Holy medieval women, Batman! Wanna spend an evening with some politicians-cum-physicians-cum-spiritual authorities? How about I throw in some really cool artists? Visionaries? (Pssst. I know they're nuns and all, but I can even promise a little of teh sex.) If the word "nun" only conjures up images of Julie Andrews or your fuddy-duddy 5th grade teacher Sister Mary Dymphna, then you're in for a treat.
Grab a cup of mead and follow me below the fold, where you'll meet Hildegard von Bingen and her "Sing out sisters," extraordinary women whose talent and spiritual gifts earned them respect and power in the rough and tumble world of medieval Europe.
"Feminist Supervixens" of every sex and gender are invited to participate in this feminists' circle. Our goal is to build a vibrant community of feminists here on Daily Kos. The emphasis here is on camaraderie and support, not argument and debate. The idea of a "feminists' circle" was inspired by the work of Jean Shinoda Bolen, whose book The Millionth Circle described her vision of spontaneously forming women's circles that eventually catalyze a transformation in the world. When a critical number of people change how they think and behave, the culture does also, and a new era begins. From her web page on circles:
Imagine yourself in a circle of women, meeting together around a fire in the center of a round hearth. The fire in the center of the circle is a symbol of divinity,of spirit or soul, of goddess or god; it is the archetype of the Self in the center of your psyche, as it can be in the center of a circle, and as such, is a source of emotional warmth, spiritual and psychological illumination, wisdom and compassion.
Feminists who are interested in being a guest-host can email hrh at: feministsupervixens (AT) yahoo.com
Cross-posted at Progressive Historians and The Next Agenda.
Those Who Pray
It may sound strange that religious women could gain power in a Europe where the three predominant religions–Christian, Muslim, and Jewish–all restricted official hierarchies to men. Yet by channeling a more-than-worldly power, that's exactly what these women did. In particular, the Christian Church's tradition of honoring women sworn to virginity allowed nuns to carve out all-female refuges where they might pursue, education, arts and skills alongside their spiritual endeavours.
Although Christian women could not become priests (and therefore could not serve as bishops or popes), nuns they were not cut out entirely from the medieval power structure. Abbesses, prioresses, and other nuns elected to head their houses served as temporal lords as well as spiritual leaders. They might gain esteem for their learning as well as their piety...and sometimes, for their attitude.
A Medieval Rock Star
In the 1990s, many north Americans were more widely exposed to one of these remarkable women thanks to her musical talent. Themusical compositions of an abbess: Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1172) provide a fascinating musical insight into the musical world of a medieval convent.
Who was this talented composer? Born into a noble family in what is today Germany, Hildegard was promised early in life to the church (as a "tithe," or tenth child.) At the age of 38, she was chosen by her fellow nuns to head their community on the death of the previous Abbess. Hildegard moved the community to a new home at Bingen on the Rhine River valley
Hildegard wrote her famous choral works for the women of her convent to perform. (Have a listen to "O Virtus Sapientiae" (MP3 format), performed by the girls of Umeå Akademiska Kör.) Hildegard wrote songs for use in Mass, in praise of local saints, the Virgin, and the holy Spirit. Her music was innovative in ways that your humble lady scribbler isn't even qualified to discuss (there's a good description here.) As extraordinary as her music was, her poetry was equally eloquent:
O breath of holiness
o fire of loving
o sweet taste in the breast
you fill the heart
with the good aroma of virtues.—"Oh Holy Fire," translated by Rupert Chappelle
Music and Holiness in Christianity and Islam
In Hildegard's view, music was the original language of humankind before the Fall of humanity; musical composition was a way of getting back to Paradise. (If you want to check out a video set to one of her Kyries, you just might agree.) It was a sentiment that the Islamic Holy woman Fatima of Cordoba might have agreed with. Her pupil, the Sufi mystic Muid ad-Din ibn al-Arabi wrote of her:
She used to play on the tambourine and show great pleasure in it. When I spoke to her about it she answered, 'I take joy in Him Who has turned to me and made me one of His Friends (Saints), using me for His own purposes. Who am I that He should choose me among mankind? He is jealous of me for, whenever I turn to something other than Him in heedlessness, He sends me some affliction concerning that thing.'... She used to say to me, 'I am your spiritual mother and the light of your earthly mother.'—Quoted at Women and Sufism
Like her Christian counterparts, Fatima was noted for her learning as well as her spiritual insights, and worked as the master librarian for Caliph Al Hakam II's system of over 70 public libraries. Together with her deputy Labna, she created Europe's first cataloging system in order to keep track of its holdings, which were significantly increased during her tenure by her buying trips to great book markets throughout the Muslim world: Cairo, Baghdad, Samarkand, Tashkent, and beyond.
