5 - Written Instructions

Summary

For the Windesheimers, books and writing constituted exceptional and effective instruments of reform. This is perhaps most clearly illustrated by the Chapter's decree of 1434, in which the affiliated monasteries are instructed to burn all paper copies of the Constitutiones Capituli Windeshemensis and, where possible, to erase and correct copies on parchment. Every monastery was to procure its own copy of the newly completed revision of the constitutions, to be made from one of the three authorised exemplars circulating through the Chapter. The accurate recording of the Windesheim monastic ideal functioned as a weapon in the fight against spiritual decay, a process that had taken hold time and again in the older orders.By means of an allusion to the Rule of St Augustine, the prologue to the Constitutiones monialium explains why writing of this kind is necessary. Unity of form promotes unity of the heart, and that unity can be better preserved if the forms are fixed, so that they may be constantly consulted. The constitutions were to be read in their entirety by the entire convent each year. And the Rule of St Augustine, the spiritual foundation of the Windesheim conventual life, was repeatedly and continually read within the female houses.

Thus in the Windesheim convents, written instructions for living fulfilled a clear role in maintaining the observance. When the nuns themselves had the opportunity to take up the pen, it was more often than not to lend their fellow sisters spiritual support. This chapter analyses a number of texts in which the primary purpose is instruction. Often not only are their contents but also their transmission associated with a reform movement.

Salome Sticken's Vivendi formula is a rule for living for a group of sisters who had only just established a religious community. The famous prioress of Diepenveen had been asked to give them advice in their endeavour (§5.1). And the letters which the nuns of Windesheim frequently sent and received also dealt often with spiritual instruction. Correspondence was one of the few means whereby a nun (bound by enclosure) could make contact with the outside world. But here, too, severe restrictions were imposed; no letters could be written or received without the permission of the rector or prioress.