1	Mysticism, Heresy, and Women in the Middle Ages Permission and Persecution
2	Great Women Mystics of the Later Middle Ages Hadewijch, Gertude the Great Mechthild of Magdeburg Margery Kempe of England Julian of Norwich Marguerite of Porete
3	Importance as Writers Though many credit the Reformation with popularizing the use of the vernacular, it is interesting that the women mystics are important pre-reformation examples of effective writing in their respective native languages. Middle Low German for Mechthild, Flemish for Hadewijch, Old French for Marguerite, English for Kempe and Julian.
4	Place in History Many of these works were “recovered” by students of literature who were seeking examples of the early use of modern languages and published for that reason. Only in comparative recent times have these women mystics been taken with religious and theological seriousness. Many have noted that the Roman Church belatedly recognized both Theresa and Catherine in the 1970s as “Doctors of the Church” in response to mounting pressure from women members.
5	Meaning of their Works Modern feminist theorists have been interested in these women as examples of people whose religious experiences gave them power in their societies. While clearly mystical language was did give many of these women much widely influence than most people in their time, they themselves yearned to be taken seriously for what they said about God and the human relationship to God.
6	Holy Virgins and the Virgin The Great Women Mystics were contemporaries with the great expansion of Marian devotion Francis and the Nativity Dominic and the Rosary Popularity of new Marian titles Our Lady The Star of Heaven The climate of opinion made many people more open to the words of these “holy virgins.” Not surprising, they often envisioned the Birth of Christ. Gertrude the Great had a vision in which she was the midwife of the Christ child.
7	Two Contemporary Reactions Permission Persecution.
8	Permission Gender could be used to give women mystics unusual freedom. Because few of them had political or economic clot, they could given the “freedom of the marginalized.” One could allow women or fools or beggars to say and do outrageous things.
9	Persecution For all the permission that the women mystics received from their position on the margins, they were in constant danger of running afoul of the authorities. Marguerite was burned, but others were silenced or forced into enclosed convents or had their laboriously produced books discarded or misfiled in monastic libraries. Often the history of these women mystics involves the recovery of lost texts.
10	Margery Kempe Since I plan to talk more about other women, I want to mention Margery Kemp first. Perhaps the best example of “permission” in the history. Kempe lived from c.1373-1438. Since she claimed not to be able to read and suffered much in her masterful autobiography, The Life of Margery Kempe, from this, she dictated her book. The voice is clearly, however, her own.
11	Childbirth Margery was a middle class wife of a businessman and the daughter of a businessman. In her life, she gives one of the classic descriptions of the pain of medieval childbirth. She suffered so much that she called for a priest to hear her last confession but she never got to confess the secret sin that she believed was behind her misery.
12	The Vision In the midst of that agony, she recorded: our merciful Lord Christ Jesu, ever to be trusted (worshiped be his name) never forsaking his servant in time of need, appeared to his creature, which had forsaken him, in likeness of a man, most seemly, most beauteous, and most amiable that ever might be seen with man's eye, clad in a mantle of purple silk, sitting upon her bed's side, looking upon her with so blessed a cheer that she was strengthened in all her spirits, said to her these words: "Daughter, why hast thou forsaken me, and I forsook never thee?"
13	Separation After several more children and several business failures, Margery bargained with her husband that she would use her inheritance to pay his debts, if he would release her from her martial obligation to have sexual relations. He did so, and she became a wanderer, living in immediate response to Christ.
14	Palestine and Norwich Margery in obedience to her inner voice, traveled to the Holy Land where she had an affecting vision of the crucifixion and to Norwich to visit Dame Julian. Along the way, she meet many of the most famous English mystics of the time and exchanged insights with them.
15	The Women of the Rhine Hadewijch of Antwerp Mechthild of Magdeburg
16	The Beguines A new form of religious life The Beguines formed religious communities of women that were not traditional monastic orders or new religious brotherhoods, like the Franciscans and the Dominicans. To live together in simplicity and service.
17	The Beguines and the Church Always on the edge of the dialectic between permission and persecution. The Beguines had an interesting position in a western European Christianity that was increasing organized and bureaucratic: they were loyal Christians in doctrine and devotion, but they were not clearly located in the hierarchy or under any clear authority.
18	Social Class The Beguines appear to have comparatively wealthy, either the daughters of nobles, or of the increasingly wealthy middle class. In that sense, they were very much like Margery Kemp, although most beguines could read and write at least their own language and often latin.
19	Too Many Women? One common historical interpretation of the beguine movement is that it provided a place for some of the surplus women in a society where males often died young, either from war or the great killer of young men, accident. This explanation helps us to understand why so many nunneries, beguine houses, and other female establishments, but its flaw is obvious: Why did it produce these remarkably free communities at this time?
