SEUSE, HEINRICH (1295/1297–1366)
This Dominican priest served as a confessor, preacher,
and teacher to religious men and women in the German
south. His poetic works in the mystical tradition served
to inspire those in his care.
Born into a patrician family in or near Constance,
Seuse did not seek out ministerial service but followed
in the footsteps of his religiously oriented mother,
whose name he chose to use. At thirteen he entered the
monastery at Constance. Following a general course of
study there, he may have studied briefl y in Strasbourg
before attending the studium generate (early form of
university education) in Cologne around 1324 or 1325,
where he studied with Meister Eckhart. Seuse probably
remained in Cologne until the master’s death in 1327,
when he returned to Constance and was appointed lector
at the monastery. At the age of forty, around 1335, Seuse
was told by God to abandon the ascetic practices he had
followed for twenty-two years. This turning point in his
personal life also marked a change in his professional
career: Seuse became an itinerant preacher and spiritual
adviser, concentrating his activities in Switzerland, the
Alsace, and along the Upper Rhine. Because he sup-
ported the pope in a power struggle with Ludwig of
Bavaria, Seuse was forced to leave Constance in 1338
or 1339; some eight years later he probably returned.
Around 1348 he was transferred to the Dominican mon-
astery in Ulm, where he remained until his death more
than fi fteen years later. He was canonized in 1831.
In his last years, Seuse undertook the editing of his
works for publication, his Ansgabe letzter Hand; the
works he chose make up the Exemplar. Included are his
life (Vita), which chronicles in third-person narrative
the life of the Diener der ewigen Weisheit (Servant of
Eternal Wisdom), Seuse himself. The authorship of the
Vita is disputed; the Töß sister Elsbeth Stagel, one of
Seuse’s spiritual charges, probably played a role in the
editing, if not the writing of the work. Following are
Seuse’s earliest works, the Büchlein der ewigen Weisheit
(Little Book of Eternal Wisdom) and the Büchlein der
Wahrheit (Little Book of Truth), two of the most popular
devotional tracts in the late medieval mystical tradition.
Both are written as dialogues between the Servant and
the personifi cation of eternal wisdom and truth, respec-
tively. The Exemplar concludes with the Briefbüchlein
(Little Book of Letters), an edited version of Seuse’s
correspondence with the Dominican sisters in his charge,
primarily those at the convent of Töß. The Little Book of
Love (Minnebüchlein), whose authenticity is doubtful,
and a larger collection of letters, the Großes Briefbuch
(Great Book of Letters), also survive. Both sets of letters
by Seuse are more characteristic of the homiletic rather
than the epistolary genre. Indeed, few of his homiletic
works are extant, although he was charged with the
responsibility of preaching; only two German sermons
are accepted as authentic works of the Dominican friar,
but neither is included in the Exemplar. The Horologium
sapientiae (Clock of Wisdom) is the only extant work
of the Dominican in Latin; it is an expanded version of
the Büchlein der ewigen Weisheit.
The religious content of Seuse’s work, which draws
on the Bernhardian tradition, stands in marked contrast
to the speculative mystical theology of his teacher
Eckhart. Because of his poetic style and the preemi-
nence of love imagery in his writings, Seuse often is
characterized as the Minnesänger among the medieval
German mystics.
See also Meister EckhartFurther Reading
Bihlmeyer, Karl, ed. Heinrich Seuse. Deutsche Schrifi en. 1907;
rpt. Frankfurt am Main: Minerva, 1961.
Boesch, Bruno. “Zur Minneauffassung Seuses.” Festschrift Josef
Quint anläßlich seines 65. Geburtstages übefreicht, ed. Hugo
Moser, Rudolf Schutzeichel, and Karl Stackmann. Bonn:
Semmel, 1964, pp. 57–68.
Clark, James M. The Great German Mystics: Eckhart, Tauler
and Suso. Oxford: Blackwell, 1949.
Colledge, Edmund, and J. C. Marler. ‘Mystical’ Pictures in the
Suso ‘Exemplar’ Ms Strasbourg 2929.” Archivum Fratrurn
Praedicatorum 54 (1984): 293–354.
Filthaut, Ephrem M., ed. Heinrich Seuse. Studien zum 600. Tod-
estag, 1366–1966. Cologne: Albertus Magnus, 1966.
Haas, Alois M., and Kurt Ruh. “Seuse, Heinrich OP,” in Die
deutsche Literatur des Mittelalters: Verfasserlexikon, 2d ed.,
ed. Kurt Ruh et al. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1992, vol. 8, cols.
1127–1129.
Hamburger, Jeffrey E. “The Use of Images in the Pastoral Care
of Nuns: The Case of Heinrich Suso and the Dominicans” Art
Bulletin 71 (1989): 20–46.
Künzle, Pius. Heinrich Seuses Horologium sapientiae. Spici-
legium Friburgense 23. Freiburg im Breisgau: Universitäts-
verlag, 1977.
Stoudt, Debra L. “The Structure and Style of the Letters of
Seuses Großes Briefbuch.” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen
90 (1989): 359–367.
Tobin, Frank. “Coming to Terms with Meister Eckhart: Suso’s
Buch der Wahrheit.” Semper idem et novus. Festschrift for
Frank Banta, ed. Francis G. Gentry. Göppingen: Kümmerle,
1988, 321–344.
Tobin, Frank. Henry Suso: The Exemplar, with Two German
Sermons. Mahwah, N.J.: Paulist, 1989.
Walz, Angelus. “Bibliographiae susonianae conatus.” Angelicum
46 (1969): 430–491.
Debra L. StoudtSHEM TOV OF CARRIÓN (ca. 1290–1360)
Shem Tov Yiz.h.aq ben Arduti’el, Castilian rabbi and
poet whose Proverbios morales, addressed to Pedro I
and quoted in the Marqués de Santillana’s Prohemio
e carta, synthesizes Semitic poetics with the Spanish
idiom in a permutation of a literary formula: the get-
ting of wisdom. Its relative success has eclipsed ShemSEUSE, HEINRICH