Welcome to the third unit of A Voice of Their Own. I'm sure that you are eager to learn about late medieval female mysticism, which, as we hope you'll have learned by the end of this week, is tantamount to say medieval mysticism itself. Today we are going to explore one of its most renowned figures. 900 years separate us from Hildegard von Bingen and her world. The wreaths and glowing white silk gowns she and her nuns
wore during rites no longer exist, nor does Rupertsberg, her nunnery, destroyed centuries ago. However, her words, even her sounds, and the images of her visions depicted in miniatures have managed to break through the barrier of time. Some of such miniatures are breathtaking, for they show Hildegard receiving the flames of the Spirit, drawn as powerful claws up on her head in the version of the manuscript of Wiesbaden, or with her face up, upturned towards heaven welcoming a river of red water
in the manuscript of Lucca. In both cases, she's seated, writing on wax-covered tablets with her stylus, translating into words what comes to her
from the divine fire. Contemplating these miniatures, we must hear Hildegard's own words. "It happened in the year 1141 of the incarnation of Jesus Christ. When I was 42 years and seven months old, a burning light coming from heaven poured into my whole mind, my whole heart, and my whole breast. It did not burn, rather enkindled, just as the sun warms everything with its rays. And suddenly, I understood the meaning of books, psalters, the gospels, and other Catholic volumes, both from the old and new testaments, and not the division of sylables, cases, and tenses." In this very revelation, Hildegard received a command from heaven to write down everything, that she saw and heard with her inner eyes and ears. It was the beginning of her prophetic work <i>Scivias</i>, and from then onwards, writing would always be a part of her life. In this work, she presented an image of God, the world, and man, a comprehensive world view through which everything was explained. But this visionary woman, also devoted herself to profoundly original poetic
and musical compositions, far removed from the Gregorian chant of her time. Moreover, she was an observer of nature, which resulted in important works in the fields of medicine and botany. She healed the sick who came to her from many places, by laying her hands on them as Jesus Christ had done, sprinkling them with holy water, and expelling demons from their bodies by performing exorcisms, and the strands of her hair were left near the sick to help cure them. All these acts, her works and silences and even the
images in the miniatures of the manuscripts that preserved her writings seem strange to us now. We must acknowledge that they all belong to a different world, which we can only approach with extraordinaty difficulty, but the fact is, that Hildegard was an enigma, even against the backdrop of such a strange world. Among other things, what was a woman doing writing, speaking to Church prelates at the gates of the Cathedral of Cologne, and sending letters to popes and kings, where she sometimes reprimanded them for their behavior? Perhaps the most fascinating part of Hildegard's history, is that it is possible to learn about her and her experience from
extant documents. A biography, with autobiographical testimonies, more than 200 letters, and quite a few autobiographical passages included
in her revealed writings, that is, the works she composed based on divine revelation. She was an object of immense interest in her own time, as shown by the fact that those who surrounded her collected
information about her life. First, Volmar, the monk of Disibodenberg who accompanied her for more than 30 years as secretary and collaborator. Next, Gottfried, who succeeded Volmar after his death, Guibert de Gembloux who visited her, and finally, Theoderich von Echternach who gathered all these testimonies and composed Hildegard's biography shortly after her death at the age of 81, in the year 1179. Hildegard von Bingen was born into a noble family in Bermersheim, near Alzey in Rheinhessen, in 1098. She was the tenth and last daughter of Hildebert von Bermersheim and Mechthild. As a young girl, she was entrusted to the care of Jutta von Spannheim, And in 1112, on All Saints Day, Jutta and Hildegard were solemnly enclosed in a cell attached to the male monastery of
Disibodenberg, by the Rhine. Between 1112 and 1115, the small cell became a small Benedictine nunnery. And in those years, Hildegard took her vows before Bishop Otto von Bamberg. When Jutta died, in 1136, Hildegard became the <i>magistra</i>, the female master, of the nunnery. Five years later, a fundamental event took place: She received the command to put her visions in writing. Visions which, as she herself reiterated on several occasions, she had experienced since childhood. The novelty was that now she had to write them down. For 10 years, between 1141 and 1151, Hildegard focused on writing <i>Scivias with the help of Volmar, who only corrected her Latin syntax, but did not add or remove anything from her text. These years were very difficult: Intense anguish and restlessness ailed her, manifesting
through constant illnesses. The origin of her distress was the visionary experience itself, because, how could she know whether it came from God or from the devil? Furthermore, she was simply, I'm quoting Hildegard herself, "a poor woman, ash of ashes, rottenness of rottenness." These were the causes that prompted her to write a letter to the most powerful and charismatic man of the Western spiritual world,
