Bringing the literary works of Suster Bertken to life
Berta Jacobsdochter (1426/27-1514), better known as Suster Bertken, is most famous in Utrecht for her choice to be immured in a small cell at the Buurkerk, where she dedicated the remainder of her life to prayer and contemplation. Less well-known, however, is the fact that she also left behind significant literary works. Dieuwke van der Poel, Associate Professor at Utrecht University and an expert on late medieval songs, explores Bertken’s literary heritage alongside presenter Janina Ramirez (Oxford University) in an episode of BBC Sounds.
Bertken's works
On Utrecht's Choorstraat, at the spot where her cell once stood, there is now a memorial stone – right in front of a bridal shop. A rather ironic location, as Van der Poel points out in the BBC episode. “The very focus of her work is to be meditating on the suffering and love of Jesus in order to become the heavenly bride of the heavenly bride groom after she died.”
Though Bertken was physically cut off from the outside world, she still lived in the busy centre of Utrecht. Her surviving works reveal that she played a special role in the city. For example, she wrote that people would come to her asking for her prayers, which she promised to offer. “She really had an important role for the people of the city, and perhaps we could even call her a kind of female priest”, Van der Poel explains.
Music and poetry brought to life
The BBC episode not only features excerpts from Bertken's texts, but also music fragments based on her works. Van der Poel, together with singer Margot Kalse, investigated whether her poems were actually songs. She discovered that some of the poems were likely sung to well-known melodies from Bertken's time.
By analysing factors such as the number of lines per stanza and the rhyme scheme, Van der Poel was able to trace melodies: “I found for three songs contemporary melodies, mostly from secular songs, but most of them were really well known in the time of Bertken”, she explains. For the first time in 500 years, Bertken’s texts are now being heard once again.
Bertken in the University Library
Bertken’s story comes to life even more in our very own University Library. Andrea van Leerdam, curator of printed works at the Special Collections, shares an incunable (a printed work from the early days of the printing press) from 1496, in which the story of Bertken’s life is handwritten on the title page.
City accounts provide a glimpse into how Utrecht dealt with Bertken's death. One such document reveals that six servants were paid to guard her grave and prepare the church for mourning. This suggests that her death was seen as that of an important spiritual figure, further confirming her significant status in Utrecht.