Monica Furlong

Visions and Longings.

Medieval Women Mystics.

Writings of Hildegard of Bingen, Julian of Norwich, Catherine of Siena, Clare of Assisi, Margery Kempe, Heloise and others.

Boston 1996

Stron VII+248, format: 15x22 cm

Suddenly, around the eleventh and twelfth centuries/ many more women become what the Epistles of Boil and the Fathers said women should not be: audible and visible/ writing with intel¬ligence and passion/ and telling us about their lives and ideas with extraordinary vehemence and energy*
Reading the women mystics/ I find myself catch¬ing a glimpse of something that goes beyond women s experience or neurosis or sexual repression or hysteria or any of the labels with which we push away what is strange and hard to bean Vv hatever their blind spots/ their dualistic understanding of sexuality/ they seem to know something important* Looking out through the cracks of their human prisons/ these women tind an indescribable beauty and joy and wonder* I he every¬day sense of time and place is swallowed up in an entirely new perspective/ an extraordinary awareness of pattern and power and glory and love*

— from Visions ana Longings

CONTENTS

Preface   vii

introduction   i

heloise  47 christina of markyate   68

HlLDEGARD OF BlNGEN    84

thebeguines   102

clare of assisi   117

angela di foligno   148

catherine of siena   157

margery kempe   167 julian of norwich   i86

Credits   247