have been in compensation for the so-called Ruprechts-
bau (Ruprecht building) at Heidelberg castle and/or the
sacristy at Speyer Cathedral, begun in 1409. Gerthener’s
name appears in 1414–1415 in the fi nancial records of
the church of St. Katherine in Oppenheim, where he
designed the west choir. The variety of the unusually
fanciful tracery patterns in the tall windows and other
details recall Gerthener’s work in Frankfurt. In 1419 he
was called to Strasbourg, where, with other masters, he
advised on the continuation of the cathedral facade.
Other works sometimes associated with Gerthener
fall into two groups: those on which his participation is
assumed on the basis of his city positions and attribu-
tions on the basis of stylistic affi nities with his secured
works. Into the former category fall work on the town
hall (the Römer), adapted from two patrician houses
beginning in 1405, and the trade hall for linen, fl ax, and
hemp products, the Leinwandhaus. Work on the city for-
tifi cation system underway circa 1400 would also have
been expected of the city’s Werkmeister. This variety in
the production of the medieval builder/architect—repair
or rebuilding of existing structures, design and erection
of both functional buildings, like bridges and fortifi ca-
tion towers, and what we might today think of as “high”
architecture, seen especially in churches—is typical of
the era. The career of Peter Parler, for example, with
whom Gerthener may have worked in Prague during his
travels as a journeyman, also exhibits this diversity.
The high quality and use of architectural forms
similar to those at Frankfurt produce general agreement
that Gerthener was also at work on the so-called Me-
moreinpforte (portal to the memorial chapel) at Mainz
Cathedral about 1425. At Frankfurt, work on the church
of the Virgin (Liebfrauenkirche), that of the Carmelites,
and St. Leonhard’s, all dated between 1415 and circa
1430, is sometimes associated with Gerthener on the
basis of stylistic similarities to his documented works.
Three payment records indicate that Gerthener was
also active as a sculptor. The sweet expressions and
smoothed volumes of both the faces and the draper-
ies of the two male saints on the cathedral side of the
Memorienpforte are typically considered to exemplify
his style. Other works sometimes assigned to Gerthener
on stylistic grounds include the tympanum with the
elaborate, multifi gured scene of the Adoration of the
Magi above the south portal of the Liebfrauenkirche in
Frankfurt (ca. 1425), and the tomb of Anna von Dalberg
(d. 1410) in the church of St. Katherine in Oppenheim.
The art historian Knifner argues that the epitaph of
Siegfried xum Paradies, now in St. Nikolaus in Frankfurt
(ca. 1420), and that of Johann II von Nassau (d. 1419),
archbishop of Mainz, are more likely to be the master’s
own work.
Somewhat more problematic attributions are a print
with the depiction of the Holy Grave (Berlin, Staatliche
Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, Kupferstichkabi-
nett), whose fi gures are close in style to those of the
Memorienpforte, and a large-scale drawing with the
design for Gerthener’s tower at St. Bartholomew’s
(Frankfurt, Historisches Museum). Whether these are
works by the master himself or by those who worked
with him closely, Gerthener was an inventive artist of
unusual energy and breadth.Further Reading
Beck, Herbert, Wolfgang Beeh, and Horst Bredekamp. Kunst um
1400 am Mittelrhein: Ein Teil der Wirklichkeit. Frankfurt am
Main: Liebieghaus Museum alter Piastik, 1975, pp. 49–56.
Haberland, Ernst-Dietrich, and Hans-Otto Schrembs. Madern
Gerthener “der Stadt Franckenfurd Werkmeister”: Bau-
meister und Bildbauer der Spätgotik, Frankfurt am Main:
Knecht, 1992.
Kniffl er, Gisela. Die Grabdenkmäler der Mainzer Erzbischöfi
vow. 13. bis zum früben 16. Jahrhundert. Ph.D. diss., Univer-
sity of Mainz, Dissertationen zur Kunstgeschichte 7. Cologne:
Böhlau, 1978, pp. 51–109.
Ringshausen, Gerhard Johannes. “Madern Gerthener: Leben
und Werk nach den Urkunden,” Ph.D. diss., University of
Gottingen, 1968.
Joan A. HolladayGERTRUD VON HELFTA
(1256–1301/1302)
A monastic, mystic author, Gertrud the Great (die
Größe) entered the monastery of Helfta (near Eisleben)
at the age of almost fi ve. Her Vita (Life) presents her
as a precocious child keenly interested in studying and
eventually acquiring a comprehensive liberal arts educa-
tion in Helfta. Under its abbess Gertrud von Hackeborn,
the Helfta monastery had developed at that time into a
center of culture and learning. Together with her older
sisters in community, Mechthild von Hackeborn (the
abbess’s sister) and the Beguine Mechthild von Mag-
deburg, Gertrud was instrumental in making Helfta into
the focal point of thirteenth-century mysticism.
Gertrud’s mystical conversion experience happened
when she was twenty-fi ve (on January 27, 1281). From a
lukewarm monastic, avid in the pursuit of secular litera-
ture, she was turned into an ardent lover who dedicated
herself wholeheartedly to a Christ-centered spirituality.
Some eight years later, during Holy Week of 1289, Ger-
trud suddenly felt “violently compelled” by the Spirit
to write the memorial of this pivotal experience (to be
found in Book II of the Legatus, “Herald”).
Gertrud never held an important offi ce in her mon-
astery. She spent her life studying theology (infl uences
of Bernard of Clairvaux, William of St. Thierry, Hugh
of St. Victor, and others are noticeable) and writing
exegetical and spiritual texts in which scriptural and
liturgical references abound, and where even natureGERTHENER, MADERN