The monastery which Luther entered belonged to that division of the Augustinian order called "Observantes." Kolde's already mentioned writing concerning the German Augustinians and Johann von Staupitz enables us to understand the peculiarity of these "Observantes." We find that the Augustinians in Germany were divided into four provinces since 1299, to wit, the Rhenisch-Suebian, the Bavarian, the Thuringian-Saxonian and the one of Cologne-Flanders. When, in the fifteenth century, a reformation among the German Augustinian monasteries became more and more imperative, Henry Zolter, enthusiastic for the abandoned strictness in monasteries, succeeded in combining together, for the purpose of observing strictly the old Augustinian rules, as an independent union, five monasteries, the one at Himmelspforte, near Wernigerode; the one at Magdeburg, at Dresden, at Waldheim, and at Koenigsberg, in Franconia. These five were called "Observantes," in contradistinction to the bulk of other Augustinians called "Conventuales." Andreas Proles energetically carried on Zolter's plan, so that his union, now called the congregation of Proles, or the Saxonian, or the German, was fully recognized in 1496, in spite of the fact, that he and the monasteries that held with him by the General-Vicar of the order were once temporarily placed under the ban. More than that, its claim for an independent vicar was granted, and it was considered completely on par with the four German provinces mentioned before. Proles was furthermore successful in winning twenty-five other monasteries in addition to the five already named, for the purpose of observing the old rules of the order more strictly, because not a few of these twenty-five belonged to the most important ones in all Germany, and even of
