Book description
Benedictine nun, poet and musician, Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) was
one of the most remarkable figures of the Middle Ages. She undertook
preaching tours throughout the German empire at the age of sixty, and
was consulted not only by her religious contemporaries but also by kings
and emperors, yet it is largely for her apocalyptic and mystical
writings that she is remembered. This volume includes selections from
her three visionary works, her treatises on medicine and the natural
world, her devotional songs, and fascinating letters to prominent
figures of her time. Dealing with such eternal subjects as the
relationship between humans and nature, and men and women, Hildegard's
works show her to be a wide-ranging thinker who created such fresh,
startling images and ideas that her writings have been compared to Dante
and Blake. Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) was born into a
well-established noble family in Bermensheim and was given to the
monastery as a young child. She became a nun and later founded her own
convent at Ruperstberg. With papal approval she wrote down her visions
and travelled through Germany preaching. As well as her visionary
writing, she composed liturgical music and was skilled in medicine, and
was canonized after her death. Mark Atherton teaches English at Regent's
Park College, Oxford.
