BERT ROEST
The period of the so-called Observant reforms (c. 1370-1500) was far more dynamic than longstanding convictions concerning the decline of religious life in the closing centuries of the Middle Ages once led us to believe. Amidst papal schisms, conciliary infighting, protracted warfare, echo-epidemics, apocalyptic expectations and heightened fears of popular heresies, many religious orders experienced a veritable renaissance, coupling aims to reclaim pristine traditions with a new pastoral and spiritual acumen. At the same time, new religious movements sprang up, whose vitality struck the imagination of contemporaries.882
As the name indicates, the Observance (observantia/ observantia regulae) within the orders was first and foremost a movement to return to the rules and the lifestyle of their pristine beginnings. A major motivation for this was the conviction that the orders had succumbed to decadence, by discarding loyalty to their rules, and by giving in to pressures that had allowed them to become wealthy and influential, but through which they had lost much of the spiritual ardour to fulfil the tasks for which they had been created.
For most religious orders, the Observance constituted not the first attempt at reform. In the course of time, the call for reform had sounded repeatedly. Sometimes it had been inaugurated from within, and sometimes it had been imposed from outside, as with the 1335-9 reform statutes for the religious orders issued by Pope Benedict XII.883 The Observance was peculiar in that it touched nearly all major religious orders, and yet cannot be relegated to one particular force driving its momentum. Rather, it was the outcome of many
Different actions. Sometimes it was guided by order leadership, sometimes it spread outward from individual centres. It was frequently stimulated by urban and territorial rulers, local bishops, and on the whole backed up first by the reform councils of Pisa, Constance and Basel, and during the re-assertion of papal primacy by a few reform-minded popes (notably Eugenius IV in the 1440s).884 As the following survey will show, Observant reforms touched the various orders in various ways, and could elicit different solutions to incorporate them institutionally.
Most impressive was the wave of Observant initiatives in the mendicant orders, and the Franciscan order in particular. After the clampdown on Franciscan Spiritual factions in the 1320s and 1330s, Franciscan leadership allowed remnants of these groups to retire into small hermitages, such as Brogliano, near Foligno. There, friar Paoluccio Trinci tried from 1368 onwards to reclaim pristine Franciscan ideals of evangelical poverty and Christocentric spirituality. By 1390, this movement had gained access to more than twenty Franciscan hermitages and friaries. At first, these friaries were geared towards the life of evangelical perfection, withdrawn from the world and eschewing the study houses that had made the Franciscan order one of learned clerics. Yet the second and third generation of Italian Observant friars, led by Bernardino of Siena and Giovanni of Capistrano, regained access to learning and changed into a more outward looking movement of reformers and preachers.885 By the 1440s, this brand of the Franciscan regular Observance had reformed about 600 male and female Franciscan monasteries, and had in fact become an autonomous branch within the Franciscan order as a whole, with its own provincial and general vicars, virtually independent from the established order hierarchy, notwithstanding much opposition from the Conventuals or non-reformed friars, who saw in this an unacceptable breach of order unity.886
From the vicariate of Giovanni of Capistrano onwards, this regular Observance 'sub vicariis' made headway in order provinces beyond Italy, taking over or working together with already existing Observant groups in these other regions, some of which had been struggling with their nonObservant provincial superiors for several decades (such as the Observants of Mirabeau (Touraine), who as early as 1415 had obtained support against their provincial superiors from the Council of Constance). Yet these were by no means the only reforming factions. Notably in France, Spain, the German lands and to some extent in England there were other Observants who tried to avoid an institutional break-up of the order. They became known as the 'Observantes sub ministris', unwilling to withdraw their obedience to the provincial ministers and the Franciscan minister general (at least officially), but nevertheless aiming to reclaim the pristine Franciscan ideals, sometimes far more radically so than the regular Observants 'sub vicariis'. Among these groups can be listed the radical eremitical Recollectio Villacreciana in Castile, the more moderate Coletan friars in France - started as a male support group for the Coletine reforms among the Poor Clares in France and Burgundy - and the so-caUed 'Martinian' friars in the German Saxony province.887
