Minne, translated: embodying liturgy, love, and pandemic trauma in the Diepenveen sister-book and a revelation from Facons

Journal article

This article traces how individual and collective trauma interplay in pandemic trauma by anatomizing the aftershocks of plague in two late medieval vernacular texts produced by Devotio Moderna communities of Augustinian canonesses regular, a sister-book from Diepenveen (northeastern Low Countries; present-day Netherlands) and a visionary text from the convent of Facons in Antwerp (present-day Belgium), Visioen en exempel by Jacomijne Costers (d. 1503). It scrutinizes how trauma intervenes in the liturgy and vice versa in each text, mapping how trauma inflects mutual charity (minne), prescribed as protection against plague. Allowing medieval trauma to interrogate modern trauma theory, this discussion participates in debates about the ethics of the weaponization of trauma.

Authors: Perk, GG

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Pennsylvania State University Press
• Journal: Journal of Medieval Religious Cultures
• Volume: 51
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 78-107
• Publication date: 2025-01-13
• Acceptance date: 2024-08-26
• DOI: 10.5325/jmedirelicult.51.1.0078
• EISSN: 2153-9650
• ISSN: 1947-6566
• Language: English
• Keywords: liturgy; sister-books; visionary writing; Devotio Moderna; trauma; Women Making Memories; WMM