The Friend of God from the Oberland (Der Gottesfreund vom Oberland, sometimes translated as "the friend of God from the Upland," or "the mysterious layman from the Oberland") was the name of a figure in Middle Age German mysticism, associated with the Friends of God and the conversion of Johannes Tauler. Middle age is a non-specific age when a person is not old, not young, but somewhere in the middle. ... German Mysticism (Sometimes called Dominican mysticism or Rhineland mysticism) is the name given to a christian mystical movement in the Late Middle Ages, that was especially prominent in Germany, and in the Dominican order. ... The Friends of God (German: Gottesfreunde) was a Middle Age lay mystical group (though it was never an organized sect) and a center of German mysticism. ... Johannes Tauler (c. ...

His name comes from the Bernese Oberland. View of Thun and Lake Thun from the Niederhorn The Bernese Oberland (Bernese highlands) is the higher part of the canton of Bern, Switzerland, in the South of the canton: The area around Lake Thun and Lake Brienz, and the valleys of the Bernese Alps (thus, the inhabitable parts from...

In Rulman Merswin's Story of the First Four Years of a New Life, he writes: "Of all the wonderful works which God had wrought in me I was not allowed to tell a single word to anybody until the time when it should please God to reveal to a man in the Oberland to come to me. When he came to me God gave me the power to tell him everything." The identity and personality of this "Friend of God," who bulks so largely in the great collection of mystical literature, and is everywhere treated as a half supernatural character, is one of the most difficult problems in the history of mysticism. Rulman Merswin (around 1307 - 1382) was a German mystic, leader for a time of the Friends of God. ... The Flammarion Woodcut can be taken to illustrate the Gnostics mystical search for spiritual worlds by circumventing the constraints of materialism. ...

The tradition, dating from the 15th century and supported by the weighty authority of the Strasbourg historian Karl Schmidt (Nicolaus von Basel, Vienna, 1866), identified him with Nicholas of Basel, but is now discredited by all scholars. A Jundt (Les Amis de Dieu, 1879) shared Preger's view that the Friend was a great unknown who lived in or near Chur (Coire) in Switzerland. But since Denifle's researches (see especially Der Gottesfreund im Oberlande and Nikolaus von Basel, 1870) the belief has gained ground that the "Friend" is not a historical personage at all. Apart from the collection of literature ascribed to him and Merswin there is no historical evidence of his existence. (14th century - 15th century - 16th century - other centuries) As a means of recording the passage of time, the 15th century was that century which lasted from 1401 to 1500. ... City motto: – City proper (commune) Région Alsace Département Bas-Rhin (67) Mayor Fabienne Keller (UMP) (since 2001) Land area 78. ... Nicholas of Basel (d. ... Chur is a town in Switzerland. ...

The accounts of his life say that about 1343 he was forbidden to reveal his identity to anyone save Rulman Merswin. And as all the writings bear the marks of a single authorship it has been assumed, especially by Denifle, that "the Friend of God" is a literary creation of Merswin and that the whole collection of literature is the work of Merswin (and his school), tendency-literature designed to set forth the ideals of the movement to which he had given his life. Thus "the great unknown" from the Oberland is the ideal character, "who illustrates how God does his work for the world and for the church through a divinely trained and spiritually illuminated layman," just as William Langland in England about the same time drew the figure of Piers Plowman. Events Magnus II of Sweden abdicates from the throne of Norway in favor of his son Haakon VI of Norway. ... Langlands Dreamer: from an illuminated initial in a Piers Plowman manuscript held at Corpus Christi College, Oxford William Langland is the conjectured author of the 14th-century English dream-vision Piers Plowman. ... Page from a 14th century Psalter, showing drolleries on the right margin and a plowman at the bottom. ...

To rescue Merswin from the charge of deceit involved in this theory, Jundt puts forward the suggestion, more ingenious than convincing, that Merswin was a "double personality," who in his primary state wrote the books ascribed to him, and in his secondary state became "the Friend of God from the Oberland," writing the other treatises. A third hypothesis is that advanced by Karl Rieder (Der Gottesfreund von Oberland, Innsbruck, 1905), who thinks that not even Merswin himself wrote any of the literature, but that his secretary and associate Nicholas of Lowen, head of the House of St John at Grunenworth, the retreat founded by Merswin for the circle, worked over all the writings which emanated from different members of the group but bore no author's names, and to glorify the founder of the house attached Merswin's name to some of them and out of his imagination created "the Friend of God from the Oberland," whom he named as the writer of the others. As his design took shape he expanded the supernatural element and made the narratives autobiographical. There is much in this contention that is sound, but Rieder seems to go unnecessarily far in denying altogether that Merswin wrote any of the mystical books. The conclusion remains that the literature must be treated as tendency-writing and not as genuine biography and history.

See besides the works cited, Rufus M Jones, Studies in Mystical Religion, ch. xiii. (London, 1909).

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This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain. Encyclopædia Britannica, the 11th edition The Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition (1910–1911) is perhaps the most famous edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica. ... The public domain comprises the body of all creative works and other knowledge—writing, artwork, music, science, inventions, and others—in which no person or organization has any proprietary interest. ...