FEAST DAY OF ST HILDEGARD OF BINGEN
ST HILDEGEARD OF BINGEN - HER STORY
FEAST DAY 17th SEPTEMBER
St Hildegard, who lived from 1098-1179 AD, was one of those amazing women who populate Catholic history – along with St Catherine of Alexandria, St Catherine of Siena, St Theresa of Avila, St Clare of Assisi, St Therese of the Child Jesus, St Joan of Arc etc., etc., – the list goes on and on…. Women who, as the saying goes, were not afraid to ‘speak truth to power’ when their duty to God required it.
She was noble born and placed by her parents into the care of an older woman, Jutta, who was the Abbess of the Benedictine monastery in Disibondenberg, in the Palatine Forest in Germany and, “as a result, one of the most brilliant minds of the era entered a world of culture and learning.”; Judyth McCleod, ‘In a Unicorn’s Garden, Recreating the Mystery and Magic of Medieval Gardens’, (Murdoch Books), at p. 66.
When her mentor, Jutta, died, Hildegard was unanimously elected as Magistra of the community by her fellow nuns. Abbot Kuno of Disibondenberg asked Hildegard to be Prioress at Disibondenberg, thereby remaining under his authority. Hildegard, however, wanted more independence for herself and her fellow nuns and requested to move to Rupertsberg- a move to poverty and hardship in an undeveloped building. The Abbot declined, so Hildegard went over his head and received the approval of the Archbishop of Mainz. Abbot Kuno did not relent however, until Hildegard was stricken by an illness that she attributed to God’s unhappiness at her inability to follow His wishes to move the nuns to Rupertsberg. The Abbot granted her wishes and gave the nuns their own monastery in 1150. In 1165 AD, she founded a second monastery for her nuns at Eibingen.
She was a contemplative and experienced mystical revelations about the connections of body, mind and spirituality, anticipating the insights of St Thomas Aquinas and Francis Bacon. She asserted the goodness of creation in an era in which the heresies of the Albigensians and Cathars provided that the material world and man’s physical nature was evil and crafted by the devil. She became a recognized theologian, through the rhetorical arts of preaching, letter-writing and poetry, and was accepted in her role of public preaching as a woman. Her preaching was not limited to monasteries – she preached publicly in 1160 AD in Germany, conducting four preaching tours throughout Germany, speaking to both clergy and laity in chapter houses and in public, often denouncing clerical corruption and calling for reform. She corresponded with Popes such as Eugene III and Anastasius IV and statesmen such as Abbot Suger, German Emperors such as Frederick I Barbarossa and other clerics such as Bernard of Clairvaux, who advanced her work at the behest of her Abbot, Kuno, at the Synod of Trier in 1147 and 1148;
With the consent of her Abbot, Hildegard began recording her visions. She wrote three works of significance in visionary theology, the first: Scivias (Know the Ways, composed 1142-1151 AD), recording the order of God’s creation, the coming of Christ the Redeemer, the Sacrifice and the Eucharist, the fight against the devil and the history of salvation, and concluding with a Symphony of Heaven, an early version of Hildegard’s musical compositions.
In 1148 AD, a commission was sent by the Pope to Disibodenberg to find out more about Hildegard and her writings. The commission found that the visions were authentic and returned to the Pope with a segment of Scivias. St Bernard, Abbot of the great Abbey at Clairvaux, personally pleaded with Pope Eugneius III to make known Hildegard’s writings and to spread her enlightenment; Judyth McCleod, ibid.
Portions of the work were read aloud to the Pope at the Synod of Trier, after which he sent St Hildegard a letter with his blessing. Towards the end of her life, Hildegard commissioned a richly illustrated copy of Scivias (the Rupertsberg Codex). However, sadly, the original was lost or destroyed in World War II, after its evacuation to Dresden for safekeeping in 1945. (Dresden was absolutely annihilated by Allied bombing at the end of the War). Its images are preserved in a hand-painted facsimile from the 1920’s.
The second work, Liber Vitae Meritorum (Book of the Merits of Life, composed 1158-1163 AD), detailed the dramatic confrontation between the virtues and vices. The third work, Liber Divinorum Operum, (Book of Divine Works, composed 1163-1172 AD), her last and grandest visionary work, served as an explication of St John’s Gospel. She received a mystical vision in which was revealed the ‘sprinkling drops of rain’ that St John experienced when he wrote, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God…” (John 1:1). Hildegard saw that the Word was the key to the “Work of God”, of which humankind is the pinnacle. The Liber Divinum Operum illustrated the various ways of understanding the relationship between God and His creation- at times illustrated by grand allegorical female figures representing Divine Love (Caritas) or Wisdom (Sapientia); https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildegard_of_Bingen
MUSICAL COMPOSITION
Judyth McCleod stated that, “[h]ad Hildegard not achieved all these remarkable things, made all the more remarkable by her times, she would still be remembered as an outstanding composer. Abbess Hildegard completed her collection of music and poetry, Symphonia Armonie Celestium Revelationum, in 1150AD. It contains seventy-seven songs, forming a liturgical cycle for the church year that is still being performed and recorded. In an era of unquestioned male authority, she dared to preach in public, write books for distribution, write medical treatises, become a noted naturalist and compose and distribute religious music. Despite her small stature and indifferent health, her blazing intellect and extraordinary mystical gifts were reportedly seen as a formidable challenge by many in Rome. To their discomfort, she had no problem using her moral authority, derived from the mystical teachings she received, to rebuke popes and kings when she thought they were acting unwisely; ibid., at p. 67.
