Suppression of Monasteries in Continental Europe
Under this title will be treated only the suppressions of
religious houses (whether monastic in the strict sense or houses
of the mendicant orders) since the Reformation. The somewhat more
general subject of state encroachments on Church property will be
found treated under such titles as LAICIZATION; COMMENDATORY
ABBOT; INVESTITURES, CONFLICT OF. The economic motives of state
opposition to the tenure of lands by religious corporations
(dating from the thirteenth century) are explained under MORTMAIN.
The countries dealt with in the present article are Germany, the
Iberian Peninsula, and Italy. The suppression of English
monasteries is covered in its own article. (For French
suppressions, see FRANCE, especially sub-title, The Third Republic
and the Church in France.)
A. Germany (including all Austrian Dominions)
The confiscation of religious property following upon the Treaty
of Westphalia (1648) had been for the benefit of Protestant
princes only. More than a hundred monasteries and innumerable
pious foundations disappeared at this time. Towards the middle of
the eighteenth century a new movement tending to the destruction
of monastic institutions swept over those portions of the German
Empire which had remained attached to the Catholic Faith.
"Josephinism", as this political and religious movement was
afterwards called, taking its name from its foster-father, the
Emperor Joseph II, made the Church subservient to the State. The
supernatural character of the religious life was ignored; abbeys
and convents could be permitted to exist only on giving proof of
their material utility. A plan was formed at this period for the
general secularization of monastic and other ecclesiastical
property for the profit of the Catholic Governments in Germany.
This was part of a general plan for a redistribution of territory.
Frederick II (the Great) of Prussia had taken the initiative and
had won over England and France to his idea. The opposition of
Maria Theresa, of the Prince Bishop of Mainz, and of Pope Benedict
XIV caused the project to fail. The Holy See kept the diplomacy of
Prussia in check for some years. To counteract the action of Rome
on public sentiment, the partisans of secularization encouraged in
Germany the spread of those philosophical errors -- Materialism
and Rationalism -- which were then gaining ground in France (see
ENCYCLOPEDISTS). With this view they succeeded in withdrawing the
universities from Roman influence.
Meanwhile the princes approached the task directly. The Elector
Maximilian (Joseph) III (1745-77) began in Bavaria a work of
destruction which was carried on by his successors down to the
Elector Maximilian Joseph IV, Napoleon's ally, who became King
Maximilian I of Bavaria in 1805 (d. 1825). Measures were taken
first against the mendicant orders; the secular power began to
meddle in the government of the monasteries, a commission being
appointed by the civil authorities for that purpose. In the
meantime (1773) the suppression of the Jesuits was decreed. About
the year 1782 the Elector Charles Theodore (1778-99) obtained the
assent of Pius VI to a project for the extinction of several
religious foundations. The Elector Maximilian Joseph IV (King
Maximilian I) of Bavaria completed the work of destruction,
influenced by the policy of his ally, Napoleon I, and assisted by
the Count of Montgelas, his chief minister. A rescript of 9
September, 1800, deprived the religious orders in Bavaria of all
property rights and prohibited them to receive novices. The
convents of the mendicant orders (Franciscans, Dominicans,
Augustinians, Carmelites) and the religious houses of women were
the first to fall. Then came the turn of the Canons Regular and
the enedictines. The cathedral monasteries were not spared. Among
the abbeys that disappeared in 1803 may be mentioned; St. Blasien
of the Black Forest (the community, however, being admitted, in
1809, to the monastery of St. Paul), St. Emmeran of Ratisbon,
Andechs, St. Ulrich of Augsburg, Michelsberg, Benedictbeurn,
Ertal, Kempten, Metten, Oberaltaich, Ottobeurn, Scheyern,
Tegernsee, Wessobr�nn.
The monasteries in other parts of North Germany met with the
common fate of all church property. On the left bank of the Rhine
they were suppressed when that territory was annexed to France by
the Peace of Luneville, 9 February, 1801. Their property was
disposed of by the Diet of Ratisbon (3 March, 1801- February,
1803), the deplorable business having been negotiated in Paris
with Bonaparte and Talleyrand. Besides her twenty-five
ecclesiastical principalities and her eighteen universities,
Catholic Germany lost all her abbeys and her religious houses for
men: their property was given to Bavaria, Prussia, and Austria. As
to the religious houses for women, the princes were to consult
with bishops before proceeding to expel their inmates. The future
reception of novices was forbidden. In the Netherlands, the
Principality of Li�ge, and the portions of Switzerland annexed by
France, the religious houses disappeared completely.
In the territories immediately subject to the House of Hapsburg,
the secularization of monastic houses had begun more than thirty
years before this. In pursuance of the policy with which his name
has been especially associated, the Emperor Joseph II (d. 1790)
forbade the teaching of theology in monasteries, even to the young
religious, and also the reception of novices. Intercourse with the
Holy See was placed under imperial control. It was forbidden to
receive foreign religious. The civil authorities interfered in the
regular discipline of communities. Commendatory abbots were
appointed. Monasteries were deprived of the parishes belonging to
them. Superiors had to account to the emperor's representatives
for the disposition of their incomes. Theological works printed
outside the Empire could not be used. -- Such were the principal
lines of action of this administration, of which Kaunitz was the
minister. All this, however, was but the prelude to a decree of
suppression which was issued on 17 March, 1783.
