Piety in Practice and Print

The late Middle Ages provide us with a fascinating religious landscape. The quest for new religious ideals and intense spirituality can be observed in movements such as the Modern Devotion and the Franciscan Observance, marking the late fourteenth and fifteenth century with new institutional dynamics and the formation of a variety of religious communities. The dissemination of these new religious ideas and ideals profited from the advent of the printing press. It is these subjects that Koen Goudriaan, professor of Medieval History at VU University Amsterdam, has studied for decades. This volume, edited by Anna Dlabacová and Ad Tervoort, presents a collection of eleven of his best essays. It focuses on three themes: the institutional parameters of late medieval religious movements, the cult of remembrance, and the interaction between religious movements and the early printing press. Together, these essays provide a representative sample of Goudriaan's substantial contribution to scholarship on late medieval history.

Contents: Religious Communities: Geert Grote, On Simony to the Beguines, and Church Reform The New Devout and their Women of Authority Beguines and the Devotio Moderna at the Turn of the Fifteenth Century The Religious Observance of the Lay Sisters of St Augustine The Early History of the Hospitals in Holland, Zealand, and Utrecht The Cult of the Dead: Ownership of graves in medieval parish churches in Holland Geert Grote: a Founder Fading into Oblivion? Religious Texts on the Early Printing Press: Middle Dutch Meditative Lives of Jesus on the Early Printing Press: An Exploration of the Field The Church and the Market: Vernacular Religious Works and the Early Printing Press in the Low Countries, 1477-1540 The Devotio Moderna and the Printing Press (circa 1475-1540) The Franciscans, the Laity and the Printing Press