Abstract
This article explores the tension between charismatic and institutionalized religion in the late medieval context, from the perspective of Henricus Herp’s (†1477) The Mirror of Perfection. Classical sociological theories cast charismatic authority as structurally opposed to institutional religion. Herp’s perspective on the social functioning of charisma complicates this perspective. This study situates Herp’s views within the historical context of the fifteenth century Observant Reform and the broader mystical tradition, particularly that of Jan van Ruusbroec. Herp recognizes the dangers of visions and divine gifts for the mystic and society. Rather than advocating institutional control, he locates the necessary discernment within the individual’s ascetic orientation. In this way, Herp reconfigures the tension between charisma and institution: not by suppressing the former, but by interiorizing its regulation and control. The disruptive potential of divine gifts should, in Herp’s view, be ultimately contained not by an institution but by the individual.
1 Introduction
Late medieval religious life is marked by a complex interplay between institutional reform and religious interiority. On the one hand the Observant Reform advocated a stricter monastic discipline and institutional oversight of monastic life; on the other a flourishing of mystical literature emphasized a direct relationship with God. This tension between charismatic religion and institutional control raises important questions – for both historical actors and modern scholars – about the mechanisms through which society regulated religious experiences.
Scholarly literature on the subject has traditionally posited religious institutions as the entities protecting society’s stability and controlling the disruptive effects of charismatic religion. This control, scholars argue, was especially necessary in the context of mysticism as it circumvents the Church’s intellectual dominance over religious explanations as well as her exclusive connection to the divine.1 By placing the principal mystical work of Henricus Herp (d. 1477): The Mirror of Perfection (Spieghel der Volcomenheit) in its historical context of the Observant Reform and its main inspiration Jan van Ruusbroec, I will argue that he offers and alternative view on the relationship between charisma and institutional order. Rather than advocating for external mechanisms of ecclesiastical control, Herp locates the regulation of divine gifts (charismata) such as visions and grace, within the ascetic discipline of the individual, shifting the burden of regulation from the institution to the inner life. Herp offers a model of religious life in which the mystic’s inner life through ascetic detachment and the correct love (minne) for God becomes the safeguard of both mystical progress and social order. This perspective challenges the prevailing sociological assumption that charisma and institutional control are structurally opposed; Herp’s thought suggests a more subtle dynamic – one that merits renewed attention.
This article proceeds in four steps. First, I will discuss the tension between charismatic leadership and religious institutions in sociological and historical studies. Then the historical context of Herp is examined before I discuss The Mirror of Perfection, concentrating on his assessment of grace and visions. I will thus place Herp and his ideas in their historical context and add a contemporary perspective on the functioning of charisma in the fifteenth century society Low Countries.
2 Charisma Researched
Max Weber popularized the word “charisma,” and it contained a subversive element from these beginnings.2 He adopted the term from the works of the protestant theologian Sohm, who analysed the emergence of a new religion (Christianity) and its struggle with existing institutions. As Sohm’s work was based on the Biblical narrative of the life of Christ, the notion contained a tension between the organized religion of the Temple defended by the priests and the person of Jesus who professed a new message that was backed up by miracles. Weber observed that successful leadership depended on the production of supernatural feats as proofs of divine favour, convincing people to follow. He surmised that, after the original charismatic leader had left, the group around the leader would institutionalize and ritualize its connection with the miraculous beginnings. The authority of the charismatic leader thus transferred to the institution and its servants.3 If, afterwards, a new charismatic leader would appear, his authority would confront the institutionalized authority of the priests. Weber thus extrapolated the tension in the New Testament narrative to an underlying cyclical process in religious development where the priestly class defended its status against emerging leaders that produced charismata.4 Weber believed there was a structural opposition between charismatic leaders and institutions.
Pierre Bourdieu explored the dynamic between new religious leaders and existing institutions in more detail, and analysed what kind of divine messages could successfully oppose the institution. For Bourdieu, the ruling class uses religion to maintain its dominance over the ruled in two ways. Firstly, the religious logic of the dominant religion defends the unequal distribution of power, wealth and spiritual capital in society.5 Secondly, the religious institutions employ the limited access to a set of knowledge, dispositions and rituals, which he termed “religious capital”, as a defence for their position in society.6 Together they stabilize society but also stifle its development. Succes of the charismatic leader depends on his or her ability to demonstrate the arbitrariness of the unequal distribution of wealth and power. The tension between the charismatic leader and the institutions is a form of class struggle where the message of the charismatic leader (called “prophet” by Bourdieu to emphasize the fact that he has a message) drives society’s development. In this light Bourdieu explains the success of heretical movements in the West as a result of its redistribution of power from the highest Church officials to its lower ranks. This includes the Reformation, which was in time, place, and symbolism close to the work of Herp. Bourdieu explains its success by Luther’s relegation of the pope’s and the bishops’ religious power to lower ranking officials.7 Successful new religious messages oppose the existing structures of society.
