The Modern Devout and the Inquisition

KOEN GOUDRIAAN The Modern Devout and the Inquisition The Devotio Moderna is generally recognized now as a thoroughly orthodox movement.1 It is also a well known fact, however, that in its early days the adherents met with ecclesiastical opposition, sharing the fate of so many cham- pions of renewal of the Church and of religious life. In the 1390s they felt obliged to assemble legal material in order to underpin their status. In doing so they gave a more precise definition of the way of life they propagated. At some point in time the New Devout even attracted the attention of the inquisitor. Because of the importance attached to this episode in explaining the direc- tion taken by the movement, it has received the attention of researchers repeat- edly. Recent contributions have greatly increased our understanding of the writ- ings the New Devout produced during this period.2 In his Sisters and Brothers of the Common Life, John Van Engen reserved an important section to the turbulent decade preceding the recognition.3 And in this periodical Michael Raley published new findings on the chronology of the inquisitorial activities against the New Devout,4 which necessitate a thorough rethinking of the whole episode. Both last mentioned publications give occasion to some contradiction at several points. Sources for this period are not really scanty, but a substantial part of them lack exact dating. They are partly hostile: a couple of documents produced by the Inquisition; partly in favour of the Devout: a series of consilia (legal advices). The sources have been assembled a century ago by Paul Fredericq in his collection of texts on the Inquisition in the Low Countries.5 He published them in – what he supposed to be – the correct chronological order. To the present day, the convenience of having this seemingly coherent dossier at hand makes this tool particularly attractive to historians, as has been well argued by Raley.6 Nevertheless, the inaccuracy of some of Fredericq’s dates has become apparent by now. 1 The classical treatment is Post, Modern Devotion. 2 See, among other publications, the volume edited by Nikolaus Staubach, Kirchenreform von unten. Gerhard Zerbolt von Zutphen und die Brüder vom gemeinsamen Leben (Frankfurt am Main etcetera 2004); the contributions to this volume originated in papers given at a colloquium in Münster (Germany) in 1998 to commemorate the 600th anniversary of the death of Gerhard Zerbolt. Other treatments of this episode: Post, Modern Devotion, 276-288, which is outdated now; Rehm, Schwestern, 149-157; Klausmann, Consuetudo, 106-109; Makowski, “A Pernicious sort of Woman”, 115-135; and Hildo van Engen, Derde orde, 85-110. 3 John Van Engen, Sisters, 91-115. 4 Raley, ‘Revised Chronology’. 5 Fredericq, Corpus. 6 Raley, ‘Revised Chronology’, 57. Ons Geestelijk Erf 89(1), 50-91. doi: 10.2143/OGE.89.1.3285126 © Ons Geestelijk Erf. All rights reserved. THE MODERN DEVOUT AND THE INQUISITION 51 Generally speaking, scholars have been remarkably willing to accept the threatened position of the New Devout as self-evident. Partly, they were prevailed upon by general considerations concerning the suspicion which was the fate of every new religious movement since the prohibition of new orders issued by the Fourth Lateran Council (1215), and especially after the severe decrees of the Council of Vienne (1311, published 1317). Apart from that, the peculiar course of historiography on the Modern Devotion does much to explain this attitude. It is of such a nature as to invite scholars to give a maximum interpretation of the evidence concerning the opposition to the movement in its early phase. Individual documents are read in this specific light and the con- nections between them are construed according to a paradigm dominated by the twin notions of threat and protection. The present contribution focuses on the decade ending in 1400. This was not the only period in the early development of the Modern Devotion in which it had to cope with opposition. To start with, Geert Grote felt obliged to take precau- tions lest the sisters of the community in Deventer he had assembled from 1374 onwards, fell victim to the suspicion of heresy.7 And although the Common Life of the Brethren and Sisters was approved by the bishop of Utrecht in 1401,8 and despite the fact that their close kindred, the Tertiaries of the diocese of Utrecht, had received papal recognition already in 1399,9 an attack was launched by the Dominican lector Matthew Grabow in the years 1415-1419.10 But the danger perceived in the 1370s and the events of the 1410s are not directly related to the episode in the 1390s; therefore they will be left out of account here. Instead, this article concentrates wholly on the period immediately preceding the recognition. The key argument will be that during this decade there was no overall threat to the New Devout by the Inquisition. Arguments will be adduced against the hypothesis that