Hildegard von Bingen

Source

• Born: 1098
• Birthplace: Nahe, Germany
• Died: September 1179
• Best Known As: Medieval prophet, healer and composer

Hildegard of Bingen began having visions as a child, but it wasn't until she was in her forties that her revelations in Christianity made her turn to composing. She founded convents and wrote plays, liturgies and hymns in praise of saints. Incredibly prolific, she was also considered a healer and early theologian and she was venerated in the church. Her compositions continue to be performed and recorded today.

For more information on Hildegard von Bingen, visit Britannica.com.

(b Bemersheim, Rheinhessen, 1098; d Rupertsberg, 17 Sept 1179). German composer, abbess and mystic. Her writings include much lyrical and dramatic poetry which has survived with monophonic music. The Symphonia armonie celestium revelationum contains musical settings of 77 poems arranged according to the liturgical calendar. The poetry is laden with imagery and the music, based on a few formulaic melodic patterns, is in some respects highly individual. Her morality play Ordo virtutum contains 82 melodies in a more syllabic style. She also wrote medical and scientific treatises, hagiography and letters and recorded her many visions.

Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179), Benedictine abbess, intellectual, and visionary. Born at Bokelheim (West Germany), she was educated from the age of eight by a recluse called Jutta, became a nun at fifteen, and led an uneventful, studious life for seventeen years until her visions and revelations began. In 1136 she succeeded Jutta as abbess of Diessenberg and was told to write down the content of her visions, which in the work Scivias (i.e. ‘sciens vias Domini’, the one who knows the ways of the Lord) were approved first by the archbishop of Mainz and later by Pope Eugenius III at the suggestion of Bernard. Meanwhile, her community had grown too large for its convent and Hildegard moved it to Rupertsberg, near Bingen, whence she reformed several other convents and made a foundation at Eibingen.

Like several other visionaries she felt called upon to reprove rulers; her correspondents included Henry II of England, the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, Pope Eugenius III, and various other prelates. In addition to this, she showed herself remarkably versatile in other fields. She wrote poems, hymns, and a morality play, besides works of medicine and natural history. These last comprised studies on the elements, plants, trees, minerals, fishes, birds, quadrupeds, and reptiles, a remarkable achievement for its time, especially for a cloistered nun. The medical work treats of the circulation of blood, headaches, vapours and giddiness, frenzy, insanity, and obsessions. Other works include commentaries on the Gospels, on the Athanasian Creed, and on the Rule of St. Benedict as well as some Lives of Saints. She was also a musician and artist. The illustrations of her Scivias have been reproduced in modern times and have been compared with the work of William Blake. In recent years her music has been edited and recorded.

Towards the end of her life she and her convent were in trouble with the chapter of Mainz and placed under interdict for burying an excommunicate in their cemetery; but she successfully appealed to the archbishop. She died at the age of nearly eighty: although miracles were reported during life and after death, attempts to secure her formal canonization in the 13th–14th centuries were unsuccessful. But her name was inserted in the Roman Martyrology in the 15th century and her cult was approved for German dioceses: the cult, it seems, can be traced back to the 13th century. Feast: 17 September; translation, 25 August.

Bibliography
Click here for a list of abbreviations used in this bibliography.

• AA.SS. Sept. V (1755), 629–701; P. Bruder, ‘Inquisitio de virtutibus et miraculis S. Hildegardis’, Anal. Boll., ii (1883), 116–29; S. Hilpisch, ‘Der Kult de hl. Hildegard’, Pastor Bonus, xlv (1934), 118–33; Life by S. Flanagan (1989). See also C. J. Singer, Studies in the History and Method of Science (1917), pp. 1–55; P. Dronke, Women Writers of the Middle Ages (1984); A. P. Bruck (ed.). Hildegard von Bingen 1179–1979 (1979); B. Newman, Sister of Wisdom; St. Hildegard's Theology of the Feminine (1987); L. Baillet, ‘Les Miniatures du “Scivias” de Sainte Hildegarde conservé à la Bibliothèque de Wiesbaden’, Monuments et Mémoires publiés par l'académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, xix (1911), 49–149. Articles by M. Schrader in Dict. de Spiritualité, vii (1969), 505–21 and in Bibl. SS., vii. 761–6

Through her studies and writings, twelfth-century Benedictine abbess Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) helped German scholars to emerge from the Dark Ages by presenting a revisioning of the cosmos and the interrelationship between man and his environment.

German scientist, philosopher, theologian, and composer Hildegard of Bingen devoted half her life to sharing, through her writing, both the insight gained through her visionary experiences and her joy in the Christian faith. Many centuries later, historians still study her texts, and the over 70 chants and hymns she composed continue to be performed and recorded. An influential abbess, Hildegard was considered by historians to be among the most important scientists of her age and perhaps the most significant woman scientist in Medieval Europe. Her written works, which focus on natural history, medicine, and cosmology - a theory about the natural order of the universe - received renewed critical interest in the late twentieth century following a reevaluation of the previously overlooked contributions of female scholarship. In addition to the republication of her many books and letters, a recording of Hildegard's medieval-styled chants and hymns topped the classical music charts in 1998.

Visionary Child Destined to Serve God

Hildegard was born at her parents' home on the banks of the Nahe River in Bermersheim, Germany, some time during the summer of 1098. Her parents, believed to bear the Christian names Hiltebert and Mechthild, were most likely members of the local nobility. At the birth of their tenth daughter, they decided to follow the custom then practiced of giving their tenth child over to the service of God when she reached a suitable age. A sickly young girl destined to live a cloistered life rather than marriage, Hildegard was given little in the way of education or other training. Along with a series of physical infirmities, she experienced momentary experiences of a brilliant light. To young Hildegard, such experiences seemed normal, as they had been a part of her childhood since she could remember. However, when she admitted them to her nurse, the reaction of the older woman at such "visions" convinced Hildegard to keep such things to herself in future.