Recent scholarly research on charisma tries to expand the category beyond the interpersonal domain. Jaume Aurell, for instance, argues that the group carries charisma. Therefore, it is not an inspired leader but group characteristics, such as dress, that connects the participant to the divine.8 Stephen Jaeger takes the depersonalization one step further and focuses on the charisma of art.9 He and others have since extended this line of research and explored its consequences in, for instance, relics, buildings, and hagiography.10 These researchers focus less on the friction induced by charisma and more on the power structures of society. Nevertheless, there remains an implied subversive element. Even though the Church produced much of the works that channelled charisma – after all, relics, books, and religious groups relied on the Church’s approval and expertise – connecting to the divine through these works, people could circumvent the Churchly hierarchy. In these new interpretations charisma remains in opposition to the traditional hierarchy and therefore institutionally subversive.
The subversive effects of charismatic religious leaders, such as mystics and visionaries, is well documented for the Middle Ages; they potentially challenge the Church’s authority on a structural level. As long as a mystic stands by the divine origin of his knowledge or gifts, he or she forces the Church to put this belief to the test. If the revelation was considered truly of divine origin, it must be treated with the utmost respect. But if the Church considered the revelation false or of demonic origin, it could lead the population astray. This process was called “discerning spirits”, but the Church could not always implement it before the message of the charismatic leader gripped the populace.11 Furthermore, the mystic’s claim bypassed the Church’s hierarchy and asserted an unmediated access to the divine.12 In the context of the medieval merging of the law of the land with the universal claims of the Church and the consecration of the social order by religion, the religious and social were intimately connected and an attack on one could lead to the disintegration of the other.13 Some of the better documented cases of this social disruption by prophets or prophesies for the later Middle Ages are Girolamo Savonarola in Florence, Hans Böhm in Niklashausen, and Joachite Millaniarism. They claimed divine knowledge and strived to alter the way society was organized, resulting in violence.14 Divine gifts could disrupt medieval society’s hierarchy.
However, the fundamental opposition between charismatic religion and institutions is complicated upon closer inspection. Looking at the violent outbreaks in defence of organized religion, for example the periods of inquisitional fervour and the crusades, medieval religious institutions indeed appeared firmly in control. Nevertheless, one should be careful to equate violence with the suppression of charismatic religion per se. Historians have pointed out how there have been instances where the Church relied on charismatic leaders against competing religions and inner turmoil: the attractive zeal of Peter the Hermit during the first Crusade, Francis of Assisi’s spiritual leadership and Jean Gerson’s preaching in the conclusion of the Western Schism are just a few examples.15 Medieval religious institutions, it seems, were not inherently anti-charismatic if they could employ the charismatic leaders to strengthen their position. Nevertheless, in these interpretations the institutions remain the controlling actor who, when they are in control, employ charismatic leaders and, when they lose control, suppress charismatic leaders.
3 Reforms, Obedience, and Institutions in Herp’s Lifetime
The fifteenth century was a time of profound religious transformation across Europe, marked by a wave of reform movements that sought to revitalize religious life. Henricus Herp was part of one of the most influential of these movements, known as the Observant Reform. Its goals, and by extension Herp’s leadership within this movement, were to transform the Church and lay society to better align with their religious ideals. The Observant Reform originated within monasticism and asserted that the old religious orders, such as the Benedictines, Cistercians, and Franciscans, had drifted from their original way of life. As a remedy, the Observants proposed a more ascetic life that, they believed, resembled the ideals of their respective founders better and they, therefore, adopted stricter ascetic customs. During the fifteenth century, the Observant branches were able to establish a measure of self-government within their orders, often to the chagrin of more traditionally inclined factions.16
Herp started his religious life in a movement called the Modern Devotion, which is also considered part of the Observant Reform. Although it is not a reformation effort of an existing order, its founder, Geert Grote, voiced a similar critique of the luxurious lives of monastics.17 He and his followers founded religious houses where a group of men or women could live with only communal property, which are called the Brothers or Sisters of the Common Life. The first time Herp appears in sources is as the leader, called “rector,” of such a house in Delft.18 After causing commotion in his house because he attempted to expand to Gouda, he was forced to lead the house in Gouda himself.
