All posts by Devon Sherwood

Jeanne-Marie de Maillé

The Other Sister Research Group met on May 16th, 2025, to discuss the noblewoman Jeanne-Marie de Maillé who, after a chaste marriage, lived an intriguing religious life in widowhood, never entering a religious order. Her vita and canonization inquest are currently being compiled, translated, and commented on by Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski, Bruce Venarde, and Edmund (Ed) van der Molen for their forthcoming volume, Jeanne-Marie de Maillé (1331-1414): Searching for Sainthood in Late Medieval France.

The circulated readings included the introduction and four chapters, one with an extract from the vita, “Chapter 3: A Pious Young Widow in the City,” and the others with extracts from the inquest: “Chapter 13: The Articles of Interrogation” “Chapter 20: The Testimony of Pierre des Aubuis,” and “Chapter 25: The Testimony of Jeanne la Carrée.” Each extract is followed by a commentary.

Renate started the presentations by explaining how she came across Jeanne-Marie while working on the political visions of other medieval women religious, such as Constance de Rabastens, and thanks to the work of André Vauchez: Jeanne-Marie had had a vision about the papal schism. Renate then suggested to Bruce that they work together on her vita by the Franciscan Martin of Boisgaultier and her inquest. After they started their collaboration, they came across Ed’s name, through A.J. Langley’s podcast “My Favorite Mystic,” as someone also working on Jeanne-Marie; they contacted him and all three decided to work together. The group’s three-part collaboration functions through a tripartite division of the vita and inquest texts. Each translates their sections of the primary sources and writes commentaries for them, but also comments on the others’ translations and commentaries with a colour-coded schema. They are in the later stages of the process, and Renate noted that their work on the texts has already begun to establish multiple additional projects, such as her current work on Jacques II de Bourbon (d. 1438), Comte de La Marche, who possibly sponsored Jeanne-Marie’s canonization inquest. Bruce added that their chosen structure for the book, which incorporates a commentary at the end of each chapter, has been influenced by the example of the recent publication A Female Apostle in Medieval Italy: The Life of Clare of Rimini, by Jacques Dalarun, Sean L. Field, and Valerio Cappozzo (2023).

Ed, the second speaker, explained that he discovered Jeanne-Marie through his doctoral research on the construction of saints’ identities. He is especially interested in exploring the disagreements that could develop over what kind of saints could emerge from canonization processes. His initial fascination with Jeanne-Marie was due to her liminal position between religious and lay. He considers the texts of the vita and the inquest to represent the first stages of saint-making, and, using the methodology of value theory, he emphasizes the differences in values that are apparent among the different proponents of Jeanne-Marie’s canonization. The initial stages of the canonization process invited people to negotiate, transform, and appropriate value of different kinds, encouraged the exercise of social creativity, and defined the values of the community. In general, Ed said, during the development of a saint’s cult, community consensus was important to the construction of saintly identity, yet multiple identities emerge from Jeanne-Marie’s dossier. As he pointed out, the two texts present additional questions: since there is no known surviving manuscript of the vita (only a seventeenth-century printed edition), the sources provide few answers to queries about the intended audience, purpose, and dissemination. Jeanne-Marie’s name does appear in a fifteenth-century breviary now in Besançon, suggesting her cult spread beyond her native region.

Next, Ed explained that Jeanne-Marie’s hagiographer extrapolated a make-shift set of religious vows for her in the vita encompassing poverty, chastity, and obedience through the mechanism of mystical visions of Mary and Christ and demonstrated, for example, by her refusal to remarry after the death of her husband. Within the vita, there is some effort to cloister her and to regularize her identity.

Bruce, the final speaker, discussed his entry into the project through an invitation by Renate. He also praised the group’s work process, which he emphasized is heavily collaborative in all aspects. This project was particularly attractive, he said, due to the manageable length of the inquest and its potential usefulness for both teaching and research. So far, only canonization inquests in partibus (organized from Rome) have been edited and translated. This will be the first translation into English (or any modern language) of the preceding stage, the diocesan inquest.

