A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

36 franz j. felten
Rhine counts. In the context of the history of the vita religiosa, Hildegard
places herself against the old monastic ideal of fraternal equality and the
dominant trends of the reform movement of her younger days, when convents
were defijined by social openness, just as in questions concerning
asceticism she advocated an entirely diffferent position from that of the
strict reformers.
It is clear that after the death of Jutta, who must be considered part
of these reform circles, Hildegard saw the chance to emancipate herself
in every respect from the overpowering influence of her teacher. Now
she could offfer full expression to her visionary gift and develop her own
monastic ideals: quickly and with great success she moved with 18 or 20
nuns to Bingen. It is worth noting that the recording and legitimizing of
her fijirst great visionary work was followed by her physical separation from
the mountain where she spent her youth as a nun, and by her institutional
liberation from the male convent. This she accomplished by employing
her own particular resources (sickness, vision), but also through hardship
and determination, demonstrating both political skill and a willingness to
compromise, as portrayed in her Vita and her own statements (although
the two are not always in agreement).109 Nowhere do we discover anything
about the motive for this drastic step, which clearly provoked not
only the opposition of her abbot and the monks, but also that of her nuns
and their relatives.110 For this flagrant act of disobedience against her
abbot (abbas meus) and against stabilitas,111 Hildegard appealed only to
her vision, which had commanded her to leave the place in which she
had fijirst been offfered to God and to go to the place which God had shown
her. Hildegard herself emphasized the parallel with the wandering of the
Israelites under Moses.112
Hildegard’s portrayal of the conflict, the legal disputations (for the
female convent was legally and economically a part of the Disibodenberg
monastery), and the political circumstances (which she was able to navigate
skillfully) is accomplished in high style. She says nothing about the
permission and aid of the abbot and the monks (and the conversi),113 but
does reveal the political and economic supports she enjoyed. She also
109 See Felten, “Frauenklöster und -stifte im Rheinland,” pp. 271–75.
110 V. Hild., 2.5, pp. 27–30.
111 Cf. The Rule of St. Benedict, 58.17, pp. 268–69, and passim.
112 V. Hild., 2.5, pp. 28–29.
113 Cf., however, ibid., 1.5, pp. 10–11.