Erasmus was not fitted for the monastic life. This is not to say that
he was a bad man. Few men outside the ranks of the holy have worked
harder or made greater sacrifices to do God service. But his was a
free spirit. His work could only be done in his own way; and to live
according to another's rule fretted him beyond endurance. His
experience in the matter was not fortunate. In 1483 his mother died of
plague at Deventer, whither she had accompanied him. His father
recalled him next year to Gouda, but died soon afterwards; and his
guardians then sent him with his elder brother to a school kept by the
Brethren of the Common Life at Hertogenbosch--doubtless to a Domus
Pauperum for intending monks, such as Butzbach entered at Deventer;
for in this connexion Erasmus describes the schools of the Brethren as
seminaries for the regular orders. After two years they returned to
Gouda, and Erasmus begged to be sent to a university; but no means
were forthcoming, and the guardian prevailed upon the elder brother
Peter to enter the monastery of Sion, near Delft. Erasmus held out for
some time; but he was without resources and the influences at work
upon him were strong. One day he fell in with a school-friend,
Cornelius of Woerden, who had recently entered the house of
Augustinian canons at Steyn, near Gouda. In his loneliness any friend
was welcome. He paid visits to Steyn and saw that the life there
offered leisure and even possibilities of study; Cornelius, too,
seemed inclined to be a ready companion in literary pursuits. Urged by
his guardian, invited by his friend, he gave way at length to the
double pressure and entered Steyn.
After a novitiate of a year, during which life was made easy to him,
he took his canonical vows; and soon began to repent of the step he
had made. For about seven years he lived in what seemed to him a
prison. There were, no doubt, good men amongst his fellow-canons. In
all his diatribes against monasticism he was ready to admit that the
Orders contained plenty of God-fearing souls, doing their duty
honestly; and the evidence shows clearly enough that this was correct.
It is, however, equally true that there were mediocrities among them,
and even worse; men with low standards and no ideals, who brought
their fellows to shame. Vows in those days were indissoluble, except
in rare cases; as a rule it was only by flight and disappearance for
ever that a man could escape social disgrace and the penalties
threatened by the spiritual arm to a renegade monk. To-day, when
orders can be laid down at the holder's will, the Church of England
contains priests of whom it cannot get rid.
The good, even when they rule, do not always lead; nor are they always
learned. Erasmus found the atmosphere of Steyn hopelessly distasteful.
It was not that he was prevented from study. His compositions of this
period show a wide acquaintance with the classics and the Fathers; and
his style, though it had not yet attained to the ease and lucidity of
his later years, has much of the elegance beyond which his
contemporaries never advanced. The fact, too, that he left Steyn to
become Latin Secretary to a powerful bishop implies that he must have
had many opportunities for study and have made good use of them. But
from what he says it is clear that the tone of the place was set by
the mediocrities. We need not suppose that vice was rampant among
them, to shock the young and enthusiastic scholar. There was quite
enough to daunt him in the prospect of a life spent among the
narrow-minded. Sinners who feel waves of repentance may be better
house-mates than those who have worldly credit enough to make them
self-satisfied.
Fortunately all houses of religion were not alike, any more than
colleges are alike to-day. Butzbach's lot was very different; and it
is a pleasant contrast to turn to his experiences at Laach, an
important Benedictine abbey some miles west of Andernach. In the
autumn of 1500, when he had been two years at Deventer, there appeared
one day in the school the Steward of the Abbey of Niederwerth, an
island in the Rhine below Coblenz. What the business was which had
brought him from his own monastery, is not stated; but he had also
been asked to do some recruiting for the Benedictines at Laach. The
Abbot there was nephew of the Prior at Niederwerth, and had taken
this opportunity to extend his quest further afield. The Steward
brought with him letters from the Abbot to the Rector of Deventer, now
Ostendorp, and also to the Brethren of the Common Life, asking for
some good and well-educated young men. The Rector's first appeal
evoked no response; so the Steward went on about his business. After
three weeks he returned, having visited other schools, but bringing no
one with him. Once more Ostendorp addressed the third and fourth
classes in impressive words. But all seemed in vain. The students had
paid their school fees for the half-year, and were ashamed to ask for
them back from the Rector and other teachers--into whose pockets they
appear to have gone direct. Their money paid for board and lodging
would have been sacrificed also. It happened, too, to be exceptionally
cold--not the weather in which any one would lightly set out on a
journey. We must remember that the calendar had not yet been
rectified, and that they were about ten days nearer to midwinter than
their dates show.
On occasions the whole school came together to hear the Rector--it was
at such times, Erasmus tells us, that he heard Hegius. At one of these
gatherings during the Steward's second visit Butzbach was sitting next
to two friends from his own part of the world, Peter of Spires and
Paul of Kitzingen. They were above him in the school, having passed
their entrance examination before the Rector with such credit that
they were placed at once in the third class--a rare distinction--and
Paul indeed at the end of his first half-year had come out top and
passed into the second. The friends talked together of the life of the
cloister, of the happiness of study amid the practice of holiness and
in the presence of God. At the end Peter and Butzbach sought out the
Steward and gave him their names: Paul, the brilliant leader of the
trio, remained behind in the world, and became a professor at Cologne.
Butzbach said farewell to the masters who had taught him, and to his
various benefactors in the town, all of whom applauded his decision.
On St. Barbara's Day, 4 Dec. 1500, the party set out, and were
accompanied out of the town by students who swarmed about them like
bees; Butzbach, when they at length took leave, urging them to follow
his example. Two days later they were at Emmerich, and after crossing
the Rhine on the ice, so bitter was the frost, they were overtaken by
the night at a convent and sought shelter. It proved to be a house of
Brigittines, with separate orders of men and women. One of the party,
a priest from Deventer, had a kinswoman among the nuns, but was not
allowed to see her. On 8 December the feast of the Conception of the
Virgin, as they passed through a village, the two priests asked leave
to say a mass for themselves in the parish church; and only with
difficulty obtained it from the pfarrer in charge, so great was the
jealousy between seculars and regulars. At night they found
hospitality in a Benedictine house at Neuss, where Butzbach notes the
peculiarity--which he discusses at length but is quite unable to
explain--that no one could be accepted as a monk with the name of
Peter.
