Hildegard's Influence On Religion

She was a strong, independent women as seen in her workings. She produced major works in theology and 3 main visionary writings which expressed her deep knowledge in mysticism, and was a very intellectual woman of her time. St Hildegarde spoke strongly and voiced her opinion, she had constant correspondence with bishops and the pope about current issues like the struggle of corruption, and brought people to a deeper awareness of the role and importance of symbolism and mysticism. In her monasteries, she continuously encouraged the nuns to music, singing, painting and spiritual practises. She was a significant female figure head, who was the first to demonstrate women’s power and the intelligence they preserved. Her shinning spirit, empowering knowledge defeated the gender, social, physical and cultural barriers placed around women. A quote from St Hildegarde ‘I am but a feather upon the breath of

The significance of religious leaders during this era is evident by the fact that the writer of this poem places the bishop at the beginning of the table. Due to the fact that the “medieval society was a religious society” and that these religious leaders held a special relationship with God, it is no surprise that these individuals held the second highest social class position in the medieval time period (Feudalism and the Three Orders (Overview) 2).

This book mainly focuses on the life of Hildegard as a spiritualist and a healer, as do most books that were written about her. It begins by outlining the basic events of her life and death; her illness as a child, her education at a convent by a woman named Jutta, and the visions she saw from an early age. She regarded these visions as gifts from God but was reluctant to share them with the world until one critical dream. “And it came to pass…when I was forty-two years and seven months old that the heavens were opened up and a blinding light… flowed through my entire brain… and I suddenly understood the

In Catherine period of time, being a woman and doing the work she was doing, Catherine was looked down upon, and many people stated that ‘she was out of her league’. Catherine applied the two Great Commandments: “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy whole soul, and with thy whole mind, and with thy whole strength” ; “Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.” (Exodus 20) to her life and thus it allowed her to experience true freedom by becoming closer to God, by following his teachings, especially Jesus’s style of servant leadership in which he served others and thus served as an example to others, and people on how to act like God would want his followers

Unlike Abelard, Heloise never wrote a unified and comprehensive piece of work. Instead we have to gather her philosophy from her few letters’ and our understanding of her from Abelard’s responses. From her writing Heloise seems conflicted in both major relationships of her life, both Abelard and with God. With Abelard she is upset that after everything she did for him, he does nothing for her “Tell me one thing, if you can. Why, after our entry into religion, which was your decision alone, have I been so neglected and forgotten by you that you neither speak to me when you are here nor write to me when you are absent?”(1) This portrays an interesting image of Heloise living a life pursuing God in the nunnery but not for Him, and not for herself but for Abelard, because he wanted her to. In doing this she puts Abelard’s interests before not only her own, but even God’s “I can expect no reward for this from God, for it is certain that I have done nothing as yet for love of him”(2). It is in this way that we can learn Heloise’s philosophy, of furthering the interests of others rather than your own. It is this motive that Heloise finds to be good, action performed for the best

Throughout history women were always seen as inferior to men as they were thought to be more fragile, less educated, and only useful for childbearing and household care. Even women of a elite status were seen as less than males as Jeanne d’Albret ( mother of future king Henry IV) proved this when she said in a letter to the Pope that should she be found wrong that she should be excused simply because she is a woman (Doc 4). Jeanne d’Albret being the mother of a future king and wife of a current king means that she was of a higher status than any other woman in France yet she still felt the need to excuse herself for being a woman on behalf of her ignorance. Others argued that God commands that women be subordinate to men in every way as they were weak and men were Godly (Doc 3). Women were allowed to be apart of religious ceremonies and partake in the possession of God but were not allowed the same status or privileges of man (doc 5). The idea that women were secondary to men continues throughout the Reformation in Europe as they were still seen as weak and

Hildegard also wrote songs and music. Her biggest work was the "Liber divinorum operum" or the "Book of Divine Works", which talked about god and his creations. A problem Hildegard was that affected her life were migraines. Scientist believe that her visions were the result of migraines. As said one of the articles "Scintillating scotomata are also associated with areas of total blindness in the visual field, something Hildegard might have been describing when she spoke of pints of intense light, and also the "extinguished stars"." Another problem that happened was that Hildegard defied authorities, as said in the article "A final famous incident happened near the end of Hildegard's life, when she was in her eighties. She allowed a nobleman who had been excommunicated to be buried at the convent, seeing that he had last rites. She claimed she'd received word from God allowing the burial." Even though the authorities were enraged, she hid the grave.

