HILDEBRAND. See Gregory VII., Pope.

HILDEGARD, SAINT: Abbess of Disibodenberg and Rupertsberg, near Bingen; b. at the castle of Bockelheim (16 m. by rail s. of Bingen) 1098 or 1099; d. at Rupertsberg 1178. She was educated at the Disibodenberg abbey by a female recluse, Jutta of Sponheim, and became abbess herself in 1136. Subsequently she founded and superintended the cloister on the Rupertsberg. She influenced the ecclesiastical and moral conditions of the time by her speech and example, in the course of journeys to France, to Swabia, Cologne, and the Netherlands, and by her manifold writings, the product of ecstatic visionary conditions, and the earliest memorials of German mysticism. From 1141 onward, Hildegard had her visions, imparted through the "inner light," recorded in writing; thus originated her principal work, Scivias [i.e., Sci vias] Domini, her Liber vito meritorum, Expositiones evangeliorum, and other books. Although never canonized, Hildegard's name has found recognition in the Martyrologium of the Roman Catholic Church; and she is still highly honored in the districts of the confluence of the Nahe and the Rhine.

K. Benrath.

Bibliography: An extensive list of literature is given in Potthast, Wegvxiaer, pp. 1373-74, and another by F. W. E. Roth, in Quartalblatter des hiatmaschen Vereins für . . . Hessen, 1886, pp. 221=223, 1887, pp. 78--86. Hildegard's Epistolm et prophetice are most accessible in MPL, cxcvii.; the Epistolm are in Germ. transl. in 2 vols., Regensburg, 1854; previously inedited works, ed. Davin, are in Le Monde, July 1, 1882; her Nova opera, ed. J. B. Pitra, appeared Paris, 1883, cf. Analecta Bollandiana, i (1882), 597-608. The Life of Hildegard by Theodoric, with prefatorial matter, is in ASS, Sept., v. 667-697, and in MPL, cxcvii. 91-130, and in Fr. transl., Louvain, 1822. Other pertinent matter is collected in ASB ut sup., pp. 697-701. Consult: L. Clarus Leben der heiligen Hildegard, Regensburg, 18.14; W. ~Preger, Geschichte der deutschen Mystik, i. 13-34, Leipsic, 1874; J. P. Schmelzeis, Leben and Wirken der heiligen Hildegard, Freiburg, 1879; A. Battandier, in Revue des questione historiques, xxiii (1883), 395-425; R. A. Vaughan, Hours with the Mystics, i. 146, ii. 219, 8th ed., London, n. d.; KL, v. 2061-74; Neander, Christian Church, iv. 216-220, 225, 462, 586, v. 222, 381.