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Religious Studies Faculty Publications Religious Studies Department
3-1-2010
Sisters and Brothers of the Common Life: The Devotio Moderna and the World of the Later Middle Ages, by John Van Engen
Elizabeth A. Dreyer Fairfield University, [email protected]
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Repository Citation Dreyer, Elizabeth A., "Sisters and Brothers of the Common Life: The Devotio Moderna and the World of the Later Middle Ages, by John Van Engen" (2010). Religious Studies Faculty Publications. 3. https://digitalcommons.fairfield.edu/religiousstudies-facultypubs/3 Published Citation Dreyer, Elizabeth A. "Sisters and Brothers of the Common Life: The Devotio Moderna and the World of the Later Middle Ages, by John Van Engen." Theological Studies 71.1 (2010): 253-253.
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F.'s well-woven writing style accompa importance of poverty; and livelihood in nied by 39 pages of notes and 29 pages of textiles and bookmaking. bibliography may place this text beyond The influence of the Devout endured popular or undergraduate readers. For in the lives and work of Calvin, Erasmus, the historian of religion, however, and in and Ignatius Loyola. Above all, the particular for the medical ethicist of shadow of Thomas of Kempen's Imita whatever theological stance, the volume tion of Christ fell far and wide across the uniquely and valuably contributes to Christian world. Even today, select understanding and appreciating a distinc themes of Devout life resonate with con tive in the origins of and Christian per temporary concerns: pushing boundaries spective on religion, medicine, and and living in tension between church and ethics. Finally, for the graduate student, world, religious and lay, work and F.'s scholarship will serve as a model of prayer, contemplation and action, inte professional research. rior prayer and external ministry; their emphasis on freedom and interiority; EDWIN L. LISSON, S.J. their willingness to redress what was per St. Louis University ceived as a spiritually lax, superficial society; and their conviction that there was but a single Christian religion under SISTERS AND BROTHERS OF THE COMMON Christ and the gospel. LIFE: THE DEVOTIO MODERNA AND THE V.E.'s study should be required WORLD OF THE LATER MIDDLE AGES. By reading for specialists in late medieval John Van Engen. Philadelphia: Univer and early modern European piety and sity of Pennsylvania, 2008. Pp. ix + 433. culture. A more attentive editor would $59.95. have eased the burden of reading overly complex, run-on sentences, and mini Van Engen offers a detailed, compre mized the frequent, seemingly random, hensive study of the 15th-century Neth parenthetical inclusion of phrases in erlandish New Devout movement their original languages. (1380s-1560s), based on little-studied primary sources. It is hard to imagine a ELIZABETH A. DREYER closer, "on the ground" view of the con Fairfield University, Conn. text, lives, practices, and goals of these dedicated, creative, and misunderstood "gatherings"—often under suspicion by SCIENCE AND THEOLOGY IN THE REFORMA the Inquisition and other authorities. TION: STUDIES IN THEOLOGICAL INTERPRE V.E. covers female (paucity of sources) TATION AND ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVA as well as male branches, showing how, TIONS IN SIXTEENTH-CENTURY GERMANY. against opposition, they carved out a By Charlotte Methuen. New York: T. & way of life "between" vowed religious T. Clark, 2008. Pp. viri + 128. $110. and laity in the ordinary sense. He situ ates the Devout on a broad canvas of Methuen insightfully probes the dif new religious ideas and forms that ferent ways in which key Protestant include béguines, tertiaries, Lollards, thinkers (primarily Lutheran) related Hussites, Wycliffites, and Free Spirits. the new astronomical knowledge, gen Key themes include: conversion; erated by the Renaissance, to theology. details of Devout piety (resolutions, As M. stresses, they all affirmed that exercises, reading, meditations, self- the natural order manifests the glory examination, scrapbooks, mutual re of the Creator. But while some (e.g., proof); influence of early figures such as Philip Melanchthon) saw the natural Jerome, Cassian, and Gregory; founding order intimately related to the divine figures Geert Grote, Florens Radewijns, and moral orders, others (like Luther) Gerhart Zerbolt, John Pupper, and Dirk were reluctant and even dismissive of of Herxen; social, political, and legal the significance of any such link, be interactions with civic and ecclesial cause nature had been corrupted by authorities; the role of literacy and access sin. Melanchthon forged a critical but to vernacular works; schools for boys; the scientifically attuned strand of Lutheran