HADEWIJCH, blessed. — Brabantine mystic; she is the most notable figure in the literature of the thiois dialect at the end of the 12th century and the beginning of the 13th. She was probably a native of Antwerp; concrete details concerning her life are lacking.
Her works show her imbued with a chivalric spirit, probably acquired from the nobility of her birth and upbringing. H. must have grown up in a thiois environment, where courtly literature was in vogue and where she could have been influenced by the Provençal troubadours. On the other hand, her knowledge of Latin gave her access to the writings of the great spiritual authors popular in the Middle Ages. St. Augustine was her favorite author; she knew William of St-Thierry and Cistercian spirituality. From the age of 11 H. consecrated herself to the Minne (divine «Love»). At a more mature age she seems to have lived in one of those free associations of «feminae religiosae» that preceded the actual beguinages. In this circle of devout and mystical virgins, whom she led toward the supreme conquest of the Minne, H. enjoyed great authority. But, like all mystics, she also encountered opposition there. A list of perfect «friends of God» that she left behind shows that she had relationships, or at least distant acquaintances, in various countries of Europe and as far away as Palestine.
Both in prose and in poetry H. left notable writings. Her Strophische Gedichten, or collection of «strophic poems», are a rejuvenation and, through their mystical content, a transfiguration of the finest achievements of courtly poetry in Provence.
The Love that H. sings of is love in its highest reality: God himself. No accent, therefore, is forced; all chivalric fidelity is justified and, in the disinterested service of this All of Love, nothing is excessive. H. employs stanza and rhyme with consummate art. It has rightly been said that the Dutch language has never donned a more regal mantle.
A collection of rhymed poems, Rijngedichten, is also attributed to H., but most of them are of little value and clearly belong to a generation later than that of the poetess.
Her first collection of prose consists of her apocalyptic Visioenen («Visions»). Perhaps intended for her own spiritual director, H. recorded in them, at a more advanced age, her mystical experiences of earlier years. Unlike the visions of St. Mechtilde and St. Bridget, they contain no consideration of a social, historical, or politico-religious nature. The mystical ascent of the soul toward conformity with God assumes in them the character of complete assimilation to Christ.
Finally, in her letters (Brieven), H. reveals herself as the great teacher, full of chivalric ardor, who draws an élite of young people toward the mystical conquest of the Minne. Here, more than anywhere else, this brilliant mystic displays, alongside her vivid realist sense, the solid and profound intellectualism underlying her life and work. If her lyrics make her the greatest poet of the thiois Middle Ages, her letters make her the greatest prose writer. Her sentences, always wonderfully balanced, are constructed according to the living movement of thought and feeling and abound in lapidary expressions.
In the literatures of Europe’s mother tongues, H. has no equal in the Middle Ages, and in the history of Christian spirituality she is the only one who, to such an extent, conceived and developed the mystical ascent to God in relation to the chivalric sentiment.