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Trinitarian Love Mysticism: Ruusbroec, Hadewijch, and the Gendered Experience of the Divine1

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2009

Jessica A. Boon
Jessica A. Boon
Affiliation:
Jessica A. Boon is a doctoral candidate in the department of Religious Studies at the University of Pennsylvania.
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Extract

In the early part of the fourteenth century, a parish priest in Brussels came into the possession of a manuscript containing the vernacular letters, visions, and poetry of a woman known only as “beata Hadewijch.” The priest prized the manuscript, even recommending it to his fellow conventuals decades later, and included its primary tropes of courtly love mysticism (Minnemystik) as an essential part of many of his writings on the active, interior, and contemplative ways to mystical union. This local priest turned canon regular, Jan van Ruusbroec (1292–1381), has been celebrated for centuries for his Trinitarian theology, for his speculative or essence mysticism, and for his negative theology—but Ruusbroec's reliance on Hadewijch's metaphor of courtly love has only recently become a subject of scholarly study. An examination of the parallels between Hadewijch and Ruusbroec's theology, a heavily Trinitarian theology conveyed by means of the metaphor of Minne, not only serves to expand our comprehension of their theologies, but also provides a unique perspective on the religious experience of medieval men and women.

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Articles
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Church History , Volume 72 , Issue 3 , September 2003 , pp. 484 - 503
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Copyright © American Society of Church History 2003

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References

2. The manuscript is attested to by a member of the community Ruusbroec founded for canon regulars in Groenendaal. Jan van Leeuwen, originally a cook for the canons, was taught to read and worship by Ruusbroec and began writing his own texts. In one, he discusses Hadewijch, mentioning her name and gender, making it clear that she was known in the community as a female of great spiritual attainments, and that she was known through her books, which he describes as being “full of good and right doctrine.” See Porion, Jean-Baptiste M., introduction to Hadewijch: Lettres spirituelles, Béatrice de Nazareth: Sept degrés d'amour, ed. Porion, Jean-Baptiste M. (Geneva: Claude Martingay, 1972), 8, n. 2, in which he translates the relevant passage from page 41 of Leeuwen's Seven Signs of the Zodiac, from the Anthology of his writings published in French by P. Axters (n.p., 1943).Google Scholar

3. It is clear that Ruusbroec had read Hadewijch by the time he started writing his spiritual guides for others since he not only uses many of her themes in his two earliest works, The Kingdom of Lovers (early 1330s) and The Spiritual Espousals (mid 1330s), but uses her specific images of the soul as a free prince (Hadewijch, Letter 18:13–37; Ruusbroec, , Spiritual Espousals, 713–52Google Scholar; discussed in Reynaert, J., “Ruusbroec en Hadewijch,” Ons Geestelijk Erf 55 [1981]: 205–12)Google Scholar and the upside-down tree with twelve branches, (Hadewijch, Vision 1; Ruusbroec, , Spiritual Espousals, 840–46Google Scholar; discussed in Mother Hart, Columba, introduction to Hadewijch: The Complete Works, trans. Hart, Columba [Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist, 1980], 15). My thanks to Peter Stabel for translating the Reynaert article for me.Google Scholar

4. Dupré, Louis, The Common Life: The Origins of Trinitarian Mysticism and its Development by Jan Ruusbroec (New York: Crossroads, 1984).Google Scholar

5. Underhill, Evelyn, Mysticism: A Study in the Nature and Development of Man's Spiritual Consciousness (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1961), 505.Google Scholar

6. Nieuwenhove, Rik Van, “Ruusbroec: Apophatic Theologian or Phenomenologist of the Mystical Experience?” The Journal of Religion 80 (01 2000): 83–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

