Philosophy-RAG-demo/transcriptions/HoP 237 - Begin the Beguine - Hadewijch and Mechthild of Magdeburg.txt

 Hi, I'm Peter Adamson and you're listening to the History of Philosophy podcast, brought to you with the support of the Philosophy Department at King's College London and the LMU in Munich, online at www.historyoffilosophy.net. Today's episode, Begin the Begin, Hardewich and Mechthild of Magdeburg. By now, you probably feel you have a good understanding of what philosophy was like in the 13th century. It was often highly technical, marked as it was by the use of new logical tools. Though theology was the highest science, philosophical problems were often pursued with less reference to religious doctrine than to Aristotle and other works made newly available in Latin translation. And of course, it was undertaken at the newly founded universities, by men who were usually clerics and always wrote in Latin. For this episode, you can forget all that. We're about to see that at this same time philosophical works were written outside the university context, by women, without using Aristotle or the newfangled logic, and in vernacular languages instead of the Latin of the schoolmen. The protagonists of our story will be Hardewich and Mechthild of Magdeburg. Hardewich's dates are uncertain, but she lived in the first part of the 13th century. Mechthild was born in about 1208 and died in about 1282 at the convent of Helfta. They were extraordinary figures, though not entirely unique. Among the thinkers we've met so far, the obvious comparison is Hildegard of Bingen. But the occasional use of a German word notwithstanding, Hildegard wrote in Latin, as much a part of her claim to authority as the visions she claimed to have received from God. As for figures yet to come, we won't have to wait until the Renaissance to meet other women and men who wrote in vernacular languages. Most obviously, there will be philosopher mystics like Meister Eckhart who wrote in German. A less obvious, but still illuminating comparison might be Eckhart's near-contemporary Dante Alighieri. Of course, his Divine Comedy is in Italian, but he also composed treatises in Latin, one of which is, ironically, devoted to the literary merits of the vernacular. Dante had access to educational and political opportunities that would have been closed to Hardewich, Mechthild, and the women thinkers of his own day. But like them, he was working outside the institutional framework of the universities. His case, along with others we'll be coming to in due course, shows that it was not only mystical authors who could contribute to medieval philosophy without being schoolmen. Still, mysticism did offer unprecedented opportunities for literary achievement in the 13th century, and it's no accident that the medieval women whose words and ideas have survived were usually mystics or spiritual authorities. A leading scholar of medieval mysticism, Bernard McGinn, has spoken of a democratization of Christianity that began in the early 13th century in which access to God was gradually conceded to ordinary believers as well as the powerful representatives of the Church. Hardewich would have belonged to the first generations experiencing that change. Yet there had been female writers before, even setting aside the exceptional case of Hildegard. All the way back in the Carolingian period, a woman named Duoda had written a manual of advice for her teenage son which mixes prose and poetry, a literary strategy we know from Boethius and his imitators in the School of Schacht. Mechthild's works gain their power in part from a similar alternation of verse and prose sections. Moving forward to the 10th century, we can mention the German nun, Rotzwitter, an author of considerable literary ambition who, like Hildegard, wrote poetry and plays drawing on ancient exemplars like Terence. Rotzwitter even evokes Lady Philosophy, whose dress provides some of the threads she has woven into her own writing, a witty inversion of Boethius's image of Lady Philosophy in a tattered dress that has been torn by the ignorant. Rotzwitter and Hildegard might be seen as the female counterparts of philosophers who wrote in a monastic context, like Anselm and the Victorines. In the 13th century, the universities emerged as an alternative institution in which philosophy could flourish, but these were not open to women. There was, however, another option, the one exploited by both Hadevich and Mechthild, the Beguine movement. Though the Beguines were not nuns, they did cohabitate, remain unmarried, and commit themselves to lives of devotion. They also performed charitable works, which led them to be far more socially involved than nuns, who were, quite literally, cloistered in their convents. The outward engagement of the Beguines helped to make the movement controversial, as did the gray zone they inhabited as religiously committed women who had taken no vows that would seclude them and hence justify their autonomy in the eyes of the church. They were refused permission to preach or to live as mendicants, as the Franciscans