#richardis von stade

[aeshnalacrymosa]

Welcoming Hildegard in Heaven

Some of my favorite stories about St. Hildegard von Bingen are about the friendships she had. First was Jutta von Sponheim (left), who taught Hildegard to read and write and probably to sing and play music too. When she passed away, Hildegard succeeded her as abbess of Disibodenberg. Second was monk Volmar (second from left), who encouraged Hildegard in her moments of doubt; his death was especially heartbreaking for Hildegard. Like Jutta and Hildegard, Richardis von Stade (right) was from a noble family and stayed in Disibodenberg and later Rupertsberg under Hildegard. Against Hildegard's wishes, Richardis became an abbess in a separate abbey. Her unexpected death shortly after leaving Rupertsberg broke Hildegard's heart. I could just imagine how happy their reunion in Heaven must have been in September 17, 1179.

[angevinyaoiz]

Yeah! I was curious about Berengaria bc I like studying cases of women who for all intents and purposes lived a fairly "ordinary" life. It's definitely standout to see the cases of women who were known for scandal or unusual circumstances, but the ways through which noblewomen navigated their lives and choices, especially when in extremely limited situations. It's neat to see the different approaches that would have been available and taken--a reminder that women in all eras have always navigated different networks and expectations and exercising of power in different ways.

SHE'S HERE!!!!!!!!!

[grntaire]

sarah kirkland snider is writing an opera about hildegard and richardis von stade we’ve got catholic lesbian opera folks we WON!!!!!!!!!

[darkmuseum]

Now again, I say: Woe is me, mother, woe is me, daughter, “Why have you forsaken me” [Ps 21.2; Matt 27.46; Mark 15.34] like an orphan? I so loved the nobility of your character, your wisdom, your chastity, your spirit, and indeed every aspect of your life that many people have said to me: What are you doing?

From a letter of Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), to Richardis, “her favorite nun and cherished friend, who has deserted her,” in The Letters of Hildegard of Bingen: Volume I. For a discussion of the homoeroticism of this letter, see Susan Schibanoff’s “Hildegard of Bingen and Richardis of Stade: The Discourse of Desire” in Same Sex Love and Desire Among Women in the Middle Ages (2001, Palgrave Macmillan).

[phantasmagloria]

Storm Stereo #76: Magistra Universalis

A show dedicated to the Medieval high priestess of divine chants, Hildegard von Bingen.

Sanctae Hildegardis by Kaitlynn Copithorne A show dedicated to the Medieval high priestess of divine chants, Hildegard von Bingen. An unconventional philosopher, writer and polymath, she composed religious music, theorised on cosmology, theology and science, wrote books on natural history, botany and mysticism, and even invented her own language. One of the few prominent women in medieval church…

[qqueenofhades]

granny hilary, tell us about gay porn in monasteries

Oh, I KNEW that someone was going to ask for this as soon as I reblogged that post with those tags (from you, even!). So yes, Kristen, the pervert tumblr hordes thank you for your service.

As was the case in most medieval single-sex environments, the precise balance of gender politics/constant suspicion of possible queerness was a major concern for monasteries. I've written about this before in the context of military chivalry/knighthood, and how medieval society both encouraged knights to love each other more than anything (battlefield brotherhood etc etc) and worried about whether they would love each other SO much that they would then have, y'know, actual sex. This was also a prominent worry in monasteries, which shut a bunch of often-young men up together and told them to be holy and focus on prayers and not the OTHER things that young men like to think about. My esteemed colleague @oldshrewsburyian has previously written about lesbian nuns, who often formed intense emotional/romantic bonds with other nuns. Hildegard of Bingen herself is a famous example of this, and she wrote many love letters to and about another nun, Richardis von Stade, who is often described as her "intimate friend." Regardless of whether this relationship was physical or not, Hildegard also wrote about "ecstasies" experienced in spiritual union with the Virgin Mary, and other medieval female mystics did the same.

In regard to gay monks, The Name of the Rose by famed medievalist Umberto Eco presents a fictionalized version of this, where one of the monks is something of a local monastery gay playboy and has several other monk lovers who are all presumed to be jealous of each other and possibly willing to commit murder on his behalf. This was also because a large number of monks, especially at wealthier abbeys, weren't there because they had a specific or personal religious calling. It was a common career path for younger sons, getting them out of the way of their elder brother's inheritance of their father's lands and titles, and plenty of career churchmen were relatively secular and interested in worldly pleasure, no matter how hard the Cluniacs and similar reform movements tried to outlaw clergy marriage, concubinage, and other sexual sins. Clergymen were, as is also the case today, often suspected of committing sodomy on the sly or otherwise hypocritically engaging in gay sex, and monastic authors such as Peter Damian, Odo of Cluny, and others wrote endless polemical tracts insisting that priests and monks refrain from having sex with each other, and otherwise bewailing the so-called dismal state of moral relations in the church. Of course, the bulk of concern was over male monks committing sexual sins with women, but the worry over clerical sodomy was never insignificant either. The 12th-century Cistercian monk Aelred of Rievaulx also produced various writings that have been read as homosocial, homoerotic, or otherwise exalting religious same-sex male love.

