The consecration of a church at Niedermünster, situated below the Hohenburg, also falls within the term of Herrad’s rule. A second nunnery was founded there as a dependency, which was separated from the parent house probably during Herrad’s lifetime, owing to the efforts of the abbess Edelind (1195-1200), who according to Gérard was also of the family of Landsperg[660]. The claim of this abbess to the attention of posterity rests on her having been the possessor of a still extant chased case several feet high, which she had made to hold a fragment of the Holy Cross which a camel was alleged to have brought to Niedermünster of its own accord in the time of Karl the Great. This case is covered with many figures worked in relief and is praised by art students as a curious example of early metal work[661].
The history of Hohenburg and Niedermünster in the sequel offers much that is interesting. For while the nuns at Niedermünster accepted the rule of St Benedict, the nuns on the Hohenburg persisted in their independent course. At Niedermünster a stone monument is still to be seen which experts declare to be 13th century work, and which gives a clue to the association of St Odilia with Leodgar, to whom the church at Niedermünster was dedicated. Three sides of this monument are covered with figures. On one stands St Leodgar; on the next St Odilia with long tresses, and Duke Eticho; on the third the Virgin, also with long tresses, and below her the abbesses Relind and Herrad holding a book. Both these abbesses are designated by name, and wear convent garb and wimples utterly different from the clothes worn by them in the pictures of Herrad’s book[662].
From these general remarks we turn to the great work of Herrad’s life, to which she herself gave the title of the ‘Garden of Delights.’ It consisted of 324 parchment leaves of folio size, which contained an account of the history of the world founded on the Biblical narrative, with many digressions into the realm of philosophy, moral speculation, and contemporary knowledge—and with numerous pictures in illustration of it.
The book was so arranged that the pictures stood alongside of the text; and the pages of the work which were devoted to illustrations were in most cases divided into three sections by lines across, so that the pictures stood one above the other. The figures in each picture were about four inches high. There were, however, a certain number of full-page illustrations with larger figures, and it is among these that the greatest proofs are given of Herrad’s imaginative powers and the range of her intellectual abilities.
Engelhardt, to whom we are indebted for the fullest description of the ‘Garden of Delights,’ made tracings of a number of pictures and copied their colouring[663]. He comments on the brilliant smoothness and finish of the original miniature paintings. Only the silver, he says, was tarnished; the gold was undimmed and all the colours preserved their full brilliancy, when he had the work before him in the early part of this century. According to him the method of painting was as follows. First the figures were drawn in dark outline, then the colouring was filled in bit by bit; shadows and high lights were next laid on, and then the dark outlines were again gone over.
The question has naturally arisen whether Herrad did the whole of the work herself. The text which stood at the beginning and at the end of it referred to her as its sole author. Students are generally agreed that the outline drawing and the writing were entirely her work, but the colours may or may not have been laid on by her. For the work was wonderfully complete in plan and execution—the conception of one mind, which laboured with unceasing perseverance to realize the conception it had formed.
The style in which the pictures were drawn has likewise been the occasion of much comment. We are here on the border-land between the conventional Byzantine and the realistic Gothic styles. ‘We see very clearly,’ says Woltman[664], ‘how the new ideas which scholastic learning and poetry had generated required new modes of expression, and led to conceptions for which the older art yielded no models and which had to be taken from real life.’ In most cases Herrad no doubt had a model before her and adhered to the traditional rendering, but where the model was wanting she may have drawn on her powers of imagination and supplied details from her surroundings. Thus incidents of Biblical history are represented by her in a manner familiar to the student of early Christian art. A grave and serious dignity which recalls the wall mosaics at Ravenna characterizes the figures of God, Christ, Mary, and the angels; Engelhardt has pointed out the close similarity of Herrad’s picture of the Annunciation to that contained in a Greek MS. of the 9th century[665]. But in other cases Herrad either composed herself or else drew from models which were nearer to her in time and place. Thus the picture of the sun-god Apollo represents him in a heavy mediaeval cart drawn by four horses, and the men and women in many pictures are dressed in the fashion of the time. The pictures drawn from real life especially delight the archæological student. A water-mill grinding corn, men at the plough, soldiers on the march and fighting, are drawn with minute exactness and with considerable skill. Some of these scenes are powerfully realistic in spite of a certain awkwardness in the figures; for example, that of a traveller who is waylaid by robbers, coupled with the story of the good Samaritan, which is illustrated by a series of pictures. In the first of these a man is depicted lying by the roadside; in the second we see him on a horse which is led by the Samaritan, and in the third he has arrived at the inn and is being lifted down from the horse.
