Mouth stuff: How Hildegard and Mechthild feminise God and articulate a discourse of ‘lesbian’ erotics through oral metaphors

The question of a feminised God in the devotional writings of medieval mystics has recently captured the attention of researchers. God can appear in mystical texts as a pregnant or breast-feeding figure or in the guise of ‘Lady Love.’ Still other texts orient their devotions towards the Virgin Mary and women saints rather than towards Christ. Nevertheless, scholars generally do not acknowledge the femininity of God—divine femininity remains the symbol of an abstract ontological concept, despite the fact that many mystical texts employ precise sensory language to elicit emotional and even erotic responses to a feminine divine entity. Using a multidisciplinary approach in cognitive linguistics and queer theory, this article examines the sensory lexicon of Hildegard von Bingen’s and Mechthild von Magdeburg’s devotional works to determine whether we can interpret their affective discourse—oriented towards a feminised divinity—as a discourse of ‘lesbian’ eroticism.