Notre Dame de Rouen. The façade of the Gothic Church in France. Photographer: Hippo1947. Licence: SHUTTERSTOCK.

Tuesday 31 July 2012

Hildegard von Bingen (Part Five)


Text and Illustrations from Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia,
unless otherwise accredited.




Benediktinerinnenkloster Eibingen
(Eibingen Abbey)
Author: Moguntiner
Photo: October 2006.


Eibingen Abbey (in German, Abtei St. Hildegard, full name, Benedictine Abbey of St. Hildegard) is a community of Benedictine nuns in Eibingen, near Rüdesheim, in Hesse, Germany.

The original community was founded in 1165 by Hildegard von Bingen. It was dissolved at the beginning of the 19th-Century during the secularisation of this part of Germany.

The present community was established by Charles, 6th Prince of Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg in 1904 and re-settled from St. Gabriel's Abbey, Bertholdstein. The nunnery belongs to the Beuronese Congregation within the Benedictine Confederation.

In 1941, the nuns were expelled by the Nazis; they were not able to return until 1945.



Abtei St. Hildegard in Eibingen,
Ortsteil von Rüdesheim am Rhein.
Innenansicht der Abteikirche.
Interior of the Abbey Church of Eibingen.
Author: Haffitt.
Photo: May 2012.
From: Wikimedia Commons.


In 1988, the sisters founded Marienrode Priory at Hildesheim, which became independent of Eibingen Abbey in 1998.

The nuns work in the vineyard and in the craft workshops, besides undertaking the traditional duties of hospitality. They can be heard (but not seen) singing their regular services.

The abbey is a Rhine Gorge World Heritage Site. The church has been used for concerts of the Rheingau Musik Festival, such as a "BachTrompetenGala" with Edgar Krapp, organ.



Eibingen Abbey: A Benedictine Abbey, full of the contemplative life.


It is claimed by some that it is likely Hildegard learned simple Latin, and the tenets of the Christian faith, but was not instructed in the Seven Liberal Arts, which formed the basis of all education for the learned classes in the Middle Ages: the Trivium of grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric, plus the Quadrivium of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music.

The correspondence she kept with the outside world, both spiritual and social, transgressed the Cloister as a space of female confinement, and served to document Hildegard’s grand style and strict formatting of mediaeval letter writing.

Contributing to Christian European rhetorical traditions, Hildegard “authorised herself as a theologian” through alternative rhetorical arts. Hildegard was creative in her interpretation of theology. She believed that her monastery should not allow novices who were from a different class than nobility because it put them in an inferior position. She also stated that ‘woman may be made from man, but no man can be made without a woman.'


PART SIX FOLLOWS


Saturday 28 July 2012

Peterborough Cathedral (Part Four)


Text and illustrations from Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia
unless otherwise annotated.






Cloisters, Peterborough Cathedral. 
A view across what remains of the cloisters, largely destroyed during the Civil War, with the South side of the Cathedral behind.
Author: Derek Harper
Photo: December 2007.
Taken from Wikimedia Commons.



The Cathedral was vandalised during the English Civil War, in 1643, by Parliamentarian troops. As was common at the time, almost all the stained glass and the Medieval Choir Stalls were destroyed, and the High Altar and reredos were demolished, as were the cloisters and Lady Chapel. All the monuments and memorials of the Cathedral were also damaged or destroyed.



King Henry VIII's wife, Katharine of Aragon, was buried here in 1536, as was Mary, Queen of Scots, in 1587.
Mary was later removed to Westminster Abbey.
Author: Dave Hitchborne
Photo: April 2004.
From Wikimedia Commons.




The Choir of The Cathedral Church of St Peter, St Paul and St Andrew, Peterborough.
Author: Dave Hitchborne
Photo: April 2004.
From Wikimedia Commons.



Some of the damage was repaired during the 17th- and 18th-Centuries. In 1883, extensive restoration work began, with the interior pillars, the Choir and the West Front being completely rebuilt under the supervision of John Loughborough Pearson, and new hand-carved Choir Stalls, Cathedra (Bishop's Throne), Choir Pulpit and the marble pavement and High Altar being added. A stepped level of battlements was removed from the Central Tower, reducing its height, slightly.

In the early evening of 22 November 2001, the Cathedral was hit by a fire, thought to have been started deliberately amongst plastic chairs stored in the North Choir Aisle. Fortunately, the fire was spotted by one of the vergers, allowing a swift response by emergency services.




Peterborough Cathedral: Looking from the Nave to the High Altar.
Author: Dave Hitchborne
Photo: April 2004.
From Wikimedia Commons.



The High Altar.
Author: Dave Hitchborne
Photo: April 2004.
From Wikimedia Commons.



The timing was particularly unfortunate, as a complete restoration of the painted wooden ceiling was nearing completion. The oily smoke given off by the plastic chairs was particularly damaging, coating much of the building with a sticky black layer. 



Fan vaulting in the ambulatory at Peterborough Cathedral.
Author: NotFromUtrecht
Photo: March 2010.
From Wikimedia Commons.



