My brother’s face softened with what looked like genuine love when he spoke of his master. He sang out his praises for that great man. Of course, I knew already that Mainz, with its cathedral modeled after Saint Peter’s in Rome, had its own Holy See and that the Archbishop of Mainz was the substitute for the pope in the lands north of the Alps. The archbishop was also one of the archchancellors for the Holy Roman Empire and one of the seven prince electors whose task it was to select the emperor.
As Rorich described for us the glories we would soon see, impenetrable forest gave way to fields, farmsteads, and hamlets with churches as tiny as hermit cells. Ragged children scampered to the riverbanks to wave and shout at the sight of me with my magistra’s crook.
“Hildegard of Disibodenberg!” they cried. “The holy sibyl!”
Their mothers lifted infants and cried out my name until I raised my arms in blessing.
“Even these poor souls have heard of you,” Rorich said, unable to hide his amazement.
We floated past teeming villages where girls chased escaping goats and geese, their flashing bare legs reminding me of how Richardis once cavorted in the forest before she made her irrevocable vows.
When the Nahe flowed into the Rhine, that mighty highway, I gripped Richardis’s hand in awe, for I’d never thought to behold such majesty. At the place where the two rivers met, a crag arose, hazy in the evening mist. There loomed a mysterious chapel ringed by a grove of apple trees blossoming in pink and white.
“How beautiful it is,” I said. “Is that a shelter for pilgrims? Will we spend the night there?” I imagined glimpsing the stars through those flowering branches.
My brother laughed. “No, that place is in ruins.” He went on to explain with his easy knowledge of the sights and places that had been forbidden to me. “That’s Rupertsberg. Once it was a hermitage, founded by a pious widow, the holy Bertha, in memory of her son, Rupert, who died very young. He made a pilgrimage to Rome when he was only fifteen.”
“Who owns that land?” I asked, surprised that such a commanding site could be left derelict.
“The archbishop, of course,” my brother said. “He owns most of the lands around here. We will spend the night at one of his estates just a short distance down the Rhine.”
Soon my view of Rupertsberg was swept aside as I gaped at the many ships, boats, and barges jostling for position in the Rhine’s broad sweep. Richardis pointed out the castles, towns, and toll towers that she had seen before, having journeyed up the Rhine with her mother en route to Disibodenberg when she was thirteen.
Suddenly she took my arm, her eyes sweeping over me. “Hildegard, are you ill? You look faint.”
“No.” I beamed. “I’ve just risen from my grave.”
After four decades, I had at last rejoined the great world.
On the third day, when we reached Mainz, a cacophony assailed my senses. The stink of sewage and fish guts arose from the quay, and once inside the city walls, I marveled at the many bodies crowding the streets. The throng’s voices rang out in a babel of German dialects and foreign tongues. From the markets came the smell of roasting meats and the flash of trinkets gleaming in the sun. A waft of attar of roses filled my nose as we passed a perfumer’s shop. Then we turned a corner to be assailed by the smell of swine rooting among refuse-filled ditches. Dirty-faced waifs begged for alms. We walked past the Jewish quarter, where my brother pointed out the synagogue and bathhouse. Farther down the streets, he tried to shield us from the sight of sharp-eyed women whose red hoods marked them as prostitutes.
The city itself was the ring enclosing the jewels—Saint Martin’s Cathedral with its triple spires and the archbishop’s palace.
As my brother guided us through the guarded palace gates, I thought what an honor it was just to set foot in this sanctum. A tightness seized my chest. What if I did or said the wrong thing, offending the archbishop who had been so gracious to invite me here? How easily I could disgrace myself and Rorich, not to mention Richardis and my other sisters.
Before us loomed the Great Hall, built of the same red and yellow sandstone as the cathedral. Its windows of white-green glass glittered in the last light of day. At one end of the Great Hall was a chamber block, three stories high, and behind that I caught sight of the roof of the archbishop’s brand-new chapel, dedicated to Saint Gottfried, and yet another wing containing the archbishop’s private chambers and library. It seemed impossible that Rome or Constantinople contained any structures more exquisite.
