Autograph Manuscript of the Imitation of Christ (1441)

Ruelens describes a volume of 192 leaves, written throughout in one hand, with a list of contents at the front and at the end the note Finitus et completus anno domini M.cccc.xli per manus fratris Thome Kempis in monte sancte Agnetis prope Zwollis: finished and completed in the year 1441 by the hand of brother Thomas of Kempen at Mount St Agnes near Zwolle. The four books of the Imitation come first, in the order one, two, four, three, and other short treatises follow. An inscription on the flyleaf records that the book belonged to the monastery of Mount St Agnes and was rescued from its ruins in 1577; it came to the Jesuits of Antwerp and from them to the library at Brussels.

What the manuscript proves is that Thomas à Kempis copied these texts in 1441. The words “by the hand of” are those of a scribe, and the house chronicle says that he also copied a Bible. The note is silent on who composed the Imitation. Ruelens, who held the authorship of Thomas to be proved, relied on other things: that the remaining treatises in the volume are Thomas’s own, that an older manuscript at Brussels (no. 18137) carries a note dated 1425 calling the work his, and that the punctuation and rhythm match his other writings. He also records that from 1604 the book was claimed for Jean Gerson and for an Italian named Gersen. His introduction is the argument of one side in that dispute and is cited as such. See the Devotio Moderna and the Imitation of Christ.