Hildegard of Bingen

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Hildegard of Bingen

1098-1179
Poet, healer, and theologian

Entering the Religious Life. Hildegard of Bingen was the tenth and last child of noble, wealthy German parents who were involved in worldly affairs. Despite their worldly preoccupations, they supported Hildegard’s early interest in a pious life. As a child, she was made the companion of Jutta, daughter of Count Stephan of Spanheim, who was living a life of religious seclusion in a cell near a neighboring Benedictine monastery. Jutta taught young Hildegard to read and write, and the reputation of these two young women eventually led to the establishment of a convent near the site of Jutta’s cell. At fifteen Hildegard took a nun’s vows and joined this monastery, where she gained some local renown as a visionary. When Jutta died in 1136, Hildegard took over Jutta’s position as head of the convent. In 1150, after disputes with the abbot and monks who supervised the convent, Hildegard founded a new convent near Bingen, which she led until her death in 1179.

Mysticism and Theology. Surviving records suggest that Hildegard lived a rather ordinary life until 1141, when during an illness, she began having a series of visions. In these visions, which recurred for the rest of her life, she heard God tell her to write down what she had learned about scripture, the psalter, and other holy writings. When she doubted her abilities, she fell ill, which she regarded as a sign of God’s displeasure. Unlike the writings of many other visionaries, Hildegard’s books received the highest earthly approval, being blessed by Pope Eugene III at a synod in 1147. Throughout her life Hildegard wrote books and letters in Latin on a variety of theological and mystical topics, and these writings were apparently widely circulated. In a trilogy written during the 1140s and 1150s Hildegard analyzed a wide range of theological subjects, from the creator and creation to the redemption and the apocalypse. Like many medieval writings, her works could be allegorical, as in this passage from Know the Ways of God:

then I saw, as it were, a high round tower entirely built of white stone, having three windows at its summit, from which such brightness shone forth that even the conical roof of the tower appeared very dearly in the brightness of this light.… Now the reason why you see a huge round tower… is because the sweetness of the Holy Spirit is immense and comprehensively includes all creatures in its grace, so that no corruption in the integrity of the fullness of justice destroys it; since glowing, it points the way and sends forth all rivers of sanctity in the clarity of its strength….

Medicine and Herbs. Beginning in the 1150s, Hildegard also wrote on practical subjects such as medicine and science. Benedictine monasteries had a long tradition of being refuges for the sick, and Hildegard’s interest in these subjects may have stemmed from that background. In her scientific writings she analyzed metals, stones, plants, birds, and mammals according to current medical theories of humors and properties. In this sense, her works on nature were closely related to her books on medicine, in which she listed hundreds of medical conditions and a selection of herbal cures. Like many medieval medical treatises, Hildegard’s analysis could move quickly from diagnosis to prognostication. For example, she wrote “Those conceived on the thirtieth day of the moon, if male will be poor and if noble will always descend to lower things and will not have happiness; they will easily fail in bodily strength and the flesh but will live quite a long while. Females will be poor … and will more willingly live among foreign folk than familiar ones; they will not be very weak in body and will live long enough.”

Music and Ministry. In her role as the head of a convent, Hildegard undertook to guide the spiritual life of her fellow nuns. As her renown increased, people from all over Europe also wrote to her for spiritual advice. Hundreds of letters and several lives of saints that she wrote have survived and attest to her concern to spread the insights she gained through her visions. She also believed that music could touch the holy in a way that verbal prayer could not, and she composed more than seventy songs for her convent. Hildegard was also called on to preach publicly, an unusual position for a medieval woman. She went on three preaching tours throughout Germany during the 1160s and 1170s. Hildegard’s life demonstrates that women could have active, public lives in medieval Europe.