Hildegard of Bingen
Also called: Abbess Hildegard · Topic: Medieval Europe: Feudalism and the Three Orders · NCERT: Class 11, Ch 4 "The Three Orders"
Meaning
Hildegard of Bingen was a twelfth-century German abbess. An abbess is the woman who heads a community of nuns. She was a gifted musician, and she developed community singing of prayers in church. She is remembered in exam terms for defending the three orders: clergy who pray, nobles who fight and peasants who work. She gave a religious reason why people were not equal.
Example
To explain why society was unequal, Hildegard used a cattle analogy. A farmer keeps his cattle, sheep and goats apart. In the same way, she wrote, God "makes distinctions among his flock". To her this showed that "there is no equality among them".
Don't confuse with
- Abbot Suger (1081–1151): a male abbot of St Denis in France, known for enlarging his church and its stained glass. He did not write about the three orders.