2. Both the manuscript and the letters were written in the vernacular, Middle High German. For the letters, see the nineteenth-century incomplete, yet only critical edition: Margaretha Ebner und Heinrich von Nördlingen: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der deutschen Mystik, ed. Philipp, Strauch (Freiburg-im-Breisgau: Mohr, 882; reprint, Amsterdam: Schippers N.V., 1966Google Scholar). A new critical edition is desperately needed. A more recent Italian translation offers a helpful apparatus: von Nördlingen, Heinrich, Heinrich von Nördlingen e Margaretha Ebner: le lettere 1332–1350, ed. Lucia, Corsini, preface Donatella Bremer Buono (Pisa: ETS, 2001)Google Scholar. Mechthild of Magdeburg, “Das Flieβende Licht der Gottheit,” ed. Hans, Neumann, vol. 1, Text (München: Artemis, 1990)Google Scholar; vol. 2, Untersuchungen (München: Artemis, 1993). For Heinrich's relationship to Margaret as it changes over time from colleague to hagiographer or “satellite,” and for how to read these kinds of historical documents, see the excellent new chapter by Coakley, John, “Hagiography in Process: Henry of Nördlingen and Margaret Ebner, in Women, Men, and Spiritual Power: Female Saints and Their Male Collaborators (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), 149–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For brief studies on their interaction, see Schmidt, Margot, “An Example of Spiritual Friendship: The Correspondence between Heinrich of Nördlingen and Margaretha Ebner,” in Maps of Flesh and Light: The Religious Experience of Medieval Women Mystics, ed. Ulrike, Wiethaus, trans. Johnson, Susan (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1993), 74–111Google Scholar; Schmidt, Margot, “Der Einfluß Mechthilds von Magdeburg im Süddeutschen Raum,” in Theologie zwischen Zeiten und Kontinenten (für Elisabeth Gössmann), ed. Schneider, T. and Schüngel-Straumann, H. (Freiburg: Herder, 1993), 115–35Google Scholar; Weitlauff, Manfred, “‘dein got redender munt machet mich redenlosz …’ Margareta Ebner und Heinrich von Nördlingen,” in Religiöse Frauenbewegung und mystische Frönmigkeit im Mittelalter, ed. Dinzelbacher, P. and Bauer, D. (Köln: Böhlau, 1988), 303–52Google Scholar; and Poor, Sara, Mechthild of Magdeburg and Her Book: Gender and the Making of Textual Authority (University Park: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), 89–94Google Scholar. For a more detailed introduction to their relationship, see Ebner, Margaret, Major Works, trans. and ed. Leonard, Hindsley, intro. Margot Schmidt and Leonard Hindsley (Mahwah, N.Y.: Paulist, 1993)Google Scholar; and Stoudt, Debra, The Vernacular Letters of Heinrich von Nördlingen and Heinrich Sense (Ph.D. diss., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1986).Google Scholar

3. Under “mysticism” I include all claims of direct experience of the divine. I use “spiritual” more broadly to refer to all issues of religious practice, including the mystical. “Religious” designates both the technical medieval sense of taking vows and the more general thought and practice today's religious studies scholars call religion. By “performance” I mean the common understanding of activity, but I also refer to the field of performance studies, which can help us to pay attention to how words produce particular effects in mystical writings and how people interacted with texts in ways other than intellectualized reading. See note 7.

4. “Ich send euch ain buch das haisst Das liecht der gotthait. dar zu zwinget mich das lebend liecht der hitzigen mine Christi, wan es mir das lustigistz tütsch ist und das innerhchst rürhrend minenschosz, das ich in tützscher sprach ie gelas. eia! ich man euch als des gutz, das got in im selber ist und in diszem buch bewiszt hat. lesent es begirlich mit ainem innern gemerck ewers hertzen and ee irs an vahint ze lesent, so beger ich und gebüit euch in dem heligen geist, das ir im vii Veni sancte Spiritus mit vii venien vor dem altar sprechent und unserm heren und seiner megdlichen mutter Maria auch vii paternoster und Ave Maria sprechent auch mit vii venien, und der junckfroulicher himelscher orgelkunnigin, durch die got ditz himelschs gesang hat usz gesprochen, und allen heiligen mit ir auch vii paternoster und Ave Maria mit vii venien sprechint. une ee brechent das versigelt buch nit uf, ee ir desse gebet tuwend und neme n dar zu alle, die gnad dar zu habint mit ernst, und dar nach vahent an ze lesend sitlichen und nit ze vil und wolchiü wort ir nit verstandint, die zeichend und schribentz mir, so betütsch ichs euch, wan es ward uns gar in fremdem tützsch gelichen, das wir wol zwai jar flisz und argeit hetint, ee wirs ain wenig in unser tützsch brachtint. uberlesent es dri stund, es stat dran ix. ich getrüwe, es sulle ewer sel gnaden vil mer ernst sein. ich wolt es auch gen Engeltal lichen, o Margeretha, hör, tochter, und siche, versich und schawe, wie susz dein lieb ist Christus. Jhesus Chrisrus—amen”: Letter XLIII, Strauch, 246–47.

