The Body and Eucharistic Devotion in Catharina Regina Von Greiffenberg's 'Meditations'

New study of the writings of Catharina von Greiffenberg, the German Baroque religious author.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 thatvon 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 demonstratingher own corporeal religious experience.