl
Schröder. Bibliothek des Litterarischen Vereins in Stuttgart . Tübingen: Literarischer
Verein, .
[Elisabeth von Kirchberg.] ‘‘Leben heiliger alemannischer Frauen des Mittelalters IV. Die
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———. ‘‘Unserm herren Jhesu Christo zu ewigem lob. . . .’’ In ‘‘Aufzeichnungen über das
Mystische Leben der Nonnen von Kirchberg bei Sulz Predigerordens während des XIV.
und XV. Jahrnunderts,’’ ed. F. W. E. Roth, –. See Roth, ‘‘Aufzeichnungen.’’
[Ernst, Juliana.] Die Chronik des Bickenklosters zu Villingen. Edited by Karl Jordan Glatz.
Bibliothek des Litterarischen Vereins in Stuttgart . Tübingen: Fues, .
‘‘Es was ain seilgú schwester, dú hiess . . .’’ [Katharinental Sister-Book]. In ‘‘Leben heiliger
alemannischer Frauen des Mittelalters V. Die Nonnen von St. Katharinental bei Dieszen-
hofen,’’ ed. Anton Birlinger. Alemannia  (): –.
[Fridaghes, Elisabeth.] ‘‘Klosterchronik Überwasser während der Wirren –.’’ Edited
by Rudolf Schulze. In Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte der Stadt Münster, ed. Ed-
ward Schulte, :–. Münster: Aschendorff, .
[Haider, Ursula.] ‘‘Die Sinngedichte der Schwestern von St. Katharina in St. Gallen und in
Villingen.’’ In Die deutsche Mystik im Prediger-Orden (von –) nach ihren Grundleh-
ren, Liedern und Lebensbildern, ed. Carl Greith, –. See Carl Greith, Mystik.
Hier beginnen sommige stichtige punten van onsen oelden zusteren (naar het te Arnhem berustende
Handschrift uitgegeven). Edited by Dirk de Man. The Hague: M. Nijhoff, .
Hrosvit of Gandersheim. Hroswitha von Gandersheim, Werke in deutscher Übertragung. Mit einem
Beitrag zur frühmittelhochdeutschen Dichtung. Edited and translated by Helene Homeyer.
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 Selected Bibliography

———. Hrosvithae Opera. Edited by Helene Homeyer. Paderborn: Schöningh, .

‘‘Innumerabiles grates . . .’’ [Chronicle of Ebstorf, .] In ‘‘Litterarisches und geistiges
Leben in Kloster Ebstorf am Ausgange des Mittelalters,’’ ed. Conrad Borchling, appen-
dix, –. See Borchling, ‘‘Kloster Ebstorf.’’
‘‘Inzigkofen Ursprung.’’ Edited by Johannes Pflummern. In ‘‘A.B.C., Zur Geschichte des
Nonnenklosters Inzigkofen,’’ ed. Georg Ludwig Stecher. Diözesanarchiv von Schwaben 
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[Jacobs, Bertha.] Suster Bertken. Twee bij Jan Seversz in Leiden verscheuen boekjes (‘s-Gravenhage.
Koninklijke Bibliotheek,  G ) in facsimile uitgegeven. Utrecht: Uti, .
———. Van dye passie ons liefsherren ihū christi. Leiden: Seversz, /.
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‘‘Jtem die her nach geschriben pucher hat der convent hie zu sant Kathereyn. . . .’’ In
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Franz Jostes, –. See Jostes, Eckhart.
[Katharina von Gueberschwihr.] Lebensbeschreibungen der ersten Schwestern des Klosters der Do-
minikanerinnen zu Unterlinden von deren Priorin Catharina von Gebsweiler. Edited by Ludwig
Clarus. Regensburg: Manz, .
———. ‘‘Vitae sororum.’’ In ‘‘Les ‘vitae sororum d’Unterlinden.’ Edition critique du ma-
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toire doctrinale et littéraire du moyen age  (): –.
Katharina von Mühlheim. Letter,  April . In Seraphin Dietler’s Chronik des Klosters
Schönensteinbach, ed. Johannes von Schlumberger, –. See Dietler, Chronik.
[Kremer, Magdalena.] ‘‘Wie diß loblich closter zu Sant Johannes baptisten zu kirchen under
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Mechthild of Magdeburg. The Flowing Light of the Godhead. Translated by Frank Tobin.
New York: Paulist Press, .
[Neyler, Eva Magdalena.] ‘‘Item diß nachgeschriben geschicht und gewalt des vyntz von
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[Riccoboni, Bartolomea.] Life and Death in a Venetian Convent: The Chronicle and Necrology of
Corpus Domini, –. Edited and translated by Daniel Bornstein. Chicago: Chicago
University Press, .
[Roede, Anna.] ‘‘Chronik des Klosters Herzebrock.’’ Edited with introduction by Franz
Flaskamp. Osnabrücker Mitteilungen  (): –.
———. ‘‘Anna Roedes spätere Chronik von Herzebrock.’’ Edited with introduction by
Franz Flaskamp. Jahrbuch der Gesellschaft für Niedersächsische Kirchengeschichte  ():
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Das St. Katharinentaler Schwesternbuch. Untersuchung, Edition, Kommentar. Edited by Ruth
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‘‘Das Schwesternbuch von Sankt Agnes.’’ In Schwesternbuch und Statuten des St. Agnes–
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[Sneberger, Anna.] Letter to the sisters at St. maria Magdelena an den Steinen, Basel, 
July . In ‘‘Frauengeschichte/Geschlechtergeschichte/Sozialgeschichte. Forschungs-
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‘‘Sorores karissime . . .’’ [Ebstorf reform account, c .] In ‘‘Litterarisches und geististiges
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‘‘Die Stiftung des Klosters Oetenbach und das Leben der seligen Schwestern daselbst, aus
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Werner Williams-Krapp. Untersuchungen zur deutschen Literaturgeschichte . Tüb-
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‘‘Vahe ich an etwaz zu schreyben von den heiligen swestern, dy gewesen seyn zu Weyler’’
[Weiler Sister-Book.] In ‘‘Mystisches Leben in dem Dominikanerinnenkloster Weiler
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‘‘Wer got lob und danck wil sagen umb die uberflüssigen genad, . . .’’ [Gotteszell Sister-
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‘‘Kurze Chronik des Gotzhuses St. Gallen (–).’’ Edited by J. Hardegger. Mittei-
lungen zur vaterländischen Geschichte  (): –.
Lipphardt, Walther, ed. ‘‘Niederdeutsche Reimgedichte und Lieder des . Jahrhunderts in
den mittelalterlichen Orationalien der Zisterzienserinnen von Medingen und Wien-
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Meyer, Johannes. Ämterbuch. Edited by Sarah DeMaris. Monumenta Ordinis fratrum praedi-
catorum historica. Rome: Insititutum Historicum Fratrum Praedicatorum, forthcoming.
———. Das Buch der Reformacio Predigerordens.  vols. Edited by Benedictus Maria Reichert.
Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte des Dominikanerordens in Deutschland  and
. Leipzig: Harrassowitz, –.
———. ‘‘Epistel brief zu den swestren predigerordens, .’’ Edited by Heribert Christian
Scheeben. Archiv der deutschen Dominikaner  (): –.
[Nider, Johannes.] Formicarius. Edited by Hans Biedermann. Graz: Akademischer Druck-
und Verlagsanstalt, .
———. Letter,  October . In Seraphin Dietler’s Chronik des Klosters Schönensteinbach,
ed. Johannes von Schlumberger, –. See Dietler, Chronik.
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vols. Munich: Beck, –.
Pertz, G. H., Oswald Holger-Egger, et al., Monumenta Germaniae historica inde ab anno Christi
quingentesimo usqve ad Annum millesimum et quingentesimum. Scriptorum.  vols. Hannover:
Hahn, ; reprint, Stuttgart: Hiersemann, .
Öhem, Gallus. Die Chronik des Gallus Öhem. Edited by Karl Brandi. Quellen und For-
schungen zur Geschichte der Abtei Reichenau . Heidelberg: Winter, .
Roth, R. W. E, ed. ‘‘Aufzeichnungen über das Mystische Leben der Nonnen von Kirch-
berg bei Sulz Predigerordens während des XIV. und XV. Jahrnunderts.’’ Alemania 
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Sandhoff, Johann Itel. Die Gertrudenberger Chronik des Johann Itel Sandhoff vom Jahre .
Edited by Hans-Hermann Breuer. Osnabrück: Schöningh, .
Scheepsma, Wybren, ed. ‘‘Twee onuitgegeven traktaatjes van Alijt Bake.’’ Ons geestelijk erf
 (): –.
Schröder, Eduard, ed. ‘‘Die Ebstorfer Liederhandschrift,’’ Jahrbuch des Vereins für niederdeut-
sche Sprachforschung  (): –.
Slaggert, Lambert. ‘‘Lambert Slaggerts Chronik.’’ In Die Chroniken des Klosters Ribnitz, ed.
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Sattler, Christian Friedrich, Geschichte des Herzogtums Wuerttemberg unter der Regierung der
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Straganz, Maximilianus, ed. ‘‘Duae relationes circa Monasterium Brixinense O. Clar.’’ Archi-
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len . Schwerin: Bärensprungsche Hofdruckerei, .
[Tortsch, Johannes.] Diss biechlin saygt an die wayssagung von[n] zükunfftiger betrübnusz. Wöl-
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Warnock, Robert G., ed. Die Predigten Johannes Paulis. Münchener Texte und Untersu-
chungen zur Literatur des deutschen Mittelalters . Munich: Beck .

 

Achten, Gerard. Das Christliche Gebetbuch im Mittelalter: Andachts- und Stundenbücher in Hand-
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Barth, Medard. ‘‘Dr. Johannes Kreutzer (gest. ) und die Wiederaufrichtung des Domi-
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Barthelmé, Annette. La Réforme dominicaine au XVe siècle en Alsace et dans l’ensemble de la
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Bartlett, Anne Clark. Male Authors, Female Readers. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, .
Bauer, Gerhard. ‘‘Johannes Geiler von Kaysersberg: Ein Problemfall für Drucker, Heraus-
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Baum, Wilhelm. Nikolaus Cusanus in Tirol. Das Wirken des Philosophen und Reformators als
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Beach, Alison I. ‘‘The Female Scribes of Twelfth-Century Bavaria.’’ Ph.D. diss., Columbia
University, .
———. ‘‘Voices from a Distant Land: Fragments of a Twelfth-Century Nuns’ Letter Col-
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———. Women as Scribes: Book Production and Monastic Reform in Twelfth-Century Bavaria.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, .
Becker, Petrus. ‘‘Benediktinische Reformbewegungen im Spätmittelalter. Ansätze, Ent-
wicklungen, Auswirkungen.’’ In Untersuchungen zu Kloster und Stift, –. Veröffentli-
chungen des Max-Planck-Instituts für Geschichte , Studien zur Germania Sacra .
Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, .
———. ‘‘Erstrebte und erreichte Ziele benediktinischer Reformen im Spätmittelalter.’’ In
Reformbemühungen und Ordensbestrebungen im spätmittelalterlichen Ordenswesen, ed. Kaspar
Elm, –. Berliner Historische Studien , Ordensstudien . Berlin: Dunker and
Humblot, .
Bell, David. What Nuns Read: Books and Libraries in Medieval English Nunneries. Cistercian
Studies . Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian Publications, .