Bernard of Clairvaux. The reformer of Cîteaux and mentor of pope Eugene III. Bernard's support was decisive in Hildegard's life, together with that of the Pope, who sent a commission to investigate her visionary writings while he was at the synod of Trier in 1147-1148. But, not only did Hildegard undertake writing, a truly revolutionary act only allowed thanks to the legitimation of her
visionary charisma, but she also saw the need to leave the monastery of Disibodenberg and found her own nunnery. This is to say, she succeeded in freeing herself from male supervision, The transfer from Disibodenberg to Rupertsberg, where she founded her own nunnery with 18 nuns was full of significance. In this way, she embraced the biblical archetype of Moses, leading the children of Israel out of Egypt, and towards the desert through the Red Sea. In that same manner, she would lead her nuns to their new house. In Hildegard's biography, Rupertsberg appears as a barren place, a place that would allow true spiritual progress, as the first fathers of the desert had already shown. Although this move was firmly opposed by Abbot Kuno and the
monks of Disibodenberg, Hildegard had the support of the Marchioness von Stade, the mother of her beloved Richardis. From 1158 to 1163, already in the new nunnery, she worked on her <i>Liber vitae meritorum</i>, Book of the Rewards of Life, where she tackled the confrontation between vices and virtues. Finally, in 1163, she began her third and last great prophetic work, the <i>Liber Divinorum operum, Book of Divine Works, which she concluded between 1173 and 1174. This work is built according to the model she had already
introduced in her <i>Scivias</i>: a description of the vision and of the divine voice that interprets the vision. Despite the fact that she maintained that she was
but "a poor illiterate woman", we must understand this as a mere statement of visionary authenticity, for rigorous and meticulous studies have managed to identify many book sources in her work that betray her high cultural level. Hildegard combined her prophetic and visionary writings with other kinds of texts born from her contact with the outside world, such as her treatises on plants and medicine: <i>Physica</i> and <i>Causae et Curae</i>, written in the 1150s. It is not clear when she started to compose music although the passage in her biography that refers to her revelation of 1141 also mentions her ability for musical composition as something unheard of. Quote, "Without being taught by any men, without ever having learned pneumas or chant," unquote. The 1150s were probably her most prolific decade, for it is then that we can place the <i>Symphonia armonie celestium <i>revelationum</i>, Symphony of the Harmony of Celestial Revelations. A cycle of about 60 liturgical chants, that is, antiphons, responsories, hymns, and sequences devoted to God Father, the Virgin, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, celestial hierarchies and saints. As the title of the composition suggests, this was revealed music, that is, once again, based on divine revelation. Her most obscure and less renowned composition is <i>Lingua Ignota, written around 1150, which both Volmar and Theoderich von Echternach found closely related to the process of musical creation, as did Hildegard herself. She compiled a glossary containing about 900 names made up in this secret language to refer to earthly and celestial beings, and wrote them using her own secret alphabet of 23 characters. It is possible that with this work, Hildegard sought to reconstruct the lost original language Adam used to talk to God
before the expulsion from Paradise. At least this is what she claimed in her letter to the
prelates of Mainz, where she elaborated a fully fledged theology of music. On 17 September 1179, Hildegard of Bingen died in Rupertsberg surrounded by her nuns. Guibert de Gembloux was also probably present; he had inquired about the way in which her visions took place, and Hildegard had answered in detail in a letter known
as<i> De modo visionis suae</i>, thus leaving an invaluable testimony of her experience. Theoderich, her biographer, claims that celestial signs marked
the moment of her death. Around 1220, Gebeno von Eberbach gathered the apocalyptic themes in Hildegard's visions, producing his <i>Speculum futurorum temporum</i>, and effectively turning her into a prophetess. Thritemius von Sponheim included her in the <i>Catalogus virorum illustrium, which actually means 'Catalogue of illustrious men!', and in <i>De scriptoribus ecclesiasticus</i>. Much later, in the nunnery of Eibingen, also founded by Hildegard, the Romantic poet Goethe was shown the illuminated manuscript
containing <i>Scivias</i>, and he made a rather laconic note in his journal describing
it as 'remarkable'. The manuscript, now lost, is only extant in a facsimile. The true reappreciation of Hildegard's figure was brought about
by the rediscovery and edition of the <i>Liber Divinorum operum</i>
by the archbishop of Lucca in 1761. The earliest scholarly studies were carried out within the Benedictine order by Ildefons Herwegen and Maura Böckeler, who, already in 1928, promoted a revival of the interest in Hildegard that has led to the constant analysis of her work until our time. She was canonized on the 10th of May of 2012 by Pope Benedict XVI, who also declared her Doctor of the Church on 7th of
October that same year. Hildegard of Bingen thus became one of the very few woman who
holds such a distinction. Stay tuned for more.
