[In the following essay, Beer provides a historical context for Hildegard's poetic and intellectual achievements, discussing the nature of life in twelfth-century Benedictine monasteries and convents and the increased credibility of the church as a moral force during this time. The critic then discusses Hildegard's life as an administrator, noting her challenges to the policies of several authoritative male figures, her "effective imperviousness to the potent medieval tradition of antifeminism," and her fundamental concern with spiritual growth.]

Hildegard of Bingen, born at Bemersheim in 1098, was a figure for whom superlatives seem inadequate. Peter Dronke, for example, author of the major biographical work on Hildegard, resorts to adjectives such as 'over-powering' and 'electrifying', while Matthew Fox, one of her most ardent contemporary admirers, places her among 'the greatest intellectuals of the West'; praising her as a 'woman of genius', instigator of the flowering of German mysticism, Rufus Jones had earlier written that she possessed the 'visionary power and moral passion of the Hebrew prophets'.¹ Her prodigious creative output includes a mystical trilogy for which justifiably she is now best known: Scivias, The Book of Life's Merits, and The Book of Divine Works. But she also composed medical/scientific treatises, poetry, music, a full-length morality play, and a magnificent series of illustrations intended to clarify and make more accessible her visions. In addition, she was an eminently successful administrator, conducted preaching tours up and down the Rhine, and carried on a voluminous correspondence with key religious and political figures of her day. Before turning to her visionary works, it is worth having a detailed look at her extraordinary life; this is made possible by the fact that we have a Latin Vita, substantially of her own composition, as well as many of the letters that she wrote in her capacity as administrator and spiritual advisor.²

By her own account, she started to have visions in her infancy; in their earliest manifestation, these took the form of a light of awesome brightness, and they continued on a regular basis throughout her early years. As she describes it, she was uncertain, even fearful of these experiences as a child. She neither knew what to make of them, nor what others would think of her if they knew; so in predictable childlike fashion she tended to keep them to herself. As a child she was also frequently ill, and it seems likely that the two phenomena were linked. Leaving her feelings of anxiety and isolation aside, the very effort involved in keeping visions of such great intensity bottled up would almost inevitably result in headaches and other psychosomatic symptoms. Still, to turn it around, as some have, and argue that the illness caused the visions seems to reflect the limits of our imagination, not of hers.³ She attributed these painful bouts of illness, which continued throughout her life, to 'aerial torments' which she described as drying up her veins and flesh—even the very marrow of her bones. They seem to have been particularly acute when she was facing some frustration or some undone work. In the Preface to Scivias she remarks that she refused to write down her visions until she 'became sick, pressed down by the scourge of God'; and a persistent bout of illness in her 70s ended with a vision of a most loving—'amantissimus'— man who exorcized the tormenting demons, after which she was able to complete the Book of Divine Works.

When Hildegard was seven she was placed by her parents in a monastery named for its founder, the Celtic saint Disibodus, under the tutelage of a noblewoman, Jutta, the magistra who was later to become the abbess.⁴ Perhaps they made this decision because she was the tenth child in the family, which, however aristocratic, may have been running out of dowries adequate to ensure a proper alliance. It seems possible that she would already have distinguished herself as an unusual child: high-strung, keenly intelligent, plagued by recurrent illness, uncannily able to foretell coming events. In any case her parents referred to her as their 'tithe' to God. She seems to have taken to monastic life naturally and with great success: when Jutta died some years later in 1136, Hildegard, by then 38, was the unanimous choice of the nuns to replace her as abbess. Other details reveal the extent of her personal devotion to her community: she and her sisters invented a secret language, to be used in front of strangers, for which she wrote the glossary; she composed a cycle of hymns—words and music—to be sung within the convent by the nuns; her play, Ordo Virtutum, was initially composed for their use.

