Femina: A New History of the Middle Ages

by Janina Ramírez

in its stitches. The events of 1066 were incredibly disruptive for English women, many of whom lost male relatives and lived in fear of being forcibly married to Norman incomers.80 The number of nuns swelled as women sought sanctuary in convents. This would have provided Edith with a growing body of skilled, dedicated embroiderers capable of completing a project as demanding as the Bayeux Tapestry.

Ultimately, all we can confidently deduce is that her influential position means she was capable of such an undertaking, and reminds us that eleventh-century women could be patrons and producers of art.

the images of conquest, triumph and war were brought into existence through the needles of medieval women. We are left with their version of events, and it is one in which women had agency and embroidered their existence onto the canvas of history.

the remarkable life of Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179) has been celebrated for centuries.

The manuscript is priceless. Known as the Riesencodex (‘the giant book’) because of its size, it is made up of 481 folios of vellum held together by wooden boards bound in pig leather that measure 45 centimetres by 30 centimetres. Still attached to its spine is a chain, originally used to secure it to the library of the monastery Hildegard founded in Rupertsberg (today called Bingen). The book contains almost all her writings; a rare attempt to create a single version of her ‘definitive works’ while she was still alive. Many scribes worked for years to collect her visions, music, linguistic writings, homilies, biography and letters. Very few writers even now are so popular in their lifetimes to have such a volume made in their honour.

The only manuscript still in the vault was the Riesencodex, probably because it was partly hidden and its custom-made metal box was so heavy. In accordance with Soviet instructions to collect first-class artefacts found in Russian-held German territories, the Riesencodex became the property of the state.7 Scholars and Hildegard devotees across the world were anxious that they would never again be able to freely consult her collected works. They needed a plan and Margarete would prove to be the linchpin.

Letters have recently been discovered which show that Margarete wanted to join the nuns at Eibingen.8

Not only could she have pursued her devotion to medieval scholarship in the monastery’s enviable library, but she would follow the Benedictine Rule and fill her days with meaningful work.9 Whether producing wine, creating ceramic art, crafting gold or simply tending to the needs of the many nuns in Eibingen, she would have kept busy. Throughout the day and night her life would be punctuated with the routine of the monastic hours, which she would recite alongside her sisters in the stunning abbey church. Paintings from the famous Beuronese art school would tower above her, presenting iconic, timeless women more reminiscent of Byzantine times than twentieth-century Germany.10 These would be constant reminders that great things had been achieved by her female forebears.

The original monastery at Disibodenberg was founded by an Irish saint in the seventh century.14 Like other Irish missionaries, Disibod drew parallels between the mountainous forest and the deserts of the early hermits; a place entirely disconnected from the temptations of life. ‘O wonderous marvel, a hidden form shines forth and rises up in glorious stature to where the living height gives forth mystical truths.’

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She describes a view of the divine which is unique: the natural world held in harmony through the female figures of Divine Love and Wisdom, and the church as a mother caring for its child. The fear of being declared heretics is never far from their thoughts, but together they will write a work that will impress all of Christendom.

She wrote three major theological works, the first recorded morality play, two scientific treatises, over 300 letters and a large body of music. She even invented her own language – the Lingua Ignota.

Her enormous output over the eight decades of her long life means her reputation is rivalled by just a handful of individuals. Perhaps only the polymath Leonardo

da Vinci, working three centuries after Hildegard, can compare to her. But as is well known, he rarely finished his projects,23 while Hildegard did.

The Crusades promoted cross-state diplomacy and collaboration, as kingdoms had to pull together to provide forces for the shared aims of Christendom.

Hildegard felt the terror keenly, as her monastery in Rupertsberg was at the front line of hostilities. She wrote personally to both the emperor and pope, giving advice while daring to criticise the two most powerful men of her time. It was through this role as prophetess to the powerful that she gained the title ‘Sibyl of the Rhine’. Like a medieval Cassandra, she wanted influence in what she saw as a pivotal point of moral and social transformation, and

she was prepared to shout to be heard.

