Transcriber’s notes:

In this transcription a black dotted underline indicates a hyperlink to a page, illustration or footnote; hyperlinks are also indicated by aqua highlighting when the mouse pointer hovers over them. A red dashed underline indicates the presence of a concealed comment that can be revealed by hovering the mouse pointer over the underlined text. Page numbers are shown in the right margin. Footnotes are located at the end of the book.

The [cover image] of the book was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.

Potential problems:
The text contains numerous foreign and uncommon typographic characters. In addition to Greek, there are passages of Hebrew and Arabic text (which read from right-to-left and are normally right justified) that will not necessarily display correctly with all browsers. If some characters look abnormal, first ensure that the browser’s ‘character encoding’ is set to Unicode (UTF-8). You might also need to change the default font. Standard fonts such as Times New Roman, Georgia or Lucida Sans Unicode are sometimes adequate, but it might be necessary to use a less-common font such as Arial Unicode MS, DejaVu, Segoe UI Symbol or FreeSerif to see all characters correctly. Right alignment of the Hebrew and Arabic paragraphs will generally only be apparent with a monospaced font such as DejaVuSansMono.

Some diacritics don’t display consistently with all fonts and all browsers. For example, the Greek letter υ̑ occurs in several words and with some browsers and fonts the inverted breve is displaced towards the following letter (as might be the case here); the same anomaly occurs with macrons above letters in some old English words. The Hebrew passage contains several letters with single or double overhead dots (of uncertain significance) that can’t be replicated on screen – the passage is hyperlinked to an image of the original for anyone wishing to see it.

Roman numerals are widely used and often in archaic ways. Numerals followed by an italicised l, s, or d indicate monetary values in imperial pounds shillings and pence units, e.g. xxxiiil. vis. viiid. represents 33 pounds 6 shillings 8 pence (a space sometimes separates the numeral from the unit). The last ‘i’ (‘one’) in a roman numeral was often represented by the letter ‘j’; hence iiijd is equivalent to 4 pence, and ‘ij holownesses’ should be read as ‘two holownesses’.

Numerous portions of text enclosed within square brackets were inserted by the author (not the transcriber) for clarification or translation, as were several (sic) entries in the Hebrew and Arabic texts.

The index has many references to both page numbers and footnote numbers, e.g. 24 n. (a single unnumbered footnote on p. 24), 93 n. 3, 126 nn. 4, 5, (pages containing multiple footnotes), and also to numbered figures and plates. The original footnote numbering began afresh at 1. on each page, but in this transcription footnotes are numbered sequentially from the beginning of the book and the numbers no longer correspond to those shown in the index. Readers can locate a given indexed footnote by following the page hyperlink and counting through to the appropriate footnote marker on that page. Figure and plate references have been hyperlinked to the actual illustrations rather than to the original page numbers because many illustrations have been moved from their original position to be closer to the relevant text discussion.

Errors and inconsistencies:
Punctuation anomalies have been corrected silently (e.g. missing periods, commas and semicolons, incorrect or missing quotation marks, unpaired parentheses).

Unambiguous typographic errors such as the following, have been corrected silently:
Lexico nder-->Lexicon der
Aa-->As Chiru gie-->Chirurgie
Weisbaden-->Wiesbaden
but inconsistent spellings such as those below have not been altered:
paniculi/panniculi
paniculo/panniculo
feçe/fece
Literatur/Litteratur
literae/litterae
aligati/alligati
cf./cp.
dilatare/dillatare
dilitano/dillitano
diuidendo/dividendo
judgement/judgment

Inconsistent capitalisation of Fig. and Plate has been standardised, as has inconsistent spacing of expressions such as A.D. i.e. and § 6 (a paragraph number).

STUDIES IN THE HISTORY AND METHOD OF SCIENCE

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

LONDON  EDINBURGH  GLASGOW  NEW YORK
TORONTO  MELBOURNE  CAPE TOWN  BOMBAY

HUMPHREY MILFORD

PUBLISHER TO THE UNIVERSITY

WIESBADEN CODEX B, fo. 1 r

Plate I. HILDEGARD RECEIVING THE LIGHT FROM HEAVEN

STUDIES IN THE HISTORY AND METHOD OF SCIENCE EDITED BY CHARLES SINGER

OXFORD AT THE CLARENDON PRESS 1917

PRINTED IN ENGLAND
AT THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

INTRODUCTION

The record of men and of movements, History teaches us the growth and development of ideas. Our civilization is the final expression of the two great master-​thoughts of the race. Seeking an explanation of the pressing phenomena of life, man has peopled the world with spiritual beings to whom he has assigned benign or malign influences, to be invoked or propitiated. To the great ‘uncharted region’ (Gilbert Murray) with its mysteries, his religions offer a guide; and through ‘a belief in spiritual beings’ (Tylor’s definition of religion) he has built an altar of righteousness in his heart. The birth of the other dominant idea, long delayed, is comparatively recent. ‘The discovery of things as they really are’ (Plato) by a study of nature was the great gift of the Greeks. Knowledge, scientia, knowledge of things we see, patiently acquired by searching out the secrets of nature, is the basis of our material civilization. The true and lawful goal of the sciences, seen dimly and so expressed by Bacon, is the acquisition of new powers by new discoveries—that goal has been reached. Niagara has been harnessed, and man’s dominion has extended from earth and sea to the air. The progress of physics and of chemistry has revolutionized man’s ways and works, while the new biology has changed his mental outlook.

The greater part of this progress has taken place within the memory of those living, and the mass of scientific work has accumulated at such a rate that specialism has become inevitable. While this has the obvious advantage resulting from a division of labour, there is the penalty of a narrowed horizon, and groups of men work side by side whose language is unintelligible to each other.

Here is where the historian comes in, with two definite objects, teaching the method by which the knowledge has been gained, the evolution of the subject, and correlating the innumerable subdivisions in a philosophy at once, in Plato’s words, a science in itself as well as of other sciences. For example, the student of physics may know Crookes’s tubes and their relation to Röntgen, but he cannot have a true conception of the atomic theory without a knowledge of Democritus; and the exponent of Madame Curie and of Sir J. J. Thomson will find his happiest illustrations from the writings of Lucretius. It is unfortunate that the progress of science makes useless the very works that made progress possible; and the student is too apt to think that because useless now they have never been of value.

The need of a comprehensive study of the methods of science is now widely recognized, and to recognize this need important Journals have been started, notably Isis, published by our Belgian colleague George Sarton, interrupted, temporarily we hope, by the war; and Scientia, an International Review of Scientific Synthesis published by our Italian Allies. The numerous good histories of science issued within the past few years bear witness to a real demand for a wider knowledge of the methods by which the present status has been reached. Among works from which the student may get a proper outlook on the whole question may be mentioned Dannemann’s Die Naturwissenschaften in ihrer Entwicklung und in ihrem Zusammenhang, Bd. IV; De la Méthode dans les Sciences , edited by Félix Thomas (Paris: Alcan); Marvin’s Living Past , 3rd ed. (Clarendon Press, 1917); and Libby’s Introduction to the History of Science (Houghton Mifflin & Co., 1917).

This volume of Essays is the outcome of a quiet movement on the part of a few Oxford students to stimulate a study of the history of science. Shortly after his appointment to the Philip Walker Studentship, Dr. Charles Singer (of Magdalen College) obtained leave from Bodley’s Librarian and the Curators to have a bay in the Radcliffe Camera set apart for research work in the history of science and a safe installed to hold manuscripts; and (with Mrs. Singer) offered £100 a year for five years to provide the necessary fittings, and special books not already in the Library. The works relating to the subject have been collected in the room, the objects of which are:

First, to place at the disposal of the general student a collection that will enable him to acquire a knowledge of the development of science and scientific conceptions.

Secondly, to assist the special student in research: (a) by placing him in relationship with investigations already undertaken; (b) by collecting information on the sources and accessibility of his material; and (c) by providing him with facilities to work up his material.

In spite of the absence of Dr. Singer on military duty for the greater part of the time, the work has been carried on with conspicuous success, to use the words of Bodley’s Librarian. Ten special students have used the room. Professor Ramsay Wright has made a study of an interesting Persian medical manuscript. Professor William Libby, of Pittsburg, during the session of 1915–16, used the room in the preparation of his admirable History of Science just issued. Dr. E. T. Withington, the well-​known medical historian, is making a special study of the old Greek writers for the new edition of Liddell and Scott’s Dictionary. Miss Mildred Westland has helped Dr. Singer with the Italian medical manuscripts. Mr. Reuben Levy has worked at the Arabic medical manuscripts of Moses Maimonides. Mrs. Jenkinson is engaged on a study of early medicine and magic. Dr. J. L. E. Dreyer, the distinguished historian of Astronomy, has used the room in connexion with the preparation of the Opera Omnia of Tycho Brahe. Miss Joan Evans is engaged upon a research on mediaeval lapidaries. Mrs. Singer has begun a study of the English medical manuscripts, with a view to a complete catalogue. How important this is may be judged from the first instalment of her work dealing with the plague manuscripts in the British Museum. With rare enthusiasm and energy Dr. Singer has himself done a great deal of valuable work, and has proved an intellectual ferment working far beyond the confines of Oxford. I have myself found the science history room of the greatest convenience, and it is most helpful to have easy access on the shelves to a large collection of works on the subject. Had the war not interfered, we had hoped to start a Journal of the History and Method of Science and to organize a summer school for special students—hopes we may perhaps see realized in happier days.

Meanwhile, this volume of essays (most of which were in course of preparation when war was declared) is issued as a ballon d’essai.

WILLIAM OSLER.

CONTENTS

LIST OF PLATES

ILLUSTRATIONS IN TEXT

SCIENTIFIC VIEWS AND VISIONS OF SAINT HILDEGARD

THE SCIENTIFIC VIEWS AND VISIONS OF SAINT HILDEGARD (1098–1180)

By Charles Singer

I. Introduction

In attempting to interpret the views of Hildegard on scientific subjects, certain special difficulties present themselves. First is the confusion arising from the writings to which her name has been erroneously attached. To obtain a true view of the scope of her work, it is necessary to discuss the authenticity of some of the material before us. A second difficulty is due to the receptivity of her mind, so that views and theories that she accepts in her earlier works become modified, altered, and developed in her later writings. A third difficulty, perhaps less real than the others, is the visionary and involved form in which her thoughts are cast.

