The Sisterbook of Master Geert’s House, Deventer

The Sisterbook of Master Geert’s House contains the lives of sixty-four Sisters of the Common Life who died between 1398 and 1456. Founded as an alms-house for destitute women in 1374, by the end of the fourteenth century Master Geert’s House had become a home for women desiring to live a life of humility and penitence, as well as in community of goods without vows. The Sisterbook was likely written sometime between 1460 and 1470, at a time when the religious fervour that had characterized the earlier Sisters had begun to wane. It was to incite the readers and hearers of the Sisterbook, which would have been read in the refectory during mealtimes, to imitate the earlier Sisters who are portrayed as outstanding examples of godliness and Sisters of the Common Life. The opening sentence of the Sisterbook succinctly sums up the author’s reason for writing it: ‘Here begin some edifying points about our earlier Sisters whose lives it behoves us to have before our eyes at all times, for in their ways they were truly like a candle on a candlestick’, and who, by implication, could still illumine the way for her own generation of Sisters. The first foundation of Sisters of the Common Life, Master Geert’s House became the ‘mother’ house of numerous other houses in the Low Countries and Germany directly as well as indirectly and served as an inspiration for others.

This book provides a study of the Sisterbook and its significance in the Devotio Moderna and late medieval female religiosity, while the accompanying translation introduces this important source to an English audience.