We also see this gender tension a lot in terms of the accounts of women dressing up as men to enter all-male monasteries and have a male-coded religious experience. Some of them get accused of impregnating local women, which is obviously biologically impossible but may hint at an intimate relationship with said woman, and other monks often note their "attractiveness" or other physical qualities which is then used as proof in discovering their "real gender." This likewise reflects the concern that monks were finding each other attractive even when they WEREN'T secretly women (and the scholarly literature also argues over whether we should consider these women as wearing "male disguise" or as proto-transgender individuals adopting clothing and life experiences that matched their identified gender rather than their gender assigned at birth). As noted above re: Hildegard, intensely "queer" mystical religious experiences involving physical and passionate adoration of the body of Jesus Christ were also common to both genders. Men were encouraged to visualize themselves as the "bride of Christ," transcending the ordinary limits of gender and joining in mystical (and possibly sexual) union with Jesus, and women did the same thing with both Jesus and the Virgin Mary. So yes, the medieval church was a LOT more queer than all the stereotypes would have it. In many ways.

The 14th-century Lollards in England also positioned themselves as reacting against clerical/monastic sodomy and sexual sins, and the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII also used the argument that those degenerate monks were all just in there screwing each other at all times, which was obviously rhetorical, but reflected a deeper real-world anxiety that this was in fact actually the case. So in other words: gay monks, like gay knights, absolutely did exist and deeply shaped the social rules, cultural environments, canon law, and everyday experience of their surroundings, even despite the wild unsexiness that is the tonsure haircut. Diversity win.

[troybeecham]

Today the Church remembers Hidegard of Bingen, abbess and visionary.

Ora pro nobis.

Hildegard of Bingen OSB (German: Hildegard von Bingen; Latin: Hildegardis Bingensis; 1098 – 17 September 1179 AD), also known as Saint Hildegard and Sibyl of the Rhine, was a German Benedictine abbess, writer, composer, philosopher, Christian mystic, visionary, and polymath. She is considered to be the founder of scientific natural history in Germany.

Hildegard was elected magistra by her fellow nuns in 1136 AD; she founded the monasteries of Rupertsberg in 1150 AD and Eibingen in 1165 AD. One of her works as a composer, the Ordo Virtutum, is an early example of liturgical drama and arguably the oldest surviving morality play. She wrote theological, botanical, and medicinal texts, as well as letters, liturgical songs, and poems, while supervising miniature illuminations in the Rupertsberg manuscript of her first work, Scivias. She is also noted for the invention of a constructed language known as Lingua Ignota.

Although the history of her formal consideration is complicated, she has been recognized as a saint by branches of the Roman Catholic Church for centuries. On 7 October 2012 AD, Pope Benedict XVI named her a Doctor of the Church.

Visions

Hildegard said that she first saw "The Shade of the Living Light" at the age of three, and by the age of five she began to understand that she was experiencing visions. She used the term 'visio' to this feature of her experience, and recognized that it was a gift that she could not explain to others. Hildegard explained that she saw all things in the light of God through the five senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. Hildegard was hesitant to share her visions, confiding only to Jutta, who in turn told Volmar, Hildegard's tutor and, later, secretary. Throughout her life, she continued to have many visions, and in 1141 AD, at the age of 42, Hildegard received a vision she believed to be an instruction from God, to "write down that which you see and hear." Still hesitant to record her visions, Hildegard became physically ill. The illustrations recorded in the book of Scivias were visions that Hildegard experienced, causing her great suffering and tribulations. In her first theological text, Scivias ("Know the Ways"), Hildegard describes her struggle within:

“But I, though I saw and heard these things, refused to write for a long time through doubt and bad opinion and the diversity of human words, not with stubbornness but in the exercise of humility, until, laid low by the scourge of God, I fell upon a bed of sickness; then, compelled at last by many illnesses, and by the witness of a certain noble maiden of good conduct [the nun Richardis von Stade] and of that man whom I had secretly sought and found, as mentioned above, I set my hand to the writing. While I was doing it, I sensed, as I mentioned before, the deep profundity of scriptural exposition; and, raising myself from illness by the strength I received, I brought this work to a close – though just barely – in ten years. (...) And I spoke and wrote these things not by the invention of my heart or that of any other person, but as by the secret mysteries of God I heard and received them in the heavenly places. And again I heard a voice from Heaven saying to me, 'Cry out therefore, and write thus!'”

