Henry of Kalkar

Henry was born at Kalkar in the Duchy of Cleves. He began his studies at Cologne, and completed them at Paris, where he became Master of Arts in 1357.[1] He forthwith occupied the post of "procurator of the German nation" in 1358, being also a professor of theology.[2]

Having obtained canonries in the collegiate churches of Saint Suitbert in Kaiserswerth and St. George in Cologne in 1362, he returned to his native land. Soon after, however, disgusted with the world, he resigned his benefices and retired in 1365 to the Cologne Charterhouse, where, owing to his talents and virtues, he was rapidly raised to the most important offices.[2]

Successively prior of the charterhouses of Arnhem (1368–72), of Roermond (1372–77), newly founded, of Cologne (1377–84) and of Strasbourg (1384–96), which he restored, and from 1375 provincial visitor for the space of 20 years, he was thus called upon to play, under the circumstances produced by the Great Schism, a considerable role in the Netherlands and German-speaking countries.[2]

Relieved at length, at his own request, of all his offices, he retired in 1396 to Cologne Charterhouse, and there lived in recollection and prayer until his death.

Henry was celebrated not only as a writer, but also as a reformer. During his priorate at Arnhem he had the happiness and honour of "converting" one of his friends and fellow-students at Paris, Gerard Groote (the future founder of the Brothers of the Common Life), whom he attracted into his charterhouse and directed for three years.[3] "Moreover by his spiritual writings ... he exercised on the whole school of Deventer and Windesheim the influence of a recognized master." He was to this extent the organizer of the great movement of the Catholic Renaissance, which, initiated at Windesheim and in the convents of the Low Countries, went on developing throughout the 15th century, finding its definite expression in the Council of Trent.

Kalkar contributed to the development of the rosary when, in 1365 he grouped the 150 Angelic Salutations into fifteen groups of ten (decades), with an Our Father before each, and with each decade referring to an event in the life of Jesus and Mary.[4] He died in Cologne December 20, 1408.[1]

Peter Canisius went so far as to insert his name in his German martyrology for 20 December.

As a writer Kalgar has left a number of works treating a variety of subjects. Prominent in several fields, Kalgar was erudite, a man of letters, a distinguished musician and theologian, ascetic, as well as the author of many sermons, letters, and treatises on the spiritual life.

These works, few of which have ever been printed, are scattered about in different libraries – at Basle, Brussels, St. Gall and elsewhere. The first one published enjoyed a strange career, the Exercitatorium Monachale or Tractatus utilis proficere volentibus. Inserted in a number of manuscripts of The Imitation of Christ between the first and third books, it has sometimes passed as an unedited book of that work, and was published as such by Dr. Liebner at Göttingen in 1842. Several times reprinted, notably by J. B. Malou in his 1858 Recherches historiques et critiques sur le véritable auteur de l'Imitation, it has been translated into French (Waille, Paris, 1844) under the title L'Imitation de J. C., livre inédit trouvé dans la bibliothèque de Quedlinbourg. It has in great part passed into the Mystica theologia (chap. I) of Henry de Beaume, and into the treatise De Contemplatione (lib. I, art. xxi) of Denis the Carthusian, and, after having inspired Thomas à Kempis and Garcias de Cisneros, it furnished Saint Ignatius himself with some ideas for his Exercises.

• Léon Le Vasseur, Ephemerides Ordinis Cartusiensis, IV (Montreriel, 1892), 540
• Theodorus Petreius, Bibliotheca Cartusiana, sive illustrium sacri Cartusiensis ordinis scriptorum catalogus, p. 131 (Cologne, 1509)
• Joseph Hartzheim, Bibliotheca Coloniensis, p. 117 (Cologne, 1747)

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). "Henry of Kalkar". Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company.