Hildegard reveals relatively little about her early life, other than that ever since the age of five, she had been gifted with ‘‘secret and wonderful visions,’’ which she had once spoken to a woman under whose care she had been placed (Jutta, daughter of the Count of Sponheim), but that by the age of fifteen she had learned not to speak about them, out of fear of what others might say ("Vita Hildegardis II.2). Having been offered to Disibodenberg as a child, she was formally enclosed as a recluse there in 1112, along with Jutta - who was six years older. According to the Life of Jutta, written soon after her death in 1136, Hildegard’s mentor was widely known as offering advice and healing, but who was committed to extremes of self-mortification (Silvas, 1999, 65-84). Only gradually did Hildegard move out of her shadow. She recalls that her life changed in 1141 with a mystical experience of ‘‘the living light’’ by which she claimed to understand the true meaning of the scriptures, of the Fathers (and also of some philosophers, she would later add) (Scivias, Prol.; Vita Hildegardis II.2). She was encouraged to record her insights by close friends, in particular by a monk called Volmar, and Richardis von Stade. She spent the next ten years working on Scivias, or ‘‘Know the Ways’’ (of the Lord). Yet, only after prolonged bouts of illness and after getting support from St. Bernard and Pope Eugenius III at the Council of Trier (1147/48), was she able to move with eighteen nuns to a new monastic site, at Rupertsberg, where she was officially the magistra with Volmar as provost, but operated as its abbess (Vita Hildegardis II.7). She quickly became widely recognized as a healer and visionary, consulted by bishops, monks, and simple layfolk. She engaged in extensive correspondence with contemporaries at the same time as composing many songs for the liturgy at Rupertsberg. At this abbey, she devoted herself to writing not just about the Church and Scripture, but about the healing properties of natural elements and creatures, psychological development, and the relationship of the natural world to the process of redemption.
Hildegard went on several preaching tours in Germany, and was particularly concerned by the growth of heretical groups that rejected the worldliness of the established Church. In the final year of her life, Hildegard and her nuns were excommunicated by the archbishop of Mainz, ostensibly for burying an excommunicated nobleman in their grounds. This prompted an impassioned defense of their right to sing the liturgy, and thus recreate the original voice of Adam in Paradise (Epist. 23). While this excommunication was lifted shortly before her death on September 17,1179, Hildegard’s devoted admirers never succeeded in getting her recognized by the papacy as a saint.
World History