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Bernards, Matthäus. Speculum Virginum: Geistigkeit und Seelenleben der Frau im Hochmittelalter.
Cologne: Böhlau, .
———. ‘‘Zur Seelensorge in den Frauenklöstern des Hochmittelalters.’’ Revue Bénédictine
 (): –.
Bihlmeyer, Karl. ‘‘Mystisches Leben in dem Dominikanerinnenkloster Weiler bei Esslingen
im . und . Jahrhundert.’’ Württembergische Vierteljahrshefte für Landesgeschichte. n.F. 
(): –.
———. ‘‘Die schwäbische Mystikerin Elsbeth Achler von Reute (gest. ) und die Über-
lieferung ihrer Vita.’’ In Festgabe Philipp Strauch zum . Geburtstag, ed. Georg Baesecke
and Ferdinand Joseph Schneider, –. Halle: Niemeyer, .
Billinkoff, Jodi. The Avila of Saint Teresa: Religious Reform in a Sixteenth-Century City. Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, .
Birlinger, Anton. ‘‘Amores Soeflingensis.’’ Alemannia  (): –, –.
Blank, Walter. ‘‘Die Nonnenviten des . Jahrhunderts. Eine Studie zur hagiographischen
Literatur des Mittelalters unter besonderer Berücksightigung der Visionen und ihrer
Lichtphänomene.’’ Ph.D. diss., University of Freiburg, .
Boffey, Julia. ‘‘Women Authors and Women’s Literacy in Fourteenth- and Fifteenth-Cen-
tury England.’’ In Women and Literature in Britain, –, ed. Carol Meale, –.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, .
Bollmann, Anne. ‘‘ ‘Being a Woman on My Own’: Alijt Bake (–) as Reformer of
the Inner Self.’’ In Seeing and Knowing: Women and Learning in Medieval Europe –,
ed. Anneke Mulder-Bakker. Tournhout, Belgium: Brepols, in press.
———. ‘‘Weibliche Diskurse: Die Schwesternbücher der devotio moderna zwischen Biogra-
phie und geistlicher Konversation.’’ In Kultur, Geschlecht, Körper, ed. Genus—
Münsteraner Arbeitskreis für Gender Studies, –. Münster: Agenda, .
Bookmann, Hartmut. ‘‘Über den Zusammenhang von Reichsreform und Kirchenreform.’’
In Reform von Kirche und Reich: Zur Zeit der Konzilien von Konstanz (–) und
Basel (–), ed. Ivan Hlavácek and Alexander Patschovsky, –. Konstanz:
Universitätsverlag Konstanz, .
Borchling, Conrad, ed. ‘‘Litterarisches und geistiges Leben in Kloster Ebstorf am Ausgange
des Mittelalters.’’ Zeitschrift des historischen Vereins für Niedersachsen  (): –.
Bornstein, Daniel. ‘‘Women and Religion in Late Medieval Italy: History and Historiogra-
phy.’’ In Women and Religion in Medieval and Renaissance Italy, ed. Daniel Bornstein, –.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, .
Böse, Kristin. ‘‘Der Magdalenenteppich des Erfurter Weißfrauenklosters im Spiegel des spät-
mittelalterlichen Reformgedankens. Bildinhalt und Herstellungsprozeß.’’ In Lesen, Sch-
reiben, Sticken und Erinnern, ed. Gabriela Signori, –. Bielefeld: Verlag für
Regionalgeschichte, .
Borst, Arno. Mönche am Bodensee (–). Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, .
Bossert, Gustav. ‘‘Die Quellen zur Reformationsgeschichte des Dominikanerinnenklosters
in Pforzheim.’’ Zeitschrift für Geschichte des Oberrheins, n.F.  (): –.
Brandmüller, Walter. ‘‘Causa reformationis. Ergebnisse und Probleme der Reformen des
Konstanzer Konzils.’’ Annuarium Historiae Conciliorum  (): –.
Brett-Evans, David. ‘‘Sibilla von Bondorf—Ein Nachtrag.’’ Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie
 (), Sonderheft: –.
Bridenthal, Renate, Claudia Koonz, and Susan Stuard, eds. Becoming Visible: Women in Euro-
pean History. d ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, .

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Brosius, Dieter. ‘‘Die Lüneburger Klöster und ihr Verhältnis zum Landesherrn.’’ In Das
Benediktinerinnenkloster Ebstorf im Mittelalter: Vorträge einer Tagung im Kloster Ebstorf vom .
bis . Mai , ed. Klaus Jaitner and Ingo Schwab, –. Hildesheim: Lax, .
Bruckner, Albert. ‘‘Zum Problem der Frauenhandschrift im Mittelalter.’’ In Aus Mittelalter
und Neuzeit. Gerhard Kallen zum . Geburtstag, ed. Josef Engel, –. Bonn: Hanstein,
.
Bruins, Clara. Chiara d’Assisi come ‘altera Maria’: Le miniature della vita di Santa Chiara nel
manoscritto Tennenach- di Karlsruhe. Iconographia Franciscana . Rome: Instituto storico
dei Cappucini, .
Bryant, Gwendolyn. ‘‘Caritas Pirckheimer: The Nuremberg Abbess.’’ In Women Writers of
the Renaissance and Reformation, ed. Katharina M. Wilson, –. Athens: University
of Georgia Press, .
Bücher, Carl. Die Frauenfrage im Mittelalter. Tübingen: Laupsch, .
Buchwald, Gustav von. ‘‘Anna von Buchwald, Priorin des Klosters Preetz –.’’
Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für Schleswig-Holsteinische Geschichte  (): –.
Bürkle, Susanne. Literatur im Kloster: Historische Funktion und rhetorische Legitimation frauenmys-
tischer Texte des . Jahrhunderts. Tübingen and Basel: Francke, .
———. ‘‘Weibliche Spiritualität und imaginierte Weiblichkeit.’’ Zeitschrift für deutsche Philo-
logie  (): –.
Burr, David. The Spiritual Franciscans: From Protest to Persecution in the Century after Saint
Francis. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, .
Bynum, Caroline Walker. Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to
Medieval Women. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, .
———. Jesus as Mother: Studies in the Spirituality of the High Middle Ages. Berkeley and Los
Angeles: University of California Press, .
———. ‘‘Religious Women in the Later Middle Ages.’’ In Christian Spirituality. High Middle
Ages and Reformation, ed. Jill Raitt, Bernard McGinn, and John Meyendorff, –.
New York: Crossroad, .
Cameron, Euan. The European Reformation. Oxford: Clarendon, .
Classen, Albrecht. ‘‘Footnotes to the German Canon: Maria von Wolkenstein and Argula
von Grumbach.’’ In The Politics of Gender in Early Modern Europe, ed. Jean R. Brink et
al., –. Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies . Kirksville, Mo.: Sixteenth Century
Studies Journal Publishers, .
———. ‘‘The Implications of Feminist Theory on the Study of Medieval German Litera-
ture. Also an Introduction.’’ In Women as Protagonists and Poets in the German Middle Ages:
An Anthology of Feminist Approaches to Middle High German Literature, ed. Albrecht Clas-
sen, i–xxi. Göppinger Arbeiten zur Germanistik . Göppingen: Kümmerle, .
———. ‘‘New Voices in the History of German Women’s Literature from the Middle Ages
to : Problems and New Approaches.’’ German Studies Review  (): –.
Coakley, John. ‘‘Friars as Confidants of Holy Women in Medieval Dominican Hagiogra-
phy.’’ In Images of Sainthood in Medieval Europe, ed. Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski and
Timea Szell, –. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, .
———. ‘‘Gender and the Authority of the Friars. The Significance of Holy Women for
Thirteenth-Century Franciscans and Dominicans.’’ Church History  (): –.
Constable, Giles. Attitudes Toward Self-Inflicted Suffering in the Middle Ages. Brookline, Mass:
Hellenic College Press, .

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 Selected Bibliography

———. The Reformation of the Twelfth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
.
———. ‘‘Renewal and Reform in Religious Life: Concepts and Realities.’’ In Renaissance
and Renewal in the Twelfth Century, ed. Robert L. Benson and Giles Constable, –.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press, .
Costard, Monika. ‘‘Predigthandschriften der Schwestern vom gemeinsamen Leben: Spätmit-
telalterliche Predigtüberlieferung in der Bibliothek des Klosters Nazareth in Geldern.’’
In Die deutsche Predigt im Mittelalter, Internationales Symposium am Fachbereich Ger-
manistik der Freien-Universität Berlin vom – Oktober , ed. Volker Mertens and
Hans-Jochen Schiewer, –. Tübingen: Niemeyer, .
———. ‘‘Zwischen Mystik und Moraldidaxe. Deutsche Predigten des Fraterherren Johan-
nes Veghe und des Dominikaners Konrad Schlatter in Frauenklöstern des . Jahrhund-
erts.’’ Ons geestelijk erf  (): –.
Cramer, Thomas. Geschichte der deutschen Literatur im späten Mittelalter. Munich: DTV, .
Cross, Claire. ‘‘ ‘Great Reasoners in Scripture’: the Activities of Women Lollards.’’ In Medie-
val Women, ed. Derek Baker, –. Oxford: Blackwell, .
Dacheux, L. Die ältesten Schriften Geilers von Kaysersberg. ; reprint, Amsterdam: Rodopi,
.
———. Johannes Geiler von Kaisersberg. Ein katholischer Reformator am Ende des . Jahrhun-
derts. Freiburg: Herder, .
Däniker-Gysin, Marie-Claire. Geschichte des Dominikanerinnenklosters Töß –. Neu-
jahrsblatt der Stadtbibliothek Winterthur . Winterthur: Ziegler, .
Davis, Natalie Z. ‘‘Gender and Genre: Women as Historical Writers (–).’’ In Be-
yond their Sex. Learned Women of the European Past, ed. Patricia Labalme, –. New
York: New York University Press, .
———. ‘‘ ‘Women’s History’ in Transition: The European Case.’’ Feminist Studies  ():
–.
Degler-Spengler, Brigitte. Das Klarissenkloster Gnadental in Basel –. Quellen und
Forschungen zur Basler Geschichte . Basel: Reinhardt, .
———. ‘‘Observanten außerhalb der Observanz. Die franziskanischen Reformen ‘‘sub
ministris.’’ Zeitschrift für Kirchengeschichte  (): –.
———. ‘‘Die religiöse Frauenbewegung des Mittelalters: Conversen-Nonnen-Beginen.’’
Rottenburger Jahrbuch für Kirchengeschichte  (): –.
———. ‘‘ ‘Zahlreich wie die Sterne des Himmels’: Zisterzienser, Dominikaner und Fran-
ziskaner vor dem Problem der Inkorporation von Frauenklöstern.’’ Rottenburger Jahrbuch
für Kirchengeschichte  (): –.
———. ‘‘Zisterzienserorden und Frauenklöster. Anmerkungen zur Forschungsproblema-
tik.’’ In Die Zisterzienser. Ordensleben zwischen Ideal und Wirklichkeit, ed. Kaspar Elm,
–. Ergänzungsband, Schriften des rheinischen Museumsamtes . Cologne:
Rheinland-Verlag, .
DeMeyer, Albert. La Congrégation de Hollande ou la réforme dominicaine en territoire bourguignon
(–). Liège: Soledi, .
Denne, Ulrike. Die Frauenklöster im spätmittelalterlichen Freiburg im Breisgau. Freiburg: Alber,
.
Dersch, Wilhelm. Hessisches Klosterbuch: Quellenkunde zur Geschichte der im Regierungsbezirk
Kassel, der Provinz Oberhessen und dem Fürstentum Waldeck gegründeten Stifter, Klöster und

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 Selected Bibliography

Niederlassungen von geistilchen Genossenschaften. Veröffentlichungen der Historischen