The seat of the fire was close to the organ and the combination of direct damage from the fire, and the water used to extinguish it, necessitated a full-scale rebuild of the instrument, putting it out of action for several years.

An extensive programme of repairs to the West Front began in July 2006 and has cost in excess of half a million pounds. This work is concentrated around the statues located in niches, which have been so badly affected by years of pollution and weathering that, in some cases, they have only stayed intact thanks to iron bars inserted through them from the head to the body. This enabled people to "sponsor" a stone.


THIS CONCLUDES THE ARTICLE ON PETERBOROUGH CATHEDRAL


Hildegard von Bingen (Part Four)


Text and Illustrations from Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia, 
unless otherwise accredited.





Die wahre Dreiheit in der wahren Einheit
(The true Trinity in the true Unity)
(circa 1165)



In addition to the Ordo Virtutum, Hildegard composed many liturgical songs that were collected into a cycle called the Symphonia armoniae celestium revelationum. The songs from the Symphonia are set to Hildegard’s own text and range from antiphons, hymns, and sequences, to responsories.

Her music is described as monophonic; that is, consisting of exactly one melodic line.Hildegard's compositional style is characterised by soaring melodies, often well outside of the normal range of chant at the time.

Additionally, scholars such as Margot Fassler and Marianna Richert Pfau describe Hildegard's music as highly melismatic, often with recurrent melodic units, and also note her close attention to the relationship between music and text, which was a rare occurrence in monastic chant of the 12th-Century.

Hildegard of Bingen’s songs are left open for rhythmic interpretation because of the use of neumes without a staff. The reverence for the Virgin Mary, reflected in music, shows how deeply influenced and inspired Hildegard of Bingen and her community were by the Virgin Mary and the saints.




German 10 DM commemorative coin
issued by the Federal Republic of Germany (1998)
designed by Carl Vezerfi-Clemm
on the 900th anniversary of Hildegard of Bingen's birth



The definition of viriditas or ‘greenness’ is an earthly expression of "the heavenly" in an integrity that overcomes dualisms. This ‘greenness’ or power of life appears frequently in Hildegard’s works.

Recent scholars have asserted that Hildegard made a close association between music and the female body in her musical compositions. The poetry and music of Hildegard’s Symphonia is concerned with the anatomy of female desire, thus described as Sapphonic, or pertaining to Sappho, connecting her to a history of female rhetoricians.

Mysticism

In addition to her music, Hildegard also wrote three books of visions, the first of which, her Scivias ("Know the Way"), was completed in 1151. Liber vitae meritorum ("Book of Life's Merits" or "Book of the Rewards of Life") and Liber divinorum operum ("Book of Divine Works", also known as De operatione Dei, "On God's Activity") followed. In these volumes, the last of which was completed when she was about 75, Hildegard first describes each vision, then interprets them through Biblical exegesis.

The narrative of her visions was richly decorated, under her direction, with transcription assistance provided by the monk, Volmar, and nun, Richardis. The book was celebrated in the Middle Ages, in part because of the approval given to it by Pope Eugenius III, and was later printed in Paris in 1513.





Hildegard von Bingen's alphabet "Litterae ignotae"


Herbal medicine

Hildegard also wrote Physica, a text on the natural sciences, as well as Causae et Curae. Hildegard of Bingen was well known for her healing powers, involving practical application of tinctures, herbs, and precious stones. In both texts, Hildegard describes the natural world around her, including the cosmos, animals, plants, stones, and minerals.

She combined these elements with a theological notion ultimately derived from Genesis: all things put on Earth are for the use of humans. She is particularly interested in the healing properties of plants, animals, and stones, though she also questions God's effect on man's health. One example of her healing powers was curing the blind with the use of Rhine water.

Alphabet

Hildegard also invented an alternative alphabet. The text of her writing and compositions reveals Hildegard's use of this form of modified mediaeval Latin, encompassing many invented, conflated and abridged words.  Due to her inventions of words for her lyrics and a constructed script, many conlangers look upon her as a mediaeval precursor. Scholars believe that Hildegard used her Lingua Ignota to increase solidarity among her nuns.


PART FIVE FOLLOWS


Thursday 26 July 2012

The Fourteen Auxiliary Saints.


Text is taken from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal.
Illustrations are taken from Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia.



Saint Christopher, 
one of the Fourteen Auxiliary Saints, 
(Feast Day 25 July)
Saint Christopher Carrying the Christ Child, 
by Hieronymus Bosch (c. 1485)


The name of "Auxiliary Saints" is given to a group of fourteen Saints particularly noted for the efficacy of their intercession. They were often represented together.


Saint George
Feast Day 23 April
Is to be recognised in statuary and pictures by the dragon he strikes down. He is invoked against herpetic diseases. He is, with Saint Sebastian and Saint Maurice, the Patron Saint of soldiers.

Saint Blaise
Feast Day 3 February
Is to be recognised in statuary and pictures by his two candles, crossed. He is invoked against diseases of the throat.