Next day the party was obliged to divide. Peter of Spires, who from
the first had been ailing and easily tired, was suffering acute pain
from a sore on his finger; so Butzbach remained behind with him in a
village, while the others went on to Cologne. After twenty-four hours
the sufferer was no better; and as sleep for either of them seemed
impossible, they arose at midnight, hired a cart, and journeying under
the stars, arrived at Cologne just as the gates were being opened.
They rejoined their friends, and the whole party was entertained in
the house of a rich widow, whose son, recently dead, had been a monk
at Niederwerth.
The Steward had business at Cologne; so for two days the young men
were free to wander about the town, looking into the churches and
worried by the schoolboy tricks of the university students. Three days
journeying brought them late at night and dead tired to Niederwerth.
The aged Prior--he had been sixty years in the monastery--on learning
their destination showed them great courtesy and kindness; and when
they had supped, insisted, despite all their protests, on washing
their feet himself. Next day he showed them over the monastery, took
them into the rooms where the brethren were at work, and explained
what each of them had to do: 'just as though we were his equals,' says
Butzbach, on whom his modesty and friendliness made a deep impression.
Indeed, his conversation greatly strengthened them in their
determination to enter the religious life; although he did not conceal
from them the temptations which they might expect, from the Devil.
On 17 December he gave them leave to proceed, and sent one of the
monastery servants and a lay-brother to escort them. Their way lay
through Coblenz; and Peter as a weaker vessel was sent on, to go
slowly ahead with the lay-brother, whilst the servant and Butzbach
stopped in the town to execute some commissions. But they had
under-estimated Peter's weakness. After a midday meal the second pair
set out briskly, in the comfortable reflection that the others were
already part-way to Laach. To their disgust as they crossed the bridge
over the Moselle, they found Peter and his companion lolling outside
an inn, unable to talk properly or to stand upright. The Prior's
warning against the Devil had been speedily justified. Peter had been
tempted to spend his last day of freedom in a carouse, and every penny
he possessed had gone over a fine dinner and costly wines.
To Butzbach this was the more serious, because he had given his purse
to Peter to carry, and all that had gone too. Johannisberg still had
strong ties for him. He had found peace there and made friends, and it
was near his home. Many times, at silent moments as he journeyed along
from Deventer, it had come into his head to wonder whether Laach too
could give him peace, whether he could settle so far off. Now, if the
old ties should be too strong to resist, thanks to Peter, he would
have to set out on his way penniless.
Sharp words brought the offenders to some measure of their senses; but
it was a dismal party that splashed along the muddy roads that
December afternoon. Evening brought them to Saffig, and hospitable
reception in the house of George von Leyen, brother of the Prior of
Niederwerth and father of the Abbot to whom they were going; and the
parents' praises of their son's goodness and kindness were comforting
to hear. Ten miles next morning brought them to Laach; and when they
came over the hill, and saw the great abbey with its towers and dome
beside the lake, which even in winter could smile amid its woods,
Butzbach felt that in all his travels he had seen no sight more
lovely. Their guide led them straight into the church, and as
Butzbach's eye glanced along the plain Romanesque columns, past the
gorgeous tomb of the founder, to the dim splendours of the choir, the
words of the familiar Psalm rose to his lips: 'Haec requies mea in
saeculum saeculi; hic habitabo, quoniam elegi eam.' Peace had come to
him at once, and he received it.
After a generous meal in the refectory they were brought in to the
tall, dignified Abbot; and while they stood before him answering his
questions, they felt that he had not been praised more highly than was
his due. Abbot and Prior took them round the monastery; the latter a
busy little man in whom they could hardly recognize so exalted a
dignitary. At the back they found the brethren busy with the week's
washing. All crowded round them, full of questions and congratulations
and pleasant laughter. For three days they were lodged in the
guest-chambers, and then the Prior asked them whether they stood firm
in their wish to enter the Order. On their assent he expounded to them
the severities of the life, the self-abnegation that would be required
of them, bidding them consider whether they could face it; at the same
time instructing them in all the customs and practices of the house.
The dress was put upon them, they were led into the convent and cells
allotted to them; and told that till St. Benedict's Day (21 March)
they would be on probation. Before the day came Peter's spirit
faltered, and he went. But his weakness was not for long. He repented
and found his peace in a Cistercian house near Worms; and Butzbach's
sympathy went with him, back to the Upper Germany which both loved.
The time of probation was hard to Butzbach; not because of the life,
which the good Prior tempered to his tenderness, but through the
temptations of the Devil, who seemed ever present with him. He was
specially tormented with the thought of Johannisberg, and the feeling
that he had deserted it. But the wise heads in charge of him gave
comfort and stablishment; and he persevered. On the Founder's Day,
1501, he entered upon the novitiate, which was followed a year later
by his profession; and in 1503 he was sent to Trèves and ordained
priest.
