Illuminations: A Novel of Hildegard von Bingen

by Mary Sharratt

  Richardis’s virginity was a shining vessel, forever inviolate, and I’d written my own vows of perpetual virginity in blood. Yet such visions of her filled my dreams, transfixing me with such light. I could only think that God had delivered these revelations, that God wanted to show this to me. What united Richardis and me was not Eros, but Caritas, that blinding glimpse of divine love.

  “What do you see, Hildegard?” Richardis asked, as though yearning for my visions to return.

  And so they did, even in that mire of unending fear and enforced silence when I was denied ink and parchment. I saw the womb of the Virgin of Virgins, a matrix of honeycomb, its sweetness nourishing my sisters and me. Not allowed to work on Scivias, I composed music instead, more than ever before, for even Cuno could not dare deny me the Holy Office. This was the purest form of prayer, my voice weaving with my sisters’ as our songs rose to the very vault of heaven.

  Ave, generosa

  Hail, nobly born,

  Glorious, and virginal girl!

  The beloved of chastity,

  The substance of sanctity,

  Pleasing to God.

  You are the white lily

  That, before any other creature,

  God looked upon.

  Rorich’s letters from Mainz were my only connection to that outside world where my fate would be decided. His messages arrived crumpled, betraying Cuno’s prying fingers. Though I cursed my abbot’s interference, I soon became more worried about my brother’s predicament than my own. Rorich was in danger. Archbishop Adalbert, his master for three decades, was dead, and the newly elected Archbishop Heinrich found himself and his entire household under siege.

  My sister, more than ever I beg your prayers, for if we do not receive God’s protection, Heinrich and those of us whom he shields might be dead by the time this letter reaches you. No doubt you have heard how Bernard of Clairvaux preached the Second Crusade with such fervor that entire villages emptied as every able-bodied man pledged to defend the holy shrines in Palestine. For all Bernard’s good intentions, unspeakable barbarities have come to pass in our own native land. The cursed monk Raoul has found his way to Mainz, where he incited our citizens to wage slaughter against the Jews who have dwelled within our city since the time of the Romans. Heinrich, abhorring every injustice, now shelters the Jews within his palace and has sent urgent word for Bernard himself to come and put an end to these riots before the mob murders us along with those we protect.

  Powerless as I was, the only thing I could do was pray that Bernard would arrive before the horde outside the archbishop’s palace bashed down the gates or set fire to the place. Would this tide of evil ever end? Had Bernard only known what bloodlust would erupt from his preaching of the Second Crusade, the unlettered masses using his call to arms as their excuse to murder the Jews who lived in our midst.

  I found no peace until my brother’s next letter arrived.

  Bernard reached Mainz just in time. Standing courageous before the throng, the sainted man denounced the monk Raoul as a murderer and a liar, and thus the wretch has fled like the coward he is. Sister, pray for us as we prepare for the Synod of Trier this November when Bernard and Pope Eugenius will convene, along with the prelates and bishops.

  My brother was no fool—he knew that Cuno read his letters. Though Rorich did not say it outright, I read his intention to appear at the Synod of Trier along with the new archbishop to plead my case.

  In a matter of months, I would finally learn my fate. My mortal end seemed to glimmer on the horizon, like a ship drawing ever nearer. Feverish, I wrote song after song, prayers of light and love to banish my dread of what loomed before me.

  O noblissima viriditas

  O noblest greening,

  You who have your roots in the sun,

  And who shine in bright serenity on the wheel,

  Whom no earthly excellence contains.

  You glow red like the dawn

  And you burn like the sun’s fire.

  You are held all around

  By the embraces of the divine mysteries.

  My sisters and I raised our voices in song. Would our prayers be heard?

  Late one February afternoon, a frantic knock sounded on our nunnery door. Volmar burst in, pulling another man behind him.

  The sight of Rorich, his face red and chapped from his long winter ride, made me cry out. Before I could say anything, Volmar spoke in a low, urgent voice.

