In Our Time - Hildegard of Bingen

Episode Date: June 26, 2014

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss one of the most remarkable figures of the Middle Ages, Hildegard of Bingen. The abbess of a Benedictine convent, Hildegard experienced a series of mystical visions which she documented in her writings. She was an influential person in the religious world and much of her extensive correspondence with popes, monarchs and other important figures survives. Hildegard was also celebrated for her wide-ranging scholarship, which as well as theology covered the natural world, science and medicine. Officially recognised as a saint by the Catholic Church in 2012, Hildegard is also one of the earliest known composers. Since their rediscovery in recent decades her compositions have been widely recorded and performed.With:Miri Rubin Professor of Medieval and Early Modern History and Head of the School of History at Queen Mary, University of LondonWilliam Flynn Lecturer in Medieval Latin at the Institute for Medieval Studies at the University of LeedsAlmut Suerbaum Professor of Medieval German and Fellow of Somerville College, Oxford.Producer: Thomas Morris.

Thank you for downloading this episode of In Our Time, for more details about In Our Time, and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.com.uk slash Radio 4. I hope you enjoy the programme. Hello, if you'd walked into the Abbey of the Monastery Trier in Germany 850 years ago, it's quite possible that this is what you would have heard. That is O'E. Carrey, a piece of sacred music by the 12th century composer Hildegarde of Bingham. Little known until 30 years ago, the music of Hildegarde is now regarded as among the best of the Middle Ages,

but remarkably, her music is only a small aspect of her overall achievement. Hildegarde was a 12th century nun and a scholar of impressive breadth, sometimes known as the Sibble of the Rhine, she wrote a series of works documenting prophetic visions she had experienced, she was an accomplished theologian, who also wrote about science, medicine and the natural world. Held in high regard by royalty and religious figures alike, she's long been revered as a saint,

although it was not until 2012 that she was officially canonized, by Pope Benedict. With me to discuss Hildegarde of being an hour, Mirrouben, Professor of Medieval and Early Modern History of Queen Mary, University of London. William Flynn, lecturer in medieval Latin at the University of Leeds, and Al-Mut-Suerbaum, Professor of Medieval German at the University of Oxford.

Manyuruban, Hildegarde was born around 1098 in the Rhineland, in what we now call Western Germany. Would you give us some idea of what was going on then at that time? Yes, the Rhineland is part of what was known by then the Holy Roman Emperor or the Holy Empire. Now, this is the vast political entity that englobes most of Germany of today, but also Italy and parts of Eastern France of today.

This is a vast continental bloc that was ruled by, from the year 800 on, by an emperor. Now, what makes an emperor different from a king, a mere king, is that this is an emperor crowned, endorsed by the Pope. So in the Middle Ages for, and until 1802, in fact, the Holy Roman Empire is this sort of confederation of large parts of Europe, made up of Saxony, Bavaria, Franconia, regents people will still exist today in a meaningful way. And this obviously creates a tremendous sort of political challenge because the emperor doesn't have a standing army, can't tax

everywhere. In a way, the Holy Roman Empire is an idea. And it's an idea. that depends on buying in. Now, during most of the life of Hildegarde, that idea is very much in turmoil. There's internal civil war as to which family indeed will hold the imperial crown, but also, and most importantly for her,

what does the emperor owe to the Pope? Can you give us some idea of the place of monasteries, nunneries, and such like institutions at that time? Extremely important, really central, big central centres of religious life for the elite. So we have to remember that these institutions are founded by the elite, indeed by emperors and empresses themselves,

but are also inhabited and run on the whole by elite persons. You have to bring a sort of dowry if you're a nun, into your nunnery with you. You have to have some property to contribute. So this is a way of life that is deeply privileged and has tremendous impact, although they're few in number, the nuns and monks, tremendous influence on religious life and on political life

because they come from those leading families. More than that, though, when you get the Cistercians, they have a big impact on the economic love, don't they? Enormous, and the Cistercian... With the sheep, especially in this country. With the sheep, especially in Yorkshire, and parts that are very close to your heart. So, yes, the Cisterians are in a way

a new arrival at the very end of the 11th century that exactly challenge that long arrangement of elite monasticism. Now it's monks who will work with their hands. I have any idea of the numbers of the monasteries and nunneries because all sorts of things went on.

