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Geert Groote

Type Figure Region Low Countries Time 1340–1384 Also known as Geert Groote、Gerard Groote、Gerardus Magnus、Gerrit Groet、格哈德·格罗特

Geert Groote (1340–1384) initiated the Devotio Moderna movement in the Low Countries;…

Timeline

  1. 1340–1355Deventer · OverijsselBorn in the commercial city of Deventer on the IJssel, son of a cloth merchant and municipal notable. Educated locally and around Aachen in his youth, he went to the University of Paris at about fifteen, indicating his family's means to support prolonged study abroad.
  2. 1355–1374Paris · FranceHe studied canon law, medicine, and natural philosophy in Paris, and encountered the nominalism of the Ockhamist school. After returning home he held singing-priest benefices in Utrecht, Aachen, and elsewhere, living at times in luxury, until around 1374 illness and the exhortation of the Carthusian Hendrik van Calcar brought about his conversion.
  3. 1374–1383Deventer · OverijsselHe gave up his multiple benefices and at one point retired to a Carthusian monastery near Arnhem. Around 1379 he received permission to itinerantly preach as a deacon, attacking clerical corruption and advocating scripture reading and meditation on Christ's Passion. He made his former home available to poor women and, together with Florens Radewyns, fostered a community of manuscript copyists, from which Devotio Moderna and the Brethren of the Common Life originated.
  4. 1383–1384Deventer · OverijsselHis attacks angered some clergy, and the Bishop of Utrecht revoked his preaching license around 1383. Groote turned to planning a more solid common-life institution, but before it could be fully realized he contracted plague while nursing the sick and died in Deventer on August 20, 1384.

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