Return to the index of "Other Women's Voices."
Updated 10-20-08
Hadewijch of Antwerp
/of Brabant /Hadewych (mid-1200s)
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"WHETHER I AM WANDERING IN THE COUNTRY OR PUT IN PRISON
--- HOWEVER IT TURNS OUT, IT IS THE WORK OF LOVE."
=======================================================================
We know of Hadewijch only what comes from her writings. She wrote in the Brabant dialect of Middle Dutch, and she perhaps came from the area around Antwerp. She knew French and Latin and was familiar with contemporary chivalric poetry. She appears to have been a beguine, perhaps the mistress of a beguinage.
At some point she was criticized for her views, perhaps forced out of her community, and separated from women for whom she cared. Her need to keep in touch with them and to continue to teach and encourage them seems to have led to her writings: 31 letters (Brieven), 14 descriptions of visions (Visioenen), 45 poems in stanzaic form (Strofische Gedichten), and 16 to 29 poems in mixed form (Mengeldichten).
The only question about attribution comes with regard to Mengeldichten. The last 13 poems of that work were originally believed to be by Hadewijch but later attributed by some scholars to an anonymous beguine of the later 1200s or early 1300s; she is usually called Hadewijch II. Some now believe that the last 5 of the 13 are by yet a third poet (Hadewijch III), whose thoughts seem closer to those of Marguerite Porete. Still other scholars maintain the original attribution of the whole Mengeldichten to the original Hadewijch.
Hadewijch also compiled a "List of the Perfect," naming 86 persons, living and dead, whom she described as "clothed in love"; the list includes a beguine who had been executed, probably in 1236. It is from the datable references in this list that Hadewijch has been assigned to the mid-1200s.
On this page you'll find:
Links to helpful sites online.
Excerpts from translations in print:
Brieven
Visioenen
Strofische Gedichten
Mengeldichten
Hadewijch II (or III)
"List of the Perfect"
Information about secondary sources.
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1. Excerpts in English:
From Strofische Gedichten:
(a) All of Columba Hart's translation of poem #9, "To sing of Love is pleasant in every season"; also given are sections of #10 and #45.
(b) The first two and the fourth stanza of #22, "My distress is great and unknown to men," translated by Hart.
(c) At the start of an essay on Hadewijch by Elton Hall, two stanzas of #28, "The madness of love is a rich fief" The essay includes lines from other poems and from two visions; the translations are by Hart.
(d) In an essay on beguines by Marianne Dorman, several Hadewijch passages, including the complete #33, "Time is new with every year."
(e) About one-fourth of the way down the page of an an essay by Abraham van Luik on Hadewijch and a later writer called Bloemardine, Hart's version of lines from three poems, including six of the ten stanzas of #34, "In all seasons new and old,"; these are followed by brief passages from three visions.
From Brieven:
(a) After an introduction, Hart's translation of the first half of #16 and all but the final paragraph of #14, on how to love and to serve God.
(b) All of Hart's translation of #20, describing the soul's ascent to God as a series of twelve hours (this letter is frequently compared with Beatrijs of Nazareth's Seven manieren van minne).
From Visioenen:
(a) In Van Luik's essay "Feminists, Prophetesses and Witches: Lessons from a Woman's Movement in the High Middle Ages," go to the uses of "Hadewijch" for parts of Visions 7 and 8, translated by Hart.
(b) In this section of a history of Dutch literature by Reinder P. Meijer, go to "Hadewych" (note spelling) for passages from Visions 7 and 9, followed by lines from Strofische Gedichten, #7; translation and commentary are Meijer's.
From Mengeldichten:
(a) All of Mengeldichten #13, "What is sweetest in love," translated by Hart.
(b) Links to seven passages, by various translators, from Mengeldichten and Strofische Gedichten; included are all of Mengeldichten #16 ("Love has seven names") and three poems by Hadewijch II ("The madness of love," "Tighten to nothing," and "You who want knowledge").
(c) At # 2 in a collection, Hadewijch II's "All things are too small," translated by Jane Hirshfield.
2. The complete "List of the Perfect," translated by Helen Rolfson, although without Rolfson's 1988 introduction (for information on that, see below, under "In print").
3. Dutch originals:
(a) Links to the 45 poems of Strofische Gedichten.
(b) Links to the 31 letters of Brieven.
