|
Abbess Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179)
|
|
|
The astonishing career of the multi-talented Hildegard of Bingen is quite unlike that of any other woman of her time. As the tenth child of a noble family, she was given to the Church as a tithe, and placed in the convent of Disibodenburg in the Nahe valley at the age of 8, becoming abbess in 1136. She went on to found two convents of her own - the Rupertsberg above Bingen in 1150 and Eibingen on the outskirts of RA?desheim in 1165 - and is the only medieval woman who is known to have undertaken preaching tours, addressing clergy as well as laity. Between 1141 and 1151 she wrote her literary masterpiece
Scivias
, visionary descriptions of the world and the relationship between God and mankind. She also produced a two-volume tract on natural sciences and the art of healing. Yet it is arguable that her most lasting achievement was as a composer. Her legacy consists of the music drama
Ordo Virtutum
, the earliest-known morality play, plus 77 canticles, sequences and songs, in which she deploys a variety of devices, ranging from simple melodies to impassioned declamation, to enrich the vivid imagery of her own poetry.
In her lifetime she was regarded as a saint, and as early as 1227 a canonization process was instigated. This was never brought to completion, though in 1389 she was included in the
Martyrologicum Romanum
, the Roman Catholic Church's official register of saints. For several centuries, her reputation languished in obscurity, to undergo a spectacular revival in the second half of the twentieth century, when the rise of feminism and renewed interest in both holistic medicine and early music all helped to turn her into a proto-modern figure. In 1971, her feast day was added to the calendar of the dioceses of the German-speaking world, where she is commonly referred to as St Hildegard. Other useful information
for tourists (each section contains more specific sub-sections): |
|
Germany,
|