Order of Medieval Women
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PictureScivias Codex: Hildegard's Awakening, Hildegard von Bingen, German Manuscript, 1165 CE, Wiesbaden, Landesbibliothek Ms. Scivias Codex, folio 5r. Credit Alamy Photo
​St. Hildegard von Bingen, 1098-1179, Daughter of Mechtild of Merxheim-Nahet and Hildebert of Bermersheim, a mystic nun who was one of the greatest figures and perhaps the most prolific writer of the Middle Ages, a leading intellectual and mystic of the twelfth century. 

Her first visionary work  "Know The Ways of the Lord" was followed by a profusion of literary works including the earliest known liturgical-morality play.  She is often called the marvel of Germany  writing about the curative powers of various natural objects.  Her work “Physica” comprised of nine books with two hundred and thirty chapters includes classification of the various natural elements in the world such as plants, animals, birds and fish, in addition to precious stones and metals.   Hildegard’s book Causae et Curae with three hundred chapters has an interesting segment in which she insists that the world should be grateful it was Eve that succumbed to the lures of the serpent because original sin initiated by man would have been so strong and incorrigible that he would neither wish nor able to be saved.

Hildegard was a prolific letter writer, numbering three hundred ninety and include correspondence with popes, bishops, kings, queens, laymen and woman attacking corruption, suggests reforms, moral support and gives administrative and personal advice.

She had a remarkable sense of the synergy of the Earth, now known as thermodynamics, and differed from the average person in her belief that the Earth was a sphere and her ideas on universal gravitation were correct and pre-date Newton's by several centuries.

In 1147, she founded her first convent on the Rupertsberg where she had a watercourse channeled beneath the infirmary privies to carry off the waste.  She is honored by nurses as the founder of holistic medicine delightfully mixing common sense with her healing, founding two monasteries.  Hildegard has been described as ’an overpowering, electrifying presence’, one of the leading intellectuals and mystics of the twelfth century whose visions reflected some of the deepest spiritual currents of life during their time.    ​
Picture
Bronze Sculpture of Hildegarde von Bingen in front of the Benedictine Abbey of Eibingen, sculptor Karlheinz Oswald 1958 CE © Gerda Arendt. CC BY-SA 3.0.
Map of Bingen, Germany circa 962 AD
Picture
​Read her letters:  https://epistolae.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/woman/115.htm


​References and Further Reading
  • Jackson, Deirdre.  Medieval Women.  British Library, 2015.
  • Labarge, Margaret Wade. A Small Sound of the Trumpet, Women in Medieval Life.  Beacon Press, 1986.
  • Medieval Women’s Latin Letters.  https://epistolae.ccnmtl.columbia.edu/women

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  • Home
  • About
    • Mission
    • Membership >
      • Genealogical Sources
  • Women of Consequence
    • Early Middle Ages (500-1000) >
      • St. Adelaide of Burgundy
      • St. Bathilde
      • St. Bertha of Kent
      • St. Clothilde
      • St. Olga of Kiev
      • St. Theophana
    • High Middle Ages (1000-1300) >
      • Adelaide of Turin and Susa
      • St. Adela of Normandy & England
      • Anne of Kiev
      • Berengaria of Castile
      • Blanche of Castile
      • Ela, Countess of Salisbury
      • Eleanor of Aquitaine
      • Gwenllian ferch Gruffydd
      • Margaret de Quincy
      • Matilda, the Empress
      • Matilda (Eadgyth) of Scotland
      • Nicholaa de la Haye
      • Sikelgaita, heiress of Salerno
    • Late Middle Ages (1300-1500) >
      • Caterina Sforza
      • Dorothea of Brandenburg
      • Elizabeth de Clare, 11th Lady of Clare
      • Isabella d’Este
      • Isabella I of Castile
      • Isabella of France
      • Jeanne de Belleville
      • Joanna of Flanders
      • Lucrezia Tornabuoni
      • Margaret Beaufort
      • Philippa of Hainault
  • Roll of Honor
    • Æthelflæd, Lady of the Mercians
    • Anna Comnena, Princess of Byzantium
    • Beatriz Gallindo, La Latina
    • Christine de Pizan
    • Emma of Normandy
    • St. Hildegard von Bingen
    • Hrotsvit von Gandersheim
    • Jacqueline Felice de Almania
    • St. Joan of Arc
    • Matilda of Tuscany
    • St. Rodegunda (Radegund)
    • St. Theodora, Byzantine Empress
    • Trota of Salerno
  • Connections
  • Genealogical Charts
    • House of Sforza
    • Welsh Ancestry of English Royalty
    • Descendants of Gwenllian ferch Gruffydd
    • Houses of della Rovere and Gonzaga
    • House of Este
    • House of Trastamara
    • Lords of Clisson
    • Descendants of Jeanne la Flamme
    • House of Medici
    • Genealogy of Nicholaa de la Haye
    • Welsh Kings
  • Maps
    • Early Middle Ages >
      • Kingdom of Burgundy
      • Merovingian Kingdoms
      • Kent England
      • Principality of Kiev, Drevlyans
      • Thuringi & Franci, 6th century Europe
      • Quedlinburg, Germany, circa 962 AD
    • High Middle Ages >
      • Turin & Susa, Italy circa 1050 AD
      • Europe circa 1000 AD
      • Spanish Kingdoms 1210 AD
      • France & Burgundy circa 1032 AD
      • England & France 1152-1327 AD
      • Salisbury, England
      • England & France in the Reign of Henry I
      • Wales
      • Lincoln, England
      • Norman Lands in Italy & Sicily
    • Late Middle Ages >
      • Forli, Italy
      • Sweden circa 1658
      • Usk, Wales and Cambridge, England
      • Ferrera & Mantuga, Italy
      • Iberian Peninsula 1257-1492
      • England & France 1152-1327
      • Clisson, Anjou, France
      • Brittany, France
      • Florence, Italy
      • England & Wales circa 1399
      • Hainault
    • Roll of Honor >
      • Kingdom of Mercia and Surrounding Kingdoms
      • Byzantine Empire 1000-1100
      • Iberian Peninsula 1257-1492
      • Paris, France
      • Dominions of Cnut
      • Bingen, Germany circa 962 AD
      • Gandersheim, Germany circa 962 AD
      • Military Campaign of Joan of Arc
      • Canossa & Tuscany, Italy
      • Eastern Roman Empire circa 565 AD
      • Duchy of Salerno
  • Members Only
    • The Board
    • Bylaws
    • Meetings
    • Newsletter
    • Pictures
  • Contact