7. Cook, Barbara Gist, “Essential Love: The Erotic Theology of Jan Van Ruusbroec” (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 2000)Google Scholar, and Rudy, Gordon, Mystical Language of Sensation in the Later Middle Ages (New York: Routledge, 2002). Gist Cook's work, an excellent discussion of Ruusbroec's melding of Hadewijch's affectivity and Eckhart's essentialism, provides a careful theological reading of Hadewijch, yet does not consider her in the context of the Minnemystik tradition. Rudy's examination of the language of taste and touch as a metaphor for direct contact with God, as used by Bernard of Clairvaux and Hadewijch, is a fascinating study that appeared as this article was being considered for publication. I hope that my article, putting Hadewijch and Ruusbroec side by side, will serve to spotlight some of the parallels alluded to in Rudy's book (cf. 78–89 and 112–19).Google Scholar

8. See Coakley, John, “Gender and the Authority of Friars: The Significance of Holy Women for Thirteenth-Century Franciscans and Dominicans,” Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture 60 (1991): 445–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar for a quick review, as well as McGinn, Bernard, “The Changing Shape of Late Medieval Mysticism,” Church History: Studies in Christianity and Culture 65 (1996): 197–219.CrossRefGoogle Scholar Also, see Bynum, Caroline Walker, Holy Feast and Holy Fast: The Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987)Google Scholar; Newman, Barbara, From Virile Woman to Woman Christ: Studies in Medieval Religion and Literature (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1995)Google Scholar; Petroff, Elizabeth Alvida, Body and Soul: Essays on Medieval Women and Mysticism (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994)Google Scholar and, as editor, Medieval Women's Visionary Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986)Google Scholar; and Wiethaus, Ulrike, ed., Maps of Flesh and Light: The Religious Experience of Medieval Women Mystics (Syracuse, N.Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1993).Google Scholar

9. Bynum discusses at length in chapter 3 of Holy Feast and Holy Fast (73–112) the especial importance of food in medieval female religious experience, not only as evidenced in records of individual experience, but also in the guides produced by women for women and by men for women. Clare of Assisi's rule for Franciscan nuns focuses on food practices (100–101), male mystics writing for women focus on eucharistic practices (105–12), and so on. Bynum's evaluation of Ruusbroec's use of “female” metaphors, however, can be taken further, as this paper will show.

10. Reynaert, “Ruusbroec en Hadewijch” contains the most complete list of the parallels. Axters, Stephanus, “Hadewijch als Voorloopster van de zalige Jan van Ruusbroec,” in Dr. L. Reypens-Album, ed. Ampe, Albertus (Antwerp: Ruusbroec-Genootschap, 1964), 57–74 was the basis for Reynaert's revisiting of this subjectGoogle Scholar. Hart's introduction to her translation of Hadewijch identifies major themes that the two share, 14–15. Gist Cook's work, which posits that Hadewijch's “radical affectivity” was a major strand in Ruusbroec's take on erotic theology, is the most recent and most complete study of her influence on him.

11. The majority of cases of female religious affecting male religious took place through personal contact. The influence of Margurite Porete's text, Mirouer des simple ames, on Meister Eckhart is suspected, though not proved as effectively as that of Hadewijch on Ruusbroec (Sargent, Michael G., “The Annihilation of Marguerite Porete,” Viator 28 [1997]: 266, n. 38)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. As a test case, however, Porete and Eckhart's interaction is complicated by the charges of heresy levied at them both.

12. Coakley points to the fact that medieval men made much more of gender distinctions in spirituality than did women, with women considered to be less capable of intellectual activity but more receptive to direct spiritual guidance, (“Gender and the Authority of Friars,” 449). McGinn suggests that the feminist model of male domination of women in the Middle Ages be modified to a conception of “mutual exchange” between the two genders, wherein each provided some guidance, albeit moderated by power differences (“The Changing Shape of Late Medieval Mysticism,” 204).

