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De Spiritu Sancto Antiphon Fragment

Hildegard von Bingen

A fragment of Hildegard's chant to the Holy Spirit, written in the neumatic notation used to record her music.

This is Hildegard's own musical composition, showing her creative work as a composer of sacred chant.

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Printed musical notation of the antiphon 'De Spiritu Sancto' on staff lines, with the large decorated initial S and Latin text 'Spiritus Sanctus vivificans vita, movens omnia, et radix est in omni creatu-'. Black notes on five-line staves.
Fragment of the antiphon 'De Spiritu Sancto', attributed to Hildegard von Bingen.

About this source

What it is

This is a fragment of an antiphon, a short chant sung in church services, titled De Spiritu Sancto (On the Holy Spirit). It was composed by Hildegard of Bingen and preserves the musical notation, called neumes, used in the twelfth century to mark pitch and rhythm.

Why it matters

Hildegard was one of the few medieval women whose music survives with her name attached. This fragment shows her skill as a composer as well as a writer, and reveals how religious women expressed theology through song rather than only prose.

Look closer

  • What do the shapes above the text tell a singer to do?
  • Why might chant have been an important way for a nun to share her ideas?
  • What does the decorated initial letter suggest about how valued this text was?

This document is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Hildegard of Bingen on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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