(c) Links to the 14 visions of Visioenen.
(d) At a Dutch site, passages from Mengeldichten , including all of #15 ("Ic groete dat ic minne"), are given in italics. Elsewhere, the opening 14 lines of the 50-line #13, "Het zoetste in Minne zijn haar stormen."
(e) At the left, the end of Mengeldichten, the five poems sometimes attributed to Hadewijch III, and at the right, their translation into Slovenian (for the English of part of # 26, "Ic soude der minnen noch gherne naerre dringhen," see under "In print").
(f) Pages from one of the earliest extant manuscripts (c.1350) of Hadewijch's works, including a page from her "List of the Perfect."
4. Essays, etc.:
(a) "Gender, Power and Knowledge in the Strophische Gedichten of Hadewijch" (1990), by Elizabeth Petroff, discusses Hadewijch's treatment of the figure of minne (love) in the poems, using Hart's translations. (A revised version of the essay would appear in Petroff's 1994 study, Body and Soul: Essays on Medieval Women and Mysticism).
(b) "Body as Hierophany" (1988-2001), by Karen-Claire Voss, includes a discussion (about a third of the way down the page) of Hadewijch's descriptions of erotic love in Vision 7; passages quoted are translated by Hart.
(c) Hadewijch is one of the writers discussed in "'Who does she think she is?' Christian Women's Mysticism" (2003), by Amy Hollywood, which looks at the women's need to balance expression of humility with a belief in their privileged relation to God --- and at modern readers' reaction to that need. Hollywood quotes from Vision 11, in Hart's translation
(d) Barbara R. Walter's 2002 sociological study, "Women Religious Virtuosae from the Middle Ages: A Case Pattern and Analytic Model of Types," uses Hadewijch as one example of the variety of religious expression in the period. Use your browser's search function to to "Antwerp" for Walter's evaluation (and two brief passages from Vision 13, translated by Hart).
(e) Hadewijch is one of the writers considered in Karma Lochrie's 1997 essay, "Mystical Acts, Queer Tendencies"; the essay includes lines from Mengeldichten #16, translated by Hart.
(f) Susan Hutchens' essay, "Humility and Pride United in Love: Three Flemish Mystics" (1983) begins with a section on Hadewijch's view of nobility, using Hart's translations from the letters and the visions.
(g) A detailed English-language description of a 2006 study by Johanna Theresia Honselaar, Eenheid en drieheid in de Brieven van Hadewijch van Brabant.
5. Reviews (for information on the books' treatment of Hadewijch, see "Secondary sources") :
(a) Go to "Hadewijch" for Paul Nagy on the 2004 translation of Paul Mommaers' 1989 study, Hadewijch: Writer, Beguine, Love Mystic.
(b) Hugh Rayment-Pickard on the 2007 essay collection, Queer Theology: Rethinking the Western Body; elsewhere, another review, anonymous but detailed.
(c) Claire Waters on the 2004 collection, The Voice of Silence: Women's Literacy in a Men's Church.
(d) Hollywood on Barbara Newman's 2003 study, God and the Goddesses: Vision, Poetry, and Belief in the Middle Ages.
(e) Anna Dronzek on Prudence Allen's 2002 second volume of The Concept of Woman series, The Early Humanist Reformation, 1250-1500; and another review, this by Patricia Z. Beckman.
(f) James A. Wiseman on Bernard McGinn's 1998 history, The Flowering of Mysticism: Men and Women in the New Mysticism (1200-1350); and another review, by Lawrence S. Cunningham.
(g) Cynthia Ho on Newman's 1995 study, From Virile Woman to WomanChrist: Studies in Medieval Religion and Literature.
(h) Catherine M. Mooney on Elizabeth Petroff's 1994 study, Body and Soul: Essays on Medieval Women and Mysticism.
6. The publisher's description of Marieke van Baest's 1998 translation of Strofische Gedichten, Poetry of Hadewijch (for excerpts, see "In print").
7. On beguines:
(a) Abby Stoner's 1995 essay, "Sisters Between: Gender and the Medieval Beguine," includes passages from Hadewijch, translated by Hart.
(b) For a broader historical view, Kate P. Crawford Galea's 1993 essay, "Unhappy Choices: Factors That Contributed to the Decline and Condemnation of the Beguines."
