The Imitation of Christ
De Imitatione Christi
Catalogue updated 2026-06-08
Full Sub Rosa translationRead the full translationOpen reader →Open the chapter reader with the full English translation, source text, notes, and scripture echoes.What is The Imitation of Christ?
Written by Thomas à Kempis in the Netherlands in the circle of the Brethren of the Common Life — the same Devotio Moderna movement that directly shaped Margaret of York's documented devotional practice and the piety of Isabella of Portugal at the Burgundian court — the Imitation became the most copied vernacular religious text in 15th-century Europe…
Quid prodest tibi alta de Trinitate disputare, si careas humilitate?
Our renderingWhat does it profit you to dispute profoundly of the Trinity, if you lack humility?
What it is
Written by Thomas à Kempis in the Netherlands in the circle of the Brethren of the Common Life — the same Devotio Moderna movement that directly shaped Margaret of York's documented devotional practice and the piety of Isabella of Portugal at the Burgundian court — the Imitation became the most copied vernacular religious text in 15th-century Europe, circulating in thousands of manuscripts and hundreds of early printed editions. Its four books move from the vanity of worldly learning through conformity to Christ, inward consolation, and finally the sacrament of the Eucharist, forming a complete program of interior conversion. No specific ducal inventory copy has been identified linking this text to Valois-Burgundy by name, but its presence in court circles of this era and region is established through movement history rather than document. It remains the second most widely read Christian book after the Bible.
Why it still matters
The Imitation's four books provide a complete and self-contained daily formation program still widely used today; readers can take one short chapter per day as a substitute for a longer lectio divina, allowing the text to reshape the interior life over months.
Common questions
What is the Imitation of Christ about?
Answer-first notes for readers and search engines
What is the Imitation of Christ about?
The Imitation of Christ, composed by Thomas à Kempis around 1418 to 1427, is a devotional guide to interior conversion and the following of Christ. Across its four books it counsels humility, detachment from worldly ambition, inward consolation, and Eucharistic devotion, treating the spiritual life as a matter of the heart rather than of learning or outward display.
Who wrote the Imitation of Christ and when?
The Imitation of Christ was written by Thomas à Kempis in Latin, as De Imitatione Christi, around 1418 to 1427. It grew out of the Devotio Moderna, the late-medieval reform movement that shaped much of European piety, and became perhaps the most widely read Christian devotional work after the Bible.
Where can I read the Imitation of Christ in English?
You can read the Imitation of Christ in English at Sub Rosa, which publishes a complete modern-English translation of all four books free online. Thomas à Kempis's early fifteenth-century Latin original has never left circulation, and the work's short chapters suit slow, prayerful daily reading across every Christian tradition.
The Imitation of Christ companion
Day 31 doesn't have to be the day you stop
Chosen Portion continues the same practice — a short historic reading every morning, from the Imitation and dozens of works like it.
The Imitation was written to be read in small daily portions in community; Chosen Portion restores exactly that cadence with the full 114-chapter text on a daily schedule.
- One curated portion daily, sized to read in under 10 minutes
- The full Imitation of Christ in a modern readable translation, all 114 chapters
- Keep a daily streak through the whole book in about 4 months
Kept alongside
Prayer Book of Charles the Bold
Livre de prières de Charles le Téméraire
Court payment records of January and July 1469 document payments to scribe Nicolas Spierinc and illuminator Lieven van Lathem respectively for what is now J. Paul Getty Museum Ms. 37 — Charles the Bold's personal pocket prayer book. The small volume grew across two illumination campaigns to contain 47 miniatures and decorated borders on every page, the second campaign (c. 1480–1490) added by a French illuminator after Charles's death in 1477. Its contents are Christocentric and Marian: penitential collects, prayers before and after Communion, litanies, and suffrages to patron saints, reflecting the Burgundian court's ideal of intense private piety fused with luxury craftsmanship. As an intimate personal companion carried by a ruling duke, it represents the highest expression of late-medieval lay devotion.
Book Altar of Philip the Good
Livre-autel de Philippe le Bon
A singular object in the history of Burgundian devotion, this manuscript combines a portable painted diptych — showing the Trinity and the Coronation of the Virgin — with Latin and French prayers that Philip the Good used for daily quiet meditation until his death in 1467. Philip personalised it over decades by attaching 22 pilgrim badges whose lead offsets survive pressed into the pages, making it a layered record of his actual pilgrimage piety. Around 1500 it was enlarged with 39 additional miniatures by the Master of the Prayer Books of c. 1500, probably for a later Burgundian owner. The image-and-prayer format embodies the Devotio Moderna ideal that seeing and praying should be simultaneous acts.
Benois seront les misericordieux
The companion volume to the Dyalogue, this anthology compiled by Nicolas Finet for Margaret of York draws on biblical texts and early Christian writers to guide the 'active life' of public charity through the framework of the Seven Corporal Works of Mercy. Margaret's copy (Royal Library of Belgium, MS 9296) includes miniatures depicting her personally performing each act of mercy, framing the text as both instruction and devotional mirror. Before her death in 1503 she bequeathed it to her step-granddaughter Margaret of Austria, giving it a second generation of noble female readership. The Carthusian provenance of the Latin sources Finet drew on reflects the Devotio Moderna current that ran through much of Burgundian court piety in the later fifteenth century.