880 ST. HILDEGARD writings of Hildegard had penetrated, and despatched the Archbishop of Treves, with the Bishop of Verdun and other ecclesiastics, to Bingen to inquire into the truth of the report. They soon returned bringing some of her writings, and a letter from her to the Pope. The former were read before the synod, and unanimously acknowledged as inspired by God; and the Pope wrote her a short letter (still extant), exhorting her to preserve her revelations, and to cultivate humility. The favour with which her writings were received is, perhaps, partly to be attributed to the influence of St. Bernard, who was present at the synod, and who is supposed by some historians to have visited St. Hildegard at the time that he was preaching a crusade on the Rhine. There is, however, no evidence that the two saints ever met, although their correspondence is still preserved. The fame of Hildegard had spread through the whole Church, and clergy and laity, princes and nobles, great and small, flocked to her for spiritual comfort, for instruction and help, and, above all, for her intercession with God. The Popes Anastasius IV. and Adrian IV. wrote, on their accession, to express to her their admiration, commending them- selves to her prayers. She was consulted on all subjects, religious, political, scientific, and domestic, and was, indeed, the oracle of her day. The Emperor Conrad III. wrote to her, and even Frederick Barbarossa, so rebellious against the tyranny of the Church, bowed before her, and acknowledged her sacred mission, promising her his protection in case of need. She answered him, boldly rebuking his ungodly life. Her letter to St. Bernard is one of the very few, in a collection of about 140 of her letters, in which no rebuke is contained. It is written in a spirit of the deepest humility and veneration. Hildegard constantly foretold great disorders and revolution in the Church through the sins of the clergy, and thereafter a purer worship and more universal piety. These prophecies are, however, expressed in very vague general terms. She was credited by her contemporaries with the power of seeing into the future, and was frequently questioned as to future events. The hidden past was also thought lo be revealed to her, for we find the Abbot Cuno of Disibodenberg asking her if the Spirit should show her anything relating to the history of their patron saint, St. Disibod, to impart it to him, as nothing was then known of him beyond his name. St Hildegard shortly after had a vision in which a full revelation of his history was made to her. In like manner was revealed to her the history of St. Rupert, or Robert, duke of Bingen, and his mother, St. Bertha, whose castle, in the beginning of the 9th century, had stood upon the Rupertsberg, where the two saints had been buried in one grave, and where St. Hildegard had founded her convent. Not only by her writings did Hildegard seek to instruct the Church, but also by word of mouth. Out of France, Belgium, and Germany pilgrims flocked to Bingen. She herself, led by the Spirit, travelled to Cologne, Treves, Metz, Wurzburg, Bamberg, and many other towns in Alsace, Lorraine, Franconia, and Swabia, visiting all the neighbouring convents, preaching and expounding the Scriptures. During two years she journeyed thus from place to place, and visited France, making a pilgrimage to the grave of St. Martin, at Tours, passing on her way through Paris, where she submit) her writings to the doctors of theology, receiving them back on her return. Hildegard died soon after her return from Paris, Sept. 17, 1189. She was buried before the high altar in the church that she had built on the Rupertsberg. All her writings bear a half-mystical character, and the sense is often very obscure. The ruling idea throughout is an earnest, straightforward spirit of morality, and an uncompromising severity towards the unbelielf and crying licentiousness of the times. They convey even now a vivid impression of the talent that drew all men to her. That, in days when the ban of the Church was a ready instrument for the punishment of the slightest disloyalty to ecclesiastiGal authority, she did not
