The main PHILOSOPHERS of the Middle Ages

In this lesson from a TEACHER, we will talk about the main philosophers of the Middle Ages. These women are trained in western monasteries and cloisters, main cultural centers of the time. There is hardly any news about lay philosophers who have dedicated themselves to intellectual work. The medieval stage is the beginning of the cultural emancipation of women, which for the first time, plays an important role in the religious ground.

But women are still considered inferior to men and excluded from higher education, opt for him mysticism. Hildegard of Bingen, Heloise of the Paraclete, Herrada of Landsberg Beatrice of Nazareth, Mechthild of Magdeburg, Margarita de Città di Castelo or Clara de Montefalco, are the main references of the philosophy of the Age Half. If you want to know more about the main philosophers of the Middle Ages, keep reading this article by a PROFESSOR.

Saint Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) is one of the main philosophers of the Middle Ages. She was a philosopher, scientist, physician, abbess, and mystic, who is also known as the

rhine sibyl wave Teutonic prophetess. Hildegard of Bingen is considered one of the most influential philosophers of the world. medieval and from the history of Western thought, and for many, with it the natural Sciences, covering disciplines such as biology, botany, zoology, paleontology, geography, biochemistry, geology, astronomy, physics ...

Hildegarda, she suffered from various diseases since she was very young, which led her to have visions. At the age of three he began to see "such a light that my soul trembled” and these visions continued for a long time. Note that she never lost consciousness or reached ecstasy.

At the age of forty-two, she had a deeper experience, and since then, moved by a will greater than her own, she begins to relate her episodes of visions. And so, Hildegarda writes her first work,Scivias (He Knows the Ways), which ends in the year 1151.

But despite the fact that the philosopher recorded her visions, she did not stop having doubts about the origin of her statements, and for that reason, she asks for advice from Bernardo de Clairvaux, illustrious Cistercian monk, whom Hildegarda defines “like a man who looked straight at the sun boldly and without fear”, In a letter in which the following lines can be read:

“Father, I am deeply disturbed by a vision that has appeared to me through divine revelation and that I have not seen with my carnal eyes, but only in my spirit. Unhappy, and even more unhappy in my womanly condition, since my childhood I have seen great wonders that my tongue cannot express, but that the Spirit of God has taught me that I must believe.”.

Heloise of the Paraclete (1092-1164) was a French philosopher of the Middle Ages, wife of Pedro Abelardo and the first abbess of Paraclet. Her mother was Hersint de Champagne Lady of Montsoreau, the one who was founder of the abbey of Fontevraud and her father, the seneschal of France Gilbert de Garlanfrom, which maintained a controversial and scandalous relationship gave much to talk about at the time.

She is considered the mother of French literature from the late thirteenth century and has been of great influence on great thinkers of all time, such as Madame de La Fayette, Pierre Choderlos de Laclos or Rousseau. However, of Eloísa's work, only a sentence of one of her poems has remained and what has been recovered from the letters of the philosopher and Pedro Abelardo.

Heloise, against her will and to please her husband, she takes the habits. Only with this condition, Abelardo would enter the religious order. In this ceremony, the philosopher recites the following as she goes up to the altar to take her vows:

“¡How impious that I was, when I took for a husband

to the one who would give me so many penalties for price!

I receive my punishment in atonement. "

I want to comply with self-denial”.

Landsberg shoe (1125 - 1195) is another of the main philosophers of the Middle Ages. She was a 12th century Alsatian nun and abbess of the Hohenburg Abbey in the Vosges Mountains and the author of the work Hortus delicieum(The Garden of Earthly Delights). Being very young, Herrada takes the habits at the Hohenburg Abbey an important religious center, where she had access to the best education for women of the time.

It was during her abbess time that Herrada began to write the encyclopedia, Hortus Delicieum, a compendium of all the sciences known at the time, and in which, describes the eternal struggle between Virtue and Vice with incredibly realistic images. Most of these images, symbolize theological, philosophical, and literary themes and have been widely studied by art experts, due to the high degree of imagination that is shown in them.

At the beginning of the manuscript, Herrada writes the following:

“Herrada, by the grace of God Abbess of the Church of Hohenbourg, though unworthy, desires grace and glory of the Lord to the sweet virgins of Christ who act faithful in his Church, as in the Lord's vineyard Jesus. I offer you this book for your holiness, which is entitled The Garden of Earthly Delights [Hortus delicieum], a flourish of various sacred and philosophical writings. I have made a set with them following divine inspiration like a bee and in praise and honor of Christ and the Church, and for your joy I have gathered everything in a single honeycomb. Therefore, it is important that you nourish yourself often from this book, relieving tired spirits with its drops of honey.l ".