The illustrations recorded in the book of Scivias were visions that Hildegard experienced, causing her great suffering and tribulations. Throughout her life, she continued to have many visions, and in 1141, at the age of 42, Hildegard received a vision she believed to be an instruction from God, to 'write down that which you see and hear.' Still hesitant to record her visions, Hildegard became physically ill. Hildegard was hesitant to share her visions, confiding only to Jutta, who in turn told Volmar, Hildegard's tutor and, later, secretary. Hildegard explained that she saw all things in the light of God through the five senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell, and touch. She used the term 'visio' to this feature of her experience, and recognized that it was a gift that she could not explain to others. Hildegard says that she first saw 'The Shade of the Living Light' at the age of three, and by the age of five she began to understand that she was experiencing visions. The written record of the Life of Jutta indicates that Hildegard probably assisted her in reciting the Psalms, working in the garden, and tending to the sick. Some scholars speculate that Hildegard was placed in the care of Jutta, the daughter of Count Stephan II of Sponheim, at the age of eight, and the two women were enclosed together six years later. However, Jutta's enclosure date is known to be in 1112, when Hildegard would have been fourteen. Her Vita says she was enclosed with an older nun, Jutta, at the age of eight. The date of Hildegard's enclosure in the church is the subject of a contentious debate. Perhaps due to Hildegard's visions, or as a method of political positioning, Hildegard's parents offered her as an oblate to the church. In her Vita, Hildegard states that from a very young age she had experienced visions. Sickly from birth, Hildegard is traditionally considered their youngest and tenth child, although there are records of seven older siblings. She was born around the year 1098 to Mechtild of Merxheim-Nahet and Hildebert of Bermersheim, a family of the free lower nobility in the service of the Count Meginhard of Sponheim. Hildegard's exact date of birth is uncertain. She wrote over 300 letters to people who sought her advice she also composed short works on medicine and physiology, and sought advice from contemporaries such as Saint Bernard of Clairvaux. Her Book of the Merits of Life and Book of Divine Works followed. Pope Eugene III read it, and in 1147, encouraged her to continue writing. Ordered by her confessor to write down the visions that she had received since the age of three, Hildegard took ten years to write her Scivias (Know the Ways). When Hildegard was 18, she became a Benedictine nun at the Monastery of Saint Disibodenberg. Saint Hildegard of Bingen was born into a noble family, she was instructed for ten years by the holy woman Blessed Jutta.

Saint hildegard of bingen