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.
[Illustration: From the LUCCA MS. fo. 9 r
Plate VII. NOUS PERVADED BY THE GODHEAD EMBRACING THE MACROCOSM WITH
THE MICROCOSM]
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 Meritorum_[48] bear resemblance to the work of her
contemporary Benedictine, the monk Alberic the younger of Monte
Cassino, to whom Dante also became indebted.[49]
Hildegard repeatedly assures us that most of her knowledge was revealed
to her in waking visions. Some of these we shall seek to show 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;[50] 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.[51] 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.