During the Q&A period, moderated by Joseph George Akl, Isabelle Cochelin asked how Jeanne-Marie’s hymen could have been inspected after her death (as mentioned in the inquest) to prove her virginity. Renate and Bruce suggested that there is no information about this in the text and mentioned the unique character of the expression used: claustrum virgineum integrum, incorruptum, atque intactum (“a whole, pure, and intact hymen”, Ch. 25). Such an expression does not appear to have been used elsewhere. Lori Walters provided the example of Joan of Arc, whose virginity was also checked, and she suggested that this was a fairly normalized practice. Isabelle clarified that her astonishment was related to Jeanne-Marie being dead when the examination occurred.

Laura Moncion suggested that Jeanne-Marie perfectly fits the description of an “other sister,” owing particularly to her interactions with lay society (taking care of pregnant women, attending baptisms, etc.). Laura asked whether Jeanne-Marie was performing midwife duties and whether she shared a spiritual or worldly relationship with the children whose baptisms she attended or those of the pregnant women she helped. She also asked who set the articles of interrogation in the inquest: a confessor, a court employee, or the community. In response to the latter question, Bruce answered that the hagiographer, local members of the clergy, and perhaps Jacques de Bourbon, the possible funder of the project, each had roles in the process. Renate added that it was most likely a joint project, although the preliminary inquest would have come from the diocese. Jacques de Bourbon’s procurator seems to have acted in his stead since he himself was not physically there: he was about to be married to Queen Joanna II of Naples. Despite these clues, there is no clear indication of who funded the project. There were only 16 witness across the course of a year, most of them from in or near Tours, so funding may simply have been piecemeal.

In response to Laura’s question about midwifery and godparentage, Ed answered that Jeanne-Marie did not necessarily act as a midwife, but she did act as godmother to at least one child, a son of Duke Louis I d’Anjou. While married, she also acted as a foster mother to three orphaned children, who vanish from the narrative after they are mentioned. She is, however, portrayed as a maternal figure. The narrative includes several miracles related to childbirth. In one example, Jeanne-Marie convinces a knight who is skilled in surgery to intervene in a successful caesarian birth. There are also examples of long-distance miracles related to childbirth, which are formulaic: the pregnancy seems doomed, Jeanne-Marie intervenes, and both mother and child survive. Ed added that she is viewed as both a spiritual and worldly maternal figure and godparent and perhaps even as a godparent to the wider community. This appears to have been a significant and purposeful theme in the texts provided through multiple examples of her nurturing of children’s spiritual development.

Lucy Barnhouse responded to Ed,s comments on maternal characteristics, suggesting connections to Laura Kalas’ theory that Margery Kempe did spiritual work that paralleled the roles of mothering and care that she would otherwise have fulfilled within a more traditional life path. Lucy then proposed that some of Jeanne-Marie’s activities complemented the work of hospital sisters. Some hospital records from France excluded pregnant women and foundlings from the hospital, perhaps due to concerns about noise. Thus, Jeanne-Marie was engaging in work that hospitals were not doing for various reasons; her embedment in her community might parallel some phenomena discussed in Ruth Salter’s “cure seekers.” Lucy then asked whether the three speakers have considered Jeanne-Marie’s potential relation to hospital work. Renate answered that Jeanne-Marie did work at a hospital at one point, but an unfortunate incident with an ill man, related to grapes and diarrhea, ended her employment there. Indeed, she was a “gig worker” and did not work in hospitals or the medical field in any consistent way.

Ed added that Jeanne-Marie’s hagiographer struggled to fit her into a box: almost a mystic, almost a recluse, almost a hospital worker, but none of them completely. She often shifted what she was doing, which led to issues crafting a distinct narrative and identity, further emphasizing the code-switching and liminality inherent in her narrative. Renate added that she wants to compare the vita and the inquest at some point in the future since many aspects of the inquest, such as Jeanne-Marie’s visions, are excluded from the vita. Some other aspects of Jeanne-Marie’s life, however, appear to have been over-emphasized and dramatized by the hagiographer. Her liberation of prisoners, for example, mentioned briefly in a written testimony, became a multiple-paragraph section in the vita. Within this context, determining how the hagiographer selected information to include in the vita is a matter of great interest.

