ACi 69 (2019) 178–197 Te Earliest Transmitted German Redaction of the Legatus: Gotha, Forschungsbibliothek, Chart. B 269 Racha Kirakosian Te Legatus divinae pietatis (subsequently short: Legatus) showcases one indi- vidual nun, Gertrude the Great 1 ; but it is the product of a collective enterprise originating from the Saxon nunnery of Helfa – and equally collective is the reception history of the Legatus as generations of readers rewrote, adapted, and shaped the text material they had at hand. We may call readers, who engaged with the material by copying texts in a co-creative manner, redactors. Te Ger- man redactions of the Legatus – mainly ein botte der götlichen miltekeit (“A Mes- senger of Divine Generosity”, subsequently short: botte) and the so-called Trut- ta-legend – belong to its reception history; moreover, vernacular writings give us new insights into devotional culture in the late Middle Ages 2 . Te contents of the Legatus – partially autobiographical – may be described as visionary hag- iography, but the surviving text witnesses range from comprehensive narrative copies to single visions or prayers. Indeed, the oldest surviving German redac- tion of the Legatus consists of no more than a single vision; it can be found in a miscellany of Bavarian origin, today kept at the Herzog Ernst Research Library in Gotha, West Turingia. Te manuscript transmission of the German redac- 1 Te Legatus as well as the Liber specialis gratiae, dealing with Mechthild of Hackeborn’s life and revelations, “are not individualistic works; both are communal collaborative com- positions, which drew on the varied and unequal but substantive contributions of an un- determined number of women”, Anna Harrison, “Oh! What Treasure is in this Book?”. Writing, Reading, Community at the Monastery of Helfa. Viator 39/1 (2008) 75–106, at 96. On the convent of Helfa and its status as Cistercian foundation possibly following the Benedectine rule, see Cornelia Oefelein, Grundlagen zur Baugeschichte des Klosters Helfa, in: “Vor dir steht die leere Schale meiner Sehnsucht”. Die Mystik der Frauen von Helfa, ed. Michael Bangert–Hildegund Keul (Leipzig 1998) 12–28; see also Oefe- lein, Das Nonnenkloster St. Jacobi und seine Tochterklöster im Bistum Halberstadt (Stu- dien zur Geschichte, Kunst und Kultur der Zisterzienser 20, Berlin 2004). 2 In my forthcoming book on the German reception of the Legatus, From the Material to the Mystical in Late Medieval Piety. Te Vernacular Transmission of Gertrude of Helfa’s Visions (Cambridge 2020), I present and discuss the extant historical sources – both man- uscripts and artefacts – from diferent perspectives and call for a new understanding of vernacular redactions of Latin texts.