Hildegard of Bingen was one of the most important thinkers of the middle ages, and remains famous today, nearly 850 year after her death, thanks to her beautiful music and extensive religious writings. Although these achievements are well known, she was also responsible for creating something more cryptic: Hildegard invented her own language and script, known as her Unknown Language and Unknown Letters (lingua ignota and litterae ignotae).
Born in 1098, probably in Bermersheim, Germany, when Hildegard was around fourteen, her parents sent her to become an anchoress – a religious recluse – at the Benedictine Monastery of Disibodenberg. Twenty years later, she was in charge of the convent. Throughout this time, Hildegard experienced visions, but she kept them secret from almost everyone she knew.
Hildegard of Bingen’s Lingua Ignota. From the Riesencodex. Folio 462r, Hs.2, Hochschul- und Landesbibliothek RheinMain. Credit: Hochschul- und Landesbibliothek RheinMain / CC BY 4.0
This all changed in 1140, at the age of forty-two, when a burning light entered her heart and mind, dramatically enhancing her ability to understand the Bible, and a voice told her to share her visions with the world – to write down everything that she had seen and heard. Over the next decade, Hildegard did as the voice had requested, writing a book called Scivias, which detailed her visions, and was read by Pope Eugene III, gaining his support.
It was after these events, sometime between 1150 and 1158, that Hildegard developed her Unknown Language. This is essentially a word list, presenting 1,011 nouns, from the most divine to everything below. Her word for angel is “Aiganz” (or “Aleganz” in another version), for example, while the devil is “Diuueliz.” Her word for duck is “Luschia” and vestment is “Scolmiz.” To create her words, Hildegard appears to have been inspired by German and Latin, while her word choice was probably modelled on dictionary-like works called summaria.
The Summarium Heinrici, a word list popular in twelfth century Germany, was perhaps a major source of inspiration. She may have also been influenced by Raban Maur’s De inventione linguarum, which presents various alphabets and secret writing systems. For the moment, Hildegard’s only known use of her Unknown Language is in her song, “O Orzchis Ecclesia.”
The Litterae Ignotae from Hildegard’s Riesencodex, Folio 464v, Hs. 2, Hochschul- und Landesbibliothek RheinMain. Credit: Hochschul- und Landesbibliothek RheinMain / CC BY 4.0
Hildegard’s Unknown Letters, meanwhile, consists of twenty-three symbols, each representing a letter of the alphabet, but with j, v, and w missing. Although we cannot say for certain what influenced her symbol designs, there are some similarities to Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew, as well as to what would later be called “Theban Writing.” Only a few examples of Hildegard using her Unknown Letters survive. In one letter, written sometime between 1153 and 1154, she used her creation to name its intended recipients: the monks of Zwiefalten in south-west Germany. No one knows why she chose to write these words in her special characters, but it may have been an attempt to hide the addressees from prying eyes, given that she is critical of the monks. In another letter, she appears to use her symbols to address a bishop.
Why Hildegard invented these words and letters is hard to say, but it is clear that she saw them as divinely inspired – they came to her in a vision – and she mentioned both in a letter to Pope Anastasius in 1153. She may have believed that virgins spoke this language in heaven, it has been suggested, or perhaps it was a result of her speaking in tongues (though her doing so is nowhere recorded). It may have been the language of Adam – the perfect language that existed at creation – or a form of cryptography, used by Hildegard to communicate with her nuns in private. It is also possible that she invented her words to replace Greek (a language that she did not speak) in her poetry, highlighting her special connection to the divine.
Illumination from Hildegard’s Scivias (1151) showing her receiving a vision and dictating to teacher Volmar
Whatever the case may be, Hildegard was not alone in experimenting with language and symbols. Medieval scribes used Greek letters, runes, and even imaginary scripts to write their names in the manuscripts they produced – this all added to their pages’ beauty. They also used secret writing systems like Notae Bonifatii, in which dots replace vowels, and the Caesar Cipher, swapping letters for those immediately after them (“a” becoming “b”, for example). To the uninitiated, shorthand (such as Tironian Notes) can also appear like a secret writing system.
After Hildegard’s death, at the age of eighty-one in 1179, copies of her Unknown Language and Unknown Letters were included in three compilations of her works. Only two of these have survived to the present day (there were originally three, but one vanished from the Austrian National Library in Vienna between 1800 and 1830). One of these manuscripts is in the Berlin State Library collection; while the other, known as the Riesencodex, meaning “Giant Codex” (it weighs a massive 15 kilograms), survived the bombing of Dresden and is now kept safely in Wiesbaden’s state library.
