BROTHERS OF COMMON LIFE (also called BROTHERS OF GOOD WILL, and HIERONY MITES, or GREGORIANS, from their patron saints, Jerome and Gregory the Great). A fraternity founded at Deventer about 1376 by Gerhard Groote (q.v.), whose successor was Flo•entins Badewin (born 1350, at Leerdam in Holland; died 1400). Thomas a Kempis, who was asso ciated with Itadewin, wrote the lives of both thee founders. The society grew very rapidly, and under Gerhard's instructions, helped tofound several houses of Canons Regular of Saint Augustine with which it was allied. But the original society, which professed to be a copy of the earliest Christian communities, was com posed of persons who desired to live a devout and ascetic life in community without formal vows. Community of goods, industry, care for the edu cation of the young. and a tendency to promote reading of the Scriptures and public prayers in the vemacular, are among their characteristics. Despite the opposition of some of the older com munities, they were recognized by several Popes and by the Council of Constance (1414-18).
They became most numerous in the Netherlands and Germany, nearly every large town having one or more of their houses, but spread also to Italy and Portugal, so that by 1430 they reck oned more than 130 societies. The last was founded at Cambrai in 1505. They seem to have decayed after the outbreak of the Reformation, which carried to more extreme lengths what had been distinctive principles of theirs. A number of the brothers joined the reforming movement. Some of their educational institutions were taken over by the .Jesuits. The most distinguished members of the society were Thomas 5 Kempis I q.v.). Gerhard Zerbold of Zutphen, and the learned Cardinal Nicholas Cusa. Consult Ket tlewell, Thomas a Kempis and the Mothers of Common Life (London, 1884).