Although some early bibliographic sources state that she was born in 1098 in Böckelheim, near Kreuznach, it seems more likely that she was born in Bermersheim vor der Höhe near Alzey, in the Palatinate, very close to the region known as Rheinhessen. She died in Rupertsberg (or Mount Rupert), near the area of Bingen on the Rhein, the patronymic by which she is known today, on 17 September 1179.

She was of noble birth and the tenth child of Hildebert and Mechtild. They promised her to the service of the Church at the age of eight. She was thus entrusted for her noviciate to the closed Benedictine monastery of Disibodenberg, situated on the banks of the Nahe River. She seems to have received an excellent education in this monastery from the then abbess, and sister of Count Meginhard, Jutta of Spanheim.

Her life, as has been told by various authors, is a combination of well documented truth and legend. Various sources state that she took the veil at the age of 15, which means that she would have taken her vows as a nun in the year 1113. Some commentators believe that during these years she led a life of study, peaceful and without incident, until she experienced the first of her visions and revelations. However, there are those who maintain that she had had these visions as a child and they intensified in later years.

Whatever the case, after Jutta’s death in the year 1136, Hildegard succeeded her as superior of the monastery of Disibodenberg. It was seemingly around this time that Hildegard felt the divine command to record her visions in writing. This most probably occurred around the year 1141. She was aided by her beloved secretary and provost, the monk Volmar. This period resulted in the Scivias, or Sciens vias Domini (“He who knows the ways to the Lord”).

The trilogy

Hildegard took no less than ten years, from 1141 to 1151, to write her dogmatic treatise Scivias. This, her first visionary work in prose, coincided with the period of the Second Crusade (1147–1149). Her treatise was initially approved by the Archbishop of Mainz. Sometime afterwards, at the suggestion of the later famous Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, by Pope Eugene III. The work, which consists of 26 revelations, would appear to be the inspiration for Dante’s vision of the Trinity. Its illustrations have been compared to the much later work of William Blake.

For the music lover, one of the most accurate phrases contained in the treatise is perhaps that which advocates a close relationship between text and music: “The soul is symphonic; and just as the word designates the body, the symphony designates the spirit, because celestial harmony proclaims divinity, and the word publishes the humanity of God’s son.”

Scivias was the beginning of a trilogy in which she addressed several of her symbolic, prophetic and apocalyptic visions. Between 1158–1163 it was followed by the Liber vite meritorum (the Book of the merits of life). Then in 1163–70 by Liber divinorum operum (the Book of the divine works). This work encompasses her cosmology. These visions and ecstasies, prophecies and miracles (she was even asked to perform exorcisms), brought her great fame, and she became known as “the Sibyl of the Rhine”. But let’s go back to the years she began writing her visionary trilogy. Between 1147 and 1150 her community began to outgrow the monastery of Disibodenberg. So with 20 religious sisters (young noblewomen from rich families), she founded a monastery on the Rupertsberg in the Rhine valley, near Bingen. Many of these sisters financially supported the project. The aristocratic and illustrious Von Stade family were particularly supportive. Richardis, her most beloved pupil, was a member of this family. The new independent monastery of Saint Rupert was dedicated to the Virgin and the saints Philip, James and Martin.

Hildegard was to remain in her new monastery, with its splendid and carefully nurtured Saint Maximin of Trier’s library, for the rest of her life. It was during this time that she became ever increasingly famous as an erudite. Years later, she was called “abbess” in letters of protection drawn up by Frederick Barbarossa (16 April 1163). During this decade, Hildegard made four long religious and diplomatic missions from Rupertsberg across Germany. In or around 1165 she founded a daughter house at Eibingen, on the opposite bank of the Rhine, close to Rüdesheim.

Encyclopedic culture

A restless spirit, she immersed herself in awakening the creative vitality which affected the whole twelfth century. Hildegard wrote extensively on varied topics. Sometimes independently and sometimes in collaboration with others. This impressive output was thanks to her diverse and encyclopaedic knowledge. But even J. P. Migne’s monumental Latin Patrology included only part of her writings. In the religious field she demonstrated her deep knowledge of the Bible and the exegetic tradition of her time. She wrote about theology, ethics, asceticism, exegesis, commented on the Gospel, as well as the Athanasian creed and the Benedictine Rule. She also wrote on the lives of various saints, such as Disibod and Rupert.

