"Petit bourgeoisie", female piety and mystical Pietism on the South African frontier, 1760-1860

Abstract

In parallel with the Pietistic movement in Germany with its emphasis on mysticism, piety and spiritual devotion to Christ, feminine mystics in South African frontier communities reflected trends that were analogous to the flowering of mysti-cism in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. In addition to the influence of religious literature of German Pietism and devotional literature by Dutch Second Reformation authors, the marginalisation and isolation of feminine believers on the frontier cultivated pietistic tendencies similar to those in seven-teenth- and eighteenth-century Germany. It is suggested that lay feminine participation in pietistic spiritual culture forms a link, previously missing, between the Beguines, the Dominican penitent women, other women Pietists elsewhere in Europe and feminine mystics on the South African frontier.