The Dramas of Hrotswitha
Another medieval holy woman noted for her elegant artistry was Sister Hrotswitha, Germany's first known poet. She lived as canoness (a sister authorized to leave the convent) at the Benedictine convent of Gandersheim. Hrotswitha (or Rosuitha) lived 935-1001 (about a century before Hildegard), and composed poetic dramas that were modeled on the works of the Roman playwright Terence, but centering around Christian themes of repentance and forgiveness.
For example, in her play Abraham, a young nun abandons chastity and elopes from the convent with a lover. Quickly abandoned, she is forced to find work as a prostitute. Her uncle Abraham, himself a monk, seeks her out and persuades her to take up the holy life once again—sinning is human, he tells her, for the only sinless human was Jesus. For those who repent of their sins, forgiveness is infinite. The story has a happy ending (I hear this was the original plan for Pretty Woman); Maria quits the brothel, returns to her cell and wears a hair shirt for the rest of her days, while her uncle praises God's mercy. (OK, so I lied about Julia Roberts in a hair shirt. But in the 10th century, this was downright cheerful.)
Hrotswitha's dramas were remarkably sympathetic towards women who were exploited or forced into sex; she said they were still chaste and sinless in God's eyes. In an era when many churchmen argued that women were the very embodiment of lust and sin–"they're all asking for it" to the max--- Hrotswitha's ideas were remarkably progressive.
By the way, Hrotswitha was so well-respected as a writer that her Abbess entrusted her with the task of writing about the deeds of Otto I, the First Holy Roman Emperor—a sensitive task that, if done well, could pay off big political dividends (and if done poorly could land the nuns in plenty of hot water.) She chose well; the current Emperor, Otto II, was so impressed that he sent his daughter Sophia to Hrotswitha to be educated.
Hrotswitha was both humble about her talents and proud of them. Echoing Fatima of Cordoba, she argued that no human should argue with the talents and artistry granted by God–a pretty foolproof counter to sexist concerns about women developing their minds and artistry:
[God] has given me the ability to learn -- I am a teachable creature -- yet of myself I should know nothing. He has given me a perspicacious mind, but one that lies fallow and idle when it is not cultivated. That my natural gifts may not be made void by negligence I have been at pains, whenever I have been able to pick up some threads and scraps torn from the old mantle of philosophy, to weave them into the stuff of my own book.
Body and Soul
Returning to our heroine Hildegard, those who are familiar with her primarily though her music may be surprised to learn that she was a talented herbalist and natural philosopher (in her world, "science" did not exist, but was merely one branch of philosophy–an understanding of the physical world.) In this she was like many other cloistered nuns and monks who studied their gardens closely and their ancient Greek medical texts even more closely. Female orders gained especial fame during the Crusades as auxiliaries to male military orders–while the warrior clergy fought on the battlefields, women like the Hospitaller Sisters of St. John of Jerusalem and the Hospitaller Sisters of the Teutonic Order in Germany cared for the wounded, for pilgrims, and tended to the poor and the sick.