Saint Erasmus
Feast Day 2 June
Is to be recognised in statuary and pictures by entrails wound around a windlass. He is invoked against diseases of the stomach. He is the Patron Saint of mariners and seamen.

Saint Pantaleon
Feast Day 27 July
Is to be recognised in statuary and pictures by his nailed hands. Invoked against consumption. He is, with Saint Luke and Saints Cosmas and Damian, the Patron Saint of medical men.



Detail of Saint Giles and the Hind,
by the Master of Saint Giles, circa 1500 A.D.


Saint Vitus (or Guy)
Feast Day 15 June
Is to be recognised in statuary and pictures by his cross. Invoked against chorea (Saint Vitus's Dance), lethargy and the bite of venomous or mad beasts.

Saint Christopher
Feast Day 25 July
Is to be recognised in statuary and pictures by the Infant Jesus he bears. He is invoked in storms, tempests, plagues,, and for the avoidance of accidents in travelling. Also, in the Blessing of motor cars.

Saint Denis
Feast Day 9 October
Is to be recognised in statuary and pictures by his head, which he holds in his hands. Invoked for people possessed of devils.

Saint Cyriacus
Feast Day 8 August
Is to be recognised in statuary and pictures by his Deacon's Vestments. Invoked against diseases of the eye and diabolical possession.

Saint Acathius
Feast Day 8 May
Is to be recognised in statuary and pictures by his crown of thorns. Invoked against headaches.

Saint Eustace
Feast Day 20 September
Is to be recognised in statuary and pictures by his stag and hunting equipment. Invoked for preservation from fire (eternal or temporal).



Saint Barbara shrines in German mines.
Schacht Konrad mine (left) 
and Schacht Asse II mine (right).


Saint Giles
Feast Day 1 September
Is to be recognised in statuary and pictures by his Benedictine cowl and his hind. Invoked against panic, epilepsy, madness, nocturnal terrors.

Saint Margaret
Feast Day 20 July
Is to be recognised in statuary and pictures by the dragon she keeps in chains. Invoked against pains in the loins and by women about to become mothers.

Saint Barbara
Feast Day 4 December
Is to be recognised in statuary and pictures by her tower and the ciborium surmounted by a Sacred Host. Invoked against lightnings and sudden death. Patron Saint of miners and artillery soldiers.

Saint Catharine
Feast Day 25 November
Is to be recognised in statuary and pictures by her broken wheel. "The wise Counsellor" is invoked by students, Christian philosophers, orators and barristers.


Wednesday 25 July 2012

Peterborough Cathedral (Part Three)


Text and illustrations from Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia
unless otherwise annotated.






Henry VIII, after Hans Holbein the Younger, 

Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool.
King Henry VIII ordered the Dissolution of the Monasteries,
which ended the life of Peterborough Abbey 
and instigated the life of Peterborough Cathedral.


Monastic life

From the Mid-12th-Century monk, Hugh Candidus, we have a detailed record of the contents of the Abbey's reliquaries , which included two pieces of swaddling clothes which wrapped the baby Jesus, pieces of Jesus' manger, a part of the five loaves which fed the 5,000, a piece of the raiment of St Mary, a piece of Aaron's rod, and relics of St Peter, St Paul and St Andrew - to whom the church is dedicated.

Most famous, however, was the supposed arm of St Oswald, which disappeared from its chapel, probably during the Reformation, despite a watch-tower having been built for monks to guard its reliquary, and various contact relics of Thomas Becket, brought from Canterbury in a special reliquary by its Prior, Benedict (who had witnessed Becket's assassination), when he was 'promoted' to Abbot of Peterborough.

All of these created an aura of great importance around what is today Peterborough Cathedral, making it at the zenith of its wealth, just before the Reformation, the sixth largest monastery in England in terms of income, with 120 monks and departments including an Almoner, an Infirmarian, a Sacristan and a Cellarer.





Signature of King Henry VIII.
Harbinger of doom for many Abbeys and Monasteries.


Tudor

In 1541, following Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries, the relics were lost, but the Church survived by not being sold off and, instead, being selected as the Cathedral of the new Diocese of Peterborough. This may have been related to the fact that Henry's former queen, Katherine of Aragon, had been buried there in 1536.

Her grave can still be seen and is nowadays honoured by visitors and often decorated with flowers and pomegranates (her symbol). It carries the legend "Katharine, Queen of England", a title she was denied at the time of her death.

In 1587, the body of Mary, Queen of Scots, was also buried here after her execution at nearby Fotheringhay Castle, but it was later removed to Westminster Abbey on the orders of her son, King James I of England.





Coat of Arms of King Henry VIII
Author: Sodacan
August 2010
From Wikimedia Commons


PART FOUR FOLLOWS


Sunday 22 July 2012

Peterborough Cathedral (Part Two)



Text and illustrations from Wikipedia -the free encyclopedia,
unless otherwise attributed.




The Nave.
Photo taken by Kev747, 
March 2007.


This newer Church had as its major focal point a substantial Western tower with a "Rhenish Helm" and was largely constructed of ashlar. Only a small section of the foundations of the Saxon Church remain beneath the South Transept, but there are several significant artefacts, including Saxon carvings such as the 'Hedda Stone', from the earlier building.

