Abstract
Dorothy of Montau (c. 1347–1394), also known as Dorothea von Montau or Dorothy/Dorothea of Prussia, was a mystic and recluse in the cathedral church of Marienwerder (today’s Kwidzyn, Poland). She is also the first native-born saint of Prussia, after a bid for canonization begun in the fourteenth century eventually led to the recognition of her cult and confirmation that she could properly be called “saint” in 1976. According to the evidence of the several vitae, or saints’ lives, written about her, Dorothy was first inclined toward a religious life after a childhood accident; afterwards, she continued to maintain her devotions as a wife and mother. After the death of her husband, Dorothy placed her daughter into a monastery and pursued a religious life in the world before becoming enclosed as a recluse in the church of Marienwerder. She lived as a recluse under the direction of confessors John Marienwerder and John Reymann; after her death, the former composed and compiled numerous documents attesting to Dorothy’s holy life as part of an effort to have her canonized. Many of these sources survive; additionally, another separate text is attributed to Dorothy as author, framed as a letter from Dorothy to her daughter. This rich collection of texts paints a picture of Dorothy’s vivid mystical visions and affective spirituality, while also giving insights into the historical circumstances of her life.
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References
Primary Sources
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Sauer, Michelle M. 2015. Violence, isolation, & anchoritic preparation: Dorothy of Montau, anchoress of Marienwerder. Magistra 21 (1): 132–151.
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Suerbaum, Almut. 2014. An urban housewife as a saint for Prussia: Dorothea of Montau and Johannes Marienwerder. In A companion to mysticism and devotion in northern Germany in the late middle ages, ed. Elizabeth Andersen, Henrike Lähnemann, and Anne Simon, 179–204. Leiden: Brill.
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Further Reading
Andrews, Frances, and Eleonora Rava, eds. 2021. Ripensare la reclusione volontaria nell’Europa medievale (Re-thinking Voluntary Reclusion in Medieval Europe). Special issues of Quaderni di storia religiosa medievale, 24(1, 2).
Heß, Cordelia. 2008. Heilige machen im spätmittelalterlichen Ostseeraum: die Kanonisationsprozesse von Birgitta von Schweden, Nikolaus von Linköping und Dorothea von Montau. Berlin: Akademie Verlag.
Hörner, Petra. 1993. Dorothea von Montau: Überlieferung, Interpretation. Dorothea und die osteuropäische Mystik. Frankfurt/New York: P. Lang.
Kieckhefer, Richard. 1984. Unquiet souls: Fourteenth-century saints and their religious milieu. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
McAvoy, Liz Herbert, and Cate Gunn, eds. 2017. Medieval anchorites in their communities. Woodbridge: Boydell.
McFarland, Timothy. 1988. Fisch mit Safran: Speisemotiv, Erzählstruktur und didaktische Intention in einer Episode aus der deutschen Vita der Dorothea von Montau. In Kleinere Erzählformen im Mittelalter, ed. Klaus Grubmüller, Peter Johnson, and Hans-Hugo Steinhoff, 253–269. Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh Verlag.
Samerski, Stefan. 2013. Dorothea und kein Ende. Bemerkungen zur Prozess- und Kultgeschichte der hl. Dorothea von Montau. In Cura animarum: Seelsorge im Deutschordensland Preußen, ed. Stefan Samerski, 200–216. Cologne: Böhlau.
Sauer, Michelle M., and Jenny C. Bledsoe, eds. 2021. The materiality of middle English anchoritic devotion. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press.
Suerbaum, Almut. 2014. A room with a view. Zur Spannung zwischen Kontemplation und Leben in der Welt in den Dorotheenviten des Johannes Marienwerder. In Muße im kulturellen Wandel: Semantisierungen, Ähnlichkeiten, Umbesetzungen, ed. Burkhard Hasebrink and Philipp Riedl, 131–151. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Voigt, Jörg. 2021. Recluses in medieval Germanic-speaking lands. Quaderni di storia religiosa medievale 24 (1): 345–369.
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Moncion, L. (2023). Dorothy of Montau. In: Sauer, M.M., Watt, D., McAvoy, L.H. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of Medieval Women's Writing in the Global Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-76219-3_44-1
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