Confessor, greatest Flemish mystic, prior of Groenendael, born Ruysbroeck, near Brussels, 1293; died Groenendael, 1381. With his uncle John Hinkaert and Francis van Coudenberg, both canons of Saint Gudule's, Brussels, retired to a hermitage at Groenendael in 1343; this was erected into a community of canons regular in 1349. He led a life of extreme austerity, became famous as a sublime contemplative, and skilled director of souls, and was called the Admirable Doctor and the Divine Doctor. His most characteristic treatise on mystical life is "The Spiritual Espousals."
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