Guest Lecture by Dr. Davide Bagnardi, Henriette Herz Junior Fellow at the KU Center for Advanced Studies "Dialogical Cultures".
The lecture will be held in person, without Zoom transmission. Everyone is welcome, it is not necessary to register in advance.
From 1251, under the guidance of its second abbess, Gertrude of Hackeborn (1232 – 1291 or 1292), the Cistercian monastery of Helfta, east of Eisleben, experienced the period of its maximal cultural flourishing and became the radiating center of Saxon female mysticism in the 13th century, above all due to the co-presence of three intellectual gems of vivid splendor: Mechtilde of Hackeborn, Gertrude of Helfta, and Mechtilde of Magdeburg. Mechtilde of Hackeborn received an excellent education and, in constant dialogue with the divinity, narrated her mystical experiences to an anonymous sister and to Gertrude of Helfta. The nuns, therefore, decided to write down what Mechtilde narrated: the Liber Specialis Gratiae was born. The first five of the seven books that make up the work hinge on Mechtilde’s revelations, the descriptions of the transcendent experiences, which are extremely vivid and endowed with a refined pictorial elegance. Every significant moment is placidly punctuated by the intimate dialogue that the mystic maintains with the Son of God.
The Liber Specialis Gratiae immediately enjoyed considerable success, particularly in northern Europe. Although in all likelihood the first draft of the work actually took place in Latin, some claim that it was written in German. Whatever the actual situation, there is no organic philological study on the Latin text that methodically compares the works of the two mystics who grew up and educated in Helfta, fruits of a common feeling and daily reciprocity, and which reconstructs the intellectual and spiritual mosaic kept inside the monastery. The same problem concerns other aspects of the Liber.
Aim of this project is the accurate reconstruction of the framework of interdependencies in the Latin mystical-literary production of the convent, outlining the lines of development of the cloister’s production and the dialogue with the divinity and the other mystics of the time, with an eye to contemporary women writers.
You can find out more here.