A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

what do we know about the life of jutta and hildegard 27
up a conflict with them. Additionally, the monks were clearly not very
interested in Jutta; at least, they lost interest after Abbot Kuno, who had
ordered the writing of her Vita, died on July 2, 1155.
Although the Vita Juttae does not specifijically address the legal and
practical relations between Jutta, her daughters, and the male convent, it
is clear from some small details that—in everything of importance—Jutta
was subordinate to the abbot, even if she was not in all cases subject to
his commands, as the Benedictine rule demands.62 As the fourth chapter
of the Vita states, Jutta always wore a hair shirt and chain, except when,
during a feast day or illness, she was forced to take them offf by order
of her superiors (praecepto maiorum). A conflict of obedience opens the
rather short chapter on Jutta’s “miracles.” When the abbot ordered her, in
accordance with the Benedictine rule,63 to eat meat during a severe illness,
Jutta refused—humbly enough, but contrary to the rule’s precept of
obedience.64 Then the miracle: a waterfowl (an animal doubly allowed, as
it were, by the rule) offfered itself to her for food, inducing her to obey the
renewed order of the abbot, but under the condition that she no longer be
obliged to consume meat. Both in prayer and in mortifijication of the body,
she went far beyond the rule, as she herself was well aware.65
Conversely, Jutta looked after the welfare of the monastery and its
monks; we have already seen this in her many acts of “counsel.”66 During
the long vacancy after the death of Abbot Adalhun (1128), she was
greatly concerned about the monastery. After unceasing prayer, she discovered
through a vision who the abbot’s successors would be—one can
surely infer from this that she had formed a judgement on the potential
candidates.67 From the Vita of Hildegard we discover that Jutta had spoken
with a “monk well-known to her” about Hildegard’s visions (aperuit:
possibly negative given the connotation of confession and trust).68 Hildegard
herself took a monk into her confijidence: she regarded him more
highly than others and even considered him her magister, a title that she
did not grant to Jutta. It was he who advised Hildegard to write down
her visions secretly and he who examined them and informed the abbot:
62 See esp. Timothy Fry, ed., The Rule of St. Benedict in Latin and English with Notes
(Collegeville, Minn., 1981), 5, pp. 186–89, and 68, pp. 290–91.
63 The Rule of St. Benedict, 36, pp. 234–35, and 39, pp. 238–39.
64 Ibid., esp. 5, pp. 186–89, and 73, pp. 294–97.
65 Vita Juttae, 6.1–5, p. 180.
66 Ibid., 5.2, p. 178.
67 Ibid., 6.8–9, pp. 180–81.
68 V. Hild., 2.2. p. 24.