A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

what do we know about the life of jutta and hildegard 29
ciples; however, the author of the Vita, who was present at her death and
burial, can bear witness to the light, white as snow, that shone forth from
her body. The monks hold the death vigil, and a great crowd of people of
various social ranks, vocations, and ages participate in the burial. Unlike
Guibert’s account, the Vita does not provide the location of the burial and
mentions nothing about the miracles at her grave or her translation.
This suggests a relatively early date for the composition of the Vita,
which was clearly not updated with a miracle collection. Nevertheless,
through Jutta’s life and through her Vita, the foundation was prepared for
a flourishing cult. Still more astounding is the silence found in the monastery
annals: although they record in detail every altar consecration after
Jutta’s death up to 1146 (but then break offf abruptly at 1147 with a sentence
about a great plague), they make no mention of Jutta’s grave. They mention
nothing of her successor and in no way indicate the development of
the original cloister into a flourishing female convent, even though shortly
after Jutta’s death the women’s house doubled in size. There is also no discussion
of a move to new buildings. This, however, must have happened,
unless the nuns stayed in the older buildings that had been used by the
canons (while the monks used the new buildings constructed after 1108)75
until Hildegard, with her various means (sickness, vision, high-ranking
connections) and in spite of the monks’ opposition, achieved her great
act of liberation: the move to Bingen.76
The search for a new residence is also indicated by Gottfried, with his
characteristic efffort to promote harmony, in his Vita of Hildegard. After
describing the flow of noble daughters coming to Hildegard seeking conversion,
he writes, in words greatly resembling those of the Vita Juttae:
“Since the one residence of the cloister could hardly hold everyone, and
there was already discussion of relocating and expanding their lodgings,77
a place was shown to her through the Holy Spirit, where the Nahe flows
into the Rhine.”78 The unum reclusionis habitaculum would probably not
have appeared too cramped, although the Vita records a bit later that
75 See Eberhard J. Nikitsch, “Wo lebte die heilige Hildegard wirklich? Neue Überlegungen
zum ehemaligen Standort der Frauenklause auf dem Disibodenberg,” in Angesicht,
pp. 147–56.
76 V. Hild., 2.5, p. 28.
77 It is not stated who was discussing this, but we might suspect that it came from the
male convent, i.e. the advice of the older brothers according to The Rule of St. Benedict, 3,
pp. 178–81.
78 V. Hild., 1.5, p. 10.