March 27, 2021 • 24 mins
This 2016 episode examines a Christian mystic of medieval Europe who was way, way ahead of her time. If she had lived a few hundred years later, and been male, people probably would have called her a renaissance man.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Happy Saturday, everybody. Hildegard von Biggin gets a name drop
in one of this week's episodes, so we're pulling our
episode on her out of the archive. And after this
episode came out, we got a few emails from folks
who were surprised that we did not mention one particular
detail about Hildegarde, and that's going to be rectified in
the forthcoming episode. We also heard from folks whose background
(00:24):
is in music who were surprised that we did not
spend more time talking about her work as a composer.
There are a lot of recordings of her music online.
Googling something like Hildegard von being in music will take
you to just a wealth of results. And this episode
originally came out on March seven. Welcome to Stuff You
(00:47):
Missed in History Class, a production of I Heart Radio. Hello,
and welcome to the podcast I'm Crazy, but you will
sit and I'm Holly Frying. We are headed to medieval
Germany today to talk about a woman who was way,
way way ahead of her time. She was Hildegard of Bingen,
(01:10):
also known as Hildegard vomb Bingen and as symbol of
the rhyme so long time listeners as we tell the
story will probably notice some similarities between her and past
podcast subject Marjorie Kemp, who was another Christian mystic who
lived in medieval Europe. Back when we recorded that episode
about Marjorie Kemp, which was actually I think the first
(01:31):
episode that I researched for the show when Holly and
I came on, I really intended to do kind of
a mini mini series on women mystics in the medieval world,
because a lot of their lives are really super interesting
and listening to or learning about them can really dispel
some of the misconceptions that a lot of folks have
(01:51):
about the medieval world and about women's place specifically in
the medieval world. Right that was three years ago. Um
our recent episode on the history of the English language
got me thinking about the medieval world again, though, so
it seemed like a good time to come back and
revisit this, uh, this world of women in the church
(02:15):
in medieval Europe. Hildegarde was born in ten ninety eight
in Franconia, which is now a region in Germany. Her
parents for Hildebert and Mctilde. Hildebert was a lesser noble
and Hildegard was their tenth count them ten tenth child.
Her health was fragile, and as early as age three,
Hildegard was experiencing religious visions. While Hildegard was still very young,
(02:40):
her parents gave her to the church. According to some sources,
including my medieval literature professor, this was meant to be
part of her parents tithe. If you're not familiar with
that term, tithing is the practice of giving ten percent
of everything that you earn or produced to the church.
It's not totally clear whether Hildegarde, by her own account,
(03:01):
was only about eight years old when this, when she
entered religious instruction, had to say in the matter she
is technically one tenth of their produced children. I guess, yeah, well,
and it's one of those things where I don't think
there is a record of her parents saying this is
part of our tide. But the fact that she's reported
to be their tenth child and she then entered religious instruction,
(03:24):
and apparently tithing children was a thing that people did,
it all kind of comes together to be Hildeguard was
given to the church as part of her parents tie,
and the next few years of her life are a
little bit fuzzy as well. At some point she meant
another religiously inclined young woman, Utah von Sponheim, who was
(03:44):
about six years her senior. And Utah was also of
noble birth and of a little higher station than Hildegard.
Utah eventually became Hildegard's teacher and mentor. Eventually, Hildegard and
Utah wound up at the Benedictine monastery at Disappoteburg, which
is near the confluence of the Nea River and one
of its tributaries. This is about sixty miles or a
(04:06):
hundred kilometers southwest of Frankfurt, named after the seventh century
Irish monk Dissapod Dissid, Bodenberg had grown into a really
important center of religious life in the area, and it
had become home to a Benedicting monastery in eleven oh eight.
In eleven twelve, Utah was enclosed as an anchoress at
the monastery. Anchoresses were women who, for religious reasons, essentially
(04:31):
sealed themselves up in a very small cell for life.
Men who did this were called anchorites, although most people
who did it were women. Often and anchors was literally
walled in with a wall gradually being built around her.
