A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

what do we know about the life of jutta and hildegard 33
course began to emerge under Hildegard. According to Guibert, Hildegard
was elected as Jutta’s successor because her sisters recognized her
moderation, her ideal of the middle way, which she was able to realize
at Rupertsberg. Nevertheless, as we discover, Hildegard had already faced
disciplinary problems at Disibodenberg,90 problems that became worse at
Rupertsberg, where “some of the noble daughters . . . rebelled against the
unbearable pressure of the regular discipline.”91 This critique appears after
Hildegard, according to her own words, had for a long time generously
overlooked feasts of food and drink, carnal desires, worldly pleasures, and
more (the classic catalogue).92 Clearly the rapid growth of the community
after the death of Jutta and the move to the Rupertsberg—where the wellsituated
convent, in spite of some departures, grew to 50 sisters93—had
attracted not only those who were well suited to pursue a monastic life.
Given the customs well known from the letter of Tenxwind (c.1150),
one might even suspect that Hildegard wanted to establish at Rupertsberg
the freer religious life of the (secular) canonesses,94 especially since she
did not explicitly testify to the validity of the Benedictine rule until 1158.
Indeed, her great confession of the Benedictine rule in her letter to Archbishop
Heinrich was, as is clear, not inserted until the epistle was revised
near the end of her life.95 That said, Hildegard’s biographers (who were,
admittedly, all Benedictines), as well as her autobiographical writings and
letters—especially the Scivias and her commentary on the rule—leave
no doubt that Hildegard esteemed the Benedictine ideal of monasticism
above all, if, admittedly, with a philanthropic interpretation: her style of
leadership was shaped by kindness, gentleness, patience, and a lenient
authority, which only seldom turned harsh, as when she confronted
“lapsed nuns” or in her dealings with Richardis, her religious sister and
close friend, whose move to Bassum was a cause of animosity on Hildegard’s
part even after Richardis’s death.96
90 V. Hild., 1.4, pp. 9–10.
91 Ibid., 2.12, p. 37.
92 Epistolae, II, 194, pp. 439–42.
93 Guibert of Gembloux, Epistolae, 38, pp. 368–69, ll. 69–73.
94 Ursula Vones-Liebenstein, “Hildegard von Bingen und der ‘ordo canonicus,’” in Angesicht,
pp. 213–40.
95 MzUB 2, 231; Epistolae, I, 7, pp. 17–18.
96 V. Hild., 2.5, pp. 29–30; Franz J. Felten, “‘Novi esse uolunt . . . deserentes bene contritam
uiam . . .’ Hildegard von Bingen und Reformbewegungen im religiösen Leben ihrer
Zeit,” in Angesicht, pp. 27–86.