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THAT THEY MIGHT SING THE SONG OF THE LAMB: THE SPIRITUAL VALUE OF SINGING THE LITURGY FOR .

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, 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 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 theory, medieval aesthetics, body and soul, education.

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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 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.

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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

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Introduction In 1178 an eighty-year-old 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 . 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 and proclaimed a (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 and the other .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 , 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 given in twelfth-century monasteries, thereby emphasizing the pedagogical or formative aspect of ritual actions.8 Catherine Bell notes that the entire educational process has been compared to a ritual, and that, in addition, there are many

5 Jean Leclercq, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God, trans. Catherine Misrahi (New York: Forham University Press, 1961), 232. 6 Guy L. Beck, ed., introduction to Sacred Sound: Experiencing Music in World Religions (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2006), 14. 7 Beck, Sacred Sound, 14. 8 See Susan Boynton, “Training for the Liturgy as a Form of Monastic Education,” in Medieval Monastic Education, ed. George Ferzoco and Carolyn Muessig (New York: Leicester Press, 2000) or " Glosses on the Office Hymns in Eleventh-Century Continental Hymnaries," The Journal of Medieval Latin 11 (2001): 1-26. 3

specific rituals within it.9 The repetition of acts and situations in an educational setting contributes to socialization with a particular right order imparted. The ability of ritual to reconcile opposing ideas facilitates its effective use in religious formation. In her study of the nature of ritual, Bell explains that ritual allows for the differentiation and reintegration of contrasting pairs, such as thought and action, the individual and the group, nature and culture.10 The interaction of body and soul can also be looked at as one of these pairs whose opposing tendencies and impulses can be integrated and harmonized through the practice of ritual. This is fundamental to Hildegard’s thought, as the religious formation that Hildegard sought to give her nuns was precisely aimed at overcoming the disharmony in the human person caused by the tendency toward sin, and she felt that music had deep implications for integrating the body and soul in the human person.

Hildegard believed that the spiritual impact of music arose in part from its appeal to the emotions. A number of theorists have examined the theoretical relationship between music and the emotions11 and it is also clear that music must, as Ruth Finnegan argues, always be understood in its broader cultural setting.12 Hildegard’s music was not, as Malcolm Budd in Music and the Emotions understands, a fine art, performed for the sake of an aesthetic experience, but was a cultural practice embedded within a context of the medieval monastic liturgy, which entails a rich and complex layer of meaning beyond

9 Catherine Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimension (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), 152. 10Catherine Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 16-17. 11 For example, Malcom Budd, Music and the Emotions: The Philosophical Theories (London: Routledge, 1985) and Ruth Finnegan, “Music, Experience, and the Anthropology of Emotion,” in The Cultural Study of Music: a Critical Introduction, ed. Martin Clayton, Trevor Herbert Richard Middleton (New York: Routledge, 2003), 181-192. Bringing biological and medical considerations to bear on this question, Judith Becker has attempted to locate a bodily cause for the affections caused by music in Deep Listeners: Music, Emotion, and Trancing (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2004), 25-44. 12 Finnegan, “Music, Experience, and the Anthropology of Emotion,” 183. For an introduction to the more general study of the history of emotions, see Barbara H Rosenwein, Emotional Communities in the (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 2006). 4

aesthetics. Nevertheless, such works highlight the ability of music to manipulate, inspire and arrange the emotional experiences of listeners in a variety of cultural contexts, something that is likewise apparent in Hildegard’s understanding of the connection between music and emotion.13

Jeremy Begbie recognized the important role of music and its connection to emotions and spiritual experience in the specific context of the liturgy. Begbie points to the liturgy as an occasion for the repetition of religious music, which, far from becoming tedious and meaningless, can facilitate theological reflection. Considering the relationship between music and emotion within the context of the study of religious phenomena,

Begbie critiques those who study emotions and music isolated from a cultural context by asking a key question: “The most interesting question about music and emotion is bypassed and left unexplained: what emotional benefit do we gain by listening to music, especially by repeated hearing?”14

While Begbie makes a case for approaching through music,

Guy Beck, who himself is both a musician and historian of religion, argues that the music used in many different religious practices should figure more prominently among those characteristics considered in the field of comparative religions.15 Beck gives two reasons for the lack of attention to musicology within the field of religious studies. First he describes the tendency among scholars to consider “religion” as a “set of beliefs and

13 Finnegan, “Music, Experience, and the Anthropology of Emotion,” 183-184 and 187. 14 Jeremy Begbie, Theology, Music, and Time (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 16-17, see also 160-165. Begbie lists the praising of a deity among the socio-cultural uses of music and highlights the obvious fact that making music necessitates interaction with the physical world; a point he says is often overlooked by theologians, but nonetheless has great import for theology, especially that of the Incarnation (14-15). 15 Beck, Sacred Sound, 2. 5

doctrines incorporated in scripture and sacred texts.”16 This approach to the study of religion easily passes over the importance of music and which are often found at the core of the practice of religion in any culture, something that is particularly true of twelfth-century monastic life. Secondly, Beck notes a persistent dichotomy between religion and culture that he traces back to the philosophy of Immanuel Kant, which admits a separation between the realm of aesthetics and that of religious experience. This dichotomy, explains Beck, has set up obstacles to studies considering the religious aspects of music as an expression of culture, which are only recently being overcome.17

Hildegard’s aesthetic experience of music was very closely tied to her religious practice and theological beliefs.

Medieval aesthetics must be understood in the context of medieval understandings of the functioning of the senses, something again fundamental to Hildegard’s ideas. Mary

Carruthers, in The Experience of Beauty in the Middle Ages, writing about the medieval experience of beauty, suggests that to understand medieval aesthetics, we must begin, not with abstract neoplatonist and mathematical “theologies of Beauty”, but with medieval expressions of what is sensory.18 Hildegard expressed the theological doctrines that she lived daily through the concrete, sensory, and emotional experiences of music. This sensory expression of theological teaching brings Hildegard’s understanding of the role of religious musical practices in the relationship between the body and the soul in the human person into focus.

16 Beck, Sacred Sound, 7. 17 Beck, Sacred Sound, 9. 18 Mary Carruthers, The Experience of Beauty in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 8. 6

This thesis is divided into three chapters. The first chapter argues that Hildegard viewed music as an indispensable means of spiritual formation, which helped the sisters of her monastery reach the goal of their monastic life: union with God. Hildegard’s response to the interdict was born of a keen awareness of her responsibility as the superior (or magistra—teacher and mother) to look out for the spiritual wellbeing of the sisters. The chapter also explores the monastic context of Hildegard’s ideas about music, first by establishing the role which music played historically in the monastic liturgy. This historical survey gives the background for why Hildegard considered music central for her sisters’ ability to live out faithfully the monastic vocation. Secondly, taking into account the role of the prelates in the life of the monastery and exploring the specific circumstances of this letter will allow for a better understanding of the obstacles they had placed before Hildegard, which kept her from maintaining her duty to her sisters and induced her to write the letter in question.

The second chapter demonstrates that Hildegard considered music to be an effective means of overcoming the disharmony in the human person caused by sin and reaching union with God because music instructs the soul not only by informing the intellect of spiritual realities in a purely rational way, but also because it moves the will through the senses, affections and emotions of the body to seek out and embrace the spiritual good. In the letter to the prelates Hildegard twice repeats that the way we learn of the interior things of the soul is through the exterior things of the body. Situating

Hildegard’s affective use of music within the context of Christian tradition on the place of the emotions in the liturgy it becomes clear that Hildegard was more open to a pedagogical use of the affections in music than Christian tradition as a whole and

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decidedly more so than the monastic reformers of her century. Her understanding of the liturgical music produced in her monastery as a participation in the choirs of heaven brought the practice of music beyond theoretical and rational instruction in spiritual realities to become a concrete means to draw the sisters directly into these spiritual realities. Hildegard’s reflections on music are an example of a medieval aesthetic which sought to instruct and form the entire human person, in soul and in body, through beauty; in Hildegard’s case, specifically through the beauty of the liturgy, which draws the mind and the heart away from earthly realities to contemplate the realities of heaven. Hildegard rooted these teachings on the meaning of music in the central theological truth of the

Incarnation of the Son of God, which allowed her to place great value on the actions and experiences of the body.

The third chapter addresses three benefits of music beyond the ability to appeal to the senses and emotions. In her letter to the prelates Hildegard argued that music helped the sisters to remember that their final goal was to reach heaven, knowledge that became difficult for humanity to maintain after the fall of . Furthermore, Hildegard argued that music was not only a reminder, but that it was also an effective means of overcoming the internal disharmony that sin introduced into the human person at the fall of Adam.

Finally, Hildegard also argued that music allowed the relationship between God and humanity to be restored, and brought those who sang the liturgy into a participation in the heavenly liturgy of the choirs of . This notion of participation shows that Hildegard understood music in terms similar to a , or a sensory symbol that became a means of achieving a spiritual reality.

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This formidable synthesis of a theology of music which Hildegard achieved in her letter was the fruit of a lifetime of theological reflection. The letter to the prelates of

Mainz was written within the last year of Hildegard’s life and recopied into the

Risencodex,19 an edition of her letters compiled shortly after Hildegard’s death by her last secretary, the monk Guibert of Gembloux.20 Hildegard’s collection of letters can be found in several manuscripts, some compiled within her lifetime. It was the Risencodex that became the base for the text that appears in Migne’s .21 Since 1855, other letters not appearing in the Risencodex were published here and there, but from

1991 to 2001 Hildegard’s letters were published in a new critical edition prepared by

Lieven Van Acker in the Corpus Christianorum Continuatio Mediaevalis.22 This is the first complete and critical edition of Hildegard’s correspondence. Following the medieval manuscript tradition, Van Acker ordered the letters hierarchically according to the status of the correspondent, and also paired letters Hildegard received with their response.

However, the most significant difference is that Van Acker’s edition is based on a comparison of different manuscripts prepared during Hildegard’s lifetime which had not

19 Sabina Flanagan, Hildegard of Bingen, 1098-1179: A Visionary Life (London: Routledge, 1990), 185. 20 Guibert appears to have made some alterations to her letters, such as attribution to a different correspondent, shortening or lengthening, or combining of materials. See , “The Vita S. Hildegardis and Mystical ,” in Hildegard of Bingen: The Context of Her Thought and Art, ed. Charles Burnett and Peter Dronke (London: The Warburg Institute, School of Advanced Study, University of London, 1998), 195. At least one other manuscript is known, which is at slight variances with the Risencodex. Peter Dronke, Women Writers of the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 313. I was not able to consult any medieval manuscripts in my research for this thesis, which will limit the conclusions I can base on textual criticism. 21 Hildegard of Bingen, Sanctae Hildegardis Abbatissae Espistolarum Liber Continens ed. Jaques-Paul Migne, Patrologia Latina, vol. 197, 1855, col. 143-383. (Electronic Database, compiled in Alexandria VA, Chadwyck-Healey, 1996, accessed Dec. 19, 2013 http://pld.chadwyck.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/all/fulltext?action= byid&warn=N&id= Z100092802&div=1&sequence=0&file=./session/1387464086_12821). In subsequent notes, the Patrologia Latina will be abbreviated PL. 22 Hildegardis Bingensis Epistolarium. Vol1-3, (Turnhout: Brepols, 1991-2001). 9

previously been edited together.23 The text of the letter to the prelates of Mainz from the

Patrologia Latina is about six times longer than Van Acker’s version. Van Acker considered a large part of the Patrologia Latina version of the letter to be texts added from other writings of Hildegard and not part of the letter as it was originally sent to the prelates in 1179.24 For this reason he considered this letter a “fused writing,”25 and edited the extra texts separately at the end of the third volume. Given the weight of his critical analysis, this thesis is based on Van Acker’s corrected text.26

While this letter is perhaps her most famous (no general biography of Hildegard of Bingen is complete without a few pages dedicated to it, and it almost always gets at the very least a cursory mention in briefer overviews of her life; if no other individual letter is mentioned, this one is27), what is more often discussed is the context of the letter—its occasion, the circumstances surrounding its writing or the possibilities of reading between the lines to get at the political situation. When it comes to treating the theological ideas

Hildegard expresses in this letter, many authors simply sum it up in a sentence something like: “In this letter Hildegard expresses her theology of music,” together with some key

23 See John Coakley, “A Review of Epistolarium, 1:I-XC, Hildegardis Bingensis; L. Van Acker,” Speculum 68 (1993): 1132-3. 24 See the introduction of the English translation of the Van Acker edition: The Letters of Hildegard of Bingen. Vol. I, II, III, trans. L. Baird, Radd K. Ehrman (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998, 2004). 25 Baird and Ehrman, 17, citing in English an expression translated from Van Acker’s own introduction to his first volume: Epistolarium, “Einleitung,” lxvi. 26For more notes about the manuscript traditions of Hildegard’s letters and a good general introduction to Hildegard’s correspondence, see Joan Ferrante, “Correspondent: Blessed is the Speech of Your Mouth,” in Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Her World, ed. Barbara Newman (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 91-109. For greater detail, consult Lieven Van Acker, “Der Briefwechsel der heiligen Hildegard von Bingen. Vorbemerkungen zueiner kritischen Edition,” Revue Bénédictine, 99 (1989): 118-154. 27 For examples see the introductions to English translations of any of her works listed in the bibliography. 10

lines from the letter—without much more said about what is included in Hildegard’s theology of music.28

As a somewhat recently rediscovered figure from the twelfth century, scholarly interest in St. Hildegard of Bingen has been consistently growing over the past quarter of a century, especially as new critical editions of her work and sources related to her life are being made available. In recent years there have been a number of important overviews of her life and work that have helped make her a popular subject of study.29 A good introductory biography to the life and work of Hildegard is Regine Pernoud’s, Hildegard of Bingen. The most important scholarly biography is Flanagan, Hildegard of Bingen,

1098-1179: A Visionary Life. However, as her work and expression are, at least at face value, so unique in comparison with her contemporaries, she is a potentially controversial figure as well. Particularly in more recent scholarship done on Hildegard, a lack of attention to the relationship between what is sensory and what is spiritual in her writings has led to a tendency to overlook the transcendent nature of her thought and pretend that her ideas about the world and man can be discussed separately from her ideas about the

28 For example, Sabina Flanagan, A Visionary Life, 184-190, Regine Pernoud, Hildegard of Bingen, trans. Paul Duggan (New York: Marlowe and Company, 1998), 166-177, Ferrante, “Correspondent,” 102, Azucena Adelina Fraboschi, Bajo la Mirada de Hildegarda abadesa de Bingen (Buenos Aires: Mino y Davila, 2010) and Santa Hildegarda de Bingen: Doctora de la Iglesia (Buenos Aires: Mino y Davila, 2012), 215-223. 29 In Spanish see either of Azucena Adelina Fraboschi’s works: Bajo la mirada de Hildegarda abadesa de Bingen and Santa Hildegarda de Bingen: Doctora de la Iglesia. Peter Dronke included significant chapters on her life and works in both Poetic Individuality in the Middle Ages: New Departures in Poetry 1000-1150 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970) and Women Writers of the Middle Ages. Barbara Newman, who has written extensively on Hildegard and her writings, wrote a brief but insightful account of her life in “Sibyl of the Rhine, Hildegard’s Life and Times,” in Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and her World (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998), 1-29. A brief but interesting perspective on her communities and a set of biographical facts that fall slightly outside of the ordinary, can be found in: Julie Hotchin, “Images and their Places: Hildegard of Bingen and her Communities,” Tjurunga: Australasian Benedictine Review 49 (1996): 23-38. A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen, eds. Beverly Mayne Kienzle, Debra L. Stoudt, and George Ferzoco (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 2014) includes studies that elucidate different elements of background and context of the life of Hildegard. 11

divinity.30 It is true that a striking feature of Hildegard's writing is that she is completely at home in the body and with physicality, but modern scholars who have noticed her characteristic concreteness have sometimes failed to appreciate the true novelty is not merely in the fact that she was interested in the natural world and the human body, but in her ability to express spiritual realities through natural ones. St. Hildegard was clear that the spiritual world took ultimate precedence over the natural world. In addressing her theology of music, this thesis aims to demonstrate that Hildegard greatly valued the experiences of the body but never lost sight of the primacy of what is transcendent, which was required by her faith.

The specifically dealing with Hildegard’s theology of music is not vast; it is her music rather than her theory of music that had received the greater amount of scholarly attention. Important work has been done both in the areas of close, technical study of the words and music of Hildegard’s songs by scholars such as Marianne Pfau and Barbara Newman31 and also their place in relation to the monastic liturgy, such as work done by William T. Flynn and John Stevens.32 The present thesis focuses on

30 Some works that tend to leave transcendence out of Hildegard’s thought and concentrate exclusively on what is natural and human are: Julia Bolton Holloway, “The Monastic Context of Hildegard’s ,” in The Ordo Virtutum of Hildegard of Bingen: Critical Studies, ed. Audrey Ekdahl Davidson (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1992), 63-77; Lisa M. Hess, Learning in a Musical Key: Insight for Theology in Performative Mode (Eugene: Pickwick Publications, 2011) and Elisabeth Gossmann, Hildegard of Bingen: Four Papers (Toronto, Peregrina Publishing, 1998). 31 See, among others, Barbara Newman, Symphonia: A Critical Edition of the Symphonia Armonie Celestium Revelationum [Symphony of the Harmony of Celestial ] (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988); Marianne Pfau, “Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179): Responsories, Sequences, and Hymns in Hildegard's ‘Symphonia’” Women - Music Through the Ages 1: Composers Born Before 1599, ed. Martha Furman Schleifer and Sylvia Glickman (New York: G.K Hall, 1996), 30 -50; Jennifer Bain, “Hildegard, Hermannus, and Late Style,” Journal of Music Theory 52 (2008): 123-149; Robert Cogan, “Hildegard’s Fractal ,” in Wisdom Which Encircles Circles: Papers on Hildegard of Bingen, ed. Audrey Ekdahl Davidson (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1996), 93-104. 32See, among others, William T. Flynn, “Ductus figuratus et subtilis: Rhetorical Interventions for Women in Two Twelfth-Century Liturgies,” in Rhetoric Beyond Words, ed. Mary Carruthers (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010); Barbara L. Grant, “Five Liturgical Songs by Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179)” Signs 5 (1980): 557-567; Martin Jenni, “Echoes in Hildegard's Songs of the Song of Songs,” Mystics 12

Hildegard’s theory of music and the meaning and function of its pedagogical role in the liturgy. This study sheds light on her views of the hierarchical nature of the relationship between the body and soul because Hildegard used the sensory medium of music to offer a spiritual benefit to the spiritual soul, which she understood to be the primary element of the human person. For Hildegard, the teaching that a sensory activity like music could draw one to a spiritual good depended on a specific hierarchy among the soul, body and senses as well as their mutual interdependence. The importance of this hierarchy to

Hildegard’s thought is underestimated by many Hildegardian scholars. For example, works such as Ruth M. Walker-Moskop, “Health and Cosmic Continuity: Hildegard of

Bingen's Unique Concerns,” Pozzi Escot, “Hildegard von Bingen: Universal Proportion,” and Marianne Pfau, “The Concept of Armonia as a Key to the in Hildegard of

Bingen's Symphonia,” all discuss concepts related to “order” “proportion” and “balance” without noting that all of these concepts, as Hildegard treats them, necessarily imply a hierarchical relationship.33 Failing to take this hierarchy into account, one can err in either direction by emphasizing one element to the exclusion of the other. For example,

Peter Dronke has found dualism—the elevation of what is spiritual to the point of rejection of what is physical—in Hildegard’s thought. 34 On the other side, Bruce

Holsinger and Elizabeth Gossmann have emphasized her acceptance of the body and its

Quarterly 17 (1991): 71-78; Hess, Learning in a Musical Key; John Stevens, “The Musical Individuality of Hildegard’s Songs: a Liturgical Shadowland,” in Hildegard of Bingen: A Book of Essays, ed. Maud Burnett McInerney (New York: Garland Pub, 1998), John D. White, “The Musical World of Hildegard of Bingen,” College Music Symposium 38 (1998) 6-16, and Stephen D’Evelyn, “Heaven as Performance and Participation in the Symphonia armonie ceslestium revelationum of Hildegard of Bingen,” in Envisaging Heaven in the Middle Ages, ed. Carolyn Muessig and Ad Putter (London: Routledge, 2007), 155-165. 33 Ruth M. Walker-Moskop, “Health and Cosmic Continuity: Hildegard of Bingen's Unique Concerns,” Mystics Quarterly 11(1985): 19-25, Pozzi Escot, “Hildegard von Bingen: Universal Proportion,” Sonus,11 (1990): 34-39 and Marianne Pfau, “The Concept of Armonia as a Key to the Antiphons in Hildegard of Bingen's Symphonia,” Medieval Perspectives [1057-5367] 7 (1992):154 -170. 34 Dronke, Women Writers, 171-177. 13

operations to the exclusion of what is spiritual.35 In this thesis, music will be put forward as an example a point of union between body and soul in Hildegard’s thought that also emphasizes the importance of transcendence and hierarchy in her worldview. Hildegard has been considered to be part of the German symbolist movement, a context which helps to highlight the transcendent nature of her thought.36 For Hildegard, what is sensory was of value because it had the power to elevate the intellect to what is spiritual. The esthetic principles behind the central argument of this thesis highlight the fact that the pedagogical strength of music lies in the use of the sensory aspects of art and beauty to aid the soul in its goal of transcending the physical world and experiencing the spiritual world.37

Hildegard’s view of the musical, or harmonic, nature of the human person must be integrated with her view of the human person as a creation of God who is wounded by original sin and yet subsequently redeemed by the salvific work of Christ. Barbara

Newman in Sister of Wisdom: St. Hildegard's Theology of the Feminine and Maria Isabel

Flisfisch in “The Eve-Mary Dichotomy in the Symphonia of Hildegard of Bingen,” have described the importance of the doctrine of original sin and its continued effects on

35 Bruce Holsinger, Music, Body and Desire in Medieval Culture: Hildegard of Bingen to Chaucer (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2001); Gossmann, “Hildegard of Bingen’s Male-Female Divinity and Macro-Microcosmic Anthropology,” in Hildegard of Bingen: Four Papers, 17-25. 36 Andrew Weeks, German from Hildegard of Bingen to Ludwig Wittgenstein: A Literary and Intellectual History (Albany: University of New York Press, 1993), 41 and Dronke, Women Writers, 201. See also Gossmann, Hildegard of Bingen: Four Papers, 5; and Kathryn Kerby-Fulton, “Prophet and Reformer: Smoke in the Vineyard,” in Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Her World, ed. Barbara Newman (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 70-90. Barbara Newman calls her a precursor to the symbolist poets (Newman, “Poet,” in Voice of the Living Light, 185).For more on medieval symbolism see the work of Edgar de Bruyne, The Esthetics of the Middle Ages (New York: F. Ungar Pub. Co, 1969). 37As argued by Therese McGuire, “Medieval Aesthetic Principles in the Works of Hildegard of Bingen,” in Wisdom Which Encircles Circles: Papers on Hildegard of Bingen, ed. Audrey Ekdahl Davidson (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1996), 71-80; and Cecilia Avenatti de Palumbo, “Espacio teodramatical y forma vital: dos aportes Hidegardianas a la estetica medieval,” in Conociendo a Hildegarda: la abadesa de Bingen y su tiempo, ed. Azucena Adelina Fraboschi, (Buenos Aires: Ediciones de la Universidad Catolica Argentina:, 2003), 121-146. 14

humanity for Hildegard’s overall theological , but without explicit reference to music.38 In a much abbreviated format, Maria Delia Buisel de Sequeiros approached an analysis of music’s relationship to original sin by giving particular attention to

Hildegard’s understanding of creation and Adam’s stay in paradise, within the structure of the Benedictine liturgical day in “The Letter of Hildegard of Bingen to the Prelates of

Mainz and the Origin of the Singing of the Liturgy of the Hours.39 Kay Brainerd Slocum’s

“The Harmony of Celestial Revelations: Hildegard's Theology of Music,” takes the theological teaching of a fallen humanity into account and demonstrates Hildegard’s debt to classical learning, although in a much abbreviated format.40 Expanding on Slocum’s foundation, the thesis will argue that Hildegard insisted on a properly ordered relationship to reach a balance between the body and soul, and it is within the context of this relationship that her use of music as an effective pedagogical tool that reaches the entire person must be understood.41

38 Barbara Newman in Sister of Wisdom: St. Hildegard's Theology of the Feminine (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987) and Maria Isabel Flisfisch in “The Eve-Mary Dichotomy in the Symphonia of Hildegard of Bingen,” in The Voice of Silence: Women’s Literacy in a Men’s Church, ed. Therese de Hemptinne and Maria Eugenia Gongora (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004), 37-46 39Maria Delia Buisel de Sequeiros, “The Letter of Hildegard of Bingen to the Prelates of Mainz and the Origin of the Singing of the Liturgy of the Hours” (La carta de Hildegarda de Bingen al catitulo de Maguncia y el del canto liturgico de las horas), in Conociendo a Hildegarda: la abadesa de Bingen y su tiempo, ed. Azucena Adelina Fraboschi (Buenos Aires: Ediciones de la Universidad Catolica Argentina, 2003) 111-119. In this article Buisel de Sequeiros is using the version of Hildegard’s Letter which is found in the Patrologia Latina. This particular point is drawn from the material Van Acker has called “fused writing” and does not consider part of the original letter. 40 Kay Brainerd Slocum, “The Harmony of Celestial Revelations: Hildegard's Theology of Music,” in Wisdom Which Encircles Circles: Papers on Hildegard of Bingen, ed. Audrey Ekdahl Davidson (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1996), 81-92. 41 This balanced view of body and soul in Hildegard is consistently maintained by Fraboschi in her many and varied works on Hildegard. Although they do not directly mention music, Jan Emerson, “A Poetry of Science,” in Hildegard of Bingen: A Book of Essays, ed. Maud Burnett McInerney (New York: Garland Pub, 1998), 77-99 and Julie Barton, "Body and Soul in the Theology of Hildegard of Bingen," Tjurunga: Australasian Benedictine Review 46 (1994): 3-14 both describe a basically balanced view of the relationship between body and soul. 15

The high value Hildegard placed on the bodily experience of the beauty of music, which in her view drew a soul on to choose and reach for heaven, was based at least in part on her understanding of the doctrine of the Incarnation. Since the Incarnate Son of

God chose to vest Himself in human flesh, and to use that flesh as a vehicle of the of men, Hildegard took seriously the spiritual value of the experiences of the flesh, the senses and the affections. The key element of the pedagogy of music Hildegard articulated in her letter was that it took into account the condition of the entire person— soul, body and emotions. In this capacity, music can be said to have functioned, for

Hildegard, as a quasi-sacramental symbol effectively uniting the soul on earth to God, in anticipation of her eternal reward.

The goal of the present work is to study the meaning of music in the work of

Hildegard of Bingen, beginning with her letter written in distress to her ecclesiastic superiors in the last year of her life. This study will attempt to bridge certain gaps in scholarship between Hildegard’s thought on particular musical practices and her larger view of the nature, origin and destiny of the human person and the role that music plays in it. Although Hildegard’s music has been widely studied, little attention has been given to her expression of the theological meaning of music and the spiritual benefit she believed it brought to the human soul.

Hildegard, as superior of her monastery, was deeply concerned for the spiritual wellbeing of the sisters who lived with her. The objections to the interdict she expressed in her letter to the prelates of Mainz demonstrate that she believed music, a central element of the monastic liturgy, offered an indispensable spiritual benefit to the sisters.

Hildegard used music as part of a program of monastic formation or education that aimed

16

to help the sisters reach their final goal of union with God. She believed that music was particularly effective in this formation because, as a sensory medium, music appealed to the senses of the body; it not only informed the intellect of spiritual realities in a purely rational way, but it also moved the will through the emotions of the body to seek out and embrace the spiritual good. She also argued that music was indispensable because singing the liturgy both reminded the Christian soul that her goal is heaven and gave the soul effective means of overcoming sin and reestablishing harmony both within the human person and between humanity and God, allowing the sisters to experience an anticipation of the joys of heaven. Thus for Hildegard losing the right to sing the liturgy was not a minor consequence of the interdict, but represented a significant obstacle to the women of her monastery being able to fulfil their vocation and achieve union with God.

17

Chapter One: The Place of Music in Twelfth-Century Female Monastic Experience “Ut secundum delectationem animae cantare possent.”42

Hildegard’s ideas about music must be understood in the context of her intellectual and social environment. Her ideas about music and its ability to transform and educate the individual were a product both of her experience as a nun living in a twelfth- century German monastery and of the wider intellectual climate of the twelfth century, including ideas about the nature of the human person as made up of body and soul. The great importance Hildegard placed on music also reflected the care she was obliged to have, as superior, over both the spiritual and the temporal wellbeing of her daughters. By the twelfth century, the role music had in the monastic liturgy had been developed over centuries and was integral to the life of most monasteries. The sung monastic liturgy, which filled a large part of Hildegard’s day, figured prominently among the means

Hildegard, as a religious superior, had at her disposal for forming and guiding her sisters.

The interdict placed over her monastery by the prelates of Mainz represented for

Hildegard a serious obstacle which kept her from maintaining her duty to her sisters and induced her to write a letter to her own religious superiors asking that they understand her position and the needs of her community.

Hildegard’s perspectives on music were formed, first and foremost, by her life and education as a twelfth-century nun. Hildegard of Bingen was born to a noble family in

1098. One of ten children, she entered religious life at a young age, given as companion and student to Jutta, a recluse living in a cell at the monastery of Disibodenberg.

42 Hildegard of Bingen. Epistolarium, Epist. XXIII, line 96-97. 18

Disibodenburg was a male monastery that followed the Benedictine rule and had been influenced by Hirsau, a monastery that spread monastic reform in the German lands.43

Hildegard received her elementary education from Jutta, which included formation in the virtues, as well as learning to read the psalms and to play the .44 As Hildegard

43 For perspectives on the scarce details of Hildegard’s early life, see Sabina Flanagan, “Oblation or Enclosure: Reflections on Hildegard of Bingen’s entry into Religion,” in Wisdom Which Encircles Circles: Papers on Hildegard of Bingen, ed. Audrey Ekdahl Davnatuidson (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1996), 1-14. For a collection of the evidence of her early life, see Jutta and Hildegard: The Biographical Sources ed. Anna Silvas (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998). 44 The exact content of Hildegard’s education is unclear and has been the subject of scholarly debate. Hildegard herself professes to be innocent of formal (grammatical and rhetorical) education, having received her theological knowledge by divine infusion: “Actum est in millesimo centesimo quadragesimo primo Filii Dei Jesu Christi incarnationis anno, cum quadraginta duorum annorum septemque mensium essem, maximae coruscationis igneum lumen aperto coelo veniens, totum cerebrum meum transfudit, et totum cor totumque pectus meum velut flamma non tamen ardens, sed calens ita inflammavit, ut sol rem aliquam calefacit super quam radios suos immittit. Et repente intellectum expositionis librorum videlicet Psalterii, Evangeliorum et aliorum catholicorum tam Veteris quam Novi Testamenti voluminum sapiebam, non autem interpretationem verborum textus eorum, nec divisionem syllabarum, nec cognitionem casuum aut temporum callebam. -Prologue, Patrologia Latina, vol. 197, col. 0383B-0384A. [“It happened that in the eleven hundred and forty-first year of the Incarnation of the Son of God, Christ, when I was forty-two years and seven months old, Heaven was opened and a fiery light of exceeding brilliance came and permeated my whole brain, and inflamed my whole heart and my whole breast, not like a burning but like a warming flame, as the sun warms anything its rays touch. And immediately I knew the meaning of the expositions of the Scriptures, namely the Psalter, the Gospel and the other catholic volumes of both the Old and the New Testaments, though I did not have the interpretation of the words of their texts or the division of the syllables or the knowledge of cases or tenses.” Trans. Columba Heart and Jane Bishop, Scivias, 59]. Her Vita says: “Cum jam fere esset octo annorum, consepelienda Christo, ut cum ipso ad immortalitatis gloriam resurgeret, recluditur in monte Sancti Disibodi, cum pia Deoque devota femina Jutta , quae illam sub humilitatis et innocentiae veste diligenter instituebat, et carminibus tantum Davidicis instruens, in psalterio decachordo jubilare praemonstrabat. Caeterum praeter simplicem psalmorum notitiam, nullam litteratoriae vel musicae artis ab homine percepit doctrinam, quamvis ejus exstent scripta non pauca, et quaedam non exigna volumina. (Patrologia Latina, vol 197, col. 0093A-0093B). “When she was eight years old, she entered the monastery on the mountain of St. Disibod in order to be buried with Christ and with him to rise to immortality. She was under the case of the pious, consecrated Jutta. It was this lady who carefully trained her in the virtues of humility and chastity, and superbly trained her in learning and singing the sacred songs of . Except for simple instruction in the psalms, she received no other schooling, either in reading or in music. Still she left behind not a small, but rather a significant legacy of writings.” Vita Book 1:1, Gottfried of Disibodenberg and Theoderic of Echternach, The Life of Holy Hildegard, translated into German by Adelgundis F hrkk tter, translated from German to English by James McGrath, eds. Mary Palmquist and John S. Kulas (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 1995), 36. For an explanation of the frequent claim of ignorance as a humility trope among medieval nuns, together with an impressive quantitative analysis of Hildegard’s use of scriptural citations as evidence of her theological knowledge, see: Jeroen Deploige, “Hildegard de Bingen y su libro Scivias: Ideologia y Conocimeintos de una Religiosa del Siglo XII,” Cyber Humanitatis 10 (1999): available at http://www.cyberhumanitatis.uchile.cl/index.php/RCH/article/view/9240/9273. Accessed March 7, 2014. For the broader context of medieval German nuns’ intellectual and literary activities, which would give some indication of Hildegard’s educational possibilities, see Alison Beach, Women as Scribes: Book Production and Monastic Reform in Twelfth-Century Bavaria (Cambridge University Press, 2004). 19

grew, the female community did as well, transforming an anchorage attached to a men’s monastery into something that looked more like a double monastery, with a formidable community of women living the religious life according to the Benedictine rule, alongside the monks and under the same .45 In twelfth-century Germany, double monasteries were characteristic of reformed monasticism, in the Hirsau reform, as well as in the

Augustinian and Premonstratensian orders.46 When Jutta died in 1136, Hildegard was elected to replace her as the superior of the women’s community.47 In spite of fierce opposition from the monks of Disibodenberg, around 1147 Hildegard and some members of her community founded a new community at Rupertsburg, near Bingen, and later a second daughter house across the river at Eibingen. Hildegard remained in her position as superior of Rupertsberg until her death in 1179.48

Our knowledge of Hildegard’s life, richer than most of those who lived in her century, comes to us from a variety of sources. The basic outlines appear in her Vita, which was begun by the monk Gottfried of Disibodenberg, her secretary in the last part of her life, and finished by Theodoric of Echternach, monk of the diocese of Trier, who was

45 On the phenomenon of double monasteries (communities of men and women sharing some spaces) in the middle ages see Catherine Rosanna Peyroux, “ and Cloister: Double Monasteries in the Early Medieval West” (PhD Diss., Princeton University, 1991). Other scholars are sceptical of the usefulness of the term “double monastery,” claiming that it does not aid in understanding of the complexity and diversity in relationships between men and women in monastic settings. See Penelope D. Johnson, Equal in Monastic Profession: Religious Women in Medieval France (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991), 7. 46 Rodney Thomson, "The Place of Germany in the Twelfth-Century Renaissance," in Manuscripts and Monastic Culture: Reform and Renewal in Twelfth-Century Germany, ed. Alison Beach (Turnhout: Brepols, 2007), 33. Julie Hotchin describes Abbot William of Hirsau, the driving force behind the movement, as “renowned for his pastoral care of women,” and an active promoter of female religious life: “Female Religious Life and the Cura Monialium in Hirsau Monasticism, 1080 to 1150,” in Listen Daughter: The Speculum Virginum and the Formation of Religious , ed. Constant Mews (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001), 62-63. 47 Some contemporary superiors to whom Hildegard’s life and teaching have been fruitfully compared by different scholars include: Herred of Landsburg, Heloise, Elizabeth of Shonau, Christina of Markyate, and even Radegunde, who lived much earlier. 48Her can now be visited at Eibingen, where they were moved when the monastery of St. Rupertsberg was destroyed in 1632 during the Thirty Years War. Fraboschi, Santa Hildegarda de Bingen: Doctora de la Igelsia, 235. 20

asked by his abbot to complete the Vita at Gottfried’s death. Her three visionary works include autobiographical passages recounting the conditions in which they were written.

