The Modern Devotion: The Brethren of the Common Life
Monasteries and convents played a critical role in maintaining and propagating Christian ideas during the Middle Ages (2.1.5). Yet this concentration of theological and spiritual excellence within the monastic tradition had some unintended consequences. For example, the everyday life of the laity was often left virtually totally untouched by the spiritual riches being developed behind monastic walls. Monastic spir- ituality often presupposed a lifestyle and outlook quite alien to lay people.
Yet many reforming movements in the later Middle Ages sought to bridge the gap between the religious orders and lay people. Both the Dominicans and Franciscans repre- sented serious attempts to reconnect the Christian faith with wider culture, partly by encouraging a religious presence within society. One of the most important of these developments took place during the fourteenth century in the Low Countries – the movement often known by the Latin phrase Devotio Moderna (“Modern Devotion”), and the Brethren of the Common Life.
The Modern Devotion had its origins in the flourishing commercial towns of the Low Countries. Gerard Groote (1340–84) was the son of a prominent merchant of Deventer, a trading center on the River Ussel which was a member of the Hanseatic League. Groote’s family had risen to become one of the leading cloth merchants of Deventer, and were wealthy as a result. In 1374, while seriously ill, Groote had a conversion experience, which caused him to abandon his comfortable lifestyle and adopt an ascetic way of living.
