THAT THEY MIGHT SING THE SONG OF THE LAMB: THE SPIRITUAL VALUE OF SINGING THE LITURGY FOR HILDEGARD OF BINGEN. A Thesis Submitted to the Committee on Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts in the Faculty of Arts and Science TRENT UNIVERSITY Peterborough, Ontario, Canada (c) Copyright by Miranda Lynn Clemens (Sister Maria Parousia) 2014 History M.A. Graduate Program September 2014 Abstract That They Might Sing the Song of the Lamb: The Spiritual Value of Singing the Liturgy for Hildegard of Bingen. Miranda Lynn Clemens (Sister Maria Parousia) This thesis examines Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179)'s theology of music, using as a starting place her letter to the Prelates of Mainz, which responds to an interdict prohibiting Hildegard's monastery from singing the liturgy. Using the twelfth-century context of female monasticism, liturgy, music theory and ideas about body and soul, the thesis argues that Hildegard considered the sung liturgy essential to monastic formation. Music provided instruction not only by informing the intellect but also by moving the affections to embrace a spiritual good. The experience of beauty as an educational tool reflected the doctrine of the Incarnation. Liturgical music helped nuns because it reminded them their final goal was heaven, helped them overcome sin and facilitated participation in the angelic choirs. Ultimately losing the ability to sing the liturgy was not a minor inconvenience, but the loss of a significant spiritual and educational tool fundamental to achieving union with God. Key words: Hildegard of Bingen, Letter to the Prelates of Mainz, monasticism, liturgy, music medieval music theory, medieval aesthetics, body and soul, education. ii Acknowledgements Sincere thanks go to Professor Fiona Harris-Stoertz, my adviser, for all her guidance while I was writing this thesis. I would also like to thank Miss Eliza Parker for her assistance in preparing the text of the letter for the appendix. I thank Sister Advocata Nostra for her helpful comments. My superiors and all the sisters of my community, present and past, deserve many thanks for their patience and the many ways they picked up the slack while I was working on this thesis. I thank Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI for providing the inspiration for this thesis by naming St. Hildegard of Bingen Doctor of the Church, making me want to find out why. Most importantly, I thank God for sustaining me throughout this work and bringing it to its completion. May it serve to increase the glory of His name. iii Table of Contents Abstract ............................................................................................................................................. ii Acknowledgements .......................................................................................................................... iii Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................. iv Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter One: The Place of Music in Twelfth-Century Female Monastic Experience .................... 18 Chapter Two: Teaching the Heart ............................................................................................... 68 Chapter Three: Remembering Heaven ..................................................................................... 106 Conclusion ................................................................................................................................... 141 Bibliography of Works Cited ........................................................................................................ 145 Appendix: Epistola XXIII ad Praelatos Moguntinenses ................................................................ 166 iv Introduction In 1178 an eighty-year-old nun addressed a letter to her ecclesiastical superiors asking them to reconsider the sanction that prohibited the singing of the liturgy they had placed over her monastery. Although it took some time, her pleas were eventually heard, and shortly before her death the penalty was remitted. The nun was Hildegard of Bingen.1 The letter she wrote was addressed to the prelates of her diocese of Mainz in reference to an interdict pronounced after she refused to exhume a nobleman buried in her cemetery, a nobleman the prelates claimed was an excommunicate and whom Hildegard maintained had died reconciled with the Church. While the particular events of the conflict are certainly of interest, this letter has received much scholarly attention because of the theological arguments about the spiritual value of music that these events occasioned. The spiritual value of music to Hildegard as informed by the intellectual concepts she inherited and her lived experience in the twelfth century will be explored in the chapters to follow. This question came out of a reading of Hildegard’s letter to the prelates of Mainz. Given the fact that Hildegard’s community could still say the liturgy,2 this thesis aims to explain why Hildegard would devote a significant portion of the letter to the impact of the loss of music, when there would have been other important implications arising from the sanction of interdict. This explanation will bring to light the meaning of music for Hildegard and the reason its prohibition meant a great loss to her community. 1 She was officially canonized a saint and proclaimed a Doctor of the Church (the fourth woman to hold this title) by Pope Benedict XVI on October 7th, 2012. 2 In her words: “Vobis obediendo hactenus a cantu divini officii cessantes, illud tantum legentes remisse celebramus.” [“In obeying you thus far by ceasing to sing the divine office, but only reading it, we are celebrating it incorrectly.”] Hildegard of Bingen. Hildegardis Bingensis Epistolarium, ed. L. van Acker (Turnhout: Brepols, 1991) Epist. XXIII, lines 56-7. All translations are mine, unless otherwise noted. 1 While the letter forms a starting point for this thesis, my study is ultimately far more broad-ranging. Hildegard’s philosophy of music in the letter must be understood in the context of her other writings and in the broader context of twelfth-century monastic life and thought. In particular, Hildegard’s lifelong participation in the singing of the monastic liturgy, the daily cycle of sung prayers, a practice that had evolved over many centuries, was fundamental to her ideas. Given that Hildegard’s lived experience of the liturgy was basic to her spiritual understanding of music, it is essential to define the term. Some scholars prefer to use the term “liturgy” to refer exclusively to the celebration of the Eucharist and the other sacraments.3 Following Guy L. Beck, Susan Boynton, Jean Leclercq, and others, this thesis will adopt a broader sense of the word liturgy that also encompasses the opus dei, the cycle of liturgical hours of prayer performed throughout the day by monks, as well as the sacraments. In Shaping a Monastic Identity, Boynton uses the following definition: “The term liturgy here designates repeated sacred actions that have symbolic meaning, are performed primarily by the monks in the church and other spaces of the monastery, and have predetermined forms and structures which can be reconstructed, at least in part, with recourse to service books from the appropriate time and place.”4 Boynton intends this definition to place the liturgy as a particular subset of the much broader phenomenon of ritual, as outlined by Catherine Bell. In the Love of Learning and the Desire for God, Jean Leclercq uses an even broader definition: “The word liturgy in this study is used in the broad sense to mean all the activities involved in prayer.” He immediately follows up this definition by noting that the divine office cycle 3 See Sarah Larratt Keefer, Introduction to Old English Liturgical Verse: A Student Edition (Buffalo: Broadview Press, 2010), 17 and 20-21. 4 Susan Boynton, Shaping a Monastic Identity: Liturgy and History at the Imperial Abbey of Farfa, 1000- 1125 (Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 2006), 5. 2 was the essential form of all activities related to prayer: “In the middle ages, the public celebration of the divine office represents their perfect expression and synthesis.”5 In Sacred Sounds, Guy L. Beck bases his definition on the etymological roots of the word: “Liturgy (from the Greek words laos “people” and ergos “work” or “action”) means a series of rites that combine word, music, action, symbol and/or object that is performed on behalf of a group.”6 This definition is perhaps most useful for this thesis because it lists music among the elements that make up the definition of the liturgy. Hildegard’s understanding of music will be examined through several theoretical lenses. One is the burgeoning field of ritual theory. Guy Beck argues that academic study of music in the liturgy has important contributions to make toward a greater understanding of religion as something more than a system of doctrines attached to a sacred text, but as beliefs lived out, creating a cultural context.7 The daily cycle of prayers, with its clearly prescribed ritual actions, is a primary example of belief lived out in Hildegard’s monastery. Recently scholars such as Susan Boynton have argued for the prominent place that daily participation in the monastic liturgy held in the education and religious formation