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Observant Memory and Propaganda in Johannes of Mainz's Vita fratrum predicatorum conventus Basiliensis (1442–1444)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2018

Anne Huijbers
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Abstract

This article presents an unpublished and largely unexplored source written in Basel during the international church council, the Vita fratrum predicatorum conventus Basiliensis (1442–1444). It deals with the reform of the Dominican friary, which was effectuated just before the start of the council to prevent scandals. Johannes of Mainz, its author, was the first lector of the reformed friary and wrote the text to corroborate the reformed religious identity of his community. He presented the reform of the Basel friary—which aroused fervent opposition of the original inhabitants—as a new episode in the history of salvation. A second part of the Vita fratrum eulogized the characteristics that Observant friars have in common. By “othering” Conventual friars and by depicting their horrible deaths, Johannes tried both to convince the Observant Basel friars of their superiority over Conventuals and to exhort them to stick to an Observant lifestyle. Unfaithful friars, the narrative warned, were eradicated from the celestial vineyard. For the last part of the Vita fratrum, which presents “the most fruitful plants” of the vineyard, Johannes of Mainz drew up personal and original biographies of contemporary Dominicans, such as Johannes Nider (d. 1438), who is presented as a “mirror of observance” and a “doctor of souls.”

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Church History , Volume 87 , Issue 3 , September 2018 , pp. 718 - 739
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Copyright © American Society of Church History 2018 

From the end of the fourteenth century onward, nearly all religious orders were affected by Observant reform initiatives. Perceiving a decline in religious observances, members of religious orders felt a need to restore their damaged reputation and therefore tried to return to the pristine rule and constitutions from their founding years.Footnote 1 Institutional writings, such as convent chronicles and collective biographies, inform us about the conscious and active self-representation of newly reformed religious communities.Footnote 2 This paper examines the hitherto unpublished Vita fratrum predicatorum conventus Basiliensis written by the Dominican Johannes of Mainz (d. 1457).Footnote 3 It sheds light on the life within the reformed friary of Basel around the time of the international church council (1431–1448), which for a while turned the city (and its Dominican friary) into the center of the Christian world.Footnote 4

The Vita fratrum consists of three distinct parts. The first part introduces the history and the reform of the community. In a second part, Johannes of Mainz specifically thematized the characteristics of Observant friars and thus provides precious insight into the Dominican Observant ideals at the time of the church council. The third and longest part concentrates on the virtuous lives of twenty-four Observant friars active in the reformed convent between 1429 and 1444. The eulogies present new information about exemplary Dominicans, such as Johannes Nider (d. 1438), who is considered “one of the most important church reformers of the early fifteenth century.”Footnote 5 The chronicle survives in one manuscript only, but its content was disseminated further than the single manuscript witness might indicate. Johannes Meyer, the main chronicler of Dominican Observant reform in the German lands, reproduced large parts of the Vita fratrum in his own works.

This paper shows how, by writing his Vita fratrum, Johannes of Mainz meant to contribute to the formation of a reformed religious identity in the Basel friary. The identity (or “sameness”) of a religious community presumes a shared set of values and norms. These were not innate but had to be acquired through a process of learning. The Vita fratrum provided the individual members of the Basel friary with a language to define and express their religious identity. Moreover, by explaining the past and creating common expectations for the future, the text responded to questions pertinent to the process of identity formation.Footnote 6 Johannes offered his Observant readers a moral interpretation of the convent's history in which Conventual friars, as opponents of reform, were stigmatized and the Observants were presented as the chosen ones.

Observant reform should not be understood in terms of a coherent movement that simply returned to the rule and recovered what had been lost after a period of decline.Footnote 7 Even within the Dominican order there were competing reform ideas and initiative.Footnote 8 Dominican Observant writings testify that there was no clear-cut and static reformed religious profile. The Observant chronicler Girolamo Borselli from Bologna even revealed that some “non-reformed” Dominican communities lived a more Observant life than some “reformed” communities.Footnote 9 Nevertheless, “reformed” religious identities existed and transcended traditional order boundaries.Footnote 10 The differences between “Conventual” and “reformed” (or Observant) are thematized in chronicles and reform treatises, such as those written by Johannes Nider and Jean Uytenhove.Footnote 11 In these texts, Conventuals were stigmatized as an inferior category of Dominicans that neglected the precepts of their religion.

This “othering” of non-reformed Dominicans also characterizes Johannes of Mainz's Vita fratrum and forms an important condition for the construction of a “reformed” religious identity. Johannes addressed the decline of the community and the attack on its pristine norms and values by “false” friars—namely, the Conventuals. He made clever use of salvation history to legitimize the Observant reform, which aroused fervent opposition within the Basel community, and comforted the Observants with the promise of salvation and grace. Turning the community into a “normative nucleus” that identified itself with reform and observance, the Vita fratrum contributed to the process of “normative centering.”Footnote 12

I. A Reform Chronicle

Johannes had come to Basel to attend the council as representative of the archbishop of Mainz. When his patron died in 1434, he decided to take up the Dominican habit in the Basel friary, which had been reformed along Observant lines in 1429. Friar Johannes himself chronicled the history of this reform, which had been initiated by Bartholomeus Texerius, Dominican master general between 1426 and 1449. As a genuine “zealot for souls,”Footnote 13 this master insisted on the reform of the friary in order to prevent a great scandal for the Dominican order. The whole Christian world was about to assemble in Basel to discuss how to renovate the church. The irregular behavior of the Basel Dominicans put the reputation of their order at risk and could damage the credibility of the Dominican delegates at the council.Footnote 14

By promoting the reform of Dominican convents, Bartholomeus Texerius followed the example of his predecessor Raymond of Capua (d. 1399), who on November 1, 1390, had ordered that at least one convent in every province had to “observe” the rule and constitutions properly.Footnote 15 Colmar, Nuremberg, and Venice were among the first communities where reform-minded friars successfully gathered to commit to a stricter lifestyle. From these initial Observant centers other reform initiatives were attempted. In chronicles and letters, “Observants” began to be described as a category of Dominicans distinct from the so-called “Conventual” friars, who were accused of living lax lives not in accordance with the will of the pristine Dominican founding fathers. Observants considered themselves the true heirs of Saint Dominic, and they used history to show this. Although Observant Dominicans were for most of the fifteenth century a minority within their order, they produced the bulk of Dominican institutional writings that survive from this period.Footnote 16 In their texts, the history of reform was simplified and presented as inevitable, necessary, and holy.

Friar Johannes began his Vita fratrum in 1442—when he became the first lector of the new theology studium in Basel—and finished it within two years.Footnote 17 The text is included in one of the more than 500 manuscripts from the Dominican community that are still conserved today in the university library of Basel. Johannes collaborated to produce the manuscript: the author's hand is discernable on most of the recto sides, whereas another hand continued on the verso sides.Footnote 18 By adopting the title Vita fratrum the Dominican author consciously connected his work to the famous thirteenth-century Vitae fratrum initiated by Gerard of Frachet.Footnote 19 Friar Johannes even inserted a passage from it into his first chapter. Several Dominican general chapters had demanded continuations of this first Dominican biographical collection to “increase the devotion and honesty of friars and sisters of our order.”Footnote 20 Johannes may well have been responding to such a request and used it to present his Observant agenda as a legitimate undertaking in line with the pristine ideals of the Dominican order.

