A mini-manuscript that is now lost. There was a miniature that showed a nun attired in cow, seated with a footrest, Facing her was a very attentive monk secretary, leaning forward to listen to her words. The most interesting aspect of this nun is that from her head shot forth streaming flames

[01:02]

from her two eyes and ears, almost like a rocket projected. A rocket projected from Cape Canaveral. This was a miniature of Saint Hildegard. that was found in the Wiesbaden manuscript, and that has been, no doubt you've seen it, reproduced many times. Unfortunately, the Wiesbaden manuscript was lost in, of course, the Second World War, the original. Facing St. Hildegard is her secretary, a monk, who is either Volmar, or Dider-Argentin, It is an amazing picture of an amazing woman.

[02:10]

Hildegard was born in 1098, she died in 1179. I would like to talk about her and about St. Gertrude, who is a little bit later in her dates, born sometime and who died sometime after 1301. And I'd like to talk about Dame Julianna Norrish, who was also a little lady, born probably 1342, 1343, and who died sometime after 1416. somewhat apart in time, had a great deal in common.

[03:16]

I think they had most in common is that they were, each in her own way, a visionary. Not a visionary in the sense of having visions and apparitions, probably not. all of them, all of their visions were more or less sort of an intellectual perception that was real, that they could visualize. But the intellectual perception that revealed, gave an insight, a better way of putting it, it gave them a very deep insight into questions dealing either with theology or spirituality. All three of these women can very well be called spiritual teachers in the sense that they were writers or someone wrote down what they had to say.

[04:27]

And in that sense they should be considered as part of the spiritual monastic heritage, helping form that All of these women have the same thing in common, too, in that they were monastic women. One, a black nun, black monk, Benedictine, of course, is an anachronistic term because probably the term Benedictine isn't used, at least according to Jean Leclerc, it isn't used probably are virtually the Cistercian, more or less. And Julian and Marge were not sure whether she was a actual member of a monastic community, in other words, a professed member of a monastic community, but she lived a monastic life.

[05:32]

She belonged to that group of women known as actresses. Take a look at that. So, all three, in one way or another, are part of the monastic tradition. And all three, each in her own way, sort of exemplifies the position of women in the monastic order in the Middle Ages. Hildegard supervises the Benedictine abbess of the Middle Ages, a woman of authority, a woman of a certain amount of political and social power, a woman of a great deal of influence outside of her own community, a woman who moved in a certain circle of society. Lady God is known best because of her writings that have come to us by rather strange

[06:43]

difficult to understand, and only in recent years, in recent years, have there been a renewal of serious studies of Hildegard's writings. In fact, in 1978, appeared the two volumes of the particular writing of Hildegard In the fine edition, it's usually spelled as one word, but it actually is two words. It means, Shi-bi-as-gomi, knows the ways of the Lord. You see, but usually Shi-bi-as is the one we're looking for, in the idea of three words. Shi-bi-as is two words. Here's the guy who's writing this particular edition, The Period of Corpus Christianorum, the Continuatio Medievalia, volumes 43 and 43a, published, as you know, by Stenberg, for now, 1978.

[08:02]

Edited by two Benedictines, Adelgundus Ruehlekurter, F-U-H-R, I was going to write all of it, H-U-K-U-L-E-K-E-R, all about T.T. Burroughs, Angela Calabares, C.A.R.L.E., D.R.I.S. This is a very fine edition, including the famous miniature that I talked about at the beginning, that has been recently published. Now, how they're doing this Funakota has published several other articles on Hippodrome recently. Also in the most recent edition of the American Benedictine Review, thanks to Timothy, I was able to notice it this morning, there is an article on Sibylla Guy and her, particularly her references to women, teaching on women, in her writings, by a man named

[09:11]

And it gives a pretty good bibliography, present-day bibliography, giving you a good hill to guide. You might also notice, if you have access to it, it will not be found in the Volume 8 of Analecta Sacra of Cardinal Petra. published in Monte Cassino in 1882, contains other works of Hildegard, other Latin works, but not the Shibios. Also, there's some interesting pictures. There's a known writing of St. Hildegard is the Shibios. And in this writing, we see what kind are they of. of a writer she was. She was, instead of calling her a mystic, probably we should call her a prophet or a prophetess.

[10:26]

She is, in a certain sense, doing what the Old Testament prophets did, using symbol, the symbols that she has come to know because of a kind of revelation. kind of interior revelation that she has. She uses, has these symbols and then in using these symbols she is able then to write a series of prophetic explanations of various things. Who was this little girl? She was born in Hesher. Here, in the empire, belonging to a great noble family, born in Bernersheim, as a member of the nobility of the area, she entered the monastery of nuns at Diese Bodenberg, at the age of eight.

[11:38]

And I think that for the young, it might sound a bit dead, that in the middle ages, it was quite even in Benedict's time, for parents to assure their children's salvation and also help assure their own by putting them into the service of the Lord very early. And no one in his or her right mind would question such an action any more than would question whether you were going to feed your child or vaccinate your child or do anything else for your child's good. what greater good can you give him or her than to assure his or her salvation by putting him in the monastic state and preserving him from this world. So in a certain sense it was very reasonable to offer your child. It was very reasonable to offer your child.

