Hildegard of Bingen

St. Hildegard of Bingen, O.S.B.
Illumination from the Liber Scivias showing Hildegard receiving a vision and dictating to her scribe and secretary
Doctor of the Church, Sibyl of the Rhine
Born	1098 Bermersheim vor der Höhe, County Palatine of the Rhine, Holy Roman Empire
Died	17 September 1179(1179-09-17) (aged 81) Bingen am Rhein, County Palatine of the Rhine, Holy Roman Empire
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church (Order of St. Benedict) Anglican Communion Lutheranism
Canonized	10 May 2012 (equivalent canonization), Vatican City by Pope Benedict XVI
Major shrine	Eibingen Abbey Germany
Feast	17 September

Hildegard of Bingen, O.S.B. (German: Hildegard von Bingen; Latin: Hildegardis Bingensis; 1098 – 17 September 1179), also known as Saint Hildegard and Sibyl of the Rhine, was a German Benedictine abbess, writer, composer, philosopher, Christian mystic, visionary, and polymath. She is considered to be the founder of scientific natural history in Germany.

Hildegard was elected by her fellow nuns in 1136; she founded the monasteries of Rupertsberg in 1150 and Eibingen in 1165. One of her works as a composer, the Ordo Virtutum, is an early example of liturgical drama and arguably the oldest surviving morality play. She wrote theological, botanical, and medicinal texts, as well as letters, liturgical songs, and poems, while supervising miniature illuminations in the Rupertsberg manuscript of her first work, Scivias. She is also noted for the invention of a constructed language known as Lingua Ignota.

Although the history of her formal consideration is complicated, she has been recognized as a saint by branches of the Roman Catholic Church for centuries. On 7 October 2012, Pope Benedict XVI named her a Doctor of the Church.

Hildegard was born around the year 1098, although the exact date is uncertain. Her parents were Mechtild of Merxheim-Nahet and Hildebert of Bermersheim, a family of the free lower nobility in the service of the Count Meginhard of Sponheim. Sickly from birth, Hildegard is traditionally considered their youngest and tenth child, although there are records of seven older siblings. In her Vita, Hildegard states that from a very young age she had experienced visions.