That can had a small window that let food be
passed in and out, as well as a chamber pot,
and depending on the size and configuration of the cell,
(04:53):
it may have had additional windows as well to see
directly into the sanctuary if want to join the cell,
or just to let in light. Being an anchorus was
a lot like following the life of a religious hermit,
but instead of retreating to a remote place for a
life of solitude and prayer, an anchorus would be shut
into a wall of a comparatively populated place like a church,
(05:14):
a monastery, or occasionally a town. By the time Hildegard lived,
anchoresses had to get official permission from the church to
do this, and the ceremony for enclosing an anchorus had
a lot in common with the funeral, including the anchors
receiving last rites. Basically, the anchoress was leaving her worldly
life behind for one that was post exclusively on religious
(05:36):
devotion and study. The life of anchorites and anchoresses was
meant to be one devoted strictly to reflection, penance, study
and prayer. Most of the time, it was also a
lifelong commitment, although there were some who eventually left their cells,
and this a Bodenberg. Hildegard and a servant lived with
Utah in her hermitage. You two taught Hildegard Latin along
(06:00):
with the recitations and observations that were required as part
of their order. Hildegard's early musical education probably came from
Utah as well, and because Utah's hermitage was physically connected
to the monastery there, Hildegard would have also been immersed
in all of the spiritual and religious teachings and practices
that were conducted within it. Utah definitely took a more
(06:23):
ascetic and strict approach to her own spiritual life than
Hildegard did. Apart from committing to be an anchorous for life,
Utah also abstained from meat and periodically abstained from all
food entirely throughout her life. She continually increased the number
of hours a day she spent in study, penance, in prayer,
and she also practiced self flagellation as penance. Hildegard, while
(06:48):
not taking quite the same approach in terms of deprivation
and self flagellation, did interpret illnesses as a punishment from
God for not following his instructions, and that's actually a
belief that would continue throughout her life. Gradually, other young
noblewomen were sent to Utah to study as well, So
the Benedictine monastery became home to a community of nuns,
(07:09):
and from within her cell you two became its Magistra,
or its teacher and leader. When you two died in
eleven thirty six, at the age of forty four, she
and Hildegarde had been at des A Bodenberg for twenty
four years. At least eight other women had come to
the monastery to live and study with them, and Hildegarde,
who at that point was thirty eight, was elected to
(07:29):
take you to place as the Magistra. About three years
after you Ta's death, Hildegarde, whose visions had continued since
her childhood, had a particularly powerful experience in the form
of both a vision and a voice from the heavens.
In her record of it, the voice said to her, Oh,
fragile human ashes of ashes and filth of filth, say
(07:52):
and write what you see in here. But since you
are timid in speaking, and simple and expounding and untaught
in writing, spe and write these things, not via human mouth,
and not by the understanding of human invention, and not
by the requirements of human composition, but as you see
and hear them on high in the heavenly places, in
(08:13):
the wonders of God, explain these things in such a
way that the hearer, receiving the words of his instructor,
may expound them in those words according to that will,
vision and instruction. Thus, therefore, oh, humans, speak these things
that you see and hear and write them, not by
yourself or any other human being, but by the will
(08:34):
of Him who knows, sees, and disposes all things in
the secrets of his mysteries. Sort of, I'm going to
impart and dictate to you revelations that you're going to
write down exactly as you experience them, and in the
same experience. She also had a more revelatory experience, and
she wrote of that saying quote, immediately I knew the
(08:56):
meaning of the exposition of the scriptures, namely the Salter,
the Hospital, and other Catholic volumes of both the Old
and New Testaments, though I did not have the interpretation
of the words of their texts, or the division of
the syllables, or the knowledge of cases or tenses. At first,
Hildegard resisted this call. She didn't think she was up
(09:17):
to the task. She wasn't confident in her ability to
write or to speak. Soon, she became ill, something she
thought she brought on herself by not following God's command.
So eventually she embarked on just what the vision had
instructed her to do, and this would eventually turn her
into someone with a much broader influence than just the
religious community at Disabodinburg, which we'll talk about after a
(09:41):
sponsor break. For most of Hildegard's adult life, until she
reached her early forties, she had confided her visions and
only one person, which was utu Uh. Eventually, Uta had
(10:01):
told a monk named Balmar about the visions, and after
a time, Balmar basically became Hildegard's secretary and editor. She
would write her visions down on a wax tablet and
hand them off to Volmar, who would refine their spelling
and their grammar. Even though Hildegard was never confident in
her writing skills, her written works are actually full of
really complex ideas and thoughts. After the vision commanding her
(10:26):
to write down her visions. The Archbishop of Minds learned
about Hildegard's visions and prophecies, and he convened a group
of theologians to determine whether they were legitimate or heretical,
and ultimately they decided that her visions were authentic and
they allowed Volmar to officially help her with her work.
Hildegard really wanted this work to be taken seriously. This
(10:48):
is at a time when various friends groups were kind
of splintering off from the Catholic Church, and all kinds
of people with all kinds of teachings were attracting large followings.
Hildegard really didn't like this. She thought all of these
schisms and splinter groups were going to harm the church,
so she wrote to Saint Bernard of Clairvaux in the
hope of getting her team teachings officially sanctioned by the church.
