SOURCE: "The Swedish Visionary: Saint Bridget," in Medieval Women Writers, edited by Katharina M. Wilson, The University of Georgia Press, 1984, pp. 227-39.

In the following essay, Obrist surveys St. Birgitta's life and influence, as well as the contents, style, and intent of her Revelations.

Bridget, the fourteenth-century Swedish mystic, left a canon of revelations widely read in the vernacular at the end of the Middle Ages, especially in the fifteenth century. She was an incult lay author, meaning that she did not Know Latin and thus wrote or dictated her revelations in Swedish. These were gradually translated into Latin by her confessors—Mathias, canon of Linkoping cathedral; Petrus Olai of Skenninge; and Prior Petrus Olai of Alvastra. Only later were they retranslated into the vernacular. Despite these permutations, the specific features of what must have been Bridget's language seem preserved. These revelations, most very brief, consist of speeches...