"And again, I heard a voice sa3dng to me from heaven : Tell
these marvek and write them, taught in this way, and say: It
happened in the year one thousand one hundred and forty-one of
the incarnation of Jesus Christ the Son of God, when I was forty-
two years old, that a flashing fire of light from the dear sky trans-
fused my brain, my heart, and my whole breast as with flame;
yet it did not bum but only warmed me, as the sun warms an
object upon which it sheds its rays. And suddenly I had in-
telligence of the full meaning of the Psalter, the Gospel, and
the other books of the Old and New Testaments, although I did
not have the exact interpretation of the words of their text, nor
the division of syllables nor knowledge of cases and moods."

The writer continues with the statement :

"The vision which I saw, I did not perceive in dreams or
sleeping, nor in delirium, nor with the corporeal ears and eyes of
the outer man ; but watchful and intent in mind I received them
according to the will of God." ^

Hildegard spoke as truthfully as she could about her
visions and the source of her knowledge, matters hard for
her to put in words, and by no means easy for others to
classify in categories of seeming explanation. Guibert may
have read the work in question. At all events, his interest-
ing correspondence with her, and her great repute, led him
to come to see for himself and investigate her visions; for
he realized that deceptions were common, and wished to
follow the advice of Scripture to prove all things. So he
made the journey to Bingen, and stayed four days with
Hildegard. This was in 11 78, about a year before her
death. ''So far as was possible in this short space of time,

>Thif it from the prologue to the Sckias, Pitra, ox. 503, 504 (Migiie i97f
483, 4S4). Guibert in his VUa speaks of Hildegard as imdocta and unable to
penetrate the meaning of Scripture nisi cum vis iniemae aspiraiioms U l um i mans
MM jmarti (Pitra, ox, 413). Compare Hildegard's prooemium to her Lys of
St, Disibodus (Pitra, ox. 357) and the preface to her Libtr d ivim o r m m o p or um
(Migne I97» 74^, 742).



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468 THE MEDIAEVAL MIND book in

I observed her attentively ; and I could not perceive in her
any invention or untruth or hypocrisy, or indeed anything
that could offend either us or other men who follow
reason." ^

Springing from her rapt faith, the visions of this seeress
and anima specukUiva disclose the range of her knowledge
and the power of her mind. All her visions were allegories ;
but while some appear as sheer spontaneous visions, in
others the mind of Hildegard, aware of the intended
allegorical significance, constructs the vision, and fashions its
details to suit the spiritual meaning. This woman, fit sister
to her contemporaries Hugo of St. Victor and Bernard of
Clairvaux, was ancestress of him who saw his Commedia
both as fact and allegory, and with intended mind laboured
upon that inspiration which kept him lean for twenty years.

Let us now follow these visions for ourselves, and begin
with the Book of the Rewards of Life revealed by the Living
Light through a simple person.*

"When I was sixty years old, I saw the strong and wonderful
vision wherein I toiled for five years. And I saw a Man of such
size that he reached from the summit of the clouds of heaven even
to the Abyss. From his shoulders upward he was above the douds
in the serenest ether. From his shoulders down to his hips he was
in a white cloud ; from his hips to his knees he was in the air of
earth ; from the knees to the calves he was in the earth ; and from
his calves to the soles of his feet he was in the waters of the Ab)rss,
so that he stood upon the Ab)rss. And he turned to the Eiast
The brightness of his countenance dazzled me. At his mouth
was a white cloud like a trumpet, which was full of all sounds
sounding quickly. When he blew in it, it sent forth three winds,
of which one sustained above itself a fiery doud, and one a storm-
doud, and one a doud of light. But the wind with the fiery
cloud above it hovered before the Man's face, while the two
others descended to his breast and blew there.

"And in the fiery doud there was a: living fiery multitude
all one in will and life. Before them was spread a tablet covered
with quills (pennae) which flew in the precepts of God. And when
the precepts of God lifted up that tablet where God's knowledge
had written certain of its secrets, this multitude with one impulse
gazed on it. And as they saw the writing, God's virtue was so

» Guibcrtus to Radilfus, a monk of Villars (Pitra, ox, 577)» apparently wiitten
in iiSo. 'Pitra, ox. pp. 1-244.



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CHAP. XX VISIONS OF ASCETIC WOMEN 469

bestowed upon them that as a mighty trumpet they gave forth in
one note a music manifold.

