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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 25 March 2011
Until comparatively recently the origins of the movement known as the devotio moderna attracted curiously little attention in this country. It was judged too medieval and too orthodox in character to have had much influence upon the course of reform, and the Anglican habit of relating all reforming movements to the Reformation did not allow it its rightful place in the history of the Christian spiritual life; from another angle, the sarcasms of Erasmus in his Compendium Vitae cast doubts about the disinterestedness of its teaching, and raised among humanists suspicions that its aims and methods were ultimately obscurantist. Its reforming activities were mainly associated with the efforts of a single wing of, or group within, the movement that aimed at reforming the religious houses along the lines of the Augustinian convents of Agnetenburg and Windesheim, and small attention was paid to its appeal to the laity and its attempt to combat self-satisfied materialism among the prosperous middle classes in the towns. And the fact that it was, at any rate in its beginning, essentially a local movement, confined in the main to the western part of the ecclesiastical province of Cologne, still further confined its appeal.
page 40 note 2 The Christian Renaissance: History of the ‘Devotio Moderna’, New York, 1925; ‘Drie en twintig Brieven van Geert Groote’, Archief voor de Gerschiedenis van het Aartsbisdom Utrecht, liii (1927), 1–54Google Scholar; liv (1929), 1–50; The Youth of Erasmus, Ann Arbor 1930.
page 40 note 3 Die Schule von Zwolle von ihren Anfängen bis zur Einführung der Reformation, Bd i, Freiburg, Switzerland 1898; Jacobus Traiecti de Voecht, Narratio de Incohatione Domus Clericorum in Zwollis, ed. M.S., , Amsterdam 1908Google Scholar.
page 40 note 4 Wessel Gansfort, The Hague 1917Google Scholar; and his Studiën over Wessel Gansfort en zijn tijd, Utrecht 1933.
page 41 note 1 ‘Les Thèmes de l'Imitation’, Revue d'histoire ecclésiastiqut, xxxvi, Nos. 3–4 (1940), 309fGoogle Scholar.
page 41 note 2 van Ginneken, J. J. A., De Navolging van Christus of het Dagbock van Geert Groote in den oorspronkelijken nederlandschen Texst hersteld, s'Hertogenbosch 1929Google Scholar; Trois textes pré-Kempistes du premier Lime de I'Imitation, ed. et comm. par J. J. v. G. (Verhand. der K. Nederl. Akad. von Wetenschappen, Nieuwe Reeks, dl. 44, Amsterdam, 1940); Trois textes pré-Kempistes du second Lime de l'Imitation, (Verh. der Nederl. Ak. v. Wet., Afd. Letterk., Nieuwe Reeks, dl. 46, Amsterdam 1941). Kern, F. adopts this point of view with somewhat indiscriminate enthusiasm in Die Nachfolge Christi (Olten, 1947)Google Scholar, to which Mr. James Crompton kindly drew my attention.
page 41 note 3 Dr. Paul Lehmann's reconstruction of the Index Bibliothecarum Belgii begun by the Ghent Dominican Vleeschouwer (d. 1525) and continued by J. van Bunderen (d. 1557) in Hist. Jahrbuch d. Görresgesellschaft, bd. 40 (1920), 56–105, lists no less than 31 separate works.
page 41 note 4 The best modern bibliography has been prefixed by De Beer, K. C. L. M., to his Studie over de Spiritualiteit van Geert Groote, (Brussels and Nijmegen, 1938)Google Scholar, in which the original writings of Groote are listed. See also n. 4.
page 41 note 6 van Ginneken, J. J. A., Geert Groote's levensbeeld naar de oudste gegevens bewerkt (Verh. Nederl. Ak. van Wet., Afd. Letterk., Nieuwe Reeks, dl. 47, Amsterdam, 1942)Google Scholar.
page 42 note 1 In Dumbar, G., Analecta, seu vetera aliquot scripta inedita ab ipso publici iuris facta, Deventer, 1719, 1–113Google Scholar.
page 42 note 2 Ed. Pohl, M. J., Thomas à Kempis Opera Omnia, Freiburg-i-B. 1922, vii. 31–115Google Scholar.
page 42 note 3 Ed. Kühler, , in Archief voor Kerkgeschiedenis, Nieuwe Ser. 1909, vi, 332–370Google Scholar: cited here as Horn.
