Hilton, Walter 343Religious Communities in Western Europe, 1000–1150
(London: Macmillan Press, 1984).
al-Hijr (Hidjra, hejira, hegira)The al-Hijr designates
the beginning of the Muslim era and corresponds with
the year 622 of the Christian CALENDAR. The Latinized
form hejira or hegira was derived from the Arabic
hijra,which means “migration,” “separation,” “breaking
of relations,” but not “flight.”
The event of reference was the clandestine migration
organized by the founder of ISLAM,MUHAMMAD, from his
hometown of MECCA to the more northerly oasis of
Yathrib, which later became MEDINA. Muhammad’s reli-
gious teaching and the role it gave him had disturbed the
commercial and tribal aristocracy of Mecca, who showed
their hostility more and more. The different tribes and
peoples of Medina, JEWSamong them, in search of recon-
ciliation, were already in commercial rivalry with Mecca;
they proposed a political and military alliance to Muham-
mad and his followers, the muhajirun,“migrants,” the
first Muslims.
Muhammad’s departure took place by night, on
camel back, with ABUBAKR, the successor to the Prophet
and the first CALIPHof Islam. His arrival at Medina took
place on September 24, 622, in the Christian calendar.
The Muslim year was lunar, so the new era was made to
begin not in September 622 but on the first day of that
lunar year or July 16, 622. This decision was made in
year 16 of the al-Hijr (637 in the Christian calendar) by
the second caliph of Islam, UMAR. It also symbolized the
willingness to suffer for the faith.
Further reading: Maxime Rodinson, Muhammad,
trans. Anne Carter (1971; reprint, New York: Pantheon
Books, 1980).
Hildebrand SeeGREGORYVII, SAINT.
Hildegard of Bingen, Saint(1098–1179) scholarly
abbess
Hildegard of Bingen was born in 1098 at Böckelheim to a
family of the lesser Rhineland nobility. Pledged to God by
her parents when she was age eight, she became a nun in
1116 and an abbess in 1136 and in 1150 founded her
own monastery, Saint Rupert’s (Rupertsberg) at Bingen.
Her first writings had been approved by Pope Eugenius
III (r. 1145–53) and BERNARDof Clairvaux by 1147. From
then on she led the life of a much loved abbess, a famous
writer, and a prophetess with VISIONSspeaking out about
the conflicts of her time. She traveled through Germany,
even PREACHINGin public, visiting reform monasteries,
admonishing corrupt priests, and attacking CATHARSon
heretics at COLOGNEand Mainz.
She carried on a huge correspondence, more than
450 letters, with influential men such as the emperor
FREDERICKIBARBAROSSAand with bishops, monks, and
simple lay folk. She wrote visionary works, the Book of
Life of Meritsand the Book of Divine Works,and the
Scivias,all illustrated by her concern for the mysteries of
creation and the final things and days of this world. She
also wrote on medicine, the natural sciences, scientific
observation, human psychology, and food recipes. She
was probably the first woman in the medieval West to
compose music and hymns that have survived.
An object of popular devotion during and after her
life, she was never canonized. She died on September 17,
1179.
Further reading:Hildegard of Bingen, The Book of
the Rewards of Life,trans. Bruce W. Hozeski (New York:
Garland, 1994); Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias, trans.
Columba Hart and Jane Bishop (New York: Paulist Press,
1990); Hildegard of Bingen, The Letters of Hildegard of
Bingen,2 vols., trans. by Joseph L. Baird, Radd K. Ehrman
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1994–); Barbara
Newman, Sister of Wisdom: St. Hildegard’s Theology of the
Feminine(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987);
Barbara Newman, ed., Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard
of Bingen and Her World(Berkeley: University of Califor-
nia Press, 1998); Sabina Flanagan, Hildegard of Bingen,
1098–1179,2d ed. (New York: Routledge, 1998).Hilton, Walter (ca. 1343–1396)English religious writer
Walter Hilton was born about 1343 in the diocese of Lin-
coln in England. He was a native of the same area as
RICHARDROLLE. He began his studies in CANON LAWat
the University of CAMBRIDGE, and perhaps practiced law
for Thomas Arundel (1353–1414), then bishop of Ely. It
At Cambridge, under the influence of the FRANCISCANS
and the Augustinian William Flete (ca. 1325–ca. 1390),
he began to write. Around then he wrote About the Image
of Sinfor NUNSor recluses and made translations of other
spiritual texts, including William Flete’s About Remedies
for Temptation. He left Cambridge in about 1384, to
become a HERMIT. Eventually he was an Augustinian
canon at Thurgarton Priory, where he died on March 24,- It was there that he wrote a series of works in
English, the most famous of which was The Scale of
Perfection.By then he had become a contemplative and
spiritual guide much sought after in Yorkshire in his life-
time. Hilton’s writing was popular with aristocratic
women such as Blanche of Lancaster, the wife of Edmund
of Lancaster (1245–96); Cecily Neville; and Eleanor
Roos, but also among a wider lay public. He was not the
author of The Cloud of Unknowing, which was often
attributed to him. As were the other English mystics of
the period, Hilton was anti-intellectual, individualistic,
and passionately attached to the example of Christ, emu-
lated by practicing the VIRTUES.
Further reading:Walter Hilton, The Scale of Perfec-
tion,trans. John P. H. Clark and Rosemary Dorward (New