Gerard Groote

Groote, Geert, Gerard or Gerard the Great (1340–84), founder of the Brothers and Sisters of the Common Life. Born of a wealthy family in Deventer, he studied theology and law at Paris. After a somewhat worldly life, he spent three years in a Carthusian monastery, and became attracted by the teachings of Ruysbroek. He became a powerful preacher, attacking abuses in the Church. In 1380, he and his friend, Florentius Radewijns, established a group for the development of personal piety. From this group, the Brethren developed; and in 1383, he wrote a Rule for a similar community of women. In effect, this was the creation of the Devotio Moderna, the ‘up-to-date devotion’ which brought the practice of the presence of God into the midst of everyday life.

Gerard Groote , 1340-84, Dutch Roman Catholic reformer. He studied at Paris and elsewhere and because of his learning in theology, philosophy, jurisprudence, and medicine, he was appointed professor at Cologne. Converted from a worldly life c.1374, he retired to a Carthusian monastery near Arnhem, urged probably by John Ruysbroeck . He was ordained deacon, but never priest, and under episcopal auspices he preached all over the Netherlands, denouncing clergy and laity impartially and making many converts. In 1383 his clerical enemies procured an episcopal ban on his preaching. In his preaching period he formed the Brothers of the Common Life, a monastic organization, whose members were exponents of the "Modern Devotion." Before his death he asked his followers to become Augustinian canons. His society and the Augustinians he inspired were pioneers in a general reform of German monastic life. Some scholars hold that Groote is the author of the devotional classic The Imitation of Christ (see Imitation of Christ, The ), ascribed by tradition to Thomas à Kempis . The Following of Christ (tr. 1941) is purportedly based on the original Groote manuscripts in diary form.