“Come along.” Rorich led us to the porch, facing west, and into that Great Hall, more than one hundred and twenty feet long. The tile floor was cushioned in rushes strewn with herbs that released their sweetness with our every footfall. Richardis and I marveled at the six white pillars stretching toward the lofty timber ceiling. The sunset cast its glow through the high windows.
Torches set in the walls illuminated the hall, as did countless candles hanging from chandeliers. Down the center was a long row of trestles and benches. Closest to the warmth of the great blazing hearth was the archbishop’s table, set upon a dais. Above his throne, now empty, hung a silken banner bearing his coat of arms—two silver six-spoked wheels connected by a cross against a crimson background. Servants bustled around, laying out goblets and jugs, knives and spoons and salt cellars, as though preparing a feast fine enough for the pope. To think that my brother had been a part of this household for more than three decades.
“I feel like a beggar.” I wrung my hands, gritty from our journey. “I should join the poor at the almoner’s gate.”
My brother, looking utterly at ease in this palace, smiled. “Here comes a servant to show you and Sister Richardis to your room.”
“Is this heaven?” I asked Richardis as soon as we were alone in our guest chamber high beneath the eaves.
“Not even my mother’s castle was this fine.”
I felt lost, as out of my element as a fish upon dry land. Luckily Richardis, no stranger to courtly life, took charge, opening our traveling trunk to pull out fresh linen shifts and clean habits and wimples. We must appear spotless before the archbishop. But before she could close the shutters to give us the privacy to wash and change, I wandered to the window, which looked out on the archbishop’s private wing. To my delight, I saw a labyrinth below, made of hedges that appeared inky black in the twilight. Though I had read of such things, I had never thought to see one with my own eyes. A pale-clad figure wandered those spiraling paths with an air of deepest contemplation.
“Do you think that’s the archbishop himself?” Richardis asked, joining me at the window. She looked almost impish.
Too nervous to reply, I drenched half the floor as I washed myself. Richardis, already in her clean shift, handed me a towel and stood behind me to work the comb through my hair.
“Don’t act so petrified.” Her breath was warm against my nape. “After all, he’s only a man.” She spoke with such calm authority that she reminded me of her mother.
“Only one of the most powerful men in the Holy Roman Empire,” I said.
When we entered that Great Hall, nothing could have prepared me for the sight of Heinrich, Archbishop of Mainz, rising to welcome us to his table.
Adalbert, his predecessor, had been an older man, wide of girth and heavy of jowls, but Heinrich in his simple linen tunic hardly looked older than Richardis. As beautiful as the Angel Gabriel, his hair was golden and his eyes a warm brown, his smile kindly. His skin seemed to glow from within. This man exuded such saintly purity that I was convinced he was as fair on the inside as he was on the outside. Little wonder Rorich was in awe of him.
My reverence was real as I bowed to kiss his ring. This was the man who had sheltered the Jews of Mainz from the murdering mob, the man who championed my writings, speaking in my defense alongside Bernard of Clairvaux until the pope himself was convinced.
Heinrich honored me by bowing in return. “Hildegard of Disibodenberg, I rejoice to meet you at last.”
> Although the good man tried his best to put me at my ease, I was tongue-tied as I took my seat. It being Wednesday night, meat was forbidden, but such an array of fish was laid out that Richardis exclaimed she hadn’t seen its like since leaving her home near the North Sea. Plaice, there was, and baked cod, roach and bream, pike and turbot, sole and salmon from the Atlantic, scallops served in their shells, and eel, as tender as spring chicken, cooked in a green sauce. There were cheeses and many fine breads with sweet butter. The richest wine filled our goblets. Heinrich himself ate and drank sparingly, but urged us to sample each dish, as though this fabulous hospitality was for our sole benefit because he preferred simpler fare. Yet I could hardly eat a morsel. Rorich was right—my four decades in Disibodenberg had rendered me incapable of functioning outside its prison. I was as clueless as a peasant would be about how to conduct myself at the archbishop’s feast. Richardis and Rorich came to my rescue, conversing with the canons and prelates, the many glittering members of Heinrich’s household.