(c) David Burr's translation of Bernard Gui's description of beguines, from Gui's 1324-1331 Practica Inquisitionis Heretice Pravitatis (Conduct of the inquisition of heretical depravity).
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Brieven; Visioenen; Strofische Gedichten; Mengeldichten
[Columba Hart has translated all of Hadewijch's writing except the final 13 poems of Mengeldichten and the "List of the Perfect"; the book has a thorough introduction and extensive notes:]
The complete works / Hadewijch; translation and introduction
by Columba Hart; preface by Paul Mommaers (The Classics of Western
spirituality). New York: Paulist Press, c1980. (xxiv, 412 p.:
ill.)
LC#: PT5559.H3 A24; ISBN: 0809103117, 0809122979
Includes indexes. Bibliography: p. 389-391.
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"They would gladly draw you away from us and attach you
to themselves."
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[From Letter 23, apparently to a woman who is in an community not in agreement with Hadewijch's views:]
Behave yourself where you are now; this is certainly needful for you. Above all things I counsel you to withhold yourself there very prudently from eccentricities, which are there very numerous; yield they pain or pleasure, have nothing to do with them.
Always and in every way be humble, yet not so humble that you become foolish and neglect truth and justice wherever you can put them into practice. For verily I say to you: He who tells a lie for the sake of humility shall be punished for it....
Look after yourself, spend your time well, be faithful, and grow with us. They would gladly draw you away from us and attach you to themselves; their hearts suffer from our exceptional fidelity. Do not let yourself now be too greatly engrossed in anything. Do everything with reliance on Love.
Live in the same fervor as we; and let us live in sweet love. Live for God; let his life be yours, and let yours be ours. [p.103]
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"This must lead aliens to wonder at me and abhor me."
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[From Letter 29, written when Hadewijch's own future seemed unsure:]
O sweet child, your sadness, dejection, and grief give me pain! And this I entreat you urgently,... and command you as a mother commands her dear child,... to cast away from you all alien grief, and to grieve for my sake as little as you can. What happens to me, whether I am wandering in the country or put in prison---however it turns out, it is the work of Love....
Think about it yourself; if you believe with all your heart that I am loved by God, and he is doing his work in me, secretly or openly, and that he renews his old wonders in me, you must also be aware that these are doings of Love, and that this must lead aliens to wonder at me and abhor me. For they cannot work in the domain of Love, because they know neither her coming nor her going. And with these persons I have little shared their customs in their eating, drinking, or sleeping; I have not dressed up in their clothes, or colors, or outward magnificence....
I have lived with these persons nevertheless with all the works I could perform in their service. And they found me prepared with ready virtue for all their needs. [p.114-115]
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"Humility imagines, and says, and swears that it does not
love."
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[The opening of Vision 13:]
On the Sunday before Pentecost, before dawn, I was raised up in spirit to God, who made Love known to me; until that hour, she had been hidden from me. There I saw and heard how the songs of praise resounded, which come from the silent love humility conceals; humility imagines, and says, and swears that it does not love, and that it gives honor and right to neither God nor man in love or service of veritable virtue. There I saw and heard how the songs of praise resounded and adorned the Love of all loves. [p.297]
-----------------------------------
"I know brave knights...."
-----------------------------------
[From Strofische Gedichten #10; in the stanzaic poems
Hadewijch frequently assumes the role of a knight searching for
and trying to win Minne, Lady Love. You can see the original
of the whole poem online: "Die voghele hebben langhe gesweghen":]
I know brave knights, strong of hand,
In whom I place my fullest trust.
They ever serve in the chains of love,
And they fear no pain, grief, or vicissitudes,
But they wish to fare through all that land
Which the loving soul ever found with Love in Love;
Their noble heart is of lordly turn:
They know what Love teaches with love,
And how Love honors the loyal lover with love.
Why then should we miss the opportunity
(If we can conquer Love with love),
And not with ardent longing fare through the storms
In confidence and reliance on Love,
And give ourselves to the service of love?
So should nobility become known to us.
Lo! the day of love is dawning
When men will never fear pain for Love's sake,
And the pain of Love will never be oppressive. [stanzas
3-4; pp.152-53]
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"Imagining we possessed what she kept back for herself."
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[From Mengeldichten #13; on the paradoxes of love:]
What is sweetest in love is her tempestuousness,
Her deepest abyss is her most beautiful form;
To lose one's way in her is to touch her close at hand.
