Saint Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179)

Bermersheim: The Child Offered as Tithe (1098)

Hildegard was born around 1098 in Bermersheim vor der Höhe, in Rhenish Hesse, into a family of minor free nobility serving the Counts of Sponheim. Her father, Hildebert, and mother, Mechthild, presented her according to tradition as their tenth child—“offered to God as a tithe,” that is, consecrated to the Lord in thanksgiving.^[4] Of fragile health, the child experienced from an early age singular luminous perceptions which she kept secret for a long time.

Disibodenberg: At the School of Jutta of Sponheim

Still a child—the tradition says at eight years old, which would place the event around 1106, while other studies prefer 1112, the date when her enclosure is documented^[5]—Hildegard was entrusted to Jutta of Sponheim, a young recluse of noble birth living in a cell adjoining the male Benedictine monastery of Disibodenberg. Under Jutta, who became a true spiritual mother, Hildegard learned to read the Latin psalter and to play the ten-string psaltery.^[6] The instruction remained that of a nun, focused on the prayer of the Hours and lectio divina according to the Rule of Saint Benedict; Hildegard would always say she was little learned in grammar and scholarly exegesis—a genuine humility, but also, as we shall see, a point of argument.

The small female community gathered around Jutta grew. At Jutta’s death in 1136, the sisters elected Hildegard as magistra, that is, superior of their group, still attached to Disibodenberg at that time.^[7]

Magistra then Foundress: The Rupertsberg and Eibingen

Strengthened by her growing spiritual authority, Hildegard decided around 1150 to leave Disibodenberg to found an autonomous monastery of nuns on the Rupertsberg, a hill overlooking the confluence of the Nahe and the Rhine, near Bingen. The separation was made against the resistance of the monks, who saw a prestigious community and its revenues depart; Hildegard, ill to the point of being unable to move as long as opposition to the project persisted, finally prevailed—she read this paralysis as a sign of a thwarted divine will.^[8] In 1165, success and numbers led her to found a second convent on the other side of the Rhine, at Eibingen, which she visited twice a week.^[9]

The vision of 1141 and the fear of illusion

Hildegard claimed to have received visions since childhood, yet never dared to reveal them. The turning point came around 1141, at the age of forty-two: a fiery light, she said, passed through her mind and suddenly opened her understanding of the Scriptures, accompanied by the formal command to put into writing what she saw and heard. For a long time she hesitated, sick with resistance, until she obeyed.^[10]

As is always the case with true mystics, her first instinct was not self-assertion but submission to the discernment of the Church. Benedict XVI emphasized this:

“As always happens in the lives of true mystics, Hildegard also wished to place herself under the authority of wise persons to discern the origin of her visions, fearing that they might be the product of illusions and not come from God.” — Benedict XVI, General Audience, 1 September 2010^[11]

She therefore wrote to her abbot, then submitted her writings to ecclesiastical authority for examination. Her scribe and secretary—the nun Richardis of Stade and the monk Volmar—helped her fix the Latin of her visions.

The Scivias and the Church’s approval (Synod of Trier, 1147-1148)

The fruit of this obedience was the Scivias (a contraction of Sci vias Domini, “Know the ways of the Lord”), composed from 1141 to 1151. The work gathers, according to Benedict XVI’s summary,

“in thirty-five visions the events of salvation history, from the creation of the world to the end of time.” — Benedict XVI, General Audience, 8 September 2010^[12]

Still unfinished, the Scivias came into the hands of Pope Eugene III, then present at the Synod of Trier (November 1147 – February 1148). Excerpts were read aloud before the assembly. The pope recognized the authenticity of the gift, authorized Hildegard to write and speak publicly, and encouraged her to continue.^[13] From that moment, her spiritual prestige steadily grew: she was called the “Teutonic prophetess.”^[14]

The role of Saint Bernard of Clairvaux

Before the synod, Hildegard, in doubt, had written to the most influential man in Christendom, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, to present her case. Bernard replied with remarkable humility, acknowledging that one does not teach what is already taught from within:

“We rejoice in the grace of God that is in you. […] Where there is an inner teaching and an anointing that instructs in all things, what could we teach or advise?” — Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, letter to Hildegard (c. 1146-1147)^[15]

Bernard’s moral influence, well known at the Synod of Trier, contributed to the favorable reception of the Rhineland nun’s writings. The details of Bernard’s role belong to the life of Saint Bernard, which this article does not retell.

