Part 77

Goethe, ‘Am Rhein, Main und Neckar’, Cotta’s Jubiläums-Ausgabe, vol. xxix, p. 258.

Wilhelm Grimm in M. Haupt’s Zeitschrift für deutsches Alterthum, vi, p. 321, Leipzig, 1847.

In Étienne Baluze, Miscellanea novo ordine digesta et non paucis ineditis monumentis opportunisque animadversionibus aucta opera ac studio J. D. Mansi, 4 vols., Lucca, 1761-6; see vol. ii, p. 377.

Cf. J. A. Herbert, Illuminated Manuscripts, London, 1911, p. 160.

A. Venturi, Storia dell’ arte italiana, Milan, in progress, vol. v, p. 16.

We are unable to concur with Baillet, however, that there is enough evidence to suggest that the miniaturists of the Lucca MS. had consulted the Wiesbaden illuminations. Baillet, loc. cit., p. 147.

Hildegardis causae et curae edidit Paulus Kaiser, Leipzig, B. G. Teubner, 1903. The MS. was brought to light by C. Jessen in the Sitzungsberichte der kaiserl. Akademie der Wissenschaften, Mathematisch-naturwissenschaftliche Klasse, Band xlv, Heft 1, p. 97, Vienna, 1862. See also the same author in Botanik in kulturhistorischer Entwickelung, pp. 124-6, Leipzig, 1862, and in the Anzeiger für Kunde der deutschen Vorzeit, 1875, p. 175. An imperfect edition appeared in 1882 in Pitra, p. 468, under the title Liber compositae medicinae de aegritudinum causis signis atque curis.

Royal Library of Copenhagen, MS. Ny. Kgl. Saml., No. 90 b.

Experimentarius medicinae continens Trotulae curandarum Aegritudinum muliebrium ... item quatuor Hildegardis de elementorum, fluminum aliquot Germaniae, metallorum,... herbarum, piscium & animantium terrae, naturis et operationibus. Edited by G. Kraut, Strasbourg, J. Schott, 1544. The work often ascribed to Trotula is somewhat similar to the spurious medical works of Hildegard. Like them, it was probably written early in the thirteenth century. Trotula herself lived in the eleventh century, a generation or two before Hildegard. On Trotula see Salvatore de Renzi, Collectio Salernitana, vol. i, p. 149, Naples, 1852.

In the Vita, lib. ii, cap. 1; Migne, col. 101.

Migne, col. 1125. See also F. A. Reuss, De Libris physicis S. Hildegardis commentatio historico-medica, Würzburg, 1835, and ‘Der heiligen Hildegard Subtilitatum diversarum naturarum creaturarum libri novem, die werthvollste Urkunde deutscher Natur- und Heilkunde aus dem Mittelalter’ in the Annalen des Vereins für Nassauische Alterthumskunde und Geschichtsforschung, Band vi, Heft 1, Wiesbaden, 1859.

Rudolf Virchow, ‘Zur Geschichte des Aussatzes und der Spitäler, besonders in Deutschland’, in Virchow’s Archiv für Pathologie, vol. xviii, p. 285, &c., Berlin, 1860.

Reuss, in Migne, cols. 1121 and 1122, states on Theodoric’s authority that Hildegard had written a book on this subject: ‘Exstat inter libros virginis fatidicae superstites opus argumenti partim physici partim medici, “De natura hominis, elementorum diversarumque creaturarum” in quo, ut Theodoricus idem fusius exponit, secreta naturae prophetico spiritu manifestavit.’ But Theodoric does not in fact anywhere speak of a special work with this title or of this character. What he does write is as follows (Vita, lib. ii, cap. i, Migne, col. 101): ‘Igitur beata virgo ... librum visionum ... consummavit et quaedam de natura hominis et elementorum, diversarumque creaturarum, et quomodo homini ex his succurrendum sit, aliaque multa secreta prophetico spiritu manifestavit.’

Migne, cols. 1212 and 1213.

As detailed in the Liber vitae meritorum, Pitra, p. 228, and in many places in the Liber divinorum operum and Scivias.

An exception must be made for the lingua ignota, which is presumably hers. The absence of Germanisms in her other writings may be partly due to the work of an editor. See the Vita by Theodoric, Migne, col. 101. Also the birth scene (see chapter ix below) is perhaps adapted from a German folk-tale.

Johannes Trithemius, Chronicon insigne Monasterii Hirsaugensis, Ordinis St. Benedicti, Basel, 1559, p. 174.

Migne, col. 384.

It is not enough to suppose with some of her biographers that the visions were dictated by Hildegard and were latinized by a secretary. The visions imply a good deal of study and considerable book-learning. Among many reasons for believing that she had a very serviceable knowledge of Latin are the following:

(a) She was well acquainted with the Biblical writings and quotes them aptly and frequently.

(b) She was regarded by her contemporaries as an authority on scriptural interpretation and on Church discipline, and was frequently consulted by them on these subjects.

(c) She pleaded in person before clerical tribunals.

(d) One of the least remarkable and most credible of her ‘miracles’, the expounding of certain letters found upon an altar-cloth (Migne, col. 121), depends entirely on a knowledge of Latin.

(e) In the Liber divinorum operum (Migne, col. 922) she writes ‘firmamentum celum nominavit quoniam omnia excellit’, a derivation taken from Isidore and incomprehensible to one ignorant of Latin. There are many other passages in her works in which the sense depends on the Latin usage of a word.

(f) No mention of this ignorance is made by Guibert in the short sketch of her life that he wrote almost immediately after her death (1180; see Pitra, p. 407). On the contrary, he suggests that she had been an industrious student.

(g) The Liber divinorum operum may especially be pointed out among her works as betraying a very considerable degree of learning. Notably her elaborate doctrine of the macrocosm and microcosm must have involved extensive reading.

The general question of Hildegard’s knowledge of Latin has also been discussed by Pitra and by Albert Battandier in the Revue des questions historiques, vol. xxxiii, p. 395, Paris, 1883.

See chapter viii.