A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

200 leigh-choate, flynn, and fassler
songs.13 Like the Scivias songs, the earliest Disibod and Rupert songs exist
in textual traditions separate from their notated settings in Dendermonde
and the Riesenkodex.14 Three of the Rupert lyrics follow the Life of Saint
Rupert and introduce the so-called miscellany of texts in the Riesenkodex
(fols 404r–407v) and in Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, 963
(fols 154v–159v).15 These lyrics appear to form an epilogue to the saint’s
vita, to which they are joined by the introduction, “And that blessed
Rupert is truly blessed and truly holy, these things I heard and learned
in the celestial harmony.”16 Like the lyrics in the fijinal vision of Scivias,
the Rupert lyrics follow one another almost seamlessly, separated only
by simple conjunctions and with no indications of liturgical genre. In the
notated collections, these texts appear as the sequence O Ierusalem and
the antiphons O felix apparitio and O beate Ruperte. The Disibod lyrics are
found in copies of Hildegard’s letter of reply to Abbot Kuno’s request for
“any revelation God has granted you concerning our patron, the blessed
Disibod.”17 In this epistolary context, they are likewise presented as visionary
texts without liturgical assignment or form, joined by simple conjunctions.18
These purely textual sources highlight the multiple manifestations
and roles of Hildegard’s songs within her oeuvre. They also underscore the
fundamental nature of liturgical song as hagiography and history.
13 See the recent edition and translation, Two Hagiographies. A critical edition of these
two vitae will be in a forthcoming volume from Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaeualis
(Turnhout).
14 Dendermonde, St.-Pieters-&-Paulusabdij, Ms. Cod. 9; Riesenkodex, Wiesbaden, Hessische
Landesbibliothek, Ms. 2.
15 On the miscellany and its sources, see Opera minora, pp. 345–52. On the relationship
between the Rupert songs, the Rupert vita, and the miscellany, see also Two Hagiographies,
pp. 20–22.
16 Riesenkodex, fol. 404rb: “Et quia beatus Robertus uere beatus & uere sanctus est, hec
in celesti armonia audiui & didici.”
17 Kuno’s letter and Hildegard’s reply can be found in Epistolarium, I, 74 and 74R,
pp. 160–62, at p. 160, ll. 10–11: “peto ut, si qua de patrono nostro beato Disibodo Deus uobis
reuelauerit, mihi aperiatis.” For an English translation, see 74 and 74R in Letters, vol. 1,
pp. 158–62.
18 E.g. Riesenkodex, fol. 347. In this light, Van Acker’s edition and Baird and Ehrman’s
translation of Hildegard’s letter (see fn. 17) could be misleading, for they present the lyrics
in the liturgical forms found in the notated collections and not as plain text. Van Acker
lists only the incipits to the song texts and refers the reader to Barbara Newman, ed. and
trans., Saint Hildegard of Bingen: Symphonia: A Critical Edition of the “Symphonia armonie
celestium revelationum” (Symphony of the harmony of celestial revelations) (Ithaca, 1988)
[2nd ed., Symph. (Eng.)], for the full texts. This is especially problematic for O viriditas
digiti Dei, which does not, in the letter, have the responsorial format found in the notated
song collections and thus neither in Newman’s edition (see Example 1).