I feel like during Hildegard's time she could have been viewed more as a witch rather than a saint in comparison to Catherine and her time. Hildegard does go on in great detail about the female sex and what-not and I agree that things like this was more connected to being a witch since our books always say witches have sex with the devil. So it makes sense that she got this information from the devil. During Hildegard's time it was easier to directly link her with witchcraft because if you are suppose to be holy and be like on God's side I would think that she would be more like Catherine.
Even though they both dedicated their life to God I thought that Hildegard was more on the humanist-biological point of view whereas Catherine was more from a religious-godly perspective point of view. Maybe Hildegard went into great detail about sex because once she read the Bible she felt like there was information needed on this topic. I mean the bible doesn't really talk about sex in great detail so that makes sense. I feel like her upbringing and her status definitely played a major role though as to why she was not tried for witchcraft. Like if a poor low class women who no one knows started saying what Hildegard said, she would have an unhappy ending.
We also talked about how it was strange for these two women to be like a saint and have a higher connection with God but I mean if God wants to send out information to humans why can't it be women that receives these messages? I mean at that time I just think they were sexist because God is suppose to be forgiving, loving, and all these great things but is God a sexist then if God only speaks to men? I just feel like its a lose-lose situation that's going on here.
I also think that it would have been easy to accuse Hildegard of witchcraft, but her place in society saved that from happening. I think the reason she wrote about sex was because she was into medicine, so I think she was viewing it from a medical point of view. However, as we touched on in class, the Bible speaks of sex strictly as a way to reproduce; it is not supposed to be enjoyable. That is where I didn't see the correlation of Hildegard's work and the Bible because her description definitely depicts sex in an enjoyable manner.
ReplyDeleteHaha yessssssssssssss! I was waiting for someone to bring Hildegard's sexual escapades! I do think your point is very valid though when you stated that although Catherine of Siena acted very much like a saint she is certainly the complete and polar opposite from Hildegard.
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