Copyright
Henrike Lähnemann; Eva Schlotheuber;Published On
2024-06-21Page Range
pp. 81–102Language
- English
Print Length
22 pages
IV. Love and Friendship
Chapter of: The Life of Nuns: Love, Politics, and Religion in Medieval German Convents(pp. 81–102)
In the convent, love and friendship played a major role. Love linked the nuns with their bridegroom Christ, creating a community in which the women felt connected to one another and which opened the door to a close relationship with God. The letter exchange between the Pirckheimer family, particularly the nuns Klara and Caritas with their brother Willibald, forms the starting point to discuss the friendship concept of the 12th-century English Cistercian abbot Aelred of Rievaulx. The sculpture of Christ embracing John the Evangelist from Kloster Heiligkreuztal acts as visual embodiment of this concept which is linked with mystical texts on bridehood by Gertrud the Great of Helfta.
Contributors
Henrike Lähnemann
(author)Professor of Medieval German Literature and Linguistics at University of Oxford
Henrike Lähnemann is the first woman to be appointed to a chair in the Faculty of Medieval and Modern Languages at the University of Oxford, where she teaches German literature of the Middle Ages and works on textual and visual evidence from the women’s convents of northern Germany.
Eva Schlotheuber
(author)Professor of Medieval History at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf
Eva Schlotheuber is professor of Medieval History at Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, where she researches and teaches on the education and lifeworld of religious women. She was the first woman to chair the Association of Historians of Germany from 2016 to 2021.