Abstract
Slowly but surely the images of the medieval period as dark and infertile are fading from historical generalizations. Thanks to the scholarly work pursued for nearly a half century now, we know that the eleventh century was beginning an upward spiral that would ultimately lead to the modern era. Invasions ceased. Travel, commerce, and communication became easier as the second millennium proceeded. New technology affected the daily lives of people by making possible agrarian surplus, something rare in the West during the ninth and tenth centuries. The new political ties that were established during and after the Carolingian period were improved and extended, making possible the rise of small units of political stability. With their new-found prosperity and stability Western people began to expand beyond their borders, renewing contact with old neighbors such as the Byzantines or establishing new contact with new people such as the Muslims. The West was exposed to new cultures, new societies, and new customs. The relative prosperity, peace, and technological advances that the Western people experienced allowed them to establish urban centers, and urban centers provided necessary nourishment for the nascent Western culture barely kept alive during the early Middle Ages. It was within this setting that intellectual activity among Western peoples developed its distinctive medieval garb.1
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Notes
See Jean Leclercq, Love of Learning and the Desire for God, tr. Catharine Misrahi, 2nd rev. ed. (New York: Fordham University Press, 1974).
C. Stephen Jaeger, The Envy of Angels (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994), 4.
Brian Stock, Listening for the Text (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990), 19
B. B. Price, Medieval Thought: An Introduction (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), vii.
She writes: “si que forte fila vel etiam floecos de panniculis, in veste philisophiae abruptis, evellere quivi, praefato opusculo inserere [to incorporate, weave] curavi.” K. A. Barack, Die Werke des Hrotsvitha (Nürnberg: Bauer u. Raspe, 1858), 142.
See discussion of this in Patricia Ranft, Women and the Religious Life in Premodern Europe (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996), 9.
See chapter 1, pp. 11-12, and Rosamond McKitterick, “Nuns’ scriptoria in England and France in the eighth century”, Francia 7 (1989), 1–35.
For Eve’s collaboration with Goscelin, see A. Wilmart, “Eve et Goscelm”, Revue bénédic-tine 46 (1934), 414–438.
Regesta: Regesta Regum Anglo-Normannorum, 3, Nos. 808, 809, cited in Marjorie Chibnall, The Empress Matilda (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1991), 10.
For a concise summary of his reign, see C. Warren Hollister, The Making of England, 6th ed. (Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath, 1992), 126–138.
See Albert Groeteken, Die heilige Adelheid von Vilich und ihre Familie (Kevelaer: Verlag Butzon und Bercker, 1937).
Marcia L. Colish, Medieval Foundations of the Western Intellectual Tradition 400-1400 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1997), 268.
Monica Green and John E Benton maintain that there was no eleventh-century Trotula but that there was a twelfth-century woman physician called Trota. She wrote a practica but not the three treatises usually attributed to Trotula or her. See John E Benton, “Trotula, Women’s Problems, and the Professionalization of Medicine in the Middle Ages”, Bulletin of the History of Medicine 59 (1985), 30–53.
PL 178, 325-336 (Abelard); and The Chronicle of Guillaume Godel cited in Mary Ellen Waithe, “Heloise”, in A History of Women Philosophers, 4 vols., ed. Mary Ellen Waithe (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1989), 2
M. T Clancy, Abelard: A Medieval Life (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1999).
Elizabeth Mary McNamer, The Education ofHeloise (Lewiston, NY: Edwin Meilen Press, 1991), 52–54.
Joseph T. Muckle, “The Personal Letters between Abelard and Heloise”, Medieval Studies 15 (1953), 51.
See Ewald Könsgen, Epistolae duorum amantium: Briefe Abaelardus undHeloises? (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1974)
Helen Moody, The Debate of the Rose (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1981), 117
Bernhard Schmeidler, “Der Briefwechsel zwischen Abälard und Heloise eine Fälschung?” Archivum für Kulturgeschichte 11 (1913), 1–30
Etienne Gilson, Héloïse et Abélard (London: Hollis & Carter, 1953).
John Benton, “Fraud, Fiction, and Borrowing in the Correspondence of Abelard and Heloise”, in Pierre Abélard-Pierre le Venerable, eds. René Louis, Jean Jolivet, and Jean Châtillon (Paris: Editions du Centre national de la recherche scientifique, 1975), 469–512
See John Marenbon, “Authenticity Revisited”, in Listening to Heloise, ed. Bonnie Wheeler (New York: St. Martins Press, 2000), 19–33.
See Carolyn Walker Bynum, Docere Ver bo et Exemplo: An Aspect of Twelfth Century Spirituality (Missoula, MT: Harvard University Press, 1979).
Patricia Ranft, “The Concept of Witness in the Christian Tradition from Its Origin to Its Institutionalization”, Revue bénédictine 102:1-2 (1992), 9–23.
M. Tullius Cicero, De amicitia (London: W. Heinemann, 1927), 9
See Andrea Nye, “A Woman’s Thought or a Mans Discipline? The Letters of Abelard and Heloise”, Hypatia 7:3 (Summer 1992), 25–47.
His treatises on creation and on the study of literature, a book of 133 hymns, numerous liturgical compositions, and a collection of sermons were all written at Heloise’srequest. Peter Dronke, Women Writers of the Middle Ages (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 134.
Life of Hildegard, 1, in ibid., 139. Godfrey could be using allegorical language here. See Barbara Newman, Symphonia: A Critical Edition of the “Symphonia armonie celestium revelationium”, (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1988), 22–23.
