RODE, JOHANNES. - Monastic reformer, born at Treviri around 1385, died of the plague at Montabaur on 1 Dec. 1439.
He studied at Heidelberg from 1404; in 1409 he was dean there of the Faculty of Arts, then bachelor of theology (1410), and rector of the University (1413). In 1416 he entered the Carthusian monastery of S. Albano at Treviri, becoming its prior in 1419.
Installed, by papal dispensation, as Benedictine abbot of S. Mattia at Treviri, he restored this abbey and the city’s three other Benedictine abbeys to prosperity. The Council of Basel appointed him (4 July 1434) general visitor of the provinces of Treviri and Colonia, and from 1435 also of the dioceses of Magonza, Spira, Worms, and Strasburgo. He reformed Clus and Bursfeld, and the Benedictine nuns of Marienberg above Boppard; he visited Hornbech, Stein al Reno, S. Gallo, and Reichenau. R. never separated himself from S. Mattia.
He left the Constitutiones for S. Mattia (draft and definitive version) and for Marienberg; De bono regimine abbatis (ed. by B. Pez, Bibliotheca ascetica, I, Ratisbona 1723, pp. 157-204); and the following manuscripts are preserved: Exercicium noviciorum, Exercicium breve de columnis septem, Exercicium bonum de Passione Domini, and Sermones delivered at the Council of Basel and during visits to monasteries.