In 2008, Anglo-Saxon grave markers were reported to have been found by workmen repairing a wall in the cathedral precincts. The grave markers are said to date to the 11th-Century, and probably belonged to "townsfolk".

Norman and Mediaeval architectural evolution

Although damaged during the struggle between the Norman invaders and local folk-hero, Hereward the Wake, the Cathedral was repaired and continued to thrive until destroyed by an accidental fire in 1116. This event necessitated the building of a new Church in the Norman style, begun by Abbot John de Sais in 1118 (Old Style). By 1193, the building was completed to the Western end of the Nave, including the Central Tower and the decorated wooden ceiling of the Nave. The ceiling, completed between 1230 and 1250, still survives. It is unique in Britain and one of only four such ceilings in the whole of Europe. It has been over-painted twice, once in 1745, then in 1834, but still retains the character and style of the original. (The painted nave ceiling of Ely Cathedral, by contrast, is entirely a Victorian creation.)





Robert Grosseteste (Bishop of Lincoln) 
consecrated Peterborough Cathedral in 1238.


The Cathedral is largely built of Barnack limestone, from quarries on its own land, and it was paid annually for access to these quarries by the builders of Ely Cathedral and Ramsey Abbey in thousands of eels (e.g., 4,000 eels each year for Ramsey). Cathedral historians believe that part of the placing of the Church is due to the easy ability to transfer quarried stones by river, and then to the existing site, allowing it to grow without being relocated.

Then, after completing the Western Transept and adding the Great West Front Portico in 1237, the Mediaeval masons switched over to the new Gothic style. Apart from changes to the windows, the insertion of a porch to support the free-standing pillars of the portico and the addition of a ‘new’ building at the East end, around the beginning of the 16th-Century, the structure of the building remains essentially as it was on completion almost 800 years ago. The completed building was consecrated in 1238 by Robert Grosseteste, Bishop of Lincoln, within whose diocese it then fell.

The trio of arches forming the Great West Front, the defining image of Peterborough Cathedral, is unrivalled in Mediaeval architecture. The line of spires behind it, topping an unprecedented four towers, evolved for more practical reasons. Chief amongst them was the wish to retain the earlier Norman towers, which became obsolete when the Gothic front was added. Instead of being demolished and replaced with new stretches of wall, these old towers were retained and embellished with cornices and other Gothic decor, while two new towers were added to create a continuous frontage.




Peterborough Cathedral, from the South-East.


The Norman tower was rebuilt in the Decorated Gothic style in about 1350-1380 (its main beams and roof bosses survive) with two tiers of Romanesque windows combined into a single set of Gothic windows, with the turreted cap and pinnacles removed and replaced by battlements.

Between 1496 and 1508, the Presbytery roof was replaced and the 'New Building', a rectangular building built around the end of the Norman Eastern apse, with Perpendicular fan vaulting (probably designed by John Wastell, the architect of King's College Chapel, Cambridge and the Bell Harry Tower at Canterbury Cathedral), was added.


PART THREE FOLLOWS


Hildegard von Bingen- O vis aeternitatis

Hildegard von Bingen (Part Three)


Text and Illustrations from Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia, unless otherwise accredited.




"Universal Man" illumination 
from Hildegard's Liber Divinorum Operum, 1165


Hildegard's Vita was begun by Godfrey of Disibodenberg, under Hildegard's supervision. It was between November 1147 and February 1148, at the Synod in Trier, that Pope Eugenus heard about Hildegard’s writings. It was from this that she received Papal approval to document her visions as revelations from the Holy Spirit, giving her instant credibility.

Before Hildegard’s death, a problem arose with the clergy of Mainz. A man buried in Rupertsburg had died after excommunication from the Church. Therefore, the clergy wanted to remove his body from the sacred ground. Hildegard did not accept this idea, replying that it was a sin and that the man had been reconciled to the Church at the time of his death.

On 17 September 1179, when Hildegard died, her Sisters claimed they saw two streams of light appear in the skies and cross over the room where she was dying.

Hildegard's musical, literary, and scientific writings are housed primarily in two manuscripts: the Dendermonde manuscript and the Riesencodex. The Dendermonde manuscript was copied under Hildegard's supervision at Rupertsberg, while the Riesencodex was copied in the century after Hildegard's death.





A Facsimile of the"Riesencodex"

(Hs.2 of the Hessische Landesbibliothek, Wiesbaden, fol. 466-481v)




Attention in recent decades to women of the Mediaeval Church has led to a great deal of popular interest in Hildegard, particularly her music. In addition to the Ordo Virtutum, sixty-nine musical compositions, each with its own original poetic text, survive, and at least four other texts are known, though their musical notation has been lost.

This is one of the largest repertoires among Mediaeval composers. Hildegard also wrote nearly 400 letters to correspondents ranging from Popes to Emperors to abbots and abbesses; two volumes of material on natural medicine and cures; an invented language called the Lingua ignota; various minor works, including a Gospel commentary and two works of hagiography; and three great volumes of visionary theology: Scivias, Liber vitae meritorum ("Book of Life's Merits" or "Book of the Rewards of Life"), and Liber divinorum operum ("Book of Divine Works").

