大象传媒

As Radio 4 changes its schedule today, to look ahead to Brexit next year, we have no new programme to offer. Here's something until next week, from 26th June 2014, when Melvyn Bragg and guests discussed one of the most remarkable figures of the Middle Ages, Hildegard of Bingen. The abbess of a Benedictine convent, she was an influential person in the religious world and much of her extensive correspondence with popes, monarchs and other important figures survives. Hildegard was celebrated for her wide-ranging scholarship, which as well as theology covered the natural world, science and medicine. She also experienced a series of mystical visions which she documented in her writings. Officially recognised as a saint by the Catholic Church in 2012, Hildegard is one of the earliest known composers. Since their rediscovery in recent decades her compositions have been widely recorded and performed. Melvyn Bragg was joined by Miri Rubin, Queen Mary, University of London; William Flynn, University of Leeds; and Almut Suerbaum, Somerville College, Oxford.