Hadewijch

For the film, see Hadewijch (film).

Contours of the Duchy of Brabant of Hadewijch's time, drawn on a 20th-century map of Belgium and the Netherlands.

Hadewijch (Dutch pronunciation: [ˈɦaːdəʋɪx]), sometimes referred to as Hadewych or Hadewig (of Brabant or of Antwerp), was a 13th-century poet and mystic, probably living in the Duchy of Brabant. Most of her extant writings are in a Brabantian form of Middle Dutch. Her writings include visions, prose letters and poetry. Hadewijch was one of the most important direct influences on John of Ruysbroeck.

Importance

Religion has a complex history and fully understanding it for what it currently is requires researching its past. A good start to this is looking at a woman from the thirteenth century who had lived in the Low Countries, Hadewijch. Understanding Hadewijch and the life that she had lived will open the door to popular religion in the thirteenth century, especially as it pertains to women.

Life

No details of her life are known outside the sparse indications in her own writings. Her Letters suggest that she functioned as the head of a beguine house, but that she had experienced opposition that drove her to a wandering life. This evidence, as well as her lack of reference to life in a convent, makes the nineteenth-century theory that she was a nun problematic, and it has been abandoned by modern scholars. She must have come from a wealthy family: her writing demonstrates an expansive knowledge of the literature and theological treatises of several languages, including Latin and French, as well as French courtly poetry, in a period when studying was a luxury only exceptionally granted to women.

Beguine Life

Hadewijch was a beguine mystic who had lived during the thirteenth century in the Low Countries, specifically in the city of Antwerp which was in the region of Brabant at the time. Hadewijch is known for her work in poems, letters, and visions that she had described in writing.

Hadewijch was a part of a movement known as the beguine movement. Beguines were women during the thirteenth century who had a deep love for Jesus Christ, but unlike nuns, beguines did not want to take any formal vows. Instead, beguines took undemanding vows in which they had the ability to set themselves free from at any time.

Their development was slow at first, with the clergy being on edge about the whole idea because there was very little organization utilized, however, in the year 1216 they had acquired the right to live in common and encourage others to join them, which had been approved by Pope Honorius III. With that, beguines lived together in a home referred to as beguinages. Oftentimes, towns consisted of more than one beguinages with contrasts between them, one being for the beguines who are more on the poor side.

This movement was also not solely for women, men were involved as well. However, men in this movement were not known as beguines, but rather, they had called themselves beghards.

Context

Every piece of information we have about Hadewijch comes from interpretations of her work that has been done by multiple different scholars throughout the centuries. The different writings done by Hadewijch explored themes of divine love, spiritual experiences, and the union of soul with God. It can be difficult to fully grasp an understanding of who she was and the purpose that she had fulfilled without getting a better look at the time and place that she was from.

The term “Low Countries” is a fairly broad term that came about due to the area being below sea level. This area is present day Belgium, The Netherlands, and Luxembourg. Throughout the middle ages new religious movements had emerged. During the thirteenth century, in the Low Countries particularly, these movements were at their most drastic time. The reason behind this was that people were aiming to address the spiritual needs in that moment in history. This time period involved a lot of people to be declared heretics and had been condemned from the church. These movements allowed these people to still express and maintain their spirituality.

The poems, letters, and visions that Hadewijch had written were for her fellow beguines to read. Hadewijch was one of the first mystic writers to put her text in Dutch. These pieces of writing have been translated over the centuries, and it is important to recognize the point of interpretation potentially being lost through translation. Looking at the visions she had written about specifically, it is clear that they each have a commonality of Hadewijch ascending to Jesus Christ while experiencing strong emotions that are almost euphoric. Another common theme throughout the visions is the agony she would describe when it came to the end of the vision. The visions that Hadewijch would experience, along with every other mystic, were a metaphor for the deep love that these women had for Christ.

Sexuality

Some of Hadewijch's letters have been interpreted as alluding to same-sex attraction or desire. A notable example is found in Letter 25, in which she describes her powerful, unrequited feelings for a woman named Sara, as well as her close relationship with two women named Emma and Margriet:

Greet Sara also in my behalf, whether I am anything to her or nothing.