The “Living Light”: the nature of her visions

Hildegard took care to describe herself, notably in a late letter to the monk Guibert of Gembloux, the manner in which she perceived: not through the senses, but in the soul, with open eyes, without ecstasy or loss of consciousness.

“I do not hear them with my outward ears, nor perceive them by the thoughts of my heart or by a combination of my five senses, but in my soul alone, my outward eyes open. […] The light I thus see is not spatial, but far brighter than a cloud that carries the sun; and I call it ‘the shadow of the Living Light.’” — Hildegard, letter to Guibert of Gembloux (c. 1175)^[16]

This distinction is crucial. Hildegard does not describe sensory hallucinations, but infused knowledge, an understanding of mysteries given in the lux vivens—the “Living Light”—of which her visions are only the umbra, the shadow cast into language and image. We will see later why this precision renders any reduction of her experience to a mere visual disorder invalid.

Few authors of the Middle Ages, men or women, left behind a work as vast and diverse as Hildegard’s. She wrote theology, composed music, treated medicine and natural history, and even forged a language.

The Visionary Trilogy: Scivias, Liber vitae meritorum, Liber divinorum operum

The three major visionary books form a coherent trilogy:

• The Scivias (1141–1151) presents thirty-five visions tracing the history of salvation, from creation to the end of time, and expounds on faith, the sacraments, and moral life.^[17]
• The Liber vitae meritorum (“Book of the Merits of Life,” 1158–1163) stages a dramatized battle between virtues and vices, observed by a cosmic man.^[18]
• The Liber divinorum operum (“Book of Divine Works,” c. 1163–1174) is her most ambitious synthesis: a cosmology where the microcosmic man encapsulates the universe, where every creature receives life from God, and where Divine Wisdom orders all things.^[19]

The Song of Heaven: Symphonia and Ordo Virtutum

Hildegard is also one of the greatest composers of the Middle Ages. Her collection, the Symphonia armonie celestium revelationum (“Symphony of the Harmony of Celestial Revelations”), gathers about seventy liturgical pieces — antiphons, responsories, hymns, sequences — with broad and distinctive melodies, one of the largest named monodic corpora of the entire Middle Ages.^[20] She is also the author of the Ordo Virtutum (“The Play of the Virtues”), a sung liturgical drama featuring the Virtues, the Soul, and the Devil: it is the oldest surviving musical morality play.^[21]

For Hildegard, singing is not mere ornament: it is the very voice of creation returned to God, the earthly echo of the angels’ praise. It is therefore understandable why the prohibition against singing near the end of her life was such a deep wound.

Medicine and Natural Sciences: Physica and Causae et curae

From the great natural history treatise she called the Liber subtilitatum diversarum naturarum creaturarum (“Book of the Subtleties of the Diverse Natures of Creatures”), two parts have come down to us:

• the Physica, a vast compendium of the virtues of plants, stones, metals, animals, and elements;
• the Causae et curae, a treatise on the causes and remedies of diseases, blending observation, humor theory, and theology of creation.^[22]

These writings, sometimes overly modernized by certain wellness literature, primarily testify to a unified vision of the cosmos: for Hildegard, body, soul, elements, and God belong to the same living order.

The Unknown Language (Lingua ignota)

A unique curiosity, Hildegard devised a Lingua ignota (“unknown language”) of about a thousand words, equipped with its own alphabet, the Litterae ignotae.^[23] Likely intended for mystical or symbolic use within her community, it makes Hildegard the first known creator of a constructed language.

The following table summarizes her principal works:

In addition, nearly four hundred letters have been preserved, addressed to popes, emperors, bishops, abbots, and abbesses: a correspondence that made her one of the most consulted consciences of her century.^[24]

Viriditas: Divine Greenness

The most personal word in all of Hildegard’s thought is undoubtedly viriditas — “greenness,” the sap, the life-giving force by which God causes all things to sprout, grow, and bloom, both in nature and in the soul. Greenness is the opposite of the dryness of sin; it is the work of the Spirit who sustains the world in life. Hildegard sings of it notably in a responsory from the Symphonia:

“O most noble greenness, you who take root in the sun and who, in white serenity, shine in a wheel that no earthly excellence can comprehend: you are enveloped by the embraces of the divine ministries. You glow like the dawn and burn like the flame of the sun.” — Hildegard, responsory O nobilissima viriditas, Symphonia^[25]

Far from vague pantheism, viriditas is a theology of grace: it is God who “greens” creation and the soul, and the man dried up by sin is made green again through penance and the Spirit.

