A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

64 constant j. mews
how Archbishop Willigis had installed canons at Disibodenberg in 975, on
an abandoned site where there had once been monks, it goes into detail
describing the events that led to Archbishop Ruthard’s ousting of the canons
and his replacement of them with monks. It explains the discord that
arose in Germany in 1075 between Henry IV and the Saxon princes, as
provoked by Henry’s desire to control the Church. The chronicle describes
how opposition to Henry from his wife Adelheid (also known as Praxedis,
daughter of the Grand Duke of Kiev), and then from his son Conrad, eventually
led to the decision by Archbishop Ruthard, once imperial chancellor,
to go into exile in Thuringia in 1098.27 Following the military defeat of
Henry IV by his son Henry V, Ruthard returned to Mainz, where he began
to establish a series of new monastic foundations in and around the city.
Having been based in exile at an abbey (St Peter’s Erfurt) that had itself
been reformed by William of Hirsau, it was natural that Ruthard should
promote the cause of Hirsau in and around Mainz. He issued a charter
announcing his intention to displace the canons of Disibodenberg with
monks on May 11, 1107. Its fijirst abbot was Burchard, abbot of St James,
Mainz—another abbey that followed the example of Hirsau.28
According to the chronicle, construction of the new abbey at Disibodenberg
only began on June 30, 1108. Yet, if Hildegard’s parents offfered
their tenth child to religious life in the eighth year of her life (1105), this
would have been in the year of Ruthard’s return to Mainz, but before he
had installed monks on the site. Whether they initially intended Hildegard
to join a monastery is not certain. The text of the Vita domnae Juttae
inclusae, daughter of Sophia and Meinhard, count of Sponheim (d. 1095),
suggests that Hildegard and Jutta were originally assigned to the care of a
nurse at a separate location from the abbey.29 This Vita, written (possibly
27 Annales Sancti Disibodi, MGH SS 17:7–8, 16; Silvas, Jutta and Hildegard, pp. 7–8, 19.
William’s foundation of St Peter’s Erfurt is mentioned in Haimo, Vita Willihelmi 22, PL
150:913C; MGH SS 12:218; the Mainz abbeys St James and St Alban’s are mentioned by
Trithemius as reformed by Hirsau, PL 150:925B.
28 Annales Sancti Disibodi, MGH SS 17:20; Silvas, Jutta and Hildegard, p. 19. Silvas translates
the foundation charter of Disibodenberg, pp. 30–31.
29 Franz Staab, “Vita domnae Juttae inclusae,” as part of his study, “Reform und Reformgruppen
im Erzbistum Mainz. Vom ‘Libellus de Willigisi consuetudinibus’ zur ‘Vita domnae
Juttae inclusae,” in Reformidee und Reformpolitik im spätsalisch-frühstaufijischen Reich.
Vorträge der Tagung der Gesellschaft für mittelrheinische Kirchengeschichte vom 11. bis 13.
September 1991 in Trier, ed. Stefan Weinfurter, Quellen und Abhandlungen zur mittelrheinischen
Geschichte 68 (Mainz, 1992), pp. 119–87, esp. 172–87; Silvas, Jutta and Hildegard,
pp. 65–84. Fiona Maddocks adopts the chronology implied by the “Life of Jutta” in her
Hildegard of Bingen. The Woman of Her Age (London, 2001), pp. 17–21, but assumes that