Medicine went on, herbal gardens went on, singing went on, teaching went on, teaching went on, they are really what is making, let's call it Europe, Europe, or the empire, the empire in a way. Absolutely, yes. They made Europe, and again to emphasize,

they may be few in number in terms of participants, a few of tens of thousands across Europe, but their impact is way, way beyond that in terms of the, religious development, intellectual development, hospitality, provision of charity, but above all, just continuing and perpetuating that model of the perfect Christian life. Thank you. William Flynn, what's known about Hildegard's background? Well, it fits into the picture that's just been described in that she came from a noble family.

They were landowners. She was born in Bermersheim. That's her father Hildebert and her was a noble and her mother as well, Mechteldell. she doesn't fit the picture of a saint very well because they normally are beautiful women who then give up all prospect of marriage she seemed to be a different kind of little girl she had visions she reported as early as five years old she wasn't very well

and so the prospects for marriage were different and so she was actually given into the care of another noble woman who had had a more typical view. That was Yuta of Spahnheim. And she went to live with Yuta for about six years. Hildegard was eight years old at that point. Was she given in terms of a tie? She was a tenth child, as I understand it.

So in my notes it says she was given as a child, known as an obelais. You're riding in your seat, I think. She was a 10th child. So far as Gweberra Jean-Bruz-Bru says, her last biographer, and he is an unreliable witness. He tries to make her into a perfect Benedictine saint. We know the names of eight children. It's quite possible there were 10, and it's quite possible she was tithed.

Why did they put in the care of Jutta, this aristocratic holy woman? Well, the Sponheim family, which she was a member of, of was regionally one of the more powerful families. So it was a good move on the part of a noble family that didn't have as much capital, really. So to make a connection with the Spahnheim family, but also because Yuta had insisted against the will of her family that she was going into a religious life.

Yuta was only six years older than Hildegard. So when Hildegard went to live with her at eight years old, Yuta was only 14 years old. And Yuta seems to have resisted her family quite a bit. She wanted to go on pilgrimage. But they maneuvered her into deciding to become part of a monastery. And so when Hildegard was 14, that would make, hold on, just a second, not make Yuta 20, that's right.

They together entered Nunery Monastic Life. Well, they entered a male monastery. of Dissaboddenberg, which was actually a fairly recently made a Benedictine monastery. It was only being built in the new church was being built starting in 1108. So 1112, there wasn't really much of it there. So what did they go for? They went, according to Gweber to be completely amured as if they were dead, enclosed, with no contact with the outside world. Well, I also had food and water and stuff.

What? There must have been fed in water. Food, water through a window, all contact through a window. Their priest might have lived in a cell that were joined, but also contact through a window. And the priest connected with the church through a window. But no one has been able to find this anchor hold. And it seems to be another possibility that it was a different kind of enclosure, enclosed within the monastery, but operating almost like a wind.

Men's convent. But from the beginning it was an intense religious life. Very, very much. With another woman and devoted to the ideals of Christianity. Absolutely. And Yuta herself was very ascetic. She

was not, she would have been quite reasonably educated at home. She would have known how to read in Latin. She taught Hildegard how to read, certainly, and recite the Psalms. And that is about the extent of what Hildegard acknowledges is her education

because she does call her later on an unlearned woman. It seems that Hildegard, who's obviously a bright star intellectually, feels somewhat constrained by the life that she's been put into. I read that she'd also taught her to play a musical instrument, a ten-stringed... Grebear again. It's very unreliable. Why do you put it in their notes and I get foxed?

The ten string keythera is probably allegorical. It probably relates to the Ten Commandments and the virtuous life. It is not improbable that she learned how to play an instrument. It would be more likely to be learning how to sing via the normal monastic instrument of the monocord. So they're in that place together, part of a largest, we think now part of a monastery, and closed inside that as an unrued for how long?

Well, eventually Hildegard leaves. I don't want to go right, then. How long are they in that particular state that are you? We don't really know, because we don't know. We know that the community expanded, and it expanded to about 10 by the time that Yurtl was ailing. That's fine. Okay. Now I've turned over two pages.