Next, Adam Davis asked, related to Ed’s comments on the competing versions of identity, how intensely Jeanne-Marie’s identities differed. He also asked how the ambition of female saints was discussed and represented, extending this question to the ambition of the hagiographer. How did writers stretch the boundaries of what was acceptable for women? Adam offered a comparison between Jeanne-Marie and Clare of Rimini, who both wished to drink from the chalice at Communion. While Clare did drink the wine, Jeanne-Marie’s mouth filled with blood in its place. In response to the first question, Ed answered that there are at least three or four versions of Jeanne-Marie that emerge from the narratives of different witnesses: worldly mystic, efficient healer, and St Martin-like character. The vita is meant to synthesize these different versions and produce a cohesive portrait. He added that her relationship with the Franciscans is emphasized in the vita through mutual support.  She also interacts with a lot of aristocratic networks connected to the Franciscans, which is emphasized in the vita but not by the witnesses, demonstrating significant value differences between different communities. Thus, the identities that emerge include Jeanne-Marie as a traditional healing saint, an idealized Franciscan saint, an otherworldly mystic, and a corporate civic saint. At the point in the process that is revealed by the two source documents, no significant synthesis between these perspectives has yet been achieved.

Bruce added that many aspects of sainthood were comprised in the two texts and that this seems to have been purposeful on the part of the hagiographer. Ed said that they seemed to be “ticking boxes” for different aspects of sainthood. Renate emphasized that no writings directly from Jeanne-Marie survive, unlike for some of her contemporaries such as St Colette of Corbie; we only have second-hand accounts of Jeanne-Marie’s religious philosophy.

Delfi Nieto-Isabel then asked how much we know about Jeanne-Marie.s “devotees” – the people who were behind the inquest and vita – especially about their social connections to Jeanne-Marie and to each other. She also asked what Jeanne-Marie’s exact relationship was to the Franciscans. How was she both reclusive and staying with them? Finally, she inquired about the language used to refer to Jeanne-Marie in the sources. Since Jeanne-Marie fulfilled so many different roles and appeared to have been buried in a Franciscan habit, how did people refer to her? To this last question, Renate answered that the description “hermitesse” was insulting to Jeanne-Marie. She compared Jeanne-Marie to Colette of Corbie, citing her forthcoming article (“La recluse et l’‘Hermitesse’: La place et la fonction de la réclusion et de l’érémitisme dans les vies de Sainte Colette de Corbie (1381-1447) et de la bienheureuse Jeanne-Marie de Maillé (1331-1414)” in Une autre Cité des dames: Hommage à Yasmina Foehr-Janssens, edited by Hélène Bellon-Méguelle, Camille Carnaille, Philippe Frieden, and Marion Uhlig, forthcoming): Colette was enclosed in a church for multiple years, but Jeanne-Marie had a retreat outside of Tours, at Notre-Dame de Planche-de-Vaux, where she stayed from time to time. She lived in a variety of places in and around Tours. Bruce added that she is not referred to as either a recluse or a beguine and that she seems to have been called a “hermitesse” because she used to dress in very simple clothing. Ed clarified that the texts describe her as a “holy woman,” “holy lady,” or “saint.”

Ed also answered Delfi’s question about networks around Jeanne-Marie. The bourgeois of Tours, for example, are demonstrated to have known each other, and their narratives suggest interaction among them. There is also an aristocratic support network, with a prominent Angevin element. There is not much connection in between these two networks, however. Bruce mentioned that there is also a local clerical network, not associated with Franciscans, but with St Martin’s Basilica.  Ed added that there are no Franciscan witnesses included in the inquest. Why? This seems odd, considering the vita’s emphasis on Jeanne-Marie’s Franciscan connection, apparent in both her relationships with individual Franciscans and with the order in a broader sense.

Renate suggested that Jeanne-Marie had at last one direct international connection, as demonstrated by a letter from the King of Cyprus included in the inquest. The king was part of this aristocratic international network, demonstrating its far reach and the circulation of Jeanne-Marie’s reputation.

Alison More asked how useful it was (and is) to fit Jeanne-Marie into a specific box given the diversity of her identities. She suggested that women religious perceived their multiple identities as irregular and extra-regular ways of “life,” and not necessarily as distinct labels. She also asked about the definition of Jeanne-Marie’s tertiary identity and requested additional clarification about the absence of Franciscans among the witnesses. Renate answered that Jeanne-Marie was not officially called a tertiary but that such terminology has been applied in the source texts for other cases, such as that of St Colette, who took tertiary vows, as a recluse before becoming a Poor Clare. It appears that the Franciscans were trying to keep Jeanne-Marie safe throughout her life and that they eventually took her in on their land in Tours, though there was never an official affiliation. Ed suggested that Jeanne-Marie emphasized the Franciscan relationship when it was particularly helpful to her. Her chosen confessor was not a Franciscan, but, later in her life, she decided that Franciscans would provide permanence. Overall, she picked and chose based on differing circumstances. She was buried in the habit of St Clare. Thus, her burial garb was a statement of intent and not a reflection of reality. Bruce said that the relationship between the Franciscans and Jeanne-Marie appears to have been a mutually beneficial arrangement. Although Jeanne-Marie was most likely looking for stability with the Franciscans, the Franciscans would have benefitted from her reputation as a holy woman and significant figure in the region.