The Vita fratrum of Johannes of Mainz is a good example of what can be described as a “reform chronicle.”Footnote 21 With his narrative, the author tried to increase the love and devotion for the newly reformed religion in the Basel friary.Footnote 22 To this end, he produced a partisan and one-sided account. Like most reform chroniclers, Johannes presented the history of his convent as a story of success, decline, and reform. The text starts with a discussion of the origins of the community. The chronicler compared the early Dominican friary in Basel with a vine planted by the Lord and depicted the first friars as its “fruitful branches” (palmites fructuosos) who “gave celestial wine to the people to drink, extirpated heresies, drove away errors, illuminated the fatherland, led virgins to God the King, converted sinners from a dangerous state, confirmed the good in the laudable meadow, and presented abundant fruit to the people.”Footnote 23

Since the reform process itself caused great troubles and hardship, the author had to explain convincingly why the community had to be reformed in the first place. Therefore, a second chapter introduces the “ruin” of the Basel friary and claims that the friars became corrupted by secular concerns and no longer observed the precepts of their religion. Johannes only briefly introduced the errors that furnished proof of the decline of the Basel friary. First of these was that the friars no longer respected enclosure and tirelessly ran about.Footnote 24 They had come to be preoccupied by worldly concerns. The author was cautious not to blame particular friars but explained the decline of religious life with a metaphor. He made use of a common, biblically inspired historiographical concept—the passage from a golden period to lesser times of iron, clay, and earth: “Were they not bearing feet of clay and earth, those who had both carnal affections, and served the cravings of the blood?”Footnote 25 The friars thus did not control their feelings and directed them toward the wrong ends. Johannes explained that these practices gave rise to a local saying, namely: “The Rhine bridge is never so empty that there cannot be found an ass or a monk.”Footnote 26 The passage clearly indicates that Friar Johannes believed that a greater claustration for men could prevent excesses and was necessary to restore the Dominican reputation. Another consequence of the decline was that the Dominicans neglected the care of their nuns: “The women of Klingental were unable to live without their council or were unwilling because the friars were abandoning them.”Footnote 27 The same observation was later also elaborated by Antoninus of Florence, archbishop of Florence and, like Friar Johannes, an Observant Dominican: without proper male supervision, female monasteries would inevitably fall into decline. According to Antoninus, friars who believed that the cura monialium shipwrecked the order in fact undermined the foundations of their religious life.Footnote 28

Having thus created a narrative context in which the necessity of reform had become obvious, Johannes introduced the entrance of twelve Observant reformers into the friary in 1429. The author presented them as the real laborers of the celestial vineyard and as the “twelve apostles of the apostolic life.”Footnote 29 However, when these reformers began to take over the convent, the Conventuals did not suddenly change their lifestyle. As a result, the friary housed an Observant group that strictly followed the rules and a Conventual faction that lived rather differently.Footnote 30 Johannes emphasized the great contrasts between the two opposing groups of friars and juxtaposed Observant and Conventual characteristics in a poetic way. In the choir, one heard on one side the regular pauses of the Observants and on the opposite side the secular piffles of the Conventuals. Likewise, in the refectory the best pieces of meat could be found on the Conventual side, whereas the Observants barely ate bread.Footnote 31 The narrative recounts that the Observants became victorious with the help of God and thanks to their great perseverance and patience. In the words of Johannes, a “new sun” then arose.Footnote 32

Johannes of Mainz thus attributed the success of the reform to the virtues of the Observant friars and to divine favor. He remained silent both about an earlier, failed reform attempt in 1398/1399 and about the importance of non-Dominican factors. As Bernhard Neidiger and others have shown, the support of powerful persons or institutions outside the convent (such as the city council, the local bishop, important noble families or the pope) was crucial for the success of Dominican reform.Footnote 33 In the Basel case, the great opposition and unrest aroused by the reform prevented the city council from defending the reform initiative. Papal bulls finally obliged the city council to give up its support of opposing friars (the majority of the “original” inhabitants) and to side with the Observants (mostly outsiders from the Observant friary of Nuremburg).Footnote 34

The propagandistic rendering of Johannes of Mainz's narrative insisted that God himself cleansed his vineyard and replanted it with new plants full of grace and virtue. The author wanted to make the reformed Basel friars feel extremely grateful to live in a place that God had endowed with such extraordinary graces by writing rhetorically: “Is the lamb not worthy, who is accused and who redeemed us in this place, out of every tribe, people, and nation?”Footnote 35 The chronicler thus imposed a black and white scheme on the history of his convent in which the Conventuals represented corruption and worldly concern. By doing so, he taught his Observant readers that they pertained to the truly religious branch of their order, which had overcome great troubles to come to an Observant lifestyle. This was one important step in the formation of a reformed religious identity.

II. A Manual for Observance

The second part of the Vita fratrum leaves off being a chronicle and instead summarizes “the famous characteristics that Observant friars have in common.”Footnote 36 By doing so, Johannes of Mainz consciously created a new category of Dominicans and clearly demarcated Observants from their non-reformed confreres. This part can be considered a manual that taught how to live a virtuous Observant life, but the author did not simply provide a list of regulations. Instead, he attractively described what he considered to be examples of a reformed religion and grouped them together with recourse to nine characteristics. The first two characteristics listed by the lector were the “intense love for the Blessed Virgin” and, in general, the strong religious devotion of Observant friars.Footnote 37

Johannes of Mainz also underlined the regular observance of the friars, claiming that they “always hastened back to the rule, the constitutions and the acts, invoking them even for the smallest issues.”Footnote 38 This constant return to the written foundations of the order indeed stood at the center of most programs for Observant reform. Next to this, he paid attention to the friars’ Observant way of celebrating Mass and communion.Footnote 39 In the first part of the Vita fratrum, Johannes had already emphasized the differences between the reformed and non-reformed liturgical practices in the Basel friary.Footnote 40 “Proper liturgical observance,” as Claire Taylor Jones has recently shown, “was an essential part of Dominican reform programs.”Footnote 41

In the eyes of the chronicler, the most essential Observant virtues were patience and constancy.Footnote 42 To exemplify this, the author dwelt at length on the troubles that Conventual friars caused during the efforts to reform the friary of Basel.Footnote 43 Johannes explained that the reputation of the Dominicans had reached an absolute low. Some “unfaithful” friars tried to set the cloister on fire, and some even escaped the convent at night to visit prostitutes. In a vivid and personal style, the lector depicted the depravity of the Conventuals and the consequent mockery of the Dominican community:

In the midst of the night, some of us, or better not of us, changed their habit and visited whores. They scandalized this place almost beyond repair. O, how much grief afflicted our hearts. A public song was made, and those who drank wine used to sing that against us. We had the reputation of being hypocrites, we were called ants, we were laughed at, we were ruined, we were incurable.Footnote 44

Johannes of Mainz here revealed that the Dominicans were insulted as ants at that time. Between 1436 and 1438, Johannes Nider, first prior of the reformed Basel friary, wrote his Formicarius—literally “ant colony” or “ant hill.” Perhaps he chose this title to change the negative connotation of “ants,” which seemingly ran around at random: a properly functioning ant colony could, in fact, constitute a mirror for a harmonious society.Footnote 45

In the next sections, Friar Johannes put forward the diligence of the Observant friars in study and the great discipline of their behavior: they wore their habits according to the rule, without exposing luxury or visible signs of order hierarchy—all friars were equal. When in town, the Observant friars acted humbly and chastely: they held their necks bent and did not look women in the face directly.Footnote 46 Our chronicler also devoted attention to the virtue of temperance, as expressed in the corporal discipline and the abstinence of the Observant friars. Finally, he praised the young friars and their attention to the Dominican heritage in a separate chapter. The Dominican lector proudly revealed that the young friars were accustomed to discussing the famous characteristics of the Dominican order during leisure time.Footnote 47

In his depiction of Observant life, Johannes of Mainz did not focus on preaching or pastoral care but on the devotional attitude of the friars and their daily behavior within the convent walls. Friar Johannes praised numerous well-known and interrelated virtues that were, in fact, commendable for all good Christians and thus were not exclusively Dominican or reformed in nature. In the Vita fratrum, “Observant life” manifested itself not only in Marian devotion, regular observance, religious zeal, learning, and discipline but also in well-known Christian virtues, such as patience and temperance. Franz Egger concluded, therefore, that mission and pastoral care were no longer important for the Dominican Observants of the fifteenth century and that their movement manifested itself mainly in an imitation of monastic ideals.Footnote 48

