Hildegard von Bingen

Transcription

1 Hildegard von Bingen Childhood With some certainty, we can accept that Hildegard was born in the year 1098 A.D. as the tenth and last child of Hildebert and Mechthild, at the estate in Bermersheim near Alzey. The property included, as was then customary, the main buildings, as well as several smaller structures for the vassals. The ancestral home of this Bermersheim noble family was surrounded by extensive farms with their fields, meadows, and vineyards. Nothing historically certain is reliably known about Hildegard s childhood, and about life in Bermersheim, but it will not have differed significantly from that at similar estates. Numerous servants, under the supervision of Hildegard s mother Mechthild, cared for the feudal lord s rooms, for the nourishment of the family and the household, as well as for the manufacture of clothing and the necessary useful items of daily life. Hildegard was probably turned over to a nanny, who cared for the infant and also for Hildegard s siblings. Aside from the better furnishings of the rooms, the estate of the feudal lord will not have differed greatly from a large farm and its outbuildings. Male and female servants cared for the livestock, and helped the peasants with the harvest of grain and wine. A strict division of labor existed: the house staff didn t carry out the tasks of the farm hands, and the free male and female servants viewed their position in society as higher than that of the serfs. While Hildebert cared for the management of the estate with the help of his managers, Mechthild was responsible for the frictionless functioning of the large household. The wife was subject to the legal decision-making capabilities of the husband, but as the mistress of the house, she had the essential power. Both parents were, for children in this era, persons of respect, whose words were commanding to all present. The feeling of belonging to them was based, above all, on the equality of birth into the station, because the children were usually under the supervision of servants. A certain honoring distance toward the parents, which already began with the fourth commandment, was maintained thereby, and the heartfelt connection, which is today common between mother and child, was, in the upper class of that era, rather rare. So it is significant, that Hildegard, in her only mention of her mother, describes this woman as a vessel and the transmitter of her life and her visionary gift: when I was formed, as God awakened me in Page 1

2 my mother s womb by the breath of life, He formed this vision in my soul. Hildegard, too, developed a restrained consciousness of honor and station, which corresponded to the experience of social hierarchy in daily life. Joy in nature, the connection with everything living in nature, was a part of the childhood learning process which formed Hildegard s early childhood at the Bermersheim estate. But this perhaps somewhat introverted child struggled with inner images which she did not understand: when I was three years old, I saw such a great light, that my soul shook, but because of my young age, I couldn t tell anybody about it, reads the autobiographical statement, which Gottfried preserved in the Vita. This unexplainable thing could throw the child into turmoil, so that she never lived, from childhood onwards, in security, not one single hour. Once, the girl asked her nanny if everybody experienced such things. When I was exhausted by this, I tried to learn from my nanny if she saw anything besides external objects. And she replied, nothing, because she saw nothing of the sort. I was gripped by great fear, and didn t dare to reveal this to anybody. Because I talked a lot, I also usually talked about future things. Two points are telling in this statement. Hildegard asked her nanny, but not her mother or another relative. This early nanny was therefore her confidant, to whom the child had the same personal relationship, which would later bind her to her teacher Jutta. For her, these women filled the role of mother as we today understand it. The second important point is that she feared to talk about these conditions. She viewed these visions as one of the many symptoms of illnesses to which she was subject as a child. Her fear was perhaps not unrealistic in an era in which being different could lead to being excluded from the community, or to ostracizing, or at least be viewed as something to be ashamed of, or something bad (birth marks, red hair, etc.). Because Hildegard also spoke about future things, she was certainly viewed as unusual. She writes: and up to the time I was fifteen years old, I saw much, and some of it I simply told, so that those, who heard it, wondered, where it came from, and from whom it came. I wondered, too... that I heard no such things from any other person. So then I hid the visions, which I saw in my soul, as well as I could. But when she was completely gripped by this vision, I said much, which was strange to those who heard it. When she was five years old, it is said, she correctly predicted the color and gender of a calf inside a pregnant cow. Society, at that time, was far from interpreting such signs of supernatural gifts as positive. People feared that such things could be evil rather than good. Later, Hildegard wrote:... out of fear of people, I didn t dare to tell anybody what I saw. Page 2

