Thomas Kempis

Thomas Hemerken was born at Kempen, near Cologne Germany around the year 1380. Though born into a poor family, he received a Catholic Education at the school of the Brethren of the Common Life and entered the Canons Regular in the year 1399 where he took the habit in 1406. For the rest of his life he was widely sought after as a spiritual director. His best-known writing is the great devotional classic of the late middle ages, The Imitation of Christ. He died in 1471. Biography by Dr. Italy