Her innovations in the field of arts and the humanities even reached the field of dramatisation. Her exchange of letters with the abbess Tengswich, from nearby Andernach, demonstrates Hildegard’s wish to better celebrate liturgical holidays by not hesitating to use the theatrical procedures which were within her reach. Her own nuns would wear long white dresses and golden crowns while they recited the psalms, etc. According to P. Dronke2, at least on one occasion (in 1167) she even made her own scenery, especially for one of her texts, something like a drama in its form.
“I can bring down evilon those men that offend me.
Oh King, if you wish to live,listen to me or I shall run youthrough with my sword.”
—Hildegard, letter to the Emperor
Frederick II Barbarossa
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Last years
In a long letter from the abbess of Bingen to the prelates of Mainz, dating from 1178, allusion is made to the intensive cultivation of vocal and instrumental music in the monastery on the Rupertsberg under Hildegard’s leadership. Seemingly, it was during this time that the then innovative custom of celebrating the main ecclesiastical festivities dressed in white veils, rings and very elaborately designed tiaras was introduced. In this way she made the nuns play the role of being the brides of Christ.
During her later years, and despite her prestige throughout Europe, Hildegard and the sisters of her convent experienced serious difficulties. They were distrusted by the chapter of Mainz during the abbess’s last years for having buried an excommunicated person in their cemetery, although on that occasion, Hildegard successfully appealed to her Archbishop.
She died over the age of 80, an exceptional feat in itself for the time. Most of the information we have about her life comes from her biographer, Gottfried of Disibodenberg. Immediately after her death, the processes necessary to have her raised to the altars were commenced. She is said to have performed several miracles, both during her lifetime and even after her death. With her growing fame during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, efforts to have her declared a saint increased. Several popes, including Gregory IX and Innocent IV, ordered the process of information to consider her possible canonisation. This process was later repeated by Clement V and John XXII although their efforts also came to nothing. But due to her excellent reputation, especially throughout Germany, the German dioceses approved her veneration (which seems to date back as far as the thirteenth century), and in the fifteenth century her name was incorporated into the Roman Martyrology, with her feast being celebrated on 17 September.
Sources and poetic works
Her literary output, which has been conserved in two main manuscript sources, must be considered in light of the post Carolingian Benedictine tradition. Both are in early German neumes. B:Dd from the Belgian locality of Dendermonde, Benedictine Abbey of St Peter and St Paul; MS 9, also known as the Villarenser Kodex, which some scholars date from around 1170–1175, although others believe it was completed around 1158; and the Riesenkodex (or “Giant Codex”), identified as MS2 of the Hessische Landesbibliothek, in the German city of Wiesbaden (D-WIl 2). This has traditionally been dated as posterior to Hildegard’s death, from the 1180s (Schrader, Führkötter3), but recent studies (Derolez, Van Acker4) have demonstrated that it dates from 1177–1180, the period during which Hildegard’s last secretary, Guibert de Gembloux, who ordered the compilation of the codex, was at the monastery on the Rupertsberg.
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