catastrophes, such as the conquest of Rome by the Turks, he urges the duke to undertake a crusade. He dedicates to him a treatise on princely government. He advises the duke of Guelders in the conflict with his son. Numbers of noblemen, clerks and burghers come to consult him in his cell at Ruremonde, where he is constantly engaged in resolving doubts, difficulties and questions of conscience.
Denys le Chartreux, or of Rickel, is the most complete type of religious enthusiast at the end of the Middle Ages. His mental range and many-sided energy are hardly conceivable. To mystic transports, ferocious asceticism, continual visions and revelations he unites immense activity as a theological writer. His works fill forty-five quarto volumes. All medieval divinity meets in him as the rivers of a continent flow together in an estuary. Qui Dionysium legit nihil non legit,[1] said sixteenth-century theology. He sums up, he concludes, but he does not create. All that his great predecessors have thought is reproduced by him in a simple and easy style. e wrote all his books himself, and revised, corrected, subdivided and illuminated them. At the end of his life, he deliberately laid down his pen. Ad securae taciturnitatis portum me transferre intendo.[2]
He never knew repose. Every day he recites the psalter almost entirely, and, at any rate, half. He prays continually, while dressing or while engaged in any other occupation. When others go to sleep again after matins, he remains awake. Big and strong, he exposes his body with impunity to all kinds of privations. I have a head of iron, he would say, and a stomach of brass. He feeds, for choice, on tainted victuals.
The enormous amount of theological meditation and speculation which he achieved, was not the fruit of a peaceful and balanced life of study; it was carried out in the midst of intense emotions and violent shocks. Visions and revelations are with him ordinary experiences. Ecstasies come to him on all sorts of occasions, especially: when he hears music, sometimes in the midst of noble company, who are listening to his wise advice. As a child he rose when the moon was
