This precious work was carefully preserved in the Library of Strasbourg until the late siege. It is greatly to be hoped that it was transferred to a place of safety, and did not share the fate of that noble library. The manuscript throughout is by the hand of Herrade. It is composed of three hundred and twenty-four leaves of parchment. It is especially interesting because it shows the state of the sciences and literature, the manners, and the public and private usages of the XIIth century.
This work is a systematic collection of extracts taken from ecclesiastical history and from the fathers, mingled with reflections and observations on astronomy, geography, philosophy, history, and mythology, naturally introduced by the subject the author is treating of. To these are joined the poems of Herrade. It is illuminated with naïve and charming miniatures.
This work is dedicated by the illustrious abbess to her spiritual children. She explains in the preface, written in prose, the object she had in view in undertaking it. “Like a bee,” she says, “I have amassed in this book the honey drawn from the sacred and philosophical writings, that I may form a honey-comb to delight you and lead you to honor our Lord and the church. Seek herein an agreeable food for the soul, refresh hereby your fatigued minds, that you may always be occupied with your heavenly Spouse,” etc., etc.
She then enters upon the work. After speaking of God and his attributes, the angels and their fall, she comes to the creation, discusses man before and after his fall, passes in review the Old Testament in its relations with the New, with the history of the human race, the development of the arts, sciences, and philosophy.
She comes finally to the mystery of the Redemption, to which she joins the genealogy of our Saviour, traced upon a mysterious tree planted by the Divinity. She gives an account of the life, miracles, teachings, and parables of Christ. Then follow numerous extracts from the Acts of the Apostles, to which are annexed very curious paintings.
The history of the Roman emperors is naturally connected with the development of the Christian Church, and there are ingenious miniatures representing allegorically the virtues of the faithful followers of Christ, the hideousness of sin, the vanities and temptations of the world, the assaults of hell, and the means we should use to oppose them.
Finally, Herrade represents, in a series of considerations and paintings, the dignities, rights, and obligations of the ecclesiastical state.
This work, by the Abbess of Hohenbourg, is the production of a thoughtful mind, and is one that required much time. She very carefully indicates the numerous and authentic sources whence she draws her materials.
Herrade has also left a list of all the popes from S. Peter to Clement III., and several astronomical works, which also are, or were, in the Library of Strasbourg.
Father Gruber, General of the Jesuits, who was in great favor with Paul, presented to the czar a project for reunion. By command of the czar the Archimandrite Eugenius (Volkhovichinoff), afterwards Metropolitan of Kieff, published in 1800 an answer to this project, in the form of a canonical dissertation, On the Authority of the Pope. See The Russian Clergy, by Père Gagarin, S.J., pp. 118, 119.