English: Eibingen Abbey, Germany,
where Saint Hildegarde von Bingen is buried.
Deutsch: Benediktinerinnenkloster Eibingen.
Photo: 8 October 2006.
Source: Own work.
Author: Moguntiner
(Wikimedia Commons)
Hildegarde von Bingen (1098 – 17 September 1179), also known as Saint Hildegarde and The Sibyl of The Rhine, was a German Benedictine Abbess and Polymath, active as a writer, composer, philosopher, mystic, visionary, and as a medical writer and practitioner during the High Middle Ages.[1][2]
She is one of the best-known composers of Sacred Monophony, as well as the most recorded in modern history.[3]
Hildegarde’s convent at Disibodenberg elected her as Magistra (Mother Superior) in 1136. She Founded the Monasteries of Rupertsberg in 1150 and Eibingen in 1165.
Hildegarde’s convent at Disibodenberg elected her as Magistra (Mother Superior) in 1136. She Founded the Monasteries of Rupertsberg in 1150 and Eibingen in 1165.
“Canticles Of Ecstasy”.
Composed by: Hildegarde von Bingen.
Sung by: Sequentia.
Available on YouTube
Hildegarde wrote theological, botanical, and medicinal works,[5] as well as Letters, Hymns, and Antiphons for the Liturgy.[2]
She wrote poems, and supervised miniature illuminations in the Rupertsberg Manuscript of her first work, Scivias.[6]
There are more surviving chants by Hildegarde than by any other composer from the entire Middle Ages, and she is one of the few known composers to have written both the music and the words.[7]
Abbey of Saint Hildegarde,
Rüdesheim-Eibingen, Germany.
Date: November 2010.
Photo Credit: Gregor Kollmorgen.
Illustration: NEW LITURGICAL MOVEMENT
One of her works, the Ordo Virtutum, is an early example of Liturgical drama and arguably the oldest surviving Morality Play.[a] She is noted for the invention of a constructed language known as Lingua Ignota.
Although the history of her formal Canonisation is complicated, Regional Calendars of the Roman Catholic Church have listed her as a Saint for Centuries.
On 10 May 2012, Pope Benedict XVI extended the Liturgical cult of Hildegarde to the entire Catholic Church in a process known as “Equivalent Canonisation”.
“11,000 Virgins. Chants For The Feast Of Saint Ursula”.
Composed by: Hildegarde von Bingen.
Sung by: Anonymous4.
Available on YouTube
Hildegarde was born around 1098. Her parents were Mechtild of Merxheim-Nahet and Hildebert of Bermersheim, a family of the free lower nobility in the service of the Count Meginhard of Sponheim.[9]
Sickly from birth, Hildegarde is traditionally considered their youngest and tenth child,[10] although there are records of only seven older siblings.[11][12] In her “Vita” [Editor: “story of her life”], Hildegarde states that from a very young age she experienced visions.[13]
The Nave, Abbey of Saint Hildegarde,
Rüdesheim-Eibingen, Germany.
Date: November 2010.
Photo Credit: Gregor Kollmorgen.
Illustration: NEW LITURGICAL MOVEMENT
From early childhood, long before she undertook her public mission or even her Monastic Vows, Hildegarde’s Spiritual awareness was grounded in what she called the “Umbra Viventis Lucis”, “the reflection of the Living Light”. Her letter to Guibert of Gembloux, which she wrote at the age of seventy-seven, describes her experience of this light:
“From my early childhood, before my bones, nerves, and veins were fully strengthened, I have always seen this vision in my Soul, even to the present time when I am more than seventy years old.
“In this vision, my Soul, as God would have it, rises up high into the vault of Heaven and into the changing sky and spreads itself out among different peoples, although they are far away from me in distant lands and places.
Hymns and Songs (12th-Century).
Composed by: Hildegarde von Bingen.
Sung by: Ensemble Vocatrix.
Available on YouTube
“And because I see them this way in my Soul, I observe them in accord with the shifting of clouds and other created things. I do not hear them with my outward ears, nor do I perceive them by the thoughts of my own heart or by any combination of my five senses, but in my Soul, alone, while my outward eyes are open.
“So, I have never fallen prey to ecstasy in the visions, but I see them wide awake, day and night. And I am constantly fettered by sickness, and often in the grip of pain so intense that it threatens to kill me, but God has sustained me until now.