Her letters contain a wealth of personal biographical details, and an account of her death and subsequent miracles can be found in the Acta prepared by three canons of Mainz for her .49

Hildegard’s perspective on the meaning of the lives of the women living in her monastery and her role as superior is relevant to her views on the importance of music. St.

Benedict of Nursia closed the prologue to his rule, which Hildegard lived by, with these words:

Processu vero conversationis et fidei, dilatator corde inaenarrabili dilectionis dulcedine curritur via mandatorum Dei, ut ab ipsius numquam magisterio discidentes, in eius doctrinam usque ad mortem in monasterio perseverantes, passionibus Christi per patientiam participemur ut et regno eius mereamur esse consortes. Amen.

[“By progress in monastic life and faith, with hearts expanded in love’s indescribable sweetness, we run along the path of God’s commands so that, never turning away from his instruction and persevering in his doctrine in the monastery until death, through patience we may share the sufferings of Christ and also deserve to be shares in his kingdom. Amen.”]50

In these words from the beginning of his rule, St. Benedict expressed the essence of the monastic life that he went on to outline in greater detail throughout the rule. Jean-Marie

Howe, medievalist and Cistercian abbess, wrote quite simply: “Monastic life aims at union with God.”51 Aware that the ideal was not always achieved and without claiming that every medieval nun entered religious life for the same reasons, the historical

49 Newman, “Sibyl of the Rhine,” 4. 50 , “Prologue to the Rule of St. Benedict,” in The Rule of St. Benedict, trans. Bruce L. Venarde. (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2011), 8-9. 51 Jean Marie Howe, “Epilogue: Cistercian Monastic Life/ Vows: A Vision,” in Peace Weavers: Medieval Religious Women Vol II, ed. John A. Nichols and Lillian Thomas Shank (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1987), 371. 21

development and movements of medieval monastic life can only be understood if the ultimate goal of monastic life, as expressed by leaders among those who practiced it, is understood. Barbara Newman says: “The nun, in Hildegard’s eyes, is one who re-orients not only her affections but all the capacities of her being toward the Heavenly

Bridegroom.”52

In a medieval female monastic community, the principal source of help for the nuns in achieving their goal was the guidance of their superior. The superior of a

Benedictine religious community in the middle ages was (ideally at least) elected from among the members, usually for life, according to the procedure described in the rule of

St. Benedict.53 Hildegard of Bingen spent the greater part of her religious life as the superior of her community, and so a major preoccupation of all her efforts was to guide and protect her spiritual daughters in their lifelong goal of seeking union with God, in this way caring for their spiritual souls.54 The words in the rule of St. Benedict describing the abbot can be analogously applied to female religious superior: “Ante omnia ne dissimulans aut parvipendens salutem animarum sibi conmissarum ne plus gerat sollicitudinem de rebus transitoriis et terrenis atque caducis. Sed semper cogitet quia animas suscepit regendas de quibus et rationem redditurus est.” [Above all, neither overlooking nor undervaluing the salvation of the souls entrusted to him, an abbot should

52Barbara Newman, “Divine Power Made Perfect in Weakness,” Peace Weavers: Medieval Religious Women ed. John A. Nichols and Lillian Thomas Shank (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1987), 110. 53 Maria Teresa Guerra Medici, “Sulla giurisdizione temporale e spirituale della abbadessa,” in Il Monachesimo femminile in Italia dall'Alto Medioevo al secolo XVII a confronto con l'oggi, ed. Gabreilla Zarri (Verona: Il Segno dei Gabrielli, 1997), 75. 54 Margot Schmidt, “Hildegard’s Care of Souls,” in Wisdom Which Encircles Circles: Papers on Hildegard of Bingen, ed. Audrey Ekdahl Davidson (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1996), 45. 22

not pay more attention to transitory, earthly, passing matters but should always be mindful that he has undertaken rule of souls, for which he will also render an account.”]55

In the rule of St. Benedict, originally written for male religious, the superior is described with the images of both a father and a teacher,56 indicating a leader whose goal is to guide and instruct souls in love more than to govern with force. As female religious life developed alongside that of men, the title given the superior of a monastic community of women varied over time and place. In the rule of (470-543), the first composed specifically for women religious, the nuns are called virgo, soror or filia,

(, sister or daughter) and the superior was usually referred to as abbatissa (abbess).

St. Augustine’s sister, for whom he wrote a second early rule for women, was called the praeposita (superior), and Bishop Donatus composed a rule for women in France in 650, in which he described the superior as both mater and abbatissa.57 The superiors of the twelfth-century Premonstratensian order, whose female branch was made up of houses often closely associated with male houses, were referred to as magistra (teacher or directress).58 Hildegard, a member of a Benedictine community, was never called abbatissa but magistra, and sometimes praeposita as well.59 Anna Silvas explains that at

55 Benedict of Nursia, The Rule of St. Benedict, chapter 2, 24-27. 56 M. La Corte, “Abbot as Magister and Pater in the Thought of and Aelred of Rievaulx,” in Truth as Gift: Studies in Medieval Cistercian History in Honor of John R. Sommerfeldt, ed. Marsha L. Dutton, Daniel M. La Corte and Paul Lockey (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 2004), 380. 57 Felice Lifshitz, “Is Mother Superior? Towards a History of Feminine Amtscharisma,” in Medieval Mothering, eds. John Carmi Parsons and Bonnie Wheeler (New York: Garland, 1996), 120-126. In this article Lifshitz looks closely at the more subtle differences between these terms, and the implications that they might have for the authority that a female superior wields. 58 Shelley Amiste Wolbrink, “Women in the Premonstratensian Order of Northwestern Germany, 1120- 1250,” The Catholic Historical Review 89 (2003): 399. 59Anna Silvas explains that this was due to the fact that Hildegard’s monastery remained, to some degree, technically subject to the Abbot of Disibodenburg. However, in twelfth-century Germany there were superiors of female Benedictine houses given the title of abbatissa—for example, Hildegard’s close friend Richardis became abbess when she left Rupertsberg. Jutta and Hildegard: the Biographical Sources, 112 note 48. However, while the distinction of vocabulary is not without importance, some scholars choose to 23

this time the term magistra “usually implie[d] a complex role of prioress, administrator and spiritual mother of the women.”60 Like a mother and a teacher, Hildegard’s central task as magistra was to provide an environment that allowed the sisters to live out their consecration to God fruitfully. Although she never had the title, Hildegard’s influence was comparable to that of an abbess, both over her own house by authority of government and over other houses through the moral authority of a person often consulted for advice.

A significant number of works, authored by both women superiors and male clerics offering support from the outside, give evidence to the concern for monastic formation of women in medieval religious houses. The overarching goal of this formation was to help the sisters fulfill the end of the religious life: union with God, through the fruitful reception of the sacraments, faithfulness to the duties of their lives and continual growth in the practice of every virtue. This formation took many different forms, such as encouragement to persevere through difficulties in the form of “nunbooks” or logs of special graces received by a community or its members,61 doctrine taught in written dialogues between a religious and her director,62 or compilations of wisdom excerpted from the fathers of the Church and other spiritual authors of particular interest to women religious.63

gloss over the differences and still refer to Hildegard with the English word abbess. For example, John Van Engen, “Abbess: Mother and Teacher,” in Voice of the Living Light, ed. Barbara Newman (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1998), 46-7 and Heinrich Schipperges, The World of Hildegard of Bingen: Her Life, Times and Visions, trans. John Cummings (Kent: Burns and Oates, 1998), 45-46. 60 Jutta and Hildegard: the Biographical Sources, 132. 61 Jo Ann Kay McNamara, Sisters in Arms: Catholic Nuns through Two Millennia (Cambridge Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1996), 326. 62 Such as the Speculum Virginum. For more details on this form of literary dialogue, see Sabina Flanagan, “The Speculum Virginum and Traditions of Medieval Dialogue,” in Listen Daughter: The Speculum Virginum and the Formation of Religious Women in the Middle Ages, ed. Constant Mews (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001), 181-200. 63 Such as Herrad of Hodenbourg’s Hortus Deliciorum. See Regine Pernoud, Women in the Days of the Cathedrals (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1998), 41-42. 24

Throughout her writings, Hildegard also displayed a concern for the religious formation of women, fundamental to her ideas about the importance of music. The range of Hildegard’s interests and genres is impressive. She wrote both with the aid of divine inspiration through her visions and based on own powers of observations and reason.

Some of her works were directed primarily to increasing supernatural knowledge, while others to the daily practices of the virtues, and still others to the care of the body; however, all were intended to be of use to her neighbour in maintaining both physical and spiritual health. Margot Schmidt describes Hildegard’s vision of caring for souls through education geared toward fulfilling the goals of monastic life: “In confronting the problem of seeking God, Hildegard addresses a central problem in the care of souls: the way that the image of God residing in human beings strives through its rational soul (rationalitas) to search out the principles and secrets of the visible world in order to find meaning.”64 In other words, through her writing, Hildegard educated the soul by reason, increasing her knowledge of things both divine and human, and thereby facilitating that soul in her journey to God. In her broad range of interests a concern for the good of the human person is present throughout her writings.

Hildegard’s writing career began in 1141 when she received a command from

God to write down the contents of the visions that she had been experiencing from her early childhood.65 This led to the first of her trilogy of major theological treatises, Scivias, which took her ten years to write. Hildegard was assisted in her writing by Volmar, as well by her close friend and sister in religion, Richardis Von Stade, until Richardis’

64 Schmidt, “Hildegard’s Care of Souls,”45. 65 Hugh Feiss, introduction to The Life of the Saintly Hildegard, 17. 25

departure from Rupertsberg in 1151.66 All of her writings are in Latin, which she would have learned in her childhood from Jutta, since her first language would have been the vernacular German.67 Nuns needed to know how to read in Latin in order to carry out the liturgy and profit from the spiritual teachings of the Fathers of the Church; therefore Latin literacy among German nuns of the twelfth century was widespread.68 In Scivias

Hildegard first described in detail what she had seen in each vision, and then interpreted the spiritual, moral or even metaphysical meaning—also fruit of divine inspiration—of what she had seen. Following Scivias, she wrote two more large theological works that followed the same structure: Liber Vitae Meritorum (1158-1163)69 and Liber Divinorum

Operum (1162-1174), which, together with Scivias, cover the entire range of Catholic teaching and doctrine. Liber Vitae Meritorum, which contrasted a series of vices to the corresponding virtue, directly addressed religious formation.70

In addition to her visionary works, Hildegard wrote on the gospels, which she would have delivered to her community for their spiritual edification;71

66 Fraboschi, Santa Hildegarda de Bingen: Doctora de la Igelsia, 20. See Letters 14 and 14r, 69-70 in Baird and Ehrman’s edition. 67 Jane Stevenson, Women Latin Poets: Language, Gender, and Authority, from Antiquity to the Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 127. 68On the literacy level and education of twelfth-century German nuns, see Alison Beach, “Voices from a Distant Land: Fragments of a Twelfth-Century Nuns’ Letter Collection,” Speculum 77 (2002): 51 or Thomson, "The Place of Germany," 19-42, especially 32-33. 69 For a concise timeline of major events in Hildegard’s life, including the dates of works, see Fraboschi, Santa Hildegarda de Bingen: Doctora de la Igelsia, 15-24. The dating of her writings has been taken from this timeline. 70 There is a long tradition of this genre in Christian writing, dating back to Prudentius’ Psychomachia. See Mary Carruthers, The Craft of Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 143-150, for an analysis of this work for its pedagogical methodology of teaching with imagery. 71 Hildegard of Bingen, Expositiones Evangeliorum: Homilies on the Gospels, trans. Beverly Mayne Kienzle (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2011). The delivery of homilies was not normally an activity undertaken by nuns. On the uniqueness of this collection, and for in depth analysis of the content and context of this collection of homilies, see: Beverly Mayne Kienzle, Hildegard of Bingen and Her Gospel Homilies: Speaking New Mysteries (Turnhout: Brepols, 2009). 26

medical treatises for the care of the sick72 and a work of natural philosophy.73 Hildegard’s medical works included a wealth of practical knowledge of remedies, as well as in- depth knowledge of the workings of the human body, which she would have put into use when practicing the traditional Benedictine hospitality and taking care of her own community.74 She also composed many liturgical songs and a musical play, Ordo

Virtutum, seemingly written to be performed by the nuns of Hildegard’s convent.75 This play revolves around the practice of the virtues, and therefore also contributed to the spiritual education of both actors and audience. Her liturgical songs were compiled during her lifetime into a collection entitled Symphonia Armoniae Celestium Revelationum

(Symphony of the Harmony of Celestial Revelations), and were widely known even during Hildegard’s day.76 Catherine Bell has pointed out that the ritual action of repeating songs with doctrinal content is widely used as a tool for forming minds in both religious beliefs and other social realities.77 The fact that Hildegard carefully designed these songs to educate through musical performance points toward the spiritual value that music had for her.

Finally, the collection of her surviving letters overflows with examples of

Hildegard offering advice, teachings, admonitions and encouragement in the spiritual life.

72 Hildegard of Bingen, Hildegard Von Bingen's Physica: The Complete English Translation of her Classic Work on Heath and Healing, trans. Priscilla Throop (Rochester: Healing Arts Press, 1998). 73 Hildegard of Bingen, Hildegard of Bingen: On Natural Philosophy and : Selections from Cause et Cure, trans. and ed. Margret Berger (Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1999). 74 Newman, “Sibyl of the Rhine,” 15. 75 Audrey Ekdahl Davidson, “Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179): the ‘Ordo Virtutum’” in Women Composers-- Music Through the Ages 1: Composers Born Before 1599, ed. Martha Furman Schleifer and Sylvia Glickman (New York: G.K Hall, 1996), 51. 76 See letter Letter 40, in which Odo of Soissons, a master of theology in Paris, comments on the newness of Hildegard’s melodies. This letter was written in 1148 or 49, which means that Hildegard was known for her musical compositions even before she had finished writing Scivias. Baird and Ehrman, 110, note 3. 77 Bell, Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice, 187-192. See also Bell, Ritual: Perspectives and Dimensions, 191- 197. 27

In her tireless care of souls, Hildegard’s concern spread beyond the walls of her monastery. She corresponded with people from all levels of society from emperor and pope down to unnamed lay women. In the twelfth century, letter writing was an important part of monastic culture. The correspondence of numerous and medieval monastics has come down to us, showing that letter writing was a respected practice in the middle ages and making it possible to situate Hildegard’s prolific epistolary output within a well-established monastic tradition.78 Hildegard gave this traditional practice her own style, often times dispensing with customary or formulaic introductions.79

Hildegard’s visionary experience is particularly present in her letters—the majority of her letters make some reference to a supernatural vision,80 and a large number of Hildegard’s letters were written in response to a specific request from a correspondent for her to consult the Lux Vivens (Living Light)81 about a particular situation or person. Letter 23 to the prelates of Mainz is among those letters in which Hildegard relied on the authority of a vision, and in fact recounted that she was undertaking the work of writing the letter prompted by a from God.82 The very fact that these personal letters were preserved, collected into volumes, and recopied, even within Hildegard’s lifetime, shows they were understood to be of value and interest to many beyond the original recipient.83

78 Leclercq gives some introductory notions about medieval monastic letter writing in The Love of Learning and the Desire for God, 179 ff. 79 Beverlee Sian Rapp, “A Woman Speaks: Language and Self-Representation in Hildegard’s Letters,” in Hildegard of Bingen: A Book of Essays, ed. Maud Burnett McInerney (New York: Garland Pub, 1998), 11. 80 Gillian T.W. Ahlgren, “Visions and Rhetorical Strategy in the Letters of Hildegard of Bingen,” in Dear Sister: Medieval Women and the Epistolary Genre, ed. Karen Cherewatuk and Ulrike Wiethaus (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1993), 46. 81A typical expression Hildegard used to refer to the Divinity. 82 Hildegard of Bingen. Epistolarium, Epist. XXIII, line 1. “In visione que anime mea, antequam mata procederem, a Deo opifice infixa est, coacta sum ad scribendum ista.” 83 Newman, “The Vita S. Hildegardis and Mystical Hagiography,” 195. In this article Newman cites the opinion of Van Acker that many of Hildegard’s letters (both those she sent and those she received) had been 28

The range of the teaching present in Hildegard’s writings is vast and coveres almost every aspect of doctrine and theology. While an introduction to her theological teaching in general is beyond the scope of this thesis, her thought on the nature of the human person is directly relevant to the question addressed in this thesis. Hildegard’s designs to teach and instruct her sisters through music depended on her understanding of the different elements that make up the human person, for effective pedagogy must take into account the nature of the subject to be taught. Margot Schmidt, reflecting on

Hildegard’s leadership wrote: “Since Hildegard understood humanity to be the crown of creation, the human being is therefore her central concern so that he may reach his goal, which is harmony between body and soul in relation to God and the world.”84

The study of the nature of humanity, which included study of the relationship between the soul and the body, as well as the human process of knowledge through the senses, blossomed in the twelfth century. Cistercian fathers such as St. Bernard of

Clairvaux, William of St. Thierry and Stella in the monastic milieu and pre scholastic platonists from the cathedral school at Chartres, such as William of Conches and Bernard of Chartres, all began to explore more deeply the complex relationship

altered, corrected and cleaned up, even within her lifetime and therefore most likely under her own direction, for wider circulation. In the middle ages those who recopied and preserved letters were more concerned with clearly communicating the points they considered to be important than with historical and documentary accuracy. Editing and adapting personal correspondence would have been expected by readers, considered necessary and in no way immoral or insincere. John Van Engen describes the process of letter preservation in Hildegard’s monastery: they would have been recorded in copybooks and stored at Rupertsburg, waiting for editing into a collection at a later time. See John Van Engen, “Letters and the Public Persona of Hildegard,” in Hildegard van Bingen in ihrem historischen Umfeld, ed. Alfred Haverkamp, Internationaler vissenschaftlicher Kingresszum 900 jahrigen Jubilaum, 12-19. September 1998, Bingen am Phein (Mainz: von Zabern, 2000), 376-77, cited in Beach, “Voices from a Distant Land,” 42. 84 Schmidt, “Hildegard’s Care of Souls,” 43. 29

between the body and the soul of the human person.85 Throughout her writings, Hildegard joined this conversation and expressed teachings that follow this basic understanding of the human person. These twelfth-century thinkers taught that a human person is made up of two basic components: the soul and the body. The body is physical, while the soul is the spiritual component. The soul is the primary element, in that it is the seat of the intellect and the will (which perform the spiritual operations by which a person is able to come into contact with God and other spiritual realities).86 Although the higher part of the human person is the soul, it cannot operate independently from the body while on earth.87

Caroline Walker Bynum has found this dynamic and mutually interdependent interaction between the physical and the spiritual to be typical of Hildegard’s time: “Monastic descriptions of soul in the twelfth century tend to physicalize it and pull it toward body.

But monastic images for body lift it toward heaven.”88 This much was generally accepted in the twelfth century; however the relationship between the body and the soul was much less clearly defined.

In the twelfth century, discussion arose around the value of the body in relation to the soul—is matter and the body evil, and the soul to be conceived as trapped in its body?

Is a human person essentially a soul that merely uses the body to interact with the world?

85 See Moufida Amri-Kilani, “Connaissance sensitive et rhétorique chez Alain de Lille,” in Alain de Lille, le docteur universel: Philosophie, théologie et littérature au XIIe siècle, eds. Jean-Luc Solere, Anca Vasilu and Alain Galonnier (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), 191-192. 86 See Scivias Book 1 Vision 4 and Liber Divinorum Operorum Book 4 for Hildegard’s philosophical anthropology. See also Gossmann, “Ipsa enim quasi domus sapirntiase: The Philosophical Anthropology of Hildegard of Bingen,” Hildegard of Bingen: Four Papers, 5-16. 87 “Plato explores the idea of the soul as an immaterial substance that animates a body but that is itself an independently existing intellectual subject.” John Haldane, “Soul and Body,” in The Cambridge History of , ed. Robert Pasnau (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 293. 88 Caroline Walker Bynum, The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 200-1336 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1995), 158. 30

Or is a human person an integral unity of body and soul?89 According to Hildegard, these two elements, spiritual and physical, should coexist in a harmonious, hierarchical and ordered relationship, with the soul directing the actions of the body. This was not the case, however, for as a result of the fall of Adam, the body rebeled against the soul.

Although a human person was made up of body and soul, which were mutually interdependent, Hildegard was clear that it was not a relationship of equality: “The soul, however, lives without the body but the body lives in no way without the soul, which, after the last day, will demand its garment back and rule it as it sees fit.”90 The interdependence between body and soul involved a specific order—the soul ruled the body, not the body the soul.

For twelfth-century thinkers, who were influenced by both Christian and platonic elements, human knowledge required the exterior senses to mediate between the body and the soul.91 Hildegard taught that the soul made use of the body’s five exterior senses in order to gain knowledge about the world around it. In Scivias she explained:

Homo autem tres semitas in se habet. Quid hoc? Animam, corpus et sensus; in his vita hominis exercetur. Quomodo? Anima corpus vivificat et sensus spirat; corpus

89 For more detail on the issues involved in this discussion, see Etienne Gilson, “Christian Anthropology,” in The Spirit of Mediaeval Philosophy, trans. Alfred Howard Campbell Downes (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1940), 168-188. Caroline Walker Bynum also offers a general overview of the twelfth- century view of the interaction between the soul and the body in The Resurrection of the Body, 137-155. See page 135 for a list of six aspects twelfth century scholastic theologians attributed to the body. 90 Hildegard of Bingen, Selections from Cause et Cure, 48. 91 Giacinta Spinosa, “Vista, spiritus e immaginazione, intermediari tra l'anima e il corpo nel patonismo medievale dei secoli XII e XIII,”in Anima e Corpo nella Cultura Medievale, ed. Carla Casagrande and Silvana Vecchio (Firenze: Edizioni del Galluzzo, 1999), 207-208. For more detailed discussion of the role of the senses in the relationship between the body and soul in Hildegard’s thought, see: Emerson, “A Poetry of Science,” 77-99, especially 82-85. Jane Duran, looking at Hildegard from a feminist perspective, notes that work done on feminist epistemology points to an emphasis on knowledge gained through the senses in women’s thought in Eight Women Philosophers: Theory, Politics and Feminism (Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 2006), 38. Caroline Walker Bynum points out Hildegard’s typically monastic use of organic images and images related to fertility to describe the distinctions among the roles of the body, the soul and the senses in The Resurrection of the Body in Western Christianity, 157-163. 31

autem animam sibi attrahit et sensus aperit: sensus vero animam tangunt et corpus alliciunt.

[Man has within himself three paths. What are they? The soul, the body and the senses; in these human life is driven. How? The soul vivifies the body and breathes life into the senses; the body however, draws the soul to itself and opens the senses; and the senses touch the soul and attract the body.]92

The interior powers of the soul, such as the intellect and the will, depended on the senses; in other words, the powers, which were spiritual and not physical, were known through the senses. In between the body (with its senses) and the soul, the emotions were found.

The emotions were the connection between the senses of the body and the intellect and will of the soul. Hildegard clearly established a hierarchical order between these elements, a hierarchy that was part of the created nature of humanity but which had to be emphasized due to the the effects of the fall that disrupted this hierarchy. In Liber

Divinorum Operum, Hildegard explained:

In capite itaque hominis, videlicet in circumeunte rota, cerebri vertex est, ad quem scala posita est, quae gradus ascensionis habet, scilicet oculis videndo, auribus audiendo, naribus odorando, ore loquendo, in quibus homo omnes creaturas videt, cognoscit, discernit, dividit, et nominat.

[In the human head, as if it were a revolving wheel, the brain is found, against which a ladder is placed, which has the following steps for ascending: eyes for seeing, ears for hearing, the nose for smelling and the mouth for speaking, in which man sees, knows discerns, distinguishes and names all creatures.]93

Hildegard treated the senses as a means, not as an end. She compared them to the steps of a ladder, used to ascend to the higher, spiritual operations that only a spiritual soul can perform (such as love, or free choices, or intellectual understanding).

This view of exterior senses was generally accepted in the twelfth century. For example, St. Bernard of Clairvaux expressed very similar ideas in his Sermons on the

92 Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias, (Book 1, 4:18) PL 197, 0425C. 93 Hildegard of Bingen, Liber Divinorum Operum, PL vol 197, 0813D. 32

Song of Songs: “Souls have a need for bodies, and bodies in turn a need for senses, if they are to know and influence each other.”94 The external senses are closely tied to the body and material things, but also provide the bridge between the physical world and human perception of that world. Alanus Insulus also noted this when he taught that the body, physical matter, is included in the nature of man: “Decens enim fuit, ut tam corporea quam incorporea natura divinae bonitatis particeps fieret, et ea frueretur, et feliciter viveret.” [For it was fitting that corporal as well as incorporeal nature should come to participate in the divine goodness, should relish that goodness, and live in joy.”]95 The distinctive feature of Hildegard’s thought on this subject is the unconditioned confidence she put in the sense of hearing to lead souls to God without error. It was this conviction that led her to insist on the importance of music for the spiritual formation of the sisters under her care.

At a moment when Hildegard was sick and believed to be close to death, around

1170, almost a decade before she did die, Volmar, a monk from Disibodenberg who worked as Hildegard’s secretary for the greater part of his lifetime, wrote to Hildegard to tell her what he and all the sisters would miss about their magistra when she died. His list, which explicitly includes her music, offers a good picture of Hildegard’s formative and educational endeavors in her convent, and the unique spirit she imbued them with.

Ubi tunc responsum de universis casibus suis querendtium? Ubi tunc nova interpretatio Scriptuarum? Ubi tunc vox inaudite melodie et vox inaudite lingue? Ubi tunc novi et inaudite semones in festis sanctorum? Ubi tunc ostensio de animabus defunctorum? Ubi tunc manifestation preteritorum, presentium et

94 Bernard of Clairvaux, Sermons on the Song of Songs, 4:4. Sermons of the Song of Songs III, trans. Kilian Walsh Spenser: Cistercian Publications, 1970), 24. 95 Contra haereticos, 14 (PL, CCX, 319), cited and translated by Marie-Dominique Chenu, Nature, Man, and Society in the Twelfth Century; Essays on New Theological Perspectives in the Latin West (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968), 26. 33

futurorum? Ubi tunc exposition naturarum diversarum creaturarum, divina dante gratia cum suavissimis et cum humillimis moribus, et cum materna affectione circa omnes affluentibus visceribus quam in te novimus?

[Who then will give answers to all who seek to understand their condition? Who will provide fresh interpretations of the Scriptures? Who then will utter songs never heard before and give voice to that unheard language? Who will deliver new and unheard-of sermons on feast days? Who then will give revelations about the spirits of the departed? Who will offer revelations of things past, present, and future? Who will expound the nature of creation in all its diversity? We know that God's grace has bestowed these capacities upon you along with a sweet and humble character and a heart that pours out maternal affection on all around you.]96

All of these activities that Volmar mentioned, even the most spectacular or supernatural, like giving revelations of things past, present, and future or about the spirits of the departed, were undertaken with the ultimate goal of leading the sisters to God. Of particular importance is the first thing Volmar noted: “Who then will give answers to all who seek to understand their condition?” because it testifies to Hildegard’s work in enlightening individual souls who came to her with their difficulties. Likewise the fact that Volmar listed Hildegard’s songs among these activities is strong evidence that

Hildegard used her music as an explicit and intentional form of religious instruction.

Hildegard’s religious teachings, while being unique and “inauditus” in style, as Volmar repeated, were faithful to orthodoxy in content, illustrated by the fact that her teachings were not held suspect by Church authorities. On the contrary, her wisdom was sought after by the learned and unlearned alike. While at a distance of centuries it might be easier to see the public persona of Hildegard expressed in her writings and her letters, her writings were intended to aid concrete people, and a great amount of her time was occupied in the day-to-day tasks of taking care of the sisters in her monastery. As mother

96 Hildegard of Bingen, Espistolarium, Epis. CXCV, 18-24. Letters of Hildegard of Bingen, Volume II, trans. Baird and Ehrman, 185. 34

and teacher she cared for all the aspects of the lives of her sisters, but primarily she looked out for their spiritual good.

Hildegard received her religious education at the monastery of Disibodenburg, which was influenced by the monastery of Hirsau, initiator of a movement of monastic renewal with a specific character of attention to music theory.97 Although the connection is not explicit, consonance with reform ideals can be found in Hildegard’s ideas and teachings. For example similarities of style and theme have been found between the

Speculum Virginum, a book of religious formation for women that came out of the Hirsau reform, and Hildegard’s work, a fact that has led Constant Mews to understand

Hildegard’s work as part of this movement of religious reform.98 The field of monastic reform is vast and complex, and a complete treatment is well outside the scope of this thesis. However, the place of music within the monastic liturgy together with the liturgical developments and renewals that led up to twelfth-century practice are helpful to understand Hildegard’s perspectives on music and the liturgy.

The study of medieval music is inseparably intertwined with the study of the monastic liturgy,99 and a central concern of this chapter is to situate Hildegard’s ideas

97 Constant Mews ed., introduction to Listen Daughter: The Speculum Virginum and the Formation of Religious Women in the Middle Ages (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2001), 5. The period of Hirsau’s greatest influence as a reform monastery was from the late eleventh to the early twelfth centuries. Although Hildegard did correspond with the abbot of this monastery, this correspondence dates from the second half of the twelfth century when Hirsau had fallen into a decline. Therefore, the ideas of Hirasu reform seem more likely to have reached Hildegard through her initial religious formation at Disibodenburg when the reform movement was stronger. 98 Mews, Listen Daughter, 6. 99 The study of medieval music history can hardly be separated from the study of the liturgy—as can be easily recognized from the table of contents of most survey books on medieval music For an introductions to the history of Western music in general see: Donald Jay Grout and Claude V. Palisca, A History of Western Music (New York: Norton, 1988) or Richard Taruskin, The Oxford History of Western Music (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005). Both of these books also include explanations of the Catholic liturgy as a necessary part of describing medieval music. For an account of the influence of Benedictine monasticism on the development of , see: Jean Chevallier, “Saint Benoît et le chant 35

about music within the Christian, and specifically monastic, tradition she inherited. The

Church’s liturgy was the primary context in which music was practiced in the lives of

Hildegard’s nuns and a context Hildegard considered irreplaceable for an effective use of singing as a means of education.100 By the twelfth century, music played a huge role in the medieval monastic liturgy, a role that had developed through many centuries. The singing of psalms has been part of Christian worship from the foundation of the

Church.101 However, in the first centuries of the Christian era, as Christian thinkers negotiated the interchanges taking place between the surrounding pagan culture and

Christian ethics, some of the Church fathers, such as and

Tertullian, wrote polemics warning Christians about the dangers of music, especially singing accompanied by musical instruments, as practiced at pagan feasts. Their concern was that music of this type exerted a seducing effect on its hearers and led to immoral behaviors.102 Nevertheless, even though early Christians were wary of musical instruments, music produced by the human voice was consistently used in Christian worship, and, as Christianity became an established religion, public forms of worship involving singing also took root in Christian religious customs.103 The earliest statements about the singing of the psalms in the western monastic office are found in the Institutes of (ca. 360-ca. 435), whose writings Benedict recommended to his

grégorien.” La Champagne bénédictine. Contributionà l'année Saint Benoît (480-1980) Travaux de l'Académie nationale de Reims, 160 (1981), 109-132. 100 For an introduction to both the Benedictine liturgy in general and Hildegard’s educational use of it, see Margot Fassler, “Hildegard and the Dawn Song of Lauds: An Introduction to Benedictine Psalmody,” in Psalms in Community: Jewish and Christian Textual, Liturgical, and Artistic Traditions,eds. Harold W. Attridge, Margot E. Fassler (Atlanta and Leiden: Society of Biblical Literature and Brill, 2003), 215-239. 101 James W McKinnon, “The Fourth-Century Origin of the Gradual,” in The Temple, the Church Fathers, and Early Western Chant (Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998), 91-93. 102 James W McKinnon, Music in Early Christian Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 32 and 43. 103 McKinnon, “The Fourth-Century Origin of the Gradual,” 94. 36

monks.104 Cassian recommended following the psalmody according to the system of the

Egyptian fathers of the desert: in these small groups of hermits, the psalms were broken down into segments and sung very slowly by one monk, alternating with his companions so that each rested while another was singing.105 St. , fourth century bishop of

Milan, is credited with writing some of the first Christian hymns in Latin and his hymns enjoyed great popular appeal. Ambrose’s hymns were later incorporated into monastic practice; there is evidence that they were sung both by early Benedictine monks and those who followed the rule of Caesarius of Arles.106

The adoption of the rule of St. Benedict through much of Western Europe beginning in the ninth century encouraged music to play an important role in the lives of monks and nuns. The rule of St. Benedict, composed in the sixth century, devoted twelve chapters (8-19) to outlining the practice of the liturgy. In these chapters, Benedict used the verbs dicere, psallare, and cantare (say, chant, and sing) interchangeably in the chapters in which he outlined the liturgy. While the details of the practices of singing the liturgy in the sixth century are hard to establish, scholars agree that at this time the monastic liturgy was sung rather than said.107 St. Benedict’s rule organized the monk’s life around the daily cycles of prayers, called “the divine office” as a whole and “hours” individually. There were seven of these hours, which were celebrated at different moments throughout the day: Matins (divided into three Nocturns), Lauds, Prime, Terce,

Sext, None, Vespers and Compline. This daily cycle of offices was worked into a yearly

104 Joseph Dyer, “The Singing of Psalms in the Early-Medieval Office,” Speculum 64 (1989): 542. 105 John Cassian, De institutis coenobiorum, II,2; PL XLIX, 77-79, 97-98 and 99-101; translated in McKinnon, Music in Early Christian Literature, 146-149. 106 Inge B. Milfull, introduction to The Hymns of the Anglo-Saxon Church: A Study and Edition of the 'Durham Hymnal (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 2. 107 Venarde, The Rule of St. Benedict, 68, note 27. 37

cycle of seasons, during which different mysteries of the Christian faith were particularly emphasized.108 Each moment of prayer (hour or office) was made up of a combination of prescribed texts from the Bible, patristic writings and contemporary compositions.109 The primary element of each hour was a series of Biblical psalms, and it was stipulated in the rule of St. Benedict that the hundred and fifty Old Testament psalms should be sung by the monks in their entirety over the course of a week.110

St. Benedict’s Rule also incorporated other elements, such as antiphons, responsories, and hymns, into the monastic liturgy, and, like the psalms, these elements were almost entirely sung.111 These additions to the base of scripture allowed for meditation on the item that preceded it, and therefore they highlight the importance of music.112 Hymns were sung at the beginning or at the end of a monastic hour. The antiphons were sung together with the psalms, either before or after the entire psalm, or sometimes repeated in between each verse.113 The responsories were sung in response to the lessons, or readings, which were taken from the Bible or from other church authors.

108 For a description of the contents and timing of each hour, including the differences between monastic and secular usages, see Lila Collamore, “Prelude, Charting the Divine Office,” in The Divine Office in the Latin Middle Ages: Methodology and Source Studies, Regional Developments, Hagiography: Written in Honor of Professor Ruth Steiner, eds. Margot Fassler and Rebecca A. Baltzer (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 3-11. 109 On sources of inspiration of the medieval monastic liturgy see: Margot Fassler, “Sermons, Sacramentaries, and Early Sources for the Office in the Latin West: The Example of Advent,” in The Divine Office in the Latin Middle Ages, 567-607 and Leclercq, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God, 238- 241. For an overview of the manuscript traditions of the different liturgical elements, see Cyrille Vogel, Medieval Liturgy: An Introduction to the Sources (Washington, D.C.: Pastoral Press, 1986). 110 The Rule of St. Benedict, chapter 18:22; page 87. For an introduction to the role of the Psalms in the monastic office with the historical development, see: Dyer, “The Singing of Psalms,” 535-578. 111 Both Willi Apel, Gregorian Chant (London: Burns & Oates, 1958) and David Hiley, Western Plainchant: A Handbook (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1993), include significant treatments of each of these different liturgical forms in connection with their music. 112 Andrew Hughes, Medieval Manuscripts for Mass and Office: A Guide to Their Organization and Terminology (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1982), 21. For details on the forms of the medieval liturgy see pages, 21-40. 113 For more on the different methods of psalm singing see Joseph Dyer, “Monastic Psalmody in the Middle Ages,” Revue Benedictine 99 (1989): 42-50. 38

According to St. Benedict’s rule, these hours of prayers were alternated with periods of manual labor.