But a fourth and more vital difficulty is the attitude that she adopts towards phenomena in general. To her mind there is no distinction between physical events, moral truths, and spiritual experiences. This view, which our children share with their mediaeval ancestors, was developed but not transformed by the virile power of her intellect. Her fusion of internal and external universe links Hildegard indeed to a whole series of mediaeval visionaries, culminating with Dante. In Hildegard, as in her fellow mystics, we find that ideas on Nature and Man, the Moral World and the Material Universe, the Spheres, the Winds, and the Humours, Birth and Death, and even on the Soul, the Resurrection of the Dead, and the Nature of God, are not only interdependent, but closely interwoven. Nowadays we are well accustomed to separate our ideas into categories, scientific, ethical, theological, philosophical, and so forth, and we even esteem it a virtue to retain and restrain our thoughts within limits that we deliberately set for them. To Hildegard such classification would have been impossible and probably incomprehensible. Nor do such terms as parallelism or allegory adequately cover her view of the relation of the material and spiritual. In her mind they are really interfused, or rather they have not yet been separated.

Therefore, although in the following pages an attempt is made to estimate her scientific views, yet the writer is conscious that such a method must needs interpret her thought in a partial manner. Hildegard, indeed, presents to us scientific thought as an undifferentiated factor, and an attempt is here made to separate it by the artificial but not unscientific process of dissection from the organic matrix in which it is embedded.

The extensive literature that has risen around the life and works of Hildegard has come from the hands of writers who have shown no interest in natural knowledge, while those who have occupied themselves with the history of science have, on their side, largely neglected the period to which Hildegard belongs, allured by the richer harvest of the full scholastic age which followed. This essay is an attempt to fill in a small part of the lacuna.

II. Life and Works

Hildegard of Bingen was born in 1098, of noble parentage, at Böckelheim, on the river Nahe, near Sponheim. Destined from an early age to a religious life, she passed nearly all her days within the walls of Benedictine houses. She was educated and commenced her career in the isolated convent of Disibodenberg, at the junction of the Nahe and the Glan, where she rose to be abbess. In 1147 she and some of her nuns migrated to a new convent on the Rupertsberg, a finely placed site, where the smoky railway junction of Bingerbrück now mars the landscape. Between the little settlement and the important mediaeval town of Bingen flowed the river Nahe, spanned by a bridge to which still clung the name of the pagan Drusus (see Fig. 1). At this spot, a place of ancient memories, secluded and yet linked to the world, our abbess passed the main portion of her life, and here she closed her eyes in the eighty-​second year of her age on September 17, 1180.

Fig. 1. THE HILDEGARD COUNTRY

Hildegard was a woman of extraordinarily active and independent mind. She was not only gifted with a thoroughly efficient intellect, but was possessed of great energy and considerable literary power, and her writings cover a wide range, betraying the most varied activities and remarkable imaginative faculty. The best known, and in a literary sense the most valuable of her works, are the books of visions. She was before all things an ecstatic, and both her Scivias (1141–50) and her Liber divinorum operum simplicis hominis (1163–70) contain passages of real power and beauty. Less valuable, perhaps, is her third long mystical work (the second in point of time), the Liber vitae meritorum (1158–62). She is credited with the authorship of an interesting mystery-​play and of a collection of musical compositions, while her life of St. Disibode, the Irish missionary (594–674) to whom her part of the Rhineland owes its Christianity, and her account of St. Rupert, a local saint commemorated in the name ‘Rupertsberg’, both bear witness alike to her narrative powers, her capacity for systematic arrangement, and her historical interests. Her extensive correspondence demonstrates the influence that she wielded in her own day and country, while her Quaestionum solutiones triginta octo, her Explanatio regulae sancti Benedicti, and her Explanatio symboli sancti Athanasii ad congregationem sororum suorum give us glimpses of her activities as head of a religious house.

Her biographer, the monk Theodoric, records that she also busied herself with the treatment of the sick, and credits her with miraculous powers of healing.[1] Some of the cited instances of this faculty, as the curing of a love-​sick maid,[2] are, however, but manifestations of personal ascendancy over weaker minds; notwithstanding her undoubted acquaintance with the science of her day, and the claims made for her as a pioneer of the hospital system, there is no serious evidence that her treatment extended beyond exorcism and prayer.

For her time and circumstance Hildegard had seen a fair amount of the world. Living on the Rhine, the highway of Western Germany, she was well placed for observing the traffic and activities of men. She had journeyed at least as far north as Cologne, and had traversed the eastern tributary of the great river to Frankfort on the Main and to Rothenburg on Taube.[3] Her own country, the basin of the Nahe and the Glan, she knew intimately. She was, moreover, in constant communication with Mayence, the seat of the archbishopric in which Bingen was situated, and there has survived an extensive correspondence with the ecclesiastics of Cologne, Speyer, Hildesheim, Trèves, Bamberg, Prague, Nürnberg, Utrecht, and numerous other towns of Germany, the Low Countries, and Central Europe.

Folio 17 r col. b            Folio 32 v col. b            Folio 205 r col. b

Plate II. THE THREE SCRIPTS OF THE WIESBADEN CODEX B

Hildegard’s journeys, undertaken with the object of stimulating spiritual revival, were of the nature of religious progresses, but, like those of her contemporary, Bernard of Clairvaux, they were in fact largely directed against the heretical and most cruelly persecuted Cathari, an Albigensian sect widely spread in the Rhine country of the twelfth century, whom Hildegard regarded as ‘worse than the Jews’.[4] In justice to her memory it is to be recalled that she herself was ever against the shedding of blood, and had her less ferocious views prevailed, some more substantial relic than the groans and tears of this people had reached our time, while the annals of the Church had been spared the defilement of an inexpiable stain.

Plate III. TITLE PAGE OF THE HEIDELBERG CODEX
OF THE SCIVIAS

Hildegard’s correspondence with St. Bernard, then preaching his crusade, with four popes, Eugenius III, Anastasius IV, Adrian IV, and Alexander III, and with the emperors Conrad and Frederic Barbarossa, brings her into the current of general European history, while she comes into some slight contact with the story of our own country by her hortatory letters to Henry II and to his consort Eleanor, the divorced wife of Louis VII.[5]

To complete a sketch of her literary activities, mention should perhaps be made of a secret script and language, the lingua ignota, attributed to her. It is a transparent and to modern eyes a foolishly empty device that hardly merits the dignity of the term ‘mystical’. It has, however, exercised the ingenuity of several writers, and has been honoured by analysis at the hands of Wilhelm Grimm.[6]

Ample material exists for a full biography of Hildegard, and a number of accounts of her have appeared in the vulgar tongue. Nearly all are marred by a lack of critical judgement that makes their perusal a weary task, and indeed it would need considerable skill to interest a detached reader in the minutiae of monastic disputes that undoubtedly absorbed a considerable part of her activities. Perhaps the best life of her is the earliest; it is certainly neither the least critical nor the most credulous, and is by her contemporaries, the monks Godefrid and Theodoric.[7]

The title of ‘saint’ is usually given to Hildegard, but she was not in fact canonized. Attempts towards that end were made under Gregory IX (1237), Innocent IV (1243), and John XXII (1317). Miraculous cures and other works of wonder were claimed for her, but either they were insufficiently miraculous or insufficiently attested.[8] Those who have impartially traced her life in her documents will agree with the verdict of the Church. Hers was a fiery, a prophetic, in many ways a singularly noble spirit, but she was not a saint in any intelligible sense of the word.

III. Bibliographical Note

There is no complete edition of the works of Hildegard. For the majority of readers the most convenient collection will doubtless be vol. 197 of Migne, Patrologia Latina. This can be supplemented from Cardinal J. B. Pitra’s well-​edited Analecta sacra, the eighth volume of which contains certain otherwise inaccessible works of Hildegard,[9] and is the only available edition of the Liber vitae meritorum per simplicem hominem a vivente luce, revelatorum.

Manuscripts of the writings of our abbess are numerous and are widely scattered over Europe. Four of them are of special importance for our purpose, and are here briefly described.

(A) is a vast parchment of 480 folios in the Nassauische Landesbibliothek at Wiesbaden. This much-​thumbed volume, still bearing the chain that once tethered it to some monastic desk, is written in a thirteenth-​century script. There is evidence that it was prepared in the neighbourhood of Hildegard’s convent, if not in that convent itself. It is interesting as a collection of those works that the immediate local tradition attributed to her, and is thus useful as a standard of genuineness.[10] Reference will be made to it in the following pages as the Wiesbaden Codex A. Its contents are as follows:

1. Liber Scivias.

2. Liber vitae meritorum.

3. Liber divinorum operum.

4. Ad praelatos moguntienses.

5. Vita sanctae Hildegardis. By Godefrid and Theodoric.

6. Liber epistolarum et orationum. This collection contains 292 items, and includes the Explanatio symboli Athanasii, the Exposition of the Rule of St. Benedict, and the Lives of St. Disibode and St. Rupert.

7. Expositiones evangeliorum.

8. Ignota lingua and Ignotae litterae.

9. Litterae villarenses.

10. Symphonia harmoniae celestum revelationum.

(B) is also at Wiesbaden, and will be cited here as the Wiesbaden Codex B. It contains the Scivias only, and is a truly noble volume of 235 folios, beautifully illuminated, in excellent preservation, and of the highest value for the history of mediaeval art. It has been thoroughly investigated by the late Dom Louis Baillet,[11] who concluded that it was written in or near Bingen between the dates 1160 and 1180. Its miniatures help greatly in the interpretation of the visions, illustrating them often in the minutest and most unexpected details. In view of the great difficulty of visualizing much of her narrative, these miniatures afford to our mind strong evidence that the MS. was supervised by the prophetess herself, or was at least prepared under her immediate tradition. This view is confirmed by comparing the miniatures with those of the somewhat similar but inferior Heidelberg MS. (C).

Both the miniatures and the script of the Wiesbaden Codex B are the work of several hands. There are three distinct handwritings discernible (Plate [II]). The earliest is attributed by Baillet in his careful work to the twelfth century, while the later writing is in thirteenth-​century hands.[12] It thus appears to us that while Hildegard herself probably supervised the earlier stages of the preparation of this volume, its completion took place subsequent to her death. This view is sustained by the fact that some of the later miniatures are far less successful than the earlier figures in aiding the interpretation of her text.

