Hildegard of Bingen. The Context of her Thought and Art

This volume offers a comprehensive view of Hildegard of Bingen’s manifold achievements, her intellectual background and her reception in the later Middle Ages. It brings together, with full documentation, the contributions of an international group of medievalists, from diverse disciplines, to the colloquium held at the Warburg Institute on 17– 18 November 1995. Three of the essays are devoted to the cultural landscape in which Hildegard lived and worked – her relation to the writings of the Fathers, to the schools of her own time, and to the prophetic tradition. Two others examine how, after Hildegard’s death, she came to be revered as saint and prophet, and two shed new light on the transmission of her manuscripts and of the illuminations that accompany her visions. Each of the remaining essays focuses on what is new and individual in aspects of Hildegard’s astonishingly varied work: in her sacred music and poetry, her astronomy, botany and medicine, and in her unprecedented uses of allegory. The volume both pays tribute to the ninth centenary of Hildegard’s birth (1098) and complements the first major study of Hildegard in our century – that of Hans Liebeschütz – which the Warburg Library, still in Hamburg, published in 1930. Contents •    Peter Dronke – – The Allegorical World– Picture of Hildegard of Bingen: Revaluations and New Problems •    Albert Derolez – – The Manuscript Tradition of Hildegard of Bingen’s Writings: The State of the Problem •    Madeline Caviness – – Hildegard as the Designer of the Illustrations to her Works •    Charles Burnett – – Hildegard in England: A Note on Hildegard’s Texts in the Library of the Austin Friars in York •    Angela Carlevaris – – Ildegarda e la Patristica •    Robert Murray – – Prophecy in Hildegard •    Constant Mews – – Hildegard and the Schools •    Charles Burnett – – Hildegard of Bingen and the Science of the Stars •    Danielle Jacquart – – Hildegarde et la physiologie de son temps •    Laurence Moulinier – – Abbesse et agronome: Hildegarde et le savoir botanique de son temps •    Walter Berschin – – Eine Offiziendichtung in der Symphonia Hildegards von Bingen: Ursula und die Elftausend Jungfrauen (carm. 44) •    John Stevens – – The Musical Individuality of Hildegard’s Songs: A Liturgical Shadowland  •    Barbara Newman – – Three– Part Invention: The Vita S. Hildegardis and Mystical Hagiography •    José Carlos Santos Paz – – Aspetti della ricezione dell’opera di Ildegarda nel Duecento