A Mediaeval Mystic / A Short Account of the Life and Writings of Blessed John Ruysbroeck, Canon Regular of Groenendael A.D. 1293-1381

A SHORT ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF BLESSED JOHN RUYSBROECK, CANON REGULAR OF GROENENDAEL A.D. 1293-1381
BY DOM VINCENT SCULLY, C.R.L.
( Permissu Superiorum )
LONDON THOMAS BAKER MCMX
PRINTED BY HAZELL, WATSON AND VINEY, LD., LONDON AND AYLESBURY.
TO THE RIGHT REV. AUGUSTIN H. WHITE, C.R.L. LORD ABBOT OF WALTHAM
The original authorities for the history of Ruysbroeck are practically reduced to one, the biography by Henry Pomerius, a Canon Regular of Groenendael, entitled De Origine monasterii Viridisvallis una cum vitis B. Joannis Rusbrochii primi prioris hujus monasterii et aliquot coaetaneorum ejus , re-edited by the Bollandists, Brussels, 1885. It is certain that a disciple of John Ruysbroeck, John of Scoenhoven, also of Groenendael, who undertook the defence of Blessed John’s writings against Gerson, composed a short biography, but this was embodied in the work of Pomerius, and thereby as a separate volume fell out of use and memory. Pomerius had Scoenhoven’s MS. to work upon, and some of Ruysbroeck’s contemporaries were still living at Groenendael when he composed his biography there. The brief references by the Venerable Thomas à Kempis in his Vita Gerardi Magni are likewise of great interest and intrinsic worth.
For the purposes of this brief biography, which lays no claim whatever to original research, the compiler has made very great use of the labours of Dr. Auger, De Doctrina et Meritis Joannis van Ruysbroeck , Louvain, and Willem de Vreese, Jean de Ruysbroeck , an extract from the Biographie Nationale , published by l’Académie royale des sciences, des lettres et des beaux-arts de Belgique, Brussels, 1909. This indebtedness is especially true of the summarised analysis of the various works of Ruysbroeck.
Later it may be possible to give a complete and faithful English rendering of all Ruysbroeck’s Works from the critical edition which is at present preparing in Louvain; where there is an active revival of interest in this great and holy Mystic of the Netherlands.