A Course by Rozemarijn van Leeuwen:

Hadewijch and John of Ruusbroec, their faith and way of thinking

In this master class, Dutch poet Nynke Passi tells about Hadewijch, the Mystic, the cultus of "Minne" of her time, and her visions. Nynke will read some of Hadewijch's work in the original Diets, plus in translation. Hadewijch's lyrical poems serve as perfect writing prompts for mystical exploration.

Nynke Salverda Passi is the director of this MFA program and chair of MIU’s English dept. She was born and raised in the Netherlands. Her work has been published in CALYX, Gulf Coast, Poetry Breakfast, Life & Legends, and more. Her poetry has been anthologized in Pandemic Puzzle Pieces and River of Earth & Sky (Blue Light Press), Carrying the Branch (Glass Lyre Press), and Oxygen: Parables of the Pandemic (River Paw Press). Together with Rustin Larson and Christine Schrum, she edited the poetry collection Leaves by Night, Flowers by Day.

About Soul Bone™ Literary Center

Soul Bone™ intersects writing with creative process, spirituality, social justice, and healing in tiny, winged courses that lift the spirit.  Soul Bone™ is founded and directed by Nynke Passi, who also is the director of MIU's MFA in Creative Writing. You can find information about both at the end of this Padlet handout (scroll right).

Above the contours of the Duchy of Brabant of Hadewijch’s time, drawn on a 20th century map of Belgium and the Netherlands. Neither country existed at the time, nor any “border” dividing Flanders and what later would become the Netherlands.

Currently, The Netherlands is North of Belgium. In Belgium, people speak multiple languages including Flemish (a dialect of Dutch) and Walonian (a dialect of French), plus German. The further South you go, the softer the sound of Dutch dialects with a more soft "R" and guttural "G." The further North you go, and especially among the "Randstad" cities Rotterdam, The Hague (Den Haag), Amsterdam, and environs, the language uses more pronounced "R" and "G" sounds. In the current day province of Brabant, the dialect is softer than the Dutch spoken in the coastal cities.

Read more on Wikipedia here

Hadewijch was a 13th century poet and mystic, probably living in the Duchy of Brabant. Most of her extant writings, none of which survived the Middle Ages as an autograph, are in a Brabantian form of Middle Dutch. She is associated with Antwerp and often is referred to as Hadewych of Antwerp, but this is only based on a later addition to one of the manuscript copies of her works that was produced several centuries after her death. Most of the other manuscripts containing her work were found near Brussels.

Her writings include visions, prose letters, and poetry. There are two types of poems: Her lyrical poetry followed the forms and conventions used by the trouvères and minnesingers of her time, but with the theme of worldly courtship replaced by sublimated love to God. The other series of poems are simpler didactical poems in letter format, on Christian topics, not all of them considered authentic.

No details of her life are known outside the sparse indications in her own writings. These indications lead many to conclude that she was involved in the then emerging beguine movement. That she would have been a nun can be excluded, because her writings (primarily her prose letters) show that she travelled and lived in several places, and because in general her writings lack references to life in a convent. It was not uncommon back then for women of good family to get a good education and serve as lay-sisters without taking the nun's vows, though they'd take the vows of poverty, chastity, and service. Hadewijch's letters were full of advice to young women whom she corresponded with and seems to have had under her wings. She must have come from a wealthy family: she had a wide knowledge of literature and theological treatises in several languages, including Latin and French, in a time when studying was a luxury only exceptionally granted to women.

She is considered to be a precursor to the mystic and theologian Jan van Ruusbroec, who developed many of her ideas, but in a more theologic-systematic way, about a century later.

Alle dinghe
Sijn mi te inghe:
Ic ben so wijdt.
Om een onghescepen
Hebbic ghegrepen
In ewighen tijt.

Ic hebt ghevaen.
Het heeft mi ontdaen
Widere dan wijt;
Mi es te inghe al el;
Dat wette wel
Ghi dies oec daer sijt.

Translation by Nynke Passi

All things are
too small for me:
I am so wide.
I have reached
for the uncreated
in eternal time.

I have experienced it.
It has opened me
wider than wide.
All else is too small for me;
you who are also there
know this.

