Born: 1098, Germany
Died: 17 September 1179
Country most active: Germany
Also known as: NA
The following bio was written by Emma Rosen, author of On This Day She Made History: 366 Days With Women Who Shaped the World and This Day In Human Ingenuity & Discovery: 366 Days of Scientific Milestones with Women in the Spotlight, and has been republished with permission.
Hildegard of Bingen was a prominent figure in the High Middle Ages as a German Benedictine abbess known for her diverse talents and contributions.
Hildegard, also referred to as Saint Hildegard and the Sibyl of the Rhine was a prolific writer, composer, philosopher, mystic, and visionary. She was also engaged in medical writing and practice during her time.
In 1136, she was elected as the leader of her convent, holding the position of magistra, or mother superior. Later, she established the monasteries of Rupertsberg in 1150 and Eibingen in 1165. Hildegard’s writings encompassed theology, botany, medicine, letters, hymns, and liturgical antiphons. She also supervised the creation of illuminations for her first work, “Scivias.”
Hildegard’s musical talents made her one of the best-known composers of sacred monophony, with her compositions being the most recorded in modern history. Notably, she composed both music and lyrics, leaving a significant legacy in this field.
Her work “Ordo Virtutum” is an early example of liturgical drama and is among the oldest surviving morality plays. Additionally, she is renowned for inventing the constructed language known as Lingua Ignota.
On October 7, 2012, she was honored as a Doctor of the Church for her exemplary life and original teachings.
From Famous Women: An Outline of Feminine Achievement Through the Ages With Life Stories of Five Hundred Noted Women. Written by Joseph Adelman, published 1926 by Ellis M Lonow Company:
German abbess and mystic, bom of noble parents. She founded an abbey near Bingen in 1147, and boldly attacked ecclesiastical abuses. From earliest childhood she was accustomed to see visions, which increased in frequency and vividness as she grew older. Committed to writing by her friend, the monk Godefridus, they now form the most important part of her printed works. By means of voluminous correspondence, as well as by extensive journeys, in the course of which she was unwearied in the exercise of her gift of prophecy, she wielded for many years an important influence on her contemporaries. Hildegarde also organized a school of nurses for service in the hospitals, from which small beginning grew the system of special training for nursing, though it remained in its infancy until the middle of the nineteenth century when the greatest impetus to the movement was given by Florence Nightingale.
The following is excerpted from “400 Outstanding Women of the World and the Costumology of Their Time” by Minna Moscherosch Schmidt, published in 1933.
Most remarkable of all the women of the early centuries whose records have been preserved was Hildegarde, called the “prophetess,” the “Sibyl of the Rhine,” whose chief importance from a less credulous modern standpoint was her unique position as a teacher of medicine.
She was born in 1098, at Bockelheim Castle, near Krenznach of noble family, Hildegarde was a delicate child of extraordinary mental qualities. In her eighth year she was brought by her parents to the Convent Disibodenberg, to be reared by Yutta, a pious dame of birth. At the age of thirty Hil-
degarde, became the head of the convent, a double one under the rule of an Abbot. Her mental force and distinction gave her a natural supremacy over all who came in contact with her.
During her eighty-one years Hildegarde became possessed of an amount and kind of knowledge which may well have seemed miraculous and was, in fact, so explained. This knowledge embraced medical science, nursing, and natural science. She was more conspicuous as a physician than as a nurse, though she combined the arts of both. Modern physicians have studied the scientific attainments of Hildegarde with frank attention and serious interest. She wrote two medical books: one, the Liber Simplicis Medicinae and the other the Liber Compositae Medicinae, Hildegarde has been placed first among all the monastic women who practised medicine in the middle ages.
IW note: She was also a noted composer whose works are still performed today, as well as a brewer and herbalist who described using hops in beer.