The Disibodenberg was a Benedictine monastery in the Rhine valley, of which only ruins now remain. As such it would have been a self-sufficient community, protected by high walls, within which would have been found gardens and orchards, bakehouse and granary, dormitory, dining hall, kitchen, pantry, guest houses— and, most important, church and cloister, the 'heart of the monastery'.⁵ At the time of Hildegard's arrival in 1106 it was 400 years old, but the abbey's female unit—originally a hermitage—had only recently been added. Other young women, attracted by Jutta's reputation for holiness, placed themselves under her direction, and the number of nuns soon grew to eighteen. These tended to be from aristocratic families, usually bringing some money with them as a kind of dowry when they entered the convent. Limited as their education may have been in comparison with what was offered the men, it was much better than any alternatives outside the cloister; indeed, convents at this time were a haven for any woman who was at all intellectually inclined. Hildegard's education included some Latin, the Scriptures and service books, possibly some music—though in her Vita she claims to have composed her songs without having had any musical training. But she also was an avid reader and seemed to have had access to a range of texts: she was familiar enough with Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy to quote from it freely; her mystical works show a pronounced Neoplatonic influence, though the source for this material is uncertain; her knowledge of the Scriptures was exhaustive, and their influence pervades her writing.

During the monastic revival of the eleventh and twelfth centuries, double houses—monasteries enclosing both men and women—were not unusual, though by the thirteenth century they had for the most part been phased out. Although the actual buildings housing the nuns and monks were separated by distance and interposing structures, the communities were jurisdictionally one unit, living under the same rule. There were many obvious advantages from the women's point of view; most of the major abbeys had communities for nuns, who were thus able to participate actively in the reform movement, satisfying their interest in both asceticism and study. But of course what happened, as long as men and women were enclosed together, was that the men were seen as superior; authority rested with the abbots, and the women tended to look to the monks for instruction and leadership. However, after she became abbess, Hildegard chose to move her community of nuns to a new location, at Rupertsberg. She was perhaps eccentric in her desire for independence, but her decision was evidently the right one, as her community grew and flourished after its secession.

The purpose of a monastic community's self-sufficiency was to avoid the distractions and entanglements, not to mention the corruption, of the outer world. Within the double houses rules of claustration differed, and were stricter for women than for men, the underlying assumption being that the women were more susceptible to temptation. In the strictest cases the rule was evidently so restrictive that women were only allowed to leave to be taken to the cemetery. But in both England and Germany claustration tended to be less firmly enforced; women could take part in pilgrimages, visit and be visited by their families. As an administrator Hildegard would have had even more freedom than usual. In other words, she had the advantages of the structure and security provided by her community without being immobilized; she travelled extensively in both Germany and France, visiting and preaching at numerous monastic communities along the way.⁶

The Benedictine schedule, which was minutely regulated, was based upon two central ideals: labour and communality. Personal property and privacy were supposedly non-existent (monastics were to 'claim no dominion even over their own bodies or wills'); meals, prayer, work all were all done together.⁷

Labour was to occupy a specific number of hours each day (St Benedict originally specified six); for the women in Hildegard's monastery this would have involved traditional work such as spinning and weaving: while the particular purpose of manual labour was to imitate the lives of the Apostles, it was also seen as an essential antidote to idleness, the great danger for any enclosed religious. Occasionally the nuns were occupied in copying manuscripts. Hildegard herself was employed in nursing when at the Disibodenberg, but later, at Rupertsberg, her group was noted for its work in manuscript illumination, of which Hildegard's own masterpieces are an outstanding example.⁸

Days for the Benedictines were organized around periods of communal prayer, which took place at three-hour intervals, even during the night. The Rule spelled out in meticulous detail which psalms should be sung at what hours, and on which days, and this order was strictly followed. Details ranging from the discipline of a disobedient member to the appropriate quantities of bread and wine to be consumed at dinner were also spelled out. Thus, clearly, the sense of order, stability, and dependable routine was an important part of the Benedictine life, probably a central reason for the survival of the monastic tradition during the chaotic period following the fall of the Roman Empire.⁹ The commitment to study, considered an essential part of daily life, not only meant that the Benedictine houses were frequently responsible for rescuing classical knowledge that had been threatened with extinction during the preceding centuries, but also that the individual members of the community were provided with the opportunity for a rich intellectual life; there was 'great scope for local talent and learning'.¹⁰

It is not surprising that Hildegard would have been satisfied with this life; for someone who had been buffeted by spiritual and physical extremes since earliest childhood, the security and regularity of the Benedictine system would have been profoundly reassuring. The discipline too must have been welcome, providing the structure necessary to develop the confidence and personal strength upon which she would so frequently have to rely in her later career. And for someone as extraordinarily intelligent as Hildegard, who, as a woman, might otherwise have had no access to formal education, the scholarly opportunities would have been irresistible.

