Visions and Longings: Medieval Women Mystics

The women mystics of medieval Europe represent the very first feminine voices heard in a world where women were nearly silent. As such they are striking and unusual strange powerful and urgent. Monica Furlong uses key selections from among these womens own writings and writings about them by their contemporaries along with her own assessment of them to open up their contributions to a wide popular audience. The eleven women represented in this anthology were housewives visionaries abbesses beguines recluses and nuns who wrote between the eleventh and fourteenth centuries. They include:    •  Héloise the scholar and abbess whose letters to Abelard are treasure of medieval literature    •  Hildegard of Bingen the visionary Rhineland nun    •  Clare of Assisi the close friend of Saint Francis and founder of the Poor Clares    •  Catherine of Siena an influential spiritual counselor whose book Dialogue consists of a debate between herself and God    •  Julian of Norwich the English hermitess who spent the greater part of her life meditating on and coming to understand the striking visions she received as a young woman    •  and many others