Could I be fully all that in my love I wish to be for her, I would gladly do so; and I shall do so fully, however she may treat me. She has very largely forgotten my affliction, but I do not wish to blame or reproach her, seeing that Love [Minne] leaves her at rest, and does not reproach her, although Love ought ever anew to urge her to be busy with her noble Beloved. Now that she has other occupations and can look on quietly and tolerate my heart's affliction, she lets me suffer. She is well aware, however, that she should be a comfort to me, both in this life of exile and in the other life in bliss. There she will indeed be my comfort, although she now leaves me in the lurch.

And you, Emma and yourself-who can obtain more from me than any other person now living can, except Sara-are equally dear to me. But both of you turn too little to Love, who has so fearfully subdued me in the commotion of unappeased love. My heart, soul, and senses have not a moment's rest, day or night; the flame burns constantly in the very marrow of my soul.

Tell Margriet to be on her guard against haughtiness, and to be sensible, and to attend to God each day; and that she may apply herself to the attainment of perfection and prepare herself to live with us, where we shall one day be together; and that she should neither live nor remain with aliens. It would be a great disloyalty if she deserted us, since she so much desires to satisfy us, and she is now close to us-indeed, very close-and we also so much desire her to be with us.

Once I heard a sermon in which Saint Augustine was spoken of. No sooner had I heard it than I became inwardly so on fire that it seemed to me everything on earth must be set ablaze by the flame I felt within me. Love is all!

— Hadewijch, Letter 25

Works

Medieval manuscript page of a Hadewijch poem

Most of Hadewijch's extant writings, none of which survived the Middle Ages as an autograph, are in a Brabantian form of Middle Dutch. Five groups of texts survive: her writings include poetry, descriptions of her visions, and prose letters. There are two groups of poetry: Poems in Stanzas (Strophische Gedichten) and Poems in Couplets (Mengeldichten). Finally there is the "Lijst der volmaakten" ("list of the perfect ones").

Poems in Stanzas (Strophische Gedichten)

Her forty-five Poems in Stanzas (Strophische Gedichten, also Liederen, "Songs") are lyric poems following the forms and conventions used by the trouvères and minnesingers of her time, but in Dutch, and with the theme of worldly courtship replaced by sublimated love to God. Many of them are contrafacta of Latin and vernacular songs and hymns, leading to a Dutch edition renaming them "Liederen" ("Songs") and including audio recordings of performances.

Poems in Couplets (Mengeldichten or Berijmde brieven)

The sixteen Poems in Couplets (Mengeldichten, also Berijmde brieven, "letters on rhyme") are simpler didactical poems in letter format, composed in rhyming couplets, on Christian topics; not all of them are considered authentic.

Visions

Hadewijch's Book of Visions (Visioenenboek), the earliest vernacular collection of such revelations, appears to have been composed in the 1240s. It prominently features dialogue between Hadewijch and Christ in visionary speech, an early example of this mode of vernacular religious instruction.

Letters

Thirty prose letters also survive: here Hadewijch explains her views, and they give some context to her life.

List

The Lijst der volmaakten ("list of the perfect ones"), is joined to the Visions in some manuscripts, and to the Poems in Stanzas in a more recent one. It lists several saints, like Bernard of Clairvaux, but some entries are more remarkable, like a beguine who had been condemned to death by the inquisition.

What Scholars Say

In the 20th century a question that was being asked about mysticism and the visions that Hadewijch had described became what series of events led up to each experience, and also, were these encounters actually seen or only felt within the mystics.

Agatha Anna Bardoel dove into these questions throughout her journal article with the help of work done by Arthur Deikman and Iris Murdoch. Agatha suggests that the visions described by Hadewijch were a result of nothing other than a deep meditation, that, when done on a regular basis, what she was experiencing came to be quite simple and easily repeated. This became the first and most recent interpretation on the visions that Hadewijch had experienced.

Based on an experiment done by Deikman over the course of several weeks that was directly related to stages of meditation, Agatha found similarities between that and the work done by Hadewijch, which is where she drew these conclusions from. Additionally, each encounter that Hadewijch had with a higher power was indistinguishable from that of a young child experiencing something for the first time. Put simply, Hadewijch had indescribable moments within each vision much like all children do in the early years of their lives.

