THOMAS a pious and learned regular canon, was born at the village of Kemp, or Kempen, in the diocese of Cologne, in 1380, and took his name from that village. He performed his studies at Deventer, in the community of poor scholars established by Gerard Groot; and there made great progress in the sciences. In 1399 he entered the monastery of the regular canons of Mount St Agnes, near Swol, of which his brother was prior. Thomas à Kempis there distinguished himself by his eminent piety, his respect for his superiors, his charity to his brother canons, and his continual application to labour and prayer. He died in the year 1471, at the age of ninety. The best editions of his works, which consist of sermons, spiritual treatises, and lives of holy men, are those of Paris in 1649, and of Antwerp in 1607. The well-known book De Imitatione Christi, which has been translated into all the languages of the civilized world, though it has commonly been numbered amongst the works of Thomas à Kempis, is also found printed under the name of Gerson; and, on the credit of some manuscripts, it has been since ascribed to the abbot Gerson, of the order of St Benedict. This occasioned a violent dispute between the canons of St Augustin and the Benedictines.