Illuminations: A Novel of Hildegard von Bingen

by Mary Sharratt

  My vision of the consecrated virgins rejoicing in the arms of Ecclesia was made real, my two companions radiant, their faces glowing in the December chill. The revelation of their beauty left the monks reeling, unable to utter a word of censure. Looking at the men’s awestruck faces, I sensed they saw their dead Jutta restored. They beheld the vision of that lovely maiden who had come to their lonely abbey three decades ago. Jutta’s resurrection blazed before their eyes.

  The assembly hardly seemed to breathe as my sisters and I gathered around Jutta’s coffin, lined with lead so none could smell her corruption and decay. While Adelheid and Guda joined hands, I held aloft the banner that we had sewn and embroidered with roses and lilies, doves and hinds, apples and pomegranates, rivers and trees. Our breath turned to mist in the cold air.

  To mark our magistra’s death, we three sang the songs of life that I had composed during our endless captivity. At the pounding center of my heart, I held my image of the Lady at the axis of the wheel of creation, the Virgin and matrix from whose body our salvation proceeded. I bore you from the womb before the morning star. Everything she touched greened and bloomed, even in this corpse-cold end of the year. The verdant branch that awakened all life, she unveiled my eyes to the eternal paradise that had never fallen.

  This was our song for Jutta’s passing.

  O viridissima virga ave

  Hail, greenest branch,

  brought forth on the breeze of prayers.

  You flourish among your fronds,

  hail, hail to you,

  The warmth of the sun keeps you moist

  like the scent of balsam.

  A beautiful flower flourished in you

  and gave odor to all scents

  that were barren.

  You are the reason the heavens bestowed dew upon the turf,

  and the whole earth was made joyful

  because its flesh

  brought forth grain,

  and because the birds of heaven

  made their nests on it.

  Then there grew food for us mortals

  and great rejoicing at the banquet.

  O sweet Virgin,

  no joy is lacking in you.

  Eve rejected all these things.

  Now again be praised to the highest.

  With my entire soul I embraced the living, nourishing power that Jutta had scorned.

  As the last note of our song died down, the enchantment ebbed. Suddenly I was standing in the cold, dressed only in thin silk and linen, my jaw clenched to keep from shivering. Guda looked pale and uncertain, while Adelheid’s face was unreadable. What we had done—making a mockery of the Rule of Saint Benedict and humiliating our abbot in front of the Archbishop of Mainz—could never be undone. We would have to face the consequences, whatever they might be.

  Regaining his composure, Cuno led our procession into the church, where he sang his beloved’s Requiem Mass, his voice stretched high and thin in grief. The monks bore Jutta’s coffin to the chapter house where they laid her to eternal rest beneath a carved stone slab.

  Seizing my only chance, I stood before Cuno, my head unbowed, and spoke my will before the Archbishop of Mainz. Before my brother, Canon of Mainz Cathedral. Before the Margravine von Stade, aunt and godmother to my sister nuns and the abbey’s greatest living patron, her donations exceeding even those of Meginhard von Sponheim.

  I spoke my will, but I had the temerity to say that it was God’s will.

  “It is God’s will that my sisters and I keep our liberty,” I said, a shivering woman trying to speak out in a firm, unshakeable voice. “This night we will return to our cell to sleep, but you shall never brick us in again, my lord abbot. We are freeborn women. Our door must remain open. From this day forward, our rooms shall be a nunnery but no anchorage.”

  Cuno bridled, but what easy retort could he find with the archbishop standing to his right and my brother, the archbishop’s trusted friend, to his left?

  In that chasm of silence, only the margravine dared to move. Rushing forward, she cried out, embracing Guda and Adelheid for the first time in twenty-one years. My eyes brimmed to watch them, to listen to Guda’s gulping sobs as she clung to her godmother. The margravine turned, holding out her hand to Richardis, inviting her to partake in this passionate family reunion, but the girl held back, her body rigid, as though she had turned into a post. Her eyes, moist and bewildered, locked on to mine, as if demanding to know who I was and why I had done this thing.