While Agatha focused solely on the visions of Hadewijch to come to her conclusions, others have used a combination of her visions and their relation to Hadewijch’s other pieces of work to piece together a narrative. Mary A. Suydam takes this approach in her journal article, from a feminist perspective. According to Suydam and her research, Hadewijch believed that the power held by mystics within the experiences they have had essentially outranks the hierarchy that has already been set into place. Suydam argues that women have a better understanding and connection with their spirituality because of the experiences they have had, and that can be, and has been, overlooked without looking at Hadewijch’s work as a whole.

Conclusion

With the intention of fully understanding an individual subject, it is necessary to take a step back and look at the bigger picture, giving context to the topic at hand. This is especially true for a person like Hadewijch, whose life is not very well known. Gaining knowledge on the Low Countries in the thirteenth century and figuring out what life was like during that time for an individual helps historians assemble an image of who Hadewijch was and what her life may have been like.

Influence

Hadewijch's writings influenced Jan van Ruusbroec both as a theologian and a mystic.

Veneration

In 2022, Hadewijch was officially added to the Episcopal Church liturgical calendar with a feast day on 22 April.

Sources

Editions, translations, and recordings

• Columba Hart (ed. and translator), preface by Paul Mommaers (1980), Hadewijch: The Complete Works, Paulist Press, ISBN 9780809122974 {{citation}}: |author= has generic name (help) ISBN 0-8091-2297-9
• Marieke J. E. H. T. van Baest (essay and translations), preface by Edward Schillebeeckx (1998), Poetry of Hadewijch, Peeters ISBN 90-429-0667-7
• edited, introduced, and translated [into modern Dutch] by Veerle Fraeters & Frank Willaert (with a reconstruction of the melodies by Louis Peter Grijp and recordings) (2009), Liederen, Historische Uitgeverij, ISBN 978-90-6554-478-0 {{citation}}: |author= has generic name (help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)

Studies

• Bardoel, Agatha (1992). Vision or union? : mystical expression in the visions of Hadewijch of Brabant, c. 1250. University of Toronto.
• Swan, Laura. The Wisdom of the Beguines: the Forgotten Story of a Medieval Women's Movement (BlueBridge, 2014).
• Dailey, Patricia (2013). "Living Song: Dwelling in Hadewijch's Liederen". Promised Bodies: Time, Language, and Corporeality in Medieval Women's Mystical Texts. Columbia University Press. pp. 123–56.
• Fraeters, Veerle (2013). "Hadewijch of Brabant and the Beguine Movement". A Companion to Mysticism and Devotion in Northern Germany in the Late Middle Ages. Brill. pp. 49–72. ISBN 9789004258457.
• McGinn, Bernard (1999). The Flowering of Mysticism. pp. 200–244.
• Mommaers, Paul (2005), Hadewijch: Writer – Beguine – Love Mystic, Elisabeth M. Dutton, trans., Peeters, ISBN 9789042913929 ISBN 90-429-1392-4
• Rozenski, Steven (2010), "The Promise of Eternity: Love and Poetic Form in Hadewijch's Liederen or Stanzaic Poems", Exemplaria, 22 (4): 305–325, doi:10.1179/104125710X12730486676225, S2CID 218668701
• Suydam, Mary (1999). "Beguine Textuality: Sacred Performances". In Suydam, Mary; Ziegler, Joanna (eds.). Performance and Transformation: New Approaches to Late Medieval Spirituality. pp. 169–210.

External links

• Media related to Hadewijch at Wikimedia Commons
• Quotations related to Hadewijch at Wikiquote
• Hadewijch in the Columbia Encyclopedia
• Hadewijch at DBNL (digitale bibliotheek voor Nederlandse letteren) Introductions (most of them in Dutch) and various editions of Hadewijch's writings in Middle Dutch
• Poetry by Hadewijch in English translation
• Nicolette, Carlos Eduardo. "Hadewijch de Amberes: a mística medieval e suas visões sobre o divino" in Revista Mais Que Amélias, 2017 (with English abstract)