A woman ahead of her time, especially considering she was a cloistered nun, her extensive and manifold literary work spanned a wide range of genres but always exuded great piety. Her encyclopaedic vision of life led her to draft scientific writings (such as the so-called “Berlin Fragment”) and treatises in the 1150s. Her medical work, which is basically encompassed by her Causæ et curæ, described such varied issues as the circulation of the blood, migraines, vapours and fears, frenzy, dementia, and specific obsessions. She also wrote about natural history in her Physica, which included interesting studies about physics, botany and zoology (the elements, plants and trees, minerals, fish, birds, four-footed animals and reptiles, etc.).

Hildegard also maintained an extensive written correspondence, in German and Latin, with some of the most important correspondents of the time; among them, various popes (such as Eugene III, Anastasius IV and Adrian IV), emperors, kings and princes (Conrad III, Frederick I Barbarossa and Henry II of England), prelates, bishops and archbishops, abbots and abbesses, lower clergy and laymen, monks and secular governors. Among others, we know that she corresponded with Elisabeth of Schönau, also a nun and her contemporary, who had had visions about the life and martyrdom of Saint Ursula, both nuns no doubt contributing to the renewed interest in this saint. Once in Rupertsberg, she also corresponded with the abbot Cuno of Disibodenberg, whom she served as a spiritual advisor, furnishing him with some of her poems and chants. After her work was publicly accredited by Pope Eugene in 1147, many temporal political leaders asked for her advice. Hildegard hurried to help them in her letters and sermons, but not before “instructing” them and even guiding them with a certain authority as to the decisions which had to be made. She reprehended actions which she believed deserved criticism, and freely gave her opinion about the reformation of the Church. We know that by the year 1148 she enjoyed a very creditable reputation throughout Europe. For example, that very year Odo of Paris praised her in the following manner: “It is said that you are raised to the heavens, that much has been revealed to you, and that you have given form to great writings and discovered new ways of singing.” 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

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. It is said that the “Sibyl of the Rhine’s” composition of lyrical poetry goes back to at least the 1140s. She compiled it in the early 1150s under the title Symphonia armoniæ celestium revelationum. P. Dronke has proposed that the two manuscripts cited above represent the Symphonia cycle in two states of development5. Of these, the first (Dendermonde MS 9, which Hildegard offered to the Cistercian monastery of Villers) may have included the drama Ordo virtutum at the beginning as an integral part of the cycle. The second (D-WIl 2) excludes the Ordo along with two other small items (O frondens and Laus Trinitati), and shows the cycle somewhat reshaped. The latter volume, the Riesenkodex, had been copied in Hildegard’s scriptorium in the monastery on the Rupertsberg (it consists of 481 460 x 290 mm. pages, written in two columns), where it was kept from the beginning. It is really a collected edition of Hildegard’s works, except her scientific writings, which contains her entire trilogy, in addition to various letters and her main lyrical works (Symphonia). The order of appearance of the works in the manuscript is such that the items dedicated to the Holy Spirit precede those for the Virgin Mary. The items to St Ursula and her 11,000 virgins come under the heading of “Virgins”; it also has additional items (mostly sequences and hymns), such as, for example, the works for the Trier saints (Matthias, Eucharius and Maximinus), the item for Boniface, and O viridissima, labelled “the most brilliant of Hildegard’s compositions to the Virgin Mary.” Curiously, the images and allegories used to refer to the Mary are among the richest and most varied of her work, in accordance with the importance the feminine element played. For example, the Virgin is seen as the redeemer of Eve’s original sin (Ave/Eva), or as the flowered branch of the tree of Jesse (wordplay Virgo=Virgin/Virga=Branch), or as the dawn above which Jesus’ sun rises.

“A woman’s pleasure is like sunlight, sweet, continuous and smooth as it diffuses into the earth which it warms and makes fertile. If it burns more strongly with its constant rays it would burn the fruits instead of ripening them.In the same way, the loving pleasure of a woman possesses a smooth strength, sweet and constant that lets it conceive and ripen the son in its belly.” —Hildegard

Symphonia

The music of Hildegard, which totals approximately 155 essentially liturgical and always monodic works, is closely linked to her poetic output, both in its lyrical and dramatic character.

