To Taste (Sapere) Wisdom (Sapientia): Eucharistic Devotion in the Writings of Gertrude of Helfta

Abstract

This article examines the mystical language of sensation in the writings of Gertrude the Great of Helfta (1256-1302). In particular, it considers Gertrude’s gustatory language in the context of that presented in the reception history (Wirkungsgeschichte) of the established Christian spiritual tradition, especially innovations made by each Augustine’s and Bernard’s rhetoric of taste. The article argues that Gertrude leaves behind the more dualist aspects of their rhetoric by exploiting their more affirmative concepts of the bodily forms of knowing. Such body affirmative concepts fundamentally form the vocabulary that Gertrude uses to articulate a unique, somatic journey from human knowing to divine wisdom, as well as the carefully crafted discussion of Eucharistic devotion from which it flows. Thus, the article ultimately reveals the linguistic strategies and singular ideas that make Gertrude strike out on her own in relation to conventions that precede her and even to her contemporary thirteenth- and fourteenth-century religious women.