Throughout the letters of Heloise and Abelard, there are several examples of how gender roles shaped medieval France. In the third letter of the collection, Abelard writes to Heloise lamenting about his misfortunes. He asks her to pray for him because; “your prayer may win for me from God if this woman’s prayer obtained so much from a man.” In this letter, Abelard sees women having a stronger spiritual connection than men, and he even goes on to give evidence to this point. He says that when you look at, “the Old and New Testaments, you will find that the greatest miracles of resurrection have been displayed only, or chiefly, to women and were preformed for them or with respect to them.” He gives several examples, including, the resurrection of Christ and how it was the three Mary’s who found the empty tomb; in the Old Testament, Elias and Elisha resurrected two men at the prayers of their mothers; and Lazarus’s

There is irrefutable evidence that over the period of the Middle Ages, both Christianity and Islam have been anchors in both shaping and influencing governance of kingdoms and empires comprising Western Europe, the Byzantine Empire, and territories ruled by Islam. Religion during this period was widely used to set laws, influence culture, justify armed conflicts, and pronounce punishment on citizens domiciled within the geographies depicted within this essay. I will attempt to illuminate the geopolitical climate, territorial demarcation, and religious influences that depicted life circa 500 – 1517 CE. From the background material submitted, I will directly answer the following questions:

Hildegard is now known as St. Hildegard of Bingen. When Hildegard was young God told her to write down all of her visions from him. Hildegard was a very good writer, she wrote over 300 letters to people who asked for her help! She also wrote songs. Some of these songs are listened to in church. They are not like the usual upbeat church songs we are used to singing, they are more like the songs you hear before confession. Hildegard Von Bingen was a great song writer, no doubt about it!

In today’s society the controversial subject of what positions in the church a woman can hold; has become incredibly debatable among the nation. Some people believe that women have equal rights with men and can uphold any position that a man can. Today’s society also believes that because a woman can be in political and business power, then a woman can also be in authority in the church. However, that could not be farther from the truth a women’s positions in the church are defined by God.

A quote regarding this reads, “Hypatia’s soul is holy; all of her ‘divine spirit’. Not just Hypatia’s soul is holy; all of her being is sanctified; even her hands”. (page 47) With these transcendent attributes, her students could look to her to be a genuine guide in philosophical discoveries. This sort of “holy elevation” reminds me of Hildegard and the elevated status that she held when it came to her views. It has always been hard for a woman to be taken seriously in the intellectual world, yet this “divineness” seems to give Hypatia the same kind of status boost needed to give her substantial credibility. Unlike Hildegard, Hypatia’s views of the body differed, but it is women like Hypatia who paved the way so that women, like Hildegard, could philosophize and share their opinion.

The only thing a woman could do to escape this harsh judgment was to either enter a nunnery or marry and serve a man. By doing this, she was serving two lords: God and her husband. To not serve a husband through consummation and not serve God by entering a nunnery, would be viewed as a complete rejection of God. Thus, women were not only restrained by the political standards enforced men, but also the consciousness of the Church that

The gnostics belief in their God also translated over into the gender roles of their communities. Women in the church were allowed hold roles that for the orthodox church were reserved only for men such as being a priest, prophet, healer, and evangelist. Though several women also held those roles ten to twenty years after Jesus’ death, prominent men in the Orthodox Church such as Bishop Irenaeus and Tertullian labeled the gnostics as heretics and expressed blasphemy over the fact that women were treated as equals (85). This patriarchal view may have been influenced due to various cultural influences in the churches of the Roman Empire, such as the arrival of Hellenized Jews. Traditional Jewish beliefs are seen in Paul’s viewpoint of the role of women as he argues from a conception of a masculine God. He says, “…a man…is the image and glory of God; but woman is the glory of man” (qtd. in Pagels 86) for his justification of the subordination of women. By 200 BC, majority of Christian churches supported the pseudo-Pauline letter of Timothy, which read “Let a woman learn in silence with all submissiveness. I permit no woman to teach or to have authority over men; she is to keep silent” (qtd. in Pagels 86), which correlated to the start of the

Among various political, social, and religious strife, the Medieval Literature is characterized by Christian influence and beliefs. In medieval texts, authors highlight the importance and grandeur of the Christian faith by contrasting it with descriptions of foreign lands. As a result, people received a false view of these faraway lands that included Syria and India. In texts such as Sir John Mandeville’s The Book of Marvels and Travels and Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Man of Law’s Tale” offer examples of othering by their misunderstanding of foreign people and criticism of their religion which in turn facilitates the authors in defining the Christian European identity.