To die of hunger for her is to feed and taste;...
We can say yet more about Love:
Her wealth is her lack of everything;
Her truest fidelity brings about our fall;
Her highest being drowns us in the depths;...
Her revelation is the total hiding of herself;
Her gifts, besides, are thieveries;
Her promises are all seductions;
Her adornments are all undressing;
Her truth is all deception;
To many her assurance appears to lie---
This is the witness that can be truly borne
At any moment by me and many others
To whom Love has often shown
Wonders by which we were mocked,
Imagining we possessed what she kept back for herself.
After she first played these tricks on me,
And I considered all her methods,
I went to work in an entirely different way:
By her threats and her promises
I was no longer deceived.
I will belong to her, whatever she may be,
Gracious or merciless; to me it is all one. [pp.344-345]
=======================================================================
[Marieke van Baest has made a line-by-line prose translation of the 45 poems of Strofische Gedichten; the originals are given on facing pages. Seeing the originals is valuable because of Hadewijch's use of word-play. Van Baest's introductory essay discusses Hadewijch's treatment of minne (love), at once God, human love of God, and an intermediary between God and human. The end notes are frequently useful (but easy to miss because no superscripts lead you to them):]
Poetry of Hadewijch / introductory essay, translation and
notes [by] Marieke J.E.H.T. van Baest; with a foreword by Edward
Schillebeeckx (Studies in spirituality; Supplement 3). Leuven
[Belgium]: Peeters, 1998. (330 p.)
LC#:BV5080 .H3 A4 1998; ISBN: 9042906677
Poems in Middle Dutch and English on opposing pages.
---------------------------------------------
"She herself was the death of him."
---------------------------------------------
[The end of Strofische Gedichten #13; see "Men mach der nuwer tide" online:]
Now take note, all you wise,
Of how great is the power of love:
She wields the sceptre of sovereignty
Over all God bade into life;
She herself was the death of him.
There is no safeguard against love.
Then work in faith of love and become her match
And savor her gentle goodness to the full.
Anyone who has been penetrated by love at any time,
Is of such fierce disposition
That all adversity he endures
Is his best speed. [ll.57-68;
p.111]
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"We deny love her rightful place in the valleys of life."
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[And from #27; see "Men mach biden corren daghen" online:]
You, young ones, you have lost much
Once you have lost your youthful unconcern!
Grown old in love you experience love in ardent striving
While now you are allowed to live carefree,
And in the wealth of untrammelled love
You can say "I am all love's and love is all mine."
That now is the fullness of your virtue.
The wise and old ones glory but little in its wealth,
For they know the cost of the years of love,
In which one must consume and collect.
Not a villager is likely to be so foolish,
That he does not know when he must
Accumulate his goods or market his stock,
While all of us have the sorry disposition
Of wanting to be like a child that is
Dearly beloved without having to do anything to deserve it.
Now this is completely characteristic of our doings;
We deny love her rightful place in the valleys of life.
Let us pray of love that she lead us
Along her ways and her high course. [ll.42-61;
p.193]
=======================================================================
[This anthology includes a brief introduction to Hadewijch II and translations, by Sheila Hughes, of three of her poems. Hughes also translates the earlier Hadewijch's Stanzaic Poems 5 and 7, Vision 11, and Letters 16 and 18:]
Women mystics in medieval Europe / [edited by] Emilie Zum
Brunn, Georgette Epiney-Burgard; translated from the French by
Sheila Hughes. New York: Paragon House, c1989. (xxxvi, 233 p.:
ill.)
LC#: BV5077.E85 F4613 1989; ISBN: 0913729167,
1557781966
Translation of: Femmes troubadours de Dieu. Includes bibliographical
references.
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"...uncircumscribed in the vast immensity."
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[From Mengeldichten #26, by Hadewijch II (or III?); the poet seems to move beyond Hadewijch I's praise of Love to a desire for self-annihilation:]
Most willingly would I draw closer to Love
If I could do so inwardly,
But those who mingle much with creatures
Cannot sing this song with me....
In the abandonment of naked love
There must be detachment from all created aid,
For Love strips of all form
Those She receives in Her simplicity....
