Hildegard the Great

By Leonora Christina Skov
In recent years the woman who was incontestably the most powerful of the Middle Ages, the German nun, Hildegard von Bingen, has been the object of considerable interest throughout the world. Not least thanks to her liturgical music. However, in Anne Lise Marstrand-Jørgensen’s thoroughly research literary fantasy we see Hildegard for the first time as a person of flesh and blood, and this has been duly recognised by Danish reviewers and readers. Thanks to word of mouth, a Hildegard mania has spread right across Denmark, and this spring Hildegard even won the coveted literary prize from the Weekendavisen weekly newspaper.

We follow the story of Hildegard over fifty years starting from her birth. We follow her from those years as a frail girl visited by powerful religious visions to her time at the monastery, where, in addition to music, she produced poetry and scientific works, corresponded with German emperors and was active as an abbess, physician and mystic. Marstrand-Jørgensen shows exceptional empathy in her descriptions of Hildegard’s relations to her mystified parents and her friendships with the flagellant hermit, Jutta, and with Volmar, the monk, who was her equal in years. At a time when women were expected to be seen and not heard, Hildegard constantly did the opposite. She spoke about her religious visions, and in time they gave her untold power.

Despite her youth Anne Lise Marstrand-Jørgensen has already written four collections of poetry and three very different novels, and there is no mistaking her experience and her versatility. In the hands of a less competent writer, the weight of this material could have buried the story alive or the main character, Hildegard, could have ended up either as a saint or a madwoman. From the start, however, Marstrand-Jørgensen presents a woman who at one and the same time subordinated herself to what she believed in and believed in herself to such an extent that she dared to stand up for her rights. This makes it easy to identify with Hildegard today, even for readers who do not normally make a bee-line for novels based on history. We can safely say that Hildegard is a novel that has a wide readership and sets itself apart from the Scandinavian literary scene.

There is no shortage of historical novels, and nor are literary fantasies anything new, but few writers managed to combine a good story with sensitive literary language as Anne Lise Marstrand-Jørgensen does. The form, alternating as it does between narrative and the lyrical, perfectly matches the hypersensitive main character with her grandiose visions and associative thought processes. The Danish authoress and the German nun who lived a thousand years ago are truly a match made in heaven. So much the more welcome, then, is the news that Anne Lise Marstrand-Jørgensen is currently working on a book that will bring to life the second half of Hildegard von Bingen’s fabulous life.

Translated by John Mason

Dansk version