In 1106 Hildegard's parents made good on their commitment to tithe their daughter to the Church. The sickly, eight-year-old girl was delivered into the care of Jutta von Spanheim, a relative who served as abbess of a cloistered community of nuns associated with the Benedictine monastery at Disibodenberg. While Jutta intended to provide the young Hildegard with a religious education, the child's frequent inability to either rise from her bed or focus her sight on things around her prevented more than a rudimentary education. However, the abbess was able to instill in Hildegard a knowledge and love of music, the Latin Psalms, and the Holy Scriptures.

Hildegard took her vows and became a Benedictine nun during her teen years. Her infirmities lessened after she gained adulthood, and she was able to fulfill her desire for knowledge, her interests ranging from natural history and German folk medicine to the ancient Greek cosmologies that were by now reaching the convents and monasteries of Germany in Latin translation. Unlike her illnesses, her visions continued, and even intensified after she reached puberty. However, Hildegard admitted them to only a few people, including Abbess Jutta and Volmar, a Disobodenberg monk who served as her mentor.

In 1136 Jutta passed away, leaving the 38-year-old Hildegard as abbess of the Disobodenberg community of women religious. Five years later, Hildegard experienced a vision of great intensity, which she later described as "a fiery light [that] flashed from the open vault of heaven. It permeated my brain and enflamed my heart and the entire breast not like a burning, but alike a warming flame, as the sun warms everything its rays touch. And suddenly I was given insight into the meaning of Scripture." Compelled by her faith to record what she had learned through 16 of her visions, and with the aid and encouragement of Volmar, Hildegard began what would be her first book, Liber Scivias, in 1141. In this work, destined to become widely read, she presents her unique cosmology by explaining the workings of the physical universe using a spiritual allegory based on Greek tradition. The earth, Hildegard maintained, was a sphere composed of the four elements - wind, fire, air, and water. Surrounded by layers of air and water, it was encased in an egg-shaped universe with an external "shell." A purus aether contained stars, the moon, and other planets, which were immobile. An inner "fire" or energy source generated thunderous lightening and hail, while an outer fire fueled the sun. Winds within this contained universe caused movements of clouds and resulted in seasonal changes on earth.

Writings Viewed as Voice of God

The "vision" that provided the impetus for Scivias was not unique to the book's author. Such mystical experiences were regularly reported throughout the Middle Ages and have been attributed by forensic archaeologists and secular historians to physical disorders such as epilepsy or severe migraine headaches. Also during this period, the Catholic Church provided the only environment in which studious activity could flourish; without the approval of the Roman Catholic Church new ideas were often met with charges of heresy that did not bode well for their originator. For this reason, religious numbered among the preeminent scientists, historians, theologians, and authors of the 12th century. Because insight and intellectual ability were fully integrated with religious faith, they were seen as gifts from God. Therefore, linking new scholarship or scientific discoveries to a "vision" implied a direct communication from God, thus earning more easy acceptance in a society still emerging from an age of superstition, fear, and widespread ignorance. For women, this stamp of approval from God was particularly important, and in Hildegard's case her visions perhaps accounted for the spread of her ideas over those of other scholarly female religious of the age.

Received Papal Approval

Through the efforts of Volmar, the first sections of Hildegard's yet-unfinished Scivias were sent to the archbishop of Mainz. At the Council of Trier in 1147, the archbishop presented it to reforming Pope Eugenius III (1145-1153), who declared the abbess's prophecies to be authentic. Compelled by the pope to continue her work, Hildegard completed outlining her cosmology and also added to Scivias 14 liturgical songs and a morality play unusual for its day in that it was sung rather than recited. Composed in Latin as was all scholarship of the day, Scivias was recorded on a wax tablet - either by Hildegard herself or by Volmar - and then transcribed by Volmar onto parchment, with the inclusion of detailed illustrations likely the work of Volmar's assistants. While the text reflects its author's lack of literary sophistication and her rudimentary knowledge of Latin grammar, it is compelling in its imagery.

The approval of the Catholic Church caused interest in Hildegard's writings to spread across Europe, where she became known as the "Sibil of the Rhine." Hundreds of Catholic faithful undertook pilgrimages to Disobodenberg to visit with the abbess, and soon Hildegard's celebrity status began to interfere with her scholarship and writing. In 1148, claiming her decision the result of a vision from God, she decided to break with the monastery at Disibodenberg. Using her political influence to override the monk's opposition, in 1150 Hildegard founded the Benedictine convent of Mount St. Rupert, located near Bingen, Germany. Accompanying the abbess were over a dozen young novices and her devoted friend Volmar, who continued to serve as her secretary and scribe. At Mount St. Rupert she established a community that catered to aristocrats among the faithful, and an air of theatricality permeated the convent on feast days, when nuns dressed in flowing white robes, golden crowns atop their heads.

Due to Hildegard's growing celebrity, her move to Mount St. Rupert, and her need to review her work to be sure that it not be perceived in any way to be heretical, Scivias required over a decade to complete. In addition to presenting her view of the cosmos, it also contains Hildegard's ideas regarding the science of biology, among them the belief that, like plants, humans generated from seeds and inherited characteristics of their parents. As familiarity with her wide-ranging studies spread among scholars, Hildegard's study of the folk medicine of her country made her known among the common folk as a healer with miraculous powers. Beginning in 1155, when she was in her late fifties, she began to travel around Europe, preaching pacifism, promoting the Catholic faith, and spreading her ideas about science and medicine. A conservative Catholic who opposed the new religious orders that proliferated in the wake of the reforms of Pope Gregory, she also used her notoriety to encourage religious zealots to persecute sects she believed were heretical. She began to engage in an extensive correspondence with political leaders and church officials, answering requests for advice and giving prophesies. She also founded a second convent at Eibingen, Germany.

