A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

hildegard, the schools, and their critics 127
theology, Genesis and the cosmogony, elemental cosmology, microcosmic
physiology, and humoral medicine79—are entirely of a piece with the preoccupations
of early 12th-century scholars like William of Conches, Thierry
of Chartres, and Peter Abelard. Further still, Hildegard shares with these
scholars a fascination with the role of human reason in moral decisionmaking,
cosmological speculation, and theology.80 In this respect, her
oeuvre bears a striking similarity to that of her contemporary, the monastic
theologian William of St Thierry. As a student of Anselm of Laon, and
perhaps an acquaintance of Abelard,81 as an abbot of the Benedictine
monastery of St Thierry,82 as a simple Cistercian at Signy, and as an interlocutor
and spiritual confrère of St Bernard, he occupies a central place in
the upheavals of the 12th century. He was the fijirst to raise the objections
against Abelard that led to his trial at the council of Sens, in his Disputatio
contra Petrum Abaelardum; he also wrote a polemic against William
of Conches, De erroribus Guillelmi de Conchis, shortly after his successful
offfensive against Abelard.83 Like Hildegard, William wrote both works
of biblical exegesis and academic physiology, incorporating the latest
advances of the new learning.84 He was also, like her, deeply concerned
79 On Hildegard’s cosmogony and its relation to its 12th-century context, see Newman,
Sister of Wisdom, pp. 64–71. On Hildegard’s microcosmism, see Regine Kather, “Vollendetes
Kunstwerk Gottes. Das kosmische Weltbild Hildegards von Bingen,” in Hildegard von
Bingen. Prophetin durch die Zeiten, pp. 198–210. On her humoral medicine, especially as connected
to her cosmology, see Florence Eliza Glaze, “Medical Writer: ‘Behold the Human
Creature,’” in Voice, pp. 125–48.
80 See Fabio Chávez Alvarez, “Die brennende Vernunft”: Studien zur Semantik der “rationalitas”
bei Hildegard von Bingen (Stuttgart, 1991).
81 Jean Marie Déchanet, Guillaume de Saint-Thierry: L’homme et son oeuvre (Bruges,
1942), pp. 9–17. Déchanet’s opinion has been disputed by Ludo Milis, “William of St.
Thierry, His Birth, His Formation, and His First Monastic Experiences,” in William, Abbot
of St. Thierry: A Colloquium at the Abbey of St. Thierry, Cistercian Studies 94 (Kalamazoo,
1987), pp. 20–23.
82 For William’s importance to the non-Cistercian Benedictine reforms in the 12th century,
see Stanislaus Ceglar, “William of Saint Thierry and his Leading Role at the First
Chapters of the Benedictine Abbots (Reims 1131, Soissons 1132),” in William, Abbot of
St. Thierry, pp. 34–40. For his role in the Cluny-Cîteaux polemic, see Adriaan H. Bredero,
“William of Saint Thierry at the Crossroads of the Monastic Currents of his Time,” in
William, Abbot of St. Thierry, pp. 113–37.
83 See also Piero Zerbi, “William of Saint Thierry and his Dispute with Abelard,” in
William, Abbot of St. Thierry, pp. 181–203; Jean Châtillon, “William of Saint Thierry, Monasticism,
and the Schools: Rupert of Deutz, Abelard and William of Conches,” in William,
Abbot of St. Thierry, pp. 169–73; and Paul Dutton, The Mystery of the Missing Heresy Trial of
William of Conches, Gilson Lectures 26 (Toronto, 2006).
84 His De natura corporis et animae, composed after 1135, includes the latest advances
in physiology, including material derived from Arabic sources from the Pantegni. See most
recently, Svenja Gröne, “Le premier écrit scientifijique cistercien: le De natura corporis de