The two Wiesbaden MSS. appear to have remained at the convent on the Rupertsberg opposite Bingen until the seventeenth century. They were studied there by Trithemius in the fifteenth century, and one of them at least was seen by the Mayence Commission of 1489. Later they were noted by the theologians Osiander (1527) and Wicelius (Weitzel, 1554), and by the antiquary Nicolaus Serarius (1604). In 1632, during the Thirty Years’ War, the Rupertsberg buildings were destroyed, the MSS. being removed to a place of safety in the neighbouring settlement at Eibingen, where they were again recorded in 1660 by the Jesuits Papenbroch and Henschen.[13] At some unknown date they were transferred to Wiesbaden, where they were examined in 1814 by Goethe,[14] and a few years later by Wilhelm Grimm,[15] and where they have since remained.

Fig. 2. HILDEGARD’S FIRST SCHEME OF THE UNIVERSE
Slightly simplified from the Wiesbaden Codex B, folio 14 r.

(C) This MS. is at the University Library at Heidelberg. It also contains only the Scivias, and it is the only known illuminated MS. of that work except the Wiesbaden Codex B. The Heidelberg MS. was prepared with great care in the early thirteenth century, only a little later than its fellow, but its figures afford little aid in the interpretation of the text. Thus, for instance, the Heidelberg diagram of the universe (Plate [IV]) is of a fairly conventional type which quite fails to illustrate the difficult description. The obscurities of the text are, however, at once explained by a figure in the Wiesbaden Codex B (Fig. 2): we thus obtain further indirect evidence of the personal influence of Hildegard in the preparation of that MS. The representation of Hildegard in the Heidelberg MS. (Plate [III]) shows no resemblance to those in the Wiesbaden Codex B (Plate [I]) or in the Lucca MS. (Plates [VI] to [IX]), which will now be described.

(D) is an illustrated codex of the Liber divinorum operum simplicis hominis at the Municipal Library at Lucca. It contains ten beautiful miniatures, some of which are here reproduced (Plates [VI] to [IX] and [XI]), as they are of special value for the interpretation of Hildegard’s theories on the relation of macrocosm and microcosm.

This Lucca MS. was described and its text printed in 1761 by Giovanni Domenico Mansi,[16] a careful scholar, who was himself sometime Archbishop of Lucca. Mansi concluded that it was written at the end of the twelfth or the beginning of the thirteenth century. On palaeographical grounds a slightly later date would nowadays probably be preferred (Plate [V b]).

The work consists of ten visions, each illustrated by a figure. The date, character, and meaning of these miniatures raise special problems to which only very superficial reference can here be made. Unfortunately but little work has been done on early Italian schools of miniaturists, and it is not a subject on which any exact knowledge can yet be said to exist.[17]

Of these ten miniatures we may dismiss the last five in a few words. The sixth to the tenth visions are of purely theological interest, and the miniatures illustrating them are by a different hand to the rest. They are all relatively crude products, which appear to us to resemble other Italian work of the period at which the MS. was written. We shall concentrate our attention on the first five miniatures.

The first three miniatures of the Lucca MS. (Plates [VI] to [VIII]) may be attributed to the same hand on the following grounds:

1. All have a very similar inset figure of the prophetess below the main picture.

2. The character of the principal figure of the first miniature (Plate [VI]) is almost identical with the curious universe-​embracing double-​headed figure of the second miniature (Plate [VII]).

3. The features and draughtsmanship of the central figure of the second miniature (Plate [VII]) are identical with those of the third (Plate [VIII]).

4. The beasts’ heads arranged round the second miniature (Plate [VII]) are exactly reproduced in the third miniature (Plate [VIII]).

Now although these three miniatures are in some respects unique, they contain elements enabling us to date them with an approach to accuracy. These elements are to be found especially in the central figure of the second and third miniatures (Plates [VII] and [VIII]).

About the middle of the thirteenth century, as Venturi has shown,[18] there was a well-​marked change in Northern Italy in the traditional representation of the form on the Cross. This change was followed with almost slavish accuracy, and the new form is well represented by a painting in the Uffizi Gallery (Plate [X]). It is this figure of Christ which is reproduced by our miniaturist. The central figure of Plates [VII] and [VIII] resembles that of the Uffizi crucifix, for instance, in the general pose of the body, in the position of the legs and of the arms, in the treatment of the abdominal musculature, in the method of outlining the muscles of the legs and of the arms, and in a minute and very constant detail by which the outline of the left side is continued with the fold of the groin, thus giving an impression of the left thigh being advanced on the right. Furthermore, the somewhat Byzantine cast of countenance of the figure can be closely paralleled from Northern Italian work of the same period. We therefore regard these first three miniatures of the Lucca MS. as dating from about the middle of the thirteenth century.

The remaining two miniatures (Plates [IX] and [XI]) offer special difficulties. Plate [XI] (illustrating the fifth vision) presents us with no complete human figures, except the small and probably copied inset of the prophetess below the miniature. The faces bear some resemblance to those of the last five miniatures; the wings, on the other hand, to those of the first miniature (Plate [VI]). It is perhaps possible that this miniature was the work of an early thirteenth-​century artist, and that the wings and some other details were added by a later hand. The abnormal orientation, east to the left and south above, suggests that we have here to do with some special influence.

The most anomalous of all is, however, the beautiful fourth miniature (Plate [IX]). This picture has a general feeling of the early Renaissance, though it is hard to find in it any definite humanistic element. The nude female figure in the upper left quadrant is especially striking. No parallel to it is to be found in the thirteenth-​century Italian miniatures that have so far been reproduced, and it appears to us difficult to date the miniature anterior to the fourteenth century at the very earliest. It is, in any event, by a different hand to the others. The rashes on the patients in the two upper and the right lower quadrants are perhaps an attempt to render the fatal ‘God’s tokens’ of those waves of pestilence that devastated the Italian peninsula in the fourteenth century.

Whatever the date of these miniatures, however, they reproduce the meaning of the text of the Liber divinorum operum with a convincing certainty and sureness of touch. This work is the most difficult of all Hildegard’s mystical writings. Without the clues provided by the miniatures, many passages in it are wholly incomprehensible. It appears to us therefore by no means improbable that the traditional interpretation of Hildegard’s works, thus preserved to our time by these miniatures and by them alone, may have had its origin from the mouth of the prophetess herself, perhaps through another set of miniatures that has disappeared or has not yet come to light.[19]

IV. The Spurious Scientific Works of Hildegard

The scientific views of Hildegard are embedded in a theological setting, and are mainly encountered in the Scivias and the Liber divinorum operum simplicis hominis. To a less extent they appear occasionally in her Epistolae and in the Liber vitae meritorum.

From the HEIDELBERG CODEX OF THE SCIVIAS

Plate IV. THE UNIVERSE

Two works of non-theological tone and definitely scientific character have been printed in her name. One of these was recently edited under the title Beatae Hildegardis causae et curae.[20] A single MS. only of this work is known to exist, and is now deposited in the Royal Library of Copenhagen.[21] It is an ill-​written document of the thirteenth century, and the original work probably dates from this period. It has none of the characteristics of the acknowledged work of Hildegard, and indeed the only link with her name is the title, which is written in a hand different from that of the text (Plate [V a]). Nothing could be more unlike the ecstatic but well-​ordered and systematic work of the prophetess of Bingen than the prosy disorder of the Causae et curae. Linguistically, also, it differs entirely from the typical writings of Hildegard, for it is full of Germanisms, which never interrupt the eloquence of her authentic works. Again, Hildegard’s tendency to theoretical speculation, as for instance on the nature of the elements or on the form of the Universe, finds no place in the scrappy paragraphs of this apocryphal compilation.

A second work, of somewhat similar character, is entitled Subtilitatum diversarumque creaturarum libri novem. This is clearly a compilation, and numerous passages in it can be traced to such sources as Pliny, Walafrid Strabus, Marbod, Macer, the Physiologus, Isidore Hispalensis, Constantine the African, and the Regimen Sanitatis Salerni, only the last three of which exerted a traceable influence on the genuine works of our authoress. Nevertheless this Liber subtilitatum was early printed as Hildegard’s work, along with a treatise attributed with as little justification to another woman writer, Trotula, one of the ladies of Salerno, whose name was also a household word in the Middle Ages, and was freely attached to medical writings with which she had little or nothing to do.[22] It is true that Hildegard’s contemporary biographer, the monk Theodoric, assures us that she had written De natura hominis et elementorum, diversarumque creaturarum,[23] but there is nothing to suggest that the Liber subtilitatum is intended thereby.

The modern scholars Daremberg and Reuss have edited the Liber subtilitatum as Hildegard’s composition,[24] and the work attracted the attention of Virchow,[25] but notwithstanding the authority of these names, the objections which apply to the genuineness of the Causae et curae are also valid here:

(a) The Liber subtilitatum is not included in the Wiesbaden Codex A.

(b) The phrase De natura hominis et elementorum diversarumque creaturarum, used by Theodoric as a description and by Reuss as a title,[26] would lead one to expect great emphasis on the nature of the elements and their entry into the human frame. Such emphasis is not, in fact, discoverable in the Liber subtilitatum, which, moreover, does not treat of human anatomy or physiology.

(c) On the other hand, the genuine Liber divinorum operum simplicis hominis does lay stress on these points. This is possibly therefore the work to which Theodoric refers, and to it his description certainly applies well.

(d) As in the Causae et curae, there are linguistic difficulties that prevent us attributing the Liber subtilitatum to Hildegard. Such, for instance, is the number of Germanisms as well as the marked difference from the style and method of her acknowledged work.

(e) There are statements in the Liber subtilitatum that can scarcely be attributed to our authoress. Having largely explored the Rhine basin, and corresponding constantly with writers beyond the Alps, how could she possibly derive all rivers, Rhine and Danube, Meuse and Moselle, Nahe and Glan, from the same lake (of Constance) as does the author of the Liber subtilitatum?[27]

(f) Furthermore, although that spurious work has a chapter De elementis, it reveals none of Hildegard’s most peculiar and definite views as to their nature, origin, and fate,[28] nor does it refer to the sphericity of the earth, to the vascular system of man, to the humours and their relation to the winds and the elements, or to a dozen other points on which, as we shall see, Hildegard had views of her own.