Authored Works on Nature, Medicine

Scivias was the first of many works Hildegard composed during her lifetime. An encyclopedic work on natural history, her Physica (Liber Simplicis Medicinae) contains detailed descriptions of numerous plants, animals, and geological formations existing in the abbess's native Europe, along with their German and Latin names. She categorizes her nine healing systems as Plants, Elements, Trees, Stones, Fish, Birds, Animals, Reptiles, and Metals, each group containing medicinal components. This work also includes information and medical applications for the many plants known by Hildegard to have healing powers, making the Physica useful to physicians advising poorer patients on the manufacture of simple home remedies. After its widespread publication during the Renaissance, Hildegard's Physica became a popular medical school text, making its author the first German medical writer to gain renown.

The abbess's visionary Scivias was followed by Liber Vitae Meritorum, a book of subsequent visions that Hildegard began in 1158 and finished in 1162. Her Liber Divinorum Operum Simplicis Hominis, finished in 1170 when its author was 64 years of age, reconciles the cosmology of Scivias with the notion of concentric spheres that shaped more the contemporary scientific theories of her age. In Liber Divinorum she focuses in detail on the relationship between the larger cosmos and the parallel, integrated "microcosm" of the human body, describing the manner in which the heavenly bodies influence the state of health of man. In the corner of several pages Hildegard is pictured receiving visions from God, a reminder to readers of the stamp of heavenly approval on her ideas. Her final book, Causae et curae, is a medical compendium that describes the causal relationship between the movement of the universe and the many diseases of the human body and provides medicinal cures. The importance of boiling drinking water figured prominently in her remedies. Like Physica, Hildegard's Causae et curae remained an influential work into the 16th century.

Truly a Renaissance woman, Hildegard of Bingen died in 1179 at the age of 81, and her biography was begun the following year by Benedictine monks Theodor and Godefrid, who had worked under the famed abbess at Mount St. Rupert. She quickly became known as St. Hildegard despite the fact that, while she was added to the Roman Catholic Martyrology and investigated for sainthood, she was never canonized by the Catholic Church.

Books

Bowie, Fiona, editor, Hildegard of Bingen: Mystical Writings, Crossroads Press, 1990.

Crane, Renate, Hildegard: Prophet of the Cosmic Christ, Crossroad Publishing Co., 1997.

Flanigan, Sabina, Hildegard of Bingen, 1098-1179: A Visionary Life, Routledge, 1998.

King-Lezneier, Anne H., Hildegard of Bingen: An Integrated Vision, Liturgical Press, 2001.

Maddocks, Fiona, Hildegard of Bingen: The Woman of Her Age, Doubleday, 2001.

Periodicals

Commonweal, May 19, 1995, Lawrence Cunningham, review of The Letters of Hildegard of Bingen, p. 40.

Washington Post, April 4, 1999.

World & I, January 1998.

Online

"Saint Hildegard," Catholic Encyclopedia,http://www.newadvent.org (October 30, 2001).

Hildegard von bingen, Heilige (Bermersheim, 1098-1179, Bingen), a mystic and a copious religious writer, who was a nun and, from 1136, prioress of a convent (later elevated to an abbey) at Rupertsberg near Bingen. Hildegard recorded her visions in Scivias, sc. Sci vias, ‘Know the ways (of the Lord)’, and wrote also Liber vitae meritorum, Liber divinorum operum, and some Sequenzen (see Sequenz). Skilled in medicine, she is the author of a medical work, Hildegardis causae et curae. All her writings are in Latin. Hildegard enjoyed a considerable reputation in her lifetime, and was canonized after her death. A select edition of her works (with translation) by J. Bühler appeared in 1922 (reissued 1991).

Hildegard of Bingen
Illumination from the Liber Scivias showing Hildegard receiving a vision and dictating to her scribe and secretary
Sibyl of the Rhine
Born	1098, Bermersheim vor der Höhe
Died	September 17, 1179 (aged 81), Bingen am Rhein
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church, Anglican Church
Canonized	No formal canonization, but her name is in the Roman Martyrology[1]
Major shrine	Eibingen Abbey
Feast	September 17

Blessed Hildegard of Bingen (German: Hildegard von Bingen; Latin: Hildegardis Bingensis; 1098 – 17 September 1179), also known as Saint Hildegard, and Sybil of the Rhine, was a Christian mystic, German Benedictine abbess, author, counselor, linguist, naturalist, scientist, philosopher, physician, herbalist, poet, channeller, visionary, composer, and polymath. Elected a magistra by her fellow nuns in 1136, she founded the monasteries of Rupertsberg in 1150 and Eibingen in 1165.

She was a composer with an extant biography from her own time. One of her works, the Ordo Virtutum, is an early example of liturgical drama.^[2]

She wrote theological, botanical and medicinal texts, as well as letters, liturgical songs, poems, and the first surviving morality play, while supervising brilliant miniature Illuminations.

Contents 1 Biography 2 Works 3 Significance 4 Bibliography 5 See also 6 Notes 7 References 8 Further reading 9 External links

Biography

Hildegard's preaching tours

Hildegard was raised in a family of free nobles. She was the 10th child, sickly from birth. In her Vita, Hildegard explains that from a very young age she had experienced visions.

