A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

66 constant j. mews
gathered around Jutta) as well as another woman (possibly Richardis von
Stade) with whom she was close.
The growth of a community of female recluses around Jutta, alongside
the male community at Disibodenberg, would not have been without
strains, given the building activity taking place on that relatively confijined
site over these years. In 1138 there were ceremonies to dedicate newly
constructed altars at the abbey in honor of the confessors (Pope Saint
Clement, Pope Gregory the Great, Saint Martin, and Saint Nicholas), Saint
Benedict, John the Evangelist, and various virgin martyrs, and to reinter
with great solemnity the newly discovered relics of St Disibod. The new
monastery itself, with its high altar, was offfijicially dedicated by Henry,
archbishop of Mainz in 1143, while the chapel of the Virgin and St Disibod
was dedicated only in 1146.32 When Hildegard started to record her visions
about the building of the true Ecclesia that provided the driving theme of
Scivias, she was providing her own perspective on a process of renewal
that had been developing at Disibodenberg ever since she was a child.
Women, Visionary Experience, and the Hirsau Reform
The situation of female recluses living alongside a community of monks
was not unusual in the late 11th century, particularly in communities influenced
by the reforms of William of Hirsau.33 A female disciple of William
of Hirsau who became known for her visions is Herluca of Epfach
(d. 1127), whose life was described by her close admirer and friend, Paul of
Bernried.34 According to Paul, Herluca adopted the strict life of a recluse
after a period of illness as a young woman, a scenario not unlike that
described in the Vita Juttae. Sometime around 1091, William of Hirsau had
advised her to settle in one place “wherever she might more experience
divine sweetness.”35 She then spent the next 36 years of her life at Epfach,
32 Annales Sancti Disibodi, MGH SS 17:25–26; Silvas, Jutta and Hildegard, pp. 24–27.
33 Urban Küsters, “Formen und Modelle religiöser Frauengemeinschaften im Umkreis
der Hirsauer Reform des 11. und 12. Jahrhunderts,” in Hirsau. St. Peter und Paul 1091–1991,
pt. 2, pp. 195–220. See also Julie Hotchin, “Female Religious Life and the Cura Monialium
in Hirsau Monasticism, 1080–1150,” in Listen, Daughter. The Speculum Virginum and the
Formation of Religious Women in the Middle Ages, ed. Constant Mews (New York, 2001),
pp. 59–83.
34 Vita B. Herlucae Auctore Bernriedensi Presbytero, in Acta Sanctorum Aprilis II (Brussels,
1865), pp. 549–54 [= Antwerp 1675, 552–57]. For further detail, see Constant J. Mews,
“Hildegard, Visions and Religious Reform in Twelfth-Century Germany,” in Angesicht,
pp. 325–42.
35 Vita B. Herlucae, I, 13, 551: “Praefatus quoque Wilhelmus Abbas consilium ei dederat,
ut in quocunque loco divinam magis experiretur dulcedinem, in eo quam maxime longam