One of her better known works, Ordo Virtutum (Play of the Virtues), is a morality play. It is unsure when some of Hildegard’s compositions were composed, though the Ordo Virtutum is thought to have been composed as early as 1151. 

The morality play consists of monophonic melodies for the Anima (human Soul) and 16 Virtues. There is also one speaking part for the Devil. Scholars assert that the role of the Devil would have been played by Volmar, while Hildegard's nuns would have played the parts of Anima and the Virtues.


PART FOUR FOLLOWS


Friday 20 July 2012

Peterborough Cathedral (Part One)


Text and illustrations from Wikipedia -the free encyclopedia,
unless otherwise attributed.





The West Front of Peterborough Cathedral
(Cathedral Church of St Peter, St Paul and St Andrew)
Photo taken March 2010 by NotFromUtrecht


Peterborough Cathedral, properly the Cathedral Church of St Peter, St Paul and St Andrew – also known as Saint Peter's Cathedral in the United Kingdom – is the seat of the Bishop of Peterborough, dedicated to Saint Peter, Saint Paul and Saint Andrew, whose statues look down from the three high gables of the famousWest Front.

Founded in the Anglo-Saxon period, the architecture is mainly Norman, following a re-building in the 
12th-Century. With Durham Cathedral and Ely Cathedral, it is one of the most important 12th-Century buildings in England to have remained largely intact, despite extensions and restoration.

Peterborough Cathedral is known for its imposing Early English Gothic West Front (façade) which, with its three enormous arches, is without architectural precedent and with no direct successor. The appearance is slightly asymmetrical, as one of the two towers that rise from behind the façade was never completed, but this is only visible from a distance, while the effect of the West Front upon entering the Cathedral Close is overwhelming.





Peterborough Cathedral - fan vaulting in the "new building".
Author: Steve Cadman from London, U.K. 
Taken July 2008.
(Wikimedia Commons) 


Anglo-Saxon origins

The original Church, known simply as "Medeshamstede", was founded in the reign of the Anglo-Saxon King Peada of the Middle Angles, in about 655 A.D., as one of the first centres of Christianity in Central England. The monastic settlement, with which the Church was associated, lasted at least until 870 A.D., when it was supposedly destroyed by Vikings.

In the mid-10th-Century monastic revival (in which, Churches at Ely and Ramsey were also re-founded), a Benedictine Abbey was created and endowed in 966 A.D., principally by Athelwold, Bishop of Winchester, from what remained of the earlier Church, with "a Basilica [Church] there furbished with suitable structures of halls, and enriched with surrounding lands" and more extensive buildings which saw the Aisle built out to the West, with a second Tower added.

The original Central Tower was, however, retained. It was dedicated to St Peter, and came to be called a burgh, hence the town, surrounding the Abbey, was eventually named Peter-burgh. The community was further revived in 972 A.D. by Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury.

PART TWO FOLLOWS


Wednesday 18 July 2012

Hildegard von Bingen (Part Two)


Text and Illustrations from Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia, unless otherwise accredited.




Mutterschaft aus dem Geiste und dem Wasser
(Motherhood from the Spirit and the Water), 1165

In any case, Hildegard and Jutta were enclosed at Disibodenberg in the Palatinate Forest in what is now Germany. Jutta was also a visionary and thus attracted many followers who came to visit her at the enclosure. Hildegard also tells us that Jutta taught her to read and write, but that she was unlearned and therefore incapable of teaching Hildegard Biblical interpretation.

Hildegard and Jutta most likely prayed, meditated, read scriptures, such as the psalter, and did some sort of handiwork during the hours of the Divine Office. This also might have been a time when Hildegard learned how to play the ten-stringed psaltery. Volmar, a frequent visitor, may have taught Hildegard simple psalm notation. The time she studied music could also have been the beginning of the compositions she would later create.

Upon Jutta's death in 1136, Hildegard was unanimously elected as "magistra" of the community by her fellow nuns. Abbot Kuno of Disibodenberg also asked Hildegard to be Prioress, which would be under his authority. Hildegard, however, wanted more independence for herself and her nuns and asked Abbot Kuno to allow them to move to Rupertsberg. This was to be a move towards poverty, from a stone complex that was well established to a temporary dwelling place. 

When the abbot declined Hildegard's proposition, Hildegard went over his head and received the approval of Archbishop Henry I of Mainz. Abbot Kuno did not relent, however, until Hildegard was stricken by an illness that kept her paralyzed and unable to move from her bed, an event that she attributed to God's unhappiness at her not following his orders to move her nuns to Rupertsberg. 




Hildegard von Bingen's alphabet "Litterae ignotae"


It was only when the Abbot himself could not move Hildegard that he decided to grant the nuns their own monastery. Hildegard and about twenty nuns moved to the Saint Rupertsberg monastery in 1150, where Volmar served as provost, as well as Hildegard's confessor and scribe. In 1165, Hildegard founded a second monastery for her nuns at Eibingen.

