[All around the deathbed of Lubbert ten Busch. The Modern Devotion and the plague in Deventer in 1398].
The seriousness of plague epidemics can be expressed in numbers and medical terms, but we get closer to the past, and it becomes our own history more than in any other way, when we can empathise with the story of a single individual. In the summer months of 1398, the plague raged in the city of Deventer, which lies on the river IJssel, in the east of the present-day Netherlands. This plague epidemic also threatened the small community of priests and minor clerics which gave rise to the new spiritual movement of the Modern Devotion. This new community was concerned about its survival. Their vocation required that the brethren should help the citizens who remained behind. However, this could prove to be their undoing, and therefore it would be better to leave the city. They resolved the dilemma by dividing into two groups. Half of the brethren left to ensure the continuity of the community; the other half stayed in Deventer to help the people. The two groups stayed in contact by means of letters, the text of which has survived in several sources. The fears and forebodings became reality. The plague also affected the new community of brethren. The deputy rector, Lubbert ten Busch, also died of the plague. There is a letter from him which he wrote just before he died. This farewell letter was sent together with a letter from one of the brethren, saying that Lubbert had meanwhile died, and describing the scene of his death. Because of the personal tone and the tragic of content, the letters about the death of Lubbert ten Busch are unique medieval documents. They give a good insight into the way in which the plague could personally affect someone and his immediate companions in the late Middle Ages. This paper focuses attention on these letters, and reconstructs the events around this death, so that the letters speak to us once again.
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D002410:Catholicism / Q000266:history; D015709:Correspondence as Topic / Q000266:history*; D003643:Death; D004196:Disease Outbreaks / Q000266:history*; D049691:History, Medieval; D006801:Humans; D009426:Netherlands / Q000453:epidemiology; D010930:Plague / Q000453:epidemiology / Q000266:history*; D012068:Religion and Medicine
Rondom het sterfbed van Lubbert ten Busch. De moderne devoten en de pest te Deventer in 1398.