Creation, Symphony of the Trinity

Hildegard’s entire cosmology refuses to separate God, man, and the world. Creation is not a silent mechanism: it is praise, harmony, music. Benedict XVI summarized her vision thus:

“All creation, of which man is the summit, receives life from the Trinity […]. The whole of creation is a symphony of the Holy Spirit, who is in himself joy and jubilation.” — Benedict XVI, General Audience, 8 September 2010^[26]

At the center of this story is the Cross. Hildegard reads there not first a failure, but a wedding:

“On the tree of the Cross are fulfilled the nuptials of the Son of God with the Church, his bride.” — Benedict XVI recounting Hildegard’s vision, Audience of 8 September 2010^[27]

“Poor Little Female Form”: Humility and Authority

Hildegard constantly refers to herself as a “poor little female form” (paupercula feminea forma), a woman “without learning,” incapable on her own of scholarly exegesis.^[28] This humility is sincere; it is also, in the context of the 12th century, what grounds her authority: if she teaches nothing of herself, then what she says does not come from a woman claiming magisterial authority, but from God speaking through a fragile vessel. Her claimed weakness is the guarantee that the word is from Above. This is the very logic of Saint Paul: “when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor 12:10).^[29]

The Woman Prophet and Complementarity

Without ever claiming the priesthood or contesting the Church’s order, Hildegard exercised in fact a rare prophetic ministry for a woman of her time: she rebuked bishops, advised popes, warned emperors. Her theology accords a strong place to the feminine — the Church-bride, the Virgin, Wisdom, Ecclesia represented as a woman — without opposing man and woman but thinking them complementary in the unique work of God.^[30] Benedict XVI saw in her a model precisely because she combined ecclesial docility with prophetic freedom.

Preaching Tours

An exceptional feat for a medieval woman, Hildegard preached publicly, outside her cloister, during several journeys along the Rhine and the Main rivers, starting in the late 1150s. Tradition counts four tours, reaching Cologne, Trier, Metz, Würzburg, Bamberg, and Werden.^[31] Historical caution is warranted, however: the detailed routes were partly reconstructed in the early 20th century from her hagiographic Vita; only the preaching in Cologne is well documented, as the clergy requested her to put the text in writing.^[32] What remains certain is the recognized authority of a woman’s voice calling clergy and faithful alike to conversion.

Correspondence with Popes, Emperors, and Abbots

Hildegard’s influence is measured by her correspondence: nearly four hundred letters, including exchanges with Popes Eugene III, Anastasius IV, Adrian IV, and Alexander III; with Emperor Frederick Barbarossa—whom she did not hesitate to rebuke harshly when he supported antipopes; with Saint Bernard; and with dozens of monastic communities.^[33] People came to consult her as an oracle; she answered as a prophet, sometimes with a severity that spared no one.

The end of her life was marked by a painful conflict. In 1178, Hildegard had allowed the burial, in the Rupertsberg cemetery, of a nobleman who had once been excommunicated but whom she knew to be dead reconciled with the Church, having received the last sacraments. The chapter of Mainz demanded the exhumation of the body. Hildegard refused: to dig up a reconciled deceased seemed to her an injustice. In retaliation, an interdict was placed on her monastery, depriving the nuns of the sacraments and, above all, of the chanting of the Divine Office.^[34]

At eighty years old, the abbess defended her community with a magnificent letter to the prelates of Mainz, where she links chant to the very work of God and warns those who silence it:

“Those who, without just cause, impose silence on a church and forbid the singing of God’s praises […] will lose their place in the choir of angels, unless they amend their lives by true penance and humble reparation.” — Hildegard, letter to the prelates of Mainz (1178–1179)^[35]

The interdict was finally lifted in March 1179, a few months before her death. Hildegard died at Rupertsberg on 17 September 1179, surrounded by her nuns, having upheld to the end her dual fidelity: to justice and to the Church.^[36]

