Includes bibliographical references (pages [389]-416) and index.
Contents:
Introduction: The Devotio Moderna and modern history -- Converts in the Middle ages -- Conversion as a medieval form of life -- Converts in the Low Countries -- Circles of converts at Strassburg and Brussels -- Converts under suspicion : legislating against Beguines and free spirits -- Modern-day converts in the Low Countries -- The Low Countries -- Households of devout women -- Societies of devout men -- Modern-day conversion -- Suspicion and inquisition -- Suspicion of devout practices -- Charge and counter-charge in the mid-1390s -- Sisters under inquisition, 1396-1397 : Friar Eylard Schoneveld intervenes -- Resisting the inquisitor : legal tactics -- Awaiting the Bishop's decision, 1398-1401 -- From converts to communites : tertiaries, sisters, brothers, schoolboys, canons -- Tertiaries "living the common life" -- Sisters of the common life -- Brothers of the common life -- Schoolboys -- Windesheim canons and canonesses -- An option for enclosure : male canons and female tertiaries -- Inventing a communal household : goods, customs, labor, and "republican" harmony -- Living together without personal property -- House customs and personal exercises -- Obedience and humility in a voluntary community -- Labor : living from the work of their own hands -- Communal gatherings and a "republican" impulse -- Defending the modern-day Devout : expansion under scrutiny -- Women's houses and converting schoolboys : Burgher critics at Zwolle -- Friar Matthew Grabow and the Council of Constance -- The sisters and the aldermen in conflict at Deventer : the women's narrative -- Institutionalizing under scrutiny -- Proposing a theological rationale : the freedom of the "Christian religion" -- Place in society : taking on the "estate of the perfect" -- John Pupper of Goch (d. 1475) -- Gospel law and the freedom of the Christian religion -- Taking the spiritual offensive : caring for the self, examining the soul, progressing in virtue -- Reading, writing, and the lay tongue -- Exhortation in public and correction in private -- Spiritual guidance and mutual reproof -- Modern-day devotion : examining the self, making progress, experiencing peace -- Private gatherings and self-made societies in the fifteenth century -- The question of an afterlife.
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