Magdalena Beutler

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Magdalena Beutler (* 1407 ; † 1458 ), also Magdalena Beutler von Kenzingen or Magdalena von Freiburg , was a Christian mystic of the late Middle Ages.

Life

Magdalena was the daughter of Margaretha von Werntertur and the businessman Georg Beutler (Beitler) from Kenzingen . The parents married in 1389. Magdalena had eight siblings. Her mother Margaretha Beutler already had mystical experiences.

The mother Margaretha († 1428) was the daughter of pious, wealthy parents. The marriage with Georg Beutler is described as harmonious. After the death of her husband around 1409, Margaretha wanted to follow God, sold her belongings, went around begging at times and gave the proceeds to the poor. Margaretha went into states of ecstasy, especially while eating and after receiving communion . She later entered the Unterlinden monastery in Colmar, from where she went to the An den Steinen monastery in Basel. Towards the end of her life, Margaretha fell ill more often. How they deal with pain is described in their vita:

“Because she had spoken the word 'O woe', she punished herself very hard and said to herself: 'You poor sinner and a bad smelly sack! Why don't you think of the miserable hanging when our Lord Jesus Christ hung on the cross by three nails without any consolation? '"

The Vita reports on Magdalena's early childhood:

“And so the mother raised her child in her house and so looked after it so that the little child Magdalena was always alone, and she locked it in a room so that she could not be disturbed by him in prayer. And there the little child Magdalena was left alone in the room and unconsoled by everyone. And so God did not want to leave his young wife unconsoled, since she was not more than 3 years old and screamed and wept with misery, and therefore our dear Lord Jesus Christ appeared to his young wife as a child of 2 years. This child was beautiful and affable to look at, his face was clear and bright [...], so that the child Magdalena was comforted and all his misery was taken away from him. "

A friend advised his mother, ostensibly on the basis of divine instruction, to oblige Magdalena, and so at the age of five she was given to the Clarissa monastery in Freiburg. Even as a child she never ate properly and fasted frequently. She slept on the bare earth, wore a rope, an iron wire and a hair robe under her clothes. She filled her shoes with stones and nails. If she thought of anything other than God or spoke useless words, she would beat herself. With her own blood she wrote a letter to God and drew a heart on it. She fell ill at the age of 12 and received communion for the first time.

The Vita describes how Magdalena hid in the monastery for days and wrote a letter with her blood, which she threw into the choir . Magdalena wanted to move her fellow sisters to complete poverty. In 1431 she prophesied her own death, but then did not die. From then on, their influence on the monastic community diminished. The visions Magdalena Beutler are preserved in numerous manuscripts. It describes their bleeding stigmata . Prayers, a litany and an autobiographical poem have been preserved from the mystic :

Some say I am completely insane,
Some say my soul is pure,
I burn with fire very deeply:
I deserve the halo.
My existence is a single miracle, it should be
crowned by death,
I will be canonized without trash (= seducer), set
up a festival for me.

literature

  • Ludwig Clarus: Description of the life of the first sisters of the Dominican convent in Unterlinden by their prioress Catharina von Gebsweiler. Manz-Verlag, Regensburg 1863.
  • Heinrich Seuse Denifle : The life of Margaretha von Kentzingen. A contribution to the history of God's friend in the Oberland. In: Journal for German antiquity and German literature . Volume 19, 1876, pp. 478-491 ( PDF ).
  • Wilhelm Schleußner: Magdalena of Freiburg. A pseudomystical phenomenon of the late Middle Ages. In: The Catholic. 3rd series, Volume 35, 1907, pp. 15-32, 109-127, 199-216 ( digitized version ).
  • Peter Dinzelbacher , Kurt Ruh : Magdalena von Freiburg (M. Beutlerin). In: The German literature of the Middle Ages. Author Lexicon . Second, completely revised edition. Volume 5. De Gruyter, Berlin / New York 1985, Sp. 1117-1121; Supplements: Volume 11, ibid 2004, Col. 944.
  • Peter Dinzelbacher: Christian Mysticism in the Occident. Your story from the beginning to the end of the Middle Ages. Schöningh, Paderborn / Munich / Vienna 1994.
  • Sandra Gorelli: La Vita di Magdalena of Freiburg (1407-1458). Trascrizione diplomatica, traduzione e commento del manoscritto F. Dissertation University of Pisa, Pisa 1997.
  • Ralph Frenken: Childhood and Mysticism in the Middle Ages (= supplements to Mediaevistics. Volume 2). Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2002, pp. 277–288.
  • Magdalena of Freiburg. In: Wolfgang Achnitz (Ed.): German Literature Lexicon . The middle age. Volume 2: The spiritual literature of the late Middle Ages. De Gruyter, Berlin / Boston 2011, Col. 811 f.
  • Madlen Doerr: Poor Clares and Dominican Sisters in Freiburg in the 15th Century: Social Structure and Reform. Dissertation University of Freiburg im Breisgau 2011/12, pp. 53–118 ( PDF ).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Sandra Gorelli (ed.): La Vita di Magdalena of Freiburg (1407-1458). P. 2.
  2. ^ Heinrich Seuse Denifle: The life of Margaretha von Kentzingen. P. 481.
    Almost identical text: Clarus (1863), pp. 400-411. According to Clarus (1863), p. 400, the author of the life of Margaretha Beutler is Father Johannes Maier.
  3. ^ Heinrich Seuse Denifle: The life of Margaretha von Kentzingen. P. 482
  4. ↑ Sandra Gorelli: La Vita di Magdalena of Freiburg (1407-1458). P. 11.
  5. ^ Heinrich Seuse Denifle: The life of Margaretha von Kentzingen. P. 486. New High German transmission according to Frenken (2002), p. 278
  6. ↑ Sandra Gorelli: La Vita di Magdalena of Freiburg (1407-1458). P. 280 f.
  7. ↑ Sandra Gorelli: La Vita di Magdalena of Freiburg (1407-1458). P. 25.
  8. ↑ Sandra Gorelli: La Vita di Magdalena of Freiburg (1407-1458). P. 30 ff.
  9. ↑ Sandra Gorelli: La Vita di Magdalena of Freiburg (1407-1458). P. 30; (1907), p. 27.
  10. ↑ Peter Dinzelbacher: Christian Mysticism in the Occident. P. 396.
  11. ↑ a b Peter Dinzelbacher: Christian Mysticism in the Occident. P. 397.
personal data
SURNAME Beutler, Magdalena
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Beutler von Kenzingen, Magdalena (full name); Magdalena of Freiburg
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Catholic mystic of the late Middle Ages
DATE OF BIRTH 1407
DATE OF DEATH 1458