I have been meaning to post about this remarkable woman for a long time, and her important place in music secular and sacred; but this weekend she was on my mind quite a bit. Remarkably, her "feast day" is celebrated on September 17, this Thursday, so this turned out to be a providentially good time to learn more about her!
Although she has never been formally canonized, Hildegard of Bingen (1098 - 1179) led a remarkable life and is considered a saint in her native land. Born the 10th child of an aristocratic family (and hence dedicated to God as a "tithe"), she was dedicated to the Church at birth. Usually too sick and weak to be educated at home, she nonetheless was sent away at the age of 8 to live with a holy woman, Jutta, an ascetic of great wisdom and beauty, whose cell was physically adjoined to the Benedictine monastary at Disibodenberg, Germany.
Here too, Hildegard received a limited education. Often bedridden and so ill that she was deprived of the use of her eyes, she was taught to read and to sing the Latin psalms sufficiently to chant the Divine Office, but never learned to write. Her lack of a formal education was a constant source of suffering to her, and until her death she suffered from terrible feelings of inadequacy.
Often left to herself because of her sickness, she developed an extraordinary interior life, trying to make use of everything for her own sanctification. From a very young age she was favored with visions. She says of herself,
"Up to my fifteenth year I saw much, and related some of the things seen to
others, who would inquired with astonishment, whence such things might
come. I also wondered and during my sickness I asked one of my nurses
whether she also saw similar things. When she said no, a great fear befell
me. Frequently, in my conversation, I would relate future things, which I
saw as if present, but, noting the amazement of my listeners, I became more
reticent." (Catholic Encyclopedia)
She confided her visions only to Jutta and to her spiritual director.
In the year 1116 she was invested in the habit of St. Benedict, and in the year 1136, upon the death of Jutta, she was appointed superior. She was 38 years old.
At the age of 42, during middle age (which gives many of us hope!), Hildegard had a vision that forever would change her life. The Spirit of God, she claimed, came and a "blinding light of exceptional brilliance" flowed through her entire brain. She suddenly understood the meaning of everything in all her books. She received a command interiorly to write and publish to the world what she saw and heard, but hesitated, not because of doubt of the Divine nature of the revelations but because of an overwhelming feeling of inadequacy:
"But although I heard and saw these things, because of doubt and low opinion of
myself and because of diverse sayings of men, I refused for a long time a call
to write, not out of stubbornness but out of humility, until weighed down by a
scourge of God, I fell onto a bed of sickness." (Fordham.edu)
Continually urged, rebuked and threatened by her interior voice, she finally confided all to her spiritual director. Immediately a monk was assigned to put everything she related into writing. The 12th century being a time of many different schisms, Hildegard was adament in insisting that everything she wrote be sanctioned and approved by the Church, although she herself never doubted the authenticity of her visions. She wrote to St. Bernard of Clairvoux to ask his blessing upon her work, who in turn brought her to the attention to Pope Eugenius (1145-53), who encouraged her to finish her writings and gave them the papal imprimatur. Her first work, Scivias (1151), contains 26 visions. She would go on to write even more, including a medical encyclopedia containing rich information about the medieval healing powers of various plants, scientific treatises, works of natural history, and about the lives of various saints.
Crowds of people flocked to hear her from all parts of Germany and Gaul, to hear her wisdom and advice in both corporal and spiritual matters. Not only to the common people did she give advice; some of the most important people of the time sought her counsel, and her correspondence is quite extensive. Quite a feat during this time of the Middle Ages, to be a woman, and of such importance!
Today Hildegard of Bingen is probably best known for her music. Her richly lyrical liturgical poetry, set to her own style of innovative monophonic chants, has been rediscovered in recent times and has grown with the resurgence of Gregorian chant. (Unfortunately, too, her music has recently been hijacked by misguided feminists and New Age music enthusiasts.) As an ill, bedridden child, the music of the adjoining Benedictine monastery floated into her cell morning, noon and night, and this contempletive monophonic chant was constantly part of her environment. They were of course the basis of her own compositions later.
Music was extremely important to Hildegard. She describes it as the means of recapturing the original joy and beauty of paradise. According to her before the Fall, Adam had a pure voice and joined angels in singing praises to god. After the fall, music was invented and musical instruments made in order to worship God appropriately. Perhaps this explains why her music most often sounds like what we imagine angels singing to be like.