One of the principal tasks of this new house was to hold collations, which are akin to sermons, for the people of Gouda. We cannot say with certainty which of the many sermons and collations we have of Herp were held in Gouda.19 But the considerable number of remaining sermons and collations by Herp, indicate a profound interest in proliferating his ideals. However, the “Collation House,” as the house in Gouda was called, was not very successful. According to the chronicler, Herp and the other residents of the house suffered a lack of support from the city and its population. After several years Herp moved to Rome and, to the dismay of the Collation House’s chronicler, joined the Observant Franciscans.20 In 1467 he would become the leader of the Observant Franciscan monastery in Mechelen.
The Observants’ return to a pristine and ascetic form of life required, for monastics, a strong institutional leadership. In the Franciscan context, where Herp wrote The Mirror of Perfection, the monastic superior was called a guardian. The guardian that preceded Herp in Mechelen, and under whom Herp resided there for some time, was the famous Johannes Brugman (ca. 1400–1473, guardianship 1460–1467). In one of his tractates Brugman explicates the responsibilities of a guardian: “The pestilence and ruin of the entire order fundamentally proceeds from such cases and the following instances. […] If he [the guardian] gives foolish youth and remiss brothers great license.”21 A fundamental part of the Observant Reform was adherence to the rules, if necessary, by the forceful hand of a religious leader. Herp’s monastic environment thus advocated a strong institutional leadership.
At the same time, the Observant Reform was marked by an openness to non-monastic forms of religious life and the diminution of the traditional monastic vows.22 Famously, the Dominican Grabow attacked the Brothers of the Common Life and Beguines because they would not take vows. When a monastic leader of Herp from before Brugman, Dirc Herxen of the Brothers of the Common Life, heard of these accusations he hurriedly copied the complaint and formulated his defence against the Dominican’s attacks.23 Religious life was not limited to the traditional monastic estate but could, according to the Observants, also exist in secular society. The breaking of the traditional barrier between the monastic and secular worlds of the Middle Ages removed the some of the exclusivity of the religious praxis (spiritual capital in the words of Bourdieu) from the Church, lessening its religious dominance. The Observant Reform allowed for the Church’s spiritual capital to spread beyond the hierarchical structures of monasticism.
This expansion beyond the bounds of formal institutions also reflects a broader cultural shift in medieval spirituality: a growing emphasis on the inner self as the site of moral and religious transformation. Scholarship on the Modern Devotion has pointed out its emphasis on interiority and connected it to the discovery of the individual.24 Individualism, in this context, does not mean to suggest a modern individualism, nor was the term employed by the historical actors. Rather it signifies a heightened awareness of the inner self as a site of moral and religious transformation.25 For instance, to achieve a conversion in their lives, the Modern Devout worked on their selves through the production of rapiaria: collections of edifying phrases. This discovery of the self was not the unique to the fifteenth century nor to the Modern Devout. It began in the twelfth century, often in the orders that the fifteenth century Observants considered corrupted in their days. Nevertheless, it is hard to deny that, generally speaking, during the fifteenth century, religion had shifted from the adherence of institutional rules to a more inward focus. Herp’s early formation in this environment, and his continued engagement with lay audiences, suggests his deep investment in this religious turn toward the self.
This investment is also visible in The Mirror of Perfection, a mystical handbook deeply attuned to the individual’s inner life. During the fourteenth century mystics increasingly published in the vernacular and produced what Bernard McGinn has termed handbooks for mysticism. Stylized as an instructional, usually for a devout woman, mystical authors explicated their knowledge in books addressing the lay population.26 If we are to believe the introduction to the Latin version by the translator Peter Blomovenna, known as the Directorium Contemplauiorum, Herp indeed composed it at the request of a devout widow, about whom Blomovenna provided more information over the years after the first translation.27 Because The Mirror of Perfection was originally written in Middle Dutch, rather than the more Churchly oriented Latin, it reached out to a wider, lay audience. Considering the number of manuscripts of The Mirror of Perfection in Middle Dutch and Latin, Herp was a well-known mystic.28 The Church was suspicious of these forms of vernacular mysticism. As long as the monastery’s walls contained mysticism it was relatively harmless. But this “democratization” of mysticism worried the authorities who increasingly controlled and persecuted its practitioners.29
Herp’s life and the Mirror of Perfection thus operates at the intersection of two seemingly exclusionary tenets: as an Observant leader he believed in a strict control of religious life by the institutional leader. Yet as an author he offered mystical instruction to laypersons outside ecclesiastical structures. How Herp reconciled these dynamics and charisma’s role in it, is discussed in the next section.