In the course of his numerous writings Butzbach gives sketches of
many of the inmates of Laach. The senior brother at the time of his
arrival was Jacob of Breden in Westphalia, a man of strong character
and force of will. As a boy, when at school at Cleves, he was laughed
at for his provincial accent; and therefore determined henceforward to
speak nothing but Latin, with the result that he acquired a complete
mastery of it. He had at first joined the Brethren of the Common Life
at Zwolle, then became a Benedictine in St. Martin's at Cologne, and
came to Laach to introduce the Bursfeld reforms. So tender-hearted was
he that he would not kill even the insects which worried him, but
would catch them and throw them out of window. John of Andernach is
mentioned as having appeared to the brethren after his death; and he
and Godfrey of Cologne are praised for their skill in astronomy. We
hear of various activities among the monks. One is good at writing,
another at dictating and correcting, another has taste in painting
flowers and illuminating. Henry of Coblenz combined the offices of
precentor, master of the robes, gardener, glazier and barber; and also
unofficial counsellor to the young, who frequently turned to him for
sympathy. Antony of St. Hubert, besides the care of the refectory, was
bee-master and hive-maker; and a great preacher in German, though he
had come to Laach knowing only his native French. At the end of the
list came the lay-brothers and the pensioners (donati), one of whom
was nearly 100.
Shortly after his ordination Butzbach was appointed master of the
novices, to superintend their education--which included learning the
Psalter by heart--until the time of their profession. He protested his
unfitness, but the Abbot held him to it nevertheless. The standard of
his pupils was low: many of them, though they came as Bachelors and
Masters of Arts from the universities, he judged not so good as boys
in the sixth form at Deventer. But he found lecturing in Latin
difficult; and so to make up his deficiencies he set himself to read
all the Latin classics and Fathers that he could find. One day two
young kinsmen of the Abbot were at dinner. They had been at Deventer
and then at Paris, and were full of their studies. Butzbach as
novice-master represented the humanities, and was called upon for a
poem. Readiness was not his strong point; as a preacher he never could
overcome his nervousness. He asked leave to retire to his cell, and
there in solitude wrung out some verses of compliment; which found
such favour that, to his regret, he was often called upon again.
In 1507, when only thirty, he was made Prior, and thus became
responsible for much of the management of the abbey. In spite of this
he kept up his studies; but only at the cost of great physical
efforts, robbing himself of sleep and working through long hours of
the night. To this period, 1507-9, belongs his most considerable
undertaking, an _Auctarium de scriptoribus ecclesiasticis_, which had
its origin in his admiration for Trithemius. In his Johannisberg days,
as we have seen, he had met the great historian-abbot, though in a
humble capacity. His own Abbot shared with Trithemius the duty of
making the triennial visitations of the Benedictine houses in that
district; and Butzbach, as the Abbot's servant, often rode with them.
Trithemius noticed the young lay-brother who seemed so interested in
study, and occasionally gave him a word of encouragement. Indeed it
was the story of Trithemius' life--repeated with wonder by many
lips--which had spurred Butzbach on to go to Deventer: how as a boy he
had worked with his stepfather in the mill at Trittenheim, and at
twenty-one was still labouring with his hands. One day he was carting
material for a new pilgrimage-church on the hill, when the call came
to him. He returned home, put up his horse and wagon, and without a
word to any one walked off to Niederwesel to begin learning grammar
amongst the little boys; and yet in a short time he had risen to be
Abbot, and had won a wide reputation.
At Laach Butzbach for the first time set eyes on Trithemius' works.
One of these was a _Liber de scriptoribus ecclesiasticis_, printed by
John Amorbach at Basle in 1494--a sort of theological _Who's Who_,
giving the names of authors ancient and modern with lists of their
writings. Butzbach continued it with an _Auctarium_, into which he
hooked almost every writer he could find, whether ecclesiastical or
not. It is a large book, still remaining in manuscript at Bonn, as it
was written out for him by two very inefficient novices. The date of
its composition is abundantly indicated by the notes with which he
terminates his notices of living authors: 'Viuit adhuc anno quo hec
scribimus 158' or 159.[13] Such a compilation, in so far as it deals
with contemporary writers, might have had considerable value; but
unfortunately, like some of Trithemius' work, it is an uncritical
performance and contains ridiculous blunders, which impair the credit
of its statements when they cannot be checked. Industry and devotion
to learning are not the sole qualifications for a scholar.
[13] = 1509. By a reverse process Bruno Amorbach writes 10507
for 1507.
But it was not altogether a happy time for Butzbach, even though he
was honoured by correspondence with Trithemius. There were few among
the monks who actually sympathized with his studies; and from a
certain section they brought him actual persecution. When, as Prior,
he emphasized before the brethren the section in Benedict's rule which
enjoins to study, they mocked at him. 'No learning, no doubts' said
one. 'Much learning doth make thee mad' said another. 'Knowledge
puffeth up' said a third; and heeded not his gentle reply, 'but love
edifieth'. They protested against his allowing the novices to read
Latin poetry. They appealed to the Visitor and got the supplies of
money for the library cut off; even what he earned himself by saying
masses for the dead was no longer allowed to be appropriated to him
for the purchase of books. Finally when the visitation came round in
1509, they delated him for spending too much time on writing, to the
neglect of the business of the monastery. But here they overreached
themselves. The Visitors called for his books, opened them and saw
that they were good--possibly they found their own names among the
ecclesiastical writers. The Prior was acquitted, and the mouths of his
enemies were stopped.
One cause of dissension in monasteries at this period was the
existence of an unreformed element among the monks; though in
Butzbach's time it had probably disappeared at Laach. Ever since the
Oriental practice of monasticism spread into the West, Christendom has
seen a continual series of endeavours towards better and purer ideals
of human life. Of all the monastic orders the Benedictine (520) was
the oldest and the most widely spread. But time had relaxed the
strictness of its observance; and indeed some of the younger orders,
such as the Cluniac (910) and the Cistercian (1098), had their origins
in efforts after a more godly life than what was then offered under
the Benedictine rule, the strictness of which they sought to restore.