[12:42]

And this is exactly what What happened, quite a bit, it would obviously create problems. It would obviously create problems and several kinds of problems. The superior Judith, at this particular time, a noblewoman, Jutta von Spanheim, was a recluse, and she was actually the superior of the house, but she was walled in, walled out. In 1136, Judith herself became abbess, and in 1147,

[13:49]

found another monastery. I guess the impression of this woman, that she was always very strong-minded, very strong-willed. In 1147, she founds a monastery in Rupert's Bed, near Dean. Just for a moment, keep in mind. There she is, she's Avis. Remind you of one or two things, in terms of a meeting of Avis. This morning, I recalled you, I reminded you of the fact that Charlemagne incorporated the ecclesiastical structures as such, and also very particularly the monastic structure, into the socio-economic structure of Judaism, and also the minorial system. Not only was this the case for abbeys of men, it was the case also for abbeys of women. This meant then that we are The abbess, like the abbot, was found in a very strange situation, namely that she too possessed a position of authority in this structure, which normally would not have been the case.

[15:21]

Normally would not have been the case. Now, the position of a woman who held lands and held a fief did exist. And there would be instances, in a sense, of a woman, like the Countess Matilda, who would be a woman of authority and rank in her own right, not dependent upon a man. And this would be more or less the position of an abbess. She was, not strictly speaking, a vassal, but she was under, in a certain sense, the vassalage of the king, and would have her own vassals, her knights, objection to the abbey, as well as being in the menorial system, that is to say, that lands on the abbey of, that depend upon, that the abbey of nuns would own, would have serfs and so forth. So the whole system, she too, she too would be judged. Though she was to have normally an advocatus, namely a nobleman, a count, or some other nobleman, who would

[16:32]

may have exercised judgment and engaged in quite a bit of military activity, more than one might realize. I forgot to mention this morning an institution, I didn't, I ought to mention it here just so you can keep clear in mind, namely the institution of the Eigenkirchen, mainly the proprietary church, that is to say, that by and large there were two kinds of churches in the medieval period. There was the ordinary diocesan structure with the cathedral. There was another kind of church that was set up on the land belonging to a feudal lord, which he set up a church for the benefit of his servants, or the benefit of any other, of his tenants, or of someone else.

[17:57]

But that was his church, because he owned the land, he owned what that church stood on, and he could continue to hold a title to it, and he also owned the priest. When he was a maiden, in the beginning, he would offer him one of his shirts. he was going to be a priest, sent him to the bishop to be ordained, and that was that. And then he would give the church to a priest, and he would give any other priest, and they would hand him over, and they would supplement it through this ritual action, and invest it in the office of the church. Normally, this church would not have the license to give the tithes, or even in the beginning, and conduct baptism. Well, perhaps it would, and the tithes themselves would become your property, but could be divided All that, all the ecclesiastical accoutrements, in other words, became translated into economic epitaphs in Marxist fashion.

[18:58]

Okay, the reason why it's important now, and next thing you know, is that there's two hyperparameters. There's like bishop hyperparameters, there's like our ladies hyperparameters. In other words, a system of hyperparameters. But everyone was invited, so that the anomaly would be reduced by that propaganda in churches and all other places. If you were a guy who was in his own churches, he didn't have his own private churches, private propaganda in all of his churches, and monasteries as well. This meant in terms of monasteries, that the priest, even later on when they were able to get the priest out of the hands of the laity, the monks kept their own churches and their own private churches. The priest was under the authority of the monks. She named the priest, he belonged to a diocese, she belonged to a priest.

[20:01]

And it's the same way with nuns. There are others who also have a proprietary priesthood. She named the priest, the priest belonged to her, under her authority, her jurisdiction. She is in charge. And that is in that way, in that system, you must understand, Whatever may be a bit of canonical legislation, I know that private judges don't come up with a lot of it. They don't come up with a canonical legislation that I have quite an idea of, but they don't follow the reality. She said, you know, I can speak of her, I've heard a lot more crazy answers to that. But there's many, [...] down to the time of the revolution, there were still many, many Christians.

[21:05]

There were many, many Christians who came to the time of the revolution. But that was normal. That was normal. Although, from those situations, we understand that we cannot kill the God, exercising a tremendous amount of authority, having a tremendous amount of good gifts and dignity. Another aspect about women language, is that from the beginning, unlike the monks, from the beginning, they would, they generally were set up as places of, I don't know if I'm taking tension, or these places were for the fake gods, members of the royal family, or members of the aristocracy. So that's when we'll come over to, when we have the creation of many abbeys of women, they usually tended to be aristocratic. And they usually tended to have a obligatory aristocratic nature, namely that one who was not of an ability could not enter.

[22:16]

This was not the case with all our authorities until later in the Middle Ages. It was not the case in the early Middle Ages, where they all tended to be out of the cloud. And it was not the case when they had instances of non-nobles as well as entering monasteries of men, as well as acceding to the Episcopal faith and to higher ranks. Not frequently, but it happens. It happens enough. But the Church becoming almost totally aristocratic, when we are in a hierarchy, is more phenomenal as it is now, on the eve of the French Revolution. Women gradually lose their life and their privileges and powers, as we do in the modern times, and enjoy much less. A bearded guy can never appear after the council of saints. You cannot have the phenomenon of a bearded guy, say that, after the council of saints, because women cease from having a good role in life, as we do in the modern times.

[23:29]

A woman like Kirti Gaya then, by her very office, was a woman of influence. She had a monastery with him and he owned it to a woman who did not know her well. A woman who did not know her well. In 1150, she moved her entire community to Rookersburg, and in 1165, she opened up another monastery, and she ruled both monasteries. The monastery of Eilean, and the monastery of Nudekheim. She ruled both communities. She began all of her life, she claimed, and she had a sort of inner silo. that she described, she described in a famous letter, the shadow of a living light was what she saw.

