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Biography:
Hildegarde of Bingen lived in c. 1098 - 1179 born to to noble parents. When her family could not pay their tithe, or ten percent of what they made, they instead gave Hildegarde to the Church. From there, she was assigned to whole-time service to the Church at the age of eight. She lived with Jutta von Sponheim, a female hermit, next to the monastery of St. Disibod. When she lived in the monastery, she was plagued with bad health, apparently with symptoms such as headaches and asthma, while having visions of the apocalypse. Volmar, a monk in the monastery next door, was the sole confidant of Hildegarde's apocalyptic dreams.

Soon, at the age of fifteen, she took her religious vows to the Benedictine Nuns and remained a nun for twenty years before Jutta, the previous superior, passed away and left Hildegarde as the successor. She was thirty-eight when she became the supervisor of the nunnery. As the Superior, Hildegarde decided that she must tell the world about her visions.

Soon, in 1141, Hildegarde wrote her most famous work. Known as the Scivias, which comes from //Scito Vias Domini//, or "Know the Way of the Lord", this text contained the many visions which she had as a child. With the help of Pope Eugene III, these textswere read aloud to others at the Synod of Trier (1147-1148) and gained papal approval, along with the credits with other theologians and philosophers at the time.

After the fame Hildegarde gained from the Scivias, the nunnery took on many new, and eager, novices and soon grew too large. In 1150, she left the nunnery against the will of the abbot at St. Disibod's and continued teaching. She started a new convent in Rupertsburg, with approximately fifty nuns. This convent at Rupertsburg was a center of pilgrimage, due to her fame, and at her time at Rupertsburg she wrote two texts. In the convent at Rupertsburg, the nuns enjoyed many privledges and learned about the arts, such as music and literature. Nuns were also allowed to drink beer in the monastery because it was healthier than the water in the area. Soon this house became overcrowded too, so another house was formed in 1165 about eight miles away.

In 1158, Hildegarde started teaching about the renewal of the Church, wrote //The Book of Life's Merits//, and //The Book of Divine Love.// //The Book of Divine Love// essentially speaks about the salvation and the end of the world.

Hildegarde also wrote many books supporting a feminine God and focused on women's rights. She claimed that men were better in physical aspects, but women were truly wiser than their counterparts. She also claimed Satan approached Eve not because she was weaker in spirit, but because of her potential to be a mother and create life. While she admitted that women were more trusting by nature, she felt the blame was both Adam's and Eve's and that the only villian in the garden was Satan.

Later, as an eighty year old woman, her abbey was placed under interdict because she refused to dig up the body of a young man who had been excommuniacated that lied in the abbey. After the Bishop of Mainz rejected her claims to keep the body in the graveyard, she shuffled the gravestones so the body could not be found or identified. Hildegarde was abile to have the interdict lifted in the march of 1179. She died a peaceful death six months later.

Major accomplishments:
Produced Many Theological Words, such as the Scivas. Served as an advisor to popes, bishops, and kings. Wrote about Medicine and Natural History Wrote Sacred Music

Her Music:
There were six major focuses of her music. The first of these was Father and Son representing the bonds between Jesus and God. The next of the styles of here music was anothrer realationship this one was mothjer and son, represneting the relationship between Mary and her son Jesus Christ. Then her next style of music was the holy spirit and how it affected each and everyone of us in our day to day life. Then came virgins widdows and innocent virgins seeming to pull twoards the women in society. Then the next was the celestial Heirachy about angles and and martyrs rank in heaven.

Sources:

 * http://www.medieval.org/emfaq/composers/hildegard.html
 * http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildegard_of_Bingen[|]
 * http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/med/hildegarde.html[|]
 * http://www.middle-ages.org.uk/hildegard-of-bingen.htm[|]
 * http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/med/hildegarde.htmlhttp://www.fordham.edu/halsall/med/hildegarde.html
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