Concept

Hildegard of Bingen

Overview

Hildegard of Bingen (German: Hildegard von Bingen, pronounced [ˈhɪldəɡaʁt fɔn ˈbɪŋən]; Latin: Hildegardis Bingensis; c. 1098 – 17 September 1179), also known as the "Sibyl of the Rhine", was a German Benedictine abbess and polymath, active during the High Middle Ages as a writer, composer, philosopher, mystic, visionary, and as a medical writer and practitioner of the Catholic Church. She is one of the best-known composers of sacred monophony, as well as the most recorded in modern history. A number of scholars have considered her to be the founder of scientific natural history in Germany.

Hildegard's convent at Disibodenberg elected her as magistra (mother superior) in 1136. She founded the monasteries of Rupertsberg in 1150 and Eibingen in 1165. Hildegard wrote theological, botanical, and medicinal works, as well as letters, hymns, and antiphons for the liturgy. She wrote poems, and supervised miniature illuminations in the Rupertsberg manuscript of her first work, Scivias. There are more surviving chants by Hildegard than by any other composer from the entire Middle Ages, and she is one of the few known composers to have written both the music and the words. One of her works, the Ordo Virtutum, is an early example of liturgical drama and arguably the oldest surviving morality play. She is noted for the invention of a constructed language known as Lingua Ignota.

Although the history of her formal canonization is complicated, regional calendars of the Catholic Church have listed her as a saint for centuries. On 10 May 2012, Pope Benedict XVI extended the liturgical cult of Hildegard to the entire Catholic Church in a process known as "equivalent canonization". On 7 October 2012, he named her a Doctor of the Church, in recognition of "her holiness of life and the originality of her teaching."

Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).

Possible passages

Found by search and not yet checked by a person; they may only mention the idea in passing.

Atque dum ibi dei populus moraretur, post iudices et prophetas reges instituti leguntur, quorum post Saulem primatum Dauid de tribu Iuda legitur adeptus fuisse. Descendit itaque ab eo per singulas successiones regium stemma perductumque est usque ad Herodis tempora, qui primus ex gentilibus memoratis populis legitur imperasse. Sub quo exstitit beata uirgo Maria quae de Dauidica stirpe prouenerat, quae humani generis…
Boethius, The Theological Tractates and The Consolation of Philosophy
Close in meaning to Hildegard of Bingen; the term itself is not named.
Read the chapter · Open in the reader
The great transaction of her life, her marriage with Reinwald, Court Librarian of Meiningen, had its origin in 1783; the fruit of that forced retreat of Schiller's to Bauerbach, and of the eight months he spent there, under covert, anonymously and in secret, as 'Dr. Ritter,' with Reinwald for his one friend and adviser. Reinwald, who commanded the resources of an excellent Library, and of a sound understanding, long…
Thomas Carlyle, The Life of Friedrich Schiller Comprehending an Examination of His Works
Close in meaning to Hildegard of Bingen; the term itself is not named.
Read the chapter · Open in the reader
It was reflected in the art which took for its subjects the saints, conceived not individually, but typically and according to tradition and authority. Their thin attenuated figures showed the ideal prescribed. The same humility showed itself in the intellectual sphere in the preeminence given to faith as compared with reason, while the mystic losing himself in God showed yet another phase of individual…
John Dewey, Ethics
Close in meaning to Hildegard of Bingen; the term itself is not named.
Read the chapter · Open in the reader

Hildegard of Bingen

Overview

Possible passages

Philosophers who discussed Hildegard of Bingen

Related ideas

Place in the tradition