The second half of the fifteenth century saw an ongoing expansion of the various Observant movements within the order, in particular of the relatively moderate regular Observance 'sub vicariis', which since the times of Bernardino of Siena profited from good relations with the church hierarchy, no doubt because of its pastoral usefulness. At the same time, these Observants 'sub vicariis' not only tried to become more independent from the remaining Conventuals, but also tried to assimilate the Observants 'sub ministris', some of which were spiritually more ambitious (such as the Villacrecians and the Discalceati in Spain, or the Amadeiti and the Clareni in Italy), but nevertheless received some support from the non-reformed Franciscan provincial ministers, as these groups did not thwart the vestiges of order unity. The resulting rivalries remained unresolved until Pope Leo X ordered in 1517 all remaining Observant groups 'sub ministris' to join the regular Observance 'sub vicariis', and made the latter the official heir of the order started by Francis of Assisi, with the right to choose the Franciscan minister general. The Observant provincial vicars now officially became ministers. The remaining Conventuals became a subordinate branch (OFMConv) under a master general. That this outcome did not appease more radical Observants is shown by the foundation of the Capuchin order family around 1528.888
Observant reforms among the Augustinian hermits first made headway at the Lecceto hermitage near Siena in 1385, soon leading to the first Augustinian Observant Congregation. Between the turn of the century and the 1430s, the Augustinian Observance began to spread, mainly due to local efforts, leading to additional Observant congregations in Italy, Spain and the German lands. Between c. 1419 and the 1430s, such Observant reforms were supported by the reform Councils and stimulated by Augustinian intellectual and institutional leadership, such as the circle around Augostino Faveroni, the order's theology professor at Bologna and Florence and prior general of the order since 1419. This helped the dissemination of reforms in the various provinces. Central assistance of Observant reforms faltered temporarily when Pope Eugenius IV in the 1430s allowed the Saxony Observant congregation to elect its own vicars, a phenomenon that was not welcomed by the order hierarchy of the time. Yet this proved only a temporary lull in support. With renewed patronage by a number of Observant Augustinian priors general between 1448-60 and 1485-98, no less than eleven flourishing Observant congregations had come into existence by the end of the fifteenth century (seven in Italy, two in Spain, one in Germany and one in Ireland), making the Observance a dominant force within the Augustinian order.889
In the Dominican order, Observant attempts started in 1388, when Conrad of Prussia obtained permission from the general chapter of the Rome obedience to start an Observant friary, and to discard the customs and privileges that had moved the order away from its origins. The Dominican leadership and especially the order general Raymund of Capua (former confessor of Catherine of Siena) supported this development and issued in 1390 a decree in which the order was called upon to reach back to its initial ideals. Subsequent general chapters decreed that each order province should at least have one Observant friary that could be an example to others. Opposition from many friars and friaries notwithstanding, which thwarted early reform attempts in Wurzburg, Colmar, Strasbourg and elsewhere, this guided effort slowly caught on after the Councils of Constance and Basel, and especially after the election of the magister general Bartholomew Texterius, who guided moderate Observant reforms for more than twenty years between 1426 and 1449, helping to spread the Observance among male and female houses in the German Teutonia province, in the Hispania and Aragonia Provinces, as well as in the Italian Lombarda and Romana provinces, with the assistance of reform-minded provincials, priors and theologians (such as Nicholas Notel and Johann Nider).890
Until the 1460s the spread of moderate Dominican Observant reforms was very much a steered and moderately successful phenomenon (notwithstanding various setbacks, as several houses refused to be reformed and could react violently towards reforming parties), without granting much specific autonomy to the Observant houses. Around 1465, however, when in various provinces the number of Observant houses had grown sufficiently, it became more common that Observants elected their own provincial vicars. Ten years later, the complete Teutonia province more or less came in Observant hands, when the candidate of the Observants was elected as provincial.891 It was a sign that the Observance was gaining the upper hand in the Dominican order throughout.
A special phenomenon was the Congregatio Hollandiae, a sub-branch of the Observance within the Dominican Saxonia province, which started in the Low Countries (Rotterdam, 1448; The Hague, c. 1450, etc.), but soon affected other areas within and beyond the Burgundian territories. Its growth was stimulated when the order generals Martialis Auribelli and Conrad of Asti freed its houses from provincial supervision, allowing it to become formally autonomous from normal provincial jurisdiction in 1464. Just before its dissolution during the provincial reorganisations of the order between 1514 and 1517, this congregation counted sixty-six male and nine female Observant monasteries in several provinces, from Finland in the North to Brittany in the south-west.892
Serious Observant reforms among the Carmelite friars started by 1413, when the provincial chapter of Tuscany confirmed the special position of the Observant friary of Le Selve. Twenty years later, the Carmelite
Observance gained momentum, inspired by the intrepid Observant energies of Thomas Connecte, an itinerant preacher who had been burned at the stake in Rome for castigating the papal curia. His followers found refuge in the Carmelite house in Mantua, and from there initiated Observant reforms. Thus the Mantuan Congregation came into being, which reformed many friaries in Northern and Central Italy in the fifteenth century and after, obtaining a position of autonomy within the order that it was able to maintain until 1783.