Hildegard is notable for her close observation of nature and the human body. Her books, Physica (Natural History), also known as Liber simplicis medicinae (Book of Simple Medicine), and the Causae et Curae (Causes and Cures), also known as Liber compositae medicinae (Book of Compound Medicine) catalogue the plants and animals of her world, with a particular eye toward their role in health and disease. She also listed the diseases known to her and how to best treat them. She covered all sorts of conditions, from heart problems to indigestion to deafness, with some particularly detailed treatments for women's health issues. Her remedy for "obstructed menses" involves a trip to the sauna:
A woman who is in pain from obstructed menses should take tansy and an equal weight of feverfew and a bit more mullein than either of the others. She should cook these in water from a freely flowing stream, which is tempered by the sun and air. Then she should put tiles in a fire, and make a sauna bath with the foresaid water and herbs. When she enters this bath, she should place the warm herbs on the bench and sit on top of them. If they become cold, she should warm them again in the same water. She should do this as long as she sits in the sauna so her skin and flesh, as well as her womb, may be softened by the humors of these herbs, and the veins which were closed might be opened. —translated by Priscilla Throop and excerpted at Gallowglass
Hildegard's attention included areas where we might imagine that virginal nuns would not intrude: issues of sexuality and reproduction. Hildegard's frank observations even include a discussion of female orgasm and the role that she theorized it played in reproduction:
When a woman is making love with a man, a sense of heat in her brain, which brings with it sensual delight, communicates the taste of that delight during the act and summons forth the emission of the man's seed. And when the seed has fallen into its place, that vehement heat descending from her brain draws the seed to itself and holds it, and soon the woman's sexual organs contract, and all the parts that are ready to open up during the time of menstruation now close, in the same way as a strong man can hold something enclosed in his fist.
Whoa! Now where did she get that? (And I don't mean the pre-ovum theory of reproduction: in her era it was usual medical theory that men planted a "seed" which was nourished by the female "soil"; her opinion gave female orgasm a valued role in that process.) In addition to assisting in the reproductive concerns of married laywomen, Hildegard might have learned from treating her own sisters: women who had been sexually active as widows, as castoff wives, or even as unmarried lovers. The convent was a socially acceptable place for such women to redeem themselves. And, humanity being humanity, more than a few nuns struggled with keeping their vows of chastity.
Love Behind the Veil
At least one real-life story of a nun's forbidden love has remained famous through the centuries for the passion of the parties involved, and for their eloquence in expressing both their love and their heartache. The young French scholar Heloïse (1101-1162, making her a contemporary of Hildegard) first encountered the brilliant philosopher Abelard when she was 18 and he was 37, a star lecturer at the cathedral school of Notre Dame. Smitten with the young woman's intellect and beauty, Abelard got a gig tutoring Heloise at the home of her uncle Fulbert. Their studies soon turned sexual; inevitably, they were discovered by her furious uncle and forced to separate.
But Heloise, finding that she was pregnant, escaped to Abelard's family home where she gave birth to a son, Astrolabe. Abelard offered to marry Heloise, but, perhaps fearing for his career, (it was expected that most scholars would take Holy Orders and rise in the church) she was reluctant. In a letter written much later in life, she explains why she rejected marriage for a "freer" love:
You cannot but be entirely persuaded of this by the extreme unwillingness I showed to marry you, though I knew that the name of wife was honourable in the world and holy in religion; yet the name of your mistress had greater charms because it was more free. The bonds of matrimony, however honourable, still bear with them a necessary engagement, and I was very unwilling to be necessitated to love always a man who would perhaps not always love me. I despised the name of wife that I might live happy with that of mistress....— Heloise to Abelard, Letter II
Eventually, the two did secretly marry, but her uncle Fulbert wanted Heloise to make the marriage public, probably to save the family's good name. Her refusal infuriated Fulbert, who beat Heloise severely. Rescuing his wife from her uncle, Abelard had Heloise spirited away to the convent at Argenteuil where she had been educated as a girl. Believing this meant that Abelard was repudiating his marriage, Fulbert hired thugs to assault and castrate Abelard (a revenge of both spiritual and physical nature, for it prevented him from being ordained).