5. Drage Hale, Rosemary, “Rocking the Cradle: Margeretha Ebner (Be)Holds the Divine,” in Performance and Transformation: New Approaches to Late Medieval Spirituality (New York: St. Martin's, 1999), 211–39Google Scholar; Rublack, Ulinka, “Female Spirituality and the Infant Jesus in Late Medieval Dominican Convents,” Gender and History 6:1 (04 1994): 37–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

6. See Taylor, Mark C., ed., Critical Terms for Religious Studies (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998)CrossRefGoogle Scholar for a representative reworking. It is one of the first introductory reference works to apply the theoretical questions of postmodernism to the discipline of religious studies in a systematic way with the goal of paradigm shifts in our approaches. The essay, “Religion, Religions, Religious,” by J. Z. Smith together with Mark Taylor's introduction help rehearse the discipline's history and name new goals. Other essays such as “experience” help unpack how terms like experience serve as placeholders for many of the assumptions of the Enlightenment, Protestant notions of religion. While historians of religion, sociologists, and anthropologists have long recognized the key category of practice, they have influenced histories of Christianity less pervasively than histories of other religious traditions. Not all scholars, of course, applaud this turn to lived religion and experience, but I believe this approach is vital to complement other historical and theological approaches.

7. Scholars of liturgy, sacraments, and ritual have long concentrated on the performative elements within Christianity. As is often the case in our era of disciplinary specialization, however, their insights are not always incorporated into histories of ideas or the broader history of mysticism. For a concise introduction to the history of the concept of “performance” as it relates to ritual, see Grimes, Ronald, “Ritual and Performance,” in Religion and American Cultures: An Encyclopedia of Traditions, Diversity, and Popular Expressions, ed. Gary, Laderman and Luis, Leon (Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC CLIO, 2003), 2:515–28Google Scholar. For an application of key performative theories to medieval spirituality, see Mary, Suydam and Joanna, Ziegler, ed., Performance and Transformation: New Approaches to Late Medieval Spirituality (Palgrave: Macmillan, 1999)Google Scholar; and the case study by Simons, W. and Ziegler, J. E., “Phenomenal Religion in the Thirteenth Century and Its Image: Elisabeth of Spalbeek and the Passion Cult,” Studies in Church History 27 (1990): 117–26CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For rhetoric in the context of religious studies, see Walter, Jost and Wendy, Olmsted, ed., Rhetorical Invention and Religious Inquiry: New Perspectives (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2000).Google Scholar

8. Women were not prescribed out of performative aspects of Christianity (with the exception of most priestly functions), and in fact, they show great creativity around activities and rituals within their “offices.”

9. From convents to reading groups to “little sisters who live in the woods,” whom we meet in the margins of Heinrich's manuscripts, new sites materialize. How texts move among these people in various locations becomes central to our narrative.

10. The familiar genres of Scripture, scholastic treatises, and commentaries remain essential, but to them we must add lyrical romance, gift lists, community inventories, and personal letters.

11. No other scholar more thoroughly and artfully establishes the essential role of visual culture in interpretation of the medieval spirituality than Jeffrey Hamburger. See his The Visual and the Visionary: Art and Female Spirituality in Late Medieval Germany (New York: Zone, 1998)Google Scholar; The Rothschild Canticles: Art and Mysticism in Flanders and the Rhineland (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1990)Google Scholar; Nuns as Artists: The Visual Culture of a Medieval Convent (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997).Google Scholar

12. Porete, Marguerite, The Mirror of Simple Souls, trans, and intro. Babinsky, Ellen (New York: Paulist, 1993)Google Scholar. Also see the case of Margery Kemp, who endured much ridicule and official resistance for her performative weeping: Lochrie, Karma, Margery Kempe and Translations of the Flesh (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1991).Google Scholar

