Mechthild of Magdeburg
c. 1207 — c. 1282/1294
Born into Saxon nobility, Mechthild of Magdeburg abandoned comfort at twenty-three to become a Beguine — an uncloistered laywoman pledged to poverty and prayer. She became the first mystic to write in vernacular German, composing The Flowing Light of Divinity across thirty years of vision, persecution, and blindness — a work scholars believe touched Dante's own imagination.