Mechthild of Magdeburg: Selections from The Flowing Light of the Godhead

Selections from this widely varied original mystical treatise offer insight into the lives of C13 female religious in northern Europe.

Here is one of the great surprises of German medieval literature. Compiled between c.1250 and c.1282, it is an extraordinary piece of imaginative writing. It integrates visions, auditions, dialogues, prayers, hymns, lyrical love poems, letters, allegories and parables, and draws creatively on features from hagiography, the disputation, the treatise, and magic...