13. This article is an attempt to define authority in terms of the use of Mechthild's text in Heinrich's letters because this can broaden our understanding of the place of women's mystical texts in Christian history. As such, it seeks to locate the power of the text to influence, the recognition of the text as a source for expertise, and interaction with the text as a location for power. I argue that authority means generative power in this context. In this sense, I am trying to stay clear of canonical arguments (both medieval and modern). That is, I am not arguing that because a woman wrote Mechthild's text, it is authoritative. Nor am I arguing that despite the fact that a woman wrote it, it is authoritative. Rather, I am looking for the way in which it was revered, used, and transmitted in the fourteenth century to help us see the import of this fascinating text.

14. Zemon Davis, Natalie, “Printing and the People,” in Society and Culture in Early Modern France (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1975), 189–226, 192.Google Scholar

15. Mechthild of Magdeburg, “Das Flieβende Licht der Gottheit,” ed. Hans, Neumann, vol. 1, Text; vol. 2, UntersuchungenGoogle Scholar. By far the best English translation, and only one based on Neumann's critical edition, is Mechthild, of Magdeburg, , The Flowing Light of the Godhead, trans. Tobin, Frank (New York: Paulist, 1998)Google Scholar. For two thorough studies in English of interpretive issues regarding Mechthild's book, see Sara Poor; and Tobin, Frank, Mechthild of Magdeburg: A Medieval Mystic in Modern Eyes (Columbia, S.C.: Camden House, 1995)Google Scholar, which also introduces the extensive German scholarship on Mechthild. Two definitive German studies are Ruh, Kurt, Geschichte der abendländischen Mystik, vol. 2, Frauenmystik und Franziskanische Mystik der Frühzeit (München: Beck, 1992), 245–95Google Scholar; and Schmidt's, Margot new modern German translation and commentary in Das fliessende Licht der Gottheit (Stuttgart-Bad Canstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1995).Google Scholar

16. Flowing Light, Prologue.

17. Flowing Light, 2:26.

18. Ibid.

19. McGinn, Bernard, The Flowering of Mysticism: Men and Women in the New Mysticism—1200–1350 (New York: Crossroad, 1998), 141–42Google Scholar. Some controversy exists over whether this ascribes too much authoritative power to these texts. I would argue, however, that this vocabulary helpfully underscores the rhetorical technique and ritualized power of these texts by comparing them to biblical use with which we are more familiar.

20. Flowing Light, 2:26. For a study, see Heimbach, Marianne, Der “ungelehrte Mund” als Autorität: Mystische Erfahrung als Quelle kirchlich-prophetischer Rede im Werk Mechthilds von Magdeburg (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1989).Google Scholar

21. See Poor, for a detailed study of the various strategies in Mechthild's own text and subsequent translations and collections for explaining both the author's and, later, the text's authority.

22. See Beckman, Patricia, “Swimming in the Trinity: Mechthild of Magdeburg's Mystical Play,” Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality 4:1 (spring 2004): 60–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar; McGinn, Bernard, “Three Great Beguine Mystics: Hadewijch, Mechthild, and Marguerite,” in The Flowering of Mysticism: Men and Women in the New Mysticism—1200–1350, 199–265Google Scholar; Hollywood, Amy “The Soul as Hausfrau: Mechthild of Magdeburg's The Flowing Light of the Godhead,” in The Soul as Virgin Wife: Mechthild of Magdeburg, Marguerite Porete and Meister Eckhart (Notre Dame, Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995)Google Scholar; and Schmidt, Margot, “‘die spilende minnevluot.’ Der Eros als Sein und Wirkkraft in der Trinität bei Mechthild von Magdeburg,” in “Eine Höhe über die nichts geh”: Spezielle Glaubenserfahrung in der Frauenrnystik?, ed. Margot, Schmidt and Bauer, Dieter R. (Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt: Frommann-Holzboog, 1986), 71–133.Google Scholar