Letter 103r, Hildegard to Monk Guibert, in Letters of Hildegard of Bingen, tr. Joseph L. Baird and Radd K. Ehrman (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 2
Peter Dronke, “Problemata Hildegardiana”, Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch 16 (1981), 107.
Michael Camille, Gothic Art: Glorious Visions (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1996), 22.
See Copleston, History of Philosophy, 2:1: 203; and Steve Chase, Angelic Wisdom (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1995), 48–51
Book of Divine Works, Book 4, 98, in PL 197, 738-1035. It is interesting to note Hildegard s use of eye imagery in her drama Ordo virtutum. Here oculus means either eye or the bud of a plant (laics “the eye of a potato”). In the prologue of the play the Patriarchs and Prophets declare that they are “the fruit of the living bud.” In scene two Hope says that she is the “sweet viewer of the living eye”, and in the epilogue she declares “that thy eye should never yield, until thou mightest see my body full of buds.” See Bruce W. Hozeski, “Hildegard of Bingens Ordo Virtutum: The Earliest Discovered Liturgical Morality Play”, American Benedictine Review 26:3 (September 1975), 251–259
It was chronologically possible but highly unlikely that Aristotle’s writings were available to her, except, of course, through Boethius, whose Philosophia resembles Hildegard s Sapientia. See Barbara Newman, Sister of Wisdom (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1989), 74.
Helen J. John, “Hildegard of Bingen: A New Twelfth-Century Woman Philosopher?”, in Hypatia’s Daughters, ed. Linda Lopez McAlister (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1996), p. 19.
Scivias, 3.2.9 (p. 329). Light is one of the root words Hildegard uses to create new names in her imagery language. See M. L. Portmann and A. Odermatt, Wörterbuch der unbekannten Sprache (Lingua ignota) (Basel: Basler Hildegard-Gesellschaft, 1986).
See R. W Southern, The Making of the Middle Ages (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1978), 234–235.
Jeffrey Schnapp, “Virgin Words: Hildegard of Bingens Lingua Lgnota and the Development of Imaginary Languages Ancient to Modern”, Exemplaria 3:2 (1991), 278.
Hildegard of Bingen, Book of the Rewards of Life, tr. Bruce W Hozeski (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994), 1
Causae, 55-56, in Marcia Chamberlain, “Hildegard of Bingens Causes and Cures: A Radical Feminist Response to the Doctor-Cook Binary” in Hildegard of Bingen: A Book of Essays, ed. Maud Burnett Mclnerney (New York: Garland, 1998), 64–65.
Hildegards influence and role as advisor is discussed at length in Patricia Ranft, A Woman’s Way: The Forgotten History of Women’s Spiritual direction (New York: Palgrave, 2000), 74–79.
Laurence Moulinier, “L’abbesse et les poissons: un aspect de la zoologie de Hildegarde de Bingen”, in Exploitation des animaux sauvage à travers le temps (Juan-les-Pin: APDCA, 1993), 461–472.
Sabina Flanagan, Hildegard of Bingen, 1098–1179: A Visionary Life (London: Routledge, 1989), 82.
See Otto von Simson, The Gothic Cathedral (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1956), 21–24.
Barbara Jeskalfan, “Hildegard of Bingen: Her Times and Music”, Anima 10:1 (Fall 1983), 8.
Peter Dronke, Poetic Individuality in the Middle Ages (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), 151.
See Pozzi Escot, “Gothic Cathedral and the Hidden Geometry of St. Hildegard”, Sonus 51 (Fall 1984), 14–31
Robert Cogan, “Hildegards Fractal Antiphon”, Sonus 11:1 (1990), 1–19
This is unfortunate, because these works are still used extensively. See Karl Young, The Drama of the Medieval Church (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1933)
O. B. Hardison, Jr., Christian Rite and Christian Drama in the Middle Ages (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1965).
See Patricia Ranft, Women and Spiritual Equality in Christian Tradition (New York: St. Martins Press, 1998), 171–172
Fletcher Collins, The Production of MedievalI Church Music-Drama (Charlottesville, VA: University of Virginia Press, 1972), 57.
See Robert A. Potter, “The Idea of a Morality Play”, and “Images of the Human Predicament: Some Ancient and Modern Visualizations of the Morality Play”, Research Opportunities in Renaissance Drama 13-14 (1970–1971), 239–247
Ulrike Wiethaus, “Cathar Influences in Hildegard of Bingens Play ‘Ordo Virtutum’”, American Benedictine Review 38:2 (June 1987), 192–203
There is no evidence that Hildegards gender caused problems. This is a bit surprising, for this period saw many new groups of laity claiming the right to preach as part of their witness to the vita apostolica, and clergy were becoming more and more protective of their preaching rights. See Carolyn Muessig, “Prophecy and Song: Teaching and Preaching by Medieval Women”, in Women Preachers and Prophets through Two Millenia of Christianity, ed. Beverly M. Kienzle and Pamela J. Walker (Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1998), 146–158.
See Kathryn Kerby-Fulton, “Self-Image and the Visionary Role in Two Letters from the Correspondence of Elizabeth of Schönau and Hildegard of Bingen”, Vox Benedictina 2-3 (1985), 204–223.
Anne L. Clark, Elizabeth of Schönau (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1992), 80.
Kathryn Kerby-Fulton, “Prophecy and Suspicion: Closet Radicalism, Reformist Politics, and the Vogue for Hildegardiana in Ricardian England”, Speculum 75:2 (April 2000), 322–323.
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Ranft, P. (2008). The Creation of a Literate Society. In: Women in Western Intellectual Culture, 600–1500. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230108257_2
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