Hadewijch : A biography that does not remove the mystery

We do not know even the most basic information about Hadewijch; even the exact dates and places of her birth and death are unknown. The information she revealed in her works and the very few traces uncovered by researchers suggest that she probably lived during the first half of the 13th century. In her work "Visions", she mentions a Beguine who was her contemporary, Aleid, whose destiny ended in the hands of the inquisitor Robbaert. Archives reveal that Robbaert was active between 1236 and 1239. In the same text, the name of Henri V, Lord of Breda and Schoten, near Antwerp, appears towards the middle of the 13th century. Hadewijch was very close to Henri V and gave him spiritual advice, which earned her an international reputation as "Hadewijch of Antwerp", as can be seen from the inscription on the cover page of the Ghent manuscript. The following text was added in the 17th century: "Lofrede op de zalige Hadewijch van Antwerpen" (Eulogy to the blessed Hadewijch of Antwerp). While this mention is not tangible proof of her origin, it is nevertheless a plausible indication that the mystic lived in the Antwerp area.

What is certain is that she was the first female poet in Dutch literature. She was musically accomplished, very well educated, well-versed in the Latin texts of mystical literature and in French songs of courtly love, and had an international network of contacts, probably in the highest spheres. Sources indicate that she was described in turn as a nun, an abbess and even a heretic! However, historical research by the Jesuit Jozef van Mierlo in the early 20th century established that she was a powerful spiritual leader at the head of a small circle of independent women at the dawn of the budding Béguine movement.

Her work

Hadewijch did not write in Latin or French, as was the custom at the time, but in a vernacular language called 'Diets'. This was a Brabant variant of Middle Dutch. This practice may also indicate that she probably came from Brabant, although at the time this province covered the current Belgian provinces of Flemish Brabant and Walloon Brabant and the Dutch province of North Brabant. She wrote with a sharp wooden stylus on wax tablets, waxed wooden boards, and later on parchment. None of her manuscripts are known or remain; only four mediaeval copies containing her work, including three from monastery libraries, have been preserved. The collections contain 14 visions, 45 songs (also called strophic poems), 31 letters and 14 poems in couplets.

The mysterious Hadewijch therefore remains largely draped in the heavy mists of this mediaeval era...