A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

42 franz j. felten
Hildegard’s Vita sancti Disibodi episcopi
Hildegard was the fijirst to label Disibod an Irishman; even today he is
included within the Hiberno-Scottish mission (begun in 590). This son of
noble parents (a given) was a pious child (canonically correct) who was
elevated to the priesthood at age 30, and a few years later, due to his virtues,
he was elevated to the bishopric (against his will, naturally). Due to
the strictness of his beliefs, he had to contend with great problems, heresy
being not least among them, such that after 10 years he set offf on constant
pilgrimage, a goal for which he had long striven and a characteristic way
of life for Irish monks.21 In “Alemannia,” where Disibod met with a mixed
response among the “hard” people, he heard about Benedict, who had
recently died (the only indication of a chronological integration). In the
lifestyle instituted by the latter, the former recognized the ideal that he
had long sought. Disibod searched for a few men of “perfect religiosity,”
but in vain. After copious tears and prayers, in which Disibod appears
poor and fearful (as Hildegard so often did), and following a vision, he
moved to the left side of the Rhine, where a people supposedly lived who
were indeed “hard,” yet already devoted to the ecclesiastical religion. After
10 years of pilgrimage with his three Irish companions, he settled down on
the rugged, thickly forested, and lonely yet lovely Disibodenberg, which
was perfectly suited for a hermitage. His companions built their huts a
short distance from his: this was not to be a monastery but a settlement
of hermits. Since the local inhabitants considered them to be saints sent
from God, it is apparent that the locals were Christians, who supported
Disibod and his fellows. Their reputation of caring for the poor and performing
wonders became broadly disseminated, such that people from
the entire region (per totam provinciam) flocked to see them, building a
small chapel on the eastern slope and establishing gardens, pastures, and
huts for these saints on the western slope. People even came from distant
provinces and entrusted their souls and goods to the hermits, enough
so that fijinally “princes and the higher nobility and the wealthy, together
with the religious people of the region” (the bishop of Mainz is not mentioned)
presented the mountain and its surrounding lands to the saints
and their successors.22
21 V. Disib., AA.SS., p. 589; PL 197:1100–02; Two Hagiographies, pp. 98–99.
22 V. Disib., “Principes ceterique nobiles et divites, una cum reliquo populo easdem terras
inhabitantes,” AA.SS., p. 591; PL 197:1103C. Two Hagiographies, pp. 110–11.