Sisters and Brothers of the Common Life: The Devotio Moderna and the World of the Later Middle Ages Book

This examination of the Devotio Moderna, a lay religious movement which emerged in late medieval Holland, is undoubtedly a deeply learned and thorough books. Van Engen is careful to recreate the complexity of the movement and the world which they inhabited, insisting on reading them within the context of what was going on around them, rather than seeing them merely as precursors of later religious developments. His years of scholarship with the relevant sources is readily apparent, and I think for years to come this will be the go-to book on the subject for scholars.

That said, this is a very densely written book which contains almost more material than required to support its arguments. At times I lost track of the overall narrative while attempting to keep straight the actors in isolated events. Van Engen's prose doesn't help this'at times it's quite awkward, grammatically incorrect (so many comma splices!), and occasionally so syntactically bizarre that it belies the Acknowledgements' claim that proofreaders worked on this. Recommended, but only for the interested academic reader, I think.