Top Ten Mystics of the 14th Century

Show notes hereThe 1300s. Europe in the grips of economic depression, war, and natural catastrophes. Europe still experiencing the spiritual wake left by the lives of Saints Francis and Dominic. A deep concern with the interior life seized large numbers of people, both clergy and laity, and the pursuit of inwardness became an intense and exclusive goal of many.The ones who made the most progress were like today’s American Idol contestants. They made it to the top and everyone wanted to listen to them.10. Richard Rolle (1300-1349)“Little wonder when a man is first made a true contemplative, and tastes the sweetness and then feels the warmth, that he almost dies through excess of love.”Richard Rolle: ladies’ man. Women were a source of temptation in his youth, an object of tender concern as a spiritual father in his prime. Most of his written works are devotions for his female listeners. Our culture can’t imagine this, of course. Or rather, our culture can imagine this only too much, letting its imagination run to the lascivious. He lived 31 of his 49 years as a hermit. The only Englishman on this list. Never canonized, but inspired a flourishing cult in England, where his books were more widely read than Chaucer’s in the 1400s. Sometimes credited as the first master of English prose.9. Gerard Groote (1340-1384)