O Rubor Sanguinis

It’s taken me a little time to get to the illustrious composer Hildegard Von Bingen. She’s remarkable in more ways than one! We’re going to step back in time to around the year 1098, over 900 years ago in the Middle Ages to Böckelheim, West Franconia in Germany where she was born.

I’m going to digress slightly here but only because I’d like to point out a few things that highlight why Bingen was an exceptional woman of her era.

Women in the Middle Ages were restricted to certain roles, namely that of wife, mother, agricultural labourer, artisan or nun. Only a small number of women were taught skilled-crafts and education was prohibited to them.  Artisanal vocations enabled women to have more of an equal-footing as economic contributors to their households, which in turn provided them a certain standing in society at large. 

However, they weren’t permitted to rise to a position of authority, barely being able to obtain the role of an assistant. Property inherited by a woman came to be managed under the hands of her husband even when it came from her own family. The proceeds of any earnings also went directly to him and inheritances were predominantly passed along via male heirs. Women also had to submit to the males of their family in every eventuality. Consequently, they had little control over their own lives and led fettered existences.

I recommend reading the late French intellectual Simone De Beauvoir’s ‘The Second Sex’ for more on this subject and the subsequent evolution of the role of women in Western society, where I obtained some understanding of this topic.

Historically, the only avenues available for women to rise in society were via the church or else later still at the time of the Renaissance, as courtesans from the 14^th and 17^th centuries onwards. This was the period when the latter began to appear in the courts of the monarchy. Those at the upper echelons of which, were granted education in the areas of music and dance and were well-versed intellectually. These were all areas that were increasingly denied to women who didn’t exist on the fringes of society and which were the exception rather than the norm.

Which is why, as we now return in time to the Middle Ages, Hildegard Von Bingen was a shining beacon not only for her musical contribution to Western classical music and to the church but also, simply put, as a woman.

She was granted the right to found her own all-female abbey in Rupertsberg and later at Eibingen, Germany. She wrote theological, botanical and medicinal texts, as well as wrote liturgical songs and poetry. Something that was unheard of for the majority of her gender. In addition to this, she also created an alternative alphabet, the ‘Lingua Ignota’, which scholars believed she used to increase solidarity amongst her nuns. A revered Chrstian mystic to this day, some branches of the Roman Catholic Church have considered her a Saint but she remained beatified until her official canonisation in 2012.

Sixty nine of her musical compositions survive today, one of which I will share with you titled ‘O Rubor Sanguinis’. Her music features soaring melodies and broke the boundary range of Gregorian chant of that time (more on Gregorian chant soon). Her music consists of no harmonies or chords, just the single line of melody sung by one or many voices and which, on listening to, has an effect that is soul-searingly beautiful. Voices so pure and clean, a golden elixir fed to the listener through song.

The lyrics to ‘O Rubor Sanguinis’ translate as follows:

“A redness of blood that flowed down from the heaven

You are a flower that the wintry breath

of the serpent never wounded.”

Bingen transcended restrictions on women in the rhetoric arts of the church and was able to preach, as well as travel widely. In a time where few women were permitted a voice, she was a remarkable exception and was sought out by Abbots and Abbesses alike for her advice and prayers.

I leave you with one of her ethereal pieces of devotional music. On listening to it I couldn’t help but reflect on the essence of what it means to be human. For myself at least, above all others, this has been Hildegard’s greatest legacy.