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C O U N T E R - R E F O R M AT I O N I N E A R LY
MODERN MÜNSTER
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Women and the
Counter-Reformation
in Early Modern
Münster
S imone L a q ua - O ’ D onnell
1
1
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Für meine Eltern
Acknowledgements
This book has been a long journey. Along the way it has provided me with
the opportunity to work with many inspirational people, and I would like
to express my gratitude to my colleagues, friends, and family.
My first thanks go to Lyndal Roper, who has been the best Doktormutter
one could have wished for: her unfailing support and enthusiasm for this
project were what made it all possible. To observe her way of doing history
and to work with a historian of such great subtlety, sincerity, and wisdom
have been a privilege. I am also grateful to Olwen Hufton and to Ulinka
Rublack for taking my thoughts about this project seriously from day one,
for their insightful and challenging comments on the doctoral thesis during my viva, and for looking out for me ever since. Ronnie Po-chia Hsia
and Joanna Innes read the thesis and kindly recommended it for publication. Mary Laven has provided me with valuable advice on various
chapters, suggested reading material that has shaped many of my ideas,
and generally cheered me along with humour and warm words. Judith
Pollmann and Melissa Calaresu have been inspirational teachers who
made me think and think again. Natalia Mora Sitja, Alexandra Bamji,
and Silvio Cruschina have been friends and comrades along the way. To
all of you, I would like to say ‘thank you’ for your generosity and timely
encouragement.
Jonathan Waterlow has read every word of this book and I want to
thank him for the great care he took reading and correcting my work.
Stephanie Ireland and Cathryn Steele at OUP have remained supportive
throughout the publication process, although I tested their patience in the
final months before submitting the manuscript.
I am indebted to Mike Franklin and Hughes Hall Cambridge for believing in my abilities right from the start. Balliol College Oxford provided me
with a stimulating work environment and Downing College Cambridge
was a quiet haven in which to finish my doctoral research. Being a member
of the Downing fellowship was truly wonderful and I often think back to
my time at this welcoming place of learning.
My colleagues at the School of History and Cultures at the University
of Birmingham have taken a keen interest in my research and given me
plenty of good writing advice, which helped me to have the courage to
finish this book. I would like to thank Elaine Fulton in particular for her
continued guidance.
viiiAcknowledgements
Several institutions made this research possible through their funding: the Faculty of History at Oxford; the Arts and Humanities Research
Council; the Institute of Historical Research in London; the University
of Oxford; the Institute of European History in Mainz; the German
Historical Institute; the Royal Historical Society; and the German History
Society. Without their very generous financial support, researching and
writing this book would have remained an unfulfilled ambition.
Parts of the book have been presented at conferences and to research
seminars in the UK; back home in Germany; Europe; Canada; and in the
USA. The feedback I received on those occasions has been invaluable in
improving the contents of this book. I am indebted to Thomas A. Brady,
Robin Briggs, Susanna Burghartz, Anne Conrad, Nicholas Davidson,
Barbara Diefendorf, Silvia Evangelisti, Barry Everitt, Antje Flüchter,
Alexandra Gajda, Kaspar von Greyerz, Bridget Heal, Geert Janssen, David
Lederer, David Luebke, Charles McCurdy, Erik Midelfort, Paul Millett,
Monika Mommertz, Claudia Opitz-Belakhal, William O’Reilly, Andrew
Pettegree, Beth Plummer, David Pratt, Andreas Rutz, Regina Schulte,
Anne Jacobson Schutte, Kim Siebenhüner, Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger,
and Xenia von Tippelskirch, for their thoughts and comments.
In Münster, I have been fortunate to receive the support of
Barbara Steinberg, Beate Fleck, and Peter Löffler at the Bistums- und
Diözesanarchiv, and Hannes Lambacher, Anke Wollenweber, Roswitha
Link, and Irmgard Pelster at the Stadtarchiv, as well as the archivists at
the Staatsarchiv Nordrhein-Westfalen. Sister Maria Ancilla Ernstberger of
the Michelskloster in Paderborn and Sister Maria Dorothea Kuld of the
Convent of the Congregatio Beatae Mariae Virginis in Essen generously
went through some of the archival holdings at their houses to find more
material for me.
Outside the archives I was made to feel welcome by Ingeborg and Ulrich
Dorow, and Christa Schütte: they introduced me to the many delights of
the beautiful city of Münster: winter walks and summer cycling tours,
local proverbs, and Reibekuchen at the Wednesday market; but, above all,
they offered friendship and a home from home.
I am most grateful for this opportunity to thank my family, Karl,
Ingeborg, and Susanne Laqua, and also Anne and John O’Donnell for
everything they have done for me, and to finally be able to tell them: It
is done!
My husband, Tom O’Donnell, ensured that writing this book wasn’t
the solitary endeavour it could easily have been, but was instead a collaborative adventure. My final thanks belong to him and to our daughter
Leonora, girl of the twenty-first century, for sharing my world.
Aerial view of Münster, 1636; etching by Everhard Alerdinck. Westfälisches
Landesmuseum für Kunst und Kulturgeschichte Münster, © Vermessungs- und
Katasteramt Münster.
Contents
List of Illustrations
xiii
Introduction
1
1. The Reformation of Convent Life
Implementing Enclosure in the City
Visitations
Multiple Identities
A New Order in Town
15
23
29
33
36
2. Female Piety: Women’s Relationships with the Living,
the Dead, and the Divine
Civic Wills and Popular Piety, 1600–1650
The Parish Church
Memoria and the Dead
‘The Poor are Always with Us’
50
52
60
67
70
3. An Ideal Marriage after Trent
The Rocky Road to Marriage
Married Life
‘Solutions’
76
82
97
103
4. Deviant Women and the Urban Community
Servants
Married Women
108
112
121
5. A Bishop, his Priests, and their Concubines
The Bishop
The Clerics
The Women
134
136
152
158
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index
170
175
209
List of Illustrations
View of the city by Frans Hogenberg, Civitates Orbis Terrarum (1572)
St Ludgeri Church, panel depicting ‘Burial of Christ’ with four emblems,
accredited to Nikolaus tom Ring (1598)
16
63
Jan van Scorel, Portrait of Agatha van Schoonhoven (1529). Oil on oak, 37.5 ×
28 cm. Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome, © Alinari.
Introduction
Gazing out at us with a hint of a smile and those knowing eyes, Agatha van
Schoonhoven’s portrait is an arresting image.1 In a veritable profusion of
celebrated Renaissance portraiture, including such famous faces as those of
Doge Leonardo Loredan or of Giovanni Arnolfini and his wife, it was this
relatively small painting that stood out in the ‘Renaissance Faces: Van Eyck
to Titian’ exhibition at the National Gallery.2 As I explored the paintings
during my visit, small crowds kept gathering in front of Agatha’s image—
drawn in, perhaps, by the striking simplicity of its composition, the posture
and sheer presence of the sitter, which forces the observer to pause and meet
Agatha’s gaze. Equally compelling, however, is the little bit of information
we have about her life: Agatha was the lifelong companion of Jan van Scorel,
and is thought to be related to one of several Utrecht ecclesiastics of the
same surname.3 In October 1528, van Scorel had been installed as canon in
the Utrecht Mariakerk. Although marriage was forbidden to Catholic clerics, Agatha and Jan had six children together: Peter, Maria, Pauwels, Anna,
Felix, and Victor. It was the last bit of information that caused many smiles
and giggles amongst the exhibition’s visitors. It is a familiar joke: the incontinent cleric with his holier-than-thou-attitude, supposedly devoting his life
to serving God, but in reality unable to resist the temptations of the flesh.
For centuries, generations of Christians have drawn much amusement from
this stereotype of a Catholic clergyman. The sad reality of large parts of
the Catholic clergy living in sin and the easy ammunition this provided for
Protestants’ mockery were just one of the reasons, albeit a significant one,
why so much attention at the Council of Trent (1545–63) was given to the
spiritual and moral renewal of the clergy and the laity alike.4
1
Jan van Scorel, Portrait of Agatha van Schoonhoven (1529). Oil on oak, 37.5 × 28 cm.
Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome. Signed and dated near the right edge above Agatha’s shoulder: Agatha Sconhov[ens]is / per Scoreliu[m]‌pict[orem] / 1529.
2
See the accompanying catalogue to the exhibition, ‘Renaissance Faces: Van Eyck to
Titian’ by L. Campbell, M. Falomir, J. Fletcher, and L. Syson, National Gallery, London.
15 October 2008–18 January 2009.
3
Ibid., 156–7.
4
On the Council of Trent, see H. Jedin, Geschichte des Konzils von Trient, 4 vols. (Freiburg,
1949–75). On Jedin, see J. W. O’Malley, Trent and All That: Renaming Catholicism in the
Early Modern Era (Cambridge, MA, 2000).
2Introduction
At Trent, the council fathers tried to solve the numerous theological and
disciplinary problems of the Catholic Church and issued a large number
of decrees. These were to be promulgated and implemented promptly and
under the stern supervision of bishops in their respective diocese. Much
scholarly energy has already been expended on explaining how, and how
successfully, these religious reforms were enforced by the ecclesiastical and
secular elites. A major impetus in this regard came from the influential
confessionalization thesis that emerged in the works of German historians
during the 1970s. The main proponents of confessionalization, Wolfgang
Reinhard and Heinz Schilling, saw confessionalization as an early phase
of modern European state formation, ‘a phase found with remarkable
regularity’, and which was made possible because in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries the interests and actions of secular and ecclesiastical
elites still largely coincided.5 Reinhard and Schilling described these as
parallel developments across the three main confessions of Catholicism,
Lutheranism, and Calvinism—albeit these had diverging chronologies.6
By engaging in confessionalizing policies, the state gained increasing control over the church and its subjects. This was not, however, seen as a
primarily religious process, but a social one: by establishing confessional
distinctions and emphasizing confessional difference; by enforcing new
norms of practice; by compelling confessional allegiance from key personnel such as teachers, clerics, and officials; by using propaganda and
censorship; by educating and disciplining their subjects; and, finally, by
controlling the use of and attendance in religious rites, the secular and
ecclesiastical authorities worked together to establish discipline, religious
orthodoxy, and confessional uniformity across their territories.7 However,
even though the confessionalization thesis holds a great deal of interpretative power in early modern German history, there has also been substantial
criticism of this approach from various angles, one of which is particularly
relevant to this book: the thesis of confessionalization has traditionally
focused on the elites and has therefore given far too little space to the
great majority of people who were outside the exclusive circles of power.
Issuing decrees can only count as an expression of intent and does not signify a ‘Counter-Reformation’, a ‘Catholic Reformation’, or even the more
5
W. Reinhard, ‘Pressures towards Confessionalization? Prolegomena to a Theory of the
Confessional Age’, in C. Scott Dixon (ed.), The German Reformation: The Essential Readings
(Oxford, 1999), 172.
6
For a detailed analysis of ‘confessionalization’ and the Counter-Reformation, see
the chapter by Ute Lotz-Heumann on ‘Confessionalization’, in A. Bamji, G. Jansen, and
M. Laven (eds.), The Ashgate Research Companion to the Counter-Reformation (Farnham,
2013), 37.
7
Reinhard, ‘Pressures towards Confessionalization?’, 183.
Introduction
3
inclusive ‘confessional age’.8 How, in other words, did the implementation
of religious reform work in reality? How did the ‘common people’ participate, shape, and negotiate religious reform?
Questions such as these have produced a number of local studies.9
These have achieved two things: they have reminded us of the importance
of religious beliefs and religious practice in studying the implementation
of religious reform. As John O’Malley writes: ‘But what about religion in
and of itself—religion not as political or social force but as a yearning for
the transcendent or an experience of it?’10 They have also shown that even
when the secular and ecclesiastical authorities really did work hand-inhand to enforce discipline and religious reform, the outcome was far less
uniform or coherent than the confessionalization thesis suggests. Going
into the localities, we meet communities full of men and women who do
not simply do as they are told from above, but who stubbornly cling to
local traditions and practices.11 Taken together, these studies demonstrate
what a mightily difficult task it was to reform religious beliefs and pious
practice; it now seems obvious that this could not have been achieved in
a top-down manner and that the cooperation of the community had to
be secured. Nevertheless, obvious or not, whether cooperation was given
or withheld depended upon a large number of different factors, some of
which were perhaps not even primarily affected by religion; for instance,
patronage and kinship networks, friendships, career structures, the sense
of self, and emotional attachments. All these influenced the effectiveness of religious reform—and it takes much painstaking research to trace
them.12 One other major influence on the way in which early modern
people experienced religious reform has yet to receive sustained attention
from historians, and that is gender. Though gender norms are never static,
8
For a more detailed discussion of terminology, see Lotz-Heumann, ‘Confessionalization’,
33–5.
9
Some recent examples on German territories are A. Holzem, Religion und
Lebensformen: Katholische Konfessionalisierung im Sendgericht des Fürstbistums Münster
1570–1800 (Paderborn, 2000); T. Johnson, Magistrates, Madonnas and Miracles: The
Counter Reformation in the Upper Palatinate (Farnham, 2009); M. R. Forster, The
Counter-Reformation in the Villages: Religion and Reform in the Bishopric of Speyer, 1514–
1630 (Ithaca, NY, 1992); U. Strasser, State of Virginity: Gender, Religion, and Politics in an
Early Modern Catholic State (Ann Arbor, 2007).
10
O’Malley, Trent and All That, 139.
11
Marc Forster’s study of the German southwest, for example, has conclusively shown
that seventeenth-century spiritual life in the region rested firmly on popular participation
and reflected the needs of the community rather than the regulatory conditions of the
authorities. M. R. Forster, Catholic Revival in the Age of the Baroque (Cambridge, 2001).
12
For an impressive study along these lines, see G. Walther, Abt Balthasars
Mission: Politische Mentalitäten, Gegenreformation und eine Adelsverschwörung im Hochstift
Fulda (Göttingen, 2002).
4Introduction
the religious changes of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries radically
challenged the basic values and assumptions of early modern men and
women about their place in the community, about how they were to relate
to God, and about how they could express their faith. Assumptions about
gender fundamentally underpinned and shaped every one of these aspects.
Gender is therefore an interpretative tool that allows us to study how religious reform is experienced by both men and by women, and how the
resulting social changes played out differently for both sexes.
It is clear from the teachings of Catholic reformers that they had a number
of different audiences in mind when they formulated their thoughts about
‘the reformation of the Church’—the pious and impious, good Catholics
and bad Catholics, men, women, and children—all of whom needed to
be addressed, persuaded, indoctrinated, and supervised in their own particular way.13 Women were of signal importance to the Catholic Church in
their role as mothers and educators of their children, as multipliers of the
message, as nuns, and as individuals with a long tradition of pious and charitable activity. But even though a large part of the Counter-Reformation
was essentially about gender—such as the implementation of enclosure or
celibacy (remember Agatha van Schoonhoven!)—we do not know much
about how this affected women. It is the aim of this study to explore the
impact of the Counter-Reformation on women’s lives. While there is a
substantial historiography on women and the Protestant Reformation,
little attention has thus far been paid to Catholic women and how they
perceived the new emphasis of the Church on morality, marriage, convent
life, and spirituality. My work takes account of these lacunae by investigating the effects of Catholic reform on all sections of female society—laywomen, nuns, single women, married women, and widows.
Existing work on women and Catholic reform has so far mainly concentrated on the south: Italy, Spain, France, and, within Germany, on
Bavaria.14 My work shifts our attention further north and into contested
13
For example, Peter Canisius’s Catechismus minimus (1556–7) addressed to small
children, or the Parvus catechismus (Dillingen, 1558) for youths and adults. Mattheaus
Tympius, for example, wrote sermons addressed to unmarried women, parents, or married
couples: Lustgarten der Jungfrauen / Oder Sechs und zwentzig Paradeissgärtlin und Predigten
von grosser Wirde, schönheit und nutzbarkeit der Jungfrauwschafft (1611); Kinderzucht,
Oder Kurtzer Bericht von der Eltern sorg vnd fürsichtigkeit in aufferziehung ihrer lieben
Kinder. . . (1610); Spiegel der Eheleuth, oder kurtzer Bericht, wie der Prediger. . . Die Eheleuth
von ihrem Amth und schuldiger Pflicht underweisen sollen. Raßfeldt (1615).
14
S. Evangelisti, ‘Wives, Widows, and Brides of Christ: Marriage and the Convent in
the Historiography of Early Modern Italy’, The Historical Journal, 43.1 (2000), 233–47;
S. Evangelisti, ‘We do not have it and we do not want it: Women, Power and Convent
Reform in Florence’, Sixteenth Century Journal, 34.3 (2003), 677–700; S. Evangelisti,
‘Rooms to Share: Convent Spaces and Social Relations in Early Modern Italy’, in R. Harris
and L. Roper (eds.), The Art of Survival: Gender and History in Europe, 1450–2000, Past
Introduction
5
territory: the bishopric of Münster was the northernmost stronghold of
the Counter-Reformation in Germany and almost completely surrounded
by Protestant and Calvinist territories. To the northeast was Lutheran
Osnabrück and Calvinist Bremen; to the east, the Calvinist County of Lippe;
to the southeast lay Calvinist Hesse-Kassel and Lutheran Hesse-Darmstadt;
to the west lay the Calvinist United Provinces. In the midst of the diocese of
Münster were the small Calvinist counties of Burgsteinfurt and Tecklenburg.15
This had been contested territory in a still more dramatic sense, however.
In the 1530s, the city of Münster was the site of the most radical experiment in the history of German Protestantism—the Anabaptist Kingdom,
which eliminated all private property in the city, introduced polygamy, and
established a king at its head. The first reformed community emerged in the
city in 1525. This movement of communal reform was quickly suppressed
when the magistrates regained full power in 1526. Five years later, a new
attempt was launched, centred on Bernd Rothmann, a popular preacher with
Zwinglian leanings who was made preacher at St Lamberti, the church situated on the main city market. By September 1532 all six parish churches
were given Protestant preachers, some amidst tumultuous scenes of destruction of images and altars.16 The spread of Lutheranism in the city heightened
& Present Supplement, 1 (Oxford, 2006); S. Evangelisti, Nuns: A History of Convent
Life 1450-1700 (Oxford, 2007); M. Laven, Virgins of Venice: Enclosed Lives and Broken
Vows in the Renaissance Convent (London, 2002); M. Laven, ‘Sex and Celibacy in Early
Modern Venice’, Historical Journal (2001), 865–88; M. Laven, ‘Cast Out and Shut
In: The Experience of Nuns in Counter-Reformation Venice’, in S. J. Milner (ed.), At the
Margins: Minority Groups in Premodern Italy (Minneapolis, 2005), 93–110; B. Diefendorf,
From Penitence to Charity: Pious Women and the Catholic Reformation in Paris (New York;
Oxford, 2004); B. Diefendorf, ‘Barbe Acarie and her Spiritual Daughters: Women’s Spiritual
Authority in Seventeenth-Century France’, in C. van Wyhe (ed.), Female Monasticism in
Early Modern Europe: An Interdisciplinary View (Aldershot, 2008); B. Diefendorf, ‘Give
Us Back Our Children: Patriarchal Authority and Parental Consent to Religious Vocations
in Early Counter-Reformation France’, Journal of Modern History, 68.2 (1996), 1–43;
J. Bilinkoff, The Avila of Saint Teresa: Religious Reform in a Sixteenth-Century City (Ithaca,
1989); J. Bilinkoff, ‘The Social Meaning of Religious Reform: The Case of St. Teresa and
Avila’, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte/Archive for Reformation History, 79 (1988), 340–57;
U. Strasser, State of Virginity; U. Strasser, ‘Catholic Nuns Resist Their Enclosure’, in N. Auer
Falk and R. M. Gross (eds.), Unspoken Worlds: Women’s Religious Lives (Belmont, 2001),
207–20; U. Strasser, ‘Bones of Contention: Cloistered Nuns, Decorated Relics and the
Contest Over Women’s Place in the Public Sphere of Counterreformation Munich’, Archiv
für Reformationsgeschichte/Archive for Reformation History, 90 (1999), 255–88; U. Strasser,
‘Brides of Christ, Daughters of Men: Nuremberg Poor Clares in Defense of Their Identity
(1525–1529)’, Magistra: Journal for Women’s Spirituality in History (December 1995),
193–248.
15
R. Po-chia Hsia, Society and Religion in Münster 1535–1618 (Yale, 1984), 2.
16
Anabaptists are usually thought to have been recruited from amongst the trade
and guilds people of the city. However, Karl-Heinz Kirchhoff has been able to show
that their recruits also came from the well-to-do class of burghers. K.-H. Kirchhoff, Die
6Introduction
longstanding tensions between bishop and town. At Christmas of the same
year, a civil militia captured most of Bishop Franz von Waldeck’s councillors,
thus forcing him to recognize the Reformation in his city. The election of ‘a
solidly evangelical city council’ in 1533 confirmed that reformed belief had
taken over.17
However, by summer the reform preachers, who had begun to move
in the direction of Anabaptism, were at odds with the city council. The
council’s authority quickly faded when it became clear that the guilds and
many burghers were on the side of Rothmann and his followers. Their radical tendencies were strengthened even more with the onset of Anabaptist
immigration from the Netherlands. Amongst those arriving in the city
were Jan van Leiden and Jan Matthys, who preached that the end of the
world was near and advocated re-baptism. An order of 27 February 1534
made re-baptism mandatory for all citizens; those who refused were forced
to leave town.18 At the same time, a sixteen-month siege of the city, under
the authority of Bishop Franz von Waldeck (1532–53), began. In June
1535, the Anabaptist Kingdom collapsed, its leaders were tortured and
executed, and their corpses placed in iron cages which were hung from
the tower of St Lamberti Church. The Anabaptists left behind a city not
only traumatized by the loss of well over half its original population, but
also one stigmatized throughout the Empire by this shortlived regime of
‘demagogues and rabble rousers’.19
In its beginnings, the Radical Reformation also allowed women to participate in the developments. As we shall see in detail later on, many nuns
decided to cast off their habits and join the reform movement, seeking to
actively promote the new faith. Laywomen, too, inspired by the notion
of a priesthood of all believers, went to great lengths to fight for their
new-found religion. Hille Feiken is perhaps the most famous example.
Having heard sermons about the Biblical Judith, Hille resolved to assassinate the bishop of Münster. Her plan failed: when Hille stepped out of the
city gates, she was caught, interrogated, and finally beheaded. During her
interrogation she told her captors that she originally came from Friesland
but had given away all her possessions to live with the saints in the ‘New
Jerusalem’. Her strong religious beliefs led Hille Feiken not only to give up
Täufer in Münster 1534/35: Untersuchungen zum Umfang der Sozialstruktur der Bewegung
(Münster, 1973).
17
Hsia, Society and Religion, 3.
18
R. Klötzer, Die Täuferherrschaft von Münster: Stadtreformation und Welterneuerung,
Reformationsgeschichtliche Studien und Texte 131 (Münster, 1992).
19
S. Haude, In the Shadow of ‘Savage Wolves’: Anabaptist Münster and the German
Reformation during the 1530s (Boston, 2000), 23.
Introduction
7
her material goods but, in the end, also to sacrifice her life. However, after
the initial uprising was over, female input into the religious affairs of the
city was no longer desired. In that respect, Anabaptism did not distinguish
itself from mainstream Christianity.20
After the Anabaptists had been defeated and Catholicism had—nominally—been restored in the city, the anticipated Catholic backlash did
not happen. Instead, the following decades were marked by peaceful
coexistence between those old inhabitants who had returned to the city
after the siege and immigrants who were new arrivals from surrounding
towns in Münsterland, Westphalia, the Rhineland, and the Netherlands.
The Anabaptist debacle had triggered a drastic population turnover and
brought in a large number of newcomers of relatively humble background: day labourers, artisans, and former serfs.21 Under normal circumstances, the artisans would usually have joined the handicraft guilds
and would have thereby integrated into the civic community. In Münster
this was not possible because the bishop blamed the guilds for instigating the Anabaptist rebellion and forbade them from reorganizing after
1535. Only in 1553–4 did the guilds regain enough political influence
to organize themselves under their own elected leadership. Within the
guilds and their political union, the Gesamtgilde, thirty-four guild masters represented the seventeen guilds. From within their own ranks, the
guild masters annually elected two Aldermen, who acted as representatives on the city council, and spokespeople for the guilds. The Gesamtgilde
therefore had considerable political weight in the city. This also explains
the constant vying for political influence between the Gesamtgilde and
the magistrates on the city council. One such point of rivalry was the
Gesamtgilde’s aspiration to also represent those Münsteraners not organized in the guilds (the Gemeinheit). However, members of the Gemeinheit
increasingly demanded for their own representation, independent of the
guilds, and protested against the arrogation of power by the guild leaders.22 This conflict played out against the background of a gradual shift in
power away from the merchants and artisans and towards academically
trained legal professions.23 Both claims, that of the guild leaders as well as
that of the Gemeinheit, were unsuccessful.
20
M. Kobelt-Groch, Aufsässige Töchter Gottes: Frauen im Bauernkrieg und in der
Täuferbewegung (Frankfurt am Main; New York, 1993).
21
Hsia, Society and Religion, 15.
22
K.-H. Kirchhoff, ‘Gesamtgilde und Gemeinheit in Münster (Westf.) 1410 bis
1661: Zur Entwicklung einer bürgerschaftlichen Vertretung innerhalb der Ratsverfassung’,
in K.-H. Kirchhoff (ed.), Forschungen zur Geschichte von Stadt und Stift Münster: Ausgewählte
Aufsätze und Schriftenverzeichnis (Warendorf, 1988), 235–79.
23
Hsia, Society and Religion, 106–16.
8Introduction
It was not until 1554, twenty years after the Anabaptist rebellion, that
Münster finally held free elections to the city council again. Membership
of the council was decided in a fourfold electoral process, which guaranteed the political influence of a very limited number of families.24 The men
in power can be divided into the patriciate (Erbmänner) and the burgher
elite. The patricians formed a tightly-defined group, who preferred a ‘life
of leisure’ to political engagement in the city. Their desired withdrawal
from urban politics was counteracted in 1552 by Bishop Franz von
Waldeck (reigned 1532–53), who ordered both patricians and burghers
to assume the burden of political office when named, as long as they held
residences in the city. Even though the city council was predominately
Catholic, there were also some known Protestants—representatives of the
sizeable Protestant minority who had (re)settled in Münster after 1535.25
They consisted partly of immigrants from Calvinist territories and partly
of old-established families who had returned to the city after Anabaptism
had been destroyed. Although Protestantism was not officially allowed
and had to remain unorganized, Protestants could follow their beliefs in
the confines of their own homes. Even though Münster’s Protestant families were closely connected through connubial arrangements and common
business interests (and also had close contacts with other unofficial congregations in the surrounding countryside), it would be wrong to think
of them as a homogenous group. Theologically, they were marked far
more by diversity than by unity. A variety of pious practice also characterized Catholic piety in the city. As the visitation of the diocese of 1571–3
revealed, Münster was a place ruled by confessional haziness: the majority
of people followed a mixture of Protestant and Catholic beliefs. Mass, for
example, frequently contained Protestant elements such as the celebration
of communion sub utraque specie and the singing of Lutheran songs.26
The decades following the Anabaptist Kingdom were therefore defined by
24
‘Ten magistrates from the outgoing council named ten citizens from the burgher
assembly; these citizens chose another twenty who then selected the final ten Kurgenossen,
the real electors of the magistrates. . . . A careful analysis of the list of twenty-one citizens
(two of them exercised one vote) who participated in the third round of selection reveals
that everyone concerned had close ties with the magistrates in office, as retired councillors,
as kinsmen, or as close friends.’ Hsia, Society and Religion, 25. For a detailed analysis of
the new election process, see R. Po-chia Hsia, ‘Die neue Form der Ratswahl in Münster,
1554–55’, Westfälische Zeitschrift, 131/132 (1981/1982), 197–204.
25
Heinz Duchhardt estimates that during the middle of the sixteenth century several
hundred Protestants lived in the city. H. Durchhardt, ‘Protestanten und Sektierer im Sozialund Verfassungsleben der Bischhofsstadt im konfessionellen Zeitalter’, in F.-J. Jakobi (ed.),
Geschichte der Stadt Münster, vol. 1 (Münster, 1994), 226.
26
E. Höltker, ‘Die Bistumsvisitation im Oberstift Münster unter Johann von Hoya in
den Jahren 1571–1573’, Westfälische Zeitschrift, 146 (1996), 65–108.
Introduction
9
confessional toleration and peaceful coexistence between old-established
families and immigrants, as well as between Protestants and Catholics.
Münsteraners, it seems, knew all too well that religious fanaticism could
have disastrous and far-reaching consequences.
This was the political and religious situation when Ernst von Bayern
(reigned 1585–1612) was elected to the Münster See. The new bishop
responded to the challenges he faced in his diocese by beginning to implement the Tridentine decrees with their mixture of reform and disciplining. Born in 1554 in Munich as the third son of Duke Albrecht V von
Bayern and his wife Anna von Österreich, daughter of Emperor Ferdinand
I, his parents had decided from his infancy that he would have a career in
the Church. In 1563, Ernst and his brothers were sent to Ingolstadt to
receive a Jesuit education. In 1574, Ernst spent time in Rome as a guest
of the pope. He had only submitted to a clerical career unwillingly and
after severe arguments with his father, and although he received priestly
ordination, he was never consecrated as a bishop. Throughout his life, he
continued to enjoy hunting and feasting, and even had an illegitimate
affair with Countess Gertrud von Plettenberg.27 He was also a notorious
pluralist—prince-bishop of Freising, Hildesheim, Luttich, and Münster,
prince-archbishop of Cologne, and prince-abbot of Stable-Malmedy.
A son from his concubinage relationship to Gertrud succeeded him as
prince-abbot of Stable-Malmedy.28 Their daughter, Katharina, inherited
the estate where the couple had lived.
While his commitment to the clerical life might seem questionable,
his dedication to the Catholic cause was absolute. Following the example
of his father, Ernst tried to enforce political centralization and confessional orthodoxy. The clergy was supposed to act as moral police and to
denounce those who did not go to confession and receive communion at
least once a year. To supervise the clergy, Ernst installed an ecclesiastical
council (Geistlicher Rat). He also invited the Society of Jesus to settle in the
city and, in 1588, the first Jesuits arrived amidst strong opposition from
the guilds. In their usual manner, the patres opened a school for boys,
which proved to be so popular that it could already count 600 students in
its first year. Just four years later student numbers had climbed to 1,120;
amongst their students was also a future bishop, Christoph Bernhard von
Galen (reigned 1650–78), and many city councillors and officials. With
the support of the Jesuits, a new Catholic elite gradually began to shape the
27
A. Schröer, ‘Die Bischöfe von Münster: Biogramme der Weihbischöfe und
Generalvikare’, in W. Thissen (ed.), Das Bistum Münster, 1 (Münster, 1993), 207.
28
J. W. O’Malley, Trent: What happened at the Council (Cambridge, MA, 2013), 272.
10Introduction
politics of the city in the coming decades, but the transition was not entirely
smooth. The city council and the guilds had always been sceptical about the
election of a Bavarian Wittelsbach to the episcopacy. From the beginning of
the seventeenth century onwards, Ernst released a string of contested confessional edicts: in 1601, he decreed that only Catholics could be elected to the
city council and that only Catholics could be buried in consecrated ground.
For years, the magistrates chose to ignore both decrees which nevertheless
caused much upheaval in the city.29 The conflicts about burials, which flared
up sporadically between 1604 and the mid-1620s reveal the divisions that
existed within the Catholic population of the city: broadly speaking, those
who supported the new ‘Counter-Reformation Catholicism’, characterized
by Catholic demarcation and the exclusion of all kinds of non-orthodoxy—
represented mainly by Bishop Ernst, his officials, and the Jesuits; and those
‘old Catholics’—mainly consisting of large parts of the city council, the citizenry, and even the clergy, who preferred traditional Catholicism with its
medieval roots and its emphasis on popular piety.
Ernst died in 1612, and his nephew Ferdinand von Bayern (reigned
1612–50) was elected as Archbishop-Elector of Cologne and Prince-Bishop
of Liège, Hildesheim, Münster, and, from 1618, Paderborn. Ferdinand
was the fourth son of Duke Wilhelm V von Bayern and his wife Renate
von Lothringen. Like his uncle before him, he was educated by the Jesuits
in Ingolstadt and spent some time in Rome at the papal court.
Ferdinand was deeply religious, though he refused to be ordained, and
was determined to reform religious life according to the decrees of Trent.
Again, like his uncle Ernst, Ferdinand enjoyed the lifestyle of the high
nobility, of hunting, music, and expensive building projects. In contrast
to these worldly pursuits, he also took his duties as shepherd very seriously.
He participated in the visitations to the Cologne parishes, which was such
a novelty that the sources describe priests being overwhelmed with emotion, breaking into tears, because they had not seen their bishop in generations. He carried the cross during a procession of flagellation in Bonn, and
personally tried to persuade the Lutherans of Meppen, about one hundred kilometres north of Münster, to return to the Catholic fold. Fabio
Chigi, later Pope Alexander VII (reigned 1655–67), perhaps encapsulated
Ferdinand best when he noted that the latter was a devout man, a friend of
hunting, but not even ordained as a priest.30 One of his first acts as bishop
29
A. Holzem, Der Konfessionsstaat 1555–1802, Geschichte des Bistums Münster, vol. 4
(Freiburg im Breisgau, 1998), 153–7. David Luebke,’Confessions of the Dead: Interpreting
Burial Practice in the Late Reformation’, Archiv für Reformationsgeschichte/Archive for
Reformation History, 101 (2010), 55–79.
30
Cited in Holzem, Der Konfessionsstaat, 160.
Introduction
11
of Münster was to decree a visitation of his diocese (1613–16), as a result
of which he ordered, amongst other changes, the reformation of all female
religious houses and the enclosure of the nuns. In 1613, he began to make
arrangements to open a seminary which was supposed to educate the local
clergy. However, these plans failed due to a lack of financial resources. In
1617, a comprehensive memorandum was published in which Ferdinand
reminded his subjects that only Catholics could gain citizenship (aspirants
had to prove their religious allegiance with a document testifying that
they had received Easter Communion); that only Catholics could work
as scribes and printers in the city; that the sale of heretical books was prohibited; and that parents had to send their children to Catholic schools.31
This document touched on very complicated and sensitive issues and set
the tone of his episcopacy for the following three decades.
The Council of Trent had been contentious from its inception. Although
its aim, ‘to heal the wounds of the church caused by impious heretics’ and
to restore the unity of Christendom, could not be achieved, the council
fathers did resolve a large number of dogmatic issues concerning the conception and number of sacraments; the question of justification in relation
to original sin and free will; the veneration of saints; and the controversial
issues of indulgences and purgatory. While it was of primary importance
to establish clear distinctions between Catholic dogma and ‘Protestant
heresy’, the reformation of the church also had to be considered. Further
decrees therefore dealt with the role of the bishop in his diocese, the education of the clergy, clerical celibacy, and the improvement of pastoral care.32
In Münster, the reception of the Tridentine decrees was mixed: although
frequent references were made to them, they were never actually published
in full during the period under investigation. But this does not mean that
the Tridentine decrees were not implemented. Because the bishops did not
reside in Münster most of the time, much of the daily business of governing was left in the hands of representatives (the ecclesiastical council in
the case of Ernst, and the vicar general under Ferdinand). The attempts
of the ecclesiastical authorities to reform the local church along the lines
of Trent were frequently rejected and counteracted by the other power
brokers in the city, notably the members of the cathedral chapter, the parish clergy, but also secular powers, such as the city magistrates, the guilds,
and the Gemeinheit. This web of institutions was further complicated by
social order and status (Standeszugehörigkeit), which meant that common
31
L. Keller, Die Gegenreformation in Westfalen und am Niederrhein, vol. 3, no. 455
(Leipzig, 1881–1895), 538–9.
32
For a thorough analysis of the Council of Trent, see O’Malley, Trent: What Happened
at the Council.
12Introduction
interests, based on affiliations and affinities, would overcome the church–
city divide. A simple parish priest, for instance, would often have much
more in common with an artisan than with a noble cathedral canon or the
aristocratic bishop. Locally, then, we have to take a number of competing
power brokers into account; but we also have to remember that not one
of these institutions or social groups was static in its makeup, nor even a
harmonious unit.
It is with these political movers and shakers that Ronnie Po-chia Hsia’s
book on the advance of the Counter-Reformation in Münster is concerned.33
His focus is on the guilds, the city council, the bishop and the cathedral
chapter, and, from the seventeenth century onwards, with the new elite of
lawyers, notaries, and ecclesiastical officials. He analyses the generations that
populated the city from the end of the Anabaptist Kingdom until the beginning of the Thirty Years’ War in 1618. As those who remembered the excesses
of the Radical Reformation and consequently advocated cautious religious
policies began to die out, a new generation of Jesuit-educated Catholics
replaced the more moderate voices in the local community. Hsia sees the
alliance between the Jesuits and their supporters (noblemen, councillors,
officials, magistrates, professors, and lawyers) in high political and social
positions as the major driving force behind the Counter-Reformation in
Münster and the rest of Germany.34 While Hsia’s account of the confessionsalization of an episcopal city is a major contribution to the historiography
on the Counter-Reformation, it only provides a partial picture. For obvious
reasons, Hsia’s study focused more on men than it did on women, though
in many important respects women experienced the Counter-Reformation
quite differently from men. Hsia’s work, however, enables us to ask how the
new Catholicism affected women and, more specifically, different groups
of women? By looking at married women, servant girls and concubines,
lay and religious women, we can determine how they negotiated their lives
within the parameters of patriarchy, social status, gender expectations, and
Catholic religious reform.
I begin with a study of female convents in the city. This chapter shows
how nuns’ religious identity and social role in the urban community was
transformed by the introduction of enclosure. The call for enclosure after
the Council of Trent was phrased in disciplinary language and carried
the implication of punishment for past moral failings; to this the nuns of
Münster reacted with opposition. However, enclosure not only brought
a change of lifestyle but also had repercussions on two central parts of a
Hsia, Society and Religion. 34 Ibid., 204.
33
Introduction
13
nun’s life: her civic and her religious identity. This matters because up until
then nuns had defined their religiosity by an orientation towards secular
life. In addition, the arrival of new religious orders brought spiritual competition and irrevocably changed the religious landscape of the city.
The second chapter examines how the Counter-Reformation impacted
on women’s piety and their relationship with their God. How did laywomen, for whom Catholicism offered no active religious role, participate
in religion? My analysis shows that women embraced a very pragmatic piety
which was directed towards the practical and the community. I emphasize
the important contribution made by women of all social backgrounds in
community piety. The chapter also examines women’s support of charitable initiatives and their quest for personal grace and salvation.
Chapter three looks at something which touched on most women’s
lives: marriage. As is well known, the Roman Church prized virginity
over married life, and for this reason clung to its celibate priesthood and
religious orders. And yet it preserved the sacramental status of holy matrimony. In reality, it seems that the approach of the Catholic authorities to the married state varied considerably from place to place. In early
modern Bavaria, Ferdinand’s brother, Maximilian I, pushed through very
restrictive marriage policies, yet in Münster the city council’s interventions were more pragmatic than doctrinaire. As a result, we see policies
being followed that favoured reconciliation, peacemaking, and cooperation between couples over disciplining for its own sake. The chapter also
assesses how men and women experienced marriage. Courtship in early
modern Münster was a prolonged affair, and it often took years before a
couple finally married. With such a large part of their lives spent single,
early modern people followed both a practical and canny approach to the
institution that bound them.
The penultimate chapter investigates different forms of deviance in
order to show how the secular authorities and the community defined
questions of morality between men and women. The situation of servant
girls is particularly revealing: their vulnerable position as single women in
a strange household illustrates how gender shaped questions of honour,
belonging, and community in early modern society. Moreover, an analysis
of the workings of the neighbourhood helps us to understand the complicated negotiations between what was seen as acceptable and unacceptable
behaviour for men and women in everyday life, and how the community
made sure its moral boundaries remained intact.
Another group of women whose position was drastically altered by
the Counter-Reformation was clerical concubines. The ‘priest’s whore’
was a symbol of Catholic corruption seized upon by Protestant propagandists. Her existence was also a sore point for those attempting to
14Introduction
reform the Catholic Church. This chapter sheds light on the relationships between priests and their concubines, and on the reactions of both
parties to their enforced separation following Trent. What emerges from
the sources is the normalcy of clerical concubinage, and the sense of
injustice felt by priests and their partners in the wake of their enforced
separation after years of shared lives. Contrary to the opinion of the
Church, concubines were not women of loose morals, nor were they
generally perceived as such. Increasingly, however, the Church authorities sought to punish these women because those authorities were too
weak to get at their own clergy directly. Looking at women, then, allows
us to uncover how the implementation of Tridentine reform worked in
detail and in the local context.
1
The Reformation of Convent Life
The first thing a sixteenth-century traveller walking across the Westphalian
plain towards Münster would have noticed was the great number of church
spires extending towards the sky: Frans Hogenberg’s view of the city of 1572
shows no fewer than seventeen. Before the arrival of the Jesuits in 1588,
Münster was home to a cathedral, four parish churches, seven female religious
houses, and four male cloisters. These institutions supported almost five hundred clerics, a number that secured Münster second place behind Cologne,
the ‘German Rome’ in terms of the ratio of lay folk to clergy.1 Throughout
the seventeenth century, this number would increase further as new monastic
orders arrived in the city.
The Benedictine convent of Überwasser was at the pinnacle of the hierarchy of distinguished religious houses in Münster.2 Founded in 1040, it
claimed independence from ecclesiastical authority and drew its members
from noble and patrician families from all over Westphalia.3 Its wealth consisted in landed property and the patrimonies of its members. One step
below in the social hierarchy stood St Aegidii, another Benedictine house that
mainly recruited from the patriciate.4 The Augustinian nunnery of Niesing
was, although very wealthy, far less exclusive, and it recruited from noble and
1
Hsia, Society and Religion, 31. In 1590, Münster had a population of about 10,000,
a return to pre-Anabaptist figures. cf. F. Lethmate, Die Bevölkerung Münsters i.W. in der
zweiten Hälfte des 16. Jahrhunderts, Münstersche Beiträge zur Geschichtsforschung N.F. 29
(Münster, 1912).
2
In 1518, Überwasser housed eighteen nuns; in 1667, twelve. E. Klueting, ‘Münster—
St Marien Überwasser—Kanonissen, dann Benediktinerinnen’, in K. Hengst (ed.),
Westfälisches Klosterbuch: Lexikon der vor 1815 errichteten Stifte und Klöster von ihrer
Gründung bis zur Aufhebung, vol. 2 (Münster, 1994), 61.
3
The foundation dates of the female religious houses in Münster that had survived
into the seventeenth century are: Überwasser (1040), St Aegidii (1184), Ringe (1320),
Rosental (1326), Hofringe (1332), Reine (1344), Niesing (1458), Poor Clares (1628), and
the Congrégation de Notre-Dame (1653).
4
On average, the convent comprised thirty members. W. Kohl, ‘Münster—
Zisterzienserinnen, dann Benediktinerinnen zu St. Aegidii’, in Hengst (ed.), Westfälisches
Klosterbuch, vol. 2, 65.
View of the city by Frans Hogenberg, Civitates Orbis Terrarum (1572), © Vermessungs- und Katasteramt Münster.
The Reformation of Convent Life
17
non-noble families alike.5 A further group of religious communities were the
beguinages, which had sprung up all over the city in medieval times, though
only four of these survived into the sixteenth century. Of these, Rosental
adopted the Augustinian Rule, while Ringe, Reine, and Hofringe followed
the Third Rule of St Francis. Founded by burgher women, these religious
houses recruited their followers from the non-patrician civic elite of Münster.
The vast majority of Ringe sisters, for example, came from magisterial and
guild families.6 By the middle of the seventeenth century, we also find women
belonging to the Congrégation de Notre-Dame—a French teaching order,
founded in 1598. The Congrégation had spread rapidly, so that by 1628
there were already twenty-one houses in their native region of Lorraine, a
success that was repeated in Münster. Here, the school for girls proved to be
very popular, and by 1651 the sisters of the Congrégation were providing free
education to over one hundred children. The Poor Clares, on the other hand,
lived a far more contested life in the city. They were brought to Münster in
an attempt to force the Ringe sisters to observe strict enclosure and a more
regulated convent life—an endeavour that soon failed.
However, to envision Münster as a veritable Catholic fortress in the north
is misleading on two counts. First, during the 1520s, radical Protestantism
had gained enough support amongst the citizenry to culminate in the
Anabaptist Kingdom of 1534. With the growth of Protestant activity in
the town, convents increasingly came under attack from the guilds, which
complained about the economic competition they faced from the female
religious houses. The convent of Niesing, for example, relied on weaving to
supplement its income. In 1525, during the first Protestant insurrection,
the nuns were forced by certain guild members to surrender their spinning
wheels.7 Jonathan Grieser sees in this incident (especially the threatening
way in which the Niesing sisters were treated) an explanation as to why
the nuns were never tempted to convert to Anabaptism once the Radical
Reformation had taken hold of the city.8 The nuns of Überwasser Convent,
on the other hand, were prominent targets of Anabaptist agitation right
from the start because their abbess had the right to appoint the preacher of
Überwasser parish. Abbess Ida van Merfeldt resisted numerous attempts
5
Niesing was home to fifty-four sisters in 1545, and thirty-nine in 1679. W. Kohl,
‘Münster—Schwesternhaus Mariental, gen. Niesing’, in Hengst (ed.), Westfälisches
Klosterbuch, vol. 2, 86.
6
In 1633, Ringe housed twelve sisters; in 1695, twenty. H. Lahrkamp, ‘Münster—
Beginenhaus Ringe, dann Terziarinnen’, in Hengst (ed.), Westfälisches Klosterbuch, vol.
2, 130.
7
cf. J. Grieser, ‘A Tale of Two Convents: Nuns and Anabaptists in Münster, 1533–1535’,
Sixteenth Century Journal XXVI/1 (1995), 35.
8
Ibid.
18
Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
to pressure her into accepting an evangelical preacher who would ‘preach
the word of God purely and clearly’. Finally, in November 1532, she had
to give in to these demands, not least because Ida’s own sisters had begun
to attend evangelical services. One chronicler even claims that Überwasser
nuns ‘sang German psalms antiphonally with the congregation, repeating as the refrain Psalm 124:7, ‘The snare has been broken and we have
escaped’.9 The Überwasser sisters were among the first to eschew their
habits and be baptized, thereafter becoming actively involved in almost
every stage of the radical reforms taking place in the city. Ida van Merfeldt,
together with the two remaining nuns, decided to flee Münster. After the
siege of the city and the fall of Anabaptism, Bishop Franz von Waldeck
tried to dissolve Überwasser in order to pay for the costs of the siege, but
the convent proved too well-established and remained untouched. The
nuns who had fled Anabaptism returned, while those who had embraced it
had either died during the siege, or were granted a pardon. The latter were,
however, not readmitted to Überwasser, except, for reasons unknown, one
woman, Elisabeth Fridaghe, who was allowed to live out her days in a hut
on the Überwasser churchyard.10
Second, two major powers were competing for influence over the
population: ecclesia and civitas. The city council constantly tried to guard
the traditional rights of the city against infringements by the church and
the ambitions of the bishop. However, as the arrival of the Jesuits would
reveal, Münster’s citizens were far from being one united bloc. When Ernst
von Bayern invited the Jesuits to Münster to help him enforce confessional
orthodoxy, the magistrates eventually came to support him, whereas the
powerful guilds remained deeply hostile to this idea. The disagreement
was only resolved through prolonged negotiations between the bishop, the
guilds, and the magistrates.11 The networks of power that determined both
political and religious processes in the city thus involved the ecclesiastical
authorities, the city council, and the guilds. This complicated network was
put under even more strain when, after his election in 1612, Ferdinand set
out to introduce the decrees of the Council of Trent to the city’s religious
houses.
Over the past two decades, nuns and early modern convent life have
received considerable attention from historians. Some have presented the
convent as a place of study, music, drama, and ritual, where nuns could
develop their skills and broaden their knowledge—thus providing a rare
9 Ibid., 36–7.
10
Grieser, ‘Two Convents’, 45.
11
For a detailed description of the arrival of the Jesuits in Münster and how the order
established itself in the city, see Hsia, Society and Religion, ch. 3.
The Reformation of Convent Life
19
female learning space in a society which otherwise saw educated women as
a threat to the natural order.12 Other historians have portrayed convents as
very turbulent places, deeply embroiled in the religious and political tensions of the Reformation period. These scholars have particularly focused
their attention on the following decree, issued at the Council of Trent
in 1563:
Renewing the constitution of Boniface VIII which begins Periculoso, the holy
council commands all bishops, calling the divine justice to witness and under
threat of eternal damnation, to ensure that the enclosure of nuns in all monasteries subject to them by ordinary authority, and in others by the authority
of the apostolic see, should be diligently restored where it has been violated,
and preserved most carefully where it has remained intact; they should coerce
any who are disobedient and refractory by ecclesiastical censures and other
penalties, setting aside any form of appeal, and calling in the help of the
secular arm if need be. The holy synod exhorts all Christian princes to provide such aid, and enjoins this on all magistrates on pain of excommunication automatically incurred. After religious profession no nun may go out of
her monastery on any pretext even for a short time, except for a legitimate
reason approved by the bishop, notwithstanding any indults and privileges
whatever. And no one of any kind of condition or sex or age may enter within
the confines of a monastery without the permission of the bishop or superior
given in writing, under pain of excommunication automatically incurred.
And the bishop or superior should give permission only in necessary cases,
nor may anyone else give it in any way, even in virtue of some faculty or
indult previously given or to be given in the future.13
12
See, for example, M. King, ‘Book-lined Cells: Women and Humanism in the Early
Italian Renaissance’, in P. Labalme (ed.), Beyond her Sex: Learned Women of the European Past
(New York, 1980); E. Arenal and S. Schlau (eds.), Untold Sisters: Hispanic Nuns in their own
Works (Albuquerque, 1989); E. Weaver, ‘The Convent Wall in Tuscan Convent Drama’,
in Craig Monson (ed.), The Crannied Wall: Women, Religion, and the Arts in Early Modern
Europe (Ann Arbor, 1992); R. L. Kendrick, Celestial Sirens: Nuns and their Music in Early
Modern Milan (Oxford, 1996); M. A. Winkelmes, ‘Taking Part: Benedictine Nuns as Patrons
of Art and Architecture’, in G. Johnson and S. Matthews Grieco (eds.), Picturing Women in
Renaissance and Baroque Italy (Cambridge, 1997), 91–110; J. Nelson and M. Fantoni (eds.),
Plautilla Nelli: A Painter Nun in Sixteenth Century Florence (Georgetown, 2000); G. M.
Radke, ‘Nuns and their Art: The Case of San Zaccaria in Renaissance Venice’, Renaissance
Quarterly 54 (2001), 430–59; E. Weaver, Convent Theatre in Early Modern Italy: Spiritual
Fun and Learning for Women (Cambridge, 2002); C. Reardon, Holy Concord within Sacred
Walls: Nuns and Music in Siena, 1573–1700 (Oxford, 2002); S. Rode-Breymann (ed.),
Musikort Kloster: Kulturelles Handeln von Frauen in der Frühen Neuzeit (Cologne, Weimar,
Vienna, 2009).
13
My citations of Tridentine decrees follow N. Tanner, Decrees of the Ecumenical
Councils, vol. 2, Trent-Vatican II, edited by N. P. Tanner, SJ (London, 1990), Session 25,
‘Decree on regulars and nuns’, ch. 5, 777–8.
20
Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
From 1563 onwards, enclosure was thus compulsory for nuns, but not for
monks. This was the Catholic Church’s attempt to safeguard the chastity
of all female religious.14 The Church fathers based their decision on Pope
Boniface VIII’s papal decretal Periculoso, dating from 1298, in which he
had prescribed compulsory enclosure for the female religious. Periculoso
also laid down other prescriptions embraced by the Catholic Church at
Trent: it called for convents to be financially independent while simultaneously prohibiting female religious from continuing to run schools in
their houses, or from leaving the enclosure to work outside, all of which
made survival for female religious difficult. However, the church fathers
at Trent conveniently ignored the fact that, even at the time Periculoso was
first introduced, enclosure was adhered to only sporadically and with a
great measure of local variation.15 While some religious orders (such as the
Poor Clares) incorporated it into their rule, others rejected enclosure as
alien to their customs and religious lifestyles. This was true of the tertiaries
and those religious women who lived outside formal communities; their
status vis-à-vis enclosure remained unresolved until 1566, when Pope Pius
V issued the bull Circa Pastoralis. All nuns were thereafter bound to strict
enclosure, regardless of their rule or traditions. But what was life like in
the many thousands of convents in early modern Catholic Europe after
the introduction of the Tridentine decrees? Was it realistic to expect nuns
to give up teaching and all other work outside the convent? How did these
women handle enclosure, with its introduction of grills, locks, and bars?
Were they silent and submissive as the Church authorities expected them
to be, or did they oppose the introduction of enclosure in words or deeds?
Interest in these questions has produced a fascinating range of convent
studies on a variety of European cities and countries.16 Silvia Evangelisti’s
14
For more information on the gendered background of this decree, see Laven, Virgins
of Venice (London, 2002), 83–4.
15
For a thorough study of Periculoso and its implementation, see E. Makowski, Canon
Law and Cloistered Women: Periculoso and its Commentators, 1298–1545 (Washington,
DC, 1997).
16
See, for example, R. Liebowitz, ‘Virgins in the Service of Christ: The Dispute over
an Active Apostolate for Women during the Counter-Reformation’, in R. Ruether and
E. McLaughlin (eds.), Women of Spirit: Female Leadership in the Jewish and Christian
Tradition (New York, 1979), 153–83; Bilinkoff, The Avila of Saint Teresa (Ithaca, 1989);
C. Harline, ‘Actives and Contemplatives: The Female Religious of the Low Countries
before and after Trent’, Catholic Historical Review, 89, no.4 (1995), 541–67; K. Gill,
‘Scandala: Controversies Concerning Clausura & Women’s Religious Communities in
Late Medieval Italy’, in S. Waugh and P. Diehl (eds.), Christendom and its Discontents
(Cambridge, 1996), 177–203; J. T. Schulenburg, ‘Strict Active Enclosure and its Effects
on the Female Monastic Experience (c.500–1100)’, in J. A. Nichols and L. T. Shank (eds.),
Distant Echoes: Medieval Religious Women (Kalamazoo, 1984), 51–86; F. Medioli, ‘La clausura delle monache nell’amministrazione della congregazione romana sopra i regolari’, in
G. Zarri (ed.), Il monachesimo femminile in Italia dall’altro medioevo al secolo XVII (Verona,
The Reformation of Convent Life
21
work on Florentine convents shows how the nuns relied on a mixture of
negotiation, litigation, and their families and relatives in their attempt
to escape Tridentine reform. The nuns feared that their forced separation from the urban community would harm their public visibility as
well as their social and religious relevance to society.17 Some nuns displayed truly remarkable ingenuity in their dealings with the reforming
zeal of the authorities. In her article on the nuns of the Pütrich Convent
in seventeenth-century Munich, Ulrike Strasser describes how the sisters acquired the body of the Christian martyr St Dorothea without the
knowledge or permission of their superiors.18 Their aim was to decorate and exhibit the relic for public veneration in their convent church.
