A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

210 leigh-choate, flynn, and fassler
and would likely have been sung again on Rupert’s feast day of May 15, two
weeks (or, in liturgical terms, a double octave) later. In the notated collections,
it is grouped with the offfijice chants honoring St Rupert. An extra half
strophe of O Ierusalem is found in the version of the text in the so-called
miscellany: “While they [Hildegard’s community] were planted in another
vineyard [at the Disibodenberg], the Holy Spirit brought them there [to
the Rupertsberg] and nobly united them to you in his mystery.”37
Although included in her letter to Abbot Kuno, Hildegard’s O presul
vere civitatis for St Disibod may have been written during her time at the
Disibodenberg, perhaps in conjunction with its dedication in 1143, or at
the Rupertsberg, where there may have been relics of the saint. The
sequences for Mathias, Eucharius, and Maximin may have been composed
with the monks of Sts Eucharius and Matthias in Trier in mind. The singing
of sequences in honor of local saints would deepen the meanings of
their cults, strengthen relationships between Hildegard’s own community
and others, and increase the likelihood that her music would be adopted
for local liturgies. Her sequence for the Holy Spirit, most likely sung on
Pentecost or during its octave, is the only one not dedicated to a saint.
The idea that the Holy Spirit had descended on the Rupertsberg would
charge a piece written in its honor with special meaning, especially since
Pentecost would often have been celebrated around the same time as the
dedication of the monastery church and the feast of St Rupert. In 1152, for
example, the feast of St Rupert coincided with the feast of the Ascension,
which must have made for mystical associations. In subsequent years, the
patronal feast often fell during the days leading up to Ascension and Pentecost,
and in 1155 and 1160 it would have fallen on Pentecost itself.
Regardless of the particular liturgical occasion or community Hildegard
was thinking of as she created her sequences (and there is no way
to be certain), the group coheres in the themes developed in the texts
and in the ways in which Hildegard explored the genre formally. The
sequence occupied a place in the Mass liturgy when the voice of the
entire community, and not just the choir or soloists, might be heard. As
a result, sequences held a special force in the formation of communal
identity, and Hildegard took advantage of this role. In her sequences, she
expounded a nuanced Eucharistic theology.38 She encouraged the nuns
37 Symph. (Eng.), p. 297; Ibid., p. 437: “Que dum in alia uinea plantate essent, / ibi tulit
eas Spiritus sanctus, / et tibi as nobiliter in misterio [ministerio] suo coniunxit.”
38 On this, see Margot E. Fassler, “The Female Voice: Hildegard of Bingen and the Song
of Songs,” in Scrolls of Love: Ruth and the Song of Songs, eds. Peter Hawkins and Lesleigh
Cushing Stahlberg (New York, 2006), pp. 255–67.