ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the construction of gender and mystical experiences in the lives of two men: Friedrich Sunder, who was chaplain at the Dominican convent of Engelthal, and Heinrich Seuse, a Dominican who spent most of his life in Konstanz and Ulm. It examines the gender implications of the Daughter Zion allegory, and of bridal mysticism more generally, by looking at the way in which the themes and trajectory of the allegory are reflected in the construction of male mystical experience. In practice, however, medieval literary texts are not always so clear-cut about the allocation of gender roles. Just as Jesus can sometimes be mother, he can also be bride, or be bride and bridegroom at the same time. In relation to a living woman and to certain of the female saints, Sunder retains his male gender, enjoying the privileges of spiritual polygamy normally reserved for the heavenly bridegroom.
