Introduction

This chapter is an attempt to elucidate how Katerina Lemmel, a newly widowed former spice merchant, who entered a Birgittine nunnary in 1516, perceived sickness and health. I aim to capture her beliefs and experiences, conceptions and comprehensions, of what people in those days called bodily and spiritual health. Furthermore, I examine by what means and methods what we call physical and mental ailments were prevented or combated in the female convent at Maria Mai in Maihingen, Germany. The two key questions I consider are: Were humoral pathological methods combined with religious ones? And how was God's impact on healing perceived?

I examine the ways in which Katerina contributed to the well-being of her sisters in the female convent, especially how she introduced luxury products such as spices, salutary drinks, and wine as healing products. I also study her view of the impact of faith on sickness, recovery, and death. Katerina's views and beliefs can be identified by reading her letters to her cousin, one of her former associates in the spice trading company that she had been a part of before entering the monastery Maria Mai in Maihingen in 1516. An analysis of her letters gives us, for the first time, an idea of how a nun – specifically a nun from the Swedish Birgittine order – experienced health and healing. She was not herself a healer, but a representative of the enlightened urban population. Throughout her professional life, she lived according to humoral pathological ideas, with the help of the family's own pharmacist.