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Child
Gifted | Education | Visions
| Migration | Music &
Interdiction | Sainthood
At a time when few
women wrote, Hildegard produced major works of theology and visionary
writings. She is the first composer whose biography is known. She composed
77 songs, including an "opera" or morality play set to music
which was far ahead of its time. She left over 70 poems and nine books
and when few women were accorded respect, she was consulted by and advised
bishops, popes, and kings. She used the curative powers of natural objects
for healing, and wrote treatises about natural history and the medicinal
uses of plants, animals, trees and stones. She founded two vibrant convents,
where her musical plays were performed and although not yet canonized,
Hildegard has been beatified, and is frequently referred to as Saint
Hildegard.
Child
Gifted
Hildegard was born 800 years ago (the summer of 1098) in the Rhineland
valley of Germany. Hildegard, daughter of a German knight attached to
the castle of Bickenheim, was the 10th child (a tithe) in the family.
As was customary with the tenth child, whom the family could not count
on feeding, she was dedicated at birth to the church. The girl started
to have visions of luminous objects at the age of three, but soon realized
she was unique in this ability and hid this gift for many years.
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Anchoress
Education
At age 8, the family sent Hildegard to an anchoress named Jutta to receive
a religious education (Benedictine traditions included music, spinning,
biblical history prayer and work). Jutta, who was born into a wealthy
and prominent family, and by all accounts was a young woman of great
beauty, spurned all worldly temptations and decided to dedicate her
life to god. Instead of entering a convent, Jutta followed a harsher
route and became an anchoress. Anchors led an ascetic life, shut off
from the world inside a small room, usually built adjacent to a church
so that they could follow the services, with only a small window acting
as their link to the rest of humanity. Food would be passed through
this window and refuse taken out. Most of the time would be spent in
prayer, contemplation, or solitary hand working activities, like stitching
and embroidering. Hildegard's education was of the most rudimentary
form, and she could never escape the feelings of inadequacy and lack
of education. She learned to read Psalter in Latin. Though her grasp
of the grammatical intricacies of the language was never complete -
she always had secretaries to help her write down her visions - she
had a good intuitive feel for the intricacies of the language itself,
constructing complicated sentences fraught with meanings on many levels,
that are still a challenge to students of her writings. The proximity
of the anchorage to the church of the Benedictine monastery at Disibode
(it was attached physically to the church) undoubtedly exposed young
Hildegard to musical religious services and were the basis for her own
musical compositions. After Jutta's death, when Hildegard was 38 years
of age, she was elected the head of the budding convent, but continued
to live in her anchorage.
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Visions
During all these years Hildegard confided of her visions only to Jutta
and another monk, named Volmar, who was to become her lifelong secretary.
However, in 1141, a vision of God gave Hildegard instant understanding
of the meaning of the religious texts. He commanded her to write down
everything she would observe in her visions.
"And it came to pass ... when I was 42 years and 7 months old,
that the heavens were opened and a blinding light of exceptional brilliance
flowed through my entire brain. And so it kindled my whole heart and
breast like a flame, not burning but warming... and suddenly I understood
of the meaning of expositions of the books..." Yet Hildegard
was also overwhelmed by feelings of inadequacy and hesitated to act.
"But although I heard and saw these things, because of doubt
and low opinion of myself and because of diverse sayings of men, I refused
for a long time a call to write, not out of stubbornness but out of
humility, until weighed down by a scourge of god, I fell onto a bed
of sickness."
The 12th century was also
the time of schisms and religious foment, when someone preaching any
outlandish doctrine could instantly attract a large following. Hildegard
was critical of schismatics, and preached against them her whole life,
working especially against the Cathars. She wanted her visions to be
sanctioned, approved by the Catholic Church, though she herself never
doubted the divine origins to her luminous visions. She wrote to Saint
Bernard who took the matter to Pope Eugenius who exhorted Hildegard
to finish her writings. With papal imprimatur, Hildegard finished her
first visionary work Scivias (" Know the Ways of the Lord ")
and her fame began to spread through Germany and beyond.
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Migration
to St. Rupert
Hildegard's sisterhood grew too large for the cramped quarters of Mt.
St. Disibode, and despite the monks demands, in 1151 she took to Mt.
St. Rupert near Bingen and the Nahe River where she was raised. In the
new monastery she served as abbess and recognized only the archbishop
of Mainz as her superior, freeing her community from the control of
the former Abbott. Hildegard viewed this as a struggle in justice and
the strife between the communities was not settled until just before
her death 33 years later. She secured her communities protection of
the emperor and oversaw the construction of the new monastery, which
featured plumbing that piped in water. Hildegard's new monastery grew
to about 50 sisters, as did her creativity. Her monastery was known
for the sisters’ exceptional gifts in music, singing and painting.
In 1165, she founded another monastery across the river. It consisted
of about 30 sisters, whom she visited each week. Hildegard spent the
rest of her days presiding over the monasteries, writing and preaching
to clergy, laity, monks, nuns and ecclesial officials all over the land
She focused on the corruption of the church and was often asked for
texts of her sermons. In her mid-seventies she journeyed to Tours and
then to Paris and had outlived her secretary Volmar.
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Music
& Interdiction
Hildegard knew about the power of music and it's spiritual connection.
In her 80's when she and her sisters had been interdicted for burying
an excommunicated youth, she wrote a letter admonishing the archbishop.
She said that he had silenced the most wonderful music on the Rhine.
She spoke about how all the prophets wrote music and need music, but
that music is now silenced on the Rhine. Those who choose to silence
music in this lifetime will go to a place where they will be "without
the company of the angelic song of praises on heaven." The interdict
was later removed before Hildegard's death on September 17, 1179. In
a letter written to her sisters near her death Hildegard wrote, "I
pray my voice may never fall into forgetfulness among you; may it rather
be heard often in your midst in love."
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Sainthood
Hildegard was never formally canonized (although 3 attempts were made).
From the 15th century her name was included in the Martyrologies and
in Acta Sanctorum under the title of Saint. In 1979, Pope John Paul
II referred to her as "an outstanding saint, a light to her people
and her time who shines out more brightly today." |
HILDEGARD'S
VISIONS
"And it came to pass ... when I was 42 years and 7 months old,
that the heavens were opened and a blinding light of exceptional brilliance
flowed through my entire brain. And so it kindled my whole heart and
breast like a flame, not burning but warming... and suddenly I understood
of the meaning of expositions of the books..."
"But
although I heard and saw these things, because of doubt and low opinion
of myself and because of diverse sayings of men, I refused for a long
time a call to write, not out of stubbornness but out of humility, until
weighed down by a scourge of god, I fell onto a bed of sickness."
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