SOURCE: Charles Singer, "The Scientific Views and Visions of Saint Hildegard (1098-1180)," in Studies in the History and Method of Science, edited by Charles Singer, Oxford at the Clarendon Press, 1917, pp. 1-58.

[In the following excerpt, Singer focuses on Hildegard's scientific thought, examining the sources of her scientific ideas, her conception of the structure of the material universe, and her theological interpretation of nature and the human body.]

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.…

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.¹ 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'.² 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 Hildegard³ may be safely discounted and set down to the wish to magnify the element of inspiration.⁴ 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.⁵

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.⁶ 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.⁷ 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.⁸ 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,⁹ and suggested also her views on the generation of man,¹⁰ on the effects of wind on health,¹¹ and on the influence of the stars.¹²

On the subject of the form of the earth Hildegard expressed herself definitely as a spherist,¹³ 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.¹⁴ 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),¹⁵ 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,¹⁶ 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).¹⁷ 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.¹⁸ 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,¹⁹ 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.

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.

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 Meritorum²⁰ bear resemblance to the work of her contemporary Benedictine, the monk Alberic the younger of Monte Cassino, to whom Dante also became indebted.²¹

Hildegard repeatedly assures us that most of her knowledge was revealed to her in waking visions. Some of these … 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;²² 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 1870.²³ 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.

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,²⁴ 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. 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.²⁵

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,²⁶ 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.²⁷ The nature of the antipodean inversion of climates was clearly grasped by her contemporary, Herrade de Landsberg.

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,²⁸ 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.²⁹ Her whole scheme presents analogies as well as contrasts to that of her kindred spirit Dante.³⁰ 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.

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.³¹

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.

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.

'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'.³²

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,³³ which was disturbed by that catastrophe,³⁴ 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. Thus mingled they will remain until subjected to the melting-pot of the Last Judgement,³⁵ 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.³⁶

'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 har̀mony 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. 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'.³⁷

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,³⁸ 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).³⁹ 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'.⁴⁰

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'.

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.'⁴¹ The source of the blast is represented in the Lucca MS. as the head of a supernatural being with a human face.

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.

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.⁴²

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:

'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.'⁴³

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.'⁴⁴

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,⁴⁵ but we pass to the description of the structure of the macrocosm itself, to which the second vision is devoted. 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'.⁴⁶ The zones of this disk are then described. They are from without inwards:

1. The lucidus ignis, containing the three outer planets, the sixteen principal fixed stars, and the south wind.
2. The ignis niger, containing the sun, the north wind, and the materials of thunder, lightning, and hail.
3. The purus aether, containing the west wind, the moon, the two inner planets, and certain fixed stars.
4. The aer aquosus, containing the east wind.
5. The fortis et albus lucidusque aer, where certain other fixed stars are placed.
6. 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."'⁴⁷

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.⁴⁸ The conception is illustrated and made comprehensible by the miniatures in the Lucca MS.

'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.'⁴⁹

The third vision is devoted to an account of the human body, the microcosm, 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.…

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.

'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.'…

'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.'…

'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.'…

'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.'…⁵⁰

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.⁵¹ In this composition by teacher at the cathedral school of Chartres,⁵² 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.'⁵³ 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,⁵⁴ 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.

'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, plenitudo 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.'⁵⁵

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.⁵⁶ Such figures, with the zodiacal symbols arranged around a figure of Christ, may be seen in certain MSS. anterior to Hildegard,⁵⁷ 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,⁵⁸ XVI,⁵⁹ and XVII,⁶⁰ compare with Plates VII and VIII) right down to our own age and country, where it still appeals to the ignorant and foolish.⁶¹

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'.⁶²

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;⁶³ 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.'⁶³

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).…

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.

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),⁶⁵ 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. As a similar fantastic obsession this once fruitful hypothesis still occasionally appears even in modern works of learning and industry.⁶⁶

Notes

1. 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 … is perhaps adapted from a German folk-tale.
2. Johannes Trithemius, Chronicon insigne Monasterii Hirsaugensis, Ordinis St. Benedicti, Basel, 1559, p. 174.
3. Migne, col. 384.

4. 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:

   1. She was well acquainted with the Biblical writings and quotes them aptly and frequently.
   2. 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.
   3. She pleaded in person before clerical tribunals.
   4. 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.
   5. 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.
   6. 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.
   7. 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.

