A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

hildegard as musical hagiographer 195
Engelberg 103: Window on Hildegard’s Liturgical Understanding?
Due primarily to its inclusion of liturgical material for the local saint Disibod,
the manuscript Engelberg 103 has been attributed to the Benedictine
monastery on the Disibodenberg where Hildegard lived for more than
35 years as an inclusa and nun before moving to her own convent on the
Rupertsberg.2 Ephrem Omlin, in a thorough study of the manuscript and
its Easter play, was the fijirst to make this identifijication, even acknowledging
that “it would be nice to associate the manuscript with St Hildegard,”
although he did not believe that it originated in her lifetime.3 Other scholars
of liturgy and music have accepted the Disibodenberg attribution, and
Hildegard scholars have begun to do just what Omlin mused, citing the
manuscript as evidence of Hildegard’s liturgical background.4 This interest
is due to the fact that Engelberg 103 seems to represent most closely
the particular liturgical traditions she would have known in her formative
years, and thus provides a wealth of comparative material for scholars
seeking to understand her liturgical background and her own liturgical
and theological works.
2 The manuscript (with an inventory and description by William T. Flynn) may be
viewed at the Virtual Manuscript Library of Switzerland: http://www.e-codices.unifr.ch/
en/list/one/bke/0103 (accessed 25 August 2013). It is described briefly in P. Benedictus Gottwald,
ed. Catalogus Codicum Manu Scriptorum qui asservantur in Bibliotheca Monasterii
O.S.B. Engelbergensis in Helvetia (Freiburg, 1891), p. 120.
3 “Es wäre schön, die Hs. 103 mit der heiligen Hildegard [d. 1179] in Zusammenhang zu
bringen.” Ephrem Omlin, “Das ältere Engelberger Osterspiel und der cod. 103 der Stiftsbibliothek
Engelberg,” in Corolla heremitana: Neue Beiträge zur Kunst und Geschichte Einsiedelns
und der Innerschweiz, eds. Albert Knoepfli, P. Maximilian Roesle, and Alfred A.
Schmid (Olten, 1964), pp. 101–26, at 121.
4 Michel Huglo, Les Tonaires: Inventaire, Analyse, Comparaison (Paris, 1971), p. 120;
and Réné-Jean Hesbert, Corpus antiphonalium offfijicii, vol. 5 (Rome, 1975), p. 8, list the
Disibodenberg attribution in their descriptions of the manuscript. Hildegard scholars
citing the manuscript include Catherine Jefffreys, “‘Melodia et Rhetorica’: the Devotional-
Song Repertory of Hildegard of Bingen” (Diss., University of Melbourne, 2000), p. 74;
Constant J. Mews, “Hildegard, the Speculum Virginum, and Religious Reform in the Twelfth
Century,” in Umfeld, p. 266; and Marianne Pfau and Stefan Morent, Hildegard von Bingen:
Der Klang des Himmels (Cologne, 2005), pp. 29, 53, 59–60, 137, 140–41, 305, 307, who in turn
cite Felix Heinzer, “Hildegard und ihr liturgisches Umfeld,” a paper delivered at the conference
“Hildegard von Bingen in ihrem historischen Umfeld, Internationaler wissenschaftlicher
Kongress zum 900jährigen Jubiläum, Bingen,” September 18, 1998. Most recently,
Eckehard Simon has offfered the manuscript as “indirect” evidence of Hildegard’s familiarity
with liturgical drama, noting that it originated after her death. See his paper “Hildegard
of Bingen (1098–1179) and Her Music Drama Ordo Virtutum: A Critical Review of Scholarship
and Some New Suggestions,” prepared for the XIIIth Triennial Colloquium of the
Société Internationale pour l’Étude du Théâtre Médiéval, Giessen, Germany, July 19–24,
2010, and published online at: http://www.uni-giessen.de/~g91159/dokumente/SITM%20
Simon.pdf (accessed 25 August 2013), p. 12.