Self-portrait by St. Hildegard.
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Hildegard von Bingen:
Féminine Mystique
Dr. Andrew Childs, D.M.A.
H
oly Mother Church: the name our early 20th century, Hildegard has become
Faith gives the Church serves as the unlikely darling of a variety of progres-
the point of departure in consid- sive causes. For the New Age theologians,
ering the current theme of women her visions—both the often-obscure allegorical
and the Church. Enemies of the Bride of written descriptions and mildly psychedelic
Christ have always accused Her of misog- Medieval visual depictions—have a cosmic
yny, abuse, intimidation, and oppression, appeal. Secular medical historians apply a
and never more gleefully than in the cultur- retrospective diagnosis of migraine suffering
al climate du jour, hell-bent on havocking to explain the nature of these images, dis-
all things Holy and natural. Far from sup- missing the possibility of Divine inspiration.
pressing or undervaluing women, however, Adherents of homeopathy and naturopathy
the Church not only submits to the absolute posit that her writings on herbal cures and
queenship of the Blessed Virgin Mary but disease qualify her as a pioneer in natural
defines Herself by two sublime feminine attri- healing and suggest a “Green” sensibility.
butes—holiness and maternity. For social revolutionaries, her position of
Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179), the authority as advisor and religious leader—and
“Sybil of the Rhine,” was a visionary, author, her perceived history of feisty opposition to
composer, artist, naturalist, healer, abbess, the patriarchy—secure her standing as a pro-
correspondent and counselor to political and to-feminist. Worse yet, but certainly predict-
religious leaders, preacher, Saint, and Doctor ably, this last bunch speculate about her sexu-
of the Church. She was not a feminist (and ality, given her intimate friendships with her
I do not refer lightly to the canonical femi- consoeurs. The Saints do not suffer in Heaven
nist work noted in the second half of the title after death, but their reputations can certainly
above, which shows a clear distaste for both take a beating here below.
the feminine and the mystical).1 Since the
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The brief portrait that follows will likely Psalter, though no sure proof exists that she
not convince Hildegard’s secular admirers ever learned to write. In 1113 she took the
that her life and work inherently and magnifi- veil, and when Jutta died in 1136, Hildegard
cently oppose their progressive ideology. I do became the superior of the small community.2
hope, however, that for Catholic readers unfa- Against the wishes of the abbot, Hilde-
miliar with the real Hildegard, they might gard left the monastery at Disibodenberg and
sympathize with the attempt to separate her founded a monastery near Bingen in Ruperts-
from the naturalists’ usurpation of her life and berg. Built between 1147 and 1150, Hildegard
work and will find in her a genuine source of oversaw construction, and the more zealous
artistic wonder and spiritual inspiration. of her admirers claim she acted as architect.
She founded a sister house in Eibingen in
Hildegard the feminine 1165, and by 1163, letters of protection writ-
Early biographers identify Hildegard’s ten for her by Frederick Barbarossa refer to
parents as Hildebert and Mechtilda and clas- her as abbess. 3
sify them as belonging to the noble class,
though record no family name. Hildebert Hildegard the mystical
served as a soldier under Meginhard, Count In 1912, British physician Charles Singer
of Spanheim in Rhenish Franconia. Born the moved to Wiesbaden. Married to a medieval-
last of 10 children in ist, Singer had devel-
1098, every reference oped a keen interest in
to Hildegard as a child history, and through
describes her as “weak a c a de m ic c on ne c -
and sickly.” Due in tions, gained access
large part to this frail- to the manuscript of
ty, she received little Hildegard’s Scivias,
formal education as a the three-volume set
child, and her parents of twenty-six prophetic
promised her to God, visions with illumina-
assigning her at the tion written between
age of 8 to the service 1141-1150. Intrigued
of the anchoress Jutta by what he saw in the
of Spanheim, sister illustrations, he “rec-
of Count Meginhard. ognized at once that
Jutta had rejected all the f ig ures…resem-
offers of marriage and bled descriptions by
lived as a recluse in patients of what they
a cell constructed by had seem dur ing
her father attached to attacks of migraine.”4
the Benedictine mon- Seven hundred-fifty
astery of Disiboden- years after her death,
berg. As an anchoress, Singer pronounced a
she took a vow never Christ by St. Hildegard.
