The Rose Garden

Johann Herolt OP (~1390-1468), a Dominican friar of Nrnberg, was the most prolific sermonist of fifteenth century Europe, producing a huge and widely used library of sermon materials under the penname Discipulus. For nearly forty years, Johann Herolt was teacher, preacher, confessor, administrator, and advocate of the sisters of St Katharines, the Dominican sister house. While he was vicar of St Katharines in 1436, he preached to the sisters a series of Advent, Christmas, and New Year sermons, using the imagery of an enclosed garden in which the rose tree of eternal wisdom grows a garden surrounded by the wall of the fear of God, and entered by the strait gate of diligence. His heartfelt discourse was about the monastic virtues of humility, patience, and obedience. The sermons were never published. The manuscript is a partial reconstruction from verbatim notes of a series of Advent, Christmas and New Year sermons.