Szoverffy, Josef. Weltliche Dichtungen des lateinsichen Mittelal-
ters: Ein Handbuch. Berlin: Schmidt, 1970, Vol. 1.
Turnau, Dietrich W. Rabanus Maurus, der Praeceptor Ger-
maniae. Munich: Lindauer, 1900.
E. Ann Matter
RADEWIJNS, FLORENS
(ca. 1350–1400)
Exponent of the Modern Devotion, founder of the Breth-
ren of the Common Life, founder of the monastery of
Windesheim. Radewijns was born circa 1350 at Leerdam
or Gorinchem and died at Deventer in 1400. He studied
at Prague (master of arts) and became a canon in Utre-
cht. After a sermon of Geert Grote, he converted and
accepted the lower position of vicar at Deventer, where
Grote lived. For this vicariat he had to be ordained priest.
He became the fi rst leader of a congregation of Brethren
of the Common Life. These Brethren gave guidance to
a convict of schoolboys.
Radewijns compilated two little treatises, which
are important because they infl uenced the treatises
of his housemate Gerard Zerbolt of Zutphen. These
widely spread treatises gave the Modern Devotion its
spiritual fundament. We also have some fragments of
Radewijns’s letters. He also wrote a (lost?) propositum,
a set of personal intentions.
In Radewijns’s spirituality, humility is a central
theme. The idea of externals pulling along the inner
man leads to a severe asceticism, as did the idea that
a humble inner self has to refl ect itself in humble and
austere exteriors. By fasting and waking Radewijns had
broken his weak nature and almost lost his sense of taste
and his appetite. This severe asceticism is colored by
the spirituality of the Desert Fathers, which also seems
to have infl uenced his fear of the demon. In his young
days Thomas à Kempis lived together with Radewijns.
In his biography of Radewijns, Thomas portrays him as
a man who incites both love and fear with his straight-
forwardness.
See also Thomas à Kempis
Further Reading
Goossens, Leonardus A. M., ed. De meditatie in de eerste tijd van
de Moderne Devotie. Haarlem: Gottmer, 1952, pp. 213–254
[Tractatulus devotus].
Épiney-Burgard, Georgette. “Florent Radewijns,” in Die deutsche
Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon, ed. Kurt Ruh et
al. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2d ed. vol. 7, coll. 968–972.
——. “La Vie et les écrits de Florent Radewijns en langue ver-
naculaire.” Ons Geestelijk Erf 63 (1989): 370–384.
Pohl, Michael J., ed. Thomae Hemerken a Kempis Opera Om-
nia. Freiburg: Herder, 1902–1922, vol. 7, pp. 116–210 [with
bibliography].
Post, Regnerus R. The Modern Devotion. Leyden: Brill, 1968,
pp. 317–325.
van Woerkum, M. “Florentius Radewijns. Schets van zijn leven,
geschriften, persoonlijkheid en ideeën.” Ons Geestelijk Erf
24 (1950): 337–346.
——. “Het Libellus ‘Omnes, inquit, artes’: een rapiarium
van Florentius Radewijns.” Ons Geestelijk Erf’ 25 (1951):
113–158, 225–268.
——. “Florent Radewijns,” in Dictionnaire de Spiritualité,
ed. Marcel Viller, vol. 5. Paris: Beauchesne, 1964, pp.
427–434.
Thom MertensRAINALD OF DASSEL (ca. 1120–1167)
From 1156 until his death in 1167, Rainald of Dassel
was Frederick Barbarossa’s most loyal and powerful
adviser. Born to a family of Lower Saxon lesser nobility
circa 1120, Rainald was educated fi rst at the Hildesheim
cathedral school, then in France in the 1140s. He re-
turned to Hildesheim by 1146. Rainald cultivated an
interest in arts and letters and would become the chief
patron of the “Archpoet” circa 1060.
In 1156, Barbarossa chose Rainald as imperial
chancellor. Rainald straightway committed himself to
the Hohenstaufen agenda of rejecting papal claims to
primacy and establishing German imperial hegemony
over northern Italy. Rainald’s leadership led to innova-
tions in the chancery almost immediately, including
the use of the phrase sacrum imperium (Holy Empire)
and its variants.
Rainald played a consistently dramatic role in inter-
national relations after his elevation to the chancellor-
ship. In 1157, papal legatees met Barbarossa’s court in
Besançon to protest the imprisonment of Archbishop
Eskil of Lund. The Latin text of Pope Adrian IV’s let-
ter suggested that the imperial crown numbered among
many possible benefi cia that could be given by the
pope. Rainald’s translation of the document deliber-
ately rendered benefi cium as “fi ef” (lehen) rather than
“good work” or “favor,” Adrian’s intended meaning.
The subsequent uproar led to a propaganda victory for
Rainald and a clear formulation of the imperial position:
empire derived from election by the princes and the
grace of God, not papal coronation, which was simply
a ceremonial act incumbent upon the pope.
Elected archbishop of Cologne at Barbarossa’s in-
stigation in 1159, Rainald did not actually take major
orders until 1165. Rainald’s uncompromising attitude
toward the Roman curia led Barbarossa to reject con-
ciliatory papal offers; the result was formal schism with
the election of the antipope Victor IV in 1159. In 1162,
Rainald oversaw the brutal destruction of Milan, upon
whose unconditional surrender he had insisted. Within
a few months, however, he had to preside over the failed
synod of Saint Jean de Losne, convoked to resolve the
papal crisis, but ending in a diplomatic victory for Pope
Alexander III, who stubbornly refused to appear and beRABANUS MAURUS