Kommission für Hessen und Waldeck . Marburg: Elwert, .
Dewischeit, Curt. Georg Rörer, ein Geschwindschreiber Luthers. Berlin: Schrey, .
Dinzelbacher, Peter. Mittelalterliche Visionsliteratur: Eine Anthologie. Darmstadt: Wissenschaft-
liche Buchgesellschaft, .
———. Religiöse Frauenbewegung und mystische Frömmigkeit im Mittelalter. Köln: Böhlau,
.
———. ‘‘Rollenverweigerung, religiöser Aufbruch und mystisches Erleben mittelalter-
licher Frauen.’’ In Mittelalterliche Frauenmystik, ed. Peter Dinzelbacher, –. Pader-
born: Schöningh, .
———. ‘‘Die ‘Vita et Revelationes’ der Wiener Begine Agnes Blannbekin () im Rah-
men der Viten- und Offenbarungsliteratur ihrer Zeit.’’ In Frauenmystik im Mittelalter, ed.
Peter Dinzelbacher and Dieter R. Bauer, –. Ostfildern: Schwabenverlag, .
Dinzelbacher, Peter, and Dieter Bauer, eds. Frauenmystik im Mittelalter. Ostfildern: Schwaben-
verlag, .
Dinzelbacher, Peter, and Kurt Ruh. ‘‘Magdalena von Freiburg.’’ In Die deutsche Literatur des
Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon, ed. Kurt Ruh et al., : cols. –. Berlin: de Gruyter,
.
Dißelbeck-Tewes, Elke. Frauen in der Kirche. Das Leben der Frauen in den mittelalterlichen
Zisterzienserklöstern Fürstenberg, Graefental und Scheldenhorst. Dissertationen zur mittelalter-
lichen Geschichte  (Cologne: Böhlau, ).
Doelle, Ferdinand. Die Observanzbewegung in der sächsischen Franziskanerprovinz (Mittel- und
Ostdeutschland) bis zum Generalkapitel von Parma . Reformationsgeschichtliche Stu-
dien und Texte,  and . Münster: Aschendorff, .
Driscoll, Michael S. ‘‘Penance in Transition: Popular Piety and Practice.’’ In Medieval Lit-
urgy: A Book of Essays, ed. Lizette Larson-Miller, –. New York: Garland, .
Dronke, Peter. Women Writers of the Middle Ages: A Critical Study of Texts from Perpetua (d.
) to Marguerite Porete (d. ). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, .
Duffy, Eamon. The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, c. –. New
Haven: Yale University Press, .
Eckenstein, Lina. Women under Monasticism. ; reprint, New York: Russel and Russel,
.
Ecker, Ulrich. P. ‘‘Die Geschichte des Klosters S. Johannes-Baptista der Dominikanerinnen
zu Kirchheim unter Teck.’’ Ph.D. diss., University of Freiburg, .
———. ‘‘Die Reform der Freiburger Dominikanerinenklöster Adelhausen, St. Agnes und
St. Maria Magdalena, .’’ Zulassungsarbeit zur wissenschaftlichen Prüfung für das
Lehramt an Gymnasien, Freiburg i. Br., .
Eckhard, Michael. ‘‘Bildstickereien aus Kloster Lüne als Ausdruck der Reformation des .
Jahrhunderts.’’ Die Diözese Hildesheim in Vergangenheit und Gegenwart  (): –.
Egger, Franz. Beiträge zur Geschichte des Predigerordens. Die Reform des Baseler Konvents 
und die Stellung des Ordens am Baseler Konzil –. Bern: Lang, .
Ehrenschwendtner, Marie-Luise. ‘‘ ‘Puellae litteratae’: The Use of the Vernacular in the
Dominican Convents of Southern Germany.’’ In Medieval Women in their Communities,
ed. Diane Watt, –. Toronto: Univerisity of Toronto Press, .
Eisele, Friedrich. ‘‘Das Klosterleben der regulierten Augustiner-Chorfrauen von Inzigko-
fen.’’ Freiburger Diözesan Archiv  (): –.

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 Selected Bibliography

Elm, Kaspar. ‘‘Die Brüderschaft vom gemeinsamen Leben. Eine geistliche Lebensform
zwischen Kloster und Welt, Mittelalter und Neuzeit.’’ Ons geestelijk erf  ():
–.
———. ‘‘Die Franziskanerobservanz als Bildungsreform.’’ In Lebenslehren und Weltentwürfe
im Übergang vom Mittelalter zur Neuzeit. Politik-Bildung-Naturkunde-Theologie. Bericht über
Kolloquien der Kommission zur Erforschung der Kultur des Spätmittelalters, ed. Hartmut
Boockmann, Bernt Moeller, and Karl Stackmann, –. Abhandlungen der Akademie
der Wissenschaften in Göttingen, Phil-hist. Klasse, Folge , No. . Göttingen: Vanden-
hoeck, .
———. Literarische Formen des Mittelalters: Florilegien, Kompilationen, Kollektionen. Wolfenbüt-
tler Mittelalter-Studien . Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, .
———, ed. Reformbemühungen und Observanzbestrebungen im spätmittelalterlichen Ordenswesen.
Berliner Historische Studien , Ordensstudien . Berlin: Duncker and Humblot, .
———. ‘‘Reformen und Kongregationsbildungen der Zisterzienser in Spätmittelalterlicher
und früher Neuzeit.’’ Die Zisterzienser. Ordensleben zwischen Ideal und Wirklichkeit. Eine
Ausstellung des Landschaftsverbandes Rheinland. Aachen  July– September, , ed. Kaspar
Elm and Peter Joerissen, –. Schriften des Rheinischen Museumamtes . Cologne:
Rheinlandverlag, .
———. ‘‘Verfall und Erneuerung des Ordenswesens im Spätmittelalter: Forschungen und
Forschungsaufgaben.’’ In Untersuchungen zu Kloster und Stift, –. Veröffentli-
chungen des Max-Planck-Instituts für Geschichte , Studien zur Germania Sacra .
Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, .
———. ‘‘ ‘Vita regularis sine regula’: Bedeutung, Rechtsstellung und Selbstverständnis des
mittelalterlichen und frühneuzeitlichen Semireligiosentums.’’ In Häresie und vorzeitige
Reformation im Spätmittelalter, ed. Frantisek Smahel and Elisabeth Müller-Lückner, –
. Munich: Oldenburg, .
———. ‘‘Westfälisches Zisterziensertum und die spätmittelalterliche Reformbewegung.’’
Westfälische Zeitschrift  (): –.
Elm, Kaspar, and Peter Joerissen, eds. Die Zisterzienser. Ordensleben zwischen Ideal und Wirk-
lichkeit. Schriften des Rheinischen Museumsamtes . Cologne: Rheinland Verlag, .
Engelbert, Pius. ‘‘Die Bursfelder Benediktinerkongregation und die spätmittelalterlichen
Reformbewegungen.’’ Historisches Jahrbuch  (): –.
Ennen, Edith. Frauen im Mittelalter. Munich: Beck, .
Erdin, Emil. Das Kloster der Reuerinnen Sancta Maria Magdalena an den Steinen zu Basel von
den Anfängen bis zur Reformation (etwa –). Fribourg: Paulus, .
Erler, Mary C. Women, Reading, and Piety in Late Medieval England. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, .
Erler, Mary C., and Maryanne Kowaleski, eds. ‘‘Introduction: A New Economy of Power
Relations: Female Agency in the Middle Ages,’’ in Gendering the Master Narrative, ed.
Erler and Kowaleski, –. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, ).
———. Women and Power in the Middle Ages. Athens: University of Georgia Press, .
Faust, Ulrich, ed. Die Frauenklöster in Niedersachsen, Schleswig-Holstein und Bremen. Germania
Benedictina : Norddeutschland. St. Ottilien: EOS-Verlag, .
———. ‘‘Monastisches Leben in den Lüneburger Klöstern.’’ In Das Benediktinerinnenkloster
Ebstorf im Mittelalter. Vorträge einer Tagung im Kloster Ebstorf vom . bis . März , ed.
Klaus Jaitner and Ingo Schwab, –. Hildesheim: Lax, .

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Fechter, Werner. Deutsche Handschriften des . und . Jahrhunderts aus der Bibliothek des ehe-
maligen Augustinerchorfrauenstifts Inzigkofen. Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, .
———. ‘‘Johannes Meyer, O.P.’’ In Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon, ed.
Kurt Ruh et al., :cols. –. Berlin: de Gruyter, .
Felten, Franz J. ‘‘Frauenklöster und -stifte im Rheinland im . Jahrhundert. Ein Beitrag
zur Geschichte der Frauen in der religiösen Bewegung des hohen Mittelalters.’’ In Re-
formidee und Reformpolitik im spätsalisch-frühstaufischen Reich, ed. Stefan Weinfurter, –
. Quellen und Abhandlungen zur Mittelrheinischen Kirchengeschichte . Mainz:
Seibert, .
Ferrante, Joan. To the Glory of Her Sex: Women’s Roles in the Composition of Medieval Texts.
Bloomington: Indiana University Press, .
Finke, Laurie. Feminist Theory, Women’s Writing. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, .
Fischer, Karl. ‘‘Die Buchmalerei in den beiden Dominikanerklöstern Nürnbergs.’’ Ph.D.
diss., University of Erlangen, .
Flaskamp, Franz. ‘‘Die Chroniken des Klosters Herzebrock.’’ Osnabrücker Mitteilungen 
(): –.
———. ‘‘Sophie von Münster Äbtissin zu Herzebrock.’’ Jahrbuch des Vereins für westfälische
Kirchengeschichte  (): –.
Fößel, Amalie, and Anette Hettinger. Klosterfrauen, Beginen, Ketzerinnen. Religiöse Lebensfor-
men von Frauen im Mittelalter. Idstein: Schulz-Kirchner, .
Frank, Barbara. Das Erfurter Peterskloster im . Jahrhundert. Studien zur Geschichte der Klosterre-
form und der Bursfelder Union. Veröffentlichungen des Max-Planck-Instituts für Geschichte
, Studien zur Germania sacra . Göttingen: Vandenhoeck and Ruprecht, .
———. ‘‘Subiaco, ein Reformkonvent des späten Mittelalters.’’ Quellen und Forschungen aus
italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken  (): –.
Frank, Isenard W. ‘‘Der Anschluß des Salzburger Dominikanerklosters Friesach an die öster-
reichischen Observanten, –.’’ Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum  (): –
.
Frank, Karl Suso. Das Klarissenkloster Söflingen: Ein Beitrag zur franziskanischen Ordensgeschichte
Süddeutschlands und zur Ulmer Kirchengeschichte. Ulm, Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, .
Freed, John B. ‘‘Urban Development and the ‘Cura Monialium’ in Thirteenth-Century
Germany.’’ Viator  (): –.
Fries, Walter. ‘‘Kirche und Kloster zu St. Katharina in Nürnberg.’’ Mitteilungen des Vereins
für Geschichte der Stadt Nürnberg  (): –.
Frye, Susan, and Karen Robertson, eds. Maids and Mistresses, Cousins and Queens: Women’s
Alliances in Early Modern England. Oxford: Oxford University Press, .
Gand, Friedrich. Maria-Reuthin. Dominikanerinnenkloster und Hohenberger Grablege. Göp-
pingen: Kümmerle, .
Garber, Rebecca. Feminine Figurae: Representations of Gender in Religious Texts by Medieval
Women Writers, –. New York and London: Routledge, .
Gasser, Vincenz. ‘‘Das Benediktinerinnenstift Sonnenburg im Pustertal.’’ Studien und Mittei-
lungen aus dem Benediktiner- und Zisterzienserorden  (): –, –.
Gatz, Johannes. ‘‘Pfullingen.’’ Alemania Franciscana Antiqua  (): –.
Gehring, Hester McNeal Reed. ‘‘The Language of Mysticism in South German Dominican
Convent Chronicles of the XIVth Century.’’ Ph.D. diss, University of Michigan, .
Gerz-von Büren, Veronika. Geschichte des Clarissenklosters St. Clara in Kleinbasel –.
Quellen und Forschungen zur Basler Geschichte . Basel: Reinhardt, .