Renate added that there are some questions about Jeanne-Marie’s poverty since she donated many relics and riches to churches but still begged on the streets and took a vow of poverty. She also went on pilgrimages, which were expensive. These examples provide a contradiction regarding her financial means. Alison suggested that poverty might have been an identity marker, particularly for Franciscans, but was not necessarily a reality. Delfi added that, within her sources, there are many examples of tertiaries begging while also donating much – voluntary poverty was only possible with funding.

Next, Lori asked where the information about Jeanne-Marie’s connection to and criticisms of Charles VI of France and Isabeau of Bavaria came from. Renate answered that this connection is mentioned in the vita and had been established because Jeanne-Marie was from the aristocracy. Lori asked as well about the dates of Jeanne-Marie’s interactions with the king and queen as related to the timing of Charles’ mental illness, and Renate responded that they occurred after 1392 and the onset of illness, providing context for Jeanne-Marie’s more significant interactions with Isabeau. Lori then asked whether the information in the vita might have been glossed during the writing process. Renate answered that this is unlikely, since Martin of Boisgaultier, her hagiographer, was simply trying to piece her identity together and did not include allegorical interpretation in his text. Bruce agreed that the dossier was not theological, and Ed suggested that the hagiographer’s sources were other vitae and that he was piecing his vita together from these examples.

Next, Lucy added to the discussion of the flexibility of Jeanne-Marie’s poverty, suggesting that this fluidity reflects the relationships of “other sisters” to the categorization of “poor” since they embraced the identities of service to the poor by being poor themselves (pauperes). Lucy suggested that such identification is related to a rhetorical construction of the poor and the identity of the poor within the Christian community, which hinges upon the distinction between deserving and undeserving poor.

Renate added that they do not know what happened to the canonization dossier later on. To whom was it delivered given that it was written during the Council of Constance and the tri-papacy? The manuscript of the vita no longer exists. Unlike the continued efforts to canonize St Colette, there were no other inquests related to Jeanne-Marie. Why? Renate said that André Vauchez has demonstrated that there was an early modern cult related to the hermitage of Notre-Dame de Planche-de-Vaux, but all of this appears to have had no continued impact.

Isabelle suggested that the nobility was occupied by other events, such as the end of the Hundred Years’ War and Charles VI’s illness, and that there was no religious order to help develop a sustained, devoted cult. She also followed up on Adam’s question about ambition. Renate answered that we do not have much information about Jeanne-Marie’s ambition, since we do not have access to her thoughts in her own words, only her actions as seen through a secondary lens. She does not appear to have been ambitious in terms of pursuing a singular goal, but she was possibly ambitious in the number of things she tried to do and in her liminality and refusal to adhere to a single identity. She also generally refrained from overstepping the boundaries of social acceptability, though she was attacked in Paris and accused of witchcraft.

Bruce added that, once, someone threw a stone at her, but she was never pursued by the inquisition. Renate mentioned that she only appears to have been accused of witchcraft by one person, but this never happened in Tours, where she was very well known. Bruce and Renate also discussed small incidents where she was mistreated or rejected for her clothing and poor appearance and one incident in which her brother acted as if he did not recognize her. Ed added that the question of ambition might be applied to the intention to achieve sainthood, which was unacceptable since a large part of holiness relates to humility. We do not know if Jeanne-Marie attempted to present herself as a saint. How much of her action was deliberate? The hagiographer was also attempting to create this persona for Jeanne-Marie, ticking many of the boxes of sainthood on her behalf: how much of this construction was the agency of the hagiographer and how much of it was the agency of Jeanne-Marie?

Bruce concluded that Jeanne-Marie was very old at the time of her death and that much of the vita reflects her early life. Thus, much of the information in the vita must have been provided by Jeanne-Marie herself.