4 Charisma and Grace in The Mirror of Perfection
4. 1 The Basic Premise: the Correct Love for God
Central to The Mirror of Perfection is the concept of love (“minne”) as the orienting principle of the mystical life. In the first of the four parts constituting The Mirror of Perfection, which is titled On Twelve Mortifications, Herp articulates the foundational premise: one should remain detached from all temporary things and rely on a correct love for God. He explains that there are two kinds of love for God: a servile (“knechtliker”) and a godlike love (“godlike minne”).30 The servile lover outwardly adheres to the commandments and practices of virtue, yet remains self-interested because he or she is motivated by fear of damnation and the hope of reward. The second, godlike love, loves God for His own sake, irrespective of consequence or benefit. Only with this love can one achieve mystical union.
The distinction in types of love is not original to Herp. A likely source is the work of Jan van Ruusbroec (1293–1381), who speaks of the “ghehuerde knechte” (hired servants) that seek God not out of a correct love, but for personal gain.31 Throughout the Mirror, Herp draws heavily on the mystic from Groenendaal, particularly in his understanding of love (minne). As Rob Faesen observed, Ruusbroec defines the mystic – or a human for that matter – not as an individual who is fundamentally separate from God and seeks Him, but as a person who is defined by his or her relationship to Him. Similar to the persons in the Trinity, where the Father is defined by His relation to the Son, a human is defined by the relation to God.32 Indeed, building on the work of Ruusbroec, Herp notes:
And if he [the mystic] has through such continuous exercises and aspiring desires driven himself to the love [minne] of God, which unites all the powers of the soul, in this way the human desires will become so powerful in him, through the customs of the fiery exercise of such love [minne], which unites humanity to God, that he in the blink of an eye will find himself sunk in the endless love of God […].33
In this passage, love is not merely a moral virtue or an affective disposition, but the unifying aspect that integrates the faculties of the soul and, also, effects the mystical union; love circumscribes the soul and relates the person to God.34 The person, thus defined as relation, is only fulfilled in a correct love toward God. An incorrect or servile love therefore constitutes not only a moral failing, but a distortion of the person’s structure and his or her participation in the divine life.
For Herp asceticism is an essential component of the correct love for God; the mystic must die to the world, so that he can love God correctly. He consistently presents it not as a matter of external renunciation, but of inner disposition; asceticism is not the lack of food, but the acceptance of the lack of food. “Because God does not necessarily want an outward poverty of temporary things, but an inner poverty consisting of lessened lusts and preoccupations.”35 For the correct inner life, the mystic should be detached from all that is not God: not only worldly good but even divine gifts. He regularly warns for the idea that the reception of charismata, such as visions or supernatural consolation, constitutes evidence of sanctity. Rather, such gifts should be received with detachment, lest they become a source of spiritual pride or moral deviation. “Holiness,” he asserts, “lies not in grace.”36
4.2 On the Dangers for Society
Herp is acutely aware that divine gifts may also be granted to those who have not yet attained the necessary detachment from the world. Charismata can be misused and, in such cases, they become dangerous, not only to the person but also to the wider community.
Herp distinguishes two types of divine gifts or charismata. As a monk with considerable learning, he was very well versed in the Bible and demonstrates a keen awareness of its narrative on charisma. But as a Latin and Middle Dutch speaker, Herp would have not known the Greek term “charisma.” Instead, as a reader of the Latin version of the Bible, the Vulgate, he knew the translations of “charisma”: donum (gift) and gratia (grace), with slightly different meanings.37 Herp spends considerable time discussing both categories. In his description of the contemplative life he lists the divine gifts (Middle Dutch: “gaven”): fear of the lord, piety, knowledge, fortitude, counsel, understanding and wisdom, which are duly translated to “dona” by Blomovenna.38 More relevant for the discussion of the effect on society are the divine gifts that Herp relates to grace (Middle Dutch: “gracie”).
A good example for the dangers Herp sees in grace are visions. He discusses them in the first part of the Mirror of Perfection. The problem originates in a servile love for God. The servile lover performs virtuous acts for a self-seeking glorification (“eyghensoekelicheit”).39 “And therefore, when they [servile lovers of God] receive sensible grace, devotion, sweetness of visions, they abuse it in sin.” The sin can affect the person itself, hindering redemption. But it can also affect the moral fabric of society when “he falls for a mental greed by using the [grace and visions] for lechery of nature.”40 Moreover, if God withholds His grace at some point, the servile lover of God will seek his comfort in “creatures, with actions, works, desires, and thoughts.”41 In short, in the wrong person the influx of grace as well as its withdrawal will lead to an undue and an immoral focus on external things and the pursuit of carnal pleasures.
Herp, possibly, refers here to the heresy of the Free Spirit. According to the inquisition, its adherents believed the mystic could attain a state of perfection in which he or she could no longer sin. Combined with Christian propaganda that portrayed heretics as promiscuous sinners, the idea of a mystical sect that endorsed unrestrained sexual behaviour was born. Although its actual existence is unsure, the Church’s fear was real, as is evinced by its repeated condemnation.42 Herp acknowledges the risk that divine gifts can lead the mystic into error and the community into confusion.