Hildegard seems to have been born in the right place at the right time, in a number of ways. A new spiritual emphasis within the Benedictine movement, originally inspired by St Anselm in the previous century, served to make her monastic environment particularly appropriate for her. To the letter of the Rule, which had tended to limit itself to questions of structure and discipline, Anselm brought a new dimension. He wrote of the ideal of spiritual development, of inner growth—of what could be described as a new kind of enclosure, within the mind, that would further insulate the soul from the confusions of the world and allow it to be closer to God. His emphasis was not in conflict with the old Rule, which had assumed that the personal relationship between God and the soul would progress naturally if the requisite humility and obedience were adhered to. But Anselm's contribution spoke much more explicitly of an intense, personal relationship with God, opening the way for an increased emphasis on individual meditation and, eventually, the visionary experience.¹¹ Dedicated as Hildegard was to the order and stability of the Benedictine life, this added element must, as it gave validity to her visions, have made it even more appealing. The progress by which she came to confess to others her inner visions was gradual, but in the meantime her personal tranquility must have been greatly increased by this assurance.

St Anselm's innovations were foreshadowings of the twelfth-century renaissance, which is perhaps too often described in glowing generalities, but which nonetheless does seem to have been a period of remarkable spiritual and literary flowering, of renewed optimism, confidence in the individual, and emphasis on love. Generally this was a period of enormous expansion and influence for the reformed monasteries; the spirit of inquiry and intellectual growth was guided by renewed confidence in Christian faith and ideals, by a new respect for the intensity of the personal religious experience to be found in the monastic life. The church as a moral force gained enormous credibility.¹²

The tenth century had been a period of consolidation for medieval Germany: pagans to the east had been quelled or converted, to the west the kingdom of Burgundy annexed. The German emperor was considered to be the leader of the Western world, and he had absolute control over the church, its lands and officials. But in the next century, during Hildegard's life-time, this control faltered. Religious leaders felt that lay control was inappropriate, that the superiority of church over state ought to be entrenched. Pope Gregory VII (1073-85) had greatly enhanced the papal image and actual power, and supporters of papal supremacy now urged increased power for all members of the church.¹³

In the middle of the twelfth century, however, the church's newly won credibility was jeopardized by a papal schism, and there was widespread ecclesiastical squabbling within Germany; here again Hildegard was very much in the right place. Deeply troubled by this pervasive instability, she spoke out fearlessly and her voice emerged as that of a serious and greatly respected social reformer. She believed that it was the responsibility of the church to act as 'regenerator to society', that the cure for social ills was 'more active faith, a higher standard of moral conduct'.¹⁴ The king, Frederick Barbarossa (1152-1190), was a strong ruler, who endeavoured to keep the German church under his control; here he fell out with Hildegard, since they supported different candidates for the papacy. Acting as God's mouthpiece, she wrote him a letter expressing fierce condemnation of his stand, blaming him for perpetuating the schism, warning him in apocalyptic language of his error and of the punishment to come: 'Woe, woe upon the evildoing of the unjust who scorn me! Hear this, king, if you would live—else my sword will pierce through you!'

Frederick was not the only powerbroker to be challenged by Hildegard. She also admonished the archbishop of Mainz, predicting his imminent fall (her prophecy here, as was often the case, came true: Heinrich was soon deposed and exiled).¹⁵ Certain as she was that she was speaking for God, she did not euphemize no matter how powerful the antagonist. It is perhaps surprising that as a woman she could criticize her antagonists so unreservedly without fear of reprisal (not that this would have deterred her); her evident immunity arose at least in part from the fact of her visionary writings having been given the papal seal of approval, by Eugenius III, at the synod of Trier in 1147—he recognized her Scivias as being divinely inspired and encouraged her to continue recording her visions as they came to her.¹⁶