(11:10):
He eventually brought her to the attention of Pope Eugenius
also known as Pope Eugene the Third, who encouraged her
to continue on with what she was doing, and in
eleven forty seven he gave her the authority to speak
in public and to write on theological matters, which was
extremely rare for a woman. Hildegard's first book finished following
(11:31):
this endorsement by the pope was called Skivius, taken from
the Latin phrase squito vias domini or no the ways
of the Lord. It was completed around eleven fifty one,
and it describes many of her visions and also offers
apocalyptic prophecies, and perhaps in reference to her own young life,
(11:51):
it records one vision that makes it quite clear that
parents may only give their child up for a holy
life with that child's informed consent. In some translations, that's
literally the title of that passage, like you may only
give up your child to the Lord with the child's
informed consent. At about the same time as she finished Skivous,
(12:14):
Hildegard also moved her community. She and the nuns left Disibodenberg.
They sell it in a cloister that had been built
for them near Bingen, which is where her name Hildegard
of Bingen eventually came from. This wasn't a particularly popular
decision at the monastery at Dissipbodenberg. There are a lot
of likely reasons for why Hildegard decided to do it.
(12:35):
One was that she was really dissatisfied with how the
Benedicting community at at Desimbodenberg had been living. She thought
their lifestyle was excessive, and she was really concerned that
schisms within and outside the community were going to tear
it apart. Another was that word of Hildegard's visions and
works had been spreading for a decade. At this point,
(12:55):
more and more noble women had come to Disibodenburg to
take holy orders and studdy with her, and the monks
were not too happy about giving up progressively more space
and influence in favor of this influx of women. And
the third reason was that she had been directed by
God to move them, and when she didn't immediately do it,
she had fallen ill. She continued writing and teaching extensively.
(13:20):
Her other two major revelatory works are Liber Vitae Meritorum
and libert Divinorum Operum, or Book of Life's Merits and
Book of Divine Works. She also wrote extensively about medicine
and nature, although unlike her other works, these weren't based
on religious revelations or visions. They were based on her
own study and reflection and on her practice as a healer.
(13:43):
These works include Physica cause at cure A and Libre
subtill Adam. That last one is the book of subtleties
of the diverse nature of things. These medical writings draw
from the Greek ideas of elements and humors, as well
as the idea of innate healing powers found within inanimate objects.
(14:03):
Her medical writings, like her spiritual ones, really stress the
need for humans to approach life through a balance of science, religion,
and art, with science and art both like religion, coming
from God. Hildegarde was no stranger to writing history either.
She actually wrote a biography of Saint Dizabad that was
the one that the religious community had been named for
(14:26):
that she had left previously. Seventies seven lyric poems are
attributed to her, along with their music, so essentially hymns
that she wrote and composed. There are definitely composers in
the West who lived before she did, but she's really
the first one that we also have biographical details on.
Although she never seems to have created artwork on her own,
(14:47):
there are pieces of visual art that exists today that
are based on her descriptions. And she wrote extensive letters,
about a hundred and forty five of them still exist today,
and some of them are to of the most powerful
religious and secular leaders who were alive at the time.
Many of them reveal themselves to be part of an
ongoing correspondence. This is not like there were a hundred
(15:10):
and forty five unanswered letters of some kind of kop like.
They were letters that she wrote as part of guidance
that she was giving to people that the people were receiving. Uh.
The recipients of her letters include popes, kings, abbots, friars,
and whole communities of monks and nuns. There are also
more than fifty sermons that survive, and a lot of
(15:33):
them follow the same themes as the letters she was writing.
It's really clear from reading her letters and her sermons
that as she got older, a lot of the timidity
and uncertainty that she had carried about her abilities and
her use of language were replaced by a more calm,
a more confident and assertive way of approaching things. She
also wrote repeated warnings to the monks of Disobodinedburg, warning
(15:55):
them that their excesses and the schisms within the religious
community we're going to bring about their ruined. This turned
out to be quite prescient. Uh, fractures in the religious
community actually lead to armed struggles. In the thirteenth century,
the monastery was converted into a fortress, and by the
end of that century it lay in ruins, some of
which still exists today. Although many of Hildegarde's writings take
(16:18):
a distinctly innately feminine approach to their descriptions of her
visions and her relationship with God, some of these are
actually descriptions that border on coming off as sexual. Nothing
was ever considered to be heretical. Her descriptions are very
rich and vivid and very poetic and Uh, as we
talked about it's been a while now, but as we
(16:39):
talked about in our episode of Marjorie Camp, a lot
of times writings of this sort were viewed as being heresy,
but hers are actually really well accepted. She was in
fact admired and respected all over Germany during her life.
The very first biography written of her referred to her
as a saint, and she was considered a local saint
in parts of Germany for centuries before being recognized as
(17:01):
a saint by the Catholic Church. In addition to all
her writings and teaching her community of nuns. Hildeguard also
traveled extensively around Germany's preaching about the revelations from Provisions.