In the nineth step of the first part of the Spieghel Herp again warns for the effects of supernatural gifts, although this time he attributes them to the devil. He explains how one should transcend the desires of inner pleasures, more specifically the desire to know divine things through mental acumen. Religious life should be based on “the burning endless love of God.”43 Yet some people – Herp most likely thinks of theologians – desire to know religious mysteries through “natural reason.” They want to “see angels with their physical eyes” or “an actual sweet taste in the Sacrament.” If the devil notices this, “he fools these people with the will of God with many apparitions, both external that can be observed and also internal. […] these people glorify themselves therein.”44 In other words, the devil can fool an ascetically insufficient proficient practitioner of mysticism using the mystic’s own seemingly good desire to know God. This in turn results in the proclamation of the devil’s works as divine decrees, leading the mystic and the people around him astray.
Here, Herp echoes Ruusbroec’s warnings in Vanden blinckenden steen and Die cierheit der gheestelijker brulocht. Several times, the mystic from Groenendaal warns that the devil may produce images that can be mistaken for divine ones. The devil (“viant”) can play on the weaknesses of people who, for instance, want to achieve standing through remarkable religious acts.45 Herp, thus relies heavily on Ruusbroec for his appreciation of visions. Yet, he is more precise in how visions can disrupt the recipient’s interaction with other people and society’s institutions. How the interaction between the recipient of visions and the Churchly institutions work according to Herp is the topic of the next section.
4.3 Institutions and the Protection of Society
Given the danger Herp associates with visions, one might expect him to advocate institutional mechanisms for the discernment and protection from such phenomena. Yet, throughout the Mirror he shows little interest in institutional mediation. Herp consistently shifts the responsibility for spiritual regulation away from the institutional structures of the Church and toward the interior disposition of the mystic.
The absence of the institutions is partly explicable in term of genre and intended audience of the work. Composed for a devout widow, outside the confines of monastic life, the Mirror was meant to offer spiritual instruction to the laity. But even where Herp could have recommended the guidance of a confessor, which would have included a theologically trained representative of the Church, he refrains from doing so. In fact, at several points in The Mirror of Perfection Herp displays reticence regarding the redemptive benefits of institutions – especially when it concerns the mystic. He, for instance, voices his scepticism on the effectiveness of monastic life:
they [certain monks] abhor the world, their own flesh, friends and stomach, they do heavy penance, they enter a monastery and strictly follow its customs, rules, silence, discipline and the like: and everything they do is ineffective and fruitless. Because they neither know nor keep the commandment to love God.46
The monastic ascetic rules of a monastery offer no redemption. Moreover, if you “are driven by the spirit of God and His grace and love […] there is no need for obedience [to a superior], because [you] are under the obedience of God […].”47 Monasticism and monastic life are, according to Herp, in themselves spiritually ineffective.
He displays equally little faith in the doctors of the Church: “a basic layman or an old lady who follows [the way of love], may in a short time receive more sensible exercises from God and true virtues and the like about all that pertains to the salvation of mankind, than all the doctors of the world will know through their natural wisdom and acquired arts.”48 He thus subordinates intellectual sophistication and institutional authority to the disposition of the person.
Herp’s limited belief in the effectiveness of institutions protecting the social order is most clearly explained in his discussion of the discernment of spirits. For him, the decisive moment of this juridical or theological process lies not in the institution’s judgement but in the mystic’s willingness to accept correction. To this he devotes a single sentence in the first part of The Mirror of Perfection, introducing a concept that will recur every time he discusses grace and visions: “But he [the prophet] will only rest therein [the ruling of the discernment of spirits] because he, for the love of God, is willing to stand in all imperturbability [ghelatenisse].”49
In Herp’s configuration, the safeguarding of society from the dangers of charisma does not depend on hierarchical intervention but on the maturity of the person’s inner life. In the next two parts of The Mirror of Perfection Herp will explain what the disposition of imperturbability is, why it is important, and how it will prevent the adverse effects of supernatural knowledge on the mystic and society.
4.4 The Ascetic Disposition and the Protection of Society
In the second and third parts of The Mirror of Perfection Herp explains how ascetic formation can function as a safeguard against the dangers of grace. Central in this perspective in the cultivation of a certain disposition: ghelatenisse or imperturbability. This enables the mystic to receive and relinquish divine gifts without falling into error or despair. In Herp’s model, the regulation of charisma is neither institutional nor external, but internal and dispositional.