[24:40]

She said ever since she was a child. Was this a, was this, was it maybe an ocular? If it was, it may have been. She was often given, she was often very sickly, she lived to be over 80, she was often very sickly. It may have been a, it may have been a malady of the eyes, we don't know. time after changes, she may have been nursing, it's hard to say, but at least she always claimed that she had some kind of an inner sight, you know, light, the world is obscure in some way or another, but by the time that she is, when she's in her 40s, she's, she has begun to receive inner messages, if you will, inner vision, I think they should be considered as sort of intellectual insights in a very visual way, and it's hard to explain what it was.

[25:41]

She may have just been neurotic, I assume. But these insights, she feels compelled to write them down. Between 1141 and 1151, she composes and she dictates to, first of all, to the monk Bodmar, though she herself knew Latin, she was a well-educated woman. If not, she was a very well-educated woman, as were the women of our monasteries, in terms of education, right? They were literate and they read extensively. What she is going to, in the Shibiya, she's sort of explaining the meaning of creation, the meaning of things. There are 26 visions in three books. She explains the symbolic significance of each of these visions in a series of chapters.

[26:51]

And in doing this, she gives a kind of a theology and a kind of spirituality to the various means of things. In the Liber Vitae Meritorum, which is the next writing that comes from her, she wrote this down to our secretary again when she was over 60, which again is a series of visions filled with symbols. Everything is very symbolic. And here she explains the symbols as part of a moral teaching. The first work is more theological, the second work is more a question of moral theology, the moral teaching. And finally, the Liber Divinorum Operum, in which she sort of as a treatise on natural phenomena as part of God's creation. Paul Marward had been a monk at D.C.

[28:05]

Bodenberg, and Guy Baird was a monk at Jean Ville, located 9,000 feet in Belgium. He was a famous writer in his own right. Hildegard not only did we have these kinds of rather important, weighty treatises full of allegory that she wrote, but she was also As soon as she becomes well-known as a kind of a prophetess, as we call the Seer of the Rhine, she receives many letters from very important people and she writes several letters to Saint Bernard, among others, to the Pope, to the Holy Roman Emperor, who is Frederick Barbarossa, to many, many members of the clergy who write her, and she writes them, asking her advice, and she gives her advice, often in highly symbolic language. One of the people's that she wrote was, for example, to Henry II and his queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, many bishops, many apostles.

[29:17]

She also wrote to a close contemporary, St. Elizabeth of Chernow, also a knight in history. In 1147, Pope Eugene III, the former novice of Grand Saint-Bernard, gave his approval to her, his personal approval to her treatise, Sidious. But not only did she write letters, Righteousness, she traveled. She traveled extensively in the Rhineland, going even as far as Lorraine in 1160. She was in Cologne in 1167. Traveled to Trier, to Würzburg, to Bamberg. And she even preached. She preached in public to the populace. She preached to clergy, to lay people, giving them moral exhortation. All of this is quite extraordinary in terms of a woman of the Middle Ages. But she was a rather extraordinary woman.

[30:22]

She died on September 17th, 1179. You have to understand, obviously, Hilda died in terms of being a medieval actress. and therefore enjoying a certain freedom and a certain freedom of movement, freedom of activity that by and large other women and even other nuns probably would not have enjoyed. But I think it is important to keep in mind that it wasn't also that completely unusual that a woman of her position Any questions? Some of these people were members of Parliament, was she a member of the Diet?

[31:27]

I'm not sure. As far as in the 12th century, if I can recall correctly in terms of the German Empire, there would be obviously representative meetings of the nobles. I do not know if she was a member. It may very well have been that she would not have been, because strictly speaking, in the feudal period, those who change as time went on, in the feudal period, women, even an avid, who was not allowed to appear, according to the feudal law, should not appear in court. Only one who bore a sword should plea before the court as a noble person. And that is why, again, And that may be the reason why perhaps you're not even a proud member of the representatives of the nobility.

[32:46]

I don't know, that's all I can guess. You'd like to be a member of the nobility? No, because the conquestion of being a member of royalty, as a member of the nobility, I see what you mean. You'd have to have one of the large feats. Yeah, that may be true. You may have to have a fief that gave you the rights of a human secondary priesthood. That's right. You have to have a dukedom or the account with a fief appointment, I think. Maybe it's a question I can answer. He's ringing somewhere one of his general mentors on a diet and I'm not sure which one. Yes, the custom of ordaining deacons is, if my dates are, if I recall correctly, deacons are ceased to be ordained toward the

[33:59]

But, there are notable exceptions, and one of the notable exceptions is in the 8th century, St. Radigand, the wife of one of the Native American kings, Kilpert, who was pretty much a barbarian, he was a Native American king, and Radigand was a woman I always liked very much, I love her name, I always say, Finally has enough of her husband, because he was really quite a beast, and she decides to leave him to his queen. She's earlier, she's alive. She's six. She leaves him, gets herself ordained a deaconess by the bishop, anyway, gets herself ordained a deaconess and then goes south and starts working with the poor, he had vast estates of his own, in his own right, and eventually then on her property found an order of nuns who followed the rules and cesareus of all, and that is the Abbey of St.

[35:34]

Croix, a chaplain, and they get a relic of the Holy Cross. She was a deaconess. Now what happens is, you may be thinking about the Carthusian nuns. The Carthusian nuns had the privilege, not necessarily to be wearing a manifold, you know, normally that's not allowed, and they stole, a deacon stole, and singing the gospel of that, even when women still couldn't sing the lessons of NASA, they were singing the lessons of certain NASA's. Precisely because they inherited the privileges of deepnesses that they were no longer ordained deepnesses because they were founded from a monastery. It was a monastery that had been founded from the remains of St. Croix of Radigan's Monastery, who inherited all In an article on the Caucasian 90s, in I think it was in the Dictionary of the Spirituality Table, a very good background on how that happened.

