in synod. The impartiality of his censures, which he directed not only against the prevailing sins of the laity, but also against heresy, simony, avarice, and impurity among the secular and regular clergy, provoked the hostility of the clergy, and accusations of heterodoxy were brought against him. It was in vain that Groote emitted a Publica Protestatio, in which he declared that Jesus was the great subject of his discourses, that in all of them he believed himself to be in harmony with Catholic doctrine, and that he willingly subjected them to the candid judgment of the Church. The bishop was induced to issue an edict which prohibited from preaching all who were not in priestly orders, and an appeal by Groote to Pope Urban VI was without effect. There is a difficulty as to the date of this prohibition; either it was only a few months before Groote's death, or else it must have been removed by the bishop, for Groote seems to have preached in public in the last year of his life. At some period (perhaps 1381, perhaps earlier) he paid a visit of some days' duration to the famous mystic John Ruysbroeck, prior of the Augustinian canons at Groenendaal near Brussels; during this visit was formed Groote's attraction for the rule and life of the Augustinian canons which was destined to bear notable fruit. At the close of his life he was asked by some of the clerics who attached themselves to him to form them into a religious order and Groote resolved that they should be Canons Regular of St. Augustine. No time was lost in the effort to carry out the project, but Groote died before a foundation could be made. The initiation of this movement was the great achievement of Groote's life; he lived to preside over the birth and first days of his other creation, the society of Brethren of the Common Life. He died of the plague at Deventer, which he had contracted while nursing the sick, in 1384 at the age of 44. Geert Groote was also a famous writer, who made an important Middle Dutch translation of a book of hours. His translation was used innumerable times throughout the following centuries. The Brethren of the Common Life Young men especially flocked to him in great numbers. Some of these he sent to his schools, others he occupied at transcribing