Part 79

Plate XII a. The elements are represented in their original order undisturbed by the Fall. Uppermost is the purus aether or aer lucidus containing the stars and representing the element air in Hildegard’s cosmic system. Next comes water. Below, and to the left, is a dark mass separating into tongues, one of which is formed into a serpent’s head. These tongues are flames of fire. Below, and to the right, are plants and flowers emblematical of earth. The serpent, the enemy, vomits over a cloud of stars (signifying the fallen angels) that are borne downward by the falling Adam. In the four corners of the miniature the symbols of the elements are again displayed.

Plate XIII. Above, in a circle, sits the Heavenly Judge. He is flanked on either side by groups of angels bearing the cross and other symbols. The lower circle exhibits the final destruction of the elemental Universe. The four winds and their collaterals are here subjecting the elements to the crucible heat of their combined blasts. Strewn among the elements can be seen men, plants, and animals. Between the circles is an angel sounding the last trump, and holding the recording roll of good and evil deeds. He faces the throng of the righteous who are rising from their bones, while he turns his back on the weeping crowd of those doomed to torment. Below these latter crouches Satan, now enchained.

Plate XII b. In the highest circle is the Trinity flanked to the left by the Virgin and to the right by the Baptist, with Cherubim below. In the middle circle are two groups, the Saints above and the Prophets and Apostles below. In the lowest circle are the elements, now rearranged in their eternal harmony; uppermost of these is the purus aether now separated from the aer lucidus and containing the stars; on either side are light-coloured flame-like processes representing the air; below the aether is water, indicated by a zone of undulating lines; then comes the earth symbolized, as usual, by a group of plants. Below and to the side of earth are dark-coloured flames of fire, now controlled and confined to this lowest rung.

Migne, col. 791.

See Ernest Wickersheimer, ‘Figures médico-astrologiques des neuvième, dixième et onzième siècles’, in the Transactions of the Seventeenth International Congress of Medicine, Section XXIII, History of Medicine, p. 313, London, 1913.

Migne, cols. 403-14.

Migne, col. 751.

Migne, col. 791.

The Quaestio de Aqua et Terra is doubtless a genuine, albeit the least pleasing, production of the great poet. The genuineness is established by Vincenzo Balgi in his edition, Modena, 1907.

Migne, col. 741.

Migne, col. 743.

It is outside our purpose to attempt a full elucidation of Hildegard’s allegory. The eagle in the right wing signifies the power of divine grace, while the human head in the left wing indicates the powers of the natural man. To the bosom of the figure is clasped the Lamb of God.

Migne, col. 751.

Migne, col. 744.

Liber Divinorum Operum, part i, visions 2 and 3.

Migne, cols. 752-5.

Migne, col. 807.

The work is printed by C. S. Barach and J. Wrobel, Innsbruck, 1876. The writers, however, confuse Bernard Sylvestris of Tours with his somewhat older contemporary, Bernard of Chartres.

A. Clerval, Les Écoles de Chartres au Moyen Âge, Paris, 1895.

J. E. Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship, Cambridge, 1903, vol. i, p. 515.

R. Lane Poole, Illustrations of the History of Mediaeval Thought in the Departments of Theology and Ecclesiastical Politics, Oxford, 1884, pp. 118, 219.

Barach and Wrobel, loc. cit., pp. 5-6, 9 and 13.

For a general consideration of these figures see K. Sudhoff, Archiv für Geschichte der Medizin, i. 157, 219; ii. 84.

E. Wickersheimer, ‘Figures médico-astrologiques des neuvième, dixième et onzième siècles’, Transactions of the Seventeenth International Congress of Medicine, Section XXIII, History of Medicine, p. 313, London, 1913.

The MS. from which Plate XV is taken (Paris, Bibl. nat., Latin 7028) is entitled Scholium de duodecim zodiaci signis et de ventis. It was once the property of St. Hilaire the Great of Poitiers. The legend above our figure reads, ‘Secundum philosophorum deliramenta notantur duodecim signa ita ab ariete incipiamus’. The relation of the signs to the parts of the body is different in this eleventh-century MS. from that which was widely accepted in the astrology of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries as illustrated in Plate XVI.

The MS. from which Plate XVI is taken (Paris, Bibl. nat., Latin 11229) was written about the end of the fourteenth century. It has been described by K. Sudhoff, Arch. f. Gesch. d. Med., ii. 84, Leipzig, 1910. The relation of the central figure to the signs of the zodiac in this plate bears a manifest resemblance to the relation of the central figure to the beasts’ heads in Plate vii. The lines which cross and recross the figure in Plate VII are analogous also to the lines of influence of Plate XVI. The verse above the figure in Plate XVI is taken from the Flos medicinae scholae Salerni; cp. de Renzi, loc. cit., i. 486. This Melothesia and that of the next figure is identical with that propounded in Manilius, ii. 453 (edition of H. W. Garrod, Oxford, 1911).

Plate XVII is from an early German block book. It exhibits a scheme closely parallel to Plate VII. The universe in Plate XVII is represented as a series of concentric spheres, earth innermost, followed by water, air, and fire. In the outermost zone hover the angels who have replaced the beast’s head of Hildegard’s scheme. The whole world is embraced by the figure of the Almighty, much as in Plate VII.

See E. Wickersheimer, ‘La médecine astrologique dans les almanachs populaires du xx^{e} siècle’, Bulletin de la Société française d’histoire de la médecine, x (1911), pp. 26-39.