Of Thomas à Kempis, in his Life of Gerard Groote, can speak of the world of his day as ‘ever turning to yet more evil courses’, John Busch, the Chronicler of Windesheim, and, like à Kempis, one of the earliest members of that Congregation, says, with his characteristic bluntness of speech, that it was ‘set already upon the way which leadeth down to Hell’. For it was in 1340 that ‘God, looking upon the world with the eye of Fatherly goodness and merey, saw fit to make ready a light to enlighten the eyes of men and a lamp to show the way to Christ our Lord. This light was that reverend man of God, Gerard the Great, or, in the vulgar tongue, Groote, an inhabitant of Deventer in the diocese of Utrecht’. Endowed with ‘wealth, honour, learning and high place’, he passed, after brilliant school studies at home, first to Aachen and then to the Sorbonne, where he graduated in medicine and theology, as well as in law. He then returned home and was appointed Teacher in the Chapter School of Deventer, where he soon noquired a reputation as an educator and a leader of youth.