Hildegard was not one to let obstacles stand in the way of her iron will and passionate sense of purpose; so if circumstances did not favour her cause, she tried to ignore them. One of the most remarkable of her characteristics is what appears to be an effective imperviousness to the potent medieval tradition of antifeminism. The classical idea of woman as defective male was augmented by the Middle Ages' view of her as moral cripple: if Eve had not disobeyed, we would all still be in the Garden of Eden. Disobedience was Eve's worst sin, but only one of many. Her defective reason was passed along, with the result that all her daughters were also more prone to vice. Hildegard's French contemporary, Andreas the Chaplain, articulated a particularly comprehensive, and enthusiastic, view of female weakness:

according to the nature of [her] sex … every woman is by nature a miser, … she is also envious and a slanderer of other women, greedy, a slave to her belly, inconstant, fickle in her speech, disobedient and impatient of restraint, spotted with the sin of pride …, a liar, a drunkard, a babbler, no keeper of secrets, too much given to wantonness, prone to every evil, and never loving any man in her heart.¹⁷

Andreas was, of course, echoing ideas that had been promoted by the Church Fathers (whose works, incidentally, were read aloud at mealtimes in Benedictine houses). John Chrysostom's view—'the woman taught once, and ruined all … The sex is weak and fickle … The whole female race transgressed'—echoes Tertullian's question: 'Do you not know that you are Eve? … God's sentence still hangs over all your sex and his punishment weighs down upon you … '. Women were 'at once repulsive and fatally attractive': life the corner of the dress, observes Jerome, and you will find the tip of the tail. For men, perhaps the obvious solution was to avoid their corrupting presence entirely; for women, the only really safe virtue was chastity; such was their nature that if they actually tried to do anything, they could not help but sin.¹⁸

An exchange of letters between Hildegard and a Rhineland magistra shows how liberated Hildegard could be from this depressing idea of woman's baseness. She had been chided by a fellow administrator, Tenxwind of Andernach, for allowing her nuns to dress up on holidays: not only did they don white gowns and veils, but they adorned their heads with tiaras. In justifying her policy, Hildegard (who was not given to admitting that she was wrong) argued that as virgins, her sisters were untainted by the Fall; retaining 'the simplicity and beautiful integrity of paradise', they were permitted 'bridal splendour'.¹⁹ (Scivias portrays a chorus of virgins similarly 'adorned with gold and gems. Some of these had their heads veiled in white, adorned with a gold circlet', signifying that 'they all shine before God more brightly than the sun does on earth; … and so are adorned beautifully with the highest wisdom'.)²⁰

Hildegard's imagery, if not her policy, is in this case comfortably traditional, as the use of the explicitly nuptial metaphor to describe the relationship between the virgin soul and Christ went back at least as far as the third century.²¹ Hildegard is ultimately drawing upon the triumphant description of the New Jerusalem as found in the Revelation of St John the Divine (VII, 4 ff.; XIV, 1 ff.), by implication placing her sisters in the blessed, white-robed company which accompanies the Lamb in the heavenly city. And this is the same image that was to be so beautifully elaborated two centuries later by the fourteenth-century Pearl-poet at the culmination of his vision, when the bereaved dreamer sees his lost daughter amongst the heavenly company:

This noble city of rich emprise
Had suddenly a full array
Of virgins all in the same guise
As did my blessed one display,
And all were crowned in the same way,
Adorned in pearl and raiment white.

Þ noble cite of ryche enpresse
WatƷ sodaynly ful wythouten sommoun
Of such vergyneƷ in þe same gyse
Þ watƷ my blysful anvnder croun
& coronde wern alle of þe same fasoun
Depaynt in perleƷ & wedeƷ qwyte …)²²

Hildegard might be said to have taken liberties with the apocalyptic material in several ways: however imminent she may have thought it to be, the day of judgement had yet to arrive; her sisters were still very much alive and well; and the decision as to who will finally comprise the chosen company in the heavenly city was not hers to make. Yet it is difficult not to rejoice in Hildegard's courageous defiance of the gloomy, antifeminist tradition by which she was surrounded. Her view of her community of women was confident, proud, joyful: they were a splendid company, worthy to honour God on the special holy days with their beauty rather than their penitence; they were not so morally fragile that the donning of lovely garments as an expression of love for their Creator would tempt them to vanity.

