Geert Groote's Brethren of the Common Life

1384

The Dutch lay preacher from Deventer, dying of plague after years of itinerant preaching, left behind a community of laymen and laywomen living in voluntary poverty without monastic vows. The Brethren would educate Erasmus, copy books, and pioneer a quiet, interior 'modern devotion' that prefigured the Reformation's emphasis on personal faith over institutional ritual.