This book explores the rich and varied mystical writings by and about medieval – and a few early modern – women across Western Europe. Women had a profound and lasting impact on the development of medieval and early modern spiritual and mystical literature, both through their own writing and as a result of the hagiographical texts that they inspired. Bringing together contributions by both established and emerging scholars, the volume provides a valuable overview of medieval mystical women with a special focus on the Low Countries and Italy, regions that produced a disproportionately high number of female mystics. The figures discussed range from Hildegard of Bingen, Hadewijch, Mechthild of Magdeburg, Marguerite Porete, Angela of Foligno, Julian of Norwich, and Beatrice of Nazareth to lesser-known women such as Agnes Blannbekin, Christina of Hane, and Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi. The chapters address topics such as the body, pain, desire, ecstasy, stigmata, annihilation, virtue, visions, the tension between exterior and interior experience, and the nature of mystical union itself.

John Arblaster is  Associate Professor of the history of spirituality in the Low Countries at the Ruusbroec Institute, University of Antwerp and Assistant Visiting Professo rat the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven.

Rob Faesen is Jesuitica Chair Emeritus at the Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, KU Leuven, and the Francis Xavier Chair at the Tilburg School of Catholic Theology, and is also Professor Emeritus at the Ruusbroec Institute, University of Antwerp.

Table des matières :

1. Mystical Hagiography in the Thirteenth Century: The Low Countries and Italy

Alessandra Bartolomei Romagnoli

2. Annihilated Women in the Thirteenth Century

Bernard Mcginn

3. Hidden Marks of Leadership: Holy Women and Invisible Stigmata in the Late Middle Ages

Carolyn Muessig

4. ‘Enarrabiliter’: The Separation of Visionary Experience and Communicable Form in Hildegard of Bingen’s Vision Books

Dinah Wouters

5. Gender and Feminine Virtue in Bernard of Clairvaux and Hadewijch

Kenneth Hoyt

6. Kenotic Christology, Poverty, and Annihilation in Clare of Assisi and Angela of Foligno

Michael Hahn

7. Mysticism by the Numbers: Beatrice of Nazareth’s Seven Manners of Love and Ida of Nivelles’ ‘Eight Topics of Contemplation’

Lydia Shahan

8. Spiritual Edifices: Beatrice of Nazareth’s Monastery of the Heart and Agnes Blannbekin’s Urban Stations of Christ

Amanda J. Langley

9. The Mystic as Symbol: Ecstasy as Liturgical Participation in the Vita of Beatrice of Nazareth

Samantha Slaubaugh

10. ‘I Want to Die Living’: The Entanglement of Death and Desire in Mechthild of Magdeburg

Amy Maxey

11. Spiritual Vision in Corporeal Space: The Power of Performative Language in the Mystical Life of Christina of Hane

Racha Kirakosian, Translated by Philip Liston-Kraft

12. Can This Text Still Speak? Reading Julian of Norwich’s Prayer for Illness as (Fully a Part of) a ‘Classic Text’ of Embodied Mysticism

Andrew K. Lee

13. The Theological Virtues, Interiorisation, and Theological Anthropology in The Evangelical Pearl

Rik Van Nieuwenhove

14. The Blood and the Word: The Mystical Speech Acts of Maria Maddalena de’ Pazzi

Henry Barrett

Informations pratiques :

Medieval Mystical Women in the West. Growing in the Height of Love, éd. John Arblaster, Rob Faesen, Londres, Routledge, 2024 ; 1 vol., 304 p. ISBN : 978-1-03212-349-3. Prix : GBP 108,00.

Source : Routledge