ABSTRACT
In the Middle Ages the texts of the mystics travelled from one country to another and especially in the fifteenth century some continental texts reached England. In the dissemination of continental works as far as England, the Low Countries played an important role, as has often been pointed out. Master Eckhart’s ideas clearly became known to a certain extent in England through the medium of the Mirror of Simple Souls. Certain important themes of Eckhart’s were, however, not taken over with it — like the birth of God in the soul and the possibility of a purely intellectual knowledge of God. For English mysticism, especially the work of Richard Rolle, draws on the passionate language of earthly love to a much larger extent than has hitherto been admitted. The vividness of the Germanic linguistic terms explains why the English mystics preferred them and why they felt them to be particularly suitable for expressing spiritual concepts in concrete terms.
