Science & Medicine

A resource on Hildegard's texts on Health, Healing and the Natural World 

41 comments:

  1. Why don't you have any information on Hildegard's scientific career when you are the International Society of Hildegard von Bingen Studies?? I have a project due in two days, and I want information up here tomorrow morning. I can find no other descriptive resources for this part of her life. I was really hoping that this website would be a diamond among all of the stones that I have come across. Thank you for ruining my unstable hopes and dreams and wasting my precious time. I will now have to stay up all night reading like a non-lazy college student (which by-the-way do not exist). In this endeavor, I will also end up keeping my roommate up all night as well. She also thanks you..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I apologize for your inconvenience, We have just recently relaunched the website and created this heading this week. As such, we have yet to have contributors for this field.
      That said, I am certain by now your intellectual curiosity has guided you to peruse the rest of the website, "Academic Sources" and "Links" which includes a link to various bibliographic sources not to mention the over 6,000 titles which can be found via World Cat. I am certain you can access many of those articles via your University library.
      Nonetheless aside from from her source works in Physica and Causa et Curae -- Off the top of my head, Florence Eliza Glaze's entry, "Medical Writer: Behold the Human Creature" which appears in Voice of the Living Light: Hildegard of Bingen and Her World. edited by Barbara Newman (1998) is a fairly well known, and ubiquitous work on this aspect of Hildegard.
      And some friendly advice. try to approach life and work with understanding. Lazy professors do not exist either, nor have forgotten what life was like when we were student's especially in the pre-Internet age (i.e. before information and audio/video sources could be readily accessed at our fingertips). Work and life just gets more complicated and stressful with the addition of deadlines, children, home maintenance, community obligations, volunteer work (such as this website) etc., Only with much less time to incorporate it all.
      Good luck on your paper - I look forward to reading it if you would like to share it.

      Delete
    2. Thank you for your time and help. I truly appreciate the time you took to reply to a less than polite comment, and I sincerely apologize for my rudeness. I am aware that this is no excuse, however at the time I had been up for a little over 38 hours (caffeine does wonders). Again, thank you for the resources and advice you gave me. I shall keep them in mind.

      Delete
    3. Also, I checked your FAQ sections for information on whether or not Hildegard was an actual abbess, and I was satisfied with the answer I recieved. But, would it be incorrect to call her an abbess in my project even though she is widely reffered to as such?

      Delete
    4. Don't worry about offending, I was fairly certain your earlier comments were lack-of-sleep related. (experienced it many times ;-)
      Regarding the abbess question, depending on suggested length of paper and the formatting requirements you might mention in the body that Hildegard is commonly referred to as abbess, and then footnote that technically she was a magistra, It seems only Frederick Barbarossa referred to her as abbess. Below is the footnote (Turabian style) I placed on page 25 of my 2007 thesis "Symphonia Caritatis" referencing an article by Constant Mews.
      "Because the Rupertsberg was affiliated with Disibodenberg, Hildegard was never recognized as abbess. The title most appropriate for her role was magistra of the religious house. Constant J. Mews, “Hildegard and the Schools.” In Hildegard of Bingen and the Context of her Thought and Art, eds. Charles Burnett and Peter Dronke (London: Warburg Institute, 1998). 95

      Delete
    5. This unintentionally hilarious comment, and its kind and redemptive replies, made my day, as well as reminding me of slogging through my own HvB project, many *cough* many moons ago. How ironic that I now enjoy learning about her so much! Thanks for the smile. - Sally Shideler-Bill, 12/17

      Delete
    6. I'm a bit late to answer now, but it seems to me that in the Vita Hildegardis (I, 7) it is expressly said that Hildegard managed to make her new monastery free of any kind of authority, except the direct one of the archbishop of Mainz. From Disibodenberg they asked to receive the priests they chose to give them a help for spiritual direction and daily gestion. But maybe it is just a confusion of terms.

      Delete
    7. My book has a narrow focus but it does review some of her medical theory and the use of her medicine by late 20th century Europeans. Hildegard of Bingen: Holistic Health Visionary. Twelfth-Century Medical Theories with Modern-Day Appeal. by Sue Cannon https://www.amazon.com/Hildegard-Bingen-Holistic-Health-Visionary/dp/B0CH2FK9LY

      Delete
  2. Another college student here, I am currently researching for a paper about Hildegard that is due in about 3 weeks. I've looked through some of the "Academic Sources" and "Links," but there is just so much information that I keep getting lost in everything. I was hoping that you may be able to help point me in the right direction. I need to write an essay that analyzes Mistress Tengwich's critique of Hildegard and Hildegard's reply. I have read the critique and the response, would you be able to give me some background or point me toward a source that will give me background? Also, I can talk about the role of women, the role of monasticism, and the role of direct revelation (Hildegard's visions) in the medieval church/medieval society. I would like to maybe find something about why exactly Hildegard believed how she did about each of these topics. Any help would be greatly appreciated. I have looked through many sources and while some of them are helpful, many are not. Thank you for any help you can give!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Is there any online copy of "Physica" in english (the complete works)?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The only complete English translation of Physica is that of Priscilla Throop (Rochester, VT: Healing Arts Press, 1998), available only in "preview" mode through Google books: https://books.google.com/books?id=wl6w2cfCKTgC I am not aware of any other major version available online.