Before leaving the subject of Hildegard’s apocryphal works, brief reference may be made to the Speculum futurorum temporum, a spurious production to which her name is often attached. It exists in innumerable MSS., and has been frequently edited and translated. It is the work of Gebeno, prior of Eberbach, who wrote it in 1220, claiming that he extracted it from Hildegard’s writings. Another work erroneously attributed to Hildegard is entitled Revelatio de fratribus quatuor mendicantium ordinum, and is directed against the four mendicant orders—Franciscans, Dominicans, Carmelites, and Augustinians. It also has been printed, but is wholly spurious, and was probably composed towards the latter part of the thirteenth century.

V. Sources of Hildegard’s Scientific Knowledge

In the works of Hildegard we are dealing with the products of a peculiarly original intellect, and her imaginative power and mystical tendency make an exhaustive search into the origin of her ideas by no means an easy task. With her theological standpoint, as such, we are not here concerned, and unfortunately she does not herself refer to any of her sources other than the Biblical books; to have cited profane writers would indeed have involved the abandonment of her claim that her knowledge was derived by immediate inspiration from on high. Nevertheless it is possible to form some idea, on internal evidence, of the origin of many of her scientific conceptions.

The most striking point concerning the sources of Hildegard is negative. There is no German linguistic element distinguishable in her writings, and they show little or no trace of native German folk-lore.[29] It is true that Trithemius of Sponheim (1462–1516), who is often a very inaccurate chronicler, tells us that Hildegard ‘composed works in German as well as in Latin, although she had neither learned nor used the latter tongue except for simple psalmody’.[30] But with the testimony before us of the writings themselves and of her skilful use of Latin, the statement of Trithemius and even the hints of Hildegard[31] may be safely discounted and set down to the wish to magnify the element of inspiration.[32] So far from her having been illiterate, we shall show that the structure and details of her works betray a considerable degree of learning and much painstaking study of the works of others. Thus, for instance, she skilfully manipulates the Hippocratic doctrines of miasma and the humours, and elaborates a theory of the interrelation of the two which, though developed on a plan of her own, is yet clearly borrowed in its broad outline from such a writer as Isidore of Seville. Again, as we shall see, some of her ideas on anatomy seem to have been derived from Constantine the African, who belonged to the Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino.[33]

Hildegard lived at rather too early a date to drink from the broad stream of new knowledge that was soon to flow into Europe through Paris from its reservoir in Moslem Spain. Such drops from that source as may have reached her must have trickled in either from the earlier Italian translators or from the Jews who had settled in the Upper Rhineland, for it is very unlikely that she was influenced by the earlier twelfth-​century translations of Averroes, Avicenna, Avicebron, and Avempace, that passed into France from the Jews of Marseilles, Montpellier, and Andalusia.[34] Her intellectual field was thus far more patristic than would have been the case had her life-​course been even a quarter of a century later.

Her science is primarily of the usual degenerate Greek type, disintegrated fragments of Aristotle and Galen coloured and altered by the customary mediaeval attempts to bring theory into line with scriptural phraseology, though a high degree of independence is obtained by the visionary form in which her views are set. She exhibits, like all mediaeval writers on science, the Aristotelian theory of the elements, but her statement of the doctrine is illuminated by flashes of her own thoughts and is coloured by suggestions from St. Augustine, Isidore Hispalensis, Bernard Sylvestris of Tours, and perhaps from writings attributed to Boethius.

The translator Gerard of Cremona (1114–87) was her contemporary, and his labours made available for western readers a number of scientific works which had previously circulated only among Arabic-​speaking peoples.[35] Several of these works, notably Ptolemy’s Almagest, Messahalah’s De Orbe, and the Aristotelian De Caelo et Mundo, contain material on the form of the universe and on the nature of the elements, and some of them probably reached the Rhineland in time to be used by Hildegard. The Almagest, however, was not translated until 1175, and was thus inaccessible to Hildegard.[36] Moreover, as she never uses an Arabic medical term, it is reasonably certain that she did not consult Gerard’s translation of Avicenna, which is crowded with Arabisms.

On the other hand, the influence of the Salernitan school may be discerned in several of her scientific ideas. The Regimen Sanitatis of Salerno, written about 1101, was rapidly diffused throughout Europe, and must have reached the Rhineland at least a generation before the Liber Divinorum Operum was composed. This cycle of verses may well have reinforced some of her microcosmic ideas,[37] and suggested also her views on the generation of man,[38] on the effects of wind on health,[39] and on the influence of the stars.[40]

On the subject of the form of the earth Hildegard expressed herself definitely as a spherist,[41] a point of view more widely accepted in the earlier Middle Ages than is perhaps generally supposed. She considers in the usual mediaeval fashion that this globe is surrounded by celestial spheres that influence terrestrial events.[42] But while she claims that human affairs, and especially human diseases, are controlled, under God, by the heavenly cosmos, she yet commits herself to none of that more detailed astrological doctrine that was developing in her time, and came to efflorescence in the following centuries. In this respect she follows the earlier and somewhat more scientific spirit of such writers as Messahalah, rather than the wilder theories of her own age. The shortness and simplicity of Messahalah’s tract on the sphere made it very popular. It was probably one of the earliest to be translated into Latin; and its contents would account for the change which, as we shall see, came over Hildegard’s scientific views in her later years.

The general conception of the universe as a series of concentric elemental spheres had certainly penetrated to Western Europe centuries before Hildegard’s time. Nevertheless the prophetess presents it to her audience as a new and striking revelation. We may thus suppose that translations of Messahalah, or of whatever other work she drew upon for the purpose, did not reach the Upper Rhineland, or rather did not become accepted by the circles in which Hildegard moved, until about the decade 1141–50, during which she was occupied in the composition of her Scivias.

There is another cosmic theory, the advent of which to her country, or at least to her circle, can be approximately dated from her work. Hildegard exhibits in a pronounced but peculiar and original form the doctrine of the macrocosm and microcosm. Hardly distinguishable in the Scivias (1141–50), it appears definitely in the Liber Vitae Meritorum (1158–62),[43] in which work, however, it takes no very prominent place, and is largely overlaid and concealed by other lines of thought. But in the Liber Divinorum Operum (1163–70) this belief is the main theme. The book is indeed an elaborate attempt to demonstrate a similarity and relationship between the nature of the Godhead, the constitution of the universe, and the structure of man, and it thus forms a valuable compendium of the science of the day viewed from the standpoint of this theory.

From whence did she derive the theory of macrocosm and microcosm? In outline its elements were easily accessible to her in Isidore’s De Rerum Natura as well as in the Salernitan poems. But the work of Bernard Sylvestris of Tours, De mundi universitate sive megacosmus et microcosmus,[44] corresponds so closely both in form, in spirit, and sometimes even in phraseology, to the Liber Divinorum Operum that it appears to us certain that Hildegard must have had access to it also. Bernard’s work can be dated between the years 1145–53 from his reference to the papacy of Eugenius III. This would correspond well with the appearance of his doctrines in the Liber Vitae Meritorum (1158–62) and their full development in the Liber Divinorum Operum (1163–70).

Another contemporary writer with whom Hildegard presents points of contact is Hugh of St. Victor (1095–1141).[45] In his writings the doctrine of the relation of macrocosm and microcosm is more veiled than with Bernard Sylvestris. Nevertheless, his symbolic universe is on the lines of Hildegard’s belief, and the plan of his De arca Noe mystica presents many parallels both to the Scivias and to the Liber Divinorum Operum. If these do not owe anything directly to Hugh, they are at least products of the same mystical movement as were his works.

We may also recall that at Hildegard’s date very complex cabalistic systems involving the doctrine of macrocosm and microcosm were being elaborated by the Jews, and that she lived in a district where Rabbinic mysticism specially flourished.[46] Benjamin of Tudela, who visited Bingen during Hildegard’s lifetime, tells us that he found there a congregation of his people. Since we know, moreover, that she was familiar with the Jews,[47] it is possible that she may have derived some of the very complex macrocosmic conceptions with which her last work is crowded from local Jewish students.

The Alsatian Herrade de Landsberg (died 1195), a contemporary of Hildegard, developed the microcosm theory along lines similar to those of our abbess, and it is probable that the theory, in the form in which these writers present it, reached the Upper Rhineland somewhere about the middle or latter half of the twelfth century.

From the LUCCA MS. fo. 1 v

Plate VI. NOUS PERVADED BY THE GODHEAD AND CONTROLLING HYLE

Apart from the Biblical books, the work which made the deepest impression on Hildegard was probably Augustine’s De Civitate Dei, which seems to form the background of a large part of the Scivias. The books of Ezekiel and of Daniel, the Gospel of Nicodemus, the Shepherd of Hermas, and the Apocalypse, all contain a lurid type of vision which her own spiritual experiences would enable her to utilize, and which fit in well with her microcosmic doctrines. Ideas on the harmony and disharmony of the elements she may have picked up from such works as the Wisdom of Solomon and the Pauline writings, though it is obvious that Isidore of Seville and the Regimen Sanitatis Salerni were also drawn upon by her.

From the LUCCA MS. fo. 9 r

Plate VII. NOUS PERVADED BY THE GODHEAD EMBRACING THE MACROCOSM WITH THE MICROCOSM

Her figure of the Church in the Scivias reminds us irresistibly of Boethius’ vision of the gracious feminine form of Philosophy. Again, the visions of the punishments of Hell which Hildegard recounts in the Liber Vitae Meritorum[48] bear resemblance to the work of her contemporary Benedictine, the monk Alberic the younger of Monte Cassino, to whom Dante also became indebted.[49]

Hildegard repeatedly assures us that most of her knowledge was revealed to her in waking visions. Some of these we shall seek to show had a pathological basis, probably of a migrainous character, and she was a sufferer from a condition that would nowadays probably be classified as hystero-​epilepsy. Too much stress, however, can easily be laid on the ecstatic presentment of her scientific views. Visions, it must be remembered, were ‘the fashion’ at the period, and were a common literary device. Her contemporary Benedictine sister, Elizabeth of Schönau, as well as numerous successors, as for example Gertrude of Robersdorf, adopted the same mechanism. The use of the vision for this purpose remained popular for centuries, and we may say of these writers, as Ampère says of Dante, that ‘the visions gave not the genius nor the poetic inspiration, but the form merely in which they were realized’.