It was between November 1147 and February 1148 AD at the synod in Trier that Pope Eugenius heard about Hildegard's writings. It was from this that she received Papal approval to document her visions as revelations from the Holy Spirit, giving her instant credence.

Before Hildegard's death, a problem arose with the clergy of Mainz. A man buried in Rupertsburg had died after excommunication from the Church. Therefore, the clergy wanted to remove his body from the sacred ground. Hildegard did not accept this idea, replying that it was a sin and that the man had been reconciled to the church at the time of his death.

On 17 September 1179 AD, when Hildegard died, her sisters claimed they saw two streams of light appear in the skies and cross over the room where she was dying.

God of all times and seasons: Give us grace that we, after the example of your servant Hildegard, may both know and make known the joy and jubilation of being part of your creation, and show forth your glory not only with our lips but in our lives; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Amen.

[viridariumzukunft]

[witch-of-time-and-letters]

BROTHERS OF LUST VI: BAD ROMANCE.

Tragic PAST to dammned reality.

La narrativa religiosa incluye historias en la mitología comparada, interpretadas como encuentros de amor o sexo entre personas del mismo sexo. Otros mitos contienen referencias LGBT. Se muestra un listado por continente de origen de la religión o el mito.

Egipto:

 Ash y Set

 Horus y Set

Babilonia:

 Enkidu y Gilgamesh en la mitología sumeria.

Bíblico:

 David y Jonatán

Japón:

 Ōkuninushi y Sukunabikona

 Takemikazuchi y Takeminakata

 Monju, Monju Bosatsu; Manjusri

 Jizō, Jizō Bosatsu; Ksitigarbha

 Kannon, Syō Kannon Bosatsu; Avalokiteśvara

 Aizen Myō-ō

 Fudō Myō-ō y Acala

 Shudō Daimyōjin

Europa

Cristianismo

 Sergio y Baco (mártires)

 Cosme y Damián (mártires)[2]

 San Sebastián

 Hildegarda de Bingen y Richardis von Stade

Grecia

 Abdero y Heracles

 Aquiles y Patroclo

 Aquiles y Troilo

 Agamemnon y Arginos

 Apolo y Jacinto

 Apolo y Cipariso

 Apolo e Himeneo

 Dioniso y Ampelo

 Dioniso y Prosimno

 Artemis (Zeus en la forma de Artemisa) y Calisto

 Cálamo y Carpo

 Crisipo y Layo

 Dafnis y Pan

 Hermes y Perseo

 Hermes y Crocos

 Nisus y Euryalus (Eneida)

 Zeus y Ganímedes

 Heracles e Hylas

 Heracles y Yolao

 Ianthe e Iphis

 Poseidón y Pélope

 Orfeo y Calais

La pederastia, tal como se entendía en la antigua Grecia, era una relación entre un hombre mayor y un joven adolescente. En Atenas el hombre mayor era llamado erastés y se encargaba de educar, proteger, amar y dar ejemplo a su amado. El joven era llamado erómeno y su retribución al amante era su belleza, juventud y compromiso. El Batallón Sagrado de Tebas, una unidad militar separada del resto y reservada únicamente a hombres y sus jóvenes amados, es normalmente considerado como el primer ejemplo de cómo en la Antigua Grecia se usaba el amor entre soldados en la tropa para estimular su espíritu combativo.

Los romances homosexuales a lo largo de la historia han sido por cuestiones religiosas, de lujuria, por cuestiones socio-históricas y geograficaa; la más extendida forma de relación sexual homosexual se daba entre hombres adultos y jóvenes adolescentes, conocida como pederastia. No está claro cómo se veían las relaciones entre mujeres en la sociedad, pero existen ejemplos tan antiguos como el de Safo de Lesbos.

La moralidad de la pederastia fue exhaustivamente analizada en la Antigua Grecia, siendo considerados algunos de sus aspectos como infames y otros como lo mejor que la vida podía ofrecer. En el diálogo platónico de las Leyes, la pederastia carnal es descrita como “contraria a la naturaleza”; sin embargo, los interlocutores de este diálogo reconocen que una iniciativa ipor la abolición de la pederastia sería impopular en la mayoría de las ciudades-estado griegas.

