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Geert Groote
Netherland, 1340 –1384

13th Century Spiritual leader and Reformer before Luther

Founder of the ‘‘Brethren of the Common Life’ and the Modern Devotion
[Devotio Moderna] movement of the 14th Century. The movement established
hundreds of Houses for penitent and devout laity from 1374 onward
throughout northern Europe. The movement also established Christian schools
all over Netherlands and brought a great revival of true religion in Holland and
Germany.
Early Life
Gerard Groote (1340 –1384), (Gerrit or Gerhard Groet) was born at Deventer,
Overijssel province, Netherlands in October 1340. His father Werner die
Groote was well-to-do businessman of Deventer who later became Mayor of
Deventer.
Losing both his parents
In 1347 to 1351 the Black Plague epidemics swept Europe killing an estimated
30 to 60 percent of Europe Population. Both his parents died due to the black
plague when Gerard Groote was young. [The fourteenth century in Western
Europe Netherlands was being plagued by floods, failed harvests, grain
speculation and continuous famines. It was followed by Black Plague
epidemics 1347 to 1351]
He was raised by his uncle. At the age of 15 (1355) he was sent to Paris
University where he completed magister atrium (master of the liberal arts) in
1358. These included grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, geometry,
astronomy and music. He then graduated in law, theology, medicine and
alchemy, completing all the courses that were offered.
Return to home
In 1362 he returned home to Deventer. The same year he was appointed
teacher at the Deventer chapter school. He was offered teaching jobs in many
schools and Universities. He became a visiting lecturer at the new University
of Prague and Cologne. He also procured for himself the position of Canon at
St. Maarten Church in Utrecht and another in Onze-Lieve-Vrouwekerk in
Aachen. These two positions provided him a regular stipend of two hundred
pounds a year which was a big sum in those days. Groot now began to live a
luxurious, secular and selfish life. For fourteen years, from his twentieth to
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thirty-four years old, he lived the life of a wealthy and ambitious scholar.
Groot say about this period of his life ‘I had a wild and lawless life as a
youth’.
Conversion, 1374
In1374, he became severely ill. At this point his fellow-student of Paris
University, Henry Æger of Calcar who was the prior of the Carthusian
monastery in Monnikhuizen [near Arnhem] visited him and spoke to him that
he should leave everything and follow Christ. Groot decided to leave
everything and follow Christ. He then had a Conversion experience (Born
again). Groot immediately gave up everything he possessed and began to
follow Christ. He threw away all his degree and honours. He gave up his two
big stipends from the 2 churches and began to live by faith depending on God
alone for his daily needs. He then began to live a penitential life (Life of
repentance).
Giving up his house for widows, 1374
He gave his big house ( in 1374) he had inherited from his father at Deventer
as a home for widows and unmarried women. The women were encouraged to
serve God without taking any religious vows. The inmates were afforded an
opportunity of retirement and a life of religious devotion and good works.
They were to support themselves by weaving, spinning, sewing, nursing and
caring for the sick. They were at liberty to leave the community whenever
they chose. This evolved as the Sisters of Common life community.
Groot begins to seek God at a Monastery, 1374
Groot took the call of Jesus to the utmost seriousness. In 1374, He left all his
teaching positions and went to Carthusian monastery of Munnikhuizen. Here
he stayed as a monk doing all the work and duties as any other fulltime monk
for three years 1374 until 1377 and a total of seven years in solitude. He paid
for his boarding and lodging. He not just fasted and prayed but spends whole
nights in a kneeling or standing position, under his robe on his bare body he
will wear a 'hairy garment, full of knots and buttons', which he would not take
off until his death.
Groote’s Resolutions and Rule for life
In a document that has been preserved: Conclusa et proposita, non vota, in
nomine Domini a magistro Gerardo edita (Resolutions and intentions, no
vows, drawn up by Master Geert in the name of the Lord), we can see his rule
of life.
1. From now on no scientific titles and academic disputes for him, away with
everything that strives for honor and property.
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2. From now on a life of fasting and self-denial, study of the Bible and the
great Fathers of the Church and the insight that "the science of all sciences
is to know that one knows nothing."
Return to Deventer, 1377
In 1377, Geert Groote settled back in Deventer in the Bagijnenstraat. he
travelled to Paris in order to buy theological books for study. One of his main
mission was to collect books which was very costly and rare in that age and to
publish them. On the trip back, he visited the Flemish mystic Jan van
Ruysbroec and established a relationship that would shape his own teachings
on the devotional life.
Groot begins his work as a public preacher,1379
At the age of 40 Groote began preaching in public. Crowds of people gathered
to hear him in the churches and churchyards where ever he preached. His
meeting was advertised through posters and the entire population of villages
and towns flowed without any thought of work or food. People listened
intently for two, sometimes three consecutive hours to his preaching on
repentance, and, when a second sermon was announced on the same day,
many waited so as not to lose their place, He called on people to repent and
learn about Jesus Christ. His message was focussed fully on repentance and
living a penitent life. Thousands of people came to a personal relationship
with Christ through his preaching. Groote laboured in Deventer, Zwolle,
Kampen and Zutphen , Amersfoort , Amsterdam , Haarlem , Leiden , Delft ,
Gouda and Utrecht and other chief towns of the Netherlands.
The next four years saw him traveling and preaching regularly throughout the
diocese.
Thousands of people get converted
Briefly formulated, the core of his message was as follows: Oh, sinful human
being, you need to mortify in this world, and live a dying life. Thousands of
lives were completely changed through his ministry. Herman Sticken, the
father of the known Salome Sticken, renounced his knighthood and becomes a
dedicated devotee which involved making a lot of sacrifices.
Groote’s core message
1. Groot called people to return to the Gospel of Matthew which he
summarised as 1. imitating the example of Jesus – (2) answer the call of
Jesus to leave everything behind and choose for Him with determination –
(3) like Jesus, being prepared to endure persecution and suffering.
2. "Let the root of thy study," said Groote, "and the mirror of thy life be
primarily the Gospel, for therein is the life of Christ portrayed."
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3. Every faithful person must always attempt to meet the word of the Gospel
to live in poverty and to fast in order to live a virtuous life in which one
can make their own choices without restrictions.
4. True religion consists of Evangelical simplicity and free will and not
honor and coercion. External piety combined with pompous church
attendance and gifts are only illusion
Groot comes down heavily on wicked pastors
Groot attacked the pastors who were living in sin like a wolf. He says- It is a
severe and grave sin to entrust a human being higher truth and care for his
salvation when one knows he is worth nothing when it comes to morals. When
one would call a bishop who doesn’t try to better the mistakes of people, a
filthy dog rather than a bishop, what would one say about a bishop or a priest
who grants them an office or dignity in the Church and provides care for the
salvation of the soul?
Groot stopped from preaching
Very soon a large number of priests and bishops joined together and managed
to get a ban on Gerrit Groote from publicly preaching.
Groot gathers a band of disciples
Many Young men flocked to him in great numbers. Some of these he sent to
his schools, others he gave them work in the religious house mainly copying
books which was a well-paying work.
The best of the young men join him
A little band of converts from these meetings attached themselves to Groote
and became his fellow-workers, thus becoming the first "Brethren of the
Common Life". The best of the secular clergy enrolled themselves in his
brotherhood, which in due course was approved by the Holy See.
Groot devotes himself to writing and publishing books
Groote took this opportunity to pour himself into his passionate work of
publishing books which was done by hand in those day. In 1383, Groote
settled down at Deventer, spending much time in the large house of Florentius
Radewyn. ( One of Groote closest disciple) Groot employed a number of
young priests to copy manuscripts. Groot provided the young priest ample
work of copying books. The work provided a good income to support a large
number of young priests and his followers.
The formation of the Brethren of Common Life
Florentius Radewyn who had given his house for the work of God suggested
that the brothers should be united into a community. The brothers agreed to