In the fifteenth century reform of the monasteries was once more in
the air.[14] In 1422 a chapter of the Benedictine houses in the
provinces of Trèves and Cologne met at Trèves to discuss the question,
which had been raised again at the Council of Constance, and to
consider various schemes. The Abbot of St. Matthias' at Trèves, John
Rode, learning of the stricter code practised in St. James' at Liège
since the thirteenth century, introduced it into his house; borrowing
four monks from St. James' to help him in the process. A few years
later John Dederoth of Minden, Abbot of Bursfeld near Göttingen, after
examining the new practice at Trèves, decided to follow Rode's
example, and carried off four brethren from St. Matthias' to Bursfeld.
His influence led a number of neighbouring Benedictine houses to adopt
the new rule; and very soon a Bursfeld Union or Congregation was
formed of monasteries which had embraced what Butzbach calls 'our
reformation', with annual chapters and triennial visitations.
[14] At this point and again later about Chezal-Benoît I have
made much use of Dom Berlière's _Mélanges d'histoire
bénédictine_, 3^e série, 1901.
By the end of the fifteenth century there were more than a hundred
constituents of the Congregation. The usual method of introducing the
new practice was, as Rode and Dederoth had done, to borrow a number of
monks from a house already reformed, who either settled in the new
house or returned home when their work was done. As may be supposed,
the reforms were not everywhere welcomed. A zealous Abbot or Prior
returning with his band of foreigners was often met by opposition and
even forcible resistance. When Jacob of Breden, Butzbach's 'senior
brother', came in 1471 with seven others from St. Martin's at Cologne
to renew a right spirit in Laach, a number of the older monks resented
it, especially when he was made Prior for the purpose. One cannot but
sympathize with them. Jacob was only thirty-two, and it is a delicate
matter setting one's elders in the right way. At length the seniors
became exasperated and took to violence. Not content with belabouring
him in his cell, they attacked him one night with swords, and he only
escaped by leaping out of the dormitory window. The rest of his
company were ejected, and for three years found shelter in St.
Matthias' at Trèves, the parent house of the new rule; and it was not
till 1474 that the Archbishop, with the Pope's permission and the
co-operation of the civil official of the district, forced his way
into Laach and turned out the recalcitrants.
But this movement for reform was not confined to Germany nor to the
Benedictines. In the beginning of the fifteenth century the house of
Augustinian canons at Windesheim near Zwolle instituted for itself a
new and stricter set of statutes, and soon gathered round it nearly a
hundred houses of both sexes, forming the Windesheim Congregation:
besides which, other monasteries bound themselves into smaller bodies
to observe the new statutes. Thus, for instance, Erasmus' convent at
Steyn was a member of the Chapter of Sion, with only a few others; two
of which were St. Mary's at Sion, near Delft, to which his brother
Peter belonged, and St. Michael's at Hem, near Schoonhoven. The fame
of Windesheim spread into France. In two successive years--1496,
7--parties were invited thence to reform French Benedictine houses.
The first, headed by John Mauburn of Brussels, was brought in by the
Abbot of St. Severinus' at Château-Landon near Fontainebleau. It was
completely successful and Château-Landon was made the head of a new
Chapter: after which Mauburn proceeded to reform the Abbey of Livry, a
few miles to the north-east of Paris. The second mission, though
promoted by influential men in Paris, had less result. St. Victor's,
the Benedictine Abbey which the Bishop of Paris wished to reform, was
one of the most important in his diocese; and its inmates were averse
from the proposed changes. For nine months the mission from Windesheim
sat in Paris, expounding, demonstrating, hoping to persuade. One of
the party, Cornelius Gerard of Gouda, an intimate friend of Erasmus'
youth, enjoyed himself greatly among the manuscripts in the abbey
library; but that was all. In August 1498 they went home, leaving St.
Victor's as they had found it.
The strenuous endeavours made at this time towards monastic reform
from within may be illustrated from the lives of Guy Jouveneaux
(Juuenalis) and the brothers Fernand. Jouveneaux was a scholar of
eminence and professor in the University of Paris. Charles Fernand was
a native of Bruges, who, in spite of defective eyesight, which made it
necessary for him regularly to employ a reader, had studied in Italy,
had been Rector of Paris University, 1485-6, and had attained to
considerable skill in both classical learning and music. John Fernand,
the younger brother, also excelled in both these branches of study.
Symphorien Champier, the Lyons physician, speaks of him with
Jouveneaux as his teacher in Paris. Charles VIII made him chief
musician of the royal chapel.
In 1479 Peter du Mas became Abbot of the Benedictine house at Chezal
Benoît, which lay in the forests, ten miles to the South of Bourges.
His first care was to restore the buildings, which had been partially
destroyed during the English wars earlier in the century. When that
was achieved, he set himself to reform the conditions of religious
observance, and for that purpose invited a band of monks from Cluny.
His policy was continued by his successor, Martin Fumeus, 1492-1500,
and a bull was obtained from Alexander VI in 1494 permitting the
foundation of a Congregatio Casalina, which was joined by a large
number of Benedictine houses in the neighbourhood: St. Sulpice, St.
Laurence and St. Menulphus at Bourges, St. Vincent at Le Mans, St.
Martin at Séez, St. Mary's at Nevers, and even by more distant
foundations, St. Peter's at Lyons and the great Abbey of St. Germain
des Prés at Paris. One point of the new practice, that Abbots should
be elected for only three years at a time, struck at the prevailing
abuse by which members of powerful families, non-resident and often
children, were intruded into rich benefices, to the great detriment of
their charges.[15] Consideration was also had of the rule adopted at
St. Justina's at Padua, the centre of reform in Northern Italy; and
thus it was not till 1516 that the new ordinances were finally
sanctioned by Leo X.
[15] Thus the family of d'Illiers at this time almost monopolized the
see of Chartres; members of it holding the bishopric consecutively for
fifty years, the deanery for a hundred, the arch-deaconry and the rich
abbey of Bona Vallis also for fifty.