Perhaps due to Hildegard's visions, or as a method of political positioning, Hildegard's parents, Hildebert and Mechthilde, offered her as a tithe to the church. The date of Hildegard's enclosure in the church is contentious. Her vita tells us she was enclosed with another older nun Jutta at the age of eight, though Jutta's enclosure date is known to be in 1112, at which time Hildegard would have been fourteen. Some scholars speculate that Hildegard was placed in the care of Jutta, the daughter of Count Stephan II of Sponheim, at the age of eight, before the two women were enclosed together six years later.^[3] In any case, Hildegard and Jutta were enclosed at Disibodenberg in the Palatinate Forest in what is now Germany. Jutta was also a visionary and thus attracted many followers who came to visit her at the enclosure. Hildegard also tells us that Jutta taught her to read and write, but that she was unlearned and therefore incapable of teaching Hildegard Biblical interpretation.

Upon Jutta's death in 1136, Hildegard was unanimously elected as "magistra" of her sister community by her fellow nuns. Abbot Kuno, the Abbot of Disibodenberg, also asked Hildegard to be Prioress. Hildegard, however, wanted more independence for herself and her nuns and asked Abbot Kuno to allow them to move to Rupertsberg. When the abbot declined Hildegard's proposition, Hildegard went over his head and received the approval of Archbishop Henry I of Mainz. Abbot Kuno did not relent, however, until Hildegard was stricken by an illness that kept her paralyzed and unable to move from her bed, an event that she attributed to God's unhappiness at her not following his orders to move her nuns to Rupertsberg. It was only when the Abbot himself could not move Hildegard that he decided to grant the nuns their own monastery.^[4] Hildegard and about twenty nuns thus moved to the St. Rupertsberg monastery in 1150, where Volmar served as provost, as well as Hildegard's confessor and scribe. In 1165 Hildegard founded a second convent for her nuns at Eibingen.

Hildegard was hesitant to share her visions, confiding only to Jutta, who in turn told Volmar, Hildegard's tutor and, later, secretary. Throughout her life, she continued to have many visions, and in 1141, at the age of 42, Hildegard received a vision she believed to be an instruction from God, to "write down that which you see and hear." Still hesitant to record her visions, Hildegard became physically ill. In her first theological text, Scivias ("Know the Ways"), Hildegard describes her struggle within:

But I, though I saw and heard those things, refused to write for a long time through doubt and bad opinion and the diversity of human words, not with stubbornness but in the exercise of humility, until, laid low by the scourge of God, I fell upon a bed of sickness; then, compelled at last by many illnesses, and by the witness of a certain noble maiden of good conduct [the nun Richardis von Stade] and of that man whom I had secretly sought and found, as mentioned above, I set my hand to the writing. While I was doing it, I sensed, as I mentioned before, the deep profundity of scriptural exposition; and, raising myself from illness by the strength I received, I brought this work to a close - though just barely - in ten years. [...] And I spoke and wrote these things not by the invention of my heart or that of any other person, but as by the secret mysteries of God I heard and received them in the heavenly places. And again I heard a voice from Heaven saying to me, 'Cry out therefore, and write thus!'^[5]

Hildegard's vivid description of the physical sensations which accompanied her visions have been diagnosed by neurologist (and popular author) Oliver Sacks as symptoms of migraine, in particular because of her description of light. Sacks, as well as other scholars, argue that the illuminations that appear in Hildegard's manuscripts confirm that Hildegard suffered from 'scintillating scotoma.'^[6]

Hildegard's vita was begun by Godfrey of Disibodenberg under Hildegard's supervision.

Works

Attention in recent decades to women of the medieval church has led to a great deal of popular interest in Hildegard, particularly her music. Between 70 and 80 compositions have survived, which is one of the largest repertoires among medieval composers. Hildegard is the first composer whose biography is known.^[7]

	"O frondens virga" From Ordo Virtutum
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One of her better known works, Ordo Virtutum (Play of the Virtues), is a morality play. The morality play consists of monophonic melodies for the Anima (human soul) and 16 Virtues. There is also one speaking part for the Devil. Scholars assert that the role of the Devil would have been played by Volmar, while the Hildegard's nuns would have played the parts of Anima and the Virtues.^[8]

In addition to the Ordo Virtutum Hildegard composed many liturgical songs that were collected into a cycle called the Symphonia armoniae celestium revelationum. Her music is described as monophonic; that is, consisting of exactly one melodic line, and designed for limited instrumental accompaniment. Hildegard's compositional style is characterized by soaring soprano vocalisations, often well outside of the normal range of chant at the time.^[9] Additionally, scholars such as Margot Fassler and Marianna Richert Pfau describe Hildegard's music as highly melismatic, often with recurrent melodic units, and also note her close attention to the relationship between music and text, which was a rare occurrence in monastic chant of the twelfth century.^[10]

In addition to her music, Hildegard also wrote three books of visions, the first of which, her Scivias ("Know the Way"), was completed in 1151. Liber vitae meritorum ("Book of Life's Merits") and De operatione Dei ("Of God's Activities", also known as Liber divinorum operum, "Book of Divine Works") followed. In these volumes, the last of which was completed when she was about 75, Hildegard first describes each vision, then interprets them through Biblical exegesis. The narrative of her visions was richly decorated under her direction, with transcription assistance was provided by the monk Volmar and nun Richardis. The book was celebrated in the Middle Ages, in part because of the approval given to it by Pope Eugenius III, and was later copied in Paris in 1513.

Aside from her books of visions, Hildegard also wrote her Physica, a text on the natural sciences, as well as Causae et Curae. In both texts Hildegard describes the natural world around her, including the cosmos, animals, plants, stones, and minerals. She is particularly interested in the healing properties of plants, animals, and stones, though she also questions God's effect on man's health.^[11]

Alphabet by Hildegard von Bingen, Litterae ignotae, which she used for her language Lingua Ignota

Hildegard also invented an alternative alphabet. The text of her writing and compositions reveals Hildegard's use of this form of modified medieval Latin, encompassing many invented, conflated and abridged words. Due to her inventions of words for her lyrics and a constructed script, many conlangers look upon her as a medieval precursor. Scholars believe that Hildegard used her Lingua Ignota to increase solidarity among her nuns.^[12]

Hildegard's musical, literary, and scientific writings are housed primarily in two manuscripts: the Dendermonde manuscript and the Riesenkodex. The Dendermonde manuscript was copied under Hildegard's supervision at Rupertsberg, while the Riesencodex was copied in the century after Hildegard's death.