page 42 note 4 Chronicon Windeshemense, Liber de Origine Devotionis Modemae, ed. Grube, C. L. in Geschichtsquellen der Provinz Sachsen, xix, Halle 1886Google Scholar. Cited as Busch.
page 42 note 5 Chronicon Montis S. Agnetis in Thomas à Kempis Opera Omnia, vii. 335–525.
page 42 note 6 Narratio de Incohatione Domus Clericorum in Zwollis, ed. Schoengen, M. (Werken uitgegeven door het Historisch Genootschap, Derde Ser., No. 13, Amsterdam 1908)Google Scholar. Cited as Voecht.
page 42 note 7 Het Klooster to Windesheim en zijn Invloed (Uitgegeven door het Provincial Utrechtsch Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen, I dl., Utrecht 1878, pp. 15–58). His (partial) edition of Groote's letters appeared at Amsterdam, 1857, as Gerardi Magni Epistolae XIV e codice Regis Hagano nunc primum edito et perpetua annotatione … instruclae.
page 42 note 8 Gerardi Magni Epistolae, quas ad fidem codicum recognovit, annotavit, edidit Willelmus Mulder S.J., Antwerp 1933, pp. xix-xxv. Cited as Ep.
page 42 note 9 Previously as Acquoy observed, ‘De chronologische berekening van De Groote's leven is, zoover ik weet, nog nooit gemaakt.’ Van Ginneken (Geert Groote's Levensbeeld) has made a comparative table of the evidence, arranged chronologically, which utilizes the available sources.
page 42 note 10 Gerard de Groote, un Précurseur de la Réforme au quatorzième siècle, Paris 1878Google Scholar.
page 42 note 11 Grube, C. L., Gerhard Groot, und seine Stiftungen (Görres-Gesellschaft, 1883)Google Scholar.
page 43 note 1 Ep. 64, p. 255; 18, p. 64; 25, p. 116.
page 43 note 2 ‘Domestici (heretici), dico Lullardos’: Ep. g, p. 25; cf. Ep. 36, note a, where reference is made to the statement of William Heda (Historia episcoporum Ultrajectensium, 259) that Bishop Florence of Utrecht had the bones af a certain heretic, Matthew Lollaert, exhumed and burned in front of the door of his house. Cf. Horn, 346.
page 43 note 3 Voecht, 5.
page 43 note 4 Horn, loc. cit.
page 44 note 1 note Ep. 19, to Henry de Schoenhove, gives various illustrations, showing that by 1381, the elements of a community life had become visible and that its members were sharing the modicum of property needed to sustain existence.
page 44 note 2 Horn, p. 346: ‘Egit eciam apud venerabilem pontificem Florencium ceterosque prelatos quatinus canonice contra eos procederetur’; and Busch, pp. 260–1, (Bartholomew of Dordrecht): ‘ad curiam Traiectensem eum citari procuravit.’
page 44 note 3 ‘Sermo contra Focaristas’, ed. Clarisse, J. in Archief voor de Kerkelijke Geschiedenis inzonderheid van Nederland, i (1829), ii (1830)Google Scholar; 307–395, viii (1837), 5–107. That he was fiercely assailed for this is seen in the Protestatio published by Mulder in Ep. 57, pp. 214–15.
page 44 note 4 E.g. Ep. 28, against John Heyden whom he found an ignorant impostor (‘totum ignarum et nihil penitus scientem inveni’, p. 123); Ep. pp. 31, 36, 37 against Bartholomew of Dordrecht who ‘penitenciam… et carnis afflictionem et similia verbo simul et opera dissuadebat, dicens Christum fuisse bonum socium’, (Busch, 10–11). He was supported by the Mendicants.
page 44 note 5 By 1383 he had ceased to write: ‘nichil penitus scribo, sed obicientibus aliquibus respondeo’: he complained of weakness in the head: ‘infirmus sum cervice’: Ep. 61, p. 225.
page 44 note 6 Voecht, 5.
page 45 note 1 Ep. 60, p. 223. Of Salvarvilla the best account is by Mulder in Erf (Ons Geestelijk). Driemaandelijksch Tijdscrift voor de Studie der nederlandsche Vroomhied, v (1931), 186–211.
