Grace vita

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Gnadenvita or Gnaden-Leben (as opposed to the unspecific term "Gnadenleben") is the generic name of texts from the life and revelation literature, which were mainly created in women's monasteries in the first half of the 14th century. In the form of a vita they describe the course of a life in the sense of mystical spirituality and in the grace of God.

Scope of the genus

The term "Gnadenvita", proposed for the first time around 1980 and now generally recognized, describes works that border on the one hand, life-like structured representations of saints or mystics, and on the other hand, revelations and visions. Characteristic are the works of Christine Ebner , Adelheid Langmann and Friedrich Sunder from Engelthal Abbey , as well as Elsbeth von Oye from Oetenbach Abbey and the beguin Gertrud von Ortenberg . There are also clear parallels to Heinrich Seuse's “Vita”. The spectrum of the genre ranges from works of the mysticism of the bride (e.g. Adelheid Langmann) to those of the mysticism of the passion (especially Elsbeth von Oye).

Research into the genre is made more difficult by the fact that some of the most important texts (Christine Ebner, Gertrud von Ortenberg) have not yet been edited. More works are still to be discovered. Several are also permanently lost, although some of them can still be identified indirectly, as several sister books contain short vitae, which allow inferences to a more detailed grace vita (e.g. the Irmegard vita in the Kirchberg sister book ). Possible references to the writings of the Dutch mystics of the 13th century such as Hadewijch , Beatrijs von Nazareth and others have yet to be explored .

content

In contrast to the biography of saints, but also to the legend of the saints , external events are irrelevant in the vitae of grace. Individual dates appear almost incidentally and mostly only serve to certify the factuality of the event. The only central theme is the development of the gifted life.

It begins as a new birth in the sense of a turning point in life, with the decisive reorientation of life towards God. A characteristic motive here is often the giving up of "self-will" in the decision to surrender completely to God's will. In the following it will be described how man opens up more and more to the influence of divine grace and in the course of his vita he participates in ever higher forms of encounter with God, and thus also in knowledge: in visionary viewing, in the experience of "Unio" and “God's birth”, in the rapture into divinity, but also in bearing “strangers to God” and “dryness”. In the pastoral work of grace, this new existence will then also be fruitful for others. Diverse aspects of the right way of life come into view, as well as problems of theology (e.g. in understanding the Eucharist).

In the life of grace, the gaze is directed towards the inner world of man and from there towards the supernatural reality. While in the legend holiness manifests itself in external events, above all in works of active virtue, this holiness manifests itself in the life of grace in internal events. Concern for fellow human beings, as “soul concern” in the true sense, has their inner self in mind. In prayer for the poor souls , a matter of particular importance in cloistered nunneries, it also works beyond earthly death.

Literary form

The grace event between God and man to be shown in the grace life extends beyond the reality that can be experienced with the senses. In order to express it, the Gnadenvita makes use of the stylistic means of legend, which the people of the time were thoroughly familiar with. In this way, inner-soul events are translated into scenic images, but the visionary scene takes the place of the legendary miracle . Images from the Bible (especially from the Song of Songs ), from the Minnewesen and from the mystical tradition as well as concepts of the mystical speculation of God try to convey the actually unspeakable happenings.

The repeatedly discussed question of whether the individual descriptions of the lives of grace go back to real experiences or are fictional could only be answered with the help of extra-literary sources, since the legendary form of the lives leaves such questions open.

Intentions

The life of grace aims far beyond the description of extraordinary experiences of grace towards a new ideal of holiness. It expresses a “tremendous change in religious outlook”, the religious paradigm shift that began in the 12th century and had spread across the board in the 13th century. For the salvation of the soul, the conventional practice of faith and virtue practice is no longer sufficient: in an existentially deeper perspective, everything depends on the inner soul fulfillment of the decision of faith, in the personal relationship with God, who reveals himself as the loving "you". The grace vita wants to show the possibility of becoming one and being one with this God. Insofar as this can be called "mysticism", the grace vita, as a form of narrative theology, expresses mystical doctrine in the form of a "life".

meaning

As small as the number of surviving grace vites is, these texts are important as spiritual historical documents.

First and foremost, they are among the earliest evidence of independent women's literature, based on women's mysticism , a religious women's movement from the 12th to 14th centuries. It is no longer just individual prophetic women who speak here, but a large number of educated women, protected and supported by the monastery collective, claiming to express their own thoughts and experiences and to spread them through teaching.

In that the “soul”, that is, the personal essence of the individual, is experienced as unique and loved by God, and in that God and man meet as “you” and “I”, these texts already show an individual consciousness like that so far is generally only ascribed to the Renaissance period. The look "inward" at the processes within the soul also conveys experiences about the deep layers of consciousness.

In theological terms, the texts show a struggle for a new image of God, in the tension between “justice” and “love” as fundamental attributes of God. It is largely possible to replace the often given image of the strict, distant Judge God by the experience of a loving God who in his trinity is already dialogical in itself.

