The crown and the veil

Hildegard of Bingen, famous in her lifetime as a prophet and composer of music, poetry, and books, left a collection of sermons which she had given to her nuns. The purpose of this paper is to locate these sermons within the culture in which they were performed, to examine how Hildegard uses symbols in the composing of these sermons, and speculate on how this knowledge might help preachers effectively and ethically evangelize. The particular lens through which I will conduct this analysis will be the virtue of virginity, analyzing three sermons that have virginity as a major theme. This should be a sufficient witness to her artistry and her methods, and to reveal what meaning virginity had for Hildegard, and through her teaching, to her nuns. -- Abstract.