Illuminations: A Novel of Hildegard von Bingen

by Mary Sharratt

  Ecstatic power thrummed through my veins as I packed the Scivias manuscript along with the other texts, both religious and scientific, that Adelheid had copied for us—the beginnings of our new library. I would come to remember this time as one of the happiest in my life, Guda’s nay-saying silenced in the breathless haste of packing, the sisters speaking dreamily of the new life awaiting us.

  Nothing could stop us now that we had the archbishop’s letter and the margravine on our side, her face blazing with ambition for her daughter, her nieces, and for me. What we set out to accomplish—founding our own community of women, consecrated virgins wedded to my vision—was something that hadn’t been done in living memory. This would create a lasting legacy to honor us all—especially the margravine, our benefactor.

  Every monk, nun, and novice assembled in the chapter house. Unfurling the archbishop’s letter, I read it for everyone to hear—there was no mistaking the finality of his message. Cuno swayed as though he were a tree about to be felled.

  “You are a fortunate woman, Hildegard,” my abbot said, his face drained. “Fortunate in your alliances. Even your deathly illness has waxed and waned to suit your own designs.”

  Prior Egon looked as though he longed to elaborate on the abbot’s opinion of me, but his goiter-swollen throat rendered his speech hoarse and grotesque.

  “My lord abbot,” Brother Otto said, “I can assure you that our sister’s fever and paralysis were genuine enough. We must thank God for her recovery.”

  I smiled at the old infirmarer before addressing Cuno. “You speak of my designs, but God’s designs are at work here. God has spared me that I might be released from my captivity and lead my daughters to our true home.”

  “You speak as though I were your jailer,” he said loftily, “when I have only held your spiritual welfare at heart. Nonetheless, if you truly wish to pursue this folly, you are free to go.” He spoke as though he could not wait to see the last of me.

  Before I could say anything, he continued, “With the following stipulations. Rupertsberg, if you succeed in seeing it to its completion and consecration, is to be a daughter house of Disibodenberg and you shall remain subject to me, your abbot—not an abbess in your own right, but still a magistra. As your abbot, I alone have the power to appoint your provost from the monks of Disibodenberg.”

  “In that case, my lord abbot, I beg that you choose me.” Volmar stepped forward, his hands folded in entreaty. “Nothing would give me greater joy than joining my sisters in their new home.”

  Cuno lifted his eyebrows. “It surprises me that you, Brother Volmar, one of our finest men of letters, wish to abandon your studies in order to serve women.” He spoke as though Volmar’s friendship with us nuns had rendered him a eunuch. “But if that’s your desire, you may leave this house and all its comforts.”

  At that our abbot waved a dismissive arm, as though to adjourn the meeting without further discussion. I did not budge.

  “My lord abbot,” I said, “there is still the matter of our dowries.”

  His face clenched in ice-cold fury. “Your audacity knows no bounds, woman. You shall not get a single coin from our coffers. But then you have so many alliances,” he said. “Perhaps the margravine and her friends shall pave the way for you.”

  There was no time to haggle over money. We needed to set forth now, while it was still summer, before autumn storms held us hostage or Cuno conjured up some new excuse to bind us to his monastery.

  The first of August marked our exodus. Before Lauds, the margravine’s servants saddled the horses. Why should we ride and not travel by water, we cloistered women who hadn’t straddled as much as a mule in years, I asked the margravine. She insisted that we ride in procession.

  “You and your nuns shall fare forth like victors,” she said, this noblewoman who was so adept at winning the worldly game. “Like knights who have just won an impossible battle. The villagers and farmers you pass on your way shall run out to see you.”

  The pale palfrey they led out for me seemed as tall as a steeple. Before I could open my mouth to protest, the margravine’s groom hoisted me into the saddle. He eased my feet into the stirrups, then turned aside so the margravine could discreetly wrap my skirts around my legs to cushion them from the stirrup leather.

