§ 114.7. Mystics of the Netherlands.

  1. John of Ruysbroek was born, in A.D. 1298, in the village of Ruysbroek, near Brussels. In youth he was addicted more to pious contemplation than to scholastic studies, and in his sixtieth year he resigned his position as secular priest in Brussels, and retired into a convent of regular canons (§ [97, 3]) near Brussels, where he died as its prior in A.D. 1481, when eighty-eight years old. He was called doctor ecstaticus, because he regarded his mystical views, which he developed amid pious contemplation in the shades of the forest, and there wrote out in Flemish speech, as the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. His mysticism was essentially theistic. The unio mystica consisted not in the deification of man, but was wrought only through the free grace of God in Christ without the loss of man’s own personality. His genuine practical piety led him to see in the moral depravity of the clergy, not less than of the people generally, the cause of the decay of the Church, so that even the person of the pope did not escape his reproof. Numerous pilgrims from far and near sought the pious sage for counsel and quickening. His favourite disciple was Gerhard Groot of Deventer, who impressed much of his master’s spirit upon the brotherhood of the Common Life (§ [112, 9]).—Of this noble school of mystics the three following were the most distinguished.
  2. Hendrik Mande, who died A.D. 1430, impressed by a sermon of Groot’s, and favoured during a long illness by visions, abandoned the life of a courtier for the fellowship of the Brethren of Deventer, and in A.D. 1395 entered the cloister of Windesheim, to which he bequeathed his wealth, and where he continued to enjoy visions of the Saviour and the saints. His works, written in Dutch, are characterized by spirituality and depth of feeling, copious and appropriate imagery, and great moral earnestness.
  3. Gerlach Peters was the favourite scholar of Florentius in Deventer. He subsequently entered the monastery of Windesheim, where, after a painful illness, he died in A.D. 1411, in his thirty-third year. “An ardent spirit in a body of skin and bone,” praising God for his terrible bodily sufferings as a means of grace bestowed on him, his devotion reaches the sublimest heights of enthusiasm. He wrote the Soliloquium, the voice of a man who has daily struggled in God’s presence to free his heart from worldly bonds, and by God’s grace in the cross of Christ to have Adam’s purity restored and union with the highest good secured.
  4. Thomas à Kempis, formerly Hamerken, was born in A.D. 1380 at Kempen, near Cologne. He was educated at Deventer, and died as sub-prior of the convent of St. Agnes, near Zwoll, in A.D. 1471. To him, and not to the chancellor Gerson, according to the now universally accepted opinion, belongs the world renowned book De Imitatione Christi. Reprinted about five thousand times, oftener than any other book except the Bible, it has been also translated into more languages than any other. Free from all Romish superstition, it is read by Catholics and Protestants, and holds an unrivalled position as a book of devotion.A photographic reproduction of the original edition of A.D. 1441 was published from the autograph MSS. of Thomas, by Ch. Ruelans, London, 1879.[338]

III. The Church and the People.

§ 115a. Public Worship and the Religious Education of the People.

Preaching in the vernacular was carried on mainly by the Brothers of the Common Life, the mystics, and several heretical sects, e.g. Waldensians, Wiclifites, Hussites, etc.; and stimulated by their example, others began to follow the same practice. The so called Biblia pauperum set forth in pictures the New Testament history with its Old Testament types and prophecies; Bible Histories made known among the people the Scripture stories in a connected form; and, after the introduction of printing, the German Plenaries helped also to spread the knowledge of God’s word by renderings for private use of the principal parts of the service. For the instruction of the people in faith and morals a whole series of Catechisms was constructed after a gradually developed type. The “Dance of Death” in its various forms reminded of the vanity of all earthly pleasures. The spirit of the Reformation was shown during this period in the large number of hymns written in the vernacular. Church music too received a powerful impulse.

§ 115.1. Fasts and Festivals.—New Mary Festivals were introduced: F. præsentationis M. on 21st Nov. (Lev. xii. 5-8), F. visitationis M. (Luke i. 39-51), on 2nd July. In the 15th century we meet with the festivals of the Seven Pains of Mary, F. Spasmi M., on Friday or Saturday before Palm Sunday. Dominic instituted a rosary festival, F. rosarii M., on 1st Oct., and its general observance was enjoined by Gregory XIII. in A.D. 1571.—The Veneration of Ann (§ [57, 2]) was introduced into Germany in the second half of the 15th century, but soon rose to a height almost equal to that of Mary.—The Fasts of the early Church (§ [56, 7]) had, even during the previous period, been greatly relaxed. Now the most special fast days were mere days of abstinence from flesh, while most lavish meals of fish and farinaceous food were indulged in. Papal and episcopal dispensations from fasting were also freely given.