The nuns were cleverly trying to make use of the officially sanctioned
Counter-Reformation practice of publicly venerating saints in order to
overcome their enforced isolation from the outside world. Rather than
trying to go out into the world, their strategy was to invite the public into
their religious house. Strasser’s article shows the nuns not only fighting for
their place in society, but actually achieving this by beating the Church
with its own weapons. In the end, however, there was little the women
could do to escape enclosure. As Craig Monson’s study of the musical
convent of Santa Cristina della Fondazza at Bologna and its composing
nun, Lucrezia Orsina Vizzana, has shown, even the seemingly innocuous
practice of music-making acquired greater significance in the Church’s
post-Tridentine drive for conformity.19 Monson’s work is not only a fine
study of the creativity and art displayed by early modern nuns, but also
shows how the female religious of Bologna attempted to hold onto their
specific lifestyle and musical traditions when challenged by the ecclesiastical authorities; their answer to this interference consisted in the careful
appropriation, as well as the blatant disregard, of official orders. When an
episcopal order arrived at the convent of Sant’ Omobono, for example,
demanding the removal of the organ from public sight, the enterprising
organist Suor Giulia Montecalvi used the opportunity to procure a larger
windchest and new registers for the instrument when it was reinstalled
behind the concealing grate. The nuns also skillfully played different
1997), 249–82; Strasser, ‘Bones of Contention, 255–88; Evangelisti, ‘Wives, Widows, and
Brides of Christ: Marriage and the Convent in the Historiography of Early Modern Italy’,
233–47; Evangelisti, ‘We do not have it, and we do not want it, 677–700; A. Leonard, Nails
in the Wall: Catholic Nuns in Reformation Germany (Chicago, London, 2005).
17
Evangelisti, ‘We do not have it’, 677–700.
18
Strasser, ‘Bones of Contention’, 255–88.
19
C. Monson, ‘ “Disembodied Voices”: Music in the Nunneries of Bologna in the Midst
of the Counter Reformation’, in idem (ed.), The Crannied Wall; C. Monson, Disembodied
Voices: Music and Culture in an Early Modern Italian Convent (Berkeley, 1995).
22
Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
authorities off against each other—a strategy that was used by the female
religious of Münster, too.
The introduction of the reforms of Trent was therefore accompanied
by far-reaching changes in early modern convents and great personal
upheaval for individual nuns. Convents adopted different strategies to
deal with the consequences of those changes and their efforts met with
varying degrees of success. Yet, in the years following the rulings of 1563
and 1566, it became evident that the framework in which convents had to
operate had changed irrevocably. All over Europe, convents increased dramatically in religious symbolism, as well as in political significance. Ulrike
Strasser’s work on Bavaria during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
shows impressively how, beginning with Maximilian I (1573–1651), successive Bavarian rulers saw a direct link between the growth and prosperity
of the Catholic state, and the consolidation of patriarchy through a strict
regulation of female sexuality. Thus, poor women who could not afford
to get married but had sexual relations anyway came to be seen as profligate and deserving of punishment. Being unmarried, poor, and female,
as well as being sexually active, could move a woman perilously close to
being considered a prostitute.20 At the other end of the moral spectrum,
Bavarian rulers saw nuns as embodying the ideal of holy virginity, but, in
order to achieve this, nuns had to be properly supervised and confined
to their own separate sphere. According to Strasser, the outcome was a
rather polarized view of women: ‘Whereas the prostitute began to embody
the sexualized lower-class woman whose body threatened to pollute the
Catholic community, the nun was destined to represent the upper-class
virgin whose purity and class promised and symbolized the intactness of
the same community’.21 In these circumstances, birth and social standing
were seen as important markers for feminine sexual conduct. Of course,
the safeguard of this new Catholic morality could only be entrusted to
male hands: those of husbands as heads of household; bishops as supervisors of all female religious; or the Wittelsbach rulers as protectors of
Counter-Reformation Catholicism.
We must remember, however, that there were also nuns who actively
supported the introduction of enclosure—Teresa of Avila (1515–82),
founder of the Discalded Carmelites, is perhaps the most famous example. She favoured enclosure because it guaranteed the women autonomy
from social obligations and particular social interests. Somewhat paradoxically, for Teresa, enclosure meant freedom: ‘The ideal convent Teresa
Strasser, State of Virginity (Ann Arbor, 2004). 20
21
Ibid., 77.
The Reformation of Convent Life
23
envisaged was physically enclosed but spiritually permeable’.22 Teresa
sought to combine a life of considerable self-denial and physical mortification with a complete withdrawal from the world. Similarly, Angélique
Arnauld (1591–1662), Abbess of Port-Royal, after experiencing a spiritual
awakening during a sermon, decided to reform the elite religious house
over which she presided. The young Abbess, now considering herself an
instrument of God, decided to impose strict enclosure and to maintain an
atmosphere of austere piety and poverty at Port-Royal. Her efforts were
met with outspoken resistance from some convent members and even her
own family. But Angélique pushed these reforms through with the same
relentless determination shown by male superiors all over Europe: nuns
who failed to support the Abbess were forced to leave the convent. Despite
all the rhetoric to the contrary, the example of Angélique Arnauld shows
just how much the successful imposition of reform depended on the cooperation of the women in the convents.
This chapter examines how the Tridentine decrees were implemented
in Münster’s convents and explores the impact they had upon the lives
of nuns. It will do so through an examination of visitation records; letters from nuns to cathedral canons and officials; official reports from the
ecclesiastical authorities; city council protocols; and other sources, mainly
covering the religious houses of Überwasser, St Aegidii, Ringe, the Poor
Clares, and the Congrégation de Notre-Dame. By focusing on visitations
and enclosure—the two main pillars of the Tridentine policies concerning
convents—we find that Trent did not just bring about a change of lifestyle,
but also had repercussions on two central parts of a nun’s life: her civic and
her religious identity. This is of great importance because it was exactly the
reciprocity of the spiritual and the secular that had hitherto defined a nun’s
existence in the convent.
I mplementing E nclosure in
the C ity
The implementation of enclosure was not a new idea for the women religious of Münster. Although strict enclosure was not introduced until
the 1610s, the idea had been hovering in the background since at least
the early decades of the sixteenth century. Two visitation records from
the pre-Tridentine era list the breaking of strict enclosure as one of the
complaints recorded. In 1518, and thus about one hundred years before
22
Evangelisti, Nuns, 56–7.
24
Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
enclosure was finally introduced in Münster, nuns were reminded that
‘men doing necessary works in the convent shall be led into the convent
and guided outside again’.23 By 1546, the tone had become harsher. Now
nuns were ordered not to leave enclosure ‘under the pain of ban, only with
the permission of the visitor shall it be allowed. The windows on the choir
facing the square in front of the church shall be closed so that they can
never be opened again, in order to prevent wayward gazes’.24 The introduction of enclosure was therefore attempted long before the Tridentine
decrees arrived in Münster, but only during the reign of Ferdinand von
Bayern did the ecclesiastical authorities make a serious effort to implement
enclosure in its strictest form.
Of course, living in enclosure hardly seemed enticing for many of the
women who had joined a convent under entirely different conditions.
But the rejection of this restrictive lifestyle was not the only reason why
the nuns of Münster protested such change. One motive that frequently
appears in the written communication between the convents and the
ecclesiastical authorities was that enclosure broke with the traditions of
the religious house. When, for example, the Observants—confessors of
the convent of Ringe—tried to force the sisters to accept strict enclosure in
1613, the women pointed to the long-established traditions of their house
to fend off the unwanted innovation. The monks had planned to bring
some Poor Clares from Cologne and implant these enclosed and silent
nuns at Ringe to accelerate the reformation of the house. Alarmed, Engele
Tünneken, mother superior of the house, appealed to the city council for
support against these unwelcome changes by quoting Ringe’s ancient traditions and liberties which had existed for ‘the past three hundred and
more years’.25 Mother Tünneken wrote that Ringe had been an open house
until 1491, when it had adopted the Third Rule of St Francis without,
however, introducing enclosure.26 In a society where legislation was still
largely built on custom, much legitimacy was derived from this appeal
to tradition. Moreover, by mentioning 1491, the date of the conversion
of the convent to the Rule of St Francis, the nuns reveal an awareness of
their own history and a conviction that their identity was bound to their
23
Staatsarchiv Münster (hereafter StAM), Studienfonds Münster, Überwasser Nr. 22
(1518).
24
StAM, Studienfonds Münster, Überwasser Nr. 24 (1546).
25
Bistums- und Diözesanarchiv Münster (hereafter BDAM), Ringe A 1 (1613),
unpaginated.
26
During the late Middle Ages, the convent had consisted of twelve sisters who had lived
together in a communal household. H. Lahrkamp, ‘Münster—Beginenhaus Ringe, dann
Terziarinnen’, 130.
The Reformation of Convent Life
25
particular religious house, rather than to the order as a whole. The strategy
worked: the city council refused permission for the Observants’ plan.
The idea of enclosure had its origin in the very principles of Christian
life and was rooted in a tradition reaching as far back as the beginnings
of monasticism. From the very first, the founders of monasteries sought
to guard religious men and women against commerce with the world and
interaction with the opposite sex, in order to concentrate on a life of perfection. Regulations on cloister date back to St Augustine, who advised
consecrated virgins to remain in their homes, separate from the world.
Thus, enclosure had originally been motivated by ideas of purity in both
mind and body. However, as the sources from Münster suggest, these
original impulses became more and more remote after Trent. Enclosure
began to carry a moral stigma. A convent which quietly accepted enclosure
invariably cast doubt on its reputation and lifestyle. As Mother Tünneken
wrote: ‘If we had to allow it, we would fall under the suspicion of our relatives and other people, that we had caused this through our bad life’.27 It
seems that, in the rush to achieve conformity, the ecclesiastical authorities
failed to transmit the positive stimuli of the idea of enclosure.28 Instead,
there was a new emphasis on control and discipline, with the effect that the
old-established religious houses perceived enclosure as alien and negative.
Enclosure was thus perceived as a method of correction for moral failings, a suspicion that the Ringe sisters did not want to be exposed to, for it
would have harmed the reputation of the convent as a safe haven for virtuous burgher daughters. This perception could have had serious implications for the financial and social wellbeing of the convent. The welfare of a
religious house largely depended on an economy of trust between the convent and the people of the outside world who paid the nuns to make intercessory prayers for their deceased relatives. This service was only as popular
as the nuns themselves. A house with a tarnished reputation might not
only experience difficulties recruiting new members, but might also find
its social connections to the world beyond its walls seriously damaged. In
BDAM, Ringe A 1 (1613), unpaginated.
Teresa of Avila (1515–82) would have disagreed with my argument. Initially, she
belonged to the Carmelite order, in which the nuns lived according to a modified rule. Over
the course of twenty years, Teresa was transformed by a series of visions and divine revelations. She established a convent, the Discalced Carmelites, which pursued a life of poverty,
communal property, and strict enclosure. The latter she saw as fundamental to the interpretation of the vow of chastity and to resist worldly temptations. See Bilinkoff, The Avila.
See also A. Conrad, ‘Ehe, Semireligiosentum und Orden—Frauen als Adressatinnen und
Aktivistinnen der Gegenreformation’, Zeitsprünge: Forschungen zur Frühen Neuzeit, vol. 1,
Heft 3/4 (1997), 541. Münster’s Poor Clares also adhered to strict enclosure. However, they
were only brought into the city in 1613 to implement enclosure at Ringe.
27
28
26
Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
order to protect the convent from such consequences, Mother Tünneken
pointed to the convent chapter as Ringe’s internal system of correction.
Crucially, any matters discussed at chapter were kept secret to protect the
reputation of the religious house.
We will not let ourselves be punished, because we are not in the least aware
of any misdeeds for which we could be punished against our vote and our
ancient liberties . . . if defects should be found with one or the other, because
we are all human and no-one can be pure in front of God, we have our
means to correct these wrongs according to our Rule and there is no reason
to change it.29
Enclosure was thus perceived as a disciplinary measure, and not a positive
incentive for a contemplative life in silence and seclusion.
Defending their traditions was not the only reason why the nuns
opposed enclosure. They knew that it would threaten the close ties they
shared with the local community. Every time the Ringe nuns went to hear
mass or make confession, they shared the church of St Ludgeri with the
people belonging to the parish. Indeed, the ease of communication and
exchange that was available here between the members of the religious
house and the general public was one of the reasons for the introduction
of enclosure. While the visitors strongly disapproved of the fact that the
sacred and the profane were allowed to mix freely on a daily basis, the nuns
saw this quite differently. They understood that using the same church as
the rest of the parish community helped them to forge essential links with
the very people who supported Ringe financially, and from whom they
recruited future generations of convent brides. In her letter to the city
council, Mother Tünneken emphasized the integration of Ringe by pointing out that the nuns ‘shared the church of St Ludgeri with the community
for their daily church service, on high feast days, normal Sundays and
other festive days’. Furthermore, she reminded the councillors that they
had their own pew in St Ludgeri amongst the other ‘honourable burgher
women and daughters’, assigning them a central space among the parishioners.30 The nuns also maintained regular contact with the urban community by offering prayers and memorial masses. They cared for the sick,
the frail, and the dying; they washed the dead, dressed their bodies for the
funeral, and held watch over them. Perhaps the most visible part of their
public service came when the nuns ‘followed their friends and relatives
in distress and respect to their graves’.31 To the realm of the living, they
BDAM, Ringe A 1 (1613), unpaginated. 29
Ibid. 31 Ibid.
30
The Reformation of Convent Life
27
offered alms and food to the deprived and regularly provided four different poor houses in the city with meals. The Ringe nuns therefore not only
cherished the participation of the parish community in their services, they
also formed an integral and important part of the communal life of the
wider urban public.
In their letter, the Ringe nuns emphasized that it was exactly the fact
that they were not enclosed (‘that their rule had not been so strict’) that
made them a popular choice amongst the citizenry: ‘this is the house of
burghers and their children, built by them and supported by them’.32 The
letter was a reminder to the city council that the nuns came from the same
background as many members of the council and also skilfully hinted at
the longstanding animosities that existed between city and church. This
emphasis on the unity between town and convent was built on the double
identity of religious women as nuns and as daughters of local families.
Officially, professed nuns only belonged to the ecclesiastical realm; in
practice, however, they still had many ties of loyalty to their own families.
This inclusiveness of secular life was not only a defining characteristic of
Ringe, but also an important part of its religious identity. The Ringe nuns
obviously saw no contradiction between their status as women who had
given their lives to serve the Lord, and the continuation of their worldly
entanglements. The introduction of the reforms of Trent threatened the
reciprocity that had marked a nun’s life until then.
Meanwhile, the guilds came to the aid of the Ringe. The masters complained to the magistrates:
We give our support to the nuns against enclosure in the name of the whole
community, because this house is especially dedicated to the children of honourable burghers, so it is for the whole citizenry and above all, those who
have been blessed by God with numerous children, who can otherwise be
put into only very few convents in this area.33
The guilds also pointed out that the Poor Clares relied on charity for
their survival. Founded in the thirteenth century as female tertiaries, the
Poor Clares had initially wandered around cities begging for bread. In
the fifteenth century, they adopted strict enclosure and since then relied
even more on charity from the laity and from other religious houses—a
significant disadvantage in the eyes of the urban community.34 Yet, convinced of the bishop’s determination to settle these nuns in Münster, the
Ibid., (14 May 1613).
Ibid.
34
Ibid., 131 (September 1613). See also O. Hufton, The Prospect before Her: A History of
Women in Western Europe, vol. 1, 1500–1800 (London, 1997), 367.
32
33
28
Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
magistrates’ opposition began to wane. In December 1613 the city fathers
finally granted permission to the Poor Clares to stay. However, the resistance of the guilds continued. In May 1614, Bishop Ferdinand informed
the city council that he had bought a house next to Ringe Convent for the
Poor Clares. Incensed, the guilds drew up a list detailing the conditions to
which the sisters would have to adhere: they were not to buy more property in the city; they were not to admit more than sixteen nuns and eight
lay sisters into their house; and they were not allowed to beg for alms in
the city.35 After protracted negotiations and generous episcopal patronage, the Poor Clares received the right to found their own convent in the
city with a small chapel attached.36 Like the Ringe nuns, they were also
supervised by the Observants, and had a sacellanus and a confessor living
on their premises. The conflict had thus morphed from a discussion about
the reformation of Ringe Convent into an argument about the admission
of yet another religious order to the town. The guild masters had been
right to be sceptical.
Meanwhile, the relationship between the Ringe nuns and the ecclesiastical authorities remained difficult. Bishop Ferdinand now decided
to invite Nikolaus Wiggers (1555–1628), Provincial Superior of the
Observants in Cologne, to Münster in order to visit the nuns and explain
to them the serious consequences their obstinate behaviour might bring
upon their house. Wiggers, whose personal motto was, aptly, ‘ubi rigor,
ibi vigor ’ (‘where there is sternness, there is strength’), immediately set
about breaking the resistance of the nuns. He prohibited Ringe from
admitting new girls to the convent, thereby endangering the very survival of the house. In desperation, Mother Tünneken decided to turn to
the Franciscans—the old-established rival branch of the Observants—for
help.37 Their guardian, Winand Alstorff, did not hesitate to offer support,
presumably also because it was an opportunity to challenge the authority of the Observants. This brought the conflict to a new climax. After a
furious complaint from the Observants, Bishop Ferdinand punished the
Ringe nuns for their disobedience with the interdict, which remained in
effect for two years; Winand Alstorff was punished for his interference
with excommunication. Not long after this episode, Alstorff turned his
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, AXIII Nr. 448 (5 September 1614).
The church was inaugurated in 1619.
37
The first surviving source recording the number of members of the Franciscans, dating
from 1624, lists twelve priests, four students, nine novices, and eight lay brothers. In 1634,
we find forty-three names: sixteen priests, eighteen students, nine lay brothers. In 1802, the
house comprised twenty-seven priests, three students, twelve lay brothers, and two tertiaries. L. Schütte, ‘Münster—Minoriten’, in Hengst (ed.), Westfälisches Klosterbuch, vol. 2, 76.
35
36
The Reformation of Convent Life
29
back on Münster for good and emigrated to the Netherlands, where he
converted to Calvinism. As the authorities were well aware, conflicts over
the religious orders in the city were played out against a background of
confessional diversity in the region at large.
In 1616, stern Nikolaus Wiggers was promoted to superior (Präses) of
the Observants in Münster, and he set about verifying on a daily basis
that the nuns were indeed adhering to the rules of enclosure. Much to
the annoyance of the women, Wiggers decided to hear regular mass at
the convent. The nuns were so enraged by this constant interference that
they sought comfort in a new prayer: ‘O Lord, deliver us from the taunts
(Nachstellungen) of the evil monks’.38 In November 1616, they decided
to write to Rome.39 In a letter addressed to the College of Cardinals and
the Pope, they questioned the legitimacy of the Observants’ supposed
supervisory role and complained that their superiors tried to force them
into submission ‘with ferocity, with threats, and [with] coercion’.40 Finally,
in 1618, a compromise was brokered: the convent was placed under the
supervision of the bishop, while the spiritual guidance of the nuns was to
rest with the deacon of St Ludgeri. The nuns were also allowed to choose
the Capuchins as their confessors.41 But, despite these victories, in 1621
Ringe was eventually ordered by Rome to submit to enclosure.
V isitations
At about the same time, the Überwasser nuns also became involved in
a lengthy argument with the ecclesiastical authorities, which again
reached as far as Rome. It began in 1614 with the announcement of a
visitation to Überwasser. Visitations were the preferred method of the
Counter-Reformation church to implement reforms. Approved in 1547
by the Council of Trent, they were a means for examining, supervising,
and controlling convents on a regular basis and, if necessary, to reform
Lahrkamp, ‘Münster—Beginenhaus Ringe’, 129.
StdAMs, Kloster Ringe, Akte 47 (2 November 1616).
40
StdAMs, Kloster Ringe, Akte 48 (28 March 1618).
41
Incidentally, the arrival of the Capuchins in the city in 1612 (on the recommendation
of the papal nuncio, Antonio Albergati) had been accompanied by a similar battle. The
argumentation of the guilds was the same as for the case of Ringe: that too many religious
were already burdening the city with their begging and privileges. The complaints of the
guilds were sufficiently effective that the Capuchins failed to find a house to settle in until
1616, when the friars offered the city one thousand Reichstaler for the purchase of a burgher
house. Eventually, the Capuchins numbered fourteen members in 1668, twenty-two in
1700, and twenty-seven in 1750. G. Große, ‘Münster—Kapuziner’, in Hengst (ed.),
Westfälisches Klosterbuch, vol. 2, 100.
38
39
30
Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
any shortcomings that were discovered. The preambles of visitation
decrees from Münster show that the ecclesiastical authorities saw visitations as an important precondition for successfully reforming female religious houses.42 In their appeal to the cathedral chapter, addressed ‘to our
relatives and friends’, the Überwasser nuns pointed to their noble background—a social status which they shared with the cathedral canons—as
the reason why they should not be bothered with the reformation of their
convent: ‘As members of the noble class, we should not be made equal in
customs and rights to the other common convents’.43 This method was
effective. When the visitors arrived in Münster, the cathedral chapter, itself
an exclusively noble club, announced ‘that they had since time immemorial been the patrons of Überwasser and now the abbess and nuns have
complained that they were supposed to be burdened with an extraordinary and unlawful visitation’.44 Indeed, Arnold von Büren, deacon of the
cathedral chapter, pointed out that Überwasser Convent had never been
regulated like the less exclusive female religious houses in town, but had
possessed liberties and privileges befitting its elevated social background.45
The nuns of Überwasser could rely on some very influential people to
support their case. After all, the cathedral chapter was interceding on the
nuns’ behalf by acting directly against the orders of its superior, Ferdinand
von Bayern, by hindering the deployment of one of the most powerful
Counter-Reformation tools: the visitation.
In the face of so much resistance, the visitors decided to send a detailed
report to the superior of the Benedictine order in Cologne, to inform him
of the unreceptive behaviour of this female Benedictine house. Attached
to this document was a big bundle of ‘evidence’, comprising all the communication the visitors had exchanged with the nuns, the cathedral chapter, and with Bishop Ferdinand.46 The story unfolded thus: in February
1614, three weeks before the appointed time, the visitors had announced
their intention to carry out a visitation at Überwasser. The sisters immediately began to mobilize their supporters amongst the cathedral chapter.
The canons took action by suggesting a meeting between their own representative and the visitors to negotiate the matter. However, for unknown
reasons the meeting never happened and the visitors arrived in Münster at
42
E.g.: ‘Following the order of His Most Reverend Grace and Prince Ferdinand
Archbishop of Cologne and Prince-bishop of Münster in honour of God, to visit and to
reform the convent Beata Maria Virginis ordinis S. Benedicti to Überwasser. . . ’. StAM,
Domkapitel, Akten Nr. 818 (1617).
43
StAM, Domkapitel, Akten Nr. 817 (1614).
44
StAM, Studienfonds, Überwasser 23 (1614).
45
Ibid.
46
Ibid., (9–12 March 1614).
The Reformation of Convent Life
31
the beginning of March, demanding access to Überwasser. They were met
by a lawyer and a representative of the cathedral chapter who explained
that the nuns believed the visitors did not hold visitation rights over them
(this was confirmed by the lawyer) and felt they should be exempt from
any interference because of their privileges and ancient liberties. Naturally,
the visitors disagreed with both arguments and insisted that the nuns’
resistance was unlawful.
The visitors continued to negotiate with the cathedral chapter, but no
progress was made. To further strengthen their case, they took the unusual step of questioning the nuns of Vinnenberg Convent, a religious
house not far from Münster. Vinnenberg had close connections with
Überwasser: the first abbess of Überwasser after the Anabaptist takeover was a Vinnenberg nun. The visitors asked detailed questions about
Überwasser, its traditions and regulations. ‘Had the convent adopted
the Benedictine rule? . . . Was it a closed or free community? . . . Did the
parlour (Sprechhaus) have grills in front of its windows? . . . Did a
Benedictine father live at Überwasser? . . . Did the nuns take public vows in
the convent habit of St Benedict? . . . Was it true that the Überwasser nuns
wore the same habit as the cloistered Benedictine nuns of St Aegidii?’47
The aim of the exercise was to prove that the Überwasser women had originally lived in enclosure and were, therefore, in breach of the rule of their
convent when they resisted its reintroduction. It seems surprising that the
ecclesiastical authorities should make such an effort to legitimize their
procedures, instead of just pushing them through by force and threats.
Was this because the women had ‘gone public’ and involved the cathedral
chapter in the controversy? This was certainly an important factor, yet here
again the power of tradition made itself felt. The visitors wanted to ensure
that they did not break with the ancient customs of this noble house. They
had obviously decided to tackle the opposition of the nuns by proving
that they only wanted to reinstate what had formerly existed. Finally, after
much further wrangling, the nuns grudgingly agreed to let the officials
through the gates of their convent. The findings of this disputed visitation
are, unfortunately, unknown.
What is clear, though, is that the nuns continued their lively exchange of
letters with the cathedral chapter to promote their case. Yet, in 1616, they
received word that seven nuns were to be transferred from other houses in
Cologne to Überwasser, to push through the reformation of the convent.48
The women reacted by drawing up a contract detailing their future position
47
48
cf. BDAM, Überwasser A 2/1 (1614).
StAM, Domkapitel, Akten Nr. 817 (1614–17).
32
Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
in the convent, covering such aspects as maintenance, their spiritual provision, and financial details.49 The paper was signed by every single one of
the nuns living at Überwasser. They also listed their expenditures over the
past decades so as to show coming generations how carefully they had managed their finances and had provided for the future of the religious house.
The document presents the Überwasser nuns as skilled businesswomen,
entirely capable of running their own affairs, even in times of hardship and
misfortune—a talent that had obviously not deserted them by 1616. After
almost three years of disputes, lobbying, and negotiations, the nuns secured
a detailed contract which addressed every eventuality that might occur during their remaining life in the convent. The agreement with the bishop
secured the status of the convent by confirming that only girls who could
prove sixteen noble ancestors could be admitted, ‘because in the whole of
the bishopric of Münster there is not another convent like this and the
knights (Ritterschaft) have no other convent for their children’.50 Abbess Ida
von Vörden was allowed to remain in her position, which at least provided
the rest of the ‘unreformed’ community with a sympathetic ear inside the
convent. The cathedral chapter would continue to advise the community
in financial and other matters. Most importantly, however, it was decided
that the established nuns were not to be reformed, but were instead allowed
to continue living according to their existing customs and rules. Although
the sisters were moved to separate living quarters at the other end of the
convent garden, so as not to disturb the enclosure of the new nuns, they
were allowed to receive visitors; keep their personal belongings; enjoy the
fruits of the financial provisions their families had made for them; retain
their own confessor; and be given their final resting place in the grounds of
the convent.51 The ‘old’ nuns of Überwasser thus lived according to their
traditional religious practices, while the new, reformed nuns began their
silent life of enclosure just across the garden path.
Despite the fact that Überwasser was unable to thwart the reformation
of the convent altogether, the nuns achieved a relatively comfortable deal
with the authorities. In the end, the combined pressures from the bishop,
the ecclesiastical authorities, and the superiors of the Benedictine order,
were simply too great for a group of religious women to resist any longer.52
BDAM, Überwasser A 5/1 (1616) and StAM, Domkapitel, Akten Nr. 818 (1617).
StAM, Domkapitel, Akten Nr. 818 (1617).
51
Ibid.
52
Two previous attempts to reform Überwasser Convent, by Bishop Egbert (1127–36)
and Bishop Johann von Pfalz-Simmern (1457–66), were unsuccessful. In 1483, Bishop
Heinrich von Schwarzenberg (1466–96) proved more successful by turning the convent
into a Benedictine house.
49
50
The Reformation of Convent Life
33
Even so, their persistence, social background, and networking skills achieved
a remarkable compromise between old and new lifestyles within the walls
of a single convent. Nevertheless, life at Überwasser Convent had changed
forever. We can glimpse the pending transformation and its ramifications
through changes made to the traditional profession formula at Überwasser.
In 1616, professa Grete Thomfelde still professed that:
I, Grete Thomfelde, give myself to the convent of Überwasser, which has been
built to honour the holiest Virgin Mary, and vow to keep obedience, unity and
voluntary poverty for God in Heaven, Holy Mary and all Saints, in the presence
of the Abbot Jacobi and Iden von Vörden, abbess and to honour the convent
and subdue myself to her correction.53
Seven years later, the emphasis had clearly changed: I, Sister Enneke Stumpenhagen, vow that I will be obedient to Abbot
Hermanno, and to Iden von Vörden, abbess of this convent, her successors
and the order, and to be true to the convent, and I subdue myself completely
to their correction.54
The stress now lay on obedience and correction, while the religious aspects of
profession had almost disappeared in an effort to enforce spiritual and behavioural conformity. A clear hierarchy of submission had been established: obedience to the abbot, to the female superior and, finally, to the order. Mary, the
Saints, and God are no longer mentioned—further evidence of how two of
the main motivations lying behind Counter-Reformation confessional policies—obedience and discipline—impacted upon the lives of nuns.
M ultiple I dentities
In times of trouble, convents had two different groups of people to whom
they could turn for support: their superiors within the ecclesiastical hierarchy, and the laity in the secular world. However, neither the clergy nor
the laity supported the nuns merely out of charity; they also had their
own interests at heart. The church authorities wanted to increase their
power and influence over the religious houses in the city and sought to
force through a new kind of post-Tridentine discipline. Throughout the
seventeenth century, the Catholic Church became increasingly preoccupied with questions of orthodoxy and uniformity, while church courts
dealt with cases of heresy, mysticism, and those forms of spirituality on the
53
54
StAM, Studienfonds Münster, Überwasser Nr. 64 (1616–1704).
Ibid.
34
Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
margins of Catholicism.55 Münster was, of course, a place of special significance in this regard. The city carried the stigma of having been lost to
the arch-enemy, radical Protestantism. As we saw, most of the Überwasser
nuns had been involved in the Anabaptist Kingdom, and Jonathan Grieser
has interpreted their enthusiasm for Anabaptism as forming part of the
convent’s struggle for self-determination against the interference of the
ecclesiastical authorities. The abbess Ida van Merfeldt, unwilling to involve
the bishop, only informed him of the goings-on in the convent when most
of her fellow nuns had already left and were actively agitating for reform
outside.56 The abbess knew well that help from the ecclesiastical authorities came at the price of growing interference in the convent’s affairs.
The other group of people to whom convents appealed in times of need
were the citizens of Münster. These were comprised of various groups
divided by their social and professional status—divisions which also determined the allegiances they forged with the many religious houses in the
city. Convents were a safe haven for burghers’ daughters.57 This was one
reason why the old-established houses never wanted for secular supporters
when their rights and traditions where under threat. Ringe Convent, for
example, mainly recruited its members from amongst the guild elite of the
city, while Überwasser and St Aegidii Convents were open to Münster’s
patriciate. In order to join the exclusive community of Überwasser, the
parents of a new recruit had to be noble and to afford a substantial dowry.
In 1686, the father of Sophie von Moltke had to pay
the necessary mobilia in the form of a silver cup and spoon, linen and
beds, three hundred Reichstaler in cash, on top of twenty-five Reichstaler
statute-money and twenty-five Reichstaler for the first dresses; at the beginning of the noviciate, another hundred Reichstaler and, finally, when
through God’s mercy the daughter would be professed, an additional one
hundred and fifty Reichstaler.58
Placing a daughter in Überwasser did not come cheap: noble status and
money were the necessary prerequisites for admission to the most exclusive
convent in Münster and its hinterlands. Although modesty and humility
were seen as essential markers of a religious life, nuns were keen to display their social status and thus defend their place in the outside world.
55
See, for example, A. Jacobson Schutte, ‘Piccole donne, grandi eroine: santità femminile, simulata e vera, nell’ Italia della prima età moderna’, in L. Scaraffia and G. Zarri
(eds.), Donna e fede: santità e vita religiosa (Rome, 1994).
56
Grieser, ‘Two Convents’, 45.
57
J. Sperling, Convents and the Body Politic in Late Renaissance Venice (Chicago, 1999).
58
R. Schulze, Das adelige Damenstift und die Pfarre Liebfrauen (Überwasser) zu Münster
(Münster, 1926), 28.
The Reformation of Convent Life
35
Convents were far from being places of social equality. In 1614, the visitors to St Aegidii Convent complained:
Disagreeable vanity is what God hates most of all and all pious Christians
curse it, it has sneaked in so that they [the nuns] do not wear their spiritual
clothes any more as suitable for pious virgins, but follow the opulence of the
world and dress like other worldly persons do with hangers and big bulges
around the body with blue embellishments ( gestifftsel ). Other signs of vanity
have been abundantly exhibited, so that secular people have shown their just
disapproval and have been not a little annoyed.59
The aristocratic inhabitants of St Aegidii had obviously decided to leave
their habits in their cells, preferring to dress according to the social background into which they had been born, rather than the position they had
adopted later in life. The nuns wore their secular clothes as a statement and
reminder of their other identity as daughters of old-established families. In
their own way, early modern convents were surprisingly status conscious.
On the day of profession nuns merely left one hierarchical world to enter
another.60
A further reason why the female religious could count on the support
of the outside world was the charity they provided for the local poor. The
poor relief register of Überwasser, to take one example, lists all the works
of charity performed by the nuns. Throughout the week, they fed the poor
on Sundays to honour the Holy Trinity, on Mondays for all pious souls,
on Tuesdays to honour St Anne, on Wednesdays to honour St Agatha, on
Thursdays to honour St Benedict, on Fridays to honour the Thousand
Martyrs, on Saturdays to honour our beloved lady, Holy Mary . . . . At
the beginning of the month we allow eight people to eat as much as they
like . . . . And when a sister dies, we feed one person every day for the duration of a month . . . . When we bake, we give bread to the poor houses on the
Honencampe, to St Johann’s, to Kinderhus, and on the Bergstraße.61
Charity was thus an important link between a convent and the lay community. In addition, the sources list other spiritual services, such as prayers
and memorial masses, which the nuns were asked to perform. Nuns therefore occupied an influential mediating position in society by communicating between the living and the dead. Charity and prayer tied them to
StAM, Domkapitel, Akten Nr. 864 (1614).
The nuns of St Aegidii also participated in religious and secular festivities outside the
convent, visited their families, and allowed their relatives to stay in the convent for weeks.
W. Kohl, Das Zisterzienserinnen-, später Benediktinerinnenkloster St. Aegidii zu Münster,
Germania Sacra 3. Folge 1: Das Bistum Münster, 10 (Berlin, New York, 2009), 71. On the
material life of nuns, see also S. Evangelisti, ‘Rooms to share’, 55–71.
61
StAM, Studienfonds Münster, Überwasser Nr. 69, unknown date.
59
60
36
Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
the people of the secular world and formed one of the nuns’ most important ‘business relationships’—a direct link that had survived the brutal
upheaval of Protestantism and Anabaptism, and yet was to be severely
restricted by the post-Tridentine Catholic Church.
A N ew O rder in Town
In the course of the seventeenth century, these two principal services provided by convents for the benefit of society were joined by a third: female
education. The young boys of the area had been able to attend the new
Jesuit school in Münster from the 1590s onwards, taking advantage of
the Society’s free education; girls only received a similar opportunity
half a century later, in 1644, with the arrival of the Congrégation de
Notre-Dame (Lotharinger Chorfrauen).62 Originally founded in Lorraine
in 1598, the order was set up by Alix le Clerc, a laywoman, and Pierre
Fourier, canon regular of St Augustine at Chaumousey. The Congrégation
soon became one of the most popular female teaching orders in the east of
France. Female teaching orders, like the Congrégation de Notre-Dame or
the Ursulines, wanted to create educational opportunities for girls similar
to those which the Jesuits provided for boys, although more advanced
learning was, of course, not their objective. Instead, female teaching orders
aimed for an education based on traditional Catholic values intended to
turn girls into devout members of society. Although female education was
not a new invention—convents had been a site of female education since
the Middle Ages—early modern initiatives specifically aimed to educate
girls for a life ‘in the world’, rather than simply to prepare them to become
future brides of Christ like their medieval predecessors.63
When Alix le Clerc had first approached her confessor with her idea
of opening a school for girls, she was advised to join a traditional order
instead. But Alix later recalled how Ignatius of Loyola appeared to her in a
dream and convinced her to stay true to her idea:
it seemed to me that I was in one of your houses [a Jesuit college]: there was
a convent and a great number of your brothers, who walked in procession,
and our sisters sat in a corner next to the gate of the convent. I had a rake,
62
The schools at Überwasser and St Aegidii Convents were only open to daughters of the
Westphalian elite. Bistum Münster, R. Frauenseelsorge (ed.), 1200 Jahre Frauen im Bistum
Münster: ein Lesebuch (Münster, 2005), 44.
63
A. Conrad, ‘Weibliche Lehrorden und katholische höhere Mädchenschulen im 17.
Jahrhundert’, in E. Kleinau and C. Opitz (eds.), Geschichte der Mädchen- und Frauenbildung,
vol. 1 (Frankfurt am Main, 1996), 255.
The Reformation of Convent Life
37
[the kind] with which one collects the hay of the meadow, and I collected
all straws scattered around the convent, in order to make use of them. The
fathers did not pay attention to me and seemed to disregard my actions,
with the exception of one, who looked very dignified and who seemed to
have authority over the others. He looked at me in a friendly manner and
signalled to me that I should continue with my work. When I had regained
consciousness, I understood that this was the holy father Ignatius, who had
encouraged me to continue with the schooling of young girls who are paid
as little regard as straws.64
Pierre Fourier had already attempted, without success, to set up a school
for boys in 1597 when he became curé of Mattaincourt, a country parish
in Lorraine. He failed because the young men he assembled as teachers
lacked the stamina and patience to make the school a success. About the
same time, Fourier was approached by Alix le Clerc, who later remembered their first meeting:
I was twenty years old when I received my religious vocation . . . . The inspiration came to me to create a new community of women to do all the good
that was possible, and this idea took hold of me so powerfully that I went at
once to propose it to our good Father, begging him to allow me to arrange
it all; but he was unwilling, and showed me the difficulty that there would
be in finding women who had what was necessary to undertake this new
vocation.65
Undeterred, Alix collected a handful of volunteers and with them managed to persuade Fourier to join the endeavour. In 1603, a new school
opened in Nancy, followed a year later by one in Port-a-Mousson. In
1605, the house at Saint-Nicolas du Port, the mother house of Münster,
opened its doors.
The main model available for emulation by Alix le Clerc and Pierre
Fourier was that of the Ursulines, a teaching order that had spread with
fantastic speed throughout Italy and Spain during the sixteenth century.
Like the nuns of the Congrégation, the Ursulines had originally followed
a lifestyle uninhibited by enclosure, which enabled them to pursue their
work outside the confines of community and convent. In their rejection of
the vita communis and their emphasis on teaching, they were often compared to the Jesuits. The Ursulines’ activities were an expression of many
pious women’s desire to live an active religious life in their own right,
64
Mutter Alexia le Clerc, Leben von ihr und einer ihrer ersten Gefährtinnen beschrieben,
edited by Wilhelm Emanuel Hubert (Mainz, 1897), 32.
65
le Clerc, Relation a la gloire de Dieu et de sa sainte Mère, et au salut mon âme (Nancy,
1666), quoted in A. de Besancet, Le bienheureux Pierre Fourier et la Lorraine (Paris,
1864), 44–5.
38
Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
outside the tradition of contemplative monasticism that the church prescribed for them. However, those female religious belonging to a teaching order had to live with the tension arising between the demands of
their active apostolate and the prescription of enclosure dictated by Trent.
Living their vita activa, unenclosed and in the midst of the lay community,
was only possible if the women were willing to forgo official recognition
as a regular order and, with it, various important rights and privileges.66
The Ursulines were faced with this tension almost from the moment of
their inception in Italy and again, with renewed force, when they opened
their first communities in France. In the end, they opted for recognition
as a true religious order and, therefore, enclosure. However, they managed
to salvage one important part of their original mission by adding a fourth
vow to those of poverty, chastity, and obedience: this new vow obligated
the nuns to open schools and offer education to girls within the confines
of enclosure. Charitable work that would have led them outside their convent was abolished, but female education remained a fundamental part of
their identity as female religious.
The Congrégation was in many ways similar to the Ursulines, although
never as large, nor as geographically widespread; it mainly opened communities in Lorraine and the north-east of France.67 It took the Congrégation
thirty years to gain legitimacy: not until 1628 were the sisters finally
granted papal approval. The length of this process was partly due to the
lack of powerful patrons. Although the nuns had the support of the court
of Lorraine, the Primate of Lorraine, and the bishops of Metz, Toul, and
Verdun, these connections were far less influential than the support given
to the Ursulines by the French royal court. Another obstacle was created
by the way in which Pierre Fourier originally envisioned the order: he
wanted the Congrégation to run its houses under the joint supervision
of a single mère intendante and a general chapter. This idea brought the
Congrégation dangerously close to the vision of the generalate which
Mary Ward had advanced.68 To ensure that they could run their schools
as effectively as possible, Fourier asked for the Congrégation to be granted
a moderated form of enclosure.69 In one of his letters, he explained his
Ibid., 200.
E. Rapley, The Dévotes: Women and Church in Seventeenth-Century France (Montreal;
Kingston; London; Buffalo, 1990), 61.
68
Mary Ward had created the first female generalate for her Institute of the Blessed
Virgin Mary. Ward, at its head as the Mother Superior General, acted as a central figure of
authority who governed all the branches across Europe. This evaded the usual channels of
authority embodied by local bishops and ordinaries, and ignoring the prescriptions of Trent.
cf. L. Lux-Sterritt, Redefining Female Religious Life: French Ursulines and English Ladies in
Seventeenth-Century Catholicism (Farnham, 2005), 31. See also Rapley, The Dévotes, 62.
69
S. E. Dinan, Women and Poor Relief in Seventeenth-Century France: The Early History of
the Daughters of Charity (Aldershot, 2006), 29.
66
67
The Reformation of Convent Life
39
view of enclosure: ‘Clausura does not consist in an unchangeable, indivisible form . . . it is open to being more, or to being less’.70 Nevertheless,
years passed by without the Congrégation gaining official recognition.
During this time, Fourier drew up various plans and rules, many of them
concerned with the issue of enclosure and teaching. Eventually, however,
Fourier and le Clerc came to accept that full enclosure was simply unavoidable in order to gain official recognition for the Congrégation. When they
finally received papal recognition in 1628, they won the right to teach,
secured by the fourth vow, but the nuns had to enter full enclosure. This
caused considerable financial as well as physical constraints: the nuns had
to raise the dowries of entrants and to make their boarding schools more
exclusive—both these measures ran counter to their original intentions.
Opening a house in Münster had not been the nuns’ initial plan. Before
they arrived, they had already spent several years traversing the German
lands in search of a place to settle after their house in Saint-Nicolas had been
destroyed in November 1635. The sisters had watched helplessly as their
home was burned to the ground by the troops of Bernhard von SachsenWeimar, the stained glass windows melting in the heat, and the majority
of their possessions consumed by the flames. To their fellow sisters, Pierre
Fourier described the calamity that had befallen Saint-Nicolas thus:
I inform you that on the 5th of this month of November, your sisters of
St Nicolas have unexpectedly and with violence been forced to abandon
their convent and to relinquish everything inside to a regiment of rough
soldiers, whose language one cannot understand and who carry everything
away . . . [the sisters] are frightened, utterly dismayed and distraught, [they
are] without money, without bread, in poor clothes . . . it is impossible to find
a carriage or a place of refuge for these poor sheep, or any lay people who will
pay for transport, and then: if one wants to escape danger, one gets into danger: [there is] danger in escape, and danger in remaining; danger of hunger;
danger of misfortune; danger of finding no refuge; and in some places, even
the danger of rape. It seems that nothing can be done for them other than to
substitute one danger with another . . . 71
Leaving Lorraine, the women had first set their sights on Trier. When they
finally arrived in the city in 1640, they quickly realized that this was not
the safe haven they had hoped for but was, at best, a place to replenish
their energies before moving on. Ravaged by war, the city’s population
was not amenable to a new order settling there. Indeed, in 1637 and 1640
70
P. Fourier, Sa Correspondence 1598–1640, vol. 2, Janvier 1625–6 Mai 1628, (Nancy,
1987), 347.
71
Letter from P. Fourier of 8 November 1635, as cited in H. Mecke, Up de Nonnen: 350
Jahre Paderborn—Das Michaelskloster und seine Schulen (Paderborn, 2008), 12–13.
40
Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
there had previously been public agitation against the large number of
religious houses in the city.72 The sisters therefore moved on, their hopes
now pinned on Cologne, which had a long-established reputation as the
‘German Rome’. Matthäus Merian the Elder’s aerial perspective map of
1646 shows a city over-flowing with churches. By the middle of the seventeenth century, the city housed around 120 churches and monasteries.
Its streets and squares were dotted with church buildings, large crucifixes,
and outdoor altars, and, of course, the (as yet unfinished) cathedral—
the crowning glory of this Catholic conglomeration. One Dutch visitor
reported three hundred churches, while another wrote in his journal that
the city is ‘full of churches, monasteries and ecclesiastical buildings; 365
of them, they say’, one for each day of the year.73 A city that had always
welcomed religious enterprise and apparently had little difficulty granting
its clergy special rights and protection, Cologne possessed obvious attractions to nuns seeking refuge.
In Cologne there also resided a man who would later become one of
the most important supporters of the Congrégation: Fabio Chigi, Papal
Nuncio and, from 1644 until 1649, Papal Delegate at the peace negotiations in Münster. In 1655, Chigi was elected to the highest office, and
became Pope Alexander VII. It is not known if the sisters actually made
contact with Chigi while they were trying to establish themselves in
Cologne, but they could easily have used the letter of protection that the
bishop of Toul had granted them to gain access to him. Initially, however,
it did not seem necessary to ask for help. The nuns recorded how they
‘stayed for a good while in Cologne but not without benefit, resided there
with good hope of becoming established, which was supported by the
generosity of pious people who gave them two hundred Reichsthaler.’74
Their wish to open a house was apparently off to a good start thanks to
the generosity of Cologne’s citizens. Not much later, though, a curious
incident was reported in the Annals: ‘but when they gave their money to a
citizen to look after it, who had promised them to buy a small house with
it, he slipped away unnoticed’.75 It seems the women had placed their trust
in a fraudster who vanished with their money! A second obstacle appeared
in the more familiar form of the Ursulines, who had already opened a
convent in Cologne in 1639 (their first house in Germany). The sisters of
Convent chronicle of St Michael, Kloster St Michael Paderborn, A 1, not paginated.
J. Bikker, ‘Cologne, the “German Rome” in views by Berckheyde and van der Heyden
and the Journals of Seventeenth-Century Dutch Tourists’, Simiolus: Netherlands Quarterly
for the History of Art, vol. 32, no. 4 (2006), 280.
74
Kloster St Michael, Annalen A III, 10.
75
Ibid.
72
73
The Reformation of Convent Life
41
the Congrégation may well have declined to enter into direct competition
with so established a teaching order, especially since the Ursulines had generously provided the Congrégation with useful advice during the difficult
phase of its foundation in France.76 And so, in 1642, the Congrégation
finally arrived in Münster, a city that was doubtless attractive because it
had largely been spared the devastating effects of the Thirty Years’ War, and
because it was ruled by Bishop Ferdinand von Bayern, a known supporter
of Catholic reform. In Münster, there was reason to hope again.
How exactly the sisters spent the five years following their arrival in
the city is unknown, but we do know that it was the order’s specific aim
to improve the education of young girls by offering free schooling and, in
1644, they opened a school in town.77 The sources show that from 1647
onwards, the nuns regularly petitioned the city council for permission to
build a small convent. Adding weight to their request, they pointed out
that ‘we will not be a burden to anyone, since we rely on our foundations, and, where this is not enough, we do handicrafts, like needlework
and other such things, and we also teach children in piety, writing, reading, and good manners without asking money for it’.78 In fact, the nuns
supported themselves in a variety of ways. They did indeed teach children and took in paying boarders, but they also sold handicrafts, raised
medicinal plants for sale, and farmed poultry. From their foundation in
Paderborn, we know that the lay sisters also washed and folded the clerical
dresses of the cathedral chapter. They made ribbons, collars, and wreaths
for the laity; at Easter they baked traditional Easter cakes. The rest of their
income came from husbandry, the farming of a few pigs and cows, fruits
harvested from a small patch of arable land, and from a large vegetable
garden. Lists of donations—of money and foodstuffs—from the houses of
Essen and Paderborn also survive in books of benefactors. Most important
of all, though, were the dowries the nuns received when they admitted
new members to the order.79 Despite all this evidence of their initiative
and ability to support themselves, it was not easy to persuade the secular
authorities of Münster to allow the Congrégation to settle permanently in
76
Although the Cologne chronicle of the Ursulines mentions that a permanent settlement of the Congrégation de Notre-Dame was derailed by the restrictive policies of the
city council. A. Rutz, Bildung—Konfession—Geschlecht: Religiöse Frauengemeinschaften und
die katholische Mädchenbildung im Rheinland (16.–18. Jahrhundert) (Mainz, 2006), 141.
77
H. Lahrkamp, ‘Münster—Augustiner-Chorfrauen, gen. Lotharingerkloster’, in
Hengst (ed.), Westfälisches Klosterbuch, vol. 2, 109.
78
BDAM, Lotharinger A 5/2 (1647).
79
Information kindly provided by Sister Ancilla Ernstberger of the Convent of St
Michael at Paderborn.
42
Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
the city. Although they soon managed to secure the approval of the bishop,
the sisters met with fierce opposition from the city council and especially
the guilds. They quickly realized that convents were part of a whole network of competitive powers which made not only the foundation of a new
house, but also the survival of an existing one, largely dependent on the
bargaining skills of its members.
From 1643 onwards, Münster also hosted the negotiations that were to
end the Thirty Years’ War, causing the city to absorb visitors from France,
the German Empire, and Italy—in total, numbering many times over its
actual size of about 15,000 inhabitants. One can easily imagine that, in
this context, a petition for a small convent by a largely unknown religious
order did not meet with much enthusiasm, especially as a number of other
orders had recently settled in Münster: the Society of Jesus had arrived in
1588; the Capuchins in 1612; the Observants and the Poor Clares followed a year later.80 The Dominicans had established a presence in the city
since the fourteenth century but, in 1649, Bishop Ferdinand gave them
permission to build a monastery.81 This decision was fiercely resisted by the
city council. The presence of so many clergy produced some palpably negative consequences for the citizenry: there was a shortfall in tax, because
religious property was exempt; property owned by religious houses was
held in mortmain and therefore lost to the community forever; clerics
were not subject to guard duty and other civic obligations; and, finally,
there was increased commercial competition from the religious houses
that engaged in book printing, book painting, and linen weaving. This
was the background for the Bürgermeisters’ complaint that ‘the city had
too many spiritual convent people burdening the burghers anyway’.82 The
council also pointed out that the nuns’ educational mission would ‘deprive
those other good people, who are already usefully instructing the youth, of
their livelihood’.83 Who exactly these ‘good people’ were remains unclear;
80
The dates of arrival of new orders in the city and their receiving official permission to
settle usually diverge.
In 1601, fifteen people lived in the Jesuit house: nine patres, two magistri, four lay brothers. In 1628, the Jesuits numbered sixty-six people: sixteen patres, ten magistri, ten lay
brothers, nineteen theologians, eleven philosophes. In 1630, they were seventy-two but,
by 1650, their number had gone down to sixty (thirty-two patres, five magistri, fourteen
lay brothers, and nine theologians). H. Sowade, ‘Münster—Jesuiten’, in Hengst (ed.),
Westfälisches Klosterbuch, vol. 2, 91. In 1670, the Observants numbered ten patres, twelve
patres, and seven lay brothers. C. Büchel, ‘Münster—Franziskaner’, in Hengst (ed.),
Westfälisches Klosterbuch, vol. 2, 105.
81
In 1794, the Dominican house comprised thirty-two people: twenty patres, two novices, and ten lay brothers. W. Kohl, ‘Münster—Dominikaner’, in Hengst (ed.), Westfälisches
Klosterbuch, vol. 2, 114.
82
BDAM, Lotharinger A 5/2 (1647).
83
Ibid., 16.
The Reformation of Convent Life
43
perhaps this was a reference to the schools run by the convents of Überwasser
and St Aegidii. In contrast to the Congrégation, however, these were very
small schools only open to girls who were intended to become nuns.84 Before
the arrival of the Congrégation, the existing educational provision for girls in
Münster was not systematic, widespread, or accessible enough to be of great
use to the general population. The Congrégation, on the other hand, offered
elementary education to girls from all backgrounds (even Protestants!) and
taught them how to read and write as well as to do handicrafts and sometimes
a little maths. Most attention, however, was focused on religious instruction.
All girls were supposed to learn different prayers, the catechism, and pious
rituals. The idea was to instil in the pupils a basic knowledge of the Catholic
faith. Reading and writing were therefore practised on religious texts, meaning that their content could be transmitted to the pupils at the same time. The
nuns believed that by teaching these skills they enabled the girls to become
steadfast Christians, good wives and responsible mothers, and, furthermore,
important disseminators of the Catholic message.85 While the sisters were to
check that their pupils did not just mindlessly repeat the material they had
learned, the nuns were strongly discouraged from interpreting the texts and
catechisms themselves. Any ‘superfluous discourse’ about the material was to
be avoided.86 Like other teaching orders, the Congrégation also ran boarding
schools to supplement their income. For a fee, girls could become boarders
within the Congrégation and receive a more advanced education in return.87
The curriculum for boarders included weaving, lace-making, and embroidery, as well as maths and French, the latter being taught to a relatively high
level of proficiency which enabled the girls to write letters and to converse
in that language. Come the eighteenth century, boarders were often taught
music and sometimes even natural science.
