Edited collections invite comment on two levels: that of the individual articles and that of the collection as such. This volume more than many is focused on a well-defined theme and deserves recognition on both levels. One might expect from the title that the papers would show how inwardness and individuality were promoted within the Devotio Moderna. Instead, one finds that the articles present a variety of perspectives, often problematizing any simple understanding of these key notions.
Rob Faesen's valuable article “‘Individualization’ and ‘Personalization’ in Late Medieval Thought” (35–50) contrasts William of Saint-Thierry, for whom the human person is established by relationship with a human or divine “other,” and Abelard, for whom “person” is synonymous with “individual.” While Western culture generally followed Abelard in this respect, tending toward subjectivism even in religion, Faesen suggests, the mystical tradition represented by John of Ruusbroec maintained William's position. For Ruusbroec, the “friends” of God remain individuals while the “sons” of God are more fully in relationship with him and, in that deeper sense, persons. In the Devotio Moderna, reading and prayer were meant to cultivate interiority that reinforces not individuality but relationship with God, which is to say that this movement is in continuity with William.
Margarita Logutova's contribution, “‘Ama nesciri’: Thomas a Kempis's Autobiography Reconstructed from his Works” (67–86), continues the theme of relationship. Logutova explores what we can know of Thomas a Kempis's inner life from passages in his writings where he speaks with gratitude and compassion of mentors, such as his own brother and especially Florens Radewijns. He made little mention of himself and his individuality, and he ascribed high value to remaining unknown, but indirectly his inward life can be gauged from his relations with others.
Rijcklof Hofman, “Geert Grote's Choice of a Religious Lifestyle Without Vows” (51–66), argues that Grote's decision to embrace poverty without entering a convent exemplifies “individualization” because he was “unconcerned about the effects of his decision on contemporaries,” while his entering into a new life with “private and personal resolution” rather than public vows manifested “inwardness.” This article thus attempts to place Grote's conversion in the context of the book's main themes. Whatever one makes of this approach, Hofman in any case gives a fresh reading of one of the main figures in the early Devotio Moderna.
Contributions by Anne Bollmann, Thom Mertens and Dieuwke van der Poel, and Anna Dlabačová all show how a kind of individual and inward piety was possible within the framework of communal life and its institutions. Bollmann's article, “Close Enough to Touch: Tension between Inner Devotion and Communal Piety in the Congregations of Sisters of the Devotio Moderna” (137–158), looks at Salome Sticken's Vivendi formula and finds in it an intertwining of active and contemplative ideals, a strong emphasis on obedience, and a balance between virtuous communal life and withdrawal into inward spirituality.
The piece by Mertens and van der Poel, “Individuality and Scripted Role in Devout Song and Prayer” (159–179), examines a Middle Dutch song cycle called The Spiritual Melody and finds in them affinities to the Spiritual Ascents of Gerard Zerbolt, the leading theoretician of the Devotio Moderna. Zerbolt recommends taking on a variety of roles in one's spiritual life: that of a servant standing before a master, a sick person consulting a doctor, and an accused person standing before a judge. The song cycle likewise encourages taking on various roles, sometimes involving dialogue with Christ or Mary, but these roles are all scripted.
Dlabačová's “Illustrated Incunabula as Material Objects: The Case of the Devout Hours on the Life and Passion of Jesus Christ” (181–221) deals with a devotional text printed five times between 1483 and 1496 and surviving in seven copies. One might have thought that standardized printing would frustrate individuality, but comparison of the copies reveals how owners could personalize these books first of all by having the woodcuts colored, which would accentuate particular figures in the images, and also by appending handwritten prayers. A devout laywoman might add Marian prayers; an educated urban layman might incline toward Latin prayers.
Working most clearly against the grain of the volume, and providing the most explicit nuance to its general argument, is the article by Koen Goudriaan, “Modern Devotion and Arrangements for Commemoration: Some Observations” (121–136). Goudriaan discusses houses of various types connected with the Devotio Moderna that undertook the commitment of commemorative prayer in exchange for endowment—a phenomenon that has been little noted, he says, perhaps because continuity with such a medieval practice is not what historians expect of the Devotio Moderna. In principle, these commemorations could be marked by individuating factors, such as the prescription of particular prayers, but in fact the memorial arrangements tended to be highly standardized. He cites Gert Melville's argument that institutions “do not limit individual freedom”; rather, stable institutions based on shared values allow freedom of roles within those institutions. Judging from evidence such as memorials, Goudriaan suggests, “I doubt whether it is possible to prove on the basis of the sources we have at our disposal that the individual element in religion was stronger at the end of the fifteenth century than at its beginning.” Change came when belief in purgatory and the value of communal liturgy came into question.
Less obviously relevant to the book's arguments, but valuable in itself for its nuanced treatment of a key theme in late medieval piety, is Nigel F. Palmer, “‘Antiseusiana’: Vita Christi and Passion Meditation before the Devotio Moderna” (87–119). Palmer lays out a tradition, running from Bonaventure on through Jordan of Quedlinburg, Ludolph of Saxony, and others, that differs from Henry Suso's. While Suso exemplified and urged “a life totally committed to experiential conformity with Christ crucified,” Bonaventure and others laid out more fully the complete life of Christ and his modeling of virtue within the broader context of salvation history.
The book presents some material that is by now widely familiar alongside discussion of material that is less well known. Throughout, quotations from Latin and Dutch sources are given in the original and in notably fluid and accomplished English translation.
The overall impression that the book leaves is that precisely in the Devotio Moderna, where one might have expected a full flowering of late medieval inwardness and individuality, one finds instead a more complicated and more richly contextualized piety. Establishing this case is the great merit of both the individual articles and of the volume as a whole.
