Barocke Blütezeit: Die Kultur der Klöster in Westfalen (review)

Throughout the medieval and early modern periods, Westphalia was home to innumerable vibrant and quite varied monasteries, including the famed imperial abbey at Corvey. The situation today, however, is quite different. In recent decades the number of men and women in Catholic religious orders has dropped sharply. In 1970 there were still about 100,000 women in religious orders in Germany. By 2004, the total had sunk to 27,000, the vast majority of whom were over sixty-five years old. Just in the past few years, Münster lost its communities of Jesuits, Franciscans, and Poor Clares. This steep decline in the number of professed Catholics across Europe and North America inspired the creation of Germany’s first state museum dedicated to documenting the religious orders and their culture. The idea evolved during the restoration, begun in 1990, of the former monastery of the Augustinian Chorherrn (canons) at Dalheim, just south of Paderborn. This fascinating catalogue, edited by the museum’s director, coincides with the institution’s opening and its inaugural exhibition (22 May 2007 to 1 April 2008).

Dalheim is representative of many of the region’s smaller monasteries. Portions of its complex, including the surviving church of Sts. Peter and Anthony, date to the 1460s though most of the current structures were rebuilt by Prior Bartholdus Schonlau (r. 1708–30). During the Thirty Years’ War (1618–48), friends and foes alike damaged many religious establishments in Westphalia. The economic and spiritual resurgence of Dalheim in the eighteenth century was abruptly halted in 1803 with the state’s secularization of monastic properties. Fire in 1838 further damaged Dalheim. Given the monastery’s variable history, it is commendable that the Landschaftsverband Westfalen-Lippe (LWL) funded Dalheim’s restoration and reuse. The catalogue contains fifteen excellent essays that provide an insightful overview of Westphalian monastic life and art. The first five essays treat the artistic, political, and economic history of Dalheim and a group of related monasteries. Roland Pieper recounts how the restoration team used two detailed paintings of the abbey, dating to 1665 and about 1740, to guide their efforts. Gerd Dethlefs discusses the erection of Klosterschlösser, or monasteries that include a small residential palace or wing that could be used when the prince-bishop or another dignitary visited.

The second group of essays focuses on the cloister as a religious and cultural center during the early modern period. Mareike Menne describes the devotional practices of the Augustinian canons at Dalheim, including the impact of the Modern Devotion in the late fifteenth century, the character of cloister life, and the abbey’s role in parish activities. For readers of Renaissance Quarterly, Alwin Hanschmidt’s article on pastoral care and spiritual formation is especially instructive. He offers a detailed account of the impact of the Jesuits and the mendicant orders in Westphalian towns. Between 1530 and 1610, the region lost about a third of its monasteries and forty percent of its women’s convents due to the success of the Protestant Reformation. Through the concerted efforts of Elector Ferdinand of Bavaria, Archbishop of Cologne (r. 1612–50), forty new monasteries and religious houses were established in Westphalia between 1612 and 1659, and this despite the region’s frequent occupation by imperial and Swedish troops. Hanschmidt distinguishes between the Jesuits, who typically were invited into towns by a prince or bishop, and the mendicants, who came at the request of towns. While the teaching activities of the Jesuits are well known, he addresses the pedagogical efforts of the Franciscans and Capuchins. Hermann-Josef Schmalor discusses the impact of the 1803 secularization on monastic libraries. None of Westphalia’s abbeys boasted the grand library buildings or rich holdings that one associates with the Baroque monasteries of south Germany and Austria. Dalheim’s library consisted of just two rooms. Corvey’s...