A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

what do we know about the life of jutta and hildegard 23
cloister.40 From the older Vita Juttae, however, we discover that Jutta’s
father had already died by the time she was three years old, that she had
convinced the archbishop of Mainz to clothe her in the religious habit
against the will of all her relatives, and that for three years—again by her
own will (or more precisely, led by God, as the Vita says explicitly)—she
placed herself as a “student” in the charge of Uda of Göllheim, a widow
consecrated to God.41
Jutta, then, consciously chose a life outside the cloister, a form of religious
life known since ancient times. This life consisted particularly of
fasting, vigils, and prayer, which were to have a lasting efffect on Jutta.
She made good progress in virtue but was constantly burning to go on
pilgrimage, peregrinationem adire. We should not understand this simply
as religious travel, pilgrimage in the customary sense; we must think also
of peregrinatio in the sense of the ascetic homelessness of the Irish and
Anglo-Saxon monks, or of the bands of itinerant preachers in Jutta’s own
time.42 Jutta’s mother was against a pilgrimage, and her constant vigilance
prevented any attempt by Jutta to run away. After her mother’s death,
Jutta believed that her path lay free to abandon her home and country
for the Lord (this, again, supports the notion that hers was meant to be
a lifelong peregrinatio). Now, however, it was her brother Meinhard who
prevented her, with the help of Bishop Otto of Bamberg, who was also
their relative. “On his advice and at the request of her brother,” in the
face of massive pressure, she chose Disibodenberg as her place of residence
and was “enclosed” with two companions by Abbot Burchard on
November 1, 1112, at 20 years of age. On the same day she made her monastic
profession, which, with the help of the Holy Spirit, she followed with
her whole heart.43 What the Vita does not mention is that her brother
spent considerable resources for his sister’s safekeeping—an entire village,
including the church and related incomes—ut includeretur.44 He did
not, therefore, allow her the free religious life enjoyed by her teacher Uda,
40 Epistolae, I, 38, pp. 370–71, ll. 139–45, 147–58.
41 Vita Juttae, 3.2–3, pp. 175–76.
42 Andreas Albert, Untersuchungen zum Begrifff peregrinatio bzw. peregrinus in der
benediktinischen Tradition des Früh- und Hochmittelalters. Regula Benedicti Studia. Supplementa
18 (St Ottilien, 1992); Josef Semmler, “Peregrinatio und stabilitas im frühmittelalterlichen
Mönchtum,” in Pilgerreisen in Mittelalter und Renaissance, eds. Barbara Haupt and
Wilhelm G. Busse, Studia Humaniora 41 (Düsseldorf, 2006), pp. 43–65; Robert N. Swanson,
ed., Promissory Notes on the Treasury of Merits. Indulgences in Late Medieval Europe, Brill’s
Companion to the Christian Tradition 5 (Leiden, 2006).
43 Vita Juttae, 3.7–10, p. 176.
44 MzUB, 553.