And so Abelard joined a monastery, and Heloise spent the rest of her life in a convent, at Abelard's request. In 1123, she was made prioress, in recognition of her great learning, and took charge of the educational facilities at the convent. (Abelard continued to look out for her well-being; when her convent was displaced in 1131, he found her a new one: the Abbey fo the paraclete, where she continued to serve as prioress) Neither had any contact for years; when Abelard wrote a widely-circulated letter to a friend describing their affair, however, Heloise began a correspondence with the man she still addressed as husband.
Their surviving letters form a passionate and fascinating picture of forbidden love in a century gone by. It is clear from their correspondence that both continued to struggle with their feelings for the other despite their vows to the church. Abelard protests that his feelings for Heloise were not simply of the flesh, and writes as if her is still very much in love:
But whither does my vain imagination carry me! Ah, Heloise, how far are we from such a happy temper? Your heart still burns with that fatal fire you cannot extinguish, and mine is full of trouble and unrest. Think not, Heloise, that I here enjoy a perfect peace; I will for the last time open my heart to you;--I am not yet disengaged from you, and though I fight against my excessive tenderness for you, in spite of all my endeavours I remain but too sensible of your sorrows and long to share in them. Your letters have indeed moved me; I could not read with indifference characters written by that dear hand! I sigh and weep, and all my reason is scarce sufficient to conceal my weakness from my pupils. This, unhappy Heloise, is the miserable condition of Abelard. The world, which is generally wrong in its notions, thinks I am at peace, and imagining that I loved you only for the gratification of the senses, have now forgot you. What a mistake is this! — Letter VI Abelard to Heloise
Heloise's obedience to Abelard's wishes may not sound very "strong," but whatever her continued feelings of inferiority to the man who had been her professor, she more than proved herself an strong woman on her own merits. Praised for her spiritual gifts by her biographers, she also proved a canny prioress with talents in the secular realm. Under her leadership, the Order of the Paraclete acquired a substantial amount of new lands and saw their finances prosper. Heloise and Abelard together worked to adapt the rule of the order, originally intended for men, to something more appropriate to medieval women. Under her tutelage, the sisters became renowned for their scholarship. The abbey grew to more than 60 nuns from its original handful by the time Heloise died. Today she lies in well-earned rest alongside Abelard, at Pere LaChaise cemetery in Paris.
Visions of God
In addition to her other work, Hildegard is known for her books that touch on theological and revelation, especially through her visions. Perhaps today she would have been diagnosed as suffering from migraines or another physical condition, but in her era the painful visual disturbances that began in childhood were understood as Divine messages, which usually preceded a period of ill-health.
Hildegard initially told few people about her visions; only her superior, Jutta, was initially aware of them. After Jutta's death and Hildegard's election to the head of the convent, she continued to suffer from the visions. At the age of 42, a particularly strong vision came to her, which seemed to reveal the secrets of scripture to her in a particularly clear fashion. She confided this strong vision to her trusted scribe and advisor, the monk Volmar. With his encouragement she began writing down her visions and their meaning, in a work that would become known as Scivias (Know the Ways [of God]. Eventually, she would also compose two other theological works: Liber Vitae Meritorum (Book of Life's Merits, 1158-1163), and Liber Divinorum Operum (Book of the Divine Works, 1163-1173/1174).