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throw their earnings into a common fund. Thus began the brethren of
Common life.
Like their founder, they renounced worldly goods and remained unmarried.
They supported the houses by their own toil. To gardening, making clothes
and other occupations pertaining to the daily life, they added preaching,
conducting schools and copying manuscripts.
After Groote’s death, the community received a more distinct organization
through Radewyn who succeeded Groot. Other societies were established after
the model of the Deventer house, at Zwolle, Delft, Liége, Ghent, Cologne,
Münster, Marburg and Rostock, many of them continuing strong till the
Reformation.
Second branch of the brethren the Canons Regular
After the death of Groote the Brethren of Common life founded a second
branch which was on the formal lines of the existing Orders of Brothers
approved by the Catholic Church. It was formed on the lines of Augustinian
Order. This was called the The congregation of canons regular. The first
monastery was built in Windsheim, Zwolle on the Issel in 1386. It grew
rapidly under Johann Vos, the second prior (1391-1424), under whom the
number of religious was greatly increased and many foundations were made.
By 1407 the congregation numbered twelve monasteries. When the
Windsheim Congregation reached the height of its prosperity towards the end
of the fifteenth century, it numbered eighty-six houses of canons, and sixteen
of nuns, mostly situated in what is now the kingdom of Holland, and in the
ecclesiastical Province of Cologne.
Making books available to the common people
One of the major work of the Brethren of common life was helping people to
learn. In the 13th century it was very hard for common people to buy books.
The brethren of common life opened Public libraries and made costly and
precious Christian books available to the common people. In Groots time
printing presses had not been invented. Books had to copied by hand and
Groot made the work of copying books the main activity of the brethren of
common life. The principal task in which the brothers of the Common life
were engaged was copying book and then selling books. Infact the brothers
were called as the brothers of the penne. A quarter of all manuscripts
preserved from antiquity were copied by his followers. Each community
earmarked a third of its income for extending the local library.
Starting schools and teaching at school

