A letter from Engelhard of Lanheim

Translated letter:

Brother E[ngelhard], formerly called abbot, now however Christ’s pauper in Langheim, [offers] the prayers of a sinner and a pauper’s service to the illustrious lady, Countess N. Asked by you to write a life of the blessed Abbess Mechthild, I scarcely have the courage to agree, because I know how difficult it is for the words of an unlearned man to please the learned. There are those who want to fix everything according to weight and measure and plan in the manner of God, and to display everything so established; I would have preferred that those men had seized hold of this work and had taken from me the chance and opportunity to bring false information. But because they refuse, occupied with laws and decrees, I who am fond of talking in a rustic manner will undertake the life of the blessed woman, invoking the Holy Spirit, the author of her sanctity, so that he may confer upon me knowledge of the good things he gave her to do. I do not touch on everything of hers, because I do not know everything. For, as you know, I sat with you scarcely one hour, at which time I collected the chapters as they were recited to us. When she was alive, she did not want her things or any others to be known. Although by the Lord’s example she commanded that there be silence concerning her, her virtues were unable to lie hidden, but her strength shouted. May the saint’s piety be present for me, may it help me who is undeserving of her merits, so that if I am displeasing to the masters and wise ones of the world with my writing, I will be pleasing to him for whom the saint proved herself. She who did not want to be praised in life, because she was afraid of it, permits praise of her piety after death, because the pious woman is not afraid.

Original letter:

Dominæ Illustræ a Comitissæ N. Frater E. quondam dictus Abbas, nunc autem pauper Christi in Lanchaim, orationes peccatoris & servitium pauperis. Rogatus a vobis Vitam scribere B. Mathildis Abbatissæ, vix audeo [Col. 0444E] acquiescere, cum sciam difficile doctis indocti verba placere. Qui ad pondus & mensuram & rationem more Dei volunt cuncta constituere, & constituta ostendere, mallem illos arripuisse opus, & mihi calumniandi occasionem vel causam abstulisse. Sed ipsis dedignantibus, & circa Leges vel Decreta occupatis, ego rusticandi studiosus, vitam aggrediar feminæ beatæ, sanctitatis ejus auctorem sanctum invocans Spiritum, ut bona, quæ illi contulit facere, mihi largiatur edicere. At omnia illius non attingo, quia nescio. Nam, ut scitis, vix hora una vobis assedi, qua capitula nobis recitanda collegi. Sed nec ipsa cum viveret, sua vel aliqua sciri voluit; cum exemplo Dominico jubens de se taceri, virtutes latere non possent, sed virtus ipsa clamaret. Adsit mihi pietas Sanctæ, juvet immeritum meritis suis, ut si magistris & sapientibus mundi scribendo displiceo, placeam ei cui se Sancta probavit; quæ in vita laudari noluit, quia timuit; post mortem, quia non timet pia, laudem pietatis admittit. 

Historical context:

A letter written ca. 1200 by the Cistercian Abbot Engelhard of Langheim to an unnamed countess, who had asked him to write a vita of the Augustinian canoness Mechthild of Diessen in Bavaria (d. 1160), who also briefly served as abbess of Edelstetten in Swabia. Engelhard's dedicatory letter to the countess, which is included in manuscripts containing the vita, stresses how little information about Mechthild he had when writing about her life.

Printed source:

Vita, auctore Engelhardo, Ordinis Cisterciensis.  Ex antiquis Lectionibus Henrici Canisii.  Mathildis, Abbatissa Ordinis Canonicorum Regularium S. Augustini, Dyezzae in Bavaria (B.)  BHL Number:  5686 [Col.0444B]  (Engelhard of Langheim. Vita B. Mathildis Virginis. Ed. Gottfried Henschen. In Acta Sanctorum, May 7, 436-449. Paris and Rome: Victor Palmé, 1866.)

Translation: "The life of Mechthild of Diessen (d. 1160), by Engelhard of Langheim," in Noble Society: Five Lives from Twelfth-Century Germany, trans. Jonathan R. Lyon (Manchester University Press, 2017), p. 171.  The translation is published here by permission of the author.

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