  “Quiet, please. Cuno doesn’t know he’s here. The synod has ended. Rorich came to deliver the news before the official messenger.”

  My brother, who was no longer young, had traveled at the greatest speed all the way from Trier. Guda ran to fetch him wine while I guided him to the chair nearest the brazier. Kneeling at his feet, I tugged off his riding gloves and chafed his cold hands in mine.

  Rorich must have been riding hard, for he was completely out of breath, only able to utter a few words at a time. “Sister, I must tell you . . . Eugenius read from Scivias . . . before the prelates.”

  My breathing was as shallow as my brother’s. I trembled at the very thought of the pope reading those words I had written—God’s words that I had midwifed. Richardis knelt beside me and held my arm. She looked so determined, as though she would be my shield and armor no matter what happened.

  “I saw their faces . . . their scorn . . . several denounced you.”

  Richardis’s grip on my arm tightened, her pulse beating with mine.

  “Then Bernard spoke.”

  Bernard of Clairvaux, the holiest man in Christendom. I bowed my head.

  “He praised your visions . . . the others were silenced.”

  My heart banged like a drum.

  “Eugenius declared you God’s sibyl.”

  The room was spinning so fast that I forgot to breathe. Dumbfounded, I gaped at my brother.

  “Hildegard,” he said. “You are vindicated.”

  My sisters’ voices arose in a happy clamor. Richardis pulled me to my feet and hugged me, but still I swayed, for I could scarcely believe this miracle. Instead of condemning me, the pope had become my champion.

  “In a week or two, Eugenius’s letter will arrive.” Rorich had recovered his breath. “But I wanted to tell you sooner. To put an end to your worry.”

  “Bernard and the Holy Father believe in my visions.” Overwhelmed in my wonderment, I searched my brother’s eyes. “Does that mean you do, too?”

  He kissed my brow. “I believe that God has chosen you. Who else could be so fearless?”

  Before I could throw my arms around him, he opened the leather cylinder he carried and pulled out the scrolled manuscript of Scivias. I cradled those pages against my heart as warmth flooded my chest.

  “Not only do you have the Holy Father’s blessing,” said my brother, “but he commands you to finish this work for the glory of God.”

  “We shall begin tomorrow after Prime!” Richardis’s eyes shone like the day star.

  My sisters gathered me in a tight embrace. I reached for Volmar’s hand.

  “God be praised,” he said, my oldest friend. “Cuno can’t touch you now.”

  My joy seemed bottomless.

  Fourteen days later, the pope’s letter arrived like a flaming spear breaching Cuno’s fortress walls. My abbot’s perfect plan was foiled. Suddenly I, Hildegard, his most nettlesome charge, was famous, declared a prophet by Eugenius himself. Pilgrims came pouring in, peasants and aristocrats, from every part of Burgundy, Lorraine, and Flanders, and all the German lands.

  11

  APPLE AND PEAR trees encircled us in their clouds of blossoms. The forest rang with the cuckoo crying its herald as Richardis and I strode across that waving tapestry of wildflowers and lush new grass. Soon we would return to the monastery, but for now we breathed in the greening, that verdant tide that left me reeling in reverence and gratitude.

  “Here you hide in the orchard!” a voice rang out.

  We turned to see the prior huffing his w
ay toward us, his face ruddy with the unaccustomed effort of hiking down the steep slope.

  “An unwashed mob has arrived, demanding an audience with you,” Egon said, clearly in a temper. “The lay brothers despair over how they are going to feed so many!”

  Our trickle of pilgrims had swelled into a crowd. The prior seemed vexed that this common rabble streaming into our abbey would only be a strain on our guesthouse and larders, and offer very little in the way of donations. Egon and Cuno seemed to have little clue what they were to do with me now that I had received the pope’s benediction.

  When Richardis and I entered the monastery gates, the brothers scattered to open a path for us.

