It can sometimes be hard to tell what to think of a source. For the Women and Children in the Medieval World class, I read a chunk of a spiritual biography of an Upper-Rhine Noble Woman, Gertrude Rickeldey.
Now, her story is that she was the child of a second wife, sickly in her young age, whose father died when she was 7 weeks old, and whose mother was driven out of the house by her own stepchildren, leaving her to be raised rather badly, get sick several times, and generally be ill-treated, before she wound up a few things.
First, tall. Like, they emphasize that she's very tall three or four times in the space of two pages. Apparently this was important.
Second, she was married to a man she didn't like, a Knight, for four years. She had four children, three of whom we know we died--and the narrator treats them as burdens that would mar the spiritual life she wanted to leave. The husband died, and she almost couldn't hold back laughs of joy... so, great marriage it was not. She sent the one remaining child, if I'm reading it right, to be raised/live with someone else, and at this time met Lady Heilke, who seemed to be a few years younger. She was running from a marriage she didn't want, and this "young lady's mother had been Gertrude's relative and good friend." So she fled to Gertrude's manor, and her reputation, her inheritance/etc gave her somewhere to live. "Thus our Lord, who does not forsake his own but cares for them amiably, also took care of this lady and this young lady together. For each one needed the other as you will hear." For a year, this young lady wore worldly garb so that she wouldn't be disinherited, and meanwhile Gertrude's last babe died and... well, she apparently didn't mourn that much, which, uh, okay.
So, all... impediments aside, these two women lived together in a household for thirty years, until Gertrude died: "But when the time tthat our Lord had provided for this lady to be on earth was accomplished, and he took her to himself, the young lady felt the greatest pain that she had ever experienced or would ever experience: to be deprived of her saintly companionship, no longer to serve her, as she had served her while she was alive, both in sickness and in health [!!!] whenever she was needed, for which she had always been ready and willing." She apparently spent thirty years of her life tending to this sick aesthetic, whose religious fervor often drove her closer to death, but who was pulled back by her Lady Heilke, who didn't marry, ever.
"This is why our Lord had provided for this lady and this young lady to be brought together, and also so that the young lady would enjoy everything together with her eternally and be with her in eternal bliss, which the faithful god may grant them." And so they "lived a happy and blessed life together."
So the young lady cared for Gertrude, saw to her every need, cherished, on some cases, Gertrude's laughter "This laughter, in particular, was so lovely and delightful, so very intimate and tender that Heilke gained a special pleasure." So too was it with her singing, which "was so good and so sweet, because she had by nature a very sweet voice...but no one heard it except for Heilke who was with her at all times." And is the one who told about it. Told this narrator, who is noted to be a woman who was somewhat close to them, about how sweet her singing was. "And to her it was a pleasure above everything to happily listen to her, it was so pleasant to listen to her voice and watch her gestures."
So, like.
It strikes me as intensely queer, and yet the one review of the translation of this document doesn't really mention it, or even the apparent pleasure that Heilke gained from tending to her (instead deeming it thankless, and certainly it was a lot of work.) And note, this is someone reviewing in 2018, so am I reading way too much into it, because, like.