Sin embargo, una relación basada en un sentimiento y una tendencia desviados no puede crear las condiciones para la fidelidad que se encuentran en el verdadero matrimonio monogámico. Las pocas parejas homosexuales que mantienen vínculos estables son excepcionales. Además, la estabilidad en el mundo homosexual no significa fidelidad.

La adelfopoiesis ―conocida en latín como fraternitas iurata y ordo ad fratres faciendum― era una ceremonia practicada por varias iglesias cristianas durante la Edad Media e inicios de la Época Moderna en Europa para unir a dos personas del mismo sexo (habitualmente hombres).

En realidad, el mito de la “monogamia” va en sentido contrario a la experiencia homosexual. En un estudio de jóvenes homosexuales holandeses, la Dra. Maria Xiridou, del Servicio Municipal de Salud de Amsterdam indicó que las relaciones duran una media de entre 1 y 1½ años. Ella también informó que cada homosexual tiene al mismo tiempo como promedio otras ocho parejas por año.

La homosexualidad quiere ser aceptada como normal, necesita parecerse con la heterosexualidad. Por esta razón, el Movimiento Homosexual crea el mito de la “monogamia” homosexual en el cual las “parejas” estables guardan una “fidelidad” semejante a la del verdadero matrimonio.

La literatura y la mitología grecolatina están repletas de personajes bisexuales y de referencias a prácticas homosexuales entre hombres. El propio Zeus, « el padre de los dioses y los hombres », tenía a un joven troyano, Ganimedes, como a uno de sus amantes favoritos. La ambigua relación entre el héroe más popular, Aquiles, y su fiel pupilo Patroclo en «La Ilíada» de Homero fue vista por los propios autores griegos como una clara referencia homosexual. Precisamente por las muchas referencias, resulta sorprendente que casi ningún historiador abordara de forma clara el asunto hasta el siglo XX. Tras un largo periodo marcado por la censura en temas de homosexualidad, no se publicó un libro en inglés que tratara en exclusiva el tema histórico de la homosexualidad hasta 1978, «Homosexualidad griega» de K. J. Dover, que provocó airadas protestas en Grecia. Desde entonces, el tema se ha inundado de imprecisiones y generalidades de tintes literarios.

La trágica verdad es que esta imagen romántica de “amor” homosexual contrasta con la realidad. Detrás del alegre barniz, el estilo de vida homosexual está lleno de violencia, infidelidad y trauma.

Los hechos fríos y rudos prueban que el sentimentalismo erótico (y neurótico) entre personas del mismo sexo nada tiene del amor conyugal, que une a un hombre y a una mujer.

El psicólogo Gerard van den Aardweg afirma: “La intranquilidad homosexual no puede ser apaciguada, mucho menos teniendo una pareja, porque estas personas son impelidas por un insaciable deseo de una inalcanzable imagen fantasiosa.”

Idea of Love its Burning your Heart.

Lo que llamamos sexualización del pecado puede entenderse como una tendencia interpretativa de textos canónicos que logró, durante el curso del siglo XII, cambiar ciertos lineamientos de la moral cristiana. Uno de los mejores ejemplos de este cambio podemos verlo en la interpretación tradicional del pecado original. Con anterioridad a este giro, las autoridades eclesiásticas, siguiendo a San Agustín, entendían al pecado original como una falla del espíritu y de la voluntad, es decir, como una falta ligada a la soberbia y a la desobediencia. Sin embargo, a partir del siglo XII la tendencia general fue considerar el pecado original como un pecado ligado a la carne y resultado de la concupiscencia, lo que quiere decir, que se volvió un pecado de carácter primordialmente sexual. Es muy ilustrativo de este cambio el hecho de que, en el siglo VI, Gregorio Magno hubiera situado todos los actos pecaminosos relacionados con la lujuria como los menos graves dentro de la escala del pecado, antecedido por gula, avaricia, pereza o acedia, ira, envidia, vanagloria y, en primer lugar, soberbia.

