A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

hildegard of bingen and the hirsau reform 67
along with a few other pious women. Paul was particularly impressed by
her reputation for experiencing visions and revelations, as he describes in
both his Gregorii VII Vita and his Vita beatae Herlucae. He relates how she
once had a vision of Jesus Christ with wounded hands, and then one of
Wicterp, the 7th-century bishop of Augsburg to whose memory Herluca
was devoted. Wicterp asked her if she was not horrifijied by the bloody
wounds of the Savior, and whether she wanted to see them again. When
she said that she did not, Wicterp then replied: “Then do not listen any
more to the Masses of Richard the Priest, who does not wish to preserve
the chastity due to his offfijice.” Richard, the priest of the church to which
Herluca was attached, had been the target of some suspicion that he had
been excessively intimate with her companion Douda. After this episode,
Herluca confronted the priest to get him to mend his ways and inspired
the local congregation to do the same.36 Another report of her visionary
gift is a story of how one day she suddenly exclaimed, “Woe, woe, woe to
that man. It was better for him if he had not been born!” When a female
companion asked why she said this, she explained that at that moment
she had seen the soul of a certain unchaste priest taken down into hell
by demons.37 Paul presented Herluca as sympathizing closely with the
campaign of Gregory VII against morally corrupt clergy. Although Paul
presented her as an unlettered woman, she apparently exchanged “truly
comforting letters” with another recluse, Diemut of Wessobrun, who is
only known from an 18th-century record, which states that these letters
were still kept at Bernried.38 Diemut was a celebrated scribe, known to
faceret conversandi stabilitatem. Tales ergo duces secuta, continuavit habitationem suam
Eptatici plus minus triginta sex annos.”
36 Paul of Bernried, “Gregorii VII Vita,” in Pontifijicum Romanorum . . . Vitae, ed. Johannes
Matthias Watterich (Leipzig, 1862, reprinted Aalen, 1966), 1, p. 542: “Felicis namque memoriae
virgo Herluca, cui familiares erant visiones et revelationes Domini cum informationibus
apostolorum fijideli relatu nobis insinuavit, quod ipsa vice quadam, dum solitaria
resedisset in cellula sua, subito viderat Dominum Iesum ad se introire, comitante beato
Wicterpo, Augustensis ecclesiae quondam praesule habitoque paulisper silentio, subsistere
et vulnera tantum sua cruore manantia ostendere. Cumque horripilasset a timore
visionis insolitae, afffatus est eam episcopus ita dicens: Abhorresne, soror, a cruenta specie
Salvatoris? Ait: etiam Domine. Vis eum, inquit, taliter ulterius non videre? Respondit:
Volo. Noli, inquit, ergo amodo Richardi presbyteri missas audire, qui debitam tanto offfijicio
castimoniam non vult custodire. Sic etnim vocabatur presbyter, qui illi ecclesiae indignus
praeerat, iuxta quam virgo Deo dedita manebat. Ex tunc eum publica visitatione confutavit
et exemplo suo plebem ut idem faceret animavit.” Cf. Vita B. Herlucae 22, p. 554.
37 Paul of Bernried, “Gregorii VII Vita,” 115, pp. 542–43.
38 See the entry “Herluca” in Bibliotheca Sanctorum, ed. Filippo Carafffa, vol. 5 (Rome,
1964), p. 7, quoting from Magnoald Ziegelbauer, Historia rei litterariae Ordinis B. Benedicti 3
(Augsburg, 1754), pp. 494–96: “Extant adhuc epistole suaves valde in monasterio Beronica,
quod vulgariter nunc dicitur Pernried, per ipsam [Diemut] virginem sanctam misse, et