CATERINA da GEBERSCHWEIER. - Dominican mystic, author of the Liber sororum de Subtilia (v. UNTERLINDEN) at Colmar in Alsace, written toward the end of the thirteenth century or, more probably, at the beginning of the fourteenth. Thanner and Pez, and others, call her C. da Gebwiler; but Ancelet-Hustache calls her C. da Geberschweier (Gueberschwihr), between Ruffach and Colmar. The Liber sororum de Subtilia contains a prologue, an introduction in 8 chapters, and then 59 lives of nuns from the first decades of the famous German Dominican monastery; it is a work that was vital nourishment for many pious souls in past centuries and would deserve much wider circulation today (Clementi). There are versions in Italian (Florence 1888), German (1863), and French (1864), as well as many summaries in treatises on the history of mysticism (Wilms, etc.).
A learned woman of great virtues, C. lived in and adorned the monastery from her youth onward. Thanner and Pez have her
enter the monastery in 1260 and die in 1330. The identification of her with the prioress Caterina 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 (Ratisbona 1725), pp. 35-399, was made on bases that can no longer be verified today. The two editions show considerable differences.