The German-Dutch monk credited with The Imitation of Christ, one of the most widely read Christian devotional works ever written.
Life
Thomas a Kempis (c. 1380–1471), an Augustinian canon of the Devotio Moderna movement, spent his long life copying manuscripts, writing, and counseling in a monastery near Zwolle. He is traditionally the author of The Imitation of Christ, a manual of interior devotion emphasizing humility, self-denial, and the following of Christ over learned disputation. After the Bible it is among the most translated and printed of Christian books, and has shaped personal piety across denominations for six centuries.