Witchy Nun - Hildegard

Hildegard of Bingen is renowned within the Catholic faith for her spiritual guidance and religious works.  She is a canonized Saint and to this day is still discussed with respect and admiration.  But was she all that she is claimed to be?  Is she truly a Saint or a sinner?  A Mother Superior or a High Priestess of a coven?

A lot of the things she did were close to witchcraft.  Practice with medical herbs was frequently considered to be the workings of a witch.  Burchard of Worms wrote in his writings that if you have "collected medical herbs with evil incantations, not with the creed and the Lord's prayer (singing of credo in Deum) then you have done witchcraft.  This was written before her lifetime and she would have been familiar with it, being an educated woman within the Church.  Our exert does not say if she did sing the credo in Deum.  While she likely was not spouting out evil incantations, she may not have been singing credo in Deum either.  It is impossible to say.  But it was because she rationalized her medicine with scientific texts from Greece that she was not instantly viewed with skepticism.  Also, churches at the time were the hospitals of today, giving her more coverage still.  If she had been a common woman in the fields, picking herbs and giving them to others for healing, she likely would have been accused of witchcraft. 

The second thing she did that was highly skeptical were her visions.  Visions from God were rare to begin with.  Visions received by a woman were nearly unheard of.  But it was not just the visions themselves that left her open to questioning, but what was within the visions.  She describes in great detail demons and the devil.  To have seen such things could easily be construed as having dealings with the Devil and forming a pact of sin. 

The world did not view her visions as devil work.  But did she?  For the majority of her life she refrained from telling anyone of them except for two people, Jutta and Volmar.  She even states herself that she did not write about them because of "doubt and low opinion of herself."  It was as if she were in uncertain: were the visions truly from God?  If I were receiving such visions during that time period, I would not think I was being given sights from God.  To me, visions from God would be filled with light and happiness.  Although towards the end of her vision regarding the worms, the light of God does appear, I would interpret that as God interrupting the vision from Satan.  I would think the devil was coming for me and that perhaps God was joining in on the fight.  And although the Malleus Maleficarum was not yet written, it was common knowledge that women were weaker and more susceptible to the dealings of witches.  While our exert about Hildegard does state that she did not doubt they were from God, I think that if she did doubt it she would not have flat out said it.