[36:55]

Another question. Let's say a word before we take the break about St. Gertrude. St. Gertrude the Great belongs to the 13th century. We know nothing about where she was born. We know nothing about her family. We know because of autobiographical information that she from autobiographical writings, that at the age of five, she was placed in a monastery of Hälfte, located in Saxony, located near Eisleben.

[38:00]

The monastery of Hälfte was a monastery founded, again it was a feudal monastery in the sense that it was a creation of a local feudal nobility that had decided to create a monastery, build a monastery, and control it. And control it. Which was what one could do. Remember, in the Middle Ages, if you discussed why the proprietary church could exist, if you found something, then you can continue to have rights over it. be according to the stipulations of the foundation. And that was often the case with monasticism. I found when you speak of eigenkirchen, you must speak of eigenkluster. In a certain sense, Helter was like an eigenkluster in a proprietary monastery. That meant, and this is exactly what happened, that meant that the local nobility could constantly interfere and control what went on, even to

[39:12]

on the selection of the superiors. After their whole life, and remember too, it was in an age when women, aristocratic women, as the widow of an important person, could enjoy a certain amount of rights and independence. Normally, as a minor would be under the control of someone else, women were an economic problem, too, because you're not going to provide them with dowries and miss marry them off. If the family were not able to make a good marriage, then they would remain as a kind of responsibility for other male members of the family.

[40:13]

And therefore, the military would want somewhere or another to dispose of the younger daughters, who either couldn't be married or couldn't have enough money for a marital settlement. Therefore, the best thing to do is to put them in a monastery. And one reason why they tend to be aristocratic is that And that was Betty Hunter for the rest of her life. And we say he made a settlement on them and they were being secure, financially secure. So is this an indication that Gertrude came from a rich great family? Oh yeah, she came from a rich great family. Everybody don't know much about her. And we don't know why she, it may be an indication that for some reason she was placed there and didn't know anything about her own family either. It's hard to say.

[41:15]

But that's the reason for this kind of monastic community. It was often the place where you would settle. Now, Helfter at this time, despite this kind of handicap, remember this was the case in earlier modern times in terms of being a place where you took care of your unwanted daughters. And that's the reason why so often there was no monastic vocation in a place like this. There was no real spiritual vocation. But Helfter, at this particular time, underwent a tremendous spiritual renewal. He was just bubbling over his spiritual energy at this particular period. Despite the fact that he was this kind of person. The woman who was at this was evidently a very remarkable woman from a great noble family named Gertrude of Huckabee. A long, long time People thought that Gertrude of Hagibon and Saint Gertrude the Great were one and the same. It's only in the recent years that we realize that they are.

[42:20]

There were several different people with the same name, two necktails to Gertrude to say. Gertrude of Hagibon was averaged from 1251 to 1292. It wasn't. For much of her lifetime, it was Gertrude the Great. Held it was a Cistercian monastery, however, controlled by the local nobility, but not recognized by the Order of Cito. The Order of Cito, remember, starts out as a brown movement, and they were not really interested. It was highly organized, the Cistercians meeting, having a general chapter once a year. Very pragmatic, extremely pragmatic. And they kept the labelers in their place until they revolted in the 13th century. But they really kind of revert, and they didn't want to have, they didn't want to have, be sort of bogged down by assuming that they were women.

[43:29]

And they were very low to take women. Now, everybody wanted to be a cistercian. And so many, many women wanted to become Cistercians. Just like some very different abbeys changed and wanted to become abbeys of white monks, so you found communities of women who wanted to be adopted into the Cistercian world line. And others who wanted to come into the order. And as far as the women are concerned, these men were very low to take and tried their best to keep them out. They had to take some. more and more many women who were down the white habit, who adopted many of the Circassian customs and so forth, they were not recognized by the or by the Circassian monks. And this was the case of Hakka. They considered themselves as Christians. The Christians said no, you're not. And they had no chaplain from the Circassian monks.

[44:31]

And as was often the case in this It was the Dominicans and the Franciscans who were responsible for sort of taking over many abbeys and nuns and guiding them spiritually. But it also has many, many consequences later on. St. Mathilde of Magdeburg, who had been an abbey dean, an abbey dean were religious women who were not nuns. especially in the Low Countries, and in the Rhineland, will become increasingly numerous, and I don't know exactly the date of their origin, the time of the start, but really the origin of the word they mean, will become increasingly numerous as we move on from the end of the 12th century and the 13th century.

[45:40]

They represent the non-Nobel class entering into religious life. It meant women avid for spirituality, avid for spirituality. Many of them not noble, as some of them were, but many of them not noble because they weren't even rich by the time they were 18. Desiring to give their lives to God, and from this New Year comes many of their mystics, many of their ecstatics, on the later Middle Ages. A New Year that was extremely, extremely violent. And so a woman like St. Meg Tilda Magdeburg, who had a great deal of influence in her writing, So they begin at first, and in the last years of her life, she was, through the influence of the Dominicans, she enters the added healthcare. So therefore, she too is a contemporary of St. George's degree, 1201, 1281. She entered this monastery at the age of five, received her training under St.