The second part of The Mirror of Perfection concerns the active life, which may be identified as the lay population.50 In Herp’s estimation this life is relatively safe because grace is generally absent from it. The most dangerous aspect of the active life lies in the longing for grace. In chapter 25, Herp asserts that, based on the work of Richard of St. Victor, coveting love (“begheerlike minne”) can deceive someone because “it originates more in people than in grace.”51 Once consumed by coveting love, the person delights in the sacraments and devotion, tasting the sweetness of grace. But this coveting love stems from a mind starved of grace and diverts attention from what could be a continuous inflowing of grace, i.e. the mystical union. Herp likens this, remarkably, to a drunk for whom a sip of wine is insufficient; the mystic should be like the drunk, longing for all of it.52 Moreover, the devil uses coveting love to prey on the ill who, in disillusionment with their failing bodies, will place too much faith in their inner life. The appearance of grace inspired devotion, the reader learns, could be a lure played by the devil and we should, therefore, mistrust our love for this divine gift.
In the third part, which concerns the contemplative life or monastics, Herp further expands on the dangers of grace, as well as how to manage them. In a lengthy segment, he outlines the four steps of (mystical) ascent in this life, culminating in a “naked love” (blooten minne) for God. This naked love is disconnected from temptations and therefore the only safe kind of love. During his discussion of the steps towards naked love, Herp touches several times on grace and how its inflowing and absence are both necessary to complete the mystical ascent but also dangerous to the mystic and society.
In the first of four steps, the mystic should disconnect himself from the “beastly and fleshly” nature through spiritual exercises. Herp is not specific about what these spiritual exercises are, but acknowledges that they are often painful; it is as if you “uproot something”.53 In fact, they are only bearable through “the inflowing grace of the Holy Spirit [that] with His abundance salves the pain and makes the heart sweet.”54 But at some point, Herp warns, God will withdraw his grace. Then the practitioner will feel abandoned and sad because he has not learned to “pray in the mind and truth, but only in sensible devotion [with grace].”55 However, the withdrawal of grace is a necessary step in the mystical ascent because the Holy Spirit wants “to teach that one should not depend on the gifts of God, but on God alone […].”56
Herp does not discuss grace in the second step. But in the third step, he returns to the subject of visions and the disposition of the person. By the time the mystic reaches this stage, he or she burns with a love for Christ, whose “inflowing grace the heart needs, and the heart wants to raise itself with all its power to the kiss of divine unification, and if [the heart] can’t attain the wanted unity of spirits with God in fullness of riches, than quickly the heart will fall in a mental sickness […].”57 Now that the love for God has become more pure, God “will reveal him [the mystic] truths, that he or other people need.”58 However, if the mystic has not wholly renounced the world, he or she may expose himself once again to the devil’s deceptions. “Because if such people have curious desires to receive inner gifts, sensible sweetness, apparitions or such things, the angel of darkness often comes and transforms himself in an angel of light, and […] shows images or likenesses in the heart […].”59 These visions may even be partially accurate, and predict future events. But given their origin, they of course remain dangerous.
To protect the mystic from these evil influences, Herp suggests four exercises. Taking his inspiration from Ruusbroec again, Herp explains that the righteous lover of God should be grateful for these divine gifts but should also remain solely focused on the mystical unification.60 The mystic should “unify himself to God without means [sonder middel],” that is without depending on any intermediary.61 Drawing on Ruusbroec, he asserts that “means”, such as vision and grace, can become obstacles to the mystical union if the soul rests in them rather than in God. As Ruusbroec writes, those who rely on images “cannot supersede their works to arrive at an imageless nakedness; because they themselves and their works are a means and an image between them and God.”62 The “means” between the mystic and God include grace, the Church, and the sacraments. This makes them indispensable for redemption and not inherently evil.63 But they are not the whole, Ruusbroec warns.64 Herp similarly warns that the mystic must not attach spiritual significance to inner sweetness or apparitions. While not necessarily evil, these gifts remain intermediary and must ultimately be relinquished. Herp, however, diverts from Ruusbroec in his emphasis on asceticism. In every exercise Herp explains that the mystic should remain impervious to temptations and pains, whether they are worldly or supernatural. He for instance notes in the fourth exercise: “And in these times [of worldly and spiritual adversity] that God has sent, he [the mystic] he must remain more faithful to God […].”65 Asceticism, for Herp, is the ability to look beyond the present circumstances to the promise of a mystical union.