However, a comparison of Johannes of Mainz's Vita fratrum to other Observant Dominican chronicles shows that the expression of certain Observant ideals was dependent upon the reform experiences of the author and on the envisaged function and audience of the text he produced. Some later Observant Dominican chroniclers, writing in different circumstances, did show a particular interest in the missionary zeal of their protagonists. Both as confessor at Schönensteinbach and as historian of the Dominican Observant reform, Johannes of Mainz was the predecessor of Johannes Meyer. Meyer joined the Basel friary exactly in 1442, when Johannes of Mainz became lector and began his chronicle. In contrast to Johannes of Mainz's Vita fratrum, several of Meyer's works have been published. In his Buch der reformacio predigerordens, Meyer praised his predecessor and informed his readers that this Johannes wrote a “beautiful booklet” in Latin about the reform of the Basel convent and the lives of its friars.Footnote 49 Although Meyer copied large parts of this chronicle, he changed the overall emphasis in the expressed Observant ideals. Meyer paid more attention to pastoral care, preaching, and the interaction of Dominicans with the outside world. From his experience as itinerant reformer, he knew how important it was to obtain external support. He therefore put much more emphasis on the successful mission of Dominican Observant reformers and linked this success directly to their Observant identity. To work for the salvation of souls in efficacious ways is indeed an important Observant topos that transcends several religious orders.Footnote 50 Johannes of Mainz, on the other hand, was a convent lector and had to introduce new friars to an Observant lifestyle. His primary aim was to create an Observant mindset within the convent walls, and this shaped his narrative choices.

Johannes of Mainz did not only depict positive virtues to imitate but simultaneously put moral and religious pressure on the friars—most strongly when he connected the history of the Basel friary to salvation history. To prove that the reform of the friary was the work not of human beings but of God personally, he listed seven seals (signacula).Footnote 51 This obvious parallel with the Apocalypse had to convince the friars once more that God himself governed the history of their convent. God would never forsake the convent, and it was God—not Johannes of Mainz!—who asked the friars directly to confirm his work and to live an Observant and reformed life.

A first “seal” or sign of heavenly intervention was that, after the reform, charity replaced jealousy and avariciousness. Second, the friary had suffered so many tribulations that, without the power of God, it would never have been able to overcome them. A third sign was that God clearly had showered the Basel friary with grace since the holy church council had embraced it to discuss matters of faith.Footnote 52 In connection with this, Johannes of Mainz highlighted the great reputation of the reformed Basel friars. One of them was so eloquent that he was asked to preach to the council repeatedly, while another was known in the whole city of Cologne for his profound knowledge of the works of Albert the Great.Footnote 53 Some were ardent in study, others zealous for their religion.Footnote 54 One friar was such a devoted gardener that he kept even the smallest plants from dying, while another took care of the library as if it were “his bride.”Footnote 55 The chronicler stressed that every friar in the reformed house fulfilled his role with great zeal. Johannes thus did not present one clear-cut Observant profile but showed that Dominican Observant life could manifest itself in various ways.Footnote 56

According to our author, the honor of God and the salvation of souls greatly increased thanks to the reform, and the devout attitude and pious lifestyle of the Basel friars quickly became known in the whole world.Footnote 57 As a result, the friars became the beneficiaries of many privileges from popes and princes, received backing from city councils, and were supported by many different people. This attention and support for Observants from the outside world was not only an idealized part of Observant religious self-understanding. Modern scholarship has shown how reformed communities were facilitated by urban authorities and protected by powerful patrons, not least because of the perceived effectiveness of Observant pastoral care and preaching.Footnote 58 As a further sign of heavenly intervention, Johannes put forward that the reform brought many new postulants. Whereas vocations had been lacking prior to the reform, once it was in full swing, God quickly planted new seeds in the convent so that by 1442 almost forty friars lived there. The friary became a “chain of charity.”Footnote 59 Its prelates, seniors, and officials worked together and harmoniously strove to implement improvements, so the chronicler wrote.

The last seal of divine intervention was God's removal of the envious and harmful from his vineyard. In fact, the majority of the friars who lived in the Basel friary before the reform would have been strongly opposed to the newly imposed lifestyle. They did not want to give up their property and live according to the strict observance of the rule and constitutions. When these friars understood that their opposition was to no avail, they felt obliged to leave the friary.Footnote 60 In the account of friar Johannes, these “unfaithful friars” awaited a bad end. For example, one powerful friar who was determined to oppose the reform with all his forces drowned in the Rhine.Footnote 61 Another friar whose conduct had defamed the convent enormously died lonely in a forest. Johannes added that “it was said” that birds tore out his eyes.Footnote 62 One unfaithful novice fled, and another plundered the library and went to jail. The chronicler concluded that they were “eradicated from this vineyard of the Lord” because they had not been planted by the “celestial father” but had come “from another place.”Footnote 63 By clearly distinguishing Observants from “false” and “unfaithful” friars, Johannes again contributed to the vindication of a reformed religious identity within his friary.

The second part of the Vita fratrum ends with an “exhortation for the maintenance of observance.”Footnote 64 Making use of the language of biblical authority, Johannes exhorted his friars not to be lukewarm but to actively commit to an Observant lifestyle.Footnote 65 Hence, with recourse to 2 Maccabees 5:19, he explained that God did not elect the Basel friary because of its location but because of the inhabitants adorning it.Footnote 66 As the success of Observant reforms depended on his immediate audience—namely, the Basel friars—Johannes often addressed them directly, saying, for instance: “Let me speak more clearly: if we do not want to fail, we should weekly inspect the mirror of our rule, we should diligently implement the statutes of our fathers, we should not half-heartedly pass over lapses, and we should not even omit the smallest details.”Footnote 67 Johannes of Mainz thus made his audience co-responsible for the successful implementation of Observant reform. The career of the prolific reformer and Observant author Johannes Meyer, who was among his audience, suggests that he was a successful teacher.Footnote 68

III. A Collective Biography

In the general prologue to his work, Johannes of Mainz had acknowledged that the Gospels and the lives of saints already offered enough examples to imitate. Nevertheless, he believed that it would be useful to present more contemporary and “simple” religious examples that stood closer to the friars.Footnote 69 He therefore included in the third part of his Vita fratrum short eulogical biographies of twenty-four Observant friars. We know that the number of friars increased from sixteen before the reform to almost forty in 1442.Footnote 70 By then, the Basel friary had become a reform community of international renown, attracting friars from Bohemia, Denmark, and Barcelona.Footnote 71 Since Johannes of Mainz wrote that “the legends of our fathers” were commonly recited during refectory meals, it is likely that he envisaged his vitae to be read collectively as well.Footnote 72 The fact that he started the Vita fratrum in the same year in which he became lector of the Dominican studium also suggests didactical purposes. The Dominican vitae that Johannes presented offered the friars “mirrors of observance”—imitable examples that were essential in the process of identity formation.Footnote 73 As has been confirmed in modern scholarship, the veneration of saints constituted an integrating element for religious communities.Footnote 74 Likewise, the collective remembrance of Observant models helped to create a reformed religious identity within the friary. To us, the eulogies simultaneously offer insight into the lives of reformed Dominicans, their religious practices, their daily behavior, and their religious ideals.