23. From small tropes and rhetorical devices, Mechthild builds more expansive images and overarching storylines. She scripts her epistemology and theological anthropology into the very structure of the text. Because she stands at the beginning of the turn to vernacular for mystical expression, Mechthild creates much of the vocabulary. For detailed examination of devices and images particular to Mechthild, see Beckman, Patricia Z., “The Rhetoric of Religious Experience in Mechthild of Magdeburg's Flieβende Licht der Gottheit” (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1999)Google Scholar. Two studies trace this same phenomenon in the later German mystic Meister Eckhart, who shares many of Mechthild's stylistic traits along with his own considerable creativity: Tobin, Frank, Meister Eckhart: Thought and Language (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1986)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and McGinn, Bernard, The Mystical Thought of Meister Eckhart: The Man from Whom God Hid Nothing (New York: Crossroad, 2001).Google Scholar

24. Teasing apart the precise textual relationships between Margaret's own revelations and Mechthild's images and rhetorical techniques remains outside the scope of this essay, but is essential for a complete understanding of the two figures and their writings. Though no monograph tracing Mechthild's influence on Margaret exists, for a partial list of Mechthild references, see Schmidt, “An Example of Spiritual Friendship”; for a list of shared images, see Coakley, 158; for preliminary exploration of influence, see Hindsley's introduction to Ebner, Major Works.

25. Ziegler, Joanna E., Sculpture of Compassion: The Pieta and the Beguines in the Southern Low Countries c. 1300–c. 1600 (Brussels: Institut Historique Beige de Rome, 1992).Google Scholar

26. Walker Bynum, Caroline, “Women Mystics and Eucharistic Devotion in the Thirteenth Century,” in Fragmentation and Redemption: Essays on Gender and the Human Body in Medieval Religion (New York: Zone, 1991), 119–50Google Scholar. The best introduction to the beguines is Simons, Walter, Cities of Ladies: Beguine Communities in the Medieval Low Countries, 1200–1565 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

27. For activities around a range of visual artifacts such as choir paintings and illuminated manuscripts, see Jeffrey Hamburger, The Visual and the Visionary. Hamburger also rightly argues that the study of texts and material culture are necessarily inextricable.

28. Some commentators have seen these doll devotions as compensatory for repressed maternity and sexualized language as compensatory for repressed sexuality. Thankfully, that reductive, dismissive approach is now rarely found. The best studies do not swing the pendulum of interpretation the other way and insist that there are no psychological influences. Rather, they look to the psychological, social, and theological environments and listen much more carefully to the words of the women themselves (even when mediated through male confessors and scribes). Still, the emphasis on recovery of specifically women's spiritual lives is a contemporary corrective focus that sets out to undermine patriarchal descriptions of and impositions on history. Margaret, Mechthild, and Heinrich would most certainly prefer that we focus on the theology and would not recognize contemporary projects, such as this one, that outlines the social construction of mysticism.

29. See Hale and Rublack. Hamburger also addresses dolls and their cradles when he traces, in the context of Dominican reforms, tensions between women's use of these objects and male superiors': The Visual and the Visionary.

30. Margaret's fascination with circumcision and the relationship to writing is intriguing. One could speculate that words, like circumcision, are one kind of proof of the incarnation. See the debate between Bynum and Steinberg in Carolyn Walker Bynum, Fragmentation and Redemption; and Steinberg, Leo, The Sexuality of Christ in Renaissance Art and in Modern Oblivion, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996)Google Scholar. The Viennese beguine Agnes Blannbekin wrote often about Christ's circumcision and reported a mystical experience of swallowing Christ's foreskin. I thank an anonymous reader for this comparative reference: Agnes Blannbekin, Viennese Beguine: Life and Revelations, trans, and intro. Wiethaus, Ulrike (Rochester, N.Y.: Boydell and Brewer, 2002)Google Scholar. One can be certain that Margaret did not have in mind the phallocentric concept of language of today's language theorists, but the connection would prove fruitful for their analysis.

31. Ebner, 132– 33.

32. I am not arguing that these women view the authority or even function of these diverse phenomena as identical. Clearly, the Eucharist as one of the seven established sacraments, shared by all Christians, and reinforced as central to piety in Dominican reforms carries a different weight from the writing of mystical texts or activities with the Christ-child doll. It is helpful, however, to see the parallels in function and descriptions of power within these women's texts and convent practices.

33. On modern theoretical projects using medieval mystical sources, note the appropriate cautions and call for respect for historical context in Dreyer, Elizabeth, “Whose Story Is It?—The Appropriation of Medieval Mysticism,” Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality 4:2 (fall 2004): 151–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

34. For the background and details of this dispute, see the introduction by Hindsley in Ebner.

35. Flowing Light, 5:14.

36. One should not assume, however, that convents are completely isolated settings. They engaged with the local world, and mendicants like Henry were remarkably mobile throughout the region.