Blessedly, the archbishop seemed to mistake my discomfiture for true humility—a virtue that he embodied to his core.
“Many think me too young for the honor of this post,” he confessed. “Indeed, I was as surprised as anyone when they elected me. Would you pray for me, Hildegard, that I might be worthy to carry on Saint Boniface’s legacy?” he asked, speaking of the English-born apostle to Germany who had been the first archbishop of Mainz.
“You have all my prayers, your eminence.” I summoned the courage to lift my eyes to his beautiful face.
“What I have read of your work impressed me greatly.”
Under the warmth of his praise, I blushed like a novice.
“My sister also composes the most sublime music for the Holy Office,” Rorich said, speaking to cover my silence.
“How I would love to hear it during your visit,” Heinrich told me, his smile like the sun in June.
“Your eminence,” Richardis said, “if it would please you, my magistra and I shall sing for you this very evening.”
I shot her such a look. How could I be expected to sing for this hall packed with dignitaries when I could barely string together a coherent sentence? But it was too late to refuse now that Richardis had spoken. My face must have been as white as death for she found my hand under the table and squeezed until at last I lifted my eyes from the untouched food on my trencher and told the archbishop that nothing would give me greater pleasure than singing for him.
A servant brought us a psaltery, and then Richardis and I took our place before the assembly of nearly fifty men.
Her eyes locked with mine, Richardis plucked the strings. It was she, my dearest friend and soul’s companion, who chose the song, my canticle O viridissima virga. The greenest branch. Composed while I was still captive in the anchorage, this song embodied my deepest longing for freedom and union with the natural world. This was the song that Guda, Adelheid, and I had sung for Jutta’s funeral in our desperate bid for liberty, the three of us daring to appear unveiled to arrest the attention of Heinrich’s predecessor, the old Archbishop Adalbert. And this was the song I had sung when Richardis and I had met for the first time, when she was still a mute young girl. I remembered that look of astonishment she had given me, as though I were some miracle worker the way I had transformed myself and her cousins from drab anchorites into dazzling, silk-clad brides of Christ.
And so I began to sing in a voice far stronger than the one I used for speaking. In truth, I was not as gifted in song as Guda, or our departed Jutta, or Richardis herself, but my voice was the instrument God had given to me and now I raised it heavenward, closing my eyes as I surrendered to the flow of melody and words, Richardis joining me in harmony. The archbishop and his retinue faded away as I stood within that sphere of pulsing light.
My vision blazed before me, so beautiful I could taste it. My sisters and I, consecrated virgins, sailed down the Rhine in a mighty ship, as merry and free as the maidens of holy Ursula. Silks we wore and our long sweeping hair was unveiled and crowned in gold and jewels. No shackles or walls contained us. Rejoicing, we journeyed toward our own blessed paradise, an island of women. The Living Light flashed like the sun on the Rhine.
When our song ended, I felt faint. Taking Richardis’s hand, I bowed deeply to the archbishop. Did these men cheer us or was this a dream? Would I awaken in Disibodenberg to face Egon as he moaned about the next lot of pilgrims emptying the larders?
The archbishop spoke, his every word riveting my gaze to his. “Hildegard, beloved in Christ, your brother did not exaggerate your gifts.”
I saw that my song had moved the man to tears.
“In return for your heavenly music, it would give me great joy to bestow a gift on you,” this young man said, Heinrich, Archbishop of Mainz.
Richardis’s words came back to me: Don’t look so petrified. After all, he’s only a man. Heinrich was so utterly different from the archbishop before him, and the next archbishop might be entirely dissimilar from Heinrich. What a difference one man could make. I wondered if I, just one woman, might make a difference, too.
What did Heinrich think I would ask of him? Doubtless, he would have granted me one of the precious illuminated Gospels from his library or some holy relic to bring back to Disibodenberg as a tribute for my abbot and brother monks. Perhaps it would have been most appropriate to demur and say that the archbishop’s prayers and blessing for Scivias would be gift enough for one as humble as I.
