Thomas à Kempis
Canon of the monastery of Mount St Agnes near Zwolle, schooled at Deventer among the followers of Geert Groote. He wrote lives of the movement’s founders and the chronicle of his house, and in 1441 wrote out the Imitation of Christ, which is commonly printed under his name.
Thomas says that he came to Deventer to study in his youth and that Florentius, the leader of the brothers there, kept him for a time in his house, put him to school and found him lodging (Thomas à Kempis, Life of John Gronde, ch. 1 (Arthur, pp. 169–171)). The chronicle of Mount St Agnes records that Thomas Hemerken of Kempen, in the diocese of Cologne, son of John and Gertrude and brother of the first prior, was invested there on the feast of Corpus Christi in 1406 (Chronicle of Mount St Agnes, year 1406 (Arthur, p. 41)).
The brother who continued the chronicle writes that he died in 1471, on the feast of Saint James the Less, in his ninety-second year, having been a priest for more than fifty-seven years. He says that Thomas copied the complete Bible that the house used and many other books, and composed “divers little books” for the young (Chronicle of Mount St Agnes, continuation, year 1471 (Arthur, pp. 143–144)). A volume in his hand, finished in 1441, contains the four books of the Imitation of Christ (Brussels autograph of 1441, colophon, as printed by Ruelens, pp. 6–7). See the Devotio Moderna and the Imitation of Christ.
In the timeline
- 1384 to 1441, firm dateThe Devotio Moderna and the Imitation of Christ
Geert Groote of Deventer gives up his benefices and preaches repentance. After his death in 1384 his followers form houses that live in common by copying books, and a monastery at Windesheim. In 1441 Thomas à Kempis, one of them, writes out the Imitation of Christ.