84
Überwasser and St Aegidii schools admitted girls over the age of seven. When they
turned fourteen, each girl had to decide if she wanted to become a nun or to return home.
This decision was, of course, based on the wishes of her parents and the ability of her family
to afford a dowry.
85
A. Conrad, ‘Die weiblichen “Devotessen” als Instrumente der konfessionellen Erziehung in Frankreich und Deutschland’, Zeitschrift für Historische Forschung,
Beiheft 31: Im Spannungsfeld von Staat und Kirche: “Minderheiten” und “Erziehung”
im deutsch-fanzösischen Gesellschaftsvergleich 16.–18. Jahrhundert (2003), 191–214;
here, 196.
86
cf. H. Derréal, Un missionaire de la Contre-Réforme: Saint Pierre Fourier et l’Institution
de la Congrégation de Notre-Dame (Paris, 1965), 299.
87
The cost of boarding in Münster is not known. From the school of the Congrégation de
Notre-Dame in Bonn we know that in 1772 boarders had to pay fifty Reichstaler per annum.
cf. A. Rutz, ‘Bildungsanspruch und Unterrichtspraxis religiöser Frauengemeinschaften
im frühneuzeitlichen Rheinland am Beispiel der Bonner Congrégation de Notre-Dame’,
Rheinische Viertelsjahresblätter, 67 (2003), 212–63; here, 229.
44
Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
In 1647, after five years of negotiation and struggle, the nuns finally
gained the support of the guilds, having repeatedly reassured the guild
masters that they would not simply beg for a living. In a letter to the
bishop, the nuns explained the arrangement:
after five years we reached the final resolution with the guild masters, though
with heavy conditions attached to it . . . . Firstly, we have to find a free spot
for our schoolhouse; we must live in a house that is not exempted from
tax, while nevertheless teaching the children for free. Secondly, we are not
to be more than twelve sisters and are not allowed to attain any legacies.
Thirdly, we have to gain confirmation from His Papal Holiness that the city
of Münster will not be burdened with more regular clergy in the future. This
is far beyond our might and we do not know how to handle it, this is why we
fall at your feet and ask you imploringly to find a way to help us so that we
will reach our ultimate aim to serve our God and the community according
to our profession . . . 88
Fortunately for the women, help came in the shape of Fabio Chigi—who
resided in the city during the peace negotiations—and from some other
men of high rank and great importance. Two years after the nuns had been
burdened with these difficult conditions, Chigi used a dinner with the
two Bürgermeisters, the Venetian ambassador, and the envoy of the Holy
Roman Emperor to intercede on the nuns’ behalf. The three nobles openly
championed the cause of the nuns and asked the Bürgermeisters to follow
the recommendation of Bishop Ferdinand to give the nuns permission to
stay ‘in their special honour’.89 Chigi then promised to get papal approval
for the ‘conditiones and capitulationes’ that the council had dictated to the
nuns.90 The guilds were not so easily browbeaten into submission, however. The masters merely responded by repeating their well-worn argument about the great number of religious orders already present in the city,
a situation ‘bringing with it noticeable hardship’ to the citizens.91 After
further discussion between the Bürgermeisters and the guilds, the masters
created a set of questions that the nuns had to answer to their satisfaction:
1. how many nuns would be part of the convent, a definite number is
requested
2. will they be content with a house or a flat and not grow any further
3. will they refrain from buying any worldly immovable goods
BDAM, Lotharinger A 5/2 (1647).
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 79 (4 August 1649), 69–70.
90
Ibid.
91
Ibid., 71.
88
89
The Reformation of Convent Life
45
4. when burgher daughters join the convent, will they accept a final
contribution of money and ask for no more
5. can they show that they will really keep their promises92
On 20 September 1649, a compromise was reached: the nuns were allowed
to stay for another twelve months if they refrained from any attempt to
buy secular property and promised not to grow in numbers.93 The sisters
had been given another year’s reprieve. The guild masters were probably
aware that they could not prevent the order from settling in Münster forever since the nuns had the backing of the bishop as well as the council. Nevertheless, they wanted to make sure that the new order was only
allowed to stay under tough conditions. Two years later, in 1651, the city
council recorded the following update listing all the benefits that the city
derived from the presence of the nuns:
At present, about one hundred girls are usefully instructed by the sisters . . . there are no men belonging to their order, therefore no men might
accompany them into the city . . . their rules and statutes prohibit them to
beg and they are obliged to survive on their handicraft . . . the city and the
whole community values their good education and the instruction of the
youth . . . by and by, many outsiders, nobles and commoners, send their children here . . . the nuns could also leave for [the city of ] Coesfeld and [our] city
would not be able to profit from them, and many burghers of Münster would
then send their children there at great expense for their maintenance.94
They also pointed out that the nuns ‘teach poor and rich children for
free . . . poor children are brought off the street and kept from begging and
go to school instead’.95 This was a strategic point to make, since at the time
the citizens were concerned about an apparent increase in the number of
beggars in the city. However, despite all the good things they had to offer
to the city and its inhabitants, the Congrégation was only granted permanent residence in Münster in 1653.
C onclusion
Münster’s convents found themselves caught in a web of tensions between
the four major powers of the city: the guilds, the magistrates, the cathedral
chapter, and the bishop. Each one of these tried to use the introduction of
Ibid., (15 September 1649).
Ibid., (20 September 1649), 92–3.
94
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 81 (20 November 1651), 138.
95
Ibid., 162v.
92
93
46
Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
the Tridentine reforms to promote their own specific interests. The close
entanglement between these institutions also manifested itself physically
in the cityscape: every time the bishop looked out of his residence, he was
reminded of the other power players in the city. The vista which greeted
his gaze was dominated by the cathedral, home to the cathedral chapter;
in the background, he could see the town hall; and, nearby, stood the
Schohaus, the meeting place of the guilds. The various threads of power
running through the city entangled everyone within a network of mutual
give and take which also shaped the lives of those living behind convent
walls. Although theoretically Trent made enclosure mandatory for all
female religious regardless of their status or traditions, in reality, as we
have seen, much depended on the position of each individual religious
house in the spiritual and secular hierarchy of the city. Ringe Convent, for
example, although relatively well-connected, was threatened to its core by
relentless attacks from different religious authorities. Only the impressive
tenacity of the nuns made it possible to delay the introduction of enclosure for a few years. An even bigger victory for the sisters came when they
managed to thwart the potential insertion of the Poor Clares into their
house; although their lifestyle had been altered forever by their ecclesiastical superiors, they at least did not have to tolerate the forced intrusion of
outsiders into their midst, and could remain intact as a unity and community. Überwasser Convent, with its elite connections and greater leverage, wrested an even bigger compromise from the religious authorities.
Because of the importance of their house and the high social status of the
nuns, they were able to negotiate a special deal exempting the ‘old’ nuns
from enclosure altogether. But even they could not completely escape the
implementation of reform and hence the transformation of their ancient
house. The specific fate of a convent in the face of Trent thus depended
to a significant degree on its social status, its connections to the outside
world, and on the determination and skill of the nuns. In their ability to
handle the different powers in the city, Münster’s nuns revealed themselves
as more than just silent brides of Christ or professional practitioners of
faith. Rather, they saw themselves as representatives of their family, of their
social group, and of their city. It is important to recognize the extent to
which the Tridentine decrees were adjusted to accommodate local circumstance—social position mattered and local hierarchies determined how
individual religious houses were treated.
The fate of a religious house not only depended on how well-connected it
was within the city. Nuns also took great care to cultivate their trans-regional
networks. Networks could help to secure the survival and prosperity of a
religious house and even an order itself through the exchange of personnel
and of advice. The house of the Congrégation de Notre-Dame in Münster
The Reformation of Convent Life
47
would become the base for further foundations in Germany, in Essen
(founded in 1652) and Paderborn (founded in 1658). This meant that the
house in Münster could rely on a healthy supply of novices without breaking the conditions imposed on them by the guilds—they could simply
recruit novices from, or exchange them with, other houses as the situation
required. For example, the third professed nun welcomed into the house
in Essen had undergone her novitiate in Münster. Newly professed, she
was sent to Essen, demonstrating the flexibility of the system of exchange
between the houses, but also the surprising permeability of enclosure
at the time. Nuns also visited houses to ensure the smooth running of
each new foundation. Marie Augustine and Marie Jeanne Guillelmin
first helped to set up the house in Münster, but, when the sisters decided
that this new foundation was safely up and running, Marie Augustine
handed over its supervision to a new mother superior who had arrived
from Luxembourg for that purpose. In 1658, Marie Augustine and Marie
Jeanne then returned to France, to Saint-Nicolas. For Marie Jeanne, this
was to be only a brief respite. In 1661, the house in Essen elected her as its
mother superior and Marie Jeanne obediently set off to fill this position.
Similarly, Sister Maria Alexia Bertrand, who had served as mother superior
in Münster for three years, went to Paderborn to serve in the same position
there. There was also a steady flow of letters between the German houses
and Lorraine, and the close relationship between the two provinces never
ceased. When, during the French Revolution, the nuns were expelled from
their houses in Lorraine, a number of them found a new home in Essen.
The reforms of Trent could only be implemented in Münster after years
of wrangling between the ecclesiastical authorities and the female religious
houses. Münster’s nuns opposed enclosure not just because it meant a
change of lifestyle and a restriction of their freedom of movement, but
also because they feared the destruction of their religious traditions and
with it the unique spirituality each convent had developed over time.
Through both choice and necessity, all old-established female convents in
the city had orientated themselves towards secular life and had developed
strong ties with the community at large. The controversial introduction
of the reforms of Trent ended this regular interaction between the laity
and the nuns. Ronnie Hsia has emphasized that the determining factor
for the attitude of the citizens toward ecclesiastical institutions was how
responsive they were to the spiritual needs of the citizens.96 With this in
mind, it would seem only logical that the decreased visibility of Münster’s
convents after the 1620s would have serious consequences—for example,
96
Hsia, Society and Religion, 32.
48
Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
causing a decrease in donations or a decline in the number of new recruits.
The situation was apparently more complex, however. Recruitment figures for the seventeenth century show that the number of women joining Münster’s convents remained relatively stable, some even recording
an increase. Indeed, even in spite of the contentious beginnings of the
Poor Clares, once settled, these nuns received regular donations from the
laity. Wills show that the Poor Clares were favoured by female testators
above all other convents in the city. It seems, therefore, that their particular piety did make an impression on the citizenry after all. This also helps
to explain the success of the Congrégation de Notre-Dame in the city,
even though they could not rely on established links to Münster’s civic
elites. Once the Congrégation had overcome the opposition of the guilds
and could finally open their school, their place in the midst of society was
never again questioned, and the continually-growing numbers of school
children and novices testify to the success of their undertaking. It was their
active apostolate, expressed in a combination of prayer and work, that
benefited the needs of the community and guaranteed the Congrégation
popularity with the burgher elite, regardless of their position as newcomers. The nuns understood their teaching mission as an essential part of
their piety. In their own way, the other female religious houses had also
sought to make active contributions to the spiritual wellbeing of the city
until prohibited by the post-Tridentine Church from doing so. After the
imposition of enclosure, Überwasser, St Aegidii, and Ringe, continued to
serve the community through prayer and charity, but in a much less public
manner, sheltered within the confines of their own convent walls.97
The many different tasks and services provided by the nuns of
Münster—ranging from teaching, offering prayers, washing the dead and
accompanying them to their graves, educating future nuns, providing
charity, being employers, business owners, creditors, and landlords—gave
these women the opportunity to meet with the laity on a regular basis and
made them an integral, if distinct, part of the urban community. Religious
women and laypeople knew each other and participated in each other’s
lives. The introduction of enclosure was meant to end such direct contact
between the two worlds and it forced the nuns to change their pious practices and their religious identities. To the nuns, it seemed that the decrees
of Trent sought to disturb a working equilibrium of pious engagement
and communal support in order to replace it with a conformity of piety
97
This finding mirrors the sentiment expressed in Craig Harline’s statement: ‘Both
actives and contemplatives played leading roles on the religious stage, with both boasting
new and old orders, and both sharing “reform” and renewal and rebuilding’. C. Harline,
‘Actives and Contemplatives’, 559.
The Reformation of Convent Life
49
hidden behind convent walls. As they saw it, the introduction of enclosure
not only threatened their way of living, but also their religious identity
and, thus, the very survival of their houses. The Counter-Reformation also
wrought a significant change in the religious landscape of the city. Even
though parts of the citizenry had at first been very vocal in their hostility
towards the new orders, eventually the newcomers found acceptance in
Münster. While the established religious houses experienced the introduction of the decrees of Trent as an interference in their religious affairs and
an unwelcome increase in professional competition, it appears that the
laity ultimately came to enjoy the new pious institutions on offer.
2
Female Piety: Women’s Relationships with
the Living, the Dead, and the Divine
‘In the name of the most Holy Trinity. Amen’.1 In 1641, Martha Löwenstein,
a well-off burgher woman, decided to make her will. Sometimes a will was
written in the testator’s own hand, though in most cases it was dictated by
the testator to a notary. The document was then brought before the city
council and attested in the presence of at least two witnesses. A copy was
kept to ensure the will’s dictates were carried out properly; as reference for
inheritance tax; and to act as proof in legal disputes. Normally, the will
consisted of a preamble, an invocation, a main part listing the names of
all beneficiaries, and the final part, which concluded the document with
the names of the witnesses and their signatures. Although most testators
stuck to this formula, some left out one or more of these parts. Ultimately,
will-making was a highly personal undertaking and reflected the wishes of
each individual testator. Martha Löwenstein’s will continued thus:
My dear soul has been created according to God’s image, God the Father,
Son, and Holy Spirit, through the true merit of our Saviour and Redeemer
Jesus Christ, [it] shall be brought to heavenly joy and eternal salvation
through the mediation of Mary, the Holy Mother of God, and of all God’s
Saints, my body shall be given to the soil where it was taken from according
to the rites and ceremonies of the Holy Catholic Church, until the Last Day
when body and soul will be reunited again in eternal Glory, not of my own
doing but because of the never-ending mercy and compassion of our beloved
Lord and God, in this belief and strong hope, with the help of the most High
and the mediation of all the glorious saints, I will live and die and go on my
last journey, I forgive and forget from the bottom of my heart all my enemies
and those who have done me wrong and request each and all whom I have
angered during my lifetime because of human weakness, with words and
with deeds, knowingly or unknowingly, that they will forgive me according
to God’s will.2
1
2
StdAMs, Gerichtsarchiv, Testamente II, Nr. 240.
Ibid.
Women’s Relationships with the Living, the Dead, and the Divine 51
However, Martha did not just place all her hope in the goodwill of her
fellow citizens. She also trusted in the efficacy of pious donations: ‘the
priest of St Lamberti here in this city shall receive 50 Reichstaler capital,
so that from the interest a requiem mass shall be read for me and my
blessed husbands, Gerhard Ridders and Johann Schepers, on the day of
my death until eternity’. Seventy Reichstaler were assigned to the poor of
St Lamberti parish, one hundred ‘to the poor orphans here in Münster’,
and the Franciscans, Capuchins, and Observants received ‘10 Reichstaler
each to pray for my soul when I die and at my funeral’.3 However, this was
not the final version of Martha’s will. In her second will, written in May
1649, she was obliged to make some major changes. Her financial situation now more constrained as a result of her troubled third marriage to one
Bernard von Brinck, Martha was forced to withdraw a number of bequests.
Münster’s orphans were now to receive only 20 Reichstaler instead of the
promised hundred, whilst the priest of St Lamberti and the Lamberti poor
went empty-handed. The Franciscans, Capuchins, and Observants were
asked to share 18 Reichstaler. In the end, Martha’s undoubtedly strong
allegiance to the church and parish of St Lamberti—Martha and her second husband, Gerd Ridders, had donated a silver and gold cup to the
church in the 1620s or 1630s—had to take a secondary role to her more
urgent desire for intercessory prayers from the regulars and professional
support for the afterlife.4 Various other people, including her godchild
Enneke Löwenstein, disappeared completely from her final will—further
proof of Martha’s difficult financial situation. However, she also included
some new recipients in her list of beneficiaries: the Dominicans were
given 10 Reichstaler. Perhaps Martha had listened to their preaching in
Münster’s cathedral and resolved to bequeath a gift to them as well.
Martha’s will introduces us to the large number of pious causes and
institutions to which the women and men of the city could give their
money: six parish churches, the collegiate church of St Mauritz, the cathedral, seven female religious houses, and five male ones. After 1610, they
could also give to the Poor Clares, the Observants, and the Capuchins.
Focusing on the poor in the city, testators could provide for the known
poor (kenntliche Arme), the poor of the parish, the shamefaced poor
(Hausarme), the poor students, and the children of the Wegesende
orphanage. An impressive thirty-one poor houses spread all over the city,
including eleven new houses founded between 1565 and 1615. Then there
Ibid.
M. Geisberg, Die Stadt Münster, 6. Teil: Die Kirchen und Kapellen der Stadt außer dem
Dom, (Münster, 1941), 124.
3
4
52
Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
were the numerous vicarages, chapels, confraternities, and church personnel, which also played an important role in the religious life of the city
and received regular bequests. All of these institutions and people received
donations in seventeenth-century wills, though not in equal quantities. People had their favourites, their likes and dislikes, which changed
throughout the passing decades. How can we explain such preferences and
tendencies? And what does this tell us about the nature of early modern
piety? Although the focus of this study is on women, male testators have
been included to allow for a comparative analysis, and to help answer the
question of how far women’s piety differed from that expressed by men.
C ivic W ills and P opular P iety,
1600–1650
At the heart of this chapter is an analysis of about 600 wills composed
between 1600 and 1650. Around 250 wills were taken from the collection
of records of the city court (Gerichtsarchiv) in Münster’s city archive—a
collection that comprises 2,006 wills from the seventeenth century. These
have been sampled by decade and grouped according to marital status
(married women, widows, single women, single men, couples). Ten wills
from each category and decade were examined according to their preambles, invocations, charitable bequests to the poor and donations made
to the Church—in this category, I have grouped the secular and regular
clergy, as well as donations for such varied pious causes as, for example, the
upkeep of a church, requests for memorial masses, or support for beautification of the statue of the Virgin Mary. The second set, comprising 345
wills, is drawn from the records of the common poor fund (Allgemeiner
Armenfonds). Because only those records spanning the years 1606–10 and
1620–46 survive, they were included in their entirety. Of course, my sample only encompasses one-third of the wills that have survived to this day,
and only those men and women who possessed a minimum of material
goods which made it worth their while to draw up a will. About 30 per
cent of the population of early modern German cities could be classified
as poor.5 In this chapter it therefore seems likely that we will not hear the
voices of those people, but will only encounter ‘the poor’ as the recipients of charity and as the providers of prayers for the deceased. However,
the threshold at which people might draw up a will was potentially quite
5
R. Klötzer, Kleiden, Speisen, Beherbergen: Armenfürsorge und soziale Stiftungen in
Münster im 16. Jahrhundert (1535–1588), (Münster, 1997), 32.
Women’s Relationships with the Living, the Dead, and the Divine 53
Table 2.1 Number of bequests to the Church and the poor, 1600–1650
1600–09
1610–19
1620–29
1630–39
1640–50
Nothing
Church
Poor
To both
4
13
20
9
6
3
4
17
12
5
39
41
67
85
14
10
16
77
96
25
Altogethera
56
74
181
202
50
a The remaining twenty-one wills were written before 1600 or after 1650.
Note: The table shows the number of bequests given in each decade to the Church, different groups
of the poor, to both the poor and the Church, and wills without any pious bequests at all.
low: several wills were drawn up by men and women with nothing to give
but ‘the clothes on my body’, but, regardless of their relative poverty, they
decided to go through the legal formality and bequeath the little they
possessed.6 It seems, therefore, that the group of people we encounter by
looking at wills is broader than at first anticipated.
Faced with the prospect of death, early modern people’s attention was
concentrated on pleasing and appeasing their God by making charitable
donations to the poor and giving pious bequests to the Church. In the
first decade of the seventeenth century, most of the money given by
testators went to the poor, specifically the shamefaced poor (burghers
of good standing who had fallen on hard times but still lived in their
own homes); and to the ‘known poor’, whose names appear on the lists
compiled by the poor supervisors (Provisoren) of each parish. It seems
likely that our testators chose to give to these groups of poor people
because it guaranteed that their money was not wasted on the lazy and
dishonest. Only three out of fifty-six testators in this period decided to
give exclusively to the Church, and only a small minority decided to give
to the regulars: whereas the Franciscans were remembered five times,
the Jesuits received only three bequests—suggesting that almost twenty
years after the Society’s contentious arrival in the city, many citizens had
not yet overcome their dislike of the order, despite the popularity of its
free education provisions.7
The decade from 1610 to 1619 brought no major changes in testators’
behaviour. Again, the Church only drew a small number of bequests while
6
For example, StdAMs, Gerichtsarchiv, BI Testamente II, Nr. 641; StdAMs,
Stiftungsarchiv, Allgemeiner Armenfonds (1630), 212.
7
By 1617, their school had 1,400 pupils. cf. R. Schulze (ed.), Das Gymnasium Paulinum
in Münster, (Münster, 1948).
54
Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
charity to the poor was the favourite cause. In the sixteen cases where testators decided to give to both the poor and the Church, the former usually
received the larger sum.
[t]‌o the poor people 100 Reichstaler, from the pension they shall receive
wine and three Schilling each year on all four feast days to pray for my soul,
to the poor fund of St Aegidii 100 Reichstaler so that common alms can be
taken from this and be distributed amongst the poor of this parish, . . . to the
provost and all the vicarages of St Aegidii 60 Reichstaler so that the money
be invested and from the pension a memorial mass be held on the day of my
death and vigil and mass every year, to the sisters half a Reichstaler, to all vicarages half a Reichstaler, to the chapel half a Reichstaler, and to the organist
half a Reichstaler.8
The donation to the organist concludes a line-up of virtually everyone
involved in the administration of the St Aegidii Church. Still, this generous testatrix made her priorities clear: while the poor were bequeathed 200
Reichstaler, a number of clerics and causes had to content themselves with
much less, demonstrating the woman’s preference to support her needy
neighbours rather than the clergy. However, during the 1610s something
interesting happened: testators became more willing to give to the Church
as the new monastic orders arrived in the city. As a result, after 1620 most
testators chose to give to both the poor and the Church, while giving to
the poor alone became less common.
Based on the number of bequests received, the Jesuits and the Franciscans
were the two most popular male religious orders in town. The Franciscans
(Franziskaner Minoriten, Brüder) had settled in St Martini parish in 1247
and had quickly integrated into the community. Throughout the Middle
Ages they received much praise for their unselfish devotion to the urban
community. They cared for the sick and looked after the poor. More
importantly, they also performed rituals for the dying, celebrating last rites
at their gravesides. These services to the community help to explain the
great esteem in which early modern testators held them.9 After their arrival
in the middle of the thirteenth century, the city council soon began to
offer patronage to the friars and granted them the right to acquire property
in the city. In exchange, the order opened the doors of its monastery for
secular use by allowing guild assemblies and council meetings to take place
StdAMs, Gerichtsarchiv, BI Testamente II, Nr. 1200.
In 1624 there were twelve priests, four fratres clerici professi, nine novices, and eight lay
brothers. For 1634 Leopold Schütte mentions sixteen priests, eighteen students, and nine
lay brothers. Schütte, ‘Münster—Minoriten’, in Hengst (ed.), Westfälisches Klosterbuch,
vol. 2, 76.
8
9
Women’s Relationships with the Living, the Dead, and the Divine 55
in their house. Even in the sixteenth century, when the guilds came to be
much less sympathetic towards most religious orders, their disapproval did
not extend to the Franciscans. In fact, many guild members chose to find
their final resting place in the Franciscans’ graveyard.
However, after 1613, the popularity of the Franciscans was somewhat challenged by the arrival of their spiritual brothers, the Observants
(Franziskaner Observanten, Barfüsser) from Cologne, to whom Bishop
Ferdinand had granted the right to settle in the city.10 A time of turmoil
followed for the Franciscans. Not only were they drawn into the conflict
between the nuns of Ringe and the Observants, in the course of which
their Guardian Winand Alstorff was excommunicated, their reputation
was further weakened by allegations of corruption brought against the
friars by the Jesuits and the Observants.11 The accusations referred to the
case of Anton Boeker, who had for years been misappropriating money
belonging to the order to enrich himself and his relatives. Despite this
scandal, the majority of men and women still preferred the Franciscans to
the Observants in their wills. Although donations became slightly more
balanced between both orders as the decades progressed, the primacy of
the Franciscans was never really under threat. Indeed, their popularity was
such that they succeeded in raising enough popular and financial support
to initiate a new procession in 1637 through the parishes of St Lamberti
and St Martini. Even more telling was the growing number of vicarships
founded in honour of St Catherine, their patron saint, throughout the seventeenth century.12 The Observants carried out extensive preaching work
and held regular sermons in the cathedral and the churches of St Lamberti,
St Martini, St Ludgeri, St Aegidii, and Überwasser. They also supported
the parish clergy by hearing confession and through preaching. Despite
all these activities, however, it seems that the Observants could not offer
10
In 1614 the Observants bought some buildings in the city, which they turned into a
monastery for about twenty monks in 1618. In 1670 ten monks, twelve fraters, and seven
lay brothers lived there; in 1802, eighteen monks, seven fraters, and ten lay brothers. Büchel,
‘Münster—Franziskaner’, in Hengst (ed.), Westfälisches Klosterbuch, 105. Their house in
Münster was the base for further foundations in Westphalia: Rietberg (1618), Warendorf
(1628), Rheine (1635), Geseke (1637), Attendorn (1638), Vreden (1641), Vechta (1642),
Wiedenbrück (1644), Paderborn (1658). A. Hanschmidt, ‘Seelsorge und Bildung: Jesuiten
und Bettelorden in westfälischen Städten der Frühen Neuzeit’, in M. Wemhoff (ed.),
Barocke Blütezeit: Die Kultur der Klöster in Westfalen (Regensburg, 2007), 145–6.
11
R. Po-chia Hsia, ‘Between Reformation and Counter-Reformation: Religion and
Society in Muenster, 1535–1618’, PhD. Dissertation (Yale, 1982), 290.
12
W. Kohl, Die Bistümer der Kirchenprovinz zu Köln: Das Bistum Münster, in idem.,
Germania Sacra, vol. 3 (Berlin, 2002), 46.
56
Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
anything that their rival Franciscan brothers had not already provided for
the past four centuries.13
Regular donations were also received by the Capuchins—yet another
mendicant order which had come to the city in the 1610s on the recommendation of Nuncio Antonio Albergati.14 Having overcome the initial
resistance of the guilds, the friars finally settled down in 1614. They did
some preaching in the city, cared for the sick, celebrated last rites and
prayed for the souls of the deceased. In 1616 the friars were given permission to build a church. Five years later the brothers celebrated their first
service in the new building, which included two chapels consecrated to
Mary and her mother, St Anne. However, their success did not last, as it
soon became clear that the order had taken its ideal of austerity too far: in
1626 the church had to be completely rebuilt due to the low quality of the
original materials used.
The great loyalty felt towards the Franciscans can also be measured in
cash. Whereas the Observants were named in sixty wills as beneficiaries with a total sum of 1,854 Reichstaler, the Franciscans were named
eighty-six times and received a total of 2,832 Reichstaler. The third most
popular male order was the Capuchins; they received forty-one bequests,
worth 1,326 Reichstaler. The Jesuits received the lion’s share of the donations: though only thirty-four testators made bequests to the Society,
they accumulated a sum total of 4,008 Reichstaler. This inequality can be
explained by the average size of the donations each order received. Whereas
supporters of the Franciscans gave on average ten Reichstaler (sometimes
fifty or even one hundred Reichstaler, but rarely more), Jesuit supporters almost exclusively gave sums of over one hundred Reichstaler: ‘to the
Franciscans fifteen Reichstaler, the Marian sodality twenty Reichstaler,
to the Collegio Societatis Jesu 200 Reichstaler, 200 Reichstaler to the
Society’.15 In 1629, a widow also gave ‘200 Reichstaler to the Society of
Jesus to show her good intention and affection’. She had already given
800 Reichstaler to the Jesuit foundation at Coblenz, which her son had
13
The Observants carried out extensive preaching work and held regular sermons in
Münster’s cathedral and the churches of St Lamberti, St Martini, St Ludgeri, St Aegidii, and
Überwasser parish. They also supported the parish clergy by occasionally giving sermons,
hearing confession, and preaching.
14
In 1668 they were fourteen monks; in 1700 twenty-two; 1750: twenty-five;
1800: twenty-one. They mainly recruited from the wealthy burgher families in the city.
The Capuchins participated in the newly-founded procession (1629) on the feast day of
St Anne with their own altar. Große, ‘Münster—Kapuziner’, in Hengst (ed.), Westfälisches
Klosterbuch, 100. Numerous new foundations were opened across Westphalia: Paderborn
(1612), Münster (1614), Borken (1629), Brakel (1645), Werl (1649), Rüthen (1654),
Werne (1659). Hanschmidt, ‘Seelsorge und Bildung, 147.
15
StdAMs, Gerichtsarchiv, BI Testamente II, Nr. 797.
Women’s Relationships with the Living, the Dead, and the Divine 57
decided to join.16 The Jesuits, it seems, drew much of their support from
the more affluent strata of society.17 Nevertheless, they also held a broader
appeal in the city for several reasons: their school, their pastoral care, their
preaching (they regularly preached sermons in the cathedral), the reading
circles and plays they organized, and the Marian sodalities they set up in
town.18 Their work as confessors left a particularly strong impression on
some testators: in 1634, a widow left a truly impressive 1,100 Reichstaler
to her Jesuit confessor.19 Two years later, a woman infected with the plague
gave thirty Reichstaler to her Jesuit confessor, to be distributed after her
death amongst the shamefaced poor and other plague victims, and an
additional forty Reichstaler to the same pater ‘because of his support in
this loneliness’.20 Generally, it can be said that whenever the Jesuits, the
Observants, and the Franciscans were mentioned in the same will, the former received higher legacies. Yet, while the Society was able to gain a solid
and devoted support base amongst the inhabitants of the city, their story
is not entirely one of success. There were many testators who decided to
remember each of the male religious orders in town except for the Jesuits.
This apparent animosity had local roots. When the order was invited to
come to Münster by Archbishop Ernst von Bayern, their arrival in 1588
was greeted with open opposition from the guilds. Only after the city
council had agreed with the guild leaders that the presence of the Jesuits
was to be restricted to the cathedral immunity, that they were to be prohibited from purchasing houses in the city, and that they were not allowed
to preach in parish churches, did the order gain approval to settle in the
city.21 This was not the end of the tensions, however. Conflicts continued
to flare up on a regular basis between the guilds and the Order, with the
city council negotiating rather uncomfortably between them.22 A division
in the citizenry between those who supported the order and those who
opposed its work can also be traced in wills written decades after the Jesuits
first entered the city.
The period 1620–9 was the first that saw bequests going to the Poor
Clares.23 Having settled in the city only ten years previously under
StdAMs, Gerichtsarchiv, BI Testamente II, Nr. 1393.
O. Hufton, ‘The Widow’s Mite and other Strategies: Funding the Catholic
Reformation’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Sixth Series, 8 (1998), 117–37.
18
See Hsia, Society and Religion, 65–6, 102–6.
19
StdAMs, Gerichtsarchiv, BI Testamente II, Nr. 654.
20
StdAMs, Gerichtsarchiv, BI Testamente II, Nr. 1222.
21
Hsia, Society and Religion, 61–2.
22
Ibid., 84–92.
23
Sixty-seven testators chose to provide for the poor. A majority of people, seventy-seven
altogether, decided to give to the Church and to the poor. Twenty people left no pious legacies at all. Seventeen people gave only to the Church.
16
17
58
Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
contentious circumstances, the nuns had apparently managed rapidly
to win over many Münsteraners. Most of this financial support was
given to the order by women; only seven of 151 male testators chose to
remember the order in their wills.24 In a relatively short space of time,
then, the Poor Clares had been able to build up their own female support base, despite the hostility of the guilds and the initial lack of support from the city council. Other female religious houses also received
bequests, though not as frequently. The Überwasser nuns were remembered a few times and received legacies ranging from thirty Reichstaler,
‘for all the good kindness they have shown me’, up to 200 Reichstaler.25
The convent of Ringe also received bequests throughout the period
1600–50. Some of the bequests were given as symbols of friendship and
appreciation to individual nuns. In 1642, the mother superior of Ringe
was bequeathed ‘my best dress . . . 1 Goldgulden and 1 Reichstaler’.26
Interestingly, none of the testators sampled here left money to both the
Poor Clares and the Ringe nuns. It seems, therefore, that our testators
were very aware of the antagonism between the two religious houses
and distinguished between their two distinctive ways of serving God
and the people of the city.
The Poor Clares were also not short of recruits for their new house.27
Quite a few of the women who gave money to the nuns did so because
they desired to join the order:
In the name of the Holy Trinity. Each and every one should know that I,
Catharine Pave, daughter of this city of Münster, eighteen years old, after the
untimely death of both my parents, who rest with God, have been strongly
called by God Almighty to make it my will to enter the chosen religious
order through the mercy of the Holy Spirit, because after deeply searching
my conscience and with the advice from clerics and of my confessor, I have
decided to choose and accept the spiritual order and to enter the convent of
the Poor Clare virgins, in the full hope to end my humble life in a manner
pleasing to God.28
24
This figure excludes couples and wills written pre-1615, before the arrival of the Poor
Clares in the town.
25
StdAMs, Gerichtsarchiv, Testamente II, Nr. 1087 and Nr. 274.
26
StdAMs, Gerichtsarchiv, Testamente II, Nr. 1111, see also Nr. 847.
27
Göcking mentions the following figures: 1613: eight; 1790: twenty-nine; and
1811: twenty-one sisters. The sisters came from aristocratic backgrounds but also from the
richer burgher houses and the peasantry. P. D. Göcking, ‘Münster—Klarissen’, in Hengst
(ed.), Westfälisches Klosterbuch, 96–8.
28
StdAMs, Gerichtsarchiv, BI Testamente II, Nr. 1736.
Women’s Relationships with the Living, the Dead, and the Divine 59
Another girl wrote in 1632 that ‘divine inspiration made me decide to leave
the world behind and everything that belongs to it and join the order of
the Poor Clares here’; she then gave the handsome sum of 800 Goldgulden
to the order.29 This was not the only significant fortune secured by the convent. In the same decade, a woman gave 2,000 Reichstaler ‘to the convent
of St Clara which I will soon join’.30 Although their piety was the opposite of the active, outgoing devotional style championed by the Jesuits,
the Poor Clares revealed a similar determination to settle in Münster and
make their foundation there a success against all opposition. They were
also comparable in religious fervour: theirs was a life of silence and withdrawal from the busyness of urban life. They lived enclosed behind the
walls of their religious house and relied completely on the charity of the
community for their survival. Whenever the sisters ran out of food, the
ringing of the convent bell would announce this to the outside world.
Their dependence on people’s generosity may have been one reason for
their appearance in so many wills. But it also shows the immense popularity of this new (or, rather, old) style of piety. Like the Society of Jesus, the
Poor Clares were known for their strict adherence to their monastic rule,
which prescribed poverty, intense prayer, and withdrawal from the world,
and rejected the participation in the urban community that had for so
long defined the piety of the other female religious houses in the city. In
fact, the severity and dedication of the nuns made such an impression that
an old-established male order followed suit: after 1615, the Franciscans
began to restrict the access of the burgher community to their traditionally
open house.31
In the years 1630–9, giving to charity and to the Church was the most
popular option in people’s wills, a trend which continued into the 1650s.
Bequests to the poor alone appeared in second place, with eighty-five testators giving to them, whereas twelve testators chose to give to the Church
alone. Nine testators decided to give nothing to a good cause at all. Some
people attached very specific conditions to their bequests, as in this widow’s
testament: ‘[A]‌ll my clothes are to be distributed in my memory amongst
those who come to morning mass at six’.32 The Mother of Hofringe also
put a condition into her will. Being a nun herself, she knew well enough
how time-consuming large numbers of prayers for the deceased were and,
therefore, that a little incentive would not hurt:
StdAMs, Gerichtsarchiv, BI Testamente II, Nr. 331.
StdAMs, Gerichtsarchiv, BI Testamente II, Nr. 870.
31
Schütte, ‘Münster—Minoriten’, 76–7.
32
StdAMs, Gerichtsarchiv, Testamente II, Nr. 1176.
29
30
60
Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
To the poor in the Preussen poor house twenty Reichstaler, which shall be
administered by the deacon and the chaplain, with the request to invest
the money and to use the yearly interest to be distributed amongst those
poor, who come to Holy Mass on the day of my death . . . to the chaplain one
Schilling to pray for my poor soul, and a bit of wine for his effort.33
From the 1630s onwards we also find a rise in the number of bequests to
the secular clergy, especially to vicars, chaplains, and priests. Testators were
showing their gratitude for services received during their lifetime, such
as masses and prayers in remembrance of their relatives and friends, and
hoped for more of the same for themselves.
In the final decade sampled, from 1640 to 1650, the trends of the previous two decades continued. Giving to both the Church and the poor
remained the most popular choice for testators, followed by bequests to the
poor alone. The choice of giving only to the Church or making no donations at all trailed in an almost equal third place. There were exceptions,
though: one testatrix decided to give fifty Reichstaler to the Poor Clares
and fifty to the nuns at Niesing; twenty-five Reichstaler to Überwasser
Church ‘for masses for me and my parents’; 200 Reichstaler to the Jesuits;
100 Reichstaler to their school; ten Reichstaler each to the Franciscans,
Capuchins, and Dominicans; and a comparatively meagre five Reichstaler
to the shamefaced poor.34 Another woman gave fifty Reichstaler to the
orphans, and an impressive 400 Reichstaler for the altar of Holy Mary in
Werl to have mass read at 7.00 in the mornings. Another 100 Reichstaler
was given in support of the altar of the Three Magi at St Lamberti Church
‘to have mass read for me and my parents from year to year to year’.35 Yet
these two wills also reconfirm the important place that charity given to
the poor held in contemporary private remembrances. As we shall see,
another reason for the unfailing support of the needy throughout this
period might have been an awareness of their growing hardship in the city.
T he Parish C hurch
As we have seen, will-making and gift-giving were certainly not exclusively male domains. Women, too, had their wills drawn up at different
stages of their lives, before or during marriage, or as widows. My analysis of female wills, written between 1600 and 1650, shows that women
StdAMs, Gerichtsarchiv, Testamente II, Nr. 1379.
StdAMs, Gerichtsarchiv, Testamente II, Nr. 321.
35
StdAMs, Gerichtsarchiv, Testamente II, Nr. 1704.
33
34
Women’s Relationships with the Living, the Dead, and the Divine 61
preferred to give locally, to their parish, and to the people they knew. This
embeddedness in the parish also expressed itself in more practical ways.
A widow, for example, gave ‘to the church at Überwasser parish one hundred Reichstaler to be used for the good of the church . . . to the Church
of St Martini parish two hundred Reichstaler to fix the roof, St Servatii
and St Ludgeri parishes get fifty Reichstaler each to be used for the best
of the church’.36 In 1610 another widow decreed that a church outside
of Münster, in Hiltrup, should receive twenty Reichstaler ‘to restore the
altars and to keep all the precious objects clean and pure’.37 This direct
involvement fostered a sense of belonging and ownership in the parish
community. People knew each other and they knew the deceased—an
important consideration in the complex relationship between caritas and
memoria.38 The act of giving was supposed to accelerate the passage of
the soul of the testatrix through purgatory by adding to her ‘stock’ of
memoria, while the close connection with the parish gave her the necessary reassurance that her last wishes were going to be carried out under
the watchful eyes of her network group.
Most of a parish’s money lay not in the hands of the city council,
or indeed of the clergy, but under the supervision of the parishioners themselves. Two alms supervisors (Almosenprovisoren) managed
the distribution of alms to the needy, while two church supervisors
(Kirchenprovisoren) administered the money for the upkeep of the
churches, and two street supervisors (Wegemeister) made sure the roads
of the parish were in good condition. The laity therefore held important
responsibilities for the social and material wellbeing of the parish and
its people. When St Aegidii Church received a new altar in 1631, its
inscription first read: ‘In honorem Dei O. M. Beatae Virginis Mariae, P. P.
Benedicti et S. Aegidii omniumque Sanctorum hoc altare poni curavit Adm.
Rda et Nobilis Agnes a Merfeldt huius Monasterii et Ecclesiae Abba Anno
1631’. This aroused the anger of the people of the parish. They decided
to have a ‘1’ carved next ‘Aegidii’ and a ‘2’ next to ‘Benedicti’ to show that
it was primarily a parish church and had only later become the convent
church of the Benedictine nuns.39 This sense of belonging also emerges
in the wills. The pious preferred to give locally, to people they knew, to
StdAMs, Gerichtsarchiv, BI Testamente II, Nr. 456.
StdAMs, Gerichtsarchiv, BI Testamente II, Nr. 1277.
38
Natalie Zemon Davis reminds us of the reciprocity that existed between the living and
the dead (who she describes as an age-group) in medieval and early modern Catholicism.
N. Z. Davis, ‘Some Tasks and Themes in the Study of Popular Religion’, in C. E. Trinkaus
and H. A. Oberman (eds.), The Pursuit of Holiness in Late Medieval and Renaissance Religion
(Leiden, 1974), 327–8.
39
Geisberg, Die Stadt Münster, 280.
36
37
62
Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
their parish church, their priest, the local poor relief institution, or to
the poor house in the vicinity. In short, early modern piety was focused
on the parish and its church, for this was the main place, after all, where
people’s spiritual lives unfolded. This is not surprising considering the
close relationship that existed between women’s daily lives and the local
congregation: it was in church, sitting on a pew amongst their relatives
and neighbours, that they heard mass and performed their pious duties
in communion. Here they experienced the most important rituals that
marked the Catholic life-cycle. Some people even owned their own pews
in church and, therefore, surviving seating plans of local churches can tell
us much about the prestige and social standing that different groups of
people enjoyed in the parish community. A plan of the seating order of
Überwasser Church, for example, shows men and women sat separately.40
Amongst the women sat the old, unreformed choir nuns of Überwasser
Convent facing the baptismal font. Their lay sisters had their own pew
separate from the aristocratic women. The sisters of Rosental and Hofringe
also came to hear mass at Überwasser and had their place amongst the
parishioners; their lay sisters again were seated separately. A very prominent place at Überwasser Church was assigned to the inhabitants of the
local poor houses, Buddenturm and Preussen. They sat at the front of
the congregation under the chancel, not far from the altar—proof of the
high esteem in which the parishoners held them. The members of the
Confraternity of the Holy Spirit also sat together on their own pews. In
this way, the interior of churches gave expression to the hierarchical order
of the world outside.
Although the early modern Catholic Church allowed few religious roles
to women outside the convent, laywomen actively expressed their piety in
their local church. The affluent commissioned epitaphs and monuments
to memorialize them. Favourite depictions on these, inspired by the life of
Christ, were the Last Judgement, the Mater dolorosa with the dead Christ
in her arms, or Pontius Pilate and the resurrected son of God. Most donors
therefore chose to remember the dark moments in the Saviour’s life.41 The
epitaph of Elisabeth Provesting at Überwasser depicts the crucified Christ
with his suffering parents in the background.42 Richtmod Breckers and her
husband Ludwig Rummel decided on an equally gloomy motif for their
1635 epitaph: the judgement of Christ by the people of Israel and Pontius
40
StAM, Studienfonds Münster, Überwasser 271 (1632, 1634, 1635). Such a list,
albeit almost unreadable, also exists for St Martini Church. BDAM, Pfarrarchiv St Martini
Münster, Kirchenbänke.
41
Geisberg, Die Stadt Münster, 28.
42
Ibid.
Women’s Relationships with the Living, the Dead, and the Divine 63
Pilate.43 In 1647 Engeline Hense settled on a depiction of the abandoned
Christ, with his hands tied, and Pontius Pilate holding his cloak.44 The
monument of Bernhard Hausman and Elisabeth Wettelers shows Jesus
crowned with thorns by Roman soldiers. To the side of this scene kneel the
two donors and a Latin inscription reads ‘Vere languores nostros ipse tulit vulneratus est propter iniquitates nostras Isaiae 53 c’.45 It seems that most donors
in this period, irrespective of marital status, chose to remind the wandering
eyes of parishioners of the dark side of human nature, its sinfulness, its tendency for ignorance, mockery, and betrayal, culminating in Christ’s painful
humiliation at human hands before his death and resurrection.
St Ludgeri Church, panel depicting ‘Burial of Christ’ with four emblems,
accredited to Nikolaus tom Ring (1598), © Andreas Lechtape.
Some chose to make even more clear the connection between their own
life at the threshold of death, the Passion of Christ, and human salvation.
Gudela Warendorp had herself painted into an image showing the burial
Ibid., 29.
Ibid.
45
Ibid., 30. ‘Truly he bore our weaknesses; he was wounded for our sins’, Book of
Isaiah, 53.
43
44
64
Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
of Christ. Gudela can be seen dressed in a black coat richly embroidered
with fur and wearing a cap on her hair according to local fashion. Kneeling
in front of the sarcophagus of Christ in the burial vault, she raises her
hands in prayer while the four Evangelists appear in the background.46
Yet, ultimately, the painting’s perspective draws the eyes of the viewer to
a more reassuring message: depicted at its centre in the background is
Christ’s resurrection from death and thus humanity’s hope of eternal life.
An inscription at the bottom of the painting reminds us that the ‘noble
and virtuous Gudela Warendorp’ donated this instructional painting in
her memory.47 In more practical terms, the painting also marked her final
resting place in the parish church of St Ludgeri. The parish church therefore simultaneously functioned as a place of pious veneration and, for
those donors with sufficient means to afford such costly displays, as an
important stage for the construction of memoria. Through the painting,
Gudela Warendorp reminded her social group and the parish community
at large of her life, her status, and her personal salvation. She also used
the opportunity to promote a very specific kind of Counter-Reformation
piety, with an emphasis on sin and redemption.
Some of the monuments at Überwasser Church tried to create a more
joyous atmosphere. The 1603 monument of the Abbess Elisabeth von
Hoete shows a graciously smiling Mary wearing a crown and sceptre
and seated on clouds amidst a group of angels. Clergymen kneel on her
left and nuns to her right.48 Many testators also directed funds towards
the adornment of the Virgin Mary. Shown wearing a crown, jewellery,
and fine clothes, with candles lit before her image, Mary had a special place in local churches. In 1629 a married woman gave ‘golden
stones, a row of silver stones, and some handicraft’.49 In the same year,
Mary’s image also received a number of silver belts and other jewellery. A wooden Pietà showing the Madonna and child had belonged to
Überwasser Church since the 1470s and was venerated by the parishioners.50 Another wooden statue, dating from 1540, also shows Mary
and child with an inscription reminding people of the ‘wonderful
escape’ that left the statue ‘completely intact and unhurt’ by the great
fire of 1621.51 Mary also played a prominent role in local processions
46
St Ludgeri Church, panel depicting ‘Burial of Christ’ with four emblems, accredited
to Nikolaus tom Ring, 1598.
47
‘Nobilis ac virtuosa Gudela Warendorp hic sui monumentum viuens posuit An(n)o 1598’.
48
Church of Liebfrauen-Überwasser, epitaph of the Abbess Elisabeth of Holte.
49
StdAMs, Stiftungsarchiv, Allgemeiner Armenfonds (1629), 209.
50
Geisberg, Die Stadt Münster, 30–1.
51
Ibid., 32.
Women’s Relationships with the Living, the Dead, and the Divine 65
and the pilgrimages organized to her shrine in Telgte, fifteen kilometres east of the city.52 Matthaeus Tympius described the benefits of a
pilgrimage to Telgte as follows: it expels the devil, prolongs life, protects against mental illness, eases melancholia, ensures victory over one’s
enemies, protects the crops, and opens heaven.53 A very advantageous
undertaking indeed! As a member of the sodality Beata Mariae Virginis
Assumptionis, he himself had on several occasions participated in pilgrimages to Telgte organized by the Jesuits.
Yet, Münsteraners’ relationship to the Virgin was not quite as straightforward as it might seem. Ronnie Hsia has already noted the precipitous
drop in devotion to the Virgin throughout the sixteenth century.54 This
statement is also borne out by the sample of wills examined for this chapter. During the first half of the seventeenth century it seems that men and
women did not assign her, or any other saint, a special place in their final
thoughts. Although the presence of the Jesuits in the city certainly led to
a revival of outward reverence for the Virgin, as shown for example by
the pilgrimages to her shrine, a return to pre-Reformation levels of inner
devotion cannot be traced in the wills. Perhaps the top-down approach,
followed by the Jesuits and the bishop, of introducing Marian veneration
from above had not (yet) succeeded in capturing the pious imagination of
our testators.
Some laywomen could also take on a more official role in the pious
life of Münster: that of a Lichtmutter, or mother of light. Originally,
Lichtmütter were called upon solely to look after the provision of candles in church. Light and candles played an important role in people’s
religious universe. On Candlemas (2 February), candles were blessed
in church in commemoration of the purification of the Virgin Mary.
Candles were also lit in front of saints’ images, and many testators gave
money for candles to be lit in their memory during mass. Though the
duties of the Lichtmütter varied from church to church, their responsibilities gradually increased during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Lichtmütter even guarded the Holy Sepulchre in some of Münster’s
churches. They collected alms, accompanied by the image of the Virgin
Mary, and money for Holy Baptism and Easter candles. Lichtmütter
also made sure that funerals were paid for, and rented out candles to
burn during a wake. They also collected money for the bells to be rung
52
On the development of the pilgrimages to Telgte, see W. Freitag, Volks- und
Elitenfrömmigkeit in der Frühen Neuzeit: Marienwallfahrten im Fürstbistum Münster
(Paderborn, 1991). On pilgrimages and confessionalism, see Forster, Catholic Revival in the
Age of the Baroque, ch.2.
53
L. Intorp, Westfälische Barockpredigten aus volkskundlicher Sicht (Münster, 1964), 61.
54
Hsia, ‘Civic Wills’, 328.
66
Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
during funerals. Lichtmütter had to work together with the other church
officials. In fact, they took over some of the duties of their male colleagues. The women bought the Host and wine for Holy Communion,
and purchased the oil for the Eternal Light and the incense and candles
for the whole church, including those for the altar. At the parish church
of St Martini it was the responsibility of the Lichtmütter to care for and
clean the coat and ornaments belonging to the image of the Virgin
Mary. Lichtmütter were therefore closely involved in the maintenance
of Münster’s churches. They carried out practical jobs, took on financial
responsibilities and, more importantly, were entrusted with sacral functions such as watching over the Holy Sepulchre. In Bavaria Lichtmütter
were also responsible for caring for the dead, while in Brandenburg the
women looked after the collection of alms during mass.
Because of the diversity of their responsibilities, Lichtmütter were held
in high regard by the parish community. They were the only women in
an official position, except nuns, to receive donations from testators ‘in
friendly memory’.55 The parish remunerated Lichtmütter just like sextons
or trumpeters (Turmbläser) for their services. In 1546 the Lichtmutter of
St Lamberti, Haeseken Johannynk, was even offered a house to live in, in
recognition of her work.56 Not much is known about their social background, but based on their wills it is clear that Lichtmütter came from
a variety of family backgrounds. The Lichtmutter of St Lamberti was a
very wealthy woman; in her will she left ‘1,000 Reichstaler to the poor of
Lamberti parish, to the poor orphans all her clothes and small gems, to
the pastor of St Lamberti 500 Reichstaler’.57 The Lichtmutter of St Aegidii
apparently did not have so much to spare. She gave ‘5 Reichstaler to the
poor at zur Westen poor house, the poor at zum Busche poor house 3
Reichstaler, to the orphans 5 Reichstaler, to the supervisors of St Martini 5
Reichstaler’.58 The tasks Lichtmütter carried out in church and the respect
which they drew from the community clearly show that it was acceptable
for a woman to take on a public role in the parish. Women were neither
excluded from administrative responsibility not banned from sacral functions. Becoming a nun was thus not the only way for women to enter into
the Catholic religious hierarchy.
StdAMs, Gerichtsarchiv, BI Testamente II, Nr. 210.
A. Risse, ‘Die “Lichtmutter” in münsterischen Pfarrkirchen’, Rheinisch-Westfälische
Zeitschrift für Volkskunde, 22 (1976), 91–8.
57
StdAMs, Stiftungsarchiv, Allgemeiner Armenfonds (1634), 226v.
58
StdAMs, Stiftungsarchiv, Allgemeiner Armenfonds (1636), 246v.
55
56
Women’s Relationships with the Living, the Dead, and the Divine 67
M emoria and the D ead
One of the great fears of early modern Catholics was to be caught unawares
by death. Priests and preachers regularly reminded the faithful of the inherent
sinfulness of humanity, its great need for redemption and the grave consequences the unprepared soul had to suffer in purgatory. The end of life was
therefore to be faced with diligent planning and careful consideration. Listen
to what Matthaeus Tympius (1566–1616), Catholic theologian, translator of
spiritual literature, pedagogue, and preacher at Münster’s cathedral, recommended as preparation for a good death:
while you are still fresh and healthy, practise once a day this inner death, or at
least once a week, lie down in your thoughts into your grave, as if you were dead,
with the hands folded over each other into a cross, with sunken and closed eyes,
with a pale face, with stretched feet, completely surrounded by worms, and
say to your soul: This is how I must become, and do not know when this will
happen, this year, or perhaps tomorrow. O how blessed you will be, if you die
many times during your life, this will help you to duly prepare to live well and
to die well.59
He also recommended confession, absolution, and ‘the life-giving heavenly bread’ to every good Catholic beginning his final journey. According
to Tympius, a well-prepared Catholic dies in peace with his Creator and is
accompanied on his journey to heaven by angels. The unprepared were met
by devils and ‘thrown into the abyss of hell’.60 However, mental preparation
and last rites were not enough. Ever since the Council of Trent had confirmed
the value of caritas and memoria for salvation and, indeed, the intimate link
between the two, early modern Catholics were encouraged to channel their
resources towards the provision of good deeds and prayers to guarantee a
speedy transition of the soul from purgatory to heaven.61 The donation of
memorial masses was therefore an extremely helpful tool for the afterlife. For
59
M. Tympius, Leich- Trost- und Busspredigten auch Anweisung wie dieselbigen in
Auslegung Sonn- und Feyrtag- Evangelien gebraucht werden konnen. . . (Münster, 1613),
59. On Tympius’s seventy-two funeral and Lenten sermons see also Intorp, Westfälische
Barockpredigten, 60.
