English summary: When examining religious individualization processes, religious self-determination makes for a particularly intense subject. In this work the intense nature of the topic is discussed, based upon the life and times of the late medieval theologian Meister Eckhart and set within the context of intellectual and cultural history. The Dominicans also cared for religious women who were not members of an order, providing them with spiritual advice and instruction as well as with translations from the vernacular into Latin. Intensive, intellectual and spiritual preaching in the vernacular, as undertaken by Master Eckhart, played a key role in this. The exchange that took place between religious metaphysics and deep, personal religious experience contributed, among other things, to creating a climate for religious self-determination, which repeatedly caused conflicts within the church. Self-determination is today something of a magic word used for describing how to lead one's life. This volume examines the origins of this spell within the world of religion, while at the same time revealing the different forms of conflict to which it was connected. German description: In der Betrachtung von religiosen Individualisierungsprozessen stellt das Thema religiose Selbstbestimmung eine besondere Zuspitzung dar. Diese Zuspitzung wird anhand des spatmittelalterlichen Theologen Meister Eckhart und seines Umfelds erarbeitet und in den geistes- und kulturgeschichtlichen Kontext eingebettet. Die Dominikaner betreuten religiose Frauen auch ausserhalb des Ordens mit spirituellem, lehrmassigem Rat und mit Ubersetzungen aus der Volkssprache in Latein. Die intensive, intellektuelle und spirituelle Predigt in der Volkssprache, wie sie Meister Eckhart inszenierte, trug dazu bei. Der Austausch zwischen religioser Metaphysik und personlicher religioser Tiefenerfahrung trug u.a. zu einem Klima religioser Selbstbestimmung bei, was immer wieder zu kirchlichen Konflikten fuhrte.