Seven biographies concern friars who came from Nuremberg to reform the Basel friary in 1429. Among them, Johannes Nider (1380–1438) figured most prominently: he was the first prior of the reformed community and also the first Observant example presented in the Vita fratrum. Nider fulfilled an important role during the first years of the Council of Basel. He was a member of the deputation on church reform and participated in the negotiations with the Hussites. Nider is best known for his contribution to the formation of ideas about witchcraft—especially in his Formicarius.Footnote 75 His many writings, some of which have attracted scholarly attention, aimed at reforming church and society. Only his vernacular Die vierundzwanzig goldenen Harfen has received a modern edition. This text was probably written for the Dominican nuns of Nuremberg and especially shows Nider's pastoral concerns.Footnote 76

Johannes of Mainz's eulogy of this important author and church reformer has remained largely unexplored.Footnote 77 It shows how Nider was remembered within his order and venerated by Observant Dominicans. Johannes of Mainz joined the Basel friary when Nider was prior. He lived with him in this convent and wrote the eulogy within six years after Nider's death.Footnote 78 Our chronicler's firsthand knowledge of Nider's life and the stories obtained from “faithful witnesses” resulted in a lively portrait of the churchman. Friar Johannes started his eulogy by underlining the great reputation of Nider: he was praised by all, the wise and the ignorant, the perfect and the imperfect. His words and deeds were considered as a “written law” by those who came after him. The greatest prelates of the church said about him that “for ages, they did not recall having seen a man in whom so much grace and so many laudable virtues have flourished.”Footnote 79 The eulogy continues with a series of anecdotes that were meant to illustrate his many virtues. The exceptional impression that Nider made on our chronicler is illustrated by various emotional exclamations, such as: “Oh, supreme humility!” After quoting Nider, who had said that, as a pastor, he would never abandon his sheep, the chronicler concluded: “Oh, faithful doctor of souls!”Footnote 80 Here, Johannes of Mainz appealed to an important topos that would be elaborated by other Observant chroniclers—namely, the emphasis on the successful mission of Observant friars and on their efforts for the salvation of souls through preaching and pastoral care.Footnote 81

Considering his community as a vine planted by the Lord, Johannes of Mainz presented Nider as its “most fruitful plant.”Footnote 82 He wished to convey that Nider always remained simple and humble, although he fulfilled important functions.Footnote 83 Nider himself often emphasized that he was the son of a poor shoemaker.Footnote 84 He respected the rules on personal poverty and never took books into his cell, which the chronicler described as a tabula rasa.Footnote 85 In his reform treatise, Nider had criticized the personal luxury of friars, claiming that some adorned their cells with sculptures of women so beautifully executed that they threatened the vow of chastity.Footnote 86 Nider had so much zeal for his religion that he would run from altar to altar and from book to book: “At night he read to the friars, in the morning he preached to the people, before lunch he repeated the table readings, and he would persevere fervently in all these labors.”Footnote 87 He wanted the word of God to reach peasants and simple people, and, therefore, he often sent out priests. When he recorded the names of places to visit, he did this “not to make money, but for the salvation of souls.”Footnote 88 In Nuremberg, he forbade preachers to compel their audiences to give alms. In this way, Johannes of Mainz explained, the preachers would remain focused on the goal of preaching and would not become “speakers from the stomach” (ventriloqui).Footnote 89 The author also wrote about Nider's devotional practices—for instance, how he used to read the Laudes glorissime virginis at night (sometimes alone and sometimes together with other friars).

Johannes of Mainz collected all kinds of testimonies concerning his beloved prior. One of the witnesses, the prior of the Dominican friary of Nuremberg, believed that Nider had received so much grace from God because he accepted commands so easily and was so flexible (ducibilis et flexibilis). The chronicler also interrogated a certain master of theology about why Nider was such an exceptional Observant religious man. He responded that Nider “was able to rejoice most distinctly with those rejoicing, but, nonetheless, attended to his own conscience and progress sagaciously.”Footnote 90 The anonymous interviewee thus seemed to suggest that Nider, although he was enthusiastic and socially skilled, never lost his religious attitude. Another magister responded that he was such a pupil of observance because he frequented the choir day and night, almost as often as the friars who were not involved in preaching offices.Footnote 91 Johannes of Mainz further described Nider, saying: “Our prior was friendly and human, great in conversation and edifying. If it were not already known everywhere, this only would confirm it: during his study in Cologne he lived so humbly, servilely, and cheerfully that until today his praise stands out among all Observants.”Footnote 92

Interestingly, Johannes of Mainz used the word humanus for his Observant model. In the vocabulary of contemporary humanists who promoted the studia humanitatis, this word recovered its ancient meaning of being learned. Simultaneously, it included values such as culture, virtus, and politeness. Being humanus could thus be compatible with being a zealous reformer. Johannes indeed gave examples of Nider's humanity: as first prior of the reformed friary, Nider knew how to correct friars mildly but efficiently (leviter sed efficaciter) so that the vice would “fall asleep” and the friar would not be offended.Footnote 93 Furthermore, Johannes of Mainz testified that neither he nor others ever saw Nider behaving violently or impetuously.Footnote 94

The chronicler depicted Nider as a multifaceted person: on the one hand, he used to observe silence and was serious, devout, and humble.Footnote 95 On the other hand, he revealed Nider's cheerful side, writing that his former prior used to make jokes about a certain priest.Footnote 96 In our chronicler's eyes, one could not be sufficiently astounded about the unique grace that dwelt in Nider: “Indeed, in the public sphere he was the only man in this time and place who was so hard and authoritative, but at the same time so timid and sweet, publicly so supreme, but so patient and sweet in his conscience.”Footnote 97 A priest who travelled with Nider revealed to Johannes of Mainz that these journeys were not at all boring. Although Nider prayed at times, he was also very social and would chat and stir up questions.Footnote 98 Finally, Johannes also demonstrated how Nider advised him personally. He confessed that for two years he was tempted to leave the order because he found it too hard to give up all his worldly belongings.Footnote 99 When he displayed this anxiety, Nider extended his hand to him and solemnly told him that if he would not overcome this scruple, the devil would always burden him in other, perhaps even worse, matters. Nider's words helped our chronicler to become more virtuous—to such an extent that the temptation of worldly possessions did not absorb him any longer.Footnote 100 Johannes of Mainz's emotional attachment to Nider appears clearly in his depiction of Nider's death: the Basel community was deeply saddened that Nider died in Nuremberg and not in Basel. The author wrote: “How much grief we had! We had lost the price: we had not deserved to possess his relics! I cannot describe this without grief.”Footnote 101

The lengthy eulogy on Nider shows how Johannes of Mainz collected and constructed Observant memory in his Vita fratrum. Like other Dominican writers, Johannes considered it inappropriate to praise friars who were still alive. Nevertheless, he asked the reader's special permission to include eulogies of two living friars at the very end of his biographical collection.Footnote 102 One of them was Theoderick Snycke, the Abraham of the convent. Originally from Lübeck, he had joined the Observant convent in Nuremberg but also stayed in Pforzheim, Bern, and Colmar. In 1429, he had entered the Basel friary as one of the twelve Observants who were ordered to implement the reform. Snycke had told the chronicler that, before entering the order, he had been afraid of the religious life because he thought that it would make him poor, lonely, and weak. A voice assured him, however, that he would be well provided for. The chronicler then went on describing Theoderick's great devotion for Jesus and Mary. He also remembered him as a pleasant and social person and included details about his parlance: Theoderick often used to say “Wana leyve Got,” for instance, when he was worried about something.Footnote 103

Johannes of Mainz wrote the last eulogy about his own teacher, who remains anonymous. With recourse to Seneca's recommendation, he stated that “we ought to choose some good man and always keep him before our eyes, so that we live as if he were watching and so that we do everything as if he were seeing.”Footnote 104 In this way, Johannes had cherished his teacher, who had formed him and had taught him charity, humility, and purity. According to Friar Johannes, this teacher was both a “real father” and a “real mother” to all Basel friars. As a real religious example, he performed innumerable good works: he washed the dirt of the sick, visited prisoners, and devoted himself to lepers.Footnote 105 He zealously “threw himself” into communal works, cleaned the cells, assisted those who needed help, and whipped himself to save others. Johannes also revealed that his teacher “could not suffer women for a long time.”Footnote 106 Prior Nider once told him to accept a gift from a woman, but since he was “burnt by fire” the following night, he immediately gave back the present after lauds.Footnote 107 Elsewhere in the Vita fratrum, the chronicler had already warned against the risk of trying to please “foolish women”Footnote 108 and recorded a saying that the prior of Nuremberg used to repeat: “As soon as a friar's mind is directed to pleasing the nuns, his love for the regular life stops.”Footnote 109

