Jan Standonck

Jan Standonck (or Jean Standonk; 16 August 1453 – 5 February 1504) was a Flemish priest, Scholastic, and reformer.

He was part of the great movement for reform in the 15th-century French church. His approach was to reform the recruitment and education of the clergy, along very ascetic lines, heavily influenced by the hermit saint Francis of Paola. To this end he founded many colleges, all of them strictly controlled and dedicated to poor students with real vocations. Chief amongst them was the Collège de Montaigu, latterly part of the University of Paris. He lived at a time when this model of reform was under increasing pressure from more thoroughgoing critiques—including that of one of his most famous students, Erasmus.

He was born in Mechelen (at that time part of the Burgundian Netherlands) into extremely humble circumstances, the son of a poor cobbler. He received his early education there but quickly transferred to Gouda, where the Brothers of the Common Life ran a famous school along monastic lines. Here Jan developed his preference for a mystical, as opposed to an intellectual, approach to religion, together with a determinedly ascetic approach to religious life. The education he received from the Brothers was a traditional Medieval one, including Grammar and Logic, conducted during long days, interrupted by religious devotions, and accompanied by frugal meals, cold beds and many punishments. However, the ancient writers were not neglected—Virgil, Ovid, Horace, Cicero and Cato were much studied with a view to producing a good Latin style and many moral messages. But he was warned against the views of these pagan authors, to counterbalance which he studied the Bible and the Church Fathers. In particular, he studied the Devotio Moderna; a mystical approach based on Thomas a Kempis's Imitation of Christ—in particular, imitation of his sufferings. Jan paid for his studies, as many poor boys did, by serving in the kitchen, or attending to richer students, and performing menial tasks, such as ringing the bell. According to the anonymous monk who was his first biographer (1519), he could not afford candles, so he read, after a hard day, high up in the bell tower by the light of the moon. He never managed to develop a good Latin style—it was apparently always rough and full of mistakes—and he knew nothing of the Greek that was kindling the enthusiasm of so many of his contemporaries, but he never lost his love of the severe religious life learned at Gouda.

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