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Giesel, J. A. ‘‘Eine Heggbacher Chronik.’’ Württembergische Vierteljahrshefte  (): –,

–.
Gilchrist, Roberta. Gender and Material Culture: The Archaeology of Religious Women. London:
Routledge, .
Gill, Katherine. ‘‘Open Monasteries for Women in Late Medieval and Early Modern Italy:
Two Roman Examples.’’ In The Crannied Wall: Women, Religion, and the Arts in Early
Modern Europe, ed. Craig Monson, –. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press,
.
———. ‘‘ ‘Scandala’: Controversies Concerning Clausura and Women’s Religious Com-
munities in Late Medieval Italy.’’ In Christendom and its Discontents, ed. Scott Waugh and
Peter Diehl, –. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, .
———. ‘‘Women and the Production of Religious Literature in the Vernacular, –
.’’ In Creative Women in Medieval and Early Modern Italy, ed. E. Ann Matter and John
Coakley, –. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, .
Glatz, Karl J. ‘‘Auszüge aus den Urkunden des Bickenklosters in Villingen.’’ Zeitschrift für
die Geschichte des Oberrheins  (): –.
Gleba, Gudrun. Reformpraxis und materielle Kultur: Westfälische Frauenklöster im Mittelalter.
Husum: Matthiesen, .
Glente, Karen. ‘‘Mystikerinnen aus männlicher und weiblicher Sicht: Ein Vergleich
zwischen Thomas von Cantimpré und Katherina von Unterlinden.’’ In Religiöse Frauen-
bewegungen und Mystische Frömmigkeit im Mittelalter, ed. Peter Dinzelbacher and Dieter
R.Bauer, –. Cologne: Böhlau, .
Goetz, Hans-Werner. ‘‘Zum Geschichtsbewußtsein in der alemannisch-schweizerischen
Klosterchronik des hohen Mittelalters (.–. Jh.)’’ Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des
Mittelalters  (): –.
Goodich, Michael. ‘‘The Contours of Female Piety in Later Medieval Hagiography.’’
Church History  (): –.
Gnüg, Hiltrud and Renate Möhrmann. Frauen Literatur Geschichte: Schreibende Frauen vom
Mittelalter bis zur Gegenwart. Stuttgart: Metzler, .
Graf, Klaus. ‘‘Ordensreform und Literatur in Augsburg während des . Jahrhunderts.’’ In
Literarisches Leben in Augsburg während des . Jahrhunderts, ed. Johannes Janota and Werner
Williams-Krapp, –. Tübingen: Niemeyer, .
Greenspan, Karen. ‘‘Erklärung des Vaterunsers: A Critical Edition of a th-Century Mysti-
cal Treatise by Magdalena Beutler of Freiburg.’’ Ph.D. diss, University of Massachusetts,
.
Greith, Karl-Ernst. ‘‘L’activité littéraire des dominicaines d’Unterlinden aux XIVe et XVe
siècles.’’ In Les Dominicaines d’Unterlinden,  vols., ed. Madeleine Blondel and Jeffrey
Hamburger, :–. Paris: Somogy, .
———. ‘‘Eine deutsche Übersetzung der ‘Vita Sancti Udalrici’ des Bern von Reichenau
aus Unterlinden in Colmar.’’ In Durch abenteuer muess man wagen vil: Festschrift für Anton
Schwob zum . Geburtstag, ed. Wernfried Hofmeister and Bernd Steinbauer, –.
Innsbruck: Institut für Germanistik, .
———. ‘‘Elisabeth Kempf (–). Priorin und Übersetzerin in Unterlinden zu Col-
mar.’’ Annuarie de la Société d’Histoire et d’Archéologie de Colmar  (/): –.
———. ‘‘Elisabeth Kempfs Überstetzung und Fortsetzung der ‘Vitae sororum’ der Kathar-
ina von Gueberschwihr.’’ Annuaire de la Société d’Histoire et d’Archéologie de Colmar 
(): –.

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 Selected Bibliography

———. ‘‘Heiligenverehrung und Hagiographie im Kloster Unterlinden zu Colmar.’’ In

Dominicans et Dominicaines en Alsace, XIII –XXe siècle. actes du colloque de Guebwiller –
Avril , ed. Jean-Luc Eichenlaub, –. Colmar: Archives Départementales du
Haut-Rhin, .
———. ‘‘Die Leben-Jesu-Übersetzung der Schwester Regula aus Lichtenthal.’’ Zeitschrift
für deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur  (): –.
———. ‘‘Ulrich von Augsburg.’’ In Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon, ed.
Kurt Ruh et al., :cols. –. Berlin: de Gruyter, .
Greven, Joseph. Die Anfänge der Beginen. Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Volksfrömmigkeit und
des Ordenswesens im Hochmittelalter. Vorreformationsgeschichtliche Forschungen . Mün-
ster: Aschendorff, .
Grieser, D. Jonathan. ‘‘A Tale of Two Convents: Nuns and Anabaptists in Münster, –
.’’ Sixteenth Century Journal  (): –.
Griesser, Bruno. ‘‘Die Reform des Klosters Rechentshofen in der alten Speyerer Diözese
durch Abt Johann von Maulbronn –.’’ Archiv für Mittelrheinische Kirchengeschichte 
(): –.
Grube, Karl. Johannes Busch Augustinerpropst zu Hildesheim: Ein katholischer Reformator des .
Jahrhunderts. Freiburg: Herder, .
Grubmüller, Klaus. ‘‘Die Viten der Schwestern von Töss und Elsbeth Stagel.’’ Zeitschrift für
deutsches Altertum  (): –.
Grundmann, Herbert. ‘‘Die Frauen und die Literatur im Mittelalter. Ein Beitrag zur Frage
nach der Entstehung des Schriftums in der Volkssprache.’’ Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 
(): –.
———. Religious Movements in the Middle Ages: The Historical Links between Heresy, the Mendi-
cant Orders, and the Women’s Religious Movement in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Century, with
the Historical Foundations of German Mysticism. Translated by Stephen Rowen. Notre
Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, .
Haas, Alois. ‘‘Elsbeth Stagel.’’ In Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon, ed.
Kurt Ruh et al., : cols –. Berlin: de Gruyter, .
Habermas, Rebekka. ‘‘Die Beginen—eine ‘andere’ Konzeption von Weiblichkeit?’’ In Die
ungeschriebene Geschichte. Historische Frauenforschung, Dokumentation . Historikerinnentreffen
April , ed. Wiener Historikerinnen, –. Vienna: Wiener Frauenverlag, .
Haffner, Franz. Die kirchlichen Reformbemühungen des Speyrer Bischofs Matthias von Rammung
in vortridentinischer Zeit (–). Speyer: Pilger, .
Hallauer, Hermann. ‘‘Eine Visitation des Nikolaus von Kues im Benediktinerinnenkloster
Sonnenburg.’’ Mitteilungen und Forschungsbeiträge der Cusanus-Gesellschaft  ():
–.
———. ‘‘Nikolaus von Kues und das Brixener Klarissenkloster.’’ Mitteilungen und Forschungs-
beiträge der Cusanus-Gesellschaft  (): –.
Halter, Annemarie. Geschichte des Dominikanerinnenklosters Oetenbach in Zürich –.
Winterthur: Keller, .
Hamburger, Jeffrey F. ‘‘La bibliothèque d’Unterlinden et l’art de la formation spirituelle.’’
In Les Dominicaines d’Unterlinden, ed. Madeleine Blondel and Jeffrey Hamburger,  vols.,
:–. Paris: Somogy, .
——— .Nuns as Artists. The Visual Culture of a Medieval Convent. California Studies in the
History of Art . Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, .

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 Selected Bibliography

———. The Visual and the Visionary. Art and Female Spirituality in Late Medieval Germany.
New York: Zone Books, .
Hamm, Berndt. ‘‘Von der spätmittelalterlichen reformatio zur Reformation: Der Prozeß
normativer Zentrierung von Religion und Gesellschaft in Deutschland.’’ Archiv für Refor-
mationsgeschichte  (): –.
Härtel, Helmar. ‘‘Die Bibliothek des Klosters Ebstorf am Ausgang des Mittelalters.’’ In ‘In
Treue und Hingabe:’  Jahre Kloster Ebstorf, ed. Marianne Elster and Horst Hoffmann,
–. Schriften zur Uelzener Heimatkunde . Uelzen: Becker, .
———. ‘‘Klosterbibliotheken zwischen Reform und Reformation. Studien zur niedersäch-
sischen Bibliotheksgeschichte im ausgehenden . und beginnenden . Jahrhundert.’’
In Probleme der Bearbeitung mittelalterlicher Handschriften, ed. Helmar Härtel et al., –.
Wolfenbütteler Forschungen . Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, .
———. ‘‘Die Klosterbibliothek Ebstorf. Reform und Schulwirklichkeit am Ausgang des
Mittelalters.’’ In Schule und Schüler im Mittelalter, ed. Martin Kintzinger, –. Co-
logne: Böhlau, .
Hasebrink, Burkhard. ‘‘Tischlesung und Bildungskultur im Nürnberger Katharinenkloster.
Ein Beitrag zu ihrer Rekonstruktion.’’ In Schule und Schüler im Mittelalter. Beiträge zur
europäischen Bildungsgeschichte des . bis . Jahuhunderts, ed. Martin Kintzinger, Sönke
Lorenz, and Michael Walter, –. Beihefte zum Archiv für Kulturgeschichte .
Cologne: Böhlau, .
Hauber, A. ‘‘Deutsche Handschriften in Frauenklöstern des späteren Mittelalters.’’ Zentral-
blatt für Bibliothekswesen  (): –.
Haug, Franz, and Johann Adam Kraus. ‘‘Urkunden des Dominikanerinnenklosters Stetten
in Gnadental bei Hechingen –.’’ Hohenzollerische Jahreshefte  (): –.
Haumann, Heiko, and Hans Schadek, eds. Geschichte der Stadt Freiburg im Breisgau.  vols.
Stuttgart: Theiss, –.
Häussler, Max. Felix Fabri aus Ulm und seine Stellung zum geistigen Leben seiner Zeit. Beiträge
zur Kulturgeschichte des Mittelalters und der Renaissance . Berlin, Leipzig: Teubner,
.
Haverkamp, Alfred. ‘‘Leben in Gemeinschaften: Alte und neue Formen im . Jahrhun-
dert.’’ In Aufbruch—Wandel–Erneuerung: Beiträge zur ‘Renaissance’des . Jahrhunderts, ed.
Georg Wieland, –. Stuttgart: Frommann-holzboog, .
Head, Thomas. ‘‘Hrosvith’s ‘Primordia’ and the Historical Tradition of Monastic Commu-
nities.’’ In Hrosvit of Gandersheim: Rara avis in Saxonia? ed. Katharina M. Wilson, –.
Medieval and Renaissance Monograph Series . Ann Arbor, Mich.: Medieval and Re-
naissance Collegium, .
Heimpel, Hermann. ‘‘Das deutsche . Jahrhundert. In Krise und Beharrung.’’ In Die Welt
zur Zeit des Konstanzer Konzils. Reichenauvorträge im Herbst , ed. Theodor Mayer,
–. Vorträge und Forschungen . Stuttgart Thorbecke, .
Heinen, Hadamut. ‘‘Beiträge zur Geschichte des Klosters Rolandswerth (Nonnenwerth).’’
Annalen des historischen Vereins für den Niederrhein  (): –.
Heinrich, Helmut, and Gisela Sattler, eds.  Jahre Kloster St. Ursula Villingen. Villingen:
Kloster St. Ursula, n.d.
Heinzer, Felix. ‘‘Handschriften und Drucke des . und . Jahrhunderts aus der Benedik-
tinerinnenenabtei Frauenalb. Eine bibliotheksgeschichtliche Skizze.’’ Bibliothek und Wis-
senschaft  (): –.

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———. ‘‘Lichtenthaler Bibliotheksgeschichte als Spiegel der Klostergeschichte.’’ Zeitschrift

für Geschichte des Oberrheins  (): –.
Heinzer, Felix, and Gerhard Stamm. Die Handschriften der Badischen Landesbibliothek in Karls-
ruhe: XI. Die Handschriften von Lichtenthal. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, .
Helmbold, Marie Luise. Geschichte des Stiftes Fischbeck bei der Weser. Göttingen: Edition Stu-
dentica, .
Helmrath, Johannes. Das Basler Konzil –: Forschungsstand und Probleme. Cologne:
Böhlau, .
———. ‘‘Reform als Thema der Konzilien des Spätmittelalters.’’ In Christian Unity. The
Council of Ferrara-Florenz /–, ed. Giuseppe Alberigo, –. Louvain: Lou-
vain University Press, .
———.‘‘Theorie und Praxis der Kirchenreform.’’ Rottenburger Jahrbuch für Kirchengeschichte
 (): –.
Herlihy, David. ‘‘Did Women have a Renaissance?: A Reconsideration.’’ Medievalia et Hu-
manistica n.s.  (): –.
Hengst, Karl, ed. Westfälisches Klosterbuch: Lexikon der vor  errichteten Stifte und Klöster von
ihrer Gründung bis zur Aufhebung.  vols. Veröffentlichungen der Historischen Kommis-
sion für Westfalen . Münster: Aschendorff, –.
Herrgott, Ernst. ‘‘Necrologium von Alspach.’’ Alemania Franciscana Antiqua  ():
–.
Heusinger, Christian von. ‘‘Spätmittelalterliche Buchmalerei in oberrheinischen Frauen-
klöstern.’’ Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Oberrheins  (): –.
———. ‘‘Studien zur oberrheinischen Buchmalerei und Graphik im Spätmittelalter.’’
Ph.D. diss., University of Freiburg, .
Heusinger, Sabine von. ‘‘Catherine of Siena and the Dominican Order.’’ In Siena e il suo
territorio nel Rinascimento, ed. Mario Ascheri, –. Siena: Leccio, .
———. Johannes Mulberg, O.P. (d. ): Ein Leben im Spannungsfeld von Dominikanerobser-
vanz und Beginenstreit. Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte des Dominikaneror-
dens, n.F. . Berlin: Akademie, .
Hilberling, Brigitte.  Jahre Kloster Zoffingen, –. Constance: Merk, .
Hillenbrand, Eugen. ‘‘Die Observantenbewegung in der deutschen Ordensprovinz der Do-
minikaner.’’ In Reformbemühungen und Observanzbestrebungen im spätmittelalterlichen Ordens-
wesen, ed. Kaspar Elm, –. Berliner Historische Studien , Ordensstudien .
Berlin: Dunker and Humblot, .
Hindsley, Leonard P. The Mystics of Engelthal: Writings from a Medieval Monastery. New York:
St. Martin’s Press, .
Hinnebusch, William A. The History of the Dominican Order.  vols. New York: Alba House,
–.
Hlavácek, Ivan, and Alexander Patschovsky, eds. Reform von Kirche und Reich zur Zeit der
Konzilien von Konstanz (–) und Basel (–). Konstanz: Universitätsverlag
Konstanz, .
Hoffmann, Horst, and Marianne Elster. In Treue und Hingabe’’:  Jahre Kloster Ebstorf.
Ebstorf: Cloister Ebstorf, .
Hofmeister, Philipp. ‘‘Liste der Nonnenklöster der Bursfelder Kongregation.’’ Studien und
Mitteilungen zur Geschichte des Benediktinerordens  (): –.
Holdsworth, Christopher. ‘‘Were the Sermons of St. Bernard on the Song of Songs ever