About 1490, Jouveneaux, fired with enthusiasm by the success of du
Mas' reforms at Chezal Benoît, determined to quit his professor's
chair at Paris and take upon him the vows and the life of a monk under
du Mas' rule; and subsequently he was the means of bringing into the
Congregation the Abbey of St. Sulpice at Bourges, being invited
thither by John Labat, the Abbot, to introduce the new rule, and
himself succeeding to the abbacy for a triennial period. A year or two
after his retirement from the world, he was followed to Chezal Benoît
by Charles Fernand, who subsequently went on to St. Vincent's at Le
Mans. John Fernand also ended his days at St. Sulpice in Bourges.
Charles Fernand is a personality who deserves more attention than he
has received. Whilst he was in the world he enjoyed considerable
esteem amongst the learned. He was a friend of Gaguin, and published a
commentary on Gaguin's poem on the Immaculate Conception; he also
dedicated to Gaguin a small volume of Familiar Letters. But his most
important literary work was done in the retirement of his cell: a
volume of Monastic Conversations, composed at sundry times, and
published in 1516; a treatise on Tranquillity (1512), in which he
gives an account of the motives which led him to take the monastic
habit; and a Mirror of the Monastic Life (1515), dwelling at length on
the ideals that should be held before the eyes of novices and animate
their lives when they were professed. Unfortunately his style is so
excessively elegant, with wide intervals between words closely
connected in sense, that he is difficult to read; and hence, perhaps,
in some measure the neglect which has been meted out to him.
Of his four Monastic Conversations the first and the last are
concerned with the question whether monks should be allowed to read
the books of the Gentiles, that is to say, the classics. He handles
his theme sensibly and liberally. Piety, of course, is to come before
eloquence, and there is to be choice of books. Anything of loose
tendency is to be forbidden, but he would encourage the reading of
Cicero, Seneca, and Aristotle's Ethics. The last was only accessible
to himself, he says regretfully, in Latin, because he knew no Greek--a
loss which he greatly deplores, desiring to read the Greek Fathers.
The third conversation is about the Benedictine rule, directed to the
lawless monks who contended that they were only bound by the customs
of the particular monastery they had entered, and not by the general
ordinances of their founder. He combats at length the contention that
the world has grown old, and that latter-day men cannot be expected to
undergo the rigorous fasts and penances achieved by St. Antony and St.
Benedict. He is quite alive to the weakness of the age, to the need
for improvement in the monasteries; and the word Reformer is applied
with praise to the leaders of the movement. This was before the days
of Luther, though only just before.
Incidentally, an argument is reported between a Christian and an
agnostic. After their diverse opinions have been rehearsed, the
Christian concludes with what is meant to be a crushing
reply--certainly it silences his opponent: 'On your own theory you
don't know what will happen after death. On mine you will prosper, if
you believe; if not, you will go to hell. Therefore safety lies in
believing mine.'
There are one or two glimpses of the life of the monks. At the end of
one conversation, the other brother hears the bell ringing for prayers
and runs off to chapel; Fernand, being old and lame, will be forgiven
if he is a little late, and not fined of his dinner. In other ways
consideration was shown to him, and he was often sent to dine in the
infirmary, not being expected with his toothless jaws to munch the dry
crusts set before the rest of the house. This, it seems, was a custom
which had been learnt from St. Justina's at Padua, to put out the
stale crusts first, before the new bread, to break appetite upon: just
as in the old Quaker schools a hundred years ago, children were set
down to suet-pudding, and then broth, before the joint appeared; the
order being, 'No ball, no broth; no broth, no beef'.
We are in a position to view from the inside another Benedictine house
at this period, that of Ottobeuren, near Memmingen, which lies about
mid-way between Augsburg and the east end of the Lake of Constance.
The source of our information is the correspondence of one of the
brothers, Nicholas Ellenbog (or Cubitus); 890 letters copied out in
his own hand, and only 80 of these printed. It is not so continuous a
narrative as Butzbach's, but the picture that it gives is rather more
pleasing.
Nicholas' father was Ulrich Ellenbog, a physician of Memmingen, who
graduated as Doctor of Medicine from Pavia in 1459, and became first
Reader in Medicine at Ingolstadt. The letters introduce us to most of
his children. One son, Onofrius, went for a soldier, became attached
to Maximilian's train, and received a knighthood; another, Ulrich,
became M.D. at Siena, but died immediately afterwards; another, John,
became a parish priest. Of the daughters three remained in the world;
one, Elizabeth, married; another, Cunigunde, died of plague caught in
nursing some nuns. The fourth daughter, Barbara, at the age of nine
entered the convent of Heppach, and lived there forty-one years,
rising to be Prioress and then Abbess. We shall hear of her again.
Nicholas Ellenbog, 1480 or 1481-1543, was the third son. After five
years at Heidelberg, 1497-1502, in which he met Wimpfeling and was
fellow-student, though a year senior, to Oecolampadius, he went off to
Cracow, the Polish university, which was then so flourishing as to
attract students from the west. Schurer, for example, the Strasburg
printer, was M.A. of Cracow in 1494; and some idea of the condition of
learning there may be gained from a book-seller's letter to Aldus from
Cracow, December 1505, ordering 100 copies of Constantine Lascaris'
Greek grammar. For some months Ellenbog heard lectures there on
astronomy, which remained a favourite subject with him throughout his
life. Then an impulse came to him to follow his father's footsteps in
medicine, and at the advice of friends he went back across half Europe
to Montpellier, which from its earliest days had been famous for its
medical faculty. In the long vacation of 1502 he spent two months with
a friend in the château of a nobleman among the Gascon hills, and on
their return journey they stayed for a fortnight in a house of
Dominican nuns. The sisters were strict in their observances, and gave
a good pattern of the unworldly life, which attracted Ellenbog
strongly. In 1503 he went home for the long vacation to Memmingen. On
the way he was taken by the plague, and with difficulty dragged
himself in to Ravensburg. For three months he lay ill, and death came
very close. As its unearthly glow irradiated the world around him,
reversing its light and shade, the visions of the nunnery recurred. He
vowed that if his life were still his to give, it should be given to
God's service; and on recovering he entered Ottobeuren.
