Hildegard speaks about her entrance into the Monastery of St Disibod – Station 5

What were the most significant contributions and experiences Hildegard had during her nearly 40 years at St. Disibod Monastery?

On All Saints Day 1112 after the incarnation of Christ, I – a virgin of 14 years – entered the Monastary of St. Disibod; this was together with Jutta of Sponheim who by then was already 20 years of age and to whom I had been entrusted six years before. With us was another virgin whose name was Jutta as well.

The Benedictine monks, who themselves had only come to the holy mountain of St. Disibod six years before under the patronage of Archbishop Ruthard of Mainz were very pleased about our arrival. For, with the foundation of the women’s cell under magistra Jutta, their monastery would now become a double convent; more and more of these were founded in the Empire at this time. Our new magistra Lady Jutta took the veil from Abbot Burkhard on the same day. I only took the veil two years later when I was 16.

In the almost 40 years that I lived on the Disibodenberg where I became the new magistra after Jutta’s death in 1136, I have seen and learnt a lot. I enjoyed participating in Benedictine live with the Liturgy of the Hours, the singing of Psalms and High Mass on solemnities. I loved the music. Yet, I also have to say that for the longest time, we lived on a building site. Thus the foundation-stone of our huge St. Nicolas-church had already been laid Anno Domini 1108; yet only in 1143 was the church finally consecrated by bishop Henry of Mainz who then also dedicated the High Altar to Saint John. When the bones of Saint Ursula and her 11,000 virgins had been found in Cologne in 1120, a part of her relics came to us on the Disibodenberg. Ursula who had loved the Son of God in true faith and who had abandoned man and world was my favorite Saint; I have composed a whole cycle of songs for her solemnity on October 21.

In 1143 we could finally bury the relics of Saint Disibod in the Church crypt. At the request of Abbot Helenger and the Disibodenberg monks, I compiled the vita of this Gaelic-speaking Irish monk 30 years later. He had come to the Franconian empire in the dark period of the 7th century and he had settled down where his walking stick put into the earth turned green, where a white hind pawed a well of fresh water from the earth and where two rivers united. This was exactly here where I have lived for forty years.

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Saint Hildegard of Bingen: A Remarkable Saint

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