Saint Hildegard of Bingen Medal - Mystic, Composer, Healer

Saint Hildegard of Bingen, Patron Saint of Musicians and Healers

Hildegard entered a Benedictine monastery at age 8 and never really left, dying there in 1179 at 81 after 73 years that produced one of the most extraordinary bodies of work in medieval history. She composed over 70 liturgical songs, the largest surviving collection of medieval music by a single composer. She wrote two scientific works documenting the medicinal properties of hundreds of plants, animals, and stones, still referenced by historians of natural medicine today. She recorded her visions across three major theological works, corresponded with four popes and two emperors, founded two convents, and did all of it while running a religious community and preaching publicly, something women were not supposed to do in 12th century Europe. Pope Benedict XVI named her a Doctor of the Church in 2012. She had been functioning as one for nine centuries already.

A Gift For...

• A musician, composer, or writer, especially one starting later in life
• Someone who suffers from migraines with aura, a condition she documented from her own experience with clinical precision
• A healer, herbalist, or anyone drawn to natural medicine
• Someone doing serious work in an environment that underestimates them
• A confirmation gift for a young woman who wants a saint who did it all
• Anyone who needs proof that it is never too late to begin

A Confirmation Gift

Not every confirmation saint has to be simple. Hildegard suits a young woman who is a composer, a scientist, and a theologian all at once, or wants to be. Engrave a name and the date.

The Saint Hildegard of Bingen Medal

This medal depicts her in profile, bent over an open book, writing with a quill, caught mid sentence. The composition is unusual among saint medals because it shows her doing the thing she actually did, not standing in a devotional pose, but working. The quill and book reference her entire output, the music, the medicine, the theology, all of it produced by this woman bent over a page in a 12th century monastery. The natural gold or silver of the metal forms the illustration itself. Black ink is applied to the pendant surface and the metal shows through as the image. A shatterproof liquid glass coating seals the surface.

Personalization and Engraving

The optional engraving on the reverse is rendered in Tangerine cursive. Two lines, up to 20 characters each. Hildegard left behind more quotable lines than almost any saint in the catalog. Two that fit: "I am a feather" and "on God's breath."

Saint Hildegard of Bingen's feast day is September 17. She was 42 years old when she finally began writing. Everything she is known for came after that.