Würzburg, Univ., Diss., 2009.

This thesis examines the visionary writings of Elisabeth of Schönau, a nun of Schönau monastery, which was a double house in the diocese of Trier between 1152 and 1165. I argue that Elisabeth’s works dynamically engaged various religious audiences (monastic and clerical) in order to provide spiritual guidance to diverse types of people (monks, nuns, abbots, abbesses, and clerics). Elisabeth’s writings not only represent the self-reflection of a twelfth-century woman visionary, but also demonstrate the ways in which Elisabeth forged her spiritual authority by reacting to, and at times anticipating, the reception of her visions by her community. While Elisabeth rhetorically described herself as a passive receptor of divine knowledge, she actively worked to shape the practice of worship first within her monastic community and then, once her authority grew beyond Schönau, amongst a wider audience.

Music theory of Hildegard of Bingen’s era articulated a cosmological worldview, providing thinkers with a way of understanding human beings, the world, the heavens, and how they all interact with each other in musical terms. Hildegard was familiar with this music theory through her theological predecessors. This dissertation argues that a better understanding of Hildegard’s theology requires a deeper consideration of how this musical cosmology influenced her because of the way music pervades her work. Music theory is a major piece of what undergirds her Benedictine, liturgical worldview. To demonstrate this, I take up the task of explicating and illuminating Hildegard’s Christology in terms of her understanding of music and music theory. This task is different from previous scholarship which analyzes Hildegard’s writing about music in terms of her broader theology. I bridge the gap between musicologists and liturgists, on the one hand, who focus on Hildegard’s theology of music but neglect broader consideration of her theology and, on the other hand, theologians who acknowledge music as an integral part of Hildegard’s life but largely consider her theological visions in abstraction from it. I argue that Hildegard uses music theory to define and explicate Christ and Christ’s interactions with the world, sometimes explicitly, but primarily implicitly. Her theological vision centers Christ in a resounding universe. By understanding Christ as symphonia, Hildegard emphasizes the Son’s unique relationship with humanity. While readers cannot understand every aspect of Hildegard’s Christology by considering music theory, music theory helps to illuminate it in a particular way, enabling us to understand Hildegard’s theology more deeply. Thus, this study provides an example for how future scholars can continue to interpret Hildegard’s understanding of various theological loci. In addition, it submits Hildegard as an example of how to unite music/liturgy and theology in a fruitful way for both the Academy and the Church. / 2025-04-25T00:00:00Z

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Ziel der Arbeit war es die Quellenlage Hildegard von Bingens ‚Physica‘ zu beleuchten. Dazu werden die Kapitel der exotischen Gewürze (Kap. I,13-21 und I,26-27), der Duftpflanzen (Kap. I,22-25), und der heimischen Gewürze (Kap. I,63-70) mit den entsprechenden Kapiteln aus ‚Macer floridus‘ (Odo Magdunensis), ‚Circa instans‘ (Matthaeus Platearius), ‚Liber graduum‘ (Constantinus Africanus), ‚Naturalis historia‘ (Plinius der Ältere) und ‚Materia medica‘ (Pedanius Dioskurides) verglichen. Es konnten verschiedenartige Bezüge zur Tradition hergestellt werden, jedoch ist hervorzuheben, dass Hildegard dennoch in den Anwendungen eine ausgeprägte Originalität aufweist. / The object of the thesis was to clarify the sources of the Hildegard von Bingen‘s “Physica”. Chapters of the exotic spices (I,13-21 und I,26-27), plants with perfume (I,22-25) and local spices (I,63-70) were compared with correspondent chapters in “Macer floridus” (Odo Magdunensis), “Circa instans” (Matthaeus Platearius), “Liber graduum” (Constantinus Africanus), “Naturalis historia” (Pliny the Elder) and “Materia medica” (Pedanius Dioscorides). Various references to the tradition were depicted but it must be emphasized Physica’s distinct originality.

