SOURCE: Suydam, Mary A. “The Touch of Satisfaction: Visions and the Religious Experience According to Hadewijch of Antwerp.” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 12, no. 2 (fall 1996): 5-27.

In the following essay, Suydam offers a comparative analysis of Hadewijch's Visions, Letters and Mengeldichten using the tools of feminist criticism to discover the manner in which these mystical writings challenge the hierarchies and dichotomies of religious literature.

Hadewijch of Antwerp, a thirteenth-century Dutch Beguine, was a gifted writer, poet, and mystic. She was one of the first authors to shape the Dutch language into written form.¹ Her works, collected in five different manuscripts dating from the fourteenth century or later, comprise 31 letters (Brieven), 14 visions (Visioenen), and two collections of poetry, in stanzaic verse (Strofische Gedichten) and in rhymed verse (Mengeldichten).² Her ideas were borrowed by Ruusbroec and possibly influenced Eckhart.³

A persistent challenge for scholars has been the interpretation and...