SCIENTIFIC VIEWS AND VISIONS OF SAINT HILDEGARD

FIGUREPAGE
1.The Hildegard Country[3]
2.Hildegard’s First Scheme of the Universe (slightly simplified from the Wiesbaden Codex B, fo. 14 r)[9]
3.Hildegard’s Second Scheme of the Universe (reconstructed from her measurements)[29]
4.Dante’s Scheme of the Universe (slightly modified from Michelangelo Caetani, duca di Sermoneta, La materia della Divina Commedia di Dante Allighieri dichiarata in VI tavole)[31]
5.Diagram of the Zones (from Herrade de Landsberg, Hortus deliciarum)[40]
6, 7.Melothesiae (from R. Fludd, Historia utriusque cosmi, 1619)[41]
8.The Microcosm (from R. Fludd, Philosophia sacra seu astrologia cosmica, 1628)[42]
9.Diagram illustrating the relationship of the Planets to the Brain (from Herrade de Landsberg, Hortus deliciarum)[48]
A STUDY IN EARLY RENAISSANCE ANATOMY
1.The first printed picture of Dissection (from the French translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus, 1482)[80]
2.Dissection Scene in the open air (Title-page of Mellerstadt’s edition of the Anatomy of Mondino, 1493)[82]
3.Dissection Scene (from the 1495 edition of ‘Ketham’)[83]
4.The first picture of Dissection in an English-printed book (from the English translation of Bartholomaeus Anglicus, printed by Wynkyn de Worde, 1495)[85]
5.A Lecture on Anatomy (from the 1535 edition of Berengar of Carpi’s Commentary on Mondino)[85]
6.Diagrams of the Internal Organs (after Bodleian MS. Ashmole 399, of about 1298)[88]
7.A Female Figure laid open to show the Womb and other Organs (from the 1493 edition of ‘Ketham’)[91]
8.The Abdominal Muscles (from Berengar of Carpi’s Commentary on Mondino, 1521)[96]
9.The first printed Map of England (from the 1472(?) Bologna Ptolemy, edited by Manfredi and others)[100]
10.Facsimile of the last page of Manfredi’s Prognosticon ad annum 1479[102]
11.Diagram showing the ten Layers of the Head, the Cerebral Ventricles and Cranial Nerves, and the Relation of the Nerves to the Senses (from M. Hundt, Antropologium, 1501)[112]
12.The Layers of the Head (from the Anatomia of Johannes Dryander, 1537)[112]
13.Diagram showing the Ventricles of the Brain (from Illustrissimi philosophi et theologi domini Alberti magni compendiosum insigne ac perutile opus Philosophiae naturalis, 1496)[114]
14.Diagram of the Senses, the Humours, the Cerebral Ventricles, and the Intellectual Faculties. To illustrate Roger Bacon, De Scientia Perspectiva, (British Museum MS. Sloane 2156, fo. 11 r)[116]
15.Diagram illustrating the general ideas on Anatomy current at the Renaissance (from K. Peyligk. Philosophiae naturalis compendium, 1489)[116]
16.Diagrams of the Cerebral Ventricles viewed from above and from the side (from K. Peyligk, Philosophiae naturalis compendium, 1489)[117]
17.The Localization of Cerebral Functions (from the 1493 edition of ‘Ketham’)[117]
18.Diagram of the Ventricles and the Senses, with their relation to the intellectual processes, according to the doctrine of the Renaissance anatomists (from G. Reisch, Margarita philosophiae, 1503)[117]
19.The Anatomy of the Eye (from G. Reisch, Margarita philosophiae, 1503)[120]
20.The Anatomy of the Eye (from Vesalius, De humani corporis fabrica, 1543)[121]
21.The Heart (from the Roncioni MS., Pisa 99)[127]
22.Diagram showing the two Lateral Ventricles and the ‘Central’ Ventricle, (from Johannes Adelphus, Mundini de omnibus humani corporis interioribus menbris Anathomia, 1513)[128]
23.The Heart (from Hans von Gersdorff, Feldt- und Stattbüch bewerter Wundartznei, 1556)[129]
DR. JOHN WEYER AND THE WITCH MANIA
Portrait of Dr. John Weyer at the age of 60, 1576[189]

THE SCIENTIFIC VIEWS AND VISIONS OF SAINT HILDEGARD (1098–1180)

By Charles Singer

PAGE
I.Introduction[1]
II.Life and Works[2]
III.Bibliographical Note[6]
IV.The Spurious Scientific Works of Hildegard[12]
V.Sources of Hildegard’s Scientific Knowledge[15]
VI.The Structure of the Material Universe[22]
VII.Macrocosm and Microcosm[30]
VIII.Anatomy and Physiology[43]
IX.Birth and Death and the Nature of the Soul[49]
X.The Visions and their Pathological Basis[51]

I. Introduction

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.