On March 9, BBC Radio 3 airs a “Sunday Feature” on the famous medieval anchoress Suster Bertken. In this radio documentary, BBC host and prof. Janina Ramirez and UU prof. Dieuwke van der Poel explore many dimensions of this remarkable woman’s life in Utrecht.

Suster Bertken was devoutly religious, spent much of her life in isolation, and wrote poems, prayers, and songs of high literary quality. Today there is still a plaque in the Utrecht shopping street where approximately her cell would have been located.

For this documentary I was invited to talk about my experience of staying a night and day in another medieval anchoress’ cell – which can still be found today in the Jacobikerk in Utrecht. I stayed there in the summer of 2020, when I was in the midst of curatorial preparations for the Mary Magdalene exhibition. It was great fun to revisit this rather remarkable experience several years later, with these wonderful conversation partners.

After the documentary has aired on the radio, it will be available online via this link to the BBC Radio 3 website.