"The wind having the storm-cloud over it, spread, with that
doud, from the south to the west. In it was a multitude of the
blessed, who possessed the spirit of life ; and their voice was as the
noise of many waters as they cried: We have our habitations
from Him who made this wind, and when shall we receive them?
But the multitude that was in the fiery doud chanted responding :
When God shall grasp His trumpet, lightning and thunder and
burning fire shall He send upon the earth, and then in that trumpet
shall ye have your habitation.

"And the wind which had over it the doud of light spread with
that doud from the east to the north. But masses of darkness
and thick horror coming from the west, extended themselves to the
light doud, yet could not pass beyond it. In that darkness was
a countless crowd of lost souls; and these swerved in their
course whenever they heard the song of those singing in the storm-
doud, as if they shimned their company.

"Then I saw coming from the north, a doud barren of delight,
untoudied by the Sun's rays. It reached towards the darkness
aforesaid, and was full of malignant spirits, who go about devising
snares for men. And I heard the old serpent sa3dng, 'I will
prepare my men of might and will make war upon mine enemies.'
And he spat forth among men a spume of things impure, and
inflated them with derision. Then he blew up a foul mist which
filled the whole earth as with black smoke, out of which was heard
a groaning ; and in that mist I saw the images of every sin." ^

These images now speak in their own defence, and are
answered by the virtues, speaking from the storm-cloud,
Heavenly Love replying to Love of this World, Disdpline
answering Petulance, Shame answering Ribaldry (the vice of
the jongleours) after the fashion of such mediaeval allegorical
debates. The virtues are simply voices ; but the monstrous
or bestial image of each sin is described :

"Ignavia (cowardly sloth) had a human head, but its left ear
was like the ear of a hare, and so large as to cover the head. Its
body and limbs were worm-like, apparently without bones; and
it spoke trembling." *

Hildegard explains the general features of her vision:
God with secret inquisition, reviewing the profoimd disposal

iPitra, ojC, pp. 8-10. The tranalatioii is condensed, but is kept dose to the
original. * Ibid. p. 13.



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470 THE MEDIAEVAL MIND book m

of His will, made three ways of righteousness, which should
advance in the three orders of the blessed. These are the
three winds with the three clouds above them. The first
wind bears over it the fiery cloud, which is the glory of
angels burning with love of God, willing only what He wills ;
the wind bearing over it the storm-cloud represents the works
of men, stormy and various, done in straits and tribulations ;
the third way of righteousness, through the Incarnation of
our Lord, bears above it a white and untouched virginity, as
a cloud of light.*

Then Hildegard sees the pimishments of those who die
in their sins impenitent. They were in a pit having a
bottom of burning pitch, out of which crawled fiery worms ;
and sharp nails were driven about in that pit as by a wind.

*^ I saw a well deep and broad, full of boiling pitch and sulphur,
and around it were wasps and scorpions, who scared but did'not
injure the souls of those therein ; which were the souls of those
who had slain in order not to be ^ain.

"Near a pond of clear water I saw a great fire. In this some
souls were burned and others were girdled with snakes, and others
drew in and again exhaled the fire like a breath, while malignant
spirits cast lighted stones at them. And all of them beheld their
punishments reflected in the water, and thereat were the more
afficted. These were the souls of those who had extinguished the
substance of the human form within them, or had slain their
infants.

"And I saw a great swamp, over which hung a black cloud of
smoke, which was issuing from it. And in the swamp there
swarmed a mass of little worms. Here were the souls of those who
in the world had delighted in foolish merriment (inepta laeiUia)}

"And I saw a great fire, black, red, and white, and in it horrible
fiery vipers spitting flame ; and there the vipers tortured the souls
of those who had been slaves of the sin of uncharitableness
{acerbUas).

"And I saw a fire burning in a blackness, in which wert
dragons, who blew up the fire with their breath. And near was
an icy river ; and the dragons passed into it from time to time and
disturbed it. And a fiery air was over both river and fire. Here
were pimished the souls of liars ; and for relief from the heat, they
pass into the river, and again, for the cold, they return to the fire,

> Pitn, 9X. p. 24. > /Mi. p. 51 sqq.



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CHAP. XX VISIONS OF ASCETIC WOMEN 471

and the dragons torment them. But the fiery air afflicts only
those who have sworn falsely.*

''I saw a hollow mountain full of fire and vipers, with a little
opening ; and near it a horrible cold place crawling with scorpions.
The souls of those guilty of envy and malice suffer here, passing
for relief from one place of torment to the other.

