A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

292 michael embach
In addition, he places the council above the Pope in authority. Flacius
Illyricus also cites Hildegard in his Catalogus testium veritatis, which he
published in Basel in 1567. This work claims to prove that the concerns
voiced during the Reformation were current in all other times. Although
particular emphasis was placed on Hildegard’s criticisms directed at the
Pope and the Church, the mendicants were exposed to biting critique and
were indeed vilifijied as Judas’s new allies, novos Iuda socios.
Annals and Chronicles
Of great importance in the history of Hildegard’s influence was her consideration
within the context of the historiographical works of the medieval
and early modern periods. Even within her lifetime, she was cited
in the chronicle titled Ex chronica quod dicitur Willelmi Godelli.29 The
anonymous author of the text was a Cistercian who lived at least for a
while in the abbey of Saint-Léonard de Corbigny in the diocese of Autun.
Over the course of the 13th and 14th centuries, the chronicle was erroneously
ascribed to William Goddell, a monk at the abbey of Saint-Martial
in Limoges. In 1172, William Goddell undertook a journey to the Rhine
valley, over the course of which he also visited Hildegard of Bingen. He
described her as a woman in her 60s, to whom grace had been granted
in such abundance that she often entered into an ecstatic trance. He also
characterized her as an uneducated laywoman (laica et illiterata) who
nevertheless dictated her writings in Latin.
Albert of Stade (d. after 1264) based his Annales Stadenses on the Pentachronon.
His statements about Hildegard are particularly interesting
because Albert was an author who switched sides from the Benedictines
to the Franciscans following a failed attempt at reform. According to
Albert, the very fact that Hildegard was a woman—and one without any
standardized education—yet still wrote books and letters served as proof
in his eyes that her visions were of supernatural origin. He attributed no
eschatological meaning to her warnings about heretics. He extensively
cites her prophesies about the last days from the Scivias (3.11); however,
he does not interpret them in any concrete, historical manner. In contrast,
he takes Hildegard’s criticisms about the clergy literally, exactly as they
appear in the Liber diuinorum operum (3.5.16). At this point, the Franciscan
29 Chronicon dicitur Godellus, ed. Otto Holder-Egger. MGH SS 26 (Hannover 1882),
pp. 195–98.