Through such examples and sayings of the first reformed friars, Johannes of Mainz transmitted an Observant spirit to a new generation and turned the reformed Basel friary into a textual community. Some details were not directly meant as guidelines but show the personal touch of the Vita fratrum. For instance, we now know that Johannes of Mainz's teacher, because he often slept on the floor and did menial work, was regularly rebuked for his filthy clothes.Footnote 110

IV. Conclusion

With his Vita fratrum predicatorum conventus Basiliensis, Johannes of Mainz provided the friars of the reformed Basel friary with a tool to shape their religious identity. In order to create a “reformed” identity, the author employed several strategies and combined elements of different genres.Footnote 111 The Vita fratrum starts as a reform chronicle. Johannes narrated how the Basel friary, presented as a vine planted by the Lord, had been corrupted by worldly concerns. The Dominican master general thus had to reform the friary to prevent scandals. Later in his text, the author replaced this human agency with a divine plan: God considered the reform a necessary operation to cure his celestial vineyard and therefore showered the convent with grace. In reality, most of the friars who originally inhabited the Basel friary were not prepared to give up their old lifestyle. Since their opposition failed, they ultimately were obliged to depart, leaving their convent to the Observant newcomers. By othering the “false” friars (that is, the Conventuals) who opposed the reform, Johannes of Mainz turned the Observants into a new normative nucleus. The “othering” became very concrete at times—for instance, when Friar Johannes explicitly defined the friars who escaped the convent at night to visit prostitutes as “not of us” (non ex nobis).

In a second part, the Vita fratrum transforms into a manual for living an Observant lifestyle. The author described the characteristics of Observant friars, concentrating on the friars’ behavior within the convent's walls. He provided his Observant readers with a palette of good Christian virtues to follow and gave realistic and practical advice concerning the way to live a reformed religious life successfully. The friars should not believe that the reform was just a moment in the history of the friary. On the contrary, they had to work every day to keep the Observant zeal alive—by remaining positive, by avoiding anger, by preserving peace, and by striving toward improvements. Johannes of Mainz emphasized how much care the Observants had for the Dominican heritage: they constantly returned to the written foundations of the order.

Whereas, on the one hand, Johannes encouraged the friars positively, stressing the bonds of charity and collaboration, he simultaneously put pressure on the friars to stick to regular observance. The Dominican lector wanted to convey to his readers how privileged they were to be part of the reformed Basel friary—thus increasing the sense of community. By employing biblical language, he added credibility to his narrative, which presented the reform of the Basel friary as a new episode in the history of salvation. He depicted the horrible deaths of “unfaithful” friars who were “eradicated from the vineyard of the Lord.” Salvation thus depended upon the success of Observant reform and perseverance in an Observant lifestyle. Friar Johannes's narrative—propagandistic and one-sided—excluded non-reformed Dominicans and created common expectations solely for the Observant community.

The third and final part of the Vita fratrum presents the lives of individual Observant friars. The text thus also ties in with the continuing Dominican tradition of collective biographies, written to provide the order's members with suitable religious models to follow and imitate. Johannes of Mainz wrote lively records of exemplary friars who lived with him in the convent and presented them as mirrors of observance. The chronicler described his former prior Johannes Nider as a zealot for regular Observance, an authoritative theologian, and a diplomatic churchman. Simultaneously, he emphasized Nider's humanity. In the eulogy by Johannes of Mainz, Nider, known by modern scholars as “one of the most important early theorists on witchcraft,”Footnote 112 became sociable and funny, knowing how to correct friars in a mild way. Although the Vita fratrum primarily informs us about the ideals of an Observant religion, the personal records and emotional exclamations of the chronicler also give us precious insight into the daily life within a reformed Dominican friary during the fifteenth century.

Footnotes

I wish to thank the Zeno Karl Schindler Foundation for financing my research stay at the University of Basel from May to October 2015. This article expands on the discussion of the Vita fratrum in my published dissertation, Zealots for Souls (see notes below), and on a paper presented at the University of Colorado, Boulder: Religion and the (Master) Narrative. An interdisciplinary Conference on Medieval and Early Modern Belief and Practice, October 22–24, 2015. I owe thanks to John van Engen and Bert Roest for their helpful comments.

References

1 See especially the first English-language handbook on the topic: Mixson, James and Roest, Bert, eds., A Companion to Observant Reform in the Late Middle Ages and Beyond (Leiden: Brill, 2015)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, which has updated the findings of Elm, Kaspar, ed., Reformbemühungen und Observanzbestrebungen im spätmittelalterlichen Ordenswesen (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1989)Google Scholar. Mixson gives an overview of recent scholarly approaches to Observant reform: see Mixson, James, “Introduction,” in A companion to Observant Reform in the Late Middle Ages and Beyond, ed. Mxsom, James and Roest, Bert (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 1–20CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On Dominican reform more specifically, see Hillenbrand, Eugen, “Die Observantenbewegung in der deutschen Ordensprovinz der Dominikaner,” in Reformbemühungen und Observanzbestrebungen im spätmittelalterlichen Ordenswesen, ed. Elm, Kaspar (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1989), 219–271Google Scholar; and more bibliographical references are given in Huijbers, Anne, Zealots for Souls: Dominican Narratives of Self-Understanding During Observant Reforms, c. 1388–1517 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2018), 178–183CrossRefGoogle Scholar. On Dominican women and Observant reform, see most recently Jones, Claire Taylor, Ruling the Spirit. Women, Liturgy and Dominican Reform in Late Medieval Germany (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Duval, Sylvie, “Comme des anges sur terre”: Les moniales dominicaines et les débuts de la réforme observante (Rome: Ecole Française de Rome, 2015)Google Scholar.

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3 Franz Egger and Martina Wehrli-Johns are preparing an edition of the text. Egger was the first to draw attention to the chronicle. He included a table of contents in Egger, Franz, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Predigerordens: Die Reform des Basler Konvents 1429 und die Stellung des Ordens am Basler Konzil 1431–1448 (Bern: Lang, 1991)Google Scholar, especially 29–62, 217–218.

4 On this council most recently, see Decaluwé, Michiel, Izbicki, Thomas M., and Christianson, Gerald, eds., A Companion to the Council of Basel (Leiden: Brill, 2017)Google Scholar.

5 Bailey, Michael, “Abstinence and Reform at the Council of Basel: Johannes Nider's De abstinentia esus carnium,” Mediaeval Studies 59 (1997): 226CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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7 Mixson, “Introduction,” 14–15.

8 For instance, reformers had different opinions about poverty and study. See Neidiger, Bernhard, “Selbstverständnis und Erfolgschancen der Dominikanerobservanten: Beobachtungen zur Entwicklung in der Provinz Teutonia und im Basler Konvent (1388–1510),” Rottenburger Jahrbuch für Kirchengeschichte 17 (1998): 67–122Google Scholar.

9 Huijbers, Zealots for Souls, 74–75.

10 Roest, Bert and Uphoff, Johanneke, “Introduction,” in Religious Orders and Religious Identity Formation, ca. 1420–1620: Discourses and Strategies of Observance and Pastoral Engagement, ed. Roest, Bert and Uphoff, Johanneke (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 2CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Dlabačová, Anna, “Transcending the Order. The Pursuit of Observance and Religious Identity Formation in the Low Countries, c. 1450–1500’,” in Religious Orders and Religious Identity Formation, ca. 1420–1620: Discourses and Strategies of Observance and Pastoral Engagement, ed. Roest, Bert and Uphoff, Johanneke (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 86–109CrossRefGoogle Scholar, especially 87, where she addresses the conciliating effect of Observance “among Observant members of various religious orders and reform movements.”

