Epistolae: Letters to Frederick Barbarossa and Henry II of England
Epistolae
O rex, tibi valde necessarium est ut in omnibus rebus tuis prospicientiam habeas. In mystica enim visione video te quasi parvulum puerum aut quasi insanum...
Our renderingO king, it is imperative for you to have foresight in all your affairs. For in a mystic vision I see you like a little boy or some madman before the Living Eyes...
What it is
Hildegard's surviving correspondence (c. 390 letters) includes direct prophetic and spiritual admonition to Frederick Barbarossa from 1153 — warning him against misrule and schismatic papal appointments — and a separate letter to Henry II of England (dated 1154–1170) cautioning him not to follow personal will over justice. Frederick responded positively, inviting her to court for prophecies and later confirming their fulfilment. The Columbia Epistolae project and Oxford University Press three-volume edition (Baird and Ehrman) document these exchanges with full scholarly apparatus.
Why it still matters
These letters model prophetic pastoral courage — speaking unwelcome spiritual truth to powerful rulers — and serve today as reflections on the relationship between faith and political authority.
Kept alongside
De consideratione (On Consideration)
De consideratione ad Eugenium papam
Five books of spiritual and pastoral counsel addressed personally to Pope Eugenius III, himself a Cistercian monk trained under Bernard, written between 1148 and 1152. It functions simultaneously as a mirror for the supreme ruler and as a manual of contemplative self-examination, warning against the tyranny of busyness and calling the highest officeholder back to inner recollection. A manuscript copy dated c. 1465 survives at the University of Chicago; the work was widely read by reform-minded clergy and rulers who circulated it as a model for Christian governance. Bernard addressed it directly to a head of state with whom he had a personal, documented formation relationship.
Epistolae (Selected Letters of Bernard of Clairvaux)
Epistolae Bernardi Clarevallensis
547 surviving letters from Bernard constitute the most important corpus of 12th-century spiritual direction addressed to rulers, nobles, and queens. The Epistolae project at Columbia University documents his letters to Adelaide of Leuven (Duchess of Lorraine, before 1139), Eleanor of Aquitaine, Ermengarde of Anjou (Countess of Brittany, c. 1130–32), and Melisende of Jerusalem, all confirmed by the Epistolae database. Bernard also preached the Second Crusade before King Louis VII of France at Vézelay in 1146 and maintained ongoing correspondence with the Capetian court. These letters functioned as private devotional and moral formation texts for their royal and noble recipients.
Penitential Psalms and Litany of Saints (as compiled in Ottonian royal use)
Psalmi poenitentiales cum litania sanctorum
The seven Penitential Psalms (Psalms 6, 32, 38, 51, 102, 130, 143) combined with the Litany of Saints form the core private prayer structure documented directly in the Prayerbook of Otto III (BSB Clm 30111), where Archbishop Bernward of Hildesheim employed them in the young emperor's spiritual formation. This pairing — penitential self-examination before God followed by intercession from the whole company of heaven — was used by Christian teachers as early as Origen and Augustine, ordered for Lenten use by Pope Innocent III, and embedded in the Use of Sarum and successive Books of Common Prayer. Its place in the weekly devotional rhythm of the Salian and Hohenstaufen courts via their breviary traditions makes it the single most broadly transmitted prayer form in this dataset, extending across all dynasties and centuries. The sequence remains structurally unchanged in the Roman Rite today.