mechthild of magdeburg - biography
Little is known of Mechthild of Magdeburg's life. Like Dhuoda of Septimania, what we know about her is what can be found in or inferred from her writings. She was born near Magdeburg, in Lower Saxony (Northern Germany) between 1207 and 1212, most likely into an upper-class family (this is inferred because she could read and write, as well as had a thorough knowledge of courtly life).
(Image: Map of Magdeburg, Germany from Civitates Orbis Terrarum, 1572)
Mechthild was a mystic and visionary, and reportedly received her first vision of the Holy Spirit at the age of twelve.
Mechthild moved to Magdeburg in 1230 and became part of a Beguine community. The Beguines, a movement which began in the Netherlands in the twelfth century, were a lay religious community loosely affiliated with the Dominican Order. The members lived a quasi-monastic lifestyles of prayer and good works, although they took no formal vows.
Partially owing to her written criticism of some high-ranking clergy, Mechthild left Magdeburg and entered a Cistercian convent at Helfta near Eisleben in Saxony in about 1270.
(Image: Kloster Helfta)
This convent was home many other mystics, including Gertrude the Great (c. 1256-1302) and Mechthilde of Hakeborn (c. 1241-1299). It was at Helfta that Mechthild of Magdeburg completed her most important work, Das fließende Licht der Gottheit (commonly translated as The Flowing Light of the Godhead), which relates the content of her visions. She died at the convent at Helfta in 1282 or soon after.