Everything about the Brethren Of The Common Life totally explained
The
Brethren of the Common Life was a religious
Roman Catholic community founded in the
14th century by
Gerard Groote, formerly a successful and worldly educator who had had a religious experience and preached a life of simple devotion to
Jesus Christ. The Brethren's Confraternity is best known for having inspired the
Modern Devotion. A small band of followers attached themselves to Groote and became his fellow-workers, thus becoming the first "Brethren of the Common Life" (
Dutch:
Broeders des gemeenen levens). The reformer was opposed by the clergy whose lives he denounced in his preaching as decadent and evil, but his zeal for purifying the Catholic faith and the morality of its followers won many to his cause. The best of the secular clergy even enrolled themselves in his brotherhood, which in due course was approved by the
Pope. Groote, however, didn't live long enough to finish the work he'd begun. He died in
1384, and was succeeded by
Florence Radewyns, who two years later founded the famous monastery of
Windesheim, near
Zwolle, which was thenceforth the centre of the new association.
The Confraternity of the Common Life were in many ways similar to the
Beghard and
Beguine communities which had flourished two centuries earlier and were by then declining. Its members took no vows, neither asked nor received alms; their first aim was to cultivate the interior life, and they worked for their daily bread. The houses of the brothers and sisters occupied themselves exclusively with literature and education, and their
priests also with preaching. When Groote began, education in the
Netherlands was still rare, contrary to the situation in
Italy and the southern parts of the
Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation; the
University of Leuven hadn't yet been founded, and the fame of the schools of
Liège was only a vague memory. Apart from some of the clergy who had studied at the universities and cathedral schools in
Paris or in
Cologne, there were few scholars in the land; even amongst the higher clergy there were many who were ignorant of the scientific study of
Latin, and the ordinary burgher of the Dutch cities was quite content if, when his children left school, they were able to read and write the Medieval
Low German and
Diets.
Groote determined to change all this. They worked consistently in the
scriptorium and afterwards at the printing press they were able to publish their spiritual writings widely. Amongst them are to be found the best works of
15th century Flemish prose. The Brethren spared no pains to obtain good masters, if necessary from foreign countries, for their schools, which became centres of spiritual and intellectual life of the Catholic Church; amongst those whom they trained or who were associated with them were men like
Thomas à Kempis,
Dierick Maertens,
Gabriel Biel,
Jan Standonck (1454 - 1504), priest and reformer, Master of the
Collège de Montaigu in
Paris, and the Dutch
Pope Adrian VI.
Before the fifteenth century closed, the Brethren of the Common Life had placed in all Germany and the Netherlands schools in which teaching was offered "for the love of God alone."
Gradually the course, at first elementary, embraced the humanities, philosophy, and theology. The religious orders were not impressed, as the Brethren were neither monks nor friars, but they were protected by Popes
Eugene IV,
Pius II, and
Sixtus IV.
Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa had been their pupil and so became their stanch protector and benefactor. He was also the patron of
Rudolph Agricola (Rudolf de Boer), who in his youth at
Zwolle had studied under
Thomas à Kempis; and through this connection the Brethren of the Common Life, through Cusa and Agricola, influenced
Erasmus and other adepts in the New Learning. More than half of the crowded schools - in
1500,
Deventer had over two thousand students - were swept away in the religious troubles of the sixteenth century. Others languished until the French Revolution, while the rise of universities, the creation of diocesan seminaries, and the competition of new teaching orders gradually extinguished the schools that regarded Deventer and Windesheim as their parent establishments.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Brethren Of The Common Life'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://brethren_of_the_common_life.totallyexplained.com">Brethren of the Common Life Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
