Mechthild of Magdeburg : selections from The flowing light of the Godhead / translated from the Middle High German with introduction, notes, and interpretive essay [by] Elizabeth A. Andersen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mechthild, of Magdeburg, approximately 1212-approximately 1282.

Contributor:

Andersen, Elizabeth (Elizabeth A.)

Series:

Library of medieval women 1369-9652

Library of medieval women, 1369-9652

Standardized Title:

Fliessende Licht der Gottheit. Selections. English. 2003

Language:

English

German

Subjects (All):

Visions.

Private revelations.

Spiritual life--Catholic Church.

Spiritual life.

Physical Description:

170 pages ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Cambridge [England] ; Rochester, NY : D.S. Brewer, 2003.

Summary:

Selections from this widely varied original mystical treatise offer insight into the lives of C13 female religious in northern Europe. The Flowing Light of the Godhead was written between c.1250 and c.1282. It integrates visions, auditions, dialogues, prayers, hymns, lyrical love poems, letters, allegories and parables, and draws on hagiography, the disputation, the treatise, and magic spells. Within the context of German literary history, it is the first text in the tradition of mystical writing that was neither a translation nor a free adaptation of a Latin text, but rather an independent composition in the vernacular. Mechthild lived her adult life as a beguine, and latterly as a nun, and the text thus offers insight into the cultural and social-historical context of the female religious in thirteenth-century northern Europe.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [155]-164) and index.

ISBN:

085991786X

OCLC:

51818594