While various alternatives for women living lives of consecration to Christ did exist,114 the Rule of St. Benedict became standard in the Carolingian Empire during the ninth century under Louis the Pious for both female and male monasteries. Benedict of

Aniane (747-821), courtier turned monk, is credited with organizing and consolidating the monastic tradition begun three centuries earlier by Benedict of Nursia.115 This second

Benedict championed the rule of the first and held a leadership position in the synod of in

Aachen in 816 and 817.116 This synod promulgated legislation requiring all monastic communities to adopt the rule of St. Benedict. This was part of a larger Carolingian interest in standardizing and improving monastic discipline, including education, liturgy, and moral behavior.117

All of the essential elements of the monastic liturgy were in place before the

Carolingian reforms; however, it was from the ninth to the twelfth centuries that the liturgy was greatly enriched with an increase in the number of psalms as well as the

114 Pernoud cites the rule written by St. Caesarius, bishop of Arles, for his sister in 513, as the first monastery for women to be organized in Gaul. Women in the Days of the Cathedrals, 28. This event predates St. Benedict’s foundation by a decade and a half. St. Benedict’s own sister, St. Scolastica, also consecrated herself. For more on the early development of female consecrated life see the first chapters of McNamara, Sisters in Arms and the first several chapters of both Distant Echoes ed. Lillian Thomas Shank and John A. Nichols (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1984) and Peace Weavers. While other forms of pre-Benedictine female coenobitic life did exist, Hildegard can be solidly placed in the Benedictine tradition. 115 Annette Grabowsky and Clemens Radi, forward to : The Emperor's Monk: Ardo's Life (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 2008), 1. 116 Grabowsky and Radi, forward to Benedict of Aniane, 10-11. 117 Giles Brown, “The Carolingian Renaissance,” in Carolingian Culture: Emulation and Innovation, ed. Rosamond McKitterick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 11-13, 19 and 23. See also Margot Fassler, Gothic Song, 2nd edition (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2011), 5 and David Bell, Many Mansions: An Introduction to the Development and Diversity of Medieval Theology West and East (Kalamazoo, Mich: Cistercian Publications, 1996), 23-29, 68 and Venarde, introduction to The Rule of St. Benedict, vii. On the culture and observances of this order see James G. Clark, The in the Middle Ages (Woodbridge, Boydell Press, 2011). 39

addition of formulas for benediction and absolution, lessons, and other texts.118 Among liturgical changes made, the Synod of Aachen almost doubled the length of the divine office in 816.119 In addition to the general increase in liturgical material, a second development in monastic practice which came out of the Carolingian period is the shift from solo performance to choral performance of the psalms. Earlier practice was for one monk to sing the psalm (according to an established order of rank) while the others mediated on the words they were hearing, a system that allowed for greater variety among styles, melodies and techniques of singing. In the late eighth and early ninth centuries monastic practice shifted toward choral singing of the psalms, in which all the monks sang together in two groups or choirs, each singing verses of the psalms alternately.120

Dyer argues that this trend illustrates an increase in emphasis on the individual’s commitment to prayer and a spirituality that required each monk to participate more actively in the divine office.121 Both the practice of singing as a group and the growing complexity of the liturgy itself necessitated a greater emphasis to be placed on musical training in the monasteries, occasioning the development of music theory to codify techniques of singing in unison.122

It was, therefore, also in the ninth century when Gregorian chant modes began to be described in terms of the pitches of the ancient Greek octave system and the learning

118 Leclerq, Love of Learning and the Desire for God, 238. A clear and brief description of the daily monastic liturgical cycle as it was celebrated in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, which while undergoing changes, remained as outlined in the Rule of St. Benedict in its most basic framework, can be found in Boynton, Shaping a Monastic Identity, 65-69. For greater detail, as well as historical development of each office, see Hughes, Medieval Manuscripts, 14-19. 119 Matthew Ponesse, “Smaragdus of St Mihiel and the Carolingian Monastic Reform,” Revue Benedictine 116 (2006): 385. 120 Clark, The Benedictines, 103. 121 Dyer, “Monastic Psalmody,” 70-73. 122 Dyer, “The Singing of Psalms,” especially 544-546. 40

of theorists first began to be applied to Christian monastic practice. 123 The first substantial evidence of music theory designed to organize the monastic practice of singing the psalms appears in the Musica Disciplina (ca. 840-850) of Aurelian of Reome, himself a monk.124 The need for this technical training is witnessed by a letter written (ca.

900) by Regino of Prum, another monastic music theorist, to Bishop Rathbod of Trier, observing that in certain churches of that city the “chorus of psalm singers resounds with discordant voices.”125 Regino of Prum contributed to a solution to the problem with

Tonarius, a collection of melodies he thought to be sing-able and appropriate. The anonymous Musica and Scolica Enchiriadis, which deal with a variety of topics related to music theory, are also dated to around this time.126

The most influential of these monastic music theorists is usually considered to be

Guido of Arezzo, Benedictine Monk (ca. 992-after 1033), to whom is attributed the defining breakthrough in musical notation of placing pitches on the lines of a staff so that they could be accurately reproduced even by those who have not heard the melody before.127 Guido’s aim was essentially practical. The system of , an early form of music notation, which had been developing alongside of the monastic liturgy, was imprecise in pitch and required a monk to already know a melody by ear to be able to sing it. Guido’s new method of placing notes on a staff sought a simplified pedagogy to give

123 Hiley, Western Plainchant, 455. 124 Dyer, “The Singing of Psalms,” 539. 125 Dyer, “The Singing of Psalms,” 547, citing Regino of Prum, Epistola de harmonica institutione, ed. Martin Gerbert, Scriptores ecclesiastici de musica sacra potissimum. 126 Susan Rankin, “Carolingian Music,” in Carolingian Culture: Emulation and Innovation, ed. Rosamond McKitterick (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 291. 127 The system of neumes in use before Guido’s system was not able precisely to represent a particular pitch, and therefore music written in this form of notation served mostly to aid the memory of someone who knew the song. Guido is also said to have designed the Guidonian hand, a mnemonic device which involved the assigning each pitch in the gamut to a joint on the fingers of the hand. This device became fundamental to musical pedagogy for centuries. Grout and Palisca, A History of Western Music, 80. 41

monks the necessary knowledge to be able to carry out the duties of their state of life.

Guido said “Many clerics and monks of the religious order neglect the psalms, the sacred readings, the nocturnal vigils, and the other works of piety that arouse and lead us on to everlasting glory while they apply themselves with unceasing and most foolish effort to the science of singing which they never can master.”128 In this passage Guido ascribed to the psalms and the nocturnal vigils, which would have all been sung, the power of leading one to everlasting glory—a close parallel to Hildegard’s understanding of music.

However, the liturgical context of the music is important, because Guido warned his monks that when the practice of singing is pursued for its own sake, interrupting other practices of piety, it becomes disruptive to the religious life. The centuries following the

Carolingian liturgical reform saw the need for a rise in monastic music theory and musical pedagogy that grew out of changes in both the complexity and method of singing the liturgy. The many practical treatises written by monks for monks reveal the care and diligence that was put into preparing for the liturgical hours.

The goal of Benedict of Aniane and the Carolingian kings had been not only to bring all monks under one rule, but also to bring all religious houses to one mode of interpreting that rule, or one “custom” (consuetudo), which was not achieved.129 By the tenth century distinctions among Benedictines began to arise as further reform

128 , “Micrologus,” in Source Readings in Music History, trans. Oliver Strunk (New York: Norton and Company, 1950), 117. On practical difficulties and advice on singing techniques Hildegard has left no record. However, it does not seem to be an unreasonable stretch to imagine her directing the nuns of her community, teaching them to sing the songs of her own composition, which were not simple! She might even have used Guido of Arezzo’s popular pedagogical device. Scholars have taken a mention of the joints of the fingers in Hildegard’s letter to the prelates as a reference to this device. “Quos, videlicet sanctos prophetas… ut secundum delectationem animae cantare possent, et quae cantabant, in juncturis digitorum, quae flexionibus inclinantur, adaptarunt, ut et recolentes Adam digito Dei, qui Spiritus sanctus est, formatum.” (Hildegard of Bingen, Epistolarium, Epist. XXIII, lines 98-100). 129 Grabowsky and Radi, forward to Benedict of Aniane, 14. 42

movements began to unfold regionally. The regional reforms with the most enduring influence were connected with Cluny, Gorze and Winchester.130 These reforms shared a beginning in connection with local lordship and a desire to reorganize ecclesiastical authorities. These monastic reform movements sought, generally speaking, to bring

Benedictine religious houses back to a more careful observance of St. Benedict’s Rule, and therefore the reform applied to all the aspects of religious life detailed in the rule. The liturgy, as an activity that occupied a significant portion of a monk’s time, always figured prominently among the issues discussed and amended in monastic reforms; as in the

Carolingian, the tenth and eleventh century reforms movements also elaborated on the sequence of psalms prescribed by the Rule.131

Founded in the tenth century, the monastery of Cluny became known for its careful observance of the rule and its elaborate and impressive liturgies. Although it was not the original intention, other monasteries, or lay lords interested in reforming the morals and observances, began asking the of Cluny to reform their monasteries. In this way Cluny became the mother of many daughter houses who followed her customs and interpretation of the Rule.132 The liturgy performed at Cluny was famous for its splendor and above all for its length—readings were lengthened and psalms added, as well as new feasts of being added to the calendar and the office of the dead increased in prominence. The ever-greater expression of the honor and dignity that monks desired to ascribe to God and the saints merited ever more ornate, elaborate and beautiful homage in the liturgy. For example, the Life of St. recounts that when this

130 Clark, The Benedictines, 39. 131 Clark, The Benedictines, 39. 132 David Knowles, From Pachomius to Ignatius: A Study in the Constitutional History of the Religious Orders (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1966), 10-11. 43

tenth century abbot of Cluny visited the monastery of St. he was asked to write new, longer antiphons for their liturgy in order that the night office of their patron might be extended to daylight.133 Chrysogonus Waddell expressed the characteristic aspect of Cluny’s liturgical practice and general culture as one of an “anticipated eschatology,”134 or referring everything done on earth toward heaven. A reflection of the monastic trends outlined above, a focus of the monastic liturgy on heaven, as well as concern for the dignity of the office can also be seen in Hildegard’s understanding of the liturgical singing as a duty and responsibility of the nuns in her house.

By the eleventh century, the Cluniac customs had begun to be adopted well outside southern France.135 The customs of Cluny were introduced into Germany by

William, abbot of Hirsau, a reformed monastery in southern Germany which itself had a network of daughter houses.136 Ulrich of Zell, a German monk who spent a period of time living at Cluny and later on one of her daughter houses in France, wrote a customary that explained different usages of Cluny at the request of William of Hirsau. Ulrich’s customary of Cluniac usages begins with a discussion of the singing of the psalms and the second chapter addresses the question of when it is appropriate to reduce the number of psalms sung, showing that maintaining the prestige of the liturgy was of central concern to Cluniac monks.137 Evidence of Ulrich’s outsider origin also appears in his customary—

133 Irven M. Resnick, “ on Cluny, Liturgy and Penance,” Journal of Religious History 15 (1988): 61-75. 134 Chrysogonus Waddell, “The Reform of the Liturgy from Renaissance Perspective,” in Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century,” Robert L. Benson and Giles Constable, eds. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), 103. 135 Clark, The Benedictines, 51. 136 Constable, The of the Twelfth Century (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), 52.Thomas John Henry McCarthy, Music, and Reform: Salian Germany 1024-1125 (Manchester, UK: Manchester University Press, 2009), 13. 137 Ulrich of Zell, Consuetudines Cluniacenses, Patrologia Latina, vol. 149, 0643-0651. 44

he often compares Cluny’s customs to those of other places and professing his own ignorance of some of the more minute details of Cluny’s practice.138 Ulrich’s customary gives evidence that the monastery of Cluny continued the expansion of liturgical customs that was begun by Benedict of Aniane and that these expansions were also transmitted to

Germany.139

Ulrich’s customary also includes comments about the differences in musical style between Germanic monks and French monks, recounting that only one Germanic sequence was sung at Cluny.140 This shows that German monastic practices included a particular style of music. The Hirsau movement displayed interest in the development of music theory and took the musical aspects of their liturgy very seriously. A group of music theorists who have been called “the south German circle”141 have been associated with the Hirsau reform movement. T.H.J. McCarthy argues that the “friendship networks”, which arose out of like-minded reformers, also allowed for the sharing of scholarship and learning, particularly music theory.142 This friendship network of music theorists includes Bern of Richenau, Herman of Reichenau, William of Hirsau, and

Theogar of Metz, among others. While showing a use of dialectic characteristic of the beginnings of medieval scholasticism, these treatises were all primarily practical—that is oriented toward aiding singers and those carrying out the monastic liturgy. 143

138 Susan Boynton, “The Customaries of Bernard and Ulrich,” in From Dead of Night to End of Day: The Medieval Customs of Cluny, Susan Boynton and Isabelle Cochelin, eds. (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), 109- 130, 111. 139 Boynton, “The Customaries of Bernard and Ulrich,” 111. 140 Boynton, “The Customaries of Bernard and Ulrich,” 117. 141 McCarthy, Music, Scholasticism and Reform, 3 and passim. 142 McCarthy, Music, Scholasticism and Reform, 16. 143 For example, Herman of Reichenau taught: Oportet autem nos scire, quod omnis musicae rationis ad hoc spectat intention, ut cantilenae rationabiliter componendae, regulariter iudicandae, decenter modulandae scientia comparetur. [We must understand that the whole intent of the method of music bears toward the 45

While the treatises of these music theorists were primarily practical, they, like

Hildegard, were influenced by learning of the classic world. McCarthy has demonstrated that the south German circle of music theorists displayed an interest in classical music theory that originated with Plato.144 The south German circle applied the classical understanding of musical proportions as a manifestation of divine order to their music practice: “because they believed that proper melody was and should be a reflection of this divine order.”145 This classical association of musical melodies and divine order is central to Hildegard’s thought on music and will be discussed in detail in the last chapter of this thesis. The fact that music theory flourished within monastic circles, in particular, monastic circles associated with ideals of reform, reveals the important role that music played in the lives of monks and nuns close to Hildegard.

Along with an increasing complexity of content of the liturgy and greater attention to more developed music theory in the carrying out of the liturgy, we can identify gradual shifts in the monastic attitude toward the meaning and function of the liturgy within the monastic life. Hildegard’s understanding of the meaning of the liturgy as a whole is central to an understanding of her ideas on the importance of music to the liturgy. As mentioned above, the ideal expressed in the Benedictine rule was a life balanced between prayer and work—with sufficient time of rest to be able to maintain this rhythm.146

However, as the liturgy increased in complexity, the time spent carrying it out increased

establishment of the science of composing chants correctly, of judging them by rule and of performing them fittingly.] Herman of Reichenau, Musica 15, cited and translated by McCarthy in Music, Scholasticism and Reform, 6. See also the conclusion to Music, Scholasticism and Reform, 218. 144 McCarthy, “Plato, His Interpreters, and the South German Circle,” in Music, Scholasticism and Reform, 147-148. See also Leclercq, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God, 116-124. 145 McCarthy, Music, Scholasticism, and Reform, 225. 146 The proposed schedule of hours of work and prayer is outline in Chapter XLVIII of St. Benedict’s Rule: De opera manuum cotidiana. 46

as well, leaving less time available to be spent in manual labor. By the eleventh century this led the monks to begin to see the singing of the liturgy itself as work, which is reflected in the commonly used terminology opus Dei, to refer to the singing of the liturgy as the spiritual occupation of monastics. This shift is illustrated by a contrast pointed out by Susan Boynton: in the Rule of St. Benedict, exclusion from the liturgy is mentioned as a form of punishment; centuries later, some texts from the prescribe singing itself as a form of punishment.147 Boynton also cites liturgical commentators, such as John de Beleth (1135-1182) and Honorius Augustodunensis

(1080-1154), who interpreted the divine office as a form of manual labor.148 In a passage from Honorius Augustodunensis’ Gemma animae, cited by Boynton, he refered explicitly to the singing the divine office as the work of monastics:

Nocturnale officium quoque est imitation in vinea laborantium. Cum in Ecclesia ad servitium Dei noctu canimus, qasi in vinea ad operandum convenimus. …Deinde hymnum Deo canimus quod nocturnas illusions superavimus, et illos per hos imitator, qui cantat, dum operantur.

[The night office is an imitation of those working in the vineyard. When we sing in church at night in the service of God, we come together as if to work in the vineyard. …Then we sing a hymn to God, since we have overcome nocturnal delusions and in this we imitate those who sing while they work.]149

Particularly in female monasteries, which had never undertaken the same degree of manual labor as male monks originally had, prayer, and in particular the sung monastic

147 Susan Boynton, “Work and Play in Sacred Music and its Social Context,” Studies in Church History 37 (2002): 57-79, 59. 148 Boynton, Work and Play, 59-60. 149 Honorius Augustodunensis, Gemma animae, II, 18: Patrologia Latina, vol. 172, col. 621. Cited by Boynton, Work and Play, 60. 47

liturgy, was viewed as the primary occupation of the consecrated nuns by the twelfth century.150

Contributing both to the understanding of the liturgy as work and the continual expansion of the monastic office was the fact that from the Carolingian period onward an increased emphasis was placed on the intercessory nature of the prayers of both monks and nuns.151 The office of the dead, a principle form of intercessory prayer offered for the souls of the dead, was first formulated during the reform of Benedict of Aniane.152 In the tenth and eleventh centuries, monastic prayers were increasingly offered in exchange for the material gifts of the benefactors of a monastery.153 The time and effort that the liturgy required made it an important source of merit, for the monks and nuns themselves as well as for their patrons, benefactors and all the faithful. Members of secular society of all levels often coveted intercessory prayers of a monastery. The possibility of bringing benefit to others made the liturgy not only work offered to God, but also the performance of a work of mercy for a soul in need of prayer, particularly the souls of the dead.154

150 William T. Flynn, Medieval Music as Medieval Exegesis (Lanham, Maryland: The Scarecrow Press, 1999), 5-6. The same understanding can be is found among female monasteries. See Werner Rosener, “Household and Prayer: Medieval Convents as Economic Entities,” in Crown and Veil: Female Monasticism from the Fifth to the Fifteenth Centuries, ed. Jeffrey F. Hamburger et al. (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 246-247. 151 John Van Engen, “‘Crisis of Coenobitism’ Reconsidered: Benedictine Monasticism in the Years 1050- 1150.” Speculum 61(1986): 269-304, 293-294. Related to this is the continual increase of monks who entered the priesthood and therefore the introduction of the private mass (which led to the architectural addition of side altars in monasteries). These particular developments would not have affected the practices of female monasticism in the same way as that of men. 152 Clark, The Benedictines, 99. For more on the early development of this practice, see Megan McLaughlin, Consorting with Saints: Prayer for the Dead in Early Medieval France (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994). 153 Jeffrey F. Hamburger, “Art, Enclosure and the Cura Monialium: Prolegomena in the Guise of a Postscript,” Gesta, 31 (1992): 108-134, especially 117-121. 154 Constable, The Reformation of the Twelfth Century, 200 and Boynton, Shaping a Monastic Identity, 5. Hildegard also notes this aspect of the liturgy in Liber uite meritorum pars 5, cap.82, linea 1333: Nam cum lamentabilis uox prophetarum, per quam iustitiam et miracula Dei protulerunt, pro liberatione alicuius corporalis afflictionis seu pro requie animarum defunctorum ad laudem Dei pronuntiatur, necessitati dolentium, ut promeruerunt, subuenit, quia etiam primum per dolorem et per suspiria dictata est.” “For 48

These influences clarify the intentions of those who continually sought to embellish, lengthen and build up the monastic liturgy from the ninth to the eleventh century.

In the twelfth century the picture began to change. Chrysogonus Waddell warns

“The historian who addressed himself to the subject of twelfth-century liturgical reform in general would be either extremely naïve or remarkably courageous, for the material at hand is simply vast.”155 As the complexity and length of the Benedictine monastic liturgy had reached a high-water mark in eleventh-century Cluniac usages, the general twelfth- century trend was to seek greater simplicity in the liturgy. The shadow of the Cistercian order looms large over the twelfth-century monastic world.156 This new order, born in

1098, (the same year as Hildegard) is known for simplifying monastic life in many areas.

One of these areas was the liturgy, which was significantly reduced in order to allow the monks once again to participate in manual labor.157 However, it must be noted that the tendency to pare down the liturgy can be discerned across the board in the twelfth century, although at Cluny the changes were slower and much less drastic.158 Peter the

Venerable, twelfth-century abbot of Cluny, took different measures to ensure that the

when the voice of the laments of the prophets, which proclaim the justice and the miracles of God, are pronounced in praise of God on behalf of someone’s bodily afflictions or for the rest of the souls of the dead, they are helped in their suffering, for they have merited this help because they speak with sighs and sorrow.” 155 Waddell, “The Reform of the Liturgy,” 88. 156 For a general introduction to the Cistercian ideals of reform particularly in relation to those of Cluny, see F. O’Sullivan, introduction to Cistercians and Cluniacs: The Case for Citeaux, by Idung of Prufening, (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1977), 3-14. Other twelfth-century movements that displayed similar liturgical are the Premonstratensian Order and the Augustinian Order. 157 For more details on the Cistercian approach to liturgical reform see: Chrysogonus Waddell, “The Early Cistercian Experience of Liturgy,” in Rule and Life, an Interdisciplinary Symposium, ed. M. Basil Pennington (Spencer: Cistercian Publications, 1971), 77-116, especially 80-92. 158 Giles Constable, “Monastic Policy of Peter ,” in ierre A lard, ierre Le V n ra le: Les Courants hilosophi ues, Litt raires t Artisti ues n ccident Au Milieu u e Si cle: Actes t M moires u Collo ue nternational , A aye e Cluny, 2 Au 9 Juillet 1972 (Paris: ditions du Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1975), 119-142, 129-130. 49

celebration of the liturgy was meaningful for the monks.159 Rather than seeking the most external splendor and length possible, in the twelfth century monks of different orders began to emphasize instead the intention of the individual toward his prayer and the authenticity of the liturgical expression.

Also in the twelfth century, after centuries of Christian reflection, a clear sacramental theology began to emerge, which defined a sacrament as a sensory sign that signified and produced a spiritual reality.160 A sacrament, therefore, by nature, required an exterior, sensory element and an interior, spiritual element, and was also intimately related to the liturgy. A sacrament made use of symbolism, which is to say, something sensory which functioned as a sign or indication of a higher reality that could not be seen.

The concept of symbolism was central to medieval reflection on esthetics.161 In a symbolist esthetic system all physical or sensory beauty must, through its perfection in proportion and order, reveal the unity and the simplicity of Divine beauty.162 Elizabeth

Gossmann, following Alois Dempf, considers Hildegard to fit in the German symbolist school of thought, along with Hugh of St. Victor, Rupert of Deutz, Gerhoh of

Reichersberg and Otto of Freising.163 Hildegard and her contemporaries considered their

159 Constable, “Monastic Policy of Peter the Venerable,” 129. 160 Miri Ruben, Corpus Christi: The Eucharist in Late Medieval Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), 13. 161 “The Medieval esthetic system conforms to certain invariable principles which are repeated in the work of almost every medieval author: to wit, symbolism, allegory, and the cult of proportion and brilliance of color.” De Bruyne, The Esthetics of the Middle Ages, 47. 162 The “immutable principle” of medieval symbolism “was the theory that since God created objects in His likeness—in fact, in His image—it is natural that when we gaze upon form we discover “traces” in them of the Divine Beauty.” De Bruyne, The Esthetics of the Middle Ages, 67. The artist’s is not to define the intention of art, but to make manifest in sensible forms the beauty and order present in universal cosmic laws. 163 Elizabeth Gossmann, Hildegard of Bingen: Four Papers, 5. She cites Alois Dempf, Sacrum Inerium, Geschichts-und Staats-philosophie des Mittelalters und der politischen Renaissance, 3rd ed. (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1962), 261-268. Andrew Weeks also called Hildegard’s thought symbolic in German Mysticism, 41. Barbara Newman calls her a precursor to the symbolist poet (Newman, “Poet,” Voice of the 50

art as the sensible manifestation of a beauty that was beyond the direct experience of man.

There are clear similarities between Hildegard’s theology of music and medieval theory of symbols and sacramental theology, insofar as both could be considered as a sensory means to reach a spiritual reality which produced the same reality it symbolized.

While it is known that Hildegard used the Rule of St. Benedict, and that her understanding of the liturgy was informed by these several centuries of monastic reform and practice, it is not clear to what extent she was influenced by reform movements. 164

Hildegard seldom made explicit mention of the Rule of St. Benedict in her visionary writings or her letters. What we know of her interpretation of the Rule comes from a short, lesser known work, entitled Explanation of the Rule of St. Benedict (written in the late 1150s or early ), seemingly addressed to a community of Benedictine men, who requested that she resolve some questions they had on the way the rule should be lived out.165 This request is evidence that Hildegard’s monastery had a reputation of observing the Rule of St. Benedict, and that Hildegard did not share the opinion of some in her day

Living Light, 185). Elizabeth Alvilda Petroff groups Hildegard together with near contemporaries Christina of Markyate (1096-1160) and Elizabeth of Schonau (1129-1129) under the title of women mystics of the early twelfth century in Medieval Women’s Visionary Literature, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1986), 12. 164 It is true that Hildegard grew up in a monastery influenced by Hirsau; however, evidence of a clear influence of Hirsau on the liturgical practices at Bingen has not reached us. Bruce L. Venarde tells of reformers’ very negative and uninviting stance toward women in Women’s Monasticism and Medieval Society: Nunneries in France and England, 890-1215 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997), 53. Offered as a counter position to the generally negative view of women held by reforming orders, Wolbrink writes of the growth of women’s houses in the older Premonstratensian order during these decades of monastic reform in “Women in the Premonstratensian Order,” 393ff. In Germany the role of women within reformed houses was different than in France—Beach describes the Hirsau reform as attentive to the care of female vocations and willing to cooperate with women in intellectual endeavors in Women as Scribes, 2-10. Constable describes a very positive view of reformed houses’ connection to female religious life in The Reformation of the Twelfth Century, 65ff. 165 Hugh Feiss, introduction to Explanation of the Rule of Benedict (Toronto: Peregrina Publishing, 2000), 45. 51

that this Rule was too demanding to be observed by women.166 Jo Ann Kay McNamara has characterized Hildegard as cleverly using the reform rhetoric of her age to live according to the old style of unreformed monastic luxury;167 however, McNamara’s vision of relaxed discipline in Hildegard’s monastery does not seem to fit with the letters we have from many and abbots who wrote to her for advice on disciplining their subjects and sometimes received rather strict or even harsh answers.168 At the same time,

Hildegard was a proponent of healthy moderation and discouraged the more extreme forms of penance undertaken in some reform-minded houses.169 On the liturgy in particular, in her Explanation of the Rule, she explained to the monks that the divine office had been shortened in order that it might be performed “in gaudio et sine taedio studiose” [“in joy, zealous and without tedium,”]170 and that the monks not “be made tired by prolonged prayers” [“prolixam orationem fatigati fuerint.”]171 These sentiments are consonant with twelfth-century liturgical trends in both more extreme orders like the

Cistercians and also at Cluny, as greater emphasis began to be placed on the monk’s understanding and concentration in the performance of the liturgy. However, while she

166 For example, Heloise wrote to Abelard asking him to write a Rule for her community, citing as her reason the inappropriateness of the Rule of St. Benedict for women. Constant Mews, “Heloise and Hildegard: Re-visioning Religious Life in the Twelfth Century,” Tjurunga: Australasian Benedictine Review 44 (1993): 23. McNamara, in Sisters in Arms, 209, notes that this opinion was also held among Cluniac houses, and among the stricter Cistercian houses. On the other hand, Heather Josselyn-Cranson points out that this rule was adopted by the Gilbertines because it was considered flexible and would therefore work well for women in “Moderate psallendo: Musical Participation in Worship among Gilbertine Nuns,” Plainsong and Medieval Music 16 (2007): 177. In fact, in several occasions in medieval France, female monasteries did not even question the appropriateness of this rule for women, but simply adopted it in its entirety, changing the names and pronouns from the male frater or monial or Abbatus to the female soror, monacha or abbatissa. Lifshitz, “Is Mother Suprior?” 129-30. 167 Jo Ann MacNamara, introduction to Explanation of the Rule of Benedict (Toronto: Peregrina, 2000), no. 14. 168 For example, see letters 61r, 240r, 354, and 286 in Van Acker’s edition. 169 For example, see letters 94r, 95, and 256 in Van Acker’s edition. See also Silvas, Jutta and Hildegard: the Biographical Sources, 111. 170 Hildegard of Bingen. Regula S. Benedicti Explanatio, PL 197, 1058BC. 171 Hildegard of Bingen. Regula S. Benedicti Explanatio, PL 197, 1058BC. 52

championed moderation in relation to the time spent in the liturgy, Hildegard did not exhibit the same moderation in the style of the liturgy in her monastery; rather, she composed new liturgical pieces with extended ranges and extravagant and difficult melodies.

In all of the twelfth-century discussions about the particulars of length and content of the liturgy, no one questioned the basic custom that the liturgy was sung. Styles, melodies, and musical customs evolved and changed, but the monastic liturgy in

Benedictine houses throughout the middle ages was always sung. When music was prohibited to Hildegard’s community, she was not deprived of something peripheral or related to one thread of reform. She was deprived of something that had been central to the practice of the Benedictine monastic liturgy since its conception in the rule of St.

Benedict. Hildegard judged it necessary to defend her community’s right to continue this practice so central to their way of life when it was prohibited to her by her ecclesiastical superiors.

Hildegard stated in the opening of letter 23 that she was writing on account of the binding that had been placed on her monastery by her prelates. She described the events that occasioned the interdict, explaining that she had done nothing to deserve this punishment. Hildegard then recounted that she heard from the Living Light in a vision that she should write this letter in order to have the interdict lifted. The remainder of the letter no longer deals with the particulars of the case; it is a series of arguments Hildegard put forward to the prelates that show the importance of singing and that a prohibition against the singing of the liturgy must not be approached lightly (with a much briefer section referring to the prohibition of receiving the sacraments).

53

The circumstances surrounding the interdict are known to us from the letter itself, a second letter sent to Christian, Archbishop of Mainz, and from the inquisitional acta of her canonization process. The episode is not mentioned in her Vita. When this interdict took place, Christian, the archbishop of Mainz, was in Italy away from his see, accompanying Emperor Fredrick Barbarossa in war campaigns against the Pope that had recently ended in the peace of Venice.172 In the absence of Archbishop Christian,

Hildegard addressed her letter to the clergy left in charge of the administration of the territory. When this first letter did not produce the desired effect of the lifting of the interdict, she wrote directly to Archbishop Christian himself in Italy. Hildegard explained the story in her letter:

Coacta sum ad scribendum ista, pro ligatura, qua a magistris nostris alligatae sumus propter quemdam mortuum, conductu sacerdotis sui apud nos sine calumnia sepultum. Quem post paucos sepelitionis suae dies, cum eumdem magistri nostri nos a coemeterio nostro ejicere jussissent, ex hoc non minimo terrore correpta, ad verum lumen ut solita aspexi…Unde et corpus ejusdem defuncti, utpote confessi, inuncti et communicati, et sine contradictione sepulti, nec efferre praesumpsimus…qui omni Christiana rectitudine munitus a sacerdote suo, cum tota Pinguiensi processione sine contradictione cujusquam apud nos sepultus esset.

[I have been compelled to write these things because of the interdict by which our superiors have bound us, on account of a certain dead man, buried here without any objection by his own priest. A few days after his burial, when our superiors ordered us to remove him from our cemetery, shaken by no small terror, I looked, as usual, to the true light. …We have not presumed to remove the body of the deceased from its place, since he had confessed his sins, received the anointing and communion, and been buried without objection.…[For he was] fortified by his priest and buried with all proper Christian procedure, with all of Bingen in the procession and without objection from anyone.]173

In this first correspondence is the basic outline of the story: a man was buried in the cemetery of Hildegard’s monastery and the prelates of the diocese objected to this burial

172 Baird and Ehrman, notes to The Letters of Hildegard of Bingen, 82, note 1. 173 Hildegard of Bingen, Epistolarium, Epist. XXIII, lines 1-7, 51-53. 54

and demanded that his body be exhumed. Upon the refusal of Hildegard, the monastery was placed under interdict. In this letter the reason the prelates objected to the burial is not entirely clear; however Hildegard took pains to emphasize that everything surrounding the burial was in perfect order: the man’s priest had been present, he had received the sacraments, the town was present, and there had been no objections from anyone.

The objections of the prelates were made clearer in the letter that Hildegard later wrote directly to Archbishop Christian in Italy: the dead man had once been excommunicated, but he had been absolved some time before his death and had received the sacraments of the Christian faith.174 Here it becomes clear that the reason the prelates objected is that they knew about the excommunication, but not about his rehabilitation.

Further on in the same letter Hildegard explained how his rehabilitation was ultimately proven:

Fidelis amicus meus, scilicet Coloniensis archiepiscopus ad ipos in Moguntiam venit, et quodam milite libero homine assistente, qui sufficientibus testibus probare voluit quod ipse et predictus mortuus, adhuc in corpore vivens, cum pariter in eodem excessu fuissent, pariter etiam a banno, eodem loco, eadem hora, ab eodem sacerdote soluti essent, eodem socerdote etiam, qui eso absoluit presente, ab eis cognita huius rei veritate, idem presul de te presumens, licentiam celebrandi divina usque ad reditum tuum secure et in pace obtinuit.

My faithful friend, the archbishop of Cologne, came to them [the prelates] in Mainz accompanied by a certain knight, a free man, who wanted to give sufficient testimony that he and the aforementioned dead man had shared in the same expulsion and that they likewise received absolution in the same place and at the same hour, by the same priest. And that very priest who absolved them was present; verifying the truth of these things, and, acting in your name, he obtained

174 Hildegard of Bingen. Epistolarium, Epist. XXIV, lines 18-20. Hildegard mentions here another letter she wrote to the archbishop, which has not come down to us; unless Hildegard is referring to Letter 23 itself, a copy of which may have been forwarded to Italy to Archbishop Christian. In letter 23 she does not speak directly about the excommunication, but does emphasize that the man had received the sacraments. 55

permission for us to celebrate the divine offices in security and peace until your return.]175

This is the first resolution of the conflict: the archbishop of Cologne appeared with witnesses allowing the interdict to be lifted by the prelates. However, the continued for one more episode. Before this news could reach Archbishop Christian in

Italy he had already replied to her first letter, in support of the decision of the prelates and confirming the interdict.176 So when this letter from the Archbishop arrived, Hildegard and her sisters found themselves once again under the interdict. This letter from the archbishop has also not survived, but it seems to have been the occasion of Hildegard’s second letter on the topic. Christian’s response to her second letter (letter 24r) was preserved; in it he finally lifts the interdict in March of 1179.177

The only other mention of the episode is an extremely short reference from the

Acts of Hildegard’s canonization, compiled and submitted after her death. Although the

Acta uses the word excommunicates, not interdictum, as in letter 23, a lack of precision in vocabulary surrounding ecclesiastical censures was common in the twelfth century. The excommunication (or interdict) is called unjust in the Acta and note is made of

Hildegard’s defiance of the order to dig up the grave by blessing it with her baculum, the sign of her authority as abbess—after which the grave could no longer be found.178

It is not easy to give a precise definition of the term interdictum as it would have been used by churchmen and understood by nuns in twelfth-century Germany. In the twelfth century, though reforms were taking place and interest in canon law was growing,

175 Hildegard of Bingen. Epistolarium, Epist. XXIV, lines 44-53. 176 Flanagan, A Visionary Life, 185. 177 This story is told in Flanagan, A Visionary Life, 184-187 and Pernoud, Hildegard of Bingen, 167-177. 178 “Et sic sepulcrum ejusdem adhuc non poterat inveniri.” Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias, in Patrologia Latina, ed. Jacques-Paul Migne (1855) [Electronic Database, compiled in Alexandria VA, Chadwyck- Healey, 1996.] Accessed Dec 21, 2013. 197, Col.0135B. 56

there was not a highly codified and standardized system of canon law in place, as was developed soon after.179 In the twelfth century, the laying of an interdict on an entire realm or a nation was reserved to the Pope; however a bishop could lay an interdict on an individual or group in his diocese.180 Several kinds of interdicts with slightly different terms can be distinguished in the writings of twelfth-century canonists;181 in general an interdict was a prohibition that excludes the faithful from participation in certain holy things.182 These holy things included what pertained to Christian worship: the divine offices, the liturgy; the sacraments; and ecclesiastical burial, including all funeral services.183 It is important to clarify that, unlike excommunication, this prohibition from using sacred things did not cut those interdicted off from the community of the faithful.

