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The late-medieval reform movement of Modern Devotion (_devotio moderna_) has heretofore been understood as overwhelmingly “moralistic” rather than mystical (Van Engen, 15). However, as the late Anne Bollmann argued, the Modern Devotion needs to be reassessed as a movement very much in line with medieval mysticism: after all, it takes as its core theme the “inner encounter with God as the goal of the devout, ascetic life” (Bollmann, 237). I argue that the spirituality of the women associated with the Modern Devotion can only adequately be understood when its grounding in medieval mystical theology is thoroughly appreciated. This is based on numerous findings of mystical themes in the vernacular texts of the Sisters of the Common Life. These Sisters were the women who, along with lay men, comprised one branch of the Modern Devotion, a movement that pursued the renewal of personal piety and of Christian community and flourished in and around the Low Countries from the late fourteenth well into the sixteenth century. Themes such as _gelatenheid_ (Cf. Eckhart), _godformicheid_ (Cf. Ruusbroec), and _neiging_ (Cf. William of St. Thierry), as well as accounts of overwhelming fiery devotion (such as that of Sister Gese Brandes), all demonstrate that medieval mysticism provided an important foundation and nourishment for the Modern Devotion. This paper employs recent theoretical work on women’s spirituality and on mysticism in the Christian tradition (explained below) to examine how Sisters of the Common Life received, incorporated, and refashioned the theological resources of medieval Christian mysticism, particularly as is evidenced in the vernacular texts authored for, about, and by the Sisters themselves.
The need to apply more up-to-date historiography of medieval women’s spirituality to the Sisters of the Common Life is demonstrated well by Koorn’s 1992 article “_Hollandse nuchterheid?_” – one of the few investigations of mysticism in the women’s communities associated with the Modern Devotion. Koorn investigates traces of mysticism among the Sisters under the assumption – brought to the fore by Bynum’s groundbreaking work – that medieval women’s spirituality was more likely than men’s to be associated with ecstasies, stigmata, levitations, affective piety, devotion to the Eucharist, and suffering (Koorn, 97). Hollywood has since critiqued and tempered of Bynum’s claims, and historians have become more aware of the need to avoid not only essentializing claims about women’s spirituality but also ventriloquizing claims that substitute the descriptions of or prescriptions for women’s spirituality by men in place of women’s own accounts.
It is time for a renewed analysis of the traces of mysticism in the spirituality of women associated with the Modern Devotion, incorporating these historiographic considerations. While Bollmann herself continued to focus on bridal mysticism and documented accounts of apparitions, miracles, and other “extrasensory perceptions,” such as auras and levitations, in the writings of the Devout (Bollmann, 240-242), I aim to expand the heuristic of analysis beyond miraculous experiences and into the realm of theological discourse by examining how the Sisters of the Common Life received, incorporated, and refashioned theological resources of medieval mysticism.
My intervention is, thus, partly motivated from a desire to shift focus away from women as experiencers of paranormal phenomena and toward women as adaptors, negotiators, and developers of theology. My work also stems from a desire to shift focus from phenomenological studies of mystical experiences toward the elements of mystical theology that gave a foundation to and nourishment for the New Devotion.
By focusing on theological discourse rather than paranormal occurances within the texts of the Sisters, my dissertation participates in and furthers several important turns in the scholarship on mysticism. These include, first, a shift away from a narrow focus on the annihilation of the human being in an indistinct union with God and an opening of the paradigm to consider a wide array of mystical “categories” and mystical “elements” in the tradition, which deserve examination as such (McGinn, xvi–xvii). I have found various themes in the Sisters’ writings that relate to Rhineland mysticism, such as detachment, and Brabantine mysticism, such as ‘common love’ and the god-conformity of unmediated union. These require scholarly attention.
Secondly, many scholars have come to accept as foundational the premise that mysticism is a feature of particular religions, deeply informed by its larger spiritual tradition as well as its historical context, along with the premise that the historical study of Christian mysticism entails not the study of subjective states and experiences that are ultimately “inaccessible to historical investigation,” but rather the study of texts (Leppin, 49).
My work focuses on the vernacular texts of the Sisters themselves, demonstrating that the Sisters received and engaged with a robust tradition of mystical theology and that their spirituality cannot be adequately understood without considering this aspect of their devotion, as mediated through their literary work. Consequently, my research will not only cultivate deeper understandings of lesser-treated female figures in this consequential religious movement but will also deepen historians’ understandings about the spirituality of the _devotio moderna_ broadly speaking.
Works Cited
Bollmann, Anne. 2014. “The Influence of the _devotio moderna_ in Northern Germany.” In _A Companion to Mysticism and Devotion in Northern Germany in the Late Middle Ages_, edited by Anne Simon, Elizabeth Andersen, and Henrike Lähnemann, 231-259. Leiden: Brill.
Bynum, Caroline Walker. 1987. _Holy Feast and Holy Fast: the Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women_. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Hollywood, Amy. 2016. _Acute Melancholia and Other Essays: Mysticism, History, and the Study of Religion_. New York, NY: Columbia University Press.
Koorn, Florence W J. 1992. “_Hollandse nuchterheid?_ De houding van de Moderne Devoten tegenover vrouwenmystiek en -ascese.” _Ons geestelijk erf_ 66 (1): 97-114.
Leppin, Volker. 2014. “Luther’s Roots in Monastic-Mystical Piety.” In _The Oxford Handbook of Martin Luther’s Theology_, edited by Robert Kolb, Irene Dingel, and L’Ubomír Batka, 49–61. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
McGinn, Bernard. 1991. _The Foundations of Mysticism_. New York: Crossroad.
Van Engen, John. 1988. _devotio moderna_: Basic Writings. New York: Paulist Press.