So here we are, Amort. Hildegat, she eventually became a very erudite person. Now, where did she find the books? And who taught her? That's where the Benedictine monasteries play the most important role. Miri had alluded to the fact that they are very important politically. They are important in terms of theological learning, but they are also just places of intellectual learning.

They have libraries and books, and for a Benedictine monk, and clearly also for the women associated with them, in Desey Bordenbach, the day is structured by a variety of activities so they pray regularly but in between those spaces they also listen to readings of texts by the church fathers

they listen to gospels which are explained through the commentaries of the church fathers and in almost all Benedictine monasteries we know they also spend time writing creating the books that they will then read and study so she's reading B she's reading Augustine is she reading the great commentators

yes what she doesn't do in her writing is to quote that's sort of scholastic habit of a different tradition of writing but it's very clear that when she says she is in doctor she doesn't mean she is uneducated she means she's writing in a different format in a Benedictine format where they are imbued in the range of texts they've read

and that would be Augustine and Bede it would be Rabanus Maurer, the great commentator and it's likely to have been also contemporary figures like Rupert of Doits. But the classical learning movement that was coming back into Europe at that time passes her by, doesn't it? The trivium and all that sort of thing. She's not attached to that

at all? I wouldn't quite say it passes her by. Again, that's sometimes what's said when she's presented as uneducated. But one of the first statements when she says that in the visions, what she gains is an immediate insight into the meaning, she also qualifies

that and says she doesn't get a commentary into the grammatical structure of the sentences. And that's not just a statement of what she doesn't know, but I think it's also a programmatic statement of what she doesn't want to do. It's an awareness of the fact that others in the schools in Paris start doing grammatical commentaries, do studies of grammar, rhetoric and dialectics. And that is not her way of reading and it's not her way of writing.

So I think she's aware of that emerging new way of writing. and she, I think, quite programmatically places herself in a different tradition, in a Benedictine tradition. But Norris, as I understand it, then, had male confessors who came in. One of them who turned up, there was Volmar, who stayed with her for 60 years

as her confessor, as a, let's call it, secretary, companion aid, and also, more presumes, her tutor. Is that right? It's clearly a relationship of dialogue between them. He is her secretary, Bernard of Clever, had at least three secretaries simultaneously. So it's a common practice that's not just something for women who themselves can't write.

So it's a relationship which is clearly about theological discussions. He is her confessor and he is her spiritual guide. Why do you think it lasted so long? They clearly work together very well. She comments on the fact that he advises in the composition of the Sceviaz, but so does Ricard is one of her. nuns. So it's a group of people with whom she talks. In 1136, as far as we know, it could have been 35, 37, but in 1136, Jutta died and quite soon afterwards, Hildegard went and founded her

own establishment near Bingham. How did she manage to do that? It's quite a bold step, and it clearly required quite a lot of political negotiation as well as theological determination. She seems to been very good at that and she clearly met quite a lot of resistance, not just because it was an unusual thing for a woman to do, but also for purely economical reasons, the aristocratic women who had come to join that conmender Dizzy Bordenbach came with a very large dowry. So the monks themselves weren't really all that keen on losing both their main spiritual attraction by that time and the dowries. So what we have in the letters is extensive negotiations about quite what the economical status of the new monastery is going to be. And she,

she gets the mother of one of her young nuns to help her negotiate the purchase of the land on which the perspective is found. And it's a strategic time she takes to a sickbed, we are told anyway, she gets her way and moves. Mary Rubin, we've got a movement at that time for the reform of the church. Now, this is elliptical, okay.