There were several other Observant initiatives in Carmelite houses, notably in the Lower Germany province from the 1440s onwards. Eventually, the Observant cause reached order-wide dimensions under the prior general John Soreth (d. 1471), who from 1450 onwards systematically pushed Observant reforms (especially in provinces not yet touched by the Mantuan reform), and who promulgated Observant statutes in 1456, which received papal confirmation by Pope Calixtus III the year thereafter (making this the 'Calixtine Reform', in distinction to the older 'Mantuan Reform'). Like other Observant movements, the Carmelite Observants in this period also brought a number of female penitential and beguine communities into the Observant Carmelite fold, creating therewith a budding network of female Carmelite houses under Observant control.893 After Soreth's death, the Observance stagnated, to be taken up again by the so-caUed Albi Congregation shortly before 1500 (which gained an autonomous position, not unlike the Mantuan Congregation), and more generally under the leadership of the prior general Nicolo Audet after 1523.894
Reform initiatives also touched the Servites of St Mary, who had seen a substantial expansion in the first half of the fourteenth century. Although the necessity of reform was less keenly felt than among other mendicants, incidental Observant reforms were initiated in individual houses such as Monte Senario in the early fifteenth century. The cause was taken up by several order officials, leading eventually to the establishment of a specific reform congregation in Lombardy and the Venice region that in the 1440s received papal approval and a measure of autonomy by Pope Eugenius IV.895
Observant reforms were by no means limited to the mendicant orders. The regular canons saw their first Observant attempt in the later fourteenth century, in Stift Raudnitz at the Elbe (Labe, Bohemia). The congregation resulting from it counted thirteen communities before 1400. It was the earliest, but by no means the only Observant movement among the canons. Among the Premonstratensians, the Victorines and the canons of Arrouaise reform initiatives proved cumbersome. More successful were the Observant reforms after 1410 among the Friars of the Holy Cross, leading to the foundation of many new houses in the fifteenth century, notably in the Low Countries, the Rhineland and Westphalia, supported in this by noble and urban benefactors alike.896
Even more important were the reform movements associated with the community of regular canons of Windesheim and with the Lateran congregation that took its point of origin in Fregionaia (Lucca) and San Salvatore (Laterano). The Lateran reform congregation at first had an impact in Italy, but soon influenced many houses of regular canons in middle and eastern Europe, notably in Poland. The Observant community of Windesheim, established in 1387 near Deventer (Low Countries), and its daughter monasteries likewise had a wide-ranging impact, soon absorbing various smaller reform congregations (such as those of Neuh and Sion), and helped to establish or reform an impressive number of communities in the Low Countries, in Saxony, along the Rhine Valley and in Switzerland. Their spirituality was to a large extent shaped by the ideals of the Modern Devotion movement, which in the later fourteenth and fifteenth century also had a huge impact on male and female penitential and tertiary communities.897
Among the older monastic orders, there were substantial reform initiatives among the Camaldulensian and Vallombrosian monks, as well as among the Cistercians, several military orders and their late medieval offshoots. Most impressive, however, were the large reform congregations of the late medieval Benedictines. An important point of reference for several of these was the Benedictine Subiaco monastery, where Observant reforms started as early as 1362. Following this successful example, a wave of Observant reform congregations was initiated from Kastl (Oberpfaltz) in and after 1378, from San Giustina in Padua (from 1408 onwards), from Melk (c. 1415), from St Matthias in Trier (1421-39), and from Bursfeld-Klus an der Weser (c. 1430).898
Very influential among these proved to be the reform congregations of Melk and Bursfeld. The house of Melk first had sent out monks to Subiaco for training and orientation. After the implementation of reforms in Melk itself, its initiatives led to the introduction of observant reforms in many monasteries in Austria, Swabia and Bavaria. The Bursfeld reform, in its turn, led by a number of strong Observant-minded abbots, transformed Benedictine life in Lower Saxony, Westphalia, the Rhineland, Thuringia, Denmark and the Low Countries.18
As the frequent reference to the Subiaco model indicates, the Benedictine Observance was a typical monastic restoration effort, trying to get rid of the crust of liturgical additions. It was an inward-looking attempt at restoring monastic spirituality for all monks, and a struggle against the monopoly position of the nobility. A possible side-effect of this was that the Benedictine reforms hardly led to new foundations. It is remarkable, however, that counter to monastic policies of previous centuries, the Observant Benedictines habitually sent young monks to local universities and recruited novices from university surroundings.19
The only major monastic order that seemingly steered free from Observant reforms were the contemplative Carthusians, as it was deemed that the order on the whole never had fallen from its antiquus rigor, thanks to the careful selection of postulants, and through the maintenance of solitude, enclosure, silence and strict visitation procedures. The call for Observance in the later fourteenth and fifteenth centuries therefore made the Carthusians very
Ein Reformkonvent des spaten Mittelalters', Quellen und Forschungen aus italienischen Archiven und Bibliotheken 52 (1972), 526-656; Adalbert Mischlewski, Grundzuge der Geschichte des Antoniterordens bis zum Ausgang des 15. Jahrhunderts (Bonner Beitrage zur Kirchengeschichte 8; Cologne and Vienna: Bohlau, 1976), 17-107; Walter G. Rodel, 'Reformbestrebungen im Johanniterorden in der Zeit zwischen dem Fall Akkons und dem Verlust von Rhodos (1291-1522)', in Elm, ed., Reformbemuhungen und Observanzbestrebungen, 109-29.