It is not enough to exile themselves,
Nor to beg their bread or anything else;
The poor in spirit must be without thoughts
In the vast simplicity,
Which has neither beginning nor end,
Neither form nor mode, neither reason or sense,
Neither opinion or thought, nor attention nor knowledge,
Uncircumscribed in the vast immensity....
This is said in a short poem,
But the road is long, as I well know,
For those who wish to reach the very end
Many a torment must suffer. [stanzas
1, 3, 5-6, 8; pp.138-39]
=======================================================================
[The "List of the Perfect" appears in the Hadewijch manuscripts at the end of the 14th and last vision. Helen Rolfson has translated Hadewijch's "List," and provided a brief introduction on how the"List" relates to the other works. The text alone is available online:]
Rolfson, Helen. The List of the Perfect by Hadewijch of Antwerp.
Vox Benedictina, 5:4 (Oct. 1988), 277-287.
ISSN:0715-8726
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"Even though he did not always remain in bliss...."
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[Her descriptions of people help reveal what Hadewijch meant by perfection. On Augustine of Hippo, after he had overcome doubt of his ability to conquer love:]
Then he left all doubt behind and fell into the full storm of distrust so that he would give love no advantage. Therein he abided at all times until his death; even though he did not always remain in bliss, he did remain in love's realm and in love's works. And then he felt the Trinity's being, in justice and in love. [p.281]
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"Love made her grow up...."
-------------------------------------
[On a virgin named Geremina:]
She let everything happen without surprise and without complaint, and she loved no one unless she knew them to be in the being of love in heave, on earth---the dead, the living, and those not yet born. Everything else, then, was all the same to her, as it is also for me now. Love made her grow up to the perfect essence of her being. [p.282]
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"She was a perfect mother of God."
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[And on a convert from Judaism named Sara who had visionary experiences. The parenthetical phrase is the translator's clarification:]
After a time she came back to herself, and having received seventy-four lovely revelations and also the spirit of prophecy; she also had true works of charity --- something that surpasses all the rest. She had the Holy Spirit in her soul and in her body. With all her exercises (of virtue), she was a perfect mother of God. [p.284]
------------------------------------
"...to whom I sent a monk."
------------------------------------
[We can also see Hadewijch's interactions with others:]
Mina, a recluse who dwells far away on craggy rocks and to whom I sent Master Henry of Breda, is the twenty-third.
Honorius, who dwells in the sea upon a rough rock, is the twenty-fourth, to whom I sent a monk who often used to visit me....
In Paris there is a forgotten Master (of the schools) who lives alone in a little cell. He knows more about me than I know about myself, as far as goodness is concerned. [pp.285-286]
-----------------------------------------------------------------
"...have arrived at this perfection or shall arrive at it."
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[At the end, perhaps to whoever had requested that the "List" be compiled:]
I do not know what you can make of all these people as their lives are unknown to you and in what marvelous wise they have arrived at this perfection or shall arrive at it. [p.287]
=======================================================================
[This translation of Paul Mommaers' 1989 study is probably the best introduction to Hadewijch. The first six chapters provide detailed background on the period and on Hadewijch's role as a beguine; the last two chapters discuss her theology (although, oddly, there is no treatment of Mengeldichten). Veerle Fraeters' foreward gives a brief summary of research since the book's original publication, and the bibliography has been updated to include studies written after 1987. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Hadewijch: writer, beguine, love mystic / Paul Mommaers with
Elisabeth Dutton; foreword by Veerle Fraeters. Louvain; Dudley,
MA: Peeters, 2004. (xii, 158 p.)
LC#: PT5559.H3 Z75 2004; ISBN: 9042913924
Includes bibliographical references (p. [147]-158).
-------------------
[This later study by Mommaers contains a chapter, "Hadewijch: 'Tasting Man and God in One Knowledge,'" which shows Hadewijch's gradual perception of the significance of Jesus' life to her relationship with him; Mommaers traces this development chiefly through the 14 visions:]
Mommaers, Paul. The riddle of Christian mystical experience:
the role of the humanity of Jesus (Louvain theological &
pastoral monographs; 29). Louvain: Peeters, 2003. (292 p.)
LC#: BV5083 .M65 2003; ISBN: 9042912324, 0802824943
Includes bibliographical references.