But how was Hildegard involved in that? Yes, this is really interesting. It really takes off in a big way from the mid-11th century, this idea that the church should be free, Libertas ecclesia, the church should be free from interference by secular authorities, because at the end of, in a way, the Pope and the spirituals and the priests are answerable for the souls even of the greatest king or emperor. And slowly, slowly from the mid-11th century,

this is associated particularly with the Pope called Gregory the 7th, trying to claim that. So the big stumbling block with the emperors, and that's what's important in the context of Hildegard is that the popes increasingly demand that for appointments to bishops, this should be an appointment made by popes and not by emperors,

because these are spiritual leaders. But of course, these are also very important political figures, so the emperors want to be able to appoint them. And this comes to absolute confrontations throughout the 11th and early 12th century. She is very aware of this. It also comes to the fact that when you have a schism between emperor and pope,

sometimes the emperor goes and appoint his own. own pope, an anti-pop, and then what do you do? Who is a bishop in Germany to be loyal to? Who is indeed an abbess to be loyal to? Which pope? The local one appointed by her emperor, or the one appointed by the pope in Rome, who is the head of the whole church organization? And Hildegard finds this extremely, extremely vexing. Within this great moment of movement of reform, and as you mentioned earlier, there are also reforms particularly of monasticism to constantly invigilate on the strict living within monasteries and so on. And it's very striking that when she creates her new monastery, you know, these aristocratic ladies moving to a new land, the buildings aren't finished,

there are no comforts, they complain. And she has to confront these complaints of these aristocratic ladies. So she's really vexed by two streams of reform. She wants to see the Pope ruling religious appointments. she also wants to see a really strong reforming spirit within monasticism itself, which is, of course, her daily work, as it were. And her letters are all about raising consciousness, getting people engaged as engaged as she is in this work, which is to her a daily toil, you know, bringing people on board, reminding them how great are the challenges.

And she's a great letter writer to, too, in case we don't have time to get back to it, 400 letters and enormous cash. and to everybody, Pope's, kings, and so on. William Flynn, she became, I'm sorry about this, Hackney, which she did become famous

because of her visions and the publication of her visions. Now, without going about... Jutta dies in, let us say, 1136, the big visions come in, let us say 1141. They may have started earlier, but when they come in 1141, a voice demands that she writes them down. This seems to me enough of a difference

to be a starting. point. Can you just tell us what the first lot contained? By that time she's 43 years old, is 43 years oldish. The first, the

vision set came in 1141 authorized her first book, and that really would be the contents of the book came in a series of visions, and that's why she wrote down. That was called Skivius, Know the

Ways. But I do want to talk a little bit about her visionary experience in general, if that's all right. Please do. Her manner of seeing, she described her manner of seeing several times during her life, and she tried to differentiate this considerably from everyone else, because visions quite typically come in ecstasy, so a kind of trance, or in dreams. Those are the two normal ways of visions.

Hildegard insisted that all of her visions, except for one, came in waking moments while she was completely awake. And they seem to me, anyway, to be related to the kinds of listening to things read to you, absorbing a lot of material. And then sudden flash, where all of that makes sense, all of her memorized material, comes to her as a picture. That is actually related to memory techniques that are taught to Benedictans and taught since classical times.

And so I think she's hooking a lot of all of the learning and all of her knowledge onto these visions, and that vision in 1141 that creates the book Skivius, she says in the preface that she had sudden understanding of everything. That means all the expositions, all the writings of the church fathers,

all the scientific material. She says it all made sense to her at once, and it came to her in a series of pictures that then she wrote a book for to explain what every element of each picture meant in very, very detailed manner that would be teaching for the rest of her nuns. And a long book, and a substantial...

Huge. 600 pages. This is the first of several books, but she starts along. It took her 10 years, actually. to complete, maybe even slightly more than 10 years. Almond, she documented the divisions there

in, let's say, three major works and the first of which has been mentioned by William the Skivias. Can you just tell us a bit about that work? And the Skivias being no, isn't it? That's right. So it's no the ways of the Lord, and the title is probably

an abbreviation of that word. It's composed in three books, learned its structure, 26 visions divided between these three books and very clearly structured. So the first book is about the creation and the creator God, the second book about salvation history, sorry, the second about salvation and the third about salvation history. So it addresses some of the central aspects of Christian faith, the status of the creator God in quite abstract images. So it starts with a vision of light emanating from the peak of a mountain.

And at the same time, these images in the manuscripts we have and manuscripts that are probably composed very close to her lifetime and perhaps with some input by her, also have illuminations. So all the central moments, the central or the key image of most of these visions is illuminated, sometimes not in exactly the same way as we read in the table. text, but it highlights very clearly that vision and the visual are the central

aspect of creating often quite unusual or quite unusually composed images, which are then elucidated and explained. This is probably impossible to answer briefly, but can you give us some idea of the way she wrote?

