Chapter 20 - Jan van Ruusbroec and the Modern Devotion

Summary

Jan van Ruusbroec’s original theology of the Trinity illustrates the ongoing vibrancy of Trinitarian thinking throughout the fourteenth century. Ruusbroec also develops a rich spirituality which is deeply shaped by this Trinitarian vision – and this constitutes one of the most attractive aspects of this thought. It illustrates the transcendental thrust of Ruusbroec’s theology – one that is deeply Trinitarian.

Jan van Ruusbroec (1293–1381) first became a priest in Brussels but later retired to a new monastery in the Zonien Forest, where the members of his community adopted the rule of St. Augustine (Augustinian canons). He wrote all his works in Middle Dutch (Flemish) although a number of letters survive only in Latin translation. He wrote his most influential book, Die Geestelike Brulocht [The Spiritual Espousals] sometime in the early 1340s. Vernacular religious literature flourished in countries with Germanic languages from the early thirteenth century onwards. In countries in which Romance languages were spoken (closer to Latin) vernacular religious texts originated somewhat later. A number of important religious writers from the early thirteenth century, mostly beguines and Cistercian nuns, such as Hadewijch and Beatrijs van Nazareth, had written religious texts in Middle Dutch in the thirteenth century.