Die Überlieferung der Briefschaften von Geert Grote

AbstractAt an early date already, shortly after they had been written by Geert Grote (1340-84), his letters were collected by adherents of the Devotio Moderna movement. Individual or collected letters were transmitted through four different channels: (1) in the form of independent corpora epistolarum; (2) as part of a miscellany or convolute; (3) incorporated in the Chronicon Windeshemense, the historiography of the movement finished in 1463 by Johannes Busch (c. 1399-1480); (4) as appendix to the Vita Gerardi Magni, compiled 1436-50 by Thomas a Kempis (1380-1471). Three collections of collected letters have come down to us, but information available through other sources suggests that Latin (and vernacular) corpora must have been much more widespread. It seems possible to suggest that Grote’s friend and contemporary Johan Cele (1343-1417) may have been instrumental in the constitution of a ‘canon of Grote’s letters’. Since the order of the letters is not consistent in the three extant corpora, the criteria for their arrangement must have been fluctuating.