However, it did exclude them from participation in the life of the Church—any public prayers or liturgy (such as the monastic hours that formed the center of the Benedictine life) and reception of the sacraments (Holy Communion and confession)—except in

179 See Peter Clark, The Interdict in the Thirteenth Century: A Question of Collective Guilt (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007). The of the late twelfth and early thirteenth centuries have been called the “lawyer popes,” because of this increasing interest in and use of canon law. Marshall W. Baldwin, The Medieval Papacy in Action (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1940), 26. These lawyer popes also increased their use of the interdict as a political tool against the rulers of nations, for example, Pope Innocent III put England under interdict in 1208. Geoffrey Barraclough, The Medieval Papacy (Norwich: Jarrold and Sons, 1968), 116. 180 Clark, The Interdict in the Thirteenth Century. 92. For example, in 1148 in England, Archbishop Henry Murdac, whose election to the archbishopric of York was supported by the Pope, was denied entry to his see by supporters of King Stephen who had backed another candidate. Archbishop Henry laid an interdict on the city of York. Peter Seaby, “King Stephen and the Interdict of 1148,” The British Numismatic Journal 50 (1980): 57. 181 See Clark, “Chapter 2: Kinds of Interdicts,” The Interdict in the Thirteenth Century, 59-85. 182 Canon 2268 in the 1917 Code of Canon Law: Interdictum est censura qua fideles in communione Ecclesiae permanentes prohibentur sacris que incanonibus qui sequuntur enumerantur. 183 Clark, The Interdict in the Thirteenth Century, 84. The reception of Holy Communion would also be prohibited by the interdict. The Eucharist and the Mass will not be treated specifically in this thesis because Hildegard did not give it particular attention in her letter to the prelates as a moment distinct from the Divine Office. It should be kept in mind that the nuns would have also sung at their daily Mass and they would have been prohibited from this singing by the interdict as well, although the Mass could still have been celebrated at the monastery. 57

danger of death. The interdict did not, and indeed could not, prohibit the personal prayers of individual nuns.

Analysis of the motives of judges, expressed in various twelfth-century sentences of interdict, reveals that while an interdict might have both punitive and corrective effects, its main purpose was the enforcing of a Church mandate.184 With the sources available it is difficult to determine the spirit in which the specific interdict was laid on

Hildegard’s community (no record of the legal proceedings or the wording of the sentence handed down from the prelates survives).185 One might guess that the prelates were concerned with the injustice of the fact that they believed an excommunicate to be buried in a Christian cemetery. Their censure then, rather than seeking to reform or punish the nuns, was aimed at inducing them to exhume the body and thereby remedy the transgression against Church laws.

It important to recognize Hildegard’s place in the religious hierarchy of the time, in particular, the position of those who prohibited Hildegard to sing, in order to understand Hildegard and her ideas. Effective and wise governance of her monastery required that Hildegard give her attention to both spiritual and temporal realities and the effects that they might have on the lives of her sisters. This meant that Hildegard had to

184 Canon law scholar Edward Krehbiel describes the medieval interdict in the following terms: “The interdict has the character of an administrative order, and its purpose resembles very strongly the purpose of an embargo, or an order of a board of health. These have in them no design to punish, though the party affected may suffer greatly; neither are they designed to procure the betterment of the party affected; they have a purpose beyond either, in that they aim to force some recalcitrant to yield to certain demands.” Edward Krehbiel, The Interdict: Its History and its Operation with Special Attention to the Time of Pope Innocent III, 1198-1216 (Washington: The American Historical Association, 1909), 9. Peter Clark explores more deeply how compliance might be achieved precisely by punishing the innocent for the sins of their leaders, thereby inducing them to resist the policies of their rulers in The Interdict in the Thirteenth Century, 45. 185 The reader will likely want to ask whether the placing of a female religious house under interdict was a common occurrence in the twelfth century. In my research I have not been able to discover another case of such a well-respected monastic figure being placed under formal interdict which could be comparable to the case of Hildegard and the prelates of Mainz. I would be very interested were one to be pointed out to me. 58

have been aware of and responded to a highly politicized world beyond the walls of her cloister. Hildegard’s authority as superior of her house was not absolute; the archbishop of her diocese of Mainz held the position of Hildegard’s own superior. As the Church authority in his diocese, a bishop was ultimately responsible for the spiritual care of all of the faithful in his diocese. When the circumstances allowed for it, the Church hierarchy and religious superiors would cooperate in their efforts for the good of those under their respective jurisdictions; however, at the particular moment Hildegard was induced to write her letter to the prelates of Mainz, the situation was such that she understood her superiors to have placed a significant obstacle before her, curbing her ability to care properly for her sisters.

Mainz, one of the three oldest and most preeminent German episcopal sees, was not ruled by any kind of secular prince or noble; the archbishop himself was the temporal as well as the spiritual leader of his territory.186 Hildegard as superior of her monastery was also responsible for the temporal affairs of those dependent on the monastery, which would include the sisters and any lay people who worked the land or lived in the towns on the monastery land. Therefore, her rights and responsibilities in temporal affairs with respect to her bishop paralleled those of a vassal to his feudal lord.187

Many monasteries, particularly in twelfth-century Germany, were founded and protected by the patronage of lay nobles and therefore depended politically and

186 Alfred Haverkamp, Medieval Germany, 1056-1273 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988), 149 and 154. 187 On the temporal powers of medieval abbesses and superiors see: Pauline Stafford, “Powerful Women in the Early Middle Ages: Queens and Abbesses” in The Medieval World, ed. Peter Linehan and Janet L. Nelson (London: Routledge, 2001), 398-415; Guerra Medici, “Sulla giurisdizione temporale e spirituale della abbadessa;” and Paulette L’Hermite-Leclercq, "Les pouvoirs de la supérieure au Moyen Age,” in Les Religieuses dans le cloître et dans le monde des origines à nos jours: Actes du Deuxième Colloque International du C.E.R.C.O.R., (Saint-Etienne: Publications de l'Université de Saint-Etienne, 1994), 165- 185. 59

economically on the leaders of secular society. 188 However, lay patronage could also have profoundly negative effects on the independence of action and political allegiance of the monks and nuns of a monastery— particularly in twelfth-century Germany caught in the midst of the investiture controversy.189 Although Hildegard’s monastery was founded with the help of the Marchioness of Stade,190 Hildegard recounted that from the beginning she took care that their house lay directly under the authority of the archbishop of Mainz, and not under the protection of lay nobility. Therefore, the archbishop held the responsibility of ensuring both the monastery’s spiritual wellbeing as well as its temporal independence from lay interference.191

188 This system of patronage was very important for guaranteeing a monastery the necessary economic means for survival, especially for female monasteries, which had limited means of income and were as a whole much poorer than male monasteries in the middle ages: McNamara, Sisters in Arms, 228. On the patronage of female Benedictine monasteries, see Mary Skinner, “Benedictine Nuns,” in Distant Echoes, Medieval Religious Women, vol 1, ed. John A. Nichols and Lillian Thomas Shank (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1984), 87-113, especially 91-96. Hamburger notes that in Germany women as patronesses of female monasteries were particularly prominent in “Art, Enclosure and the Cura Monialium,” 114. On the importance of the role of noble patronage to monastic intellectual life in Germany, see Thomson, "The Place of Germany,"25. 189 The investiture controversy was a decades long power struggle involving the papacy and the (who ruled in German lands). In 1159, right after the election of Pope Alexander III, the emperor and his followers drew large sections of Germany into schism by rallying behind an anti-pope elected by three dissenting cardinals. Henri Daniel-Rops, Cathedral and Crusade, Studies of the Medieval Church, 1050-1350 (London: Dent, 1957), 192. Bishops and nobles were found on both sides. Hildegard remained always loyal to the pope in Rome, but several of the bishops of her diocese did not (Flanagan, A Visionary Life, 186). Flangan briefly summarizes the situation as relevant to Hildegard’s life in chapter 2, “World and Cloister.” For a broader view of issues involved in this conflict, see Daniel-Rops, Cathedral and Crusade, 175-194. 190 This noble lady, the mother of Richardis, one of Hildegard’s nuns and close personal friend, appealed to the archbishop on Hildegard’s behalf, facilitating her founding a new monastery. Beatriz Meli, “Virginitas and Autoritas,” in The Voice of Silence: Women’s Literacy in a Men’s Church, ed. T. de Hemptinne and M. E. Góngora Diaz (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004), 54. For more details on the economic and political conditions of the founding of Hildegard’s monastery see: Van Engen, “Abbess: Mother and Teacher,” 37-41. 191 For a brief introduction to the relationship between independent monastic houses and the diocesan bishops of the area, see: Ambrose Wathen, “Monastic Visitations: Historical Soundings,” American Benedictine Review 39 (1988): 343-343. Although the material property of her foundations when they began was minimal, by the end of her life, when she wrote the letter under question, her houses had become reasonably well endowed with land and vineyards in the region. Her property also included the mill at Binger Loch and the villages of Bingen and Bermersheim. Van Engen, “Abbess: Mother and Teacher,” 38. 60

In addition to living under the archbishop of Mainz, Hildegard’s monastery remained, in a relationship difficult to specify, under the abbot at Disibodenburg. Even after her new foundations, the abbot continued to provide Hildegard with priests to give pastoral care to the nuns.192 This continued relationship with the monks at Disibodenburg is significant because, as discussed above, it was Hildegard’s connection to the twelfth- century monastic reform movement from Hirsau, a source of influence over Hildegard’s monastery in potential conflict with the authority of the archbishops of Mainz, who in the twelfth century did not show themselves to be interested in monastic reform.

It is difficult to classify Hildegard in relation to the authorities of her day because her leadership and authority were based more on her personal charisma and inspired prophetic spirit than on the institutional structures of the Church or reform movement.193

In fact, the highest ecclesiastical authorities of her day acknowledged that she taught with an authority received directly from God. With the patronage of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, the supernatural origin of her theological teaching was recognized by the Church, in the person of Pope Eugene III at the council of Trier in 1147. Pope Eugene personally read aloud a passage from her then unfinished Scivias and encouraged her to continue writing.194 Hildegard’s fame as a wise and holy religious can be attributed to popular acceptance of her visions, different and miracles attributed to her intercession,

192 However, Hildegard strongly insisted on the possession and administration of certain temporal goods. At specific moments of conflict with the monks at Disibodenburg, Hildegard appealed to the archbishop, and once even the pope. Principally the tension between Hildegard’s new foundation and Disibodenburg revolved around the financial settlement of the dowries brought by the sisters, which took over a decade to resolve. See Vita, book one, chapter seven, 42-44. We also know that some of Hildegard’s own sisters balked at the move from the well-off Disibodenburg to poorer Rupertsburg, where they suffered the sting of poverty at the beginning of their foundation. Flanagan, A Visionary Life, 5-6, 10. 193 For a consideration of the difference between these two bases for authority and their impact on female religious life, see: Lifshitz, “Is Mother Superior?” 120-126. For an analysis of the prophetic style of Hildegard’s leadership, see Carmel Posa, “Keeping Vigil on the Edge: Three Models of Leadership in Monastic Women of the Middle Ages,” Tjurunga: Australasian Benedictine Review 62 (2002): 85-90. 194 Pernoud, Hildegard of Bingen, 22. 61

and a widespread desire to benefit from the wisdom given to her from on high. This desire became the occasion for her to write many letters containing advice and even to travel several times from her monastery on preaching tours, an unusual activity for nuns of her day, which nevertheless achieved universal acceptance and acclaim by those who heard her preaching.195

Given this arrangement, and the political environment of twelfth-century

Germany, it is possible that political motives were behind the prelates laying an interdict on a figure as eminent as Hildegard was at the end of her life. Before the peace of Venice

(1177), the Investiture Controversy had been flaring up off and on since the previous century and Emperor Frederick Barbarossa had been in schism and at war with Rome for years, keeping his own anti-pope by his side. The German episcopate was divided between those bishops who were loyal to Rome and those who supported the emperor.

Traditionally, the diocese of Mainz supported the emperor; however, Hildegard never wavered in her support of the pope in Rome.196 Did the noble man buried in Hildegard’s cemetery support the pope or the emperor? Could the prelates have been attacking

Hildegard for her own support of the pope?

If we look beyond the two letters surrounding the interdict to Hildegard’s previous correspondence with Archbishop Christian and his predecessors, we see relationships coloured by a variety of considerations and not relationships reflecting black and white political loyalties. Included in Hildegard’s correspondence spanning several decades of

195 For more on Hildegard’s preaching tours and her sermons, see: Regine Pernoud, “The Preaching Peregrinations of a Twelfth-Century Nun, ca. 1158-70,” in Wisdom Which Encircles Circles: Papers on Hildegard of Bingen, ed. Audrey Ekdahl Davidson (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1996), 15- 26, or Kerby-Fulton, “Prophet and Reformer,” 70-90. 196 Pernoud, “The Preaching Peregrinations of a Twelfth Century Nun,” 17. 62

the twelfth century are exchanges of letters with four successive archbishops of the city of

Mainz.197 Some reflect moments of sharp conflict, while others express sentiments of support and sympathy. The issues discussed when political are also personal; the less personal letters are much more concerned with spiritual realities than political ones. From what can be culled from these few letters scattered across decades, Hildegard’s correspondence with the archbishops of Mainz did not directly engage in temporal politics, but did several times apply for redress of particular and personal grievances. For example, letters with harsh sentiments were exchanged between Hildegard and

Archbishop Henrich in 1151 over his role in the departure of the nun Richardis from

Hildegard’s monastery.198 However, in 1147, it was this same archbishop who had presented the unfinished manuscript of her first visionary work Scivias to Pope Eugene III at a Synod in Trier and who eventually supported Hildegard’s move from Disibodenburg to Rupertsberg.199 When she wrote general advice or criticism to bishops, Hildegard was much more concerned with the spiritual side of their duties than the temporal side. In fact, one of her most scathing letters was written to Arnold, an archbishop with whom her relations were not hostile, but Hildegard seemed to think that his outlook was not supernatural enough, and that he was allowing himself to be guided by politics when he should have been guided by God.

The consideration of the previous correspondence between Hildegard and the archbishops of her diocese does not reveal relationships habitually colored by political loyalties and imperial dealings with Rome. While there remains a possibility that this

197 Letters 18-24 in Van Acker’s edition of Hildegard’s Epistolarium. 198 Letters 14 and 14r in Van Acker’s edition of Hildegard’s Epistolarium. 199 Anne H. King Lenzmeier, Hildegard of Bingen: An Integrated Vision (Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2001), 153. 63

interdict was laid on Hildegard’s monastery for political reasons, there is no clear evidence in any of the letters surrounding this particular conflict of ulterior political motives on the part of any of the parties, and therefore, in the lack of direct evidence, there does not seem to be any convincing reason to assume unmentioned political motivations. Also, if there were political motivations present, one cannot help but wonder why, in that case, Hildegard gave so much space in her letter to explaining the merit of music, and did not simply limit herself to disputing the political accusations. In her letter to prelates of Mainz regarding the interdict, Hildegard expressed the same preoccupation with the spiritual consequences of their actions paired with a fearless frankness capable of giving them a harsh warning, lest they become pawns of the devil,200 making this letter one instance of a regular correspondence that she held throughout her life with the authorities of the Church.

In her letter Hildegard demonstrates the way she understood her position in relation to her superiors: in refusing to exhume the dead man, she was confident that in

200 Hildegard of Bingen, Epistolarium, Epist. XXIII, 104-118. "Cum autem deceptor ejus diabolus audisset, quod homo ex inspiratione Dei cantare coepisset, et per hoc ad recolendam suavitatem canticorum coelestis patriae invitaretur, machinamenta calliditatis suae in irritum ire videns, ita exterritus est, ut non minimum inde torqueretur, et multifariis nequitiae suae commentis semper deinceps excogitare et exquirere satagit, ut non solum de corde hominis per malas suggestiones et immundas cogitationes seu diversas occupationes, sed etiam de corde Ecclesiae, ubicunque potest, per dissensiones et scandala, vel injustas depressiones, confessionem et pulchritudinem divinae laudationis et spiritualium hymnorum, perturbare vel auferre non desistit. Quapropter summa vigilantia vobis et omnibus praelatis satagendum est, et antequam os alicujus Ecclesiae, laudes Deo canentium, per sententiam claudatis." "When however, his deceiver the devil heard that man had begun to sing by the inspiration of God, and through his song, to be given the recollection of the sweetness of the songs of his Heavenly homeland, seeing the workings of his skill being thus thwarted, be became terrified and he began to turn about this way and that. In order to disturb or bring to a stop confessions and the beauty of the divine praise and spiritual hymns, he began to invent and execute a succession of his evils and falsehoods, not only from the heart of man through evil suggestions, unclean thoughts and his various other distractions, but also from the heart of the Church, wherever he can, through division, scandals, or unjust oppression. Therefore, take every precaution, you and all prelates, before you close the mouth of any Church singing the praises of God.” 64

her disobedience to the prelates she was obedient to a higher authority.201 In conscience, it was impossible for her to obey their command; doing so would be a serious sin and a sacrilege, the profanation of the Christian grave of a man she knew to have died with the sacraments. Although she could not do what they commanded, Hildegard continued to recognize the authority of the prelates of the Church, and for this reason she yielded to the sanction they imposed.202 Professing her desire to keep her conscience innocent of sin, she submitted to the sanction, until she was led, again by her conscience, to ask for it to be lifted. She said in the letter:

Nec consilio seu praecepto istud suadentium vel jubentium acquievimus, non consilium proborum hominum, aut praelatorum nostrorum omnino parvipendentes; sed ne sacramentis Christi, quibus ille vivens adhuc, munitus fuerat, injuriam saevitate feminea facere videremur. Sed ne ex toto inobedientes existeremus, a divinarum laudum canticis hactenus secundum eorum interdictum cessavimus.

[We have not yielded to either the advice or the command (of those who ordered the disinterment), not because we altogether disregard the advice of good men or that of our superiors, but lest the sacraments of Christ, with which that man had been strengthened while alive, suffer any injury on account of feminine harshness. But in order that we not be disobedient in everything, we have put a stop to the songs of divine praise according to their interdict.]203

201 “Quem post paucos sepelitionis suae dies, cum eumdem magistri nostri nos a coemeterio nostro ejicere jussissent, ex hoc non minimo terrore correpta, ad verum lumen ut solita aspexi.” [“A few days after his burial, when our superiors ordered us to remove him from our cemetery, shaken by no small terror, I looked, as usual, to the true light.”] Hildegard of Bingen. Epistolarium, Epist. XXIII, 2-3. Cf. Acts 5:27-29. “And when they had brought them, they set them before the council. And the high priest questioned them, saying, "We strictly charged you not to teach in this name, yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and you intend to bring this man's blood upon us." Peter and the apostles answered, "We must obey God rather than men.” Revised Standard Version. 202 This is an important distinction, because if Hildegard had despised their authority, nothing would have stopped her from ignoring the interdict as well as the command to exhume the body and continuing to sing. It is clear in her letter that she is not against interdicts in general. She only argues that this particular interdict is unjust and should be lifted. For more on Hildegard’s views on the nature of authority and her relationship with the authorities of her day, see Barbara Newman, “Hildegard of Bingen: Visions and Validation,” Church History 54 (1985): 163-175 and “Divine Power Made Perfect in Weakness,” 103-122, especially 109-112. See also Pernoud, “The Preaching Peregrinations of a Twelfth Century Nun.” 203 Hildegard of Bingen, Epistolarium, Epist. XXIII, 15-19: 65

The singing in the monastery ceased while she appealed to her legitimate superiors for understanding and justice. And it is this appeal that occasioned the need for Hildegard to give expression to her thoughts on the nature of music, its relation to God and its usefulness to a nun on her journey toward God. However, her designs failed: it was not the arguments that Hildegard put forward that allowed for her release from the sanction, but the testimony of those who came from Cologne. As long as there was a doubt that the dead man had truly been reconciled with the Church, the sanction stood. In the words of

Maria Delia Sequerios, “La argumentacion religiosa sobre la naturaleza del oficio divino en la Economia de la slavacion garantizada por sus visiones no bastó sin los testimonies concretos aportados por el arzobispo de Colonia; dicho de otro modo, Dio se sometió al derecho canónico.” [“The religious arguments on the nature of the divine office in the economy of salvation, authenticated by her visions were not enough without the concrete testimony brought by the archbishop of Cologne; in other words, God submitted to canon law.”]204

Hildegard’s objection to the interdict placed on her monastery came from a concerned mother, seeking to help her spiritual daughters realize the ultimate goal of monastic life, union with God. The social realities discussed in this chapter, the historical perspective of the role of music in the liturgy, the meaning of the sung liturgy in the life of a monastic woman consecrated to God, the role of Hildegard as magistra—teacher and mother—of her community, as well as her relationship to the structure of the broader society outside of her cloister, all contribute to understanding the centrality of music and the sung liturgy in Hildegard’s thought. In light of the overview of the development of the

204 Sequerios, La Carta de Hildegarda, 118. 66

monastic liturgy and its relationship to music present in this chapter, it is clear that music was not an accidental or peripheral element of the monastic liturgy. Music was central to the monastic tradition of prayer as practiced by female Benedictines in the twelfth- century and even closer to the heart of Hildegard, given her inspiration to compose original pieces for the liturgy. With the temporal circumstances surrounding the interdict according to the evidence available, it is reasonable to take Hildegard’s objection at face value, and consider the theological teaching expressed in her letter to the prelates as her own strongly held views and not as a political maneuver. The theological teaching

Hildegard expressed about music throughout her life and particularly at the end of her life was not abstract or divorced from her daily experience. On the contrary, Hildegard’s theological teaching about music, which will be analyzed more closely in the two chapters that follow, reflected the monastic and liturgical context in which she was writing and therefore can be understood as a practical theology, rooted in the daily experience of lived religious practice. Both the practical customs of her daily life and the intellectual climate of Hildegard’s milieu point to the centrality of music to her life, as well as emphasize the obstacles to fulfilling their monastic vocation that its loss meant for to her and her entire community.

67

Chapter Two: Teaching the Heart

“ er exteriora de interiori us instruimur…”205

This chapter will argue that Hildegard considered music an indispensable tool to guide her sisters on their way to heaven because of its ability to appeal to their senses and emotions, opening their minds and hearts to spiritual matters. In the letter to the prelates

Hildegard twice repeated that the way we learn of the interior things of the soul is through the exterior things of the body. Hildegard explained that music had the power to aid a soul seeking heaven because, since it appealed to the senses of the body, it not only informed the intellect of spiritual realities in a purely rational way, but it also moved the will through the emotions of the body to seek out and embrace the spiritual good. This idea was closely linked to Hildegard’s understanding of the theological doctrine of the

Incarnation of the Son of God. When Hildegard’s affective use of music is situated within the context of Christian tradition on the place of the emotions in the liturgy it becomes clear that Hildegard placed a higher value on the role of the emotions in the pedagogical uses of music than most monastic reformers of her century.

Hildegard’s desire was to help the nuns of her house reach union with God.206

Affections or emotions played an important role in the pedagogical methods Hildegard used to help nuns achieve this goal. Scholars studying Hildegard’s music have long noted its emotional and sentimental style. Jennifer Bain considers this increased expressiveness to be typical of chant composed in German circles,207 while Clara Cortazar has classified

205 Hildegard of Bingen, Epistolarium, Epist. XXIII, 63. 206 See the first chapter of this thesis, page 21. 207 Bain, “Hildegard, Hermanus, and Late Chant Style,” 125. 68

Hildegard’s style as a holdover from earlier styles of chant.208 Caroline Walker Bynum, who has written extensively about what can be called typical of female spirituality, considers a high level of emotional expression to be a characteristic of medieval women’s mystical experience. 209 The emotional or sentimental value of music to Hildegard is strongly reflected in the arguments she presented to the prelates of Mainz. On these qualities rest the pedagogical value of music to go beyond theoretical and rational instruction about spiritual realities to become a concrete means to draw the sisters directly into these spiritual realities.

This chapter will build upon previous scholarship to offer a more detailed and nuanced account of the role of the emotions in Hildegard’s use of music.210 The pedagogical value of Hildegard’s liturgical compositions has been noted211 and several scholars mention that Hildegard’s own musical compositions seem intended to allow her sisters to participate in her visions.212 Hildegard’s , Ordo Virtutum, which has received significant scholarly attention, reveals a clear intention to instruct the nuns in spiritual concerns, such as the practice of the virtues and the soul’s continual search for

God, through the medium of music.213 Margot Fassler points out that although

208 Clara Cortazar, “Hildegarda de Bingen, Compositora: Nova et Vetera,” in Conociendo a Hildegarda: la abadesa de Bingen y su tiempo, ed. Azucena Adelina Fraboschi (Buenos Aires: Ediciones de la Universidad Católica, 2003), 132. 209 Caroline Walker Bynum, “And Women His Humanity,” in Gender and Religion: On the Complexity of Symbols (Boston: Beacon Press, 1968), 257-288. 210 Some indications toward this study can be found in Hess, Learning in a Musical Key, 23. Lisa Hess addresses Hildegard’s role as teacher on pages 37-39; however her analysis is more sociological than historical. 211 Maria Eugenia Gongora, “Feminea Forma and Virga: Two Images of Incarnation in Hildegard of Bingen’s Symphonia,” in The Voice of Silence: Women’s Literacy in a Men’s Church, ed. T. de Hemptinne and M. E. Góngora (Turnhout: Brepols, 2004), 24. 212 Weeks, German Mysticism, 41 or McGuire, “Medieval Aesthetic Principles,” 73. 213 The most recently published critical version of this play can be found in Peter Dronke Nine Medieval Latin Plays (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 147-184. For commentary see Audrey Ekdahl 69

Hildegard’s liturgical songs and the play must be considered as separate genres, they are

“interrelated in ideas and function together within the framework of Hildegard’s theological scheme and educational purposes.”214 Beatriz Meli has paid special attention to the themes of virginity and authority in Hildegard’s musical composition, arguing that these themes aided her in instructing her sisters about her role as leader and their own role as consecrated brides of Christ.215

That Hildegard was a teacher and a preacher, both within her monastery and without, has been treated extensively by those dealing with her preaching tours, her homilies on the Gospel, and with her letters, which contain a wealth of evidence of her activity as a teacher. Other than her series of Gospel homilies, which she would have preached to the sisters in her own house, and passages in the Vita that refer to her community life, we have little record of Hildegard’s concrete teaching actions within her own monastery. The superior of a medieval monastery possessed authority over all parts of the lives of her sisters,216 and it would have been Hildegard’s responsibility to ensure that those under her care were instructed in all of the different aspects of what it meant to live a monastic vocation. Priority would have been given to instruction in spiritual matters.217 An important part of the spiritual well-being of the sisters would be their

Davidson, ed. The "Ordo Virtutum" of Hildegard of Bingen: Critical Studies (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1992). 214 Margot Fassler, “ and Dramatist: Melodious Singing and the Freshness of Remorse,” in Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Her World, ed. Barbara Newman (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 150. 215 Meli, “Virginitas and Autoritas,” 47-55, especially 51-52. 216 Johnson, Equal in Monastic Profession, 167. 217 Writings of spiritual formation by abbesses contemporary with Hildegard, such as Heloise or Herrad of Hodenbourg, reveal the concern abbesses felt for their sisters. While there are significant differences in the early lives and formation of Hildegard and Heloise, they share the distinction of being among the few highly educated women of their time who were also superiors of women’s religious communities. On the spiritual duties and authority of abbesses within their monasteries see: Guerra Medici, “Sulla giurisdizione temporale e spirituale della abbadessa,” 78-80 and L’Hermite-Leclercq, "Les pouvoirs de la supérieure au 70

instruction in the truths of the faith, in the practice of virtues, and in the ways of religious life.218

Her letters reveal Hildegard as an astute advisor whose insights were sought by people of all stations.219 The letters Hildegard wrote to superiors of other houses and even prelates evidence the fact that she had a well-developed and clear idea of her role as superior of her community. Many examples could be cited of Hildegard’s teaching efforts through her letters. Letter number 95 to an unnamed magistra, believed to be at

Erlesburen, is a typical example of the advice she offered to other religious superiors about the meanings and goals of their lives in general, as well as the practical detail about how to govern. Hildegard began the letter reminding the magistra of the ultimate goal of her religious life:

O felix anima, tu scalam celestis desiderii ascendisti querendo regnum Dei iuxta mandatum ipsius, ubi dicit: Primum querite regnum Dei et cetera. Cum primum enim Dei servitio te subdidisti, tunc celeste desiderium tibi datum est per quod ad celestes sedes tenderes, sed venti vitiorum fallentis diabolic tibi accurrebant, nec tamen ab isto desiderio te movere potuerunt.

[O Blessed soul, you have climbed the ladder of celestial desire to seek the kingdom of God, according to His command: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God,” and so forth. For when you first submitted yourself to God’s service, you were given the desire for heaven which would lead you to the heavenly abode. Then through the prompting of the devil, the winds of vice came rushing upon you, but even they could not move you from your desire.]220

Moyen Age,” 175-180. Comparing the educational methods of Hildegard and Herrad, see Carolyn Muessig, “Learning and Mentoring in the Twelfth Century: Hildegard of Bingen and ,” in Medieval Monastic Education, eds. George Ferzoco and Carolyn Muessig (London: Leicester University Press, 2000), 87-103. 218 Schmidt, “Hildegard’s Care of Souls,” 51. 219 Van Engen, “Abbess: Mother and Teacher,” 46-7. On Hildegard as a mother see also Schipperges, The World of Hildegard of Bingen: Her Life, Times and Visions, 45-46. 220 Hidegard of Bingen, Epistolarium, Epis. XCV, 1-6. Translation: Baird and Ehrman, vol. 2 Letter 96, 10- 11. 71

Further on Hildegard exhorted her to make sure that the rule of St. Benedict was carefully followed in her community: “Gubernator vero iste doctrinam beati Benedicti significant, in qua per Spiritum Sanctum precepta spiritualis vite edidit, in quibus tu etiam filias Dei ad te collige que tibi per magisterium ipius commisse sunt.” [The pilot of the ship is, in fact, the teaching of the blessed Benedict, who, inspired by the Holy Spirit, gave the precepts of spiritual life. In the spirit of those precepts, gather the daughters of God to yourself, for they have been entrusted to you through Benedict’s authority.”221 Hildegard even offered a note of advice about the needs of one particular sister in this community:

“Inter quas etiam filiam Dei Elisabeth cum ardenti amore in corde tuo habe, ita quod lacte consolationis eam semper nutrias.” [Among those is the daughter of God Elizabeth, whom you must keep in your heart with blazing love, and continually nourish with the milk of consolation.”]222 In this letter, one of many like it written to both men and women superiors, Hildegard encouraged the magistra to care for her sisters with the concern of a mother, teaching them and leading them by her own example.223 Consequently, education in the monastery was not seen as a merely intellectual exercise, but was pervasive and included all the aspects of daily life. This is why, in addition to the word education, the term formation, referring to the formation of an integrated person and the formation of character, can be used to describe activities related to medieval monastic education.

221 Hidegard of Bingen, Epistolarium, Epis. XCV, 11-15. Translation: Baird and Ehrman, vol. 2 Letter 96, 11. 222 Hidegard of Bingen, Epistolarium, Epis. XCV, 15-17. Translation: Baird and Ehrman, vol. 2 Letter 96, 11. 223 For more letters of advice to religious superiors, see, in Van Acker’s edition, letters numbers 46-86, 91- 101, and 110-191. 72

In any medieval monastic community the monastic liturgy was considered to be part of monastic formation or education.224 The words of the psalms were memorized by monks and nuns, and so would have been permanently impressed on their mind and on their hearts. Also, other, non-liturgical material to be learned was put into verse form because it was considered easier to commit to memory.225 Even the process of learning to read was combined with learning to chant—many in a monastery would learn to read first in the psalter and secondly in other contexts.226 Monastics were taught not only how to read with the psalter, but were taught theological content as well—Susan Boynton has done extensive study of the glosses added in the margins of books of liturgical hymns, which include many pedagogical notes clarifying grammar, vocabulary, and theological content for those singing and learning from the hymns.227 For example, Boynton describes the titles that appear before each psalm in liturgical books produced in the eleventh and twelfth century at Farfa in Italy, which give such didactic information as who composed the psalm and what messianic or moral meaning can be found in the psalm.228 Isabelle Cochelin has pointed out that the monastic educational system recognized the importance of the activity of the body in forming the mind—especially through imitation. Something can become a physical habit even before its significance is

224 The role of the liturgy in monastic education is discussed in several articles in George Ferzoco and Carolyn Muessig, eds. Medieval Monastic Education (New York: Leicester University Press, 2000) including: George Ferzoco, “The Changing Face of Tradition: Monastic Education in the Middle Ages,”1-7, Boynton, “Training for the Liturgy as a Form of Monastic Education,” 7-20 and Isaelle Cochelin “Besides the Book: Using the Body to Mould the Mind—Cluny in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries,” 21-34. 225 See Anna Maria Busse Berger, Medieval Music and the Art of Memory (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), chapter 4, 111-158. 226 Flynn, Medieval Music, 57. See also Boynton, “Training for the Liturgy as a Form of Monastic Education,” 8, 11. 227 Boynton, "Latin Glosses on the Office Hymns,” 15-18. 228 Boynton, Shaping a Monastic Identity, 82-83. 73

fully grasped by the mind.229 Setting doctrine to music was an effective way to communicate certain doctrinal points and help the sisters to meditate on them and fix them in their memories.230 In medieval monasteries, the sung liturgy was the occasion and motivation for the study of grammar, rhetoric, reading and scriptural interpretation.231

Above other parts of the liturgy, hymns played a particular role in the didactic function of the liturgy for several reasons. Unlike the psalms, which were fixed texts, new hymns could be written for each generation and tailored to the educational needs of a particular community, which is exactly what Hildegard did. Also, unlike the theological and hagiographical lessons for the office, which were read by one reader, the entire community learned and sang the hymns from memory.232

The key reason for the pedagogical effectiveness of music that Hildegard articulated in her letter is that it took into account the condition of the entire person— body and soul—in the use of sensory experiences to form the soul in spiritual matters. In her letter to the prelates Hildegard maintained that singing the liturgy was a much more pedagogically effective way to help the sisters on their way to heaven than “tantum

229 Cochelin, “Besides the Book: Using the Body to Mould the Mind,” 28. 230This has been pointed out by Meli, “Virginitas and Autoritas,” 49. She is drawing on work done by Mary Carruthers in The Book of Memory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992). Gongora also notes the pedagogical value of continual patterns of repeating the songs in their liturgical cycles in “Femina Forma and Virga,” 24: “Their [Hildegard’s songs] performance and the effects of repeating that performance are to be considered as an important means of learning, of prayer, and of achieving mediations and contemplation; by singing these ‘God inspired’ words these should create an image (imago, a seal) of the revelation which imprints itself in the mind, in the memoria, of the performers, eventually leading them to contemplation, the highest degree of experience in monastic life.” 231 Flynn, Medieval Music, especially chapter 2 “The Teaching of Singing: Medieval Musica Theory as an Ars oetica,” 57-106 and Ritva Jonsson, "Medieval Music and Language: A Reconsideration of the Relationship," Studies in the History of Music 1 (1983): 1-23, especially 15-16. 232 Boynton, “Shaping a Monastic Identity, 185. Boynton also points to the generally simple structure and repetitiveness of the office hymns as contributing to their didactic usefulness, but that particular characteristic does not apply to Hildegard’s hymns. On Hugh of St. Victor’s pedagogical use of sequences to teach a certain theological outlook, see Fassler, Gothic Song, chapters nine and ten, 187-233. 74

legentes,” [“merely reading it”]233 because it involved the entire person, body, soul and emotions. There are three principal passages from her letter that expressed this argument: one in which Hildegard pointed out the didactic advantages of the power of music to move the emotions,234 and two in which Hildegard repeated the idea that when they sung the liturgy, the sisters were instructed about interior things through exterior things.235

Hildegard considered the loss of the almost continual daily experience of music in her monastery to be harmful to her sisters because she believed that music did not merely instruct in the sense of giving information, but, in a more radical way, music moved a soul to love and choose the goods of heaven. She said:

Et quoniam in auditu alicujus cantionis interdum homo saepe suspirat et gemit, naturam coelestis harmoniae recolens, propheta, subtiliter profundam spiritus naturam considerans et sciens quia symphonialis est anima, hortatur in psalmo, ut confiteamur Domino in cithara, et in psalterio decem chordarum psallamus ei. [And because, sometimes, upon hearing songs, people begin to sigh and moan, remembering the nature of the celestial harmony, the prophet, considering the profound nature of the spirit and knowing that the soul is harmonic, exhorts in the psalms that we might acknowledge God with the cithara and sing to him with the psaltery of ten cords.]236

In this passage, the indications of emotions—“sighing and moaning,” are allusions to the affective longing for heaven, which Hildegard said were a result of listening to music.