and Dominicans did. The predictable excuse was that such activities could lead to the wrong kind of intercourse between the Beguines and laypeople. Instead, the Beguines typically supported themselves by working with textiles, and pursued a more subtle form of outreach, not least by writing to fellow Beguines and other intimates. With these restrictions in place, the movement was given papal approval in 1216. This was the context for the work of Hadevich, who came from the Low Countries where the Beguine movement first emerged. Unfortunately, we know next to nothing about her life apart from what her writings themselves contain. They make clear that she was a spiritual advisor to her fellow Beguines, but also that she became estranged from her group after being accused of unorthodoxy. A manuscript of her works says she came from Antwerp, but that notice was written centuries after her death, so it's far from reliable. Still, you can be confident in naming her as a philosopher from what is now Belgium, in case you're ever asked to name one during a trivia contest. She wrote in Dutch and in several genres. We have a series of letters from her pen, probably addressed to a young Beguine, then there are 14 visions, reminiscent of those recorded by Hildegard of Bingen, and poems in two different styles. It's not certain whether all these texts are actually by Hadevich, with particular controversy concerning some of the poems. The situation with Mächtild is not as problematic when it comes to authenticity. She has left to posterity a work in seven books called Das Flissende Licht der Gotheit, meaning The Flowing Light of Divinity. But the situation here is problematic in a different respect. The original version is lost. It survives in a middle-high German translation of Mächtild's Middle Low German, executed in the 1340s, and in a partial Latin version. Low German is of course still used today by the coach of Germany's World Cup-winning national soccer team. If you know modern German, this 14th century translation hovers just on the edge of the comprehensible, a bit like reading Chaucer for speakers of modern English. Though we're better informed about Mächtild's life than the life of Hadevich, we don't know as much as we'd like. We do know that Mächtild was encouraged and assisted by her confessor, Henry of Halle, and that she wrote the seventh and final book of The Flowing Light at Helft as a blind old woman depending on the assistance of the nuns there. The title is announced by Mächtild herself, or rather was announced to her by God as she relates in a prologue to the entire work. Here, she also tells us to read The Flowing Light nine times if we hope to understand it. It is of course remarkable that women were in a position to write such ambitious texts in the 13th century, and equally remarkable that men helped them to do so, and later copied and translated their works. But it would be a mistake to reduce the historical and philosophical interest of Hadevich and Mächtild to the mere fact of their gender. A better way into their thought is something I've already highlighted. They composed their works in vernacular language. To write in Dutch or German was to stand outside the hierarchy of authority and learning, and to stand outside that hierarchy offered the chance of critiquing it. Mächtild in particular was stern in her criticism of corrupt priests. At one point, she steals a march on her fellow vernacular poet Dante by recounting a vision of clergymen in hell. She saw them being punished for their worldly sins by having their souls plunged in fiery water, devils fished them out with claws instead of nets, deposited them on the shore, skinned them alive, and boiled them for supper. Self-satisfied schoolmen are likewise skewered by Mächtild. After being warned that her daring book may wind up being burned, she receives a vision from God who assures her that no one can burn the truth, and that Mächtild's book symbolizes the Trinity. The physical parchment is the incarnation of the Son, the written words the divinity of the Father, the spoken words the Holy Spirit. When Mächtild humbly replies that she is no learned holy man, she is told that many clever men have wasted their gold on schooling that did them no good, and that learned tongues shall be taught by the unlearned mouth. It is not the learned, but Mächtild, who is allowed to drink from the stream of God's Spirit, just as the flood waters fall on the high peaks but gather in the low valley. Mächtild does not need the education offered by the masters at the universities. Her master is God. Elsewhere she blames those who do have book learning, but refuse to give themselves over to the power of naked love. That brings us to the central theme in the work of Mächtild and of Hadavich too, love. For this, both use the word minne, which they take from the vernacular literary tradition of courtly love. This allows our authors to play on the ideal of unrequited love familiar from medieval romances. Of course, these stories and poems often depicted a man pining for an unobtainable