By Garry Shaw
Hildegard of Bingen was one of the most important thinkers of the middle ages, and remains famous today, nearly 850 year after her death, thanks to her beautiful music and extensive religious writings. Although these achievements are well known, she was also responsible for creating something more cryptic: Hildegard invented her own language and script, known as her Unknown Language and Unknown Letters (lingua ignota and litterae ignotae).
Born in 1098, probably in Bermersheim, Germany, when Hildegard was around fourteen, her parents sent her to become an anchoress – a religious recluse – at the Benedictine Monastery of Disibodenberg. Twenty years later, she was in charge of the convent. Throughout this time, Hildegard experienced visions, but she kept them secret from almost everyone she knew.
This all changed in 1140, at the age of forty-two, when a burning light entered her heart and mind, dramatically enhancing her ability to understand the Bible, and a voice told her to share her visions with the world – to write down everything that she had seen and heard. Over the next decade, Hildegard did as the voice had requested, writing a book called Scivias, which detailed her visions, and was read by Pope Eugene III, gaining his support.
It was after these events, sometime between 1150 and 1158, that Hildegard developed her Unknown Language. This is essentially a word list, presenting 1,011 nouns, from the most divine to everything below. Her word for angel is “Aiganz” (or “Aleganz” in another version), for example, while the devil is “Diuueliz.” Her word for duck is “Luschia” and vestment is “Scolmiz.” To create her words, Hildegard appears to have been inspired by German and Latin, while her word choice was probably modelled on dictionary-like works called summaria.
The Summarium Heinrici, a word list popular in twelfth century Germany, was perhaps a major source of inspiration. She may have also been influenced by Raban Maur’s De inventione linguarum, which presents various alphabets and secret writing systems. For the moment, Hildegard’s only known use of her Unknown Language is in her song, “O Orzchis Ecclesia.”
Hildegard’s Unknown Letters, meanwhile, consists of twenty-three symbols, each representing a letter of the alphabet, but with j, v, and w missing. Although we cannot say for certain what influenced her symbol designs, there are some similarities to Greek, Aramaic, and Hebrew, as well as to what would later be called “Theban Writing.” Only a few examples of Hildegard using her Unknown Letters survive. In one letter, written sometime between 1153 and 1154, she used her creation to name its intended recipients: the monks of Zwiefalten in south-west Germany. No one knows why she chose to write these words in her special characters, but it may have been an attempt to hide the addressees from prying eyes, given that she is critical of the monks. In another letter, she appears to use her symbols to address a bishop.
Why Hildegard invented these words and letters is hard to say, but it is clear that she saw them as divinely inspired – they came to her in a vision – and she mentioned both in a letter to Pope Anastasius in 1153. She may have believed that virgins spoke this language in heaven, it has been suggested, or perhaps it was a result of her speaking in tongues (though her doing so is nowhere recorded). It may have been the language of Adam – the perfect language that existed at creation – or a form of cryptography, used by Hildegard to communicate with her nuns in private. It is also possible that she invented her words to replace Greek (a language that she did not speak) in her poetry, highlighting her special connection to the divine.
Whatever the case may be, Hildegard was not alone in experimenting with language and symbols. Medieval scribes used Greek letters, runes, and even imaginary scripts to write their names in the manuscripts they produced – this all added to their pages’ beauty. They also used secret writing systems like Notae Bonifatii, in which dots replace vowels, and the Caesar Cipher, swapping letters for those immediately after them (“a” becoming “b”, for example). To the uninitiated, shorthand (such as Tironian Notes) can also appear like a secret writing system.
After Hildegard’s death, at the age of eighty-one in 1179, copies of her Unknown Language and Unknown Letters were included in three compilations of her works. Only two of these have survived to the present day (there were originally three, but one vanished from the Austrian National Library in Vienna between 1800 and 1830). One of these manuscripts is in the Berlin State Library collection; while the other, known as the Riesencodex, meaning “Giant Codex” (it weighs a massive 15 kilograms), survived the bombing of Dresden and is now kept safely in Wiesbaden’s state library.
Garry J. Shaw is an author and journalist covering archaeology, history, and world heritage. He is the author of Cryptic, From Voynich to the Angel Diaries, the Story of the World’s Mysterious Manuscripts, is published by Yale University Press. You can follow him on X @GarryShawEgypt and on Tiktok @GarryJShaw. His website is: https://www.garryjshaw.com/
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