The contemporaries of Hildegard who provide the closest analogy to her are Elizabeth of Schönau (died 1165), whose visions are recounted in her life by Eckbertus;[50] and Herrade de Landsberg, Abbess of Hohenburg in Alsace, the priceless MS. of whose Hortus Deliciarum was destroyed by the Germans in the siege of Strasbourg in 1870.[51] With Elizabeth of Schönau, who lived in her neighbourhood, Hildegard was in frequent correspondence. With Herrade she had, so far as is known, no direct communication; but the two were contemporary, lived not very far apart, and under similar political and cultural conditions. Elizabeth’s visions present some striking analogies to those of Hildegard, while the figures of Herrade, of which copies have fortunately survived, often suggest the illustrations of the Wiesbaden or of the Lucca MSS.

VI. The Structure of the Material Universe

To the student of the history of science, Hildegard’s beliefs as to the nature and structure of the universe are among the most interesting that she has to impart. Her earlier theories are in some respects unique among mediaeval writers, and we possess in the Wiesbaden Codex B a diagram enabling us to interpret her views with a definiteness and certainty that would otherwise be impossible.

Hildegard’s universe is geocentric, and consists of a spherical earth,[52] around which are arranged a number of concentric shells or zones. The inner zones are spherical, the outer oval, and the outermost of all egg-​shaped, with one end prolonged and more pointed than the other Fig. ([2]). The concentric structure is a commonplace of mediaeval science, and is encountered, for instance, in the works of Bede, Isidore, Alexander of Neckam, Roger Bacon, Albertus Magnus, and Dante. To all these writers, however, the universe is spherical. The egg-​shape is peculiar to Hildegard. Many of the Mappaemundi of the Beatus and other types exhibit the surface of the habitable earth itself as oval, and it was from such charts that Hildegard probably gained her conception of an oval universe. In her method of orientation also she follows these maps, placing the east at the top of the page where we are accustomed to place the north.[53]

It is unfortunate that she does not deal with geography in the restricted sense, and so we are not in full possession of her views on the antipodes, a subject of frequent derision to patristic and of misconception to scholastic writers. She does, however, vaguely refer to the inversion of seasons and climates in the opposite hemisphere,[54] though she confuses the issue by the adoption of a theory widespread in the Middle Ages and reproduced in the Divina Commedia, that the antipodean surface of the earth is uninhabitable, since it is either beneath the ocean or in the mouth of the Dragon[55] (Plate [XI], cp. Fig. [4]). The nature of the antipodean inversion of climates was clearly grasped by her contemporary, Herrade de Landsberg (Fig. [5]).

Hildegard’s views as to the internal structure of the terrestrial sphere are also somewhat difficult to follow. Her obscure and confused doctrine of Purgatory and Hell has puzzled other writers besides ourselves,[56] nor need we consider it here, but she held that the interior of the earth contained two vast spaces shaped like truncated cones, where punishment was meted out and whence many evil things had issue.[57] Her whole scheme presents analogies as well as contrasts to that of her kindred spirit Dante.[58] Hildegard, however, who died before the thirteenth century had dawned, presents us with a scheme far less definite and elaborated than that of her great successor, who had all the stores of the golden age of scholasticism on which to draw.

In Hildegard’s first diagram of the universe, which is of the nature of an ‘optical section’, the world, the sphaera elementorum of Johannes Sacro Bosco and other mediaeval writers, is diagrammatically represented as compounded of earth, air, fire, and water confusedly mixed in what her younger contemporary, Alexander of Neckam (1157–1217), calls ‘a certain concordant discord of the elements’. In the illustrations to the Wiesbaden Codex B the four elements have each a conventional method of representation, which appears again and again in the different miniatures (Fig. [2] and Plates [XII] and [XIII]).

Around this world with its four elements is spread the atmosphere, the aer lucidus or alba pellis, diagrammatically represented, like the earth which it enwraps, as circular. Through this alba pellis no creature of earth can penetrate. Beyond are ranged in order four further shells or zones. Each zone contains one of the cardinal winds, and each cardinal wind is accompanied by two accessory winds, represented in the traditional fashion by the breath of supernatural beings.

Of the four outer zones the first is the aer aquosus, also round, from which blows the east wind. In the outer part of the aer aquosus float the clouds, and according as they contract or expand or are blown aside, the heavenly bodies above are revealed or concealed.

Enwrapping the aer aquosus is the purus aether, the widest of all the zones. The long axis of this, as of the remaining outer shells, is in the direction from east to west, thus determining the path of movement of the heavenly bodies. Scattered through the purus aether are the constellations of the fixed stars, and arranged along the long axis are the moon and the two inner planets. From this zone blows the west wind. The position and constitution of this purus aether is evidently the result of some misinterpretation of Aristotelian writings.

The next zone, the umbrosa pellis or ignis niger, is a narrow dark shell, whence proceed the more dramatic meteorological events. Here, following on the hints of the Wisdom of Solomon (chap. v) and the Book of Job (chap. xxxviii), are situated the diagrammatically portrayed treasuries of lightning and of hail. From here the tempestuous north wind bursts forth. This ignis niger is clearly comparable to the dry earthy exhalation that works of the Peripatetic school regard as given off by the outer fiery zone. The presence of the ignis niger thus suggests some contact on the part of the authoress with the teaching of the Meteorologica of Aristotle.[59]

The outermost layer of all is a mass of flames, the lucidus ignis. Here are the sun and the three outer planets, and from here the south wind pours its scorching breath (Fig. [2]).

The movements of the four outer zones around each other, carrying the heavenly bodies with them, are attributed to the winds in each zone. The seasonal variations in the movements of the heavenly bodies, along with the recurring seasons themselves, are also determined by the prevalent winds, which, acting as the motive power upon the various zones, form a celestial parallelogram of forces. In this way is ingeniously explained also why in spring the days lengthen and in autumn they shorten until in either case an equinox is reached (Fig. [2]).

‘I looked and behold the east and the south wind with their collaterals, moving the firmament by the power of their breath, caused it to revolve over the earth from east to west; and in the same way the west and north winds and their collaterals, receiving the impulse and projecting their blast, thrust it back again from west to east....

‘I saw also that as the days began to lengthen, the south wind and his collaterals gradually raised the firmament in the southern zone upwards towards the north, until the days ceased to grow longer. Then when the days began to shorten, the north wind with his collaterals, shrinking from the brightness of the sun, drove the firmament back gradually southward until by reason of the lengthening days the south wind began yet again to raise it up’[60] (Plates [VII] and [VIII]).

Intimately bound up not only with her theory of the nature and structure of the universe but also with her eschatological beliefs is Hildegard’s doctrine of the elements. Before the fall of man these were arranged in a harmony,[61] which was disturbed by that catastrophe (Plate [XII a]),[62] so that they have since remained in the state of mingled confusion in which we always encounter them on the terrestrial globe. This mistio, to use the mediaeval Aristotelian term, is symbolized by the irregular manner in which the elements are represented in the central sphere of the diagram of the universe (Fig. [2]). Thus mingled they will remain until subjected to the melting-​pot of the Last Judgement (Plate [XIII]),[63] when they will emerge in a new and eternal harmony, no longer mixed as matter, but separate and pure, parts of the new heaven and the new earth (Plate [XII b]).[64]

‘But the heavens and the earth, which are now,... are kept in store and reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.... But the day of the Lord will come ... in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.... Nevertheless we, according to his promise, look for new heavens and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness’ (2 Peter iii. 7, 10, and 13).

So Hildegard, acting on a scriptural hint, is enabled to dematerialize her doctrine of the after-​things.

But although since man’s fall the elements have lost their order and their harmony on this terrestrial orb, yet is that harmony still in part preserved in the celestial spheres that encircle and surround our globe; and water, air, earth, and fire have each their respective representatives in the four concentric zones, the aer aquosus, the purus aether, the umbrosa pellis, and the lucidus ignis (Fig. [2]). These are the ‘superior elements’ which still retain some at least of their individuality and primal purity. From each of their spheres blows, as we have seen, one of the cardinal winds, and each wind partakes of the elemental character of the zone whence it issues, and has a corresponding influence on man’s body, since each of the four humours is specifically affected by the element to which it corresponds.

‘Then I saw that by the diverse quality of the winds, and of the atmosphere as they in turn sweep through it, the humours in man are agitated and altered. For in each of the superior elements there is a breath of corresponding quality by which, through the power of the winds, the corresponding element [below] is forced to revolve in the atmosphere, and in no other way is it moved. And by one of those winds, with the agency of sun, moon, and stars, the atmosphere which tempers the world is breathed forth’[65] (Plate [VII]).

This doctrine of the relation of the various winds to the four elements and through them to the four humours is found in the De Rerum Natura of Isidore of Seville, and is occasionally illustrated in European MSS. from the ninth century onward,[66] but we meet it set forth with special definiteness in the twelfth century in the translations from Messahalah. It is encountered also in the work of Herrade de Landsberg. In and after the thirteenth century it had become a commonplace.

The description we have given of the universe was in the main set forth by Hildegard in her first work, the Scivias (1141–50).[67] Subsequently she became dissatisfied with the account she had given, and while not withdrawing it, she sought in the Liber Divinorum Operum (1163–70) so to modify the original presentment as to bring it more into line with accepted views. Thus she writes: ‘There appeared to me in vision a disk very like that object which I saw twenty-​eight years ago of the form of an egg, in the third vision of my book Scivias. In the outer part of the disk there was as it were the lucidus ignis, and beneath it the circle of the ignis niger was portrayed ... and these two circles were so joined as to be one circle.’ There was thus one outer zone representing the fire. ‘Under the circle of the ignis niger there was another circle in the likeness of the purus aether which was of the same width as the two conjoined [outer] fiery circles. And below this circle again was the circle of the aer aquosus as wide as the lucidus ignis. And below this circle was yet another circle, the fortis et albus lucidusque aer ... the width whereof was as the width of the ignis niger, and these circles were joined to make one circle which was thus again of width equal to the outer two. Again, under this last circle yet another circle, the aer tenuis, was distinguishable, which could be seen to raise itself as a cloud, sometimes high and light, sometimes depressed and dark, and to diffuse itself as it were throughout the whole disk.... The outermost fiery circle perfuses the other circles with its fire, while the watery circle saturates them with its moisture, [cp. Wisdom of Solomon, xix. 18–20]. And from the extreme eastern part of the disk to the extreme west a line is stretched out [i.e. the equator] which separates the northern zones from the others’[68] (see Fig. 3 and Plates [VII] and [VIII]).

