MEYER (Latin: Villicus), ADAM. – Benedictine abbot, monastic reformer, born at St. Wendel at the beginning of the 15th century, died at St. Martin’s, Cologne, on 17 February 1499. He entered the Benedictine abbey of St. Matthias in Trier around 1430. Called (c. 1448) to St. Martin’s, Cologne, to undertake reform, he became abbot there on 29 September 1454. He restored discipline in all the monasteries of the region and was the driving force behind the Chapter of the monastic province of Cologne-Trier, which he visited on 27 April 1458.
He worked energetically to extend the reform of the Bursfeld Congregation, which he introduced at St. Martin’s, Cologne (1455), in the women’s monasteries of Zwartewater (1469), St. Agatha in Cologne, and later at Liesborn (1464), Grafschaft (1482), and Egmond in Holland (1490–91). From St. Martin’s, Cologne, reforming monks and abbots went out to Siloe, St. Paul’s, Utrecht, Johannisberg, and Laach.