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Preached?’’ In Medieval Monastic Preaching, ed. Carolyn Muessig, –. Leiden: Brill,
.
Hollywood, Amy. The Soul as Virgin Wife: Mechthild of Magdeburg, Marguerite Porete, and
Meister Eckhart. Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, .
Holtorf, Anne. ‘‘Ebstorfer Liederbuch.’’ In Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexi-
kon, ed. Kurt Ruh et. al., : cols. –. Berlin: de Gruyter, .
Homeyer, Joachim.  Jahre Äbtissinnen in Medingen. Uelzen: Becker, .
Honemann, Volker. ‘‘Klostergründungsgeschichten.’’ In Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters:
Verfasserlexikon, ed. Kurt Ruh et. al., : cols. –. Berlin: de Gruyter, .
Honée, Eugène. ‘‘Image and Imagination in the Medieval Culture of Prayer: A Historical
Perspective.’’ In The Art of Devotion in the Late Middle Ages in Europe, –, ed.
Henk van Os, –. Princeton: Princeton University Press, .
Hopfenzitz, Josef. ‘‘Das Brigittenkloster Maihingen (–).’’ Jahrbuch des Vereins für
Augsburger Bistumsgeschichte  (): –.
Hornung, Hans. ‘‘Daniel Sudermann als Handschriftensammler: Ein Beitrag zur Straßburger
Bibliotheksgeschichte.’’ Ph.D. diss., University of Tübingen, .
———. ‘‘Der Handschriftensammler D. Sudermann und die Bibliothek des Straßburger
Klosters St. Nikolaus in Undis.’’ Zeitschrift für Geschichte des Oberrheins  ():
–.
Hotchin, Julie. ‘‘Enclosure and Containment: Jutta and Hildegard at the Abbey of St. Disi-
bod.’’ Magistra  (): –.
———. ‘‘Female Religious Life and the ‘Cura monialium’ in Hirsau Monasticism,  to
.’’ In Listen Daughter: The ‘Speculum virginum’ and the Formation of Religious Women
in the Middle Ages, ed. Constant Mews, –. New York: Palgrave, .
Howell, Martha, Suzanne Wemple, and Denise Kaiser. ‘‘A Documented Presence: Medieval
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Hubrath, Margarete. ‘‘Monastische Memoria als Denkform in der Viten- und Offenbarungs-
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wissenschaft und Linguistik  (): –.
Huemer, Blasius. ‘‘Verzeichnis der deutschen Zisterzienserinnenklöster.’’ Studien und Mittei-
lungen zur Geschichte des Benediktinerordens n.F.  (): –.
Hüffer, Maria. Die Reformen in der Abtei Rijnsburg im . Jahrhundert. Münster: Aschendorff,
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Humberdrotz, Rudolf, ed. Die Chronik des Klosters Sonnenburg (Pustertal). Eingeleitet und aus
der Originalhandschrift ediert von Rudolf Humberdrotz,  vols. Vol. : –. Schlern-
Schriften . Innsbruck: Wagner, .
Hunt, Lynn, ed. The New Cultural History. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of Califor-
nia Press, .
Hyma, Albert. The Christian Renaissance: A History of the ‘‘Devotio Moderna.’’ d ed. Ham-
den, Conn.: Archen, .
Jäger, Albert. Der Streit des Cardinals Nicolaus von Cusa mit dem Herzoge Sigmund von Österreich
als Grafen von Tirol.  vols. Innsbruck: Wagner, .
Jaitner, Klaus. ‘‘Das Benediktinerinnenkloster Ebstorf im Mittelalter (ca. –).’’ In
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der Historischen Kommission für Niedersachsen und Bremen . Hildesheim: Lax,
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———. ‘‘Kloster Ebstorf.’’ In Die Frauenklöster in Niedersachsen, Schleswig-Holstein und Bre-
men, ed. Ulrich Faust, –. Germania Benedictina . St. Ottilien: EOS, .
Janota, Johannes. ‘‘Werdener Liederbuch.’’ In Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasser-
lexikon, ed. Kurt Ruh et. al., : cols. –. Berlin: de Gruyter, .
Janota, Johannes, and Werner Williams-Krapp, eds. Literarisches Leben in Augsburg während
des . Jahrhunderts. Tübingen: Niemeyer, .
Jászai, Géza, ed. Monastisches Westfalen: Kloster und Stifte –. Münster: Westfälisches
Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte, .
Jedelhauser, Canisia. Geschichte des Klosters und der Hofmark Maria-Medingen von den Anfängen
im . Jahrnundert bis . Quellen und Forschungen zur Geschichte des Dominikaner-
ordens in Deutschland . Leipzig: Harrassowitz, .
Johnson, Penelope D. Equal in Monastic Profession: Religious Women in Medieval France. Chi-
cago: University of Chicago Press, .
———. ‘‘ ‘Mulier et Monialis’: The Medieval Nun’s Self-Image.’’ Thought  ():
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(–), ed. Ivan Hlavácek and Alexander Patschovsky, –. Constance: Uni-
versitätsverlag Konstanz, .
Mertens, Thomas. ‘‘Collatio and Codex im Bereich der Devotio Moderna.’’ In Der Codex
im Gebrauch, ed. Christel Meier, Dagmar Hüpper, and Hagen Keller, –. Münster-
sche Mittelalter-Schriften . Munich: Fink, .
———. ‘‘Ghostwriting Sisters: The Preservation of Dutch Sermons of Father Confessors
in the Fifteenth and Early Sixteenth Ceutury.’’ In Seeing and Knowing: Women and Learn-
ing in Medieval Europe –, ed. Anneke Mulder-Bakker. Turnhout, Belgium: Bre-
pols, in press.
———. ‘‘Middle Dutch Sermons: Manuscript Tradition and Research Situation.’’ Medieval
Sermon Studies  (): –.
———. ‘‘The Modern Devotion and Innovation in Middle Dutch Literature.’’ In Medieval
Dutch Literature in its European Context, ed. Erik Kooper, –. Cambridge Studies in
Medieval Literature. New York: Cambridge University Press, .
———. ‘‘Postum Auteurschap de Collaties van Johannes Brinckerinck.’’ In  Jahr Kapittel
van Windesheim, ed. A. J. Hendrikman et al., –. Middeleeuwse Studies, . Nij-
megen: Centrum voor Middeleeuwse Studies, Katholieke Universiteit Nijmegen, .
———. ‘‘Rapiarium.’’ in Dictionnaire de spiritualité, ed. Joseph de Guibert, Marcel Viller,
and Ferdinand Cavallera, : cols. –. Paris: Beauchesne, .
———. ‘‘Texte der modernen Devotion als Mittler zwischen kirchlicher und persönlicher
Reform.’’ Niederdeutsches Wort  (): –.
Mertens, Volker. ‘‘Theologie der Mönche—Frömmigkeit der Laien? Beobachtungen zur
Textgeschichte von Predigten des Hartwig von Erfurt.’’ In Literatur und Laienbildung
im Spätmittelalter und in der Reformationszeit. Symposium Wolfenbüttel . Germanische
Symposien Berichtsbände . Stuttgart: Metzler, .
Mertens, Volker, and Hans-Jochen Schiewer, eds. Die deutsche Predigt im Mittelalter. Tüb-
ingen: Niemeyer, .
———. ‘‘Erschliessung einer Gattung: Editon, Katalogisierung und Abbildung der deutsch-
sprachigen Predigt des Mittelalters.’’ Editio  (): –.
Metzger, Gerhard. ‘‘Der Dominikanerorden in Württemberg am Ausgang des Mittelalters.’’
Blätter für württembergische Kirchengeschichte, n. s.  (): –;  (): –.
Meuthen, Erich. Das . Jahrhundert. d. ed. Munich: Oldenbourg, .
Meyer, Johannes. ‘‘Johannes Busch und die Klosterreform des fünfzehnten Jahrhunderts.’’
Jahrbuch der Gesellschaft für niederländische Kirchengeschichte  (): –.
———. ‘‘Zur Reformationsgeschichte des Klosters Lüne.’’ Zeitschrift der Gesellschaft für nie-
dersächsische Kirchengeschichte (): –.
Miethke, Jürgen. ‘‘Kirchenreform auf den Konzilien des . Jahrhunderts. Motive-Metho-
den-Wirkungen. In Studien zum . Jahrhundert. Festschrift für Erich Meuthen,  vols., ed.
Johannes Helmrath, Heribert Müller, and Helmut Wolff, :–. Munich: Olden-
bourg, .
Miller, Max. Die Söflinger Briefe und das Klarissenkloster Söflingen bei Ulm im Spätmittelalter.
Würzburg: Triltsch, .
———. ‘‘Der Streit um die Reform des Barfüßerklosters in Ulm und des Klarissenklosters

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 Selected Bibliography

in Söflingen und seine Beilegung, –.’’ In Aus Archiv und Bibliothek. Studien aus
Ulm und Oberschwaben, ed. Alice Rössler, –. Weißenborn: Konrad, .
Mischlewski, Adalbert. ‘‘Monastisches Ideal und Bürgerinteressen: Das Problem der Klausur
bei den Memminger Augustinerinnen.’’ Analecta Angustiniana  (): –.
———. ‘‘Spätmittelalterliche Reformbemühungen im Antoniterorden.’’ In Reformbemü-
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–. Berliner Historische Studien , Ordensstudien . Berlin: Dunker and Hum-
blot, .
Moeller, Bernd. ‘‘Die frühe Reformation in Deutschland als Umbruch.’’ In Wissenschaftliches
Symposion des Vereins für Reformationsgeschichte , ed. Bernd Moeller and Stephen E.
Buckwalter, –. Schriften des Vereins für Reformationsgeschichte, . Gütersloh:
Gütersloh Verlagshaus, .
———. ‘‘Piety in Germany around .’’ In The Reformation in Medieval Perspective, ed.
Steven Ozment, –. Chicago: Quadrangle, .
———. ‘‘Religious Life in Germany on the Eve of the Reformation.’’ In Pre-Reformation
Germany, ed. Gerald Strauß, –. New York: Harper and Row, .
Moessner, Victoria Joan. ‘‘The Medieval Embroideries of Convent Wienhausen.’’ In Studies
in Cistercian Art and Architecture , ed. Meredith Lillich, –. Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cis-
tercian Publications, .
Monson, Craig. ‘‘Introduction.’’ In The Crannied Wall: Women, Religion, and the Arts in
Early Modern Europe, –. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, .
Mooney, Catherine M. Gendered Voices: Medieval Saints and Their Interpreters. Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, .
Mortier, Daniel Antonin. Histoire des maitres génèraux de l’Ordre des Frères Prêcheurs.  vols.
Paris: Picard, –.
Mulder-Bakker, Anneke, ed. Seeing and Knowing: Women and Learning in Medieval Europe
–. Turnhout, Belgium: Brepols, in press.
Müller, Anneliese. ‘‘Studien zur Besitz- und Sozialgeschichte des Dominikanerinnenklosters
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Müller, Gerhard. ‘‘Nachricht von der Reformation im Kloster Lüne, so von einer papist-
ischen Jungfrau ehemals aufgesetzt.’’ Annalen der Braunschweig-Lüneburgischen Churlande 
(): –.
———. ‘‘Reform und Reformation. Zur Geschichte von spätmittelalter und früher Neu-
zeit.’’ Jahrbuch der Gesellschaft für niedersächsische Kirchengeschichte  (): –.
———. ‘‘Reformation und Visitation sächsischer Klöster gegen Ende des . Jahrhun-
derts.’’ Neues Archiv für sächsische Geschichte und Altertumskunde  (): –.
Müller, Wolfgang. ‘‘Die Villinger Frauenklöster des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit.’’ In 
Jahre Kloster St. Ursula Villingen, ed. Helmut Heinrich and Gisela Sattler, –. Villin-
gen: Kloster St. Ursula, n.d.
Müntz, Marc. ‘‘Freundschaften und Feindschaften in einem spätmittelalterlichen Frauen-
kloster. Die sogenannten Söflinger Briefe.’’ In ‘‘Meine in Gott geliebte Freundin.’’ Freund-
schaftsdokumente aus klösterlichen und humanistischen Schreibstuben, ed. Gabriela Signori,
–. Religion in der Geschichte. Kirche, Kultur und Gesellschaft . Bielefeld: Verlag
für Regionalgeschichte, .
Muschg, Walter. Die Mystik in der Schweiz –. Frauenfeld und Leipzig: Huber, .
Nagel, Bert. Hrosvit von Gandersheim. Stuttgart: Metzler, .
Neddermeyer, Uwe. ‘‘ ‘Radix Studii et Speculum Vitae’ Verbreitung und Rezeption der