[urbanhermit]

Blessed Jutta of Disibodenberg OSB (c 1084-1136) – Religious Nun of the Benedictine Order, Foundress and Abbess, Spiritual Director (most notably of St Hildegard of Bingen), Mystic, miracle worker – born c 1084 in Spanheim, Rhineland-Palatinate (in modern Germany) and died on 22 December 1136 at Disibodenberg Abbey, Germany of natural causes. “Jutta was like a river with many tributaries, overflowing with the grace of God.” – St Hildegard of Bingen OSB (1098-1179) Doctor of the Church. Countess Jutta von Sponheim (22 December 1091 – 1136) was the youngest of four noblewomen who were born into affluent surroundings in what is currently the Rhineland-Palatinate. She was the daughter of Count Stephen of Spanheim. Jutta, instead of entering the convent at an early age, became an "anchoress," a symbolic "anchor" for the world to God, and thus she closed herself for life in a one-room shelter, with only a small window through which food was passed in, and refused to be taken out. This hut was next to the Benedictine monastery on Disibodenberg, where she was abbess. She tutored several female pupils from wealthy families and they lived with her in her hermitage. She taught and raised them all, but most notably the child Hildegard of Bingen. On the Day of All Saints, 1 November 1112, Hildegard was given over as an oblate into the care of Jutta of Sponheim, who was only six years Hildegard’s elder. Jutta was also related to Marchioness Richardis of Stade, the mother of Hartwig, Archbishop of Bremen, and of Richardis, who was intimate friends with Hildegard. Jutta taught Hildegard to write; to read the collection of psalms used in the liturgy; and to chant the Opus Dei (‘work of God’), the weekly sequential recitation of the Canonical hours. She probably also taught Hildegard to play the zither-like string instrument called the psaltery. Jutta was a severe practitioner of asceticism, including penitential self-flagellation. She wore a chain under her clothes, prayed barefoot in the extreme cold of a German winter, and refused the allowed (and even encouraged) modifications to the Benedictine diet for those who were sick. https://www.instagram.com/p/CXxytzgLyKJ/?utm_medium=tumblr

[that-twink-composer]

Day 7

Pride Month goes on. Today we’re going to be looking at a composer was unique in more ways than one and is definitely important for so many reasons:

Hildegard von Bingen!

I’ve got to be honest that I don’t know too much about this piece specifically, so if anyone has more info that’d be lovely (it’s called “O Frondens Virga”). All I know that it, like basically everything H.v.B. every wrote down, is beautiful. She is absolutely fascinating for being a Medieval composer, nun, philosophical, doctor and medical researcher, mathematician etc. because there ain’t nothing she couldn’t do. Her music is almost entirely religious or concerning morality (which is fitting considering her main line of work) but there are hints to suggest praise of the female body which brings up the (probably true) theory that she had lesbian relationships with other girls in the abbey. Particular attention should be brought to her closeness with her assistant, Richardis von Stade.

Special thanks to @justauseronline for informing me of this!

[ontologicalshakedown]

We just watched Vision – From the Life of Hildegard von Bingen, and all I could think through the film was how hard Richardis von Stade fangirled over Hildegard.

[qqueenofhades]

Random question. Do you have a favorite medieval historical figure who is also lesbian?

An excellent question, we can all agree. Truly.

I will start off by pointing you to this ask that @oldshrewsburyian​ answered a few weeks ago, which offered the necessary asterisk and caveats about whether we should identify medieval figures as explicitly gay/lesbian/bisexual etc, and then went on to discuss lesbian nuns, which is generally an A+ place to start. It also briefly touched upon the female homoeroticism in some medieval mysticism, and gender was generally subverted and played upon and used in very interesting ways in women’s religious lives in general. There was also a fairly strong tradition of women dressing as men and living as monks, or otherwise becoming “queer” figures, as we would describe them, in their conception and performance of their social and religious gender presentation.

As far as favourite possibly-lesbian medieval historical figures go, I would say Hildegard of Bingen, who most of us nerds have probably have heard of (and if not, should, because she is awesome) probably tops the list. Hildegard had an emotionally intense relationship, probably romantic in nature, with another nun, Richardis of Stade, and her grief at being parted from Richardis (when she transferred to another abbey) and attempts to return her to the convent formed a bulk of Hildegard’s correspondence in the mid-12th century. She went so far as writing to the pope personally, and while Hildegard critiqued physical lesbianism in her other works, it a) shows that medieval people were perfectly well aware that same-sex practices and desires existed, and b) is not exclusive of her having a romantic attachment to Richardis. This case is examined in more detail in Susan Schibanoff’s essay, “Hildegard of Bingen and Richardis von Stade: The Discourse of Desire” in Same-Sex Love and Desire Among Women in the Middle Ages, the whole book of which is great and you should check out. I also recommend Edith Benkov’s “The Erased Lesbian: Sodomy and the Legal Tradition in Medieval Europe,” in the same volume.

