When the Grand Union of the Order of Saint Augustine took place in 1256, it instantly created a sizeable German Province within the Order.
This was because a number of the constituent groups participating in the Grand Union already had religious communities in Germanic lands.
There were also the houses of the Williamites in German and Hungarian territory involved in 1256, most of which stayed with the Order of Saint Augustine when the Williamites in Italy withdrew and successfully reclaimed their previous independent identity in 1266.
Because the first Augustinian Provincial in Germany, Guido Salanus O.S.A., was not willing to let the fruits of his hard labor slide from his rightful ownership, when the priors of the former Williamite houses of Schenthal and Seemannshausen tried to return to the Williamite fold, he resisted them with all his energy. The case was brought before Leo Thundorfer, Bishop of Ratisbon, who decided in favor of Guido; but the two priors abided by his decision only when he called in the local priors of the Dominicans and Franciscans to testify that they had not acted on their own free will but ceded only to higher authority.
The General of the Williamites appealed the case to Rome and after many negotiations Stephen of Hungary, cardinal protector of the Williamites, decided (according to the intentions of Richard Annibaldi, the Cardinal Protector of the Augustinians) that all houses of the Williamites should return to their former status with the exception of those in the kingdom of Germany and Hungary, but even here Ports Coeli in Weissenborn (Thuringia) and Mariakron near Tiibingen should remain in their possession.
The Augustinians in Weissenborn would not believe this document and refused to leave, until forced to do so under threat of excommunication. When the smoke of battle had lifted, the Augustinians found themselves in the possession of Pivonia (Stockau) and Insula Marie in Bohemia, Lixtin in the diocese of Kamen, Mindelheim in the Diocese of Augsburg, Seemannshausen and Schonthal in the Diocese of Regensburg and some other places.
(Continued on the next page)
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