Biographies of Four Remarkable Women

By Roseanne Kydd

The Journal of Hildegard of Bingen by Barbara Lachman. This is a fictional biography of Hildegard based upon her journal for a twelve-month period, Advent 1151 to Epiphany 1153. Hildegard (1098-1179) is regarded as one of the most remarkable women of the Middle Ages and some of her writings have been compared to those of Dante and William Blake. She was also a composer known as the ‘Sibyl of the Rhine.’ Author Lachman follows the liturgical calendar of Psalms used by the Abbess and her nuns, including the chanted prayers of the offices, and the sermons and sayings of the Desert Fathers. The imaginative Journal entries are paralleled on each page with historical data printed in smaller font with careful documentation gleaned from extensive research that lends credible resonance to the daily entries. The dialogue effect of the larger-print writings of Hildegard with the numbered references to their sources creates a pleasing visual effect.

The Book of Margery Kempe translated by B. A. Windeatt. Margery Kempe (c. 1373--c. 1440) has given us the earliest known autobiography of an English person, revealing the life of a medieval woman and her world. Her earnestness, persistence, and direct faith are couched in language and circumstances far removed from our modern lives. Her honesty and struggles cannot but evoke admiration and sympathy for her determination and religious ardour amidst a culture not known for its reception to women who stepped outside traditional roles. Her book describes both her travels abroad and her mystical  experiences.

Argula von Grumbach: A Woman’s Voice in the Reformation, (1995) by Peter Matheson. In 1523 when the faculty of theology at the University of Ingolstadt threatened the life of a seventeen-year-old student because he had embraced Martin Luther’s teaching, Argula von Grumbach (1492-c1554) in south Germany challenged the whole faculty to a theological debate. They scorned her, calling her a slut and tried to ignore her. She went on to write eight open letters to them and the King of Wurtemburg, defending the young man. Her husband lost his government job and died shortly afterwards. Argula raised three children and managed to avoid the stake, dying in old age. Her letters were published over and over finally reaching about 40,000 copies in print.

Waiting on God by Simone Weil. A short biography introduces these letters and essays of the French philosopher and mystic (1909-1943), with the book’s title derived from a favourite thought of hers: “waiting in patience.” The letters are her correspondence with Father Perrin, with whom she had deep discussions on matters philosophical and spiritual. They are of the nature of a spiritual biography around her reception of God. Her attitude is one of waiting without anxiety: “It is not my business to think about myself. My business is to think about God. It is for God to think about me”. A series of short essays follows the letters on a variety of subjects, mostly related to the “Love of God.” For example, the right use of school studies can develop the kind of attention needed in prayer -- “that faculty of attention which, directed towards God, is the very substance of prayer.” During World War II she served in the French provisional government in London but died after restricting her diet to the rations of her compatriots in France.