[46:42]

Nektild of Hackeborn, who was the second Nektild. in Halter, Meckfield of Hackeborn was sister to St. Gertrude of Hackeborn, the abbess. St. Meckfield of Hackeborn is also a spiritual writer. So in a certain sense, this period of the last part of the 13th century in Halter, despite the situation of the abbey being kind of a domestic community in a way for the local nobility, was also a place of just bundling over with spiritual growth and spiritual insights. It was a very rich place at this particular time. The nuns of Helter, although they were under the teaching and direction of Dominican nuns, of Dominican fathers, nevertheless had a very strong

[47:48]

attachment to their Cistercian roots. They learned St. Bernard. They were very much formed in the Bernardine spirituality. But remember one of the characteristics of the mysticism of St. Bernard, it didn't necessarily originate with him, but it's one of the characteristics of his spirituality, was that St. Bernard's great affectivity, his great a great devotion to the humanity of Christ. It's more than, I think, a sentimental devotion, not a sentimental devotion at all, but a mystical opening out to Christ in his humanity. And an awareness of Christ, as one would read simply the sermon on the Song of Songs, his ability to to a love and affection for Jesus and the terms that he uses in drawing him to Christ, as he comments on this great mystical writing, the Song of Songs.

[49:03]

So this sort of richness of St. Bernard, this richness in his awareness of the humanity and his love for the humanity of Christ, The themes that Bernard uses and introduces as the spirituality now will flower forth into the Isistical spirituality of the 13th and 14th centuries is something that the nuns have helped to pick up and that is very remarkable in the writings of St. James School. A real affectivity for Christ. Gertrude was trained by Mathilde von Hackenbohm, as I said. She worked with her as cantor in the monastic choir. This group of sisters who were interested in mysticism seemingly met together, sort of had an intimate union among

[50:11]

exchanging their insights and so forth. She was evidently part of this. Gertrude was a woman of intellect. She would work in the scriptorium, and I think that working in a media scriptorium is a simple thing, taking your pen and copying from another book or manuscript, because to prepare the parchment and then to write with great difficulty and great hardship on the parchment and copying a manuscript. Also, which meant that you had to understand the writing, the abbreviations, the signs, and so forth, and transpose it was something that demanded knowledge, very well.

[51:16]

So though we have no, in a way we know very little about Gertrude, these bits and pieces of information give us some knowledge of her. We know later on in our later life she was very ill very often, but at least we do recognize a woman of some intelligence, of some training, of some, a great deal of mystical awareness, and one who has spent all of her life in the Not all of her writings have survived. There are two major works that we have of hers. The first are the Exercises, which are a series of instructions, seven in all, on how to pray at diverse times. In other words, the instructions are a sort of collection of prayers, a sort of a manual

[52:18]

more than that, it's a very highly personal manual, but a manual saying that, for example, when you want to remember and thank God for your baptism, and you want to thank God for this grace, and so forth, this is how you pray. And then Steven here is in one spiritual development. So it's a kind of a collection of prayers. not only the prayer but the reflections before the prayer, kind of a meditation, meditative introduction to the prayer. These are the exercises. Our term, of course, which later on will be consecrated as we speak about other exercises tomorrow. But Gertrude, the title was given to a work not by Gertrude herself but by a later writer, but Gertrude What is interesting, of course, from the viewpoint of the history of spirituality, because it is an example of a certain methodical prayer.

[53:35]

In other words, the setting out of certain prayers to be said at certain state of occasions, which will be precisely one of the major characteristics of those who follow the Wilson Morgana, the writings of the Wilson Morgana. She is speaking of the writers that will come in the following centuries. So in one sense there are certain elements of the devotional Dhyana in the writing of Samgyakshi. She perhaps is at the beginning of a certain transition. But one really, she does not really belong to it. She is a mystic. The devotional Dhyana didn't like mystics. She is really a woman. But there are certain elements, you know, just as the affectivity and the love of the humanity of Christ are other elements which we characterize in the words of the New Testament. Still, this is what characterizes us in late medieval mysticism.

[54:37]

And one of the other aspects, of course, is that her daily exercises of prayer that she has gathered together affect acts of affectivity. The other great work of hers is known as the Hero, the Herald, the Ero. And it has been edited, all of her writings in fact have been edited, and now in Sosket Yen. The exercises are found in Volume 1, Tome 127 of Sosket Yen. and Albert Schmidt, and that was published in 1967. And the general title, Gertrude of Halstead's writings appear in the South Korean, in a series of volumes, and the general title, La Miserere Spirituale.

[55:48]

The Herald appears in several volumes, and that was edited by And then Pierre Dwyer, Léa Biavisque, that was found in volume two, that contains the first two books of the Herald. Volume three, which contains book three. And finally volume four has come out with book four. And still there will still be a fifth book that still appears. This was in Paris, 1968. The Herald is made up of five books. It is book two that, in a way, is the most important and most interesting because that really is the autobiography of Saint Gertrude.

[56:50]

It is in the first person. And it is in that word, book two, that she indicates her turn to God, she calls it her conversion, where at the age of 25 she has a mystical experience, I would probably prefer to say a spiritual experience, which took the form of a kind of an insight, perhaps it was a have things appear to them. I don't know if that's always necessarily healthy, but I don't think mystics are necessarily... I think one can be a healthy mystic, but not necessarily a healthy person. What I mean is... What I mean is that one must not think that to be a saint one must be sceptically holy.

