A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

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A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen builds on these earlier studies and
presents to an English-speaking audience various facets of Hildegard’s
historical persona and her cultural signifijicance, so that the reader can
grasp and appreciate the scope of Hildegard’s life and works. The present
volume provides a valuable scholarly collection from international
scholars for both undergraduate and graduate students. The Companion’s
thought-provoking chapters not only constitute informative analyses of
Hildegard’s oeuvre but also identify avenues for further exploration.
Five essays in the volume—two by Franz Felten, as well as those by
Constant Mews, Felix Heinzer, and Justin Stover—elucidate the rich
context—historical, monastic, scholastic, and spiritual—for Hildegard’s life
and works. Felten’s essays scrutinize available documents for the history
of Disibodenberg and Rupertsberg. His fijirst essay addresses the question,
“What Do We Know About the Life of Jutta and Hildegard at Disibodenberg
and Rupertsberg?” Of the many questions concerning Disibodenberg,
one of the most frequently posed, and still unresolved, is: where did Hildegard
live? Or more precisely: where was Hildegard’s cloister? We know that
Hildegard was “enclosed” with Jutta and another girl at Disibodenberg in
1112 and that Jutta made her monastic vows at this time. Nowhere, however,
do we learn where the cloister was situated or what it looked like. Felten
draws on the 9th-century rule of Grimlaicus to describe what such cloisters
would normally look like: small and narrow spaces, with contact with the
outside world only through a window. In many cases, several people lived
in the same enclosure. They would have had private cells connected by a
window in order to enable joint prayer and reading of Scripture, as well
as to accommodate common meals. If possible, the enclosure contained a
small garden for growing vegetables and for taking in the fresh air. In conclusion,
Felten explores textual evidence to reconstruct the everyday lives
of Hildegard and Jutta at Disibodenberg and Rupertsberg.
In “St Disibod and the History of the Disibodenberg up to the Beginning
of the 12th Century,” Felten surveys the sources available for an exploration
of the early history of the Disibodenberg and analyses the limited
number of sources that the archivist and historian Heinrich Büttner identifijied
in his 1934 study as useful for such historical reconstruction. The
sparse documentary history of the Disibodenberg begins with Archbishop
Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn und dem Ruhrlandmuseum Essen
(Munich: Hirmer; Bonn and Essen: Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik
Deutschland, Bonn und dem Ruhrlandmuseum Essen, 2005).