Brothers of the Common Life

BROTHERS OF THE COMMON LIFE. - A confraternity that arose around 1381 at Deventer (Holland) through the work of Florens Radewijns of Leerdam, master of arts of the University of Prague and disciple of Gerard Groote. The latter had gathered around himself some young clerics of the capitular school of Deventer as copyists, and Radewijns bound them together in a common life, but without vows; they lived on the proceeds of that trade and devoted themselves to serving God in chastity, obedience and industriousness, with special practices of piety. On his death (1384), Groote recommended that they adopt a rule, advising that of the Regular Canons of St. Augustine. This suggestion was followed by a part of the brethren; Thomas à Kempis went to the convent of Eymstyn to study that rule, and between Deventer and Zwolle the monastery of Windesheim was built, in which the new Augustinian Regular Canons gathered and from which they took their name.

The new organization of Windesheim, approved by Boniface IX in 1395, quickly spread and flourished, especially under the government of the prior John Vos from 1391 to 1424, counting within a short time 52 male monasteries, with another 14 of Regular Canonesses dependent on them. As for the confraternity of the Brethren of the Common Life, it continued to exist with its own distinct regulations, by which the "Sisters of the Common Life" were likewise inspired. Both institutions gave the Church excellent copyists and calligraphers, who had the merit of disseminating many sacred and theological works; to them must also be attributed the spiritual movement of the devotio moderna, with a notable ascetic-mystical influence in the regions of central Europe. After a century of great prosperity, especially from the 16th century onward, the Brethren began to decline from their original regularity and fervor, and some adhered to the Protestant "reformation." Gradually the institution, within the 16th-19th centuries, disappeared.

Arnaldo M. Lanz

#### FRATELLI DELLE SCUOLE CRISTIANE. -

Under the name of "Brothers" the members of religious associations dedicated to teaching were for a long time designated. The Low Countries knew the "Brothers of the Common Life," founded by Gerard Groote in the 14th century. In France in the 17th century the teachers gathered at Rouen around Adrien Nyel styled themselves "Brothers" while maintaining full and complete freedom of action, without any canonical bond. The title they chose seemed to them the one best suited to their modest function and to their charitable initiatives. When the priest Nicolas Barré, of the Minims, frequenting them in Normandy, conceived the idea of a more stable society, bound by vows later recognized by the Church, he called some of his disciples "Brothers of the Infant Jesus."

St. John Baptist de la Salle opened at Reims, with the collaboration of Adrien Nyel, his first popular schools. This work was the result of a great movement of ideas, of a whole current of initiatives arising in different countries for the Christian instruction to be imparted preferably to the children of workers and of the poor, by men consecrated to the glory of God and to the salvation of their neighbor, united in a common life and with a rigorous didactic preparation.

The Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools began to exist with its own distinct character between 1679 and 1684. By this second date it already had its essential particularities in the remote house of Neuve: it had already spread through Champagne and its borders. Soon the Brothers organized a novitiate, an alumni house and a "seminary of teachers" for rural parishes. They applied the principles to which de la Salle was especially attached: very lively and complete catechetical instruction, the "simultaneous" method, the substitution of the mother tongue for Latin in the first notions of reading.

In 1688 the center of the new institution was transferred to Paris in the parish of St. Sulpice, and with this the new expansion began, under the reign of Louis XIV, from Calais to Marseille.

Struggles, persecutions, sufferings of every kind came from every side. The holy founder meanwhile secured the future of his spiritual family. In 1717 he brought about the election of Brother Barthélémy as first superior general, and together with his collaborators he drew up the definitive rule. Two years later, at his death, there were about 200 Brothers and some twenty houses. From 1701 Gabriele Drolin was in Rome, sent there by de la Salle, where in 1705 he was able to open a small school and to have, in 1709, the official beneplacitum of the Supreme Pontiff.

The 17th century marks the development of the Institute. It obtains from Louis XV, in Sept. 1724, the "letters patent" and from Pope Benedict XIII, on 25 Jan. 1725, the bull In apostolicae dignitatis solio which enrolls it among the institutes approved by the Holy See. The Brothers are henceforth bound by the three vows of the religious life, with the addition of that of teaching the poor gratuitously. Their number increases despite the attacks of the Jansenists first, and of the "philosophers" afterward. From 1730 they are in Brittany, in Anjou, in the Orléanais, in Franche-Comté, in Lorraine, in Dauphiné. They are called to Estavayer in Switzerland, and they have a house in Rome. Their mother house is still in Normandy, on the property of St. Yon, which preserved the remains of St. John Baptist de la Salle. Particular circumstances will later oblige the superiors to choose another residence. From 1750 to the Revolution, Melun was the seat of government of Brother Agathon, an heir, administrator and pedagogue of broad views. Under his generalate the Brothers continued their work not only in the elementary classes, but in the teaching of drawing, commercial accounting, maritime hydrography. An intellectual elite is prepared in the higher "scholasticates" to instruct the young people of the "boarding schools," institutions created on the model of the Lasallian St. Yon, to satisfy the desires of a social class little fond of classical culture, desirous, instead, of acquiring a scientific grounding and of knowing modern languages.

