Die geestelike brulocht is the Middle Dutch opus magnum of Jan van Ruusbroec (1293-1381), the Flemish mystic who lived in Brussels as priest at St.-Gudule church before retreating into the Foret de Soignes to become the first prior of the regular canon priory of Groenendaal. In the Brulocht Ruusbroec describes from experience the three stages of the mystical life, culminating in the contemplative life. First known in and around Brussels, and later throughout the Low Countries, Ruusbroec soon became renowned up to the foot of the Alps. The dissemination of Ruusbroec's texts was greatly enhanced by three early Latin translations of Willem Jordaens (? - 1372), a confrere at Groenendaal. His translation of Die geestelike brulocht in particular, as stylistically exuberant as it was accurate with regard to its mystical-theological content, gave Ruusbroec an immense stature. Willem Jordaens's De ornatu spiritualium nuptiarum was soon disseminated in Brabant, France, England and Italy, even reaching present-day Poland. This early distribution was, it seems, brought to a halt by repeated condemnations from c. 1400 on by the Paris chancellor Jean Gerson (1363-1429), the irony being that it was De ornatu that brought Ruusbroec's Geestelike brulocht to Gerson's attention. The value of the text was rediscovered by Jacques Lefevre d'Etaples, who, through the 1512 Paris edition of De ornatu by Henri Estienne, used it in the spread of Christian humanism in sixteenth-century France. Languages: Latin, English.