Book
The Modern Devotion. Spirituality and Culture from the Late Middle Ages onward
The Modern Devotion: pone of the most influential religious initiatives in the late medieval Low Countries.
- Author
- Anna Dlabačová, Rijcklof Hofman (eds.)
- Date
- 01 October 2018
- Links
- WPBooks
The Modern Devotion was one of the most influential religious initiatives in the late medieval Low Countries. It fundamentally changed the spiritual landscape through its call for an interiorized religious experience, the foundation of numerous (semi-)religious communities, and the production of literature and art focused on the imitation of Christ. Its impact was not confined to the Netherlands: at its peak communities that adhered to one of the three mutually distinct ‘branches’ of the Modern Devotion could be found in current-day Belgium, Germany, Northern France, Switzerland, and Poland.
This Dutch language volume, aimed at a wider audience than a strictly scholarly one, brings together contributions by no less than forty-six specialists in several fields (medieval history, literature, art history, book history, theology, philosophy, church history etc.) and (spiritual) professionals from the Low Countries, Belgium, Germany, and the United States. In one hundred short articles the authors discuss historical developments, important actors, prominent authors, and paint a broad picture of various aspects of spirituality and culture within the movement. There is ample attention for the historical setting within which the Modern Devotion came into-being, its sources of inspiration, but also parallel-movements in the late medieval period and the historical context within which the Modern Devotion kept developing until the sixteenth century, and even until today. Several chapters are devoted to the reception of the movement (and its literature) from the early modern period up to the twentieth century.