Hildegard of Bingen
Saint Hildegard of Bingen is the patron of musicians and of writers because she was both, to an astonishing degree: a Benedictine abbess who composed more than seventy luminous liturgical chants and a sung morality play, and who wrote vast visionary, theological, and pastoral works under direct inspiration she always insisted came from God. She is invoked by natural scientists and herbalists because of her two remarkable medical-botanical treatises, Physica and Causae et Curae, which catalogued plants, stones, and remedies and made her one of the founders of natural science in Germany. Her patronage of linguists rests on the secret “unknown language” (Lingua Ignota) she devised, with its own invented alphabet. Benedict XVI named her a Doctor of the Church in 2012, the seal on a life of God-given creativity.
Saint Hildegard of Bingen was a German Benedictine abbess, writer, composer, and polymath who lived from 1098 to 1179. She experienced mystical visions from childhood and wrote extensively on theology, natural history, and medicine. She composed over seventy liturgical songs and is considered one of the founders of scientific natural history in Germany.