woman, whereas Hadavich and Mächtild assume the lover's role, assigning to Christ, or the entire Godhead, the role of the elusive beloved. There's something of a paradox here, with our authors claiming special access to God, yet speaking constantly of their utter estrangement from Him. The paradox may be resolved by noting the fleeting nature of mystical experience, and the inability of the mystics to enjoy that experience on command. When they sit down to write, they are recalling moments of exalted intimacy, having come back down to earth. It's this that makes their use of the motifs of courtly love philosophical. The talk of minne is, among other things, a way of articulating the experience of the special kind of knowledge afforded to the mystic, followed by the sudden loss of that knowledge. Let's consider how Hadavich, taking a thread or two from Lady Philosophy, weaves together eroticism with epistemology. She may be a mystic, but is far from being opposed to rationality. In her letters, she speaks often of the virtues of reason, encouraging her reader to promote rationality above desire and pleasure, and depicting it as an unerring guide sent by God. It is by following her own reason that Hadavich has been able to achieve union with God. But if this is not anti-rationalism, neither is it a cold intellectualism. Reason must abandon itself to love's wish, while love consents to be forced and held within the bounds of reason. A similar message can be taken from Hadavich's visions. In another echo of Boethius and Lady Philosophy, one of these visions speaks of the soul's encounter with Queen Reason, who is described as wearing a dress covered with eyes, which represent knowledge. Reason requires the guidance of love, which crowns the eyes of knowledge. At the conclusion of the vision, Hadavich leaves reason behind to be embraced by love. The Dutch word reidene does double duty for reasoning and speaking. In moving on to love, Hadavich is thus leaving behind language as well as reason, as she enjoys an intimate, inexpressible encounter with the divine. But such encounters are as temporary as they are intense. Hadavich makes bold use of sexual imagery to describe this special kind of knowledge, drawing not just on the literature of courtly love, but also on the song of songs. In one particularly stunning letter, she quotes from this most erotic book of the Bible and speaks of the soul as a bride longing for the divine beloved, whose arms are outstretched, his lips ready to kiss those of the lover and to satisfy all her desires. But usually she strikes a more desolate note. The moment of union is like lightning followed by the thunder of estrangement from God. In moments where her soul is bereft, she realizes her utter unworthiness and unpayable debt. No poet of courtly love can outdo Hadavich when it comes to lamenting for the absent beloved. Many of her own poems are devoted to this theme, and feature lines like, More numerous than the stars in heaven are the griefs of love, Or the suffering that can only be known by him who sincerely forsakes all for love and then remains unnourished by her. Hadavich also speaks of what she calls unfaith, a kind of exquisite despair in which one is overcome by love, yet convinced that it is unrequited. Like the knight suffering in silence while his lady is blissfully unaware, the soul can only wait for God to take some notice of it. This swooning, poetic language evokes the paradox of mystical knowledge, which is the most certain and exalted form of knowing when it occurs, but arrives always unbidden and vanishes just as suddenly. Hadavich draws our attention to the superior status of these visions and also their transience. She often tells exactly what day a given vision came to her. Typically it's on a religious occasion, like Pentecost. She may achieve nothing less than a direct sight of God's face, only to lose it after a brief time. Reason serves as the initial guide, and love takes the soul into the bridal chamber, but once there, the soul can only await her lover in hope. What Hadavich is describing here has much in common with Neoplatonic theories of knowledge, especially those of a Christian variety, which tend to depict God coming to the soul, rather than the soul ascending under its own power. Hadavich also has a metaphysical theory to back up this theory of knowledge. She believes that our souls were created eternally in God as divine exemplars, and that mystical vision, or part of it, is coming to behold one's true original self. In the flowing light of Mechtel de Magdeburg, we find many of the same themes worked out with even greater detail. The work contains scenes of frank sexuality, with the soul depicted waiting in bed and love sick as she hopes for the arrival of her betrothed, or as naked so that there is nothing between the soul and God. Considering such passages, modern day feminist interpreters have drawn attention to the way Mechtild includes the body as part of the relationship of minne between herself and God. According to some of these interpreters, the patriarchal values