Visions

Hildegard says that she first saw "The Shade of the Living Light" at the age of three, and by the age of five she began to understand that she was experiencing visions. She used the term 'visio' to this feature of her experience, and recognized that it was a gift that she could not explain to others. Hildegard explained that she saw all things in the light of God through the five senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch.

She was hesitant to share her visions, confiding only to Jutta, who, in turn, told Volmar, Hildegard's tutor and, later, secretary. Throughout her life, she continued to have many visions, and in 1141, at the age of 42, Hildegard received a vision she believed to be an instruction from God, to "write down that which you see and hear." Still hesitant to record her visions, Hildegard became physically ill. The illustrations recorded in the book of Scivias were visions that Hildegard experienced, causing her great suffering and tribulations. In her first theological text, Scivias ("Know the Ways"), Hildegard describes her struggle within:

But I, though I saw and heard these things, refused to write for a long time through doubt and bad opinion and the diversity of human words, not with stubbornness but in the exercise of humility, until, laid low by the scourge of God, I fell upon a bed of sickness; then, compelled at last by many illnesses, and by the witness of a certain noble maiden of good conduct [the nun Richardis von Stade] and of that man whom I had secretly sought and found, as mentioned above, I set my hand to the writing.

While I was doing it, I sensed, as I mentioned before, the deep profundity of scriptural exposition; and, raising myself from illness by the strength I received, I brought this work to a close – though just barely – in ten years. [...] And I spoke and wrote these things not by the invention of my heart or that of any other person, but as by the secret mysteries of God I heard and received them in the heavenly places. And again I heard a voice from Heaven saying to me, 'Cry out therefore, and write thus!'



PART THREE FOLLOWS


Monday 16 July 2012

Commemoration of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel





The following text is taken from The Saint Andrew Daily Missal for 16 July, The Commemoration of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mount Carmel

Greater-Double
White Vestments

According to a pious tradition authorised by the Liturgy, on the day of Pentecost a number of men who walked in the footsteps of the holy prophets, Elias and Eliseus, and whom John the Baptist had prepared for the advent of Jesus, embraced the Christian faith, and erected the first Church to the Blessed Virgin on Mount Carmel, at the very spot where Elias had seen a cloud rise, a figure of the fecundity of the Mother of God (Lesson of Second Nocturn at Matins).

They were called: Brethren of Blessed Mary of Mount Carmel (Collect). These Religious came to Europe in the 13th-Century and, in 1245, Pope Innocent IV gave his approbation to their rule under the generalship of Simon Stock, an English Saint.

On 16 July 1251, Mary appeared to this fervent servant [Simon Stock] and placed in his hands the habit which was to be their distinctive sign. Pope Innocent IV blessed this habit and attached to it many privileges, not only for the members of the Order, but also for those who entered the Confraternity of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. By wearing the scapular, which is in smaller form than that of the Carmelite Fathers, they participate in all their merits and may hope to obtain through the Virgin a prompt delivery from Purgatory, if they have faithfully observed abstinence, chastity (according to their state), and said the Prayers prescribed by Pope John XXII, in the Sabbatine Bull, published on 3 March 1322.

The Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, at first celebrated only in the Churches of the Order, was extended to all Christendom by Pope Benedict XIII in 1726.

Saturday 14 July 2012

Solemn High Masses for the Feast of Our Lady Of Mount Carmel


This information has been provided by the Society of St. Hugh of Cluny.
Their Blog can be found at http://sthughofcluny.org/


For our American readers, please be aware that the following Churches in Newark, New Jersey, and Stamford, Connecticut, and New York, have scheduled Traditional Masses, to observe the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, on Sunday, 15 July 2012, Monday, 16 July 2012, and also Saturday, 21 July 2012.





Monday, 16 July 2012, at 7:30 p.m.

SOLEMN HIGH MASS FOR THE FEAST OF OUR LADY OF MOUNT CARMEL

Gregorian Chant with music by Victoria and Morales.

Light refreshments to follow in Parish Meeting Room

Church of Saint Gabriel, 914 Newfield Avenue, Stamford, Connecticut.



Sunday, 15 July 2012, and Monday, 16 July 2012, both at 12 noon

Solemn High Masses with Procession through the streets of the neighborhood with Italian Marching band.

Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church, 259 Oliver Street, Newark, NJ 07105.



Saturday, 21 July 2012, at 11 a.m.

Solemn High Mass at the Altar of the Pontifically Crowned Madonna.

Shrine Church of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, 449 East 115th Street, New York, New York.

Wednesday 11 July 2012

Cluny Abbey (Part Three)



Coat of Arms of Cluny Abbey: 
"Gules, two keys in saltire, the wards upwards and outwards, or. Overall, a sword in paleargent".

Text is from Wikipedia, the free encyclopaedia.