Hildegard argued that music could have great power over a person’s emotions, causing him to long for the heaven that it is so easy to forget. It was good, therefore, for

Christians to sing to God with both body and soul. Music, as a sensory activity that was performed exteriorly by the body and interiorly by the mind, could sway the will through

233 Hildegard of Bingen, Epistolarium, Epist. XXIII, 57. 234 Hildegard of Bingen, Epistolarium, Epist. XXIII, 138-143. 235 Hildegard of Bingen, Epistolarium, Epist. XXIII, 58-65 and 84-94. 236 Hildegard of Bingen, Epistolarium, Epist. XXIII, 138-143. It was a medieval common place to interpret this verse from the psalms as a reference to both the body and the soul: the cithara referring to the soul and the psalterio referring to the body (Holsinger, Music, Body and Desire, 96). 75

moving the affections. If education through the liturgy were only about gathering information, it would be the same to read or to sing. However, Hildegard did not want only to inform her nuns about heaven; she wanted to encourage them and inspire them to desire heaven and give them the means ultimately to reach heaven themselves.

Hildegard was certainly not the first person to note this influential characteristic of music. However, the emotional power of music had been held in certain suspicion throughout the centuries leading up to the twelfth. The fact that music has the power to instruct and move people through their affections has been recognized since antiquity— ancient Greek modal237 theory taught that different modes would bring about different affections in the heart of the listeners.238 Plato regarded music not as an isolated aesthetic experience, but in connection with the true or the good. He therefore considered music both as a sensory expression of ideal mathematical forms and in terms of the influence it can have on human character and behavior.239 Plato carefully stipulated the kinds of music that would lead to the solid formation of the citizens of his Republic and the kinds that would harm it, thus outlining the ethics of music.240 This classical teaching about music was repeated into the middle ages and would have reached Hildegard through early medieval scholars such as Boethius241 Cassiodorus,242 Isidore of Seville243 and eventually

237 A mode is comparable to a key or a scale in modern music theory. It refers to a certain range of notes and a certain pattern of interval distance within that range. Since antiquity, music theorists have recognized 8 modes; however, the terminology of antiquity does not line up completely with medieval modal theory 238 Liane Curtis, “Mode,” Companion to Medieval and Renaissance Music, eds. Tess Knighton and David Fallows (New York: Schirmer Books, 1992), 257. 239 Edward A. Lippman, Musical Aesthetics: A Historical Reader, vol. 1: From Antiquity to the Eighteenth Century. (New York: Pendragon Press, 1986), 3. 240 Grout and Palisca, A History of Western Music, 8. 241 taught: “Indeed, no path to the mind is as open for instruction as the sense of hearing. Thus, when rhythms and modes reach an intellect through the ears, they doubtless affect and reshape the mind according to their particular character.” Boethius, Fundamentals of Music, ed. and trans. Calvin M. Bower and Claude V. Palisca (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989), Book I, I, page 3. Explaining Plato’s doctrine he said: “Thus Plato holds that the greatest care should be exercises lest something be altered in 76

though the south German circle of music theorists associated with the Hirsau reformation.

It was common in these medieval music theory treatises, ever following the example of

Boethius, to give a list of examples of the great emotive power of music, such as when

David soothed King Saul by playing his or when the Greek physician Asclepiades cured a man’s insanity by singing to him.244 Some medieval music theorists assigned a certain ethos or affectus to each of their system of modes, seemingly in imitation of the

Greek doctrine; however, there is scant evidence that this teaching influenced modal choice in composition.245

While Christian music theorists noted the power of music in their treatises on musical theory, others, writing from a more ethical view point, commented on the appropriateness of using this emotional power in the context of the liturgy. For example,

St. Augustine, Christian neoplatonist and Father of the Church who exercised considerable influence on the twelfth century,246 described both the power and the danger of the affective side of music in religious ceremonies in his Confessions.247

music of good character. He states that there is no greater ruin of moral in a republic than the gradual perversion of chaste and temperate music.” Fundamentals of Music. Book I: i, page 3. 242 Writing to Boethius, Cassiodorus listed the different emotional effects he understood to come from the different modes or scales: “The Dorian mode effects chastity and pudicity. The Phrygian stirs to fighting and engenders wrath, whereas the Aeloian mode calms the tempests of the soul and lulls the calmed soul into sleep; the Iastic more sharpens the dull insight and directs the profane mind toward heavenly aspirations; the Lydian mode soothes the heavy cares of the soul and expels vexation by pleasant entertainment.” Cited by Hugo Leichtentritt, Music, History, and Ideas (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1961), 53. 243Isidore of Seville wrote: “Music moves the feelings and changes the emotions. In battles, moreover, the sound of the trumpet rouses the combatants, and the more furious the trumpeting, the more valorous the spirit.” Book III, 17, Cited in Strunk, Source Readings, 94. 244 John Stevens, Words and Music, Song, Narrative, Dance, and Drama, 1050-1350 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1986), 387. 245 Gustave Reese, Music in the Middle Ages (New York: Norton, 1940), 159. 246 Brian Murdoch, “Theological Writing and Medieval German Literature: Some Bibliographical Comments.” Bulletin of the Modern Language Society of Helsinki 71 (1970): 76. Daniela Picon calls St. Augustine’s theology fundamental not only for her century, but for Hildegard herself. “La Conciencia como escriba: una escena de escritura interior en la obra de Hildegard de Bingen,” Revista Chilena de Literatura 74 (2009): 127. In A History of Heaven: the Singing Silence (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997), 77

The rule of St. Benedict allowed for and expected an emotional reaction to monastic prayer. St. Benedict said: “Et non in multiloqui sed in puritate cordis et in conpunctione lacrimarun nos exaudiri sciamus” [“Let us know that we will be heard not in loquacity but in purity of heart and tearful compunction.”]248 According to the rule of

St. Benedict, the sentiments expressed in the liturgy were considered to be the sentiments of the entire Church, and it was therefore appropriate for individual monks to seek to conform their sentiments to what was expressed in the liturgy.249 St. Benedict’s rule stated: “Sic stemus ad psallendum ut mens nostra concordet voci nostrae.” [“Let us stand and sing psalms in such a way that our minds are in harmony with our voices.”]250 While chant certainly possesses characteristics that give it the power to arouse devotional

Jeffery Burton Russell calls St. Augustine’s influence on Western Christianity “greater than that of any other Christian writer since the ,” (84). 247 He recounted how when going through his conversion he learned spiritual truth through music: “How much I wept at your hymns and canticles, deeply moved by the voices of you sweetly singing church. Those voices flowed into my ears, and the truth was poured into my heart, whence a feeling of piety glowed within me and my tears ran down.” “Quantum flevi in hymnis et canticis tuis, suave sonantis ecclesiae tuae vocibus commotus acriter voces illae influebant auribus meis, et eliquabatur veritas in cor meum, et exaestuabat inde affectus pietatis, et currebant lacrimae. Confessions, 9, 6. Cited in McKinnon, Music in Early Christian Literature, 154. However, Augustine knews there was also the danger that he might become too attached to the sensory pleasure of the song and that his soul not be raised by it to a devotion which pleases God: “Therefore I waver between the danger of pleasure and the experience of its great value, and I am led, while not pronouncing an irrevocable positions, to approve the custom of singing in Church, in order that through the pleasure of the ears, a weaker soul might be enkindled with a feeling of piety. Yet when it happens to me that I am moved more by the song than the thing that is sung, I confess that I have sinned and then I prefer not to hear that singing.” “Ita fluctuo inter periculum voluptatis et experimentum salubritatis magisque, adducor; non quidem inretractabilem sententiam proferens, cantandi consuetudinem approbare in ecclesia, ut per oblectamenta aurium infirmior animus in affectum pietatis adsurgat. Tamen cum mihi accidit, ut me amplius cantus quam res, quae canitur, moveat, poenaliter me peccare confiteor, et tunc mallem non audire cantantem.” Confessions, 10:33. Cited in McKinnon, Music in Early Christian Literature, 155. 248 The Rule of St. Benedict, Chapter Twenty: De Reverentia Orationis, p. 92 in Venarde. For commentary on this passage, see Benedict Guevin, “The Opus Dei: Source of Inspiration for a Benedictine Ethic,” Cistercian Studies Quarterly 30 (1995): 327 249 Constant Mews, “Liturgy and Identity at the Paraclete: Heloise, Abelard and the Evolution of Cistercian Reform,” in The Poetic and Musical Legacy of Heloise and Abelard: An Anthology of Essays, ed. Marc Stewart and David Wulstan (Ottawa: Institute of Mediaeval Music, 2003), 29. 250 The Rule of St. Benedict, Chapter Nineteen, p. 90 in Venarde. 78

affections, arousing the emotions was not the principle goal of chant.251 The feelings expressed in chant can be called “supra-personal”, expressing not the variable experience of an individual composer, but the experience of the whole Church and the emotion or affection appropriate to a particular liturgical moment.252 By composing expressive songs for her sisters to sing in the liturgy, Hildegard sought to give them the means to rise above themselves, and think with the Church.

As music theory and practice developed from the sixth to the twelfth century as an essential feature of , there was no clear consensus about the role of emotional and sensory delights in music. In the period of the Carolingian monastic reform, the question of the place of emotions and the aesthetic experience of pleasure of the senses within the context of Christian worship continued to be discussed. It was characteristic of the educational and evangelizing goals of the Carolingian period to use the liturgy, which necessarily included a musical element and included symbolism that periodically stressed mourning, repentance, joy, or thanksgiving, to attract people to

Christianity not only intellectually, but also according to their emotions and sensibilities.253 Two ninth-century church councils are witnesses to the delicate balance the Church sought to maintain. The Synod of Tours in 813 proclaimed that “whatever affects or works on the eyes or ears has a weakening effect on the soul,”254 and that the purpose of music must not be pleasure or entertainment for men, but the service of God.

This judgment on music was attenuated at the Synod of Aachen in 816, which proclaimed

251 Stevens, Words and Music, 389. 252 Apel, Gregorian Chant, 301. 253 Rosamond McKitterick, The Frankish Church and the Carolingian Reforms, 789-895 (London: Royal Historical Society, 1977), 141. 254 Herbert M. Schueller, The Idea of Music: An Introduction to Musical Aesthetics in Antiquity and the Middle Ages (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1988), 329. 79

that singers’ “melody should raise the minds of the assembled people to mindfulness and love of heavenly things, not only by the loftiness of the words which they sing, but also by the sweetness of the sounds.”255 Furthermore, while some were warning against music that gave excessive pleasure to the senses, the practice of troping, or embellishing a text or a melody or both with interpolation, grew from the post-Carolingian age into the eleventh century.256 Berno, the eleventh century abbot of Reichenau, was a known advocate of simplicity and moderation in Church music. On the other side, Guido of

Arezzo was “something of a celebrant of the sense of hearing and the other senses…enchanted by their delights,” and dwelling on “sweetness, a quality of delightful things which, he said, penetrate the heart as if through a window.”257 In conclusion,

Christian teaching on the role of the emotions in the liturgy during these centuries of liturgical devolvement was not defined by the Church in a decisive way.

From the ninth to the eleventh century the monastic liturgy became increasingly ornate and complex. While spiritual sensibilities of the eleventh century admired and valued the length and beauty of the liturgy, in the twelfth century more emphasis came to be placed on the individual’s relationship with God than on the collective achievement of the choir.258 The watchword of this twelfth-century trend was authenticity—in pursuit of an authentic monastic life and relationship with God, which twelfth-century reformers from different groups felt required that time be allowed for both manual labor and private prayer, some reformers aimed to reduce the liturgy to its essentials. The Cistercians are the primary, but not the only, example of twelfth-century reform with these

255 Schueller, The Idea of Music, 287 (Citing Tartarkiewicz History of Aesthetics, II, 100). 256 Schueller, The Idea of Music, 330. 257 Schueller, The Idea of Music, 338. 258 Constable, “Monastic Policy of Peter the Venerable,”127-130. 80

characteristics.259 The Cistercian reform defined much of the dialogue of the twelfth century; however, Hildegard did not share their reductionist approach to the liturgy and did not embrace the Cistercian understanding of authenticity. Contrasting Hildegard’s expressions with this current of thought of her century highlights the great importance that she placed on the practice of music.

The theoretical principles of the Cistercian liturgical movement were most famously expressed by St. Bernard of Clairvaux in his letter-prologue to the revised

Cistercian hymnal, written after 1137, which excluded all material not believed to be authentically composed by St. Ambrose. St. Bernard said that the liturgical songs should

“bring truth to the minds of the hearers, devotion to their affections, the Cross to their vices, and discipline to their senses.” [“Lumen veritatis mentibus pariant, formam moribus, crucem vitiis, affectibus devotionem, sensibus disciplinam.”]260 Bernard, like

Hildegard, understood that music affected the whole human person, both the body and soul, reaching the intellectual side of humanity through an appeal to the senses and the emotions. And, using an expression close to what Hildegard used in her letter to the prelates, St. Bernard taught that music should “sic mulceat aures, ut moveat corda.

Tristitiam levet, iram mitiget.” [“Both enchant the ears and move the heart, it should

259 The Premonstratensians also followed similar principles. See Wolbrink, “Women in the Premonstratensian Order,” 387-408. Without attempting to account for twelfth-century liturgical reform in general, I aim in the extremely brief span of the next few pages to do no more than introduce the issues that were under discussion. I cite few examples of figures whose views can be said to be characteristic, but by no means do I offer an exhaustive account of the motives behind twelfth-century liturgical reform, but merely a basic context in which to place the views of Hildegard. 260 Bernard of Clairvaux, Epistola 398, PL vol. 182 col. 0610B. English: The Letters of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, trans. Scott James (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1998), 502, Letter 430 to Abbott Guy and the Brethren of Montier-Ramey. 81

lighten sad hearts and soften angry passions.”]261 So far we see Hildegard and Bernard in basic agreement in their acknowledgement of the power music over the emotions.

However, in this very same occasion, Bernard expressed some guidelines for proper hymns. In these guidelines we see where, while they might agree in general principles, Bernard and Hildegard embraced different styles. He said:

Porro sensa indubitata resplendeant veritate,.cantus ipse, si fuerit, plenus sit gravitate nec lasciviam resonet, nec rusticitatem. Sic suavis, ut non sit levis; sensum litterae non evacuet, sed fecundet. …Non est levis jactura gratiae spiritualis, levitate cantus abduci a sensuum utilitate, et plus sinuandis intendere vocibus, quam insinuandis rebus.

[The sense of the words should be unmistakable,…if there is to be singing, the melody should be grave and not flippant or uncouth. It should be sweet, but not frivolous…it should never obscure but enhance the sense of the words. …Not a little spiritual profit is lost when minds are distracted from the sense of the words by the frivolity of the melody, when more is conveyed by the modulations of the voice than by the variations of the meaning.]262

Reading this, one cannot help but wonder what Bernard might have thought about the wide ranges and extended melismatic phrases lingering on a syllable or two in

Hildegard’s own compositions. Based on the music she composed, it seems safe to say that Hildegard did not share St. Bernard’s taste for sobriety in her melodies, and she certainly did not limit her range to the ten note maximum prescribed by the Cistercian reform. In Hildegard’s melodies there is more sentiment and emotional expression than the Gregorian melodies considered standard in her century, much less those used by the

Cistercian reformers, which were simplified still more.263 Hildegard’s songs are full of colorful sensory imagery; however, as many who have begun to read Hildegard’s lyrics

261 Bernard of Clairvaux, Epistola 398, PL vol 182 col. 0610B. The Letters of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, 502. 262 Bernard of Clairvaux, Epistola 398, PL vol 182 col. 0610C-0611A. The Letters of St. Bernard, 502. 263 Lackner, “The Liturgy of Early Citeaux,” in Studies in Medieval Cistercian History, ed. Basil Pennington (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1971), 22-23. 82

have noticed, her images are confusing, hard to follow and do not often correspond with our experience of reality.264 The difficulty Hildegard’s images present points to the fact that in her songs she tried to do much more than express common human experiences in esthetic language, as profane poetry might do by using metaphors. Her aim was to express her own transcendent religious experience, which surpassed natural human experience, as best she could in human language. The lack of true correspondence between the terms in any image that seeks to describe the Divinity makes it something other than merely a poetic metaphor—it makes it a symbol. Many scholars agree on the uniqueness of

Hildegard’s individual style of composition, and her exotic use of religious symbolism, which distinguished her from those reformers of her century who sought to instill ever greater simplicity and austerity in their singing of the divine office.265

Another point of contrast between Hildegard’s ideas and the liturgical reformers of her time is in their respective stance regarding the tradition that they had inherited. On this score, we see Hildegard’s pragmatic freedom with respect to the liturgy—she had no complaints about the liturgical tradition that she inherited, and neither did she have any qualms about making original additions to that tradition that she considered formative for her own community. St. Bernard, on the other hand, in addition to disapproving of

264 For example, Margot Fassler testifies that in exploring Hildegard’s work, “one must reach for precise themes, and then hold fast to the cord while being whirled through the cascading images that are typical of her writing in all genres,” in “Music for the Love Feast: Hildegard of Bingen and the Song of Songs,” in Resonant Witness: Conversations between Music and Theology, eds. Jeremy S. Begbie and Steven R. Guthrie (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2011), 356. 265 Stevens, “The Musical Individuality of Hildegard’s Songs.” See also Newman, Introduction to Symphonia, 27, Flanagan, Visionary Life, 115, William T. Flynn, “Singing with Angels, Hildegard of Bingen’s Representations of Celestial Music,” in Conversations with Angels: Essays Towards a History of Spiritual Communication, 1100-1700, ed. Joad Raymond (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 225, and Clara Cortazar, “Compositora nova et vetera,” 133. 83

extravagant melodies and many-layers of symbols, was also wary of adding anything at all to what had been consecrated by tradition:

Supernis velle addere laudibus, detrahere est. Non quod glorificatos ab angelis, homines jam laudare non audeant: sed quia in solemnitate celebri, non novella audiri decet vel levia, sed certe authentica et antiqua, quae et Ecclesiam aedificent, et ecclesiasticam redoleant gravitatem.

[To try and add to the praises sung in Heaven was a depredation rather than an augmentation. Not that men should deny their praises to those who are glorified by the angels, but in their festivals anything that savours of novelty or frivolity would be out of place. Such occasions require something venerable and beyond question orthodox, something redolent with holy gravity that would edify the people.]266

St. Bernard’s insistence on tradition was hardly shared universally—for in Paris, particularly in the Augustinian Abbey of St. Victor, the twelfth century was a time in which a great number of new liturgical pieces were written, specifically in the form of sequences.267 Fassler demonstrates a variety of ways that these well-known Victorine sequences were didactic and intended to instruct in theological content.268 Hildegard also communicated many theological and spiritual truths through both the words and the music of her own compositions.

As has been noted above, Hildegard’s compositions have a more expressive or sentimental character than many common liturgical pieces of her day. It seems that, based on her knowledge of the emotional power of music, Hildegard chose to cultivate certain emotions, joy in particular, through her compositions. Heloise, abbesses of the Paraclete monastery in France and contemporary of Hildegard, advanced a criticism of the

Cistercian reform which, albeit indirectly, puts her ideas in contrast with Hildegard’s use

266 Bernard of Clairvaux, Espistola 398, PL vol 182 col. 0610A-B. The Letters of St. Bernard, 502. 267 Fassler, Gothic Song, 9. In this work, Fassler studies the implications of liturgical change for the study of history, particularly through twelfth-century Victorine sequences. 268 See Fassler, Gothic Song, 58-64, 98-106. 84

of music as well. The Cistercian insistence on adherence to the hallowed tradition meant that a very limited number of liturgical hymns were accepted as authentic and therefore allowable in the liturgy,269 a policy Heloise experienced as inhibiting the authenticity of expression of those who pray the liturgy. She expressed her concern for psychological authenticity when the extremely limited number of hymns the new Cistercian hymnal included left her singing hymns she did not agree with, which provoked her to request new hymns from Abelard.270 Among Heloise’s objections to the reformed liturgy which she expressed to Abelard is that she was made a liar by singing hymns that express emotions that she did not feel. She said:

Nec solum tempora non observata mendatium ingerunt, verum etiam quorumdam hymnorum compositores, vel ex proprii animi compunctione alienos pensantes, vel improvidae studio pietatis extollere sanctos cupientes, in aliquibus ita modum excesserunt, ut contra ipsam nostram conscientiam aliqua in ipsis saepius proferamus tanquam a veritate prorsus aliena. Paucissimi quippe sunt qui contemplationis ardore vel peccatorum suorum compunctione flentes ac gementes, illa digne valeant decantare: “Preces gementes fundimus, dimitte quod peccavimus,” et iterum: “Nostros pius cum canticis fletus benigne ssuscipe,” et similia, quae sicut electis ita paucis conveniunt.

[Not only does the failure to observe time lead to falsehood, but also the composers of some hymns, either from the compunction of their own soul thinking foreign thoughts or from the zeal of improvident piety desiring to extol saints, so exceed the mode in some things that against our conscience we proffer some that are distant from the truth. For indeed there are very few who weeping and sighing from the ardor of contemplation or the compunction for their sins are worthy to sing: “Sighing we pour out prayers, forgive that we have sinned,” and again: “Receive our weeping with pious songs,” and similar ones which are suitable to the so few elect.] 271

269 They themselves relaxed this measure after 1147. Waddell, “The Early Cistercian Experience of the Liturgy, 100. 270 Mews, “Liturgy and Identity at the Paraclete,” 29. 271 , Hymnarius Paraclitensis, ed. Joseph Szöverffy (Albany: Classical Folia, 1975), 2 v, 2.9- 13, 2.79-81, 2.169-70, found at pistolae, Medieval Women’s Latin Letters, http://epistolae.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/letter/184.html Accessed April 1, 2014. See also: Mews, “Liturgy and Identity at the Paraclete,” 32. 85

Heloise, perhaps more sober in her own religious sentiments, objected to singing a hymn with more fervent emotions than she herself felt. Peter the Venerable, twelfth-century abbot of Cluny, expressed similar views to those of Heloise when he sought to ensure that the words sung in the monastery’s liturgy reflected reality.272 For example, Peter mandated that the hymn Iam lucis orto should not be sung before daybreak and that a wooden cross must be used in extreme unction when Ecce lingum crucis was sung. Here we see a general shift in emphasis: St. Benedict was concerned with conforming the mind to the sentiments expressed in the liturgy; later medieval spirituality put a greater emphasis on interior prayer, and moved rather to conforming the voice to the mind.273

Hildegard was less concerned with Heloise’s version of authenticity and might have counseled Heloise not to be so concerned about her own original or authentic sentiments, but to focus on what the liturgy asked her to feel. If she did not possess the sentiments expressed in the liturgy, then she should sing the song precisely in order to cultivate them in her spirit.

These dynamics present in twelfth-century liturgical reform reflect a transition which both Bernard and Heloise exemplified in almost contradictory ways. Both authenticity and authority of the liturgy was paramount (causing them to eliminate liturgical elements considered inauthentic) while at the same time emphasis on the interior intention in prayer was increasing.274 By removing many commonly sung hymns in favor of a tradition that was considered to possess greater authority, St. Bernard and the

272 Constable, “Monastic Policy of Peter the Venerable,” 125. 273 For a full version of this argument and many medieval witnesses, see Giles Constable, “The Concern for Sincerity and Understanding in Liturgical Prayer, Especially in the Twelfth Century,” Classica et mediaevalia: Studies in Honour of Joseph Szövérffy, ed. Irene Vaslef and Helmut Buschhausen (Washington: E.J. Brill and Classical Folia Editions, 1986), 17-30. 274 Constable, “The Concern for Sincerity,” 20 86

early Cistercian reformers made drastic changes to the liturgical tradition they had inherited. In her turn, replacing the traditional hymns of the daily office with Abelard’s new compositions, Heloise made fundamental changes based on principles by which she objected to the reformed liturgy as she received it.275

Hildegard demonstrated a freedom to both accept the liturgy she received from tradition and adjust it according to what she felt would fit the needs and musical taste and sensibilities of her own community. If we judge by the quantity and quality of her own musical compositions, it seems clear that Hildegard felt no need to embrace a reform that discouraged creative additions to the liturgy.276 At the same time, while making her own additions, Hildegard did not express any objections to the liturgical tradition that she inherited. Instead, her changes were additions (not removals or replacements of material she did not like), often in the area of devotional pieces to Mary or other saints.277

Heloise’s concerns were not Hildegard’s. Hildegard’s lyrics put into the mouths of her sisters just the kind of zealous, poetic, and possibly exaggerated phrases that Heloise called lies. Hildegard might prefer to call them inspired participations in her visions.

275 For more details about the tension between ancient authenticity and the authority of monastic customs, see Chrysogonus Waddell, “Peter Abelard's Letter 10 and Cistercian Liturgical Reform,” in Studies in Medieval Cistercian History, 2, ed. John R. Sommerfedlt (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1976), 75- 86. 276 In spite of St. Bernard’s protestations against contemporary additions to the liturgy and his emphasis on authentic Gregorian and Ambrosian songs, there is evidence that he personally introduced newly composed material into the Cistercian office, particularly antiphons of Marian devotion. Several of these Marian pieces, such as the Memorare are still a living part of today’s devotional practices. On Bernard’s textual reform of the divine office, see Chrysogonus Waddell, “Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Sweet Singer of Israel: The Textual Reform of the Primitive Cistercian Breviary,” Cistercian Studies Quarterly, 38 (2003): 442- 448. 277 Stevens, “The Musical Individuality of Hildegard’s Songs,” 166. This is supported by the fact that she did not organize her songs according to any temporal liturgical cycle, but thematically. For detailed comparison of changes made to the liturgy in Hildegard and Heloise’s convents, see Flynn, “Ductus figuratus et subtilis,” 250-280, especially 264-274 on Hildegard. 87

Scholars have often observed that Hildegard’s compositions are unique. 278

Barbara Newman has found that “Hildegard’s originality lies less in the invention of new forms than in the audacious and luxuriant elaboration of old ones.”279 Hildegard’s compositions include a variety of liturgical genres; however, she wrote much more music for the divine office than for the mass. Within the office music, antiphons make up the majority of her composition, followed by responsories. She also wrote a number of hymns. Hildegard’s compositions are a combination of syllabic (each syllable of text corresponds to one or two musical notes) and melismatic (a long chain of musical notes are sung on a single syllable of text) melodies. These long melismas do not always appear on the words or syllables that one would expect, and studying Hildegard’s placement of melismas has proven helpful for interpreting her texts and revealing for the study of text musical relationships as well. Marianne Pfau concludes that the texts of Hildegard’s songs are best understood through the music: “I would not hesitate to consider the placement of longer melisma as compositional means of text interpretation, that is to say, the music mandates how the text is delivered and therefore perceived, and in doing so, shades and interprets the text.”280 This essential role the melody of her songs plays in understanding them also lends support to the importance Hildegard placed on music in the liturgy in general

Unlike contemporary reform minded monastics, Hildegard did not object to or wish to change the liturgical practices of her day on theoretical grounds. She wanted to

278 The music of Hildegard of Bingen has only recently received serious scholarly attention, and she rarely receives a mention in general histories of Western music. Remarkably, she has the distinction of being the earliest example of a known, individual composer of a significant body of music. Cogan, “Hildegard’s Fractal Antiphon,” 93. 279 Newman, introduction to Symphonia, 33. 280 See Pfau, “The Concept of Armonia,” 163. 88

enrich the liturgy for her sisters through her own supernatural gifts. Composing liturgical songs for her community, which were particularly suited to their situation, Hildegard,

“reshaped the liturgy with words and music that enables her community to participate as directly as possible in her own visionary experience.”281 In this way Hildegard taught with music designed to appeal to both the aesthetic and intellectual sides of her sisters.

Music, a sensory activity that was performed exteriorly by the body and interiorly by the mind, could sway the will through moving the affections. Once again, if education through the liturgy were only about gathering information, it would be the same to read or to sing. However, Hildegard did not want only to inform her nuns about heaven; she wanted to encourage them and inspire them to desire heaven and give them the means ultimately to reach heaven themselves.

In the letter she wrote to the prelates, Hildegard emphasized the power music had over a nun’s emotions, causing her to remember that she was bound for heaven and pushing her to seek heaven with all her strength. It was good, therefore, for Christians to sing to God with both body and soul. Hildegard’s thought can be distinguished from the reforming trends of her century by her wholly positive view of the beauty and attraction of music for the Christian soul. In many places in her visionary writings, Hildegard warned about the spiritual harm that could accrue from a misuse of sensory delight;282 however, she did not seem to include the sensory delights of music with those that she considered dangerous. Her stance toward music and its effects was completely positive.

Possibly because of her rich visionary experience, she seemed to be quite convinced of

281 Flynn, “Ductus figuratus et subtilis,” 275. 282 For example, See Scivias, Book 1, vision 4:4, Book II, vision 6:53, Book II, vision 7:7; Books of Divine Works, Fourth Part: 31, and Book of Divine Works, Part I, vision 1:16. 89

the positive power of certain sense-related experiences to help souls on their journey to

God, primarily the delights of music. Dezzuto also notes Hildegard’s willingness to cultivate certain emotions in order to help a soul on its path to God. She explains that the influence her visions had on the memory and the imagination “can be a rich source of

‘affective movement,’ affectus, for achieving the proper end of the human being and of the entire creation—union with God.”283 Here is the crux of Hildegard’s musical pedagogy. Music was a liturgical element appealing to the senses that had a particularly strong power to stir up affection in those participating in the liturgy. This affection, or strong feeling of devotion or fervor, gave strength to the will in choosing the Good, and therefore was useful for those superiors who sought to form their subjects in virtue.

The value that Hildegard placed on the sensory experience of the body in reaching a spiritual good can be seen as closely related to contemporary understandings of the

Incarnation. This theological teaching implied the union of the purely spiritual divinity and a bodily humanity. Throughout Sister of Wisdom, Barbara Newman continually notes importance of the Incarnation for Hildegard’s theology, describing the Incarnate Son of

God as the climax and center of the created universe.284 This element of Hildegard’s thought is characteristic of her time.285 Along with an increase in theological reflection, attention to the Incarnation also grew in twelfth-century spirituality, giving a

283 Flavia Dezzutto, “Visio y affectus en Hildegarda de Bingen: perspectivas eticas acerca de la relacion entre inteleccion y afectividad,” in Conociendo a Hildegarda: la abadesa de Bingen y su tiempo, ed. Azucena Adelina Fraboschi (Buenos Aires: Ediciones de la Universidad Católica Argentina, 2003), 173. Dezzutto defines affectus as an affective motion that moves the spirit and is provoked by a sensory experience. 284 Newman, Sister of Wisdom, 45-46, 55-64, 95-95. 285 The twelfth century gave rise to a richer view of the Incarnation, which valued Christ’s humanity not as merely a ransom paid through death for the sake of human redemption, but as an end in itself. Abbot Rupert of Deutz expressed this view, echoing Proverbs 8:31, saying that the delight of Christ was ‘to be with the human race.’ Bell, Many Mansions, 218. These considerations lead to the question of whether or not Christ would have become incarnate had man not fallen. This complex and intriguing question is outside of the scope of this thesis. 90

characteristically affective or physical character to popular devotion and prayer.286 For example, the English Cistercian, Aelred of Rievaulx is known for his tender writings of devotion to the humanity of Jesus Christ.287 This characteristic of twelfth-century spirituality can also be seen in the tendency for tears to be among the most admired qualities of spiritual men and women; there are many accounts of monastics weeping for their sins and those of others.288 Many wrote of a personal devotion to Jesus in terms that were emotional and sensual in appealing to all the senses, particularly in accounts of mystic visions.289 The humanity of Christ, was helpful for monastic devotion both in aiding affectionate adoration and facilitating close imitation.

The increase in affective spirituality stemming from increased attention given to the doctrine of the Incarnation provided Hildegard with a doctrinal foundation for her theology of music. She said in her letter to the prelates:

Sicut corpus Iesu Christi de Spiritu Sancto ex integritate Virginis Marie natum est, canticum laudum, secundum coelestem harmoniam per Spiritum sanctum in Ecclesia radicatum; corpus vero indumentum est animae, quae vivam vocem habet, ideoque decet ut corpus cum anima per vocem Deo laudes decantet.

[Just as the body of Jesus Christ was born of the spotlessness of the Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit, the song of praise according to the Heavenly harmony is rooted in the Church by the Holy Spirit. The body, however, is the clothing of the soul, which has a living voice, and therefore it is fitting for the body, together with the soul, to sing praises to God with its voice.]290

In this passage, three pairs of opposites are set up in analogy to one another: the divine person and the human body of Christ, the music of heaven and the music of the Church

286 Marsha L Dutton, “Eat, Drink, and Be Merry: The Eucharistic Spirituality of the Cistercian Fathers,” in Erudition at God's Service, ed. John R. Sommerfeldt (Kalamazoo: Cistercian Publications, 1987), 2. 287 Bell, Many Mansions, 217 and Constable, The Reformation of the Twelfth Century, 283-285. 288 Constable, The Reformation of the Twelfth Century, 273. On tears, Constable cites as examples the work of Peter Damiani, Arnold of Regensburg, Aelred of Rievaulx and the life of Ulrich of Zell, among others. 289 Constable, The Reformation of the Twelfth Century, 282. 290 Hildegard of Bingen, Epistolarium, Epist. XXIII, lines 127-131. 91

on earth, and the body and soul of the human person. Each of these pairs includes two elements from very different planes of reality which are nonetheless intimately united with the other. Just as it was fitting for the divine person of Christ to dwell in the physical body of the Blessed Virgin Mary, it is fitting for the music of heaven to be joined to the song of the Church on earth. Likewise, it is fitting for the spiritual soul of man to make use of the voice of its body to praise God. The theological basis for humanity’s ability to praise God in body as well as soul that Hildegard found in the Incarnation meant that what is greater lowered itself to the level of what is lesser, allowing the lower to be elevated through this contact. The Son of God lowered himself to work through his creature, the Blessed Virgin Mary. Likewise, the Holy Spirit allowed the music of heaven to be sung in the Church on earth. These examples of exquisite condescension made by the divine persons gave great value to what a human person could accomplish in his body—songs sung with the body are worth more than simple spiritual operations performed by the soul alone.291

Hildegard expressed this view of music’s function in other works to her letter to the prelates of Mainz. Besides this letter, the final vision of Scivias contained the most explicit references to Hildegard’s theology of music in general and to a musical pedagogy in particular. The material that Hildegard reported to have heard in this particular vision was almost entirely sung. Hildegard included in this vision an account of the choirs of heaven, which also included theological teaching drawn from reflection on the Incarnation. Hildegard says:

291 Noting the importance of music actually performed, and not merely existing as in the essence of a being, Hiedi Epstein reads Hildegard to present music as a “indispensable integrator between body and soul” which has “an integrative effect with the human body and, pari passu, within the ecclesial/monastic community.” Melting the Venusberg (New York: Continuum, 2004), 127. 92

Quapropter et sonus ille ut vox multitudinis in laudibus de supernis gradibus in harmonia symphonizat, quia symphonia in unanimitate et in concordia gloriam et honorem coelestium civium ruminat, ita quod et ipsa hoc sursum tollit quod verbum palam profert.

[That sound, like the voice of a multitude, harmonizes in praise of the highest ranks, because the music sung in unity and concord retells the glory and the honor of the citizens of the celestial city, and it lifts up what the word has made manifest.]

She continued, making a musical analogy in three parts: “Sic et verbum corpus designat, symphonia vero spiritum manifestat, quoniam et coelestis harmonia divinitatem denuntiat, et verbum humanitatem Filii Dei propalat. [“As the words symbolize the body, the harmonious music makes the soul manifest, the celestial harmony reveals the Divinity and the words the humanity of the Son of God.”]292 The words of a song are to melody, as the body is to the soul of a human person, and as the humanity of the Son of God is to his divinity. In the context of describing the song of the citizens of heaven, she used the comparison of words to melody to make a point about two other pairs: words-body- humanity as subordinate to melody-soul-divinity. In each case, the lower element is elevated, and made to participate in something beyond it through its connection with the higher element.

