Painting and Other Arts
The number and variety of illuminated manuscripts dating to the
Romanesque era attest to the great demand for illustrated religious
tomes in the abbeys of western Europe. The extraordinarily produc-
tive scribes and painters who created these books were almost exclu-
sively monks and nuns working in the scriptoria of those same iso-
lated religious communities.
HILDEGARD OF BINGENOne of the most interesting of
these religious manuscripts is the Scivias (Know the Ways [Scite vias] of
God) of Hildegard of Bingen. Hildegard was a German nun and even-
tually the abbess of the convent at Disibodenberg in the Rhineland
(see “Romanesque Countesses, Queens, and Nuns,” above). The
manuscript, lost in 1945, exists today only in a facsimile. The origi-
nal probably was written and illuminated at the monastery of Saint448 Chapter 17 ROMANESQUE EUROPER
omanesque Europe was still a
man’s world, but women could
and did have power and influence.
Countess Matilda of Canossa (1046–
1115), who ruled Tuscany after 1069,
was sole heiress of vast holdings in
northern Italy. She was a key figure in
the political struggle between the popes
and the German emperors who con-
trolled Lombardy. With unflagging res-
olution, she defended Pope Gregory’s
reforms and at her death willed most of
her lands to the papacy.
More famous and more powerful
was Eleanor of Aquitaine (1122–1204),
wife of Henry II of England. She mar-
ried Henry after the annulment of her
marriage to Louis VII, king of France.
She was queen of France for 15 years and queen of England for 35
years. During that time she bore three daughters and five sons. Two
became kings—Richard I (the Lionhearted) and John. She prompted
her sons to rebel against their father, so Henry imprisoned her.
Released at Henry’s death, she lived on as dowager queen, managing
England’s government and King John’s holdings in France.
Of quite different stamp was Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179),
the most prominent nun of the 12th century and one of the greatest
religious figures of the Middle Ages. Hildegard was born into an aris-
tocratic family that owned large estates in the German Rhineland. At
a very early age she began to have visions. When she was eight, her
parents placed her in the Benedictine double monastery (for both
monks and nuns) at Disibodenberg. She became a nun at 15. In
1141, God instructed Hildegard to disclose her visions to the world.
Before then she had revealed them only to close confidants at the
monastery. One of these was the monk Volmar, and Hildegard chose
to dictate her visions to him (FIG. 17-22) for posterity. No less a figure
than Bernard of Clairvaux certified in 1147 that her visions were au-
thentic, and Archbishop Heinrich of Mainz joined in the endorse-
ment. In 1148 the Cistercian pope Eugenius III (r. 1145–1153) for-
mally authorized Hildegard “in the name of Christ and Saint Peter to
publish all that she had learned from the Holy Spirit.” At this time
Hildegard became the abbess of a new convent built for her near
Bingen. As reports of Hildegard’s visions spread, kings, popes,
barons, and prelates sought her counsel. All of them were attracted
by her spiritual insight into the truth of the mysteries of the Chris-
tian faith. In addition to her visionary works—the most important is
the Scivias (FIG. 17-22)—Hildegard wrote two scientific treatises.
Physica is a study of the natural world, and Causae et curae (Causes
and Cures) is a medical encyclopedia. Hildegard also composed the
music and wrote the lyrics of 77 songs, which appeared under the
title Symphonia.
Hildegard was the most famous Romanesque nun, but she was
by no means the only learned woman of her age. A younger contem-
porary, the abbess Herrad (d. 1195) of Hohenberg, Austria, was also
the author of an important medieval encyclopedia. Herrad’s Hortus
deliciarum (Garden of Delights) is a history of the world intended for
instructing the nuns under her supervision, but it reached a much
wider audience.Romanesque Countesses, Queens, and Nuns
ART AND SOCIETY
17-22Hildegard
receives her visions,
detail of a facsimile of a
lost folio in the Ruperts-
bergerSciviasby Hildegard
of Bingen, from Trier
or Bingen, Germany,
ca. 1150–1179. Abbey of
St. Hildegard, Rüdesheim/
Eibingen.
Hildegard of Bingen, the
most prominent nun of
her time, experienced
divine visions, shown here
as five tongues of fire
entering her brain. She
also composed music and
wrote scientific treatises.