60
Ibid.
61
Recent research has shown memoria to encompass a number of complex relationships
between the living and the dead, the community of the living and the dead, the presence or
representation of the dead among the living, the acts performed by the living for the dead
and vice versa, and the securing of those performances in the future. cf. C. Horch, Der
Memorialgedanke und das Spektrum seiner Funktionen in der bildenden Kunst des Mittelalters
(Königstein im Taunus, 2001). On liturgical commemoration see also A. Angenendt,
‘Theologie und Liturgie der mittelalterlichen Totenmemoria’, in K. Schmid and J. Wollasch
(eds.), Memoria: Der geschichtliche Zeugniswert des liturgischen Gedenkens im Mittelalter
(Munich, 1984), 80–199. For the stance of the church father at Trent, see Session 6,
68
Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
the period of 1530 until 1618, Ronnie Hsia has observed a decline in the
donation of requiem masses. Out of the 1,235 wills he analysed, only thirtyfour testators requested requiem masses to be celebrated for them. Although
this trend was not completely reversed in later years, it did not continue in
the same way. In the fifty years from 1600 until 1650, forty-two testators
required requiem masses to be carried out on the day of their death and thereafter. No fixed prices existed for these masses. On average testators left behind
between fifty and one hundred Reichstaler, but there was considerable variation. One woman only gave twelve Reichstaler, for example;62 this would
have been enough money for only a small number of masses.63 Although
these special masses became more popular again in the seventeenth century,
many reappeared in slightly different form. Much of the praying was now
requested to be carried out by confraternities.
Confraternities were one of the single most popular Catholic initiatives that laypeople became involved in at local level. No matter where in
the Catholic world we look, the sheer number and variety of confraternities is astounding.64 In Münster we find three different kinds of confraternity: religious confraternities (religiöse Bruderschaften), confraternities
based on the neighbourhood (Petribruderschaften), and even some whose
aim it was to defend and protect the city (Schützenbruderschaften). Some
were centred on a profession, some only allowed clerics to join, and others limited their membership geographically to those resident in a particular parish or neighbourhood. Münster’s ten Petribruderschaften were
based on the neighbourhood and recruited from only a few streets. All
shared St Peter as their patron and the aim of having a ‘good, friendly,
Chapter 16, ‘On the fruit of justification, namely merit from good works, and on the nature
of that merit’, and ‘Canons on justification’, in Tanner, Decrees, 677–81, and Session 25,
‘Decree on Purgatory’, in Tanner, Decrees, 774.
62
StdAMs, Gerichtsarchiv, BI Testamente II, Nr. 1133.
63
R. Po-chia Hsia, ‘Civic Wills as Sources for the Study of Piety in Muenster, 1530–
1618’, Sixteenth Century Journal, 14.3 (1983), 345.
64
For research on confraternities, especially in Italy, see N. Terpstra (ed.), The Politics
of Ritual Kinship: Confraternities and Social Order in Early Modern Italy (Cambridge,
2000); and N. Terpstra, Lay Confraternities and Civic Religion in Renaissance Bologna
(Cambridge, 2002). More recently interest has shifted to the rest of Europe and even the
Americas: N. Terpstra, C. F. Black, and P. Gravestock (eds.), Early Modern Confraternities
in Europe and the Americas: International and Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Farnham, 2006).
For confraternities in the nearby Cologne, see R. von Mallinckrodt, Struktur und kollektiver Eigensinn: Kölner Laienbruderschaften im Zeitalter der Konfessionalisierung (Göttingen,
2005); B. Heal, The Cult of the Virgin Mary in Early Modern Germany (Cambridge,
2007), 250–60. On Marian confraternities and sodalities, L. Châtellier, The Europe of the
Devout: The Catholic Reformation and the Formation of a New Society (Cambridge, 1989).
For an examination of recent scholarship on confraternities and lay spirituality, N. Terpstra,
‘Lay Spirituality’, in A. Bamji, G. Janssen, and M. Laven (eds.), The Ashgate Research
Companion to the Counter-Reformation (Farnham, 2013).
Women’s Relationships with the Living, the Dead, and the Divine 69
loving neighbourhood between neighbours, to keep the peace and unity,
to help each other in need and illness, sadness and other misfortunes and
difficulties, to soothe and to show human comfort’.65 This emphasis on
collective ritual, mutual support, and often some kind of philanthropic
activity, were characteristics shared by all early modern confraternities.
But even if one belonged to the right group of people, confraternities ultimately remained exclusive associations made up of those who could afford
to pay their entrance fee. They also tended to limit the overall number
of people allowed to join. Some of Münster’s confraternities present us
with an interesting compromise in this regard. While the Confraternity
of the Holy Trinity (Heilig-Geist-Bruderschaft) admitted only thirty-two
men, it allowed an unlimited number of women to join. Similarly, the
Confraternity of Our Lady (Liebfrauen-Bruderschaft) at Überwasser,
and the Confraternity Beatae Mariae Virginis at St Aegidii, founded in
1441 ‘in honour of God and Mary, the pure maid and mother of God,
who is the mother of mercy and comforter of sad souls, and there for the
consolation and blessing of all souls’, both allowed seventy-two men to
join and, again, an unlimited number of women.66 Men had to pay one
Gulden as the entrance fee, while women only gave one pound of wax.67
All confraternities shared the idea of commemorative prayer. Members
also organized processions, forty-hour prayers, and attended mass and
funerals together. In 1619, Matthaeus Tympius described how several
funeral processions, all staffed by confraternity members, would meet in
silence in the narrow streets of the city accompanied only by the sound of a
bell (Sterbeglocke).68 It is easy to imagine how confraternal care for the dead
could become quite a time-consuming responsibility in times of plague
and war. However, due to the sincerity of their members and the perceived
efficacy of their prayers, the city’s confraternities were never short of willing members and also received generous financial support in wills. Donors
knew that when it came to intercessory prayers, numbers mattered. More
importantly, women’s prayers counted as much as men’s. The idea of a
whole confraternity, including an unlimited number of women, united in
prayer in his or her memory must have been a truly soothing prospect for
any testator.
65
A. Hüsing, ‘Die alten Bruderschaften in der Stadt Münster’, Westfälische Zeitschrift,
61 (1903), 107.
66
StAM, Studienfonds Münster, Überwasser 226.
67
C. Steinbicker, Die Liebfrauen-Bruderschaft an der Pfarr- und Klosterkirche St. Aegidii
1441–1941 (Münster, 1966), 293.
68
P. Löffler, Studien zum Totenbrauchtum in den Gilden, Bruderschaften und
Nachbarschaften Westfalens vom Ende des 15. Jahrhunderts bis zum Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts
(Münster and Regensberg, 1975), 53.
70
Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
‘ T he P oor are always with U s ’ 6 9
In Christian ethics, holy charity enjoyed pre-eminence amongst the virtues, and the post-Tridentine Church tried to reinfuse the society with a
consciousness of its obligations. ‘The pauper was, after all, in Christian
doctrine, the linchpin in the salvation of the rich: for only by charity, the
giving of their substance to the poor and the weak, could the wealthy elicit
divine mercy.’70 Although the Council of Trent insisted that the bishop take
control over diocesan charity, in Münster, poor relief and charity remained
both in the hands of the laity as well as the Church. Church, city council,
and parishioners all had a role to play in the provision of poor relief in the
city, though the most important civic initiatives for helping the poor were
organized at parochial level. Each of Münster’s parishes (St Aegidii, St
Lamberti, St Ludgeri, St Martini, St Servatii, and Liebfrauen-Überwasser)
had a common alms box (Almosenkorb), which was funded through a mixture of tithes, donations, and charitable bequests. Even though the parish
formed the basic organizational unit for these initiatives, the clergy had
no hand in the supervision of the alms boxes, which were administered
by two lay supervisors. The funds gathered from the alms boxes provided
the poor of the parish with bread, which was distributed on the many
feast days throughout the ecclesiastical year. Specific support was given to
those individuals whom the supervisors had deemed to be ‘deserving’ of
more extensive help, in forms such as small amounts of money, clothes,
food, or firewood. Occasionally, the supervisors also granted rent support, contributions towards school fees, assistance for the performance
of last rites, and even for coffins.71 While the alms boxes provided for
the parish poor, the common poor fund (Allgemeiner Armenfonds) was a
citywide initiative administered by the city council. Although every citizen could appeal to the supervisors of the common poor fund for help,
women were a minority among its recipients throughout these years. In
1600, seventy-five people received support, amongst them thirty women.
Matthew 26:11.
O. Hufton, The Poor in Eighteenth-century France, 1750–1789 (Oxford, 1974),
131–2. See also J. Henderson, ‘Charity and Welfare in early modern Tuscany’, in
O.P. Grell, A. Cunningham and J. Arrizabalaga (eds.), Health Care and Poor Relief in
Counter-Reformation Europe (London, 1999); B. Pullan, Rich and Poor in Renaissance
Venice: The Social Institutions of a Catholic State to 1620 (Cambridge, Mass., 1971);
T. M. Safley (ed.), The Reformation of Charity: The Secular and the Religious in early modern Poor Relief (Boston, 2003).
71
F.-J. Jakobi, R. Klötzer, H. Lambacher, and C. Schedensack (eds.), Armut, Not und
Gute Werke: Soziale Stiftungen in Münster (Münster, 2001), 73–4.
69
70
Women’s Relationships with the Living, the Dead, and the Divine 71
By 1605, numbers had risen to ninety-nine people altogether, twenty-nine
of whom were women. Of the sixty-three recipients of the common poor
fund in 1607, only seventeen were women. From 1609 until 1611, figures
remained fairly stable: around forty-five men and twenty women were
given a helping hand through the common poor fund. In the years 1612
to 1613, numbers went up again: of the seventy-nine people who received
financial help, thirty-three were women. After that, the figures remained
fairly constant throughout the decade: ninety-five people were granted
help in 1613, thirty-seven of them were women; eighty-three were listed
in 1614, of which thirty-nine were women; in 1615, seventy-five people received financial assistance, twenty-six of whom were female. In the
final year for which we have data, only sixty-six people appear on the list,
thirty of whom were women.72 The reasons for seeking public support
also varied. In 1612, for example, ten women received money because
somebody from the community had attested to their need for assistance;
another three women were widowed; five were ‘old and bedridden’; three
were inhabitants of poor houses; ten were poor; one woman’s house had
burned down, and, finally, one was ‘a poor servant girl who had hurt her
bones’. Men received money for mostly the same reasons, with one major
exception: The only noticeable difference was the great number of boys
and young men who received support for educational purposes, either
because they wanted to be apprenticed or to study. Hence, for example,
students received money to pay for their lodgings and books. Therefore,
while the common poor fund supported both men and women in the city,
most of its financial assistance went to men; and while women were given
help because they were poor, sick, and old, men asked for support for their
education or training. No woman ever did the same; women’s main concern was subsistence, not education.
Men and women responded to poverty differently.73 Women, especially
widows and single women, were conscious of their vulnerable position in
society, both financially and socially. Of all the charitable legacies made by
widows, most went to the poor houses, then to the orphans—perhaps with
their own children in mind—followed closely by the shamefaced poor and
the poor in general. Only a small minority of widows decided not to give
anything to charity at all. Single women reveal a similar pattern: they also
StdAMs, Stiftungsarchiv, Allgemeiner Armenfonds.
This contradicts the findings of Brigitte Klosterberg, who has stated for late medieval Cologne that there was no difference between men’s and women’s charitable giving.
B. Klosterberg, Zur Ehre Gottes und zum Wohl der Familie—Kölner Testamente von Laien und
Klerikern im Spätmittelalter, Kölner Schriften zu Geschichte und Kultur, vol. 22 (Cologne,
1995), 266.
72
73
72
Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
gave most of their bequests to the poor houses. The second most common
bequests were to the poor in general, then the orphans, then no bequests
at all and, lastly, the shamefaced poor. In favouring poor houses, women
showed an awareness that poverty was predominantly a female problem,
since most of the places in poor houses were intended for women. There
were nineteen women-only poor houses in Münster (some of them indeed
founded by women), which provided about 161 places; there were also five
institutions with 132 places for both men and women. On the other hand,
there were only four poor houses which existed exclusively for men. Clearly,
women’s need for assistance was much greater than men’s—which might
also help to explain why so many women decided to give to others. In her
book on early modern Turin, Sandra Cavallo comes to a similar conclusion by noting that women supported other women out of an awareness of
female vulnerability in terms of finances, honour, and poverty.74 Couples,
on the other hand, tended to favour their respective partners and children
in their wills, and thereafter the Church. If they did give money to charity,
they gave to the poor in general and to orphans. Nevertheless, the number
of couples who decided to give to the poor is the same as that of couples who
gave nothing at all to charity. Single men also gave generously to charity but
preferred the poor to the poor houses. After these bequests, orphans were
the third most likely recipients of male charity; thereafter, men were likely to
give nothing at all, and, least common of all, they might give to the shamefaced poor. Men and women perceived and experienced poverty differently
and consequently drew diverging conclusions about whom to support.
Münster’s city council never adopted the policies followed by many
Protestant and Catholic cities in the Empire which had outlawed begging
altogether.75 Until 1650, the poor of the city continued to be allowed to
beg at specified times during the week. However, in 1585 the council
did step up its efforts to limit begging and decreed that all those officially
permitted to beg had to wear a badge. This did not make the supervision
of begging easier, though, as the following council observation shows: ‘A
lot of known poor have received badges from their supervisors and then
died during the plague, [and] their badges have been sold on by their
relatives’.76 While the implementation of the decrees was difficult, the
sheer number of poor people who needed support remained the biggest
74
S. Cavallo, Charity and Power in Early Modern Italy: Benefactors and their Motives in
Turin, 1541–1789 (Cambridge, 1995), 158.
75
cf. J. Ruff, Violence in Early Modern Europe, 1500–1800 (Cambridge, 2001), see
the chapter on organized crime; R. Jütte, Poverty and Deviance in Early Modern Europe
(Cambridge, 2001), chapter on the reorganization of poor relief.
76
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 32 (1600).
Women’s Relationships with the Living, the Dead, and the Divine 73
challenge for the council.77 In 1615, the council complained that ‘each day
more and more beggars arrive in the city’ and ordered a list to be drawn
up dividing beggars into categories (young beggar, foreign beggar, old and
helpless beggar).78 Based on this information, each Saturday at ten o’clock
the alms supervisors in the parishes were to count the poor in their parish
and to distribute bread and money to them. Money for poor relief was
often in short supply, and the city council regularly had to appeal to the
benevolence of its burghers; in return, the city fathers anticipated generous rewards from God Almighty.79 Apparently, this did not always trigger
the desired generosity, however: ‘during the last couple of collections of
alms’, the councillors complained in 1617, ‘the burghers of Münster have
not been generous enough, so that one can only be surprised, the honourable council cannot carry the responsibility before God of the wealthy
being the ones who do not extend their helping hand to God’s poor’.80 In
times of crisis the situation got even more difficult. In 1631, during the
Thirty Years’ War, the city scribe noted that the number of poor grew daily,
‘the longer, the more’, and ‘the times when begging is permitted in the city
are in total disarray, the poor walk through the whole city and the burghers are molested all the time from morning till evening so that none of
them can get any peace at all’. With the result that ‘not those who deserve
alms most receive them, but the young and strong, who take the alms and
bread out of the mouths of the deserving’.81 In response, the magistrates
demanded ‘that the beggars shall be educated in godliness and to get rid
of their laziness’. How exactly this special education was to be achieved
remains unclear, but punishment was one approach: ‘Those unwilling to
obey these orders shall be imprisoned for a few days’.82 In 1646, the council considered introducing a workhouse to the city to persuade the poor to
do ‘honourable and honest work and to learn something’.83 Poverty was
now perceived as a morally dangerous state. By 1650, the policies and the
attitudes underlying them had thus changed from registration and categorization of the poor into an attempt to discipline and to correct them. As
77
According to Ralf Klötzer, about 30 per cent of Münster’s population was poor.
Klötzer, Kleiden, Speisen, Beherbergen, 32. See also the following statistics from the city
archive: total population of Münster in 1600: 10,000, of which 2,500 were poor. c.1,200 of
these needed support; around 600 were beggars; c.300 belonged to the shamefaced poor and
about 300 lived in poor houses. Source: <www.muenster.de/stadt/armut/index1.html>.
78
StdAMs, Polizei, AVI 83 (26 November 1616), 44–6v.
79
Ibid., (15 December 1617), 57.
80
Ibid.
81
StdAMs, Stiftungsarchiv, Allgemeiner Armenfonds Akte 23 (6 April 1631).
82
Ibid.
83
StdAMs, Stiftungsarchiv, Allgemeiner Armenfonds Akte 23 (1646).
74
Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
the magistrates came to regard poverty less and less as a condition worthy
of support, the poor laws were gradually adapted. And yet, while the secular authorities changed their approach to poverty and became less tolerant
of begging, most Münsteraners continued to support the most vulnerable
of the urban community: as the analysis of civic wills demonstrated, charitable giving to the poor remained as popular in the 1640s as it had been
four decades earlier.
In seventeenth-century Münster, it seems to have been almost obligatory for citizens of some means to remember the have-nots; nearly everyone included the poor in their wills. Yet, we have to remember that this was
not an abstract act of charitable giving based on theological arguments.
Testators often knew many of the recipients of their charitable bequests.
They knew the inmates of the poor houses, they shared a neighbourhood
with the shamefaced poor, they helped to feed the poor through the tithes
they paid to the church, and they regularly met the same beggars asking
for alms after mass on Sundays. To most, the poor were not an anonymous
mass roaming the city but a sizeable and well known group in the midst of
Münster’s urban community.
C onclusion
The women of Münster had a number of ways to participate in religion
and to practise their faith. Ironically, perhaps, it was at the moment of
preparing for their own death that gave them an important opportunity
to express their piety in a visible and active manner and to show to those
around them which religious values they held dear: how they wanted
to be remembered, and how they imagined the relationship between
humanity and the divine. Many women, especially the wealthy, chose
to use causes that reflected their social position in the urban community
as well as the social and religious values they had cherished during their
lifetime. It was the insistence of the Counter-Reformation Church on
the merits of caritas and memoria which opened an avenue for women
to style themselves publicly as active members of the Catholic community. They made strategic decisions about which people, institutions,
and pious causes in the city to support and, in doing so, shaped the
social and religious landscape of their hometown. Catholic piety was
therefore just as much about practical considerations as it was about
religious devotion, and money formed an important part of it. It did
not only belong in the realm of the spiritual and otherworldly, but
became manifest in very concrete ways. Interestingly, this active role in
Catholic piety was not exclusive to women of wealth and status. As the
Women’s Relationships with the Living, the Dead, and the Divine 75
striking example of the Lichtmütter shows, women of different social
status could take on very visible roles in the devotional life of the parish.
It has become clear, then, that greater recognition in the historiography
on early modern Catholicism should be given to women and the important role they played in communal piety.
3
An Ideal Marriage after Trent
Protestant theology abolished five of the seven sacraments and thereafter
regarded only baptism and communion as the sacred links between God
and his people. Marriage came to be seen as a purely human bond and
was denied any sacramental character. Luther explicitly called it an ‘external worldly thing’, and Calvin, in his Institutes, wrote that matrimony
became regarded as a sacrament only after the time of Gregory the Great
(540–604).1 But, so he objected, ‘[w]‌hat man in his sober senses could
so regard it? God’s ordinance is good and holy; so also are agriculture,
architecture, shoemaking, hair-cutting legitimate ordinances of God, but
they are not sacraments’.2 And yet, despite placing marriage firmly in the
secular realm, the institution of marriage remained socially and symbolically important even in Protestantism. With the abolition of convents,
marriage was the only place where women could lead proper Christian
lives. The impact of the Reformation on women was therefore deeply
ambiguous, as it denied them a religious existence outside of marriage and
led to a renewed patriarchalism.3 Conversely, Catholic theologians never
doubted matrimony’s sacramental character (though they also continued
to idealize virginity and celibacy):4 ‘If anyone says that marriage is not in
a true and strict sense one of the seven sacraments of the gospel dispensation, instituted by Christ, but a human invention in the church, and that
it does not confer grace: let him be anathema’.5 From now on, this was
one of the major differences in theological credo between the two confessions. Catholics also saw marriage as a symbol of the bond between Christ
M. Luther, Von Ehesachen (Wittenberg: Durch Hans Lufft, 1530), 1.
J. Calvin, Institutes of Christian Religion, vol. IV, edited by T. Lane and H. Osborne
(Grand Rapids, MI,1987), 34.
3
L. Roper, The Holy Household: Women and Morals in Reformation Augsburg (Oxford,
1989), 2.
4
Session 24, Canons on the sacrament of marriage, canon 10: ‘If anyone says the married state is to be preferred to that of virginity or celibacy, and that it is no better or more
blessed to persevere in virginity or celibacy than to be joined in marriage: let him be anathema’. Tanner, Decrees, 755.
5
Ibid., 754.
1
2
An Ideal Marriage after Trent
77
and his Church. For example, Peter Canisius (1521–97), Germany’s most
prolific Jesuit, saw the symbolic nature of marriage as the basis of matrimony’s sacramental status. ‘Howe is Matrimony a Sacrament? In that the
most strait coniunction, which is betweene Man & Wife, is an holy and
conuenient signe ordained by God, whereby is signified the most holy and
firme coniunction of Christ the Bridegroome & the Church his Spouse’.6
The catechism of the Jesuit also tied another important aspect to the argument about marriage: the issue of grace. Canisius believed that matrimony
directly conferred grace on the betrothed couple.7 He wrote: ‘This very
signe profiteth unto Christian Couples, to receive the grace of God, when
they doe rightly enterprise Matrimony. Which grace maketh perfecte
naturall love . . . ever preserue mutual fidelity, peace, love and singular concorde’.8 Matrimony was thus perceived as an outward sign of inward grace.
This belief in the close relationship between marriage and grace, confirmed
by the council fathers at Trent, had an important consequence.9 It allowed
Catholics to make a connection between marriage and every Christian’s
path to salvation through the grace that is inherent in the sacrament. For
Protestants, this message was of no importance at all, as salvation was to
be achieved by faith alone, ‘sola fide’. For lay Catholics, however, the different stages in life were marked and accompanied by the sacraments, and,
moreover, the grace received through them was an indispensable means of
obtaining redemption for their sins after death. Marriage was therefore a
stepping-stone towards heaven. It was a promise of grace and of salvation,
and a symbol of the indissoluble bond between God and his people.
But how did early modern people think about marriage and what expectations did they tie to it? Did men and women have differing views on marriage, or did their expectations converge neatly into the idea of the ruling
husband and the obedient wife? The protocols of the city court tell us, for
example, of a husband complaining about his wife’s ‘abusive words to his
father and stepmother . . . and her binging and boozing and wasting their
property’.10 What policies did the authorities follow and what perception
of marriage emerges from their proceedings? Can their efforts be summed
up as discipline and control, in line with the debate on confessionalization? How did they cope with the realities of quarrelsome couples and
6 P. Canisius, A Summe of Christian Doctrine [1592–96], D. M. Rogers (ed.), English
Recusant Literature, 35 (1971), 253.
7 In 1547, Canisius participated in the Council of Trent as the representative of Cardinal
Otto Truchsess von Waldburg, Bishop of Augsburg, and spoke twice at the congregation
of theologians.
8 Canisius, A Summe, 253.
9 Session 24, Canons on the sacrament of marriage, in Tanner, Decrees, 754.
10
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, A II Nr. 20 Bd. 48 (20 February 1616), 43.
78
Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
broken marriage vows? When Emmanuel Dalmeida left Theodora Prick
after they had slept together, the girl decided to go to court to remind him
of the marriage promise he had given her before they became involved. At
that point, Dalmeida disappeared from Münster, never to be seen again.11
This is just one of the cases that will be examined in this chapter. The aim,
however, is not only to investigate early modern attitudes towards sex and
morality, but to focus on marriage and what it meant to the various parties
involved.
Analysis will be based mainly on council protocols, as well as criminal
records, wills, and other records kept by the city court. The city court
consisted of lay as well as professional members. The bishop appointed
the city judge who acted as chair. Since the city judge (Stadtrichter) held
no judicial powers, his only task was to pass the sentences. Real power lay
with the twenty-four members of the city council who functioned as lay
judges (Schöffen) and who decided on the judgments as well as the manner and extent of the punishments. The councillors also chose two men
from amongst their own circle to act as presiding judges (Richtherren) in
court. Repeated conflicts between the city and the bishop over the division of judicial authority in the city also led to periods of absence by the
city judge, which only helped to confirm the judicial independence of the
city.12 In court, trained notaries kept a written record of the arguments
brought forward by the various parties involved in litigation. Most of the
time, these protocols were not kept verbatim, but were a condensed version of what had been said in court. In reading and interpreting our cases,
we therefore need to remember that there is an innate magisterial bias
contained in our material.13 Coming face to face with authority in such a
direct way was an exceptional situation for early modern people. When we
analyse court records we have to remember that people sought to create
a favourable impression for the judges. Their stories do not mirror reality
but merely a version of reality that has undergone a process of adjustment
shaped by an awareness of what was at stake: honour could be restored or
lost forever, heavy fines could be imposed, years of paying alimony could
lie ahead, even longer years of unwanted marriage could be enforced. Both
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, A II Nr. 20 Bd. 80 (18 February 1650), 11.
A. Hanschmidt, ‘Zwischen bürgerlicher Autonomie und fürstlicher Stadtherrschaft
(1580–1661)’, in F.-J. Jakobi (ed.), Geschichte der Stadt Münster, vol. 1 (Münster, 1994),
249–99; C. Schedensack, Nachbarn im Konflikt: Zur Entstehung und Beilegung von
Rechtsstreitigkeiten um Haus und Hof im frühneuzeitlichen Münster (Münster, 2007), 38.
A. Alfing, Hexenjagd und Zaubereiprozesse in Münster: Vom Umgang mit Sündenböcken in
den Krisenzeiten des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts (Münster, 1994), 24.
13
cf. M. Safley, Let No Man put Asunder: The Control of Marriage in the German Southwest
(Kirksville, 1984), 8.
11
12
An Ideal Marriage after Trent
79
parties also formulated their (competing) accounts against the background
of existing cultural norms which reflected both the moral standards as well
as the gender expectations of early modern society at large.14 Court records
therefore have to be approached with circumspection; nevertheless they
can reveal a great deal about the impact of religious reform on one of the
most embattled institutions of post-Reformation society: marriage. I want
to show how the Tridentine decrees on marriage influenced the behaviour
of the civic authorities as well as that of the people they governed. How
did the city fathers try to regulate marriage in Münster and how did early
modern men and women respond to such interference? I also want to trace
the expectations held by the secular authorities concerning sexual morality
and married life, the attitudes of early modern men and women towards
marriage, and the conditions under which these were formed. Looking at
marriage in this way will help us understand how early modern men and
women understood themselves in relation to one of the most intimate
aspects of their lives.15
Although the Council of Trent had confirmed the jurisdiction of the
Catholic Church over matrimony, the situation proved to be more complicated at the local level.16 In 1573, Bishop Johann von Hoya (1567–74)
reorganized the jurisdictional system, making the newly created Chamber
Court (Weltliches Hofgericht) the highest secular judicial instance in the
bishopric, while the Ecclesiastical Court (Offizialat, Geistliches Hofgericht)
remained in charge of all jurisdiction pertaining to the clergy. The laity
could turn to the Offizialat in specific instances only: ‘1.) If widows, wards,
orphans, and other poor people should seek the jurisdiction of the clerical
14
Ulrike Geixner reminds us that court records are complex, constructed, bureaucratic
texts in her thorough discussion of the limitations and strengths of court protocols as historical sources. U. Gleixner, ‘Das Mensch’ und ‘der Kerl’: Die Konstruktion von Geschlecht in
Unzuchtsverfahren der Frühen Neuzeit (1700–1760) (Frankfurt am Main, 1994), ch. 1. On
the use of court records see also, for example, N. Z. Davis, Fiction in the Archives: Pardon Tales
and their Tellers in Sixteenth-Century France (Stanford, 1987); J. Ferraro, Marriage Wars in
Late Renaissance Venice (Oxford, New York; 2001), ch. 1; J. Bailey, Unquiet Lives: Marriage
and Marriage Breakdown in England, 1660–1800 (Cambridge, 2003), ch. 3; D. Hacke,
Women, Sex and Marriage in Early Modern Venice (Aldershot, 2004), ch. 4.
15
I agree with Max Safley that, despite the fact that court records only document the
experiences of a minority of people whose disputes actually end up in court and are therefore
exceptional, ‘marital conflict cannot be described easily as exceptional. Conflict between
persons on intimate terms with one another emotionally and physically was and is neither
exceptional nor, strictly speaking, deviant. Rather, disputes are a common expression and
consequence of that intimacy. . . . The experience of married couples in court forms a subset
of, rather than an exception to, the marital experience of the society in general’. Safley, Let
No Man put Asunder, 6–7.
16
Trent had made the Offizialat the court of first instance in the resident diocese for all
legal affairs. Ibid., 4.
80
Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
judge. Second, if religious matters are in question which according to
canon law should be decided by a clerical judge, such as . . . marriage matters’.17 However, Bishop Johann’s efforts at reform were hampered by the
city council’s firm insistence that he had to confirm the judicial autonomy
of the city and the city court, which, in the end, he did.18 Münster’s citizens
could therefore still turn to the city court for cases relating to questions
of marriage and morality. Apart from these two courts, citizens could also
have their charges heard by the synods, which were under the supervision
of the archdeacons and the lower courts (Gogerichte).19 Thus, people had a
number of different courts to which they could turn, and they made use of
this possibility. The sources show, for example, that cases of adultery were
brought before the city court, the Offizialat, and the synods. Conversely,
the city court got to hear the whole spectrum of premarital and marital
conflicts.20 Because of this, and because its protocols are complete for the
period after 1564, we can establish the views of the magistrate and of ordinary men and women on marriage and its meaning.21
Marriage was an issue with a troubled history in Münster. During the
Anabaptist Kingdom, sexual morality as hitherto known had been turned
upside down when polygamy was introduced to the city and existing
marriages were dissolved. The subsequent marriage of several women to
one man severed existing family bonds and caused huge emotional harm.
A witness tells us about the consequences of these changes: ‘The introduction of polygamy created great stress within the besieged city. Some 200
citizens took to arms in opposition. After its suppression, 120 were taken
captive, of whom 47 were executed’.22 Although polygamy was outlawed
17
W. E. Schwarz, ‘Die Reform des bischöflichen Offizialats in Münster durch Johann
v. Hoya (1573)’, Westfälische Zeitschrift, 74 (1916), 1–228, here 143–4.
18
On the reforms carried out by Johann von Hoya, see R. Lüdicke, ‘Die landesherrlichen Zentralbehörden im Bistum Münster: Ihre Entstehung und Entwicklung bis 1650’,
Westfälische Zeitschrift, 59 (1901), 1–169. See also Hsia, Society and Religion, 110–11.
19
For a thorough study of the proceedings of the synod courts in the bishopric of
Münster, and what their caseload reveals about life in the countryside, see Holzem, Religion
und Lebensformen.
20
Only cases of clandestine marriages were not heard by the secular court; they went
straight to the synod court. Ibid., 316.
21
The records of the Offizialat have only survived in fragments: whole years of compilations of cases and judgments are missing. In addition, since no indices were compiled at the
time, finding relevant cases is difficult. This task is further complicated by the fact that many
cases only record the last names of the parties involved, making it difficult to match the
cases with the judgments, which were recorded separately. cf. StAM, Fürstbistum Münster,
Geistliches Hofgericht (Offizialat).
22
H. Gresbeck, ‘Summarische Ertzelungk und bericht der Wiederdope und wat sich
binnen der Stat Monster in Westphalen zugetragen im Iair MDXXV’, in C. A. Cornelius
(ed.), Bericht der Augenzeugen über das münsterische Wiedertäuferreich (Münster, 1853), 77.
An Ideal Marriage after Trent
81
at the end of the Anabaptist Kingdom, it left an immense moral stain on
the reputation of the city near and far. ‘Like thieves, [the Anabaptists]
had robbed Münster’s citizens of their belongings and set up a king; and,
like murderers, they intended to subdue the land with the sword. In addition, they carried on all kinds of fornication. Thus their spirit revealed
itself ’.23 Of course, Philip Melanchthon was not an impartial observer,
but many contemporaries would have agreed with the general flavour
of his comment. The Anabaptist Kingdom was commonly described
as ‘un-Christian, gruesome . . . and indecent’.24 The Tridentine Church
responded to the scandal of 1535 in its usual manner: ‘If anyone says that
Christians may have more than one wife at once and that it is forbidden
by no divine law: let him be anathema’.25
Considering the intensity of the emotions aroused by polygamy, it
comes as a surprise to encounter nothing but silence in the source material
of the post-Anabaptist years. Instead of the expected barrage of episcopal
decrees condemning the sexual excesses of the fallen king and his followers, the sources do not contain any information at all about the actions
of the bishop or the city council to restore the sanctity of marriage and
traditional marriage practice. It would be wrong, though, to infer from
this silence that the authorities regarded marriage as an issue unworthy
of their attention. On the contrary, they very much valued marriage and
the stability it brought to human relationships. This becomes clear from
the actions they undertook to protect marriage, rather than the number of
decrees and other prescriptive material they published. However, in order
to determine the legislative framework in which the authorities operated,
let us first take a look at the police ordinances.
Two of these have survived, the first dating from 1534, the later from
1570.26 The earlier example dealt with every possible aspect of a marriage
from beginning to end, from the validity of marriage contracts to regulations
on how to bequeath one’s property.27 It also addressed the issue of adultery.
An adulterer brought before the city court for the first time was made to pay
three Reichstaler, a repeated offender six, and someone caught thrice had to
pay nine Reichstaler. Only when the same person was caught a fourth time
did the punishment become harsher. Then, he or she lost the privilege of
Haude, In the Shadow of ‘Savage Wolves’, 1.
Ibid.
25
Session 24, Canons on the sacrament of marriage, in Tanner, Decrees, 754.
26
StdAMs, AI Privilegien Nr. 31 Polizeiordnungen, Bd. 1.
27
StAM, Domkapitel Münster, Akten Nr. 2410,’Ordenunge Und Vereinigungh der
BraudtWerschaften und deren Kosten so allhier binnen Munster gehalten werden sollen’
(1534), not paginated.
23
24
82
Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
citizenship and was banished from the city.28 This rather lenient policy was
re-confirmed by the city fathers in 1551. However, in 1570 the city council changed its policy and implemented much stricter policies. All this was
triggered by the case of Johann von L., who was caught committing adultery.29 Since this was Johann’s first offence, he was made to pay a penalty.
This was in accordance with the new rules laid down in the same document
which ordered first time offenders to pay a monetary fine, the level of which
remained unspecified and was determined individually for each case.30 Repeat
offenders were to be publicly shamed by standing in front of their local parish
church during mass, dressed in white linen and with a burning candle in their
hands. If caught for a third time, the council ordered physical punishment.31
With these prescriptions in mind, let us now turn to the sources themselves
to discover what they tell us about the difficulties which could befall couples
on their way to church and after their vows had been exchanged.
T he Rocky Road to M arriage
The ordinances determined the criminal procedures to be taken against
marriage offenders by the secular authorities, who wanted to protect marriage against loose sexual morality and the consequences that this could have
on family relations, inheritances, and public morality. The rules were complemented by the decrees of the Council of Trent. However, the attention
of the Council was not focused on those already married, but on the period
before marriage—in particular, on the ceremony that followed betrothal.
Whereas for many centuries it had been enough for two people to agree to
be married—an agreement which was subsequently made public through a
festive procession along the main street and some merrymaking in the local
tavern—after Trent, these rather informal celebrations lost their validity.32
[t]‌his council orders that henceforth, before a marriage is contracted, an
announcement of those intending to marry shall be made publicly during
Ibid.
Ibid.
30
The synod courts punished adulterers in a similar manner; the extent of the fine
depended on the economic situation of the offender. Some convicted adulterers had to
pay 200 lbs. of wax or fifty Reichstaler and more. Holzem, Religion und Lebendsform, 361.
31
Wolfgang Behringer claims that this punishment was not perceived as dishonourable.
W. Behringer, ‘Mörder, Diebe, Ehebrecher: Verbrechen und Strafen in Kurbayern vom 16.
und 18. Jahrhundert’, in R. van Dülmen (ed.), Verbrechen, Strafen und soziale Kontrolle,
Studien zur historischen Kulturforschung III (Frankfurt am Main, 1990), 121.
32
L. Roper, ‘ “Going to Street and Church”: Weddings in Reformation Augsburg’, Past
and Present, 106 (1985), 62–101.
28
29
An Ideal Marriage after Trent
83
mass by the parish priest of the contracting parties on three successive feast
days. After these announcements have been made, and if no legitimate
impediment is raised in objection, the celebration of the marriage must then
take place in open church, during which the parish priest will, by questioning the man and woman, make sure of their consent and then say, I join you
together in marriage, in the name of the Father and the Son and the holy
Spirit, or use other words according to the accepted rite of each province.33
Now, the Catholic Church strove to bring marriage into the church in
front of the altar, the holiest part of the church. Here the couple were free
to celebrate their union in facie ecclesiae, in church, and in the presence of
the congregation, the priest, and two or three witnesses. The public, or at
least the congregation of the faithful, thus became an integral part of any
marriage celebration as marriage was transformed from a largely lay enterprise into one which was deficient without the presence of the local priest
and the congregation in the parish church. After the blessing was over,
the witnesses attested to the marriage in a book, especially introduced to
record such events, containing the names of the couple, the date of their
union, and the names of the witnesses. The final step necessary to make
the marriage valid was its consummation. The two main characteristics
of Catholic marriage thus became its religious importance for Catholic
doctrine and the high degree of control which the Church tried to attain
over it.
But how successful was the implementation of these measures? Andreas
Holzem, in his work on the confessionalization of the bishopric of
Münster, states that an annual promulgation of the Tridentine marriage
decrees in the parish churches only took place from the mid-seventeenth
century onwards.34 The sources show, however, that there must have been
a certain degree of dissemination well before that, as people referred to
the regulations in the city court from 1616 onwards.35 Before and after
the Council of Trent, Münster’s citizens turned to the secular as well as
the Ecclesiastical Court to settle cases of marital litigation. Although the
33
Session 24, Chapter 1: ‘The holy synod now renders incapable of marriage any who
may attempt to contract marriage otherwise than in the presence of the parish priest or
another priest, with the permission of the parish priest or the ordinary, and two or three
witnesses. . . ’, in Tanner, Decrees, 756.
34
Holzem, Der Konfessionsstaat, 88.
35
See, for example, the case Brüning against Widow Lomann, StdAMs, Ratsarchiv,
Ratsprotokolle, A II Nr. 20 Bd. 48 (1616), 156, 172–5. Not only were the demands of
the Church known to the laity, from the same year onwards, the clergy also introduced
the required marriage books in all the churches of the city. The parish of St Ludgeri was an
exception, for it had possessed a church book since 1607. BDAM, Pfarrarchiv Münster, St
Ludgeri, Kirchenbuch Nr. 1 (1607–1648).
84
Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
ecclesiastical authorities certainly regarded marriage, its regulation and
administration, as their own particular territory, the sources reveal that
the secular authorities were still very much involved in the supervision of
marriage in Münster. The reason for this had to do with the conflicting
powers of the Offizialat and the city court. Whereas the Offizialat could
halt marriage procedures on the basis of a so-called mandatum inhibitorum
de non copulando, only the city court had the power to bring disputes to
a definite resolution through mediation or some well-applied pressure.
The ecclesiastical authorities simply did not possess this power because
they could not force a person into a marriage against his or her will.36
In a sense, the two courts therefore fulfilled different but interdependent
purposes.37 Whilst both courts worried about morality, proper conduct
between the sexes, and stable marital relations, ultimately, if things went
wrong and women were deserted and children left without sufficient care,
the responsibility lay with the civic authorities and the public purse. Thus,
where the Offizialat sought to implement Tridentine prescriptions, the
city court tried to find workable resolutions to marital conflicts and preferred a pragmatic approach to marriage over the strict enforcement of
Tridentine ideals.
When Bernd Brüning appeared in court to voice his accusations against
the Widow Lomann, he charged her with mischievously attempting
to impede his plans to marry another woman. Lomann had previously
posted a so-called mandatum de non copulando at the Offizialat, a formal
complaint against somebody’s intention to marry which was used to prevent cases of bigamy or broken marriage promises. Brüning assured the
judges that he had never promised Widow Lomann marriage, although he
admitted that they were more than just casual acquaintances. One afternoon, Widow Lomann had persuaded Brüning to leave town with her
to look after the flax. They went to a farmer’s house where they stayed
overnight. The widow pretended that Bernd was her son and shared a bed
with him that night. This was when they slept together, but, as Brüning
36
Canon law only regarded consensual unions as valid ones. Max Safley has found this
to be one of the primary reasons why the Offizialat could not regulate marriage effectively.
cf. Safley, Let No Man put Asunder, 47.
37
‘The distinction between the Offizialat and the municipal court can be described in
terms of their various concerns. The church court was concerned with the contractual and
consensual aspect of dysfunction. The episcopal judge sought to preserve the spiritual wellbeing of the husband and wife or the betrothed parties through careful attention to the
manner in which marriages were formed. Consent of the betrothed was the central issue.
Marital rights and responsibilities, public order, and discipline were secondary concerns if
for no other reason than that the episcopal court could not exercise sufficient supervision’.
Ibid., 120.
An Ideal Marriage after Trent
85
pointed out, ‘other than that she never received any promise from him’.38
After that, Brüning tried to avoid Lomann, but the widow continued to
pursue him over the next couple of years. Widow Lomann did not contradict Brüning’s statement. In a reversal of traditional gender stereotypes,
it was she who had taken matters into her own hands. She had lured him
away from the city, had tempted, and then seduced him. In line with tradition, however, Lomann asserted that, contrary to Brüning’s statement, he
had indeed promised ‘marriage and faithfulness’ to her that night in the
farmer’s house.39 However, when she was asked to reveal details, Widow
Lomann could neither remember what words exactly her young lover had
spoken, nor where the promise was made.40 With both parties irreconcilable on this point, the judges concluded the discussion with reference to
the Tridentine regulations. ‘[W]‌ithout hic publicando’, the court stated,
‘it cannot be matrimonium’.41 They also reckoned that Lomann had acted
on inferior motives, ‘out of jealousy to hinder the forthcoming marriage
or to get some money out of [Brüning]’.42 Hence, she was ordered to pay
Brüning’s legal expenses, compensation, plus a penalty to the court.43
Thus, while Brüning was free to marry the woman of his choice, Widow
Lomann had to bear the full weight of the court’s unfavourable ruling. In
the end, however, the court decided to give peace a chance by allowing
both parties to renegotiate their case. Widow Lomann busily defended her
honour. She demanded that Brüning repeat under oath his denial that he
had ever promised marriage to her. In return, she promised to rest her case
and ‘leave it all to his conscience before God’.44 More importantly, she also
promised to withdraw the mandatum from the Offizialat, which removed
the last obstacle from Brüning’s path to the altar.
The case of Bernd Brüning and Widow Lomann raises some interesting
questions about the role of the Offizialat and the intersection of secular and ecclesiastical jurisdictions within Münster.45 Did the city court
actually possess the power to pressure somebody into withdrawing a
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 48 (5 May 1616), 156.
Ibid., (20 May 1616), 172.
Ibid.
41
Ibid.
42
Ibid., (5 May 1616), 156, 174.
43
Ibid., 173.
44
Ibid., 175.
45
For more background on the development of the Offizialat in the bishopric, see
M. Becker-Huberti, Die tridentinische Reform im Bistum Münster unter Ch\ristoph Bernhard
v. Galen 1650–1678, Westfalia Sacra Vol. 6 (Münster, 1978); C. Steinbicker, ‘Beamtentum
in den geistlichen Fürstentümern Nordwestdeutschlands im Zeitraum 1430–70’, in
G. Franz (ed.), Beamtentum und Pfarrstand 1400–1800 (Deutsche Führungsschichten in
der Neuzeit, Bd. 5), (Limburg, 1972), 121–48.
38
39
40
86
Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
mandatum? What were the formalities around such a document? How
was it drawn up and how could it be removed again? Was it treated simply
as a bit of paperwork which could be withdrawn with little ado from the
ecclesiastical authorities? How effective a weapon was this anyway? After
all, the Catholic Church could not force anybody into marriage. This fact
alone suggests that people in similar situations to Widow Lomann’s might
have approached the city court as well as the Offizialat, because the city
court could at least bring such disputes to a real conclusion. Theodora
Prick’s lover, Emmanuel Dalmeida, for example, was given the ‘choice’
between marriage, or a penalty from the secular court.46 The same choice
was also presented to Henricus Buddenbrinck, who was brought to court
by Anna Bruns after she had become pregnant by him.47 And when Bernd
zur Wye stated that he had not yet married Anne Hellemann, since she
‘had caused him many difficulties with her quarrelling day in day out’, the
court did not endorse his position.48 Even his assertion that his bride had
called him ‘traitor and rogue every day, so that he had concerns whether
to proceed with the wedding’ did not overshadow the fact that they had
had a baby daughter together. The court gave zur Wye the choice between
getting married to Anne Hellemann, or paying a penalty of two hundred
Taler and being dismissed from his job as gatekeeper of St Ludgeri.49 On
20 June 1622, the two were married.50
Nevertheless, the ecclesiastical mandatum was not simply a useless piece
of bureaucracy, either. When Niclas Greßmann’s daughter realized that
Johann Hemsing intended to marry an ‘honourable virgin’ (Hemsing’s
words!) instead of herself, she turned to the Offizialat and was granted a
mandatum inhibitorum de non copulando against him. This, according to
Johann Hemsing, sprang from pure ‘malice and [the desire] to delay him
and to cause him unnecessary expenses’.51 Hemsing’s angry words show
that the mandatum was a far from ineffectual tool. It helped to ensure
proper marriage procedure was followed and to prevent the abuse of marriage through bigamy or any other kind of immoral behaviour.
On a more personal level, men and women could also use the mandatum as a tool to define their relationship. Tönniß Bömer, for instance,
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 80 (18 February1650), 12.
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 56 (11 January1625), 448.
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 54 (18 April1622), 123.
49
Ibid.
50
E. Hövel, Das Bürgerbuch der Stadt Münster 1538–1660, Quellen und Forschungen
zur Geschichte der Stadt Münster, vol. 8 (Münster, 1936), 298 (See no. 3252, where it
states: ‘Anna Helleman from Telgte married Bernd zur Weihe, gatekeeper of St Ludgeri,
iurat et recipitur cum filia Gertrütken zur Weihe’).
51
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 56 (5 October 1624), 350.
46
47
48
An Ideal Marriage after Trent
87
used the mandatum to determine the nature of his relationship to Clara
Kranefeldt. Previously, he had given Clara a Reichstaler as a token of his
faithfulness (Treuetaler), but, in his absence, Clara had returned it to
Bömer’s mother. While Clara Kranefeldt now saw herself as a free woman
again, Bömer disagreed, stating that he ‘had never left her’.52 Clara, on the
other hand, pointed out that only eight days after she returned his token,
Bömer had already passed it on to another girl. When the latter had also
rejected it, Bömer gave it to Clara once again, who then swiftly returned it
to his mother. The court did not ask Clara any questions about her refusal
to marry and instead focused on Bömer and his actions alone. In fact, the
judges viewed Bömer’s carefree treatment of the Treuetaler with little sympathy. In their eyes, Bömer had abused the symbolic power of the token
with his courting merry-go-round. After all, the Taler carried more than
just symbolic meaning: it was perceived as an honest and binding declaration of one’s intention to marry and was therefore to be handled with great
care. Consequently, Bömer was made to carry the full burden of the officials’ disapproval, and he was ordered to withdraw the mandatum at once.
On top of this, he was also made to cover the expenses of the court hearing
and was threatened with more severe punishment should he persist in his
stubborn behaviour.53
Tönniß Bömer had his claim fully rejected; the city court followed a
‘pro choice’ policy in its attitudes towards marriage. Although it never
hesitated to use coercion to implement its rulings on marital issues, the
court clearly favoured cooperation over drastic punishments. This is why
it accepted the deal Widow Lomann and Bernd Brüning had worked out
between themselves in 1616, and even warned Brüning that, now a compromise had been achieved, he should leave the widow’s name untainted.54
Similarly, had Jacob Stromberg and Elseke Böckers managed to find a
satisfactory arrangement between themselves, the court would not have
intervened any further. Only their failure to negotiate a compensatory
deal caused it to impose a fine of twenty Marks on both of them. 55
In behaviour typical of the time, Jacob Stromberg had first promised
marriage to Bökers and then slept with her. Realizing that Elseke could
now make a claim against him and his honour, Stromberg decided to
take precautionary action, and through ‘the mediation of good people, he
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 53 (27 September 1621), 348.
Ibid.
54
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 48 (5 May 1616), 175.
55
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 31a (9 August 1599), 34v.
52
53
88
Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
struck a deal with her’.56 He told the court how he ‘promised and paid her
a sum of money, everything according to the contract they had worked out
beforehand . . . and he had also ensured that he would thereafter be troubled no further’.57 Elseke contradicted the suggestion of a contract existing
between the two of them and pointed to the fact that she could neither
read nor write; the signature on the paper could not therefore be hers.58
Stromberg, having slept with Elseke Bökers, decided to protect himself
against the possible consequences with a contract, designed to undo all
the promises that were implied by his actions and possibly his words. His
plans did not come to fruition, though, since the court decided not to pay
any further attention to the contract at all. It judged both parties deserving
of punishment. Elseke Bökers, too, because she had repeatedly slandered
Stromberg’s name after his marriage promise failed to materialize. Both
paid twenty Marks and went their separate ways thereafter. Such a ruling
was only possible if no child was born of the involvement. In the end, this
all came down to children; in early modern Münster, no children usually
meant there was no necessity to get married. If this was the case, the court
supported mutual consent and free will in the choice of marital partners in
its rulings. However, even though it appeared that the judges had reached
a fairly even-handed judgment in the Stromberg–Bökers hearing, this was
not quite the case. Jacob Stromberg walked away a little poorer, but with
his honour intact; however, Elseke’s punishment was much more severe.
Not only was the monetary fine a heavy burden on a single woman, but
the gender-specific repercussions of the dispute hit her much harder than
Stromberg. Despite the fact that Jacob Stromberg did not deny that he
had slept with Elseke under the pretence of marriage, the judges made no
attempt to recompense the woman for the loss of her honour. It was left to
Elseke alone to deal with the community’s response to this typically female
misfortune.
Harsher action was taken against men whose behaviour went beyond
run-of-the-mill premarital sex. When Gertrud Schreiber’s father took
Sebastian Eichholt to court to make him marry his daughter now that she
had given birth to the latter’s child, Sebastian readily admitted that he had
slept with Gertrud, yet he also raised doubts about her overall morality.
Sebastian recounted in court how he had met Gertrud ‘by coincidence in
Schreiber’s house last year before [the feast of St Martin], when she spent
some time with him and, with the knowledge and approval of her father,
56
Ibid. 57 Ibid. 58 Ibid.
An Ideal Marriage after Trent
89
he got to know her in flesh . . . thereafter, he had never had sex with her
again, as he was willing to say under oath’.59 Eichholt then went on questioning his paternity of the child. Gertrud’s father insisted that Sebastian
Eichholt had given him a Taler as proof of his promise to marry Gertrud.
Questioned about the token, Eichholt asserted that it was simply intended
to be spent at the parish fair and that was all there was to it. He then
revealed that ‘lately, Schreiber’s house has been the scene of some frivolous
housekeeping (Haushalten) so that its name had fallen into disrepute’.60
The appellation ‘in der Locken’, which, according to Eichholt, had been
ascribed by neighbours to describe Schreiber’s house, suggested immoral
dealings, perhaps even prostitution, taking place there.61 This was a strong
claim to make in public. However, in a surprising twist, the case did not
turn into an investigation of Gertrud’s morality or of that of her father. In
fact, the court did not pick up on this claim at all. Instead, all its attention
focused on Sebastian when it was discovered that the accuser had himself
been leading a promiscuous lifestyle over the preceding year. Rather defiantly, Sebastian admitted that since he met Gertrud, he had also slept with
a maidservant, and with Niehausen’s daughter, and that about four weeks
ago he had also seen Gertrud again.62 In an irritated manner, the council
pointed out that ‘all this took place within a year and although he was still
a young boy ( junger Knabe) and should not yet have had things like that
on his mind at all’.63 Such grave immorality, the court remarked, deserved
‘serious punishment’, which was then inflicted on Sebastian in the shape
of a hefty penalty of one hundred Reichstaler.64
Eichholt was thus given the highest fine of all the cases heard by the
city court on premarital sex. He received this punishment for his all
too casual sexual conduct: sleeping around, despite his young age and
immaturity (although it seemed likely that he had already fathered a
child with Gertrud). In addition to his apparent immaturity, Eichholt
was probably also not made to marry Schreiber’s daughter because of
a difference of status between the two. The height of his fine suggests
that he was the offspring of a well-off family, whereas Gertrud Schreiber’s
family was of lower social standing. Nevertheless, it seems that over the
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 52 (14 November 1620), 519.
Ibid.
According to Lübben’s dictionary ‘in der Locken’ translates into English as temptation/
seduction (German ‘Lockung’). A ‘locke-hune’ is a basket specifically designed to catch swarms
of bees (Lockkorb, um Bienenschwärme einzufangen). A. Lübben, Mittelniederdeutsches
Handwörterbuch (Darmstadt, Neuauflage 1993), 208.
62
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 52 (14 November 1620), 520.
63
Ibid.
64
Ibid.
59
60
61
90
Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
years Sebastian Eichholt did become more sensible. In his will, he recognized his illegitimate son, Adolpho Eichholt, with a sum of three hundred Reichstaler, under the condition that Adolpho ‘remains honourable
and well-behaved’. Should he ‘get into bad company, he has to return the
three hundred Reichstaler to my [Sebastian’s] wife Clara Rallen’.65 With
this clause, Eichholt obviously wanted to ensure that his son did not
repeat the father’s mistakes.