  “She’s steady and quiet to ride,” the margravine said. “My groom shall ride alongside you and keep hold of her lead rein. You only have to sit in the saddle and trust her to carry you. But in your new life, I think you must learn to ride. It’s expected of a great abbess.”

  Before I could reply, the powerful animal shifted her weight beneath me, making me gasp. Volmar handed me the crook that marked my office. I’d never seen his eyes shine like that, so full of hope. He spoke to me in a quiet, confiding voice, the way he used to whisper to me through the anchorage screen when we were young.

  “Believe me, I’m as eager to be gone as you are. Cuno used to be a good man, back in the days when our holy Jutta still lived, but his jealousy of you has made him petty and small-minded.”

  “I couldn’t make this journey without you,” I told him. This was how I had always dreamt it would be—Volmar and I escaping Cuno. We would grow old together, steadfast companions who had weathered every storm.

  “In truth, my brethren will also be relieved,” Volmar said, “that you and Cuno no longer share the same roof. For I fear that if another battle broke out between the two of you, only one would be left alive.” He cracked a smile. “And I think it wouldn’t be Cuno.”

  He patted the mare’s shoulder before going to mount his own borrowed horse with an easy grace that astonished me. The margravine handed him the crucifix he would carry on our journey.

  Looking as triumphant as her mother, Richardis sat astride her chestnut mare as if she had been born to ride. She bore the fluttering silk banner we had sewn of Saint Bertha and Saint Rupert of Bingen, whose refuge would be our home.

  I twisted in the saddle to smile at all my daughters, their faces so joyful and expectant, save Guda who looked as though she had swallowed a hedgehog. I feared she might leap off her horse and hurl herself back inside our abandoned rooms. But her novices chattered in excitement. She would make this journey for their sake if not for mine.

  “Daughters, rejoice,” I said. “We’re setting off on pilgrimage to our true home.”

  While Cuno looked on, his face like a mask, his monks behind him, we rode off into the rustling green forest. Swallowing my panic at feeling so helpless and small on the huge mare, I caressed her silky withers. Then I took a deep breath and raised my voice in song, leading the others in a canticle of praise. The soul is symphonic. Such is the sweetness of music that it banishes human weakness and fear, and draws us back to our original state of grace, reuniting us with heaven. All creation seemed to share our joy, the sky a pure and cloudless arc above our heads, the rising sun filling the leaves with gold.

  Hours and miles went by as I jolted in the saddle, my every muscle aching, but my soul was jubilant. I felt like Miriam leading my people out of slavery and into the Promised Land. As we passed through farmstead and hamlet, peasants darted out to hail us.

  “Bless us, holy seeress! Bless our crops and our children.”

  While I chanted my benedictions, mothers pressed their babies into my cradling arms. Young girls braided flowers into my mare’s mane and forelock. People offered us barley bread and ale, and brought water for our horses.

  At last, when we rode around a bend, our horses weary and my hips cramping, Mount Saint Rupert came into view, eclipsing everything. As the setting sun cast its radiance on the chapel, my spirit trilled like a blackbird. A questing pilgrim, I had at last reached the Holy Land—not some distant desert landscape full of battlefields and carnage, but this green hill, as gently curving as a woman’s breast. I had last seen Rupertsberg in April, when the many apple trees were in their full froth of blossom. Now ripening fruit hung heavy on the branches. Never will I forget the looks my daughters an
d I gave one another as we ascended that slope. A flock of sheep, blindingly white against the dusky twilit green, darted from our path.

  An old soldier and his wife lived there as stewards. Shouting their hearty welcome, they led us to a torchlit table set up outside the chapel. When the margravine’s groom helped me down from the saddle, my knees buckled and I nearly sprawled upon that lush earth, but Richardis caught me. Her eyes flashed with a rapture that matched mine.

  “We are home,” she whispered.

  “When we build the abbey,” I told her, spinning in a circle, “we must preserve as many of these apple trees as possible.”

  Her arm linked with mine, she led me to the table set with bowls of steaming pottage, rustic bread, and cups of apple wine as sweet and potent as the rising moon.

