author
active 15th century von Kastl Johannes
A Benedictine monk from Kastl in the Upper Palatinate, he wrote influential late medieval devotional and theological works. His books gather wisdom from earlier Christian tradition and turn it into practical guidance for religious life.
1 Audiobook
Le specule des pecheurs
by active 15th century von Kastl Johannes
About the author
Johannes von Kastl was a Benedictine monk at Kastl Abbey in what is now Bavaria. Sources describe him as a significant ascetic writer, a compiler, and a theological author, and place him in the late 14th and early 15th centuries; he is recorded as being mentioned in 1388 and as having died sometime after 1426.
His writing belongs to the world of late medieval monastic devotion. Rather than aiming for novelty, he is remembered for collecting and organizing earlier learning from authorities such as the Church Fathers and scholastic tradition, shaping it into works meant to support spiritual discipline and reflection.
That makes him an interesting figure for modern readers: not just a solitary author, but a careful transmitter of a whole religious culture. His surviving reputation rests on devotional and theological texts associated with Kastl and with the broader reform-minded monastic life of his time.