Saint Birgitta (Bridget) of Sweden

Albrecht Classen (University of Arizona)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.3.6: Swedish Writing and Culture.
Vol. editors: Nicole Kennedy (University of Newcastle), Sven Hakon Rossel (Universitat Wien), Herbert Rowland (Purdue University), Jakob Stougaard-Nielsen (University College London)

Dates

Born 1306
Died 1373
Activity 1316-1373

Places

Born in Sweden
Active in Sweden; Italy

Activities

Primary

Mystic/ Saint

Resources

N/A's Works

Save to Bookshelf

In our quest to identify female voices in the European Middle Ages, we have to use at times different lenses or categories than in the past because it was very difficult for women to join the male-dominated fields of the courtly romance, the heroic epics, or even courtly love poetry. However, since the twelfth century, if not even earlier, the experience of mystical visions and revelations especially by women made it possible for them, when they were recognized by the major Church authorities (see the case of Hildegard of Bingen), to produce a flood of valuable religious texts about their personal encounters with the Godhead, or a saint. However we might view those narratives, they often reflect the emergence of female writers who were strongly driven by these visions to record them in…

Please log in to consult the article in its entirety. If you are a member (student of staff) of a subscribing institution (see List), you should be able to access the LE on campus directly (without the need to log in), and off-campus either via the institutional log in we offer, or via your institution's remote access facilities, or by creating a personal user account with your institutional email address. If you are not a member of a subscribing institution, you will need to purchase a personal subscription. For more information on how to subscribe as an individual user, please see under Individual Subcriptions.

1853 words

Citation: Classen, Albrecht. "Saint Birgitta (Bridget) of Sweden". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 06 February 2025 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=5557, accessed 22 February 2025.]