A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

2 kienzle and stoudt
as well emphasizes the extraordinary without regard to the monastic culture
in which Hildegard was educated and continued to learn. The current
volume provides essays by leading German- and English-speaking
scholars that explore the cultural context for her life and work, as well as
understudied aspects of Hildegard’s works, such as the interconnections
among her works.
Hildegard’s 900th birthday in 1998 was celebrated at conferences whose
collected scholarship advanced our knowledge about Hildegard and her
cultural world.2 Those works include: Hildegard of Bingen: The Context of
her Thought and Art, edited by Charles Burnett and Peter Dronke; Hildegard
von Bingen in ihrem historischen Umfeld, edited by Alfred Haverkamp; and
“Im Angesicht Gottes suche der Mensch sich selbst”: Hildegard von Bingen
(1098–1179), edited by Rainer Berndt.3 Other collections of scholarly merit
aim at a more general audience and either offfer an introduction to Hildegard
studies or place the seer in the context of mystical theology.4 Franz
Felten, a contributor to this volume and to these anniversary volumes,
assesses the contributions of the anniversary research in a 2003 article.5
The fijirst decade of this century saw the publication of editions, translations,
and studies of the seer’s works.6 Hildegardis Bingensis Opera
minora, edited by Peter Dronke, Christopher P. Evans, Hugh Feiss, Beverly
Mayne Kienzle, Carolyn A. Muessig, and Barbara Newman, brings
together in one volume texts that relate to various dimensions of the liturgy
at Rupertsberg: the Explanatio Symboli Sancti Athanasii (Explanation
on the Athanasian Creed), the De regula Sancti Benedicti (Explanation on
2 Two decades earlier, an upsurge in Hildegard studies followed the publication of
Anton Philipp Brück, ed., Hildegard von Bingen—1179–1979. Festschrift zum 800. Todestag
der Heiligen (Mainz, 1979).
3 Charles Burnett and Peter Dronke, eds., Hildegard of Bingen: The Context of her
Thought and Art (London, 1998); Alfred Haverkamp, ed., Hildegard von Bingen in ihrem historischen
Umfeld (Mainz, 2000); Rainer Berndt, ed., “Im Angesicht Gottes suche der Mensch
sich selbst”: Hildegard von Bingen (1098–1179) (Berlin, 2001).
4 See, notably, Barbara Newman, ed., Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and
Her World (Berkeley, 1998); Maud B. McInerney, ed., Hildegard of Bingen: A Book of Essays
(New York, 1998); Edeltraud Forster and Konvent der Benedikterinnenabtei St. Hildegard,
eds., Hildegard von Bingen. Prophetin durch die Zeiten. Zum 900. Geburtstag (Freiburg, 1997);
and Änne Bäumer-Schleinkofer, ed., Hildegard von Bingen in ihrem Umfeld—Mystik und
Visionsformen in Mittelalter und früher Neuzeit. Katholizismus und Protestantismus im Dialog
(Würzburg, 2001).
5 Franz J. Felten, “Hildegard von Bingen, 1098–1998—oder Was bringen Jubiläen für die
Wissenschaft?” Deutsches Archiv für Erforschung des Mittelalters 59 (2003): 165–94.
6 For a more extensive review of scholarship on Hildegard, see Beverly Kienzle, Hildegard
of Bingen and her Gospel Homilies: Speaking New Mysteries, Medieval Women: Texts
and Contexts 12 (Turnhout, 2009), pp. 303–10.