E

EBNER, MARGARETHA (1291–1351)
Born in 1291 in Donauwörth, near Regensburg, to a
patrician family, Margaretha Ebner entered the Do-
minican cloister of Maria-Mödingen at an early age
and was buried there in 1351. In 1332, Heinrich von
Nördlingen, her Dominican confessor, convinced her
to write a record of her spiritual journey. Without the
aid of an amanuensis, she wrote her Offenbarungen
(Revelations) herself in Alemannic, a dialect of Middle
High German. A lengthy manuscript for the Middle
Ages (over 100 folio pages) Margaretha’s Revelations
follows a chronological description of her spiritual life
from 1312 to 1348, the experiences arranged according
to the liturgical calendar. The text belongs to a medi-
eval religious genre referred to as autohagiography. In
1312 Margaretha became seriously ill and for three
years endured a variety of affl ictions described in the
opening chapters of her book. Suffering a severe illness
for an extended period of time is a feature commonly
reported in medieval hagiography or autohagiography
and fi gures prominently in the religious experiences of
medieval women. Recovered, Margaretha undertook
a rigorous program of asceticism, self-mortifi cation,
fasting, and fl agellation. At one point she begged Mary
to ask God that she be granted the miracle of stigmata.
Quite in keeping with fourteenth-century piety, her
devotions center on the humanity of Christ, primarily
on his birth and death. Material images of both cradle
and cross are, therefore, conspicuous in her devotional
exercises. The religious experiences that Margaretha
narrates in her writings typify those of ecstatic mystics
described in a variety of texts in late medieval Europe,
particularly prominent in late medieval Germany. It is
also noteworthy that fi fty-four letters from Heinrich von
Nördlingen and other contemporaries are included in
the nineteenth-century Strauch edition.

Further Reading

Hale, Drage Rosemary. “Rocking the Cradle: Margaretha Ebner

(Be)Holds the Divine,” in Performance and Transformation:

New Approaches to Late Medieval Spirituality, ed. Mary A.

Suydam and Joanna E. Ziegler. New York: St. Martin’s Press,

1999, pp. 210–241.

Margaretha Ebner und Heinrich von Nördlingen, ed. Philipp

Strauch. Frieburg im Breisgau: Mohr, 1882; rpt. Amsterdam:

P. Shippers N. V., 1966.

Margaretha Ebner: Major Works, trans. Leonard P. Hindsley.

New York: Paulist, 1993.

Rosemary Drage Hale

EDWARD I (1239–1307; r. 1272–1307)

Usually rated as one of the great kings of medieval

England. His reign witnessed military triumphs against

the Welsh and considerable successes against Scotland,

apparently conquered by 1304. A magnifi cent chain of

castles in north Wales is testament to the confi dence of

the age, and a succession of statutes bears witness to

Edward’s efforts to reform the legal system. In consti-

tutional terms this reign was of fundamental importance

in the development of parliament. Yet there are shadows

in this picture. The later years of the reign lacked the

constructive qualities of the earlier. War imposed an

increasing strain upon political society and the economy.

Law and order were not maintained with the expected

vigor.

Edward is not an easy character to assess. Son of

Henry III, he served a hard apprenticeship in his youth,

displaying energy and ambition, with a reputation for

false dealing in the civil wars of the early 1260s. He

went on St. Louis’s crusade in 1270 and was the only

one of the leaders who did not abandon the expedition,

He went on to the Holy Land, where he achieved little

but greatly improved his public image.