Hildegard von Bingen Meeting Place

The director of the Bingen Museum am Strom (Hildegard Museum) visited the newly established “Hildegard von Bingen Meeting Place” in Niederhosenbach and was welcomed by local mayor Michael Pelke, council member Robert Saam, and former district administrator Wolfgang Hey. The museum in Bingen had already organized excursions to Niederhosenbach in previous years for events on the topic of Hildegard von Bingen. Dr. Schmandt was impressed by the presentation of the life and work of the most famous woman of the Middle Ages. He offered to include the meeting place in the museum's program planning in the future.
The two institutions want to continue collaborating on the topic of Hildegard, especially since they are connected by the Hildegard Pilgrimage Path.
Mayor Pelke reported an increasing interest in the meeting place even from foreign visitors.
Of course, the recent statements by Sobernheim teacher Gottfried Kneip regarding Hildegard's ancestry were also addressed. There was consensus that Kneip has not uncovered any new sources and that it is merely a personal assumption without verifiable new findings. Thus, it remains the case that there is no documented evidence of Hildegard's birthplace, and it can only concern her family background.
However, in 1997, the recognized historian Josef Heinzelmann made a surprising statement in a contribution to the Yearbooks for West German Regional History after thoroughly researching all available written evidence regarding Hildegard. Until then, Hildegard's family background had never been researched with the thoroughness practiced by Heinzelmann. He concluded that the holy woman most likely came from the noble family of Hosenbach, which was based in present-day Niederhosenbach.
The former district administrator invited to a historical symposium at Birkenfeld Castle in 2001 to place Heinzelmann's findings on a serious basis. Notable historians who had researched the historical background of Hildegard's lifetime for decades participated, alongside Heinzelmann. The unanimous result was the confirmation of Heinzelmann's findings, which were recognized by the expert group as a very thorough historical work. Dr. Schmandt participated in that symposium and agreed with the positive assessment, which he confirmed again during his visit. He was later followed by a representative from the Ministry of Education in Mainz. The people of Niederhosenbach see their statement about the “great probability of Hildegard's descent from the noble family of Hosenbach” as being based on serious historical grounds. The birthplace was not a significant detail in her time. Today, it is often not even known by emperors and popes.