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 Selected Bibliography

‘Imitatio Christi’ in Handschriften und Drucken bis zur Reformation.’’ In Studien zum
. Jahrhundert: Festschrift für Erich Meuthen,  vols., ed. Johannes Helmrath et al., :–
. Munich: Oldenbourg, 
Neidiger, Bernhard. ‘‘Der Armutsbegriff der Dominikanerobservanten: Zur Diskussion in
den Konventen der Provinz Teutonia (–).’’ Zeitschrift für die Geschichte des Ober-
rheins  (): –.
———. ‘‘Erzbischöfe, Landesherren und Reformkongregationen. Initiatoren und trei-
bende Kräfte der Klosterreformen des . Jahrhunderts im Gebiet der Diözese Köln.’’
Rheinische Vierteljahrsblätter  (): –.
———. Mendikanten zwischen Ordensideal und städtischer Realität. Berliner Historische Stu-
dien . Berlin: Duncker und Humblot, .
———. ‘‘Die Observanzbewegungen der Bettelorden in Südwestdeutschland.’’ Rotten-
burger Jahrbuch für Kirchengeschichte  (): –.
———. Selbstverständnis und Erfolgschancen der Dominikanerobservanten: Beobach-
tungen zur Entwicklung in der Provinz Teutonia und im Basler Konvent (–).’’
Rottenburger Jahrbuch für Kirchengeschichte  (): –.
———. ‘‘Stadtregiment und Klosterreform in Basel.’’ In Reformbemühungen und Observanz-
bestrebungen im spätmittelalterlichen Ordenswesen, ed. Kaspar Elm, –. Berliner Histori-
sche Studien , Ordensstudien . Berlin: Dunker and Humblot, .
Newman, Barbara. From Virile Woman to Woman Christ: Studies in Medieval Religion and
Literature. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, .
Nimmo, Duncan. ‘‘The Franciscan Regular Observance. The Culmination of Medieval
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lichen Ordenswesen, ed. Kaspar Elm, –. Berliner Historische Studien , Ordens-
studien . Berlin: Dunker and Humblot, .
———. ‘‘Reform at the Council of Constance: The Franciscan Case.’’ In Renaissance and
Renewal in Church History, ed. Derek Baker, –. Studies in Church History .
Oxford: Blackwell, .
———. Reform and Division in the Medieval Franciscan Order, from Saint Francis to the Founda-
tion of the Capuchins. Rome: Capuchin Historical Institute, .
Nolte, Ernst. Quellen und Studien zur Geschichte des Nonnenklosters Lüne bei Lüneburg. I. Teil:
Die Quellen. Die Geschichte Lünes von den Anfängen bis zur Klostererneuerung . Studien
zur Kirchengeschichte Niedersachsens . Göttingen: Vandenhoeck, .
Nothegger, Florentin. ‘‘Brixen/Südtirol.’’ Alemania Franciscana Antiqua  (): –.
Nowicki-Pastuschka, Angelika. Frauen in der Reformation: Untersuchung zum Verhalten von
Frauen in den Reichsstädten Augsburg und Nürnberg zur reformatorischen Bewegung zwischen
 und . Pfaffenweiler: Centaurus, .
Nyberg, Tore. ‘‘Der Brigittenorden im Zeitalter der Ordensreformen.’’ In Reformbemü-
hungen und Observanzbestrebungen im spätmittelalterlichen Ordenswesen, ed. Kaspar Elm,
–. Berliner Historische Studien , Ordensstudien . Berlin: Dunker and Hum-
blot, .
———. ‘‘Das Hausbuch des Klosters Maihingen.’’ Jahrbuch des Vereins für Augsburger Bistums-
geschichte  (): –.
Nyhus, Paul L. ‘‘The Franciscan Observant Reform in Germany.’’ In Reformbemühungen
und Observanzbestrebungen im spätmittelalterlichen Ordenswesen, ed. Kaspar Elm, –.
Berliner Historische Studien , Ordensstudien . Berlin: Dunker and Humblot, .

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 Selected Bibliography

———. ‘‘The Observant Reform Movement in Southern Germany.’’ Franciscan Studies 

(): –.
Oakley, Francis. The Western Church in the Later Middle Ages. Ithaca: Cornell University
Press, .
Obermann, Heiko. ‘‘Preface.’’ In Devotio Moderna: Basic Writings, ed. John van Engen, –.
Mahwah, N.Y.: Paulist Press, .
Ochsenbein, Peter. ‘‘Latein und Deutsch im Alltag oberrheinischer Dominikanerinnenklö-
ster des Spätmittelalters.’’ In Latein und Volkssprache im deutschen Mittelalter –, ed.
Nikolaus Henkel and Nigel Palmer, –. Tübingen: Niemeyer, .
———. ‘‘Spuren der Devotio moderna im spätmittelalterlichen Kloster St. Gallen.’’ Studien
und Mitteilungen zur Geschichte des Benediktinerordens  (): –.
Oehl, Wilhelm. Deutsche Mystikerbriefe des Mittelalters, –. Munich: Georg Müller,
.
Oliva, Marilyn. The Convent and Community in Late Medieval England: Female Monasteries in
the Diocese of Norwich, –. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell, .
O’Mara, V. M. ‘‘Preaching to Nuns in Late Medieval England.’’ In Medieval Monastic Preach-
ing, ed. Carolyn Muessig, –. Leiden: Brill, .
Opitz, Claudia. Evatöchter und Bräute Christi: Weiblicher Lebenszusammenhang und Frauenkultur
im Mittelalter. Weinheim: Deutscher Studien Verlag, .
Parisse, Michel. ‘‘Die Frauenstifte und Frauenklöster in Sachsen vom . bis zur Mitte des
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Sigmaringen: Thorbecke, .
Patschovsky, Alexander. ‘‘Der Reformbegriff zur Zeit der Konzilien von Konstanz und
Basel.’’ In Reform von Kirche und Reich, ed. Ivan Hlavácek and Alexander Patschovsky,
–. Konstanz: Universitätsverlag Konstanz, .
Patze, Hans. ‘‘Klostergründung und Klosterchronik.’’ Blätter für deutsche Landesgeschichte 
(): –.
Pearsall, Derek, and Elizabeth Salter. Landscapes and Seasons of the Medieval World. Toronto:
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Peters, Ursula. ‘‘Das ‘Leben’ der Christine Ebner: Textanalyse und kulturhistorischer Kom-
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Ruh, –. Stuttgart: Metzler, .
———. ‘‘Frauenliteratur im Mittelalter? Überlegungen zur Trobiaritzpoesie, zur Frauen-
mystik und zur feministischen Literaturbetrachtung.’’ Germanisch-Romanische Monats-
schrift n.F.  (): –.
———. ‘‘Frauenmystik im . Jahrhundert; Die ‘Offenbarungen’ der Christine Ebner.’’ In
Weiblichkeit oder Feminismus? Beiträge zur interdisziplinären Frauentagung, Konstanz ,
ed. Claudia Opitz, –. Weingarten: Drumlin, .
———. Religiöse Erfahrung als literarisches Faktum: Zur Vorgeschichte und Genese frauenmystischer
Texte des . und . Jahrhunderts. Tübingen: Niemeyer, .
———. ‘‘Vita religiosa und spirituelles Erleben: Frauenmystik und frauenmystische Litera-
tur im . und . Jahrhundert.’’ In Deutsche Literatur von Frauen,  vols., ed. Gisela
Brinker-Gabler, :–. Munich: Beck, .
Petroff, Elizabeth Alvilda. ‘‘Male Confessors and Female Penitants’’: Possibilities for Dia-
logue.’’ In Body and Soul: Essays on Medieval Woman and Mysticism, ed. Elizabeth A.
Petroff, –. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, .
———. Medieval Women’s Visionary Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, .

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Pfanner, Josef. Briefe von, an und über Caritas Pirckheimer aus den Jahren –. Landshut:
Solanus, .
———. Das Gebetbuch der Caritas Pirckheimer. Landshut: Solanus, .
———. Medieval Women’s Visionary Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, .
Pfleger, Luzian. ‘‘Geiler von Kaysersberg und das Magdalenenkloster zu Straßburg.’’ Strass-
burger Diözesanblatt  (): –, –.
———. Kirchengeschichte der Stadt Strassburg im Mittelalter. Colmar: Alsatia, .
———. Zur Geschichte des Predigtwesens in Straßburg vor Geiler von Kaysersberg. Straßburg:
Herder, .
———. ‘‘Der Personalbestand der Straßburger Klöster in Jahre .’’ Archiv für Elsässische
Kirchengeschichte  (): .
Pickel Georg. ‘‘Geschichte des Klaraklosters in Nürnberg.’’ Beiträge zur bayerischen Kirchenge-
schichte  (): –, –, –.
Poor, Sara S. Mechthild von Magdeburg and her Book: Gender and the Making of Textual Author-
ity. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, .
Popp, Marianne. ‘‘Die Dominikanerinnen im Bistum Regensburg.’’ Beiträge zur Geschichte
des Bistums Regensburg  (): –.
Poppe, Roswitha. ‘‘Gertrudenberg.’’ In Die Frauenklöster in Niedersachsen, Schleswig-Holstein
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Ottilien: EOS-Verlag, .
Post, Regnerus Richardus. The Modern Devotion: Confrontation with Reformation and Human-
ism. Studies in Medieval and Reformation Thought . Leiden: Brill, .
Power, Eileen. Medieval English Nunneries, c.  to . Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, .
Prieur, Jutta. Das Kölner Dominikanerinnenkloster St. Gertrud am Neumarkt. Kölner Schriften
zu Geschichte und Kultur. Cologne: dme-Verlag, .
Proksch, Constance. Klosterreform und Geschichtsschreibung im Spätmittelalter. Cologne: Böh-
lau, .
Quint, Josef. ‘‘Mystik.’’ In Reallexikon der deutschen Literaturgeschichte,  vols., d. ed., ed.
Paul Merker, Wolfgang Stammler et al., :–. Berlin: de Gruyter, .
Raitt, Jill, ed. Christian Spirituality: High Middle Ages and Reformation. New York: Crossroad,
.
Ranft, Patricia. Women and the Religious Life in Premodern Europe. New York: St. Martin’s
Press, .
———. Women and Spiritual Equality in Christian Tradition. Basingstoke: Macmillan, .
Rankl, Helmut. Das Vorreformatorische landesherrliche Kirchenregiment in Bayern (–).
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Redlich, Virgil. Johann Rode von St. Matthias bei Trier. Münster: Aschendorff, .