Hildegard's songs evoke an erotic and embodied devotion to a Divinity imagined as sensuous, relational, immanent and often female. These songs, written for use in her predominantly female community, are part of Hildegard's educational program to guide the spiritual development of the women in her Benedictine monastery. Hildegard's theology of music proposes that the physical act of singing enables humans to experience connection to the Living Light (Hildegard's most common address for the voice of the Holy Presence in her visions, lux vivens), and to embody this Divinity in their midst. Her songs express, in dense poetic texts set to widely-ranging chant-like melodies, her rich imaging of the fecund presence of the Divine. The singers are thus encouraged to imagine themselves in relationship with the Holy One, the Living Light, through the physical act of singing these evocative songs. This dissertation analyses four of Hildegard's songs, representing a small cross section of her musical oeuvre. The analysis elucidates the way in which the music affectively conveys the meaning and significance of the texts. Carefully incising the "flesh" from the structural "bones" of the melodies reveals underlying organising configurations which pervade the songs and deliver the texts in a distinctive manner. Hildegard professed herself to be musically uneducated because she lacked a knowledge of music notation, although she admitted to extensive experience in singing Divine Office. However, she clearly claims to be the oral composer of her songs, arranging late in her life for music scribes to notate her melodies. My analysis unravels the influence of the oral composer as it intersects with the influence of the musically trained scribes who neumed her texts. Hildegard wrote that the "words symbolize the body, and the jubilant music indicates the spirit" (Scivias 3:12:13). She claims that the music conveys the meaning of the texts with affective power, and my analysis shows ways in which the oral composer endeavors to achieve this goal. Her texts, conveyed by her melodies and thus intimately entwined with the words they deliver, are powerfully persuasive forces in the spiritual education of the women in her monastery. This dissertation uncovers significant insights which can inform the communal practice of worship of the Divine, especially where song forms part of that worship, and particularly in regard to the imagining of Divinity in ways which can nourish the diversity of all humans, all creatures, and all creation. The work of feminist theologians is brought into dialogue with Hildegard's imagery and educational purpose, thus making available ways of imagining the Divine which are especially important for contemporary women, who have suffered from being excluded from the imago Dei. Thus the dissertation unearths a rich lode of female, and creatural embodied images, which threads its way though the millennia, but now needs to be mined to uncover images that might work for contemporary Christians seeking multiple imaging of the Divine to touch the deep feminist, ecological and liberative yearnings of many hearts and spirits.

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A central focus of this thesis is the word-music relationship in the devotional-song-repertory of Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179). Surrounding this focus is an examination of aspects of her life and work that relate to the production of her seventy-seven monophonic songs. This examination commences with a review of biographical sources, collation and discussion of parchment sources of her music, and identification of her music scribes. The theme of Hildegard’s music scribes is then developed, including their influence upon the liturgical genres in which her songs are cast and the melodic behaviour of her music. It is argued that, as a result of the rendering of her melodies on the medieval gamut, the surviving sources of her songs represent corruptions of orally produced chant. / The word-music relationship in Hildegard’s songs is then introduced. Her views on the role of music and her own role as monastic preacher form the basis of an examination of the relationship between rhetoric and her songs. This examination draws on contemporary modes of rhetorical criticism, and an approach which treats her songs as musically articulated rhetorical discourse is developed. A selection of her songs is then examined through this approach, and particular attention is given to songs which preserve unusual melodic behaviours. It is argued that her songs represent iubilatio responses to both the grammatical and rhetorical syntagms of her song texts, and melodic characteristics which suggest traces of her pre-redacted melodies are identified. / As a codicil to this study, a critique of ‘new’ and ‘unusual’ monastic practices in Germany by Anselm of Havelberg (c.1100-1158) forms a point of departure for discussion of a small number of surviving songs which surrounded the production of Hildegard’s music - the five monophonic songs comprising the Epithalamia to the Speculum virginum (c.1140), and a twelfth-century canticle setting emanating from the monastic home of her music scribes. This examination points towards a tradition of ‘new’ and ‘unusual’ musical practices in Southern Germany during the twelfth century and provides one possible context for Hildegard’s devotional-song repertory.

Dissertation work 'Theology of Hildegard von Bingen' introduces theology of this medieval abatyss, teacher, preacher and holy woman. First part of this work is a summary of Hildegard's life and it also outlines the nature of her work. It is followed by explanation of Hildegard von Bingen's position as a female theologist. Further, the work offers an overview of intepretations of Hildegard's theology in the works of great theologians interested in mysticism of twentieth century. Namely the legacy of Hildegard von Bingen in the works of Evellin Underhill, Dorothee Soelle and Matthew Fox. To understand Hildegard's theology it is vital to understand her theological method and the way her visionary works are constructed. Therefore next chapter deals with Hildegard von Bingen as a mystic and her use of knowledge and experience as a source of her mystical visions. Last part is about Hildegard's theology itself. Her possitive cosmology, mariology, ethics, soteriology and all above her theology of creation.