The power of books and the practice of mysticism in the fourteenth century: Heinrich of Nordlingen and Margaret Ebner on Mechthild's Flowing Light of the Godhead

Church History, March, 2007 by Patricia Zimmerman Beckman

In 1345 a manuscript accompanied by a letter arrived at the Dominican convent of Maria Medingen in southern Germany. The sender, a secular priest named Heinrich of Nordlingen, and the primary recipient, the Dominican visionary nun Margaret Ebner, had already enjoyed an extended correspondence, interspersed with a few intense face-to-face visits in the convent. (2) Because the manuscript arriving that day was a thirteenth-century woman's mystical treatise (the beguine Mechthild of Magdeburg's Flowing Light of the Godhead), and because Margaret and her sisters in the convent Maria Medingen used this woman's text in what could initially seem peculiar and dynamic ways, this manuscript and these letters can tell us much about the authority and performance of women's mysticism in medieval religion. (3) Mechthild's and Heinrich's texts serve as key examples, which reveal how women's mystical texts were authoritative in the history of Christianity. Namely, medieval audiences assessed mystical authority on the basis of the text's ability to produce the experience in them, and mystical texts required proper performance in order to unleash their generative power.

Heinrich wrote to his beloved Margaret, whom he adoringly addressed the "true healer of [his] wounded heart," his "pearl," and a real "friend of God":

   I am sending you a book called The Light of the Godhead. I was
   compelled to do this by the living light of the fiery love of Christ
   because it is the most pleasing German and the innermost stirring
   blast of love that I ever read in the German language. Oh! I
   recommend to you all of the treasure that God is in himself and has
   shown in this book. Read it eagerly with an inner concentration of
   your heart and before you begin to read, I beseech you and recommend
   in the Holy Spirit that you pray seven Come Holy Spirits to [the
   Spirit] with seven prostrations before the altar, and to our Lord
   and his maidenly mother Mary also say seven Our Fathers and Hail
   Marys with seven prostrations, and to the heavenly virginal queen,
   the organ through whom God has expressed this heavenly song and to
   all holy ones with her also say seven Our Fathers and Hail Marys
   with seven prostrations. And do not even open the sealed book, until
   you have done these prayers and brought to them all who have the
   grace to do them earnestly. And thereafter begin to read, properly,
   and not too much. Whatever words you do not understand, mark
   them, and write them to me. I will translate them into German,
   because it was lent to us in such a strange German that we had to
   spend two years of hard effort and work before we brought it even
   a little into our German. Read it three times, inside it says nine.
   I trust it should make your soul's grace much more earnest. I also
   want you to lend it to Engeltal. O Margaretha, listen, daughter,
   and see, consider, and behold how sweet your lover Christ is. In
   Jesus Christ. Amen. (4)

Heinrich's elaborate liturgical directions for experiencing the book he sent to Margaret and her sisters echo the careful processions and performances around ornately decorated editions of the Word of God, that is, the Gospels. They also echo other convent performances, those with a Christ-child effigy--rocking, reverencing, mothering Christ as a small wooden doll. (5) Why was the book he sent worthy of such important ritualized activity? Most specifically, what does this exchange expose about women's mystical books and their place in religious practice? In what follows, I use Heinrich's correspondence to contend that one woman's mystical treatise, Mechthild's Flowing Light of the Godhead, functioned authoritatively because it evoked mystical experience in its audience. There are different criteria for authority in the Middle Ages. Common and readily recognizable criteria include canon, office, and social status. Heinrich's letters show us that for mystical texts, there was also an authority based on generative properties. If a text could stir its readers to the mystic life, then it could be used in ways similar to other objects that connect divine and human. Because of its productive power, medieval readers at the Dominican convent of Maria Medingen were directed to handle Mechthild's mystical treatise as a sacred object, making sacramental use of a spiritual document. They interacted with it in ways that paralleled other sacramental objects such as the official sacrament of the Eucharist and the para-liturgical use of a Christ-child effigy.

I begin with a brief introduction to this study's methodological and theoretical underpinnings. I argue that we must look to the literary quality of women's mystical texts, but also to their use in literary and ritual exchange, to understand their full impact on medieval religious history. A project combining literary and performative aspects of mysticism is a place where detailed technical work on medieval manuscripts and large-order, theoretical questions from religious studies can enrich one another and help us to understand the religious life of women. The experiences and transports of Mechthild, Margaret, and Heinrich offer insights into both the medieval world and our own understanding of how religious texts work. Next, in the body of the article, I offer conclusions based on reading Mechthild's and Heinrich's writings through these theoretical lenses. I will argue that these works together highlight divine experience as incarnate in books, objects, and sacraments. Key to understanding both the practitioners and the works is the pious interaction of medieval performers with their texts.