Meister Eckhart and the Beguine Mystics: Hadewijch of Brabant, Mechtild of Magdeburg, and Marguerite Porete

2. Meister Eckhart and the Beguine Mystics: Hadewijch of Brabant, Mechtild of Magdeburg, and Marguerite Porete, ed. Bernard McGinn (New York: Continuum, 1997), pp. 166, paper, $15.95, 1SBN 0-8264-09Z9-6.

This book examines the relationship of three thirteenth-century Beguines (Hadewijch of Brabant, Mechtild of Magdeburg, and Marguerite Porete) to the thought, writings, and spirituality of Meister Eckhart, the great Dominican mystic. Comprising six essays, an Introduction by Bernard McGinn, and a Conclusion by Richard Woods, it is vital to the study of late medieval vernacular mysticism and its mode of theology. It focuses on the paradigm shift occurring in the thirteenth century-the emergence of women's voices in Christian thought. McGinn situates the writings of Meister Eckhart and the three Beguines in vernacular theology, a thirteenth-century phenomenon that differs from the two previous theologies known as monastic and scholastic. Rising from the vernacular writings of the Beguine mystics, its significance lies in its farreaching effects on defining and...