The events of 1789 brought so beautiful a work to ruin. After the closure of numerous schools and the dispersal of the teachers who refused to accept the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, by decree of 18 Aug. 1792 came the suppression of the Institute in French territory. Among the sons of de la Salle there were martyrs: the blessed Salomon, in the prisons of the Carmelites in Paris, Brother Moniteur, on the scaffold of Rennes, others in the horrible hulks of Rochefort. Brother Agathon, imprisoned under the Terror, died obscurely at Tours in 1798. A group had meanwhile taken refuge under the protection of the Pope. On 7 Aug. 1795 by the brief Inter graves Pius VI designated Brother Frumence vicar general of the Institute. Thus the religious life continued. With the signing of the Concordat of 1801 the survivors promptly resumed their work. By decree of 3 Dec. 1803 Bonaparte re-established the Institute. Brother Frumence responded in 1804 to the appeal of Card. Fesch, archbishop of Lyon. Thanks to his protection the Lasallian Institute reconstituted itself, and by decree of 7 March 1808 it was legally recognized. Its principal members, gathered in Chapter, on 8 Sept. elected Brother Gerbaud superior general. The fall of Napoleon, far from hindering it, accelerated its progress. From 1816 the Institute is in the Belgian provinces of the Low Countries: it accepts from the king of France the teaching in Île Bourbon and in Guiana: it spreads in the States of the Church, at Bolsena and Spoleto; in 1830 it is at Turin. The generalate of Brother Philippe marks the era of worldwide expansion. At the beginning of his government the Brothers were already in Canada. From 1840 to 1870 they are in Asia, Africa, North and South America. Continental Europe and England greet the presence of these educators. Meanwhile the Third Republic drives them from the free schools and from the numerous post-school organizations of France: patronages, study circles, religious unions, trade unions. The year 1900 brings them, in the social field, the praises and tributes decreed by the jury of the Universal Exposition; in the spiritual field, the canonization of St. John Baptist de la Salle. A very hard trial follows: the sectarian government on 7 July 1904 suppresses the Institute in France. Other persecutions follow in Mexico, in Hungary.

From the latest official statistics it appears that the Institute has a de facto existence in France. The religious habit is now worn by the Brothers not only in the novitiates and in the house of formation, but in the schools, in the boarding schools, in the great technical institutes, such as those of Beauvais and of Lyon. In Italy the two provinces of the Institute count 688 Brothers and 305 aspirants. In Belgium and in Holland 1411 Lasallians educate 36,840 young people in 117 colleges, of which the most famous are the art schools known under the name of St. Luke. The Anglo-Irish province numbers 699 Brothers in 57 houses with 16,000 students. In central Europe: Germany, Austria, Czechoslovakia, Romania and Poland there live only 600 members of the Institute, threatened today no less than yesterday. The Spanish Revolution immolated 159 disciples of la Salle, but 1459 have resumed there their magnificent activity: 700 novices prepare for the work and 26,723 young people attend their schools, for the most part gratuitous. In Portugal the first house was opened in 1932. Still to be noted in Europe are the Swiss College of Neuchâtel and the three flourishing schools of the principality of Monaco.

Canada has two French-speaking provinces and one English-speaking province; in all, 1,346 Brothers, 500 young men in the novitiate houses and 32,000 pupils; 1,592 Brothers and 500 novices make up the two districts of the United States, and 43,000 young people attend their primary, commercial, agricultural, industrial, secondary and higher schools. In Mexico, a surprising prosperity follows the anxieties and sorrows of the past. The Republics of Cuba, Nicaragua, Panama and Santo Domingo have important houses of the Institute with 405 religious and 18,000 students in 33 colleges. South America — Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela — has 1,436 Brothers with 43,000 pupils. In Australia the Lasallians from Ireland, established there in 1905, have 18 schools.

This worldwide expansion largely animates a missionary apostolate that is carried on in Muslim and pagan countries, such as the Near and Middle East, Africa, China, the Indies and Japan. It is a peaceful army of 14,500 educators distributed, for the good of souls, across 67 countries, whose moral and social influence is exercised over more than 400,000 young people, to whom must be added more than 500,000 former pupils who are part of post-school works. For the pedagogical criteria followed by the Brothers of the Christian Schools, v. GIOVANNI BATTISTA LA SALLE, s.p.

Giorgio Rigault