In eleven sixty three she founded a second convent, and
all of this, the extensive writing and teaching, having your
teachings accepted by the church as a whole her leader.
(17:23):
Her leadership, the medical writing, being allowed to go out
and speak in public about theology were extremely rare for
a woman living in the twelfth century in Europe. Basically,
if she had lived a few hundred years later and
been male, people probably would have called her a renaissance man.
We will talk about more about her legacy after a
(17:43):
quick break from a sponsoring in died following an illness
at her monastery on September eleven, seventy nine. While she
was extremely prominent in her time, especially considering her gender,
(18:05):
and she was immediately revered as a local saint, academic
and greater public interests in her life have waxed and
waned over the centuries since then. Most recently, academic interest
in Hildegard started to revive in the nineteen sixties with
the publication of German language editions of her letters and songs.
This also ran parallel to the second wave of the
(18:27):
feminist movement in the United States. Hildegard's writings about women
and her being able to accomplish such a high degree
of renown and authority, especially in comparison to most women
of her time, made her a popular figure in the
feminist movement. A lot of the things she actually wrote
that wouldn't be considered particularly feminist today as we understand
(18:47):
the term. She definitely wrote about women as being the
weaker sex and about herself as being unqualified to do
a lot of what she was doing because she was
a woman. She also recorded visions that detailed why women,
for example, should be able to talk about God and
God's work, but should not be able to be priests.
So a lot of people sort of position her as
being a feminist for her time. Translations of large bodies
(19:12):
of her work into English didn't actually happen until nineteen two,
and her popularity really started to spike in the United
States in the nineteen nineties because her mysticism and the
elements of her life and work that could be considered
feminist fit in well with the New Age movement, which
was popular at the time. A big part of This
was her running theme that creation was the work of
(19:33):
God and so it is the work of humanity to
care for it. She also wrote a lot about things
being connected to God. From Scivious, she wrote, quote, all
living creatures are sparks from the radiation of God's brilliance.
And these sparks emerge from God like the rays of
the sun. If God did not give off these sparks,
how would the divine flame become fully visible? It sounds
(19:56):
like something that would be on like a poster with
a to full sunset on it, in watercolors and watercolors
in a in a store that sells like new age
books and supplies, and that it might actually there might
actually be such a poster like There's a lot of
the things that she wrote have that kind of like warm,
(20:18):
feel good kind of focus. Today there have been editions
of huge chunks in her work made available in multiple languages,
and in addition to that, people have written novels about
her as a character, and there are numerous audio recordings
of her songs. Pope Benedict the sixteenth proclaimed her to
be a saint on May tenth, and proclaimed her as
(20:41):
a doctor of the Universal Church on October seven. Doctor
of the Universal Church is a title given to saints
whose writings are significant and are useful to people in
any age of the church. This basically means her spiritual
writings are viewed as bearing the same importance as those
of St. Augustine and Thomas Agnes, St. Be the Venerable,
(21:01):
and St. John of the Cross, among others. Her feast
day is the seventeenth of September. I think she's one
of only four female Doctors of the Universal Church. There
may actually be one more that's been named since then,
but I think there's only been one uh Doctor of
the Universal Church named at all since she was in UM. So, Yeah,
(21:22):
she she's so interesting to me. One the whole idea
of anchors Is is really interesting to me. And there
are other more prominent anchors Is than U two. So
maybe another three more years from now in this mini
series that's going to play out over apparently I will
I will do an episode of one of the anchors
(21:43):
Is because they are fascinating to me. I see the
appeal for you of anchors is you're a woman who
really values moments of solitude. Yep, I could see where
you would be very fascinated and charmed by thinking about
that whole concept. Yeah, they are very interesting, and a
lot of them. Like I read an article that was
(22:04):
sort of a It was not a scholarly article. It
was basically somebody meditating on how kind of cool and
interesting it is that during the medieval period, if you
were a weird person, especially a weird woman who just
wanted to be by yourself and never talked to anyone,
(22:26):
there was this option for you. And I don't know
that that's like actually an accurate reflection of what life
is an as an anchor as was like, but I
was like, yeah, I can see how that that would
appeal to some people. Um, And then of course there
are the people who would like try to figure out
a medical explanation for healthy Guard's visions. And I read
(22:47):
one article that was like, most historians today agree that
she was suffering from migraines, and I was like, this
is literally the only reference to migraines and everything that
I read Hilding Guards to research this most historians that
I think might think things. Yeah, by so much for
(23:12):
joining us on this Saturday. Since this episode is out
of the archive. If you heard an email address or Facebook,
U r L or something similar over the course of
the show that could be obsolete now. Our current email
address is History Podcast at i heart radio dot com.
Our old health stuff works email address no longer works,
and you can find us all over social media at
(23:34):
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(23:56):
favorite shows.
