Memoria für die Zukunft. Zur Gestaltung von Erinnerung in den Schwesternbüchern der Devotio moderna

This article discusses the sister-books of the Modern Devotion from the viewpoint of the practices of collective memory. Initially recollections of the lives of deceased sisters were exchanged orally while later they were written down. Such accounts included details of the lives and devotional practices of individual sisters and nuns and they result in a cumulative picture of the spiritual and social life of each house across several generations. It was deemed essential to achieve an ideal balance between the spiritual life of the community, with all its rules and rituals, and the charitable services to the wider community in which the sisters ‘found’ their fellow sisters, even while they found God and attained inner peace. Particular attention is paid to the ‘Schreibschwester’ [writing sister], who would have been directly responsible for assembling the collection of vitae and therefore, indirectly, for maintaining memorial identity while also shaping the future of the respective communities.