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.

Plate V a. OPENING LINES OF THE COPENHAGEN MS. OF THE
CAUSAE ET CURAE 		  Plate V b. OPENING LINES OF THE LUCCA MS. OF THE LIBER DIVINORUM OPERUM SIMPLICIS HOMINIS

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.