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O Ignis Spiritus

Hildegard of Bingen

A manuscript page with Hildegard's sequence to the Holy Spirit, showing her musical notation as she wrote it.

This is Hildegard's own musical composition, shown here in the notation used to preserve her chants.

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Scanned black-and-white page of a medieval musical manuscript with hand-drawn square-note neumes on staff lines and a large decorated initial letter O at the start of the sequence. The Latin text is written under the notes in two columns, with a heading at the top reading Sequentia de Spiritu Sancto.
O Ignis Spiritus, sequence by Hildegard of Bingen.

About this source

What it is

This is a page from a medieval manuscript containing O Ignis Spiritus, a sequence to the Holy Spirit composed by Hildegard of Bingen. The page shows hand-drawn square-note neumes above Latin text, with a decorated initial letter O marking the start of the piece.

Why it matters

Hildegard was a composer as well as a writer and mystic, and her music survives in manuscripts copied in her own time. This page lets us see exactly how her chants were written down, including the notation style used by medieval scribes and musicians.

Look closer

  • How is the music notation different from modern sheet music?
  • Why might the text and the notes be written so close together?
  • What does the decorated initial letter tell you about how much care went into making this page?

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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