Saint Hildegard

Hildegard, St., Virgin and Abbess, was born at Bockelheim, or Bockenheim, Frankfurt, 1098. Her father, Hildebert, was one of the Knights of Meginhard, Count of Spanheim. When eight years old she was committed to tho care of a sister of the Count, Jutta, the Abbess of St. Disibod, a position in which she was succeeded by Hildegard in 1136. Under the rule of Hildegard the convent became so crowded that a new one was built at Rupertsberg, near Bingen, into which, in 1147, Hildegard removed with eighteen Sisters. Hildegard gained great notoriety in very early life on account of visions to which, it is said, she was subject from her 6th to her 15th year. In later life she filled a considerable place in the history of her times, not only as a writer who had the courage of her opinions, and spared neither high nor low in her vigorous denunciations of their shortcomings, political as well as moral, but as a prophetess and preacher. At the instigation of St. Bernard she took a most prominent part in stirring up the unfortunate crusade which he preached, and engaged in many controversies with the hierarchy of her Church. Though she never ceased to be the abbess of the convent she had founded, much of her time was spent in travelling about the Continent, preaching and prophesying. She died in 1179, and was buried at Eupertsberg, but her remains were removed, on the destruction of that convent by the Swedes, to Eilingen, in 1622.

Though St. Hildegard was a voluminous writer her contributions to the hymnody of her day were neither numerous nor important. Mone gives three sequences which are attributed to her, viz., one on the Holy Spirit, “0 ignis Spiritus paracliti"; another on the Blessed Virgin Mary, "0 Virga ac diadema purpurae Regis"; and a third on St. Disibod, "0 praesul verae civitatis." [Rev. Digby S. Wrangham, M.A.]

-- John Julian, Dictionary of Hymnology