[57:54]

One does not have to have everything wonderfully all set up, we can in fact be a raving neurotic, and also be a mystic. But otherwise, we'd all have to be perfect human specimens, in order to hopefully arrive at some sort of land, to be able to pray well, I don't think that is necessary, or even to become a saint, I don't know what you mean, handicapped, and become a saint. Now, what is that, where is that person? I can figure that out without a question. But at any rate, I imagine that Gertrude probably was, I don't know, she may not have been, she might not have passed her psychological exam to get into the convent. That wouldn't stop her from being a great mystic. And her, the vision that she had was that of a young man and

[58:59]

when we hear it described in a way one has all kinds of thoughts that come to mind, but it's a young man that appears to her in the dormitory, common dormitory, at night after conflict. And that is her encounter with Christ, and she begins to talk to him. Um, I don't think, I think that one was, it took place on the Monday before the purification, January 27, 1281. And so the whole of book two, she dates it very precisely, very important for us. The whole of book two then is a conversation with God in which she recounts many graces she received. She indicates the subjects of her meditation, often indicating that I'm such and such a feaster, because virtue always works out the framework of the euthanasical direction.

[60:10]

Her whole life, of course, like any Cistercian nun, she lived between the fire office and the other duties, and so when she is recounting what God has done for her, she recounts them obviously within that framework. and has a subject of a meditation, she works along the framework of a liturgical year. In other words, she is very much a liturgical individual, because that's her whole life. That's her whole life. And so, in that sense, when she discusses with God the subject of a meditation, says on such and such occasion, I was reflecting on this, It is because of the liturgical season, and she would be thrown in the garden between these hours of this canonical hour and the canonical hour and so forth. And it's in this kind of aspect that her work is not sentimental or devotional in a more violent sense.

[61:18]

She is speaking from the richness of the liturgy. She uses the richness of liturgical language. She's speaking from the scripture as it is used in religion. All of the things that are part and parcel of monastic culture about which Donald Tuck speaks, she has. And it is from that that her spirituality comes forth. And it is in this, however, does not at all change the idea that she is a woman of her time, of her age, she is taken with the humanity of Christ, benedictine devotion, and she begins then to speak to Christ and to relate to him in the same way that people like Bonaventure do too. One of the ways is a love for a sort of the physical aspects of his passion. And one of the physical aspects of his passion is the wound in his side. And drawn to as a reflection of the wound in his side is the

[62:22]

on the heart of Jesus. So, St. Gertrude then was one of the, not the only one, not the first one, but one of the first to begin to introduce the mystical love for the sacred heart of Jesus. It is a far cry. You're not going to find here the same sort of synonyms as St. Agamemnon of the 18th century. No, no, no, no. You're not going to find the same thing. But you are It is much more of a mystical thing than it is a kind of devotional reparation idea. It's much more a sense of if John can sort of breathe in and understand and relate because he is on the breast of the Lord next to his heart than any other one who wishes to desire to come into contact with Christ. using an imagery which become more and more common at the end of the Middle Ages.

[63:35]

There is, obviously, in Goethe, little that is apophatic. She is cataphatic, but she is very much that is affective, but not necessarily sentimental. She recalls, in some respects, how she already anticipates in some respects, the kind of revelations and visions but the other great mystic, the woman whom I think is one of the greatest of the medieval mystics, I will have many a danger in her knowledge. She pours forth her understanding of her vision in a long series of prayers, prayers that are all redolent of the theological text. Book two is the most important of the works of Harold O'Loughlin and his book. Both book one and both book three and four also recount, in a way, Great Truth's spiritual development and growth, and perhaps were not written down precisely by her, and are simply the collection of what she had to say.

[64:43]

Or it may be that they took it down when she was on her sickbed, she was on her ill for a long time, and in the moments when she could not be inquired, she would then pray on her own, in union with her sister and son-in-law. of some of these writings in Book 1, 2, and 3, 1, 3, and 4, and 5 of the Tarot. But it is especially Book 2 that has the lyric quality, that is a style, as a German mystic of the 13th century. Anything you want to say about virtue? I guess I'd like to know a little bit more of how did she affect many outside of her lines?

[65:59]

That is a good question. makes a good study of a very nice, long article in which he studies the influence of St. Gertrude in the later times. Mechthild of Magdeburg, her influence was contemporary in a sense. Her writings were rather well-known. It also seems that St. Mechthild of Hageborn, her writings were well-known at the time. Gertrude evidently, her writings were not The Abbey of Helfter, if I'm not mistaken, already by the time of the Lutheran revolt, when I speak of revolt, it's in terms of the armed warfare that takes place after the Lutheran movement gets started. Many, many monasteries, of course, begin to be suppressed.

[67:03]

Some of them are transformed into Lutheran houses and then supposedly die out. Helfter is finally taken over by the troops and is suppressed. So the community disappears, but the writings of Virtue that We Donate do not become well known until after the period of the Reformation. They were taxed on it by some of the Reformation scholars, and so forth. I think that one is very much a part of it, and she was part of it properly at the time. I want to say it's also a gem that we don't, we don't have. But I don't, they're not going to, we don't have the, we don't have the manuscripts to do that.

[68:04]

I don't know. But maybe I'm going to be refusing that. In fact, yes, because I remember the text in Sanskrit. Yes, I would like to be honest. Any other questions? So, Gertrude doesn't become really well known until you move into modern times. In the 18th and 19th centuries, She also, as devotion to the Sacred Heart increases, it also has played some part. But, one thing that is interesting, devotion to the Sacred Heart, remember, is a devotion really that takes, becomes popular because of the 18th century, Saint Margaret May Alcott, and it is a devotion that would very much, as a reasoning writer pointed out, would very much

[69:16]

favored by the royalists, because they had overturned our democracy and kingship. And so, I do ask, is the moral of the treaty wrong that the religious tradition is taking hold of their national information, of their actions, their beliefs, and so on and so forth? It also seems to me that it is a good statement that it seems We have a different attitude towards it. It seems like that short space of span of time is a period, a real high period, in the monastery's history.