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Remling, Franz Xavier Urkundliche Geschichte der Abteien und Klöster in Rheinbayern.  vols.
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———. ‘‘Spätmittelalterliche Klosterpredigten aus Nürnberg.’’ Archiv für Kulturgeschichte 
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Roper, Lyndal. The Holy Household: Women and Morals in Reformation Augsburg. Oxford:
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Rothenhäusler, Konrad. Die Abteien und Stifte des Herzogthums Württemberg im Zeitalter der
Reformation. Stuttgart: Verlag ‘‘Deutsches Volksblatt,’’ .
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Rublack, Ulinka. ‘‘Female Spirituality and the Infant Jesus in Late Medieval Dominican
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Rudolf, Rainer. ‘‘Magdalena Auer.’’ In Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon,
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———. ‘‘Deutsche Predigtbücher des Mittelalters.’’ Vestigia bibliae  (): –.
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———. ‘‘Die Schwesternbücher der Niederlande.’’ Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und deut-
sche Literatur  (): –.
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Reformation und der katholischen Reform, ed. Anne Conrad and Caroline Gritschke, –.
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Schäfer, Karl Heinrich. Die Kanonissenstifter im deutschen Mittelalter. Ihre Entwicklung und innere
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Scheepsma, Wybren. Deemoed en devotie: De koorvrouwen van Windesheim en hun geschriften.
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———. ‘‘ ‘For hereby I hope to rouse some to piety’: Books of Sisters from Convents and
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———. ‘‘Hadewijch und die ‘Limburgse Sermoenen.’ Überlegungen zu Datierung, Identi-
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Niemeyer, .
———. ‘‘Twee onuitgegeven traktaatjes van Alijt Bake.’’ Ons Geestelijk erf  ():
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———. ‘‘Die beiden Sankt Johannsen, ein dominikanischer Johannes-Libellus und das li-
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———. ‘‘German Sermons in the Middle Ages.’’ In The Sermon, ed. Beverly Kienzle,
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———. ‘‘Spuren von Mündlichkeit in der mittelalterlichen Predigtüberlieferung. Ein Plä-
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———. ‘‘Typ und Polyfunktionalität.’’ Jahrbuch für Internationale Germanistik  ():
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———. ‘‘Universities and Vernacular Preaching. The Case of Vienna, Heidelberg, and
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———. ‘‘Sermons for Nuns of the Dominican Observance Movement.’’ In Medieval Mo-
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Schlechter, Armin. ‘‘Eine deutsche mystische Handschrift der Straßburger Dominikanerin
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Schleussner, Wilhelm. ‘‘Magdalena von Freiburg. Eine pseudomystische Erscheinung des
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Schmid, Karl. ‘‘Adel und Reform in Schwaben.’’ In Gebetsgedenken und adliges Selbstverständ-
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Schmidt, Paul Gerhard. ‘‘ ‘Amor transformat amantem in amatum’: Bernhard von Waging
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———. Studien zur dingallegorischen Erbauungsliteratur des Mittelalters. Am Beispiel der Gartenal-
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———. ‘‘Zur Geschichte der Kölner Predigt im Spätmittelalter: Einige neue Predigerna-
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Schmitt, Sigrid. ‘‘Geistliche Frauen und städtische Welt. Stiftsdamen—Klosterfrauen—
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Schmitz-Kallenberg, Ludwig. Monasticon Westfaliae. Münster: Universitäts-Buchhandlung,
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Schneider, Karin. ‘‘Beziehungen zwischen den Dominikanerinnenklöstern Nürnberg und
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———. ‘‘Die Bibliothek des Katharinenklosters in Nürnberg und die städtische Gesell-
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———. ‘‘Katharina Tucher.’’ In Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon, ed.
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Schneider-Lastin, Wolfram. ‘‘Die Fortsetzung des Ötenbacher Schwesternbuchs und andere
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Schrader, Franz. Die ehemalige Zisterzienserinnenabtei Marienstuhl von Egeln. Ein Beitrag zur
Geschichte der Zisterzienserinnen und der nachreformatorischen Restbestände des Katholizismus
im ehemaligen Herzogtum Magdeburg. Erfurter Theologische Studien . Leipzig: St.
Benno–Verlag, .
———. Ringen, Untergang und Überleben der katholischen Klöster in den Hochstiften Magdeburg
und Halberstadt von der Reformation bis zum Westfälischen Frieden. Katholisches Leben und
Kirchenreform im Zeitalter der Glaubensspaltung, . Münster: Aschendorff, .
Schraut, Elisabeth. ‘‘Kunst im Frauenkloster: Überlegungen zu den Möglichkeiten der
Frauen im mittelalterlichen Kunstbetrieb am Beispiel Nürnberg.’’ In Auf der Suche nach
der Frau im Mittelalter, ed. Bea Lundt, –. Munich: Fink, .
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Schulze, Rudolf. Das adelige Frauen- (Kanonissen-) Stift der Hl. Maria (–) und die
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 Selected Bibliography

Spätling, Luchesius. ‘‘Das Klarissenkloster in Brixen.’’ Franziskanische Studien  ():

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Spies, Martina. Beginengemeinschaften in Frankfurt am Main. Zur Frage der genossenschaftlichen
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Sprandel, Rolf. Chronisten als Zeitzeugen. Forschungen zur spätmittelalterlichen Geschichtsschrei-
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———. ‘‘Frauengeschichten in der Geschichtsschreibung des spätmittelalterlichen Deutsch-
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Stamm, Gerhard. ‘‘Klosterreform und Buchproduktion: Das Werk der Schreib- und Lese-
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———. ‘‘Predigt.’’ In Deutsche Philologie im Aufriß,  vols, d rev. ed., ed. Wolfgang Stam-
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 Selected Bibliography

———. ‘‘Die württembergischen Klosterreformen des . Jahrhunderts: Ein bedeutendes

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Straganz, Maximilianus, ed. ‘‘Die ältesten Statuten des Klarissenklosters in Brixen (Tirol).
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Summit, Jennifer. Lost Property: The Woman Writer and English Literary History, –.
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———. ‘‘The Virtues, the Brothers, and the Schools.’’ Revue Bénédictine  (): –
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I

References in parenthesis refer to the religious order with which a community was affiliated or
associated.

August. Augustinian
beguinage beguine community
Bened. Benedictine
Brigitt. Brigittine
Cist. Cistercian
Clariss. Clarissan (Poor Clares)
Dom. Dominican
Penit. Penitents of St. Maria Magdalena
Penit./Dom. Penitents affiliated with Dominican order
sister-house Sisters of the Common Life
Windesh. Windesheim Congregation (Canonesses Regular, of )

Adelhausen, Freiburg (Dom.), xviii, , . Bicken Cloister, Villingen (Clariss.), xviii, ,
See Anna von Munzingen , , . See Ernst, Juliana
Adelheid of Vilich, life of. See Bertha of Vilich Bollmann, Anne, , 
Adelheid von Aue, , – ‘‘Book in the Choir.’’ See Anna von Buchwald
agency, women’s, xiv–xv, , , , , , Book of the Reform of the Dominican Order, ,
,  , –, –, –, –
Ainkürn, Veronika,  books of sisters, 
Alspach, near Kaysersberg, Alsace (Clariss.), function/purpose, , 
xviii, , ,  versus sister-books,  n. 
Altomünster (Brigitt.), xviii,  Brixen, (Clariss.), xviii, , . See Pful-
Angela von Holfels,  n.  lingen, chronicle
Anna von Buchwald, , –, –, – Bronopia (Bruneppe), Kampen (Windesh.),
, –, ,  n.  xviii, –
Anna von Munzingen, , ,  n. ,  Brothers and Sisters of the Common Life
movement, –, –
Bake, Alijt, –, , – ratio of women to men, 
Barbara von Benfelden, , –,  relationship to the Observant movement,
Basel, Dominican men’s convent, – , –,  n. 
beguines, , –, , –, ,  n.  sisters, , –
Bernheimer, Barbara, –,  Windesheim Congregation, 
Bertha of Vilich, –, , – Bursfeld reform, , , , , , , 
Bethlehem, Oisterwijk (beguinage), . See Busch, Johannes, , , , 
also Maria van Hout (van Oisterwijk) reform chronicle, , , –, –,
Beutler, Magdalena, , , – –

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 Index

Butzbach, Johannes,  provosts, –, –, 

Bynum, Caroline Walker, , , ,  size, income, financial viability, –, –
, 
canoness houses. See under convents, women’s social composition, changes in. See under
Catherine of Burgundy, ,  Observant reform
Catherine of Siena, , ,  social prestige, , –, –, , ,
Christine de Pizan, , , – , 
chronicles. See Observant reform: chronicles spiritual condition of, –
Cistercians,  ‘‘spiritual marriages,’’ friendships, and cor-
ratio, nunneries to priories,  respondence with men, –
women’s houses, ,  n.  suffering and asceticism, –, –
Classen, Albrecht,  work, –, –
Colette of Corbie, , ,  Conventuals, and reform, , , , ,
Colmar, Dominican men’s convent, ,  . See also women opponents of the
Common Life movement. See Brothers and reform
Sisters of the Common Life Corpus Domini, Venice (Dom.), , . See
Conrad of Prussia, –, – also Riccoboni, Bartolomea
convents, women’s. See also women, religious; Costers, Jacomijne, 
enclosure; literary activities Council of Basel, , –, , –
admission to regular orders, moratorium Council of Constance, , 
on, ,  n. 
admissions policies, changes in. See under Degler-Spengler, Brigitte, , 
Observant reform Derneburg (August.), –, 
age of entrance, ,  Deventer, Master Geert House (sister-house),
age of profession, – xviii, 
artistic activities, , , , ,  book of sisters, , ,  n. 
canoness houses, –, ,  n.  Devotio moderna movement. See Brothers and
children and foster mothers,  Sisters of the Common Life
dowry and annuities, , – Diepenveen, St. Mary and St. Agnes (Win-
economic import, , , 
desh.), xviii, , , 
family strategy and, 
book of sisters, , , ,  n. ,
food and diet, –, , 

functions in medieval society, –, , ,
Dinzelbacher, Peter, 
–, 
Dobbers, Sophia, , , –
gardens, , ,  n. 
Dominicans, . See also under Observant re-
lay pensioners, –
form
lay sisters, 
ratio, nunneries to friaries, 
libraries, –, ,  n. 
Dominici, Giovanni, 
literacy and education, –, –
Dürner, Elsbeth, 
living conditions, –, , 
longevity of inhabitants, 
marriage and, –,  n.  Eberhard the Younger, of Württemberg, ,
monachization, forced, ,  
music (organ) and choral singing, , – Ebner, Christina, 
, ,  sister-book of Engelthal, –, , 
networks, –, , , , , ,  n. 
order affiliations, –,  Ebstorf (Bened.), xviii, –
poor relief, – chronicle, , , –
prayer as patronage, –, ,  library of, , 

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reform account, –, , , , –, Grote, Geert, 

