A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

the medical, the magical, and the miraculous 269
de miraculis,94 the third book of the Vita contains 28 examples of extraordinary
healing, including three incantations. In order to restore the sight
of a blind boy, Hildegard recalls Christ’s command, “Go to the pool of
Siloe, and wash” (Jn. 9:7) (Vade ad natatoria Syloe et laua); blesses the
water of the Rhine; and sprinkles it on the child’s eyes to heal him.95
When the magistra cures the extremely ill soldier, she derives her power
to heal from Jesus’s words: “they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall
recover” (Mk. 16:18).96 In response to a petition from a woman from Lausanne
named Sybil, Hildegard sends a letter containing the blood charm:
“In the blood of Adam, death arose; in the blood of Christ, death was extinguished”
(In sanguine Ade orta est mors, in sanguine Christi extincta est
mors);97 the woman is cured, presumably after the letter is put in place as
an amulet and the words are uttered. It is, perhaps, signifijicant that none
of the verbal formulas from the Physica and the Cause et cure are included
in the Vita; instead scriptural quotations and well-known medieval formulas
are attributed to Hildegard as she efffected miraculous healing.98 There
is no question as to the hagiographic nature of the Vita, which serves to
attest to the holiness of the magistra, beloved and revered especially in
her native region. However, it seems more than coincidence that a preponderance
of the wondrous acts recorded in it focus on Hildegard’s healing
ability, a skill and gift well known during her lifetime.
A case that is documented in the Vita, as well as in Hildegard’s letters,
involves the possession by a devil of Sigewize, a lady from Brauweiler,
near Cologne;99 Hildegard provides a written description of the rite of
94 Peter Bernards examines the place of the third book of Hildegard’s vita within the contemporaneous
tradition of miracle literature in “Die rheinische Mirakelliteratur im 12. Jahrhundert,”
Annalen des historischen Vereins für den Niederrhein 138 (1941), 22–24.
95 V. Hild., p. 55.
96 Ibid., p. 53: “In nomine eius qui dixit: Super egros manus imponent, et bene habebunt,
infijirmitas ista a te recedat et sanus esto.”
97 Ibid., p. 51. The incident also is recorded in Epistolarium, III, 338, p. 95. For more on the
blood charm, see “Blutsegen,” Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens, vol. 1, p. 1455,
and Adolph Franz, Die kirchlichen Benediktionen im Mittelalter (reprint; Graz, 1960), vol. 2,
pp. 511–12. Michael Embach offfers comments on this charm in “Trierer Zauber- und Segenssprüche
des Mittelalters,” Kurtrierisches Jahrbuch 44 (2004): 45–47; my thanks to George Ferzoco
for bringing this article to my attention.
98 Acta inquisitionis, col. 135, alludes to “Hildegard’s incantations,” which foil a devil, but
the words themselves are not included.
99 V. Hild., pp. 55–65 and pp. 91–92. See also Peter Dronke, “Problemata Hildegardiana,”
Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 16 (1981), 118–21 and 127–29; and Newman, “Three-Part Invention,”
pp. 189–209, especially pp. 204–09. Embach, “Trierer Zauber- und Segenssprüche,”
pp. 46–47, discusses this scene as well; he also references a further incantation in the
V. Disib., one to restore speech to a mute: Hildegard of Bingen, Vita sancti Disibodi episcopi,