Fig. 3. HILDEGARD’S SECOND SCHEME OF THE UNIVERSE

Reconstructed from her measurements. AB, CD, and EF are all equal to each other, as are also GH, HK, and KL. The clouds are situated in the outer part of the aer tenuis, and form a prolongation downwards from the aer aquosus towards the earth.

The earth lies concentrically with the aer tenuis, and its measurements are given thus: ‘In the midst of the aer tenuis a globe was indicated, the circumference of which was everywhere equidistant from the fortis et albus lucidusque aer, and it was as far across as the depth of the space from the top of the highest circle to the extremity of the clouds, or from the extremity of the clouds to the circumference of the inner globe’[68] (Fig. 3).

In her earlier work, the Scivias, Hildegard had not apparently realized the need of accounting for the independent movements of the planets other than the sun and moon. She had thus placed the moon and two of the moving stars in the purus aether, and the sun and the three remaining moving stars in the lucidus ignis. Since these spheres were moved by the winds, their contained planets would be subject to the same influences. In the Liber Divinorum Operum, however, she has come to realize how independent the movements of the planets really are, and she invokes a special cause for their vagaries. ‘I looked and behold in the outer fire (lucidus ignis) there appeared a circle which girt about the whole firmament from the east westward. From it a blast produced a movement from west to east in the opposite direction to the movement of the firmament. But this blast did not give forth his breath earthward as did the other winds, but instead thereof it governed the course of the planets.’[69] The source of the blast is represented in the Lucca MS. as the head of a supernatural being with a human face (Plate [VIII]).

From the LUCCA MS. fo. 27 v

Plate VIII. THE MACROCOSM THE MICROCOSM AND THE WINDS

Plate IX. From THE LUCCA MS fo. 37 r

CELESTIAL INFLUENCES ON MEN ANIMALS AND PLANTS

These curious passages were written at some date after 1163, when Hildegard was at least 65 years old. They reveal our prophetess attempting to revise much of her earlier theory of the universe, and while seeking to justify her earlier views, endeavouring also to bring them into line with the new science that was now just beginning to reach her world. Note that (a) the universe has become round; (b) there is an attempt to arrange the zones according to their density, i.e. from without inwards, fire, air (ether), water, earth; (c) exact measurements are given; (d) the watery zone is continued earthward so as to mingle with the central circle. In all these and other respects she is joining the general current of mediaeval science then beginning to be moulded by works translated from the Arabic. Her knowledge of the movements of the heavenly bodies is entirely innocent of the doctrine of epicycles, but in other respects her views have come to resemble those, for instance, of Messahalah, one of the simplest and easiest writers on the sphere available in her day. Furthermore, her conceptions have developed so as to fit in with the macrocosm-​microcosm scheme which she grasped about the year 1158. Even in her latest work, however, her theory of the universe exhibits differences from that adopted by the schoolmen, as may be seen by comparing her diagram with, for example, the scheme of Dante (Fig. 4).

Fig. 4. DANTE’S SCHEME OF THE UNIVERSE
Slightly modified from Michelangelo Caetani, duca di Sermoneta, La materia della Divina Commedia di Dante Allighieri dichiarata in VI tavole, Monte Cassino, 1855.

Like many mediaeval writers, Hildegard would have liked to imagine an ideal state of the elemental spheres in which the rarest, fire, was uppermost, and the densest, earth, undermost. Such a scheme was, in fact, purveyed by Bernard Sylvestris and by Messahalah. Her conceptions were however disturbed by the awkward facts that water penetrated below the earth, and indeed sought the lowest level, while air and not water lay immediately above the earth’s surface. Mediaeval writers adopted various devices and expended a great amount of ingenuity in dealing with this discrepancy, which was a constant source of obscurity and confusion. Hildegard devotes much space and some highly involved allegory both in the Scivias and in the Liber Divinorum Operum to the explanation of the difficulty, while Dante himself wrote a treatise in high scholastic style on this very subject.[70]

Plate X. A CRUCIFIX IN THE UFFIZI GALLERY
About the middle of the XIIIth Century.

VII. Macrocosm and Microcosm

The winds and elements of the outer universe, the macrocosm, become in Hildegard’s later schemes intimately related to structures and events within the body of man himself, the microcosm, the being around whom the universe centres. The terms macrocosm and microcosm are not employed by her, but in her last great work, the Liber Divinorum Operum, she succeeds in most eloquent and able fashion in synthesizing into one great whole, centred around this doctrine, her theological beliefs and her physiological knowledge, together with her conceptions of the working of the human mind and of the structure of the universe. The work is thus an epitome of the science of the time viewed through the distorting medium of this theory. In studying it the modern reader is necessarily hampered by the bizarre and visionary form into which the whole subject is cast. Nevertheless the scheme, though complex and difficult, is neither incoherent nor insane, as at first sight it may seem. On the contrary, it is a highly systematic and skilful presentment of a cosmic theory which for centuries dominated scientific thought.

As an explanation of the complexity of existence which thinkers of all ages have sought to bring within the range of some simple formula, this theory of the essential similarity of macrocosm and microcosm held in the Middle Ages, during the Renaissance, and even into quite modern times, a position comparable to that of the theory of evolution in our own age. If at times it passed into folly and fantasy, it should be remembered that it also fulfilled a high purpose. It gave a meaning to the facts of nature and a formula to the naturalist, it unified philosophic systems, it exercised the ingenuity of theologians, and gave a convenient framework to prophecy, while it seemed to illumine history and to provide a key and meaning to life itself. Even now it is not perhaps wholly devoid of message, but as a phenomenon in the history of human thought, a theory which appealed to such diverse scientific writers as Seneca, Albertus Magnus, Paracelsus, Gilbert, Harvey, Boyle, and Leibnitz, is surely worthy of attention.

In essaying to interpret the views of our authoress on this difficult subject, we rely mainly on the text of the Liber Divinorum Operum, supplemented by the beautiful illuminations of that work which adorn the Lucca MS. The book opens with a truly remarkable vision (Plate [VI]):

‘I saw a fair human form and the countenance thereof was of such beauty and brightness that it had been easier to gaze upon the sun. The head thereof was girt with a golden circlet through which appeared another face as of an aged man. From the neck of the figure on either side sprang a pinion which swept upward above the circlet and joined its fellow on high. And where on the right the wing turned upward, was portrayed an eagle’s head with eyes of flame, wherein appeared as in a mirror the lightning of the angels, while from a man’s head in the other wing the lightning of the stars did radiate. From either shoulder another wing reached to the knees. The figure was robed in brightness as of the sun, while the hands held a lamb shining with light. Beneath, the feet trampled a horrible black monster of revolting shape, upon the right ear of which a writhing serpent fixed itself.’[71]

From the LUCCA MS. fo. 86 v

Plate XI. THE STRUCTURE OF THE MUNDANE SPHERE

The image declares its identity in words reminiscent of the Wisdom literature or of passages in the hermetic writings, but which seem in fact to be partly borrowed from Bernard Sylvestris.

‘I am that supreme and fiery force that sends forth all the sparks of life. Death hath no part in me, yet do I allot it, wherefore I am girt about with wisdom as with wings. I am that living and fiery essence of the divine substance that glows in the beauty of the fields. I shine in the water, I burn in the sun and the moon and the stars. Mine is that mysterious force of the invisible wind. I sustain the breath of all living. I breathe in the verdure and in the flowers, and when the waters flow like living things, it is I. I formed those columns that support the whole earth.... I am the force that lies hid in the winds, from me they take their source, and as a man may move because he breathes so doth a fire burn but by my blast. All these live because I am in them and am of their life. I am wisdom. Mine is the blast of the thundered word by which all things were made. I permeate all things that they may not die. I am life.’[72]

Hildegard thus supposes that the whole universe is permeated by a single living spirit, the figure of the vision. This spirit of the macrocosm, the Nous or ‘world spirit’ of the hermetic and Neoplatonic literature, the impersonated Nature, as we may perhaps render it, is in its turn controlled by the Godhead that pervades the form and is represented rising from its vertex as a second human face. Nature, the spirit of the cosmic order, controls and holds in subjection the hideous monster, the principle of death and dissolution, the Hyle or primordial matter of the Neoplatonists, whose chaotic and anarchic force would shatter and destroy this fair world unless fettered by a higher power.

With the details of the visionary figure we need not delay,[73] but we pass to the description of the structure of the macrocosm itself, to which the second vision is devoted (Plate [VII]). Here appears the same figure of the macrocosmic spirit. But now the head and feet only are visible, and the arms are outstretched to enclose the disk of the universe which conceals the body. Although the macrocosm now described is considerably altered from Hildegard’s original scheme of the universe, she yet declares, ‘I saw in the bosom of the form the appearance of a disk of like sort to that which twenty-​eight years before I had seen in the third vision, set forth in my book of Scivias’.[74] The zones of this disk are then described (Plates [VII], [VIII], and [XI] and Fig. [2]). They are from without inwards:

(a) The lucidus ignis, containing the three outer planets, the sixteen principal fixed stars, and the south wind.

(b) The ignis niger, containing the sun, the north wind, and the materials of thunder, lightning, and hail.

(c) The purus aether, containing the west wind, the moon, the two inner planets, and certain fixed stars.

(d) The aer aquosus, containing the east wind.

(e) The fortis et albus lucidusque aer, where certain other fixed stars are placed.

(f) The aer tenuis, or atmosphere, in the outer part of which is the zone of the clouds.

From all these objects, from the spheres of the elements, from the sun, moon, and other planets, from the four winds each with their two collaterals, from the fixed stars, and from the clouds, descend influences, indicated by lines, towards the figure of the macrocosm.

The microcosm is then introduced.

‘And again I heard the voice from heaven saying, “God, who created all things, wrought also man in his own image and similitude, and in him he traced [signavit] all created things, and he held him in such love that he destined him for the place from which the fallen angel had been cast.”’[75]

The various characters of the winds are expounded in a set of curious passages in which the doctrine of the macrocosm and microcosm is further mystically elaborated. An endeavour is made to attribute to the winds derived from the different quarters of heaven qualities associated with a number of animals.[76] The conception is illustrated and made comprehensible by the miniatures in the Lucca MS. (Plates [VII] and [VIII]).