"And I saw a thickest darkness, in which the souls of the
disobedient lay on a fiery pavement and were bitten by sharp-
toothed worms. For blind were they in life, and the fiery pave-
ment is for their wilful disobedience, and the worms because they
disobeyed their prelates.

"And I beheld at great height in the air a hail of ice and fire
descending. And from that height, the souls of those who had
broken their vows of chastity were falling, and then as by a wind
were whirled aloft again wrapped in a ligature of darkness, so that
they could not move ; and the hail of cold and fire fell upon them.

"And I saw demons with fiery scourges beating hither and
thither, through fires shaped like thorns and sharpened flails,
the souls of those who on earth had been guilty bestially." *

After the vision of the punishment, Hildegard states the
penance which would have averted it, and usually follows
with pious discourse and quotations from Scripture. Ap-
parently she would have the punishments seen by her to be
taken not as allegories, but literally as those actually in
store for the wicked.

It is different with her visions of Paradise. In Hildegard,
as in Dante, descrq)tions of heaven's blessedness are pale
in comparison with the liighly-cploured happenings in hell.
And naturally, since Paradise is won by those in whom
spirit has triumphed over carnality. But flesh triumphed
in the wicked on earth, and hell is of the flesh, though the
spirit also be agonized. Hildegard sees many blessed folk
in Paradise, but all is much the same with them: they
are clad in splendid clothes, they breathe an air fragrant with
sweetest flowers, they are adorned with jewels, and many
of them wear crowns. For example, she sees the blessed
virgins standing in purest light and limpid splendour, sur-
passing that of the sun. They are clad "quasi candidissima

> Pitra, ox, p. g2 sqq.

* Ibid, p. 131 sgq. Of course, one at once thinks of the punishments in Dante's
Ifijimo, which in no instance are identical with those of Hildegard, and yet o£fer com-
mon elements. Dante is not known to have read the work of Hiklegard.



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47a THE MEDIAEVAL MIND book hi

veste velut auro intexta, et quasi pretiosissimis lapidibus
a pectore usque ad pedes, in modum dependentis zonae,
omata induebantur, quae etiam maximum odorem velut
aromatum de se emittebat. Sed et dngulis, quasi auro et
gemmis ac margaritis supra hiunanum inteUectum omatis,
drcumdngebantur. "

This seems a description of heavenly millinery. Are
these virgins rewarded in the life to come with what they
spumed in this? What would the saint have thought of
virgins had she seen them in the flesh clad in the whitest
vestment ornamented with interwoven gold and gems, falling
in alluring folds from their breasts to their feet, giving out
aromatic odours, and belted with girdles of pearls beyond
human conception? Could it be possible that the woman
surviving in the nun took delight in contemplating the
blissful things forbidden here below? However this
may be, the quasi-s and velut-s suggest the symbolical
character of these marvels. This indication becomes stronger
as Hildegard, in language wavering between the literal
and the symbolical, explains the appropriateness of orna-
ments and perfimies as rewards for the virtues shown
by saints on earth. At last all is made clear: the Lux
vivens declares that these ornaments are spiritual and eternal ;
gold and gems, which are of the dust, are not for the eternal
life of celestial beings ; but the elect are spiritually adon^ed
by their righteous works as people are bodily adorned with
costly ornaments. So one gains the lesson that the bliss of
heaven can only be shown in allegories, since it surpasses
the understanding of men while held in mortal flesh.^

These visions from Hildegard's Book of the Rewards of

^ Pitra, ox. pp. 330-240. I am not clear as to Hildegard's ideas of Purgatory,
for which she seems to have no separate region. In the case of sinners who have
begun, but not completed, their penances on earth, the punishments described
work purgationem, and the souls ar6 loosed {ibid. p. 42). In Part III. of the work
we are considering, the paragraphs describing the punishments are entitled Dt
superhiaCf invidiae, iftobedientiae, infidditaUs, etc., poenis pwrgatoriis {ibid. p.
130). But each paragraph is followed by one entitled De poeniteniia superbioe,
etc., and the poeniientia referred to is woiked out with penance in this life. Con-
sequently it is not quite dear that the word purgatoriis attached to poenis signifies
temporary punishment to be followed by release.

