A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

62 constant j. mews
a religious life alongside monks, without becoming monks themselves.18
William’s biographer recalls his detestation of the practice of kissing an
abbot’s hands and knees, as well as his distaste for extravagant monastic
clothes and utensils.19 William believed that monks had a strong responsibility
to criticize abuses within the Church as a whole.
William’s decision to make Hirsau a focus for resistance to Henry IV,
who supported Clement III as Pope from 1080 to 1100, rather than Gregory
VII (1073–1085) and Urban II (1088–1090), generated criticism, not just
from pro-imperial bishops, but even from monasteries (like Lorsch) that
were aligned with the imperial cause. In 1077, Hirsau narrowly avoided
destruction from an imperial army due to the sudden death of its leader,
Werner, bishop of Strasbourg.20 Treatises circulated accusing the monks
of Hirsau of abandoning the cloister to preach the cause of reform, and
thus threatening the traditional fabric of society.21 William’s biographer
presents his hero as constantly seeking out the company of the poor and
unlearned, women as well as men, with whom he could share the Gospel.
He emphasizes the public character of his influence on “virgins, widows
and women” alongside bishops, priests, and clerics. Individuals turned to
William “as if to the bosom of a mother.”22 After William died, one of the
older monks at Hirsau was so upset by the decision of his successor—
that the monastery would no longer provide alms for the poor—that this
monk reported to his brothers that he had been warned in a vision about
the need to respect William’s observances, in particular the importance
he attached to looking after guests and the poor.23 William provided Hildegard
with an example of a monastic leader who did not shy away from
speaking out against corruption in public life, or from providing a model
of concern for both monks and nuns within monasticism.
18 Bernold of St Blaise praises these communities of layfolk in his Chronicon, ed. Georg
Waitz, MGH SS 5:439, 452–53; see Giles Constable, The Reformation of the Twelfth Century
(Cambridge, Mass., 1996), pp. 77–80.
19 Haimo, Vita Willihelmi 7, MGH SS 12:213.
20 Ibid. 26, PL 150:918C; MGH SS 12:222.
21 Libellus de unitate ecclesiae conservanda 2, 38–43, ed. W. Schwenkenbecher, MGH
Libelli de Lite 2 (1892), pp. 266–82.
22 Haimo, Vita Willihelmi 21, MGH SS 12:218.
23 Ibid. SS 12:223: “Quantam ut diximus curam sui gerat monasterii sanctus pater Willihelmus
iam regnans cum Deo, per aliam etiam visionem satis manifeste ostensum satis
manifeste ostensum est. Quam sicut referente quodam seniore innocente et simplici viro,
cui eadem caelitus facta est visio didicimus, scribendo posteris transmittere necessarium
duximus, qui per eam admonentur Hirsaugienses tam futuri quam praesentes, ut statuta
saepe dicti patris diligenter observent, maxime in dispositione domus pauperum et hospitum,
et in observatione claustralis disciplinae.”