The final step is the most peculiar of the four: “it consists […] of the withdrawal of spiritual knowledge and sensible grace, devotion, and love.”66 The highest of the four steps of ascent lies thus in the absence of God’s gifts. Even more remarkable are the reasons for this withdrawal that Herp gives. Like a lover scorned, God will withdraw himself if the mystic’s mind wanders off to worldly things or if a pater noster has been “lukewarm.”67 Following this logic, the person must apparently offend God to further the mystical journey. When the mystic successfully offends God, he ends up in an unenviable position. It is as if “you sit, hungry, between two tables, one rejected by you that is filled with sensible pleasures, the other refused by Him, with mental riches.”68 Only if the mystic proves himself “impervious” (“ghelaten”) to the complete withdrawal of every form of pleasure, worldly and divine, he is worthy of the mystical union.
After portraying this cruel examination, Herp focuses in the remaining chapters of the Mirror of Perfection on the similarities of the mind and the Trinity. He describes a continuous in- and outflowing of God in the mind in the final steps of the contemplative and superessential contemplative life. In these last parts of the book the social environment of the mystic fades into the background. But the reader cannot help to see the similarity between the inflowing and outflowing of God in the mind and the alternatively given and withheld grace.
5 Conclusion
The relationship between charisma and institutional authority has traditionally been framed in terms of control: institutions must restrain the charismatic leader or society will change. Classical sociological theories, particularly those of Max Weber and Pierre Bourdieu, argue that prophets, endowed with charismata, function as disruptive forces within social systems. More recently, historians expanded charisma’s definition but have retained the institution as the controlling actor of charisma’s disruptive power. Within these frameworks, the capacity to control charisma is seen as the prerogative of the institutional Church.
Herp’s perspective complicates this model. In The Mirror of Perfection, charisma is real and potent, but also perilous. As a solution to its dangers, Herp shifts the locus of control inward. Charisma, in Herp’s account, is not inherently disruptive; its effects depend on the disposition of the recipient. The ascetically trained individual, formed through detachment and godlike love, becomes the safeguard against both personal error and communal disruption. This model of interiorized control challenges the prevailing sociological view that institutions are the exclusive agents of charismatic regulation.
His argument merges two historical trends of his time: the Observant Reform’s focus on ascetic strictness through institutional control and the widening accessibility of mystical experience beyond institutional bounds. As a leading figure within the Observant Reform, he was committed to institutional rigor, monastic discipline, and the reassertion of ascetic ideals. Yet his writings – composed in the vernacular, addressed to a lay audience, and widely disseminated – actively contributed to the democratization of mystical theology. However, Herp’s relocation of control from external to internal and the resulting deinstitutionalization of control does not lessen its force. On the contrary, as the inner life is a permanent feature of human existence, one could argue that control has become more complete now that it has left the institutional bounds.
Moreover, Herp’s emphasis on ascetic detachment allows him to explore the social consequences of a Ruusbroecian anthropology. Godlike love and the ascetic disposition are two sides of the same coin. The former turns the soul toward God; the latter turns the soul away from all that is not God, including the world and society. Toward God the mystic is fundamentally relational; toward society, however, the individual stands alone – not because human beings are autonomous in a modern sense, but because their essential bond is not to any institution, but to God. This foundational connection to the divine renders all other affiliations provisional. In this view, the individual is not subject to ecclesiastical authority by nature but enters into relation with it through by individual discernment and voluntary commitment.
In Herp’s account, then, the control of charisma – and, by extension, the stabilization of society – is not achieved primarily through hierarchical oversight but through the ascetic formation of the individual. The Mirror of Perfection thus questions the supposition that the control of charisma and thereby the stabilization of society was principally a task for the medieval institutions. Moreover, it encourages the modern researcher of (medieval) society to not only ask how institutions controlled society, but also why the control was accepted.
Biography
David Knibbe is a recipient of the NWO “promotiebeurs voor leraren” (Scholarship for Teachers), researching the Observants in the Low Countries within their urban environment. His recent work includes “The Development of Municipal Supervision of the Ascetic Regime in Convents during the Fifteenth Century” (forthcoming, 2025) and “The Personal and the Chronicle: Inner Life and Othering in De Voecht’s Narratio de Inchoatione Domus Clericorum in Zwollis” (forthcoming, 2025).
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See Ozment, Mysticism and Dissent.
See Bedos-Rezak/Rust, Faces and Surfaces of Charisma, p. 4.
See Weber, Economy and Society, p. 382.
See Weber, Economy and Society, pp. 378–387.
See Bourdieu, Genesis and Structure, p. 19.
See Bourdieu, Genesis and Structure, p. 22.
See Bourdieu, Genesis and Structure, pp. 26–28.
See Aurell, They Are the Treasure.
Jaeger, Charisma and the Transformation.
See Herrero, The Politics of Relics, Bedos-Rezak/Rust, Faces and Surfaces of Charisma, p. 22, Jaeger, The Saint’s Life.
See Caciola, Discerning Spirits.