According to Sabina Flanagan of the University of Adelaide:
Book 1 deals principally with the Creator and Creation. It begins with the theme of wisdom and the knowledge of God, introduces humanity, the Fall and its consequences - including prescriptions for sexual morality - and anticipates the Redemption. Book 2 expands on the theme of Redemption, considering God's remedy for the world and humankind in the fallen state depicted in the first book. Here such topics as the sacraments, the priesthood, and Eucharistic theology are especially notable. Book 3 concentrates on salvation history and explores the work of the Holy Spirit in building the Kingdom of God by means of the virtues. Its apocalyptic ending includes visions of the Last Judgment and the creation of the New Heaven and Earth. —Sabina Flanagan Hildegard von Bingen
The books are also exquisitely illuminated (illustrated), possibly by Hildegard's own hand and certainly under her supervision. Like the men labouring as copyist-monks, other medieval sisters both wrote and illustrated manuscripts, sometimes anonymously and sometimes leaving records of their names–or even leaving self-portraits. There is a charming group-portrait left in one such work produced at the Augustinian abbey of St. Odile in Alsace, contemporaries of Hildegard's:
The abbess, Herrard (who died sometime after 1196), supervised the production of Hortus deliciarum (Garden of delight), which collected a wide range of theological information about salvation. Herrard and her team of writer-illustrators produces over 344 illustrations and a variety of songs and poems to illustrate the work:
Nothing will harm our soul;
It will come into glory,
And so we ought to love God
And our neighbor.
These twin precepts
Lead to heaven.
Visions of Authority
Hildegard's extraordinary visions were shared with Pope Eugenius III, who gave Hildegard's vision's his theological stamp of approval at the Synod of Trier in 1147-1148. Such official recognition gave Hildegard a tremendous amount of authority and not a little fame. People from all ranks of life asked for her spiritual and practical advice; she wrote volumes of letters, both offering guidance and (frequently) chiding churchmen for abandoning their true paths of service. In a highly unusual move, Hildegard even left the safety of her abbey to engage in public speaking in the late 1150s. All in all, she would undertake four public speaking tours, preaching to monastic communities across German-speaking Europe.
Although the spiritual authority vested in Hildegard was unusual, it was not unique. Visions and a reputation for holiness granted several medieval women unusual spiritual (and sometimes temporal) authority. One of these, who lived two centuries after Hildegard, is known to us as "Juliana of Norwich;" at the age of 30, she fell ill and nearly died, but made a miraculous recovery that was accompanied by intense visions.
She rededicated her life to God, living in a small cell attached to the Church of St. Julian at Norwich. Her work Sixteen Revelations of Divine Love, written around 1373, is the first known published work by an Englishwoman writing in the English language. Her 16 "showings" (visions) reveal a firm belief that God is all-present; far from despairing at the sin and suffereing around her, Julian advised taking comfort that God's love is everywhere:
I marveled in that sight with a soft dread and thought 'What is sin?' For I saw truly that God does all things, he does all that is done, be it never so little...Wherefore I need to grant that all thing that is done, it is well done, for our Lord God does all...And I was secure that God does no sin. And here I saw truly that sin is no deed. Therefore it seemed to me that sin is nought...Julian's Showing of Love at Umilta.net
Her phrase "All shall be well—and all shall be well–and all manner of thing shall be well" stands as one of the more famous (and optimistic) taglines of medieval Christendom. It is no wonder Julian’s contemporaries sought out her serene philosophies; in the late 1300s, Europe was wracked by plague and Christians by Papal disputes, as the Pope moved out of Rome and into France. In the late 1300s, the disputes worsened, with rival candidates claiming the papacy. The Pope might be Catholic, but which guy was really the Pope?
In this atmosphere, another extraordinary female visionary rose to temporal and spiritual power: Catherine of Siena (1347-1380) became a Dominican tertiary (a follower of the order who remained at home rather than in a convent) at age 16. She spent much of her time nursing lepers and the poor, when not suffering from intense visions that resulted in both great pain and physical ecstasy.
She is also supposed to have undergone intense fasting–one biographer makes the (probably exaggerated) claim that she ate nothing but the sacramental Host for several years. Was she an anorexic? Perhaps. As troubling as her experiences seem to the modern mind, they bought her tremendous respect from the holy men of her troubled times.
