BUSCH (pron. Büss), JOHANNES. — The greatest monastic reformer of the Congregation of Windesheim and its principal chronicler. Born in 1399 at Zwolle (Holland), after completing his studies there at the flourishing school of Johannes Cele, he entered, against the wishes of his parents, who wanted to send him to Erfurt to obtain a degree in law, the convent of the Canons Regular of St Augustine at Windesheim (1417). He received the habit on 6 January 1419 and professed a year later. While still a deacon, he was sent (1424) with three other religious to establish the new foundation of Marienberg at Bödingen (diocese of Cologne), and in that city he was ordained a priest. Returning to Windesheim in 1428, the Chapter delegated him the following year to reform the convent of Ludwigskerke (now Achlum, East Frisia), and that of Sion at Beverwijk (North Holland).
From 1431 to 1434 he was confessor to the religious women at Bruneppe (Kampen, province of Overijssel), then for two years once again at Windesheim. In 1435 the Council of Basel entrusted the monastery of Windesheim with the reform of all Augustinian convents of both sexes in the duchy of Brunswick and in the dioceses of Hildesheim, Halberstadt, and Verden, and the B. devoted all his activity to this work, which also extended to the monasteries of the Benedictine, Premonstratensian, and Cistercian Orders, as well as to those of the Alexians and the Brethren of the Common Life. After serving as vice-prior (1436–39) at Wittenburg (Saxony), he was charged with reforming the convent of Sülte, of which he was provost for eight years (1440–48). In the meantime, he visited many other monasteries and brought them back to regular observance. In 1448 he accepted the important provostship of Neuwerk, near Halle. Having 120 parishes under his jurisdiction there as archdeacon, he extended his activity also to the secular clergy and the faithful, with greater authority and within a wider sphere when Cardinal Legate Nicholas of Cusa, at the Synod of Magdeburg (1451), appointed him, together with the provost of St Maurice of Halle, Paolo Busse, apostolic visitor and reformer of all convents following the Augustinian Rule in the diocese of Magdeburg, in Saxony, Meissen, Thuringia, Brandenburg, and Havelberg, and decreed that a General Chapter should be held regularly at Neuwerk for this purpose. In 1454 the B. had to resign his provostship and returned to Windesheim, where he continued his work as a reformer. From 1459 to 1479 he was again provost of Sülte, where he died in 1479 or 1480.
Besides several minor writings—Sermones, 2 Epistolae, 2 Soliloquia, and the Rapiarium, edited by D. J. M. Wusten-
Wustenhoff, De kleinere geschriften van J. B... (Ghent–The Hague 1890)—he left two major works:
1) Chronicon Windeshemense, which comprises two parts: Liber de viris illustribus de Windeshem (written at Windesheim in 1455–58) and Liber de origine modernae devotionis (completed at Sülte in 1464), and which constitutes one of the principal sources for the history and spirituality of the Windesheim Devotion (v.). It was edited by H. Rosweyde, together with the chronicle of Mount St Agnes by Thomas à Kempis, under the title: Chronicon canonico regularium ordinis sancti Augustini capituli Windesheimensis auctore I. B. canonico regulari. Accedit Chronicon montis S. Agnetis auctore Thoma a Kempis canonico regulari (Antwerp 1621).
2) De Reformatione monasteriorum, written at Sülte (1470–1475), provides a faithful and vivid picture of his reforming activity and is of fundamental importance for understanding the religious situation of the Netherlands and Germany in the first half of the fifteenth century. Here we find the B. in his entirety, with all his characteristics: ardent zeal for the monastic ideal, psychological insight, self-confidence, and skill in dealing with the most delicate and embarrassing situations and in overcoming the very numerous difficulties and forms of resistance that sometimes obstructed his work.
A first, though deficient, edition was produced by G. W. von Leiniz, Scriptores rerum Brunsvicensium, II, Hannover 1707, pp. 476–506, 806–970. A good and critical edition of both works was produced by K. Grube: Des Augustiner-propstes J. B. Chronicon Windeshemense und Liber de reformatione monasteriorum (Geschichtsquellen der Provinz Sachsen..., 19), Halle 1886.
BBL.: J. G. R. Acquoy, Het klooster te Windesheim en zijn invloed, I, Utrecht 1875, pp. 289–328 and passim; K. Grube, J. B. Augustiner-propst zu Hildesheim (Sammlung historischer Bildnisse), Freiburg im Br. 1881; V. Becker, De twee verschillende redaction der Windesheimische Kronijh, in Der Katholisch, 87 (1885), pp. 388–404; id., Een onbehende Kronijh van het klooster te Windesheim, in Bijdingen en mededeelingen van het Hist. Genootschap te Utrecht, 10 (1887), pp. 376–445; L. Schulze, Zur Geschichte der Brüder vom gemeinsamen Leben, II; Des J. B. bisher unbehannte Schriften, in Zeitschr. für Kirchengeschichte, 11 (1890), pp. 586–96; G. Pohl, Die Glaubwürdigkeit des J. B. in der Imitatio-Frage, in Hist. Jahrbuch, 27 (1906), pp. 322–33 (cf. the replies by G. Börner and P. Eschbach, ibid., pp. 954–75); P. Lehmann, Reste einer Frühfassung von J. B. Windesheimer, in Hist. Jahrbuch, 54 (1934), pp. 320–39. Anselmo Musters