Eichholt’s name appeared once more in the records in 1622, when
it was noted that his bride wore a crown of pearls on her wedding day,
despite not being a virgin. The punishment this time was a penalty of
twenty Marks.66 On a different occasion, the council complained that a
certain Engela wore the crown of pearls on her feast day, even though
‘she had been notoriously pregnant (notorie gravida) for some time’.67
Women who tried to wear the precious adornment without being virgins were punished by the council for implying otherwise by donning
the crown. Wearing the crown of pearls symbolized a girl’s good behaviour and decency and, in turn, reflected on her upbringing and family
background. It also reminded the community of the link between the
(supposed) virginity of the bride and the immaculacy of the Virgin Mary
since the headgear was fashioned after the crown worn by Holy Mary
herself.68 The crown was an assurance to society that its standards and
values were adhered to. To make the link between purity and wedlock
still clearer, some urban authorities even forced women who failed to
meet such standards to wear a crown of straw instead.69 What had originally been a festive symbol, celebrating the purity of a young woman,
was thus turned into a public opportunity to shame ‘profligate women’.
A simple object, the crown of pearls or of straw, was used either to honour and celebrate, or to censure and discipline, female behaviour in the
public arena.
It seems surprising to find Münster’s secular authorities honouring the
tradition of the crown of pearls since, overall, the council did not seem
overly troubled by premarital sexual relationships, as long as the wedding
StdAMs, Gerichtsarchiv, BI Testamente II, Nr. 1218, Sebastian Eichholt.
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, AVIII Vermögen der Stadt, Nr. 281a Brüchtenprotokolle (1591–
1644), (4 February1622), 221.
67
Although this practice is not documented for Münster, it is attested for in some
other regions of Germany. S. Alfing and C. Schedensack, Frauenalltag im frühneuzeitlichen
Münster, Münsterische Studien zur Frauen- und Geschlechtergeschichte, vol. 1 (Bielefeld,
1994), 168.
68
In Bavaria this custom was observed, too. Strasser, State of Virginity, 40.
69
Alfing and Schedensack, Frauenalltag, 169.
65
66
An Ideal Marriage after Trent
91
did take place eventually. This kind of pragmatism appears again and again
in the court’s judgments. Although the councillors clearly promoted wedlock as the right place for sexual intercourse, its rulings also regarded premarital sexual activity as part of a tradition of courtship that had not ended
with the decrees of the Council of Trent. Punishments were only handed
out in cases where premarital sexual conduct did not progress to the conjugal bed, or when negotiations in front of the council brought no agreement between the two parties. Other grounds for punishment were cases
of sexual profligacy. Thus Sebastian Eichholt had, it seems, simply used the
promise of marriage to persuade single women to have intercourse with
him. The tailor Gerd Engelinck was given an equally harsh punishment
on a similar basis. He had first promised marriage to Bodding’s daughter,
who had become pregnant by him. A little later, Engelinck ‘made a serious oath’ to marry zum Kleie’s daughter, too.70 After that, Engelinck left
zum Kleie’s daughter, returned to the first girl, and married her. The court
reacted to Engelinck’s indecisiveness with anger, stating that he had caused
‘great scandal’, and punished him with a fine and expulsion from the city.71
Only the joint pleas of Engelinck and his new wife spared him this fate,
but he was given a hefty fine of fifty Reichstaler. The only circumstance
that saved Engelinck from losing his livelihood in Münster was the fact
that, in the end, he had decided to marry the mother of his child and that
she had pleaded mercy for him. In its usual manner, the city court had
subordinated the enforcement of drastic punishments to the preservation
of stable human relationships.
Apart from questions of decency and propriety, the main reason why
the authorities wanted to confine sexual activity to the marital bed was, of
course, procreation. The authorities were aware that things became messy
as soon as children were born from illicit affairs. In one case, Lisabeth
Schademann had claimed that Menolschi Caessum had fathered a child
by her; Caessum’s wife then accused Schademann of making false accusations. Here, the court had not only to deal with issues of honour and
extramarital sex, but it also had to make a practical decision about the
child’s future—if Menolschi Caessum really was the baby’s father, how
should he provide for it in the years to come? Whereas the synod courts
usually decreed that a one-off payment of twenty-five Reichstaler to the
mother, or, alternatively, that a sum covering the costs of childbed plus two
Reichstaler annually until the child reached its seventh year, was sufficient,
the secular court did not follow such customary regulations.72 Its rulings
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 56 (30 August 1624), 304.
Ibid.
72
Holzem, Religion und Lebensformen, 365–6.
70
71
92
Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
depended much more on the individual circumstances of each case heard.
Menolschi Caessum was therefore ordered either to pay for the upkeep of
the child or to find ‘another father and present the proof ’.73 The burden of
proof was placed on Menolschi, not on Lisabeth, although her story did
not sound altogether plausible. Lisabeth Schademann had first baptized
the baby as the child of Bernd, a trumpeter and son of a captain from
Amsterdam. ‘But only because at that point she did not know Menolschi
Caessum’s name’.74 This was a strange defence: Lisabeth had first named
a man from a Calvinist territory, with a profession that Münster’s guilds
regarded as dishonourable, as the father of her child. What is more,
Lisabeth indirectly seemed to admit sexual contacts with two men, not
just one, apparently without any sign of marriage on the horizon. Given
this background, it is astonishing that the secular court still placed the
burden of proof and alimentation on Menolschi Caessum.
This case helps to throw light on some of the difficulties that arose from
extramarital sex in early modern society in which the secular court had to
punish such illicit sexual behaviour, and to resolve paternity and financial
issues. Since early modern authorities were incapable of determining the
question of paternity beyond all doubt, they settled on the most likely
candidate. Menolschi confessed to having had intercourse with Lisabeth,
and no other candidate was to hand; this therefore decided the paternity
question. After that, the court’s priority shifted from establishing the
paternity of the baby to making sure the child was sufficiently supported
throughout the early years of its life. At the same time, it also had to find a
way of dispensing justice without overburdening Menolschi’s family, since
whatever punishment Menolschi would receive at the hands of the court
automatically fell upon his family too.
One strategy that couples involved in illegitimacy cases often reverted
to was to send the wife by herself as the representative of the unfaithful
husband to court. Although a woman’s honour was commonly seen as
inferior to a man’s, this did not deter couples from making the woman
the main spokesperson in these family affairs. Was this done to appeal
to the judges’ clemency through a display of female weakness and hence
their need to keep the main provider in the family? What is clear is that,
in these specific circumstances, women were felt to be strategically better
placed in court than their husbands. Consequently, we find wives defending their husbands’ honour and fighting for the reputation of the whole
household. In 1629, when Catrinen Middendorp accused Claes Sellmeier
73
74
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 53 (27 September 1621), 349–50.
Ibid., 349.
An Ideal Marriage after Trent
93
of failing in his duty to support his ‘natural daughter’, it was not Sellmeier
who appeared to defend himself in front of the judges, but his wife, Agnes
Pfannekuchen.75 After tough negotiations, an agreement was worked out
between the two women. Agnes’s husband was to pay compensation and
twenty-one Reichstaler until the child reached its twelfth year.76 It was
solely between Catrinen Middendorp and Agnes Pfannekuchen, standing
in for her husband, that this contract was agreed and its payment details
finalized.
Here again, the emphasis of the city court was on finding workable
solutions. Illegitimacy was treated not like a social, or indeed a religious,
drama, but merely like an issue of bureaucracy. The reason for this probably lies in the realities of early modern life, since it has been shown that
illegitimacy was a common occurrence in the Münsterland.77 Surprisingly,
the moral aspects did not matter much to the secular authorities, or at
least they never uttered a word about them. No punishments were dealt
out to penalize such illicit behaviour. As far as the city court was concerned, the case was solved once a workable agreement had been found
between the two parties; the city therefore followed a much more flexible approach than the church and synod courts. Whereas the secular
court settled each case individually, the church courts applied the same
rigid standards to all of the cases they heard. They also handed out the
same discriminatory punishments to all women involved in illegitimacy
cases, regardless of their specific background. Women were routinely
punished far more harshly than men, and men were never forced to support them financially.78 The church authorities perceived sex outside
marriage as predominantly a female weakness, which is also why many
eighteenth-century synod protocols no longer even mentioned the names
of those who fathered an illegitimate child.79 The synods, bound by the
sacramental nature of marriage, responded only very ambiguously to
women’s needs and offered very little support to them.80 In comparison,
the city court in Münster almost appears a benign institution which was
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 61 (3 February 1629), 58.
Ibid., 58v.
77
As Andreas Holzem succinctly puts it: ‘Illegitimacy was not exceptional (eine
Randerscheinung), but a common experience’. Holzem, Religion und Lebensformen, 343.
78
Ibid., 325; and Holzem, Der Konfessionsstaat, 420–1. Holzem also quotes the case of
Widow Saltmann of Borghorst. ‘Widow Saltmann became pregnant by Christoph Tervort.
When she had a miscarriage, she tried to keep her condition a secret; however, the midwife reported her. She was sentenced to do public church penance. The man, who denied
being the father of the baby, but admitted intercourse with the widow, went unpunished’.
Holzem, Religion und Lebensformen, 352.
79
Ibid., 366.
80
Holzem, Der Konfessionsstaat, 420–1.
75
76
94
Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
mainly concerned with the provision of the child. Of course, it was in the
interest of the whole community to know that illegitimate children were
properly supported without overburdening the pockets and mercy of the
citizenry. This is why it was far more sensible to make the most likely candidate pay for the upkeep of an illegitimate child, rather than for there to
be no father at all. After all, in dubio pro reo does not feed the mouth of a
hungry child.
To be born legitimately or illegitimately mattered on more than the
material level, however: much of a person’s future depended upon this
status. Because of this, Münster’s council protocols contain many testimonies of legitimate birth (attestatio nativitatis). The testimony of Anna
Wirtz serves as an example.81 In 1629, it was confirmed in the council
protocol that
the virtuous Anna Wirtz, now the wife of Theobaldi Hochstein of Cologne,
and daughter of Wilhelm Wirtz and Engelen Rosen, both from here, who
were once married but are now both dead, was born into a firmly Christian
marriage bed, of citizenship and shopkeepers’ guild, free, legitimate, true
and rightfully procreated and born . . . the blessed parents as well as the living
daughter . . . all proper in their doings and behaviour . . . also in good relation
with her neighbours, and has gone to church for many years . . . 82
The attestatio, witnessed by two burghers, neatly sums up what qualities
early modern society wanted a woman to possess: she was supposed to be
well-behaved in the home, live peacefully in the community, she was supposed to attend church, and be born in wedlock to honourable parents.
Possession of these qualities made Anna a virtuous woman. Although a
man was to behave honourably too, his honour was not tied as directly
to his sexual conduct and physical purity as it was for a woman. Male
honour was attested for in much more visible and practical ways, through
positions on the city council, the guild or confraternity, or at parochial
level, although all of these offices also required legitimate birth as a prerequisite.83 One person affected by these strict definitions of honour was
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 61 (4 April 1629), 46–6v.
Ibid.
83
The guilds had followed very restrictive membership policies since the Middle Ages to
protect themselves from unwanted competition within and without the walls of the city. ‘All
of the pre-1535 guilds demanded members to be of “honourable birth”, which automatically excluded children born out of wedlock, but also clerical offspring and “dishonourable
sorts” such as millers, linen weavers, musicians, actors, gravediggers, and executioners. The
stigma of dishonourable birth, inherited from one generation to another, could haunt families who had already attained some measure of social success. Lic. Wilhelm Rick and Bernd
Huge the Elder, who were elected to the city council in January 1595, were at first barred
from taking office because their wives descended from clerical concubinages. Excluded from
the practice of a handicraft or trade because of illegitimate birth, offspring of the clergy
81
82
An Ideal Marriage after Trent
95
Catrina Hülshorst. In 1606, Catrina complained to the city council that
the tailors’ guild refused to continue her membership because it had
become known that she had lived with her husband before getting married and had given birth to two children outside of wedlock. A long discussion ensued. Peculiarly, the guild masters threatened to exclude Catrina,
while her husband was left entirely untroubled. Catrina appealed to the
city council to save her honour and the future of her children. In its ruling, the city council stayed true to its previous lenient policy, stating that,
since ‘she and the children were per subsequens matrimonium legitimized’,
they should ‘be treated per legitimas’. 84 The guild did not agree, and even
Catrina’s assurance that she and her husband had always lived ‘in spe futuri
matrimonii, but could not get married because of some impediments’, did
not soften its resistance.85 In a similar case, the guild masters also refused
Widow Bünichman guild membership after her husband’s death on the
grounds of her premarital cohabitation, and despite the fact that she had
already paid a compensation of four Taler to the masters in order to make
up for her past failings.86 In an attempt to protect their exclusivity and
privileges, the guilds’ standards of proper nuptial behaviour happened
to coincide with the policies laid down by the Catholic Church at the
Council of Trent: marriage first, sexual relations thereafter.
Studies of a number of German-speaking territories, both Catholic and
Protestant, have shown that there was a transformation of moral politics
during the second half of the sixteenth century. Whereas before secular
courts would have followed integrative policies that favoured peacemaking to disciplining, from the 1560s onwards the courts began to pursue
much more repressive policies against those who had had non-marital
sexual relations. In her investigation of women before the Basel marriage
court, Susannah Burghartz has found that the court had issued practically
no convictions for fornication during the first half of the sixteenth century
and that the chances of female plaintiffs winning cases involving broken
marriage promises were quite good because the primary goal of the secular
authorities at the time was to preserve and establish as many marriages as
possible. Only when the church managed to claim exclusive competence
in matrimonial matters during the second half of the sixteenth century
and the bastards of noble or patrician lineages usually entered the priesthood, served in
the territorial administration, and pursued a legal-notarial career, or, in the cases of those
descended from illicit liaisons among burghers or peasants, learned trades not incorporated
or not barring their entry’. Hsia, Society and Religion, 115.
84
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 38 (7 December 1606), 259–60.
The final outcome of this case is not known.
85
Ibid., (13 December 1606), 263v.
86
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 48 (29 February 1616), 61.
96
Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
can we observe the gradual criminalization of non-marital sex, which hit
women hardest.87 Lyndal Roper’s work on Augsburg reveals that the marriage court followed a similar line. Fornication trials did not play a big role
in the proceedings of the court and plaintiffs who came to court to enforce
promises of marriage as well as women who sought compensation for the
loss of their virginity and/or childbed expenses had a good chance to win
their case. Considerations of social utility were an important factor here.88
After 1600, however, Protestant courts began to show their repressive force.
In Basel, for example, public prosecutions (ex-officio proceedings) of fornication came to predominate over suits brought by private individuals
for contested promises of marriage.89 On the other side of the confessional
divide, in Catholic Bavaria, the implementation of new moral policies
also became noticeable in the veritable boom of moral offences (fornication and adultery were chief among them) prosecuted by the aulic court.
This again led to the criminalization of women during the first half of the
seventeenth century.90 Similarly, when the civic court altered its workings
under the influence of the Counter-Reformation, women of lower social
status were dealt the lion’s share of responsibility for non-marital sexuality. Now female plaintiffs who sued their former lovers for defloration, a
broken promise, or a non-marital impregnation automatically received
judicial attention themselves as the originators of an act of profligate sex.
In the 1630s, the prosecution of sexual acts outside of marriage peaked in
Bavaria and lower-class women came to be labelled as a source of moral
pollution and therefore a grave social danger.91
In Münster we cannot observe the same redefinition of morality at work.
Even though the same Tridentine rules applied, the outcome was different. Trent proclaimed a reversal of traditional marriage patterns: whereas
lower-class people saw sexual intimacies as a precursor to marriage, the
post-Tridentine Church wanted to reverse the order and make the marriage
vow come first. Although this move would have had the potential to make
women’s honour more secure, betrothal practices in seventeenth-century
Münster continued to follow old custom. Thus, the decrees of Trent had
87
S. Burghartz, ‘Ordering Discourse and Society: Moral Politics, Marriage and
Fornication during the Reformation and Confessionalisation Process in Germany and
Switzerland’, in H. Roodenburg and P. Spierenburg (eds.), Social Control in Europe,
1500–1800, vol. 1 (Columbus, 2004), 6; see also S. Burghartz, Zeiten der Reinheit—Orte
der Unzucht: Ehe und Sexualität in Basel während der Frühen Neuzeit (Paderborn, 1999),
118–19.
88
Roper, The Holy Household, 158–62.
89
Burghartz, ‘Ordering Discourse and Society’, 11.
90
Behringer, ‘Mörder, Diebe, Ehebrecher’.
91
Strasser, State of Virginity, 113.
An Ideal Marriage after Trent
97
only very limited success in this regard and the secular court certainly did
little to implement them. In cases where two people had had intercourse
but no children had resulted, the court did not force anybody into marriage. When children were born illegitimately to an unmarried woman,
they were the result of the traditional betrothal practice gone wrong; these
were cases where the reciprocal relationship between sex and marriage
had been abused.92 The secular court reacted to these instances by giving
the men the choice of either marriage or a fine. Speedy marriage usually
ensued. In cases where a child was born into an adulterous relationship,
the man had to provide adequately for his offspring. Not once did the
court place the burden of proof on the woman; it was the man who invariably had to face up to the consequences of his sexual behaviour. The city
court continued to see sexual intercourse as a legitimizing factor of marriage and tried to channel its consequences into a socially acceptable form.
Religious morality appeared only as an afterthought.
M arried L ife
The Tridentine prescriptions on marriage were only concerned with two
things: how to celebrate the beginning of a marriage and how to dissolve
and end it.93 Similarly, the city council also concentrated its regulatory
efforts on times of bliss and times of trouble—that is, on wedding celebrations and on adultery.94 But what about the in-between times, those
ordinary days of married life when partners simply tried to master the task
of living together as a couple? As cited earlier, Peter Canisius listed four
important characteristics of a good marriage: ‘mutual fidelity, peace, love
and singular concorde’.95 Did men and women’s expectations of marriage
reflect the Jesuit’s counsel?
Martha Löwenstein was born in Warendorf, and in 1607 entered into
her first marriage. After the death of her husband, Johan Schepers, a
burgher and tradesman of Münster, she was left childless but with a house
92
Rainer Beck, in his work on rural Unterfinning, comes to the same conclusion when
he states that sexual intercourse was not primarily a sexual act but ‘part of a more comprehensive social transaction process’. R. Beck, ‘Illegitimität und voreheliche Sexualität
auf dem Land: Unterfinning, 1671–1770’, in R. van Dülmen (ed.), Kultur der einfachen
Leute: Bayerisches Volksleben vom 16. bis zum 19. Jahrhundert (Munich, 1983), 135.
93
See Session 24, in Tanner, Decrees, 753–59.
94
See StdAMs, AI Privilegien Nr. 31 Polizeiordnungen, Bd. 1; StAM, Domkapitel
Münster, Akten Nr. 2410, ‘Ordenunge Und Vereinigungh der BraudtWerschaften und
deren Kosten so allhier binnen Munster gehalten werden sollen’ (1534), not paginated.
95
Canisius, A Summe, 253.
98
Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
on the Prinzipalmarkt, the main square of town.96 In spring 1619, Martha
remarried—this time one Gerd Ridder, a journeyman of the wealthy
merchants’ guild who had come to Münster twelve years previously. This
marriage was altogether prosperous, producing good business, substantial
wealth, and three children named Catharina, Maria, and Anna.97 Then,
in July 1634, her second husband also died. Two years later, Martha took
her final marriage vow, this time to the shopkeeper Bernhard von Brinck.
However, in contrast to her two previous marriages, this one was deeply
unhappy. Martha and Bernhard appeared in front of the city court time
and time again, engulfed in never-ending quarrels. What had happened?
Some of the problems become apparent in the two wills that Martha made
during her lifetime.98 Her first, dating from 1641, stated:
From the heart, I wish that he [Bernhard von Brinck] could have behaved
as modestly (bescheidentlich) as befits a husband . . . instead, he, von Brinck,
unfortunately did not care how comfortably I had set him up (wie sanfft Ich
ihne gesetzet) but, on the contrary, he often treated me really badly without
any good reason, cursed me several times into the abyss of hell and wished
me ill . . . one day, he came home after midnight at half twelve, he scolded
me . . . and also threatened that I should not be sure of my life next to him.99
For this reason, Martha decided to disinherit her husband, despite a premarital agreement promising him one thousand Reichstaler after her
death. Additionally, she decreed that as soon as she had died, Bernhard
was to move out of the house. Should he change his behaviour and ‘treat
her as an honour-loving man (ein Ehrliebender Mann) ought to, lovingly
and in a friendly manner (lieb- und freundlich)’, then, in this unlikely case,
he was to receive the sum of three hundred Reichstaler.100 This paragraph
reveals the full extent of the marital discord between the two, for even
if Bernhard had turned over a new leaf and treated Martha more affectionately, she would nevertheless have left him with less than half of the
originally agreed sum.101
96 Hövel, Bürgerbuch, 130.
97 Alfing and Schedensack, Frauenalltag, 159.
98 StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 79 (3 May 1649), 36v and
StdAMs, Gerichtsarchiv, BI Testamente II, Nr. 240 (23 August 1641), Martha Löwenstein,
and StdAMs, Gerichtsarchiv, BI Testamente II, Nr. 1812 (26 November 1648), Martha
Löwenstein.
99 StdAMs, Gerichtsarchiv, BI Testamente II, Nr. 240 (23 August 1641), Martha
Löwenstein.
100
Ibid.
101
Martha was not the only wife who went to such lengths to punish her husband. In
1620, a wife decreed in her will that her violent husband should only receive one hundred
Reichstaler instead of the three hundred which she had originally promised, because he ‘had
treated her so badly’ (sie übel tractiert). StdAMs, Gerichtsarchiv, BI Testamente II, Nr. 1755.
An Ideal Marriage after Trent
99
Much of the disharmony between the couple sprang from the fact that
Martha was the affluent party in this marriage. Martha expected friendship and affection from her husband, but even more important to her was
respect—a sentiment founded upon the money she had brought to this
union. In a rather surprising move, Martha also desired her husband to
behave with more modesty towards her (daß er sich mitt mir also bescheidentlich, wie eß einen Ehrliebenden Eheman wohl anstehet, betragen hette),
an unexpectedly female trait to ask for in a man.102 It seems ironic that all
their problems should have sprung from money, yet it was the combination of Martha’s expectation that Bernhard should better appreciate the
comforts she had brought him and his aggressiveness that caused part of
their difficulties. This again became obvious in 1645, when von Brinck
demanded unlimited access to his wife’s property. Martha refused, but
when von Brinck left the city to travel to Lingen, he decided, against her
wishes, to take with him some of her account books, bonds, and money.
Martha decided to punish her husband with the power money had
bestowed upon her. She had him detained in prison, and for nine months
refused to pay the court costs. This meant long months of imprisonment
for Bernhard von Brinck because he himself did not have the financial
means to buy his way out of prison. Rather stunned by Martha’s unrelenting attitude, Bernhard exclaimed: ‘but a maritus does not have to account
to his wife’.103 In his understanding of the male–female relationship, the
balance of power between Martha and himself had moved too much in
her direction. She might possess the money, but was he not the man and
head of household?
There was also a less obvious reason for Martha’s troubles. When she
married Bernhard von Brinck, she tied the knot with a man many years
her junior.104 Marrying Martha gave von Brinck access to the exclusive
merchants’ guild of Münster, while she exchanged the inferior status of
widowhood for that of a respectable married woman again. For both partners, however, this elevation came at a price. Bernhard had to sacrifice the
possibility of having his own children (Martha was presumably over childbearing age), while Martha was expected to submit to the authority of her
husband. Not only that, the couple also became vulnerable to a well-worn
102
StdAMs, Gerichtsarchiv, BI Testamente II, Nr. 240 (23 August 1641), Martha
Löwenstein.
103
StdAMs, Gerichtsarchiv, BIV Causae Civiles Nr. 1182 (20 March 1645), 22.
104
Although we do not know Martha Löwenstein’s exact age, she entered into her final
marriage almost thirty years after her first.
100 Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
early modern joke: the unequal couple, a very popular topos at the time,
depicted in numerous paintings showing a greedy young man with a lusty
old woman.105
After long deliberation, the city council decided that Martha was to
support her husband with an alimentation of fifty Reichstaler. This ruling
infuriated Martha and she judged it against ‘all law and good sense (billigkeit)’.106 Why should she support von Brinck when he had shown himself
to be an ‘untrue householder’ (den un truen huß holder)?107 And she was
right, as her second will of 1649 shows: the financial situation of the family had taken a turn for the worse. Martha was forced to reduce a number
of legates and to withdraw others completely. She also included a clause to
protect her children from the consequences of Bernhard’s ‘untrue housekeeping’, making sure they would not be burdened with any debts which
their stepfather incurred.108 Towards the end of her final will, Martha
summed up her marital experience with Bernhard von Brinck in the following words: ‘he has oppressed me and slandered me . . . and has treated
me so badly in my illness that God will do justice for me’.109 The fighting
continued until Martha’s death in 1649. Just before she died, the court had
to intervene once more, and ordered husband and wife ‘to keep hand and
mouth shut for threat of incarceration’.110 For years the judges had tried to
bring peace to this relationship by listening to complaints and negotiating
between the couple. When this did not bring the desired calm, the only
option left to the court was to threaten imprisonment.
Ideally, early modern relationships were built on honour and mutual
respect, but also emotions such as love and friendship. In the relationship between Martha and Bernhard, all of this was absent due to the stark
financial imbalance between both partners. Although Bernhard undoubtedly profited from the wealth Martha had accumulated in her earlier marriages, the money always remained hers alone. This also tipped the balance
of power in her favour, as demonstrated by her decision to withhold the
sum necessary to have Bernhard released from prison. Only the intervention of the secular authority forced her to support her husband financially
after their relationship had broken down. This decision was presumably
made to save his male honour.
105
A. Stewart, Unequal Lovers: A Study of Unequal Couples in Northern Art
(New York, 1977).
106
StdAMs, Gerichtsarchiv, BIV Causae Civiles Nr. 1182 (20 March 1645), 19.
107
Ibid., (9 June 1645), 48.
108
StdAMs, Gerichtsarchiv, BI Testamente II, Nr. 240 (6 March 1649), Martha
Löwenstein.
109
Ibid.
110
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 79 (3 May 1649), 36v.
An Ideal Marriage after Trent
101
Another reason why the marriage faltered had to do with the workings of an early modern household. When Martha called her husband
an ‘untrue householder’, she complained as much about Bernhard’s irresponsible ways with money as about his inability to provide adequately
for her and her daughters.111 For Martha, a good marriage was defined by
the mutual endeavour to further the prosperity of their union. The ways
in which both partners were supposed to pursue that were conditioned
by their gender. Whereas a woman was to bear and raise children, look
after the household, and support her husband’s business from behind the
scenes, a man was to govern the members of the household as well as his
business. A working marriage then manifested itself in the prosperity that
both partners in their respective domains were able to amass together. In
this way, men and women were both perceived as ‘householders’, despite
the fact that only women entered the council protocols as ‘housewives’
(hausfrawen). A household was therefore more than a permanent abode
and a home: it was an economic entity.112 Another case brought before the
council in 1602 corroborates this view.
Knepper (first name unknown) complained to the council about his
wife’s behaviour, reporting that ‘the other day when he got home, on a
whim, she closed the door in front of him (sie läßt sich gelüsten), to exclude
him from his home, and threw disdainful, cutting remarks at him’.113 He
then continued demanding that ‘[t]‌he court should show some consideration and order the woman either to restore and return everything that he,
Knepper, brought in, worth almost seven hundred Talers, or to improve her
ways and behave properly’.114 In his report to the court, Knepper emphasized the idea of marriage as a team effort of two people who had decided
to throw their goods together and create one household. If for some reason
this effort did not work out, both spouses could demand their investments
back. Knepper put this idea to the council as follows: ‘their effort was so
spoiled that it was necessary to separate’.115 His wife, Cunigunde Knepper,
when questioned, complained in court that Knepper had given her much
cause for her behaviour: ‘he badly hit her and hit her head until it bled, and
StdAMs, Gerichtsarchiv, BIV Causae Civiles Nr. 1182 (9 June 1645), 48.
This connection was already acknowledged by Justinus Göbler, who remarked in
1559: ‘From the management of the household, which we call oeconomia, comes the
administration of a government, a state of being nothing more than a proliferation of households’. G. Strauss, ‘Luther’s House of Learning: Indoctrination of the Young in the German
Reformation (Baltimore, 1978), 118. On the artisanal household, see Roper, The Holy
Household; James Farr, Artisans in Europe, 1300–1914 (Cambridge, 2000).
113
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 34 (12 November 1602), 81.
114
Ibid.
115
Ibid.
111
112
102 Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
had otherwise slandered her, called her a lying sack (Lügensack), and although
law demanded him to support her, he told her all the time that he alone
understood housekeeping (er verstünde die haushaltung allein), therefore she
pleaded with the court to make him mend his ways . . . he also took his goods
and hers away with horse and carriage . . . ’.116 Knepper did not contradict her
claims, but replied instead that
he knows how to manage a household, but his wife has so many dependents
(die hausfraw hette aber soviel anhangs ghapt) . . . that it was impossible for him to
bear the costs for the household on his own. And the housewife refused to add
her yearly share of income (uffkünften), but instead insisted on being her own
accountant for her property (und allein Rentmeisterinne über das ihrige sein wollen), this is why he finally had his things moved somewhere else.117
Combining the earthly possessions of two people could prove to be a difficult
task. Cunigunde, for one, did not want to leave what was hers in her husband’s
hands, while Knepper insisted on her adding her share to the household. Just
like Martha Löwenstein and Bernhard von Brinck, here we find two parties
who did not regard their marriage as the beginning of a community of goods,
but rather as a voluntary, and possibly temporary, act of sharing.118 This is
demonstrated by one of those rare moments of concord between Cunigunde
and Knepper, which came about when the court suggested the compilation
of an inventory of each of their respective properties so that ‘each one of them
knows what is his or hers’.119 Both instantly agreed.
In the end, both Cunigunde and Knepper were reprimanded by the
court, but only the words to Cunigunde were recorded in the protocol.
She was told ‘to accept the man as head of the household and respect him,
and to leave him with the administration of their goods . . . to live in better
calm, peace, and unity, and to be one another’s consolation and help’.120
For the city court, marriage was a union built on qualities such as honour,
understanding, and cooperation. At the same time, it saw marriage as an
economic construct in which each partner had to carry out certain duties
to further the prosperity of their union.121 Although this was a perception
Ibid., 82.
Ibid.
118
This somewhat qualifies the findings of Joanne Bailey who has argued that ‘any
sense of personal ownership was temporarily over-ruled during marriage by the sense that
resources were pooled for familial benefit. Bailey, Unquiet Lives, 105.
119
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 34 (12 November 1602).
120
Ibid., 82v.
121
As Medick and Sabean have correctly pointed out, conflicts about material goods
were not just about things or earthly possessions but a mode in which human relationships
were structured. See H. Medick and D. Sabean (eds.), Emotionen und materielle Interessen: Sozialanthropologische und historische Beiträge zur Familienforschung (Göttingen, 1984), 19.
116
117
An Ideal Marriage after Trent
103
of marriage founded on tradition, neither tradition nor custom had thus
far been able to define unequivocally the details of domestic administration. This is why the household and its economics posed such potential for
conflict between partners. Yet, regardless of how often the court recommended mutual support and respect as ingredients for a good marriage to
quarrelling spouses, it also believed that the management of the household
was ultimately the man’s responsibility. Even if reality rendered this perception inaccurate, in the eyes of the judges, the husband alone was the
provider, or, as they bluntly put it, ‘it is no good if the hen crows and the
cock is silent’.122
‘ S olutions ’
The secular authorities had a number of options to deal with marital
problems. Sometimes they used fines, which could lie anywhere between
twenty-five Taler and five hundred Goldgulden. More extreme cases were
punished with expulsion. This, in combination with loss of citizenship,
was the most severe punishment at the disposal of the court. Both were
only used in cases of repeated adultery. When Elsa Gerdings was found
committing adultery with several different men in 1590, she was first put
in prison and then expelled.123 Arnd Dyckman was denounced by his wife
for ‘living in sin with another woman’, and both offenders were expelled
from town ‘because of their offensive (ärgerlich) lifestyle’.124 Another punishment open to the secular court was imprisonment. Bernd Morssen and
Catrinen Könninck were kept in prison for over a month for committing
adultery, and released only after their relatives pleaded mercy from the
court.125 However, prison sentences were only a temporary means to force
compliance. Bernd Hülsmann’s wife had denounced her husband twice in
front of the council for having an affair with Anna Tieß, Möllendarfeld’s
wife. He and Anna were brought to the local prison to coerce them into
making a confession. When they refused to admit anything, the court
even ordered torture (spezial examination);126 after several examinations,
Anna finally conceded ‘having sinned with Bernd Hülsmann’.127 Both
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 34 (12 November 1602).
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 22 (6 July 1590), 18v.
124
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 61 (26 October 1629), 176v.
125
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 48 (13 May 1616 and 16 June
1616), 161–2, 168.
126
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 54 (3 March 1622), 19–20.
127
Ibid., (4 March 1622), 21.
122
123
104 Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
Anna and Bernd were kept in prison until their friends appealed for their
release. The court then fined them twenty-five Marks. This punishment
hit Anna hard: the sources report that she had to pawn her goods.128
There was one thing that the secular authorities could not propose to
quarrelling spouses: separation. Captain Friedrich Michalowitz appeared
in front of the council to demand a separation from his quarrelsome
(unfriedsam) wife, which the court granted on the basis that ‘no improvement can be hoped for’.129 Not long thereafter, the judges changed their
minds, for ‘it seems precarious, and would be scandalous, to allow such
selfishly enforced separation in this republic’.130 The court had realized
that it had stepped onto hazardous terrain because, although it was quite
common for couples to ask for a separation, it was far rarer to accede
to this request. In fact, never before had a separation been granted; the
Michalowitz case would have therefore set a totally new precedent.131
It was women rather than men who asked the court for a separation,
usually due to abuse and violence which they had suffered in their marriage.132 When Johan Sommer was brought before the court for adultery, his wife did not complain about his extramarital activities at all, but
merely sought to draw the judges’ attention to his violence. Sommer had
‘gotten to know his servant in the flesh’. When the girl had fallen pregnant,
he denied paternity and instead tried to cast doubt on her reputation by
claiming that she had also had sexual contacts with another man. The
court demanded that Sommer should prove his allegation. When Johan
was unable to do so, he was ordered to pay alimentation.133 In 1596,
Sommer was caught committing adultery again. In accordance with the
prescriptions of the police ordinance, the court ordered him to do public
penance.134 Four years later, Sommer was briefly expelled from the city
because he had injured some men in a brawl.135 A month later, his wife
Ibid., (7 March 1622 and 11 March 1622), 78, 80.
Ibid., (22 June 1622), 206.
130
Ibid.
131
Theoretically, at least, only the church court had the authority to grant a separation
or an annulment.
132
The Catholic Church theoretically allowed couples to separate (separation of bed
and board, as it was called) in certain carefully prescribed circumstances: adultery, cruelty
(extreme physical abuse causing injury to the spouse and giving him/her reason to fear for
life and limb), spiritual fornication (heresy/apostasy), and contagious disease. Remarriage
was only possible after the death of a partner though.
133
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 26 (17 and 25 February 1594),
11v, 13v.
134
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, AVIII Vermögen der Stadt, Nr. 281a, Brüchtenprotokolle
(1591–1644), (28 November 1596), 27v.
135
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 31a (7 February 1600), 88.
128
129
An Ideal Marriage after Trent
105
appeared in court again to complain about his violent behaviour. This
hearing ended with the court admonishing Sommer to treat his wife properly, ‘with words and deeds’, and reminding his wife ‘not to give him any
reason to beat her’.136 Half a year later, Sommer’s wife complained that
her husband had beaten her ‘so badly that her arm broke in two’.137 The
court merely reprimanded both sides again. Some time later, Sommer was
sentenced to death because of his repeated adultery. Obviously taken by
surprise by this ruling, Sommer complained: ‘he would not have thought
that he should be brought to death because of these whores’.138 In the
end, therefore, Sommer’s wife got the freedom she desired, but not in the
way she had requested. Separation was apparently not an option for the
judges, despite the grave violence Sommer’s wife had suffered throughout
her marriage.
C onclusion
The decrees of the Council of Trent were not implemented in a uniform
manner throughout the Catholic world. Contrary to what Ulrike Strasser has
described for Bavaria, in Münster the secular authorities emphasized cooperation and compromise over the strict enforcement of the Tridentine marriage decrees. In Bavaria, Maximilian I (reigned 1598–1651), the brother of
Bishop Ferdinand, was successful in his attempt to streamline secular and
ecclesiastical jurisdictions in an effort to enforce strict marital discipline,
thereby dictating marriage and reproduction for some women and a life
of chastity behind convent walls for others.139 Only women with sufficient
means were encouraged to get married, whereas those engaging in sexual
relationships before they could actually afford marriage increasingly came to
be seen as women of loose morals.
Conditions in northern Germany were very different: here, marriage
and sexuality were not used as platforms for state-building. Münster’s ecclesiastical authorities worked in contested territory where Protestant sympathies remained strong amongst certain strata of society.140 Furthermore,
with the Dutch border nearby, alternative lifestyles were never far from
sight. The authorities neither had the means nor the popular support to
enact such intrusive policies as Strasser found in Bavaria. Moreover, marital
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 32 (13 March 1600), 19.
Ibid., (18 September 1600), 65v.
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 31a (7 February 1600), 87.
139
Strasser, State of Virginity, 12.
140
cf. Duchhardt, ‘Protestanten und “Sektierer” ’.
136
137
138
106 Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
jurisdiction was equally the domain of the secular and the ecclesiastical
courts. This web of jurisdictions was one of the reasons why the Tridentine
marriage regulations were only implemented slowly and in a rather lenient
fashion in the city. Even in 1747, and thus about one hundred and eighty
years after the Council of Trent had ended, archdeacons still complained
about couples ignoring the marital prescriptions laid down by the Church
in 1563.141 The city court, on the other hand, did not just oppose the
bishop and his church because it regarded such interference as unlawful,
but because it followed a different approach to marriage which did not
value discipline more highly than compromise and cooperation between
parties. Although Münster’s secular authorities were perfectly aware of the
Tridentine regulations, their flexible approach was firmly anchored in the
here and now, without much concern for salvation and the afterlife.142
What did early modern people expect from marriage? Our sources
have shown that, rather unsurprisingly, they were looking for honour and
respect, as well as love, friendship, and teamwork: in a nutshell, they sought
partnership in their union. But analysis of the sources has revealed more
than that. It has shed light on another, much more down-to-earth perception of marriage. Courtship in early modern Germany was a prolonged
affair. Because of existing guild regulations and dowry requirements, it
often took years before a couple was able to tie the knot. With such a large
part of their lives spent single, early modern people’s attitude to marriage
and behaviour within marriage did not change dramatically once they
were married.143 From the complaints voiced in front of the city court, we
can see that many disputes arose about money and material things. These
came to epitomize the relationship between a husband and a wife in the
period, its opportunities and dependencies, its rights and duties, as well as
ideas about partnership and the potential for conflicts. Bitter arguments
also arose about the division of power within a household, though men
and women, without exception, demanded in court that their partners
live according to the behaviour that society stereotypically prescribed to
each sex.144 A husband was scolded if he did not increase the wealth of the
household, a wife criticized if she wanted to manage her money separately.
Holzem, Religion und Lebensformen, 316.
They were not unique in their approach though. Daniela Hacke’s study of marital
litigation in the city of Venice also shows that the secular authorities abstained from legal
punishments when men and women, husbands and wives decided to reconcile. Hacke,
Women, Sex and Marriage, 18.
143
The average age of marriage in early modern Germany was twenty-five or older.
S. Ogilvie, A Bitter Living: Women, Markets, and Social Capital in Early Modern Germany
(Oxford, 2003), 40–67.
144
cf. Hacke, Women, Sex and Marriage, 63–4.
141
142
An Ideal Marriage after Trent
107
All these complaints merge into a rather ‘individualistic’ perception of
marriage, including threats from both partners to withdraw their respective property, thus turning one into two again. And couples did, temporarily, separate. But this was merely an illusion of freedom, for marriage was
forever: ‘Matrimonie once contracted standeth in force, & is so firme and
sure, especially if it be consummate; that so long as life lasteth, it can never
be dissolved’.145
Canisius, A Summe, 253.
145
4
Deviant Women and the Urban
Community
Visitation reports and the annual reports of the Society of Jesus regularly
complained about the lamentable lack of pious diligence and obedience
found amongst the people of Münster.1 Bishops Ernst and Ferdinand
therefore decided to implement a number of measures designed to help
their officials turn the laity into pious, disciplined Catholics. The laity was
to learn about the foundations of Catholicism through preaching, schooling, and regular attendance at catechism classes.2 Participation in the sacraments was to be recorded and the names of those abstaining from Holy
Communion were to be noted.3 Protestants were encouraged to return
to the bosom of the church; if found to be unregenerate, they were to be
expelled.4 Censorship was introduced and the printing, selling, carrying,
reading, and owning of prohibited books, poems, song, and images were
all penalized.5 A number of different ecclesiastical courts were to boost
and defend moral and religious reform.6 The aim was to instil faith, to
1
W. E. Schwarz (ed.), Die Akten der Visitation des Bistums Münster aus der Zeit Johanns von
Hoya (1571–1573), (Münster, 1913). L. Keller (ed.), Die Gegenreformation in Westfalen und
am Niederrhein 1555–1623: Actenstücke und Erläuterungen, 3 vols. (Leipzig, 1881–95). J. J.
Scotti (ed.), Sammlungen der Gesetze und Verordnungen, welche in dem Königlich Preußischen
Erbfürstenthume Münster und in den standesherrlichen Gebieten Horstmar, Rheine-Wolbeck,
Dülmen und Ahaus-Bocholt-Werth über Gegenstände der Landeshoheit, Verfassung, Verwaltung
und Rechtspflege vom Jahre 1359 bis zur französischen Militair-Occupation und zur Vereinigung
mit Frankreich und dem Großherzogthume Berg in den Jahren 1806 und resp. 1811 ergangen sind, 3 vols (Münster,1842). J. Niesert, Münstersche Urkundensammlung, vols 4 and 7
(Coesfeld, 1832/1837). For a discussion of the Jesuit annual reports, the Litterae Annuae,
see B. Duhr, Geschichte der Jesuiten in den Ländern deutscher Zunge (Freiburg, 1907–28).
The Litterae Annuae of the years 1615–49 exist only in manuscript form in the Archives of
the Society of Jesus in Rome.
2
In 1624 Ferdinand ordered parents to send their children to catechism class on Sundays
and feast days. Scotti, Sammlung der Gesetze und Verordnungen, Nr. 084, 205–7.
3
Decree of 30 March 1626. cf. ibid., Nr. 084, 207.
4
Decree of 14 November 1624, ibid., 205.
5
See Bishop Ernst’s decree of 2 May 1609 (renewed under Ferdinand 15 December
1621). Ibid., Nr. 066, 189.
6
For a thorough analysis of Münster’s synodal courts and their workings, see Holzem,
Religion und Lebensform.
Deviant Women and the Urban Community
109
uphold morality, and to foster discipline.7 Inside the walls of the city, it
was the task of the civic authorities and their officials to uphold moral
order. A variety of different measures were taken to regulate life in the city.8
For example, civic ordinances sought to regulate weddings, baptisms, and
other public and private festivities in great detail. The magistrates specified
the number of guests permitted and the amount of food and drink that
could be consumed.9 The council records also show how the city fathers
tried to regulate the use of public space as well as people’s interactions on
a more intimate level.10
However, recent historiography has revealed just how much power, and
particularly the implementation of policies, depended on social relationships and the cooperation of different groups of people at local level. Even
those who did not hold any kind of public office or position of authority had an important part to play in the enforcement and supervision of
order in early modern communities. And although their roles were differentiated by gender, this was true for men and women alike.11 People
had a number of powerful tools at their disposal, ranging from violence
to charivaris, from scolding to gossip, with which to keep everyone in line
and to keep the peace.12 Much scholarly attention on this subject has been
given to the community and the neighbourhood as the smallest entities
7 On social disciplining and the origin of the concept, see G. Oestreich, ‘Struktur­
probleme des europäischen Absolutismus’, Vierteljahresschrift für Sozial- und
Wirtschaftsgeschichte 55 (1969), 179–97. See also R. W. Scribner, ‘Communities and the
Nature of Power’, in idem (ed.), Germany: A New Social and Economic History, 1450–1630
(London, 1996); R. W. Scribner, ‘Police and the Territorial State in Sixteenth-Century
Württemberg’, in G. R. Elton, E. I. Kouri and T. Scott (eds.), Politics and Society in
Reformation Europe (London, 1987); H. Schilling, ‘ “History of Crime” or “History of
Sin”? Some Reflections on the Social History of Early Modern Church Discipline’, in
T. Scott (ed.), Politics and Society in Reformation Europe (Hampshire, 1987); U. Rublack,
The Crimes of Women in Early Modern Germany (Oxford, 1999).
8 Alfing and Schedensack, Frauenalltag, 20.
9 For example, StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, A II Nr. 20 Bd. 7 (6 February 1571).
10
Christiane Schedensack has examined the council’s efforts to regulate disputes between
neighbours. Schedensack, Nachbarn im Konflikt.
11
K. Wrightson, ‘The Politics of the Parish in Early Modern England’, in P. Griffiths,
A. Fox and S. Hindle (eds.), The Experience of Authority in Early Modern England
(Basingstoke, 1996); U. Rublack, ‘State Formation, Gender, and the Experience of
Governance in Early Modern Württemberg’, in U. Rublack (ed.), Gender in Early Modern
German History (Oxford, 2002), 200–17; W. Te Brake, Shaping History: Ordinary People in
European Politics 1500–1700 (Berkeley, 1998).
12
Rublack, The Crimes of Women; B. Capp, When Gossips Meet: Women, Family and
the Neighbourhood in Early Modern England (Oxford, 2003); G. Walker, Gender, Crime
and Social Order in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 2003); S. Lipscomb, ‘Crossing
Boundaries: Women’s Gossip, Insults and Violence in Sixteenth-Century France’, French
History, 25.4 (2011), 408–26.
110 Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
of interpersonal supervision.13 Both men and women relied heavily on
language and physical force to keep their fellow citizens in check. Insults
were used to object publicly against inappropriate behaviour and, in the
case of women, to define moral boundaries. Even though men and women
employed gossip to identify good and bad behaviour, it was an especially
powerful tool for women. Women gossiped about a large variety of topics.
They commented on bad householding, relationships between the sexes,
and on the specific roles men and women were supposed to fulfil in society. In this way, gossip helped women to reaffirm what it meant to be a
‘good woman’.14 In a sense, women were therefore guardians of patriarchy,
proper behaviour, and public order. More generally, though, the community was not simply a watchdog of public morality; neighbours, friends,
and kin also helped to bring the fallen and misguided back into the fold of
the community by assisting reconciliation and reintegration. They acted as
witnesses in court cases, they wrote petitions, organized dances, and provided company. Early modern communities were thus complex constructs
that offered mutual aid and generous support to some, while disregarding
and marginalizing others.
In this chapter we will hear how Elsa Lüleßmann was taken over by an
evil spirit; how Christina Volmers became the victim of a song; that Trine
Weingartner offered more than hospitality in her house; and about the
high price that Enneke Pumpmacher paid for having the last word. These
13
I follow Bernd Roeck, who describes neighbourhoods as being ‘marked by spatial
proximity and permanent or temporary cohabitation’ and ‘the elemental basis of “community” ’. B. Roeck, ‘Neighbourhoods and the Public in German Cities of the Early
Modern Period: A Magician and the Neighbourhood Network’, in A. Schuurman and
P. Spierenburg (eds.), Private Domain and Public Inquiry: Families and Life-styles in the
Netherlands and Europe, 1550 to the Present (Rotterdam, 1996), 196. M. Bleckmann,
‘Nachbarschaftskonflikte in Warendorf im späten 16. und frühen 17. Jahrhundert’,
Warendorfer Schriften, 30–2 (2002), 166–89; N. Z. Davis, ‘The Reason of Misrule: Youth
Groups and Charivaris in Sixteenth- Century France’, Past and Present, 50 (1971), 41–75;
M. Dinges, ‘Justiznutzung als soziale Kontrolle in der Frühen Neuzeit’, in A. Blauert and
G. Schwerhoff (eds.), Kriminalitätsgeschichte: Beiträge zur Sozial- und Kulturgeschichte der
Vormoderne (Konstanz, 2000), 503–44; C. A. Hoffmann, ‘Nachbarschaften als Akteure
und Instrumente der sozialen Kontrolle in urbanen Gesellschaften des Sechzehnten
Jahrhunderts’, in H. Schilling (ed.), Institutionen, Instrumente und Akteure sozialer Kontrolle
und Disziplinierung im frühneuzeitlichen Europa. Institutions, Instruments and Agents
of Social Control and Discipline in Early Modern Europe (Frankfurt, 1999), 187–202;
C. A. Hoffmann, ‘Außergerichtliche Einigungen bei Straftaten als vertikale und horizontale soziale Kontrolle im 16. Jahrhundert’, in A. Blauert and G. Schwerhoff (eds.),
Kriminalitätsgeschichte, 563–79; H. Roodenburg, ‘Social Control Viewed from Below: New
Perspectives’, in H. Roodenburg and P. Spierenburg (eds.), Social Control in Europe, vol. 1,
1500–1800 (Columbus, 2004), 145–58; C. Schedensack, ‘Formen der außergerichtlichen
gütlichen Konfliktbeilegung: Vermittlung und Schlichtung am Beispiel nachbarrechtlicher
Konflikte in Münster (1600–1650)’, Westfälische Forschungen, 47 (1997), 643–68.
14
Lipscomb, ‘Crossing Boundaries’, 27.
Deviant Women and the Urban Community
111
cases and others will be examined in the pursuit of three aims: first, to trace
the ways in which two very different ‘groups’ of women—unmarried servant girls and married burgher women—were perceived and treated by the
communities in which they lived. My analysis is based on the records of
the city council; although compiled by the secular authorities, the sources
provide us with insights into the expectations, behaviours, and attitudes
of the women under investigation as well as the people living in close
proximity to them. The second aim is to study the workings of the early
modern culture of conflict (expressed more appropriately by the German
term Streitkultur) outside the realms of the secular authorities. Finally, the
chapter seeks to illuminate how perceptions of gender informed definitions of deviance and morality in the period. We already know that men
and women were treated differently in court, but how did the community
treat those who transgressed against accepted norms? What factors influenced its response? To be able to approach this question comparatively, the
women we encounter belong to two ‘groups’ situated at different ends of
the social spectrum.
Servant girls formed a peculiar group of women in early modern society. They were women of different social backgrounds. They were at once
insiders and outsiders of the community, often socially marginalized yet
far from a minority.15 They were also traditionally seen as women of low
morals and little honour while simultaneously privy to the intimate affairs
of the households in which they served. Maidservants are therefore particularly useful for an examination of women who lived at the margins
of the community. Married burgher women, on the other hand, had
at least nominally achieved full respectability and were at the height of
their authority (a term not often used in connection with women in this
period)—although they could not act autonomously.16 They were always
to be kept under the watchful supervision of their husbands. In those
instances where married women did not act as silent and submissive wives,
the community retaliated by putting both husband and wife to shame.17
15
Franz-Josef Jakobi quotes the following estimate of the number of servant girls within
Münster in 1591. Total population: 10,613. Heads of Household: 2,207; wives: 1,603;
children: 3,933; male servants: 522; female servants: 755; regular clergy: 213; secular
clergy: 373; others: 1,007. F.-J. Jakobi, ‘Bevölkerungsentwicklung und Bevölkerungsstruktur
im Mittelalter und in der Frühen Neuzeit’, in F.-J. Jakobi (ed.), Geschichte der Stadt Münster,
vol. 1 (Münster, 1994), 491.
16
L. Gowing, ‘Ordering the Body: Illegitimacy and Female Authority in
Seventeenth-Century England’, in M. J. Braddick and J. Walter (eds.), Negotiating
Power in Early Modern Society: Order, Hierarchy and Subordination in Britain and Ireland
(Cambridge, 2001).
17
N. Z. Davis, Society and Culture in Early Modern France (Stanford, 1975), ch. 5.
112 Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
In fact, as the following case studies show, far more dangerous than the
condemnation of the city council was the wrath of one’s neighbour.
S ervants
Disobedient girls
One evening in 1653, Enneke Pumpmacher, the servant of one Johann
Catemann, went too far. Enneke was looking after the children, but when
Master Catemann entered the kitchen he heard his children crying. When
he asked Enneke what she had done to cause this, she merely replied in an
offhand manner: ‘Nothing, I just spilled something on them’. ‘They don’t
cry because of that, you must have pinched them’, said the master. To
this Enneke retorted: ‘If I am not doing it right, you’ll have to do it yourself.’18 Enraged by such ‘obstinate words’, Catemann grabbed the poker
and threw it at Enneke. The girl was struck on the head and immediately
fell to the floor, crying ‘Jesus, Jesus’. Master Catemann ran to her and
shouted: ‘Oh Enneke, I am asking for God’s sake, forgive me, I did not
mean it’. She pressed his hand in response and then she died, without last
unction, calling for Jesus until the moment she passed away.
When witnesses were called before the court, they all confirmed that
Enneke Pumpmacher disliked her occupation. However, a girl her age
had only limited choices and changing employers was not easy. There was
a danger that, because of her unsatisfactory behaviour, Master Catemann
and his wife would withhold Enneke’s wages; indeed, her employers had
also made their dissatisfaction more widely known (their neighbours all
knew about Enneke’s ‘stubbornness’), thereby damaging the girl’s chances
of finding new employment elsewhere. While Enneke was stuck in a job
she disliked, Johann Catemann’s position was also far from straightforward. As Enneke’s master, he risked losing face in his household and
being ridiculed by the community if he proved incapable of keeping his
maidservant in check. Regardless, in the end his rash reaction to Enneke’s
final provocation cost him dearly: ignoring the entreaties of his wife and
friends, the bakers’ guild decided to expel Catemann. Even though—
according to Catemann—Enneke Pumpmacher had gestured forgiveness
as she lay dying on the floor by squeezing his hand, Catemann’s fellow
guildsmen remained unmoved and refused to readmit him. ‘But’, asked
18
StdAMs, Gerichtsarchiv, BII Acta Criminalia Nr. 149 (1653).
Deviant Women and the Urban Community
113
Johann Catemann’s wife, Anna Hundebecke, ‘did he not just practise what
a father is supposed to do and care for his children?’19
In her misery, Anna Hundebecke decided to file a petition ‘for her
beloved husband’, with the city council, in which she defended his actions
and blamed them on a trait inherent to his sex—‘sudden rage and heat’—
which had been provoked by Enneke’s bad behaviour. The girl, Anna
explained, ‘was obstinate, impudent, and always talked back’. She was
also impertinent, used filthy words and, when reprimanded, she ridiculed
her superiors instead of mending her ways. Anna’s husband, on the other
hand, was ‘known by their neighbours and acquaintances as a peaceful
man who keeps himself out of brawls’.20 Anna’s description of Enneke’s
unruly character was supported by a statement from Helena Möllenkamp.