Book Culture

by Devon Sherwood

On February 23, 2024, The Other Sister held a thematic meeting on the topic of book culture among non-cloistered religious women. Works from the invited speakers had been circulated prior to the meeting.

  • John Van Engen (University of Notre Dame) gave a short introduction.
  • Barbara Newman (Northwestern University), “Mechthild of Magdeburg at Helfta: A Study in Literary Influence,” in Women Intellectuals and Leaders in the Middle Ages, ed. Kathryn Kerby-Fulton, Katie Bugyis and John Van Engen, Cambridge, MA: D.S. Brewer, 2020, p. 383–95.
  • Diana Denissen (Université de Lausanne), “Literacies, Learning, and Communal Reform: The Case of Alijt Bake,” in Medieval Women Religious, c. 800–c. 1500. New Perspectives, ed. Kimm Curran and Janet Burton. Woodbridge, UK: Boydell & Brewer, 2023, p. 137–51.
  • Patricia Stoop (Universiteit Antwerp) for an article written with Anna Dlabačová, “Incunabula in Communities of Canonesses Regular and Tertiaries Related to the Devotio Moderna: Toward an ‘Inclusive’ Approach of Late Medieval Book Ownership in the Low Countries,” Quaerendo, 51 (3), 219–48.

As is customary, the four speakers first spoke for a few minutes.

John Van Engen (University of Notre Dame) discussed his 2020 publication, Women Intellectuals and Leaders in the Middle Ages (co-edited with Kathryn Kerby-Fulton and Katie Ann-Marie Bugyis). He explained that the recent turn to inclusion in the history of women and a significant emphasis on the struggles of women inspired the editors to consider the roles of all women in religious history – those who struggled and those who did not. He highlighted the theme of “belonging” within religious communities as central to the study of women religious, emphasizing cultural, social, and religious inclusion. He concluded his introduction by sharing that Women Intellectuals focuses on this narrative of inclusion and development of community over time. Some similar themes have been highlighted in a recent review of the volume by Annette Volfing, in Speculum (2023), 898-899.

Barbara Newman (Northwestern University), discussed how the perspective explored in the volume Women Intellectuals focuses on the intellect of women religious. Her presentation emphasized how much fantastic research has come from approaching women religious in this way. Her chapter employs this lens to study Mechthild of Magdeburg, who, going blind, was invited to enter the Helfta monastery to complete the last book of her magnum opus, The Flowing Light of the Godhead, in dictation. Newman suggested that to be a writer was to work within a literary tradition. How, then, she asked, did women use their sources? What were their influences, how did they rebel, how did they influence others, and how did they understand and work within genres? Such questions are now givens serious consideration and new insights can come from an examination of how women writers responded to each other and to their predecessors: for example, Elizabeth of Schönau and Hildegard of Bingen, Hadewijch of Antwerp and her unnamed disciple, “Hadewijch II,” and Birgitta of Sweden and Margery Kempe have recently been studied. Newman’s chapter considers the “Two Mechthilds”: the visionary Mechthild of Magdeburg and her younger contemporary, Mechthild of Hackeborn, whom the elder Mechthild’s writing had inspired. Their cases are important because we rarely know so much about the contexts and conditions for medieval women’s writing. Newman explained that Low and High German are complex and that it can be difficult to trace discernible influences, such as remnants of court poetry, between texts written in the vernacular. For example, Mechthild of Magdeburg used the Goddess figure in her writing. While Mechthild of Hackeborn also used the same figure, she employed it via Latin masculine conventions, as with “love (amor) in the figure of a beautiful virgin,” thus obfuscating a direct link to the Goddess. Newman also referenced the possible influences of bridal mysticism, which has a long history of use and is significantly different from men’s mysticism, in Mechthild of Magdeburg’s texts. Differences are apparent between what Newman terms “servile-filial-bridal love” used in men’s mystic writing, in which God remains stable, and bridal mysticism in Mechthild of Magdeburg’s and Mechthild of Hackeborn’s texts, which depict God as filled with fierce desire. Mechthild of Magdeburg had to be moderated by the Helfta nuns due to her perceived excessive, erotic, and heterodox language. Her mysticism is very individual; theirs is communal. Newman also problematized the question of external virtues – while Mechthild of Magdeburg sheds them, the nuns of Helfta do not. Finally, Newman made a comparison between Mechthild of Magdeburg and Alijt Bake, the subject of the second speaker’s research. Both women lived extra-religious lives prior to entering nunneries. While Mechthild of Magdeburg did not know Latin and functioned exclusively in the vernacular, however, Bake was rebellious against the prospect of institutional learning and favoured prophetic revelation and book learning. Mechthild of Magdeburg needed assisted living; Bake was younger and drew concern about heresy, which she met with ferocity.