You, you evil deceivers, who labour to subvert the Catholic faith. You are wavering and soft, and thus cannot avoid the poisonous arrows of human corruption … And after you pour out your lust in the poisonous seed of fornication, you pretend to pray and falsely assume an air of sanctity, which is more unworthy in my eyes than the stinky mire.26

Hildegard seems opposed to this violence. She presents Synagoga (who represents the Jews) as a woman holding the prophets in her arms. Synagoga is a counterpart to the female representation of the Christian church, Ecclesia, who is cloaked in gold, and also holds the faithful close to her. This sympathetic representation of Synagoga in Scivias demonstrates her opinion that Jews and Christians both contributed to the church, and they should not be persecution by Crusaders. A true medieval activist living through a time of fear, Hildegard was campaigning against immorality and corruption.

Some medieval women writers, like Julian of Norwich, escaped the threat of accusation by remaining in an anchorite’s cell and avoiding what was going on in the world. But Hildegard took the role of a prophet and waded into politics head first. She told the pope to act against the ‘bear’, Emperor Barbarossa:

The prince-bishops oversaw the spiritual care of kingdoms, but also held all the might and wealth of worldly leaders, something Hildegard lamented repeatedly in her works. Seeing the religious leaders of her time immersed in warfare, corruption and moral vices influenced what she wrote, and formed the basis of later works like The Play of the Virtues. In this morality play – the first of its kind to survive – the women in Hildegard’s monastery assumed the guise of each virtue, while the only male – the monk Volmar – responded as the Devil.

One account states that when she was five she asked her nurse if she was able to see anything apart from external objects. Surprised, the nurse replied that she couldn’t. Young Hildegard then went on to describe the beautiful calf that was inside one of their pregnant cows, right down to its markings – ‘all white with dark patches on its forehead, feet and back!’

The nurse told her mother, who requested to see the calf as soon as it was born. When the animal was just as Hildegard had described they ‘saw she had a different character from other people and decided to enclose her in a monastery’.35

Illumination of Hildegard of Bingen’s Cosmic Egg from Book I, Vision III of Scivias, twelfth century.

For example, she lists the plants that can be ingested to bring about an abortion.46 She gives very clear instructions that the woman should take a bath in freshly heated river water and fill it with tansy (a well-known abortifacient), chrysanthemum, mullein and feverfew. The water should cover all the belly. Then she must: take rifelbere and one-third as much yarrow, aristologia, and about one-ninth as much yue, and crush this mixture in a mortar. Put it in a little bag and then cook it in wine; add clove and white pepper … and honey. Drink this daily both fasting and with meals … for five days or fifteen or until the matter is resolved.47

While the modern church has developed stringent guidance on abortions in response to advances in medicine, such clear criticism of the process was not expressed in the medieval period. As a healer Hildegard prized the health of the people she assisted above all, and here she is treating a critical situation where a woman may need to ‘abort an infant which is a danger to her body’. Even today this view may be seen by some as radical.

She cautioned against the fasting, scourging and self-deprivation practised by certain monks and nuns like Jutta.49 Instead, beer is encouraged since it ‘positively affects the body when moderately consumed … beer fattens the flesh and … lends a beautiful colour to the face’.

Writing in 1150, she provided the first known description of what a female orgasm feels like:

It’s important to stress that Hildegard never overstepped the bounds of contemporary debate, and her writings were endorsed by the pope himself. Of course, when Hildegard wrote about sex she had in mind the act of procreation. Other twelfth-century authors were writing about female sexuality and gynaecology too, but her discussions of sexuality and gender were broader and more engaged than those of contemporary male writers.52 Her works were pored over by scholars shortly after her death to support her claim for canonisation, and not one of these male scholars found her to have written about inappropriate subjects.

Hildegard was drawing attention to the differences between male and female bodies to stress that they were unique, rather than one being inferior to the other.

Hildegard even argued that a person’s temperament was affected by the feelings of the mother and father during intercourse – the more loving and pleasurable the sexual encounter, the happier the child. Her approach to sex reflects a broader agenda that underlines all her work; to provide a female perspective which could be shared and enhanced by the women she lived, worked, prayed and learned alongside.

Women may be made from man, but no man can be made without a woman.’55

In presenting these traditional views of gender difference she was playing to a societal norm, creating an unconfrontational space in which her voice could be heard. Filtered through the quill of her male ‘secretary’ Volmar, there is every chance Hildegard felt the need to self-censor.

As she grew in confidence and reputation, however, the number of references to her weakness as a woman decreased. In her later theological works, she shifted pronouns regularly. When describing her visions, she would start by referring to a man ‘seeing’, but the viewpoint would switch in the next sentence to that of a woman. This blurring of gender appears deliberate; a way of showing that Divine Love (which she characterises as feminine) flows through everything regardless of perceived biological sex. She also visualised central concepts, like the physical manifestation of Love, as having male, female and animal elements; an old male bearded head atop a woman, with an eagle on top of that.

