Magistra magistrorum: Hildegard of Bingen as a Polemicist against False Teaching

Andra Alexiu

doi:doi:10.1553/medievalworlds_no7_2018s170

Walter POHL – Andre GINGRICH (Eds.)

medieval worlds • no. 7 • 2018

VERGING ON THE POLEMICAL: EXPLORING THE BOUNDARIES OF MEDIEVAL RELIGIOUS POLEMIC ACROSS GENRES AND RESEARCH CULTURES

MEDIEVAL WORLDS provides a new forum for interdisciplinary and transcultural studies of the Middle Ages. Specifically it encourages and links comparative research between different regions and fields and promotes methodological innovation in transdisciplinary studies. Focusing on the Middle Ages (c. 400-1500 CE, but can be extended whenever thematically fruitful or appropriate), MEDIEVAL WORLDS takes a global approach to studying history in a comparative setting.
MEDIEVAL WORLDS is open to regular submissions on comparative topics, but also offers the possibility to propose or advertise subjects that lend themselves to comparison. With a view to connecting people working on related topics in different academic environments, we publish calls for matching articles and for contributions on particular issues.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Verging on the Polemical: Towards an Interdisciplinary Approach to Medieval Religious Polemic
Sita Steckel

Escalations and/in the Different Contexts of Polemical Engagements
Anti-Jewish Polemics in Business Documents from Late Medieval Austria
Birgit Wiedl

Good and Bad Friars: Polemical Patterns and Strategies between Franciscans in the Early Fourteenth Century
Melanie Brunner

Obediencia, reformatio and veritas: Ecclesiological Debates during the Western Great Schism (1378-1417)
Bénédicte Sère

Polemics Investigated in a Late Fifteenth-Century Fastnachtspiel (Shrovetide Play)
Claudia Daiber

Embedding and Disembedding Polemical Texts
The Text as Heretic: Mixed Genres and Polemical Techniques in a Refutation of the Mirror of Simple Souls
Justine Trombley

Transfers of Anti-Waldensian Material from a Polemical Treatise to a Didactic Text
Reima Välimäki

Magistra magistrorum: Hildegard of Bingen as a Polemicist against False Teaching
Andra Alexiu

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medieval worlds • no. 7 • 2018

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Magistra magistrorum: Hildegard of Bingen as a Polemicist against False Teaching

Andra Alexiu

medieval worlds • no. 7 • 2018, pp. 170-189, 2018/06/29

VERGING ON THE POLEMICAL: EXPLORING THE BOUNDARIES OF MEDIEVAL RELIGIOUS POLEMIC ACROSS GENRES AND RESEARCH CULTURES

doi: 10.1553/medievalworlds_no7_2018s170

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doi:10.1553/medievalworlds_no7_2018s170

Abstract

The present paper explores the role that gendered concepts of teaching, preaching, and prophecy played in the polemical writings of Hildegard of Bingen. As this type of discourse was an integral part of the prophetic persona, the analysis focuses on how it shaped itself in order to remain within the boundaries of orthodoxy, which forbade women to preach. Employing a prophetic persona was one of the few means through which women were able to produce texts that could tackle problems which affected the Church in its entirety, such as heresy. The concept of teaching, more precisely the sharp distinction between good and false teaching are essential for understanding not only how Hildegard viewed her mission, but also how this mission was supposed to be carried out within the limits accepted by the Latin Church. By inspecting the manner in which bad and false teaching were thematised in order to serve as a polemical instrument, one can glean how polemics were embedded in texts. A careful analysis of the source material thus needs to start from a theoretical discussion of sermon and preaching – as the texts analyzed here have traditionally been linked with both of these concepts. Scholars usually tend to overlook the ultimately performative function of preaching, yet this is what made the concept relevant in a social context.

Keywords: prophecy; teaching; preaching; audiences; public communication; heresy; gender

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Published Online: 2018/06/29 15:02:00

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Walter POHL – Andre GINGRICH (Eds.)

medieval worlds • no. 7 • 2018

VERGING ON THE POLEMICAL: EXPLORING THE BOUNDARIES OF MEDIEVAL RELIGIOUS POLEMIC ACROSS GENRES AND RESEARCH CULTURES

Magistra magistrorum: Hildegard of Bingen as a Polemicist against False Teaching

Abstract