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The brethren of Common life took up the work of conducting schools as their
main mission. Jan Cele, Gerard's personal friend, founded the first "secondary
school" organised on modern principles: he divided the pupils into classes,
entrusted the teaching to qualified staff, recorded progress through periodic
examinations. The schools conducted by the Brothers of the Common Life,
intended primarily for clerics, have a distinguished place in the history of
education. Never before, had so much attention been paid to the intellectual
and moral training of youth. Not only did the Brothers, have their own
schools. They labored also in schools already established. Long lists of the
teachers are still extant. Their school at Herzogenbusch had at one time 1200
scholars, and put Greek into its course at its very start, 1424. The school at
Liége in 1524 had 1600 scholars. The school at Deventer acquired a place
among the notable grammar schools of history, and trained Martin Luther,
Nicolas of Cusa, Thomas à Kempis, John Wessel and Erasmus, who became
an inmate of the institution, 1474, and learned Greek from one of its teachers,
Synthis. [Making the mother-tongue the chief vehicle of education, these
schools sent out the men who are the fathers of the modern literature of
Northwestern Germany and the Lowlands, and prepared the soil for the
coming Reformation.- Philip Schaff]
Public Preaching
The priests of the Brethren engaged in public preaching in the vernacular, and
the collations, or expositions of Scripture, given to private circles in their own
houses. Groote went to the Scriptures, so Thomas à Kempis says, as to a well
of life. Of John Celle, d. 1417, the zealous rector of the Zwolle school, the
same biographer writes: "He frequently expounded to the pupils the Holy
Scriptures, impressing upon them their authority and stirring them up to
diligence in writing out the sayings of the saints.
His message
'What I always preach almost everywhere is that we must constantly
remember the suffering of our Lord Jesus Christ and live it in our life, and not
only through contemplation, but through surrendered imitation of his penance,
reproach and sorrows. For Groote, the focus of the imitation is not in humbly
accepting the fate that has been imposed on us, but in the imposition of
penances and, austerities and chastisements.
Groote message of deeper repentance.
Groote message to people was that Insult, scorn, injustice, and sorrow must be
endured out of love and veneration to and imitation of Jesu Christi, without
thinking of merit and reward. We must take up suffering and punishment all
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our lives in wholesome penitence out of love and desire to make amends for
the divine justice that we have offended in so many things and that leaves no
sin unpunished. And that miraculously helps to deliver punishment, especially
those which God permits and sends upon us can discharge a great punishment
in purgatory where we are forced to suffer. But they are more profitable when
they are accepted to carry out divine justice and the divine will than when they
are borne merely as a remission of punishment. "
His views On Marriage
He regarded Marriage was at best a necessary evil rather avoided for the sake
of the salvation of the soul.
His clothing and lifestyle
He slept on a handful of straw or on the bare planks of his manger, wore shoes
without soles and patched clothes and underneath a hairy garment or even an
iron armor, and whipped himself and at times his children to kill the sin in
them. The starting point of this endeavor is "divine fear," "the fear of the
Lord," in other words, a much more direct relationship between sin and
punishment, yes, a much more primitive conception of God as a supernatural
power whose wrath must be reconciled.