Her main work is that known as the Symphonia armoniæ celestium revelationum, which comprises 77 poems and spiritual chants composed for her community at Rupertsberg. Of these, 44 are antiphons, 17 responds in prose, eight hymns (four of them for the Office), one kyrie (which is the exception to the rule that the majority of the texts Hildegard set to music were taken from her literary works), and seven sequences for the mass.

The works contained in the Symphonia form a liturgical cycle, the majority bearing designations to specific feasts (sequences for the Virgin Mary, the Holy Spirit, St Eucharius and St Maximinus). Most feasts have a pair of items (antiphon-respond), and some, especially those for the locally revered saints are more elaborate (such as St Rupert, which has three antiphons and a sequence, St Disibod, two antiphons, two responds and a sequence, St Ursula and her 11,000 virgins, on 21 October, two responds, hymn and sequence, etc.).

Ordo virtutum

Hildegard was also the author of the text and music of an exceptional sacred theatrical work, called a mystery or morality play. This is known as the Drama of the Virtues or Ordo virtutum. It is one of the oldest known morality plays, and one of the few medieval Latin dramas whose author we know the name of. Unequivocally completed prior to the year 1151, it was written in dramatic (free) verse, in which the movements and rhythms, although independent, are adapted to the music, which contains a total of 82 carefully notated melodies. One of its most outstanding merits is the excellent moral delineation or “dramatisation” of the characters presented (her poetry is laden with brilliant imagery). Furthermore, the language used throughout the work is highly mystical and shares the apocalyptical language of the visionary writings. Both characteristics were truly unique in Hildegard’s time.

Composed for the moral edification of the nuns, the play presents the battle between the 16 Virtues and a villain, the Devil, Diabolus. The heroine of the work is the soul (Anima), with her corresponding moments of seduction, repentance, etc. A double reading could lead to the identification of the Virtues with the Benedictine nuns themselves, the Devil with evil or sin, and Anima with the inner life of Christ. Hildegard’s choice of vocabulary is one of the most unusual in European medieval poetry. It has frequent strange, and even violent, effects, though at the same time very subtle and suggestive ones, hovering between celestial spheres and angelic choirs. An examination of the influences which might have occurred inevitably leads towards the images used in specific parts of the Old Testament —the Song of Songs (in her use of mystic and erotic images), or the book of the prophet Isaiah, as well as other biblical books such as the Apocalypse. Some affinity with certain symbolic relationships updated by Church Fathers can also be found. This is also true of the poetry of the monk Notker Balbulus (from the ninth century). There are even similarities—in richness and imaginative quality—with the styles of Walter of Châtillon and Peter Abelard (the latter was the only composer who, prior to Hildegard, ventured to compose a large-scale cycle of liturgical works during the 1130s).

Following the commencement of the Drama of the Virtues with the words “Incipit Ordo Virtutum”, where the work gets its title, the drama begins with a choir of patriarchs and prophets. This evokes the building of a celestial Jerusalem shown by the singing “Qui sunt hi, qui ut nubes?”, taken from Isaiah 60:8 (“Who are these who soar like clouds?”). But Hildegard’s originality, lyricism and poetic density are such that her Ordo virtutum became a truly exceptional medieval drama.

Recently serious doubts have stirred a certain polemic as to whether the work was originally intended to be read instead of performed on the stage. These have been raised by E. Simon, while, on the contrary, P. Dronke has discussed the work’s possible performance.

For the former, despite the fact that the Ordo Virtutum could be the earliest moral play, and even taking some exceptions into account, “the theatre was a male’s terrain.” Perhaps this is why he considers that “it is bad sociology to claim, as musical performing groups such as Sequentia do, that Hildegard and the nuns of Bingen would have staged the Ordo in the cloister of the convent”. By contrast, according to Peter Dronke7, the Ordo virtutum was planned for an audience from the beginning. He even goes as far as to suggest that it could have been premièred for the solemn consecration of the monastery on the Rupertsberg on 1 May 1152. This would have been attended by the cream of the local aristocracy, as well as numerous canons of the Cathedral of Mainz, presided by their Archbishop. However, strictly speaking, the only thing we can be sure of is that the evidence for the performance of the Ordo virtutum is, as P. Dronke himself admits, circumstantial and indirect. This is despite the existence of many coincidences and indications (enough of which are provided by the author) to suppose that the work was indeed performed. The text maintains some marginal notes and stage directions (expressions such as felix, gravata, penitens, strepitus…), perhaps conceived more for performers (supposed singers-actors) than for simple readers. There are 20 characters in the play, the same number of nuns who accompanied Hildegard in founding the monastery of the Rupertsberg. The only masculine role, Diabolus, might well have been played by Volmar, the only male who was constantly present in the monastery. The costumes needed by the characters could have been similar to the illustrations of the Virtues which appeared in great detail in the Scivias.