The Cluny library was one of the richest and most important in France and Europe. It was a storehouse of numerous very valuable manuscripts. During the religious conflicts of 1562, the Huguenots sacked the abbey, destroying or dispersing many of the manuscripts. Of those that were left, some were burned in 1790 by a rioting mob related to the excesses of the French Revolution. Others still were stored away in the Cluny town hall.

The French Government worked to relocate such treasures, including those that ended up in private hands. They are now held by the Bibliothèque nationale de France at Paris. The British Museum holds some sixty or so charters originating from Cluny.


The Consecration of Cluny III by Pope Urban II, 12th century (Bibliothèque Nationale de France).


In the fragmented and localized Europe of the 10th and 11th centuries, the Cluniac network extended its reforming influence far. Free of lay and episcopal interference, responsible only to the papacy, which was in a state of weakness and disorder with rival popes supported by competing nobles, Cluniac spirit was felt revitalizing the Norman church, reorganizing the royal French monastery at Fleury and inspiring St Dunstan in England. There were no official English Cluniac priories until that of Lewes in Sussex, founded by the Anglo-Norman earl William de Warenne c 1077. The best-preserved Cluniac houses in England are Castle Acre Priory, Norfolk, and Much Wenlock Priory, Shropshire. It is thought that there were only three Cluniac nunneries in England, one of them being Delapré Abbey at Northampton.

Until the reign of Henry VI, all Cluniac houses in England were French, governed by French priors and directly controlled from Cluny. Henry's act of raising the English priories to independent abbeys was a political gesture, a mark of England's nascent national consciousness.

The early Cluniac establishments had offered refuges from a disordered world but by the late 11th century, Cluniac piety permeated society. This is the period that achieved the final Christianization of the heartland of Europe.



Pope Callixtus II was elected at the papal election, 1119, at Cluny.


Well-born and educated Cluniac priors worked eagerly with local royal and aristocratic patrons of their houses, filled responsible positions in their chanceries and were appointed to bishoprics. Cluny spread the custom of veneration of the king as patron and support of the Church, and in turn the conduct of 11th-century kings, and their spiritual outlook, appeared to undergo a change. In England, Edward the Confessor was later canonized. In Germany, the penetration of Cluniac ideals was effected in concert with Henry III of the Salian dynasty, who had married a daughter of the duke of Aquitaine. Henry was infused with a sense of his sacramental role as a delegate of Christ in the temporal sphere. He had a spiritual and intellectual grounding for his leadership of the German church, which culminated in the pontificate of his kinsman, Pope Leo IX. The new pious outlook of lay leaders enabled the enforcement of the Truce of God movement to curb aristocratic violence.

Within his order, the Abbot of Cluny was free to assign any monk to any house; he created a fluid structure around a central authority that was to become a feature of the royal chanceries of England and of France, and of the bureaucracy of the great independent dukes, such as that of Burgundy. Cluny's highly centralized hierarchy was a training ground for Catholic prelates: four monks of Cluny became popesGregory VIIUrban IIPaschal II and Urban V.

An orderly succession of able and educated abbots, drawn from the highest aristocratic circles, led Cluny, and three were canonized: Saints Odo of Cluny, the second abbot (died 942); Hugh of Cluny, the sixth abbot (died 1109); and Odilo, the fifth abbot (died 1049). Odilo continued to reform other monasteries, but as Abbot of Cluny, he also exercised tighter control of the order's far-flung priories.


Cluny and the Gregorian reforms



A plan of the Abbey

Cluny was not known for its severity or asceticism, but the abbots of Cluny supported the revival of the papacy and the reforms of Pope Gregory VII. The Cluniac establishment found itself closely identified with the Papacy. In the early 12th century, the order lost momentum under poor government. It was subsequently revitalized under Abbot Peter the Venerable (died 1156), who brought lax priories back into line and returned to stricter discipline. Cluny reached its apogee of power and influence under Peter, as its monks became bishops, legates, and cardinals throughout France and the Holy Roman Empire. But by the time Peter died, newer and more austere orders such as the Cistercians were generating the next wave of ecclesiastical reform.

Outside monastic structures, the rise of English and French nationalism created a climate unfavourable to the existence of monasteries autocratically ruled by a head residing in Burgundy. The Papal Schism of 1378 to 1409 further divided loyalties: France recognizing a Pope at Avignon and England one at Rome, interfered with the relations between Cluny and its dependent houses. Under the strain, some English houses, such as Lenton PrioryNottingham, were naturalized (Lenton in 1392) and no longer regarded as alien priories, weakening the Cluniac structure.

By the time of the French Revolution, the monks were so thoroughly identified with the Ancien Régime that the order was suppressed in France in 1790 and the monastery at Cluny almost totally demolished in 1810. Later, it was sold and used as a quarry until 1823. Today, little more than one of the original eight towers remains of the whole monastery.




Pope Gregory VII was once a monk at Cluny


Modern excavations of the Abbey began in 1927 under the direction of Kenneth John Conant, American architectural historian of Harvard University, and continued (although not continuously) until 1950.

Decline and destruction of the buildings.