See Ozment, Mysticism and Dissent, p. 2.
See Müller, Our Image of ‘Others’, p. 110, Bourdieu, Genesis and Structure, p. 15.
See Weinstein, Savonarola, Wunderli, Peasant Fires, Cohn, The Pursuit of the Millennium.
See Weitzel, Charisma in Relation, Jaeger, The Saint’s Life, Bose, Can Orthodoxy Be Charismatic.
See Mixson/Roest, A Companion to Observant Reform.
See Post, Kerkgeschiedenis van Nederland, p. 165.
See Weiler, Volgens de Norm, p. 70, Arblaster/Faesen, Mystical Anthropology, p. 119.
See Verschueren, Leven en Werken, p. 349.
See Hensen, Henric van Arnhem’s Kronyk, p. 23.
van den Hombergh, Leven en Werken, p. 132.
See Mixson, Observant Reform’s Conceptual Frameworks, pp. 74–80.
See de Voecht, Narratio de Inchoatione Domus Clericorum, p. 106. For an analysis see Van Engen, Sisters and Brothers of the Common Life, pp. 213–218.
See Van Engen, Sisters and Brothers of the Common Life, esp. pp. 18 et seq. and 308.
See Morris, The Discovery of the Individual, 1050–1200, Bynum, Did the Twelfth Century Discover the Individual? Constable, The Reformation of the Twelfth Century.
See McGinn, Mystical Handbooks of the Late Middle Ages.
See Herp, Spieghel, pp. 14, 16, Dlabačová, Literatuur en Observantie, p. 47.
See Dlabačová, Literatuur en Observantie, p. 312.
See McGinn, “Evil-Sounding, Rash, and Suspect of Heresy”, p. 209.
See Herp, Spieghel, pp. 27–33.
See Ruusbroec, Vanden blinckenden steen, p. 50.
See Faesen, ‘Individualization’ and ‘Personalization’, Faesen, Vergoddelijking, pp. 30–32.
Herp, Spieghel, p. 113 For Herp depence on Ruusbroec concerning this part see note from the editor Verschueren of the Spieghel at p. 113.
I am aware that the term soul (“ziele”) has two distinct meanings for Herp: one for the overarching aspect of the lower faculties of the mind, as it is used in the above citation, and one for the higher faculties. Also with regards to the higher faculties of the mind, Herp emphasizes the identical nature of the unity (“enicheit”) of the higher faculties with God. Cf. Herp, Spieghel, pp. 341–343. For the distinction between the two usages of soul (“ziele”) see Mertens, The Playing Field of Mysticism, p. 125.
Herp, Spieghel, p. 21–23.
Herp, Spieghel, p. 289.
See Aurell, The Notion of Charisma.
See Herp, Spieghel, pp. 213, 217, 221, 222, 227, 229 and 230.
See Herp, Spieghel, p. 27.
Herp, Spieghel, p. 29.
Herp, Spieghel, p. 29.
The classical study is Lerner, The Heresy of the Free Spirit. The continued interest in the subject may be more the result of researcher fascination than the existence of the movement itself. See Bird, Fifty Years of The Heresy of the Free Spirit, passim.
Herp, Spieghel, p. 71.
Herp, Spieghel, p. 71.
See Ruusbroec, Gheestelijker Brulocht, pp. 1 and 231.
Herp, Spieghel, p. 28 et seq.
Herp, Spieghel, p. 83.
Herp, Spieghel, p. 181.
Herp, Spieghel, p. 73.
Thomas Aquinas makes the distinction between the active life of the lay population and the contemplative life of monastics. See Aquinas, Summa Theologiae, pp. 179–182.
Herp, Spieghel, p. 157.
See Herp, Spieghel, p. 159.
Herp, Spieghel, p. 239.
Herp, Spieghel, p. 239.
Herp, Spieghel, p. 245.
Herp, Spieghel, p. 245.
Herp, Spieghel, p. 261.
Herp, Spieghel, p. 263.
See Herp, Spieghel, p. 265.
Herp, Spieghel, p. 267 for Herp’s relience on Ruusbroec see note from the editor Verschueren at p. 267.
Herp, Spieghel, p. 269. For an explanation of the term “sonder middel” in Ruusbroec see Faesen, Vergoddelijking, p. 25 et seq.
Ruusbroec, Blinckenden Steen, p. 60 et seq.
See Faesen, Vergoddelijking, p. 25.
Ruusbroec also speaks of a connection to God without means and without distinction. For a discussion see Faesen, Vergoddelijking.
Herp, Spieghel, p. 281.
Herp, Spieghel, p. 287.
Herp, Spieghel, p. 287.
Herp, Spieghel, p. 293.