  After Compline in the chapel, we retired to the pavilion set up for us, and there we slumbered beneath the apple trees like daughters of paradise.

  PART III

  Music of Heaven

  There is Music of Heaven in all things and we have

  forgotten how to hear it until we sing.

  —Hildegard von Bingen

  13

  MARCH RAIN LASHED down on the tent roof. Rivulets of water dripped through the seam where the peaked roof met the sloping walls of felted goat hair. Rainwater seeped from beneath the walls to puddle on the beaten-earth floor.

  Dawn was nigh—there was just enough light to see without candle or lamp. Shivering, I pushed off the clammy bedclothes and reached for my sandals, yet even the damp couldn’t dim my happiness, radiating from my heart to warm me to my fingertips and toes. I had escaped Disibodenberg. My vision was made manifest. It was alive. Never had I felt more assured, more like myself, than I did here, sleeping in a tent under the open sky, a prisoner no longer.

  Our first winter had been an ordeal. During those dark, bitter months, we had quit the tent to sleep in an old cow byre, which was as warm and dry as it was odorous. Indeed, Guda, the novices, and the younger nuns slept there still. But a few days ago, I had resumed sleeping in the tent, since the weather was milder now that the constellation of Aries sailed above us in the heavens, bringing the promise of Easter and spring, and an end to our Lenten austerities.

  On the other two camp beds, Richardis and Adelheid slept, their heads burrowed beneath the blankets. Like me, they had returned to the tent, leaky and cold though it was, to escape Guda’s bickering. I was not looking forward to today’s chapter meeting.

  Slipping out of the tent, I trod the planks that formed pathways across our muddy building site. Rain drenched my cloak as I passed the makeshift shelters where the workmen slept, only a hundred yards or so away from my nuns—a great scandal as far as Guda was concerned. As mistress of the novices, she had insisted that an inner bolt be made for the byre door. She refused to use the pit latrines unless three other sisters were standing guard. Now that the romance of our move to Rupertsberg was wearing thin, Guda’s resentment spread like contagion. Even my niece Hiltrud sometimes spoke longingly of the comforts of Disibodenberg.

  So muddled were my thoughts that I tripped over my skirts and nearly pitched face-first into the mire. As I picked myself up, the doubts set in, crowding my head like a murder of crows. What an upheaval I had put my daughters through. What if I had failed them, proving both Guda and Cuno right, that I had been a fool to ever leave our old monastery?

  Cuno still exerted his control over us, hanging on to our dowries with an iron grip. The margravine’s endowment had gone to pay for the workmen and building materials. Meanwhile, our supplies ran dangerously low. For now, I could mollify my daughters by reminding them that it was Lent, but what would we do after the time of fasting was over? Our tenants would pay their tithes, but last autumn’s harvest had been miserable and this year’s harvest was still a long way off. Did Cuno think he could starve us into submission?

  Meanwhile, the villagers relied on us for charity, sending their hungry children and old women to us daily. The ruined gateway to Saint Bertha’s hermitage had become our provisional almoner’s gate. The poor shared the same rough oaten bread and pottage as the rest of us.

  Following the path of planks, I stepped inside the old chapel that would do for us until the new church was completed. Its interior was so frigid that it made the outside seem warm, but at least the roof didn’t leak. I tugged on the bell ropes, ringing in the Office of Lauds. From the workmen’s tents arose a rumble of cursing at the racket I made. When at last I let go of the bell ropes, I discovered that the rough fiber had burned my palms. Rubbing my smarting hands, I awaited the others.

  Before I could even turn, her footsteps came as swift as a hind’s. Richardis bore her lamp that we would use to light the candles. How young she looked at this early hour, her face still sleepy, her veil dampened from the rain. And yet every last trace of girlishness had gone out of her. I ached to see how thin and pale she had grown.