5. See chapter viii.
6. It is, however, just possible that she had consulted the astrological work that had been translated from the Arabic by Hermann the Dalmatian for Bernard Sylvestris, and is represented in the Bodleian MSS. Digby 46 and Ashmole 304.
7. See Baldassare Boncompagni, Della vita e delle opere di Gherardo Cremonese, Traduttore del secolo duodecimo, e di Gherardo di Sabbionetta, Astronomo del secolo decimoterzo, Rome, 1851; also K. Sudhoff, 'Die kurze "Vita" und das Verzeichnis der Arbeiten Gerhards von Cremona, von seinen Schülern und Studiengenossen kurz nach dem Tode des Meisters (1187) zu Toledo verabfasst', in Archiv für Geschichte der Medizin, Bd. viii, p. 73, November 1914.
8. Another translation of the Almagest was made in Sicily in 1160, direct from the Greek. See C. H. Haskins and D. P. Lockwood, 'The Sicilian Translators of the Twelfth Century and the First Latin Version of Ptolemy's Almagest', in Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, xi. 75, Cambridge, Mass., 1910. It is wholly improbable that Hildegard had access to this rendering, which is only known from a single MS. of the fourteenth century.
9. De Renzi, Collectio Salernitana, vol. i, p. 485, and vol. v, p. 50.
10. De Renzi, i. 486 and 495; v. 51 and 70.
11. De Renzi, i. 446; v. 3.
12. De Renzi, i. 485-6; v. 50-2.
13. Scivias, Migne, col. 403, and Liber Divinorum Operum, Migne, col. 868 and elsewhere.
14. Scivias, Migne, col. 404, and throughout the Liber Divinorum Operum.
15. Pitra, pp. 8, 114-16, 156, and 216.
16. The work of Bernard Sylvestris has been printed by C. S. Barach and J. Wrobel, Innsbruck, 1876. His identity, his sources, and his views are discussed by Charles Jourdain, Dissertation sur l'état de la philosophie naturelle … pendant la première moitié du XII^e siècle; by A. Clerval, Les Ecoles de Chartres au Moyen Âge, Paris, 1895, p. 259, &c; by R. L. Poole, Illustrations of the History of Mediaeval Thought, London, 1884, p. 116, &c.; and by J. E. Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship, Cambridge, 1903, vol. i, p. 513, &c.
17. The works of Hugh of St. Victor are published in Migne, Patrologia Latina, clxxv-clxxvii.
18. The Kalonymos family furnished prominent examples.
19. Charles Singer, 'Allegorical Representation of the Synagogue, in a Twelfth-Century Illuminated MS. of Hildegard of Bingen', Jewish Quarterly Review, new series, vol. v, p. 268, Philadelphia, 1915. For further evidence of Hildegard's acquaintance with the Jews see Pitra, p. 216; and Migne, cols. 967 and 1020-36.
20. Pitra, p. 51 et seq.
21. Catello de Vivo, La Visione di Alberico, ristampata, tradotta e comparata con la Divina Commedia, Ariano, 1899. For a comparison of Dante's visions and those of Hildegard see Albert Battandier in the Revue des questions historiques, vol. xxxiii, p. 422, Paris, 1883.
22. Reprinted in Migne, vol. 195.
23. Herrade de Landsberg, Hortus Deliciarum, by A. Straub and G. Keller, Strasbourg, 1901, with two supplements.
24. For sphericity of earth see especially Migne, cols. 868 and 903.
25. In her later Liber Divinorum Simplicis Hominis this method of orientation is varied both in the text and also in the Lucca illustrations.
26. Migne, col. 906.
27. Migne, cols. 903-4.
28. See H. Osborn Taylor, The Mediaeval Mind, vol. i, p. 472, London, 1911.
29. Migne, cols. 904-6.
30. H. Osborn Taylor, The Mediaeval Mind, i. 468, 471; ii. 569. See also A. Battandier, Revue des questions historiques, vol. xxxiii, p. 422, Paris, 1883.
31. The Meteorologica had been translated about 1150 by Aristippus, the minister of William the Bad of Sicily. The version of Aristippus passed quickly into circulation (Valentine Rose, 'Die Lücke im Diogenes Laërtus und der alte Übersetzer' in Hermes, i. 376, Berlin, 1866), but hardly soon enough for Hildegard's Scivias, which was completed about 1150. It is, of course, possible that the references to the ignis niger are later interpolations, but this is very unlikely in view of the way in which she speaks of this vision in the Liber Divinorum Operum.
32. Migne, cols. 789-91.
33. Migne, col. 389.
34. 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.
35. 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.
36. 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.
37. Migne, col. 791.
38. 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.
39. Migne, cols. 403-14.
40. Migne, col. 751.
41. Migne, col. 791.
42. 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.
43. Migne, col. 741.
44. Migne, col. 743.
45. 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.
46. Migne, col. 751.
47. Migne, col. 744.
48. Liber Divinorum Operum, part i, visions 2 and 3.
49. Migne, cols. 752-5.
50. Migne, col. 807.
51. 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.
52. A. Clerval, Les Écoles de Chartres au Moyen Âge, Paris, 1895.
53. J. E. Sandys, History of Classical Scholarship, Cambridge, 1903, vol. i, p. 515.
54. R. Lane Poole, Illustrations of the History of Mediaeval Thought in the Departments of Theology and Ecclesiastical Politics, Oxford, 1884, pp. 118, 219.
55. Barach and Wrobel, loc. cit., pp. 5-6, 9 and 13.
56. For a general consideration of these figures see K. Sudhoff, Archiv für Geschichte der Medizin, i. 157, 219; ii. 84.
57. 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.
58. 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.
59. 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).
60. 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.
61. 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.
62. Migne, col. 757. This phrase is reproduced in a mediaeval Irish version of the work of Messahalah. See Maura Power, An Irish Astronomical Text, Irish Text Society, London, 1912.
63. The word cancer is here used, but the crab goes sideways, not backwards. By cancer Hildegard, who had never seen the sea, probably means the crayfish, an animal fairly common in the Rhine basin. It is the head of a crayfish or lobster that is figured in the miniatures of the vision of the macrocosm in the Lucca MS., and a similar organism frequently serves for the sign Cancer in the mediaeval zodiacal medical figures, as in Plate XV of this essay.
64. Migne, cols. 3, 791-2.
65. An illustration of this parallelism between Paracelsus and Hildegard is afforded by certain passages in the Labyrinthus medicorum errantium and the Scivias, lib. i, vis. 4. Especially compare p. 279 et seq. of Huser's edition of the Opera, Strasbourg, 1603, with Migne, col. 428.
66. A good example is furnished by a work of Isaac Myer, Qabbalah. The philosophical writings of Solomon ben Yehudah ibn Gebirol or Avicebron and their connection with the Hebrew Qabbalah and Sepher ha-Zohar, Philadelphia, 1888.