A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

introduction 7
of Hildegard’s works, such as her Liber diuinorum operum, and those of
her contemporaries, such as William of Conches (d. c.1154) and Bernardus
Silvestris (d. 1178), and he tackles the difffijicult question of whether these
parallels reveal any sort of direct influence. Furthermore, Stover considers
the possibility of the seer’s familiarity with the cosmological doctrines
current in the Rhineland, which were based above all on the late-antique
neo-Platonic scholar Macrobius and were fervently critiqued by Manegold
of Lautenbach (d. c.1103) and Rupert of Deutz (d. 1129). Stover argues
that Hildegard must have had a considerable knowledge of contemporary
intellectual life; the veiled attacks on scholastics in her Expositiones
euangeliorum show a deep and fruitful continuity with the polemics of
her colleagues in Northern France, such as Bernard of Clairvaux’s friend
and collaborator William of St Thierry (d. 1148). Moreover, Letter 40R to
the scholastic Odo of Soissons (d. c.1168), concerning the teaching of Gilbert
of Poitiers (d. 1154), who was put on trial at Reims in 1148, confijirms
her considerable knowledge of scholastic debates and her sympathy for
their religious opponents. In all, Hildegard deserves a distinguished place
among the 12th-century monastic critics of the schools.
Several essays focus their analysis on Hildegard’s oeuvre: her evocation
of Ezekiel in multiple works; her music in the Symphonia and Ordo uirtutum;
the Liber vite meritorum; the medical and scientifijic writings collected
in the Cause et cure and the Physica; and the Lingua ignota. Beverly Kienzle
and Travis Stevens, in “Intertextuality in Hildegard’s Works: Ezekiel
and the Claim to Prophetic Authority,” assert that Hildegard of Bingen’s
opera demonstrate a remarkable organic unity in thought and language.
The analysis of intertextuality—charting various word-concepts, images,
and related themes across the magistra’s works—opens a fruitful avenue
for comprehending her entire allegorical universe. Hildegard’s works constitute
a vast exegetical corpus that grounds its authority on visionary
understanding inspired by the prophets, apostles, and evangelists. Ezekiel
stands out among the prophets for his influence on the magistra’s claim
to authority, the literary form of her visionary writing, and the imagery
that connects word and thought across her opera. She devotes a lengthy
letter (84R) to the exegesis of key passages in the prophet’s book. Kienzle
and Stevens explore Hildegard’s interpretation of Ezekiel in that letter as
well as in the numerous instances in her other works where she alludes
to the book of Ezekiel or draws on it to develop her imagery and thought.
Descriptions of circles, notably the wheels that the prophet envisions,
unite Hildegard’s treatment of various themes, including virginity, the
workings of the Trinity, and the actions of virtues in the human body.