Diana Denissen (Université de Lausanne) discussed how her ideas since writing “Literacies, Learning, and Communal Reform: The Case of Alijt Bake” have evolved with her current research. She explored plural literacy as a continuum (e.g. oral vs. written, vernacular vs. Latin) and suggested that it is difficult to discuss literacy within women’s communities because of its many forms. The sister-books of Engelthal and Diepenveen contain evidence about how female religious translated or interpreted Latin texts during table readings, making texts available to all, regardless of levels of literacy.  Alijt Bake’s life further problematizes the concept of literacy and expresses a paradox about learning related to the tension between her intellectual skepticism/anti-intellectuality and her desire to read specific titles quickly to absorb as much information as possible. Denissen further considered the question of how books entered and left the convent, stating that both women religious and lay women moved books between communities. Her book chapter has become part of a broader project on spiritual autobiographies and biographical sketches incorporating interesting aspects of hagiography in sister books, and particularly on the relationship between social and intellectual networks that cross linguistic boundaries.

Patricia Stoop (Universiteit Antwerp) reiterated the previous speakers’ emphasis on collective and diverse forms of literacy and then discussed her co-authored article (with Anna Dlabačová), which grew out of Dlabačová’s research on ownership inscriptions from a printer in the Low Countries and Stoop’s similar work in Brussels. She contextualized their research by relating that, at the end of the eighteenth century, when the convent of Jericho was dissolved, a huge collection of books was discovered. Several incunabula were sold to other women, as mentioned in other contemporary archival documents. Yet, there is a massive gap between the claimed number of books and what remains. Early-modern book ownership needs to be studied as it is not as clear-cut as in the modern era. Certain Dutch lists of book ownership, copying, and transmission exist, but not for early printed books or manuscripts. The Devotio moderna movement had a huge impact on book production in the Low Countries. How did books come into convents? Were they purchased, bequeathed, or borrowed? What kind of texts were included? Were they new texts or copies? Stoop stated that the issue with this kind of research is that books are not systematically inventoried with ownership marks. She has begun to inventory books related to women religious in the Low Countries in the 1600s and researches how women were involved in the circulation of books, whether as authors, illuminators, or in other roles. She hopes that this will eventually lead to a broader understanding of intellectual culture across convents and institutions.

Q&A

Joseph Akl moderated the Q&A period. The first question was from Isabelle Cochelin, who asked Newman and Denissen whether the women whom they study seem to have been sensitive to the issue of enclosure vs. non-enclosure. Newman answered that women often transitioned between groups (e.g. from being beguines or anchoresses to cloistered nuns). “We tend to build walls between orders,” she stated, “based on history written by religious men, but women tended to be more fluid and moved around much more than men or what men expected, but where you placed them wasn’t the question that mattered the most to these women.” Denissen added that Alijt Bake had a full life before entering a convent, and there seems to have been a text about her life before this point. She had friends among other groups, and Denissen wonders if she could have been an anchoress if she had been advised differently. Bake also appears to have experienced anxiety related to which convent would have suited her best – how did she want to express and live her spirituality? These tensions, preserved in her writing, reveal choice in the different paths for women religious.

Van Engen offered some additional contextual information about Bake’s life. She came from a privileged family and, after experiencing a deeply unpleasant unknown event in Utrecht, was directed to start over in a religious community further to the South. The section of her writing describing the event is missing (and was possibly confiscated from her at some point), but contextual information suggests that she wanted to teach, preach, and write and had already started doing this, potentially without permission. These threads are picked up in later sections of her writing as she explains how she became a woman religious, and she is reprimanded repeatedly for engaging in certain kinds of reading. Bake asserted herself as an intellectual figure whose writing could not be understood by some of her superiors. Van Engen suggested that it is possible she was deposed and exiled from Utrecht – letters written to friends ask for suggestions for her defence and bring up the possibility of an exile to Antwerp. Denissen asked Van Engen why Bake chose to relocate to Ghent and why she settled on this particular convent. Van Engen answered that Johannes Eckhart’s house was turned into a convent and that they offered to take Bake in. In fact, she was eventually made prioress (possibly by Eckhart himself) at a young age. Her removal from the position most likely occurred after his death. Stoop added that Bake suggests that she is unconvinced of the importance of texts and that spirituality should be learned elsewhere. Denissen responded that, on the contrary, texts were quite important to Bake. She also suggested that Bake’s commentary was a rebellion against certain forms of authority and possibly perceived as dangerous due to her visionary nature of textual production and drive to share knowledge with others, whether acceptable or not. Yet, she also had non-textual visionary experiences.