“I also composed songs and melodies in honour of God and of the Saints without having received any instruction, furthermore I sang them without having ever learnt musical notation from anybody.” —Hildegard

Hildegard’s music

As we have already seen, it would seem that Hildegard’s musical output commenced in the 1140s. Her music, then considered as the highest form of human activity, “is conceived to add a higher dimension of contemplation to the liturgy”, as M. Pérès points out. But despite it always being monodic, her melodies are not directly drawn from plainchant. Clearly there are some similarities, particularly in the genres and forms used, the principle that the melody is at the service of the text, trying to exalt its meaning. However, these stand out for their very unique conception (for example, their innovative and deliberate modulations from the D mode to that of E) in such a way so as to play with the ambiguity marked by the distance between the first two degrees of their respective scales, a tone in the Dorian and a semitone in the Phrygian. In Hildegard’s conception of melody, the process has the freedom of oral composition, and the melodic line spans some extraordinarily wide ranges for the period (reaching up to two octaves). This is in stark contrast to plainchant (which is usually confined to an octave) or the restricted limits of melodic range permitted by the modal scales (for example, by the music theory of Guy d’Eu, used in Cistercian circles). On the other hand, the general tendency when performing her music is to solemnly and slowly make a declamation, so that the listener can understand every word of the text and thus mentally construct the image it suggests and be able to sonorously, and even visually, contemplate it. Another novelty of Hildegard’s music is its clear distancing from the habitual music of her time, both from Gregorian chant (her music has occasionally been considered as a variant of late Gregorian chant, despite its sound and style being totally different) and Cistercian music, whose rules had been established 30 years earlier. Hildegard’s works move away from these rules in that they don’t avoid chromaticisms or changes of tonic. On the other hand, and given that most of her works pertained to the office of hours (they are, therefore, less “canonic” than the celebration of the mass, whose pieces are fixed in an almost immovable way by tradition), innovations can be made to their content because of their very nature and structure—as is the case, for example, with the pieces which honour saints (martyrs or apostles), which poetically relates the main events in the life of the saint, praising his merits and/or miracles.

Hildegard’s music is generally constructed using melodic formulæ. It is made up of a small number of fragments, or melodic patterns, which recur many times under different melodic and modal conditions (whether in one of the numerous variations possible, or combined and enriched with melismas). The melodic formulæ used in the poems of Symphonia are more ornamented than those used, for example, in the Ordo Virtutum, which is much more syllabic in its composition. Perhaps this is due to its dependence on the dramatic action. Herein lies one of the most peculiar and innovative characteristics of Hildegard’s work: her use of these formulæ and moreover the way in which she uses them. As Ian Bent points out, this is in contrast to, for example, the recurrent melodic elements in Adam of St Victor’s work of fixed phrases, which are assembled and reassembled in a patchwork quilt manner, akin to centonization. These formulæ are melodic “frameworks” which occur in innumerable different guises. Apart from some unpredictable melodic turns, the melodic movement usually proceeds from the finalis of the mode in question to its repercussio, later returning to the finalis, so that the principle of unity of the composition is emphasised as well as the return to its origin.

In regard to the genres used by Hildegard, it could be said that the antiphons, which are predominant in her output, have the final “Euouae” and often alternate between syllabic and highly melismatic settings. The responds are probably her most complex pieces, with elaborate roulades. They were performed after the readings at matins, or sometimes during the devotions or stopping places of a procession in front of the relics of a saint. They were generally supplied with verse and repetenda, and occasionally also Gloria Patri—utilising melodic material from the verse. On the other hand, the hymns, which include the “Amen”, and the sequences (which use a certain poetic and melodic parallelism) are the least elaborate, although they rarely reach the point of being purely syllabic.