In his noviciate year he was under the guidance of a kind and
sympathetic novice-master, who allowed him to study quietly in his
cell to his heart's content; and during this period he composed what
he calls an epitome or breviary of Plato. Its precise character he
does not specify, but its second title suggests that it may have been
a collection of extracts from Plato: not from the Greek, for he had
little acquaintance with that yet, but presumably from such of Plato's
works as had been translated into Latin. On Ascension Day, 1504, which
appears from other indications to mean 15 August, he made his
profession, and in September 1505 he went to Augsburg to be ordained
as sub-deacon. Writing to a friend to give such news as he had
gathered on this outing, he tells a story to convict himself of hasty
judgement. During the ordination service he noticed that one of the
candidates, a bold-eyed fellow who had been at several universities,
and had been Rector at Siena, let his gaze wander over the ladies who
had come to see the ceremony, instead of keeping it fixed on the
altar. Ellenbog censured him in his mind, but later he noticed that as
the man kneeled before the bishop with folded hands to receive
unction, his eyes were filled with tears of repentance--others perhaps
would have called it merely emotion.
On his way back to Ottobeuren, Ellenbog arrived at a village, where he
had counted on a night's rest, only to find it crowded with a
wedding-party; the followers of the bridegroom, who were escorting him
to the marriage on the morrow, a Sunday. It was with great difficulty
that he found shelter, in the house of a cobbler, who let him sleep
with his family in the straw; but it was so uncomfortable that before
dawn he crept out and started on his way under the moon. In the half
light he missed the road and found himself at the bride's castle;
where he learnt that her sister was just dead and the wedding
postponed. As he passed in that evening through the abbey-gate, there
was thankfulness in his heart that he was back out of the world and
its petty disappointments.
On Low Sunday, 1506, he was ordained priest at Ottobeuren, and
celebrated his first mass. Some of his letters are to friends inviting
them to be present, and adjuring them to come empty-handed, without
the customary gifts. In these early years there was ample leisure for
study. In 1505 he began Greek, and in 1508 Hebrew. He speaks of
reading Aeneas Sylvius, Pico della Mirandola, Cyprian, Diogenes
Laertius, Ambrose, Chrysostom, Dionysius the Areopagite. He went on
with his astronomy, and cast horoscopes for his friends. Binding books
was one of his occupations; and in 1509, when a press was set up in
the monastery, he lent a hand in the printing. He was very fortunate
in his abbot, Leonard Widemann, who had been Steward when he entered
Ottobeuren, but was elected Abbot in 1508, and outlived him by three
years, dying in 1546. Widemann called upon him for service.
Immediately on election he made him Prior--at 28--and only released
him from this office after four years, to make him, though infinitely
reluctant, serve ten years more as Steward.
But if the Abbot knew how to exact compliance, he knew also how to
reward. He gave Ellenbog every assistance in his studies, allowed him
to write hither and thither for books, made continual efforts to
procure him first a Hebrew and then a Greek Bible, wrote to Reuchlin
to find him a converted Jew as Hebrew teacher, and in 1516 built him a
new library; for which Ellenbog writes to a friend asking for verses
to put under the paintings of the Doctors of the Church, which are to
adorn the walls. As results of his studies we hear of him correcting
the abbey service-books, where for _stauros_, a scribe with no Greek
had written _scayros_, and explaining to the Abbot mistaken
interpretations in the passages read aloud in the refectory during
meals. One of these, in a book written by some one who had recently
been canonized--some mediaeval doctor--illustrates the learning of the
day; deriving [Greek: gastrimargia], gluttony, from _castrum_ and
_mergo_, 'quod gula mergat castrum mentis,' because gluttony drowns
the seat of reason.
Of Ellenbog's official duties occasional mention is made in his
letters. As Steward he has to visit the tenants of the monastery; in
the autumn he journeys about the country buying wine. We hear of him
at Westerhaim, on the river Iller, settling a dispute among the
fishermen. On one of his journeys to fetch wine from Constance, at the
hospice there he fell in with a man who could fire balls out of a
machine by means of nitre, and who boasted that he could demolish with
this weapon a certain castle in the neighbourhood. Over supper they
began to argue, the artillerist maintaining that nitre was cold, and
that the explosion which discharged the balls was caused by the
contrariety between nitre and sulphur; Ellenbog contending that nitre
was hot, and supporting this view by scraps remembered from his
father's scientific conversation.
The general life of the Abbey is also reflected. Ottobeuren lay on one
of the routes to Italy, and so they had plenty of visitors bringing
news from regions far off: a Carthusian, who had been in Ireland and
seen St. Patrick's cave; a party of Hungarian acrobats with dancing
bears; a young Cretan, John Bondius, who had seen the labyrinth of
Minos, but all walled up to prevent men from straying into it and
being lost. A great impression he made, when he dined with the Abbot;
he was so learned and polished, and spoke Latin so well for a Greek.
In 1514 Pellican, the Franciscan Visitor, passed on his way south, and
had a talk with Ellenbog, which was all too short, about Hebrew
learning. Next year came Eck, the theologian, the future champion of
orthodoxy, returning from Rome. Eck's mother and sisters were living
under the protection of the abbey--it is not clear whether they were
merely tenants, or whether they were occupying lay quarters within its
walls, as did Fernand's at St. Germain's in Paris. At any rate, Eck
came and made himself agreeable. He preached twice before the
brethren; and when he left, he promised to send them the latest news
from America. In 1511 a copy of Vespucci's narrative of his voyage had
been lent to the monastery, and had been read with great interest.