In many other ways Hildegard projects a rare confidence in women's power; there is no sense that she equates strength in women with danger, nor does she see a powerful 'good' woman as a second-best man. Her visionary treatises are peopled—even sustained— by majestic female figures. Synagogue, for example, is 'mother of the incarnation of the Word of God', a tall woman who carries in her lap and arms the Old Testament prophets—'in her heart stood Abraham and in her breast Moses'.²³ Ecclesia, wearing a gem-studded dress and sandals of onyx, gazes heavenward with a radiant face. The 'puella' Caritas, Hildegard's representation of heavenly love, with golden sandals and 'a cloak whiter than snow, brighter than the stars', embraces the sun and the moon.²⁴

Hildegard's confidence in women's potential for positive power made her community, even at the Disibodenberg, a uniquely exciting place for religious women to be. As her reputation spread, she attracted more followers; the growing ranks, along with the longing for a fuller independence, seemed to point to expansion. Then in 1148 she received a heavenly command to undertake this move, and establish an independent convent at Rupertsberg, near Bingen.²⁵ The Benedictine enshrinement of obedience might have been a major obstacle at this point, for as the abbot was God's representative, utter obedience was owed him; and when Hildegard made this proposal to Kuno, her abbot, he rejected it categorically. The presence of Hildegard and her group at the Disibodenberg was desirable for a number of reasons (not the least of which were her fame and the nun's dowries), and, further, he felt that the proposed location was unpromising (evidently the site was arid and deserted). On learning that Kuno opposed her decision, Hildegard's response was hardly that of the docile handmaid: she assumed a rock-like rigidity from which she could not be moved, and lay 'tanquam saxea rupes'—like a rock made of stone—until the stymied abbot finally surrendered and granted her permission.

However much divine aid Hildegard may have received in achieving this state of petrification—she describes herself as having been struck down as with an illness—it is to be assumed that her own fierce will was also a considerable asset. She was sure she would be following God's command in making the move, and this certainty overrode Kuno's temporal authority. She saw herself as comparable to Moses leading his people towards the promised land; when Kuno resisted her efforts, she did not hesitate to compare him and his followers to the wicked Amalekites, foes of the Israelites in the desert and 'from generation to generation' thereafter (Exodus, XVII, 8-16). The move to Rupertsberg, when it finally took place in 1150, was felicitous; the convent expanded to include some fifty women—it even had running water!—and was enriched by the decision of various wealthy families to bury their dead within its grounds. Its success was such that Hildegard susequently set up a second house across the river at Eibingen to which she regularly travelled by boat.

Generally we have no information as to Hildegard's private friendships, but she did have a 'favourite' nun, Richardis von Stade, who seems to have been a sort of personal secretary, and to whom she was particularly attached. However, through the influence of Richardis' brother, the archbishop Hartwig, her friend was offered a prestigious position as abbess at another convent. Hildegard, believing that Richardis' motivation for accepting promotion was based on ambition, tried every means to dissuade her. In her correspondence with Hartwig she was more than liberal with her insults, comparing him to the proud Nebuchadnezzar— punished by God for his presumption by being driven mad—and a 'simoniac', one of that despised species of sinners who traded in ecclesiastical offices, and who were consigned by Dante to the eighth circle of hell. She even appealed to Pope Eugenius in her attempt to block the appointment. But neither insult nor entreaty sufficed to keep her friend with her. Richardis departed; and although she eventually regretted her decision, she became ill before she was able to rejoin Hildegard, and died in 1152. This sad loss is an isolated instance of the failure of Hildegard's will, but she was able to accept it because of her belief that God needed Richardis more than she did; and she even wrote an eloquent letter of consolation to Hartwig.²⁶

