A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

what do we know about the life of jutta and hildegard 17
All of the other sources—the contemporary Annales S. Disibodi, the
vita of Jutta written by a monk of Disibodenberg at the request of the
abbot,7 and Hildegard’s vita—are astonishingly devoid of information
concerning the beginning of female religious life at Disibodenberg. We
must therefore ask where Guibert, who wrote at least 66 years after the
events in question and then revised his letters even later (1204–1213), got
his information—especially since he does not, generally speaking, enjoy
the best reputation as a historian. The most obvious thought is that Hildegard
had given Guibert a detailed account of the events. Guibert indeed
boasted of a close intimacy with Hildegard, but in this case he does not cite
her—and in her own texts Hildegard is quite laconic, above all concerning
Jutta. She makes no remark at all about the ceremony of 1112; for her,
what is important in retrospect is that in her eighth year of life she was
offfered to God for a spiritual life.8 That Hildegard (born 1098) was eight
at the time of her enclosure at Disibodenberg would seem to conflict with
the account of the annals of the cloister, which record that construction at
Disibodenberg fijirst began in 1108.9 Above all, it apparently conflicts with
the explicit statement that Jutta was enclosed on November 1, 1112 (with
three companions!), and lived there for 24 years as an inclusa.10 In an efffort
to resolve these contradictions, it has been suggested that when Hildegard
was eight years old, she was entrusted, not to Jutta, but to the widow
Uda, and that she came to know Jutta through her.11 Hildegard, however,
makes express mention only of a “noble woman, to whom I was entrusted
for my education”12—this is clearly Jutta—and she explicitly names
Heiligen Hildegard, ed. Monika Klaes, Fontes Christiani 29 (Freiburg, 1998), pp. 27–30. See
note 36, Ep. 42.
7 “Vita domnae Juttae inclusae,” ed. Franz Staab, “Reform und Reformgruppen im
Erzbistum Mainz. Vom ‘Libellus de Willigisi consuetudinibus’ zur ‘Vita domnae Juttae
inclusae,’ in Reformidee und Reformpolitik im spätsalisch-frühstaufijischen Reich. Vorträge
zur Tagung der Gesellschaft für mittelrheinische Kirchengeschichte vom 11. bis 13. September
1991 in Trier, eds. Stefan Weinfurter and Hubertus Seibert, Quellen und Abhandlungen zur
mittelrheinischen Kirchengeschichte 68 (Mainz, 1992), pp. 119–87; the vita itself covers pp.
172–87. Franz Staab, “Aus Kindheit und Lehrzeit Hildegards. Mit einer Übersetzung der
Vita ihrer Lehrerin Jutta von Sponheim,” in Hildegard von Bingen. Prophetin durch die Zeiten.
Zum 900. Geburtstag, ed. Edeltraud Forster (Freiburg, 1997), pp. 58–86.
8 The autobiographic fragment states only: “In octauo autem anno meo in spiritualem
conuersationem Deo oblata sum.” V. Hild., 2.2, p. 23. The author of the vita transforms this
to: “recluditur in monte sancti Disibodi”; V. Hild., 1.1, p. 6.
9 Annales Sancti Disibodi, ed. Georg Waitz, MGH SS 17 (Hannover, 1861), pp. 20 and 25.
10 Vita Juttae, 7.1, p. 181.
11 Staab, “Aus Kindheit und Lehrzeit Hildegards,” pp. 65–66.
12 V. Hild., 2.2, p. 23.