The great importance of music for Hildegard is clearly illustrated by the fact that in this comparison, it is the words of a song that are placed on the subordinated side and the melody that is placed on the higher side. In the case of the Incarnate Son of God in medieval Christian theology, it is clear that the Divinity would be the higher element which condescends to humanity. Likewise, Hildegard considered the soul to be the higher element with respect to the body. Therefore it is significant that when she compared both

292 Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias, PL 197, 0736 A-B. 93

the relationships of the body to the soul and Christ’s humanity to his Divinity, to a song,

Hildegard placed the melody on the side of the higher elements and the words on the side of the subordinate elements, indicating that she placed a higher value on the melody than on the words of a song. Her uncompromising position that the liturgy must be sung or it was not performed correctly becomes clearer in light of this unique vision, recorded decades before Hildegard wrote her letter to the prelates. In her vision of the choirs of heaven, which her earthly monastic choir longed to imitate, it is the melody, more than the words, which corresponds to the human soul and to the Divinity itself.

The emphasis Hildegard placed on the melody as opposed to the words of a song and the connection of this emphasis to the doctrine of the Incarnation should be kept in mind in the anaylsis of Hildegard’s pedagogical use of music expressed in both her visionary works and the letter to the prelates. Hildegard’s aim to instruct the entire human person, body, soul, and emotions, is further evidenced later on in the thirteenth vision of

Scivias, where she gave a long list of things that she recommended her readers to “hear” in music. All of these things are actually things that a sister would need to learn, not only intellectually, but to learn in such a way that they could be enthusiastically put into practice:

Quod et David in symphonia prophetiae suae probat, et Jeremias lamentabili voce in planctu suo ostendit. Ita et tu, o homo, quae es paupercula et fragilis natura, audis in symphonia sonum de igneo ardore virginalis pudoris, in amplexibus verborum florentis virgae, et sonum de acumine viventium luminum in superna civitate lucentium, et sonum de prophetia profundorum sermonum, et sonum de dilatatione apostolatus mirabilium verborum, et sonum de effusione sanguinis fideliter se offerentium, et sonum de sacerdotali officio secretorum, et sonum de virginali gradu in superna viredine florentium, quoniam superno Creatori fidelis creatura sua in voce exsultationis et laetitiae resultat, et grates frequentes ei impendit.

94

[For David demonstrates this with his music of and Jeremiah exhibits his voice of lamentation in his cry. And you, o man, who are of a poor and fragile nature, hear through music the sound of the fiery ardor of virginal modesty in the embrace of the flowering branch of the words, and the sound of the brightness of the living lights which light up the celestial city, the sound of the prophecy of profound discourse, and the sound of the apostolic enlarging of wonderful words, the sound of the effusion of the blood of the faithful offering themselves, the sound of the priestly office of mysteries, the sound of the procession of virgins resplendent in heavenly life, since the faithful creature exults in his creator with a voice of exultation and joy, frequently offering thanks to Him.]293

Much of what Hildegard spoke of in this passage was not music in a literal sense, but rather the virtues she encouraged Christian souls to seek after—the apostolic preaching of the word of God, the pouring out of one’s own blood in martyrdom, or the life of a virgin consecrated to Christ. However, in exhorting her reader to “hear” all of these things in music, she was alluding to music’s power to move a soul to practice these and other virtues. Hildegard finished her exhortation to devotion with the following conclusion:

“Nam et symphonia, dura corda emollit; et ipsis humorem compunctionis inducit, ac

Spiritum sanctum advocat.” [“For music softens hardened hearts, draws forth tears of compunction, and summons the Holy Spirit.”]294 Gunillla Iverson points out that through this final vision of Scivias, Hildegard was emphasizing the power of music to move hearts to action, noting that the connection between music and tears of compunction places Hildegard in the tradition of Gregory the Great.295 The power of music to draw tears is echoed in the passage from the letter cited above: “sometimes, upon hearing songs, people begin to sigh and moan, remembering the nature of the celestial

293 Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias, PL 197, 0736A-B. 294 Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias, PL 197, 0736D. 295 Gunilla Iverson, “Ego Humilitatis, regina virtutum: Poetic Language and Literary Structure in Hildegard of Bingen’s Vision of the Virtues,” in The "Ordo Virtutum" of Hildegard of Bingen: Critical Studies, ed. Audrey Ekdahl Davidson (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1992), 103. 95

harmony.”296 These sighs and moans must be considered helpful for the soul: tears that summon the Holy Spirit. Hardened hearts could be considered to be those hearts that had forgotten the nature of the celestial harmony.

On both of these occasions Hildegard referred to a visible and emotional reaction to music: tears of compunction and sighing and moaning. One could venture to say that

Hildegard, who encouraged her sisters to experience music in this way, would never have objected, as Heloise did, to singing: “Preces gementes fundimus, dimitte quod peccavimus,” or “Nostros pius cum canticis fletus benigne suscipe.” Tears and external emotional reactions to prayer, by involving the body, soul, and emotions of the sister, strengthened her desire to choose the good. On another occasion, in her visionary work,

Liber Vitae Meritorum, Hildegard also taught that prayers said with devotion (and a devotion evidenced by external signs), were more effective.

Nam cum lamentabilis uox prophetarum, per quam iustitiam et miracula Dei protulerunt, pro liberatione alicuius corporalis afflictionis seu pro requie animarum defunctorum ad laudem Dei pronuntiatur, necessitati dolentium, ut promeruerunt, subuenit, quia etiam primum per dolorem et per suspiria dictata est. Et omnium istorum Deus fundamentum est, et ea suscipit, quoniam in ipsis tangitur. Homo nempe a Deo ualde amatur, cum ei studiose seruierit.

[For when the justice and miracles of God are made manifest by those who sing the praises of God along with the prophet’s voice of lamentation on behalf of someone’s bodily afflictions or in order to bring rest to the souls of the dead, or to assist the suffering, help comes to them because it is said with sighs and sorrow. God is the foundation of all these things and he inspires them since he is touched through them. Man is loved intensely by God when he serves him zealously.]297

296 Hildegard of Bingen, Epistolarium, Epist. XXIII, 138-143. Et quoniam in auditu alicujus cantionis interdum homo saepe suspirat et gemit, naturam coelestis harmoniae recolens, propheta, subtiliter profundam spiritus naturam considerans et sciens quia symphonialis est anima, hortatur in psalmo, ut confiteamur Domino in cithara, et in psalterio decem chordarum psallamus ei. 297 Hildegard of Bingen, Liber vitae meritorum, Centre Traditio Litterarum Occidentalium. Library of Latin Texts [electronic resource] (S.I. Brepols Publishers, 2010), Pars 5 Cap. 82, linea 1333. 96

The emphasis she placed on the external signs of emotions, which could be spoken of as an exclusively spiritual or interior experience, shows once again the importance of the actions of the body in Hildegard’s understanding of the spiritual life.

Further on in the same visionary work, Hildegard expressed the pedagogy of learning through music explicitly. In the final section of Liber Vitae Meritorum Hildegard described the blessed souls in heaven singing as part of the celestial choirs, which was the goal for all monastic singers still on earth, and said that they were prepared for this privilege in heaven precisely by participating in the same practice on earth in the form of the singing of the divine office:

Ob laudem quoque, qua Deum in uoce iubilationis humiliter et deuote in seculo laudauerant, uox eorum sonum omnis generis musicorum habebat; et ob incessabilem in diuino officio cordis et oris eorum seruitutem, ubi in corporibus suis uiuentes unamquamque uirtutem benigne ruminauerant, sine tedio cantica noua semper cantabant.

[On account of the praise with which they had humbly and devoutly praised God with a joyful voice in time, their voices had the sound of every kind of music; and on account of their constant service in [singing] well, with their hearts and their mouths, the divine office, in which they meditated on every virtue, they were singing the new song without any trouble.]298

Hildegard drew this connection between the virtues, often personified, and music again and again throughout her works. Through participation in music these souls had meditated on every virtue—the liturgy had been their school for learning how to do good works. William Flynn commented that this connection is also often found in medieval psalm commentaries and liturgical rules and customaries by way of justification for the singing of the liturgy.299 However, even more than the connection between virtues and music, what is most significant about this passage is that the daily singing of divine office

298 Hildegard of Bingen, Liber vitae meritorum, Pars 6, Cap. 27, linea 420. 299 Flynn, “Singing with Angels,” 215. 97

on earth prepared these souls to sing in heaven “without any trouble.” In Liber Divinorum

Operum we find another example of a connection drawn between music and learning virtues. This example differs in that the musical element is metaphoric rather than literal.

Hildegard had been speaking of the who preach with their own blood, but at this point she switches to speaking of teachers:

Qui autem per doctrinam omnipotentis Dei officium suum exercent, alios docendo, fistulis sanctitatis resonant, cum per vocem rationalitatis justitiam in mentes hominum canunt; sicut etiam verbum dictat, et sonus resonat, et ut per sonum verbum auditur, et circumdatur, quatenus audiri possit.

[Those who carry out their duty by teaching the doctrine of the almighty God to others resound like of sanctity when by the voice of rationality they chant justice into the minds of men; even as they say a word the sound resounds, and by the sound the words are heard and spread around as far as they can be heard.]300

This is a telling use of a musical metaphor because Hildegard was talking about teachers who used the spoken word to instruct or preach and she said their voices “resound like flutes” because they were using them to teach the true doctrine of almighty God. By teaching rationally with their voices, these teachers “chanted” (cannunt) justice into their students. The connection drawn between music and rational instruction is important to avoid interpreting Hildegard’s views as mere emotionalism and pietism without a foundation in doctrine. Hildegard did not recommend an irrational use of music that privileged the emotions at the expense of the reason. In the same vision of Scivias, cited above, she said: “Et ut potestas Dei ubique volans omnia circuit, nec ei ullum obstaculum reistit, ita et rationalitas hominis magnam vim habet in vivis vocibus sonare, et torpentes animas ad vigilantiam in symphonia excitare.” [As the power of God flies everywhere, surrounding all things and no obstacle can resist him, so too human rationality has a great

300 Hildegard of Bingen, Liber Divinorum Operum, PL vol 197 col 0971D. 98

power to sound in living voices and arouse torpid souls to vigilance through song.”]301

Dezzutto has attributed the importance of the intellect and rationality in all the activities of the emotions and the senses to Hildegard’s careful practice of the virtue of discretio, moderation and discretion.302 Aesthetic input from the senses and the affections was beneficial, but the intellect still needed to give direction to the entire person in order to practice true virtues.

In these passages, taken from all three of Hildegard’s main visionary works, the basic idea from Hildegard’s letter to the prelates was repeated: the benefit of moving the heart and instructing the mind of a sister through the use of music. These examples further demonstrate the indispensability of music to Hildegard’s educational designs.

Hildegard was concerned that her sisters would be negatively affected by not being permitted to sing the liturgy because music was more than a pleasant vehicle for giving information to the mind. In a much deeper sense, the lack of music affected the care of souls because music inspired and moved a soul to love and choose the goods of heaven, precisely the spiritual goods Hildegard was most concerned to give to her sisters.

In the second and third of the key passages from her letter that were mentioned above, Hildegard gave a theoretical foundation to her claim that the affective side of the liturgy could be effective as a teaching tool: because it is through what is exterior that we learn about what is interior. Throughout her visionary writings, Hildegard consistently used the phrases “interior” and “exterior” to mean “pertaining to spiritual things” and

“pertaining to physical things,” or also, “pertaining to the soul” and “pertaining to the body.” Barbara Grant expresses this same principle, pointing out that Hildegard’s

301 Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias, PL 197, 0736A-B. 302 Dezzutto, “Visio y Affectus,” 183. 99

liturgical songs were designed to make something hidden, mysterious and eternal present and accessible through the senses of the body.303 This design has a clear correspondance to the doctrine of the Incarnation, the purpose of which was to show God’s desire to make his eternal being present to man in a physical body. Hildegard’s pedagogical argument was that the way to learn about spiritual (or interior) things was through bodily (or exterior) things, and so replacing the physical activity of singing with the more intellectual activity of merely reading the liturgy would hinder this important instruction to the point that Hildegard felt it was necessary to write her letter to the prelates. That the non-material, spiritual side of man was reached through the sensory, physical side was a statement that Hildegard made in her letter on two different occasions.

In both of these passages Hildegard used Old Testament references to music to make her case. The first instance came right after she informed the prelates that she and her sisters had been forced to celebrate the divine office incorrectly by only reading it.

She relayed to the prelates a specific request from the Living Light for praise that was musical, thereby resting on divine authority. In her vision, the request from the Living

Light used the words of an Old Testament Psalm:

Audivi vocem a vivente luce procedentem de diversis generibus laudum, de quibus David in Psalmis dicit: Laudate eum in sono tubae, laudate eum in psalterio et cithara, et cetera usque ad id: Omnis spiritus laudet Dominum. In quibus verbis per exteriora de interioribus instruimur, quomodo secundum materialium compositionem, vel qualitatem instrumentorum, interioris hominis nostri officia, ad Creatoris maxime laudes convertere et informare debeamus.

[I heard a voice coming from the Living Light speaking about the different kinds of praise, of which David said in the psalm: ‘Praise him with the sound of the trumpet, praise him with the psaltery and the cithara.’ And again he said; ‘Let every spirit praise the Lord.’304 By these words, we are instructed in interior things

303 Grant, “Five Liturgical Songs,” 564. 304 Psalm 150:3-6. 100

through exterior things, so that according to the material composition or quality of the instruments, we must give form to the duties of our inner man and return great praises to the Creator.]305

The second instance of this same argument came after she had described the fall of Adam and his loss of ability to harmonize with the angels. At this point, Hildegard described the history of salvation from a distinctly musical perspective. The Old Testament prophets306 had an important role to play in the history of salvation because they began the work of remembering the music that Adam had forgotten: “Ut autem etiam divinae illius dulcedinis et laudationis, qua in Deo, priusquam caderet, idem Adam jucundabatur, et non ejus in hoc exsilio recordarentur, et ad haec quoque ipsi provocarentur, iidem S.

Prophetae eodem spiritu quem acceperant, …” [“Since Adam had joined in that divine sweetness and praises in God before he fell, and then couldn’t remember it in this exile, the Holy Prophets, who had received the same spirit, were also called to these things.”]

Hildegard then gave two ways that the prophets did this work: “edocti, non solum psalmos et cantica, quae ad accendendam audientium devotionem cantarentur, sed et instrumenta musicae artis diversa, quibus cum multiplicibus sonis proferrentur…” [“Thus they composed not only psalms and canticles, which were sung to increase devotion by hearing, but they also made musical instruments by different arts, with which they produced many sounds.”] And finally, she explained how their music contributed to instruction in interior things: “hoc respectu composuerunt, ut tam ex formis quam ex qualitatibus eorumdem instrumentorum, quam ex sensu verborum, quae in eis recitarentur audientes, ut praedictum est, per exteriora admoniti et exercitati, de interioribus

305 Hildegard of Bingen, Epistolarium, Epist. XXIII, 58-65. 306 She would be referring specifically to King David who was credited with authorship of the book of psalms. 101

erudirentur.” [“Thus, both through the form and the quality of these instruments as through the meaning of the words that were recited, as has been said, those who heard, thus admonished and trained by the exterior things, were taught of the interior things.”]307

In both of these instances Hildegard explained that she and her sisters, like the men listening to the Old Testament prophets, were fruitfully instructed in interior things through the practice of music. She also argued the same point from the other side: the exterior act of singing was able to “give form” or manifest the interior state of the soul because the interior, or the soul, had first been instructed by the exterior.308

Hildegard’s exhortation to learn about interior things through exterior things reflected her understanding of the nature of both God and the human person. God was a spiritual reality and therefore the basic means by which a person was united to God must be spiritual, what she called “the duties of the inner man.” However, the human soul depended on the senses for all knowledge, and so the exterior world accessible to the senses played an important role in enabling human beings to be able to perform such spiritual operations in the interior of the soul. Hildegard could not carry out these interior

307 Hildegard of Bingen, Epistolarium, Epist. XXIII, 84-94. 308 Both of these passages also contain a reference to musical instruments, which must not be misread to mean that these instruments were used in the liturgy at Hildegard’s monastery. These references to instruments say much more about the way the Old Testament was used in Hildegard’s monastery— throughout her writing Hildegard drew metaphoric and allegorical teaching from the composition, form, and quality of the musical instruments.The question of the use of musical instruments in medieval liturgy is a large issue that is not the focus of this work. For persuasive cases against the claim that musical instruments were used in medieval Christian liturgies, see McKinnon, The Temple, the Church Fathers, and Early Western Chant, in particular the chapters entitled: “Musical Instruments in Medieval Psalm Commentaries and Psalters,” 3-20 and “The Meaning of the Patristic Polemic against Musical Instruments,” 69-82 and also Edmund A. Bowles, “Were Musical Instruments Used in the Liturgical Service during the Middle Ages?” The Galpin Society Journal 10 (1957): 40-56. For a different opinion, that some instruments were in fact used in medieval female monasteries, see Therese Schroeder-Sheker, “The Use of Plucked-Stringed Instruments in Medieval ,” Mystics Quarterly 15 (1989): 133-139. Arguing for Hildegard’s use of instruments not only in the Ordo, but also in the liturgy, see Ruth Lightbourne, "The Question of Instruments and Dance in Hildegard of Bingen's Twelfth-Century Music Drama Ordo Virtutum," Parergon 9 (1991): 45-65. 102

duties without the participation of her body through the use of exterior things accessible to the senses.

This general principle can be found in all of Hildegard’s genres of writing, even in the monastic practices we hear about incidentally through her letters. For example, we know from her correspondence that Hildegard used special and particular dress, such as long white veils representing the fact that the nuns were brides of Christ, in the choir to mark off special feast days.309 This custom allowed the nuns to experience their condition as brides of Christ in a very sensory way. Another example could be found in the detailed rites full of specific physical actions and objects she prescribed for a certain possessed woman.310 Also, her general methodology for teaching theology in her main visionary works reflected this pedagogy. She described visions that were full of sensory data, things that she not only saw, but also heard, smelled or touched; and then she used the sensory content of these visions to teach Church doctrine—doctrine which others had taught in a more abstract way. She not only described her visions with sensory language, but she even made (or had made)311 color illuminations in her manuscripts which visually reflect the visions she wrote about. Constant Mews notes the common twelfth-century biblical justification for teaching with creative artistic expression: “The verse Romans 1:20

‘through the things of the world, the invisible things of God are made manifest’ provided

Hildegard, and many other twelfth century thinkers, with the opportunity to present

309 See Epistolarium I, letter 52 and Sarah Higley, “Dressing up the Nuns: the and Hildegard of Bingen's Clothing,” in Medieval Clothing and Textiles, ed. Robin Netherton and Gale R. Owen-Crocker (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell Press, 2010), 97-99. 310 Vita, Book 3 chapter 20, pages 83-92. 311 Madeline Caviness argues that Hildegard herself played a significant role in the artistic renderings of her visions in manuscript illuminations in “Artist: To See, Hear and Know All at Once,” in Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Her World, ed. Barbara Newman (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 115ff. 103

familiar spiritual truths in new ways.”312 In keeping with a general twelfth-century understanding of the ultimate goal of the human person as the perfection of the spiritual soul, which is achieved through the concrete, material conditions surrounding the body,

Hildegard taught through the most effective means she had: the daily experience of the physical world, especially what was most beautiful of the world.

Hildegard’s insistence on teaching the spiritual soul through physical beauty of music is best understood within the context of her Incarnational worldview. The perfect union of divinity and humanity that took place in the Incarnation was in her thought a parallel image to the enduring but difficult union of the soul and body of man. To break the union of the words and the melody, as reciting the liturgy without music did, would be to give credence to the dualists who elevated the soul at the expense of the body and even to undermine the importance of the true union between humanity and divinity which took place in the Incarnation. By comparing this union to the relationship between text and music in a song, as seen in vision thirteen of Scivias, Hildegard highlighted the power of music to bring human speech to transcend itself, and become divine praise, especially in the liturgy.

In conclusion, according to Hildegard, the entire human person was involved in the affective experiences of music, which allowed for a correspondence or harmony to be achieved among the human tendencies and desires. Thoughts, feelings and sense experiences were united by a superior wisdom in order to unite all the potencies of a

312 Constant Mews, “Hildegard of Bingen: The Virgin, the Apocalypse, and the Exegetical Tradition,” in Wisdom Which Encircles Circles: Papers on Hildegard of Bingen, ed. Audrey Ekdahl Davidson (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1996), 29. 104

person and direct them toward the final end, God himself.313 The beauty of music, which appealed to the senses, could move a person to desire a good—even a spiritual good that was beyond natural human experience. Therefore, the music in the liturgy had the power to lead a soul to heaven. It did this by bringing together both spiritual and physical elements in an activity performed by those seeking God. Hildegard considered music to be particularly effective because its pedagogy was not only informative, but attractive and moved a soul to desire the good that it was shown.

313 Dezzutto, “Visio y Affectus,” 182. 105

Chapter Three: Remembering Heaven

“Recolimus ualiter homo vocem viventis Spiritus re uisivit…”314

Beyond music’s ability to appeal to the senses and emotions, thus opening minds and hearts to spiritual matters, Hildegard’s plea for the lifting of the interdict also argued that music reminded the sisters that their final goal was to reach heaven. They needed this reminder because of the effects of original sin on each person, which created disharmony within the person (leading to sickness and death), caused one to forget, or lose the knowledge of God that one once possessed, and placed obstacles to the friendship man had once enjoyed with God. This chapter will argue that Hildegard believed that participation in the sung liturgy worked against damages to the relationship between God and humanity incurred at the fall and thus was essential to the nuns’ journey to heaven.

Music restored the relationship between God and humanity in three ways. First, Hildegard believed music served as an extended meditation on spiritual matters and thus was a reminder of God and heaven. Second, because Hildegard believed that there was a musical harmony built into all of creation, which allowed a soul to recognize that her own moral harmony had been fundamentally disturbed by the fall, she believed that music had the power to overcome the disharmony between body and soul created by original sin.

Finally, nuns singing the liturgy participated in the choirs of heaven. Through this participation music became a quasi-sacramental symbol which brought souls into contact with the transcendent reality that it symbolized, thereby restoring lost harmony not only on a human level between a person’s body and soul, but also on a transcendental level between man and his creator.

314 Hildegard of Bingen, Epistolarium, Epist. XXIII, line 65. 106

These ideas that Hildegard taught can be traced through the intellectual tradition she inherited, including both Christian and classical influence. This chapter will integrate the monastic context and practice of music with Hildegard’s intellectual inheritance.

Proceeding according to Guy Beck’s suggestion that the study of the meaning of music has important contributions to make toward the understanding of religion as “beliefs lived out” that create a cultural context,315 this chapter will examine the interaction between the ideas Hildegard inherited and her lived experience of these ideas, which contributed to the cultural context in which she practiced music. It traces the sources of these ideas about heaven and harmony, which caused her to react the way she did to the interdict placed on her community. While the particular mode of her expression of these ideas (her connection between Adam’s fall and his loss of musical ability and the impact that has on her nuns) is unique, the underlying assumptions she bases this theological interpretation on place her squarely as a child of the twelfth century. In this intellectual climate, it will become clear that, according to Hildegard, music was not incidental to religion, but

“animated” and “sustained” religious practice. 316

In her letter Hildegard three times refers to Adam’s sin as “forgetting,” “not remembering” and “falling asleep”317 to the knowledge that he had and three times refers to “remembering”318 heavenly things in the context of music. Her basic contention is that

Adam used to have a beautiful singing voice and was able to harmonize with the angels; however, as a result of his sin, he lost this ability.319 In the biblical text of the fall of

315 Beck, Sacred Sound, 14. 316 Beck, Sacred Sound, 21. 317 Hildegard of Bingen. Epistolarium, Epist. XXIII, lines 39, 71-77, and 84-86. 318 Hildegard of Bingen. Epistolarium, Epist. XXIII, lines 99, 106, and 139. 319 Hildegard of Bingen. Epistolarium, Epist. XXIII, lines 67-68. 107

Adam, singing is mentioned nowhere. The musical side of the person of Adam was

Hildegard’s own extrapolation from the text, possibly inspired by her visions. Hildegard’s description of Adam as a singer who praised God with his voice linked Adam’s activity directly to the principal activity of a twelfth century female monastery—the singing of the liturgy.

The link with Adam served to reinforce the meaning and value singing the liturgy had for Hildegard’s community and express it for the benefit of the prelates. Leclercq has pointed out that medieval monastics wrote little in the vein of a theory of the liturgy, “its importance was quite taken for granted and for men who were living constantly under its influence it hardly needed any commentary.”320 Yet the attitudes of monks toward the liturgy can be culled, from prologues to liturgical books;321 from monastic treatises on musical theory written in order to aid in the singing of the liturgy, but also concerned with the moral side of the activity;322 and from even more indirect sources, such as glosses on liturgical hymns, or prayers composed for use in conjunction with the singing of the psalms.323 Adam’s loss of musical ability as described by Hildegard in the letter to the

320 Leclercq, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God, 233. This entire chapter, entitled “The Poem of the Liturgy” (232-249) is a good introduction to medieval monastic theology of the liturgy. Rupert de Deutz’s De divinis officiis, PL 170, 11-532 is the only medieval monastic treatise explicitly dealing with the liturgy that Leclercq mentions (The Love of Learning and the Desire for God, 324). McCarthy mentions an unedited liturgical treatise by Frutolf of Michelsberg, a scholar and monk of eleventh-century Bamburg, entitled De officiis divinis (Music, Scholasticism and Reform, 42). 321 For example in his preface to his Hymnal, Abelard reflects on the reasons Heloise asked him to compose new hymns for the Paraclete Liturgy (see the Appendix of Mews, “Liturgy and Identity at the Paraclete,” 30-33. St. Bernard also wrote a prologue to a liturgical book in the form of a letter explaining the reasons for the Cistercian liturgical reform (Waddell, “Saint Bernard of Clairvaux, Sweet Singer of Israel,”440). 322 Leclercq, The Love of Learning and the Desire for God, 245. McCarthy also notes that materials on the liturgy appear among the writings of the music theorists in south Germany. “Chapter One: the South German Circle,” in Music, Scholasticism and Reform, 11-53, especially 19 and 25 323 Susan Boynton has done many studies in this area. See, for example "Latin Glosses on the Office Hymns in Eleventh-Century Continental Hymnaries," 1-26 or “Prayer as Liturgical Performance in Eleventh- and Twelfth-Century Monastic Psalters," Speculum 82, 4 (2007): 898-931. Another example is tenth-century Anglo-Saxon liturgical poems, which Sarah Larratt Keefer considers to be a devotional reflection on the monastic liturgy. Keefer, introduction to Old English Liturgical Verse, 14-15. She comments “The writing 108

prelates can also be considered in this same vein of reflection on the meaning of the liturgy; particularly on the meaning of the musical elements of the monastic liturgy and the connection Hildegard understood between the monastic liturgy and heaven.

Based on the descriptions in her visionary writings, it is clear that music had a very important role to play in Hildegard’s idea of heaven. All three of her major visionary works finished with majestic descriptions of the splendor of heaven, and her only dramatic piece had as its theme the soul’s journey to heaven. The wonders of heaven were also the major theme of her liturgical songs, the collection of which is in fact entitled:

Symphony of the Harmony of Celestial Revelations. Hildegard’s liturgical compositions demonstrate a constant awareness that heaven was the goal; from beginning to end the

Symphonia is “laudatory,” featuring abundant exclamations beginning with O, and an overwhelmingly positive, joyful and luminous tone, characteristics that brings heaven to the mind of the listener.324

The hope of one day reaching the joy of union with God in heaven was, ideally at least, the guiding principal in the life of twelfth-century nuns. According to Augustine and the Christian tradition, among the consequences of the fall for humanity was the expulsion from paradise—both the original earthly paradise of Eden and the heavenly paradise Christians hope to reach after death.325 The principal aim of medieval monastic life was union with God, which must be understood to mean both a union of spirits while the human body is alive on earth and eventually admittance to the beatific vision in body

of a poetic meditation based on a prayer that one repeats many times in a single day is an unusual act of self-awareness, since it must examine the supremely obvious for a deeper resonance of belief.” 324 Maria Ester Ortiz, “Algunos Aspectos Literarios en Symphonia de Hildegarda del Bingen,” in Conociendo a Hildegarda: la abadesa de Bingen y su tiempo, ed. Azucena Adelina Fraboschi (Buenos Aires: Ediciones de la Universidad Católica, 2003), 157-159. 325 Bell, Many Mansions, 209-212. 109

and soul after the resurrection of the dead.326 Jean Leclercq dedicated a chapter in The

Love of Learning and the Desire for God to establishing “devotion to heaven” as “the most important of the themes to which the monks of the middle ages applied literary art.”327 He gives several examples of themes often repeated in monastic literature and liturgy that indicate a constant longing for heaven, such as descriptions of transcendence, considerations on eternal life, and many symbolic references, including descriptions of the heavenly Jerusalem comparing the earthly city of the monastery to the heavenly one and tears as the expression of desire for heaven. It was a common literary trope of the twelfth century to refer to the monastery as a paradise on earth or an anticipation of heaven.328 In fact, William of St. Denis, Walter Daniel and Gilbert of Swineshead, twelfth-century monastic writers, all speak specifically of the “sweet sounds” of their earthly paradise, which, in the beauty of their internal harmony, touch the soul and rouse it to God.329 A concern with heaven was not by any means limited to the monastic world.

Jeffery Burton Russell discusses the attention early scholastics, such as Abelard and Peter

Lombard, also gave to reflecting on the nature of heaven using dialectic thought rather than the affective images, metaphors and poetic texts preferred by monastic writers.330

Heaven can be considered to be the final goal and principal aim for any Christian of the

326 See Leclercq, Love of Learning and the Desire for God, 228-231 for an account of the theology of union with God in twelfth-century monasticism. 327 Leclercq, Love of Learning and the Desire for God, 58. Dutton also emphasizes the monastic awareness of Heaven as the goal of all devotions in “Eat, Drink, and Be Merry,” 14-15 and 24-26. 328 Giles Constable, “Renewal and Reform in Religious Life: Concepts and Realties,” in Renaissance and Renewal in the Twelfth Century, Robert L. Benson and Giles Constable, eds. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982), 37-67, 48-51. Constable cites examples from the writings of Odo of Anchin, Alexander of Lewes and Peter of Blois, among others. For further treatment of the images of Heaven as a garden and Heaven as a city, see also Colleen McDannell and Bernhard Lang. Heaven: A History (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2001), 69-80. 329 Constable, “Renewal and Reform in Religious Life,” 50-51. 330 Russell, “Chapter Eight, Wooing the Bridegroom,” in A History of Heaven, 114-124. 110

twelfth century who took his religion seriously, and represents an important theme in the music practiced in Hildegard’s monastery.

In her letter to the prelates of Mainz, before beginning to address the role music plays in helping souls reach heaven, Hildegard established her understanding of sin as forgetfulness of God: “Qui autem, sicut Adam, preceptis Dei inobediens exsistit et eum omnino in oblivion habet, hic a corpore eius separari debet.” [“However, he who, like

Adam, disobeys the precepts of God, and is completely forgetful of Him, must be separated from His Body.”]331 This equation of sin and forgetting gave her a basis to describe music as a spiritual aid that helped to trigger the memory. Further on in her letter, Hildegard made this connection explicit, adding now the role of music:

Quibus cum diligenter intendimus, recolimus qualiter homo vocem viventis Spiritus requisivit, quam Adam per inobedientiam perdidit, qui ante transgressionem, adhuc innocens, non minimam societatem cum angelicarum laudum vocibus habebat, quas ipsi ex spiritali natura sua possident, qui a spiritu qui Deus est, spiritus vocantur. Similitudinem ergo vocis angelicae, quam in habebat, Adam perdidit, et in scientia quam ante peccatum praeditus erat, ita obdormivit, sicut a somno evigilans de his, quae in somnis viderat, inscius et incertus redditur, quando suggestione diaboli deceptus, et voluntati Creatoris sui repugnans, tenebris interioris ignorantiae ex merito iniquitatis suae involutus est.

[When we diligently consider these things [the musical praises God merits], we recall how man required the voice of the living Spirit, which Adam lost by disobedience; Adam, still innocent before his transgression had no little association with the praise of the angelic voices, which the angels, who are called spirit by the Spirit who is God, possess by their spiritual nature. Adam lost, therefore, the likeness to the angelic voices that he had in paradise. He fell asleep to the knowledge that he had been given before he sinned; and just as a man waking from sleep is hazy and uncertain of those thing that he saw in his dreams, so Adam, when he was deceived by the deceptions of the devil and rejected the will of his Creator, was enwrapped in the darkness of interior ignorance through his iniquity.]332

331 Hildegard of Bingen, Epistolarium, Epist. XXIII, 39-40: 332 Hildegard of Bingen, Epistolarium, Epist. XXIII, 65-77. (Emphasis is mine). 111

Hildegard taught in this passage that Adam was meant to sing God’s praises with the angels, and to this purpose at his creation Adam had a beautiful voice capable of joining in with the angels’ harmony. However, together with the loss of knowledge of the things of God, Adam also lost his musical ability through his sin. Hildegard had previously expressed this idea in Causae et Curae: “Adam also knew the angelic song and every kind of music before his fall, and he had a voice that sounded like the sounding of a monochord.” 333 Adam, as the first human being, was commonly understood to stand as a representative for all of humankind –and so Hildegard would have seen the situation of the inhabitants of her own monastery reflected in the plight of Adam. If the loss of musical ability accompanied a loss of inner harmony for Adam, this would imply for

Hildegad that the loss of the permission to sing would cause a similar loss of harmony for the members of her community.

Hildegard believed that even though the religious life was intended to be entirely oriented toward reaching heaven, the consequences of Adam’s fall meant that the way was arduous and the sisters needed to be constantly re-oriented toward their goal. Due to the fact that human existence is in time, memory and remembering important truths figure among the central concerns in the practice of religion. In Ritual: Perspective and

Dimensions, Catherine Bell highlights the anamnetical quality of Catholic ritual designed

333 Hildegard of Bingen, 114a in Hildegardis Causae et curae, ed. P. Kaiser, (Leipzig, 1903), cited in Dronke, Women Writers, 245. A monochord was a simple instrument made of a single chord stretched over a box that, when adjusted to varying points would sound one note at a time. It was used to maintain a base tone beneath a melody line. Hildegard said: “Before the fall, Adam also knew the angelic song and every kind of music and he had a voice that sounded like the sounding of a monochord…For just as in the fall of Adam, the chaste and holy manner of begetting children was changed into another manner according to the delights of the flesh, thus also the voice of celestial joys, which he had before, was turned in an opposing kind of derision and cacophony.“Adam quoque ante prevaricationem angelicum Carmen et onme genus musicorum sciebat, et vocem habebat sonantem ut vox monochordi sonat…Nam sicut in prevaricatione Ade sancta et casta natura prolem gignendi in alium modum delectacionis carnis mutate est, ita eciam et vox supernorum gaudiorum, quam idem dam habebat, in contrarium modum risus et cacynnorum versa est.” 112

to enact events that are not directly present to those performing the ritual.334 Following the classification of religious music given by Guy Beck in Sacred Song, music meant to assist in remembering a past event functions as anamnesis, a mode of knowledge which depends on the participation of the individual in the collective memory of a cultural tradition.335 Accordingly, the music sung in the monastic liturgy sought to allow the nuns continually to re-live the moments of the past that continued to have spiritual meaning for religious.

In the twelfth-century intellectual context, the processes of remembering and forgetting were not understood to involve merely mental strength or quickness, but to involve the entire human person, body, soul and emotions. Mary Carruthers has pointed out that medieval memory techniques were “affective in nature,” or “sensorially derived and emotionally charged.”336 In her two major studies on medieval memory, The Book of

Memory and The Craft of Thought, Carruthers repeatedly points out the close connection between intellectual memory work and meditative prayer. For example, the only work in

Migne’s Patrologia Latina with the title Tractatus de memoria, written by Hugo of Rouen in the middle of the twelfth century, is actually an extended meditation on spiritual and doctrinal topics.337 For nuns, the liturgy cycle was the principal place in which this memory work as prayer would have been practiced—they sang the psalms continually from memory, each time meditating anew in their hearts the religious truths expressed therein.

