In order to understand the role played by the cloisters of the Province of Lower Germany in the early Reformation, a brief overview of the history of the Augustinian Order, the origins of its German Reformed Congregation, and the Congregation's administrative structure is necessary. Particularly relevant in this regard is an examination of the Congregation's expansion into Lower Germany in the decade prior to the Reformation and specifically the tactics employed to increase its influence there, for it was these very strategies that would be appropriated and redeployed by Martin Luther and his colleagues to promote the Reformation via the Congregation's administrative structures and educational procedures. Before the Congregation could become an instrument to disseminate Reformation ideas, however, its members first had to encounter and be convinced by those ideas. Therefore this chapter also addresses the basic content of Luther's message at this early stage and the various means by which it spread through the Congregation of German Reformed Augustinians.

A Brief History of the Augustinian Order and the Origins of the German Reformed Congregation

The Order of Hermits of St. Augustine (Ordo Eremitarum Sancti Augustini; OESA) originated in Northern Italy in the mid-thirteenth century when a group of established hermitages adopted a structure similar to that of other mendicant orders, a decision confirmed by Pope Alexander IV in 1256.