In a vision of the Last Times {ibid. p. 225) Hildegard sees "black burning dark-
ness," in which was gehenna, containing every kind of horrible punishment. She
did not then see gekerma itself, because of the darkness surrounding it; but heard
the frightful cries. Cf. Aeneid, vi. 548 sqq.



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CHAP. XX VISIONS OF ASCETIC WOMEN 473

Life may be supplemented by one or two selected from the
curious and lengthy work which she named Scivias, signify-
ing Scito vias domini (know the ways of the Lord). In
this work, on which she laboured for nine years, the seeress
shows forth the Church, in images seen in visions, and the
whole dogmatic scheme of Christian polity. The allegories
form the texts of expository sermons. For example,
the first vision in the first Book is of an iron-coloured
mountain, which is at once explained as an image of the
stability of God's eternal kingdom. The third vision is of
a fiery, egg-shaped object, very complicated in construction,
and devised to iUustrate the truth that things visible and
temporal shadow forth the invisible and eternal, in the polity
of God.* In the fourth vision, globes of fire are seen to
enter the human form at birth, and are then attacked by
many whirlwinds rushing in upon them. This is an allegory
of human souls and their temptations, and forms the text
for a long discourse on the nature of the soul.

The fifth vision is of the Synagogue, the Maier incama-
Hants FUii Dei:

'' Then I saw as it were the image of a woman, pale from the top
to the navel, and black from the navel to the feet, and its feet were
blood-colour, and had about them a very white cloud. This image
lacked eyes, and kept its hands und«: its arm-pits. It stood by
the Altar that is before the eyes of God, but did not touch it."

The pale upper part of this image represents the pre-
science of the patriarchs and prophets, who had not the
strong light of the Gospel ; the black lower portion represents
Israel's later backslidings ; and the bloody feet surroimded
by a white cloud, the slaying of Christ, and the Church
arising from that consummation. The image is sightless —
blind to Christ— and stands before His altar, but will have
none of it; and its slothful hands keep from the work of
righteousness.'

* This is the view expounded so grandly by Hugo of St. Victor in his De sacra-
mentis, post. Chapter XXDC.

1 Migne 197, coL 433. All this is interesting in view of the many figures of
the Church and Ssmagogue carved on the cathedrals, most of them later than
Hildegard's time. The "Synagogue'' of sculpture has her eyes bound, the
sculpturesque expression of eyeleainess. The rest of Hildegard's ^srmboUsm was
not followed in sculpture.



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474 THE MEDIAEVAL MIND book m

The sixth vision is of the orders of celestial q>iritS9
and harks back to the Celestial Hierarchy of Dionysins the
Areopagite. In the height of the celestial secrets Hildegard
sees a shining company of supernal ^irits having as it were
wings {pennas) across their breasts, and bearing before them
a face like the human countenance, in which the look of
man was mirrored. These are angels ^reading as wings
the desires of their profoimd intelligence ; not that they have
wings, like birds; but they quickly do the will of God in
their desires, as a man flees quickly in his thoughts.^ They
manifest the beauty of rationality through their faces,
wherein God scrutinizes the works of men. For these angels
see to the accomplishment of the will of God in men; and
then in themselves they show the actions of men.

Another celestial company was seen, also having as it
were wings over their breasts, and bearing before them a
face like the human countenance in which the image of the
Son of Man shone as in a mirror. These are archangels
contemplating the will of God in the desires of their own
intelligences, and displaying the grace of rationality; they
glorify the incarnate Word by figuring in their attributes the
mysteries of the Incarnation. This vision, symbolizing the
angelic intelligence, is consciously and rationally constructed.

Perhaps the same may be said of the second vision of
the second Book : *

''Then I saw a most glorious light and in it a himian form of
sapphire hue, all aflame with a most gentle glowing fire ; and that
glorious light was infused in the glowing fire, and the fire was
infused in the glorious light; and both light and fire transfused
that hiunan form — all inter-existent as one light, one virtue, and
one power."

This vision of the Trinity, in which the glorious light
is the Father, the hiunan form is the Son, and the fire is the
Holy Spirit, may remind the reader of the dosing "vision"
of the thirty-third canto of Dante's Paradiso.

The third Book contains manifold visions of a four-sided
edifice set upon a mountain, and built with a double (bifarmis)
wall. Here an infinitude of symbolic detail illustrates the

> Migne 197, ooL 437 «W* d. St Bernard* SfrM# sis. «§ C m HcM .
* Migne 197, col. 449.



