A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

8 kienzle and stoudt
Finally, the authors examine which aspects of Hildegard’s exegesis have
precedents in patristic commentators, notably Origen, Jerome, and Gregory
the Great, and which features appear in 12th-century visual culture,
notably manuscript illumination.
The music and imagery of Hildegard’s Ordo uirtutum and Symphonia
have intrigued scholars and also delighted general audiences. The lack of
known liturgical manuscripts from Hildegard’s monasteries themselves,
or from monasteries in her immediate network, has fueled much debate.
In September 1998, Felix Heinzer delivered the paper “Hildegard und ihr
liturgisches Umfeld” at the conference “Hildegard von Bingen in ihrem
historischen Umfeld, Internationaler wissenschaftlicher Kongress zum
900jährigen Jubiläum, Bingen” (the proceedings of which have not yet
been published) and argued that Hildegard’s monastic background was
marked by the Hirsau movement. In earlier publications, Heinzer discussed
the state of knowledge on the Hirsau liturgy,14 including the manuscript
Engelberg, Stiftsbibliothek Ms. 103 and the work of Ephrem Omlin,
who fijirst identifijied Engelberg, Stiftsbibliothek Ms. 103 with Disibodenberg
but did not think it was produced during Hildegard’s lifetime.15 Heinzer’s
work has influenced a number of Hildegard scholars, who have associated
the codex, an early 13th-century manuscript for the Divine Offfijice, with
Hildegard’s liturgical environment and specifijically with Disibodenberg.
Two essays in this volume advance the scholarly discussion of Hildegard’s
music. Three scholars—Tova Leigh-Choate, William T. Flynn, and Margot
E. Fassler—collaborate to provide an extraordinarily rich discussion of the
Ordo uirtutum and Symphonia, and of Engelberg, Stiftsbibliothek 103.
In “Hearing the Heavenly Symphony: An Overview of Hildegard’s Musical
Oeuvre with Case Studies,” the authors explore the musical dimensions
of Hildegard’s vision of the heavenly symphony as put forth in Scivias 3.13
and notated in surviving collections of her music: 77 liturgical songs and
the Ordo uirtutum, with more than 80 melodies. Leigh-Choate, Flynn, and
Fassler provide a summary of Hildegard’s works, their medieval sources,
and their modern editions, as well as an annotated survey of related
14 Felix Heinzer, “Der Hirsauer ‘Liber Ordinarius,’” Revue Bénédictine 102 (1992): 309–47,
and the articles collected in Heinzer’s book Klosterreform und mittelalterliche Buchkultur im
deutschen Südwesten, Mittellateinische Studien und Texte 39 (Leiden, 2008), pp. 85–408.
15 Ephrem Omlin, “Das ältere Engelberger Osterspiel und der cod. 103 der Stiftsbibliothek
Engelberg,” in Corolla heremitana: Neue Beiträge zur Kunst und Geschichte Einsiedelns
und der Innerschweiz, eds. Albert Knoepfli, P. Maximilian Roesle, and Alfred A. Schmid
(Olten, 1964), pp. 101–26, at 121. (“Es wäre schön, die Hs. 103 mit der heiligen Hildegard
[d.1179] in Zusammenhang zu bringen.”)