Ruling the Spirit
THE MIDDLE AGES SERIES
Ruth Mazo Karras, Series Editor
Edward Peters, Founding Editor
A complete list of books in the series
is available from the publisher.
RULING THE SPIRIT
Women, Liturgy, and Dominican Reform in Late Medieval Germany
CLAIRE TAYLOR JONES
UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS
PHILADELPHIA
Copyright © 2018 University of Pennsylvania Press
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations used for purposes of review or scholarly citation, none of this book may be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission from the publisher.
Published by
University of Pennsylvania Press
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104-4112
Printed in the United States of America on acid-free paper
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Jones, Claire Taylor, author.
Title: Ruling the spirit: women, liturgy, and Dominican reform in late medieval Germany / Claire Taylor Jones.
Other titles: Middle Ages series.
Description: 1st edition. | Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, [2017] | Series: The Middle Ages series | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017007706 | ISBN 9780812249552 (hardcover)
Subjects: LCSH: Dominican sisters—Spiritual life—Germany—History—To 1500. | Dominican sisters—Germany—Liturgy—History—To 1500. | Monastic and religious life of women—Germany—History—Middle Ages, 600–1500. | Mysticism—Catholic Church—History.
Classification: LCC BX4337.Z5 G4374 2017 | DDC 271/.972043—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017007706
CONTENTS
Chapter 1. The Office in Dominican Legislation, 1216–1303
Chapter 2. Detachment, Order, and Observance in Johannes Tauler and Heinrich Seuse
Chapter 3. Liturgical Devotion and Visionary Order in the Fourteenth-Century Sisterbooks
Chapter 4. The Office in Dominican Legislation, 1388–1475
Chapter 5. Contemplative Visualization Versus Liturgical Piety in Johannes Nider
Chapter 6. Liturgical Community and Observant Spirituality in the Work of Johannes Meyer
ABBREVIATIONS
| BdRP | Meyer, Johannes. Buch der Reformacio Predigerordens. Ed. Benedict Maria Reichert. 2 vols. Leipzig: Harrassowitz Verlag, 1908–1909. |
| DLL | Achnitz, Wolfgang, ed. Deutsches Literatur-Lexikon: Das Mittelalter. Autoren und Werke nach Themenkreisen und Gattungen. 8 vols. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2011–2015. |
| DS | Seuse, Heinrich. Deutsche Schriften im Auftrag der Württembergischen Kommission für Landesgeschichte. Ed. Karl Bihlmeyer. Reprint. Frankfurt am Main: Minerva, 1907. |
| MBK | Mittelalterliche Bibliothekskataloge Deutschlands und der Schweiz. Vol. III/3. München: Die bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften in München, 1939. |
| PT | Tauler, Johannes. Die Predigten Taulers. Aus der Engelberger und der Freiburger Handschrift sowie aus Schmidts Abschriften der ehemaligen Straßburger Handschriften. Ed. Ferdinand Vetter. Berlin: Weidmann, 1910. |
Introduction
Mitt wie grosser minnender begird sy geflissen wer den orden an allen stuken ze haltend, da von wer fil ze sagen [Of the great and loving desire with which she zealously observed the order in every detail there would be much to tell].
—Töss Sisterbook, Life of Margret Fink
Toward the beginning of her Büchlein der Gnaden Überlast (Book of the Burden of Grace, c. 1345), Christina Ebner illustrates the power of the Dominican liturgy with a tale about Sister Hailrat, the Engelthal convent’s first choir mistress. The event occurred in the early days of the convent, during the first Advent in which they performed the Office according to the Dominican Rite.
In dem ersten advent da sie nach dem orden sungen … da sie nu komen zu dem virden suntag im advent, da sie sungen die metin, da sie nu komen hintz dem funften respons “Virgo Israel,” und der vers “In caritate perpetua,” daz sank sie teutsch und sank so unmenschlichen wol, daz man brufet, sie sunge mit engelischer stimme…. Diser heilig covent wart von grozer andaht sinnelos und vilen nider als die toten und lagen also biz sie alle wider zu in selber komen: do sungen sie ir metin mit grozer andaht auz.1
During the first Advent that they sang according to the order … when they came to the fourth Sunday in Advent, while they were singing matins and had come to the fifth responsory “Virgo Israel” and the verse “In caritate perpetua,” she sang it in German and with such inhuman beauty that one thought she was singing with an angel’s voice…. This holy convent became senseless from great devotion and fell down as if dead and lay thus until they had all come to themselves. Then they sang their matins to the end with great devotion.
While singing the solo verse of a responsory, the choir mistress had been seized by divine insight, spontaneously translating the Latin song into her mother tongue and performing the inspired text with inhuman beauty. Rather than responding with the prescribed text of the chant response, the rest of the community fell, rapt in ecstasy.
This story exemplifies some commonly accepted characteristics of late medieval female piety: liturgical devotion, embodiment, vernacularity, ecstatic experience, and community. In keeping with Caroline Walker Bynum’s analysis of bodiliness and embodied response as a trait of women’s spirituality, the Engelthal sisters are physically overcome by the beauty of Hailrat’s