Introduction

      Mitt wie grosser minnender begird sy geflissen wer den orden an allen stuken ze haltend, da von wer fil ze sagen [Of the great and loving desire with which she zealously observed the order in every detail there would be much to tell].

      —Töss Sisterbook, Life of Margret Fink

      Toward the beginning of her Büchlein der Gnaden Überlast (Book of the Burden of Grace, c. 1345), Christina Ebner illustrates the power of the Dominican liturgy with a tale about Sister Hailrat, the Engelthal convent’s first choir mistress. The event occurred in the early days of the convent, during the first Advent in which they performed the Office according to the Dominican Rite.

      In dem ersten advent da sie nach dem orden sungen … da sie nu komen zu dem virden suntag im advent, da sie sungen die metin, da sie nu komen hintz dem funften respons “Virgo Israel,” und der vers “In caritate perpetua,” daz sank sie teutsch und sank so unmenschlichen wol, daz man brufet, sie sunge mit engelischer stimme…. Diser heilig covent wart von grozer andaht sinnelos und vilen nider als die toten und lagen also biz sie alle wider zu in selber komen: do sungen sie ir metin mit grozer andaht auz.¹

      During the first Advent that they sang according to the order … when they came to the fourth Sunday in Advent, while they were singing matins and had come to the fifth responsory “Virgo Israel” and the verse “In caritate perpetua,” she sang it in German and with such inhuman beauty that one thought she was singing with an angel’s voice…. This holy convent became senseless from great devotion and fell down as if dead and lay thus until they had all come to themselves. Then they sang their matins to the end with great devotion.

      While singing the solo verse of a responsory, the choir mistress had been seized by divine insight, spontaneously translating the Latin song into her mother tongue and performing the inspired text with inhuman beauty. Rather than responding with the prescribed text of the chant response, the rest of the community fell, rapt in ecstasy.

      This story exemplifies some commonly accepted characteristics of late medieval female piety: liturgical devotion, embodiment, vernacularity, ecstatic experience, and community. In keeping with Caroline Walker Bynum’s analysis of bodiliness and embodied response as a trait of women’s spirituality, the Engelthal sisters are physically overcome by the beauty of Hailrat’s