the recognition of the Devout in the years 1399- 1401 was the outcome of the opposition of the preceding decade. In order to create the necessary distance to the topic a long term view will be taken on historiographical developments within modern scholarship on the Devotio Moderna; the next two sections will be devoted to this task. Following this, the main pieces of evidence – the inquisitorial documents and the legal consilia – will be treated separately and assigned their proper place whenever that is possible. Eventually, an effort will be made to reconstruct the course of events, 7 The main source for this episode is the long version of the statutes of the so-called Master Geert’s House, dated 1379. Edition of both the long and the short version of the statutes: Post, ‘De statuten’. New critical edition: Marinus van den Berg, in: Van Dijk, Salome Sticken, 307-333. Recent discussions: Weiler, ‘Geert Grote en begijnen’; Bollmann, Frauenleben und Frauenlite ratur, 56-79; Klausmann, ‘Die ältesten Satzungen’; Hildo van Engen, Derde orde, 87 note 3; John Van Engen, Sisters, 65. 8 Decree by bishop Frederick of Blankenheim (30 April 1401). Editions: Hofman, ‘Broeders van ’t gemeene leven’, 229-235; Schoengen, Narratio, 512-514. 9 Bull Ad ea quae divini cultus (26 September 1399). Edition: De Kok, Bijdragen, 169-170. 10 Recent treatment of this episode: Staubach, ‘Zwischen Kloster und Welt?’; John Van Engen, Sisters, 212-218. 52 KOEN GOUDRIAAN making use not only of dates mentioned explicitly, but also of the clues to events and to their relative chronology contained within the various documents. THREAt AND PROtECtION: tHE MENDICANtS From the moment serious study of the history of the Modern Devotion started in the nineteenth century, the conviction has prevailed that the Brethren and Sisters of the Common Life were in urgent need of protection against the attacks of malevolent ecclesiastics. The origins of this idea reach at least as far back as the work of the Dutch church historians Willem Moll and his pupil J.G.R. Acquoy. These two scholars, more than anybody else, succeeded in put- ting the Modern Devotion on the agenda of historical research.11 Both were Protestants, but they were relatively free from the tendency to interpret the Modern Devotion as essentially a kind of Pre-reformation.12 This did not pre- vent them from introducing contemporary items in their interpretation of the Modern Devotion and its opponents. Moll, in particular, adhered to the modern- izing, liberal strand in nineteenth-century theological thought and combated what he considered to be ‘dead’ orthodoxy. In studying the late medieval religious revival in the Netherlands, he gave a fair treatment to the monastic branch of the Modern Devotion, the Chapter of Windesheim, but he did not conceal his preference for the Brethren and Sisters of the Common Life.13 In addition to their practical piety (as opposed to mysticism), he stressed the ‘free’ character of their gatherings, which distinguished them clearly from regular canons and other monastics who were bound by vows and obedience to a rule. That freedom was interpreted by Moll in his Kerkgeschiedenis as both in accordance with the Dutch ‘national’ character and as innovative in comparison with tra- ditional narrow and sterile orthodoxy. In Moll’s view, the mendicants reflected exactly the type of orthodoxy he rejected.14 They opposed the renewal introduced by the Brethren and Sisters of the Common Life, and could not have done otherwise. In his earlier work on Johannes Brugman, Moll’s position was slightly more nuanced: he allowed for ‘narrowness’ among the Brethren and Sisters more fully. But here, too, the mendicants figure as representatives of a devotion which had degenerated into ‘dogmatism’ and ‘methodism’,15 two phenomena which Moll detested in their nineteenth-century appearance. And though Acquoy, due to the choice of his 11 Moll, Brugman. Idem, Kerkgeschiedenis. Acquoy, Windesheim. 12 As did their contemporary C. Ullmann, Reformatoren vor der Reformation (1866) and later scholars such as A. Hyma, The Christian Renaissance (1924). Critical examinations of this tendency: Post, Modern Devotion, 1-49; Roelink, ‘Moderne Devotie en Reformatie’; Jelsma, ‘Door- werking van de Moderne Devotie’. 13 On Moll as a Protestant medievalist who was appreciated by his Roman Catholic compatriots see Brom, Romantiek en katholicisme in Nederland. II: Wetenschap en staatkunde, 101-118. 14 Moll, Kerkgeschiedenis, II, 2, 166-167; 3, 95. 15 Moll, Brugman, I, 56-59. THE MODERN DEVOUT AND THE INQUISITION 53 topic, focused on the monasteries of the Chapter of Windesheim rather than on the Brethren and Sisters of the Common Life, he shared the general apprecia- tions of his master.16 In later historiography, the Modern Devout turned into precursors of Human- ism and Protestantism, but that could only reinforce the role of the mendicants as the villains of the story.

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