Professor Boaz Huss, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, title tbc

Professor Annette Volfing, Oriel College, Oxford, ‘Misdirected Visions: Doubt and Confusion in the Middle High German Sister Books’

The presentation will focus on examples of visionary experiences that do not seem to have been entirely successful, either because the nun experiencing the vision does not value the experience or because she is not able to respond appropriately to that which is revealed to her. The first group of examples concerns visions designed to dispel doubts about the Eucharist – and which may therefore be deemed to cast a slur on the strength of the recipients’ faith. The second group of examples involves visions of the Christ Child, with the reactions of the recipients being presented as overly sentimental, unintellectual, or simply confused.