Mechtild of Magdeburg

1207 - 1282

Mechtild of Magdeburg was the first German woman to write poetry and spiritual texts not in Latin but in Middle-High-German. Little is known about her except that she must have been of noble descent and lead her life as a Begine in Magdeburg. (The Begine movement started in the Netherlands and spread throughout Europe in the late middle ages. Groups of unmarried women lived together - often under the spiritual guidance of a Dominican priest - caring for the poor and the sick).
Mechtild, being rather critical in her writings about the decline of morals amongst the clerics of her time, was advised to leave Magdeburg and seek shelter in the convent of Helfta. The tolerant and farsighted Abbess Gertrud of Hakeborn (1231 - 1291) accommodated Mechtild within the Cistercian community. Here Mechtild lived from 1270 until her death in 1282 and wrote her most important work: “The surging light of divinity” (Das fließende Licht der Gottheit).

God has enough of all things, only to touch the soul is never enough for God (St Mechtild of Magdeburg).