A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

hildegard as musical hagiographer 213
However, Ursula is not merely the bride of Christ anticipating and participating
in a joyful nuptial feast. In Hildegard’s sequence, she joins in
the sacrifijicial action of the cross as a model of the Church. Her slaughter
is lamented, but she and her companions become the chain of pearls that
stufffs the gaping maw of the devil, much in the same way that the Virgin
Mary conquers Satan through her spotless birth. Ursula’s self-denial and
sacrifijice are redemptive, by implication joining other consecrated virgins
to the work of the cross, not once, but twice. Ursula is the bride of Christ,
both through her mystical union with him and through her choosing
to drink from the cup of martyrdom. Hildegard’s commentaries on the
meanings of the Eucharist and the role of Ecclesia at the altar of sacrifijice
provide context to the sequence text and its dramatic musical setting,
demonstrating the close connection between her theological writings and
her liturgical music. The illumination that accompanied Scivias 2.6 in the
now lost Rupertsberg manuscript41 depicted Ecclesia (the Church) standing
near the sacrifijice of the altar, collecting the blood and water flowing
from the corpus into a chalice, while some of the liquid spills on Ecclesia
herself. (See Figure 1.)
In her sequence, Hildegard describes the people as mocking Ursula
“until the fijiery burden fell upon her.”42 This “fijiery burden” (ignea sarcina)
is the brilliant light surrounding the consecration of the Mass. It is the
sound of the lament for sacrifijice that echoes through the universe at the
Sanctus of the Mass: during its singing, “heaven is suddenly opened and a
fijiery and inestimable brilliance descends over that offfering” (Scivias 2.6).43
Ursula, in the person of Ecclesia, takes the power and pain of redemptive
action into her own body. This blood and wine imagery, so befijitting
the harvest-season feast of St Ursula (October 21), would have had special
resonance for local communities nestled among the Rhineland vineyards,
as they prepared the drink for their sacramental tables. In her hymn for
Ursula, Cum vox sanguinis, Hildegard extended the table imagery to the
de latere eius fluxit se sursum eleuante perfuse ipsi per uoluntatem superni Patris felici
desponsatione associata est atque carne et sanguine eius nobiliter dotata.”
41 Wiesbaden, Hessische Landesbibliothek, Ms. 1.
42 Symph. (Eng.), 64, p. 243; Symph., p. 465, ll. 29–32: “Et ceperunt ludere cum illa / in
magna symphonia, / usque dum ignea sarcina / super eam cecidit.”
43 Scivias (Eng.), p. 243; Scivias 2.6, p. 240: “Sed et ibi euangelio pacis recitato et oblatione
quae consecranda est altari superposita, cum idem sacerdos laudem omnipotentis
Dei, quod est sanctus sanctus sanctus Dominus Deus Sabaoth decantat et sic mysteria
eorundem sacramentorum inchoat, repente ignea coruscatio inaestimabilis claritatis
aperto caelo super aendem oblationem descendit.”