Viewed in the context of its time, Hildegard’s work implied a new chant, while at the same time gathered together numerous characteristics of traditional European music which were beginning to be lost in the post-Carolingian period. This in itself was due to the general use of the new diastematic notation which was capable of precisely reflecting the intervals and degrees of a scale. However, it was not as useful in regard to other questions of detail, such as quarter tones, certain combinations which the twelfth-century theory could hardly justify, or, for example, other subtleties which were barely reflected in liquescent neumes. Thus, for example, Hildegard’s music exploits certain instabilities in the D and E modes which are still present today in Byzantine chant, though they were expurgated from Gregorian chant. This and other details gave her a unique and very distinctive personality.

“Man is limited in both soul and body and I, a mortal, as such cannot see clearly with my senses nor my spirit.Yet since my infancy, when I was weak of bone and nerves and suffered with the blood, and at all times since, I have received visions and this continues still today when I am more than seventy.By divine will, my spirit, in the vision, soars on high to the stars in rarefied air,it dilates and spreads over the earth, over the different regions and to faraway places.” —Hildegard

Reflection

In light of all the above, there seems to be no doubt as to the fact that Hildegard’s musical output was among the very best of its time in medieval Europe. There can also be no doubt that especially in recent years the revival and performance of her music has gained special impetus. But the million-dollar question is, what has sparked this renewed interest? The fact is that, as is almost always the case, incisive answers perhaps don’t completely reflect reality and must be sought in conjunction with diverse factors. Among them, one would have to point to the excellent work being done by scholars such as Peter Dronke and Leo Treitler, as well as their collaboration with early music groups such as the already-mentioned Sequentia. But, apart from this, I believe that there is something which goes beyond these considerations and which is linked to at least a further three phenomena:

Firstly, a “sociological” revival of Gregorian chant (in this case, medieval monodic music), which is most probably related to the search for the transcendental “from other angles.” Here, factors such as the fashion for austerity and an economy of means come into play; only one voice, generally performed a cappella, domed acoustics, with a sound beyond that of the recording studio, perhaps with more magical or esoteric nuances, etc. We are constantly and irremediably induced by fleeting, and not-so-fleeting, trends and, in a certain way, let’s be honest, the snobbishness of a consumer society, which is no longer content with the “traditional” forms of religion, but seeks that which can add an “exotic” element to the new ways of thinking, feeling, and in short, living.

Secondly, a new and lively interest in rescuing the “European cultural heritage” (in this case medieval), very much in tune with the times. The combination of both factors (new and exotic forms of religion and rescuing our historical heritage) is the source of the strong reassessment of the output of authors such as St Teresa of Jesus, Saint John of the Cross and Hildegard of Bingen. All of these, very appropriately, have a strong mystic and/or magical-esoteric component. In addition, it mustn’t be forgotten that Hildegard is, a priori, German, a hallmark of quality. She left behind very versatile works which include not only poetry and theatre but also, particularly significant because of its dissemination by today’s mass media, music.

And, finally, the strong social phenomenon which feminism has come to represent in recent years in disciplines such as the study of medieval history. Here, the role of women was clearly one of the elements which required some reconsideration and reevaluation, as in the history of art and literature (numerous women painters and poets have recently been revindicated), but the same is yet to be done in music. In this regard, there can be no doubt that Hildegard was the ideal figure to rescue, and that there can be no group better than the talented feminine component of the group Sequentia to carry out this task, which was guaranteed many supporters from other disciplines.

These are basically the reasons behind the recent increase in interest in Hildegard’s work and the consequential flurry of publications and recordings. But there is still one more factor which, without wanting to give it any positive or negative connotation, also claims numerous followers: “purism”. Here I would include the intentions of Marcel Pérès’s Ensemble Organum and their meticulous versions of her works which invite us to “return to the past.” That is to say reconstructing the “context” in which a specific musical work was produced. The liturgical framework it was directed at, which instruments were used to perform it, how the performers were dressed or, if it were the case, how it was staged, etc. Pérès’s, in my opinion, correct vision—more than version—aims to renew the present manner of rescuing Hildegard’s output, reflecting on some of the aspects I have noted above. He states: “The interpretations which have emerged in recent years have tended to isolate the works from their context and make music which is much closer to a “planned” concept of spirituality. This is illustrated by New Age movements, more than by the values of twelfth-century civilisation.” Furthermore, Pérès points out the core of the question. He alludes to the dead weight carried by Hildegard’s works, emphasising the need to proceed in a different manner to that which has been followed until now: “The many miracles which were attributed to Hildegard have perhaps served to take her music out of its true context, the liturgical reality and values of her time”.