The Chronicle of the Canons Regular of Mount St. Agnes | Page 2

Northorn was founded.
XI. Of the death of that most devout Priest Florentius, Vicar of the
Church of Deventer.
XII. Of the death of Everard of Eza, a Curate in Almelo and a great
master of physic.
XIII. Of the death of the Priest Amilius that succeeded Florentius at
Deventer.
XIV. Of the first investiture of the Sisters of our Order in Diepenvene
near Deventer.
XV. How the monastery in Budiken was reformed.
XVI. Of the death of Gerard Kalker, a devout Priest, and Rector of the
House of Clerks.
XVII. Of the death of Henry of Gouda, a devout Priest, at Zwolle.
XVIII. How the Sisters in Bronope were invested.
XIX. The death of Wermbold the Priest.
XX. Of the death of John Cele, Rector of the School at Zwolle.

XXI. Concerning John Brinckerinck, a disciple of Master Gerard.
XXII. Of the death of Gisbert Dow, Rector of the Sisters at Amsterdam.
XXIII. As to the gaining of Indulgences at the stations in Rome.
XXIV. The letter of the Cardinal of Bologna.
A LETTER CONCERNING THE FIRST INSTITUTION OF THE
MONASTERY AT WINDESEM.

TRANSLATOR'S NOTE
The Chronicle of Mount St. Agnes is the only work of Thomas a
Kempis of which no English translation has yet appeared, and even in
its original form the book is not readily accessible to readers, since the
only text is that published by Peter and John Beller of Antwerp in 1621.
The ordinary collections of the works of a Kempis do not contain the
Chronicle, although there is no doubt as to the authenticity of the book,
which is of considerable importance to students of the movement
known as "The New Devotion," and to those who are interested in the
Brotherhood of the Common Life. The last nine pages of the Latin text
have been added by an anonymous writer, and carry on the chronicle
from the year 1471, in which a Kempis died, to 1477, but since this
portion of the book is included in the first printed edition, and contains
a notice of the author written by a contemporary member of the
community, I have included the addition in the present translation of
the Chronicle.
The Mother House of the Chapter to which the Monastery of Mount St.
Agnes belonged, was the Monastery at Windesheim, of which we have
a full account from the pen of John Buschius, a younger contemporary
of a Kempis. This work is too long to be included in the present volume,
although the Antwerp edition before mentioned puts the two Chronicles
together; Busch's "Chronicon Windesemense" will therefore appear
separately; but as the account of the foundation of the Mother House,
written by William Voern, or Vorniken, supplements the information

given by a Kempis, a translation of it is annexed to this book. The
writer was Prior of Mount St. Agnes before his promotion to the same
office in the Superior House, and it was under his rule that a Kempis
spent the early years of his priesthood, those years in which he
composed the first part at least of the great work with which his name
is associated. William Vorniken also tells in outline the story of the
conversion of the Low Countries to Christianity by Anglo-Saxon
missionaries, and for all these reasons it has been thought that his
"letter" may be of interest to English readers.
It will be seen that the spelling of proper names is both peculiar and
variable, but the principle observed in this translation has been to adopt
the spelling given in the text, except in cases where variation is
evidently the result of a printer's error, and in those instances in which
the writer translated names, _e.g_., Hertzogenbosch appears in the
Chronicle as Buscoducis, and Gerard is called sometimes Groote,
Groot, or Groet, and sometimes Magnus.
Further accounts of the lives of some of the Brothers who are
mentioned in this Chronicle may be found in a translation of another
work of a Kempis published last year, and entitled "The founders of the
New Devotion," Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co.; and the history of
the other houses of the Chapter to which the Monastery of Mount St.
Agnes belonged, has been treated exhaustively by Dr. J. G. R. Acquoy,
"Het Klooster te Windesheim." Utrecht, 1880.
For the English reader the best accounts of the Brotherhood and of a
Kempis himself, are the works of Rev. S. Kettlewell and Sir F. R.
Cruise. The former, however, is quite unreliable as a translator, and
draws untenable deductions from extracts whose purport he has
misunderstood; but the latter is both accurate and interesting, being in
fact the leading English authority on the subject which he has made his
own.

PREFACE.

The pious desire of certain of our Brothers hath constrained me to put