334 Bell, Ritual, Perspectives and Dimensions, 213. 335 Beck, Sacred Sound, 17. 336 Carruthers, The Book of Memory, 75. 337 Carruthers, The Craft of Thought, 62. 113

In addition to affections and prayer, medieval memory included an ethical dimension as well. Carruthers points out the moral weight that was placed on memory at this time, evidenced both by references to the “memory feats” of even non-intellectual saints in medieval hagiography and by explicit moral instruction indicating the ethical importance of the memory.338 In particular, the “memory of heaven” as a stimulus for prayer is a common monastic trope throughout the middle ages.339 While Carruthers’ work is mostly focused on the memory and visual culture, she notes that a “journey through the psalms” was prominent among the loci, or places, of visual memory devices.

The psalms, which were sung constantly, were, for monastic figures such as Benedict of

Nursia, eleventh-century reformer Romuald of Camaldoli and Hugh of St. Victor, twelfth- century cannon, the “foundation of memoria.”340

Hildegard’s letter to the prelates included this same estimation of the moral weight of memory, as she clearly associated Adam’s sin with the “forgetting” of God. Through

Adam, all people were affected by the tendency to forget their maker. For this reason,

Hildegard insisted on the value of music in the sung liturgy as a continual reminder of the presence of God in the lives of her nuns as well as a reminder of heaven as the final goal.

In her letter to the prelates, Hildegard described how music reminded all people of

Adam’s original happiness and humanity’s ultimate destiny; the joints of the fingers

338 Carruthers, The Book of Memory, 89. Carruthers cites Hugh of St. Victor, who, addressing the moral education of novices, uses the common images of a seal in wax to describe the importance of imprinting things on the memory. 339 Carruthers, The Craft of Thought, Chapter Two, “Remember Heaven: the Aesthetics of Mneme,” 60- 115, especially 66-69. Carruthers cites Boncompagno of Siena, who wrote in De memoria paradisi, a section of Rhetorica novissima, that through memory human beings contemplate future things “through their likeness to past things.” (“et future per preterita similitudinarie contemplamur.”) Cited by Carruthers, 69. 340 Carruthers, The Craft of Thought, 113. As noted above, the Psalter would have been among the first things memorized in a monastery. 114

bending as they play instruments were a reminder that Adam was created by the finger of

God, who is the Holy Spirit.341 When man began to sing under the inspiration of God he was brought “to a recollection of the sweetness of the songs of the heavenly homeland to which he was invited.” [“Homo ex inspiratione Dei cantare coepisset, et per hoc ad recolendam suavitatem canticorum coelestis patriae invitaretur.”]342 She also noted that because of the division between God and man created by sin, music could produce painful longings in the human heart, showing her awareness of the emotional power of music. The soul sighs and groans as she hears music because the soul “recalls the celestial harmony” that has been removed from her because of sin. [“In auditu alicujus cantionis interdum homo saepe suspirat et gemit, naturam animae coelestis harmoniae recolens.”]343

The idea that music has the power to facilitate the soul’s remembrance of heaven, which appears in this letter written at the end of her life, was not a new idea for

Hildegard. It can be traced through her visionary works, which were intended to instruct the mind and lead the soul to heaven. For example, in vision four of Scivias we read the lament of a soul returning to God: “Quis me adjuvabit nisi Deus? Cum autem recordor tui, o mater Sion, in qua habitare debui, amarissima servitia quibus subjecta sum inspicio.

Et cum omne genus musicorum quod in te est ad memoriam duco; vulnera mea attendo. ”

[“Who will help me but God? When I call you to mind, O mother Zion, in whom I should have lived, I see the bitter slavery to which I am subjected. And when I bring to my

341 Hildegard of Bingen. Epistolarium, Epist. XXIII, 95-101. “Ut et recolentes Adam digito Dei, qui Spiritus sanctus est, formatum.” 342 Hildegard of Bingen. Epistolarium, Epist. XXIII, 105-106. 343 Hildegard of Bingen. Epistolarium, Epist. XXIII, 139-140. 115

memory all the kinds of music that are in you, I feel my wounds.”] 344 “Mother Zion” is a reference to the celestial Jerusalem—or heaven. The danger for a pilgrim soul was to forget that in this world we are just passing through. Bringing to mind the music of heaven made the soul’s present condition of exile clearer and illuminated her final destination.

The connection between the memory of heaven and music appeared again in her second visionary work, Liber Vitae Meritorum. Hildegard instructed man in his duty to praise God with his reason and in this instruction she compared man’s reason to a trumpet that sounds with his good works. Although it might seem that in this passage music appears in a metaphorical sense, Hildegard understood the connection between man’s reason and the sound of a trumpet to be based on a musical side built into the nature of the human person at creation, which was precisely why music helped man remember who he was and where he was destined to go. She said: “Sed et anima hominis symphoniam in se habet et symphonizans est, unde etiam multotiens educit, cum symphoniam audit, quoniam de patria in exilium se missam meminit. Hec autem de penitentium animabus purgandis et saluandis dicta sunt, et fidelia sunt; et fidelis his attendat, et ea in memoriam bone scientie componat.” [“The soul of man has a symphony in itself and it is symphonic; this is why when he hears a symphony he lets out many cries, because it brings to his mind his homeland while he is in exile. These things are said of the atonement, cleansing and salvation of souls, and they are true; let the faithful soul attend to them and carefully place this good knowledge in the memory.”]345 In this passage

344 Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias, PL Vol 197, Col. 0416B. 345 Hildegard of Bingen. Liber vitae meritorum, 4, cap.: 46 linea: 1030. 116

Hildegard explained the power of music to bring pain to the human heart, in so far as it reminded one of one’s fallen condition.

Given the twelfth-century understanding of the ethical aspect included in the memory and the moral consequences of forgetting God, for Hildegard the discussion of

“remembering heaven” cannot be isolated from a discussion of overcoming the consequences of sin, particularly original sin. It is clear in her letter to the prelates that, for Hildegard, music did more than simply remind the sisters of something they forgot; it also aided them in overcoming the effects of original sin left in each human soul. The connection Hildegard drew between music and overcoming sin depended on the way that she understood the concepts of order and harmony together with the way that she understood the nature of the human person, made of body and soul. She identified the order she saw in the created universe (particularly the wonderous way all the parts and memebers of a human person harmoniously cooperated), as well as the moral order present in the choices of a rational soul with free will, with the aesethetic harmony she experienced in the practice of music. Through this association, Hildegard concluded that the aesthetic harmony of music could have a real impact on the moral and natural hamony of a person.

Hildegard’s view of the order in her world, beginning with the basic structure of her environment, was thoroughly musical. In the context of twelfth-century monasticism, an important guarantee of the proper ordering of the lives of those who lived in a monastery was precisely the daily cycle of liturgical prayer, which gave a ritual structure to all the activities that went on within the monastery. Catherine Bell has proposed that analysis of a ritual activity gives insight into how those who participated in that ritual

117

accounted for the “origin and nature of the order” around them, as well as how that ritual activity shaped “people’s dispositions to experience that order in the world.”346 There is a distinctively musical thread woven through the account Hildegard gave of the order of her world. Hildegard made the connection between music, sin, remembering, forgetting, and heaven because she also linked armonia as a characteristic of songs that she and her sisters sang in their daily liturgy and armonia as a characteristic of the human nature that had been created harmonious (orderly) by God and disturbed by sin.

While several scholars have touched on aspects of the connections between music, harmony, sin and heaven in Hildegard’s work, two have explicitly recognized the importance of these connections, although their treatments of the implications are brief.

Azucena Fraboschi gives this summary: “La música es un medio privilegiado: para recrear la armonía que el hombre pierde muchas veces al día, para dirigir nuevamente hacia el cielo los corazones que han perdido su camino, para centrarlos en Dios como su punto de referencia.” [“Music is a privileged means of restoring the harmony that man loses many times a day, of leading hearts that have lost their way back to the path toward heaven, for focusing on God as point of reference.”] 347 Kay Brainerd Slocum similarly points to the close connection between these themes of music, harmony, sin and heaven in

Hildegard’s writings, and concludes that music in Hildegard’s thought was the vehicle drawing the soul toward God by mirroring the harmony of the human person and of creation, but ultimately revealing the harmony of God himself.348

346 Bell, Ritual, Perspectives and Dimensions, 21. 347 Azucena Adelina Fraboschi, Hildegarda de Bingen: La extraordinaria vida de una mujer extraordinaria, (Buenas Aires: Ediciones de la Universidad Catolica Argentina, 2003), 208. 348 Slocum, “The Harmony of Celestial Revelations,” 88. 118

The relationship that Hildegard saw between musical harmony and moral harmony implies an intimate connection between the physical and the spiritual world, especially in the nature of the human person. Ruth M. Walker-Moskop, emphasizing the importance of harmony and balance to Hildegard’s conception of the human person in her medical works, explains that for Hildegard health was not only a medical concern, which focused on the physical body, but an all-encompassing principle that governed a human person’s relationship with God as well as balance within the person.349 The ordered hierarchy that existed among the workings of the body, as well as between body and soul, had been disrupted by original sin, causing tension between these two elements.350 In her book of medical remedies, which did not include visions and was not primarily intended to give spiritual advice, Hildegard identified sin as the root of many physical ailments; the health of the body was intimately related to the health of the soul, which was essential to avoid sin.351

The centrality of the concept of harmony and an integrated view of humanity to

Hildegard’s thought has also been noted by Carmel M. Posa, who describes Hildegard’s entire worldview as holistic and lists harmony and order as the unifying themes of her many faceted theology.352 The important connection in Hildegard’s thought between the activity of producing music and the nature of both the cosmos in general and the human

349 Walker-Moskop, “Health and Cosmic Continuity,” 19. 350 Both Barbara Newman and Maria Isabel Flisfisch have described the importance of the doctrine of original sin and its continued effects on humanity, as well as the importance of the doctrine of the Incarnation, for Hildegard’s theological vision. Newman, Sister of Wisdom, 89-90, 107-120 and Flisfisch, “The Eve-Mary Dichotomy,” 37-46. 351 Pernoud, Hildegard of Bingen, 118. See also Mews, “Religious Thinker,” 65. On the growth of general interest in studying the physical consequences of sin in the twelfth century, see Irven M. Resnick, “Humoralism and Adam’s Body: Twelfth-Century Debates and Petrus Alfonsi’s Dialogus contra Judaeos,” Viator 36 (2005): 181-195. 352 Posa, “Keeping Vigil on the Edge,” 86. 119

person in particular has been established by Marianne Richer Pfau, who points out the connection in Hildegard’s thought between the musical concepts of armonia and symphonia and ordo.353 Pfau’s conclusion is that there is a distinctly musical characteristic in Hildegard’s understanding of the universe, which she expresses as harmony and order in the relationship between the human person and the universe he lives in. Pozzi Escot, also highlighting the importance of the concept of order in

Hildegard’s thought, raises this order to the transcendental level, observing that at different points in her theology, Hildegard understands the physical world as a reflection of something higher and more perfect in the ideal world.354 The understanding that the physical world, or all that is accessible to the senses, contains the possibility of a reference to the spiritual world and to heaven is central to Hildegard’s appreciation of the power of music.

These concepts of order and harmony, present through Hildegard’s writings, give a musical side to her view of all of creation. This musical view of creation echoes the continued use in the twelfth century of a tri-partite classification of music with roots in

Greek philosophy (most famously Pythagoras and Plato) and transmitted to the twelfth century through Boethius (480–524).355 Boethius’ treatise on music is abstract; it is not instructions for liturgical singing, but a theoretical study of the mathematical relations of

353 Pfau, “The Concept of Armonia,” 154 -155. 354 Escot, “Universal Proportion,” 36. 355 This trajectory of her intellectual inheritance is traced by Cortazar in “Compositora: Nova et Vetera.” Classical influences on Hildegard’s thought are also traced by Slocum in “The Harmony of Celestial Revelations,” 82-84. Slocum adds Pseudo-Dionysius and Aurelian of Reome, a ninth century music theorist, to those mentioned by Cortazar. Boethius wrote treatises on each of the seven liberal arts and was mainly responsible for the transmission of classical music theory to the middle ages. Stephan C. Jaeger, The Envy of Angels: Cathedral Schools and Social Ideals in Medieval Europe 950-1200 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvannia Press, 1994), 165ff. Boethius’ treatise on the liberal arts became the basis for the work of other scholars of the following centuries, such as Cassiodorus, , and , who encouraged classical learning in barbarian Europe. 120

musical elements.356 What he considered the more perfect forms of music could not be heard by the human ears; in fact the mathematical abstraction Boethius called musica might be better translated into English as order or harmony than as music.357 His classification reveals an understanding of music that was built in to the nature of creation as a whole. A basic understanding of this classification of music is relevant to this thesis because it forms the theoretical basis by which Hildegard made her close connections between the practice of music and the moral and bodily health of the human person— applying the concepts of order and harmony to both.

Boethius gave his three classifications of music in the second chapter of De

Institutione Musica358— the first kind was cosmic music (musica mundana), the second was human (musica humana) and the third was instrumental (musica instrumentalis).359

Cosmic music was that music produced by the movements of the heavenly bodies, which cannot be heard, but which must be present because it is impossible that such fast motion of such large bodies would produce absolutely no sound, and furthermore, these sounds must be in harmony, because the many different movements and orbits are perfectly fitted together. Analogously, human music was within the human person, harmoniously uniting the different parts of the body, the higher and lower parts of the soul, and the soul to the

356 Guido of Arezzo highlighted this difference: “I have oversimplified my treatment for the sake of the young, in this not following Boethius, whose treatise is useful to philosophers, but not to singers.” Guido of Arezzo, Source Readings, 125. For an introduction to music as a liberal art, see Leichtentritt, Music, History, and Ideas and David L. Wagner, ed., The Seven Liberal Arts in the Middle Ages, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1983). 357 Escot, “Universal Proportion,” 35. Even Hildegard’s prose writing has been characterized as “musical” in character, due to the distinctive rhetorical devices that she uses (noted by Christine Mason Sutherland and Rebecca Sutcliffe in The Changing Tradition: Women in the History of Rhetoric (Calgary: University of Calgary Press, 1999), 128). 358 For a general survey introduction to the historical study of the philosophy of music, see: Schueller, The Idea of Music: An Introduction to Musical Aesthetics in Antiquity and the Middle Ages. 359 Many medieval theorists adopted this three part division directly from Boethius—for example, for Hugh of St. Victor. Eruditio didascalica. Liber II, cap. XIII: De musica triplici, PL 176, 0756B-57A. 121

body.360 Therefore, the third class, instrumental music, for Boethius included any audible music that could be heard, whether or not it was actually made by a musical instrument or by the human voice. While some medieval theorists adopted Boethius’ division directly, it was not the only classification available. Another school of thought, traditionally attributed to Regino of Prum361 (915), classified music into two categories: artificial and natural. Artificial included music made by instruments created by man, while natural would correspond to Boethius’ categories of musica mundana and musica humana, with the addition of audible music produced by the human voice in one of the eight authentic tones to the praise of God. This classification has been considered to be more consonant with medieval monastic culture, for it classified sung music, such as the singing of the liturgy, among the more noble kinds of music.362

Hildegard did not explicitly use either of these classifications, and scholars have identified her thought on music with both of them.363 However, what is important is that both of these divisions express an understanding of a hierarchy present in nature, or the idea that some forms of music are higher or more noble than others, as well an understanding of the rational connection between music men produce with sounds and the harmony built into the fabric of creation.364 The ordered hierarchy present in these classifications should not be interpreted as a devaluation or rejection of music that

360 Boethius, Fundamentals of Music, Book I Section 2, page 9-10. 361 Bower argues that this classification can be found before Regino and analyzes his possible sources in “Natural and Artificial Music: The Origins and Development of an Aesthetic Concept,” Musica Disciplina 25 (1971): 17-33. 362 Bower “Natural and Artificial Music,” 17. 363 For example, Italo Fuentes Bardelli and María José Ortúzar Escudero say that she follows Boethius in “Música e Historia en Hildegard von Bingen,” Revista Chilena de Literatura 62 (2003): 145-163, 146; while Newman is of the opinion that her ideas conform more closely to the classification attributed to Regino in the Introduction to Symphonia, 20. 364 Albert Seay, Music in the Medieval World (Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1965), 21. 122

sounds.365 On the contrary, the hierarchical ordering of reality and the corresponding relationships between the spiritual world and the sensory world resulted in an increased respect and value placed on sensory things that possessed the power to reveal, or make present, eternal realities.366 It is this hierarchical order Hildegard and her contemporaries saw between physical and spiritual realities that allowed music to become the link between the physical and spiritual worlds and place the sisters in connection with God and with heaven.

Hildegard’s use of the musical concepts of armonia and symphonia reached beyond the simple musical meaning words like harmony, song and melody have for modern English readers and referred to a specific order in the universe on a cosmic level and harmony within the human person.367 The word armonia appears in the letter to the prelates four times368 and symphonia appears once.369 Hildegard’s use of these musical terms, armonia and symphonia was not unique and can be easily fitted into the tradition her century inherited. In an analysis of the eleventh-century trope Clangat Hodie, a liturgical piece in which music is used as a symbol, Gunilla Iversen gives particular attention to expounding the meaning of these same two musical terms: armonia and

365 It is older historiography’s tendency to focus on this abstract and numerical study as if it were accurately to be considered the only medieval version of what is called music today that Holsinger critiques in Body, Mind and Desire, 5-7. 366 Cf. Carruthers, The Experience of Beauty, 167. 367In Charles Du Cange Glossarium mediæ et infimæ latinitatis., “armonia” is defined as “Dulcoratio et consonantia plurimorum cantuum : Dulcis cantus cœli,” The sweetness and consonance of multiple songs, the sweet song of Heaven. In Jan Frederik Niermeyer’s Mediae Latinitatis lexicon minus: a Medieval Latin- French/English dictionary armonia is defined as “melody, singing, or sound.” Symphonia, on the other hand, is used in many medieval texts to refer to a musical instrument, the nature of which varies (in the twelfth century it often refers to a stringed instrument on which the strings were struck like a later clavichord or harpsichord) (Charles Du Cange Glossarium mediæ et infimæ latinitatis) but also has the broader meaning of simply “music,” as we would understand music today. (Jan Frederik Niermeyer’s Mediae latinitatis lexicon minus: a Medieval Latin-French/English dictionary.) In medieval latin, the term musica referred primarily to the abstract study of music as a liberal art. 368 Lines 100, 124, 128 and 139. 369 Line 141. 123

symphonia. She notes that armonia in the context of this trope refers primarily to the

“perfect concordance of the celestial harmony” or the harmony of the spheres, and symphonia refers not only to the “consonance of the singing assembly,” but more fundamentally to the “consonance of the voice and the heart.”370 In a liturgical context, both terms include reference to harmony in the created world and symphonia specifically to harmony to between the spiritual and physical parts of the human person. Iverson also points out that twelfth-century pre-scholastic Alanus Insulus used symphonia in the same way to refer to the concordance of the vocal praise made with the body and the exaltation of the soul, a reference to St. Benedict’s admonition to sing with the mind and the heart in harmony. Hildegard used both these terms in ways very much the same as Alanus Insulus and the author of Clangat Hodie, applying both armonia and symphonia to God’s creation.

This harmony built into the rational universe takes on a moral quality when it is applied to the human soul and made to speak of a harmony in human actions. Therefore it was not a far leap for Hildegard and other medieval thinkers to associate sin with a lack of harmony: harmony in this broad sense of order and proportion, but which is closely linked conceptually to the aesthetic harmony of music.371 In her letter to the prelates

Hildegard used a quotation from the psalms to show that God himself had tried to remedy the human condition by asking them for musical praises, thus giving men a chance to earn merit: “Laudate eum in sono tube, laudate eum in psalterio et cithara…Omnis spiritus laudet Dominum.” [“Praise him with the sound of trumpets, praise him with psaltery and

370 Gunilla Iverson, “The Mirror of Music: Symbol and Reality in the Text of Clangat Hodie,” Rivista de Musicologia 2 (1993): 781. 371 De Bruyne, Esthetics, 53. 124

harp…Let every spirit praise the Lord.”]372 She then explained that when Adam had lost this ability, God inspired men through the prophetic spirit to compose songs and music by which they could call to mind “the divine things of sweetness and of praise that Adam enjoyed in God before he fell and were not recalled in this exile.” [“Ut autem, etiam divine illius dulcedinis et laudationis, qua in Deo, priusquam caderet, idem Adam jucundabatur, et non ejus in hoc exsilio recordarentur...”]373 In Adam Hildegard saw all humankind represented. She attempted to convince the prelates to lift the sanction placed on her monastery by associating the consequences of that sanction with the consequences of fall of Adam. Several times repeating the idea that music helped Adam and man in general remember the knowledge lost in disobedience and therefore to overcome the disharmony caused by sin, Hildegard illustrated her point about the importance of music for her own community as well. Hildegard’s use of the tradition of Adam in her letter to the prelates, specifically the introduction of musical elements not found in the biblical text of Genesis, in order to connect musical harmony to natural harmony and ultimately to moral harmony, was a unique contribution to medieval ideas about music.374

Although Hildegard went one step further than her contemporaries, who did not explain these ideas with reference to the musical ability of the person of Adam before the fall, in associating sin with loss of musical ability, Hildegard expressed a fundamental concept of medieval esthetics: the identification of the beautiful with the good. There could not be true beauty if moral goodness was not also present in an object or action;375 therefore the moral evil of the fall canceled out the beauty of Adam’s voice. In

372 Psalm 150: 3-6. 373 Hildegard of Bingen, Epistolarium, Epist. XXIII, 84-86. 374 Newman, introduction to Symphonia, 25. 375 De Bruyne, Esthetics, 86. 125

Hildegard’s play on the moral virtues, Ordo Virtutum, all the parts were sung except that of the devil—whose lines were to be shouted, because evil could not be portrayed as possessing beauty.376 The good was identified with the beautiful. Hildegard used the pursuit of beauty, especially the beauty of music, as a path of return to moral goodness for those who were under the effects of the disharmony of sin.

The conceptual association between sin and disharmony manifested itself in the practical awareness of monks who interpreted the liturgy that they sang as an effective form of making reparation for their sins. This idea can be found in monastic devotional material of the twelfth century. Susan Boynton has read and analyzed eleventh- and twelfth-century prayers written in small personal books, which give insight into the understanding the monks had of the liturgy they practiced daily as a sacrifice to God.

Boynton offers the following prayer, which would have been said privately after singing the liturgy, as an example of a theology that looks at the singing of the liturgy as a means of overcoming sin: “Supplico, ego peccator per immensam clementian tuam et per magnam misericordiam tuam ut per modulationem psalmorum quam ego indignus et peccator decantuaui, liberes animam meam de peccato et abstollas cor meum de omnibus prauis et perfidis cogitationibus.” [“I, a sinner, supplicate you through your immense kindness and your great mercy, so that through the melody of the psalms which I, unworthy and sinner, have sung, you may liberate my soul from sin and remove my heart

376 This was a common feature of diabolic parts in medieval drama. In “Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179): the ‘Ordo Virtutum,’” Audrey Davidson, drawing on the work of Richard Axton, points to the neo-platonic roots of this idea, “since in that framework, evil can only be portrayed as unharmonious,” (53). Susan Boynton explains the devil’s lack of music in the Ordo Virtutum within the context of the broader phenomenon of demonic apparitions that inhibited the praying of the monastic office in various ways in “The Devil Made Me Do It: Demonic Intervention in the Monastic Liturgy,” in European Religious Cultures, ed. Miri Rubin (London: Institute of Historical Research, 2008), 89-106. 126

from all petty and treacherous thoughts.”] 377 A keen awareness of this penitential side of liturgy is also evidenced by a gloss on a hymn for Matins “Sonmo refectis artubus,” which states that God will visit those who courageously spurn their beds and the body’s desire for rest to hasten to sing praises to God.378 Chrysogonus Waddell sees this same characteristic in the liturgy of the early Cistercians, which closely associated well- orderedness and moral perfection with proportion and musical harmony in the liturgical elements they chanted.379 The devotional material that Boynton and Waddell studied is of particular value to our question, because it constitutes a point of contact between theology and practice—the words of these prayers recited after singing the songs reflect the attitude the monks had toward singing.

In addition to devotional material, the idea of music bringing harmony to the human person is also found in different expressions of medieval theology. Leo Spitzer notes that Augustine in the fourth century and Johannes Scotus Eriugena in the ninth both speak of the power of music “to smooth out apparent discord—as the “inner ear” of the believer hears the unity underlying diversity.”380 Eriugena speaks of the fall of man as a discordant deviation and redemption as his return to his harmonious origin.381 Reading the twelfth-century work of Alanus Insulus, De planctu naturae, Spitzer points out a continual connection made between the musical concepts of concentus and consonantia

377 Perugia, Biblioteca Comunale Augusta, I 17, fol. 123v (Salmon, Libelli precum, no. 386), cited by Boynton, Shaping a Monastic identity, 91-92. 378 Boynton, "Latin Glosses on the Office Hymns," 17. Constable also cites lengthy liturgy as a form of in the twelfth-century reformed orders, The Reformation of the Twelfth Century, 201. 379 Waddell, “The Early Cistercian Experience of the Liturgy,” 104-105. 380 Leo Spitzer, Classical and Christian Ideas of World Harmony (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1963), 40-41. 381 Spitzer, Classical and Christian Ideas of World Harmony, 42. Spitzer cites Erigena’s neoplatonism, inherited from Plotinus, as the source of this idea. 127

and temperare, temperancia,382 a connection he also traces back to earlier Christian thinkers. Augustine and Gregory the Great both used the verb temporare, which had ancient Greek roots of seeking balance and order, in a Christian context as se temporare, to mean “to harmonize oneself,” intellectually, morally, and with God.383 Spitzer also notes that twelfth-century scriptural exegetes, such as Joachim del Fiore for example, routinely interpreted the musical instruments mentioned in the psalms as symbols of moral harmony, directly related to the cosmological harmony of the world.384 Finally,

Spitzter has pointed out the common medieval association of grace-nature-music- harmony, emphasizing the conception of music as a gift of grace.385 Reparation for sins and the reception of grace are two spiritual benefits associated with singing the liturgy that Hildegard would have desired to ensure to her sisters. Therefore, the ability to sing the liturgy was an essential element to a well ordered and harmonic monastic life for

Hildegard, and the prohibition to sing seemed to her to place the monastery in danger of falling into disorder, disharmony and sin.

In addition to working against forgetfulness and sin, a third benefit that singing offered was that through the liturgy Hildegard and her sisters were brought into a participation in the heavenly choirs of angels. The constant presence of the choirs of angels was an integral part of Hildegard’s visions of heaven.386 On many occasions,

Hildegard heard this music in her visions; in fact, Italo Fuentes coined the word

382 Spitzer, Classical and Christian Ideas of World Harmony, 72. 383 Spitzer, Classical and Christian Ideas of World Harmony, 82. 384 Spitzer, Classical and Christian Ideas of World Harmony, 38. 385 Spitzer, Ideas of World Harmony, 48. 386 Flynn has explained Hildegard’s theology of angels, making connections between her views on angelic mediation, or intercession, and Christian neo-Platonic ideas. See “Singing with Angels,” 203-208. Fuentes Bardelli, and Ortúzar Escudero also explain Hildegard’s conception of music by beginning with her conception of the angels in “Música e Historia,” 149ff. 128

“auditation” to describe Hildegard’s auditory visions.387 This angelic praise was not intended as a metaphor, not to be understood as music in the sense of mathematical orderly or proportionate movements. It was literally music presented to Hildegard’s inner ears.388 Inspired by these same visions, Hildegard taught that both angels and men were ultimately called to participate in the same celestial chorus. In fact, men were to replace the members of the choir of the angels who fell with Satan.389 However, as Hildegard explained in her letter to the prelates, when Adam fell as did Satan, this destiny was put into jeopardy and he lost the likeness to the angelic voices that he had in paradise:

Quibus cum diligenter intendimus, recolimus qualiter homo vocem viventis Spiritus requisivit, quam Adam per inobedientiam perdidit, qui ante transgressionem, adhuc innocens, non minimam societatem cum angelicarum laudum vocibus habebat, quas ipsi ex spiritali natura sua possident, qui a spiritu qui Deus est, spiritus vocantur. Similitudinem ergo vocis angelicae, quam in paradiso habebat, Adam perdidit, et in scientia quam ante peccatum praeditus erat, ita obdormivit, sicut a somno evigilans de his, quae in somnis viderat, inscius et incertus redditur, quando suggestione diaboli deceptus, et voluntati Creatoris sui repugnans, tenebris interioris ignorantiae ex merito iniquitatis suae involutus est.

[When we diligently consider these things [the musical praises God merits], we recall how man required the voice of the living Spirit, which Adam lost by disobedience; Adam, still innocent before his transgression had no little association with the praise of the angelic voices, which the angels, who are called spirit by the Spirit who is God, possess by their spiritual nature. Adam lost,

387Fuentes Bardelli and Ortúzar Escudero, “Música e Historia,” 210. 388 For example, at the beginning of the thirteenth vision of Scivias, Hildegard describes what she hears: “Deinde vidi lucidissimum aerem, in quo audivi in omnibus praedictis significationibus mirabili modo diversum genus musicorum in laudibus civium supernorum gaudiorum, in via veritatis fortiter perseverantium, ac in querelis revocatorum ad laudes eorumdem gaudiorum et in exhortatione virtutum se exhortantium ad salutem populorum, quibus diabolicae insidiae repugnant.”[Then I saw the brilliant sky, in which I heard many kinds of wonderful music representing all the meanings that had been given before: the praises of the joyful citizens of Heaven, steadfastly persevering in the way of the truth, lamentations calling back those who are struggling against diabolic treachery to those same praises and joys, exhorting to virtue and to the salvation of the people.] Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias, PL vol 197 Col.0729C. 389 This idea, common in Hildegard’s day, can be traced to Patristic tradition (for example, St. Augustine in De genesi ad litteram IX or Gregory the Great in Homiliae in Evangelia II). Cited by Newman in Sister of Wisdom, 103. Looking at the illumination that accompanies the second vision of Scivias, Newman draws a connection between the stars in the Heavens and the stars in the cloud that representing Eve—these are Eve’s children who are destined to join the angels in the Heavens. See also Flynn, “Singing with Angels,” 224. 129

therefore, the likeness to the angelic voices that he had in paradise. He fell asleep to the knowledge that he had been given before he sinned; and just as a man waking from sleep is hazy and uncertain of those thing that he saw in his dreams, so Adam, when he was deceived by the deceptions of the devil and rejected the will of his Creator, was enwrapped in the darkness of interior ignorance through his iniquity.]390

Therefore, a third benefit offered through the singing of the monastic liturgy was the opportunity, while still on earth, for Hildegard and her sisters to partake in the glory and splendor of the choirs of angels in heaven. However, Hildegard also made clear that this participation was conditioned by the physical nature of the human person and the sensory ways human beings interact with their world.

The close connection between music and heaven present in both Hildegard’s visionary works and her songs themselves has been noted by scholars. Using concrete examples from among Hildegard’s repertoire, Steven D’Evelyn explains that she understood the Church as the heavenly city gathered in communal song,391 and that individual members of the Church on earth were sanctified by their participation in the heavenly song in the celebration of the liturgy.392 By this participation, heaven and earth, humans and angels were joined in worshiping Christ, the man who is God,393 and through this shared music, people on earth participated in the building up of the heavenly city.

Music emerges as the point of union between heaven and earth, and D’Evelyn concludes that in Hildegard’s lyrics, “The idea of participation is central to the description of heaven.”394 For Hildegard, the ability of liturgical music sung in monasteries here on earth to reflect the heavenly liturgy sung in the realms above made it a function as a

390 Hildegard of Bingen. Epistolarium, Epist. XXIII, 65-77. (Emphasis is mine). 391 See O orzchis ecclesia, in Newman, Symphonia, 252. 392 See O ignee spiritus, in Newman, Symphonia, 142. 393 See O felix puericia, in Newman, Symphonia, 192. 394 D’Evelyn, “Heaven as Performance and Participation,” 158. 130

symbol. William Flynn summarizes Hildegard’s concept of music as a “symbolic expression of heavenly praise, as a recollection of paradise and as an anticipation of angelic song.”395 This link between participation in the choir of heaven and music as a symbol of higher realities is important to understand the benefit of music in Hildegard’s eyes.

As is common in tracing twelfth-century strands of thought, both classical and

Christian influences can be traced back from this idea. With a biblical basis in the book of the Apocalypse, the fathers of the Church had, for centuries, described the liturgy on earth as a “shadow and figure” of celestial realties, the heavenly liturgy.396 As the Christian liturgy developed, the idea that man singing praise to God in church effectively joined the choirs of angels in heaven also developed, particularly in relation to the lengthy wordless melodies of the alleluia.397 The classical notion of musica mundana, originally used to speak of the harmonious movements of the celestial bodies, was also referred to as musica celestis. This “celestial music” took on a new connotation in the Christian era and began to refer rather to the constant praises of God offered by the angels in heaven who were unencumbered by bodies and entirely dedicated to this occupation.398 Gregory the

Great was one of the first to identify the “music of the spheres” with “angelic concerts” in the sixth century.399

395 Flynn, “Singing with Angels,” 210. 396 Cortazar, “Compositora Nova et Vetera,” 125. 397 Fassler, Gothic Song, 30-37. Lori Kruckenberg explores the connection between the earthly and heavenly liturgies and the medieval perception that wordless melodies were able to express heavenly praise beyond the power of human speech, particularly in the context of medieval sequences, in “Neumatizing the Sequence: Special Performances of Sequences in the Central Middle Ages,” Journal of the American Musicological Society 59 (2006): 243-317. 398 Seay, Music in the Medieval World, 20. See the section of Hildegard’s letter cited above in note 20. 399 Spitzer, Classical and Christian Ideas of World Harmony, 35. See also Andrew Hughes, Style and Symbol, Medieval Music: 800-1453 (Ottawa: The Institute of Medieval Music, 1989) 534. 131

Hildegard shared this view of the celestial music produced by angels and its inherent connection to the monastic liturgy. In 1175, a few years before she wrote the letter to the prelates, owing to her reputation as a wise teacher whose words were inspired by God, Hildegard received a list of thirty eight theological questions about difficult scriptural passages and doctrinal concerns from the monks of Villers,400 to which she offered solutions.401 One of these thirty-eight questions inquired about the music of the spheres, pointing to a possible biblical basis for the doctrine. The question is whether a biblical reference to the unceasing choir of heaven could be understood to be speaking of the music of the spheres, understood in the classical way of the order among the elements.

It asked:

Quae, et qualis est harmonia illa elementorum, de qua dicitur: « In se elementa dum convertuntur, sicut in organo qualitatis sonus immutatur, et omnia suum sonum custodiunt?» Nunquid ad hoc pertinet, quod Dominus dicit: «Et concentum coeli quis dormire faciet?»

[“What and of what sort is the music of the elements, of which it is said: ‘all the elements are transposed among themselves, as pitches in an organ vary, but all conserve their own sound.’ Might what the Lord said pertain to this: ‘And who will make the concert of the heavens to sleep?’”]

Hildegard answered that the elements do indeed make music, but that the scriptures referred to something higher:

De torrente itinere superioris aetheris, per quem firmamentum evolvitur, sonus elementorum jucundus et gloriosus existit, ut etiam symphonialis vox spiritus hominis, dulcis est in vita sua; quia unumquodque elementum, secundum quod constitutum est a Deo, sonum habet, qui omnes sicut sonus chordarum et citharae in unum conjuncti sonant. Concentus vero coeli ad harmoniam elementorum, quae

400 Villers was the monastery of Guibert of Gembloux, who had already written to Hildegard prior to this correspondence and who became Hildegard’s secretary for the final years of her life. 401 For more context and analysis of these solutions, see Anne Clark Bartlett, “Commentary, Polemic, and Prophecy in Hildegard of Bingen's ‘Solutiones triginta octo quaestionum,’” Viator 23 (1992): 153-165. 132

cum homine commutabuntur, non pertinet; ut etiam sol, qui in firmamento positus est, mundo isti, et non summo coeli lucet.