37. Hale, 216.

38. Here I echo Jantzen's, Grace thesis in Power, Gender, and Christian Mysticism (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995)Google Scholar, though I do not share many of her interpretations of mystical texts. Specifically, I am persuaded that a nineteenth- to twenty-first-century emphasis on private, individualized experience is not the primary mindset or purpose of most medieval mystical texts. I also share with Jeffrey Hamburger, however, an understanding that solitary devotional practices often challenged communal, and therefore more regulated, practices in monastery settings. The point of these solitary events was not distinct from the communal experience of Christianity.

39. Dreyer, 157.

40. These are what Poor (using Brian Stock's work) calls “textual communities”: 93.

41. Strauch, 83.

42. “Umb das püchlein, als du waist, bit ich dich, wan es geschriben si. Das send mir”: Letter LI, Strauch, 264.

43. The Friends of God were a group of lay and religious especially active in Basel, Strasburg, and Köln during the fourteenth century. They were known for their piety and support of mysticism. They particularly revered the writings and visits of Johannes Tauler and Heinrich Suso, and cultivated mystical practice among themselves. For further information, see Lerner, Robert, The Heresy of the Free Spirit in the Later Middle Ages (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972)Google Scholar; and Coakley, 153–57. Heinrich is continually reinforcing the circles of communication. See Letter XLV, Strauch, 249, for an example where he begins with a simple request that the sisters welcome the woman von Valchenstein and her child, but quickly freefalls into an almost frenetic list of interrelations: “Margaretha of the Golden Ring and many other of our friends and especially lord Heinrich von Rinvelden and my mother and sister and a knight, called von Pfaffenheim, and another knight and his wonderful pious wife called von Landsperg.”

44. Groag Bell, Susan, “Medieval Women Book Owners: Arbiters of Lay Piety and Ambassadors of Culture,” Signs (summer 1982): 742–68CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Lesley, Smith and Jane, Taylor, ed., Women and the Book: Assessing the Visual Evidence (London: British Library, 1997).Google Scholar

45. See Stoudt, Debra, The Vernacular Letters of Heinrich von Nördlingen and Heinrich Seuse (Ph. D. diss., University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1986)Google Scholar; and “The Vernacular Letters of Heinrich von Nördlingen,” Mystics Quarterly 12:1 (1986): 19–25Google Scholar, for a detailed analysis of the form of the letters.

46. Tauler, Johannes, Sermons, trans. Shrady, Maria (New York: Paulist, 1985)Google Scholar. Ruh believes that Tauler also knew Mechthild's Flowing Light although his sermons do not cite it directly.

47. “es gruszet nu an dem hailigen wihennachttag das klein lieb kindlein ein andechtigs kint und begert zu im disze funf ding und sprach zu im: ‘gib mir dein sel ze einer wiegen, dein hertz ze einem kussin, dein plut ze einem bad, dein hut ze einer deckin und alle deinii glider zeinem lebenden opfer allem minen liden.’ das geb uns got. Amen”: Letter XXXVIII, Strauch, 234.

48. Letter X, Strauch, 184.

49. Letter VIII, Strauch, 181.

50. “wan des find ich werlich an mir selber nit, als ich dir oft geklagt han”: Letter XVII, Strauch, 198.

51. “nun erlaub mir die broszamlein uf zu lessen, die du risen last von deinem und dines zarten und wol geminten kindes Margretha fisch”: Letter XXXV, Strauch, 227. “es gruszet nu an dem hailigen wihennachttag das klein lieb kindlein ein andechtigs kint und begert zu im disze funf ding und sprach zu im: ‘gib mir dein sel ze einer wiegen, dein hertz ze einem kussin, dein plut ze einem bad, dein hut ze einer deckin und alle deinü glider zeinem lebeden opfer allem minen liden’”: Letter XXXVIII, Strauch, 234.

52. “da von hant dir die selben vier tugend, die dir in dein sel mit dem vinger des hailigen geists geschriben seint, in deinem hertzen mit den her insigeln der vier evangeli dein here Jesus versigelt hat, das die geschrift des ewigen wortz dir inderthalb singen ist so rigen hal des ewigen lobs und der uszer wandel Jhesu Chrsiti deinem wandel also überbildet hat”: Letter VII, Strauch, 180.