retrospective diagno-
to leave her cell, but sis de-mystifying the
she assisted the monks through prayer and mystic. Historian Katherine Foxhall keenly
domestic tasks. She could converse with vis- and succinctly finds motive, writing, “Using
itors, and developed a following large enough his medical knowledge to render the unusual
to require the construction of additional cells patterns in Hildegard’s religious imagery as
adjoining the monastery. She would take the manifestation of a neurological disorder
certain of these followers to live in her cell as was important because it enabled Singer to
assistants, the case with Hildegard. Hilde- sideline Hildegard’s theology and replace it
gard learned to read Latin and to chant the
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with “science” as the basis for her philosophy hard to understand, prophetic throughout and
of the world.”5
admonitory after the manner of Ezechiel and
From an early age, Hildegard had vision- the Apocalypse.”7 Hildegard filled the paint-
ary episodes, which often came on in spectac- ings, though brilliant and bold, with easily
ular fashion, accompanied by blinding light, recognizable Christian imagery. One reads
and rendered her motionless. She would ini- and sees in the Scivias coherent orthodoxy
tially describe these occurrences to Jutta and rather than a migraineur’s hallucination.
others as a simple matter of fact, but as peo-
ple became more uneasy with the often high- Hildegard the artistic
ly involved and disturbingly detailed nature In Canto XI of the Inferno, Dante states
of her visions, she became more reluctant to “Art is the grandchild of God.”8 Attribution
share them. “Up to my fifteenth year,” she to Hildegard of her writings, artistic images,
wrote, “I saw much, and related some of the and music provokes no controversy, yet many
things seen to others, who would inquire scholars agree that other individuals did the
with astonishment, whence such things might physical work of making the art—painting pic-
come. I also wondered and during my sick- tures, writing texts, notating music. Though
ness I asked one of my nurses whether she also not uncommon in medieval times (when
saw similar things. When she answered no, artists assumed anonymity), this also
a great fear befell me. represents a beautiful
Frequently, in my con- metaphoric remind-
versations, I would er of the relationship
relate future things, between artistic inspi-
which I saw as if pres- ration and expres-
ent, but noticing the sion: as God guides
amazement of my lis- the hand of the art-
teners, I become more ist, Hildegard direct-
reticent.” 6 She had ed specifically talent-
a lways considered ed artists to bring her
the illness accompa- impulses to life.
nying her visions as H i ldeg a rd’s col-
God’s displea sure, lected output in liter-
but in one particu- ature (prose, poetry,
larly intense episode and technical writ-
she experienced at ings), painting, corre-
the age of forty, she spondence, and music
heard the voice of remains one of the
G od com ma nd i ng most impressive and
her to write and put important bodies of
down what she heard work by an individ-
and saw. With the ual in the medieval
approval of the Arch- era. Beyond the Sciv-
bishop of Mainz, the Cosmos by St. Hildegard.
ias, writings on spir-
encouragement of St. ituality and theology
Bernard, and ultimately a directive from include Liber Vitae Meritum (Book of Life’s Mer-
Pope Eugene III, she set about the ten years’ its, 1158-1163), and the Liber Divinorum Ope-
work of the Scivias. Visions include “God, rum (Book of Divine Works, 1163-1172). Writ-
the Light-Giver and Humanity,” “The Fall,” ings on science and medicine include Physica
“The Choirs of Angels,” “The Triune God,” which describes characteristics and properties
“The Sacrifice of Christ and the Church,” of animals, plants, and minerals; and Causae
“The Zeal of God,” and “The End of Time.” et Curae which exhaustively (in 530 chap-
The text is “an extraordinary production and ters) considers the human being, physically
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For Hildegard, poetry and music unite. Of
her poetic style Barbara Newman writes,
“Hidegard’s poetic world is like the Syb-
il’s cave; difficult to access, reverberat-
ing with cryptic echoes. The oracle’s
message, once interpreted, may or
may not hold surprises… No formal
poetry written in the twelfth centu-
ry, and none that Hildegard might
have known, is very much like hers.
For models one must look, rather, to
the rich corpus of liturgical prayer.”9
Just as her pictures illuminated her
visions, her music gives soul to her
poetic lyrics. Her output includes
some seventy compositions—hymns,
sequences, and antiphons, all on reli-
gious themes—and the Ordo Virtutum
(The Order of the Virtues, 1151), a morality
play set to music that could qualify as the
first fully-conceived opera, nearly five cen-
turies before Monteverdi. In the Ordo, Hilde-
gard presents the dramatic struggle between
the Virtues and the Devil for a soul. Seven-
teen individual virtues, the soul, a women’s
chorus of souls, a men’s chorus of Prophets
and Patriarchs, and the character of Hilde-
Vision of the Angelic Hierarchy by St. Hildegard. gard sing the score; the male character of the
Devil—who according to Hildegard, “cannot
produce divine harmony”—yells or grunts.