Was it matter of fact? Was it ecstatic? Was it allegorical? How did she prophetic. It's both prophetic and one could say allegorical, another way to describe it is symbolist. That's the kind of thinking from what she comes.

Have you got any paragraph to mind or something? Something you can help us? She explains the images she sees and she reveals that she is a prophet. So the images which are given to her by divine inspiration are there to

communicate with others. What are these images? The images are about light, about light emanating from a mountain, about glittering gleams of light, and they are comments on the state of the church, the state of Christian life, and about the nature of salvation. Mary. What's interesting is that she uses very often, and we see this in the illustration, so close to her manuscripts, figures of women, just figures of women as ecclesia church, as wisdom. The clase is feminine, so she's bound to...

No, it's helpful, isn't it? So the idea is, but it's very hard to describe an answer to your question because it's not a narrative. It doesn't have chapter divisions in a clear way. It is these pictures that are described by her inexorably. But it's all, it's perfect. Can you give us more pictures? I mean, I'm fascinated.

I'm therefore presume everybody else. One that I've worked with is the images of the angelic host, which is done in a series of concentric circles. and it has... This is because we're talking about how I said it's illustrated. Yes, it's illustrated.

The illustration of the angelicose is concentric circles. Concentric circles. Nine concentric circles with the normal nine angelic host. I won't name them all, but two angels, archangels, and then five powers

and then two cherubim and seraphim. That is around what could be interpreted as a mirror, which is the angels are light, the reflecting God, light and the mirror is part of the reflection of it.

That image, though, is interestingly related to two other images. One of the Trinity, which has also concentric circles, but it has a sapphire figure, a human figure in the middle of it, and then colors of gold and silver to make the Trinitarian one. That image also is reflected in another one, which is about the sacraments of the church, especially baptism, where that Trinitarian figure sort of dissolves. into a blue pool, so sapphire again and gold and silver around, and then it becomes a baptismal font. So the images are active. They add to the text and they create enormous interest. And Bill had referred to the materiality of these images. Most of them use spectacular amounts of gold, leaf and silver.

So they also reflect the light. But there is another set of images, and that's there in the writing of the visions as well. So she starts with a divine light, but there is immediately the story of light. Lucifer and there are visions of hell and of the abyss. And equally, she has very, very exercised by purgatory. That's right. And that's the first discussion. She's also very exercised about the state of the church. So the image, Mirri had referred to, is a very striking and 19th century edited is a very shocking image. And these prophetic warnings, Amit, is she saying, watch out, or is she saying, look, what is to come, or is she saying? What's you saying? They're both. What's often foregrounded is the critical stance and 13th century manuscripts start to highlight the apocalyptic, the warning,

watch out for the state of the church, you need to reform, you need to change your ways. And some of those are explained quite explicitly. Others convey very clear senses of criticism, but in an oracular way. And what's really, can I just say that what's very important in all of this, because we're so getting carried away with how rich is her message, always, always emphasizing, this isn't my idea. God tells me this. I am as nothing. I am a channel. I'm an aqueduct. I am merely conveying this. So people will listen to her because she's not claiming to be a wise woman, a clever woman. She is just the chosen woman. Perhaps for her unlearnedness, she says,

therefore she is a pure vehicle. Because there's no place for a woman to get up and talk in the church in the 12th century. Absolutely not. So she treads this very fine line of explosion of ideas communicating with everyone and yet from a position of as it were subordination totally to divine will. William, do you want to go in here? Well, I was just going to add a footnote to that. She does claim that she doesn't write like the philosopher's right.

That can be taken two ways, really. It can be taken as an idea that you write like a divinely inspired person writes, not like somebody who's been schooled the right way. Or it could also be taken to be, you write like a monk writes, not like a philosopher. And I think she's really got a critical stance about what's going on outside the monastery.

Is there any sense, Alma, given me for Fetick, and she knows the Bible so well, that she based herself on any of the Old Testament prophets or indeed the Gospel writers in the New Testament? She does indeed, and that's very clear. So she models herself on some of the Old Testament prophets. She's criticized by one of her letter writers, and he tries a put-down by comparing her to.

