Where the river Glan flows into the river Nahe, the Disibodenberg rises up from the surrounding countryside. Today, the impressive monastery ruins on the wooded top of the hill still give evidence of its eventful past that is so closely connected to Hildegard of Bingen’s life story. Long before Hildegard, the Disibodenberg was a place of religious life. The name of the hill stems from the Saint Disibod who is supposed to have founded a monastery there in the 7th century. Everything that is known about the Saint today, comes from a Vita that Hildegard of Bingen composed in 1170. A worship of Disibod as a Saint had already been evidenced from the 9th century. Whether there also had been a monastery on the Disibodenberg at that time, cannot be said with certainty. Hildegard reported that it had been destroyed in the 10th century due to attacks and the negative influence of the Mainz Archbishop. The Mainz Archbishop Willigis (975-1011) then founded a Canon monastery on the Disibodenberg. Twelve Augustinian Canons who were supposed to take over tasks as ministers in the surroundings moved into the monastery. Buildings from that time, however, have not been located by archaeologists. In 1108, Ruthard of Mainz (1089-1109) finally ordered Benedictine monks from the St. Jakob Monastery in Mainz to go to the Disibodenberg. Soon after that, it would have been when the construction works on the new and spacious monastery complex started which were finished in 1143 with the consecration of the high altar of the monastery church.

For visitors to the Disibodenberg who are interested in its most famous resident, one question is especially crucial: Where did Hildegard of Bingen live and work? Historical sources alone do not give any specific details. From them we only know that Hildegard, along with her mentor Jutta, was enclosed in a stone hermitage with only one small window on 1 November 1112. Hildegard herself points out in her Vita that she could watch the construction works on the monastery church from the hermitage.

In 1985, the Landesamt für Denkmalpflege (State Office for the Preservation of Monuments) under the chairmanship of Günther Stanzl began the archaeological and architectural investigation of the area. An assumption for the location of the hermitage that was frequently stated indicated an area southwest of the monastery church. The archaeologists had to realize, however, that massive land fillings made digging here impossible. Consequently, an archaeological investigation could not take place. In 1997, a new debate on the location was started with an article by the historian Eberhard Nikitsch. He pointed out that the construction works on the monastery buildings that started in 1108 could not have been very far along in 1112. This is why he directed the view in the search for Hildegard’s first place of work to the buildings of the ancient Canon monastery on the Disibodenberg that had seemingly existed at the beginning of the 12th century. On the basis of the Vita of Disibod written by Hildegard, Nikitsch sees the monastery on a rise at the eastern side of the hill where a chapel and medieval cemetery are known to have existed. This chapel was the church of the monastery and here, in the northern side nave – according to Nikitsch – the hermits would have lived. Through a verified northern entrance they would have entered the room and received visitors as well as followed the liturgical activities in the church through a window.