53. “lernent vast und lerent die andern und launt nit ab durch got”: Letter XXXIX, Strauch, 235.

54. “eia! frau gar hoche und aller erwirdigú, wie wirt ewer mund so nahen gefügt zu dem mund gotz! owe! gotlicher küsse, owe! gotlich ainiung mit aller menschlicher nature, mach dir ains mit dir deins lieben, plugen kindes sel und hertz, Margrethen! erheb sie uz ir in dich, das si werlich verstand die minne, die sie geseugt, ernert, gelert, umbfangen, enzundet und zu dir, barmhertzigem vatter und got, gantzzes trostes so gar inbrunstigklichen erhebt un einigt hat”: Letter IV, Strauch, 174.

55. “leszent epistolam und evangelium und lections de matutinis alle tag einst, des bit ich euch, und betutent es, es hilft euch wol”: Letter XVI, Strauch 197.

56. “Ich send euch einen andechtigen brief von dem rock gotz, der uns von unsern groszen freinden von Niderland enpfolhen ist, das wir in fürbas unsern friunden santint. den lant euch zu hertzen gan, als dar an geschriben stat, und sagent es all umb ewern guten fruinden”: Letter XL, Strauch, 237.

57. He sends a letter that includes a prayer by Margretha of Augspurg that they are to read aloud, “wollent ir, so lassent si diszen brief horen”: Letter XVII, Strauch, 201. He also requests it back and asks one of the sisters, called Schepach, to correct it and send it back to him. “send mir den brief, da das gebet de corpore Christi an stat, den ich Margaretha von Augsburg sant. und ir, liebe Schepach in Christo, corrigirent mir die gebet und sendent mirs”: Letter XVIII, Strauch, 201. In exchange, he will send another little prayer about the body of Christ to hang on the door for reading “das mügent ir heften an ewers corsz tür, das es mein frawen lessen wen sie wellen”: Letter XVIII, Strauch, 202.

58. “Know also, my holy joyful refuge, that I gave the little book of Schonenvelt, about which you wrote to me to one of those (students) who came from Paris came to Kaisheim, and asked him earnestly to give it immediately to my ladies from Graispach. He promised me that and I am very astonished that he did not do it. I wrote to him about it.” “wisze auch, mein selig freudenreicher zufluct, das ich das buchlin von Schonenvelt, dar umb du mir geschriben hast, dem studenten gab, ir ainem der nun von Parisz komen ist ze Kaisheim, und bat den fliszigklich, das ers meinen frawen von Graispach geb. das gelobt er mir und ich bin sere erschrocken, das er das nit getan hat. dem han ich dar umb geschriben:” Letter XXXII, Strauch, 218.

59. “Ein puch han ich gesant dem prior ze Kaiszheim, das ich das buch das man nent Orologium Sapientiae ze latin, und das ist unszers lieben vatters Taulers, der noch nit kommen ist von Cölen; das haiss dir lihen, so ers erst ab geschribt—das han ich im geschriben—, und schribent es den ab dem convent, das es allzeit bei euch belib. ich getrawe got, das er da von gelobt werd … das buch von dem süszen namen und von der richen minen Jhesu das leszend geren und mit andacht, als ir mir vor geschriben hant und das ich euch nun send, so euch das werd”: Letter XXXV, Strauch, 228–29. For an English translation of Seuse's book, see Seuse, Heinrich, Wisdom's Watch upon the Hours, trans. Colledge, Edmund (Washington D.C.: Catholic University of America Press, 1994).Google Scholar

60. “ich beger auch mit groszem ernste, das ir euch lassint enpfolhen sein umb die drüi teil der Sumen sant Thomas des predigers, die zesamen gehörent, also ich euch auch am nechsten enpfalh, die man ze Augspurg verkauffen wil, wan ich geträwe got, das si mir und mangen menschen nutz werdent mit mir. wan ich nun belieben pin von schule, als du wol weist, so wurd ich dar innen ergötzet aller miner begird, ich weiss nichtz uf erdrich in zergenklichen dingen, das ich gerner hett”: Letter XL, Strauch, 238.

