Source: Medieval texts & images; the monastic Rule of St Benedict

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Vespers and Nones are two of the eight “hours” of communal prayer that structure the monastic day - the Opus Dei (work of God). As a nun, ELS215 would have sung the liturgy with her community in rows of facing stalls like those pictured here. One side of the choir would sign a line of the assigned Psalm, and the other would reply with the next. 

 

Prayer is a form of work for nuns and monks, and ELS215 would likely have been assisted so that she could participate as long as she could. 

 

Learn more: Alison I. Beach, “Living and Working in a Twelfth-Century Women’s Monastic Community.” In The Cambridge Companion to Hildegard of Bingen, ed. Jennifer Bain. Cambridge, 2021.