, – Grundmann, Herbert, , , 
student essays, –, 
Eckenstein, Lina, ,  Hadewijch, ,  n. 
Elm, Kaspar,  Haider, Ursula, , –, –
Emmerich. See St. Agnes, Emmerich (sister- dramatic productions, 
house/August.) New Year’s addresses, , 
enclosure, , – poems, , –
economic aspect,  revelations, , –
garden allegory and, – Haller, Kunigunda, , , –, 
lay political and social interests in, , , letters, , 
 Hamburger, Jeffrey, , 
literary production and, – Hanisch, Raphael, –
Marian iconography and,  Härtel, Helmar, 
men’s convents and, ,  n.  Helfta (Cist.), ,  n. 
papal bull, Periculoso, –,  Heilig Kreuz, Regensburg (Dom.), , 
practice of in women’s convents,  Heiningen (August.), xviii, , , 
religious ideology, –,  Herzebrock (Bened.), xviii. See also Roede,
self-enclosure, – Anna
Engelport, Guebwiller (Dom.), xviii, , Hildegard of Bingen, –
– Hilwartshausen on the Weser (Bened.), ,
Engelthal, near Nuremberg (Dom.), xviii, , ,  n. 
, . See also Ebner, Christina Himmelskron, Hochheim (Dom.), –
Ernst, Juliana, , , , , –, , Hörwart, Susanna, , ,  n. 
– Hrosvit of Gandersheim, , , 

imperial abbeys, , , , 

Facons, Antwerp (Windesh.), xviii, –
Inzigkofen (August.), xviii, , –
Ferrante, Joan, , 
chronicle of, , , , ,  n. 
fifteenth-century
convents and piety, –,  n.  Jacobs, Bertha (Suster Bertken), 
reform initiatives, ,  Jacques de Vitry, , , , 
religious, social, and economic change, Jericho, Brussels (August. reg.), xviii, . See
–, , , , – also Maria van Pee
foundation narratives. See under sister-books Jerusalem, Utrecht (Windesh.), xviii, . See
Franciscans, , – also Jacobs, Bertha
Frauenchiemsee (Bened.),  n.  Johnson, Penelope, 
Freiburg, , –
Fridaghes, Elisabeth, – Katharina von Gueberschwihr, –, –,
, 
Galilea, Ghent (Windesh.), xviii, ,  Katharina von Hoya, , , –
Gandersheim, Bad Gandersheim (canoness), Katharina von Mühlheim, , –, , 
, , – n. . See also Hrosvit Katharinental. See St. Katharinental
of Gandersheim Kempf, Elisabeth, –, 
Garber, Rebecca, xvi Kempis, Thomas à, , ,  n. 
garden allegories. See under enclosure Kirchberg, Sulz (Dom.), xviii, . See also
Geiler von Kaysersberg, Johannes, ,  Neyler, Eva Magdalena
Gérard de Frachet, ,  Kirchheim (St. Johannes-Baptista), Kirchheim
Gertrudenberg, Osnabrück (Bened.), xviii, unter Teck (Dom.), xviii, , –,
–,  n.  , . See also Kremer, Magdalena

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Kirchheim am Ries (Cist.), xviii, – Marienberg, Helmstedt (August.), xviii, –
Klingental, Basel (Dom./August.), –, – Mariensee, near Hannover (Cist.), , 
, , , – Marienthal or Niesinck, Münster (sister-
unsuccessful reform of, , –, , house/August.), xviii
– chronicle, , , , , 
Kohler, Dorothea, – McNamara, Jo Ann, 
Kremer, Magdalena, – Mechthild von Magdeburg, –, –
conflict with count, on, –, , – Mechthild van Rieviren, 
,  Mechthild (Metta) von Niendorf, , ,
reform, of Kirchheim, on, , , , , –
,  Medingen, near Lüneburg (Cist.), , 
Kröhl, Elisabeth,  Medingen (Maria-Medingen), near Dillingen
(Dom.), , 
Lamme-van-Dieze House, Deventer (sister- Medlingen (Obermedlingen), near Gundel-
house), xviii,  fingen (Dom.), 
Lentes, Thomas, – Mertens, Thomas, 
Lewis, Gertrud Jaron,  Meyer, Johannes, , –, , , –
Lichtenthal, Baden-Baden (Cist.), xviii, . . See Book of the Reform of the Domini-
See also Regula, Sister can Order
literary activities, –, . See also Ob- sister-books and, , ,  n. 
servant reform: chronicles solicitation of reform accounts from prior-
book copying and illumination, –, esses, –,  n. 
–,  Meyer, Ruth, 
chronicles, housebooks, books of sisters, Miller, Max, , 
– Muntprat, Elisabeth (d. ), , , ,
devotional anthologies, prayer books, song 
collections, –,  Muntprat, Elisabeth (d. ),  n. 
handbooks, , ,  mysticism
networks, literary, , ,  censorship of, –, 
the Observance and, ,  the Observance and, , 
reading, –, , – power of, –, 
sermons: transcribing, reconstructing, edit-
ing, –, 
translations – New Devout. See Brothers and Sisters of the
works by women, miscellaneous, – Common Life
Lüne, near Lüneburg (Bened.),  n.  Neyler, Eva Magdalena
reform account, Kirchberg, , 
resistance to Lutheran reform, Pforzheim,
Magdalen cloister, Basel. See Penitents of St.
–, 
Maria Magdalena an den Steinen
Nicholas von Cusa, , , –,  n. 
Maihingen (Brigitt.), xviii
Nider (Nyder), Johannes, –, , –,
chronicle, , , , , –, ,
, 
 n. 
Margareta Ursula von Masmünster, –,
 n.  Observant reform, –, –
Margareta von Kentzingen (Kenzingen), , age of profession and cloister entrance,
– changes in, , 
Maria van Hout (van Oisterwijk),  Augustinians, 
Maria van Pee (Pede),  authorization of women to write, , ,
Maria von Wolkenstein, , ,  

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Benedictines, –. See also Bursfeld re- Penitents of St. Maria Magdalena, Freiburg
form (Penit./Dom.), , 
building programs and, ,  Penitents of St. Maria Magdalena, Pforzheim
changes in the liturgy, – (Penit./Dom.), xviii, , , –,
chronicles, , , – . See also Neyler, Eva Magdalena
city councils and, –, , –, Penitents of St. Maria Magdalena, Strasbourg
– (Penit./Dom.), xviii, , , 
clerical politics, , – Peters, Ursula, , 
convent admissions policies and, , ,  Pforzheim. See Penitents of St. Maria Magda-
Conventuals and, ,  lena
devotio moderna or Common Life move- Pfullingen, near Reutlingen (Clariss.), xviii, 
ment and, ,  n.  chronicle, , , –, , , 
Dominicans, , –, , ,  Pillenreuth, near Schwabach (August.), 
dowries or annuities and, –, , , Pirckheimer, Caritas, , 
,  Potstock, Susanna, , –
enclosure and, , , , , –, Power, Eileen, , 
–, . See also enclosure Preetz (Bened.), xviii, –, –, –.
economic effects on convents, –, , See also Anna von Buchwald

Franciscans, –, ,  Raymond of Capua, , , , 
growth of cloisters, – Rechentshofen, near Pforzheim (Cist.), 
implementation of reform, , –,  Regula, Sister, –
n. ,  n.  Reyselt, Christina, –
Jubilee indulgence and, ,  Ribnitz (Clariss.), , 
the laity and, –, –, –,  chronicle. See Slaggert, Lambert
learning and ‘‘cloister Humanists,’’ , Riccoboni, Bartolomea, 
–, – Rijnsburg, near Haarlem (Bened.), , , ,
libraries, expansion of, , , ,  n. –
 Roede, Anna (Herzebrock)
Martin Luther and, ,  chronicle, first, , 
movement, the, xi, xiii, ,  chronicle, second, (prioresses and material
opposition to the reform, tactics, –, – concerns) , , , , , ;
. See also under women opponents of (reform and spirituality), –, ,
reform , , –, , , 
prioresses, essential role of, ,  Rolandswerth (Nonnenwerth), near Bad
Reformation (sixteenth century) and, ,
Honnef (Bened.), xviii, 
, –
Ruyskop (Raiscop), Aleydis, 
sisters. See women reformers
social composition of cloisters and, ,
–, , – Sachs, Agnes, ,  n. 
territorial rulers and, –,  n.  Sankt Gallen. See St. Gall
text production, –,  Scheepsma, Wybren, , –, ,  n.
Oetenbach, Zürich (Dom.), xviii, , ,  
sister-book, –, –, –, , Schiewer, Hans-Jochen, , –
 n.  Schmitt, Sigrid, , –
Öhem, Gallus,  Schneider, Karin, , 
Schönensteinbach, near Mulhouse (Dom.), ,
Penitents of St. Maria Magdalena an den , –, , –,  n. 
Steinen, Basel (Penit./Dom.), xviii, , sermons, , ,  n. , 
, , , ,  n.  editing and distributing to lay public, 

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sermons (continued ) St. Katharinental, Diessenhofen (Dom.), xviiii

female audiences and, , , –,  sister-book, , –, 
note-taking and summaries as devotional St. Klara, Freiburg (Clariss.), xviii, , .
aids, – See also Beutler, Magdalena
table readings,  St. Klara, Nuremberg (Clariss.), xviii, , ,
transcribing and reconstructing, –, , , , ,  n. 
,  chronicle,  n. 
Sigismund of Austria, Archduke, –, – St. Maria Magdalena. See Penitents of St.
, ,  Maria Magdalena
sister-books, , , – St. Nicolaus in undis, Strasbourg (Dom.), xi,
aims, ,  , –,  xviii, , , –, , , 
foundation narratives, , –,  n.  sermon collection, , , ,  n. 
genre, – Summit, Jennifer, xiv
use by Observants, ,  Sylo, Sélestat (Dom.), –, , , . See
versus books of sisters,  n.  also Adelheid von Aue
Slaggert, Lambert, 
Söflingen, near Ulm (Clariss.), xviii, –,
Teutonia, Dominican province of, 
, , , 
Texerius, Bartholomeus, –, –
Sonnenburg, near Brunico (Bened.), xviii,
Thomas de Cantimpré, , 
. See also Verena von Stuben
Töss, Winterthur (Dom.), xviii, , ,
sources, xviii, –, –
–
Sperling, Jutta, , , 
sister-book, , , , . See also Stagel,
Stagel, Elsbeth, –,  n. 
Elsbeth
St. Agnes, Emmerich (sister-house/August.),
Tucher, Katharina, 
xviii
book of sisters: accounts of sisters, , –
, –, , , , ; rule and Überwasser, Münster (Canoness./Bened.),
enclosure, , , , – xviii, , , , , –, , .
St. Agnes, Mainz (Cist.), xviii,  n.  See also Fridaghes, Elisabeth
St. Agnes, Strasbourg (Dom.), , , –, cloister annals, –, –, 
. See also Barbara von Benfelden Ulrich of Württemberg, count, , 
St. Agnes, Trier (August.), xviii, ,  n. Unterlinden, Colmar (Dom.), xviii, 
 foundation account. See Kempf, Elisabeth
Steinheim an der Murr (Dom.), xviii sister-book. See Katharina von Guebersch-
journal,  wihr
Sticken, Salome, 
St. Katharina, Colmar (Dom.), xviii, , . Varnbühler, Angela, , , 
See also Adelheid von Aue chronicle, , , 
St. Katharina, Nuremberg (Dom.), xviii, – Verena von Stuben, –,  n. , n. 
, , , –. See also Haller,
vernacular language, shift to, –, –
Kunigunda
Vigin, Agnes, , –
early reform effort, , 
Vilich, near Bonn (canoness./Bened.). See
library of, , , –, 
Bertha of Vilich
reform account, , , 
Vogler, Thoma, 
second reform effort, –, –
voice, ‘‘female,’’ , , , 
St. Katharina, St. Gall or Sankt Gallen (Dom.),
xviii, , , , , –, 
chronicle. See Varnbühler, Angela Weiler, near Esslingen (Dom.)
library of, , – sister-book, ,  n. 
sister-book. See Muntprat, Elisabeth Weissfrauen, Erfurt (Penit.), xviii, , 

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Wienhausen (Cist.), xviii, –, – women, religious

chronicle, –, –, –, , ratio, women to men, –
–,  n.  reading choices, impact of, –, ,
Wilhelm, Duke of Brunswick (Braunschweig), , 
, – reformers. See women reformers
Williams-Krapp, Werner, ,  satirical stereotypes of, , , ,  n. 
Windesheim Congregation. See Brothers and social and family networks. See under con-
Sisters of the Common Life vents, women’s
women opponents of the reform, – ‘‘women’s religious movement,’’ , , ,
Conventuals, , –,   n. 
dowries or annuities, transfer of. See under women’s writing, , , , –, –,
Observant reform –, . See also literary activities
enclosure, ,  gender awareness, , , –
social and family networks, , , , genres, –, –, , –, ,
, – 
social class and, –,  heroines and role models, –, , 
tactics, –, –, , , , n. 
–,  ‘‘master narrative’’ and, , , 
women reformers, Observants mediation by confessors, , , , 
age and experience, , –, ,  men’s parallel texts, , , , –
n.  purpose and function of, , , ,
initiators of reform, –, ,  –, –, 
networks, – self-portraits, , , –, , –
opportunities for advancement, , , , 
,  vernacular, –, –, , 
prioresses, , , , ,  Woodford, Charlotte, xvi
reluctance of, –, 
teachers of Latin and the new liturgy, Zoffingen, Constance (Dom.), xviii
– account book and chronicle, 
women advising women, , ,  Zumkeller, Adolar, , 

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