St. Hildegard's Wisdom

Some claim that Saint Hildegard wasn’t so saintly. She had gynecological and sexual knowledge that a nun wouldn’t be expected to know about. And others interpreted some of her personal letters as sexually motived. These are topics I’ve long wanted to write about Hildegard and so here I do. Because in her defense, the claims are silly.

I found some fine points in Honey Meconi’s book, Hildegard of Bingen, but I begin with some comments from a University of Rochester News Center / Arts article, in which she was interviewed.

Two of her comments from the article stood out. One answered a question I love to ask people about how they first discovered St. Hildegard.

Her response to the interviewer was,

When I was a graduate student, I was asked to be musical director of a performance of her play—she wrote a whole musical play, the equivalent of an opera. I had never heard of her before that, and this is what brought her to my attention.

And that,

One of the things I love about her is that she was 42 before she started writing anything down. In a sense, I think of her as the patron saint of “late bloomers.” Interestingly enough, that slow start is typical of many women who are initially not confident in their abilities. It’s only as they get older and gain more confidence that they start really making a mark in the world.

I appreciate when I learn something new about St. Hildegard. To think of her as the patron saint of late bloomers is another reason for her to resonate with me. I’ve been a late bloomer in everything in my life.

And so that led me to want to read Honey Meconi’s book. In it I found gold. She addresses some misconceptions about Hildegard that I have heard before that always disturbed me:

1.
There are volumes published of St. Hildegard’s letters to many people, including those of high importance. Many sought out her advice from far away and she responded in letters. But a woman in that medieval time period who had visions as she did ran the risk of being called a heretic or insane. Therefore, it’s understandable that she would want supportive relationships around her. She had a friend in nun and noblewoman Richardis von Stade, but when she left to go to another monastery, Hildegard felt vulnerable and abandoned.

Meconi writes,

The other take on Hildegard’s life, far more controversial, posits an actual love relationship between Hildegard and Richardis. Such an idea is distasteful to those who see Hildegard primarily as a spiritual leader for whom such a relationship would be anathema; it is embraced readily by others who have no difficulty interpreting this as the twelfth-century equivalent of same-sex desire.

Here’s what the book, Women Writers of the Middle Ages by Peter Dronke cites she wrote to Richardis,

Woe is me, your mother, woe is me, daughter—why have you abandoned me like an orphan? I loved the nobility of your conduct, your wisdom and chastity, your soul and the whole of your life, so much that many said: What are you doing?

Now let all who have a sorrow like my sorrow mourn with me—all who have ever, in the love of God, had such high love in heart and mind for a human being as I for you—for one snatched me away from them in a single moment, as you were from me.

He adds about another part of the letter,

The opening words, ‘Daughter, hear me (Audi me, Filia)’, echo a verse in Psalm 44 that, by its continuation – which will have been present to Richardis’ mind as to Hildegard’s – suggests an implicit claim greater than Hildegard spells out:

Daughter, hear me and see, and incline your ear,
And forget your people and your father’s house –
Then the King will desire your glorious beauty…

Flowery language but hardly illicitly sexual. As Peter Dronke writes, her words echo a verse in Psalms.

In A Retreat with Gerard Manley Hopkins & Hildegard of Bingen. Turning Pain into Power. Gloria Hutchinson writes,

Drawing on her experience as a spiritual director to married women (as well as laymen and monastics) and steeped in the erotic imagery of the Song of Songs, Hildegard had written with holy passion of the ultimate connection between woman and man.

There are some Christians that dismiss Solomon’s Song of Songs in the Bible because they deem it too explicit. But that’s a matter of choice for them. It doesn’t reflect on the Bible itself. And so Hildegard’s writing might also be taken in an off-putting way as not proper discourse from a nun. Nonetheless, that was her style of expression. Of course, her writings have been handed down and translated and so perhaps not as exact as she had written. But, can you discount the words in the Bible that are inspired by the Holy Spirit? Can you discount the words of this abbess who is also a Doctor of the Church?

The same can be said about her relationship with the monk, Volmar of Disibodenberg. He was assigned to her first as a tutor in her youth and later as the scribe for her visions.

Gloria Hutchinson writes, “Through her friendship with the monk Volmar, Hildegard’s faithful secretary, she had experienced the joy of a well-balanced male-female relationship.”