13. A further issue, which has not been addressed in the secondary literature, is that of the importance of Hadewijch as Ruusbroec's sole example of vernacular mysticism. If Hadewijch was the first to translate ideas of union with the divine into Flemish metaphor, her work would naturally be the primary framework for Ruusbroec's ability to articulate ideas that were normally discussed in Latin terminology. This fact serves to create a problem with the traditional categorization of Ruusbroec as an essence mystic, since this assumption has always been based on the belief that Ruusbroec's term “wesen” was equivalent to the scholastic term “esse,” which was a subject of much debate at the time. In fact, as Mommaers emphasizes, Ruusbroec uses the term “wesen” interchangeably for “being” or “essence” and thus is not using the term in a technical sense. (Mommaers, Introduction to Die Geestelike Brulocht, by Ruusbroec, Jan van, Opera Omnia, ed. Alaerts, J. [Tielt: Lannoo, 1988], 3:21.)Google Scholar

14. Reynaert, , “Ruusbroec en Hadewijch,” 205–12.Google Scholar

15. Reynaert, , “Ruusbroec en Hadewijch,” 233.Google Scholar Ruusbroec's work, The Twelve Beguines, begins with a poetic dialogue between a dozen beguines, some of which is taken verbatim from Hadewijch's poetry. See footnotes throughout the first 119 lines of Vanden XII Beghinen, vol. 7 of Opera Omnia. Some of the quotations are from a section of Hadewijch's Stanzaic Poems, which were for a time ascribed to different (anonymous) authors. For a résumé of the arguments for a “Hadewijch II” and a convincing rebuttal of this concept, see Murk-Jansen, , The Measure of Mystic Thought: A Study of Hadewijch's Mengeldichten (Göppingen, Germany: Kümmerle Verlag, 1991)Google Scholar, and Murk-Jansen, , “The Mystical Theology of the Thirteenth-century Mystic Hadewijch and Its Literary Expression,” in The Medieval Mystical Tradition in England: Exeter Symposium 5, ed. Glascoe, Marion (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1992), 117–22.Google Scholar

16. See, for example, Guest, Tanis M., Some Aspects of Hadewijch's Poetic Form in the ‘Strofische Gedichten’ (The Hague, Netherlands: Martinus Nijhoff, 1975)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Murk-Jansen, Saskia M., The Measure of Mystic ThoughtGoogle Scholar; and Baest, Marieke Van, Introduction to Poetry of Hadewijch, ed. Baest, Marieke Van (Leuven, Belgium: Peeters, 1998), 7–41.Google Scholar

17. See, for example, Newman, , “La mystique courtoise” in From Virile Woman to Woman Christ, 137–67Google Scholar; Murk-Jansen, Saskia M., “The Mystical Theology of the Thirteenth-century Mystic Hadewijch and Its Literary Expression,” 117–27Google Scholar; and “The Use of Gender and Gender-related Imagery in Hadewijch,” in Gender and the Text in the Middle Ages, ed. Chance, Jane (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1996), 52–68Google Scholar; also Brunn, Emilie Zum and Epiney-Burgard, Georgette, Women Mystics in Medieval Europe, trans. Hughes, Sheila (New York: Paragon House, 1989)Google Scholar; Lagorio, Valerie M., “The Medieval Continental Women Mystics: An Introduction,” in An Introduction to the Medieval Mystics of Europe, ed. Szarmach, Paul E. (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1984) 161–94Google Scholar; and Bouyer, Louis, Women Mystics: Hadewijch of Antwerp, Teresa of Avila, Thérèse of Lisieux, Elizabeth of the Trinity, Edith Stein, trans. Nash, Anne Englund (San Francisco, Calif.: Ignatius, 1993).Google ScholarMcGinn, Bernard provided the first fully theological analysis of Hadewijch in The Flowering of Mysticism: Men and Women in the New Mysticism, 1200–1350, vol. 3 in The Presence of God: A History of Western Christian Mysticism (New York: Crossroads, 1998), 200–222Google Scholar, a trend followed by his students Barbara Gist Cook and Gordon Rudy. McGinn continues, however, to group Hadewijch with Mechethild of Magdeburg and Marguerite Porete, thus at least in this work perpetuating the distinction between male and females brands of mysticism (a distinction he himself breaks down in other works; see the penultimate page of this article).

