Sponheim and Rupertsberg: Where Hildegard Lived and Died

After the intensity of the Feast Day, today moves at a walking pace again — literally. The group heads to Sponheim, where Hildegard was placed in the care of her teacher Jutta von Sponheim at just eight years old, in 1106. A walk through the forest leads up to Burg Sponheim for a view from the tower, then down over the hill into town to see the Romanesque Sponheim church — one of the only buildings still standing from Hildegard’s own lifetime. Everything else on this trail is ruin, reconstruction, or memory. This one is original.

The afternoon shifts to Rupertsberg, and to the second major turning point in Hildegard’s life. Around 1150, against considerable resistance from Disibodenberg, she moved her community to a monastery she founded herself above the confluence of the Glan and the Rhine. She would live and lead there for the next thirty years, until her death in 1179 at age eighty-two. The original building didn’t survive the Thirty Years’ War, but the cellars remain intact, still used today for concerts and gatherings — which is exactly how the group will experience them this evening, with a festive church service and community dinner at St. Rupertus parish church, capped by a concert from noted Hildegard interpreter Uta Kriedler.

Registration for the September 2026 pilgrimage is closed, but we’re already planning ahead — Hildegard’s 850th anniversary falls in 2029. Join the waitlist to hear about future journeys first.