§ 115.2. Preaching (§ [104, 1]).—To aid and encourage preaching in the language of the people, unskilled preachers were supplied with Vocabularia prædicantium. Surgant, a priest of Basel, wrote, in the end of the 15th century, a treatise on homiletics and catechetics most useful for his age, Manuale Curatorum. In it he showed how Latin sermons might be rendered into the tongue of the people, and urged the duty of hearing sermons. The mendicants were the chief preachers, especially the mystics of the preaching orders, during the 14th century (§ [114]), and the Augustinians, particularly their German Observants, during the 15th (§ [112, 5]), and next to them, the Franciscans.—The most zealous preacher of his age was the Spanish Dominican Vincent Ferrér. In A.D. 1397 he began his unprecedentedly successful preaching tours through Spain, France, Italy, England, Scotland, and Ireland. He died in A.D. 1419. He laboured with special ardour for the conversion of the Jews, of whom he is said to have baptized 35,000. Wherever he went he was venerated as a saint, received with respect by the clergy and prelates, highly honoured by kings and princes, consulted by rich and poor regarding temporal and spiritual things. He was canonized by Calixtus III. in A.D. 1455. Certain Flagellants (§ [116, 3]) whom he met in his travels followed him, scourging themselves and singing his penitential songs, but he stopped this when objected to by the Council of Constance. His sermons dealt with the realities of actual life, and called all classes to repent of their sins. Of a similar spirit was the Italian Dominican Barletta, who died in A.D. 1480, whose burlesque and scathing satire rendered him the most popular preacher of the day. In his footsteps went the Frenchmen Maillard and Menot, both Franciscans, and the German priest of Strassburg, Geiler of Kaisersberg, quite equal to them in quaint terseness of expression and biting wit.All these were preeminently distinguished for moral earnestness and profound spirituality.[339]

§ 115.3. The Biblia Pauperum.—The typological interpretation of the Old Testament history received a fixed and permanent form in the illustrations introduced into the service books and pictures printed on the altars, walls, and windows of churches, etc., during the 12th century. A set of seventeen such picture groups was found at Vienna, of which the middle panels represent the New Testament history, sub gracia, above it an Old Testament type from the period ante legem, and under it one from the period sub lege. This picture series was completed by the Biblia pauperum, so called from the saying of Gregory I., that pictures were the poor man’s Bible. Many of the extant MSS., all depending on a common source, date from the 14th and 15th centuries. The illustrations of the New Testament are in the middle, and round about are pictures of the four prophets, with volumes in their hands, on which the appropriate Old Testament prophecies are written. On right and left are Old Testament types.The multiplication of copies of this work by woodcuts and types was one of the first uses to which printing was put.[340]

§ 115.4. The Bible in the Vernacular.—The need of translations of the Bible into the language of the people, specially urged by the Waldensians and Albigensians, was now widely insisted upon by those of reformatory tendencies (§ [119]). On the introduction of printing, about A.D. 1450, an opportunity was afforded of rapidly circulating translations already made in most of the European languages. Before Luther, there were fourteen printed editions of the Bible in High and five in Low German. The translations, made from the Vulgate, were in all practically the same. The translators are unknown. The diction is for the most part clumsy, and the sense often scarcely intelligible. Translations had been made in England by the Wiclifites, and in Bohemia by the Hussites. In France, various renderings of separate books of Scripture were circulated, and a complete French Bible was issued by the confessor of Charles VIII., Jean de Rely, at Paris, in A.D. 1487. Two Italian Bibles were published in Venice, in A.D. 1471, one by the Camaldulite abbot Malherbi, closely following the Vulgate; the other by the humanist Bruccioli, which often falls back on the original text. The latter was highly valued by Italian exiles of the Reformation age. In Spain a Carthusian, Ferreri, attempted a translation, which was printed at Valencia in A.D. 1478. More popular however than these translations were the Bible Histories, i.e. free renderings, sometimes contracted, sometimes expanded, of the historical books, especially these of the Old Testament. From A.D. 1470 large and frequent editions were published of the German Plenaries, containing at first only the gospels and epistles, afterwards also the Service of the Mass, for all Sundays and festivals and saints’ days, with explanations and directions.