Starting from the 12th century, Cluny had serious financial problems, caused mainly by the construction of the third abbey. Charity given to the poor increased the expenditure. The influence of the abbey weakened gradually as other religious orders rose (Cistercians in the 12th, then Mendicants in the 13th century). Bad management of the grounds and unwillingness of the subsidiary companies to pay the annual taxable quota helped to lessen Cluny's revenue. Cluny raised loans and ended up being involved in debt to its creditors, who were merchants of Cluny or Jews of Mâcon.

The conflicts with the priories multiplied and the authority of the pope became heavier. To the 14th-Century, the Pope frequently named the abbots. The crises at the end of the Middle Ages and the wars of religion in the 16th-Century weakened the abbey a little more. The monks lived in luxury and there were not more than about 60 monks in the middle of the 15th-Century. With the Concordat of Bologna in 1516, overseen by Antoine Duprat, the king gained the power to appoint the abbot of Cluny.

The years following the French Revolution were fatal to all the monastic buildings and its church. In 1793, its  archives were burned and the church was delivered to plundering. The abbey estate was sold in 1798 for 2,140,000 francs. Until 1813, the abbey was used as a stone quarry to build houses in the town.

Today, there remain only the buildings built under the Old Mode as well as a small portion of Cluny III. Only the Southern Transept and its Bell-Tower still exist. The remaining structure represents less than 10% of the floor area of Cluny III, which was the largest Church of Christendom, until the construction of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome, five centuries later.

In 1928, the site was excavated and recognized by the American archaeologist Kenneth J. Conant with the backing of the Medieval Academy of America.


THIS CONCLUDES THE ARTICLE ON CLUNY ABBEY



Friday 6 July 2012

Hildegard von Bingen (Part One)


Text and Illustrations from Wikipedia - the free encyclopedia,
unless otherwise accredited.




Illumination from the Liber Scivias showing Hildegard receiving a vision
and dictating to her scribe and secretary


Saint Hildegard of Bingen, O.S.B. (German: Hildegard von Bingen; Latin: Hildegardis Bingensis) (1098 A.D. – 17 September 1179 A.D.), also known as Saint Hildegard, and Sibyl of the Rhine, was a German writer, composer, philosopher, Christian mystic, Benedictine abbess, visionary, and polymath. Elected a magistra by her fellow nuns in 1136, she founded the monasteries of Rupertsberg in 1150 and Eibingen in 1165. One of her works as a composer, the Ordo Virtutum, is an early example of liturgical drama and arguably the oldest surviving morality play.

She wrote theological, botanical and medicinal texts, as well as letters, liturgical songs, and poems, while supervising brilliant miniature Illuminations.

On 10 May 2012, Pope Benedict XVI extended the liturgical cult of Saint Hildegard to the universal Church, in a process known as "equivalent canonization". On 27 May 2012, the Pope announced that, on 7 October 2012, he will declare Saint Hildegard to be the 35th Doctor of the Church.




Eibingen Abbey was founded by Hildegard von Bingen in 1165.


Eibingen Abbey (in German, "Abtei St. Hildegard", full name, Benedictine Abbey of St. Hildegard) is a community of Benedictine nuns in Eibingen, near Rüdesheim, in Hesse, Germany.

The original community was founded in 1165 by Hildegard von Bingen. It was dissolved at the beginning of the 19th-Century during the secularisation of this part of Germany.

The present community was established by Charles, 6th Prince of Löwenstein-Wertheim-Rosenberg in 1904 and re-settled from St. Gabriel's Abbey, Bertholdstein. The nunnery belongs to the Beuronese Congregation within the Benedictine Confederation.

In 1941, the nuns were expelled by the Nazis; they were not able to return until 1945.

In 1988, the sisters founded Marienrode Priory at Hildesheim, which became independent of Eibingen in 1998.

The nuns work in the vineyard and in the craft workshops, besides undertaking the traditional duties of hospitality. They can be heard (but not seen) singing their regular services.

The Abbey is a Rhine Gorge World Heritage Site. The Church has been used for concerts of the Rheingau Musik Festival, such as a "Bach Trompeten Gala" with Edgar Krapp, organ.




Hildegard's date of birth is uncertain. It has been concluded that she may have been born in the year 1098. Hildegard was raised in a family of free nobles. She was her parents' tenth child, sickly from birth. In her Vita, Hildegard explains that from a very young age she had experienced visions.

Monastic life

Perhaps due to Hildegard's visions, or as a method of political positioning, Hildegard's parents, Hildebert and Mechthilde, offered her as an oblate to the Church. The date of Hildegard's "Enclosure in the Church" is contentious. Her Vita tells us she was enclosed with an older nun, Jutta, at the age of eight. However, Jutta's enclosure date is known to be in 1112, at which time Hildegard would have been fourteen. Some scholars speculate that Hildegard was placed in the care of Jutta, the daughter of Count Stephan II of Sponheim, at the age of eight, before the two women were enclosed together six years later. There is no written record of the twenty-four years of Hildegard's life that she was in the convent together with Jutta. It is possible that Hildegard could have been a chantress and a worker in the herbarium and infirmarium.


PART TWO FOLLOWS


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