A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

44 franz j. felten
forming a staging point for the bishop of Mainz. The focus instead is on
the improvement of lands—by the people—for the monks. Hildegard represents
Rupert as a man who opened up vast tracts of his inherited land,
which extended from his residence in the civitas (city) on the left bank
of the Nahe estuary (that is, on the Rupertsberg) up to the river Selz, up
the Nahe to the brooks Appelbach and Ellerbach (near Bad Kreuznach),
and through the Soonwald forest up to the Heimbach. Rupert, according
to Hildegard, constructed villae (country estates or villages) and churches
in places that lacked them and granted them to his people.26
The bishops of Mainz only appear in the history of the Disibodenberg
during its later phase of decay. The monks, like the people, grew accustomed
to the miracles; wars raged in the area so that the princes of the
region, along with those commoners who had not fled, quickly fortifijied
the mountain. The Benedictines dispersed at the advice of princes, who
promised to recall the holy men after the end of the fijighting. A few especially
zealous brothers settled down at the grave of the saint and awaited
death with courage. After a few years the monks were indeed recalled, and
they received all of their buildings and even additional lands, enough such
that the monastery underwent a second flowering. Yet the miracles at the
gravesite failed to rematerialize; therefore, the area nobles and wise visitors
(not the monastic brethren) gained the consent and allowance from
the bishop of Mainz to elevate the saint’s bones. In the presence of Boniface
and a great crowd of people, the bones were transferred to the monastery
(the second temporal point of reference in the Vita sancti Disibodi
episcopi). From that time forward, both days were celebrated by the people;
the Benedictines served God in peace, were beloved by the locals, and
thus became wealthy. The thematic repetitions are quite obvious, as they
are in the following text: a few years and kings later, savage battles raged
once again in the area. Noble men and princes of the region (majores
natu cum Principibus ejusdem terrae) turned to Charlemagne, claiming
that it was inappropriate that monks, who were supposed to serve God
in poverty, enjoyed wealth to a point of superfluity while they, in their
need, did not have the means to serve the empire. Charlemagne rejected
them. Some time later (again in serious battles against tyrants), cities on
the Rhine itself were laid to waste (the destruction of Rupert’s civitas is
described in his vita). The princes again, this time in union with the archbishop
of Mainz, presented the same argument before the then-reigning
26 V. Rup., PL 197:1088–89; Two Hagiographies, pp. 64–67.