Hildegard von Bingen

001 hildegard

Hildegard von Bingen

images

002 HildegardMap

karte-bingen-168281

Hildegard von Bingen composed hymns.

St Ignatius Church, University of California. San Francisco, California, USA

I first knew Hildegard von Bingen as a song creator because I sang Gregorian chant in St. Ignatius church in San Francisco.

zene_srednjivjek

200px-Hildegard_von_Bingen_Liber_Divinorum_Operum

nun

Hildegard was also a playwright whose lyrical drama Ordo Virtutum gave the nuns an opportunity to frolic in silk gowns and jewels.

1019Hildegardvo_00000000609

Hildegard was a scholar who amassed a library at a time when books were rare and difficult to obtain.

721bafc2a1a18d9e0a3f1f412485328d

She was science minded and was a practitioner of holistic medicine with advanced knowledge of herbal healing.

00238700_medium

Much of our knowledge about Hildegarde von Bingen is based on a biography written by two contemporary monks, Godefrid and Theodoric.

158161504_germany-100-milliarden-mark-bingen-hessen-1923-kreisamt-

917hildegarde12

The tenth child in a noble family, Hildegarde was placed under the care of a Catholic anchoress named Jutta, at the age of eight.

bambergfrom_greenspiritdotorgdotuk

karte

Jutta was a recluse who set up a Benedictine community just outside of Bingen.

Urlaubsland_Bingen

karte-bingen-am-rhein-168282

Benedictine nuns lived hermetic lives and spent most of their time alone in meditation.

bingen_hildegard_bueste

Influenced by Jutta’s devotional lifestyle, Hildegarde dedicated herself to the church.

coin

manhole

Although she claimed to have had supernatural visions as an infant, she hid her prophetic ability, revealing it only to Jutta, who died when Hildegarde was 38.

Columba

In 1136, Hildegarde assumed the role of Mother Superior of the convent.

DBP_1979_1018_Hildegard_von_Bingen

kreiskarte_by_artfive

In 1147, she moved the convent to Rupertsberg, a town near Bingen, as urged by one of her visions.

De_spiri

Although never formally educated and unable to write, Hildegarde quickly became a well-regarded authority and gave influential advice, relying on secretaries to transcribe her ideas onto paper.

german_song

She was an idolized visionary who earned a saint-like status and name, despite her lack of official beatification.

Meister_des_Hildegardis-Codex_001_cropped

Hildegarde herself created a drawing, or illumination, in her manuscript Scivias (Know the Ways), circa 1140–50, of her defining vision, in which the great span of the universe revealed itself to her in a trance as “round and shadowy…pointed at the top, like an egg…its outermost layer of a bright fire.”

hildegard_von_bingen

On 7 October 2012, Pope Benedict XVI  named Hildegard von Bingen a Doctor of the Church.

gr19

rhine-valley

Hildegard has become well known among feminist scholars.

Heilkunde

She called herself a member of the “weaker sex” and she severely judged other women.

HidegardvonBingen-01

Hildegard frequently referred to herself as an unlearned woman, completely incapable of Biblical exegesis.

hild1

Such a statement on her part, however, worked to her advantage because it made her statements that all of her writings and music came from visions of the Divine more believable.

Hildegard+von+Bingen+wf_fasten_hildegard_g1

Hildegard had the authority to speak in a time and place where few women were permitted a voice.

hildegard-music

Hildegard used her voice to condemn church practices she disagreed with, in particular simony, which is the act of selling church offices and roles.

1365355

The practice is named after Simon Magus, who is described in the Acts of the Apostles 8:9–24 as having offered two disciples of Jesus, Peter and John, payment in exchange for their empowering him to impart the power of the Holy Spirit to anyone on whom he would place his hands.

hildegard-of-bingen-1233233875-article-0

For some years now Hildegard has been an admired figure in the New Age movement, mostly due to her holistic and natural view of healing, as well as her status as a mystic.

hildegardvonbingen

It is quite probable that Hildegard von Bingen invented the morality play.

hildmusic

Hildegard’s musical compositions are the best-preserved body of work by any medieval composer, and her work is so completely original that it is a delight to sing.

Hildegard_Von_Bingen_1

coin

HvB

Her medical treatises and herbals rank with the most sophisticated works of her day.

physicas_22022008_001_s2_w980h550

She thought about and wrote about theology and cosmology, instructing the greatest minds of her day in the fine points of the composition of heavenly spheres, not to mention the relationship of the planets to both the human form and the divine.

800px-Kloster_Disibodenberg_02

 Viriditas, a central concept for Hildegard,  is Latin for the greening, “greening power” or “sustaining life force,” denoted God’s generative power that permeates and upholds all creation.
sth05001
The word  Viriditas is  used constantly in all of her works.
bingen-am-rhein
It has been suggested that the lushness of the imagery is possibly due to the lushness of her surroundings at Disibodenberg.
liber scivias6
“The viriditas of the earth and plants greatly thrive in the morning, because the air is cold and the sun is warm.  And the herbs very strongly suck viriditas, like a lamb who sucks milk, because the heat of the day is barely sufficient to…cook and fortify the day’s viriditas so far as it is made fertile for the producing of fruit.”
DSC01724
symphoniae_l
  • There is the Music of Heaven in all things and we have forgotten how to hear it until we sing.

st_hildegard_of_bingen

  • When the words come, they are merely empty shells without the music. They live as they are sung, for the words are the body and the music the spirit.
  • opulcrefaciesfacs
  • Every element has a sound, an original sound from the order of God; all those sounds unite like the harmony from harps and zithers.

rhine-river-map-with-castles

• The Word is living, being, spirit, all verdant greening, all creativity. This Word manifests itself in every creature.

Saint-Hildegard-of-Bingen-dvd-partial

Hildegard von Bingen wrote this in the twelth century of our era:

• Now in the people that were meant to be green there is no more life of any kind. There is only shriveled barrenness. The winds are burdened by the utterly awful stink of evil, selfish goings-on. Thunderstorms menace. The air belches out the filthy uncleanliness of the peoples. The earth should not be injured! The earth must not be destroyed!

Sam singing alone Hildegard

Sam Andrew

________________________________________________________________