  Still holding fast to her goddaughters’ hands, the margravine faced Cuno. Ferocious determination illumined her face, as though she were Margaret of Antioch, seizing the cross to slay the dragon.

  “Hildegard speaks the truth,” the Margravine von Stade told our abbot. “Only a tyrant would lock away freeborn women against their will. The old magistra may have been an anchorite, but the new magistra has chosen a gentler path.”

  Before Cuno could interject, she swooped in to kiss the archbishop’s ring.

  “Your eminence!” she cried to Adalbert. “In gratitude for your mercy to my kinswomen, I shall offer Disibodenberg the most generous endowment it has ever known—but only if the nuns keep their liberty.”

  Every part of me sang out in gratitude. I thought I would fall to my knees before her and weep.

  However, it was not Cuno’s way to allow a woman, even one as wealthy as the Margravine von Stade, to have the last word.

  My abbot summoned me to his private chamber where Adalbert and Rorich waited, their faces drawn. Properly clothed in veil and habit, I appeared before them as a penitent. What I had committed this day was the biggest breach of propriety the monastery had ever known. Cuno had every right to saddle me with the most excruciating penance. My brother also seemed perturbed. How I had shamed him, my scandalous scene compromising him before the archbishop.

  “We have spent some time discussing your transgressions.” The look Cuno gave me was devastating. I was everything his beloved Jutta had not been—a weaver of strife, a sower of mischief. Without my sainted magistra to hold me in check, there was no telling what I might wreak. How was he to tolerate such insubordination?

  Still I did not crumple before him. “If my presence here displeases you, my lord abbot, I am prepared to take my leave.”

  A pain spread through my chest as I turned to Rorich, a silent entreaty written on my face. Please. You offered to deliver me once before.

  Rorich’s eyes slid away from mine. “Hildegard, I can’t take you with me. Bischofsheim Abbey is under quarantine from an outbreak of pestilence. Our sister Clementia nearly died. Far better that you stay here, where the air and water are so pure.”

  Picking his words apart, I gathered that he was lying to me, my own brother. He feared me. If he brought me to Mainz, I might provide even more occasion for embarrassment. If he indulged me, he risked being cast out of Adalbert’s chosen circle. Rorich had ascended to such heights that he was now terrified of falling from the archbishop’s grace.

  “However,” Cuno said, his voice sounding like ice cracking beneath boots, “we have taken into consideration the thirty years you have spent here as Jutta’s chosen disciple. You’re a woman past your prime with few if any prospects of beginning anew elsewhere.”

  My abbot would waste no effort in putting me in my place. I felt myself dwindle under the blizzard of his derision.

  “We must bear in mind that Hildegard has an important office to fill,” my brother said, trying to catch my eye but I thought that if I looked at him I would dissolve into tears. “Her sisters have elected her as their new magistra.”

  Finally Adalbert spoke, his every word weighted with an authority that made me tremble.

  “It seems only right to allow Hildegard, a woman in her middle years, to remain at Disibodenberg, the only home she has. Today she has demonstrated that she is not of the same making as the holy Jutta. Hildegard lacks the will and discipline to lead the life of an anchorite. We must be clement, Cuno. Not all are called
to such an austere path of grace. Let us not condemn our sister for her weakness, but allow her to live out her dotage as a nun, rather than an anchorite, free to come and go from her rooms, provided that she never again make such a flamboyant mockery of the Benedictine Rule as she did today.”

  My face on fire, I knelt before Adalbert and kissed his ring. This man had been the emperor’s prisoner, held without trial for three long years. Perhaps he pitied me and understood only too well my longing for liberation. Yet I still didn’t know whether I had won my battle or if I had been subdued forevermore.

  “If we are to grant you free passage in the abbey,” said Cuno, “you must forbid your nuns from traipsing about where they could lead the holy brothers into temptation.”

  Against my better judgment, I lifted my face to his and opened my unholy mouth. “Surely on my account, you needn’t worry. I am far too old and plain to lead any man astray.” My words rang out as scathingly as his had.

