ss to the kingdom of Burgundy and consort of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, came to Hildegard, carrying a letter of introduction written and signed by five Cistercian abbots of Burgundy, to ask for her help in curing her infertility. "An alliance with spiritual authority was sought to end the potentially calamitous infertility of the imperial house" (Opitz 286). If successful, Hildegard would have had a hand in producing the next heir to the throne. Hildegard acted very prudently in this situation, recommending only that Beatrice pray humbly to God himself for help.
As Opitz comments, other women in this situation often resorted to folk magic to deal with the problem of infertility. Hildegard did not, and it was this care not to cross over the line of what was theologically acceptable that kept her safe from the then-common accusation of witchcraft, an accusation to which she might have been particularly vulnerable, given the wide range of her "unfeminine" interests and activities. Certainly the knowledge displayed in her Physica and Causae et Curae overlaps greatly with the kinds of practices common in folk magic, and her books would probably be of great interest to current Neopagan Witches.
Hildegard was born as the tenth and last child into a noble family at Bermershaim near Alzey. From the age of eight she lived in Disibodenberg, and was placed in the Benedictine convent there by her parents under the tutelage of the anchoress Jutta of Sponheim. She reluctantly succeeded Jutta as magistra of the community in 1136, at age 38.
Five years later, she had her first vision, in which a voice from Heaven commanded her to write down what she had seen. In her first vision, she was commanded over and over to "speak and write," not according to human knowledge and authority, but according to what she saw and heard in her visions. She was also instructed to teach and explain the significance of these visions. ...