The Topography of the Kitchen, Medicine and Spirituality in the Diaries of Sister Margaret of the Mother of God (Brussels, 1635-1637)

Sister Margaret was the lay sister of the royal convent of Discalced Carmelite nuns in Brussels from 1607 until her death, probably of spinal tuberculosis, in 1646 at the age of 59. Her spiritual autobiography, authored between 1635-1637, is a unique document in the history of early modern female self-writing in the Low Countries. Her voice is a voice from the bottom of the convent’s hierarchy. Margaret came from a lower middle class family in Brabant, today a region of Belgium. When she entered the convent she spoke only Flemish and her position as lay sister confined her largely to work in the kitchen. Cordula van Wyhe’s talk will discuss how Margaret successfully broke down the social, spatial and linguistic barriers that prevented her from having a voice within the female community of the Brussels convent and patriarchal society at large. She formulated an idiosyncratic yet empowering form of piety in which her working environment of the kitchen, her daily chore of cooking and her experience of chronic disease interlaced into a triad of enormous spiritual force.