DEVOTIO MODERNA. — A movement of religious renewal which arose in the Netherlands in the second half of the fourteenth century and developed chiefly in that region and in western Germany until the sixteenth century, and thereafter in the various Catholic countries through the book De Imitatione Christi, which is its most lasting and most intimate expression. D. m. is also often used to designate the group of the three religious institutions that propagated this movement and, in the stricter and more widespread sense, the spiritual doctrine that constitutes its distinctive characteristic.
These three religious institutions are generally connected with the direct Gerardo Groote (v.), the great Dutch reformer who died at Deventer in 1384. As early as 1374 he had gathered in his father’s house some poor women who wished to serve God, and in 1379 he had set down in definitive statutes the “rules” they were to follow. Then, while remaining a deacon, he devoted himself to preaching, with such zeal and ardor that, although he brought about many conversions, he incurred considerable hostility. The bishop of Utrecht, who for a long time had been favorably disposed toward him, eventually withdrew the exceptional powers he had initially granted him. Groote withdrew to his house in Deventer, where he devoted himself to prayer and study, surrounded by disciples and faithful friends who shared his ideas on religious reform, especially Florent Radewijns. The rule he had given to the “Sisters of the Common Life” and the institutions connected with them differed greatly from those followed until then. These nuns had neither a special habit nor vows nor enclosure. This was to enable them to exercise new forms of apostolate, particularly in the education of girls. At his death, Groote commended them to the care of his friends. These themselves were considering embracing a similar way of life. But Groote directed them toward a more traditional path, inviting them to adopt the Rule of St. Augustine; this Radewijns and his friends did by founding, in 1387, the convent of Windesheim, which became the mother house of a flourishing congregation of canons, inspired by the work of Ruusbroec at Groenendael. After Radewijns’s death, in 1400, the “Brothers of the Common Life” in turn organized themselves; they soon spread through the Netherlands, Germany, and France, everywhere bringing about a profound religious revival, and living a life of prayer and work in close union with Windesheim and the “Sisters of the Common Life,” likewise animated by the ideal they had received from G. Groote. They were exposed to much opposition, but never posed as innovators and intended only to deepen Christian life through prayer, study—especially of Sacred Scripture, of which they multiplied copies—and work: in a word, through the example of a fervent Christian life, without attacking or disparaging traditions, scholasticism, or the other forms of religious life then in use.
These three institutions survived, with varying fortunes, until the French Revolution. The last two disappeared at the beginning of the nineteenth century; the first is still represented by the “English Ladies” of Bruges.
Often D. m. denotes a form of spirituality that comes very close to this new form of religious life, in opposition to the forms previously in use. As Fr. E. De Schaepdrijver observes, this spirituality, as it appears among Groote’s disciples, is by no means uniform or simple. Indeed, it derives from the various complex movements of piety already in existence, but adds to them something highly characteristic of its own. St. Augustine, St. Bernard, St. Bonaventure, the Pseudo-Dionysius, and Ruysbroeck simultaneously exert their influence; in this form of spirituality, pure contemplation and speculation are not excluded.
Nevertheless, in the pamphlets and treatises published by representatives of D. m.—Gerardo di Zutphen, Gerlac Peters, Enrico di Mende, Giovanni Vos di Huesden, and above all Tommaso di Kempis—a spirituality with the following characteristics is manifested: predominant importance given to practice, with methodical exercises concerning the various faculties of the soul, and habitual recourse to means more or less ingenious for facilitating the practice of prayer; abandonment of lofty speculative problems in favor of direct combat against the passions and sin; continuous vigilance over oneself and one’s inner life; ardent devotion to Jesus Christ, whom one seeks to imitate and unite as fully as possible with one’s own life; intense interior labor, joined to Grace, in order to direct all the faculties toward the service of God. Such are the characteristics of the most representative work of D. m., the “Imitation of Christ.” Ultimately, without claiming to revolutionize piety, D. m. strives to enliven all traditional observances through a personal and conscious interior life, demanding the utmost effort from the individual.
This explains why D. m. proved so effective in religious renewal wherever it took root, especially from the day on which it was adopted by the powerful personality of St. Ignatius and transmitted by him to his disciples in the form of “Spiritual (v.) Exercises” and the Constitutions of the Society of Jesus. D. m. thus left its imprint on all religious life from the sixteenth century onward and contributed very effectively to securing the triumph of Catholicism over heresy.