18. That is, Bynum, , Holy Feast and Holy Fast, 153–61Google Scholar, and Petroff, , Body and Soul, 182–203.Google Scholar

19. Most authors choose to analyze Hadewijch only in the light of her poetry. The two major scholarly books in English on Hadewijch focus on her poetics (Guest, Some Aspects; Murk-Jansen, , Measure of Mystic Thought)Google Scholar. Translations into both English and French also tend to be of her sets of poetry (see Baest, Van, and Porion, Jean Baptiste M., Introduction to Hadewijch d'Anvers: Poèmes des Béguines traduits du moyen-Néerlandais par Fr. J.-B. P., ed. Porion, Jean-Baptiste M. [Paris: Editions du Seuil, 1954], 7–56.) Again, Gist Cook and Rudy depart from this tendency.Google Scholar

20. Hadewijch states clearly that her visions began in childhood, but that she wrote them down much later. Some take this to mean that her visions represent an early stage in mystical development, while Suydam suggests that the visionary literature is a part of Hadewijch's mature mysticism since they were written at a later time, thus allowing for mature reflection and interpretation. Suydam, Mary A., “The Touch of Satisfaction: Visions and the Religious Experience According to Hadewijch of Antwerp,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 12 (1996): 5–11.Google Scholar

21. Many scholars mistakenly consider Hadewijch's poetry and visions to be direct, unedited descriptions of a mystical experience, putting aside her Letters as “less immediate.” In fact, all reports of contact with the divine are mediated, not direct, descriptions since the very language that a person picks to use in a descriptive passage is filtered by his or her conceptual knowledge of the world, including the conceptual limits imposed by his or her religious tradition. For further discussion of this concept, see Katz, Steven T., “Mystical Speech and Mystical Meaning,” in Mysticism and Language, ed. Katz, Steven T. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 3–40.Google Scholar

22. She is one of the few women writers of the Middle Ages who did not state that she was writing at the behest of a confessor or supervisor. Her letters are clearly meant for an audience of women since they address specific female recipients of the letters, but there is no hint in either the visions or the poems about Hadewijch's intended audience, or indeed if they were written for herself as a record of her individual experience. Her letters, as guides, differ greatly from Ruusbroec's treatises in their treatment of one subject at a time without an overall organizational thrust.

23. In his essay on the unio mystica, Dupré discusses love mysticism as praxis. In his view, mysticism (in Christianity) is by definition an experience of union; thus it is not possible to discuss speculative aspects in a mystic's writing without acknowledging that they must be either the cause or the result of experience. All attempts to divide mysticism into speculative and affective fail by virtue of removing the content of what is being described. Love mysticism is in fact a necessary aspect of each “speculative” theory, as the praxis of what is being described intellectually. Dupre, Louis, “Unio Mystica: The State and the Experience,” in Mystical Union in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam: An Ecumenical Dialogue, eds. Idel, Moshe and McGinn, Bernard (New York: Continuum, 1996), 17.Google Scholar

24. A recent discussion of Minne, including reference to Hadewijch's Trinitarianism, can be found in Rudy, Mystical Language of Sensation, 78ff.

25. Paul Mommaers summarizes in Paepe's, French DeHadewijch Strofische Gedichten in “Bulletin d'histoire de la spiritualite: L'école neerlandaise,” Revue d'histoire de la spiritualité 49 (1973): 477–88Google Scholar. Mommaers and Guest, among others, accept this analysis, though they qualify it with the critique that De Paepe ends up identifying Minne primarily as experience, thus forgetting the fact that a good part of the time the word does indeed function as a name for the Trinity or for Mommaers, Christ., “Bulletin,” 479Google Scholar, and Guest, Tanis M., “Hadewijch and Minne,” in The European Context: Studies in the History and Literature of the Netherlands presented to Theodoor Weevers, eds. King, P. K. and Vincent, P. F. (Cambridge: The Modern Humanities Research Association, 1971), 16–19. Gist Cook argues that Hadewicjh's use of Minne is primarily as a synonym for the Holy Spirit (130, 279–80, and so on), whereas Rudy advocates the idea of multivalence.Google Scholar