Prompt 1:

Write about a time the veil between you and the world dropped away, as Kalpna Singh-Chitnis described it in this afternoon's session, a time when there were there were no boundaries or no walls, and you felt a oneness with others or things or nature beyond your own self and story and ego - a time you stepped into a perspective beyond your personal vision. What was that like? Maybe this experience was humble and small or human, perhaps inspired by nature or by love or a beautiful thing or place or person you saw or experienced, or perhaps it was a spiritual experience that you cannot easily put into words. What did you see or notice, whether it lasted a moment or whether it lasted and stayed with you? How did it change you? Write whatever comes to mind.

By Hadewijch II

Translated By Jane Hirshfield

You who want

knowledge,

seek the Oneness

within.

There you

will find

the clear mirror

already waiting.

"Tighten to Nothing"

Tighten

to nothing

the circle

that is

the world's things

Then the Naked

circle

can grow wide,

enlarging,

embracing all

Prompt 2:

Think of one metaphoric image that speaks to your spiritual or philosophical understanding of life. Keep it as short as the poems above. In the first poem, the image is the mirror, in the second the circle.

Like many mystics, Hadewijch wrote in colloquial language. Her language was Diets, an overarching term indicating the Middle-Dutch regio-languages which were spoken, written, and printed between about 1200 and 1550. Diets is no supra-regional standard language, which only comes about after the Middle ages with the publication and the systematic reading of the State translation of the Bible (1637) written in a Brabants-Dutch language mix.

Until 1400 especially Brabantse, Gelderse, Limburgse and Flemish texts were preserved (all dialects spoken in provinces of different parts of the Netherlands and part of what now is called Belgium). After that, also Dutch (Hollandse) and Utrechtse texts.

Diets, during the Middle ages, was a term to indicate mother tongue, not father tongue, which was Latin, or even French (Waals or Walonian, as it is still spoken today in part of Belgium). Latin and French or Walonian/Waals (the French spoken in Belgium) were the formal language; Diets was informal and colloquial.

In the course of the 16th century the term Diets was slowly replaced by the term “Dutch” or in Dutch “Nederlands.” (The term “Dutch” in English is a bit of a mix-up of the german Deutch, meaning German, and Diets, meaning the mother tongue spoken, written and printed in the lower lands of the Netherlands between 1200 and 1550. Technically, Dutch poeple don’t refer to their own language as Dutch. They refer to it as Nederlands, or Netherlandish in literal translation).

You can find her website here.

Testimonials

You can find testimonials for Nynke here.

OREWOET

Ik groete, dat ik minne

Met mijner herten bloed.

My dorren mijne zinnen

In der Minnen orewoet.

Ay, hertelijke zoete Minne,

Volwasse na dijn wezen,

Zo mogen mijne zinnen

Van der dood genezen.

Ay, here, onverkare,

Waardi dat gij zijt

In uwe nature, zo ware

Iet mijns gedurens tijd.

Ay, overzoete raste,

Haddi al dat uwe verkregen,

Zo waren mijne laste

Verlicht, die nu zo wegen.

Ay, overzoete nature,

Hoe gedoet die Harte dijn!

Ik en kan gedurende ene ure,

Ik moet al der Minnen zijn!

Ay, ik woede in moede met spoede

Na ‘t goede, dat ik der Minnen volzij!

Ay, in woet zijn, vroet, dat’s spoet,

Ja, in woet van Minnen vrij.

Ik hake, ik wake, ik smake

Die zake die mij dunkt zoete:

Ik kinne met zinnen daar es inne

Die Minne, mijns evels boete.

Ik doge, ik poge om ’t hoge,

Ik zoge met mijnen bloede;

Ik groete dat zoete, dat moete

Boeten mijne orewoede.

Ik beve, ik kleve, ik geve,

Ik leve op hogen waan,

Dat mijne pijne, die fijne,

In die zijne zal al ontvaan.

Ay, lief, hebb’ik lief een Lief,

Zijdij, Lief, mijn lief,

Die Lief gavet omme lief

Daar Lief ‘lief mede verhief!

Ay, Minne, ware ik minne

Ende met minnen, Minne, u minne!

Ay, Minne, om Minne, gevet dat minne

Die Minne al Minne volkinne!

OREWOET

By Hadewijch

I am open to Love

With my heart’s blood.

My senses wither

In this ecstasy of Love.

Yea, dear sweet Love,

Ripen me in your likeness

So that my senses may heal

Even from death.

My dearest Lord,

If you could be for me

What you, in your nature, are,

Then I would know peace.

