Mechthild of Magdeburg c. 1207 – c. 1282

Mechthild of Magdeburg was a German beguine and Christian mystic and the author of The Flowing Light of the Godhead, the first major work of mystical theology written in Middle Low German. From her early twenties she experienced visions which she eventually recorded, at the urging of her Dominican confessor, over more than four decades. Driven from Magdeburg by hostile ecclesiastical authorities, she retired to the convent of Helfta, where her writing exercised a deep influence on the German mystical tradition that would culminate in Eckhart and Tauler.