Helena was the other servant girl living in the Catemann household and
therefore hardly an impartial witness. Helena told the judges that Enneke
was ‘obstinate with words and never wanted to keep quiet’. When she was
told to be silent, she used to reply, ‘I cannot be quiet, I don’t want to be
quiet’, and responded ‘do it yourself ’ to whatever task she was asked to
do;21 clearly not a helpful attitude for a servant.
The early modern Oeconomia christiana prescribed that the Hausvater
and the Hausfrau should run household and business, look after the wellbeing of the household and everyone in it, and supervise their servants,
apprentices, and journeymen. Servants, on the other hand, were to be obedient, disciplined, honest, and faithful. In that sense, Anna Hundebecke’s
defence of her husband was justified. But for Enneke, herself the daughter
of a master, the discrepancy between her own background and the low
social position to which service consigned her, was difficult to handle. Like
many other young women, Enneke worked as a servant to save money for
the dowry which would enable her to settle down into married life. This
necessity kept her locked in a state of limbo for many years.
With this objective in mind, many young women, especially those
from the lower end of the economic spectrum, between the ages of fifteen and twenty-nine, left the safety of their homes to move to another
house, another village, town, or region in order to find employment.22
This mobility set them apart from other early modern women, who would
Ibid.
Ibid.
21
Ibid.
22
Figures for early modern Germany suggest that between one-third and half of women
living in a larger city underwent service at some time in their lives. See R. Dürr, Mägde
in der Stadt: Das Beispiel Schwäbisch Hall in der Frühen Neuzeit (Frankfurt; New York,
1995), 146–8.
19
20
114 Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
not usually have been granted the same degree of freedom. However, their
mobility also separated them geographically from the protection of their
family and friends. When a girl was offered employment in a household,
the master of the house was required to extend his protection and supervision to her. Many did, but early modern sources regularly report servant
girls being sexually harassed or even raped by men of the community, other
members of the household, or even by the head of household himself.
Servant girls also frequently had to endure physical and verbal abuse, usually from the master or the mistress of the house.23 In that sense, Enneke
Pumpmacher’s violent end was therefore not a complete aberration and
the unforgiving attitude of the guild towards Master Catemann’s overly
violent punishment could have had more to do with her background as a
master’s daughter than outrage over the killing of a servant.
Fallen Women
The already difficult circumstances of being a servant girl were further
complicated by a woman’s need to find a suitable husband. Between finding a man and getting married, a servant girl had to make sure she did not
damage her reputation. In a society that made clear distinctions between
the chaste and the unchaste, any misstep could have severe consequences
and a girl with a blemished name could hold little hope for a good match.
Many sources from the period confirm the speed with which early modern communities fell back on such long-established and convenient stereotypes as ‘the debauched maidservant’ in disputes involving a man, a
servant girl, and sex.24 As previously discussed, marriage had traditionally been enacted entirely within the lay sphere and the lower classes perceived sexual intercourse as the precursor of marriage. Sex before marriage
did harbour obvious dangers for a woman, however. A servant girl might
well find that her supposed husband had a sudden change of heart after
they had slept together but before the marital vows had been exchanged.
This left her with a damaged reputation and no husband to show for it.
23
See L. Gowing, ‘Secret Births and Infanticide in Seventeenth-Century England’, Past
and Present, 18 (1997), 87–115; L. Gowing, Domestic Dangers: Women, Words, and Sex in
Early Modern London (Oxford, 1996); J. Sharpe, ‘Domestic Homicide in Early Modern
England’, The Historical Journal, 24.1 (1981), 29–48; A. Kussmaul, Servants in Husbandry
in Early Modern England (Cambridge, 1981); T. Meldrum, Domestic Service and Gender,
1660–1750: Life and Work in the London Household (Harlow, 2000); R. C. Richardson,
Household Servants in Early Modern England (Manchester, 2010).
24
Compare, for example, L. Gowing, ‘Women, Status and the Popular Culture of
Dishonour’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 6 (1996), 225–34; and Capp, When
Gossips Meet.
Deviant Women and the Urban Community
115
Finding a husband was therefore an endeavour that required servant girls
to carry out a careful balancing act between the practicalities of traditional betrothal practice and the demands of societal propriety—the risk
lay almost entirely with the woman. While most women were eventually able to escape servitude, some had to remain maids forever. Greta
zum Steinhorst, for example, worked as ‘an honest servant for forty years’.
During that time she gave birth to two illegitimate children, but, ‘[O]‌ther
than that’, Greta asserted, ‘I have done nothing immoral or against my
honour’.25 Financially, Greta’s situation never improved sufficiently to
allow her greater independence or a change of occupation. Because neither
of the fathers of her children married her, Greta was also barred from joining the ranks of respectable, married women. Bringing up two children on
her own meant that what had initially been planned as only a temporary
phase in Greta’s life ultimately became inescapable. This represented a fate
of which servant girls had to be wary.
Unlike their Protestant counterparts, Catholic city authorities did not
outlaw prostitution by closing down public brothels and banning prostitutes from the urban community. Although prostitution was seen as
immoral, Catholics considered it a sin that potentially prevented greater
transgressions.26 The city of Münster did not possess anything like a civic
brothel; the closest it had to a house of disrepute was perhaps the bathhouse. The sources mostly mention individual cases of prostitution that
took place in private houses. And most of the women engaging in prostitution were (fallen) servant girls.
Every night when Trine Weingartner’s husband went out on watch
‘men knocked at her door for some company and a drink’.27 They came
to see Maria, a servant girl in Münster. With encouragement from Trine,
Maria then had intercourse with some of the visitors, either upstairs or
in the kitchen. Maria must have been aware of her sad situation, because
one of the witnesses heard her complain about her fate. In court, however, Maria only admitted to spending time in Trine’s house to give her a
hand with the housework. Trine Weingartner also insisted that nothing
immoral went on in her home. She pleaded total ignorance: yes, ‘some
young men fell on the bed with Maria’, but no, she didn’t know if anything
else went on. Only when a witness told the judges about a conversation
he had overheard, did she confess. The witness had apparently heard how
Trine’s husband had warned her: ‘Do you not know how strict the law is
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 50 (1618), 462.
M. Rocke, ‘Gender and Sexual Culture in Renaissance Italy’ in J. Brown and C. Davis
(eds.), Gender and Society in Renaissance Italy (Harlow, 1998), 150–70.
27
StdAMs, Gerichtsarchiv, BII Acta Criminalia Nr. 256 (1653).
25
26
116 Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
in Münster?’ Unaffected by this warning, Trine replied: ‘There are many
whore houses in Münster . . . this goes on in a hundred houses . . . people
can actually make a living from this’.28 Thus caught out, Trine decided to
name some other houses in the city which allowed similar activities. In a
rather surprising move, Trine was punished with the pillory, while Maria
was viewed as a victim and allowed to leave the courtroom unpunished.
Perhaps Trine’s contemptuous words had shifted the judges’ focus away
from the hapless servant and onto this overbearing wife of a nightwatchman who had procured illicit sex under the cover of darkness.
Anneke Dorsell’s story is another example of a servant turning to prostitution. It brings out even more clearly the dangerous cycle of poverty,
female exploitation, and social exclusion that could entrap single servant girls. Anneke was the illegitimate daughter of a pastor from Einen,
a village not far from Münster. All we know of her parents was that they
were both dead by the time Anneke arrived in the city in 1571. To secure
her future, she began working as a servant girl. Her first job lasted for
five years, after which her periods of employment became more sporadic,
lasting between six and thirty months. After thirteen years as a servant in
six different households, Anneke changed occupation and began working as a seamstress.29 But despite her attempts to make a life for herself
in Münster, her efforts were repeatedly hindered by the disadvantageous
relationships she formed with the opposite sex. Since illegitimacy was an
(almost) insurmountable obstacle to citizenship and admission to the
guilds, Anneke’s hopes for a future had to rest on making an advantageous
match with a man whose reputation was good enough to allay the shame
of her own defective birth. But even though marriage was clearly Anneke’s
only chance of becoming an accepted (if not fully respectable) member of
the community, she did not marry any of the fathers of her three children.
The father of her first child, Bernd von Oer, was a cleric and barred from
marriage by canon law. This relationship was therefore not one of equals
and any risk was entirely Anneke’s. This fact became even more evident
when she fell pregnant with von Oer’s child. Now, Anneke’s best hope
was that von Oer would provide for her and the child either by paying
alimony or by keeping Anneke at his side. However, living as a concubine,
Anneke would have been dependent on Bernd’s continuing goodwill and
Ibid.
At the appeal of the tailors’ guild, women had been prohibited to be apprenticed as
tailors since 1525. In this, the tailors’ guild followed the example of the other guilds in town.
From then on, women were merely allowed to make small accessories like collars or headdresses. Alfing and Schedensack, Frauenalltag, 254–5.
28
29
Deviant Women and the Urban Community
117
the covert acceptance of the ecclesiastical authorities. When the baby died
not long after its birth, the liaison came to a sad end.
Anneke’s second child lived with its father, Henrich Schriver. The
sources do not reveal much about the background of this arrangement,
but several obstacles now lay in Anneke’s path. Her own circumstances
did not allow her to keep a child in her life because employers usually did
not accept the illegitimate offspring of their servants in the household; if
they continued to employ the servant at all, she would have had to earn
enough to feed a small family. Moreover, Anneke had also become a decidedly unattractive marriage partner—she was an illegitimate woman who
had borne two children out of wedlock. As a result, Anneke had very likely
acquired a doubtful reputation.
The next time we meet Anneke in the records, she was learning how
to sew, a skill that was rather curiously taught at the local bathhouse.
Münster’s bathhouse served several functions in the life of the city: it
was a public bath, hostel, bar, and a brothel—a place that housed the
licit and the illicit in dangerously close proximity.30 Anneke apparently
spent her time there not only learning how to sew but also working as a
part-time prostitute. In the criminal records, she mentions that Henrich
Lange, the owner of the bathhouse, had instructed her to drink with
the male guests and entertain them in more intimate ways, too (die
liebe gepflegett).31 During that time, Anneke formed a relationship with
one of the men lodging at the bathhouse. Herman Kraewinckel was a
locksmith’s son and apprentice from Essen who stayed in Münster for
several weeks to recuperate from an illness. In court, Anneke predictably
stated that Herman had begun to court her and, after he had promised
faithfulness to her, the two entered into a proper relationship: ‘he got
up [together with Anneke] in the morning and went to bed [with her at
night], they ate together and drank together’—all in full view of the people around them. Anneke looked after Herman and he gave her money
to pay for her expenses, such as the food she bought and prepared on his
behalf.32 Anneke’s statement paints a picture of a relationship that bore
the characteristics of a traditional betrothal except for the fact that in
the end no wedding ever took place. The apprentice left and Anneke was
once more alone.
Of course, we do not know how much of what Anneke told the judges
was the truth. It was certainly in her interest, and that of Lange and his
Alfing and Schedensack, Frauenalltag, 258.
StdAMs, Gerichtsarchiv, BII Acta Criminalia 103/5 (October 1594).
32
Ibid., (4 November 1594).
30
31
118 Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
wife, to describe her dealings with Henrich Kraewinckel as a betrothal
rather than an immoral affair conducted at the bathhouse. However, at
this point in the hearing the judges were already convinced of Anneke’s
defective moral character, her fornication (Unzucht), and prostitution
(Hurerei). The only point still under investigation was child abandonment. Anneke gave birth to her third child in about 1590, at which time
she was already working as a prostitute. By 1594, however, she was no
longer able to provide for her child because she had lost all her belongings in a fire. Anneke decided that she had to give her child away. She
persuaded a neighbour to take it to a convent—one specifically chosen
because an aunt of her child lived there. Anneke’s neighbour, Maria
Helmer, reluctantly agreed to help: ‘out of compassion and although she
did not like to do it’. Maria took the child to the convent and told him to
‘go there and get a slice of bread and butter’.33 After that she returned to
Anneke, who decided to leave the city. The nuns later reported to the city
council that after they had given some bread to the child, he had walked
away. Anneke’s child was never seen again. This heart-breaking end to
Anneke’s case apparently did not move the judges and they expelled
Anneke from the city for good.34
Two young women from different backgrounds, such as Enneke
Pumpmacher, a master’s daughter, and Anneke Dorsell, the illegitimate
child of a pastor, both shared a similar experience: the reality of service.
Although Enneke died a tragic death at the hands of her master, her fate
was the unfortunate result of Catemann’s temper and Enneke’s stubborn
refusal to show the humility and submissiveness expected of her position.
Her background meant that Enneke could look her master in the eyes with
confidence since a future as the mistress of her own household awaited her.
No such promises lay in store for Anneke Dorsell. From the moment she
was born, her illegitimacy was a serious stain on her honour, making it
very difficult to build a life for herself. Her relationships with unavailable
men further cemented her inferior status in early modern society and the
birth of her illegitimate children destroyed what little honour she still had.
This left her with no other social or material options but to sell her body.
Apart from some food handouts, Münster offered no institutional support
for single women and unmarried mothers. This lack of support could have
fatal consequences.
Ibid., (25 October 1594).
Alfing and Schedensack, Frauenalltag, 265.
33
34
Deviant Women and the Urban Community
119
Murderous Mothers
During the course of the sixteenth century, infanticide transformed from
an offence that only rarely reached the courts into a ‘monstrous crime’
that was punished with drowning or impalement.35 By the seventeenth
century, infanticide was generally equated with murder. Most offenders
were now executed by decapitation, often in conjunction with other punishments, such as the application of hot pliers or the display of the severed
head on a stick. This was to serve as an additional warning to the (female)
population. In Münster, cases of infanticide were exceptional: in the first
half of the seventeenth century only three women were convicted of murdering their own child, all of them servants.
In 1622 a dead infant was found by the wall of St Johann’s Hof. The city
council asked two midwives to provide their expertise in childbirth and
care of infants. The two established that the baby had been no older than
three days by the time it was suffocated. A hunt for the ‘godless mother’
began.36 To help the investigation, the councillors decided to put up a
reward of twenty Marks and threatened those who withheld information
with serious punishment. Suspicions soon fell on the servant Adelheid zu
Brintrup; however, because Adelheid had fled the city, the council decided
to question her neighbours. They informed the judges that they had been
aware of her pregnancy but chose not to get involved. Next, the court
questioned an apprentice who was known to have had ‘much conversation’ with Adelheid. He confessed to a relationship with her and that he,
too, had known about her pregnancy. But although he had then contemplated marrying Adelheid, he decided against it because ‘there had been
other apprentices who had some suspicious dealings with her’.37
Five years later, Elsa Lüleßmann was arrested on similar grounds. She
told the court how one afternoon she had left town to buy some goods.
By the time she returned to the city, the gates had already been closed and
she found herself on her own without a roof over her head. All of a sudden the contractions began and between one and two o’clock that night
she gave birth to her baby. That night, Elsa kept the baby by her side, but
when morning dawned she took the knife and slit its throat. Then she hid
the dead body. All this, she said, happened ‘under the influence of the evil
35
Constitutio Criminalis Carolina: Peinliche Gerichtsordnung Kaiser Karls V., Rechtsdenk­
mäler: Faksimiledrucke von Quellenwerken zur Rechtsentwicklung, Bd. 2, (Osnabrück,
1973), Art. 35 and 36. R. van Dülmen, Frauen vor Gericht: Kindsmord in der frühen Neuzeit
(Frankfurt, 1991), 9.
36
The city council never even considered the possibility of a father as the murderer.
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 54 (31 March 1622).
37
Ibid.
120 Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
spirit’, thus confirming the prevalent view of the early modern authorities
which saw child murder as an unnatural and devilish crime.38
Anna Stumme also gave birth on her own. She was a servant and had
only recently come to Münster. She said that she had given birth in the
bathroom, but then the baby had fallen straight through the hole in the
floor and into the river below.39 She had no intention of killing it but, as
the judges pointed out to her, also did nothing to save it. More difficult to
determine than the question of guilt was the question of paternity. Anna
told the judges that she had been raped by a soldier. One week later she
had slept with her long-time admirer, Joachim Schmedding. Thereafter,
she had realized that she was pregnant. Without hope of any other support, Anna decided on the sensible option and told Joachim about her
pregnancy. He offered financial support to her; marriage, however, was
never a possibility because Schmedding was already married.
Whereas Adelheid was able to avoid punishment with her escape from
Münster, both Anna and Elsa were executed. The judges already saw Anna’s
adulterous relationship as a serious offence, but the infanticide put her
well beyond help. She was beheaded and her head displayed on a pike.40 In
Elsa’s case, the judges decided to give her a ‘merciful punishment’, though
they could not resist turning her execution into an exhibition. A hole was
to be dug out and a pillory, on which Elsa was to be impaled, was placed
at its centre. In the end, though, as an act of mercy, she was beheaded.41
All three of the women found themselves in a calamitous situation.
Although hardly unannounced, the women seem to have experienced
the arrival of their children as a sudden shock that fully revealed to them
the desperation of their lives. Their ‘secret’ pregnancies did not go unnoticed, but the attitude of the people around Elsa, Adelheid, and Anna was
marked by complacency and indifference towards the increasingly difficult situation of these servants. Ulinka Rublack describes how pregnant
women would have usually enjoyed a privileged position during pregnancy and lying-in.42 Not so in the case of single servant girls. The lack of
support that accompanied their pregnancies and the experience of giving
birth alone must have aggravated their feelings of loneliness and isolation.
Their cases throw into doubt the early modern ideal of the ‘whole house’
38
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 59 (6 July 1627); StdAMs,
Gerichtsarchiv, BII Acta Criminalia Nr. 263. See also Rublack, The Crimes of Women, 165.
39
StdAMs, Gerichtsarchiv, BII Acta Criminlia Nr. 135 (31 January 1643).
40
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 59 (6 July 1627).
41
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 54 (6 April1622).
42
U. Rublack, ‘Pregnancy, Childbirth and the Female Body in Early Modern Germany’,
Past and Present 150.1 (1996), 84–110, here 85.
Deviant Women and the Urban Community
121
(das Ganze Haus), whereby the family of the master and their servants
formed a small social and economic community.43 In the cases we have
studied, the servants received very little support from their masters, the
community around them, or even the authorities. Elsa told the judges that
she had been sad because the father of her baby had left her to become a
soldier. She feared the consequences of her pregnancy and grieved for her
lost love. Her parents had also recently died. Elsa said she had been ‘desperate and did not know to whom she could have gone or turned’.44 Anna
Stumme seems to have been more aware of the consequences of her action.
In court she claimed that immediately after her child had fallen into the
water, she ‘fell to her knees to ask God for forgiveness and promised a
bequest to the poor’.45 She also described feelings of sadness and anxiety
and told the judges about her poverty.46 Both Anna and Elsa realized how
hard it would be to bring up a child on their own without social support
or any financial provisions, for Münster offered no institutional assistance
to single mothers. Although an orphanage was founded in 1592, this was
a private initiative and its twelve places were only open to the children
of burghers. The only possible avenue open to Anna, Elsa, and Adelheid
would have been to seek alimony in court. But without a father to present
to the judges, this would have left them open to accusations of immorality
and public shame.
M arried Women
Servant girls had to master these precarious circumstances until their wedding day, but it was not necessarily plain sailing for married women, either.
The supposedly safe haven of matrimony was full of potential predicaments. Gender expectations, for example, prescribed that a woman should
be a dutiful housewife and reliable support for her husband. But, as the
following case of Christina Volmers shows, it was precisely her loyalty to
43
Otto Brunner, ‘Das “Ganze Haus” und die alteuropäische “Ökonomik”‘, in
O. Brunner (ed.), Neue Wege der Verfassungs- und Sozialgeschichte (Göttingen, 1968),
103–27; W. Freitag, ‘Haushalt und Familie in traditionellen Gesellschaften. Konzepte,
Probleme und Perspektiven der Forschung’, Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 14 (1988),
5–37; V. Groebner, ‘Außer Haus: Otto Brunner und die “alteuropäische Ökonomik” ’,
Geschichte in Wissenschaft und Unterricht, 46 (1995), 69–80; K. Hausen, ‘Die Polarisierung
der “Geschlechtercharaktere”—eine Spiegelung der Dissoziation von Erwerbs- und
Familienleben’, in W. Conze (ed.), Sozialgeschichte der Familie in der Neuzeit Europas
(Stuttgart, 1976), 367–93.
44
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 59 (6 July 1627).
45
Ibid.
46
Ibid.
122 Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
her husband and their business which instigated years of strife and unrest
in the neighbourhood. What Christina Volmers lacked in popularity,
Catharina Varwick apparently held in abundance; yet even the latter’s welcoming home did not receive the unqualified approval of her neighbours.
Belligerent Brawlers
The judges encountered Christina Volmers for the first time in 1606 when
the tailors’ guild accused her of carrying out illegal sewing work. Christina
had moved to the city only recently and, much to the indignation of the
guild, took up sewing to finance her stay. Following a complaint from the
guild, she was fined. Not long afterwards, she again appeared in court, on
the same charge, and another fine was levied.47 In 1607, Christina married the brewer Friedrich Raesfeld. The marriage brought peace, quiet,
and two daughters into her life and, for the next fourteen years, Christina
disappeared from the council protocols.48 In 1615, Friedrich died and for
the following six years Christina continued to run the business on her
own. Then, in 1621, she married Johan Hövel, a brewer from outside
Münster. Within eight weeks of their union, the newlyweds started to
become regulars in the courtroom. The first accusation brought against
them was fraud and although no dishonest dealings were proven, the accusation alone was a dangerous attack on their professional reputations and
livelihood.49 In an attempt to defend her honour and the reputation of
her husband, Christina began a war of words with her neighbours, who
promptly complained to the council about her ‘daily bickering and belligerent (unfriedsam) unneighbourly behaviour’.50 However, the involvement
of the authorities made so little impression on Christina that only four
days later her neighbours complained to the judges again. This time, the
judges ordered Christina to keep the peace ‘under threat of incarceration
in a place where she shall see neither sun nor moon’.51 But just one week
later, the couple found themselves in court again, this time because Johan
had set the dog on one neighbour and pursued another with two knives,
and Christina was accused of instructing her children to abuse other
youngsters by calling them illegitimate.52 The conflict had now escalated
47
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 38 (24 April 1606 and 31
August 1606).
48
Alfing and Schedensack, Frauenalltag, 72.
49
The Hövels were accused of adding water to the beer and not paying their taxes
correctly.
50
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 53 (22 June 1621).
51
Ibid., (26 June 1621).
52
Ibid., (3 July 1621).
Deviant Women and the Urban Community
123
from words to deeds. In court, the couple strenuously denied any wrongdoing and blamed all their troubles on their neighbours’ envy. They also
complained that the whole neighbourhood was ganging up on them and
making their lives very difficult.
Early modern neighbourhoods were generally characterized by their
openness and familiarity. People ate, drank, and worked together; they
overheard each other’s conversations; they left their doors unlocked and
windows open. Such proximity made Christina and her husband all the
more sensitive to the scorn and coldness of their neighbours. To escape
their isolation, the couple offered to move elsewhere, provided the council
would pay for it. Whether such a step would have been helpful is doubtful
because, at this point, the conflict had already spilled over from the neighbourhood and into the wider city. Christina, in particular, had to suffer the consequences. A song insinuating immorality had been composed
about her: ‘when you come from Osnabrück and go through the Horster
gate, ask for the third house; there lives a beautiful landlady (Wirtin) . . . ’.53
Even though Christina’s morality was never subject to any official investigation in court, this insinuation was an effective revenge upon a belligerent woman. Strangers, encouraged by Christina’s neighbours, soon began
singing the song in the streets: a man selling cherries sang the song; a
servant girl was caught humming the tune; and even the son of the tower
guard of St Lamberti Church blew the derisive melody through his trumpet as Christina walked across the market square.54 One can just imagine
the scene! Christina Volmers had become the laughing stock of the neighbourhood and the wider community, her honour and morality a source
of public amusement.55 All this had been achieved through the power of
ridicule; it was impossible to stop and was therefore a truly humiliating
experience for the brewer’s wife.
Three weeks later, the inevitable happened. A battered Christina
appeared in court to report that she had been attacked by the gatekeeper
and her neighbour’s son. They had beaten her so badly that she had lost
some teeth.56 Both men claimed they had been provoked by Christina’s
slanderous tongue. The court decided to punish all three with a fine. Even
though it had been two men against one woman, the judges saw Christina
StdAMs, Gerichtsarchiv, BIV Causae Civiles Nr. 943 (2 August 1621).
StdAMs, AVIII, Nr. 281a Brüchtenprotokolle 53 (9 August 1621).
55
Susanna Burghartz has already noted that honour was acted out in public—a person’s
honour therefore only existed within a given social context, for example, the neighbourhood. S. Burghartz, ‘Rechte Jungfrauen oder unverschämte Töchter? Zur weiblichen Ehre
im 16. Jahrhundert’, in K. Hausen and H. Wunder, Frauengeschichte—Geschlechtergeschichte
(Frankfurt am Main, 1992), 73–183, here 173.
56
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 53 (25 August 1621).
53
54
124 Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
as a repeat offender and a regular nuisance. Two months later, Christina
appeared in court for the final time. Again, a neighbour accused her of
inciting her children to call their peers offensive names. This time the
judges threatened her with expulsion.57 The threat seems to have had the
desired effect because no more mentions of Christina Volmers can be
found in the records.
What began as a row between neighbours quickly escalated into a fight
filled with verbal abuse and ended with a complete breakdown of neighbourly communication. The ensuing violence, in itself the climax of the
conflict, also precipitated its conclusion, but only after the neighbours had
beaten up Christina. Although the authorities had been involved in the
dispute as judges early on, they were not able to prevent the escalation of
this conflict. Their strategy consisted of reprimands, fines, and appeals for
peace-making. Only when violence broke out between the neighbours did
the judges threaten to expel Christina Volmers. We do not know why the
authorities saw Christina as the villain in this piece, even though many different people, from children to adults, from neighbours to strangers, from
servants to masters, had all played a part. Johan Hövel, Christina’s husband, was also mysteriously left out of the disciplining process, despite his
active involvement in the conflict.58 With this attitude, the court followed
the behaviour of Christina’s neighbours—the same people who had slandered her honour by calling her a whore and had attacked the reputation
of her house by describing it as a pig’s head. In this manner, the community had united against a belligerent woman who was not easily silenced
or controlled. But the story could be told differently, too: although bold
and belligerent, Christina was also a fearless defender of her household.
The same qualities, if found in a man, would not have caused such public censorship from the neighbourhood: quite the contrary. In a woman,
however, they were simply viewed as female obstinacy.
Hospitable Housewives
Catharina Varwick’s troubles were in a sense the opposite of Christina
Volmers’. Her house was hospitable and popular, perhaps even too popular
Ibid., (4 October 1621).
Heide Wunder describes how early modern authorities discriminated in their punishments on the basis of gender. When couples became delinquent, husbands would usually
receive an honourable ‘male punishment’ (ehrenvolle Männerstrafe) whereas wives would be
given a shameful ‘female punishment’ (schmähliche Schandstrafe). H. Wunder, ‘ “Weibliche
Kriminalität” in der Frühen Neuzeit: Überlegungen aus der Sicht der Geschlechtergeschichte’,
in O. Ulbricht (ed.), Von Huren und Rabenmüttern: Weibliche Kriminalität in der Frühen
Neuzeit (Cologne; Weimar; Vienna, 1995), 39–61, here 53.
57
58
Deviant Women and the Urban Community
125
for her own good. Catharina was the wife of Hermann Vinne, a merchant
whose business regularly took him away from Münster. It is not clear how
Catharina spent her days, for the couple had no children and the marriage
was prosperous enough that Catharina did not have to work. Much more is
known about how she spent her nights, however.59 Catharina first came to
the attention of the secular authorities when a neighbour accused her of an
immoral relationship with Ditherich Grevinghoff.60 In court, the accused
man described how Catharina’s mother had invited him into the house one
day for a drink, and so Ditherich had enjoyed a jug of wine in the company of mother and daughter. When he had offered to pay for a second jug,
Catharina’s mother had declined his offer because her son-in-law was not
present. It seems there were very thin lines dividing good hospitality, between
men and women, from inappropriate behaviour. Catharina’s mother was
acutely aware that in the absence of the master of the house, one drink was
just being good neighbours, but two could be construed as improper.
Four years later, more accusations surfaced when Johann Volbert,
another neighbour of Catharina and Hermann’s, charged her with heavy
drinking ‘day and night’.61 On one such occasion, he said, Catharina and
her servant had asked him in for a beer. That was around nine or ten
o’clock in the evening; the party then continued until after midnight.
During these sociable hours, they had consumed five jugs of beer, one
jug of wine, and two-eighths of brandy. According to Johann, Catharina
had paid for all the alcohol, except for two jugs of beer, with the money
her husband had left behind so that she should pay their taxes.62 Johann
also stated that Catharina had sent out her servant to organize a pack
of cards to gamble, but the servant had returned empty-handed. Johann
Volbert went home drunk at three in the morning. The next day he was
given a hard time by his wife, Gertrud. The couple argued so severely that
Volbert ended up hitting Gertrud on the back, for which Gertrud blamed
Catharina: ‘this was because of that whore’, she said to her husband. When
Gertrud met Catharina she told her that she would only allow her husband to drink in Catharina’s house when Hermann was home, ‘because
she [Catharina] is such a suspicious person’. Johann also recounted that his
wife had called Catharina a whore, even though he insisted that nothing
immoral had ever happened between them and that they had only ever
met ‘in a neighbourly fashion’.63 When the judges questioned Gertrud
StdAMs, Gerichtsarchiv, BII Acta Criminalia Nr. 103/8 (1594).
Ibid., (27 August 1594).
StdAMs, Gerichtsarchiv, BII Acta Criminalia Nr. 28 (9 May 1598).
62
Ibid., (13 May 1598).
63
Ibid.
59
60
61
126 Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
Volbert, she volunteered the following information: some time previously,
Catharina had been suspected by her neighbours, the Nagels, of having
an affair with Dirich Bouwmann. Confronted with these allegations,
Catharina had threatened to jump into the well and drown herself. After
this dramatic response, Catharina’s mother left her own servant to stay and
watch over her daughter, while Gertrud, Johann, and other neighbours
decided to cheer Catharina up by playing some music in the evenings. On
these special occasions, Johann Volbert even got his wife’s permission to
dance with Catharina.
Early modern society had an elephantine memory, and Catharina’s apparent shortcomings had accumulated. Although years had passed between
the two cases, they were still based on the same allegations: Catharina
drank too much, she was too sociable, and she financed her pleasures with
money that was intended for the common good. While early modern men
might use excessive drinking as an excuse for their improper behaviour in
court, this defence was not open to women.64 This is repeatedly demonstrated in the council protocols, which remarked only upon a woman’s
drinking and never upon a man’s. Simply put, it was believed that alcohol
in a woman led to improper sexual conduct.
Before continuing the proceedings with an examination of Catharina
herself, the city court decided to question her servants. Catharina zum
Holthuis, who once worked in Varwick’s household, assured the court
that she had never witnessed any indecent actions. Anna von Detten,
Catharina’s new servant, also defended her mistress against any accusations.65 Another former servant, Catharina Vockenbeck, who had been
present on the night in question, claimed that Johann Volbert had actually invited himself into Varwick’s house. And, she said, she was never
asked to go and find playing cards, either. Finally, Catharina Varwick herself was asked for her statement. She confirmed the words of Catharina
Vockenbeck. In reality, she said, Johann Volbert had come into her house
uninvited, asking for hospitality. They had drunk beer together, and then
Catharina went to bed, feeling unwell, while Volbert fell asleep on a chair
until her servant had sent him home. Catharina denied any intention to
gamble and concluded her statement by emphasizing that her relationship with Johann Volbert was entirely non-sexual: ‘he came and went as a
neighbour’.66 She also denied ever having been under suspicion of an affair
with Dirich Bouwmann.
64
For example, StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 61 (13 March
1629), and StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 48 (27 April 1616).
65
StdAMs, Gerichtsarchiv, BII Acta Criminalia Nr. 103/8 (5 September 1594).
66
StdAMs, Gerichtsarchiv, BII Acta Criminalia Nr. 28 (13 May 1598).
Deviant Women and the Urban Community
127
Catharina Varwick’s neighbours apparently could not agree on her character. Some had nothing bad to say about her and saw her as a dutiful
and hospitable wife. Others described her as an adulteress, a drinker, and
a waster of her husband’s hard-earned money. Johann Volbert, her main
critic in court, dwelled on Varwick’s pronounced pleasure in sociability
and her heavy drinking, all the while forgetting that he himself had been
the main beneficiary of this merrymaking. Yet, although they had enjoyed
the alcohol collectively, early modern people saw a world of difference
between a man drinking and a woman doing the same. Whereas a man
indulging in drink was convivial and manly, a woman was misbehaved and
loose.67 This was especially true if her boozing happened in the presence of
a man other than her husband with only her maidservant as chaperone—it
was precisely the absence of Catharina’s husband that had triggered the
suspicions in the first place. It took the presence of a man to guarantee
decency, on that all involved were agreed. Even Catharina’s insistence that
she had merely offered her guest a drink, an innocent hospitable gesture,
did not alleviate her situation. Though early modern women were meant
to be good hostesses, they were not supposed to be sociable in their own
right—especially if this involved markers of male culture such as drink
and cards. When Catharina continued her social life unchanged without
Hermann Vinne, she had, in the judgement of her neighbours, deviated
from good behaviour. The neighbours punished this transgression by
gossiping about Catharina. Spreading rumours was their way of curbing Catharina’s perceived excesses, and disclosing these rumours in court
transferred the task of imposing limits from her family and friends into the
hands of the judges. And yet, in her statement, Gertrud Volbert sketched
an even more complex picture of the workings of the early modern neighbourhood. Catharina and her neighbours clearly had a rather complicated
relationship. Despite the fact that her neighbours were the reason for all
her troubles, they were also a source of help and support. When they
found Catharina deeply dismayed by the accusations they themselves had
spread, they gathered round her to cheer her up with their company and
some dancing: ‘This is how they tried to distract and console her’.68 They
were simultaneously the cause of and the medicine for Catharina’s pain.
67
M. Frank, ‘Trunkene Männer und nüchterne Frauen: Zur Gefährdung von
Geschlechterrollen durch Alkohol in der Frühen Neuzeit’, in M. Dinges (ed.), Hausväter,
Priester, Kastraten: Zur Konstruktion von Männlichkeit in Spätmittelalter und früher Neuzeit
(Göttingen, 1998).
68
StdAMs, Gerichtsarchiv, BII Acta Criminalia Nr. 28 (13 May 1598).
128 Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
Slander and Sorcery
Gossip was a weapon widely employed against defiant women. It was
used to discipline those whose lifestyle and moral standards had strayed
from accepted norms and broken the conventions of the neighbourhood. This could have very serious implications, as the following cases
of sorcery show.69 In 1611, Gertrud Bruns was accused by her landlord,
Heinrich Wibbeling, of ‘suspicious magic’.70 He reported that he heard
‘such ghosts and turmoil in her chamber as if the house was about to topple over’. Wibbeling’s wife provided more details about the goings-on in
the house: there was a bad smell which was so intense that she did not dare
to enter the house anymore—this was a hint of the presence of the devil.
At night there was also a great din that kept her awake and she often found
the street filled with cats. One evening, their neighbour found his pig
wearing a ribbon round its waist, and some people had fallen ill after they
bought herbs from Gertrud. ‘This is just too much’, she said, summing up
her complaints and pleaded with the judges to rid them of Gertrud Bruns,
‘because she gave her such a fright in her own house’.71
Early modern society saw witchcraft as the crimen exceptum, to be dealt
with outside common court practice.72 Yet, despite Bishop Ferdinand
being a committed witch-hunter in Cologne and its surrounding areas, he
could not pursue the same policies in Münster: there, witchcraft accusations were heard by the city court and not the ecclesiastical authorities.73
Unlike Cologne, Münster’s city council never released a witchcraft ordinance or followed any other special policy for dealing with this crime.
Between 1552 and 1644 the council heard twenty-nine cases of sorcery. Six
of the accused women were executed; eighteen people were banned; three
women died during their imprisonment; eight people were pronounced
innocent. Münster never experienced the same frenzy of persecutions
and burnings that went on elsewhere under Ferdinand’s authority.74 The
69
On female sorcery see I. Ahrendt-Schulte, ‘Schadenzauber und Konflikte:
Sozialgeschichte von Frauen im Spiegel der Hexenprozesse des 16. Jahrhunderts in der
Grafschaft Lippe’, in H. Wunder and C. Vanja (eds.), Wandel der Geschlechterbeziehungen
zu Beginn der Neuzeit (Frankfurt am Main, 1995).
70
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 43 (22 August 1611).
71
Ibid.
72
Rublack, The Crimes of Women, 5.
73
For Cologne and the surrounding territories, execution figures vary between
1,000-2,000. cf. Holzem, Der Konfessionsstaat, 432–3.
74
For Osnabrück, Sabine Alfing mentions 250 burnings in seven decades. S. Alfing,
‘Die “Hexen” von Münster—Aspekte einer frühneuzeitlichen Tragödie’, in Arbeitskreis
Frauengeschichte (ed.), Frauenleben in Münster (Münster, 1991), 14. Andreas Holzem cites
278 for the same period, Holzem, Der Konfessionsstaat, 436.
Deviant Women and the Urban Community
129
reasons for this remain vague, however. The fact that the power of prosecution lay in the hands of the magistrate has already been mentioned.75
Another potential explanation springs from my own research and focuses
on the background of witchcraft accusations. Most of them originated
from neighbourhood troubles and were the culmination of a long and
deeper-reaching conflict in the community. A denunciation was the most
dangerous weapon in the arsenal of early modern conflict culture, thrown
at the antagonist without the need to use real violence, but with similarly
destructive effect. It is against this background that I base my analysis of
the following cases; I am, therefore, not interested in the crimen exceptum
as such, but in its social context and the dynamics that lay behind these
dangerous accusations.
Confronted with these claims, Gertrud Bruns voluntarily presented
herself in court and demanded that trial by water (Wasserprobe) be carried out to rid her of the rumours that she was a sorceress (Zauberin).
The court reacted with scepticism to her initiative—they saw the trial by
water as a devil’s trick (Teufels Betrug).76 Instead, the judges decided to
question Gertrud’s neighbours. The first spoke about the frequent fights
between Gertrud Bruns and her landlords, Herr Wibbeling and his wife,
and described how Bruns had repeatedly been called a sorceress by them;
in return, she had accused them of being ‘honour thieves’ (Ehrendiebe).
This was confirmed by another neighbour. A third neighbour had nothing
negative to report about her, while a fourth, a woman, appeared before
the judges in Gertrud’s defence, stating that Wibbeling’s wife had always
treated Gertrud badly and branded her a sorceress. Two final witnesses
described how they had fallen ill after eating some of Bruns’s produce.
In the end, the judges did not think there were sufficient grounds to torture Gertrud. Soon afterwards, Wibbeling appeared in court again and
complained about Gertrud’s bawdiness and belligerence. When the council realized that there was no chance of peace between the two parties,
Gertrud was ordered to move out of Wibbeling’s house. The Wibbelings
had finally achieved their goal: that the noisy chamber would become
quiet once again.
75
In her work on witchcraft in Münster, Sabine Alfing mentions another possible reason: she notes the large number of clerics who lived in a relationship with a woman. From
this, Alfing infers that the misogynistic propaganda that spurred on witch-hunters in the
rest of the empire was defeated by a reality of cohabitation and partnership in Münster.
Although this is an interesting thesis, its relevance is doubtful since concubinage relationships were a common phenomenon throughout Germany, including many areas with high
rates of witchcraft prosecution. Alfing, Hexenjagd und Zaubereiprozesse in Münster, 153.
76
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 43 (22 August 1611), 171v.
130 Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
We will never know for sure what really lay at the heart of this conflict. The
accusation of sorcery was clearly symptomatic of another, deeper controversy.
Incapable of solving the problems with their tenant, the Wibbelings threw the
allegation of sorcery at Gertrud and turned her over to the authorities. Such an
accusation always set judicial wheels in motion because anyone charged with
this offence had to appear before the secular authorities to defend him- or herself. If a person unwisely decided not to react to the accusation, this could have
fatal consequences, as the case brought against Else Buddenbaums proves.
The allegations against Else Buddenbaums were voiced by a pater of the
Franciscans who informed the authorities that Else had been suspected of
doing ‘suspicious things’ (verdechtig hendlen) for a long time.77 This accusation, combined with the fact that Else’s mother and aunt had previously been
charged with sorcery, led to her immediate arrest. The judges also decided to
torture her, ‘because she had been afflicted with rumours for a long time (mit
langjähriger starker fama behaftet); Else was herself aware of these rumours, for
they had been said to her face by lay- as well as clergymen’.78 Under torture,
Else confessed to having ‘abjured God Almighty and all God’s saints and
creatures and given herself to the evil enemy from hell and used poison and
did other evil deeds’. She blamed her aunt for having introduced her to magic
in the first place.79 The judges resolved to execute her but, in an act of mercy,
she was strangled before she was burned.
Else Buddenbaums had been aware of the rumours about her, but had
decided to ignore them. A deadly mistake as it turned out, though it is
doubtful that she would have secured a more positive outcome had she presented herself to the court on her own initiative. The combination of her
neighbours’ malicious gossip, the involvement of the clergy, and her own
family history, would have made it very difficult to defend herself successfully. This was probably the reason why she had decided against any action
in the first place. Even the court scribe seemed to think she was guilty. In
a rather unusual step, he remarked in the margins of the council protocol
on Else’s body language: ‘she moves her face from side to side and her eyes
are always on the floor’.80 To him, Else seemed to hide a dark secret which
made it impossible for her to lift her gaze and look the judges directly in the
77
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 51 (3 July 1619); StdAMs,
Gerichtsarchiv, BII Acta Criminalia Nr. 205.
78
These are Greta and Anneke zum Steinhorst. Elsa was one of the two illegitimate children of Greta zum Steinhorst. Anneke had been burned earlier that same year. See StdAMs,
Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 50 (1618) and AII Nr. 20 Bd. 51 (1619). See
also Alfing, Hexenjagd, 48.
79
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 51 (3 July 1619); StdAMs,
Gerichtsarchiv, BII Acta Criminalia Nr. 205.
80
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 51 (3 July 1619).
Deviant Women and the Urban Community
131
eyes. Else was aware of the prejudices surrounding her and her family, and
she complained vehemently about the trial. In response, the judges ordered
three guards to be placed in front of her cell to watch her day and night.
Calling a woman a sorceress was an imputation that usually ended in court
one way or another. Once this label became publicly attached to a woman,
she had to turn to the authorities in order to save her honour. Gertrud Bruns
recognized this when she called the Wibbelings honour thieves. Appearing
in court, however, was a risky step to take because the judges’ decision could
go either way. When Catrina Heggemans was called a whore and a sorceress by Heidenrich Wydinck, she went straight to court and demanded that
Wydinck prove his accusation or restore her honour.81 Wydinck defended
himself by saying that ‘all he had done is to repeat the rumours about
her . . . that her father had been burned and her mother [had been] suspected
of sorcery . . . and her brother was imprisoned for a long time’.82 This time,
however, the court did not accept the argument of a dubious family history.
Since Wydinck could not prove his allegations, he was reprimanded and
made to pay two Marks in compensation to Catrina. Similarly, when Johann
Bünge called Widow Wibbeken and her children sorcerers in front of other
people, Wibbeken went to court to see her honour restored. Johann Bünge,
realizing that he had gone too far, apologized for his outburst and blamed it
on ‘a state of complete drunkenness and a fit of delusion’. This was not good
enough for Wibbeken. She called for him to be punished ‘to set an example
and to save her honour’.83 The judges followed her advice and decided to
incarcerate Bünge and only the appeals of his friends saved him from a prolonged stay in prison. Widow Wibbeken’s statement directly acknowledged
the dynamics that lay behind an accusation of sorcery, including the ‘snowball effect’ that such an accusation set off. Although the outcomes varied, the
accusations invariably damaged the reputation of the victim, irrespective of
their ‘guilt’. For example, when Hermann Grote falsely charged Raesfeldt’s
wife with trying to kill him ‘with a jug of beer in which he found a black
corn’, her husband saw no other way of protecting his wife’s honour after her
release from court, than to produce a document that was to be signed by the
Bürgermeisters and the whole council. It read:
We, Bürgermeisters and council of the city of Münster attest to everyone
that the claim that Raesfeldt’s wife is doing magic . . . which she has always
81
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 48 (1616), 328. See also StdAMs,
Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 47 (2 December 1615) for more material on
Catrina’s family history.
82
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 48 (1616), 328.
83
Ibid., (24 July 1616).
132 Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
denied . . . could not be proven during her interrogation . . . so that now she
must be regarded as innocent and be seen as such by us . . . as this document
proves . . . 84
In cases of sorcery it was essential for the accused to be proactive. But
even when a person showed the necessary determination and resilience,
the damage had already been done through communal gossip and public
accusations.
C onclusion
While servant girls worked in a household to save up a dowry, they also
had to find a suitable husband. This was done almost by trial and error.
Because sexual intercourse before marriage was common, many women
slept with their prospective husbands before their wedding day. Those
who really did get married to their partners disappear from our sources;
those who did not, however, often appear in the council protocols. Their
chances of success in court were much greater if they were expecting a
child. In its drive to create stable and orderly relationships between men
and women, the city council put pressure only on those men who were
about to become fathers; the others usually walked free. More generally,
the secular authorities obviously followed different models of behaviour
for men and for women. Women who found themselves with child but
abandoned by the father could not expect any official support, and at the
same time the council was willing to tolerate a certain amount of male irresponsibility and profligacy. Exploring the world around them and gaining
sexual experience was perceived as part of becoming a man. For women
(especially those of lower social status), however, there were many dilemmas separating social realities from moral ideals. While society expected
women to be chaste and protect their virginity until their wedding day,
common betrothal custom did not follow these conventions. What is
more, the danger of premarital pregnancy was clearly perceived by the
authorities to be a specifically female problem and reduced to the simple
question of morality versus profligacy. As the case studies have shown, a
woman’s honour and morality were of such paramount importance exactly
because their bodies were so easily violated. Those single women at the
margins of burgher society lived a rather improvised lifestyle in unstable
circumstances. The restrictive economic and social policies enforced by the
guilds and the city council did not leave many professional options open
84
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 75 (26 September 1644).
Deviant Women and the Urban Community
133
to early modern single women. Some learned how to sew, others worked
as day-labourers, a few prostituted themselves; they all, in other words,
had to take whatever opportunities were thrown their way. In short, the
physical, mental, and social integrity of the most vulnerable received only
little protection in the city.
The wider community echoed the sentiments of the authorities. The
suspicions of the community were easily aroused. People watched each
other’s conduct with attentive eyes and, in cases where improper behaviour
was detected, action was taken by the neighbourhood. The most common
method of disciplining was the spread of gossip and rumours. The secular
authorities were involved in this process only strategically: instigated by
formal complaints or denunciations, the city court was asked to negotiate, correct, and punish, or to clear somebody’s reputation. But when
neighbours or people of the wider community noticed the pregnancy of
an unmarried servant woman and saw her belly grow, they seemed to offer
no help. This can partly be explained because most of the servant girls we
have encountered were relative newcomers to the city, with few relationships and connections in the local community. Their social capital was
still underdeveloped and quite limited, and their reputations in the city
were therefore fragile from the start.85 In a city without a police force,
detection of crime and enforcement of discipline largely depended on the
cooperation of every man and woman of the community. This bottom-up
approach to disciplining was a rather messy process and turned ‘authority’ from a proactive force into a responsive one. As we have seen, how
much an individual was willing to support and cooperate with the secular
authorities was influenced by the behaviour of the person under suspicion as well as her embeddedness in the local community. Looking at the
sources, we find a society that was at once narrow-minded and forgiving,
involved and aloof towards those who overstepped its boundaries. Early
modern women had to pick their way through this negotiated space with
caution.
85
In this context I follow Dario Gaggio’s definition of social capital as something that
is created and held intentionally by individuals and networks. D. Gaggio, In Gold We
Trust: Social Capital and Economic Change in the Italian Jewelry Towns (Princeton, 2007).
For a discussion of the concept of social capital and its applicability in the context of early
modern Germany, see Ogilvie, A Bitter Living; S. Ogilvie, ‘Guilds, Efficiency, and Social
Capital: Evidence from German Proto-Industry’, Economic History Review 57 (2002);
S. Ogilvie, ‘Serfdom and Social Capital in Bohemia and Russia’, Economic History Review
60 (2007), 513–44; S. Ogilvie, ‘How does Social Capital Affect Women? Guilds and
Communities in Early Modern Germany’, The American Historical Review, 109.2 (2004),
325–59.
5
A Bishop, his Priests, and their
Concubines
From the moment priestly concubinage was first discussed at the Council
of Trent, the Church made its position clear: ‘How base a thing it is and
unworthy of the name of clerics, who have dedicated themselves to divine
worship, to live in the mire of unchastity and the uncleanliness of concubinage, that state declares clearly enough of itself, with its general office
to all the faithful and its great dishonour to the ranks of the clergy’.1 A list
was prepared laying out in detail what measures were to be taken against
those clerics living with a concubine. The first step was a stern admonition by the cleric’s superiors. If that had no effect, a third of his salary was
to be confiscated. If, after yet another admonition, the cleric still lived
with his concubine, the fruits and revenues from his benefices were forfeit.
Should the cleric persist in his scandalous lifestyle, he was to be stripped
of all his ecclesiastical benefices, portions, offices, and salaries of whatever
kind. As a last resort, chastisement with the ‘sword of excommunication’
was threatened.2 However, while this list of measures and punishments
proves the Church’s determination to wage war against concubinage, it
also reveals the expectation that its plan would be met with considerable difficulties, or even opposition. One firm rebuke by the ecclesiastical
authorities was not, it seems, considered likely to be enough to make clerics give up their lovers.
Considering how much emphasis the post-Tridentine Church placed
on raising the moral standards of its priesthood, it seems surprising how
little research this topic has thus far received. Generally speaking, concubinage has been discussed as part of the reform package that the Catholic
Church tried to implement in the decades after Trent.3 In his book on
Session 25, c­ hapter 15, ‘On reform’, in Tanner, Decrees, 792–3.
Ibid., 793.
See, for example, H. Kamen, The Phoenix and the Flame: Catalonia and the Counter
Reformation (New Haven, London; 1993); R. Pörtner, The Counter-Reformation in Central
Europe: Styria 1580–1630 (Oxford, 2001).
1
2
3
A Bishop, his Priests, and their Concubines
135
celibacy and clerical marriage, August Franzen examines the theological
discussions of celibacy from the early days of Christianity until the end of
the sixteenth century.4 However, he is solely concerned with the viewpoint
of the Catholic and Protestant Churches and their leaders; the experiences
of the clerics and their concubines remain unexplored. In her article on
concubinage in the countryside, Eva Labouvie has studied Protestant as
well as Catholic pastors in the southwest of Germany, who shared their
parsonages with their women and children.5 Her findings show a general
toleration of concubinage until the end of the seventeenth century, provided that the cleric diligently carried out his spiritual duties. Conflicts
between pastor and parish community only arose when the community
believed that the cleric had channelled their bequests, alms, and dues
improperly towards the upkeep of his family. Antje Flüchter, in her study
of the united duchies of Jülich and Berg in the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, reaches a similar conclusion. Flüchter’s sources do not reveal a
single conflict arising from concubinage between parishioners and priests.
Overall, parishioners did not complain about their priests living with a
woman. They cared more that the priest provided for his family and acted
as pater familias than about the supposedly scandalous circumstances of the
pastor’s family life. Conflicts only arose in cases where clerical duties were
neglected.6 Interestingly, as recent work on the first generation of married
clergy in the dioceses of Mainz and Magdeburg shows, the introduction of
clerical marriage in Protestant territories did not resolve the problematic
issue of sex and the clergy immediately, either. Many clerics simply could
not see a difference between a concubine and a pastor’s wife. The situation
of the women living in a relationship with a cleric, whether Protestant
or Catholic, remained fluid and changeable for many decades to come.7
While these works have moved from an analysis of normative sources to
include the relationship between the clergy and the (parish) community,
little attention has so far been given to the plight of the women involved
in concubinage relationships.
4
A. Franzen, Zölibat und Priesterehe in der Auseinandersetzung der Reformationszeit und
der katholischen Reform des 16. Jahrhunderts, Katholisches Leben und Kirchenreform im
Zeitalter der Glaubensspaltung, vol. 29 (Münster, 1969).
5
E. Labouvie, ‘Geistliche Konkubinate auf dem Land: Zum Wandel von Ökonomie,
Spiritualität und religiöser Vermittlung’, Geschichte und Gesellschaft, 26 (2000), 105–27.
6
A. Flüchter, Der Zölibat zwischen Devianz und Norm: Kirchenpolitik und Gemeindealltag
in den Herzogtümern Jülich und Berg im 16. und 17. Jahrhundert (Cologne, Weimar, Vienna;
2006), 163.
7
M. E. Plummer, From Priest’s Whore to Pastor’s Wife: Clerical Marriage and the Process of
Reform in the Early German Reformation (Farnham, 2012).
136 Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
Based on an analysis of archival material covering the episcopate of
Ferdinand von Bayern, this chapter addresses the apparent imbalance in
the existing literature through an examination of all three parties involved
in concubinage: Church, clerics, and women. With the help of letters written by concubines themselves or by their relatives and friends, I investigate
the self-perception of these women and how they saw their position in
society. In addition, attention will be given to the clerics accused of concubinage and their behaviour towards the ecclesiastical authorities. Finally,
the role of the Church in this process will be considered; in particular, I ask
what reasons lay behind the Church’s battle against concubinage and what
measures were taken to end it.