Mutterschaft aus dem Geiste und dem Wasser (Motherhood from the Spirit and the Water), 1165

Hildegard's visionary writings maintain that virginity is the highest level of the spiritual life; however, she also wrote about secular life, including motherhood. In several of her texts, Hildegard describes the pleasure of the marital act.

In addition, there are many instances, both in her letters and visions, that decry the misuse of carnal pleasures. She condemns the sins of same-sex couplings and masturbation. After confession, severe repentance expressed in fasting and bodily penance is needed to obtain forgiveness from God for such sins. For instance, in Scivias Book II Vision Six.78:

God united man and woman, thus joining the strong to the weak, that each might sustain the other. But these perverted adulterers change their virile strength into perverse weakness, rejecting the proper male and female roles, and in their wickedness they shamefully follow Satan, who in his pride sought to split and divide Him Who is indivisible. They create in themselves by their wicked deeds a strange and perverse adultery, and so appear polluted and shameful in my sight...

...a woman who takes up devilish ways and plays a male role in coupling with another woman is most vile in My (God's) sight, and so is she who subjects herself to such a one in this evil deed...

...And men who touch their own genital organ and emit their semen seriously imperil their souls, for they excite themselves to distraction; they appear to Me as impure animals devouring their own whelps...

...When a person feels himself disturbed by bodily stimulation let him run to the refuge of continence, and seize the shield of chastity, and thus defend himself from uncleanness. (translation by Mother Columba Hart and Jane Bishop)^[13]

Human beings show forth God's creative power, and man and woman have complementary roles in the world.

...When God looked upon the human countenance, God was exceedingly pleased. For had not God created humanity according to the divine image and likeness? Human beings were to announce all God's wondrous works by means of their tongues that were endowed with reason. For humanity is God's complete work.... Man and woman are in this way so involved with each other that one of them is the work of the other. Without woman, man could not be called man; without man, woman could not be named woman. Thus woman is the work of man, while man is a sight full of consolation for woman. Neither of them could henceforth live without the other. Man is in this connection an indication of the Godhead while woman is an indication of the humanity of God's Son.^[14]

Significance

"Universal Man" illumination from Hildegard's Liber Divinorum Operum, 1165

Hildegard communicated with popes such as Eugene III and Anastasius IV, statesmen such as Abbot Suger, German emperors such as Frederick I Barbarossa, and other notable figures such as Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, who advanced her work, at the behest of her abbot, Kuno, at the Synod of Trier in 1147 and 1148.

Many abbots and abbesses asked her for prayers and opinions on various matters. She traveled widely during her four preaching tours. She had several rather fanatic followers, including Guibert of Gembloux, who wrote frequently to Hildegard and eventually became her secretary after Volmar died in 1173. In addition, Hildegard influenced several monastic women of her time and the centuries that followed; in particular, she engaged in correspondence with another nearby visionary, Elisabeth of Schonau.^[15]

Contributing to Christian European rhetorical traditions, She “authorized herself as a theologian” through alternative rhetorical arts ^[16]. Due to church limitation on public, discursive rhetoric, the medieval rhetorical arts included: preaching, letter writing, poetry, and the encyclopedic tradition ^[17]. Hildegard’s participation in these arts speaks to her significance as a female rhetorician, transcending bans on women’s social participation and interpretation of scriptures. While Hildegard was barred access from preaching through homilies or sermons, her prophesies served as a means of preaching most of her life ^[18]. Engaged in rhetoric by writing the first morality or mystery play, she was able to disseminate her message to large audiences ^[19]. The correspondence she kept with the outside world both spiritual and social transgressed the cloister, as a space of female confinement and served to document Hildegard’s grand style and strict formatting of medieval letter writing ^[16]. The poetry and music of Hildegard’s Symphonia is described as Sapphonic, or pertaining to Sappho, connecting her to a history of female rhetoricians ^[20].

In recent years, Hildegard has become of particular interest to feminist scholars. Her reference to herself as a member of the "weaker sex" and her rather constant belittling of women, though at first seemingly problematic, must be considered within the context of the patriarchal church hierarchy. Hildegard frequently referred to herself as an unlearned woman, completely incapable of Biblical exegesis. Such a statement on her part, however, worked to her advantage because it made her statements that all of her writings and music came from visions of the Divine more believable, therefore giving Hildegard the authority to speak in a time when few women were permitted a voice.^[21] Hildegard used her voice to condemn church practices she disagreed with, in particular simony.

Hildegard has also become a figure of reverence within the contemporary New Age movement, mostly due to her holistic and natural view of healing, as well as her status as a mystic. She was the inspiration for Dr. Gottfried Hertzka's "Hildegard-Medicine", and is the namesake for June Boyce-Tillman's Hildegard Network, a healing center that focuses on a holistic approach to wellness.^[22]

Hildegard was one of the first persons for whom the canonization process was officially applied, but the process took so long that four attempts at canonization were not completed, and she remained at the level of her beatification. Hildegard's name was nonetheless taken up in the Roman Martyrology at the end of the sixteenth century. Her feast day is September 17. Numerous popes have referrd to Hildegard as a saint, including Pope John Paul II ^[23] and Pope Benedict XVI ^[24]. Hildegard’s Parish and Pilgrimage Church house the relics of Hildegard, including an altar encasing her remains, in Eibingen near Rüdesheim.

