9 - Literature and the Choir Nuns of Windesheim

Summary

We began this study by situating the Modern Devotion in the larger context of medieval reform movements, as outlined by Grundmann. The Modern Devotion does indeed fit well into the pattern of successive reform movements, but its rise and flourishing too have their own dynamic. The reform movement of the northern Low Countries arose from circumstances similar to earlier movements, but developed its own ideal of the return to the roots of Christian spirituality. The same holds true for the women of the Modern Devotion. The second movement of female religious bears many similarities to the first, but it was certainly not spawned directly from it. Here, too, we may speak of a movement developing independently with its own characteristic features.

In a sense the nuns of Windesheim constitute the core of the second movement of female religious, in that from the very beginning they embodied the monastic way of life that represented the ideal for the bulk of the female devout. The choir nuns of Windesheim have left behind a fairly extensive corpus of writings. Grundmann argues that this, too, is a hallmark of late medieval reform movements. These authors did not write because the production of texts held any intrinsic value for them. For the nuns of Windesheim writing always served a higher purpose, the improvement of the religious life, and through their work we can gain insight into their spiritual lives. Nowhere else is the voice of the choir nuns of Windesheim so clearly heard as in their writings. The disciplines of philology and literature therefore can also be valuable in studying the minds and attitudes of these women.

This concluding chapter attempts to construct a coherent picture of the spirituality of the nuns of the Chapter of Windesheim, and determine the place occupied by texts within that spirituality. A number of threads developed in the previous chapters are gathered together here and where possible related to one another. Of central importance are questions concerning the significance texts and writings had for the nuns of Windesheim. There are three main themes here. First, the place occupied by study and literature in the daily lives of the Windesheim nuns will be discussed (§9.1).