      Delete
    2. Does anyone know anything about the original physical copy of "Physica"? Was it done on parchment? Was it published in a Catholic monastery? Who provided the parchment? Who did the book binding? How many copies were there? How widely was it available? Was it done in different languages? Any help or educated guesses would be appreciated.

      Delete
    3. Unfortunately, the "original copy" of the Physica no longer exists. There are 8 surviving manuscripts, as well as the 1533 Strasbourg printed edition, that include at least some portion of its text (six of these contain various expansions on the basic text, and three are fragmentary). The oldest of these (the Florence manuscript) dates to around 1300 -- so more than a century after Hildegard's death.

      (You can find a good summary of all this in Melitta Adamson's review of the 2020 critical edition.)

      But there are some of your questions that we can answer nonetheless. It would certainly have been written down on parchment, as Hildegard's monastery included a very active scriptorium that was engaged in producing copies of her theological works. Hildegard would likely have dictated the text, though it may have been put down first on wax tablets before being copied onto parchment. It's possible (or even likely) that the pages were left unbound for a considerable time, as Hildegard revised or added to the work; and even after she "completed" it, the original copy would have been left unbound for a while longer to facilitate copying.

      For details of the distribution of the work, I would point you to the review I linked above.

      On languages: Hildegard frequently used her native German for the names of things (plants, animals, etc.) that she discusses in the Physica, and her secretary, Volmar, likely provided the Latin equivalents. The rest of the text was composed in Latin, however. One of Hildegard's main sources was an 11th-century encyclopedia called the Summarium Heinrici, which was written in a combination of Latin and German.

      Delete
  4. Any resources for an understandable recipe for Hildegard's Duckweed Elixer? It is sold pre-made in Germany, but not to the USA, and no one in the USA has it available for sale

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There is a recipe for a ginger-based elixer that includes duckweed in Hildegard's Physica, Book I, ch. 15:

      "Pulverize a bit of ginger with more cinnamon. Take less sage than ginger, and more fennel than sage, and a little more tansy than sage, and crush them to a juice in a mortar, and strain it through a cloth. Then cook a bit of honey in wine, and add a little white pepper and put it in the powder and juice. Afterward, take duckweed, and twice as much tormentil, and the same amount of mustard which grows in the field,, and rub this to a juice in a mortar, and place it in a little bag, and pour the honeyed wine mixture over it, and make a clear drink."

      Delete
  5. Here is a version of Hildegard's Duckweed Elixer that pulls from the same resource as Nathaniel's comments, above. I'm sorry we're just getting to this, we overlooked it over the holiday. Best of luck! Please let us know about your success!
    http://healthyhildegard.com/duckweed-elixir/

    ReplyDelete
  6. Thanks for that detailed recipe and the link provided. I have tried the Duckweed Elixir in the past and will try to make it myself this time!

    ReplyDelete
  7. In which book Hildegard writes about fasting? And also this book of Hertzka which mentions how cancer develops - it is supposed to come from Hildegard books?

    ReplyDelete
  8. On fasting in a religious sense, it's in Book Two, Vision Six (section 39) of Scivias. She argues that communion should be taken by everyone while fasting, unless one is sick or in danger or death. In Causes and Cures (translation in Holistic Healing) she mentions fasting only in that those who exaggerate their fasting-- i.e., do too much (as we see happening with some of the later mystics interestingly), it is dangerous and can cause disease, joint problems, and swelling.

    I might also look at Caroline Walker Bynum's Holy Feast, Holy Fast to see if Bynum nuances Hildegard's position of fasting.

    On cancer, also in Causes and Cures (same translation), she blames the humors, but her description doesn't seem to match cancer within one's body. Hers is a description of the external body, with swelling, boils, mis-shapen feet, and cancers that "break out." She does say that people cannot live long with this condition.

    I think a more accurate description of cancer, i.e., lung, etc, is under her section (same translation) under "Tumors." Here, she also blames the humors, but she specifically mentions the inner organs: heart, liver, lungs, stomach and remaining inner organs. If the tumors remain in a person, they make him sick. However, if they break out of him, they make him healthier.

    I'm not thrilled with this translation, but there's really not much else out there in English. And it would take me too long to translate from my now very rusty Latin.