Balam's ass, who gives prophetic visions by Divine. And her reply is a model of very politely but also very firmly putting him in his place, telling him that his time is about to come. Because, and that's a very clear political comment, he's in trouble with his diocese by that stage and dies within a year of that letter. But the extraordinary thing, Mary, is that these make her famous in, let's call it Christendom. Everywhere. Everywhere. everywhere, yes. So she's a saintly person in a nun,

Irishocratic, that helps. Lots of money come in from Irishocratic when we're joining her. That helps. Therefore, connections in the political, high political, warrior arts or whatever. That helps. But it's these visions published, which go out and she becomes a famous person. She does. Just an example. John of Salisbury, one of the great intellectual of the 12th century, you know, England, Paris, Bishop of Chantra. He writes in the 1160s to another, important monk who's travelling in Germany, could you get your hands on some copies of these amazing

visions of Hildegarde? I think she may have the solution to the troubles of the church. I want to read them. This is a leading intellectual in 12th century Europe. And this enables her to have very successful succession of rouse. She has a lot

of rouse, Mary, doesn't she? I'm sorry to use this rather vulgar, vangarism, but she does seem to take exception to people. And then she goes for them, If she doesn't get her own way, this is really, but you'll tell me I'm completely wrong and trivial. But it seems to me if she doesn't get her own way, she takes to her sickbed until she does.

She takes to a sickbed. She sends really, really scary letters. No, all the strategies of being heard and taken seriously. But, you know, the interesting thing is that she will invest the same degree of passion into, say, an argument with, say, a favourite nun who's appointed elsewhere and has to leave, and she's crossed that she has to leave,

as she will with a bishop, of Mainz or the abbot of Dysbodenberg over issues of ecclesiastical property and arrangements and it's almost a consistent level of powerful, this sort of passion that she brings to everything she does. Hulman, can you briefly say what's the significance of this great cache of letters, these 400 or so letters? It's almost unheard of. I think only Bernard of Clairvou

is a writer with more letters that survive. What we have are letters written by her, and we have some of the letters written to her as well. So in some cases we have a two-way correspondence. It's collected in her lifetime or shortly afterwards and probably also redacted. So what we see is a public persona through the correspondence. And it really ranges from letters to Bernard of Clover,

one of the very earliest ones, where she consults him about whether she should carry on writing down her visions, and he encourages her very firmly to do that, to letters to the emperor, letters of criticism to her fellow bishops, but also letters where she's asked for advice by a woman whose husband is terminally ill and to whom she replies about how to prepare for a good death. Or letters from fellow abbesses who clearly have trouble running their own convent

and to whom she gives advice. William, William Plain, as we started this programme with a small piece of music, we couldn't resist and the producer was all for it, having been a great singer in his youth. what's distinctive about her music it's curious that it was not known for 800 years that makes it more fun but what is distinctive about when you look at it now the main thing to emphasize with her music

is a combination of music and words and it's that combination of completely fresh poetry with unusual but regionally recognisable music did she write the poetry did she wrote the poetry Oh, yes. And the poetry is absolutely brilliant.

In Latin? Yes. She wrote in Latin, just not like the philosophers, right? And what it does is it condenses her visions. So the music completes. She reported in Skivius that everything that she had heard in all the books that she'd written came back, repriezed in the music, and then the words often relate to visions. and then the music

perfects them. Did you work out of an existing tradition? Yes, indeed. But what was that and how did it affect it? It is largely South German translated through Hirsaw Reform Monastery Networks, so William of Hirsao and Theager of Metz are two people,

but the fundamental people are harmonious contractors in Berno Varicano. They created a chant theory that also influenced the actual compositional style so that it doesn't sound like a Gorgorian chant, but it sounds much more modern, even modern in our terms, because it has a very strong fundamental note

and a strong note at the fifth. So that's the regional style. She is different, though. What's really also important to remember is she writes the music, She composes the music and also in her nunnery she allowed her nuns to perform it in extraordinary ways. In fact, people complain.

