RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA
Winchester Windesheim
the Carthusian rules would take the brethren out of the world, the Cistercian rules were too severe. The basis was to be simply the three vows of celibacy, poverty, and obedience; and the regular canons worked in Groote’s own lines of preaching and the saving of souls.
A beginning was made when Berthold ten Hove (Have), a citizen of Zwolle in Salland, donated his patrimony “de hof to Windesem,” for the future cloister. Hendrik van Wilsem, formerly assessor at Kampen, gave a piece of land. Other donations came in, and in 1386 it was decided to erect the monastery, in which Floris van Wevelinkhoven, the worthy bishop of Utrecht, showed interest. The six associates in the work were the two named above as making donations, Hendrik Klingebijl, Werner Keynkamp, Johannes van Kempen (Kempis), brother of the celebrated Thomas 4 Kempis (q.v.), and Hendrik de Wilde, all of them coming from the Brethren of the Common Life. Buildings for the purpose did not exist and must therefore be erected. The structures were begun in Mar., 1387, and the church was consecrated and the brethren were hooded on Nov. 17, of the same year. The vow of obedience was specifically made not to the bishop (of Utrecht) but to the superior who was to be chosen. At first Klingebijl, with the title of rector, assumed the direction; a year later Keynkamp became the leader with the title of prior. After about three years he resigned the position to Johannes Goswini Vos, who stamped his influence upon the order and gave it its unique significance.
Equally remarkable are the growth in wealth and the number of monasteries affiliated with Windesheim, while nunneries were founded which were governed by the same spirit. Among these may be named Marienborn near Arnhem (1392), Nieuwlicht near Hoorn in West Frisia (1392), while Eemstein was in close relations. These four combined in 1394 and formed a chapter, with Windesheim at the head and its prior the prior-superior of the order, and a yearly assemblage, approved by Boniface IX., May 16, 1395. By 1402 seven institutions were affiliated, by 1423 there were twenty-nine, twenty-four for men and five for women. In 1464 the chronicler speaks of an octogenarius numerus, twenty-eight under the priorate of Johannes Vos (cf. Acquoy, iii. 1-232, for the list). The congregation won its first triumph at the Synod of Costnitz, where Prior Vos gained recognition as well as the favor of Martin V. by his defense of the Brethren of the Common Life against the attack of the Dominican Grabow. A second was that of the year 1435 in bringing about a reformation of the Augustinian cloisters in Germany. Epochal was the visit of Nicholas of Cusa (see Cusa) in celebrating his jubilee (1451). The cardinal’s legation had as its purpose the initiation of a new religious-ethical life in Germany, especially in relation to the religious orders. Cusa appointed Jan Busch and Dr. Paulus, of the monastery of St. Mauritius at Halle, to visit the regular monasteries of Saxony, Thuringia, and Meissen, and to reform them in accordance with the statutes of the Windesheim congregation. The movement spread to the cloisters of other orders and beyond the limits of the region where it was
initiated. A further result was the increase of institutions affiliated with Windesheim. But the Reformation brought to an end the significance of this monastery, though it lived on till the end of the sixteenth century, while the last prior-general, Constantinus Belling of Grauhoff near Goslar, died Jan. 17, 1807, and the last monastery (Frenswegen near Nordhorn) closed in 1809.
A point of importance is the connection with the Brethren of the Common Life, out of which Windesheim proceeded, with the spirit of which association it was in intimate sympathy. The distinction between the institutions of the Brethren and of Windesheim was that the latter’s reform was in the direction of the modern “ devotion,” the former rejected monastic rules and vows in order to a renewal of life in the common association of its members. The manner of living of the Brethren was often a door by which men entered the regular orders. On the other hand, the extension of the Windesheim congregation affected the Brethren by stimulating their zeal. Yet the Windesheim purpose was by no means indulgence in ascetic practises to an unhealthy degree. While personal freedom in this direction was not disallowed, it is significant that the members did not recount the miracles of their associates. Yet there was a growing tendency to emphasize asceticism, a characteristic which comes out in Busch’s account of such externals as the habit, method of singing, and the like to the exclusion of more important matters. A still further point of connection between the two orders is that the Windesheim people busied themselves in the making of books for their common use (not usually for commercial purposes). These activities were concerned with a correct text of the Bible, and with correct copies of the Fathers, especially of Augustine’s writings; some of the members were celebrated for their work in this direction. But while the Brethren developed an independent literary purpose, in the monasteries an increasingly ascetic purpose robbed the results of much of their value, though they still rendered great service to following generations. Handicrafts, however, and to the extent of mercantile significance, were not unknown among them. The schools which they here and there conducted were of limited value because of their ecclesiastical character.
The reform of Windesheim did not contemplate a break with Rome; its direction was controlled by the forms and ideals of the Church of the Middle Ages; it would befriend ethical purposes and control asceticism within sufferable bounds. So far as these failed in producing real reform, it was shown that the Church was awaiting and expecting mightier reformers. The Windesheim congregation forbade the possession and the reading of Lutheran books, and till its end remained true to the Roman Catholic Church. (S. D. van VEEN.) BrsiiograpHy: Besides the literature under Buscn, JAN,
and Common Lirr, BRETHREN OF THR, especially the works
named there of Busch, Delprat, and Acquoy, consult:
J. C. van Slee, De Kloostervereeniging te Windesheim,
Leyden, 1874; J. H. Hofman, in Archief voor de Geschie-
denis van het Aartsbisdom Utrecht, vols. ii., v.; K. Grube,
Die litterarische Thitigkeit der Windesheimer Congrega-
tion, in Der Katholik, 1881; W. Becker, in De Katholiek,
1884; D. J. M. Wiistenhoff, in Archief voor Nederlandsche Kerkgeschiedenis, v (1895), 326-335; KL, xii. 1686-1694,
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