CATERINA da Geberschweier. — Mystic of the Dominican Order and author of the *Liber sororum de Subtilia* (q.V. USTERLINDEN) in Colmar in Alsace, written toward the end of the 13th century or, more probably, at the beginning of the 14th. Thanner and Pez and others call her C. da Gebsoiler; but Ancelet-Hustache gives her name as C. da Geberschweier (Gueberschwihlr) between Ruffach and Colmar. The *Liber sororum de Subtilia* contains a prologue, an introduction in 8 chapters, and then 39 lives of nuns from the first decades of the famous German Dominican monastery, and it is a work that was a vital source of nourishment for many pious souls in past centuries and would deserve a far wider dissemination in our own day (Clementi). There exist Italian (Florence 1888), German (1863), and French (1864) versions, as well as many summaries in treatises on the history of mysticism (Wilms, etc.).
A woman of learning and great virtue, C. lived and enriched the monastery from her youth onward. Thanner and Pez place her entry into the monastery in 1260 and her death in 1330. The identification of our subject with the prioress Catherine to whom Venturino da Bergamo (d. 1346) wrote remains an open question.
The text of the *Liber sororum de Subtilia* was critically edited from ms. 508 of the Colmar library by J. Ancelet-Hustache in 1930. The edition prepared by Thanner and Pez in the *Bibliotheca ascetica*, VIII (Regensburg 1723), pp. 33–399, is based on sources no longer verifiable today. The two editions show notable differences.