3 All of these threatening signs could not have been long hidden from the parents. If they didn t hear of it from the household or Hildegard s siblings, the nanny certainly would have told them about these. They may have caused Hildebert and Mechthild to face the difficult question about the future of their daughter early. A marriage, as this was common for girls from the age of thirteen, appeared to be out of the question, because of Hildegard s health. Joining a cloister was, however, possible, in even childhood. A happy circumstance made the decision easier for the parents: Jutta, the daughter of Count Stephan of Spanheim, twentyfive kilometers away, with whom the Bermersheim family had friendly relations, had decided to join the cloister. Her father had a cell built for her, which was constructed at the monks cloister at Disibodenberg, about eight kilometers south of Spanheim. On November first, 1106, Jutta moved in, with the eight-year-old girl from Bermersheim, because with sighs, my parents dedicated me to God, as it is described in the Vita. A fitting gift would have been given to the cloister for the further care of Hildegard. Youth and Teenage Years In the writings about Hildegard, it is common to speak in a positive way about Hildegard s separation from her family: because the parents perceived something special in their youngest daughter, already in early childhood,... the decided to dedicate Hildegard to God as a tithe. The sources say nothing about this. Gottfried writes: when she was about eight years old, she was, in order to be buried with Christ,... brought into a cloister at the mountain of Saint Disibodus. Dietrich quotes Hildegard: when I was eight years old, I was brought into intellectual conversation with God. It is not likely that the child took part in the decision. For Hildegard, in the cell under the leadership of Jutta, a new phase of life began. Again, a nanny became the confidant for this child. Jutta von Spanheim, who had a second girl beside Hildegard to supervise, must have been very young herself, because she was the second child of her father. But he was, at the time of Jutta s moving into the cell, only thirty-one years old. Young Jutta instructed Hildegard carefully in the garb of humility and innocence, writes Gottfried in the Vita. Hildegard learned the Psalms, and Jutta taught her how to play them on the harp. Aside from this simple knowledge of the Psalms, she obtained no instruction from anybody about reading or music. This comment can lead into error, because it under-represents the educational philosophy of that era, which, e.g., the Speculum Page 3

4 Virginum, a book written in the mid-rhein area around 1100 A.D., describes. From a young girl, it requires, above all, chastity, obedience, humility, and moderation - an ideal which Gottfried sees in Hildegard. Certainly, Hildegard later liked to call herself indocta ( uneducated ), whereby she perhaps indicated her small knowledge of the liberal arts, but doubtlessly she obtained far more education than most girls, even if this learning didn t take place in the framework of the formal academic education of the higher clergy. The attentive Hildegard spent not only many hours daily in prayer, but she obtained astounding abilities in the Latin language, and in exegesis, by means of the study, praying, and analysis of the Psalms, and from reading the Holy Scriptures. As she later says in the Scivias, she also practiced handwriting. The life of the three girls, growing up alone, will have been very quiet, but Hildegard s visions remained. But if the power of the visions subsided a little, in which I acted more like a small child than according to the years of my age, then I was very ashamed, cried often, and would have often rather been silent, if it would have been possible for me. For, out of fear of people, I dared to tell nobody, what I saw. But the noble woman, to which I had been entrusted for care, noticed it, and told it to a monk whom she knew. Hildegard found strength in faith and in the regulated solitude of cloister life. We know little about this time segment of her youth. Between her fourteenth and seventeenth years, she joined the Benedictine order, and was received into the Benedictine community. The Vita reports only that Hildegard continued to suffer almost continuously from painful illnesses, so that she only seldom could walk. And because her entire body was subject to uninterrupted fluctuations, her life resembled the idea of a painful death. She fasted much, spoke little, and dressed simply. Cloister Life at Disibodenberg Relatively soon after the construction of the cell on the edge of the cloister, and after the three girls moved in, the little community grew, influenced by the still small number of nun s cloisters, by a few more women. Because the money, brought along by the new arrivals, as well as that from Hildegard and her supervisor, went to the men s cloister, the somewhat reclusive women found themselves continuously in financial dependence upon the monk s cloister. The priesthood was reserved for the monks, too, so the women were also spiritually dependent upon monk s cloister in worship services. The abbot picked a monk to Page 4

