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Time for Prayer and Time for Work. Rule and Practice among Catholic Lay Sisters in the Dutch Republic

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 March 2016

Joke Spaans
Joke Spaans*
Affiliation:
University of Amsterdam
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Extract

One shall rise at five in the morning and go to communal prayers at six. After prayer and meditation one shall read the first three canonical hours: matins, lauds and prime – but those who do not have the leisure can also do this over their work.

This is how the Rule of a community of seventeenth-century Dutch Catholic lay-sisters started. Theirs was a very flexible rule, designed to accommodate both wealthy sisters, who could spend much of their time in their devotions, and poorer ones, who had to work for their living. Their Rule provides a good illustration of attitudes towards the use of time among pious Christians in the seventeenth century.

Type
Research Article
Information
Studies in Church History , Volume 37: The Use and Abuse of Time in Christian History , 2002 , pp. 161 - 172
Copyright
Copyright © Ecclesiastical History Society 2002

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References

1 Utrecht, Library Rijksmuseum Het Catharijneconvent [hereafter Library Catharijneconvent], collection ‘Parochie St Joseph’ [hereafter St Joseph], MS 102 (Regel en onderwijsing der Maaghden, hereafter cited as Rule), fol. 7r.

2 Most informative on the Haarlem kloppen is Eugenie Theissing, Over klopjes en kwezels (Utrecht, 1935); more general on kloppen in the Dutch Republic, Marit Monteiro, Ceestelijke maagden. Leven tussen klooster en wereld in Noord-Nederland gedurende de zeventiende eeuw (Hilversum, 1996); Elisja Schulte van Kessel, Geest en vlees in godsdienst en wetenschap. Vijf opstellen over gezagsconflicten in de zeventiende eeuw (The Hague, 1980), chs 2–3, pp. 51–115.

3 Generally, Ruth P. Liebowitz, ‘Virgins in the service of Christ. The dispute over an active apostolate for women during the Counter-Reformation’, in Rosemary Ruether and Eleanor McLaughlin, eds, Women of Spirit. Female Leadership in the Jewish and Christian Traditions (New York, 1979), pp. 131–52; Po-chia Hsia, Ronnie, The World of Catholic Renewal 1540–1770 (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 33–41 Google Scholar, 138–51; on specific communities Anne Conrad, Zwischen Kloster und Welt. Ursulinnen und Jesuitinnen in der katholischen Reformbewegung des 16./17. Jahrhunderts (Mainz, 1991); Elizabeth Rapley, The Dévotes. Women and Church in Seventeenth Century France (Montreal, 1990); M. de Vroede, Kwezels en zusters. De geestelijke dochters in de Zuidelijke Nederlanden in de 17e en 18e eeuw (Brussels, 1994).

4 Most Counter-Reformation female congregations were founded later than the kloppen. On chronology see Conrad, Zwischen Kloster und Welt; Rapley, Dévotes; De Vroede, Kwezels en zusters, pp. 95, 115–18.

5 Bossy, John, Tlie English Catholic Community 1570–1810 (London, 1975), p. 282 Google Scholar, suggests that female semi-religious, by mediating between Catholic clergy and the ‘matriarchal’ familial religiosity in recusant families, could have helped the English Catholic community grow.

6 On Dutch Catholicism in the seventeenth century, Rogier, L. J., Geschiedenis van het katholicisme in Noord-Nederland in de zestiende en zeventiende eeuw, 3 vols (Amsterdam, 1945-7Google Scholar); W. P. C. Knuttel, De toestand der Nederlandsche katholieken ten tijde der Repubtiek, 2 vols (The Hague, 1892–4).

7 Spiertz, M. G., ‘Pastorale problemen in de Noordnederlandse katholieke kerk van de zeventiende eeuw’, Kleio, 20/iii-iv (1979), pp. 42–8 Google Scholar.

8 Hsia, Cf., World of Catholic Renewal, p. 84 Google Scholar.

9 Separate historiographical surveys in Kaspar Elm, ‘Vita regularis sine regula. Bedeutung, Rechtsstellung und Selbstverständnis des mittelalterlichen und frühneuzeitlichen Semireligiosentums’, in Smahel, Frantisek, ed., Häresie und vorzeitige Reformation im Spätmittelalter (Oldenburg, 1998), pp. 239–73 CrossRefGoogle Scholar; De Vroede, Kwezels en zusters, pp. 7–15.