26. Stanzaic Poem 8: 3–4, 6–7. Hadewijch of Antwerp, Hadewijch: The Complete Works, translated and introduced by Mother Hart, Columba (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist, 1980), 147.Google Scholar

27. Stanzaic Poem 34: 33–34, 36–37, The Complete Works, 225.Google Scholar

28. Letter 30:107, The Complete Works, 118.Google Scholar

29. Letter 17:26, The Complete Works, 82.Google Scholar Letter 30:167, The Complete Works, 119.Google Scholar

30. Stanzaic Poem 36:111–18, The Complete Works, 233.Google Scholar Note the gender play that Hadewijch employs here—it is her soul under discussion, but the noun “soul” has the male gender. She plays on this frequently, as well as on the concept of “Lady Love” as a female God. See Murk-Jansen, , “The Use of Gender and Gender-related Imagery in Hadewijch,” for a full discussion.Google Scholar

31. Letter 30:84–145, The Complete Works, 117–18Google Scholar, and Mommaers, , “Bulletin,” 475–76.Google Scholar See also Murk-Jansen, Saskia, Brides in the Desert: The Spirituality of the Beguines (Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis Books, 1998), 72–73.Google Scholar

32. Letter 6:227, The Complete Works, 61.Google Scholar

33. Carney, Sheila, “Exemplarism in Hadewijch: The Quest for Full-grownness,” Downside Review 103 (10 1985): 278–80. Hadewijch would have known this idea through William of St. Thierry. She quotes his work directly in Letter 18:80–112.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

34. Hadewijch's vision of the Trinity (Vision 1) underscores this point, for on top of a seat supported by three pillars (the Trinity) and surrounded by roiling waters (divine fruition) is seated the Godhead (line 236), who speaks to Hadewijch of the importance of suffering in life, as demonstrated by Christ (228–364). See also Rudy, , Mystical Language of Sensation, 89–93.Google Scholar

35. Petroff, Elizabeth Alvilda, “Introduction,” Medieval Women's Visionary Literature.Google Scholar

36. Bynum, , Holy Feast and Holy FastGoogle Scholar; also “Religious Women in the Later Middle Ages,” in Christian Spirituality: High Middle Ages and Reformation, ed. Raitt, Jill (New York: Cross-roads, 1987), 121–39.Google Scholar

37. Used as a synonym for touch at times. In Latin, sabere means to taste or to know, as was pointed out by medieval mystics, including William of Thierry, (Bynum, Holy Feast and Holy Fast, 151). Given that William of Thierry is the only author Hadewijch quotes directly, she may very well have been aware of the wordplay going on in the Latin and have chosen to translate it into Flemish.Google Scholar

38. Stanzaic Poem 33:25–26, 29–30, 33–34, The Complete Works, 222–23.Google Scholar

39. Poems in Couplets, 16:32–34, 36–45, The Complete Works, 353.Google Scholar

40. Bynum, , Holy Feast and Holy Fast, 165.Google Scholar

41. Henry, Paul, “La mystique trinitaire du bienheureux Jean Ruusbroec, pt. 1,” Recherches de science religieuse 39–40: 335. My translation from the French.Google Scholar

42. Wiseman, James A., Introduction to John Ruusbroec: The Spiritual Espousals and Other Works, trans. Wiseman, James A. (Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist, 1985), 7.Google Scholar

43. SE, b916–19. Ruusbroec, Jan van, Die Geestelike Brulocht, in Opera omnia, ed. de Baere, G. (Lanoo: Tielt, 1988), 3:408Google Scholar. The standard abbreviation for The Spiritual Espousals is SE, while the a, b, or c designation before the line number refers to the first, second, and third sections of the book. The critical editions in the Opera omnia contain the English translation on the verso page, and the Dutch original and, if applicable, the Latin translation on the recto.