Happy Saturday, everybody. Hildegard von Biggin gets a name drop
in one of this week's episodes, so we're pulling our
episode on her out of the archive. And after this
episode came out, we got a few emails from folks
who were surprised that we did not mention one particular
detail about Hildegarde, and that's going to be rectified in
the forthcoming episode. We also heard from folks whose background
(00:24):
is in music who were surprised that we did not
spend more time talking about her work as a composer.
There are a lot of recordings of her music online.
Googling something like Hildegard von being in music will take
you to just a wealth of results. And this episode
originally came out on March seven. Welcome to Stuff You
(00:47):
Missed in History Class, a production of I Heart Radio. Hello,
and welcome to the podcast I'm Crazy, but you will
sit and I'm Holly Frying. We are headed to medieval
Germany today to talk about a woman who was way,
way way ahead of her time. She was Hildegard of Bingen,
(01:10):
also known as Hildegard vomb Bingen and as symbol of
the rhyme so long time listeners as we tell the
story will probably notice some similarities between her and past
podcast subject Marjorie Kemp, who was another Christian mystic who
lived in medieval Europe. Back when we recorded that episode
about Marjorie Kemp, which was actually I think the first
(01:31):
episode that I researched for the show when Holly and
I came on, I really intended to do kind of
a mini mini series on women mystics in the medieval world,
because a lot of their lives are really super interesting
and listening to or learning about them can really dispel
some of the misconceptions that a lot of folks have
(01:51):
about the medieval world and about women's place specifically in
the medieval world. Right that was three years ago. Um
our recent episode on the history of the English language
got me thinking about the medieval world again, though, so
it seemed like a good time to come back and
revisit this, uh, this world of women in the church
(02:15):
in medieval Europe. Hildegarde was born in ten ninety eight
in Franconia, which is now a region in Germany. Her
parents for Hildebert and Mctilde. Hildebert was a lesser noble
and Hildegard was their tenth count them ten tenth child.
Her health was fragile, and as early as age three,
Hildegard was experiencing religious visions. While Hildegard was still very young,
(02:40):
her parents gave her to the church. According to some sources,
including my medieval literature professor, this was meant to be
part of her parents tithe. If you're not familiar with
that term, tithing is the practice of giving ten percent
of everything that you earn or produced to the church.
It's not totally clear whether Hildegarde, by her own account,
(03:01):
was only about eight years old when this, when she
entered religious instruction, had to say in the matter she
is technically one tenth of their produced children. I guess, yeah, well,
and it's one of those things where I don't think
there is a record of her parents saying this is
part of our tide. But the fact that she's reported
to be their tenth child and she then entered religious instruction,
(03:24):
and apparently tithing children was a thing that people did,
it all kind of comes together to be Hildeguard was
given to the church as part of her parents tie,
and the next few years of her life are a
little bit fuzzy as well. At some point she meant
another religiously inclined young woman, Utah von Sponheim, who was
(03:44):
about six years her senior. And Utah was also of
noble birth and of a little higher station than Hildegard.
Utah eventually became Hildegard's teacher and mentor. Eventually, Hildegard and
Utah wound up at the Benedictine monastery at Disappoteburg, which
is near the confluence of the Nea River and one
of its tributaries. This is about sixty miles or a
(04:06):
hundred kilometers southwest of Frankfurt, named after the seventh century
Irish monk Dissapod Dissid, Bodenberg had grown into a really
important center of religious life in the area, and it
had become home to a Benedicting monastery in eleven oh eight.
In eleven twelve, Utah was enclosed as an anchoress at
the monastery. Anchoresses were women who, for religious reasons, essentially
(04:31):
sealed themselves up in a very small cell for life.
Men who did this were called anchorites, although most people
who did it were women. Often and anchors was literally
walled in with a wall gradually being built around her.