If you want to read more about cross-dressing female saints and queer/lesbian medieval studies in general, here are a few articles to check out:

Andrea-Bianka Znorovszky, ‘“Ave Mari(n)a!” Representing a Cross-Dressed Saint in Fourteenth- To Sixteenth-Century Italy/Venice: Influences, Models, and Patterns of Female Sanctity’, Medium Aevum Quotidianum, 69 (2014), 45-62.

Carol Lansing, ‘Donna con donna? A 1295 Inquest into Female Sodomy’, Studies in Medieval and Renaissance History, 3 (2005) 109-122.

Diane Watt, ‘Sins of Omission: Transgressive Genders, Subversive Sexualities, and Confessional Silences in John Gower’s Confessio Amantis’, Exemplaria, 13 (2001), 529-551.

E. Ann Matter, ‘My Sister, My Spouse: Woman-Identified Women in Medieval Christianity’, in The Boswell Thesis: Essays on “Christianity, Social Tolerance, and Homosexuality”, ed. by Mathew S. Kuefler (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2006), pp. 152-166.

Helmut Puff, ‘Female Sodomy: The Trial of Katherina Hetzeldorfer (1477)’, Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 30 (2000), 41-61.

Jacqueline Murray, ‘Twice Marginal and Twice Invisible: Lesbians in the Middle Ages’, in Handbook of Medieval Sexuality, ed. by Vern L. Bullough and James A. Brundage (New York: Garland, 1996), pp. 191-222.

Kathleen Coyne Kelly, ‘The Writable Lesbian and Lesbian Desire in Malory’s Morte Darthur’, Exemplaria, 14 (2002), 239-270.

Lucy Allen-Goss, ‘Queerly Productive: Women and Collaboration in Cambridge University Library Ms Ff. 1.6’, Postmedieval, 9 (2018), 334-348.

Martha Easton, ‘“Why Can’t a Woman Be More Like a Man?” Transforming and Transcending Gender in the Lives of Female Saints’, in The Four Modes of Seeing: Approaches to Medieval Imagery in Honor of Madeline Harrison Caviness, ed. by Evelyn Staudinger Lane, Elizabeth Carson Pastan and Ellen M. Shortell (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), pp. 333-347.

Stephen J. Davis, ‘Crossed Texts, Crossed Sex: Intertextuality and Gender in Early Christian Legends of Holy Women Disguised as Men’, Journal of Early Christian Studies, 10 (2001), 1-36.

Anyway. There is plenty of stuff out there, so hopefully this gives you a few things to start researching!

[troybeecham]

Today the Church remembers Hidegard of Bingen, abbess and visionary.

Ora pro nobis.

Hildegard of Bingen OSB (German: Hildegard von Bingen; Latin: Hildegardis Bingensis; 1098 – 17 September 1179 AD), also known as Saint Hildegard and Sibyl of the Rhine, was a German Benedictine abbess, writer, composer, philosopher, Christian mystic, visionary, and polymath. She is considered to be the founder of scientific natural history in Germany.

Hildegard was elected magistra by her fellow nuns in 1136 AD; she founded the monasteries of Rupertsberg in 1150 AD and Eibingen in 1165 AD. One of her works as a composer, the Ordo Virtutum, is an early example of liturgical drama and arguably the oldest surviving morality play. She wrote theological, botanical, and medicinal texts, as well as letters, liturgical songs, and poems, while supervising miniature illuminations in the Rupertsberg manuscript of her first work, Scivias. She is also noted for the invention of a constructed language known as Lingua Ignota.

Although the history of her formal consideration is complicated, she has been recognized as a saint by branches of the Roman Catholic Church for centuries. On 7 October 2012 AD, Pope Benedict XVI named her a Doctor of the Church.

Visions

Hildegard said that she first saw "The Shade of the Living Light" at the age of three, and by the age of five she began to understand that she was experiencing visions. She used the term 'visio' to this feature of her experience, and recognized that it was a gift that she could not explain to others. Hildegard explained that she saw all things in the light of God through the five senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. Hildegard was hesitant to share her visions, confiding only to Jutta, who in turn told Volmar, Hildegard's tutor and, later, secretary. Throughout her life, she continued to have many visions, and in 1141 AD, at the age of 42, Hildegard received a vision she believed to be an instruction from God, to "write down that which you see and hear." Still hesitant to record her visions, Hildegard became physically ill. The illustrations recorded in the book of Scivias were visions that Hildegard experienced, causing her great suffering and tribulations. In her first theological text, Scivias ("Know the Ways"), Hildegard describes her struggle within:

“But I, though I saw and heard these things, refused to write for a long time through doubt and bad opinion and the diversity of human words, not with stubbornness but in the exercise of humility, until, laid low by the scourge of God, I fell upon a bed of sickness; then, compelled at last by many illnesses, and by the witness of a certain noble maiden of good conduct [the nun Richardis von Stade] and of that man whom I had secretly sought and found, as mentioned above, I set my hand to the writing. While I was doing it, I sensed, as I mentioned before, the deep profundity of scriptural exposition; and, raising myself from illness by the strength I received, I brought this work to a close – though just barely – in ten years. (...) And I spoke and wrote these things not by the invention of my heart or that of any other person, but as by the secret mysteries of God I heard and received them in the heavenly places. And again I heard a voice from Heaven saying to me, 'Cry out therefore, and write thus!'”

It was between November 1147 and February 1148 AD at the synod in Trier that Pope Eugenius heard about Hildegard's writings. It was from this that she received Papal approval to document her visions as revelations from the Holy Spirit, giving her instant credence.

Before Hildegard's death, a problem arose with the clergy of Mainz. A man buried in Rupertsburg had died after excommunication from the Church. Therefore, the clergy wanted to remove his body from the sacred ground. Hildegard did not accept this idea, replying that it was a sin and that the man had been reconciled to the church at the time of his death.

On 17 September 1179 AD, when Hildegard died, her sisters claimed they saw two streams of light appear in the skies and cross over the room where she was dying.

God of all times and seasons: Give us grace that we, after the example of your servant Hildegard, may both know and make known the joy and jubilation of being part of your creation, and show forth your glory not only with our lips but in our lives; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Amen.

[troybeecham]

Today the Church remembers Hidegard of Bingen, abbess and visionary.

Ora pro nobis.

Hildegard of Bingen OSB (German: Hildegard von Bingen; Latin: Hildegardis Bingensis; 1098 – 17 September 1179 AD), also known as Saint Hildegard and Sibyl of the Rhine, was a German Benedictine abbess, writer, composer, philosopher, Christian mystic, visionary, and polymath. She is considered to be the founder of scientific natural history in Germany.

Hildegard was elected magistra by her fellow nuns in 1136 AD; she founded the monasteries of Rupertsberg in 1150 AD and Eibingen in 1165 AD. One of her works as a composer, the Ordo Virtutum, is an early example of liturgical drama and arguably the oldest surviving morality play. She wrote theological, botanical, and medicinal texts, as well as letters, liturgical songs, and poems, while supervising miniature illuminations in the Rupertsberg manuscript of her first work, Scivias. She is also noted for the invention of a constructed language known as Lingua Ignota.

Although the history of her formal consideration is complicated, she has been recognized as a saint by branches of the Roman Catholic Church for centuries. On 7 October 2012 AD, Pope Benedict XVI named her a Doctor of the Church.

Visions

Hildegard said that she first saw "The Shade of the Living Light" at the age of three, and by the age of five she began to understand that she was experiencing visions. She used the term 'visio' to this feature of her experience, and recognized that it was a gift that she could not explain to others. Hildegard explained that she saw all things in the light of God through the five senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. Hildegard was hesitant to share her visions, confiding only to Jutta, who in turn told Volmar, Hildegard's tutor and, later, secretary. Throughout her life, she continued to have many visions, and in 1141 AD, at the age of 42, Hildegard received a vision she believed to be an instruction from God, to "write down that which you see and hear." Still hesitant to record her visions, Hildegard became physically ill. The illustrations recorded in the book of Scivias were visions that Hildegard experienced, causing her great suffering and tribulations. In her first theological text, Scivias ("Know the Ways"), Hildegard describes her struggle within:

“But I, though I saw and heard these things, refused to write for a long time through doubt and bad opinion and the diversity of human words, not with stubbornness but in the exercise of humility, until, laid low by the scourge of God, I fell upon a bed of sickness; then, compelled at last by many illnesses, and by the witness of a certain noble maiden of good conduct [the nun Richardis von Stade] and of that man whom I had secretly sought and found, as mentioned above, I set my hand to the writing. While I was doing it, I sensed, as I mentioned before, the deep profundity of scriptural exposition; and, raising myself from illness by the strength I received, I brought this work to a close – though just barely – in ten years. (...) And I spoke and wrote these things not by the invention of my heart or that of any other person, but as by the secret mysteries of God I heard and received them in the heavenly places. And again I heard a voice from Heaven saying to me, 'Cry out therefore, and write thus!'”

