Fischer, Hanns. Herrand von Wildonie. Vier Erzählungen. Tübin-
gen: Niemeyer, 1959. 2nd ed. 1969 [narratives].
Hofmeister, Wernfried. Die steierischen Minnesänger. Edition,
Übersetzung, Kommentar. Göppingen: Kümmerle, 1987.
Margetts, John. “Herrand von Wildonie: The Political Intentions
of Der blöze keiser and Diu katze.” In Court and Poet. Selected
Proceedings of the Third Congress of the International Courtly
Literature Society (Liverpool 1980 ), ed. Glyn S. Burgess.
Trowbridge: Francis Cairns, 1981, pp. 249–266.
Ottmann, Christa and Hedda Ragotzky. “Zur Funktion exem-
plarischer triuwe-Beweise in Minne-Mären: “Die treue Gat-
tin” Herrands von Wildone, “Das Herzemäre” Konrads von
Würzburg und die “Frauentreue.” In Kleinere Erzählformen im
Mittelalter. Paderborner Colloquium 1987 , ed. Klaus Grub-
müller, et al. Paderborn: Schöningh, 1988, pp. 89–109.
Thomas, J. W., trans. The Tales and Songs of Herrand von Wil-
donie. Kentucky: University Press of Kentucky, 1972.
von Kraus, Carl. Deutsche Liederdichter des 13. Jahrhunderts,
Vol. 1. Tex t. Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1952, pp. 588–589 [songs].
Vol. 2. Kommentar ed. Hugo Kuhn. 1958, pp. 635–638 [com-
mentary].
John Margetts
HILD (ca. 614–680)
Hild (or Hilda) lived a dual life: 33 years as a prin-
cess, then 33 years as an abbess and teacher. Bede’s
Ecclesiastical History tells most of what we know
about her. She was born ca. 614, posthumously and in
exile, to Princess Breguswith and Hereric, a nephew
of King Edwin (616–33). As a child she shared exile
in East Anglia at the court of King Rædwald with her
great-uncle Edwin. After Edwin regained his king dom
in 617, Hild returned with him to Northumbria. She
may have observed his famous council in 627, after
which she received baptism with him and 12,000 of
his subjects on 12 April after religious instruction from
Bishop Paulinus (Ecclesiastical History 2.13–14). When
Edwin died in 633, Hild returned to exile in East Anglia
with her mother, Breguswith, and her sister, Hereswith,
who later married King Æthelhere there. In 647 Hild,
probably a widow, be came a nun and the following year
founded the nunnery at Wear. In 649 she became abbess
of Hartlepool and in 657 abbess of the double monastery
at Whitby (OE Streones-healch).
In 664 she hosted the Synod of Whitby, where King
Oswiu of Northumbria decided that the English church
would follow Roman practice rather than Irish (Eccle-
siastical History 3.25). Her side lost, and she observed
Roman rules thereafter. During her reign at Whitby she
promoted the training of missionaries and scholars. Five
of her students became bishops: Ætla, of Dorchester;
Bosa, of Deira and York; John, of Hexham and York;
Oftfor, of Worcester; and Wilfrid II, of York. Hearing
Cædmon sing his inspired Hymn, she recruited him into
religious life and sponsored his career as a composer
of religious verse, probably used for conversion and
strengthening faith (Ecclesiastical History 4.24).
Hild suffered a long illness beginning in 674, dying
on 17 November 680. One of the nuns of her monastery,
Ælffl æd, King Oswiu’s daughter, succeeded her as ab-
bess, ruling with her mother, Eanfæd. Several nuns saw
visions of Hild’s death and ascent into heaven (Eccle-
siastical History 4.23). Her remains were translated to
Glastonbury in the 10th century.
See also Bede the Venerable; CædmonFurther Reading
Colgrave, Bertram, and R.A.B. Mynors, eds. and trans. Bede’s
Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Ox ford: Clar-
endon, 1969, pp. 404–21 and passim.
Cross, J.E. “A Lost Life of Hilda of Whitby: The Evidence of the
Old English Martyrology.” Acta 5 (1979): 21–43.
Fell, Christine E. “Hild, Abbess of Streoneshalch.” In Hagi-
ograpby and Medieval Literature: A Symposium, ed. Hans
Bekker-Nielsen et al. Odense: Odense University Press,
1981, pp. 76–99.
Hession, Ætheldreda. “St Hilda and St Etheldreda.” In Benedict’s
Disciples, ed. D.H. Farmer. Leominster: Fowler Wright, 1980,
pp. 70–85.
Donald K. FryHILDEGARD VON BINGEN (1098–1179)
Benedictine, visionary, author, composer, and Germa-
ny’s fi rst female physician, Hildegard was the tenth
child of Hildebert and Mechthild von Bermersheim.
She was raised by the recluse Jutta von Spanheim at the
Benedictine monastery of Disibodenberg (near Bingen)
and made her monastic profession between 1112–1115.
In 1136 she was elected magistra (mistress) of the
Disibodenberg women’s community which had by then
become quite large.
While aware of a “shadow of the living light” (umbra
viventis lucis) from childhood on, Hildegard had her fi rst
clear vision in 1141 at the age of 43. She understood her
insights as divine revelations concerning the meaning of
Scripture and obeyed the command to write. The Cister-
cian Pope Eugene III offi cially recognized her visionary
gift at the Trier Synod in 1147/1148.
That same year, Hildegard founded her own Benedic-
tine women’s monastery, St. Rupertsberg (opposite Bin-
gen), whose abbess she became, and in 1165, a second
monastery in Eibingen (today, the Abbey St. Hildegard).
Between 1160–1170, Hildegard undertook four
public preaching tours to German cities and monaster-
ies, as far away as Bamberg and Swabia. Known as the
prophetissa teutonica (German, female prophet), she
was consulted by and corresponded with popes, kings,
including Frederick I Barbarossa, abbots and abbesses,
and many other renowned contemporaries, among
them, Bernard of Clairvaux. In composing her complex
visionary, exegetical, speculative, and scientifi c works,HILDEGARD VON BINGEN