BUSCH (pron. Büss), Johannes. - The greatest monastic reformer of the Congregation of Windesheim, and its principal chronicler. Born in 1399 at Zwolle (Holland), having completed his studies there in the flourishing school of Johannes Cele, he entered, against the wish of his parents who wanted to send him to Erfurt to take a degree in law, the convent of the Regular Canons of St. Augustine at Windesheim (1417). There he took the habit on 6 January 1419 and professed a year later. Still a deacon, he was sent (1424) with three other religious to make the new foundation of Marienberg at Bödingen (diocese of Cologne), and in that city he was ordained priest. Having returned in 1428 to Windesheim, the Chapter delegated him the following year to reform the convent of Ludwigskerke (now Achlum, East Frisia), and that of Sion at Beverwijk (northern Holland).
From 1431 to 1434 he was confessor of the nuns at Bruneppe (Kampen, province of Overijssel), then for two years again at Windesheim. In 1435 the Council of Basel entrusted to the monastery of Windesheim the reform of all the Augustinian convents of both sexes in the duchy of Brunswick and in the dioceses of Hildesheim, Halberstadt and Verden, and to this work B. devoted all his activity, which extended also to the monasteries of the Benedictine, Premonstratensian and Cistercian orders, of the Alexians and of the Brethren of the Common Life. After the vice-priorate (1436-39) at Wittenburg (Saxony), he received the charge of reforming the convent of Sülte, of which he was provost for eight years (1440-48). In the meantime he visited and brought back to regular observance many other monasteries. In 1448 he accepted the important provostship of Neuwerk, near Halle. Having there, as archdeacon, 120 parishes under his jurisdiction, he extended his activity also to the secular clergy and to the faithful, with greater authority and in a wider sphere when the cardinal legate Nicholas of Cusa, at the Synod of Magdeburg (1451), appointed him, together with the provost of St. Maurice of Halle, Paul Busse, apostolic visitor and reformer of all the convents of the Augustinian rule in the diocese of Magdeburg, in Saxony, Meissen, Thuringia, Brandenburg and Havelberg, and established that for this purpose a general Chapter should be held regularly at Neuwerk. In 1454 B. had to renounce his provostship and returned to Windesheim, always continuing his work as reformer. From 1459 to 1479 he was again provost of Sülte, where he died in 1479 or 1480.
Besides some 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 great works:
1) Chronicon Windeshemense, which comprises two parts: Liber de viris illustribus de Windeshem (written at Windesheim 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 the spirituality of the movement of Windesheim and of the Modern 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), gives a faithful and vivid picture of his reforming activity and is of fundamental importance for knowing the religious situation of the Low Countries and of Germany in the first half of the fifteenth century. In it we find B. entire with his characteristics: ardent zeal for the monastic ideal, psychological penetration, self-assurance and skill in confronting the most delicate and embarrassing situations and in overcoming the very many difficulties and resistances that sometimes hindered his work.
A first edition, though deficient, was made 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 given by K. Grube: Des Augustiner-propstes J. B. Chronicon Windeshemense und Liber de reformatione monasteriorum (Geschichtsquellen der Provinz Sachsen..., 19), Halle 1886.
Bibliography8 works
Anselmo Musters