10 De Vroede, Kwezeb en zusters, p. 75, Florence Koorn, ‘Women without vows. The case of the beguines and the Sisters of the Common Life in the Northern Netherlands’, in Elisja Schulte van Kessel, ed., Women and Men in Spiritual Culture. A Meeting of North and South (The Hague, 1986), pp. 135, 141.

11 Elm, ‘Vita regularis’.

12 Leibowitz, ‘Virgins’, pp. 140–2; Rapley, Dévotes, pp. 38–41.

13 Rapley, Dévotes; Kathryn Norberg, The Counter-Reformation and women: religious and lay’, in J. W. O’Malley, ed., Catholicism in Early Modem History (St Louis, MO, 1988), pp. 133–46.

14 Schulte van Kessel, Geest en vlees, pp. 95–110; Rapley, Dévotes, pp. 48–56; De Vroede, Kwezels en zusters, pp. 85–94; Conrad, Zwischen Kloster und Welt, pp. 95–102.

15 All of this in Library Catharijneconvent, collections St Joseph and ‘Preciosa Warmond’ [hereafter Warmond].

16 Life of Machteld Bickers (†1624), Library Catharijneconvent, Warmond, MS 92 B 13, fol. 159r, of Apollonia Areians (†1628), ibid., fol. 234V, and of Annetge Sixtus van Emingha (†1632), MS 92 B 14, fol. 84V, cf. Theissing, Over klopjes en kwezels, p. 95. For criticism of frivolity see the Life of Tryn Jansdr. Oly († 1651), MS 92 C 10, fols 43U, 435V.

17 A. G. Weiler, ‘Over de geestelijke praktijk van de Moderne Devotie’, in Bange, P. et al., eds, De doorwerking van de moderne Devotie, Windesheim 1387–1987 (Hilversum, 1988), pp. 29–45 Google Scholar; Louis Chatellier, The Europe of the Devout. The Catholic Reformation and the Formation of a New Society (Cambridge, 1989), pp. 33–8.

18 Library Catharijneconvent, St Joseph, MS 102, fols 8v-20v.

19 Ibid., fols 98v-105r.

20 Library Catharijneconvent, Warmond, MS 92 B 14, fols 182r-217r (Life of Magdalena van Dam); for the 24-hour schedule of devotions, fols 200r-205r.

21 What follows is a paraphrase of the chapter ‘On work’ in the Rule. Library Catharijneconvent, St Joseph, MS 102, fols 81r-105v.

22 Ibid., fols 81v-86v.

23 Ibid., fols 86V-87V.

24 Ibid., fols 87V-90V.

25 Library Catharijneconvent, St Joseph, MS 102, fols oov-105r.

26 Text-edition in Concilium Tridentinum: diariorum, actorum, epistolarum, tractatuum nova collectio, 13 vols (Freiburg im Breisgau, 1901–50), 12: 131–45; introduction and German translation by Luther (who must have had a field day) in J. K. F. Knaake et al., eds, D. Martin Luthers Werke: kritische Gesamtausgabe, 67 vols (Weimar 1883–1997), 50: 288–308.

27 Ludovicus Vives (ed. Armando Saitta), De subventione pauperum (Florence, 1973); on hospitals see pp. 70–2.

28 Cf. Ole Peter Grell, The Protestant imperative of Christian care and neighbourly love’, in Ole Peter Grell and Andrew Cunningham, eds, Health Care and Poor Relief in Protestant Europe, 1500–1700 (London, 1997), pp. 43–65.

29 Rooden, Peter van, Religieuze Regimes. Over godsdienst en maatschappij in Nederland, 1570–1990 (Amsterdam, 1996), pp. 69–70 Google Scholar.

30 F. Smit, ‘Klopjes en klopbroeders binnen de clerezie’, in idem, Batavia Sacra (Amersfoort, 1992), pp. 39–62. The kloppen described by Schulte van Kessel (Geest en vlees) and Monteiro (Geestelijken Maagden) may be examples of this later type. In the Dutch Republic printed manuals appeared mainly from the second half of the seventeenth century: Monteiro, Geestelijke Maagden, pp. 355–60.

31 Cf. Rapley, Dévotes, pp. 69, 83–94, 113–16; De Vroede, Kwezels en zusters, pp. 135–79.

32 Spaans, Joke, Armenzorg in Friesland, 1500–1800. Publieke zorg en particuliere liefdadigheid in zes Friese steden. Leeuwarden, Bolsward, Franeker, Sneek, Dokkum en Harlingen (Hilversum, 1998 Google Scholar).