20	Growing Wealth and the Apostolic Life The origins of the beguines, it seems to me, are two separate developments: Many women, including Margery Kempe, had more resources to support their own independent actions. We see a similar rise of freedom among middle and upper classed men. (Francis and Dominic) At the same time, many felt a need for what was called the apostolic life, a life in which a person lived with evangelical simplicity and abandoning themselves to God.
21	Apostolic Life In other words, the great Beguine houses were similar to the Franciscan and Dominican establishments that were dotting Europe. This is very evident in the shared language of “courtly love” that can be found in all of the apostolic traditions. Remember that Francis was called God’s Jester and God’s Minstrel. Women, we should remember, tried to join the two great Apostolic Orders in large numbers only to have Rome confine the “Second Orders” of these movements to enclosure and traditional monastic rules. Much bitterness over this exclusion.
22	Mechtild of Magdeburg She had her first religious experiences at age 12 Became a Beguine at about age 23 Like many other women mystics, a bitter critique of the corruptions of the church of her time. Forced to flee to a Dominican nunnery later She flourished in this community at Helfta where she lived with Mechtild of Hackeborn and Gertrude the Great.
23	Mechtild of Magdeberg Her principal book was entitled The Flowing Light of the Godhead. She insisted that God was the author: “I cannot write nor do I wish to write—but I see this book with the eyes of my soul and hear it with the ears of my eternal spirit and feel it in every part of my body the power of the Holy Spirit. . .The writing of this book flowed out of the living Godhead into the heart of Sister Mechtild.
24	The Flowing Light of the Godhead. The book is disjointed, even for mystical writers, and “consists of spiritual poems, prose, songs of divine love, allegories, moral reflections, admonitions , and practical advice.” (Egan 247). Also visions, revelations, and mystical experiences. The manuscript is a collection of loose pages arranged, it is believed, by her confessor, Heinrich of Halle.
25	The Dance of Praise Mechtild Thus she goes into the woods, that is the company of holy people. The sweetest nightengales sing there day and night and she hears also many pure notes of the birds of the holy wisdom. But still the youth does not come. She sends her messengers, for she would dance. He sends her the faith fo Abraham, the chaste modesty of St. Mary, the sacred perfection of our Lord Jesus Christ and the whole company of the elect. Thus there is prepared a noble dance of praise.
26	Dancing with Christ I cannot dance O Lord unless thou lead me. If thou wilt that I leap joyfully Then must Thou Thyself first dance and sing. Then I will leap for love
27	On Creatures slide 1 Fish cannot drown in the water, Birds cannot sink in the air, Gold cannot perish In the refiner’s fire. This has God given to all creatures To foster and seek their own nature, How then can I withstand mine?
28	Love Ah, Lord, love me passionately, love me often, love me long. For the more continuously You love me, the purer I will be; the more fervently You love me, the more beautiful I will be; the longer You love me, the holier I will become here on earth.
29	On Creatures I must to God My Father through nature, My brother through humility My bridegroom through Love, His am I forever!
30	Hadewijch Early thirteenth century. Her life is known primarily thorough her works. Began her religious experiences at age 10. For her, the themes of courtly love are ever present. Many of her poems, if lifted from their religious context, would seem to be erotic verse.
31	Truly Learned Woman wrote thirty-one letters, forty-five poems in stanzas, fourteen visions, sixteen poems in couplets. Knew Latin, rules of rhetoric, numerology, Ptolemaic astronomy, many of the Church fathers, and most of the canonical twelfth-century writers
32	Hadewyck With that he came in the form and clothing of a Man, as he was on the day when he gave us his Body for the first time; looking like a Human Being and a Man, wonderful, and beautiful, and with glorious face, he came to me as humbly as anyone who wholly belongs to another. Then he gave himself to me in the shape of the Sacrament, in its outward form, as the custom is; and then he gave me to drink from the chalice, in form and taste, as the custom is. After that he came himself to me, took me entirely in his arms, and pressed me to him; and all my members felt his in full felicity, in accordance with the desire of my heart and my humanity. So I was outwardly satisfied and fully transported.
33	Hadewych How love, by Love, sees to the depths of the Beloved, Perceiving how Loves lives freely in all things. Yes, when the soul has this liberty, The liberty that Love can give, It fears neither death nor life.
34	Hadewych Poem continues following slide The madness of love Is a rich fief; Anyone who recognized this Would not ask Love for anything else: It can unite Opposites And reverse the paradox. I am declaring the truth about this: The madness of love makes bitter what was sweet, It makes the stranger a kinsman, And it makes the smallest the most proud.
35	Hadewych To souls who have not reached such love, I give this good counsel: If they cannot do more, Let them beg Love for amnesty, And serve with faith, According to the counsel of noble Love, And think: 'It can happen, Love's power is so great!' Only after his death Is a man beyond cure.
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