Philippe Cordez, Centre allemand d’Histoire de l’Art (Paris)
Hildegard of Bingen’s crown is a recent discovery. Since the early Middle Ages, nuns were given a crown as part of the blessing ritual that marked their status as virgins. Around 1150, the Rhineland nun Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179), a theoretician and important player in the ecclesiastical reform, described in her collection of visions Scivias a hair ornament designed as a specific insignia for virgin nuns. Hildegard developed a complex program of images that can be seen in detail in silk, gold and silver embroidery on a textile crown that appeared on the art market in 1999 and is now kept at the Abegg Foundation (located in Riggisberg near Bern and specializing in the study of ancient textiles). Probably made for Hildegard at the end of her long life, this precious crown is clearly the one that was venerated as a relic of the “holy prophetess” in the monastery of St. Matthias in Trier, where it is attested until 1793.