Mechthild of Magdeburg

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Mechthild of Magdeburg (c. 1207 – c. 1282/1294) was a German mystic and Beguine best known for her book The Flowing Light of Divinity. She has the distinction of being the first mystic to write in Low German.

Born into a noble Saxon family, Mechthild experienced her first vision of the Holy Spirit at about age twelve. In 1230 she left home to live as a Beguine in Magdeburg, a community of lay religious women. There she seems to have held a leadership role and read many Dominican writings. Her confessor, Henry of Halle, encouraged her to compose The Flowing Light. Because of her bold criticisms of church leaders and her claimed spiritual insights, she faced strong opposition and some called for burning her work. As she grew older, she became blind.

Around 1272 she joined the Cistercian monastery at Helfta, where she likely found protection in her final years and finished writing her revelations. It is unclear if she formally became a nun there. She probably died around 1282, though some scholars think she lived into the 1290s.

The Flowing Light, written in Middle Low German with some Latin phrases, was composed between 1250 and 1280 in seven books. The first five were completed by about 1260; a sixth was added in the following decade; and a seventh, with a different tone, was added after she joined Helfta. The work was later translated into Latin and into Alemannic German, and the only surviving copy today is in the Einsiedeln library in Switzerland, rediscovered in 1861.

Mechthild’s writing is vivid and sophisticated. Her imagery of Hell is thought by some to have influenced Dante’s Divine Comedy, though this is not proven. Her work faded from memory by the 15th century and was revived in the 19th century, gaining interest as both devotional literature and a historical text.