    ReplyDelete
  9. This question, and Allison's comments prompted some research on our part. Allison nailed it right off the top of her head! We had to do some additional research! In Hildegard's Liber Vitae Meritorum (The Book of the Rewards of Life), she makes several references to fasting; primarily as a means to atone for most vices and sins.

    In Mary Palmquist's English translation of Causae et Curae (Holistic Healing), which Allison mentions, Palmquist opens with a quotation by Hildegard, which emphasizes Hildegard's concept of "discretio".

    “The soul loves moderation in all things. Whenever the human body lacks measure, and eat and drinks or something like that unbalances it, the powers of the soul are wounded… So in all things let people maintain a proper balance”

    – Hildegard of Bingen

    A prescribed Hildegard fast, seems to reflect a modern interpretation of Hildegard's beliefs around moderation and balance, insofar as diet is concerned. Perhaps it's not too far off, in our modern world of abundance.

    Here's more comments on the topic.
    http://healthyhildegard.com/hildegard-fast/

    As with fasting, it seems that many of the current references to cancer attributed to Hildegard are modern interpretations. Much of the 20th century interpretation of Hildegard medicine can be attributed to Hetrzka and Strehlow.

    Victoria Sweet has published two pieces on Hildegard medicine, "Rooted in the Earth, Rooted in the Sky", and "God's Hotel". Both are deeply researched, particularly "Rooted in the Earth", which I believe was her doctoral dissertation.

    ReplyDelete
  10. How many original copies of 'Physica' from 1533 are there still around? Are there any resources from where a copy of a specific page can be acquired? I work for a museum in Amsterdam and I'm searching for Hildegard von Bingen's reference to hemp and its medicinal qualities in the original Latin edition. Thank you for advising.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The older Latin edition was printed by Migne in PL 197, cols. 1117-1352, which you can find online through Google Books: http://books.google.com/books?id=uPQQAAAAYAAJ.

      A new and improved Latin edition was published by De Gruyter in 2010, ed. Reiner Hildebrandt and Thomas Gloning; it is also available completely (I think) through Google Books: https://books.google.com/books?id=iAwg2M_KruwC.

      Delete
  11. This is wonderful, thank you! Do you perhaps also know if there are any manuscripts of 'Physica' or previous versions of this text, being kept in the collection of a library or a museum somewhere?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The introduction to Hildebrandt and Gloning's 2010 edition should include a list of manuscripts.

      Delete
    2. You can check: Bruxelles, Bibliothèque Royale, cod 2551 (anc. 1494), from 15th-16th century ( > Chanoines of Leuven); Firenze, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, cod. Ashburnham 1323, from 14th century ( > St-Matthias abbey in Trier); Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, ms. lat. 6952 from 15th century ( > Speyer); Vaticano, Biblioteca Vaticana, cod. Ferraioli 921 from 15th century ( > ?); and Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Hs. 56, 2 Aug 4° (3591), from 13th-14h century ( > ?). There are fragments too, in at least 8 other manuscripts, in Germany (3), Vatican (3), Switzerland (1) and France (1). The Florence Manuscript would be more interesting one.

      Delete
  12. Are there any international conferences on Hildegarde?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There are no regularly scheduled conferences specifically devoted to Hildegard, but there are frequently more locally organized events. The Society sponsors a Hildegard session at the annual International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University each May (https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress). We also try to list as many other events as we know about through the Society's Facebook group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/hildegardsociety/.

      The Scivias Institute in Germany also often organizes events in and around Bingen: http://www.scivias-institut.de/index.php/welcome.html.

      Delete
  13. There seems to be a bit of a discussion on how much of the 1533 Physica text is based on the original manuscript by Hildegard. Parts of it might be added by others. Would you happen to know how sure we are about the part on herbal medicine? I am notably interested in the mentioning of hemp and would like to know if it's a fair assumption that Hildegard wrote this.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am curious about this too.

      Delete
    2. It is just impossible to know which part would be original and which one added, so we have to think con caution about everything concerning Hildegard's encyclopedic texts. The most researched enquiry was made by Laurence Moulinier in 1995, as a compendium of her PhD thesis: Laurence Moulinier, Le Manuscrit perdu à Strasbourg. Enquête sur l'oeuvre scientifique d'Hildegarde, Paris, Publications de la Sorbonne, 1995, 287 p. A really, really dense study (just to say, I made myself my thesis about Hildegard a long long time ago... and I produce hemp ^^ ).

      Delete
  14. Hello, I'm a Sunday School teacher planning this year's Earth Day lesson. I'd really like to incorporate Hildegard's life and work, as someone who had such valuable insights about the connections between nature, spiritual, and physical health. Do you know of any resources I could use? The kids are about 4-8 years old so simple is best. Or, if I'm on completely the wrong track and that doesn't seem like a great lesson idea, please feel free to tell me that too! :)

    ReplyDelete
  15. Hi, I am looking for the latin original / translation of this very well known quote:
    “Glance at the sun. See the moon and the stars. Gaze at the beauty of earth’s greenings. Now, think. What delight God gives to humankind with all these things. All nature is at the disposal of humankind. We are to work with it. For without we cannot survive.”

