Actives and Contemplatives: The Female Religious of the Low Countries before and after Trent

Abstract

ACTIVES AND CONTEMPLATIVES: THE FEMALE RELIGIOUS OF THE LOW COUNTRIES BEFORE AND AFTER TRENT BY Craig Harune* The study of religious women in early modern Catholicism is now indisputably a growth-industry.1 It is a good time, therefore, to con- *Mr. Harline is an associate professor of history in Brigham Young University. He wishes to express his gratitude to Jodi Bilinkoff, Walter Simons, and Paula Kelly for their comments and bibliographical suggestions, as well as to the several institutions that have supported the research from which this article grew, especially the National Endowment for the Humanities, the American Philosophical Society, the University of Idaho Research Council, and the College ofFamily, Home, and Social Sciences at Brigham Young University. Abbreviations: AAM = Archive of the Archdiocese of Mechelen-Brussels NAGN = Nieuw Algemene Geschiedenes der Nederlanden¦This article is based on secondary materials (especially works in English) for conditions outside the Low Countries, and on both archival and secondary materials for conditions within. For a more general review of the literature on female religious, see the opening bibliographical note to my Burdens ofSisterMargaret (New York, 1994). A sample of useful works for the particular subject of contemplatives and actives includes , for the medieval period, Clifford H. Lawrence, Medieval Monasticism (New York, 1984); Lina Eckenstein, Women under Monasticism (New York, 1963); Eileen Power, Medieval English Nunneries, c 1275 to 1535 (Cambridge, 1922); John R. H . Moorman, A History of the Franciscan Order. . . to the Year 1517 (Oxford, 1968); William A. Hinnebusch, O.P., The History of the Dominican Order. . . to 1500 (New York, 1966); Louis J. Lekai, The Cistercians: Ideals and Reality (Kent, Ohio, 1977); Lillian T. Shank and John A. Nichols (cas.). MedievalReligious Women. Vol. II: Peaceweavers (Kalamazoo, Michigan, 1987); Penelope D. Johnson, Equal in Monastic Profession: Religious Women inMedievalFrance(Chicago, 1991 ); and, for an excellent introduction to the medieval actives in the Low Countries, Vols. Ill and IV of the new Algemene Geschiedenes der Nederlanden (Haarlem, 1979). For the early modern period see Outram Evennett's assessment of religious in The Spirit of the Counter-Reformation (Notre Dame, Indiana, 1968); such overviews as Joyce Irwin's "Society and the Sexes," in Reformation Europe: A Guide to Research, ed. Steven Ozment (St. Louis, 1982); Kathryn Norberg's "The Counter-Reformation and Women, Religious and Lay," in Catholicism in Early Modern History: A Guide to Research, ed. John O'Malley (St. Louis, 1988); F. Ellen Weaver's "Women and Religion 541 542ACTIVES AND CONTEMPLATIVES front a lingering problem in the generally healthy enterprise: the relative development and importance of active and contemplative orders. Three themes stand out in my reading of the historical literature on this subject: ( 1 ) that the first significant and lasting emergence of an "active" spirituality or apostolate among women religious occurred during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, (2) that this type of spirituality was characteristic of early modern religious sensibilities, and (3) that the decrees and agents ofthe Council ofTrent successfully militated—at least for many decades—against the involvement of women in an active apostolate and insisted that they submit to longapproved contemplative forms. My intent is not altogether to refute these themes, but to suggest possibilities for refinement and further research, especially through illustration of conditions in the Catholic Low Countries—an area where none of the themes is very useful at all. in Early Modern France," Catholic Historical Review, LXVII 0anuary, 1981), 50—59; and such synthetic contributions as Owen Hufton and Frank Tallett, "Communities of Women, the Religious Life, and Public Service in Eighteenth-Century France," in Connecting Spheres: Women in the Western World, 1500 to the Present, eds. Marilyn J. Boxer et al (Oxford, 1987); Merry Wiesner, "Nuns, Wives and Mothers: Women and the Reformation in Germany," in Women in Reformation and Counter-Reformation Europe, ed. Sherrin Marshall (Bloomington, Indiana, 1989); Sherrin Marshall, "Protestant , Catholic, andJewish Women in the Early Modern Netherlands," in the same volume; William Monter, "Protestant Wives, Catholic Saints, and the Devil's Handmaid: Women in the Age of Reformations," in Becoming Visible: Women in European History, 2d edition, edd. Renate Bridenthal et al. (Boston, 1987). Helpful specialized works were Robert Lemoine, Le Droit des Religieux, du Concile de Trente aux...

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