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 other ways, too, Mechthild's authority comes straight from its divine source Her theological anthropology says human souls are made in Trinity, flow out of it, and will flow back into it. (22) She writes that rhythm into her poetry itself, thus evoking a kind of reciprocity in love. (23) She encourages all her readers to emulate her soul's experience. Her book and the mystical dance it models, she suggests, will hurtle her audience into ecstatic communication with God.

In addition to Mechthild's text, the women of Ebenthal employed a variety of objects that served as a meeting point between divine and human. (24) Their activities paralleled other medieval women s practices. For example, we know that beguines in the Low Countries incorporated activities and elaborate prayers around life-size pietas. (25) We have extensive investigations into medieval women's, and especially beguines', detailed reflections on and participation in eucharistic rituals. (26) In fact, there are many locations for performative, evocative ritual activities. (27) By prioritizing these activities, we can pay attention to how medievals performed ritual parallels to liturgical, sacramental rites with mystical texts, exploiting the revelatory power of these texts. To do that, we will find it helpful first to show a practice of distinct importance at the convent Maria Medingen and one which integrates the Christ child, Eucharist, and mystical writing in the life and practice of fourteenth-century women's religious experience.

While others have explored medieval women's use of dolls in fuller detail, I would like to examine the practice simply to show a similarity of pattern. That is, the nuns in Maria Medingen believed the dolls transmitted the power of the represented deity and that by interacting with these dolls, they could enact their deep relationships with their God. (28) Margaret's doll use and Heinrich's advocacy for manuscript use parallel one another. Together they reveal an approach to women's pieties that emphasizes immediate presence of the divine and women's capacity to evoke that divinity.

Margaret connects her own authority to write her mystical accounts to her performance with a Christ-child doll, linking layers of authorizing performance. (29) In her Revelations she makes the relationship explicit:

   Then, while I was writing this little book, the greatest
   delight and sweetest grace came upon me concerning the childhood
   of our Lord.... Since I have begun to write this little book I have
   taken great delight in the childhood of our Lord--especially when
   I am actually writing--especially his circumcision. (30) ... During
   the day I let him accomplish in me whatever He willed in love and
   mercy, and then the delight I had taken in the statue [of the
   infant Christ] changed into delight in the Holy Sacrament. (31)

Here Margaret moves in ways that may be bewildering to modern readers, from a discussion of the Christ child to writing her mystical text and then on to the experience of the Eucharist as sacrament. The conflation of these activities makes sense to her because she sees them all as locations of encounter and presence. And in each she describes her role in the experiential encounter as similar. (32) By interacting with the child, writing her book, and taking the sacrament, she plays a central role in the encounter. She enacts, or performs, the presence. When the Christ child will not sleep, for example, he demands to be picked up and held. Performing as "mother" serves as a catalyst for her writing. Taking care of Christ thus takes a variety of forms for Margaret. This passage alone shows us three forms of Christ care, which she considers interrelated. One form is rocking the effigy who, she reports, as a result of her care, animates and informs her, responding to her questions in dialogue form. Her rocking therefore brings about the immediate, dialogical relationship between Christ and Margaret. She nurtures the doll in order to nurture extensive, interactive conversation with the divine. Another form of encounter with Christ is in her writing, inscribing the Christ who comes alive through the text to inform her and her community. Her text can have a Christlike effect on her audience, producing an encounter. A third form is participating in the Eucharist. Here, by partaking of the consecrated host after extended liturgical preparation, Margaret can directly, tactilely encounter the divine. All are sites of revelatory power, and all demand Margaret's action to unleash that divine-human immediacy.