-------------------
[This collection includes Veerle Fraeters' essay, "Gender and Genre: The Design of Hadewijch's Book of Visions," which analyzes the structure of each of the 14 descriptions of visions and the organization of the whole Visioenen. Fraeters usefully compares Hadewijch's presentation with those of her near contemporaries like Elisabeth of Schonau, Gertrud of Helfta and Mechthild of Magdeberg. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
The voice of silence: women's literacy in a men's church /
edited by Therese de Hemptinne and Maria Eugenia Gongora (Medieval
church studies; 9). Turnhout : Brepols, 2004. (xiv, 224 p.)
LC#: HQ1397 .V653 2004; ISBN: 250351488X
--------------------
[Mary Suydam's essay in this collection, "Bringing
Heaven Down to Earth: Beguine Constructions of Heaven,"
includes a detailed analysis (pp. 97-102) of Vision 4, on Hadewijch's
conception of heaven. Suydam uses her own translation of quoted
passages, with the original given in the notes. (See
the book's table of contents online.):]
Envisaging heaven in the Middle ages / edited by Carolyn Muessig
and Ad Putter; with the assistance of Gareth Griffith and Judith
Jefferson (Routledge studies in medieval religion and culture;
6). London; New York: Routledge, 2007. (x, 258 p.: ill.)
LC#: BT846.3 .E58 2007; ISBN: 9780415383837
Includes bibliographical references and index
-------------------
[This collection includes an essay by Amy Hollywood, "Queering
the Beguines: Mechthild of Magdeburg, Hadewijch of Anvers, Marguerite
Porete," which looks at the complex treatment of imagrs
of erotic love for the divine by the three writers; Hollywood
sees Mechthild's images as heterosexual, Hadewijch's as transvestite,
and Porete's as homoerotic. (See
the book's table of contents online.):]
Queer theology: rethinking the western body / edited by Gerard
Loughlin. Malden, MA; Oxford: Blackwell Pub., 2007. (xiii, 351
p.: ill.)
LC#: BT708 .Q44 2007; ISBN: 9780631216070, 9780631216087
Includes bibliographical references (p. 313-337) and indexes
----------------------
[In Barbara Newman's study, one chapter, "Love Divine, All
Love Excelling," devotes a section (pp.171-81) to a discussion
of Hadewijch, comparing her treatment of love in Strofische
Gedichten with those of her fellow minnesingers. The
entire chapter is useful for showing how Hadewijch's poetry fit
in with the contemporary eroticization of divine love. (See
the book's table of contents online.):]
Newman, Barbara. God and the goddesses: vision, poetry, and
belief in the Middle Ages (The Middle Ages series). Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, c2003. (xiii, 446 p.: ill.)
LC#: PN688.G65 N49 2003; ISBN: 0812236912
Includes bibliographical references (p. [409]-436) and index
-------------------
[Newman's earlier study includes a chapter, "La mystique
courtoise: Thirteenth- Century Beguines and the Art of Love,"
which is helpful in reading Hadewijch; the whole book gives excellent
background. (See
the book's table of contents online.):]
Newman, Barbara. From virile woman to womanChrist: studies
in medieval religion and literature (Middle Ages series). Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, c1995. (355 p.: ill.)
LC#: BV639.W7 N48 1995; ISBN: 0812232739, 0812215451
Includes bibliographical references (p. [321]-343) and index
--------------------
[Gordon Ruby's study includes a chapter on Hadewijch which discusses her use of the language of physical taste and touch, and speculates on what that use reveals about her theological concept of minne. Ruby gives his own translations and the original Dutch of passages from the works. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Rudy, Gordon. Mystical language of sensation in the later
Middle Ages (Studies in medieval history and culture; v. 14).
New York: Routledge, 2002. (xii, 188 p.)
LC#: BT767.7 .R83 2002; ISBN: 0415940702
Includes bibliographical references (p. 163-176) and index
-------------------
[This second volume of Prudence Allen's major study on the philosophy
of gender includes a brief but useful section (pp. 41-49; 60-64)
on Hadewijch's use of reason as a way to study the relationship
between emotion and reason itself. (See
the book's table of contents online.):]
Allen, Prudence. The concept of woman. Volume 2, The early
humanist reformation, 1250-1500. Grand Rapids, Mich.: W.B. Eerdmans
Pub., c2002. (xxiv, 1161 p.: ill.)
