By the end of the fifteenth century there were more than a hundred
constituents of the Congregation. The usual method of introducing the
new practice was, as Rode and Dederoth had done, to borrow a number of
monks from a house already reformed, who either settled in the new
house or returned home when their work was done. As may be supposed,
the reforms were not everywhere welcomed. A zealous Abbot or Prior
returning with his band of foreigners was often met by opposition and
even forcible resistance. When Jacob of Breden, Butzbach's 'senior
brother', came in 1471 with seven others from St. Martin's at Cologne
to renew a right spirit in Laach, a number of the older monks resented
it, especially when he was made Prior for the purpose. One cannot but
sympathize with them. Jacob was only thirty-two, and it is a delicate
matter setting one's elders in the right way. At length the seniors
became exasperated and took to violence. Not content with belabouring
him in his cell, they attacked him one night with swords, and he only
escaped by leaping out of the dormitory window. The rest of his
company were ejected, and for three years found shelter in St.
Matthias' at Treves, the parent house of the new rule; and it was not
till 1474 that the Archbishop, with the Pope's permission and the
co-operation of the civil official of the district, forced his way
into Laach and turned out the recalcitrants.

But this movement for reform was not confined to Germany nor to the
Benedictines. In the beginning of the fifteenth century the house of
Augustinian canons at Windesheim near Zwolle instituted for itself a
new and stricter set of statutes, and soon gathered round it nearly a
hundred houses of both sexes, forming the Windesheim Congregation:
besides which, other monasteries bound themselves into smaller bodies
to observe the new statutes. Thus, for instance, Erasmus' convent at
Steyn was a member of the Chapter of Sion, with only a few others; two
of which were St. Mary's at Sion, near Delft, to which his brother
Peter belonged, and St. Michael's at Hem, near Schoonhoven. The fame
of Windesheim spread into France. In two successive years--1496,
7--parties were invited thence to reform French Benedictine houses.
The first, headed by John Mauburn of Brussels, was brought in by the
Abbot of St. Severinus' at Chateau-Landon near Fontainebleau. It was
completely successful and Chateau-Landon was made the head of a new
Chapter: after which