In 1368, in the midst of a great civil uprising in Siena, Catherine is credited with addressing large crowds and helping to avert widespread massacres and catastrophes trhough the strength of her oratory. She worked as an intermediary amongst warring political factions, displaying a talent for negotiations that served her well later, when she served as an ambassador from the city-state of Florence to Papacy. In 1374, she continued her unwavering service to the poor by refusing to abandon the city in the face of a great wave of plague (the same one described by Boccaccio in the Decameron). Less attractively, Catherine urged the pope and temporal leaders to undertake a new Crusade to the Holy Land–an endeavour which she believed would lead to large numbers of Christian converts and would bring peace—at least amongst Christian kings.
(Yes, it’s true. Sometimes the holy sisters of medieval Europe could be just as warlike as the men. A few literally warred amongst themselves, like Chrodielde, a Frankish nun who raised to an army in order to unseat her abbess, Leubevre of Cheribert. And you thought YOUR office politics were bad! Other warrior nuns fought to protect their convents. In 1265AD, the abbess of Notre-Dame-Aux-Nonnains, Odette de Pougy, resorted to arms in order to defend her lands against the land claims of Pope Urban IV.
A few assisted their birth families in the arts of war. Sister Julia Duguesclin, sister of the knight Bertrand Duguesclin, aided him during the Hundred Years War by organizing the defense of the fortress of Pontorson. In all of these cases, nuns acted like other elite women, raising organizing armies and directing defences—unusual for brides of the Prince of Peace, perhaps, but well within the bounds of acceptable behavior for highborn ladies.)
Catherine of Siena never wielded arms herself, but she did meet daily with the leaders of the army as well as with the pope, the college of cardinals, and various magistrates in the last two years of her life, playing a key role in politics and governance. And for those she could not meet in person, she dictated hundreds of letters (astonishingly she never learned to write). She called for those professing Christianity to live up to their obligations to the poor, to use temporal authority selflessly, to cease making war on other Christians, and to end corruption in Church and state. It was bold language indeed for a twenty-something woman to use with the king of France:
There are three specific things I am asking you, in your position, to do for love of Christ crucified. The first is to make light of the world and of yourself and of all earthly pleasures. Hold your kingdom as something lent to you, not as if it were your own.... The second thing I am asking is that you uphold true holy justice. Let it not be adulterated by selfish love for yourself or by flattery or by human respect. And don't pretend not to see if your officials are inflicting injustice for money, denying the poor their rights. The third thing is to follow the teaching given you by this Master on the cross, which is exactly what my soul most longs to see in you: friendship and love between you and your neighbor with whom you have been so long at war... hat a scandal, humanly speaking, and what an abomination before God, that you should be making war against your brother and leaving your enemy alone, and that you should be seizing what belongs to another and not get back what is yours! Enough of this stupid blindness! (Letters 238-9)
Catherine also left a number of theological writings in which she expounded on her spiritual viewpoints, which are notable for their insistence that holiness is open to all Christians willing to enter into dialogue with God--who, for Catherine, was ultimately defined as Love. By contemplating God, the true Christian must contemplate authentic love. Catherine's ecstatic visions were expressed as ecstatic (may we say, perhaps, orgasmic?) experiences of connection with the ultimate love. For her theological insights, Catherine was named as a Doctor (honoured theological teacher) of the Roman Catholic Church in 1970, one of only three women to reach that status.
Lay Women of Vision
Although holy visions, fasting, and the simple life could potentially earn women great power in the medieval era, they were no guarantee of respect. Marguerite of Porete was burned at the stake in 1310 for her book The Mirror of Simple Souls, which described her soul's mystical union with God. Marguerite may have been a Beguine, women who lived in communities together, united in holy lives and service, but not taking the vows of the nun and under no hierarchical authority. As such, they were outside the formal control of the church and already suspect; Marguerite' book was even more radical, for it stated that those who achieved true union with God had no need of sacraments, the Mass or other Church interventions. Pretty tame stuff today, but it cost Marguerite her life.
