It was the custom to promise the tenth child to the Church, so at eight (or 14, accounts differ), little Hildegard was sent to the isolated hilltop monastery of Disibodenberg in the care of an older girl, Jutta of Sponheim. Hildegard was born in 1098 in Bermersheim, on the Rhine, the tenth child of a noble family. Hildegard is mentioned in a long list of witches through history (along with Anne Boleyn) – but there's no evidence Hildegard actually had any magical powers. More recently, Hildegard was mentioned in the Netflix series Chilling Adventures of Sabrina
She was a doer: she oversaw the building of a new monastery at Rupertsberg, near Bingen, to house her little community, and when that grew too large she established another convent in Eibingen, which still exists today (though the present building dates from 1904). Nevertheless, Hildegard commanded the respect of the Church and political leaders of the day. But the nuns who flourished under her unorthodox regime were allowed extraordinary freedoms, such as wearing their hair long, uncovered and even crowned with flowers. Her character was steely, determined and overbearing at times. She was a prolific letter-writer to everyone from humble penitents looking for a cure for infertility to popes, emperors and kings seeking spiritual or political advice.ĭiscover the greatest female composers of all time > Now there are hundreds of recordings of Hildegard’s music, numerous biographies not to mention novels, popular histories, documentaries and websites hailing her as an early feminist and New Age guru.Īccounts written in Hildegard’s lifetime and just after describe an extraordinarily accomplished woman: a visionary, a prophet (she was known as “The Sibyl Of The Rhine”), a pioneer who wrote practical books on biology, botany, medicine, theology and the arts. And, in 1983, the success of A Feather On The Breath Of God, an album of her music, piqued people’s curiosity about the author of these sensual, vivid, lyrical songs.
Interest in Hildegard started to grow around the 800th anniversary of her death in 1979, when Philip Pickett and his New London Consort gave possibly the first English performances of four of Hildegard’s songs. The rediscovery of Hildegard of Bingen's music
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