John Van Engen | |
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Occupation | historian |
Awards |
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Academic background | |
Education | Calvin College (BA) University of California, Los Angeles (PhD) |
Academic work | |
Institutions | University of Notre Dame |
John H. Van Engen is an American historian who focuses on the religious and intellectual culture of the European Middle Ages. He is Andrew V. Tackes Professor Emeritus of Medieval History at the University of Notre Dame. [1]
He graduated from Calvin College,with a BA,and from University of California,Los Angeles,with a PhD (1976),where he studied with Gerhart Ladner. He also studied at Heidelberg University,with Peter Classen. He joined the faculty of the University of Notre Dame in 1977,and served as director of the Medieval Institute there from 1986 to 1998. He retired in 2017. [1]
He is a 1984 Guggenheim Fellow, [2] and 2011 Berlin Prize Fellow. His book,Sisters and Brothers of the Common Life:The Devotio Moderna and the World of the Later Middle Ages (University of Pennsylvania Press,2008) won the 2009 John Gilmary Shea Prize, [3] the 2010 Otto Gründler Book Prize, [4] and the 2013 Haskins Medal. [5] [6]
Thomas à Kempis, CRV was a German-Dutch canon regular of the late medieval period and the author of The Imitation of Christ, published anonymously in Latin in the Netherlands c. 1418–1427, one of the most popular and best known Christian devotional books. His name means "Thomas of Kempen", Kempen being his home town.
The Imitation of Christ, by Thomas à Kempis, is a Christian devotional book first composed in Medieval Latin as De Imitatione Christi. The devotional text is divided into four books of detailed spiritual instructions: (i) "Helpful Counsels of the Spiritual Life", (ii) "Directives for the Interior Life", (iii) "On Interior Consolation", and (iv) "On the Blessed Sacrament". The devotional approach of The Imitation of Christ emphasises the interior life and withdrawal from the mundanities of the world, as opposed to the active imitation of Christ practised by other friars. The devotions of the books emphasize devotion to the Eucharist as the key element of spiritual life.
The Brethren of the Common Life was a Roman Catholic pietist religious community founded in the Netherlands in the 14th century by Gerard Groote, formerly a successful and worldly educator who had had a religious experience and preached a life of simple devotion to Jesus Christ. They believed that Christianity should be practiced not only in formal religious settings, but also in everyday life, and they sought to promote a practical spirituality that emphasized personal piety and devotion.
Devotio Moderna was a movement for religious reform, calling for apostolic renewal through the rediscovery of genuine pious practices such as humility, obedience, simplicity of life, and integration into the community. It began in the late 14th century, largely through the work of Gerard Groote, and flourished in the Low Countries and Germany in the 15th century, but came to an end with the Protestant Reformation. It is most known today through its influence on Thomas à Kempis, the author of The Imitation of Christ, a book which has proved highly influential for centuries.
John Dawson Gilmary Shea was a writer, editor, and historian of American history in general and American Roman Catholic history specifically. He was also a leading authority on aboriginal native Americans in the United States. He is regarded as the "Father of American Catholic History".
The John Gilmary Shea Prize is an annual award given by the American Catholic Historical Association for the most original and distinguished contribution to knowledge of the history of the Catholic Church. Established in 1945, it is named in honor of the nineteenth-century Catholic historian John Gilmary Shea.
Caroline Walker Bynum, FBA is a Medieval scholar from the United States. She is a University Professor emerita at Columbia University and Professor emerita of Western Medieval History at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey. She was the first woman to be appointed University Professor at Columbia. She is former Dean of Columbia's School of General Studies, served as president of the American Historical Association in 1996, and President of the Medieval Academy of America in 1997–1998.
Thomas F. Madden is an American historian, a former chair of the history department at Saint Louis University in St. Louis, Missouri, and director of Saint Louis University's Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.
The Laetare Medal is an annual award given by the University of Notre Dame in recognition of outstanding service to the Catholic Church and society. The award is given to an American Catholic or group of Catholics "whose genius has ennobled the arts and sciences, illustrated the ideals of the church and enriched the heritage of humanity." First awarded in 1883, it is the oldest and most prestigious award for American Catholics.
John Connelly is an American historian and professor at the University of California, Berkeley. His interests include modern East and Central European history, comparative education and the history of nationalism.
The Meditations on the Life of Christ is a fourteenth-century devotional work, later translated into Middle English by Nicholas Love as The Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ.
The Haskins Medal is an annual medal awarded by the Medieval Academy of America. It is awarded for the production of a distinguished book in the field of medieval studies.
Robert Anthony Orsi is a scholar of American history and Catholic studies who is the Grace Craddock Nagle Chair professor at Northwestern University. Before coming to Northwestern, Orsi chaired the department of religious studies at Harvard University.
Laura Dassow Walls is an American professor of English literature and currently the William P. and Hazel B. White Professor of English at the University of Notre Dame.
Kenneth Meyer Setton was an American historian and an expert on the history of medieval Europe, particularly the Crusades.
Robert James Brentano was a prize-winning author and historian of medieval England and Italy. One of his books, Two churches: England and Italy in the thirteenth century, won the 1968 John Gilmary Shea Prize and the Haskins Medal. Brentano was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1978 and the American Philosophical Society in 1996.
Barbara Jane Newman is an American medievalist, literary critic, religious historian, and author. She is Professor of English and Religion, and John Evans Professor of Latin, at Northwestern University. Newman was elected in 2017 to the American Philosophical Society.
Jean Victor Edmond Paul Marie Bony was a French medieval architectural historian specialising in Gothic architecture. He was Slade Professor of Fine Art at the University of Cambridge from 1958 to 1961, Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge, and Professor of Art at the University of California at Berkeley, from 1962 to 1980.
Hendrik Mande was a Dutch mystical writer, an early member of the Brethren of the Common Life, and an Augustinian Canon.
Rachel M. Koopmans is an American–Canadian academic and author specializing in medieval history. She is an associate professor of history at York University and a member of the College of New Scholars of the Royal Society of Canada. She was part of a research team that discovered that two stained glass panels at the Canterbury Cathedral, thought to be late Victorian panels, instead dated to the 1180s.