A grave question arose whether the new races discovered in the West
were to be accounted as saved or damned. Ellenbog quotes Faber
Stapulensis' statement that nothing could be more bestial than the
condition of the Indians whom da Gama had discovered in 1498 in
Calicut, Cannanore, and Ceylon; it was to be feared that the Indians
of the West were no better. In writing to Ellenbog six months later to
say that he had no clear opinions on the question, Eck uses an
interesting expression: 'To ask what I think is like looking for
Arthur and his Britons.'[16] The reference is to the Arthurian legend
and the long-expected, never-fulfilled, return of the great king; but
the humanists usually leave the whole field of mediaeval romance
severely alone.
[16] Arcturum cum Britannis exspectatis. For another allusion
to Arthur, see Pace, _De Fructu_, p. 83.
One September morning, when the dew was still heavy, Ellenbog went out
with some brethren to gather apples. At the top of the orchard[17] one
of them called out that he had found 'a star'. It was a damp white
deposit on the grass, clammy and quivering, cold to the touch, very
sticky, with long tenacious filaments. Ellenbog had never seen
anything like it, but he found out that the peasants and the shepherds
believed such things to be droppings from shooting stars,[18] if not
actually fallen stars, and that they were thought to be a cure for
cancer. His letter describing it is to ask the opinion of a friend who
was a doctor, that is to say, the scientist of the age.
[17] ortus.
[18] stellae emuncturam et purgamentum.
The affairs of Ellenbog's family often appear. His father had been a
great collector of books, which he had corrected with his own hand,
and which at his death he had wished to be kept together as a common
heirloom for the whole family. A great many of them were medical, and
therefore it had seemed good that the enjoyment of the books should go
to Ulrich, the son who was studying medicine at Siena. On his way
home, after completing his course, Ulrich died; and Nicholas composed
a piteous appeal on behalf of the books, bewailing their fate that
after ten years of confinement their hope of being used had come to
nothing. Onofrius was the only brother from whom might be hoped a
younger generation of Ellenbogs, one of whom might study medicine.
Elizabeth's children were Geslers, and so apparently did not count.
How long the books were kept together is not known. One of them is now
in the University Library at Cambridge, and has been excellently
described in an essay by the late Robert Proctor. It consists of
several volumes bound together: Henry of Rimini on the Cardinal
Virtues, the Journey of a penitent soul through Lent, a treatise _de
diuina predestinacione_, and John Peckham, Archbishop of Canterbury,
_de oculo morali_--all of a definitely religious or moral character.
They are freely annotated by the father's hand, with marginalia which
throw light on his life and times, his dislike of the Venetians for
their anti-papal policy, his experiences as physician to the Abbey of
St. Ulrich in Augsburg, and the part that he played in the
introduction of printing there. On Lady Day, 1481, shortly after
Nicholas' birth, perhaps when he had lived just a week and seemed
likely to thrive, the father composed an address to his four living
sons--four being already dead--, and wrote it into this volume. He
adjures them to follow learning and goodness, and finally bids them
take every care of the books; and not let them be separated. This it
was which inspired Nicholas' appeal thirty years later, when Ulrich,
the son, was cut off, just as his eyes seemed about to follow his
father's up and down the pages.
Ellenbog's letters to his sister Barbara are amusing. She was four or
five years older than he, but being a woman had not had his
opportunities. He begins by trying to teach her Latin. But the
difficulties were many, and apparently she did not progress far enough
to write in the tongue. At any rate, Ellenbog copied none of her
letters into his book; a fact which is to be deplored both from her
point of view and from ours. One would like to know what reply she
made to some of his homilies. She invited him once to come and see her
at Heppach, with leave from her Abbess. He replies cautiously that, if
he comes, he hopes they will be able to talk without being overheard;
for Onofrius had been once, and when he made a rather coarse remark,
there had been giggles outside the door. In 1512 Barbara became
Prioress, and Ellenbog took the opportunity to lecture her at length
upon spiritual pride and the importance of humility; sweetening his
dose of virtue with a present of cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg.
Once she let fall some regrets that she had brought nothing into her
convent, and was dependent on it for food and clothing; evidently she
would have liked some share of the patrimony which had been divided
between her married sisters and the brothers who remained in the
world. Nicholas' reply was that Heppach, like other monasteries, was
well endowed; she had given herself, and that was quite enough. In
1515 Barbara was elected Abbess; and received another discourse about
spiritual pride. John and Elizabeth wrote to Nicholas saying that they
had been invited to Heppach to salute the new Reverend Mother, and
suggesting that he should come too. But his plain speaking had had its
reward, no invitation had come for him. Under the circumstances, he
writes, he could not think of going; besides he had been there several
times before, and had found it very dull; it was clearly John's duty
to go, as he had not been once in twenty years, although his parish
was only three miles from Heppach. However the breach was healed, and
a proper invitation came for Nicholas; but the business of his
stewardship prevented him from accepting.
The relations with John, the parish priest of Wurtzen, are more
harmonious. There is a frequent exchange of presents, John sending
tools for wood-carving, and crayfish; which seem to have been common
in his neighbourhood, for Nicholas occasionally asks for them. The
only lecture is one passed on from Barbara. John had been created a
chaplain to Maximilian, an honorific title, with few or no duties; and
Barbara had feared that he might neglect the flock in his parish. On
another occasion Nicholas urges him to follow Elizabeth's advice, and
get an unmarried man to be his housekeeper. He had proposed to have a
man with a family; and Elizabeth was afraid for his reputation. John
was a frequent guest at Ottobeuren, and one of Nicholas' invitations
contains what is unusual among the humanists, an appreciation of the
charms of the country: 'Come,' he says, 'and hear the songs of the
birds, the shepherds' pipes and the children's horns, the choruses of
reapers and ploughmen, and the voices of the girls as they work in the
fields.'