11 Huijbers, Zealots for Souls, 74–75, 177–178, 194–195; reform treatises by the Dominicans Henry of Bitterfeld (d. 1404–1406?), Johannes Nider (d. 1438), and Jean Uytenhove (d. 1489) are introduced and compared on 190–201.

12 The term “nucleo normativo” is derived from Reinhard, Wolfgang, “Religione e identità—Identità e religione. Un'introduzione,” in Identità collettive tra Medioevo ed Età Moderna, ed. Prodi, Paolo and Reinhard, Wolfgang (Bologna: Clueb, 2002), 91Google Scholar. For the concept “normative Zentrierung,” see: Hamm, Berndt, “Normative Centering in the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Centuries: Observations on Religiosity, Theology, and Iconology,” in The Reformation of Faith in the Context of Late Medieval Theology and Piety: Essays by Berndt Hamm, ed. Bast, Robert J. (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 1–46Google Scholar.

13 This term was often applied to Observants: see Huijbers, Zealots for Souls, 228.

14 Johannes of Mainz, Vita fratrum, Basel, Universitätsbibliothek, MS A XI 42 (hereafter cited as Johannes of Mainz, Vita fratrum), fol. 98r (see n18 below): “Hoc videns et invidens ordinis magister reverendissimus frater Bartholomeus Texerii nominatus emulus viciorum zelator animarum timens quod grave scandalum ordini suboriri in conspectu futuri Basiliensis concilii, reformare decrevit hunc venerabilem conventum.” This is for the most part transcribed verbatim by Meyer, Johannes, Chronica brevis ordinis praedicatorum, ed. Scheeben, H. C. (Leipzig: Harrassowitz, 1933), 84Google Scholar. In his Buch der reformacio, however, Meyer stated that it was the city council that asked for the reform. Meyer, Johannes, Buch der reformacio predigerordens, ed. Reichert, B. M. (Leipzig: Harrassowitz, 1908–1909)Google Scholar, 2:70. This (probably deliberate) change in agency supported Meyer's argument that Observant reform was not just an order's internal affair but was wanted by (and crucial for) Christianity at large. On the role of the city council for the reforms in Basel, see Neidiger, Bernhard, “Stadtregiment und Klosterreform in Basel,” in Reformbemühungen und Observanzbestrebungen im spätmittelalterlichen Ordenswesen, ed. Elm, Kaspar (Berlin: Duncker & Humblot, 1989), 539–567Google Scholar.

15 B. Raymundi Capuani XXIII magistri generalis ordinis praedicatorum opuscula et litterae, ed. Cormier, H. M. (Rome: Ex Typographia Polyglotta, 1899), 54–56Google Scholar.

16 Sources that highlight the Conventual perspective are generally lacking, One example of a chronicle written to oppose reform is the Chronica del monastero delle Vergini di Venetia (c. 1520) mentioned by Zarri, Gabriella, “Predicazione e cura pastorale. I Sermoni della clarissa veneziana Chiara Bugni (1471–1514),” Anuario de estudios medievales 42 (2012): 144CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The ways in which Conventual friars defended themselves against the reformers’ attacks on their lifestyle can to some extent be reconstructed with the help of reform treatises, which list arguments against reform to subsequently refute them. See Huijbers, Zealots for Souls, 197–198. For reflections on “Conventual” religious life, see also Mixson, James, Poverty's Proprietors: Ownership and Mortal Sin at the Origins of the Observant Movement (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 25–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Winston-Allen, Convent Chronicles, 129.

17 The explicit informs us that the chronicle was written between August 14, 1442, and August 14, 1444, exactly.

18 Johannes of Mainz, Vita fratrum, fols. 97r–119r. The hands alternate systematically between the recto and verso sides and even change in the middle of a sentence if the end of the page is reached. Kaeppeli, Tommaso, Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum Medii Aevi (Rome: Istituto Storico Domenicano, 1970–1993)Google Scholar, 2:480, 4:162; Neumann, Hans, “Johannes von Mainz,” Die deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters. Verfasserlexikon, vol. 4 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1983), 675–677Google Scholar; Dolbeau, Francois, “La bibliothèque des dominicains de Bâle au XVe siècle. Fragments inédits d'un catalogue topographique,” Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum 81 (2011): 122Google Scholar; and Neidiger, “Selbstverständnis und Erfolgschancen,” 97–110.

19 Gerard of Frachet, Fratris Gerardi de Fracheto O.P.: Vitae fratrum ordinis Praedicatorum, ed. Reichert, B. M., Monumenta ordinis fratrum praedicatorum historica (Lovanii: Charpentier & Schoonjans, 1896)Google Scholar.

20 General chapter of Bologna, 1426: Acta capitulorum generalium ordinis praedicatorum, ed. Reichert, B. M. (Rome: Ex Typographia Polyglotta, 1900)Google Scholar, 3:185: “Devocionem fratrum et sororum nostri ordinis ac honestatem adaugere satagentes, imponimus provincialibus universis, ut vitas sanctorum fratrum ac sororum, qui a tempore edicionis libri, qui vitas fratrum dicitur, in suis provinciis usque ad presens decesserunt et aliquibus miraculis claruerunt ad immediate sequens capitulum generale secum deferant, ut prefato libro ad perpetuam rei memoriam valeant annotari.” For more examples, see Huijbers, Zealots for Souls, 143–146.

21 For an introduction to this genre, see Proksch, Klosterreform und Geschichtsschreibung im Spätmittelalter, passim; and Huijbers, Anne, “Observance as Paradigm in Mendicant and Monastic Order Chronicles,” in A Companion to Observant Reform in the Late Middle Ages and Beyond, ed. Mixson, James and Roest, Bert (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 115–118Google Scholar.

22 Winston-Allen, Convent Chronicles, 22, already noted that convent chronicles were “intended to foster a sense of common mission and commitment to the community.”

23 Johannes of Mainz, Vita fratrum, fol. 97r: “celi vinum populo propinantes, hereses extirpantes, errores effugantes, patriam illuminantes, regi deo virgines adducentes, peccatores a statu periculoso convertentes, bonos in pratu laudabili confirmantes ac fructum in plebe multiplicem presentes.” All translations are my own. For the vine as a Dominican topos, see Huijbers, Zealots for Souls, 19, 27–34.

24 Johannes of Mainz, Vita fratrum, fol. 98r: “An non ferreas gestabant tibias qui in excursibus et discursibus fuerant tam infatigabiles?”

25 Ibid.: “An non fictiles terreosque pedes qui et affecciones habuerunt carni et sanguini servientes?” This allusion derives from the prophet Daniel's explanation of a dream of Nebuchadnezzar, who saw a statue with a golden head but legs and feet of iron and clay. See Daniel 2:31–45.

26 Johannes of Mainz, Vita fratrum, fol. 98r: “Inolevit tunc proverbium hoc secularibus quod pons Reni nunquam foret tam vacuus quin ibi azinus cerneretur aut monachus.”

27 Ibid.: “Sic Clingentalenses muliercules sine colloquio non poterant vivere aut noluerant quod fraterculi deserebant.” Muliercula normally has a somewhat negative connotation for a little, common, or weak woman. It is here used next to fraterculus (little friar).

28 For this and other ways in which Dominicans explained the decline of their order, see Huijbers, Zealots for Souls, 183–190.