T he B ishop
How great a problem was concubinage for the Church? Reporting back
to the pope from a tour of German lands in May 1561, the Papal Nuncio
Giovanni Francesco Commendone reiterated the duke of Cleve’s remark
that there were ‘not even five priests in his lands, who did not live in public
concubinage’.8 Similar comments also came from Bavaria the same year,
in which the duke reported that the latest visitation had revealed that ‘of
a hundred priests hardly three or four can be found who did not publicly live in concubinage or in a clandestine marriage, or who had even
been publicly married’.9 And when Pope Pius V gave orders in 1566 to
the bishop of Münster to ‘sternly admonish the clergy to live an honourable life and eliminate concubinage’, the bishop, Bernhard von Raesfeld
(reigned 1557–66), preferred to resign rather than face up to the task he was
given.10 He was probably right to do so because, as the findings of the first
post-Tridentine visitation of the Oberstift uncovered, the moral behaviour
of the clergy in the territory was lamentable: everywhere except in two
parishes—Überwasser and St Lamberti—clerics admitted to living with
women.11 The first bishop to tackle the problem of concubinage was Ernst
von Bayern, who set up an ecclesiastical council (Geistlicher Rat, senatus
ecclesiasticus), the task of which, among other things, was to prosecute
8 Franzen, Zölibat und Priesterehe, 166.
9 Ibid.
10
Ibid.
11
According to Franzen’s calculations, about one-third of the 500 clerics lived with a
woman. cf. Franzen, Zölibat und Priesterehe, 167. Andreas Holzem, in his work on the
confessionalization of the bishopric, cites a figure of 58 per cent of the clergy of the diocese
living in concubinage. Holzem, Der Konfessionsstaat, 284.
A Bishop, his Priests, and their Concubines
137
all cases of concubinage. But its success was limited, as a 1607 report to
Bishop Ernst’s Roman superiors reveals:
Not only canons but also prelates, pastors, curate priests, members of the
religious orders, and even their abbots take part at public events together
with their concubines . . . . The women call themselves Pröpstinnen, prelatesses, and abbesses, and make sure they are called thus on their gravestones
and other public inscriptions.12
Thus, when Ferdinand von Bayern was elected bishop of Münster in 1612,
he faced a daunting challenge. His task was to implement the prescriptions of Trent: to reform his diocese, in realms both lay and clerical, and
thereby revive early Christian values such as chastity and celibacy. Once
elected, Ferdinand immediately decided to confront this matter as firmly
as possible and, on 28 June 1612, he sent out his first order prohibiting
concubinage. This decree can be taken as evidence, at least on paper, of the
bishop’s will to tackle the problem. In practice, however, Ferdinand had
to achieve a delicate balance between breaking with existing clerical habits
and lifestyles that had been in place for decades, if not longer, and not
alienating the people who made up his power base: the clergy.
In his very first communication on concubinage, Ferdinand urged the
ecclesiastical officials and the city council to give the strictest instructions
to Münster’s archdeacons to end the ‘highly prohibited and offensive’
concubinage.13
Because it is repulsive in the face of our most High Almighty God and
diminishes our clerical standing and, even if taken on its own, it is against our
honour that those who have once freely pledged through their oath to commit themselves to God and who are bound by their highly sacred benefices,
should live their lives in dangerous public concubinage and immorality, this
raises common anger and is a degradation of the clergy too . . . 14
The bishop’s motivations span both heaven and earth, from a fear of the
highest power, of God and His anger over clerical misbehaviour, to more
earthly concerns about public opinion and the damaging effects that concubinage might have upon it. Ferdinand reminded his clergy that those
living a sinful life in the company of a woman had once given themselves
freely to the service of God and Him alone. This assertion, however, needs
to be handled with care, since noble families often assigned one or two
of their sons to the service in the church. This usually happened when
12
A. Hüsing, Der Kampf um die katholische Religion im Bistum Münster nach der
Vertreibung der Wiedertäufer 1535–1585 (Münster, 1883), 351.
13
StAM, Fürstentum Münster, Landesarchiv, 2a Nr. 16 Bd. 5 (1612).
14
Ibid.
138 Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
the children were still very young and without them having any say in
the matter. For parents, this was a way of providing for their children’s
future by securing them a very respectable career. Ferdinand’s own case
is a reflection of this tradition. While still an infant, his father started to
negotiate with their influential Bavarian relatives and, later, even with the
pope, to obtain a profitable position in the German church for his third
son. Ferdinand himself must have initially had other plans because, as
Karl Schafsmeister points out, he only consented to remain unmarried in
1609 at the age of thirty-two, years after his family had started to make
such plans for him. And even then he did not agree to priestly consecration.15 This hardly creates an impression of a decision based on free will.
Rather, it shows that in cases like this, family considerations played the
crucial role in the decision to join the Catholic Church. In this regard,
the fate of men, specifically of younger sons, resembled that of women or
daughters: both were constrained in similar ways by tradition and family
strategies. Nonetheless, Ferdinand was appalled that those clerics guilty
of living with a woman still enjoyed the fruits of their once-given vow of
celibacy, despite having long since broken that promise. As he pointed out
in his order, clergymen were ‘bound to their sacred benefices’, but, instead,
they and their lovers scandalously profited from ecclesiastical benefices
without fulfilling their side of the bargain.
There were still more reasons why concubinage aroused the bishop’s condemnation, however. Concubinage posed a serious threat to the Catholic
Church, for the return to the early Christian value of celibacy was one of
the cornerstones of the post-Tridentine reform movement. Failure on so
visible a level was a gift to Protestant propagandists, who had already made
ample use of the stereotypical image of the lewd Catholic priest. Ferdinand
knew that concubinage harmed the reputation of the clerics involved in
it.16 It also had negative consequences for the Church as a whole, for it
damaged the credibility of its claim to reform and renew itself, a claim
which the Catholic Church had universally advertised after Trent. How
could this assertion be sustained if even the Church’s own personnel did
not see the point of following the most basic Catholic principles?
In addition, on a more personal level, concubinage undermined the
bishop’s authority: ‘[T]‌o escape just and divine wrath, and because of what
we owe to our Episcopal office and to our Christian conscience, we cannot
watch this any longer and do not want to, either’.17 Ferdinand came into
15
K. Schafmeister, Herzog Ferdinand von Bayern, Erzbischof von Köln als Fürstbischof von
Münster 1612–1650 (Haselünne, 1912), 31.
16
StAM, Fürstentum Münster, Landesarchiv, 2a Nr. 16 Bd. 5 (1612).
17
Ibid.
A Bishop, his Priests, and their Concubines
139
office aiming to transform the state of religious affairs in his bishopric. His
vision was to restore Catholicism in those areas currently won over by heresy and to expand the influence of the Church in the northern parts of the
Holy Roman Empire. He wanted nothing less than a religious transformation and, to accomplish this, he was willing to make unpopular decisions.
One of his first decrees abolished the ecclesiastical council. This institution
had been introduced as a permanent fixture in 1601 by his predecessor,
Ernst von Bayern, to exercise control over all spiritual matters, as well as to
discipline and to administer all ecclesiastical business arising on a day-today basis during the many absences of the bishop from Münster.18 By
abolishing the ecclesiastical council, Ferdinand removed some influence
from the archdeacons, who were chosen from amongst the members of the
cathedral chapter, and, hence, reduced the influence of the cathedral chapter itself. Instead, Ferdinand placed important decision-making powers in
his own hands or into those of carefully chosen trustees such as the vicar
general. He also considerably increased the powers of the vicar general by
giving him extensive visitation rights, allowing him to travel the diocese
to uncover potential defects and report them to Ferdinand. Speedy corrections should ensue. This remoulding of local power did not go uncontested, as the case of Dr Johannes Hartmann (1578–1624), Ferdinand’s
first vicar general, shows.
In Hartmann, Ferdinand had chosen a well-trusted and ambitious follower. However, if the abolition of the ecclesiastical council was unpopular
with members of the cathedral chapter, the decision to give the position
of vicar general to a foreigner from the city of Bonn, a clear outsider,
caused even greater consternation. The cathedral chapter consented only
very reluctantly to Ferdinand’s choice, being well aware that their influence upon Hartmann was limited. The vicar general, a former pupil of the
Collegium Germanicum in Rome, took his responsibilities very seriously
and used a firm hand when dealing with local clergymen living with concubines.19 This soon led to quarrels with the archdeacons, who felt that
their traditional rights had been impinged upon by this interloper. The
disagreements continued for another three years until, in 1615, a compromise was reached and the archdeacons’ claims to jurisdiction were recognized and conceded. From now on, instead of dealing personally with
existing defects in the clergy, the vicar general had to report the results of
his visitations to the archdeacons, who were then obliged to mend those
18
Schafmeister, Herzog Ferdinand, 63–4. The protocols of the ecclesiastical council
have been published by H. Immenkötter, Die Protokolle des Geistlichen Rates 1601–1612,
Reformationsgeschichtliche Studien und Texte, 104 (Münster, 1972).
19
Schafmeister, Herzog Ferdinand, 64.
140 Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
shortcomings within four weeks. Should this not be done satisfactorily,
the vicar general held the right to step in and carry out further corrective
measures. Thus, both sides had to accept a compromise, the workability
of which very much depended on the goodwill of the individuals involved
and, consequently, varied from archdeacon to archdeacon and from case
to case. Given that the right to discipline now lay in the hands of those
who had not hitherto been noted for their antagonism towards clerical
concubinage, the question arises of whether there was any realistic chance
of winning the battle against loose morals and forbidden cohabitation. In
this context, was the vision that the bishop had outlined in his very first
order able to triumph over the feelings of companionship, love, and lust
that his priests found in the arms of a woman?
One example that helps to illustrate the behaviour commonly encountered by ecclesiastical officials in their campaign against concubinage is the
case of Johannes Wiggers, Pastor of Ennigerloe, a village approximately
fifty kilometres west of Münster.20 In 1611, Wiggers had repeatedly been
told to abandon his concubine and to stop seeing her. Threatened with
‘serious punishment’, Wiggers followed the order, but it soon became clear
that he had done so ‘only temporarily and as a pretence’ because, as the
report explains, Pastor Wiggers subsequently and ‘in a shameless manner
readmitted her, so that she could force her way back in’.21 Spurred on by
this blatant disregard of their authority, the officials decided to get tough.
‘We are now determined to proceed with a serious punishment against
the said concubine and we cannot allow her to stay with the pastor in
future’.22 Wiggers was given an ultimatum of three days to bid farewell
to his woman and to make her move outside the territory of his parish.
However, before we discuss those proceedings, let us examine the terminology employed in the written communication between the ecclesiastics
and the officials carrying out Ferdinand’s orders in the parishes.
The word most commonly used in the records by the ecclesiastical
authorities to describe the abandonment of concubines is dimittiren.
Following the Latin translation of dimittere, dimittiren simply means ‘to
send away’. However, dimittiren also denotes a person’s dismissal from
employment.23 In our context, the term suggests concubinage was viewed
as a kind of work: a concubine was a woman who performed certain services in the clerical household and the clerical bed, and in turn received
StAM, Fürstentum Münster, Landesarchiv, 2a Nr. 16 Bd. 5 (1611).
Ibid.
Ibid.
23
cf. Deutsches Rechtswörterbuch: Wörterbuch der älteren deutschen (westgermanischen)
Rechtssprache, Bd.II 1932–1935 (Weimar, 1914–2001).
20
21
22
A Bishop, his Priests, and their Concubines
141
remuneration in kind: free food and lodging from her master. The possibility of an emotional bond between the two people was discounted—a
misconception, as we shall see. A concubine was not regarded as a lover,
but as a servant to love. This is also the logic behind the categories assigned
to women in the reports of the ecclesiastical officials: women were either
cooks, servants, housekeepers, or concubines. Despite a reality filled
with clandestine marriages, children, and long-term relationships, in the
abstract, the Church authorities thought only in black-or-white categories. Hence, women working in clerical houses could at best be regarded
as plain servant girls. But, as we saw in Chapter 4, even the seemingly
straightforward professional identity of a servant harboured potential dangers for a girl’s moral and social standing.
A girl taking up work in a household had to leave the protection of her
parents’ house to live under the roof of strangers. Temptations and dangers,
such as getting carried away with new-found freedoms away from home, or
the (unwanted) sexual advances from male members of the new household,
were traps which imperilled a young woman’s moral integrity. Generally, it
was the task of the mistress of the house to avert any such danger through
her strict regime and sharp eyes. But what if there was no housewife, as was
the case in clerical households?24 The situation of servant girls was further
complicated by the subordinate position given to unmarried women in the
social hierarchy of the time. The way out of this inferiority was employment
in a household, since this not only provided young women with a roof over
their head and food on their plates, but also with a steady income. The wages
were the most important aspect of all, because they allowed a girl to actively
build her own future by saving up a dowry which would eventually enable
her to get married. Once married, the servant girl could leave her master’s
house, and with it a web of dependencies, and set up her own household.
Marriage also transported a woman into a new social category: that of a
married, honourable woman. The choice of the word ‘honourable’ is deliberate and embraces not only social aspects but also legal ones, as Alexandra
Shepard has shown in her work on early modern England.25 There, law
courts ascribed much higher credibility to the legal statement of a married
woman of independent means than that of a maidservant. For single maidservants, the prospect of dishonour was perilously close.
There was, however, a more subtle reason for the precariousness of the
maids’ situation, caused by an insinuation in the German language. An
24
The Council of Trent had decreed that clerics were only allowed to have female servants aged forty or over, but this regulation was obviously not followed in Münster.
25
A. Shepard, ‘The worth of married women in the English church courts, c. 1550–
1730’, in C. Beattie and M. F. Stevens (eds.), Married Women and the Law in Premodern
Northwestern Europe (Woolbridge, 2013), 191–211.
142 Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
etymological examination of the word Dienstmagd, servant girl, helps to
shed some light on this matter. The roots of the word Dienstmagd lie in the
Middle High German dierne. During the Middle Ages, the word dierne
described a young woman as well as a servant girl, with dienen meaning ‘to serve’, and Dienst, ‘the service’. Approximately three hundred years
later, in the early modern period, these roots were still visible in the term
Dienstmagd. Meanwhile, however, the medieval dierne had acquired a
much more dubious double meaning, for the early modern understanding of dirne now not only signified a young girl, but also a prostitute.
Obviously, early modern people would have drawn a clear distinction
between Dienstmagd and dirne, between the servant girl and the prostitute. Yet the suggestive connotations implied in the antecedents of the
early modern Dienstmagd left room for some ambiguity. This is clearer
still if we take into account the fact that prostitution in Münster—as elsewhere—was mainly performed by servant girls and petty workers. The
indirect connection between the two professions is clear. The tacit ambiguity between a maidservant and a concubine also becomes evident in
a letter written by the commissarius of Freckenhorst, in which he treats
servant girls and concubines as essentially synonymous, stating that ‘suspicious servant girls and concubines should be prohibited on the pain of
serious punishment’.26
Given these backgrounds of social circumstance, linguistics, and clerical mentality, it does not seem unfitting to consider the term dimittiren to
lie somewhere between (a) the terminology of officialdom and (b) a value
judgement which identifies concubines as equivalent to common prostitutes. As the language in the reports reveals, the authorities presumed
ulterior motives rather than genuine affection underpinned lay–clerical
partnerships. This presumption considerably simplified their task, because
it precluded any discussion of the issue of celibacy itself. If the authorities
had allowed love and partnership to come into the equation, this could
potentially have opened the door to a debate on Tridentine strategies in
general and the realities in the bishopric in particular, especially since
many married clergymen lived just a few kilometres across the Dutch border. There, they were practising officially what Münster’s clergy had done
unofficially for decades.
Let us return to Pastor Wiggers, the defiant priest from Ennigerloe. His
case allows us to make some general observations about the prosecution
of concubinage and the interaction between church officials and those
clerics suspected of living with a woman. Standing on the doorsteps of the
26
StAM, Fürstentum Münster, Landesarchiv, 2a Nr.16 Bd.16 (July 1620).
A Bishop, his Priests, and their Concubines
143
clergy’s houses, the officials usually achieved the reluctant compliance of
the clerics with the bishop’s orders. The concubines were dismissed and
moved to the neighbouring villages or towns, some even finding refuge
with the relatives of their former lovers.27 Solemn celibacy reigned thereafter . . . until the concubines gathered their belongings and returned home;
or, as the report on Pastor Wiggers had it, they ‘sneaked [back] in’.28 The
reunion had to happen in secret since the authorities carried out occasional checks to make sure that their orders were followed. Given the small
size of the parishes, however, it seems rather unlikely that the romance
would have remained undetected for long. It was, after all, the intimacy of
these communities that made discovery of the illicit affairs possible in the
first place, for some of the authorities’ knowledge was based on gossip and
rumours circulating among the locals. Sometimes clerics also found themselves denounced anonymously by a disgruntled parishioner. Most of the
information derived from the visitations carried out by the archdeacons.
If the revival of an affair was detected, the authorities had to move in
again and the whole procedure started from the beginning: the cleric was
reprimanded and his woman was dismissed and removed. All that was
now left for the authorities to do was to hope that the woman decided
to leave the bishopric for good this time. Yet, in the majority of cases,
this is not what happened. Many of the women caught by the authorities
returned to their lovers after the first storm had subsided. We do not know
whether they did so of their own accord, or because their men had asked
them to return. Another reason could be that the women saw their return
as a legitimate act of reclaiming what had (unofficially) also become theirs,
part of the common possessions of the couple after years of shared lives.
Did their long-term cohabitation and commitment not give some kind
of legitimacy to their relationship? However much the Church disagreed
with such views, we will see that some women held this opinion.
This cycle of reprimands, break-ups, and returns was bound to create frustration and this feeling overshadowed the reports about Pastor
Wiggers and others. Listen, for example, to the news from Werne, another
archdeaconry of the bishopric:
Hövel and Bockum: The priest dimittirt his concubine but, when times
were safe again, she was seen with him again in secret . . . Nortkirchen: she
returned and spent a while with the priest again, the archdeacon returned
to the house and questioned him, now she lives about an hour away by
foot . . . Sendkirchen: the concubine was sent away, she spent some time in
27
28
StAM, Fürstentum Münster, Landesarchiv, 2a Nr. 16 Bd. 5 (25 December 1612).
Ibid., (1611).
144 Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
Münster in the house of his brother but has recently returned again, 14 days
ago; now she has disappeared again . . . 29
There are many similar accounts until at least the late 1620s.30 As a consequence, it became increasingly obvious that the bishop’s battle against
concubinage was not having the desired effects. It proved to be even more
difficult than expected to expel the concubines from the bishopric and
to persuade the clergymen to buy into Ferdinand’s rhetoric about divine
wrath and the necessity of reforming their lifestyles. Victory, it seems,
could not be achieved through the ordinary governmental techniques of
legislation and execution. Why was this so?
One reason was that the ecclesiastical authorities simply lacked an effective punitive system. This might seem surprising in view of the frightening Tridentine punishments listed at the beginning of the chapter, which
ranged from admonitions to confiscation of income, from dismissal to
excommunication. Laid down in 1563, fifty years later they were still not
being applied in Münster to deal with problematic behaviour. Indeed,
repeated verbose admonitions aside, none of the stipulated measures were
actually used to support the enforcement of the bishop’s orders. The most
severe punishment, with the single exception of imprisonment, was the
Brüchte, whereby the offender was made to pay a sum of money as laid
down and collected by the archdeacon. Many archdeacons had discovered that the punishment of clerical offenders was a profitable source of
income.31 The introduction of money into the penal process made it possible for the more affluent clergy simply to buy their way out of punishment, and this naturally diminished the impact and punitive effect of
the prosecution. The use of Brüchten, moreover, could potentially change
the ecclesiastical jurisdiction from a respected weapon of correction into
an opportunity for bargaining, as the case of Johannes Bocholtt, a priest
from Wesülbe, reveals. On 14 February 1617, Bocholtt wrote a letter
to the privy council (heimbgelassene Räte) to complain about the size of
his Brüchte. The priest, who wrote that owing to ‘human weakness and
stupidity’, he had had an affair with his cook, was ordered to pay fifty
Reichstaler as a punishment for the forbidden liaison.32 In Bocholtt’s eyes,
this sum was too high. As he pointed out in his letter, he had already done
‘enough of penance’ when he had been in prison and ‘lived on water and
StAM, Fürstentum Münster, Landesarchiv, 2a Nr. 16 Bd. 5 (25 December 1612).
See, for example, StAM, Domkapitel Münster, Akten Nr. 846 (20 April 1627).
G. Ebers, Die Archidiakonal-Streitigkeiten in Münster im 16. und 17.
Jahrhundert: Sonderabdruck (Weimar, special edition, date unknown), 371.
32
StAM, Fürstentum Münster, Landesarchiv, 2a Nr. 16 Bd. 12 (14 February 1617).
29
30
31
A Bishop, his Priests, and their Concubines
145
bread’ for a time.33 Bocholtt pleaded with the authorities to follow
‘Christ’s example and give mercy now’, and added in his support that he
‘had improved so far and, with God’s mercy, intended to remain abstinent
in the future too’.34
Bocholtt’s appeal to Christian values was not his only argument. He also
advanced simple material concerns by asserting that the size of the penalty
would make it impossible for him to live according to his clerical status.
It might seem egotistic for a man of the Church to pay so much attention to his own material needs and comforts, but it showed some shrewd
thinking. Even the Church fathers at Trent had busied themselves with
the importance of presentation and appearance, demonstrating a general
acknowledgement of the significance of the visual for the dissemination
of the Catholic message. Although this acknowledgement was predominantly meant in relation to art, the effect of the visual had also been considered at the more profane level of clothing. The material wellbeing of the
clergy, as the primary disseminators of Catholicism, ensured their proper
appearance. Clothes, as the church authorities recognized, functioned
as a marker of a person’s social position in the community. Moreover,
they were the first discriminating factor enabling people to distinguish
between the high and the low, the proper and the improper, the honourable and the dishonourable—notions which were the battleground of the
Tridentine Church. The image that their clergy projected was therefore
not only a question of propriety and adherence to the clerical dress-code,
but was an important element of Catholic propaganda. This has already
been noted with regard to the female religious in Münster’s convents. The
preference of some nuns to ‘follow the opulence of the world and dress as
other worldly persons do’ led to numerous complaints by the ecclesiastical authorities, who saw this as an abuse of the nuns’ spiritual status and
claimed that ‘secular people have shown their just disapproval and have
been not little offended’.35 Bishop Ferdinand had occasion to voice the
same complaint about the male clergy. He informed them that he ‘expects
that they [the priests] always dress in the prescribed priestly clothing with
the black cloak of knee length, that they avoid overly worldly ruffs and
that they wear the tonsure’.36 He also ordered that ‘the priests should not
only dress according to their status, their reputation, and their honour,
but they should also distinguish themselves from the lay folk through their
Ibid.
Ibid.
StAM, Domkapitel Münster, Akten Nr. 864 (1614).
36
A. Schröer, ‘Das Tridentinum und Münster’, in Georg Schreiber (ed.), Das Weltkonzil
von Trient. Sein Werden und Wirken, vol. 2 (Münster, 1951), 364.
33
34
35
146 Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
outer appearance. If necessary, he would enforce obedience to this order
with the help of the punishments of the Tridentinum’.37 It was against this
background that Johannes Bocholtt constructed his argument against the
punishment he was to receive for concubinage. The Brüchte, he wrote,
would make it impossible for him ‘to live according to my priestly status
as I should, quod ut fiat jura canonica et SS. Concilium Tridentinum praescribit’, because it would bring him ‘down completely and reduce me to
beggary’.38 As a solution to the situation, Bocholtt suggested a reduction
of the penalty from fifty Reichstaler to twenty-two or twenty-four, and
included the additional sweetener of ‘prayers every day for the rest of my
life’ for the members of the privy council’.39
The application of Brüchten in the punitive process made it possible for
an offence to be rectified with money. The size of the penalty depended on
the judgment of the archdeacon prosecuting the case and sometimes on
the bargaining powers of the offender as well. As Bocholtt’s letter shows,
there was room for petitions and personal intervention, for the renegotiation and modification of punishments. This meant that the prosecution and punishment of clerical offences was transformed into a matter of
bargaining; with a bit of luck, the penalty could be reduced to a smaller
and more bearable amount for the offender. This leniency by the church
reveals a certain measure of preferential treatment towards its own people, an indulgence that common sinners against church law could not
hope for. Münster’s concubines, for example, were forced to leave, even
though an uncertain future awaited them elsewhere; this applied even if
their priestly lovers had themselves in the meantime left the bishopric.
The administration of justice, as carried out by some of Münster’s archdeacons, was discriminating, partial, and inconsistent. One side-effect of
this was that the original motivation underlying the punitive process—
namely a moral re-education designed to produce a consciousness of sinning—was no longer conveyed to the people, clerical or lay. This effect has
been described by Heinz Schilling as a result of what he calls the ‘criminalisation of sin’.40 Although Schilling’s thesis was developed in relation
to the Protestant Netherlands in very different political conditions, his
judgement about the degeneration of punitive jurisdiction in connection
to what he calls ‘compensatory deals’ also applies to Münster: unmistakable signs of church discipline having degenerated were fines and prison
sentences. In this way conversion and repentance were substituted by
Ibid.
Ibid.
39
StAM, Fürstentum Münster, Landesarchiv, 2a Nr. 16 Bd. 12 (14 February 1617).
40
Schilling, ‘ “History of Crime” or “History of Sin”?, 304.
37
38
A Bishop, his Priests, and their Concubines
147
punishment in the sense of secular punitive jurisdiction or rather by a
compensatory deal as had been typical of medieval criminal justice.41
Ferdinand was aware that the archidiaconal administration of justice
posed a threat to the progress of reform. His failure in 1615 to take the
responsibility for prosecuting ecclesiastical offences away from the archdeacons and to place it in the incorruptible hands of his vicar general now
came back to haunt him. His attempt to rid the clergy of its sins was significantly delayed because of the unwillingness of his archdeacons or supervisors to act and to act tough. For some reason, however, Ferdinand made no
use of the weapons bestowed upon him by the Council of Trent. None of
Münster’s clergy ever had to face long-term reductions in income, confiscations of benefices, nor excommunication. These punishments remained
‘paper threats’ only, as his clergy may well have known.
Here again, one of Ferdinand’s biggest problems becomes apparent. To
prosecute concubinage in particular and to reform the church of Münster
in general, the bishop had to rely on the support of his churchmen. He
needed their knowledge of the local conditions and their local powerbase
to implement reforms. He also needed their determination and activism
to deal with the various corrections and changes that had to be pushed
through against many obstacles. Yet Ferdinand’s reform programme did
not meet with unconditional support. On the contrary, we find a significant number of episcopal orders expressing the bishop’s discontent with
the slackening determination of church officials and their lack of desire to
carry out his decrees in a resolute and forceful manner. In 1615, for example, his privy council warned the officials that ‘His Grace’s orders shall
be truly effected so that He might not be moved to disfavour and other
thoughts because of the perceived laziness and negligence’.42 This warning was given in the context of the long-familiar problem of concubines
returning to their lovers time and time again. ‘[C]‌oncubines have sneaked
back in after they had been sent away under pretence for a while, only
to return shortly afterwards and to be taken back willingly by the clergy
without concern for these goings-on or for His Grace’s orders’.43 And this
complaint was merely a repetition of earlier ones. Two years before, in July
1613, the privy council had requested that officials pay more attention to
the prosecution of the concubines and less to their own convenience.
Concubines have sneaked back in, living with their masters or in a village
or town close by. Through this, not only is the common man offended but
Ibid.
StAM, Fürstentum Münster, Landesarchiv, 2a Nr. 16 Bd. 9 (31 July 1615).
43
Ibid.
41
42
148 Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
also His Grace could be easily moved to disfavour. In order to prevent public
scandal, the most serious distress requires that we employ all our sincerity
and diligence to carry out the orders of His Grace and to inquire most diligently and should a concubine have returned, she should be pursued without
regard to convenience . . . 44
Ferdinand’s attempt to reform clerical lifestyles also clashed with existing
networks of patronage and established power structures. At the local level,
these conflicts could usually be resolved by the officials with the help of
some well-applied pressure in the form of verbal warnings or the threat of
the bishop’s anger. Matters only got more complicated when the officials
themselves did not cooperate with the bishop but instead worked hand
in glove with the offenders, as the following report reveals: ‘[T]‌he lower
officials (Unterbeamten) do not work to take the concubines to the local
administration but collude with the clerics and their people’.45
Higher up in the ecclesiastical hierarchy, it was much harder to determine why things did not move faster, what entanglements lay behind the
slow progress and how to work around them. When, for example, in 1616
the case of Johannes Borckhorst, a canon of the cathedral chapter, came
to the boil, the general vicar was faced with a complex web of patronage.
Borckhorst had already been accused of concubinage three times; now he
had been denounced again. Despite this and the fact that the vicar general,
Dr Johannes Hartmann, had already protested to the dean of the cathedral
chapter six times, orally and in writing, the dean showed no inclination to
take any action against the offender.46 On the contrary, instead of telling
Borckhorst to mend his ways, the dean used his good connections with
other members of the cathedral chapter to make them halt any activity
against one of their own. When postponement was no longer possible,
the dean insisted on a rather complicated and inefficient procedure so as
to prolong and slow down the proceedings against Borckhorst: he decided
that he would only act ‘in the presence of a number of prelates which he
assigned to the case’. Yet, as the vicar general went on to complain, ‘whenever one of them is absent the rest do not want to continue with the case’
and, since absenteeism was rather widespread amongst the higher clergy of
the city, progress remained slow.47 The strategy of slowing down, holding
up, and delaying was supposed to distract the vicar’s attention from the
case until his reformist energies were diverted elsewhere. When Hartmann
StAM, Fürstentum Münster, Landesarchiv, 2a Nr. 16 Bd. 7 (18 July 1613).
StAM, Fürstentum Münster, Landesarchiv, 2a Nr. 16 Bd. 12 (date unknown).
46
StAM, Fürstentum Münster, Landesarchiv, 2a Nr. 16 Bd. 12 (April 1617).
47
Ibid.
44
45
A Bishop, his Priests, and their Concubines
149
realized the dynamics behind this behaviour, he appealed to the cathedral
chapter, asking that they ‘be reminded that speedy process is needed to
comply with the requirements of the Tridentinum, otherwise no permanent improvement can be expected’.48 As Ronnie Hsia has pointed out,
the canons of the cathedral chapter were all members of the Westphalian
nobility and only a minority of them would have met the spiritual standards and obligations of Trent.49
This picture is also confirmed by the visitation of 1571, in which it
became clear that many of the canons lived with women and children.50
Apparently, no code of morality or any other form of self-disciplining,
such as we encountered at the Ringe Convent, prescribed to the chapter
members how they should behave or how to police their own conduct.
On the contrary, the canons were not willing to make any concessions
concerning their own freedoms and even showed their dissatisfaction with
Hartmann’s attempts to tidy up concubinage by uttering a modest threat
in his direction: ‘Some men think that they have done enough to carry out
the bishop’s orders . . . and wonder whether the general vicar wants to master them’.51 In his fight against concubinage, Hartmann did not shy away
from taking on some of the most powerful ecclesiastics of the bishopric.
Networking and patronage also characterize the next example. In 1627,
the dean and archdeacon of Überwasser reported of their ‘manifold suspicions and denunciations against Georg Kerstiens, the vicar here’.52 The
archdeacon continued:
Because of the powers of my office I wanted to visit him and after the examination to correct his shortcomings . . . . When I let him know of the visitation, Kerstiens used all sorts of elaborate excuses, which he put on paper
with the help of the right kinds of people, this is why I grew all the more
Ibid.
‘Very few of the forty resided in Münster and fulfilled the responsibilities of their
benefice. Most took only the minimum clerical vows, many kept common-law wives;
“whores” as the burghers scornfully called them. Collectively, they represented the bedrock of privilege, a last bulwark against the implementation of the Tridentine decrees of
reform’. See Hsia, Society and Religion, 32–3. Unfortunately, Hsia does not state where he
found the quote about the common-law wives or ‘whores’. For more literature on the cathedral chapter, see H. Spieckermann, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Domkapitels zu Münster im
Mittelalter (Emsdetten, 1935); U. Herzog, Untersuchungen zur Geschichte des Domkapitels
zu Münster und seines Besitzes im Mittelalter (Göttingen, 1961); A. Schröer, ‘Das Münsterer
Domkapitel im ausgehenden Mittelalter. Ein Beitrag zur Kirchengeschichte Westfalens’,
in idem., Monasterium. Festschrift zum 700 jährigen Weihegedächtnis des Paules-Domes zu
Münster (Münster, 1966).
50
W. E. Schwarz, Die Akten der Visitation, 70–7, 80–5.
51
StAM, Fürstentum Münster, Landesarchiv, 2a Nr. 16 Bd. 12 (April 1617).
52
StAM, Domkapitel Münster, Akten Nr. 846 (20 April 1627).
48
49
150 Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
suspicious . . . . Kerstiens then went to the spiritual vicar and the keeper of the
seal (sigillifero) and made a testimony on 22nd June 1626 . . . . Then he also
used the vicar, fiscalis, and patris to attest for him . . . All this made me even
more suspicious of Kerstiens.53
The archdeacon continued his investigations until finally Kerstiens agreed
to be questioned, although only in the presence of a notary who accompanied him on the day. When interrogated, Kerstiens admitted that he
was guilty on almost all counts, from concubinage to ‘fraudulentia’.54
Although the archdeacon would have been authorized ‘to punish Kerstiens
harshly’, he decided instead ‘to give him only a small fine, which Kerstiens
tried to reduce even more with sure words . . . and then appealed against
it’.55 But the archdeacon did not give in to Kerstiens’s request. As a consequence, Kerstiens took the matter one step further and appealed to the
officialis, although, as the archdeacon pointed out sourly, he did not even
‘have the right to appeal at all’. As the archdeacon saw it, the vicar had
tried to circumvent his legal powers and to ‘usurp jurisdiction . . . thereby
opening the doors and windows for impurities to the not small scandalization [sic] of the clergy and laymen alike’.56 It was the decision to appeal to
the officialis which was the chief stimulus for the archdeacon’s complaint
against Kerstiens, for the archdeacon simply could not allow his authority to be curtailed in this way. Kerstiens’s strategy, on the other hand, was
to involve in his case as many people in high places as possible, hoping
they would exert their influence on his behalf. Ultimately, their interference was meant to take the decision-making powers out of the archdeacon’s
hands, placing them with those who ought to be more favourable. To
achieve this, Kerstiens used all the legal channels he could think of, regardless of whether these channels were actually open to him. The m
­ obilization
of ‘the right kinds of people’; the insistence on notaries and other jurists;
the formalization of every detail of the proceedings; their fixing on paper—
all these were Kerstiens’s weapons, used to keep the bureaucratic machine
busy. These were tactics favoured by many clerics higher up in the ecclesiastical hierarchy. Just like Bishop Ferdinand with his torrent of orders and
decrees, of bureaucracy and officialdom, concubinaries also used paper to
fight their battles. The growing importance of the legal professions (of lawyers,
Ibid.
The context of the accusation of ‘fraudulentia’ is not explained further in the text.
StAM, Domkapitel Münster, Akten 846 (20 April 1627). It shows, however, that concubinage was often not the only moral transgression of the cleric in question. This observation
will be discussed in more detail later.
55
Ibid.
56
Ibid.
53
54
A Bishop, his Priests, and their Concubines
151
notaries, jurists, and the like) in seventeenth-century Münster has also been
established by Ronnie Hsia. ‘After the linen weavers, the notaries ranked
second in the number of new citizens sworn in during the first third of the
seventeenth century. There were over three hundred jurists and notaries in
Münster at the beginning of the seventeenth century; litigation and linen
weaving represented the two fastest growing sectors of the city’s economy’.57
It is in the nature of reform to stir up opposition. In Münster, however,
there were other reasons than mere resistance to change which explain why
Ferdinand’s war against concubinage did not meet with more success. As
demonstrated by the case of Borckhorst and others, concubinage hit at
the core of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. The impact of its prosecution was
noticeable in all sections of the clergy, from those living in the localities to
the members of the cathedral chapter. Ferdinand’s decision to place more
power into the hands of the vicar general meant that no concubinary of
whatever background or status could be sure that his lifestyle would not
soon come under the scrutiny of the ecclesiastical authorities. This knowledge must have helped to form alliances and support networks amongst
those members of the clergy who objected to the interference from above
or who refused to give up their ways.
Practical limitations also influenced Ferdinand’s success. The officials
had only limited time and personnel to prosecute concubinage. Events
leading up to the outbreak of the Thirty Years’ War; Münster’s joining, in
1613, of the Catholic League; and, later, the war itself, each diverted some
of the bishop’s attention towards international politics. More importantly,
however, concubinage was about a constant renegotiation of power. This
renegotiation took place between the bishop and his officials on one side
and competing authorities, such as the archdeacons, the cathedral chapter,
and even parish communities, on the other. In that respect, concubinage
had relatively little to do with morality and much more to do with authority and influence over spiritual domains, rights, duties, and responsibilities.
For all these reasons, the prosecution of concubinage was a Sisyphean
task. The moment when the authorities stepped into the lives of the clergy
with episcopal orders and decrees was only the beginning. Ferdinand himself realized this and tried to find ways out of the cul-de-sac. In a letter of
1620, he asked his officials to think up new ways to address the problem
of concubinage.
[H]‌ow often and how many times there have been complaints that unruly clerics
and their concubines find a hiding place in our city of Münster and other towns
of our bishopric . . . clerical abuses and vices become rampant and we as God’s
57
Hsia, Society and Religion, 114.
152 Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
principal do not want to be responsible for this . . . our difficulties require us to
think of alternative means . . . we cannot ignore this annoyance and the clerical
abuses and therefore we give you orders to diligently ponder this work which
is my highest concern, and . . . to find other methods to punish the clerics . . . 58
T he C lerics
The Council of Trent had confirmed the special function of the clergy
as role models for the laity and had, on this basis, called on the clergy to
terminate any illicit sexual affairs:
Therefore, to recall ministers of the church to the continence and purity of
life which befits them, and to enable the people to respect them the more
that it sees their standards of life are high, the holy council forbids clerics
of all kinds to keep concubines in or outside their houses, or other women
about whom suspicion might arise, or to consort with them at all in a brazen
fashion. Otherwise they are to be punished with the penalties imposed by the
sacred canons or the decrees of the Church.59
For the Church, a morally impeccable clergy, well educated and tireless in
carrying out its spiritual duties, was the ideal to which it aspired. Religious
men and women alike should follow a life of inner and outer perfection
for their own sake, but also for the effect that such a lifestyle would have
on others. It was hoped that its exemplary character would help to transform the laity into devout believers. ‘There is nothing that more constantly
trains others in devotion and the worship of God than the living example
of those who have consecrated themselves to the divine service’.60 Yet a
clergy of such immaculate, picture-book religiosity was hard to find in
early seventeenth-century Münster, as the ecclesiastical authorities were
forced to realize. Its ideal character could easily turn sour. The case of a
priest from Warendorf, for example, shows how his publicly-exposed failings inspired mockery and disrespect rather than piety and religious devotion. The anonymous writer of the following satirical poem, composed
either in 1612 or the year after, seethed with rage as he penned a depiction
of the priest and his appalling misdemeanours.
Come all you honest people and listen to this
About a real rogue, the priest of the New Church [St Marien]
StAM, Fürstentum Münster, Landesarchiv, 2a Nr. 16 Bd. 16 (9 May 1620).
Session 25, ­chapter 14, ‘Decree on general reform’, in Tanner, Decrees, 792–3.
60
Session 22, canon 1, ‘Decree on reform’, in ibid., 737.
58
59
A Bishop, his Priests, and their Concubines
153
Hellebrandt is his name, well known in Warendorf
His greatest virtue is to abuse and plunder the streets
Leaving everyone stunned
Sitting high on his horse
He can do these things continually
Riding over the young, their arms and legs cracking
This is not punished by clerical or lay authority
Which hurts the honest and many a pious heart.
Because such real heretics and rogues cannot be liked,
Who stuff themselves and drink like wild pigs.
This one with adultery, whoring, Dobelen61 and gambling
Exceeds many a rogue and robber.
This is dissolute, one lets all this happen,
But the worst is still to come, one has to endure this
What he did anno 1612 on Corpus Christi,
That he, with due manner and dignity,
Goes off soon to the Krog [the tavern] drinks himself full
would be the pity of all devils
Then he becomes sick: spits out his god at the wall
This is known to the sacristan and many people of Warendorf.
Let this be proper Catholic style . . . 62
At a time when strict fasting was prescribed, the drunken priest vomited
just after the celebration of the sacrament of the Eucharist, and spat ‘his
god at the wall’. Such behaviour made the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation a laughing stock. No Protestant propaganda could have done
more harm than the behaviour of this local priest: ‘Let this be proper
Catholic style’. Hellebrandt’s egregious behaviour turned any hope the
Church fathers might have had that their own representatives could function as a free advertisement for Catholicism into a farce. A negative perception of the clergy, and sometimes even anticlericalism, could be the
result.63 Yet this was not the end of the story. In 1615, Hellebrandt caused
a major scandal in Warendorf when he tried to elope with the ‘daughter of
an honest burgher, Heinrich Tomckens, about fifteen years old and great
61
A game played with dice. See dobelen in A. Lübben, Mittelniederdeutsches
Handwörterbuch, 79.
62
StAM, Fürstentum Münster, Landesarchiv, 2a Nr. 16 Bd. 5.
63
cf. Hsia, Society and Religion, 32. ‘Anti-clericalism did not necessarily express doubts
of the efficacy of Catholic doctrines and way of salvation, but rather the exasperation of
laymen with a self-proclaimed professional elite who failed to live up to their vocation’.
154 Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
with child’.64 The two were caught and the girl was instantly returned
to her parents. Hellebrandt had to await his trial living on ‘water and
bread or thin beer in the evening only for three days; the following day
he should be fed on common servants’ food twice a day only; in between
meals he should not be given any drink’.65 These were the instructions of
Dr Hartmann, the vicar general.
The priest’s entanglement in these scandals also demonstrated that the
toleration of one kind of immorality could lead to more of the same in
other areas, too. It would be wrong to suggest that concubinaries inevitably harboured a whole multitude of other weaknesses. Yet, in many cases,
keeping a concubine was not an isolated failing but was merely the most
visible laxity amongst a series of others. This is evident in a report describing the loose behaviour of members of the cathedral chapter.
The abuse has gone so far that a few years ago, various children [who had
been] produced in concubinage organized big wedding parties once the time
for this had arrived (to which were invited a large number of secular men,
women, apprentices and virgins who all came along); the funds for these parties came from the honourable cathedral chapter, to the not inconsiderable
anger of those watching in public . . . 66
The list of failings is long: cathedral canons had lived in sinful cohabitation, had produced children, and had permitted them to mix freely with
laypeople of both genders, exploiting the immunity of the cathedral.
Later, the canons even used church money to promote the wellbeing of
their illegitimate children. This was not in itself a particularly remarkable
event. The promotion of one’s offspring, legitimate and illegitimate, was
practised everywhere in the aristocratic circles to which the members of
the chapter belonged. The anger of the city council was aroused due to this
being done in such a public manner and to the disadvantage of the rest of
the city. All these people, together with their servants and children, lived
within the bounds of the cathedral chapter’s immunity. Therefore, they
enjoyed the perks of the clergy, namely ‘being free from the obligations of
the burgher people’, without actually being clerics.67
Concubinage was more than just an embarrassing stain on the habit of
the Catholic Church. A cleric’s susceptibility to the flesh was seen by the
Church as a threat to the Christian ideal of chastity and the charisma that
StAM, Fürstentum Münster, Landesarchiv, 2a Nr. 16 Bd. 10 (24 August 1615).
Ibid.
Abstract taken from a letter from the city council to the heimbgelassenen Räte, StAM,
Fürstentum Münster, Landesarchiv, 2a Nr. 16 Bd. 8 (9 August 1613).
67
Ibid.
64
65
66
A Bishop, his Priests, and their Concubines
155
was associated with a life of undiluted service to God.68 It could also cause
discontent among the pious of the community to know that their shepherd, teacher, and guide led a life as full of sin as their own. The solution
to the problem lay in a return to the early Christian ideal of celibacy. The
requirements were clear: in the imitatio Christi, the priest had to renounce
the intimate love of marriage and the family for the universal love of his
flock and marriage to his church. In return, he was free from worldly cares
and demands and thus able to fulfil his service to his fellow Christians
wholeheartedly. In this way, he attained the highest ideal of spiritual welfare. Even philosophers like Aristotle had seen marriage, family, and sex
as an obstacle to reaching self-perfection and the highest wisdom.69 But
would Münster’s clerics be able to grasp the theological significance and
impact of celibacy?
I cannot keep it to myself that . . . I was reminded of the bishop’s orders a couple of times through the official of Horstmar and also threatened with punishment if I did not leave my servant girl without any further ado and send
her away . . . Although it is my duty to observe his Grace’s order with subservience, it is nevertheless right and true that I have been in the clerical standing
for 47 years . . . that I can take the responsibility before God Almighty and
hopefully thus also before my high superiors too, for 41 years I have been
the innocent shepherd and took care of the spiritual welfare of the people
of Appenhülst whilst losing my health and getting a pitifully broken body,
thus because of my advanced age and the weakness of my body, I cannot help
myself without my housekeeper . . . I have an old maidservant who served me
forty years for the yearly wage of a servant girl and who looks loyally after my
household and, moreover, she does not do any other loose things, which do
not have to be referred to here any further, so that I can be sure of her loyal
honest service and have to highly praise and thank her. If I should now let
her go from me without any reason, but after much effort and work from
her side, and hire a new one, it would bring me much harm and scolding;
in order not to get into discredit and suspicion with my prince-bishop and
master and the privy council, I am making this very friendly request for you
to speak to the officials about my case, to help my request that I can keep
my maid with whom I have nothing else to do but that she is looking after
my household for pay because of my advanced age . . . . Johannes Kerlvinck.70
This letter, sent by the priest of Appenhülst to Matthias Duffertz, the
judge of Bilderbeck and Kerlvinck’s ‘very special friend’, demonstrates
how theological ideals conflicted with the realities of clerical life in the
cf. Franzen, Zölibat und Priesterehe, esp. 8–11.
Ibid., 9.
70
StAM, Fürstentum Münster, Landesarchiv, 2a Nr. 16 Bd. 7 (24 August 1613).
68
69
156 Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
parishes. Kerlvinck tried to exploit his friendship with Duffertz and his
good connections to the privy council, so as to be allowed to keep his
female servant. As reasons why the council should grant him this exception, Kerlvinck listed his age and ‘pitifully broken body’, which meant
that he needed someone’s care and helping hand. In order to prove his
innocent intentions, Kerlvinck pointed to his maid’s old age. In arguing
thus, however, he did not explain the presence of the woman in his house
for the past four decades.
Most striking of all is the emotional bond which is clearly discernible
between the priest and his maid. The strong attachment to a woman conflicted with the asexual image the Church wanted its priesthood to attain.
And yet, in reality, priests were living and practising their profession
embedded within a local community. Emotional attachments between
the two sexes outside the confessional relationship were bound to form.
This was problematic for the Church in the same way as the integration
of Münster’s nuns into the local community was seen as dangerous and
undesirable. To the clerics, the actions of the bishop and his officials were
an overreaction which unjustly extended suspicion to every woman. But
how were the authorities supposed to know the exact nature of a relationship between a clergyman and a laywoman? Kerlvinck was not the only
one to demand that more distinctions should be made between the honest
and the dishonest woman. In another letter from 1615, Gerhard Crane,
archdeacon of Langenhorst, made the same request:
I have been miserably, wretchedly told by Herrn Heinrich Lodrigs, a vicar
of Ochtrup, eighty-five years old, that he had hired a maid for many years,
who helped him in his housekeeping as an honest, pious servant girl should,
that she has until recently served him, but the other day it happened that
the official of Ochtorpe took the same maid, as if she were living with him
indecently (Unpflicht) and in concubinage, from his house, and after much
discussion the official kept her imprisoned in his house and this, as he says,
because of his Grace’s sharp orders . . . . Although it is right to watch out for
vice and to follow his Prince-bishop’s orders with all seriousness, I am nevertheless of the opinion that his Grace’s orders cannot be understood in any
other way but to be directed against those persons who are guilty of such an
immoral life, but not those honest servant girls who are in the service of the
clergy and who behave honourably, otherwise no honest maid would want
to serve a cleric anymore because of the dangers of innocent denigration . . . it
is my wish that Your Honour would let the said person go without a fine but
also let her work for her master again . . . that’s how you deal with the good
and punish the evil ones, that’s what I have to tell you . . .71
71
StAM, Fürstentum Münster, Landesarchiv, 2a Nr. 16 Bd. 10 (14 September 1615).
A Bishop, his Priests, and their Concubines
157
In the case of Lodrigs, the archdeacon demanded more secure proof before
the cleric was asked to dismiss his servant. The archdeacon wanted to
establish a more formalized and standardized procedure to prove whether
a woman was performing more than simple household tasks: suspicions,
gossip, and denunciations did not suffice. Another reason for his dissatisfaction probably lay in the speedy action of the officials, which interfered
with his rights and responsibilities as archdeacon. Arguments about proof
made up part of his complaint, but it is possible that a controversy about
his power and authority loomed in the background.
Although none of the sources elaborate in detail the motives for the
breaking of celibacy, one reason which keeps appearing in the sources is
‘humana fragilitas’ or human weakness in the face of carnal temptation.72
Based on the impressions we get from the primary sources, it seems that
many of the guilty clerics saw celibacy as something carrying theoretical
importance for the lives of nuns and monks, but was merely a ‘guideline’
for themselves. Many had chosen the clerical life as their profession in the
same way other men became teachers or farmers—on the basis of family
traditions and practical considerations. Living out their normal human
desires clearly did not make them feel overburdened with guilt. Here,
the distinction between a profession and a vocation made an immense
difference.
In his book about daily life during the Reformation, Hans-Christoph
Rublack mentions the example of the priest of Vaihingen who lived with
his old maid. Once the Reformation had gained victory in the area the
priest was expected to marry the woman. The man showed no enthusiasm for his job and was neither a believer in the old faith nor a supporter
of the new one. Neither of the two options, cohabitation or marriage,
meant much more to him than security and companionship. The conflict,
Rublack affirms, was brought to him only from outside and above; on
his own terms, the priest would have quite happily continued his existing arrangement.73 Such indifference was probably the biggest enemy of
Catholic reform in Münster, too. The Church seemed unable to sell its
programme as something positive and desirable. Few clerics would have
followed the intellectual arguments about concubinage and its consequences with interest. To most, parting with their maidservants seemed
like an overly harsh punishment, rather than a crucial reform.
StAM, Fürstentum Münster, Landesarchiv, 2a Nr. 16 Bd. 12 (14 February 1617).
H.-C. Rublack, ‘. . . Hat die Nonne den Pfarrer geküßt?’: Aus dem Alltag der
Reformationszeit (Gütersloh, 1991), 104.
72
73
158 Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
T he Women
As we have seen, concubinage was about more than men and women living together unlawfully. Yet although the theoretical background of the
problem was clear, the practical problems remained and it proved especially difficult to persuade the clergy to give up their illicit affairs. In
response, the ecclesiastical authorities increasingly turned their attention
to the women. This was not because they were particularly interested in
the women as such, but because they realized they possessed neither the
means nor the powers to get at the men directly. This is why the punishment of the concubines eventually came to be the most important element
in the prosecution of concubinage.
At the beginning of his episcopacy, Ferdinand used strong language to
warn his people of the consequences of their behaviour, requiring
each and every cleric, regardless of whatever their rank may be, if they are
known or in suspicion of having women with them in concubinage, that
they, on pain of serious punishment and disfavour, chase them [the women]
out of their towns and the bishopric within four weeks, thus to escape much
justified divine punishment.74
The bishop not only rested his orders on his own will but also invoked
punishment by powers higher than his own to admonish his clergy.
Nevertheless, he was aware that ultimately human determination rather
than divine intervention was needed to deal with the problem. Thus the
above decree continued as follows: ‘In case this does not work, you should
grab them [the women] by their heads and place them publicly at the pillory and then have them removed from the bishopric’.75 Two motives lay
behind these measures. The first was, obviously enough, punishment of
sin; the desire to discourage other women from following in the aberrant
footsteps of the concubines was the second. This is confirmed by an episcopal decree dating from 1615: ‘The quasi-wifely concubines should be
investigated with utmost diligence and in case they are keeping company
with the clerics again to catch them at once and to display them publicly at
the pillory to set an example and to disgust other people’.76 The unhappy
fate of a concubine from Freckenhorst also proves the intention to teach
a lesson to more people than just the woman in question: ‘because this
is no cold and dangerous time, the imprisoned concubine can be kept
StAM, Fürstentum Münster, Landesarchiv, 2a Nr. 16 Bd. 5 (28 June 1612).
Ibid.
76
StAM, Fürstentum Münster, Landesarchiv, 2a Nr. 16 Bd. 9 (31 July 1615).
74
75
A Bishop, his Priests, and their Concubines
159
for another week in the local prison . . . Because the longer she sits [in
prison] the greater her example will become known in the whole bishopric, and will thus hopefully deter others’.77 The authorities used the pillory, imprisonment, and expulsion to demonstrate that cohabitation with
a cleric was mercilessly punished and that sinful behaviour was followed
by public humiliation. In this respect, the women were treated much more
harshly than their partners in crime who, although likewise imprisoned,
received spiritual guidance and comfort through the Church. For example, Hellebrandt, the incontinent priest from Warendorf, was given a ‘confessor to allow him a general confession and serious improvement’ while
in prison.78 Similar efforts were not made to ensure the spiritual wellbeing
of the incarcerated women. The protection of the Church was given first
to its own people, the members of this exclusive institution. Concubines
stood outside such support networks and could only hope for similar treatment if they assigned themselves to the Mary Magdalene category of fallen
women. These were the women at whom the Church directed its conciliatory activities. In a letter a woman described this process of reconciliation
I am a poor, burdened woman and cannot let go unknown . . . that I too, God
have mercy, through human weakness came to the fall . . . and was for a while
with Barthold von Raesfeld, canon of the collegiate church in Dülmen, and
lived with him in the said manner . . . but I felt remorse and much regret,
confessed and took communion and made a complete break 79
Through the confession of her sins and the celebration of communion,
the repentant sinner sought absolution from church and society. It was
the only way open for a woman to regain entrance to respectable society.
Another reason for the greater leniency of the church towards its personnel lay in the general shortage of clerics in the bishopric. This circumstance even forced the authorities to keep incorrigible clerics employed in
the parishes. In Werne, a cleric repeatedly reprimanded for living with a
concubine remained unpunished, or, as the writer said, ‘tolerated’, because
of ‘a shortage of persons and because he looks after the school and the
organ at the same time’.80 The lack of a proper seminary saved many a
clergyman’s tainted career in the bishopric. The words of Bishop Franz
Wilhelm von Osnabrück also hold some truth with regard to the situation in Münster. ‘One thing worries me deeply, and it delays progress too,
I cannot remove those people with such offensive lifestyles, because I have
StAM, Fürstentum Münster, Landesarchiv, 2a Nr. 16 Bd. 16 (3 July 1620).