5 be chaplain and confessor for the nuns, who was to instruct them in religious matters. One of these chaplains was a monk named Volmar, who would be Hildegard s secretary for more than thirty years. Two events at Disibodenberg left long-standing impressions on Hildegard, namely, the procurement of an artistically formed illuminated manuscript, and the construction of the church, which lasted for thirty-five years. Ten-year-old Hildegard had seen, in 1108, the laying of the cornerstone for the new structure, and followed the building of the church and cloister, the dedications of individual altars, and the production of a book for these events, until the consecration of the basilica on September 29, The book, written and decorated at Disibodenberg, contained the lives of martyrs and the Benedictine rule. Construction and books became motifs for her life, and became symbols in her later work. The rule of Saint Benedict determined the daily activity and way of life for the Benedictines. Her explanation of this rule, written for the cloister community of Hünningen which had asked for a a thoughtful review of the rule of our founder, Saint Benedict, gives a view into the daily life of Hildegard, during the more than seventy years which she spent in the cloister. Hildegard begins with the statement that the Benedictine rule is the pattern which makes it possible for monks to have a secure, orderly, and enduring way of life, without burdening the explanation with details:... what he doesn t want to happen, he forbids openly, and what he wants, he says clearly. But that, about which he remains silent, he leaves to our discretion. Along with the instructions for worship services, Hildegard reviews the rules concerning speaking, sleeping, waking, eating, fasting, as well as clothing and washing one s self. Speaking was allowed at certain times, only when some matter was to be advised, or some practical matter, or because of urgent need must be done. Then they should speak together as a group, not alone, and even this only after getting permission. Hildegard notes that in wintertime, from November first until Easter, one should get up at the eighth hour of the night, so that in the middle of the night there is a pause. Because in the winter, darkness begins already around 4:00 pm, and the monks would have slept eight hour already by midnight, they should not sleep beyond moderation until daybreak. After a person had shaken off dreary sleep and washed himself, the rest of the night hours were to be spent in the singing of Psalms, in thinking, and in prayer. Here it is to be noted, for summer and winter, that the brothers do not return to bed to rest after the nightly exercises or the early-morning exercises, but rather so set the nightly wake times in both Page 5

6 seasons, so that they see the rising sun as they sing the praise songs. This bed, in any case, wasn t particularly inviting: a mat, a blanket, and a pillow should suffice for quarters. They should sleep clothed, namely in a single and simple garment, which covers them directly around the skin; they shouldn t lie there naked; the garment should be of wool... they should wear belts sashes, so that the garment, in which they sleep, doesn t slide around, and they appear naked. On Saturday, the big cleaning was done: when the brother finishes his week, he should clean on the Sabbath, with a broom, if necessary, and get rid of all dust and dirt. Further, each one should wash the feet of the others. The menu was also regulated. It is interesting that a physician s recommended diet of today would hardly differ from Hildegard s recommendations: one shouldn t eat the meat of four-footed animals, but fowl could be eaten, because it was kosher. Exceptions from these rules were the sick, the weak, the old, and the children, for whom all kinds of meat are allowed. As side dishes, fruit and legume were prescribed. Additionally, fish, cheese, and eggs were allowed and are good. These were not mentioned by the pious father, because he knew, that monks do not abstain from these. It was forbidden, without the permission of the abbot, to eat outside the cloister even if the monk should be invited by someone, or to entirely avoid food inside the cloister community. On the other hand, he may reduce his portion of the usual food and drink allowed by the rule, which is regularly set before him in the company of the brothers, or in private, but in such a way, that is does not make a spectacle, or give occasion for gossip. The moderation in eating is reserved for the individual, for the chef should give the brothers the set amount of food, without increase or decrease, meaning that he may not give more or better to food to one whom he likes, or give less or worse food to one whom he dislikes. The difficulties of travel during Hildegard s era made hospitality an almost necessary virtue. Hildegard gives special instructions for the feeding of guests, who are to be honored like Christ Himself. Echoes of old Germanic customs are visible in this, and they are also to be found in her writings about natural sciences. Hildegard closes with the explanation, that the Benedictine rule is the essence of good judgment: everything, which is in this rule, is not too narrow, but rather considers both the right and the left. Hildegard s explanation shows an intensive intellectual engagement with the logic and goals of these regulations, which regulated daily life for her and her environment. The Turning Point Page 6