And therefore, a love can be interpreted between them too, and yet no one needs to conclude that it was sexual.

She can be viewed as an artist, one of her many talents, and as one who could both create and live with a passion.

When Meconi describes how Hildegard transformed the Ruperstberg monastery upon becoming the abbess, we get a glimpse into her creativity.

Further, there was passion and excitement, but it was channeled not into behavior that appears masochistic to us, but rather into a sparkling series of creations that contributed to an extraordinary atmosphere: a musical play; special attire with crowns and jewels and long, flowing hair on feast days; a newly created language; unique musical compositions frequently couched in passionate and soaring lines of dramatic length and range.

Meconi goes on to say that Hildegard had “an appreciation and valuing of the here and now…”

Why then wouldn’t her letters to friends and others not be equally dramatically prosed? Living for now. Enjoying the moment. A life well-lived. A life full of joy.

2.
Meconi states,

Hildegard is “the first scientific writer to discuss sexuality and gynecology from a female perspective. The presence of these topics led various nineteenth-century writers to eliminate the work from Hildegard’s opus on the premise that a cloistered nun would have no knowledge of such doings.

She further writes that Hildegard allowed widows to be nuns in her abbey, not all abbeys did. Widows from whom she could gather experiences about married life. The monastery served as a medical clinic for dispensing treatments and healings for the local women. And so a knowledge would be necessary to address the women’s needs. And being a spiritual director to women both married and single would further that expertise.

We shouldn’t dismiss her acquired knowledge of sexual matters just because she was celibate herself. Nor should anyone assume she was speaking from personal experience. We can’t project things onto her that might not apply.

After all, John Paul II is known for his writings on the Theology of the Body and Love and Responsibility, works about the human body, human sexuality and sexual morality.

From Karol Wojtyla (Pope John Paul II), Love and Responsbility:

It is sometimes said that only those who live a conjugal life can pronounce on the subject of marriage, and only those who have experienced it can pronounce on love between man and woman. In this view, all pronouncements on such matters must be based on personal experience, so that priests and persons living a celibate life can have nothing to say on questions of love and marriage. Nevertheless they often do speak and write on these subjects. Their lack of direct personal experience is no handicap because they possess a great deal of experience at second-hand, derived from their pastoral work. For in their pastoral work they encounter these particular problems so often, and in such a variety of circumstances and situations, that a different type of experience is created, which is certainly less immediate, and certainly ‘second-hand’, but at the same time very much wider. The very abundance of factual material on the subject stimulates both general reflection and the effort to synthesize what is known.

Catholics are taught to practice self-control and celibacy if not married, and it was the same in the Middle Ages. A nun is still human but no one should assume that everything is motivated by sex. A friend can just be a friend. And being so spiritually-minded, one can conclude that Hildegard followed the church’s teachings on celibacy.

Of course, there are those that don’t follow the magisterium of the Catholic Church to the letter. No one said it was easy. Some of us less virtuous than Hildegard fail at times, but it is expected that we strive for virtue.

Hildegard had many talents expressed through her musical compositions, medical and spiritual writings, advocating for and advising women and men, and so much more. She was not cloistered. She travelled and interacted with others and was not isolated in a monastery cell. Therefore, she could have access to knowledge of what women were dealing with in their marriages and beyond. That doesn’t mean it was from firsthand experience. No one should add sex to every motivation. Immorality exists but not everyone is acting on it.

If she were sinful would God have gifted her with heavenly visions? As Volmar writes to her,

In you, however, there are more signs of the virtues and more evidence of the miracles of God and of the Holy Spirit than we could possibly say.

(Baird & Ehrman, 1998, p.169)

Or from the Bible, Matthew 7:17-20:

Just so, every good tree bears good fruit, and a rotten tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a rotten tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire. So by their fruits you will know them.

Resources:

Meconi, H. (2018). Hildegard of Bingen. University of Illinois Press.

Hutchinson, G. (1995). A Retreat with Gerard Manley Hopkins & Hildegard of Bingen. Turning Pain into Power. St. Anthony Messenger Press.

Dronke, P. (1984). Women Writers of the Middle Ages. Cambridge University Press.

Wojtyla, K., Tr. Willetts, H.T. (1993). Love and Responsbility. Ignatius Press.

Baird, J.L., Ehrman, R.K. (1998). The Letters of Hildegard of Bingen Volume II. Oxford University Press.