44. “Nevertheless, it all exists in unity, and (it is) undivided in the sublime nature of the Godhead. But the relations which constitute the personal properties exist in an eternal distinction. For the Father without cease gives birth to His Son, and He Himself is not born. And the Son is born, and He cannot give birth. Thus the Father is always having a Son in eternity, and the Son a Father; and these are the relations of the Father to the Son, and of the Son to the Father. And the Father and the Son spirate one Spirit, which is the will, or love, of them both. And this Spirit neither gives birth nor is born, but, flowing out from both, He must eternally be spirated. And these three Persons are one God and one Spirit. And all the attributes, with (their) outflowing operations, are common to all the persons, for they work in the power of a one-fold nature.” Spiritual Espousals, lines b921–31, pages 408–10.Google Scholar

45. Spiritual Espousals, lines b1722–73, page 508.Google Scholar

46. Spiritual Espousals, lines b1955–60, pages 534–36.Google Scholar

47. Spiritual Espousals, lines b932ff., pages 410ff.Google Scholar

48. Louis Dupré devotes a chapter to the rest and activity of God, and man as image of that rest and activity, in The Common Life, 29–51.Google Scholar Also see Wiseman, James A., “Minne in Die gheestelike brulocht,” in Jan van Ruusbroec: The Sources, Content, and Sequels of his Mysticism, eds. Mommaers, Paul and de Paepe, N. (Leuven, Belgium: Leuven University Press, 1984), 86–99Google Scholar, and Cook, Gist, Essential Love, 314ff.Google Scholar

49. Triunity is my own term, coined unintentionally as a shorthand form of referring to the emphasis these two mystics put on the equal importance and the simultaneous existence of the Trinity and Unity in God. Although my use of the term may have started as a noun form of the liturgical phrase “triune God,” I find it useful as a name for God in this context because it captures in one word the multiple aspects of the one God as experienced by these two mystics.

50. This passage is cited in both Gist Cook, Essential Love, 309Google Scholar, and Rudy, , Mystical Language of Sensation, 114. Neither, however, goes on to quote the next few paragraphs, both of which contain key concepts parallel to Hadewijch's thought.Google Scholar

51. Spiritual Espousals, lines b1340–74, pages 464–68.Google Scholar

52. Guest, , Some Aspects, 12.Google Scholar

53. Ruusbroec uses the terms “Minne” and “minnen” as his vocabulary of choice, over the other choices of “karitate” or “liefde” (Wiseman, , “Minne in Die gheestelike brulocht,” 86–89). Although Ruusbroec focuses on the verb “minnen” more than on “Minne” as a name for God, this focus can be attributed to his training in theology, which would have made him more traditional in his names for God. The range of meanings for “love” in his work, however, is as multivalent as Hadewijch's.Google Scholar

54. Mommaers, Paul, “Une phrase clef des Noces Spirituelles,” in Jan van Ruusbroec: The Sources, Content, and Sequels of his Mysticism, eds. Mommaers, P. and de Paepe, N. (Leuven, Belgium: Leuven University Press, 1984), 101.Google Scholar

