Benedictine Nuns of Lüne: Letters

The archive of the convent of Lüne preserves three voluminous letter books produced in the first half of the sixteenth century and containing nearly 1800 copies of letters received or sent by the convent’s nuns between c. 1460 and 1550. This little-known correspondence reveals the intellectual, spiritual, and social world of Lüne’s nuns in the voices of the women themselves. The letters show the range and extent of the nuns’ social networks: with other convents, the ducal family, the mayor of Lüneburg and city councillors, high-ranking ecclesiastics, their provost and other clerics, and not least their family and friends. Written in Latin and Low German, the correspondence demonstrates the sophistication of the nuns’ linguistic and theological education and how it enabled them to participate directly in communication networks. The range of topics the nuns dealt with is broad: managing legal and economic affairs, participating in religious debates, offering counsel and spiritual support, and cultivating relations with family, friends, and benefactors. The correspondence affords unparalleled insight into the nuns’ self-image and how they understood their spiritual role, and how, in turn, they were esteemed by their contemporaries as spiritual intermediaries between the sacral world and this one.