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- Title
An Analysis of Power in the Writing of Mechtild of Magdeburg.
- Authors
English, Leona M.
- Abstract
This essay provides an analysis of the theme of power in the text of the mystic Mechtild of Magdeburg (12077-1282), The Flowing Light of the Godhead (FLD). The author examines how this mediaeval woman learned to be an adroit shaper of power in her own life; how she understood the effects of corrupt clergy who persecuted her; how she directly faced corrupt power figures; how she used the rhetoric of femininity to subvert the more obvious power structures; how she gathered male friends and clerics around her to legitimate her work; and how she skilfully negotiated the complex religious labyrinth of orthodoxy in her day. This essay provides an analysis of her engagement and (dis)entanglement of power relations, whether through her actions, her mystical work, or her direct discourse on the topic in Book VI of her text.
- Subjects
SOCIAL conditions of women; POWER (Social sciences); FEMININITY; RELIGIOUS life; CLERGY
- Publication
Feminist Theology: The Journal of the Britain & Ireland School of Feminist Theology, 2006, Vol 14, Issue 2, p189
- ISSN
0966-7350
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1177/0966735006059511