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Wessel Gansfort As a Teacher at the Cistercian Abbey of Aduard

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Wessel Gansfort As a Teacher at the Cistercian Abbey of Aduard WESSEL GANSFORT AS A TEACHER AT THE CISTERCIAN ABBEY OF ADUARD. THE DISMISSAL OF CAESARIUS OF HEISTERBACH'S DIALOGUS MIRACULORUM Jaap van Moolenbroek After travelling throughout Western Europe for more than twenty- five years, master Wessel of Groningen setded permanently in his native country, probably in 1477.1 As he himself in one of his letters indicated, he had always sought out debate and had encountered many opponents at the many universities he had come to know.2 In the diocese of Utrecht the ageing theologian-philosopher could count on the protection of Bishop David of Burgundy, who appointed Wessel as his counsellor and personal physician on his return. Wessel gave up medicine around 1481 on his return from Zwolle to Groningen, the city of his birth. There, the Tertiary Sisters of the Olde Convent accommodated him on the recommendation of (again) Bishop David.3 After he had left the academic arena, the desire to enunciate and defend his ideas hardly abated. In the years 1477-1489 he wrote or completed a large number of texts of a theological and devotional nature. The nine instructive letters, which have come down to us, also date from this period. Moreover, Wessel often had the oppor­ tunity to teach and engage in debate. It is argued that he taught Scripture to the Sisters of the Olde Convent, although there is no 1 Biography by Van Rhijn, Wessel Gansfort, 23-155 (in need of revision). Arguments for the year 1477 (r.1475, according to Van Rhijn) in my 'The Correspondence' (forthcoming). 2 Wessel's collected works in Opera (1614). The letters: numbers and dating in my 'The Correspondence'. The quote ("Circuivi multas universitates, et certamina quaerens multos reperi contradictores"): ep. 5, in Opera, 865. Wessel stayed in the university cities Cologne, Paris, Heidelberg, Angers, Rome, Basle. 3 Van Rhijn, Wessel Gansfort, 101 (protection), 136-138 (removal), supplemented with Van Rhijn, Studiën, 105-106 (letter of appointment dated 1 Jan. 1479) and Bakker, 'A commemorative Mass', 23 (Olde Convent). On the protection by Bishop David see also my 'Wessel Gansfort en de inquisitie'. 114 JAAP VAN MOOLENBROEK evidence for this.4 But it is undeniably true that he regularly visited the monasteries of the canons regular of Saint Agnietenberg near Zwolle and the Cistercian monks at Aduard near Groningen for tuition and debate. Here I would like to throw some light upon his relations with Aduard. How intensive were these, and what do we know about the tenor and meaning of his tuition? In recent publications about what has been termed the 'Aduard Academy', insufficient light has been shed on the role Wessel played in this environment. It is a little- known fact that Wessel wrote a letter to a monk at Aduard about a controversial theological subject. I would like to pay special atten­ tion to the information that Wessel disapproved of the readings from the Dialogus miraculorum by Caesarius of Heisterbach that were cus­ tomary during the meals of the monks, after which this text was abandoned for readings in the refectory. Why did Wessel consider this classic of the Cistercian order to be dangerous instruction for the Cistercian monks of his own time? It will first be necessary to elaborate briefly upon the scarce source material about the relations between Wessel and Aduard. The letter to the chaplain of Aduard Among Wessel's writings is an interesting letter about purgatory, the first words of which had already been lost when it was published for the first time in 1522, including the name of the addressee.5 His office and residence can be determined, however. He appears to have been a monk and through "my Henry" (apparently Wessel's messenger) Wessel heard a statement from this man which challenged him to a response. A short letter written by Wessel to Johannes of Amsterdam, a regular canon of the Agnietenberg near Zwolle, and delivered by "our Henry", is enlightening in this respect. It is in fact a letter accompanying a copy of the beginning of a disputation that had arisen with the chaplain in Aduard concerning purgatory.6 The 4 Rummel, 'Voices of Reform', 73. Weiler, 'The Dutch Brethren', 311. 5 Ep. 3, first printed by Simon Corver, Zwolle (NK 2202), reprinted by Petrus Pappus à Tratzberg in Opera, 857-860. Van Rhijn did not discuss this letter. 6 Ep. 4, Opera, 863-864. .
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