StAM, Fürstentum Münster, Landesarchiv, 2a Nr. 16 Bd. 10 (August 1615).
79
Ibid., (date unknown).
80
StAM, Fürstentum Münster, Landesarchiv, 2a Nr. 16 Bd. 8 (26 June 1614).
77
78
160 Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
no-one to put in their place, because we lack the means for a seminary’.81
Münster had to rely on a small makeshift version, which also made the
recruitment and training of a more educated, devoted clergy an unstable stepping-stone in the campaign against concubinage. For the women,
prosecution by the ecclesiastical authorities had very real and prompt consequences: forced expulsion after four weeks, imprisonment, and public
display at the pillory. The pillory was a rather ambivalent punitive method
to choose since this act of public shaming not only revealed the shame of
the women but also that of their partners. As a result, the men’s breach of
celibacy and their sexual activities stood exposed at the pillory together
with the women.
It would be a mistake, however, to believe that the Church led a war
against the concubines as such. As the behaviour of the authorities shows,
they were in fact uninterested in the women’s minds and motives. In the
documents, for instance, the women are rarely mentioned by name, but
generally remain anonymous wrongdoers who are simply classified as
‘Concubinen’. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, this label
fulfilled its purpose because the ecclesiastical authorities saw the women
as the least interesting part of the triangle of women, church, and clerics. They were merely seen as a practical problem. Historians have so far
continued this tradition and refer to the women only superficially as concubines without ever taking a closer look at the realities of their lives. One
reason for this lies in the scarcity of archival material that could allow a
more in-depth examination of the women given this label. For the same
reason, the popular image of the clerical concubine has changed surprisingly little throughout the centuries. They appear to us as cooks, maidservants, and housewives. My findings, too, are based on a limited number
of documents written by the women themselves, their children and other
relatives, their priestly lovers, and the authorities. But even this limited
number of sources opens the door to some new insights and a preliminary
analysis of their situation. It can be shown, for example, that cooking,
serving, and housekeeping were precisely the roles fulfilled by concubines,
and many more in addition. As my sources reveal, the women were also
lovers and partners, nurses and carers, and, in some cases, mothers. Thus,
their tasks and lifestyle were actually not so different from that of other
women. Moreover, it soon becomes clear that the image of women of
loose morals and dubious behaviour assigned to them by the authorities
conflicts with the conventional lifestyle and the strong personalities that
emerge from the sources.
81
Schafmeister, Herzog Ferdinand, 95.
A Bishop, his Priests, and their Concubines
161
Even the report of the papal nuncio hints at the astonishing
self-confidence that many concubines exhibited in the face of the hostile environment that surrounded them. As quoted earlier, ‘The women
call themselves Pröpstinnen, prelatesses, and abbesses, and make sure
they are called thus on their gravestones and other public inscriptions’.82
Another letter, this time addressed to Dr Johannes Hartmann, reveals the
same confidence and willpower. Anna Nydders, a nun at the Vinnenberg
Convent, turned to the vicar general in financial matters. At the time, the
officials had portrayed Vinnenberg to the Überwasser nuns as a model religious house. Anna Nydder’s letter casts doubt on this assertion, especially
with regard to enclosure. In her letter, Anna described how she had lived
with Hinderich Schulz, the priest of Vinnenberg, who ‘brought me to the
fall and the ruin of my body’.83 Anna had also financially supported her
former lover. Now that their affair had ended she wrote to Dr Hartmann
to get her money back, and every additional Reichstaler she had spent on
Schulze. This included her expenses in childbed plus compensation, the
size of which she wanted the privy council to assess, for the ‘pains, damage
of my honour, and health of my body’.84 Her letter does not have the tone
of a desperate, fragile woman; rather, we witness someone fighting for her
rights. Nydders made no excuses for her past behaviour; neither did she
copy the male strategy of seeking human compassion with talk of pitifully
broken bodies or human weakness. The second page of the petition contains a detailed list of her expenses and what the money was spent on: ‘half
a Taler when the child had been so ill for fourteen days; the burial of the
child, three Taler; had a coat made for the child which cost me three Taler’
and so on.85 Thus she appealed to the council that ‘Hinderich Schulten,
who stays in Harsewinckel at his sister’s, or his guarantors, should repay
the money he owes me . . . and [he should] recompense me according to
the council’s judgement for the pains and damage’.86 Hers is a collection
of the facts as she saw them. The letter sounds all the more convincing
because of its clear structure and the precision with which she chose her
words. Although written in dialect, Nydders even used a few well-applied
Latin expressions. The detail of the evidence she brought forward shows
that Anna Nydders did not place her trust in luck. She knew that her only
chance was to argue her case and to do so as persuasively as she could. Her
status as a professed nun at the aristocratic Vinnenberg Convent and her
Hüsing, Der Kampf um die katholische Religion, 351.
StAM, Fürstentum Münster, Landesarchiv, 2a Nr. 16 Bd. 12 (6 September 1617).
Ibid.
85
Ibid.
86
Ibid.
82
83
84
162 Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
apparent education suggests that Anna came from a well-off family. Some
of the other concubines also came from families where education mattered, as we can deduce from their ability to read and write, although they
might have acquired those skills from their clerical partners. It would be
a mistake, though, to claim that many concubines came from the upper
strata of society. We simply do not possess the material that would provide
us with such information. All we can state is the very general observation
that concubines appear to have belonged to all strata of society, even the
highest. This theory is also supported by the case of a nun from Überwasser
who, for many years, lived with a canon of the cathedral chapter more or
less undisturbed by the authorities. When Bishop Ferdinand complained
about this affair, the chapter defended its inactivity thus: ‘no measure had
been taken against the canon von Nagel, because the nun who does his
housekeeping belongs to a noble family, and because the family would
have been exposed had any action been taken against her’.87
Anna Nydder’s letter reveals the two biggest dangers that a life in concubinage entailed for a woman. The first was the lack of financial security.
As long as the woman lived with her partner she might be well fed and
materially well off, but the conclusion of the relationship also brought to
an end any provisions she might have enjoyed until that day. A dismissed
concubine could then find herself on the street without any of the rights
that an abandoned wife might have claimed from her husband. Neither
could she expect any support form her local community, or from society
in general. These financial considerations were undeniably serious, but
the ethical issues attached to concubinage were of even greater significance to a woman’s life. These emerge in mention of the ‘pains, damage
of my honour and the health of my body’ which Anna highlights in her
letter.88 Honour and health were probably the two single most precious
attributes a woman in the early modern period could have. A woman’s
honour was, as we know, intimately connected to her sexual behaviour.89
It was her task and that of her husband to protect her honour, to keep it
immaculate and inviolate. But could an unmarried woman in an illegal
relationship achieve this social standard? If we apply the common standards of the time, the answer is a simple and straightforward ‘no’—concubines were categorized as whores and similarly marginalized; the city
87
This case again indicates that the introduction of enclosure at the Überwasser Convent
in the 1610s and 1620s was not as successful as hitherto believed. Unfortunately, it is not
possible to study the sources on which Karl Schafmeister based his thoughts because they
were lost during the Second World War. Schafmeister, Herzog Ferdinand, 95.
88
StAM, Fürstentum Münster, Landesarchiv, 2a Nr. 16 Bd. 12 (6 September 1617).
89
Alfing and Schedensack, Frauenalltag, 38.
A Bishop, his Priests, and their Concubines
163
of Münster did not grant them the privilege of citizenship.90 In 1620,
the secular authorities ordered Anna Stemping, the concubine of a cleric
in Münster, to leave the city ‘within the next couple of days because of
her offensive lifestyle’. Stemping’s friends appeared before the city council
pleading for her because ‘she has a child with the cleric and is still visited
by him every day’. But, as the council pointed out to her supporters, it was
not allowed to tolerate concubinage any longer, and so she was sent on
her way.91 In my view, however, the sources also demonstrate that honour
operated on more than just this one level. First and foremost, a woman’s
honour was bound to her sexual behaviour while she was single and when
she was married, too. Officially, the women in my sources belonged to
neither of these categories; in reality, however, they were part of both at
the same time. They were not legitimately married, but most lived in stable, long-term relationships. The sources show that many of the women
counted themselves as part of the second category of married women.92 In
their demands and general attitude, they show that they perceived themselves to be ‘quasi-wives’ (remember, these were Ferdinand’s words, too!)
and long-term companions.93 In their opinion, this gave them certain
rights. A concubine from Oplte, for example, did not move out of the
priest’s house after his death, even though a qualified successor had long
been chosen, because she insisted on the annum gratia, the same privilege
as was given to the widows of those holding civic positions.94 In their letters, most women did not make any excuses for their behaviour or reveal
any sign which would allow us to conclude that they felt their honour
to have been diminished due to their relationships with clergymen. The
example of the ‘Pröpstinnen, prelatesses, and abbesses’ shows, on the contrary, that many women felt their social position had been heightened
through association with such respected men. The women’s perception of
their place in the community clearly did not conform to common standards, but was an individual and unorthodox one.
Ibid., 130.
StdAMs, Ratsarchiv, Ratsprotokolle, AII Nr. 20 Bd. 52, 561, 565–6, 578.
cf. StAM, Fürstentum Münster, Landesarchiv, 2a Nr. 16 Bd. 8 (26 June 1614).
93
See also Wilhelm Kohl’s judgement that ‘[i]‌n all cases with very few exceptions, concubinage meant marriage-like relationships which merely lacked public blessing. The canons
and their “maids” always remained committed to their relationship and separated for a
short time under pressure only to get back together once the attention of the authorities had
diminished’. W. Kohl, ‘Die Durchsetzung der Tridentinischen Reform im Domkapitel zu
Münster’, in R. Bäumer (ed.), Reformatio Ecclesiae: Beiträge zu kirchlichen Reformbemühungen
von der Alten Kirche bis zur Neuzeit: Festgabe für Erwin Iserloh, (Paderborn; Munich; Vienna;
Zurich, 1980), 741.
94
StAM, Fürstentum Münster, Landesarchiv, 2a Nr. 16 Bd. 8 (3 October 1614) and
StAM, Fürstentum Münster, Landesarchiv, 2a Nr. 16 Bd. 8 (23 February 1614).
90
91
92
164 Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
Society, nonetheless, could avenge such nonconformist behaviour
through social marginalization. Anna Nydders’s attitude reveals her consciousness of the fact that she would not be able to reclaim her purity
and full acceptance in the eyes of society. Here lies the significance of
the compensation she sought: money was the only way to moderate the
consequences of her unconventional lifestyle and the consequences of her
relationship with the priest. Since she probably considered it only fair that
her lover should have to pay for his share in the relationship, she was
self-confident and firm about her requests. To Anna, a woman’s honour
was a tough and rational trade which could be counted in coins. Her fight
proved at least partially successful. Two days after her letter had reached
Dr Johannes Hartmann, the vicar general instructed Hinderich Schulz to
pay off his debts, ‘otherwise she and her confessor, who has also written
to me . . . will not stop molesting me’.95 However, Hartmann also ordered
Anna to leave Münster.
What, one wonders, made women choose this unpredictable life at the
side of a cleric? Perhaps the following example provides an answer. In July
1620, Dietherich Wilckens wrote to the privy council to plead mercy for
his mother, Gertrud Löckmanns, who was sitting in prison ‘despite her
age, bound for the grave’.96 Wilckens described how his mother had obediently followed the bishop’s decrees and how she and his father, Dietherich
Stephani Wilckens, canon of Freckenhorst, had separated. Recently,
however,
my mother has unfortunately heard and seen how pitiable and miserably my
father has to lie because of his limbs, that he needs the help of two people
to be turned and moved around . . . full of pity, she stepped into his house,
her thoughts were without any carnal desire, as one would expect from
such very old people, but only to give him a helping hand, according to her
means, in his poverty and weakness . . . but last Friday she was caught and
imprisoned . . . 97
This is a heartfelt lament at the inhuman behaviour of the authorities,
about their attempt to inaugurate a new age of morality without recognizing that these relationships had existed for a long time and had thus
acquired some legitimacy in their own right. Wilckens asked the authorities to consider his mother’s age and to release her from prison. Strong
bonds and family affections shimmer in this complaint. Other letters, too,
reveal the same warm emotions and attachments between the two lovers
StAM, Fürstentum Münster, Landesarchiv, 2a Nr. 16 Bd. 12 (9 September 1617).
StAM, Fürstentum Münster, Landesarchiv, 2a Nr. 16 Bd. 16 (1 July 1620).
97
Ibid.
95
96
A Bishop, his Priests, and their Concubines
165
and between them and other family members. It is not hard to imagine that
these feelings of love and care were a crucial motive for a clergyman and a
laywoman to live together. Wilhelm Kohl mentions the case of Heinrich
Ledebur, a canon at Münster’s cathedral chapter, and father to a child with
Elsabe von Horst. In November 1613, he was questioned about his relationship and without hesitation admitted his weakness, though he refused
to vow that he would never return to her, saying that he ‘would rather
lose his head or that a knife would be twisted in his heart’.98 In 1614, the
two were forced to separate regardless, but Ledebur was ‘so inconsolable,
that he wants to stick a knife into his belly. He doesn’t know why he was
treated like that. If he was supposed to go to hell, he would prefer to do
it himself sooner rather than later’.99 When Elsabe died in 1618, he had a
tombstone erected for her, ‘and this with much anger’.100 Some, as in the
case of Wilckens, had also started a family.
Unfortunately, it was impossible to uncover more information about
the Wilckens family. Further knowledge about the fate of Dietherich
Wilckens, the child born of this illegitimate union, would have been
very interesting indeed, in that it may have illustrated how the lay community treated these unions and their offspring. We know that the secular authorities regarded the offspring of such a union as dishonourable.
However, Sabine Alfing mentions the case of Anna Volmers, who was
granted citizenship despite the fact that her four children were born
in concubinage.101 This demonstrates that the demarcations of honour
were not quite as clear, and the application of its codes was not as strict,
as it might at first appear. The viewpoint of the Church on the offspring
of these unions was clear:
As the memory of a father’s sin should be kept away from places consecrated
to God, where purity and holiness are most in place, the sons of clerics who
are not born of lawful wedlock may not themselves hold any benefice, even a
dissimilar one, in churches where their fathers occupy or previously occupied
any ecclesiastical benefice, nor serve in those churches in any way, nor hold
pensions from the revenues of benefices which their fathers occupy or have
occupied elsewhere.102
The Council of Trent had ruled that illegitimate sons of clerics were to be
excluded from any offices or benefices of the Church whatsoever, but, for
Kohl, ‘Die Durchsetzung der Tridentinischen Reform’, 741.
Ibid.
Ibid.
101
Alfing and Schedensack, Frauenalltag, 130.
102
Session 25, ­chapter 15, ‘Decrees on general reform’, in Tanner, Decrees, 793.
98
99
100
166 Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
Münster’s clergy, this rule existed only on paper. We know from Wilhelm
Kohl’s study of the Tridentine reforms and Münster’s cathedral chapter
during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that the higher echelons
of the clergy used their connections to provide a place in the Church for
their illegitimate sons.103 Our canon, Wilckens, also saw no reason to
remove his son and his mother in shame and silence. Quite the opposite,
in fact: the son was even given his father’s first and last name, thus making his relations totally clear. No hint of bastardy can be detected in these
dealings. Dietherich Wilckens was perceived as a legitimate child, in the
emotional sense of the word at least.
Despite these warm emotions, the concubines realized the peculiarity
of their situation. They knew that their behaviour was judged as morally
reprehensible by the superiors of their lovers and did not close their eyes
to the possible consequences of such opinions. The precariousness of their
situation must have dawned on them with particular severity when Trent
knocked at their doors and caused some of them to take precautionary
steps for a more secure future. One way to build a security network in case
of hard times was to open the doors of the clerical houses to their relatives. This proved useful when the concubine was forced to leave by the
authorities, because her relatives, on the other hand, remained unaffected
by the orders. This happened to Elsa Steinbickers and her family. Elsa
underwent what we might call the typical career of a concubine, being ‘in
service and indecency (Unpflicht)’ at the house of Herr Wycks, the vicar
of Freckenhorst.
[B]‌ut she turned away from him following the orders of His Grace, obediently abstained from his presence and his conversation . . . and told her confessor about it . . . . But now last Friday she went to Mr. Wyck’s home, not to
visit him and without any indecent thoughts or deeds, only to see her sister
and her daughters who live in his house and to get her clothes, which she had
to leave behind because she had to move out in such a rush . . . 104
As a consequence of the decree, Steinbickers, and many others like her,
had to leave her life and belongings behind. In those moments, it was
the support of her family that provided help. Family and other relatives
offered an important safety-net in times of hardship through their material and practical assistance, by writing petitions, and by giving emotional
support. Another way to achieve some security was to rely on the same
103
Kohl, ‘Die Durchsetzung der Tridentinischen Reform’, 741. Sons of priests who
wanted to be ordained could also seek papal dispensation.
104
StAM, Fürstentum Münster, Landesarchiv, 2a Nr. 16 Bd. 16 (July 1620).
A Bishop, his Priests, and their Concubines
167
weapons as the ecclesiastical authorities. Hence, some concubines placed
their trust in paper.
The priest of Werne complains that the officiant of Werne, Bernard Conradi,
does not want to dismiss his concubine . . . I had dismissed her before, but
after my departure she had instantly been allowed to return . . . . only a few
days ago a person came to his house who had been his concubine before this
one, and who has a child from him, who exhibited a paper, on which he
declares his engagement to her; she demands support for the child.105
The concubine had shrewdly used the power of the written word to secure
her future and that of her child by making the officiant sign an ‘engagement contract’. In an attempt to deal with officialdom, the woman had
drawn up a version of a contract as a way to present herself as a quasi-wife
and long-term lover. We do not know how effective this measure was, but
it reveals some clever thinking and shows the concubine not as a victim,
but as a proactive, determined woman. But why does this surprise us?
Conventional thinking perhaps likes to characterize concubines as weak
characters and loose women, but does it not take more strength and willpower to live in a precarious, liminal position, despite the disapproval of
many? This is what these women did, and they did so without excuses.
C onclusion
It turned out to be just as the Church fathers at Trent had anticipated.
One rebuke was not enough to break the spell of the relationships between
clerics and concubines. In most cases this could not be achieved through
theological arguments, but only through threats and force. The evangelical
church had long ago acknowledged the disjuncture between ideal and reality and had therefore decided to follow Martin Luther’s recommendations
of allowing the clergy to marry. It thus sanctioned relationships which had
already been very common amongst the clergy of the old faith. After all,
even the Saviour Jesus Christ himself had acknowledged that celibacy was
impossible without a special sign of God’s Grace.106 Until the end of the
Council of Trent in 1563 there was still hope amongst the Catholic clergy
that this would be a possible option for them, too. The idea had some
powerful supporters, including Emperor Ferdinand, who did not wish to
follow the Protestants in condemning celibacy but wanted to adjust to the
StAM, Fürstentum Münster, Landesarchiv, 2a Nr. 16 Bd. 8 (26 June 1614).
Franzen, Zölibat und Priesterehe, 34.
105
106
168 Women and the Counter-Reformation in Early Modern Münster
reality by officially allowing cohabitation.107 Such opinions failed in the
end to gain enough support within the Church, and the church fathers
rejected a more realistic approach to celibacy.
Initially, these questions were not of much consequence in Münster
where, during the second half of the sixteenth century, there had been
a silent co-existence of Protestantism and Catholicism. Only the election of two Wittelsbach bishops, Ernst von Bayern and his nephew
Ferdinand, brought change. The general leniency in questions of faith
and morality was, in the eyes of some church superiors, a grave danger.
The Großinquisitor Pius (1566–72) wrote in a letter to the then bishop of
Münster that he worried ‘day and night’ about how one could fight the
heresy which had spilled over from Germany. The basis for all evil he saw
solely in the ‘immoral and shameful lifestyle of the clergy, who lived in
their houses with their concubines, just like with legitimate wives. In the
face of such public anger, the heretics had a simple game with the people,
because they only needed to point to the disgraceful life of the priests’.108
Alarm was caused by the existence of heresy in the Dutch territories
just across the borders of the bishopric and, nearer to home, amongst
the people of the bishopric. Many of them followed a slightly undefined
mixture of Protestant and Catholic traditions. Reports from the town of
Warendorf, for example, confirm that people sang German songs in mass
and celebrated the Eucharist in both kinds. More worrying, however, were
reports describing the tumultuous events sometime during 1613 or 1614.
A group of audacious young men broke the Holy Sepulchre in the old church
at the altar of Our Lady (Unser lieben Frauen) . . . removed the relique from
it and desecrated the altar anew; they stormed the image of St Anthony and
snapped off its arm; they also cut through a plate on the altar of St Anne from
top to bottom, and hung up a famously disrespectful writing about the priest
of the new church . . . . 109
Although Warendorf was later firmly in the grip of the Catholic Church
again, the source reveals the deep alienation of some sections of the laity
from Catholicism and its clergy. During the 1610s and 1620s these were
contested areas in which people were able to see alternative lifestyles and
the practice of other religious beliefs. As a result, it was not quite so obvious which way religion would move. No passivity was allowed. Ferdinand
certainly had no intention of tolerating this confessional muddle any
longer and he chose concubinage as his starting point for reform.
Ibid., 84.
Ibid., 89.
109
StAM, Fürstentum Münster, Landesarchiv, 2a Nr. 16 Bd. 8, 5 (6 January 1614) and
2a Nr. 16 Bd. 7 (date unknown).
107
108
A Bishop, his Priests, and their Concubines
169
Progress was slow, however, and the officials had to be content with small
victories. On the positive side, the sources indicate that a more formalized
procedure in the dealings with concubinage was established. Some officials
relied on the services of a notary for their examinations.110 Others even
used witnesses in addition to the notary to confirm their statements.111
The officials at least do not seem to have harboured any doubts as to the
bishop’s sincerity about ending concubinage and his determination bore
first fruits as the news from the bailiff of Legden shows: ‘as far as my territory is concerned I have carried out the investigation with all the seriousness required . . . the clergy living in this territory (Vogtei) obediently follow
orders and have dismissed their concubines’.112 The real breakthrough in
the question of concubinage, however, only came with Ferdinand’s successor, Christoph Bernhard von Galen (1650–72). Admittedly, his task
was made easier by the popularity of the Jesuit schools in the bishopric
and the existence of a proper seminary. A chronicler described Christoph
Bernhard’s success in the following words: ‘Amongst all the magnanimous
deeds and praiseworthy decrees which he did, he was able right at the
beginning of his government to end the concubinage of the clergy’.113
Yet it took almost 100 years to kill off the last remnants of concubinage.
Westphalia therefore in many respects lagged considerably behind southern Germany, where the Catholic reform movements of the bishops had
already blossomed fully during the last quarter of the sixteenth century.114
At the heart of concubinage lay a complex web of power play, dependencies, personal friendships, and animosities. This is the reason why concubinage was a matter of constant struggle between the bishop and the
cathedral chapter, between the officials and the clergy in the city, and in
the localities. The fight required much strength and resolution, finesse,
and diplomacy. The significance of concubinage for the Tridentine cause
sprang from the recognition that it was about more than sex and celibacy;
it concerned everything that Trent stood for: renewal of the clergy, the
improvement of its relationship with the laity, revival of traditional ideals
of purity in the imitatio Christi. As long as concubines continued their
defiant immorality, the credibility of Catholic renewal was in doubt.115
cf. StAM, Fürstentum Münster, Landesarchiv, 2a Nr. 16 Bd. 7 (12 August 1613).
StAM, Fürstentum Münster, Landesarchiv, 2a Nr. 16 Bd. 10 (17 August 1615).
StAM, Fürstentum Münster, Landesarchiv, 2a Nr. 16 Bd. 7 (29 August 1613).
113
Kohl, ‘Die Durchsetzung der Tridentinischen Reform’, 746.
114
Ibid., 745.
115
I would like to thank Professor Robert Swanson for his perceptive comments on
this chapter, parts of which have already been published in S. Laqua, ‘Concubinage and
the Church in early modern Münster’, in Ruth Harris and Lyndal Roper (eds.), The Art of
Survival: Gender and History in Europe, 1540–2000, Past and Present Supplement 1 (Oxford,
2006), 72–100. I am grateful to OUP for granting me permission to reuse the material.
110
111
112
Conclusion
In the first part of the sixteenth century Münster had experienced the most
radical gender experiment of the early modern period with the introduction of polygamy in the city during the Anabaptist Kingdom. It has been
argued that polygamy could be seen as an (extreme) outgrowth of the
Protestant reformers’ emphasis on female subordination within marriage
and the patriarchal household. ‘In a city with a vast majority of single
women and wives deserted by their husbands, it made sense to incorporate them within the institution which was the fundamental unit of the
civic polity, the household.’1 Marriage was the solution to the problem
of an overabundance of females, even if it meant marrying more than
one woman to a man. Polygamy was therefore not an expression of sexual libertinism but an attempt to place women under male authority to
secure the continuation of patriarchy at any price. This could be one of
the reasons why polygamy does not seem to be an important point of
reference in the civic discourse on morality and order and why it left so
surprisingly little trace in Münster’s archives for the period after the city’s
defeat. Rather than interpreting this as a form of collective amnesia, we
also need to remember the practicalities of life after the end of the siege
in 1535, when the city had to be rebuilt and repopulated. Most of the
Münsteraners who had joined the Anabaptist movement had perished.
Those who survived had to abjure Anabaptism before they were allowed to
return to the city. They were excluded from political office and had their
properties confiscated. The Catholic citizens who had fled Münster before
the Anabaptists took power began to return. The surviving population
not only had to deal with the traumas of its recent past, but to cope with
an influx of immigrants from the surrounding territories, bringing with
them a diversity of Christian faiths.2 Politically, the magistrates had to
fight against the expansion of the bishop’s powers and the suppression of
civic liberties. Post-Anabapist Münster was all about reconstruction and
survival, not about the legacy of the past.
1
L. Roper, Oedipus and the Devil: Witchcraft, Sexuality and Religion in Early Modern
Germany (London, 1994), 89–90.
2
‘After 1535, close to one-half of the inhabitants were immigrants new to the customs
and history of the Westphalian metropole.’ Hsia, Society and Religion, 14.
Conclusion
171
By the time of Bishop Ferdinand’s death in 1650, the city had been
transformed from the site where Protestantism had found its most notorious expression, into a city firmly returned to the bosom of the Catholic
Church. Spearheaded by Bishops Ernst and Ferdinand, this transformation was neither as total nor as smooth as the programme of reforms implemented by their Bavarian relatives down south. In Munich, Maximilian
I successfully enforced policies that purposely interlinked state-building
and Catholicism with a specifically gendered agenda of moral and religious reform. While both Ernst and Ferdinand clearly saw themselves as
part of the wider Catholic party led by their Bavarian relatives, in Münster,
patterns of authority were simply too divided and institutional resources
insufficiently developed to achieve the same degree of conformity and
obedience: in the north, the new religious policies were frequently counteracted by civic magistrates, local elites, powerful guilds, and even clerics. All of these different city-based groups were keenly aware that the
consequences of the religious changes introduced from above would be
felt deeply in all aspects of their lives and therefore wanted to make sure
their voices were heard and their concerns addressed. This becomes most
obvious when looking at the religious houses of the city. Confident about
their place in the religious and social hierarchy of the city, the nuns of
Münster do not fall back on gendered arguments, emphasizing their
female weakness, but instead remind the authorities of their tradition
of institutional independence and self-regulation. These are not ‘little
women’ but confident members of the civic community who are proud of
their contribution to wider society. With remarkable political astuteness,
they portrayed themselves as daughters of the city and thereby presented
Bishop Ferdinand’s reforms not only as an attack on their convents, but
also a simultaneous attack on the civic community. By doing so, they were
able to mitigate and shape the momentous changes brought upon them by
their male superiors. But whereas the Ringe nuns eventually had to accede
to the introduction of enclosure in their convent, the nobleborn nuns of
Überwasser Convent were able to negotiate a considerable compromise,
demonstrating just how much the imposition of the decrees of Trent was
influenced by factors such as social status and connections.
Laywomen, too, had to engage with the social and religious consequences of Trent, and they did so in similarly creative ways. Concubines
have been revealed as women of impressive resilience vis-à-vis the authorities, by, for example, writing protest letters, defying orders, and generally
mobilizing their support networks. Contrary to their stereotypical portrayal in Reformation propaganda, concubines were not women of low
morality and loose behaviour, nor were they generally seen as such by
the community. Rather, what emerges from the sources is the normalcy
172Conclusion
of clerical concubinage and the sense of injustice felt by both priests and
their partners in the wake of their enforced separation. The human cost of
ending these ‘illicit affairs’ was profound: families were torn apart, futures
destroyed, and stable partnerships mercilessly undone. Concubinage, therefore, also serves as a reminder of the far-reaching social changes wrought by
the decrees of Trent. By the middle of the seventeenth century, Agatha van
Schoonhoven’s smile would no longer have been quite so serene.
Concubines were not the only laywomen who came to feel the full weight
of the authorities’ disapproval: maidservants who fell pregnant before marriage also became vulnerable to shame and punishment. This censorship,
however, was not only founded on directives from above but reflected far
more widely shared beliefs about the community (not least about who
belonged to that community and who therefore deserved its support and
compassion). In early modern Münster this was a tightly-defined group
of women which potentially excluded all those outside of the protective
confines of the patriarchal household. Whereas concubines could still be
perceived as fitting into this category, rather peculiarly, pregnant maidservants who had been abandoned by their partners could not. Concubines
therefore received support from a range of people: priests, officials, and
family members. The marginal status of abandoned servant girls was made
obvious by the communal passivity, social disregard, and the institutional
neglect they experienced at a time of absolute need.
In the absence of support from the child’s father, and often her own family too, the most an abandoned servant girl could hope for was charity from
the parochial alms box or, in the unlikely event she were deemed deserving,
a handout from the common poor fund supervised by the city council. In
the time period studied, no evidence has been found that a pregnant maidservant was ever granted support under these circumstances. On the contrary, the records have revealed a rather gendered approach to charity in the
city: my examination of charity records from the first half of the seventeenth
century has shown that women received much less support than men who
were seeking support to further their education. Charity was therefore not
used for material want, but to enable these young men to study. If we add
to this the success of the Jesuit education of boys in the local school, it is
clear that male education was a much more broadly distributed privilege in
this society and a cause of marked professionalization and social mobility.
In the same period, women’s roles in the city were increasingly defined in
relation to Catholic reform and patriarchal authority.3
3
It should be remembered, though, that ‘patriarchal authority’ was not an unambiguous concept in the early modern period but, as the examples of the quarreling couples in
Chapter 3 have shown, was characterised by fluidity and negotiatability.
Conclusion
173
These findings seem to reinforce much of the existing historiography,
which sees the Counter-Reformation as a male-dominated movement that
tended to confine women to prescribed spaces behind the walls of a convent or under the supervision of fathers and husbands.4 No matter how
beguiling such a straightforward account may be, the picture that emerges
from the sources is more complex. Indeed, John O’Malley has recently
reminded us that ‘Trent’ and Catholicism are not congruent phenomena.5
In seventeenth-century Münster, Catholicism certainly remained a heterogenous mix of traditional and reformed pieties with the division between
them not always clearly discernable. Although Trent sought to unify spiritual matters under the authority of the bishop and increase sacerdotal
supervision of the laity, important responsibilities for Church matters in
the city continued to be shared by the clergy and the laity at parish level.
This was true of administrative business such as the organization of poor
relief as well as spiritual initiatives: during Lent, for example, the inhabitants of Zwölfmänner poor house led processions through the parishes.6
The persistent importance of confraternal spirituality and especially the
growing popularity of confraternities organized around the neighbourhood attest to the strength of this localized form of piety. It was also in
the parish that laywomen got involved in Catholicism, spiritually as well
as materially. Although the Catholic Church officially did not offer any
active religious roles to laywomen, the sources show women giving their
time and money to support local initiatives. Joining one of Münster’s
confraternities, they prayed for the dead and prepared their bodies for
burial; they attended vigils, and collected money for candles. They supported the living through charitable donations in their wills and expressed
their pious preferences by expending patronage on people and places that
held meaning in their lives. The materiality of Catholic piety also opened
important avenues for women to display their social status in the community through their choice of burial place, the objects they donated to their
parish church, their seat in the congregation, the funeral monuments and
4
Barbara Diefendorf has argued against this depiction of the Catholic reform movement in her study of a small circle of Parisian women who acted as founders and patrons of
religious communities, as spiritual leaders within these communities, and as organizers of
new forms of charitable assistance for the poor. Her work has depicted women as persuasive
fund-raisers, skilled lobbyists, and visionary pioneers of innovative educational schemes
who ultimately played a crucial role in the French Catholic revival after Trent. Diefendorf,
From Penitence to Charity.
5
On this, compare also O’Malley, Trent: What Happened at the Council, 274.
6
Kohl, Germania Sacra: NF 37,2: Die Bistümer der Kirchenprovinz Köln: Das Bistum
Münster 7.2. Die Diözese, 52–5.
174Conclusion
the memorial paintings they commissioned. Women’s piety was therefore
founded upon the local community, centred on the parish, and focused as
much on the practical needs of this world as the spiritual demands of the
next. In this way, secular and sacred concerns were intimately entwined.
There was, then, nothing particularly ‘Counter-Reformation’
about this piety. Rather, the overriding impression we get is that most
seventeenth-century pious practices would have seemed familiar to a
sixteenth-century observer. In that sense, Tridentine reform was less intrusive than often assumed, and more of a revival than a reform. The most
direct Counter-Reformation stimulus to female piety was brought to the
city with the arrival of the new orders, both male and female. Despite the
initial opposition, the Poor Clares and the Congrégation de Notre-Dame
soon proved to be popular with laywomen and provided them with new
spiritual as well as educational opportunities. Somewhat less measurable
is the influence of the Jesuits on female piety. It seems safe to assume that
women attended the performances of Jesuit theatre in the local school,
went to listen to their sermons in the cathedral, followed them on pilgrimage to the shrine of Mary at Telgte, or perhaps chose a Jesuit confessor as their spiritual guide. Yet, while men could join one of the new,
Jesuit-founded Marian sodalities, Münster’s women were excluded from
this hugely successful initiative. Consequently, Mary did not grow in spiritual significance for women in the seventeenth century, nor for that matter did any other female saint. The significance of the Catholic reforms
for women was therefore complex and diverse : while some women had
their freedoms severely curtailed, others found new ways to participate.
The surprisingly rich variety of archival treasures from Münster have
introduced us to many different women—nuns, concubines, Lichtmütter,
sorceresses, maidservants, wives, and widows—all of whom experienced
Catholic reform differently, but each one of them, in her own distinctive
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Index
adultery 96–7
punishment of 81–2
afterlife 51
and memorial masses 67–8
see also death
age
and canon law 141
and enclosure 19
and female religious houses 43
and male sexuality 89
and marriage 99, 106
old age 164
and physical frailty 155–6
and service 112, 113
Alfing, Sabine 165
altars 40, 66
and bequests 60–1, 62, 168
destruction of 5
and marriage 83
Alstorff, Winand 28
Amsterdam 92
Anabaptist Kingdom 5
and convents 17, 31, 34
Philip Melanchthon 81
and polygamy 80–1, 170
siege of Münster 6
Anabaptists
and fall of Münster 6, 7, 8, 170
and guilds 7
immigration to Münster 6
recruitment of 5
women 6–7
anticlericalism 153
Arnauld, Angélique 23
Augsburg 96
baptism 65, 76, 109
Basel 95, 96
bathhouse 115, 117, 118
Bavaria
and clerical concubinage 136
and customs 90
and female sexuality 96
Lichtmütter in 66
marriage policies 13, 22, 105
beggars 45, 73–4
beguinages 17
bells
during funerals 66
during funeral processions 69
Bernhard von Raesfeld, Bishop of
Münster 136
Bertrand, Maria Alexia 47
betrothal
and marriage 82
traditional practice 96–7, 115,
117, 118
and virginity 132
bigamy 84, 86
bishopric
of Münster 5, 79
bishops 12, 18
and Catholic reform 108
and city council 18
and city court 78
and city of Münster 6, 46
and clerical concubinage 136
and enclosure of nuns 19, 22
and Tridentine decrees 11, 70, 106
Bocholtt, Johannes 144–6
Böckers, Elseke 87
bodily harm 104–5, 109, 124
Bömer, Tönniß 86–7
books 41, 71, 99
bookselling 11
censorship and prohibited 11
Council of Trent 83
Borckhorst, Johannes 148, 151
breach of promise 84–5, 87–8, 89,
91, 95, 96
Brinck, Bernhard von 51, 98–100,
102
Brintrup, Adelheid zu 119–21
brothels 115, 117; see also
bathhouse
Brüchten 144, 146
Brüning, Bernd 83–5, 87
Bruns, Anna 86
Bruns, Getrud 128–9, 131
Buddenbaums, Elsa 130
Buddenbrinck, Henricus 86
Bünge, Johann 131
Bünichmann, Widow 95
Büren, Arnold von 30
Burghartz, Susannah 95
burials and cemeteries 55, 63–4,
161, 173
burial conflicts 10
210Index
Caessum, Menolschi 91–2
Calvin, Jean 76
Calvinism 2, 43
Calvinist territories 5, 92
Canisius, Peter 77, 97
canon law 80, 84, 116, 146
Capuchins 29, 42, 51, 56, 60
Carolina 119
catechisms 4, 77
classes 43, 108
Catemann, Johann 112–14
cathedral chapter 11, 12, 23, 30–1, 41,
45, 139, 148, 149, 151, 154, 162,
165, 166,169
cathedral of Münster 15, 46, 51, 55, 57,
67, 174
Catholic League 151
Cavallo, Sandra 72
Chamber Courts; see courts
charity 27, 35, 48, 52, 54, 59, 60, 70–4,
172; see also poor funds; poor houses;
poor relief; the poor
Chigi, Fabio 10, 40, 44; see also popes
child abandonment 118
children 4, 11, 17, 27, 32, 41, 44, 45, 48,
51, 71, 72, 84, 88, 91, 94, 95, 97,
98, 99, 100, 101, 108, 112–13, 115,
116–18, 120–2, 124, 131, 138, 149,
154, 165
church 2, 33, 70
buildings 40, 56, 61, 168
careers 9, 138, 166
pews 62
and women 4, 13, 173
see also celibacy; concubinage; clergy
Circa Pastoralis, papal bull 20
citizenship 11, 82, 94, 103, 116,
163, 165
city council 78, 80, 82, 95, 97, 109, 111,
119, 128, 132, 154, 170
and begging 72–4
and Bishop Ernst 10, 18
and Bishop Ferdinand 137
Bürgermeisters 42, 44, 131
composition of 7–8, 78
confessional factions 6, 8
elections of 6, 8
and guilds 27–8, 57
and the Jesuits 57
and poor relief 61, 70, 73, 172
religious policy of 6, 13, 24–8, 41–2,
45, 54, 58
Clerc, Alix le 36–7
clergy, Catholic 52, 55, 60, 79, 167
abuses of 144, 152–3
and burghers 70
and concubinage 1, 134–9, 142–8,
151, 169
instruction of 159
number in Münster 15, 111
privileges of 42, 44, 154
reform of 9–11, 152, 155–7, 165, 171
see also St Aegidii; St Lamberti; St
Ludgeri; St Martini; St Servatii;
Überwasser
Cologne 9, 10, 15, 24, 28, 30, 31, 40, 41,
55, 94, 128
communion 8, 9, 11, 66, 76, 108, 159
community 3–4, 38, 42, 47, 67, 90, 94,
109–10, 111, 116, 129, 173
assistance of 59, 71
attitudes of 13, 35, 45, 48, 54, 66, 74,
88, 112, 123–4, 133, 145, 155–6,
162, 165, 171–2
concubines 12, 13, 14, 147, 149, 151,
152, 158, 159, 160–2, 166–9,
171–2, 174
confession 156, 159
confessional identity 8–9, 29, 168
confessionalization 83
confessionalization theory 2, 3, 77
confraternities 62, 69, 94
types of 68
Congrégation de Notre-Dame 17, 23,
36–46, 48
consent 84, 88
consummation 83
convents 12, 17, 19–23, 29, 33, 36,
45, 47, 76
Council of Trent (1545-63) 1, 11–12,
19, 29, 67, 70, 79, 82, 95, 105, 134,
141, 152, 165; see also Tridentine
decrees
Counter-Reformation and Catholic
reform 2, 4, 5, 10, 12, 13, 21, 22,
29, 49, 63–4, 74, 169, 173, 174
courts 33, 92, 95–6, 110, 141
Chamber Court 79
city court 52, 78, 80, 82–4, 86, 88, 91,
93 97, 100, 102–3, 104, 106, 111,
112, 115–17, 119, 121–33
city judge 78
Ecclesiastical Court 79
legal reforms 79, 106
Offizialat 79–80, 83–4, 86, 106
synods 80
Crane, Gerhard 156
crown 63, 64
of pearls 90
of straw 90
Index
Dalmeida, Emmanuel 78, 86
death 51, 54, 57, 58, 60, 63, 77, 98, 100,
105, 118, 171
preparations for 53, 67, 68, 74
devil, the 65, 67, 120, 128, 129, 153
dimittiren 140, 142
dirne 142
Discalded Carmelites 22, 25
domestic partnership 99, 101–3, 106–7,
142, 160, 162, 172
Dominicans 42, 51, 60
Dorsell, Anneke 116–18
dowries 34, 43, 106, 113, 132
dress 58, 64, 82
clerical dress 41, 145
dressing images and statues 52, 64
habits 34, 35
drunkenness 126, 127, 153
Dykman, Arnd 103
Ecclesiastical council 9, 11, 136, 139
Ecclesiastical Court; see courts
education 162
of the clergy 9, 11
and convents 17, 36, 38, 41, 43,
173, 174
and gender 43, 71, 172
and the Jesuits 172
of the laity 41, 43, 45, 174
see also catechisms; Jesuits
Eichholt, Sebastian 88–90, 91
elites 8, 9, 12, 17, 23, 34, 36, 48,
enclosure 23–4, 25, 47–8
and the Congrégation de
Notre-Dame 37, 38–9, 47
and the Council of Trent 12,
19–20, 23
and gender 4
resistance against 21, 24
at Ringe Convent 17, 24–9, 46, 171
support for 22–3
after Trent 11
at Überwasser Convent 31–2, 46,
162, 171
and the Ursulines 37
at Vinnenberg Convent 161
Engelinck, Gerd 91
Ernst von Bayern, Archbishop of
Cologne
Bishop of Münster 9, 10, 136, 139,
168, 171
patronage of 9, 10, 18, 57
Eucharist 153, 168
Evangelisti, Silvia 20–1
execution 94, 120, 128, 144
211
feasts 26, 54, 56, 70, 83, 88, 90
Feiken, Hille 6
feasts 26, 54, 56, 70, 83, 88, 90
Feiken, Hille 6
Ferdinand von Bayern, Archbishop of
Cologne
Bishop of Münster 10, 138
and Catholic reform 11, 18, 30, 41,
108, 147, 168, 171
and clerical concubinage 137-40, 145,
147-8, 151, 158, 162
and convents 24, 28, 44
patronage of 42, 55
prosecution of witchcraft 128
fines 82, 85, 86, 89, 90, 144, 145, 146
Flüchter, Antje 135
food and drink 27, 41, 59, 70, 109, 115,
117, 118, 125, 127, 141, 153, 154,
fornication 81, 95, 96, 118
Fourier, Pierre 36–9, 43
France 4, 36, 38, 41, 42, 47
Franciscans, Minoriten 28, 51, 53–7, 59,
60, 130
Franz von Waldeck, Bishop of
Münster 6, 8, 18
Franzen, August 135
Fridaghe, Elisabeth 18
funerals 65–6, 69, 173
preparations for 26
processions 69
see also burials
Galen, Christoph Bernhard von, Princebishop of Münster 9, 169
gambling 125, 153
Gemeinheit 7, 11
Gerdings, Elsa 103
Germany 4, 5, 12, 40, 47, 77, 105, 106,
135, 168, 169
Gesamtgilde 7
gossip 109–10, 128
conflict resolution 109, 128, 132–3
courts 133, 143, 157
and female honour 110, 127
neighbourhood 109, 127, 130, 132
Greßmann, Niclas 86
Grieser, Jonathan 17, 34
guilds 12
and Anabaptism 7
and convents 28–9, 42, 44–8, 58
discrimination of 92, 94, 116, 132
and Jesuits 9–10, 18, 57
and Reformation 6, 7, 17
Guillelmin, Marie Augustine 47
Guillelmin, Marie Jeanne 47
212Index
Hartmann, Johannes 139, 148, 149, 154,
161, 164
Heggemans, Catrina 131
Hemsing, Johann 86
Hellemann, Anne 86
heresy 11, 33, 104, 139, 168
Hoete, Elisabeth von 64
Hofringe, Convent of 15, 17, 59, 62
Holzem, Andreas 80, 82, 83, 93, 128, 136
honour 13, 35, 55, 78, 92, 94, 100, 106,
123, 124, 129, 145, 163
female 72, 86, 88, 90, 92, 95–6, 111,
115, 118, 124, 131–2, 141, 162–5
Horst, Elsabe von 165
households 92, 101, 103, 106, 113, 170
and Hausväter 99, 102, 113
and servants 13, 111–4, 117, 141
Hövel, Johan 122, 124
Hsia, Ronnie Po-Chia 7, 12, 47, 65, 68
Hülshorst, Catrina 95
Hülsmann, Bernd 103–4
Hundebecke, Anna 113
husbands 124
expectations of 98–9, 101
misbehaviour of 92, 105
responsibilities of 99, 103, 106, 111
Ignatius of Loyola 36, 37
illegitimacy 92–3, 116, 118
infanticide 119–21
Italy 4, 37, 38, 42
judicial records 52, 78–9
Jesus Christ 50, 63, 64, 112, 167
Jesuit College 9, 36, 53, 57, 60, 169,
172, 174
Jesuits; see Society of Jesus
Johann von Hoya, Bishop of Münster 79
Kerlvinck, Johannes 155–6
Kerstiens, Georg 149–50
kin 3, 110
Kohl, Wilhelm 163, 165, 166
Knepper, Cunigunde 101–2
Könninck, Catrinen 103
Kranefeldt, Clara 87
Labouvie, Eva 135
Lange, Henrich 117–18
lawyers 12, 150
Ledebur, Heinrich 165
Leiden, Jan van 6
Lichtmütter 65–6, 75, 174
linen weavers 42, 151
Lomann, Widow 84–5, 86, 87
Lorraine 17, 36, 37, 38, 39, 47
Löwenstein, Martha 50–1, 97–100, 102
Lüleßmann, Elsa 119–20
Luther, Martin 76, 167
Lutheranism 2, 5, 8
Lutherans 5, 10
Marian sodalities 56, 57, 65, 174
marriages 13, 82–3, 97, 170
attitudes to 101, 102–3, 106–7,
117, 141
canon law 94, 95, 97, 155
clandestine 136, 141
and free will 97
regulation of 13, 96–7, 105–6, 114
sacrament 76–7
Mary, the Virgin 33, 35, 50, 52, 65, 90
devotion to 56, 60, 64, 65, 69, 174
Matthys, Jan 6
Maximilian I, Duke of Bavaria 13, 22,
105, 171
Melanchthon, Philip 81
Merfeldt, Ida van 17–18, 34
Michalowitz, Friedrich 104
Middendorp, Catrinen 92–3
midwives 119
Moltke, Sophie von 34
Monson, Craig 21
Montecalvi, Giulia 21
Morssen, Bernd 103
mothers 4, 43, 91, 118, 119, 121, 125,
160, 164
Munich 9, 21, 171
Münster, city of 68, 70, 72, 74, 80, 85,
96, 105, 115, 118, 119, 128, 142,
145, 151, 163, 170, 173
Münsterland 7, 93
neighbourhood 13, 68, 109–10, 123–4,
127, 128, 129, 133, 173
neighbours 110, 113, 118, 122–4, 125–8,
129, 130
Netherlands, the 29
and Anabaptism 6, 7
Niesing, Convent of 15, 17, 23, 48, 60
notaries 12, 50, 78, 150–1, 169
Nydders, Anna 161, 164
Observants, Franciscans 24–5, 28–9, 42,
51, 55, 56, 57
Offizialat; see courts
O’Malley, John 3, 173
orphanage 51, 121
Paderborn 41, 47
parishes 5, 53, 60–6, 70, 73, 75, 82, 83,
151, 173, 174
Index
see also St Aegidii; St Lamberti; St
Ludgeri; St Martini; St Servatii;
Überwasser
patriarchy 12, 22, 110, 170
patriciate 8, 15, 34
see also elites
Peace of Westphalia
negotiations 40, 44
Periculoso decree 19–20
Pfannekuchen, Agnes 93
pilgrimages 65, 174
police ordinances 81–2
polygamy 5, 80–1, 170
poor, the 22, 35, 51–4, 59–60, 66,
70–4, 121
Poor Clares, Convent of 17, 20, 23–5,
27–8, 42, 46, 48, 51, 57–9,
60, 174
poor funds 52, 54, 70, 71, 172
poor houses 27, 35, 51, 60, 62, 66, 71–2,
73, 74, 173
poor relief 35, 62, 70, 73, 173
popes 9, 29, 136, 138
Alexander VII 10, 40
Boniface VIII 20
Pius V 20, 136
Port-Royal, Convent of 23
prayers 25, 26, 29, 35, 43, 48, 51, 52, 59,
60, 64, 67, 69, 146
pregnancy 119–21, 132, 133
Prick, Theodora 78, 86
priests; see clergy
processions 65, 69, 173
property 81, 107
and Anabaptist Kingdom 5
disputes over 72
and married women 99, 102
and religious houses 15, 28, 42,
45, 54
prostitution 89, 115–18, 142; see also
bathhouse, brothels
Protestant Reformation 4, 6, 19, 76, 79,
157, 171
Pumpmacher, Enneke 110, 112, 114, 118
Pütrich Convent 21
Reine, Convent of 17
Reinhard, Wolfgang 2
Ringe, Convent of 17, 23, 24–9, 34, 46,
48, 55, 58, 149
Rome 9, 10, 29, 139
Roper, Lyndal 96
Rosental, Convent of 17, 62
Rothmann, Bernd 5, 6
Rublack, Hans-Christoph 157
Rublack, Ulinka 120
213
saints 6, 11, 21, 33, 50, 55, 65, 130, 174
Santa Cristina della Fondazza,
Convent of 21
Sant’ Omobono, Convent of 21
Schademann, Lisabeth 91–2
Schafsmeister, Karl 138
Schilling, Heinz 2, 146
Schoonhoven, Agatha van 1, 4, 172
Schreiber, Gertrud 88–9
Scorel, Jan van 1
Sellmeier, Claes 92–3
seminary 11, 159–60, 169
separation 104–5
sermons 4, 6, 23, 55, 56, 57, 67, 174
servants 113, 117, 121, 126–7
servant girls 111–17, 119–21, 125,
132–3, 141–2, 155–7, 160, 172, 174
shrines 65, 164
Sommer, Johan 104–5
sorcery 128–32
St Aegidii
Church of 54, 55, 61, 66, 69
Convent of 15, 23, 31, 34, 35,
36, 43, 48
parish of 54, 61, 69, 70
St Anne 35, 56, 168
St Catherine 55
St Lamberti
Church of 5, 6, 51, 55, 60, 66, 123
parish of 51, 55, 70, 136
St Ludgeri
Church of 26, 29, 55, 64
parish of 61, 70, 83
St Martini
Church of 55, 61, 66
parish of 54, 55, 70
St Mauritz 51
St Peter 68
St Servatii 61, 70
Society of Jesus 9, 36, 37, 42, 59, 77,
108, 172
and city politics 10, 12, 18, 57
legacies to 53, 54, 56–7, 60
and Marian devotion 65
opponents of 18, 53, 57
support for 9, 18, 53, 54, 56–7
and women 174
see also Jesuit College
state-building 105, 171
statues 52, 64
Steinbickers, Elsa 166
Steinhorst, Greta zum 115, 130
Stemping, Anna 163
Strasser, Ulrike 21, 22, 105
Stromberg, Jakob 87–8
Stumme, Anna 120–1
214Index
Stumpenhagen, Enneke 33
sumptuary laws 109
Telgte 65, 174
Teresa of Avila 22–3, 25
Tieß, Anna 103–4
Thirty Years’ War 12, 41, 42, 73, 151
Thomfelde, Grete 33
Tom Ring, Nikolaus 63
torture 6, 103, 129, 130
Treuetaler 87
Tridentine decrees 9, 11, 20, 23, 24, 46,
79, 105, 106
Trier 39–40
Tünneken, Engele 24–6, 28
Tympius, Matthaeus 4, 65, 67, 69
Überwasser
Church of 55, 60, 61, 62, 64, 69, 149
Convent of 15, 17, 18, 23, 29–35, 43,
46, 48, 58, 62, 161, 162, 171
parish of (Liebfrauen-Überwasser) 17,
70, 136
Ursulines 36–8, 40, 41
Varwick, Catharina 122, 124, 126–7
vicarages 52, 54
violence 39, 104–5, 109, 124, 129
Vinne, Hermann 125, 127
Vinnenberg, Convent of 31, 161
visitations, church 8, 10, 11, 23, 29–31,
108, 136, 139, 143, 149
Vizzana, Lucrezia Orsina 21
Volbert, Gertrud 125–7
Volbert, Johann 125–7
Volmers, Anna 165
Volmers, Christina 121–4
Vörden, Ida von 32–3
vows 31, 33, 149
Warendorf 97, 152–3, 159, 168
Warendorp, Gudela 64
Ward, Mary 58
Weingartner, Trine 110, 115
Westphalia 7, 15, 36, 55, 56, 149, 169
Wibbeken, Widow 131
Wibbeling, Heinrich 128–31
widows 4, 52, 56, 57, 59, 60, 61,
71, 79, 84–5, 86, 87, 95, 99, 131,
163, 174
Wiggers, Johannes 140, 142–3
Wiggers, Nikolaus 28–9
Wilckens, Dietherich Stephani 164–7
wills 48, 52–60, 59, 61, 65, 66, 68, 69,
72, 74, 78, 98, 173
commendation formulae 52
number of 52
witchcraft 128–9
see also sorcery
Wittelsbach dynasty 10, 22, 168
wives 91, 101, 170
battered 101–2, 104–5
expectations of 99, 101, 106, 111, 121,
123, 127
legal strategies of 92–3, 131
misbehaviour of 104, 116, 125
Wydinck, Heidenrich 131
Wye, Bernd zur 86