The <span class='italic'>Ordo virtutum</span> and Benedictine Monasticism

doi:10.1017/9781108573832.012

Chapter 11 - The Ordo virtutum and Benedictine Monasticism

from Part III - Music, Manuscripts, Illuminations, and Scribes

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 28 October 2021

Alison Altstatt

Edited by

Jennifer Bain

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Jennifer Bain: Affiliation:
Dalhousie University, Nova Scotia

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Summary

The Ordo virtutum (the Order of the Virtues) is a sung Latin drama that Hildegard of Bingen completed c. 1152 for her newly founded community at Rupertsberg. The drama has invited a multitude of modern responses due to the originality of its language and imagery and the many possible comparisons to her own visionary and theological writing. Yet this work is firmly grounded in the theology and liturgy of the twelfth-century Benedictine convent. This chapter examines how Hildegard draws on the Benedictine rule, the rite of the Consecration of Virgins from twelfth-century Mainz, and the processional and dramatic rituals of the medieval convent to create an embodied drama of the soul’s salvation that is specific to the female monastic experience. Hildegard further emplots the struggle for the soul’s salvation in a narrative which borrows elements from the Descensus Christi ad Infernos, a fourth-century addition to the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus and the liturgical commemorations of its central event: Christ’s descent into, or harrowing, of hell. These texts and liturgies provide important context for understanding the dramatic situation and poetic language of the Ordo virtutum.

Keywords

Hildegard of Bingen Ordo virtutum medieval drama liturgical drama representational rites liturgy Benedictine nuns consecration of virgins medieval processions medieval chant

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge Companion to Hildegard of Bingen , pp. 235 - 256

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108573832.012 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2021

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References

Primary Sources

Hildegard of Bingen. Lieder: Faksimile Riesencodex (Hs.2) der Hessischen Landesbibliothek Wiesbaden, fol. 466–481v, ed. Welker, Lorenz. Commentary by Michael Klaper. Elementa musicae 1. Wiesbaden: Ludwig Reichert Verlag, 1998. [Facsimile]Google Scholar

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