Yea, most sweet Repose [in God],

Did you get all that is yours,

then my burdens are lightened,

which now weigh heavy.

Yea most sweet Nature [of Minne],

How do you have the heart?

Ik can endure one hour,

then I have to be all of Minne!

Yea, my heart is so tumultuous!

I rush toward the fullness of Love.

Yea, the greatest bliss truly is

To experience Love’s ecstasy.

I take, I wake, I taste

Things which seem sweet to me:

My mind is so sure of it:

Love alleviates suffering.

I endure and try for the highest,

I nurse with my own blood.

I greet the sweetness

That must quench my ecstasy.

I tremble, I cling, I give,

I live in high expectation

That my pain, so subtle,

Will be fully received by Him.

Yea, Love, I do love my Love!

You, Love, be my Love,

Offering your beloved for Love,

So Love can exalt love.

Yea, Love, if only I were Love,

Loving you, Love, with Love!

Yea, Love, for Love’s sake, grant that Love

may fully know Love as Love!

Prompt 4:

Think of an experience in your life that made you dizzy or giddy or ecstatic - whether it has to do with nature, love, connection with someone or something you adore, a moment of communion with something or something important to you, or a spiritual experience. Describe it evoking the dizzying wildness of that spinning, intensifying connection, using sound and rhythm to evoke your deepening feeling.

Can be simple and small: just start somewhere: Can just be about a moment, a moment of love for something or someone that meant something to you, a moment of play as a child, dancing, movement of any kind, anything. If you only felt stillness and rest, then evoke that stillness and rest and serenity instead, but then think: was there any movement, too? Try to have your sound and meaning come together in your poem or writing. 

Paradox and opposites are a favorite go-to for mystics and seekers or spiritual writers, because they stretch the mind wide in totally different directions. This can include riddles or koans like "the sound of one hand clapping." Even the Buddhist-influenced haiku use this device by pushing two images up against each other until there is a moment of surprise or confusion: how can this be? Then the mind comprehends in the last line. For example:

rakka eda ni kaeru to mireba chocho kana

A fallen leaf

Flew back to its branch!

No, it was a butterfly.

There is a point where the logical mind has to give up, because the imagery no longer makes sense and cannot be fully grasped with the intellect alone. Intuition has to take over; the intellect breaks, then leaks beyond its confines into a wider and less contained state where opposites can coexist and where logic is not needed to grasp emotional or spiritual realities that say the unsayable and know the unknowable.

The poet John Keats called it "negative capability," a writer’s ability, “which Shakespeare possessed so enormously,” to accept “uncertainties, mysteries, doubts, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason." Keats first used the term in an 1817 letter.

Paradox in Hadewijch

Drawing on opposites and paradox is a favorite device of the mystic. Hadewijch used this device liberally.

If I desire something, I know it not,

for in a boundless unknowing

I have lost my very self.

In His mouth I am engulfed,

in a bottomless abyss.

Never could I come out of it.

As quoted by Jan van Ruysbroeck (1293 - 1381)

-tr. by Sheila Hughes

Excerpt: The Sweetest of Minne

Sweetest of Minne are her storms,

her deepest sadnesses are her most lovely forms.

To get lost in her means to find her,

to starve for her means being fed.

Her state of doubt is to be sure,

her deepest wound has already been healed.

To wane for her is to be at peace.

Holding her hides in every hour.

To suffer for her is very healing.

Her healing demonstrates her knowledge.

Her refusal is her gift.

Without reason is her most lovely poem.

Her prisoners are already freed.

Her most painful blows are her sweetest consolation.

All her stealing leaves you most rich.

Her leaving means coming nearer.

Her most humble quiet is a fantastic song,

her greatest fury a potion of love.

(...)

I want to be her (Minne), al that she is,

be it good, be it intense (passionate, fiery): that does not matter.

Poem in Diets: Het Zoetste van Minne

Dat zoetste van Minnen zijn hare storme,

haar diepste afgrond is haar schoonste vore;

in haar verdolen dat is na geraken,

om haar verhongeren, dat is voeden ende smaken;

hare mistroost is zeker wezen,

haar zeerste wonden is al genezen;

om haar verdolen dat is geduren,

haar bergen is vinden in alle uren;

om hare kwelen dat is gezonde,

hare helen openbaart hare konde,

hare onthouden zijn hare gichten,

zonder redene is haar schoonste dichten;

hare gevangnisse is al verloost;

haar zeerste slaan is haar zoetste troost;

haar al beroven is groot vromen,

haar henenvaren is naare komen;

haar nederste stille is haar hoogste zank,

haar grootste abolge is haar liefste dank;

haar grooste dreigen is al trouwe,

haar droefheid is boete van allen rouwe.

