Tower and Town, June 2019 (view the full edition)Hildegard Of BingenMystic, prophet, politician, poet, painter, composer, musician, counsellor and herbalist, Hildegard of Bingen is one of the most fascinating people in the history of Christianity. "Who is this woman?" asked Pope Eugenius lll, "who rises out of the wilderness like a column of smoke from burning spices." He was speaking from experience, being someone in a group of powerful men, bishops, popes and kings, with whom she conversed and often challenged. Hildegard was born in 1098 and lived into her eighties. She was born in Bermerstein in what is now Germany, in the times of the Crusades. It was an age of cathedral building and pilgrimage, but also of laxity and heresy. The burning issues of the day were more forcibly addressed by Hildegard when she became founder Abbess of a vibrant Benedictine convent. On May 12th 2012, Pope Benedict named her a Doctor of the Church, the fourth woman out of 35 saints to be given that title. On that occasion Benedict said "Her message seems extraordinarily timely in today's world, which is especially sensitive to the values that she proposed and lived."  Edwina Fogg |