“The light which I see thus is not spatial, but it is far, far brighter than a cloud which carries the sun. I can measure neither height, nor length, nor breadth in it; and I call it “the reflection of the Living Light.”
Abbey of Saint Hildegarde,
Rüdesheim-Eibingen, Germany.
Date: November 2010.
Photo Credit: Gregor Kollmorgen.
Illustration: NEW LITURGICAL MOVEMENT
“And, as the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars, appear in water, so writings, sermons, virtues, and certain human actions take form for me and gleam”.[14]
Perhaps, because of Hildegarde’s visions, or as a method of political positioning, or both, Hildegarde’s parents offered her as an Oblate to the Benedictine Monastery at Disibodenberg, which had been recently reformed in the Palatinate Forest.
The date of Hildegarde’s Enclosure at the Monastery is the subject of debate. Her “Vita” says she was eight years old when she was Professed with Jutta, who was the daughter of Count Stephan II of Sponheim and about six years older than Hildegarde.[15]
The Nave, Abbey of Saint Hildegarde,
Rüdesheim-Eibingen, Germany.
Date: November 2010.
Photo Credit: Gregor Kollmorgen.
Illustration: NEW LITURGICAL MOVEMENT
Today, the Catholic Parish and Pilgrimage Church of Saint Hildegarde, rebuilt between 1932 and 1935 after a fire, and incorporating earlier stylistic elements, stands on the foundations of the former Monastery Founded by
Hildegarde of Bingen in 1165.
The Church houses Hildegarde’s Shrine, with the
Relics of Saint Hildegarde von Bingen. Every year on
17 September, the Feast Day of Saint Hildegarde, large numbers of Pilgrims flock to Eibingen to participate in
the procession of Relics in honour of the Saint.
However, Jutta’s date of Enclosure is known to have been in 1112, when Hildegarde would have been fourteen.[16]
Their Vows were received by Bishop Otto of Bamberg on All Saints’ Day 1112. Some scholars speculate that Hildegarde was placed in the care of Jutta at the age of eight, and that the two of them were then Enclosed together six years later.[17]
Their Vows were received by Bishop Otto of Bamberg on All Saints’ Day 1112. Some scholars speculate that Hildegarde was placed in the care of Jutta at the age of eight, and that the two of them were then Enclosed together six years later.[17]
The following Text is from “The Liturgical Year”.
By: Abbot Guéranger, O.S.B.
Volume 14.
Time After Pentecost.
Book V.
At Bingen, in the Diocese of Mayence (Mainz), Germany, Saint Hildegarde, Virgin. Let us salute the “Great Prophetess of The New Testament”.
What Saint Bernard’s influence over his contemporaries was in the first half of the 12th-Century, that in the second half of the 12th-Century was Hildegarde’s, when the humble Virgin became the oracle of Popes and Emperors, of Princes and Prelates.
Multitudes from far and near flocked to Mount Saint Rupert, where the doubts of ordinary life were solved, and the questions of doctors answered.
At length, by God’s command, Hildegarde went forth from her Monastery to administer to all alike, Monks, Clerics, and Laymen, the word of correction and salvation.
The Spirit indeed breatheth where He will [Saint John iii. 8]. To the massy [Editor: Massive. Gargantuan] pillars that support His Royal Palace, God preferred the poor little feather floating in the air, and blown about, at His pleasure, hither and thither in the light [Hildegarde. Epist. ad Eugenium Pontificem].
In spite of labours, sicknesses, and trials, the holy Abbess lived to the advanced age of eighty-two, “in the shadow of the living light”.
Her precious Relics are now at Eibingen Abbey, Germany. The writings handed down to us from the pen of this illiterate Virgin, are a series of sublime visions, embracing the whole range of contemporary science, physical and theological, from the creation of the World to its final consummation.
May Hildegarde von Bingen deign to send us an interpreter of her works, and an historian of her life, such as they merit !
PRAYER.
O, God, Who didst adorn Thy Blessed Virgin, Hildegarde, with Heavenly gifts; grant, we beseech Thee, that walking in her footsteps, and according to her teachings, we may deserve to pass from the darkness of this World into thy lovely light.
Through Our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Who lives
and reigns with Thee in the union of The Holy Ghost,
One God, World without end.
Amen.