55. Spiritual Espousals, lines b1312–36, pages 460–62.Google Scholar

56. It should be noted that Ruusbroec's reliance on the vocabulary of hungering in relation to love in this passage undercuts Bynum's broad statement that he was one of the male mystics about which she states: “None chose ‘hunger’ as his basic synonym for ‘desire’” (Bynum, , Holy Feast and Holy Fast, 105).Google Scholar Rudy, on the other hand, while recognizing the importance of taste and touch in Ruusbroec's work, intentionally chooses to focus only on his use of the sense of touch, treating taste only in an endnote (cf. Mystical Language of Sensation, 112, note 22)Google Scholar. Nor does Rudy discuss “hunger,” per se. Finally, the metaphor of hunger certainly exists in other sources. Gist Cook's argument that Eckhart was the other primary influence on Ruusbroec's erotic theology gives good foundation to the question posed by an anonymous reader of this article as to whether Hadewijch or Eckhart was Ruusbroec's source for the hunger metaphor. However, the simultaneous occurrence in the quoted passage of all the facets of Hadewijch's Minnemystik of suffering and love loving love, in addition to her favorite trope of hunger, weighs heavily in her favor as the source of the language Ruusbroec uses to frame his theology.

57. In the Opera Omnia edition, the book on the active life runs 868 lines, the interior life 2216 lines, and the contemplative life a mere 224 lines.

58. Mommaers, Paul, Introduction to Die Geestelike Brulocht, 13.Google Scholar

59. The Little Book of Contemplation (Boecsken der verdaringhe) addresses the contemplative stage primarily and was written in response to a request for clarification by Carthusian monks who had read Ruusbroec's first work, The Kingdom of Lovers (Dat rijcke der ghelieven) (Wiseman, Introduction, 28–29). Known also as Samuel, this work is translated in the first volume of Ruusbroec's Opera Omnia and in the Paulist Press edition, while the Kingdom of Lovers is translated in the fourth volume of the Opera Omnia as well as the Paulist Press edition.

60. Ruusbroec, Jan van, Vanden seven sloten, in Opera Omnia, vol. 2, introduced and edited by de Baere, G., translated by H. Rolfson (Lannoo: Tielt, 1989).Google Scholar

61. Vanden Seven Sloten, lines 475–503, pages 152–56.Google Scholar

62. Vanden Seven Sloten, lines 615–23, pages 168–70.Google Scholar

63. Another possible point of verification is that Ruusbroec does not specify an audience in The Spiritual Espousals, referring rather to those who need aid with their interior life in the face of the heresy of the Free Spirit. He wrote all his later works in response to questions from particular people or communities, so his audience is clear. The only records of who actually read The Spiritual Espousals were left by a fellow canon and by a friend of Ruusbroec's from a nearby Carthusian monastery (Wiseman, Introduction, 2, 7), but that does not mean that Ruusbroec himself excluded women from the set of people who could benefit from his description of the unitive life.

64. Wiseman, Introduction, 26.

65. Reynaert, 220.

66. The seventh enclosure equates to the third kind of life, called the living life, in The Mirror of Eternal Blessedness (Een Spieghel der eeuwigher salicheit), vol. 8 in Opera Omnia, ed. de Baere, G., trans. Lefevere, A. (Turnhout: Brepols, 2001)Google Scholar. The ideas of flux and reflux appear on pages 364–70 (lines 1619–82); the metaphor of the living spring so essential to the interior life section of The Spiritual Espousals appears in the Mirror on page 380 (line 1779), and so on. Interestingly, in this work for women, Ruusbroec spends 9 pages on the active life, 36 pages on the interior life, and 14 pages on the contemplative life (based on the pages of Wiseman's translation in the Paulist Press). Ruusbroec thus shows more concern for the possibility of a contemplative life for women than he does for the active life.

67. Suydam, 16.

68. McGinn, Bernard, “The Abyss of Love,” in The Joy of Learning and the Love of God, ed. Rozanne Elder, E. (Kalamazoo, Mich.: Cistercian, 1995), 103.Google Scholar

69. McGinn, , “Abyss,” 112.Google Scholar

70. Lucas, Elona K., “Psychological and spiritual growth in Hadewijch and Julian of Norwich,” Studia Mystica 9 (Fall 1986): 12–13, 18.Google Scholar

71. Both Gist Cook, in her suggestion that Hadewijch's radical affectivity supported Ruusbroec's erotic theology, and Rudy, in his focus on the importance of physicality to both Bernard and Hadewijch's conceptions of union, advocate this idea as well.