Herrad executed her work between 1160 and 1170, but additional entries were made as late as 1190. This period falls in the reign of the emperor Friedrich Barbarossa (1152-1190), which followed upon that of the luckless Konrad III, and was one of comparative quiet and prosperity in Germany. The power of the Pope had passed its climax, there was schism in the Papacy, which was greatly aggravated by the line of conduct Friedrich adopted, but the scene of their struggle had shifted to the cities of northern Italy. We shall see later on that political changes were watched with much interest in some nunneries, and that the conduct of the Emperor, the Pope, and the bishops was keenly criticised among nuns. It is difficult to tell how far events affected Herrad. The prose narrative which her work contained, as far as we know, has perished and we have no definite clue to her interpretation of contemporary affairs, but probably she was content to devote her energies to rearranging and interpreting the intellectual wealth of the age without entering into party conflicts. The illustrations of the ‘Garden of Delights’ which have been preserved are invaluable for the study of contemporary life, but they contain no information as to contemporary events.
The study and enjoyment of the work in its original form were facilitated by the addition to the picture of the name of every person and every implement in Latin or in German, sometimes in both; and in many cases an explanatory sentence or a moral maxim was introduced into the picture, so that the nun who studied the work naturally picked up Latin words and sentences. Through the industry of Engelhardt all these sentences and words have been preserved, and the coupling of implements with their names forms a valuable addition to our knowledge of terms as applied in early mediaeval times. The book also originally contained a continuous history in Latin for more advanced students, but unfortunately that is lost. Engelhardt says that it described the history of the world from the Creation to the coming of Antichrist, with many extracts from various writers. He enumerates twenty writers from whose works Herrad quotes. Among them are Eusebius Pamphili († c. 350), Jerome († 420), Isidor of Seville († 636), Bede († 735), Frechulf († 838), and others who were her contemporaries, such as Petrus Lombardus († 1164) and Petrus Comestor († 1198). When quoting from secular writers the abbess invariably made mention of the fact. In one instance she remarked that ‘all these things have been described by philosophers by aid of their worldly wisdom (per mundanam sapientiam), but this was the product of the Holy Spirit also.’
The attitude which Herrad assumed towards learning generally can be studied in the pictures which deal with abstract conceptions. They are usually of folio size and contain illustrations which are instructive to the student of mediaeval scholasticism. Two pictures introduced into the history of the Tower of Babel which illustrate the falling away from true faith deserve especial attention. The one is a representation of the ‘Nine Muses’; on it female heads of quaint dignity in medallions are arranged in a circle. The other represents the ‘Seven Liberal Arts,’ in accordance with the mediaeval interpretation of the teaching of Aristotle[666]. On it Philosophy, a female figure, is seated in the centre of the picture wearing a crown with three heads. These heads are designated as ‘ethica, logica, phisica’; by means of these three branches of learning philosophy adds to her powers of insight. Socrates and Plato, who are designated as ‘philosophers,’ sit below, and from the figure of Philosophy ‘seven streams of wisdom flow which are turned into liberal arts’ as the text explains. These arts are personified as female figures in 12th century dress, and are so arranged that each figure stands in a separate division forming a circle round Philosophy and the philosophers. The Liberal Arts are robed in different colours, and each holds an emblem of her power. ‘Grammar,’ dressed in dark red, has a book and a birch rod; ‘Geometry,’ in light red, has a measuring rod and a compass; ‘Arithmetic,’ in light blue, holds a string of alternate white and black beads; ‘Music,’ dressed in purple, has a lyre, a zither and a hurdy-gurdy; ‘Astronomy,’ in dark green, holds a measure and looks up at the stars; ‘Rhetoric,’ in dark blue, has a stilus and a writing-tablet (tabula); and ‘Dialectic,’ in light green, holds the head of a howling dog. Each figure is encircled by a sentence explaining the special nature of her power. In the lower part of the picture are four men, seated at desks, with books, pens and penknives, engaged in reading and writing. These are the ‘poets or magi, who are filled with a worldly spirit’; black birds appear to be whispering in their ears.