It was between November 1147 and February 1148 AD at the synod in Trier that Pope Eugenius heard about Hildegard's writings. It was from this that she received Papal approval to document her visions as revelations from the Holy Spirit, giving her instant credence.

Before Hildegard's death, a problem arose with the clergy of Mainz. A man buried in Rupertsburg had died after excommunication from the Church. Therefore, the clergy wanted to remove his body from the sacred ground. Hildegard did not accept this idea, replying that it was a sin and that the man had been reconciled to the church at the time of his death.

On 17 September 1179 AD, when Hildegard died, her sisters claimed they saw two streams of light appear in the skies and cross over the room where she was dying.

God of all times and seasons: Give us grace that we, after the example of your servant Hildegard, may both know and make known the joy and jubilation of being part of your creation, and show forth your glory not only with our lips but in our lives; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Amen.

[troybeecham]

Hildegard of Bingen

Today the Church remembers Hidegard of Bingen, abbess and visionary.

Ora pro nobis.

Hildegard of Bingen OSB (German: Hildegard von Bingen; Latin: Hildegardis Bingensis; 1098 – 17 September 1179 AD), also known as Saint Hildegard and Sibyl of the Rhine, was a German Benedictine abbess, writer, composer, philosopher, Christian mystic, visionary, and polymath. She is considered to be the founder of scientific natural history in Germany.

Hildegard was elected magistra by her fellow nuns in 1136 AD; she founded the monasteries of Rupertsberg in 1150 AD and Eibingen in 1165 AD. One of her works as a composer, the Ordo Virtutum, is an early example of liturgical drama and arguably the oldest surviving morality play. She wrote theological, botanical, and medicinal texts, as well as letters, liturgical songs, and poems, while supervising miniature illuminations in the Rupertsberg manuscript of her first work, Scivias. She is also noted for the invention of a constructed language known as Lingua Ignota.

Although the history of her formal consideration is complicated, she has been recognized as a saint by branches of the Roman Catholic Church for centuries. On 7 October 2012 AD, Pope Benedict XVI named her a Doctor of the Church.

Visions

Hildegard said that she first saw "The Shade of the Living Light" at the age of three, and by the age of five she began to understand that she was experiencing visions. She used the term 'visio' to this feature of her experience, and recognized that it was a gift that she could not explain to others. Hildegard explained that she saw all things in the light of God through the five senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. Hildegard was hesitant to share her visions, confiding only to Jutta, who in turn told Volmar, Hildegard's tutor and, later, secretary. Throughout her life, she continued to have many visions, and in 1141 AD, at the age of 42, Hildegard received a vision she believed to be an instruction from God, to "write down that which you see and hear." Still hesitant to record her visions, Hildegard became physically ill. The illustrations recorded in the book of Scivias were visions that Hildegard experienced, causing her great suffering and tribulations. In her first theological text, Scivias ("Know the Ways"), Hildegard describes her struggle within:

“But I, though I saw and heard these things, refused to write for a long time through doubt and bad opinion and the diversity of human words, not with stubbornness but in the exercise of humility, until, laid low by the scourge of God, I fell upon a bed of sickness; then, compelled at last by many illnesses, and by the witness of a certain noble maiden of good conduct [the nun Richardis von Stade] and of that man whom I had secretly sought and found, as mentioned above, I set my hand to the writing. While I was doing it, I sensed, as I mentioned before, the deep profundity of scriptural exposition; and, raising myself from illness by the strength I received, I brought this work to a close – though just barely – in ten years. (...) And I spoke and wrote these things not by the invention of my heart or that of any other person, but as by the secret mysteries of God I heard and received them in the heavenly places. And again I heard a voice from Heaven saying to me, 'Cry out therefore, and write thus!'”

It was between November 1147 and February 1148 AD at the synod in Trier that Pope Eugenius heard about Hildegard's writings. It was from this that she received Papal approval to document her visions as revelations from the Holy Spirit, giving her instant credence.

Before Hildegard's death, a problem arose with the clergy of Mainz. A man buried in Rupertsburg had died after excommunication from the Church. Therefore, the clergy wanted to remove his body from the sacred ground. Hildegard did not accept this idea, replying that it was a sin and that the man had been reconciled to the church at the time of his death.

On 17 September 1179 AD, when Hildegard died, her sisters claimed they saw two streams of light appear in the skies and cross over the room where she was dying.

God of all times and seasons: Give us grace that we, after the example of your servant Hildegard, may both know and make known the joy and jubilation of being part of your creation, and show forth your glory not only with our lips but in our lives; through Jesus Christ our Savior, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

Amen.