  “So it is agreed!” my brother said, speaking quickly before Cuno and I could lock horns and become embroiled in a dispute. “Hildegard shall obey the Rule under her abbot’s authority and guidance.”

  It was as though I were still a child of eight, powerless and voiceless, made to stand silent while the men decided my fate. My brother had joined the ranks of those to whom I had to scrape and grovel.

  “With your permission,” I choked. “I will take my leave.”

  “You are dismissed,” Cuno said coldly.

  I fled the room, my vision blurring with the tears I didn’t want them to see, least of all Rorich, my dearest sibling who now acted as my master. Staggering down the dim stairway, I burst out into the cloister walk and then smothered a yelp. A cowled figure blocked my way.

  “Hildegard.” Volmar stepped out of the shadows so that I could see his face. “There’s still some time left before Compline. Ever since you were a little girl, you’ve told me how you’ve longed to see the forest again.”

  My heart burst with impossible hope.

  “Come quickly,” he coaxed, “while the gates are still open.”

  As we hurried off, he spoke in a low and confiding voice. “Sister, you were magnificent today. That song you sang was the most exquisite thing I’ve ever heard.”

  The man I had loved since I was a girl took my arm, guiding me out of the abbey gates. Such freedom! I trembled from crown to toe with joy, laughing in my delight. First we strolled through the orchard. In the red setting sun of that winter evening, I beheld the frost-rimed apple trees from which Volmar had cut the Barbara Branch for Jutta and me thirty years ago, the twig that had burst into blossom on Christmas Day. My life, once a withered stick, would flower now, too. With tears in my eyes, I cupped the bark to feel the hum of life, the sap inside the wood, just waiting to surge into greening at the first hint of spring.

  Volmar led me to the edge of the forest where I laid my cheek against the smooth trunks of beech and the rough bark of oak.

  “Your dream has come true,” he said. “I will send the lay brothers to build you a proper door that opens and closes.”

  I turned to him, clasping his hand between my own. At a loss for words, I arched my face to the tracery of branches glittering with ice and snow. In the endless blue dome above, the first stars of evening shone like a promise. Though I was past my prime, I felt brand-new. Yet beneath my rapture gaped an abyss of loss. Rorich had abandoned me, just like Mother had those many years ago. Apart from Volmar, the margravine, and my sister nuns, I was friendless and forsaken.

  “Come,” Volmar said gently, his hand still enclosed in mine. “Before they lock us out.”

  “You have an ally for life in the margravine,” Volmar said as we walked back through the cloister garden. “She has assured your victory this day. Cuno wouldn’t dare go back on his word. Her daughter’s dowry will make him one of the richest abbots in the bishopric.”

  I turned to him in confusion. “What do you mean?”

  “Did the lady herself not speak to you?” Volmar squeezed my elbow. “Her daughter is to be your new postulant.”

  In the guesthouse, the margravine sat before the roaring hearth with Adelheid and Guda while young Richardis hovered in the shadows. When I entered, the margravine snapped to her feet.

  “Magistra, we must speak,” she told me with such authority that I could imagine her commanding an army.

  Guda and Adelheid withdrew at once, and Richardis prepared to creep away as well, but her mother called her back.

  “Don’t be silly, my dear. Your new magistra wishes to make your acquaintance.”

  “Madam,” I said, my face smarting from the fire’s unaccustomed heat. “I had no idea your daughter wished to take the veil.”

  I cast my eyes toward the girl herself, but her long, loose hair obscured her face. Her mother went on speaking with brisk confidence.

  “Magistra, what you have done this day was truly God’s will. Know that I have assured your continued liberty, for I have told Cuno that my daughter shall join the sisters, but only if the nuns are granted the run of the abbey and are no longer confined to the anchorage like rabbits inside a hutch.”