A final episode, more than 25 years later, shows Hildegard (by now an octogenarian) still in full possession of her great courage and independence. She had agreed to allow a nobleman to be buried in the convent cemetery, which was in itself hardly unusual; the catch was that he was generally thought to have died excommunicate. However, Hildegard knew that he had been given the last rites before his death, and had herself received a divine command to permit the burial. Her superiors ordered that the body be exhumed; Hildegard's response was to make the sign of the cross over the grave with her staff, and obscure the outline of the grave so that no one would be able to disturb it. As punishment for this defiance, the entire community was excommunicated. This was a terrible privation, as mass could not be performed nor communion taken; perhaps most painful of all for the sisters was the prohibition against singing. At length Hildegard appealed to a higher ecclesiastical authority, who arranged for the interdict to be lifted. The stalemate was thus resolved, but not because of Hildegard's capitulation; again, as God's agent, she evidently did not consider this to be an option—nothing 'would let her conscience be crushed by clerical legalism'.²⁷

These characteristic anecdotes have to do with Hildegard's active life as an administrator, which was certainly of major importance to her. But far more vital was her inner spiritual existence, the sphere of her visionary life. As we know, she had been subject to intense spiritual experiences from earliest childhood; uncertain as to their significance, worried that others would think her abnormal or presumptuous, she kept them largely to herself. However, shortly after she was elected abbess, in 1140, 'when I was forty-two years and seven months old', a dramatic change occurred. As she reports in Scivias, 'a fiery light of exceeding brilliance came and permeated my whole brain, and inflamed my whole heart and my whole breast, not like a burning but like a warming flame, as the sun warms anything its rays touch'; a celestial voice instructed her to 'say and write what you see and hear … as you see and hear them on high in the heavenly places in the wonders of God.'²⁸ Hildegard says that, subsequently, she had the power to understand the meaning of 'the psaltery, … the evangelists and the volumes of the Old and New Testament'.

From this point on, although she continues to refer to herself as 'paupercula feminea forma'—a poor little figure of a woman—Hildegard's actions seem to indicate that her self-doubt has been dispelled to a significant degree. She now sees herself as the mouthpiece of God, and her role in the process of salvation—for as much of the world as she can manage to reach—is proportionately evident. Despite this new confidence, and an abiding desire to have things her own way, Hildegard's concern is never for herself: whether she is writing hymns, or books on medicine, or mystical treatises, her aim is always to share with those around her, to enhance their spiritual elevation; her generosity is prodigious.

Hildegard's transcendence of self-doubt may have been facilitated by the acquisition of a new model, the prophetic Old Testament figure of Sapientia: 'The wisdom that grants discernment is crying aloud … There she stands, on some high vantage-point by the public way … or at the city's approach … making proclamation. To every man, high and low, her voice calls: Here is better counsel for the simpleton; O foolish hearts, take warning! I have matters of high moment to unfold … A tongue that speaks truth, lips that scorn impiety; here all is sound doctrine' (Proverbs VIII, 1-8). Such an identification is what we would by now expect: Hildegard selects for emulation an impressive, active figure of authority—one who avers that 'the Lord made me his when first he went about his work, … before his creation began' (Proverbs VIII, 22)—as the most effective means, herself, of becoming God's adjutant and working his will. Another important biblical figure with whom she identifies—undeterred by sexual difference—is St John the Divine, who was similarly commanded to 'Write down thy vision of what now is, and what must befall thereafter' (Revelation, I, 19).… Hildegard's use of apocalyptic imagery in her writings is pervasive; indeed, her kind of prophetic work has been said to be 'largely founded on the Apcalypse.'²⁹

After hearing the command of the celestial voice, her obligation to write was imperative. As Hildegard was insistent that her words, as they came directly from God, not be altered at all, she was fortunate in finding a scribe, Volmar, who faithfully recorded every detail of her account, and who stayed with her throughout most of her life. In an illustration from the Book of Divine Works, Volmar can be seen in the act of transcription, as Hildegard receives her divine inspiration. Hildegard seems to be recording her revelation directly onto a set of wax tablets; from these Volmar may later have made his permanent copy. Any temptation to attribute a measure of Hildegard's eloquence to Volmar's intervention is dispelled by a letter that she composed after his death, which shows the sophistication of what must be her own prose style: 'she uses rhetoric, figures of speech, complex and fluent sentences with ease'.³⁰

