Erfurt

The Thuringian city where Meister Eckhart was prior of the Dominican house and preached the German sermons that later got him tried for heresy.

Erfurt was a prosperous trading town on the road between the Rhine and the east, with a Dominican house Eckhart led while still young. The Talks of Instruction date from those years. He preached in German rather than Latin, to nuns and lay people, and said things about the ground of the soul and the birth of God within it that were fine as long as they stayed in the mouth of a respected master, and became dangerous the moment they circulated more widely.