It is impossible to term a medieval woman a ‘feminist’ since the vocabulary and framework for the term are modern inventions.

Hildegard wrote that ‘nuns looked at me with dark eyes and said they could not stand the unbearable pressures of discipline and rules’.66 She had drawn the most affluent noblewomen of the region to her with promises that they would live well. They each brought large dowries and must have been tested by the unending building work and poor living conditions.

The passion displayed in Hildegard’s letters to Richardis could be read as signs of a deeper, perhaps even romantic, attachment between the two.69 But it must be remembered that these women had been holed up together for years and had lived cheek-by-jowl in their time at Disibodenberg. Richardis also worked closely with Hildegard to compose and craft her books, acting as an editor of sorts. Theirs was an intense friendship and when Richardis died the very year after leaving Hildegard’s side, the sorrow is still tangible in the text Hildegard writes decades later.

While Eve brought about women’s subservience to men, Mary carries them higher:

Reliquary containing bones in the Golden Chamber of the Basilica of St Ursula, Cologne, discovered in 1106 and believed to be the legendary 11,000 virgins martyred with the saint.

She made the horror, pain, torture and martyrdom of the female saint a real and vivid experience for the nuns.

On feast days, your nuns stand in church chanting psalms with unbound hair and for decorative purposes wear long white silk veils which reach down to the ground. On their heads they wear crowns of woven gold … and they adorn their fingers with golden rings. And they do this although the first shepherd of

the church (St Paul) forbade such things.73

Nuns were encouraged to keep their heads shaven, while long uncovered hair was the preserve of the aristocracy. Monastic rules also specifically instructed female religious practitioners not to wear jewellery and to keep their habits plain and simple. Yet Hildegard’s nuns were clearly flouting all these rules. Her reply to Tengswich stated that the women at Rupertsberg were even more worthy of dressing themselves beautifully, since they were virgins and the brides of Christ. She also felt that the balance needed redressing; if male members of the church had a...

Hildegard was a nun, a writer, a polymath and a celebrity, but she was also a snob, born and raised among the elite.

Indeed, colour and especially greenness – ‘viriditas’ – is at the heart of many of her visions. For Hildegard, it is this verdant green that reveals how the divine essence moves through every part of nature.

The difference in tone could be compared today to that between an academic article and a trade book. Hildegard had not been tutored in a university or trained in the liberal arts as a male scholar would have been. But she had the intellect and skill to express her ideas in distinctive ways that allowed her to communicate effectively.

God is full and whole and beyond the beginning of time, and therefore he cannot be divided or analysed by words as a human being can … Human reasoning has to find God through names and concepts, for human reasoning is by its nature full of names and concepts.77

Her images fascinate, baffle and assault the eyes with psychedelic colours, shapes and compositions. Hildegard used all the means available through her senses to explore her understanding of existence.78

She explains the vision as a representation of the universe in the form of an egg. This ties back to her ideas of the feminine within the divine, since only the female produces eggs, so the universe is made from woman. The ring of fire portrays God’s wrath and vengeful defeat of the devil. Male and female are both necessary for creation. Through this image that she received as a vision, she tries to make the impossible, the invisible and the eternal into something tangible that others could understand. As she was entirely immersed in Christian imagery and concepts, she framed this vision in religious terms. But viewers today may see many different layers of symbolism and meaning in the image.

The Lingua Ignota survives as a glossary of around 1,000 words, but it’s not known how Hildegard intended it to be used. The nuns in her monastery may have employed certain words as code, or a spiritually symbolic frame of reference. Many of the words have a distinctly German flavour, blending Latin and vernacular to create something specific to Hildegard and her followers. There are words for spiritual concepts, like ‘Aigonz’ – God, ‘Aieganz’ – angel, and ‘Sancciuia’ – crypt. But there are also more day-to-day words like ‘Zizia’ – moustache, ‘Fluanz’ – urine, ‘Pusinzia’ – snot, and ‘Bizioliz’ – drunkard. Highbrow or lowbrow, the poetic nature of her invented language runs throughout. As earlier High German poetry worked on alliteration, perhaps Hildegard was creating something similar. Her words have musical and rhythmic qualities, particularly in the final two syllables which produce a bouncy feel when spoken in phrases.