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CHAP. XX VISIONS OF ASCETIC WOMEN 475

entire Christian Faith. Observe a part of the symbolism of
the twofold wall : the wall is double (in duabusformis). One
of its formae * is speculative knowledge, which man possesses
through careful penetrating investigation of the speculation
of his mind ; so that he may be drcimispect in all his ways.
The other forma of the wall represents the homo operans.

"This speculative knowledge shines in the brightness of the
light of day, that through it men may see and consider their acts.
This brightness is of the hiunan mind carefully looking about
itself; and this glorious knowledge appears as a white mist
permeating the minds of the peoples, as quickly as mist is scattered
through the air ; it is light as the light of day, after the brightness
of that most glorious work which God benignly works in men,
to wit, that they shun evil and do the good which shines in them
as the light of day. . . . This knowledge is speculative, for it is
like a mirror {speculum) in which a man sees whether his face
be fair or blotdied ; thus this knowledge views the good and evil
in the deed done." *

The Scivias closes with visions of the Last Judgment,
splendid, ordered, tremendous, and rendered audible in
h3rmns rising to the Virgin and to Christ. Apostles, martyrs,
saints chant the refrains of victory which echo the past
militancy of this faithful choir.

The visions of Elizabeth of Schonau and Hildegard of
Bingen set forth universal dogmas and convictions. They
show the action of the imaginative and rational faculties and
the full use of the acquired knowledge possessed by the
women to whom they came. Such visions spring from
the mind : quite different are those bom of love. Emotion
dominates the latter ; their motives are subjective ; they are
personal experiences having no clear pertinency to the lives
of others. If the visions of Hildegard were object lessons, the
bUssful ecstasies of Mary of Ognies and Liutgard of Tongem
were specifically their own, very nearly as the intimate con-
solation of a wife from a husband, or a lady from her
faithful knight, would be that woman's and none other's.

One cannot say that there was no love of God before

1 Notice the supra-terrestrial term, which can hardly be translated so as to fit
an actual wall.

* Migne 197, col. 583. Compare this vision with the symbolic interpretation
of the cathedral edifice, post, Chapter XXX., i.



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476 THE MEDIAEVAL MIND book m

Jesus was bom; still less that men had not conceived of
God as loving them. Nevertheless in Jesus' words God
became lovable as never before, and God's love of man was
shown anew, and was anew set forth as the perfect pattern
of himian love. In Christ, God offered the sacrifice which
afore He had demanded of Abraham: for "God so loved
the world that He gave His only-begotten Son." That Son
carried out the Father's act: "Greater love hath no man
than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend." So
men learned the final teaching : " God is love."

A new love also was aroused by the personality of Jesus.
Was this the love of God or love of man? Rather, it was
such as to reveal the two as one. In Jesus' teachings, love
of God and love of man might not be severed : "As ye have
done it unto one of the least of these, my brethren, ye have
done it unto me." And the love which He inspired for him-
self was at once a love of man and love of God.* Think of
that love, new in the world, with which, more than with her
ointment or her tears, the woman who had been a sinner
bathed the Master's feet.

This woman saw the Master in the flesh; but the love
which was hers was bom again in those who never looked
upon His face. Through the Middle Ages the love of
Christ with which saintly women were possessed was as
impulsive as this sinner's, and also held much resembling
human passion. Their burning faith tended to melt into
ecstatic experiences. They had renounced the passionate
love of man in order to devote themselves to the love of
Christ ; and as their thoughts leapt toward the Bridegroom,
the Church's Spouse and Lord, their visions sometimes kq>t
at least the colour of the love for knight or husband which
they had abjured.*

1 Cf. St. Bernard's treatment of this matter, anU, Chapter XVIII.
'In a Middle High German Marienleben, by Bruder Phillips (13th century),
the young virgin is made herself to say to God :

^'Du bist min lieber priutegam (bridegroom),
Dir gib ich minen magetuom (maidenhood),
Du bist min vil schoener num.
"Du bist min vriedel (lover) und min vriunt (ami) ;
Ich bin von diner minne entsundt."
Bobertag, EnOktende Dicklungen des spOieren MUtelaUers, p. 46 (Deutsche Nat.
Utt.).



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CHAP. XX VISIONS OF ASCETIC WOMEN 477

At the height of the horrors of the Albigensian Crusade