GIOVANNI of LEEUWEN. - The most notable mystical writer of the school of Groenendaal, together with Ruysbroeck. Born in 1295, he lived as an itinerant artisan before entering the monastery of Groenendaal as a lay brother; he died in 1378. Because of his good-natured treatment of guests, he was called “the good cook.” Of great austerity, he enjoyed an elevated contemplation.
He composed in the vernacular various ascetical and mystical treatises which enjoyed great popularity in the Netherlands and beyond the Rhine, where they were partly translated into Low German. As late as the seventeenth century, Miraeus maintained that these treatises deserved to be translated into every language. A disciple of the great Brabantine mystic Hadewych, like Ruysbroeck, with whom he lived at Groenendaal, G. nevertheless knew how to give his works a personal stamp. More than others, he dwells upon the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit and in particular upon the Interior of Jesus as the path toward contemplation of the Most Holy Trinity and of the Essence of God. G. was the first in the Netherlands to rise up against Eccardo. A coarse and passionate man of the people, who harshly criticized the depraved morals of his time, G. nevertheless shines for sound and robust faith, apostolic ardor, uprightness, and childlike simplicity.