Hildegard of Bingen
c. 1098 – 17 September 1179
Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) was a German Benedictine abbess, mystic, composer, and polymath, one of the most remarkable figures of the twelfth century. She recorded her visions in works such as Scivias, composed a large surviving body of sacred music including the morality play Ordo Virtutum, and wrote on medicine and natural history. She founded the monasteries of Rupertsberg and Eibingen and was declared a Doctor of the Church in 2012.
Lived at the same time
Well-documented people whose lives overlapped with Hildegard of Bingen.
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- Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122–1204) Overlapped 57 years →
- Frederick Barbarossa (1122–1190) Overlapped 57 years →
- Jayavarman VII (1122–1218) Overlapped 57 years →
- Li Qingzhao (1084–1155) Overlapped 57 years →
Life events
Hildegard was born around 1098, the youngest of many children of a family of the free lower nobility, and experienced visions from early childhood.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgAs a girl Hildegard was offered to religious life and enclosed with the anchoress Jutta at the Benedictine monastery of Disibodenberg, where she was educated.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgOn Jutta's death the nuns unanimously chose Hildegard as leader of their community.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgAt about age 42 Hildegard received what she described as a divine instruction to write down her visions, beginning her major theological work Scivias.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgPortions of Scivias were read at the Synod of Trier, and papal approval gave Hildegard's visionary writing wide authority.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgOvercoming resistance from the monks of Disibodenberg, Hildegard moved her nuns to a new foundation at Rupertsberg on the Rhine.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHildegard wrote the morality play Ordo Virtutum and the songs collected in the Symphonia, one of the largest surviving bodies of work by any medieval composer.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgUnusually for a woman of her time, Hildegard made several journeys along the Rhine and beyond, preaching publicly to clergy and laity.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHildegard established a daughter house across the Rhine at Eibingen, which she visited regularly.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHildegard finished her last great visionary work, the Book of Divine Works, in her mid-seventies.
Source: en.wikipedia.orgHildegard died at her monastery of Rupertsberg in 1179; she was canonized and named a Doctor of the Church by Pope Benedict XVI in 2012.
Source: en.wikipedia.org