latum. Vigente prima illa ordinis Cluniacensis unione, scimus prævalentibus in Polonia bellis, pluries patres nostros in Galliam refugisse: multo plura [per] visitatores Cluniaco in Poloniam missos, de monasteriorum statu, fortuna et infortunio cognovisse; ergo, si quæ similes memorie de monasteriis Cluniacensium in Polonia, in archivo sacri archicenobii vestri reperiantur, supplicamus, ut ad cognitionem anterioris nostri status ex benevolentia paterna RR. DD. [reverendorum Dominorum] vestrorum, nobis quoque patefiant. Facient sane, si fecerint, rem et nobis gratam, et ordini sacro honorificam, et testabuntur successione inexhausta venire se ex antiquis Cluniaci patribus patres, si solido effectu complexi fueritis eos qui æque sumus spirituali ductu exillorum foliis, filii et reverendissimi domini ac admodum reverendissimarum dominationum vestrarum, servi in Christo et fratres.

D. PAULUS GERRUL, prior Tinecensis, et visitator.
D. JOHANNES FAWADZKI, senior,

D. ILDEPHONSUS MIETIELSKI, cellerarius,

D ALEXANDER BLOTOWSKI, suo et potius conventus
Tinecensis nomine.

Datum Tinecii, 2 aprilis, 1693

[Addressed].

Manu sua propria.

(Seal of the monastery of Tyniec.)

Reverendissimo ac religiosissimo domino magno priori, ceterisque admodum reverendis ac religiosis patribus, archicænobii Cluniacensis ordinis S. P. Benedicti, dominis, patribus et fatribus nostris observandissimis. [Original on paper; length 12 inches, breadth 8 inches; Collection Bourgogne, Vol. LXXXV., No. 595, Bibl. Nat.]

CLUNIAC FOUNDATIONS IN GERMANY AND POLAND IN 1417.

The foregoing reports, which were handed in at Constance before the breaking up of the Council, are a model of detail in respect of monastic discipline and general con

CO

further demur. This all occurred in the presence of the abbots Dietrich von Helmarshausen, Hermann von Breitenau (of the Order of St. Benedict), and Herman von Hardehausen (belonging to the Cistercian order).

On the day following the Visitors and Reformers reassembled the convent, setting before them and propounding the necessary obligation, as well as the duty, of having all things in common, and to return to that mode of life, which community of life was, in fact, the first and primary injunction in the rule of their founder, St. Benedict. The abbot, with some of the monks, at once fell in with this counsel, but the rest required time to deliberate and think over the matter. In the year 1352 the effects and property of abbot and monks had been disassociated and held apart. This practice of holding self-acquired or demised estate the Visitors declared to be no longer valid or tenable, and the power over all private property to be from that time null and void. They then laid down orders (or rather repeated regulations) by which the clothing, daily maintenance, and number of the brethren should be regulated; in the latter case reducing the number of choir-monks (or those in holy orders), which had been 18 out of 24 monks, to 11 out of an aggregate of 15 monks, with four novices and seven lay-brethren. Account was then taken as to the divine offices, masses, and general administration of the conventual property, but further power over all acquired property or personal estate on the part of the fraternity was entirely taken out of their hands. The copy of the Visitation-proceedings was duly witnessed and signed the same day, and deposited with other muniments of the convent.

The Visitors, who manifestly proceeded on their journey down the Rhine, i.e., by boat, as far as practicable, subsequently left the river for Paderborn in Westphalia, or the so-called abbey of Abdinghof in that city, the abbot of which, Henry, and his whole convent there receiving them on the 4th of February, with every mark of friendship and respect. The day following, the bell announcing the time, the Visitors, preceded by the abbot, bearing his staff of office, assembled with the whole convent in the chapter-house. After the usual formalities

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Yas over stown to say that the

onowed the rule of Citeaux. arst Thursday in Lent, being the COFudiy, Damely, the day after Ash Wednesday, the stol mingers bent their way to the Sari nebusilly is Stanquelt, tccompanied by the Lori Abbot of apoionor, aut after being received by the nuns in the chapter-house, in the presence of certain other abbots and notabilities, the aforenamed Por of Sallange, taking his text from the 2 Minys xx, de "I have heard thy prager; i have seen thy tears," exhorted

the sisterhood, who were quite overcome by the fervour of his words, undeviating perseverance and the reform of all that was wanting. The sisters of the house, after the above discourse, answered and explained with all humility, that whenever the Abbot of Abdinchof, or his predecessors, received them into the bosom of the Church, by accepting their religious profession, they openly wore, without any disguise, as they still continued to wear, the Cistercian habit; neither had it been ever thoroughly made clear, as they said, to which of the two Orders they really belonged, whether to the Cluniac or that of Citeaux. In the end, therefore, it was settled by mutual consent on both sides, that the Visitation should be postponed until after this present Easter, when they would be more fully informed as to the rule of the congregation they were actually following, and by whom they were to be visited in future. The Visitors impressed particularly on the Abbot of Abdinchof the necessity, in reference to the matter, of being active and bestirring himself, so as to maintain the rights of his convent, and especially of his own Order.

Again, in the aforenamed diocese of Paderborn, and equally in Westphalia, is a religious foundation, named Flechdorf, immediately dependent on the Abbey of Paderborn or Abdinchof, where, according to what was heard on good authority, the brethren number no more than four or six, and stand in the greatest need of reform and of being visited, if for no other than the following reason, that in those parts there are certain freebooters living in a sort of open-camp, who are in a kind of way related to some of the brethren, or at any rate in league with them; for which cause neither the Visitors, nor, indeed, those living close by ever venture to go near that

convent.

The reforming Visitors enjoined on their colleague, the Abbot of Abdinchof, that whenever he could, or might be able to seize a favourable opportunity to visit that said monastery, he should carry out its required reformation.

Similar directions and orders were equally given with regard to the other house of the Cluniac Order, named Wildbadessen; a nunnery in the same diocese of Pader