The convent of Helfta near Eisleben in Saxony stands out during the 13th century as a centre of these mystic tendencies and of contemporary culture, owing to the literary activity of its nuns. All the qualities which make early mysticism attractive,—moral elevation, impassioned fervour, intense realism and an almost boundless imagination,—are here found reflected in the writings of three women, who were inmates of the same convent, and worked and wrote contemporaneously.
The convent to which these women belonged was of the Benedictine order. It had been founded in 1229 by Burkhardt, Count von Mansfeld, and his wife Elisabeth, for the use of their two daughters and for other women who wished to join them in a religious life. So many of the daughters of the Thuringian nobility flocked thither that the convent was removed in 1234 to more spacious accommodation at Rodardesdorf, and again in 1258 to a pleasanter and more suitable site at Helfta.
The convent was then under the abbess Gertrud[810] of the noble family of Hackeborn, whose rule (1251-1291) marks a climax in the prosperity and influence of the house. The convent numbered over a hundred nuns, and among them were women distinguished in other ways besides writing. In the annals of the house mention is made of Elisabeth and Sophie, daughters of Hermann von Mansfeld;—the former was a good painter, and the latter transcribed numerous books and held the office of prioress for many years before she succeeded Gertrud as abbess. Reference is also made to the nun Mechthild von Wippra († c. 1300), who taught singing, an art zealously cultivated by these nuns.
This enthusiasm for studies of all kinds was inspired in the first place by the abbess Gertrud, of whose wonderful liberality of mind and zeal for the advance of knowledge we read in an account written soon after her death by members of her convent[811]. She was endlessly zealous in collecting books and in setting her nuns to transcribe them. ‘This too she insisted on,’ says the account, ‘that the girls should be instructed in the liberal arts, for she said that if the pursuit of knowledge (studium scientiae) were to perish, they would no longer be able to understand holy writ, and religion together with devotion would disappear.’ Latin was well taught and written with ease by various members of the convent. The three women writers who have given the house lasting fame were Mechthild,—who was not educated at the convent but came there about the year 1268, and who is usually spoken of as the beguine or sister Mechthild,—the nun and saint Mechthild von Hackeborn, the sister of the abbess Gertrud, who was educated in the convent and there had visions between 1280 and 1300,—and Gertrud—known in literature as Gertrud the Great. Her name being the same as that of the abbess caused at one time a confusion between them.
The writings of these nuns were composed under the influence of the same mystic movement which was spreading over many districts of Europe, and therefore they contain ideas and descriptions which, forming part of the imaginative wealth of the age, are nearly related to what is contemporaneously found elsewhere. In numerous particulars the writings of these nuns bear a striking resemblance to the imagery and descriptions introduced into the Divine Comedy by Dante. Struck by this likeness, and bent upon connecting Matelda of the Purgatorio with a real person, several modern students have recognised her prototype in one of the writers named Mechthild[812].
The writings of both these women are anterior in date to the composition of the Divine Comedy, and as they were accepted by the Dominicans, certainly had a chance of being carried into distant districts. But there is no proof that Dante had either of these writers in his mind when he wrote in the Purgatorio of Matelda as appearing in an earthly paradise to the poet on the other side of the river Lethe.
‘A lady all alone, she went along
Singing and culling flower after flower,
With which the pathway was all studded o’er.
“Ah, beauteous lady, who in rays of love
Dost warm thyself, if I may trust to looks,
Which the heart’s witnesses are wont to be,
May the desire come unto thee to draw
Near to this river’s bank,” I said to her,
“So much that I may hear what thou art singing.”’
It is she who makes the triumph of the Church apparent to the poet while Beatrice descends to him from heaven.
Without entering into this controversy, it is interesting to note the similarity of the visions in which Mechthild von Hackeborn describes heaven, and those which Mechthild of Magdeburg draws of hell, to the descriptions of the greatest of Italian poets.