This decree applied to all monasteries, whether of women or of
men, judged useless by the standards of Josephinism; their
revenues were taken to increase the salaries of the secular
priests or for pious establishments useful to religion and
humanity. The dioceses of the Low Countries (then subject to the
House of Hapsburg) lost one hundred and sixty-eight convents,
abbeys, or priories. In all, 738 religious houses were suppressed
in the Empire during the reign of Joseph II.
In anticipation of this disaster, Pius VI had conferred on the
bishops extensive privileges. They had power to dispense expelled
religious, both men and women, from wearing their habit, and, in
case of necessity, to dispense them from the simple vows. They
were to secure for them a pension -- but, as this was generally
insufficient, many were reduced to poverty. The Government
transformed the monasteries into hospitals, colleges, or barracks.
The victims of the persecution remained faithful to their
religious obligations. Their ordinaries took great care of them.
Cardinal de Frankenberg, Archbishop of Mechlin, affording a
particularly bright example in this respect. The Abbey of Melk
(q.v.) was spared; some of the suppressed houses were even
affiliated to it; but on the death of Abbot Urban I (1783), the
emperor placed over the monks a religious of the Pious Schools as
commendatory abbot. The monasteries of Styria were soon closed,
though some houses -- e.g., Kremsmunster, Lambach, Admont --
escaped the devastation. All those in Carinthia and the Tyrol were
sacrificed. The religious in Bohemia had not yet recovered from
the ravages caused by the wars of Frederick II and Maria Theresa,
when they had to encounter this fresh tempest. Breunau, Emmaus of
Prague, and Raigern, with a few monasteries of Cistercians and
Premonstratensians, escaped complete ruin. The emperor showed no
consideration toward the venerable Abbey of St. Martin of Pannonia
and its dependencies. In Hungary the Benedictines were entirely
wiped out.
The death of Joseph II put an end to this violence, without,
however, stopping the spread of those opinions which had incited
it. His brother, Leopold II (d. 1792) allowed things to remain as
he found them, but Francis II (Francis I of Austria, son of
Leopold II) undertook to repair some of the ruin, permitting
religious to pronounce solemn vows at the age of twenty-one. The
Hungarian Abbey of St. Martin of Pannonia was the first to profit
by this benevolence, but its monks had to open the gymnasia in it
and its dependencies. The monasteries of the Tyrol and Salzburg
had escaped the ruin. These countries were attached to Austria by
the Congress of Vienna (September, 1814 -- June, 1815). The monks
were allowed to reenter. The celebrated Abbey of Reichenau alone
did not arise from its ruins. The princely Abbey of St. Gall, too,
had been dissolved during the Wars of the Revolution and the
Empire, and there was a proposal, at the Congrss of Vienna, to re-
establish it, but without giving it back its lands: the abbot
would not accept the conditions thus imposed, and the matter went
no further. The Swiss monasteries were exposed to pillage and ruin
during the wars of the Revolution. The Government of the Helvetian
Republic was hostile to them, they recovered a little liberty
after the Act of Mediation, in 1803. But the situation changed
after 1832. The Federal Constitution, revised at that time,
suppressed the guarantees granted to convents and religious
foundations. During the long period of persecution and
confiscation in Switzerland, from 1838 to 1848 (for which see
LUCERNE), the monks of Mariastein sought refuge in Germany, and
then in France and Austria; those of Mury were sheltered at Griess
(Tyrol), others like Disentis, fell into utter ruin. The Swiss
Benedictines then went to the United States, where they founded
the Swiss-American congregation.
B. The Iberian Peninsula
The constitution of 1812 given to the Kingdom of Spain by the
government which Napoleon imposed on it suppressed all religious
congregations and confiscated their property, in accordance with
the conqueror's general policy. They were re-established in 1814
by King Ferdinand, whom the War of Independence had restored to
the throne. Their existence was again threatened by the Revolution
of 1820, when the Cortes decreed the suppression of the religious
orders, leaving only a few houses to shelter the aged and infirm.
It must be said that, in this case, the effect of the generally
anti-religious principles actuating the revolutionists was
reinforced by the impoverishment of the nation by the Napoleonic
wars, by the revolt of its American colonies, and by changed
economic conditions. Ferdinand III, who was restored to the throne
by the French Army, hastened to annul the decrees of the cortes
(1823). The monasteries and their property were given back to the
religious, who were enabled once more to live in community. But in
October, 1835, a decree of the government, inspired by Juan de
Mendizabal, minister of finance, again suppressed all the
monasteries in Spain and its possessions. The Cortes, which had
not been consulted, approved of this measure next year, and
promulgated a law abolishing vows of religion. All the movable and
immovable property was confiscated and the income assigned to the
sinking fund. Objects of art and books were, in general, reserved
for the museums and public libraries, though many of them were
left untouched, and many others dispersed. Large quantities of
furniture and other objects were sold, the lands and rights of
each house alienated, while speculators realized large fortunes.
