The Cambridge Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

Description

This specially commissioned collection of thirteen essays explores the life and works of Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), monastic founder, leader of a community of nuns, composer, active correspondent, and writer of religious visions, theological treatises, sermons, and scientific and medical texts. Aimed at advanced university students and new Hildegard researchers, the essays provide a broad context for Hildegard's life and monastic setting, and offer comprehensive discussions on each of the main areas of her output. Engagingly written by experts in medieval history, theology, German literature, musicology, and the history of medicine, the essays are grounded in Hildegard's twelfth-century context, and investigate her output within its monastic and liturgical environments, her reputation during and after her life, and the materiality of the transmission of her works, considering aspects of manuscript layout, illumination, and scribal practices at her Rupertsberg monastery.

Jennifer Bain is Professor of Music at Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia. She is author of Hildegard of Bingen and Musical Reception: the Modern Revival of a Medieval Composer (Cambridge University Press, 2015), and has published extensively on chant manuscripts, digital tools for chant research, reception history, and on the music of Guillaume de Machaut and Hildegard of Bingen.