That can had a small window that let food be
passed in and out, as well as a chamber pot,
and depending on the size and configuration of the cell,
(04:53):
it may have had additional windows as well to see
directly into the sanctuary if want to join the cell,
or just to let in light. Being an anchorus was
a lot like following the life of a religious hermit,
but instead of retreating to a remote place for a
life of solitude and prayer, an anchorus would be shut
into a wall of a comparatively populated place like a church,
(05:14):
a monastery, or occasionally a town. By the time Hildegard lived,
anchoresses had to get official permission from the church to
do this, and the ceremony for enclosing an anchorus had
a lot in common with the funeral, including the anchors
receiving last rites. Basically, the anchoress was leaving her worldly
life behind for one that was post exclusively on religious
(05:36):
devotion and study. The life of anchorites and anchoresses was
meant to be one devoted strictly to reflection, penance, study
and prayer. Most of the time, it was also a
lifelong commitment, although there were some who eventually left their cells,
and this a Bodenberg. Hildegard and a servant lived with
Utah in her hermitage. You two taught Hildegard Latin along
(06:00):
with the recitations and observations that were required as part
of their order. Hildegard's early musical education probably came from
Utah as well, and because Utah's hermitage was physically connected
to the monastery there, Hildegard would have also been immersed
in all of the spiritual and religious teachings and practices
that were conducted within it. Utah definitely took a more
(06:23):
ascetic and strict approach to her own spiritual life than
Hildegard did. Apart from committing to be an anchorous for life,
Utah also abstained from meat and periodically abstained from all
food entirely throughout her life. She continually increased the number
of hours a day she spent in study, penance, in prayer,
and she also practiced self flagellation as penance. Hildegard, while
(06:48):
not taking quite the same approach in terms of deprivation
and self flagellation, did interpret illnesses as a punishment from
God for not following his instructions, and that's actually a
belief that would continue throughout her life. Gradually, other young
noblewomen were sent to Utah to study as well, So
the Benedictine monastery became home to a community of nuns,
(07:09):
and from within her cell you two became its Magistra,
or its teacher and leader. When you two died in
eleven thirty six, at the age of forty four, she
and Hildegarde had been at des A Bodenberg for twenty
four years. At least eight other women had come to
the monastery to live and study with them, and Hildegarde,
who at that point was thirty eight, was elected to
(07:29):
take you to place as the Magistra. About three years
after you Ta's death, Hildegarde, whose visions had continued since
her childhood, had a particularly powerful experience in the form
of both a vision and a voice from the heavens.
In her record of it, the voice said to her, Oh,
fragile human ashes of ashes and filth of filth, say
(07:52):
and write what you see in here. But since you
are timid in speaking, and simple and expounding and untaught
in writing, spe and write these things, not via human mouth,
and not by the understanding of human invention, and not
by the requirements of human composition, but as you see
and hear them on high in the heavenly places, in
(08:13):
the wonders of God, explain these things in such a
way that the hearer, receiving the words of his instructor,
may expound them in those words according to that will,
vision and instruction. Thus, therefore, oh, humans, speak these things
that you see and hear and write them, not by
yourself or any other human being, but by the will
(08:34):
of Him who knows, sees, and disposes all things in
the secrets of his mysteries. Sort of, I'm going to
impart and dictate to you revelations that you're going to
write down exactly as you experience them, and in the
same experience. She also had a more revelatory experience, and
she wrote of that saying quote, immediately I knew the
(08:56):
meaning of the exposition of the scriptures, namely the Salter,
the Hospital, and other Catholic volumes of both the Old
and New Testaments, though I did not have the interpretation
of the words of their texts, or the division of
the syllables, or the knowledge of cases or tenses. At first,
Hildegard resisted this call. She didn't think she was up
(09:17):
to the task. She wasn't confident in her ability to
write or to speak. Soon, she became ill, something she
thought she brought on herself by not following God's command.
So eventually she embarked on just what the vision had
instructed her to do, and this would eventually turn her
into someone with a much broader influence than just the
religious community at Disabodinburg, which we'll talk about after a
(09:41):
sponsor break. For most of Hildegard's adult life, until she
reached her early forties, she had confided her visions and
only one person, which was utu Uh. Eventually, Uta had
(10:01):
told a monk named Balmar about the visions, and after
a time, Balmar basically became Hildegard's secretary and editor. She
would write her visions down on a wax tablet and
hand them off to Volmar, who would refine their spelling
and their grammar. Even though Hildegard was never confident in
her writing skills, her written works are actually full of
really complex ideas and thoughts. After the vision commanding her
(10:26):
to write down her visions. The Archbishop of Minds learned
about Hildegard's visions and prophecies, and he convened a group
of theologians to determine whether they were legitimate or heretical,
and ultimately they decided that her visions were authentic and
they allowed Volmar to officially help her with her work.
Hildegard really wanted this work to be taken seriously. This
(10:48):
is at a time when various friends groups were kind
of splintering off from the Catholic Church, and all kinds
of people with all kinds of teachings were attracting large followings.
Hildegard really didn't like this. She thought all of these
schisms and splinter groups were going to harm the church,
so she wrote to Saint Bernard of Clairvaux in the
hope of getting her team teachings officially sanctioned by the church.
