Women and Mystical Experience in the Middle Ages Each of the women is here more fully revealed to a 20th-century audience by Frances Beer's close textual analysis of her work, supported by such biographical detail as remains. Their social milieu and historical context, carefully considered, also help us to understand them as individuals: however liberated, they are to some extent products of their environments. Hildegard's perception of her Creator is informed by the heroic ideal, while Mechthild's erotic experience seems to reveal the influence of the minnesingers. The solitary Julian's experience of tender intimacy with her Lord, to be shared with any who would be Christ's lovers, reveals an egalitarian confidence in the ability of the individual soul to progress towards oneness with the divine. |