By his younger relatives, Ellenbog did his duty unfailingly.
Elizabeth's eldest son, John Gesler, was at school at Memmingen. When
a new schoolmaster was appointed, Ellenbog wrote to bespeak his
interest in the boy, and to suggest the books that he should read:
Donatus' Grammar and the letters of Filelfo. At 14 he persuaded the
parents to send John to Heidelberg, and took a great deal of trouble
in arranging that the boy should be lodged with his own teacher, Peter
of Wimpina. When two years later Elizabeth grew anxious about John's
health and proposed to take him with her to some of the numerous
baths, which then as now abounded in Germany and Switzerland, it was
again Nicholas who made the arrangements; and in 1515, when John had
left Heidelberg, Nicholas proposed to exchange letters with him daily,
in order that he might not forget his Latin. In January 1515
Elizabeth's eldest daughter, Barbara, was married to a certain Conrad
Ankaryte. In December 1530 he writes to one of the nuns at Heppach to
announce that he has persuaded two girls, the children of this
marriage, to embrace the religious life. The elder, Anna, aged 13, was
forward with her education, as she was well acquainted with German
literature and was reading Latin with her father[19]; by the following
summer she would be ready to come to Heppach. For the younger, who was
not yet 7, he begged a few years' grace, though she was eager to come
at once. Truly children developed earlier in those days.
[19] quae legere literas vernaculae linguae satis expedite
nouit, nunc per patrem imbuitur Latinis.
The happiest time of Ellenbog's life began in the summer of 1522, when
after ten years' service he was allowed by the Abbot to resign his
Stewardship. His accounts were audited satisfactorily, and he was
discharged, to what seemed to him a riotous banquet of leisure. 'In
the quiet of my cell,' he wrote to his brother, 'I read, I write, I
meditate, I pray, I paint, I carve'. His interest in astronomy was
resumed, and he set himself to make dials for pocket use, on metal
rings or on round wooden sticks. The latter he turned for himself upon
a lathe; and for this work John sent him a present of boxwood,
juniper, and plane. By the New Year of 1523 he had made two sundials;
one which showed the time on five sides at once, he sent to John at
Wurtzen, the other to Barbara at Heppach. His cell looked South, and
thus he could study the movements of the moon and the planets, and
note the southing of the stars. He could turn his skill to profit,
too, and exchange his dials for pictures of the saints.
In 1525 his peace was broken by the Peasants' Revolt, which swept like
a hurricane over South Germany. Hostility to religion was not one of
its moving causes, but the monks were vulnerable, and had always been
considered fair game, especially by local nobles whom in the plenitude
of their power they had not troubled to conciliate. The peasants of
the Rhine valley had not forgotten the burning of Limburg, near
Spires, by William of Hesse in 1504. The abbey church had scarcely a
rival in Germany, and the flames burned for twelve days. With such an
example, and with their prey unresisting, the peasants were not likely
to stay their hands. At Freiburg they brought to his death Gregory
Reisch, the learned Carthusian Prior of St. Johannisberg, the friend
of Maximilian. Ellenbog enumerates four monasteries burned in his
neighbourhood during the outbreak--three by the peasants incensed
against their landlords, and one by a noble who bore it a grudge. When
the first attack came in April, Ellenbog was staying at the monastery
of St. George, at Isny, about twenty miles away. The peasants there
destroyed everything belonging to the monks that they could find
outside the walls, and threatened dire treatment when they should
force their way in; but mercifully the walls were strong, and held
out.
Ottobeuren was less fortunate. Being in the country, it had to rely
upon itself, and so fell an easy prey. The buildings were defaced, the
windows broken, the stoves and ovens wrecked, and all the ironwork
carried off. Scarcely a door remained on its hinges, and the furniture
of the rooms disappeared. The church was violated, its pictures
soiled, and its statues smashed; Christ's wounds should be wounds
indeed, hard voices cried, as axe and hammer rung over their pitiless
work. The library was emptied of its books. Walls and roofs and floors
were all that the monks found when they ventured back. Ellenbog,
however, fared better than many. A friendly brother had seized up some
of his books and papers and hidden them in the clock-tower; and the
abbey carpenter thinking this insecure had found them better cover,
presumably in his own house. The tempest over, calm soon returned. The
countryfolk, many of whom had remained friendly, began bringing back
spoil which they had wrested from wrongful possessors. Some of
Ellenbog's books were brought in; and as much as two years later he
recovered one of his astronomical instruments. He lost, however, a
number of his father's papers, which he had been on the point of
editing; a Hebrew Bible given to him by Onofrius; and the first two
books of his collection of his own letters. 'God knows whether they
will ever come back,' he wrote at the beginning of the third book; and
to him they never did. They are now safe at Stuttgart, though in
permanent divorce from the other seven books, which are in Paris.
Ellenbog was no coward. In the autumn the vineyards belonging to the
Abbey were to be inspected, and the due tithes of wine exacted. Unless
this were done the monks would suffer lack; so some one had to be
sent, in spite of the last mutterings of the revolt. One vineyard lay
at Immenstadt, some distance to the South, and thus Ellenbog at Isny
was already part way thither. Moreover, having served as Steward, he
would know what was required. The Abbot sent down a horse and bade him
go: though the roads were held by armed outlaws, who were reported to
be specially hostile to monks. He was afraid; but he summoned his
courage and went. If the Abbey seemed a haven before, when he came
back to it from the experiences of his ordination at Augsburg, this
time it was a refuge and strength against the fear that lurketh in
forests and the imagination of pursuing footsteps.