7 When the supervisor of the cell, Jutta von Spanheim, died on December 22, 1136, at a relatively early age, a new segment of life began for Hildegard. The thirtyeight-year-old, as a founding member, was unanimously chosen by the nuns to be the new supervisor. When she took over the leading role in the women s cell, Hildegard s personality emerges for the first time into the spotlight. Thus, among other things, her decision to admit only noble nuns into her community was later criticized. Some have attempted to sketch with key words her clever and thoughtful leadership of the cloister family entrusted to her, words which hardly do justice to the gifts and abilities of this pious woman. Barbara Newman writes that Hildegard belonged to the German Benedictine aristocracy of the flourishing era and believed in a divine and a worldly social order. For Edith Ennen, Hildegard, who carried forward some modern trends stayed in one aspect by old tradition: she defended the privilege of nobility. Hildegard herself explained simply, that they differences in class were willed by God. He is concerned, that the lower class does not assert itself over the higher class, as Satan and the first man did... which person would gather all his herds into a single stall - oxen, donkeys, sheep, bulls - except that they would become unsorted among each other, and eventually escape in the confusion? For this reason, one should keep the differences in this matter also, so that those, who come from various classes, would not be scattered in the confusion. Maintaining this orderliness was her goal and task. On the one hand, this ranking lifted Hildegard over the commoners, on the other hand, she was limited by the ranking of woman below man. In cloister life, she asserted the Benedictine saying ora et labora ( work and pray ) as a fundamental way of life; obedience was for her a divine duty. Her future work developed under these assumptions. But Hildegard had also learned about the weakness of humans. She knew the violence, the political plotting, the power of money, and the influence of relationships. Even among God s servants there was vanity and blasphemy. From her later letters, we know about the feud between nobles and church prelates, which didn t stop at murder and the plundering of churches. Centuries of enlivening spiritual prelates with state powers and duties has had the danger of too powerfully entangling the church in the matters of this world. The worldliness of the higher clergy, and the ignorance of the lower clergy, and the emptying of moral perceptions were the effects of simony, investiture, and married priests. She knew the world and saw her time as needing reform: Scivias, fully Liber Scivias simplicis hominis, was supposed to show the way. Page 7

8 The years between her taking over the convent as supervisor and her full entry into authorship were filled with an introspection which was self-critical and drenched in expectation. Hildegard had experienced how the women s community at Disibodenberg had strongly grown through the admission of numerous noble girls. The space had long become insufficient, but the considerable wealth of those who joined the cloister continued to go to the men s cloister, which was in charge of the administration of property. The blooming of the cloister and the building of the new church, which Hildegard could see daily, were visible signs of wealth. She will have also followed the preparation of the richly-decorated codex for the dedication of the church. Building and book, these symbols of the physical and spiritual presence of God on earth, the Word become concrete, so to speak, which also announced the power of the church in a way which was the most enduring way on earth, were for Hildegard a sign of God s finger. In the year 1141, when I was forty-two years and seven months old, Hildegard writes in the forward to her first book, Scivias, a fiery light, with lightningflashes, came from the opened sky downwards. It streamed through my brain and glowed through my heart and breast like a flame, but which did not burn me, but rather warmed me, like the sun warms an object onto which it shines its beams. Now the concepts of the Scripture, the Psalms, the Gospels and the other universal books of the Tanakh and New Testament opened themselves to me and a voice from heaven commanded her to openly share what she had experienced. It is very understandable, why Hildegard hesitated to carry out this task. For years, she had carefully kept her visions secret for fear of people s gossip and brash judgment. Aside from the deceased Jutta, not even the other nuns knew about this, despite daily contact. Even inside the church, she could expect resistance after this disclosure. As a woman, preaching, publishing official ecclesiastical documents, and delivering public lectures on spiritual topics were forbidden for her, according to a mis-interpretation of Pauline texts. For her, the main things were the duty to be silent, and to be submissive. Acquiring priestly functions, she knew, would expose her to justified criticism and possible punishment. Nonetheless she felt herself obligated to explain the Holy Scriptures interpretively and educationally, because the clergy was ignoring its task. I avoided writing, she continues in the forward to Scivias, not out of stubbornness, but rather because I perceived my inability, because of skepticism, the shrugging shoulders, and because people talk so much, until the scourge of Page 8