page 45 note 2 Ep. 9, p. 25.
page 45 note 3 Ibid., p. 27.
page 46 note 1 See Mulder's list of citations, p. 338.
page 46 note 2 Ep. 8, p. 17.
page 46 note 3 Rudolf Dier de Muiden in Dumbar, Analecta, p. 4.
page 46 note 4 ‘Gherlaci scriptura utilissima est et labor continuus. Est iam in bono profectu, meo videre, et merito iuvandus est et diligendus: Ep. 7, p. 16. Gherlac's escape is deplored in Ep. 25, p. 110 f. For payments by Cele, cf. Ep. 13, pp. 44–5.
page 46 note 5 Ep. 13, pp. 45–6.
page 46 note 6 Horn, 341.
page 47 note 1 Ep. 39, p. 157.
page 47 note 2 Dumbar, Analecta, 2.
page 47 note 3 Ep. 63, pp. 245–6, written to Rudolph de Enteren, dissuades him from reading the work of the famous astrologer Albumasar (Abu Maschar). ‘Praecipue accipiendum videtur de libris magicis et astrologicis, quos Parisiis legit et habuit, postea autem igni tradidit.’ Thomas à Kempis, Vita Gerardi Magni, Ch. 13 (Opera, ed. Pohl, vii. 69).
page 47 note 4 Vita Gerardi Magni, Ch. 4.
page 47 note 5 Dumbar, Analecta, 3.
page 48 note 1 Ibid., 4.
page 48 note 2 Ep. 1, p. i; Ep. 3, p. 5.
page 48 note 3 Ep. 2, p. 2.
page 48 note 4 Ep.4, p.8.
page 48 note 5 Ep. 41, pp. 162–3: 45, 177–83.
page 48 note 6 Ep.41, p. 167.
page 49 note 1 Ep. 24, p. 107. The revelation is noted by Thomas à Kempis in Vita, Ch. 10 (Opera, vii. 54) and Horn, pp. 350–1.
page 49 note 2 Ep. 24, p. 108.
page 49 note 3 F. D. S. Darwin, The English Medieval Recluse, 39–41.
page 50 note 1 De Beer, op. cit., 126 f., lays much emphasis on this point.
page 50 note 2 Epp. 18, 21, 53 and 73 testify to careful study. In 18 he debates, citing Innocent IV, Hostiensis, Johannes Andreae and Vincentius Hispanus, whether a scholasticus is able to receive money, and if he does, whether he is bound to restore it; in 21 he discusses the relation between schism and heresy from the canonical point of view, and cites Godfrey of Trano and Raymond of Peñaforte. In 53 bastardy is the point at issue, and in 73 the qualifications necessary for a clerk seeking a benefice with cure of souls. In every case he is au fait with the commentators, besides quoting the texts of the Corpus Juris.
page 51 note 1 Ep. 69, p. 270–2.
page 51 note 2 Ep. 62, p. 235.
page 51 note 3 Ep. 61, p. 230.
page 52 note 1 Voecht, p. lxxxi. The original account is ib., 6–7.
page 52 note 2 People who ‘niet in gemeenschap, doch als gewone burgers in de maatschappij leven’: De Beer, 25. On the relations of Groote, Florence and John de Gronde, cf. Delprat, G. H. M., Verhandlungen over de Broederschap van G. Groote en over den invloed. Der Fraterhuizen (2nd ed., Arnhem 1856), 34Google Scholar. Acquoy, Het Klooster te Windesheim en zijn Invloed, p. 49, thought that Radewijns, more than Groote, was the founder of the movement: always, he wisely remarked, ‘met dien verstande dat, zonder De Groote Florens Radewijns er nooit zou zijn geweest.’ Busch, 255, speaks of Groote's associates drawing up “formam et modum in commune vivendi’ with the counsel of master Gerard “together with his priests and clerks dwelling alike in the common life.’ This may be anticipating a little the formal beginnings of the organized common life.
page 53 note 1 Ep. 25, pp. 113–115.
page 53 note 2 Horn, 361.
page 54 note 1 Ep. 19, pp. 65–71.
page 54 note 1 Horn, 366.
page 54 note 2 Appendix C, p. 440 f.
