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21 - Mechthild of Magdeburg at Helfta: A Study in Literary Influence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 April 2020

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Summary

Medieval women writers too often confront us as lonely figures, on the margins of the usual networks of literary exchange and influence. It is rare that that we are able to trace one female author's direct influence on another, as we can with Hildegard of Bingen's Scivias and Elisabeth of Schonau's Liber viarum Dei, or Hadewijch's Rhymed Letters (Mengeldichten) and those of her disciple, “Hadewijch II.” An especially fascinating case is afforded by the beguine Mechthild of Magdeburg and the nuns of Helfta. The mystical beguine is thought to have entered Helfta around 1270 in her old age, though we do not know exactly when she was born or died. What we do know is that, because of encroaching blindness, she had to dictate the seventh and last book of her Flowing Light of the Godhead (Das fließende Licht der Gottheit) to the nuns. Several of these nuns would soon become authors themselves, recording the revelations of two gifted seers in their midst – Mechthild of Hackeborn and her protegee, St. Gertrude the Great. Between 1291 and 1302 the nuns produced two massive Latin tomes, The Book of Special Grace (Liber specialis gratiae) about Mechthild of Hackeborn's revelations, and The Herald of God's Loving-Kindness (Legatus divinae pietatis) about Gertrude’s. The last book of The Flowing Light includes several remarks about Helfta, while the beguine is referenced in both of the nuns’ volumes as “Sister M.” Mechthild of Magdeburg looms especially large in the Book, where her literary influence is apparent from beginning to end. Although that general fact has long been recognized, there has thus far been no study showing exactly how the fiery German mystic influenced the nuns who cocooned her old age in respect and care.

By the end of her long sojourn in Magdeburg, Mechthild was something of a public figure: she was read, admired, criticized, and feared. Before her departure for Helfta she had become the head of a perhaps unruly beguine community.

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Publisher: Boydell & Brewer
Print publication year: 2020

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