Anglicanism portal

Hildegard of Bingen appears in the calendar of saints in various Anglican churches. In both the Church of England and ECUSA she is commemorated with a Lesser Festival on 17 September.

Bibliography

Primary sources Editions and manuscripts of Hildegard's works Hildegardis Bingensis, Opera minora. edited by H. Feiss, C. Evans, B. M. Kienzle, C. Muessig, B. Newman, P. Dronke, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis CCCM 226 (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), ISBN 978-2-503-05261-8 Wiesbaden, Hessische Landesbibliothek, Hs. 2 (Riesen Codex) or Wiesbaden Codex (ca. 1180-85) Dendermonde, Belgium, St.-Pieters-&-Paulusabdij Cod. 9 (Villarenser codex) (ca. 1174/75) Otto Muller Verlag Salzburg 1969: Hildegard von Bingen: Lieder (modern edition in adapted square notation) Muenchen, University Library, MS2∞156 Leipzig, University Library, St. Thomas 371 Paris, Bibl. Nat. MS 1139 Hildegardis Bingensis, Epistolarium pars prima I-XC edited by L. Van Acker, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis CCCM 91A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1991) Hildegardis Bingensis, Epistolarium pars secunda XCI-CCLr edited by L. Van Acker, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis CCCM 91A (Turnhout: Brepols, 1993) Hildegardis Bingensis, Epistolarium pars tertia CCLI-CCCXC edited by L. Van Acker and M. Klaes-Hachmoller, Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis XCIB (Turnhout: Brepols, 2001) Hildegardis Bingensis, Scivias. A. Führkötter, A. Carlevaris eds., Corpus Christianorum Scholars Version vols. 43, 43A. (Turnhout: Brepols, 2003) Hildegardis Bingensis, Liber vitae meritorum. A. Carlevaris ed. Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis CCCM 90 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1995) Hildegardis Bingensis, Liber divinorum operum. A. Derolez and P. Dronke eds., Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis CCCM 92 (Turnhout: Brepols, 1996)

Other sources Friedrich Wilhelm Emil Roth, "Glossae Hildigardis", in: Elias Steinmeyer and Eduard Sievers eds., Die Althochdeutschen Glossen, vol. III. Zürich: Wiedmann, 1895, 1965, pp. 390–404. Analecta Sanctae Hildegardis, in Analecta Sacra vol. 8 edited by Jean-Baptiste Pitra (Monte Cassino, 1882). Patrologia Latina vol. 197 (1855). Explanatio Regulae S. Benedicti Explanatio Symboli S. Athanasii Homeliae LVIII in Evangelia. Hymnodia coelestis. Ignota lingua, cum versione Latina Liber divinorum operum simplicis hominis (1163-73/74) Liber vitae meritorum (1158-63) Libri simplicis et compositae medicinae. Physica, sive Subtilitatum diversarum naturarum creaturarum libri novem Scivias seu Visiones (1141-51) Solutiones triginta octo quaestionum Tractatus de sacramento altaris. Vita S. Disibodi Vita S. Ruperti

See also

• Bibliography of Hildegard of Bingen
• Discography of Hildegard of Bingen

Notes

1. ^ http://www.catholic.org/encyclopedia/view.php?id=5777
2. ^ Some writers have speculated a distant origin for opera in this piece, though without any evidence. See: [1]; alt Opera, see Florentine Camerata in the province of Milan, Italy. [2] and [3]
3. ^ Michael McGrade, "Hildegard von Bingen", in Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart: allgemeine Enzyklopaldie der Musik, 2nd edition, T.2, Vol. 8, ed. Ludwig Fischer (Kassel and New York: Bahrenreiter, 1994).
4. ^ McGrade, "Hildegard", MGG.
5. ^ Hildegard von Bingen, Scivias, trans. by Columba Hart and Jane Bishop with an Introduction by Barbara J. Newman, and Preface by Caroline Walker Bynum (New York: Paulist Press, 1990) 60-61.
6. ^ Oliver Sacks, Migraine: Understanding a Common Disorder (Berkeley, 1985), 106-108.
7. ^ Hildegard of Bingen
8. ^ Audrey Ekdahl Davidson. “Music and Performance: Hildegard of Bingen’s Ordo Virtutum.” The Ordo Virtutum of Hildegard of Bingen: Critical Studies, (Kalamazoo, MI: Western Michigan University, 1992), 1-29.
9. ^ Bruce Holsinger, . “The Flesh of the Voice: Embodiment and the Homoerotics of Devotion in the Music of Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179).” Signs: Journal Of Women in Culture and Society 19 (1993): 92-125.
10. ^ Margot Fassler. “Composer and Dramatist: ‘Melodious Singing and the Freshness of Remorse,’” Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Her World, ed. Barbara Newman (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1998), 149-175; Marianna Richert-Pfau, “Mode and Melody Types in Hildegard von Bingen’s Symphonia,” Sonus 11 (1990): 53-71.
11. ^ Hildegard von Bingen, Causae et Curae (Holistic Healing), trans. by Manfred Pawlik and Patrick Madigan, ed. by Mary Palmquist and John Kulas (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, Inc., 1994); Hildegard von Bingen, Physica, trans. Priscilla Throop (Rochester, Vermont: Healing Arts Press, 1998); Glaze, Florence Eliza. “Medical Writer: ‘Behold the Human Creature,’” Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Her World, ed. Barbara Newman (Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1998), 125-148.
12. ^ Barbara J. Newman, "Introduction" to Hildegard, Scivias, 13.
13. ^ Hildegard, Scivias, 279.
14. ^ Hildegard, Liber divinorum operum.
15. ^ Hildegard von Bingen, The Letters of Hildegard of Bingen, trans. by Joseph L. Baird and Radd K. Ehrman (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994/1998).
16. ^ ^{a b} Dietrich, Julia. “The Visionary Rhetoric of Hildegard of Bingen.” Listening to Their Voices: The Rhetorical Activities of Historic Women. Ed. Molly Meijer Wertheimer. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1997. 202-214.
17. ^ Herrick, James A. The History of Rhetoric: an introduction. 4th ed. Boston: Allyn Bacon, 2005.
18. ^ Ruether, Rosemary Radford. Visionary Women. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2002. 6-13.
19. ^ Maddocks, Fiona. Hildegard of Bingen: The Woman of Her Age. New York: Doubleday, 2001. 1-45.
20. ^ Holsinger, Bruce W. Music, Body, and Desire in Medieval Culture. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001. 123-135.
21. ^ Barbara Newman, “Hildegard of Bingen: Visions and Validation,” Church History 54 (1985): 163-175; Barbara Newman, Sister of Wisdom: St. Hildegard’s Theology of the Feminine, (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987).
22. ^ June Boyce-Tillman, “Hildegard of Bingen at 900: The Eye of a Woman,” The Musical Times 139, no. 1865 (Winter, 1998): 31-36.
23. ^ http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/john_paul_ii/letters/1979/documents/hf_jp-ii_let_19790908_800-ildegarda_it.html
24. ^ http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/benedict_xvi/speeches/2006/march/documents/hf_ben-xvi_spe_20060302_roman-clergy_en.html