61. “so danck ich dir und der getrüwen priorin, miner lieben frawen und kind in got, umb die buch, die ir mir gesant hant…ich bitt euch auch durch alle träu, das ir mir das buch wider gewinnent Summam contra gentiles, wan irs recht und redlich kauft hant—das wer mir lieber, wan das ir noch zwirnt als vil geltz inen hetint—, ist es sein als gut und als recht, als mir an des selben stat gesant hant, das ist falsch geschriben und ungerecht, und si sint geverlich mit unsz umb gangen. runt ewer vermugen dar zu, das es uns werd, und gebint in nit der fier pfundt. ich hand auch dem prior ernstlich dar umb geschriben”: Letter XLIII, Strauch, 244.

62. Note that vernacular and Latin texts are not separate categories for the highly literate sisters in Maria Medingen. Rather, they categorize the texts in terms of the usefulness for the mystical life and replicating mystical experiences. Here see Poor's work where she addresses the politics of the vernacular. It is helpful to keep in mind Nicholas Watson's arguments against three problematic presumptions often found in vernacular studies: that language politics are always binary, that Latin is inherently the language of cultural authority, and that vernacularization is inherently progressive: “Introduction: King Solomon's Tablets,” in The Vulgar Tongue: Medieval and Postmedieval Vernacularity, ed. Fiona, Somerset and Nicholas, Watson (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2003), 7Google Scholar. For the southern German Dominican context specifically, see Ehrenschwendtner, Marie-Luise, “Puellae litteratae: The Use of the Vernacular in the Dominican Convents of Southern Germany,” in Medieval Women in Their Communities, ed. Diane, Watt (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997)Google Scholar; Ochsenbein, Peter, “Latein und Deutsch im Alltag overrheinischer Dominikanerinnenklöster des Spätmittelalters,” in Latein und Volkssprache im deutschen Mittelalter, ed. Henkel, N. and Palmer, N. F., Regensburger Colloquium 1988 (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer, 1992), 42–51Google Scholar; and Wiethaus, Ulrike “Thieves and Carnivals: Gender in German Dominican Literature of the Fourteenth Century,” in The Vernacular Spirit: Essays on Medieval Religious Literature, ed. Blumenfeld-Kosinski, R., Robertson, D., and Warren, N. Bradley (New York: Palgrave, 2002), 210–38.Google Scholar

63. Though this could be a rare and isolated example, works such as the sister books show that these events repeat themselves throughout the region: Jaron Lewis, Gertrud, By Women, for Women, about Women: The Sister-books of Fourteenth-century Germany (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 1996)Google Scholar. Several other works also document the partnership between confessor and mystical woman, with the woman emerging as the expert in transformative experience. For example, see the Sister Katherine treatise in Schweitzer, Franz-Josef, Die Freiheitsbegriff der deutschen Mystik: seinen Beziehung zur Ketzeri der “Brüder und Schwestern vom Freien Geist” mit besonderer Rücksicht auf den pseudoeckartischen Traktat “Schwester Katrie” (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 1981)Google Scholar, or translated in an appendix to Meister Eckhart: Teacher and Preacher, ed. Bernard, McGinn with Frank, Tobin and Elvira, Borgstadt (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist, 1986), 347–88Google Scholar. Also see the nine case studies analyzed in Coakley.

64. “ein ewigs zusamenstricken dein und sein in drier person drutkemerlin”: Letter XLVI, Strauch, 251.

65. Margarete Porete, The Mirror of Simple Souls, trans. E. Babinsky; Eckhart, Meister, The Essential Sermons, Commentaries, Treatises, and Defense, trans. Colledge, Edmund and McGinn, Bernard (New York: Paulist, 1981).Google Scholar

66. “Prologue to the Lux Divinitatis,” in Flowing Light, trans. Tobin, 31–33; Solesmes, Monks(Louis Paquelin), ed., Revelationes Gertudianae ac Mechthildianae, vol. 2, Sororis Mechthildis Lux divinitatis (Poitiers: Ouiden, 1875–1877).Google Scholar

67. In the British Museum manuscript. Other examples of the copyists' insertion into later performances of the text can be found in the Sister Books. See Lewis, By Women, for Women, about Women.

68. An anonymous reviewer helpfully suggested the following parallel. Guibert of Gembloux's prayerful reading of a letter from Hildegard of Bingen suggests several similarities in pattern: placement of the parchment on the altar, prostrations, prayers to the Spirit, and clergy-lay interaction around the letter. See Epistle 18, in Guiberti Getnblacensis epistolae: quae in codice B.R. Brux. 5527–5534 inueniuntur, part 1 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1988–1989), 225–34.Google Scholar