She allows them to wear glorious white shimmering garments, beautiful crowns. So when they perform, it's like a totally, you know, a Guzombed Kwanstwerk, where it's a performance in the round. So they're living this liturgy. It's very, very real. And during one of her great rows when they hold a service for an excommunicated member,

they are forbidden to sing during their services. They're allowed to read Mass Mot not to sing. And she writes impassioned letters about the fact that that deprives them of part of their spirituality. She also, as I read, she preached in public. Most unusual to preach at all, but in public extraordinary. Can you tell us about that, Amort? Yes, she preaches in public, she travels to other convents to preach. They're not public sermons to lay people, as far as we know.

they are the kinds of sermon commentaries that monastic foundations do during meal times, for example, but they are composed like sermons. So she takes parts of the gospel, explains them referring to the commentaries, and she takes on the voice of a preacher, except that, again, she usually stresses that she's been invited to speak.

So there is a double legitimisation. She's authorised because she speaks through God, and she speaks that which, God has inspired her to say and she speaks because others have asked her and they seek her advice. Mayor Rubin, can we say something about her

medical texts and scientific text? What ground do they cover and what do they add up to? They cover absolutely everything. I mean literally the regime of the body for men, women, through all stages of life and there's also scientific work that's specifically

about sort of nature, that is about flora, fauna, stones and their qualities. Excuse me, sorry, I interrupted you. No, you're absolutely. Yes, well this we reconnect to your earlier question because the Benedictines obviously have a tradition of theology and so on, but do remember that throughout the early Middle Ages,

since late antiquity in the monasteries, every monastery had a full collection of herbles, medical books and so on. After all, these are institutions that have to care for themselves and also offer care for others. medical books are galore, recipes, etc. So anyone who has access to a monastic library and is able to read Latin as clearly she could would be able to access this material.

And in her case, bring them to a tremendous synthesis. And I must say the way she talks about particularly sexuality, conception, things she did not experience herself in an active way. What you don't know about sexuality for? Because she is guiding Christians through these texts. And she believes in marriage and procreation. So she talks about, She talks about sexuality very, very explicitly and very evocative ways.

That shows the working of her imagination as well as her knowledge from this very strong monastic tradition of medical writings. It's a tremendous compilation. William Perth and normal. Okay, well, her knowledge of sexuality, she did have widows as part of the composition of the monastery. She also had lay sisters. There's some evidence that some of the lay sisters were married. so that might be a possibility even. At least one of them reports that Hildegard helped her

through two problematic pregnancies in her youth. So I think she was. Myriad stressed that she writes in Latin and she chooses to write in Latin, but the medicinal writings are also the ones where she occasionally uses vernacular words because she clearly knows some of these things through observations in the garden,

through talking to people. And she occasionally also includes these cures which are a mix between benediction, incantation and charm, again, probably through practices that she encounters. Are these cures taken up in later books that have have folk medicine right through from the Middle Ages, Renaissance?

Not right through the Middle Ages, because in some ways she's then overtaken by the New Salaturnian learned medicine from Italy, but very much in the 20th and 21st century. I mean, the other way in which Mildegat is known, certainly in Germany, is as an alternative herbal. Today. But in York in the 14th century, York Minster had copies of her medical books, for example. So it could reach certain places because of her renown.

Also, her scientific writings were really important for her last set of visions. Are we talking scientific in a sense of astronomy and mathematics, that sort of thing? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. astronomy is incredibly important, yes. And they structure a large amount of the last work, which is Libre Divenoram-Operum, her last great work, which shows congruences between the humanity, the world, and the divine plan.

It's quite extraordinary. Let's go back to Volmar for a second or two. I mean, are they working together? It seems an extraordinary thing for someone to do entirely on their own. He was with it for 60 years. was a learned man. He gave up his, let's call it career, to be with her, to aid her. Would have been a career. Yeah. It would have been a career. We have a really good example of a sister visionary in the Rhineland, Elizabeth of Scherner, whose brother, who was really educated

Eckbert. Also, he gave up his career to sit and be her secretary, as it were. But the interesting thing is that neither of them is remembered so very powerfully, definitely Volmar, not so much as Hildegard herself, because her sense of authorship was overwhelming. And that is why, even today, she is like, she is the patron saint of the de gruner, the greens in Germany. She is considered to be someone who is impacted on thinking about the environment. You can go to any sort of really, really worthy bakery in Germany and you get Hildegard Brot, which is whole meal and healthy.

