Hildegard of Bingen: The Woman of Her AgeThe twelfth-century German abbess Hildegard of Bingen would have been remarkable in any age. Today, her growing reputation as a composer of religious music has overshadowed the astonishing variety of her accomplishments and her part in the scientific, cultural, and theological revolution of the pre-Renaissance, from religion and mysticism to medicine and sex. Scivias, her book of apocalyptic visions, with its extraordinary and compelling illustrations, would alone have been enough to endure her lasting fame. The story of Hildegard's life, from her entry into a monastery at Disibodenberg on the Rhine as a child, through the exploration of her pent-up genius in middle years, to her eventual admission to the German canon of saints, is here told against a rich background of the years of the Crusades, the flowering of monasticism, papal schism and heresy. The forceful character that emerges challenges any image of demurely subjugated womanhood associated with the period. Hildegard's story is as fascinating as that of any figure in the Middle Ages, and she and her musical legacy continue to be the subject of debate a thousand years later. |
Contents
CHAPTER | 10 |
CHAPTER | 16 |
CHAPTER THREE | 31 |
CHAPTER FOUR | 48 |
CHAPTER FIVE | 71 |
CHAPTER | 87 |
CHAPTER SEVEN | 103 |
CHAPTER EIGHT | 121 |
CHAPTER ELEVEN | 160 |
CHAPTER TWELVE | 184 |
CHAPTER THIRTEEN | 211 |
CHAPTER FIFTEEN | 236 |
Relighting the Flame | 251 |
1 | 273 |
Notes and Sources | 301 |
103 | 304 |
Common terms and phrases
abbess Abbot angel Archbishop of Mainz artist Baird and Ehrman Benedictine Bernard of Clairvaux Bishop blessed blood body canonisation Cathars Causae et Curae celebrated chant child Christ Christian Church Cistercian cloister colour Cuno daughter death depicts describes devil Disibod Disibodenberg Divine Office Eibingen Elisabeth eyes feast day flesh Frederick Barbarossa Gembloux German God's Guibert Hildegard Abbey Hildegard of Bingen holy human known later Latin letter Liber divinorum operum living Lord lust manuscript matter medieval menstruation Middle Ages modern monastic monks mother nuns Ordo Virtutum Patrologia Latina person physical Pope Pope Eugene III prayer priest religious remains Rhine Rhineland Richardis Rüdesheim Rupertsberg saints Scivias semen serpent sexual Silvas singing sisters songs soul spirit Sponheim St Hildegard suffering survives things tion tradition Trier twelfth century Virgin visionary visions Vita Jutta Volmar woman women words writing written wrote