ABSTRACT
The Arnhem Mystical Sermons are the largest sermon collection in Middle Dutch, totalling 162 sermons written on 372 folios. The sermons are organized according to the liturgical calendar of the Utrecht diocese, with a few adaptations to local traditions in Arnhem and in the monastery.1 Sermons 1-127 are written for the Proper of the Time or Temporale, sermon 128 for the occasion of a church dedication (from the Communale), and sermons 129-162 are written for the Proper of the Saints or Sanctorale. The Sanctorale remains incomplete. It begins with sermon 129 (St. Andrew, 30 November), and ends abruptly with sermon 162 (St. Michael and All Angels, 29 September); there is a hiatus of almost two months.2 The collection is copied in a unique manuscript dating from the third quarter of the sixteenth century.3 The manuscript was written by a scribe from the St. Agnes Convent of regular canonesses in Arnhem in ca. 1560-1580. The monastic community had grown out of a group of Sisters of the Common Life who were part of the Modern Devotion movement; it adopted the Rule of St. Augustine shortly after 1458.4 Based on their content and their relation to the historical-religious context, the original sermons most probably date from the second quarter of the sixteenth century.5