Next, Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski discussed the trajectory of Colette of Corbie’s vocational shift from anchoress to Observant Clarissan. She also considered the process of transition between manuscripts, incunabula, and early printed books, when texts were sometimes transcribed back into manuscripts. She asked Stoop’s opinion of this phenomenon. Stoop responded by considering why people began to copy printed books in manuscript forms. As an example, she brought up copying for annotation and as a spiritual exercise, also noting that some people might not have been able to afford a printed book, though she thinks that this is unlikely. Anna Dlabačová added other possibilities for manual transcription, such as the desire for a luxurious manuscript copy. She suggested that scholarship is only beginning to form understandings of these transitions since the trajectory from manuscript to printed book is often (wrongly) perceived as linear. Newman reiterated what other speakers had responded, focusing on what is lost in the transition from manuscript to printed book: hand-copying books is useful for intellectual and spiritual growth and to deeply internalize texts.

Bruce Venarde asked Newman about her evocation of a sanitization of Mechthild of Magdeburg’s writing. Who did Mechthild think would be reading her novel ideas, which incorporated so much originality? Newman responded that there was certainly an element of subversion at work since Helfta nuns were known to be proponents of the cult of the Sacred Heart. Newman suggested that Mechthild of Magdeburg’s book was for internal consumption since writing was a communal process. Dominican confessors also had a huge network, and Newman thinks that this is how the book was circulated, primarily in an abridged, Latin form, which allowed it to spread early beyond regional locations and outside purely religious contexts.

Akl asked, related to Venarde’s question, whether the symbolism of the heart as a door was used in the two Mechthilds’ texts. Newman responded that the cult of the Sacred Heart spread widely and that piety centred around the heart as a symbol of the interiority of Jesus and the Trinity, but she is unsure of whether illustrated copies exist and whether they are directly connected to the Helfta texts.

Michael Hahn asked Newman whether the shifts in bridal mysticism were part of a broader trend or specific to Helfta. Newman answered that the Helfta texts were particularly visible due to how prolific the nuns were in their writing. There was also a crossover between secular and religious ways of perceiving love and significant influence from courtly romance and troubadour poetry. This is shown in the notion of both parties as desiring love and becoming enmeshed in a turbulent relationship instead of as the soul making progress towards a stable and immovable God. John Arblaster evoked William of Saint-Thierry’s exposition on the Song of Songs: the mutuality between the heavenly bride and bridegroom, such as in the passage about the flowery bed, does not discuss desire, but points to a significant mutual passion expressed as kisses and joy. He also noted that the copying of texts was a devotional practice in itself and not only to familiarize oneself with the text.

Next, Cochelin returned to the issue of different denominations for women, suggesting that thinking in terms of orders is too limiting for women religious. Newman added the example of Juliana of Cornillon, who spent time in a leprosarium, which she tried to turn into an Augustinian priory, was exiled and moved between Cistercian monasteries without taking vows, then ended her life as an anchoress, suggesting that these transitions were more common than we might think. Stoop also specified that texts circulated easily across religious orders.

Stoop then asked Newman how far Mechthild of Magdeburg’s texts had circulated. Newman answered that her texts circulated much less than others at the time and that they mainly circulated in translation, reiterating that Latin texts enabled wider circulation.

Mercedes Pérez Vidal added an example to Stoop’s discussion of the circulation of texts between different religious communities. She mentioned a particular manuscript, a book on the Passion, copied by (and for) a Portuguese nun, which can be compared with manuscript copies of the Tleven ons Heren Ihesu Cristi, which circulated widely among communities of religious women in the Netherlands. As was the case in these communities, the Cistercian nuns of Lorvão also used incunabula alongside manuscripts.

Barbara Walters thanked Newman for her work and help with others’ research and mentioned Anneke Mulder-Bakker whose work was also instrumental.