A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

hildegard, the schools, and their critics 111
of Nogent (d. 1124).12 The evidence for Hildegard’s reading of Constantine
the African’s Pantegni is likewise tenuous: their shared conglobositas could
result from independent coinage, and Hugh of St Victor used sufffraganeus
in the exact same cosmological sense.13 Thus, all of the richly suggestive
terminology, which contributes so much to Hildegard’s fresh and original
Latinity, stems not as much from Hildegard’s own study of the ancient
auctores as from the monastic and scholastic environment of the 12thcentury
renaissance. Indeed, the similarity of terms, doctrines, and motifs
in both Hildegard and these auctores, without the extensive verbal correspondence
constitutive of a demonstrable intertextual relationship, seems
most likely to be the product of oral transmission.14 As Charles Burnett
has noted in identifying possible source material for her scientifijic doctrines,
“verbal correspondences are minimal, and it is more likely that she
was influenced by the doctrines of these works simply because they were
current among those whom she talked to.”15 Similarly, Hildegard’s store of
evocative vocabulary may well reflect the discussions she had with contemporary
theologians, philosophers, and scholars.
Hildegard and Contemporary Schoolmasters
In her extensive travels and voluminous correspondence, Hildegard was
undoubtedly exposed to conversation and intellectual exchange with
scholars from the contemporary schools. In an autobiographical section
of the Vita, Hildegard details one particular encounter with a philosophus
from Mainz who came to her and endowed the Rupertsberg with new
holdings. He had scofffed at her visions “with malicious words” before
12 See Guibert of Nogent, Moralia in Genesin 8.29, PL 156:222D; Tropologiae in prophetas
minores 1.2, PL 156:354D; 3.12, PL 156:405D; and 4.7, PL 156:443B; and De laude sanctae
Mariae 8, PL 156:563B. On Guibert and the context of these works, see most recently Jay
Rubenstein, Guibert of Nogent: Portrait of a Medieval Mind (New York, 2002), pp. 176–201.
In this regard, one might also point out that Hildegard’s curious word inaquositas (see
Dronke, “Problemata,” p. 112) is also attested fijirst in Guibert, Dei gesta per Francos, ed.
R.B.C. Huygens, CCCM 127a (Turnhout, 1996), 6.12.
13 See Hugh of St Victor, Libellus de formatione arche, ed. Patrice Sicard, CCCM 176
(Turnhout, 2001), c. 11, p. 158. The 10th-century Gerard of Csanad also offfers an identical
cosmological use of this word: Deliberatio supra hymnum trium puerorum, ed. Gabriel
Silagi, CCCM 49 (Turnhout, 1978), c. 8, ll. 1366 and 1546.
14 Beverly Kienzle came to the same conclusion with regard to Hildegard’s patristic
sources; see Speaking New Mysteries, esp. p. 65. Cf. Angela Carlevaris, “Ildegarda e la patristica,”
in Context, pp. 65–80.
15 Charles Burnett, “Hildegard of Bingen,” p. 120.