diary that Beatrijs kept in Middle Dutch, but which is
now lost. The only surviving work by her is entitled Va n
seven manieren van heileger minne (The Seven Steps
of Holy Love), a short treatise in prose, dealing with
seven aspects of the love for God. This work dates back
to 1250 and is therefore one of the oldest Middle Dutch
texts in prose (together with some works by the other
Brabantine mystic, Hadewijch). Van seuen manieren van
heileger minne has come down to us in three manuscripts
from the fourteenth and fi fteenth centuries, always in
combination with other texts.
Beatrijs van Nazareth is, alongside Hadewijch, one of
the most prominent representatives of female mysticism
in the medieval Low Countries. Her treatise was prob-
ably meant for people within her own circle, possibly
as an introduction into the spiritual life for the novices
of her own convent. Beatrijs considers the love of man
for God to be a gift of God and describes in seven steps
the experience of joy and longing as well as tension and
agony caused by this spiritual minne. The ultimate goal
of mystical ascent, according to Beatrijs, is the fulfi ll-
ment of love and the union of the soul with its heavenly
bridegroom.
Beatrijs’s treatise reveals infl uences of the amor
(love of God) concept as was current in twelfth-century
Northern French spirituality, prominently expressed in
texts of Cistercian origin. In the minne, then, God reveals
Himself and man is free to comply with that love; in
love, man can meet God.
The works of Beatrijs and Hadewijch are of the ut-
most importance for the development of Middle Dutch
as a written language. Both mystics tried to express the
role of the divine and the experiencing of God in their
lives, while realizing that their vernacular falls short
vis-à-vis such an endeavor. Thus they frequently made
use of neologisms, using the language in a creative way.
They laid the foundations of a Middle Dutch mystical
language, which made itself felt in the oeuvre of Jan
van Ruusbroec and, through him, in the writings of the
Modern Devotion, a later religious movement.
See also Hadewijch; Jan van Ruusbroec
Further Reading
Carton, M. J., trans. “Beatrice of Nazareth. The Seven Steps of
Love.” Cistercian Studies 19 (1984): 31–42.
Vekeman, Herman W. J. “Beatrijs van Nazareth. Die Mystik einer
Zisterzienserin,” In Peter Dinzelbacher and Dieter R. Bauer,
ed. Frauenmystik im Mittelalter. Ostfi ldern: Schwabenverlag,
1985, pp. 78–98.
——. Hoezeer heeft God mij bemind. Beatrijs van Nazareth
(1200–1268). Vertaling van de Latijnse Vita met inleiding en
commentaar. Kampen/Averbode: Kok/Altiora, 1993.
Vekeman, Herman W. J., and Jacques J. Th. M. Tersteeg, ed.
Beatrijs van Nazareth. Van seuen manieren van heileger min-
nen. Zutphen: Thieme, 1971.
An Faems
BEATUS OF LIÉBANA (8th century)
Participant in the adoptionist controversy, commentator
on the Apocalypse; very little is known about his life be-
yond his participation in the former. He appears to have
been a priest or a monk in Liébana (Cantabria). In 785
he coauthored (with Eterius, who would later become
bishop of Osma) a letter to Elipandus, the metropolitan
of Toledo, that denounced the latter’s belief that Christ
had adopted his human nature at the time of the Incar-
nation. This letter was prompted by one written a short
time before by Elipandus to an abbot Fidelis, asking him
to reprimand Beatus and Eterius for an earlier challenge
to his views on the Incarnation. At stake, at least from
Elipandus’ perspective, was not only doctrinal accuracy
but the continued authority of the metropolitan see of
Toledo over the greater Spanish church. Beatus was
also attacked in two subsequent letters from the bishops
of Spain to the bishops of Gaul and to Charlemagne,
respectively, expressing their support for the adoption-
ist position. Charlemagne responded by convening the
Council of Frankfurt in 794, at which the assembled
bishops condemned adoptionism as heresy.
Beatus is better known today as the author of a
commentary on the Apocalypse, though the evidence
supporting this attribution is circumstantial. The fi rst
version of the commentary was fi nished in 776, with
subsequent editions in 784 and 786. The commentary is
little more than a compilation of the opinions of previ-
ous authorities on the subject, though the names of the
sources from which the author drew reveal something
of the range of materials available to a scholar in the
early period of the Asturian monarchy. The conserva-
tism of the author is interesting in light of the fact that
he was writing more than fi fty years after the Muslim
invasion and thus was in a position to cast the invaders
in an apocalyptic role, if he had been so inclined. The
primary signifi cance of the commentary lies not in the
text but in the illuminations that accompany it in the
many manuscripts of the work that have survived from
the tenth through the twelfth centuries. These so-called
“Beatos” contain some of the most impressive examples
of the so-called Mozarabic artistic style.
See also CharlemagneFurther Reading
“Beati et Eterii Adversus Elipandum.” Corpus Christianorum
59 (1984), 320–22.
Colbert, E. “The Martyrs of Córdoba (850–859): A Study of
the Sources.” Ph.D. diss., Catholic University of America.
Washington, D.C., 1962.
Collins, R. The Arab Conquest of Spain, 710–797. Oxford,
1989.
Saunders, H. (ed.) Beati in Apocalypsim libri duodecim. Rome,
1930.
Kenneth B. WolfBEATRIJS VAN NAZARETH