The nuns followed the Duke and the servants, thinking that their chests and money boxes were going to be broken up, whereupon the Duke rebuked them, saying that if they and their noble friends and the Bishop of Minden opposed reform any longer, he would turn them off his lands. The nuns then asked to be allowed to take counsel with their friends and relatives, to which the Duke, on Busch’s intercession, unwillingly agreed. The friends accordingly came to a conference, but all they did was to repeat the nuns’ request in the same form, and they continued to do so after the Duke had given them two or three chances to reconsider the matter; whereupon he sent them away, and they rode off, followed by their shield-bearers. The Duke then ordered the gates of the house to be opened to Busch, but the nuns returned a message that the keys were lost. The Duke, on Busch’s authority, sent for several rustics and villeins, who brought a long bench and broke open the door. The reformers went up into the choir and there found the nuns, flat on their faces with arms out like a cross, and round them a circle of little wooden and stone images of saints, with a burning candle between each. Seeing that it was useless to resist, they approached the visitors, and the Duke addressed them, saying that if they would receive reform, he would keep them on his land, and if not carriages were ready to take them away for ever. The nuns begged him to “remove those monks from their necks,” when they would do his will, but the Duke replied that he did everything by the advice of Rutger and Busch.

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

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

Almost equally difficult was the reform of Mariensee, where again the Bishop of Minden did all in his power to oppose reform, having (according to Busch) been bribed by the nuns to defend them. The Duke of Brunswick, however, forced the nuns to admit the reformers and forced the Bishop to send four emissaries to assist in carrying out the reform. These four prelates entered the house first to ask the nuns if they would consent to receive reform; but they refused, and one young woman tore off her veil and crown and casting them at the feet of the Bishop’s suffragan cried: “Always hitherto you have told me that I need not be reformed and now you want to compel me to be reformed. Behold your crown and veil! I will no longer be a nun.” The Bishop’s emissaries after this gave up their half-hearted attempt to reform the house and retired, leaving the field to Busch and his companions. The Duke then caused four carriages to be brought to the door, in which the rebellious nuns could be taken away, whereat the Abbess and the nuns climbed up into the vaults of the church and hid themselves there. The Duke ordered his servants to fetch ladders and place them against the roof and then to climb up and fetch down the nuns, but the prudent Busch prevented this, saying that the nuns would push over and kill the first who went up the ladder. Instead he went into the choir and, finding one nun still walking there, threatened her that unless the whole convent came down from the roof at once, they should be taken away in the carriages, “to-night you shall be in the Duke’s castle of Nyerstadt, tomorrow in his castle of Calenberg, and after that outside his lands, perchance never to return.” Whereupon the horrified nuns descended.

Then followed an amusing scene. All the nuns agreed to accept the new reforms, except one young woman, who refused:

(This was the age of chivalry!) When he had got rid of these nuns he lifted the nun on whom he was lying, pulled his other arm free and sprang to his feet again, saying to the vassals and servants, who were standing round: “Why do you allow your liege lord thus to be trampled under foot by nuns?” One of them replied for all, “Gracious lord! we have ever stood by thee where the war engines were hurling their stones and the bows their arrows; only tell us what we are to do and we will willingly do it.” Then said he, “Whichever nun I seize, do you seize her too,” and they replied. “Willingly, gracious lord.” Whereupon the nuns gave in and professed themselves willing to be reformed. But they were still recalcitrant at heart, and when Busch, Rutger and the Duke were going away, they all began to sing the antiphon “Media vita” at the top of their voices and pursued the hapless reformers through the church, pelting them with burning candles. One girl followed them outside to the cemetery, chanted “Sancte deus, sancte, fortis, sancte et immortalis” three times and falling on her knees, bit the ground thrice in sign of a curse, and threw stones and earth after them. In the end, however, even this stormy convent was reduced to peace and reform, after three reformed nuns from Derneburg were brought in to teach them[2146].

Busch had almost as much difficulty with the nuns of Derneburg, an Austin house near Hildesheim, in which, as he says: “the nuns had long lived an irregular life, owning private property, and, according to public rumour, incontinent,” paying long visits outside their house as often as they pleased and performing only the minimum routine of monastic life. On one occasion, Busch tells us,

It was while he was reforming this house, too, that he was attacked by several armed laymen, who took the part of the nuns. The nuns of Derneburg were never effectually reformed, although Busch gave himself the greatest trouble over them. At the end of three years they prevailed upon their friends and relatives in the neighbourhood to get rid of Busch and his brethren, and the nuns received Henry, Abbot of Marienrode, as their spiritual father and reformer instead. But they did not gain by the change, for he, being a Cistercian, introduced a nun of his own order as their prioress, and finally the Bishop of Hildesheim, the Abbot of Marienrode and other reformers came one morning to the house and, rebuking the nuns for their imperviousness to reform, made them come away in all their old clothes, leaving their books and possessions behind them, placed them in carriages and distributed them among other houses, where many were forced to become Cistercians. The house itself was turned into a Cistercian priory. “Thus,” says Busch, not without some satisfaction, “they lost the holy father St Augustine with me!”[2147]

The methods employed by Busch to carry out a reform were to undertake the initial stages himself and if necessary to obtain a few nuns from a previously reformed house to live in the convent and bring it to right discipline. He always began by hearing the confessions of the nuns, which often caused considerable fluttering in the convent. At St George, near Halle, he found that the convent was subordinated to the monastery of Zinna, and received its confessor from that house, which Busch decided to alter, for the Abbot of Zinna was impeding his reforms. He therefore bade the Abbess send the sisters to confess to him, but she replied:

Then Busch said:

After that each nun who came received the same advice, until all had confessed[2148].