Nog mag men meer van Minnen spreken:

Haar rijkheid is haar al gebreken;

Haar hoogste trouwe doet nederzinken,

haar hoogste wezen doet diep verdrinken;

haar grote rijkdom maakt armoede,

haar vele verkregen toont onspoede;

haar troosten maakt die wonde groot,

haar hanteren brengt menige dood;

haar voeden is honger, haar kennen is dolen,

verleiding is wijze van haar scholen;

haar hanteren zijn stormen wreed,

haar gedurende is in ongereed;

haar tonen is haar zelve al helen,

haar giften zijn meer wederstelen;

haar geloften zijn al verleiden,

haar sierheiden zijn al ontkleiden;

haar waarheid is al bedriegen,

haar zekerheid schijnt meningen liegen.

Dies ik ende menig dat oorkonde

wel mogen dragen in alle stonden,

dien de Minne dikke hevet getoond

zaken daar wij bij zijn gehoond,

ende waanden hebben, dat hare bleef.

Sint zij mij eerst die treken dreef

ende ik gemerkt al hare zeden,

zo hield ik er mij al anders mede:

haar gedreigd, haar geloven

daarmee en word ik niet meer bedrogen.

Ik wille hare wezen, al dat ze zij,

't Zij goed, 't zij fel: al eens is 't mij.

Prompt 3:

Write for 10 minutes using opposites and paradox in every line or in every few lines. This can be contradiction or things that don't make sense such as koans or riddles.

It is believed there may have been two Hadewijchs because there are two voices that remain, one far more conventional, dutiful, formal, leaving behind church scriptures (Hadewijch I). The second voice writes poetry and is left behind in a different script; the voice is far more free and mystically unconventional. This Hadewijch II had a wildness in her voice that resembles Eastern mystics such as the Kashmiri saint Lalla and the Indian mystic, princess Mirabai. It even resembles some of the poetry of Emily Dickinson, whom we could call an American mystic.

From Wikipedia:

Most of Hadewijch's extant writings, none of which survived the Middle Ages as an autograph (original text written in the hand of the author) are in a Brabantian form of Middle Dutch. Five groups of texts survive, her writings include poetry, descriptions of her visions, and prose letters. There are two groups of poetry: Poems in Stanzas (Strophische Gedichten) and Poems in Couplets (Mengeldichten). Finally there is the "Lijst der volmaakten" ("list of the perfect ones").

Poems in Stanzas (Strophische Gedichten)

Her forty-five Poems in Stanzas (Strophische Gedichten, also Liederen, "Songs") are lyric poems following the forms and conventions used by the trouvères and minnesingers of her time, but in Diets, and with the theme of worldly courtship replaced by sublimated love to God. Many of them are contrafacta (substitution of one text for another without substantial change to the music) of Latin and vernacular songs and hymns, leading to a Dutch edition renaming them "Liederen" ("Songs") and including audio recordings of performances. These are the poems whose author is referred to as Hadewijch II.

Poems in Couplets (Mengeldichten or Berijmde brieven)

The sixteenPoems in Couplets(Mengeldichten, alsoBerijmde brieven, "letters on rhyme") are simpler didactical poems in letter format, composed in rhyming couplets, on Christian topics, not all of them are considered authentic. These are the poems whose author is referred to as Hadewijch I.

From the Poetry Foundation:

Hadewijch II

Little is known about the life of Middle Dutch visionary and poet Hadewijch, except what can be gleaned from her 13th century writings. Many scholars believe she lived in Antwerp, and her fluency in Dutch, Latin, and French can be taken as evidence that she received an education typically limited to the wealthy. She joined a group of beguines, evangelical women who, outside the monastic system, took vows of poverty, chastity, and service while remaining in the world.

