A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

216 leigh-choate, flynn, and fassler
A more coherent solution, in which all eight antiphons could be performed
at lauds, would follow a rare variation of the festal liturgy in which
Psalms 148–150 (normally sung as one psalm with a single antiphon) were
sung to separate antiphons.47 This entails moving the Gospel antiphon so
that it forms a conclusion to the service as a whole. With its clear concluding
conjunctions (Et ideo) and subject (puelle iste), this antiphon easily
stands apart from the series.48
If the Gospel antiphon is removed from the series as ordered in the
manuscripts,49 the three remaining antiphons (Deus enim, Aer enim, and
Deus enim rorem, Table 3: 4–6) can be shown to be linked by their rhetorical
and musical structures. Each of them offfers a justifijication (signaled by
the conjunction enim) of men’s support for women’s religious institutions,
as found, respectively, in Scripture, nature, and the sacraments, especially
the Eucharist.
Table 3. Proposed ordering of Ursula Antiphons50
1 Studium divinitatis
in laudibus excelsis
osculum pacis
Ursule virgini
cum turba sua
in omnibus populis dedit.
2 Unde quocumque venientes
perrexerunt,
velut cum gaudio celestis paradisi
suscepte sunt,
quia in religione morum
honorifijice apparuerunt.
The desire of divinity,
amid highest praises,
gave a kiss of peace
to the virgin Ursula,
with her throng,
before all the peoples.
Hence, coming to wherever
they went,
they were received
as with the joy of heavenly paradise,
because in their religious practices
they appeared honorably.
47 This practice, although rarely recorded, did exist in some Benedictine houses of the
12th century. For example, the Winchcombe Breviary (c.1150) records a series of seven
antiphons for lauds on Christmas (Valenciennes, Bibliothèque Municipale 116 (109),
fols 56v–57r). See also John B. L. Tolhurst, The Monastic Breviary of Hyde Abbey, Winchester,
vol. 6: Introduction to the English Monastic Breviaries, Henry Bradshaw Society 80 (London,
1942), p. 196.
48 Barbara Newman and Walter Berschin have each noted that the series forms a connected
narrative and have edited them accordingly, but since they preserve the manuscript
order, the Gospel antiphon is arguably misplaced. Newman, Symph. (Eng.), pp. 309–11; see
also Symph., pp. 462–63. Berschin, “Eine Offfijiziendichtung in der Symphonia Hildegards
von Bingen: Ursula und die Elftausend Jungfrauen (carm. 44),” in Context, pp. 157–62.
49 Perhaps the order in the manuscripts is intended to mark the initial antiphons from
which the second vespers antiphons would be extracted.
50 Translations by Flynn. Antiphon numbers in parentheses reflect the order in the
manuscripts.