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The Imitation of Christ
The Imitation of Christ is a Latin devotional treatise written c. 1418–1427 in the Low Countries, traditionally attributed to the Augustinian friar T…
Timeline
- c. 1418–1427Monastery of St. Agnes · ZwolleWritten c. 1418–1427, the Latin treatise was composed in the context of the Devotio Moderna; its four books respectively treat outward virtue, inner life, divine consolation, and Eucharistic devotion, forming a manual text for daily reading by friars.
- c. 1427–1441Scriptorium of the Monastery of St. Agnes · NetherlandsThe text was copied anonymously in the Windesheim houses and among the Brothers of the Common Life. Kempis, as priest and scribe, continuously revised the wording, so that the four-book version took on a relatively stable transmitted form in the 1430s–1440s.
- c. 1471–1650Western European printing and copying networks · Western EuropeIn 1471–1472 the text entered movable-type printing and quickly became one of the most translated Christian books after the Bible, continuing to be used as a devotional manual by Catholics and some Reformation readers.
Sources
- The Imitation of Christ https://www.britannica.com/topic/Imitation-of-Christ
- The Imitation of Christ — Thomas à Kempis (1418) https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Of_the_Imitation_of_Christ
- Sisters and Brothers of the Common Life: The Devotio Moderna and the World of the Later Middle Ages — John Van Engen (2008)