In all of this, however, it is at the same time justified that the spread and thus also the meaning of the grace vites remained limited to a relatively narrow area. Even at the time of its creation, this literature encountered strong opposition. The reduction of individual experiences of God to dogmatically secured statements is already evident in the transformation into short vitae of the sister books, which then led to the loss of most of the individual vitae and revelations. At the same time, the efforts of the official church to steer the religious experiences of women in "harmless" channels have increased since 1300; the great intellectual upheavals of the women's and poverty movement were mostly history at that time anyway. Personal revelations were increasingly presented as aberrations. “Mysticism” was only possible in individual, mostly Dominican areas. At the latest with the plague catastrophe of 1348, the personnel base in the women's monasteries had also dwindled. The monastery reformers of the 15th century were fundamentally suspicious of “mystical” experiences, they were concerned with the practical fulfillment of duties in religious life and the limitation of women to the area of ​​the enclosure: striving for virtue instead of personal experience of God and theological teaching. So only a few texts have survived, which were then largely interpreted in the research of the 19th century in the sense of a disqualification of women's literature: as evidence of “illiterate”, naive, emotional, vision-addicted or mentally ill female natures. Only the latest research is gradually discovering the true meaning of this literature.

Already now, however, the literary analysis shows the need for clear demarcations in the area of ​​revelatory literature. As early as the 14th century, supranatural experiences were being sought in some monasteries, and “mystical” expression became a fashion language. In the 15th century, in the course of an increasingly individual and sometimes miraculous striving for piety, there were “revelations” of a questionable nature, which were already highly controversial in their time. Such texts are far removed from the theological intentions of the grace vites.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Ringler 1980 (see below: literature), p. 355f.
  2. ↑ See e.g. B. Glier (see below: literature), p. 294f.
  3. ↑ See e.g. B. also the vita of Elsbeth von Villingen in the sister book of St. Katharinenthal : s. Ruth Meyer: The 'St. Katharinental Sisters 'Book'. Investigation - Edition - Commentary. Tübingen 1995 (= MTU 104), p. 79f.
  4. ↑ See Klaus-Gunther Wesseling:  HADEWIJCH (Hadewych) von Antwerpen. In: Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL). Volume 18, Bautz, Herzberg 2001, ISBN 3-88309-086-7 , Sp. 549-563.  ( Article / beginning of article in Internet archive )
  5. ↑ The term "self-will", which is very common in mystical literature, is by no means synonymous with "own will": it specifically means the will directed towards the self, in contrast to the will (entirely own) that abandons itself to the will of God. Fundamental to this are central biblical passages, especially the Prayer of Our Father fiat voluntas tua - Thy will be done , Mt 6,10 and others, as well as Mary's fiat - it be done in the preaching scene Lk 1,38. See numerous documents from the field of revelation literature in: Ringler 1980 (see below: literature), pp. 216-218, as well as the quotations in: The great book of mystics - Franz von Assisi, Hildegard von Bingen, Meister Eckehart, “Der Franckforter ".
  6. ↑ Cf. Acklin-Zimmermann (see below: literature); the results obtained here from the nuns' vites about the Eucharist and the Passion of Christ as theological figures of thought can be transferred to the grace vitae.
  7. ↑ See already Ringler 1980 (see below: literature), p. 354: “The fixation in pictures of literary origin does not necessarily contradict a foundation in the real experience and experience of a certain person, but conversely, such a real experience and experience does not have to be assumed . "
  8. ↑ See already at: Albert Hauck: Church history of Germany. Vol. 5. Leipzig 1920, p. 396
  9. ↑ According to Ringler 1980 (see below: literature), p. 353
  10. ↑ See e.g. B. Johanna Thali: vil herczliebe kúngin. The meaning of Mary in the grace vita of the Engelthaler monastery chaplain Friedrich Sunder. In: Eckart Conrad Lutz (ed.): Medieval literature in a life context. Results of the Troisième Cycle Romand 1994. Universitätsverlag, Freiburg / Switzerland 1997 (Scrinium Friburgense 8), pp. 265-315, here p. 314 online
  11. ↑ This discourse is particularly well documented in the Nuremberg area; see e.g. For example: Werner Williams-Krapp: 'Women's mysticism' in Nuremberg. On a previously unknown work by Carthusian Erhart Groß. In: Rudolf Bentzinger / Ulrich-Dieter Oppitz / Jürgen Wolf (eds.): Basics. Research, editions and materials on German literature and language from the Middle Ages and the early modern period. Stuttgart 2013, pp. 181–195 (ZfdA - Supplement 18)

literature

  • Béatrice W. Acklin-Zimmermann: Touching God in Thought. The theological implications of the nuns' lives. Friborg (Switzerland) 1993 (Dokimion 14)
  • Ingeborg Glier (ed.): The German literature in the late Middle Ages (1250-1370). Part two: poems for couples, drama, prose. Beck, Munich 1986 (= history of German literature from the beginnings to the present. Vol. 3, part 2), pp. 291–299: Nonnenleben and Revelation literature online
  • Siegfried Ringler: Life and revelation literature in women's monasteries in the Middle Ages. Sources and Studies. Artemis, Munich 1980 (= Munich Texts and Studies on German Medieval Literature 72), pp. 4–6; 334-359 et al. ö. (see register: Gnaden-Leben / Gnadenvita ) review online
  • Siegfried Ringler: The reception of medieval women's mysticism as a scientific problem, presented in the work of Christine Ebner. In: Peter Dinzelbacher , Dieter R. Bauer (Hrsg.): Frauenmystik im Mittelalter. Ostfildern near Stuttgart 1985, pp. 178-200
  • Siegfried Ringler: Vites of grace from 14th century women's monasteries in southern Germany - writing vitals as a mystical doctrine. In: Dietrich Schmidtke (Ed.): Minnichlichiu gotes discernusse. Studies on the early occidental mystic tradition. Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt 1990 (= mysticism in past and present I 7), pp. 89-104

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