9 God threw me onto the sick bed. Then I finally began to write, forced by means of much suffering. She decided to again choose a confidant, to whom she could admit the secret of her visions, and chose her confessor, Magister ( Meister ) Volmar. A few years later, she mentions again this time of doubt in her letter to Bernhard of Clairvaux, in the year 1147: For I dared to say this to no person - because there are among humans, as I hear people say, many splits - only to one monk, whom I tested and quizzed about his cloister existence. I revealed all my secrets to him, and he comforted me with the assurance: they were sublime and moving. Volmar became, with the permission of his Abbot Kuno, the secretary of Hildegard, and wrote for years, in humble service, Hildegard s visions exactly according to her instructions into her first and major publication Scivias. Richardis of Stade, a relative of Jutta and a confidant of Hildegard, also helped. As I now began to write and felt the gift of insightful explanation of the Scriptures effective within myself, I again became strong and recovered from my sickness. Only with effort did I complete and finish this work in ten years. A simple person, that is the way Hildegard listed herself as the author of her great work. She did not state her name, as was customary in the Middle Ages and in monasteries, says a biographer of Hildegard. The word simple has for us today an essentially different meaning than in the Middle Ages. She more often called herself indocta ( uneducated ), for Hildegard made no claims to learnedness. She had, however, a gift for orderly, critical analysis of a topic, and she had a subtle power of relating in the poetic use of complicated configurations of images, in the use of allegories, symbols, metaphors, paradigms, and theories. Her explanations are original and spontaneous, exactly because she did not lean upon learnedness. Hildegard understood herself as a prophetess and as an author, and the explanation of the Word made her the most influential women of her century. For Hildegard, a time now began of self-development, but also bitter conflicts, inside and outside of the church, were also to come. These began with her growing acknowledgment as a visionary, and with the beginning of her efforts in 1147/1148 to separate her convent from Disibodenberg, and to begin a new cloister at Rupertsberg with her nuns. She was equipped for this, for she had three requirements important in medieval society: noble birth, wealth, and many relationships to influential people in the state and in the church. Ecclesiastical Recognition and Independence Page 9

10 It is the special achievement of Mariana Schrader, to be the first one to critically investigate Hildegard s heritage, and to have corrected centuries-old guesses about her birth and family. Through Schrader s work, the variety of family and economic relationship becomes clear, which explain Hildegard s self-confident appearance inside of a strongly hierarchical and class society. These discoveries complete the minimal biographical details which were made by Hildegard s contemporaries, the monks Gottfried and Dietrich. The families of Hildebert of Bermersheim, and of his wife Mechthild, belonged to the upper nobility. Of Hildegard s siblings, her brothers Drutwin, Hugo, and Rorich are documented. Hugo was, as the cathedral cantor in Mainz, one of the three highest officials there, and functioned as the tutor of the later Bishop Radulf of Lüttich. Rorich was a priest and canon in Tholey on the Saar River. Of the four of Hildard s sisters whom we know by name, Clementia became a nun in the cloister founded by Hildegard on Rupertsberg Mountain. Her sisters Irmengard, Odilia, and Jutta are likewise officially named in documents about gifts and real estate transfers to the cloister. Of these, one was apparently the mother of the later Archbishop Arnold I of Trier ( ), and of Wezelin, his brother, later the provost of Saint Andreas in Köln (the city of Cologne). They are noted as Hildegard s nephews. Arnold was the son of Wirich of Walecourt, who came from Lothringen (the area of Lorraine). This branch of the family, too, belonged to the upper nobility. A grand-nephew of Hildegard named Gilbert took over, after Arnold and Wezelin, the office of praepositus at Saint Andreas. The influence of their family contributed decisively to Hildegard s plans experiencing so much support, and also explains her bold tone in personal conversation and written correspondence with officials. Around 1147, the Scivias was already so far progressed, that ecclesiastical recognition for the book became important. In the mean time, her gift of visions had also become more known, and the cloister at Disibodenberg Mountain enjoined a fame which Abbot Kuno found good. The oldest letter by Hildegard is from the year 1147, and is written to the famous Abbot Bernhard of Clairvaux. To Bernhard, the uncoronated pope and confidant of Pope Eugene III, she reports about her visions and asks for advice, whether she should speak of these openly or keep silent. The date of the letter could correspond to the synod from 30 November 1147 until February 1148 in Trier, at which Pope Eugene III was present. Archbishop Heinrich of Mainz was asked by Abbot Kuno to present Hildegard s still-unfinished Scivias to the pope, whereupon Pope Eugene read aloud from it to the cardinals and bishops. Happy, Hildegard wrote: Hereupon, Page 10

11 my writings were brought to Pope Eugene, when he was in Trier. With joy, he read them before a large gathering, and read them also for himself. And with great trust in the grace of God, he sent me his blessing with a document, in which he asked me to write exactly that which I saw and heard in visions. A commission, sent to Disibodenberg, brought satisfactory information about Hildegard s person and visionary gift. Bernhard of Clairvaux was also among the prelates in Trier, and apparently took a position for her. He spoke, reports the Vita, and encouraged the pope, to the applause of everyone, that he should not tolerate, that such a brightly beaming light should be covered by silence; he should much rather confirm through his authority such a grace which the Lord wanted to reveal in his time. Page 11