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's a hard question to answer. This "quote" has been passed around for years after being used in Matthew Fox's 1983 book, Original Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality. The problem is twofold: first, Fox never gave a source for the "quote"; and second, the "quote" is really more of a very loose paraphrase than anything Hildegard actually said in that way.

      But I can point you to much longer passages from her authentic works that illuminate the same concepts, though not in Matthew Fox's pithy style. You can find all of the elements of this quote in the first few paragraphs of Hildegard's Letter 15r, recording a sermon she preached in the early 1160's in Cologne, which was focused against the Cathars. (You can find a translation of this letter, confusingly numbered 57, here.)

      You can also find similar themes (minus the command to look and gaze) in The Book of Divine Works 1.2.2 (see here).

      If you'd like the Latin to match specific passages, let us know which ones.

      Delete
  16. Hello, Does anyone know if Hildegarde wrote about the medicinal use of rose and if so where I can find her recipes and writings on the subject in English ? Thank you

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hildegard wrote about rose in Physica, Bk. 1, ch. 22:

      "Rose is cold, and this coldness contains moderation which is useful. In the morning, or at daybreak, pluck a rose petal and place it on your eyes. It draws out the humor and makes them clear. One with small ulcers on the body should place rose petals over them. [One who is inclined to wrath would take rose and less sage and pulverize them. When wrath is rising in him, he should hold this powder to his nostrils. The sage lessens the wrath, and the rose makes him happy. Rose, and half as much sage, may be cooked with fresh, melted lard, in water, and an ointment made from this. The place where a person is troubled by a cramp or paralysis should be rubbed with it, and he will be better.] Rose is also good to add to potions, unguents, and all medications. If even a little rose is added, they are so much better, because of the good virtues of the rose."

      (From Hildegard of Bingen, Physica, trans. Priscilla Throop [Rochester, VT: Healing Arts Press, 1998], p. 21)

      Delete
  17. Hi there, I am a medical herbalist and doctor of naturopathy from Singapore trained in Hildegard medicine with Dr Strehlow. Happy to see this platform

    ReplyDelete
  18. Thanks in advance for your reply. In Vision 4:22 regarding the nervous system's relationship to the 7 planets moving from the nose/brow as Moon backwards, can you confirm if she assigned Moon, Venus, Mercury or Moon, Mercury, Venus? with top of head as Sun, then moving toward the back of head Mars, Jupiter and Saturn (back of head)

    How did she use/access/stimulate these nerve points as chakras?

    As I have read, the planets were important to her medicine and therefore to humans as regenerative offering Universal Wisdom. Did Hildegard ever (later) accept astrology as the doctors consulted the planets in Medical Astrology?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I believe you are referring to Liber Divinorum Operum (The Book of Divine Works), Part 1, Vision 4, ch. 22. Hildegard only names the Sun and the Moon in her text, referring to the other five simply as planete, both here and in the corresponding cosmological descriptions in ,LDO 1.2.31-32, Scivias 1.3, and in Cause et Cure 1.20-22. Nevertheless, if we assume she was following contemporary practice, the order from top to bottom in the cosmological diagrams would be: Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon. When she maps the cosmos onto the human figure in LDO 1.4.22, she starts at the top of the head (not the back) with Saturn and moves forward and down to the top of the nose / brow with the Moon, placing the Sun in the middle between them and then the remaining planets equidistantly, Jupiter and Mars above the Sun, and Venus and Mercury below it.

      Hildegard had no knowledge of chakra medicine and never wrote anything about stimulating/using these as nerve points. She never connects the planets to specific bodily functions in The Book of Divine Works--instead, in Part 1, Vision 3, she creates a map of the winds impacting the humors. When she discusses the cosmological ordering of the planets in Book 1 of Cause et Cure, she does so without ever connecting them to medicinal practices.

      At several places in her writings, Hildegard directly condemns astrological divination. The only place in her writings where astrological divination appears is in the final sections of the Cause et Cure, and there is general agreement that the lunar diagnostics found there are later additions, not authentic to Hildegard herself.

      Delete
    2. Your response provides clarity and you've inspired me to personally study Hildegard's writings. My questions had arisen from reading Dr Strehow's references in 'Hildegard Bingen's Spiritual Remedies'. thank you

      Delete
  19. Dear Nathaniel: you have mentioned that “at several places in her writings, Hildegard directly condemns astrological divination”….off hand, might you be able to cite the locations of three or four such claims contra astrological divination? It is appreciated…

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The one that comes to mind is in Scivias 1.3 (her vision of the cosmos as an "egg"), chapters 20-23.

      Delete