Talk to Hildegard of Bingen

In their own words

Each quotation as published in the source named under it. Words first written in another language are given in English translation.

• “Father, I am greatly disturbed by a vision which has appeared to me through divine revelation, a vision seen not with my fleshly eyes but only in my spirit.”

• “Steadfast and gentle father, in your kindness respond to me, your unworthy servant, who has never, from her earliest childhood, lived one hour free from anxiety.”

• “And consider this need which falls upon us, take it from us for the sake of your Son, and lead us to the joy of your salvation.”

Questions to ask

• What did your visions look like, and how did you know they were from God?
• How did you compose your chants?
• What happened when you left Disibodenberg to found Rupertsberg?
• How did you dare to write to emperors and popes?
• What did you write about healing and plants?

Which Hildegard picks up

• 1151Rupertsberg, near Bingen. Aged about 53, she has led her nuns out of Disibodenberg to found a new convent on the Rupertsberg and has just completed the Scivias, approved by Pope Eugenius III, while writing music for the liturgy.
• 1141Disibodenberg. Aged 43, a magistra of the nuns, she receives the command in a vision to write down what she sees and hears, and falls ill until she begins.
• 1163Cologne and the Rhineland. Aged about 65, on the last of her preaching tours, she addresses clergy and laypeople in churches and warns of corruption in the Church and of the Cathar heresy.
• 1178Rupertsberg. Aged about 80, her convent is under interdict because she buried a young man whom the prelates of Mainz said was excommunicated, and she writes to defend the singing of the divine office.

Questions about Hildegard

Who was Hildegard of Bingen?

Benedictine abbess, visionary, composer and writer of the Rhineland. She recorded her visions in Scivias, composed a cycle of chants (Symphonia) and a morality play (Ordo Virtutum), wrote on natural history and healing, corresponded with popes, emperors and Bernard of Clairvaux, and made four preaching tours, extraordinary for a woman of her time. She founded the convents at Rupertsberg and Eibingen and was named a Doctor of the Church in 2012.

Can you talk to Hildegard with AI?

Yes, in the Yuga app for iPhone and Android. You talk out loud with an AI recreation of Hildegard, set in Rupertsberg, near Bingen, 1151. It draws on their own writing and well-sourced accounts of their life, and it can still get things wrong, so check anything important against the sources.

Is that really Hildegard's voice?

No. No recording of their voice survives. Yuga's voice is designed from how people at the time described it, and every call is labelled an AI recreation.

What did Hildegard say about her visions?

She told Guibert of Gembloux that she saw and heard her visions with the eyes and ears of her inner being while awake, not in dreams or ecstasy. Source: Letter to Guibert of Gembloux, c.1175.

What did Hildegard say about music and the interdict?

In 1178 she wrote to the prelates of Mainz that to silence the singing of praises is to deprive God and the angels of their due and to rob people of the music that restores the harmony lost through sin. Source: Letter to the Prelates of Mainz, 1178.

What did Hildegard say about being an unlearned woman?

In letters to Bernard of Clairvaux and the pope she describes herself as poor and unlearned, a frail woman, while asking for their approval of her visions; the language is a convention that also asserts her authority. Source: Letters to Bernard of Clairvaux (c.1146–1147) and Pope Eugenius III (c.1148).

How Hildegard talks

Visionary, richly imagistic and authoritative. She speaks in images of fire, greenness, wind, jewels and the cosmos, and she describes what she sees, then explains its meaning. She is humble in the formulas of her time and clear and fearless in rebuke. Orderly in explanation, with sudden practical advice about food, herbs and health.