and functionally, in health and sickness, in If her art outpaces stylistic characteriza-
the context of the created order. The latest tion, her music flies away. The overwhelming
scholarship numbers her letters—to Popes (4 of majority of medieval music remains locked
them), Kings (2), Archbishops (10), Bishops (9), in time and stylistic space, often severe and
Abbots (49), Abbesses (23), Priests, Religious, angular. Hildegard’s music, constructed
and lay people (including excommunicants)— almost entirely of motivic melodic formulae,
at 353. She wrote fifty homilies and devel- employs a stunningly wide melodic range,
oped her own language, the “Lingua Ignota,” and implies mysterious harmonies, timeless
complete with its own alphabet. and hypnotically beautiful. From the majes-
Her visual style exhibits standard medi- tic and mysterious O vis aeternitatis to the
eval characteristics—iconographic Christian rhapsodic O spendissima Gemma and the play-
symbolism, bright colors, bold shapes and fully joyous O virdissima Virga, the music and
figures—but remains remarkable for its alle- words not only support each other, but seem
gorical concision, frequently capturing in to frolic together. In her music, Hildegard
single panels the essence of highly complicat- expresses mystical orthodoxy with astonish-
ed theological constructs and relationships. ing freshness.
Whether disturbing—Vision of the Last Days—or
hauntingly lovely—The Universe, The true Trin-
ity in true Unity—the images at once occupy a Hildegard the Saint
place in and out of stylistic time. The cultus of Hildegard developed before
her death, and firmly established itself imme-
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diately after. Six months before she died, who created an artistic ethos in defiance of
however, she and her community languished the order imposed on her by men. We, who
under interdict. The bishop of Mainz had believe as she believed, venerate her as a Saint
demanded the exhumation of the body of a inspired and liberated by God, whose vision
previously excommunicated young noble- and expression of supernatural beauty open
man from the cemetery adjacent her convent. on to the divine.
Arguing that the man had received last rites St. Hildegard, Feather on the Breath of
before burial, thus proving his reconciliation God, ora pro nobis.
with the Church, Hildegard refused. The Ω
bishop pronounced the sentence, with the
specific indication forbidding the singing of
the Office: deprived of their voices—barred
from producing “divine harmony”—they could
only whisper. Hildegard and her community
submitted to the punishment, but she began
an intense series of correspondence, and the
bishop lifted the sentence in March or 1179.
Hildegard died on September 17, 1179. Endnotes:
Gregory IX (r. 1227-41) opened her cause 1
Betty Friedan, The Feminine Mystique (New York: W.W. Nor-
for canonization, which Innocent IV (r. 1243- ton, 1963).
54) continued, and Clement V (1305-14) and 2
The Catholic Encyclopedia (New York: Appleton, 1910); Volume
John XXII (1316-34) repeated. Listed in 7, 351-353.
the Martyrology, and having remained on 3
The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians (London:
regional liturgical calendars for centuries, Macmillan, 1995); Volume 8, 553-556.
Benedict XVI declared her a Saint on May 4
Charles Singer, From Magic to Science (New York: Dover, 1958);
10, 2012, and on October 7, 2012, a Doctor of viii.
the Church. The Church places her Feast on
5
Katherin Foxhall, “Making Modern Migraine Medieval: Men
September 17, the anniversary of her death. of Science, Hildegard of Bingen and the Life of a Retrospec-
“She would have been extraordinary,” tive Diagnosis,” Cambridge Journal of Medical History (58/3, July
writes Barbara Newman, “in any age. But 2014); 354-372.
for a woman of the 12th century, hedged by 6
The Catholic Encyclopedia (New York: Appleton, 1910); Volume
the constraints of a misogynist world, her 7, 351-353
achievements baffle thought, marking her 7
Ibid.
as a figure so exceptional that posterity has 8
Dante Alighieri, The Inferno, trans. Robert and Jean Hollander
found it hard to take her measure.”10 The (New York: Anchor Books, 2002); 210-211.
things of eternity defy measure. Her secular
9
Barbara Newman, Vision: the Life and Music of Hildegard von
admirers, hedged by the constraints of a worl- Bingen (New York: Penguin, 1995); 69
dview willfully ignorant of supernatural reali-
ty, see Hildegard as an extraordinary woman 10
Barbara Newman, Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard von Bin-
gen and her World (Berkeley: UC Press, 1998);
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