  Over two dozen pilgrims awaited me, most of them simple, unlettered folk.

  “There she is, the holy sibyl!” A ragged widow fell to her knees before me. “Mother Hildegard, can you reveal to me the fate of my dead husband’s soul?”

  An injured stone mason begged me to bless his withered arm. A visitor from Aquitaine addressed me in his own language, of which I did not understand a word, until one of the brother scribes came to translate.

  “He says, ‘I have heard of your reputation, which is spreading in my country, and I have walked barefoot for months just to hear your voice, sainted lady.’”

  Another young man approached me. “Most holy lady, since you are a seeress gifted with divine vision, could you please tell me how I may uncover a horde of Roman treasure buried near the city of Worms?”

  I veiled my smile. “The true treasure, my son, is to be found within your soul, not buried in the earth. Nonetheless, you may pray to God who will help you according to his will and your need.”

  A cleric regarded me with tormented eyes. “Hildegard, I suffer such despair. I am crushed and broken, and I fear for my soul, fodder for the devil that I am.”

  I offered him my counsel and prayers. Other pilgrims were so ill that I ushered them into the hospice and worked with Brother Otto to find the right remedies.

  When I finally emerged from the hospice, it was past Compline. Bone-weary though I was, I tingled from crown to foot. Such a presence filled me, something unutterable working through me.

  In the moonlit cloisters, Richardis waited with yet another visitor—Rorich, his smile as wide as the starry sky.

  “Hildegard,” he said, hugging me close. “I’ve come to take you to Mainz. The archbishop requests your presence.”

  Overpowering joy welled up in my heart. With the archbishop’s summons, Cuno could do nothing to forbid my journey.

  “What will happen in Mainz?” I asked him, my heart racing.

  “Heinrich will finally meet the woman whose visions have so moved him.” My brother took my hands. “Once he’s befriended you, you’ll be protected. No one will dare trouble you again.”

  When I shared my happy news with my sisters, they gathered round, as overjoyed as when Rorich first delivered the news that the pope had declared me a prophet.

  “Hildegard, you must take one of us with you!” Hiltrud, my niece, said. “It would be unseemly for you to travel without another nun.”

  The younger nuns and novices exchanged glances, as though anticipating who would be chosen.

  But like a pin pricking a soap bubble, Guda’s voice punctured their excitement. “No doubt, the magistra will ask Sister Richardis.”

  There was something cool in Guda’s voice, as though she disapproved of the way I favored her young cousin.

  “I have no wish to raise myself above the others,” Richardis said, her face bright red. “Perhaps you wish to go with the magistra, Guda.”

  With a stab, I saw the price my friend paid for our bond, laying herself open to her cousin’s ridicule.

  “But, of course, Richardis must go,” Adelheid said, speaking before I could. “She’s the magistra’s scribe and illuminator.”

  “Indeed,” I said. “If I am to speak to the archbishop about Scivias, it would be most practical to have Sister Richardis on hand, for she has helped me with this work since its inception. In truth, I wish I could take each one of you, but I doubt Cuno would allow that.”

  My duty as magistra was to smooth ruffled tempers and keep the peace. I must not appear to put Richardis before the rest, and yet I could hardly disguise my love for her, shining like a lamp within my breast, or my dependence upon her, for she had been as crucial to the writing of Scivias as Volmar himself. Without her encouragement, her belief in me, I might not have written a single page.

  She was my inspiring angel made flesh, confidante to my soul. While the Rule of Saint Benedict forbade special friendships, the fact remained that our close and cloistered life fostered intimacy of the heart. Guda herself adored the novices for the energy and liveliness they brought to our strictly ordered existence. Hiltrud and Verena were devoted friends. Only Adelheid remained at a distance from us, but only because she loved her solitude and books as passionately as a famished man loves bread.

  Two days later, Rorich, Richardis, and I boarded the barge at first light.

