Body & Eucharistic Devotion in Catharina Regina von Greiffenberg's 'Meditations.'

This book presents a fresh view of Catharina Regina von Greiffenberg, the German Baroque devotional writer, and her largely neglected prose work Die andächtigen Betrachtungen (Meditations). The Meditations show that von Greiffenberg's identity as a woman profoundly influenced her perception of the Incarnation, and associate her closely with earlier generations of German female visionaries, such as Hrotswitha von Gandersheim, Mechthild von Magdeburg, and Christine Ebner; the author argues that von Greiffenberg ignores the long-established denigration of the female and the body, linking and elevating women's biological and spiritual experience, while also demonstrating her own corporeal religious experience.