Hadewijch (active c. 1240) was a mystic and author of a literary oeuvre encompassing letters and visions in prose, song lyrics, and epistolary poems. She was among the earliest writers to use the Middle Dutch vernacular to express spiritual teachings. In her writings on minne (mystical love), she creatively fuses courtly and religious literary traditions. She advocates a radical mysticism of desire as a path to deification. While her works in the Middle Ages did not circulate beyond the Low Countries and the adjacent Rhineland, today she holds a prominent place in European literary history and the narrative of Western mysticism.