Her texts, which include religious poetry, accounts of visions, and religious letters, were written in the vernacular. Hadewijch used elements of the poetic tradition of troubadour poetry, which celebrated romantic love, to construct her ecstatic renderings of yearning for the beloved. Hadewijch has been the subject of much recent study in the fields of feminist theology and historiography. Her work was first translated into English in 1980 when Hadewijch: The Complete Works appeared as part of the Classics of Western Spirituality series. The seminal critical study of her writing, Hadewijch: Writer – Beguine – Love Mystic, by Paul Mommaers with Elisabeth Dutton (1989), won the Flemish Prijs De Standaardand was translated into English in 2004. Poet Jane Hirshfield included a selection of Hadewijch’s poetry in the anthology Women in Praise of the Sacred: 43 Centuries of Spiritual Poetry by Women (1994), and a feature film, Hadewijch, inspired by her life and directed by Bruno Dumont, was first screened in 2010.

A group of poems was found along with Hadewijch's manuscripts, written in what appears to be another hand and bearing a more advanced vocabulary than the other poems. Since scholars have long disputed the authority of these poems, they have been set off from Hadewijch's known works and their author is referred to as 'Hadewijch II', who may have been Hadewijch or one of her acquaintances.

The location of her grave is not known.

"Hirshfield's current collection brings together . . . an astonishing array of women writers from the 22nd century BC poet Enheduanna to Nelly Sachs and Anna Akhmatova."-- Library Journal

"Destined to become a classic. . . . An anthology of women's spirituality on this scale has never been attempted before and I cannot imagine it being better done." -- Andrew Harvey

Hadewijch was a beguine during the thirteenth century in the Low Countries, specifically in the city of Antwerp which was in the region of Brabant at the time.

During the thirteenth century, beguines were women who had a deep love for Jesus Christ, took vows of poverty, chastity, and service, but unlike nuns, did not take formal vows and were free to leave at any time. Their development was slow at first, however, in the year 1216, Pope Honorius III granted them the right to live in common and encourage others to join them. With that, beguines lived together in a home referred to as beguinages. Several larger towns had more than one beguinage. The movement was not solely for women. However, men were not known as beguines, but rather, called themselves beghards.

In this time period, there was a lot of wealth, but also a lot of wars fought, leaving many widows and orphans destitute. You could say that the beguinages also answered a need of the time to take in refugees and shelter those in need, plus they served a purpose of mutual support and outreach. They were not a formal church organization, but discrete communities that responded to the suffering of the poor and disadvantaged. Beguines did not take official church orders and were not any formal part of a church, but they did tend to take informal vows of poverty, chastity, and service.

They often lived in autonomous communities and on their own, so you can say that the 13th century Beguine movement was an early feminist movement. These women were not ruled by the church, by central dogma, nor by doctrine, and they could leave any time. The wealthier Beguines often lived in their own homes within a beguinage (which was unheard of at the time - a woman living on her own terms on her own without a male).

The Beguine movement blossomed in France and the Low Countries, which today is The Netherlands and Belgium. There was a beguinage in almost every city, and bigger cities might have several. The Roman Catholic Church tolerated the Beguines as long as they remained pious, knew their place, performed service, and did not compete with the religious orders. In short: the church took credit for the invisible service the beguines performed but kept a watchful eye to prevent competition.

Medieval religious practice was obsessional, one’s survival was dependent upon your public profile for devotion to god. But the Béguine women could quietly and inconspicuously study and explore all aspects of their faith, a historical rarity. It's also a time in history when educated women could choose a life of independence for themselves and help and support each other be independent. It's therefore the place where literature written by women in vernacular could grow freely, to some extent independent of church doctrine and thought.

The opportunity to be able to engage in such intellectualisation of religion would be a powerful draw to the Béguine communities for women from all walks of life, rich and poor, powerful and destitute. Whilst they lived in simple common houses and dressed in humble attire, there was an intellectual, spiritual and physical bond that brought these like-minded women together to share their lives. The enduring legacy of the Béguines, particularly the educated, was the writing of intense and deeply spiritual texts on intense, ecstatic and almost erotic religious love.

Some information above comes from Wikipedia, some from That Was Company: Prose and Poetry from 1200 - 1600, a Dutch anthology, and some from MessyNessyChic, "Surprise Surprise, A Medieval Feminist Movement Left Out of the History Books."

