Sara S. Poor

Cloaking the Body in Text: The Question of Female Authorship in the Writings of Mechthild von Magdeburg

Abstract Dar nach tet der selbe priester die stillen messe, der gewihet wart in siner můter libe mit dem heligen geiste. Do er die wissen ovelaten nam in sine hende, do hůp sich das selbe lamp uf, das uf dem alter stůnt, und vogete sich mit den worten under die zeichen siner hant in die ovelaten und die ovelaten in das lamp, also das ich der ovelaten nút me sach, mere ein blfitig lamp, gehangen an einem rotten crúze. Mit also sussen ogen sach es úns an, das ich es niemer me vergessen kane … Do gieng die arme dirne zůdem altar mit grosser Hebe und mit einer offenen sele. Do nam SantJohannes das wisse lamp mit sinen roten wun-den und leit es in den kowen irs mundes. Do leite sich das reine lamp uf sin eigen bilde in irem stal und sog ir herze mit sinem snssen munde. Ie me es sog, ie me si es im gonde. After that the same priest [John the Baptist] conducted the common Mass, who had been ordained in his mothers womb by the Holy Spirit. When he took the white wafer in his hands, then that same lamb that was standing on the altar got up and changed itself at the words and under the sign of his hands into the wafer and the wafer into the lamb so that I no longer saw the wafer, but rather a bloody lamb hanging on a red cross. It looked upon us with such sweet eyes that I shall never be able to forget it. … Then the poor maid went to the altar with great love and with an open soul. Then Saint John took the white lamb with its red wounds and laid it in the jaws of her mouth. Then the pure lamb laid itself on its own image in her stall and suckled on her heart with its sweet mouth. The more it suckled, the more she gave it.

Why Surface Reading Is Not Enough: Morolf, the Skin of the Jew, and German Medieval Studies

Abstract This essay makes a case for the continued necessity and usefulness of so-called “symptomatic reading” within the context of German medieval studies. To demonstrate this necessity, the essay focuses on a short episode at the beginning of the medieval German minstrel epic Salman und Morolf in which Morolf, brother of Salman, the Christian king of Jerusalem, disguises himself in the skin of a murdered Jew in order to retrieve Salman’s wife Salme, who has been kidnapped by a heathen king. Because the “surface” of the text offers no specific comment on how the episode should be received, solving the puzzles it elicits is only possible by a reading that takes into full account things like historical context (the crusade milieu) and interpretive tools like repression and projection. Using these tools, the essay articulates how the episode operates in relation to the fraught status of the Jew in both Germany and the Middle East. As a conclusion, the essay then offers a broader reading of the epic in which the figure of the disloyal pagan queen represents the elusive quality of the Holy Land vis-à-vis Western sovereignty.

Stimmen schreibender Frauen in der Mystik des 15. Jahrhunderts: Der Fall Anna Eybins

The general rule for female writers of late medieval German manuscripts is that they hardly ever make themselves heard, or so it seems. Occasionally, however, we are lucky enough to encounter a manuscript or parts of a manuscript that can be definitively attributed to a female scribe. In this essay, I discuss one such case. Anna Eybin, who wrote and produced ›many books‹ (according to her sisters in the reformed Augustinian convent near Nuremberg), which are witness to her written ›multi-vocality‹. She signs her name in two different compilations that circulated among Southern German observant religious houses in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. Taking into account the exchange of texts between different observant religious houses, the investigation shows that on different levels Eybin’s work can be understood as part of a conversation between several voices. Further, analyzing the shared texts in these compilations, in particular the mystical dialogue known as the Sister Catherine-Treatise, allows us the unusual opportunity to witness a female scribe in action and thus to mark and isolate a specific voice of a female author. That is, Eybin not only reproduces texts, but also, between one manuscript and the next, edits and improves them. Although Eybin’s changes to the text are subtle, they nevertheless suggest the presence of a (veiled) female authorial voice. This analysis then leads to a reconsideration of what it means to be an author for women in this context.