LC#: BD450 .A4725 2002; ISBN: 0802847358
Includes bibliographical references (p. 1091-1129) and index
--------------------
[Volume 3 of Bernard McGinn's history of western Christian mysticism includes a thorough discussion of Hadewijch (pp.200-222). McGinn's notes give full bibliographic information on translations and studies; they also give the original of all translated passages. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
McGinn, Bernard.The flowering of mysticism: men and women
in the new mysticism (1200-1350) (The presence of God; vol. 3).New
York: Crossroad, c1998. (xiv, 526 p.)
LC#: BV5075 .M37 vol. 3; ISBN: 0824517423, 0824517431
Includes bibliographical references (p. [465]-505) and indexes
--------------------
[Elizabeth Petroff's collection of essays includes a chapter which analyzes Hadewijch's Strofische Gedichten. (See the book's table of contents online.):]
Petroff, Elizabeth. Body and soul: essays on medieval women
and mysticism. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994. (xii,
235 p.)
LC#: BV5077.E85 P48 1994; ISBN: 0195084543, 0195084551
Includes bibliographical references and index.
---------------------
[This collection contains an useful essay by Joris Reynaert,
"Hadewijch: Mystic Poetry and Courtly Love," which
questions popular assumptions about the "courtly mysticism"
of the Strofische Gedichten. (See
the book's table of contents online.):]
Medieval Dutch literature in its European context / edited by
Erik Kooper (Cambridge studies in medieval literature; 21). Cambridge
[England] ; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1994. ( xv,
327 p.)
LC#: PT5122 .M4 1994; ISBN: 0521402220
Includes bibliographical references and index
------------------------
[This collection includes an essay by Saskia Murk Jansen, "The Mystic Theology of the 13th-Century Mystic, Hadewijch, and Its Literary Expression," which surveys what is known of Hadewijch's life and analyzes her concept of love:]
The medieval mystical tradition in England: Exeter Symposium
V: papers read at the Devon Centre, Dartington Hall, July 1992
/ edited by Marion Glasscoe. Woodbridge, Suffolk, UK: Rochester,
NY, USA: D.S. Brewer, 1992. (221 p.)
LC#: BV5077.G7 E94 1992; ISBN: 0859913465
Includes bibliographical references.
----------------------
[The focus of this book by Murk Jansen is on the last 13 of the poems in the Mengeldichten, but the author discusses the imagery and thought of much of Hadewijch's work and gives her translations of many passages:]
Murk-Jansen, Saskia. The measure of mystic thought: a study
of Hadewijch's Mengeldichten (Göppinger Arbeiten
zur Germanistik; Nr. 536). Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1991.
(252 p.)
LC#: PT5559.H3 M434 1991; ISBN: 3874527778
Revision of the author's thesis (doctoral)--University of Cambridge,
1988. Includes bibliographical references (p. 237-243) and indexes.
----------------------
[Mary A. Suydam's article analyzes four of Hadewijch's visions
and shows how they repeat themes found in the letters and in
the Mengeldichten. (At
the bottom of the page, see the issue's table of contents.):]
Suydam, Mary A. The touch of satisfaction: Visions and the
religious experience according to Hadewijch of Antwerp. Journal
of Feminist Studies in Religion, 12:2 (1996), 5-27.
LC#: HQ1393 .J68; ISSN: 8755-4178
----------------------
[Another article by Suydam argues that Hadewijch I is the author of all of the poems of the Mengeldichten, not merely of the first 16 or the first 24. An appendix gives Suydam's translation of #17 and #28. (See the issue's table of contents online.):]
Suydam, Mary A. The politics of authorship: Hadewijch of Antwerp
and the Mengeldichten. Mystics Quarterly, 22:1 (1996):
2-20.
LC#:BV5077 .G7 F682; ISSN: 0742-5503, 0737-5840
----------------------
[One essay in this collection, "The wilderness of God
in Hadewijch II and Meister Eckhart and his circle." by
Paul A. Dietrich, translates and discusses Mengeldichten
#26:]
Meister Eckhart and the Beguine mystics: Hadewijch of Brabant,
Mechthild of Magdeburg, and Marguerite Porete / edited by Bernard
McGinn. New York: Continuum, 1994. (166 p.)
LC#: BV5075 .M45 1994; ISBN: 0826406815
Includes bibliographical references (p. [165]-166).
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Updated 10-20-08