MANDE, mdn'de, HENDRIK: Dutch mystic
of the Windesheim community; b. at Dort c. 1360;
d. in the monastery of Sion, near Beverwijk, 1431.
want of which, as contrasted
with Christianity, it
failed to attain popularity. Even more
r. The dangerous than this was a religion
Religion which, rising in the Orient, united in
Character- itself the charms of the new with the
ized. allurements of the old as represented
in the mysteries - which were so
attractive to the peoples of that time. This was
Mithraism, of which Renan once rightly remarked,
Very little is known regarding his life. When his
biographer,
Jan Busch (q.v.), entered the monas
tery of Windeaheim, Mande was already an old
man. All known of his early life is that
be was
physically frail and weak and that his education
enabled him to fill the position of court scribe with
William VI., count of Holland, under difficult con
ditions. He was deeply impressed by Groote's
sermons (see
Groote, Geert),
and, as a result of
visions of the Crucified One with his stigmata, he
resolved to enter a monastery and chose that of
Windesheim at Deventer,
taking the vows in 1395.
On account of his health he never became
canonims,
in spite of the great veneration inspired by his vi
sions and his gracious personality. He cultivated
intimate relations with the prominent members of
the new devotion. In a little tractate he has given
an account of his visions; this Busch translated
into Latin and added some accounts of the author
derived from his associates. In the monastery
which he rarely left, and only in its service-he
occupied himself with copying manuscripts. His
death occurred during a journey with Busch di
rected by the authorities at Windeaheim.
Of Mande's writings in French and German,
composed for the brethren, fourteen are mentioned
by Busch. They did not become widely known in
spite of their graceful diction and depth of meaning.
Mande was strongly influenced by Ruys
broeck, but was simpler and more easily under
stood. He was indeed called the Ruysbroeck of
northern Holland. Only in 1854 were his writings
rediscovered. They are as follows:
Liber unus
quomodo veterem hominem cum adtbus 8uw eruere
debemu8 et Christo nos unire.
The Dutch manu
cript was found by G. Visser and printed in his
H. Mande. Bijdrage tat de Kennis der
Noord
Nederlandache Mystiek,
The Hague, 1899.
Liber de
intimis domini nostril J. Christi et aeptem vice
qui
bus itur ad ea,
found by S. Becker and published
by C. K. de Bazel, Leyden, 1886, new ed. in Viaser,
ut sup. Mande refers to Bonaventura's
Itinerar
ium mends,
more especially to the section
de aep
tem itinenbus aternitatis. Liber de perfecta amoris
altitudine et de vii8 ad eam perveniendi,
ed. Visser
after a Brussels manuscript.
De sapida eapientia,
according to Visaer; it exists in an Amsterdam man
uscript and treats of the seven gifts, under the
title:
Van der gave der amakender urijaheit. Specu
lum verdtatis,
also in the Amsterdam manuscript,
Een apiegel der waerheit,
printed in Visaer, ut sup.,
appendix V.;
De luce veritatia,
extant in the same
manuscript;
De trabus statibus hominia conversi,
in quibus consistit perfeetio vine Spiratualia.
This is
Mande's most important and beat known writing,
based on
Joel ii. 12, 13.
In it Mande has ex
plained his whole conception of the spiritual life.
Amorosa querela amantis animm Deum scum pro
liberatione tenebrarum defeduumque
auorum,
extant
in several manuscripts and printed by W. Moll in
the
Kalender voor Protestanten in Nederland,
1860,
p. 113.
Allocutio brevis amantis animm cum amato
suo, printed in W. Moll's
Joh. Brugmann, i.
310,
Amsterdam, 1854.
De preparations interniv nostree
habitation*
in Moll,
Brugmann, i.
293.
Dialogue
etve collocutio devotte animm cum Deo amato suo et
reSponsio ejus ad animam devotam,
supposed by
Visaer to be in the third part of an Amsterdam
manuscript (of. Viaser, ut sup.).
De raptibus et
collocutionibus cum Deo et Dei secum decent
(of. Visser, in the
Nederlandsche Archief van Kerkgeachiedenia,
1901, p. 249. In the issue for 1902 the
dieteche text van H. M. apokalypais is
printed).
Of the writings mentioned by Busch there are
missing
De vita spirituali et devota
and
De vita eontemplativa;
these are probably developments of
parts of the
De tribes statibus.
The tractate
Van
den gheesteliken opgave,
found by Borssum in Amsterdam and published in the
Archief
for 1896, has
not yet been proved to be by Mande.
According to Busch, all the writings of Mande
enumerated were written in his own hand but without the addition of his name. During the disorders succeeding the Reformation and
the suppression of the
monasteries the tradition of authorship
was lost. Mande's mysticism as described by Viaser is less grandiose than Ruyabroeck's. Mande
to
simpler, more sentimental, and more Biblical, and
he may be looked upon as the precursor of Thomas
A Kempis, who popularized him.
L. Schulze.
Bibliography:
The one source is the Chronicon Windes
hemense of
J. Busch, ed. K. Grubs, Halle, 1887. Consult
W. Moll, J. Brugmann i. 260,
Amsterdam, 1854; idem,
Kerkpeaciedenis van Nederland voor
de Havorming, 2
cola., ib.1864-71; J. G. B. Aoquoy, Het Klooster to Windssheim, i. 260, Utrecht, 1875;
ADB,
xx. 165; above all,
the monograph by G. Visser mentioned in the text.
