Medieval mysticism found one of its earliest and
best representatives in Hildegard of Bingen. She
was born in 1098, as the 10th child of the nobleman Hildebert of Bermersheim and his wife
Mechthild, near Alzey in the vicinity of the Rhine.
When she was eight, her parents oblated her to
monastic life (i.e., committed her, as a child, to the
church), handing her over to the hermit Jutta of
Spanheim, who lived next to the Benedictine convent of Disibodenberg. After Jutta’s death, Hildegard became the leader (magistra) of the women’s
convent and gained considerable reputation as a
prophetess (“prophetissa teutonica”), attracting to
Disibodenberg many people who sought Hildegard’s advice and help. When Hildegard tried to establish her own convent, she experienced severe
conflicts with the abbott, who was afraid of losing
the financial income resulting from the considerable landholdings of the nuns and from the money
donated by the streams of pilgrims who wanted to
see Hildegard. After bitter struggles with the abbott, the local authorities, and the Mainz canons,
Hildegard moved, with a small group of nuns, to a
new location and built the women’s convent at Rupertusberg near Bingen in 1147 (destroyed by
Swedish forces in 1632). Financially this proved to
be highly risky, and the new women’s convent
gained a solid foundation only when they reached
an agreeable settlement with the community of
Disibodenberg in 1158.
Hildegard had experienced mystical visions—
live experiences with the Godhead—since her early
childhood, but she began to write them only in
about 1141, when she was 42. She was assisted in
her massive enterprise by the monk Volmar of Disibodenberg and the convent sister Richardis of
Stade. During a church synod in Trier in 1147–48,
Hildegard received official recognition as a mystic
by Pope Eugen III, who acknowledged that God
had revealed Himself to her. Hildegard particularly
enjoyed the support of the famous Cistercian
scholar, theologian, and politician BERNARD OF
CLAIRVAUX, who also believed in her mystical visions. Despite a series of long illnesses throughout
her life, Hildegard became a major public figure
and was consulted by people all over Europe for religious, political, and medical advice. Between
1158 and 1161 she went on her first major preaching tour (unheard of for a medieval woman), followed by a second tour in 1160, a third one
between 1161 and 1163, and a fourth one between
1170 and 1171. She died on September 17, 1179,
when she was 82 years old.
Hildegard went through many political and personal conflicts and fought on many fronts during
her life, but this did not diminish the extraordinary
admiration she enjoyed as abbess, mystical visionary, political adviser, and medical scholar. Shortly
before her death she faced her most serious challenge by the Mainz Cathedral canons because she
had allowed a repentant nobleman to be buried in
sacred ground next to their convent, whereas the
church had excommunicated him before his death
and did not recognize his final confession. Mainz
then imposed a strict interdict on the convent,
which banned the singing of the divine office and
receiving of communion, but eventually Hildegard,
who had appealed to the Mainz archbishop in 1179,
managed to achieve a repeal of this interdict, which
restored the regular church service.
Hildegard’s followers tried to initiate a canonization process during the 13th century, which received the support of the popes Gregory IX and
Innocent IV, but never reached the desired goal.
Nevertheless, since the 15th century Hildegard has
been venerated locally as a saint.
Hildegard wrote major mystical and medicalscientific texts: Scivias (Know your way; 1141–
51); Liber simplicis medicinae (The book of simple
medicine) and Liber compositae medicinae (The
book of compound medicines; both before 1158);
Liber vitae meritorum (The book of life’s merits;
1158–63); and Liber divinorum operum (The book
of the divine works; 1163–73/74). She also composed a liturgical play for her nuns, Ordo virtutum
(The order of virtues), and more than 70 hymns,
collected in her Symphonia armoniae celestium revelationum (Symphony of the harmony of celestial
revelations). Moreover, Hildegard is famous for
her nearly 300 finely crafted letters to popes and
kings, bishops, and many other dignitaries. Most
curiously the abbess developed a secret language
for her convent, Lingua ignota (ca. 1150; contains
approx. 900 words), wrote the Vita Sancti Disibodi
(1170; Life of Saint Disibodus), the Vita Sancti Ruperti (ca. 1173; Life of Saint Rupertus), and some
other theological texts.
Hildegard formulates, in her Scivias, the most
amazing mystical visions of the universe, presenting
the image of the universal egg as its center. Here she
observes the incarnation of Christ and traces world
history in 26 visions, beginning with the fall of Lucifer and taking us up to the Day of Judgment. The
first book represents God as the creator, the second
Christ as salvation, and the third the Holy Ghost.
As the title of this text indicates (Know your ways),
Hildegard intended her text as a guidebook for the
spiritual seeker, as the evil in this world is caused by
an imbalance of the cosmic harmony. Hildegard’s
almost scientific-mathematical visions explicitly insist on the equality of men and women in God. In
her Liber divinorum operum the author portrays in
ALLEGORY virtues and vices, who discuss with one
another the cosmic correlation between man and
the Godhead.
In her medical tracts, Hildegard emphasizes,
above all, gynecological issues, herbal medicine,
and the healing power of the elements; jewels, animals, and metals seen in light of humoral pathology (the medieval theory of the humors); and
human sexuality, and advocates a mystical anthropology embedded in medical sciences.
Bibliography
Bowie, Fiona, and Oliver Davies, ed. Hildegard of Bingen: An Anthology. With new translations by
Robert Carver. London: SPCK, 1990.
Flanagan, Sabina. Hildegard of Bingen, 1098–1179: A
Visionary Life. London: Routledge, 1989.
Maddocks, Fiona. Hildegard of Bingen: The Woman
of Her Age. New York: Doubleday, 2001.
Newman, Barbara. Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard
of Bingen and Her World. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1998.
Albrecht Classen