References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
• Bent, Ian D. and Marianne Pfau. “Hildegard of Bingen.” The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd edition, Volume 11. Edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrell. New York: Grove, 2001.
• Boyce-Tillman, June. “Hildegard of Bingen at 900: The Eye of a Woman.” The Musical Times 139, no. 1865 (Winter, 1998): 31-36.
• Davidson, Audrey Ekdahl. “Music and Performance: Hildegard of Bingen’s Ordo Virtutum.” The Ordo Virtutum of Hildegard of Bingen: Critical Studies. Kalamazoo, MI: Western Michigan University, 1992.
• Fassler, Margot. “Composer and Dramatist: ‘Melodious Singing and the Freshness of Remorse.’” Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Her World. Edited by Barbara Newman. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1998.
• Glaze, Florence Eliza. “Medical Writer: ‘Behold the Human Creature.’” Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Her World. Edited by Barbara Newman. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1998.
• Hildegard von Bingen. Causae et Curae (Holistic Healing). Trans. by Manfred Pawlik and Patrick Madigan. Edited by Mary Palmquist and John Kulas. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, Inc., 1994.
• ________. The Letters of Hildegard of Bingen. Trans. by Joseph L. Baird and Radd K. Ehrman. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994/1998.
• ________. Physica. Trans. Priscilla Throop. Rochester Vermont: Healing Arts Press, 1998.
• ________. Scivias. Trans. by Columba Hart and Jane Bishop. Introduction by Barbara J. Newman. Preface by Caroline Walker Bynum. New York: Paulist Press, 1990.
• Holsinger, Bruce Wood. “The Flesh of the Voice: Embodiment and the Homoerotics of Devotion in the Music of Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179).” Signs: Journal Of Women in Culture and Society 19 (1993): 92-125.
• McGrade, Michael. “Hildegard von Bingen.” Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart: allgemeine Enzyklopaldie der Musik, 2nd edition, T. 2, Volume 8. Edited by Ludwig Fischer. Kassel, New York: Bahrenreiter, 1994.
• Newman, Barbara. “Hildegard of Bingen: Visions and Validation.” Church History 54 (1985): 163-175.
• ________. “‘Sibyl of the Rhine’: Hildegard’s Life and Times.” Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Her World. Edited by Barbara Newman. Berkeley, Los Angeles, and London: University of California Press, 1998.
• ________. Sister of Wisdom: St. Hildegard’s Theology of the Feminine. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987.
• Richert-Pfau, Marianna. “Mode and Melody Types in Hildegard von Bingen’s Symphonia.” Sonus 11 (1990): 53-71.
• Dietrich, Julia. “The Visionary Rhetoric of Hildegard of Bingen.” Listening to Their Voices: The Rhetorical Activities of Historic Women. Ed. Molly Meijer Wertheimer. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1997. 202-214.
• Bennett, Judith M. and C. Warren Hollister. Medieval Europe: A Short History. New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006. 289.
• Holsinger, Bruce W. Music, Body, and Desire in Medieval Culture. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001. 123-135.
• Ruether, Rosemary Radford. Visionary Women. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress, 2002. 6-13.
• Maddocks, Fiona. Hildegard of Bingen: The Woman of Her Age. New York: Doubleday, 2001. 1-45.

Further reading

General commentary

• Burnett, Charles and Peter Dronke, eds. Hildegard of Bingen: The Context of Her Thought and Art. The Warburg Colloquia. London: The University of London, 1998.
• Cherewatuk, Karen and Ulrike Wiethaus, eds. Dear Sister: Medieval Women and the Epistolary Genre. Middle Ages Series. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993.
• Davidson, Audrey Ekdahl. The Ordo Virtutum of Hildegard of Bingen: Critical Studies. Kalamazoo, MI: Medieval Institute Publications, 1992. ISBN 1-879288-17-6
• Dronke, Peter. Women Writers of the Middle Ages: A Critical Study of Texts from Perpetua to Marguerite Porete. 1984. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001.
• Flanagan, Sabina. Hildegard of Bingen: A Visionary Life. London: Routledge, 1998. ISBN 0-7607-1361-8
• King-Lenzmeier, Anne H. Hildegard of Bingen: An Integrated Vision. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2001.
• Newman, Barbara. Sister of Wisdom: St. Hildegard’s Theology of the Feminine. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987.
• Newman, Barbara, ed. Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Her World. Berkeley: University of California, 1998.
• Pernoud, Régine. Hildegard of Bingen: Inspired Conscience of the Twelfth Century. Translated by Paul Duggan. NY: Marlowe & Co., 1998.
• Schipperges, Heinrich. The World of Hildegard of Bingen: Her Life, Times, and Visions. Trans. John Cumming. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1999.
• Wilson, Katharina. Medieval Women Writers. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1984.