18 Albert Groib, Spdtmittelalterliche Lebensformen der Benediktiner von der Melker Observanz vor dem Hintergrund ihrer Brauche: Ein darstellender Kommentar zum Caeremoniale Mellicense des Jahres 1460 (Beitrage zur Geschichte des alten Monchtums und das Benediktinertums 46; Munster: Aschendorff, 1999), xvi-xxii, 30-65.
19 Petrus Becker, 'Benediktinische Reformbewegungen im Spatmittelalter. Ansatze, Entwicklungen, Auswirkungen', in Untersuchungen zu Kloster und Stift (Veroffentlichungen des Max-Planck-Institut fur Geschichte 68, StGS 14; Gottingen: Max-Planck-Institut fur Geschichte, 1980), 167-87; Klaus Schreiner, 'Benediktiner Klosterreform als zeitgebundene Auslegung der Regel. Geistige, religiose und soziale Erneuerung in spatmittelalterlichen Klostern Sudwestdeutschlands im Zeichen der Kastler, Melker und Bursfelder Reform', Blatter fur wurttembergische Kirchengeschichte 86 (1986), 105-95; Petrus Becker, 'Erstrebte und erreichte Ziele benediktinischer Reformen im Spatmittelalter', in Elm, ed., Reformbemuhungen und Observanzbestrebungen, 23-34.
Appealing. Several other orders took over elements of Carthusian legislation (the Carthusian visitation system was partly adopted by the Bursfeld Benedictines, and the order constitutions were partly copied by the Windesheim chapter of regular canons, by Observant Cistercian houses and by the Spanish Jeronimites), and made use of the impressive Carthusian production of literature concerning matters of asceticism, discipline and spirituality. Not a few religious from other orders, frustrated by the difficulties faced by reforming parties in their own circle, opted to join the Carthusians. Not surprisingly, the Carthusians saw their greatest expansion precisely in this period. The order grew from 70 to 220 houses between c. 1300 and 1500, establishing themselves firmly in the Low Countries, England and the German lands. Quite regularly, Carthusians became actively involved with the promotion of Observant reforms in other orders, via the production of treatises directed to other religious houses, and by means of visitation journeys to implement Observant reforms elsewhere.899
Finally, it should be noted that this period saw the emergence of completely new orders and religious movements fuelled by the energies of Observant reform. Good examples are the lay Jesuati, the double order of Birgittines, the Minimi (the followers of Francesco of Paola), the Jeronimites in Italy and Spain, and the Brothers and Sisters of the Common life in the Low Countries (originally a form of collective religious life for lay people without formal vows, gradually developing towards a canonical lifestyle in league with the Windesheim congregation).900
The Observance did not simply re-invigorate the religious life of monks, canons and friars, it also had a huge impact on female religious houses and tertiary communities, especially within the Modern Devotion movement and among the mendicants. The regular Observance among the Dominicans and the Franciscans stimulated the emergence of a network of female Observant monasteries, several of which, such as the Poor Clare houses of Monteluce (Perugia) and Santa Lucia (Foligno), and Dominican convents in
Southern Germany themselves spread Observant reforms. The actions of abbesses in these reform houses, as well as the extraordinary activities of Birgitta of Sweden slightly earlier, who established an order of her own, tell us that the men did not have sole initiative in such matters. The foundation of new Poor Clare monasteries in France and Burgundy, for instance, owed much to Colette of Corbie, the driving force behind the Coletines and their male Coletan counterparts, both of which branches opted to remain under the obedience of the Franciscan provincial ministers rather than seeking complete autonomy. Likewise, the reform of many female tertiary houses and Observant monasteries in Italy, Spain and the German lands can hardly be envisaged without the leadership and spiritual prowess of such women as Angelina of Montegiove, Antonia of Florence, Catarina Vigri and Ursula Haider.901