A Process Never Concluded (13th–14th Century)

Hildegard’s reputation for holiness was immediate. As early as 1227–1228, Pope Gregory IX ordered the opening of a canonization process; an inquiry collected testimonies and miracles. But the documentation, judged insufficient legally, was returned in 1233, and the investigation stalled under Innocent IV and his successors: the process was never formally concluded.^[37] Despite this, her cult did not fade. Her name was inscribed in the Roman Martyrology, and her feast celebrated in the Rhineland dioceses; in practice, the Church had venerated her as a saint for centuries.^[38]

Benedict XVI: Equivalent Canonization and Doctorate (2012)

It was Pope Benedict XVI, a great admirer of the Rhineland mystic to whom he dedicated two catecheses in 2010, who completed what the Middle Ages had left unfinished. On 10 May 2012, he carried out the “equivalent canonization” of Hildegard, extending her liturgical cult to the universal Church—the form by which a pope confirms the sanctity of a servant of God venerated since time immemorial, without a new process.^[39]

Then, on 7 October 2012, opening the synod on the new evangelization, he proclaimed her Doctor of the Universal Church, alongside Saint John of Avila:

“We declare Saint John of Avila, diocesan priest, and Saint Hildegard of Bingen, professed nun of the Order of Saint Benedict, Doctors of the Universal Church.” — Benedict XVI, apostolic letter of 7 October 2012^[40]

In this letter, the pope praises

“this great woman [who] truly stands out with crystal clarity on the horizon of history by the holiness of her life and the originality of her teaching,” and lauds “a marvelous harmony between teaching and daily life.”^[41]

Hildegard thus became the fourth woman elevated to the doctorate, after Saint Catherine of Siena, Saint Teresa of Ávila, and Saint Thérèse of Lisieux—joining in the choir of doctors giants such as Saint Thomas Aquinas. Her feast is set on 17 September.^[42]

The Migraine Thesis (Singer, Sacks)

Since the early 20th century, scholars have proposed explaining Hildegard’s visions through neurology. In 1917, the historian of science Charles Singer noted that certain figures in her visions—luminous fortifications, falling stars, sparkling points—resembled the scintillating scotoma of the migraine aura.^[43] The neurologist Oliver Sacks took up and strengthened this hypothesis in a famous appendix to his book Migraine (“The Visions of Hildegard”):

“A careful examination of these accounts and figures leaves no room for doubt as to their nature: they were indisputably migrainous.”
— Oliver Sacks, Migraine, appendix “The Visions of Hildegard”^[44]

What Retrospective Diagnosis Cannot Say

This interpretation is appealing, but it confuses two things: the support of an experience and its content. Even assuming Hildegard suffered from migraines—which is not impossible—this tells us nothing about the theological truth of what she saw, no more than the chemistry of ink evaluates the correctness of a theorem. A retrospective diagnosis, made eight centuries after the fact based on a few images, remains highly speculative; and recent historiography has shown that such diagnoses often serve an ideological agenda: to secularize Hildegard, to strip her of her spiritual significance and enlist her in a purely materialist narrative.^[45] Specialists like Barbara Newman have reminded us that a possible physiological substrate does not exclude inspiration: God can use a fragile body, and the doctrinal greatness of the Scivias or the Liber divinorum operum is not deduced from any headache.^[46]

Hildegard herself had, in advance, defused the objection: her visions, she said, came neither through the bodily eyes nor the ears, but in the soul, in the Living Light. This is precisely the realm that neurology cannot explore. By declaring her a doctor of the Church, the Church did not validate a physiology: it recognized the holiness of a life and the fruitfulness of a doctrine.

Saint Hildegard of Bingen unites what the centuries have too often separated: theological rigor and musical beauty, natural science and contemplation, monastic humility and prophetic courage. To read her from within, one should begin with the catecheses of Benedict XVI (1st and 8th September 2010) and his apostolic letter of 2012, then with the Scivias itself. It is also worthwhile to listen to her music—the Symphonia and the Ordo Virtutum—for in her, doctrine is sung. Finally, she can be situated among her contemporaries: Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, who supported her, and the other Doctors of the Church, Saint Catherine of Siena and Saint Thomas Aquinas.