Gerard Groote

Gerard Groote (October 1340 – 20 August 1384), otherwise Gerrit or Gerhard Groet, in Latin Gerardus Magnus, was a Dutch Roman Catholic deacon, who was a popular preacher and the founder of the Brethren of the Common Life. He was a key figure in the Devotio Moderna movement.

He was born in the Hanseatic city Deventer in the Bishopric of Utrecht, where his father held a good civic position. He studied at Aachen, then went to the University of Paris when only fifteen. Here he studied scholastic philosophy and theology at the Sorbonne under a pupil of William of Occam's, from whom he imbibed the nominalist conception of philosophy; in addition he studied Canon law,medicine, astronomy and even magic, and apparently some Hebrew. After a brilliant course he graduated in 1358. In 1362 he was appointed teacher at the Deventer chapter school. In 1366 his admiring countrymen sent him to Avignon on a secret mission to Pope Urban V.

Soon after Groote settled in Cologne, teaching philosophy and theology, and was granted a prebend in Utrecht and another in Aachen. The life of the brilliant young scholar was rapidly becoming luxurious, secular and selfish, when a great spiritual change passed over him which resulted in a final renunciation of every worldly enjoyment. This conversion, which took place in 1374, appears to have been due partly to the effects of a dangerous illness and partly to the influence of a fellow student, Henry de Calcar, the learned and pious prior of the Charterhouse at Munnikhuizen (Monnikenhuizen) near Arnhem, who had remonstrated with him on the vanity of his life.

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