Significant for late medieval society as a whole was the Observant interference with the religious life of the laity. After an initial inward-looking period, Observant preachers from different orders (notably the mendicants) revolutionised preaching and confession practices. The fifteenth century is the period of massive preaching rallies, in which Observant preachers toured the lands, helped by assistant preachers, translators and confessors, preaching in churches and on the market place. Thus was provided, more intensively than ever before, continuous religious instruction around all the important feasts of the liturgical year. Over and beyond religious instruction, Observant preachers interfered in intra-urban conflicts and matters of socio-economic justice, which included the promotion of so-called Monti de pietd and virulent protests against 'Jewish' money-lending practices. Together with accusations in Observant preaching concerning the alleged Jewish responsibility for the death of Christ, this helped to entrench antijudaic stereotypes and to condone outright persecution.902
Alongside the massive output of homiletic materials associated with preaching, Observant monks and friars engaged in the production of many kinds of religious instruction literature, both in Latin and in the vernacular.903 They also produced a wealth ofbooklets defending and promoting the Observance (such as the Tuitiones observantiae regulae S. Benedicti by Martin von Senging (Melk), De reformatione religiosorum by John Nider OP, and De professione monastica by Dionysius the Carthusian). In addition, Observant congregations and houses of many orders, male and female, took up the writing of history to legitimise their programme of reform.904
The Observant Franciscans at first had moved away from university learning, only to return to the schools with a vengeance (if not necessarily to the degree schools, many ofwhich for a while remained in Conventual hands) for the education of their preachers after c. 1420. This reversal was less pronounced among the Dominican and Augustinian Observants, most of whom from early on wholeheartedly subscribed to an Observant programme of learning focussed on moral theology.905 In the monastic and canonical orders, the Observance actually led to closer contacts with university learning than before. Cases in point are the major Benedictine reform congregations, which stimulated Benedictine access to university education, as well as the Friars of the Cross, who also tapped into the intellectual resources of the university to train their friars and to recruit new postulants.
Observant learning wished to fortify faith and virtuous behaviour of religious and lay people alike against the onslaughts of Satan, seen everywhere through the spread of conflict, the Turkish threat and the spectre of popular heresy. Maybe for the first time, Observant monks and friars tended to present learning as a foundation both for their own spiritual renovation and as an intrinsic element of Christian life. This was, for instance, emphasised in the works of the Benedictine Observant Johannes Trithemius and in the Sermo de scientiarum studiis held before the University of Padua in 1443 by the Franciscan Observant Bernardino of Siena. Such Observant approaches to learning converged with certain strains within the Humanist movement. Although most Observants warned against undue studies of the pagans and were indifferent to matters of style and linguistic purity, there were, nevertheless, close links between discourses of Observant reform and those of humanist renewal, most clearly among the Augustinians.906
One side effect of all this was library formation. Early Observant communities saw the copying of texts as a valid form of ascetical labour and as an initial step in the edification of others. The Observant participation in the spiritual renovation of religious life within and beyond the religious orders added to this, leading to the emergence of substantial Observant libraries among the Friars of the Holy Cross, the Windesheim congregation, in all major mendicant orders, and in a large number of female Observant houses (such as the female Dominican houses in Nuremberg and Schlettstadt).907
The successes of the Observant movements were partly caused by the expectations of the laity, which took its religion very seriously, and demanded efficacious and sincere commitment from the cloisters, friaries and convents which they supported with alms and other benefits. In the aftermath of schism and conciliarism, urban authorities and territorial rulers alike sought influence over the way in which resources for religious purposes were spent. In many cases, Observant reforms freed assets from ecclesiastical control, downscaled the expenses needed for the upkeep of religious houses, and seemed to secure catechesis, schooling, pastoral and spiritual service more efficiently. One could argue, therefore, that the Observance, with all its hankering after pristine beginnings, was very much in tune with the transformations of the late medieval world.
World History
