Hildegard of Bingen
From great warriors we come to an intellectual powerhouse, Saint Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179). She was the first woman in many fields, and the founder of natural history in Germany. A sickly child, at the age of 8 Hildegard was entrusted to the care of the Benedictine Monks of Disibodenberg. At 15, she decided to take orders herself, inspired by her tutor at the monastery, the mystic Jutta von Sponheim. Outwardly, Hildegard’s life was studious if unremarkable, but from a young age she had been receiving mystical visions, which she confided only to Jutta and a monk named Volmar.
At first, these had been visions of light, which she knew were sent from God even though she did not understand them. Then, at the age of 42, ‘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 [the Bible]’, as depicted above. She was told in her visions to write them down, 26 of which she described in her great work, the Scivias.
If Hildegard had been just a mystic, her life would be incredible enough, but she did far more than merely see visions of God. Hildegard was an undoubted polymath, even supervising the illustrations for the first manuscript of Scivias, such as the one above. She was an accomplished composer, 69 of whose works survive, each with an individual poetic text. The monophonic compositions span the genres of antiphons, hymns, and responsories. Incredibly, she also wrote an allegorical play, Ordo Virtutum (‘the order of the virtues’), complete with accompanying music, in her spare time whilst her abbey was being relocated.
Her scientific works were based not on divine revelation but her experience of treating sick nuns and tending the monastery garden. Additionally, she also gave detailed studies of animals, making her not just the mother of natural history in Germany but the very founder. Her works are also unique for their decidedly positive view of sexual relations, exhibiting none of the disgust usually found in medieval works on sex: ‘when a woman is making love with a man, a sense of heat in her brain, which brings with it sensual delight, communicates the taste of that delight during the act’.
She became magistra of the Disibodenberg nuns in 1136, upon Jutta’s death, turning down Abbot Kuno’s offer of becoming a prioress so as to be independent from him. When Kuno would not give her permission to move her growing convent to humbler quarters, she simply wrote to the Archbishop of Mainz. Bucking the trend for detached and subservient nuns, Hildegard also wrote personally to Henry II of England, Pope Eugenius III, and Emperor Frederick Barabarossa, to reprove them for their conduct and to advise them on their future behavior. The polymath Hildegard was a remarkable human, let alone woman.