Some of Hadewijch's letters have been interpreted as alluding to same-sex attraction or desire. In Letter 25 she describes her powerful, unrequited feelings for a woman named Sara, as well as her close relationship with two women named Emma and Margriet:

Greet Sara also in my behalf, whether I am anything to her or nothing. Could I be fully all that in my love I wish to be for her, I would gladly do so; and I shall do so fully, however she may treat me. She has very largely forgotten my affliction, but I do not wish to blame or reproach her, seeing that Love [Minne] leaves her at rest, and does not reproach her, although Love ought ever anew to urge her to be busy with her noble Beloved. Now that she has other occupations and can look on quietly and tolerate my heart's affliction, she lets me suffer. She is well aware, however, that she should be a comfort to me, both in this life of exile and in the other life in bliss. There she will indeed be my comfort, although she now leaves me.

And you, Emma, and yourself-who can obtain more from me than any other person now living can, except Sara -are equally dear to me. But both of you turn too little to Love, who has so fearfully subdued me in the commotion of unappeased love. My heart, soul, and senses have not a moment's rest, day or night; the flame burns constantly in the very marrow of my soul.

Tell Margriet to be on her guard against haughtiness, and to be sensible, and to attend to God each day; and that she may apply herself to the attainment of perfection and prepare herself to live with us, where we shall one day be together; and that she should neither live nor remain with aliens. It would be a great disloyalty if she deserted us, since she so much desires to satisfy us, and she is now close to us-indeed, very close-and we also so much desire her to be with us.

Once I heard a sermon in which Saint Augustine was spoken of. No sooner had I heard it than I became inwardly so on fire that it seemed to me everything on earth must be set ablaze by the flame I felt within me. Love is all!

— Hadewijch, Letter 25

Hadewijch refers frequently to "Minne," a word in English usually translated as "Love." But "Love" is a very inadequate translation.

First off, Minne is grammatically female. Minne, as a concept, is vast. It is a love which encompasses truly everything:

1) Godly love, but then one where Minne, or Love, posses the Being of God like a queen.

2) the Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

3) Love of Jesus (Jesus was often called Love or God in the Middle Ages, being synonymous with these concepts).

4) Love of the soul toward God.

In the 11th and 12th centuries a new movement started in the church: a Love of God, Jesus, and Mary. New religious orders were founded upon this new movement, though mostly for men. Women, widows, or sometimes even married women, mostly of noble birth, worked more often in hospitals and with lepers or retreated in a cell in churches or lived in groups together, taking vows of poverty, celibacy, and service in devotion to God.

This is the time the movement of the Beguinages started (see earlier section). In this movement, mysticism flowered, especially in the common language: Diets.

By the 14th century, beguinages would be democratized, including regular women who were not of noble birth. But in Hadewijch's time, mostly educated women, sometimes of noble descent, lived as beguines.

Hadewijch knew French, Latin, mystical theology, but she wrote in Diets. She never joined a church order in a formal way and never took a nun's vows, but her life was dedicated to service in the name of Minne and God.

In Dutch literature, Hadewijch is known as one of the strongest musical voices: fiery, passionate, a word-artist. Her poems in particular (Hadewijch II's poems in stanzas) are exceptionally musical and rhythmical. She can get to a dizzying ecstatic state writing about Minne.

Hadewijch believed that humans were created to experience the love of Minne. If a soul follows its duty and service, it will from time to time be lifted into ecstasy - oneness with the Godly Being. This state of ecstatic oneness, possessed by Minne, Hadewijch called 'Orewoet" or mystical ecstasy.

However, after such experiences, the soul must know emptiness, powerlessness, doubt, poverty, longing. This was the dichotomy of he mystic's journey, and we find similar threads in the poems of mystics such as Mirabai. More on that in a handout further down to the right.

Minne was also used as a metaphor borrowing from courtly and knightly life, since after the crusades, knights separated more from society and became richer and more refined, sometimes artificially refined, and courtly love bloomed in the time of Hadewijch. The metaphors of love, therefore, can take on a sensuous but also a very service oriented slant in Hadewijch's poetry not dissimilar from the courtly love described in the songs of trouvéres or Minnesingers who traveled the country singing of love.

In Hadewijch's visions, there is a strong connection to Nature, and spring and summer indicate the merging and bursting forth in states of 'Orewoet' or mystical union with God, possessed by Minne. Fall and Winter denote the loss of this abundance and are represented as times of loss but also longing.

Undeniably, the passion of the Minne poems had an erotic side and element. You can read more about a feminist interpretation of Medieval Minne / Love Poetry here.