Sister Eva Neyler (d. 1575) wrote a first-person narrative of the efforts to convert this house of Dominicans to Lutheranism.
After the convent's reform in the fifteenth century, the population increased from twenty-six to fifty nuns. Eva Neyler's account of this reform reports that thirty-nine of the sisters resisted this internal Observant reform for eight years. Circa 1564, however, there were twenty-three nuns in the convent.
This community was reformed in 1443 by sisters from S. Katharinenkloster . The reform was resisted by thirty-nine sisters, according to Eva Neyler's sixteenth-century account. According to Sister Neyler, the nuns wore out eighteen preachers by resisting this reform. The dissenting nuns later received permission to move to Gotteszell. In 1467 four sisters from this community travelled to Bavaria to reform Maria Medingen.
A reform account from the sixteenth century, written by Sister Eva Neyler, survives from this community. (See Published Primary Sources)
As part of Sister Neyler's account of the attempt to force this convent to accept the Lutheran reform, she mentioned the destruction of the divider between the church and nuns' choir, which was torn down so that it was possible to see all the way to the dormitory. Sister Eva reported that the nuns attempted to restrict the ability of the lay congregation to see them by slinking down into their seats during religious services and pulling their veils low. The locks were also taken off of the convent's doors, which according to Neyler's account, allowed men to enter the convent and proposition the nuns.
Stuttgart, Landesbibliothek, Cod. hist. 4 330, f. 2214-224v; transcribed in Geschichte des Dominikaner-Frauenklosters Kirchberg i.d..Die Vertreibung der Klosterfrauen aus PforzheimZur Reformationsgeschichte des Dominikanerinnenklosters zu Pforzheim
The community was reformed in 1441 as part of the Observant movement sweeping the Dominican order. According to Sister Neyler's account of the attempt to convert the convent to Lutheranism, the removal of locks on the convent's doors resulted in men entering the cloister and nuns' cells unannounced. Once inside, the men offered to find the nuns husbands and tried to kiss them. The provost was considered particularly dangerous in this regard; the nuns made sure that no sister was left to speak with him alone and clustered around whenever he tried to speak to one of them. In 1564, the twenty-three nuns of the community were permitted to leave and transferred to Gotteszell, where they re-established enclosure.