of medieval society are being subverted in the flowing light. This was an age when women were seen only in terms of their sexual and bodily nature. Mechtild responded by valorizing physicality and making it a means to union with God, rather than a hindrance to that union. At the same time, gender roles may be switched, as when Hadevich and Mechtild make themselves the lover and Christ the beloved, or the woman author may present herself as a soul who is neither male nor female. We should however note that many of the same points could be made with reference to male authors. In mystical writers like Bernard of Clairvaux, we can find some of the same erotic imagery, and male philosophers often express surprisingly fluid ideas about gender, for instance by wondering whether we will still be distinguished as men and women when we receive our resurrected bodies. Besides, the valorization of the physical is built into standard Christian theology, thanks to the doctrines of the Incarnation and the Eucharist. For precisely this reason, feminist readers of Mechtild have pointed out that she gives a central place to the Eucharist in her thought. In the 13th century, the same tendency may have been congenial to the interests of the Church, given worries about the Cathar heresy which blossomed in southern France. Since the 12th century, the Cathars had been promoting a kind of renewed Manicheanism, which disdained the body and even denied that Christ had become fully incarnate as a human. In such a context, it was actually in line with the values of the Church when the Beguine mystics gave their bodies a positive role to play in spiritual life. So, as I said at the outset, we should not read Haarevich and Mechtild solely, or even chiefly, through the lens of their gender. We should instead recognize them as representing, and creatively responding to, wider trends in medieval society and mysticism. You may object that their ostentatious humility was inextricably bound up with their femininity. Just think of Hildegard of Bingen's constant refrain that, as a mere woman, she was a suitable vessel for God's words. Some men of the period took a similar view. William of Auvergne suggested that mystical visions were more often given to women because their souls are more impressionable. And certainly, there is a rhetoric of passivity in these 13th century Beguines. They do not present themselves as mere mouthpieces for God, as Hildegard often did, but Mechtild is quick to assure us that she did not seek out the favors given to her, and Haarevich makes it clear that her visions come when God wills, not when she wishes. Still, neither of them seem to think that their humble status is primarily a matter of gender. Rather, their claims of unworthiness are bound up with the economy of redemption. One of the most striking chapters in Mechtild's Flowing Light consists of the following single sentence. This is the theological side of Haarevich's courtly love theme of resignation and unfaith. As the lover suffers in her wait for the beloved, she is vividly aware that she deserves nothing better. In the Flowing Light, Mechtild similarly returns again and again to the idea of estrangement or abandonment. For her, the greatest form of minne is the one that abandons all expectation that the beloved will arrive, the love that lets go of love. This is the frame of mind that leads Mechtild to say, not once, but twice, that she would as soon die of love. But in a characteristic paradox, Mechtild finds a kind of joy in this very despair. At the end of a lengthy dialogue between the soul as bride and God who remains aloof from her, she captures the thought in a rhyming couplet, The deeper I sink, the sweeter I drink. It's perhaps this that most separates our beguenes from the more intellectualist and Platonist mystics in the medieval period. Haarevich and Mechtild know the ecstasy that comes with beholding God, but they also depict the exquisite pleasure of not knowing when they will be given a chance to behold Him again. That seems an appropriate note on which to end our look at Haarevich and Mechtild. It isn't the end of our interest in the beguenes. In a future episode, we'll be meeting another member of the movement who met a tragic end, Margherita Poretti. But for now, we'll be turning back to the scholasticism that most people associate with medieval philosophy as we begin to examine an order that in fact had close links to the beguenes. We've met the Franciscans. Next time we'll start getting to know the Dominicans, beginning with Robert Kilwardby. That's next time, but not next week, since as you hopefully have gathered by now, the medieval episodes are appearing only every other weekend as I alternate with the series of episodes on philosophy in India. If that leaves you abandoned and estranged, then you can take some solace in the thought that Haarevich and Mechtild knew how you feel. But at least you know you only have to wait two weeks for the next encounter with medieval philosophy, here on The History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps.