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#251

Post by Tiredretiredlawyer »

Cooool!
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Post by Suranis »

Engineering and Technology Group ·
Stelios Kessanidis

Computer scientist Grace Hopper¹ entering the machine code for her computer program that calculates tables of Bessel functions² on a manual tape punch that creates 24-hole paper tapes for the Harvard Mark I³ electromechnical computer, at the engineering laboratory of IBM in Endicott, New York, August 4, 1944.

The computer worked around the clock on military projects, calculating massive mathematical tables. Principally it helped the Navy by computing tables for the design of equipment such as torpedos and underwater detection systems. Other branches of the military sought its help in calculating the design of surveillance camera lenses, radar, and implosion devices for the atomic bomb in the Manhattan Project. The mathematical tables that Mark I churned out were the first of their kind fulfilling Charles Babbage's dream⁴ of printing directly from a machine’s output, eliminating all human error. One of the computer's longest running projects required it to solve Bessel's differential equation by generating numerous printed tables of Bessel functions of different orders and as a result, the computer was given the nickname “Bessie.”

It was Hopper's extensive experience in the trenches coding in low-level machine language that inspired her to design a series of easier higher level languages culminating in FLOW-MATIC⁵ a language that helped shape the development of COBOL⁶, an easy to use widespread english-like business oriented computer programming language.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grace_Hopper
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bessel_function
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvard_Mark_I
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analytical_engine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FLOW-MATIC
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COBOL

Reference

Grace Hopper and the invention of the information age by Kurt W. Beyer 2009 408p
https://archive.org/details/gracehopperinven0000beye
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#253

Post by Suranis »

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news ... -dicastery
Vatican City, Jan 6, 2025 / 09:25 am

Pope Francis has named for the first time a woman, Sister Simona Brambilla, to head a dicastery of the Roman Curia, continuing to add to the number of women in leadership roles at the Vatican, a hallmark of his pontificate.

The 59-year-old Brambilla, a member and former superior general of the Consolata Missionary Sisters, has been secretary of the Vatican department for religious and consecrated life since October 2023.

Pope Francis appointed the Italian sister prefect of the department on Monday. She will lead the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life together with Cardinal Ángel Fernández Artime, who was named pro-prefect on Jan. 6.

A Spaniard, the 64-year-old Fernández concluded a decade as rector major of the Salesians last year. The appointment of an ordained bishop as pro-prefect of the same dicastery was necessary because Church law calls for ordination in order to carry out certain governing powers.

Brambilla, who trained as a nurse before entering religious life, was a missionary in Mozambique in the late 1990s. She then returned to Italy, where, with her advanced degree in psychology, she taught at the Pontifical Gregorian University in its Institute of Psychology. She was head of the institute of Consolata Missionary Sisters from 2011 until May 2023.

Brambilla joins several other religious and non-religious laywomen appointed by Pope Francis to important posts in the Vatican, including Franciscan Sister Raffaella Petrini, the first woman to hold the second-ranking post in the government of the Vatican City State.

Other high-ranking women at the Holy See are Sister Alessandra Smerilli, secretary of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development; Sister Nathalie Becquart, an undersecretary of the Synod of Bishops; and laywomen Gabriella Gambino and Linda Ghisoni, undersecretaries of the Dicastery for the Laity, the Family, and Life.

A number of women are also secretaries of some of the Roman Curia’s commissions and councils.

Last month, Pope Francis also named Brambilla a member of the 16th Ordinary Council of the General Secretariat of the Synod alongside Argentinian laywoman María Lía Zervino. They are the only women and non-bishops on the 17-member council.

In the Dicastery for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, Brambilla and Fernández will be assisted by two undersecretaries, Father Aitor Jiménez Echave, CMF, and Sister Carmen Ros Nortes, NSC.
Pope_Francis_greets_Sister_Simona_Brambilla_superior_general_of_the_Consolata_Missionary_Sisters_in_the_Clementine_Hall_June_5_2017_Credit_LOR_CNA.webp
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#254

Post by Suranis »

https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news ... uman-being
The oldest human being in the world is Sister Inah Canabarro Lucas, a 116-year-old nun from the Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul who was born on May 27, 1908.

Sister Inah became the oldest person in the world after the Dec. 29, 2024, death of Tomiko Itooka, a Japanese woman who was 16 days older than Inah. LongeviQuest, a group of researchers specializing in mapping people who are over 100 years old, confirmed the nun is now the world’s oldest person.

“It’s a source of great pride for the Canabarro Lucas family,” her nephew Cleber Vieira Canabarro Lucas, 84, told ACI Digital, CNA’s Portuguese-language news partner, on Jan. 6.

In March 2024, Sister Inah told ACI Digital that one of the secrets of her longevity is prayer: “I pray the rosary every day for everyone in the world.”

Sister Inah currently lives in Porto Alegre in Rio Grande do Sul state in the Santo Enrique de Ossó Shelter, which is next to the Provincial House of the Teresian Sisters of Brazil, a community where in 1927 she was accepted at the age of 19.

According to her nephew, a few days ago Inah had some health problems and the doctors advised her to rest, but now she is fine.

“Logically, the condition of her health at 116 years of age is already a little complicated: She no longer hears well, she has great difficulty speaking, her vision is very poor, but she goes on with her life with the plans that God gave her,” Cleber said.

Sister Inah’s longevity is due to her spirituality, Cleber said, since “she was always a little nun who prayed a lot, prayed a lot; she dedicated herself to prayer all her life.” He also spoke of other characteristics such as “her kindness in always wanting to do good to others, her good humor typical of her personality, her optimism, and her determination in life.”

Inah Canabarro Lucas was born in the São Francisco de Assis district of inner Rio Grande do Sul state on May 27, 1908, the second to last of seven children. According to Cleber, “they were all well fed, they were normal and she was very thin, weak, and her godfather at that time told her father: ‘Friend, don’t get me wrong, but this girl must be sick and get ready because unfortunately I don’t think she will last long’ ... They’re all gone and she is already 116 years old!”

Sister Inah is the great-great-niece of Gen. David Canabarro, one of the main leaders of the Farroupilha Revolution (1835–1845) in Rio Grande do Sul.

When she was a child, one of her siblings told her mother that Inah could study at a convent school in her city. Inah then asked: “What are nuns?” The mother replied that they were women who dedicated themselves to praying to God, and Inah then said: “I’m going to be a nun.”

Inah studied at the convent school and, at the age of 19, she went to make her novitiate with the Teresian sisters in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Over the course of more than a century, she has experienced numerous changes in the world and in the Church. The nun has lived through two world wars and 10 popes. The year she was born, St. Pius X was pope.

As a teaching sister, Inah taught Portuguese, mathematics, science, history, art, and religion in Teresian schools in Rio de Janeiro, Itaqui, and Santana do Livramento, a city where she is much loved because it was where she spent most of her life.

A notable achievement in her life was the creation of the Santa Teresa School marching band in Santana do Livramento. The band featured 115 musical instruments and performed in Brazil, Uruguay, and Argentina. She also collaborated in the creation of the renowned Pomoli High School marching band in Rivera, Uruguay, sister city of Santana do Livramento.
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#255

Post by pipistrelle »

USPS is issuing a new international stamp.

https://store.usps.com/store/product/gl ... s-S_581704
The latest Global stamp features a colorful, 32-point compass rose drawn by Lucia Wadsworth — the aunt of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow — in her school geography notebook in 1794.
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#256

Post by Suranis »

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adriana_Caselotti
Adriana Elena Loretta Caselotti (May 6, 1916 – January 19, 1997) was an American actress and singer. Caselotti was the voice of the title character of the first Walt Disney animated feature, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937), for which she was named a Disney Legend in 1994, making her the first female voice-over artist to achieve this.

Early life

Adriana Caselotti was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, to an Italian-American family.[1] Her father, Guido Luigi Emanuele Caselotti, was an immigrant from Udine, and worked as a music teacher and vocal coach, and served as the organist for the Holy Rosary Church; and her mother, Maria Josephine née Orefice Caselotti from Casavatore, was a singer in the Royal Opera Theatre of Rome. Her older sister, Louise, sang opera and gave voice lessons—Maria Callas being a student of hers. When Caselotti was seven years old, her family left Connecticut for Italy, while her mother toured with an opera company. Caselotti was educated and boarded at the San Getulio convent, near Rome. When her family returned to New York three years later, Caselotti re-learned English and studied singing with her father.[2] In 1934, Caselotti attended Hollywood High School where she sang in the senior class Girls' Glee Club and had a leading role in the school's annual musical, The Belle of New York.[3]

Career

In 1935, after her brief stint as a chorus girl and session singer at MGM, Walt Disney hired Caselotti as the voice of the heroine, Snow White.[4] She was paid a total of $970 for working on the film (equivalent to $20,559 in 2023).[2] She was not credited for the role, and had trouble finding new opportunities later in life. Jack Benny specifically mentioned that he had asked Walt Disney for permission to use her on his radio show and was told, "I'm sorry, but that voice can't be used anywhere. I don't want to spoil the illusion of Snow White."[5] Caselotti had several more jobs in the film business. The two most well-known were an uncredited role in MGM's The Wizard of Oz (1939) as the voice of Juliet during the Tin Woodman's song "If I Only Had a Heart", speaking the line "Wherefore art thou Romeo?"[6] and an uncredited role in Frank Capra's It's a Wonderful Life, singing in Martini's bar as James Stewart is praying.[7]

Adriana Caselotti appeared in several promotional spots for Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and signed memorabilia during promotional events. On November 22, 1972 (Thanksgiving Day), she guest-starred on an episode of The Julie Andrews Hour saluting the music of Walt Disney, singing "I'm Wishing" and "Some Day My Prince Will Come" with Julie Andrews.[8] She also made a guest appearance on the syndicated The Mike Douglas Show. Caselotti later wrote a how-to book, Do You Like to Sing?.[4]

Later in life, she sold autographs and sang opera, including performing in Rigoletto. In the early 1990s, when the Snow White Grotto at Disneyland was refurbished, Caselotti, at the age of 75, re-recorded "I'm Wishing" for the Snow White Wishing Well exhibit. In 1994, she was named a Disney Legend.[4]

Personal life

Caselotti was married four times. Her first husband was Robert James Chard, a local theater ticket broker[9] whom she married in 1945. The marriage ended in divorce. She later met actor Norval Weir Mitchell, whom she married in 1952. He retired after marrying her and died in 1972. The same year, she was married to a podiatrist, Joseph Dana Costigan, who died in 1982.[10] Caselotti married her last husband, Joseph Laureat Florian St. Pierre, a retired postal employee, in 1989 and they later divorced.[6]

Death

Caselotti died of cancer at her Los Angeles home on January 19, 1997.
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#257

Post by John Thomas8 »

Colonel Ruby Bradley is one of America's most highly decorated women. Veteran of WW II and Korea. As a POW in the Philippines, she assisted 230 operations and delivered 13 babies. At the end of the war, she only weighed 86 LBS as she often gave her food to starving children. She is a true hero.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ruby_Bradley
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#258

Post by Suranis »

Society for the History of Astronomy · Follow

Today is the anniversary of the birth, in Manhattan, New York on 22 Jan 1816, of the American amateur astronomer, philanthropist and patroness of astronomy Catherine Wolfe Bruce.

She made a number of financial contributions to literature and the sciences, one of the earliest of which was in 1877 when she donated $50,000 for the construction of a library and the purchase of books in memory of her father, the industrialist and inventor George Bruce (1781-1866). The library was completed in 1888 and located at 226 West 42nd Street. During the 1890s she made over 50 gifts to astronomy, including donating funds for the purchase of new telescopes for the Harvard College Observatory at Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA and Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, USA.

In addition, she made a grant of $10,000 to the Heidelberg-Königstuhl State Observatory in the city of Heidelberg, Germany, which at the time was run by the German astronomer Maximilian Franz Joseph Cornelius Wolf (Max Wolf). This enabled Heidelberg Observatory to obtain the dual 16-inch (41 cm) refractor telescope, appropriately known as the Bruce double astrograph), a telescope designed for the sole purpose of astrophotography. (Pictured)

The minor planet 323 Brucia, discovered on 22 Dec 1891 from Heidelberg Observatory by Max Wolf, is named in her honour, as is the 6.7 km diameter lunar crater Bruce, located on Sinus Medii a little to the west of the slightly smaller crater Blagg and seen here at centre of image with Blagg just below centre.
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#259

Post by Suranis »

Classic comedy uk · Follow

Carve Her Name with Pride is a 1958 British war drama film based on the book of the same name by R. J. Minney.
The film, directed by Lewis Gilbert, is based on the true story of Special Operations Executive agent Violette Szabo, GC, who was captured and executed while serving in Nazi-occupied France. Szabo was played by Virginia McKenna
The Movie:



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violette_Szabo
Violette Reine Elizabeth Szabo, GC (née Bushell; 26 June 1921 – c. 5 February 1945) was a British-French Special Operations Executive (SOE) agent during the Second World War and a posthumous recipient of the George Cross. On her second mission into occupied France, Szabo was captured by the German army, interrogated, tortured, and deported to Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany, where she was executed.
Her Wikipedia entry is quite long so I'm not going to copy and paste it, but it's well worth reading.
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#260

Post by Whatever4 »

Bishop who confronted Trump led ceremony honoring Matthew Shepard

The Right Rev. Mariann Edgar Budde, the Washington, D.C., Episcopal bishop who called out Donald Trump this week, helped preside over a service honoring gay hate-crime victim Matthew Shepard and the interment of his ashes at the Washington National Cathedral in 2018.

:snippity:

Trump later called her remarks “nasty” and said she should apologize, which she has no intention of doing. “I am not going to apologize for asking for mercy for others,” she told Time this week.

Trump supporters have criticized her as well. “I’ve had people wish me dead,” she told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Wednesday. “I’m not sure they’ve threatened to kill me, but they seemed to be pleased if I met my eternal destiny sooner rather than later.” Budde has also received much support, however.

Budde has a history of supporting the LGBTQ+ community, and her denomination is an inclusive one. In 2018, she and the Rev. V. Gene Robinson, the first out gay bishop in the Episcopal Church, held a public service October 26 at the National Cathedral honoring Shepard, a 21-year-old student at the University of Wyoming who was killed in an antigay attack in October 1998 and became a national symbol of hate crimes. His ashes were then interred in a private service.

His family considered scattering his ashes around Wyoming, but they decided they wanted a place to visit. They feared desecration, however, as they had witnessed the presence of protesters from the hateful Westboro Baptist Church at Matthew’s funeral. They chose the National Cathedral as an appropriate space. “It’s a place where there’s an actual chance for others to sit and reflect about Matthew, and about themselves, and about their friends,” his father, Dennis Shepard, told The New York Times in 2018.

Matthew Shepard’s death “was a wound on our nation,” Budde told the Times. “We are doing our part to bring light out of that darkness and healing to those who have been so often hurt, and sometimes hurt in the name of the church.”

“There will be young people from all across the country, having tours here and being educated here,” Budde added in a 2018 interview with NPR. “When they pass by, they will see a plaque in his honor. They will see that this is a church that has learned from the example of violence that we need to stand and be counted as among those who work for justice and the full embrace of all God’s children.”

In her recent conversation with Time, Budde said she doesn’t feel personally threatened despite the death wishes. “The real people who are in danger are those who are fearful of being deported,” she said. “The real people who are in danger are the young people who feel they cannot be themselves and be safe and who are prone to all kinds of both external attacks and suicidal responses to them. So I think we should keep our eyes on the people who are really vulnerable in our society.”
https://www.advocate.com/news/mariann-b ... oggle-gdpr
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#261

Post by Volkonski »

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#262

Post by AndyinPA »

:thumbsup:
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#263

Post by Tiredretiredlawyer »

:lovestruck:
Suranis
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#264

Post by Suranis »

During her first season of "The Avengers," Diana Rigg was dismayed to find out that the cameraman was being paid more than she was. She demanded a raise, to put her more on a par with her co-star, or she would leave the show. The producers gave in, thanks to the show's great popularity in the United States.

Rigg was reportedly the first person ever to do kung fu on-screen. In 1965, stunt arranger Ray Austin went to his producers and said, "Listen, I want to do this thing called kung fu." They said "Kung what?" and insisted that Emma, like her predecessor, Cathy Gale, stick to judo. Instead, Austin secretly taught Rigg kung fu.

According to Patrick Macnee in his book "The Avengers and Me," Rigg disliked wearing leather and insisted on a new line of fabric athletic wear for the fifth season. Alun Hughes, who had designed clothing for her personal wardrobe, was suggested by Rigg to design Emma Peel's "softer" new wardrobe.

Series writer Brian Clemens noted in an interview the sexual chemistry that particularly existed between Steed and Emma Peel, and the common question of "Will they ever go to bed together?" Clemens' attitude toward the characters was that they already had done, and this was the next day. Patrick Macnee and Rigg confirmed later in interviews that they had decided their characters had a casual sexual relationship, "but just didn't dwell on it." (IMDb)
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#265

Post by AndyinPA »

She was one cool chick, ahead of her time. RIP
Suranis
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#266

Post by Suranis »

This woman loved through three centuries.
Elizabeth Hanbury (9 June 1793 – 31 October 1901) was a British philanthropist who worked with Elizabeth Fry. She is thought to have been Queen Victoria's "oldest subject"; she died in 1901, aged 108 years and 144 days.

Life

Elizabeth Sanderson was born in Leadenhall Street in London in 1793; a record of her birth was made at the parish church of All Hallows-on-the-Wall. Her father was a "China tea merchant", and she had family connections dating back to Robert Sanderson, Bishop of Lincoln. She and her sister Mary were Quakers and they visited prisons with the famous reformer Elizabeth Fry,[1] including prisoners who were bound for transportation. In 1833 Elizabeth Hanbury was recognized as a minister in the Quaker church.

She married Cornelius Hanbury of the chemist company Allen & Hanburys in 1826, becoming his second wife.[2] (Cornelius had been married to a daughter of his business partner William Allen.) He was the first cousin of the Gurney family of Norwich. In 1830 the Hanburys had a daughter named Charlotte, who was to become a missionary in Morocco;[3] The Hanburys had one son, also named Cornelius; his two daughters, Elizabeth and Charlotte, became missionaries in India and China.

Her husband, Cornelius, attended the World Anti-Slavery Convention in 1840 at which only men were allowed to speak.[4] He died in 1869.[2]

In 1887, Elizabeth and Charlotte Hanbury left the wilds and moved to the home of Cornelius, in Richmond, on the western outskirts of London.[5] When Elizabeth Hanbury was 100 years old her portrait was painted by Percy Bigland.[2] This portrait passed down to Thomas Hanbury, creator of the botanical gardens in Italy. In 1900 she wrote a letter to Queen Victoria from her "oldest subject".[3]

She died in Richmond in 1901 at the age of 108 years and 144 days. Her long life was documented in The Times[6] and later reported in the Dictionary of National Biography[2] and in the Morning Post in Queensland.[1] An autobiography of Elizabeth was published soon after her death.
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#267

Post by Suranis »

Jacqueline Mary du Pré OBE (26 January 1945 – 19 October 1987) was a British cellist, widely regarded as one of the prominent cellists of the 20th century. Born in Oxford, she began studying at the Guildhall School of Music in the mid-1950s with William Pleeth, earning the school's Gold Medal in 1960. Her musical development was further enhanced by advanced studies with prominent cellists such as Paul Tortelier, Pablo Casals, and Mstislav Rostropovich.

Du Pré gained early recognition, winning Britain's most prestigious cello award at age 11 and making her official debut at Wigmore Hall at 16. She achieved international acclaim with her 1965 American debut, where she performed Elgar’s Cello Concerto, a piece closely associated with her. By the age of 20, she was performing with leading orchestras worldwide. In 1967 she married the acclaimed conductor and pianist Daniel Barenboim, forming a celebrated musical couple.

Her career was cut short in her late twenties due to illness, forcing her to withdraw from public performance. Du Pré remained active as a teacher and mentor until her death at the age of 42.

Du Pré's musical legacy is celebrated for her passionate and emotive playing and she remains an influential figure in the world of classical music.
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#268

Post by Suranis »

Jeanne Eagels was posthumously nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her 1929 role in "The Letter" after dying suddenly that year at the age of 39. That nomination was the first posthumous Oscar consideration for any actor, male or female.

In September of 1929, Eagles underwent successful surgery to treat ulcers on her eyes, a condition was caused by her sinusitis. Two weeks after surgery, on the night of October 3, 1929, as Eagels was preparing for a night out on the town, she fell ill and was taken to a private 5th Avenue hospital. In the hospital waiting room, she suffered a convulsion and died.

Three autopsies were conducted over the following three months and reached three different conclusions as to the cause of her death, which was variously attributed as an overdose of alcohol, the tranquilizer chloral hydrate, and heroin in the successive autopsy reports. All three substances likely were in her system when she died, and it was suggested that the unconscious Eagels had received a sedative from the first doctor to treat her, and that subsequently a second doctor, not knowing she had already been sedated, had unknowingly given the unconscious actress a second shot, thus causing the overdose that killed her.

Though not known to the public at the time Eagles had a long history of drug and alcohol problems. The studio heads did their best to keep this information out of the press and continually reported that her frequent trips to the sanitarium was due to a hereditary illness. When she died, her manager insisted that she had died of a stroke but the truth wasn't discovered until many years later

Eagels' life was limned in the 1957 film "Jeanne Eagels," which starred Kim Novak. This film is fictionalized biography that whitewashed the truth about Eagels' life, but apparently didn't whitewash it enough, as Eagels' family later sued Columbia Pictures over the way Eagels was depicted in the film.

The actor playwright Noël Coward said, "Of all the actresses I have ever seen, there was never one quite like Jeanne Eagels," while actress-playwright-Academy Award-nominated-screenwriter Ruth Gordon, a friend of Eagels, said of her, "Jeanne Eagels was the most beautiful person I ever saw, and if you ever saw her, she was the most beautiful person YOU ever saw." (IMDb/Wikipedia)
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#269

Post by Suranis »

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildegard_of_Bingen
In this medieval name, the personal name is Hildegard and Bingen is an appellation or descriptor. There is no family name.
Saint

Hildegard of Bingen

Hildegard of Bingen OSB (German: Hildegard von Bingen, pronounced [ˈhɪldəɡaʁt fɔn ˈbɪŋən]; Latin: Hildegardis Bingensis; c. 1098 – 17 September 1179), also known as the Sibyl of the Rhine, was a German Benedictine abbess and polymath active as a writer, composer, philosopher, mystic, visionary, and as a medical writer and practitioner during the High Middle Ages.[1][2] She is one of the best-known composers of sacred monophony, as well as the most recorded in modern history.[3] She has been considered by a number of scholars to be the founder of scientific natural history in Germany.[4]

Hildegard's convent at Disibodenberg elected her as magistra (mother superior) in 1136. She founded the monasteries of Rupertsberg in 1150 and Eibingen in 1165. Hildegard wrote theological, botanical, and medicinal works,[5] as well as letters, hymns, and antiphons for the liturgy.[2] She wrote poems, and supervised miniature illuminations in the Rupertsberg manuscript of her first work, Scivias.[6] There are more surviving chants by Hildegard than by any other composer from the entire Middle Ages, and she is one of the few known composers to have written both the music and the words.[7] One of her works, the Ordo Virtutum, is an early example of liturgical drama and arguably the oldest surviving morality play.[a] She is noted for the invention of a constructed language known as Lingua Ignota.

Although the history of her formal canonization is complicated, regional calendars of the Catholic Church have listed her as a saint for centuries. On 10 May 2012, Pope Benedict XVI extended the liturgical cult of Hildegard to the entire Catholic Church in a process known as "equivalent canonization". On 7 October 2012, he named her a Doctor of the Church, in recognition of "her holiness of life and the originality of her teaching."[8]

Biography

Hildegard was born around 1098. Her parents were Mechtild of Merxheim-Nahet and Hildebert of Bermersheim, a family of the free lower nobility in the service of the Count Meginhard of Sponheim.[9] Sickly from birth, Hildegard is traditionally considered their youngest and tenth child,[10] although there are records of only seven older siblings.[11][12] In her Vita, Hildegard states that from a very young age she experienced visions.[13]

Spirituality

From early childhood, long before she undertook her public mission or even her monastic vows, Hildegard's spiritual awareness was grounded in what she called the umbra viventis lucis, the reflection of the living Light. Her letter to Guibert of Gembloux, which she wrote at the age of 77, describes her experience of this light:
From my early childhood, before my bones, nerves, and veins were fully strengthened, I have always seen this vision in my soul, even to the present time when I am more than seventy years old. In this vision, my soul, as God would have it, rises up high into the vault of heaven and into the changing sky and spreads itself out among different peoples, although they are far away from me in distant lands and places. And because I see them this way in my soul, I observe them in accord with the shifting of clouds and other created things. I do not hear them with my outward ears, nor do I perceive them by the thoughts of my own heart or by any combination of my five senses, but in my soul alone, while my outward eyes are open. So I have never fallen prey to ecstasy in the visions, but I see them wide awake, day and night. And I am constantly fettered by sickness, and often in the grip of pain so intense that it threatens to kill me, but God has sustained me until now. The light which I see thus is not spatial, but it is far, far brighter than a cloud which carries the sun. I can measure neither height, nor length, nor breadth in it; and I call it "the reflection of the living Light." And as the sun, the moon, and the stars appear in water, so writings, sermons, virtues, and certain human actions take form for me and gleam.[14]
Monastic life

Perhaps because of Hildegard's visions or as a method of political positioning, or both, Hildegard's parents offered her as an oblate to the Benedictine monastery at Disibodenberg, which had been recently reformed in the Palatinate Forest. The date of Hildegard's enclosure at the monastery is the subject of debate. Her Vita says she was eight years old when she was professed with Jutta, who was the daughter of Count Stephan II of Sponheim and about six years older than Hildegard.[15] Jutta's date of enclosure is known to have been in 1112, when Hildegard would have been 14.[16] Their vows were received by Bishop Otto of Bamberg on All Saints Day 1112. Some scholars speculate that Hildegard was placed in the care of Jutta at the age of eight, and that the two of them were then enclosed together six years later.[17]

In any case, Hildegard and Jutta were enclosed together at Disibodenberg and formed the core of a growing community of women attached to the monastery of monks, named a Frauenklause, a type of female hermitage. Jutta was also a visionary and thus attracted many followers who came to visit her at the monastery. Hildegard states that Jutta taught her to read and write, but that she was unlearned, and therefore incapable of teaching Hildegard sound Biblical interpretation.[18] The written record of the Life of Jutta indicates that Hildegard probably assisted her in reciting the psalms, working in the garden, other handiwork, and tending to the sick.[19] This might have been a time when Hildegard learned how to play the ten-stringed psaltery. Volmar, a frequent visitor, may have taught Hildegard simple psalm notation. The time she studied music could have been the beginning of the compositions she would later create.[20]

Upon Jutta's death in 1136, Hildegard was unanimously elected as magistra of the community by her fellow nuns.[21] Abbot Kuno of Disibodenberg asked Hildegard to be prioress, which would be under his authority. Hildegard wanted more independence for herself and her nuns and asked Abbot Kuno to allow them to move to Rupertsberg.[22] This was to be a move toward poverty, from a stone complex that was well established to a temporary dwelling place. When the abbot declined Hildegard's proposition, Hildegard went over his head and received the approval of Archbishop Henry I of Mainz. Abbot Kuno did not relent, however, until Hildegard was stricken by an illness that rendered her paralyzed and unable to move from her bed, an event that she attributed to God's unhappiness at her not following his orders to move her nuns to Rupertsberg. It was only when the Abbot himself could not move Hildegard that he decided to grant the nuns their own monastery.[23] Hildegard and approximately 20 nuns thus moved to the St. Rupertsberg monastery in 1150, where Volmar served as provost, as well as Hildegard's confessor and scribe. In 1165, Hildegard founded a second monastery for her nuns at Eibingen.[24]

Before Hildegard's death in 1179, a problem arose with the clergy of Mainz: a man buried in Rupertsberg had died after excommunication from the Catholic Church. Therefore, the clergy wanted to remove his body from the sacred ground. Hildegard did not accept this idea, replying that it was a sin and that the man had been reconciled to the church at the time of his death.[25]

Visions

Hildegard said that she first saw "The Shade of the Living Light" at the age of three, and by the age of five, she began to understand that she was experiencing visions.[26] She used the term visio (Latin for 'vision') to describe this feature of her experience and she recognized that it was a gift that she could not explain to others. Hildegard explained that she saw all things in the light of God through the five senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch.[27] Hildegard was hesitant to share her visions, confiding only to Jutta, who in turn told Volmar, Hildegard's tutor and, later, secretary.[28] Throughout her life, she continued to have many visions, and in 1141, at the age of 42, Hildegard received a vision she believed to be an instruction from God, to "write down that which you see and hear."[29] Still hesitant to record her visions, Hildegard became physically ill. The illustrations recorded in the book of Scivias were visions that Hildegard experienced, causing her great suffering and tribulations.[30] In her first theological text, Scivias ("Know the Ways"), Hildegard describes her struggle within:
But I, though I saw and heard these things, refused to write for a long time through doubt and bad opinion and the diversity of human words, not with stubbornness but in the exercise of humility, until, laid low by the scourge of God, I fell upon a bed of sickness; then, compelled at last by many illnesses, and by the witness of a certain noble maiden of good conduct [the nun Richardis von Stade] and of that man whom I had secretly sought and found, as mentioned above, I set my hand to the writing. While I was doing it, I sensed, as I mentioned before, the deep profundity of scriptural exposition; and, raising myself from illness by the strength I received, I brought this work to a close – though just barely – in ten years. [...] And I spoke and wrote these things not by the invention of my heart or that of any other person, but as by the secret mysteries of God I heard and received them in the heavenly places. And again I heard a voice from Heaven saying to me, 'Cry out, therefore, and write thus!'
— Hildegard von Bingen, Scivias, translated by Columba Hart and Jane Bishop, 1990[31]

It was between November 1147 and February 1148 at the synod in Trier that Pope Eugenius heard about Hildegard's writings. It was from this that she received Papal approval to document her visions as revelations from the Holy Spirit, giving her instant credence.[32]

On 17 September 1179, when Hildegard died, her sisters claimed they saw two streams of light appear in the skies and cross over the room where she was dying.[33]

Vita Sanctae Hildegardis

Hildegard's hagiography, Vita Sanctae Hildegardis, was compiled by the monk Theoderic of Echternach after Hildegard's death.[34] He included the hagiographical work Libellus, or "Little Book", begun by Godfrey of Disibodenberg.[35] Godfrey had died before he was able to complete his work. Guibert of Gembloux was invited to finish the work; however, he had to return to his monastery with the project unfinished.[36] Theoderic utilized sources Guibert had left behind to complete the Vita.
Works
Scivias I.6: The Choirs of Angels. From the Rupertsberg manuscript,[37] folio 38r.

Hildegard's works include three great volumes of visionary theology;[38] a variety of musical compositions for use in the liturgy, as well as the musical morality play Ordo Virtutum; one of the largest bodies of letters (nearly 400) to survive from the Middle Ages, addressed to correspondents ranging from popes to emperors to abbots and abbesses, and including records of many of the sermons she preached in the 1160s and 1170s;[39] two volumes of material on natural medicine and cures;[40][41] an invented language called the Lingua Ignota ('unknown language');[42] and various minor works, including a gospel commentary and two works of hagiography.[43]

Several manuscripts of her works were produced during her lifetime, including the illustrated Rupertsberg manuscript of her first major work, Scivias; the Dendermonde Codex, which contains one version of her musical works; and the Ghent manuscript, which was the first fair-copy made for editing of her final theological work, the Liber Divinorum Operum. At the end of her life, and probably under her initial guidance, all of her works were edited and gathered into the single Riesenkodex manuscript.[44][45] The Riesenkodex manuscript is a collection of 481 folios of vellum bound in pig leather over wooden boards that measure 45 by 30 centimetres (18 by 12 in).[46]

Visionary theology

Hildegard's most significant works were her three volumes of visionary theology: Scivias ("Know the Ways", composed 1142–1151), Liber Vitae Meritorum ("Book of Life's Merits" or "Book of the Rewards of Life", composed 1158–1163); and Liber Divinorum Operum ("Book of Divine Works", also known as De operatione Dei, "On God's Activity", begun around 1163 or 1164 and completed around 1172 or 1174). In these volumes, the last of which was completed when she was well into her seventies, Hildegard first describes each vision, whose details are often strange and enigmatic, and then interprets their theological contents in the words of the "voice of the Living Light."[47]

With permission from Abbot Kuno of Disibodenberg, she began journaling visions she had (which is the basis for Scivias). Scivias is a contraction of Sci vias Domini ('Know the Ways of the Lord'), and it was Hildegard's first major visionary work, and one of the biggest milestones in her life. Perceiving a divine command to "write down what you see and hear,"[48] Hildegard began to record and interpret her visionary experiences. In total, 26 visionary experiences were captured in this compilation.[32]

Scivias is structured into three parts of unequal length. The first part (six visions) chronicles the order of God's creation: the Creation and Fall of Adam and Eve, the structure of the universe (described as the shape of an "egg"), the relationship between body and soul, God's relationship to his people through the Synagogue, and the choirs of angels. The second part (seven visions) describes the order of redemption: the coming of Christ the Redeemer, the Trinity, the church as the Bride of Christ and the Mother of the Faithful in baptism and confirmation, the orders of the church, Christ's sacrifice on the cross and the Eucharist, and the fight against the devil. Finally, the third part (thirteen visions) recapitulates the history of salvation told in the first two parts, symbolized as a building adorned with various allegorical figures and virtues. It concludes with the Symphony of Heaven, an early version of Hildegard's musical compositions.[49]

In early 1148, a commission was sent by the Pope to Disibodenberg to find out more about Hildegard and her writings. The commission found that the visions were authentic and returned to the Pope, with a portion of the Scivias. Portions of the uncompleted work were read aloud to Pope Eugenius III at the Synod of Trier in 1148, after which he sent Hildegard a letter with his blessing.[50] This blessing was later construed as papal approval for all of Hildegard's wide-ranging theological activities.[51] Towards the end of her life, Hildegard commissioned a richly decorated manuscript of Scivias (the Rupertsberg Codex); although the original has been lost since its evacuation to Dresden for safekeeping in 1945, its images are preserved in a hand-painted facsimile from the 1920s.[6]

Liber Vitae Meritorum

In her second volume of visionary theology, Liber Vitae Meritorum, composed between 1158 and 1163, after she had moved her community of nuns into independence at the Rupertsberg in Bingen, Hildegard tackled the moral life in the form of dramatic confrontations between the virtues and the vices. She had already explored this area in her musical morality play, Ordo Virtutum, and the "Book of the Rewards of Life" takes up the play's characteristic themes. Each vice, although ultimately depicted as ugly and grotesque, nevertheless offers alluring, seductive speeches that attempt to entice the unwary soul into their clutches. Standing in humankind's defence, however, are the sober voices of the Virtues, powerfully confronting every vicious deception.[52]

Amongst the work's innovations is one of the earliest descriptions of purgatory as the place where each soul would have to work off its debts after death before entering heaven.[53] Hildegard's descriptions of the possible punishments there are often gruesome and grotesque, which emphasize the work's moral and pastoral purpose as a practical guide to the life of true penance and proper virtue.[54]

Hildegard's last and grandest visionary work, Liber divinorum operum, had its genesis in one of the few times she experienced something like an ecstatic loss of consciousness. As she described it in an autobiographical passage included in her Vita, sometime in about 1163, she received "an extraordinary mystical vision" in which was revealed the "sprinkling drops of sweet rain" that she stated John the Evangelist experienced when he wrote, "In the beginning was the Word" (John 1:1). Hildegard perceived that this Word was the key to the "Work of God", of which humankind is the pinnacle. The Book of Divine Works, therefore, became in many ways an extended explication of the prologue to the Gospel of John.[56]

The ten visions of this work's three parts are cosmic in scale, to illustrate various ways of understanding the relationship between God and his creation. Often, that relationship is established by grand allegorical female figures representing Divine Love (Caritas) or Wisdom (Sapientia). The first vision opens the work with a salvo of poetic and visionary images, swirling about to characterize God's dynamic activity within the scope of his work within the history of salvation. The remaining three visions of the first part introduce the image of a human being standing astride the spheres that make up the universe and detail the intricate relationships between the human as microcosm and the universe as macrocosm. This culminates in the final chapter of Part One, Vision Four with Hildegard's commentary on the prologue to the Gospel of John (John 1:1–14), a direct rumination on the meaning of "In the beginning was the Word". The single vision that constitutes the whole of Part Two stretches that rumination back to the opening of Genesis, and forms an extended commentary on the seven days of the creation of the world told in Genesis 1–2:3. This commentary interprets each day of creation in three ways: literal or cosmological; allegorical or ecclesiological (i.e. related to the church's history); and moral or tropological (i.e. related to the soul's growth in virtue). Finally, the five visions of the third part take up again the building imagery of Scivias to describe the course of salvation history. The final vision (3.5) contains Hildegard's longest and most detailed prophetic program of the life of the church from her own days of "womanish weakness" through to the coming and ultimate downfall of the Antichrist.[57]

Music

Attention in recent decades to women of the medieval Catholic Church has led to a great deal of popular interest in Hildegard's music. In addition to the Ordo Virtutum, 69 musical compositions, each with its own original poetic text, survive, and at least four other texts are known, though their musical notation has been lost.[58] This is one of the largest repertoires among medieval composers.

One of her better-known works, Ordo Virtutum (Play of the Virtues), is a morality play. It is uncertain when some of Hildegard's compositions were composed, though the Ordo Virtutum is thought to have been composed as early as 1151.[59] It is an independent Latin morality play with music (82 songs); it does not supplement or pay homage to the Mass or the Office of a certain feast. It is, in fact, the earliest known surviving musical drama that is not attached to a liturgy.[7]

The Ordo virtutum would have been performed within Hildegard's monastery by and for her select community of noblewomen and nuns. It was probably performed as a manifestation of the theology Hildegard delineated in the Scivias. The play serves as an allegory of the Christian story of sin, confession, repentance, and forgiveness. Notably, it is the female Virtues who restore the fallen to the community of the faithful, not the male Patriarchs or Prophets. This would have been a significant message to the nuns in Hildegard's convent. Scholars assert that the role of the Devil would have been played by Volmar, while Hildegard's nuns would have played the parts of Anima (the human souls) and the Virtues.[60] The devil's part is entirely spoken or shouted, with no musical setting. All other characters sing in monophonic plainchant. This includes patriarchs, prophets, a happy soul, an unhappy soul, and a penitent soul along with 16 virtues (including mercy, innocence, chastity, obedience, hope, and faith).[61][62]

In addition to the Ordo Virtutum, Hildegard composed many liturgical songs that were collected into a cycle called the Symphonia armoniae celestium revelationum. The songs from the Symphonia are set to Hildegard's own text and range from antiphons, hymns, and sequences (such as Columba Aspexit), to responsories.[63] Her music is monophonic, consisting of exactly one melodic line.[64] Its style has been said to be characterized by soaring melodies that can push the boundaries of traditional Gregorian chant and to stand outside the normal practices of monophonic monastic chant.[65] Researchers are also exploring ways in which it may be viewed in comparison with her contemporaries, such as Hermannus Contractus.[66] Another feature of Hildegard's music that both reflects the 12th-century evolution of chant, and pushes that evolution further, is that it is highly melismatic, often with recurrent melodic units. Scholars such as Margot Fassler, Marianne Richert Pfau, and Beverly Lomer also note the intimate relationship between music and text in Hildegard's compositions, whose rhetorical features are often more distinct than is common in 12th-century chant.[67] As with most medieval chant notation, Hildegard's music lacks any indication of tempo or rhythm; the surviving manuscripts employ late German style notation, which uses very ornamental neumes.[68] The reverence for the Virgin Mary reflected in music shows how deeply influenced and inspired Hildegard of Bingen and her community were by the Virgin Mary and the saints.[69]

Scientific and medicinal writings

Hildegard's medicinal and scientific writings, although thematically complementary to her ideas about nature expressed in her visionary works, are different in focus and scope. Neither claim to be rooted in her visionary experience and its divine authority. Rather, they spring from her experience helping in and then leading the monastery's herbal garden and infirmary, as well as the theoretical information she likely gained through her wide-ranging reading in the monastery's library.[41] As she gained practical skills in diagnosis, prognosis, and treatment, she combined physical treatment of physical diseases with holistic methods centered on "spiritual healing".[70] She became well known for her healing powers involving the practical application of tinctures, herbs, and precious stones.[71] She combined these elements with a theological notion ultimately derived from Genesis: all things put on earth are for the use of humans.[72] In addition to her hands-on experience, she also gained medical knowledge, including elements of her humoral theory, from traditional Latin texts.[70]

Hildegard catalogued both her theory and practice in two works. The first, Physica, contains nine books that describe the scientific and medicinal properties of various plants, stones, fish, reptiles, and animals. This document is also thought to contain the first recorded reference of the use of hops in beer as a preservative.[73][74] The second, Causae et Curae, is an exploration of the human body, its connections to the rest of the natural world, and the causes and cures of various diseases.[75] Hildegard documented various medical practices in these books, including the use of bleeding and home remedies for many common ailments. She also explains remedies for common agricultural injuries such as burns, fractures, dislocations, and cuts.[70] Hildegard may have used the books to teach assistants at the monastery. These books are historically significant because they show areas of medieval medicine that were not well documented because their practitioners, mainly women, rarely wrote in Latin. Her writings were commentated on by Mélanie Lipinska, a Polish scientist.[76]

In addition to its wealth of practical evidence, Causae et Curae is also noteworthy for its organizational scheme. Its first part sets the work within the context of the creation of the cosmos and then humanity as its summit, and the constant interplay of the human person as microcosm both physically and spiritually with the macrocosm of the universe informs all of Hildegard's approach.[41] Her hallmark is to emphasize the vital connection between the "green" health of the natural world and the holistic health of the human person. Viriditas, or greening power, was thought to sustain human beings and could be manipulated by adjusting the balance of elements within a person.[70] Thus, when she approached medicine as a type of gardening, it was not just as an analogy. Rather, Hildegard understood the plants and elements of the garden as direct counterparts to the humors and elements within the human body, whose imbalance led to illness and disease.[70]

The nearly three hundred chapters of the second book of Causae et Curae "explore the etiology, or causes, of disease as well as human sexuality, psychology, and physiology."[41] In this section, she gives specific instructions for bleeding based on various factors, including gender, the phase of the moon (bleeding is best done when the moon is waning), the place of disease (use veins near diseased organ or body part) or prevention (big veins in arms), and how much blood to take (described in imprecise measurements, like "the amount that a thirsty person can swallow in one gulp"). She even includes bleeding instructions for animals to keep them healthy. In the third and fourth sections, Hildegard describes treatments for malignant and minor problems and diseases according to the humoral theory, again including information on animal health. The fifth section is about diagnosis and prognosis, which includes instructions to check the patient's blood, pulse, urine, and stool.[70] Finally, the sixth section documents a lunar horoscope to provide an additional means of prognosis for both disease and other medical conditions, such as conception and the outcome of pregnancy.[41] For example, she indicates that a waxing moon is good for human conception and is also good for sowing seeds for plants (sowing seeds is the plant equivalent of conception).[70] Elsewhere, Hildegard is even said to have stressed the value of boiling drinking water in an attempt to prevent infection.[77]

As Hildegard elaborates the medical and scientific relationship between the human microcosm and the macrocosm of the universe, she often focuses on interrelated patterns of four: "the four elements (fire, air, water, and earth), the four seasons, the four humors, the four zones of the earth, and the four major winds."[41] Although she inherited the basic framework of humoral theory from ancient medicine, Hildegard's conception of the hierarchical inter-balance of the four humors (blood, phlegm, black bile, and yellow bile) was unique, based on their correspondence to "superior" and "inferior" elements – blood and phlegm corresponding to the "celestial" elements of fire and air, and the two biles corresponding to the "terrestrial" elements of water and earth. Hildegard understood the disease-causing imbalance of these humors to result from the improper dominance of the subordinate humors. This disharmony reflects that introduced by Adam and Eve in the Fall, which for Hildegard marked the indelible entrance of disease and humoral imbalance into humankind.[41] As she writes in Causae et Curae c. 42:
It happens that certain men suffer diverse illnesses. This comes from the phlegm which is superabundant within them. For if man had remained in paradise, he would not have had the flegmata within his body, from which many evils proceed, but his flesh would have been whole and without dark humor [livor]. However, because he consented to evil and relinquished good, he was made into a likeness of the earth, which produces good and useful herbs, as well as bad and useless ones, and which has in itself both good and evil moistures. From tasting evil, the blood of the sons of Adam was turned into the poison of semen, out of which the sons of man are begotten. And therefore their flesh is ulcerated and permeable [to disease]. These sores and openings create a certain storm and smoky moisture in men, from which the flegmata arise and coagulate, which then introduce diverse infirmities to the human body. All this arose from the first evil, which man began at the start, because if Adam had remained in paradise, he would have had the sweetest health, and the best dwelling-place, just as the strongest balsam emits the best odor; but on the contrary, man now has within himself poison and phlegm and diverse illnesses.[78]
Lingua ignota and Litterae ignotae

Hildegard also invented an alternative alphabet. Litterae ignotae ('Alternate Alphabet') was another work and was more or less a secret code, or even an intellectual code – much like a modern crossword puzzle today.

Hildegard's Lingua ignota ('unknown language') consisted of a series of invented words that corresponded to an eclectic list of nouns. The list is approximately 1,000 nouns; there are no other parts of speech.[79] The two most important sources for the Lingua ignota are the Wiesbaden, Hessische Landesbibliothek 2 (nicknamed the Riesenkodex)[79] and the Berlin manuscript.[42] In both manuscripts, medieval German and Latin glosses are written above Hildegard's invented words. The Berlin manuscript contains additional Latin and German glosses not found in the Riesenkodex.[42] The first two words of the Lingua as copied in the Berlin manuscript are aigonz (German, goth; Latin, deus; English, god) and aleganz (German, engel; Latin, angelus; English, angel).[80]

Barbara Newman believes that Hildegard used her Lingua ignota to increase solidarity among her nuns.[81] Sarah Higley disagrees and notes that there is no evidence of Hildegard teaching the language to her nuns. She suggests that the language was not intended to remain a secret; rather, the presence of words for mundane things may indicate that the language was for the whole abbey and perhaps the larger monastic world.[42] Higley believes that "the Lingua is a linguistic distillation of the philosophy expressed in her three prophetic books: it represents the cosmos of divine and human creation and the sins that flesh is heir to."[42]

The text of her writing and compositions reveals Hildegard's use of this form of modified medieval Latin, encompassing many invented, conflated, and abridged words.[13] Because of her inventions of words for her lyrics and use of a constructed script, many conlangers look upon her as a medieval precursor.[82]

Significance
During her lifetime


Maddocks claims that it is likely Hildegard learned simple Latin and the tenets of the Christian faith, but was not instructed in the Seven Liberal Arts, which formed the basis of all education for the learned classes in the Middle Ages: the Trivium of grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric plus the Quadrivium of arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music.[83] The correspondence she kept with the outside world, both spiritual and social, transcended the cloister as a space of spiritual confinement and served to document Hildegard's grand style and strict formatting of medieval letter writing.[84][85]

Contributing to Christian European rhetorical traditions, Hildegard "authorized herself as a theologian" through alternative rhetorical arts.[84] Hildegard was creative in her interpretation of theology. She believed that her monastery should exclude novices who were not from the nobility because she did not want her community to be divided on the basis of social status.[86] She also stated that "woman may be made from man, but no man can be made without a woman."[33]

Hildegard's preaching tours

Because of church limitation on public, discursive rhetoric, the medieval rhetorical arts included preaching, letter writing, poetry, and the encyclopedic tradition.[87] Hildegard's participation in these arts speaks to her significance as a female rhetorician, transcending bans on women's social participation and interpretation of scripture. The acceptance of public preaching by a woman, even a well-connected abbess and acknowledged prophet, does not fit the stereotype of this time. Her preaching was not limited to the monasteries; she preached publicly in 1160 in Germany.[88] She conducted four preaching tours throughout Germany, speaking to both clergy and laity in chapter houses and in public, mainly denouncing clerical corruption and calling for reform.[89]

Many abbots and abbesses asked her for prayers and opinions on various matters.[1] She traveled widely during her four preaching tours.[90] She had several devoted followers, including Guibert of Gembloux, who wrote to her frequently and became her secretary after Volmar's death in 1173. Hildegard also influenced several monastic women, exchanging letters with Elisabeth of Schönau, a nearby visionary.[91]

Hildegard corresponded with popes such as Eugene III and Anastasius IV, statesmen such as Abbot Suger, German emperors such as Frederick I Barbarossa, and other notable figures such as Bernard of Clairvaux, who advanced her work, at the behest of her abbot, Kuno, at the Synod of Trier in 1147 and 1148. Hildegard of Bingen's correspondence is an important component of her literary output.[92]
Veneration

Hildegard was one of the first persons for whom the Roman canonization process was officially applied, but the process took so long that four attempts at canonization were not completed and she remained at the level of her beatification. Her name was nonetheless included in the Roman Martyrology at the end of the 16th century up to the current 2004 edition, listing her as "Saint Hildegard" with her feast on 17 September, which would eventually be added to the General Roman Calendar as an optional memorial.[93] Numerous popes have referred to Hildegard as a saint, including Pope John Paul II[94] and Pope Benedict XVI.[95] Hildegard's pilgrimage church in Eibingen houses her relics.[96]

On 10 May 2012, Pope Benedict XVI extended the veneration of Saint Hildegard to the entire Catholic Church[97] in a process known as "equivalent canonization,"[98] thus laying the groundwork for naming her a Doctor of the Church.[99] On 7 October 2012, the feast of the Holy Rosary, the pope named her a Doctor of the Church.[100] He called Hildegard "perennially relevant" and "an authentic teacher of theology and a profound scholar of natural science and music."[101]

Hildegard of Bingen also appears in the calendar of saints of various Anglican churches, such as that of the Church of England, in which she is commemorated on 17 September.[102][103]

Modern interest

In recent years, Hildegard has become of particular interest to feminist scholars.[104] They note her reference to herself as a member of the weaker sex and her rather constant belittling of women. Hildegard frequently referred to herself as an unlearned woman, completely incapable of Biblical exegesis.[105] Such a statement on her part, however, worked slyly to her advantage because it made her statements that all of her writings and music came from visions of the Divine more believable, therefore giving Hildegard the authority to speak in a time and place where few women were permitted a voice.[106] Hildegard used her voice to amplify the church's condemnation of institutional corruption, in particular simony.