Then there's Margery Kempe (1373-1438?), a contemporary and disciple of Juliana of Norwich. Kempe was a married laywoman who, after bearing 14 children, negotiated a chaste marriage with her husband and abandoned worldly pursuits in favor of pilgrimages across England and the Continent. She left behind a record of her voyages that is one of the earliest autobiographies in the English language. It also illustrates how difficult it was for a married laywoman to pursue mysticism; Kemp was accused of heresy several times, and was roundly criticized for her excessive piety, emotional outbursts (she wept frequently in church), for traveling without her husband and for assuming the white clothing of a virgin. Without the protection of a convent or formal ecclesiastical vows (and perhaps hindered by her penchant for drama), Kempe was vulnerable to accusations of heresy. Yet even when brought before the Archbishop's court, she retained remarkable self-possession:
On the next day she was brought into the Archbishop's chapel, and there came many of the Archbishop's household, despising her, calling her "lollard" and "heretic," and swearing many a horrible oath that she should be burnt....At the last ,the said Archbishop came into the chapel with his clerks, and sharply he said to her, "Why go you in white? Are you a maiden?"
She, kneeling on her knees before him, said, "No, sir, I am no maiden; I am a wife."
...Then the Archbishop said unto her: "I am badly informed of you; I hear said you are a right wicked woman."
And she said again, "Sir, so I hear said that you are a wicked man. And, if you are as wicked as men say, you shall never come into heaven unless you amend yourself while you are here."
Then he said full roughly, "Why, you, what say men of me?"
She answered, "Other men, sir, can tell you well enough."
Then said a great clerk with a furred hood, "Peace, you speak of yourself and let him be."
---Excerpt from The book of Margery Kempe: a new translation, contexts, criticism / translated and edited by Lynn Staley (A Norton critical edition). New York: Norton, c 2001.
Fortunately, the Archbishops was not put off by Margery's insistent nature. The last records of her life show her off on a pilgrimage again, to Norway in 1433.
A Family of Jewish Holy Women
Being non-virginal made it very difficult for Margery Kempe to claim spiritual authority. Things were quite different in the Jewish community, where pious wives and daughters of Talmudic scholars sometimes achieved remarkable positions of spiritual leadership and were respected for their own learning---as well as for their ability to raise good Jewish children.
The great Rashi ( Rabbi Shlomo Yitzhaqi) of medieval France was a contemporary of Hildegard's who had three learned daughters--Yocheved, Miriam and Rachel. they became unusually conversant in rabbinic law, thanks to their father's insistence on rigorous schooling for all three. Each daughter married other scholars and assumed significant roles of spiritual leadership in their homes and communities, reciting shabbat prayers (normal today but groundbreaking at the time), and serving as ritual circumcisers.
Yochveved's daughter Chanah earned a position of respect as an authority and interpreter of rabbinic laws relating to women. In the late 12th century, Miriam's daughter, Dolce, married Rabbi Eliezer Bets Yehudah of Worms, who left us a long poem memorializing his accomplished wife. In addition to raising their children and making money for the family through chandlery and seamstress work, she distinguished herself as a teacher of women in communities across central Europe. Sadly, she and three of their children were brutally murdered by Christian "crusaders" in 1196.
Controversy and Honours
As for Hildegard, her life was also marked by occasional controversy--but her remarkable talents seem to have helped insulate her from most of the more serious trouble she might have gotten into. In the last year of her life, she clashed with ecclesiastical authorities by allowing an excommunicated man to be buried in the cemetery adjoining her convent. She and her sisters were punished by an interdiction for this act; only a great deal of correspondence, penance, and negotiation got the punishment lifted. Hildegard died shortly thereafter and was buried nearby.
Although never formally canonized a saint (a bit too original, perhaps?) she is commemorated in parts of Germany on September 18. Canonized or no, if you're a supervixen (or just someone who loves 'em!) she makes a pretty good patron saint: talented, hard-working, and not afraid to speak her mind. Speaking of which...what's on yours?