29 Johannes of Mainz, Vita fratrum, “Quartum Capitulum: de primis reformatoribus huius conventus,” fol. 99r: “Ymmo huius apostolice vite xii apostoli primo scilicet conventum ingressi.” The reformers came from the Observant friary of Nuremberg.

30 For other reformed Dominican convents with such a double regime, see Huijbers, Zealots for Souls, 180–181, 234–235. In Basel, this double regime did not last long. Most Conventuals eventually left the friary. See Egger, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Predigerordens, 66–67.

31 Johannes of Mainz, Vita fratrum, fol. 98v: “Audisses in choro hinc pausas regulares, illinc caudas seculars . . . hinc optimas carnes, illinc vix panes.”

32 Ibid., fol. 99r: “Tunc itaque novus sol oritur.” Egger, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Predigerordens, 67, 71n30.

33 Neidiger, “Selbstverständnis und Erfolgschancen,” 72–75; and Hillenbrand, “Die Observantenbewegung in der deutschen Ordensprovinz der Dominikaner,” 239–262.

34 More details and discussion in Egger, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Predigerordens, 63–67; and Neidiger, “Stadtregiment und Klosterreform in Basel,” 543–545, who mostly follows Meyer. Five local friars accepted the reform.

35 Johannes of Mainz, Vita fratrum, fol. 104v: “An dignus est agnus qui accusus est qui nos redemit in hunc locum ex omni tribu et populo et nacione?”

36 Ibid., fol. 99v: “Secunda pars huius libri. De insignibus fratrum huius observancie in communi habet xi capitula.” See for a further discussion, with some overlap, Huijbers, Zealots for Souls, 203–204, 253–259.

37 Johannes of Mainz, Vita fratrum, fol. 100r: “Primum capitulum. De intenso amore eorum ad beatissimam virginem. Secundum capitulum. De devocione ipsorum.”

38 Ibid., fol. 101r: “Istis modus erat semper ad regulam ad constituciones ad notulam recurrere in minimis eciam allegare.”

39 Ibid.: “Tercium capitulum. Quomodo se habuerint circa missam et communionem.”

40 Ibid., fol. 98v: “Audisses in choro hinc pausas regulares, illinc caudas seculares, hinc punctaturas, illinc fracturas, hinc cantantes, illinc discantantes.”

41 Taylor Jones, Ruling the Spirit, 27, passim.

42 Johannes of Mainz, Vita fratrum, fol. 101r: “De ipsorum maxima paciencia et constancia.”

43 The Basel case did not stand alone: reform could lead to violent opposition. For some examples, see Huijbers, “Observance as Paradigm,” 129–131; Dlabačová, “Transcending the Order,” 87; and Mixson, James, “Observant Reform's Conceptual Frameworks between Principle and Practice,” in A Companion to Observant Reform in the Late Middle Ages and Beyond, ed. Mixson, James and Roest, Bert (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 74–75CrossRefGoogle Scholar: “Reform was conflict. It almost always met with resistance.”

44 Johannes of Mainz, Vita fratrum, fol. 101v: “Nam quidam ex nobis ymmo non ex nobis captant nocturna silencia, mutant habitum, prostibula visitant et fere insanabiliter hunc locum scandalisant. O quantus gemitus tunc affuit cordibus nostris. Fit carmen publicum et in nos psallebant qui bibebant vinum. Famamur ypocrite, dicimur formicarii, deridemur, confudimur, subsanamur.”

45 For an introduction to the work, see Bailey, Michael D., Battling Demons. Witchcraft, Heresy, and Reform in the Late Middle Ages (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003), 91–117Google Scholar.

46 Johannes of Mainz, Vita fratrum, fol. 102v: “Mulieribus non in faciem sed collateraliter assistere.”

47 Ibid., fol. 103v: “Tempore recreacionis conferebant simul omnes aut duo pariter de insignibus ordinis.”

48 Egger, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Predigerordens, 89.

49 Meyer, Buch der reformacio, 2:75: “Wie der selb brůder convent prediger zů Basel reformiert ist worden, und von dem selben andechtigen leben etlicher brůder hat zů latin an schön büchli geschriben der andechtig vater brůder Iohannes von Mentz.”

50 See Huijbers, “Observance as Paradigm,” 135–141. A closer comparison between the works of Johannes of Mainz and Meyer can be found in Huijbers, Zealots for Souls, 42–49, 262.

51 Johannes of Mainz, Vita fratrum, fol. 104v; and Egger, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Predigerordens, 51.

52 Johannes of Mainz, Vita fratrum, fol. 104v: “Tercium signaculum quod deus omnipotens tam miris graciis dotavit hunc locum. An amplexatur hunc in causis fidei Sacrum Concilium?” The Basel convent was indeed a central location where council meetings took place. Abel, Stefan, Johannes Nider: “Die vierundzwanzig goldenen Harfen”: Edition und Kommentar (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2011), 9–10Google Scholar; and Egger, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Predigerordens, 196, 199.

53 Johannes of Mainz, Vita fratrum, fol. 104v: “Famatur alius in tota Colonia profundissimus albertista.”

54 Ibid.: “Ardent alii furore studii. Alii zelo religionis.”

55 Ibid.: “Ut semper proficiat sponsa sua biblioteca.”

56 This is also one of the conclusions in Huijbers, Zealots for Souls, 172–173, 278–279, 322, 325.

57 Johannes of Mainz, Vita fratrum, fol. 105r: “Quartum signaculum quod honor dei salusque animarum dono suo non parvum augentur . . . famatum hunc dei cultum modumque vivendi in fines orbis terre.” Johannes Meyer employed a similar rhetorical strategy to show the impact of the reform of the Nuremburg friary: see Huijbers, “Observance as Paradigm,” 123.

58 Compare with the essays in Elm's Reformbemühungen und Observanzbestrebungen and in Mixson and Roest's Companion to Observant Reform. In the latter, see, for instance: Delcorno, Pietro, “Quomodo discet sine docente? Observant Efforts towards Education and Pastoral Care,” in A Companion to Observant Reform in the Late Middle Ages and Beyond, ed. Mixson, James and Roest, Bert (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 147–184Google Scholar; Zarri, Gabriella, “Ecclesiastical Institutions and Religious Life in the Observant Century,” in A Companion to Observant Reform in the Late Middle Ages and Beyond, ed. Mixson, James and Roest, Bert (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 23–59Google Scholar; and Mixson, “Observant Reform's Conceptual Frameworks,” 60–84.

59 Johannes of Mainz, Vita fratrum, fol. 105r: “Sextum est caritatis vincul'um.”

60 Egger, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Predigerordens, 66–67.

61 Johannes of Mainz, Vita fratrum, fol. 105r: “In Reno miserabiliter est subversus.”

62 Ibid.: “Solus in nemore quodam obisse dicatur sed et volucres sibi narrantur oculus evulsisse.”

63 Ibid.: “non erant plantati a patre celesti sed aliunde venerunt ab hac vinea dei sunt eradicati.”

64 Ibid., fol. 106r: “Exhortatorium pro manutenencia observancie.” He also used John Cassian in this part. See Egger, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Predigerordens, 53.

65 In Johannes of Maiz, Vita fratrum, fol. 106r, he starts with: “Dilectissimi itaque mei. Respicite et levate capita vestra.” Luke 21:28.

66 Johannes of Mainz, Vita fratrum, fol. 106r: “Non propter locum gentem, scilicet propter gentem decoravit locum.”

67 Ibid., fol. 106v: “Loquor clarius: Si volumus non deficere, oportet ebdomadaliter inspicere speculum regule nostre, statuta patrum possetenus implere, errata non transire segniter, atque minima non omittere.”

68 On Meyer's activities as reformer and Observant writer, see Huijbers, Zealots for Souls, 132–141, 259–262, passim; and Taylor Jones, Ruling the Spirit, 127–160.