Notes

1. See Peter Dronke, Women Writers of the Middle Ages (Cambridge, 1984), pp. 144-201; Hildegard of Bingen, Book of Divine Works with Letters and Songs, ed, Matthew Fox, (Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1987), pp. ix-xix; Rufus Jones, The Flowering of Mysticism (1939, repr. New York, 1971), pp. 43-44.
2. For the Vita and letters see Hildegardis abbatissae Opera omnia in Patrologiae cursus completus, Ser. Latina 197, 91-140, ed. J.-P. Migne (Paris, 1882).
3. C. Singer (From Magic to Science, New York, 1958) and O. Sacks (Migraine: Understanding a Common Disorder, Berkeley, 1985) explore the connection between Hildegard's afflictions and migraine headaches.
4. For discussions of Hildegard's life see, in addition to Dronke (op. cit.), Lena Eckenstein, Women Under Monasticism (Cambridge, 1896), Dom Philibert Schmitz, Histoire de l'Ordre de Saint-Benoît, 'Les Moniales', tome VII (Maredsous, 1956), Kent Kraft's essay in Medieval Women Writers, ed. Katharina M. Wilson (Athens, Georgia, 1984), Sister of Wisdom: St. Hildegard's Theology of the Feminine, Barbara Newman (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1987), Fox's introduction in Book of Divine Works (op. cit.).
5. Lowrie J. Daly, Benedictine Monasticism, Its Formation and Development Through the 12th Century (New York, 1965), p. 196. For further information on the Benedictine monastic tradition, see also Cuthbert Butler, Benedictine Monachism, 2nd ed. (London, 1924), Schmitz (op. cit.), The Rule of St. Benedict, trans. and intro. by Cardinal Gasquet (New York, 1966), The Rule of St. Benedict, ed. Timothy Fry, O.S.B. (Collegeville, Minnesota, 1980).
6. Schmitz (op. cit.), tome VII, p. 235. See also Jane Tibbetts Schulenburg, 'Strict Active Enclosure and its Effects on the Female Monastic Experience', in Distant Echoes, ed. J.A. Nichols and L. T. Shank (Kalamazoo, Michigan, 1984).
7. See Gasquet (op. cit). This model was based on the ideal set down in the Acts of the Apostles (IV, 31ff.): 'And when they had prayed … they were all filled with the Holy Ghost … And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul; … they had all things in common'.
8. According to Schmitz (op. cit.), tome VII, p. 271, 'la miniature' was widely practised in the German houses, 'notamment … à l'entourage de Hildegard'.
9. Praised both for its brevity and its broadness of vision, Benedict's Rule has been described as the 'most complete and masterful synthesis of monastic tradition' (Fry, op. cit., p. 90).
10. R. W. Southern, The Making of the Middle Ages (New Haven and London, 1961), p. 185.
11. See Southern (op. cit.), p. 226 and ff.
12. See, for example, Joseph R. Strayer, Western Europe in the Middle Ages (New York, 1955), pp. 91 ff., and (op. cit.), passim.
13. See Josef Fleckenstein, trans. Bernard S. Smith, Early Medieval Germany (New York, 1978), pp. 190 ff.; cf. also J.B. Gillingham, The Kingdom of Germany in the High Middle Ages (900-1200) (London, 1971), and Alfred Haverkamp, trans. H. Braun and R. Mortimer, Medieval Germany (1056-1273) (London, 1990).
14. Eckenstein (op. cit.), pp. 256 ff.
15. Eckenstein, Dronke and others discuss this incident. Hildegard's reputation as a prophet led to her being nicknamed 'the Rhenish sybil', and lasted into the sixteenth century. She would regularly be cited, along with famous prophetic figures such as the Sybils, St Bridget, Joachim, and Gamaleon, when true authority was sought, or when a particular judgment (e.g. for or against a particular ruler) was desired (see Marjorie Reeves, The Influence of Prophecy in the Later Middle Ages, Oxford, 1969).
16. St Bernard, with whom Hildegard corresponded, had been similarly impressed, and himself asked that she pray for him and his community: 'Wherefore I entreat and humbly pray that you would make remembrance of me before God and of those who are joined with me in spiritual society. I trust that you are united to God in the Spirit'. (Life and Works of St. Bernard, ed. Dom John Mabillon, vol. 2, p. 915).
