Hildegard of Bingen and Anti-mendicant Propaganda

Abstract

The question of Hildegard's influence and reputation in the centuries following her death is an elusive and vexing one for scholars. We do know that the medieval prophetic tradition is one of the few spheres in which her writings and her reputation sustained anything like their original high profile. To a large extent this popularity was the direct result of two things: first of all, a compilation of extracts from her prophecies made by Gebeno of Eberbach around the year 1220; and secondly, the association of Hildegard's name and a few of her genuine writings with the tradition of anti-mendicant propaganda. These two survivals give us a different but not unrelated view of how Hildegard was known to the later Middle Ages, and in particular what she was best known for: that is, for her prediction of a coming chastisement of the clergy to be brought about partly through the agency of a group of pseudo-prophets. The testimony of Gebeno in his prologue to his compilation of her prophetic works and the testimony of various contemporary chroniclers all agree on one thing: Hildegard had succeeded in scaring the wits out of the local clergy, and even decades after her death they feared the chastisement she had predicted.