(11:10):
He eventually brought her to the attention of Pope Eugenius
also known as Pope Eugene the Third, who encouraged her
to continue on with what she was doing, and in
eleven forty seven he gave her the authority to speak
in public and to write on theological matters, which was
extremely rare for a woman. Hildegard's first book finished following
(11:31):
this endorsement by the pope was called Skivius, taken from
the Latin phrase squito vias domini or no the ways
of the Lord. It was completed around eleven fifty one,
and it describes many of her visions and also offers
apocalyptic prophecies, and perhaps in reference to her own young life,
(11:51):
it records one vision that makes it quite clear that
parents may only give their child up for a holy
life with that child's informed consent. In some translations, that's
literally the title of that passage, like you may only
give up your child to the Lord with the child's
informed consent. At about the same time as she finished Skivous,
(12:14):
Hildegard also moved her community. She and the nuns left Disibodenberg.
They sell it in a cloister that had been built
for them near Bingen, which is where her name Hildegard
of Bingen eventually came from. This wasn't a particularly popular
decision at the monastery at Dissipbodenberg. There are a lot
of likely reasons for why Hildegard decided to do it.
(12:35):
One was that she was really dissatisfied with how the
Benedicting community at at Desimbodenberg had been living. She thought
their lifestyle was excessive, and she was really concerned that
schisms within and outside the community were going to tear
it apart. Another was that word of Hildegard's visions and
works had been spreading for a decade. At this point,
(12:55):
more and more noble women had come to Disibodenburg to
take holy orders and studdy with her, and the monks
were not too happy about giving up progressively more space
and influence in favor of this influx of women. And
the third reason was that she had been directed by
God to move them, and when she didn't immediately do it,
she had fallen ill. She continued writing and teaching extensively.
(13:20):
Her other two major revelatory works are Liber Vitae Meritorum
and libert Divinorum Operum, or Book of Life's Merits and
Book of Divine Works. She also wrote extensively about medicine
and nature, although unlike her other works, these weren't based
on religious revelations or visions. They were based on her
own study and reflection and on her practice as a healer.
(13:43):
These works include Physica cause at cure A and Libre
subtill Adam. That last one is the book of subtleties
of the diverse nature of things. These medical writings draw
from the Greek ideas of elements and humors, as well
as the idea of innate healing powers found within inanimate objects.
(14:03):
Her medical writings, like her spiritual ones, really stress the
need for humans to approach life through a balance of science, religion,
and art, with science and art both like religion, coming
from God. Hildegarde was no stranger to writing history either.
She actually wrote a biography of Saint Dizabad that was
the one that the religious community had been named for
(14:26):
that she had left previously. Seventies seven lyric poems are
attributed to her, along with their music, so essentially hymns
that she wrote and composed. There are definitely composers in
the West who lived before she did, but she's really
the first one that we also have biographical details on.
Although she never seems to have created artwork on her own,
(14:47):
there are pieces of visual art that exists today that
are based on her descriptions. And she wrote extensive letters,
about a hundred and forty five of them still exist today,
and some of them are to of the most powerful
religious and secular leaders who were alive at the time.
Many of them reveal themselves to be part of an
ongoing correspondence. This is not like there were a hundred
(15:10):
and forty five unanswered letters of some kind of kop like.
They were letters that she wrote as part of guidance
that she was giving to people that the people were receiving. Uh.
The recipients of her letters include popes, kings, abbots, friars,
and whole communities of monks and nuns. There are also
more than fifty sermons that survive, and a lot of
(15:33):
them follow the same themes as the letters she was writing.
It's really clear from reading her letters and her sermons
that as she got older, a lot of the timidity
and uncertainty that she had carried about her abilities and
her use of language were replaced by a more calm,
a more confident and assertive way of approaching things. She
also wrote repeated warnings to the monks of Disobodinedburg, warning
(15:55):
them that their excesses and the schisms within the religious
community we're going to bring about their ruined. This turned
out to be quite prescient. Uh, fractures in the religious
community actually lead to armed struggles. In the thirteenth century,
the monastery was converted into a fortress, and by the
end of that century it lay in ruins, some of
which still exists today. Although many of Hildegarde's writings take
(16:18):
a distinctly innately feminine approach to their descriptions of her
visions and her relationship with God, some of these are
actually descriptions that border on coming off as sexual. Nothing
was ever considered to be heretical. Her descriptions are very
rich and vivid and very poetic and Uh, as we
talked about it's been a while now, but as we
(16:39):
talked about in our episode of Marjorie Camp, a lot
of times writings of this sort were viewed as being heresy,
but hers are actually really well accepted. She was in
fact admired and respected all over Germany during her life.
The very first biography written of her referred to her
as a saint, and she was considered a local saint
in parts of Germany for centuries before being recognized as
(17:01):
a saint by the Catholic Church. In addition to all
her writings and teaching her community of nuns. Hildeguard also
traveled extensively around Germany's preaching about the revelations from Provisions.
In eleven sixty three she founded a second convent, and
all of this, the extensive writing and teaching, having your
teachings accepted by the church as a whole her leader.