On Hildegard's illuminations

• Fox, Matthew. Illuminations of Hildegard of Bingen. Santa Fe, NM: Bear & Company, 1985. ISBN 1-879181-97-5
• Harris, Anne Sutherland and Linda Nochlin, Women Artists: 1550-1950, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Knopf, New York, 1976. ISBN 0-394-73326-6

Background reading

• Barber, Richard. Bestiary: MS Bodley 764. Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 1999.
• Boyce-Tillman, June. The Creative Spirit: Harmonious Living with Hildegard of Bingen, Harrisburg, PA: Morehouse Publishing, 2000. ISBN 0-8192-1882-0
• Butcher, Carmen Acevedo. Man of Blessing: A Life of St. Benedict. Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2006.
• Bynum, Caroline Walker. Holy Feast and Holy Fast: the Religious Significance of Food to Medieval Women. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987.
• Bynum, Caroline Walker. Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200-1336. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995.
• Chadwick, Whitney. Women, Art, and Society, Thames and Hudson, London, 1990. ISBN 0-500-20354-7
• Constable, Giles Constable. The Reformation of the Twelfth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
• Dronke, Peter, ed. A History of Twelfth-Century Western Philosophy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
• Holweck, the Rt. Reverend Frederick G., A Biographical Dictionary of the Saints, with a General Introduction on Hagiology. 1924. Detroit: Omnigraphics, 1990.
• Lachman, Barbara. The Journal of Hildegard of Bingen: A Novel. New York: Crown, 1993.
• Lachman, Barbara. Hildegard: The Last Year. Boston: Shambhala, 1997.
• McBrien, Richard. Lives of the Saints: From Mary and St. Francis of Assisi to John XXIII and Mother Teresa. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2003.
• McKnight, Scot. The Real Mary: Why Evangelical Christians Can Embrace the Mother of Jesus. Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2006.
• Newman, Barbara trans. Symphonia: A Critical Edition of the "Symphonia armoniae celestium revelationum. Ithaca: Cornell Univ. Press, 1988.
• Newman, Barbara. God and the Goddesses. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 0-8122-1911-2
• O’Donohue, John. Anam Ċara. New York: HarperCollins, 1998.
• Ohanneson, Joan. Scarlet Music. Hildegard of Bingen: A Novel. New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 1997.
• Pelikan, Jaroslav. Mary Through the Centuries: Her Place in the History of Culture. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996.
• Sacks, Oliver. Migraine: Understanding a Common Disorder. 1985. Reprint. London: Vintage Books, 1999.
• Santos Paz, José Carlos, ed. La Obra de Gebenón de Eberbach. Firenze: SISMEL-Edizioni del Galluzzo, 2004.
• Sherman, Bernard D. “‘Mistaking the Tail for the Comet’: An Interview with Christopher
• Silvas, Anna. Jutta and Hildegard: The Biographical Sources. University Park, PA: The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998. ISBN 0-271-01954-9
• Sweet, Victoria. "Hildegard of Bingen and the Greening of Medieval Medicine." Bulletin of the History of Medicine, 1999, 73:381-403.
• Sweet, Victoria. "Rooted in the Earth, Rooted in the Sky: Hildegard of Bingen and Premodern Medicine." New York: Routledge Press, 2006. ISBN 0-415-97634-0
• Ulrich, Ingeborg. Hildegard of Bingen: Mystic, Healer, Companion of the Angels. Trans. Linda M. Maloney. Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1993.
• Ward, Benedicta. Miracles and the Medieval Mind. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 1987.
• Weeks, Andrew. German mysticism from Hildegard of Bingen to Ludwig Wittgenstein : a literary and intellectual history. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993. ISBN 0-7914-1419-1

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Hildegard von Bingen

• International Society of Hildegard von Bingen Studies
• A Hildegard FAQ Sheet
• Hildegard Von Bingen
• Catholic Encyclopedia
• Hildegard of Bingen Documents, History, Sites to see today, etc.
• New Advent's Page on Hildegard of Bingen
• Source
• Discography
• Biography and Prayers of Hildegard
• Another discography
• Church of St. Hildegard in Eibingen, Germany with information about Hildegard von Bingen and the Eibinger Hildegardisshrine
• The Reconstruction of the Monastry on the Rupertsberg
• Free scores by Hildegard von Bingen in the Werner Icking Music Archive (WIMA)
• Free scores by Hildegard of Bingen in the Choral Public Domain Library (ChoralWiki)
• Young, Abigail Ann. Translations from Rupert, Hildegard, and Guibert of Gembloux. 1999. 27 March 2006.
• McGuire, K. Christian. Symphonia Caritatis: The Cistercian Chants of Hildegard von Bingen. 2007. 14 July 2007.

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Persondata
NAME	Hildegard of Bingen
ALTERNATIVE NAMES	Blessed Hildegard; Saint Hildegard
SHORT DESCRIPTION	Christian mystic, German Benedictine abbess, author, counselor, linguist, naturalist, scientist, philosopher, physician, herbalist, poet, visionary and composer
DATE OF BIRTH	1098
PLACE OF BIRTH
DATE OF DEATH	17 September 1179
PLACE OF DEATH

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