She wrote an enormous amount of exquisite liturgical music, music which, according to the authors of the “Bad Catholics Guide to Good Living”*, “graces the iPods of aromatherapists, pet psychologists and psychic surgeons around the world”. They observe that “[w]hile the thrifty, entrepreneurial nun would have been pleased by the royalties, she can’t be happy that her achievements have been co-opted by the New Agers. In her day, St Hildegard was a fierce heresy-hunter, writing to the Pope to denounce him for laxity towards contemporary compromisers: ‘Why would you put up with depraved people who are blinded by foolishness and who delight in harmful things, like a hen which cackles in the night and terrifies herself? Such people are completely useless.’”
John Zmirak and Denise Matychowiak, Crossroads, 2005, at p. 139.
She composed the Ordo Virtutum (Play of the Virtues), a morality play, thought to have been composed in 1151 AD, which would have been performed within the monastery for her community of nuns and noblewomen. The play is thought to have been a manifestation of the theology delineated in the Scivias – an allegory of the Christian story of sin, confession, repentance and forgiveness. It was the female virtues who restored the fallen to the community of the faithful in her works, all the characters singing in monophonic plainchant. The devil alone (played by a male) would not sing but would shout or deliver spoken lines only.
Additionally Hildegard composed many liturgical songs collected into a cycle and set to her own text, ranging from Antiphons, hymns and sequences to responsories. Her music was monophonic, consisting of one melodic line, with soaring melodies carrying the traditional Gregorian chant, reflecting an intimate relationship between the text and prayer and the music. Her reverence for the Blessed Virgin shows her inspiration derived by Our Lady and the saints; Colin R Shearing, “Gregorian Chants, an Illustrated History of Religious Chanting”, (2004) Mercury, at pp. 86-90. The polyphonic style developed simultaneously in the twelfth century, by which a new part was added above the traditional chant melody line. This development followed upon construction of the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris, with the development of a new polyphonic repertoire by two of the Cathedral’s choirmasters, Master Leonin and Master Perotin; ibid., at pp. 90 et seq.
SCIENTIFIC WRITINGS
Hildegard’s scientific writing sprang from her experience in the monastery garden and infirmary, as well reading. All convents, up until the massive destruction of the reformation, acted as hospitals for the locality, in particular, the poor. In England, for example, after Henry VIII had taken the lands of the monasteries and convents for his use, or for distribution to his allies, the poor were left without medical assistance and nursing, a role traditionally performed by the nuns of the Priories and convents, until the arrival of Florence Nightingale, in the Crimean War.
Hildegard catalogued her practice in two works. The first, Physica, set out the medicinal and scientific qualities of plants, reptiles and animals, and is believed to include the first reference to the use of hops in beer as a preservative;
The second, Causae et Curae is a discourse on the human body and its connection to the natural world in causing and curing disease. Medical practice is documented in this work, including bleeding and home remedies for ailments, treatment of burns fractures, dislocations and cuts.
Her visionary insight resulted in her work reflecting the role of man in relation to the cosmos, with the interplay of the human, physically and spiritually, with the universe. To her, a vital connection existed between the health of the natural world and the health, physically and spiritually, of the person. Viriditas, ( a concept of natural balance), was thought to sustain human health and could be manipulated by adjustment of the elements to which a person was subject. Hildegard understood the plants and elements of the garden as counterparts to the humours and elements within the human body, an imbalance of which would lead to disease. She explored the causes of ill health, in sexuality, psychology and physiology, with specific instructions on treatment, including bleeding, the phase of the moon (bleeding best done when the moon is waning), the placement of disease, (use veins nearest the diseased organ or body part), and including bleeding instructions for animals to keep them healthy (still done today on horses). She indicated that a waxing moon is good for human conception and is also good for sowing seeds for plants (sowing seeds is the plant equivalent of conception). And, a bit like the renowned cookbook of Mrs Beaton, she used imprecise instructions, with measurements described in such terms as, “the amount that a thirsty person can swallow in one gulp”; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildegard_of_Bingen
Most importantly, she was a great advocate for the imbibing of alcohol, and recommended the avoidance of drinking water and drinking wine and beer instead, (she was German, after all). The reason, as she explained, “[f]or beer fattens up a man’s flesh and bestows a beautiful colour to his face on account of the strength and good vitality of the grain. But water debilitates man and, if he is sick, sometimes produces a bluish discolouration around the lungs. For water is weak and does not have a strong power.”
Michael P Foley, Drinking with the Saints, Regnery, 2015, at p. 249.
The author of Drinking with the Saints recommends two Reserve Hildegarde beers, a blonde and an Ambree, developed by the brewery at St Germain in Aix-Noulette, in France, as “a special tribute to Hildegarde of Bingen, who lived and loved hops more than 800 years ago”. However, he does recommend that, if these brews are unobtainable, then “any abbey-style ale would be appropriate”.
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