Here are basic texts that reveal the spirituality of the Modern Devout, especially during the early years of the movement from 1380 to 1430. The "Modern Devotion" movement, which was originated by a Dutchman, Master Geerte Grote, is the classic expression of later medieval religious life.

Beginning in the 1380s in the east-central Netherlands and in the county of Holland, the Devotio Moderna formed households organized as communes and forged lives centred on private devotion. This book places the movement in the context of urban society in the medieval Low Countries.

Recent scholarship on the Middle Ages has highlighted the importance of individualistic tendencies in devotion in both the lay world and religious communities. This interaction between individualization and religious agency has been scrutinized in numerous studies, focusing on the beginnings during the so-called 'Twelfth-Century Renaissance', and further development in the later medieval and early modern periods. However, there has hitherto been relatively little scholarship on the phenomenon in the Devotio Moderna: the flourishing of more personalized forms of devotion in north-western Europe during the later Middle Ages. The essays in this volume redress this gap by exploring the processes of inwardness and the emergent individualization of religious practices in the late medieval Low Countries. The essays explore issues including the early impact of the printing press on devotion; meditational aids such as identification with Christ, prayer cycles, practices of remembrance, and devout songs; and the tension between inner devotion and the ideal of communal piety in male and female religious communities. They also discuss some leading individuals of the Devotio movement. By addressing the Devotio Moderna and its contexts - the emergence of inwardness, individualization, and religious agency in the late medieval Low Countries and surrounding areas - the essays in this volume help to enhance and expand our knowledge of devotion in the late Middle Ages, both in lay circles and in religious communities, and they show the distinct contribution of the Low Countries to the European phenomenon of more personalized forms of devotion.

In the terms of Durheimian sociology, conversion is a fait social. Although they are rarely treated as a cultural phenomenon, conversions can obviously be examined for the norms, values and presuppositions of the cultures in which they take place. Thus conversion can help us to shed light on a particular culture. At the same time, the term evokes a dramatic appeal that suggests a kind of suddenness, although in most cases conversion implies a more gradual process of establishing and defining a new - religious - identity. From 21-24 May 2003, the University of Groningen hosted an international conference on 'Cultures of Conversion'. The contributions have been edited in two volumes, which pay special attention to the modes of language and idiom in conversion literature, the meaning and sense of religious-ideological discourse, the variety of rhetorical tropes, and the effects of the conversion narrative with allusions to religious or political conventions and idealizations. The present volume contains theoretical contributions on the theory of conversion, with special attention to the rational choice theory, and on the history of research into conversion. It also offers stimulating case studies, ranging from the late Middle Ages to present times and taken from Germany, Great Britain and The Netherlands. The other volume, Cultures of Conversion, offers in-depth studies of conversion that are mainly taken from the history of India, Islam and Judaism, ranging from the Byzantine period to the new Muslimas of the West.

an interpretation of early Netherlandish paintings with devotional portraits according to which many of these images act as visualisation of the spiritual process of the sitters.

Written by one of the world's greatest authorities on Martin Luther, this is the definitive biography of the central figure of the Protestant Reformation. “A brilliant account of Luther’s evolution as a man, a thinker, and a Christian. . . . Every person interested in Christianity should put this on his or her reading list.”—Lawrence Cunningham, Commonweal “This is the biography of Luther for our time by the world’s foremost authority.”—Steven Ozment, Harvard University “If the world is to gain from Luther it must turn to the real Luther—furious, violent, foul-mouthed, passionately concerned. Him it will find in Oberman’s book, a labour of love.”—G. R. Elton, Journal of Ecclesiastical History

The division of the Church or Schism that took place between 1378 and 1417 had no precedent in Christianity. No conclave since the twelfth century had acted as had those in April and September 1378, electing two concurrent popes. This crisis was neither an issue of the authority claimed by the pope and the Holy Roman Emperor nor an issue of authority and liturgy. The Great Western Schism was unique because it forced upon Christianity a rethinking of the traditional medieval mental frame. It raised question of personality, authority, human fallibility, ecclesiastical jurisdiction and taxation, and in the end responsibility in holding power and authority. This collection presents the broadest range of experiences, center and periphery, clerical and lay, male and female, Christian and Muslim. Theology, including exegesis of Scripture, diplomacy, French literature, reform, art, and finance all receive attention.