Hadewijch

Poet and writer from the S part of the Low Countries (Brabant). She wrote mystical poems and prose of great sensitivity and religiosity, although her work is difficult to understand for those without theological knowledge. She is considered one of the greatest mediaeval poets in the Low Countries.

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.

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. That she would have been a nun can be excluded, as her writings (primarily her prose letters) show that she travelled and lived in several places, and as in general her writings lack references to life in a convent.

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.