17. Andreas Capellanus, The Art of Courtly Love, trans. John Jay Parry (New York, 1969), p. 201.
18. See O'Faolain and Martines (op. cit.), pp. 129 ff. for the Chrysostom and Tertullian quotes. For a discussion of St Jerome and the ideal of chastity see Ann McMillan's introduction to her translation of the Legend of Good Women (Houston, Texas, 1987); also Eileen Power's 'The Position of Women' in The Legacy of the Middle Ages (ed. G.C. Crump and E.F. Jacob, Oxford, 1926, pp. 401 ff.), in which she discusses the growth of the parallel ideas of woman as temptress, and of chastity as the definition of female virtue and honour.
19. Dronke (op. cit.), p. 166. Hildegard was also criticized by Tenxwind for her exclusion of non-noble women from her convent. She defended her position with citations from the Old Testament and by upholding the traditional type of the 'noble saint'. Thus Tenxwind and Hildegard held opposing views of God: the former's 'pauper Christus' vs. Hildegard's 'rex potentissimus … to whom one owes dread and honour' (see Haverkamp, op. cit., p. 191).
20. Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias, II, 5, 7, p. 205; The Classics of Western Spirituality Series, trans. Mother Columba Hart and Jane Bishop, with an introduction by Barbara Newman (New York and Mahwah, 1990); cf. also scivias, trans. Bruce Hozeski (Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1986). The complex role of virginity in the Christian tradition is well analyzed by John Bugge in Virginitas: An Essay on the History of a Medieval Idea (The Hague, 1975): humans were meant by nature to be asexual—this was their prelapsarian condition. Sexuality was the result of the Fall, before which life in Eden was comparable to that of angels; virginity could represent, and was an attempt to recreate, the angelic life on earth. Thus the souls of virgins, whether male or female, could be seen as belonging to a higher rank than others, however virtuous those others may have been. See also Newman (op. cit.), pp. 221-2.
21. See Bugge (op. cit.), pp. 61 ff., who notes that as early as the fourth century the rite of consecration for Christian female virgins was similar to the nuptial ceremony.
22. The Pearl, trans. Sara de Ford (Northbrook, Illinois, 1967), p. 93. It should be pointed out that the gender of St John's apocalyptic company is not specified, while that of the Pearl-poet seems undeniably feminine. As the figure of Christ came, in the course of the Middle Ages, to be seen in more explicitly human terms, the nuptial image of the Bride/soul's union with him-as-Bridegroom tended to be applied more narrowly to female virgins (see Bugge, op. cit., p. 66).
23. Scivias (Hart and Bishop), I, 5, p. 133.
24. See Dronke (op. cit.), pp. 170 ff.; he notes that Hildegard was 'the first of the women mystics to personify love as a beautiful woman'.
25. See Hildegard's Vita (op. cit.) PL 197.96b-97a. Cf. Kent Kraft, in Wilson (op. cit.), pp. 110-11, and Dronke (op. cit.), pp. 150 ff.
26. See Dronke (op. cit.), pp. 150 ff. and Newman (op. cit.), pp. 222 ff.
27. Dronke here compares Hildegard's resolution to that of Antigone, defying the unjust decree of Creon. He also quotes her directly on the question of whether she should bow to the ecclesiastical authorities: 'I saw in my soul that if we followed their command and exposed the corpse, such an expulsion would threaten our home with great danger, like a vast blackness—it would envelop like a dark cloud that looms before tempests and thunderstorms … [We did not want to] seem to injure Christ's sacraments …, yet, so as not to be wholly disobedient, we have till now ceased singing the songs of divine praise, in accordance with the interdict, and have abstained from partaking of the body of the Lord' (op. cit.), pp. 195 ff.
28. Scivias (Hart and Bishop), 'Declaration', pp. 59-61; also Eckenstein (op. cit.), p. 264.
29. Eckenstein (op. cit.), p. 260.
30. Dronke (op. cit.), p. 195.