69 Johannes of Mainz, Vita fratrum, fol. 97r: “Fateor christi et sanctorum vitam prorsus sufficere ad exemplar, sed . . . spero hiis hoc opus non esse inutile, quos aliquando plus conpungit simplex exemplum dictum quam ewangelium sacrosanctum.”

70 For more information on the increasing number of friars, see Egger, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Predigerordens, 72–73.

71 Johannes of Mainz, Vita fratrum, fols. 112v, 114r. Johannes of Cologne originally came from Barcelona.

72 Ibid., fol. 103v.

73 Ibid., fol. 106v: “observancie speculum.” For the importance of such exempla in the Dominican tradition, see John H. Van Engen, “Dominic and the Brothers: Vitae as Life-Forming Exempla in the Order of Preachers,” in Christ among the Medieval Dominicans: Representations of Christ in the Texts and Images of the Order of Preachers, ed. Kent Emery Jr. and Joseph Wawrykow (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1998), 5–25.

74 Reinhard, “Religione e identità,” 107.

75 See, for instance, Tschacher, Werner, Der Formicarius des Johannes Nider von 1437/38: Studien zu den Anfängen der europäischen Hexenverfolgungen im Spätmittelalter (Aachen: Shaker, 2000)Google Scholar.

76 Mixson, James, “The Setting and Resonance of John Nider's De reformatione religiosorum,” in Kirchenbild und Spiritualität: dominikanische Beiträge zur Ekklesiologie und zum kirchlichen Leben im Mittelalter: Festschrift für Ulrich Horst OP zum 75. Geburtstag, ed. Prügl, Thomas and Schlosser, Marianne (Paderborn: Schöningh, 2007), 319–338Google Scholar; Bailey, “Johannes Nider's De abstinentia esus carnium”; and Abel, Johannes Nider. For Nider's writings, see Kaeppeli, Scriptores, 2:500–515.

77 In the Verfasserlexikon, authoritative citations on Nider's life are instead drawn from Johannes Meyer's edited Buch der reformacio predigerordens. These were actually selective translations from the Latin portrait written nearly twenty years earlier by Johannes of Mainz. Hillenbrand, Eugen, “Nider, Johannes,” Verfasserlexikon, vol. 6 (1987), 976Google Scholar. Only Franz Egger made use of the eulogy. Egger, Beiträge zur Geschichte des Predigerordens, 57, 61–62. It is touched upon briefly in Bailey, Battling Demons, 5; and Abel, Johannes Nider, 11–12. See Huijbers, Zealots for Souls, 256.

78 Johannes of Mainz, Vita fratrum, fol. 119r. Nider's eulogy is the longest in the chronicle: fols. 106v–108v.

79 Ibid., fol. 106v: “Eius verba et opera, cantus ac vivendi modus quasi lex scripta teneatur a posteris. . . Unde solent de ipso dicere gravissimi viri nunc maximi prelati ecclesie se nescire hominem vidisse in quo tot gratie et virtutes totque laudabiles propter etates noscantur claruisse.” The complete passage and translation is included in Huijbers, Zealots for Souls, 45.

80 Johannes of Mainz, Vita fratrum, fol. 107r–v: “O summa humilitas, o paupertas; O bone pater, O animarum fidelis medice.”

81 See Huijbers, Zealots for Souls, 223–229, 241–279.

82 Johannes of Mainz, Vita fratrum, fol. 106v: “O fecundissima planta!”

83 Ibid., fol. 107r: “Sicut in magisterio et prioratu et ceteris dignitatibus simplex et humilis fuit.”

84 Ibid.: “Huic iactabat eciam se tociens pauperis sutoris filium ex swevia oriundum esse.”

85 Ibid.: “Putasses utique cellam eius ut tabulam fere rasam.”

86 Cited and translated by Mixson, “The Setting and Resonance,” 324.

87 Johannes of Mainz, Vita fratrum, fol. 107v: “Nocte legeret fratribus, mane populo predicaret, prius prandium lecta repeteret atque in his laboribus ferventer continuaret.”

88 Ibid., fol. 108r: “Non ad pecunie questum sed ad salutem animarum.”

89 Ibid., fol. 107r.

90 Ibid.: “Respondit: quia scivit gaudentibus distinctissime congaudere et nichilominus proprie conscientie et profectui sollerter intendere.”

91 Ibid., fol. 107v: “Hunc verum fuisse alumpnus observancie Interrogatus quare magister inquit chorum frequentavit nocte dieque fere conventualium fratrum more.”

92 Ibid., fol. 107r: “Fuit prior noster affabilis et humanus, conversationis optime et edificatorius, quod si non esset vulgatum ubique, hoc solum affirmaret, quod in studio colonie tam humiliter, serviliter et hilariter vixit quod usque hodie eius laus pro omnibus observancialibus enituit.”

93 Ibid., fol. 107v: “Hanc tam leviter sed efficaciter fecerat ut et vicium sopiretur et frater non offenderetur.”

94 Ibid.: “Non recolo autem ipsum nec ab aliis didici eum umquam impetuosum fuisse.”

95 Ibid.: “Silencium consuevit observare.”

96 Ibid.: “Hinc consuevit ibidem sacerdos quidam observancialibus iocose insultare.”

97 Ibid.: “Ego hanc singularem gratiam in eo stupere non sufficio; quia in actu publico ipse unicus homo ymmo eodem tempore eodem loco fuerat duris tam auctoritativus timidus tam mellifluus tam summus in publico et tam conpaciens et dulcis in consciencie.”

98 Ibid., fol. 108r: “In iterere cum socio nunc oravit nunc questiones movit et multum socialis fuit.”

99 Ibid.: “Temptatus ego per biennium eciam ad ordinis exitum propter redditus temporales.”

100 Ibid.: “Cum sibi proponerem scrupulum, extendit manum dicens in hec verba tubaliter: Frater Johannes, nisi iam vincas hanc scrupulositatem dyabolus semper postea ingeret tibi aliam et forte peyerem. Per que verba et similia tantam sensi virtutem in anima mea ut postea non absorbeat me temptacio ista.”

101 Ibid., fol. 108v: “Quantus luctus fuit aput nos qui et premium perdidimus et reliquias habere non meruimus. Non possum describere sine luctu.”

102 Ibid., fol. 116r: “Ne scilicet laudarem hominem in faciem et adhuc viventem in corpora.” This was an unwritten rule generally respected by Dominican authors: see Huijbers, Zealots for Souls, 77, 97.

103 Johannes of Mainz, Vita fratrum, fol. 116v.

104 Ibid., fol. 117r: “Aliquis, inquit [Seneca], vir bonus nobis eligendus [sic, cf. deligendus] est ac semper ante oculos habendus ut sic tanquam illo spectante vivamus et omnia tanquam illo vidente faciamus.” Seneca, Epistulae morales ad Lucillum, 9:8.

105 Johannes of Mainz, Vita fratrum, fol. 118r.

106 Ibid., fol. 118v: “mulieres diu sustinere non potuit.”

107 Ibid.: “Quia ista nocte foret ustus ab igne.”

108 Ibid., fol. 105v: “mulierculis complacendum.”

109 Ibid.: “Cessat, inquit, affectus vite regularis cum ad complacendum monialibus inflectitur animus fratris.”

110 Ibid.: “Consuevit sepissime corripi ob sordes vestium. Nitorem horruit. Calceos novos in ordine fere nunquam admisit.” The latter sentence (literally, “He accepted new shoes in the order only sporadically”) seems to indicate his reluctance toward material goods and luxury.

111 This generic heterogeneity is typical for many Dominican order and convent chronicles in this period. See Huijbers, Zealots for Souls, 105–108, 141–142, 323.

112 Bailey, Michael, “Reformers on Sorcery and Superstition,” in A Companion to Observant Reform in the Late Middle Ages and Beyond, ed. Mixson, James and Roest, Bert (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 239–240Google Scholar.