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University of Groningen Reading by Example Boonstra, Pieter DOI: 10.33612/diss.178555958 IMPORTANT NOTE: You are advised to consult the publisher's version (publisher's PDF) if you wish to cite from it. Please check the document version below. Document Version Publisher's PDF, also known as Version of record Publication date: 2021 Link to publication in University of Groningen/UMCG research database Citation for published version (APA): Boonstra, P. (2021). Reading by Example: the Communication of Religious Knowledge in the Collationes of the Brothers of the Common Life. University of Groningen. https://doi.org/10.33612/diss.178555958 Copyright Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). 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Download date: 02-10-2021 Reading by Example This work is part of the graduate programme Communication and Exploitation of Knowledge in the Middle Ages of the Dutch Research School for Medieval Studies, funded by the Dutch Research Council (NWO) Printing: Ridderprint, the Netherlands Cover design: Nadine Kuipers, Amperzand Tekst en Illustratie Image on front cover: Brussels, KB 19549 f. 1r Reading by Example The Communication of Religious Knowledge in the Collationes of the Brothers of the Common Life PhD thesis to obtain the degree of PhD at the University of Groningen on the authority of the Rector Magnificus Prof. C. Wijmenga and in accordance with the decision by the College of Deans. This thesis will be defended in public on Thursday 2 September 2021 at 14.30 hours by Pieter Hendrik Boonstra born on 22 February 1992 in Groningen Supervisors Prof. S. Corbellini Prof. C.G. Santing Assessment Committee Prof. R.M. Esser Prof. B.A.M. Ramakers Prof. T. Mertens 1 Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introduction .............................................................................................................. 3 1.1 New approaches to the collatio ........................................................................................ 6 1.2 Overview of this thesis ..................................................................................................... 9 Chapter 2: Establishing the collatio ......................................................................................... 13 2.1 The customary collatio ................................................................................................... 14 2.2 The collatio and the Brothers of the Common Life in prior research ............................ 25 2.4 A religious text in the vernacular: the surviving books of collations ............................. 28 2.5 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 39 Chapter 3: Placing the collatio and its participants .................................................................. 41 3.1 Devotion in a semi-domestic setting .............................................................................. 42 3.2 Conversing with the Brothers ......................................................................................... 48 3.3 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 57 Chapter 4: Relevant and informal: lay participation and worldly topics in the collatio .......... 59 4.1 Personal interactions as catalysts for the communication of religious knowledge ........ 60 4.2 With the audience in mind: lay interests are reflected in the books of collations .......... 67 4.3 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 81 Chapter 5: Communicating the Modern Devotion ................................................................... 83 5.1 Joining a textual community in the collations ................................................................ 85 5.2 Preparing for the Four Last Things .............................................................................. 105 5.3 Refraining from vice and advancing in virtues ............................................................ 126 5.4 Collatio as religious education ..................................................................................... 138 5.5 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 149 Chapter 6: Not in a preaching manner: the collatio and sermons .......................................... 153 6.1 From the sermon to the collatio ................................................................................... 155 6.2 Frequent preaching in the city ...................................................................................... 159 6.3 Eager for a good sermon .............................................................................................. 174 6.5 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 184 Chapter 7: Conclusions .......................................................................................................... 187 Appendix 1: Overview of the collations per manuscript ........................................................ 193 Bibliography ........................................................................................................................... 199 Nederlandse samenvatting ...................................................................................................... 215 Dankwoord ............................................................................................................................. 221 Curriculum vitae ..................................................................................................................... 223 2 Note to the reader All transcriptions and translations are my own unless otherwise stated. Middle Dutch quotations have been normalised for u/v/w and i/j, with punctuation and capitalisation added where appropriate. 3 Chapter 1: Introduction On knowing ourselves, from the Meditations of St Bernard. Many people know a lot, yet they do not know themselves. Other people observe and leave themselves; they seek God through these external things and leave their internal things, while God is more internal. Therefore, I shall turn away from external things and climb towards higher things, so that I may know where I came from and where I am going, what I am and what I am made of. And by knowing myself, I may approach knowing God, because as I grow in knowing myself, I draw ever nearer to knowing God.1 This quotation on the importance of knowing oneself is attributed in the text to the Sunte Bernaerdus ghedachten (‘Meditations of St Bernard’), that is the Meditationes piisimae de cognitione humanae conditionis: a devotional text commonly (albet incorrectly) attributed to Bernard of Clairvaux. According to the manuscript evidence for the Low Countries, the Meditationes piisimae almost exclusively circulated in a (female) monastic or institutional environment.2 In this case however it is the beginning of the first text in the First Book of Collations, written by Dirc van Herxen (1381–1457): a collection of texts known as collations, which were intended to be read to a group of students and other interested laypeople on Sundays and feast days to rouse their devotional fervour.3 These meetings, known as collationes (singular collatio), took place in the houses of the Brothers of the Common Life, and after the reading of a religious text in the vernacular the Brothers offered the visitors an opportunity to converse with them in private, in order to give them some humble advice and personal admonishments. 1 Utrecht, UB 3 L 6 f. 4r: “Van bekenninge ons selves uut sunte Bernaerdus ghedachten. Vele lude weten veel mer hem selven en weten sie niet. Ander lude aensien si ende laten hem selven; god sueken sie overmits desen uutwendighen dinghen ende laten hoer inwendighe dinghe, welken god noch inwendiger is. Daer omme sal ic mij keren vanden uutwendigen dingen tot inwendigen dingen, op dat ic van inwendighen dingen opclymmen moghe tot hogheren dingen. Ende op dat ic moghe bekennen van waen ic come ende werwerts dat ic gae, wat ic bin ende waer of ic bin, ende also biden bekennen mijns selfs moge comen totten bekennen godes. Want also vele als ic toe neme in bekennen mijns selfs, also vele ghenake ic totten bekennen gods.” 2 J. Reynaert, ‘Contemptus in het Middelnederlands’, in Verraders en bruggenbouwers. Verkenningen naar de relatie tussen Latinitas en de Middelnederlandse letterkunde, ed. P. Wackers e.a., Nederlandse literatuur en cultuur in de Middeleeuwen, XV (Amsterdam: Prometheus,