17th September 2025

If you were a 12th Century aristocratic couple living in the Rhineland and your tenth child turned out to be a sickly little girl given to supernatural visions, what might you have done with her? Born in 1098, Hildegard, when just eight, was put into the care of the reclusive abbess Jutta at the Benedictine Monastery at Diessenberg where she received an education, eventually taking vows and became a nun herself at the age of fifteen. When Jutta died in 1136, Hildegard replaced her as abbess.

You might imagine that hers was a somewhat inconsequential life of sheltered piety, but none of it! This remarkable woman proved to be an incredibly gifted and talented polymath. She was a writer, poet, composer – you can buy CDs of her songs and music from Amazon! – a philosopher, mystic, visionary, and, not least, a prophet. She promoted the rights and dignity of women, believing that they were equal with men before God. She also wrote on and practised in medical and pharmaceutical matters. She corresponded with leaders of the time, and, by her death on 17 September 1179, she had built for herself quite a reputation. Rather late in the day, the Roman Catholic Church canonised her on 10 May 2012, declaring her to be a Doctor of the Church, meaning her teaching on doctrinal matters can be regarded as authoritative and making her one of only four women so honoured.

Scholar, teacher, proto-feminist, scientist, devoted woman of God, Hildegard of Bingen thoroughly deserves this renewed interest in her life and work, and today is her feast day. The sickly child did rather well.

Ken Stewart