[70:25]

And it all comes together. The third person that we want to look at is another individual, unique in her way, and very important for the history of particularity. And that is children of knowledge. Again, we know some important things about her, and a lot that we don't know about her. We know, for example, that she was an anchor. What is an anchoress? An anchoress is a woman who lives usually in an anchorage, attached to a church, usually a texture church, by this time. We rolled up. We ended up in a dwelling, which usually all had a courtyard, and a window looking into the church, and a window looking at 8 o'clock, both windows were on point.

[71:27]

The window looking into the church could follow religion, could see communion. The window outside could listen to communication with the outside world, and see what happened. And it was suggested by one of the 13th century Anglicans, I need to look for important books to historians of spirituality as well as historians as far as me. Historians, the entrance rules, it is a big danger for the actress to look outside, to get outside the room, because too, too often she became kind of a gossip host for the town. That's why she had no place to go. And all kinds of people who came to see her. She walled up in a liturgical ceremony, she gave herself completely to God, and the anchoring rule was one of the best texts that we have describing a woman like that in the Middle Ages.

[72:32]

It describes, for example, the kind of devotional life she should lead. There may be a private prayer, and so forth, and the priest who writes it, he's writing this rule for several women We are trying to give them enough to eat. And to warn them against possible dangers. And what it does for us is it gives us a glimpse of the possibility of this kind of thing. It could kill them if they get too lucky enough to have servants. Others could in fact earn property engaged in the kind of small, small, handy work they, some of them, And then he talked to a woman from New York, a big man who writes books, and they should not act as bankers, you know, valuable people.

[73:33]

When he tells them they should not really have animals, I remember one letter had cows. He says, if a banker has cows, you can't call it a bank, it doesn't look good. If you want to have an animal, you can have a cat. The same series in which the rule of Benedict is edited is also presented by the rule of Justin McCann. The same series with Justin McCann's edition of New Conduct. The anchorage is also, very often, could have been a nun, and sometimes you would get a lay woman, who can get away from this kind of labor cycle, but not in a medical way.

[75:10]

The church where, just where Julian was an anchoress, was a church that was a proprietary church of the community of Benedictine nuns. We don't know if Julian herself was a confessant of the community, but in some way she was attached to the community of nuns. We don't know that when she began to have her revelations, which she dates very carefully, We're not sure that she was an actress at the time. But we do know is that if she was 30 years old in 1373, that she was born sometime around 1342, 1343. We also know that as late as the year 1416, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Thomas Chicholet, and I have made a will and left money to her, and that she was called an anchoress, so that she was still living.

[76:25]

There are two writings that come from the Pamphilian and Norwich. One is the shorter version of the revelations, or the showings, it was called, and the other is the longer version. The short text was composed shortly after a spiritual experience that Jane Julien had in the midst of an illness in the year 1372-1373, in which she describes a various series of visions that she had, and again, it's something that's intellectual, not in the sense of apparition, but more as impressions that she presumably had, what a man like the latest a spiritual writer like Pudi and others who call it an intellectual vision. And she is having these series of visions as part of her illness.

[77:34]

She had asked God for an illness that would be an illness almost to death, of sharing the passion of Christ. and a gift to her three wounds, true contrition, loving compassion, and longing for God. She gets all of her answers to a kind of serious illness, mysterious illness, come on, all of them. Was she also neurotic? We don't know. All we do know is that if she was, when we read her longer text, written some 15 years after this experience, it all takes place in a short, in a day or so, illness, and she received her last rites, and she had these visions of the Passion of Christ, and she was very well, you know, she was in a lot of episodes, and she was half-crazy, and it was an odd thing to ask anyway, and my mother asked for illness, and so forth.

[78:39]

The woman who writes fifteen years later is a woman of written There are probably few spiritual writings, mystical writings, that are as optimistic in tone, as healthy in expression. This is no cyclone, he writes. This is a very, very, very profound, deeply profound woman, a woman of great A woman you would love to know. A man of a profound self. And optimistic. Basically optimistic. That's one of the nice things, I think. In reading you think that she's had these visions of the wounds of Christ, and you think, oh my heaven, it's going to be, it's going to be, it's going to make us feel all too bad and sorry for our sins.

[79:42]

Unless, when you read D'Angelo, you're convinced that with all how much of a sinner you are, it'll all be alright. All will be well. even that. In fact, that's what they accused her of being a little bit heretical because she seemingly said it didn't make any difference. God's love, even though you're in hell, it obviously counts. But it's extremely optimistic. The whole tonality is one of great optimism, great joy, and a profound insight into the mysteries of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and so forth. There's a whole thing, these 16 revelations, she, in a long text, reflects on each one of them. It's a long meditation. Moral meditation is a kind of an intuition in which she sees profoundly how the truths of the Catholic Church really fit together.

[80:45]

The basic idea, of course, is that God loves us, and that is a hard deal. We don't need any more than that. And this doctrine touches on the mystery of trinity, on the incarnation, the divine indwelling, original sin, redemption, grace. She presents it often in a series of, just like Hildegard, a series of symbolic actions. Here it's more or less like parables, allegories. The famous one is the servant and the lord, master and servant. where she plays on different levels. It has different interpretations. But always, and then she pictures the Christian reality of the divine dwelling in various ways, very strong images that she has. But they're definitely images that she's using. But always, it reveals in certain of these truths, like one of our favorite ones, is the notion of the divine dwelling.