‘In the middle of the disk [of the universe] there appeared the form of a man, the crown of whose head and the soles of whose feet extended to the fortis et albus lucidusque aer, and his hands were outstretched right and left to the same circle.... Towards these parts was an appearance as of four heads; a leopard, a wolf, a lion, and a bear. Above the head of the figure in the zone of the purus aether, I saw the head of the leopard emitting a blast from its mouth, and on the right side of the mouth the blast, curving itself somewhat backwards, was formed into a crab’s head ... with two chelae; while on the left side of the mouth a blast similarly curved ended in a stag’s head. From the mouth of the crab’s head, another blast went to the middle of the space between the leopard and the lion; and from the stag’s head a similar blast to the middle of the space between the leopard and the bear ... and all the heads were breathing towards the figure of the man. Under his feet in the aer aquosus there appeared as it were the head of a wolf, sending forth to the right a blast extending to the middle of the half space between its head and that of the bear, where it assumed the form of the stag’s head; and from the stag’s mouth there came, as it were, another breath which ended in the middle line. From the left of the wolf’s mouth arose a breath which went to the midst of the half space between the wolf and the lion, where was depicted another crab’s head ... from whose mouth another breath ended in the same middle line.... And the breath of all the heads extended sideways from one to another.... Moreover on the right hand of the figure in the lucidus ignis, from the head of the lion, issued a breath which passed laterally on the right into a serpent’s head and on the left into a lamb’s head ... similarly on the figure’s left in the ignis niger there issued a breath from the bear’s head ending on its right in the head of [another] lamb, and on its left in another serpent’s head.... And above the head of the figure the seven planets were ranged in order, three in the lucidus ignis, one projecting into the ignis niger and three into the purus aether.... And in the circumference of the circle of the lucidus ignis there appeared the sixteen principal stars, four in each quadrant between the heads.... Also the purus aether and the fortis et albus lucidusque aer seemed to be full of stars which sent forth their rays towards the clouds, whence ... tongues like rivers descended to the disk and towards the figure, which was thus surrounded and influenced by these signs.’[77]

The third vision is devoted to an account of the human body, the microcosm (Plate [VIII]), with a comparison of its organs to the parts of the macrocosmic scheme, together with a detailed account of the effects of the heavenly bodies on the humours in man, the whole brought into a strongly theological setting. Some of these views are set forth below in the chapter on anatomy and physiology.

The fourth vision explains the influence of the heavenly bodies and of the superior elements on the power of nature as exhibited on the surface of the earth. It is illustrated by a charming miniature in the Lucca MS. (Plate [IX]).

‘I saw that the upper fiery firmament was stirred, so that as it were ashes were cast therefrom to earth, and they produced rashes and ulcers in men and animals and fruits.’ These effects are shown in the left upper quadrant of Plate [IX], where the ashes are seen proceeding from the lucidus ignis, the ‘upper fiery firmament’. Two figures are seen, a female semi-​recumbent, who lifts a fruit to her mouth, and a male figure fully recumbent, on whose legs a rash is displayed. The trees also in this quadrant show the effects of the ashes, two of them being denuded of fruit and foliage.

‘Then I saw that from the ignis niger certain vapours (nebulae) descended, which withered the verdure and dried up the moisture of the fields. The purus aether, however, resisted these ashes and vapours, seeking to hold back these plagues.’ These vapours may be seen in the right upper quadrant of Plate [IX]. They descend from the ignis niger, attenuate for a space in the purus aether, and then descend through the other zones on to an arid and parched land. Here are two husbandmen; one sits forlornly clasping his axe, while the other leans disconsolately upon his hoe. On the legs of the latter a rash may be distinguished.

‘And looking again I saw that from the fortis et albus lucidusque aer certain other clouds reached the earth and infected men and beasts with sore pestilence, so that they were subjected to many ills even to the death, but the aer aquosus opposed that influence so that they were not hurt beyond measure.’ This scene is portrayed in the right lower quadrant of Plate [IX]. Here is a husbandman in mortal anguish. He has gathered his basket of fruit and now lies stricken with the pestilence. His left hand is laid on his heart, while his right hangs listless on his thigh, pointing to tokens of plague upon his legs. Beyond lies the dead body of a beast on which a carrion bird has settled.

‘Again I saw that the moisture in the aer tenuis was as it were boiling above the surface of the earth, awakening the force of the earth and making fruits to grow.’[78] This happier scene is represented in the left lower quadrant of Plate [IX]. Here the beneficent fertilizing influence is falling on trees and herbs and the happy husbandmen are reaping its results.

From WIESBADEN CODEX B fo. 224 r

Plate XIII. THE LAST JUDGEMENT AND FATE OF THE ELEMENTS

The main outline of the Liber Divinorum Operum is, we believe, borrowed from the work of Bernard Sylvestris of Tours, De mundi universitate libri duo sive megacosmus et microcosmus.[79] In this composition by a teacher at the cathedral school of Chartres,[80] the gods and goddesses of the classical pantheon flit across the stage, for all the world as though the writer were a pagan, and the work might be thought to be the last one from which our pious authoress would borrow. The De mundi universitate is alternately in prose and verse and betrays an acquaintance with the classics very rare at its date. ‘The rhythm of the hexameters is clearly that of Lucan, while the vocabulary is mainly of Ovid.’[81] The mythology is founded mainly on the Timaeus. The eternal seminaria of created things are mentioned, and it has been conjectured that the work exhibits traces of the influence of Lucretius,[82] but the general line of thought is clearly related to Neoplatonic literature. Thus the anima universalis of Neoplatonic writings can be identified with the Nous or Noys of Bernard. This principle is contrasted with primordial matter or Hyle. The parallel character of the Liber Divinorum Operum and the De mundi universitate can be illustrated by a few extracts from the latter. It will be seen that although the general setting is changed, yet Hildegard’s figure of the spirit of the macrocosm is to be identified with Bernard’s Noys. Hyle, on the other hand, becomes in Hildegard’s plan the monstrous form, the emblem of brute matter, on which the spirit of the universe tramples.

From BIBL. NAT. MS. LAT. 5543 fo. 136 r

Plate XIV. DIAGRAM OF THE RELATION OF HUMAN AND COSMIC PHENOMENA
IXth Century

‘In huius operis primo libro qui Megacosmus dicitur, id est maior mundus, Natura ad Noym, id est Dei providentiam, de primae materiae, id est hyles, confusione querimoniam quasi cum lacrimis agit et ut mundus pulchrius petit. Noys igitur eius mota precibus petitioni libenter annuit et ita quatuor elementa ab invicem seiungit. Novem ierarchias angelorum in coelo ponit. stellas in firmamento figit. signa disponit. sub signis orbes septem planetarum currere facit. quatuor ventos cardinales sibi invicem opponit. Sequitur genesis animantium et terrae situs medius....

‘In secundo libro qui Microcosmus dicitur, id est minor mundus, Noys ad Naturam loquitur et de mundi expolitione gloriatur et in operis sui completione se hominem plasmaturam pollicetur. Iubet igitur Uraniam, quae siderum regina est, et Physin, quae rerum omnium est peritissima, sollicite perquirat. Natura protinus iubenti obsequitur et per caelestes circulos Uraniam quaeritans eam sideribus inhiantem reperit. eiusque itineris causa praecognita se operis et itineris comitem Urania pollicetur.... Subitoque ibi Noys affuit suoque velle eis ostenso trinas speculationes tribus assignando tribuit & ad hominis plasmationem eas impellit. Physis igitur de quatuor elementorum reliquiis hominem format et a capite incipiens membratim operando opus suum in pedibus consummat....

‘Noys ego scientia et divinae voluntatis arbitraria ad dispositionem rerum, quem ad modum de consensu eius accipio, sic meae administrationis officia circumduco....

‘(Noys) erat fons luminis, seminarium vitae, bonum bonitatis divinae, plenitude scientiae quae mens altissimi nominatur. Ea igitur noys summi & exsuperantissimi Dei est intellectus et ex eius divinitate nata natura.... Erat igitur videre velut in speculo tersiore quicquid generationi quicquid operi Dei secretior destinarat affectus.’[83]

Hildegard’s conception of macrocosm and microcosm, which was thus probably borrowed from Bernard Sylvestris, has analogies also to those well-​known figures illustrating the supposed influence of the signs of the zodiac on the different parts of the body.[84] Such figures, with the zodiacal symbols arranged around a figure of Christ, may be seen in certain MSS. anterior to Hildegard,[85] while the influence of the ‘Melothesia’, to give it the name assigned by Porphyry, has been traced through its period of efflorescence at the Renaissance (Plates [XV],[86] [XVI],[87] and [XVII],[88] compare with Plates [VII] and [VIII]) right down to our own age and country, where it still appeals to the ignorant and foolish.[89]

Hildegard often interprets natural events by means of a peculiarly crude form of the doctrine, as when she describes how ‘if the excess of waters below are drawn up to the clouds (by the just judgment of God in the requital of sinners), then the moisture from the aer aquosus transudes through the fortis et albus lucidusque aer as a draught drunk into the urinary bladder; and the same waters descend in an inundation’.[90]

Again, events in the body of man are most naively explained on the basis of the nature of the external world as she has pictured it.

‘The humours at times rage fiercely as a leopard and again they are softened, going backwards as a crab;[91] or they may show their diversity by leaping and goring as a stag, or they may be as a wolf in their ravening, and yet again they may invade the body of man after the manner of both wolf and crab. Or else they may show forth their strength unceasingly as a lion, or as a serpent they may go now softly, now violently, and at times they may be gentle as a lamb and at times again they may growl as an angered bear, and at times they may partake of the nature of the lamb and of the serpent.’[92]

Having completed her general survey of the macrocosm (Vision II), and having investigated in detail the structure of man’s body, the microcosm, in terms of the greater universe (Vision III), and discussed the influence of the heavenly bodies on terrestrial events (Vision IV), Hildegard turns to the internal structure of the terrestrial sphere (Vision V). This vision is illustrated by the figure in the Lucca MS. reproduced in Plate [XI].

Fig. 5. From Herrade de Landsberg’s Hortus deliciarum, after Straub and Keller.

