St. Augustine's Rule and Work in Pastoral Care

The church reform initiated by Pope Gregory VII in the 11th century led, among other things, to a growing popularity of the Rule of St. Augustine among clergy and laity. In the circles of canons at both cathedral and chapter churches, the pope’s initiatives fell on fertile ground. Among these canons, a strong desire grew for a way of life based on the life of the apostles in the earliest Christian communities, the vita apostolica, which served as the standard for a truly Christian existence. Even within the Chapter of the Church in Tournai, there was a desire to deepen religious life. Ailbertus, the founder of Kloosterrade, had received his education here at the chapter school and had later become chapter lord there.

The reform movement eventually led to a division of canons into two distinct groups: first, secular canons attached to the chapter of a cathedral or collegiate church, and second, regular canons living in a monastic community. However, from the beginning, St. Augustine’s Rule was interpreted in different ways, so opinions and practices varied, making it difficult to speak of an authentic Augustinian tradition. Within the group of regular canons, different observances with an equally wide variety of monastic rules and regulations emerged as a result. Some of the regular communities of canons adopted the ordo antiquus, the ancient tradition that advocated moderate strictness. This allowed for individual interpretation of monastic life, but also for attention to general services outside the monastery. In addition, 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, complete silence, the wearing of woolen clothing instead of linen, and the obligatory performance of manual labor.

The question of whether regular canons also had a role to play in pastoral care, in addition to this strongly 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—today’s Kerkrade—to be served by one of the abbey’s canons. This characterized the abbot as a representative of the ordo novus, the faction among the canons that considered contemplative monastic life, with its inherent detachment from the world and asceticism, incompatible with participation in pastoral care in parishes. His immediate successors held similar views. When the popes emphatically declared their support for the involvement of regular canons in the church reforms initiated by Pope Gregory VII, Kloosterrade Abbey became more open to the outside world.

The willingness to serve as priests first became evident in 1140, when Abbot Johan decided to provide pastoral care and began entrusting the ministry of the church in neighboring Kerkrade to canons from Kloosterrade. Until then, secular clerics had been appointed to the position of priest by the archdeacon of Haspengouw. According to the annalist (i.e., the writer of yearbooks and historical accounts), a disagreement had arisen between the parish priest and the abbey in 1140. To resolve this disagreement, Abbot Johan managed 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 era, the parish priests of Kerkrade were canons of Kloosterrade.

While Kerkrade was the first parish church where Kloosterrade provided pastoral care, the church of Goé, a town between Verviers and Eupen, not far from Limbourg, followed five years later. The Annales Rodenses mention that a certain Hendrik entered the monastery with his brother Frederik and donated their possessions on that occasion. These included the church of Goé and a chapel named Bilstain. In a charter from 1147, the original of which is held in the archives of the Sinnich convent, Bishop Hendrik II of Liège confirms the acquisition of these properties. It is unclear whether a canon from Kloosterrade was also immediately appointed priest in Goé at that time.

In 1151, Duchess Jutta, widow of Duke Walram II of Limburg, donated the ownership and administration of the church of Lommersum, some thirty kilometers south of Cologne. She did this upon entering the convent of Kloosterrade. 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.

Support for pastoral care grew over the course of the century, and through donations the abbey acquired the patronage rights to an increasing number of churches. By virtue of this right, the Abbey of Kloosterrade could nominate canons from its ranks for appointment to certain ecclesiastical offices. A significant increase in the number of parishes in 1178 resulted from the donation of the patronage rights to the churches of Afden, Doveren, and Baelen. The original version of the charter in which Philip I, Archbishop of Cologne, confirms the donation of these churches to Kloosterrade by Henry III, Duke of Limburg, on April 25, 1178, has been lost. There is, however, a copy of this from 1222 in the abbey’s oldest surviving cartulary. This medieval register, in which charters were recorded due to their evidential value regarding acquired rights and claims, the administration of property, and the validity of land exchanges, sales, or donations, dates from the 12th century and includes transcripts from the period 1122 to 1224. From the parish of Baelen, which was very extensive, daughter churches were then gradually separated again, where canons from Kloosterrade also served as priests.

The number of parishes for which the abbots of Kloosterrade obtained the right of appointment in the centuries that followed remained rather modest. These were rural parishes, as urban centers were located some distance from the abbey during the period when Kloosterrade was an abbey. Although the city of Aachen was nearby and, like Kloosterrade, under the authority of the Bishop of Liège, the abbey did not participate in pastoral care in any of the parishes within that city.

With the exception of the parishes of Doveren, Lommersum, and Hersel, the parishes were located in the Voer region, in the vicinity of the two oldest parishes of Goé and Baelen. No records from the early period have survived that shed light on the relationships that the parish priests of Kloosterrade maintained in these parishes. However, the life of canons as pastoral caregivers in the parishes—where they also provided catechesis for the parishioners, in addition to presiding at liturgical celebrations and administering the sacraments—must have stood in stark contrast to the contemplative life within the monastery walls. Nor is it known whether and to what extent they observed the monastic rules of the mother house in the parish where they lived. The earliest records of the fortunes of the priest-canons date from the 15th century. They depict the decline that had afflicted the abbey itself at that time and had led to an equally severe lack of discipline in the sister monasteries. The various parish archives show that the abbey was not always able to fill vacant priesthoods from within its own ranks. This indicates that the abbey went through periods when the number of resident canons was low. In such situations, the abbot had no choice but to appoint a secular clergyman to the vacant post.

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