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The Espousals is the masterpiece of the fourteenth-century Flemish mystic Jan van Ruusbroec, who described one's spiritual development as involving the active life, the inner or yearning life, and the contemplative life, which he explains in the Espousals in three books. The overall theme of the three books is the message of Matthew 25:6, "See, / the Bridgegroom cometh, / go out / to meet him", which involves a four-step experience in each of the three "lives". The reader travels past the same guideposts three times, each time at a higher plane. Three times the reader sees the same thing occur - the meeting of the person with God - in the same sequence, but under a new light. Ruusbroec supports his mystical treatise with a solid anthropological and theological thought. He sketches the psychological structure of the person, as well as the natural and supernatural relationship between God and the person. In short, Ruusbroec endeavors to verbally express the inner condition of a person being united with God.

In this volume is a masterpiece of medieval literature and spirituality from the 14th-century (1300-1366) German Dominican mystic.

The Sparkling Stone is a classic by the Flemish mystic John of Ruysbroeck.

In Devotional Portraiture and Spiritual Experience Ingrid Falque analyses the meditative functions of early Netherlandish paintings including devotional portraits, that is portraits of people kneeling in prayer. Such paintings have been mainly studied in the context of commemorative and social practices, but as Ingrid Falque shows, they also served as devotional instruments. By drawing parallels between the visual strategies of these paintings and texts of the major spiritual writers of the medieval Low Countries, she demonstrates that paintings with devotional portraits functioned as a visualisation of the spiritual process of the sitters. The book is accompanied by the first exhaustive catalogue of paintings with devotional portraits produced in the Low Countries between c. 1400 and 1550. This catalogue is available at no costs in e-format (HERE) and can also be purchased as a printed hardcover book (HERE).

The author praises Gratian’s zeal for instruction in the Faith, and speaks lowly of his own merits. Taught of God Himself, the Emperor stands in no need of human instruction; yet this his devoutness prepares the way to victory. The task appointed to the author is difficult: in the accomplishment whereof he will be guided not so much by reason and argument as by authority, especially that of the Nicene Council.

"A Michael Glazier book." Includes bibliographical references (p. 164-165).