scriptural passages which rotated with the liturgical calendar. Finally, the manuscripts which contain large collections of his sermons frequently organize them according to the liturgical cycle rather than thematically. In contrast, Seuse contextualizes his visions and experiences within the liturgy through citation of Latin Mass texts. Neither Seuse nor Tauler represents liturgical performance with anything like the frequency or vividness of the sisterbooks. Moreover, whereas the sisterbooks employ Office texts, Tauler and Seuse both rely more heavily on the Mass for inspiration. Both friars also share an anxiety over the disruptive behavior that experiencing divine insight during communal celebration can cause.
Aside from the scriptural readings for a particular day, Tauler cites liturgical material less frequently and less systematically than even his prominent forebear Meister Eckhart.52 Tauler rarely offers specific liturgical texts as devotional inspiration, and when he does, as in the sermon for Christmas, he casts his net more widely than the context of a particular feast. Indeed, Joachim Theisen admits to being initially disappointed by Tauler’s apparent disregard for “the liturgical microcontext of the Mass.”53 Tauler does always explain the scriptural reading for the day, Theisen notes, but “läßt sich ansonsten jedoch nicht von den anderen Texten des Meßformulars leiten, sondern von den thematischen Vorgaben der liturgischen Zeit [otherwise is not directed by the other texts of the Mass formulary but rather by the thematic guidelines of the liturgical cycle].”54 Thus in sermon Vetter 1, Tauler describes the three Masses for Christmas Day as three kinds of divine birth and even assigns spiritual meaning to the fact that one is sung in the dark, one at dawn, and one when it is light. Rather than dwelling on the specific texts for a specific Mass, Tauler invests the entire feast and all that pertains to its celebration with spiritual meaning.
This orientation is likely what made Tauler an attractive choice for table readings at St. Katherine’s in Nürnberg.55 Divorced from the context of its original delivery during a Mass and relocated to the refectory or chapter, a focused explication of liturgical texts would no longer be as significant or as relevant. Devotional interpretation of the feast within the context of the liturgical year, however, would be eminently useful in orienting the audience in an informed, orderly performance of the liturgical duties of that season. Tauler’s sermons spiritualize the liturgy on a global scale, allegorizing large-scale practices such as the three Masses on Christmas Day. His interpretations prepare the audience especially for high times in the liturgical year, when the special feasts were celebrated with unique variations in the Rite. Tauler both provides theological explanations for these broader changes in liturgical practice and offers spiritual lessons which give the feasts personal import. However, Tauler is not sensitive to the devotional power of liturgical text within the context of its performance, something that inspires both Seuse and the women of the sisterbooks.
Liturgical performances certainly inspire many of Seuse’s visions, and he also uses liturgical citations to comment on or gloss visionary experience. Although most studies focus on the role of images and visual piety in Seuse’s devotional program,56 Steven Rozenski has compellingly argued that “the auditory often occupies a place of privilege vis-à-vis the visual: music and voice are frequently treated as both more powerful and more trustworthy than images, visions, or texts.”57 Rozenski points out not only that hearing something can incite a visionary experience for Seuse, but that within such visions he often imagines himself rapt outside his body to some insubstantial place of angelic performance, where he sings along or dances to the tune. Although the Servant often hears instrumental dance music, liturgical song appears just as often in visions of musical performance. In contrast to Tauler’s global interest in the devotional significance of liturgical feasts, Seuse uses particular liturgical texts as either inspirations for or explanations of visions which are often extracted from their context in the liturgical calendar.
Seuse’s liturgical visions share many of the characteristics and functions such narratives display in the sisterbooks, with two signal differences pertaining on the one hand, to the meaning they produce and on the other, to the time and location of their occurrence. As I will show in the following chapter, the sisterbooks deploy liturgical citations as part of complex visions which either explore theological concepts or perform a sister’s holiness by drawing her into association with a saint. Seuse prefers to use the genre of philosophical dialogue to tackle theological issues, but he does use liturgical visions to reflect on his own spiritual state or to communicate some devotional lesson. For example, Seuse recounts a curious nightmare in which he is selected as celebrant for Mass. Taking him by surprise, the choir sings an Introit of a Mass for martyrs.58
Die senger hůben an die messe von den martrern: Multae tribulationes justorum etc., daz da sait von menigvaltigem lidene gotesfrúnden. Daz horte er ungern und heti es gern gewendet und sprach also: ‘wafen, wes töbent ir úns mit den martrern? War zů singent ir hút von den martrern, und es hút enkaines martrers tag ist, den wir begangen?’ Sú sahen in an und zögtan mit den vingern uf in und sprachen: ‘got der vindet sin martrer hút an disem tage, als er sú ie vand. Berait dich núwan dur zů und sing fúr dich!’59
The singers began the Mass for Martyrs: Multae tribulationes justorum etc., which handles the multifarious suffering of the friends of God. He did not like hearing this and wanted to change it, so he said: “hey, why are you blasting away about the martyrs? What are you singing about martyrs for, when we are not celebrating any martyr’s feast?” They looked at him and pointed at him with their fingers and said: “God will find his martyr on this day as he ever found them. Prepare yourself for this alone and sing your own feast!”
Terrified by this prophecy, Seuse flips through the pages of the missal before him, seeking the feast of some confessor or anything else. When he sees that the missal contains nothing but martyrs, he resigns himself to his fate and accepts the suffering he knows will come. By singing a Mass for martyrs on his own behalf, Seuse interprets his own trials as martyrdom and assimilates the narrative of his own life to their hagiographic vitae. His self-castigation and his persecution at the hands of others are given both redemptive meaning and exemplary status through Seuse’s liturgical association with the Church’s martyrs.
As I will discuss in more depth in the following chapter, the sisterbooks also often deploy liturgical citations in order to reveal the spiritual state usually of a deceased sister. Seuse’s nightmare resembles in particular a dream granted to the Gotteszell sister Adelheit. She sees a recently deceased sister dressed in rich robes, emblazoned with liturgical passages from Offices for martyrs on the front and back: Qui vult venire post me and Qui mihi ministrat.60 The similarity of the episodes brings important differences sharply into focus. First of all, Seuse may arrogate to himself the honor due a martyr even before he has earned it. Dominican sisters, in contrast, usually must wait until after death for confirmation of their spiritual state. This difference makes manifest some of the dynamics of gendered power which increasingly meant that the only holy woman was a dead woman.61 Second, Seuse and the sisters experience the liturgy in different ways and with different intensities and therefore draw on different liturgical texts for their visions. The friar Seuse hears an Introit for a Mass at which he himself is meant to preside. The Gotteszell sister appears with the written texts of two antiphons for Lauds, that is, excerpts from the hours. Seuse’s vision of a martyr’s Mass is representative of his liturgical citations on the whole. Befitting his status as a friar and priest, Seuse tends to cite from the Mass more often than from the hours, which constituted the sisters’ liturgical focus and their primary source for visionary material. Comparing Seuse’s dream with a similar vision from the sisterbooks reveals significant manifestations of gender difference in access to saintly status and in experience of the liturgy. Seuse’s status as a male Dominican allows him to celebrate his own blessedness more openly and orients his use of liturgical material toward Mass texts over the hours. Nevertheless, the way in which Seuse reconfigures liturgical context to create meaning within his visions corresponds to the literary methods of the sisterbooks.
Arnold Angenendt has identified a further difference between Seuse’s use of liturgical material
