Cambridge Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

How can we situate a woman who does not seem to fit our understanding of women in her time? Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179), a German Benedictine nun, was often presented as a rare case of a medieval woman who could demonstrate rich knowledge and write many books. Her canonization also supports her extraordinary sainthood as one of the four women canonized as doctors.Her uniqueness in prolific writing is somewhat true. Nevertheless, this compilation highlights that Hildegard of Bingen is still a product of her period, culture, and community, communicating with the world. Hildegard of Bingen was not isolated. She stood with her sisters, scribes, and followers, sharing her visions, theology, medicine, and music with people. At the same time, her unconventional wisdom was deeply rooted in the precedent and contemporary culture of the Middle Ages. Therefore, seeing her in historical and cultural contexts can give readers a better understanding of her and her community. For example, what kind of medical books did she read? While Hildegard did not use any references, according to Faith Wallis in chapter 7, “Hildegard of Bingen: Illness and Healing,” it is still possible to trace back to the medical books that she might have been exposed to such as the Salernitan tradition of medicine.This book is not the first or only companion project attributed to Hildegard of Bingen. In the introduction, editor Jennifer Bain acknowledges the previous foundational studies on Hildegard of Bingen while distinguishing this book as a useful resource of primary and secondary resources that are newly updated. By using vast new historical records, this book envisions how Hildegard would have built her scholarly/spiritual life in her time. Furthermore, as much as she is indebted to her precedent/contemporary intellectuals and religious people, she must have passed on her knowledge and spirituality to others, especially to nuns (7). She was never isolated.This companion is divided into three parts after the introduction: the first part contains three articles that discuss Hildegard and religious women’s monastic lives; the second part focuses on her various writings in six articles; and the third contains four articles on how her visions were embodied in music, drama, liturgy, illuminations, and scribal works. The attempts to reconstruct her surroundings, background knowledge, contemporary leadership, music styles, and her receptions already give an important answer to the question of why another compilation about Hildegard is needed.In chapter 2, “Living and Working in a Twelfth-Century Women’s Monastic Community,” Alison Beach brings the possible way to picture Hildegard of Bingen or any religious women’s lives on September 30 in the late twelfth-century monastery. This work is unique and valuable for predicting the daily routine of nuns, including religious women in Hildegard of Bingen’s monasteries when there is no direct archaeological and textual evidence remaining. Beach uses the sixth-century Rule of St. Benedict and the monastery of Hirsau’s customs to reconstruct a monastic day with the prayers at the time. Beach also uses Hildegard of Bingen’s commentaries on the Rule of St. Benedict. From Matins with a bell “signaling to the sleeping sisters that it is time to rise and proceed to their church to sing their first prayers of the day” (38), this chapter encompasses multisensory experience: auditory, spatial, visual, and tactual senses to imagine the nun’s day. Liturgy and religious activities are the main focus, but nonreligious activities are mentioned, such as needlework. Why is it so important to understand what Hildegard’s sisters ate, drank, read, recited, and sang? While there is no clear reason given, this chapter helps readers imagine a daily life that Hildegard of Bingen and her community might have shared with other religious women.In chapter 4, “Hildegard of Bingen’s Theology,” James Ginther also approaches Hildegard in the bigger context. In the Middle Ages, when women were not allowed to teach or receive formal education at university, it was not easy for women to become theologians. However, Ginther suggests Hildegard should be understood as a theologian who composed the foundational metaphysics and hermeneutics while engaging with the institutional theological discourse (85–86). And Hildegard’s community should be considered as an essential part as the audience to accept her writings as theological works. Hildegard was a major part of Christian theology, not a marginal figure.In chapter 6, “From the Roots to the Branches,” Peter V. Loewen discusses the concept of viriditas, or greenness in English, an important concept in understanding her theology. While Victoria Sweet (2006) already suggested that viridity uniquely presents Hildegard of Bingen as a spiritual gardener and herbalist, here, Loewen investigates more Hildegard’s viridity in her sermons as a part of “a long tradition of scriptural exegesis” (127). Viridity appeared in previous theologians such as Gregory the Great, who used ariditas and viriditas in his homily to explain human’s sin and salvation. Likewise, Hildegard used dryness and greenness to explain people’s weak faith and “spiritual vitality” (131) in her preaching and letters, although she added more garden images of plants growing with rain and sun. Still, Hildegard’s greenness is unique, but it is not out of nowhere.Hildegard’s connectivity to the world is also found in music, as discussed in chapter 10, “Music, Liturgy, and Intertextuality in Hildegard of Bingen’s Chant Repertory.” While Jennifer Bain accepts her outstanding prominence as a Western medieval composer with many chants and drama attributed to her, it is also true that we can understand her music better when we consider how her music is interconnected to liturgy and her other writings (209–10). This intertextuality is a common feature in medieval music, representing her connection to the general music in the Middle Ages in the West. She used and modified the music style of her time. She also borrowed the specific melodies and others from the plainchant repertory, giving her music a liturgical role. Her writings were also used in her music, providing her theological understanding to her community. Her unique theology and music are to be used for liturgy and played among nuns, reminding the readers that her works were made to be shared in her community and followers, building something in common through her music. Hildegard of Bingen is again situated between her uniqueness and commonality in music.In chapter 13, “Hildegard of Bingen and Her Scribes,” Margot Fassler examines Hildegard of Bingen’s letters in terms of a scriptorium, highlighting the communal feature of her role and oeuvres. Her writings became embodied and circulated because her scribes and nuns were actively involved in producing Hildegard of Bingen’s works. Fassler suggests that there should have been an independent copying room for women located at the Disibodenberg monastery (288). Learning to copy and copying are communal and integral to the monastic life. Fassler suggests that the codice of Hildegard of Bingen’s writings should be taught and studied in the classroom in paleographical and codicological ways.This compilation represents Hildegard of Bingen as vacillating between the usual and unusual figures of religious women. This is to situate Hildegard of Bingen in a bigger context. Hildegard of Bingen has been approached as a unique case—her uniqueness as a female writer, preacher, natural scientist, and mystic. I myself have also often presented her as an incomparable case, and now I change my view after reading this project. Not necessarily losing sight of her uniqueness, this compilation suggests more the necessity of reading her in the historical, theological, and scholarly contexts that Hildegard of Bingen inherited from tradition and passed on to her next generation.Also, interestingly, this complication touches upon the current reception of Hildegard’s works not only in academia but also in popular readers, finding her connection to the modern world. For example, in the last part of chapter 7, Wallis also examines the cultural contexts of how Hildegard’s medical writings began to be highlighted in German Romanticism, alternative medicine, and the Christian new age movement as well as academic production of hospital culture such as Victoria Sweet’s book on Slow Medicine (166–68).This project might seem difficult to grasp if the readers are not familiar with the Hildegard of Bingen studies. A clear conclusion might have made the volume more accessible to newcomers. However, this book would be an excellent resource for graduate students and scholars who want to go beyond the classical studies of Hildegard at an affordable price. In particular, this compilation’s rich bibliography and further reading, including internet resources, will be greatly helpful to students and researchers who want to try different methods to research Hildegard of Bingen or any female saints in medieval Europe

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