Upon the surface of the earth towards the east stands the building which symbolizes the aedificium of the church, a favourite conception of our authoress. This church is surmounted by a halo, whence proceed a pair of pinions which extend their shelter over a full half of the earth’s circumference. As for the rest of the earth’s surface, part is within the wide-​opened jaws of a monster, the Destroyer, and the remainder is beneath the surface of the ocean. Within the earth are five parts analogous, as she would have us believe, to the five senses. An eastern clear arc and a western clouded one signify respectively the excellence of the orient where Zion is situated, and the Cimmerian darkness of the occidental regions over which the shadow of the dragon is cast. Centrally is a quadrate area divided into three zones where the qualities of heat and cold and of a third intermediate ‘temperateness’ (temperies) are stored. North and south of this are two areas where purgatory is situate. Each is shaped like a truncated cone and composed also of three sectors. Souls are seen suffering in one sector the torment of flame, in another the torment of water, while in the third or intermediate sector lurk monsters and creeping things which add to the miseries of purgatory or at times come forth to earth’s surface to plague mankind. These northern and southern sections exhibit dimly by their identically reversed arrangement the belief in the antipodean inversion of climate, an idea hinted several times in Hildegard’s writings, but more definitely illustrated by a figure of Herrade de Landsberg (Fig. 5).

From BIBL. NAT. MS. LAT. 7028 fo. 154 r

Plate XV. AN XIth CENTURY FRENCH MELOTHESIA

From BIBL. NAT. MS. LAT. 11229 fo. 45 v

Plate XVI. A MELOTHESIA OF ABOUT 1400

From the SYMBOLUM APOSTOLICORUM

Plate XVII. A GERMAN BLOCK BOOK
First Half of XVth Century. Heidelberg University Library

From BODLEIAN MS. ASHMOLE 399 fo. 18 r

Plate XVIII. AN ANATOMICAL DIAGRAM OF ABOUT 1298
From the Five-Figure Series. Cp. Plate [XXXIII]

Fig. 6.

Fig. 7.
MELOTHESIAE
From R. Fludd, Historia utriusque cosmi, Oppenheim, 1619, pp. 112 and 113.

Fig. 8. THE MICROCOSM
From R. Fludd, Philosophia sacra seu astrologia cosmica, Frankfurt, 1628, p. 52.

Macrocosmic schemes of the type illustrated by the text of Hildegard and by the figures of the Lucca MS. had a great vogue in mediaeval times, and were passed on to later ages. Some passages in Hildegard’s work read curiously like Paracelsus (1491–1541),[93] and it is not hard to find a link between these two difficult and mystical writers. Trithemius, the teacher of Paracelsus, was abbot of Sponheim, an important settlement almost within sight of Hildegard’s convents on the Rupertsberg and Disibodenberg. Trithemius studied Hildegard’s writings with great care and attached much importance to them, so that they may well have influenced his pupil. The influence of mediaeval theories of the relation of macrocosm and microcosm is encountered among numerous Renaissance writers besides Paracelsus, and is presented to us, for instance, by such a cautious, balanced, and scientifically-​minded humanist as Fracastor. But as the years went on, the difficulty in applying the details of the theory became ever greater and greater. Facts were strained and mutilated more and more to make them fit the Procrustean bed of an outworn theory, which at length became untenable when the heliocentric system of Copernicus and Galileo replaced the geocentric and anthropocentric systems of an earlier age. The idea of a close parallelism between the structure of man and of the wider universe was gradually abandoned by the scientific, while among the unscientific it degenerated and became little better than an insane obsession. As such it appears in the ingenious ravings of the English follower of Paracelsus, the Rosicrucian, Robert Fludd, who reproduced, often with fidelity, the systems which had some novelty five centuries before his time (Figs. [6], [7], and 8). As a similar fantastic obsession this once fruitful hypothesis still occasionally appears even in modern works of learning and industry.[94]

VIII. Anatomy and Physiology

Hildegard’s ideas on these subjects are set out in the fourth vision of the Liber Divinorum Operum, which is devoted to a description of man’s body according to the macrocosmic scheme. This setting makes her account by no means easy to read, while it increases the difficulty of tracing the origin of her views.

The list of works containing anatomical descriptions available to a German writer in the early Middle Ages is not long. Avicenna was hardly yet accessible, and only such scraps of Galen as appear in Constantine and the Salernitans. The available works may be enumerated thus:

In addition to these there was in the Middle Ages a definite anatomic tradition, which expressed itself constantly in:

From WIESBADEN CODEX B fo. 22 r

Plate XIX. BIRTH. THE ARRIVAL AND TRIALS OF THE SOUL

From WIESBADEN CODEX B fo. 25 r

Plate XX. DEATH. THE DEPARTURE AND FATE OF THE SOUL

Of these seven sources it appears to us that (c) and (f)—the short De humana natura of Constantine, and the five-​figure series—are those on which Hildegard drew. The absence of Arabisms and the scarcity of technical anatomical terms in her writings, her failure to distinguish between veins and arteries, the absence of anything of the nature of myology or osteology, together with the neglect of the spinal marrow as an important organ, make it very unlikely that she consulted Constantine’s longer works or the Salernitan authorities or the text of the five-​figure series. Her anatomical descriptions resemble those of Constantine’s shorter work, on the other hand, in the description of the three vesicles of the brain and their relations to the faculties of the mind, in the treatment of the five senses, in the view of the influence of the planets on the child and the emphasis laid on epilepsy, as well as in the absence of any distinction between arteries and veins, and in the loose doctrines of the humours and of the causes of deformities and monstrosities. In some of these respects also her account of the human body presents points of resemblance to the De hominis membris ac partibus of Hugh of St. Victor,[102] with whom, however, her contact appears to be less close than with Constantine.

We may infer that Hildegard had consulted anatomical diagrams and was accustomed to this method of representing the organs from a passage descriptive of the microcosm, in which she says that ‘in the mouth of the figure in whose body was the disk, I saw a light brighter than the light of day, in the form of threads, some circular, some in other geometrical forms, and some shaped like human members belonging to the figure, which was clearly portrayed on the disk upright and accurately limned’.[103] These ‘circles and geometrical figures’ fairly describe the highly diagrammatic manner in which the five-​figure series represents the internal organs, and several points suggest that she does indeed refer to this series. Her description of the abdominal muscles (umbilicus) ‘covering the viscera like a cap’, her general descriptions of the vessels (venae) and the muscles, and especially her account of the vessels of the leg and of the intimate relations of the main venae to the organ of hearing, fits in perfectly with the form of these remarkable diagrams (Plate [XVIII]).

We here render some of the most important of her general anatomical descriptions:

‘The humours may pass to the liver, where wisdom is tested, having been already tempered in the brain by the strength of the spirit, and having absorbed its moisture so that now it is plump, strong, and healthy.

‘In the right of man is the liver and its great heat, so that the right is swift to act and to work;[104] but towards the left are heart and lung, which fortify the body for its task and receive their heat from the liver as from a furnace. But the vessels of the liver, affected by the agitation of the humours, trouble the venules of the ear of man and sometimes confound the organ of hearing....

‘I saw also that sometimes the humours seek the navel, which covers the viscera as a cap, and holds them in, lest they be dissipated, and maintains their course and preserves the heat both of them and of the veins.... But sometimes the humours seek the loins (lumbos),[105] which mock, deceive, and endanger the virile powers and which are held in place by nerves and other vessels; in which, nevertheless, reason nourishes so that man may know what to do and what to avoid....

‘And the same humours go to the vessels of the reins and of other members, and pass in their turn to the vessels of the spleen, and then to the lungs and to the heart; and they meet the viscera on the left where they are warmed by the lungs, but the liver warms the right-​hand side of the body. And the vessels of the brain, heart, lung, liver, and other parts carry strength to the reins, whose vessels descend to the legs, strengthening them; and returning along with the leg vessels, they unite with the virile organ or with the womb as the case may be.

‘And as the stomach absorbs food, or as iron is sharpened on a stone, so do they bring the reproductive power to those parts.

From WIESBADEN CODEX B, fo. 123 r

Plate XXI. THE FALL OF THE ANGELS

‘Again, the muscles of the arms, legs, and thighs contain vessels full of humours; and just as the belly has within it viscera containing nourishment, so the muscles of arms, legs, and thighs have both vessels and the [contained] humours which preserve man’s strength.... But when a man runs or walks quickly, the nerves about the knees and the venules in the knees become distended. And since they are united with the vessels of the legs, which are numerous and intercommunicate in a net-​like manner, they conduct the fatigue to the vessels of the liver, and thus they reach the vessels of the brain, and so send the fatigue throughout the body. But the vessels from the reins pass rather to the left leg than to the right, because the right leg gets its strength more from the heat of the liver. And the vessels of the right leg ascend as far as the renal and kindred vessels, and these latter vessels unite with those of the kidney. And the liver warms the reins which lie in the fatness derived from the humours....

‘The humours in man are distributed in just measure. But when they affect the veins of the liver, his humidity is decreased and also the humidity of the chest is attenuated; so that thus dried, he falls into disease of such a nature that the phlegm is dry and toxic and ascends to the brain. There it produces headache and pain in the eyes and wasting of the marrow, and thus if the moon is in default he may develop the falling evil [epilepsy].

‘The humidity also which is in the umbilicus is dispersed by the same humours, and turned into dryness and hardness, so that the flesh becomes ulcerated and scabby as though he were leprous, if indeed he do not actually become so. And the vessels of his testicles, being adversely affected by these humours, similarly disturb the other vessels, so that the proper humidity is dried up within them; and thus, the humours being withdrawn, impetigos may arise ... and the marrow of the bones and the vessels of the flesh are dried up, and so the man becomes chronically ill, dragging out his days in languor.

‘But sometimes the humours affect breast and liver ... so that various foolish thoughts arise ... and they ascend to the brain and infect it and again descend to the stomach and generate fevers there, so that the man is long sick. Yet again they vex the minor vessels of the ear with superfluity of phlegm; or with the same phlegm they infect the vessels of the lung, so that he coughs and can scarce breathe; and the phlegm may pass thence into the vessels of the heart and give him pain there, or the pain may pass into the side, exciting pleurisy; under such circumstances also, the moon being in defect, the man may lapse into the falling sickness.’[106]

Sometimes Hildegard’s anatomical ideas can be paralleled among her contemporaries. Thus the following passage on the relationship of the planets to the brain is well illustrated by a diagram of Herrade de Landsberg.

Fig. 9. From Herrade de Landsberg’s Hortus deliciarum, after Straub and Keller’s reproduction.[107]