In 1374 Groote turned his family home in Deventer into a shelter for
poor women and lived for several years as a guest of a Carthusian
monastery. In 1379, having received ordination as a deacon, he became
a missionary preacher throughout the diocese of Utrecht. The success
which followed his labors not only in the city of Utrecht, but also in
Zwolle, Deventer, Kampen, Amsterdam, Haarlem, Gouda, Leiden,
Delft, Zutphen and elsewhere, was immense; according to Thomas à
Kempis the people left their business and their meals to hear his
sermons, so that the churches could not hold the crowds that flocked
together wherever he came.

Geert Groote Alle gebeurtenissen verzameld Geert Groote Huis

The bishop of Utrecht supported him warmly, and got him to preach
against concubinage in the presence of the clergy assembled in synod.
The impartiality of his censures, which he directed not only against the
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prevailing sins of the laity, but also against heresy, simony, avarice, and
impurity among the secular and regular clergy, provoked the hostility of
the clergy, and accusations of heterodoxy were brought against him. It
was in vain that Groote emitted a Publica Protestatio, in which he
declared that Jesus was the great subject of his discourses, that in all of
them he believed himself to be in harmony with Catholic doctrine, and
that he willingly subjected them to the candid judgment of the Roman
Church.

Geert Groote Stichting Thomas a Kempis Zwolle Rudolf van Dijk Geert
Groote prijs
The bishop was induced to issue an edict which prohibited from
preaching all who were not in priestly orders, and an appeal to Pope
Urban VI was without effect. There is a difficulty as to the date of this
prohibition; either it was only a few months before Groote's death, or
else it must have been removed by the bishop, for Groote seems to have
preached in public in the last year of his life.

Geert Groote Afbeeldingen

At some period (perhaps 1381, perhaps earlier) he paid a visit of some

days' duration to the famous mystic John Ruysbroeck, prior of the
Augustinian canons at Groenendaal near Brussels; during this visit was
formed Groote's attraction for the rule and life of the Augustinian
canons which was destined to bear notable fruit. At the close of his life
he was asked by some of the clerics who attached themselves to him to
form them into a religious order and Groote resolved that they should
be Canons Regular of St. Augustine. No time was lost in the effort to
carry out the project, but Groote died before a foundation could be
made.

To initiation of this movement was the great achievement of Groote's

life; he lived to preside over the birth and first days of his other
creation, the society of Brethren of the Common Life. He died of the

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plague at Deventer, which he had contracted while nursing the sick, in
1384 at the age of 44.

The Brethren of the Common Life

Young men especially flocked to him in great numbers. Some of these
he sent to his schools, others he occupied at transcribing good books, to
all he taught thorough Christian piety. Groote and Florence Radewyns,
his favourite disciple, founded at Zwolle the Brethren of the Common
Life. In 1387 a site was secured at Windesheim, some 24 km (15 mi)
north of Deventer, and here was established the monastery that became
the cradle of the Windesheim Congregation of canons regular
embracing in course of time nearly one hundred houses, and leading the
way in the series of reforms undertaken during the 15th century by all
the religious orders in Germany. Henceforth his communities, which
were spreading rapidly through the Netherlands, Lower Germany, and
Westphalia, claimed and received all his attention. He contemplated
organizing his clerics into a community of canons regular, but it was
left to Radewyns, his successor, to realize this plan at Windesheim two
years later.

Devotio Moderna
A movement known as the Modern Devotion (Devotio Moderna) was
founded in the Netherlands by Groote and Florens Radewyns, in the late
fourteenth century. For Grote the pivotal point is the search for inner
peace, which results from the denial of one's own self and is to be
achieved by "ardour" and "silence". This is the heart of the "New
Devotion", the "Devotio moderna". Solitary meditation on Christ’s
Passion and redemption, on one’s own death, the Last Judgment,
heaven, and hell was essential.

In the course of the 15th century, the Modern Devotion found adherents
throughout the Netherlands and Germany. Its precepts were further
disseminated in texts such as The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à
Kempis, which reached an increasingly literate public. In this context

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small works of art such as diptychs that provided a focus for private
worship enjoyed wide popularity.

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