Instead, something inside me—was it God or my own vanity? —compelled me to speak up in a mighty voice, shocking everyone in that hall.
“Your eminence,” I said, “though I am but a weak and ignorant woman, God has graced me with revelations of such holiness and commanded me to speak and write of these visions that I might be of use in the world. But how can my sister nuns and I be of any use if we are banished to the wilderness?
“In the name of the Living Light, I beg you to grant me the freehold of Rupertsberg on the Rhine, so that I might build a new abbey for my sisters and the glory of God.”
Heinrich’s handsome face froze. My brother looked as though he wanted to dive beneath the banquet table and bury himself in the rushes. The other men looked from one to the other, as though they had never fathomed such audacity coming from a backwater nun. I was afraid to even look at Richardis for fear that even she thought I had lost my mind.
Yet what purpose could my visions serve if I was to live out my days under Cuno’s thumb? In God’s name, we had to leave Disibodenberg and found our own community. My dream of my sisters sailing forth like Ursula’s virgins shimmered. A cold cord snared me when I remembered how Ursula’s story had ended. Head drooping, I was prepared to skulk away in shame when the archbishop came to take my hands.
“Sister Hildegard, what you ask is no small thing. You must speak with your abbot to arrange the particulars. But I gladly grant you the freehold of Rupertsberg so that you might build your own abbey, dedicated to Saint Rupert, the holy pilgrim whose hermitage now lies neglected.”
Richardis, being young, could not resist crying out in delight. She smiled at me as though I had returned from Jerusalem bearing wood from the True Cross.
“An abbey of our own making!” I murmured to Richardis as we lay in the guest bed with the curtains drawn to enclose our whispers.
This room, intended to accommodate visiting noblewomen who would have shared the broad bed with their daughters or maids, was like another world. What luxury it was to lie nestled on this feather mattress instead of our hard, narrow pallets.
“Imagine!” I said. “We can design the church. Every pillar. Oh, it will be paradise on earth.”
Already I could picture our new home on that bend where the Nahe joined the Rhine, in the center of trade and commerce, of vineyards, towns, and great estates. No longer would we be hidden away like lepers.
“Heinrich has given us the land,” Richardis said, “but how will we pay for the building of the abbey?�
��
“Our dowries, of course.”
My sisters were gifted with trunks of silk and jewels, gold and silver. Why should that wealth not pave our way to liberty?
Richardis laughed nervously, as though I had told a filthy joke. “You think Cuno will let us leave with our dowries?”
“Why should Cuno have for his own selfish profit what is ours?”
Our abbot himself complained that there were fewer and fewer novice monks. While our nunnery flourished, his monastery declined. So he would use us, the nuns he loved to belittle, as his golden nest egg. No longer. I had the archbishop on my side.
“I will write to my mother and ask for her help,” Richardis said as she nestled in the pillows. “Oh, I wish the other sisters could have seen you tonight. Especially Guda! Think of the look on her face when you made your request to the archbishop!”
I could only imagine what Guda would say when I announced we were leaving Disibodenberg to build a new abbey. Though she didn’t love the cramped confines of our nunnery, she also feared change the way others dreaded the plague.
“Did you plan this from the beginning?” Richardis asked. “First you are so shy and meek, then you knock the man off guard and he’s too shocked to refuse you.”
Though her voice was full of sleepy affection, she made me sound so calculated. My pulse beat fast as I asked myself if I should swallow my ambition, but then the vision caught hold of me again.
The following morning, I sat with the archbishop in his library and discussed Scivias with him, along with Bernard of Clairvaux’s writings concerning the Holy Mother. All awkwardness between Heinrich and me melted away. I could not disguise my regard for the man as I basked in the sunlight of his benevolence. Rorich looked on, his face pink with relief at how well the visit had gone despite my outrageous presumption the evening before.
Illuminations: A Novel of Hildegard von Bingen Page 20