[81:49]

There's nothing sentimental again, her approach. It's a very, very kind of basic theological approach. A woman who presumably, we don't know how much or where or when, either she was self-taught or had the advice of many others, but who had some, a great deal of influence of theological writing. deep theological insight, not in a ordered fashion, but certainly one who has no rules, who knows his truths, but who in a sense also have a solidarity with all people. God is good and then oneness with all people. And of course, there is the other aspect, and namely, which is very famous for a while, Of course, it's not originally there.

[82:57]

It is already something that was tied to Anselm. There's already one who speaks about the motherhood of Christ. But it is especially James Julian who really sort of incorporates it into the heart of a series of revelations. In a very, very, very, I think, again, profound way. As you meditate on the Trinity, the fatherhood of God, and seeing Christ then as the mother of the people, in the Holy and in the Trinity. She presents, like so many of her showings, a series of meditations, not necessarily logically following one upon the other, but meditations that surround a central vision, a central core. And that's what she does with a series of chapters on the motherhood of Christ, She treats of this, in a series of chapters, this mystery of what we're going to do about it.

[84:06]

She also has allusions to the devotion to the sacred fire, but most particularly to the notion of divine enjoyment. I myself find one of the most fascinating chapters at the very beginning of the book, And in a way, she sees that all creation is the size of a hazelnut, and that it should break apart, it should not be able to move. How does it maintain its existence? It maintains its existence because he maintains its existence. And it's that sense of seeing all creation reduced in a way, or all creation finding its meaning in the hazelnut,

[85:08]

I see it, and I may be all wet, but I see it all the same kind of mystical insight is what Gregory the Great is describing in the vision of St. Benedict. This is all things gathered together in the way of one light at the end of the Book of Dialogues. And there is a verse from a poem by William Blake that I think sums this up. To see a world in a grain of sand, and a heaven in a wildflower. To feel infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour. You're reading chapter 5 of the Shorings of James Julian. I think that those lines may speak to you. There's a lot in James Julian that is like that. despite the fact that I think the apathetic, well, mysticism is something that really kind of drives me.

[86:12]

When you read people like Jean, and the use of images, the use of the symbolic, Jean is one of those people I think that is a sure cure for maybe a severe the entire of spiritual life is in the reader. It's very exciting, just her language is exciting. Coleridge, Eric Coleridge, has done a critical text in two volumes. The first volume is a study of the text, and the second volume gives you the old English text. And of course she appears in the and the text is modernized, but if you have a chance to have both the modern text and the old English, you will find it very exciting to, when you want to understand, to read the old English text.

[87:23]

Read some of the old words, like, dear word. It talks about Jesus as a dear word to the Lord. She uses other expressions like that, but it really becomes very nice. When I want you to see it homely, of course, It's a good thing to have a lot of English. It also encourages the notion of one's ability of character. The English becomes very, very strong and exciting. I don't have any questions about you. I like you. C-O-L-L-E-D-G-E. Where's that, where's that, where's that critical text?

[88:24]

It, uh, I didn't write that one. Okay. Uh-oh. It's, uh, let me come back to mine. I didn't write that one. Yeah, here you go. I just, it came out in seven years. It would be in that video reference in the back there. Anything else? I'm kind of confused, but she's not owned by a lot of Benedictine writers. Well, I don't think we can be absolutely sure that she was a member of the Benedictine community. We don't know anymore. It may very well be she was not, and there's nothing in her writing to indicate that she was a Benedictine. The only important thing, I should have mentioned this, is that she's part of the 14th century English mystics. The oldest of them being Richard Lowell, and then the proud of it, the author, the unknown author, the proud of unknowing, and a series of other books, Genesis of Humanity, The Purpose of Early Council, and so forth, all by this unknown author.

[89:36]

And then Walter Hilton, and then she's the last of them. All of these English mystics have several things in common, among them being optimism. They're all joyful mystics. In contrast to some others. They're all very optimistic. They all have a, well, they all are beautiful writers in terms of literature. All of them are part of the literary But none of them are, strictly speaking, Benedictine. To be sure, we know it. What they look at is a canon, an Austinian canon. Do you know from people on the street what you're looking at? I know it, but I read about it and I didn't know it was Benedictine. A small idea. They're also the kind of unknowing they have been about anything not to do with what you're looking at, which is always a hammer.

[90:43]

And he was so generous, absolutely mad, I hang on his arm. Who gave us her impact? Again, her impact evidently was not very great. People like Marjorie Kemp visited her. Marjorie Kemp was a married woman at the time who also had vision. and very important. Visited her for advice, and many other people visited her too. But we don't... her contemporary interests, as I mentioned, have been not great. Where she does make her impact, and that's something I should mention, is that it is the Benedictines who resurrect her. I mean, the English Benedictines, during the time after the Reformation, were on the continent, who are mainly responsible, especially the Benedictine nuns, and people like were very much taken by her writings, and evidently one of the manuscripts was in the possession of Benedictine nuns, English-speaking nuns, I think that's who it is, and they are the ones who make her known particularly in the period of the 17th, 18th century.

[92:00]

So there was a nuns who were, there was a Benedictine nun, women, will come under the influence of a man like Augustine Baker and their desire for the mystical life, he is responsible for pushing that, that she becomes a villain and comes into line. And it is still in our own day that the first sort of I think it's a revival, a revival in our own day, a revival in appreciation of God, and I do think it's only part of a recent interest in mysticism. But let's just go on about three people, even people like Evelyn Hundy as well.

[93:14]

@Transcribed_v004
@Text_v004
@Score_JJ