Certain monasteries were transformed into barracks or devoted to
public purposes. Others were sold or abandoned to pillage.
In 1859 the Government gave to the bishops those religious houses
which had not already been disposed of. Numerous conventual
churches were turned over for parish use. The religious were
promised a pension not to exceed one franc a day, but it was never
paid. No mercy was shown even to the aged and the infirm, who were
not allowed to wait for death in their cells. Almost all hoped for
an approaching political change that would restore them their
religious liberty, as had happened twice before, but the event
proved otherwise. The destruction was irrevocable, some religious
sought a refuge in Italy and in France. The greater number either
petitioned the bishops to incorporate them in their dioceses or
went to live with their families. The people of the Northern
provinces, who are very devoted to Catholicism, did not associate
themselves directly with the measures taken against the religious;
so much cannot be said for those of the South and of the large
towns, where the expulsion of religious sometimes took the
appearance of a popular insurrection: convents were pillaged and
burned, religious were massacred. Monasteries of women were
treated less inhumanly: here the authorities contented themselves
with confiscating property and suppressing privileges; but the
nuns continued to live in community. With time the passion and
hatred of the persecutors diminished somewhat. The monks of the
abbey of Montserrat in Catalonia were able to come together again.
The religious orders which supplied the clergy for the Spanish
colonies, such as the Dominicans, Augustinians, and Franciscans,
were authorized to retain some houses.
The monasteries in Portugal met the same fate as those in Spain,
and at about the same time (1833). Only the Franciscans charged
with religious duties in the Portuguese colonies were spared.
C. Italy
During the eighteenth century, while Josephinism was rampant in
Catholic Germany, Leopold, afterwards the Emperor Leopold II,
tried to emulate in some degree the emperor's anti-monastic
policy. But the general persecution of religious orders in Italy
did not begin until the wars of the Revolution and the Empire had
effected a complete transformation in that country. France
inspired with her anti-religious tendencies the new governments
established by Napoleon, Church property was confiscated;
monasteries and convents were suppressed, though congregations
devoted to the care of the sick and to the instruction of poor
children were tolerated here and there as, for instance, in the
Kingdom of Italy, founded in 1805. The repressive measures could
not be enforced in all localities with equal severity. Napoleon
extended them to the city of Rome in 1810. At Naples the
authorities proceeded to suppress all the orders and confiscate
their property (1806-13). When the Congress of Vienna restored
these states to their exiled rulers, the latter hastened to make
the Church free once more. In Tuscany the duke made a grant to the
monasteries, in exchange for the lands that they had lost. In the
Pontifical States things reverted to the ancient order: 1824
houses for men and 612 for women were re-established. In Naples
the religious had diminished by at least one-half.
The period of peace, however, was not destined to endure: the
establishment of Italian unity was fatal to the religious orders.
The persecution was resumed in the constitutional Kingdom of
Sardinia, which was about to become the agent and the type of
united Italy. Cavour imposed this anti-religious policy on King
Victor Emmanuel. He proposed first to secularize the monastic
property: the money thus obtained was to serve as a church fund to
equalize the payment of he diocesan clergy. The king finally gave
his sanction to a law which suppressed, in his own states alone,
334 convents and monasteries, containing 4280 religious men and
1200 nuns. This ruin and depredation proceeded uniformly with the
cause of Italian unity, since the Piedmontese constitution and
legislation were imposed on the whole peninsula. The religious
orders and benefices not charged with cures of souls were declared
useless, and suppressed; the buildings and lands were confiscated
and sold (1866). The Government paid allowances to the surviving
religious. In some abbeys -- as at Monte Cassino -- the members of
the community were allowed to remain as care-takers. The Papal
States were subjected to the same policy after 1870. The Italian
authorities contented themselves with depriving the religious of
their legal existence and all they possessed, without raising any
obstacles to a possible reconstruction of regular communities. A
certain number of monasteries have thus been able to exist and
carry on their work, owing solely to the guarantee of individual
liberty; their existence is precarious, and an arbitrary measure
of the Government might at any time suppress them. After the
general dissolution, some Italian religious -- for instance, the
Olivetans and the Canons Regular of St. John Lateran -- crossed
the Alps and established houses of their respective orders in
France.
J.M. BESSE
Transcribed by Marie Jutras
From the Catholic Encyclopedia, copyright � 1913 by the
Encyclopedia Press, Inc. Electronic version copyright � 1996 by
New Advent, Inc., P.O. Box 281096, Denver, Colorado, USA, 80228.
(
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(www.knight.org/advent).
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effort aimed at placing the entire Catholic Encyclopedia 1913
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