Die mystische Lyrik des 14. und 15. Jahrhunderts: Untersuchungen–Texte–Repertorium (review)

Scholarly interest in religious Gebrauchsliteratur has been steadily growing, with an increased attention to the forms of devotional and didactic literature most widely disseminated among communities of women. In the sphere of German-language texts, prose narratives and mystical tracts have garnered the most attention, while vernacular hymn translations have dominated the work on religious poetry. Judith Theben provides the first comprehensive study of independently composed German-language mystical song. This genre of religious writing, which Theben designates “mystical lyric,” comprises a group of late medieval German mystical texts that are surprisingly widespread considering the scant attention they have received. With the explicit aim of awakening interest in this genre, Theben presents an overview and analysis of the generic form of mystical lyric, its manuscript transmission and provenance, and finally its thematic concerns and spiritual content. Her conclusions provide penetrating insights into the devotional practices of communities of religious women, particularly concerning the interplay between communal and private worship and the role of extraliturgical song.

The songs Theben designates “mystical lyric” belong to the later Middle Ages, with dates of composition ranging from about 1350 to 1500. Composed in German, the texts are easily identifiable as belonging to the late medieval corpus of vernacular mysticism, although the precise definition of this genre is the subject of much debate. Accordingly, Theben reviews several scholarly interpretations of the term mystical, in each case using selections from the mystical songs to exemplify the description. This procedure justifies her decision for a fairly inclusive three-part definition of “mystical” texts as those that (a) address or even create the conditions necessary for an experience of union with the divine, (b) attempt to describe that experience despite its ineffability, and/or (c) explore the aftereffects of such an experience on the mystic (18). Any given lyric may perform more than one of these functions, and indeed the interplay of these various themes and concerns provides the subject of the book’s comprehensive third section.

Although her definition of “mystical” is thus fairly expansive, Theben restricts “lyric” to texts that are “von der Form her im Prinzip sangbar” [singable in principle with respect to their form] (19). Importantly, the potentially musical form does not necessarily indicate that the texts were in fact sung, and indeed the songs generally are not transmitted together with a melody. Moreover, manuscripts containing these texts usually transmit them singly, i.e., not together with other mystical songs but interspersed with mystical prose tracts, treatises, and tales. Two of the most widely disseminated songs, “Vom dem überschalle” and “Granum sinapis,” possess German-language prose commentaries that were also treated as independent tracts and thus have a manuscript tradition separate from the song texts they elucidate (134–56, 186 –92). (“Granum sinapis” also possesses a Latin commentary into which the text of the German song is embedded, rendering separate transmission impossible.)

The existence of these commentaries and the scattered pattern of transmission suggest that the songs very quickly lost any accompanying melodies they may originally have had and were read as devotional or contemplative texts along with the short prose texts characteristic of mystical miscellanies. Even in manuscripts where several songs are transmitted together they are often interspersed with prose texts, a pattern that “das Lied als eine neben anderen Formen mystischen Sprechens zeigt, welche alle auf die ruminierende, auf mystische Versenkung zielende Verwendung verweisen” [reveals the song as just one among many forms of mystical speech, which all indicate a usage oriented toward rumination and mystical absorption] (131). This assertion constitutes the most interesting and potentially most disappointing conclusion of Theben’s work for many who might wish for evidence of sung devotion in late medieval religious communities. Nevertheless, Theben carefully demonstrates that the evidence of the composition and transmission of mystical lyric does not support an assumption that the songs were sung. The greatest argument against musical performance of the texts is...