  Forty-one years I had waited for this passage away from Disibodenberg. Though I was forty-nine years old, I could barely refrain from dancing like a child when the oarsmen pushed away from the landing. I could not quell my ecstasy. The entire abbey had come to see us off. When I first arrived with Jutta as an eight-year-old child, there had been eighty monks, but now I counted fewer than sixty. As the brothers aged and died, their numbers dwindled, and precious few novices came to replenish their ranks. The youngest faces were those of Sibillia and Margarethe, who waved so hard that I thought they would wrench their arms from their sockets. Standing between my sisters and his brothers, Volmar smiled at me with such faith and goodwill. How I wished he could come with us.

  “God keep you, Abbess Hildegard!” one of my simple pilgrims cried out, honoring me with a title above my station.

  The look Cuno threw me then was enough to burn me to cinders—abbess indeed!—but soon the Nahe’s current swept us away and instead of my abbot’s glowering face, I saw the forest, that great pulsing emerald heart. As Disibodenberg was lost from view, my soul soared free. It was as though I’d dragged a great leaden weight with me for four decades and had suddenly cast it off.

  The Nahe unfurled, its silky surface belying the powerful current that pushed us ever onward, farther and farther away from Cuno’s imprisoning walls. Richardis’s face was as rapt as mine must have been as she gazed out at the dense tangle of trees. She pointed to a crane rising from the green to soar on angel-wide wings. My heart quickened, for I had learned the lore of birds and the secret portents they revealed.

  “A door long bolted shall now be opened,” I told her.

  Something unreadable flitted across my friend’s face.

  “I know very well that the door is opening for you,” she murmured, keeping her voice out of my brother’s earshot. “But what of the rest of us? Sometimes I fear you will leave us behind as you march toward your glory.”

  Her words struck me like a lance.

  “Do you think I’m chasing my own selfish glory?” For a moment I panicked at the thought of losing her love, of being left alone to face whatever the future would bring. “Wherever I go, I want you by my side.”

  She blinked, her eyes bright with tears.

  “And our other sisters, too, of course,” I added hastily, longing for the dream to be true, that our entire nunnery might sail forth together, free and joyous, never to suffer Cuno’s rule again. “One day, while we are still in this earthly realm, we shall be liberated.”

  “How?” she asked, shaking her head as though I mocked her with an impossible dream. “For now we travel forth, but you know as well as I that we must return.”

  If my hopes were like the crane rising high in the air, Richardis’s anxieties brought them crashing down to earth. This journey was but a temporary reprieve. Even with the pope’s approval, it could still go wrong for me. Like all mortal men, pontiffs die. The next one might not view me so k
indly. Why had God given me these visions if my sisters and I were destined to live out the rest of our days in that cramped nunnery as the underlings of Disibodenberg?

  Before my thoughts could become mired in melancholy, Rorich joined us, the beloved companion of my childhood, now a stooped man with thinning gray hair and a timeworn face.

  “It may be a shock for you both to enter a city after a life of seclusion,” he told us.

  Better a shock than a slow living death, I thought.

  “I remember the city of Bremen from my girlhood,” Richardis said, her sapphire eyes transported to a place that I would never see.

  Though she was half my age, she had more experience of the world than I did, for I had never even laid eyes on a large town. Maybe Rorich was right and it would be too much for me. I was like a benighted prisoner, held captive so long in the land of the dead that I might turn to dust if I dared set foot again in the land of the living. Even to hear my brother describe the wonders of Mainz filled me with amazement.

  “The city itself is walled, like an abbey, but covers a much larger enclosure with gates that are locked at night. All manner of people, rich and poor, Christian and Jew, live there, and the Romans themselves built their fort in that place, for once it marked the northernmost frontier of the empire. You will see every aspect of secular life on display, from the merchants in their furs to crippled beggars on the cathedral steps. But Heinrich will make you both welcome. This archbishop is the greatest man I’ve ever served.”