(17:23):
Her leadership, the medical writing, being allowed to go out
and speak in public about theology were extremely rare for
a woman living in the twelfth century in Europe. Basically,
if she had lived a few hundred years later and
been male, people probably would have called her a renaissance man.
We will talk about more about her legacy after a
(17:43):
quick break from a sponsoring in died following an illness
at her monastery on September eleven, seventy nine. While she
was extremely prominent in her time, especially considering her gender,
(18:05):
and she was immediately revered as a local saint, academic
and greater public interests in her life have waxed and
waned over the centuries since then. Most recently, academic interest
in Hildegard started to revive in the nineteen sixties with
the publication of German language editions of her letters and songs.
This also ran parallel to the second wave of the
(18:27):
feminist movement in the United States. Hildegard's writings about women
and her being able to accomplish such a high degree
of renown and authority, especially in comparison to most women
of her time, made her a popular figure in the
feminist movement. A lot of the things she actually wrote
that wouldn't be considered particularly feminist today as we understand
(18:47):
the term. She definitely wrote about women as being the
weaker sex and about herself as being unqualified to do
a lot of what she was doing because she was
a woman. She also recorded visions that detailed why women,
for example, should be able to talk about God and
God's work, but should not be able to be priests.
So a lot of people sort of position her as
being a feminist for her time. Translations of large bodies
(19:12):
of her work into English didn't actually happen until nineteen two,
and her popularity really started to spike in the United
States in the nineteen nineties because her mysticism and the
elements of her life and work that could be considered
feminist fit in well with the New Age movement, which
was popular at the time. A big part of This
was her running theme that creation was the work of
(19:33):
God and so it is the work of humanity to
care for it. She also wrote a lot about things
being connected to God. From Scivious, she wrote, quote, all
living creatures are sparks from the radiation of God's brilliance.
And these sparks emerge from God like the rays of
the sun. If God did not give off these sparks,
how would the divine flame become fully visible? It sounds
(19:56):
like something that would be on like a poster with
a to full sunset on it, in watercolors and watercolors
in a in a store that sells like new age
books and supplies, and that it might actually there might
actually be such a poster like There's a lot of
the things that she wrote have that kind of like warm,
(20:18):
feel good kind of focus. Today there have been editions
of huge chunks in her work made available in multiple languages,
and in addition to that, people have written novels about
her as a character, and there are numerous audio recordings
of her songs. Pope Benedict the sixteenth proclaimed her to
be a saint on May tenth, and proclaimed her as
(20:41):
a doctor of the Universal Church on October seven. Doctor
of the Universal Church is a title given to saints
whose writings are significant and are useful to people in
any age of the church. This basically means her spiritual
writings are viewed as bearing the same importance as those
of St. Augustine and Thomas Agnes, St. Be the Venerable,
(21:01):
and St. John of the Cross, among others. Her feast
day is the seventeenth of September. I think she's one
of only four female Doctors of the Universal Church. There
may actually be one more that's been named since then,
but I think there's only been one uh Doctor of
the Universal Church named at all since she was in UM. So, Yeah,
(21:22):
she she's so interesting to me. One the whole idea
of anchors Is is really interesting to me. And there
are other more prominent anchors Is than U two. So
maybe another three more years from now in this mini
series that's going to play out over apparently I will
I will do an episode of one of the anchors
(21:43):
Is because they are fascinating to me. I see the
appeal for you of anchors is you're a woman who
really values moments of solitude. Yep, I could see where
you would be very fascinated and charmed by thinking about
that whole concept. Yeah, they are very interesting, and a
lot of them. Like I read an article that was
(22:04):
sort of a It was not a scholarly article. It
was basically somebody meditating on how kind of cool and
interesting it is that during the medieval period, if you
were a weird person, especially a weird woman who just
wanted to be by yourself and never talked to anyone,
(22:26):
there was this option for you. And I don't know
that that's like actually an accurate reflection of what life
is an as an anchor as was like, but I
was like, yeah, I can see how that that would
appeal to some people. Um, And then of course there
are the people who would like try to figure out
a medical explanation for healthy Guard's visions. And I read
(22:47):
one article that was like, most historians today agree that
she was suffering from migraines, and I was like, this
is literally the only reference to migraines and everything that
I read Hilding Guards to research this most historians that
I think might think things. Yeah, by so much for
(23:12):
joining us on this Saturday. Since this episode is out
of the archive. If you heard an email address or Facebook,
U r L or something similar over the course of
the show that could be obsolete now. Our current email
address is History Podcast at i heart radio dot com.
Our old health stuff works email address no longer works,
and you can find us all over social media at
(23:34):
missed in History. And you can subscribe to our show
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and wherever else you listen to podcasts. Stuff you Missed
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For more podcasts from I heart Radio, visit the iHeart
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