Hildegard has also become a figure of reverence within the contemporary New Age movement, mostly because of her holistic and natural view of healing, as well as her status as a mystic. Although her medical writings were long neglected and then, studied without reference to their context,[107] she was the inspiration for Dr. Gottfried Hertzka's "Hildegard-Medicine", and is the namesake for June Boyce-Tillman's Hildegard Network, a healing center that focuses on a holistic approach to wellness and brings together people interested in exploring the links between spirituality, the arts, and healing.[108] Her reputation as a medicinal writer and healer was also used by early feminists to argue for women's rights to attend medical schools.[107]

Reincarnation of Hildegard has been debated since 1924 when Austrian mystic Rudolf Steiner lectured that a nun of her description was the past life of Russian poet-philosopher Vladimir Soloviev,[109] whose visions of Holy Wisdom are often compared to Hildegard's.[110] Sophiologist Robert Powell writes that hermetic astrology proves the match,[111] while mystical communities in Hildegard's lineage include that of artist Carl Schroeder[112] as studied by Columbia sociologist Courtney Bender[113] and supported by reincarnation researchers Walter Semkiw and Kevin Ryerson.[114]

Recordings and performances of Hildegard's music have gained critical praise and popularity since 1979. There is an extensive discography of her musical works.
John Thomas8
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Random women who deserve to be noticed

#270

Post by John Thomas8 »

Mary Fields, the first black woman to operate a USPS Star Route:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Fields

By 1895, at sixty years old, Fields secured a job as a Star Route Carrier which used a stagecoach to deliver mail in the unforgiving weather and rocky terrain of Montana, with the help of nearby Ursuline nuns, who relied on Mary for help at their mission.[8] This made her the first African-American woman to work for the U.S. Postal Service. She carried multiple firearms, most notably a .38 Smith & Wesson under her apron to protect herself and the mail from wolves, thieves and bandits, driving the route with horses and a mule named Moses. She never missed a day, and her reliability earned her the nickname "Stagecoach Mary" due to her preferred mode of transportation.[6][9] If the snow was too deep for her horses, Fields delivered the mail on snowshoes, carrying the sacks on her shoulders.[6]
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#271

Post by johnpcapitalist »

Suranis wrote: Fri Jan 31, 2025 8:41 am https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hildegard_of_Bingen

Hildegard of Bingen OSB, also known as the Sibyl of the Rhine, was a German Benedictine abbess and polymath active as a writer, composer, philosopher, mystic, visionary, and as a medical writer and practitioner during the High Middle Ages.[1][2] She is one of the best-known composers of sacred monophony, as well as the most recorded in modern history. She has been considered by a number of scholars to be the founder of scientific natural history in Germany.

Modern interest

In recent years, Hildegard has become of particular interest to feminist scholars They note her reference to herself as a member of the weaker sex and her rather constant belittling of women. Hildegard frequently referred to herself as an unlearned woman, completely incapable of Biblical exegesis. Such a statement on her part, however, worked slyly to her advantage because it made her statements that all of her writings and music came from visions of the Divine more believable, therefore giving Hildegard the authority to speak in a time and place where few women were permitted a voice. Hildegard used her voice to amplify the church's condemnation of institutional corruption, in particular simony.


I only studied her a little bit in school (I was a medieval studies/English lit major) but she is indeed impressive. It might not be an exaggeration to characterize her as a female Leonardo da Vinci, 500 years before his time.

My thesis advisor was an expert on medieval feminism and drew parallels between Hildegard von Bingen and the character of the "Wife of Bath" in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.. She also exposed me to Christine de Pizan, a contemporary of Chaucer's, who was similarly notable.

I'm glad we're rediscovering some of these remarkable women who managed to shine in a time where the patriarch was unimaginably stifling.
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#272

Post by Suranis »

Controvertial Opinion, The Patriarchy doe not exist.

And Women in the Middle ages were not as browbeaten as people today would like to believe. I've had an essay on that bouncing around my head for a few months now. Short version - the worst Era for Women in Europe was the period just before the Crusades, and the examples of everything bad that's supposed to have happened to women all through the Middle Ages typically comes from that period. But one of the effects of the Crusades is that European men saw the Muslims treating their women rather well, and they came back to Europe thinking "If the bloody Muslims can treat their women decently, then we can too."

Ironically, the Muslims regressed in that regard.

Plus the rise in the veneration of the Virgin Mary and Mary Magdalene, and local figures such as St Brigid in Ireland, gave Women powerful divine allies to gain respect and status for themselves.

Anyway, The Status and role of Women has changed pretty drastically over the course of 1000 years and depending on where you were in Europe. In France Women were treated relatively well and could achieve great social standing, in England relatively poorly, and the rest of Europe was a mixture depending on the time period.

But History is written by the people who want to blacken one group or other, so between Protestants who want to cast Catholics as backwards and Savage, Atheists who want to cast religious as backward and Savage, Americans who want to cast Europe as backwards and Savage, and Neo-Feminists who want to cast Men as backwards and Savage, its amazing that any records of powerful women in the middle ages have survived at all. Its too disturbing for the narrative.

ANYWAY...
Black History Of American · Follow

Harriet E. Wilson born on March 15, 1825 is considered the first woman of African and American descend to become a novelist, as well as the first Black person of any gender to publish a novel on the North American continent.Her fictional autobiography Our Nig; or, Sketches from the Life of a Free Black, in a Two-story White House, North was published anonymously in 1859 in Boston, Massachusetts, and was not widely known. The novel was discovered in 1982 by the scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Much of what is known about the life of Harriet Wilson has been derived from the book, which up until the early 1980s was considered the work of a white author.

The largely autobiographical book turned the literary world on its end because up to that point it had been widely accepted that the first Black published novelist had been Frances Ellen Watkins Harper with Lola Leroy or Shadows Uplifted (1892). The Harriet Wilson Project commissioned a statue of Wilson in 2006. Sculpted by Fern Cunningham, the statue is located in Milford, New Hampshire''s Bicentennial Park.

Harriet E Wilson died on June 28, 1900
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#273

Post by Suranis »

Since Western Countries typically refer to their Warships and other vessels as "She," this video qualifies. :mrgreen:



(Russians refer to ships as "He", interestingly)
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#274

Post by John Thomas8 »

Ursula Graham Bower, anthropologist and guerilla leader:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ursula_Graham_Bower
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#275

Post by Suranis »

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ann_Bevan
Mary Ann Bevan (née Webster; 20 December 1874 – 26 December 1933) was an English nurse, who, after developing acromegaly, toured the circus sideshow circuit as "the ugliest woman in the world".[1]

Early years

Mary Ann Webster was one of 8 children born into a working-class family in Plaistow, East London. She later became a nurse[when?]. In 1902, she married Thomas Bevan[2] with whom she had four children. Thomas Bevan died suddenly in 1914.[3]

Sideshow career

Bevan started exhibiting the symptoms of acromegaly soon after she was married, around the age of 32.[4] She began to suffer from abnormal growth and facial distortion, along with severe headaches and fading eyesight. After the death of her husband in 1914, she no longer had the income to support herself and her four children. Bevan decided to capitalize on her appearance and entered an "Ugliest Woman" contest which she won.[3]

In 1920, she was hired by American showman Samuel W. Gumpertz to appear in Coney Island's Dreamland sideshow, a form of freak show, where she spent most of the remainder of her life. She also made appearances for the Ringling Brothers Circus until her death. She was interred at Brockley and Ladywell Cemeteries.[citation needed]

Legacy

In the early 2000s, Bevan's image was used by Hallmark Cards on a birthday card in the United Kingdom.

The card made reference to the television dating show Blind Date. Subsequently a complaint was made by a Dutch physician that it was disrespectful to a woman who had become deformed as the result of a disease. Hallmark agreed that it was inappropriate and stopped distribution of the card
Picture of her under the spoiler.
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