[From the burning course of the most high ether, through which the firmament revolves, the joyful and glorious sound of the elements is emitted, even as the harmonic voice of the human spirit is sweet in his life; because each element has its own sound according to how it was constituted by God, all of which resound in harmonic chorus, like the sound of the strings and the cithara. But the concert of the heavens does not refer to the music of the elements, which will be transformed together with man, as also the sun, who was placed in firmament, lights up this world and not the highest heaven.]402

When Hildegard referred to the concentus coeli, she was thinking of the constant praise that is given to God by rational creatures, the angels and the saints of heaven. This was a heaven higher than the heaven lit by the sun, and a music higher than the non-rational sounds of inanimate bodies circling the heavens. This is significant because Hildegard accepted the teaching that the elements produce a harmonic chorus and then argued that this music of the physical elements will be transformed into the higher and more spiritual music of the choirs of angels. Her opinion on the singing of the liturgy paralleled this transformation: even though the liturgy was performed audibly on this earth by human beings in their bodies, and in that sense could be compared to the natural and physical music of the elements, it also possessed a meaning that transcended what is merely earthly and participated in the higher music of the choirs of angels in a heaven that transcended the heaven of the stars and the planets. Hildegard had experienced this transcendent meaning of concentus coeli, associated not with the natural world but with

God himself, in her visions, and she took pains to transmit this experience to others through the music she composed for the liturgy.

402 Hildegard of Bingen, Solutiones triginta octo quaestionum, PL vol 197 col 1049C-D. Expressing a similar idea, in Cause et Cure, Hildegard writes: “As it revolves, the firmament emits wonderful sounds. Yet due to its extreme height and breadth, we cannot hear them. Likewise the wheel of a mill or a wagon produces its own sounds as it turns,” in Hildegard of Bingen, Selections from Cause et Cure, 30. 133

Hildegard’s goal was to help her sister transcend their earthly experience and participate in a liturgy that was higher; however, she was also very aware of the reality of the embodied nature of human existence. It was man’s dependence on the senses of the body that set him apart from the angels singing ceaseless praises to God in heaven.

Angels and men were both rational creatures, with the key difference that angels had no body and human beings were composite, made up of body and soul. Among the same list of thirty-eight questions referenced above, Hildegard was asked to explain what Saint

Paul meant by “tongues of angels”403 and she answered that the tongues of angles are spiritual and do not require the use of a body: “Angeli qui spiritus sunt, nisi propter hominem verbis rationalitatis non loquntur; quoniam linguae eorum sonans laus sunt.

Homo enim, qui omnia quae sonant, per sonum eorum cognoscit, jucunditatem cordis sui in sono vocis, quam cum spiramine animae levat, ostendit. ” [“Angels, who are spirits, do not speak with rational words unless to man, since their languages are resounding praise.

Man however, who knows everything that sounds by the sounds it makes, shows the joy of his heart in the sound of his voice, which he lifts by the breath of his spirit.”] 404 What could music produced by bodiless creatures with voices “ex spiritali natura” [“of a spiritual nature”]405 sound like? Hildegard did not further explain the nature of angelic voices or the mechanics of their way of singing; however she did emphasize the importance of a specifically human way to participate in the choirs of angels, which depended on the nature of man as distinct both from the angels and from the rest of the

403 1 Corthinians 13:1. 404 Hildegard of Bingen, Solutiones triginta octo quaestionum, PL 197, 1045A. 405 Hildegard of Bingen, Epistolarium, Epis. XXIII, 68-69. [Adam] non minimam societatem cum angelicarum laudum vocibus habebat, quam ipsi ex spiritali natura sua possident, qui a spiritu qui Deus est, semper vocantur. 134

physical creation: man possessed both a physical and a spiritual element. He was composed of a body made from the dust of the earth and a spiritual soul destined for eternity. Although the ideal prototype of the celestial music of heaven is music made by bodiless angels with spiritual voices, Hildegard was also very clear that when humanity is concerned, the body and therefore the senses must be involved in the music.

The liturgy in which Hildegard and her sisters participated daily followed in this tradition of sensory aesthetic experiences that transcended their sensory boundaries. At this point, similarities between Hildegard’s theology of music and medieval theory of symbols and sacramental theology begin to emerge. Music in the liturgy, like the sacraments, could be considered as a sensory means to reach a spiritual reality which produced the same reality it symbolized. The entire liturgy, including all of the splendor of its material and spatial elements, such as bells, incense, vestments, movements, processions, stain glass, and paintings, in addition to its music, became, from the time of its expansion in the Carolingian reforms, an aesthetic experience, appealing to the senses and emotions, but carefully designed to elevate souls to an experience of contact with the

Divinity.406 This elevation of the soul relied on understanding earthly music as a symbolic representation of a heavenly reality.

406 McKitterick, The Frankish Church and the Carolingian Reforms, 141. Almost all the practical aspects of medieval nuns’ lives were informed by the liturgy. Many works of art made and used in medieval female monasteries were intended for liturgical use. Gisela Muschiol, “Time and Space: Liturgy and Rite in Female Monasteries of the Middle Ages,” in Crown and Veil: Female Monasticism from the Fifth to the Fifteenth Centuries, ed. Jeffrey F Hamburger, Susan Marti, and Dietlinde Hamburger (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 191. The structures of the monastery buildings themselves were designed according to liturgical needs. (See Roberta Gilchrist, Gender and Material Culture: The Archaeology of Religious Women (London: Routledge, 1994), 95-97 or Anselme Davril, "La liturgie monastique au XIIe siècle,” L'Architecture gothique au service de la liturgie: Actes du Colloque organisé à la Fondation Singer-Polignac (Paris) 2002, ed. Agnès Bos and Xavier Dectot (Turnhout: Brepols, 2002), 67-83.) A liturgical dimension was often present even in other moments of the day outside of the liturgy itself. Clark, The Benedictines, 100. 135

In this capacity, for Hildegard music occupied a privileged spot in between the physical and the spiritual worlds, functioning as a sensory symbol that put the singer into contact with a higher reality. The importance Hildegard placed on the use of music in the liturgy must be understood within the context of the sacramental worldview of the middle ages; all of the material elements were employed as signs or guidposts that directed the mind to God and disposed the heart to perform spiritual acts of praise and sacrifice. A sacramental worldview is by nature symbolic; however, a careful distinction must be made between a sensory image that functioned as a symbol and one that did not, which could be called a metaphor rather than a symbol. A sensory image simply evokes in art or literature some natural experience of the human person. A symbol, which might use a sensory image, seeks to transcend natural experience and point out or indicate a reality on a plane above the sensory one. Therese McGuire says that Hildegard’s “symbolic images were intended to inspire and to reveal beauty that is more than earthly.”407 Barbara

Newman observes in Hildegard’s writings a tendency to shift swiftly from the sensory to the symbolic, which results in the blending of sense experiences in ways that they are not usually experienced.408 Hildegard’s writing displayes an awareness of the way human beings learn all things through the use of their senses; however, she was also aware that, in a strict sense, physical things had no correspondence to a completely transcendent

Deity, and so learning about God through the senses presented a particular challenge. If

Hildegard’s writings are taken to be not merely sensory, but symbolic, we see how her sometimes confusing mixture of images and sensory experiences gave her poetry a

407 McGuire, “Medieval Aesthetic Principles,” 75. In Sister of Wisdom, Barbara Newman comments: “Hildegard is one of the rare medieval authors who can be cited both as a textbook example of allegoresis and as a precursor of the Symbolist poets,” 25. 408 Newman, “Poet,” 185. 136

surreal, other worldly character, and tended toward transcending merely earthly images and sense experiences.

Scholars have suggested different ways to understand this symbolic character of medieval music. In Style and Symbol, Andrew Hughes defines a symbol in music thus:

“When music calls to mind some external scene, or object, or thought, I shall regard the music as a symbol for that external reference.”409 But for Hildegard, music did more than simply “call to mind” the heavenly reality. Heidi Epstein, considering the use of symbolism in music, describes a metaphor as “one image or quality standing for another but without complete identity;” while symbols, on the other hand, “participate in the transcendent reality to which they point.” Therefore, she concludes, “Music has historically functioned as a revelatory symbol in theological discourse,” as the ancients

“regarded music as a full participant in the cosmic harmony that it symbolized.”410 This more closely reflects Hildegard’s thought; by introducing the concept of participation,

Epstein allows for a real, and not merely a mental or logical connection between the music and the thing that it symbolizes. To Epstein’s definition of a musical symbol, a third can be added, that of Jean Leclercq. He writes: “The imaginary [having to do with images] includes everything which can be represented by meaning of images; symbolism is the totality of what is signified by the images, thus the reality contained in the images which they evoke, call up before the mind.”411 He defines a symbol as containing the reality itself; the reality that an image can only call to the mind, also positing the

409 Hughes, Style and Symbol, 535. 410 Epstein, Melting the Venusberg, 12. In her own theology, Epstein prefers to ascribe “metaphorical resonances” to music. 411 Jean Leclercq, “The Love of Beauty as a Means and Expression of the Love of Truth,” International Journal of Medieval Studies 16 (1982): 69. Leclercq also notes that the frequent appeal to figurative language in seeking knowledge of God is a characteristic of monastic thinking, which differs in this aspect from pre-scholastic dialectical theology. 137

existence of a connection between the symbol and the thing symbolized that goes deeper than the meaning of words and an accidental likeness between two terms. A symbol brings a subject into contact with the reality that it represents.

As a symbol of heavenly realities, Hildegard treated music in terms similar to a sacrament, in that it was a sensory symbol of a spiritual reality that also produced the very reality it symbolized.412 When Hildegard spoke of a participation in the angelic choirs, she was not using an uplifting metaphor; she meant quite literally that music was a means for a human soul to be in touch with heaven. This is precisely why it was a serious thing for

Hildegard to be without music. Music for her was not art that merely brought to mind heavenly truths that one could bring to mind in other ways, or an esthetically pleasurable activity one might choose to sacrifice for the sake of asceticism. For Hildegard, music acted as the foundation of the unity between the material and the immaterial, the visible and the invisible, not only symbolizing it by representing or bringing to mind the union between the soul and God, but by continually producing and deepening that very union.

Hildegard argued in the letter to the prelates that music functioned as reminder of heaven and led to a restoration of lost harmony within those who sung the monastic liturgy, in particular, overcoming the disharmony human people experience between their body and their soul due to original sin. However, this integration of the physical and the spiritual within the human person refers to a harmony on a level that was still immanent to this world. Beyond this human level, Hildegard also argued that music achieved the restoration of harmony between the human and the divine on a transcendental level. In her letter, Hildegard explained that making music and singing is a particularly human

412A symbol brought one into contact with the reality that it represented. De Bruyne, Esthetics, 67-73. 138

activity, performed by man’s own art, but that it is done at the inspiration of God (through the holy prophets):

Quos, videlicet sanctos prophetas, studiosi et sapientes imitati, humana et ipsi arte nonnulla organorum genera invenerunt, ut secundum delectationem animae cantare possent, et quae cantabant, in juncturis digitorum, quae flexionibus inclinantur, adaptarunt ut et recolentes Adam digito Dei, qui Spiritus sanctus est, formatum, in cujus voce sonus omnis harmoniae, et totius musicae artis antequam delinqueret, suavitas erat.

[Zealous and wise men imitated the holy prophets in inventing many kinds of musical instruments with their own human art, that they might be able to sing for the delight of their souls, accompanying their singing with instruments played by the flexing of their fingers, in this way recalling Adam, formed by the finger of God (the Holy Spirit) in whose voice the sound of all harmony and all the musical arts were sweet before he sinned.”]413

Hildegard knew music was made on earth, with the use of the human voice or the instruments made by human beings, but she did not intend her music to stay on an earthly level, but aimed to bring those who participated in her music into union with the symphony of the heavens. Music “‘leaps up to God’—not by overcoming its physical components, but in the act of affirming them.”414 It was the soul who must be reminded that her final destiny is heaven; however, the soul, dependent on the body for contact with the rest of creation, could be greatly aided by the pleasant physical experiences of the body, such as beautiful music that entered through the ears and raised the mind up to heavenly things. In this reminder, music overcame the disharmony within the human person that came from sin and forgetfulness of God. Hildegard emphasized that men sing not just for delight but “for the delight of their souls.” In arguing for the harmony of music to overcome the disharmony of sin and remind human beings of their duty to their

413 Hildegard of Bingen, Epistolarium, Epist. XXIII, 95-101. 414 Dronke, Women Writers, 199. This same point is made by Fuentes Bardelli and Ortúzar Escudero, in “Música e Historia,” 152, who draw on Dronke’s work 139

creator, Hildegard understood the symbolic nature of music in the liturgy as a means of uniting both the physical and spiritual elements within the human person and of bringing the entire being, body, soul, senses, emotions and intellect, into union with the divinity.

140

Conclusion “Ita quod canticum agni resonant”415

Using her letter to the prelates of Mainz as a starting point, the thesis argued that the great importance of music for Hildegard of Bingen must be understood within the context of the ultimate goals of monastic life. The sung monastic liturgy played a central role in lives of the sisters in Hildegard’s monastery. Hildegard viewed it as an indispensable part of the spiritual formation of her nuns. Seeking to instruct and form the entire human person, in soul and in body, through beauty, Hildegard used the beauty of the liturgy to draw the mind and the heart away from earthly realities to contemplate the realities of heaven.

Hildegard understood music to have the power to aid a soul seeking heaven because, appealing to the senses of the body, it not only informed the intellect of spiritual realities in a purely rational way, but also, through the emotions, moved the will to seek out and embrace the spiritual good. While the Christian tradition had long encouraged the expression of emotions in the liturgy, the originality of the expressiveness present in

Hildegard’s liturgical music and her commitment to a pedagogical use of the affections in music make her stand out from her contemporaries. Hildegard’s teaching about the spiritual value of music to lead the Christian soul to heaven reflected the hierarchical relationship Hildegard perceived between the body and the soul.

For Hildegard, tension between the body and the soul was a reality for humanity after the fall. Uniting the themes of order, harmony, and the effects of sin on Adam and then relating Adam’s fate to her own in the prohibition to sing the liturgy, Hildegard gave

415 Hildegard of Bingen, Liber Vitae Meritorum, pars 6, cap. 30, linea 609. 141

great cosmological significance to the singing of the liturgy in her monastery here on earth. Understanding this singing as a participation in the celestial choirs of the angels, she taught her sisters that when they sang the liturgy they participated in a physical sensory, concrete, and audible activity which also transcended the material world. Once they received their final reward in heaven, this limited participation on earth would be made full as the creature in heaven is free from body-soul tension and able to give herself entirely without obstacle to the praise of God. This notion of participation shows that

Hildegard understood music in terms similar to a sacrament, or a sensory symbol of a spiritual reality.

This essential role of music as a bridge between the material and the immaterial highlights the fact that Hildegard by no means rejected what was bodily in favor of spiritual realities; rather she subordinated the body to the soul. This subordination led, in the end, not to a rejection of the body, but to an embrace of the body in its proper place.

The physical actions and experiences of a human person in the body enabled her to reach a spiritual goal. In Hildegard’s theological program laid out in Scivias, the sacraments followed logically upon her treatment of the Incarnation; the sacraments were the prolongation of the Incarnation, the continued action of Christ on earth.416 The

Incarnation, a central doctrine to Hildegard’s theological outlook, taught that God himself had at a particular point in time, condescended to unite his own spiritual person to the physical reality of the human body, thereby giving immense value to the actions of the human body.

416 See Scivias Book 2, Vision Six, “Christ’s Sacrifice and the Church.” 142

As Hildegard taught that the event of the Incarnation and its prolongation in the sacraments were what allowed man to reach heaven, it is fitting that these two theological principals, Incarnation and sacrament, are found at the root of her theology of music.

Hildegard expressed the connection she saw between the Incarnation and music in O fili dilectissime, ironically one of the few poems she wrote that has survived without its music, although scholars believe that it was originally meant to be sung.417 The poem was written in the voice of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who addresses her divine Son, rejoicing in the works God has done in her. In these words Hildegard put in Mary’s mouth, she refers to the child conceived in her womb as “every kind of music,” describing the mystery of the event taking place—the transcendent and spiritual person of the Son of

God taking on the sensory characteristics of our physical world—as music.

O fili dilectissime, quem genui in vsceribus meis de vi circuentis rote sancte divinitatis, que me creavit et Omnia membra mea ordinavit et in visceribus meis omne genus musicorum in omnibus floribus tonorum constituit.

[O most beloved Son, Whom I generated in my womb by the power of the circling wheel of the Holy Divinity, which created me and ordered my every member and in my womb established every kind of music in all the tones of flowers].418

Her use of music to both symbolize and produce the union of spiritual and sensory realities is manifested in Hildegard’s description of the presence of the Incarnate Word within Mary as “every kind of music.” Hildegard’s emphasis on the doctrine of the

417 Barbara Newman has translated and commented on this poem in her edition of Symphonia, 261. John Stevens also commenting on this poem notes that Hildegard’s images of the fruit of the Blessed Virgin Mary being music could also be a reference to Hildegard’s own musical creativity, “The Musical Individuality of Hildegard’s Songs,” 177. 418 Newman, Symphonia, 260 (my translation). 143

Incarnation secured the value of the experiences of the body and the senses, even though

Hildegard understood the body to be still affected by original sin and vulnerable to temptations, because the very Son of God chose to vest Himself in human flesh and to use that flesh as a vehicle for humanity to access heaven. Among the different activities

Hildegard and her sisters experienced in their bodies, singing the monastic liturgy had a prominent place because they understood it to draw them up, body and soul, to a participation in the liturgy taking place before the throne of God in heaven.

Hildegard fought for her sisters to be able to anticipate the joys of heaven through the quasi-sacramental symbolic expression of music, all the while hoping that they might one day perfect this partial participation through the consummation of their longing for union with God. In Liber Vitae Meritorum, Hildegard described a vision she had of the choirs of virgins in heaven. Having faithfully imitated Christ, their heavenly bridegroom, while on earth, Hildegard saw the reward they received: the privilege of joining in the heavenly song that only virgins can sing, their participation now brought to perfection.

Et quia ad mansuetudinem incarnati Filii Dei se inclinauerant, et quoniam mentes eorum in tantam altitudinem ascenderant, quod uirginitatem suam Deo uouerant et quod eam digne et sancte obseruauerant, congaudens eis agnus Dei uocem suam dat, et suauissimus flatus uenti de secreto diuinitatis ueniens signa coronate uirginitatis ipsorum tangit, ita quod canticum agni resonant.

[Because they had inclined themselves to the meekness of the Incarnate Son of God, and had already lifted their minds up to great heights and since they had vowed their virginity to God and worthily and holily kept their vows, the lamb of God rejoices with them with his voice and touches the marks of their crowned virginity with the sweetest breath of wind blowing from the secrets of the divinity, in order than they might resound with the song of the Lamb.]419

Working to bring all of those living under her care safely to this reward, Hildegard’s fight was to restore the means of reaching heaven to her sisters. At the end of her battle,

419 Hildegard of Bingen, Liber Vitae Meritorum, pars 6, cap. 30, linea 609. 144

permission to rejoin the earthly reflection of these choirs was restored to Hildegard’s monastery, merely months before Hildegard made her own final journey, hoping to join those blessed virgins who resound eternally with the song of the Lamb.

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Appendix: Epistola XXIII ad Praelatos Moguntinenses

Appendix: Epistola XXIII ad Praelatos Moguntinenses

(Text of Van Acker’s edition, followed by my English translation)

In visione que animae meae antequam nata procederem, a Deo opifice infixa est, coacta sum ad scribendum ista, pro ligatura qua a magistris nostris alligatae sumus propter quemdam mor- tuum, conductu sacerdotis sui apud nos sine calumnia sepultum. 5 Quem post paucos sepelitionis suae dies, cum eumdem magistri nostri nos a coemeterio nostro ejicere jussissent, ex hoc non minimo terrore correpta, ad verum lumen ut solita aspexi, et vigilantibus oculis in anima mea vidi: quod si juxta praeceptum ipsorum corpus ejusdem mortui efferretur, ejectio illa in modum magnae nigre- 10 dinis ingens periculum loco nostro minaretur, et in similitudine atrae nubis, quae ante tempestates et tonitrua apparere solet, nos circumvallaret. Unde corpus ejusdem defuncti, utpote confessi, inuncti et communicati, et sine contradictione sepulti, nec efferre pre- 15 sumpsimus, nec consilio seu praecepto istud suadentium vel jubentium acquievimus, non consilium proborum hominum, aut praelatorum nostrorum omnino parvipendentes; sed ne sacramentis Christi, quibus ille vivens adhuc, munitus fuerat, injuriam saevitate feminea facere videremur. Sed ne ex toto 20 inobedientes existeremus, a divinarum laudum canticis hacte- nus secundum eorum interdictum cessavimus, et a participa- tione Domini corporis; quoniam per singulos fere menses ex consuetudine frequentavimus, abstinuimus. Super quo dum magna amaritudine tam ego quam omnes 25 sorores meae affligeremur, et ingenti tristitia detineremur, magno tandem pondere compressa, verba ista in visione audivi: Propter verba humana, sacramenta indumenti verbi mei, quod salus vestra est, et quod in virginea natura ex Maria virgine natum est, dimittere vobis non expedit. Sed inde vobis a praelatis vestris 30 qui vos ligauerunt, licentia quaerenda est. Ex quo enim Adam de lucida regione paradisi in hujus mundi exsilium depulsus est, omnium hominum conceptio merito primae transgressionis cor- rupta est, et ideo necesse est ut ex impenetrabili consilio Dei ex humana natura homo sine contagione totius laesionis nasceretur, 35 per quam omnes ad vitam praedestinati, a sordibus cunctis mundarentur, et ut ipse in eis, et illi in ipso ad munimentum suum semper manerent, corpore ipsius communicando, sancti- ficarentur. Qui autem, sicut Adam, praeceptis Dei inobediens existit, et eum omnino in oblivionem habet, hic a corpore ejus 166

40 separari debet, quemadmodum per inobedientiam ab eo aversus est, donec per poenitentiam purgatus, a magistris iterum corpore ejusdem Domini communicare concedatur. Qui vero in tali ligatura se esse nec conscientia, nec voluntate cognoverit, securus ad perceptionem vivifici sacramenti accedat, mundandus san- 45 guine Agni immaculati, qui seipsum obediens Patri ad salutem omnibus restituendam in ara crucis immolari permisit. In eadem quoque visione audivi, quoniam in hoc culpabilis essem, quod cum omni humilitate et devotione ad presentiam magistrorum meorum non venissem, ut ab eis licentiam commu- 50 nicandi quaererem, maxime cum susceptione illius mortui culpa non teneremur, qui omni Christiana rectitudine munitus a sacerdote suo, cum tota Pingensi processione sine contra- dictione cujusquam sepultus esset. Et ita haec vobis dominis et praelatis nuntianda, mihi divinitus imposita 55 sunt. Aspexi etiam aliquid super hoc, quod vobis obediendo hac- tenus a cantu divini officii cessantes, illud tantummodo legentes remisse celebramus, et audivi vocem a vivente luce procedentem de diversis generibus laudum, de quibus David in psalmis dicit: 60 Laudate eum in sono tubae, laudate eum in psalterio et cithara, Et cetera usque ad id: Omnis spiritus laudet Dominum. In quibus verbis per exteriora de interioribus instruimur, scilicet quomodo, secundum materialium compositionem, vel qualitatem instru- mentorum, interioris hominis nostri official ad Creatoris maxime 65 laudes convertere et informare debeamus. Quibus cum diligenter intendimus, recolimus qualiter homo vocem viventis Spiritus requisivit, quam Adam per inobedientiam perdidit, qui ante transgressionem adhuc innocens, non minimam societatem cum angelicarum laudum vocibus habebat, quam ipsi ex spiritali 70 natura sua possident, qui a spiritu qui Deus est, semper vocan- tur. Similitudinem ergo vocis angelicae, quam in paradiso habe- bat, Adam perdidit, et in scientia qua ante peccatum praeditus erat, ita obdormivit, sicut a somno evigilans de his, que in somnis viderat, inscius et incertus redditur, quando sugges- 75 tione diaboli deceptus, et voluntati Creatoris sui repugnans, tenebris interioris ignorantiae ex merito iniquitatis suae involutus est. Deus vero qui animas electorum luce veritatis, ad pristinam beatitudinem reservat, ex suo hoc adinvenit consilio, 80 ut quandoque corda quamplurium, infusione prophetici Spiritus innovaret, cujus interiori illuminatione aliqua deficientia in illa recuperarent, quam Adam ante praevaricationis suae vindictam habuerat. Ut autem etiam divinae illius dulcedinis et laudationis, qua 85 cum angelis in Deo, priusquam caderet, idem Adam jucunda- 167

batur, et non ejus in hoc exsilio recordarentur, et ad haec quoque ipsi provocarentur, iidem S. Prophetae eodem spiritu quem acceperant, edocti, non solum psalmos et cantica, quae ad accen- dendam audientium devotionem cantarentur, sed et instrumenta 90 musicae artis diversa, quibus cum multiplicibus sonis proferren- tur, hoc respectu composuerunt, ut tam ex formis quam ex qualita- tibus eorumdem instrumentorum, quam ex sensu verborum, que in eis recitarentur audientes, ut praedictum est, per exteriora admoniti et exercitati, de interioribus erudirentur. 95 Quos, videlicet sanctos prophetas, studiosi et sapientes imitati, humana et ipsi arte nonnulla organorum genera invenerunt, ut secundum delectationem animae cantare possent, et quae canta- bant, in juncturis digitorum, quae flexionibus inclinantur, adap- tarunt, ut et recolentes Adam digito Dei, qui Spiritus Sanctus 100 est, formatum, in cujus voce sonus omnis harmoniae, et totius musicae artis antequam delinqueret, suavitas erat, et si in statu quo formatus fuit, permansisset, infirmitas mortalis hominis virtutem et sonoritatem vocis illius nullatenus ferre posset. Cum autem deceptor ejus diabolus audisset, quod homo ex 105 inspiratione Dei cantare cepisset, et per hoc ad recolendam suavitatem canticorum coelestis patriae invitaretur, machinamenta calliditatis suae in irritum ire videns, ita exterritus est, ut non minimum inde torqueretur, et multifariis nequitiae suae commen- tis semper deinceps excogitare et exquirere satagit, ut non 110 solum de corde hominis per malas suggestiones et immundas cogitationes seu diversas occupationes, sed etiam de corde Ecclesiae, ubicunque potest, per dissensiones et scandala, vel injustas depressiones, confessionem et pulchritudinem atque dulcedinem divinae laudationis et spiritualium hymnorum, perturbare vel auferre 115 non desistit. Quapropter summa vigilantia vobis et omnibus praelatis sa- tagendum est, et antequam os alicujus Ecclesiae, laudes Deo canentium, per sententiam claudatis, vel eam a tractandis, vel percipiendis sacramentis suspendatis, causas pro quibus 120 hoc faciendum sit, diligentissime prius discutiendo ventiletis. Et studendum vobis, ut ad hoc idem zelo justitiae Dei, non indignatione vel injusto motu animi, seu desiderio ultionis tra- hamini, et cavendum semper, ne in judiciis vestris circum- veniamini a Satana, qui hominem a coelesti harmonia, et a deli- 125 ciis paradisi extraxit. Pensate itaque, quoniam sicut corpus Jesu Christi de Spiritu sancto ex integritate virginis Mariae natum est, sic etiam can- ticum laudum, secundum coelestem harmoniam per Spiritum sanctum in Ecclesia radicatum; corpus vero indumentum 130 est animae, quae vivam vocem habet, ideoque decet ut corpus cum anima per vocem Deo laudes decantet. Unde et propheticus 168

Spiritus per significationem jubet ut in cymbalis bene sonantibus et cymbalis jubilationis, et caeteris instrumentis musicis Deus laudetur, quae sapientes et studiosi adinvenerunt, quoniam omnes 135 artes quae ad utilitatem et necessitatem hominum pertinent, a spiraculo, quod Deus misit in corpus hominis, repertae sunt; et ideo justum est, ut in omnibus laudetur Deus. Et quoniam interdum in auditu alicujus cantionis interdum homo saepe suspirat et gemit, naturam animae coelestis harmoniae recolens, propheta 140 subtiliter profundam spiritus naturam considerans, et sciens quia symphonialis est anima, hortatur in psalmo, ut confiteamur Domino in cithara, et in psalterio decem chordarum psallamus ei, citharam quae inferius sonat, ad disciplinam corporis; psal- terium, quod de superioribus sonum reddit, ad intentionem spiritus, 145 decem chordas, ad contemplationem legis referre cupiens. Qui ergo Ecclesiae in canticis laudum Dei, sine pondere certae rationis, silentium imponunt, consortio angelicarum laudum in coelo carebunt, qui Deum in terris decore suae laudis injuste spoliaverunt, nisi per veram poenitentiam et humilem satisfac- 150 tionem emendaverint. Propterea qui claves coeli tenent, districte caveant, ne eis et claudenda aperiant, et aperienda claudant, quia judicium durissimum in his qui praesunt, fiet, nisi, ut ait Apostolus, praesint in sollicitudine. Et audivi vocem sic dicentem: Quis creavit coelum? Deus. 155 Quis aperit fidelibus suis coelum? Deus. Quis ejus similis? Nullus. Et ideo, o fideles, nemo vestrum resistat, vel se opponat, ne fortitudine sua super vos cadat, et nullum adjutorem, qui vos in judicio ejus tueatur, possitis habere. Istud tempus muliebre est, quia justitia Dei debilis est. Sed fortitudo justitiae 160 Dei exsudat, et bellatrix contra injustitiam existit, quatenus devicta cadat.

I have been compelled to write this letter by a vision that God, the artisan, fixed in my soul before I was born, because of the interdict by which we are bound by our superiors on account of a certain dead man, buried with us without objection and with his own priest present. A few days after his burial, when our superiors ordered us to remove him from our cemetery, shaken by no small terror, I looked, as usual, to the true light, and I saw in my soul, with watchful eyes, that, if, according to their command, the body of that man were to be dug up and thrown out in that way, a huge, black danger would threaten us and surround us like black clouds that appear before a thunderstorm. Therefore, we have not presumed to disinter the body of that man, as he had confessed, received anointing and communion, and had been buried without objection; neither have we yielded to either the advice or the command of those persuading and commanding us, not because we altogether disregard the advice of good men or that of our superiors, but lest the sacraments of Christ, with which that man had been strengthened while alive, suffer any injury on account of feminine harshness. But in order 169

that we might not be disobedient in everything, we have put a stop to the songs of divine praise according to their interdict and we have abstained from the sharing in the body of the Lord, which we have the custom to receive every month. While all of my sisters and I have been afflicted with a great bitterness and detained by deep sorrow on account of this, crushed by a large weight, at length I heard these words in a vision: “It is not proper for you to abandon the sacraments of the garment of the Word of God, who was born of the Virgin Mary in her virginal nature and who is your salvation, on account of human words, but rather you should seek permission from your prelates who bound you. For since Adam was pushed into exile in this world from the luminous regions of paradise, the conception of all men is justly corrupted by the first transgression, and therefore, it was necessary that, by the impenetrable plan of God, a man be born of human nature without any corruption, by whose lowliness, all predestined to life are cleaned and sanctified by communicating of his own body, so that he might remain always in them and they in him for their fortification. Therefore, he who like Adam shows himself to be disobedient to the commands of God and is completely forgetful of Him should be separated from the body of Christ since by disobedience he has turned away from God, until he has been cleansed through penance and once again he is permitted by his superiors to participate in the body of the Lord. However, he who knows that he has incurred such a binding neither consciously nor deliberately, may be present at the life-giving sacrament in order to be cleaned by the blood of the immaculate lamb, who through his own obedience to the Father, permitted all to be restore to health by being immolated on the altar of the cross. In the same vision I also heard that I am to blame because I did not come to the presence of my superiors with all humility and devotion and request from them permission to receive the sacraments, especially since we are not guilty concerning this man, who was buried at our monastery in all Christian rectitude, fortified by his own priest and with all of Bingen following in the procession without any objection. And thus, I am commanded by God to report these things to you, our lords and prelates. I also saw that in obeying you thus far by ceasing to sing the divine office, but only reading it, we are celebrating it incorrectly, and I heard a voice coming from the Living Light speaking about the different kinds of praise, of which David said in the psalm: ‘Praise him with the sound of the trumpet, praise him with the psaltery and the cithara.’ And again he said ‘Let every spirit praise the Lord.’ By these words, we are instructed in interior things through exterior things, so that according to the material composition or quality of the instruments, we must give form to the duties of our inner man and return great praises to the Creator. When we diligently consider these things, we recall how man required the voice of the living Spirit, which Adam lost by disobedience; Adam, still innocent before his transgression had no little association with the praise of the angelic voices, which the angels, who are called spirit by the Spirit who is God, possess by their spiritual nature. Adam lost, therefore, the likeness to the angelic voices that he had in paradise. He fell asleep to the knowledge that he had been given before he sinned; and just as a man waking from sleep is hazy and uncertain of those thing that he saw in his dreams, so Adam, when he was deceived by the deceptions of the devil and rejected the will of his Creator, was enwrapped in the darkness of interior ignorance through his iniquity.

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However, God, who restores the souls of the elect to pristine happiness by infusing them with the light of truth, devised a plan by which, when he renews many by the infusion of the prophetic spirit, by His interior illumination they might regain some of the knowledge that Adam possessed before the punishment for his sin. Since in this exile Adam couldn’t remember the divine sweetness and the praises which he had enjoyed with the angels in God before he fell, the Holy Prophets, taught by the same spirit which they had received, composed not only psalms and canticles, which were sung to increase devotion by hearing, but also made musical instruments by different arts, with which they produced many sounds. Thus, both through the form and the quality of these instruments as through the meaning of the words that were recited, as has been said, those who heard, thus admonished and trained by the exterior things, were taught of the interior things. Zealous and wise men imitated the holy prophets in inventing many kinds of musical instruments with their own human art, that they might be able to sing for the delight of their souls, accompanying their singing with instruments played by the flexing of their fingers, in this way recalling Adam, formed by the finger of God (the Holy Spirit) in whose voice the sound of all harmony and all the musical arts were sweet before he sinned. And if he had continued in his original state, the weakness of mortal man would not have been able to endure the power and sound of his voice. When however, his deceiver the devil heard that man had begun to sing by the inspiration of God, and through his song, to be given the recollection of the sweetness of the songs of his heavenly homeland, seeing the workings of his skill being thus thwarted, be became terrified and he began to turn about this way and that. In order to disturb or bring to a stop confessions and the beauty of the divine praise and spiritual hymns, he began to invent and execute a succession of his evils and falsehoods, not only from the heart of man through evil suggestions, unclean thoughts and his various other distractions, but also from the heart of the Church, wherever he can, through division, scandals, or unjust oppression. Therefore, you and all prelates must take every precaution to clear the air by first diligently discussing the reasons, before, by your sentence, you close the mouth of any church singing the praises of God or suspend it from handling or receiving the divine sacraments. And you must be careful that you are moved to this by a zeal for the justice of God, not out of , unjust feelings, or a desire for revenge. Also you should be careful that in your judgments you are not tricked by Satan, who dragged man out of the celestial harmony and the delights of paradise. Consider the fact that just as the body of Jesus Christ was born of the spotlessness of the Virgin Mary by the Holy Spirit, the song of praise according to the heavenly harmony is rooted in the Church by the Holy Spirit. The body, however, is the clothing of the soul, which has a living voice, and therefore it is fitting for the body, together with the soul, to sing praises to God with its voice. This is why the prophetic spirit, by metaphor, commands us to praise God with clashing cymbals and cymbals of rejoicing, and other musical instruments which wise and zealous men have invented: because all arts which are necessary and useful to man are founded by the breath that God sent into the body of man, and therefore it is just that God be praised in all things. And because, sometimes, upon hearing songs, people begin to sigh and moan, remembering the nature of the celestial harmony, the prophet, considering the profound 171

nature of the spirit and knowing that the soul is harmonic, exhorts in the psalms that we might acknowledge God with the cithara and sing to him with the ten-stringed psaltery; the cithara which sounds from below, represents the discipline of the body, while the psaltery, which sounds from above, represents the desires of the spirit, with the ten strings referring to the fulfillment of the law. Therefore, those who impose silence on a church that is singing praises to God without the weight of certainty and those who unjustly rob God of his honor and glory on earth will lose their fellowship with the praise of the angels in heaven, unless they make amends through true penitence and humble restitution. Furthermore, let those who hold the keys keep a careful watch, lest they open what is to be closed and close what is to be opened, because a very harsh judgment will come to those in authority, unless, as the Apostle says, they lead with due diligence. And I heard a voice speaking thus: Who created heaven? God. Who opened heaven to his faithful? God. Who is like to God? No one. And therefore, o faithful ones, let no one of you resist him, lest he fall on you in his firmness and then you will be able to have no helper to protect you from him judgment. This age is a womanish time, because the justice of God is weak. But the strength of God’s justice is emerging and a woman warrior is standing up against injustice, so that it might fall, defeated.

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