The Rule of St. Augustine and Pastoral Care

The church reform initiated by Pope Gregory VII in the 11th century led, among other things, to the Rule of St. Augustine becoming increasingly popular among both clergy and laity. Among the canons and cathedral chapter members, the Pope’s initiatives fell on fertile ground. Among these canons, there grew a strong desire for a way of life modeled on that of the Apostles in the earliest Christian communities—the vita apostolica—which served as the standard for a truly Christian existence. Within the cathedral chapter of Tournai as well, there was a desire to deepen religious life. Ailbertus, the founder of Kloosterrade, had completed his education at the chapter school there and later became a canon there.

The reform movement ultimately led to a division of canons into two distinct groups: secular canons, who belonged to the chapter of a cathedral or collegiate church, and regular canons, who lived in a monastic community. However, the Rule of St. Augustine was interpreted differently from the very beginning, and opinions and practices varied, making it difficult to speak of an authentic Augustinian tradition. Within the group of regular canons, different movements subsequently emerged, each with an equally wide variety of monastic rules and regulations. Some of the communities of regular canons followed the ordo antiquus, the ancient tradition that advocated moderate austerity. This allowed for individual interpretations of monastic life, but also for attention to general service outside the monastery. Alongside this, a new, much stricter movement developed: the ordo novus. Influenced by the strict spirituality inherent in monasticism, this movement placed great emphasis on complete abstinence from meat, total silence, the wearing of woolen garments instead of linen, and the mandatory performance of manual labor.

The question of whether regular canons should play a role in parish ministry alongside this highly monastic and contemplative monastic life was initially answered in the negative at Kloosterrade Abbey. In 1115, Abbot Richer refused to allow the church in nearby Rode—now Kerkrade—to be served by a canon of the abbey. This characterized the abbot as a representative of the ordo novus, the faction among the canons that regarded the contemplative monastic life—with its inherent renunciation of the world and asceticism—as incompatible with participation in pastoral care in the parishes. His immediate successors held similar views. When the popes strongly advocated that the regular canons should participate in the church reforms initiated by Pope Gregory VII, Kloosterrade Abbey opened up more to the outside world.

The willingness to serve as a pastor first became evident in 1140, when Abbot Johan decided to take on the duties of a parish pastor and began entrusting the ministry at the church in neighboring Kerkrade to the canons of Kloosterrade. Until then, the local secular clergy had been appointed to the parish by the Archdeacon of Haspengouw. According to the chronicler, a disagreement arose between the parish priest and the abbey in 1140. To resolve this dispute, Abbot Johan was able to convince the Archdeacon to grant the abbey the right to appoint priests from its own ranks to the parish church of Kerkrade. Until the French period, the parish priests of Kerkrade were canons of Kloosterrade.

While Kerkrade was the first parish church to be served by the Kloosterrade monastery, the church at Goé—a village between Verviers and Eupen, not far from Limbourg—followed five years later. The Annales Rodenses mention that a certain Hendrik, together with his brother Frederik, entered the monastery and, on that occasion, contributed their properties. These included the church of Goé and a chapel named Bilstain. In a document from the year 1147, the original of which comes from the archives of Sinnich Abbey, Bishop Hendrik II of Liège confirms the acquisition of these properties. It is unclear whether a canon from Kloosterrade was immediately appointed as pastor in Goé at that time.

In 1151, Duchess Jutta, the widow of Duke Walram II of Limburg, donated the ownership rights and administration of the church in Lommersum, about 30 kilometers south of Cologne. She did so on the occasion of her entry into the Kloosterrade convent. The Annales Rodenses mention this donation and also report that the duchess died shortly thereafter, on June 25 of the same year, and was buried in the abbey church.

Over the course of the century, support for pastoral care grew, and through donations, the abbey acquired the patronage rights to an increasing number of churches. This right allowed Kloosterrade Abbey to appoint canons from among its ranks to fill certain ecclesiastical offices. With the donation of the patronage rights to the churches of Afden, Doveren, and Baelen, the number of parishes increased significantly in 1178. The original document in which Philip I, Archbishop of Cologne, confirmed the donation of these churches by Henry III, Duke of Limburg, to Kloosterrade on April 25, 1178, has been lost. However, the abbey’s oldest surviving cartulary contains a copy from the year 1222. This medieval register, in which documents were recorded for their evidentiary value regarding acquired rights and claims, the administration of property, and the validity of land exchanges, sales, or donations, dates from the twelfth century and contains copies from the period between 1122 and 1224. From the parish of Baelen, which was very extensive, daughter churches were gradually separated, in which canons from Kloosterrade also served as parish priests.

The number of parishes for which the abbots of Kloosterrade were granted the right of appointment in the centuries that followed remained rather modest. These were rural parishes; during the period when Kloosterrade was an abbey, the urban settlements were located some distance from the abbey. Although the city of Aachen was nearby and, like Kloosterrade, was subject to the Bishop of Liège, the abbey did not participate in pastoral care in any of the city’s parishes.

With the exception of the parishes of Doveren, Lommersum, and Hersel, the parishes were located in the Voer region, near the two oldest parishes, Goé and Baelen. No records from earlier times have survived that shed light on the relationships between the pastors of Kloosterrade and these parishes. However, the life of the canons as pastors in the parishes—where, in addition to presiding over liturgical celebrations and administering the sacraments, they also provided catechesis for the parishioners—must have stood in stark contrast to the contemplative life within the monastery walls. It is also unknown whether and to what extent they maintained the monastic rules of the mother house in the parish where they lived. The earliest reports on the fate of the parish priests date from the 15th century. They reflect the decline that affected the abbey itself and led to an equally serious lack of discipline in the sister monasteries. The various parish archives indicate that the abbey was not always able to fill vacant parish positions from within its own ranks. This suggests that there were times in the abbey when the number of resident canons was low. In such situations, the abbot had no choice but to fill the vacancy with a secular clergyman.

Until the dissolution of the monastery in 1796, when the last canons left the abbey for good on December 15, the canons of Kloosterrade provided pastoral care in the following towns in the Rhine-Meuse region: Kerkrade (1140), Goé (1145), Lommersum (1151), Baelen (1178), Doveren (1178), Afden (1178), Hersel (before 1250), Henri-Chapelle (probably from 1400), Limbourg (1460), Herzogenrath (1564), Eupen (1695), Welkenrath (1695), and Membach (1732).