At Derneburg the nuns were afraid to come and confess for another reason. There was current in the taverns and dining halls of the whole country side a tale of the terrible penance imposed by Busch upon a brother of his monastery of Sülte, who took a larger draught of drink from the drinking cup than Busch thought seemly, whereupon he was said to have caused the unfortunate man to lie for three hours before the dining table in the frater, with his mouth stretched open by a large horse-bone; and when one of the brothers burst out laughing at the sight, Busch was said to have thrown the drinking cup in his face. The weeping nuns informed him between their sobs: “We are virgins and maids, we cannot do such a great penance for such a little fault.” Busch was obliged to assure them that the whole tale was a fabrication[2149]. At Escherde he had the same difficulty.

Besides confessing the nuns Busch and his fellow visitors went through the conventual routine with them, showing them how they ought to perform divine service, to behave in the frater and to hold chapters. The most efficacious means of reform employed, however, was to send for some reformed nuns from another convent, to dwell in the newly reformed house. Nuns of the order of Mary Magdalen in Hildesheim went to Heiningen, Stederburg, Frankenburg, and the White Ladies of Magdeburg. Fischbeck was reformed by nuns of the Windesheim order. Marienberg was reformed by nuns of Bronopia and in its turn sent reformers to Marienborn and Stendal, where nuns of Dorstadt had already made reforms, from which the original members soon fell away. Two nuns and a conversa were sent from Heiningen to the Holy Cross at Erfurt and the Abbess and four nuns of Derneburg went to Weinhausen[2151]. The newcomers were usually gladly lent and graciously received in their new homes; sometimes they remained and held office in the latter and sometimes they returned to their own houses, when the reform was firmly rooted. The tale of the reform of Marienberg is charming[2152]. Busch, with the consent of the chapter-general of the congregation of Windesheim, took from Bronopia two nuns, Ida and Tecla and a lay sister Aleidis, who for his sake and for the sake of the good work left their own country and their noble friends and relatives, and made a long and sometimes dangerous journey with Busch across Westphalia and Saxony to Helmstedt. Here they were joyfully received. Ida was made subprioress to introduce reforms and to order all the internal discipline of the house; Tecla, who was a learned lady, was made governess of the novices, teaching them to sing and to read Latin and “to write letters and missives in a masterly manner, in good Latin, as I have seen and examined with my eyes.” Aleidis was made mistress of the conversi.

For three years these nuns dwelt at Helmstedt, beloved of all and bringing the place to excellent order. Then Tecla fell ill. The Prioress sent for Busch:

for Busch had decided that it was time for the sisters to return to Bronopia:

Shortly afterwards Busch took the three nuns with him and they set off to drive back to Bronopia, staying at various monastic houses on the way; and the nuns of Helmstedt all the time sent messengers after them, with letters assuring the three sisters of their love and sorrow. The journey was at length completed without any accident, except that fat sister Ida tumbled into a cellar at Wittenberg and hurt her leg, so that Busch had to carry her into the carriage.

To his account of this episode Busch subjoins four letters, one from himself, one from the prioress and stewardess of Helmstedt to the three sisters, one from the young scholars of the house to their mistress Tecla, and the reply of the three sisters to the convent and of Tecla to her scholars[2153]. In the Prioress’ letter there is a vivid description of the sorrow of the nuns at the departure of their three visitors:

The letter of the little novices to sister Tecla deserves quotation, to show their progress under her tuition:

It is a pretty picture of affection and concord, which is given by these letters, and may well be set against the pictures of conventual bickering, which are too often to be found in visitation reports.

Busch’s reforms seem to have been very successful. He often mentions that such and such a house remained in a good state of reform for such and such a number of years, or up to the day on which he wrote. Sometimes he describes reforming prioresses or other nuns, who did good work in their houses[2156]; sometimes also he mentions the assistance given by a wise confessor or custos. His only real failure seems to have been Derneburg; this house withstood both his efforts (for three years he had acted as confessor, walking two miles before breakfast to confess the nuns before communion) and those of the Cistercian abbot of Marienrode, who had been their benefactor for over 300 florins; and Busch quotes rather bitterly the proverb current in Germany:

Gratia nulla perit, nisi gratia sola sororum.
Sic fuit, est et erit: ‘ondanc’ in fine laborum[2157].

But he seldom got ondanc at the end of his work; and when his life drew to a close he could look back on hundreds of monks and nuns not only reformed by him, but also cherishing for him the greatest gratitude and affection. His was a large and humane spirit, and for all his zeal for reform and his reputation for sternness, it is plain that he had that greatest of gifts, the capacity to win the hearts of men.

APPENDIX IV