Note 3 — The Cloister of Hellfde

The Latin translation of Matilda’s book appears to have been published very early, as it does not contain the seventh book, probably, therefore, considerably earlier than the year 1300. We know that the 6th and 7th Cantos of the Purgatorio were written between 1308 and 1313; the 24th Canto after the year 1314. If Dante passed through Cologne in his wanderings, as appears probable from his reference to Cologne in the Inferno, xxiii. 63, he may there have seen the book. It was, however, no doubt widely circulated before the end of the thirteenth century. The supposition that Matilda of Hackeborn was the origin of Dante’s Matilda is disproved by the later date of the Mechthilden Buch, which could scarcely have been published before the year 1310.