A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen

This volume provides an introduction to Hildegard and her works, with a focus on the historical, literary, and religious context of the seer’s writings and music. Its essays explore the cultural milieu that informs Hildegard’s life and various compositions, and examine understudied aspects of the magistra’s oeuvre, such as the interconnections among her works.
A Companion to Hildegard of Bingen builds on earlier studies and presents to an English-speaking audience various facets of the seer’s historical persona and her cultural significance, so that the reader can grasp and appreciate the scope of the unparalleled life and contributions of Hildegard, who was declared to be a saint and a doctor of the Church in 2012.

Contributors include: Michael Embach, Margot E. Fassler, Franz J. Felten, George Ferzoco, William T. Flynn, Felix Heinzer, Beverly Mayne Kienzle, Tova Leigh-Choate, Constant J. Mews, Susanne Ruge, Travis A. Stevens, Debra L. Stoudt, and Justin A. Stover.

Beverly Mayne Kienzle, John H. Morison Professor of the Practice in Latin and Romance Languages, Harvard Divinity School, has published widely on medieval sermons and preaching, and has edited (with Carolyn Muessig) and translated Hildegard’s Expositiones euangeliorum.

Debra L. Stoudt is Professor of German and Associate Dean in the College of Liberal Arts and Human Sciences at Virginia Tech. She has published on the medieval German mystics and magic and medicine in the Middle Ages.

George Ferzoco, Research Fellow at University of Bristol’s Department of Religion and Theology, works on late medieval verbal and visual propaganda. He recently co-edited A Companion to Catherine of Siena with Beverly Mayne Kienzle and Carolyn Muessig (Brill, 2012).

“The essays collected here situate the Sibyl of the Rhineland thoughtfully; all are careful and detailed; and several significantly enhance our knowledge of Hildegard and her historical context. […] The volume is a welcome addition to current Hildegardian scholarship. It is carefully edited, contains a wealth of bibliographical information, and achieves an impressively high level of scholarly sophistication.”
Caroline Walker Bynum, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton. In: The Journal of Ecclesiastical History, Vol. 66, No. 1 (January 2015), pp. 176-177.