
Hildegard of Bingen
saint
Saint Hildegard of Bingen is a 12th century woman who disrupts our thinking about apron-clad females from the middle ages.
Hildegard refused to let society dictate her intellectual and spiritual passions. She penned groundbreaking works on natural health, believing that we came from the earth, therefore we must use the earth to heal. She composed soaring hymns and rich chants that are still performed + recorded today. She made many contributions to religion, the arts and science.
In 2012, Pope Benedict XVI named Hildegard a Doctor of the Church ~ a Catholic holy title held by only 4 women.
seeing | visions captured through her written work Scivias ("Know the Ways of the Lord")
composing | chants and hymns
holistic healing | four elements {fire, air, water, earth} and four humours {bile, phlegm, blood, melancholy}
advising | bishops + popes + kings
sainthood | in the Catholic religion
1112 | took vows as a Benedictine nun
1141 | began recording her visions at age 42
2012 | posthumously named Doctor of the Church {one of only 4 women} by Pope Benedict XVI
from | to
likely migraine sufferer | mystic, visionary and a prophet known for many "firsts"
born on
September 16, 1098
~ born into a noble family ~
born in
Bermersheim von de Höhe, Germany
birth name
Hildegard
also known as
Sybil of the Rhine
Hildegard von Bingen
daughter of
Hildebert of Bermersheim
Mechtild of Merxheim-Nahet
~ a knight ~
sister of
9 older siblings
~ the youngest of 10, at the age of eight, she was offered to God and the Church {called a tithe} by her family ~
grew up in
Disibodenberg Monastery, Palatinate Forest, Germany
studied with | influenced by | worked alongside
Jutta von Sponheim
~ religious teacher + confidant ~
Volmar
~ monk + confidant ~
advocate for
feminist theology
died on
September 17, 1179
~ Rupertsberg, Germany ~
canonized
May 12, 2012
image credits
alterpiece at Rochuskapelle | Catholic News Service
collapse bio bits"When I was forty-two years and seven months old, Heaven was opened and 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."
Scivias | 1151
"Humanity, take a good look at yourself. Inside, you’ve got heaven and earth, and all of creation. You’re a world—everything is hidden in you."
Causes and Cures {quoted in Hildegard of Bingen: A Spiritual Reader} | 1150s
"The soul reveals her capabilities according to the capabilities of the body, so that in childhood she brings forth simplicity, in youth strength, and in fullness of age . . . she brings forth her greatest strength in wisdom."
Scivias | 1151
"A musical performance softens hard hearts, leads in the humor of reconciliation, and summons the Holy Spirit."
Scivias | 1151
"I, a mere female and fragile vessel, speak these things not from me but from a serene Light."
1152-1156 | 1152
"The person who can never be steadfast in behavior is quite formless and ever flooding like the sea."
Liber Divinorum Operum | 1174
"Those who draw off wisdom from God in the lifting up of their soul and account themselves as nothing become the columns of heaven."
to her secretary, the Belgian monk Guibert of Gembloux | 1175
"Some people who see visions blow their own horns with them, and pride ruins their lives. Others see visions but understand that their wisdom comes from God. I'm one of these. I'm human, and I know it."
to the Belgian monk Guibert {cited in "?Religion & Liberty," Hildegard von Bingen"} | 1175
for further reading about Hildegard of Bingen:
curated with care by Meghan Miller Brawley & Shelagh Bolger {april 2014 ~ updated june 2015}
Symphonia Armonie Celestium Revelationum
Perform Hildegard's music yourself with this page from the Riesencodex, a collection of Hildegard's work, which was compiled under her supervision between 1175 and 1190.
Phillip Legge | public domain
Foeniculum vulgare, Franz Eugen Köhler, Köhler's Medizinal-Pflanzen, 1897
Fennel was one of Hildegard of Bingen's favorite medicinal plants. She used it to alleviate everything from digestive ailments to respiratory disease to eye pain.
Franz Kohler | public domain
The Church, the Bride of Christ, and Mother of the Faithful in Baptism | Scivias, vol. 2
An illumination from Scivias, vol. 2, to accompany her seven visions on the order of redemption.
The Yorck Project | public domain
Vision of the Last Days
Illumination from the lost Rupertsberg manuscript, a copy of the Scivias that disappeared in Dresden in 1945. A facsimile was prepared by nuns between 1927 and 1933.
The International Center of Medieval Art
Hildegard of Bingen: Authorship and Stylometry
Who was responsible for Hildegard of Bingen's later work, her or her scribe? Although she kept a tight rein on her earlier scribes, she allowed her last secretary, Guibert of Gembloux, more freedom to edit her words. This documentary by Mike Kestemont of the University of Antwerp, Belgium, explores the relationship between the woman who spoke the words and the men who wrote them down.
Mike Kestemont | University of Antwerp | CC BY-NC-SA 3.0