Geert Groote

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Book of the Hours
of Geert Groote

Gerard Groote (October 1340 – 20 August 1384), otherwise Gerrit or Gerhard Groet, in

Catholic deacon, who was a popular preacher and the founder of the Brethren of the Common Life. He was a key figure in the Devotio Moderna
movement.

Biography

Birth and education

Museum Geert Grote Huis, Deventer (2016)

He was born in the

magic, and apparently some Hebrew. After a brilliant course he graduated in 1358.[2]
In 1362 he was appointed teacher at the Deventer chapter school.

Religious life

Soon after, Groote settled in

Charterhouse at Munnikhuizen (Monnikenhuizen) near Arnhem, who had remonstrated with him on the vanity of his life.[2]

Excerpt from a "simple" Middle Dutch book of hours, using the translation of Geert Groote. Made in the 2nd half of the fifteenth century in Brabant.[4]

In 1374 Groote turned his family home in Deventer into a shelter for poor women and lived for several years as a guest of the Carthusian monastery. In 1379, having received ordination as a deacon, he became a missionary preacher throughout the diocese of Utrecht. The success which followed his labours not only in the city of Utrecht, but also in Zwolle, Deventer, Kampen, Amsterdam, Haarlem, Gouda, Leiden, Delft, Zutphen and elsewhere, was immense; according to Thomas à Kempis the people left their business and their meals to hear his sermons, so that the churches could not hold the crowds that flocked together wherever he came.[2]

The bishop of Utrecht supported him warmly, and got him to preach against concubinage in the presence of the clergy assembled in synod. The impartiality of his censures, which he directed not only against the prevailing sins of the laity, but also against heresy, simony, avarice, and impurity among the secular and regular clergy, provoked the hostility of the clergy, and accusations of heterodoxy were brought against him. It was in vain that Groote emitted a Publica Protestatio, in which he declared that Jesus was the great subject of his discourses, that in all of them he believed himself to be in harmony with Catholic doctrine, and that he willingly subjected them to the candid judgment of the Church.[2]

The bishop was induced to issue an edict which prohibited from preaching all who were not in priestly

orders, and an appeal by Groote to Pope Urban VI was without effect. There is a difficulty as to the date of this prohibition; either it was only a few months before Groote's death, or else it must have been removed by the bishop, for Groote seems to have preached in public in the last year of his life.[2]

At some period (perhaps 1381, perhaps earlier) he paid a visit of some days' duration to the famous mystic

Canons Regular of St. Augustine. No time was lost in the effort to carry out the project, but Groote died before a foundation could be made.[2]

The initiation of this movement was the great achievement of Groote's life; he lived to preside over the birth and first days of his other creation, the society of Brethren of the Common Life. He died of the plague at Deventer, which he had contracted while nursing the sick, in 1384 at the age of 44.[5] Geert Groote was also a famous writer, who made an important Middle Dutch translation of a book of hours. His translation was used innumerable times throughout the following centuries.[4]

The Brethren of the Common Life

Main article: Brethren of the Common Life

Young men especially flocked to him in great numbers. Some of these he sent to his schools, others he occupied at transcribing good books, to all he taught thorough Christian piety. Groote and

Windesheim Congregation of canons regular embracing in course of time nearly one hundred houses, and leading the way in the series of reforms undertaken during the 15th century by all the religious orders in Germany.[2] Henceforth his communities, which were spreading rapidly through the Netherlands, Lower Germany, and Westphalia, claimed and received all his attention. He contemplated organizing his clerics into a community of canons regular, but it was left to Radewyns, his successor, to realize this plan at Windesheim two years later.[1]

Devotio Moderna

Main article: Devotio Moderna

A movement known as the Modern Devotion (Devotio Moderna) was founded in the Netherlands by Groote and Florens Radewyns, in the late fourteenth century. For Groote the pivotal point is the search for inner peace, which results from the denial of one's own self and is to be achieved by "ardour" and "silence". This is the heart of the "New Devotion", or the "Devotio moderna". Solitary meditation on Christ’s Passion and redemption, on one’s own death, the Last Judgment, heaven, and hell was essential.[6]

In the course of the 15th century, the Modern Devotion found adherents throughout the Netherlands and Germany. Its precepts were further disseminated in texts such as The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis, which reached an increasingly literate public. In this context small works of art such as diptychs that provided a focus for private worship enjoyed wide popularity.[6]

Legacy

Geert Groote College is located in Amsterdam.

See also

References

  1. ^ a b Schrantz, Charles. "Gerard Groote." The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 7. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1910. 15 Jun. 2013
  2. ^ a b c d e f g Butler 1911, p. 614.
  3. ISBN 9780198662624
  4. ^ a b "Middelnederlands getijdenboek". lib.ugent.be. Retrieved 2020-08-27.
  5. ^ Butler 1911, pp. 614–615.
  6. ^ a b Hand, John Oliver. "Prayers and Portraits: Unfolding the Netherlandish Diptych", National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., 12 November 2006 Archived 25 September 2012 at the Wayback Machine

Sources

An account, based on the Britannica sources, is in S. Kettlewell, Thomas à Kempis and the Brothers of Common Life (1882), i. c. 5; and a shorter account in F. R. Cruise, Thomas à Kempis, 1887, pt. ii. A sketch, with an account of Groote's writings, is given by L. Schulze in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie (ed. 3); he insists on the fact that Groote's theological and ecclesiastical ideas were those commonly current in his day, and that the attempts to make him a "reformer before the Reformation" are unhistorical.[1]

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Geert Grote.
  1. ^ Butler 1911, p. 615.
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