  Since our move to Rupertsberg, she was more and more given to silences, though nothing like her former muteness. She sang the Daily Office without fail, yet she could go days without uttering a word more than was necessary. Her deep silences seemed to provide a refuge for her, as though they raised her up to a serene mountaintop, a world away from Guda’s strife-weaving. Too much arguing drained my beloved friend, while her wordless concentration over her artwork restored her. She had spells where she appeared to sink inside a dream, as though incubating her illuminations. Rapt in her secret world, she’d let her silence build to the bursting point and then she would grind her pigments. Hues as rich as jewels would explode onto the parchment. Under her brushstrokes, the illuminated visions of Scivias became hers as much as they were mine. But we were nearly out of parchment and pigments. Unless we received funds soon, work on the book would grind to a halt.

  Sometimes her voicelessness dismayed me, for it almost made her appear aloof, as though she were harboring as many criticisms of me as Guda was but could not bring herself to say them aloud. When she handed me the lamp, I set it down and took her hands.

  “Cara,” I said, calling her by my secret endearment. “Tell me the truth. Have I made a terrible mistake, uprooting us and moving here?”

  She didn’t answer at once but stopped to reflect. As I waited, a chasm of emptiness opened inside me. At moments like this, I thought that, despite our bond, she held part of herself back, a secret self that remained veiled and obscured, unknown to me.

  “A true love,” she said at last, “sees past the beginnings of things. It sees them through to the end. Anything less is mere vanity.”

  As she stared into my eyes, I saw the fire in hers. Every part of me melted. She smiled, touching my hand. Together we lit the candles.

  In the candlelit chapel, I could lose myself in the elation of our sung devotions, but in the chapter meeting, held in the open air, there was no ignoring Guda. Her once beautiful face appeared haggard, her eyes dull and shadowed by dark circles, as though she had aged a decade since we left Disibodenberg. My heart ached to remember that golden-haired girl who had come into my care at the age of five. Guda with her angel’s voice, her singing that could move even Cuno to weep.

  As I addressed my daughters, I strove to embody a nurturing mother who could soothe away their anger and fears, and coax them to look to the glory that would be our reward if only we persevered in bringing our new community to fruition. A true love sees things through to their end.

  “My daughters in Christ, Provost Volmar, the heavens have cleared.” I lifted my hand toward the widening gap in the clouds.

  “The sun shines upon us. Soon the warmth of spring and summer shall lighten our days. The workmen have given me their word that our new dormitory shall be completed by summer’s end. I am at work on a new composition that shall embrace all of you—a musical morality play, the Play of Virtues. We shall perform this for the archbishop when our new abbey is finished and consecrated.”

  I smiled at each one of them.

  “Everyone sh
all have a part, even you, Volmar. The Virtues, embodied by you, my daughters, work together to rescue Anima, the soul, from the devil’s grasp. I have written the lead role for Sister Guda, since God has blessed her with the most heavenly voice.”

  Surely Guda would soften to hear this tribute. How I prayed that the soul of our community could be delivered from the dissention that threatened to tear us apart. But the faces I saw before me remained glum.

  “That’s all very well, magistra, but we can’t eat music,” my own niece Hiltrud said. “Meanwhile, we sleep in a byre like animals!”

  At this, I made myself smile sweetly. “But sister, our Bridegroom himself was born in a byre. If it was good enough for him, surely we can make do for a few more months.”

  Richardis met my eyes before ducking her head lest the others see her smile. My niece flushed red and looked in confusion to Guda, who had no doubt put those words in her mouth.

  Then Guda herself took the floor, her words as unsubtle as a hammer bashing my skull. “Hildegard, you have led us into the wilderness and now we starve and live in deprivation, as I feared from the beginning.”

  I bade myself to remain calm. More than ever before, I needed to sound strong and assured.

  “Sister Guda, pray, do not exaggerate. The beggars at our gate know what true starvation is. Without our charity, they would not have survived the winter. We have enough to sustain our bodies, though it isn’t the richest fare. We didn’t choose this life in order to wallow in worldly luxury.”

  Guda’s eyes brimmed. She was not just angry, she was despairing. Her look of hurt reminded me, yet again, that neither she nor I had freely chosen this life. Our families had cast us into the anchorage as children.