It's almost like abstract science. We're often finding on the programme and people doing things out of curiosity and because they're consumed with intellectual like, unless your curiosity, a few hundred years later it turns to be the most important thing in the world. It seems to be not unlike what's going on here, but we're near the end. Can you tell us a bit about her last year or so, William?

Well, we've already talked about the interdict. She buried a person in her graveyard which he had the rights for burial rights, but it turns out that he was considered excommunicate by Mainz. And so

they put the whole The whole convent under interdictishment, they could not receive sacraments. They could not sing, which was the biggest problem for her. Vomar died in 1173. That was a huge loss for Hildegard. She writes very, very movingly about his life. But the interdict from minds means they can't operate as she wants them. I can't operate.

Into battle, she goes. She spends lots of time doing that. The main, her archbishop is away and in disgrace at the moment. He will return and that will lift the interdict, but she goes everywhere. She goes to Trier, she goes to Cologne, so the two competing archbishoprics that are in the area. Yes.

She thinks she's got the right to bury him. She has relatives in Trier. She knows the Archbishop of Cologne, really well. And he comes to visit her. And she wins, Almut, of course. She wins. And then six months later she dies. What would you say her legacy was at the time?

We've heard quite a lot about her legacy now, my legacy at the time. The legacy at the time, as the manuscripts show, is that of a visionary, of a prophetess and of an apocalyptic prophet. So that's what the 13th century of manuscripts foreground, the one who'd criticised the church, who'd looked at the end of the world and the need to reform. So the musician is a modern rediscovery, and the breadth of her writing is collected

in the manuscript when she dies but isn't as present. I'm sorry, William, we have to go. Thank you very much, William Flynn, Mary Rubin, Almond Salbaum. Next week we'll be talking about Virginia Woolf and her novel, Mrs. Dalloway. Thanks for listening.

And the In Our Time podcast gets some extra time now with a few minutes of bonus material from Melvin and his guests. Spirituality, feminine spirituality. And what about her visions? You've said her, she's green over there, her music goes on, and so on. What about these visions?

Are they still taken in any way? What's the word? It's how we search for serious. It's hard of work. They were popular. They were popular. They were popular in a popularized version, both Shipwring's popularized version in Germany

and Matthew Fox's popularized version in the States, but very, very. But it's interesting, both Catholic and Protestants will relate. to her. Because he talks about such fundamental things that sort of all Christians can agree upon. Yeah. And so one time I got invited to Hawaii

to talk about Hillary. Hawaii. Well that's because the environment. Not at the university, but at a church. Yeah. What sort of church was it? Piscopalian. Really? Yeah. Yeah. And they had

wanted people to come talk about Hildegard and lead them through music as well. So it's... Is there edited additional? Is there edited edition of this massively long. Everything is now edited. That's the thing. The last 30 years

as you said, everything has proper well almost everything almost everything has proper editions as well as popular versions that can be bought. That's right. The translation of her last book is still in progress.

When I say edited though I mean cut down. Oh no I meant edited in terms of played out with Oh there's a penguin? There's a penguin volume that's very good. So it's a nice selection. So that's well worth looking at. That's quite a nice thematic selection. It doesn't give you a sense of...

There was a temptation I resisted, but some of you didn't, do you? I know that the relationship between Volmar and Hildegard might not have been unlike that of Abelard and Elie. I think it was better because Fulmar suppressed his own ego. Yeah. And he didn't interfere.

Really great stuff. from you all this morning. I think it's the real... Are you reading your tweets? No, no, no. Anna Whitelock just wrote to say that it was good. I know you like it. No, what do you mean? What do you mean you know I like it? No, I know you like to have feedback. I just want to tell you, Anna Whitlock, who's a very good historian, and a friend of mine. So scholarly, but with a very light touch. Well, that's Milven Dolly.

There we go. There are many more radio for arts and discussion programs to download for free. Find these on the website at BBC.com.ukh slash radio 4.