Scarlet Music: Hildegard of Bingen; A Novel. - book reviews

National Catholic Reporter, May 23, 1997 by Patty McCarty

SCARLET MUSIC: HILDEGARD OF BINGEN: A NOVEL By Joan Channeson Crossroad, 265 pages, $14.95 paperback

Hildegard, Benedictine abbess of Rupertsberg and Eibingen in the Rhineland, was a tough and talented visionary in a troubled age. Born in 1098 -- at the close of the first century of the millennium we claim as ours -- she lived to age 81 in an era in which princes and barons fought to enlarge their holdings, popes battled each other, crusades drew knights and riches from their homelands and King Frederick Barbarossa led an army to Rome in hopes of restoring Charlemagne's empire.

Amid the turmoil, wealthy families gave their daughters and their daughters' dowries to abbeys, and the poor flocked to the abbeys for aid.

Hildegard, the tenth child of minor nobility, was given to the church as a tithe at age 8. She lived as a companion to a holy woman in an anchorage attached to a Benedictine monastery. When the anchorage became a convent, Hildegard became a nun and later succeeded the anchoress as its abbess. She founded two monasteries, which she insisted on building at some distance from the men's monastery. When the abbot balked, she became deathly ill. When he relented, she made a remarkable recovery. Later, when he balked at relinquishing her sisters' dowries, she appealed to the pope, who had heard of her visions from the archbishop of Mainz and Abbot Bernard of Clairvaux.

From childhood, Hildegard was subject to prophetic visions and a wonderful presence she called the Living Light. Although she considered herself uneducated, she wrote and illustrated three books describing her life and her visions, wrote words and music for one of the first morality plays and created the glorious chants that give this book its title. She was a healer, an herbalist and a scientist. In old age, she undertook three tours of the Rhineland, preaching repentance and reform.

Joan Ohanneson keeps Hildegard's story clipping along with short, punchy chapters. Although the publisher describes Ohanneson, author of two previous books, as one who "has written, produced and lectured internationally on Hildegard," this is not biography. It's a historical novel and not above a bit of heavy breathing as Hildegard finds the ermine-trimmed Archbishop Henry fascinating, while the archbishop lusts after the beautiful margravine, a noblewoman who is Hildegard's benefactress.

Then there is Hildegard's secretary, Fr. Volmar, who carries his secret love for Hildegard to his deathbed. And the faithful prioress, Sr. Hiltrude, who allows her love for a monk to surface only when she finds him dead. When the aged Hildegard -- on tour -- visits a shame-filled monastery, she finds the abbess and prioress pregnant and monks and nuns frolicking in the fields. Hildegard delivers a scorching sermon and hastily leaves the place.

Ohanneson does the hard scenes with ease, from the difficult birth of the infant Hildegard to her happy death with "so many hands reaching for her, so many faces, wave upon wave of unbearable bliss, lifting her into the scarlet music."

There's adventure, intrigue, processions, heresy and the glamorous margravine and her beautiful daughter, Richardis, who joins Hildegard's convent and breaks Hildegard's heart when she leaves. At the center of it all stands Hildegard, a woman of great wisdom, strength and frailty.

Too often Ohanneson lets loose a word or phrase that goes clunk. For example, Hildegard, on tour, is admonishing a frazzled abbess whose convent is out of control:

"`And are you quick to remind them of their vow of obedience? And of your sacred duty to correct them?'

"`I do! I do,' she cried, gnawing at a fingernail."

Or when the prioress, Hiltrude, greets Fr. Volmar on his arrival at the new foundation at Rupertsberg:

"`Mother will be reborn now that you've come,' she gulped."

How does one gulp an eight-word sentence?

Still, Ohanneson has given us a colorful adventure story about an exciting woman in a distant land and time. It's easy summer reading.

Patty McCarty is NCR's copy editor.