  She spoke so fast that my head spun. Had this been an impetuous decision or had she been planning this? Who could commit her daughter to a monastery on a mere whim? Perhaps this was what she had wanted to discuss with me earlier this morning when I had abruptly ended our audience. If that was the case, had she been willing to commit her daughter to this house even before I had made my desperate bid to end our captivity? She had, after all, consigned her goddaughters to the anchorage. What game did this woman play?

  “My lady,” I said, when I managed to get a word in. “I am in your debt, but I must hear from Richardis herself.”

  “Oh, I have pondered her future for quite a long while,” the mother blustered on, not giving her daughter a chance to speak. “After much prayer, I have concluded that there is no better place for her than in your care, Hildegard.”

  I imagined that the margravine had become adept at using flattery to twist others to her will. Ignoring the mother, I turned to the girl.

  “What do you say to this, Richardis?”

  The girl’s eyes gleamed red. She was fighting tears, leaving me to conclude that this was her mother’s doing, that the girl herself wanted none of it.

  “It’s all right,” I whispered, and then I addressed her mother once more. “Margravine, exalted lady, I am grateful for your patronage, but please understand that I can’t take Richardis unless she’s willing. The archbishop would tell you the same. It’s canon law.”

  Her repartee came razor sharp. “After today you presume to lecture me on canon law? I think not, magistra.” Her brittle smile put me in my place. “Your abbot has already agreed. He would be deeply perturbed, I think, if you presumed to turn my daughter away, especially seeing how I have intervened on your behalf.”

  Her veiled threat left me cold.

  “You have bribed Cuno with the girl’s dowry,” I said, “but you can’t bribe me. It must be her choice.”

  Richardis’s mouth hung open, as though she were dumbfounded that a mere nun would dare stand up to her mother. Indeed, I was terrified of the consequences, for now that I had refused to bow to the margravine’s scheming, she would surely abandon me to my fate. My sisters and I would lose our freedom, lose all we had fought for. I had failed, alienating my only powerful well-wisher. But even so, I would not play prison keeper to an unwilling girl.

  Before the margravine could blast me to hell in her next tirade, I took her daughter’s hands. Her pulse beat like the heart of a sparrow caught in a snare.

  “Richardis, speak your mind.”

  The girl only stared at me until the tears brimmed from her sapphire eyes. Snatching her hands from mine, she covered her face.

  “Why won’t you speak?” I pleaded.

  “I have asked the same question for the past two years,” her mother said. The arrogance vanished from her voice. S
he sounded melancholy, as though she bore an impossible burden. “She has not spoken a word since she turned eleven.”

  “Your daughter is a mute,” I said, finally understanding.

  The lady’s face drained of color. “She wasn’t born with this affliction. She can hear perfectly well, and until she stopped speaking, she was a girl like any other. At first I thought it was a sin born of willful pride, but now she’s thirteen and won’t make a sound, even if you prick her with a needle.”

  I winced. The girl crouched by the hearth, her back to us.

  “Mind you, she isn’t stupid.” Her mother paced back and forth, her hands knit together. “Her brother Hartwig taught her to read and write the psalms in Latin.”

  I was at a loss, for this conundrum rendered me as speechless as Richardis herself.

  “But now I know,” the margravine said. “This was no sin of hers but a sign from God.” Her voice cracked. “She belongs to God, not to the world.”

  My heart hardened when I remembered how my own mother had banished me to the anchorage at the age of eight because of the embarrassment over my visions. I thought how poor, ruined Jutta had been left to rot inside our enclosure until her madness and self-hatred consumed her. Perhaps the margravine hoped the shock of abandonment in this monastery would bring back the girl’s voice.

  “You mean that her affliction has spoiled her chances of gainful marriage,” I said. “You fear she shall bring shame on your family. So you’ll put her in a monastery far from your home.”

  Richardis stared, as though astounded by my audacity. I braced myself for her mother’s outrage, but the lady only looked at me in sadness.

  “Tell me, Hildegard, what would you do if she was your daughter? Keep her at court so everyone could ridicule her? Lock her away? Wed her to a man who will take her for her beauty and fortune, even though she can’t say yes to him? Or offer her to God? At least here she will have dignity.”